#i don’t even use this account… i made one post 5 years ago

[fingertipsmp3]

Really need to turn my instagram notifications on. Why did I check it for the first time in months and discover that my best friend made a meme account, and that this woman I had a crush on four years ago requested to follow me

[httplilyyy]

𝐌𝐀𝐋𝐅𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 || 𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐀 𝐎𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐃𝐎𝐑𝐅

pairing: lena oberdorf x reader

summary: you're best friends so what's wrong with one little cuddle?

warnings: nothing but fluff

word count: 1.3k

a/n: i haven’t written for the woso world in a while and due to the wwc going on i thought it was only fair to write a couple fics. send in ideas and prompts for people you want me to write for and i’ll see if my brain can work something out :)

woso masterlist request

You've known Lena for what seemed like forever. From the moment the two of you met you couldn't be kept away from each other. Now three years on, the two of you were as thick as thieves.

Only up until recently, you had been thinking of Lena in a different way. Going from longing gazes to discrete touches. You knew you were falling for the girl but you just couldn't stop yourself.

You knew you couldn't do anything with these feelings so you kept them buried deep down. Not telling anyone. Not a single soul.

Due to hiding your feelings you had been different around Lena, and you were sure she could sense it. As much as it pained you, you tried to put a little distance between you both but you were just not able to keep her from running around in your mind.

You were currently sitting on your sofa at home, scrolling through instagram when you noticed that Lena had posted. Clicking on her account you could’ve sworn you had heart palpitations.

Immediately liking her new photo, your heart nearly jumped out of your chest once you saw a message pop up at the top of your screen.

[ lena: 6:56pm ] eager much?

[ you: 6:56pm ] i’m sorry?

[ lena: 6:56pm ] check when i posted

Opening instagram back up, you saw how long ago she posted. And it wasn't long at all. 1 minute ago. Shit.

[ you: 6:57pm ] what? I can’t like a photo of my best friend?

Playing it cool and definitely not acknowledging the way your chest pained after typing the reply.

[ lena: 6:57pm ] oh no, you can. just seemed a bit quick, no?

[ you: 6:57pm ] i refreshed the app and you popped up

[ lena: 6:57pm ] mhm sureeeee

[ you: 6:58pm ] i hate you

[ lena: 5:58pm ] no you don’t

[ you: 5:58pm ] i’m pretty sure i do

[ lena: 5:58pm ] so if i invited you over for pizza and a movie you wouldn't come?

[ you: 5:59pm ] i hate you

[ lena: 5:59pm ] i’ll see you in a bit

You huffed out a laugh, getting up from the sofa with a sinking feeling in your stomach. You couldn't help but wonder what it’d be like if you actually told her how you felt. Shaking your head, you got rid of that idea.

Grabbing your keys from your kitchen counter, you put your shoes on and made your way over to Lena’s. It wasn’t a long drive and before you knew it you were standing outside her front door, waiting for her to let you in.

“The stalker’s here.” Lena grinned as she opened the door.

“Ha ha, very funny.” You deadpanned, walking past her and into the living room where there was pizza laid out on the coffee table.

“Wow, I don't even get a ‘hi’ and you’re already digging into the pizza.” Lena scoffed, sitting beside you on the sofa.

“I only came for free food and a movie.” You said with a grin, discreetly trying to put space between the two of you.

“Whatever.” Lena said, rolling her eyes as she tried to fight off a smile that made its way onto her face.

“What movie are we watching?” You asked, taking another slice of pizza.

“Ten things I hate about you.”

“Really?”

“What? I like a good romcom.” Lena shrugged, taking a slice of her own and pressing play on the movie.

As the movie went on, your concentration became less and less. Your brain solely focused on the person beside you. No matter how much space you put between her, you still felt yourself being drawn back to her. Like an unexplainable force pushing you together.

Shifting in your spot, you tried to get comfortable but it was no use. Every position seemed to be more uncomfortable than the last and unbeknownst to you, Lena seemed to be having the same problem.

From all your shifting around, the two of you were now sitting next to each other. Shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. Lena rested her head on your shoulder, still trying to find a comfortable position.

Accidentally, Lena let out a small grumble, becoming fed up with being uncomfortable.

“You okay?” You chuckle, looking down at Lena.

“No.” She huffed, moving off your shoulder.

“What’s up?”

“I can’t get comfy.”

“Neither.” You agreed, a small tight-lipped smile making its way onto your face.

“Lay back.” Lena said, placing her hands on your waist, pushing you to lay on your back.

“Wha- um, okay.” You said, heart pounding as you let Lena guide you back.

You got yourself in a position so your head was rested on a pillow, being slightly propped up by the arm of the sofa so you could fully lay down.

Once you had stopped moving, Lena crawled on top of you, laying her body across yours.

“Is this okay?” Lena questioned as she let out a content sigh against your neck, her breath sending goosebumps to spread like a wildfire over your skin.

“Huh- I- what?” You blushed, eyes wide as you scolded yourself for not being able to form a complete sentence.

“Do you want me to get off?” Lena asked, placing her hands on the arm of the sofa, either side of your head, so she could look at your face properly.

“No! I uh-” You coughed and let out a nervous laugh. “I don’t think so?”

“You don’t think so?” Lena repeated with a teasing tone.

“I don’t want you to get off.”

“Okay.” Lena smiled and moved back to the position she was in originally.

By now the movie was long forgotten and you couldn't help the way your heart sped up at how Lena was on top of you.

Not knowing what to do without malfunctioning, you kept your arms up in the air, deciding that was the better option.

“You can touch me, y’know. I’m not fragile.” Lena said softly, reaching her arm out to grab yours, placing it around her waist.

“Mhm, yeah. I know that.” You said, placing your other arm on her back, slowly drawing intricate patterns.

The two of you didn't say anything for the rest of the movie, the both of you enjoying the tranquillity of the moment. As the credits played, you had failed to notice that Lena had drifted off to sleep.

You had tried to slide out from underneath her but it was no use. Shifting in her sleep, Lena mumbled a few incoherent words and you knew that you had fallen so hard, you don’t think anyone would be able to save you.

Letting yourself drift off into a deep sleep, the only thing grounding you was the person on top of you.

Many hours passed and it was now the early hours of the morning, the sun peaking through the blinds caused Lena to wake up from her sleep.

Some time during the night, the two of you had shifted so she was trapped between you and the cushions of the sofa.

Lena froze, noticing the position she was currently in and letting a blush take over her features. Her leg was draped over yours, tangled together and her hand had made its way up your top, resting on your stomach.

Snapping herself out of her thoughts, Lena quickly removed her hand from under your top, suddenly feeling her fingertips grow cold.

Shifting in your sleep, you wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her just a tad closer and resting your head in her neck.

“You’re staring.” You mumbled, eyes still closed as you let a small smile take over your face.

“I’m not.” Lena protested, weakly trying to get out of your hold.

“You’re lucky I like you.” You smiled, moving your head back to the pillow and tightening your grip on her.

Lena laid quietly for a while, assuming you had drifted back off to sleep before she spoke up again.

“I like you too.” She whispered, brushing a strand of hair that fell over your face.

“I knew it.” You smirked, pulling her closer into you. “Now go back to sleep.”

Lena let out a small chuckle, pressing her lips to your cheek before cuddling herself into you and drifting back off into sleep.

[bzhitstruth]

About hints and patterns

Throughout the history of GGDD, we have noticed that they sometimes act as messenger birds for each other - one hints at some event, and then it happens to other. This is a direct hint.

But there is another type of hints - when the event that one of them hints at has already happened before, but we don’t know about it yet and don't understand this hint. But then the other person tells us about this event, and only then does it become clear to us that the hint has already been made. If we don't consider this a coincidence, then we will have to admit that such information could have been known to another person only through personal communication, because it was not publicly known about it.

I want to recall a few examples of such cases, they occurred over a not very long period of time - less than a year.

All this is fake, CPN and empty thoughts. Clownery. 🤡

DD's “Water show” — GG's vlog

On July 10, 2023, the event was held in Beijing dedicated to the premiere of One and only. DD participated in it, he danced and splashed water on the audience. While dansing DD made a couple of gestures that the turtles paid attention to - the “figure eight” and the famous “chongya” gesture. Everyone, of course, remembered the meaning of these gestures and was glad that DD made them. But then it turned out that he did them for a reason.

On July 11, GG’s vlog was released, and suddenly both of these gestures appeared in this vlog. Can this be considered two coincidences that occurred within 24 hours?

No one, of course, knew in advance what would be in GG’s vlog, the vlog was filmed a long time ago, but it turns out that DD knew this the day before the vlog was released.

Leica

October 3, 2023 DD, while in Paris, shows off his Leica camera. The turtles remembered that once upon a time GG also had Leica, and assumed that DD probably received the gift from GG.

But the next time a shocking surprise awaits us - at midnight from October 4 to 5, the congratulation to GG appears on his birthday and GG's photos with Leica, and even the camera model is similar. GG’s photos were taken back in the summer, and DD told us that “GG will appear with Leica tomorrow.” In this case, the version of coincidence seems quite weak.

"Do everything for your love"

On November 8, 2023, a new DD endorsement (YaYa) was released. A post appears on the brand’s Weibo account, the text of which contains words spoken about DD: “他为热爱全力以赴” (“he does everything for love”).

On November 9, NARS live stream with GG is released, at the end of which GG gives the wish speech, including saying: “希望大家为自己热爱全力以赴” (“I hope everyone will do everything for their love”).

As you can see, he uses the same phrase almost verbatim. It is not known what of this happened first - the stream was recorded or the advertising text was agreed upon, but if this accordance was intentional, then it was possible to find out the details only through personal communication. It could be a coincidence, but after a few months the following happens:

GG's vlog - Anta advertising

On March 1, 2024, XZS posts Milan vlog, where the viewer is offered the concept of a circle and round objects, the idea of the cycle of life or another interpretation. The image of the moon also runs throughout the vlog.

On March 2, the advertisement for Anta is released, in the video we see a suspiciously similar concept - a round basketball that flashes throughout the entire video and (suddenly!) turns into the moon above building, and the drawing of a lace that resembles the stylized name “border” in GG's vlog. There are even sunset. Even the text for the post uses the same words 边界 (“border”) - 去探索，多元未知的边界 "Go explore diverse and unknown borders” (full video is here).

I don't know what the brand had in mind, unless consider it pure coincidence, but they certainly couldn't make an ad copying GG's vlog concept overnight! Of course, it was known about the “border” and the stylization of the name since the GG's October vlog, but a circle, a setting sun, a ball that turns into the moon? Next day. How?

The Coin

And now, this coin. Five days passed between GG's vlog and the release of Chang Feng Po Lang trailer, but the consistent appearance of the coin that is the "protagonist" of the vlog and the coin that DD rubs his cheek with in the trailer is amazing. If you pay attention, even the sizes of these coins are the same.

I don’t think that the image of the coin in the vlog was subordinated only to the idea of hinting at the imminent release of the series with DD, probably the idea is much deeper, but what do we know about GG’s creative thinking and about his ability to convey a message very subtly?

All this could be considered coincidences if this didn't happen so often and according to the same pattern: event - hint – explanation. I’m sure I haven’t listed everything and there is more, this is just what I noticed.

Perhaps this is one of the things that keeps us firmly in this "rabbit hole" - their connection, which sometimes manifests itself in unexpected ways, their ingenuity to show this connection. I would compare them to the ocean, which always seems to remain the same, but which you never get tired of looking at.

💚❤️.

[conflictofthemind]

about your last post - if this is what I think it is about, do you know how much we can trust this source?

He has (like most if not all leakers) been both wrong and right before. I was actually waiting to see if he’d comment on more ST related stuff because I consider him a little more reliable, but that’s my bias because his is the only account that I recognize from being right about something 2 years ago (not related to ST).

You can do easy google searches to see that even within a weekend he was right on the ball one day and then the next almost everything he said was wrong.

And then here in the comments.

Basically just have to use common sense / knowledge to see if you think it lines up with what the show is doing. I didn’t question the title leaks from a couple of months ago because it made so much sense and had specific references to a Wrinkle in Time that a fan or fake couldn’t make up without being super ahead of the game. It also wasn’t easily guessable (nobody theorized Holly would disappear).

To me of course, I think most of these leakers are getting in on the ST5 hype honeypot and trying to ‘leak’ things that they think are obvious to end up confirmed without needing a source. Most people who aren’t into Byler don’t think Byler is happening, and think that is ‘obvious’. It also gets a lot of attention, so it’s a clear topic to make a gamble on.

It’s also… nobody knows what happens in the last two episodes except for the writers, the cast, and top executives. Even for current episodes they are literally forcing people out of the set as soon as their lines are done and giving them heavily redacted scripts that only include their part. Byler isn’t going to be making out in Episode 4 — which is the latest they’ve gotten to up until the last week. And probably won’t in Episode 5. So literally nobody can say.

Anyway I don’t believe him on this one because my eyes, and the (while also somewhat hit or miss) information I get too, don’t deceive me.

[accio-victuuri]

part ii of the hat cpn. 👒inspired by the washing done, i decided to share other stuff that i’ve missed from the initial post. tho i think that the first post is more than enough to make a case. i think that if you are a cpf who don’t find this plausible from the first, a second one will do very little to sway your decision. but since this cpn is becoming a popular one, it’s only fitting that it gets more than one discussion post. ✌🏼

one that i forgot to add is how much YBO, across all platforms have posted material from gq moty which includes that hat. even if they probably know the conversation going around it. fans are interpreting this as him showing off, kinda like how he did it with the panther.

just going by the frequency on YBO weibo account. GQ = 9 iqiyi scream night = 5 redmi conference = 2 GRA = 5 Chanel Shenzhen= 2. WYB’s Paris trip has 11 but that’s understandable cause an overseas event like that warrants lots of posts. so for GQ which is a usual event in WYB’s standards, the amount of content is more than usual. we don’t know if this is because they shot a lot of material or he has some sort of requirement from them on how many posts to share. tho i doubt they could require that of him and his team.

cpn or not, we do appreciate all the content YBO has blessed us. 🙏🏼

another thing is when this first came out, people were likening it to Nanyang style of fashion which includes the hat. even people at the event noticed. this kind of style is tied to SG. and who was recently there? if you had a hat shop located in a prominent hotel singapore that also has cultural significance, wouldn’t it be best to have that kind of piece on hand? i’m also thinking about how thoughtful xz is in giving gifts. in this case, he knew wyb’s preference and at the same time it has something to do with the place he visited.

the use of card point 18:55 by YBO on posts related to gq moty and the hat. 18 is of course YIBO. 55 on the other hand was explained before in TTXS by feng ge. Tho his explanation is kinda sus because it’s about two people interlocking their hands like couples do. this episode was in 2018, and we think it made an impression on WYB.

this other one is also a coincidence, years ago 12/10 on 18:55 XZ posted the below message and it’s so fitting to whatever is going on right now. the same is true with them. tho they cannot be as vocal because of their status as celebrities — i’d like to think that sometimes they let things slip. they can’t help it. they are just living their life to the fullest and chose each other cause it is what makes them happy. i hope that it’s the same for us. that our loyalty remains with them and their love 💛

-END.

