#i actually got a decent amount accomplished… i’m being very hard on myself

[starbuck]

you know, i was trying to figure out why my brain is going so haywire all of a sudden and i realized it’s prooooooobably because it’s about a year since All That went down which like. Yes, perhaps that WAS a tiny bit traumatizing, come to think of it!!

[1kook]

disney+ & bust

this is part of my netflix & chill collection !

summary; There’s a pounding on your door a little past noon, so hard and rough, that you almost think it’s the police finally coming to catch you for all your years of illegally pirating Phineas and Ferb. It’s not. It’s just a really drunk boyfriend wailing for your forgiveness at the door.  warnings; arguments, feelings of insecurity, bit of asshole jk, smut in the forms of degradation, dumbification, choking, fingering, spit kink, self punishment, unprotected but [ passionate ] sex, jk losing his cool, return of mean jk, he is actually an emotional mess in this one wtf miscellaneous; ANGST, anniversaries, the L word😳, app developer kook, rip ‘pretty girl’ </3, we all become phineas and ferb stans word count; 13k !!

notes; me: *writes couple who’s whole arc is being silly* y’all: MAKE THEM SUFFER GIVE US ANGST!! u ask I deliver so now we all suffer 😐 ngl it was hard writing this fic n u might notice there’s some parts that seem weird n that’s bc this was TWO fics w diff wording but I ended up mixing them bc I’m insane. still had a lot of fun! felt like I challenged myself!! not proofread bc when I say we suffer we SUFFER

please let me know what you think!!! a simple ask goes a long way <3

previous part: kissanime & foreplay

Approximately one week after The Bullet Bestie’s rise to prominence, Jungkook grows annoyed with it as his weirdly competitive nature rears its ugly head the more and more orgasms that little vibrator coaxes out of you. It turns on a weird switch in him, something slightly stuck up and snooty that he’ll never admit to out loud but is there nonetheless. By the following Friday, The Bullet Bestie is nestled deep in your garbage can and Jungkook’s back to pleasuring you with his tongue and fingers alone.

He had those moments in him, the ones where he liked to think he was better than any and everyone else, and occasionally they manifested against inanimate objects like a bullet vibrator.

Despite his polite and generally soft exterior, you catch glimpses of that cocky spirit more than anyone else. Over the past year, you’ve come to realize that Jungkook’s personality was like a coin that had been left out in the sun too long. He had this sweet and reserved nature you saw most times, a kindhearted boyfriend who adored you almost as much as you adored him. He was your angel whom you knew had a heart of gold, even if you were slowly bringing out his more childish tendencies. You knew him like the back of your hand, knew what his mom’s favorite color was and how he liked to stack the plates in his cabinet according to size and make. It was a side that was rusted from years of being out in the sun, basking in its adoring warmth, and you loved every inch about it.

And still, there was this other side to him you rarely saw. This cocky asshole who hid beneath the soft smiles and careful hands, making his appearance only through sly smirks and a tongue prodding against the inside of his cheek. He was a braggart, a man who knew his greatness yielded for no one and wanted that fact shoved down everyone’s faces. This Jungkook, this other side that never saw the light of day, was like the Hyde to his Jekyll. An unexpected, almost mean side to him that only dared make his appearance when his exhilaration was at an all-time high. Like when he was fucking you into another dimension, or kicking your ass in Mario Kart, or like now, when he was receiving an award at an annual tech ceremony.

On the eve of your one year anniversary, Jungkook’s company invites him to an awards ceremony for other web and app developers like him. It’s a grand event, filled with all the biggest nerds in the developing industry here to present the baby nerds with awards. Jungkook lies somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, both a seasoned player and a rookie all at once. He spends the night tolling you around in a floor-length gown and fangirling over all the “legends” in the room.

You know next to none of these people and none of their accomplishments but still pretend you respect them to hell and back. By the end of the main dinner, you’re sympathizing with Barbie’s ever-smiling features because your cheeks feel sore.

Towards the end of the night, Jungkook wins that random award— okay, who were you fooling? He wins the Platinum Mobile Standard of Excellence Award, recognizing him for all the hard work you’ve seen him put in this past year. It’s probably the highest recognition he can receive at this point in his career. It was an esteemed award that was bestowed upon only the most innovative developer of the year among tech companies, something Jungkook had briefly mentioned he always wanted. It’s basically the equivalent of placing first place in his field, but given Jungkook’s competitive industry and his young age, you think it’s like telling all these old Facebook lords to suck his big fat cock. (But that was your job when you got home.)

He gives a short little thank you speech, promising to work hard and own up to this title. The people around you are swooning, obviously endeared with his soft puppy dog features and melodic voice. They don’t know him like you do, don’t know that uppity twist to his grin like you do. It doesn’t slip off his face even when he steps down off the stage, arms wide open as he comes barreling towards you. Even with you in his arms, the congratulations that are thrown from every direction ring loudly in his ears and swell that ego of his.

The night goes like that for the most part, Jungkook’s acquaintances approaching him every few minutes to rain down their praises. He goes a little crazy at the open bar after a while, shoving the gold trophy into your arms as his beloved work seniors whisk him off for drinks. You don’t mind because you resigned yourself to a night of playing Jungkook’s perfectly perfect partner anyway, watching him politely mingling with his coworkers. Despite his earlier success, you know he won’t brag about it verbally. No, he’ll wait until the two of you get home—your place or his—and remind you how amazing he is with a quick snap of his hips.

As you said, he’ll never boast aloud.

However, that doesn’t mean you won’t.

“That’s my boyfriend,” you explain to the seventh person that greets you that night, excitedly pointing to where said boyfriend was slowly losing all sense of self by the bar. You don’t know anyone here beside Jungkook, and you’re pretty sure no one in their hammered minds is going to remember who you are anyway, so a little gloating never hurt anyone. “He won the ‘I’m Better Than Everyone Else’ award tonight,” you emphasize to the tipsy woman beside you who only laughs at your exaggeration. You assume she’s like you, accompanying one of the many developers here, because as soon as you finish boasting about Jungkook she moves to brag about someone too.

Truth be told, you spend the whole night re-analyzing the Zootopia movie you saw on Disney+ the other night in your head. So if the little fox fellow didn’t control himself would the city have fallen to ruins? Why was the useless sheep girl so evil and bitter? Why was there an unreal amount of romantic tension between the fox and the rabbit? Whatever, you’ll have to rewatch it some other night, and with your new Disney+ account, you could watch it anywhere you wanted to.

Now, you had never bothered to purchase a Disney+ subscription or even tried to swindle Jungkook for his password before. As far as you know, Disney+ was filled with old tv shows from your childhood, sitcoms that made you laugh when you were ten. There’s nothing wrong with that, but personally, you were a firm believer that that which was perfect should not be touched once finished; in other words, you were utterly terrified you’d rewatch an old episode of The Wizards of Waverly Place, only to find out the same joke you’ve been regurgitating for the past ten years doesn’t actually go that way.

However, the harsh reality was that Disney+ was good for a few things. Ugh, you hate when giant corporations provide decent services. Aside from Zootopia, you’ve watched about every animated media on there as well, all of which you replay in your mind as Jungkook has the time of his life with these nerds, knocking back champagne glass after champagne glass.

Anyway, the night ends a little past midnight, and Jungkook who is buzzed on alcohol and high on exhilaration ends up calling an Uber for the two of you. Your apartment— the new one he had not only helped you hunt for but also helped you move into, greatly cutting the cost of movers out with those glistening biceps and thick thighs —is still going through her rebellious phase where the potted plants are trying to take over, courtesy of Kim Namjoon. So for now, there’s a potted plant in an awkward corner that both of you stub your toe against on your way to your bedroom.

You’re thinking Jungkook is going to go to town tonight, given the fact he’s on Cloud 9 and has had his ego stroked by a bunch of dudes for the past couple hours. Maybe you guys can try out the hot role-playing scenario you saw on GirlsWay a few weeks ago, or the handcuffs you impulsively bought from Amazon one Monday night. Or maybe, and this one really makes you flutter, he’ll let you fully take the reins for once.

All those lewd fantasies end up being for naught because just as you shimmy out of your gown (with the help of his hands, of course) and turn to climb him like a tree, he’s on the other side of the room getting your makeup remover out for you. And also talking. A lot. And way more than usual.

“Did you see him, babe?” he sighs, dare you to say, dreamily, handing you the cotton pads as he begins pulling a million pins out of your hair. Slowly and with a lot of confusion, you pull your fake lashes off and begin cleaning your face. “He was amazing.”

“Uh-huh,” you say, having absolutely no idea who ‘he’ is or why Jungkook is so in love with him and not you at this very moment. “But so were you,” you add. Perfect. Stroke his ego and then stroke his cock.

Jungkook sputters at your praise. He’s carefully placing your hairpins on your thigh, cheeks flaming red every time he leans over you. “Was I?” he murmurs, voice sweet in that cute little way it always gets when he’s downed one too many shots of whiskey, enough to be buzzed but not enough to be wasted.

You turn and the pins clatter to the floor and across the bedsheets. “Yes,” you confirm, ignoring his sad huff at the mess you’ve made. Instead, you grab him by the collar of that pink button-up he taunted you with all night. “You were fucking incredible and I think incredible men deserve to have their dick sucked.”

Jungkook laughs at your vulgar statement, holding you gently by the hips as you climb into his lap. “Is that so?” The soft, shy persona is gone now, replaced by the gentle stirring beneath his dress pants. You nod hurriedly, plopping down on his lap and running your hands through his styled hair.

“Yes,” you confirm, kissing the corner of his mouth. “Luckily for you, I know this nymphomaniac who would gladly gobble up your cock at your every command.”

He snorts just as you push him into his back, nose adorably scrunched up. “First of all, you know I hate that word,” he chuckles, finally gracing you with a sweet peck that only makes you want him to fuck you into the fifth dimension. “Secondly, please don’t ever say you’ll gobble my cock up ever again.”

Something inside of you squeals with excitement as he rolls the two of you over, firm body pressing down on yours. “Oh, baby,” you groan, lazily throwing a leg over his hip. Jungkook grins and then decides to entertain you for a few minutes with a sloppy kiss.

You say a few minutes because just as things are heating up, he pulls away. He smiles apologetically. “As much as I’d love to be here with you, I actually have an early morning tomorrow.”

You frown at the sudden change in events. “Huh? They’re gonna make you work the morning after a Gatsby party?” you gasp, sitting up as he gets off of you. With every step he takes away from the bed your heart breaks a little more. “They can’t do that— that’s illegal!”

From the doorway he levels you with a comically raised brow. “No, it’s not.”

You scamper after him down the hall, watch the muscles in his back flex as he pulls his suit jacket on. “You can’t work on our anniversary— that’s illegal!” you offer instead.

He stops at your front door, feet squeezed back into his shoes. “Baby, it’s not,” he rolls his eyes, leaning down to peck your forehead. “It was either I work in the morning or work at night,” he explains, giving your messy hair a soothing caress. He’s looking at you with those eyes, the ones that make your heart lodge itself into your throat and make life a tightrope experience. There’s a devastatingly lovesick part of you that wants this moment, this kind face, to be engraved into your mind for the rest of your life. You want this to be the first and last thought you have and nothing else: just Jungkook’s adoring gaze on you for the rest of time.

The moment ends too soon when he flutters one last peck against your lips. “I’ll be done in the afternoon, okay?”

You pout. “Okay, your place?” you huff, making sure to get one last octopus squeeze around his waist. He nods. “Promise you won’t be late?”

The corners of his gaze soften. “You know I won’t,” he smiles, leaning down to bump your noses together playfully. “Can’t stay away from my pretty girl too long. Besides, I have a gift for you tomorrow.”

It’s with that sentiment and a hammering heart that you let him go. With Jungkook gone, there’s really nothing for you to do now. You took the next two days off in preparation for your anniversary sex, so you don’t have to head to sleep early like usual.

With nothing else planned, you decide on rewatching that Zootopia movie that had plagued you all night, ready to dissect every plot hole to hell and back. You don’t think Jungkook’s seen this movie yet so you add it to your long list of animated movies you’re forcing him to watch.

Part of you is actually really surprised Jungkook left. Well, kinda sorta, very, but not really. Jungkook was a good boy, that much was obvious. He took his job seriously, and if his job wanted him to come in at the asscrack of dawn, then he’d come in before the sun even rose. He was a goody-two-shoes, but even so, you were occasionally able to bring out that darker side in him.

Jungkook working, like actually working in an office setting, was pretty rare though. The dude had a chill job that let him stay home most of the time, and essentially clock in whenever he wanted. Every now and then you were able to convince him to stay, tucking him beneath your body or the covers, depending on the night, and refusing to let him go the morning after.

Once he had eaten you out until the wee hours of the day, ravenous between your thighs, and then went to work the next morning like he hadn’t broken you. Another time you had persuaded him into watching every season of the 2017 DuckTales reboot through the night. When the alarm had rung in the middle of the season finale, he had simply gotten into your shower and gone off to work.

So maybe you were a little confident in your skills, and Jungkook slipping between your fingers tonight was a huge bummer. But there was no use crying over spilled milk, you tell yourself, flinging your bra off somewhere in the corner as you snuggle back into your sheets. You’re ready to tear this Zootopia movie apart, scene by scene.

Even though your apartment is a little cold, you’re comforted by the fact Jungkook will be here to keep you warm all day tomorrow.

All men do is lie.

Despite his promise to come home early the next day, Jungkook ends up lying. The meeting he had been in all morning— the same one that had stopped you from getting bent like a pretzel the night before —drags on well past noon. Then, Kim Namjoon, AKA Jungkook’s favorite senpai in the entire world, catches wind of Jungkook’s success last night and absolutely has to take him out to lunch to celebrate.

You scoff, glaring down at your phone and the impulsive messages you’d sent out an hour ago when Jungkook had first texted you telling you he would be late.

You whirl around to stomp off in the direction of his living room, where all of yours and Jungkook’s favorite foods were growing colder by the minute. You had spent the longest time carefully laying them out, making sure the fried chicken was closer than the pizza but not closer than the breadsticks. Truthfully it’s a nightmare. There are about eight stomach aches worth of food sitting on his coffee table, the greasy stench makes you gag and will certainly stick to your hair for weeks, but none of that mattered because it was all for your beau.

Your very late beau who was making you grow more and more agitated with each minute that passed. Ugh! How inconsiderate of him to test your patience on a day like this. You didn’t want to be upset with him, but this was your first, real milestone as a couple with him. You had wanted to spend the whole day cuddled up, maybe finally tell him how much he really meant to you— definitely not waking up alone with eyeliner crusted eyes and an aching heart.

Deciding you’re being a little too dramatic, you head into the bedroom to calm down. This was fine, you tell yourself, carefully laying out the damn near harlotrous lingerie you had yet to put on. Jungkook would come over soon and everything would be A-okay.

Except for the part it’s actually F-not okay because soon it’s nearing sunset and the food has gone cold so you’ve stocked it into the fridge, and the pretty sheer bra has a wonky wire that’s two seconds away from piercing through your heart, but that doesn’t even matter because Jungkook being late for your all-day anniversary celebration has already ripped it to shreds anyway.  

You plop down on the couch in defeat, impulsively opening up the Disney+ app to cry through another episode of Phineas and Ferb. You’ve abandoned the satin robe that came with the lingerie in favor of donning a big t-shirt that smells like him and makes your heart hurt even more. The setting sun paints the living room in muted oranges, the chirping of birds outside the soundtrack to your lonely day.

You end up watching some other cartoon on Disney+, avoiding the Marvel section because you had promised Jungkook he could be there when you lost your Marvel virginity. Well, at least one of you was good at keeping promises, you think bitterly. For a second, you think about randomly watching one of the infamous MCU films out of order just to spite him. But then you think of that soft puppy gaze and how disappointed he’d be in you.

Whatever! It wouldn’t ever match up to the way you felt now.

Anyway, you circle back. When you’re five episodes into Phineas and Ferb you hear the doorknob rattle.

You sit up just as the door swings open, visible from your spot on the couch. He meets your gaze almost immediately, big doe eyes caught in the act. What act? You’re not really sure. In fact, you don’t even know what you’re looking at when he walks in because he’s drowning in shopping bags. His lips twist into a grin. “Honey, I’m home,” he says playfully.

You don’t laugh.

Jungkook frowns, dumping all his bags down at the entrance before waddling over towards you. “Hey, what’s wrong?” he asks, coming to stand before you and cupping your face in his hands. He’s towering over you, so tall and gorgeous but for the first time, you’re not dazed by his beauty.

“Kook, you said you’d be back hours ago,” you say slowly, avoiding his gaze. You try to keep the frustration out of your voice, but you’ve had hours to dwell on it now, and those annoying cartoon characters, though charming at first, had only served to multiply your annoyance.  

Jungkook blinks, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. “I mean… yeah. But I got you presents?” he beams, glancing back at the mountainous pile he made by the door. You look over too. There are some luxury bags squeezed in between other shops you like, the occasional jewelers' logo on the side.

You stand with a sigh, sauntering off into the kitchen with him on your tail. “I don’t want presents,” you mumble, reaching to pour yourself a glass of water. You’re briefly aware of how childish you must seem. Jungkook hovers behind you.

“What? Yes, you do,” he says. “You had an entire wishlist on my Amazon of things you wanted.” It’s his turn to level you with an unreadable expression, slowly crossing his arms over his chest.

Your frown only deepens as you turn to match his stance against the counter. While it may be true that you did indeed have an entire list of impulsive items on his Amazon, that didn’t necessarily mean you wanted them all. Sometimes you just wanted to stare longingly at a pair of satin gloves without actually buying them. You don’t know how to explain this much to him. “They’re not…” you stop with another deep breath. “Forget it. Thank you for the presents.”

Now it’s Jungkook’s turn to question you. “What,” he says in an unimpressed tone, padding over to you before you can escape back into the living room to watch the entire princess movie collection on Disney+. “No, tell me what’s wrong.”

For some reason, that’s exactly what you don’t want to hear. “Jungkook,” you say flatly, narrowing your eyes at him. “You come home six hours after you said you would without telling me why, and normally I wouldn’t care, but today was supposed to be a special day for us.”

Jungkook reels at your bluntness. “Babe, I was out getting stuff for you. I know it’s our anniversary— that’s why I wanted to treat you,” he responds, oddly condescendingly like you’re a child who doesn’t understand what exactly he was doing.

You brush his hands away from your shoulders. “Yeah,” you huff. “Now I know that. But I spent all day waiting for you,” you stress, chest puffing as you grow more and more agitated by his inability to understand you. God, can he let you go now? At least a bunch of animated, geometrically drawn cartoons won’t question you like this and make you feel as childish as he was.

When he doesn’t say anything else you stomp back into the living room, snatching up your phone from its forgotten spot against the couch. “I’m going to bed.”

At that Jungkook seems to kickstart back to life. “What? ___, it’s barely six,” he says as he follows after you into your bedroom. You ignore him, shuffling beneath the covers. In all actuality, you’re going to bed to mope and watch more animated family shows, maybe cry under the guise of the plot just being so sad. Jungkook sits beside you just as you click back on to finish off your episode. “Baby, I don’t get it,” he sighs. “You’re always talking about how much you want this or that, and I go out and get you it all but now you’re mad?”

You bite down on your lip, eyes lasered in on the pictures moving before you. “Jungkook, just forget it.”

“No,” he says, more sternly than he’s ever been with you before. “If there’s a problem, tell me.” There’s a heavy pause, and then he says, “don’t make me waste my time guessing what’s wrong, okay?” 

“Waste your time?” you scoff, sitting up with pinched brows that you find match his. “I’m not trying to waste anyone’s time— in fact, that’s hot coming from you, Jungkook.”

He rolls his eyes. “What are you even saying? You’re mad because I took a little long getting presents, for you, might I add,” he huffs, plopping down on the edge of the mattress beside your knee. “You’re always saying you want this and that, but you can’t handle me going out to get those things? Do you hear how weird you sound?”

You whip the covers off of you. “Me talking about things doesn’t always mean I want them,” you defend.

Jungkook snorts. “Yes, it does,” he says. “Anytime you ramble about stuff for minutes like a little kid it’s because you want me to buy it for you.”

You blink. “Like a little kid?” you repeat, stunned by his comparison. Granted, you always knew you were the more childish of the two, but you never thought that would equate Jungkook thinking of you as a child. Something red and nasty flares in your chest. “Well sorry,” you spit, crossing your arms over your chest defensively, “sorry we all can’t be perfectly mature golden boys who would never see the light of day if I constantly wasn’t dragging them out.” You know it’s a somewhat low blow, especially because Jungkook’s told you before how his introverted tendencies were a sensitive issue growing up, but you can’t help it.

Jungkook groans, dropping his head into his hands. “Baby, don’t do this now,” he warns, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Stop acting like this.”

“Like how?” you spit, “like a kid?” Jungkook says nothing, leveling you with a blank stare from the corner of his eye. You roll your eyes, phone falling off your lap. Another episode of Phineas and Ferb had started, the corny opening tune filling the space between the two of you. “At least now I know what you think of me,” you mutter over the guitar riff.

“Oh my god,” Jungkook blurts, sitting up wildly. “Of course I’m gonna think of you as a stupid little kid, look at you,” he seethes, gesturing at the phone beside you. You flinch. “All you do is watch kids shows and whine whenever I wanna watch anything normal adults watch. You complain every single day about the most normal things, like your job? Why should I fucking care that you’re working a dead-end office job in a field you didn’t even study for— that’s not my problem, __!” he snaps, eyes narrowed into little slits. “I just won an award last night,” he says suddenly, voice back to its regular volume. “I’m at the height of my career and I’m only going up, but I can’t even enjoy that because I have to come home and cater to you,” he finishes, a loud scoff punctuating the final word.

