#i didn't plan my essay. so if i had to guess. my ideas are all over the place

[hotchfiles]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ ❝ lay down with me ❞ ─ a darling, in any life blurb

pairing: aaron hotchner x reader. summary: the red thread between two people destined to be together may stretch and tangle, but those ties will never break. or: they find out maybe bars aren't all the same. content warnings: alcohol, suggestive talk. not proof read. word count: 2.1k

"Were you... Brushing your teeth?" Yeah he was. And yeah they were still on the jet, but as soon as they got back to HQ he would be on his car for the 45min ride to Arlington to see you. He couldn't risk bad breath on your first date.

Before Aaron could even answer Emily's inconvenient question, Derek came in with another one "Hair freshly cut too, anyone noticed it?" Well he cut his own hair, it would be simply rude not to look his best when he so easily could.

He knew JJ was coming in with something too when she passed by him, so he had to cut it out before "Hey, enough. I’m meeting an old friend after work, just trying to use my time wisely here." His eyes scanned the room for the reactions and even though no one replied, he could see all the little smirking around and whispering between Emily and Derek mostly.

So much for a private life.

He's not the hiding type, if he's in a relationship he has no problem letting people know it, as long as that is it, he enjoys keeping the details to himself. And right now that's all he can really say about you, you're an old friend, just an old friend.

For now.

He was running late now, and very stressed about it. Of course it wasn't the greatest of ideas to go from Quantico to Arlington by driving instead of taking the train, but he wanted to have the choice to take you somewhere else if you wanted to and to get you home safe when the date ended. He was also aware that trains didn't run as late as he might be staying.

He planned the haircut, the hotel shower right before leaving, brushing his teeth while in the jet, having his car ready, but God, did he not plan for the traffic he would have to deal with after 6PM.

But he's a gentleman, so he calls from the car system to warn you about it and he's nervous and anxious because not being present enough and being late or not there at all ruined his marriage and he wants to do better, he really really wants to.

"Oh don't worry babe, I’m still enjoying my wine in my living room. Thought it would be better to wait 'til you were in town to leave, yeah?" Aaron hopes the loud sigh of relief he let out isn't so obvious to you, but it is. You find it endearing. You were reading essays still just minutes ago, you understood him.

You weren't very sure how well would you two work considering that. But you sure as hell wasn't going to give up without at least trying it. And definitely not without a fight.

"Send me your location then, I'll pick you up in... Twenty."

"Uuuh, picking me up? Look at us, it's a real date date now, curfew's at 10PM then, don't forget it." You make him laugh easily with that, your father was a strict man, sometimes you both went to the movies or the park nearby and if you got home at 10:03 was enough for him to sit Aaron down in your living room and tell him all about responsibilities and how he was the boy and so he was supposed to protect you and ensure you were home in time.

"I am curious about what the consequences of not following the curfew will be this time though." Oh he's teasing you now, as if this wasn't your first date and the implications of consequences weren't so... Suggestive, to say the least. But he feels comfortable enough for that.

"Guess you'll have to wait and see then, agent Hotchner." Your voice drips like honey and he's pretty sure he just figured out some sort of deep ingrained fetish he didn't know he had until now. "See you soon, airhead!" You laugh innocently before finishing the call and it drives him mad in the most delicious way.

He thinks those are the most torturous 27 minutes he's ever had to go through his life, but the feeling is completely overrun with almost childish glee as he parks in front of your house. He could fit the choice for a house instead of an apartment easily on your own profile but he didn't need too, you liked your space. Apartments have no space. No privacy. He remembers vividly of a conversation you both had after your cousins were forced into an apartment because of your aunt's divorce.

He dries his palms on his pants quickly not sure if he should go to your door, stay where he is or what. He hasn't done this, the whole date ordeal in a while and it just got to him that he has no idea how people do it these days. What's too much or too little?

Aaron finally decides on leaving the car and waiting near by, after sending you a quick text to inform you he was there. It was a middle ground of sorts, he felt confident in it. Kinda.

It doesn't take you long to leave and lock your door and the sight of you immediately takes his breath away, your smile takes him back some years but your thighs remind him quickly that you are both definitely not fifteen anymore. He shakes his head softly, directing his eyes to a more suitable place for a first date: Your hands. You were holding a flower bouquet.

Flowers.

"Fuck." He mutters to himself in frustration, "I forgot to bring you flowers." You don't seem bothered about it, in fact it makes you smile more as you hand him the bouquet in your hands. "You got these... For me?" Aaron grabs the gift softly with both hands, afraid he's going to break it somehow.

"Yeah, wanted to test my theory that you're still a sap." The way his eyes were shining and his lips turned into the sweetest of smiles were enough proof to you. Aaron was always loving, caring, soft. It was interesting seeing him on the news nowdays, stoic, serious, unbothered. You wanted to see how easy it was to break him.

Turns out very easy. At least to you.

"A sap! I’m surprised I got flowers from a beautiful woman, sue me." He opens the passenger door so you can get in, which you quickly do with a cheeky smile on your face, the gift is carefully placed on the backseat before he's back to your side, seat belt on. Nosy as you are, you're already typing some address on the GPS.

"I heard people talking really good things about this place." You muse while he turns the car on, already following the instructions. "Apparently the beer is great and it stays open til late." He doesn't ask for any clarifications, if that's where you want to go, that's where he'll take you.

The food you've both ordered hasn't arrived at your table yet but Aaron has already gulped down two large beers and is trying so very hard to not show how annoyed he is, it makes you laugh, hard. He follows, laughing along and shaking his head.

"Who told you about this place?" He asks accusingly, you take a sip of your own drink and pretend you didn't hear it. "Who?"

"I don't want to tell you."

"Your students then. You trusted a bunch of twenty somethings with our date. Pitiful." You don't reply, instead you just keep laughing to yourself while you drink. The place is loud. Loud music. Loud college students. Loud busy street. You tell him that's exactly the type of place you would hang out with your girl friends to hook up back in London, his experience isn't the same, the lover boy committed since high school.

"How do they even get to know each other over this nooooise?" Laughing at his annoyance only lasts so long and now you're the one not being able to sort through your thoughts, the food is good though, you both agree while munching on the appetizers that accompany the beer.

In retrospect you should've imagined it would be this time of place by the countless mentions of beer whenever a student recommended it.

"Look around, I don't think they're actually trying to." You follow his gaze and notice that as the hours passed, the more couples formed and the less they were actually talking. Exactly as it was in your own college days. "I'm a bit tipsy so I'll let my curiosity win, you never told me why you divorced the second time." It was out of the blue, you told him the first one wasn't that bad, conflicting views on family and you both married too early in the relationship. The second one was... Harsher.

"Bastard cheated on me." You shrugged, but it was obvious it still got to you, Aaron could see it in your eyes, in your voice tone, and that had nothing to do with being a behavior analyst, and everything to do about how he just... Knew you. "His whore also pressed charges against me when I wasn't even trying to hit her, she just got in the way." He chocked on his beer and almost had to spit it out after that tiny little piece of information you hadn't mentioned before.

"You have a record?"

"He made her drop the charges when I left the apartment to him without a fight. That's why I moved back to the states." He blinks once, twice. Maybe he should be worried, but he also knew that could get a bit aggressive when losing control. Just it always happened to terrible people. "I'm obviously joking, airhead." The relief he feels is followed by an annoyed face for believing such a lie, you touch his forehead softy, smoothing the lines so he doesn't look mad anymore. He takes it as a sign, taking your hand in his and kissing your knuckles, then your hand, and pulls you to him, letting go to touch your chin.

If he wasn't drinking the proximity would inebriate him alone, the way your eyes closed and your cheeks blushed in anticipation, he's sweet, lips touching yours with tender patience, much more patient than you, you who lifted your body just a bit from the chair and pulled him by his collar to deepen the kiss, almost causing a disaster if any of you fell over the table with all the glass cups.

You let him go just after hearing some snickering from the table behind yours, not blaming them for it, it probably looked like an awkward kiss from the outside. But it wasn't.

"That was certainly better than our first one..." You smile sheepishly at him, putting your hands on your lap, nervous.

"You blushed and gripped my shirt." He says looking deep into your eyes, making you tilt your head slightly, showing him your confusion. "It's been thirty years, you did the same thing... You blushed and gripped my shirt."

"So you're telling me you make me feel like a school girl."

"I'm telling you you've just acted like one." You take the comment as a challenge, getting up and taking your chair with you to sit closer to him, brushing your lips to his before going to his ear.

"You're drunk and staying over, so why don't we get a taxi and I'll show you the school girl." You can see the way his neck shivers at your little teasing, but he takes advantage of the new found closeness to kiss you again, with much more hunger but also much faster than the first because he's ready to pay the tab and get out of there.

It wasn't really that hard to find a taxi, being a night time neighborhood, they knew to stay around. Aaron had your bag on one of his hands and the other on your thigh. Your arms went around his and your head laid on his shoulder. None of you talked the whole way there, just feeling each other's presence and the alcohol twirling around your minds and your stomachs.

And you did show him you were not a school girl anymore when you both got to your house: You got him your largest t-shirt and pajama pants, your coziest blanket and after you both changed and took aspirins to try and prevent the headache that would inevitably come, you got your pillows and went to the living room and laid on your big couch with Aaron, cuddling with him as some TV show re-run lured you both to sleep.

It was almost 2AM, and while you could take him to your bedroom and take his clothes off like you wanted to, you both knew it was the middle of the week, he had to wake up early to get his car, you would probably pass out under him anyway.

Cuddling was more than enough for a first date. And at least for Aaron, he was sure he wouldn't let go of your embrace anytime soon.

[dazzlingjaeyun]

𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 - 𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐠 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐰𝐨𝐧

✧ in which the attempt to get distracted from your feelings might not end exactly as you planned

jungwon x fem!reader (feat. sunghoon)

genre: mostly angst, some fluff

warnings: skinship, (a tiny little bit suggestive if you squint your eyes), mentions: physical violence, blood, alcohol, cheating, breaking up, toxic relationship, crying, and panic

word count: ~6.8k

a/n: phew, this took me like forever to write but the idea had been in my head for so long. i hope y'all enjoy this read ! ≧◡≦ (i highly recommend to read the teaser to this before for better understanding; it's linked in the pink text -> if you click on 'previously')

↝ dazzlingjaeyun's bookshelf

‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊ ♡ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙·̩̩̥͙*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ♡ ‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊

previously:

"you're still not seeing anyone?", his eyes locked with yours again, "i'm sure there are some guys in college who are all over you. maybe you should try your luck?"

he gave you a knowing look, as if he subtly wanted to tell you: get yourself out there and distract yourself from him.

over the weekend, you replayed jay's words in your head over and over again. he wasn't wrong; it wasn't too bad of an idea after all. you wouldn't try to force anything, but you decided to allow things to happen if they decided to roll around. you couldn't keep on sulking over your one-sided feelings, especially not when jungwon was your friend and almost in a relationship. you should be happy for him after all, you thought.

as if on cue, you bumped right into said potentional distraction the following week.

you were rushing down the stairs of the lecture building, eager to catch the subway three minutes later, as you tripped over your untied shoelace and right into someone walking up the stairs.

the force you hit him with made said someone stumble back a step.

before you could realize what happened, you felt a strong grip on each of your arms steadying you, eventually preventing you from falling down the stairs and taking him along with you.

"woah, careful there", you heard his semi-familiar voice as you looked up to meet his widened, chocolate-brown eyes.

"wait... y/n, right?" you nodded slowly, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. you remembered his face and his voice, but you couldn't figure out from where.

apparently, you couldn't seem to hide the confusion; the corners of his lips shot up into a smile the same time that a chuckle left his mouth. "sunghoon. we had a group project last semester." right. that's why he looked familiar.

still shocked from the moment, all you could utter was a little "i'm sorry" along with an apologetic smile. "for forgetting and for running you over", you added. only then, you realized his hands were still holding onto your arms. you cleared your throat. "and thanks for um... catching me, i guess?"

he gave you a short smile and loosened the grip around your arms until he let go of them fully. "i mean... i was kinda saving myself", he said, reminding you of how the scenario would have ended hadn't he reacted so fast - namely, with both of you at the bottom of the staircase, probably with at least one broken bone and definitely not with the grin he gave you now. the thought made your stomach twist.

"hey, it's fine", he tried to somewhat comfort you, noticing how all color had left your face. "although, i do think you owe me... for saving your life practically, you know"

he was exaggerating. you knew he was. but it still twisted your stomach a second time, leaving you with an uneasy feeling. relax, maybe he just wants some notes from a lecture he didn't attend. or he has an essay due tomorrow that he didn't want to write. or-

"come to my match tomorrow. if i win, you'll go on a date with me"

what.

your intuition told you to decline. however, the look in his eyes proved that he insisted, and you really did owe him.

maybe you should try your luck, jay's words echoed in the back of your head. right. maybe i should.

without wasting another second, you nodded your head, which caused a smile to spread across sunghoon's lips.

"i still have your number saved. i'll text you the details", he replied as he walked past you and up the stairs a few steps, before he turned around to look at you again. "you might want to tie your shoelace unless you planned to run someone else over"

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡

the same evening, as promised, you received a text message from sunghoon with the place and the time for the following day.

yet again, your stomach flipped for the split of a second, the thought if you were out of your mind for agreeing on the deal with a stranger clouding your mind. but then again, he wasn't a complete stranger and it was only a college ice hockey match. it would be nice getting your mind off your feelings and any recent events jungwon never hesitated to tell you about.

and that's how you found yourself on your way to the college's ice hockey rink less than 24 hours later. as you walked closer, you noticed sunghoon standing in front of the entrance, carrying a big bag in one hand and holding his phone in the other. you picked up your pace for the last few meters.

"sorry, i lost track of the time while getting ready", you greeted him. he looked you up and down for a second before smiling softly. "don't worry, it was worth the wait."

you felt yourself smiling slightly at the compliment, your cheeks covered in a light pink shade.

sunghoon guided you inside and to a seat in the first row, waiting for you to sit down before he spoke. "i have to change and warm up now. do you need anything before i go?" you shook your head.

