#rip to not being able to talk to people online i could have used you rn 💔 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chimivx · 1 year

Text

public occurrences. // myg.

pairing: Idol!Yoongi x Female!Reader

summary: It's been almost a year since Vegas. As one would expect, life hasn't gotten any easier. If anything it's gotten even more chaotic. The world knows who you are now... There aren't anymore secrets to hide.

words: 6k

warnings: SLIGHT SPOILERS IN THE WARNINGS. use of cuss words, they talk of anxiety, some mental health situations, talks about a miscarriage, talks about Jin and other members leaving. other than that- not much else. If I missed anything PLEASE let me know.

a/n: CAN'T BELIEVE ANOTHER VEGAS IS HERE. Enjoy my loves. Thank you for all the love and support always. <3 It's just a short little drabble of one specific moment of time, but I thought it was pretty important.

~ the end of february 2023 ~

A dull pain begins to erupt where you’ve had your jaw clenched for the last twenty minutes. A soreness in your jaw you’re not quite sure will ever be able to go away. For the past few months it’s found itself in this compromised position.

Your entire body is made of steel, your joints creaking as you attempt to pull yourself together amidst the panic ensuing within your nervous system. Limbs heavy to the point you aren’t sure whether or not you’ll be able to exit the vehicle.

Breathe in, breathe out. The words repeat.

Breath in, breathe out. It made you want to sing Hobi’s song. Inhale, inhale, exhale, exhaaale. But there was no time for fun. Not when you were about to walk outside in front of cameras for the first time in eight years.

The morning was spent in a blur, the attempts to perfect your hair and makeup happening at an hour too early, much like how you rolled out of bed. An hour too early. You were awake before your daughter even had the chance to stir.

Anxiety had been simmering beneath your skin for weeks. You could barely eat, the nausea would rip through you violently. Again, for the past few months that’s how life has been, nausea, anxiety, melancholy thoughts and dreams, however this event seemed to be adding twice as much. These past few days you’ve probably accumulated a total of nine hours of sleep. You had more shuteye the week after your daughter's birth.

There seemed to be a butterfly effect from the events in Vegas. The incident that caused countless meetings and endless discussions because the company just couldn’t handle anymore media control or protection. You should never have trusted that girl.

BigHit took their time, the company drug out the announcement as long as they could so it would surpass Jin’s deployment and your goddamn wedding. Now, with it being the end of February, Yoongi’s been traveling absolutely everywhere for basketball games, photoshoots, and he’s announced a tour… It was about to happen. For the very first time in eight years you were officially about to be on camera, branded by flashes, posted online permanently, forever going to be seen and known as Min Yoongi’s wife.

Next to you, Yoongi grips your knee tight, in hopes to settle your worries. Glancing down to his knobby hand you sigh and suck in a deep breath.

“We’ll be fine,” he said softly. Meeting his comforting gaze, you attempt to smile, one that makes him laugh. “I promise. Remember everything we talked about?”

You do. Of course you do. It’s been playing on repeat for one hundred and sixty eight hours.

That’s how many hours are in a week. You had to google that.

When this entire plan was set in place you requested a play by play, a step by step tutorial- a rehearsal even! You were walking out into the public eye with your child for the first time. People knew who you were now.

There were going to be cameras, and fans, and paparazzi, and loud noises, and people rushing you, and standards to follow. It was all too much, it all seemed to be entirely too much. You were going to have a toddler on your hip, one who could barely stand to be in a room full of people her father worked with let alone god knows how many strangers at an airport.

“What happens first?” Yoongi asked, reaching for one of your hands to tangle his fingers with yours. He could feel your panic. “Tell me the first thing we’re going to do.”

Gulping, you respond, “Park.” Looking up at his short hair that you’re livid with- his long hair was dreamy, and sexy, and you could pull it- you receive another laugh. He hadn’t expected you to be so literal.

“Good, we’ll park,” he praised. “And then what?” Tipping his chin down his eyes widened a bit, becoming all the more endearing.

“Then, Branson and his team get out,” you said, feeling a bit better looking into his eyes. Yoongi gives you a soft smile, dragging his thumb over the back of your hand.

“Has Branson ever let you down?”

“Never,” you whispered. Almost nine incident free years with the man, after Yoongi, you depended on.

Your husband leans in to press a kiss to your forehead. “Exactly,” he said. “What happens next?”

Going through the last three simple steps, everything seemed ready to go to plan. Once Branson was ready, you were going to take your daughter out of her carseat, exit the car, and follow the men inside. You would be the one to carry your daughter, just in case. People were unpredictable in these situations, and Yoongi agreed that if something were to happen to him here, you should be the one to carry her inside. As much as that little comment terrified you to hear him say, he was right.

Simple as pie. You hoped.

In a perfect world that’s how it would happen, and you want nothing more than for this to go smoothly.