You had never imagined Jungkook finally bragging about himself would be at your expense.

A beat of silence passes, the angry glint in his eyes quickly fading away the longer you don’t say anything. You sniff once, turning your head idly to the side where Phineas and Ferb is still blaring loudly from your phone speaker. Picking up the device, you throw it across the room where it hits his closet door with a terrifying bang the breaks the silence.

The sound snaps Jungkook out of whatever shock he��d been in. “Baby…” he says slowly, carefully, like you’re a caged animal that’s just escaped the zoo.

“I’m going home,” you say, also a little too calmly. You saunter over towards his closet where your shattered phone screen glares up at you as you yank a pair of sweats off a hanger. Jungkook is still frozen on the edge of the bed, watching you with wide eyes as you move about the room.

It’s when you’re in the hallway leading downstairs that Jungkook finally snaps out of his daze, scampering behind you as you descend the stairs. “Baby,” he rushes out, loudly bounding down after you, “___, wait,” he gasps, catching you by the kitchen counter collecting your keys. “I-I didn't mean that,” he rushes out, eyes wide and frantic as they flicker over your expression. “I don’t think that—I don’t, baby, please, just… let me explain, please.”

“Jungkook, let go of me,” you respond, shaking your wrist in an attempt to release yourself. He’s not even holding you tightly— he never would—but the sound of your heart pounding in your ears makes your movements jerky and erratic. “I wanna go home.”

“No,” he chokes, cornering you against the counter. “No, baby, please just listen to me, I-I—“

“You what, Jungkook?” you snap, placing a hand on his chest and forcefully pushing him away. He lets you, stepping back with a wobbly bottom lip. “You need to tell me how you’re too good for me? How much I hold you down because I wasn’t lucky enough to get a job like yours straight out of college?” He says nothing, swallowing roughly as you jab a finger into his chest. “Well let me tell you something,” you snarl, chest heaving, “I may be childish and a huge complainer, but I’m not stupid enough to let someone walk all over me like this.”

With that, you make your great escape. Truthfully, you don’t want him to see the tears in your eyes as you yank his door open, stomping down his steps and in the direction of the nearest bus stop. The door opens right after you tug it shut, painting your shadow across the sidewalk. There’s the scrambled sound of house slippers against the concrete that follows you down. “Go the fuck back inside,” you snap without missing a beat.

Sensing your obvious anger, he pauses before he can reach you. “Text me when you get home?” he calls out quietly.

“No,” you respond.

You would never admit to anyone that you spend the entire night eating a tub of mint chocolate ice cream. It’s disgusting and makes you gag, but it’s the only one you have in your apartment. And of course, it was brought over by none other than Jeon Jungkook himself a few days ago. Even when you’re trying to comfort yourself over how mean he was, on your anniversary night no less, you’re plagued by thoughts of him everywhere.

As much as you want to brush his words off, put on that cool girl exterior you’ve maintained since high school, there’s something different about this situation. You guess it’s impossible to brush off such hateful words when they come from someone you love and adore so much.

Were you too childish? You had always believed that side of you was what made your relationship with Jungkook so perfect. The two of you meshed well because of your differences, like yin and yang. So how had he been able to so easily deconstruct every inch of that balance in a matter of a few seconds? Was this perfect reality all in your head this whole time?

You want to tell yourself it was just a heat of the moment outburst from Jungkook, give him the benefit of the doubt because he’s never snapped at you like this before. Of course you’ve fought a couple of times in the past year, but neither of you had ever stooped as low as you did yesterday. Furthermore, the insecure part of your brain says he obviously felt this somewhere in his heart to bring it up at all. What he had said to you wasn’t something someone could make up on the spot.

You don’t text him when you get home, partly to spite him, but mainly because you had left your phone at his place anyway. You know he tried calling you last night because the call log is synced up to your laptop. He called on and off for about thirty minutes before he probably found your phone in his room. Whatever, he can mope in his regret for all you care

—is what you wanna say, but the longer he goes without showing himself to you the more your insecurities and hurt fester. Was this it? Was this the end of what was probably the best year of your life? It’s too painful to think about, to even consider the possibility that Jungkook might have gained a new insight last night and decided, hey, maybe this is for the best after all.

You drown yourself in an ungodly amount of sugar for breakfast, your laptop blaring yet another episode of Phineas and Ferb on the dining table. Muscle memory has you making Jungkook’s favorite pancakes before you can stop yourself, and by the time you do realize, you’ve resigned yourself to the blueberry smell anyway.

There’s a pounding on your door a little past noon, so hard and rough, that you almost think it’s the police finally coming to catch you for all your years of illegally pirating Phineas and Ferb.

It’s not.

It’s just a really drunk boyfriend wailing for your forgiveness at the door. You open the door with a fright, jumping back when he slumps forward and almost crashes face-first into the floor. “You didn’t call,” Jungkook cries, leaning a little too much of his weight onto you when you reach out to steady him.

The thundering of your heart slows upon registering it’s him. “Kook?” you frown, nose pinched at the ungodly stench of alcohol wafting off his clothes. “Have you been drinking?” you ask even though the answer is staring you right in the face (and in the nose).

He groans, staggering deeper into your arms. You blindly push the door shut behind him, resigning yourself to this new situation while your pancakes grow cold in the other room. “Baaaby,” he slurs, letting you guide him into the living space. He’s unceremoniously dumped onto the couch, half-opened eyes gazing up at you. “Let me,” a hiccup, “explain.”

You won’t lie. There’s a very obvious sense of discomfort sitting in your chest, torn between two paths that you don’t wish to choose between. His skin is warm and flushed like he’s just walked all the way here in this morning sun. You step over to the window that faces down onto the street below. There’s no sign of his car; you would have killed him if he ever tried to drive in this state.

“Did you walk here?” you ask instead, deciding there’s no need for one singular path, not when you can walk straight down the middle, both cleaning him and grilling him at the same time.

Jungkook’s response is delayed, head lolling from side to side as you help him out of his sweater. His skin is sweaty beneath, scorching to the touch. “Uh-huh,” he groans. Jesus, you sort of assumed but him confirming it really set things into perspective.

By no means did you and Jungkook live on opposite ends of the earth. On a good day, a drive from your place to his took about ten minutes. But walking? Easily an hour. Had he walked all the way from his place, drunk on top of that?

You brush his hair away from his face, his eyes fluttering shut at your touch. His lips are pouty yet chapped, dehydrated from the sun and the alcohol he reeks of. “Sit up for me,” you instruct, scampering off to your room for chapstick and water.

“Anything for you,” Jungkook wheezes, throat probably dryer than a desert. When you return, he’s two seconds from face planting into the coffee table and breaking that pretty face of his. You catch him with a hand on his shoulder, keeping him balanced. “Tell me what to do,” he chokes out, voice hoarse.

“Just need you to drink some water,” you say, pressing a cup against his lips. He drinks it, but a drop still dribbles down his chin.

“No,” he groans, catching your wrist in his hand when you reach up to apply some chapstick on him. “Tell me what to do,” he stresses, “to fix this. Fix us.”

His words make you pause, the tube of chapstick hovering over his plush lips. “You don’t have to do anything,” you respond quietly, trying to finish the application so you can pull away.

Jungkook doesn’t let you go. You try to look away, but there’s something about him that looks off. Maybe it’s the raw skin under his eyes, red and swollen. Or the sad droop to those same eyes that hold you captive. Or maybe it’s the subtle tremble in his hands, the fingers that hold tightly to your wrist, not to keep you there but to ground himself. “I don’t wanna lose you,” he rasps out, shakily bringing your hand to his mouth, where he presses one airy kiss to your knuckles. “Tell me ho-how to fix this and I’ll do it,” he pleads, a vulnerable look in his eyes.

Unable to withstand the sheer amount of agony on his expression, you look away. “___, please,” he chokes out, stumbling off the couch in his drunk and desperate haze until he’s kneeling in front of you. “I can’t… I can’t,” he sniffles, tears clouding those pretty eyes you’ve come to love so much. “I don’t know who I am without you.”

You clench your jaw. “You’re Jeon Jungkook,” you murmur, slipping your hand out of his hold to run through his hair. It’s knotted and a little too greasy, two things Jungkook would usually never allow. “This year’s Platinum Mobile Standard of Excellence Award recipient,” you remind him, trailing your thumb across his cheekbone when he turns to look up at you with those big Bambi eyes. “Sweet and shy, but you love being rowdy with your friends. You love movies and TV and organizing your shirts according to fabric type. You work harder than anyone I know and never complain. You date me, even though I’m a huge child,” you smile sadly.

“No!” he jumps, turning that frantic stare back into you. “Y-You’re not— it’s not,” he stammers, words still slurring together. “I’m a liar,” he cries, resting his forehead on your knees. His shoulders shake. “I don’t deserve you,” he weeps quietly. You place a hand on his shoulder. “Y-Y-You make my life so much better, ___, so colorful and fun. I-I wish I knew you in high school,” he admits, “maybe I wouldn’t have been so emotionally constipated now.”

“You’re not,” you reassure him softly.

He disagrees. “You bring out the best,” he hiccups, “the best in me.” Your heart skips in your chest. “I-I love you, you know that?”

You sputter, eyes wide at his sudden confession. “I… love you so much, y’know? I think about you ev-every night, ___,” he rambles, eyes dreamily gazing off into some miscellaneous spot on the wall behind you. “I can’t get you out of my head. Like you're a song, o-on repeat but it’s not annoying because it’s my favorite song, and I could listen to it for the rest of my life, y’know? My favorite song, I know all the words b-because it’s all I think about! I love... My love… I love you so much.”

“Kook,” you rush out, cheeks flaming as you try to pull him away from where he’s slumped over your legs. His passionate speech has you abuzz, body tingling everywhere until you feel overwhelmed, head spinning like you’re on a rollercoaster. “Let’s get you to bed.”

He nods sleepily, seemingly coming down from whatever alcohol induced rampage has allowed him to walk for an hour straight in this searing heat just to confess to you. “Y-You don’t have to say it back,” he continues to stutter as you guide him through the living room on wobbly legs. “I just-I just— can I?” he babbles. “Can I love you, ___?”

You pass through the kitchen space, where whatever you were watching on Disney+ is blaring loudly. It distracts Jungkook for about two seconds before his attention returns to you. When you don’t answer, he presses on. “Is that okay?” he asks, whirling around to face you, catching your shoulders in his hands. He towers over you by the entrance to your bedroom, dark curls tickling your forehead. His eyes are dark and glazed over, both in tears and an emotion so raw and unfiltered it squeezes around your chest until you can’t breathe. “Is it okay for me to love you?” he murmurs softly, knocking his nose against yours.

Your cheeks blaze. “Yes, th-that’s fine, Kook,” you blubber, placing a hand over his chest, where his heart is also hammering away. “Just need you to go rest now, okay?”

He nods sleepily, nudging your nose with his one last time, like a soft almost-kiss, before letting you push him into the room. “Yes, yes,” he breathes, his body finally crashing from his adrenaline spike. He flops down onto the bed unceremoniously, dark waves fanning across your pillows. You try to wiggle him out of his shirt, but it only gets about halfway up his chest before he blindly reaches for the covers. His legs stick out awkwardly, clad in the sweatpants you’ve come to associate with him.

When he’s all swaddled up in your blanket he finally goes limp, tiny snores leaving his lips as he dozes away from reality. You sigh, pressing a palm to his forehead. He’s still warm and clammy, but at this point, there’s nothing you can do but wait for him to sober up.

With a final kiss to his forehead, you leave the room, closing the door behind you before sliding against the wooden surface. There’s a trapped bird in your chest, wildly flapping its wings in an effort to get out, and it’s all stupid Jungkook’s fault in the next room. Stupid Jungkook who demolished and remodeled your heart all in less than twenty-four hours. It doesn’t calm down, even when you rush off into the kitchen for a glass of water, or when you try to immerse yourself in some other show on Disney+. It stays beating against your ribs and your chest until you’re forcing yourself to sit down on the couch and process.

He wakes up a little before dinner. You hear him from the living room, where you’re flicking through the options on Disney+ for the nth time that day. You’ve seen the first fifteen minutes of about twenty different series and movies by now, always growing antsy and abandoning them early on. The only reason you know he’s awake is because the shower turns on for a few minutes, and then his bare feet are heard padding across the hallway back into your room.

By the time he resurfaces in the living room, you’ve resigned yourself to just more Phineas and Ferb, nonchalantly watching the silly cartoon. (Except you’re anything but nonchalant, and your heartbeat rings in your ears.)

Jungkook hovers by the door, clad in a pair of shorts he’s left here before, and a t-shirt you stole from him. “Hey,” he says quietly, lingering by the doorframe. You nod back in response. “Can I watch with you?” Again, another nod.  

Slinking over to the couch, he’s rather careful as he sits down, leaving a few inches of space between the two of you. You don’t even think he can see the screen of your laptop until he murmurs, “he’s my favorite character,” when Perry the Platypus appears on the screen.

You hum. “Thought you didn’t like these kids shows?” you ask. You don’t mean it to sound as petty and backhanded as it comes out, but that’s really no one's fault but his own.

Jungkook’s breathing tightens beside you. “No,” he admits, “I don’t. Only watch them because I know you like them.” You contemplate pausing the episode and engaging in a real conversation with him, but at this point, you’re very tired from the events of the last day. Jungkook doesn’t press either, just shuffles more comfortably beside you.

You get about five minutes in, quiet chuckles shared between the two of you, before he strikes. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says, so hushed you almost don’t hear it. His hand is resting in the space between you, pinky brushing against yours. “About… being late. And the presents.”

You inspire slowly. “That wasn't even the problem, silly,” you brush off. From your peripheral, you see Jungkook’s slow nod. “I didn’t want any presents,” you mention, “I just wanted you.” You look away from the screen immediately after, pretending like the spot on the ceiling is actually really interesting.

The two of you fall into silence, the animated characters on your screen rapidly chattering away. “Oh,” Jungkook says after a moment.

You roll your eyes. They’re moist but you don’t want him to see. “Yeah, oh,” you parrot back softly, relaxing into the couch again. “Did you eat the food I left out?”

Jungkook shuffles beside you, the soft lull of the speakers soon being cut as he reaches over to pause Phineas and Ferb. A couple of seconds pass and then he’s leaning into you, head resting on your shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes again, placing a palm over the hand he had been teasing for the past few minutes. “I thought I knew what I was doing but I was wrong.”

His voice is so soft and sincere, it makes your chest ache. You try to burrow your face against your opposite shoulder, try to hide the stray tear that escapes out of the corner of your eye. “It’s fine,” you brush off, voice choked off and hoarse.

Jungkook leans up, pecks your cheek so tenderly it makes you go mushy. “No, it’s not fine. I acted like a know-it-all and said something way out of line,” he murmurs, raising his head to look at you. His hand feels warm over yours. It’s the touch you craved all day and yesterday, the warm feel of his body against yours. You’re embarrassed at how easily you melt into it. “You’re the best thing that has happened to me in a long time,” he tells you, holding your hand close to his chest. “I had no right to say those things to you.”

You sniffle, resting your head against his shoulder now. His heart beats loud enough for you to hear. “Was it true?” you mumble. “Do you really think of me like that?”

He shakes his head, his soft breaths fanning across your forehead. “No, never,” he answers. “I think you’re incredible. My brain was just trying to justify my dumb anger.”

You nod, even if you don’t believe it just yet. But that was a conversation for later, you suppose, sometime in the future when you aren’t on the verge of tears and threatening to crumble apart at the simplest word that leaves his mouth.

“I should have come home like you wanted, thought about my words before saying them,” he says, snuggling closer to you. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop,” you sniffle, covering your face with your free hand as he presses a kiss to the vein that runs over the back of the hand he’s holding captive. “Now it just sounds like I'm just being inconsiderate of your gifts and a crybaby.”

Jungkook kisses your temple softly, gently. “Don’t think about the gifts,” he says. “Just tell me what you wanted to do, doll.”

His voice calms you, has you like putty in his arms. “Watch movies,” you mumble, toying with a thread on your couch cushion. “Be with you.”

He hums. “Then we’ll do that,” he says, reaching for your laptop again. The screen nearly blinds you when it flickers back to life before you, Jungkook’s low breaths against your ear making it near impossible for you to process the titles on the screen. “You liked Disney+?”

Belatedly, you nod. “I like the animated movies,” you admit quietly, the anxieties of before slowly melting away, even more so when he slides his arm around you, pulling you close against his chest.

Unlike other times where he’ll critique the hell out of such childish films, Jungkook says nothing as he starts up the Zootopia movie instead, the same one you had wanted to show him before, right from the beginning. “That bunny looks like you,” you murmur when Judy Hopps first appears on the screen.

Jungkook snorts. “You say that about every cartoon bunny.”

You turn your head to glance at him over your shoulder. He meets your gaze with a small smile you return. “It’s because you’re so cute,” you say softly, lips twisting playfully when his cheeks grow scarlet.

He knocks his forehead against yours, eyes fluttering shut. “Not cute, just lucky,” he chuckles. “Lucky enough to have you.” Your heart turns over in your chest, threatening to burst out of your rib cage at his words. You try to turn in his arms. Before you can say the words that have been sitting on the tip of your tongue for months now, he’s beating you to it once again. “I love you,” he confesses in a hushed whisper, no alcoholic influence. 

Something inside of you blossoms, eyes wide as he chastely kisses you. He pulls away without you ever reacting, too caught up in surprise to kiss him back properly. He stays close, curls tickling your forehead as he leans over you. “You don’t have to say it back, I just wanted you to know. I love you,” he says again, long lashes blinking down at you. “So much. It makes me feel like a stupid teenager again, going to the mall to buy a gift for my crush.” He laughs sheepishly, reaching down to tangle your fingers together. “Is that okay?” he asks quietly, pressing a kiss to your knuckles.

It mirrors the confession he’d given you that morning, those slurred words and teary eyes. It had been difficult to pinpoint the legitimacy of it before, the meaning scrambled by his hazy mind. But with him staring at you like this now, like you single-handedly plucked the stars from the sky to put them in those sparkly eyes of his, it makes something inside you ache.

Still, you choke on your own spit. “I-Is it okay for you to love me?” you sputter incredulously, realizing the oddity of the same question he’d thrown at you earlier. But now, you’re both sober and you can really tear apart that sentence. Jungkook nods a little too seriously for your liking. “Are you crazy?” He blinks in confusion, brows pulling together as you slowly but surely lose the last bits of your sanity. “You’re an idiot, Jeon Jungkook,” you huff, “a stupidly handsome, rich, walking dream, idiot who goes out with stupid girls like me.”

“Not stupid,” he murmurs, closing in on you again as he finally understands the truth behind your masked insults. He smells minty and like his favorite body wash of yours.

“No,” you deny. “You’re actually, like, insane. You have a bachelor pad, make enough money to sustain an entire litter of kittens, look and talk like every teenage girl’s dream boyfriend— but you mess it all up by dating evil, conniving hoes like me who lose their shit over Disney cartoons.” He says nothing, watching you with an amused grin as you talk over yourself, basically regurgitating his statement from yesterday except it kinda seems plausible now that you’re over it. “It’s stupid. No, you’re stupid. No— I’m stupid.”

Jungkook chuckles, kissing the corner of your mouth gently. “Done?” he says, a dimple appearing on his cheek. You could kiss it away, but you need him to know the amount of stupidity in this room was astronomically high. “You’re not stupid, baby,” he says. You level him with a look. “Well. You have your moments.”

“Moments?” you repeat, standing up in a hurry that has him flopping down beside you. Your laptop is lost somewhere on the cushions, the voices faded as they grow farther away. “I am so stupid. I called Namjoon a whore for taking you out for lunch!” you cry. “I am the stupidest person in the world.”

Jungkook cackles, standing up beside you. “Yes, yes, you’re my stupid girl,” he teases, tapping the pout on your lips playfully. “So stupid she slanders herself instead of just telling me she loves me too.” He bumps your noses together, dark eyes staring at you almost daringly after his claim.

You fold soon enough. “I love you,” you mumble, “even if I’m too stupid to say it.”

He rewards your confession with a kiss, pulling you into his arms soon after. He sighs, almost wistfully. “Whatever shall I do with my very stupid girl?”

After exactly three minutes of feeling safe and loved in his arms, he abandons the living room in favor of leading you back to your room, where he pushes you down against your mattress. You cling to him, leaving him positioned over you at an angle. His chest presses against yours, arm curled around the back of your head. “Gotta get up, baby,” he laughs.

You shake your head, caging him in your arms. “Nuh-uh,” you murmur, legs wiggling when he places a hand on your hip.

Jungkook chuckles, pressing a kiss against the side of your ear. “Your movie is still playing in the other room,” he reminds you, thumb drawing soothing circles on your hip. You don’t release him, his mindless touch only encouraging you to keep him close. “Babe?”

You say nothing, relishing in the comfort of Jungkook’s presence. His hair smells good and feels even softer against the side of your face. The cotton shirt he found is crumpled beneath your fists, dark blue pattern wrinkling. Finally coming to terms with his new home, Jungkook eventually relaxes into your hold with a sigh.

“Alright,” he hums, patting your hip as he repositions himself more comfortably. “I get it. My pretty girl must’ve missed me, huh?” You nod, soaking in every detail about him in this moment. Jungkook shifts, the hand on your hip suddenly falling over your thigh instead. “Or should I say my stupid girl?” he purrs, hand slipping between your thighs. “My stupid, little girl?”

A gasp catches in your throat when he runs his fingers over the front of your panties. Your legs kick out wildly at the sudden touch, toes curling at the hands you dreamt about all day and night. “Oh,” you pant, each brush of his fingers feeling better than the last.