[nekoannie-chan]

Next door

Pairing: Brock Rumlow X Reader. Steve Rogers X Reader (past).

Word count: 770 words.

Summary: Your partner died in car crash a few years ago. You never thought you’d fall for anyone ever again. Until a new neighbor moved in next door.

Warnings: Steve is dead.

A/N: This is my entry to @caplanbuckybarnes’ Summary Challenge #5.

You can read it on Wattpad and Ao3 too.

@saiyanprincessswanieie

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistakes, please let me know and I will correct them.

I don’t give any kind of permission that my fics to be posted on other platforms or languages (I translate myself my work) or the use of my graphics (my dividers are included in this), I did them exclusively for my fics, please respect my work and don't steal it. There are some people here who make dividers that anyone can use, mine is not this type, please look for the other's people. The only exception is the ones I gifted 'cuz now belong to someone else. If you find any of my works on a different platform and are not one of my accounts, please let me know. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Marvel's characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

Add yourself to my taglist here.

My other media where I publish:  Ao3, Wattpad, ffnet, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. 

If you like it, please vote, comment, and give me feedback to improve my skills and reblog.

Tags: @sinceimetyou @unnuevosoltransformalarealidad @navybrat817 @angrythingstarlight @shield-agent78 @charmed-asylum @pandaxnienke @real-fbi @smokeandnailz @white-wolf1940 @tenaciousperfectionunknown @xoxonotme @bluemusickid @leyannrae @harrysthiccthighsss @marvelatthisonee @sapphire-rogerss @lizzieolseniskinda @notyourtypicalrose @hallecarey1 @nana1000night @talia-rumlow @writingshae @alexxavicry @azulatodoryuga @daemonslittlebitch @chaoticcollectivenightmare @endlesstwanted @chemtrails-club  @marigoldreamer @whiskeytangofoxtrot5555 @here4thefanfics @theestorm @patzammit @kmc1989

The kettle rattled, you sighed, poured the hot tea into the cup, and you sat down. You didn't even know why you kept waiting for Steve to come through that door after he had gone for a run, but he wouldn't.

Sometimes you had nightmares about that car accident you had years ago after your last mission together.

He promised you he would always protect you, and he did. He made sure you survived.

After what happened, you couldn't bear to stay in the same division, not without your husband and teammate.

However, you kept hoping that he would walk in the door as he used to every morning, that you would have breakfast together, and then go to work waiting for the next assignment, but it never happened.

There was no way you could forget him.

However, that morning, something different happened. You started to hear noises in the apartment next door, which had been empty for almost a year. You felt hope; maybe Steve had survived and had amnesia, and now he was going to live in the apartment next door and you would help him.

You put the cup down, walked out quickly, and frowned as you saw the kind of furniture they were putting in; it was definitely not Steve's style.

"Hello," a male voice said behind you, causing you to startle.

You turned to see who it was; he didn't even seem to have the decency to introduce himself. Maybe you knew the person. "Do I know you? "

"We work in the same place," he answered as if it were obvious and the most normal thing in the world.

You raised your eyebrow; you didn't remember. No one from work lived in your building, although sometimes Natasha and Clint visited you.

"Rumlow, Strike Team Commander," he replied, extending his hand.

"Oh, right, what are you doing here?" you asked. Steve sometimes got to go on missions with them, although you’ve never worked with that team and much less now that you were in another division.

"I'm going to be your neighbor," he declared.

You gave a forced smile; you weren't very happy, especially since your hope had just disappeared.

Maybe you had to accept what everyone was telling you—Steve wasn't coming back.

"Hey, I was wondering if you had any salt you could give me," Brock asked you when you opened the door.

"Sure, give me a minute."

You closed the door; maybe you were a little paranoid, but it seemed that your new neighbor was looking for any pretext, even the silliest one, to come to your apartment and see you.

Maybe you were hallucinating, and the only thing that was happening was that he was just getting settled and didn't even know where the supermarket was.

You saw that the light intensity was varying on the bulb, Steve was supposed to have fixed that a few years before, you went to see where the fuse box was, but at that point, you were out of electricity, although you didn't know how to fix the flaw anyway.

You left the apartment, walked to the next door, and stood for a few seconds in front of it. You had just realized that Steve always fixed all the malfunctions, but you never thought about what would happen if he were gone.

"Y/N? Is everything all right? "

"Ah, yeah, I… I… I have a problem with the electricity."

You didn't even have to explain further; he immediately went to work fixing the problem. You offered him a beer after the power was restored.

"Thank you, my hus... Steve always took care of fixing all the glitches," you said, and you thanked him.

"I’m sorry what happened to him."

An awkward silence fell; it seemed like he was the first person you let be a little closer since Steve happened, since even with Natasha and Clint you didn't talk that much, and most of the time it was just being silent or pretending to help you with some S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff.

"Do you have anything to do on Saturday?" Brock asked suddenly, and you shook your head and said, "Then we'll go to the movies on Saturday."

You looked at yourself for the last time in the mirror, in less than ten minutes he would knock on the door of your apartment.

Your last date was many years ago, so you felt nervous, especially because you didn't think you could fall in love again after losing your husband. But you were still young, so it was time to move on with your life.

[applcrumbl]

SEVEN STAGES

Pairings: Rafe Cameron x Ex! Reader, JJ Maybank X Reader Warnings: Strong Language, Alcohol and Drug Use, Physical violence, Accidental domestic abuse, driving under the influence, i think that's it? Author’s Note: I promise i wont take 6 months to post again lol

Summary: When your boyfriend Rafe leaves you for another woman, You find solace in JJ Maybank.

ii. denial and anger.

Rafe stumbled backwards, his calves knocking Sarah’s bedframe as he sat down, her phone still in hand. She shoots him a disapproving look before trying to snatch the technology back.

“Give me my phone, Rafe” She spits.

He tosses the device behind him uncaringly, there is a thud as it bounces from the mattress to the floor. Rafe makes no other effort to move.

“Get out of my room.” Sarah follows, picking up the phone and scanning it for any cracks.

“Shut up.” Rafe spits back, still unmoving.

“I mean it. Get out!”

But Rafe wasn’t listening. His mind swirled with emotion as his eyes were drawn to the framed picture on his sister’s bedside table. It was a few years old and taken on a cheap disposable camera, you could barely make out the kids playing in the sand. His hands shook as he picked the glass frame up.

“Rafe, put that down.” Sarah continues, her annoyance growing “Get out of my room!”

His fingers swipe along the frame’s rim, collecting the thin layer of dust that had gathered. He admired your swimsuit and the way the sun brightened your squinted eyes. His heart hurt at the thought of you ever looking that happy with another man. He rises from his spot on the bed and throws the frame to his feet. It shatters across the floor and Rafe leaves the room.

The next few days panned out exactly as like a poster for self-destructive behaviour. Rafe drowned his sorrows in the bottom of a whiskey glass. Reckless partying and more cocaine than he’d ever bought at one time. His comedown was muffled by a hair of the dog, and repeated for weeks afterwards. 

One particular party saw half of Figure 8 at Tannyhill, dancing, drinking, drugs and debauchery in every corner of the plantation house. Rafe sat with Topper and Kelce on the balcony, a healthy amount of cocaine cut on the table before them. Topper had tapped out hours ago and Kelce was preoccupied by the touron girl on his lap. There was nothing for Rafe to do but sniff, drink, and scroll through his instagram.

He swore to all that he was over you. After all, it was his fault you’d broken up. This was what he wanted, he wanted to stay out as late as he pleased and see any girl that would have him. He wasn’t a monogamy man, and he didn’t like that he’d changed for you. But 5 minutes on his newsfeed had him questioning every choice he’d made.

Rafe didn’t follow pogues. He barely even followed his kook friends. But, he couldn’t help but click on the tagged accounts when a picture of you popped up on his sister’s Instagram. He couldn’t help but scroll through your page, and see what you’d been doing. He couldn’t help but stop to stare at the picture of you and JJ, cosied up together by a bonfire, your head on his shoulder and his arm around yours. He couldn’t help but feel jealous. He couldn’t help but get up and make his way to his bike. He couldn’t help but drive to your house.

He probably could’ve helped himself when he hesitated to knock, the drink and drugs slowly exiting his system. Realisation setting in.

“Rafe?” You gaped, standing behind him as his hands lifted to knock.

He turned quickly, shocked to hear your voice. He’d come to see you, but it still surprised him.

“Baby.” he almost whispered.

“Why are you here?” you ask, grocery bags in hand. You hear JJ shut the car door in the distance. 

“I’m here to see you.”

You stutter, unsure how to respond. “You don’t get to see me anymore.”

JJ is behind you now, eyes surveying the situation before him. He stays quiet, for once, and you are thankful for that.

“I just want to talk, Y/N” Rafe tries.

“Get off my porch.”

“Y/N.”

“Now.” You snap. Fueled by the tire from your long day, but also the headache you feel looming in your temples.

JJ speaks up, “I think it’s time for you to leave, shitbrain.”

“Don’t talk to me, Pogue.” Rafe slurs, walking slowly down the porch stairs. A threatening look in his eye that’s trained on JJ. You put your hand out to stop him as he steps 

“Rafe, just go.” You plead.

“I just want to talk to you.”

"We have nothing left to say, Rafe.” You shake your head, frustration building,  “It's over. You made your choice, and I've moved on."

Rafe, seemingly unaffected by your words, takes a step closer, his eyes still locked onto JJ. 

"You think you can just waltz back into her life whenever you please?" JJ retorts, his tone firm. "She doesn't need you causing more trouble."

“And you think that? Why?”

“Because I’m her boyfriend.”

“For now.” Rafe laughs, “A rebound.”

"Rafe, enough!" you warn, stepping between the two. Perhaps not your bravest idea, but avoiding a fight was the only thing on your mind. Rafe's jaw clenches, and an angry glint flashes in his eyes. Ignoring your pleas, he takes another step towards JJ, his hands curling into fists.

JJ simply laughs. It’s dry and humourless. “Funny.” he starts, finally putting down the small brown grocery bag. “That’s not what she was saying to me last night. In my bed”

“JayJ” you warn again, turning to face the blond directly. “Go inside, please.”

Where JJ Maybank may have your best interest at heart, most of the time, he can't help but revel when that coincides with rubbing a Kook’s nose in it. He leans down to kiss you before he goes. Passionate and slow. Rafe sees red.

Driven by a mixture of anger and intoxication, the older boy loses control. He disregards your presence and launches himself at JJ, throwing a punch that connects square to JJ's jaw. The impact sends JJ stumbling backwards, his grip on you faltering to none. 

The dim glow of the porch light cast flickered shadows on their strained faces, the crashing of ocean waves playing as underscore to the fight that took place on your front grass. JJ, quick on his feet, dodged another of Rafe’s blows and retaliated with a powerful counterpunch to the Rafe’s middle.

You rushed forward, arms outstretched, desperate to separate the two combatants. Your heart beat louder than your yells. Pleaded words falling on deaf ears. 

"Stop it, both of you!" you begged, voice drowned by the sounds of grunts and punches.

“She’s just using you as a rebound.” Rafe quips, voice strained under the pressure of JJ’s hands around his throat.

“And you’re just in denial” JJ jabs, fighting his corner as Rafe wrestles from his grip.

“Please, stop!” You beg from the sidelines, Nosy neighbours now watching from windows, or with trash bags in hand. “Boys, I mean it!”

Ignoring your attempts to intervene, Rafe and JJ continued their assertion of male dominance. Now fighting for their own lives instead of your honour. It was bloody, and you could’ve sworn you heard a bone break. You step forward, all of your might directed into pulling the pair from one another. Perhaps if you weren’t so focused on stopping the fight, you’d have avoided getting hurt. You found herself inadvertently in the trajectory of JJ's next swing. 

Your eyes widened with shock, as the punch, originally intended for Rafe, connected with the side of your face. The impact sent you stumbling backwards, a sharp pain blossoming across your cheek.

"Y/N!" JJ exclaimed, horror crossing his features as he realised what had happened. Breaking apart from Rafe, he rushed to your side, shock palpable,  "Y/N, I—I didn't mean to..."

Your cheek stung like it had been pricked by a 50-foot rose. Growing more scarlet by the second, you slap away JJ’s badgering hand. "Not now, JJ. "

“What the fuck have you done, Maybank” Rafe spits at the boy, almost intending to start another fight.

“Fuck off Rafe” JJ bites back.

“Go inside” You state, blunt, eyes focused on your boyfriend. “Let me fix this.”

Normally, JJ would fight you on this. Make his case on why he should stay, and why he should handle it. But today, given all that had transpired in the last 5 minutes, he thought it best to follow your wishes. 

“Yeah, that’s right, bitch boy” Rafe whistles. A final retort.

JJ continues his journey, but not without a reply of his own. “Yeah, but she’s still my girlfriend at the end of the day”

Rafe's eyes follow JJ inside. He was hesitant to look at you, knowing exactly how you’d be looking back.

“Why did you come.” you spit, tender cheek pulsating. You wipe a small trickle of blood from a cut on your face. Rafe wants to reach out and wipe it for you, but refrains. “Is this what you wanted?”

He can’t reply.

“Go home, Rafe.” you whisper, picking up the last of your groceries from beside the porch stairs. “Don’t come back here.”