People knew your name. Everyone has found out that it’s been years. The company was prepared for mass destruction, and so were you and Yoongi. A first public appearance, this is where it would all go to shit. There isn’t much chaos people can fully ensue over the internet.

As for your friends, the two of you personally asked them to stay out of it and at the drop of a hat they agreed. The five boys and Sunny shook on it. No one would say a word publicly, no one would do any interviews, no tweets, no Instagram posts, no stories pushed, no Weverse comments. Silence. Radio silence.

Jin has most definitely heard what has happened, and the next time you and Yoongi get to see him, there will be tea to spill. Your heart aches whenever you think about him, especially for Yoongi. He’s had to go through this madness and so much more without his best friend.

The week after he left was complete and utter hell for your family. And not just because of Jin.

Pushing aside all thoughts of having to redo the motions with Hobi very soon, you come to realize that steps one and two of the plan have already commenced.

The black SUV was parked in front of the airport, and Branson and his team were setting themselves up. Through the dark tinted windows there are crowds upon crowds of people, masses of them so large one would think the entire band was here. It reminded you of a concert, they were all waiting in groups with their phones out, pointing them at the vehicles that you and your team were in.

Slapping your hand on top of Yoongi's, you grip it tight, digging your nails into his palm. He places his other right on top of yours.

“I can’t do it,” you mumbled, whipping your head to shoot him a terrified look.

Yoongi smiles, though your fear threatens to crack him. If this wasn’t ordered by the company he’d whisk you away to safety, getting inside the airport without a soul knowing. He’s broken these rules before, going against what his company wants for your sake, it’s been eight years of you coming first, you topping all things that have to do with his job.

Now that the gig was up, now that people knew who you were and knew that it’s been forever, he feels as though he owes it to his fans to do a three minute appearance. As much as he was deeply in love with you, he loved his fans almost as much. He wanted to show you off, he wanted the world to see who’s been keeping him sane all this time, who’s been the source of his happiness for years.

“Yanno, the last time you told me that you seemed to handle everything just fine,” he said, glancing at your sleeping daughter beside you. Blowing a gust of air through your lips, you roll your eyes.

“I didn’t have to do any work, D, they cut her out of me,” you grilled back, narrowing your eyes. “I can’t-” your words are cut off by a sudden short breath. “I feel like I can’t breathe,” escapes you in a whisper.

Branson taps his fist on the window a couple of times gently, signaling that he was ready for the three of you to come out. The murmurs from the crowds can be heard, leaking through the cracks in the doors, swarming around you constricting your chest.

Yoongi slips an arm around your back, holding you against him tight. Burying your face into his chest, he rests his chin on top of your head and takes a deep breath. You can feel his beating heart steady between his lungs. This was just another day for him. He’s had ten years to grow used to this.

“I was afraid this was going to happen,” he said softly. Peeking up at him, you frown.

“What?” you question, lowering your brows. He nods a couple of times, giving you a small smile.

“I was afraid this was going to happen, because I knew this was going to happen,” he said.

“Me freaking out, right?” you sighed, your tone completely breathless. A soft hum leaves his chest as he ponders what you’ve said, then he shakes his head. “What?” you question again with more vigor.

“Well,” he huffs a gentle laugh, “I figured something along the lines of that would happen, but only ‘cause of her,” he nods to your daughter, “Not because you’re scared of going out there. You’re only worried for her. If it were seven years ago you think you’d feel this way?”

Shaking your head to answer him, the electricity coursing through your veins seems to subside.

“Exactly,” he smirked. “Before her you were dancing in the streets before my shows, you were talking to people, my fans! You were prancing around stadiums and concerts like it was nothing.”

“I loved doing that,” you smiled.

“Fuck yeah, you loved doing that,” he said, giving you the smallest shake. “And, you know what? It’s not just you going out there as my wife, right? They know what you’ve done for us, they know what you’ve made for us.”

Your smile starts to grow. He was right. The fans, the people, they loved your work. The music videos, the art, the TinyTan, the creative concepts, the photoshoots, all of it. They finally knew that it was you. The ghost creator had been unveiled.

“You probably have fans of your own,” Yoongi said matter of factly. “I guarantee you all these people are here for you, not me.” Frowning humorously, you make him laugh.

“Doubt that,” you said flatly.

“Alright, half and half,” he winked, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “We can do this, you can do this. We’re doing it together, like we do everything. We’ll get through this together. We always do. Just think, next time we see Jin we have to tell him all about this, he’ll never believe it.”

Averting your eyes from his, your mind is suffocated by the many, many things you’re going to have to tell Jin when you’re with him again, which you’re hoping is soon. So much has happened, so much has changed, and it’d only been about three months.

“Yeah,” you whispered, flickering your eyes up to Yoongi who’s flashing you a curious look. “He probably still thinks I’m pregnant.”

