#i haven’t uploaded in a while! this site likes to glitch out when i try

[dovesick]

red moon

[wishthefish916]

What Is Anti?

Holy fucking shit, I’ve literally had this saved as a draft on this site for MONTHS and just haven’t posted it out of spite, but if ever there was a call to action this is is. I published this theory a while ago, but I wasn’t completely happy with how I’d written it at the time so I took it down a few minutes later. I’d originally planned on never revisiting this again, but while developing a different theory which will probably be coming out soon, I was forced to revisit this work, so here we are. The science of Antisepticeye. What he is, where he came from and how to stop him. It’s a long one lads, so buckle the fuckle up.

If we’re ever gonna stop Anti, which is kinda the point of all this theorizing anyways, we have to know what exactly he is. To figure that out, we need to look into what effect he has on the world around him. Looking back at the ever expanding collection of Anti moments ((thank the heavens for his wiki and a whole lotta spare time)), the only thing that tied them all together is that the person in the webcam felt a sense of danger, be it from a jump scare or high suspense or even from hearing Anti’s name, the brain of the person who was recording sensed danger, which triggered a hormonal fight-or-flight response in their body in the moment Anti presents himself to us, and it’s usually preceded with a long gap in symptoms surfacing. What else do we know of that lies dormant for a long period of time before something triggers it to wake up which usually leads to chaos for whatever system it’s in? Jack A virus!

So what kind of virus is he? Well, in bigger videos like Say Goodbye and Kill JSE the person on the screen communicated that they felt physical effects of his presence, like nausea, aches, delirium and twitching and in some cases bleeding from the eyes. This tells me that if Anti is a virus he’s a biological one.

However I cannot ignore the biggest telltale sign of Anti showing up which is the game or webcam ((and sometimes the person)) glitching, audio disturbances, and corrupted html text((Zalgo)), which would tell me that he is a computer virus.

So lads, correct me if I’m wrong in saying that if Anti is indeed a virus, he wouldn’t be exclusively biological or the technological, but rather a biomechanical virus((I totally didn’t make up the term shush)).

Being made up of both biological and technological components mean infection could have happened just about anywhere. For the sake of clarity I’ll be breaking it up into biological and technological components as I’m fairly certain the two are symbiotically dependent on each other, considering the physical effects coincide almost completely with the technological ones.

If infection was controlled by the biological aspects, that would mean he was infected by contact with the virus. Either he touched it, breathed it in, ate or drank it, kissed it, or bled on it. For all the other egos who’ve been infected, this makes perfect sense. JJ cutting his finger right before the glitching shows up, Henrik almost never wearing his surgical mask when handling his infected patients, Chase heavily drinking in the moments leading up to Dark Silence, but Jack is a different story. The first time we saw Anti was in FNAF Sister Location, and that video had none of the above in it. That tells me he was infected well before he first showed himself, which makes sense logically. People don’t show flu symptoms as soon as they come into contact with the flu virus. It has to fester for a little bit before showing any symptoms, so why should Anti be any different?

So where did Jack get infected? If he did physically come into contact with the virus, it would have been in a live action video. From a storytelling perspective, it wouldn’t make sense to not showcase an important plot point clearly, and live action is the best medium to do such. That brought me to the 2015 pumpkin carving video, but nothing too suspicious happened. There was no bleeding, he didn’t eat anything, while he did kiss the pumpkin no bodily fluids were exchanged, and breathing it in or touching it seems implausible, because it would mean the virus already existed in his house, which means he would have been infected long before that video.

The only other live action videos he’s done, and correct me if I’m wrong, were the 700,000 subscriber ghost pepper challenge, the ALS Ice bucket challenge, and his regular vlogs. Sean is incredible at blurring the line between normal video and ego video, but these videos all had an underlying sincerity to them, where he was trying to communicate to us his appreciation or with the ALS video trying to get us to donate to charity, and I find it highly improbable for him to try and undermine the meaning behind them with an ego clue.

That leads me to believe that it were the technological aspects of the virus that infected him, and that’s where things get kinda tricky. Now, computer viruses are actually relatively easy to come into contact with, the problem definitely isn’t there. Maybe Jack was sent it in an email, maybe he went to a sketchy website, maybe he downloaded a game that had a little something extra up it’s sleeve. No biggie, it happens. The logic leap is when the computer virus starts affecting his real life person, even when he’s not using the computer, a la Say Goodbye.

