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mariacallous · 1 year

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Long gone are the days when fan fiction was treated as a guilty pleasure, exclusively consumed on a glowing iPad screen under the covers at night and never to be discussed outside of Tumblr. We’re living in an age where Supernatural star Misha Collins boasts about Dean/Castiel fanfic stats on Twitter, a Harry Styles fanfic on Wattpad has been adapted into a major movie franchise, and even Academy Award–winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao openly admits to writing fan fiction. The hobby has become a cultural phenomenon, referenced casually in shows like Euphoria, Only Murders in the Building, 13 Reasons Why, and Bob’s Burgers. And who could forget Archive of Our Own (more widely known as AO3) snagging that Hugo Award in 2019?

Born in 2009, AO3 is one of the biggest fan fiction sites today. It’s an open source, multi-fandom archive for transformative fanworks that, as of January 2023, is home to approximately 10.5 million works across over 55,000 fandoms, ranging from big names like Stranger Things and Marvel to the most niche corners of the internet you could imagine. AO3 is pretty much a household name now, at least for any Gen Z or millennial with some degree of online presence. And as fan fiction has become more mainstream, there’s also seemingly been a push by some users for AO3 to keep up technologically. More specifically, for the archive to function … well, more like TikTok. Picture a “for you” page greeting you as you log in to the archive. It automatically recommends your next fanfic to read, like an oh-so-helpful friend plucking a book off the shelf for you that they just know you’ll love.

Let’s be clear though: This idea isn’t going to see the light of day. “An algorithm is never going to happen,” Claudia Rebaza, a volunteer for AO3’s parent group, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), tells me outright. But the debate about whether AO3 should have an algorithm reveals what’s special about fan fiction and the importance of maintaining a space where creative works can just exist.

I get it. As someone born in 1997, it’s hard to remember a time before algorithms, rankings, and personalized recommendations. It feels like every place on the internet is trying to become more like TikTok, from Instagram with its Reels (until Kylie Jenner complained) to Twitter’s “for you” feed. For better or worse, the world today feels deeply online. When nearly every aspect of our lives feels optimized, it makes sense that some want fan fiction to keep up with the times too.

But here’s the thing: AO3 isn’t social media. It’s simply a space that hosts an enormous collection of works. It’s basically a library on your phone. Being a nonprofit run entirely by volunteers distinguishes AO3 from other fan fiction sites like Wattpad, which is an entertainment company. “AO3 is designed to be an archive, not a social media site, and we’re a nonprofit that will also never run ads,” explains Rebaza. “So we’re not trying to make people spend more time on the site or make anything go viral.”

Another aspect that sets the archive apart is its lax content policy. While the site still draws the line at some content—explicit material of real minors, flat-out plagiarism—nearly all fanworks are allowed. The only major requirement is that users must tag works containing rape/non-con, graphic violence, major character death, or underage content (alternatively, authors can simply tag “Creator Chose Not to Archive Warnings”). But as long as it’s properly tagged, it’s probably permitted “no matter how awful, repugnant, or badly spelled we may personally find that Content to be,” per the site’s terms of services.

It’s a policy that has been both praised and criticized. But one of the reasons for AO3’s hands-off philosophy is that fan fiction has historically faced a great deal of opposition and censorship. For instance, Fanfiction.net (FF.net), one of the first major fanfic sites on the web, banned all works based on anything by Interview with the Vampire author Anne Rice after she reportedly threatened legal action. (The law as it pertains to fan fiction is murky, but OTW believes nonprofit, transformative works fall under “fair use.”) In 2002, FF.net began implementing a strict “no NC-17 content” policy. Then in 2012, the site famously deleted a large number of stories, presumably ones deemed too mature. The move was widely coined the FF.Net purge by fans, and it sparked concerns about potentially disproportionately affecting authors of slash (same-gender pairing fics).

AO3 is one of the few remaining places on the internet where you alone are responsible for curating the content you consume. You’re armed with only a search bar and the use of tags and filters, sent out into the Forbidden Forest to find whatever your heart desires. And sure, that may feel like a daunting task, especially if you’re used to the likes of TikTok. But part of the beauty of it being algorithmless is that you can hand-pick the works you’re looking for and also easily avoid content you don’t want to see. If AO3 were to implement an algorithm, it’s highly likely you would encounter a lot more content you would have otherwise filtered out, scrolled past, or simply just been blissfully unaware of.

An AO3 algorithm could present a problem not just for readers, but for creators as well. Harassment has long been an issue in fandom, but it feels more intense and intimate in the social media age. In the early 2000s, ship wars and heated discourse mostly lived within the confines of forums, under usernames that nobody would care enough about to track down. Now? Not so much. Hollie, a moderator for the 329,000-member group r/fanfiction on Reddit, tells me how she’s seen things change over the 15 years she’s been involved with fandom. “Fandom has become more clustered into a smaller number of spaces, rather than being able to easily separate into different groups. [So] people with very different interests and takes overlap,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong, there were ‘sporking’ (mocking fics) sites back in the day, as well as bullying and ship wars, but for the most part, people complained in their own groups about how terrible their rival ship was or how gross they found certain kinks or whatever. They didn’t usually go to the creators/shippers’ social media and fics to complain at them.” (Plus, if your fandom self is even slightly intertwined with your public persona, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that you will at some point be harassed, threatened, or even doxxed over fictional characters.)

An algorithm would only further knock down these walls. If someone really dislikes a ship or trope for whatever reason, one might assume they would go out of their way to avoid such content by using tags and filters, or simply interact only with fans who have similar taste. But if the algorithm shows people something they hate, they might feel more inclined to engage with that content and go out of their way to make it known just how much they hate it.

There’s something quietly beautiful about AO3 not making it easy for us to snap our fingers and have a personalized story recommendation fall into our laps. I’d liken browsing the archive to wandering into a bookstore, picking a novel off the shelf, and being pleasantly surprised by how good it is. Sure, you might head to a genre you know you enjoy or gravitate toward a familiar author or friend’s recommendation. But when it comes down to it, you picked the book. Maybe an algorithm would have found a story you liked just as much, maybe not.

Algorithms and modern technology can be convenient for discovering new content and tailoring things to your personal taste, but they can also impose their own limits. Sure, streaming is great—but are we really taking advantage of this infinite amount of content if all we see is Netflix’s top 10 and Recommended for You tab? Or are we perhaps missing out on shows we would have enjoyed, if only we’d known about them before they were canceled after one season due to (supposedly) low viewership? Is the skill-based matchmaking algorithm used in multiplayer online games like Call of Duty actually helping us enjoy gameplay more? Or is it ruining video games altogether?

If you’re on TikTok, you’ve likely experienced seeing a video on your “for you” page that you never would have clicked on yourself. Sometimes it’s merely annoying (no, I’m really not into watching people eat that Pink Sauce); other times, it can be outright distressing. For instance, if you’re into cute cats, the algorithm might think you actually want to see a viral video mocking domestic abuse. Algorithms often lack the ability to distinguish tone, and they generally don’t account for triggers or content warnings. It’s like shelving Stephen King’s It in children’s fiction just because the characters are kids.

Safety and practicality issues aside, an algorithm would ultimately just plain suck the fun out of AO3. I don’t want to see only the biggest, most popular content. I want to live in the corner of my little niche fandom, enjoying whatever weird things I like regardless of how many views, kudos, or comments are involved. In a world dominated by algorithms, stats, and virality, let me have my fan fiction.

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does-whatever · 2 years

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You got mail

Pairing: Bright Vachirawit Chivaaree and Win Metawin Opas-iamkajorn

Length: One-shot

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35923864

When Win logged into his business email that day and he was shocked to see 150 new emails about orders from his ice cream shop. After opening his ice cream shop for a few months, his sisters encouraged him to try adding an online option for his store. He was skeptical at first since he had no prior experience with running an online store, but after a few encouragements from his family, he decided to take the risk.

And from what he is seeing right now, it paid off. He needed to treat his family, especially his sisters.

He was so happy that he shed a few tears. He’s finally doing something he loves.

As he was scrolling through all the email orders, his eyes caught a name he hadn’t heard of in years.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Title: Hi

Win was momentarily frozen in place when he saw Bright’s name. They haven’t talked in three years when Bright suddenly left Win’s life and never made any attempts to reach out to him.

Win decided to postpone reading the email because he still needs to get a lot of work done and he’s not ready to unwrap 3 years’ worth of heartache.

By 6pm, Win decided to end his workday. It has been so productive and he only needs to arrange a few more orders to be picked up and delivered from his shop. After finalizing all the orders, he decided to close the shop in front. When he sat back down in front of his computer Win opened the emailing app once more.

The name stood out from all the sea of emails and it seems like Win’s eyes already know where to look.

After a deep breath, Win placed the cursor on the name and clicked open.

Hi Win,

It’s me Bright. I heard you started to open your ice-cream store, and I can see you even expanded to the internet. I’m sure by now your email must have been bombarded with multiple orders, and I don’t even know if you’ll have the time to read this. But anyway, I just want to say that I’m happy that you’re finally achieving your dream.

I know it hasn't been easy. I know that me suddenly leaving did not also help. I left because I know that loving you and making you happy and being with you isn’t always going to be the same thing. I left because I know that your life will be easier without me. I left thinking that I would be strong enough to do it, I would be strong enough to finally let you go. But I can’t, Win. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop loving you.

I know this may be too late. I know you must hate me for hurting you. I know I don’t deserve any second chance. But I’ll take the risk anyway, because loving someone is always about taking risks, right?

Win, can we start over? I want to be with you again. I’ll be better. I can’t promise that it won’t be hard but I promise to hold on to you stronger this time. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me ever again or you already have somebody else. But I just want to take this risk of asking you, the risk of putting my heart out there. I’m also giving you the power to decide if you want to be back into your life, if you don’t that’s okay I understand.

But if you do, here’s my number: XXX-XXX-XXX.

Love,

Bright

After reading the email multiple times, Win was still in shock. He felt different emotions coursing through him - anger, sadness, bitterness, and most especially, longing. Longing to be with the person he had known he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Longing for the person who believed in him when everyone else doubted his dreams in life. Longing for the person that knew every thought and every corner of his mind and body. But is he ready to risk everything, like what Bright is doing now?

Feeling overwhelmed with everything Win decided to give himself some time to really think about his decision. He drowned himself with work in the morning and at night he would log in back to his work email and read Bright’s letter again and again and again.

After a week of contemplating, Win was back at his computer re-reading the email for the hundredth time and he finally made a decision.

He took his phone and dialed the number written on the email. The phone rang three times before the voice Win has been wanting to hear finally answered.

“Hello?”

“Bright?”

“Win? Is it really you?”

“Yeah.. Hi.”

“Hi.”

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

“Uhm- I just read your email. And I-uhm, can we start again?”

Bright let out a sigh of relief. “Yes! Yes, definitely. Thank you, Win”

#brightwin #bright vachirawit #win metawin #cbwrites:brightwin

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garrulousgeologist · 11 months

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[S] Kells: Return.

I read too much Homestuck and now I have several posts queued.

So initially I put off reading more Homestuck because I care about Dave Strider too much. Seeing him in his room filled me with so many emotions it’s kind of ridiculous. But then when I did start reading I kind of just didn’t stop.

I keep a google doc open each time I sit down to read where I just dump my thoughts as I go and then edit and post them here later, it’s usually a few pages long. Right now I’m editing 25 pages of thoughts. Sooo posts to come, but back to Dave.

I just love this kid.

All parental complications in HS aside, Dave is such a cool kid. I get overwhelmed with the feeling that if he were my kid I would be so, so proud of him. He is so full of anxiety and is fucked up as a result of his environment, aren’t we all, but look at him!

Interest and talent in music, engineering, photography, design, graphic art, katana combat styles, literature, preservation and taxonomy, pop culture, web design, social media literacy, history, cinema, computer science, and the list could go on much longer. He seems genuinely interested in all of this, not just for show, though he plays the irony of everything.

Also, apple juice is one of my comfort foods and has been since I was like 5 years old. I have a huge soft spot for this guy.

So why did that make me hesitate to read his introduction for a week? For the same reason I never end up finishing teen superhero comics, anime or T.V. shows; I have a hard time watching kids get manipulated and abused. Yes they are usually predictable pieces of media and I know they’ll end up “happy” most of the time, but I can’t help that I take it a little too seriously. The adults in any ‘hero’’s life utterly fail them.

No kid should feel like they have to excel at all of this to merely survive, and yet here Dave is.

Grand snack fuckyeah is what I’m going to say every time I enter a 7/11 from now on.

Hello??? I had no fucking idea midnight crew was a webcomic on Dave’s Internet. I knew it was on mspaintadventures.com of course, I read it, but I never registered that he would have recognized them. I wonder if he gives any indication of this when interacting with them in person, which may or may not happen later due to circumstances that arise.

"You push against the MANHOLE COVER, but it seems some unbelievable jackass has parked your GETAWAY VAN on top of it.

A familiar feeling stirs. That feeling is overwhelming, soul-blackening rage.

It's the sort of rage that'll make a man feel totally justified in sporting an unnecessarily elaborate assortment of fancy blades."

Something I’ll try to keep in mind- Spades Slick has anger management issues. One thing goes un-according to plan and it’s immediate, inconsolable, violent rage. Surely this won’t become relevant in the future.

I miss the interactions between these two. Sibling energy in the best way possible. Some distant memory is telling me my favorite pesterlogs to read back in the day were between Rose and Dave, like specifically seeing the red and lilac chat logs triggers a happy feeling. Excited for more of this.

Got me straight giggling.

Something about genuine concern this early on in Dave’s story reads as particularly endearing. That being said if I accidentally killed a crow that caw’d at my bedroom window at 13 I would be deeply troubled.

Skips back to rose-

Each kid has immense amounts of blind respect for their respective guardian. John believes his dad to be doing important and responsible things at all times. Dave believes his bro is the most amazing person anyone could ever have as a brother. Anything he does must be either objectively sicknasty, or ironically hilarious. Bro is just doing what he can to make Dave strong, right? Well, yeah, maybe he is, that doesn’t negate the irreparable damage his methods cause, though.

Rose, someone I think might be the most likely to recognize her parent is just as human as she is, has the same perspective. No amount of hyper intellectualizing can change the fact that a kid is a kid.

There is nothing to psychoanalyze. Your mother clearly has no real affinity for these damnable things. She only collects them to spite you.

If anything, she finds them even more repellent than you do. She's just a committed woman.

She hates the wizard statues and paintings, and her conclusion is that her mother can’t actually like these ridiculous motifs, so she must be placing them strategically around the house to spite her. The passive-aggression as Rose sees it could just as easily be her mom genuinely trying to connect with her daughter(sister,mom) but failing due to alcoholism and an unhealthy work-life balance.

In all cases, the kids assume their guardians' behavior is the way that it is because of their own interests. This is despite each guardian having a particular interest that particularly freaks out their respective kid. And, at the same time, have their interests and aversions because of their guardian’s behavior.

(And later it comes to light that these interests and behaviors are reflected in the alpha kids’ experiences, making the topics each human is savvy to a loop).

Homestuck is many things all at once. This is part of the reason it is so difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it! (hot take)

One of those things is a coming of age story.

This is reflected in the human kids idolizing their guardians and then growing to realize they were just people doing their best and made any mistakes that the kids now have to grapple with. A similar situation can be said of the troll kids idolizing their ancestors and then coming to recognize similar things about them as they age.

Both species have a strong sense of separation between adolescence and adulthood, eventually growing to see the lines are extremely muddled. What is that if not a coming of age concept? Who among us (sus) has not suddenly recognized the flaws in our guardians? Don’t answer that I don’t want to go that deep outside the media.

Oh my GOD I forgot about the Lalonde home fridge magnets. I need some. W.

Right after that is the first pesterlog with Jade!! I remember her being way more in-the-know about certain things like the frog ruins, etc, but I completely forgot she just kind of like knows things.

Hmm alright

Back to John chasing the ink monster. In hindsight I think I recognized that Dave messaged John a little differently than everyone else, but reading it now he’s very clearly got a crush. The in-his-DMs version of scrambling. The guy is just throwing all he has out and living off the vapors of combusting hope that something sticks.

. . .

I’m using this as an insult in my daily life now. That one stuck, Dave.

H-Hom..

Anyway. Put the bunny back in the box.

I just realized echeladder is a stupid fucking word. Weird fight to pick out of everything I could criticize at this point in HS, but echelon means ladder. Why..Why make it Echeladder. For to make Kells angy?

EVERYONE SHUT UP!

NANASPRITE!!! <3

Jfc The Medium. There is so much I need to re-learn.

Me too, John. Sorry to have so many pesterlogs in this post! I don’t mean to cheapen my own reflections. I just don’t see the point in rephrasing this copied-homework style, especially when I don’t fully understand what’s being said. It’s really nice that someone is finally asking direct questions and getting direct answers though! The funny thing is in high school I thought John was lame for being so blunt and basic with his communication with his sprite, and now I’m like oh thank fuck there’s at least one logical and non-convoluted conversation between a Sburb mechanic and a player character.

I’ll leave out the [S] GO ON. text but needless to say: Skaia.

I don’t think I ever processed the game of chess being forces of light vs. dark, but I don’t think that changes my perspective at all. That’s kind of a basic concept and in this case seems to be literal anyway.

[S] Dave: Retrieve dead bird.

The red hot swirling sun over Texas zooming out to be Dave’s eye in some not-so-subtle foreshadowing never gets old for me. Love the imagery there.

Rose is updating her walkthrough again, so far the only text I’m just unwilling to give a thorough read-through. I skim it, okay?

I also JUST put together that the imps’ jester hats, the jester themed chess pieces of Skaia and other imagery is part of a shitty paradoxical loop that continuously forces clownery upon every aspect of this fucking comic. I guess previously I assumed that’s just how they were as opposed to a blank canvas imp with jester imagery added to it.