"I still love you, Y/N."

Your eyes narrow at him, "You need help."

“I need you.”

“You need a therapist. Rehab. You need to go home, and get out of my life.”

He takes a step back, his adrenaline wearing off. He notices the bystanders watching from their windows. He feels the bitter cold of the night on his skin. The drink and drugs long gone from his system, he finally feels sober for the first time. 

"I didn't mean for it to go this far," he mutters, remorse thick in his voice.

“Intentions don't excuse the consequences," you reply sternly, opening your front door ro reveal the box of Rafe’s belongings, "Here..."

He watches as you deposit the box on the porch, replacing it with your fresh groceries. 

“Don’t come back”

With that, you turn away from him, shutting and locking the door behind you. Rafe stands there for a moment, tasting the salt from the sea in the air. He looks at the box on the porch and debates taking it. On one hand, it’s the right thing to do, plus he needs the cufflinks in it, and his favourite polo shirt. On the other, he has his bike, and no way of getting it home safely. Deep down, he also wants to prolong the end. He knows he can win you back, and he knows that you’ve just told him exactly how to do it.

The distant sound of approaching police sirens prompts him to make a hasty retreat into the night, kicking his bike into gear and speeding off. The box left unattended on the porch, and JJ pressing frozen peas into your burning cheek.

Rafe doesn’t sleep, he packs his bags and deletes Barry’s number.

[rhyselinn]

In Defense of Toby Fox’s Halloween Hack

Twitter is all in a tizzy about the Halloween Hack as of late. The apparent reason for this is because the Halloween Hack uses a word commonly used as a homophobic slur, not taking into account that the hack was created in 2008 (when the internet was a different place) and that 2008 was 14+ years ago (and people are known to grow and change over this time). There appears to be some amount of discussion over whether Toby Fox should be “cancelled” for this.

I’ve seen a fair bit of banter from both sides on this, but what I haven’t seen people on the internet talk about is the CONTEXT of the game in which this word is used. And while I don’t spend a lot of time talking about HH due to Toby’s stated embarrassment when people draw attention to it, if the internet’s gonna go dig up old drama for some reason, then by golly, I’m going to go dig up my old love for this game.

So if you want to come take a wild ride through some internet history and literary analysis, then go buckle your seatbelt and click the Readmore.

(content warning: discussion of homophobic slurs)

A quick bit about me: I am an adult on the internet, and I fall into the original Halloween Hack (hereafter abbreviated as HH)’s target demographic: teenagers who existed on Starmen.net, an Earthbound fan website, in 2008. I am also a current admin for Starmen.net, which puts me in a good position to comment on the history and culture of the site as a whole, and how that ties into the reception of HH.

Starmen.net has a long and rich tradition of events called Funfests, in which the site staff run a combination art/writing/music/etc contest for the site members, usually coalescing around a theme such as “Earthbound”, or sometimes “Winter” or “Halloween”. These events offer prizes such as forum avatar/rank privileges, and historically they sometimes even offered physical prizes. The 2008 Halloween funfest had an entire website made for it, which you can view here. Toby Fox submitted HH to this 2008 Halloween Funfest under the internet handle Radiation.

This is the context of HH: a passion project made by a teenager for a fan website full of other teenagers/twenty-somethings. If you go to a high school science fair, you could rightfully lambast every project for being undeserving of a Nobel Prize, but that’s not why we host high school science fairs OR Starmen.net Funfests. These events are an opportunity for teens to show what they are capable of and receive commendation from both their peers and a panel of judges selected specifically for this age demographic and venue.

For perspective, here’s what one of the hosts of the 2008 Funfest had to say about HH:

“Radiation nearly outclassed himself with this effort of skill labour and love. What a lot of fun. Despite getting repeatedly killed in the sewers this was one thoroughly enjoyabe hack. I Think I’ll go and play it again!”

HH won an award in the 2008 funfest-- a #1 in the “Most Effort” category. For some perspective, few people on Starmen.net go to the lengths of creating an entire game for a Funfest (and HH has a playtime of roughly 5-6 hours!). Of those who do, most of the resulting games are consistent with the output you would expect from a teenage userbase, since it’s not fair to expect teenagers to produce professional-quality work. That said, I can say with confidence that HH is a standout in the areas of both effort and quality.

Another thing that needs to be said of HH is that it is not a standalone game made in today’s modern game engines-- it is a hack of a preexisting game. Earthbound's codebase is notoriously complicated, and a lot of the tools that modern Earthbound hackers use to make their jobs easier (eg Coilsnake, Ebmused) didn’t exist in 2008. Toby had to do a lot of manual coding grunt-work to make HH, up to and including manually typing hexadecimal values into his computer in order to compose Megalovania. (Source: Toby wrote a really in-depth post about the process he used to make HH way back when, which I’m referring to here, but it’s unfortunately been deleted since then.)

I can imagine a hypothetical objection at this point: “ok but high effort homophobia is still homophobia”. In this post, I am also going to argue that Toby’s usage of this word can be considered artistic merit when taken in context, but you’ll have to bear with me for a bit while I explain that context. I’ll also talk about some of the cool and neat things this game does along the way because I think they’re worth talking about.

HH is, at its core, a derivative fan work of the video game Earthbound. And while I love Earthbound deeply, I also recognize that it’s a cult classic that not everyone has played. So while I encourage people to play the game I love deeply, I’ll also sum up a few relevant plot beats here so folks can understand the source material HH draws from:

--Ness, a thirteen year-old boy, meets a creature named Buzz Buzz from ten years in the future who tells him that an alien named Giygas has destroyed the world (direct quote: “All is devastation”). As such, Ness and his friends must save the world.

--One of Ness’s friends is a shy boy named Jeff with a penchant for shooting bottle rockets at enemies

--Jeff’s dad is an odd character named Dr. Andonuts. Dr. Andonuts is a reclusive scientist who lives in a snowy region called Winters who sent his son off to boarding school at a very young age. Andonuts’s lab includes no other signs of life, certainly not any indications of a wife/Jeff’s mother. Andonuts ends his conversation with Jeff by saying “Let’s get together in another ten years or so.”

--Towards the end of the game, Dr. Andonuts uses a device he created called a Phase Distorter to send Ness and his friends to the venue for the final battle. This is very clearly telegraphed as a one-way trip, as the kids’ brains are described in text as needing to be transplanted into robots to get there, but the kids go along with it anyway because the world is at stake.

--The kids go on to fight the final boss in a spectacle that words can’t do justice to here. All I’ll say is that after a long-fought battle, in the grace of an unexplained Deus Ex Machina, the souls of the four kids are impossibly returned to their bodies so they can enjoy their happy ending.

These are all canonical events that happen in the base game of Earthbound. Earthbound’s sequel, Mother 3, was released in 2006, two years prior to HH, although the English fan translation wasn’t released until around the time of the 2008 funfest, interestingly enough. Mother 3 does develop Dr. Andonuts’s canonical character somewhat, but I won’t discuss it in further detail here other than to say it mostly re-emphasizes his odd, solitary nature and his overly cavalier attitude towards his science experiments.

It’s also worth noting that in an oddball game like Earthbound, there are a lot of weird and funny idiosyncrasies to theorize on. There are pencil-shaped statues that block your way, which need to be removed with a device called a “pencil eraser.” Ness and his friends fight robots, aliens, and Krakens, but they also fight handbag-wielding ladies and walking mushrooms. Dr. Andonuts’s character oddities, while strange, fit nicely into the evenly distributed mesh of oddities that comprise Earthbound’s world.

Derivative works, particularly fan works, exist in conversation with the source material. They answer questions posed by the source, interpolate details left out of the original, and otherwise build on the world of the original in a collaborative way. This conversation sometimes happens in a one-on-one manner, between fan and original creator, but it also happens in conjunction with the fan community as a whole. When a theory takes traction, it will begin to appear in more and more fan works, growing in popularity and notoriety until it is “accepted” as the most common interpretation of canon’s strange idiosyncrasies. Newer or more fringe theories are less likely to be taken as a “default” interpretation, but they are more likely to be taken as “fresh” or “interesting” until/unless they, too, begin to gain traction.

HH exists in a few conversations: one with the source material, one with the fan community of Starmen.net (and the broader Earthbound community as a whole, although there was much more overlap between the two back in 2008), and one with Starmen.net’s Funfest culture. In order for HH to be well received by the Funfest judges, it would need to be aware of the community sensibilities as well as push the boundaries of the fan conversation with Earthbound as a whole-- a careful balancing act of being both interesting but also recognizable.

So, the fundamental fan question that HH tries to answer is “why is Dr. Andonuts LIKE THAT?”

This is an absolutely fair question, and Toby was certainly not the first to ask it, although his answer in the form of HH is one of the most high profile now.

HH is set in the world of Earthbound a few months after the final boss fight in autumn, but one where Ness and his friends did not magically return after their one-way trip to the final boss. Word has it that Dr. Andonuts has turned evil and must be defeated. On its surface, this is standard fare for a throwaway plot for a Funfest submission, but the magic of HH is that it does not treat this premise as a throwaway plot. It sets out to earnestly discuss why this happened by delving into Andonuts’s psyche.

Coming back to the idea of derivative works existing in conversation with the source material and interpolating unexplained details: Earthbound does not explain why Dr. Andonuts lives in solitude, nor does it give any hint as to the identity of Jeff’s mother. It also gives no indication as to why Andonuts didn’t seem to have bonded well with his son other than the handwavey explanation that Andonuts is just “like that”. HH initially poses the question of “why did Andonuts turn evil”, but leaves the reader to puzzle that out while battling monsters in Earthbound’s RPG engine.

At first, Toby offers a partial explanation: in HH, Dr. Andonuts is portrayed as feeling immense guilt at having sent his son into what he perceived as a death trap.  (quote from the game: “The world is dead, and I’ve become senile with guilt and rage.” He also says stuff like “what’s the point in living without them”.) As such, he turned evil and created zombies to storm the world of Winters, causing a surge in refugees and desperate survivors. This is why the main character was sent to kill him.

(image transcription: a picture of a menu with the text “What do you do!?” followed with a single option: “Kill him”)

But in order to see the depth of this explanation, the true answer to the question “why is Dr. Andonuts LIKE THIS”, the player must hit “B” to cancel out of a menu at the correct moment, something Earthbound players tend to learn by habit from closing the equipment menu so many times, but never used as a plot-relevant mechanic in the base game. HH takes this subconscious muscle memory and turns it into a mechanic gating off half the game if you don’t “spare” the enemy, a precursor to the “spare” mechanic that would debut seven years later in Undertale.

When the player does this, they enter Dr. Andonuts’s “Magicant,” a dream-construct representing his inner psyche, with his hopes and dreams and fears all laid bare. The main character is tasked with finding Dr. Andonuts’s lost Courage. In the base game, Ness enters his own Magicant, so this feels familiar to a veteran player, but it also gives Toby the chance to more closely examine Dr. Andonuts’s character than he otherwise might be able to do.

Over the course of the rest of the game in Dr. Andonuts’s Magicant, the player continues to control the main character, a bounty hunter named Varik, but the NPCs in the game often mistakenly treat Varik as Andonuts. The dialogue we see from these NPCs reflects memories from Andonuts’s own life. We see a lot more characters try to make connections with Dr. Andonuts (”hey don’t you want to play baseball instead of doing math?”), but these are apparently rebuffed througout Andonuts’s life. One NPC guarding the entrance to the path leading to this lost Courage advises “Be careful. Be yourself.” We see memories of Dr. Andonuts’s presumed wife/Jeff’s mom, who is an OC Toby created for this work to answer the questions posed by canon.

Varik is tasked with fighting three “demons” behind three doors, where each demon is said to be stronger than the next. Since this segment takes place inside Andonuts’s mind, these are unsubtly implied to be Andonuts’s inner demons. The second and third doors represent Andonuts’s relationship with his son and his guilt over getting people killed; the first door is relevant to this post, so I’ll talk about it in more detail. 

Inside the first door, Varik sees Andonuts’s memories of something called “Remember Me,” who despite being faced in a battle, is friendly and affectionate and causes no damage apart from being “hard to think about.” This enemy has a stock overworld sprite of a male NPC from the base game.

(image transcript: a smiling purple sprite in an Earthbound-style battle. The text box says “The Remember Me? was a little hard to think about again”)

At the end of this map, we see a cutscene in which it’s implied that Dr. Andonuts felt disconnected from his wife, perceiving her as an incessant insect. She says things like “Lately, you’ve been acting kind of... disinterested in me. Is there something wrong with me?” She asks if Dr. Andonuts has been hiding something from her, which triggers the following battle:

(image description: an Earthbound-esque battle against three enemies, each a sprite depicting a closeup of a man’s muscular body: a bicep, a chest, and a swimsuit-clothed groin area)

All three of these enemies are named NO. The music that plays in the background is deliberately unsettling, and their battle moves consist mostly of “flexing in a masculine way”, “slapping their buddies in a masculine fashion”, and “being hard to think about again”. After three turns, these enemies deliver a series of un-dodgeable moves that kill the player before it’s possible to defeat them, ending the game. The only way to proceed in the game is to select the Flee option in the menu.

To summarize the themes being presented here, Dr. Andonuts is gay and repressed his homosexuality to try to preserve his relationship with his wife due to his lack of courage. From a game design and literary merit standpoint, this NO battle is actually a really poignant way of portraying Andonuts’s mindset and all of the fears that kept him in the closet, portraying men’s bodies as an enemy that he must fight, or in failing to do so, must run from. Remember that Earthbound takes place in 199X-- none of the 1990′s were known for being especially tolerant of gay men, nor was 2008 when Toby made this hack; 2008 was the same year that California passed a bill intended to ban gay marriage. In another since-deleted web page, Toby said that one of his motivations for creating HH was “the lack of non-stereotypical, major homosexual characters in media”. With that in mind, this is a surprisingly sensitive portrayal of the pains of repressing one’s sexuality, especially from a teenager.

Toby also portrays some complexity in Andonuts’s relationship with his son Jeff, making the case that Andonuts helped Jeff in his fight against Giygas as a way of living vicariously through him to feel like less of a monster. From this standpoint, it’s easy to see that Andonuts’s abrasive language might be a defense mechanism for his own self esteem issues, calling others monsters to deflect from the fact he sees HIMSELF as a monster.

