#i might try to do similar things i did in my old ask blog's halloween event

[just-bendy]

Welcome to Bendyween!

This event will go on until the end of October or a little past that. Bendy and his friends will be answering asks in costume!

[girlmeetsliv3]

Violent Delights: One

Violent Delights

(In collaboration with @jooniescupcakes​)

Genre: Horror, Suspense, & Psychological Thriller

Pairings: Gang!Jimin x reader ; BTS x Reader

Sypnosis:“These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, which as they kiss, consume.”

Release Date: Sept 29, 2020 @ 8 p.m. (GMT-4)

Word Count: 9.2k

Author's Note: It's finally here! Almost a year in the works, but Violent Delights The Series is finally kicking off. Thank you for all the love, support, as well as critiques the one-shot received. I hope this re-telling can both capture and surpass the twisted charm of the original. I would like to thank Min (@jooniescupcakes) for helping me outline and plot the story and for contributing. I greatly appreciate it. This story will be darker, gore-y, and a lot more twisted than the original. So strap in & happy early Halloween! Trigger Warning: This story contains subject matter not appropriate for all ages. This story contains mental illness, emotional, physical, and mental abuse; as well as abuse of power, manipulation, and toxic relationships. All of which play a big part in this story. It is never my intention to sensationalize or spread misinformation about mental disorders, please take the "medicine" used in this story with a grain of salt. Links to helplines can be found in the navigation of my blog. Lastly, this is a work of fiction and does not portray the character of Bangtan Sonyeondan.

The door slammed shut harshly as Hanbin rushed to bolt it locked, by his side, he tugged an inconsolable YN through the small house. There was very little time until she arrived. He maneuvered his way through the piles of old dirty clothes, the children had long become accustomed to the stench coming from the kitchen, the dust, and grime that covered their home. It’s why no one came over. Not that anyone was allowed over. In the center of the room framed on the wall shined a family portrait mockingly. Hanbin was short for his age, just eight years old, but it allowed him to navigate through small openings and hide in tight spaces. It was a survival tactic.

“Shh, YN. You need to calm down. She’ll be here soon.”

“i-I wuh-wanted to help, Binnie. She was hurt -”

Hanbin pulled on his sister a little too harshly trying to draw her attention, it caused her lower lip to quiver as she tried to hold the tears back. That wouldn’t do she didn’t like it when they cried. “Helping people only gets you into trouble.” Outside, the slamming of a car door could be heard. Quickly Hanbin located the small broom closet and helped YN inside. The jiggling of the doorknob was barely above a whisper, but it rang as loud as the fire alarm in the children’s heads. YN began to hyperventilate knowing what was coming even if she didn’t truly understand why. 

“It’s okay,” Hanbin rubs her cheek affectionately. “Just stay inside, be quiet, and don’t try to help.” Just like that he closed the door and locked it. He silently hoped YN hadn’t skipped lunch that day. YN cowered under the old headboards, her only company the dusty cleaning products and cobwebs, the second the screaming started she covered her ears and closed her eyes.

“Miss YN?” The nurse’s bright pink scrubs served as a strong contrast to the muted tones of the rest of the building. YN cast a glance around she was likely the youngest person there, but everyone around her shared a similar air of ennui that YN had long grown to associate with doctor’s offices. Slowly she stood up following the nurse as she guided her through what appeared to be an endless labyrinth of doors. After stopping abruptly the nurse turns around and smiles though it’s evidently rehearsed. “Don’t be nervous, Dr. Kang is one of the best doctors here.” How many times hadn’t she heard that before? YN offers the nurse a smile making sure it is wide enough to crinkle the corners of her eyes. That seems to suffice the woman enough for her to finally knock on the door.

Dr. Kang Daniel was certainly young for his profession, but that provided some relief for YN. It would be nice not to spend almost an hour with someone that looked to have been around when Freud was. “Please take a seat.” He gestures over to a chair in front of the desk and YN notices there is little decoration around the room. It’s also missing a clock, but thankfully she sees Kang is wearing one. YN notes the time: 5:36 pm. Forty-three more minutes to go. 

“I apologize that we’re going to have to go through all of this, but its procedure.” He lightly shakes the file in his hand. Most doctors operated digitally now, so that stood out.

“It’s fine.”

“Let’s get to it then. Why are you here YN?”

They went over the usual things and YN was quickly growing a bit bored, her eyes danced around the room as she did find it very strange that it seemed so vacant for a personal office. “Bored?” Her eyes snapped back to his, Kang wearing an unreadable expression. “I apologize for the lack of decor. I recently moved offices, so this will be my last day here.” YN frowned, “I thought I was to be your new patient.” Kang nods, “Yes, but our sessions will be held in my consultation. It’s closer to downtown so you might save yourself the trip.” How does he know I live closer to downtown? Perhaps seeing the further furrowing of her brow Kang speaks once more. “Unless you live far from downtown?” YN shakes her head feeling the tension leave her body just a bit.

Slowly he closes the file and leans forward, resting on his elbows. “I know this isn’t the most comfortable environment. I also know how jarring transfers can be and that they can halt any sort of process…” YN zones out of the conversation having heard it a thousand times since she was eleven years old. The rambling tends to have the same conclusion every single time.

‘I want us to be friends.’

“I want us to be friends or something similar. I know there are some barriers and guidelines in our relationship, but don’t think they aren’t malleable. I’m here if you need me.” 

YN mulls over what might serve as an appropriate response, aware that taking too long might ruin the pseudo-friendly atmosphere and she doesn’t want to have any more problems with psychiatrists. “Thank you, Dr. Kang. I’m sorry I’m just a bit nervous.” The sheepish smile that follows afterward is enough to convince Kang. Perhaps he isn’t a bad man but YN has encountered his type far too often: those striving to make a difference. Always trying to make things better. Always trying to help. 

“No one will help us, YN. No one cares about us.”

“So let’s move onto your family YN -”

“Actually I wanted to ask you about my medication.” Kang seemed surprised at her interruption but encouraged her to continue. “Dr. Lee only gave me enough medication to last the transfer, so I’m almost out.”

“That won’t be a problem. I’ll be taking you off the medication for a short time anyway.” What? Kang’s attention was now on his computer, not bothering to look at YN in the eye. “I need to run some tests and in order to do that your system has to be clean.” 

YN hadn’t been off her medication for a long time. Sure the dosage varied depending on the treatment, but going completely off was unheard of. Especially so soon. “Don’t worry,” Kang smiled. “There shouldn’t be any potential side effects and if there is I’ll give you my private number. In case of emergencies.” What was supposed to be a soothing smile only unnerved YN even more. YN nodded once more though she felt her anxiety begin to swell up in her stomach. Her heart rate speeding up, but YN knew a panic attack wouldn’t do her any favors. It would make her look like an addict and they would lock her up for sure. It’s only a matter of time. Now that the issue had been cleared Kang cleared his throat, “Now what I was saying about your family -” 

YN stood up abruptly thankful the minute hand had finally landed one above the four. “It’s 6:19 our time is up.” She gestures towards his wristwatch and an annoyed look masks his face before it went just as quickly as it came. “It appears so.” His hand covers the watch in a motion that could hardly be described as casual. Kang waves her off, “It was a pleasure meeting you, YN. I’ll schedule the tests for Friday and I’ll see you Wednesday.”

“In other news….updates...gang violence…”

YN wandered through the aisles looking for inspiration or something to satisfy her cravings. In her hand lay open her phone just so she wouldn’t have to keep making eye contact with the older woman behind the cash register. The employee peered at her as if YN was one of the dangerous criminals the news anchors droned on about.  YN keeps looking over the message her social worker sent her: you have to be there at least a month before I could put in a transfer request. When YN bent down to read the label, she felt the woman lean over the counter. YN rolled her eyes and picked up the packaged bulgogi before grabbing a sports drink and a small fruit salad.

Once she saw YN was an actual paying customer, not a shoplifter, the woman’s expression changed. Her smile far too gleeful for this time of night. “Will that be all, dear?” Her voice too high to be sincere. Nonetheless, YN nods and forces a polite smile on her face. Even wishes the woman a safe night for extra measure. Before YN could walk out of the store, the woman responds with her own form of goodnight. “I would be careful walking home tonight. There’s been a lot of crime recently.”

 It is a bit cruel that the second YN exits the store and turns a corner someone begins to follow her. She becomes aware of it instantly, her senses having been trained from a young age to pick up on the small imperceptible changes. Instinct was not to be ignored. The wind became thicker and the streets a little too quiet. YN wouldn’t look up, but if she did, surely there would be storm clouds looming. Don’t acknowledge him. Just keep walking. People like that enjoyed prey. The game. No one wanted to face off against a predator being one. Unless this was a different kind of predator then YN really ought to call the police. For once she was thankful for the pocketknife stored in the inner pocket of her jacket but disappointed that her pepper spray remained stashed in her bag.

Her groceries hung heavy on her arm, but YN was too far from home to attempt to sprint. So she would have to wait it out, YN could take a few punches. Surely whoever it was would become tired after following her for too long. By the time YN had walked ten blocks, she realized that was not the case. The person was still behind her, though there wasn’t much that she could tell much about the person. They were likely taller and considering their persistence they were a threat.

YN could pick up distantly on the booming bass that likely came from one of the many clubs scattered downtown. It meant she was near her house, that she could likely get home. The houses looked familiar she was probably not too far from home. Hope began to swell in her chest until another idea dawned on her. That’s exactly what they want. If the person had followed her this far they wanted to see where she lived. Abruptly YN turned left towards the direction of the main street, she was likely in a back alley of some sort but the bass only got louder so that helped propel her forward.

Towards the center of the alley, YN saw three figures huddled over on the ground. She was too far off to hear what they were saying, but based on their movements it seemed mocking in nature. YN wasn’t able to decipher what was occurring until it was far too late. A man is wriggling on the ground while bleeding profusely from the side of his head while two men stand above him. Blood is spattered on both walls and their clothes are covered in it. There no longer was a presence behind her the real danger now lay in front. In the form of a tall raven-haired man and a slightly shorter blonde - the latter of which YN made eye contact with.

YN bolts down the alleyway in the opposite direction aware that the blonde is hot on her tails. As she rounds a corner she feels him catching up to her right on her before he abruptly slows down. He doesn’t want the chase to end.

56...57...58…

YN counts the streets aware she’s nearing her apartment but isn’t about to lead him straight to her doorstep. In her peripheral, she sees one of the neighboring buildings which contains a doorman stationed there twenty-four hours. YN uses the last bit of her strength to push through the glass doors tumbling at the steps, but the doorman is there to catch her. “Miss, is everything alright?” YN turns around to catch a glimpse, but there’s no one behind her. Though she does note something disappointing: her groceries are gone.

When YN unlocked her apartment door she felt this immediate wave of tranquility hit her. It had taken a while to convince the doorman not to contact the police, she didn't want to be in bigger trouble, but the man had finally agreed after stating he would walk her back home. Once in the lobby, she took the stairs just to be safe. Quickly, she turned around securing all three locks, and headed straight for the bathroom. YN never understood the sentiment behind showers helping unwind, then again she never spent enough time under the water to allow for that. Baths weren't a treat - they were a utility. Like most utilities YN didn't have a lot of available growing up, so she learned to adapt.

Still, it was long enough to let her mind wander to everything that had occurred today. YN wasn't quite sure about how she felt about Dr. Kang, he unnerved her in a way other doctor's hadn't before. Then there was the issue regarding her medication: YN hadn't been unmedicated since she was eleven and that was a time she didn't want to go back to. Then there was the person that may have followed her and the man that definitely did. My head hurts. She rinsed herself and shut the water off, drying herself quickly with her towel. The chase had been real, too real, everything in YN's body had reacted instinctively once she met his eyes. Those dark eyes that had pierced into hers. The blonde man wasn't just chasing YN - he was hunting her down.

But what about the other person? YN hadn’t seen them, but she had felt them trailing after her. However, why would someone do that and especially for so long? The blonde man had only really tracked YN down for two blocks, but even then it felt shorter. The other person simply observed her. Didn’t do anything. Was there even someone there? YN glanced up, catching her reflection in the foggy mirror. The mist had dispersed in some sections, but not others so the only thing she could see were parts of her face. Faltering in her step, she walked forward and pulled the mirror open. Grabbing the white-labeled bottle with her name printed on it.

Habin sits atop the bathroom sink balancing himself. One of his hands gripping tightly to the side to not slip. This has to be done quickly before she gets back from the store. YN holds his legs or attempts to, while Habin finally manages to grab the bottle. “Is it this one?” He sticks his hand out for YN to see. The young girl squints her eyes, “Are they blue and little?” Hanbin looks through the orange tint of the bottle before nodding. “I think so.”

“Do they smell like fruits?”

“I can’t open the bottle YN. I don’t know if they smell like fruit.”

YN nods and Habin notes how hollowed out her face has become. Once round and plump, full of life, now looks as frail as his. “I think those are the ones.” Habin closes the medicine cabinet and cautiously jumps off, the medicine bottle still tight in his hands. “Why does she give them to you?” YN can note the confusion in her brother’s face, she was confused before too. “She says I need them to go to sleep. They help me sleep.” Habin stays quiet before in the blink of an eye he throws the pill bottle against the wall, breaking the seal causing all the pills to spill all over the floor.

“Bin why did you do that?! I need -”

“No! You don’t need anything YN. You aren’t sick, she's just lying to you!” Habin screamed in frustration. He could see the tears starting to well up in YN’s eyes and he felt regret pool in his stomach. “Please YN. You aren’t sick. We aren’t sick. Okay?”

YN took a deep breath, the way her brother had shown her would help stop the tears, the inside of her cheek was bitten harshly until her throat cleared up. “Okay.”

YN looks at the white bottle in her hand considering taking the medicine despite what Kang said. It would just be one more. Just to calm her down. To make sure that what happened tonight wasn't a side effect of going off so quickly. Her hand twisted the bottle cap, but instead of grabbing one and placing it in her mouth, she headed towards the toilet flushing them all away. Though she might not agree with his treatment plans Dr.Kang was a professional and surely knew more than she did. Plus, YN couldn't afford to be transferred again; her social worker might drop her altogether. It’s just until the blood work is completed.

“Unfortunately Miss YN, we won’t be able to conduct any tests until your insurance approves it.”

YN paces around her apartment, phone in hand. “I understand but my doctor ordered it. It’s necessary in order for him to treat me.”

“It appears that the necessary paperwork hasn’t been sent over to the insurance company. At least not enough to justify the exams. You can go through with them, but it will have to be out of pocket.”

YN sighs, running her hand through her hair as the nurse lists off the prices for each exam. A knock disrupts her causing YN to glance at the door questioningly, no one in her building would ever knock on her door. Looking through the peephole, she sees the manager and doesn't know if that makes her relieved or tenser. "I'm sorry can you just give me a minute?" YN speaks to the phone and mutes it, just to be safe. Upon opening the door, a brown bag is shoved in her face.

“Sorry to interrupt dear, some boy left this for you downstairs.”

Just as quickly as he came, the manager leaves. YN quickly shuts the door and locks it, before hanging up the call. The bag looks simple enough though YN hadn’t ordered anything in the past couple of days. Cautiously she opens it and the horror that spreads through her body is instantaneous. In the bag are her groceries from last night, but with minor changes: The red energy drink is now blue, the fruit salad is replaced with regular salad, and instead of bulgogi it is kimchi now. Though it isn’t the food that upsets YN, but rather the pink sticky note placed on top.