"So don't change the dizzle, turn it up a little

I got a living room full of fine dime brizzles

Waiting on the Pizzle, the Dizzle and the Shizzle

G's to the bizzack, now ladies here we gizzo

When the pimp's in the crib ma

Drop it like it's hot

Drop it like it's hot..."

-English Romantic poet, John Keats

I’m not even going to correct this one you should know who said that.

Tl;dr

Dave and Rose are Kell’s favorite kids, it’s a hard decision but it’s Kells’ truth. Jade deserves more credit!! Nanasprite is helpful but Kells has dumb babby disease and continues to do research. Clown culture in Homestuck is weird. It’s weird that there’s a Homestuck clown culture.

#post 5 #homestuck #homestuck reread #homestuck liveblog #rose lalonde #dave strider #jade harley #john egbert #snoop dogg #nanaquin #nanasprite #the medium #when the pimps in the crib ma drop it like its hot

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yougotthat-write · 3 years

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Tinder (Rafael Barba x Reader)

Word Count: 2,400

Warnings: Female reader, fluff, Rollisi shenanigans, cringey and inappropriate pick-up lines, potential PTSD for former/current users of dating apps and all the awkwardness that ensues from it :)

Summary: Amanda and Sonny try to find the perfect match for their uptight (and while he would never admit it - lonely) A.D.A.

Read on AO3 here!

It had started off as a joke, really.

Rafael Barba would never sign up onto a dating app if it wasn’t against his will. When he heard the snickering of Amanda and Sonny when he stopped by the 16th precinct, his feet couldn’t help themselves but bring him over to the two detectives.

Amanda bit her cheek to settle herself as the ADA’s polished shoes made their way over. Sonny’s ears turned pink at the tips, which gave Rafael the tell-tale sign that Sonny and Amanda were up to no good.

Hands in his pockets, Rafael quipped, “What?”

Amanda and Sonny exchanged glances. The silence between the two was not a normal thing but when Rafael asked a second time - more aggressive - Sonny held out a cell phone to the lawyer. Rafael’s brows went up in question but when Sonny motioned him to take it, Rafael grabbed it. Looking down at the device, the screen lit up and a plethora of information singed itself into his brain.

Rafael Barba, 37

Manhattan, NY

Assistant District Attorney

Oh baby, I’ll give you so much due process, standing will be the only issue.

Rafael’s eyes widened at the dumb pick-up line. His thumb swiped through the photos. One was of an appearance on the news - dressed up in a suit on the steps of the courthouse with a furrowed brow and serious look on his face. One was him at Forlini’s - scowling over the rim of his bourbon while sitting at the bar next to a grinning Sonny. He remembered when Amanda took this picture. It was the day he told Sonny he could be his second chair. Another picture showed him actually smiling - dressed in a Tom Ford tuxedo, champagne flute in one hand while the other was resting on the waist of his date for that night. She was an oil company lobbyist that he hooked up with sometimes when she wasn’t in D.C.

“What is this?” Rafael’s eyes hardened as he looked up at the two detectives. Sonny flinched at Rafael’s tone. Amanda simply blinked at Rafael. She wasn’t one to deal with attitude willingly but given how uptight Rafael could be sometimes, she was letting it slide. Rafael’s eyes went back down to the dating profile and he felt an annoyance bubble within him. “What the hell is this?”

“Calm down,” Amanda said as she grabbed the phone back with a roll of her eyes. “It’s just a dating profile.”

“Of me!” Rafael looked at Amanda like she was speaking some foreign, alien language. “Why does it exist?”

Sonny’s face seemed to become more pink. A hand went to the back of his neck, rubbing it as his mentor for all intents and purposes became more annoyed. “We just thought it would be fun-”

“You thought it would be fun impersonating a Manhattan A.D.A.!” Rafael’s voice was raised. A few passing officers gave some glances to the group. Amanda waved a dismissive hand to one of them, letting them know that Rafael wasn’t someone to worry about when angry. “You’re lucky I don’t have you arrested.”

Amanda snorted, “We were going to tell you about it when we got you a date.”

“Yeah,” Sonny added, “we just thought you were stressed lately and needed someone to... ya know.”

If looks could kill, Rafael Barba would have murdered two very well-liked and very hard working detectives right then and there in a New York police precinct. He would have to tell Olivia that she would be short staffed for god knows how long.

Rafael’s fingers came up to pinch the bridge of his nose, taking a hard breath before looking back at the detectives. “You think I need your help getting laid?”

Sonny’s mouth gaped like a goldfish, trying to find words but nothing seemed to make itself at home in his pretty little head. He looked over at Amanda with wide eyes, hoping for her to smooth over the situation. Amanda simply shrugged her shoulders, “It’s not that we think you can’t get laid, Counselor,” she paused, eyes almost sympathetic and it made Rafael’s nostrils flare, “you just haven’t had… anyone around… long-term, you know?”

“I’m struggling to find where this is any of your concern,” Rafael pointed a finger at the two of them, “or why you would think I would find it on a dating app.” Rafael’s mind was flooding with things to make the lives of these two detectives a living hell. Maybe if he pulled some strings with Olivia, she’d put them on desk duty for a few weeks. “I want it deleted - get rid of it!”

Amanda held the device out of the prosecutor’s reach, giving him a few nods of understanding but she needed to tell him of one important thing, “But before we do that, you should know that there’s someone who matched with you-” Sonny nodded enthusiastically, “and she messaged you - us? - back.”

“It’s why we were laughing,” Sonny’s smile faltered when met with the fiery gaze of Rafael. He cleared his throat before continuing, “we found the dumb pick-up line on the internet and she shot back with one of her own.”

Rafael’s fire was lessened with the mention of a match. And she happened to message him? Amanda stepped closer to Rafael, finger mindlessly swiping from one screen and to another. There Rafael had seen the actual large amount of messages he was getting. “Seems like more than one match.” He muttered under his breath. And while this whole ordeal wasn’t something he necessarily wanted, the temporary boost of his ego made his shoulders straighten and his tongue dart over his lower lip.

“You’re very popular, Counselor,” Amanda’s brows wagged.

“But we like her the most,” Sonny said, “she seems fun!”

Rafael’s eyes rolled, before they settled on Amanda’s phone.

Are you the Court of Appeals because I’m tryna get overturned.

After he read the message, he couldn’t help the snicker. Back in his Harvard days, Rafael had heard just about every dumb pick-up line you could think of that was in the realm of lawyers. He may have even used a few of them but could you blame the guy. Rafael watched Amanda switch over to your profile.

Rafael swallowed. And then he grabbed the phone out of Amanda's hands. She let out a protest but Rafael had taken a few steps away and studied your profile like it was a law book and he had a final the next day.

It stated your name and your age. Then the same location as Rafael - Manhattan, NY. Your job was stated simply as a lawyer. Huh. That certainly piqued Rafael’s interest. In your bio, you had:

What better alibi could you have than spending the night with me?

He swiped through your photos. One was of you at the Central Park Zoo, scowling at a monkey who was seemingly doing the same thing back at you. Another was of you at a bar or a club - one arm thrown over the shoulder of another woman and a fruity drink held in your free hand. Your attention was focused on your drink rather than your friend or the person taking the picture. The last photo was of you at a brunch of some kind. You held up a mimosa with a wide smile and a large sun hat atop your head.

“Did you say anything back?” Rafael asked. Amanda shook her head with a smirk. You were certainly attractive and if you had taken the time to message Rafael on the cursed app then you must have thought that he was attractive too. He went back to the message you sent and swallowed again. “W-what should I say?”

Amanda’s smirk didn’t falter as she stepped over to Rafael, plucking the phone out of his frozen hands. Rafael heard the speedy tapping of the blonde woman’s fingers, tapping out a message quickly. Sonny stepped over, peeking down over Amanda’s shoulder. Rafael watched Sonny’s face as it went from curiosity to what Amanda was writing and to a lopsided smile, essentially giving his approval of the message.

Rafael didn’t like the idea of Sonny approving anything of his - especially if it came to how he got a date but he patiently waited until a swoosh noise came from the phone. Rafael stepped over to see what she had written but Amanda’s fingers were quick with logging out of the app and swiftly deleting it off her phone.

“Hey-” Rafael couldn’t stop the protest from his lips, brows furrowed. Amanda ignored him, grabbing a sticky note and a pen. She scrawled the login information for the account and slapped it onto his chest.

“I don’t want it on my phone if that conversation starts to get dirty,” Amanda said. Sonny chuckled.

“I think it started out pretty fiery.”

Rafael held the sticky note in his fingers. He could feel his phone in his suit pocket. It felt hot and electric against him, even through all the layers of clothes he wore. “Nevertheless, I’m deleting the account,” he looked over the two detectives with a hard gaze, “and you are to never to do this again. Or else I will be put in jail for voluntary manslaughter.” Amanda swiftly ignored Rafael’s threat whereas Sonny seemed to take it more seriously. The lanky man gave a nod before settling himself at his desk.

Rafael stepped away from the detectives’ desks and dug his phone out from his pocket. His fingers twitched and he felt this wave of embarrassment wash over him as he searched the app’s name and watched it download onto his phone. It seemed to take hours for the dumb thing to fully be situated onto his device. He tapped it, used the sticky note information to log in and was greeted with new profiles to swipe across. He ignored them and went to his messages to see what the pesky blonde detective had said. He hoped it wasn’t something too inappropriate. The last thing Rafael needed was headlines of him sexually harassing women over social media.

He hesitated for a second before tapping on the messages with you. He took a deep breath. He felt nervous. Was it because of the potential can of worms that Amanda could have unleashed? Was it because he found you attractive? Was it because the two detectives were right and it had been a while since he’s had anyone around? While Rafael was capable of finding a temporary suitor to share his bed, he couldn’t find anyone to become something more permanent.

His eyes searched the screen, brain trying to quickly decipher the jumble of letters on his screen. “Ay Dios mío,” Rafael muttered under his breath and the grip on his phone tightened. Rafael thought he read the message a dozen times, just over and over again, trying to really see if Amanda truly did send this to you. He tapped various spaces on his phone, trying to see if there was an undo button but to no avail, the message taunted him.

Something something dictum. Sleep with me.

Rafael was caught off guard by Olivia who called his name from her office door. Rafael cleared his throat, slid his phone back into his pocket with one hand and slid the other down his chest, smoothing out any wrinkles in his shirt. Rafael finally remembered why he was there at the precinct. He needed to do his job and watch a line-up be conducted. Olivia had sounded very confident over the phone, so he figured he had a simple day.

He had spent the rest of his day watching various victims come forward to pick out their attacker confidently. When the defense lawyer monotonously asked to speak with his client after the lineups were done, Rafael felt his phone buzz. For a brief moment, Rafael had forgotten the dating app debacle. He wondered if it was Carmen, telling him of more paperwork and messages that needed to be signed and answered.

But no, it wasn’t Carmen.

It was a notification from the stupid app.

You have a new message!

Rafael bit down on his bottom lip, finger hovering over the notification. He took a breath and tapped his phone. God, what is wrong with me? Grow some cojones, Barba. Rafael watched the screen load and then plaster your message into his line of vision.

Ah, this definitely is a catfish account because there’s no way an ADA would use a line like that.

Rafael smirked. Took a moment to think and then started to type.

The DA has very low standards these days.

You messaged back quickly.

If they’re hiring based on looks, then I’d say they have very high standards, Counselor.

Rafael’s hand lifted to scratch at his jaw, a smile breaking across his face. His eyes widened at another message from you.

Does the prosecution want to rest at my place later tonight?

The forwardness from you made Rafael’s smile turn into a smirk. If Olivia or Sonny had seen him, they would even consider to call it a cocky smirk.

Would you want to meet for drinks first or just take this back to chambers?

I suppose I could side-bar for some drinks.

Great!

He paused before sending another message.

Let’s just agree to not use any more lawyer puns.

Objection!

After setting up a time to meet up at a swanky bar later that night, Rafael entered the bullpen again but with an air of confidence about him. Amanda noticed the shift in energy within the counselor. The corner of her mouth ticked up, fingers fiddling with a pen as she leaned back in her chair, side-eyeing Rafael. “Line-up went well?”

Rafael picked a piece of nonexistent lint off his suit jacket. “It went great, Rollins.” She hummed quietly, eyes studying every inch of his face with amusement.

“We’re heading to Forlini’s tonight,” Amanda stated, “would you like to come?” At the mention of Forlini’s, Sonny peeked over at the two of them from his laptop.

Rafael gave one curt shake of his head. “I’m afraid I’m busy tonight.” And with that, Rafael had turned and exited the bullpen and towards the elevator. Even though he hated it in theory of what Amanda and Sonny did, Rafael couldn’t deny that he didn’t not like the outcome of it.

#rafael barba x you #rafael barba x reader #rafael barba fic #rafael barba imagine #rafael barba fluff #rafael barba #raul esparza #raúl esparza #law and order fanfiction #law and order #law and order svu #svu #svu fic #rollisi #amanda rollins #sonny carisi #esparz-uh

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bnhaficsforthesoul · 3 years

Text

BNHA characters and their genshin experiences

I've been way into genshin for the past couple months, if anyone wants to play with me message me (I'm lvl 45 rn) but be warned I have shitty internet and am a partial razor main

but this is mainly characters I can see actually putting time into genshin

Bakugou

Mains: Yanfei

his main has probably been most every pyro character at some point

he wants diluc so bad, whenever someone else complains that diluc ruined their pity he wants to ruin their existence

before yanfei his main was probably hu Tao

hed definitely play klee if he had her lmao but he doesnt and is patiently waiting for her rerun

he has a lot of 5 star characters and is f2p, he can always get banner characters within at least the first pity, but for standard 5 stars hes gotten keqing and qiqi way too many times and hes livid

especially as a previous hu tao main, he was begging for Jean, still has yet to come home

hes probably a very high level, not fully maxed out considering he hasnt been playing all that long, he was probably forced to start when the rest of the bakusquad started playing it and he just took off

has really shitty artifact luck though, like his characters arent bad or anything but they could be so, so much better

and ugh hes livid

explores everything, has 100% exploration everywhere, but hes not bored hes still got artifact farming to do and he enjoys terrorizing enemies

in co op he will set you and everything around you on fire. cope.

Todoroki

Mains: Xiao or Ganyu

probably only started playing because Izuku asked him to

kaeya has also been on his team since day 1 and he is never leaving doesnt matter his friendship has been level 10 for weeks now who cares

was f2p until xiao, who didnt want to come home at all, and he finally got him on his 180th pull

now he doesnt care and will buy primogems whenever hes bored

he has a lot of constellations on kaeya and hes so proud of that, probably c4, is considering buying way too many primogems just so that he can hopefully get his c6

now his artifact luck is godly, you'll go into a domain with him and be like ugh I got nothing and hes like I got a 4 piece set with all attack or crit rate/damage main stats like haha I hate you

but yeah his characters are very strong cause of this, but he doesnt put effort into building a lot of them, he only levels up and gives good artifacts to his team and a couple other characters he likes but everyone else just sits there for a while

hes not super obsessed with the game, but he does think its funny seeing bakugou get so upset whenever they do domains together

doesnt even bother doing daily tasks really unless hes trying to save primogems

Midoriya

Mains: Venti

hes so good at building characters, like he looks up builds online and watches those "do INSANE damage with these tips" videos - and he sets out to get them done and he does

bakugou is once again livid whenever they play together, because Izuku barely has to try and can do so much more damage than him

he does have to put in a lot of work for his artifacts though because he doesnt settle for the okay ones he needs the absolute best

he builds his favorite characters the most ofc, but he evenly distributes things to other characters he knows can be useful- those characters might not have insane stats but they're still good

will not kill timmies pigeons, hell hunt birds in the wild for fun though

definitely a food hoarder

also does a lot of exploring and probably has at least 90% for each area

Kaminari

Mains: Lisa

he is 1000% in love with Lisa, he took her quest very seriously

and so many people say shes horrible, he hates it, hes made her crazy strong out of spite

his team consists of only his wifus- meaning lisa, beidou, rosaria, and mona

for a long time beidou was his second but then rosaria came along and hes like ugh big tiddy goth gf, but lisa still remains queen

these are the only characters hes built though, save for a couple like probably razor and xiangling that he used before he fully got this team

is an ayaka saver

he doesnt care too much about most 5 stars but will sometimes get them just to say he has them, but they end up just sitting there rotting away because he never puts work into them

he does have hu tao though and would get ganyu if she ever had a rerun

Kirishima

Mains: Diluc Razor or Beidou

they're all on his team, the last person switches out but it's most likely zhongli or childe

hes all about dps, support who, he just wants to hit hard and do insane damage , so yes he made dps zhongli

except his builds arent that great, with some help his builds are decent, but on his own hell be like ugh that's some sexy 300 damage

probably didnt know what 90% of the stats even meant and just put random attack ones on people and went yeah that looks good

doesnt really care though and is just having fun so hell play how he wants (as he should) but he does have to ask for help when farming bosses

loves exploring but misses so much, hell get distracted easily and end up just messing around

honestly probably hasnt bothered to ascend his world since he got to level 35, if he did the quest hed probably go straight to 45 and even then hed still have extra exp because hes been there for so long oml

but eventually he would have to and hed be trying to do it like :,) this is fine and it takes him a lot of tries but he gets there eventually,,, only to immediately have another one waiting for him poor baby

Mina

Mains: Klee or Xiangling

thinks baizhu is hot (and is correct) so shes desperately waiting for him

was a I must play 24/7 player until after the last story quest, then she got kinda bored but still plays frequently so she can save primogems and likes playing co op

goes into random peoples worlds a lot

shes got some pretty strong characters and is proud of her account

definitely makes tiktoks of her playing with the bakusquad cause it's always v chaotic (it's probably only denki and kirishima most of the time, but sometimes either bakugou or sero will join in)

does all the genshin tiktok trends

shes a pretty high level since shes probably been playing for a while and has most everything done

she loves helping lower level people though she thinks it's so cute and loves the power she feels when she one shots things

