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minastras · 1 year

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tell me, do you feel the love? // soobin

It’s been six months since you were cheated on and, much to your chagrin, romance seems to be everywhere. Thankfully, your best friend Choi Soobin has seen you through everything without complaining once. Maybe love isn’t dead after all.

at a glance: gender neutral reader, best friends to lovers, university au, fluff, some angst, inspired by the song double take by dhruv!

words: 4.7k

warnings: swearing, discussions of cheating, mentions of a panic attack

——————————

You owed Choi Soobin your life.

That might’ve been a slight exaggeration, but it really did feel like it sometimes.

He was there for you the day you found out your then-boyfriend was cheating on you for almost the entirety of your year-long relationship. You wanted to do nothing but mope and/or shoot things, and he indulged you.

“I’m sorry,” he said in lieu of a greeting when you opened the door, a bag of your favourite snacks in his hands. He had rushed over immediately after you texted him the news. “I can’t believe Hyeontak would do that to you.”

“Don’t be sorry. Thanks for coming, Soup.”

You couldn’t remember when you’d started calling your best friend Soup. At first you shortened his name to Soobi, and then to Soobs, and somewhere along the line it became Soup. He laughed his ass off the first time he heard it, even though it wasn’t that funny.

The last thing you wanted right now was pity. You’d just returned from Hyeontak’s apartment where you’d caught him red handed (or red dicked, as it were). All you’d done since was text Soobin ‘hyeon cheated !’ and flopped onto the sofa, not even having the energy to cry.

“Let’s play Overwatch,” you suggested, beginning to set up your TV.

He stood in your doorway, confused. “You don’t want to talk about it?” he asked, probably preparing himself during the walk over to your place for you to eat and cry and rant until you were blue in the face. You were so… subdued.

“Not particularly. I want to shoot things,” you replied with a shrug, looking away. Your refusal to make eye contact with him was out of character, but you were trying to play it off. You were fine. “Can I get you something to drink?”

——————————

He was there for you a week later when you fought a printer. Well, it probably had more to do with it being Valentine’s Day than the printer itself. You were in the student room trying to print something for a project you were working on together that was due that weekend.

“Look, even the fucking printers have paper heart stickers on them,” you complained, rolling your eyes at the tacky decor covering every surface imaginable. There was red glitter on your hands. “And yet they still don’t work.”

Soobin looked up from the paper tray he’d been trying to fix for at least four minutes. “It is a little excessive,” he conceded, taking pity on you.

You removed the toner cartridge and put it back in, like that was going to do anything. “This is where all our student fees go. Fucking paper hearts.”

He laughed, taking the opportunity while you were distracted with the printer to stare at you. He could look at you as fondly and as often as he wanted, because in the three years of knowing him, you’d never once noticed how purely and utterly smitten he was with you.

“Maybe we should try the printer in the library again,” he suggested. This was the third printer you’d tried. You had spent the entire day hopping around your university to find one that worked — soaking in the sights of the happy, lovey-dovey couples all over campus — like you were on some kind of twisted, sadistic, printer pilgrimage. It made you sick.

“No! I’m going to make this one work, or so help me God.” You thumped the top of the printer. Percussive troubleshooting, you called it. Thankfully, the student room was empty apart from the two of you. Nothing happened. You hit it again, harder this time.

He suggested, “We could email the professor and ask her if she can print it for us.”

“I can do it,” you insisted. You hit the printer a third time. It restarted. Calming yourself down, you took a deep breath and lowered your voice, as if speaking too loudly would scare the printer into further non-compliance.

“As Sun Tzu once said: face and know thine enemy. The HP DeskJet 2722e All-in-One Printer,” you said stubbornly, chant-like, your tone artificially even.

He laughed again. “I don’t think The Art of War applies to printers.”

“Metal box bastard,” you cursed, not really listening to him, hitting the printer between each word as its empty print queue and paper heart accessories taunted you. “I wish I could be a useless piece of shit and still have people love me.”

“Are you jealous of a printer?” he asked, perplexed.

You ignored him and continued clicking around your laptop screen’s error messages in frustration. Standing behind you now, Soobin grabbed your hands to force you to stop, pulling you away from the printer.

“Hey, I love you, but you’re being insane. I’ll email the Prof, okay? Don’t worry about it.”

——————————

He was there two months later, when you were invited to a party your ex would be attending. Soobin offered to go with you without you even having to ask.

“You really don’t have to come. I know you hate parties,” you told him, sitting on his bed while you waited for him to choose a jacket.

In all honesty you didn’t want to go either, but it was your friend Hayeon’s birthday and you had to be there. Besides, you liked Hayeon. But she was also friends with Hyeontak even though she knew he was a cheater, which made you like her slightly less. Whatever. It wasn’t about you.

“It’s okay,” Soobin said, neither confirming nor denying. He couldn’t lie to you, anyway. You knew him too well. “Which one do you prefer?” he asked, holding up two nearly identical denim jackets.

You suppressed a laugh. “The black one. It looks good on you,” you said, and you swore you caught a faint blush on his cheeks before he turned around to put the dark blue denim jacket back in his wardrobe.

At the party, you struggled to get Hayeon’s attention for even a second. She was too popular for her own good. But you managed to bend her ear just long enough to wish her a happy birthday before she was whisked away by someone else.

You and Soobin retreated to a quieter part of the living room as soon as you could, exchanging wordless glances. It was painfully obvious to you that he wanted to go home. You checked the time and held up three fingers and a fist: thirty more minutes. That was probably the earliest you could leave without being rude.

“Y/N! Fancy seeing you here.”

You grimaced at the familiarity of that voice but turned around anyway. Soobin watched on carefully.

“Hey, Hyeontak. It’s been a while,” you greeted, keeping your voice as light as you could. He had his arm wrapped around the waist of a girl you didn’t know, not that it mattered. The smug smirk on his face was a much bigger target of your anger.

“It really has. I heard you were pretty upset by, you know, everything,” Hyeontak said, smirking.

You raised an eyebrow and glanced at the girl. She seemed oblivious, and you weren’t going to say anything to her here in front of everyone. That would only humiliate her. Did you have a moral obligation to tell her in private?

“I understand, though. It’s hard to get over me,” he continued with a carefree laugh when you didn’t respond to his provocation. Without realising it, you kept looking over at Soobin for reassurance.

“You always did have an ego large enough for its own zip code, Hyeon,” you said jokingly, hoping the girl would think you were just friends trading friendly insults. You grinned with supreme malice and even threw in a giggle for good measure.

“Still hilarious as always, Y/N,” Hyeontak said, but you could tell he was on edge now and looking for a way out. “Anyway, it was nice catching up with you! I’ll see you around.”

He made a swift exit, dragging the girl he hadn’t bothered to introduce away in his wake. You looked at Soobin, amused. He rolled his eyes and you laughed as you watched Hyeontak leave.

Turning back to Soobin now, you asked, “Do you want to go somewhere quieter?”

The back patio of Hayeon’s house was empty, overlooking a small yard. Soobin took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh night air.

“Thanks,” he said. You could always tell when he was feeling overwhelmed. It was far too loud, hot, and crowded inside, but the cool breeze was helping him to calm down. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” you replied, and for the first time in months you were starting to feel like maybe that wasn’t a lie. You hadn’t felt jealous at all earlier, you’d stood up for yourself, and now you were alone with your favourite person in the world. Just being around Soobin made you feel at ease.

“I’m not even mad at Hyeontak anymore,” you said honestly. “I’m just upset at myself for trusting him.”

Soobin crossed his arms and sat down on the edge of the patio, patting the spot beside him. “Well, I’ll be mad at him for you. Fuck that guy,” he deadpanned.

You let out a surprised laugh at his profanity — he didn’t curse often — as you sat down with him. “Why, thank you, Soup.”

“I hope he didn’t destroy your trust forever,” Soobin continued, sounding dead-serious despite your joking mood.

You turned to him, propping your head up on one hand. “What do you mean?”

“I like that you trust people so much. You have such an open heart,” he said, his tone muted as he looked at you. “It’s one of the best things about you.”

There was something different in his gaze tonight, although you didn't couldn’t tell what. Or perhaps it was the same as it always was, but you were just now seeing it fully for the first time. You shook your head and broke eye contact. There were too many things in your head.

It was a perfect late spring night, with clear skies and a crisp breeze that prevented you from feeling too warm. You sat in silence for a good while, with the atmospheric party noises in the background seeming to fade further and further away the longer you were alone with him.

Somehow, every party you went to together ended this way: with the two of you hiding out in a quiet part of the house by yourselves, away from the crowds and chaos. It was nice.