I believe immersion is the answer. Immersion in game play is something a large portion of game developers strive for, making the player feel like they were actually inside their game. This is one of the hardest and most important things a story driven game developer can do, and also one of Jack’s key defining features in games he tends to really enjoy.

I think, in the story that Sean has created for us with the egos, when Jack is doing a lets play and he gets really immersed in the game, he actually does exist inside that game. That feeling of total immersion, those moments when his brain is unable to separate the game from reality, they happen because of him actually being inside the game on his computer. If Jack were to download a game that had Anti’s virus on it, and then became immersed in the game play experience long enough to come into contact with said virus, it’s entirely possible that the virus stayed with him when he left the game/no longer was immersed.

Well, if we’re going to find out how to cure the thing, we’ve first got to find the location of patient zero, i.e. the video that started it all. If we know where it came from, we’ll know how it works and that’ll make it immensely easier to stop it. Are there any games out there that Jack played that 1) truly immersed him as a player into it’s world, 2) share a strong resemblance to what we already see in Anti, and 3) was uploaded some time before the release of Sister Location. There are two bigguns that spring to mind.

Undertale is probably the most well known and well liked series on Jack’s entire channel. While he was playing he became heavily invested in each of the characters, even the baddies, and so did we. We grew to care for them all as if they were our closest friends. When they were hurt, we screamed in protest. When they were comforted, we felt all warm and fuzzy. When we reached the true ending, we all cried. I would most certainly consider that immersion, wouldn’t you?

Not only did Undertale immerse the player and viewer, it messed with your actual computer files. If you do a genocide route even once, uninstalling and reinstalling the game won’t wipe it’s memory of the route. You have to dig through your computer to find and delete the file that tells steam what route you chose if you want to play the game brand new again. Not to mention the game frequently closing itself unprompted, which has a well known history for corrupting recording footage. Potential for corruption? Check.

New paragraph for new point because oh my god, there’s a lot. Several people have already pointed out the similarities between Flowey and Anti, but just in case you haven’t seen it yet or wanted a nice recap, here we go.The voice acting Jack chose for Flowey sounds just like a higher pitched Anti voice. This was the first time he ever layered audio files to achieve a more sinister voice effect. The thumbnails following his fight with Flowey all hold trademark characteristics of Anti video thumbnails. Our first ever interaction with him ends with him attempting to murder Jack. Their laughs are one in the same. At certain points in the game, you can find Flowey following you, keeping an eye on things, if you will. His boss fight, oh my g o d. He kills the dude in charge, everything cuts to black, and next thing we know there’s a glitchy face laughing at us through a screen, telling us about how he’s the one in charge and how this is his world and how everything he’s done was all our faults, after which his eyes turn red and green and he starts puppeteering controlling six different souls, using their different skills to his own personal advantage so he can fulfill some unspoken objective. Gee, sound familiar? 

However, despite all of this, Undertale was not patient zero. Why I still listed all the game’s similarities despite this, I promise was not to waste your time, I’m getting to that. There was a game that came just before this one, the first of it’s kind, the actual patient zero. That game, is The Visitor.

Many of you may not remember this game, but The Visitor (and The Visitor Returns) was a little flash game that was posted way back on March 1st, 2015, and you played as an alien creature that came to Earth on a meteorite who’s only objective was to kill any creature it came into contact with to gain it’s powers. It was a video that kind of took the channel by storm, landing it’s place as the fifth most watched video on Jack’s channel even though nobody really knew how. This was patient zero. 

As for the checklist? It was posted March 1st, 2015, a full year and seven months before Sister Location. Jack is certainly immersed in the gameplay, so much so he forgets about the menu screen and accidentally restarts the game in an attempt to do more stuff. Does it show a similarity to what we already see in Anti? More than you’d see at first glance. Yes, his mouse is kind of glitching through the entire video. Yes, his webcam goes dark for a single frame towards the five minute mark. Yes, there’s multiple severe neck wounds throughout the game. But that’s not what sold me on this. It’s the premise of the game itself. 

