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hotasfahrenheit · 5 months

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So you wanna get into NCT, eh?

Part 3 - NCT 127 - More MVs and Social Media Links

Oh hey I'm finally back. It's been more than a day but life happens and it's only been like two days... or so? (it's been three) but let's get back into this!

So last time we covered a little bit about the members of the group and then I linked some MVs. I realised something I could have done there was link some social media accounts so let's do that!

There are general accounts for NCT on most of the big social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. There are also accounts for all of the subgroups, so NCT 127 does have their own accounts on all of those as well. I feel like the Youtube content deserves its own post so I'll get to that but 127 does have a Youtube channel as well.

The individual members share things like the Twitter and Instagram accounts on and off, taking turns sometimes to post on there, tho most posts are from the company. Facebook gets posts from the company and not from individuals very often. The boys do all have their own Instagram accounts tho, and they also all use Bubble to varying degrees, which is an app which a lot of kpop groups use where fans can pay to access special posts from idols that include text posts, pictures, voice recordings, etc. I have never been a Bubble user, but I follow everyone on Instagram so here's all of those:

You can use those to become more familiar with the members and see some of the nonsense they get up to. Some of them post often and some post almost never so your mileage may vary with them as a tool, but I'm a sucker for personal social media accounts so I'm clearly following those all.

It's also worth throwing out there since I skipped talking about positions last time that Taeyong is the leader of both NCT 127 and also of NCT in general. He's also a main rapper, main dancer, visual, center, helps write and produce music and has since The 7th Sense was released, etc etc, you name it, he's probably done the thing. He's ridiculously talented, basically. (They all are.) I could list everyone's positions but there's tons of wiki pages and etc with those kinds of lists and I find them to be less helpful when you have a group like NCT where everyone kinda does everything a lot of the time and has multiple talents and jobs since the rappers might be singing or the vocalists might be rapping depending on the song and literally everyone is a visual etc. But that's part of why you might be noticing that Taeyong is front and center like... a lot. Very often. He's recognisable and has a distinctive voice and being the leader is a good extra excuse to focus on him.

Anyway, let's get back to the music! I somehow managed to come up with ten more videos to link to hit the max per post so you're getting another full variety tasting of 127's style and range with a special treat at the end.

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Favorite (Oct 25, 2021) was the lead single from the repackage of Sticker and was not quite as divisive as Sticker but still a bit weird. Released right before Halloween, there's a whole vampire concept going on (GREAT) and the MV and live stage performances all have a weird electronic dance break 2 1/2 minutes in (BAD) that I am PLEASED TO TELL YOU is not part of the song on the actual album. The first time I watched the MV it threw me for such a hard loop that I almost hated disliked the song but when I listened to the album later on spotify I was like "wait it's gone!!!! it was all just a bad dream!!!" and I try to forget it until I do something like watch the MV to make a post like this.

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We're gonna mix in some of 127's Japanese releases today starting with their first one, Chain (May 8, 2018) off their first Japanese mini album. Despite NCT's initial plan to have groups based in different countries and markets, they are still now in early 2024 only ABOUT to have their first Japan-centric subunit debut, which means that they've just been having 127 (and Dream) release some stuff in Japanese in the meantime. It helps that they have a Japanese member. Anyway Chain is just a great song so here it is.

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gimme gimme (Feb 15, 2021) suffers a little from the eternal problem of kpop songs even in primarily Japanese having some.... wild? English lyrics (spicy disease? dead clowns? who wrote these lyrics? why did their native English speakers go along with this?) but despite the nonsense it's a catchy, mesmerizing earworm of a song with a tight MV with a lot of neat cuts and transitions and I have watched it VERY MANY times. I love it. Spicy disease and all.

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In the first main NCT intro post I included WayV's version of Regular (October 8, 2018) and linked both this and the Korean version. I was going to include the Korean version and just link the English here since the Korean one is the one that I personally listen to the most, but then I noticed that the English version has like 66 million more views so I decided to reverse that and you get the English one. Anyway. All versions of Regular are great and the English version has some great weird lyrics too ("I be walking with the cheese that's the queso" is like... ultimate. Incredible. A+. How did Jaehyun record that without laughing? Legendary.). It's also, with Simon Says, one of the only MVs that has all ten members of NCT 127. It also has a CGI tiger, shiny cars, rockets going off, Winwin jumping off a building, there's just a lot going on.

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Sliding back to Japan for a minute, I feel like I should include Wakey Wakey (March 18, 2019). I almost forget this song exists sometimes and I think it's because I just want to block out having seen the absolutely terrible wig they put on Johnny for this MV. Seriously why? The song itself is solidly in the weird but also very catchy lane that 127 does so well but I just keep thinking about the wig. Johnny had some long extensions for NCT 2020 that looked great on him, but this wig was just not it. My eyes are drawn to it every time he's on screen. I need to put this into my regular listening-only playlists and let my brain block that wig out the way I forget the dance break in Favorite exists.

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127 started 2023 off with Ay-Yo (Jan 30, 2023) which was the (somewhat delayed) repackage of 2 Baddies, which we'll get to in a moment. I wasn't sure what to think of Ay-Yo at first but it has definitely grown on me despite having veered back into some questionable hair territory mainly for Taeyong (and I say that as a grown up late 90s punk kid who thought giant hair spikes were cool). The MV has some absolutely wild visuals mixed in, and the song is definitely outside of the realm of standard kpop releases even if it's not as weird as some others like Sticker. It's solid.

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Okay so. Like. I honestly didn't really pay enough attention to the general reactions to 2 Baddies (Sep 15, 2022) to tell you how divisive this song was to most people, but it split one of my group chats VERY strongly and one of my friends has refused to listen to any 127 releases since then because she hates this song so much. I tried to get her with Fact Check at the very least and she's so anti this song that she still refused and I may have lost her on 127 altogether 🤣 It's mainly the chorus that she dislikes, and I'm a little back and forth on it myself sometimes honestly but also I have absolutely BLASTED this song while driving down the highway so it feels kinda like a guilty pleasure song sometimes. If you ignore the chorus the other parts of the song are so goooooooood and no one can deny that the last part of the bridge slaps. Plus there's a whole lot of shirtless Johnny and Yuta which you can never go wrong with.

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Touch (Mar 13, 2018) is a little off from the style of kpop that I listen to regularly since it's a bit more in the bubbly poppy side of things that I don't always go for but the vibes are immaculate and everyone looks so happy in the MV and there's fuzzy sweaters and everyone smiles so much? It's hard to not love it. It's fluff and cheery and delightful.

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I don't know if SM actually started the "track video" trend (short MVs that have an edited, cut down version of a song so they cost less to produce than a full MV- Lemonade is 3:10 on the Sticker/Favorite album, but this track video is 2:01 for instance) but they love doing them with NCT, and despite Lemonade (Sep 9, 2021) definitely deserving a full MV, since it wasn't the lead single it didn't get one but it did at least get a track video and was performed a lot on the music shows when they were promoting Sticker. It's catchy and has some clever work in the full version lyrics that involve titles of other NCT 127 songs and I've listened to it as much as or possibly more than Sticker.

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I've covered all of the lead singles and there ARE some other track videos or special release songs like the recent Be There For Me that I could be using the last slot for but you know what? We're gonna go fully off the expected path and include Let's Shut Up & Dance (Feb 21, 2019) instead because it's wild and fun. 127 doesn't do much besides sing part of the chorus and do a bunch of dancing in this (on the ceiling? on the walls? in an alley?) but like. Lay is here too and the song is SO fun and an absolute bop so that's what we're closing this post out with.

So that wraps the NCT 127 music videos! I'm thinking the next post and the last of the 127 centric ones will be a guide to some of their Youtube content, since there's a whole lot, and that'll kinda set up expectations for the posts about Dream and WayV as well when we get to them. I think after I get through the main posts of MVs and content for all of the sub-units that I might do some special posts of performance videos for songs that don't have MVs just to get some of those out there, or I might just post a bunch of links to them. We'll see how I'm feeling and if my audience of like two or three people has any kind of preference (that's you, hey, yeah you, lemme know what you want from me).

This post is the third in a series of posts introducing new fans to NCT in a way that makes sense, by getting familiar with one subgroup at a time before moving on to the next. Linked down at the bottom is the intro post, and the rest will be linked as they're added.

Dedicated as ever to @catatonicrainbow and @poetry-protest-pornography 💖

[So you wanna get into NCT eh? 1 | 2 | 3]

#so you wanna get into nct eh #nct basics #how to get into nct #nct info posts #nct info #nct #nct 127 #mia talks about kpop things #mia talks about nct things #Youtube

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applestorms · 10 months

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BARBARA

might not go too in depth with this one since i'm a little outta practice writing essays but!! i wanted to get a few notes out of my reaction after watching the barbie movie so here we go ^w^ obvious spoiler warning under the cut, though if you want to just skip the section marked "ending," it probably isn't too bad.

STRENGTHS

1. early jokes

in my head i kind of split this film into two sections that intermingle often but are still pretty separate: the beginning half, which features more of the humor/references to the history of barbie, both in terms of the corporation and the experience of kids growing up with barbie dolls, and the ending half, which features more of the in-depth emotional reflection. while it does manage to delve fairly deep into some existential questions (enough that i think this is quite distinctly a barbie movie for adults), it stays pretty lighthearted overall which seems ideal for this kind of movie.

what i really like about many of the early jokes in this film (and its humor in general) is how they play off of the himbo/bimbo stereotypes of both ken & barbie in such a way that doesn't actually diminish the intelligence of any of the characters involved- specifically, most of the early jokes in the movie are based around the implication that (despite not actually being shown) kids are the ones playing with the dolls and moving all of the characters seen on set, meaning that the limitations on their intelligence are the limitations of the kids dreaming up their world (i.e. the continual references to a lack of genitalia, ken not knowing why he would want to sleep over, pouring an empty milk carton, etc).

what this means is that the movie is able to make a ton of stupid jokes referencing the absurdity of barbies and the dumb shit that inevitably comes up when you give kids access to toys while simultaneously allowing the characters (and in particular, margot barbie) the emotional intelligence necessary for the deeper reflection that shows up in the second half. it's really well done imo, and part of the reason why i think this film genuinely is appealing to fans and haters of barbie, lightly joking about the inherent weirdness and questionable history of the corporation while allowing room for genuine care & excitement on the part of people who care about it as a key part of their childhoods & experience growing up.

2. trauma of womanhood

alright, started off strong with this essay by explaining the joke. now let's talk about the trauma of growing up as a woman.

but forreal, the scene where barbie & ken are first rollerskating around in the real world and commenting on the reactions of other people to their (exactly copied) outfits hit me so much harder than i expected. while i mentioned earlier that this movie really does seem to have a little something for everyone watching, there still seems to be a target demographic of adult women that grew up with barbie & remember them fondly (i.e. gloria, the main mother) and for that group in particular i think this movie really has the ability to hit people hard.

what hits me so hard about that scene is just how real it is to the experience of that jarring transition. i'll write more about this in the section on mothers coming up next, but you can really read the movie as a reflection on the experience of growing up as a girl and hitting adulthood. the distinct stages that margot barbie goes through (mindless happiness -> existential crisis -> inner peace at the gynecologist) in part seem to reflect the experience of growing up as a cis woman (childhood -> sudden yanking into womanhood & being treated like an adult -> more peace with new social position).

in one of my classes on feminist philosophy this guy who i had been talking to a lot made a very significant comment that's stuck with me ever since. we were talking about trans feminism, and he (as a trans guy himself) mentioned how he always found it weird that people were so picky about the transition between genders when something like puberty and the bodily changes that come with that are so easily accepted as normal and barely even treated like a change. in particular, he mentioned something about how harsh & almost violent the transition from girlhood into womanhood can be, how you can be yanked into the role with all of its expectations so suddenly out of nowhere. it's a sentiment that i've heard echoed in similar comments from other trans individuals since, particularly from a few trans men about their own experiences where being a girl was fine, but being a woman was not.

this is honestly one of the areas where i think cis people and in particular cis feminism can really gain some meaningful reflection from the experiences of trans people, if i may say so as a cis woman myself. really, you don't have to be a man for the above sentiment about "being a girl is fine, being a woman isn't" to still kinda fuckin apply!! what resonates so strongly with me about the rollerblading scene is margot barbie's reaction to suddenly being sexualized, the (as she explicitly says) underlying violence of that experience, the discomfort and self-consciousness that comes from it and the distinct contrast of how ken really does not feel the same way. there's something that can really fuck you up about growing up as a girl hardly even aware about most of your body only to suddenly start growing tits and have everyone's treatment of you do a fucking 180.

i have a very vivid memory that reminds me of my own such experience when it comes to this, actually. when i was in high school we were required to take a foreign language for a few years to graduate, so i ended up taking a couple years of japanese to fulfill the requirement. it was one of my favorite classes overall since everyone taking it was pretty much guaranteed to be a nerd interested in anime and/or video games, and it was the one class where i consistently had friends and got close to the teacher. it was still a bit awkward on my part, however, because of one thing- the class was almost entirely made up of dudes, with the 3 exceptions being myself, the teacher, and one other girl who came out as a lesbian a couple weeks into the start of class. essentially what this meant is that i was the only potentially "available" girl in the room (ignoring whether or not there was any actual interest on either side of things) for most of the 2-3 years i took the class. this was fine for the first year or so, back when i was super depressed and only ever wore the same 2 hoodies every single day, but as my mental health improved, so did my clothing habits and with it came a distinct shift in the ways that the other people in the room treated me.

i remember i finally gave in and wore a skirt one day and the shift in treatment was practically fucking tangible. it wasn't that people treated me worse or better necessarily, i mean there were a couple dudes that weirded me out a bit and my relationships with my close friends didn't change a bit, but suddenly it felt like there was all of this additional shit weighing down my interactions with people i had previously felt comfortable with and, frankly, it fucking sucked! it felt like the fact that i had finally outwardly performed femininity suddenly reminded half the class that i was, in fact, a girl and all of a sudden there were all of these complex expectations and reactions that i was forced to shift through out of nowhere and i entirely didn't expect it.

to get back to the point, though that experience wasn't exactly the same as margot barbie suddenly being viciously sexualized by everyone in her path (though certainly, i've dealt with that one too) i think it still gets at a similar idea of how harsh and sudden the transition into womanhood can be and i appreciate how this movie reflected on that, especially in the context of how the shift primarily comes from a change in how other people view you. margot barbie never ages throughout the film, never goes through puberty like an actual kid and has to deal with the changes that come from that, but if anything i think that makes the message stronger- even if she is still fundamentally the same physical being, the external shift in perception is still strong, particularly in its influence on how one views themself.

3. mothers (& patriarchy)

i think it's safe to say that this is, at it's core, a feminism movie, and it explores this through the exploration of two main ideas: motherhood, particularly through the relationships of the movie's main women (margot barbie, gloria, sasha, & ruth handler), and patriarchy as tested by the kens, in particular ryan ken.

imo the movie's demonstration of the transition from childhood -> adulthood through margot barbie's character arc doesn't just focus on her as an individual, but also her relationship with her "creator," ruth handler, who is essentially treated like margot barbie's mother (i believe this is really clarified at the end of the movie, though tbh i forget what exact scene/line made me think that while originally watching). what really caught me off guard about this aspect is just how much it symbolically delves into the topic of grief, specifically through the loss of a mother on the part of margot barbie. i almost questioned if this was intentional at first, since it's quite vague and doesn't really show up very often, but iirc it ended up being quite a strong point. i replayed gris quite recently and i wasn't expecting to come up with the same emotions watching the barbie movie of all things, but i think it works well.