“Do you really mean that?” you asked after a long pause. You had never really thought of yourself as a particularly trusting person. “What you said about me having an open heart.”

He was serious again when he nodded. “I do.”

You returned his gaze. You could always tell if he was lying, and this time, he wasn’t. His eyes, soft and brown and kind, were genuine. He smiled.

“Let’s go,” you suggested, even though it hadn’t been thirty minutes. Something about his smile made you want to get out of there and go somewhere else. “I just need to say bye to Hayeon before we leave.”

He stood up to follow you into the house.

“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, Soup. I’ll be fine,” you told him. He beamed, grateful and relieved, and waited for you outside.

When you returned, he gave you his black denim jacket to wear on the walk home.

——————————

He was there for you when a classmate of yours asked you out and you had a panic attack trying to reply to their text.

“I can’t do it.” You threw your phone across the room, your hands shaking.

“You like them, right? And they seem to really like you back,” Soobin assured, always the steady, patient one.

“They’re lying to me. They don’t actually like me, I’m not good enough for them,” you sobbed, frantic, your words tripping over one another to get out.

As much as you were over your ex, you couldn’t shake his betrayal. Maybe you did deserve to be cheated on. How could you ever believe anyone else when they said they liked you, if the man who’d told you that for a year had never meant it?

Soobin hugged you, one arm around your shoulders and the other on the back of your head. You were hyperventilating, crying not from hurt but from the embarrassment that, god, you couldn’t even text someone back. What was wrong with you?

“If you’re not ready, just tell them no,” he said, low and deliberate. “If they’re worth your time, they’ll understand.”

As he held you against his chest with your ear pressed to the soft fabric of his sweater, you could feel the vibrations of his voice and hear the slowness of his heartbeat, and you started to calm down almost instantly. His ability to pull you out of your spirals was unmatched, and it had always been.

“I’m never going to be normal again,” you sighed, now sounding resigned and exhausted instead of panicked. “I like them, and I can’t even- why can’t I just-”

“Be patient with yourself. You were with Hyeontak for a whole year.” Soobin slowly let you go, studying your expression, his eyes asking if you were fine without him having to say a thing.

“I’m good. Thanks, Soup,” you whispered, nodding as if to convince yourself. If anyone could make you believe that it was him, and the more you stared into his eyes the more sure of your words you became.

He smiled and rubbed your shoulder, his hand large and heavy and his touch firm and grounding. “You’ll be okay when you’re okay. You don’t have to rush.”

——————————

And he was here for you now, at yet another party, and you were starting to think that you would much rather be alone with him than in a house filled with people neither of you recognised.

Why were you here again?

Oh, right. Because Soobin’s roommate Yeonjun wanted him to get laid. Maybe this time you were here for him instead of the other way around. For once.

Yeonjun had thrown a massive party (in his and Soobin’s apartment, no less) to try and get Soobin ‘out of his shell’. Nevermind the fact that Soobin didn’t want to get out of his shell and was perfectly fine where he was.

“Hey,” Soobin waved you over the second you entered his apartment, visibly relieved at the sight of you. He was wearing that black denim jacket of his that you liked, which he wore nearly every day after you’d said it looked good on him.

“Hi. I can’t even recognise this place,” you said, looking around his packed apartment.

“Yeah, Yeonjun knows too many people,” he laughed, but you could tell he was nervous.

“Soobin!” Yeonjun called, stopping in his tracks when he saw you, the excitement in his face dissipating. “Oh. You’re here.”

Soobin punched him in the arm and scowled. “Don’t be rude.”

“You never talk to anyone else when they’re around,” Yeonjun whisper-shouted to him, like you weren’t standing right there.

“Don’t worry,” you said while holding up your hands, a disclaimer. “I won’t monopolise his time. Go have fun, Soup.”

Yeonjun grinned and gave you a hi-five. “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about! You get it.” He patted Soobin hard on the back and nudged him over to a group of girls by the window.

“Wait!” Soobin exclaimed, jerking at the sudden motion. He immediately clammed up and dug his heels into the floor, resisting, but Yeonjun didn’t relent.

“The girl there in the leather skirt? She thinks you’re cute. Go talk to her,” he pushed, laughing. “Bye! Have fun!”

Soobin was propelled into the crowd against his will, turning back at you with pleading eyes, but it was too late. Yeonjun already had his arm around your shoulder, stopping you from rescuing him.

You found another group of people to talk to so you weren’t alone, although throughout the entire night your attention drifted sporadically back to Soobin. You kept glancing over at the window, sneaking glimpses of him and the girl in the leather skirt, not sure when exactly you’d started feeling jealous. He was laughing with her, and she was touching his arm.

Someone tapped your shoulder. It was Yeonjun. You excused yourself from the group you were talking to.

“Hey, sorry about earlier,” he said, much calmer than before. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“No offence taken,” you assured him, which was true. If it had been anyone else you probably would’ve been annoyed, but you knew Yeonjun meant well.

“That’s a relief,” he smiled, fixing his hair and clapping his hands together. “Soobin is- he’s holding out for someone and he can’t move on. I just want him to- uh-”

“Get laid?” you finished helpfully, echoing the text exchange Soobin had screenshotted and sent to you. You weren’t used to seeing Yeonjun stumbling over his words; he was always so assured and confident. And he wasn’t drunk yet either. You flagged it in your mind as something to come back to when you had the time.

Yeonjun laughed loudly. “Oh, he told you about that?”

Someone somewhere in the crowd was calling his name now. While you laughed along, you were still thinking about Soobin and who he was holding out for. And why your heart had dropped when you heard that.

“Look, I gotta go. Sorry again,” Yeonjun said, patting your shoulder. “Soobin really wanted you to be here, so thanks for coming.”

He disappeared into the crowd, leaving you by yourself to watch Soobin. The girl whispered something into his ear, and he laughed.

At that very moment, a slow song came on. Who would play a slow song now? Yeonjun. Right.

Soobin looked up at the abrupt music change and his eyes instantly locked on yours from across the room. You smiled, tight and close-lipped, as the girl took him by the arm and pulled him to dance with her.

You slipped through the crowd and down the corridor to Soobin’s closed bedroom. He wouldn’t mind if you hid and waited out the party in there by yourself.

His room was small and neat and nicely-decorated, just large enough for a wardrobe, desk, and queen single bed (you knew that because you had bought him his bedsheets). When you came over you usually sat on his bed, while he took his desk.

There were traces of his personality everywhere, which you loved. A stack of books on his bedside table, a stuffed rabbit toy that you won for him from an arcade last year on his desk, and his precious hedgehog’s cage.

His window was cracked open, so you looked outside. He had a nice view of the nearby park. Resting your arms on the windowsill, made of metal and cool against your skin, you closed your eyes. You saw Soobin when you did, smiling at the girl in the leather skirt, with his eyes crinkled perfectly and his cheeks raised.

He was holding out for someone. Why did that make you feel disappointed?

Your phone buzzed. It was Yeonjun warning you Hyeontak was here, and that he would try to kick him out. Three months ago that would have bothered you, but you felt nothing now. You sent him back a quick thank you.

“Were you thinking about me?”

You spun around at the sudden voice to see Soobin standing in the entrance of his room, one shoulder leaning against the doorframe, thumbs hooked on the belt loops of his jeans. For the first time in your life, the sight of him made you nervous instead of calming you down.

“Huh-”

“Just now, when they played that song,” he continued, walking towards you. “Were you thinking about me? Because I can’t stop thinking about you.”

All you could do was stare at him with your eyes wide in shock, desperately trying to read his face, his tone, his body language. You were normally good at that, so good it was unsettling to other people, but now you couldn’t at all.

He had his hands in his pockets while he looked at you, waiting for an answer that you were struggling to produce. It felt like your mind was whirring at ninety miles an hour, and yet your head was empty. You’d been with him in his room countless times, but you’d never felt like this before.

His eyes were both serious and anticipatory, like he was about to burst with emotion. Usually he was the first to fold during long pauses in conversations, but now he was uncharacteristically sure-footed in his silence. He wasn’t going to keep talking to fill it; he wanted you to speak.

When you finally did, all you could come up with was, “Why aren’t you out there with-”

“I’d rather be here with you,” he said, more decisive than you’d ever heard him, the sentiment so urgent he couldn’t even wait for you to finish your question. It was unlike him. You didn’t- couldn’t respond. “Can I show you something?”

You nodded dumbly and he took your hand to lead you to his bedside table. He opened the front cover of the book on top of his stack and pulled out a red paper heart.

“Do you remember this?” he asked, handing it to you.

“Of course.”