I was struggling for months trying to figure out which game was patient zero. I jumped between Undertale, Fran Bow, Vee is Calling, and even the other Five Nights At Freddy’s videos more times than I could count, because all of them seemed like plausible answers. Fran Bow was the first series ever to adopt Anti’s traditional thumbnails, with lens flares and glowing eyes and blood everywhere(seriously, I took a good ten minutes and scrolled through every single video on his channel and Fran Bow was where it all started), not to mention a dark shadow creature who feeds on suffering being the main antagonist. Vee is Calling had an actual virus as a main character who actually glitches out and actually takes control of the main character’s in game computer. One of the glitches in SIster Location #1 showed a frame from the first ever FNAF game, and many of the sounds were pulled from the series at different points. I’ve already written paragraphs about Undertale. All of these things show a direct tie to Anti. 

Then remember what The Visitor is all about. It’s an alien who kills things around him to gain it’s powers. It takes aspects from each creature it comes into contact with and uses them for his own personal gain. That seems to be exactly what Anti has done ever since we’ve known him as a physical entity on the channel rather than an idea with a name. 

I mean, look back at May 2k18. Every single skit, either ego themed or not, was pulled directly from whatever the game he played was about. Hell, just look at the egos! I’ve talked about this before, but in every single ego video, there is always a theme of character decay, where the person they were at the start of the video erodes away leaving nothing but a shell of who they were by the end, and this is especially apparent in their debut. JBM, the courageous hero giving into cowardice. Marvin the Magician, throwing away his career. Henrik the wise doctor, killing his patients and forgetting a comedic amount about human nature. Chase the bubbly dad, pulling a gun on himself. JJ the mute actor, cutting his finger and immediately getting possessed. I’d tied them back to Anti before, but I never really knew why. In hindsight, this was clearly Anti’s attempt at stealing their strengths. Each and every one of them had some advantage that Anti wanted, and their slow decay was evidence of Anti trying to take control so he could have it. That’s why each new video showed him getting stronger, going from making them kind of afraid to full on suicide and possession. He was stronger because he’d taken more attributes and was able to use them more effectively with each passing video. For each game that Sean got immersed in that fit his agenda, Anti adopted different aspects for himself. There is no one video where Anti came from because he came from every video.

Okay. Alien biomechanical virus. How do we treat it? Well, that is heavily reliant on it’s sources. Anti adopted both some benefits and some defects from every game he pulled from. He gained both strengths and weaknesses, so if you want to “beat” him, the answer would lie in those games. The Visitor had no happy ending. Fran Bow won by giving up on reality and living with tree people, a demon, and an oversized axolotl. Undertale got a good ending by befriending everyone including the bad guys and hopefully not dying too much in the process. FNAF was finished by getting fired or burning everything to the ground and praying you’re not sent to purgatory. Vee is Calling was saved by focusing on your love life more than your computer files. Maybe it’s one of those answers. Maybe it’s all of them. Maybe it’s none of them. It seems not even Sean knows the answer to that question, but now we have a great place to start looking.

I wasn’t able to attend PAX, which means I didn’t know about the Anti “hint” until just now. When I heard it I wanted to scream, I think I actually might have, because I’ve been sitting on this work for literal months and just not gotten around to posting it. “We still haven’t figured out what Anti is yet.”

So, @therealjacksepticeye, are my answers to your satisfaction? 

[dramioneasks]

Can you please please make a lost of pros and cons for posting a dramione story on ffn/ao3/h&v/lj/tumblr/wattpad/etc? Maybe addressing the number of views and audience? Amount of flames. Their navigation and UI and UX. Etc. anything that comes to mind. Thanks. I really appreciate it. 🙏🏻

Howdy!

This ended up being a rather long post, so please click on the link below to read the rest…

It is also entirely based on my personal opinions and experiences from posting my fics at these sites. This likely isn’t a completely comprehensive list, just what came off the top of my head… so… feel free to add a comment to this post on these websites’ features and I’ll update it.