To replace everything you lost ;)

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Staying locked inside her apartment for the following days seemed like a smart choice. There was someone out there who knew where she lived. What she looked like. YN was used to being preyed upon, but this was a different game. Not one she was accustomed to. There were enough faded white lines and healed over bones to evidence that she was a survivor. That time and time again YN had faced against monsters and gotten out alive. The thing that terrified her about this monster - was how different he was. She kept waiting for the tall blonde man to show up one night: looming over her whilst she slept, crouching in a dark corner of the room. Lurking behind the shower curtain.

YN wasn’t able to sleep, didn’t bathe, and had thrice rearranged the room so there was no furniture to hide behind. Her paranoia was through the roof and it didn’t help that it had been the first time YN was off her medication for an extended amount of time. Which was bound to be causing more problems than she was aware of, or would like to acknowledge. The cycle continued until on her fourth day, sick of the grime, YN picked up the phone and dialed Dr.Kang’s office. Hoping to resolve the issue and be back on medication as soon as possible.

“Unfortunately, Dr. Kang isn’t in the office today. However, I can schedule a house call”

She hung up, not even bothering to respond to the secretary on the other line. If YN would have allowed herself a moment to feel anything except for fear - sympathy would've been felt for the probably nice young woman she had just hung up on. Maybe I can just sleep until my next appointment. Sleep it all away. So YN crawled into her bed, the covers lie somewhere on the floor. Exhaustion taking over as she drifted off to sleep.

It should've been easier to tell her childhood room apart from all the ones she had before. It had the most personality; if stickers on the wall, old pencil marks, and deteriorating plaster counted. Most of them hadn't even been done by her, but rather Habin in time before her. It created a sense of normalcy in YN's life that didn't exist elsewhere. Of course, her safe haven didn't last long, the hole in the wall right near the bed frame was proof enough. YN couldn't remember the last time she had dreamt, the medication helped with the nightmares, now she stood curled in a ball in the center of the room. The way she would always get once she heard the heavy footsteps approach the hallway.

YN had long learned to tell the different patter of the weathered old sneakers. Heavy stomps that scraped against the wood meant she was going to be screamed at. Rhythmic ones that were heavier on the heel, than the toes meant they might get dinner. While footsteps that dragged meant YN would be getting ignored. It was the ones she didn't hear. When the hallway was so quiet that all YN could hear was the sound of her breathing and the fear rushing through her tiny body - those were the steps she feared. Those were typically followed by the gentle, yet suspenseful pushing of her bedroom door. It didn't have a knob. There was no escape.

YN expected to peer up and see the tall large figure that always tormented her. The thick thighs, rounded hips, a bulbous stomach that spoke of all the meals she'd had - all the ones her children hadn't - and her face. It was much like YN's though much more feminine, older, and eyes devoid of life. It had always stood out to YN when she was a child, though she was certain that if she were to look in a mirror now YN would be the spitting image of her mother. Instead of her birth giver stood a man.

His face was angular, rounded cheeks, and sharp eyes highlighted by thick brows. His lips appeared full as if they were meant for bright large smiles, but it was obvious from the man’s expression he rarely did. There was something strangely familiar about him. An amalgamation of someone she knew and her own imagination, filling in the blank spaces. He looked like her, yet not at all. Tears welled in her eyes, “Bin?” Then he morphed. Now slightly taller, more weight to his frame. A rounded face with hooded eyes, the corner of his lips were tilted upwards in a way that was full of mirth. Dr. Kang faded as quickly as he came.

Now all she saw was a silhouette. Despite being mostly obscured, she could at least tell it was a man. He was lean yet muscular. His body was sharply defined in a way that seemed deliberate. Facial features were obscured, but YN was certain he was glaring at her in a way that caused goosebumps to rise all over her body. Plump pink lips parted moving slowly, tauntingly, but no sound exited them. Only by the smirk formed afterward could she tell their salacious nature. He stepped forward drawing closer to her, but the way he moved was inhumane. It wasn't a walk. But a predator's crawl towards her. Now he was finally in the light, entirely visible but all YN could focus on was the blonde mop of hair atop his head. When he pounced, she screamed.

YN awoke covered in sweat, her hair matted against her forehead and neck. She could still taste the saltiness of her tears and when she finally managed to breathe a sob tore out. Get out! Get out! Get out! If she remained locked inside her apartment for one more second, YN was going to reach her breaking point. Quickly she hopped in the shower before throwing on the first thing she saw and grabbing her wallet. YN didn’t know where she was headed, but her body acted on its own. Locking the apartment door before racing towards the stairs, dashing down all seven floors with little care if she tripped. Perhaps a silent part of her wished she did, it would put her out of her misery.

The lobby of her apartment building, if it could even be called that, was always empty. Never a soul in sight to guard the door, even though YN was sure part of her rent went towards security. Not to mention the intercom system, which allowed people to be buzzed in, hadn't worked for several weeks. It was something she was always acutely aware of but pushed towards the back of her mind. Wouldn't do her any favors to obsess over something she had no control over. Now walking through the desolate lobby out into the night - it was all she could think about. He was all she could think about.

YN took a deep breath and opened the glass doors sneakily peeking towards the sides and being thankful when she noted nothing great. Now where to? She wouldn't go very far nor somewhere unknown. It was reckless to be out so late and would be a death wish to try and enter city life. Gang violence was on the rise and YN didn't fancy herself prepared to face off against someone. So, YN went to the one place that felt familiar no matter what. The convenience store was a fifteen-minute walk, but she took the bus. The original plan was to sit towards the back, where she could see everything, but it wasn't empty. An elderly woman, far too frail-looking to be out this late, sat in the center. Whilst three boys huddled over sat in the back, they must have felt her eyes on them. As one of them - the one in the black beanie - stopped his conversation and turned slightly. Before they could make eye contact YN looked away and sat down.

“Which one do you want?” Habin asked as they stared at the ice cream truck. He had counted the cents twice making sure they had enough. “Hm,” YN eye’s glanced all over the various images glued onto the truck. She already knew what she wanted but had long learned that taking your time was important - not too much though. “Mint choco.” Habin grimaced, disgust evident on his face. “Come on YN. We have to share it. Why can’t we get something I like for a change?” He whined, it was only ice cream but it was the only food Habin was likely to have all day. “Okay, let’s get chocolate then.” YN didn’t really care, she wasn’t planning on eating. Habin had sacrificed enough meals to feed her, an ice cream was the least she could do.

As she steps into the cold building, a small bell chimed to signal her entrance, alerting a young employee near the cashier. 

“Welcome!” The boy smiles, wide and welcoming, handing her a basket,

YN didn’t respond. She walks towards the back, looking for some of her usual snacks, and before long, her basket was filled to the brim with all sorts of colorful foods, and she headed towards the till to pay, grimacing under the weight pulling at her arm. As she pulls out her purse, a soft chime catches her attention, making her glance at the door quickly, before trailing her eyes back. A familiar head of blonde flashes in her mind immediately, and despite herself, she found herself clenching her purse tightly, feeling her palms become clammy with sweat. What were the odds..?

“Is that all?” the cheery voice of the employee breaks her out of her trance as she nods back firmly, unable to push aside the nervous feeling from seeing the person walk in. Quickly weighing the options as she sees him bag all her groceries, she forces the question out before she can stop herself.

“Could you...walk me to the bus station?” Her voice was awkward and tight from keeping quiet most of the day, and she internally winced at the confused expression the other gave her.

“Are you..” he pauses, eyeing her carefully, “is someone trying to hurt you?” 

YN doesn’t know what to say. Could she tell him what she saw? Fortunately, she didn’t have to reply. The boy - Kai, as it said on his tag - seemed to assume her pause was a yes. Excusing himself, he disappears behind the counter, and within a moment, hushed voices coming from there. Something was unnerving about standing there alone with the blonde, chilling her to the bone, knowing she was faced away and he could pounce at any moment. As soon as the terrifying thoughts crept in, Kai stepped back out. He takes her bag and silently leads her out the glass doors, warm, still air hitting her face the minute she left the building. They walk side by side silently, and YN could only count her steps as she got closer and closer to the station.

Her steps quicken when she sees the familiar structure, tall gray pillars, and a few large buses waiting. Kai keeps up with her as well, not bothered by the bag that seemed to drag her down, looking around carefully. 

“Thank you.”

He smiles, what she initially assumed to be his practiced ‘customer service’ smile seemed a little more genuine now. Or maybe he was just very good at it - she wasn’t sure. She takes back the plastic bag, letting herself get used to the additional weight before turning to board the bus. 

“Have a safe trip home!” The boy calls out, making her look back.

YN was expecting to see him with his blinding smile, but something eerier catches her eye. The young employee was standing a few steps away from her, and behind him, dangerously close, was the blonde man from before. Her mouth goes dry as she notices his dark gaze fixated on her hand that held the railing inside, something else in them as he cocked an eyebrow. He almost looked as if he was questioning her, asking what she would do now that he was close, much closer, and positioned to attack the boy. Realizing he must have followed her all the way, she felt her heart rate pick up as she found herself rapidly staring between Kai and the perpetrator, the choices dawning on her. She had to choose to leave Kai behind, or possibly die with him. 

She felt her heart drop at the calm expression on the boy's face, not noticing the danger he was in, she knew he was young, but watching him now, she only just realized how young. He was so young, so innocent, with a whole life ahead of him - but because of some unfortunate circumstance, an unforeseeable future, he would have to throw everything away. 

But if she stayed for him, so would she. She would have to give up everything she had struggled for, while in any circumstance, the blonde would kill Kai, regardless of whether she chose to stay or not. However, she could spare her own life. She couldn’t convince Kai to get on with her without alarming the man, but she could save her own life. After everything she had gone through, trouble was the last thing YN needed. Even if it meant someone else had to suffer alone, she had to stay safe. She found herself holding back hot tears as she quickly ducked into a lonely seat, refusing to look back, still clenching the cheap plastic in one hand and forcing herself not to look back as the tears freely slid down her cheeks. 

‘Helping people only gets you into trouble. You do whatever it takes to survive.’

           “They tell me you’ve missed the appointment I had set up.”

           YN is noticeably tense as she sits in the blue velvet mid-century, her nails digging into the denim fabric of her jeans. “The insurance wasn’t notified,” her tone was clipped. Lower with a slight tremble to it as if it were about to break, but never really did. “I also needed a referral.” Dr. Kang frowned, glancing back down at the file before looking at YN questioningly. “That’s strange. I told my secretary to handle all the paperwork. I even told Joy to hand you the referral.” Seeing the confused expression on his patient’s face, he shrugged. “My apologies, Joy must have forgotten.” The smile he shoots her is sincere, or at least looks so, YN has no reason to doubt him any further on this matter.

Her posture slackens somewhat but given everything that has happened these past few days she finds it difficult to truly relax. YN feels that she is tethering at the edge of a breakdown, but that if she were to fall it would only make her circumstances worsen. There is something that has been bothering her though, how pacified everything has been as of late. The blonde man knew where she lived, he'd likely overheard her name as well, yet nothing had happened. Even Kang, with his cold calculating eyes, had not commented on her odd behavior the last session or how worse she had seemed to get after only being off her medication for a week. Why can’t I figure them out?

           “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to assign you any new medication until I have the results from the bloodwork. However, I do want to know how you’ve been feeling lately.” Kang crossed his legs, leaning forward in his seat. “Have you been experiencing any side effects or withdrawals? Anything I should know about?”

There was a glint in his eyes as he spoke, one that warned YN that he may know more than he lets on. As if the man sitting in front of her was single-handedly responsible for everything that had occurred to her recently. "Normal things…" I am being stalked by a homicidal maniac. “Migraines, low blood pressure…” I keep having vivid flashbacks that only serve to increase my paranoia. “Sometimes I dissociate a bit.” Most importantly, doctor, I had a nightmare where you were about to kill me. “And trouble sleeping.” YN looked towards the ceiling, feigning as if she were in deep thought. “I think that’s it.”

Kang Daniel looked affronted as if she had not given a sufficient enough answer. Hadn't given him the answers he wanted. "I see." His eyes darted towards her hands, which had been tightly intertwined on her lap - immediately she relaxes them. When their eyes meet once more she levels with him. YN knows there is no point in engaging with Kang, that is exactly what he wants. To pry. Dig deep. Learn of all her secrets and who knows what else. He won’t win. I’m safe here. YN had suffered too great a loss yesterday, she was determined to win this game.

           “I had time to go over your file YN. There’s a lot to discuss, but I would prefer to dive right in if you don’t mind.”

           “I-”

           “Very well,” She’d upset him. YN wasn’t even truly aware of what she’d specifically done, but it seemed to matter very little. “It states here you’ve been diagnosed with a personality disorder - at quite a young age too.

           “I was ten.” YN’s voice is muted. Her mind blank.

           “Do you agree with this diagnosis?” YN shrugs, her eyes move down to the file. She knows what he’s going to say next. Or she can at least predict it: it typically doesn’t vary. No matter how many times she goes through the same process the words and intentions are the same. It isn’t sincere sentiments, but rather rehearsed lies spewed to make her feel better - as if she ever could. No, YN is broken. No fixing her up.

           “I don’t. I think you were misdiagnosed.” YN’s eyes widen as they shoot back up to meet Kang’s. “The main reasoning behind this is because of your apparent lack of empathy, but that isn’t true either is it, YN?” Her mouth felt dry, she struggled to swallow the saliva building up. There was a build-up of breath in her lungs which was starting to become painful and she felt her throat tighten. “It’s a survival tactic. An effective one at that - if I may be honest.” So many thoughts were rushing to the forefront of YN’s head. So many memories. Stop. She wanted to scream. Please stop! She felt like she was going to throw up. Kang bent over, his face so close to YN's that she could see how dilated his pupil was: only leaving a sliver of his iris shines through.

Why is he doing this?!

“You feel something YN. It’s okay to feel things. You aren’t with your mother anymore anymore. You aren’t with your brother anymore. You’re safe and I know the next time something happens you’ll do the right thing.”

YN’s eyes were red, brimming with unshed tears as Kang’s words bounced around her head. “Dr. Kang -” She chokes, a sob threatening to escape, but the man doesn’t allow her to finish. “Our time is up. Pick up your referral at Joy’s desk. I will see you on our next appointment.” The smile given is full of sadistic glee.

YN didn’t know how long she had spent wandering around the city. Last she knew she had passed the bus stop and convenience store from last night. If she were smart YN would’ve gone back to her apartment. She didn’t want to though, not trusting herself to be alone. It had been mid-afternoon when she had left Kang’s office. Now it was pitch black with only a few people walking down the streets and cars passing by. Her phone was tucked away in her bag, YN couldn’t muster up enough energy to reach for it to know her location. The tears she shed had long ago dried, though their evidence remained clear to see on her face due to the streak marks and reddened nose.

Several voices were speaking to her, memories, all pulling her in different directions. One by one, YN blocked them out until only three remained. Her brother’s: “You’re not sick.” Dr. Kang’s: “You’ll do the right thing.” Lastly, the faintest one of all - hers: "What do I do?" She had muttered it without realizing it. A cry for help that traveled through the wind, searching for an answer or a sign. She would be granted one.

The scream was so loud, it tore straight through the foggy haze that had settled in her mind and YN found herself frozen in place. Glancing upwards, she noted that a few feet away to the left was an alleyway. That was it, wasn’t it? Yet her feet wouldn’t move. Her brother’s voice echoed so loudly that it barely allowed her to breathe much less move. Until, a stronger, much more powerful one broke through - “It’s okay to feel things...I know you’ll do the right thing.” Her feet were moving before YN had even a second to dwell on her decision. The alleyway was, deceptively long, but YN could see several silhouettes just from the entrance. Quickly she dug her hand into her bag and pulled out her phone, dialing emergency services but hovering over the call button. YN didn't even know where exactly she was - nor did she know what was going on either. It wouldn't do well to just rush in, thankfully about ten feet inlay a giant dumpster which YN crouched behind.  