"i'm wearing number 7 so watch out for me. and remember, if my team wins", he said, confidence radiating from his voice, "you owe me a date". he gave you the hint of a grin before disappearing to what you assumed was the locker room.

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡

as time passed, you found yourself feeling more and more invested in the match. although you had no knowledge about any rules, and the players' movements were too fast for you to follow, you quickly adjusted to the speed of the match and started to put the puzzle of possible rules together. as soon as it started to make sense to you, your interest grew bigger.

you hadn't noticed how you had unintentionally followed a certain player's every move until you cheered for a goal he scored, his head turning to look at you and his eyes lighting up as they met your cheerful ones. you swore you could see him giving you a quick wink, before turning on his skates to continue the match.

even as the match was over and the crowd of people around you started leaving, you were still trying to figure out if the fast rhythm of your heartbeat was due to the adrenaline in your body that the game had caused or due to your tiny interaction with said certain player. back number 7. said certain player, who you now owed a date.

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡

after your date with sunghoon, you found yourself accompanying him to every single one of his weekly matches, not even cancelling when you really had to finish an assignment that was due the end of that day - and that you hadn't even started. besides the matches, that had by now become like a weekly ritual for you, the two of you spent more and more time together, getting to know each other better and growing closer.

he would wait for you after your classes so he could walk you home - something you would usually refuse to do. but walking meant you didn't have to take the subway that was, more often that not, packed to a point that the doors barely closed. and walking with sunghoon meant spending some extra time with him, listening to how his day went and telling him about yours, and sometimes, just sometimes, it also meant having him holding your small hand in his bigger one, your fingers softly intertwined.

you would come over to his place after his practice, to order dinner and watch movies until one of you fell asleep cuddled up against the other.

the two of you would go out on dates, although neither of you officially addressed them as such, and you would slowly begin to feel more and more comfortable around each other.

what had started as a deal - all because you almost knocked him over on the college stairs a few months ago - and as sort of a distraction from your one-sided feelings for your best friend, had by now become a part of your life. a part that made your stomach all fuzzy and your heart warm up each second you spent together.

the plan to distract yourself, however, seemed to work - if jay's judgement was anything to go by, at least. a few weeks ago, you had finally briefed him on the entire situation with sunghoon. part of you felt bad for not letting him know earlier, mostly because he had given you the idea of 'trying your luck', but you had wanted to wait until things were more settled.

jungwon, on the other hand, didn't know yet. remembering how you'd felt whenever he was telling you about the girl he'd liked when you still had feelings for him, you decided to keep everything concerning sunhoon a secret from him. at least for now that the relationship with his girlfriend was in a slump that it couldn't seem to get out of. given your feelings a few months ago, you would have probably been happy to hear the news - although you hated yourself for that - but now that your heart didn't stung anymore at the thought of your friend with another girl, you felt bad for him.

if jay had told him already, which he pinky-promised he wouldn't do, jungwon was very good at hiding. or his mind was elsewhere. just like now, during your weekly bar-catch-up-meeting, when he didn't really seem to listen to jay's updates. you didn't have to ask him; you knew what lay heavily on his heart - and it made you feel even worse about your decision to introduce sunghoon to them that night. but recent events had sort of pushed you to finally do so;

a few days ago, the two of you were sitting in a café for one of your (unofficial) dates, when sunghoon suddenly handed you a bag. hesitantly, you took it from his hands and lurked inside. after shooting him another glance, and earning an approving nod from him, you shoved your hand inside the bag, grabbed the piece of fabric and slowly pulled it out. although you immediately recognized the familiar colors of the jersey, you unfolded it slowly, the '7' on its back confirming your suspicion.

"it's my jersey... my spare one, don't worry, it's clean", he added hastily. "it's to...", he reached up to scratched the back of his head, a tiny hint of nervousness spreading across his face, "to have a reminder of why we started dating in the first place, sort of. you can wear it to my matches from now on", he declared sheepishly.

the smile on your face grew wider with every word he said. "that's cute... thank you, hoon", you leaned in to quickly peck his cheek, only resulting in your own cheeks heating up even more. "i'll always wear it from now on"

you couldn't help but notice the warm, bubbly feeling the gesture caused in your stomach. it was a small one, yet it felt somewhat so big, so official.

you bit down on your lower lip at the thought. you had been meeting regularly, and when you didn't fall asleep at each other's place, you had been calling every night, even if it was just to say good night. sunghoon would keep his hand on the small of your back when you were walking and sometimes you even held hands in public. now that you thought about it, it did feel official. but it wasn't. neither of you had ever addressed the title-topic, until -

"will you finally be my girlfriend?"

now that you were official, you didn't want to hide it from your friends anymore, although jay technically knew. he just didn't know about the boyfriend girlfriend kind of thing.

you knew now wasn't the right timing, but a quick glance at your phone and the incoming message from sunghoon that he'd just arrived, told you that it was too late to change your mind.

just a few moments later, you saw sunghoon appearing near the entrance, his gaze scanning the bar until his eyes finally met yours and softened slightly at the sight. he gave you the hint of a smile and waited for a sign from you that he could walk over to the table you shared with your two friends. they were sitting with their backs to the entrance, so they hadn't seen him yet when jay finished with his weekly update just a minute later.

for the first time in a while, you rose to speak without jay needing to ask you to do so.

"i have kind of an update this week", you said sheepishly, looking over their shoulders to give sunghoon a tiny nod. he took the hint and made his way to your table. "actually, i want to introduce you to someone"

just in time, sunghoon walked past the table and stopped next to you, giving you a short smile and mouthing a 'hi' before looking at your friends.

"jay, jungwon", you pointed at them as you named them, "this is sunghoon", you introduced the three guys to each other, hesitating to continue. the last boyfriend you'd introduced to your friends had turned out to be a complete disappointment, and ever since, you hadn't been in a relationship again. now, it felt almost weird to open up to your friends about this topic.

sunghoon sensed your slight nervousness and softly placed a hand on your shoulder, giving it a short, careful squeeze - as if to give you a sign that it was okay to continue.

"he's my boyfriend", you finally said, a nervous smile spread across your lips.

jay bit his lower lip to surpress a grin, but he gave you a look that said i knew it, before quickly standing up and reaching out his hand to greet sunghoon.

jungwon, on the other hand, hesitated before he mimicked jay's action.

he's my boyfriend. your words echoed in his mind, even long after sunghoon had sat down next to you.

my boyfriend. his brain replayed the scene over and over again like a broken record.

while his elder friend interviewed the couple about how they had met and so on and so forth - although, in secret, he already knew the story - jungwon paid no attention to any word spoken at the table. his focus moved from the hand sunghoon had casually placed on your thigh, to your smaller hand on top of his, and back to his hand and his thumb that slowly and softly caressed the skin on your thigh that your skirt exposed. then, to the smile that spread across your lips as you were talking about whatever, the short moments of eye contact you'd share with your boyfriend, the way his lips curled up when he talked about the relationship, and finally the short peck he placed on your cheek that painted your cheeks a light pink.

jungwon's chest felt tight. uncomfortably tight. tightness, paired with a stinging pain on the left side of his chest that spread like a wildfire to his stomach. with just a hint of hope, he picked up his phone from the table to check for a notification - only to feel even the last bit of optimism shatter to pieces, as he saw the empty screen. no message. no call. no nothing. of course.

only a few weeks ago, he used to experience all these tiny moments that you and sunghoon now shared, too. only a few weeks ago, he'd looked as happy as you did now. had felt as much in love as you did now, maybe even more. only to find all of that slowly fading away more and more with each day that passed, like an old photograph that had been too exposed to sunlight.

now that he saw it happening in front of him, he swore he could hear his heart ripping a little in his chest.

he didn't know if he should blame it on the alcohol in his blood or on the current situation with his own girlfriend when a spark of anger mixed with the sadness he felt. you were aware of his situation, yet you decided to introduce your boyfriend to them that night?

then again, he had no right to keep you from having a good time just because he wasn't. and if the look on your face and the way you slightly leaned against sunghoon were anything to go by, you did have a good time. but who guaranteed that, after all? the last time he'd been introduced to a boyfriend of yours, the relationship had turned out to be the prime example of a disaster.

paying close attention to sunghoon's every move, jungwon's grip tightened around his glass when his gaze went down to his hand on your leg again and he swore he saw it moving up your bare skin just by an inch.

jay, who'd learned to read his best friend's body language in next to no time over the several years of friendship, stepped on jungwon's foot under the table and shot him a confused look that caused the younger to empty whatever liquor was left in his glass and swallowing part of his anger along with it.

a few hours later (or more like what felt like an eternity to jungwon), your night out ended with bidding goodbye's to each other, a friendly 'it was nice meeting you' from jay and a more drunk than sober 'you better not hurt her' from jungwon.

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡

while jay contacted you a few times after your night out, asking the usual how are you's and the not-yet-usual how are things with sunghoon, you'd heard nothing from jungwon. you'd tried to reach out to him, but he had kept your communication to a minimum, his replies coming late, short and dry - if even.

that was until you found him in front of your door the next thursday night, after he had successfully woken you up by ringing the doorbell almost non-stop. when you opened the door and saw him standing in front of your apartment, you were ready to throw all kinds of complaints right at his face. because where did he get the audacity from to randomly pay you a visit past your bed time, when he knew for a fact how much you cherished your sleep and especially when he'd barely talked to you over the past week.

however, it took only a second look at his face for you to quickly close your mouth and swallow your complaints. you'd seen him feeling down before, but you'd never seen him like this. dark circles marred his usually bright eyes - eyes that were now red, either from anger or from tears. his skin was pale and his lips looked like they hadn't formed a smile in days. you couldn't quite make out his expression, swinging somewhere between the lines of sadness and sheer emptiness.

suddenly, it didn't matter that he interrupted your sacred sleeping time. worry rushed over you as you wordlessly stepped aside, eyebrows furrowed and lower lip sucked between your teeth, to make space for your friend to enter.

after jungwon had hesitantly stepped inside your apartment, you carefully grabbed his wrist, leading him to the living room and putting both your hands on his shoulders, pushing down softly until he sat on the sofa. your soft touch left tiny sparks on his skin that lingered there even after you left the living room again.

as you came back moments later with a mug of tea in both hands, you found jungwon still sitting in the same position. his gaze stuck to his knees, almost as if he didn't dare to look at you.

you exhaled a small sigh, before handing him one of the cups, placing the other on the small coffee table. you grabbed a blanket from the other side of the sofa and carefully put it around his shoulders in hopes it would somehow comfort him.

after you sat down next to him, it took him only the blink of an eye to blurt out all the thoughts that clouded his mind at once.

"i'm sorry for bothering you at this time, i know you were probably sleeping and i really tried to reach jay, but he didn't answer his calls and he wasn't home and-... and i know i didn't even talk to you properly the past days but-"

"jungwon.", you interrupted him, softly placing your hand on his upper arm. "what happened?"

he was right. you were sleeping and he hadn't talked to you properly the past days, but that didn't matter anymore. your chest felt tight at the sight of your friend in such a state.

you could hear jungwon release a long sigh before he said the words you'd already expected to hear: "we broke up."

you listened attentively as he gave you a summary of the previous happenings. it sounded like the prime example of a nasty break up; hour long arguments with a lot of screaming and crying included. trying to make up, only to fuck it all over the next second. you could feel your heart aching for him, only imagining how overwhelmed he must have felt, especially after being so in love.

"oh, jungwon...", you sighed once he was done, taking his hand that had started shaking in his lap at the memory of everything he told you in yours and giving it a careful squeeze.

his shaking hand came to a halt at your soft touch and for a reason unknown to himself, jungwon wished that you'd never let go.

"i'm so sorry", you broke the silence again and slowly let go of his hand, leaving it cold without your touch.

you knew he would talk to you or jay whenever he felt the need to and you certainly didn't want to push him to speak, nor dig too deep with further questions.

"comfort movie and ice cream?"

jungwon's lips curled into the hint of a smile just for the blink of an eye before it disappeared again and he nodded.

"comfort movie and ice cream"

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡

even a week later, jungwon caught himself thinking back to the night he rang your doorbell in despair and how you'd comforted him so effortlessly. he swore if he thought about it hard enough, he could still feel your warm touch around his wrist, on his shoulders, on his arm, and on his hand. sometimes, he even caught himself wondering what it would feel like to hold your hand for longer, or how much comfort it would give him to hold your body close to his if only the tiny amount of skinship had felt like this. like the first ray of sunshine after a storm. like home.

although he knew he had no business to neither think nor feel like that, his mind tricked him into the same train of thoughts over and over again. and whenever it happened, he'd feel guilty. he'd hate himself for letting his thoughts wander back to you so frequently, knowing it was straight up egoistic. you had comforted him that night. you had given him the tiny bit of affection that he'd been so deprived of ever since his relationship went downhill - even if it had just been platonically. he blamed the fact that you were running laps around his mind on the situation he'd been in, but that only made it worse. knowing he was only longing to relive these tiny moments with you for the sake of feeling at ease - of forgetting about his break up. or so he thought.

over the next few weeks, he was proven wrong. he couldn't say he was over his ex girlfriend yet, but she for sure started to matter less and less to him. at the same time, thoughts of you clouded his mind more often than he'd liked to admit.

at first, he'd tried to shrug it off. but as time passed, he couldn't deny the small pang in his chest whenever sunghoon picked you up from your night outs, whenever he saw your phone light up from a notification, the picture of you and sunghoon that you had put as your lockscreen greeting him, or each time you posted your boyfriend on social media - being all lovey-dovey, of course.

if he thought all of these feelings were just caused by the sudden lack of love in his life at first, by now he was sure that they were the outcome of the lack of your love.

you, on the other hand, blamed any glares at your boyfriend, any of jungwon's sighs at the sight of you two together, and any other more or less weird behaviour from jungwon on the fact that he was still not over his break up and simply felt a bit uneasy at seeing love happening right in front of him.