❤️ @refictionista​

So… without further ado…

The Pros and Cons of Various HP Fan Fiction Websites

Posting on FFnet

Pros:

Largest and most popular fan fiction website… like… in the world

Has an official app that makes downloading fics super easy

You can have ‘book covers’ for your fics

You can create polls

Has in-site PM feature

Very user friendly posting process

Interest can be determined via reader reviews, favs, and follows

Can be posted immediately (no wait times or approval process)

Communities for collecting fics

Best analytics of any fan fiction site

Allows saved drafts

Cons:

384 character max for fic summary… brevity is not one of my virtues

Any author notes, foot notes, chapter notes, etc. are part of the chapter and thus they affect the word count

You can’t rearrange the order of the chapters

Tagging is practically non-existant, limited to characters (with a max of four characters)… of these, you can only do (duo) pairings (no triads)

Keeps having these weird glitches that mess up my update notifications

Allows anonymous guest reviews, of which I’m not a fan… anonymity can lead to flaming drama… and I don’t mean the genre…

Formatting is extremely basic… meh

You can’t do anything resembling links… I once had a chapter that was supposed to be an email thread… the email addresses had to be typed out as name (at) domain (dot) com… shudder

Can’t post above a ‘M’ rating

I haven’t figured out their forums

@sennalya said: I personally dislike ffnet because their search/filter/block options plainly suck and their tags simply don’t exist.

Posting on AO3

Pros:

You can write a fic as a gift for another user

You can add co-authors

Fics can be part of a series… bless this feature

You can rearrange the order of the chapters

Has a prominent trigger warning (Archive Warning) display

Tagging system is extremely well done, search functionality is amazing

Has a viewing history feature

Comments (their “reviews”) are done as messaging threads by named users… like the threads (they’re more interactive than just plain reviews) and the lack of anonymity cuts down on the flaming drama

Several search list sorting options

Formatting options are amazing… like… even superscript… amazing (but to use these more advanced formats, you need to know your coding)

Separate chapter summaries, chapter notes, and end notes (all useful to determine an accurate word count)

Interest can be determined via reader comments, kudos (their “likes”), bookmarks, and page hits (guests/anons can only leave kudos)

Can be posted immediately (no wait times or approval process)

Several in-site fic downloading options (.mobi, .ePub, .PDF, and .html)

Integrates with LiveJournal and other fanfiction communities for fests and other challenges

Allows saved drafts

I’m a big fan of their legal advocacy initiatives

@sennalya said: You can do it all in your doc (MS Word or whatever), and when uploading, click the rich text button (top right above the text field) and simply paste your chapter in. Just tried it with heavily formatted text (bold, italics, superscript, and it took it all. Only had a bit of a glitch that I had to insert an empty line to the text field before I could paste at all, weird). If you have a coded text, chose the html button and paste your text in. It’s really very user friendly!

Cons:

No PMs

No mobile app

Analytics are okay but not great

My book covers have to be added as separate chapters

Posting on H&V

Pros:

Not going to lie, my favorite site

Just dramione

You can rearrange the order of the chapters

Search functionality is custom tailored for dramione fics

Fics show their banners in the search/list display (so I’m not too upset that I have to add my book covers as separate chapters)

Allows bookmarking on specific chapters… and when you last clicked on a fic/chapter

Reviews are done as messaging threads by named users… like the threads and lack of flaming anon drama… FYI, I never seen any review drama on this site

Fics can be part of a series

Separate chapter notes and end notes (useful to determine accurate word count)

Top (insert category) lists

Submissions are reviewed and approved by admins prior to posting, and the verification/approval process helps to maintain fic quality standards

Allows saved drafts

Cons:

Website is currently down and has been for a while… they say it’s just technical difficulties and will be back soon (fingers crossed)

Sometimes it takes a week or so for a chapter submission to be approved and then posted

Analytics are basic

I know you can follow/subscribe to a fic, but I haven’t figured it out

Posting on LJ

disclaimer: I’ve only posted fics on LJ that were submissions to fests.

Pros:

Used in quite a few fests and communities

Some of these journals are devoted entirely to a specific pairing or genre within that pairing

Good formatting options

Good mobile app

Cons:

Mostly used for one-shots… can have multi-chapter fics, but I’ve only had that done for me with a submission that was part of a fest… I poked around once but still have no idea how to that myself on my own LJ page

Formatting options are available, but you need to know your coding

Haven’t even figured out how the analytics work

No saving of drafts

Posting on Wattpad

disclaimer: this is based on previous experience. I removed all of my fics from this site because I didn’t like the display… completely a personal preference.