“What?” he says, mouthing against the side of your neck. His tongue feels warm, but the trails of saliva he leaves have you shivering. “Too dumb to speak?” he scoffs, biting down against a particular spot on your neck. You whimper, unsure if it’s because of his hands or his mouth.

“N-No,” you try to sneer back, fingernails digging into his skin through his shirt. His hands are getting braver now, the pad of his pointer finger dancing over your engorged clit. The sheer material of your panties certainly doesn’t help, each touch feeling like it’s being magnified three times over. And if it felt this good with underwear, you can’t even begin to imagine how it’d feel without.

You don’t have to ponder for long, because soon after Jungkook is slipping his hand beneath your waistband, touching your sensitive pussy head-on. “Kook.”

He uses your momentary vulnerability to ease himself from your hold, finally recoiling enough to smother your mouth with his. You moan in surprise, thighs quivering as he gets to work circling your hardened bud sans your panties. Jungkook isn’t the least bit kind as he kisses you ruthlessly, likes he’s trying to compensate for something with his movements. When he finally pulls away it’s with an obnoxious pop and cherry red lips. He huffs, glancing down to see where he’s got his fingers pleasuring you.

Your thighs are squirming back and forth, closing around his hand every few seconds. Jungkook snorts. “Huh, look at that,” he mutters, trailing down until his fingers are gliding over your quickly sopping folds. “Stupid girl is good for something.”

Your cheeks burn. “Kook, I’m not—“

Jungkook levels you with an unimpressed glare. “Not what? Not stupid? But I could’ve sworn you just spent the last few minutes saying you were,” he drones meanly, landing one light slap against your cunt that makes your hips buck.

You bite down a whimper. “I was just…” you trail off, eyes rolling back when he teases one finger against your opening.

“Kidding?” he supplies. “Well, I wasn’t.” Your heart stutters in your chest, eyes growing wide as he finally pushes himself off of you, propping himself up with an elbow beside your head. His gaze is dark and unrecognizable. “I think you’re so fucking stupid, doll,” he sneers. “And what are you gonna do about it?”

You should have seen this moment coming, the manifestation of that shiny side of the coin finally reaching its full potential.

While Jungkook wasn’t exactly shy about his interests, he certainly wasn’t tripping over himself to tell you every new kinky thing he wanted to try. You sort of guessed he had some interest in this sort of play a few weeks ago when you watched the Barbie movie at his place. A lot of that night had branded itself into your three am wet dreams, but there was one particular moment that stood out to you. That was you, on your knees, with him condescendingly patting your head. Or just last week, you vaguely remember the term slipping through his lips as he pleasured you with The Bullet Bestie.

The thing about Jungkook was that, until last night, he would have never admitted, or so much as even thought, that he was better than you. That was fine because you would say it enough for the both of you anyway. Did you think Jungkook was amazing, an absolute diamond among these measly rocks? Absolutely. (Were you slightly biased because you were his girlfriend? Skip.) However, you also had this insane evil villain complex that made you want to brag about everything you possibly could, especially if that meant bragging about your boyfriend.

Realistically speaking, he was better than you, that much you could look past yesterday’s anger to admit, and not even in a stuck-up, conceited way; he had a really good job, an architecturally amazing house, and a hot girlfriend. Meanwhile, you had a mediocre job, an okay apartment, and an insanely sexy Calvin Klein boyfriend, half of which he had pointed out yesterday. Regardless of how powerful that third factor was, he still outnumbered you three to one.

Sue you, Jungkook was amazing. Anyone could see that! Except, maybe, himself.

And if the only time Jungkook would openly brag about his greatness or establish how much better than you he was, was in a post-fight, sex-induced setting, then you were more than happy to be his punching bag. So long as it was on your terms, and not as a result of his weirdly bottled up feelings.

(Yeah, you would have a long talk about that tomorrow.)

But for now, you pout up at him, clamping your thighs shut purposefully. “You’re stupid too,” you defend, “stupid and mean.”

Something in his expression changes. Suddenly, he’s moving at superhuman speed as he snatches his hand out from where you had previously trapped him between your legs, yanking you up by the front of your shirt. “Mean?” he mocks. “Isn’t that what you always wanted?” You shiver, fingers wrapping around the wrist that holds your sweater. “Wanted me to be mean and push you around like a little rag doll?”

Jungkook looks at you for another two seconds, before he’s slowly pulling away from you, leaning back on his knees. His tongue is pressing against the inside of his cheek, jaw tightening from the movement. “Baby,” he says so quietly it instills a prickle of fear in you, tainted with delicious excitement.

“Yeah?” you whisper, sitting up tentatively as you watch him, He was a bit frightening, like a wild animal about to devour you whole.

Jungkook rolls his neck, the joints in his spine cracking as he begins tugging off his shirt. You salivate at the sight, too focused on the sinewy muscles of his body to catch the dark gaze he levels your way. He throws it off to the side, his sleeve of tattoos that wraps around his bicep and begins to crawl down his chest wonderfully unobstructed now. “Eyes up here,” he says and you quickly meet his gaze. He leans forward, muscled arms coming to cage you against the headboard. “Stupid little sluts don’t have the room to make such comments,” he rasps out, unamused expression adorning his normally soft features. “Don’t you think so?”

“I-I don’t know,” you stammer, leaning away as he comes closer and closer, eventually just turning your head to the side to avoid that emotionless look. It’s the wrong move, and Jungkook lets you know as much by forcefully digging his fingers into your cheeks and turning your face back around to meet his gaze.

A hand grabs beneath your knee, tugging harshly until you’re flopping down onto your back with a squeal. You settle with his knee pressed hotly against your core. Jungkook stays towering over you. “Dumb little girls who make me watch cartoons,” he spits, tracing a hand over your chest, molding your breasts beneath his hands roughly enough to make you gasp. “And watch little animal movies on Disney+. Aren’t they just so stupid?”

“So stupid,” you concede, subtly shifting your hips for some desperately needed friction. Jungkook snorts, finally granting you your wish with one rough slide of his thigh against your core.

“I agree,” he says, and surprises you with a hand around your throat as he leans in to properly grind his thigh into you. “All they’re good for is being dumb little sluts with good pussy,” he murmurs darkly, thumb pressing into the side of your neck forcefully. “Sometimes, they don’t even do anything,” Jungkook continues, his other hand on your hip hauling you higher up his thigh. You mewl, soaked panties rubbing roughly against your folds. You miss the soft swirl of his thumb, the gentle prod of his fingers. Even so, you can’t deny this change in Jungkook is doing something to you, riling up a part of you that you hadn’t known existed. Maybe it’s the horniness from yesterday that was left unfulfilled, the one year anniversary sex that was put on pause. “Just lay there and take it, too fucked out and dumb to say anything.”

His fingers loosen for the briefest of seconds and you gasp for breath. “That’s terrible,” you whimper, rolling your hips up into his thigh, so close to his swollen cock.

Jungkook chuckles without an ounce of humor, pressing your foreheads together as he helps grind you to completion. “Isn’t it? I think that stupid little girl is cute though.”

“I’m sorry,” you blurt, vision spotting as he tightens his hand back around your throat. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you moan, stomach tight from all the stimulation.

Jungkook hums, slowing you down with a tight grip on your waist. “Hm, what are you sorry for?” he croons, pink lips pulling into an evil smile. “You said you weren’t that stupid girl, __.”

You shake your head, trying to roll your hips up again but he’s holding you too tightly now, rendering you immobile beneath him. “I am,” you choke out shamefully, grabbing at the hand on your hip in a feeble attempt to remove it. “I am a stupid little girl.”

Jungkook smirks, leaning down to slot his mouth over yours. “That’s right,” he murmurs, “nothing but a dumb little slut.”

You shiver, opening your mouth when he slides his tongue against your bottom lip. He’s not the slightest bit nice, and more messy than usual. He pulls away with a bite to your lower lip, meeting your trembling gaze with that same unrecognizable glint in his eyes. “Come on, dummy, keep up,” he snarks before devouring you again. You try to, you really do, but he’s moving like an animal today, despite his slow and drunken movements from that morning. So you end up with his saliva dripping down your throat, clinging to the corners of your lips as he begins slowly grinding you against his thigh again. He flashes you a wicked smile, pearly teeth on display for you as he glances down at your messy appearance.

“Are you gonna touch me?” you ask, lower lip trembling at the thought after your desperate rutting. Jungkook purses his lips together in thought.

“Mmm,” he hums. “Don’t know yet.”

You whine. “Jungkook, please,” you whimper, wrapping your legs around his waist. “I need you.”

Jungkook chuckles, running his hand up your waist and taking your shirt with him. He slips his fingers beneath your bra, pushing the wire over your chest as he mouths at your neck. “Cute,” he says. “Can’t do it yourself?”

You tremble, chest arching into him as he rolls your nipple between his fingers. “I-I can,” you gasp. “Just feels better with you.”

Jungkook follows your statement with a nip against your skin, tongue soothing over it right after. “Why? Because I do everything better than you? Even make you cum better than you?”

Your cheeks heat up at his blatant ego rearing its head, hands carding through the hair at the nape of his neck. You say nothing, and that only eggs Jungkook on. “Come onnn,” he teases, finally, finally rolling his hips down onto your core. You squeak, head falling back against the pillows as you’re granted the one thing you’d been chasing. “Say it.”

“Say what?” you ask, voice wobbly as he continues to slowly rut against you, the front of his shorts pressing against the soaked crotch area of your panties. “Oh, oh, Jungkook,” you whine.

Suddenly he bites down harshly, teeth digging painfully into your skin. You yelp in surprise, pussy throbbing at the pain that shoots throughout your body. Jungkook pulls away and doesn’t bother soothing over it as he leans up to capture your jaw this time. “Say you’re a stupid little slut who can’t do anything without me,” he purrs, kisses too soft for the words he says.

Your mind blanks, torn between the humiliating phrase he wants you to say and properly checking him in his place. In the end, it’s with a twisted need to please him that you’re repeating the words back to him. “I-I’m a stupid slut,” you whimper, fingers digging into his shoulder blades as he continues pushing you right along the edge. The rope pulled tightly in your core is slowly being pulled apart, threads hanging on for dear life. “Can’t... can't do anything without...”

“Without who?” he asks, reaching down and untying the front of his shorts. “Can’t do anything without who, baby?”

“Without you, without you,” you cry, bucking your hips up against his, the combined movements of both your bodies making you shake like a leaf. “Ah, K-Kook,” you wail, hips stuttering as your orgasm finally swallows you up. Your panties quickly grow wet and icky from your own arousal that pools between your thighs. Jungkook lets you writhe beneath him as you chase your high, mouth sucking a pretty blossom against your jaw.

You know better than to expect the night to end here, especially after seeing the glint that had been in his eyes as he watched you unravel.

He leans close, let’s his nose brush against yours as you catch your breath. “So perfect for me,” he groans, slotting his lips against yours. You can barely keep up with him, languidly going along with his hot tongue. “Perfect, perfect girl,” he murmurs, a stark change from the less than friendly adjectives he used just moments before. “Tell me you love me?” he says softly.

You nod, mind fuzzy as you wrap your arms around his neck. “Love you,” you exhale, letting your fingers knot in his hair. Your proclamation does something to him, makes him grind the front of his cotton shorts hard against you. For someone that was often rough and brutal with you in bed, he sure was sensitive to the mushiest of things.

“Don’t deserve you,” he huffs, hot breath fanning across your skin. He switches gears fairly quickly. “Tell me you hate me,” he begs hoarsely, rutting against your soiled panties. “Tell me I’m a piece of shit and you could do better without me,” he pleads, voice too airy to be another one of his usual sex-induced thoughts.

You shake your head, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he rolls his hips. “It’s not true,” you whisper, “I love you more than you’ll ever understand.”

Jungkook groans, suddenly winding back and tearing your ruined panties down your legs. You gasp in surprise, letting him haul you about in his blind, self-inflicted rage. “Stupid, stupid,” he huffs, though at this point you can’t tell who it’s directed at. With your underwear out of the way, he wastes no time plunging his fingers back into your cunt, bypassing the tight ring of muscle around it without any of his usual care. “You should hate me,” he snarls, lips pressed against your ear.

You moan, back arching at the sudden pleasure that blossoms between your thighs. “I-I don’t,” you gasp, toes curling.

Jungkook groans, the sound traveling down your spine and straight into your pussy. “Stupid girl,” he huffs, slipping an arm around you to pull you so close until you can’t breathe, chests lined up together. His skin is warm to the touch, scorching almost. “Fuck,” he groans, curling his fingers inside of you. You whimper and moan, incapable of staying still beneath him as he tortures you with a thumb to your clit. “Tell me you hate me,” he seethes again.

Despite the fog that’s settled over your mind, you still manage a resolute shake of your head. “N-no,” you cry, digging your nails into his back. They run dark red lines over his skin, making him hiss at the sting.

Whatever punishment he’s trying to put himself through is falling through with your refusal to admit such a thing. It aggravates him even more, your adamant stance on loving him so, and he’s retracting his fingers before you can cum again. “Please,” he chokes, face tucked into your neck. He’s sloppy with his movements; as he pulls his shorts down and kicks them away, he nearly suffocates you with his weight. “I don’t deserve you, ___, please.”

“I love you,” you whimper for lack of explanation. Jungkook leans back, that same madman gaze in his glossy eyes. He’s looking at you in disbelief almost, pouty lips puckered and swollen. Your hands slip from around him, falling on either side of your head.

Like a cobra he strikes, collecting your wrists in one hand he pins above your head. The sudden movement has him leaning in close, lips brushing over yours. His lashes are coated in a wetness he refuses to acknowledge, looking at you like you drive him insane. “If you ever try to leave me,” he whispers, jerky breath fanning over your skin, “I’ll lose my mind.”

He loves you so much it aches.

“I won’t,” you whimper, feeling your own eyes well up with an emotion that consumes every inch of your being. “I’ll never leave you, you stupid, stupid boy.”

A faint smile crosses his features at your words, lips quirking to the side. You relish in it for all of two seconds before he’s ramming his cock into you, your sensitive walls spawning around him. You sob loudly, eyes rolling back into your head. Your legs instinctively hook themselves around his waist, digging into the base of his spine as he rolls his hips into you.

You feel full and complete like he belongs there in this moment and every moment after this. It makes your heart constrict painfully. Jungkook’s soft groans follow your more unraveled noises, the vulgar slapping of skin on skin the underlying melody to it all. “Ffffuck,” he spits, greedily swallowing your moans up. You whine, arms bucking in an effort to hold him close. But he’s determined in his act of restraining you, long fingers tightening around your wrists until they hurt. “I warned you, didn’t I?” he huffs, snapping his hips into you.

Your walls clench around his hard cock, the drag as he exits sending shivers throughout your body. Jungkook’s body towers over you, glistening in sweat as he nails you into your mattress. “Remember what I said?” he asks, voice but a shuddery exhale. You shake your head numbly, overwhelmed by the rough drag across your walls. “All those months ago, when you first came over,” he adds. The hand on your hip abandons its post to cup you beneath the jaw, palm pressing sinfully against your throat enough to block the tiniest of airflow. “I’ll fuck you and keep you forever,” he murmurs, voice deeper than the pits of hell. He licks a fat stripe over your cheek like you’re nothing but a sweet for him to devour. “Do you remember that, pretty girl?”

You nod jerkily, hips arching up into him when he thrusts into you again. It’s a memory that replays in your mind every so often, your first night with the man you had planned to humiliate over a mere misunderstanding, now your boyfriend of one year. “Want that,” you gasp, tears blurring your vision when he begins picking up the pace. “Wanna be y-your pretty girl forever.”

Jungkook groans, kissing the corner of your mouth. His thighs are some magnificent beings, keeping his pace consistent even as he loses himself in his overwhelming need to kiss you. “Always,” he manages, soft lips pressed against yours. “I won’t ever let you leave.”

A shriek tears itself from your lips as he picks up that harsh piston, releasing your jaw to hold both wrists above your head. It makes his curls dangle in front of his eyes, covering that beautiful dark gaze. It makes his thin little necklace swing back and forth too, though it’s too small to actually touch your face. The rhythmic swing has you hypnotized, just like everything else about Jungkook.

With the length of his hair, you’re left staring at his lips, pulled taut between his pearly white teeth. The word from before sits heavy in your chest, begs to drip from the tip of your tongue. But he’s moving too fast and too hard, scrambling your thoughts until all you can think about is the cock plunging into your heat. His name falls from your mouth like mindless blubber instead, arms thrashing as your second orgasm swallows you up. It sends you crashing, body spasming as the sheer euphoria waves over you slowly and then all at once.

“Perfect,” he grunts, leaning down to slot his mouth against yours, “my perfect girl.” Your cum makes the sound of his hips erotic, the loud squelching following your panting. Still sensitive from your high, your body unconsciously tightens around him, keeps his cock from fully leaving. It brings a soft whine out of Jungkook, one he tries to muffle against the side of your face.

“Inside,” you whimper, even though your body feels like jelly beneath him. “Cum inside, Kook, please,” you beg.

It only takes a few more thrusts into your leaking hole for him to finally reach paradise, hips stuttering when that first shot of pleasure hits him. “Fuck, fuck,” he growls, wildly snapping his hips into your achy cunt. You moan, feeling just about brainless at the overstimulation. His cum leaves you full, almost makes your belly bulge from it. When he’s done he doesn’t bother pulling away, simply slumping into your limp form. His cock, though quickly softening, serves as a plug for the cum threatening to spill out of you.

There’s a muted noise coming from the other room, the faint sound of the mail slipping through your letterbox, the quiet chattering of the street outside. And of course, the loud blaring of your laptop playing the Phineas and Ferb theme song. Jungkook registers it at about the same time as you, a soft chuckle leaving his lips.

He pushes off of you soon after, leaning on his palms over you. He’s got that molten look on his eyes, the heat of a thousand suns burning behind those irises as he looks at you. Like he can’t get enough, even though he’s just about taken everything there is to take. “Love you,” he murmurs quietly.

A drop of sweat rolls over his forehead, clinging to the end of his eyebrow. You reach up and brush it away, let your hand trail down his face to cup his cheek. Immediately he leans into the touch, eyes falling half shut. “Love you more,” you respond.

“Impossible,” he scoffs.

Soon after you’re both stumbling out of bed, clothes haphazardly shrugged back on as you drift through the living room. There’s a thin, hot pink package sitting at the door, just having slipped through the letterbox; the stark Sexuality Unleashed logo is printed on the visible side, so you have to wonder what Doyeon could have possibly ordered this time that could be so thin. The laptop is awkwardly sandwiched next to a throw pillow, barely open a crack. Jungkook retrieves it, sets it on his lap as you scamper over to the couch.

“More Phineas and Ferb?” he asks quietly. He hates it, you know he does. And still, he wants to watch it with you.

You nod. “Please.”

He isn’t so concerned with the plot as you, clicking some random episode to start. You snuggle into his side, quietly singing along to the opening. After a moment, Jungkook speaks again. “Phineas and Flirt?” he offers cheekily.

You roll your eyes. “That might’ve been your worst one yet,” you sigh, trying to drown out his indignant huff by focusing on the screen.

“I don’t exactly see you coming up with these,” he points out, obviously feeling wronged.

Without missing a beat you say, “Disney+ and bust.”

epilogue

commercial break one ; the resolution

Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[madfantasy]

Dearest Mani, you are always in my heart and prayers! You're incredibly talented as an artist and a writer (I think you could write a good autobiography, I find your writing both heartbreaking and fascinating), and so strong and persistent! I dreamed of becoming an artist as a kid, but wasn't allowed to study drawing, but when I became a teen nobody could prevent me from learning... but I was too hesitant... with too low self-esteem... so I never learned, alas. Be blessed, my darling!

Oh dear Bianca, thank you so much, bless your heart🫂💛

I always fear when I share about my life that I be a burden.. I have to apologise

I'm sorry you had that experience, I understand at times people think of art as not a rewarding path and maybe discourage people from it, but if its your dream, its yours and it is in you, and you're never late to start if the dream still dwells within the space of your pleased mild unconsciousness and the results shouldn't matter most of the time, the more you do it, the more it be obvious what you can and can't do, and what you want and don't want to do in the vast fields of art~

I honestly have never considered art as something I'd go with, I actually was a mathmatic wiz and enjoyed solving these equations like chewing on sour candy,  my mouth frothing at the thought of getting more... and wrestling, its still my second goal..

Art was something I did out of necessity; I wasn't allowed to express much, it was similar to the life style of military (the irony here is my last name means warrior, and alot of distant family were inrolled, including my guardians) it was a life line mechanism your body forcesyou to do, to breath.  I didn't think of it,  I didn't plan it, I didn't consider it Art, so I always feel because I didn't seek it as art or have sought to learn it properly or have in my possession a sealed certificate of learning it, i can't call myself an artist! (But that continuesly was proven wrong as I became more and more involved in it)

And the amount of resistance I got towards me drawing equalled me stubbornly drawing even more. It was as if I was involved in the dark arts, which it was to my family, my teachers, my peers— everyone. It was a reason for them to crush me, but it didn't crush the urge to draw non stop.

I remember as a kid they let me cuz its child's play, and was aware of all those adults saying to my guardians, oh Mani's art is amazing but you know what to do when they grow up. They beat the freak out of me every time they caught me doing it. So my choices became draw while they are asleep ( or my own sleep time under the covers) or at work. Second place is at school, I was taking every pause possibility to draw like I'm possessed to, while decently acing school. I mean I literally did my homework and everything at school so I don't have to do anything home but draw.

Inevitably I was found out at school, even tho I was and still a very quiet shy kid, and I try to hide my art anyway possible whilst drawing. Evey time the consequences were either of those two: utter humiliation, or a praise with guilt.