Sero

Mains: Xingqui

hes a pretty casual player, kinda only plays when hes bored or the others make him play with them

but his stats arent too bad, they're fairly average but he gets by

has so many primogems because he doesnt bother to wish on anyone, probably wants kazuha though

he does get super invested into the story though, hes so curious about the world and where the story is gonna lead

probably watches a lot of genshin theory videos and now he over thinks everything in the game

he explores a lot, not so much to find every single thing but more so just because he likes looking at everything, hes very excited for all the new places

Shinsou

Mains: Childe

hes a very thorough player, he explores a lot and puts a lot of work into building his characters

most of them arent all that great but he has plans to fix them

his main team is very well built, not the best, but still good

he struggles when he has to switch someone out for a domain or something because his other characters are so painfully mediocre right now and he feels so bad

shinsou, playing a character that can do like max 200 physical damage and biggest damage is like 2 thousand, repeatedly saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you deserve so much better, I'm so sorry

even if it's not the worst damage by far, he feels bad about anything under his main team's stats because they're just so much higher

broke. has no primogems. spent them all on childe and his constellations. does he regret it? well he sure does appreciate his c6 so- hell manage

yes he spent real money on his stupid mass murderer who he loves very much

fights childe every day even though he already collected the treasure, he is but a humble simp

probably decently lucky with wishing like he can beat the 50/50 almost every time

Tamaki

Mains: Chongyun and Sucrose

he only started playing recently, probably kirishima got him into it, but he immediately fell in love

kirishima was like tell me when you're level 16 so we can play together !!! and 2 days later tamaki was level 16 and kiri was shook because how the hell did he do it so fast

hates domains, the dread he feels when he realizes the lower level isnt going to give him anything anymore, and he has to move up to the next, and the next,,

asks kirishima to help him only to realize he isnt much help, is too nice to say that so he let's kiri keep trying- one day kiri gets deku to play with the two of them and tamaki almost cries because finally he can get through the level 90 domain and actually get things ugh

cannot get xingqui to save his life he refuses to come home and poor tamaki is so sad he wants him a lot hes even got all his materials saved up

Monoma

Mains: Ningguang

honestly doesnt play all that much but takes pride in making his account seem v good, is a whale

but hes very good at the game, didnt know what the artifacts were for at first and gave people ones based on how they looked but once he figured it out hes fixed them

is a very standard player, logs in every day to do his commissions and use his resin then logs out, he doesnt put too much time into the game and doesnt worry if he misses a day or two

worships ningguang, also really likes xinyan, his other team members are probably venti and albedo

has every single banner 5 star that has come out since he started playing, probably doesnt have klee though and is v upset about it, and is thanking the heavens for all the reruns lately

also doesnt have keqing and wants her a lot cause he likes her

accepts every single co op request he gets, and despite what a lot may think hes actually a very nice person to play with, not toxic at all - unless you're someone he knows then he might be mean to you shshshsh

Shigaraki

Mains: Razor

haha isnt it so odd that they sound so similar haha (if you dont know they have the same japanese va and I'm guessing hed play it in Japanese)

obviously he can be kinda busy ya know being a criminal and all that but when hes not he puts a lot of time into genshin

sadly doesnt have very good luck when it comes to characters or artifacts, but hes doing his best even with 0 primogems and his 50% crit rate

doesnt explore all that much, most of the exploring hes done came from him trying to get all the oculus

his razor is so good though, except that's the only character hes put tons of effort into

except for now zhongli, hes not replacing razor but ugh does he love zhongli

but his other characters are pretty mediocre at best, he could build them if he wanted to, hes good enough at gaming to figure it out, he just doesnt have the time to spend to do it so he focuses on his main team

also (spoiler alert kinda) when we had to go to the wolf spirit to fight the abyss herald and razor was there, afterwards how razor was saying how he was too weak and stuff and was super sad, at that very moment shiggy decided the entire abyss order had to be destroyed - sorry aether (he chose lumine) but razor is more important than you

#theres probably more charavters that would play but i can add to this later #did i describe myself througout these #yes of course #anyways diluc supremacy if youre not apart of the 70% of the fandom that hates him then youre superior i dont make the rules #bnha headcanons #bakugou #shigaraki #todoroki #kaminari #kirishima #midoriya #deku #shinsou #monoma #amajiki

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keltonwrites · 3 years

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I'm not sure if that's a good thing

“Well you’re definitely the first.” This past week, we screened-in the eastern facing porch on the side of the cabin. The porch slopes to the South, with the brick-on-dirt floor crumbling in that direction as well until it reaches uneven slabs of stone acting as steps down to the “yard” below. A mixed material retaining wall wraps beneath the steps to the south facing garage, holding up one corner of the narrow deck on the front of the house. The deck, in the heat of a high altitude summer, droops off the house like it’s daydreaming about the winter snow’s embrace. It’s safe to sit on, though I would not recommend leaning on the railing.

The side porch takes the brunt of the wind. Our wooden rocking chairs have been rocked some 20 feet into the yard more than once in the two months we lived here. In the myriad of threats we heard about the weather, most people included the wind. We all know how I feel about this ongoing weather intimidation tactic. I asked, “what speed are the gusts?” “Oh, they get up to 70 miles per hour on some days.” This was the first quantifiable piece of weather information someone had offered — an actual number we could react to with data and our historical personal experiences of various weather events. And our reaction was: uhhhh…. OK???? Look, I get it. No one’s preaching the skin benefits of -20 degree wind gusts at 70 mph, building snow drifts against your house in the span of minutes that Cooper could die in. I am not going to pretend that’s pleasant. But 70 mph? Any wind I’ve driven faster than does not intimidate me. I used to rally the horses at 12 years old in winds over 70mph to get them in the barn before the latest tornado whipped through. I helped shutter the resort in the BVI as the Category 5 hurricane rolled in. Even in Topanga, 70 mile per hour gusts were not uncommon in Santa Ana events. We had our single pane windows shatter more than once from debris in the wind. We taped cardboard up and went to sleep. That “70 mph” was all I needed to hear to confirm our next project: we were going to build a catio for these cats, and we were going to do it on the pre-existing porch structure to save time and money. We spent a week framing out the structure. We had to carve into the logs of the house to embed the wood supports for the framing.

And from there, every piece of wood was custom carved and cut to fit around the existing timber supports. The existing porch was so wildly uneven that there are gaps between each piece of old wood and the new framing. Our plan is to mix all the wood chips from the project with mortar/chinking and stuff the gaps — a good solution for the log cabin look. We built a plywood pony wall up to 28 inches from the interior of the porch, which gives a height of ~4-5ft from the exterior ground below. It’s capped with a 2x6” railing for even the fluffiest of cats to find a perch. The exterior will be wrapped with corrugated metal that we’ll quick-age to match the metal that wraps the bottom of the cabin. On the interior of the porch, we’ll use shiplap to hide the framing.

The screens themselves can withstand winds up to 120 mph, but to-be-determined if they can hold the weight of a growing maniac cat who has already tried to climb them. In the event the screens succumb to cat (or wind or snow or neighbor judgment) we’ll reinforce with metal mesh. We’re going to maintain this screen porch regardless of what the screen is. We had the pleasure of running into one of our more industrious neighbors the other day, and Ben asked him, “hey we’re building a screen porch. Is this a terrible idea?” He laughed. “Well you’re definitely the first.” But he liked it. Great way to diminish wind into the house. Simple way to regulate the temperature with massive south-facing windows. And indeed a practical outdoor safe haven for cats in predator territory. Just because you’re the first doesn’t mean you’re foolish — just foolhardy. There’s plenty of that here. This town has the typical mountain town’s truncated version of a colonizers’ history: “established 1881.” But it was plenty established prior to that by the Uncompahgre Band of the Ute Nation, removed by the U.S. Army on September 7, 1881, nearly 140 years ago. The government relocated the Uncompahgre Ute People to Utah, and one year after the Ute were forcibly removed from their ancestral land, San Miguel County split off from Ouray County and was made its own political subdivision in the newly-formed State of Colorado. In 1879, the ore-laden valley already had 50 people living in it, with a new narrow gauge railway only 2 miles away. By 1885, it was a town of 200 people. There was a hotel, a couple saloons, a pool hall. Winters were treacherous; the valley was and is prone to avalanches. But where there’s gold, there’s gumption. The power needed to run the stamp mill to process ore drove innovation. Timber was scarce at such high elevations, so a wood powered steam mill wouldn’t cut it. But the San Miguel River just a few miles down from the mine looked promising. Thus began the development and construction of the Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant. It was a hit. In fact, it was so successful that the Ames Plant led to the adoption of alternating currents at Niagara Falls and eventually to being adopted worldwide as a viable power solution. The plant remains, but the gold rush obviously didn’t. By 1940, the U.S. Census declared this little town I call home as tied for the lowest population in the country: 2 people. By 1960, it was one of four incorporated towns in the U.S. with no residents. But the joke was on the Census — the town’s single resident was just out of town the day the census came through. 1960 population: 1. By 1980 the population grew to 38, 69 in 1990, and about 180 now. (Plus 51 dogs according to the town’s website.) With modern amenities, it’s easier to be here. Studded snow tires, satellite internet, solar panels, instant coffee. No matter the hardships, there’s the reality of the present. In the 1880s, as the town boomed, the Ouray Times declared, “it will be at no distant day a far more pretentious town than it is now.” That day hasn’t exactly arrived, but I guess it depends on what you consider pretentious. I don’t think the town claims any airs of excellence beyond what’s true. In fact, the town hardly claims anything at all. There’s no sign indicating it’s even here. There’s just the old side and the new side. The new side, the Eastern half, was drawn out in the early 1990s, some 100 years later, and is separated from the Old Town by an avalanche zone—preserved open space for hiking in the summer, preserved open space for surviving in the winter. The town forbids short-term rentals, no one has a fence, dogs roam free, and all the houses have that cabin look to them. A boulder nests in a grove near a trailhead in the center of town with a plaque paying respect to the Utes who called this valley home. There’s no industry here. No businesses allowed. If you want a $7 latte, you can drive the 14 miles required to get it, assuming there’s not an avalanche blocking your path. You can, however, buy a pink lemonade in a

solo cup at the permanent lemonade stand run by the local feral child mafia. Crystals (rocks) can be purchased for an additional cost. We bought one, hoping to buy favor at the same time. The town plan has a few guiding principles, and it’s all in the name of preservation. We must preserve: 1 - the quiet atmosphere 2 - the rustic character 3 - the natural setting

And finally: 4 - protect the health and wellbeing of the people here No snowmobiles, no ATVs, no drones. In fact, the only sign of the outside world here are the passers-through. When you take the dirt road through town to the end, you enter National Forest, and you can hike over the pass saddle at nearly 12,000 feet before descending down the other side into Silverton. The pass road climbs rutted through an aspen forest before scaling across a scree field and then lurching over to the other side. Every day, it seems like 30 or so Texans and Arizonans in lifted and loud Jeeps with unused mods climb over this mountain in the comfort of their air conditioning, simply to drive down the other side. You could hike it, ride it, run it, and ski it, but they don’t. They rev their engines, kicking up dust in a town of feral children and roaming dogs, staring at us instead of waving. I’ve lived here for two months and look how salty I am. I’ll fit in yet. But today, there is a temperature that whispers of perfect trails and the dwindling of ogglers driving 35 in a 15. It’s already snowed in the mountains we see from our kitchen. Today, like a dedication to the Septembers of our youth, you can feel a chill in the air. A temperature akin to pencils and sweaters and reinventing yourself. A temperature that doesn’t exactly sing “screen porch” but could if you had the right slippers on. That’s what I did this morning: put my slippers on and sat there in the cool mountain morning air, thinking about the cemetery behind our house, about the Ute tribe, about the miners, about the mailman who died on Christmas in 1875 on the pass, about the 5 people who died in avalanches here just last year, about the people in their cars on their phones driving through, and all the people who’s very first question to us was, “so are you gonna live here part-time or full-time?” Maybe it will be a hard place to live. But at least we’ll have a screen porch.

Every week I'm writing about moving to log cabin in a small town at 10,000 feet. Subscribe here for free: tinyletter.com/keltonwrites

#colorado #small town life #home renovation #amwriting #creative writing #newsletter #a little bit better

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manyfandomsonelog · 2 years

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log you are absolutely one of my favorite people on his site. really on the internet in general. Your enthusiasm for the things you love is genuinely admirable. The way you love everything so hard. Every show, every character, every things. It's genuinely so lovely. Seeing you in my tags always brightens my day. You know exactly what to say when it comes to art. You pick up on the detail but you also just love it. As an artist/creator you are exactly the reason the type of reason i keep creating. Because seeing something I make or do bring someone that much joy is part of the reason I'm doing this. If someone fan love something I make that much, that must mean I'm going something right. Ngl it's one of the big reasons I haven't left this community/stop drawing. Like genuinely never let that joy fade. <3 you are also just such a good friends, Ik we don't talk all the time but when we do? it's always wonderful. Especially talking about c!beeduo. (we are literally gonna be the two to make sure they have a good ending) but in general!! you are very wonderful log!! love youuuu <3 /p

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WTFFFFFF I’M ACTUALLY GONNA SOB THIS IS SO UNPROMPTED AND SO SO RIDICULOUSLY SWEET. JAYYYMEESSSSS 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY THIS IS SO SWEET WAHSJSNDNFBDNENDNFBDBDHDNDNDBDBDNDNDBDB 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH JAYMES!! It always makes me so happy to see you on my dash or to talk to you you are such a thoughtful person and I adore your art and your opinions and your thoughts and justdbebdbndndbfndnddnbdndndb you’re really cool and you’re a really cool friend and dhjsnddndjdhdndnfbdjndmdnfndbdndndndnndxndnd I’m really happy that I’m able to make you happy because you definitely also make me happy!!

💖💘💝💞💘💝💘💗💓💓💖💘💝💞💕💝💘💖💖💓💓💖💘💝💞💞💞💝💘💘💘💘💖💗💓💓💓💓💓💖💘💘💞💞💞💝💝💝💝💝💝💕💕💕💕💕💘💘💘💖💖💖💗💗💓💓💓💓💗💖💘💘💘💝💞💕💕💘💘💖💖💗💗💗💓💓💓💓💓💗💓💗💘💘💝💝💞

#POV: I sob and cry and sob #JAYMES THIS IS LITERALLY SO SWEET 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭#ILY!!!!!!!!!!!#ME WHEN. ME WHEN FRIENDHSIP. ME WHEN… 😭😭😭😭#Jaymes ✍️

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marshmallow-phd · 4 years

Text

Nine Little Letters

Genre: College AU, Fake Dating AU, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before AU

Inspired By: This graphic made by @rcse-tvler

Pairing: EXO x Reader

Summary: Just when you thought life was done shoving you down, it got much, much worse. After finding out that your latest crush was already in a relationship, you did what you always did when emotions ran high: you wrote a letter. Signed and sealed, you put it away with the eight other letters you’d written to past one-sided loves, never to be seen again. That is, until a mix up accidentally sends those letters out to their respective recipients and you find yourself in the middle of one confusing web of love. With fake relationships, insecurities, and revelations swirling around, things are bound to get a little messy.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11

You were walking on eggshells. Every time you turned around, you were sure you would be confronted by another past crush. The muscles in your neck were aching from constantly looking over your shoulder. The corner of your eye was haunted by cute boys ready to confront you on your deepest thoughts. For a whole day, you were able to avoid any of them. It was a nice Thursday. Then Friday came.

If you were to list the boys in an order of most to least wanting to evade, Junmyeon would be at the very top. Hence, you avoided the math building. Easy enough, you thought, since you only had one class there about twice a week. You made sure to get to Thursday’s class with only a minute or two to spare so you would have the excuse that you needed to hurry, then you hightailed it out of there to your next class. But your focus had been a little too honed in. While you were taking extra precautions to avoid your former tutor, you forgot to make good escape plans for the others.

“Hey, (y/n).”

You squeezed your eyes tight as you heard the seat across from you at the library table scrape across the thin, frayed carpet.

“I guess you know why I’m here then,” Jongdae said empathetically.

Slowly, you opened your eyes. Jongdae’s hands were folded on the table’s surface and the slightest crooked smile sat in the corner of his mouth. His hair was wet, either from a recent swim or a shower. The black strands were curled against his forehead. Smiling, he ran a hand through his hair, tiny little droplets splattering against the blonde wooden table top.

“I’m really sorry,” you mumbled, unable to hold eye contact for long.

Jongdae laughed. But it wasn’t an “at-you” kind of laugh. That was nice, at least. “I don’t know why you would be sorry. It was flattering. It's nice to be looked at as a hero, even though I didn’t really do anything.”

“High school brain tends to over exaggerate things.”

“I get that. I actually just wanted to say thank you and that it was sweet.”

“You weren’t supposed to see that.” Your go-to response these days. Like when the doctor hit your knee, it was reflex. “I left a pile of private letters out and my mom mailed them on accident. It’s like having your diary read into a microphone in front of an audience.”

Jongdae nodded. “I had a feeling. After the first few sentences, I figured I shouldn’t have gotten it, but I couldn’t stop reading. It’s been a while since someone confessed to me. Few years, actually.”

Your jaw dropped. “What? No. I can’t believe that.”

“It’s true, unfortunately.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get another confession in the future.”

“Hopefully.” He looked around aimlessly before coming back to you. “Well, I’ll see you around. It was good to see you. Again.”

“You, too.”