Pros:

Great mobile app (most readers access the site via the app)

You can add book covers

Easy to use… no coding required

Cons:

Mainly original fiction

Formatting options are basic

No saving of drafts

Analytics are basic

Posting on HarryPotterFanFiction.com

disclaimer: this is based on previous experience. I removed all of my fics from this site after a chapter update to my P&P parody fic was rejected due to it violating their ToS (it too closely resembled Jane’s Austen’s original story).

Pros:

Submissions are reviewed and validated

Has in-site mail feature

Reviews are done as messaging threads

Decent formatting options

All Harry Potter fan fics

Cons:

Upload process was confusing at first

Analytics are basic

Posting on Adult-Fanfiction.org

disclaimer: this is based on previous experience. I removed all of my fics from this site because I kept having difficulties just simply trying to log into my account on my preferred web browser.

Pros:

Posting adult content fics that wouldn’t be accepted on other archives

Cons:

The search function and tagging systems are antiquated… most fics I found were spread by word of mouth recommendations

On a restricted/blocked domain in many locations

The formatting options are a hassle

Upload process is significantly less user friendly and confusing

I never figured out their analytics

Other fan fiction websites (that host HP fan fiction) but that I’m not familiar with…

MuggleNet

Quotev

deviantART

FicWad

Internet Archive

Feedbooks

Goodreads

FictionPad

MediaMiner

The Maple Bookshelf

Lost D/Hr Fics (I added it to this list, but you don’t post there… it only posts fics no longer available)

Some people also post their fan fics here on tumblr… search for the #fanfic tag

[sleepyams]

2843 miles

Otayuri Week 2017 Day 2: Social media

otayuri | G-rated

“Yuri bites his lip and glances out of the window, feeling like even the very gloomy Saint Petersburg is laughing at him and his miserable crush on Otabek, even though Yuri grimaces when he thinks of the word crush.”

Long-distance relationship; Non-skater AU

[Read on AO3]

Alternative title: 4575 km

*

When Yuri sees a picture of Otabek Altin for the first time, he audibly gasps in his high school’s crowded cafeteria, effectively drawing the attention of everyone he shares a table with on himself. Miron, who is sitting on his right, leans closer and takes a look of the screen of the phone, rolling his eyes. ”Another male model?” ”He’s not a model, just some random guy,” Yuri defends himself, tapping the screen with his nail. Miron reads the short bio the boy has written next to his profile picture, only stating his age, location and a simple quote in English. Tatiana, a girl who shares Yuri’s pain and frustration five times a week in a ballet class, gestures Yuri to give the phone to her, and he hands the device over.