(image transcription: a screenshot of the main character fighting Andonuts from the end of the game. The text in the textbox from Andonuts says “you idiots. look at your decaying, frostbitten bodies”)

(and just as a side note, I think the reminiscence of this dialogue to Flowey’s dialogue in Undertale is funny and interesting)

Dr. Andonuts says the following: "If I can't live with myself, why should anybody else? Ergo, nobody will live. Then, everybody will understand all the pain I went through. When everyone understands me... They'll cherish me so." This isn’t the expression of a healthy mind, but it is a portrayal of someone who’s experiencing some serious pain. I’d also argue that it’s a nuanced and sympathetic portrayal of a character who is clearly in a crisis.

Another Andonuts quote: “you’re going to kill me, because that’s what a hero does. he has to kill that monster, right? even in this form, i am shaking with fear. i don’t want to die. leave me alone”

The second-to-last fight in the game is against an enemy called Id. In Freudian psychology, the Id is the representation of one’s most base desires, in contrast to the Superego who restrains a person from operating on these desires. The game up until this point does a good job at portraying Dr. Andonuts’s Superego-centric repression strategies, so getting to see his underlying base desires directly is a novel development. The enemy Id consistently reiterates a desire to be left alone and for the main character to not kill it. At the end, it apologizes for not being much of a fight. Only then does Varik fight Dr. Andonuts proper, and without the Id, all that’s left is the Superego-fueled repression, labeled in-game as “hatred”.

Andonuts’s villain monologue starts as such: “I know what this feeling is. It’s hatred for the person who came so far just to destroy an old man. My mind is gone. All that is left is pure hatred.

YOU SEE THIS BURNING, BLOODY UNIVERSE. YOU SEE THIS ULTIMATE, UNLIMITED POWER? Varik. I HAVE FUCKING HAD IT WITH YOUR SHIT. you little fuckers are going to have your bodies ripped in half. i’ll shove your asses so far down your throats that when you crap, you’ll sing fucking beethoven.”

This monologue is the precursor to the infamous line:

(image transcript: a screenshot from the final battle, in which Andonuts says the words “tl;dr: eat shit, faggots”)

As established earlier, this is a line uttered by a gay character who is in a tremendous amount of pain, which would make it an act of slur reclamation. We could argue about whether Toby Fox is in a position to justify this usage, but I refuse to have that conversation because I don’t think real life queer people should have to out themselves in order to justify the art they make. Whether Toby Fox is actually queer or not is, I would argue, immaterial to the story he’s trying to tell here, which is nuanced in a way that a homophobe would be unlikely to write.

We can also have the conversation of whether this word choice is a good decision or not-- and there are, I would argue, a lot of parts of this game that a storyteller with more experience and maturity would have handled better. There are some parts that come across heavy-handed and needlessly edgy, and there are parts that could have been handled with more grace. We can discuss whether “bury our gays” stories were stale by 2008, or whether stories of queer pain had fallen out of vogue for stories of queer joy. But again, this is a work made by a 16-year old, and being needlessly critical of a fangame made by a teenager for a community of predominantly teenagers feels needlessly meanspirited. Just because the game has been unforeseeably thrust into the public light like this doesn’t mean we need to eviscerate it from a 2023 lens. It’s not fair to Toby Fox, neither the original 16-year old creator nor the adult celebrity today.

So I’m not going to do that. What I am going to say is that a queer reading of this work would indicate that this word usage may very well have been a decision made with artistic intent, and a death-of-the-author reading of this work might indicate that this word has artistic merit anyways. If a gay character sees gayness as bad and uses a slur associated with gayness to demean his opponent, that does fundamentally say something about this character, and in this case it reinforces the existing themes that Toby had put in place. I wouldn’t recommend people in 2023 take this approach in storytelling lightly, but I can see and appreciate the spirit in which the game and this word choice appear to have been made.

In the end, Varik does defeat Dr. Andonuts and kill him.

(image transcript: Varik standing above the machine containing Dr. Andonuts’s dead body, not depicted onscreen. The text box reads “You feel a little like this situation could have been avoided.”)

This is one of the last text boxes of the game, and I think it’s a good ending note for this work-- saying that queer lives do NOT need to go this way, that we do not need to bury our gays, that this genuine pain that Dr. Andonuts experienced is not an inevitability.

In conclusion, I do love Halloween Hack for what it is, imperfections and all. It was very clearly a labor of love made by a very earnest and well-meaning teen, and a lot of the things that would later go on to make Undertale so popular are present in their nascent forms here. HH has some genuinely interesting things to say about Earthbound, from both a plot and a character standpoint, and it’s clearly a good-faith attempt at grappling with queer and psychological subject matter. If people on the internet were to engage sincerely with it rather than judging it (and its creator) based on one out-of-context screenshot, I think they might find a diamond-in-the-rough that still manages to be an absolute gem of a fangame.

[jadenlix]

Close as strangers

Pairing: Lee Felix x AFAB!reader

Summary: your a foreigner in Korea, after studying in Seoul to become a English teacher. You develop social anxiety, no longer aspire to be a teacher, or work in any public job. A job opportunity comes to work within JYPE as a social media manager, making sure the idols post things that won’t cause scandals. But an idol you know, felix has gotten himself into a relationship scandal with fellow JYP idol Yuna. Management decided to damage control by asking you to become a fake partner of felix to take the heat from Yuna.

Genre: Angst

Warnings: strong language. No happy endings at all. Get tissues if your easily hurt by bad endings.

Word count: 7.8K

LIGHTLY edited

21st of January, 2023

Hey, the book that I write in, Today was… interesting…

“You want me to do what?”

You had always been a very secretive person, very private. Not ever interested in being in the public eye or the center of attention. Never took the lift because of people, always took the stairs. So applying for a job in the back lines for the company JYP Entertainment seemed like a good idea at the time. You’d be working more in the promotion side of things, behind the accounts for a few of the artists. Never needing to go out with the artists as staff. Just sat in the office controlling things from there.

And the first few months had been a breeze, you enjoyed your job! You had met a few of the artists around the building here and there, you were even an avid listener of a few of them.

Over the past couple of weeks, you had gotten more work focusing on the group, stray kids, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. Working in close contact with a few of the members with what photos they wanted to post and what to caption them. The guys did have most of the control when it came to it, you were there to make sure it appeared proper and kept their idol image intact.

One member in particular, whom you had worked with loads more than the others and gained a semi-good friendship with, was Bangchan. Though you called him Chris when you weren’t in professional settings. He spoke English fluently and was the friendliest idol you had come across. You had met a few other fluent speakers, but you weren’t that close with them, Chris made you feel like you didn’t have to be anyone you weren’t, and you appreciated that.

You were a foreigner, having moved to Seoul 5 years ago to study. Your ambition started as an English teacher. Though unfortunately, that fell through. Being in a new country with a language barrier made you anxious, so you started staying in more, only leaving for classes until you finished school and decided to work from home.

So you didn’t have much interaction with native speakers as much. Despite knowing a lot of the language, borderline fluent after your years of studying Korean back in England and continuing your studies in South Korea- you were not confident.

Today, the stray kids’ manager called you in to discuss the next thing for you.

In recent events, Felix, a member you also had gotten to know recently was involved in a relationship scandal with fellow Jyp idol Yuna from Itzy. You weren’t too close with Yuna, but you were close to Lia and Ryujin, so you had already heard about this scandal.

“We want you to act as a partner to Felix, you look nothing like Yuna, no one knows who you are, and you’d be perfect for this job”.

Ouch?

Sungho spoke without looking away from his laptop. You would have preferred he spoke to you directly; eye contact would have been nice.

“But I didn’t sign up for this, this wasn’t in the job description” you start, rubbing your thumb against the skin of your other hand nervously, “I don’t think this is a wise choice, can’t you just wait for the rumours to die down?”

He shakes his head “I’m sorry y/n, you are required to do this, or we will have to terminate your contract with us”.

This was beyond fair, given either the choice to be a fake partner to Felix or be fired from the one job you wanted.

You were so sure so many others would be willing to do this, and you probably would have minded doing it either, Felix was beautiful and kind-hearted, but it involved being in the public eye. Which you didn’t want.

You swallow your discomfort, looking up at Sungho again “How long would I need to do this?”

He looked up at you briefly, checking his laptop again, humming when he finds the answer on the document that solidified your new, unwanted task. “Roughly a month, maybe two,” he said once he looked back at you, “until the rumors die down, we can’t have two idol images tarnished, and you’ll be helping with that”

You take a deep breath. Were you seriously considering this?

“Yuna will be heading out with her false partner this evening also, we’re hoping this one night is enough to dial it all down, we’ll just have to see” he continues, though it wasn’t making you feel any better about the situation the company was trying to put you in.

“You get a pay rise” he finally added, and in all fairness, it did make the offer seem more tempting, but you still weren’t happy about the ultimatum you were given.

“If I say yes, when does this whole thing start?” You ask.

“If you say yes now, hair and makeup will prepare you when you leave my office, to prepare for a sighting of you and Felix later tonight”

Your eyes widened tonight?

Perhaps the quicker you say yes, the quicker it’s over and you can go back behind the scenes.

“Okay, ill do it”

 -5 hours later   -

As promised, a team of make-up and hair professionals came to your aid soon after you met with Sungho. Your hair had been washed thoroughly, probably the most it’s been washed in your life. Not because you didn’t wash your hair, of course you did. Because they used what felt like a million products in your shoulder-length hair.

Your makeup was done in what you called an idol style, accentuating certain features. You felt like an imposter of sorts. Call it imposter syndrome. The stylists had dressed you in a pretty simple white and black Celine tee, pinning the rim of the top under so it was slightly cropped, pairing it with a pair of black baggy cargos, simple yet efficient.

“look at you” that cheesy Australian accent could quite literally never hide from you.

Turning around you glare at Chris. Dressed in basketball shorts and a tank top, you were jealous he was wearing such comfy clothes.

“did you hear about my new line of work?” you ask sarcastically, adjusting your top the best you could without the staff attacking you.

“I did” he laughed, “lix wasn’t too happy about it, thinks it will cause more harm than good”

You nod, you also believed that. You didn’t quite understand how a fake relationship rumor would mute the current one. But you trusted the company. Foolishly.

“I’m surprised you accepted though y/n” Chris spoke, walking with you towards the lounge where Felix was.

“it was either this or lose my job” you sigh, you still couldn’t believe you were doing this. You could barely make it on the train without sweating, and now you had to walk around and go on a fake date with Felix, people following you to take pictures. You didn’t know how you were going to do it.

“They threatened your job?” Chris grabbed your wrist gently, stopping you before he opened the lounge door. “that’s out of order y/n, I’m so sorry” his expression softened as he looked at you.

You valued Chris as a friend. He was always good to come and talk to when you needed it, or if you were feeling especially anxious when on shift. The pair of you exchanged phone numbers around a month ago, he had asked previously but you were nervous about it, so he kindly waited until you were comfortable.

“It’s okay though, I guess it gives me a chance to get out and face my fears or whatever” you shrug, motioning to him that you were ready to go into the lounge.

He nods, stepping ahead of you to open the door for you. “Felix” he called out as the pair of you entered.

There he was, the victim of the latest stupid scandal in K-pop. His long silver/lilac hair was, of course, styled perfectly. A baggy white tee hung loosely on him and a pair of baggy black cargos, that seemed to match yours completed his outfit.

You smiled awkwardly in his direction, “Hello yongbok-ah” You greeted him formally, bowing in his direction. You weren’t nearly as close to Felix compared to Chris so, you usually greeted him like this.

He frowned lightly, waving his hand in dismissal, “god, y/n, no need to be so formal” he stood from the sofa and walked towards you. His eyes watching yours as his hand diverted towards your shoulder. You smile weakly in consent to him touching you.

Since the other members didn’t know you as well as Chris, they were always cautious around you. Chris made sure to inform them of that.

“Since we’re supposed to be together, I don’t expect you to bow or call me by that calling, Felix is just fine” he smiled, rubbing your shoulder gently before retracting his hand, and looking toward Chris.

“so, Mr. Connected-”

Chris rolled his eyes as soon as he heard Felix call him that, groaning playfully.

“-do we look like a couple?” Felix finished,  standing beside you.

“Yeah, you kind of do”

“so what are supposed to do, just walk together?” you quickly change the subject, questioning the two of them. You weren’t exactly told what to do. Just told to be in a fake relationship. Did you have to kiss him?!

“They didn’t tell you anything?” Felix exclaimed, his eyebrows raised. He felt bad for you. Someone who had an important position in the company, which is what he viewed it as he had thought they would of at least prepared you. but in his eyes, they had set you up for failure. “they know about your social anxiety right?” he asked, grabbing two pairs of sunglasses from the corner table. Handing you a pair.

“yeah, they do” you sigh, taking the glasses from him. He was sweet, caring, and overall seemed so friendly.

His expression changed slightly into more of a sour look. He was pissed that they hadn’t helped you, or even given you some sort of direction of what to do.

“they want us to hold hands as we walk towards the convenience store, some sort of affection inside the store, and then go somewhere to sit and just look all relationship-like I guess”

Bless him, he tried his best to explain what you had to do without cringing himself, he wanted this less than you by the sounds of it. You started to wonder if this was a good idea. Would it just be easier to cancel it? You could probably find another at-home job.

“y/n” Chris started, looking in your direction “I know what your thinking, no you aren’t quitting” he smiled softly, bringing you into a gentle hug “You got this yeah? Felix will look after you”

You buried your head into Chris’s chest, sighing against him. You didn’t want to do this, you were so unbelievably uncomfortable. You felt tears beginning to sting at the rim of your eyes. Feeling Chris’s hand rubbing your back as you sniffled.

You stayed there for almost 2 minutes, in complete silence. Just Chris holding you and Felix attempting to comfort you by rubbing your shoulder again. You pluck up the courage to pull away, not wanting to ruin any of the makeup the staff had done.

“Just breathe, deep breaths yeah?” Felix cooed, making his way to the door, his smile was warm, inviting almost. You shoot a half smile back at him. At least it was Felix you were made to do this with, could have been worse right?

-

“Glasses on” Felix reminds you before exiting the car.