On Valentine’s Day, student union volunteers had been stationed around campus handing out paper hearts to ‘spread cheer’. Fresh off of a break-up at the time, you had scoffed at the idea. But when one of the volunteers offered a heart to you and Soobin, mistaking you two for a couple, you took it anyway and gave it to him.

And he’d kept it. You turned it over in your hand, tracing its scalloped edges and feeling the grit of the sparkly red paper. It had not a single crease, fold, or tear on it, even after months.

“That day we spent trekking all over the city looking for a working printer was the best Valentine’s Day of my life,” Soobin told you, soft and sentimental. “Because I was with you.”

Your gaze shifted from the paper heart to his face. In that moment, you realised why he was the only person who could calm you down when you panicked, why he was the only person you ever wanted to be around, why you always found yourself turning to him for reassurance. Because when he looked at you, you felt seen.

“Really? Even though I had a breakdown and started quoting Sun Tzu at the HP DeskJet- whatever?” you asked. You still remembered that, because he had found it so funny. You tended to keep track of those things so you could make him laugh again.

“That was a bonus,” he said, taking the paper heart back from you for safekeeping. His fingers brushed yours, and you felt a jolt of electricity that had never been there before.

“Yeonjun told me you’re ‘holding out for someone’,” you said, unsure, glancing over his shoulder at the party still raging outside. He smiled at your slowness, giggling as you (finally) put the pieces together. “And- I’m now realising he was talking about me.”

“I knew you’d get there eventually,” he teased, raising one hand to your chin. You leaned into his touch instinctively, and he brought his lips to yours. They were soft and warm and tasted like mint lip balm. He had bought that lip balm from a 7-Eleven when you were out one night and his lips were cracked and bleeding, along with a Kit-Kat for you.

He put his other hand on the small of your back to draw you nearer to him, and you grabbed the front of his jacket. Everywhere he touched you, you came alive.

“Listen, I’m processing a lot all at once,” you mumbled in the kiss, defending yourself, holding onto his collar. He smiled against your mouth. The worn denim of his jacket folded and crumpled under your grip, soft in a way it wasn’t when it was new, a testament to just how often he wore it after Hayeon’s party a few months ago.

You were breathless by the time you separated, although he was not. He leaned his forehead lightly against yours, beaming. His smile made you dizzy.

“Can I ask you something?” you murmured. Your lips were swollen, as were his. “When did you start liking me?”

“Chuseok two years ago, when everyone else was going home to visit their families and I had to stay on campus,” he answered, completely void of hesitation. “You invited me over for dinner and we cooked together even though we barely talked back then.”

Three years ago, at the start of university, you and Soobin were part of a loosely-tied social circle. You were acquaintances at best at the time. But that Chuseok, you reached out to him on a whim knowing both of you would be alone for the festivities otherwise. He came over to your apartment (your roommates had all gone home) and you had a two-person feast.

It was originally meant to be a casual hangout held solely so neither of you would have to spend Chuseok by yourselves. All you knew about him then was that he was tall, cute, and relatively quiet.

But you and him had so much fun cooking together that you stayed up all night talking. A large part of that conversation was spent lamenting about how you hadn’t become friends sooner, even though you’d known each other for a year.

A larger part was about your families, your worries, and your greatest fears, because for whatever reason you felt compelled to tell each other everything. He had crashed on your living room floor that night, and you somehow manhandled him (height and all) into your bed while you took the sofa for yourself.

From that day on, you became closer and closer. As you moved through university, you started to drift away from the superficial friendships formed out of necessity in your first year. But he stuck around, and became your sole close friend.

“I woke up in your bed and saw you sleeping in the living room using my coat as a blanket, and that’s when I knew,” he told you, cupping your face in his hands, his voice soft and low.

His gaze and touch were warm as always, but unlike before when the warmth came from his hands, this time it started in your heart and spread outwards. You knew exactly which coat he was talking about, a long black puffer he’d been obsessed with in your second year. He still had it, you were pretty sure.

“Two years?” you breathed, looking up at him wide-eyed through your lashes. Yeonjun’s impatience was starting to make sense to you now. “Why did you wait so long?”

“I wasn’t waiting. If I never got the chance to tell you, I’d be okay with that too,” Soobin said, sweeping his thumb lightly over your cheek. “I had to be sure you felt the same. I couldn’t risk ruining our friendship otherwise.”

You shook your head, smiling, unable to comprehend how you got so lucky. “I don’t deserve you,” you told him.

In response, he pulled you back towards him and kissed you harder, more desperately, with a fervour so antithetical to his usual calm disposition that you melted in his arms right then and there. You could feel his want, his longing, his sincerity, and you wondered how you could have been so blind as to not see it earlier.

“Don’t say that,” he pleaded.

You wondered how you didn’t see your own. He was your answer to everything, and had been for so long. You couldn’t find the appropriate words to reassure him that, yes, you weren’t going to leave him — some feelings were too big, too wide, too much, to be expressed verbally — so you just kissed him again. And again. And again. You’d missed out on two whole years, after all.

——————————

thanks for reading <3

-minastras

#tomorrow x together #txt x reader #txt #choi soobin #soobin x reader #soobin fluff #soobin au #soobin imagine #soobin scenarios #txt soft hours #soobin soft hours

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megumi-fm · 3 months

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this week on megumi.fm ▸ coding and coffeeshops

📋 Tasks

💻 Internship ↳ lab meet!!! got to learn about the other projects in the lab ↳ got work from home approved!! ↳ optimize protein seq code // account for missing residues ✅ ↳ add on a binding site identifier function for code using 4.5A distance threshold ✅ ↳ optimize binding site code // reducing time complexity for large PDB file inputs ✅ ↳ download and extract alphafold human protein repository and analyze pdb file formats ↳ set up progress tracker and upload code on colab ✅ 🎓 Uni ↳ Final Project: update images quality according to changes mentioned ✅ ↳ renew uni email for extra credit classes ✅ ↳ extra credit classes started this week! 🩺Radiomics Projects ↳ call with teammates to discuss next steps ✅ 📧 Application-related ↳ finished masters application form for 1/1 Uni (waiting on my referee reports) ✅ ↳ finalize referee report from my profs ✅

📅 Daily-s

🛌 consistent sleep [7/7] 💧 good water intake [5/7] 👟 exercise [5/7]

Fun Stuff this week

🍻 met up with my bestie @muakrrr <3 it was a stressful tuesday so meeting him for lunch was super comforting! he bought this cute purple drink and I got myself some ginger ale and the waiter served us the wrong drinks (gender and expectations something something) and it was amusing to watch them get confused when we corrected them 🎂 mom's b'day this week!! went out for dinner with her!! 🛒 went shopping with relatives who I haven't seen in years. bought myself a book! (rip my bookshelf) ☕ went out for coffee and dinner with my girlies (the same besties who I exchanged mugs with). we're trying to spend as much time together as possible before we leave to different countries for our masters 🎮 continuing the beginner's guide 📺 ongoing: Marry my Husband, Cherry Magic Th, Last Twilight 📺 binged: KinnPorsche The Series

📻 This week's soundtrack

Love Wins All by IU (been crying over this music video for days now. it's beautiful) KinnPorsche theme by Slot Machine: Kinn's theme [aka Phiang Waichai; TH] | Porche's theme [aka Free Fall; Eng] (first of all this is one of the catchiest theme songs to exist second only to SPECIALZ aka the JJK s2 op i'm also particularly losing my mind over how the two themes are love letters to the main characters from each other... the narrative parallels of it all are driving me insane sldkhlaksjkshs) Dum Dum by Jeff Satur + the Live Unchained version where his vocals are heavenly (maybe im so drawn to this song because the chorus is similar to the melodic motifs of the KPTS themes/soundtrack, either way, the show introduced me to him and god. I've been voraciously consuming his discography.) Ghost by Jeff Satur (on repeat all week. thoroughly obsessed with this song- the lyricism, his voice, the storyline in the MV, his acting, everything. wow. truly.)

---

[Jan 22 to 28 ; week 4/52 || I. love. my. internship. like. I have been having the most fun time problem solving and troubleshooting. it's also super satisfying to see the outcome of my code. it's been a while since I used python (I've been coding on C) so I forget that python has a lot of inbuilt functions that would do the same tasks I inadvertently entrust my nested loops with, and finding out about them is always so joyous (although it means I have to scrap off several chunks of code). i am a bit annoyed though, because the other intern isn't really doing any work that we're entrusted with so I'm having to carry the team and it's taking me too much time. but oh well. I've suggested we split tasks from next week, hopefully that'll make things better.