*also, sidenote: while i won't go too in depth into gloria & sasha's arcs since they feel pretty straightforward to me, i do want to add that i really liked how gloria was the girl that margot barbie was originally attached to rather than sasha. feels like the moviemakers really learned from EEAAO for that one, and it's nice to see more older women get put in the spotlight for once.

4. ken

SO. ok i know i mentioned patriarchy above but let's just give ken and patriarchy his own section cause i really liked how his arc was done. ryan gosling fucking killed it here, he knew exactly what needed to be done and did it and it deserves all the praise.

the one thing i wished there was a little bit more of though (keeping in mind that i've got a section on weak points right after this one) is a slightly clearer demonstration of how toxic masculinity/patriarchy/whatever the fuck you wanna call it makes men just as miserable as it does women. i think a part of what made this point weaker in my mind is how separate the barbies & kens were by the end of the movie (more on this in the section on dubious hope), though idk i might be nitpicking a bit too hard there. overall ken is a lovely horse girl with stunning proficiency at beach and i think his arc was incredibly satisfying and beautifully flashy, a perfect balance to the rugged femininity of barbie. you ARE kenough my dude, and i laughed hard enough at that hoodie to almost consider shelling out the 60 bucks for a real one.

5. ending

i started getting nervous right at the end there because as the movie seems to be aware, there are a lot of ways this could've been fucked up. this movie had a very particular message (i.e. women don't have to be extraordinary just to deserve existing in peace) that it was very intent on delivering the right way, and ultimately i think it succeeded. it managed to not shove a last minute barbie/ken romance into the final minutes, it reflected meaningfully enough on what the idea of a barbie really represents, and it let you leave the theater in good spirits with a great dumb joke.

6. no apologies & marketing (barbie can be anything)

actually- let's expand on that previous point a bit! "women don't have to be extraordinary just to deserve existing in peace," is a great message and fantastic evolution off of the classic barbie brand of "women can do anything they set their hearts out to do," and i really liked that the film stuck to this idea the whole way through. there's a potential criticism of the feminism of this film that it tries to tackle too much at once and doesn't give each individual point enough time to stew (aka there's margot barbie's emotional development arc but also gloria & sasha's arc but also ken's patriarchy arc etc. etc.), but i think that in sticking to this one core message it feels cohesive enough that i can't lean on that point too heavily.

i also like how this idea kinda transforms the messaging behind the original marketing for the movie. "this barbie is a [INSERT OCCUPATION HERE]" is great in that it attracts your attention by playing into the "classic" barbie message but also in that the movie seems to fundamentally be about pointing out that the occupation is not what makes those barbies (women) deserving of being treated with humanity and respect. it's just. it's fuckin nice.

7. barbie girl in a barbie world (the SET DESIGN) vs. lovely reality

THE PLASTIC SETS & PROPS WERE SO FUCKING GOOD like we knew they were going to be but AAAAAAAAA. istg god bless whoever worked on making all that shit look like plastic it was so good i was staring wide eyed the entire movie. also: just the right amount of sparkles and incorporation of old advertisements. chefs kiss.

additional short note before we get to the weak points cause lord my hands are starting to Feel It again: i really like that the "real world," for all of its grittiness in comparison to the barbie world wasn't treated like completely disgusting or dingy but instead a different, but still at times lovely place. all those shots of the light coming through the trees really helped i think, it was just nice that while it was different and jarring to margot barbie to see she was still able to see the beauty in it all. that scene where she tells the old lady at the bus stop that she's beautiful is the emotional core of this movie in my mind and i can't appreciate it enough for keeping that all present.

WEAK POINTS

1. what the fuck was up with that smallpox line

as it says! it was weird and jarring and out of place and i kind of wish it was just cut out entirely. this is probably the biggest negative point i have against the movie and since i've actually seen some people talking about this one i think i should try going a bit more in depth.

from what little i've seen of other comments on this, i think one of the biggest criticisms says something along the lines of "it's a bad line because it equates american indian genocide with patriarchy which isn't an equal comparison," and though i don't know if i would agree with that point exactly, i do think the comparison is ultimately a weird one to make and fails to make any meaningful points that aren't tainted by a weird insensitivity to indigenous american history.

it's actually not about the deaths for me, since i think it's ignorant to say that women haven't been killed due to the effects of patriarchy (even if nowadays it is usually at an intersection of more minority identities- cishet middle-class white women certainly aren't the ones being killed for their woman-ness in this day and age, at least in most of america). while fundamentally i think it's always going to be weird to try and compare the experiences of people dealing with different types of bigotry, i think another key problem here is the fact that the things being compared here just don't function in the same way.

take what i say here with a grain of salt since i don't have any direct american indian affiliations myself (rather, i'm mixed white/filipino actually), but patriarchy and the deaths that came from the diseases that originated from the introduction of europeans to the american continent just aren't really comparable, literally apples to oranges in my mind. for one thing, the line takes away from the agency that goes into patriarchy on the part of (cis) men which seems to actively conflict with the actions of ryan ken throughout the movie, and for another, the focus on disease seems to uncomfortably disregard the very real active killing sprees that settlers fairly regularly went on in while violently colonizing the continent. it just- none of it really works! i genuinely don't get why this line had to be included- it's never elaborated on, it doesn't support any of the messages the film seems to be trying to send (if anything, actively going against what it's trying to do), and it's so uncomfortably out of place it actually distracted me from the movie long enough that i had to mentally scramble to figure out what was happening again.

i'd like to hear more of an in-depth criticism from someone more fit to comment on this topic. if anyone would like to respond/link elsewhere to something more sophisticated than these random notes of my own, it would be greatly appreciated. more on this movie and race a bit later.

2. limitations of capitalism

this is one point that i think the movie actually dealt with fairly well, which makes sense since there are so many ways that this movie could've ended up turning into a massive fucking ad campaign for mattel, like even more than it already was. i think it works because it just doesn't linger on it too much- there's only so much criticism of capitalism you can shove into your massively corporate, expensive film before it gets fucking obnoxious and impossible for anyone to take you seriously. frankly i think that for any movie this mainstream at this scale it should just avoid talking about it at all, but the short, vague references they kept in were quick enough that i couldn't complain for too long. in recent years there have been a lot of shows & movies that in their attempt to be woke end up just annoying everyone, the bigots and the people they're trying to appeal to both, but these shorter comments, especially within the context of the rest of the movie's messages & themes, felt at least a little more genuine.

3. white feminism & the lack of introspection w/ race

oh man. this movie is fuckin WHIIITE, which was kind of expected but also yeesh. in all fairness, similar to the above point i think this movie did a decent job at making the cast fairly diverse without being overly obnoxious patting itself on the back about how woke it is (again, i think this is because it had an actual message in mind), but overall i still can't think of this movie as being about anything other than fundamentally white, cis feminism. and to some degree that's fine!! this movie knows what it is and i think it genuinely does give some good direction for a better way of approaching "classic" white feminism (especially considering how much female CEO-type girlboss feminism pandering bullshit we've gotten in recent years), but, y'know. a smidge more depth would've been nice, especially in the relationship between sasha & gloria (though i did find the dad's broken language practice endearing lol white dads =3=.)

4. weird barbie & queerness (cock ring ken)

it could've been so much gayer. it definitely had some hints here and there, like you cannot tell me that weird barbie isn't a dyke, a couple twinks hit on ken during the rollerblading scene, and that final ken dance battle was exactly the right amount of homoerotic, but still. i just wish it was more blunt about it, i feel like a lot of the underlying tension of gay shit underlining all of the intense femininity went over the heads of straight audiences and that makes me kinda sad cause it feels like i'll have to fight to make it seen which we all seem to be getting sick of doing. bring back cock ring ken mattel, i know a shit ton of people (myself included) who'd by the fuck outta that.

that being said, i also like that it didn't linger on romance too much, instead focusing on the mother/daughter relationships that mesh more cleanly with the general themes of growing up and girlhood. ken figuring out how to deal with being friendzoned by coming to terms with his own self-worth was lovely and i wouldn't change that conclusion a bit. i just wish, for the sake of my own tastes, that we could've gotten a bit more time with that line about how you're either a stereotypical barbie or a weird loser, since that definitely resonated with my own experience growing up a queer weirdo loser, or just that side of queerness that often makes you feel like an outsider to the mainstream.

5. dubious hope

...ok to be honest, after writing the rest of this post, i'm not sure i believe this anymore. originally this point was going to be something along the lines of how i thought that EEAAO was a lot more clean in its defense of holding onto hope, and maybe i do still believe that, but thinking back i think this movie does actually do a pretty good job in trying to combat the usual pessimism that drenches a lot of white cishet feminism (and women in general, tbh). mostly this just goes back to the point i made before about how i wish they hadn't separated the kens & barbies so heavily near the end- idk, it just lowkey feels like its playing into this subtle idea that's been going around where, like, men have to be gay in order to have non-misogynistic relationships with women and just. ugh i dunno, i have lots of loaded, complex ideas about that which i will not be elaborating here, ultimate conclusion is that i think we need to figure out a better way to heal the fucked up relationship between straight men and straight women that permeates through patriarchal gender roles so heavily than just "make everyone gay".

6. allan???

allan. needed more of him. michael cera was the perfect casting choice for this and i wish he had more of an arc but also i get it. i get it. uhh anyways

#should've known i'm incapable of writing something short #barbie #astronaut rambles #my hands are fucking dying #i haven't written an essay this long in a hot minute jesus #barbie movie #barbie 2023 #barbie 2023 meta #bonus idea: i like that this movie was self-aware without being obnoxious about it too #like the comment about margot robbie being the wrong person to cast #which was funny but also genuinely helped the message imo

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missscarletandtheduke--tvshow · 2 years

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The up-to-date guide to Miss Scarlet and The Duke season 3 plus an happy news for the future of the series.

Find out what’s ahead in the new season, how to stream the full season before it broadcasts on TV, and more.

What's Ahead in Miss Scarlet and The Duke Season 3:

A disappearing magician, police corruption, a potential life-changing financial windfall, and an explosive season finale — Eliza has her share of fresh and surprising challenges as she struggles to build her detective agency. Aside from her vexing cases, Scarlet has to contend with growing competition from a rival agency. And as always, Inspector William Wellington remains Scarlet’s most intractable mystery. When a beautiful woman from childhood catches William’s eye, will this signal the end of Miss Scarlet and The Duke’s working relationship?

Miss Scarlet and The Duke fans have an unexpected holiday treat. Right now, all six spellbinding Season 3 episodes are available to binge on PBS Passport P, an added member benefit which provides extended access to a digital, on-demand library of PBS shows. Watch online or with the PBS Video app.

Episodes are also rolling out weekly starting Nov. 24 on the PBS MASTERPIECE Prime Video Channel, an add-on subscription for Amazon Prime members.

Miss Scarlet and The Duke Season 3 Broadcast Premiere Date:

With a new year, comes an all-new season of Miss Scarlet and The Duke! Season 3 begins Sunday, January 8, 2023, 8/7c, and will run through February 12, 2023 on MASTERPIECE on PBS.

Miss Scarlet and The Duke Season 3 Episodes:

The action unfolds in six all-new episodes.

Episode One: The Vanishing

A famous magician does the ultimate disappearing act and vanishes into thin air. All of London is talking about the mystery and Eliza is hired by a newspaper to investigate, despite the fact that Duke is already on the case.

Episode Two: Arabella

Eliza bumps into Arabella Herbert, the girl who made her life a misery growing up. But as an adult, Arabella seems kind and considerate and everybody loves her. So when Eliza suspects she may be a criminal, no one wants to hear it, least of all Duke.

Episode Three: Hotel St Marc

Eliza is on the trail of a notorious conman and tracks him down to a hotel in a remote part of France. She believes she has finally caught Scotland Yard’s most wanted man, but she’s not the only hotel guest who wants to claim the reward.

Episode Four: Bloodline

Detective Fitzroy sees one of his colleagues plant evidence on a suspect. With Duke away, Fitzroy turns to Eliza and hires her to look into a case of police corruption.

Episode Five: The Heir

Eliza is on the verge of earning life-changing money when she offers to help the heir to an unclaimed fortune. It’s a race against time to claim the money and Eliza will need Duke’s help, but a revelation about his personal life makes working together impossible.

Episode Six: The Jewel of the North

The season comes to an explosive climax when Eliza receives a bomb in the mail. Who sent it and why? Eliza teams up with Duke, Moses and her old enemy Patrick Nash to find out who is behind the deadly delivery.

Season 3 trailer of Miss Scarlet And The Duke

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- ✧ -

Bonus #1:

Eliza and William: Will they or won't they?

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I guess it's still a... they won't fOr NoW. Oh well, I'm very much enjoying the process so it's alright with me (what about you?).

Bonus #2 :

Miss Scarlett And The Duke has just been RENEWED FOR ITS 4TH SEASON!!!

Here

#miss scarlet and the duke season 3 #miss scarlet and the duke #william wellington #eliza scarlet #kate phillips #stuart martin #period drama #victorian era #eliza x william #william x eliza #msatd #miss scarlet and the duke tvshow #how to watch miss scarlet and the duke season 3 #my posts #s3

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mariacallous · 11 months

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In satellite pictures, they look like the pale blue and gray eggs of a giant butterfly, laid in tight patterns on some dismal leaf. The eggs, made of steel, are tanks brimming with radioactive fluid—contaminated water from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant. The water will soon be diluted and pumped into the sea. Núria Casacuberta Arola, of ETH Zürich, is among those who will be watching. Closely.

“We have access to a ship that goes to the coast of Fukushima every year, sometimes once, sometimes twice,” she says. Casacuberta Arola and her colleagues regularly drop an assembly of jars into waters near the incapacitated power plant to collect samples at different depths. The lids of the jars close automatically, one by one, as the device is slowly pulled back up to the surface.

By doing this, and also taking sediment samples from the seabed, they hope to be able to tell in the coming months and years whether the disposal of water from Fukushima is causing a noticeable rise in radiation in this corner of the Pacific Ocean. The water release could start as early as next month. If there is a significant bump in radiation levels in the surrounding waters, it will mean things have gone very wrong.

In 2011, a massive tsunami struck Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The defensive sea wall intended to protect the plant from such an onslaught was many meters too low to stop the monster wave. Seawater flooded the facility, ultimately leading to partial meltdowns and huge explosions at some of the reactors. It is considered one of the worst nuclear accidents in history.

In the years since, workers have had to constantly pump water into Fukushima’s stricken reactors, which still contain hot nuclear fuel. This water has, thankfully, done its job of keeping the reactors cool, but it has become irradiated in the process, meaning it can’t just be flushed away. Workers have kept the used cooling water on-site, building tank after tank in which to store it. All the while, they have known that they will eventually have to dispose of it. Today, there are 1.3 million metric tons of contaminated water on-site. And no space for any more tanks. The time to do something about it is here.

It has taken years of research, modeling, and sampling, but earlier this month the International Atomic Energy Agency gave its approval for a discharge plan. Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority signed off on the proposals at the same time, meaning that the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), which is in charge of the plant and its cleanup, has full authority to begin slowly releasing the water into the ocean via a 1-km-long underwater pipe.