Another scream echoed off the brick walls, a cacophony of laughter followed it. There’s more than one. YN had hoped it was a robbery or something simple, now she realized just how in over her head she may be. You can still walk away YN. Just walk away. Cautiously YN moved to sneak a glance. There was a singular lamp attached to one of the buildings that illuminated most of the alley. The faint light didn't allow her to make out specific features, but it was enough for her to bear witness to the disturbing scene. Seven men were standing all loosely crowded around a young couple: a man and woman whose bodies were severely bruised and beaten. The man's skull was cracked open with blood profusely leaking from the side of his head. Several teeth were scattered on the ground and his hand was tightened around his abdomen which seemed to have been cut as well. The woman beside him had most of her clothing ripped and large bruises on her side, an indicator of broken ribs. Her eyes moved deliriously as she muttered to herself.

YN’s attention lay entirely on the victims until she witnessed a crowbar fly through the air and land on the man’s leg, with a sickening ‘crack’ that had YN feeling nauseous. The man was too out of it to do anything but let out a small howl of pain. Her previous assumption had been right, there were seven men: all standing there with blood-stained clothes and mocking the man. There was something familiar about them, but YN couldn’t pinpoint what. All of them cheered as the man’s now dead body slumped to the side. Her phone had been long forgotten, YN observed everything now with a morbid fascination. Taking advantage of the perpetrator’s lack of attention the woman stood up slowly and bolted, her heels clicking loudly on the pavement and alerting them their prey had gotten away.

None of them moved - they simply observed her and YN watched in shock. Why aren’t they chasing her? Would they actually… By now the woman was only a few feet away from the entrance, she passed by YN and must've caught sight of YN's hunched over the figure for the woman's head snapped towards her. Causing both women to miss the figure dashing in their direction until it was too late. The woman was harshly tackled to the ground, her head bouncing off the pavement in sickening motion. There is a glint of something in his hand before a dagger plunges into the young girl's body multiple times. In a desperate move, she extends her hand reaching out towards YN begging for help but YN remains frozen. Eyes wide and teary as she cowers as close as she can to the wall, shaking her head she begs the woman not to speak. Begs her not to draw the perps attention. Please don’t!

“Please help me.”

The perpetrators head snaps towards YN and she finally sees him. He's tall, lean figure, plump lips, cat eyes, and ruffled blonde hair. The blood splattered across his face revealed the dark truth behind his angelic features. His dark hooded eyes trail across YN's body, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. The blonde man looks like a predator savoring its next meal. Before he can pounce YN takes off running, unfortunately, he captures her with ease. Caging her body against his own, pillowy lips part and it dawns on YN she has never heard him speak before.

“Caught you.”

Just like that their game has come to an end, surely YN’s life will too. The two of them are so enraptured in each other, they don’t notice the figure slowly standing up and grabbing the abandoned knife on the floor. Not until the blonde man’s body sags slightly and YN notices the woman standing behind them. Don’t. She wants to say, furious that the woman wouldn’t have run away - escaped when she had the chance. For YN couldn’t bear another dead body on her subconscious. The blonde man turned around with pure rage steaming off his body, upset that his prey would dare to fight back. His arms gripped her head and with the slightest flick of his wrist, he broke the girl’s neck. When he turned back around to face his prize, he was shocked to find her expressionless staring at the corpse right in front of her.

YN came to a disturbing conclusion: She wouldn’t have died if she hadn’t helped me. As she once again made eye contact with the monster before her, all YN could see was her reflection in his eyes. Hanbin was right.

The man stepped forward and YN stepped back, crashing into the wall. His hands gripped at her sides, nails digging into her flesh harshly. He was formulating a plan, thinking about how best to kill her - YN could see it. It seems the universe had decided to take pity on her, or further condemn her, for just as his eyes were beginning to light up, the rest of the group made their presence known. “Jimin let’s go. The fun’s over.” Jimin? There was something familiar about that name.

“Funs not over yet, boys.” As if she weighed nothing, Jimin grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. YN struggled against him, aware that if she couldn’t handle one man, there was no way she could survive seven. “I finally found my pet.” What? When Jimin finally put her down, his arms encased her again showing her off to his friends as if she was some shiny new toy, they could look at but not touch. As YN glanced at them she found she recognized some of them, they’re from the bus. At that moment she realized that death had been following YN for a long time and even if she hadn't stepped into the alleyway tonight, their paths would have crossed eventually.  

“Ah, so you’re the girl Jimin’s been obsessed with.” The tall tan one with curly dark hair spoke, his low baritone voice was mocking in nature.

“She’s not that pretty.” muttered another one, with rounded eyes and a tall nose.

“Now, come on kookie. Don’t be mean, she’s a lot prettier than what we’re used to.” The third man’s tone was higher pitched, lips stretched into a heart-shaped smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“What do you think we should do, Namjoon?” spoke the light-haired one dawned in all black. His eyes darting over to the tallest member, his platinum hair shining brightly in the dark alleyway.

When Namjoon spoke it was deliberate and calculated, his eyes boring into YN’s, his words dripping with implication. “We should take this one to go.”

Distantly YN could hear the wailing of sirens rushing towards them before Kookie stepped forward and delivered a right hook to her face, making her lose consciousness.

[caffeinated-chaos-bean]

Mid-2021 Blog Update

Hey guys.

So... It’s been a while. Quite a while... and I want to lay some things out as to why I’ve been gone and the blog has practically been dead in the water for half a year, if not for a whole year. 

I want you to know that what I’m going to say will be in heavy detail. I’m comfortable speaking on it, and what information doesn’t just include me will be using either public details that I know I can share or will be put in a short and sweet manner.

This is your trigger warning: If you need to click off or scroll past due to the mention of extremely bad mental health, toxic relationships and households, the mention of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts, please do so now.

. . .

First off, I’ve lessened the amount of time I’ve been online due to my mental health. I was put on antidepressants as well as told to take anti-anxiety gummies in November and will be weaned off of those starting this October. A lot of my family and relationship drama on top of the world practically shutting down and going into chaos thanks to COVID-19 just took a major toll on me. With so much on my shoulders, stress from living with said things on my shoulders, unsupportive family members, and an emotionally distant partner, I was at one of the lowest points in the life. I’d never had to be on mood-related medication in my life until last November. I’d always been able to handle what was thrown at me, but mid- to late-2020 was what knocked me down that low for the first time in my life. Suicidal thoughts came and went (they weren’t often, only when I couldn’t bottle my emotions up any longer but didn’t have a way to express them either), but even when they did, I knew that it was just in my head. I never once chose to act on them, because to me, that is not a way to solve a problem or escape your inner demons. All it does it put your personal suffering onto those around you -- your friends, family, and those who cared about you even when you don’t see it -- and it doesn’t do anyone any good. When my doctor asked me about suicide, that’s the very explanation I gave her. Yes, they happened, but I’d never act on them; it’s not a way out and it puts your pain onto others and only worsens the situation for the long-term.

Aside from that, though... I move on to other personal reasons for my absence that helped trigger what was mentioned above. Mid-August of 2019, my then fiancé's mother was murdered by two 17yr old boys of whom she and their family knew. Going off the information that was made public, one boy had mixed meth with marijuana prior to the killing. He claimed that my fiancé’s mother mouthed off and made a derogatory comment about his deceased mother, thus sparking the incident. While he claims to have only stabbed her once, the autopsy report shows that her head/face and upper torso were “hacked, slashed, and chopped” repeatedly with “various sharp, bladed objects”. Not only did they murder her, the two individuals also set the grass around her body on fire along with her home. When we found out about this having happened, I had no idea how bad it would have turned my relationship upside-down. My now ex-fiancé didn’t come from a great childhood, there was abuse and CPS, among other things. But he had managed and was a good person. He could make me laugh and tear up at his jokes, sang beautifully, and did everything to make those around him happy. When he lost his mom, it broke him. It shattered his very being, because not only did he know the two who caused it to happen, he also was unable to reconcile and make amends with his mother for what he went through as a child. He was robbed of being able to forgive and be on good terms with her, and it broke him. He stopped communicating with family, he took bereavement after being pulled from work by family the day it was confirmed to be his mother only to to fired 3 months down the line when he tried to go back (fuck Walmart for that btw), and was slowly becoming a hypochondriac. He stopped talking to me, he would cry in his sleep, and grief made him lash out as was expected. But as the days dragged on, his motivation and care towards finding a new job dwindled. He and my mother would fight endlessly and I was caught in the middle of it, as we all were in one household. There were times in which I would keep my phone on my leg and record for my own personal documentation should I need it due to how bad my own mother would belittle me, belittle my ex behind his back, and just scream and go off. When I’d turn to my ex for comfort, he wasn’t much help due to his own deteriorating mental health. He took to discord, specifically the Vampire the Masquerade community, as his escape from reality. He eventually would hardly talk to me at all, show no compassion, and at times I tried to speak with him about getting a new job or suggesting part-time ones that I felt would be easy and as stress-free as possible for him, I would be shooed away without a word; if I tried to further my attempt to have the conversation, he eventually got an attitude and would just say “Bye!” over and over again while shooing with his hand to get me to leave. There were many days where I’d get off work and sit in the bathroom for an hour and cry because of my frustration and how I felt stuck between two people I cared about deeply (ie. my ex and my mother).

My ex has since moved out and no longer lived with us. He and I are no longer together, and he has cut off all communication to me along with his family. He isn’t living in California anymore, really. He met up with discord friends and is in another state. That’s the last I heard from him. That’s the last his family heard. He doesn’t talk to us or attempt to reach out or respond when his family reaches out. I still very much care about him and want him to get better, but if he has to do so by being away from everyone, then so be it.

While I was letting - or shutting out, rather - the emotions I was feeling once he officially moved out, I relapsed with my anxiety tick; with my trichotillomania. I have a good number of smaller, thinned out spots in my hair from unconsciously pulling out strands of hair when my emotions didn’t know how to regulate. I’m still fighting to get this under control, as I do still catch myself doing it and so does my mother. It currently is not as bad as when my ex first moved out and I had to adjust back into sleeping alone and without someone next to me, but I do still pull. I am looking into trying to get my sister to order me a HabbitAware bracelet for me this Christmas in order to help get my tick back under control. I know its something I will live with forever and go in and out of doing, as there is no cure or medication to curb trichotillomania, but its something to help me be more aware of how often I do pull and to train it to no longer be a muscle memory response.

Most recently, I’ve had to stop taking melatonin. I’ve had bouts of insomnia since my ex left, and eventually I took enough melatonin to not only build an immunity to it but also a slight dependence. I was taking more than I should have been, and I noticed the signs of it and have stopped taking melatonin altogether. Due to this, I have switched to hempseed oil gummies. I take 2 before bed and they have helped wonderfully. But, due to how easy it was for me to become dependent on melatonin, I do plan to take brief breaks from the gummies to avoid a similar situation. I also do not plan on seeking an insomnia medication due to the same reasons. I knew what I was doing was wrong and I knew i was becoming addicted, and due to this I do not wish to risk it happening with a prescription sleep medication. I will deal with my bouts of insomnia as they come.

I also am conquering my insecurities towards others knowing I am a fan of Michael Jackson; a moonwalker. In elementary school (5th grade, 2009), I went through a heavy obsessive phase when he passed. I’d never heard of him, and when I listened to his music that firs time I was instantly hooked. I was ridiculed at school after I performed “Thriller” during a talent show; I had classmates going as far as saying that I must want him to kidnap and r*pe me if I enjoyed his music so much. I didn’t understand the gravity of those comments back then the way that I do now that I’m 23, but I still knew to an extent that what they were saying was in now way a good thing. I shut out his music from mid-6th grade all the way until this year. I hadn’t listened to a single song aside from hearing “Thriller” on the radio during October. For my birthday this year, I had a friend take me out of town and get away for a day. The entire time, she surprised me by playing hours of his music when in the car with her. It has since reopened that connection to his music and I’ve been listening to his songs with a fresh take, with the mind of an adult who can comprehend his words and understand finally what he’s saying for each song. As such, I’ve become more comfortable with others knowing I’m a moonwalker. You can have your opininos of the man, you can choose to believe the tabloids and junk media or make your own conclusions after assessing the details and documents of his life, but I will enjoy the same freedom of opinion.

I know this is getting pretty long, but I wanted to fill those who still might be checking up on this blog for any sort of update or spec of life coming from it in on what’s practically killed the blogs for a good chunk of time.

I do plan to slowly start doing stuff again after Halloween. I have a video made that I plan to post for Halloween and I look forward to letting Kikumi and the others be open for asks again. Until then, may the wind guide you all. I hope everyone can have a safe and wonderful rest of August. I will see you in October.

[selectedhq]

oh  ,  wonderful  !  welcome  welcome  ,  let’s  get  this  show  on  the  road  ,  shall  we  ?  not  like  we  have  the  rest  of  our  afterlife  to  dwell  upon  ,  am  i  right  ?

well  ,  i  would  like  to  officially  welcome  you  to  the  good  place  .  i’m  sure  you  are  all  wondering  why  you  are  here  ,  but  we  will  get  more  into  that  later  as  we  experience  the  afterlife  as  a  whole  .  take  a  look  around  ,  these  are  your  neighbours  ,  friends  ,  significant  others  &  your  community  members  .  during  your  time  on  earth  ,  all  of  us  here  at  the  good  place  ,  had  taken  it  upon  ourselves  to  watch  you  carefully  &  take  careful  consideration  in  picking  you  ,  specifically  .  we  have  our  own  point  system  ,  which  you  will  see  on  the  screen  behind  us  ,  where  you  would  gain  simple  points  such  as  holding  a  door  for  someone  or  handing  some  money  to  someone  that  was  less  fortunate  as  you  .  we  did  track  some  of  the  negative  things  that  you  have  done  in  your  life  ,  but  they  ----  usually  balanced  out  the  good  .  the  overall  existence  of  this  place  was  built  with  you  and  for  you  ,  you  were  chosen  for  a  purpose  &  we  hope  that  purpose  will  become  clear  to  you  during  your  stay  here  .  now  ,  we  shall  begin  with  the  briefings  .

LOCATIONS

i’m  sure  that  you  have  noticed  that  this  place  is  quite  large  !  we  have  many  establishments  throughout  this  town  &  they  were  all  made  to  fit  the  likings  of  our  fellow  community  members  .

𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐓  𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄

where  you  will  find  a  lot  of  marine  life  and  water  .  i’m  sure  that  many  of  you  who  have  enjoyed  water  during  your  time  on  earth  have  found  yourselves  situated  in  a  home  directed  that  way  .  you  will  find  canoes  and  row  boats  that  will  allow  you  to  enjoy  some  peace  on  the  lake  ,  as  well  as  a  beautiful  waterfall  just  around  the  bend  .  while  here  ,  we  encourage  you  to  take  a  look  around  the  ponds  ,  we  have  some  amazing  fish  that  would  love  to  have  some  of  the  food  that  is  sold  in  the  downtown  area  .  we  also  encourage  you  to  take  a  nice  hike  up  the  waterfall  ,  with  a  cliff  right  off  to  the  right  .  once  you  hit  the  destination  ,  maybe  have  a  wonderful  picnic  with  a  loved  one  or  try  some  cliff  diving  if  you  were  much  too  frightened  before  on  earth  .