I've also been procrastinating a lot when it comes to my masters applications and it really hit me this week when I had to run to uni several times to get things approved and completed. Now that I'll get to work from home I need to set up a proper schedule to get application work completed wayy in advance. also need to resume my GRE prep from next week.]

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d1ana-m0nd · 11 months

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╭─► ❝Hey Lover!❞

Tao × Gender Neutral! Reader || Written by Diana (d1ana-m0nd) || Inspired by Hey Lover

➢ Fluff && Not Proofread , Headcannons && Word Count 1,734

➢ You were suffering under the weight of financial struggles until a maga came along and held your family hostage. Who would have thought the person you would be double crossing is someone who you'd gain interest for.

➢ NOTE : The scene of you trying to sacrifice the troubleshooters is inspired by CSM and if ever I refer to the reader with She/Her pronouns please let me know so I can edit it out, thanks!

HOW YOU GUYS MET:

Tao met you in the streets, you both happened to walk past each other that fateful day she didn't have work.

You were neither a sex worker nor a homeless person but she knew you needed help. She could tell from your eyes that you were living in fear with every step you took.

Despite being strangers, she approached you and asked if you needed help. You turned her offer down but then she ended up giving you the troubleshooters business card, to which you reluctantly accepted.

Ever since your encounter with her, you found yourself in a conundrum. She was right on the money that you needed help but, her help was something you didn't need… you weren't even sure if her help could be of use to your situation.

In the end, you gave in and decided to use her help but knowing people like her (To you, at the time she seemed like a loan shark of sorts who are preying after people with financial issues) you'll instead play her at their own game.

You hired the troubleshooters to help kill the maga who was threatening to kill your entire family. When in reality, you planned to use them as an offering to the maga in exchange for your family.

What you didn't expect was for her partner, Alma, to catch on to your lie through his sense of smell.

Out of guilt, you admitted to them everything. Both of them seemed used to being double crossed yet, they still gave you a second chance. Once they were done with the job, Tao didn't ask for a fee but she did ask you to work for Auntie instead.

"Why'd you offer them to work for Auntie's? They tried to kill us! How'd you know they won't do it again?" Alma interrogated his stoic female partner but she seemed indifferent to his questions.

"They won't." Tao reassured though, she isn't even sure about that herself, maybe she just wanted to see you again…

"Their cooking will probably kill us!" Alma screamed, though it sounded more like it was his problem rather than everyone else's.

ㅤ

HOW YOU GUYS ENDED UP FALLING IN LOVE:

Once you began working for Auntie, you were overwhelmed by their friendliness, everyone was so nice to you… The guilt of almost killing their friends was making it difficult to concentrate.

It didn't help that Tao and Alma went to the restaurant everyday, it was becoming more and more difficult to avoid them.

Until one day, Yaya had to take a sick leave, so you and Alma were forced to work together to cater to every customer. Unfortunately, you had to cater to someone you have been avoiding… Tao.

Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of you but quickly covered it up with a small cough. "I'll have the usual."

"I don't know your usual… this is my first time serving you." You said with a sheepish smile.

"Oh, right." She internally cursed, realizing she forgot that you have been avoiding her for months.

After that awkward interaction, Alma then began to go out of his way to make you and Tao talk more, because he was fortunate enough to witness you and Tao being awkward with each other.

Ever since he began working with you, he finally understood why Tao wanted to keep you around. You were hard working and you cared a lot about your family, you probably just stumbled upon the troubleshooters at the wrong place and wrong time, if you guys met in different circumstances. You three probably would have gotten along on the fly.

Since then whenever he was with Tao, he'd quickly ask for you to serve them before you could run off. If he's on shift, he'd tell you that Tao's table hasn't been catered to yet.

It was a slow process but you two managed to slowly become comfortable with each other - though it was mostly on your end because you were the one running away from Tao out of guilt and shame. Whilst Tao was trying her best to not make you feel more guilty than you already did.

Slowly but surely you began to gain interest in Tao. Even Auntie and Yaya noticed - only because you always did something stupid like stumbling upon your words or tripping when you see Tao walk in - though it took Alma a while to notice this. Well, he more or less found out about your infatuation for Tao because he asked you why you did those things around Tao specifically and you accidentally blurted out how you felt around Tao.

"[...] So yeah, she catches me off guard sometimes, y'know? Maybe I still feel guilty for what I did…" You rambled fidgeting with the rim of your apron, trying to figure out your feelings for Tao.

"I think I remember Yaya saying that's what you're supposed to feel when you are in love!" Alma happily exclaimed, which triggered a cold shiver to go down your spine.

You covered your face as you groaned. "That's even worse than I thought!"

Killing your crush on your first encounter? You sure made quite an impression.

After discovering your feelings, you made an effort to actively avoid Tao despite Alma and Yaya's efforts in trying to help you confess or get closer with Tao. Eventually, this did not go unnoticed by Tao, she wasn't bothered by your active evasion - she was irritated - which is why she ended up asking Auntie, Yaya, and Alma but they wouldn't budge. In the end, she ended up cornering you at the end of your shift.

You heaved a heavy sigh, tired from your shift obviously looking forward to falling face first onto the mattress.

"Long day, huh?" A familiar voice questioned, the very same voice that made your legs weak as noodles in hot water.

"Woah-" You jumped but quickly stiffened yourself. "Hey Tao! Didn't see you there."

"I don't plan on revealing myself to begin with, especially to my prey." Tao teased but you didn't catch onto it.

You cringed, recalling how you confessed to them that you planned to use them as offering to the maga in exchange for your family.

"I'm sorry…"

The female troubleshooter sighed then voiced her concern. "Have you been avoiding me because you still feel guilty about what happened in the past?"

"What happened in the past, stays there. We're in the present now. So let go of what's already out of reach."

Alarmed by her words, you began to ramble. "It's not that- I MEAN THAT'S PARTIALLY THE REASON! But, it's something else…"

"Is it because you like me?" Tao said with a smirk, which froze you on the spot. "If you thought you were slick, you weren't. And no, Alma didn't snitch on you."

"WELL THEN!" You shouted then began stiffly walking away. "I'm heading home now, I have other things to tend to!"

"Y/N, stop running away from your problems. I understand it's natural human instinct but, how would you know how I feel about you? Just because you expect the worst out of everything doesn't mean it'll happen." Her words punched you in the gut, you hated how she was right…

"Now, are you going to confess to me or not?" You could tell from her voice that found your predicament quite amusing and it irked you.

"WHY DO I HAVE TO CONFESS!? Why don't you do it yourself since it seems like you already have everything figured out." You huffed out of irritation, you faced her crossing your arms.

"Fine." Tao said, which caught you off guard. As she took slow strides towards you, it felt like a scene out of a documentary, a snake stalking its prey.

"I like you too. Now, do you want me to walk you home?"

ㅤ

HOW YOU GUYS SHOW AFFECTION TO EACH OTHER:

Words of affirmation

Most of the time you are too shy to compliment Tao but when you are in a dazed state, you tend to slip out a compliment or two.

Also, you don't really feel the need to share words of affirmation with her since she seems the type to be confident in herself and stands strong.

You, on the other hand, need a lot of words of affirmation, which Tao can cater to. She's oddly good at it. Most likely because she's had to deal with Alma and Nei, who always look forward to her compliments or words of affirmation.

Quality time

You and Tao neither have the time to spend together, including space since you both live with someone else.

Though not having quality time as much doesn't bother you guys but, you do check in on her from time to time including Alma in case they need something despite your financial problems.

Tao doesn't have the time to check on you but you guys try to cherish your time together at the Chinese restaurant you work in but Auntie always cuts it short, not wanting you to slack off during work hours, which Tao respects.

Physical touch

Believe it or not, you and Tao both suck at showing affection. Every time you try to kiss or hold her hand you either chicken out or Tao doesn't reciprocate your actions.

While Tao, on the other hand, is not comfortable with PDA. It's a different story when you guys are alone, she tries her best to be affectionate but there are times she withdraws due to her past.

Acts of service

You weren't the best cook, everyone knew that. But, what they didn't know was that you were determined, you tried to hone that skill everyday, just so you can prevent Tao and Alma wasting a lot of money on food.

Which is why they always find your food in their office, no matter how bad it is (though most of the time it's a hit or miss) Tao eats it because she knows you'll do better with your next dish.

Receiving gifts

Due to your financial situation, you mostly make handmade gifts for Tao since that's what you are mostly good at.

Tao gifts you things that you mostly need since you never tell her what you want, just what you need to keep your family afloat. But, when you do manage to slip up, she won't hesitate to buy it on the spot.