Some aren’t happy. Local fishers are strongly opposed to the plan, and there have been street protests in South Korea. Yet many scientists are highly confident that the discharge will be perfectly safe.

The contaminated water, enough to fill more than 30,000 fuel-truck semi-trailers, contains a mix of unstable chemical elements, known as radionuclides, that emit radiation. To keep these radioactive components to a minimum, Tepco has installed special water purification technology that treats the water before storage. In essence, it involves passing the contaminated water through a series of chambers containing materials that can adsorb radionuclides. The isotopes stick to those materials and the water flows on, a little cleaner than before.

However, it is not 100 percent effective, and many of the radionuclides it’s designed to extract, such as the isotopes caesium-137 and strontium-90, for example, can still be found in the stored water. There are also some isotopes the system can’t remove at all, such as carbon-14 and tritium, a form of hydrogen with two neutrons and one proton in its nucleus (hydrogen usually contains just one proton).

Despite this, the water is extremely safe because the concentrations of radionuclides are so low, explains Jim Smith, a professor of environmental science at the University of Portsmouth. “I’m not concerned,” he says of the plan to discharge the water.

Many of the above radioactive isotopes were released into the ocean at the time of the disaster in 2011—and some traveled. One study found them floating around 3,000 km away in the Arctic Ocean six years after the accident. Once the discharge begins, radionuclides will undoubtedly spread out into the Pacific, but this is very unlikely to have a noticeable effect on the environment, Smith says.

For context, he points out that he has many years of experience studying the effects of radiation on living things near the destroyed nuclear power plant in Chernobyl. Even there, where exposure to radiation is much greater, the impact appears to be tiny. “We know radiation damages DNA, probably there are subtle effects of radiation at these levels, but we don’t generally see a significant effect on the ecosystem,” he says, referring to that work.

Plus, tritium—one of the isotopes that can’t be removed from the stored water—is already present all around us at low concentrations, though higher levels are associated with nuclear-related activities. The authors of one 2018 study speculated that unusually high levels of tritium in the Rhône river delta in France were down to historical pollution from the watchmaking industry—tritium has been used to make glow-in-the-dark paint for watch dials.

What many people don’t realize is that water containing tritium is actually routinely released into the sea—sometimes in vastly greater quantities than are to be discharged from Fukushima—by nuclear facilities all around the world, including in the US, Europe, and East Asia. The Cap de la Hague nuclear processing site in France releases 11,400 terabecquerels (Tbq) of tritium every year, which is more than 13 times the total radioactivity of the tritium across every storage tank at Fukushima.

Tepco is regularly testing the stored water ahead of the release, the company says. The water will be re-treated, multiple times if necessary, and diluted more than 100 times to bring its tritium radioactivity concentration down to no more than 0.0000000015 TBq per liter, a level equivalent to a 1/40 of Japan’s national safety standards. Roughly 70 percent of the stored water also contains radionuclides other than tritium that are at concentrations exceeding regulatory limits, says the Japanese government—levels of these will also be brought down to below Japan’s regulatory standards. The water will then be tested again before being discharged.

For a final point of comparison, Smith calculates that cosmic rays interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean annually cause the natural deposition of 2,000 times more tritium than will be introduced by the gradual Fukushima release.

Tatsujiro Suzuki at Nagasaki University remembers watching in horror as the disaster unfolded back in 2011. “We all thought that this kind of thing would never happen in Japan,” he says. At the time, he was working for the government. He recalls the confusion over what was happening to the reactors in the days following the tsunami. Everyone was gripped by fear.

“Once you experience that kind of accident, you don’t want to see another one,” he says. The long shadow cast by the disaster means that, for the water release plan, the stakes—at least in terms of public trust—could not be higher.

Suzuki argues that it’s not quite fair to compare the Fukushima water to fluids discharged from other nuclear facilities elsewhere in the world because of the challenge of cleaning up the many different radionuclides here. “This is an unprecedented event, we have not done this before,” he says, adding that he thinks the procedure is “probably safe” but that there is still room for human error or an accident, such as another tsunami, that could cause an uncontrolled release of the water into the sea.

Tepco and the International Atomic Energy Agency have considered such possibilities and still judge the risk to human and marine life to be extremely low. Sameh Melhem, now at the World Nuclear Association, formerly worked for the Atomic Energy Agency and was involved in some of the research to evaluate the discharge plan. “I think it’s very safe for the operators themselves and also for the public,” he says, adding: “The radionuclide concentrations coming from this release, it’s negligible.”

Last November, Casacuberta Arola and her colleagues collected samples of seawater off the coast of Fukushima, and they have recently begun to analyze them. The scientists measure the levels of various radionuclides that might be present. For tritium, that means removing all helium from the sample and waiting to see how much new helium emerges from the water as a product of radioactivity. This makes it possible to extrapolate the amount of tritium that must be present, explains Casacuberta Arola. She and her team have records of radionuclide measurements like this from the sea off Fukushima going back years.

“We already know that the values that we see now close to Fukushima are close to the background values,” she says. If that changes, they should find out fairly quickly. As will the International Atomic Energy Agency and other observers, who, separately, intend to sample water and wildlife in the area in the coming years to keep an eye on things.

Smith says that despite overwhelming evidence that the water release will be entirely safe and heavily scrutinized at every turn, it is not surprising that some people are skeptical of the plan. They have a right to be, he adds, given the troubled history of the plant.

At the same time, the threat posed by the release—even in a worst-case scenario where everything goes wrong—is miniscule compared to some of the other environmental risks in the region, such as the effects of the climate crisis on the Pacific Ocean, Smith says.

Casacuberta Arola agrees. Negative coverage of the discharge plan has been used to “brainwash” people, she argues, and to instill fear against the nuclear energy industry. “To me,” she adds, “it’s been very much exaggerated.”

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otstudentlife · 8 months

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Silver Linings Playbook Through the Eyes of An OT Student

Image Credit: IMDB

Silver Linings Playbook (2012) is a film that deals with the male lead, Pat, having bi-polar disorder and the female lead, Tiffany, having depression. Pat has just come out of psychiatric hospital after 8 months. He was sent there for violently beating his ex-wife’s lover when he found them together in the shower. Having previously watched the film, I knew that the film was interesting with intense characters but watching it now with an OT lens I have a vocabulary to describe the characters and their behaviour that I did not have before.

Pat completely lacked insight as he believed he could get back together with his ex-wife that had a restraining order against him. He was initially non-compliant with taking his medication. In his manic moods he would wake his parents up in the middle of the night to tell them that a Hemmingway novel he just read had an awful ending. I got to see how difficult it was for his family to live with him. Yet they still supported him the best way they could. They made sure he went for his therapy sessions, included him in family events and reminded him to take his medication. With their support and taking his medication he found some stability at the end.

For client prognosis we talk about available support systems and how it would help the client. Pat had a very strong support system in his family and friends that proved positive for his well-being. I would thus give him a good functional prognosis. And he gained insight into his condition at the end such that he did not want to reunite with his ex-wife. Since coming out of jail, re-uniting with his ex-wife had been his sole purpose but in the end, he realised Tiffany was better for him.

Pat and Tiffany had the goal of taking part in a dance competition. Practicing for the event gave them a lot of structure to their routine and gave them discipline. It showed how a purposeful activity is beneficial for people. This reminded me of OT where activities are used for therapeutic purposes to bring about healing. Dancing was a meaningful activity for them and the competition gave them a goal.

Tiffany saw in Pat someone who experienced mental illness and took a liking to him. This reminds me of Yalom’s therapeutic factors. Even though his factors refer to groupwork, it can also be seen in this pair. The audience sees their instillation of hope as they find a shared goal, universality as Tiffany sees that there is someone like her in Pat, and imparting of information as they discuss the different medications they have taken and its affect on them.

I would recommend watching Silver Linings Playbook for anyone experiencing a mental illness, those that support them and those that treat people with mental illness. It shows the difficulties experienced but still gives a sense of hope.

Here is a link to the full movie of Silver Linings Play Book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgPIEFgRlrU

Other films with a mental health theme that are interesting to watch are:

Rain Man (1988) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlNwXuHUA8I About two brothers who meet for the first time. One is autistic and the other in debt. The autistic brother’s number counting skills allow him to win at the casino. A dream for the brother in debt.

Tim and Mary (1996) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwpVLAhDxtM&t=15s (full film). Tim has an intellectual impairment and falls in love with an older woman.

A Beautiful Mind (2001) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EajIlG_OCvw About a mathematician who has schizophrenia.

Still Alice (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrXrZ5iiR0o Alice a Professor gets early onset Alzheimer’s.

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References

IMDB. (2012). Silver Linings Playbook. Accessed from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1045658/

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linuxgamenews · 9 months

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Discovering the Solarite Ore in Core Keeper's Shimmering Frontier

Core Keeper mining sandbox adventure game new Shimmering Frontier update coming to Linux, Steam Deck, and Windows PC. Thanks to the brilliant minds at Pugstorm, we're in for another treat. The base game is available on both Steam Early Access and Humble Store with 94% Very Positive reviews. Let's dive deep into the upcoming "Shimmering Frontier" update for the acclaimed Core Keeper. Trust me, it's going to reshape your underground adventures in a spectacular way on Linux and Steam Deck. Ready to embark on a new journey? Imagine an entire setting, glittering and shimmering, like an untouched crystal cave waiting to be explored. This is precisely the setting of Shimmering Frontier. A pristine and mysterious crystal-based region awaits your exploration. Here, you'll stumble upon a never before seen Solarite ore. What can you do with it? Craft some of the best equipment and tools in Core Keeper. Speaking of tools, get ready for two Core Keeper game changers. First, there's the Roofing Gadget. Think of it as your trusty tool to break through the ceiling and let in beams of sunlight. Due to shape the mood of your surroundings. Then, there's the Obliteration Ray, which is also as powerful as it sounds. Since this is a laser drill designed to cut through walls faster than anything you've wielded before. But the Core Keeper update is not just about the tools and settings. As you traverse this frontier, you'll come across some unique people. Watch out for the Mimite, a creature that can mimic the crystal surroundings. There's also the eerie Nilipede and the majestic Crystal Snails. And if you're into farming, there's a chance to breed and raise your livestock.

Core Keeper – Shimmering Frontier – Release Date Trailer

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Trading has always been an integral part of our adventures, and the Crystal Merchant is someone you'll want to befriend. This Core Keeper merchant has an array of new items up for grabs. Also, with the newly discovered Solarite, you can craft enhanced equipment, from a superior Mining Pick to an advanced Fishing Rod, Sword, and Crossbow. Combat fans, there's something thrilling for you too. New battle events await in Core Keeper, set in arenas where only the bravest emerge victorious and walk away with amazing rewards. Since you can outfit yourself with over 50 new pieces of armor and equipment. Ever thought of wearing a necklace, the Larva Fang, that drains health from foes? Or how about a Trench Coat that expands your carrying capacity? The choices are vast and exciting. In this Core Keeper update, personalizing and upgrading your tools and weapons becomes a reality. A new feature called the Upgrade Station lets you enhance your favorite items. Dive deep underwater, and you might find the Atlantean Worm, a massive creature lurking in the Sunken Sea region. Beating it might also lead you to some amazing weapons like the Razor Flake and Slime Staff.

Optimization and Upgrades:

In addition to the Core Keeper content expansion, you'll notice upgrades that enhance your experience. Right from optimized performance to better water interactions and more customization options for your character. For those on Steam, there are also 6 new achievements waiting to be unlocked on Linux and Steam Deck. And for the creative minds, a special surprise awaits. A separate update now offers mod support, letting you browse, install. So you can create custom mod's to personalize your underground journey. Having won awards for its social and debut features, Core Keeper has already captivated over a million players. It promises a blend of mining, exploration, combat, crafting, and survival in an ancient cavern full of mysteries, relics, and treasures. Ready to jump into this mesmerizing world? Core Keeper mining sandbox adventure game is available on both Steam Early Access and Humble Store. Still priced at $15.99 USD / £12.99 / 15,99€. The new "Shimmering Frontier" is coming free on October 4th. Releasing on Linux, Steam Deck, and Windows PC.

#core keeper #shimmering frontier #update #linux #gaming news #pugstorm #ubuntu #steam deck #windows #pc #unity #Youtube

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anthonysstupiddailyblog · 9 months

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Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (534): Sat 2nd Sep 2023

Rewatched the brilliant Ghostwatch tonight. This was an incredibly well written, perfectly cast production that I'm sure would have been fine on it's own merit (i.e if everyone watched it knowing it was fake) but the fact that so many people tuned in after it started and paniced thinking it was real is what secured it it's place in TV history. Even though in hindsight it's easy to say that Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Craig Charles and Mike Smith are clearly acting they are so convincing and play it as if they were presenting a live show that at times you forget that this is a scripted performance. There's only one element that doesn't hold up in my opinion. For years the show has been commended for a part in the film where a caller rings in to tell them that in the piece of film from the children's bedroom they played earlier they were sure they saw the image of a man standing next to the curtains. They play the footage back and there clearly is a ghostly image there but the presenters act like they can't see anything. They then rewind the footage and play it again but this time the ghostly figure is gone but again, the presenters just act like there's nothing there just like the first time. This is the thing that comes closest to breaking the film because it would have made more sense to have the shadowy figure visible during the initial showing of the footage early in the film and then when the woman calls in telling Parky about the image she saw the should have played the footage without the ghost in it to make the real audience at home who saw the ghost the first time make them think they were seeing things. Every time I rewatch Ghostwatch this one moment is the thing that niggles me the most because if they'd have fixed it then it would have been a perfect movie but even with this major fuckup it's still a milestone achievement in TV history.

Speaking of TV history today was also the final Day of CITV. After 40 fucking years ITV has decided to just put all of its kids shows on an app rather than having any of them airing on a channel anymore. This is inevitably going to happen to all the channels eventually and that makes me a bit sad because watching programmes as they went out gave you a sense of comradery and community that has been lost in the era of streaming. Normally if an episode of Prison Break was airing on a Monday you'd watch it then talk to your friend at work about it the next day. Then on Tuesday you'd watch an episode of Mad Men and talk to your mates about that the next day. Now TV has changed to the point where you could spend all day Monday watching an entire season of Prison Break on the Monday and then the next day your friend would go "Don't tell me, I'm still on episode 3". Knowing CITV was gone did make me a little sad as I like many kids used to stick CITV on as soon as I got home from school when I was in primary school (and for a few of my college years because I was quite a heavy afternoon drinker). I still remember the fun I had watching Art Attack, Kipper, Funhouse, Finders Keepers, ZZZap! and many more. I even have an almost photographic recollection of an ident featuring an animated clock singing a song reminding kids to tune in at half past three. It's weird what sticks with you but that has burrowed into my brain for some reason. Not to get too sentimental here but the thing you realize more as you get older is the stuff that you remember from your childhood now only exists in your head. Although ITV still has access to all of those shows the specific memories that you associate with those shows are yours alone and it's impossible to convey them to others. I was at work today so I couldn't tune in to watch the final day of CITV ever but evidentially I didn't miss much. The channel just treated it like another day at the office airing the same programmes they would normally air in that timeslot. There were no classic shows, no interviews with the stars / creators of those iconic shows, no farewell documentary looking at the history of the station. Hell, there wasn't even anything aired the whole day indicating that this was the final day in this channels 40 year history and that's just ridiculous. Although I'm sure this was ITV's choice and if CITV had their way they would have included all those things I mentioned. There are probably people working there who have been there if not from the start then for years and you can bet that they wanted to go out with a bang. Maybe ITV didn't want to risk giving complete free reign of the final day over to ITV because they were scared of them pulling a Blake's 7 / Brookside and making the final day a giant fuck you to the people cancelling them culminating in an episode of Scooby Doo where Scooby gets possessed by a real ghost and joins the gang together Human Centipede-style. Either way thanks to everyone who ever worked at CITV for all the great memories. You were a big part of my childhood and it's a shame you won't be a part of any more.