You breathed deeply as soon as he was gone. Okay. That one went well. Three out of four were good odds. You were hoping to get out of this with at least a “B”. If Yixing ever wrote back you could simply… not open the letter. And if you avoided the others, you’d be in the clear. Yeah, this wasn’t so bad. You were still alive, at least, and with your true identity intact.

You felt a little lighter as you went home. Funny how it could feel like the world was falling apart but the sun still shined and the breeze still blew. As you dropped your bag on your bed, you got a text.

Get online.

Oh crap. You’d forgotten about Sehun. He knew you didn’t like talking on the phone, but you could talk to him over the headset. Don’t ask what the difference was, not even your irrational mind could come up with a reason. Sitting down in your chair, you turned on your console and connected to the internet.

“There you are.”

“I’m not in the mood to play today.”

“That's fine. You don’t have to play.” He killed your character as it stood around aimlessly as if to make a point.

You rolled your eyes even though he couldn’t see it. “You are such a jerk.”

“That’s not what you said in the letter.”

“And there it is!” You couldn’t hold back the whimper echoing through the headset microphone. “I should have never done that. Writing love letters like I’m an Edwardian heroine… Because I’m not, obviously. But I don’t even know what I am instead.”

“Sad, lonely, pathetic?” There was a pause. “Yes, I said that out loud.”

You sat there, completely abashed. “Okay, I take back everything I said in that letter. You are such a jerk. I must have been hallucinating back then.”

“Don’t get so touchy,” Sehun said. “I thought about it once, too. That’s why I’d let you win every once in a while.”

“Really?” Well, that was a first. None of the others had mentioned possibly liking you back.

“Yeah, but then I thought about it some more. I like being your friend and didn’t want to experiment with that.”

And then you deflated like a bouncy castle. “I don’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted.”

“How about neither and I just send you the letter back?”

Okay. A compromise you could live with. And having that letter back would give you a small piece of mind. “I think I like that better.” The doorbell rang like a savior. “I got to go. But thanks for not making this a big deal.”

“Not a problem.”

You logged off and headed downstairs. Your mother, who you hadn’t realized was home, answered the door. You stayed on the staircase, out of sight but within earshot.

“Um, hi. Is (y/n) home?”

Your eyes widened and you nearly choked on the air in your throat. Chanyeol?

“I think so. (y/n)!”

Nope, nope, nope. You ran. Quietly. Like a mouse scurrying away before it could be seen by the resident cat. You went through the kitchen to the sliding glass door, opening it slowly so it didn’t make too much noise. Once through, you closed it behind you, barely hearing your mother call out for you again.

“Funny. I thought I heard her come home.”

Now what?

Your brain looked to the fence that separated your yard from your neighbor’s. That was your option. Keeping an eye on the back door, you climbed over the wooden fence, dropping down on the grass. You sat there figuring five minutes or so would be enough time for him to leave. Eyes closed, you leaned your head back against the wooden barrier. Apparently, you weren’t as brave as you thought you were. Even with the easy confrontations, you still ran like a coward the first chance you got.

“What are you doing?”

Your eyes snapped open. Crap. You’d momentarily forgotten who your neighbor was. “Sorry!”

Kyungsoo huffed from the porch. He leaned on the railing, forearms exposed from his rolled up sleeves. He was frowning at you again, but this time it didn’t seem to be from a place of annoyance as much as confusion. “You say that a lot.”

“I know,” you agreed. “I’m sorry.” You flinched. Nice one.

A few seconds went by before he came down the porch steps. He crouched down in front of you. “If this is about the letter….”

“It's not! Well, not about your letter.”

“You sent out more than one?” You nodded. He smirked. “Well, that makes me feel a little better.”

It made him feel better? Like your letter had made him… upset? He didn’t seem to be worried about you at all when he gave it back. “I’m just waiting for him to leave,” you explained. “I’ll get out of your hair soon.”

The expected response was that he would simply shrug and leave you alone. But instead he sat down across you, knees up with his elbows resting on them. It was odd. Even before he and Yeonhee broke up, he didn’t have one on one conversations with you like this. “Why did you write the letter?”

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Why did you bother writing it if I was dating Yeonhee?”

“I….” You threw your hands up as if you could suddenly catch the answer. “It’s how I work out my feelings. When I found out the two of you were dating, I was… confused, scrambled. Some people journal to figure things out, I… write a letter. A letter that was never meant to go out in the first place. All it was supposed to do was help me work through my thoughts, help me understand my feelings when they’re too strong for me to grasp.”

“If you felt that way about me, why didn't you say anything before Yeonhee?”

“I think it goes without saying that I'm not good at verbally expressing my feelings,” you stated flatly. “Besides, I thought I had time. You know, to figure out what it was I was actually feeling. I didn’t realize why I enjoyed seeing you until it was too late. I never suspected that the two of you liked each other.”

“Really?”

“I'm kind of oblivious to things like that.”

A short laugh. “That’s true.”

You heard a car door shut and then an engine roar to life before fading away. Part of you didn’t want to leave, but being here, alone with Kyungsoo and talking to him like this, was dangerous. “I think the coast is clear.” You stood up and Kyungsoo followed through. “Thanks for, um, letting me hide out here.”

“Sure.”

You turned to the fence, examining how you could get back over.

“(y/n)?”

"Yeah?”

“You could just go this way." Kyungsoo opened the gate that led to the front yard.

“Right. Probably the better idea.” Once out of the backyard, you looked at Kyungsoo. Your heart was beating hard in your chest. “Have a goodnight.”

“You, too.”

Back inside, you didn’t bother to be quiet or sneaky. Your mother was sitting at the table, papers spread out all over the surface in an order that only she could understand.

“Hi, sweetie!” she greeted. “A classmate stopped by for you. Chanyeol, I think?”

“Oh, okay. I’ll give him a call.” An absolute lie, but… whatever. You headed up the stairs and grabbed your bag. You needed to get away for a few hours.

The ice rink was your mindful place. Well, your second mindful place, that is. The first was the library. Whenever you needed to not think for a while, you went there to find a new book to lose yourself in. Whenever you did need to work through your less extreme thoughts, you came here, to the rink. The cold made you hyper aware of your surrenders and of yourself. Your feet did all the work while your mind was free to problem solve. Given the time of day, there weren’t too many people here. Good. That meant the ice wouldn’t be too crowded. Only a few divots and scratches decorated the white surface. You zipped up your jacket and started lacing up your boot.

“I wouldn’t really have suspected you to come to a place like this.”

Your head snapped up.

Leaning up against the railing that separated the bleachers from the walkway around the rink, Kim Minseok smiled up at you.

Captain of the soccer team, he was a bit of a hero around the university. A handful of last-minute wins were taken because of him. How many championships had he led the team to? You wouldn’t necessarily say that people at school fawned over him as he walked the halls. It was too large a campus for that. Not to mention, he wasn’t extremely tall and there were certainly others that could be considered more handsome. There were, however, several large posters around the stadium and halls that featured the team, Minseok front and center. An image that didn’t fit what you saw. He mostly wore clothes that said he could have just left the gym or be on his way there. His laid back attitude on his elevated status was part of what led him to being letter number seven.

The thing about that letter was the fact that there was no one incident that led to your need to write it. He was always simply… nice to you. He knew your name from a shared history class your first year of college. In passing, if he saw you, he’d wave before going back to whatever conversation he’d been having before. You weren’t quite invisible to him, but you certainly rotated on the very outskirts of his vision.

“Why do you say that?” you asked as you straightened up.

He shrugged, hands still hanging lazily over the rail. “You never seemed like the athletic type.”

“I didn’t realize that people had to look a certain type to ice skate.”

“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Climbing over the rail with a smoothness that was inhuman, he ran up the steps and took a seat next to you. You stared at him with confusion. “Don’t be like that. We both know why I’m here.”

“How did you even know I was here?”

“Your mom told me.”

Traitor. “I’m getting real sick and tired of being confronted by this. I never should have left those stupid letters out.” You never should have written them in the first place. You wished you could go back to your younger self and warn her. Hopefully, she would take your advice.

“I’m not surprised that I’m not the only one who came to talk to you. Although, I’ll admit, when your mom mentioned the fact that I was the second guy to show up at your house today, my ego took a little hit.”

You gave him an unimpressed side-eye. “I think you’ll survive.”

“So, which one do you actually like?” he asked suddenly.

You blinked at him. “What?”

“Jongdae explained everything to me. He said you mentioned a pile of letters so I figured it was more than just me and him.”

“Jongdae told you everything?” Why would he do that?

“Yeah. He’s my best friend so we don’t really keep secrets. Although, I didn’t tell him that I was a little jealous that he got a letter for pulling you out of a pool. Much more romantic than mine was.”

Groaning in frustration, you dropped your face into your hands in a pathetic attempt to hide. It was either that or wack this boy who was showing a new side of himself to you with the rubber cover of your skate. You figured the latter option would be a bad example for the small kids running around.

Minseok patted your back. “Hey, it's okay. Don’t be so embarrassed. I am still curious, though. Of all the people you sent letters out to, who do you actually like?”

“No one.” You weren’t going to spill your guts to Kim Minseok. You had Baekhyun for that. Soccer star had no business knowing your heartache over your neighbor.

“No one? Interesting.”

You lifted your head to look at him with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean interesting?”

“Well, that was kind of the answer I was hoping for. Sort of.”

This was not how you pictured this conversation going. You figured it would be like the rest. A simple “thank you but no thank you” had been the typical response. None of the others cared if you liked the other recipients. “Why is that?”

“I have a proposal.”

“Oh-kay….”

Minseok turned towards you. “Hear me out. So, I was seeing this girl, Libby. But we broke up. Well, I broke up with her.. And now she’s seeing someone else.”

“So, you suddenly want her again?” Typical. Why did couples always try to make the other one jealous? It sounded like a teen drama you wanted to steer clear from.

“No. The opposite. She’s only dating this guy to try and make me jealous. She’s always flaunting him in front of me, as if that would actually work.”

Okay…. Now you were even more confused. “I don’t see how I come into play.”

Minseok cringed. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

Oh, no. “I make no promises.”

“She knows that you had a crush on me.”

“WHAT!” Oh, you were dead. So dead. Cause: humiliation. Perhaps you could walk around the campus with a disguise on? Surely the security guards wouldn’t mind. There was always the witness protection option. Now it seemed even more appropriate. “She knows about the letters?”

“No, not about the letters,” he reassured you with a hand on your thigh. You quickly shoved it away. “Sorry. No, she just overheard Jongdae and I talking about the liking me part. Still made her mad because she thought I might like you back. So I started thinking, if she thinks that I’ve moved on, eventually she’ll leave me alone.” He looked at you like all of that should have made sense.

“I still don’t get it.”

He sighed. “I’m asking you to be my fake girlfriend.”

The snort could not be contained. “What are we? In high school? Tell her to back off! Or avoid her. You don’t have to make up a relationship to be a grownup about this.”

“I have. It hasn’t worked. Please? It would only be for a short time.”

You mulled the offer over in your head. It didn’t sound too bad. On paper, that is. Putting on a show that you were someone’s girlfriend shouldn’t be hard. And, maybe it would help you forget about your troubles. But… you didn’t want your first relationship to be fake.

“No,” you answered. “I’m not interested. Sorry.”

That was not the answer he was expecting. “Come on. If word gets out that we’re dating, then the other guys you wrote letters to might back off.”

“I’ve already talked to most of them,” you said. “It’s not that big of a deal.” Lie. But he didn’t need to know that. “Good luck with your ex.”

You went to stand on your skates, reaching out in front to hold on to the railing. Your mind, however, was in a hundred different places, which set your balance off. You wobbled and nearly fell back onto the bench. Minseok caught you before that could happen, saving your butt a world of hurt. He chuckled as he helped you regain your balance.

“If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He sent you a wink and left you leaning against the railing. You scoffed to yourself as you watched him walk towards the exit.

Staying where you were, you tried to wrap your head around Minseok’s proposal. How he could have even come to that kind of solution to his own problem was beyond you. What sense did that make? You shook your head and carefully stepped onto the floor. You needed this time now more than ever. Men were so confusing.

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bangtanblurbs · 3 years

Text

young forever

song: young forever by BTS

first experience: strangely enough i have a very visceral memory of when forever young dropped. it was during finals week of my final year in undergrad. the song released on a sunday in the wee hours (or perhaps a monday? - days tend to run together during finals week). i didn’t have many assignments due that year since my course load was light and i was really just coasting into grad school the year afterwards (at the same institution i attend for undergrad). i remember logging onto youtube and catching the video as it premiered. i was stunned. HYYH pt. 1 and HYYH pt. 2 were heavenly to me, so of course young forever was greatly anticipated for me - the aesthetics, continuation of the story, and also simply getting new bangtan music. the cotton candy color pallet loaded onto my phone screen, and RM’s beautiful voice can through my earphones... i was immediately in love.

every member looked completely stunning. the message i got from the video was... incredibly powerful. the maze. the lyrics. all of it resonated with me, a young woman -- 22 years old -- soon to turn another corner in life. i sat in my dorm room preparing for a busy week, as i was the RA in my dormitory and needed to help my students move out that week... as i prepared for my graduation and transition into my next step in life... i was also shipping out to macau, china for the summer in a few weeks so i geared up for that. this video dropping was almost a breath of fresh air from everything going on. i was able to really sit and enjoy it, but also reflect on my past, present, and the future to come.

feelings: well, i have quite a lot. as someone who has been chronically obsessed with the story of peter pan since age seven, i’d say that youth is something i value - perhaps a bit too much. what’s interesting though is young forever isn’t necessarily about youth in the rawest sense... it’s also about dreams, reaching the point in your life where you’re happy, with yourself, your circumstances, ultimately your place in life. which i suppose most people equate that with youth, the innocence and naivety of it all. for me, thinking about forever young is kind of about that anxiety we carry as we get younger - have a made good use of my youth? did i squander it, getting caught up in the day to day or bogged down by my demons? the worry that our youth is our prime and when it’s gone, where do we go next? retire? it’s kind of funny thinking about this now as I’m 27 instead of 22. do i feel any older? no, not really - i feel the same. the same energy, the same zeal for life. do i look back on the days when i was younger and think that my youth is gone? no. for me - youth - it’s a state of mind. it’s an ethos, a way of proceeding forwards in my life. i didn’t always think this way - perhaps that was wrapped up in my anxiety about getting older. i used to lament my birthday each passing year - god turning 23 felt the absolute worst for some reason. it’s funny now though - how i almost feel younger, lighter, now than i did. youth should be a feeling of unburdened peace right? ideally it would seem so - but the reality in our world today... youth is pain. youth is struggling. youth is stumbling through the dark and trying to figure out who the hell you are, who the hell you want to be. i still feel like i’m stuck in that place, that place of wonder - of reaching out, exploring, experiencing... i feel as naïve as ever despite the pain that courses through some of my life.

so back to young forever - how does the song make me feel? it makes me feel at home. at peace. forever we can carry our youth, forever we can approach our lives with childish curiosity, with the energy to follow our dreams, with a dedication to our passion, and an and endless realization that change is the only constant in our lives. despite the ups and downs that might come with living with this mindset - i wouldn’t want to live any other way. what’s the point of continuing to grind hard every day in the cruel systems our society has built if we can’t at least say we did it with voracious appetite to experience fully our surroundings, emotions, and imaginations?

personal connection: it’s rather hard for me to nail down all of my personal connections to young forever. as i mentioned, i have a really strong connection to the story of peter pan. i’ll briefly explain why and how that plays in here - but i must warn you... if you’re uncomfortable with strangers oversharing on the internet, perhaps this isn’t the blog for you to read. i’m quite comfortable bearing my soul to people i don’t know. for some reason vulnerability has never been something i’ve struggled with - perhaps it’s the naivety i love about myself. anyways... here we go.

when i was 17 my best friend passed away from cancer. it was relatively quick. just a summer we spent together gossiping in a hospital room, machines beeping while we tried our very best just to giggle about boys and lament our torturous IB courses. i’d known her nearly my whole life. meeting in second grade - and bonding quickly over a love for the whimsy of peter pan’s story. we’d gush on the playground about flying away to neverland - where we could do whatever we wanted. explore, sing, fly. but she was gone then. gone far too soon. frozen in a youthful state in my mind. her passing is still the hardest thing i’ve ever been through in my life, and i’ve been through some scary shit. immediately when i hard young forever i thought about her. i thought about how she lived. she was fearless. the bravest and strongest person i ever knew, and still to this day, have ever known. knowing her - experiencing her soul - it changed me. once she passed away i had to be strong, my classmates looked to me as their rock, my parents forbid me to cry, everyone pushed me into adulthood way too quickly. i was just a seventeen year old girl. i was having a crisis - i wanted nothing more than to speak to my best friend as i navigated choosing my next steps after high school. but she wasn’t there, and i wasn’t allowed to feel. i was terrified. my youth was gone. nothing seemed fun anymore. youth became pain as i looked around at my peers who were back to normal in a matter of weeks. giggling with one another, moving along with life. i became a robot. quickly i threw myself into school work. i was already a high achieving student but i climbed higher. i worked harder. i had decided that for the life she couldn’t live, i would live it for her. i’d go to the best college i could, i’d do all the things i never dreamed i could. i’d do it for her. but i wasn’t living. i had let my youth go. i was fading away. just a shell.

it’s funny. or perhaps it’s not. young forever is a comfort song. a comfort song with some incredible darkness in it. the anxiety in namjoon’s verse, yoongi’s speaking to hiding feelings - pushing forward despite what he carries, hoseok’s verse about letting himself go and just giving what he has to keep pushing. their words - that’s how i felt. the song dropped around four years after my friend’s passing. i needed it before then. although perhaps it wouldn’t have “saved me” because music doesn’t save, music gives us the strength and comfort we need to save ourselves (i’m not a fan of taking way my own agency in MY story), it might have offered me a light in an increasingly blurry world.