A flash of discomfort wrecks his expression for all of two seconds as he glances away from you with a breath. Swallowing hard, he relaxes his face and looks back at you, his lips pressed together tight.

“He, uh,” he began in a whisper, “He... knows.” Before you have a chance to say anything, the subtle shock on your face telling him plenty, he cuts you off. “I’m sorry, baby. I had to tell him, it’s Jin, that’s my best friend, he’s the only one I could even say the words to.”

Sitting up a bit, you reach a hand up to cup his cheek, dragging your thumb over his smooth skin. “D, it’s okay,” you reassured him, bobbing your head. His lips form a pout, one that gets you to giggle. “I promise, it’s okay.”

There’s a moment of quiet between the two of you, feelings swirling around the empty air as you both choose what to do or say next. Yoongi leans into you, kissing your forehead once more before placing his own there.

“You’re so incredible,” he said, watching you flutter your eyes shut. “The strongest woman I know, the most talented woman I know. On top of having such a beautiful, creative mind, you’re a fucking fantastic mother.” Yoongi pauses, taking a deep breath, as do you. “He was lucky to have you for as long as he did.”

A lump lodges in your throat. Scrunching your face, you shake your head, rubbing your forehead to his.

“Don’t make me cry,” you said, voice wavering with uncertainty.

“Cry?” a tiny voice speaks up from your right, a yawn of the same intensity coming out of her straight after. Popping your eyes open you share a small smile with your husband, and just as you’re about to turn to your little one, Yoongi slips a hand beneath your chin, holding you in place.

“Hey,” his voice is soothing. “I love you.” Your heart flutters.

“I love you, too,” you whispered, accepting the quick kiss he gives you.

Turning to the carseat that has secured a permanent spot in this car, you smile at your daughter who has her head turned toward you and her father. Her sleepy eyes entice a happy hum from you.

“You were supposed to sleep through this,” you said sarcastically sweet. Yoongi chuckles, unbuckling from his seat. The clang of the metal on the door makes your heart skip a beat.

“No,” your daughter said. “No sleep. All done.” Her voice is tiny, and slightly broken, and not hitting all of the right sounds, but her speech has only been improving. The two of you speak to her like she’s a human being, saving the baby voices for when she’s feeling silly, which can attest to her strong vocabulary and understanding of conversation.

You’re beginning to think she is a genius like her father.

“Mama, up,” she cooed, reaching out her arms that were finally starting to get a little chubby. Her cheeks had caught up to her as well, they were finally perfectly pinchable.

Freeing her from the car seats restraints, your daughter aids you in her escape, launching herself forward and up into your arms with a shout.

“Oh!” she giggles once her arms are around your neck and her face is buried in your hair.

“Oh!” you and Yoongi copy her, to which she responds with another shout.

Her attentive eyes point out the window when she sits herself up, tapping on your shoulder a couple of times with her palm. Lifting a hand, she tries to point at the crowds of people.

“Where?” she asked curiously, looking to either of her parents for an answer. Her voice turned you into a complete puddle, the sound coming out as ‘Wheh?’, the middle syllable is even more pronounced when she questions the two of you again.

Yoongi brings a hand to her forehead, brushing away a few dark hairs that fell into her eyes. The girl hated bows, you stopped trying.

“We’re at the airport,” he told her, and she listened with all of her might. “We’re going on a plane, isn’t that fun? You like flying.” Her eyes blink a few times, taking her time to process the words.

Sighing aloud, dramatically of course, she glances out the window and mumbles a jumble of sounds. Following her gaze, you gulp.

Eager eyes of bystanders attempted to shatter the glass of the tinted windows.

“Mama,” your daughter said, looking at you. “Go, Mama,” she bounced once. “Go,” she bounced twice. You knew the moment you stepped out into the noise and the flashing lights that she would have a meltdown, but you admired her desire to get out of the car. Yoongi was right, she loved flying, it was her second favorite thing right now. Securely at number one was Jungkook, for a year and seven months. That spot was unattainable for anyone else.

“Shall we?” Yoongi offered, watching you fiercely, letting you take the lead. He waited patiently for your answer, heaving a sigh of relief when you finally gave him a tentative nod of your head.

“Dada, go,” your daughter babbled. “Mama, go. Dada, go. Mama, go.”

Sharing a laugh with Yoongi, you take a long deep breath and tighten your grip around her back, holding her in front of your chest. Smiling at you, your baby touched a hand to your cheek.

“I love you,” you whispered to her. She leans her head toward you and puts her nose on yours.

“Ah-luh-oo,” she tried her best to repeat. Stealing a kiss from her, you let Yoongi press a thousand to her cheek to make her giggle, and then it’s time.

Everything seems to move in slow motion, your vision tunneling as your husband opens the car door. Pulling a mask over his face, he sends you a reassuring wink before he rounds the vehicle.