𝐖𝐄𝐒𝐓  𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄  

the  wooden  area  that  many  people  enjoy  when  they  need  some  peace  and  quiet  .  there  are  a  few  households  within  this  neighbourhood  ,  usually  selected  for  people  who  enjoyed  the  seclusion  and  warmth  of  being  connected  to  nature  .  our  local  greenhouses  are  kept  up  there  ,  you  can  find  some  wonderful  plants  that  you  could  take  home  or  take  a  few  selfies  with  the  help  of  kimmy  to  hang  up  in  your  home  .  we  also  have  the  community  garden  out  that  way  ,  where  you  can  grow  your  own  vegetables  or  even  help  gather  some  ingredients  for  the  restaurants  as  some  extra  credit  options  towards  gaining  more  points  (  yes  ,  you  can  still  gain  them  here  !  )  .  we  have  a  few  trails  within  this  area  as  well  ,  where  you  can  feel  one  on  one  with  nature  once  again  ,  where  the  sun  will  beat  on  your  face  ;  you  can  practically  hear  the  bugs  buzzing  around  you  !

𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐇  𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄

where  many  of  you  may  usually  find  yourselves  ,  it  allows  itself  to  be  integrated  with  the  downtown  area  just  behind  you  .  you’ll  be  able  to  see  the  large  households  that  are  within  that  area  ,  where  many  of  our  community  members  are  staying  ,  either  by  their  lonesome  or  with  someone  they  believe  to  be  close  to  them  .  in  the  north  side  ,  you’ll  find  a  lot  of  educational  things  ,  including  our  school  for  the  afterlife  .  the  school  is  still  working  out  some  last  minute  kinks  alongside  our  trusty  kimmy  ,  but  will  be  up  &  running  within  the  next  week  ,  so  make  sure  that  you  take  some  time  to  visit  the  campus  &  take  a  good  look  at  the  classes  that  will  be  offered  .  we  would  love  to  keep  you  educated  on  things  around  the  good  place  during  your  stay  here  .  while  school  can  be  quite  boring  ,  i’m  sure  we  can  rope  you  all  into  attending  with  the  small  bribery  of  flying  !  you  have  all  witnessed  it  briefly  during  our  halloween  event  ,  but  we  will  be  having  mandatory  flying  lessons  for  everyone  who  joins  the  school  in  the  beautiful  courtyard  out  back  .  you  like  gymnastics  ?  well  we  can  find  you  some  balance  beams  .  football  ?  well  what  is  the  afterlife  without  some  tackling  ?  cheerleading  ?  well  you’re  in  for  a  treat  because  i  sure  would  love  to  hear  some  fun  rhymes  !  you  name  it  ,  we  got  it  .

𝐒𝐎𝐔𝐓𝐇  𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄

is  currently  under  construction  ,  so  we  do  ask  that  you  avoid  that  area  at  this  moment  .  the  weather  is  not  corresponding  correctly  to  the  systems  we  have  put  into  place  &  we  definitely  do  not  want  a  mix  up  with  any  of  you  .  so  please  ,  we  ask  that  you  do  not  move  past  the  colourful  rainbow  tape  that  is  surrounding  the  south  side  until  the  construction  of  that  area  is  done  .  we  are  working  very  diligently  to  get  it  up  &  running  as  i  am  sure  many  of  you  are  hoping  to  find  yourself  located  in  that  wing  !

𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍𝐓𝐎𝐖𝐍  

the  place  that  you  will  always  find  yourself  wanting  to  come  !  we  have  a  little  bit  of  this  &  a  little  bit  of  that  for  everyones  liking  .  there  are  local  restaurants  around  town  that  will  serve  you  anything  that  you  could  dream  of  !  many  of  which  could  be  your  favourite  meals  ,  favourite  drinks  ----  oh  &  did  we  mention  the  endless  options  for  desserts  ?  if  you  look  around  ,  we  also  have  endless  froyo  stations  ;  many  of  which  will  have  flavours  that  create  a  very  similar  feeling  to  joy  &  happiness  .  ever  wonderful  what  it  would  taste  like  after  getting  straight  a’s  on  your  exams  ?  what  about  the  feeling  of  warmth  after  being  outside  in  the  cold  all  day  ?  well  i’m  sure  we  can  mix  up  something  for  you  !  we  also  have  entertainment  sectors  such  as  bars  ,  clubs  ,  even  a  movie  theater  to  play  your  favourite  movies  from  when  you  were  on  earth  !  bookstores  ,  florists  ,  clothing  stores  ,  you  name  it  !  it  may  look  a  bit  confusing  on  the  outside  ,  with  you  questioning  our  tastes  but  we  have  never  questioned  you  &  i  cross  my  heart  that  the  moment  you  walk  into  any  of  our  stores  ,  you  will  always  find  something  tailored  to  your  specific  tastes  !

i  am  sure  that  you  all  have  many  questions  ,  we  are  here  to  always  help  you  !  we  shall  go  over  the  wonderful  rules  that  we  have  in  the  good  place  &  what  is  deemed  appropriate  .

RULES

there  will  be  a  zero  tolerance  violence  policy  .  although  we  do  not  have  the  jurisdiction  within  the  good  place  to  arrest  ,  but  you  will  be  losing  points  with  violence  .  

you  are  free  to  ask  kimmy  any  questions  that  you  deem  necessary  ,  but  they  must  be  appropriate  .  kimmy  will  refuse  to  answer  anything  that  is  not  needed  .

as  stated  earlier  ,  we  will  not  allow  anyone  in  the  south  side  of  the  good  place  at  the  moment  .  if  found  there  ,  you  will  be  brought  into  my  (  michael’s  )  office  &  punishments  will  be  discussed  between  the  architects  .  

WHAT  IS  THERE  TO  DO  ?

well  good  question  !  you  are  able  to  sign  up  for  the  local  school  classes  that  kimmy  will  listen  later  in  the  weekend  ,  we  do  hope  that  we  get  some  good  responses  !  we’ve  worked  hard  to  coordinate  the  classes  !  we  also  allow  you  to  work  in  the  local  agencies  ,  but  please  be  aware  that  money  is  not  a  thing  in  the  good  place  !  you  do  receive  points  towards  your  community  involvement  &  that  will  boost  you  up  on  the  scale  in  the  architects  system  .  we  welcome  you  to  join  the  local  clean  up  group  that  dedicates  themselves  to  cleaning  up  any  possible  garbage  that  is  fluttering  on  the  streets  ,  or  maybe  you  are  interested  in  the  party  planning  committee  ,  which  is  usually  run  by  tahani  but  we  would  love  to  have  more  people  join  &  put  in  their  ideas  !

LITTLE  THINGS  TO  NOTE  

be  aware  that  the  good  place  is  tactical  to  your  needs  &  wants  .  if  you  don’t  enjoy  someone  using  a  curse  word  ,  then  your  mind  will  blank  it  out  &  possibly  replace  it  with  a  new  word  .  if  you  are  fluent  in  another  language  ,  we  have  all  implanted  a  translator  in  your  mind  .  although  someone  might  be  speaking  english  to  you  ,  they  could  actually  be  speaking  french  or  spanish  but  you  are  able  to  translate  it  instantly  .  

housing  units  are  there  for  your  liking  ,  if  you  would  like  to  move  in  with  someone  ,  we  will  allow  that  but  please  run  it  by  kimmy  or  myself  (  michael  )  to  let  us  know  that  you  will  be  moving  so  we  can  use  your  old  home  for  something  enjoyable  for  other  community  members  or  reinvent  it  into  a  new  home  for  someone  that  will  be  joining  us  .

lastly  ,  we  do  not  want  to  overwhelm  you  today  ,  so  if  you  ever  have  any  questions  please  let  kimmy  know  !  kimmy  is  programmed  to  know  every  answer  in  the  universe  &  she  will  be  at  your  beck  &  call  .  all  you  have  to  do  is  call  her  &  she  will  appear  to  answer  anything  that  you  need  .  the  architects  are  quite  busy  making  sure  that  this  place  is  designed  properly  ,  which  allows  kimmy  to  answer  questions  for  us  .  anyways  ,  without  further  ado  ,  please  !  explore  all  the  fun  things  that  are  surrounding  you  ,  we  can’t  wait  to  begin  planning  more  things  !

SOME  OOC  DETAILS

this  plotdrop  isn’t  as  dramatic  as  the  future  ones  will  be  ,  but  we  tried  to  answer  most  of  the  questions  that  have  been  floating  around  !

this  plotdrop  is  to  show  you  the  amount  of  things  that  your  character  can  do  around  town  &  the  jobs  that  they  could  do  if  they  want  to  boost  their  points  (  like  characters  that  don’t  believe  that  they  belong  here  -  they  might  want  to  boost  their  rating  by  helping  around  the  community  )

as  said  !  if  any  characters  or  muns  have  questions  --  ask  kimmy  !  make  sure  that  you  follow  the  blog  for  kimmy  ,  where  you  can  send  messages  to  ask  her  about  things  around  the  good  place  or  questions  about  anything  you  need  to  be  answered  !  she  will  definitely  answer  to  the  best  of  her  ability  ,  it  will  allow  the  architects  to  start  fixing  up  that  nasty  south  side  . 

if  asking  kimmy  a  question  ,  make  sure  that  you  start  the  question  with  ‘hey  kimmy  !’  so  that  she  knows  to  appear  to  answer  the  question  you  type  in  the  askbox.

you  are  welcome  to  continue  your  event  threads  ,  we  just  ask  that  you  don’t  make  any  new  starters  at  the  moment  for  it  .

we  will  also  be  introducing  meme  days  this  weekend  ,  so  definitely  keep  an  eye  out  for  that  one  !

if  you  have  any  questions  that  kimmy  can’t  answer  (  something  ooc  that  could  be  bothering  you  )  then  don’t  hesitate  to  message  the  main  admins  ,  we  will  make  sure  to  help  you  out  !

[writing-radionoises]

gifting!

ship: kamukoma

genre: fluff

prompt: komaeda making kamukura a gift and seeing how kamukura reacts, suggested by anon

notes: shout out to the anon on my main blog this is a genius idea

tw for self harm implied

--

Izuru liked the little things.

Watches, bracelets, hair ties, hair clips, and other such things.

He liked things he could mess with.

He liked the color red, but green was cute too.

That was about all Komaeda had to work with when it came to making a gift for him. Which was really just wonderful, truly. 

That was sarcasm.

But surely, this abandoned ol craft store would have something Komaeda could take and make something with.

Something Izuru would like.

The lights had gone out a long time ago, the cash register the only thing destroyed. Shelves were falling apart from wear, the scissors and other such sharp objects removed from the abandoned store.

Komaeda had come across this building not too long ago, and had the idea of making a gift for his lover.

Izuru had given him plenty of things, searching for something that would make Nagito happy, something to make him no longer want to hurt himself.

Each gift was adorable, handmade or restored. He always had a specific reason as to why he thought Nagito would like them. It was cute, made Komaeda more than happy.

The other day, though, Kamukura mentioned that he had never received a gift before. He said that he shared a birthday with Hajime, since there was no defining date of when he as an alter came into existence, so Hajime just decided they would share a birthday. He had my celebrated it before, he was never out during his birthday, apparently. And even when the body was just Izuru's, no one truly bothered to celebrate his birthday or anything of the sorts.

Kamukura was barely human to most people, after all.

But still, such an explanation saddened Komaeda. He may be trash, but Nagito still had his birthday remembered and celebrated each year. His maids used to throw a little party for him after his parents passing.

It reminded Komaeda that Izuru has truly barely experienced anything.

And so, here he was, a package of blank hair clips in hand, and searching through the paints and gems and things, trying to put together some gift that Izuru might like.

God knows if Izuru would even like this.

Still, Komaeda was going to try.

With glue, Halloween foam cut outs, paint, and hair clips, Komaeda eventually made something similar to what he imagined.

He placed the couple of red hair clips into a box, in which he neatly wrapped up afterwards, and messily tied a ribbon around.

It was messy, imperfect in… more ways than one, but Komaeda was certain Izuru would like his silly gift. 

Komaeda pocketed the gift box in his jean pockets, readjusting the collar around his neck and exiting the store, heading back down to the apartment he and Izuru occupied, trying to peel off the dried glue and paint from his fingertips.

He pushed open the door to the apartment building, and pressed the up button on the elevator.

Izuru had gotten it worked just for Komaeda, after he passed out from walking up the flight of stairs. Unfortunately, the floor they mainly occupied was the top floor, because Izuru wanted quick access to the roof to start a garden. Not that Komaeda minded, but his lungs definitely did.

The elevator opened, and Nagito stepped inside and pressed the button for the top level. The elevator closed and moved slowly as Nagito removed his medical mask, coughing into his elbow and taking a deep breath. The pollution had severely affected his lungs, made it hard to breathe. Even with the Towa air purification system, the pollution was bad. Poor Nagito was just too sick to really battle against it.

The elevator beeped, and reopened as Nagito exited and walked towards their apartment. He knocked on the door at first, and then opened it up.

As to be expected, Izuru was tending to a daisy in a pot at the kitchen table, his ruby eyes glanced up and met with Nagito's green ones, and instantly darted away.

Izuru was not a fan of eye contact.

"Where'd you go?" He asked, holding his head up in his hand. Kamukura never greeted anyone, he thought it was a waste of time, boring.

Or maybe he just didn't really understand it.

"Oh, no where special," Komaeda croaked, sitting across from Izuru.

"Don't lie. Let me see your wrists," replied the dark male, his eyes moving towards Komaeda's chest.

Nagito rose a brow, but held out the bandaged right wrist as Izuru carefully took a hold of it. 

"Why do you want to see?"

Izuru's delicate hands unwrapped the bloodied bandages, the ultimate nurse flashing behind his eyes as he fished another roll of bandages from his pocket.

"Wanted to make sure it isn't infected. You are a special case with wounds like these."

Izuru is referring to both Nagito's luck and his sickness. Both make wounds hard to heal, but easy to scar.

Izuru's fingers ran across the scabs of the old self harm scars, then wrapping the new bandages around them, and repeating the same with the other.

"Be careful with your hands," Kamukura said half mindedly, the ultimate nurse talent now put away.

"I have something for you," Komaeda started with a smile.

Izuru rose a brow this time, tilting his head to the side as his mass of braided hair fell with his head, "Oh?"

"You said you'd never been given a gift before, so I thought it might be cute if I made you something," Nagito answered, taking out the wrapped gift box from his pocket and sliding it over to Izuru, "It's definitely not the best, but I tried really hard."

His eyes shined brightly with what could be described as excited as he carefully untied the ribbon and with the precision of a surgeon, unwrapped the box.

A million thoughts raced through Nagito's mind. Sure, Izuru was bad at social norms and was sometimes more blunt than he meant, but he wouldn't outright insult Nagito, right? Izuru isn't that mean, right?

The tape on the box was removed and the lid of the box opened as Izuru started to take out the hair clips. He pulled out the two matching dark red ones with little black cat charms, examining the barrettes carefully before taking out the others. Six in total, each in pairs. There were the black cat clips, bat clips, and ghost clips. Izuru's face lit up with a familiar expression to Nagito. It was an expression of Izuru's that happened when animals were mentioned, or when he saw a cute cat and just had to shake his hands.

Joy is likely the word for it.

Izuru placed the clips into his hair, brushing the bang pieces framing his face into the clips and pinning them into his hair with a smile.

He took Nagito's bandaged hands into his, having stood up in the process of this and happily bouncing on his toes.