a year prior to the song’s release i’d spent a summer in china. my life changed there. i lived with seven incredibly bright middle school girls. that experience, i never thought it would start to heal me the way it did. they were under immense pressure (the education system in china is total bullshit)... and they told me “caroline, youth is pain. it’s not beautiful. it’s a period where we struggle the most.” i’d never heard this. the typical western perspective is that youth is “the most beautiful part of life” - it’s where you fall in love, it’s where you get hurt and you pick yourself up, it’s where you find yourself, you feel invincible. but that’s just it - it’s also where you can get incredibly lost (like the maze in the video). not all of us experience youth without pain. this perspective helped me to heal. i wasn’t so alone - i wasn’t squandering my youth, sure - i was treading water - but that was okay. i could cry. i could feel. and so, at this point i began to write my own story again. rather than living for someone else, i decided to throw the book out the window, to pick myself and run like hell towards what i wanted. to accept the freefall of life. that’s youth. that’s the most beautiful part of life. the part where you free yourself from whatever chains society has on you. youth is only associated with being a child because that who should be the most free. when truly youth, youth is that period in your life when you learn to live for yourself, your dreams. dream, hope, keep going. don’t fucking stop.

so this brings us to 2016. i was weeks away from a new journey abroad when young forever dropped. i was doing better. life felt lighter. i still had a long way to go, but some things i’d gotten right. i gained confidence, i navigated my interpersonal relationships with more poise. etc etc. going to china the second time, it changed me more. i did things on my own i’d never dreamed of doing. crossing multiple national borders, making friends with people i couldn’t communicate with. i opened my heart to it all. and i fell in love with myself. for the first time. i fell in love with how completely i embraced my freedom and coupled it with my drive, my passions. that is what young forever is about. it’s about the struggle but the continued commitment to the state of mind that once you’re free - once you embraced that childlike state of being - you can achieve so much happiness.

which brings us to now - how do i connect to the song now? much in the same way that i did before. carrying these emotions connected to this song so deeply into adulthood has been incredibly touching. i’ve matured with bangtan. from 2015 to now. i’ve only grown in how i embrace my youth. sure, i have to conform at times, play the adult, but the motto “dream, hope, keep going.” that’s what i live by. nothing can change that for me now. i’m still fucking lost, but i’m running like hell. i have my setbacks, my demons, my challenges, but i’ve never been so fucking free. that’s young forever for me. thank you for reading my story.

song breakdown:

musically: something i truly love about young forever is that it’s really atypical in how it flows musically and the entire structure of the song. it’s creativity run wild - it’s a story and build. and i love that. it starts off slow, soft, with a sweet sadness. the highlight isn’t the backing track, it’s the honey rap voices. it’s absolutely perfect. understated and building. with each new voice that comes in the beat speeds up. it’s like running. which is fitting. because the story in the song is that of bangtan. the lyrics say it, the boys are worried - worried about how well they’ve done, when they’ll stop gaining success, concerned that all of this life will end, wondering who they are in this - the performance the journey. they are quite literally running towards their dreams. we see this in the song lyrically.

once the chorus comes, we need an increased speed in the beat and the song picks up with the chanting of the mantra. “forever, we are young.” us together, bangtan and ARMY. the song fades into the beautiful clapping beat, the refrains of dream, hope, keep going. musically the song is beautifully understated in a way that can only draw out the listeners’ emotions and highlight the charged encouraging lyrics. the story here is clear and only more illuminated by the musical choices.

vocally: young forever is such a treat. it’s a rap heavy song, but not in a way that takes away from the beautiful second half of the song which is full of beautiful vocal line refrains and ad libs. it’s a chant song. a comfort song. and perhaps that’s why it’s stuck with me for all these years as one of my ultimate favorite BTS songs.

when the song begins we are greet by namjoon’s beautiful low rap register. he delivers the rap melodically slow. you can appreciate the way his voice carries emotion and the tempo of the beginning story, of the emotional journey the song embarks upon. following namjoon’s beautiful voice is yoongi. who assumes a slower rap style initially. he has a few parts where he treats us to shout rapping as well - which give us kind of a pleading emotion - we can hear his lament for the pressure placed upon him as he stands in the spotlight. finally, rapline is rounded out by hoseok - i’m gonna say it - this is one of hoseok’s best slow verses. he offers his usual spicy tone, giving the trap style endings to each line. the emotion hits it’s peak with the punch tones and hoseok’s strong committment to his lines expressing his desires, his drive.

the second half of the song is dominated by the beautiful tones of vocal line. taehyung leads us into the chorus with his beautiful deep register, followed by jungkook’s high tones. the juxtaposition of their voices coupled by jin and backed by jimin’s beautiful melodies is absolutely stunning. rapline takes turns coming in with the refrain “dream, hope, keep going.” all of this mixed together is simply stunning. it’s like hope in vocal form. we have the low and the highs, the singing voices and the speaking refrains. most devastatingly is jimin’s forever ever ever - piercing the background of the song. highlighting the longing - the conviction - to youth - the spirit of it, the beauty of it. the chant portion of the song is also what makes this song so devastating to hear live. everyone comes in, blends together and makes the message resonate completely.

lyrically: here. we. go. a DEEP DIVE. i think firstly, it’s important to start with the fact that we have a song, young forever, that was released as the epilogue to two devastating HYYH albums. HYYH was the epitome of youth themed albums. it encapsulated everything we associate typically with youth. love songs, songs about pain, songs about healing, songs about not being enough, songs about our dreams, songs about being lonely... it’s all there. both the beauty of youth and the beautiful pain of youth dominate HYYH pt. 1 and HYYH pt. 2. then, those messages, those themes, were sealed with epilogue: young forever. why? well, my feeling is this is bangtan’s way of leaving us with the reality that youth isn’t something that’s fleeting. it’s not an age or state in time. it’s something we carry within. it’s how we approach the things we confront in our lives, how we live and move forward through adversity towards our passions and dreams.

now - with that out of the way it’s time to dissect some lyrics. there’s quite a lot here in the three rap verses so i truly hope to do them justice.

namjoon’s verse starts like a story, “the curtain falls” the end of a performance, often used as metaphor for the end of a certain point in one’s life. “the curtain falls and i’m out of breath / i get mixed feelings as i breathe out” clearly the chapter that’s closing for him has been an exhausting one, but he’s not sure about moving forward even though now he has the time to finally reflect and see what he wants next. to me, this speaks directly to where bangtan was at this point in their career. they’d been through the bullshit - the trainee days, the ridicule, the exclusion from the typical korean music system... they’d made it. I NEED U had one awards, RUN did as well, 2016 bangtan had begun to see the fruit of their labor pay off - but with that, what’s next. where do they climb next? what’s to come? there’s that feeling of unease for namjoon. “did I make any mistakes today? / how did the audience seem?” are the next lines, bringing in that sense of reflection. even though now he can breathe - he worries, what’s his impact, how do people feel about what he’s given them, did he have shortcomings? these thoughts flood in and set the mood for the next steps forward. these questions only become more as the pressure continues. the next and final three lines of namjoon’s verse group well together and offer us much more hope that the foreboding in the start of the verse: “i’m happy with who i’ve become / that i can make someone scream with joy / still excited from the performance.” the peace in these final lines, it’s kind of like the rest of the song - starting with the hardship, the unease, what must or has been overcome - mellowing out to realization that things will keep going on. namjoon is at peace with where is at the end of this chapter, he is glad he can stand on this stage bringing smiles to faces, and finally - the buzz of just being able to do music, that remains with him through all of the constant pressure. something about these lines, they’re beautiful.

just like that, yoongi’s verse begins. he provides the same metaphor to the listener. he is standing on an empty stage. the performance is over. the chapter is closing. HYYH is becoming the past for BTS. the struggles, will they be over too as they move forward with their progressing careers? “i stand on the empty stage while holding onto an aftertaste that will not linger for long” he begins - he knows that the high of this moment, the place they’ve reached in this time... it can’t be forever, the emotions of it all are beginning to fade into something else. he then moves on to offer some more insight into how he feels about that unknown of moving on: “while standing on this empty stage, i become afraid of this unpleasant emptiness.” this line seems telling to me - yoongi is someone that gets a lot from recognition, achievement, sharing his works with others. leaving the stage, moving away from this performance moment... it’s hard on him... he feels empty, his moment, his purpose - they’re over... at least for now. the anxiety seeps in. “within my suffocating feelings / on top of my life’s line” he starts to try and explain deeper his emotions, suffocation, a feeling of panic, likely anxiety or pressure induced. what’s next? will it demand more? he’s on top of his life’s line - he feels like he’s reaching his peak, not knowing where to go next, plateau? down? yoongi then lodges into almost a picture perfect description of what society can make us do in moments of pressure where we are feeling anxiety or panic - “without a reason, i forcibly act that i am fine / this isn’t the first time, i better get used to it” he’s going to put on a strong face, suppress how he really feels because at some point there could be another audience, he remains on the stage even if the curtains have closed. he forces himself to do so, and it’s a habitual thing for him. it sounds like truly this is habitual for yoongi - really needing to mask his fear, his panic, his anxiety for the sake of those watching. it tears me up, because it seems like he also knows that this will continue in his future. and the he realizes that keeping the mask on, it’s not something he’s able to do or perhaps interested in doing “i try to hide it, but i can’t.” the final lines of his verse leave us with some unease - they’re unclear - but perhaps they’re speaking to the fact that performing won’t be his forever... “when the heat of the show cools down / i leave the empty seats behind,” so at some point -- the excitement, the hype, it will be gone... those who want to see him, they’ll be gone too, and he’ll move on to what is next. or perhaps this could allude to the fact that the pressure of those watching goes away and he will finally feel comfortable? there’s a lot here. a lot left up and open.

and finally we round out rapline with hoseok’s verse - which leads us into the chorus and refrains. the first three lines of hoseok’s part go hand in hand with one another - they’re a natural progress of coping with one’s emotions and situation: “trying to comfort myself / i tell myself the world can’t be perfect / i start to let myself go.” the chapter is closing and hoseok is trying to tell himself, it’ll be okay. almost like listening to the song young forever - seeking comfort. a home. realizing that things aren’t always going to go his way, he can’t have this moment forever, and sometimes things are going to be ups and downs... the final line is perhaps the most startling, letting oneself go. realizing that there’s some pieces of yourself that are okay to let go, whatever is holding you back, keeping you stuck, sometimes we need to shed that to go forward with the youthful exploration that keeps life invigorating and exciting. or perhaps hoseok is thinking about the day in which he will let “j-hope” go and just be hoseok, without a stage in the traditional sense. “the thundering applause, i can’t own it forever” he moves on saying that this life won’t be his forever, at some point he will need to move on - realize that this moment is down, lose himself to it, and see what is next. yet - even with this knowledge hoseok continues “i tell myself, so shameless / raise your voice higher” it seems that there’s a conflict he’s facing - letting this moment go or screaming as loud as he can to hold onto it, and shamelessly so - letting go of all the constructed norms for how he should behave. perhaps, holding onto his YOUTH even as he grows older in age and should grow away from a youthful mentality. he is raising his voice and hopefully pushing forwards, perhaps just away from this stage and onto an even larger one. it seems this is the case “even if the attention isn’t forever, i’ll keep singing” he states. he will hold onto his passion, keep moving forwards with his music, his voice, his connection to whatever it is that wants to be connected to him - because this is his very soul and being. finally - hoseok closes out his verse “as today’s me, i want eternity / forever, i want to be young.” it seems that hoseok is choosing to be who he is at this moment, his youthful self, as long as he goes on. he will leave this version of himself, this beautiful, loving, hopeful version of himself as his mark on the earth for eternity.

moving into the chorus we have the iconic title line “forever we are young” which to me, it’s about taking youth forward with you in all that you do. taking your passion, your drive, your love, your hope -- pouring it into all that you do and not letting the outside spoil you and take that from you. keeping your passions and running towards them. that’s the core of the message in young forever.

jungkook then croons “under the flower petals raining down / i run, so lost in this maze” bringing us to think about how seasons change - flower petals can fall because of their abundance but also because they we are moving into winter. either way, the analogy of flowers is hopeful to me. blossoms on trees - the return in time. not the same blossoms, but just as beautiful as the previous ones. perhaps he’s speaking to the fact that the blossoms are falling now as the chapter is ending - which leads into the feeling of lost, of being in a maze... but the reality is, the flowers will come again. the can come again. so long as they keep running - there’s a chance for this beautiful moment to happen once again. that’s youth. perhaps you have your ups and downs, your moments in the sun (your spring days) and your cold days... but keep running, keep your energy, dream, hope, keep going. and you can return.

jin then offers the other refrain “even when i fall and hurt myself / i endlessly run toward my dream.” THIS is youth. this is it. that almost stupid attitude of not recognizing when you’re down and out... not recognizing when perhaps you should stop. turning up the energy at your weakest point even when authority is telling you to let it go. this is the essence of youthful hope and energy. even if they’ve failed, even at their lowest point, they’re cementing that they won’t stop until they achieve their dreams. once again. dream. hope. keep going. just keep fucking going.

finally the other refrain that is repeated throughout the chorus: dream. hope. forward. forward. is the direct translation. but, many would say it’s dream. hope. keep going. this is youth. our dreams, childish and pure. our hope, what we pour into ourselves, what we surround ourselves with - the light that keeps us going. and then constantly moving forward continuing even when our odds look bad. this shit resonates. bangtan did it. they dreamed, 7 boys at a small company. they hoped, holding onto one another, working hard, baby steps forward. they kept going. no matter the ridicule, the setbacks, they pushed forward. these words - they mean the world to me as i’ve pushed through shit in my life. i’m only where i am today because i, by some miracle, internalized this youthful mantra. allowing myself to dream, those moments of hope, pushing forward no matter what. that’s youth. that’s young forever.

performance: well this is shaping up to be quite a long post. i want to discuss both the MV and how live performances typically proceed. i’ve also attached to this post my personal video of young forever at the HYYH: the epilogue tour in macau. sorry for my screaming in advance.

MV: the MV is really interesting for the HYYH universe, although the same could be said for save me, which is technically in the universe... BUT the fact that the MV steps away from the storylines and almost takes us into the minds of the characters bangtan is playing is an interesting choice. we start off the video with the boys in a chain-linked fence maze, wandering around, and flashbacks for each of there characters. the overall aesthetic of the video fits with the lyrics and these feelings of uncertainty... the feeling of being lost... wandering from phase to phase in life. early on we see a scene of yoongi burning photos from the HYYH era - truly this song is about death to the past a new beginnings, overcoming the past but moving forward with the pieces of you that are important. the highlighting of the text “꿈 희망 전진 전진” or dream, hope, keep going - making it the mantra of the song. keep moving, keep running. almost it seems like the characters are running away from their demons as well. the members running off into the sunset together? it’s all about endings. new beginnings. but taking them on with determination and an attitude of childlike awe, glee, dreams, and determination.

performance: we’ve all seen the iconic wembley performance. we’ve probably all cried over it more than once. maybe it’s your comfort video? maybe it’s secretly mine (ha!). i can tell you, experiencing this song live... there’s really nothing like it. it’s understated. there’s no dance. nothing like that.

in the performances - namjoon appears alone in a starlight stage with the lyrics scrawling on a screen behind him. the lights are all dark, deep blue tones everywhere, it feels dreamy. the entire crowd is brought into a dream like state. it’s fitting, its absolutely fitting and incredibly stunning. yoongi then appears to namjoon’s left and hoseok to his right to be spotlighted for their respective verses. the emotion is everywhere. the song is even more incredible with a live band. you cannot imagine it. the chorus arrives with a change in vibe, a beautiful sunset is projected and the vocal line appears from the floor. all of the members stand shoulder to shoulder and belt the chorus and refrain. and you would not believe how devastatingly beautiful it is to hear ARMY shouting along. forever we are young. kkum, huimang, jeonjin, jeonjin. shouting together. again and again. clapping with one another. waving ARMY bombs. it’s completely emotional. i cried. i cried on the strangers next to me, that didn’t speak my language. there is nothing like it.

i must also note, the concert i was at we were all distributed lightsticks and banners with 꿈 희망 전진 전진 written on them. this song has been important since it released. it’s the core of bangtan’s rise. it is so important to these boys. and to many of us fans as well.

now - a word about what happened at wembley. bangtan had no idea that ARMY would sing young forever TO them. at WEMBLEY. fans who likely do not speak korean. chanting their mantra to them “kkum, huimang, jeonjin, jeonjin” and singing “foreverrrrr we are younnnnng” and saying they will keep going. they will walk their journey towards their dreams. something about that, it’s incredibly toughing. you and i cannot imagine how that must have felt for bangtan. the moment must have been completely surreal. one of the world’s largest stages, playing one of the most meaningful songs of their careers - a song meant to memorialize their climb to fame, their accomplishments, their youth that they likely felt the LOST during this climb to where they are now. jimin himself said that night “this song. wow. this song helped me a lot when things were really hard.” young forever means so very much to bangtan. it always has. and their fans chose that very song. we chose that song (rather we were there or not). it’s our mantra too. whatever we go through, we are on this journey, and we are not alone. we are not alone. we can muster the strength to carry on with that same youthful zeal for life. watching that video... it’s moving. it’s completely incredible. to be a part of this journey... just wow.

tl;dr: in conclusion... young forever is one of the BTS songs that has the most touching meanings, and it came at a very delicate time in their career. a time when they were finally getting the recognition they deserved and sought for a long time. a time when they were pivoting from “young” to “young adult.” a time when they likely struggled with a loss of their youth. all of this... it’s powerful because it’s not alien for those of us normal people. we all feel this. i’ve felt it as i’ve gone through tough shit and came out the other side changed, only to have to find my way through the maze and back to myself. youth and being young, it’s a state of mind. i think bangtan sincerely know and believe this. that’s what makes the song and the message it carries so incredibly powerful. so meaningful to us all. thanks for reading yet again.