 You clear your throat as you follow what he said. Flicking them down as you got outside. You spotted a group of girls waiting across the road from the car, probably waiting to catch a glimpse of idols coming and going. It probably looked more obvious that at least one of you was an idol. Sunglasses and a face mask. It appeared obvious. Maybe not for someone walking down the streets, but for you two, it was.

The feeling of your heart began beating harshly against your chest. Your palms felt hot. No one was looking.  Eyes were on you, watching every step you took on the pavement. They hadn’t noticed you both yet. Every breath you took the bystanders could see the rise in your chest. Your glasses hid the way your eyes began darting around the street.

Soft skin connected to your hand, the gentleness of the touch made your heart stop for a brief second, allowing it to calm down. You look over towards Felix once you notice he’s pulling you towards a smaller alley, away from the large open road.

Felix had noticed your sudden change in demeanor. So he lead you to a, not so much enclosed area, but a smaller, more intimate alleyway.

You were so shocked by the sudden physical touch and movement, you didn’t move your hand away immediately. Though once you realized what had happened, you remove your hand from his.

“I don’t think I can do this,” you say apprehensively. Your breathing picks up again. Pushing your sunglasses to your head.

Felix copies you, also moving his glasses, “Hey, look at me” he speaks softly, looking directly into your eyes, waiting patiently for yours to meet his. “Y/N look at me”

You look up at him, his eyes kind, expression warm and caring. You were so close together, you could see the individual flecks of bronze that scattered across his face. His brows were relaxed and elegant.

“That’s it, just breathe” he whispers, holding out his hand for you, offering it now instead of taking it straight away. “Focus on my voice, it’s okay, you’re okay, we’re okay”

Your eyes stayed glued to his, but your brain was focused on your breathing. You take his hand without thinking any more about it, receiving a squeeze of encouragement from him. He was truly helping. He was good at this.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be a baby about this” you sigh, your voice was still shaky, but calmer nonetheless.

“Don’t apologize, I’ve been there before and needed help calming down” he reassured you, “and a few of my members have been there also, I’m knowledgeable when it comes to calming others when they panic” his thumb rubs your hand gently. A smile gently appeared on his face. That smile.

You take your hand back. Too much physical contact. “Thank you Felix” Using the pads of your fingers, you dab under your eyes, wiping stray tears away. Looking down the other end of the alleyway, pulling your sunglasses back down over your eyes. “Let’s just get this day over with” 

“Okay then, let’s get you some caffeine” he smiles.

The convenience store was luckily very quiet, with only one other customer inside. You stay close by to Felix at all times. Following him to the ice cup chest, he opens it up for you. You grab the green-topped one and wait patiently for Felix to get his so you could grab the pouches together.

“Did you want one of the coffee ones?” he asks, walking with you to the rack.

“Please, the vanilla one if it’s there” you smile, watching as he crouches down to grab yours, looking up to you as he hands it to you, his eyes smiling more than his lips.

“Thankyou”

He nods, grabbing himself a pouch, but you didn’t catch what it was. You’ll ask him when you get out of the store.

“Just these please”

You place your cup and pouch beside Felix’s. Digging into your bag, grabbing your purse out to hand Felix some cash for your things. His hand coming to push yours back into your bag.

“Not, I got this”

You frown, but obey what he said, putting the cash back. Looking around the store as Felix pays, noticing the other person in the store standing a little way back, their phone out and pointing directly at the both of you. You quickly look back at Felix, tapping his arm gently.

“Someone taking a photo or something” you whisper, your eyes fixated on the store clerk, almost manifesting him to move faster. You see Felix turn to look at the person out of the corner of your eye. His arm coming around you, respectfully not touching you completely. Ushering you to the other side of him. He turned to face you more, smiling and thanking the clerk, taking the bag in one hand and his other hand opening the door for you.

“But what about the”

“We’ll do it on our way,” he says, walking with you.

The pair of you ended up deciding to go to the picnic area of Olympic Park. It was close by and just easier. The day had been fairly simple, though you didn’t find yourself talking too much, just listening to Felix. You could tell he was uncomfortable with walking so much about himself and the things he liked. But you appreciated he did it to make you feel more comfortable. The overall day was a whole lot better than you had anticipated.

-

28th of January 2023

Sorry I haven’t written in a while, but I need to tell you this,

“Hey stranger” Felix greeted you with his smile. He was waiting for you in the lounge like he had last week, only this time Chan hadn’t joined the two of you.

“Hey Felix” you greet him, you were being driven to have a picnic at the cheonggyecheon stream today. Sungho called you a couple of days after your ‘date’ last week. It wasn’t enough, it didn’t attract the attention they wanted. According to him, you had to be more touchy. Which you were, for obvious reasons, not comfortable with. But after a few hours on the phone with Felix, he had reassured you enough to become comfortable. You had both agreed to hold hands and a hug now and again throughout the picnic.

“You look nice” he adds, standing up to meet with you at the door. He a nice too, granted he was just wearing a pair of jeans and a white button-up, no doubt it was designer. He looked expensive. He smelt expensive too. Why were you smelling him?

You adjust your shoulders in a way to shrug off the thoughts, “You don’t look too bad yourself” You smile but it quickly fades in a panic that your compliment wasn’t nearly enough as he was. “I mean you look good too, like I was just-”

“I know what you mean” he chuckles, shaking his head, walking past you to open the door for you once again “Shall we?”

You nod walking out with him towards the exit. The driver waiting for you outside. Just like last week, you and Felix put your sunglasses down as soon as you exit, running straight into the car. Felix made sure to open the door for you before getting in himself on the other side, And sure enough, the picnic basket was inside on the middle seat. At least we didn’t have to pack it ourselves, you think to yourself.

The sun was hot by the time you got to the stream, it wasn’t completely packed, it was empty enough for you to feel comfortable to sit there and eat, but packed enough to make you hyper-aware of people looking. But you figured that was a good thing since people kind of need to see you with Felix. Once you were both out of the car and had found a spot to sit, Felix laid a small blanket near the edge, placing the basket down before holding your hand as you sat down, letting go briefly as he got down, but taking it back once he was sat.

“Is this okay?” he asks, lifting his hands. It was sweet that he wanted to check up on whether you were comfortable. You liked that he always made sure to do so.

“Yes, it’s okay” you smile, rather bashfully. A rose tint develops on your cheeks. Feeling the heat upon your cheeks, you look away. Leaving your hand in his as you use the other to open the basket.

“Oh Onigiri!” you exclaim, removing your hand from his excitedly to take the container out of the basket to show Felix. “I hope they put tuna inside..” you open the container and offer him one. He takes it with a thank you, you take one for yourself before putting the lid back, too hungry to look at the other things. You both collectively bow your heads before taking a bite, silently saying thank you for the meal.

“Oh wow, this is good, I think it is tuna, but I’m not sure” Felix looks at you, waiting to see what you thought. You were still eating though, covering your mouth as you chew a bit faster, nodding your head as a way to respond properly.

“I’m pretty sure it’s tuna teriyaki” you finally speak, looking over at Felix as he takes another bite, watching him intently. You found yourself smiling at how his eyes closed and eyebrows raised, appearing in pleasure. You were glad he was enjoying the food, it was the least he could enjoy since he was forced here.

But he did seemingly enjoy hanging out with you, whether it was forced or not. You smile awkwardly when he turns to look at you, catching your stare. He scoffs lightly, placing his Onigiri down on his knee. “You have some sauce on your chin”

Your eyes widen, and immediately bring your hand to wipe your face. Looking over at him to see if you had got it.

Felix looked at you, smiling with amusement. That damn smile.

He thought you looked so helpless, “may I?” he asked, lifting his hand to your face, showing he wanted to get it for you. You did not get it. You nod your head, allowing him to go ahead with it. Watching as his face got closer to yours, his thumb gently rubbing against your skin. Your breath hitched. You never in a million years thought you’d be this close to him, even with the current agreement going on. They never said you had to be this close. You would assume that was obvious though. Pretending to be together was one thing, but kissing was another. Why on earth were you thinking about kissing him? His face was pretty close to you, surely it was a default thought.

“All gone” he whispered, not moving his face away from yours. You watched as Felix brought his thumb to his mouth “We don't want to waste any.”

You pull away from him slightly, not sure what to make of the situation. But something in your stomach made you feel some sort of way, you just didn’t know how to explain it. You bite your bottom lip. Unsure of how to process everything. That one decision he had just made sparked a feeling inside of you that you never felt before.

You must have appeared confused, because Felix was looking at you, amused by your reaction. “Someone flustered” he laughed, leaning back to his original position. “I guess I could have just fed it to you right?”

You blink in shock, the sudden change in the way he was speaking to you, caused your stomach to do flips. “I, uh, what?”

He laughed again, you found yourself laughing with him. His laugh was contagious, it was beautiful too. He was beautiful.

“You’re so delightful” he reached for his Onigiri once more, taking a bite leaving you once again, flustered.

You decide to lie down, enjoying the sun as your mind races. Thinking about the last 5 minutes with Felix. The pit in your stomach still felt weak, weak for him. You hated the feeling. You felt safe with him and safely made you vulnerable.

After a few moments had passed, Felix spoke again “Open your mouth” he asked gently.

You begin to fight every urge in your body to not open your eyes and to just trust him. Take a deep breath, turn your face towards him, and open your mouth.

He pushes a strawberry in between your lips, holding it there, smiling to himself as he watches your lips fold around the strawberry. Pulling it away once your mouth closed around the bite you took. His heart began racing slightly, he wasn’t certain as to why. Perhaps it was just a normal feeling of pride that you trusted him.

You hum in the pleasure of the taste. Strawberries. Your favorite.

“Thank you” you whisper once you have finished your mouthful. Smiling up at him. His hair looked as though it was sparkling with the sun against it. Despite looking as though he flourished in the sunlight, his eyes looked tired. You felt sorry for him. He had been so busy over the past few days since the recent comeback. You wished you could help him relax more. But you didn’t have the slightest idea of how to do that.

You sit up, moving slightly closer to him, reaching for a strawberry. You were so glad the staff had packed strawberries, you eat them forever.

“Can you open your mouth for me?” you whisper. Leaning slightly closer to him.

His eyes widened now, clearly not expecting you to say anything like that at all, even if it was just a whisper. Nevertheless, he opened his mouth for you, keeping his eyes on yours, watching you, so intently, so passionately.

When he takes a bite of the strawberry, his eyes finally close, humming in pleasure just as you did “Beautiful aren’t they” he says once he finishes. Sighing to himself, as if he was contemplating what he was going to do or say next.

“You know, I think I could love you” That explains the sigh.

“What?” You reply, shocked at the words Felix had just spoken, you didn’t expect to hear anything like to fall from his lips, especially if they were meant for you.

“ y/n, I think I could” his voice was soft now, looking over at you from across the table, a small smile lingering. Your heart fluttered.

“You promise?” The only words you could mutter, a week ago you would have never seen it coming. You still don’t. Even if that didn’t make sense. You still couldn’t imagine him loving you. He was Felix, you were you.

“I promise”

-

1st of February 2023

I like him you know…

You jumped at the sound of your text tone. You rarely got messages, when you did, it was late at night when your parents would text to you help them set up their Skype so you could tell them about your very unseasoned week.

So a text at 11 am was not something you were expecting, barely out of the shower, still sitting on your bed, wrapped in your towel where you had been for the past 10 minutes, pondering over what you wanted to do today.

You grab at your phone, checking the text message.

“Dammit Chris” you groan, flopping into your back, scrunching your nose up at the feeling of your wet hair getting caught up in the towel. Shuffling around slightly to comfortable, before replying.

You didn’t know how to respond, he missed your face? You should have taken that as a compliment, maybe get a bit giddy over it, but it made you confused, unsure as to why he missed your face. You didn’t take photos often, you did not need to. You didn’t use social media much. But you were willing to send Felix a picture of you.

You turn onto your stomach, burying your chin slightly into the duvet cover, the waves of the sheets covered just over the tip of your nose. Taking a deep breath, you take the picture, sending it immediately before you could overthink it.

“What?!” you jump up from your bed, staring at your phone. Why the hell did he want to call you? But before you could even have a chance at thinking it through, Felix was calling you. Well, you had hoped so anyway. It still said unknown, you probably should have changed it.

You press to answer and put it on speaker before speaking “Hello?” you whisper, though no need to whisper, you lived alone.

“y/n hello, I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait for an answer, I missed you too much”

You take a deep breath, walking over to your dresser, placing your phone down on top.

“Well, I was going to say yes, but ideally I was going to get dressed beforehand” you sigh, getting some underwear, sweatpants, and a tank top.

“Why would you need to get dressed?” Felix questioned, causing you to frown.

“Just, well, I don’t know, so I’m not talking to you in my towel?”

“It’s not like I can see you”

“Yes I know that”

“Do you though?”

You pause, halfway pulling your sweats on, “Felix?”

“Yes, y/n”

“Have you put a camera in my apartment?”

That caused him to let out the most tasteful laugh, the kind of laugh where you could imagine the smile. His smile.

“I promise, I haven’t”

“Mhm,” you tease back, taking your phone with you, as you left the bedroom, and heading into the kitchen. “No schedule today?” you ask, placing your phone down on the counter.

“Nope, just rehearsal” he replied, “did you like the photo I sent you earlier?” he asked, you could hear tapping in the background, probably something to do with his keys or the lube, or whatever.

“Yeah, you looked good,” you tell him, a smile lingering on your lips as you think about the photo in question. He always looked good, but you usually saw him with makeup on, so a bare face was a rare occasion. “Did you like mine?”

“You looked beautiful, always do”

You pause as you reach for the knife in the drawer, smiling to yourself, he made you feel so… comfortable, you were less anxious when you were talking to him, or around him. “Now I feel like my compliment for you wasn’t enough” you pout, continuing with getting the knife out to cut your bread. Perhaps you could invite him over.

“Hey, Felix?” You question, placing the knife down and gripping the side of the counter, preparing yourself to ask him the next question.

“Yes Y/N?”

You take a deep breath, “Did you want to come over?”