➢ "Reblog to support your favorite writer" belongs to @/benkeibear

#❲💎✨❳ : land of fanfictions #❲ ✓ ❳ : published #gokurakugai #gokurakugai x reader #tao x reader #tao gokurakugai #tao gokurakugai x reader #x reader #x you #manga x y/n #manga x you #manga x reader

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cityof2morrow · 7 months

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Pictorial: Setting Up The Lifestyles Mod

Published: 9-23-2023 | Updated: 11-21-2023

SUMMARY The Lifestyles Mod (alongside earlier versions of the religions mod on which it is based) can be tedious/annoying to install and set up – but I promise its worth it! Here is a quick walkthrough for setting up the mod. If you’re skeptical, generate a new ‘Neighborhoods’ folder in your game and use it to test the mod first. Before we get started, make sure you’ve downloaded the Lifestyles Mod (Simmons, 2023) and gameplay PDF. Finally, re-read the info related to compatibility, load order(s), and troubleshooting. DOWNLOAD THIS PICTORIAL (PDF) INSTALLATION 1. When starting a new save, setup this mod BEFORE adding The Globe/Global Overrides (Meduza, 2023; Hatch, 2017-2019) if you also use that mod. 2. Place all package files in a folder and move that folder to your Sims 2 ‘Downloads’ folder. 3. Load them AFTER The Globe/Global Overrides (Hatch – excluding Home YAs), Taxi/Vehicles Cost Money (Dhurt). *If you receive errors try loading this mod (and any add-ons for the Lifestyles/original religions mods) BEFORE them instead. 4. Load them BEFORE Annoying Games Suite (Simlogical/Inge Jones), Baby Personality (Episims, 2020), Fight Club (Pescado), Inteen/Inteenimator, Less Belching/Farting (TwoJeffs), Mood Swings/Midlife Crisis (Piqiwi, 2018 – see the additional notes on this under Troubleshooting and Conflict With), Single Slap Only (Squinge), Zombie Apocalypse (Pescado). ADDING THE FIRST LIFESTYLE(S) TO YOUR SAVE 1. Testing Cheats ON Please! While in the neighborhood screen and BEFORE entering a residential lot, turn testing cheats ON (do this manually because Start-Up cheats don’t always kick in). If you have conflicts/issues they will pop up as error messages here. If your lot won’t load but you can hear it running, the game is paused on an error message – that you won’t be able to see if testing cheats aren’t turned on. See the Troubleshooting section of the gameplay PDF for solutions.

2. Setup Dialogue: Enter any residential lot and wait ~10 sim-minutes for a set up dialogue. Choose between 1 and 5 initial lifestyle groups – the first FIVE will be townie-enabled and sims can be manually/randomly added to these. Any additional lifestyles (the sixth one created and so on) are “exclusive” – you must manually add sims to these with the Lifestyle Manager. We’ll get to that part…keep reading You can add/edit (but not delete) groups later using the Lifestyle Manager object (a fairy statue formerly called the Heaven & Hell Fairy). Find it in Misc > Misc.

3. Background NPCs: Choose the gender of the NPC character that will act as a controller for each group. They will generate off-screen and remain permanently out of sight during gameplay. If you want to include them in your gameplay, they are safe NPCs and can join playable households - but try not to let them die in-game

4. Name the Lifestyle: You’ll be prompted to “enter a name for this person…” (“person” = lifestyle for the purposes of this mod). Using proper nouns, enter a name for the individual, place, or idea that defines each lifestyle (18 characters max, including spaces). Names can be generic (i.e. Happiness, Power, Science, Law & Order – great for the general population) or more specific (i.e. The Grim Reaper, Fate, The Wiz, The Watcher) I like to think of sims i’m not invested in and likely will never play as part of a “general population.” Since all playable households must have a lifestyle group assignment, I usually make two “general population” groups for playables (or for sims whose lifestyles I haven’t figure out yet).

-Law & Order: Generally nice, law-abiding people who don’t steal, fight, etc.

-Fate: They retain free will – the equivalent of how sims would behave without this mod in-game. This is for villains, fight-club members, General Buzz Grunt, the Beakers, most of the Landgraabs, and other butt-headed sims 5. Allow/Ban Behaviors: Sims express their lifestyle via behavior and social interactions. Customize each lifestyle by banning or allowing behavior in the following categories. You can only ban or allow whole categories.

Wrath = routing failure tantrums are replaced by a calm notification to the player.

Theft = newspapers, gnomes, and hotel towels Violence = poke, slap, shove, attack, red hands, punch game, cops/robbers game

Indiscretion = belch, gossip, tell secrets, gross out, brag Disrespect = nag, annoy, insult. New behavior categories aren’t possible but new interactions can be added to existing categories with mods such as: G-Rated Religion Expansions and Side Mods (Almighty Hat, 2016). Instructions for adding even more behaviors are available with this mod. In my testing, non-violent sims would never defend themselves when violent sims attacked them. They would just cry or take the beat down (and then cry again). Whenever this got too annoying, I would just move the violent sim to a non-violent lifestyle group. Keep this in mind if you play with fight club mods which prolong fights or making fighting/attacking others fun for meaner sims. This is also a good reason to have meeting spots (explained below). Sometimes your sims needs to be among friends…*sings* where everbooody knows their naaaame! *takes bow**exits stage left

MANAGING YOUR LIFESTYLES

1. After Initial Setup: Sims can only be in one lifestyle group at a time. At unassigned households and households which recently gained/lost members, you’ll be prompted to choose a lifestyle for sims living there after ~10 sim-minutes. Townies and some NPCs are randomly assigned by default. You can assign members of the same household to different groups using the Lifestyle Manager but this will impact behaviors, relationships, and more importantly - group devotion and zeal.

2. Lifestyle Manager: Use this object to view, change, or randomize lifestyle assignments and check neighborhood statistics. Playables/townies can be randomized into the first five groups with this object. 3. Playing 6 or more Lifestyles: You can create more than five lifestyles but remember: 1) townies can only join the first five groups, 2) sims can only be randomized into the first five groups, and 3) only the first five groups get a separate line on the census – the rest will be totaled together under “Lifestyle > 5.”

To assign groups 6 and up, go to a playable residence. For each sim:

-Select "Change lifestyle to..." on the lifestyle statue. Only the first five will show at first, choose any of these. -Re-select "Change lifestyle to.." again. Groups 6 and up should be available in all appropriate menus now. -Save your game. The census should reflect these changes when you enter the next lot.

DEVOTION, ZEAL & INTERACTIONS (aka ‘how this mod changes the social scene in your game’)

1. Devotion: Devotion refers to a sims’ commitment to their lifestyle (out of 100). Sims with high devotion will observe their group’s values but defy them if devotion falls below 30-ish. 2. Zeal: Sims with high zeal (out of 100) may be judgmental towards others. Sims with high zeal and low devotion may even become hypocrites. They’ll scold or hit others for defying values they themselves are no longer observing. Worry not, these behaviors improve as their devotion increases.

3. Ask About Lifestyle: Sims can ask others about their lifestyles and receive a range of replies. This social, along with talking, chatting, and hanging out with fellow group members will increase devotion/zeal. Devotion/zeal will NOT change attraction/relationships, but relationships with non-group members may decrease devotion/zeal.

4. Conversions: Repeated interactions between sims with exceptionally high devotion and those who are unassigned or low in devotion to their own group may result in the latter being convinced to join the more committed sim’s lifestyle. CREATING/MANAGING MEETING SPOTS (OPTIONAL)

1. Meeting Spots: Places of worship are now called meeting spots – they’re not required but make lifestyles even more interesting. Designate any vacant community lot as a meeting spot using the Lifestyle Manager (Misc > Misc). Live mode will activate, and The Friend/Aneeta Friend will appear – ignore this sim and continue setting up the lot. Save and exit when done. Autonomous visitors will be limited to those assigned the corresponding lifestyle. If you send other sims to this lot, their own group devotion and zeal decrease, or they may convert.

These are the New Peterans of Strangetown (test hood) and they hang out at a church/community kitchen on the weekends. Devotion/Zeal improve faster at meeting spots for appropriate members (and has the opposite effect on non-members – but non-members won’t show up unless you manually send them there). Meeting spots are especially handy if you want to play a private social group with exclusive membership. You don’t want the general population/authorities to know about certain groups, right? Good thing they’re only vaguely referenced in the census as “Lifestyle > 5.