"Thank you, I really appreciate it," he said, and Komaeda smiled in return, "Should I make you something in return? Is that something you're supposed to do? I can-"

"Please don't," Komaeda interrupted with a laugh, "Seeing you happy is enough of a gift."

Izuru paused, his freckled face now turning a peachy color in embarrassment. Izuru's ruby red eyes darted around in search of a subject, unable to find anything.

Komaeda laughed once again, leaning up and pressing a kiss to Izuru's lips.

Komaeda doesn't need anything more than Izuru's smile.

[japanessie]

Hi Shelly! Hope you're doing well! Thank you so much for this blog, it is so very appreciated because as I discovered MFS through OOR, I was nearly discouraged from the band by all thr comments and the lies. Thank god I decided to learn more and came across your blog. Now I wanted to ask you about yout thoughts about yesterday's Coldrain show in Paris, specifically about what Masato said when he was asked about a collaboration with My First Story. And he was like noooo, if it's One Ok Rock yes.

Hello 😊

Thank you for writing to me and thank you so much for reading. Always happy to hear from a fellow fan 🤗

【If something has never been said or discussed with the other party, isn’t it wise to just answer “No"?】

Honestly, I don’t see anything weird or sinister with Masato’s answer. He was being professional. At the very least, a collab already happened between OOR and Coldrain. They probably talked about more future possibility during their hanging out time together. Masato could only answer on behalf of Coldrain that they’re not doing anything with MFS and he also was not in the position to answer on behalf of MFS either. Hence, “No" is the right answer here, isn’t it?

−−−−−−−−−−−−−−

Now let’s see things from Masato’s point of view and not our angle as ordinary fans. Artists do collabs mainly for TWO reasons. One is the fun factor and the other is for what it can bring to the table (either creatively or even business benefit).

1. The “fun factor" ~ Coldrain and OOR are peers and real life buddies

The two bands started not too far apart and were in the same scene before OOR became exponentially bigger. They are “brothers". The “When I get married you’re my best man, bro,“ and “Bro, you’re in town? Let’s go have a drink!” kind of friendship. They meet up when they can and hang out. Did you see Masato celebrating Taka’s birthday in Hong Kong 😁?

For two groups of people to work together voluntarily, isn’t it imperative that they should also be able to gel together well? 

Though they are also friends with MFS, they don’t really have that kind of friendship with each other as bandmen. Hiro in particular, besides being Taka’s lil bro, was more like a mere fanboy of Coldrain in the early days. Certainly not a peer because Hiro was just a rookie bandboy at the time.

OOR’s Skyfall certainly falls into the “fun" category. They did it as friends. The main songwriter was Mah from SiM. They put it together with John Feldman whom OOR was working with at the time. Roping in Ken (Crossfaith) and Masato, it was obvious they did it for the sheer enjoyment as J-Rock peers and real life buddies 😊.

Between OOR and MFS, it’s a no brainer that Coldrain would pick OOR. They already have the working chemistry with OOR. They’re closer and they know each other better which are important factors if you want to work together.

2. Would it bring something to the table musically?

There’s a reason why artists tend to collab with those as far outside their genres or styles as they can. You want to create something new. You want to bounce ideas from each other which you probably wouldn’t think of within your own group. You want that freshness but most of all, the challenge. So you can learn or at least appreciate each other.

Coldrain fans might remember the time when Alexandros invited Masato to feature in one of their songs?

Now THIS is a good creative collab 😍! Both sides stepped out of their comfort zones and ended up producing something you wouldn’t normally get from each of them.

Honestly, I can’t envision a Coldrain/MFS fusion to even give us anything new musically 🤔. The most it can achieve is them looking cute together 😂.

3. It’s pretty pointless from a business angle

You do collab to expose yourself to the other party’s fanbase. Coldrain and MFS pretty much share the same crowds. In other words, the OOR crowds 😑. Their fanbase won’t expand that way. MFS knew this and had already stepped away from touring with similar artists since 2016. The closest MFS got to “revisiting" those crowds was when they invited The BONEZ. I think that’s more because The BONEZ bassist T$UYO$HI, formerly of Pay Money To My Pain, also works professionally alongside MFS’ Sho and Nob as sessionist musicians. 

Just from this factor alone, the Coldrain x MFS collab is already unlikely. What’s the point of Coldrain doing that with MFS when they already got the same exposure and even more impact with OOR?

4. Coldrain & MFS’ paths don’t really cross

Where and how 🤔? 

Coldrain has already been in and out of Japan for years doing overseas tours and performing alongside non-Japanese artists, even before OOR did. MFS, on the other hand, insists on not touring overseas till after doing Tokyo Dome in 2021. At most they do one-off shows like Taiwan and China. 

How about Japan? Well, MFS also is not focusing on bands from the OOR crowds like Coldrain to tour with nowadays. Apart from the occasional music festivals, Coldrain & MFS actually walk on two different roads. 

5. A collab with MFS at this point will make Coldrain look like an “opportunist"

Masato and Taka are “bros". Yes, they had worked together. Yes, Coldrain had been invited to be on OOR Tour too. Now imagine if they suddenly announce working with MFS. It will look like they’re trying to cash in on the Moriuchi brothers’ popularity. Yikes! 🙊

Back in 2013 or 2014, it might not look bad at all but this is 2019 and MFS already surpassed Coldrain in terms of sales and marketability. Coldrain tagging along with MFS after working closely with OOR will only imprint an image of an opportunist. 

“Oh, so you are doing both brothers, huh?“

6. Japanese artists sometimes refer to “touring together” as collab

This is something I’ve been observing quite some time. It seems like the word “collab" isn’t limited to working on a song together to them. Forget doing a song, there is not even any indication nor inclination of Coldrain getting invited to be on MFS Tour and neither is MFS getting invited to be on Coldrain Tour. No. They are each focused on their own marketing strategy to strengthen their fanbase.

−−−−−−−−−−−−−−

There is no bad blood, don’t worry 

I know some people like to talk garbage about “so-and-so-hating-so-and-so" and whatnot. In case someone tries to do so, please feast your eyes on these photos.

An old photo of Hiro with his natural black hair and Coldrain bassist RxYxO 😊.

Hiro fanboying at the back …. LOL. Told ya he’s a Coldrain fan 😉

If you can find any video of Coldrain’s performance at Japan Jam Beach 2015, you will see that Hiro actually stayed throughout Coldrain’s set 😊. How cute!

Also, I’m positive that Coldrain got invited to do VAMPS Halloween Party 2017 after HYDE opened the door to MFS before that in 2015. Indirectly, MFS does make a good impact on the highly respected senior JRocker which have benefitted bands like Coldrain too 😍. Rottengraffity was invited in 2017 too. Nowadays, HYDE has also worked with Pablo (Pay Money To My Pain) and is regularly seen catching up with OOR here and there 😊

So, there. It’s all good! See? 😉

Oh my God *gasp* 🙊, I ended up answering this long …. as usual LOL 😂

[aceandaroacts]

On Being a Happy Family of One

[This month, I'm hosting the Carnival of Aces, a blogging festival where participants respond to a topic. The topic I've chosen for this month is "Conscious and Unconscious Differences". You can see the other submissions and join in here!]

Considering the experiences you’ve had that are tied to your asexuality, how have they made you stronger?

Hi! I'm aceandaroacts. If you met me in real life, I'd introduce myself as a coder of custom software and grandma-at-heart. But this is the internet!

The most important thing to know about me is not the things I've built, places I've gone, or the experiences I've overcome. It's my attitude: "I can do this!"

When I first started thinking about topics to write about for this month's Carnival of Aces, I was torn between several ideas. I love fashion. I understand none of it, and never know what I'm doing, but I have fun with it and am trying to figure out how to be more... visible? as one of the few agender people at my company. I also have a cool history with being forced to dress like a Gothic nun half my life and building cosplays and cool Halloween costumes in the present half. But that felt a little too intersectional, and might not be as useful from an academic lens.

I thought about cryptography, clandestine communication, and the obsession with language and selective secrecy I had as a kid, and how that connects to a lot of ace symbols - the black ring on the middle finger, ace cards, cake, dragons... and how I wound up spending two months and hundreds of hours consuming all the ace content I could find, because words and language and symbols are so important!

And I thought about my life; how it compares to the default narrative, and how I'm going about building my own.

This month's theme is conscious and unconscious differences. Unconscious, as in automatic, or as in: before I knew I was asexual. Conscious, as in: intentional. It's broad enough to wrap around all the above, but specific enough in the "how does this make you stronger" bit that I think we'll still see some cool patterns and strengths arise that help to establish our own narrative tropes.

I bought "unsexy" conservative outfits before I know I was asexual. I avoided people that showed too much interest in me automatically. I unconsciously avoided conversations about dating, sex, attraction, and masturbation with friends by walking away or changing the topic. My favorite colors have always been purple, silver, black, and white. Strategy games were my favorite. I'd obsess over characters that were mysterious, building all kinds of different backstories and futures for them in my head. I never had sleepovers, and didn't understand why people would want them. I was the "lone wolf" in my friend groups - a drifter that got along pretty well with all kinds of people, but ultimately did whatever they wanted with or without company. Around 60% of my friends were adults; I had great relationships with the teachers and staff members at my school, and I knew all the local librarians by name. The gender split of my friend group was always pretty close to 50-50, and populated with extremely different perspectives - punk anarchists, exchange students, female football players, native american sci-fi enthusiasts, anorexic wrestlers, etc. I loved words, loved codes and ciphers, loved fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and music with lyrics. I avoided drama like the plague. I had a very unstable home life, and moved locations almost every year. Home only extended as far as to the skin on my body. I never dreamed about weddings or fancy houses or kids (or even pets!). P.E. (Physical Education) was the worst - I felt uncomfortable in the dressing rooms, so I would arrive early before people started undressing and would change in the restrooms so I would have privacy and avoid seeing naked people as much as possible. I never obsessed over my body - I could go for months at a time without looking in a mirror. My reputation was based on my academics and random hobbies, not my looks or relationships. People sought me out as a mentor and constantly told me I was "mature" and "an old soul". When fights broke out, people looked to me as a fair and impartial judge of the situation, and respected whatever verdict I reached. It felt a lot like being a Buddha!

Realizing I was asexual didn't change much of that, but it did cause me to face choices head-on: would I try to find a partner, or not? Would I try to live with other roommates, or not? Would I try to be attractive, or not? Would I go to bars to make friends, or not? Would I worry about having a weak social network, or not? Would I want to live in a retirement community, or not? Would I want kids around, or not? What would my milestones in life be? How would I fulfill my human need to be social? Who would I trust to take care of me in an emergency?

I'm estranged from my birth family. I'm asexual, aromantic, agender, touch-averse, romance-repulsed, sex-repulsed, and introverted as can be. I tried dating and was so miserable that I wound up finding asexuality because of it in the first place. I don't trust myself to be a parent since my own parents screwed up so badly that it left me with three mental illnesses and a decade's worth of unwinding bad life lessons. So I'm in a fun position!

The "normal" life journey story goes like this: You grow up with two loving biological parents, get your education, graduate, get further training or education via school or a first job, find your partner in life, get into a steady career, get married and live together, have kids, raise those kids, watch them get their education and jobs and move away, then retire and die at an old age. My life only has the education and job bits (retirement? in this economy? die old? on this polluted planet?). I'm not going to look for a lifelong partner. I'm not having kids or adopting. There's a whole lot of white space where everyone else has milestones, and I've consciously accepted that as okay. I'm a family of one, and it's great!

The first milestones I set for myself were to find good roommates, help out fellow child abuse survivors, and own a home. I've achieved them! My next milestone is to do something big and artsy that makes a decent amount of people happy. I have no idea what it will be, yet - right now I've been doing lots of little things: teaching workshops, building costumes, painting, home renovation projects. I'm gonna try being in a music band this year. The milestone after that will be to have a big impact via a community-service type initiative. There's a woman in my city that created an LGBTQ homeless shelter that's an actual home-like environment (seasonal housing with free counseling, job training, stocked pantry, etc. aimed at guiding people to independence and self-sufficiency) which I thought was really cool, and I'd like to do something that's on a similar scale. After that, who knows? Maybe publish a book instead of writing 12 of them and letting them collect dust? Maybe run a small rainbow-themed cafe that makes fancy desserts? So many possibilities!

It's exactly these differences that bleed into my strengths. I'm super independent/self-motivated/self-directed, because I've had to be to survive. I excel at navigating uncertainty, ambiguity, assessing risks, and forecasting outcomes and trends, because my life has a lot of uncertainty and risk compared to the average population. I'm quick to pick up on communication styles and tailor my messages accordingly, because I've had to be mindful about it when navigating my parents and people that developed crushes on me and/or became stalkers. My superpower at work is my ability to dodge all of the politics at play and get everyone on board with factually beneficial solutions (so I still come across as an objective party vs someone playing favorites or only looking out for themselves). People have faith that I'm an expert in all things IT, even when I mess up, because I ask good questions and make fewer assumptions. (I assumed I was cis for 22 years and surprise! I was wrong. Anyone can be wrong. Especially if they are never forced to think about the thing!) I'm great at organizing live events - I plan multiple award shows and get-togethers. I also run an ace & aro meetup in my city! (The experience of being isolated will make an organizer out of you real quick!) People seek me out as a mentor and coach at work because I'm already satisfied with my life and who I am, and I genuinely want to help others without expecting anything in return. I intentionally stay in touch with and work to expand my friend group, which means I have a great professional network of actual friends that I find interesting and fun to be around, and not just LinkedIn faces. If I weren't ace, I wouldn't be doing that. And if I still didn't know I was ace, I wouldn't be doing it half as much as I do now - when you really focus on it, it's so worth it!

So, yeah. Asexuality is a part of me, and it's great. How does your identit(y/ies) make you great?

[askspookyfox]

🎃 Here is where I’ll be keeping list of the most common questions that this blog gets. To avoid having to constantly answer same ol’ questions again and again and again, I recommend reading through this list to see if your curiosity has already been answered!  

 Spook~*~*~

🎃  Are you here year-round or only for the month of October?

🎃  Do you have a human form?

[Other characters will have their own set of questions as soon as they are revealed on the blog~]

Mod Mutt~*~*~

🎃 Who is “Mod Mutt”?

🐾 You’re talking to him. ;3 Mod is short for Moderator and Mutt is my online alias name; in other words, I am the creator and artist of AskSpookyFox.

🎃 Do you have other pages where I can see your work year-round?

🐾 Sure do, but I’ll warn ya… I’m really REALLY bad about uploading artwork and updating social media consistently! I’m trying to be better about that but… yeah. I don’t take commissions and uh… I’m really fuckin’ lazy.

                                             Bluesky

                                             Personal Twitter

🎃 You have mentioned “Mod Night”; who are they?

🐾 MY SECRET RED-HOT PASSIONATE LOVER~!!!!

Okay, okay, kidding, for real though, you’ll know Mod Night as the creator of Ask-October-Fox’s blog. Night and I are hella close best friends in real life and we collaborate on ideas a LOT, especially when it’s about two mischievous Halloween foxes. >:3

🎃 Hey! I haven’t seen my question yet, what’s the big deal??

🐾 Listen up, AskSpookyFox is a side hobby for me for the month of October. While I am dedicating a lot of my free time to this project, I am not making money from doing this and I work two jobs just to pay the bills (thanks student loans). However, if it has been a while, there are 4 possibilities as to why I haven’t answered it:

1. I’m a really fuckin slow artist and didn’t draw it yet. Or, alternatively, I’m saving the question for a big answer reveal since it might relate to other similar asked questions.