They praised me saying its amazing but I can't do that, and to please stop it. Or just being silently fascinated by it and taking it without telling me its good so they "won't encourage me"

The humiliation was me pointed out as what not to do to the whole class, and telling me I'm going to hell when I die and be forced to try and make those creations I made come to life, seeing that I could not, be tortured with alot of graphically disturbing description of fire and burns. First when I was 7 years old. I remember standing too in a line in front of the whole school at queue as the "shameful" students line, watching some of my peers cry and me just standing there just struggling not to laugh. Cuz idk

Other time peers snatching my art from me and running around with it and calling me names, and such, and it takes a bit more than rough housing by me to get it back. Often school calling home and getting my share of beating from there too.

I remember the biggest humiliation I got is by a freaking art teacher snatching my mouths stocked folder thanks to the stupidity of a peer I didn't even allow to share my art with leaving it wide open for the teacher to see. They took it, questioned my classmates as to how the frk nobody reported my art to the admin or whatever. And if they were okay with the horrors I make. They were heh.

But didn't stop the admin from basicly spreading that and assuming that i am crazy and need psychological help. Which made more hard beatings at home hearing that in the phone call they made.

I eventually fell out from school because of continuing decline financial situation and my mental stability. The cycle didn't end, guardians never stopped killing me over it, destroying my art, threatening, the whole work— till I got commissioned for the very first time. Like only few years ago. They let off seeing now it brings money..

Till this day they don't know what I draw thanks to switching digitally nd speaking English. Also they don't have the health to go around snooping in my stuff anymore right around the time too

The bottom line is, I don't know how everything just fell into place, into being an artist rather than it being a choice to make.. still carrying those shackles of always get those flashes of being hurt by it, regretting posting and drawing always and feeling its never good enough or not being something acceptable or sought-after. But on the flip side, it's the embodiment of freedom, it's the most accomplished, happy, fulfilled, humaaaaann I ever be while practising it.

What you love and will be will happen no matter what and how long...

I'm sorry for more sad dibble about my life..

I am happy today; I just wore like passes as a boy trouble maker here and my guardians were laughing and hyping me to go out on the streets and make some trouble. The exact intention hehe. And I wanted to share but can't do that publicly but posted on my ko-fi hehe

Leaving u with sev wip , and all my love 💛🌟

[forestwater87]

I feel like I’ve realized why it takes me 8-13 months to update each new chapter of Tigger & Eeyore. Hi, if you’re new here: I have this massive long-running gwenvid fic series that’s been in the middle of a pretty harrowing story arc for the last 6 chapters or so. It’s very good if I do say so myself, but each update has taken me months to complete and been a source of massive anxiety.

And I think the reason why is mostly because I’m scared to end this.

I shouldn’t be, because resolving this arc shouldn’t mean ending the fic; it was initially going to be a single chapter before I decided to rip off a much better writer and drag on the angst train. The problem is...the angst train is really good. The story has an actual story now.

And when it’s done...then what?

Do I go back to plotless fluff? The prequel was plotless fluff, and people seemed to like that well enough. I liked it well enough, before I got into having an actual plot. Maybe I can jump back into it and it’ll be fine, and people will like the respite. It’s not like I don’t have other arcs planned, because I have a couple ideas peppered in and they’ll have their own sources of drama and angst. But instead of scaffolding a plot, they’ll mostly just be side stories in an ocean of meandering fluff. And I’m scared that won’t be good enough anymore, for me or the people who are enjoying the fic as it exists right now.

I get a lot of comments like “I’ve been reading from the beginning and you’ve improved so much as a writer!” It’s super flattering, and they’re right...but how much of that improvement is just actually having a (partially stolen) idea that I shaped into a much bigger plot than it was supposed to be? What if I wrap this up and don’t want to be done yet, because there’s more I want to write, but it’s all mediocre and boring without anything compelling to hang everything onto?

So if I just never update it, the potential is still there. It’s still a good story, and it’s still an unambiguously incomplete story. I don’t have to worry about dragging it on past its expiration date, because I still haven’t resolved the big plot issue yet. But every completed chapter, I get closer to having to figure out if I need to say goodbye.

Maybe the best of both worlds is to wrap this one up and look at the other story ideas in another, unexpected sequel. Selfishly I don’t want to do that because 1) I can’t think of a good name, 2) I don’t like change and my initial plan was only 2 fics, and 3) readership on stories in Camp Camp (mine, anyway) has been dropping pretty significantly, and leaving behind a well-established fic to try and start again from scratch is.....uh....not super appealing. I think it’s the right thing to do. I can’t shake the feeling that “Tigger & Eeyore: Camp Campbell and Beyond” is coming to an end. I mean, either it comes to an end or it ends up having an additional 20-plus chapters of varying degrees of plotlessness, and I’m not sure that’s the right call.

But I...don’t want it to end. I’m really not ready to say goodbye to this particular iteration of gwenvid, even if it’s not all that close to canon anymore or even all that popular without the angst. I’ve fought too hard to get them here; hell, dumb as it might sound I feel like they’ve gone through too much to just be done once this conflict is over. (Yes, these fictional characters I don’t own but feel a strong sense of ownership toward anyway deserve a long and happy life together and I want to write it, even though I’m not sure I can write anything good. I realize this is a bit irrational and kind of arrogant, but here we are.)

I’m not really sure what this post is supposed to accomplish; mostly I’m just whining and rambling for my own sake. But I guess I’m also wondering: is it worth writing/reading something that doesn’t have an overarching plot, especially something fluff-heavy and largely episodic? If I wrote a third fic in this series, would any of you follow me there or would you rather the story just end when the main plot does? Or would you be fine with a fic that has like 6 arcs and a bunch of fluffy filler like it’s a shonen anime of romance? And if I did go the way of a new story, what the hell should it be called?

I know I have a couple readers who follow this blog, and I’m feeling very lost. I used to rule the world be a pretty decent-sized name in the gwenvidsphere, partly due to the tiny amount of shippers and partly due to being able to update much more rapidly than I have the last couple years. I’m worried I’ve squandered my chance to write the story I’d initially planned, and while I’m happy with the changes I’ve made overall, I just don’t know where to go from here. It’s nice to have had this epiphany about why I’ve been dragging my feet lately, but it doesn’t really help me resolve the issue or my overall emotional crisis.

So uhhhhhh....help? please?

[probablypointlesss]

I had my asks off by mistake, but @smileystudies asked for all the blues! So here goes: 

blue lake; what would you like to do/accomplish before you settle down?

I really don’t know - I can’t see much of my future past graduation at the moment, I have no idea where my life is headed.

cobalt blue spectral; what is the most beautiful place you have ever been to?

Ohhhh this is so hard - I’ve been lucky enough to travel quite a lot, both to see family and as part of my degree, and every time I go somewhere new I think it’s the most beautiful place. I went to Jebel Shams in Oman on my year abroad and that was bleak and barren and awe inspiring. Mt Kanlaon where my family live in the Philippines is this lush, vibrant tropical paradise. I’m also a huge huge fan of South Wales - the beaches in the Gower are the best in the UK, I swear it.

ultramarine; when was the last time you were in a good mood? do you know/remember what sparked it?

About a fortnight ago we had a decent amount of snow and I let my rescue dog off the lead in the garden for the first time. I got so much second hand happiness watching him lollop around.

blue; what’s the most recent dream you remember?

Um.... I don’t really remember my dreams I think I’ve had some dreams where the pandemic doesn’t exist and been really disappointed. I’ve searched through my convos w some of my friends though, and I’ve said nothing recently, so honestly can’t have been having that many. (WAIT NO - just gone a bit further back lmao, I had a dream that this guy I had a crush on turned up at my uni to see me, but that he had a fiancee. And in my dream he was still being super flirty and tactile and I was v much enjoying myself but also feeling incredibly guilty the whole time. Very confusing. I knew there was something guy-related though, those are the only dreams I ever remember.)

bright blue; what does your dream family look like? any kids or pets? how many of each?

SUCH a dilemma. I’m very on the fence about having kids, partly because of climate change and partly because I don’t have a partner atm. I think ideally I would like to do platonic co-parenting with a really good friend. Or maybe a couple of good friends. And definitely pets - rescued dogs and cats for sure, if I had the land/space then I’d foster donkeys or ex-racehorses as well, and keep chickens and ducks

blue cobalt; do you like your name? would you give yourself a different name if you could?

I do like my name, and I don’t think I would change it. It would feel weird to have a different one

prussian azure; what’s your favourite scent?

grapefruit, Loveheart sweets, baking bread, and rice (not all at once, obviously)

azure blue; what’s your favourite type of tea, if any?

Peppermint and liquorice 

turquoise blue; if you could start a garden, what would you plant?

Nasturtiums, runner beans, beetroot, rhubarb, a plum tree, a gooseberry bush, alpine strawberries, a pink banksiae rose for the birds and a buddleia for the butterflies. garlic, spring onions, and herbs for the kitchen. and I’d keep a nettle patch for the insects and for spinning fibres.

cerulean blue; if you were guaranteed to have a viewership, would you start a youtube vlog?

Funnily enough, I actually vlogged the beginning of this week but I’m not sure yet whether I’m going to post it anywhere. I like how creative you can be with digital media and I’m keen to explore that, and there are some really nice calm artsy vlogs that I personally find really inspiring. I don’t think I’m particularly bothered about viewership though (although if I were to start posting I’d probably quickly become obsessed with the numbers)

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER PRE-GAME 9/30/2020: 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE/CONFESSIONAL (2019)

Spoiler alert. Or whatever. It’s not going to matter, you don’t care.

So, I've been away for a minute. Just about any reason to be away from Tumblr is probably a good reason, but I have an especially good one. I'm finally working on a "real" writing project, which demands, and deserves, all of my attention. My social media abstinence isn't just a matter of time management, though. Once I had a long term obligation on my plate, I became very aware of how the short term satisfaction I get from posting mindless rants was eating away at the fuel I have available for sustained efforts. When I wind myself up with a 500-1000 word blog post, it generates a lot of electricity, but I blow it all as soon as I experience the catharsis of posting it, and I'm further pacified by ego-stroking likes and reblogs. Not to sound like a sanctimonious luddite--I mean, I'm still here, after all!--but it turns out that the staying focused on the long haul has been surprisingly revivifying. In fact, I haven't been talking about my big fancy project for the same reason; I don't want to lose any of the juice I've been storing up by wasting it on the shallow pleasure of describing it. Also such things should probably be somewhat confidential until they're approaching the publishing stage, but I digress! There is an actual reason I'm saying all this, that has more to do with this blog.

(Don’t get all excited, I’m not doing EVIL ED right now, I just need a relatable image.)

As I got deeper into my experience of "real" film writing, I started to reflect on the meaning of my personal writing. Like, the point of it. I tend to write in a sweaty, compulsive, sadomasochistic haze, in which I'm sometimes hyperbolically generous, and sometimes--perhaps more often, unfortunately--as nasty as humanly possible. Sometimes the movies deserve it, when they're lazy, pretentious, or otherwise demonstrate an open contempt for the audience aka ME. Often, though, I'm just creating an opportunity to vent my generalized rage and frustration. That can be very entertaining for myself and (hopefully) my teensy-but-devoted readership, but lately I've asked myself whether there isn't some negative tradeoff for all this amusement. In this phase of my life, it's reasonable to assume I'll make more and more friends and acquaintances who create things I don't always care for, but I don't necessarily think they deserve to be abused for it. As much as I have a right to say whatever I want, technically, I'd be embarrassed if I were caught just jacking myself off by making fun of their work in public. And more to the point, I don't necessarily want to contribute to the growing atmosphere in which people feel more afraid to try and fail, because the public so commonly misidentifies sarcasm and mean-spiritedness as intelligence and superiority, and that form of petty darkness spreads across the internet a lot faster than a movie can reach a wider audience. After all, I'm in the process of potentially turning myself into one of those well-meaning failures right now. I could stand to be a little more deliberate about how I speak, and about what, in general.

My father is an art critic, and once in an extra petulant moment, teenage-me asked him in an accusative tone what he thought the point of his profession was. He replied calmly that he wouldn't publish any comment that he didn't think the artist could make use of somehow. I don't know if he always stuck to that policy, but the thought sure stuck with me.

So anyway, over the last few months I've been giving myself a bit of an attitude adjustment, through a combination of personal reflection, and hard work on something meaningful/not for the internet. I've been feeling all proud of myself and shit, but today reminded me that any path to enlightenment is always marked by setbacks, doubt, and temptation. For today, in complete innocence (or at least a melange of innocence and ignorance, as I very much invite this type of problem), I managed to watch TWO (2) movies about an academic film-cum-psychology project, focused on a gang of college buddies who inevitably reveal what bad people they are under the unique conditions of the project, and then the project turns out to be run NOT by its presumed-dead originator, but by the originator's even-crazier lover. It's amazing how particular something can be, and still be utterly obvious and cliche. In my defense, I really tried to turn the second movie off, because it was...just instantly terrible, but the seed of suspicion had taken root--is this randomly selected movie ACTUALLY EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE PREVIOUS MOVIE?--and I just had to find out if this could be true. I suffered, deliberately, for another hour and a half, to confirm my awful hunch. I don't know how I would have felt if I had turned out to be wrong (better? worse?), but I don't have to worry about that now. Now I just have to worry about my overpowering impulse to be as ugly as possible about what I have personally subjected myself to.

(The completely deceptive poster for our not at all witchy or eerie opening feature.) 

In need of a passable time-waster this afternoon, I put on 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE. Released in March of 2019, Caitlin Koller's claustrophobic black comedy feels oddly like a product of 2020. A group of estranged, middle-aged college pals of the BIG CHILL ilk--which one of the characters calls out, out loud, just so ya know--come together for a fallen comrade's funeral, only to find themselves trapped in his widow's increasingly creepy cabin in the woods. Said comrade was driven to suicide by the failure of a psychological experiment he conducted that plunged its subject into madness, and if you don't realize right away that the obnoxious and unstable cast are the new subjects of their not-quite-dead friend's renewed project, then you're firing a lot slower than 24 frames per second. The dialog is often decent, aiding a handful of funny, natural performances...but it's hard to forget that you're just waiting for the conspicuously crazy widow to reveal that the "unexplained events" in and around the cabin are part of a controlled attempt to get the guests to devolve into their worst selves, which isn't such a difficult task considering the undesirable state they all arrive in.

It just made me ask myself, what was the point of this? Why do people make movies that are entirely predicated on the shock of the twist, knowing that if the twist isn't so shocking--or is baldly obvious from the start--then the whole experience just falls apart? Why not hedge your bets with a little more depth, or purpose, or style, or really anything more reliable than a smug attempt to prove that your script is smarter than your audience? Even if you do manage to pull off this dubious accomplishment, it reduces your movie to something like the experience of having somebody jump out of a closet and scream in your ear to "get" you. I've always felt concerned that if somebody ever tries to "get" me like that, I might just automatically punch them in the face. But anyway, whatever shred of good will this movie could have accrued with its plucky performances is blown away by the final insult, when the cops arrive to clean up the inevitable bloody mess. The responding officers are hilariously unimpressed and unsurprised by the byzantine scheme that has resulted in a shocking act of violence, because the cabin's "guest book", which our heroes all filled out, was actually the signatory page of a complicated waiver form granting full permission to the hosts to, like, do whatever the hell they want to everybody. Presumably this shit just goes on all the time, leading the local law to shrug off anything that happens to or because of the dumbassed lab rats who frequent the cabin? I dunno. I mean, what can I say? ACAB, I guess!

At the time, I managed to resist the urge to take to the internet and decry the crimes of this lame-o party joke. I really don't like the sensation that a movie is just trying to trick me into thinking something that isn't true. But, this isn't, like, an affront to cinema. People make annoying, below average movies all the time, and maybe you kinda have to, if you eventually want to make better movies. I imagine myself in the shoes of the people who actually put some elbow grease into this production, having to wade through the rantings of internet ghouls like myself while they're trying to see how their efforts are paying off. Making a movie is probably a lot harder than I think it is.

But that's part of the point I'm heading toward. I'm always amazed by people's willingness to pour huge amounts of energy and capital into something to which there is ultimately very little point. I mean, I have bad, unoriginal, boring ideas every single day of my life. But I almost never DO any of them. I have a hard enough time convincing myself to just get out of bed in the morning, let alone devote blood, sweat, and money to deliver unto the world material evidence of my personal mediocrity. I can't imagine thinking it would be worth it, for myself or the unfortunate people who are subjected to my project, to actually execute on my bad ideas. I'm being judgmental, but honestly, I don't even know if my attitude makes me better or worse than someone who accomplishes the task of completing and selling a movie that's mainly a waste of time. Movies are so complicated, and realizing them requires the consensus of so many people, that it's sort of incredible that there are people capable of making one that doesn't have a powerfully compelling motivation behind it. People who are able to do such a thing obviously have something that I don't, and it isn't just "consideration for the audience."

So, I could probably stand to be more forgiving--or just, less eager to absolutely flay someone alive on my dumb little blog because they so opened themselves up to my arsenal of elaborate insults. But like...not all the time. Sometimes, a movie really fucking asks for it, and in revealing itself to me, it has effectively signed a waiver giving me patent freedom to do whatever I want to it. CONFESSIONAL is the latest movie to give me such a gift. After the final credit rolled in 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE, I looked for a little palate cleanser. As little as I like movies that put their single egg in the motheaten basket of a "shocking twist", I also have a problem with what I identify as canned theater. Not that I think all movies have to be lavish productions, but I think they should try to do something that is natively cinematic. It's very rare that I'm impressed by anything that is literally all talk. So, I went in search of some more familiar form of trash to help me recallibrate, and trash is definitely what I got.

(Me crying over my own bad decisions.)

To be fair, I kind of should have known that I was in for a challenging experience. The 2019 found footage thriller CONFESSIONAL is more or less based on the "confessional" part of sleazy reality TV shows, isolating each cast member in a soundproof stall so they can spill the rotten contents of their guts. Unfortunately, I spotted a review suggesting that the movie succeeded, against all odds, at remaining visually dynamic despite the unchanging scenery, and I was intrigued. The reviewer was correct, impressively; the monotony of the coffin-like environment with its dark foam walls was the least of my concerns. Other problems superseded that threat, immediately. The plot concerns a group of college pals who come together to remember a recently deceased friend--a filmmaker who expired mysteriously while completing a psychology-tinged project in which she recorded all of her friends' most shameful personal secrets. Now, somebody else has taken over the project...someone who "has never been identified", according to an early title card in this movie-within-a-movie (EVEN THOUGH THIS PERSON WILL BE EXPLICITLY IDENTIFIED AT THE END OF THE MOVIE SO LIKE WHY), but who seems likely to be the decedent's ex-lover...who continues to expose their subjects' most shameful secrets on film. I mean, what the fuck? Did I somehow manage to pick a second movie with almost the exact same plot??? I couldn't believe it. I didn't know if I could take it. My prospects only got worse when the cast showed up and started talking. I tried to turn the movie off. I backed out and walked away from it, twice. But I couldn't leave it alone. I had to know if it was really the same movie.

CONFESSIONAL concerns characters who are contemporaneously in college, which actually goes a long way to making everything worse. Each of these walking cliches is connected in some way to Amelia, a film student whose mysterious death has created a campus scandal, leaving shattered hearts and lives in its wake. The living have each received a blackmail-flavored invitation to speak about the deceased in a tiny "confessional booth" somewhere on campus, where, predictably, they find themselves locked in until they confess whatever they know about Amelia, and their classmates. I don't know why practically every single movie about young people has to be so miserable, but this is one of those. I assume that it has something to do with the fact that youth is simultaneously so desired and so ignored. People in their teens and early 20s are so sexually coveted, yet so easily dismissed as individuals, that we wind up with all this media that panders to them relentlessly (or at least, panders to the legions of ticket-buying perverts who enjoy watching them prance around), without almost any consideration of how they actually think and act, and look. Movies like FAT GIRL and  WELCOME TO THE DOLL HOUSE may be accused of their own form of pandering, a venal form of voyeuristic schadenfreude, but at least they reflect something of the awkwardness, isolation, and incompleteness of adolescence; something more than the dissociated, pornographic fantasies of adults who have long since forgotten what it was like to be powerless and ignored, or desired by people who don't even like you.

Not that CONFESSIONAL is supposed to be a work of grim realism, but it is most definitely rooted in a fantasy about college life that makes its contrived, message-y plot a lot harder to take. With almost the sole exception of "the nerdy one", every single character looks like a Bratz doll, oozing an exaggerated indecency that belies the movie's pretentious insistence on addressing the sex & gender Issues of the Day. What you get is a really good example of what happens when millennial characters are modeled, not on any actual millennials, but on other forms of marketing that are aimed at millennials, which are themselves just based on other preexisting youth-targeted commercials, et al ad nauseam. Even setting aside the deliriously slutty wardrobe choices, makeup appears to have been laid on with a trowel, coating each actor in a thick creamy layer of spackle that only makes any scars, pits, or other evidence of individuality look utterly bizarre. Accordingly, everybody preens, pouts, and generally behaves as if they're about to take off their clothes, which might be a huge relief given the profusion of chafing, cheapo mesh and straps they're laboring under.