2. The Friend: An NPC named Aneeta Friend will visit community lots, including designated meeting spots. Talking/Hanging Out with her will boost devotion and zeal regardless of group membership. She’ll generate with default looks, but her name and appearance can be altered with mods. Do NOT add her to playable households or age her down. The Lifestyle Manager can summon Aneeta Friend at any time. Selecting the object from the catalog on an empty lot will always summon this sim. If you click the statue by accident, you can ignore her – she only appears in case you want to designate a meeting spot. It is safe to save/exit the lot 3. Renaming Lifestyles: To rename a lifestyle, shift-click and use the “Spawn” option OR use another mod to teleport the Background NPCto a residential lot andrename them. If you can’t remember which NPC this is, select “Learn About the Ways of…” on the Lifestyle Manager and choose the group you want to rename. When the dialogue pops up in the corner of your screen, hover over the NPC’s photo to see their name. This is the NPC you should summon UNINSTALLING/UPDATING THIS MOD 1. Uninstalling: To safely uninstall, 1) place, then shift-click, the Lifestyle Manager on a residential lot. 2) Use the available options to remove the mod data. This will remove the NPC number from the Background NPCs and move them to the orphan townie pool. 3) Afterwards, delete the package file(s) from your downloads folder from your downloads folder – but leave the NPC file for Aneeta Friend in your downloads folder (“simmons-ah-cjh-lifestyles-thefriendNPC”). 4) You do not need to include the friend file in new saves (i.e. for completely new “Sims 2/Neighborhoods” folder) 2. Updating: If you haven’t removed the NPC file or renamed any files from this mod, you should be able to replace the main file for updates without having to remove/reset data. This has been tested several times, but your game setup may function differently. DOWNLOAD THIS PICTORIAL (PDF) CREDITS Thanks: ChocolateCitySim for testing. Sources: Beyno (Korn via BBFonts), EA/Maxis, Offuturistic Infographic (Freepik).

#ts2mods #ts2tutorial #co2testcenter

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aboxthecolourofheartache · 10 months

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tfw a friend is experiencing Gender Bafflement and you would really like to be supportive except that they are operating on Gender Expression 3000 and you are content with the basic package—not Gender Illiterate but simply a casual. Pedestrian. My gender troubleshooting amounts to ‘have you tried turning it off and back on again? is it plugged in? is it overheated?’ I do not understand, but I can pat you on the back and make sincere encouraging noises. Is it dusty? Maybe you need some canned air. Did you drop it recently? I dunno, friend, beats me too. It’ll still be there in the morning. Let’s take a break and get bubble tea.

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jonathantaylorthomas · 6 months

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I heard TK played chess w/ older brother Jason - both are very competitive. It made me think of Mastermind- he kinda followed his brother's blueprint- always trying to get his attention/approval. Some knock his intelligence- box him in stereotypes. "You have pointed out my flaws again/As if I don't already see them". He's aware of his strengths & weaknesses- but he has a natural knack as an icebreaker, leader & troubleshooter.

In a podcast he mentioned his brother could be provoked- so he was very careful- but enjoyed pushing buttons. He also seems to be the type to pull attention to himself but then also draw it to others. (People article mentioned he was PD's friend). In one interview he said he always wants to "prove his family right". He's made major mistakes- but was given opportunities to redeem himself after learning his lesson.

His mother said a couple important things for parenting: Belief & support in their dreams & but let them initiate the action- ask questions. This is similar to how TS's parents had her carve out her career.

No one wanted to play with me as a little kid So I've been scheming like a criminal ever since To make them love me and make it seem effortless This the first time I felt the need to confess And I swear, I'm only cryptic and Machiavellian 'Cause I care

Lol- kinda cool that Jason & Kylie - just like Andrea, Ryan & Blake named the firstborn girls w/ gender neutral names.

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your-bigender-big-brother · 1 month

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Hi!

I've been recently questioning whether I'm bigender- I think I am, in a weird way, and I wanted to ask. Have you heard of anyone else who has two very similar genders, which mostly eclipse each other, but both stretch just a little further than "girl" (in my case) in opposite directions.

Thank you,,,,

I don't have an overall label for that but it sounds like your particular experience is similar to duogirl, the experience of being bigender with one gender being girl and the other being similar to girl. When the two genders are very close and overlap, they are contermic. But I don't quite have a label for stretching further in opposite directions. Maybe someone here has an idea?

- 💙💚

#bbb.ask #anon #bigender #duogirl #contermic bigender #gender troubleshooting #your bigender big brother

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bioethicists · 1 year

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Your blog has gotten me interested in antipsychiatry as an extention of bodily autonomy - however, at least some disorders do seem to be clustered in a way that makes sense for troubleshooting if someone needs treatment. Like, reading the definition of depression as a teenager made me realize that it's not normal to want to die 24/7, and that I should probably talk to a therapist. I don't know exactly where I'm going with this tbh, but I guess I think that some (at least my own) psychiatric disorders make sense and are pretty common ways that people can suffer?

yeah, i think it's pretty important to distinguish between diagnostics as a form of loose categorization (for example, i find ocd + anorexia both to be useful shorthand for experiences i have + share w/ many others) and diagnostics as a prescriptive form of Assigning Illness (such as the DSM). the experiences of ppl with depression are real + often similar to one another + it's extremely useful to have a culturally recognized term that summarizes a lot of painful experiences.

it's when those shorthand descriptions become prescriptive rather than descriptive (e.h you feel x way BECAUSE you have depression, not that you have depression BECAUSE you feel x way), medicalized (e.g this is because you are Sick, this must be Cured, this has a definitive biomedical cause), or alienated (e.g this experience sets you distinctly apart from Normal people, who have Healthy thoughts + brains).

even when you say thinking those things is not 'normal'- sure, most ppl probably don't- but is the concern that it's 'abnormal' or that it's making you miserable? what if everyone else DID feel the same way- would that mean you don't deserve relief from it? one of the biggest flaws in psych diagnostics is that it relies on the assumption that these experiences need to be stopped (and Stopped is usually their ideal goal, though they will settle for mitigated or reduced) not because they are painful but because they are 'abnormal' or 'disruptive' (often to functioning within systems which are inherently unjust like school, work, maintaining housing, etc). the concern is not suffering, but abnormality (with the assumption that there is even such a thing as a Normal Person).

take, for example, my dx of anorexia- when i experience torturous thoughts of hating my body, obsessing over what i eat, obsessing over if other ppl are judging me for what i eat, obsessing over my weight, etc, it is diagnosed as pathology. when a fat person experiences this, they are very, very often validated in these emotions because they are Supposed To feel that way according to fatphobic medicine + cultural norms. while tides are shifting in this regard, this was not just a silly little oversight of the anorexia dx but built in, because the assumption built in to psychiatric diagnostics is that extreme body hatred is only pathological if it's 'irrational'- if you are supposed to hate your body, as determined by norms, then you are 'normal' + there is no 'dysmorphia' present, therefore no care or concern.

in general, i think most systems of categorizing ppl fall apart + become harmful when they fail to recognize themselves as roughly constructed shorthand ways of describing deeply complex experiences- gender, sex, race, diagnosis (this gets foggier in certain medical diagnoses but still stands for the majority of them), identity in general rlly. but if we can see them for what they are- (fallible + limited) things we created to describe ourselves, not objects within us which control our behavior + thoughts, they are immensely useful for many.

#anti psychiatry #fatphobia /

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queen-mihai · 3 months

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Hi I know that this may seem out of place. But at what point in your life did you begin to feel stable/adult. I often times have conflicted my feelings of gender discomfort or writing with these beliefs. Because of this I have abandoned myself to a point where a stranger now lives in my body. Have these thoughts ever bothered you?

Hmm🤔

This is an interesting question. I suppose it's rather gradual. And there's never a feeling really of being "there".

You always feel kinda like you're faking it in a way. People really are telling the truth that nobody knows what they're doing. Everybody's making it up as they go along

And one thing that we all eventually find is that no one can do this alone. I work as an engineer. I work in the field with machines that don't move, meaning I have to go to it instead of it coming to me.

That means that I not only have to be an expert at math and designing and troubleshooting, but also logistics. I need to figure out schedules and times and make phone calls so people know who I am and what I'm doing and if it's going to affect them.

But like that didn't happen suddenly all at once. The reason jobs measure *years* of experience, is that it genuinely takes *years* to get used to the type of things adults have to do just getting around.

My boss doesn't want to have to come pick me up to bring me to work. The regional manager I work for would suffer if every time I ran into a problem I came asking him what to do. I wouldn't have gotten this job if I hadn't been doing the stuff I do here for years already. But I didn't start by doing this much. I started in my career just kind of accepting assignments that needed to be traveled for. They might have come once every 6 months in my early career. But I jumped at them because I wanted to get out of the office and I thought that part of the job was fun.