2. Probably already answered it! Check the FAQ above for the characters to double-check. :3

3. Tumblr might’ve eaten it. Or Sin stole it. Either way, it’s possible that I never gotten it.

4. It was pointless humor and I didn’t want to waste my time responding it; especially when there’s no substance behind the question and they were being random for the stake of being random. Remember kiddies, random =/= funny!

🎃 I’m confused! Spook shows up a lot on Ask-October-Fox’s blog, does that mean Mod Night is actually the true owner of Spook?

🐾 I can see why this is such a common confusion, but nope! Everything that was originally Spook; his design, his ideas, his abilities came from me. Spook was originally a Halloween adoptable design that I’ve bought from NovelTeeth in 2012.

                            We all have that cringy baby photo.

Because I paid for the character, I was allowed to modify him however I see fit, thus the biggest alteration: changing hand print into a paw print and for some reasons, switched it to his left eye. I might just have a thing for left eyes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Regardless, I did a lot of tweaking here and there, but ultimately, I didn’t stray too far from his original design.

However, I do want to give credit where it’s due; Mod Night have helped me develop Spook as a character who you know and love now. They had some fuckin’ amazing ideas that we have incorporated into his story. Plus, since they’ve been around since his creation and understands his personality and quirks the best, it’s really no wonder why I’ve given Night permission to use him in October’s ask blog. I will always trust them to do an amazing job portraying Spook like who he is supposed to be: a sarcastic, playful, narcissist bastard.

🎃 Does Spook have an official reference sheet? Yes he does! But uh… It’s really terribly old. Like… it’s... it’s honestly embarrassing at this point, but fortunately for you, his markings and colors hasn’t changed. Just click the following link! Spook’s 2013 Reference One day I’ll make a new reference for him but that day is not this year. Hope this still helps either way!

🎃 I noticed in one of the posts, Spook was playing Pokemon GO. Are you open to new friends?

🐾 I technically still have my account because my wife likes to play it along with hers, but I myself don’t really play Pokemon GO anymore. However, might I interest you in Jurassic World Alive? (pls be my friend, I don’t know anyone who plays 😭)

~*~*~*~

I’ll add to this as more questions pops up! Thank you all for reading and for asking questions and wanting to engage with my characters. Y’all are freakin’ awesome. 💙

[deitiesofduat]

What are all the Deities AUs so far? And what are some of your personal headcannons?

Ah, well I’ve never made an official count or list of DEITIES AUs / crossovers before now, I kinda just… make them up as I think of them, or as others’ bring them up??? But of the ones I know that I’ve shared on the blog or elsewhere, or that I’ve mused about myself, I can present the following under the cut, with the ones in bold that have links to their own tags.

Keep in mind that most of these are AUs that I muse about on my own or with friends, and in my personal free time. There are a few that I may hopefully explore for fun (after I resume my main activity with, y'know, the main story >>) and others are small niche AUs that may not be explored in depth, but they’re all fun to think about regardless. Just fair warning to not expect me to spill ALLLLLLLLL the headcanons I have in a row if you ask, I don’t have the stamina for it right now, but I may consider doing an AU ask theme later whenever I do…

[1] DEITIES x Pokemon AU – This AU combines my two loves and can easily be divided into several sub-AUs all its own – Deities as pokemon trainers? Deities as pokemon / pokemon gijinka? Deities as gym leaders? DEITIES but everyone has sacred pokemon forms?? PMD!DEITIES?? THIS ONE IS TRUE AU GOLD THAT NEVER RUNS OUT–

[2] DEITIES x Harry Potter – More specifically, I think of the “Deities at hogwarts” scenario in this AU, so DEITIES cast as students in their respective houses, their best subjects, their sacred animal as their patronus – one time someone asked about their ideal quidditch positions, and well, I tried.

[3] DEITIES x Avatar the Last Airbender – Specifically like, the DEITIES as element-benders or non-benders within the ATLA world. It’s a tough one because certain DEITIES would do well in multiple elements (Set as a lightning(fire)-bender or sand(earth)-bender??), but I try to stick to the ATLA lore and keep to one. No idea who the avatar would be tho…

[4] DEITIES Business AU – Admittedly, this is one that I shared with a friend, I would need to check with her to see if she minded me sharing certain details. But think of the whole pantheon as part of a big company, with the Royal Family as the top “chief officer” positions (CEO, CCO, CFO, COO, etc.), and other staff/interns in said company (plus chairman!Ra).

[5] DEITIES Mafia AU – Or crime syndicate, whichever is the better term?? Just think The Contendings but as a modern struggle between 2 opposing crime families/gangs. And knives and firearms, ofc.

[6] DEITIES Merfolk AU – Self-explanatory. Also technically not far removed from canon; some deities could transform their hybrid features to resemble merfolk if they really wanted to. I just, need to actually draw it out–

[7] Genderbent!DEITIES – Also self-explanatory, and also technically not far removed from canon, since deities can change their gender expression however it suits them. I don’t explore this too deeply though, I just like to imagine what their designs might look like, and how the dynamics in The Contendings might shift with Set and Horus as dueling goddesses, etc.

[8] Modern!DEITIES – Really just any scenario where the DEITIES are living in modern time. I like the version where it’s basically canon DEITIES in the farrrrrrrrrrrrrr future where everyone is at least 5000+ years old, fully adapted to contemporary society and living it up in the 21st century.

[9] DEITIES School/Gakeun/College AUs – Self explanatory, and a riff from Modern!DEITIES. Either the DEITIES cast as students or as teachers/profs/staff, or some combination.

[10] DEITIES Musicians / Band AU – Related to Modern!DEITIES but with all the deities as musicians, specializing in different instruments or vocals! Or alternatively, deities in an INDIE ROCK BAND or something!! Haven’t revisited it in a while though, or settled on which instruments suit them best.

[11] DEITIES Cirque AU – Think “Cirque du Soleil” or any modern circus with the DEITIES as skilled performers with different acts. But I also shared this AU with a friend who I’ll have to double check with.

[12] DEITIES Olympics AU – EVERY OTHER YEAR I wanna draw the deities participating in Summer Games or Winter Games as Olympic athletes in their respective sports and events, and I never have the time. BUT IF I DID!!! YEAH….

[13] DEITIES Vacations – Modern!DEITIES going on destination vacations “because they can” and to bring the whole pantheon together once in a while. Disney/Themeparks was the one someone recently brought up that I had in the back of my mind, but other attractions at applicable as well. I also had Las Vegas, NYC, and Hawaii in mind as well, with plenty of room for other destinations and countries-outside-the-US as well.

[14] DEITIES… futurepunk?? cyberpunk?? – IDK THE CORRECT TERM BUT basically the DEITIES storyline for The Contendings, but instead of Ancient Egypt, it’s “Ancient Egypt” if it had survived several millennia in the future – with modern advancement and technology in place of magic. I have more ideas regard this AU, but in the event someone else is planning to do a similar epic, I’ll keep my details underwraps for a bit until I can explore it myself 

(Additional note: I’m not super invested in -punk AUs but I could acknowledge things like steampunk!DEITIES, dieselpunk!DEITIES, solarpunk!DEITIES, etc.)

[15] DEITIES In-game / Gaming AUs – Basically the DEITIES cast following the mechanics and designs of different game series I like, vicariously or otherwise – including Sonic (sanic!DEITIES and sanic teams), Splatoon (Inkling/Octoling DEITIES), Animal Crossing (DEITIES as animal neighbors), Super Smash Bros (The cast as SSB fighters), Overwatch (the cast maining different heroes) and, most recently, Dragalia Lost (Adventurer!DEITIES who tURN INTO DRAGONS…!).

[16] DEITIES Holiday Designs – Not really an AU, just the DEITIES cast in festive designs for certain holidays on the blog, purely for fun. So far we have Halloween DEITIES and their transformations; Set transformed as one of santa’s reindeer; and Set’s “B-day” for Valentines day (which, I really attribute to the kemetic community for that one, I just participated with Set drawings haha;;)

[17] DEITIES Crossovers – most of the AUs I mentioned are crossover, but here I mean when I or someone else crossover’s our stories or casts for non-canon fun. On my end, so far I’ve drawn Set as a demon from Koolaid’s Living When Dead, and the Set Spawn running into some other smol familiars. Also drawn a few other crossovers with those who drew me amazing giftart in years past.

[18] Other Personal AUs – Any of the other dozen AUs that I already indulge in with my group of friends and our personal OCs, but with the DEITIES cast as a cameo. You’d have to sift thru my personal artblog with my OCs to understand most of them (and some of them aren’t even publicly posted yet), but they  include, but are not limited to: Mythical!gijinka, Fantasy AU, vampire/lycan/witches AU, demons/angels (and the related deadly sins/heavenly virtues) AU… that’s about it that I haven’t mentioned before jskdfsdf

o)———

[jonathantaylorthomas]

[excerpt] 15. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

Does anyone apart from Pusha T relish a good diss track as much as Swift? 2017’s Reputation might have its patchy moments of just-out-of-date beats but it’s also full of deliciously vicious moments. I Did Something Bad was a beautiful middle finger to an ex (Calvin Harris, apparently), Look What You Made Me Do cut down her critics and this track, which is effectively a more bitter Bad Blood, battered Kim and Kanye. “Friends don’t try to trick you/Get you on the phone and mind-twist you” she sings in an apparent swipe at the ‘I made that b**** famous’ controversy, while underneath stuttering electro-pop clashes with tinkling piano. The chorus is Swift at her most bitingly patronising, smiling as she twists the knife in.

14. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

Swift managed her first US number one with We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. The singer’s knack for an earworm is obvious here, with the song one of the simplest but strongest of her career. The rest of Red dabbles with pop but Swift’s country roots are still very visible here. A foot-stomping acoustic guitar riff is right at the heart of the track, which is a much lighter take on the relationship at the heart of All Too Well. The old Taylor might not be able to come the phone right now, but she was on top form here.

13. Our Song

Jaunty violins, talk about God, a Nashville accent that twangs like a banjo string: Our Song is Taylor in full country mode. It’s got all the hallmarks of her early verse-chorus-bridge songwriting, and Swift reportedly put it together in 20 minutes for her ninth grade talent show before the record company nabbed it for her debut album. Built around a colossal chorus, where her delivery cracks like a drum beat, Our Song is a vivid picture of her teenage years and a testament to Swift’s natural songwriting nous – a reminder that, despite the headlines, she’s built a career on talent, not merely hype and controversy. Tim McGraw, which starts the album, has much the same effect.

12. I Knew You Were Trouble

2012 album Red took Swift’s popularity to new levels and the universal appeal of I Knew You Were Trouble was a key part of that success. The song became one of the most parodied tracks of the year but even adding screaming goats into the mix couldn’t the hamper its impact. It’s perhaps surprising that despite the song’s success, the chorus marked one of the singer’s most experimental to date, flirting with dubstep, pop and dance influences. It’s the perfect example of Swift’s early musical experimentations – as was the U2-esque album opener State of Grace – which would eventually pave the way for the reinvention on 1989 two years later.

11. Shake It Off

Shake It Off is perhaps the perfect song to explain Taylor Swift and seems to encapsulate the contradictions which have made her a star. For everything that’s toe-curling and cringeworthy (see: “this sick beat”, the whole “my ex man” riff), it’s also infectious, irresistible and triumphantly confident; Swift knows it’s geeky and doesn’t care. It’s a song to shimmy to – and then to kiss your crush to, when she asks the fella with the hella good hair to shake, shake, shake. Grab the white wine and go be basic – sometimes it’s fun.

10. 22

While Swift can occasionally lean-in on her wry way of seeing the world, she’s also gloriously unafraid of big, dumb pop. 22 is almost comically simplistic: the opening guitar riff is just a watered down Wild Thing, the drum beat is mindlessly insistent – a bass kick on every single beat – and the main hook (“I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22”) has all the intelligence of a failed GCSE. None of it matters; the song is a joyous riot, set in a world where there are no pressures, no bills and the sun only goes down so everyone can go to bed together. It is fun, it is silly, it’s happiness is infectiously single-minded and the best lines come right at the end: “You look like bad news, I gotta have you”. There’s even Nile Rodgers-style guitar thrown in on the chorus. Splendid stuff. No wonder it’s said to be Harry Styles’ favourite Swift song.

9. Fifteen

Much has been made of Swift’s big transformation from country singer to pop behemoth but even before she was out of her teens she was flirting with stadium friendly rock. Still, Fifteen had plenty of banjo all over it, while her voice charmingly twangs as she talks boys and cars and heartbreak. Of which, it’s the lyrics that make this one: the song itself is so polished and clean it could have been assembled on a Tennessee production line, but Swift manages to infuse it with a sense of failed teenage romance that feels real – unsurprising, perhaps, given it’s based on her and her best friend Abigail Anderson’s years at Hendersonville High School.

“In your life you’ll do things greater than/Dating the boy on the football team/But I didn’t know it at fifteen” she sings, “Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now”. Ain’t that the truth.

8. Love Story

Ten years ago, pre-Kanye-at-the-VMAs, Swift was, in Britain at least, still that country girl with that one catchy song. This was that song; a hopelessly romantic tale of teenage love, Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet over pop-punk guitars and key changes and, of course, a happy ending replacing the tragedy. Eight million copies sold, making it the best selling country single of all time and paving the way for the decade of massive success that followed.

7. Blank Space

Blank Space is a minimalist masterpiece that paradoxically is crammed with hooks (something she manages again, like a magic trick, on Clean). The song in itself is actually surprisingly slow-moving; chords are long, drawn-out and the drums snap but are unhurried. The genius here in is Swift’s vocals, which are catchy enough that the whole thing seems to be one long chorus. Blank Space also marks the beginning of Swift sending herself up; in it, she satirises her media image as a man-obsessed, relationship addicted nightmare who serially dates for songwriting material. Hilariously, the key line (“Got a long list of ex-lovers/They’ll tell you I’m insane”) has often been misheard – including by her own mother – as “all the lonely Starbucks lovers”, which rather changes the point somewhat. The video is a work of art too, introducing the world to the ‘new Taylor’ – before the new Taylor became the old, dead Taylor. Oh, and look out for her slip up at 3.40, it’s hilarious.

6. New Year’s Day

The beautiful, reverb soaked piano that flutters through New Year’s Day is a sign of what could be to come for Swift – not now, perhaps, but maybe in 20 years. It could be played then and just as good. If All Too Well is her great grown-up heartbreak track, this is her great grown-up love song. Whereas 1989’s You Are In Love used a similar sound for a rip of Bruce Springsteen’s Street’s of Philadelphia, here it’s more of a James Blake vibe. The beauty is in the simplicity; this is a love as rational as it is passionate. The metaphor is about being there for the good times (the party at midnight) and the bad (cleaning up bottles on New Year’s Day). There is a stroke of brilliance, too: “Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognise anywhere” she sings as a reprise, realising what too few of us do until it’s too late: love is as fragile as it precious.

5. You Belong With Me

Taylor has a long-standing love affair with power chords and pop-punk goodness. On Red, there’s Holy Ground, before that was Speak Now’s girl-breaking-free-to-rule-the-world Long Live and before that was You Belong With Me on Fearless. It’s sometimes criticised for being too similar to her other early hits but in truth, it’s just the best example of them. It’s also wonderfully full Taylor: she plays the self-deprecating dork in love with her best friend, and the video is completely, brilliantly hysterical. There are all the elements needed: crashing guitars, unrequited love, a little teenage angst. It’s far from perfect: the lyrics are her corniest, the premise is cliched and the country embellishments have been tactlessly tacked on as if purely to placate the country audience. But, in the end, it’s catchy, sweetly endearing and you’ll be singing along merrily. If you want another fill of the good stuff, put on Fearless, which is just a little less catchy but with a better guitar solo.