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡

as the weekend rolled around, you were hoping that saturday afternoon would not only lighten up jungwon's mood overall, but also ease the uncomfortable tension between the two of you.

it was jay's birthday and as per his wish, you met up with him and some of his other friends from college to play bowling all together. you had been hesitant about letting sunghoon tag along, given the circumstances with jungwon and you not wanting to be the reason for a ruined birthday, but jay, who had also grown closer to sunghoon over time, convinced you otherwise.

although you were enormously behind in points, the game was fun and everyone seemed to have a good time. small waves of relief washed over you each time you saw jungwon scoring a strike, followed by a cheerful jubilation. finally.

it was your last turn before the game was over. even though your chances of winning were zero, you still tried your best to at least hit a few pins - just so the results wouldn't be as embarrassing. and against your own expectations, you indeed scored a solid seven.

when you turned around, jungwon tried his best to surpress a proud smile at your result. there was no need. it would have gone unnoticed by you anyways, your eyes falling right on sunghoon, his wide smile and his opened arms that embraced you in a short hug after you approached him.

"see, i told you; you just need some practice and you'll do well", he mumbled in your hair, leaving a soft peck on top of them, before he let go of the hug, cupped your face in his hands and captured your lips in a short but loving kiss.

"i guess seven is my lucky number", you replied jokingly flirtous.

sunghoon opened his mouth to reply, but was quickly interrupted by an annoyed groan coming from the other side of the table.

"you guys are gross"

the glare you gave jungwon for his words made his insides twist and he decided to keep whatever else words he wanted to throw at you - out of pure jealousy, admittedly - to himself.

in fact, you didn't hear any other word from him that day, until you used a moment in which sunghoon and jay were busy discussing whether baseball or ice hockey was better, to follow jungwon as he excused himself to the restroom. you were dedicated to confront him about the prior situation.

"what the fuck was that for, jungwon?"

he raised his eyebrows cluelessly.

"you know what i mean. it was unnecessary. and not exactly respectful." you crossed your arms in front of your chest, looking at him expectantly.

"it hurts seeing you with him."

fuck. his own eyes widened as the words of confession left his mouth. out of all the lies he could have come up with, did he really have to say the truth?

you sighed, dropping your arms to your sides. "listen, jungwon. i'm sorry about your break up and your loss, but just because you ended your realtionship doesn't mean that i have to-"

"am i not being obvious enough?", he interrupted, causing you to look at him in disbelief.

"what? i don't think i'm rubbing your nose in-"

"oh, cut the cap, y/n", he interrupted again, a slight hint of annoyance shadowing over his words this time. he blamed it for the sudden confidence it gave him as the next words just rolled off his tongue without any warning.

"you really don't understand i'm in love with you?"

the words hit you like a punch in the gut, its pain spreading all over your stomach as you took a step back.

this world cannot be so sick and twisted, you thought as the uneasy feeling made its way to your chest like a heavy weight that made it hard to breathe.

you swallowed hard, as if that would subside the feeling.

"i don't think this is the place and time to have this conversation now", you tried your best to stay calm, although all you wanted was to run off and escape the situation.

"why?" jungwon asked, and with each step he took towards you, you took a step back. "cause your boyfriend is just a few steps away?"

your heart was hammering against your chest.

"and what if he hurts you?", he continued.

memories of your previous relationship, memories which you had worked so hard to shove all the way to the very back of our mind, hit you like a wave. what if he hurts you?

you shook your head in an attempt to shake them off, trying to keep your cool with the attempt of a deep breath. you wouldn't panic. not here, not now.

"what would you know about his intentions?"

"nothing. but i don't trust him and i know about mine. you can still choose me over him and we'll-"

"stop", you said sternly. your head hurt and everything was spinning. "stop making everything about you." words left your mouth before your head was done forming them into sentences. "i had liked you for so long before and you never cared how i felt when you talked about her non-stop."

jungwon's eyes widened as your confession rang in his ears. "i...", he swallowed hard, "i care about how you're feeling"

"i'm feeling happy now. you care? then don't ruin this for me"

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡

weeks later, the stress the situation had left you in, had calmed down. you were laying on the side you claimed as yours on sunghoon's bed, scrolling through tiktok and effectively procrastinating on your studies. after sunghoon had left to meet with his study group, you were alone in his apartment. he'd offered you to tag along, but after you'd declined, you just decided to stay in his place so you could spend the evening together once he came back.

after a few more minutes of scrolling, you finally put your phone down and started studying. just when you felt too exhausted to continue, you heard keys turning in the lock of the front door. what a timing.

you quickly closed your laptop, stood up and made your way to the front door to greet sunghoon, only for him to quickly rush past you, not even granting you a look, but instead keeping his face down.

you furrowed your eyebrows in confusion and turned around to follow him.

"babe?"

you tried to understand what it was that caused him to act like that all of a sudden. everything was fine when he left. your mind started racing about all the things you could have possibly done wrong when he shut the door to the bathroom right in front of your face.

he didn't lock, but you didn't want to enter like an intrudor, so you took a deep breath before carefully knocking on the wooden door.

"sunghoon?"

when you heard nothing but the sound of water running, you decided to open the door slowly, little by little, until you could see him leaning over the sink and washing his face.

when you caught sight of the sink, painted in red, an alarm went off in your head. you quickly rushed over to him and stopped his attempt to splash more water on his face by grabbing both his wrists, tight but careful enough to not hurt him.

when he finally faced you, your heart dropped. his lip was slightly bruised and blood ran down his nose. you gave him a worried look to which he averted his gaze.

a few moments later, he was sitting on the edge of the bathtub with you kneeling in front of him, cleaning up the blood on his face and treating his wounds. although you were careful, you could hear him hiss in pain from time to time.

"are you going to tell me what happened?", you broke the silence while tapping a tissue on his lip.

no answer.

you took his hands in yours, scanning his knuckles for any injuries.

"you didn't fight back", you established.

still no answer.

you stood up with a sigh, ready to leave the bathroom, when only one word from sunghoon made you freeze right at the spot.

"jungwon."

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡

when you didn't find jungwon at his place, you drove to the café he recently started working at, in hopes of finding him there. you knew he was busy working, if he was there, but you couldn't care less.

sunghoon had tried to talk you out of it, practically begging you to just let it be and to stay home with him, and the memories of the last time you tried to tackle a problem with jungwon weren't exactly encouraging you to do so again, either. everything told you to not confront jungwon about the whole situation, but anger got the best of you when you, nevertheless, decided to do so.

when you arrived to the café, you caught a glimpse of the counter, half relieved to see jungwon behind it, half not. not wanting to cause a scene, you waited in the queue until it was your turn.

"hi, what can i get-"

jungwon's words got stuck in his throat when he realized who was standing in front of him.

he believed in coincidences, but this would be too much of an coincidence, even for him. he knew you knew.

"let me guess, your lovely boyfriend told you already?", he cocked an eyebrow.

"care to explain?", you asked back, mimicking his attitude.

instead of replying, he left his spot, grabbed a glass and started to add ingredients you couldn't quite make out from the speed he was working at. once he was done, he placed it on the counter in front of you.

"i'm off in half an hour", he slid the glass across the wood, closer to you, "if you wait, i'll tell you after. the coffee's on the house."

and without another word, he turned to the next customer, ready to take their order.

you sighed, but grabbed the drink and sat down in an empty chair, swirling the straw. you hadn't exactly planned for the day to end with you sitting there, waiting for jungwon to finish his shift, and sipping on a coffee that tasted surprisingly good - but here you were.

a few minutes later, jungwon, who was now changed out of his working clothes, approached your table.

"i told you to stay out of it", you said, before he even had the chance to say anything. "what makes you think getting involved and punching him was okay?"

how and where did you two even meet? why did you start this, and why didn't sunghoon fight back? tons of questions rose up all at once, making it hard to not lose your focus.

instead of replying, he silently reached out his hand, to which you just gave him a confused look.

"you won't believe me, anyways. so i'll show you."

not sure how to feel about what he had to show you, you hesitated before standing up, but refusing to take his hand. you followed him through a door that prohibited access to customers with a sign that read 'staff only'.

without a word, he sat down in front of a big computer screen, repeatedly clicking on different things with the mouse and tapping on the keyboard here and there. his narrowed eyes indicated he was searching something.

an uneasy feeling crept up on you, spread from your stomach, to your chest, and finally the rest of your body. you had no clue what jungwon was about to show you, but what you were sure of was that it couldn't be good.

"got it", he finally said, after what felt like an eternity. part of you was curious to see what he'd show you, while another, bigger part was eager to run away and pretend the day had never happened.

hesitantly, you took a few steps into his direction, until you could see the screen. at the second glimpse, you understood that what you saw in front of you on the screen was the café you'd been sitting in less than five minutes ago. he was showing you the café's cctv file.

"that was right before my shift", jungwon said, before he clicked play and leaned back for you to see the screen better. although, when you saw and realized, you wished your vision was blocked.

what you saw was no one other than your boyfriend sharing a table with an unfamiliar girl, both of them sitting a little too close to each other for your liking. you weren't a jealous person per se, but you also had boundaries. and your boyfriend's arm around the shoulders of a random girl you didn't know came very close to crossing them.

you tried to tell yourself that they were waiting for the other members of their study group, but no one else arrived, and nothing on the table looked like studying.

your stomach sank further and further, pearls of cold sweat pooled in the palms of your hands and your knees started to feel weak the closer the two got to each other. by now, you were anticipating what you saw next, but you still clung desperately to the tiny bit of hope that you had left; that told you you were exaggerating and it would be fine.

but even that tiny spark of hope died when you saw exactly what you'd expected to see. your boyfriend leaned in for a kiss.

your breath got caught in your throat and by now you knees felt like they'd give in and let you hit the ground.

the last thing you saw on the screen was jungwon pulling sunghoon away and placing a delicate punch right in his face without hesitation - then the screen went black.

it wasn't until you saw your reflection in the screen that you realized jungwon had stood up and placed his hand on the small of your back, as if to steady you.

silent tears rolled down your cheeks until they fully blurred your vision. what if he hurts you, jungwon's words from several weeks prior replayed in your head.

before your mind could wander off to questions such as how long it had been going on or what you did wrong to get cheated on, you were pulled into a tight hug.

jungwon held you through your sobs, let you soak his shirt in tears and carefully stroked your back in an attempt to calm you down.

although his heart was aching, ripping a little every time you let out another bitter sob, he held you tight to his chest as if keeping you close to him could protect you from all the bad in the world. oh, how he wished it could.

after you'd calmed down, he slowly let go of you, taking his hands off your back and on your cheeks instead, cupping your face and slowly wiping away your tears.

"now if after this you still don't choose me over him, i don't know either", he tried hard to make it sound like a joke, "also, my skills in making coffee are immaculate, so..."

the last part elicited a small chuckle on your behalf that quickly died again.

"i need time, won"

he nodded and gave you a soft smile, your face still cupped by his hands.

"as much time as you need", he said softly, "whenever you feel ready, i'll be here waiting for you, okay? as long as it takes you"

‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊ ♡ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙·̩̩̥͙*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ °̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥ ♡ ‧̍̊·̊‧̥°̩̥˚̩̩̥͙°̩̥‧̥·̊‧̍̊

taglist: @ilovejungwonandhaechan @aloloveswonie @jungwonloverr @laylasbunbunny @rawrszh @avacelestepereira @aishigrey @ilabjungwon @heeheeyeoiizz01

[dogwooddiaries]

Writer's Tag Game

tagged by @strangethings-everywhere and @effervescentyellow thanks for the tag! <3

Rules: Answer some or all of the questions below. Tag your fellow writers. Enjoy!

Link to your masterlist: My tiny master list is here on ao3

Favorite and least favorite genres to write (angst/smut/fluff, etc): I have a hard time writing and not including at least a little angst, so I guess that's a favorite. Not sure about my least favorite; still figuring myself out. Maybe fluff?

Favorite characters to write for? well I only write Bobby and Don really :) I have an oc that I kind of adore for this newsies thing I'm trying, but it's been different/hard making an oc...

Which one of your works is your favorite? I'm so happy with finishing Undo Me and figuring out how to get to where I wanted to go. I had fun with my melodrama and angst and unoriginal use of light as a motif and the dash of chiasmus in the plot. I also really liked where I ended up with Sneaking Around because from concept to completion, it took a couple of hours and just came to me without a bunch of planning/drafting - so like the total opposite of Undo Me. These two favorites are also my lower kudos fics :')

Which one of your fics was hardest to write? Why? Undo Me was the biggest thing to wrestle with for sure. I knew where it was going but I didn't really know the route. It was very much a Flannery O'Connor experience of "I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say."

What is your favorite fanfic by someone else? in a show of rebellion to this singular question, I have written an essay. Like others said, fic after fic in this fandom is impressive. I love seeing the various styles, AUs, structures, etc. It's fun to see the creativity in the different works. I'll note a few much loved ones here but could never get to them all. Can You Tell I Have Been Revised by @arokel had me obsessed and in a chokehold with Don's journal and Bobby's choices when the ball was in his court. Let the Sea Roll High or Low by @kjxlll was an incredible piece of just being immersed in the time, place, and alllll the slow aching feelings. Everything felt so of the time, I recall this story in sepia tones. Kiss Me Tender by @shadowquill17 resides in my brain still, I think of it often. Stitch Me Up, Send Me Back Out to Dance by The_Hobbit_Ninja (sorry, don't know their tumblr!) was one of the very first I read in the fandom and god, I wish they still wrote for the fandom; so good. It always leads to you in my hometown by @borealopelta gutted me in the best awful way that I still feel a little unhealthy about. On the Border by @teaforarteza ate my brain, it was everything - angst, incredible smut, feelingsssss. Also, @seasidesandstarscapes 's constant new ideas and inspiration in their one shots always astounds me - if you haven't yet read their vampire au do it!! (trust me! I don't even do vampires!) @strangethings-everywhere 's WWII AU was an inspired idea to put Bobby and Don in that setting. I want to acknowledge @effervescentyellow and her as beautiful as you fic - it broke my heart while simultaneously stitching it back together. Finally, my darling and beloved The Cormorant by @sparrow-in-the-field is still in progress, but I adore it and have a probably dysfunctional obsessive relationship with it and I don't care. :D

Basically my summer vacation was made up of reading fanfic (and very occasionally writing it), can you tell?