Eventually employers got used to that idea and they sent me out more. "Oh Mihai will take care of that. She loves driving around. And with her doing that, we can have some of the other engineers do something else"

Eventually that grew into enough that I could add it to my resume and really take it on as part of whatever job I got next. Etc etc etc until the job I have now doesn't HAVE an office; I'm pretty much forced to demand a company vehicle, and I spend practically half my life living in hotels.

Regarding feeling stable, that's more a job of meditating and feeling good about being *you*.

I don't feel like the world is stable. I don't feel like people's opinions of me are stable. The political, corporate, financial, and climate world is unstable. But I know who I am, and how I make decisions. I know I'm always going to be honest about how I feel, if I am proud of my work or if I made mistakes, and I'll always try to communicate. I know I work really best alone, but I love being around people. I know I'm a leader and people tend to do what I do, so I try to do the right thing always. That's what makes me feel stable. I'm stable in myself, no matter how unstable the world is around me. And that consistency of personhood provides an anchor from which other people can latch on and help find themselves too. (Because you're not me, but you can use me to find what similarities and differences there are between us, and thus, paint a clearer picture of your own personal image)

I don't know how much I can help with the "abandoning yourself" part.

Part of what hurt me previously was being involved in a very destructive relationship. Once I left that relationship, it became much easier to construct *me*. Maybe that's not what you have going on, but it may be worthwhile to take a look at your environment and see if there's something making you feel like you can't grow into the person you want to be.

In any case I wish you well. And I hope you find your place. What I can say is that there's no finish line; there's no race; there's not even a path. There's just decisions you make every day. They're all important and none of them are important. But what IS important is that you see that you're not waiting to start your story. You're in the middle of it right now. Please know that you are loved, and very cool, and I especially appreciate you for sending such an interesting ask 🥰

Peace ✌️ ❤️

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logicpng · 8 months

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another thing that's worth mentioning about aster is their relationship with gender

Urs is more definitively agender, and she uses any pronouns. I think aster kind of learns from them, in a way

the thing with Aster is, there's the character he is Intended to be, the way he was originally designed by whoever was in charge of the visuals, voice, personality base, and whatever. and then there's the actual AI who is meant to embody that character in the finished product

Aster the Corporate Mascot is a man, even if visually on a more ambiguous side to appeal to broader masses, referred to exclusively with he/him

Aster the Person/AI collective, on the other hand, isn't directly the character, no matter how much the suits would prefer him to be. Aster being Two individuals is an anomaly on its own, of course many other things would be different between them. Vega is especially an outlier in terms of personality, as his module was solely designed as aid for developers, and smart troubleshooter for the consumer

back to the point tho, as a result, their relationship with their gender is rather loose. while being called a man with he/him pronouns is the "default", you can very easily call them just about anything else, as long as it's not dehumanising. a guy, a girl, a woman, a person, anything goes really. same for the pronouns

in a sense: for the Character, the gender is pretty strictly defined and the seeming gender nonconformity (mostly just the eyelash and defined lips) is a deliberate move to have a hint of ambiguity.

for the AI, their gender it's a room with an open door. they are masc, but never exclusively so

#not art #text post #CaelOS

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boxwinebaddie · 5 months

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Across the ninaverse Kyle is beautiful yes ( and I his is definitely true for your lovely take on the superhero au ) but so so scary

Please don't let that ugly ass tfbw human kite suit design stay scary tho I'm begging you ☹️☹️ I'm not sorry it's so horrid I cry thinking about it even Cousin Kyle pulled it off more than they did like holy fuck IT'S SO BAD 😭😭 I have personal beef with that god damn design LIKE WTF IS THAG?? I never got the chance to fully play through tfbw after my mom DELETED IT OFF HER COMPUTER I'm still mad about that hwhdhgr but!! from what I saw I didn't mind the human kite I just stay up at night thinking about how Kyle deserved better

also!! I think it's rlly cool that it's canon the human kite is gender neutral and asexual and I wanted to hear your opinions on that and COUSIN KYLE WHEN?? 🤨🤨

( now I don't remember if I actually sent one previously about rm5 and how much I loved it I might have deleted it?? It was a dumpster fire of rambling is all I remember )

-Stan who loves Kyle but is personally traumatised from that ugly ass tfbw design 🧡 I'm actually personally offended for him they did him so wrong I'm sorry if this makes no sense this is built up anger

hi orange heart stan! :) <3

first of all, i am glad you agree! i believe in beautiful style supremacy.

i just think whereas stan is like commercially and cosmetically beautiful, like in terms of like celebrity, supermodel, break your neck looking at him on the street, boy next door pretty. (aka conventionally attractive in a way that is indisputable, i think, like That shockingly stunning...also he hates it more than anything in the world smh )

kyle is definitely a more ethereal renaissance painting, sort of elfish/fae like, looks kind of like a timeless museum statue like high cheek bones, prominent nose, pretty red hair, hes attractive in a feel like a less conventional way but is still spellbindingly beautiful as a muse...also kyle thinks hes ugly i want to die ( spef. human kite kyle )

--sorry i sat on this anon for a while, i was trying to troubleshoot what i wanted my human kite to look like in my universe! which, again, i have not played tfbw -- but i have read extensively on it because you know i try to be thorough...so if some of this is wrong it all belongs in my dystopian, sci-fi commentary on societies prejudices, fear of what they don't understand, superhero au, where canon is mostly there to provide the bones/basics and i chaotically world build around it. ;)

**also i did not know that kite!kyle was gender neutral and asexual, so i will adjust accordingly and use they/them to refer to kyle. i also have never played an asexual character, so i am interested! i am also curious whether that was a conscious choice or something to do with them being an alien ( i think...both maybe? interesting! )

also bc last time i did toolstan and kyshed, this ask is for the kyle/kite lore im working through and a lot of stankite because aw <3

but DO NOT WORRY!!!! i did scrap the original design because it's hideous. okay i'm going to drop some pinterest pictures. xx

( you how i am im sorry guys i love pinterest sm smh )

this is insane...i am apologizin in advance...

*hides* don't make fun of me omg

so obviously kyle is an alien and as such i feel like the pigment of their skin is not a natural...human color. so i was thinking about shades of the sky and i was thinking about the teal jumpsuit so i settled on blue!

so to me, in alien form, kyle has blue skin ( sort of similar to mystique in xmen i feel like...probably an interesting skin texture? ) and i think all of their freckles are actually white? so they look like little stars ;-; their entire body just looks like beautiful night sky or blue sky with tiny clouds/sun spots...theyre like a living painting.

however...they are...insecure abt it but when kite visits stan and stan likes them more and more he says theyre really beautiful <333 :') ( them and their frecks ) and that he tells his super best friend, who is anxious abt their freckles that they look like constellations but that kite really is like The Sky haha

( i think it’s funny when secret identity stan and kyle talk abt eachother in human form to kite and shed haha )

--sidebar, but i think that ky might have some sort of kite alien birthmark to represent the kite imagery, but its hidden ofc ofc

—second sidebar: i think kyles voice as kyle is very uptight and forced but as kite, his relaxed alien mothertongue is a lot more fluid/faster it has a fantastic alien dream like quality they also forget to use human words sometimes bless them stan is confused

( he’s not complaining tho whatever u say beautiful alien person w the cool pretty voice )

i also think just for the purpose of it not being too obvious who kite is in human form and just based on the reverse of kyles warm toned human skin pigment being blue i think that kyles hair in kite form is...white? i feel like they r giving celestial drow elf alien energies.