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neonapocalypta · 1 year

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(Mostly) First Impressions of Eternal Filena

CONTEXT: Another thread repost from my twitter during my original batch of Takeshi Shudo stuff I watched while being ill in March. Of course, these are edited for any grammar and anything that didn't need to be there w/ hindsight. This time, I actually had to add stuff in the form of notes. I gotta get back on this watch, I've just been down so many rabbit holes this year. I had also watched cosmos pink shock, but never got around to talking about it despite loving it. I look forward to talking about these shows more someday. (And pretty soon for one of them...)

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I knew getting ahold of a lot of Takeshi Shudo's early work was gonna be a challenge, but at least according to Wikipedia he did a lot of uncredited work throughout the early 70s. What a shame, even if it seems like he was just a helping hand.

Lucky for me I guess I've seen enough of the guy's work that I can usually tell what he might have written. He has a distinct style from what I've sampled so far. [NEW NOTE: This is in relation to some of the earliest shows he worked on as a writer. I had been having trouble finding his proper credit online for individual episodes he wrote. I had watched those before watching these ovas. During these shows I'd just have to watch an ep and guess if he'd pop up in the credits. I was right pretty much every time. What a nice memory.]

So far, my favs are Radio City Fantasy and Eternal Filena. Radio is a cute love story in twist with a drug trip. Filena is also a love story about two people that have to come together and make shit work.

Filena has 3 versions. The light novel (I can't read it.) the game, and the anime that was never completed. The anime is still worth watching, it has some cool visuals and frankly I love Lila and Filena a lot, so its an added bonus for me. I'm not sure which version is closer to Shudo's LN. My guess would be the anime since it seems like he had more involvement in the writing, but I'm only guessing. The game feels almost has a road trip vibe and is quicker paced compared to the anime.

I know the claim about Prof Ivy being a Lesbian was debunked recently, so its cool to be able to say Takeshi Shudo has written a lesbian couple. I know there's talk about Filena being a trans man, and I think that's valid. Though it seems like this is mostly talked about from the perspective of the game, where their character is written a bit different than the show. (Less openly affectionate, more traditionally masculine personality)

Also, if Filena is a trans the ending of the game is pretty terrible then, forcing them to wear a dress when they don't want to. (Aka forcing them to conform to women gender roles in this case.) I'm not saying that's why I think Filena isn't trans, I'm saying if they are, that's a really shitty ending for a trans guy. Epesh bc Lila, their partner, is making them wear it.

My guess is that Shudo intended them to be a lesbian couple. Rn having access to the novels would be really helpful. If you've never read a Shudo novel, at the least the Pokemon ones are written a lot different than most books. Most people would say he's a terrible writer, but I disagree. At least in those books you can feel his brain throughout the page. No one else could have written those books in that exact way. He has a voice, lets say, and I'm sure the writing style is the same in the EF LNs. Either way, I think it's so cool to have a series from the 90s that lets people speculate about queer identities and there's viable text to provoke discussion.

It's also cool to see how our main couple is treated. They live in a world where they're slaves and are only seen as entertainment. Together they see each other as loved ones, work ingas a team to create a better future for themselves. It's something you have to read/play to completely get what I mean and I think the anime is better at showing this aspect. But trust me, there's a warmth to their relationship past the romance. (no matter what type of couple they are.) With it being a romance, makes it better. Double for gay interpretation. It doesn't feel it was written to be "Lesbians be hot" but more "This is a couple". Even if in Shudo's novel they don't end up together (they do in the game.) or it goes any other way in the end, I still really respect how they're written.

MORE END OF THE GAME SPOILERS: They become queens at the end. Like Lila is on the throne with Filena. Based.

I'd love to keep talking about Filena and Lila at length bc I think they're great, but I don't want to spoil anything else. Btw the game is on the SNES and never got localized (i WoNdEr WhY?) so Filena being either a gay woman or a trans protag is pretty cool considering the era. Fuck, her being a woman protag by itself was a big deal for that era as far as I know.

*Btw not saying the Queer themes are the only reason this wasn't brought over. I could guess several like how it looks like FF or how its an adult property, and more. [NEW NOTE: I think I meant it looks enough like Final Fantasy that investors wouldn't want to risk it being in competition with those games. tbh that coulda made it a better candidate for an ENG release during certain times as well. I was just spit ballin' but it bothered me enough to add this note. While we're here, I think between it's adult and Queer themes, and also coming out in 95 is most likely why it stayed JPN excusive. I should have mentioned its late release date (for the SNES), but when you're sick and on twitter things slip through the cracks I guess.]

The game has a fan translation and there's a recent lp that shows it off. I'd say check it out if you like that era of JRPGs in general. Personally, for English speakers at least, the game then the anime is the best way to go since you'll get a full story first.

There's several reasons I like one version over the other but that's small shit and I've written enough for now. I wasn't planning on this thread becoming about Filena but I guess it is national Women's day [At time of writing] and no matter Filena's gender, Lila is a queen.

Also sorry if I get anything wrong. Espesh about Shudo's career. Info on the english web is not great. Like some websites say Radio city was his first work at 18, but it came out in 1984 and he was born in 1949. If I get anything wrong, I'll correct it.

i got a lot more Shudo stuff I've seen and want to see, so maybe next time I'll post more about Radio city. This was meant to be a small update thread lol.

#takeshi shudo #eternal filena #first impressions

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mamthew · 2 years

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So I finished Horizon: Forbidden West. It took me about 85 hours, but I’m definitely in the upper limit for time, there, as I did almost every sidequest I could find (skipped the hunting lodges and the races) and tracked down nearly every collectible. I did about the same with Zero Dawn, and it took me 50 hours, 60 with its DLC, so FW is definitely a much larger game.

It’s…very very good. It’s the most beautiful game I’ve seen, graphically, and its art direction is gorgeous as well. While large, the world is not nearly as large as many open-world games – it’s no AC Valhalla, for instance – but in return, it’s much more memorable and navigable than others in the genre. I usually knew where I was and where I was trying to go without relying on the map, which is always a more immersive and rewarding experience than the alternative. The trade-off for this is that the world is comically small compared to the actual geographic area it claims to represent – it’s maybe a ten minute walk from Las Vegas to California’s Redwood forest, for instance – but I was mostly willing to suspend my disbelief, as that realism was a small price to pay for biomes as lushly detailed and intentionally crafted as the ones here. The soundtrack is one of the best – if not the best – I’ve heard in a Western AAA game. That might be…a very subjective point not everyone will agree with, but. Composers for Western games – especially Western AAA games – tend to score their soundtracks like big-budget films, setting a tone without distracting from the dialogue or spectacle. Conversely, big-budget Japanese game soundtracks tend to be much more melodic, calling back instead to the style of older games, when melodies were the only music they could manage. Clearly, I prefer the latter; I think the best game soundtracks are the ones with melodies memorable enough that hearing a song reminds the player of the location and emotions associated with that song. While still filmic, Forbidden West’s soundtrack is also incredibly melodic. It combines sweeping orchestrals – especially cellos – with folk instruments like acoustic guitar and fiddle, and even some folk singing. Rarely – if ever – do I pause in an open-world game because the music impressed me, but the artistry and craft put into the music at every turn had me stopping to just listen in almost every new area I entered. I’m listening to the soundtrack right now, and I’m not sure I’ve done that with a Western AAA game since Bioshock Infinite – which pales in comparison. Here’s a track, as a treat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV-h3JjlNM0 The gameplay is much more fluid than in the previous game, with a considerably more forgiving difficulty curve, and it’s much easier to settle into as a result. The game isn’t not a survival game like the first, and on higher difficulties I’m sure the friction of survival still comes through, but on normal, I very rarely needed to scavenge supplies after a fight, even a difficult one. One reason for this is surplus materials go to a stash you can access at any town, which means if you really are desperate, you can just fast-travel somewhere to stock up on health items and ammo. Early enemies are also much easier than those in Zero Dawn, and while the difficult enemies are just as hard as in Zero Dawn, the fights are generally much less drawn out. Very rarely – and never in the main plot – was I stuck on one boss for 15 minutes. The melee combat system has been overhauled as well, to varying success. It’s definitely a better system than the first game’s, but it actually suffers from the fact that Horizon can’t really have a lock-on button. I’d often try to use combos and move past enemies or turn in weird ways and lose them, which is especially frustrating when the combat relies on chaining attacks to build up a big energy hit. Still, the ranged combat and stealth both sing, and that’s where most of the fighting is anyway. The story is mostly very good. I have disagreements with a few plot decisions, but those don’t do much to mar the overall package. Building on the foundation set up in the Frozen Wilds DLC, Forbidden West’s Aloy is a much more defined character, with understandable flaws she comes to recognize and redress over the course of the story. The opening hours are a little clumsy at setting up the world, as the game opens with an awkward voiceover laying out the major plot beats of the previous game, and then every character unsubtly exposits details of those plot beats to each other for a time. After a tutorial gameplay section, we’re treated to a pretty awkward section where Aloy walks around the last game’s boss arena, talking to several fairly minor recurring characters. The previous game’s story and setting are certainly complex, and this game picks up right after that one lets off, so I understand the worry that new players might otherwise feel lost, but I can’t help but feel like there had to be a better way to get them acquainted. Still, the awkward exposition is helped by the fact that dialogue is hands-down the best part of this game. I’ve never seen such smooth and dynamic motion-capture in a game before. Every character’s performance – both vocal and physical – is a treat. This was the biggest revelation after playing the first game, where the character models stared forward through glassy eyes, incapable of making facial expressions, which put me off enough that I skipped most of the dialogue trees. Here, though, it just feels like watching conversations, or maybe television performances of conversations. That’s the case across the board; every sidequest conversation is fully mo-capped, with facial expressions, camera angles, the works, and it makes this world come alive in a way the previous game had honestly failed to do. This game is able to express character beats through gestures and facial ticks in a way that has me excited for the future of the entire medium. A few big-name actors play characters in the game. Lance Reddick’s character returns, joined by Carrie-Anne Moss and Angela Basset, and their performances for the game get to be physical as well as vocal, which makes their inclusion feel more justified than many celebrity game appearances. The game also has a much larger ensemble cast. Every character in the first game’s story except for Lance Reddick’s antagonist felt minor – blips in Aloy’s journey. This aspect of the first game ends up informing a believable character flaw in Forbidden West’s Aloy. At the opening, one of those minor characters from the first game tracks Aloy down and insists that he help her. Aloy tries to shake him off, convinced that she can only work alone, but he refuses to relent, and even collects a sort of RPG party of allies Aloy can trust. By the mid-point of the game, Aloy grudgingly admits that she likes and even relies on these characters. The game treats this supporting cast like Mass Effect party members; each one has a linear story quest introducing them, a number of dialogue trees in the hub town fleshing out their characters, and an optional linear sidequest focusing on their character arc. They aren’t…actually an RPG party. They only fight alongside the player at specific, scripted events, which means the rest of their role is spent sitting in the hub town, talking about how much they’d like to do stuff once they finish their homework, but I can see this system being fleshed out into a much more robust companion or party system in a third installment. As a result of its larger scale, the game is less thematically tight than the first game, but many of its images and questions are much more striking and thought-provoking as well. Archives are a major theme throughout. As in the first game, most of our insights of 2030s-2060s humanity are gleaned from written and recorded records. Unlike in the first game, however, these records influence Aloy’s present much more tangibly. Misunderstood snippets of sound are the basis for one culture’s entire mythology, while another culture has gained limited access to an ancient corporate database and take marketing and propaganda claims from that database at face value, which leads to disaster. Aloy’s allies are all given the same device she has and instructed to learn as much about the past – our present and near-future – as they can. As the characters develop, their understanding of these databases also becomes more sophisticated, driving them to ask more pointed questions or find especially sharp parallels between their own lives and those of past humans. In one striking scene, Aloy finds an art gallery, preserved over the ages, and struggles to see the meaning and value in a priceless Rembrandt. Later, she sees the same piece and finds that it has gained new – entirely unintended – meaning for her as a part of the story of how she found it. As contexts erode, the game suggests, art built on those contexts becomes meaningless. If we are to have a reason to archive art, we must also preserve the world. Forbidden West loves people. There’s a real sense of empathy across the whole game. As with Zero Dawn, the story’s conflicts are metaphors for our own looming climate disaster, and Aloy’s ability to rise to the occasion is placed in direct contrast with our own inability to do the same now. Every town is beautifully detailed and lived-in, the wilderness is lush and teeming with life, every character interaction is performed with unparalleled dynamism and humanity, which is all in service to the game’s thematic heart: this fictional earth already lost everything once, and they’re terrified that it might happen again; our real earth with real towns and a real wilderness and real people is on that precipice right now, and we should be terrified to lose them, too. The game expertly balances joy with melancholy. Much of that melancholy is saved for us, right now, in the real present. Much of that joy is a reminder that if we can't save the world, even in the worst cases, there will always be something worth fighting for.

#horizon forbidden west #horizon zero dawn

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medley-med · 2 years

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Why do we Need Telehealth in the First Place?

Indian Medical care has faced numerous obstacles in providing adequate medical treatment to all who require it. Even if the topic does not cause hurdles relating to health policy politics, doctors, hospitals, clinics, and all other healthcare entities have struggled with several fundamental challenges that need to be addressed.

Telehealth and Telemedicine have the potential to deliver some much-needed potential answers for the suffering healthcare business in light of these issues. While many health-related needs still necessitate a visit to a doctor, a surprising number of health services, particularly testing and monitoring, can be conducted remotely. In some ways, the COVID-19 problem is shoving to the fore some ideas that have only been hazily explored up until now due to necessity.

Some or all of the following options are available to you:

● Upload meal logs, prescriptions, dosage, and blood sugar readings to a nurse who answers electronically via a mobile phone or other devices.

● Watch a video about carb counting and then get an app for your phone.

● Use an app to calculate how much insulin you need based on your diet and exercise level.

● See your test results, make appointments, seek prescription refills, and email your doctor via an online patient portal.

● Online ordering is available for testing supplies and medications.

● Rather than making an appointment with a specialist, get a mobile retinal photo screening in your doctor's office.

● When you need a flu vaccine, a foot exam, or other preventive care, get an email, SMS, or phone reminder.

The following are some of the objectives of telehealth, often known as e-health or m-health (mobile health):

● People who live in rural or isolated regions should have access to health services.

● Make services more accessible to persons who have restricted mobility, time, or transit alternatives.

● Access to medical specialists should be made available.

● Improve communication and care coordination between members of a healthcare team and patients.

● Assist with health-care self-management.

However, the following are the most important ones:

● Telemedicine refers to video conferencing for real-time distant patient visits.