Tags: If I mentioned you for something above OR you just want to jump in, please consider yourself tagged! <3

[helloabominacion]

𝙄𝙣 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙞𝙙𝙙𝙡𝙚 𝙊𝙛 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙉𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 ....

pairing: Human!namor x (f!mexican)reader

word count: 5718

warnings: eighteen+ content, a few non-con themes ( but no rape ), nicotine, alcohol, mention of a slur

note: ok, so this man has me on a choke hold, so i wanted to add my little piece of cake to all the wonderful namor x reader fics. this is more like a plot with three chapters, but there will be spicy moments in the next chapter.... also it's been a while i've post a fic so, critics? im up for it. ASLO, all the translation except the spanish ones are inacurate, if you see a mistake, let me know! and in this fic, nobody has powers, no avengers nothing like that, just kinda dosmetic, i guess?

hope you enjoy it!

— 🌙🌙🌙 —

.

.

.

Your promises to your mother about not going overboard with your delight on this field trip that your prestigious college had paid for went down the drain just like the contents your stomach expels into the club's pristine porcelain bathroom. This vacation was the ideal justification for the students to blow off steam and unwind after a semester of extended essays and unbearable exams. But, of course, they deserved this beautiful opportunity! But you didn't earn the embarrassment of vomiting in front of the toilet.  

“Que pinche suerte tengo, at least these bathrooms are clean...”  The misty feeling of nausea still lingered in your mind, and you kept inhaling long breaths to appease your poor stomach. The rumble of cumbia and bachata mix tunes runs through your entire body, muffled by the bathroom walls.

After several minutes of listening to your body and being entirely sure that nothing else will come out of your throat, you left the cubicle with careful steps, the alcohol still circulating your blood. Your hands rested on the sink to support you and began to inspect your reflection in the illuminated mirror, making sure your beautiful hair looked decent. Still, a frown fell on your brows as you noticed you needed a retouch your makeup quickly. 

There's no way in hell you'll let half of your classmates see you in this mess. What would Riri think? After all that time, they wasted watching tutorials on how to do your makeup instead of finishing the due essays. ( and by the way, you did finish that essay, you only need three red bulls.) You blinked owlishly as your drunk mind realized something; you forgot to notify your bestie! It must have slipped your mind while rushing to the bathroom. Then, quickly pulling out your smartphone from your purse, a surprised grimace pulls your red lips at the five lost calls and 12 messages.

You were already cursing in your native language while reading Riri's angry messages, and you knew the black girl would chew your ass out instantly for leaving her all alone. Well, technically, she's not all by herself; it was a miracle how Riri's plan was a success sneaking the princess into their flight directly a Mexico, Yucatan. 

But you knew it was the worst idea your intelligent roommate agreed on, and you can't practically say no to Shuri.

And you dote on Shuri like she was your older sister who just wanted to have fun and create unforgettable memories with her loved ones, but the thought of Auntie Ramonda finding out about this tormented you sometimes. You only visit the Udaku residence occasionally because you are always busy studying. The other excuse was Ramonda's regal and elegant presence overwhelmed you; it was how she could look at you for the first time with those sharp eyes and discover your most embarrassing secrets. You jerked your head as the shiver ran down your shoulders; that's not going to happen! You'd faith in the plan, but only because they got some assistance from Shuri's older brother.

"T'challa eres un angel caido! Thank you so much for this!" Your hands made a prayerful gesture, showing how grateful you were for this great opportunity; then, you huffed sharply. Now it's time to continue putting on your makeup war because you know damn well there will be attractive and captivating individuals, and perhaps you might steal someone for yourself tonight. Who knows what could happen, and you're excited to find out.  While you were fixing your makeup, you looked sideways at your smartphone and then paused at the last message you received from Riri, your eyes narrowed at the change of image on your screen. Riri was calling you, and you answered right away.

"Oye, ¿que paso?"

The shout of your name made you wince, but you kept the phone close to your ear. "CONCHA! Where the fuck are you!?"

"Wh-what do you mean where I'm? In the bathroom bitch, didn't I send you a text!?"

"Bruh! I thought you meant in the hotel's room bathroom!"

You rolled your eyes while snorting. Riri was a bit under the influence of so many Mezcal shots. "Pendeja, as if I'm going to walk like twenty blocks to go over there!"

"Fuck, okay, okay, don't worry! Let me get my key card, and I'm going to get -- wait, Shuri, stop!"

You waited for Riri to finish talking to her girlfriend. Then, finally finishing your makeup, you started packing your belongings into your purse.

“Conchita, you still there?”

“Si mensa, it’s Shuri fine thought? I can hear her laughing and shrieking.” You mused, chuckling t the frustrated groan from Riri. “Is that the reason you left me, Riri? Wanted to spend some sweet time with your princess?” 

“Shut up you! Nothing like that! I had to bring her back cuz she wanted to beat someone!”

“Why?”

“These two Dwayne Johnson-looking ass bumped into me, spilling my amazing drink. They didn’t wanna apologize, so Shuri was about to throw hands with them.”

A thunderous laugh burst from your mouth, your melodious laughter filling the bathroom. You already imagined Riri's annoyed face as you cackled like a crazy bird. You place a hand on your stomach, and tiny tears prickle the corner of your eyes for laughing too much. You panted and coughed a little in an attempt to catch your breath.

“Oh my god, that’s so her, I would’ve paid to see that,”

Riri sucked her teeth but you knew there was an amusing hint behind her tone. “But Conchita, girl, I can’t leave you all by yourself! It’s dangerous, man, what if you get lost?”

“Ay, don’t worry about me, chula! Some other students are here, asi que me voy colar con ellos.” You snicker to yourself; the tequila is getting to your brain currently. “Besides, you will have the suite all to yourself,”

BEEP!

Pulling the phone away from your ear to see that Riri hung up on you.

"Que mamona, ni siquiera me dijo adios."

A creak from the door distracted you from your angry text, and a group of girls with drinks in their manicured hands entered. The second their eyes fell on you, their drunken mouths began to shower you with compliments on your hair and dress and how they loved how your heels accentuated your ass. The comments made butterflies flutter inside your stomach, and a hot wave crept on your face. You weren't used to people throwing compliments at you. A year ago, you would've shied away and possibly left the restroom with a hot shame face, but thanks to Riri's incredible support and friendship. You began to lose yourself.

 Life's too short to be quiet.

With a flamboyant twirl of your body, the girls squealed happily and quickly swarmed you with questions about drinking more mezcal shots with them and exchanging phone numbers and socials. Oh yeah, this was going to be a special night.

FOUR HOURS LATER

Your heart began to fall in love with this magical city, Cancun. Its streets are still busy with locals visiting the stalls and tourists who come from all over the world to taste the exquisite meals, learn about the Yucatecan culture and enjoy the heat that touches your skin. Shot after shot and dancing uncontrollably to the music, you, unfortunately, had to separate from the new friends you made, promising to call them and make sure you'll get safely to your hotel.  You took another bite of your vegetable on a stick, wiping the cream off with your tongue because you forgot to ask for a napkin. The warm air from the night brushed your shoulders and naked legs, and the waves crashing over and over against the sand sounded so captivating to you that the idea of sitting in front of the ocean to contemplate your life was so tempting.

“Hey!”

A loud shout made you stumble mid-step but quickly recovered, whipping your head behind you to see what it was and a cold sensation — dread — washed over you. Your stomach dropped right at your feet at the sight of three grown men approaching you, it seemed like there was a ten-meter stretch between you and them, but that didn't alleviate the fact that you were alone in a not-so-traveled area, and you just noticed that. Mierda, mierda, mierda! You conjure up a tight smile, your chest tightens when you breathe slightly, and a knot forms in the back of your throat. This is not happening now, not tonight please, but what you expected from reality?

“Hey, mami, where are you going?”

An eyebrow twitch while holding a frown, of course they are from the states,

“I’m ‒ I’m just taking a stroll …”

“A stroll, huh?  All by yourself?”  One of them questioned, no good intentions behind that smirk. Before you could open your mouth, your mothers’ words flashed through your mind. Never tell a stranger that you are alone, make them think that someone is waiting for you.

“No, no at all!” ah shit that was too fast.  “I’m just going to back to someone,”

“Oh, you have friends? Maybe we can some fun together.”

“Sounds good to me, the more the merrier.”

Their cruel cackles disgusted your stomach but kept the tight smile on. Your conscious was yelling to run, to run far away and quick, but you knew you could be outrun easily.

" I'm s-sorry but my family is waiting for me.  I - I have to go..."

They began to approach you with steady steps.

"Aw come on, sweetheart, have a little fun with us,"

“Yeah, loose a little with us, we can show you a good time.”

Oh, you can't do this, you were trembling with uneasiness, and your eyes burned with the urge to cry. You once again shook your head, refusing their unwanted invitation, and spun around, walking away from the trio.  But your polite nature didn't stop them and they chose to follow you, taunting you and catcalling. You completely forgot the corn in a stick, and you increased the pace of your step, your heart ached from thumping so much that you believed you were going to have a panic episode. 

Please, I want to wake up from this nightmare, por favor mama, ayudanme por favor.

Your bare feet led you to where it was busy, where you might have a chance to hide and be secure. Of course, you didn't know the streets and didn't have the remotest idea of where you were going, but your feet kept moving; instinct pushed the idea to run until you were secure. You didn't dare to look over your shoulder to check if they followed you; you weren't sure. So, you turned left, entering the streets of Cancun where the neighborhood was, you slipped through the streets, getting lost in the crowd, you stumbled a few times because of the poorly made road, with its potholes and high steps, but your bare feet roared in discomfort from walking on the asphalt, you need to take a breather because you were about to throw up your lungs.

You ended up in an alley between a cheap motel and an old bar, leaning against the painted wall of the motel. Inhaling deeply through your nose to catch your breath and maybe find out where the hell you were. You pulled your smartphone out of your purse and whined in frustration, a small red bar to the left glowing annoyingly. Remind you only have a little time. You had to call an Uber and take you back to Riri and Shuri; you had enough scares in your life.

“Hi, mamacita!”

A shriek escaped you, but the rest was cut off by a hand that covered your mouth, an arm crossed over your shoulders, catching you in an iron grip. Fear strikes your stomach, accelerating your heart. You thought your eardrums were going to burst!

“What? You thought you could run away, Chiquita?”

“We’re gonna have some fun, right sweetheart?”

Your cell phone slapped from your grasp, and your right arm was crossed behind your back, wincing at the pain blooming on your right shoulder. But your muffled whining wasn't going to get listened to as you thrashed around as soon a pair of hands pulled the hem of your dress and, little by little, got dangerously close to your crotch.

No matter the shameful and desperate tears streaming down your cheeks, it didn't convince the assailants cackling, mocking you. Whispering disgusting things about what they are going to do with you. You still thrashed and pulled away from their degenerate touches.

If no one will rescue you, that doesn't mean you're going to give in, and you are not giving up without a fight.

BAM!

All attention was drawn to the emergency exit door opening fully, letting out an individual. Confusion invaded you, dumbfounded by the person's attention deficiency, focused on his pack of cigarettes. With an enraged thrash and whining loud enough to get the awareness of the man in front of you, and you could almost laugh right there, it did get his attention.

“Oh, good evening.” So casually, he spoke, making you scowl, stunned. He must joking este cabron! Is he for real!?

The leader of three-step forward trying to be intimidating, but you knew something was off about this guy.

"You got a staring problem, amigo? Just walk away, bud'"

He has yet to move from his position, not even to face them and you, fiddling with his box of cigarettes. An amused smirk pulled his lips, showing a white smile, and he began to saunter towards the leader.

“I could do that, but I’ve seen each one of your faces.” He spoke, enfacing his word as he pointed at your three assailants and returned his attention to the leader. “I could walk away and easily go to the authorities and deport you out of my country….”

The way the strange man threatened them with such confidence and casualness seemed to affect them. The guy who had your dress released it, taking a step back from you, and the other one holding you from the shoulders loosened his grasp. It looked like they were going to either run or prepare to fight. You had no idea!

"Or I can fuck up each and one of you,” The smirk fell to an intense smoldering. “Teach you a lesson for being a scum. How about that option for you, gringo de mierda?”

“Listen here, you fucking wetback loser—!”

You blinked, and the stranger swung a punch at the aggressor. The other two let you go to back up his buddy, the one holding you shoved you against the floor, harming your wrists for cushioning your fall. The quarrel started, but you were focused on putting yourself together while they were beating each other asses. Stumbling and fumbling, you got up your feet, scrambling away from them and hiding quickly behind a full dumpster, observing the fight from afar and letting out a shaky exhale, thankful that your savior appeared on time, but you were now you not sure if he was a ' good ' savior.

His punches were brutal, wasting no second to unleash another strike on your assailant’s face. His powerful kicks looked like they were going to leave a mark of his shoe on their bodies, and despite his complex, he was swift. Effortlessly dodging the pathetic attempts of the others, even though there were three of them, it seemed like your savior surpassed them in all dynamics.

“U sojol, ma' le wíiniko'ob jaaj…” He spits on them with a sneer as he walks away from the fainted men, making sure he steps on each body and wander towards you.  Now you could appreciate it in more detail when he approached you as you stepped away from the dumpster, shortening the space between you and him. His skin color was so beautiful that you'd bet if the rays of sunset illuminated him, he would look so handsome that it'll make you faint.

Short and unraveling raven hair due to the altercation, but what captivated you was his steely gaze that seemed to inspect every detail of your features. His facial hair covered his sharp chin, accompanied by a mustache above his lip. Then your eyes drop and widen, at what point did his shirt come open? Leaving his torso exposed, and even though his body didn't look like an Adonis, you bet if you caressed his chest, it would be solid rock.

“Do you have a lighter?”

His question shook from your gawking, “¿Que?”

Your intelligent answer seemed to irritate your savior, raising an eyebrow he questions again. “Do you have a lighter?”

“I – I do, but I think it’s my …”  you didn’t smoke, but it was for Riri. “In m - my purse.”