4. Ronan

Little known, not on any albums and barely performed live – to date it’s only been aired twice, with the first version live on a Stand Up to Cancer telethon the one to listen to – Ronan perhaps seems a unlikely entry on the list, but it stands the Swift song that aches the most, and is unlike anything else she’s written. Over the chime of trembling guitar chords, she sings as the voice of Maya Thompson, a mother who lost her four-year-old Ronan to cancer. Written after reading Thompson’s blog, Swift articulates the unsteady, insistent rhythm of grief with painful clarity. In the end, like in life, the loss stings the sharpest in the little things. “And it’s about to be Halloween, you could be anything you wanted” she sings, her voice shaking and her eyes glassy with tears, “If you were still here.”

3. Out Of The Woods

Like the heartbroken logic in All You Had To Do Was Stay (the song Ryan Adams’ did best on his mixed 1989 cover album), it’s the naivety in this one that makes it so damned sad. Jack Antonoff produced a piece of driving rock dressed up as radio-pop, the stuttering drums and Blade Runner synths casting shadows over everything, the choir on the chorus giving it enough size to fill stadiums. It’s one for anyone who’s been wrapped up in a love that’s left them shaky with the uncertainty of it all, who’s gone to sleep and woken up with the same thought, of praying they’re getting as much love as they’re giving.

2. Style

Like a designer parading a new collection down the runway, Swift showcased her new direction perfectly on this aptly titled track. Pulsating synths drive the verses along before a huge sing-along chorus kicks in, marking a dramatic change from her guitar-led earlier compositions. It’s a formula that Swift would return to time and time again in her later work, not least on the similar Getaway Car from 2017 album reputation. The song remains a highlight at Swift’s live shows — after all, pop hooks as good as this will never go out of style.

1. All Too Well

Everyone jokes about the lost scarf, but this is Swift’s most sincere tale of heartbreak and is heartbreaking itself. Though it takes a handful of listens at least to ‘get’ this track, it’s worn out and weary and the hurt goes deep. Swift says it was one of the hardest to write, and it’s one of the hardest to listen to; she sounds like she’s singing right from the bones and it’s searingly, uncomfortably intimate. Having it on doesn’t feel so much like listening as eavesdropping: other ruminations in her back catalogue are broader, relatable, but here we’re hearing her specific turmoil. Nowhere else on record does she sound as cut up the way she does halfway through this one – Jake Gyllenhaal, you realise, really broke her heart.

Plenty of Swift songs are overwrought, but the drama here is sincere: her voice trembles with pain, and the song, which starts sparse, swells and hardens up like a lump in the throat. It’s little surprise the original cut was 10 minutes long; the song is cinematic, with a touch of Raymond Carver in the sparse, classically American lyrics: “'Cause there we are again in the middle of the night/We’re dancing round the kitchen in the refrigerator light”.

When she gets to end of it, there are lines that induce a wince: “You call me up again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel in the name of being honest” she says. Then you hear her lost to her heartbreak: “Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it/I’d like to be my old self again/But I’m still trying to find it”. Love – especially when it cools – changes everything.

[obsidianarchives]

Black Woman Creator: Kiesha Richardson

Raised in Philadelphia in a house full of women (grandmother, 4 aunts, and mother) Kiesha Richardson learned early on the importance of solidarity and support among women. She is the founder of Ge’NeL Magazine, a woman-operated geek and pop culture website devoted to creating high quality from a woman’s perspective to combat sexism and racism in the gaming world. She is also the owner of Ge’NeL Media, LLC, a small startup that edits and creates content for businesses and brands. When she’s not working, she’s leading her World of Warcraft guild, traveling the world and playing faux-tographer, or relaxing at home, watching Netflix or reading comics with her pups. We spoke to Kiesha about Ge’NeL and being a creator.

Black Girls Create: What do you create?

We create geek culture and gaming content from the perspective of women because most of the outlets are dominated by white men. When I go to different websites, their communities are pretty toxic and they don’t try to fix or address it. It’s just “sexual harassment is ok and it’s normalized” so I figured it was time we do something different. Through my research, I didn��t realize that there were more places for women, especially women of color, to express their geeky side in a safe space. So one of the things I wanted to do is instead of creating a safe space I want to change the narrative. Make sexual harassment, racism, and homophobia no longer normalized.

BGC: What inspired you to create this site?

I personally got tired of trying to play different games and being called the N-word or told to go back to the kitchen, or that I shouldn’t be playing games when someone would hear my voice. It just got really tiring. The last straw came when I was streaming and a couple of friends and I were just having fun, minding our own business, and this dude came into my stream channel and said “show me your n***r tits or get the f*** out.” When I talked to other women about it they would say “oh it’s happened before,” and I thought it shouldn’t be normal. So I tried talking to other organizations I was writing for and the response was “we don’t want to get political.” I thought “thanks for being an ally,” and decided to do my own thing.

BGC: Why do you create?

I create because first of all, I just love writing. It was the natural outlet for me. But I also create so I can just stop this nonsense. We don’t have to deal with this stuff anymore and we should at least get larger platforms to take notice and do something. Some of the gaming companies and developers are trying, but it’s not enough. It’s so pervasive and if you go to different forums or gaming groups and try to have this conversation, there is a lot of pushback. But when you ignore it, you’re not addressing the problem and you’re letting it spread, so we have to do something.

BGC: How did you get interested in gaming?

I’ve been gaming since I was 8 years old, in the second grade. My childhood best friend had an Atari and I got hooked on it at her house. We would exchange different cultural things; she wasn’t allowed to watch music videos so she would come over to watch videos and I’d go over to her house and play games. So we would switch off that way and I’ve been playing ever since.

BGC: When did you realize that gaming was a part of your identity more than just a hobby?

When I lived in Germany with my parents, I took a semester off of college to move. My brother, cousin, and I would have sleepovers in each others’ room and play games all night on the weekend. We would take turns playing different games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and others to see who could beat the map. It became something that was a part of us. When I ended up working in Iraq running a recreation center, I was the only one who knew how to set up Xboxes and Playstations and set up tournaments. So it was what I did and how I knew gaming was just me.

BGC: What was it like to take something like gaming to a different country and culture? Is it easier to connect or is it just another cultural exchange that needs to happen?

It’s definitely easier to connect with people through gaming. I operated the recreational center for the US and UN forces. You can’t make people forget that they’re in a war zone, because we were definitely in the thick of it, but what I could do is give people a place where they could at least relax for some time, and that was through video games. It was how we connected and how we communicated and found commonalities where there weren’t many to be found. I made so many friends that I’m still friends with today. When they would have a bad day or be stressed out, they would come and just talk about games. Video games were a way of bridging a gap in communication.

BGC: Who or what inspired you to do what you do?

I’ve loved writing from a very young age. My grandma, Nancy, always inspired me to write, even when I would get in trouble for my writing. I actually think getting in trouble for my writing made me want to write more. When I was in the fifth grade I was supposed to write a Halloween story and she said she wanted it to be scary, to “let our imagination fly.” Well, my imagination flew too far because she called a parent/teacher conference to ask if I was being abused or if anything was going on at home because the details in my story were too vivid. When my mom assured her there was nothing going on, she asked if I plagiarized and I was shocked because I did what she had asked me to do.

BGC: Something that I’ve noticed is that the things that either got me in trouble growing up or made me feel ostracized are the things that I’m not most successful with. Have you noticed that as well?

Yes, I do notice that. I’ve always been a bit rebellious and it got me into a lot of trouble. My mom used to tell me “sometimes you have to know when to close your mouth. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, just know when to shut up,” and now I’ve found that it’s helped me out a lot. Sometimes you have to say what you have to say and ask for forgiveness later.

BGC: Why is it important for Black women to create?

We need to be the authors of our own stories. For too long other people have been telling our stories and that’s something that we need to change. We need to change that narrative. I love Black men, I do, but our story isn’t always intertwined with theirs and we’ve had different struggles throughout history. Angela Davis talked about how the Civil Rights Movement left Black women out just like the women’s suffrage movement left Black women out. We need to be the authors of our own story now and it’s time, it’s important for us to do that.

BGC: How do you balance creating with the rest of your life?

Is there such a thing as balance? I’m not exactly sure yet. I want this to be my career, to be honest. When I was going through my divorce, writing was the only thing I could do. I couldn’t get out of bed. I’d always lived with depression but going through that divorce, it was crippling. The only thing I could do was write, I’d be in bed with my laptop and I could write. It was a way for me to transport myself out of my circumstance and when I think about that and how writing saved me in addition to gaming, I think the balance is just living and not letting one overtake the other. They both saved my life, creating and writing helped me and video games helped me, but I have to make sure to go outside every once and awhile I guess.

BGC: How does writing help your mental health? Do you ever find that writing hurts your mental health?

I think helps because a lot of times it’s not easy to talk about what you’re going through with other people. When I write, it’s a way for me to communicate how I’m feeling and what’s going on with me. I noticed when I first started blogging and I started writing about depression, there were other people who were feeling the way I was feeling and that was important to me. So when I do write about mental health I try to keep in mind that I’m not alone. People may not have the exact feelings but they’re feeling a similar way. When I write, I try to take into account self-care when it comes to mental health issues. So when I write, I try to make sure that other women know that they’re not alone and know that taking care of themselves is a part of taking care of their mental health. One of my coworkers once said “muting you is my self care for the day.” Sometimes you have to mute the negativity. It’s definitely easier said than done but don’t be afraid to hit that mute button. Take care of yourself and do it in a way that makes you feel good. People think self-care is one size fits all and it’s not. You have to figure out what makes you happy, no one else is going to make you happy. Things won’t necessarily make you happy, but something might. People say “material things won’t make you happy,” but shoes do for me. Figure out what makes you happy and try something new. I think that goes a long way towards helping your mental health.

 BGC: What’s important to you when you’re building a community and working with other writers, especially when you’re trying to serve underrepresented groups? What do you try to focus on when working with other people?

Passion, empathy, and understanding that there is a problem that we want to address and that we are going to be the voices to do it. There is no such thing as a perfect person and there are no perfect writers. I have people on my team who have no writing experience, no writing background, but their stories are beautiful. I can work with someone who is not really a writer. What I can’t work with is negativity, internalized sexism, and putting down other women. With me being a streamer, I come across so many people, especially guys, who have a problem with women who show cleavage when they stream, but they’re marketing and are full of life with energetic personalities and these guys only reduce them to what they're wearing. Then you have some women who will piggyback on that and say they’re making streaming worse for the rest of us. How? They’re working, it was nothing to do with the boobs, I mean guys (and some women) will look, no doubt, but that’s not going to keep them watching. It’s about positivity and being understanding of all women and their struggles. You don’t have to like all women, that’s not realistic, but you don’t have to put them down. I’m not going to be negative and when I look for people to work with I look for that positivity. Are you uplifting other people or are you trying to tear people down because you don’t have your own stuff going on? Positivity. Empathy. Sisterhood. Solidarity. That’s what I want the community to be regardless of racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural backgrounds. I want women to be able to be themselves. I want to uplift us all without having to step on someone else. Having male allies, that’s fantastic. Guys who come to the site think Ge’NeL magazine is anti-male and it’s not, we just don’t want to be shit on. We’re tired of the racism and sexism and xenophobia. I didn’t know there was an entire community of Muslim women gamers but they don’t say anything because of how they’re treated on social media, so we have to uplift each other. But I’m also not going to try to let someone take over the narrative of Black women. Our story is our story and it’s okay for us all to have different stories, to just be different chapters in the same book.

BGC: Do you have any advice for new creators who are just starting out on their journey?

It was hard for me to get to the point where I was getting paid writing gigs and I can’t remember where I heard the quote but someone said if there are no opportunities create your own. So that’s what I did, I didn’t give up. I started putting everything single thing I did on my resume when it came to writing. Don’t be afraid to go to content mills to get the experience that you want or need. Research, read, you can’t be a writer without reading. If you don’t understand the content you’re trying to create or how other people view different types of content, then you’re not going be successful.

BGC: Do you have any future projects that you’re thinking about working on?

Not exactly with Ge’NeL but there is a non-profit in Augusta called Girl Warriors that takes at-risk girls and introduces them to tech and other avenues outside of the environment that they’re currently in. I’m also going to be editing a book as well.

As for Ge’NeL, I’m still trying to find more writers. Unfortunately, we don’t have a budget to pay, we’re all volunteers at this point. But I’m looking for writers, editors, and I am putting together a pitch deck to get some funding for Ge’NeL and to maybe start a stream team.

BGC: Where can we find you?

You can find me on twitter @onewildflowerz, same for Facebook and Instagram, or you can find Ge’Nel at @genelmag on Twitter and Facebook.

[actuallynotsatisfied]

Hello world! (Day 1)

I’m new here. Recently I feel like I’m not really in control of my life anymore and everything I do seems to go wrong. So I figured starting a blog could actually help me a lot, you know, like in the movies, haha.

I’ll start by introducing myself: I’m 18 years old and currently live in Germany. I’m 170cm tall and weigh about 64kg. I have brown hair, green eyes and kind of a big nose. At least that’s what my Mom once told me as I was casually chatting with her. :D Oh, and I’m gay! That’ll be important if you’ll follow my blog in the future. I’ll keep my name and stuff anonymous as of now, since I feel like it’s better for me. But who knows, maybe one day that’ll change?

This is the first time I use Tumblr in a proper way. I’ve had many accounts on here before, though. They were primarily to watch funny things or porn so an actual “unproper” way, haha. But I think that I finally found a good use for this site now. 

I’ve had depression before and was in therapy. I never cut myself or tried to commit suicide, but I was thinking about it. Anyway, therapy was kinda successful and I felt a lot better. However it seems that that was only temporary, as I feel like shit at the moment. I thought about calling my old therapist again to make an appointment, and I know I should to that, but it just feels wrong because she used to tell me I was making great steps towards recovery. So calling her again would kind of fell like a disappointment (Not that I’m not used to disappointing people by now).

Since I wrote so much already and I don’t want to bore anyone with my rather boring life, I’ll try to talk about my problems in short now. :)

It all started on the 21st of October. I was working at an amusement park and there was this Halloween event where the park was open until 10pm. And during my work shift I “met” someone. Twice actually. First time was in the middle of the day. I was standing there at the grill, making burgers and I looked into the line at the checkout-thingy (you know, where you pay for the stuff you just ordered) and there was this cute guy, staring at me. And he just wouldn’t look away. Once he left I told my friend about it who was working with me in that burger store. She said, that I probably just imagined that. And I figured that she must’ve been right. However, later in there evening, just before the park was supposed to close, that guy (and his family) came back to the store I was working in and ordered a meal. I again saw him staring at me and this time, after they got their food, they sat down at a table next to our store. At first I didn’t recognize him, but his staring along with me remembering his sister lead to me to the idea, that that could’ve been the exact same guy from a couple hours ago. I was talking to my friend and she said that this was my chance. I didn’t know what to do. And so I did the most cliché thing I could think of: Writing my phone number on a piece of paper and handing it to him alongside a cup of coke. Well except I didn’t do it but gave the paper and the coke to my friend instead so she could walk up to him as I was just to scared and terrified. Looking back that was a mistake but it didn’t really matter because he sent me a message on the next day. I was so happy but still scared and excited. This was the first time I’ve ever done something like that. I didn’t even know anything about his sexuality.