● When a patient has a remote visit with a doctor, the visit and pertinent health information are placed into a content management system (CMS) and transferred to another doctor or clinic for review.

● Once a diagnosis has been determined and treatment has been implemented, the patient is observed remotely, either through follow-up visits or by the electronic recording of vital signs.

● Mobile health refers to the use of mobile device-based apps that can record and send essential health data. It is one of the newest components of telehealth.

Technology has the potential to increase healthcare quality while also making it more accessible to a wider range of individuals. Telehealth has the potential to improve the efficiency, coordination, and accessibility of health care.

Telehealth research is still in its early stages, but it is gaining traction. Studies have demonstrated that both telephone-based support and telemonitoring of vital signs in persons with heart failure lower the risk of death and hospitalization for heart failure while also improving quality of life.

In general, telehealth can be a valuable adjunct to traditional health care by filling in gaps and streamlining the process. Many health issues are mild and can be diagnosed and treated without an in-person visit. A person with the common cold, for example, maybe tempted to visit their primary care physician as soon as they develop symptoms, but a remote visit would free up more time for the doctor (and the patient) to devote to other patients. In some ways, telehealth holds the potential of triaging patients and prioritizing the most urgently needed care.

MedleyMed has an online patient portal. These portals provide an alternative to email, which is a secure method of communicating sensitive medical information.

#Telemedicine #WhitelabelledTelemedicinePlatform #WhitelabelledTelemedicineSoftware #TelemedicinePlatform #TelemedicineOnlinePlatform #TelemedicineSoftwareProvider #TelemedicineSoftware #DigitalHealthcareTechnology

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owlterri · 2 years

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Starmancer game

Starmancer game how to#

Starmancer game trial#

Starmancer game simulator#

Starmancer game free#

Build traps, arm your colonists, and keep your station secure at all costs. Your colony will be invaded by creatures from outer space.If you jettison a popular colonist you might have a mutiny on your hands. What's the obvious solution Cut off their heads and see what we get. They feel sad when something bad happens to a friend, but love to watch an enemy suffer. Starmancer continues and our base is littered with dead zombies. If left unchecked, a colonist’s memories will be shared through gossip. Traumatic experiences, like seeing a dead body, will be remembered for a long time.Watch as your rookie chef acquires experience and becomes a seasoned pro, unlocking tastier and more exotic recipes. The game is set in the distant future, where humanity has been forced to abandon Earth.

Starmancer game simulator#

Assign jobs like farmer, doctor, miner, and security guard. Starmancer is a colony-building simulator in the vein of Dwarf Fortress and RimWorld, created by the two-person team Ominux Games and published by Chucklefish.

Grow crops for food, place heaters to prevent hypothermia and assign doctors to treat wounds, cure diseases, and replace limbs.

Sustain life by keeping your colonist's needs in check.

Top similar games like Starmancer: Updated on 2022. If tragedy strikes, don’t worry, you can always regrow your favorites! Check out games like Space Haven, Planetbase, Surviving Mars, The Final Earth 2, Stable Orbit, Maia and more. Some colonists prefer studying in their room, while others like to drink and socialize in the bar.

Grow and fill your station with colonists, each assigned with complex personas uploaded from the minds of Earth civilians. These variations go beyond aesthetics, too.

Balance power grids, clean water systems and breathable atmosphere to keep your space station running smoothly, even when everything else has gone awry.

Build and customize your dream space station, complete with fancy kitchens, luxurious bedrooms, casinos, and industrial docking bays.

I ended up having to carefully instruct them to walk out individually and they both nearly died of sleep deprivation. Two of my colonists became stuck in an airlock and wouldn’t respond for ages, no matter what I tried to command them to do. Starmancer first billed itself as a ' Dwarf Fortress inspired space station sim' when its Kickstarter campaign. This Steam Early Access game debuted around the start of August and I was looking forward to exploring it. This part did make me feel like a confused AI watching strange organic creatures do strange organic things, but other issues are less easy to handwave. Colony sims are their own special breed of game and Starmancer is the new kid on the block. If the game is released before it’s ready, it won’t sell well, and it will be much more difficult to add new content.

Starmancer game free#

Post-release, we’ll continue to add new free content to Starmancer for a long long time. Mine kept putting the wheat seeds out on the external walkway next to the shuttle. I know it’s frustrating Starmancer isn’t released. Ironically, Starmancer’s biggest drawback at the moment is its AI, which leads to colonists doing really bizarre things for no reason. Otherwise, you’ll be greeted with an unpleasant surprise, ranging from alien intruders to your colonists selling all the food they need to survive. Starmancer is an upcoming construction and management simulation game developed by Ominux Games and published by Chucklefish. While this game is definitely lighter on it than other, similar titles, you still have to make sure you know what your colonists are up to at any given time. There doesn’t appear to involve a lot of micromanagement at first, but that soon changes. Or one of my colonists was going on a killing spree. Interestingly for a management game, expanding my station was never really a priority since there was always a more pressing need to focus on. Fortunately, the colonists can fix some of your mistakes… but only some of them.

Starmancer game how to#

It’s easy to screw up while figuring out how to do things like place specific items or build new rooms, leading to a certain omnipresent tension.

Starmancer game trial#

It took a bit of trial and error to figure out the mechanics, but anyone who likes this genre shouldn’t have too much trouble. Starmancer for Steam - After a catastrophe on Earth, humanity launches the Starmancer Initiative in a desperate attempt to seek refuge among the stars. If they’re too angry, scared, or needy, they won’t do what you tell them to. I suggest keeping a morbid colonist on standby because they won’t be traumatized from cleaning up a massacre and trust me, traumatizing your colonists is a bad plan. It doesn’t take a lot for one colonist to lose it and start murdering everyone else, and then where will you be? In a desolate station, surrounded by corpses, forced to clean it up and start all over, that’s where. That said, you should definitely be careful when playing.

#Starmancer game

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nastybuckybarnes · 3 years

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In a Heartbeat - Six

Pairing: Fireman!Bucky X Reader

Summary: You’ve always been careful with your heart. With your condition, you don’t exactly have any other choice. The last time you let someone in, you paid the price. A price you don’t plan on paying again. Until Bucky comes in and shatters your carefully crafted world.

Warnings: Fluff, Language, Implied Smut, Angst, Injuries, Angst,

Word Count: 2.9K

A/n: hi here’s the second last part! I hope you guys enjoy. I’m in a weird place mentally right now because there’s been so much going on in my family life that I have no idea how to process. But I hope you guys enjoy this because I really enjoyed writing it. We will have one more part and then this series will be finished!!!

Series Masterlist

~*~

The smell of coffee pulls you from your sleep.

Eyelids flutter open and you’re confused for a moment until you remember last night. A small smile spreads across your face and you stretch in Bucky’s bed, taking note of the sore spots on your body.

You push yourself to a seated position and take a look around the room.

Bucky’s gone, but you can hear him rummaging around in the kitchen.

You slowly leave the bed and walk to the bathroom, stopping on your way to pick up your discarded clothes.

After you’ve finished, you make your way to the kitchen, your heart filling with warmth when you see him.

He’s got his bare back to you as he prepares something, wearing nothing more than a pair of sweatpants.

“Morning,” you whisper, trying not to startle him. He glances over his shoulder and smiles at you. “Good morning.” You walk over to him, wrapping your arms around his torso and pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

He stops whatever he was doing and holds your hands, leaning into your touch and sighing.

“How’d you sleep last night?” He asks after a moment of silence, pulling a pan off of the hot element then turning around to look at you.

You smile up at him and he swears his heart melts.

You're so beautiful. Glowing and angelic in the early morning sunlight peeking through a partially opened window.

“Not too bad at all.” He smiles, leaning down to press a soft and sweet kiss to your lips.

“Yeah, same here. Got far more sleep than I should’ve, though,” he murmurs, trailing kisses down your neck. A soft sigh slips past your lips and your head falls back, granting him more access.

His hands find your hips and he hoists you up onto the counter, knocking a glass off and sending it shattering to the floor.

“Jesus!” You exclaim, jumping at the sound and hitting your forehead against Bucky’s. The two of you groan, the brunet’s eyes widening with fear.

“I’m sorry!” He exclaims, looking between the broken glass, your face, and your chest as if to see if your heart’s about to give out.

You smile softly at him and cup his cheeks gently, pulling his face up until he’s looking at you.

“It’s okay, James. I promise I’m not as fragile as you think. I can handle a few loud noises.”

He sighs and bumps his nose against yours a few times before lowering his head to the crook of your neck.

“I just don’t want anything to happen to you. I worry about you, (Y/n).” You wrap your arms around his torso tightly, one hand finding its way into his hair to massage his scalp.

“I worry about you too. Of the two of us, I think you’re more at risk than I am.” He chuckles against your clavicle and shakes his head, pressing his lips against your skin while mumbling “it’s not a competition to see who’ll die first.” Then he pulls away to stand upright and look at you with those piercing blue eyes of his.

“But just because my line of work is dangerous doesn’t ever mean that I don’t worry about you.” You lean up and kiss him softly, ending the conversation as your lips move more passionately against his.

He pulls away after a long moment, eyes dark and lips kiss-swollen.

“You stay up here while I clean this up. Then... how about we take this to the bedroom?” You nod, bottom lip pulled between your teeth as you watch his muscles flex while he cleans up the broken glass.

~*~

You sit in front of your apartment in Bucky’s truck, his hand in yours as the two of you talk about your heart.

“I’m not as fragile as you think I am, James,” you reiterate for the thousandth time. He sighs, thumb rubbing over the back of your hand.

“I just want you to be safe, doll. I want what’s best for you.” His words anger you far more than they should and you pull your hand from his grasp.

“I wish everyone would stop assuming that they know what I need. Everyone always thinks that they know what’s best for me but they don't! I know what’s best for me. I’m sick of being treated like a child because of my illness. I just want someone to take my side for once and let me be me and live my life the way I want to! Is that really so much to ask?!”

Your outburst has your heart beating hard and, as if sensing that, Bucky tries desperately to defuse the situation.

“Doll, I do have your side, I just-”

“No! That should be it! If you had my side you wouldn’t be justifying treating me like a child, James.” He frowns, reaching for your hand only for you to pull it out of reach.

“I-I’m just gonna go.” You leave his truck without another word, frustrated and flustered but not willing to go back on what you said.

He sits in front of your building, three little words on the tip of his tongue and absolutely flabbergasted with the way the day has taken a turn. Things started off so well this morning.

You rake your hands through your hair, glancing at your phone as it starts to ring.

You can’t talk to him right now. Maybe later, but not right now.

Half an hour later, Natasha is blowing up your phone too.

You don’t want to talk to them.

You feel like shit for blowing up on Bucky like that but you needed to get your point across. All your life you’ve been treated like a child, even into adulthood. Nat hovers around you like a mother hen and now Bucky’s doing the same.

It absolutely isn’t unreasonable of you to want them to treat you like an equal. As much as they say that you’re more than your illness, you know that they still see it whenever they look at you, and you absolutely hate that.

~*~

“Miss (Y/l/n), can I use the washroom?” You glance over at the little girl before smiling softly.

“Not until Tommy comes back, Sammy. We can’t have too many of you out at one time, okay?” She nods, thumb in her mouth as she resumes her colouring.

You’re doing your rounds, making sure all the students are doing well when the blaring of the fire alarm goes off.

A few kids scream in fear, but you shush them quickly, eyes finding Wanda’s as ice shoots through your veins.

You’re not supposed to have a fire drill today.

“Okay everyone, single file. Follow me. Leave everything where it is, okay? We’ve gotta get out just like we always practiced. Right outside onto the field, c’mon,” Wanda says, standing up and leading the way out of the classroom. You stay at the back, waiting until all the children are out of the room before closing the door and following after them.

You descend the stairs, dark clouds of smoke already filling the hallways and making kids cry.

The school is hectic and chaotic as all the teachers try to get their students to safety.

As you reach the field you stop dead in your tracks, looking at Wanda with wide eyes.

“Tommy’s in the bathroom,” you whisper, horror plain as day on your face as you turn back to the burning building.

Smoke is pouring out of a few open windows, and the last few people are trickling out, some of them crying, some of them laughing, thinking it’s a game.

Sirens fill the air but you’re already running back to the building, knowing he’d be far too terrified to leave the safety of the bathroom.

“(Y/n) no! Wait for the fire department!” She shouts, but it’s too late. You’re already back in the building, a wall of heat slamming into you.

You take a few careful breaths then take the stairs two at a time in your haste to find the boy.

Your heart is already beating far too fast, you know that, but you can’t stop. Not now. Even as the smoke rises and the air gets stuffier you continue up the stairs.

Tommy’s somewhere in the burning building and you’re not going to leave him.

“Tommy!” You shout, squinting as a cloud of black clouds your vision right as you reach the second floor.

You crouch down, pulling the hem of your blouse up to cover your mouth and nose. It’s both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it prevents smoke inhalation, but on the other hand, it’s preventing you from getting the oxygen you need.

“Tommy!” You try again, pushing your way through the familiar halls until you get to the boys’ bathroom.

You hear faint crying and you swear your heart shatters in your chest.

“Tommy!” You push into the bathroom and find Tommy cowering against the far wall, tears staining his cheeks.

“M-Miss (Y/l/n)!” He scrambles to his feet and launches himself at you, hugging you around your waist and sobbing against your chest. You kneel down with him, hugging him tightly and rubbing his back.

“I-I didn't know wh-what to d-do and I was s-scared!” He cries, sniffling against you and holding onto you for dear life.

“Shh, it’s okay. I’m here. You’re okay. But we need to leave. Do you remember what your daddy told you about fires? Cause I’m gonna need you to be my personal fireman, okay?” He sniffles a few times then nods, pulling away to wipe the tears from his eyes and take a few deep breaths.

“Alright. Let’s go.” You push out of the bathroom and are instantly hit with intense heat and the stench of smoke.

You push Tommy’s head down and as out of the smoke as you can and lift your other hand to shield your eyes as you try to find an exit.

The staircase has been engulfed by the fire, the flames devouring the only exit besides a window. But those are bolted shut to prevent any accidents.

Your chest tightens and your vision blurs, heart hammering much too hard in your chest. Your ears begin to ring and your knees buckle and you know you need your pills. Or at the very least, you need to sit down.

“The art room! It has the big windows and the heavy doors! Daddy says that heavy doors block out the smoke better!” You nod and follow him into the art room, collapsing on your knees as soon as the door is closed. You can’t breathe. The air just won’t find your lungs.

“C’mon miss (Y/l/n)! The window! We need to break it cause then they can hear us.” He grabs your hand and yanks with all his might, and his determination is enough to have you forcing yourself to your feet and banging on the window with as much strength as you can muster.

Tommy’s pounding against it with all his might, and you can’t help the tears that finally fall down your cheeks as your legs give out.

“Keep trying, Tommy,” you rasp, chest aching and heart pounding. He looks at you in complete fear, not sure what to do.

“Miss (Y/l/n)?” He asks softly, crouching down next to you as you cough softly. You take a few slow breaths, your heart stuttering in your chest.

“Keep going, Tommy. You’ve got this. You’re a fireman, just like your daddy and your Uncle Bucky.” Bucky. More tears fall down your cheeks at the thought of him.

Your eyes fall closed, head lolling to the side as the last of your energy leaves you.

You wish you could apologize to him. Tell him that you love him, that you appreciate everything he does for you.