Your savior deadpanned at you, and an uncomfortable silence fell between you, giving you an unsettling feeling until he nodded behind him. As if he was saying, " then go get it, girl"

You caught the small order and headed towards your forgotten purse, a little close to the fallen bodies, you glimpsed at them asking yourself if they were alive, but you scowl, they deserved it and snatched your purse. Returning to your savior with a lighter in your open palm.

"Here you go,"

" Can you light it up? My hands are shaking a bit bruised,"

You gulp, and you weren't even subtle about it. His accent was heavy and extremely hot.  Get it together girl, he just saved you but damn stranger danger! A cigarette was already on his lips, ready to consume, and you slightly nodded. Great, this is just fantastic. You accommodated the lighter in your hand and got closer to him since you realized he was a little taller than you. Only a few inches, but you bet you could get there in your heels. 

Your hands are trembling, and the igniter doesn't seem to work when you try to start it the third time.

“Wait, stay still, you are shaking too much,”

Your cheeks burned up, and every hair on your arms stood up when a shiver went through you, but there wasn't a cold draft, not with this hot weather as his rough hands engulfed yours, steading your right hand as you once again ignited the lighter and voilà, a small flame appear. The tip of the nicotine stick ignited with just a few puffs of his mouth. He exhaled a gust of smoke, invading your space as it floated away. You maintained the man's gaze for a few beats but then blushed awkwardly, you snatched your hand out of his grasp. You didn't know what you would do if he kept looking that way. His hooded gaze was causing your lower belly to get warmer, as well as something else.

He straightened up, removing the stick from his lips.  " So, what did you do to piss them off?"

"I didn't do anything." A slight frown pulls your brows.

“Okay,” Your savior looked at you up and down, your scowl frowning even more.

“You don’t believe me?”

“I didn’t say anything, where’s your hotel?”

“What?”

He raises his eyebrow and smirk amused. ´” What is not an answer, where’s your hotel?  I’m going to walk you there.”

As if you’re going to reveal your temporary location - “It’s the Hyatt Zilara Cancun, that’s my hotel.” Ah shit.

Your savior remains silent for a few seconds as if he was remembering something, and then he nodded.  He started strolling to the opposite street of the alley. “Okay, vamonos, your hotel is a bit far, but we will make it in twenty minutes.”

“Wha-? Wait, wait so you’re just going to take me there, just like that?”  He glanced over his shoulder and nodded, looking at you as if wasn’t that obvious.  He wasn’t giving explanations as to why he was helping you. Something fishy is up.  “But – but I don’t even know your name!”

He pauses and turns towards you, the wheels in his mind were grinding on how to answer your answer, and he gave a confident smile. “My family calls me K’uk’ulkan, but a different kind of people call me Namor.”

You hid the fact that you could finally give your handsome, shady savior a name, but you still continue with your interrogation. “And what can kind of people are those?”

“My enemies.”

“Oh,”

Namor chuckled at the pale shade on your face, “I understand you are suspicious towards me, but if I wanted you to get hurt, I would’ve turned away.” Your jaw clenches at Namor's words, a heavy insecurity you sense in your throat, and then fades away at his changed response with a mischievous smirk on his attractive face. “But that would never happen since I'm not a man like them.”

“Que chistosito cabron…”  You muttered under your breath as you went to collect your heels and return to him. Waiting for him to start leading, but he seemed too busy watching your gestures. “What? Is there cream on my face??”

 Namor tilted his head at you. "What's your name?"

You chewed your tongue before you blurt out your real name, savior or not. You still couldn't trust him 101%. Not until you were sure he wasn't a serial killer or worst.

“Conchita.”

Namor repeated the name, unsure if he was listening correctly.

“Sipi, Conchita, that’s my name. Don’t pronounce too much it loses its charm.”

The smile that revealed his white teeth turned your stomach into butterflies, chuckling slightly at your humor.  Namor steps to your side and puts out his arm for you to grab. " After you, my lady."

“You’re the one who’s showing me, Menso.” You snorted but linked your arms anyway.

Namor chuckled and shook his head, “U ch'úupalo' ya'abtal jela'an.”

And he started to move, letting him take you through the streets of Cancun. But remember, you are only using Namor’s knowledge to bring you safely to your hotel, nothing more and nothing less.

 ↼ TEN MINUTES LATER ⇁

All your questions were ignored or answered with another question. When you began to have confidence in asking personal stuff, Namor would avoid it, always turning everything about you. You even thought that he was getting bored with all your personal life that you were oversharing.

But nothing like that; Namor would interrupt you for a second, only to cross a busy street, then he would ask you to continue with your childhood memories from Mexico when you visited with your mother. But you wanted so badly to know about Namor. Where did he work at? What was his favorite scent? Did he have a wife/girlfriend? Did he live alone? So many questions! He lived with two close cousins and was born and raised in Yucatan. At least, that is not bad to know about him.

You let out a loud yawn while Namor was telling a story about how he and his cousins were diving in cenotes, you didn't mean to be rude, but your exhausted body was at its limits. With sore feet and a wholly drained mind, it sounded tempting to fall asleep on the sand.

“Is my story that boring, In ch'ujuk lool? “

You offered him a giggly smile, but you were slowing down, your brain demanding rest, but you kept ambling while resting your head on Namor's shoulder. " No, nothing like that. I'm just exhausted."

" Ah, in that case, you no longer have to worry, see that? "

Your eyes went up and then watered a little. The sight of your hotel illuminated in all its glory seemed like a miracle straight from heaven. You ignored the pleas of your feet. You pushed a bit more until you finally faced the stairs leading to the hotel's lobby. Desolate was the hotel from the outside, but you knew there were still staff members inside. Namor's warmth was lulling you away while you were holding onto his big bicep as if they were a pillow.

Namor untangled his arm from yours and then took your hand in his grasp, “Well, here ends our little adventure.”

“What?”

“We finally made it.”

“Oh, yeah right.” Ay no, you didn’t want this to end, it’s too soon to say goodbye! “So, this is goodbye.”

“Indeed, it is, In lool.” Namor brough your hand to his mouth, brushing his lips to your knuckle and you were about melt right there if it wasn’t for his deep rich voice. “It was nice meeting you, despite the events of tonight.”

“It was nice meeting you too, Namor, and I know you already hate hearing me say but thank you so much for saving me. I mean, you didn’t have to do that….” Your voice cracks a bit. Oh boy, you really need to rest and be in the arm of your dearest girlfriends. You feel you were about a break in front of Namor.

Namor goes for your other hand and holds them to his chest, pulling you towards him as he stares you down with deep brown eyes. “No, no, I had to in ki'ichpam nikte'.  No one deserves that type of violation on their person and less someone like you.”

The caress with his knuckles on your cheek was your breaking point. Leaning just a bit closer to his space, your nostrils were filled with Namor's cologne, salt sea water, and nicotine. And Namor was drinking every detail of your features, every mole, and the tiny scar he could find on your plump cheeks that he could kiss, observing how your stunning ( c / e ) eyes shone with the light of the tall lamp posts. They were practically glowing for him.

His nose was grazing yours closely, hot breaths mixing, and Namor could end this intense hunger to kiss you until he stole your breath, but he noticed how you shivered and that glazed look in your eyes. You're still shaken from the event in the alley.

And when you were about to cut the space between your lips and his, but logic slapped you to come to your senses, and backed away.

“Namor, can I borrow your phone?”

He blinked confused for a second but responded. “What for?”

“Well, before you came one of the guys slapped my phone away. Oh, I didn’t event grabbed it." You winced at your forgetfulness and shrugged anyway. “Meh, I’m due to upgrade and all my photos are in the cloud.”  That didn’t answer Namor’s question. “I mean, I need to text my friend so she can come out…”

Namor blinked twice and huffed amusedly, he nodded and fish out his smartphone from his pocket. “Here you go.”

“Thank you,”

Reluctantly you released his hands to punch Riri's number on the phone. No calls. You didn't have the energy to speak everything through the device, so you sent two messages straight to the point. Hoping Riri wouldn't call this phone, you turned towards Namor, offering his phone back with a quiet thank you. Namor reached for his phone, but he didn't miss the opportunity for his fingers to caress yours as he grabbed the device.

You sent him a look when he put his phone away. You were not mad at Namor but at how the fuck this man affected you emotionally and physically.

“So, do you wish to go inside the lobby, and we can wait for your friend?”

You glared at Namor for a second then you glanced at the ten long stairs leading to the hotel lobby, and then back to the handsome shady savior. It’s not worth it, it ain’t worth moving your sore feet from your spot.

“I mean, we could stay outside here. I don’t mind sitting on the hard stairs while waiting in the suffocating heat for my friend….” Oh god, it was the warm weather, too warm for your tastes, you felt the sweat growing in the back of your dress. Namor licked his lips as he smiled at you, shaking his head amusedly by your rant, but he had an easy plan to fix that.

“Hey, yan my ch'ujuk concha, I think there’s a peacock behind you,” A malice glint flashed through his brown eyes.

Your mistake was twisting your neck, you pouted at the lack of the pretty feather birds, and before you could confront Namor, a squeal left your mouth as a pair of solid arms sneaked under your knees and waist. Your arms encircled Namor's broad shoulders to support, and shame began to heat your head. He didn't seem to shake as he went up the stairs with you in his arms, and being this close to his personal space was a bonus point, but you weren't going to let him know that.

“Eres un pinche cabron, pero si no fueras tan chulo te hubiera pegado…” You mumble under your breath, not making eye contact with him as he tries to search for you with a smug smirk.

“If you don’t tell me what that means, I will drop you.”

“It’s nothing, nada!”  You replied quickly, earning a loud chuckled as you tighten your grip around his shoulders. You cling to him like a cat not wanting to get in the water tub.   

“You should’ve told me your feet were hurting, In chan lool .” Namor chided near your ear. “And I told you so for not wearing your high heels.”

“So, my blisters can have blisters? HA! No thank you sir.”

The hotel doors were opened with the help of one of the workers when they glimpsed you from the counter. Namor nodded gratefully for the aid and went to the waiting area. He gently dropped you onto the expensive sofa and sat beside you. A heavy yawn broke out from you, covering your mouth with the palm of your hand. Then you glance at Namor with a hooded gaze, not hiding the fact you are about to fall asleep on this expensive couch with him, and beam tiredly at him, who was observing you with endearment or boredom. You couldn't tell.

“Are you tired, Ba'ax táan a cansada, in jela'an lool?”

“You know it’s not veery nice of you to say those things in your awesome language with your hot accent and voice…” You leaned into him; his arm dropped on your shoulders.  Namor was smiling at your slurred words and your accent slipping sometimes.

“And why it’s not nice?”

“Because! I can’t understand shit and it juuust driving crazy what are you saying.”

“I’ll tell you what those words meant if you give me your real name….” Namor leaned down, brushing the bridge of your nose with his, making you aware of the position. That hot sensation returned with more fervor in your stomach and your intimate parts. Your hand ended up in Namor's abdomen, feeling his warmth and his muscles flex a little. You could finish all this. You can satisfy your hunger and end your desire with just one kiss.

“My real name…?”

“Yes, In yakunaj, only your name.”

You frowned annoyed again by the words, no ideas whatsoever. You brush the tip of your nose against his, almost like an eskimo kiss. Your heart was pumping blood through your eardrums, your body buzzing with heat as you nestled against his. You bet he could hear your poor heart hammering loudly.

“I don’t understand any of that, how do you even pronounce it,”

Namor smirked, eyes focused on your half-open lips. “Do you want me to show you?”

YES, PLEASE, DO IT!

Your mind screamed, but you nodded weakly. You desired those lips to burn and mark you, and you wanted them on top of you in any way possible.

Namor smiled smugly, showing few of his teeth while connecting his forehead with yours. “I need you to hear your words in jela'an floor.”

“CONCHA, WHERE ARE YOU MY GIRL?”

Shuri's thunderous shout echoed through the empty lobby, you and Namor wince, backing away from each other as your attention landed on Shuri stepping out of the elevator with stumbling steps. You stood up from your seat, ignoring the sharp pain in your feet, and headed to Shuri with open arms.

“Conchita, where’ve you been?” Shuri’s tone scolded. “Twenty-five calls, fifty text messages, and nothing! What happened to you?”

You didn't reply away, mind already clouding with exhaustion, relief surrounded you when Shuri engulfed you with her long arms.

“It’s – it’s a long story, Namor brought me here because I had no idea where I was-”

“Who?”

“The guy right behind me, isn’t he cute?”

Shuri glanced behind you then look you up and down, “ Conchita, what kind of ecstacy have you taken?”

“Uhm no?”

“Then what man are you talking about?”

You whipped your head behind you and indeed, the lobby was vacant. The couch where you left Namor was empty, and a wrenching feeling twisted your gust, disappointed in yourself for not going for the kiss.  And the urges of crying took you over.

“I – I didn’t even get to kiss him,.”

Shuri cooed as she hugged you when your shoulders were shaking. “oh sisi wam omncinci othandekayo,, come on, let us go back to Riri and you can explain us...”

You let out a frail yeah while Shuri led you to the elevator and ignored the staff member approaching you with your heels and purse. So yeah, although the nightmare was over, your precious dream ended terribly. But who knows? You might see him again; you wonder to yourself. Just a little feeling that you would see Namor again, and this time, your tired mind promised to steal a kiss from him.

transations:

Que pinche suerte tengo ⇀ how fucking lucky I'm

eres un angel caido ⇀ you're a fallen angel

Oye, ¿que paso? ⇀ hey, what happened?

pendeja ⇀ bitch

chula, asi que me voy a colar con ellas ⇀ sweetie , i'm going to be with them

Que mamona, ni siquiera me dijo adios.⇀ What a bitch , he didn't even say goodbye to me.

U sojol, ma' le wíiniko'ob jaaj ⇀ you're a piece of scum, you are not men.

U ch'úupalo' ya'abtal jela'an. ⇀ what a curious girl you are.

In ch'ujuk lool? ⇀ My sweet flower

In lool ⇀ my flower.

in ki'ichpam nikte' ⇀ my beautiful flower

yan my ch'ujuk concha ⇀ oh my sweet concha

Eres un pinche cabron, pero si no fueras tan chulo te hubiera pegado… ⇀ You're a fucking bastard, but if you weren't so handsome would have hit you.