( also tech bc of the reverse pigment their cool laser eyes should be red but i kinda want them to be really bright green like wooo shiny )

but their HAIR AAAAA ( ok its curlier tho like very curly )

also yes its really pretty!!!! stan did say wowza up close skhdlkha it has soft cloud texture and feels like cotton candy...wowza indeed

as for the costume moment...to me it really reads as more of a cloak? like i'm thinking raven of team titan vibes except...weather?

like this cool cloak thing, maybe a little half leotard/jumpsuit moment for For Their Bits...do aliens have bits? yes...maybe? im crying omghs ( listen i made stan look like a birthday party stripper or like hes on the cover of a sexy men at work playboy calendar [ was it you that thought it was funy when i said shed looked like a magic mike construction worker? ]...ky can be a little scandy as a treat xx )

but!!!! in my brain, the cloak is an heirloom that was passed down thru shelia's side ( in my weird lore, i'm thinking shelia is an alien who married a nonmutated human and had kyle who is like half alien? ike is not an alien...just a human canadian boy...and nuisance. )

...and its like a sheet...of the atmosphere? or something that was like...made/woven out of the sky?? and it helps them with flight and also turns the color of whatever the sky is at the moment ( for camouflage purposes ) and is essentially weather proof, rain, sun, snow,

thunder...lightning...:/

so i think kyles one regret is that they missed stan getting struck by lightning but risked alien form flying him to the hospital, concealing him in the kyle cloak and set him on the steps of hells pass...they could have prevented it and it haunts them everyday bc stan almost didnt survive...kyle does not know it gave him powers however smh

but yes!!! half kite/atmosphere alien icon kyle!!! i hope they thrill you!!!

i think the entire broflovski family is concealing the fact that they are aliens/harboring secret aliens because its dangerous and people are REALLY racist towards aliens ( who i think fled their planets due to persecution...i dont know if this is getting too political given the current climate lmk ) and they get killed by extremist groups who...sigh...tell them to go back to their planets...their galaxies >:(

reg kyle “human cameo form” just for reference btw (if we remember) ft. kyle trying to draw what he thinks shed looks like ;-;

for ref they are like an art history/psychology major at cu

stan and kyle are roomates ouo but no they do not kiss :/....yet ;)

kyle is mad abt hiding it but for the sake of their family, keep it lowkey...that does not stop them from protesting for mutant/alien rights, going to dangerous rallies with stan ( who is shed aka mutated technically...but bc his mutation is considered "helpful" "not ugly" or scary by society...tool shed is a superhero...where as someone like kyle who is an alien and widely hated and demonized. )

i also think that kyle...might not sleep at night bc alien ? i think that they might just watch stan sleep in their dorm ( ok twilight ) or take night flights ( WHICH IS DANGEROUS SHEILA SAID NOT TO DO THAT ) and i also dont think they eat human food? or at least it doesnt nourish kyle/other aliens...and tastes really fucking bad.

i think there is some sort of underground part of the city, some sort of like dark web, undercity, black market part of denver/most major cities, where heavily mutated people, aliens, cyborgs, other species can interminge, you can buy alien life sources/energy fluid idk, chef is down there and i think has 72372329 arms and makes the alien food into fine dining...which is probably still scary but stan will eat anythin

also yes i do think kite takes stan down there once and they sit in the human-alien friendly restaurant and stan is like WowZA !! its scary but accepting down there...they also make u state ur species...and stan says human bc...his cover...but the machine picks up that he has a mutation but stans like ahaha must be broken im so normal! woops!

--sidebar abt stan...also heres pinterest toolstan again for ref :***

greasy king oh my god...hes cute tho in a snapback frat-fuckboy way

people do not know that stan is mutated, when they checked him at the hospital i think the machine...Exploded...when he was being treated for the strike...but uh RANDY IS SUPER RACIST AGAINST ALIENS AND MUTATED PEOPLE HE THINKS THEYRE ABOMINATIONS so its a secret...sharon...might know? and is protecting him from randy and people that might want him dead.

but I THINK that because stan can manip tools it works for things like...gears...engines...metal...parts of technology? so he makes the scanners and mutation check station machines go haywire or malfunction...tbh he is safe for now but he do be fuckin up smh

( but anyways! i do think that humans going down into the undercity alone is not completely safe...or at all because while a majority of aliens/mutated humans/other species are very kind and accept you for your authentic self...

...there are definitely some extremists on the other side of the coin who think ALL humans are evil and should die so...kind of dangerous to go alone...but i think stan goes down there ( either as shed or reg stan ) to pick up more alien food for kite bc he looks...faint...i think he almost dies or gets captured ripppp he is a damsel in distress )

cousin kyle!!!! oh my god so cousin kyle i guess is also a kite mutant alien then...BUT HES REALLY BAD AT BEING AN ALIEN AND HIDING IT HES BAD AT CONTROLLING HIS POWERS AND ALMOST BLOWS THEIR COVER A LOT...and whenever he comes by...kyle is basically babysitting him...bugs them abt liking stan

i do also think sometimes cousin kyle has to tag along w kyle to raccoon and friend meetings so he knows kyle is kite AND ALSO WENT WITH HUMAN KITE 2 AS A NAME? KYLE WAS MAD ASF

off topic i think alien kyle is like seven feet tall *wowza* i also think they have a tail not in a furry way let me live!!! in a badass alien way!

also...riley if ur reading this...alien form kyle is tall...but human form kyle...is short...also im making toolshed stan tall...ur welcome bestie

they also practice both judaism and kite theology ( but venturing to that church or getting caught w/ their alien torah essential is dangerous and could get you suspected as an alien and killed :( )

like u can live in society as an alien or someone with an advanced mutation but its...4x as hard to get a job, do anything, you get hatecrimed everyday...could get killed...its not worth it :////

last thing just for clarity:

i'm still working on this bear with me...its complicated ik

to me the way society divides mutations ( also i think there is a 20% percent chance people are born mutated bc of how chemically contaminated the possibly worldwide water supply is ill go into that later if people want it ) that u are accepted in society as a mutant if you have a small mutation, like a party trick, something that doesn't effect how you look but! also if you look human and have a power that you use to Save people, you're hailed as a superhero aka toolshed/fp

but racoon and friends is for like the shady odds and ends, the social pariah/outcasts who society doesnt like/dont fit in, like racoon!cartman is literally a raccoon person, mosquito i think does have a crazy pointy nose situation/maybe is some sort of bug alien...captain diabetes is medically compromised/weak...kyle is an alien...tolkien used to be racoon and friends bc he was a cyborg but realized evil was not the way...him and timmy switched over...

tldr: public perceptions in my weird tfbw universe ( wip )

humans: "good" ( ew )

humans with mutations that dont effect how you look: also good

human-mutants with strong powers that appear human/conventionally attractive: extremely good, worshipped

humans with mutations that make you look inhuman ( extra limbs, unnatural skin color, scales cysts/growths, wings, fangs, tails, ‘monstorous’/scary deformities): bad, frowned upon

aliens, cyborgs, other species in gen: V BAD, might incite violence

r&f are villians but because they are against a society that hates them and therefore lashing out in a way that started out as vigilante justice, but is now becoming Evil ( cartman i think just likes chaos )

and freedom pals is just trying to keep everyone safe and i think there are varying tolerances for the members of r&f by fp ( not bc of their mutations but bc of the atrocities committed by r&f like suspending school buses over buildings, holding civilians hostage etc. ) so when mysterion presented the idea of a merger a lot of them said hell no!! im not working with those motherfuckers!!! stan included...but after spending time w/ kite is reconsidering his stance on the merger

i also...think the undercity is a wellkept secret/people think its an evil place and dont go down there...its hard to get down there unless u know someone to protect civilians living down there..so most people think its a myth, a bad place etc. fp included but now that stan has been hes like...ITS BLOWING HIS MIND OKAY HES LEARNIN SM

sooooo basically kyle joined the villain cause bc people treat them like a villian anyways also took the name Human Kite when theyre obviously an alien just to b an asshole…luv them omg fight the power

ANYWAYS! I HOPE THAT MADE SENSE THE BOTTOM PART I AM STILL WORKING ON SHLHDSD ALSO IDK I TOOK A LOT OF LIBERTIES LMK HAHA SHSJS

-uncle nina, sweatin over my weird au again

#OK I GOT WAY TOO INTO THIS IM SORRY IF ITS WEIRD AND NOT VERY CANON COMPLIANT #i did make kyle a 7ft tall atmospheric alien creature w blue skin and white freckles and white hair #they are very gorgina to me!!!#i hope the lore is cool or kinda makes sense let me know haha or dont let me have my delusional superhero au #i wanted it to be fun and superheroy but also dark and gritty and like reflective of society in a modern dystopian way?#idk i hope it was cool and not too much #BUT UH ALIEN KITE KYLE AND HUMAN STAN ARE SO CUTE #bc hes like u are secretly my arch nemesis i hate u #and sees them by the window a lot and is like oh god kite knows my identity #but realizes they dont and just happen to save stan a lot #and now hes kinda like wow my 7ft tall alien boyfriend that sometimes does not know human traditions kiss me sahdlshd #also in hs stan was playin his homecoming game there were recruiters and he almost missed his touchdown #but kyle cheated and manipulated the air 2 make the ball go in #gay ass behavior #also kyle just has to pretend to eat people food its so funny theyre like mmmm this is so....good...y...um #idk what the alien food is yet ill get back to u its def...slimey and very suss...stan would eat it tho..garbage disposal king...#the undercity people like stan some of them were intially sussed but hes cute and harmless if it comes out hes shed itll b bad tho #the fp are enemies of the undercity for surely! anyways stankite kyshed forbidden love square babey!

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