(You have to know, I never really had a relationship. I never kissed someone, I’ve never had sex. There was this one time I had a long-distance “relationship” with a guy from England but that didn’t really work out and I don’t really want to call that a relationship. I never really searched for love in “real life” as I was just not confident enough about myself. That kind of changed during my therapy. I’m still not as confident about me and my body as I’d like to be, but I’m definitely ready for a “normal” relationship.)

Anyways, we were chatting for a bit, we added eachother on snapchat and then I asked him out on a date. That date went okay, considering it was my first one (and his first one too if I’m not mistaken).  We didn’t talk as much as we should have. He was shy and insecure so he wasn’t really able to hold up the conversation. But I tried everything for the date not to be a disaster and I did an okay job considering I’m actually just as shy. On the date, we took a walk in the park and then went to get pizza. At the end I asked him if he liked it and if he’d like to meet me again sometime and he said yes. His bus arrived, he looked me in the eyes and asked “Do you hug after these kind of things?” and before I could even answer, he hugged me. At this moment, I really felt appreciated again for a long time. One week passed and I asked him if he would like to go to the movies with me and he agreed. But before that date, we actually met each other in the hospital. He’s working there and I was visiting my mother who’ve had foot problems. Anyway, I was standing in front of the cafeteria, talking to an old friend when suddenly he interrupted me from the side and asked if I wanted to join him on his break. Of course I said yes. And that “second date” went a bit better than the first one. We still didn’t talk as much as I would’ve liked to but I realized that I really like his humor. It’s actually quite similar to mine (even though it seems like he has not noticed this yet. unfortunately.). Anyway, our official second date was drawing near but the evening before he texted me that he’d like to postpone it as he wanted to get a haircut first and he just feels like there was not enough time between work, going to the barber and meeting me at the cinema. I was a bit angry and sad. I asked him to tell me when he has time to meet me, because he just wanted to “postpone” it, but he never did. One week later I texted him, asking if everything was alright between us and if he was still interested in me. He replied that this was his first time writing with a boy “like this” and that it’s all new to him. I was relieved and wrote him an endless long text, saying how I was feeling neglected. I also opened up to him about not having any relationship experience because I figured that that might lead to him opening up as well. His reply was actually disappointing. He didn’t talk about everything I was writing about and simply responded, that he’d like to take very slow steps as he’d be “sad too, if this didn’t work out”. This was the point I realized: I don’t get him. I wasn’t going to fast, he confirmed that. He didn’t even knew himself what he meant by “very slow steps” and in the coming days I learned, that “slow steps” would actually mean “no steps”. I recommended not asking him out anymore and that he should ask me the next time because that way I would knew he’s ready. That turned out to be a big mistake. He never asked me out until now. I decided to talk to him again about everything. This is the beginning of the conversation:

Me: “Hey. I wanted to know what’s happening between us” Him: “I don’t know“ Me: “That’s not good. I think you should actually figure out by now what exactly you want” Him: “I know but this just feels so ‘wrong’ but also not if you know what I mean”

This was a shock to me. I’ll be honest, I WANTED to hear something else. Something like “I want to meet you again” or so. However he just told me that he can’t explain what he’s meaning as he doesn’t know himself. I told him that of course I was picturing a relationship at the end of everything because at the end, that’s what “dating” is for (even though we didn’t and don’t really do that anymore). This was the first time I cried over him. This made me realize: I care. About him. I can’t say I love him, but I definitely have a crush on him. And that sucks. 

So now I’m here. Today. We don’t really write over WhatsApp anymore because according to him, he never really uses it. So we basically only talk about snapchat. And that’s weird because using Snapchat, you can’t really have a serious, interesting talk. Also: He always replies super late. On WhatsApp as well as on Snapchat. I get that he does that on WhatsApp if he barely uses it but I don’t get why he doesn’t answer on Snapchat. I know he’s using it. I see it on the Snapchat map. It feels like he’s avoiding me and that hurts. The thing is: I don’t get him. While sometimes I have this feeling he doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore because he never replies, other times he “talks” to me more, making me feel like he cares at least a bit. 

And yesterday something weird happened on Snapchat. I always send him Selfies or something like that but everything I used to get from him were pics of walls or floors with a bit of text. But yesterday? He was sending selfies too. It felt like he was opening up to me, like he feels a bit more comfortable. But I don’t know because well, I don’t get him. Right now for example. I know I shouldn’t be stalking - Wow. I actually just wanted to write that he has not responded to my snap in hours and in this very moment I got a snap. - I just replied. Let’s see how long it takes for him to reply.

Anyway, last time we talked using WhatsApp, I asked him a couple questions and gave him time until the end of this week to think about them and then answer me - he just replied - tomorrow is friday and I’ll use WhatsApp to ask him if he already thought about them or needs more time. Because honestly? I need answers sooner or later. 

I’m meeting up with my friends tomorrow evening to make and eat burgers. It’s the first time actually that I’m doing anything with them since they became my friends after I switched to this school (college) 1.5 years ago.

Wow. This text got out of control. Didn’t mean for it to get THAT long. Well at least you’re informed now. I’m going to prepare some stuff for school now and then go to sleep. I’ll probably write another entry tomorrow. But I’m not promising anything :P Have a nice day. :)

[manicmommy8]

This is how it all began (with updates on current happenings too)

I wanted to take a step back to when I first started showing signs of my condition.  It was the winter of 2006.  I had just had Samantha in November and the thought was that perhaps I was experiencing some Post Partum Depression.  When that didn’t seem to go away then it was chalked up to Winter blues, which wasn’t uncommon for me.  So the cycle of the medicine attempts began.  And the fight against considering that it was bipolar also began because I did not understand it and was afraid of such a thought.

First we tried Lexapro. This did not seem to help much and it was May or June before we decided to try something else.  Here was our first mistake, I didn’t go to a head doctor at that point.  Instead I was looking for a quick fix and decided that a internal medicine doctor I barely knew should be able to help me.  Perhaps if the only thing I was experiencing was depression and not other life events then that might have worked.  What this did result in was me being put on a pretty powerful drug that shouldn’t be prescribed without consulting a head doctor.  Effexor

At first the Effexor didn’t seem to be working either.  Then all of the sudden it hit me one day, I had drive and passion and a will to live again.  Right before this started and around the same time my husband became very ill.  We had been trying to figure it out by visiting some doctors but they did not seem to be helping.  Then one day my husband was in a terrible state and I needed to rush him to the hospital.  This came at the same time that I was having problems even driving because I felt exhausted all the time.  So on top of the depression was piled another stressor.  

I wasn’t happy with our marriage and neither was he.  I’d say normal humans with emotions that are under control would be brought closer together by such trauma.  This was not the case for me.  What happened was that I looked for someone to talk to and confide in.  This turned out to be a neighbor and old friend.  

I had never told my husband this but in high school I knew this neighbor and had a crush on him.  In fact, he even tried to go out with me back then.  So then my head went to a state of what ifs.  What if my best friend didn’t have a crush on him and I didn’t say no.  What if the grass is greener on the other side of the road. Everything piled into one big mess.  I confided in our neighbor (who was also having marital issues) while my husband was looking for me to be there for him.  This resulted in me feeling controlled.  Being pushed into a manic state (most likely by the Effexor) caused me to not be there for my husband.  Which I’ve regretted everyday since.

So this may cause some of you to see me differently and I can respect that.  What I’m sharing this story for, is to give others information.  If I can help one person that is experiencing something similar with the onset of having Bipolar disorder then I feel it is worth it.

I have the most understanding and wonderful husband a woman could ask for.  After moving out and almost going through with the divorce, he still took me back.  He suffered through a major hospital stay and even having his spleen removed without his wife and that is the only person he wanted comfort from.  I’m so glad that I was able to get help and understand my condition before it was too late.  Too late for our marriage and too late for me.  With the major depression did come suicidal thoughts and even some plans and one attempt.  

Once I came to terms with my diagnosis of Bipolar II, then it has given me an understanding of what my body is going through and even without medicine to balance my moods I am able to stay above that major major depression level.  

As of now (2011), my husband’s condition is in remission.  We went through counseling successfully (which I highly recommend to anyone with marital issues but both parties must be willing to be there).  I was with him through his Chemo treatments that were trying to help his body fight his idiopathic hemolytic anemia.  Looking back, we may not have been as strong of a couple as we are now if life didn’t bring us these challenges.  

Someone recently posted in support of me and I’d say this sums up my thoughts:

It’s like the old joke that you’re in a flood and you just have faith that you will survive but you don’t take the rescue attempts that God gives you and you drown. He knows when to provide you the right help, so see it and take it.

***Update several years later*** What can I say but things are still interesting. Many things continue to happen that add to chaos and busyness. I’ll start with where I’m at now….

I’m currently guardian of my almost 62 year old father. Being an only child of long time divorced parents puts me there. I was never close to my dad as I didn’t understand him. I’m coming to realize that he’s human and you can’t be frustrated with someone you love forever. He’s my father and he needs us in his lives now more than he ever did before.

As I write this my dad is in the hospital. He’s been at St Luke’s for 7 days and they don’t know for sure what’s going on other than it's most likely related to the previous strokes. Those of which put him in this situation and being 90% blocked in his left carotid artery in his neck. Listening to him repeating things randomly in a delirium that pertain to his life makes me realize that I don’t really know him. I never took that chance. It makes me extremely sad but I believe he wouldn’t have let me in as he was too proud/stubborn to admit things and be open. I pray that he isn’t in pain and can tell his grandkids some stories of his past that will bring them closer together. The state he's in is hard to deal with and the unknown on how to prevent these episodes is daunting.

Throughout these past years since I wrote this and started this blog I’ve had some very rough patches. Most recently, after my dad was in the hospital in October 2016 (where they thought they knew what was going on) I continued to crash into a crazy depression hard. I was in the hospital for a few days and got home on Oct 31st. I missed my kids Halloween fun. I missed a wonderful camping trip and most of all I missed support of those I used to get support from. I’m sure I pushed them away with my depression, it definitely doesn’t bring many people closer together! I don’t feel I have close friends. So I tend to keep things all inside or layout everything on my mom. She is my rock and my second support. J is my first and we have our crazy difficult times where I just don’t see reason and am passionate about things without considering all aspects of the situation. So two supports are good but I wish for more eventually.

I’m having a difficult time at work mainly due to much misunderstanding about my disorder and who I am. I’m told I’m doing good but not good enough without suggestions on how to improve. It’s stressful and wrong. I feel I deserve more. After 13.5 years at the same company I think it’s time to find something different. But I'm out of practice and terrible at interviews.

There are good time in all this chaos. Unfortunately I lose the magic sometimes and am too negative. Working on that. There is more to tell but I want to leave you all with this…I don’t think I'd chose this disorder or wish it on anyone but there is so much to learn and grow from while experiencing the highs and lows and rare times for me of in between and balance. I like this article shared below, only it doesn’t show the stigma factor. That’s a whole different post.

https://www.facebook.com/bpMagazine/posts/1905869552771896

[digital-strategy]

http://ift.tt/2kQpnTZ

We’re creating a lot of content these days. It’s everywhere. Everyone is writing; everyone has a blog. I’m truly waiting for the day when my mom asks me how she can start a blog to impart her wisdom about how to behave properly in a restaurant.

With the nonstop stream of content being created, it sometimes seems like not everyone is really thinking about how to make their content stand out. I remember that a few years ago, a friend asked me why I hadn’t written a piece about some SEO topic that everyone else was writing about. I explained that I didn’t think I had anything to add to what was out there. If everyone else is saying it, why would you? Wouldn’t you rather say something else, or something better?

For example, around Halloween I was searching for lists of the scariest movies ever made. I kept finding great lists full of movies I’d never even heard of, but one big thing was missing: none that I found showed you where you could stream the films or rent/buy them.

All these articles had some unique perspectives to them, too. Some listed the trailers for the films. Some were filled with recommendations from famous actors and directors. However, for me, as a big fan of streaming services, I was quite disappointed to not see any that told me where to find them and linked to those sources. This definitely stood out as something that I’d have added myself.

Let’s take a look at this article from GQ: “The 7 Best Scary Movies You Can Watch on Netflix.”

It’s even about Netflix, but instead of giving you a link to the movie on that site, they show you the trailers. I mean I’m certainly capable of searching for a movie on Netflix (in fact, I’m pretty close to an expert on it) but as a link builder all I think is, “This is a wasted chance to link.” You see the section about the movie “Creep?” Wouldn’t it be nice if they’d linked to it on Netflix?

Here’s another example, from Thrillist, where the author could have linked out more: “15 Terrifying Movies That Prey On Your Phobias”

So they do tell you where to get the film, but they don’t link to it! Why not? And in the “Honorable Mentions” sections, they list other films but leave it up to you to go search for them. If I had a horror movie site, and someone approached me with an alternative piece that linked to where to find these films, I’d favor that over this one any day.

We can do better

The beauty of a tool like BuzzSumo or Ahrefs Content Explorer is that you can easily see what content is performing well on what platforms. If you see several articles getting a lot of traction on Twitter, and you have a very similar piece in the works, look at what they don’t have and add it to your own.

Notice how this POPSUGAR article on the best national parks links to the parks mentioned, as it should. You get great photos, too.

Now, take a look at this article on dog-friendly national parks. It gives great info, but I think they could do more.

To give you an example of how someone could use this idea and go above and beyond, here’s a great content opportunity for a site that sells dog collars to do a nice blog post on that same topic, linking to the parks themselves. Maybe they ask for visitors to send in photos of their dogs in these parks, wearing the collars they sell. That would be a nice way to get some great social shares, wouldn’t it?

Let’s go forward with that more specific niche and find one more example of something that could be made better.

Consider this article: “Which National Parks Are Dog-Friendly?” Again, wouldn’t this one be better if the article linked out to the parks it lists?

They do include some nice info, though. They provide a list of free admission dates for the year (the article was from 2016, so it’s for that year), and they have summarized the pet policies for each park, which is pretty nice. They don’t have a photo of each park, though, and since a national park is such a visual experience, all I’m thinking is, “Why not?”

It has 212 total shares according to BuzzSumo, but I think it would have had more if it had contained outbound links and more photos.

Now, even if you’re not trying to create new content, you could surely look at all of this and see that other articles about dog-friendly national parks did contain links and photos, and you could thus update your piece and re-socialize it. Maybe you could add videos of drone footage of the parks or give tips on the best times to visit each one. What about linking to camping options or other accommodations for each park?

For one thing, if you have content that doesn’t stand out for having all it could have, you’re opening yourself up to potentially losing that link to someone else. It’s like broken link building, really. “We noticed you have a link to X piece, but our Y piece actually gives more information — so would you think about replacing the old link with ours?”

I recently received an email asking me if I’d consider updating an old article where I linked to a tool review. The person reaching out said that on her blog, they had recently reviewed this tool and wondered if I could change my link to their review instead, as it was much more comprehensive and reviewed several new features. If I weren’t such a lazy person, I might be tempted.

So, what can you add to make your content better?

And last, but not least… outbound links! Don’t ever be afraid to link out if it helps your audience.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Julie Joyce owns the link development firm

Link Fish Media

and is one of the founding members of the

SEO Chicks

blog. Julie began working in search marketing in 2002 and soon became head of search for a small IT firm. Eventually, she started Link Fish Media, where she now serves as Director Of Operations, focusing on working with clients in ultra-competitive niches all over the world.

via Search Engine Land: News About Search Engines & Search Marketing