In chan lool ⇀ my little flower

Ba'ax táan a cansada, in jela'an lool? ⇀ Are you tired, my rare flower?

In yakunaj ⇀ my flower

oh sisi wam omncinci othandekayo, ⇀ oh my dear little sister,

[centrally-unplanned]

How much do you know about Dien Bien Phu? I, as a typical American, know almost nothing except that it was a major French disaster, that eventually led to the American Vietnam war. However, i fell into a YoutTube rabbit hole, and it changed my perspective. I think it was one of the most impressive marvels of combat logistics, planning, and ingenuity in military history.

The French made some major blunders, but i think it's important to un derstand why they put a major airstrip in a valley surrounded by mountains: The French Foreign Legion considered it a complete impossibility that the Vietnamese could put artillery on the mountains. From that persepctive, the fortress at Dien Bien Phu was an amazing idea. A well-supplied forward air base that is basically impregnable allows you to completely dominant the war. The French could have operated with impunity. The battle-hardened French military and engineers were absolutely certain that no one could move artillery up to the rim of the bowl - at least without modern equipment. Its not like these were guys fresh out of the academy, these dudes built the Maginot line, they fought a full-scale modern war, they were phenomenal engineers. They climbed the Alps, the fought in Fortress Europa. They knew their business. They were safe in their elevated bowl.

Instead, those hard little fuckers in the pajamas pulled post-WW2 field artillery pieces and modern AA batteries up mountains with their bare hands and some effing ropes. They did the impossible. They proved, once again, that wars are won by planning, logistics, and hard fucking work. Bravery is great. Genius is great. Strategic and tactical mastery of excellent skills. But being a good logistician and being willing to dig forever will win more wars than anything.

That, and SPEED. The moment the French extended themselves too far, the Viet Minh were ready. They exploited the advantage lighting fast.

I am just so impressed by the Viet Minh achievement at Dien Bien Phu, and would love to find more information on their side of things. Just incredible what they did.

Sounds like you know more than me! You can just make this your own reblog you know, no need to bury your essay in the illusion of the ask ^_^ We like essays here!

For my own thoughts I know some, I guess I can share a few:

-Okay, bear with me; there is a Malcom Gladwell essay about the Full Court Press strategy in college basketball from 2009 (absolutely *chef kiss* start here) which digs into the "effort vs ability" paradigm. Now Gladwell is as always full of shit, don't listen to him on the object level question of how effective the FCP strat is, but the paradigm is a good theoretical tool - that in a lot of places you don't expect, effort can substitute for a lack of ability and close disparities. In the essay he discusses T. E. Lawrence's attack on the city of Aqaba (which he overly credits to Lawrence over Auda Abu Tayi or the other British advisor, Stewart Newcombe, but w/e), which was heavily defended on the coast but its artillery batteries didn't cover the desert in the rear - why would it, its hundreds of miles of barren wasteland. The insight of the Arab Revolt forces barely counts as an insight until you see it the right way - just cross it anyway! The enemy has a greater 'ability' in firepower, which can cover a dozen approaches, but not all of them - so if you ignore the gigantic human cost of crossing the desert, you obviously attack the weak point. They just didn't conceive of enemy willing to essentially suffer that much, the Arab Revolt's true strength was apply effort in quantities the Ottomans were unwilling to consider. Dien Bien Phu is the same - the French were essentially correct that hand-dragging artillery pieces into the mountain ridges was virtually impossible, the British or the Chinese wouldn't have done it. Insurgencies are built on the principle of effort overcoming ability, though - if they had the ability they wouldn't be the insurgency. These are the gaps that insurgencies hunt for, where the enemy treats you like a 'normal' army and assumes you wont simply grind away at the problem. Dien Bien Phu is the moment where that gap emerged, and the Vietminh were ready for it.

-The other point is to downplay this a bit, in that whenever you see a stellar victory you should always look at the other perspective; if it happened, maybe it wasn't that low odds. The French in Vietnam were a classic case of War Without Strategy - after WW2 France was a broken state being built from the ground up, America had ruthlessly pushed the Western European powers into paring back their imperial ambitions, and the domestic populace was sketchy in its support at best. France had set up the State of Vietnam as a quasi-free nation, something they did have hopes for in the 1940's but by 1954 its lack of viability was on the wall, yet France could not diplomatically admit to that fact. As such into the 1950's France had minimal strategy - French commanders were simply aiming to not-lose and save face for their eventual return to Europe.

Individual ideas would bubble up - like the idea behind Dien Bien Phu, baiting the Vietminh into taking huge casualties attacking it as part of the "hedgehog" strategy a la Na San in 1952. But notice how this...isn't a strategy? If *inflicting casualties* was gonna win France the war it would have been over 5 years ago. It has a hint of a strategy, sure, but in the main its an idea born of the fact that France was unwilling to commit the resources needed to actually have a chance of winning, but was unwilling to admit defeat, and was filling the gap with hail mary's.

The fact that the Vietminh had already fought a similar battle at Na San, lost, and was able to learn lessons for when France offered a repeat is telling; their victory is maybe not that surprising in this light. France could afford few defeats and had no capacity to end the war, the Vietnamese could afford endless defeats and were bent on fighting for the long haul. Of course such a grind would eventually, probabilistically, tip in Vietnam's favour and hand them the victory they needed; in a sense France was hoping for just that, an excuse to withdraw. Dien Bien Phu is the logical culmination of the politico-strategic balance of the two forces.

[sketchystalker]

Okay. This is going to be the semester that kills me

First up, my literary criticism class has an essay due every. single. class. And hey it's a class that starts at 1:30, so plenty of time to do it in the morning, right? Nope! Due at midnight the night before. So I have to fully understand these complex texts talking about things that already go over my head enough to write a paper about it and somehow get it done way before the normal time I'd get it done at (because I am a big homework after midnight do-er). I have like zero time this weekend (because hey, it's my birthday and it's the first week of classes so you'd think I'd be able to have some time off) and my professor decided to add on a 25-30 minute video lecture to the assigned Plato reading (due with an essay Monday at midnight) that she already advised us to start two days ago, and another textbook reading on top of it.

Second, the class I had to beg to get into because my other class dropped last-minute apparently is 8 weeks, and is designed just like an online class, except I have a mandatory in-person lecture twice a week at 8:30 AM. I literally could have just taken the online class and saved time probably. It'll be nice I guess when it's term two and I don't have 17 credits going but it's going to be so much to balance initially.

Third, my grantwriting practicum. It's only three credits, but I'm spending 6 hours in the lab every week working on it because they want us to do all of our work in the lab. But I am such a slow writer that I know I'm going to have to do work outside of that time too. And the issue is that I don't get to use that time to prioritize something that may be more important at the moment, I'm stuck writing grants on all three of my most busiest days (which are right next to each other, giving me little time to do any homework for the classes that meet Tuesday/Thursday. And guess when my lit crit class meets? My Tuesday/Thursdays are literally 8:30 AM-5 PM with only an hour off for lunch. And then I have homework right after).

Fourth, I decided to take a piano class because "oh it'll be fun" and "who knows if you'll have space to take it senior year. Just do it now while you can" and yeah it should be fun, but I'm supposed to practice 30 minutes every day? There's no way. It'd be doable if I had a piano where I lived but I don't so there's no way.

And then my other two classes would be fine and doable if I literally just didn't have lit crit. But they're both English as well, and one is a 3 hour night class meeting on Wednesdays (once again giving me no time to do my Thursday homework), requiring about 150 pages read every week. And the other is variable speech/story/poem/etc. lengths but, knowing this professor, they'll have to be closely annotated. So no skimming for me if I'm short on time.

On top of that I have work, where I am now going to be one of two people among a sea of new hires (and that second person only started like three months ago and apparently makes people really uncomfortable). And I'm in charge of certifying all of them. And until that day happens, like months from now because the process actually takes forever, I and that other guy are the only ones who can give the hour-long tours. So that's 9 hours of my week right now (a majority happening during my Tuesday/Thursdays)

And I'm also the president of a club that I have no idea how to really run. There's so much shit I have to do up-top, like getting certified, making a whole budget that's extremely complicated and I don't know how to do, and start planning and holding meetings, all by a really soon date.

Plus I still have boxes I need to unpack and lists I need to research and send to my mom and apply for studying abroad before September 12th and my oven takes over an hour to pre-heat to 400 degrees which makes cooking anything impossible so I have nothing I can easily make and eat and I still need to confront a professor I've been avoiding and someone wants to interview me and I'm avoiding that email and I'm worried I'm not going to be making enough money this semester because I don't have that many hours and if I don't see my friends I get sad and lose all my motivation to do anything especially schoolwork and I have a stupid fucking 4.0 that I've maintained for this long I literally don't know how to lose it like how do you do an assignment and turn it in that isn't all of your effort ever and how do you know if you miss assignments that you aren't actually going to get a negative 500% grade in the class and I'm trying so hard to have a good semester I need a good semester after last semester I need to stay academically minded and excited to do it but I'm not going to get any exercise which naturally is going to make me sad because moving your body is good for you and feels good and i just don't have time and I said yes to a dnd campaign this semester?????? what the actual hell when i am going to have the time to do that and i want to start reading the illiad right now and i want to watch a movie every week and I think I am actually going to die

[hergan416]

AO3 wrapped ask meme

6, 23 and 30.

23 is about collaborative writing or projects, I guess. If the answer is no, would you like to, or what are your favourite kind of collaborative projects, etc.?

AO3 Writer's Wrap (still accepting)

6. Favorite title you used?

All my most favorite titles this year were complete skin-of-my-teeth, last-minute titles that I actually really liked.

Poison Paradise was a single chapter long with barely any planning about where it would go, but I wanted to post it immediately because that is who I am. I had this cover of Brittany Spears' Toxic that @user-needs-new-hyperfixation shared with me stuck in my head, and that line popped out and because of the way that I described Louis' eyes at the beginning of the fic. I thought for sure I would hate the title after a few chapters for referring to something so early on and was likely not going to be a major theme... but the title is working surprisingly well for the whole thing and the poison subtheme is shockingly persistent.

And then the entire Emergency Contact series. I sincerely didn't think the song had much to do with the hanahaki fic I was writing but it was stuck in my head and the line I chose for the first fic (Choke On My Words, Swallow Them Faster) just screamed hanahaki to me, even if the song felt oddly dissociated from everything else. As I continued to have ideas in the universe, the song's lyrics worked surprisingly well for my remaining ideas. Fix-It ending? Things That I Want, This Happily Ever After. In-Universe PWP? And I Can Bring The Sex Appeal. It worked oddly well.

23. Did you do any collaborative works this year?

Not in the traditional sense. I will say that Poison Paradise is heavily influenced by my friendship with @sakuplumeria and almost feels as much hers as mine in many ways, with just the way that we have talked about it and how influential and supportive she has been of my writing of it. But it is still ultimately my "essay" (attempt) and my words, and I've retained full creative control over it.

And I'm hoping for 2024 to have a true collaborative project with @vitya-nikiforova, who is talented and lovely and is a true friend as well. We've been discussing over discord, and have plans, but I'm not ready to write it quite yet.

30. I already answered it here. (Biggest surprise while writing this year).

[flowerandblood]

How did you get so good at writing? Were you born that amazing or did you practice? I’m trying to become a writer but I seem to suck at it. Loooove all your work btw 🥰

This is actually a very difficult question, but I'm glad you think I'm a good writer. That so kind of you. 💐

I have always liked Polish language and literature lessons, especially text analysis, during our classes we also have to write something like an "rozprawka". In other countries it is most often called an "essay", but in our case this form has clearly defined rules and is not an argument purely with your thoughts, only arguments for and against, analysis of fragments of texts, a bit as if you were a prosecutor.

Rozprawka comes from the Polish word rozprawa, which means dissertation in English.

By analyzing works of literature from all over the world in this way, you begin to analyze them very deeply, and it seems to me that nothing helps me in writing more than my experiences with other classical writers that I have read.

I love Edgar Allan Poe, I love Jane Austen, I love Molière, I love Sophocles, I love Shakespeare, Tolkien, Dostoyevsky, but also many outstanding Polish writers and artists, Gombrowicz, Mickiewicz, Wyspiański.

I have their books at home and they had a huge impact on me, but what impressed me the most was the analysis of these texts, because without it you don't fully understand what you're reading.

I have always liked creating my stories, but I usually presented them naturally to me, in the form of drawings and comics. It turned out that it was easier for me to present and describe something with words than with drawings, even though I am an artist (hehe). So I didn't write before I created this fanfic account, with maybe two exceptions, but only with my friend, and before that all my texts were serious comparative analyzes of other books.

So I don't know if I was born with it, probably not, but the words just come to me. First I come up with scenes and then I write them down, but sometimes I just write and the plot takes care of itself. I never plan my stories, I usually have no idea what will happen in them, I come up with ideas on the fly. I never know how it will end, it's always a guess. I admire writers who plan everything step by step, I would die halfway through, I try to write whenever I feel inspired.

Yesterday and today, for example, I wrote 8 chapters of The Prince and The Fox and I will probably write a few more, because I have inspiration, I feel this story now and I want to go further.

I will add that I write in my native language: Polish, because it is the language in which I think and in which words come naturally to me, and only then I translate them into English.

I don't know if it will help you, but my advice, for the despair of some people, is this: read the classics of literature!

[jadethest0ne]

So I finished going through your 03 reaction thread (again, thank you for the link!), and was a little bit confused about your final thoughts after finishing S5. You seemed to really enjoy most of the series, but then at the end your final takeaway seemed to be "meh. was a'ight." Which! Is fine! The beauty of having so many competent adaptations of the same source material is that people are able to pick and choose their favorite continuity according to their own preferences and what they personally like in their media. But you seemed to have a lot of good things to say about the 03 show, but then your opinion suddenly seemed to shift somewhat near the end. And if it's due to S5, I get it, I did not like that season when it aired either (I think Rise is overall a way better take on the mystic concept in general), but the first 4 seasons are still some of my favorite TV ever put to screen. Absolutely not perfect, they have things they could have improved upon for sure, but definitely solid stuff. But of course, all that is personal preference, and everyone's personal preference is different. So what about the series fell flat compared to others that you'd seen? Did it do anything well or even excellently, in your opinion? Did you have any favorite arcs or characters or anything that you wish other series had also done because you liked them so much? How would you rank the 4 animated series in terms of preference (assuming you've seen all 4)?