”A good looking random guy,” Tatiana says with raised eyebrows and whistles. She gives the phone back to it’s owner and tilts her head with a teasing smile on her lips. ”What tag were you browsing this time?” ”That’s not important,” Yuri says quickly and throws a smirk to Tatiana over the table. The girl laughs but doesn’t continue her teasing, giving Yuri a great chance to keep ogling the picture he had stumbled upon. The picture is taken outside, trees in full autumn colors framing a path leading to a park. Under the trees stands a tall boy (or man? His bio says he is 19 but to Yuri he looks older – more mature, somehow) with dark hair and piercing eyes. He’s fashionably dressed and Yuri can’t blame Miron for mistaking him for a model – he looks graceful, a hint of a smile on his lips. Yuri double-taps the picture, making the small heart under the picture turn red. The picture already has a nice amount of likes and comments, and Yuri isn’t surprised by that: the ‘tall-dark-and-mysterious’ aura around the boy is fascinating. And Yuri is painfully aware his type of men is 'tall-dark-and-mysterious’. ”Earth to Yuri, do you copy? The break is almost over,” Miron says, placing a hand on Yuri’s shoulder. The blond nods and throws his phone in his bag, but only after clicking the follow button next to the username otabek-altin. * Yuri frees his hair from the small bun Tatiana had made on him earlier, pulls a hoodie on over his head and yawns. He hands the hair tie to Tatiana when she steps out of the girls’ dressing room, in the middle of putting her pointe shoes in her bag. She slips the tie around her wrist and Yuri throws his duffle bag over his shoulder, holding the studio’s door open for his friend. The sun has already set, and the yellow glow of the street lights between the grey buildings reminds Yuri of a bad horror movie. He listens to Tatiana’s monologue about how their new adagio routine is hard and how she absolutely despises doing adagio in the center, and fishes his phone from the pocket of his jacket. He taps open the Instagram app, wanting to check the new likes and comments on the photo he uploaded before their ballet class: a simple one of himself and Tatiana in their training outfits, a black-and-white filter on top of it, posted with #bestfriends and #lifewithoutballetispointeless tags. Tatiana reaches the end of her rant when Yuri clicks open his notifications and almost drops his phone. The two most recent notifications catch his attention and make his heart skip a beat. He blinks a couple of times and refreshes the page before allowing himself to look at the screen again. He’s certain the app was just glitching but even closing and re-opening it doesn’t change the fact that the two notifications on top of the page say otabek-altin liked your photo and otabek-altin started following you. * Yuri learns quickly that Otabek Altin updates his Instagram quite often, almost daily, but doesn’t have accounts on any other social media sites. His pictures are always good quality, probably taken with a proper camera instead of his phone – accompanied with very generic tags, like the city he lives in and the brands of the clothes he’s wearing – and Yuri makes sure he leaves a like on every single one of them. He would never admit he has turned on the notification service on Otabek, but every time his phone tells him otabek-altin posted a new photo, Yuri’s day gets better. And, even though the photos Yuri posts are mostly dumb selfies and black-and-white ballet snapshots – definitely far from fashionable outfits and shots of pretty scenery – Otabek is one of the first ones to like them. Yuri lies on his back on his bed and scrolls down on his Instagram feed, the selfie he had just put up steadily gaining new likes and comments. He doesn’t really pay attention to them – most of them are from his friends from school, ballet class or dance camps he attends every summer. He reaches the end of new updates and clicks open his notification page. He skims through the notifications and feels how the tempo of his heart gets quicker when his eyes catch the always hard to believe text telling him Otabek had left a like on his most recent photo. The notification is only two minutes old and, with his heart hammering against his ribs, Yuri opens Otabek’s profile, taps the three black dots on top of the page and, after hovering his thumb over the send a message link for a couple of seconds, presses his finger down. yuri-plisetsky 21:16 thanks for always liking my pics!! otabek-altin 21:20 They’re really nice and pretty! Thanks to you for always liking MY pics. yuri-plisetsky 21:22 thank you haha, i think yours are the nicer ones tho!! i mean, i mostly post selfies and stuff otabek-altin 21:28 As I said, nice and pretty :) * ”Yuri, isn’t this Otabek guy who always comments on your photos the same dude you drooled over a couple months ago?” Yuri doesn’t want to smile when Tatiana mentions Otabek’s name, and he forces a neutral look on his face. ”Yeah, he followed me back and we started talking and stuff. He’s really nice,” Yuri says, trying to sound nonchalant. He feels Tatiana’s questioning eyes on himself but he keeps his focus on the book in front of him. After a while Tatiana hums and keeps tapping the screen of her phone, their daily session of having lunch and doing homework together (or, in Tatiana’s case, scrolling through social media) continuing in comfortable silence. Yuri means it when he says Otabek is nice, because he is. Probably one of the nicest guys