#bts #bangtan #jin #j-hope #hoseok #namjoon #rm #army #jungkook #taehyung #jimin #yoongi #suga #Lyrics #hyyh #Young forever #analysis

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everything-withered · 4 years

Note

Despite what other people might think, literature major Kurosaki Ichigo and law student Kuchiki Rukia were not dating . . . or were they? -- prompt: ichiruki through the eyes of nosy college classmates.

Okay. So. I tried to write them as students. But. They ended up being professors (in Ichigo's case) instead? Yikes. Outsider POV is really not my wheelhouse and I found it really hard to make college students care about each other's drama so I hope this is alright.

When classes have to be shifted online, students around the country who've witnessed their professors struggle with power point on a daily basis, collectively shudder.

But those under the tutelage of Professor Kurosaki are spared the dismay for his classes.

Professor Kurosaki Ichigo is not like other lecturers. He's young, he's good looking, and thank every god above, Professor Kurosaki is also good with technology.

With him, classes aren't all that different to real life lectures which is a relief, but some students bemoan the lack of his physical presence. Though that has less to do with the quality of education as much as it does the purveyor himself.

Professor Kurosaki has a bit of a reputation.

He's one of the youngest educators on campus, and practically inhuman given his meteoric rise to academic stardom especially since, as the rumors go, Professor Kurosaki isn't some prodigy, he's simply a workhorse who's too stubborn to quit.

It's a work ethic he pushes onto his students, and they shoulder it admirably.

Though, not for nothing.

Besides being the youngest professor, he also happens to be the most good looking, a feat that isn't just attributed to youth but also to pure magnetism. There's something very. Attractive. About Professor Kurosaki.

It's obvious even through a pixelated screen.

He's confident, but quiet about it. Serious, and sharp. He's always direct and doesn't dance around a topic, and he has a way of making you feel important when his attention is on you -- which is perhaps one of the best things about having lectures through a screen, it feels like you are.

Until, of course, you realize you aren't.

That day is today: pausing for a moment to take a sip of water, Professor Kurosaki glances just above the camera and smiles.

And the private group chat collectively loses its mind, and it spills out into the group chat accompanying the stream for the lecture itself.

Pausing to glance down at the screen again, Professor Kurosaki's eyes narrow, his expression shifting to his more familiar scowl as he dismissed the deluge of question marks (and some braver "What are you smiling at??") with "That's enough, you know better by now than to ask about my personal life."

Which is perhaps, the only caveat to Professor Kurosaki: him being intensely private that the only thing anyone in the student body knows about him that isn't shrouded in rumor is what's on his profile on the university website. The bare bones. The minimum. It's agonizing.

Not even the most advanced of internet stalkers among them can get anything more than that, and if not for an incredibly locked down Instagram account, they'd think their beloved professor simply appeared one day fully formed from the ether.

As it stands Professor Kurosaki is standing before the camera looking unimpressed, and the class' curiousity is punished with another load of essays due.

This doesn't stop the more persistent of the class from trying to gather intel from wherever they can get it: starting with what can be gleaned from Professor Kurosaki's home. While he usually shares his screen when he lectures, there's the in between moments when he's just sitting before the camera or pacing in front of it as he talks, or simply setting up or shutting down the stream. It's a goldmine of moments.

One person in the private group chat reports framed photographs on the shelf. The light always hits the glass so they can't make out the faces, but they're sure a later or earlier lecture could yield results if someone looks. It's on the left corner, is the instruction . If you've got a morning or late afternoon lecture, keep an eye out!

Another says, "I saw some kind of pet bed in the corner once too, when he was still setting up. Does Prof have a dog??"

Then, "I saw a lady's shoes on the ground when he was still setting up. Did you see them?? AM lecture yesterday??? Is Prof married???" which is followed by vehement denies because of course not and we would've noticed a ring by now and then, "women in the photographs are his sisters, maybe one of them is staying with him during quarantine?" And yes. Yes, that's feasible.

Except the next time, thanks to a student who'd read the time wrong and arrived too early to the stream, spends it listening to Professor Kurosaki set up for the lecture with the screen tilted onto the keys; they catch snatches of conversation between the professor and someone who very clearly isn't one of his sisters:

"You look tired."

"Thanks, that's exactly what a woman wants to hear," a female voice says, sarcastic and fond. And while there isn't much of a view, lacking in faces for one, the student can see the two bodies standing close enough to touch without actually doing any touching, a gravitational pull that's being resisted by sheer force of will. Then, voice softer than they've heard it ever, Professor Kurosaki tells her, "Go back to bed, the court documents can wait."

"My name's on the door," is the response that sounds like a whine which makes Professor Kurosaki chuckle. "It's Byakuya's too, he can sort it out. I'll make you breakfast when I'm done with class."

There's a sigh, dramatic and long suffering. "Promises, promises, Ichigo."

By then, there's more people in the stream logged in and listening, the private group chat is a mess of epic proportions: Professor Kurosaki has a woman in his life. He cooks her breakfast. She works with court documents, is she a lawyer? Who's Byakuya? We need answers people!

Whoever Byakuya is ends up being the key, though this is only realized later because the class is side tracked by the momentary affection on Professor Kurosaki's face, a tenderness so breathtaking no one says anything for awhile. Which is all well and good because Professor Kurosaki is not pleased with the direction of the conversation in the steam's chat. To the questions of "is that your wife?" He scowls and says, "That's none of your business."

And in his defense, it's not.

Until it is.

The quarantine is getting to everyone, Professor Kurosaki included. The woman doesn't appear again, though there have been reports of a woman's shoes in the background and a cardigan that looks too small to be Professor Kurosaki's, and if his class is disappointed, so must he. Except, "They must be in quarantine together...did they have a fight?"

Which thus begins the great advice giving of May 2020 wherein everyone throws in some casual dating wisdom about apologizing for whatever dumb thing you did, and how to compromise, and what to do to get out of the dog house and stop sleeping on your couch.

Professor Kurosaki must think it's some kind of late April fool's joke or something because he's kind of pissed about it for awhile.

Right until he forgets to end the stream, and few stragglers witness him resting his head on his arms and moaning as he mutters, "What the fuck is wrong with me?"

The audio picks up a growl, and Professor Kurosaki dismisses this with a, "I know, Kon, I know."

When he starts to bang his head on his desk, the students still on the stream start to worry, though thankfully the woman appears.

No one had really known what to expect, but it certainly wasn't her.

Where Professor Kurosaki has cut a famous figure in his jeans and a leather jacket, this woman is soft as a watercolour painting: she is a sunrise in a sweet, misty yellow sundress, what remains of the night sky clinging to her black hair and space blue eyes. Her voice is alarmed, but grounding, "Ichigo, what the hell?"

Professor Kurosaki is so startled he vaults up from his seat behind the desk, completely missing that the livestream is still on his screen. "What? No, I'm fine."

There's a scoff. "You've been acting weird for days, don't lie to me."

"Rukia..."

"Is this because of Saturday?" Is the question. "We were drunk, and ridiculous, and."

"Rukia -"

"Other people sleep together all the time" she says affecting a calm tone though there's a hint of desperation beneath it, "It doesn't have to mean anything."

The private group chat buzzes. The chat on the stream stays mercifully silent.

"We're not other people, at least not to each other," he finally says.

A sigh. "No, we're not."

Almost like a reflex, Professor Kurosaki absently reaches out to his laptop screen, and says quietly, just before they're all shut out, "And I want it to mean something so. What now, Rukia?"

The search for who Rukia is ends twenty minutes later: Kuchiki Rukia, lawyer, philanthropist and university alumni; she's the shining star of Sereitei's highest social circles, the only daughter of the Kuchiki family and the proud dog mom to a pitbull named Kon.

The intrigue continues.

By the time classes resume in person, Professor Kurosaki has revealed nothing. Rukia does not appear in the following streams.

There's a temptation to ask, but there's no doubt the professor will deny it.

Which is why when a student spots Rukia on campus, the group chat lights up.

A student still in Professor Kurosaki's lecture hall slows in packing away their things as Rukia enters, and it feels like Professor Kurosaki's entire class is holding their breathes.

Rukia and Professor Kurosaki, however, don't notice, and with an exchanged kiss in greeting as natural as a breath exhaled, the group chat lights up again.

The student is sufficiently embarrassed when, called forth by Professor Kurosaki about what they think they're doing, and show me your phone if it's nothing, then the last message insists: pics or it didn't happen!

Rukia laughs so hard, her happiness all but lights her up, and oh, the student can see how Professor Kurosaki could be in love. And from his expression to the one Rukia returns to him, amused and fond and tender in one, the student wonders why no one's seen it before at all.

#ichiruki #deathberry

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writerbyaccident · 4 years

Text

The Beauty of the Beast (Yandere WerewolfxReader)

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The mountains had seemed so peaceful on your drive up.

They were breathtaking in the evening sun, the trees practically glowing in the light. The world was breathing with the new life that only early summer could provide, and even before you made it to the cabin you felt as if you were on vacation. Once you finally did reach your destination though, you knew that nothing could possibly compare. The charming little log cabin, nestled away in the forest, looked like a sanctuary. It was a sanctuary. A place where, if only for a week, you could finally spend some time with your friends and forget all of your troubles.

Speaking of which…it didn’t seem as though any of your friends had arrived yet.

Stepping out of your car and pausing to stretch for a moment, you glanced around to see if you had simply missed your friends’ cars. But after scanning the area, you had to admit that you were the only one there at the moment. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, you chuckled to yourself. Most of them do have a history for being late. At least I’ll get to have some alone time before they all get here.

With that in mind, you left your car behind you, figuring that you could just bring your things inside later, and began to approach the woods. Wandering past the tree line, you breathed in the fresh, warm air gratefully, utterly content in your private little slice of paradise. Although you were sure that there were plenty of animals just out of view, hiding from the human intruder that had entered their home, you felt as though you were the only living creature for miles. That feeling of peaceful isolation stayed with for a little while, but soon enough, it disappeared.

In its place entered a feeling that all people have been familiar with at one time or another: the feeling of being watched. You recognized it easily from the way the hairs on the back of your neck had stood up stiffly in fright, but unlike all previous instances of having the feeling of being watched by someone just out of sight, it did not fade. No, it only continued to grow, as if you were being stalked by some unknown predator that was slowly making its way towards you. Shaking your head, you tried to reassure yourself that it was simply one of your friends playing a trick on you.

“This isn’t funny guys!” you called out, your voice unsure. “Cut it out!”

Your voice was lost as the wind picked up though, and you cursed yourself for ever leaving the safety of the cabin. Peering through the trees, you scoured for any sign of the creature that was tormenting you. But even as that strange tension grew, you saw nothing. And with the wind whistling in your ears, you could hardly hear anything either. Deciding to risk movement, you took a cautious step back. And when nothing happened you took another. But when you took your third step, even the wind couldn’t hide what you heard.

First it was simply a low growl, one that you told yourself was just the sound of the tree branches creaking in the roaring wind. As you took your next steps though, the sound grew louder and louder until there was no pretending that it wasn’t some sort of animal. Unsure of what you should do, you halted in your tracks. As soon as you stopped moving away though, the growling ceased. Not only that, but it felt as though some of the tension surrounding you lifted. Staying frozen where you stood, you prayed that whatever was watching you would grow bored and leave. But as the minutes passed, you had to admit that that wasn’t about to happen. Even though you couldn’t see what was stalking you, you could still feel the creature’s eyes boring into you zealously, pinning you there and refusing to let you leave.

Snap.

As soon as the sound of snapping twigs reached your ears, you began to run with all of the speed you could muster. Although you didn’t want to make yourself a target for some beast, you weren’t about to just stand there as it attacked you either. Dodging underbrush and fallen trees, you continued to race back towards the cabin as fast as you possibly could. You forced yourself to stare straight ahead, refusing to look back, even as you heard the sounds of a crashing predator chasing you. And even over those sounds, you could still hear the beast growling at your audacity to run from him.

Just as you thought that the beast would reach you, you saw the cabin come into view just beyond the trees. With the sight of safety so close, you spurred yourself onward. And as you approached your sanctuary, you saw the familiar figures of your friends standing in the gravel driveway. Thank god, you thought. They must have just gotten here. The sound of you crashing through the woods soon reached their ears, so that when you finally made it through the trees, they were there to catch you in their arms.

“Oh my god,” Matt gasped. “What the hell happened?”

“Are you okay?” Julia asked. Catching your breath, you nodded and buried your face in Matt’s chest. When you did though, a part of you swore that you heard a faint growling, from the same creature as before. Neither Matt nor Julia seemed to hear it though, so you forced yourself to ignore it, letting them guide you into the cabin. And although you still felt those greedy eyes devouring you as you approached the cottage, you didn’t look back. Soon enough, the door slammed shut with your friends and you safely inside, meaning that no one was there to hear the dark voice growling from the trees.

“Mine.”

Over the next few days, you did your best to try to forget what you told yourself had been an escape from some random animal. But even as you tried to bury the experience, there was a part of you that couldn’t help but doubt that you had been chased by just some average predator. It was hard to pin down, but there was something about how you had felt as the creature had been gazing at you that had felt…intelligent. Almost…human. And the way it had only growled as you tried to step away—whatever it had wanted, you weren’t sure that it had seen you as a meal. Still, even as your mind whispered these things to you, you knew how just how ridiculous you sounded. So instead of dwelling on it, you tried to just focus on making the most of your vacation.

That was certainly easier said than done though.

Every single time that you walked out of the cabin door, you felt those eyes on you again. Whether you were alone or with your friends, whether it was day or night, you felt their weight on you. And no matter what you did, whether you hiked for miles or simply sat on the porch, they never left you. You forced yourself to go out regardless, trying to convince yourself that it was all in your head, but paranoia still worked its way into you. Each time that you ventured outside without one of your friends beside you, you grew more and more certain that the beast would drag you off to its den. As the week passed, you began to leave the cabin less and less, and when you did leave, you refused to do so alone. Whenever you ventured back into the woods with your friends though, you swore that you could hear the creature growling at the sight.

Eventually, when your last night at the cabin had finally arrived, you were positively desperate to leave. It was sad, you had been looking forward to this trip for so long, and now you couldn’t wait for it to be over. But even your dreary life would be better than living with some monster always watching you, waiting for the opportunity to take you for themselves. With the prospect of a return to normalcy close by and a bright full moon shining above you, roasting marshmallows by the fire pit, you allowed yourself to relax with your friends.

“Ugh,” groaned Caitlin, “I’m not ready to go back to school.”

“Me neither,” Brendan said. “We should just become hermits.”

“I second that. You don’t need a college degree to be a hermit,” Matt added.

“Go right ahead,” you scoffed. “Have fun living without the internet.”

“Wow, way to destroy our dreams.”

“I try.”

“We’re almost out of marshmallows,” Julia pointed out. “Any volunteers?”

“I’ll go,” you sighed. “I’ll leave you guys to planning your lives as mountain dwellers.��

Pushing yourself out of your chair, you began to make your way towards the cabin. It was odd, while you had been sitting with your friends all that evening the feeling of being watched hadn’t returned, but now as you approached the cabin, you felt the slightest unsettling pit in your stomach. When you glanced back towards the fire pit though and saw all of your friends still joking around happily, you shook your head, exasperated with your paranoia and continued inside.

With all of the food that had been thrown onto the kitchen counter and stuffed into the cabinets, it took you a few minutes to find the marshmallows. You opened every cabinet door in search of them, only to discover that the shelf they were on was too high for you to reach. Making your way to the dining table, you grabbed a chair and started carrying it over, not about to let the marshmallows escape. Just as you were climbing onto the chair though, your errand was interrupted by a shrill scream.

Heart leaping up into your throat, all you could do for a moment was stand there and strain your ears, praying that you had just imagined it. But then there was another scream and then another and then another. With a mad dash you scrambled off of the chair and reached for your phone. Your shaking figures began to dial 911, only to stop when you realized that there was no signal to let you call for help. Not knowing what else to do, you ran towards the sounds of your friends.

When you finally reached the cabin door, you paused for a moment, trying to see what was going on before running outside. But the fire pit was around the corner and out of your sight, leaving you with nothing but the sounds of your friends’ screams. Beyond that, all you heard was the sound of that familiar growling. And then—then it became more than growling. Then that snarling voice called out your name.

“Come,” his voice—for whatever the beast was, you could tell that it was male—snarled greedily. “Come to me.”

Struck speechless, you couldn’t bring yourself to respond.

“Mine. You are mine. Come to me.”

“No,” you whispered, clutching the doorknob tight enough to bruise your fingers.

“My mate,” the beast growled. “Mine. Only mine.”

“No,” you repeated, louder this time.

“Come. Or they die.” At those darkly distorted words, you whimpered, the tears that had been building within you finally spilling over. Knowing that you had no choice, you turned the doorknob slowly, walking outside with trembling steps.

Just past the porch steps stood the beast. At first glance you thought that he was simply a common wolf, but a closer look showed you just how wrong you were. He was so much larger than a wolf, practically a giant in comparison. More muscled than a bear and nearly twice as tall, you might have thought that he was some sort of mutant. No, a part of you whispered to yourself. There’s something in him that’s almost…human.

It was true, from the thumbs on his enormous paws to the way his legs bent to show you how easily he could stand on two legs. More telling than any of that though were his eyes. They were golden and they shone through the dark night just like gold would. But rather than stare at you with the empty cunning of an animal, they gazed at you with all of the intelligence of a human being. In truth though, it wasn’t their intelligence that scared you. No, what scared you was the way that they gazed at you with such hunger—with such lust.

“Mine,” came his voice, this time sounding less like a growl and more like a purr.

“If—if I let you take me, you’ll leave my friends alone?”