So, ok, not every movie can have a great costume department, but the dialog here is a perfect match for the disastrous aesthetic decisions. Actually, this is the real reason I almost walked out on CONFESSIONAL. If I may ramble briefly, without substantiating any of my broad-ranging claims: Sometime in the late 90s/early 00s, horror cinema seemed to suffer a degenerative slide away from genuine thrills and chills, and into a version of the genre that is best characterized as the Slutty Halloween Costume approach. Any sense of existential dread, revulsion, or bodily vulnerability was widely replaced by a cutesy, Hot Topic-y preference for fast fashion and sex appeal, in which bloodshed more facilitated an informal wet teeshirt contest than any real fear induction. Horror's new mall goth look came with an equally shallow, boring verbal affectation: a sullen, sleazy, tooth-sucking sarcasm, that ushered in a new era in which, instead of making fun of the scummy coked-out dialog in porno movies, we now expect everybody to just talk like that, because it's hot. There's probably a line to be drawn between this unfortunate development, and the boneheaded real-world trend of identifying "sarcasm" as an important personal selling point on dating sites, but I won't try to prove that here. For now, I will just say that as soon as I heard the CONFESSIONAL characters start to speak, with their sneering, insinuating tones, with the vocal fry, with the head wagging, the jutting jaws, the smoldering gazes, the juvenile dragging-out of horny grownup words like de-bauch-er-y...I almost lost my nerve. Listening to these little creeps hissing and spitting for 84 minutes is a lot like being hit on by some barfly who continues to bludgeon you with his hot breath and corny lines without ever noticing that you've thrown up into your pint.

Uh, anyway. So what actually happens in the movie. Why would anyone ever allow someone to record video of them revealing the ugliest, most embarrassing parts of themselves? Especially a kid, for whom popularity and reputation are often a matter of life or death--literally and specifically, in the case of this story. The flimsy reason is that the late filmmaker, Amelia, was the most awesomest girl ever. Everybody loved her, because she was so sweet, and so smart, and so cool, and so nice, and so deep, and so original, and so talented, and so sexy, and just like, the bestest most perfectest girl in the whole wide world. N.B. "The greatest of all time" is, perhaps counter-intuitively, a really bad quality that makes for really shitty, boring characters. For better or worse, Amelia is rarely on screen (and when she is, she's no Laura Palmer, frankly), so it's up to the viewer to just sort of imagine a type of person who could make you act against your best interests on account of you just like them so much. After all, so many of the characters were obsessed with her in some way, that it's like they're here to help you clap your hands and believe in this seductive, compelling part of the movie, that just isn't actually there on the screen. The anonymous antihero behind the confessional booth scheme slowly extracts from each character the selfish, destructive behavior that in some way contributed to the tragic loss of the most amazing person of all time--and part of the result is, if not a very interesting excuse for Amelia's death, then a story so wacky that I really wish they had centered the movie on it, instead of on the tawdry soap opera we're locked into. Even if that imaginary movie had been really bad, and it probably would have been, at it would at least have been entertaining.

Part of what leads up to the death of Amelia is the existence of a secret school fight club, led by a stereotypically sleazy gender studies major, named Major, who is out to prove men's inherent superiority. The club is called CFB, or Cock Fights Back, which is somehow a garbled pun relating to cock fights, and Trump's famous line of "locker room talk": "grab'em by the pussy" > "pussy grabs back" > "cock fights back". CFB is different from your ordinary fight club in that the fights are always between girls and boys, and the boys are always blindfolded, in order to prove that a fully-abled female is no match for even a handicapped male. To complicate things, a new designer amphetamine is gaining popularity on campus, called "odds-on", meaning that it makes you the odds-on favorite in your CFB fight. As awkward as that is, it also seems that men are never the guaranteed winners of these fights, which makes you wonder why Major insists on continuing to host them. As much as I would have preferred to watch a stupid movie about this stupid idea, I'm stuck instead with a movie in which Major is such an aggressive MRA because he's secretly gay, and he thinks that hating women is a great way to hide that...as if that isn't what we all openly suspect about aggro MRAs. Secret gayness is a big part of this movie, involving multiple characters, although it amounts to very little other than the perpetuation of some stale, harmful cliches about how unfulfilled homosexual urges lead to suicide, sexual abuse, and murder. CONFESSIONAL is just as reliant on this grim vision of gay life, as it is on its weirdly obtuse discussion of drug addiction, for the suffocating sense of self-importance that it uses to try to elevate itself above its porn-y trappings. None of the movie's hot button issues are given any real thought, but are only dragged through the mud to create the illusion that there's a point to all this, thus relieving the film of any sense of innocence that could have made its condescending sleaziness forgivable.

Admittedly, I can't really remember all the details of the film's tortured intrigue anymore, even though I basically just saw it. A lot of its meandering revelations just left me thinking, "Why did I need to know that? Why should I care?" I do know that about half way through this ordeal, I became really anxious about whether it would turn out that CONFESSIONAL did NOT have exactly the same plot as 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE after all, and I put myself through all this for nothing. But no, I was right to begin with. The wonderful Amelia's ethically dubious film project has been picked up by the unhinged lesbian character who loved her so much she wanted to become her, and killing Amelia and usurping her confessional project was apparently the best way of doing that. I guess exposing all the dark, violent secrets of all these tangentially involved characters was just an added bonus, or whatever. Ultimately, this ugly, ignorant PSA about something-or-other only deals itself further damage by relying so heavily on the potential of its clumsy twist to blow your mind, which it does not at all.

So that was it, that's how I burned a whole afternoon allowing my mind to implode-not-explode under the ponderous force of TWO (2) movies about exactly the same exhausted cliche that is still being peddled by certain pretentious assholes as fresh and exciting, and beyond the capacity of the audience to anticipate. There's probably a whole slew of other movies that employ this overly familiar "surprise", but I don't have it in me to dig them out of my long-suffering brain. Feel free to contribute in the comments. For now, I must prepare myself for the ordeal of Blogtober, during which I will *hopefully* choose my screening selections and words more thoughtfully than I have in previous years, when this blog was motivated by just as much abject misanthropy as these movies, which do nothing but willfully insult the audience's intelligence. Maybe today's detour into degradation will help me go forth toward more additive experiences, having purged several lungfuls of meaningless venom from my system, and this season will bring with it more interesting, provocative posts than the last. Or maybe not! In any case, I promise to keep trying my hardest to make it funny.

PS I actually love both FAT GIRL and WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE. I’m “just saying”. 

[laceymorganwrites]

Death dance

Word Count: 1,638

Characters: Eustass Kidd

Song: Death Dance - Palaye Royale

Warnings: so much swearing, mentions of abuse and mental Problems

I never thought I'd be so mean, never thought I'd be alone at nineteen

Kidd never meant to end up like the asshole he was. But after everything he´s been through, who could blame him? That´s what he told himself in hopes to cheer himself up, yet he knew that wasn´t true. Everything bad that had happened throughout his life, he had brought upon himself. All he ever did was push his luck and people away. Ever since he was a child… all he ever did was hurt and disappoint others. But all these thoughts are in my head again, head again

He didn´t want to think about any of that, not right now, not ever. Confronting his feelings, if there were even any left at this point, wouldn´t help. Well, actually it would help him very much if only Kidd had the courage to look that deep into his heart and mind. But he didn´t have the courage, he was a coward, always has been. And all these thoughts are running through my brain and out the door

Maybe this was finally the time to stop running away and face his fears, face his past and face himself and all the gruesome things he´s done. He was no saint, never tried to be. But fuck, he never tried to be that much of an angry, impulsive asshole either. He ran away enough, goddamn he left his mother all alone just to go out at sea… and for what? To make fake friends, to trust people only for them to use that trust and abuse it. Rather be dumb than sane, rather be numb than in pain

He was so sick and tired of everything. Sick of this world, the government especially, those bastards controlling everything and getting their way every damn time. Kidd knew that there people out there trying to stop them, people who shared his thoughts, and yet he felt as if nothing was accomplished. He hated that he knew how the world worked, with his knowledge he sometimes wished he didn´t know anything at all. And then there were the other pirates. Strawhat really got on his nerves, with his stupid alliances… he thought that teenager had a bit more of a rational brain, but it seemed that he really was as naive as the newspaper made him out to be. Kidd knew better than to trust others, other pirates like him in particular. After the whole thing with Apoo he wasn´t sure if he could ever trust another person again. He´d rather be a paranoid bastard he was now than to ever let himself and his crew get hurt like that again. But you can't see all the things I'm going through Rather be dumb than sane, I'd rather be numb than in pain But you can't see all the shit I'm going through

To others Kidd was a manchild throwing a tantrum every minute of the day, but they didn´t know what he´s been through, what he saw. They didn´t know about his shitty childhood, well he didn´t really have one to begin with, but that´s part of what made it shitty. They didn´t know how he suffered under his first and only captain, the abuse he had to face and that he could never forget the faces of his crew mates that just watched and did nothing. To hell with all of them. They didn´t know the betrayal he experienced, that he had to watch his best friend get exposed to his greatest insecurity. Of course they judged him, people always did that when they didn´t go through the same shit. No no no, no no no, I hide my pain inside No no no, no no no, I bleed to feel alive Oh woah, oh woah, I am dead inside No no no, makes it hard to survive No you can't find my reasons, no you can't find my pain

People always wondered why he was the way he was, they tried to analyze him, help him, fix him. Fuck them. He didn´t need any of that, deserved any of that. It was like a sick fucking joke. Just take someone without an arm for example, ah yes, the greatest fucking comparison he could think of, dumb fuck. Whatever. So their arm´s gone, it ain´t coming back, there´s no fixing it. It´s the same with some people, some people are too far gone already, so why waste your energy on them? We all got lost in Jesus, but he can't take away my pain

Okay, maybe Kidd wanted someone to waste their energy on him. Yes, he wanted it really fucking bad. He needed it, the affirmation that yeah, it wasn´t that unlikely to save him. That he was a good person after all. He wanted nothing more than that. I'm looking for something more

And what did he get? Fucking groupies who told him they loved him and that he meant so much to them and oh how his music saved them. Bullshit. They were drunk and wanted to fuck some semi famous person, they didn´t care about any of his shit, they didn´t care that he cried his heart out while writing the lyrics he sung in his fucking ugly voice. They didn´t care that he couldn´t rest, couldn´t sleep until the riff was complete, that he fucking hated himself and everyone who disagreed with him on that point. He just wanted to punch something or someone constantly. The last time he checked, fucking rage wasn´t handsome. So take me away, from out the door

Yeah, he liked the music. It helped him cope with everything, with things he didn´t want to think about but he forced himself to anyway because he liked to suffer. He liked making himself suffer, liked it when people called him an asshole, because yes, they were so right. Kidd needed this. He needed to feel like shit to function. Was that so wrong? He couldn´t be the only one. If he was that would be just sad. It´d make him the most miserable bastard on this earth. No, I'm looking for you outside to say No no no, no no no, I hide my pain inside No no no, no no no, I bleed to feel alive Oh woah, woah, I am dead inside No no, yeah No, I can't take it, all of these memories

It was the worst at night when he sobered up and remembered all the fucked up shit his brain worked so hard to suppress. It was like a big fuck you to his face. And yes, he did crave that too. The cold sweat he´d find himself in the middle of the night because of the nightmares. The faces of those who abused him, laughing at him, he swore he could hear them even now. Hell, he could feel them and he hated every single second of it. But fuck, did he need it. He deserved it. He wasn´t better than any of them, no matter how much he wished he was. I can't fake it, I'm trying but I am dying

Kidd didn´t remember ever having a mental breakdown, he hated that word, found it silly. Like it was some sort of game, a goal to be reached. It sucked so much. The word was for people who couldn´t deal with their emotions. He could, he knew he had them and in the instance he did, he did his best to bury them as deep as possible. That was how this worked, wasn´t it? I just want to, oh just be myself I have tried to, but now I am someone else

Kidd asked himself many times when the exact moment was that he failed so much at being a decent human being. He was hardly human these days. No matter how much he tried to think about it, he couldn´t pinpoint it. It was more like the mass of moments and their amount led to the disaster of a chaotic mess he was now. No no, no no no, so please be kind No no, no no, I'm losing my mind No no, no no, I'm really not fine Oh... I'm really not fine

Did Eustass Kidd deserve forgiveness and kindness? The answer to that question depended on his daily mood, sometimes he felt so much like shit that he wanted to believe in the lie so so badly. But on other days the question was just laughable, of course he didn´t. He was a dirty pirate for fuck´s sake. We live in an age where sex and horrors are gods We live in an age where all of our bodies are flawed We live in an age where sex and horrors are gods We live in an age, we live in an age We live in an age where sex and horrors are gods We live in an age where all of our bodies are flawed We live in an age where all of our bodies are flawed, are flawed, no

The fucking after a show didn´t have meaning, nor did the one night stands or people looking at him with those eyes, already undressing him in their minds. He didn´t mind it, he didn´t mind the attention he got in the moment. Kidd liked feeling wanted, he wanted nothing more than that. Only that he mistook want for love. And rationally he knew he was too ugly to love, hell he was even too ugly to fuck, people were just too drunk to notice that. No, I can't take it, all of these memories I can't fake it, I'm trying but I am dying I just want to, oh just be myself I have tried to, but now I am someone else

[toast-the-unknowing]

Hi there, toast. Cutting to the chase: you're one of my favorite writers — not just one of my favorite fanfic writers. your short stories for the raven cycle are some of the funniest, tightest, emotionally devastating, well-crafted works of fiction i've encountered in awhile — better than a lot """"real-world, published"""" stuff. I kind of want to know more about how you got to this point. I think you've mentioned a background in screenwriting? But I don't think that's your day job? 1/?

2/? Really, I'm asking because you seem to have found a way to write regularly — to develop your chops and publish your art in a way that seems emotionally satisfying for you. to an outsider like myself, you seem to have struck a balance between living a life that pays the bills, and artmaking in a way that feeds your soul. you might not feel that way, i don't know. i'm someone who studied writing in college and am now wondering if and how i can still water that seed....

3/? when the reality is i also need to make money to live. i guess i'm curious about your life model right now, and if you're happy with the way you're currently fulfilling yourself creatively. do you want to be a """""published writer""""" someday? is your job one that is also creatively fulfilling, or is it more to pay the bills so that you can do your own creative projects in your free time?

4/4 I know my question isn't very clear, and I'm not sure it's even one question. the point is, i admire you, and you seem to be in a habit of writing creatively, even though i think you have an unrelated day job, and that balance seems mysterious and desirable to me.

Thank you for your kind words, Anon! I have attempted to write something helpful, but it got very long, so I am putting it behind a cut:

Keeping your art alive when you have to work an unrelated job is not easy. Struggling with it does not mean that you're failing, or that it can't be done, or that you won't get better at it down the road. It's also not the sort of thing where you hit equilibrium and it's all smooth sailing from there. I have gotten better at fitting my writing into my life, and I've figured out strategies and coping mechanisms and how to be better at just making myself do it even if I feel "blocked," but there are still stretches of time where it's harder to manage. Those periods don't last forever, and if it sometimes gets worse, it also sometimes gets better.

I suspect you know all of this, Anon, because you sound like a reasonable person and because you balanced writing and schoolwork, which can itself be tricky. I say it anyway because this is exactly the kind of subject where mean little thoughts like to sneak into your head and make you doubt yourself, and I think we could all use a reminder.

There are many writers who will say that you have to write every single day. Often they will say that you have to write at the same time every single day, or that you need to wake up early to write before work. These writers depress and demotivate me, because I don't actually have a writing "habit" in that there's no schedule or daily goal or set of standards involved. Some days I write a lot and some days I don't write at all. Shaming myself about that fact has never been helpful.

What has been helpful: an increased understanding of my writing process. Realizing I don't have to outline? Helpful! Realizing that generating ideas and fleshing out scenes and shaping the arc of a story and making it pretty are all different skills and some days one comes easier than the others? Helpful! Realizing that I tend to have an "a-hah" moment that tells me what the story is about, after which it's easier to write the story? Helpful! Realizing that if I can't think of an adjective or a line of dialogue or a joke, I can just put an asterisk and come back to it later, instead of halting the entire writing process until I come up with it? Helpful!

I don't know if any of these particular things would be helpful to you, because your writing process probably works differently than mine. Somebody out there absolutely does need to outline before they can write, or so I assume from the fact that it is mandated in virtually every book on writing I have ever read. You studied writing in school, so it's possible that you already have a great understanding of your process; it's also possible you have internalized a lot of other people's ideas of what you're writing should look like. Most of what I know about how I write was learned in the last few years, not in school.

It is also possible that you have a good understanding of what your process looks like when that gets to be the thing that takes up the majority of your time. In which case, you probably need to consider your life and your schedule as it is now. I know, for example, that I don't get much writing done of weekend days where I stay in bed late, even though I still end up with more free time than I'd have on a weekday, so if I want to write on a weekend I need to get up. Are there any times of day, or the days of the week, or the places where it is easier to write? What factors make it harder to write? Can you minimize those factors? When you can't, because you livelihood depends on them, can you acknowledge them as a fact of life and forgive yourself for being affected by them?

It's unpleasant but undeniable that working impacts writing. We aren't able to spend the time we'd like to on writing. We don't have the energy and focus that we had in school, when our writing was our main responsibility. Now our primary responsibility is making enough money to survive, and if that makes us sad to think about, well, it's only going to make us sadder if on top of that we try to hold ourselves to the amount of writing we'd do if that weren't true.

It isn’t strictly a numbers game where more time = more writing, which I think can be reassuring for those of us who don’t get as much time as we’d like for writing. I was unemployed or working part-time for the entirety of 2016 and I did not do more writing in 2016 than I am now. I had more time, but I was much more of a mess, as a person, and I wasn't as dedicated to writing. In a counter-intuitive way, I think it can help to have creative outlets besides writing. It does take time away from something that you already don’t get as much time as you want to do, but it means that you have a place to be creative even when the words aren't coming, a place with less pressure and lower stakes. I've done improv pretty casually for the last couple of years, and aside from the fact that I think improv in particular can be extremely helpful for writers, it means that when I've been unhappy with my writing, I could show up to improv and do a silly voice or shuffle around in a crabwalk and know that I had created something.

These are some things that have helped me write while also working: Improv. Mindfulness about writing. Mindfulness about life in general. Prioritizing my writing (guys, I watch so much less television than I used to). Therapy and medication, to be honest. Remembering why I am excited about the projects that I’m working on. Giving myself freedom to start new stories while also encouraging myself to finish old ones. Having an audience to share things with, because it is hard to write without knowing that anyone will ever read what you are pouring so much of yourself into.

It has taken me a few days to answer this, Anon, because I wanted to give a considered response, and also just because adult life! so busy! I keep coming back to the questions of whether I am emotionally satisfied with the writing I am doing, and whether I have a good balance between my writing and my work. Because I really think that I am creatively satisfied right now, and if I am mostly aware of that most of the time, I don't know that I'd really phrased it like that to myself before. If I had then I had forgotten it. And it's a powerful and wonderful thing to be able to say that to myself.

I have a degree in screenwriting, but I have never made a career of it and am not pursuing one now. The dream used to be writing for television. Before that the dream was to be a traditionally published author. Now...I don't know what the dream is. I would like to do original work again some day. I have a novel in my head that is very important to me, whose characters helped me get through some hard times, and I want to give that novel the life that it deserves. I would like to do something with my screenwriting degree at some point, although it will likely never make me money. Sometimes it feels like failure that I don't have a new dream, and that I gave up on the old ones. But for the most part, for now, I'm very happy writing fanfiction. I've written a lot of stories, particularly in the last few years, that I am very proud of.

But I don't actually have a good balance between art and work, inasmuch as my art makes me happy and my work...doesn't. I have a low-level office job in a field that I'm not passionate about or well-suited for. I don't get out of my job a lot of the things that I do get out of writing -- challenge, investment, a chance to be creative, self-direction, fulfillment, purpose. I have never worked a job where I got any of those things, and it is starting to wear me down.

To be fair: "my job pays me a decent wage and gives me great health insurance but it isn't satisfying" is a privileged thing to complain about, and I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that some people handle these situations just fine, that some people don’t mind a job that demands a minimum of energy and time since that leaves them more to put into their art. You may be one of these people! I am discovering that I am not. Getting no sense of accomplishment from my job contributes negatively to my overall mental and emotional health, which is sucky all on its own, but has the additional effect of impacting my writing.

It's a tricky problem, though. I don't, at present, want to make a living off of writing (and such a career would be precarious), but my current resume and skill set doesn't qualify me for much of anything besides the work I'm already doing (thanks, screenwriting degree). Any attempt to find a job that's more fulfilling would likely involve a big investment of time, money, and/or effort in some kind of school and training, and then...I'd be in a job that demanded more from me, and even if it made me happier than my current job does, how much would that leave me to put into my writing?

I don't know if any of this has been helpful to you. It is perhaps not a clear answer to a question that felt clear when I read it but that my mind muddled up along the way. You may find that once you hit a balance between writing and working, you don't mind the day job grind in the same way I do. You may decide that you do want to pursue writing as a career. You may still be figuring out the employment situation at all and my woes may be worse than irrelevant.

But the timing of this ask is funny; I am soon going to apply to an educational program that would prepare me for a new career in a totally different field, and the thought of how this will impact my writing has very much been on my mind. In the past when I've thought about doing anything like this, that question has kept me from going forward: won't that be less of your time, less of your energy, less of you for your writing? I think this is a real concern with a basis in truth: if I get into this program I am going to have a lot less time and energy for anything outside of it, and I will need to again adjust my expectations of what my writing can look like in my circumstances. But I think that this question is also fear and perfectionism talking, using my writing as a weapon against me, and I'm tired of it.

Balance is a funny thing. I'm actually terrible at basically anything that requires balance: biking, rollerskating, gymnastics, ice skating, you name it. I don't see how anyone pulls it off. You can lean too far one way only to fall over the other way when you try to even out. You can take a turn and suddenly the road is uphill or downhill or bumpy, and whatever you were doing before to stay upright isn't cutting it. You can be going along just fine and then, for absolutely no reason, you're wobbling all over the place. But you can also do a hell of a lot of wobbling without ever falling down.

I think it's just about...paying attention to what's happening around you. Paying attention to what you're feeling and what you want. Not getting fooled by something you're supposed to want if you don't actually want it. Figuring out the things that you need, and the things that would make your life better, and the things that you'd like, and prioritize those accordingly.