Yuri has ever met (even though they haven’t met face-to-face, but that’s just a small unimportant detail). Since Yuri sent a simple thank you message to Otabek they have been messaging back and forth every day, talking about their hobbies, the things they loved, what they had for breakfast and what was the last thing they laughed at. Otabek is easy to talk to, he understands Yuri’s sense of humor perfectly, and even though Yuri is certain Otabek doesn’t mean to flirt with him, the seemingly innocent compliments flatter him. Yuri doesn’t exactly consider himself good-looking, and even though Otabek strikes him as a person who tells everyone they look really nice, Yuri can’t get enough of the praising comments he gets from the other boy. Yuri doesn’t receive a lot of compliments, and if he does they’re mostly about his ballet technique – never about his looks. And, if Yuri is being honest, he hasn’t exactly felt the need to hear them, at least not until now. And even if he suddenly started hearing them from others, they wouldn’t mean as much to him as the ones Otabek writes in the comments of his photos or in the direct messages they keep exchanging. Yuri bites his lip and glances out of the window, feeling like even the very gloomy Saint Petersburg is laughing at him and his miserable crush on Otabek, even though Yuri grimaces when he thinks of the word crush. It’s silly, stupid even, and Yuri knows that much – Otabek is older than him, looks good enough to date anyone he wants and, on top of everything, lives in another country. Yuri sighs and leaves the cafeteria with Tatiana and Miron, trailing behind his two friends to the second floor when his phone buzzes in his pocket. otabek-altin 12:12 Morning, Yuri! How are you today? yuri-plisetsky 12:14 Fine otabek-altin 12:15 Hm? What’s wrong? yuri-plisetsky 12:16 I said I’m fine otabek-altin 12:18 Your typing has changed so something must be up. You sure you’re fine? yuri-plisetsky 12:20 you know me too well, it’s unfair i just feel a little down today, nothing serious i also hurt my ankle yesterday so my teacher won’t let me dance today and that sucks otabek-altin 12:23 I see, I’m sorry to hear that. Is there something I could do to make you feel better? yuri-plisetsky 12:25 i dunno, unless you know some magic trick that heals sprains?? Their teacher arrives and Yuri takes his usual seat in the back row, throwing his bag on top of his desk so he can hide his phone behind it. The teacher starts the class, scribbling something on the board and Yuri takes a look at his phone: still no new messages. Otabek is usually quick with his replies and Yuri gnaws the inside of his cheek, wondering did he say something weird or stupid that scared the other boy away. Yuri opens his book and almost jumps when his phone vibrates under it, buzzing loudly against the desk. otabek-altin 12:32 Don’t they say a kiss heals everything? yuri-plisetsky 12:33 you’d kiss my ankle?? otabek-altin 12:36 To be honest I would kiss any part of you. * When Yuri sees the familiar path leading to the park, tall trees on each side of it, he takes his phone out of his pocket and snaps a photo. He tucks a wild strand of hair behind his ear, the warm summer breeze throwing the same locks on his face over and over again, and sends the photo to Tatiana and Miron. The trees are green instead of the bright reds and yellows they wore when the two of them saw them on a picture for the first time, but Yuri is positive his friends will recognize the place. A strong arm is wrapped around his shoulders and Yuri looks up, giving an excited smile to Otabek. ”The very first picture I saw of you was taken here,” he tells the other boy, gesturing towards the path and trees. Otabek hums and crunches his eyebrows, deep in thought. ”That was… last September, right?” Otabek’s low voice and the arm wrapped around Yuri’s shoulders make his skin tingle pleasantly, and Yuri tries to hide his happy grin by nodding and scanning the park around them. It’s a beautiful, sunny day and groups of people sunbathing or having picnics are scattered between the trees. Yuri reads Tatiana’s reply to the photo he sent to her earlier and steals a glance of Otabek from the corner of his eye: he’s running the hand not resting on Yuri’s shoulder through his dark hair, a tiny yet soft smile on his lips. His eyes don’t glitter with excitement and nervousness anymore like they did when he saw Yuri for the first time and wrapped his arms around the smaller boy, hugging him for five minutes in the middle of Almaty international airport. Otabek doesn’t talk much but Yuri can read his emotions well from his eyes, and the blond is already afraid of the day when their four weeks together come to an end and he has to look Otabek in the eyes while saying his goodbyes. But on that moment the look in Otabek’s eyes is nothing but pure affection as he notices Yuri’s stares and raises his eyebrows teasingly to the blond. ”Can we take a picture?” Yuri asks quickly, way too aware of the blush spreading on his cheeks. Otabek nods and Yuri raises his phone, both of them posing to the front camera. Yuri takes multiple shots and lets Otabek choose the best one out of them (he says they all look the same but points at the very last one anyway). Yuri puts a filter on top of the picture of Otabek pressing his lips on Yuri’s cheek, pulled up by a happy laugh, and opens the Instagram app to upload it. He tags Otabek in the photo and after typing #Almaty, #boyfriend and #ldr in the description box taps the share button.