At the word friends, the werewolf bared his teeth and snarled. Desperate to keep him from returning to attacking them, you made your way off of the porch, only barely keeping yourself from running back into the cabin. As soon as you stood before him, the beast leapt upon you, knocking you to the ground. Flinching as you were pushed to the ground, you stared up at the werewolf, drowning in the hunger his eyes showed. With you finally beneath him as he had craved from the first moment that he had seen you, he could not stop himself from burying his snout into the crook of your neck, needing to scent you. His hot breath brushed against your skin as his tongue brushed against your neck, utterly unable to get enough of you. He could feel himself beginning to shake with the need to devour you, to make you howl as only your mate could. But before he could surrender to his need, he saw what you had spotted.

“You—you said you wouldn’t kill them,” you choked out, unable to look away from the bodies. “You said you wouldn’t if I gave myself to you.”

“Had to,” he growled protectively. “Had to keep you safe. To keep my mate.”

Trembling on the ground where you were trapped, a new wave of tears came pouring out of you. As soon as the tears touched your cheeks though, they were wiped away by the beast’s tongue, his licks too gentle and too comforting for even you to ignore. Despite everything, you found your eyes beginning to flutter closed, something about the werewolf somehow calming you. At the sight of you accepting his affection and letting yourself be soothed by him, the beast bared his teeth in a satisfied grin.

“Mine.”

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thotsforvillainrights · 4 years

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This wasn't requested. This is literally just for @zuffer-weird-girl because she's always dealing with stupid shit so I decided to bring Chisaki into this for his opinion on the matter💁🏾‍♀️

He finally slipped all his paperwork for the day into the finished pile and then he clocked out of work. Once at the top layer of the base, he passed Pops and wished him a good night on his way to the bedroom. At first he hadn’t noticed the girl tucked away in the corner of the room, mindlessly typing at the laptop on the cluttered desk. However, when he was taking his jacket off and folding it, he looked over and saw her expression. It was one less of bordem and more along the lines of mental exhaustion. Kai furrowed his brows before removing his mask and leaving nothing but the usual medical mask. “Angel?” He softly called out to her and watched as her sunken eyes slowly turned to look at him. “Kai...hey.” She sighed with a small smile gracing her face. He stared at her with a worried expression before turning to look at the laptop screen in anger. Quickly without warning he moved to shut it and unplug it. “Kai, c’mon don’t. Really it’s no big deal. I’m okay, I promise.” He shook his head and knelled in front of her. “You are not okay. I can tell these idiots are pissing you off once again. I really don’t see why you won’t let me have Chrono track their IP addressees so I can take care of their disgusting saddened asses myself.” He grumbled in frustration. She reached out to touch the top of his soft hair with her hand. “Because we’ve been over this already. Murder is illegal, Kai.” She laughed lightly and he rolled his eyes. He stood up and dusted off his pant legs before reaching out to her with a gloved hand. “Come lay with me for a moment.” She hesitated, looked at her closed laptop and sighed before complying. Once laying down, she tucked her face into his clothed chest and sighed once more. “There’s just so much work left to be done. I’ve got people looking out for my content but it seems like every time I log onto the website, the anons are waiting to crucify me again and again. I don’t even know these people!” She vented into his chest while he silently stroked her head. When she finally calmed down, he reached to gently lift her head by the chin to look at him. “Angel, if you don’t even know them, why then do you let them continue to affect your life like this?” She remained silent and he continued to speak. “These people don’t matter to me, and they shouldn't matter to you either. They don’t know you personally or what you go through on a daily basis. They don’t know your happiest or saddest moments. They’ve never even seen you in person most likely. And if they had, then I would’ve killed them by now.” She laughed at his threat. “Angel I suppose what I’m saying it that you shouldn’t even stop to consider the opinions of a person who hides behind an anonymous feature on the internet. That proves that they’re not only bored with their sad and pathetic lives, but they also have such an odd obsession with you that they thrive on any kind of interaction...even if it’s negative. Besides, if you have strangers hating on you then you must be doing something right.” He flicked her nose and she scrambled away to hide her face. He smiled and removed his mask before moving to kiss the top of her head. “Get some rest, go read. Play that damn game you like with the handsome men that I’m not jealous of...” Kai lied smoothly. “Go eat something, drink something. Draw those pictures of me that I honestly like seeing. When you log back into your account of course the scum will be there waiting on you, but perhaps someday they’ll realize that death is on the horizon for all of us and they’ve ruined the youth of their years by spending 90% of it sending hate to someone they don’t even know. Besides, they can’t stop you from writing.” He continued to peck the side of her face with reassuring kisses. No matter what, he was always going to be there to motivate her through thick and thin because that was his Angel. By God was he determined to keep it that way forever.

(So you see Zuff, Kai doesn’t care and neither should you. Anons try so hard to steal your light from you but they’ll fail every single time because you are unstoppable even on your worst days.)

#overhaul

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mi6-cafe · 4 years

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HERE ARE THE DRABBLES FOR WEEK 2!

Ready to READ&VOTE?!

Well, let’s refresh your memory first.

This week our competitors were asked to write exactly 200 angsty words inspired by the phrase: ” to strive, to seek, to find, but not to yield ”

HOW DO YOU VOTE?

Read all the drabbles. (they’re below the line)

Choose three that you like the most.

Fill out this VOTING FORM, telling us your favourites. (You can even leave anonymous feedback for the author).

NOTE: If you are a competitor, you CANNOT vote for your own fic. But please, do vote. :)

The voting period ends at 11:59 PM EST on Sunday night. Results will be posted and anonymous feedback will be emailed on Monday.

Title: Sisyphean Author: Anyawen Warnings: MCD (Major Character Death) Summary: Cause. And effect.

He had refused to give up when the signal was lost. If there were the slightest chance, the smallest trace, he would find and make use of it. He wrestled with technology, fought bureaucracy, and ignored his own limits. Like Orpheus, he followed a trail gone dark and cold to find the hell where his beloved was held. A team already en route for rescue, he activated a camera. Like Orpheus, his love was lost as he laid eyes on him. An indicator light on the camera blinked to life, betraying their surveillance, and they gained visuals only to watch his agent's execution. Unlike Orpheus when he lost his Eurydice, he did not fall prey to despair. He would not betray his lover's memory or dishonor his sacrifice by pining away. He channeled his grief into ingenuity, political savvy, fierce protectiveness, and an icy, vengeful fury. He focused on the interests of the country for which his lover had given his life, and the other agents who continued to risk everything in that same service. He would do everything in his power to keep them safe and bring them home. Gods have mercy on any who tried to stop him.

Title: Savvy Author: stormofsharpthings Warnings: no Archive warnings apply Summary: Bond is missing...

He couldn’t find James.

He’d often had to remind the newer techs that the double-oh agents might play dumb to get out of filing reports but the nature of their job these days required them to be almost as computer-savvy as Q Branch themselves. And Bond was more skilled than most, though he kept it quiet. So an unaccustomed panic threatened to overwhelm him the longer James was missing.

There was no trace despite hours of desperate searching through surveillance footage. He’d even hacked into dashboard-camera databases online. Bond had walked into that bloody meeting and all electronics had gone dark.

“If he were dead, there’d be a body!” he’d shouted at M. Other agents were out looking, but there was no evidence at the location. If Bond had been abducted, there was no rescue possible yet. Q refused to think of torture.

James would leave a sign...somehow...somewhere...if he could.

In frantic desperation, Q started checking logs of internet-connected devices. A smart bulb in an industrial warehouse was reporting an intermittent error, probably from faulty wiring, but Q mapped the errors and times from the online log and found a rough pattern: long long short long. Morse code for Q.

Title: Blind Author: SouffleGirl91 Warnings: None. Summary: He couldn’t see.

He couldn’t see.

He needed to find them, but he couldn’t see.

Fear. A fist, seizing his heart. Squeezing his chest until all he could feel was sheer panic. Struggling to breathe.

A hundred scenarios ran through his mind, a warning of what might happen if he failed. Cyber attacks going unprevented. Terrorist attacks unthwarted. Agents dead. All because of him.

Because the Quartermaster wasn’t at his post.

He needed to find them. The Quartermaster needed to return to his post.

But he couldn’t see.

Where were they? All the intel said they would be here. They must be here. They had to be.

What if they weren’t?

How would he explain?

What would he say when M asked him why the Quartermaster was missing?

There was no other option, he had to find them. He couldn’t give up.

But he couldn’t see.

Blindly, he reached out, feeling around. His fingers brushed over the debris of a life interrupted. He recoiled as his hand came into contact with a pool of liquid. Still warm.

Oh, God!

More urgently now, he sought, knocking things aside. There wasn't enough time!

There!

Q put on his glasses, finally ready to face the day.

Title: Tennyson Author: sorion Warnings: - Summary: Bond loves more easily than he would like to.

‘Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

"What utter nonsense," Bond said, drink in hand. It wasn't his first. Nor his second.

If he could travel back in time, he'd choose not to love. Every time.

Love brought him nothing but betrayal and pain. How could loving and losing be better than never loving in the first place? He wouldn't be blind to the inevitable betrayal (and death) without love.

Today's reason for the drinks was that time travel didn't exist, and Bond had once more been confronted with the frustrating fact that he couldn't not love, time and again. Much as he would have liked to.

"Just how drunk are you?" someone asked, sidling up to his solitary spot at the bar.

'Not drunk enough to purge you from my system,' Bond thought. Despite his best efforts and iron will, he made the mistake of lifting his head, meeting questioning but undemanding eyes.

Reflected in those eyes, he found the truth that love was as much his constant companion as death. Neither weakness nor enemy, but the backbone of his very nature.

"Perhaps... 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world."

Title: Hunger Author: sunaddicted Warnings: canon typical violence, toxic relationships Summary: the truth hurts more than a bullet wound He pursed his lips, eyes contemplating the ruin spread out at his feet: his life, his career, his dreams - everything lay shattered on the ground, all of his hard work and his striving aspirations turned to dust. "Hungry - you were always hungry for more than you can chew, clever boy" Q pursed his lips, refusing to look at the other - stubbornly staring out at the moors, fog slowly raising from the earth like poisonous vapours "It's your fault, Raoul" "Shut up" "It wasn't the plan!" "¡Callate!" Suddenly there was the cold circle of a gun's barrel pressed in the middle of his forehead - so icy that it almost burned against his skin. Q swallowed, tightening his hands in fists that would do nothing to protect him from a bullet straight to the brain "She doesn't give a shit about you, she never has" Raoul sneered "And you do?" "Yes, I do" Raoul laughed, derisive and cruel: it hurt more than a bullet ever would but Q wasn't giving up on him - he wasn't sure he could; yielding under pressure and escaping just wasn't an option, they were together for life, inextricably bound together. No matter how deadly Raoul's love was.

Title: Lost and Found Author: Ksania / starrboned Warnings: implied canon-typical violence Summary: James made a promise he couldn't keep.

James finds him kneeling in the ruins, a dark silhouette against the fiery sky.

His sword makes a quiet "slink!" as he unsheathes it, flaring in the dying light. The blade's pale as it kisses Q's neck.

"Hello, James," Q says. "I hoped it would be you who'd find me."

Waves clash beneath them, salt heavy in the air.

"Nothing to say?" Q asks. "You always were a man of few words."

"They're coming," James breathes, watching as Q rises to his feet, turning.

His eyes are bloodshot, face pale. Black cloak hanging from skinny shoulders. A shadow of the man who held James's heart.

"James." Q cracks a smile. "You promised."

Once upon a time, when they were a Queen's mage and her knight.

James grips his sword, knuckles white.

He lets the blade drop. "I'm not killing you."

"You must." Q takes a step closer. "You know what she'll do -"

Footsteps approach. James pulls Q into his arms.

"Then we both die!" Q hisses, clutching at his cloak. "And everything was for naught!"

"So be it," James smiles, kissing him. "We both knew it was going to end this way."

Q sighs. "They're here."

James raises his sword.

Title: Adamant Author: IrishWitch58 (captain-magicalkitty) Warning: Effects of violence Summary: Q ponders the similarities between himself and 007

The monitors beeped steadily, monotonously. Q hated the sound that screamed the fallibility of his systems, that made him face the ways in which he couldn't keep his agents safe. He shifted in the chair, the same he had occupied for the past 10 hours. He was connected to his branch, overseeing ongoing activities but that mattered less than the silent battered figure in the hospital bed. James had once again both succeeded and failed in that spectacular fashion that made him the best MI6 had. The mission goal had been accomplished but the medical evac had been a skin of the teeth exercise. More damage done, more scars. Bond's resume was written clearly on his body, scars upon scars marring the skin Q valued more than his own. Q acknowledged that his technological efforts could only do so much. It was the indomitable spirit of the man that was at issue. His nature was to push beyond the known and see for himself and to never give in to circumstance. In his own way, Q was the same, which was why he would sit and wait and plan how to avoid the next disaster, as unyielding as any agent.

Title: The End Author: Venstar Warnings: angst(?) Summary: farewells.

It was all coming to a close with this next mission. It was a death trap. Once he went in, there was no coming out.

“Duty calls, I must go.”

“That's bollocks.”

007 smiled down at Q and brushed a finger across his chin and down his jaw. “This will be your first resurrection to witness, won’t it? Every story has an ending.”

“There’s only one 007 in my books.”

007 laughed at the jokes Q valiantly made with effort.

Q’s eyes narrowed and his lips compressed into a straight line. “I’ll find a way to get you back.”

“Seek and you will not find me,” Bond whispered, “It will be a new 007 when you finally yield to the inevitable.”

“Never!”

“So they replace me and they will replace you.”

Q shook his head. “We could leave. Would that be so terrible?”

007 looked at Q with pity in his eyes. “That would be treasonous.”

“It’s not like you’ve never skipped town before!” Q blurted out, his cheeks red.

“I am no traitor.”

“No, you’re a loyal dog. Now I understand why M kept that hideous thing on her table.” Q spat his words at 007’s feet.

“Goodbye, Q.”

Title: Never Yielding Author: iambid (flantastic) Warnings: None Summary: James is bullish, Q just wants him to stop.

Q waited for him outside M’s office.

“What the hell, Bond?”

James didn’t miss a step as he carried on down the corridor forcing Q to trot to keep up with him.

“James! Talk to me!” He pleaded.

James stopped abruptly and whirled around.

“About what? What exactly would you like to talk about?”

“This!” Q responded hotly, gesturing. “Why are you going back out into the field?”

“Because they need me.” James snapped.

“But I thought…”

“What exactly? That a gunshot wound would put me out of action permanently? That I would want to spend the rest of my days hanging around your house like some kind of rescue dog? I have a job to do, Quartermaster.”

He went to turn but Q grabbed his wrist.

“What about us?” Q asked quietly.

“There is no us.” James said and then, when he saw the hurt in Q’s eyes, he added; “It was a dream. Thank you for taking me in and taking care of me, but it can’t continue.” He looked down at Q’s hand, still resting on his wrist, and regretfully shook it off. “People like me don’t deserve people like you,” he said sadly before walking away.

#10

Title: ghost Author: azure7539 Warnings: none Summary: Question and answer.

What went wrong?

By the time he arrives, there’s nothing of value left. He takes in the sight of the cramped room—one bare mattress in the corner, energy bar wrappings pushed into a pile, empty water bottles strewn around the floor—and stops at the coffee table. The near humid scent of cigarettes lingers in the air, unseen but winds like spidery gossamer, spooling from the crushed fags in that full ashtray next to an abandoned laptop.

His eye twitches.

Barely gone but not within chasing distance, his mind grudgingly concludes, and he sits down on the cracked tiles with a grunt. Despite the Caribbean sun flaring outside an unrelenting spot of heat as it pierced in through the windows, the place sustains a perpetual coolness that settles on his shoulders a phantom weight.

Really, he should worry more about potential booby traps in the laptop, but the thought doesn’t even stir his apprehension, and he opens it anyway.

The words he finds on the screen seize his breath before flickering back into an empty void.

His earpiece crackles to life with a hissing fit. “Status report.”

“He’s gone,” Bond growls, shutting the device with a harsh click.

/I went wrong./

#11

Title: The Perfect Gift Author: Shush_MummyWriting Warnings: None Summary: "to strive, to seek, to find, but not to yield."

The moment he saw her, he knew she was perfect.

Madelaine was not just beautiful, but brave, smart and had a backbone of steel. Knowing her background, she was the ideal partner for an old warhorse like James Bond.

Q felt the tiny flame that had been nurtured by every bit of banter, every special look sent his way, every promise extracted, compounded by every risk he had taken for Bond, flicker and die.

When he returned to his favourite workstation in the bowels of Q Branch, the information he had requested from the Archives had already arrived. Q had followed Bond’s career even before their first official meeting and as he looked over the old blueprints, he realised this would be the perfect farewell gift for Bond.

Besides, it would make an excellent project for the Garage minions. With a little creative accounting, sketches already flowing from his fingers to his screen, he would pour every ounce of his brilliance into the DB5 and it would be ready when Bond got back.

Then Q would be able put all those inconvenient feelings behind him and say good-bye to James Bond, with a smile, like the friend that he was.

#12

Title: 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world Author: scarytheory Warnings: mention of character death, depression Summary: James's got his happily ever after with Madeleine. Still – he's struggling every day.

...you should know-

James wakes up from a nightmare, panicking, trying to catch his breath. Madeleine is used to it by now. She just whispers ‘you're safe, you're home’, still half-asleep. But he gets up and pours himself some whisky because he doesn't know what home means anymore.

Everything is blurred. Maybe he made the wrong choice. Even though she's here, and he loves her.

But he's still thinking about that phone call. It's been six months, and he can't stop thinking about it.

“Q died. I thought you should know.”

Wrong home.

More whisky.

And more nightmares.

There is a weird inner ache that James can't even name; he is too afraid to do so. A little bit of it belongs to Madeleine because they can't be happy together; it will never be enough. It's also about Q because James failed him. He knew and he left anyway, left everything that could have been.