I sure hope that's how it works, at least, because that's all I've got. I might royally fuck up my life in the next couple of months, but if I do, I'll adjust and keep going. It can't be any worse than fucking ice skating.

Best of luck, Anon.

[the2020romanceproject]

Review: The Wedding Date

(Or: Maybe I should only read the first half of romance novels from now on?)

Book two of my year of romance was Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Date! I was excited about this one, since I had actually heard of it before I started reading romance, and also it has fake dating which is always gold. And I did enjoy it...up to a point. More on that below. :)

First, a summary: Alexa is chief of staff to the mayor of Berkeley. Drew is a pediatric surgeon in L.A. They get stuck in an elevator together when Drew is in San Francisco for his ex-girlfriend’s wedding to his med school classmate. Drew was supposed to have a date for the wedding, but she cancelled, and on a whim he asks Alexa to go with him instead as his pretend new girlfriend. She says yes, and they have a great time at the wedding and fall in bed afterward and have great sex. Drew secretly changes his flight to leave later in the day on Sunday, and they spend the day together. They’re both hesitant because they know the other person isn’t looking for anything real here—Alexa in particular knows Drew doesn’t do relationships—but they keep reaching out to each other, and Alexa goes down to L.A. to stay with Drew the next weekend. There’s a brief blip where she texts him to ask if he’s sleeping with other people and he makes a joke instead of answering seriously and she cancels their next weekend together; then he runs into her (very conveniently) when he’s back in SF for a conference and they fall into bed again. Then there’s a more serious blip where she meets a bunch of his exes who let it slip that he broke up with each of them around the two-month mark when it seemed to be going really well. Alexa gets upset, refuses to let Drew say anything about his intentions because she doesn’t want to be hurt, and sneaks out of his apartment in the middle of the night to fly home early. Drew realizes how much she means to him and flies up to L.A. to support her at a hearing for the at-risk-youth arts initiative she’s pushing for, and the two of them happily reconcile (and the initiative passes). He shows her the job offer he got from his mentor at a San Francisco hospital, and she tells him yes, she wants him to move here. There’s an epilogue a year later where he takes her back to the elevator where they met and proposes.

I feel like I spent my last review talking entirely about why the book fell apart in the middle for me. This book also fell apart in the middle, but I’m going to start with some things I liked/noted about it, so as to not spend ALL my time complaining about shortcomings. :)

Things I really liked:

Chemistry. Alexa and Drew are both super charming. Their back-and-forth was really enjoyable to read. It was a big part of what got me into the book: I wanted to see these two charming people grow to like each other. All the thing where they’re at the rehearsal dinner and wedding and enjoy touching each other were really nice to read.

Tropes. This one had such good tropes! Stuck in an elevator together! Fake dating! Anything with plausible deniability, where they’re acting like they really like each other but each one thinks it might not denote real interest, is just the most fun. This one gave up the plausible deniability aspect way sooner than I would have expected, but still: great tropes.

Race. Alexa is black and Drew is white. I am also white, so my perspective here is not informed by personal experience, but I really liked how this was handled. Alexa does experience some microaggressions and outright racism—not from Drew—in ways that felt realistic to me. Drew doesn’t try to explain away any of the racism, which made him seem like a good potential partner to her. There was also a thing where he failed to understand a thing in her past that was impacted by race, and when she explained it he listened and accepted his ignorance. She was still concerned that he’d like her less for having made him aware of his privilege, which felt like a very sad and real fear. Overall, it felt like racial dynamics were allowed to come into the text in nuanced and organic ways that kept Alexa from being a token POC. (Jasmine Guillory is a POC herself, so I’m not surprised that this is handled well, and there are probably other things about it that I as a white person didn’t even pick up.)

Body type. Alexa is curvy! She’s embarrassed about it! But Drew loves it! As someone who fills out the top of a cocktail dress pretty well myself, I really appreciated both sides of this: the realistic body issues from someone raised in a society that valorizes thinness, and the way the text kept affirming Drew’s attraction to her. There’s a racial component to this as well—lots of skinny blond girls in this book—but it was something I was able to identify with even from my different societal context.

Things I noted/was surprised by:

How soon they had sex. At some point I’ll stop being surprised by this in romance novels. I’ve read a lot of fake dating stories, and written some, and I would have expected the charade to go on a lot longer before they had actual sex that couldn’t at all be explained away by the fake dating scenario. The purported fakeness of it is the fun part! They both think the other one isn’t interested for real, while their own feelings continue to grow! Why would you cut that part short?? As soon as they kissed and admitted to each other that they wanted it for real, the tension dropped from a ten to about a two. This book got a decent amount of mileage out of that lower level of tension—more on that below—but it’s so surprising to me that it didn’t keep the much more interesting and trope-y tension going longer.

Consent and power dynamics. This book was super good about consent: Drew made sure to check in about what Alexa wanted, and it was played for sexual intensity, where he clearly got a kick out of hearing her say it. But it was very, very one-sided. There was no implication that Alexa needed to check in with Drew on what he wanted. This wasn’t a surprise, exactly, but it did stand out to me, since I don’t read a lot of het (and honestly this is a big part of why—I don’t want to encounter gendered power dynamics in my leisure reading). Consent felt like a thing the woman had to give the man. I’m not saying this is a problem, necessarily; just something I noticed.

Sex scenes. The sex scenes almost faded to black but not quite. Maybe they faded to gray? I felt like I knew pretty much what sex act they were doing and when, but they weren’t described in any real detail. It was an interesting compromise, like the book was trying to give us a clear sense of their sexual relationship without any real titillation. I wonder if this is a genre thing—I’m not sure this book was published strictly as romance—or if it’s just Guillory’s style.

Romcom careers. They’re chief of staff to the mayor of Berkeley and a pediatric surgeon. Those have GOT to be two squares on the romcom career bingo card. I’m teasing a little, but I think this kind of character background serves an important role: we have to know that they’re accomplished, valuable people, so that when they feel rejected or insecure we can revel in it—look, they feel like I once felt! But it’s unjustified and they’ll end up happy!—instead of actually questioning the characters’ worth. Fanfiction usually gets over this hurdle by writing about characters the readers already know and respect and love, or, in the case of RPF, writing about people who are for-real successful and famous. Romance novels have to introduce us to brand-new characters, and one of the easiest ways to make us feel sure that these characters are worthy of our respect and of the other character’s love is to give them prestigious and intellectually or creatively rigorous careers. I’ll be interested to see how many other instances of this I run across.

Two points of view. It strikes again! Do all romance novels include both points of view? I don’t hate it, necessarily—but it does decrease the overall tension. You don’t get caught up in one character’s desires as strongly when you’re seeing both POVs.

Immediate attraction. Another thing I should probably stop being surprised by. Both Alexa and Drew are very physically into each other as soon as they meet; he has trouble not looking at her breasts, and there are so many narrative references to her wanting his touch, wanting to move closer to him, etc. To be fair, I think I’m pretty far toward the “not attracted to complete strangers” side of the spectrum, so I might not be the best judge of this, but it did feel a little over the top. I suspect this was an attempt to make us really want these two to be together. I think it was trying too hard—a more genuine reserve would have been more compelling to me, where they like each other but don’t immediately want to jump each other. Also, they’re going to a wedding together as fake dates! You don’t have to try that hard to make us interested!

Food as comfort. This was such a strong recurring thread in this novel. Alexa has a sweet tooth, and Drew is always getting her doughnuts; they get a lot of very satisfying takeout. It gelled for me with the thing where a lot of the satisfaction in the novel came from the comfort of “oh, this person is touching me; oh, they like me back.” Comfort instead of angst.

Subplots. One of my questions in approaching this genre was whether romance novels needed to be more novel-like than fic—i.e. whether they needed to engage with a plot beyond the romance. This does have a very slight B plot (Alexa’s youth initiative, which is connected to her difficult relationship with her sister) but it’s VERY slight. The book has an even less prominent subplot about one of Drew’s patients who develops cancer. Alexa’s subplot resolves, whereas Drew’s is only backdrop. Drew’s in particular is used the way I’d use a subplot in fic: it’s included to provide an excuse for scenes with or about Alexa, or to affect Drew’s mood in ways that reflect or influence the romance plot. It serves the romance instead of being an independent plot in its own right.

Okay, so those are my observations. Time to dig into the thing where this book lost me in the middle—much like the last book I reviewed, but for entirely different reasons.

I’ve already talked about the drastic drop-off in tension after they slept together. That actually was not what lost me this time. This novel managed to build enough of a rapport between the two characters that I was invested in their relationship becoming real. To be clear, I would have preferred that the fake dating trope go on longer and create opportunities for actual longing. But this novel wasn’t so much about longing; it was about that delightful feeling when you like someone and you reach out tentatively and they meet you in the middle. It was the very, very gentle tension of, “Maybe we could hang out today?” “Sure!” over and over, as a relationship builds. It was fluff-adjacent tension. Super enjoyable, the way a warm bath is enjoyable. I wasn’t dying to get to the end or anything, but it was nice.

I did wonder, about halfway through, how the heck this book could possibly keep going like that. And it turned out it couldn’t. That was when it introduced: the Misunderstanding Plot.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a good misunderstanding plot. But they are hard to do well. They work best when they feel unforced and genuine, and don’t make either of the characters carry the idiot ball. Like, say, if Drew and Alexa hadn’t had enthusiastic sex where they talked about how much they wanted each other, and they were still under the impression that it was a fake relationship, it would be very easy to have the other character accidentally confirm that and drive a wedge between the two of them. Or if one of them was starting to think it WAS real, and then they overheard the other person confessing to someone else that it was totally fake. (Don’t mind me; just thinking about ways I might write it.)

The problem with this one was that they were basically just dating at this point, so in order for drama to arise, the characters had to act badly in ways that felt forced and off-putting. They’d known each other for a week and a half; things had been happy and a little giddy and chill between them so far. Then Alexa texts in the middle of the workday to ask if Drew is sleeping with anyone else. (Because that is the perfect way to initiate an important relationship conversation, obviously.) He makes a joke, because he is clearly also very good at this, and they don’t speak to each other for a week and a half.

Guess which one of them this makes me like more? That’s right! Neither!!

Look. I like characters who are stupid about their own feelings and blind to other people’s. But I also like characters who, when they know about the other person’s feelings, are very, very considerate of them. Drew was not—and Alexa compounded the problem by being confrontational with the question and then abruptly pulling back as soon as she didn’t get the magical easy answer. In short, it made me think that they were bad for each other.

They recover from the texting thing when they just so happen to run into each other (I mean, I can’t throw stones, I’ll buy the coincidence) and are happy to see each other, and apologize, and everything’s fine. But by this point the novel had lost me. I had been enjoying the happy dance of “Does s/he like me? Ooh, s/he does!” but only so long as it lasted. They didn’t have a strong enough core after a week and a half to get through the badness of those texts. They were happy again, but I wasn’t invested. I was mostly reading so I could write this review.

Then, fascinatingly, the book won me back.

It was a very specific passage that did it. On page 190 of the paperback, Alexa talks in the narration about how she wouldn’t admit this to anyone other than herself, but ever since that first weekend with Drew, she’d imagined him in bed with her every night as she fell asleep. And I was sold. I mean, it was still very gentle tension. But! A thing the character wanted that she wasn’t getting! I could be into this again!

And then...well, this is already super long, so I won’t go into all the details of the misunderstanding that ended the book. It had a lot in common with the text message fiasco: Alexa felt insecure, got upset that Drew might not be into her, and refused to engage with him about whether that was true. (Okay, it was actually more egregious than the texts, in that she wouldn’t let him speak.) Her getting upset made sense, but her refusing to let him speak when he was clearly trying to felt SO forced.

The funny thing is, there was actually a seed of potential real conflict there: Drew hadn’t really admitted to himself that he wanted a long-term thing with her. He could have told her that. He could have done anything, really, to indicate that and create a real conflict. (Also tricky to handle without him coming off as not actually interested—but doable, I think.) As it was, he didn’t call her his girlfriend at a party—which, it had been like a month, and they hadn’t discussed it privately, so it’s totally appropriate not to throw the term around in public yet!—and...that’s it. Everything else was just her fears, and the very cowardly way she handled them. I guess that’s relatable? But it felt so engineered. It didn’t so much make me dislike her as make me annoyed with the text for twisting her response so that they couldn’t have the very short conversation that would have cleared everything up.

In fairness to Guillory, a friend who’s read the whole series tells me she does better with misunderstanding plots later. But I’m really, really excited to read a romance plot that doesn’t lose me halfway through.

Next up is Red, White, and Royal Blue. I’ve been told this was basically written for me, so I’m hopeful. Fingers crossed it sticks the landing!

[polyamorousmisanthrope]

I tracked every second of my time for a week. Here’s what happened.

Just for giggles and to give my border collie brain something to do, I decided I was going to track every minute of my day according to what I was doing at the time. Yeah, I know.  What’s the point of that nonsense?

In searching for a justification better than “I like playing with and analyzing data,” think about this: Time is all you have, and it is finite. Are you spending it in a way that is useful and happy-making to you?

What did I learn from tracking every minute of the day?

Some things that need change

I got some serious feedback on things I need to think about and take action on

The act of time tracking messes up the data.

Rather like someone who has decided to keep a food log, the very act of tracking my time has meant that the feedback has become more immediate.  Having to press a button on my phone to log what I was intending to do made me a bit more deliberate about what I was choosing to do.  I tried very hard to reflect what my time genuinely looks like, screwing around on the Internet or hopping like a bunny from task to task.  That didn’t stop me from wincing when I needed to deliberately say, “Okay, I am going to screw around on the Internet now!”

Time tracking is a time-consuming pain.

I could only stand doing it for about six days before I felt like it was distracting me from things I genuinely wanted to get done.  I could have sucked it up for the purposes of this article, but the sample of how I spend my time was reasonably representative, spanning workdays and a weekend, so I ran with the data I have.

I will probably start treating tracking my time rather like I treat tracking my food – only if it looks like there is a problem and I want a reality check.

I realized my priorities were screwed up

I suspected this. While I was spending a decent amount of time on my family[1], I was not so good at spending an appropriate amount of time on my friends.  In fact, it helped cement a decision to get my butt off Facebook – which I will discuss in another article.

I also was spending far too much time on chores and housework.  I know that sounds nuts, but while having a tidy house is one thing, and yes, I do want that, puttering around all day looking for things to put away or clean and listening to audiobooks isn’t really where I want to put All the Energy.  I deserve a nice environment, yes.  But I can and should corral that time into discrete units so that it is taken care of efficiently and doesn’t get out of hand.

I found that my time was badly scattered

I already knew multitasking is a myth.  You’re not multitasking, you’re context switching.  Thing is, if you do that, you’re bearing a cognitive load.  

Numerous studies point to the fact that as you context switch between tasks, your efficiency on those tasks, as well as your accuracy, suffers.  For work that has a heavier cognitive load, a flow state is important.

If you take a look at the screenshot, you’ll notice that unless I was teaching a class, sleeping, exercising, or knitting, a lot of my time was spent in context switching.

Now, the reality? Most housework chores simply don’t take all that much time or cognitive load. I’ve talked about that before.  However, when you’re switching your attention a lot, you’re not getting as much done.

I am taking away from this particular data that how much time I dedicate to something does need to depend a bit on the cognitive load the task takes.   Laundry, not so much.  Writing? Learning a new computer language?  I need to stop switching around and focus.

I was putting too much mental energy into exercise

Look, I need to work out. I do work out.

I do not need to spend an hour looking for motivational articles on the Internet about why I need to work out or to get me excited about my goals.  My body does not care about what it takes to get me on the treadmill or weight bench.  It only cares that I did it.

That hour I spend hyping myself up to work out is in no way adding to my life.  It would be better-spent knitting.  At least I’d get a sweater out of it.

Things I won’t change

Because living on purpose choosing deliberately is a big deal to me, I’m happy that I got feedback about things I don’t want to change because I’m happy with what I’m doing.

I spend a lot of time planning or preparing

Straight up, I’m okay with this.  It wasn’t a surprise and I was always happy with spending my time this way.  I used to have a martial arts teacher who consistently said, “Preparation precedes action.”  True. Very true.

Making bento the night before takes about 15 minutes a night.  If I eschew those fifteen minutes, I am running a non-trivial risk of not making a well-balanced lunch when I get hungry around noontime.  I’m fine with giving Future Me that little present.

Laying out clothes and tidying while the bath is running (I have low water pressure) definitely jump-starts my morning, especially when exercise clothes are staring me in the face on what I know is going to be a busy day.

Five minutes with my Bullet Journal translates into more knitting and reading time because I think about what I want to accomplish in a day and when that’s done, I’m blasted well off the hook for being so-called productive.  I had kinda figured this was so, but now I have a numeric comparison.

I spend a lot more time reading actual books than I thought

I thought I consumed most stories in audiobook format while I’m doing household chores these days. So I figured that the “Reading” part of how I spend my time under “Hobbies” was going to be a bit anemic.

Naw… Not really.  Part of this is that I read in the bathtub, and I had no idea how long I generally spent in the bath soaking and reading a book. I found out that I average about as much time doing that as I do exercising.  Nice balance and a pleasant surprise.

I get enough sleep.

OK, I already knew that.  I’m protective of my sleep and have been for many years.  I’m stupid when sleep-deprived, so I avoid that.  I find the bragging about running on too little sleep idiotic and I’m sure it contributes to our unstable politics.  That, and not making your bed.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So, a question for my readers.  Are you satisfied with how you spend your days?  If not, what do you want to do and how can you do that?

[1] If you’ve known me for five minutes, you know about the family thing.

[unabashedrebel]

RP Snippits

{Below is a piece written alongside @dae-shadowvale ft. @simplysoriya . Sometimes i like to torture my characters a little too much. So yeah, uh, this happened. It’s pretty long, you’ve been warned.}

A soft smile graced his lips as she saved him from himself, and that fear of saying something dumb just when things were getting emotional. "I've been doing some side work. But basically until I decide to go to therapy I'm off active duty. They've been taking it sort of easy on me since I was a POW." Though before Kirollis could expand on just how much he hated therapy, the fishing line began to stir. It started at the tip at first, gentle jerks and pulls that went unnoticed. But in the midst of their conversation the thin piece of wood bent completely into a curve as something snagged on the line. 

 "Oh shit! I think I got something!" He exclaimed.

Dae felt her chest involuntarily tighten at the mention of Kiro’s imprisonment, and while she did what she could to keep that mental flinch from broadcasting itself through her expression, there was likely a lingering flash of sadness in her gaze as she listened to his response. Yes, there was the obvious reminder of the toll that time had taken on herself - all the hopeful glances toward the cafe door every time she heard that bell ring, only to feel her heart sink over and over again - all the nights of falling asleep with her comm in her hand, hopeful that she would hear his voice break through the radio silence, and terrified to hear someone else’s - the emotional torture she put herself through in those weaker moments, wondering if he’d just... left. Now? Thinking back to that period of time, knowing what he had gone through, it made her feel guilty. The fact that he’d waited so long to at least let her know he was alive was still a very sore spot for her, and there was still a lot of emotional ruin to wade through, but there would always be space in her heart for the snarky rogue and his daughter. She wanted to ask him how things had been going with therapy, if he felt like it was helping, if he’d be returning to active duty when he was able, but as fate would have it, none of those questions would make the journey from her thoughts to his ears. 

Her eyes widened at his exclamation and she glanced quickly to the place where his fishing line disappeared beneath the water’s surface in a seamless shift into excitement. “What are you waiting for?!” She took one final pull from her bottle, emptying its contents, and leaned forward to peer down into the water. “Reel it in!”

Kirollis gripped tightly on the fishing rod as tremors rocked through the thin wooden frame. Whatever was on the other end of the line was big, and angry, at the rogues resistance. Not entirely lacking in the physical department, either, Kirollis looked like he was struggling to keep up. His feet planted with their heels dug in, only to find nowhere to get a good footing on the wooden and worn planks of the Booty Bay docks.  His knuckles creeping into a feint white coloring as he vigorously pulled with both hands on the handle. It was as if he was completely oblivious to the dancers advice. Sufficiently stunned by the monster that lurked under the docks, snared by his hook. But eventually he did turn to her adding a sarcastic, "Ooooooooh." With a smirk. "By all means, you're more then welcome to help." The rogues voice strained and rough, coming in a guttural tone from the throat. But once he was situated, and the fish offered a brief repose, Kirollis took the opportunity to just that. Carefully leaving the tension of the rod to one hand as the other didn't stray too far to the metal reel line. Painstakingly cranking the lever in a vain attempt to land his prize. All it managed to do was tick every other second as the rod looked increasingly stressed by the rogues efforts. By this point Kirollis had slowly been dragged, unnoticeable by how small the increments, until the tips of his toes hung off the edge of the dock. Curling and clinging to the planks, even if it was likely more for personal comfort then actual strategy.

"It's all in the hips!" A voice echoed from the far beach as Soriya seemed to have taken an active role in watching it all unfold. While she was too far away for expressions to be read, it was a fair assumption to either of them that she wore a shit eating grin at her fathers troubles with a fish. 

"Okaythisisn'tworking." Kirollis grunted out quickly to himself. Though determination still sat strong on his features. One finally jerk from the rod was all it took to deflate every ounce of confidence he had. Unceremoniously loosing his balance, one leg jutted out awkwardly as if to purchase some. Though even that proved to do little as another shift from the rod tipped him right over the edge and sent him plummeting to the waters below.