The ringing in your ears grows until it’s deafening. Until the sound consumes you and pulls you gently into darkness.

~*~

The fire bell rings and the men are all on their feet, grabbing their gear and pulling it on as swiftly as they can.

“Rogers! I want you to sit this one out,” Chief Fury says, his arms crossed over his chest. The men all slow for just a moment before resuming their haste, Steve the only exception.

“What? Why?” He’s never been asked to sit out of a job before. Fury waits until the other men have piled into the firetruck.

“Now, it could very well be nothing but the call... it’s for the elementary school. I know your little one goes there and I can’t have you on the cal- Rogers!” Steve’s got his suit on and he’s in the truck in record time, jaw clenched hard and hands balled into tight fists.

The men are silent, having pieced it together and not wanting to argue with their captain.

Steve will take the heat from Fury after. All that matters is making sure his son is safe.

Almost as if realizing that there’s not one, but two people emotionally invested in this case, the eyes turn to Bucky. The brunet has his own eyes pinned between his boots, fingers of his flesh hand trembling slightly.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Sam whispers, his usual joking demeanour long gone.

The rest of the ride is silent, but as soon as they pull up to the school the men are jumping out and Steve is barking orders at them.

“Sam, you go make sure the building’s empty. Buck, you-” but the brunet is sprinting over to Wanda, a look of desperation on his face when he sees the tears on hers.

“Where is she?” He demands, his chest heaving and his entire world on the brink of collapsing.

“Sh-she went back inside to find Tommy. They never c-came back out.” He stumbles back a step, directly into Steve who waits impatiently for the news.

“She went in to find him,” Bucky whispers, the world around him going quiet as he turns and focuses solely on the burning building, searching for any possible sign of you.

Steve’s face falls, his heart crumbles and his whole world shatters.

“Tommy.”

The two race to the building only to be stopped by Sam and Clint.

“Entire entrance and staircase are up. There’s no way to get in there unless we break a window.”

Steve takes a few careful breaths then nods.

“Work on getting it as contained as possible. We’ve got at least two still inside.” Sam’s heart hurts for the blond as he races around the building like a chicken with his head cut off.

“Tommy!” He shouts, hands cupped around his mouth to amplify his voice.

“Wait, Steve! Look!” Bucky points to a spot on the side of the building where a second thinner stream of smoke is leaving the building, this one in a different direction than the others.

A second opening in the building.

The two are running to investigate, and Steve’s heart bubbles.

“Tommy!” The little boy is crying in the broken window, head completely out to suck in as much fresh air as he can.

“Daddy!”

“Hold on, Tommy! We’re gonna get you!” He drops his head to his radio and calls for the truck to be pulled around.

“Daddy, Miss (Y/l/n) won’t wake up!” The little boy cries, his face dirty with tears and ash.

Bucky can’t breathe. He thinks he might be sick.

He’s definitely going to be sick.

He stumbles away from the building, away from the people and anyone who can see him and collapses on his knees, dry heaving into the grass while the others pull the truck around.

Steve's up the ladder and at the window, telling his son to move out of the way so he can break the window further.

“C’mon Buck. We’ve got a job to do. C’mon.” Sam helps him to his feet and Bucky nods, grinding his teeth together in a pathetic attempt at hiding his tears.

“Sam! Come give me a hand!” Steve’s voice says through the radio. Bucky follows to the truck, mind numb, body numb, and ears ringing.

“She’s in here, but her pulse is sporadic. We’ve gotta get her out now.” That lights a fire under the brunets ass and he’s nearly throwing himself to the truck right as Steve starts climbing down, Tommy clinging like a koala to his back with one arm, the other wrapped in a sloppy sling.

The ambulances are ready, lights flashing and stretchers at the ready.

Steve rushes his son over, his oxygen mask pressed against the six-year-old’s face.

“Set him down, c’mon.” He does as instructed and takes a half-step back to allow the paramedics room to inspect him.

Bucky’s eyes move from his nephew up to the window where Sam disappeared, his heart in his throat as he finally sees movement.

Sam emerges, his oxygen mask on your face and your limp body strewn over his shoulder.

A familiar head of red hair is pushing a stretcher right to the ambulance, ready to take your body as soon as Sam’s down.

He lays you down carefully and Bucky’s immediately at your side, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Buck, give us some space, okay?” Nat whispers, her voice fully professional, though he can see the pain in her eyes. He takes a deep breath but nods, stepping back and watching as you get rolled away.

A hand is on his shoulder and he glances over at the person.

“C’mon. We’ve got a fire to put out.”

#bucky x reader #fireman #Firefighter AU #fireman au #Fireman!Bucky #fireman!bucky x reader #fire fighter au #bucky x reader fireman au #bucky x reader fire fighter au #Bucky Barnes x reader #bucky/reader #bucky x reader angst #bucky x reader fluff #teacher!reader #bucky x teacher!reader

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lubdubsworld · 3 years

Text

Akrasia.

Happy Birthday To the Golden Maknae.

Here’s a little treat in lieu of Jungkook’s 24th Birthday!!!

Canon Compliant.

Jungkook x OC

Word Count : 10K.

Genre : Mild Angst. ( Happy'Ending) Jungkook X OC

Akrasia (noun)

PHILOSOPHY the state of mind in which someone acts against their better judgement through weakness of will.

Getting involved with someone like Jungkook is a bad idea. Do you even realize who he is? How much he’s worth? He’s easily one of the richest men in the country . He’s loved by everyone.

I wrapped the coat around myself, tighter. Everything that Lee Jiae had said was true. She was a popular idol . Someone who would actually make a good match for the Jeon Jungkook.

But even Jiae balked at the idea of going anywhere near someone like him.

Career suicide, she had said firmly. That would be career suicide, Areum. He has fangirls from all over the world. Billions of them. They will dig so deep into my past, find the most innocent of things and twist and turn it and the next thing I know, I’m being kicked out of my band, out of the company and on the streets. I don’t want that. And neither should you.

I shivered a bit. No, I thought honestly. I didn’t want that either. I was far from successful, just an up and coming soloist , with a very very niche fanbase. I did sell a lot of records and I made enough money to live comfortably but I was not a mainstream celebrity. I didn’t register on people’s radar because I stayed far away from the spotlight.

There was something about social media that made it a terrifying thing to me. It was so abstract and unreal and yet…it seemed almost like a sentient being.

A powerful sentient being that could potentially destroy my whole life.

It scared me.

And while Jungkook and BTS had conquered that particular monster, had leashed and saddled the beast and made it their own personal pet…. I didn’t want anything to do with that.

I don’t want that, I told myself firmly. I really don’t want that. I want to stay this way… make music I love… read the few dozen fan handwritten fan letters I received everyday, make the occasional appearance on a magazine cover and then just quietly retreat into my studio. I want this. And if I go anywhere near Jeon Jungkook, I’ll lose this. I’ll lose all of this.

My phone buzzed and I jumped, glancing around nervously. The late October wind was cold but not biting. Winter would come but not for a while. And yet my skin chilled in apprehension. I always felt guilty, picking up one of his calls in public. It felt like I was being watched, like everyone could hear me, on the phone …Could hear who I was talking to.

“Hello.” I whispered nervously, eyes flitting around to find a secluded spot in the park. It was early in the morning, still an hour away from sunrise and I quickly hopped over a small hedgerow and moved into a wooded area, away from the main path that had the occasional cyclist or jogger.

“You didn’t come.” His voice was honey, the way it dripped into my senses and made my breath catch. And yet it was the undercurrent of disappointment that tugged at my heart. Made guilt churn inside me in rapid little currents.

“Yes. Sorry.” I said quietly, picking my way past a few bushes to a bench a little way into the woods. It was rusty and damp because no one came here , and the darkness was absolute, only faintly broken by the dim glow of the streetlights hundred yards away. I settled into the bench nonetheless.

“Areum…. Don’t do this to me.” Jungkook said brokenly and I exhaled.

“I’m not doing anything. I’m being smart. And you should be too. You’re romanticizing something that was just…it was just a conversation. We had a conversation . That’s all that happened.” I said desperately. It was something I’d told myself over an over, these past few weeks. Weeks of avoiding his texts, of ignoring his calls.

Calls from his hyungdeul.

That had given me a whole heart attack.

“You’re just going to ignore me then? Toss my feelings away like they don’t matter?” He asked quietly and my heart clenched.

“You …” I shook my head.” You need to understand something. I’m not going to do this. I can’t afford to. I told you already Jungkook…we spent one evening talking..that’s it…we’re not dating..we don’t know each other well enough for you to be saying that you have feelings for me-“

“And I told you I don’t fucking care. “ He said sharply. “ One day… One hour…who cares? I believe in soulmates. Call me foolish and dumb but I do and when I saw you I felt that. And I know you felt it too.”

My mind flashed back to that evening. It was a private birthday party for a mutual friend. Barely a dozen of us had attended and Jungkook had been sneaking glances at me all evening, completely oblivious to the ay every woman in the room had their gaze glued on him. The party hadn’t been my thing at all and I’d sneaked away to the private terrace, accessible only through a rickety old fire escape and to my utter shock he had followed me up there.

The stars had been exceptionally bright that night, but with Jungkook sitting on the tiled roof next to me, gazing at me with all that adoration, his doe eyes had seemed to hold more of them than the night sky.

“What do you want, Jungkook?” I asked quietly.

“I want you. I know you want me. We …we understand each other. I want the same things you do. Do you even fucking realize how rare that is? To find someone who shares the same thoughts, the same dreams as you do? Who looks at the world the way you do… I… I am not foolish enough to think that there’s another girl out there who could connect to me the way you do. You call that a conversation…just a conversation…. Did you forget what kind of a conversation it was?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three weeks ago

The party had barely started and I was already itching to run home. There was a particular song lyric , stuck in my head like a loop and I wanted to put it on paper as soon as possible. I had this thing where seeing something on print helped me to elaborate on an idea. Directed my train of thought in that particular direction if you willed.

Mingyu was walking around, talking to his friends and making them laugh with his witty banter but I didn’t miss the way he shot me little glances. I gave him a quick thumbs up though, to let him know I was okay. He was a childhood friend, one of the few people I’d stayed in touch with through the years. And of course, being in the same industry meant a lot of shared interests.

I moved to the side bar with the drinks and appetizers, ordering myself a diet coke before hopping onto one of the stools. I watched the dozen or so people here….His bandmates, some other idols. I recognized Yugyeom from GOT7. They were all dressed in dressy casuals : flashy shirts and tight jeans and racy little dresses and I felt out of place in my long jean skirt and tasseled leather jacket.

Sighing, I turned back to my drink when a commotion near the door made me look up.

I felt my eyes widen when I saw who it was.

The Jeon Jungkook. From BTS.

I stared at him as did pretty much every person in the room. Jungkook was easily one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen in my life, tall and just…big. I stared at the broad shoulders, the huge arms and the taut line of his abdomen, tapering into a narrow waist and long, long legs with muscular thighs. He was wearing a black shirt, unbuttoned all the way to his chest and skinny blue jeans with black boots.

I smiled, genuinely awed. Jungkook looked every bit like the untouchable superstar he was and I considered that the party hadn’t been a waste after all. The chances of me running into someone like that in person were pretty slim.

Almost at once he was surrounded and I watched as his ears turned red, gaze shifting away and an almost soft shyness in the way he bowed politely . A hesitation to be put on the spot but also a need to stay polite , probably. Laughing a bit , I watched him some more and then his gaze lifted to mine. To my surprise, his eyes went wide in what was clearly recognition.

What.

I watched as he quickly bowed and said something to the people around him before picking his way to me. My entire body went taut with surprise.

“Lee Areum ssi…” He stuttered, eyes wide and I could only gape. “ I’m a huge fan.”

I blinked.

What.

“You know who I am?” I asked , mildly horrified and he laughed nervously, shaking his head and rubbing the back of his palm across his nose before laughing a little.

“Your voice is just… something about your songs…they help me sleep when I’m too exhausted to relax.” He said softly and I felt warmth pool inside me.

“Too exhausted too sleep. That doesn’t sounf good...”

Jungkook chuckled.

“Its not. It usually happens when we’re preparing for a comeback. It different with concerts you know…we’re exhausted because we’ve been running around …singing…its all physical…mostly. And that’s easy to brush aside and sleep. But comebacks…there’s that nervousness. The worry that things may not be as good as they were. Constantly having to keep up to standards. “ He shook his head. “ it can get exhausting.”

It was something deep and oddly tragic and I was stunned that he’d shared something so… personal. To a literal stranger. But the urge to soothe..to comfort and reassure him in some way was over powering.

Instinctively, I leaned closer and lightly touched his forearm .

“But you are the standard, now, Jungkook ssi. What BTS has done, others can only dream of reaching. You’ve brought this….utopian idea that you can love yourself just the way you are… and that’s amazing. I understand the need to meet expectation but I think you’ve earned the right to sleep without being burdened by them.”

Jungkook didn’t reply, staring into my eyes and I felt my pulse kick up a notch, my eyes taking in the beautiful features and my throat went dry when his gaze dropped to where my fingers lightly brushed the soft fabric of his shirt sleeve.

“Oppa…Let’s dance.” A shrill voice behind him made us both jump and I quickly pulled my hand away. Panicking, I turned away from him fully, ducking my head so my hair could cover my face. There was a dull roaring in my head, making it hard to hear what he was saying but a second later he moved away from the bar and I exhaled sharply.

Shaking I turned back to my drink.

Another twenty minutes of trying to avoid looking at Jungkook, I gave up. This wasn’t my kind of place at all and after a quick word with Mingyu, I moved to the small balcony in the side, desperate for some fresh air. But the moment I stepped out, my eyes fell on the rickety ladder like stairs, rusty and clearly a death trap. I quickly moved to the ledge and peered up at the roof. It was a little inclined but nothing dangerous. And there was a barricade that would break my fall, just in case I slipped.

Thrilled at the prospect of doing something that was both foolish and fancy free, I quickly, climbed on to the ladder, climbing all the way over to the top and throwing my legs over the iron railing before carefully walking overt to the center of the roof. Grinning to myself, I settled on the slightly damp tiles.

“You’re lucky the ladder didn’t break .” Jungkook’s voice made me yelp and I stared as he quickly jumped over the railing himself, grinning and wiping his hands on his thighs.

“Oh my god, people are going to find us here!” I hissed, terrified and he laughed.

“Don’t worry. I told them I’m going home.”

“You lied?” I shook my head in disbelief and Jungkook hummed.

“Did I?” He pretended to think. “ Doesn’t feel like I did.”

It took me a few seconds for the implication to sink in.

I looked away, blushing a bit.

“Did I come on too strong?” He moved to sit next to me, just a foot away.

I shook my head.

“No. I’m just.. I didn’t expect you to know me. We don’t exactly run in the same circles.”

“There’s a very cliché line in my head about how you’ve been running in circles in my head for a long time but I’ll save that for our first date.” He said with a laugh and I blushed deeper.

“Date?” I shook my head, “ That’s not funny.”

“Good. Because it wasn’t a joke. Let me take you out to dinner sometime.”

I stared at him, trying to look for the punchline because even if he denied it, it was still laughable. The mere idea of it.

“Don’t turn me down Areum ssi.” He said softly and I swallowed.

“I won’t if you take it back.” I said quietly.

He sighed.