But mostly it's about James himself. Because he's so tired and scared to go back and fight again. But in the end, he knows that he will do what he always does.

Not yield.

Not yet.

Even though the whisky is burning in his throat.

#13

Title: Unyielding Author: AtoTheBean Warnings: None Summary: Q will hate that fucking poem for the rest of his life...

“You’re going to lose him.”

“I’m not,” Bond grunts over the comms.

“Repositioning 006 to intercept,” Q replies, signaling to R.

He looks back at the screen to find Bond has stolen a motorbike.

“007, stand down. The plaza’s too crowded.”

“All the more reason to stay with the bomb.”

Q sighs, switching screens to an aerial view. Bond’s so stubborn since his return.

Though, not at first. At first he was accommodating… practically deferential…. And Q was unyielding in his anger. It’s taken months to find their rapport... for Q to acknowledge they still make a good team, ignoring the dull ache of what else he wishes they might be.

“Approaching the bridge.”

“I see you,” Q says, refocusing.

“Good place to douse a bomb...”

“But how would…” Cold dread fills Q. 007 is still fast, but even he acknowledges his reaction times have slowed...

The motor revs. “'We're not now that strength which in old days—’.”

“James Bond, don’t you dare quote Tennyson at me!”

Q watches Bond grab the mark—

“JAMES!”

—and hurl them both off the bridge. He hears the rush of wind, a splash, and then static.

The water-muffled explosion on the screen is silent.

#14

Title: The Balad of Sir Bond Author: ladymars Warnings: Implied Major Character Death Summary: A prince seeks for his knight.

Lady Moneypenny, from her kneel and still wearing her tattered armor, presented a scrap of burnt fabric to her prince. "This is all we found of him, Your Highness." Cold ice ran through the prince's veins. His breath left him. "No, that can't be..." "I saw him go into that cave myself," the knight interrupted, her voice tight, "I told him we should return, call for reinforcements, but he pushed inside." "Stubborn bastard..." Sir Bond had escaped from dire situations, deadly situations, returned to life with a smirk, a swagger, and the head of their enemy in hand (never his sword, of course, always losing and breaking those), but from a man-eating monster? Of course he's stupid enough to jump in without hesitation. Something pushed the prince up from his throne and to his feet. He staggered as if grief had possessed him and moved his limbs like the automatons he assembled, a yearning pulling him forward. "I'll find him. He's out there. I'll search the ends of the world for him." Moneypenny paled. "But sir—" "No!" His voice did not sound like his own, strangled and high. "He's out there!" A fury flickered in his eyes. "I'll never yield."

Thank you all for writing these wonderful drabbles!

Thank you all for voting and making this properly fun!

Here is the post announcing the winners.

#LDWS #angst #signal boost #writing competition #james bond fanfiction #last drabble writer standing #drabble

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the-crowess · 3 years

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Altrovough: Adventure on Every Horizon

Chapter 1: Out of the Dark I hadn't been playing for six months. Not because it had become too expensive. Not because work became too much for me. Not because I got a significant other. Not because the community was bad or anything like that. No, I hadn't played in six months because my avatar was stuck in a trap.

There are glitches, you see. Somehow in this modern VR experience there are still glitches. And with glitches comes assholes who use those glitches to their advantage.

So, here's what happened to me: Me and my party went into a dungeon. We split up. Two went one way, two went the other, and I (though I protested) was by myself. Even though I had a lantern when I walked down into the hallway it was completely black. That should have been my first clue that this was a trap of some sort. My lantern still had fire, but no light was being produced from it. Being promised treasure and being a dumbass, I continued forward into the dark. After walking just far enough into the hallway to make the doorway disappear, I sprung a tile trap.

The floor beneath me sloped downward and I fell rolling after it. Head over heels I fell until I smacked my face and passed out.

I woke up in chains. I was propped up against a wall. My wrists above my head were on short chains, and my ankles on longer chains.

Okay, I thought, no biggy. I'll just restart the day.

Okay, so that didn't work. Which is weird... I'll call my party members...

No service? What the fuck? That's not even an element in this game!

Well, uh, okay I guess I'll just bust out of these—rusty—old—chains!

...

Nope.

After exhausting my options, then exhausting them again I logged off.

For months I kept receiving messages that players were interacting with my avatar, so I would log on, only for them to laugh at me and be utterly and completely unhelpful.

My party visited me four separate times. And all of those times were to make fun or my misfortune, even though they knew that ANYTIME they could unlock the chains and release me. The first time it was all of them together. The captain Jockster (or Jerkstar as I call him) had squatted down in front of me and said, "this is what you get, you know. Playing this way has consequences. Thanks for taking one for the team." Then he had laughed like the drug addicted jackass he was. The others laughed with him. The second time it was only Aliciandria (our rouge) and Marlquan (our cleric). They had been discussing what to do with me when Alicandria accidentally kicked my foot and I responded, and I woke up to them talking about if they should just kill me so that they wouldn't have to worry about how people were judging them for not helping me. The third time it was just Havanio (the sorcerer). He woke me up, then sat across from me and said nothing for an hour. He just sat there like a fucking douchebag and looked at me like I was some caged beast put there for his entertainment. And the last time doesn't matter.

Players of all kinds and from all districts would stop by only to laugh at me. I became a joke, and even more that that I became a meme! Screenshots of my avatar hanging there like a prisoner spread all over the internet. To add to my torture, a player whose avatar was a homely goblin woman would harass me constantly.

Behind the happy smile of someone who literally baked cookies for visitors was a demented maniac. This guy—I know she is a he because he fucking DM'd me dick pics. I think he harassed me for three reasons: 1) I fell right into his trap 2) My avatar is a hot man and I think Little Miss Goblin Man is gay or more likely bi and uncomfortable with his sexuality 3) I think he thought he figured out that the gender of my avatar and the gender of myself might not be the same, and he was definitely trying to intimidate me. This asshole physically and sexually harassed my avatar, and I couldn't even report it!

Not like I didn't try to report it—when I did the staff would send in an NPC (Non-Player Character) and see literally nothing. So, in this trap: it's a glitch mixed with a non-invasive virus; meaning the virus only effects this one spot and not the whole server or game. It can't get into your computer. It like can't get past the firewalls or something I don't really know.

So, not only did this jack-wad figure out a way to trap me, but he also figured out how to keep his dirty deeds hidden from the staff. For almost three months I continued to check in. Two weeks after the initial incident I jumped at every UAN (Unconscious Avatar Notification) but I quickly learned that nobody wanted to help me, they all just wanted to see if the rumors were true and maybe get a picture. Eventually I stopped responding and eventually my avatar fell out of the popular meme rotation.

...

BEEP. BEEP. UAN! Someone's interacting with your character! 😊

BEEP. BEEP. UAN!! Someone's interacting with your character.

BEEP. BEEP. UAN!!! Respond you asshole! You should log on!

"Uhg! Fine!"

I left my lunch (thinking I would return to it real soon) and went to my game room to log on.

I woke to a girl poking my cheek. I snapped at her fingers.

"Oh! Fuck!" She pulled her hand away, shaking off the close call, "you're hard to wake up! Not much for answering your UAN's huh?"

Standing over me was a girl of maybe nineteen. Her clothes draped and flowed about figure in Cleric glory. Great. A fucking cleric. She wouldn't've stood out more. Dark skin with undoubtably "sea green" eyes. Her hair was done up in some completely unattainable style that was loopy with braids and pigtails sectioned into pompoms; it was a shade of maroon that says, "I'm a supporting character, but I want to think I'm a main character!"

"Is it true you've been down here six months?"

"O.O.G."

"What?"

"Out. Of. Game. I've been 'down here' six months out of game."

"Holy cow, man! That's a while."

"Did you need something?"

"Excuse me?"

I made cold eye contact with her, "Did. You. Need. Something?"

"Uh... wellllllll, I heard a rumor that there was some poor fuck stuck down here who can't get himself out."

"Oh. Fantastic." An awkward silence split between us, "well, thanks for stopping by. Take a screenshot, it'll last longer."

She stared blankly at me, "no. I think you misunderstand. I'm here to help you."

"What."

"I'm here to help you."

I couldn't think. Couldn't fathom this thing unfolding in front of me, "what?"

She began to fiddle with the chains on my wrist.

"Wait, no!"

She looked down at me the way a mom would look at her two-year-old who says he doesn't want to eat mashed potatoes because they have eyes and he doesn't want to eat mashed eyeballs.

"Wait." As my heart pounded loudly in my chest, I asked her, "what do you want from me? Like, you—you can't just want to let me go. You must want something from me."

She sat back down on her heels and looked away, her lips followed her eyes away from me and back, and she said, "Well, no. Not really. Like I said: I heard there might be some poor fuck who was trapped and couldn't get out on his own. I thought for my first adventure, I'd go get 'im." Then she went right back to messing with the chains.

I laughed and shook my head.

She stood up and put her hands on her hips, pouting. Lordy, she was cute. The puzzled look on her face gave me some hope that maybe she might actually be able to save me. With a huff she sat down again and confessed, "you're the only reason I got this game. You're a meme, a legend. You're so classic that you're practically nonexistent. Every time this game comes up in social media you're mentioned. On all the subreddits, and in the deepest parts of tumblr—you're there. I just had to come see if you were real, and I was—and still am—planning that if you were actually here that I would help you out."

"No catch?"

"No catch."

I smiled to myself, knowing now that it was I who had the advantage. I could use her. After all, every party needs a healer. Now I just had to make sure she wouldn't ditch me anytime soon. "Are you sure you don't want to try and find a catch? I was a level 52 before this whole ordeal."

She perked up, "what's your level now, cowboy?"

"35."

"What?! You're so dilapidated and all your equipment was stolen. H-HOW?"

"Cause I'm just that awesome." This should do it.

"I've changed my mind!"

Perfect.

"I want you as a bodyguard! For two years—"

"One year."

"Alright, one year." She looked like she wanted to ask me to shake on it, but then thought better of it, "can I please help you out now?"

"Yes."

Very quickly, and with very little trouble she released me from my chains. Bruises and scars tattooed my wrists and ankles. How the coding of this game works is literally so fucking far beyond me. I pulled my limbs into myself, feeling the stiff resistance of time.

"Can you get up?"

Without needing to consider it I said, "no, I don't think so. Do you have any potions that will give me a boost?"

"Oh yes! I knew that if I found you, you'd need medical help immediately, so I spent all the gold from my—"

"All your gold??? Are you stupid?"

"Whaaaa? I-I... I—just—"

"Whatever. We'll figure it out. What potions do you have?"

She nodded very curtly, and pulled up her bag contents and read them off to me: "fifteen Good Health Potions, fifteen Great Health Potions, fifteen Fantastic Health Potions, ten Boost 'Ems, seven Leaves Of Health, two Gladiator Liquid Bandages and two Beats of Life. What'll it be?"

"Gimme a Boost 'Em."

She tapped on the icon and a Boot 'Em materialized in her hand. She put it out to me, but when I grabbed for it, she pulled away. I of course made eye contact with her, thinking she was gonna pull a fast one on me. Instead she said, "Valhalla."

"What?" My immediate confusion fell away into fear. This must be a trick. But why would she do that? It doesn't make any sense. I'm clearly smarter than her. It's me that's tricking her, why would she—

"That's my name. Valhalla."

The interruption of my panicked thinking threw me off guard. That's a stupid name. Before I could tell her how stupid I thought her name was she put the Boost 'Em in my hand.

Taking the potion, I had trouble removing the cork. Valhalla silently offered her help, but I shooed her away. I grumbled something about how I was perfectly capable of doing it myself.

With much effort and significant struggling, I yanked the cork out and threw it over my shoulder. Only for it to bounce off the wall and back into my lap. With the kind of drunken vigor seen at taverns I swallowed the creamy blue liquid. The moment it touched my lips, a feeling of power hit me like caffeine in a low-calorie energy drink. Going down my throat it felt like warm milk and honey. Electrifying energy flowed outward from my middle. It snaked its way through my arms and legs. It made my fingers and toes tingle like pins and needles.

I leapt up, a new man. I knew this wouldn't last long, and I knew that later this would end up hurting me more, but fuck.

Fuck this feels good.

"Do you have any weapons?"

"Uh, yeah." Valhalla pulled up her bag again and tapped on the Equipment tab. "What do you want?"

There were certainly more weapons than should have been in her bag if she had just started, let alone had spent all her starter gold on potions. I chose to ignore this. "I'll take the mace." I reached up and engaged with the weapon. The heavy steel handle materialized in my outstretched hand. By the look on her face, it must have been the first time Valhalla had seen anyone engage. I'm glad I was able to be the one to show her, in all the glory I could muster.

"This is a pretty nasty weapon, baby." I swung it a couple of times, feeling the weight; testing the blow power.

"I picked it up because I liked the color!"

I laughed, "I guess I overlooked the purple steel, but this will do nicely."

"Nicely for what?"

"Do me a favor, doll. You see that door over there? Go knock."

"Okay, but," she came right up close to me and stuck her face in mine, "I'm not a fucking doll."

"Noted."

I followed her as she warily walked to the door of the goblin woman's kitchen. Valhalla knocked timidly on the door.

"Come in!" The goblin wench cooed, "I just baked some fresh cookies! We can pose next to the body if you want!"

I caught Valhalla frown and furrow her brows at "the body".

Oh how sweet this will taste, I thought as adrenaline pumped through my veins. I passed in front of Valhalla whispering, "stay back."

I slid through the open door. The goblin hag had her back to me, this couldn't have been planned more perfectly. I crept up behind her with my mace raised above my head and my six-foot-five shadow engulfed her. She turned around with horror, a tray of cookies in hand. Her eyes widened and she tensed as if she were to scream.

But I didn't give her a chance.

"Your actions have consequences."

I let the mace fall down upon her head. The crack of her skull resonated harmoniously with the clang of the cookie sheet on the ground. Giddy joy sprung forth from me as I smashed the mace into her again and again. The second blow shattered her ribcage. Her ribs sprang up and splintered through her tissue. Smashing her hands made her fingers pop off, they flew in all directions. A blow to her thigh created a fountain. Warm blood hit my bare chest, my exposed legs. It splattered on my face. It coated my hands. It made the mace slippery in my hands. Her blood soaked what little was left of my shorts. It sprayed the walls, the kitchy table and chairs, the coffee pot and baking ingredients. Blood decorated the cookies that now laid scattered on the floor.

Satisfied by the pulpy mound of oozing, squirting flesh and bone I subsided. Reaching down, I tore a blood-soaked rag from her dress. Turning to the wall I wrote LEAVE.

Standing back, I let out a heavy sigh. The effects of the Boost 'Em would soon wear off. I turned around and cracked my neck. I looked over in Valhalla's direction, but over her head. "I need some new clothes." I declared.

She stared at me. Her eyes pulled mine in and her mouth morphed into a grin, "fuck. YEAH!"

"Huh??????"

"Dude she called you 'the body'. And we both know that she was the reason you were stuck down here. Plus: THAT WAS AWESOME!!! I am so glad I came to find you! Best $130 dollars I ever spent." She then ran up and hugged me. The contact made me tense up.

I shook out of her embrace, "let's get out of this dungeon."

She led the way out. It was different from the way I had come in. We walked down the hallway that I had stared at for so long, hoping that somebody, anybody would come for me. Not ten feet into the tunnel we turned a corner and there was the exit. My stomach dropped. I felt sick.

It had been so close the whole time. Learning this made me want to revive that sonofabitch just to kill her all over again.

Emerging into the sunlight hurt my eyes. I was blinded.

What a sight we must have been. Myself: six-five, soaked in blood, starved, almost naked. Her: small, sweet-looking, fresh-faced, and not a drop of blood on her.

I still couldn't really see when somebody started talking. "Hey, are you guys okay?"

"Oh, we're fine," Valhalla sang sweetly sang sweetly next to me. At that very moment, I lost all my energy. My health bar plummeted, and sirens rang through my headset. My vison flashed red. I fell to the ground.

The group that had approached watched, alarmed. Valhalla looked like she wanted to eat her words.

Stupid girl. She had no idea what to do.

I had fifteen seconds before I'd die. This had happened once before when my former party and I had just started the game. We got attacked by a level 20 dragon and one strike had me seeing red.

10 seconds.

They were bickering about the best course of action. They had no idea I was on the brink of death. Valhalla stared at me looking like a lost idiot.

The sky began to spin. Valhalla's blurry silhouette swayed above me.

Did she forget about all that stuff she bought? How many gaming hours did she log before she came to find me? Did she even go on the tutorial adventure? I mean, you can technically skip it, but—

"BEAT." I coughed out then my head lolled.

The party erupted into tense panic.

5 seconds.

Oh please, please Valhalla. Please don't let me die. After all, you told me you came to save me. So save me!

Just as if she could hear my internal pleas, a beat was shoved in my mouth and my jaw forced upward from the outside to crush it. The juicy tuber gushed in my mouth. I felt Valhalla's hand on my lips, pressing down to keep everything in. I'd heard rumors of the experience of Beat of Life. Some players said they almost wish their party members would have let them die. The juice was hot, potent, and sour. So sour is made my jaw ache. It felt like someone was twisting a wheel, making my jaw tighter and tighter. My teeth felt like they were going to pop out of their gums. It burned my throat, made my eyes water and my nose run. My stomach did not want to accept it. I wanted to throw up, but I couldn't move. Hot flashes waved through my body. An ocean of churning heat pushed and pulled at my organs, my brain. I could feel myself sweating. Growing hotter by the moment. My head swam. My limbs grew numb. I passed out.

I was saved. Unconscious, but saved.

But Valhalla didn't know that. Stupid girl, skipping the tutorial. What was she thinking? Guess I'd have to ask her when I woke up.

And so I took off my headset and it was dusk.

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