“Does someone miss me as much as I miss them?” He teases, you liked it when he teased. “Sure, give me your address, I’ll come on over after I sort out these keys”

You smile to yourself excitedly, putting the bread and knife back, you could order food when Felix gets here. You tell him your address you hear the pen scratch against the paper as he writes it down. You both say your goodbyes. Sighing when you hang up.

You begin doing something you’d never thought you’d do, dancing from excitement. You were so incredibly excited about seeing him in your place. It was your safe place, and he had become a second safe place.

“Hey you,” you say as you answer the door, Felix beaming down to you as he walks inside. Opening his arms for you once you shut the door.

“Hey,” he finally says as you enclose yourself in his arms, embracing him and all he was. You hum softly against his chest, taking in the smell of his aftershave, it smelt amazing. He always smelt amazing.

“I thought we could order in some food” he smiles, pulling away to show you the bag he was carrying “-and maybe bake some brownies for desert”

“Felix I had stuff here we could have used for baking” you sigh, motioning him to follow you to the kitchen. “But that sounds good, maybe a movie?”

He nods as you show him where to place the item he brought over. You watch him intently, the veins in his hands protruding ever so slightly as he lifts the rather large bag of flour into the cabinet.

“What are you looking at?” He looked over at you, a small smirk playing on his full lips, his hair sticking to his forehead slightly from the light sweat from being out in the heat.

You gulp, shaking your head, “Oh nothing, I was just watching you”

He hummed, walking over to you slowly, Cornering you against the kitchen surface. His hands were on either side of you, but he was careful not to touch you. You looked up at him, his breath hot against your face. “Just watching me?”

“Yeah?” You whisper, your heart pounding faster as the interaction goes on. You desperately wanted something to happen, anything. Perhaps his hands would wrap around your waist, his fingers could trace faint and delicate shapes along your stomach.

 Your chest began to rise and fall heavily as his face inched closer to yours, his fingers tilting up your chin as he-

“Hey, Earth to Y/N” Felix waved his hand in front of your face.

You Internally scold yourself for even thinking such things. How could you think this way about anyone, let alone Felix, you were friends, he did see you as a friend right?

You had fantasies of being touched by him, kissed by him. Daydreams of the way his hands could caress your fragile body, how they would brush across your soft skin, and how they would relieve the shivering feeling you felt deep inside. You were soon taken away as vivid thoughts flooded your head.

“Sorry I was just, away”

“Away with the fairies?” Felix questioned, raising his eyebrow at you as the pair of you made your way to the lounge area of your apartment. “Now that you're back with me, shall we order some food?” He flops down into your couch, patting the spot beside him, “what do you fancy?”

You.

“I’d kill for a burger” you respond properly, sitting beside him, crossing your legs up on the couch to get comfortable.

The pair of you browse Felix’s phone, hunting down the right combination of food that you’d be satisfied with. And after several minutes of looking, the food had been ordered and it was quiet once more.

“So, y/n, are you enjoying your new job?”

You look up to Felix, scoffing playfully, “Oh yeah, though my Co-worker is a bit of work, he’s pretty annoying”

He seemed to enjoy the teasing. He loved that you were having fun, whether it be at his expense or not, he just enjoyed seeing you smile. He lifted his hand to push back his hair before looking at you with the sweetest eyes. “Hey, you should probably tell someone then, you don’t want the bad relationship to ruin your love for the job”

You roll your eyes, shoving his shoulder playfully, causing him to retort with a playful expression, his hand on his shoulder acting in pain, “damn, you pack a punch!”

“Was that a cod reference?”

“You know cod?”

You raise your eyebrow, “You’re kidding right? It was one of the best games for years, it’s my guilty pleasure” you tell him, leaning forward to grab a grape from the coffee table, popping it into your mouth.

Felix’s tongue pokes into his cheek as he watched you his phone letting off a text ping, “I think you are my soulmate”

“Oh shut up you”  you laugh, taking the chance to move closer to him when he looks down at his phone. Peering over his shoulder to peek at his phone, seeing messages from Chris.

“Chris should've come over too” you whisper, making it known you had seen the texts. Causing him to turn his face to look at you, making the gap between your faces, a couple inches now at most.

“No,” he says, his eyes taking in your facial features, falling to become stuck on your lips. “I wanted you to myself” he adds, looking back up to your eyes, smiling softly at your gulping reaction. He thought it was adorable, he thought you were adorable.

So adorable that he felt his

                                              words

                                                       Could

                                                                fall

                                                                     off

                                                                           his

                                                                              tongue.

“You're so beautiful,” he says softly, his hand coming up to cup your cheek, his thumb tracing delicate circles as he hummed.

You felt frozen in place right now, your heart pounding, was this about to happen? His face closed in on yours, both of your eyes falling to close as your lips began to-

Knock knock.

You pull back, staring at Felix for a moment before taking a deep breath, seconds ago you were so close to kissing him and now you were pushing yourself up from the couch.

“Saved by the Bell”

-

12th of February 2023

Hey,

“Y/N!! Your back!” Chris greeted you, opening his arms up for you.

Your smile, engulfed yourself in Chris’ hug, smiling as you felt him rub your back comfortingly.

You had taken the last week off from work, you requested an emergency holiday and luckily they rewarded it. You needed time to think. After the sudden lunch date with Felix at your apartment, you needed time to figure shit out. You had almost kissed, did that mean there were mutual feelings? Possibly? Who knows. But you knew that you needed to think. The Saturday after, Felix messaged you asking where you were, you didn’t reply, and you hadn’t replied to any of his messages. You needed time to think, and anything remotely Felix flavored, caused you to not think.

“Come, we’re having dance practice right now, but I’m sure the others will be glad to see you” Chris suggested, directing you towards the studio.

“Felix…what about Felix” you speak quietly, you didn’t know if you were completely ready to see him. Or if he wanted to see you.

“Oh, he’s missed you more than the 7 of us combined!” He turns to look at you before opening the door. You could hear the stomping of feet through the closed door. Knowing one of those belonged to Felix had brought everything back. “Come on y/n, I’m with you” Chris reassured you, opening the door without giving you another chance to protest.

“Look who’s back!” Chris exclaimed,

The guys greeted you one by one, with six hello’s and a nod. The nod belongs to Felix. At least the awkwardness waited until the rest of them said hello.

“Felix” you start softly, walking up towards him, “I, I’m sorry-”

“Woah woah, okay how about we all go get some more water?” You hear Chris suggest, the others nod or grunt, and soon you and Felix were alone.

“You're sorry?” Felix asks once he was in the clear, raising his brow at you before walking closer. “I messaged you multiple times a day without fail since the last time I had seen you”

He was upset.

“We almost kissed, I poured my heart out to you in those texts as soon as I left your apartment, and you read every single one, and ghosted me” his voice cracked.

“Felix…please” your eyes began to sting, the lump in your throat threatening to come out. You didn’t realize how much this had affected him.

“I wrote a fucking song for you Y/N” His voice raised now, he was upset, but he was more importantly angry. And you understood why. “A fucking song, I was going to. I was going to sing it to you, to tell you how I felt, but you left, you, the person who’s scared of their reflection in a window, left the city” he turned away from you, his hands messed with his hair,  “I wanted to tell you I loved you!”

You look up at him, his sad eyes penetrating your very soul, “loved?” You whisper, “Felix I was scared!”

“Then you fucking tell me!” He snapped, “You don’t fucking run off, you don’t run away from me, you talk to me!” In the time you’d known him, he had never been this angry in front of you. You had heard of his outbursts from Chris, but having that outburst be caused because of you, was a whole different experience.

“You’re scaring me, Felix”

Those four words stopped his world, he felt as though his heart had been torn from his chest. He stopped and just looked at you, his eyes saddened, his bottom lip quivering ever so slightly. “I didn’t, I didn’t mean to”

He inches closer to you, pulling you desperately into his arms, where the both of you, immediately broke down on impact. Both of your cries filled the room. He loved you, and you loved him, it wasn’t going to be an easygoing relationship, it wasn’t the most convenient and it certainly wasn’t going to be practical. But you loved each other. Unfortunately, it took you both hurting each other to admit it.

“I love you too” you whisper against his chest.

He pulled away gently, looking down at you with such sad but loving eyes. You look right back at him, sniffling slightly as you take in his gaze, he was perfect, truly, utterly beautiful. Over the last few seconds, your faces had gotten so close together. You could practically feel the atoms of his lips tickling your own.

“Felix..” you whisper,

Just as quickly as your hands laced with his, he kissed you. You responded with such enthusiasm that he was taken aback at first, but regained his composure and reminded himself of what was happening; he was kissing you, you were kissing him, and everything around you was now meaningless.

Nothing could have possibly meant more than them, nothing could have more beauty than this moment: your small hands pressed into his, the way your eyes fluttered to a close. You fit into him like a glove, her kiss like the beating of a butterfly’s wings, soft until it became addictive.

And you were falling fast, craving his scent and the feeling of him so close to you, unsure where he ended and you began. You had never been more grateful to have life until now. You would have rather walked into hell again and again than lose this: his entrancing eyes, his captivating smile against your lips, his laugh,

But your stupid, stupid lungs had to find air, and you were forced to separate from him with the feeling of gravity being torn out of your core. Somehow, you had been moved up onto a ledge, sitting high above him and disconnecting your hands from his (with another pitiful drop in his stomach) so you could run them through his disheveled hair, and he closed his eyes at your touch.

You looked up at him with such an inviting warmth that you wanted to kiss him again, but it would have come off as obsessive. When he was non-respondent, you pulled away. He took a step back, heat rising to his face. “Sorry — Shouldn’t have done that.”

“What are you talking about?” You said softly, watching him. “That was... it was fine.”

“F- fine?” His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat, laughing a little before you made the move to kiss him again: he had become addicted, and you knew it, but this was short and sweet now.

God, he had forgotten how much he loved you.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

Felix jumps away from you, you jump down from the ledge of the countertop. Gulping hard when your eyes connect with the manager standing in the doorway.

“Y/N, my office, now,” he says calmly before exiting the room.

You would have preferred him to shout.

-

You had been fired. Effective immediately. The conditions of your termination? No contact with the members of the stray kids, especially Felix. Ideally, the company would like you to leave the country, but they didn’t hold that jurisdiction.

You look around your office sadly, licking your lip gently, still tasting Felix on your tongue. Placing the last photo frame from your desk into your box, you pick it up and head to the door.

You wanted to desperately see Felix before you left, but you signed the waiver. You could be fined. Thousands. You didn’t have that kind of money to risk it. As you walk down the elevator, you couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed with sadness. Not knowing what to do at all.

When the doors open you step into the elevator, choking back tears as the door started to close.

“Wait!!”

A hand blocked the door as it almost closed, the door opening once again, standing in front of you with a relieved expression, was Felix. He gets in and hurriedly presses the button to close the doors.

“They fired me” you finally say, refusing to look him in the eyes, “I can’t talk to you”

“We’re in an elevator together, what are they going to do?”

“Felix, I’m sorry”

“No” he warned, “don't you dare apologize” he took the box from your hands and placed it down on the floor, taking your hands in his, his eyes sad “They can’t stop us loving each other y/n”

“They can.. they have” you sob, trying your absolute hardest to not look him in his eyes, but you couldn’t tear yours away from his.

He sighed, “Then I can’t love you right now” his soft hand comes into contact with your cheek like it had done very few times before. But this time it felt different. Even though he said it was the wrong time, this made it clear it was definitive. This would be the last time you’d feel his hand cupping your cheek, the last time you’d stare into his perfect eyes, the last time you’d see his smile in person.

“I will promise to continue to love you, and when it’s our time, I will love you unconditionally” His face leans down, his lips pressing against yours with such love, attention, and warmth. A tear escapes down your cheek as you kiss him back without hesitation.

And it was the last time you’d feel his lips on yours.

-

A/N

Please don’t be afraid to tell me what you think!! Tysm for reading! Have an awesome day!

Tags; @hyunjinskxfelix @drhsthl @stockholmstyles @dutchesskarma

[louisisalarrie]

https://www.tumblr.com/louisisalarrie/751165968174153728/so-i-keep-seeing-stories-from-girls-saying-theyve

So this ask is me and you asked what makes it believable…well, the podcast story for one (which was from last year I think) seems pretty believable to me. It’s actually a cute story. No shade thrown at Louis, she says he was lovely and a great kisser. He took her number (don’t think he gave his) and messaged her a few times - by then he’d left LA - and then contact stopped. He’s not that big of a name in the music/celeb world - don’t get me wrong I love him but he keeps a fairly low profile - so this girl has no reason to lie in my opinion. Most folks who listen to her podcast probably have no idea who he is apart from the 1D link. Her podcast doesn’t appear to be about 1D - although I’ve not seen what else she’s done. She doesn’t appear to be a fan in fact I don’t even think she knew who he was at first, others told her.

Her story is also very similar to others that claim to have made out with him. Girl meets him in a bar/club where he’s usually with at least one other friend, they kiss, his friend kind of protects their privacy…and then nothing beyond. No stories of them going back to his hotel, sleeping with him or anything like that. Just club make outs! There was a photo doing the rounds a while ago of him sat with a girl in Mexico I think. The story from her friend was that they’d made out and it does sort of look that way from the pic but honestly who knows!

I’d say he has a type!

Of course none of these may be true (and I’m quite happy for you tell me they’re not!) but there does seem to be a reoccurring theme…

Eepers. Welcome to the show, anon!

ok I think im just gonna touch on a couple of things here for you anon:

1. About him being not big enough/why would people lie: he’s not Harry, and so it’s simply because it’s more believable. We don’t see Harry out and about at clubs. We don’t see him getting drunk and surrounded by gals in a filthy club. But we do see Louis doing that. Louis is open about his alcohol and drug use so it’s a lot easier to fabricate things about him because it’s no secret that he goes out. But I simply don’t believe he’s on the pull.

2. Continuing with texts: if he was on the pull, he wouldn’t just make out with a girl, keep texting her, and then ghost shortly after. I feel like it would be a hit it and quit it more likely, because why bother texting after if you have no intention on seeing them again? Would it just be to make him look better/because he’s a nice guy? I think it makes it seem that he was more interested in her. But in my experience, artists don’t do that, unless they wanna uphold the relationship to see that person every time they’re in town. But I just don’t think it’s the case.