“Then…when you sang about wanting to give love a chance…wanting to free fall for once without worrying about the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, wanting to soar into the sky without thinking of the ropes trying to tether you to the ground….were you joking?”

I gaped at him.

“that’s.. those are… Those are lines from before my debut.” I said shakily.

“Like I said… I’ve been a fan for a long time.” Jungkook whispered.

The night was magical. Cool and refreshing and the night sky was resplendent, the lack of clouds offering a stellar view of the stars and yet, I found myself drawn to the galaxies swirling in his doe eyes. The strong nose and the cherry red lips, now being worried between slightly large front teeth as he stared at me with all the nervousness of a young boy.

But he wasn’t a boy. He was a man.

And this wasn’t a love song.

This was real life.

“Free falling is fun when you don’t know what you’re falling into. But when you do know that there’s a lot of pain at the end of the fall, its not something you want to experience.”

“Areum…”

“I’m flattered.” I said quickly. “ Beyond flattered…really. But… I can’t.”

“Okay. But don’t leave. Stay here with me.. for a while. Let’s talk.” He said quickly.

Jungkook was handsome and the night was still young. This maybe the last time I would ever see him and I was honest. It was flattering, receiving attention from someone like that.

I hesitated before sighing and nodding.

“Okay…let’s talk.” I smiled, throwing caution to the winds.

And talk we did. About everything and nothing. As the night grew darker, Jungkook relaxed next to me, laughing as he shared anecdotes about his members, about his family, about his brother. And then naturally about how successful they were these days and Jungkook told me that there was always a downside to fame but he enjoyed the love he received. That he loved his fans for how they treated him and his brothers.

“Fame comes with a price but it’s a small price to pay…being loved for what I do..being accepted the way I am…it feels good.” He said quietly.

“It’s not always that way though.” I pointed out honestly. “ You guys are … I won’t say lucky because you’ve definitely worked hard but you’ve been more fortunate than the rest. Sometimes the spotlight can be a terrifying place to be.”

“you forget that we were once one of the most hated idols in the country..” He laughed. “ Trust me I know.”

“I didn’t know about you guys till you got on the Billboard. And you’re an amazing singer as well.” I said softly.

He grinned , playing with the bracelets on his wrist.

“Thank you.” He said sweetly.

We stayed quiet for a few seconds, staring up at the sky.

“I’ve never been attracted to fame.” I told him honestly.” Of course it holds its charms I suppose but I’ve always preferred the quiet of being obscure, you know. Like this secret that only a few get to learn in their lifetime.” I laughed. “ A hidden treasure maybe? Its why I started a Youtube channel instead of auditioning. Because only people who genuinely liked my music would get more of me. ” I smiled.

Jungkook hummed.

“When you first started singing your own songs on your YouTube channel? It was kind of around the same time we won our first daesang…” He smiled. “ In the MMA.”

“Oh…Really?” I asked surprised. That was nearly five years ago.

“Yeah. And till then..it was just your voice that I got to hear. You talked a bit but mostly it was just you covering someone else’s songs. And well, after we won the daesang I felt …lonely? Kind of? Scared maybe. And then you sang, ‘ White Dove’ a couple of days later and the lyrics…they just resonated with me you know. It made me feel like I knew you… Like you were a friend.”

I swallowed.

“I..thank you.” I whispered quietly, staring at my hands.

“And when you refused to sign with SM or YG. You also refused to monetize your videos on Youtube. You said your voice was your gift and you didn’t want to make money from something you’d received for free yourself. That …I loved that.”

“You’re like that too. You post your covers and songs on soundcloud for free as well.” I said quietly and he smiled.

“Like I said…we have a lot in common.” He smiled.

I smiled, shaking my head.

“I envy you.” He said quietly and I glanced at him.

“Hmm?”

“You’re just… You’re so untouched by all this. By me. It may sound incredibly narcissistic but people swoon when they see me for the first time but…you’re just you…. And that just makes me remember that you’re amazing and beautiful and you have such beautiful mind and you’re just… you’re so far out of my league. You’re so content with what you have and I wish I could be that way….But I …I can’t help but be greedy.”

“Greedy?”

“To do more. To want more. I know I should be happy that I even got to meet you . I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime in these two hours , sitting here talking to you. But I’m still greedy for more.” He stared at me with an intensity that was electric.

“More what?” I laughed.

“More of this. More of you. More of you and me together. More of us.”

“Us?” I laughed, shaking my head. “ There’s no us , Mr. Jungkook . you need to forget about that.”

“ I don’t think I can.” He said suddenly.

I felt the smile fade from my face.

“Jungkook.”

“Your song … Utopia… where you write about your idea of the perfect world. I… I loved it.” He said shakily.

“Jungkook , wait…”

“All of these days, when I listened to your songs, I would make it personal.. It would be about how those words applied to my life but with Utopia… that world you talk about …where you can be yourself, where you can sing whatever you want, be whoever you want…. When I heard that song…it became about you. About us.. I… that world you dream of.. I want to give that to you.”

My jaw dropped and I exhaled in disbelief.

“Do you realize how ridiculous that is? Your fans…our companies… Everyone will lose their minds.” I whispered, horrified.

He nodded.

“I know. I know I shouldn’t ask you this. Because it goes against my better judgement. But I can’t help. I still want to choose this. Choose you. So if there’s a word for that.. That is how I feel.”

“I.. I should go.” I said nervously, making to move but he reached out an gently gripped my wrist.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” He asked quietly and I shook my head.

“No.. I don’t.” I said quietly.

“Good. Because neither do I. But I do believe in people who can understand you better than anyone else can. Just give me a chance. One date.”

I stayed quiet staring at my feet. There was so much to consider but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him and say no. He looked so hopeful.

“I’m busy for a couple of weeks. But there’s a beautiful terrace restaurant in Itaewon that I know. We’ll have complete privacy . I’ll get my chauffeur to pick you up. No one ill know. I just want to spend some time with you over dinner and if you have a good time….. we can meet again.”

And then what?

“I…I’ll try. But I can’t promise anything.“ I said honestly.

“That’s good enough for me. Can I have your number at least?” He asked finally.

I nodded and quietly put it into his phone.

“I’ll make the reservation and send you the details. And Areum?”

I glanced up at him.

“I’ve been free falling since I met you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I closed my eyes, breathing deeply.

“I do.” I said quietly. “ I do remember.”

“I haven’t stopped falling. I keep listening to your songs on loop… Because I can’t bear the thought of being away from you , of not being connected to you in some way…”

“You’re so .. you’re so intense.” I whispered shakily and he laughed.

“I know, baby. I’m sorry. It’s just the way I am… I’m here you know. The restaurant I told you about. And my chauffeur is at your home. But he told me he couldn’t find you. It’s the middle of the night . where are you?”

I sighed.

“In the park opposite my house.”

Jungkook didn’t respond for a second.

“Do you want me to ask him to leave?” He asked quietly.

I took a deep breath.

“ Akrasia. “ I breathed out nervously.

“What…”

“its when someone makes a decision…against their better judgement.” I laughed nervously. “When we had that conversation , you asked me if there was a word for it. For acting against your better judgement. Akrasia is the word you’re looking for .”

He stayed quiet on the other end.

“Okay.” He said finally. “ Well, are you going to be akratic with me?” he said finally.

“Ask your driver to leave for now. And come meet me in my apartment tomorrow. I’ll make you dinner.”

Jungkook didn’t respond.

“That way we’ll have more privacy.” I said softly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dating Jungkook was a lot of pain. Just as I’d anticipated. It was sitting by and watching him work himself down to the bone. It was watching people throw themselves at him and not being able to say a word. To the world he was single. And the number of women who called and hounded him was unnatural.

And he worked so hard that my heart ached for him.

One night, he missed dinner and I couldn’t reach him on the phone. I stayed up , sitting on my bed, waiting.

He came back at exactly at three in the morning. He didn't turn on the light but the moonlight through the window was sufficient to let me know that he looked terrible. i watched him shrug out of his jacket, leaning against the table , long legs crossed and crisp white shirt unbuttoned. He tugged at his tie with a sort of tired , half hearted gesture and i smiled.

i watched him for sometime, seeing him shrug out of his shirt and change into a simple white t shirt. He moved with a sort of graceful strength. Like every single cell of his body had the same confidence that he did.

It was like a dream, i realized as another dull ache of pain twisted my heart. It was like i'd slept and woken up in someone else's dream. A dream where it was okay for me to look at him and feel things for him , without fighting to convince herself that it was dangerous. That it was going to end in heartbreak.

As i watched him prepare for bed, i wondered when I had started falling so hard.

The sound of the door closing, made me look up , shaken out of my thoughts. Jungkook was locking the door behind him.

When he moved to the bed, i decided to let him know that i was awake.

"You're back?" i said softly.

He hesitated, clearly startled , before smiling at me. It was a weak smile, one that practically screamed exhaustion and i sat up straighter, watching as he moved to me side and gently stroked me hair.

"Why aren't you asleep?" He smiled.

"I was waiting for you." i said honestly holding my hand out and he took it, kissing it obediently.

"you'll have to wait longer, I'm afraid. I have a meeting tomorrow morning with PDnim and I still haven't prepped for it. I need to get an hour's sleep and get back to work. " Up close he looked so tired that i felt my heart clench in panic.

"You don't look good." i said, alarmed as i realized that his skin had a distinctively grayish tinge to it.

"Comeback times are always that way. Never good for my health." He said teasingly. He checked his phone messages before turning to me and smiling.

"I see you've been cutting back on the pain killers... are you feeling better than?" He asked. I’d been down with some menstrual cramps earlier and I was touched that he remembered, even in the mess of his schedule.

"I wish you wouldn't change the topic everytime I try to show concern for you." i said , a little bit annoyed. He grinned and touched my cheek with his forefinger.

"Just the fact that you are concerned is enough for me . anything more and I might die of happiness. you don't want that do you?" He winked.

Deciding that it was impossible to talk with the man, i asked him if he wanted something to drink.

He shook his head and climbed in next to me but before laying down, he turned to me.

He hesitated.

"Will you lend me your shoulder for the night?" He said softly , placing his hand there.

i sighed as he leaned against me . His skin felt warm against me, his hair lightly tickling me cheekbones and i threaded me finger through the silky strands.

In just a few seconds, he was fast asleep.

I stayed awake, watching the room grow steadily brighter, the weak winter sun gently finding its way into the room , much like the way the man in my arms was gently finding his way into my heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"We should get a house, don't you think?" i said two months later, sitting up in bed , eating dinner while i watched him work on his files. He'd placed the desk in the far corner of the room, giving me the perfect view. And i was beginning to enjoy it a lot more than the one i could see out the window.

" A house? " Jungkook stopped and looked up. " You want to live with me ? Just the two of us?" He smiled.

Well, when he put it that way. I balked and ducked my head.

"It's too soon isn't it..I'm sorry I don't know why I..."

"What kind of a house would you prefer? Flat? Penthouse? Apartment? Duplex? Tell me....I'll get you the listings and you can pick out the ones you like . When you get better we can go pick one out." He grinned at me and i relaxed against the pillows , while he went back to his files.

"I read something online…” i said casually . He didn't look up, merely humming to acknowledge that he'd heard me.

"Did you date Lee Hyeri ?" i finally said. He stopped and looked at me.

"Yes. Many months ago. I broke up with her because I wasn’t feeling anything serious and I didn’t want to lead her one. She didn’t take it very well. ." He said softly, moving towards the bed and sitting on the edge. As was his habit, he reached for my hand, holding it in his and tracing circles with his thumb.

“She called me.” I said quietly and he stiffened.

“Shit.”

I laughed.

“She wanted to meet me . Wanted to talk about something although I have an idea what. I’m not going to indulge her though.”

“If she calls again, you should tell her that her obsession is bordering on stalking and I’m on the verge of getting a restraining order. She turned up at my studio too. Went on an on about how I broke her heart and cheated on her . ”

i hesitated , looking away from him and smiling.

"I don't know . Should I?" i shook my head. i hesitated, pulling my hand away from him. "What else did she say?" i said suddenly, remembering how angry she had sounded on the phone.

"Nothing, you need to worry about. Are you done with this? Shall I clean it up?" He reached for my dinner tray and i grabbed his wrist.

"where are you going? You should tell me what she said." i protested, but he gently pried my fingers off before dropping a kiss on me forehead .

"And You should tell me when you're going to start staying over at my apartment.. It's going to snow in a few days. Or so they say. I thought you might like to enjoy the first snow with me..." He smiled .

I took the subtle hint to drop the subject.

"You're being too wonderful. It makes my heart ache." i snuggled into my bed and pouted at him. He laughed at that.

"Take rest. I have a meeting right now. I'll be back late so you should sleep."

I watched him leave, feeling oddly bereft. I was growing to love him deeply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As with every couple in the world, our fights were often over the silliest things.

"You're still angry." I said casually, watching him work on his documents, the low burning desk light setting his features in sharp relief. He looked at me for a second and shook his head.

"I'm not angry , Areum. I'm busy. There is a difference." He said with a sigh, rubbing the heel of his palm into his eye. I watched the gesture and sat up straighter in bed, leaning over the side to stare at the clock there. It read 1.15 Am.

"It's snowing." I said softly, getting one my knees and peering out the windows. Through the haze of moonlight, I watched the small flakes drift down over the neatly cut hedgerows, making each segment of the garden look like neat cut slices of cake with vanilla cream frosting. I grinned at the little wisps of cotton white snow, clinging to each little branch on the trees and felt my heart swell with joy.

"I suppose you're too busy to make good on your promise." I said naughtily, peering over my shoulder to glance at him.

"Promise?"

"That you'll walk with me , in the first snow." I said, turning around and getting out of bed, slipping my feet into my fur slippers. I watched him fight with himself , the emotions warring across his handsome face and held my breath.

finally he sighed and stood up. I tried to keep the triumphant grin off my face and failed miserably. I felt awful, because deep down I had known that no matter how angry or upset he was, Jungkook would never break a promise. And I'd worded my request that way, just to take advantage of that little chink of honor that he always lived by.

"Alright then. Let's go take a walk in the first snow." He said softly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You love snow."

"How did you know that?" I said surprised, lightly grabbing the low lying branch till it showered both of us with soft white flakes.

"You make these little sounds , everytime you see snow. I've noticed it from the time we met." Jungkook grinned .

I laughed and turned away. I felt like I was standing in the middle of a fairytale, the white landscape making me feel like some exotic Ice Queen. I walked ahead of him, running a few steps till I was about ten feet ahead of him. I turned around, facing him as I walked backwards. He laughed at that.

"Be careful. The snow looks soft but the fall will hurt." He warned me, putting his hands in his pockets and narrowing his shoulders to fight the chill. I smiled and shook my head.

"I want to look at you and make sure that you're not angry with me anymore." I said, enjoying the way he rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"I'm not angry. I told you that."

"Yes. You did. But i didn't tell you I'm sorry, did I?" I said softly, stopping in my tracks and watching as he drew closer. Jungkook gave me a curious glance, walking slowly till he was just in front of me.

"I'm sorry I said I'll leave you." I said honestly. He looked surprised but smiled nonetheless.

"Duly noted." He bowed his head, tipping an imaginary hat at me. Smiling, I turned around I ran a few more steps and instinctively knelt on the ground

"Don't ." He said suddenly.

I looked up from where I was gathering a handful of snow. I gave him an innocent smile.