The whole scene unfolded in slow motion for Daelynn, which only served to enhance the hilarity of its outcome. One second, Kiro was beside her on the dock, heels dug in firmly as he strained against the pull on his line. The next, he'd disappeared in a woooosh of air, tumbling head-first into the water, and leaving her somewhat perplexed for a second or two. At first, the dancer rose to her feet - an instinctive reflex of concern for the rogue's well-being - but that reflex was fleeting, at best, and she was quickly overcome with laughter. It poured out of her with the ease of water rushing over the falls; unbridled, jovial, breath-catching laughter that had her clutching her stomach as she sunk to her knees, tears collecting at the outer corners of her vision. There was nothing malicious about her reaction, even as she struggled to find her voice amidst each strained gasp of air, and though the simple fact that watching someone take such an impromptu swim was funny in its own right, there was one glaringly comedic addition to this situation in particular; something that clearly hadn't gone unnoticed by the brunette he'd left behind on the dock. 

Kirollis Duskhaven - slayer of men, master of blades, expert of sneak - bested by a fish. 

It was true that Kirollis was a lot of things. That he had a long history of being the capable sort. From assassinating Generals without so much as an alarm, to running smuggling rings that spanned across the Eastern Kingdoms and beyond, to a competent spy, and so many other accomplishments. Not a single one of them mattered as Kirollis plunged face forward from the docks down into the crystal clear water below. What would have normally been easy to see was obscured by the milky froth and unsettled water as bubbles raced to the surface following his decent beneath the waves. Angry flailing and churning from beneath that was so violent one could swear they heard curses bubbling up to the surface. 

As was above, was to below. While Soriya was busy lounging on her surfboard with her face down. Soaking in the sun and enjoying the day. While she always made it look graceful and effortless, the ocean and the tide had a way of tiring out the body more then most would expect. That amount of control and poise, and maintained at such a level? She was wiped out, and made no efforts to hide it.That was until she heard the telltale sign of weight crashing into water with a bassy PLOOOOP. Instantly her head periscoped, flicking her attention toward the sound. While her facial expression would be near impossible to tell from a distance, the look of confusion sat on her features. Swiftly she tried to make sense of it all as she looked over the disturbed water. Then up to the rapturous sounds of laughter. Tilting her gaze up to find Daelynn, and only Daelynn   standing on the stilted docks, leaning over the side as the music of her uncontainable laughter said it all. 

It took only a moment for Soriya to understand what happened. And even less time for her to join in to the chorus of cracking up, so loud that it could be heard in tandem with Dae's own on the dock. Uncontrollable and consistent, those jovial expressions tumbled out of her as if she had little choice in the matter. Gripping on the sides of her board tightly as the young monk doubled over, laying her face down flat on the board as she continued. Before long Soriya rolled right off and into the water- Though unlike her father, she at least seemed to do it intentionally. As if the scene before her was too much for her to take, and she relented to immerse herself beneath the waves in a vain attempt to save her father a little face. 

Before long, Kirollis himself surfaced. Lacking the fishing rod that had proven to be his bane, lost and gone to the tides- and the one creature that did manage to best him-.... a fish. Sputtering out water with aggressive and loud raspberries from his mouth, both hands would come up to clear his eyes. Tipping his head up to look at the dancer, who was Still laughing at his pain. Of course he had to say something. "Yeah, sure. Laugh it up. Real nice. What if I couldn't swim? Would you have jumped in after me?" He teased in mock aggravation.... and perhaps a little embarrassment. 

“Ohhhh c’mon!” Daelynn retorted, still unable to keep the grin from her face... and still struggling to regain her breath from the sudden, and powerful, outburst of laughter. “You would be laughing just as hard if I was the one taking a dunk and you were standing up here, nice and dry,” she lifted a hand to wipe a stray tear on its way down her cheek with the back of a knuckle, “And you know it.” Kneeling down at the edge of the dock, Dae lowered her voice some, speaking in earnest while the corners of her mouth continued to curl themselves upwards. “If it makes you feel any better, I promise to keep this little incident to myself- outside of teasing you about it for the foreseeable future, of course. Though, I can’t speak for all witnesses...” Her gaze lifted from the sputtering rogue as he continued to tread water, focusing briefly on the mostly-submerged brunette floating out in the distance, and lifted her hand to wave - an acknowledgment of their shared laughter, and also to notify the woman that her father wasn’t in any immediate danger. She returned her attention to Kirollis himself, smirking as she braced herself against the dock with one hand, and extended the opposite arm as far as she could. “Let’s get you out of there before you melt, or something,” she teased, tossing a wink down to him.

"I mean I-.." Kirollis held up a finger in protest. Yet after a moment all it did was curl down, deflated, much like the rogue himself as his jaw hung agape. The logic bomb Daelynn had dropped on him critically hitting, and it showed. In a brief and resilient rebuttal he managed to mutter out, "Well, but I would have at least tried to hide it." Breaking into a chuckle soon after. If there was anything he knew how to do, and do well, it was laugh at himself. The gesture dispelling any notion of hard feelings over the hilarious happenings on the Booty Bay docks. 

"Ohhhh no." Dae shook her head, vehemently. "Nonono. How many times have you sprung from the shadows with the sole purpose of scaring me half to death?" She didn't give him even a second to respond before jumping right back into it. "AND out of all those times, how often did you ever attempt to hide your amusement?" Again, she left no room for a rebuttal. "I'll tell you how many."  She held up a hand, fingertips curling around to meet the end of her thumb, forming an obvious 'O'. "None. Exactly zero. So enough of this 'woe is me' act... you big baby." The tone she used was teasing in nature, peppered here and there with a chuckle, but there was no denying the accuracy of her response, and the look on her face was irrefutable proof that she knew she had him at a stalemate on the matter.

By the time a pause marred the pairs playful jabs Soriya had made her way over to make it a trio. Of course she had to laugh at her fathers pain as well chiming in the midst of her paddle, "Dad! Come on, we went over this, you can't just jump in and try and stab them." The monk chirped out with a voice full of giggles. Repositioning to sit up on her board near where her father recovered from his plunge, letting her legs lazily dangle off the flanks and into the water.

"Oh come on." Kirollis protested to the unforgiving crowd, his arms outstretched in an expression that matched his words. Knowing full well that he had, on several occasions, taken great joy in scaring both women- much to their respective disdain. She had him, he knew it, his daughter knew it, and most importantly Daelynn knew it. Turning to Soriya in a bid for some relief, he found no such thing.

Instead the brunette scrunched her youthful features toward their center. Casually shrugging to her fathers desperate plea. With small and rapid nods of her head, the look she gave him in reply all but said You're on your own. Reaffirming the floating mistweaver added, "I'm pretty sure you laugh all the time. You think your slick. But we see it, clearly." Soriya motioned between herself and the dock bound Daelynn.

It didn't take long for Soriya to snap her attention over to Daelynn, happily raising up her hand in a wave before excitedly shouting up, "Hey Dae!" in greeting. "Literally the two of us here and he still gets himself into trouble. Did we really even want him back?" She joked. Blissfully unaware of how her words might hit the dancer. Too caught up in the joy of the moment and the fact that this was one of the rare times the three of them were all together. Not to mention the overwhelming fact that her dad had just been bested by what she could only imagine was a tuna.Shifting to her father once more Soriya asked, "You okay, pop?" She asked with concern. 

Kirollis for his part had done his best to roll with the punches. But as always he was dramatic about it, sporting an overly animated pout as his arms crossed over his chest. A sarcastic chuckle escaping him after it was all said and done, "Yeah, sure, you know just my ego is a little bruised. But sure. I'm okay." Of course he wasn't angry, but far be it from him to not ham it up. "You two gonna gang up on me now? Is this like a thing?" He lamented as a hand unfurled from its counterpart and motioned between the two women.  A tired sigh escaped him as he shook his head. Defeated and deflated. "Alright. I relent to my watery fate." He resigned to a surrender, with his hands hoisted near his ears in a carefree manner. Though he did chuckle a little at his own expense when it was all said and done.

"It's good to see you, Sori," Dae turned her attention to the monk, flashing a vibrant smile before her expression shifted into one of feigned grief, "though, it's a shame it had to be under such tragic circumstances..." An exaggerated frown followed, aimed at the drowned rogue, and while Sori's off-the-cuff remark did strike a little close to the chest, Dae managed to keep that pang of emotional discomfort from rising to the surface. "You should stop by the cafe before you leave the Cape - I'll send you off with a box of goodies for the kids."

"I could go for some lunch." Soriya chimed in a little too quickly after Dae had offered. Showing a little more excitement that two of her favorite people were in the same location. Not a thought given to over imposing on the kindness. "Why don't we meet you there in a little bit?" 

Thirty minutes later...

Soriya walked through the door first. A mess of jovial giggles and her cheeks bright red. That smile she loved to wear pulled to its limits, even showing a rare display of dimples in the process. Her hair still wet from the ocean and attire that suggested she was going right back out, only having put a t-shirt and flip flops from the previous bikini. Though once those teal eyes found Daelynn in the Cafe, her arms came to the front door as to present, "So dad totally bought my silence."

In walked an exhausted, yet dry, Kirollis. But quite noticeably the rogue wore a bright pink t-shirt that looked just a tad too tight- 'Badazzled' written across the front in an arc in rhinestones.  Of course it was. Complete with a pair of shorts and a damp burlap bag in hand. "Dear diary; worst day ever."

[scottedwardfowler]

Hey guys! In this post I’m to talk about the top three websites I’ve personally use to get work as a freelance video editor. If you’re just starting out, and you’re part time or on a budget, I’ve got a few places you can check out that won’t break the bank.

This post is a response to a question that I got on my last video, “How to Get Started Editing In Premiere.” Which you can find on my youtube channel here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhj-GmQTgjs&t=1s

The question came from Izabela who asked, “Id love a video about getting started on becoming a freelance editor. What are the best freelancing websites to apply for jobs, tips, and suggestions for anybody who’s starting out. Thank you so much, great video!” 

I think that’s a really good one to ask, a lot of people (including myself) when they’re first starting out struggle with how and where do we find work.

There’s actually tons of freelancing sites online that you can search for and try out. So here’s a couple of Honorable mentions:

Guru & Freelancer - Best suited for beginner freelancers on a budget

There’s a Low cost to get started and bid on jobs, with a decent amount of various editing jobs available. I haven’t used them as much, because when I was first starting out, I signed up for a bunch of freelancing websites, and I ended up having more luck landing gigs with these other sites first, so the first one is

Fiverr - is a website that’s normally Best for one time, or short term gigs. It has it’s advantages of being easy to sign up and start using, because Unlike other freelance sites, you Don’t have to bid for clients. After some time, and you’re established, Fiverr pushes clients to you by listing your profile near the top of searches. And Fiverr makes tipping very easy, so you can make extra money on top of what you earned for the gig.

However the cons are that Fiverr takes a 20% Commission, and Most gigs are low pay. So that 20 percent really eats into your profits. You get to set your rates, and what kind of editing jobs you can offer and what the turn around time would be. However, there’s a strict policy on no contact outside of Fiverr, so you can’t make a deal with a client outside of the platform and cut Fiverr out of their commission. 

Now we come to UpWork, which is the site I’ve had the most success with. It’s the Most popular freelance site, and offers high quality gigs, as well as not so high quality. It sort of ranges all over the place. But once you’ve been on the platform long enough, you can sort of get an idea of what great job postings are before you even bid on them. I like to think of Upwork as a long term lead genitor, because I have several clients I met years ago who I still work with today. And it all started with one project. It can be difficult to get that first client however, because it is very competitive but once you do, it gets much easier to land future clients. 

You also have the the Flexibility of what kind of projects you can do, such as getting paid hourly vs project based. The negatives of UpWork are that it’s kind of Expensive to get started, you can sign up for free, but in order to bid on any jobs it costs 15 cents per credit. And most jobs postings range from 4-6 credits. So if you were to bid on a ton of jobs, that 15 cents starts to add up. Also, Upwork has a complex Commission rate, I’m not going to go too deep into it but essentially it’s 20% for first 500 you make per client. And roughly 10 percent after that first 500. And that’s per client, so every time you land a new client, UpWork takes 20 percent of your earnings on the first 500 dollars. 

Also, when it comes to disputes between freelancers and clients, Upwork almost always sides with the clients. So I would recommend doing hourly gigs, because typically hourly gigs tend to be more long term and Upwork has hour tracking features built into the platform that make it easier to prove disputes between yourself and a client over work done. 

This next one may surprise you, I’ve also landed some great clients from Craigslist. The cool thing out craigslist, is that the jobs are local to where you live. So you can meet the client face to face and discuss the job in detail at that point. Meeting in personal and developing relationships, really drives what the ultimate goal is which is to create long term client relationships. Plus, there’s no bidding on gigs, or commission rates getting in the way. You look for gigs on the site, reply to a posting, and hopefully you can connect with some great people. 

Now, on the flip side Craigslist does have a sketchy reputation for being a place where weirdos hang out so you have to be on guard there. Also, there’s no gig protection here so if a client stiffs you after you’ve done the job for them, that’s totally on you. There are things you can do such as ask for half of the project payment upfront, or even a quarter of it to protect some of your costs. But it’s definitely a risk you take. The last negative, is that it’s more of a time commitment to drive out and meet a potential client somewhere. If it doesn’t work out on a place like UpWork or Fiverr, oh well, you never had to leave your house. So those are some things to be aware of.

The thing about freelancing is, not everyone is doing it full time. Some may freelance as a part time- side hustle, others might be doing some every once in awhile as a hobby. And not everyone has the same budget in order to get started freelancing. So I understand that everyone’s situation is different, but I just wanted to list out my top three sites that I’ve personally used to get clients. There’s a lot more information I could deep dive into on each site, and Ill probably do that in future videos, so stay tuned for that, But I think those sites I mentioned are definitely a great place to start, if you’re looking to get into freelance video editing.

Ok so the next part of Izabela's question was about what tips and suggestions I have for getting started with freelancing. I think a great place to start is trying to have an understanding of what it takes to build a business. No one knows what it’s like to build a business when they’re first starting out, so you have to seek out sources and people who do have that information And I know it’s weird, especially when you’re first starting out, to think of yourself as a business. But that’s the reality, you have to go clients and try and sell yourself and your services in order to get jobs. 

So I think a good way of becoming more confident in building your freelancing business is to actively learn as much as you can from different sources. So the fact that you’re here watching my video, is a great thing already. I’m always trying to learn what other people’s strategies are, and how they became successful so that I can pick up a few things here and there to apply to my own business. 

In fact I recently just finished reading a book called “Three Simple Steps”, it’s by  Trevor Blake. And I think it’s a really good book to inspire people who are just starting out freelancing or creating their own business. Ill just quickly read the description blurb from amazon:

“Despite stock market crashes, dot-com busts, and the specter of recession, the author started a virtual company from home, using a few thousand dollars of his savings. A few years later, without ever hiring an employee or leaving his home office, he sold it for more than $100 million. As the economy slipped into another free fall, he did this again with a company in a different field. He accomplished this through no particular genius. Rather, he studied the habits of the many successful men and women who preceded him, and developed three simple rules that, if followed diligently, virtually ensure success. Using them first to escape poverty, then to achieve a life of adventures, he finally turned them toward financial independence...

Written in a straightforward and no-nonsense style, Three Simple Steps shows you how to take back control of your destiny and reshape your mind for increased creativity, serenity and achievement. While building on the wisdom of great thinkers and accomplished individuals from East and West, Three Simple Steps isn't a new age text or guide to esoteric fulfillment. Rather, it's a practical guide to real-life achievement by a pragmatic businessman who attributes his incredible successes to these very simple ideas. Three Simple Steps, a 2013 Small Business Book Awards winner, is a must-read guide for everyone who wants to achieve more, live better and be happier.”

The three simple steps in case you were wondering is, number one is to spend more time thinking positively about the things you do want, rather than thinking about the things you don’t want. For example, in our case as freelancers, no one likes having to bid for jobs or chase down clients, you could reframe that as the more jobs I bid for the better practice Ill have at understanding what clients want.

Second, spend 20 minutes a day (preferably in the morning) in quiet time by yourself so you can clear your mind and from that, creativity and inspiration for your business can spring from it. 

Third, the author talks about setting intentions rather than goals. The difference as the author describes it, as an intention is a goal but with the doubt of it’s attainment removed. So as freelancers, a goal might be I hope to make enough money this year to quit my regular job. An intention is, I know will make enough money this year to quit my regular job. You have to set your mindset to that intention everyday. Which is hard, but in the end that’s what will make it rewarding. 

I would highly recommend this book, I found it be really insightful about starting and growing a business from the ground up. But I will say, the first couple of chapters were kind of slow because they were mostly about the author's life journey, which did tie into the rest of the book in the later chapters. But it gets into some really great stuff after the first few chapters. 

So if you’re interested in that book, I’ll leave a link below that you can check out. And that about does it for today’s video, let me know in the comments below what freelancing sites you guys use or prefer the most? I’d love to get a comment thread going, so we can all help each other out on where and how to get jobs as freelancers.  Three Simple Steps (Book): Amazon - https://amzn.to/3bS5uao (affiliate)

[avpdpunpun]

i disappeared for 3/4ths a year here’s an update?

its been 4 months since my queue ran out and way longer since i wrote an actual post. 8 months about? i think i last posted when i impulse quit a job that was bad for my mental health and just kept getting worse.

sometimes i wonder when ppl who blog about mental illness disappear if they’ve died. there was a big user i used to follow who did, and i still occasionally think about it sometimes, so i figure its nice to post updates sometimes. and being able to look back on posts ive written and reflect on them/what state of mind i was in can be helpful even if it can be embarrassing/dangerous because its so easy to fall back into those thinking habits 

after quitting my job i did basically nothing for 6 months haha. at some point i managed to clean out my room which i had done the bare minimum on for years because of depression, took out more built up trash than i thought was possible to fit into my small space. its disgusting but the only thing i struggle to keep up with now at least is vacuuming and putting clothes away so my space is a lot cleaner and it makes me happier. your living space can really have an effect on your mood bless you marie kondo

after my post about having an anxiety attack taking my test i got my drivers license in march. i saw the same lady again after going somewhere else and i think she just let me pass because she felt bad haha. i never finished drivers ed and i still get anxiety about driving unfamiliar routes but my skills and confidence have improved a lot. i managed to drive 2 hours to a big city to visit a friend! i literally didnt have a choice in getting my license, but its still something i can be proud of. like, when i have to explain it to people, it feels extremely shitty that i didnt get it until i was 20, and only about 5 months ago too but... for someone who struggles as much as me, i have to be proud of it my small accomplishments or i’ll have nothing.

at some point something in my brain just snapped and i literally havent been able to cry? for a long time in those 6 months i felt like i was right on the edge of breaking down mentally but never actually crossing that line and it was honestly one of the weirdest things ive experienced. i almost wanted to have a breakdown again just to get rid of the feeling and reach a catharsis like... i used to be a fucking crybaby almost but i. cant. anymore. but i think ive mostly moved away from this point... still feel kinda weird tho.

i didnt end up signing up to a local school fo gen eds. its still on my mind for the vague future because there’s topics i want to learn about (psychology, natural resources, languages...) and maybe try to pursue for a career but really i just wanted a way to get out of my toxic house, even if it meant going into debt to live in a shitty dorm. 

in the last 30 days though life has been moving extremely quickly for me. i dont think i couldve lived with myself much longer being a useless adult basically living in my basement bedroom of my parents house, especially with my younger siblings getting nearer to adult milestones, plus my savings were starting to run out.

so literally next weekend, i’m moving out! and i make enough money right now that with the rough budget i have established, if its accurate, i’ll have a decent amount of wiggle room and hopefully wont be ruining my mental health just trying to make ends meet.

it took a long time of searching but i managed to find a job that hasnt made me suicidal and has slightly more than the MIT living wage for my area lol. im a janitor now! we’ll see how long it lasts but a lot of the factors from my last two jobs that contributed to my failing mental health are gone. i rarely have to interact with other people, and if i do its my coworkers, of who i tend to only see for minutes per day, or the other people working in the building i clean who at most i have to say hi and have a nice night to lol. i get to listen to music and podcasts for 8 hours and its very routine heavy. i have to clock out after the 8 hours is up so i literally cant be forced into overtime. a lot of people dont respect cleaning jobs like this but honestly who gives a fuck, its something i can handle mentally and support myself with. its still hard adjusting to 40 hours. i know its the standard, but the standard is rly tough for me, but i think i can do it long term.

all of this has been achieved through sheer self hatred and impulse alone, and im very nervous about moving in with 3 other people even if 1 of them ive known for 8 years, and i dont think its even properly hit me yet. literally cant register that i have to fend 100% for myself but also ill be away from my toxic family! i can bring my cat with me, who before this i got to see at MOST once a week!

a dude ive known online for two or more years is moving to my area too for college and he’s so sweet and kind, i feel better talking to him than i have 99% of people in my life and im so lucky to know him. ive been forced to talk about personal things i was kind of dreading (not his fault, just a result of our relationship going to go from online -> irl and things id have to address beforehand) and honestly i didnt even mind it that much when i just got it over with and talked about it to him! vulnerability is literally the thing i struggle with the most in interpersonal relationships and is a huge block for me in every way and in even the most mundane life situations but like... he’s honestly the best and im getting emotional writing this and its weird af because i straight up dont GET emotional about other people. ive absolutely developed a stupid fucking crush on him recently and i THINK hes been receptive to flirting and i cant tell if he flirts back because we already say i love you and are wholesome af but honestly no clue if he’s into (trans) dudes but honestly? even if it doesnt work out im so happy to be friends with him and im so excited to finally meet him!! i really think knowing him has helped me improve myself 

i’ve always thought that if i could literally just achieve the bare minimum in life that things would naturally get better. like i’m still mentally ill and get paranoid about peoples intentions and i think if my boss yelled at me id have an anxiety attack on the spot. im still depressed and hate that i have low energy and that it’s still rly hard doing basic chores. 

but like a huge part of my problem was that i felt like i literally couldn’t TRY to connect with people if i couldn’t face having to tell them bare info about myself, like “oh i cant drive” or “i dont have a job” or that i was living with my parents but not even making PROGRESS on getting out. like how could i make friends or go on dates if i literally couldnt contribute shit or admit these things i was so ashamed of? a lot of my self image was shaped by this because my entire life i havent been mentally well enough to do as well as i should have.

but like. i feel like im finally doing these basic things!! i dont have to hate myself so much anymore! i dont look badly on other mentally ill ppl who are less lucky than i/havent been able to do those things yet/might not ever and are still in the same situation i was 2 months ago but the self hatred is strong pls understand.

i dont know yet if i could afford twice yearly drs visits for meds or anything and probably not therapy. i dont even know what my insurance is yet haha. but i’ll see

i need to figure out at what point in my life im going to be able to never contact a single person in my family ever again, considering i’ll be a 20 min drive away and they will know the precise location of where i live, and if i’ll ever feel safe enough in society to start hrt but :^) you know :^) i can at least present more masculinely in the meantime!

i dont rly know how to conclude this... i’m not trying to brag either im just very nervous and excited about where my life might be going for the first time ever? maybe? in my entire life? i have no clue what to pursue after moving out, but i can figure it out. and just... that there’s hope even if youre as fucked up and mentally ill as i am lmao!