3. Not being a fan: of course she wouldn’t post this from a Louis account or whatever, as it would make it more unbelievable. And you’re right, I doubt she’s a fan, and becaude she’s like “oh im not a fan” it makes it seem, again, more believable.

4. Similar stories: upholding the narrative is what makes these stories more believable. Someone says a story, paints a picture of Louis, then another person claims they made out with him too but aligns their “story” with what the other person said because it seems consistent, and the more people with a similar experience, the easier it is to believe it’s him.

5. Club make outs: these are by far the easiest to fabricate, because going back to an artist’s hotel these days seems ridiculous and too far fetched. You have to uphold a longer and more detailed story, and you’ll probably get more hate, ya know?

6. Random girls: like… okay. Listen. Making out with randoms is a surefire way to get sick when on tour. You don’t know what germs you’re getting and it’d be a big risk. Hook up with someone and wake up the next day with a sore throat? Soz, your show is cancelled!

And finally, just to put things in perspective:

Would you believe me if I said I’d hooked up with Louis? I just run this account because I once believed larry were together and I still fight for them because of the injustices they went through as kids. I’ve never discussed it before, because it’s quite clear im a fan, and it would sound quite unbelievable. But when I worked with him on tour, he invited a few of us for post show drinks, and we went out to a club with a VIP area out of sight. Oli and his crew were there, and we all drank and laughed, and had a dance. Louis grabbed my waist and we started making out, and it was super hot. I was obviously really shocked! But he was super sweet and a good kisser so I just went with the flow.

So, we continued to dance and make out and oli and security kinda noticed a few people from the dance floor below the balcony VIP area we were in, started to notice that there may have been someone famous up there. Oli moved to the front to block us, we continued making out, and luckily there was only one photo posted and I immediately asked the person to take it down. We carried on drinking shots and vodka redbulls together, celebrating an awesome Australia tour.

Louis was very touchy for the rest of the night, but we just had a laugh. He asked for my number, I gave it to him, and he said he’d text me the next day. I went back to my hotel with my workmates, and was in absolute shock and so weirded out that he was actually into women!?!?!! The whole Larry thing just dropped for me, and it turned out that yeah… the other stories were true.

We texted back and forth the next day, both laughing about our hangovers, and he was super sweet. He said he’d like to see me again when he’s in AU, and kept in touch even when he left. Communication fizzled out on his end and I figured like whatever he’s a super busy guy, and I left it at that. He was super gentle and sweet though, and very funny and loud. It was so wild!

[princeanxious]

Hi! I was wondering about your Lost Guardian au from ages ago, do you think you’ll ever plan on updating it and if not, could someone else take up the fic?

So heres the thing. If someone wants to write a fic *inspired* by The Lost Guardian, i’m not gonna stop them, and i’d probably feel super honored so long as the inspiration was correctly credited!

As for ‘taking up the fic,’ the short answer is no.

I have active drafts and the rest of the story already planned out to its finish, notes, even a branch-off fic set post-story that will likely go up on my nsfw blog if i ever get around to editing it. The Lost Guardian hasn’t been abandoned, it’s simply on hiatus. (And yes, i recognize 3 almost 4 years so far is a really fucking long hiatus. The Chapter 9 draft doc was made in december of 2020, and last edited in July 2022)

I started writing that fic whilst still in highschool, a time where I was 17 and didnt have to worry yet about getting my license or maintaining a part time job, i had an over abundance of freetime even partially to my detriment, the fandom was booming and I had plenty of feedback, and this fic was (and still *is*) a story im proud of.

But i’m 22 now, working a full time job to pay rent and account for a number of minor ‘disabilities’(best word i have for them atm) that I cant ignore or push to the side nor treat poorly, from the lasting effects on my body of stunted growth to celiac/glutent intolerance to adhere to that directly determines how easily my body functions for the week, to dealing with glasses i cannot afford to break and taking care of teeth i cannot afford to fix, taking care of my mental health and using the free time i have to do what brings me the most joy at that time.

The sanders sides fandom has heavily quieted down with the season finale hiatus and I’d like to think I did pretty well for going six long years dedicated solely to that without cracking under the silence, because *I knew* when I caved to something else it’d be a long while before I had the drive to come back with any sort of resolution to my active works. Thats just how my hyper fixations work. I cannot focus on multiple at once, it’s too much to process simultaneously and takes away my enjoyment bc I tend to watch/consume things repeatedly to catch every little detail i missed. And it doesn’t help when one loses steam because their content barely breaks 100 notes(80% of which are likes, 15% are reblogs with the occasional comment, and 5% are self-reblogs) when back in the height of it all, a few thousand notes was pretty average interaction. This blog still has about 11.5k followers, almost all of which came from the height of the fandom period. So for now i’ve moved onto the FNAF DCA fandom, bc it is fresh and new to me.

I know you didn’t mean to poke the bear here, I get it, but like.. C’mon. Any other fic of mine likely wouldn’t have gotten the same reaction in full but, still. I’ve had to answer this question a handful of times over the years at the point, which might be why this response feels so charged, and i’m sorry.

I don’t mean to come off as snippy or rude, but it *is* kind of invasive to offer to finish one’s creative work when it’s taking too long and theres very little payback for it. I’ve got adhd, delayed satisfaction isn’t a thing I experience. Just guilt that it wasn’t finished in a way for me to post it in time before I broke and lost all motivation to share it.

In my head, TLG has been long finished and held the ending for years, theres just been no energy to put in the effort of finish writing it for others to read. I’m still trying to get my life together to change that, don’t get me wrong, but the American economy is literally in shambles so who knows how or even if i’ll manage that. Call me selfish for being content with only mentally having my creative story’s ending and a collection of rambles and notes to show for it, but at the end of the day, it’s still my story, and i dont feel comfortable with people trying to ‘take up the mantle’ to finish it, when they don’t know how it ends.

I’m glad you like it enough to want to, though, I really *really* am. I’m just sorry I haven’t been able to finish it for you all. And i just don’t know when that will be, I just know that I *want* to do so, however long it takes.

[notebooknonbinary]

Byler Week, Day 5: Secret Identities

This is outsider POV, i have invented a daughter and she's now My daughter (even though she's 15 in 2013 which means she'd be My Age). Also, based on This post I made a trillion, billion years ago—in November lol.

Emma is avoiding her homework. 

She’s got a mountain of an essay due on Monday, but writing has never come easy to her (not like Dad, amazing writer that he is, or her younger foster sister Alex, who is most definitely going to be a singer-songwriter). Both her foster dads are pretty cool about helping with stuff their children don’t understand. But Pops is the only one home with her right now, and he’s in his studio painting a commission. Even though she knows he wouldn’t care, she doesn’t want to bother him when he’s in the zone. She’ll ask Dad for help once he and her sisters are back from the store.

For now, she turns on the Xbox to play Mass Effect 2.

In the middle of recruiting Archangel, she gets a ping on her computer. Her friend Corgi has messaged her. It’s a row of question marks and a link to an article.

Identities of Award-Winning Artist-Author YA duo, Bloomfield and Blackmore, revealed in Tell-All Leak by reliable anonymous source. 

gengaratemycorgi Emmy, isn’t this your foster dads?

Shit.

“Pops!” Emma calls. 

There’s a distant clatter and splash, and then Will runs into the room. He’s got red paint splattered down the front of his shirt, making him look a little bit like he’s been stabbed. “What’s wrong Emmy? Are you okay?”

Normally she would tease him about the paint spill. Instead, she silently shows him the article and watches his face drop. He plops down beside her.

“Well, shit,” he says, reaching up to brush his hair from his face and inadvertently getting paint in it.

She's too worried about him to even giggle over it. “Are you and Dad gonna be okay?”

Will huffs a tired laugh. “We’ll be fine. The Lab’s NDA has expired. I’m honestly surprised we lasted this long under the radar.”

Emma can’t help but agree—her dads having so many different pseudonyms was bound to bite them in the butt someday.

“I’m gonna go call Mike, and then see about sorting this mess out.”

She’s not entirely certain if he’s referring to the mess of the leak, or the mess of paint all over him.

-

When everyone is back, she and her sisters sit in the living room—watching Mike and Will walk around, on the phone with their agents and the publicists of their book series’. Emmy feels a little bit useless, leaning her head on Rachel’s shoulder. Beside them, Alex has her earphones in and is journaling—conflict makes her anxious.

Eventually, her dads get off the phone and instead sit at the table on their laptops, typing out statements for the press and their social medias’. (And with all their names, there’s a lot of social medias to go through.)

Still feeling useless, and for lack of anything else to do, Emmy opens tumblr and scrolls to the new post made by her Dads’ official account.

-

BloomfieldAndBlackmore When we originally created ‘Elliot and the Other World’, we were required (legally) to publish under pen names. Thus, Bloomfield and Blackmore were born. We weren’t expecting Elliot and his friends to be as well loved as they’ve ended up being, though we are forever grateful for that. It’s thanks to fans like all of you that Elliot and the Other World is still going strong today!

Then, four years later, when we wanted to publish ‘Smalltown Boys’, we knew that our publisher would never allow us to publish a Gay romance under the same names as E&tOW, especially not back then. But Smalltown was too close to our hearts to set aside, so we created Lewis and Xavier Wakeham. (We flipped a coin on who got to be Xavier, and Mike is still the tiniest bit bitter that I won.). It was still a struggle to get it published, but we’re forever grateful that we were able to. 

Around that same time, we were beginning to foster. Our youngest at the time suffered from terrible nightmares (a plight we know well), so Mike and I would tell stories to help him back to sleep. Our oldest thought they were good enough stories to be published. We could have probably published those under Bloomfield and Blackmore, but that would have meant editing out that Prince Adam has two dads, and neither of our children would have ever forgiven us for that. So Oak and Rose joined the scene, publishing stories for kids like our foster children. It’s something that’s brought a lot of joy to our family.

Things began to get complicated after a colleague and friend, Ed Munson, wanted our input on a Dungeons and Dragons anthology he was creating. While he likely would have been fine with us using our pen names (as Elliot and the Other World is largely based on D&D), that would have required him to keep secrets about his own project. So out of respect for him, we used our own names.

We don’t know if that’s what led to this leak. The investigation into who tipped our names to the press is still on-going. To whoever it was, we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed.

To our fans, we send our love. -Will and Mike

-

She scrolls through the reblogs.

-

BananananaAmanda “Required legally???????? Sirs ????? Were you in some kind of witness protection??????

DNDNotebook Amanda don’t be stupid, they probably had some kind of job that would have fired them for writing DnD books--it was like the 80s and people thought DnD was demonic.

BloomfieldAndBlackmore Well, actually, you’re both a little bit correct (though Amanda is slightly more correct, please don’t call them stupid). - Mike

BananananaAmanda My favorite author used the correct pronoun for me and also defended my honor im in tears rn.Also though, my witness protection theory has weight what????? Were parts of E&tOW Real??? ?????

BloomfieldAndBlackmore ..¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-

AllBimy5elf ‘we’re not mad, we’re just disappointed.’ pffffft. Honestly iconic.

-

Lovepeace23 are we ignoring the fact that they’re gay ?? and yet they’re writing children’s books?? Keep that shit away from kids pervs

DNDNotebook hey asshat, the 80s called, they want their bigotry back

tydieandying i’m thinking about the fac that since they’re gay,  maybe my headcanon that Elliot is gay for Dave is true

Dendy7ever even if they -are- gay (which isn’t confirmed) doesn’t mean you have to push that agenda on to their characters. Dave is in love with Elliot’s twin sister Wendy. And Elliot is just growing slower than the rest of the Club because of his trauma. You’ll see when book ten comes out.

AllBimy5elf ‘isn’t confirmed’ after they talked about fostering?? They’re literally dads together?? Now who’s pushing sexuality onto people?

DNDNotebook lmao also the ‘in love’. bro goes out of his way to hold his bestie’s hand, but doesn’t like holding hands w Em when they kiss? Fishy.

-

BananananaAmanda ok but,,, since the main reasons Elliot & Other Worlds has never gotten a tv show is because the series was still on going, and the creators weren’t in the public eye…show?? Maybe???

AllBimy5elf ok yes I 1000000% want an Other Worlds show, but Smalltown Boys movie when???? I want to see my gay childhood friends to lovers happy ending On Screen

-

DNDNotebook said

Can we ask about your foster kids? You must really care about them if you wrote them childrens books. How are they doing in all this?

BloomfieldAndBlackmore Thank you for asking. Our two boys are grown now, but we’ve called them and they’re doing fine--no one has harassed them about it, if they’ve even made the connection. Our three foster daughters are doing as well as can be in the circumstances. Our middle daughter was the one who alerted us to the article (Hey Pumpkin, we love you!!). We’ll continue to try and keep them out of the public eye—they didn’t ask for any of this hubbub. -Will

LostimtheOtherWorld hey is your daughter @/DemigodEmmi98?

A jolt of anxiety has her shutting her laptop. She looks up to where her dads are still working and considers saying something. She gnaws at her nails.

“You okay, Em?” Rachel murmurs, shutting her phone and throwing an arm around Emmy’s shoulder. 

Emma leans into the hug. “I’m being stupid.”

“I doubt it, this whole this is fucking scary. Plus you’re like a baby. I’m eighteen and I’m terrified.”

Emmy scowls. “I’m fifteen, not a baby. And you won’t be eighteen ‘til March.”

Rachel laughs, which makes Emma feel a little less anxious.

She looks to Alex, who has moved on from journaling to just listening to music and staring out the window.

“I think Alex needs your worry more than I do, she’s barely ten.” She’s probably freaking out right now.

Rachel gives her one more squeeze. “You’re a good big sister, Em.” Rachel moves over to quietly talk with their sister. Leaving Emmy alone on the couch. 

She sighs and forces herself to open her computer back up, and scroll through her notifications. As she suspected, her followers have somehow made the connection of her talking about her author and artist foster dads, and somehow it’s escaped containment to Other Worlds fandom. She’s got a hundred and eighty-six asks and two hundred new followers.

Most of the messages are nice ones, asking if she’s okay, or ones congratulating her on her cool dads; but there are a few—maybe from the same person—that say that they’ll pray for her immortal soul for having two dads? What? It’s 2013, not the Middle Ages! 

She deletes those, and the ones asking for inside scoops on future books, then debates attempting to answer the ones left.