"What?"

"I know what you're thinking. don't do it." He said, taking a step back. I felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through me, realizing that the big bad wolf was actually scared of being hit by a snowball.

"You should know why I like snow so much.." I grinned with mischief and he gave me a look of disbelief.

"I don't think you can hit me. You're forgetting that i'm an expert at taekwondo.”

I held my hand up and threw , cursing when he casually stepped out of the way, laughing at the look on my face.

"You have to concentrate on what you're doing. Anticipate my next move and react accordingly." He advised, bending down to get some snow for himself.

"React to this!!" I grabbed two handfuls of snow and ran straight at him, grinning as I leapt on him.

We landed on the snow, Jungkook on his back and I right on top of him, laughing as I smeared the snow on his face. He spluttered in disbelief and swiftly, threw his weight over, pinning me to the ground and straddling me, fingers swiftly grabbing my wrists and pushing my hands over my head, leaving me vulnerable and helpless, as he shook his head , showering me with ice cold flakes.

I squeaked in surprise and he laughed hard.

Watching him laugh, full and open , I realized that I'd never watched him laugh that way before.

He looked exhilarated.

Yanking my hand out of his grasp, I grabbed his collar, pulling him down for a kiss.

the first touch of his lips to mine, felt like the sweetest, coolest sip of crystal waters after a lifelong thirst .

I sank into the snow, sighing into the sweetness and the gentle pressure of his lips against me, the first touch of his tongue, making heat seep through my body, despite the cold. I curled my fingers into the fur near his neck, smiling into the kiss as he slipped one hand into my hair, gently tilting my head for better access.

He kissed me softly. He kissed me deeply.

He kissed me like that was what he'd been put on the earth to do.

But mostly he kissed me like that was all he wanted .

It was so absurdly romantic that I wanted to laugh .

I could catch whiffs of his scent, even though my eyes were watering and mey nose felt like it was running. Some elusive cologne mixed with the scent of clean male skin . It made me heat up in ways that curled my toes in my fur boots. Each little kiss lasted a little longer than the one before, till I was certain that I was going to melt into the snow. And each little breath felt like a little wisp of my soul leaving my body and mingling with his.

We kissed and kissed and kissed, while the snow fell in white flakes around us .

First Snow. first kiss, I thought happily.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After our little episode in the garden, I found that I felt something akin to desperation everytime I came in contact with Jungkook.

It's not that I woke up one day and realized that something had changed in the way I watched Jungkook.

. That my eyes lingered, not just on his face but on the curve of his lips, the edge of his jaw, the exposed skin of his neck. My fingers wanted to reach out and grip, not just the strength of his shoulders and the slender digits of his hand but also his lean waist.

I began losing my mind, slowly and painfully. Suffocating when Jungkook got too close , choking when he went away too far.

As they spent time together, Jungkook began touching me.

. Not too often and never in an intrusive way , but every time his fingers traced the back of my palm or brushed back my hair, my throat went dry and my heart stopped pumping blood and I felt like like a fool because I had no idea if Jungkook felt half of what I was feeling.

In fact I was certain that Jungkook didn’t feel anything at all.

What I was feeling was painful and confusing and if Jungkook felt any of it, he would be running as far away from me as possible, not moving closer and closer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Why are you so nervous?” Jungkook laughed and I bit my nails nervously, glancing around the reception hesitantly. The workers were all busy, no one spared us so much as a glance but I couldn’t help but feel terrified.

“It’s only us here? For the whole weekend? No one else?” I asked again for the hundredth time.

Jungkook groaned, shaking his head and ignoring me, holding his hand out for the keys to our cottage. I yelped a bit when he began walking away without waiting for me, running to keep up with his long strides.

“Sorry…I just don’t want you to get in trouble.” I said quietly, slipping my hand into his, linking our fingers together and smiling a little.

He squeezed my hand gently before pulling away to wrap me in a one armed huge, pressing a kiss to my neck.

“I booked the entire resort for the weekend. The staff have all signed a confidentiality agreement. No one is going to know we’re here. You can be as loud as you want.” He whispered and I yelped, hitting his chest,” let me finish….” He laughed. “ When you yell at me. You can be as loud as you want when you yell at me.”

“You’re a terrible person.” I whispered , burying my face into his arm in mortification.

Jungkook merely laughed .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You seem tense." He said that evening, as the pair of us sat on the back deck , glasses of bubble tea in hand , watching the waves break out on the rocks. Slow but persistent , gradually breaking the rock's resistance and carving its way into its heart.

"Can we ever …truly be relaxed ?" I asked , a little bit of desperation in my tone. Jungkook didn’t turn to look at me . Instead he took a picture of the rocks and the sea with his phone.

"That's a pretty loaded question. With a lot of answers."

I stared at him, wondering why I was more confused now than before.

"Sometimes I can't understand you at all." I said quietly, shaking my head.

“Do you understand that I love you?” He said softly.

I hesitated before nodding.

“That’s the only thing that matters to me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The boys dropped by for a visit the next day.

I sat down on the open deck, opposite Namjoon for a game of chess. Jungkook slid into the armchair next to me.

"Are you winning?" Jungkook asked quietly and I shot him a glare, which gets a smile in return promptly. It was like he always knew what to say , how to manipulate my thoughts and emotions, how to make me look and feel a certain way , just so he could steal that part of mr away.

How evil.

At first I didn’t notice that he was sitting a bit too close for comfort, because as such, we've lived on top of each other for quite a while now. But after a while I became aware of the warmth of his thigh, solid and strong against my own, evident even through the layers of jean separating them.

I tried to move away, surreptitiously, but Jungkook only moved closer.

"Try this."

His fingers fluttered over my thigh, intentionally or not I would never know, reaching for my queen and I tried not to jump out of my skin, gritting my teeth as my muscles stiffened, my nerves tingling like electric.

I licked my lips and Jungkook’s eyes flickered up at the movement, a gentle smile tugging at his lips and my gut clenched in embarrassment. But the brunette moved even closer, his bare arm now brushing against mine and I had to swallow the desperate urge to get up and just run.

"Well, this is entertaining." Namjoon said suddenly and i looks at my opponent for the first time since Jungkook’s arrival. Namjoon was leaning back in his armchair, amusement shining out of his eyes .

I scrambled in a bid to put space between Jungkook and I and failed miserably.

"He's just helping me with chess." I said desperately.

"Oh, is that what they call it these days?" Namjoon leaned forward looking very intrigued.

Jungkook reached out and clonked him on the head but his eyes were laughing and I wondered how this was going to end. I wanted it. Wanted to take that final step with Jungkook but I was also so , so scared.

Would it change things. For the better? For worse?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jungkook, I soon realized, took the way I was shying away from him , as some sort of a twisted challenge to get closer than ever. The more I moved away, the closer Jungkook gets , touching me in gentle intimate little touches and every time he did, a slow simmering fire started at the pit of my stomach, reaching out in gentle upward licks , drying my throat and turning my insides into molten goo.

She's almost tempted to ask Jungkook if he feels the same way but she's saved the trouble later that week.

"I want you."

I froze on the spot, fingers stopping in mid air, inches from picking up a slice of apple, neatly placed on the tray. We were in the dining room, Jungkook sitting with a set of files spread out in front of him and me with a knife and a few uncut apples in a basket.

"You..what?" I squeaked.

" I'm attracted to you and I really want to have sex with you." Jungkook said , almost carefully.

Like he was announcing the weather. Like his words weren’t carefully calculated to turn my world upside down.

"Alright. " I whispered, not even sure what else I could say to that.

I stole a glance at Jungkook who was grinning from ear to ear. I felt blush rushing up my body, the blood flooding my face so quick it made me dizzy..

"Don't .. Don't look at me like that." I whispered, mortified to sound like a sixteen year old girl.

"Do you want me to leave now?" Jungkook reached out , placing a soft hand on my palm and it took all my willpower not to grab Jungkook and hug him. Instead I managed a weak smile. My mind was a few seconds away from collapsing in on itself and I was too stunnedto think straight.

So I answered the question at face value.

"No, I don't want you to leave now. "

"Okay. Go ahead, eat your fruit. It's good for you."

Jungkook smiled again, serene and perfectly at peace with the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At eleven thirty on Saturday night, both Jungkook and I sneaked out of the hotel, arms laden with our picnic basket and coats draped over our shoulders. Once we reached large pond in the outer edge of the property, Jungkook made quick work of the blanket, spreading it out on the artificial lawn that surrounded it.

I settled down on it, reaching out and dipping my legs in the water. It's a bit chilly but only for a second. I wriggled my toes playfully and Jungkook slipped a bit closer to me, letting his foot sink in next to mine.

We played around for a while, splashing water on each other and then I pulled my legs out.

"You okay?" Jungkook asked softly and I turned around to stare at him , a little apprehensive. There are so many things wrong with this , a part of me screams. But there's a part of me that longs, so badly , for this simplicity. Longs and has longed, all my life. Just this, the chance to relax and be myself and play around with water in the moonlight.

"I'm not sure." I admitted, honestly.

"Tell me. " Jungkook said and for once his voice isn't relaxed. Instead it's a bit urgent and anxious.

"We're not... I’m so scared that we'll never make it, you know." I sighed, dipping my legs back into the water, just as Jungkook pulled his out.

"Why? Because of the media ?" There’s a hint of bitterness in his voice and I hated myself for bringing this up. We were supposed to be spending time together, enjoying each other’s company. I wasn’t sup[posed to be ruining the mood like this.

"It's nothing. I just.. I don't want you to get hurt." I said honestly.

"Because of you? Because I'm with you?" Jungkook's voice was lot softer now, the bitterness replaced by concern.

"I.. Yes.. I mean... I'm.."

"You're a gorgeous young woman who is intelligent and charming. Why would I ever give you up?" Jungkook asked, reaching out and wrapping an arm around my shoulder but I couldn’t help but sigh.

"That's.. that's not what everyone else thinks." I reminded him. “ And that not what they’ll say, if you ever tell them the truth about us.”

"No it isn't. And I won't say something stupid like , it doesn't matter what others think. Because it does, I know it does. And it's going to hurt. In fact I think it would hurt you a lot more than it would hurt me. But if I don't... If I don't take a chance with us... that's going to hurt me too. So its a choice. I can either choose to get hurt by people I don't give a damn about , and in return I get... get to be with someone I really...like…..

"Or, I give up the woman I love and get hurt by my own decision. " Jungkook finished.

"We hurt either way." I smiled bitterly, Jungkook's words making a lot of sense.

"Yes. All you need to choose is , what's worth the hurt? Being with me, or society's approval?" Jungkook leaned forward slightly and I blinked.

We stayed that way staring at each other for a second and then he pulled away and sighed deeply.

"I've already chosen, I. I'm not pushing you, but I hope you'll pick me." He said quietly.

I stared into the night, thoughtfully. So easy, I told myself. So easy to turn around right now and kiss Jungkook, tell him that I didn’t deserve so much happiness. That my heart was so light, I wanted to spout wings and fly.

So easy but so frightening.

The wind picked up somewhere and somehow a draught found its way inside and I shivered a little, only to have a warm blanket wrapped around my shoulder. Jungkook snuggled in with me and we huddled together

My thoughts tripped over each other and I wanted to run away but I stayed still, letting the gentle lap of the water against my toe, calm my inner turmoil.

"It's just you and me." Jungkook whispered, " Right now. Just you and me. Let's pretend we're the only ones on the planet."

I turned around to the brunette in surprise but Jungkook's looking out into the water, lit by a full moon from the skylight.

"Just you and me. " He said absently and I nodded, looping my fingers with Jungkook's. We sat in silence, pressed against each other and I waited till the moon slipped behind a cloud before turning around, slightly, and pressing my lips against Jungkook's.

It's soft and very short, over before it even begins and Jungkook smiled into the kiss.

Explicit Content :

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jungkook teasingly pushes her back and Areum falls back against the soft mattress, like she's been shoved. She melts into the kiss and then Jungkook’s lips move away, dragging his teeth and tongue over the exposed expanse of her neck, lightly sucking and biting and then soothing with his tongue. Areum gasps and struggles and fights for air, before dragging their lips together again.

Jungkook kisses her until she's splayed flat against the bed, eyes wide and lost and lips parted, blush staining her cheeks and then Jungkook's reaching out to the table and pulling his camera , snapping a picture.

"You're such a weirdo!" Areum laughs , too turned on to be annoyed.

"No, just a man. A man in love." Jungkook leans down, pushing his hips down into hers and she gasps at the friction. They make quick work of their jeans and suddenly its skin on skin and she's not sure if she's doing this right.

"Jungkook.. I..I.."

"Hey, relax. I got you." Jungkook holds her close, just holding her, cradling her almost and the familiar words smooth away her apprehensions and he's moving closer, trying to pull more sounds out of her, his lips tracing the line of her chest, tongue swirling around one nipple before moving down and down, dipping lightly into her belly button.

And then the camera is tossed to the side, Jungkook flipping them over with ease , his lips moving down , tongue dipping into the curve of her waist down and then further down , lightly licking at the sensitive bundle of nerves near her center and Areum's pretty certain she loses her mind at that point.

"You're amazing." He whispers, and she nearly flies off the bed when Jungkook slides a single digit in, slowly , so slowly. She’s wet and ready but her body is still stuck in auto pilot and she wants to close her legs instinctively.

"Relax for me." Jungkook whispers, lips close to her ear, licking and teasing .

"I'll make it good. Just relax for me." Jungkook says again, gently, lapping at her neck and Areum unclenches her thighs letting him work his way in, sighing when the slide becomes a little more easy and a little more familiar.

"So beautiful." Jungkook whispers and Areum laughs, shaking her head.

"It's dark, you can't even see-"

"I can’t see but I can feel you. i can feel you and you’re so fucking gorgeous." He slips another finger in and curls his fingers against the walls of her insides and the gentle press of the pad of his finger is too much and not enough , all at once. Her head falls back into the pillow, all coherency leaving her body in a single whoosh of breath.

"Look at me. Only me." She whispers when Jungkook thrusts into her for the first time and Jungkook nods shakily and he pushes in, leaving her trembling at the ache and the pain and wanting to cry out, but she swallows it all down because she knows it’s going to get better .

"Don't wander off. " Areum whispers, pulling him down for a kiss and Jungkook pushes in deeper, earning a gasp. He wishes he could explain, that he can't ever think of anything but her because she is the perfect dream.

“I love this. I love you. “ she whispered and he had to physically restrain himself from burying himself to the hilt inside her. Her body was still getting used to him. He didn’t want to hurt her but God, she felt so amazing around him. the heat and wetness driving him crazy in a way that couldn’t be explained.

“Hold me tight.”

And she did.

With her arms and her legs and her body and her.....everything.

When she clenched around him, his mind went blissfully blank, her orgasm hitting him like an earth shattering, bone melting , heart stopping explosion of bliss.

He fell against her, careful not to crush her with his weight and rolled to the side gathering her close.

Someday he would hurt her, he was sure of it. He was an idiot after all and he knew he would find a way to muck this up and ruin it for them but for now, he wasn’t going to think about any of that.

For now, he was going to enjoy the intimacy of making love to the woman he loved.

Author’s Note : Hope you guys liked it! it was supposed to be very angsty but its really not lol....

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#bts smut #bts fics #bts fanfics #jungkook smut #jungkook fics

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