Yeah... I figured someone would notice that about the Twitter thread...

To be honest, my reaction thread, well, wasn't honest.

Or at least, the thread was heavily influenced by my attempts to remain positive due to a lot of people, including folks whose opinions I hold in high regard, liking that version a lot. I didn't want to weigh people down with a lot of negativity. But as a result, my frustrations with the show started boiling over towards the end of the thread. That's why at first I seem to be very excited about it, and then suddenly started pointing out negatives.

Like I did for Rise and the 1987 TMNT, I plan to write a video essay on TMNT 2003 with a much more honest and critical take on it. So I guess stay tuned for that.

I'll give more detailed answers to your questions in my eventual essay, but in short:

It was the emotional and familial moments that fell flat for me.

Positives included the intricate plot and varied fight scenes.

Favorite arcs were Leo's character arc in Season 4, and the Battle Nexus episodes.

Favorite character is probably Leo for once. It would've been Mikey if the narrative didn't keep shitting on him all the time

I wish other versions of TMNT had just as solid a plot/overall arc and flow from one season to another (other versions were either disjointed, episodic, or cancelled too early to achieve the same kind of plot structure)

While I don't dislike this version, there are numerous things about it that bug me, and in terms of preference, this is my least favorite version I have seen so far

Sorry if my thread gave you the wrong idea of my opinion. That is totally on me for not being upfront, and trying to write more of what I thought folks wanted to hear rather than some of my actual thoughts. The positive things I said in the thread are still truthful and include things I liked. There were just lots of other things that I didn't like that I didn't include in the thread ^^;

Thanks for asking and allowing me to clear some stuff up!

I'll be trying to post the video essay about TMNT 2003 within the next month, so I can elaborate more on my thoughts there ;3

[skydigiblogs]

i totally forgot to even mention that i read through all of digimon next, i think bfhjsdbfjhsdbfs

i mean i also didn't mention reading through all of v-tamer but i feel much less negatively about v-tamer than i did about digimon next

i can go into more detail if people want i guess but at the end of the day i think you're gonna need to go into next with more critical thinking pants than v-tamer (which i would argue requires maybe only critical thinking shorts), and that has to do in main part with two very large parts of their plot.

this is gonna be long (but i mean, that's what you come to this blog for lol), and, unfortunately, i have a lot of not-so-fun gripes with digimon next.

characters with disability (and how that disability is portrayed or discussed)

train kid yuu's disability is functionally cured in the digital world, and a large part of his arc has to do with him getting the courage to have heart surgery. i don't think this was handled with the kind of nuance that could have made him more interesting to me, especially with yuu calling himself a "weakling" at one point (internalized ableism is a thing, but i don't think it was written well with yuu).

folks familiar with v-tamer might ask me what i think about rei, and i feel similarly that it's a little weird to have a disabled character lose their disability in the digital world. however, i at least like that rei seemed to acknowledge it beyond mentioning surgery to get rid of it, and multiple times it was mentioned that despite being able to use her legs, she had no feeling at all in them while in the digital world.

neither of these portrayals are particularly good pieces of representation, and signify to me that the authors really didn't know how to fit someone with disabilities into their story without it being for the purpose of angst.

barbamon

barbamon just. is a whole essay i don't want to write at the moment because of how extremely antis*mitic its design is. if you don't know what i mean, look at barbamon's mask. guess what? look at barbamon's concept art, too. that huge nose is a mask in the final design, but the fact that at one point the demon lord of greed was considered to have that be its actual nose is uhhhh.

bandai what can i say but yiiiikes.

digimon next had an uphill battle the entire time almost entirely thanks to picking barbamon as its antagonist. when you use an antis*mitic caricature as your antagonist, it's going to be really hard not to pull on antis*mitic tropes, too! or at least, that's what it really felt like with next, considering barbamon's whole plan is literally some great r*placement theory "kill all non-aligned digimon and control birth itself" bullshit.

while destroying/conquering the digital world is textbook digimon antagonist bullshit (every series has one), the elements and aesthetic of barbamon in next particularly bothered me because they really do not reflect well when paired together.

i'll remind you too that barbamon in next has a notably militaristic army in "the commandments." this also isn't foreign in digimon--- a few years after next, we would see troopmon in bagramon's army, as an example. but like, again, one of these antagonist leader digimon is a caricature.

i am assigning homework for anyone who read(s) next, and that is some literature on antis*mitism and what it looks like in media.

"sky, if you hated next so much, why are you posting about it?"

first off: because it's my blog and i can, lol

second off: because i wanted that sweet sweet yggy lore

as much as i have my issues with digimon next, i think it introduced some very fun tools that could be built upon. yggdrasil, and the fact it just sent its girlsona to the human world because it was worried humans didn't like digimon enough? EXTREMELY funny on paper, yes, but also a fascinating idea!

in next, we see that yggy is able to detach its consciousness from its core, and i think it would be fun to see that explored further. what if, instead of someone external taking control of the core, we see something similar to, say, a split (yes i'm bringing plurality into this). that's to say, yggy mitosises off its girlsona or something, cloning its consciousness to assess the situation beyond its core's reach. yggy core and yggysona, however, are split up because yggysona needs to go collect data. what if there was conflict between yggy core and yggysona because the data retrieved just doesn't make sense with the data yggy core started with?

furthermore, we see some interesting ideas with yggy's kernel, where it's guarded by a magnaangemon (who we see both fall and quite easily reclaim their status as magnaangemon). the implications of this are that yggy can sometimes be the god that angel digimon serve, and that it is possible for fallen angel digimon to become unfallen.

and then next drops NEO on us, calls it "a power beyond yggy" AND REFUSES TO ELABORATE? NO, GET THE FUCK BACK HERE, WHAT DO YOU MEAN GOD IS MADE OUT OF THE COLLECTED MEMORIES OF DIGIMON SPECIES? that's such a cool concept to me (and i am also a sucker for chimera characters, so uhhh), especially read with a metaphorical lens. like. the idea of god being our experiences has endless thematic storytelling potential in a series that is all about its characters Having Emotional Experiences.

anyways uh

digimon next, huh?

[juniperhillpatient]

The Drill Re-watch

The Dangerous Ladies are back! And they have a big scary drill. I love how Mai is just happy to get something to do & I had honestly forgotten how consistently ecstatic Ty Lee is at any opportunity for violence. She's so adorable & scary at the same time. Have I mentioned lately how much I love Ty Lee? +1000 iconic behavior points to her for taking out all those earth-benders & scaring Katara. I had also forgotten just how scared of Ty Lee Katara is & how much she dislikes her. Katara yelling & calling Ty Lee a circus freak was a badass moment. +1000 iconic behavior points. Mai disobeying Azula just because she doesn't want to get muddy & popping up in the end like "we lost" in a deadpan voice was hilarious & very based of her, +500 iconic behavior points. Sokka's plan to take out the drill from the inside was pretty smart. +500 iconic behavior points.

My favorite part of the conflict with the drill was actually Ty Lee. I also really loved the flirty moment between her & Sokka, & Katara having to drag Sokka away. Honestly, I've never given much thought to Ty Lee/Sokka as a potential ship until this re-watch but their flirty banter during fights is so funny & cute. And I just can't get enough of Ty Lee happily kicking ass.

Surprisingly, I don't have that much to say about Azula in this episode which is rare for me but this was pretty much standard hero vs. villain "let's keep the Fire Nation out of Ba Sing Se" stuff. I mean, the Azula vs. Aang fight was badass, but I don't have any meaningful analysis of it. I think the most meaningful takeaway I have about Azula in this episode is regarding her relationship with Mai & Ty Lee. It's been commented on a hundred times that Mai disobeys Azula's order in this episode, but still, I'll comment on it again. I think it says a lot about the dynamic between Azula & Mai. Mai is a subordinate, & there is a power imbalance but Mai knows what she can & can't get away with & isn't afraid to do what she wants under certain circumstances. I think that the dynamic between these three girls is layered & this episode gives evidence to the idea that Azula does treat Mai & Ty Lee like friends to the extent that Azula can treat anyone like friends. Mai never felt coerced & if she was reluctant to follow specific orders, she simply didn't.

Jet & Zuko were my favorite part of this episode, actually. I can't believe it took me as long as it did spending time in this fandom to warm up to Jet/Zuko as a romantic pairing. Shocking & disappointing for me, really, I feel like I usually have good taste right away. SMH past me. Oh well, I see the truth now. They're literally Thee Template. Like, they met each other, said "be gay do crime" & had a touching heart to heart about both being traumatized & Zuko realized that he didn't always have to be alone & by the next episode Jet is following Zuko around like a lost puppy begging him to join his little found family. THEN freaking Iroh warms up his tea with fire-bending. Iroh, I was just warming up to you & starting to stand up for you, dude. What are you DOING? Zuko is right. For a supposedly wise old man, that's just.....really fucking stupid. I don't even know what to say. I guess Iroh got a little too comfortable? Like....what? Anyway....

Despite the rather contrived way in which it happened (yeah, sorry, I'm gonna say the writing is a LITTLE contrived like, I just don't get it is Iroh supposed to be smart or not?) I DO love a dramatic breakup between two characters who technically never even dated. Jet now knows that Zuko & Iroh are fire-benders. And MAN. A hundred smarter people than me have written fascinating essays & analyses & metas about the tragedy that Jet is right that they're fire-benders & more right than he knows because they're literally Fire Nation royalty & both personally responsible for a lot of harm inflicted by the Fire Nation but he's wrong because they are actually refugees now & not causing any new harm & also because he needs to let go of this obsessive hate because it will (& does) lead to his downfall like....We'll get to my thoughts on Jet's tragedy & his death when we get there but this set up for drama (by itself!!! pretending I'm watching for the first time!!!) IS excellent writing (if the specifics weren’t so contrived.) If only they ---- never mind, I'm done for now. I'm ending this ramble. Goodnight. Oh yes, Zuko & Jet get +1000 iconic behavior points for their quick little fling that will change them both forever & for having a dramatic breakup without Zuzu (king of drama on any other occasion!) even knowing about it.

Anyway, this was a great episode. I'm surprised I had so little to say about Azula & that she earned no iconic behavior points, but it's okay because she will blow everyone else out of the running in Crossroads of Destiny, I already know 100% for sure. Yeah, my favorite parts of this episode were the Dangerous Ladies & Jet & Zuko but I should also mention that I liked Sokka joking about the different group names even though "gaang" hasn't come up yet. And the hints about metal-bending & its potential were fun subtle foreshadowing.

[aria-benedetto]

Author Ask Game

I was tagged by @verkja. Thank you for the tag!

I am going to leave this as an open tag.

What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

I didn't consciously choose a lesson, but I do think most of my stories/daydreams end up having themes that might be taken as lessons or morals (which I mostly put down to my fascination with tropes, concepts and media analysis. I cannot stop overanalysing every story I read, including my own).

To answer the question, for A Hero's Death, I think you could take "be careful what you wish for" as a lesson, although there is definitely a case to be made that there is something in there about hero worship and unquestioningly accepting explanations and narratives offered by autority figures? Kind of? *squints* Not sure that any of them are coherent, though, since a lot of the time my themes are less a lesson and more my own attempt to essentially debate nuance with myself.

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

I guess the biggest inspiration here is a mix of common superhero narratives and my personal pet peeves with them.

To give a concrete example, it never made sense to me how supervillains could take over major US cities and the government and military just... accept that? What? Because of that, in my worldbuilding, each city is essentially its own country and they are losely connected in something resembling the EU. That way there is a lot more leeway for different laws, supervillain takeovers and vastly different political landscapes in different cities.

There is also some inspiration in there from the real world and some things are just there because I wanted them to be there.

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

My MC is trying to solve a crime.

As for what I am trying to achieve, that differs strongly between pretty much all my MCs and Michael (the MC of this story). Usually, I find them interesting as characters and they work well in the scenario I want to invent a story about.

For Michael, I needed a complete outsider to the backstory (which is where this story actually started), because otherwise the plot wouldn't work. So what I am trying to achieve with him is have a narrator who can view the entire backstory through an outsiders point of view.

How many chapters is your story going to have?

... am I going to have to count now? *goes to the doc and starts counting*

Counting Prologue and Epilogue and provided I didn't miscount, 22. Probably.

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Original content and I'm planning on posting it to tumblr.

When and why did you start writing?

This story? At the beginning of July, because I had been reading Writblr and Whumplr blogs for about a year at this point and wanted to try actually writing a story myself instead of sticking to daydreams.

Writing generally - I used to write short stories as a child and young teenager, but mostly stopped once school assignments moved from creative writing to essays. I still regularily write non-fiction though, mostly for university ... or because I write essays on topics I'm invested in in various forums.

Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

*blinks* I have no actual idea. Maybe that it helps (me at least) to not get invested in the idea of having a big reach? Writing niche stuff is fine and makes the handful of people who enjoy the niche really happy, because it is usually very difficult to find stuff for that niche.

I mostly follow a handful of blogs whose writing I got really, really invested in before I made an account. And I am really, really bad at remembering urls and I don't want to miss anybody, so I'm not going to list them, but they are all really great. Some are whump writers, some in the superhero and/or fantasy genre. Some write a mix of a lot of stuff.

Blank questions:

What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

How many chapters is your story going to have?

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

When and why did you start writing?

Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

[deadpresidents]

A writing question if you don't mind-when you write those longer articles or essays, do you write by hand or typing? How many drafts do you normally go through? I'm trying to find my own voice as a writer and any suggestions on process would be much appreciated!