[moseswilhelm]

Now that you’re all gone, I’ve got a few squishy bits to air out. I don’t feel normal. Whether that means quirky or broken or eccentric depends on the day or hour or seconds between the particular anxiety of waiting on someone to respond to a long string of text. Internally, I’ve cycled between deciding if I am alien, demon, mutated evolution, a plaything of God, a challenge, or just plain old mentally ill. We can guess the healthier option, but there isn’t much use or fun using that.

Knowing you’ve lacked socialization in your youth doesn’t really mean much in trying to solve that problem in the same way that knowing you were just shot won’t help close the wound. What I am trying to say is I wasn’t socialized when I was young and that consistent distant feeling from your peers comes from that.  Hearing that you think differently, or have an interesting brain is a nice little compliment albeit a little condescending. Unfortunately, you can’t really monetize excellent explanatory metaphors without the true meat and potatoes of capitalist society: focus. Arguably, effort and hard work and all that, but the measurement of how much you’ve put into something gets a bit blurred when you’ve somehow acquired detail knowledge of the economic turmoil that initiated the Pontic Wars. Someone please give me money for that. Easily an entire week got a bit lost in trying to understand centralized economies in the classical era and not one person paid me. Outrageous. I think writing was my way of trying to accomplish that level of usefulness that we are all trying to achieve. I knew that whatever I went through as a kid helped me develop an approach to understanding things in a unique way, but this is arguably not even useful to myself let alone the world as a whole. Unfortunately this hobby/career is top tier ADD nightmares and require a level of focus and drive comparable to Stephen King just ripped on coke. I neither have the proclivity for weird child orgies and dog monsters or coke.  Well thats a lie, coke suits me just fine but my scantron has enough bubbles filled out and I’m already late turning in my “how much of a trainwreck are you” buzzfeed quiz.  I see you, red squiggly telling me that “thats” needs an apostrophe. Fuck off, this is art and I refuse to change. Hey, what do you think happens when you’re told that confidence has to come before... y’know... actually being proud of yourself? Arrogance and self-absorption, obviously. You learn very quick that empty confidence is just as meaningless as no confidence, so to kind of fake it you have to really inflate things you have no right inflating and they are inflated on a scale comparable to those around you. Which is arrogant! Its awful! People can do different things at different levels and still be valid! Confidence is valued at an extremely high level to the point where the confidence to present yourself is a bit more important than the character you are supposedly proud of... evidenced plenty by the folks in the public eye known specifically for their charisma and yet somehow failing to actually be a person worth being around. That said, it can get tangled up in actually being proud of yourself. Shocking, I know, but you can’t really lump people who have characters worth being proud of to those just decent at faking it.  Faking it. I know imposter syndrome is a thing. I am certainly not really alone in the concept of “oh god I’m faking it” so I won’t really pretend I have some magic insight on the concept (I’m lying I’m absolutely going to present myself as someone with Answers welcome to the fucking show) but when does “holding it together” and “how you present yourself” become imposter syndrome.  “Hi this is me who has to be this way in order to balance between seeming different enough to stand out but not so different that you feel disgusted at the concept of change, nice to meet you” I mean what the fuck is a person anyways. Thats not a question. Not even a rhetorical one so if you answered aloud in your head I’m sorry but my psyche is not emotionally prepared for audience participation right now so clam up. Finding yourself is always a precarious as hell phrase because that often means one of two things: 1. Learning not to care about how others feel about who you are, despite all evidence of existence point out that this is the absolute most important aspect of your life 2. Presenting the parts that you were afraid to present to people.  Look, I get it, you can’t please everyone and I’m not really here to talk about how to please anyone. In fact, I’m not even here. This is a lucid dream you’re having in your chair and shortly you’ll wake up and not remember if you were sleeping at all. Its fine, you’re fine.  You have to please someone though. I think we underestimate the value of the tutorial level of life regarding this. You are given a set amount of people who are, usually, just going to be pleased by your existence. This always sets up your expectations of how that looks, how it feels, and how important it is. I mean imagine if right now I decided to criticize the immense value society puts on children. You’d hate my fucking guts! “Look at this asshole, kids deserve to be cared for” To be clear I don’t disagree with that. I think a lot of the current “you are valid” rhetoric is based on the concept that adults deserve to be cared for as well. This sorta rounds off my point that attention and reassurance is an important part of being cared for. In my opinion, this gets overlooked very often in favor cheap performative actions like hitting a heart button and oh my god I’m like a baby boomer writing for the new york times okay hold on I promise this isn’t a cynical criticism of millennials.  People want to be heard. Importantly, people want to be understood. Spicy hot fucking take. Its a bit more than “this person knows who I am” although thats precisely how its framed. People want to be cared for, and this means knowing the... other person knows who they are caring for. Ah holy shit this is why I use metaphors.  You have a snickers bar and you are hungry. Congration, you done it. Its the middle of the day and you never had any breakfast and frankly your bank account could use a break from pleasuring Starbuck’s atm reader so you somehow found the last snickers bar in a box you bought off of impulse bought off of Amazon and immediately regretted because it was gone two days later. Or so you thought. As you threw away the cardboard you hear the tell-tale tumble of a forgotten rod of peanuts and caramel that must have gotten jammed in the back of this thing. It was, however, 7am and you had to get to work and maybe having bubbleguts while dealing with people is not your recipe for a good day so you throw it into your purse or bag or whatever the fuck and move on.  “Lunchtime” rolls around and as you do the mental gymnastics required to find the conclusion that food=energy in between bouts of fury over why your workday insists on starting at 8am and how you can’t seem to cope with falling asleep early enough for that not to matter, you remember your snickers bar. Reaching into whatever bag you put it and coming to the horrifying dread of realization that you left this bag in your car in fucking July, you find the sweet sugared respite in a corner. Squeezing it a bit just to test, you are surprised to not find it in the horrible (and yet delicious) state of melted confectionary. Your stomach grumbles a bit as you fidget with the perforated candy wrapper, vaguely thinking to yourself that it might be interesting to read the ingredients as you eat this thing like that isn’t going to fill you with inexplicable Eldritch dread. Nobody needs to know they are ingesting something that might have been made in a facility that also processes every other nut you can think of, delightfully shortened into “tree nuts”. I wonder if anyone has cross referenced all the allergen warnings to deduce which candies are made in the same factory, or if that information is just freely available. What if we kissed in the snickers production facility??? haha jk but...? Anyways, as your mind cycles through a list of stale memes you manage to unsheath this uncut chocolate delight from its wax(???) plastic prison and proceed to take your first, and arguably best, bite into this lunch.  Your teeth sink softly into it, as you would expect. In fact, expectations haven’t really filtered into your skull soup you call a brain, so all manner of things can just slip through your recognition. Not this, however. Instead, fireworks of electric signals screaming “BITTER POISON” shock your brain from its previous state of vaguely functioning. Now you truly see the color of light, feel the air cocooning your skin, the squirm of your organs in your belly. Full panic ensues. You are not human, you are animal, and you have taken in a poison thing.  You spit it out right there on your lap.  You stare at the sad and ruined chocolate mutant nestled grossly in between your legs as your brain high fives itself for saving your life before frantically scouring your subconscious for whatever Vine gives it enough dopamine to not just fucking kill yourself right here. What happened? The fugue of panic washes your perceptions with a mixture of justifications for this travesty. It probably just went bad, but that didn’t taste spoiled (you consider yourself a mild expert having scraped clean many an old collection of halloween candy collections in August the year after the fact) so maybe it melted and rehardened? Baking stuff is weird so maybe that broke down some of its components. You pick it up (holy shit that is slimy. Of course its slimy, just touch it) and its insides look fine. I mean, how often do you examine the insides of a partially chewed bite of snickers? No weird colors. The remaining chocolate lasagna brick also looks exactly what you’d thought it be.  You jokingly think to yourself that maybe you had a stroke but despite the apparent hilarity of that possibility you do the smile thing in the selfie camera of your phone. Everything seems fine, but now you’re getting mad that some turn of events has just ruined your perfectly good slab of sugar and fat that surely would have made the rest of the day bearable (and full of indigestion) Now that is a metaphor. 

[thedefinitivevrchatjournal]

Introduction

Hello! Welcome!

You can call me Ren, I’m glad you’re here witnessing the birth of something so awful that I wanted to document as many steps I take down this rabbit hole.  So, why am I doing this? Well,  that’s kinda hard to answer- multiple reasons, the first and most evident to me is that I’m lonely. Without getting into how I got myself into this mess, it’s sufficient to say that I’ve got to relearn how to interact with people. Second, pure unadulterated curiosity, not much too it. Third, nostalgia, VR Chat reminds me of the mid to late 2000s where Instant Messengers were new and innovative. Being rather young at the time I obviously took part, and so there’s a strong sense of familiarity and belonging that is very welcoming.

What do I want to do? Well, honestly explore this freaking big ass cybernetic world! Dude! Check it, this place is the stuff that people wrote about back in the early 90s where shit like Cyberchase and the Matrix only fantasized about! Stuff like .//hack and the like. We live in the freaking future. There is so many people  and things to do that this is honestly won’t be good for me. I can already tell. 

I digress, aside from being excited about this game what I wanna do is document the social behaviors and etiquette within the realm of Cyberspace. This is rather informal but I hope to accomplish a decent, well thought out piece of literature that will accurately describe the social interactions as best I can. I will admit I’m a STEM major and have no real background in the social sciences that would probably help describe my experience to actual scholars (However, video lectures, books and the like would be very welcome suggestions) but I will do my best to express my thoughts and observations as thoroughly possible.

Okay, but why? I believe what I’m doing is rather important, much like the early interactions on programs like AIM, Kik, GaiaOnline and other IM related chatroom services there was no definitive writings that could accurately translate the experiences of the denizens of the internet at the point in time, one had to experience them to understand.

I do recognize that there is a decent amount of adults now (Probably anybody under 30) that have had these experiences but I’ve noticed that not a lot of people vocalize their experiences in real life, for good reasons, however this doesn’t change the fact that a majority of us have lives online that we’d prefer never to discuss with anybody in real life. I’d like to normalize it all.

Thanks for reading, hope you stick around.

- Ren 11/30/2019

[go-diane-winchester]

Misha Collins cant keep track of his own lies.

Misha ''I was a homeless kid' Collins was interviewed by an art magazine, because apparently he is very artsy fartsy.  Whilst given the opportunity to speak about his supposedly favoritist subject: himself, Misha couldn't  remember all the fallacies he had spouted over the years.  I guess Misha figured his mostly underage, deranged fanbase might be too busy, furiously fingering themselves to badly written fanfiction, to actually read something from an intellectual source.  Something tells me that, just like in the mugging case, this reporter wasn't quite buying his lies.  Here are some of the highlights, with Misha's self-indulgent rambling in italics, and with my running commentary in bold [the interviewer is in bold italics]:

''Like most kids, I liked making things with my hands, and my mother helped facilitate this when I was pretty young. But I followed that impulse to an apprentice-level devotion. I would seek out woodworkers when I was 10 or 11, going into shops and learning how to use a lathe or – just asking. I grew up in western Massachusetts, and by the time I got into high school I was fully into this – just talking to people and learning things from them in person.''

So his hippy, drug addict mom who stashed pot down her youngest child's underwear for fear of being arrested, and who, for a short time, raised poor Misha in a car, honed his artistic skills when he was pretty young?  When?  When they were living in the woods?  And using a bowl of ice as a refrigerator?  So either his story of his childhood is greatly exaggerated or....yeah, that's all I got.  How gullible does he think people are?

Then in high school, I needed a job, so I started doing some manual labor.

So whilst at his elite private school, where there are rich dads and moms dropping off their darlings every morning, Misha chooses manual labor.  He likes to talk to people but he didn't speak to Mr and Mrs Moneybags?  He could have been a petty gopher in one of their companies and fared better.  After all, he needed a job.  I wonder why he chose ''manual labor''?  And why he chose to word it like that, instead of saying ''I became a carpenter's apprentice''.  I guess it sounds honorable.  That's is nothing dramatic about  saying that you flip burgers at McDs.  Saying that you work in a menial, underpaid job for a multimillion dollar company, does have a more dramatic feel to it. 

I built that barn on my mother’s property. Our house had burned down, so with the insurance proceeds, we built that and...

Wait, wasn't Misha's mom a pothead who lived in a car for some time with her two children?  Now, not only does she have property but she has the money to pay for insurance.  When did you live in the car, Misha?  When the house burnt down?  Why didn't you live in that house you showed footage of, on twitter?  Its a nice house, complete with Christmas stockings.  It doesn't quite gel with your underprivileged childhood narrative, but nice nonetheless.   

I worked a lot when I was in college, probably 30 hours a week most of the time. I did some handyman stuff, some carpentry stuff. After sophomore year, I took a year off. I interned at the [Clinton] White House, worked at NPR, became an EMT, started a summer camp for kids. It was a great year.

What is he?  A career whore?  So he was artsy fartsy, but he worked everywhere doing jobs that were unrelated to each other, instead of staying in his field of carpentry, and making money from that.  He got EMT certification.  Was it free?  Did he pay for it with his tuition fees?  What was the purpose of it, if making money for fees was of paramount importance?  That doesn't make sense, because if he was working 30 hour weeks, when did he have time to study?  The average work day is a tad longer, about 40 hours a week.  And if he was studying and working, when was Superman sleeping?  Why was he working so hard?  To put himself to college, don'tcha know.  Even though colleges offer student loans and don't accept their fees in installments.  And yet, he took time off for one year after sophomore.  Was it to make a lot of money for his tuition fees?  Nope, it was to become an EMT and start a summer camp for kids.  I guess summer camps are big business and you can pay off great debts if you start one.  Good to know.  His internment at the Whitehouse only lasted four months, and yet he has acquired all the knowledge there is to acquire, to become a political knowitall on twitter.  Sidenote:  Is it normal for internships at the Whitehouse to last, such a short time.  I am genuinely curious, because it doesn't sound right. 

This is where I think the interviewer started to sound like she was side-eyeing the wood working maestro and his yarns of tall tales.

After graduation you got into acting, and in 1999, you moved with Victoria to Los Angeles for film and television work. There, in 2001, you bought your first house. Tell us about it. You were a starving actor?

Yeah. Right after we bought it, our realtor said, “There’s a TV show that would like to shoot your house.” They brought this [house-hunting] couple through, and when we saw the episode, they had surveyed the house and were like, “We don’t want to touch this piece of s---.” It was a real wreck, had been seriously neglected. It was built in the 1920s, and built by people who weren’t carpenters, didn’t know what they were doing. It was built so poorly, and everything was sagging – the window frames, the eaves.

Can you believe that?  The starving actor bought a house.  Let that sink in.  He recognized that the house was built by non-carpenters [how was this building standing.  Twas a miracle, I tell you.]  And despite being a starving actor with a small amount of money, and a knowledge of carpentry, he bought a house that was badly built by non-carpenters.  So he knew he was buying a liability.  Why?

The kitchen floor you put in is beautiful. Yes, that’s gunstock, from a gun manufacturer in Northern California.

Mr Gun Free supporting the Gun manufacturing industry.  Man, this guy is a hypocrite. 

You lived in that first house for 11 years. Do you still own it? We rent it out to some lovely people who love it, so it’s good.

Fun fact:  Mr Humble Pie has two pieces of property.  And he is making money off of one, but he chooses to attend cons with the same torn T-shirts from years ago, or has to fleece off of Jensen's wardrobe and generosity, otherwise he would be doing his panels naked, poor thing.  Why doesn't he stop his cruises for a year, and use that money to buy decent threads?  One shirt can last a few years.  The lies are  embarrassing, but miraculously his minions believe him. 

On the way to this house, you became very successful with this hugely popular TV series. Life changed. Do you still manage to make time for handwork? 

Yeah. I’ve discovered that I really like working. Work can be respite for me, and switching gears is really key. Going from working on scripts to working with my hands is therapeutic, for sure. I am still managing to work with my hands. I was just doing some woodworking yesterday. I do a lot of cooking. That’s a big part of my life, and also I think a barometer of emotional health. When I’m not cooking, it’s a sign that I’m too stressed out and I’ve got to dial things back a little bit. I do a lot of canning. I put up 120 jars of blackberry jam this fall.

What an irony!  One of the greatest instigators of stress for his co-workers and their fans, gets stressed out himself.  Yeah, guilt can do that.  Plus, he likes quantifying accomplishments.  That is why Gish exists.  Quantity over quality. 

Which artists inspire you? I love Christo and Jeanne Claude, because of the mind-bending scale on which they’ve created things, like they’re rethinking what’s possible. I’m somebody who kind of likes to break rules, to bend rules when appropriate.

I could write a whole big post, on Misha's rule breaking and bending.  From stealing Whitehouse property [and bragging about it] to telling fans about the scratched line in the Crypt which got Jensen a barrage of abuse on Twitter.  The one thing that he spoke about that doesn't make sense is his story about almost getting arrested for reading a book on a building rooftop.  It makes no sense.  There is a portion of the story that is missing, I'm sure.  Misha is a great exaggerator.

Have you turned any Supernatural castmates on to craft? On a set, there’s tons of downtime, a lot of sitting and knitting and crocheting. And I have occasionally been in the mix there. Last year Jensen [Ackles], my co-star, walked up and saw me knitting, and he just looked at me and said, “Really?” But I could tell there was jealousy behind it, more than criticism. So I’ll teach him to knit, and it’ll be fine. We’ll get through this.

Will you look at that?  There are around 70 people on set at any given time.  Many of them must have seen Misha knitting.  And look who Misha decided to mention.  Was that a ''just in case, a nutty heller is reading this'' insertion?  No mention is made of Jared, because who cares about him, right?  Got to give the crowd what they want.  I am side eyeing the knitting claim myself, because I do knit and having seen a photo of him knitting, I can safely say that, that is not how you grasp at the yarn.  You knit with loose fingers because yarn is abrasive. 

The first big project we did with Random Acts was we built an orphanage and community center in Haiti. I would not have thought that was a tackle-able enterprise if I didn’t have a background in building.  Our biggest fundraising driver for the projects that we do – like building a school or an orphanage – is we bring folks down in groups of 25 or so to Haiti or to Nicaragua, and they help in the building process. We roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty.

Wow, he built the 500K orphanage with his own hands, but didn't think about lights for the children.  His response regarding the lights was ''it's Haiti and it takes three f*cking years to get an electrician''.  Wow, I am a third worlder too, but we have electricians.  How backwards is Haiti that he couldn't find a single electrician in the whole country, to light the place up for the poor orphans?  He couldn't squeeze in one electrician in the group of 25 or so.  Are there no philanthropic electricians in his circles?  My word, electricians are such selfish people, don't you think?  They don't want to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.  Why couldn't he just pay for one instead of waiting three years?  Fun fact:  According to their website, the orphanage, aka, the Jacmel children's center houses only 15 children, but another page says there are 27 children living in the house.  They don't know how many children they are looking after.  But that is still a small amount.  So where did all these kids go?

Misha either staged this picture with school kids on an excursion or all those kids got adopted by the staggeringly high quantity of rich couples living in Haiti, right Misha?  SMH

This question made me smirk.  The interviewer had to know Misha has never been to public school.  Look how Mr Bleeding Heart answers the question.

As we know, art programs in K-12 public schools these days are in decline, especially shop class, manual arts. How can we nurture creativity in kids, and why is that important? When I was 9 years old, I had a paper route. One day my younger brother and I were collecting money, and Mr. Haigis answered the door. He started talking to us, and he discovered that our parents were separated, and we didn’t live with our father. In the 1960s, he had run a woodshop for little kids. He had stopped doing it because he got busy with his career. Now he was retired. These two boys show up delivering papers on his front stoop, and it just comes to him: “I’ve got to do the same thing for those kids.”

So Mr Haigis left all the poor, underprivileged children and decided to help these two boys who were going to an elite school?  Sounds legit.  What about public school children, Mr Haigis?  Don't you care about them?   

I was a starving actor for at least a decade.

Misha was a starving actor who worked on 24 projects before getting SPN, but he still managed to buy a house.  Fun fact:  he was an  associate producer on a docu-movie, ''Loot'' which won best documentary at the LA film festival.  His movie didn't need sock puppets to win this one.  Misha should produce more.  That way he wont be on screen, festering up the frame.  The less we see of him, the better. 

http://www.jacmelchildren.org/about/team/

http://www.jacmelchildren.org/

https://craftcouncil.org/magazine/article/builder-baker-angel-maker