The thought makes her exhausted so instead she makes her own post.

-

DemigodEmmi98 regarding the influx of asks from anons and followers wondering if Mike and Will are the foster dads I’ve been talking about… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tydieandying Emmy is that a yes??

gengaratemycorgi lmaooo

-

Unfortunately that seems to immediately feed the fire, as she gets three more asks in the span of a minute. She opens up the message box from earlier today. 

-

Emmy: haha Immediate Regret(:

Corgi: u gonna be ok?

Emmy: ye, just. tired of tumblr right now lol, gonna jump offline for the next couple days til this all dies down. i’ll message u on snap. 

-

“Sorry about all this, Pumpkin,” Mike murmurs, when she tells him what’s happened. Emmy burrows into his hug. He’s been good at hugs as long as she’s known him—he and Pops make her feel so safe. 

“‘S not your fault, Dad.” She pulls back to grin at him. “Plus, missing school on Monday means I don’t have to turn in that bullshit essay I haven’t done yet.”

Mike snorts, scrubs his knuckles over her hair. “You are your fathers’ daughter.”

“Well, we all got doxxed, so I figure it’s our prerogative, right?”

Mike grimaced. “Maybe we should call your aunts in for a bit.”

“El and everyone are already on their way,” Will reports, entering the room again. He stoops to press a kiss to each other his daughters heads, before pressing one to Mike’s mouth. Then they’re both silent for a long moment. But it’s not a bad, scary silent.

They do this sometimes, Mike and Will--this thing where it seems like they’re speaking to each other with their minds. It could simply be that thing In-Love parents seem to be able to do, where they just know each other's minds (something her birth parents weren’t capable of). But, considering what she knows about their fucked-up childhood in Hawkins, she wouldn’t be surprised if it were powers. She could ask them, and they’d likely tell her the truth.

But Emmy thinks they’ve had enough secrets revealed for today, so she keeps her mouth shut and continues leaning against her parents.

[sylvies-kablooie]

I woke up this morning, got on this site, and what do I see? Baby’s first anon hate post (me, I’m baby) regarding Sylkie and how I compared it to Miles and Gwen’s relationship. True, they didn’t kiss in the movies (yet, juries still out there) but I can’t help it! Different timelines? Check! One’s a female alternate Spider-Man called Spider-Gwen/Ghost Spider? Check! It’s a Sylkie dynamic! Is there something I’m missing? How is it that Spiderverse explains the Multiverse so well in both movies for the fans to easily understand “oh, there both Spider-Men but they’re so different at the same time!” In comparison to Sylvie “it’s messed up how she got into a relationship with Loki since they’re basically the same person!” What?! Marvel fandom please explain the rules here as to what’s going on! C’mon Marvelites, even Trekkies understand how it works and for that I thank them! I don’t know anymore, I’m trying to understand but it’s hard when one person calls me dumb for sticking up with Sylkie shippers in regards to how the multiverse works. However, there is one thing that brings us peace in this fandom: M-5, Brad Wolf, and Miss Minutes slander.

Ooof, I'm sorry to hear this :( There are lots of things I really like about Tumblr, and the idea of having an ask box is super cool, but I feel too often it gets utilized for Negative Purposes TM. I have to say though after being on Loki Twitter in 2021, nothing people can say will surprise me. That was the worst fandom experience of my life and honestly why I put off making any other sort of fan related account until a few weeks ago when I made this.

I have been very liberal with the block button on here. It's honestly a life saver. Every Thursday evening after the new episode airs I will look through the Loki tag, see the worst takes known to mankind, and block people like I'm playing Whack A Mole. I hope the experience hasn't put you off from wanting to have fun online, because there really are so many awesome people on here.

Personally I am a deeply busy individual and don't know how people make time to track down accounts they disagree with and submit mean posts. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty years from now, no one is going to say "damn, I wish I spent more time arguing with strangers online".

[themultifandomgal]

Warning long post/ rant about Colleen Ballinger. If you don’t want to read this then please feel free to ignore but if you want to rant away with me then be my guest. If you guys know what’s going on and have opinions then let me know. Let’s talk about her shit show of an apology.

First of all the whole thing was just clearly aimed towards her young fans to make them feel bad for her, she did it in a song to make it easer to consume and unfortunately it’s kinda catchy so it’s going to be stuck in everyone’s heads. Children are so impressionable. The human brain doesn’t actually fully develop until your mid 20s so you can only imagine how the brain might be working at ages 9-16 (I don’t know how old her youngest fans are)

“Toxic gossip train. Chugging down the tracks of misinformation”

Where? What misinformation? Your giving us no evidence! Explain it to us then?

“Tie me to the tracks and harass me for my past, these rumours look like facts of you don’t mind the gaps I won’t survive in the crash, but hey least your having fun”

Stop with the woahs me attitude. If they’re as you say rumours then why is there photo/video evidence of the things you’ve done and said? What gaps? Are we talking about how in your first apology video you made it out that Adam asked you for the underwear and it was his fault? Not that you and Corey literally asked if he wanted them? Oh and even if you were joking around why did it never occur after that sending a 14 year old underwear (no matter your age) is fucking weird? How did that not cross your mind when you had weeks to think about it. You even said his parents would think it’s weird so why do it? Also who the hell is having fun? I know Adam isn’t and Becky and anyone else you’ve hurt.

“Today I only want to talk about the facts”

Well where are they? You didn’t tell us anything except you want a pitty party!

“Many years ago I used to message my fans, but not in a creepy way… more of a looser type of way”

Errr that’s still creepy, wanting to best friends with under 18 year olds when your 30 odd….. did that not cross your mind? Oh wait no of course it didn’t.

“I haven’t done that for years you see… I took accountability”

Weren’t you in a group chat with miners up until like a week ago? Oh and when did you take accountability?

“The train is made of lies”

Wait so we’re they mistakes or lies?

“I would never make a mistake like that”

Your right we wouldn’t because we know talking to underage children is wrong whether your intention is ‘innocent’ or not because it isn’t. There’s a huge power dynamic at play that I can’t see that you weren’t aware of or if not you someone around you.

“She did some things I do not like in her past so everybody gather round because we’re about to attack but not based of facts”

Ohhhh so you didn’t ask Adam (a miner at the time) to send a pic of his ass? Oh wait…

Well you didn’t tell these kids all about your messy divorce did you? Ah ok erm….

Ok but you definitely didn’t talk about your husband penis size…Ah shit.

Hmmm ok then these one is a no brainier. You definitely didn’t ask KIDS favourite sex positions because everyone knows that you just don’t do that… oh you did? Oh

Let’s move on shall we?

“I also wanted to take a moment to talk about the Miranda girl…. shes PG13…..that’s why you won’t find my videos on the YouTube Kids app”

Erm I think you’ll find that you can find Miranda content under ages 5-8 so before you tell us these ‘facts’ maybe you want to check them out first. Just a thought?

“Was it my intention to manipulate”

Ah so you admit doing that?

“I’m not a groomer, I’m just a looser”

Your both. Grooming someone doesn’t always have to be sexual. Also imagine if that will hold up in court!

“I’m not a predator even though a lot of you think so, because 5 years ago I made a far joke”

It wasn’t just a fart joke. You asked an underaged girl to come up on stage. She was wearing a romper and you spread her legs. At no point did you or any other adult stop it or even try to protect this young girl at all. She said she felt violated and awful and your just say with your ukulele undermining what YOU put her through calling it a FART JOKE. It’s not a joke. None of this is and anyone who thought this was ok is sick!

“I never had any bad intentions, but I do feel like shit”

Oh well then we all forgive you for being inappropriate with minors in privet group chats and on your YouTube channels.

I haven’t even spoken about half the other shit that she’s done like letting a 9 year old put his hands down her trousers for a ‘bit’ or how horrible her book is, or how she laughed about having to have her dog out to sleep. This whole thing was just a slap in the face. I felt like she wasn’t being serious at all! To all of you who have been effected by Colleens harmful decisions, I am so sorry and so proud of all of you who have shared your experience. To those not ready that’s ok don’t feel pressured to have to open up about anything you don’t want to.

I’m going to leave some videos and channels to check out about this. The first one is SWOOPs deep dive which will have a hell a lot of sources and information. Sending you all positive thoughts!

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[windvexer]

I saw your post about reading Tarot in regards to what to do if someone is aggressive towards your interpretations- and it was insanely inspiring and beautiful. I was wondering if you could post a small guide on how to read tarot. I want to get better at it, but I have a horrible memory and don’t know what to do. You seem like a safe person to ask because of your daring-ness and openness. I would be incredibly interested in your opinions & thoughts on how to get started again, and what might work for someone like me, who’s only ever used the basic interpretations in books, etc to read my cards. I have strayed away from Tarot recently because it doesn’t feel like the answers I’m receiving from these basic interpretations is enough- it doesn’t satiate the hunger and I even question if it truly applies to me. It feels muddy. I feel like I’m not expanding my knowledge each time I try.

we are in reference to this post

Good morning! Thank you for your kind words.

I too have felt tarot becoming muddy for me. It is a cycle I go through perhaps about once every two years. Most recently, my muddiness inspired this project which more or less carried me through to clear waters.

But I started working on that almost two years ago. I've got a new project in the works now.

If you'd like further reading material, try this ask which has my helpful links corralled.

I think it would be fun to write more about tarot, but I was supposed to start writing a new book yesterday and now I'm already behind on that. Plus a sponsored post I'm lagging on finishing, too. Some day, perhaps?

There are too many things you could try. Each of us needs different things.

There are tarot-based things you can try, like studying the Fool's Journey, or reading books like Mystical Origins of the Tarot by Paul Huson, to expand the frameworks in your mind within which you operate.

There are magical things you can try, like initiating under the powers of the Moon or a deity related to divinatory power, creating talismans that open Sight, casting spells to bring necessary knowledge to your doorstep, and so on.

There are experimental things you can try, like cross-pollinating with playing card reading systems, writing OC lore for the suits or major arcana to give you a new way to connect with them, or trying to invent single-player games which use a tarot deck.

There are many things you could do. Did you know about reading with a restricted deck? Reading that primarily takes into account the elements of the cards? Reading that pays a lot of attention to which direction the characters in the card are facing?

I never got along with most pre-made spreads. I find them to be stilted and lacking. Early on I started mapping my spreads to the four elements and cardinal directions. Then I figured out you can put cards in the cross-quarters that represent north-east, south-east, etc. This can go on forever. You can lay cards out in a massive spiral that fractals out from the four cardinal points.

I was not good at doing small spreads for several years. I still do not prefer them. Are you only trying 3-card draws or small spreads? Try huge ones. 12 cards. 20 cards. Leave spreads open for hours or days as you contemplate them. Place them out, look at each card once, say the first thing you think of, deliver your summary at the end, and put the cards away.

There are many things you can try. Think about what you are doing now and do the opposite. Do you shuffle, draw 5 cards in a line, and look up meanings in the book? Instead, spread the cards out and pick which ones you want to use. Place them in a geometric shape. Do not look at the book.

Give yourself symbol sets to work with. "Intuitive reading" is such a chore. Instead of staring at a card waiting for something to come, seed your imagination. Do you like fairy tales? Well, now each card is a scene or character from fairy tales. Maybe you prefer Marvel movies instead. Or, Percy Jackson. Now each card is something from Percy Jackson.

Some people can't read for themselves. So, read for characters from movies or books. Read for historical figures. Read with signifiers and without. Draw with a question in mind, or not. Practice telling the future or telling the past.

I could go on. There are too many things to try.

Try anything other than what you are doing now.

But if I may recommend: get it out of your head that each reading needs to be a complete rendition, like a song fully rehearsed. Put it in your mind that you've got to spend a while practicing notes and chords, and maybe some musical theory. Let yourself have fun with the composite parts of reading, without worrying too much about the end result.

[saltminerising]

1. i feel like if you arent using your account to funnel stuff (or whatever else multiaccounters are doing) into a main account then you shouldn’t be at risk of being banned. if your 2 of 5 bajillion accounts have never interacted then they’re practically the same as every other account on site…

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2. i think multi-ing is okay but only if you use all your accounts to like all my dragons and then it.s ok

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3. oh my god i’m so sick of this conversation happening every time a legitimate multi gets banned. “am i going to lose everything because i made an alt account once that i never did anything on beyond making my progens” “i signed irl friends and family up am i gonna get banned” no. i promise you will not. not referring to g specifically but in general you have to stoppp taking banned accounts at their word, they have every incentive to lie to save their pride or make staff look like they’re unfair because they chose to either not read or knowingly break the rules. this isn’t to justify a person’s entire account being locked for multi’ing, i dont think it’s a proportional punishment, but it’s the risk you accept when you choose to break the rules. with that said, IP addresses don’t mean anything and staff has no reason to suspect you are a multiaccounter for making an alt and immediately abandoning it, signing up a friend or family member, or whatever’s running through your head honestly. you are fine, i promise. if you have funneled in the past and are panicking about it, simply never touch the account again and carry on about your business. if you’ve barely done anything, that was just as easily a friend or a family member gifting you something. stop sending the same 3 asks over and over again that just get people scared and worked up.

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4. It's funny that multi-accounting gets punished so severely when, if you think about it, it's one of the least harmful ways to break TOS.

Staff finds out that you multi-accounted for 3 weeks during 2016 and then never touched the other accounts ever again? Instant ban with no appeal or any kind of warning. Shame on you.

You repeatedly post racist/homophobic/etc. remarks on the forums (like the relatively recent case of AP from Arcane)? You get 42069 warnings before staff finally bans you after weeks or even months of frequent repeat offenses.

Geez, I'm not saying that multi-accounters shouldn't be punished if they get caught, but I feel like there could be a middle ground.

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5. I dont think they care about you having an account from like 9 years ago that you dont remember the password to. They care about players that have 2 or more accounts actively using them both and do all the dailies on one/entering roundsey for the extra chances to win, and send all their stuff, or winnings from that shell account, to the "main" account. according to the rules around it, They also don't approve of situations where there is 2 people having 2 separate accounts, [person A and person B] but person A wants to stop playing, however being friends with Person B they want to do something nice for them, so person A continues to log on to specifically only do dailies and then trades it to person B's account who is still actively playing.