My writing process is terrible and I am embarrassingly undisciplined when it comes to writing. I barely even write anymore! It used to be so much easier for me and my problem was that I was ridiculously long-winded, but now I have trouble just getting focused enough to knock out a few paragraphs. I'd kill to go back to the days where I just started writing and everything flowed, but it's almost as if someone flipped a switch and I just ran out of power. I have no idea when things changed, but they definitely did so over the past few years.

I have no formal training as a writer. (Obviously.) I've never taken a writing class or workshop, but I wish I had done so years ago. I feel like I've handicapped myself over the years because everything was self-taught and I really could have benefited from some sort of foundation. I never learned how to outline anything or even make some sort of rudimentary plan for the topic I plan to write about. I have a couple of notebooks with various ideas that I consider writing about, but the "ideas" are usually just two or three words I've quickly jotted down to remind myself of topics I might want to explore. And I imagine that 98% of those ideas are never revisited. Like I said, I'm awful at this stuff.

When I do finally zero in on something and start writing, I just start typing. In fact, I almost always just start directly writing whatever it is that I'm writing about as a Tumblr post. I don't write anything by hand and rarely even use something like Pages or Microsoft Word. I just start making a post. Here's the really dumb part: not only do I not write numerous drafts, but I usually just sit down and write stuff in one sitting, from beginning to end. If I get stuck or lost or don't feel like I can find the right ending for what I'm writing, I'll just delete the post. I have no idea how many words I've written on Tumblr over the past 15 years (!!!), but everything I've published is just a fraction of the stuff I discarded because I wasn't happy with it or wasn't feeling it. Even the things that I didn't complete give up on are frozen in time in the drafts of my Tumblr dashboard. They are currently 128 drafts saved to my Tumblr dashboard. I couldn't even guess when (or if) I've ever revisited those drafts; it's as if I kept them around just in case I completely and utterly change the manner in which I've created content over the years. Spoiler alert: I will not.

I'm an idiot, quite frankly, and should have taken some sort of writing classes years ago. I probably would have created a ton of content if I had some sort of a foundation that allowed me to craft better stories without feeling the need to start over at the first sign of trouble. If I'm writing something else that isn't intended to be published on Tumblr, I still have a similar "process" where I try to write my piece in one sitting and toss it all if it doesn't feel right.

I implore you not to try my idiotic writing "process" at home. It's undeniably counterproductive and I wish the Men In Black would have used their little memory erasing machine on me to erase those bad habits over the years. It's shocking that I was actually able to publish as much content as I have over the years despite not having the slightest idea of how to effectively and consistently write!

With all that said, I will add this about finding your voice or your own writing style: just keep doing what feels good to you. If you enjoy writing -- as I genuinely did at one point -- it doesn't matter what other people think about your work. It's yours and unless you're taking some sort of class or working some sort of job, nobody has any right to grade what you're doing. When you start worrying about how other people are going to judge your work it starts to actually feel like work, and if writing is an important outlet for you, it's important to not let strangers get in your way. That's when it stops being fun or fulfilling and if it's not one of those things or you're not getting paid money to make the changes to your work that people think you should make, then what's the use of writing in the first place?

[helenreads28]

Hello hello, guess who's back with a new chapter everyone😁

To anyone who waited for the new chapter, I'm thankful. I hope you enjoy this ~7.5k word chapter. Tell me what you think of the story so far!

Alright, so now for what I actually didn't write on the notes section of the story. As the story goes on, it is quite possible that the characters are going to be getting a bit ofc progressively more and more. I do believe that Rang and Han Seo are already starting to deviate slightly from what their characters are on the show. I do explain ( I think, I mean it when I say don't edit my chapters guys. You get my 2am sleep deprived writing and ideas as they are, sorry) Rang's character and why he gets as he gets in the story.

I mean, we've seen that he is actually a sentimental and sensitive guy. This is something I love about him; as tough as he may want to appear, truly he is just a big softie. He is by no means a "all bark, no bite" person. We've seen that he barks and bites alright. Though, I may be turning him into a better person in the story, I believe that is because it's who he is as a person. Dude literally sacrificed himself for his idiot of an older brother. HE'S A SOFTIE.

Now, about Han Seo I've taken an approach that says he knows he is being abused and just tried to survive. Isn't this what he was trying to do on the show as well? Of course, he wanted someone to acknowledge him too. It was what drove him the most in the series I believe; to be seen as a person, that he exists and does things too. Han Seo had South Korea as a whole fooled; he is not the idiot they tried to portrayed him as. There are so many kinds of intelligence; it's so stupid to only show the book smart or wit smart kind of it. This young man, who everyone mocked, outsmarted the entire Korea and his brother, the person who underestimated him the most. Yes, Han Seo might not have been the smartest person when it came to wits, but he was so smart in the way he had them all fooled into thinking he was the real CEO of Babel.

Again, in the show we saw how when Han Seo started studying he was able to stand on his own to feet when it came to the company. This only proved that he was not an idiot; the man just never had the chance to develop his critical thinking in a necessary way that would allow him to rule Babel successfully. When did this happen? When he was no longer under the constant pressure of being abused. When he knew that he had a plan and a way to escape Han Seok's evil hands. This sweet baby never had the chance to truly discover all his potentials due to all this TRAUMA his brother caused him. I could write an entire essay on this, but I'd rather say something that I believe is actually more important.

No-one is stupid or an idiot. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You can do whatever you want in life. If something doesn't come as easy to you as it does to others, it doesn't make you less intelligent. You're probably better at something else. No-one is born being good at everything, we can always try and work hard to achieve things that don't come to us naturally.

[scarredhag]

The Whale (2022) dir. Darren Aronofsky

I just watched The Whale and I got so many thoughts about it. Though one thing I can surely say is that I sobbed way too fucking hard. Give me a movie that hits my religion/life issues and my love for poetic/literature shit and it'll be an instant river. This movie gave it all to me. I don't even know where to start. You know what, I'm just gonna blurt it all out.

"In the amazing book, Moby Dick, by the author Herman Melville, the author recounts his story of being at sea. In the first part of this book, the author, calling himself Ishmael, is in a small seaside town and he is sharing a bed with a man named Queequeg. The author and Queequeg go to church and later set out on a ship captained by a pirate named Ahab, who is missing a leg, and very much wants to kill the whale which is named Moby Dick, and which is white. In the course of the book, the pirate Ahab encounters many hardships. His entire life is set around trying to kill a certain whale. I think this is sad because this whale doesn't have any emotions, and doesn't know how bad Ahab wants to kill him. He's just a poor big animal. And I feel bad for Ahab as well because he thinks his life will be better if he can just kill this whale, but in reality, it won't help him at all. I was very saddened by this book, and I felt many emotions for the characters. And I felt saddest of all when I read the boring chapters that were only descriptions of whales, because I knew the author was just trying to save us from his own sad story, just for a little while. This book made me think about my own life, and then it made me feel glad for my..."

This is what Ellie (Sadie Sink) wrote in her English essay during eighth grade. As the movie starts, it wasn't stated who wrote it, but rather was being read by Thomas (Ty Simpkins), a missionary who shares the word of God door to door, for Charlie (Brendan Fraser), who was at the moment, feeling a tight pain in his chest. Charlie pleaded Thomas to read it for him because it somehow calms him, helps him to breathe again. It was like his life source, his life support machine. And the first time I heard the essay, I immediately thought the whale as Charlie. Not just because of his obesity, but also because when I saw him, I thought he didn't care about anything. He let himself be that large, I wondered why, but still thought that maybe he just didn't care. Just like in Ellie's essay, the whale doesn't have any emotions. He only does what he do and have no idea what life can do to him. In Ellie's perspective, this is very understandable. Ellie thought that his dad never cared for her, left her, his own daughter, for a man. Charlie was in love, he told her that at the end of the movie, and being in love caused Ellie to think that he was emotionless.

Charlie was in love with Alan, who was Liz's (Hong Chau) brother, which is Charlie's personal nurse and only friend. Alan was also part of New Life, a church, just like Thomas. When Alan died, Charlie went through more than a rough time, and I guess Liz never left his side. She helps him by buying groceries for him, checking his health, do chores, and advices him to take a health insurance which he refuses to do so because he thinks that there's more important things that his money should go to. Alan's death wasn't an accident. He killed himself by jumping off a bridge, as Liz had said. She said that Alan was having a hard time doing his missionary work, was tired, but didn't want to come home because he didn't want to get married, which their father was already planned it. During this time, Alan and Charlie were already together because Liz said that the first time she went to Charlie's house, Alan was there, looking sick and awful and she was trying to convince him to eat. In the end, Alan gave up, and it messed Charlie up. How much more for Liz?

The first night Thomas, the missionary, came across Charlie's house, Liz met him. You wouldn't believe it if I say they didn't get along. The second day, Liz told him everything about his brother, and how much of a bullshit being in New Life is. I loved how much she hates faith and religion and everything it offers because it's understandable. Their father kicked their family because of it, and her brother died because of it. You can't blame her for carrying this much rage over God when everything around her didn't go as planned, or maybe it was God's plan. Even though she already hated New Life when she was eight and was being force by her father to join, I bet she wouldn't have wanted to hate it more if it meant for her brother to be gone. As their conversation goes on, as Thomas was trying to convince her that Charlie needed saving, she responded before she got interrupted by Charlie, "No one can save him, only I can!" I paused. For a minute. And I teared up. She couldn't save Alan. She couldn't save his brother. And with Charlie, maybe, just maybe, she could do it this time.

But Alan gave up, and it messed Charlie up, to the point that he made himself larger than he used to be. He wasn't even that large before, he said. He let himself. Because he was devastated, and lonely, and the love of his life killed himself. And that's why Ellie thought he was emotionless. She thought he didn't care. Because Charlie left her, without understanding that there's another person that needs him.

And just like the pirate Ahab, she wanted to kill the whale, in hopes that things will be better for her. She'll get his money and she can do whatever she can with it. But then she read the essay she wrote when she was in eighth grade, which is being kept by Charlie, who she thought never cared for her, who she thought never payed attention to anything about her, and remembered what she was glad for. He did, he does. He kept her essay, and keeps reading and reading it as if it increases a minute to his life span. And every time he's on the verge of dying, he still reads it as if it's his god that keeps on saving him and keeping him going. Because at the end of the essay, Ellie said, "This book made me think about my own life, and then it made me feel glad for my..."

She was glad for him. She is glad for him. And no matter how much Ellie got bored from those boring descriptions of whales, she's glad to realize that, there are worst ones. Her dad isn't the best, isn't good either, but he isn't the worst for the very least. And for Charlie, that's what keeps him going. No matter how long he tries to kill himself, no matter how long he longs to die, there's this lifeline that will keep on giving him hope, her daughter is glad for him. And he is glad for her, because she's amazing.

I have so many more thoughts, but I think I already wrote what is necessary. If I unintentionally wrote some things that seem offensive and couldn't quite recognize which, I'm sorry. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the movie. Imagine ugly crying which I barely do. I guess this is my essay.

Edited: I saw a review on Letterboxd asking if Dan the delivery guy was God judging us... HOLD ON-

[arcthebreeder]

Log_77.TXT

08/29/2024, 09:55 (GMT-5)

I've been meaning to write this since yesterday, but due to a certain essay, I had to postpone it until now (it also has to do with the fact that I've been procrastinating since the first week of college, but shhh)

You see... It's pretty common in public universities here in my country for people to build outlaw groups to protest in the campuses so students get better treatments and for the infrastructure to be either repaired or updated. I don't belong to any of them, since their protests are noisy and I find them annoying, but I've seen multiple times how these groups act, however, this is the first time I've seen it first hand, yesterday, a group known as "The Hooded Ones" entered my university and began throwing small homemade explosive made from... Potatoes, believe it or not, to scare the students into getting out of the facility so they could start a reunion with the higher ups of the institution.

While all of this was happening some friend and I were trying to get out of the place, but The Hooded Ones made it pretty hard, since they were moving back and forth from one door to the other, and while I was trying to get back to the main door, my Digimon DOCK picked up a signal from one of them, a guy with a red scarf covering his face, everyone else had a black one, so I guess he was important, whatever the case is, I decided that it was a good idea to send HiAndromon, since he was active at the moment where the connection happened.

Using an NFC connection, I sent HiAndromon to the guy's phone and went my way into the food court of a nerby mall, after some time, HiAndromon found out that the guy had two Digimon working for him, two... Etemon. An odd option, but... Respectable? I guess? It doesn't matter. While HiAndromon was invading that guy's phone, we discovered that apparently the two Etemon were an important part of their plan development team, apparently they are two well trained tacticians, even the brains of the operation.

Things were going smoothly until one of the two Etemon revealed that he already knew we were inside the phone, attacking HiAndromon with the Love Serenade, paralyzed his fighting spirit.

The two Etemon used a binding program to freeze HiAndromon so he wouldn't escape, sooner than later, a chat window popped up in my phone, it was them. The two Etemon said that they realized we entered since the beginning, and just waited to see how far HiAndromon and I could go, they didn't harm us initially, since we were part of the group they were trying to benefit, the students from my college, however, they said that if we were to try and stop them, they wouldn't hesitate to "reach their partners for help"

I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty scared, but seeing how they were pretty calm and open to talk, so HiAndromon and I explained to them that we were just trying to investigate since my Digimon DOCK alerted me that there was Digimon activity inside their Tamer's phone. They understood that we meant no harm and freed HiAndromon from the binding program, and actually were curious about our investigation and goals, so we explained to them all the business with the blog and our beef with the military, those two were actually pretty chill! And even opened up the possibility of another meeting (just with them, not with their Tamer) so they could be investigated too!

I don't support the modus operandi of The Hooded Ones in any shape or form, but it's pretty... Releasing to see that they also have members that are willing to talk without making me have a panic attack thanks to the homemade explosives that I'll call potatombs from now on, since they don't actually have a name in english and if things keep going like this I'll probably have to refer to them more often than not!

Whatever the case is, we closed connections and HiAndromon came back to me with a letter from the Etemon, with their contact info in case I needed them so... I now have friends in an outlaw group, yay!, I may take a bit longer to post entries since now I have to respond to my student responsibilities, but I'll still keep you updated!

ATT: ARC