Screams erupt from every corner of the space, and shouting from the team can already be heard. Strict shouting, like things were getting crazy already. Your daughter’s eyes are wide as she looks out the windows and up at you. Her curiosity has been swapped for a little bit of fear.

You couldn’t let her see you panic.

Sliding off of the leather seat and onto the concrete of the airport lot, you pull a mask over your own face and instantly slip a hand to the back of your baby's head. Her legs were wrapped around your torso, and the moment you stepped outside her arms clung around your neck for safety. You already had a suspicion that you weren’t going to have to actively try to hide her face, she would want to do that herself.

Your bags were already taken care of, there wasn’t anything else you needed to grab from the car other than your child and yourself. Everything else would be taken care of for you.

With another deep, dramatic breath, you hold your daughter close, allowing her to bury her face into your neck, and you circle the car like Yoongi had. Upon rounding the back, cameras that were already flashing began to flash faster, quicker. Wide eyed and stunned by the greeting of screams, you barely have time to process anything before Branson grabs your arm.

It’s a gentle tug, one to help keep you on track. He pulls you close to him, staying one step ahead of you as you wait for a couple of seconds in front of the car. Glancing amongst the crowd, it’s mainly full of paparazzi and probably some journalists. Behind the tall men and their cameras you can see the fans, the ones holding up their phones and jumping up and down trying to catch a glimpse at the commotion.

Airport security guards held some people back, though no one seemed to be trying to push through excessively, which was your main fear.

“Another minute here,” Branson said to you, leaning into your ear. “They need photos, then we go.” Nodding, you peek down at your girl who was content clinging to her mother and hiding from the chaos. A sound of admiration rips through the crowd as you stroke her back, one that surprises you.

Up ahead, close to the doors, Yoongi was walking backward slowly, watching you. His fans twisted their heads side to side, from him, to you, and back again. To spice things up a bit, he gives you a wave, and everyone goes nuts.

You can’t help but laugh at him, eyes crinkling at the sides. For some reason you had thought he’d treat you differently when you were outside, but aside from following the rules, he was still your husband. He points to the baby on your chest and questions you with a thumbs up. Another giant ‘Awh!’ rolls through the chattering crowd.

Sending a thumbs up back, the fans laugh, and cheer. Then, your heart plummets to your stomach.

From somewhere within the crowd your name is shouted. And then again. Before you knew it, the entire crowd wanted your attention. Overwhelmed, feeling utterly insane, your eyes well up with tears. You're unable to make out anything else they’re saying though, there were too many people talking at once, and to you, that was a good thing.

God forbid anybody had anything bad to say. You’ve heard it before, but you don’t need to live it in real time.

“Holy shit,” you mumbled. Branson leans into you again, questioning what you’ve said. Turning to him, you smile and repeat, “Holy shit!”

“You’re okay?” he asked, gently putting a hand over your shoulder blade.

“I- I think so?” you said to him, raising your voice over the crowd that was only getting louder. Glancing down to your daughter who’s little fists were attempting to rip holes in your sweater, you send a look to Yoongi, and he stops walking all together. Bundled up in the safety of her mothers arms wasn’t enough for the baby, she needed to be out of this situation immediately. “Branson we have to go.”

“I don’t have the signal yet, we need Yoongi inside before we move forward,” he said. Frowning, you knew the man was just doing his job, but a cry from your daughter flipped a switch within you.

“We need to go,” you insisted, shooting him a glare. Cradling the back of her head, you press your masked lips to her hair and take a deep breath, hoping she’d feel as much of your love as possible.

“Go! Get him inside,” Branson spoke into the tiny walkie he carried on his chest, gesturing toward the door with persistence.

The crowd, now roaring, and growing larger, began to push. The barriers that were blocked by guards were spilling over the edge.

Branson placed a hand to the top of your shoulder and held onto you tight. Grabbing the little speaker, he spoke clearer. “We need to move forward, and we cannot do that if you cannot get him indoors.”

Up ahead your husband was watching you with a heated gaze. His attention didn’t deter from you once. His heart twisted when you cradled your daughter, when he saw Branson begin to get defensive. The hand that was placed protectively on your shoulder could make him scream, and the team behind him, calling after him to get him to step inside the airport made his thoughts fuzzy.

What the hell was he doing? Why would he ever allow the two of you, the most important people in his life, why would he allow you to do it alone? This was the very first time you’ve done this, and he’s realized now that he’s made the biggest mistake.

Forgetting everything he was told, everything he’s learned, Yoongi bounds toward you, using the fast paced walk that his fans clown him for. They absolutely lose their minds, the people around you.

Wide eyed and shocked, you’d never think he’d break the rules on this one, you sigh in relief when he reaches your side. An arm wraps around your shoulder, Yoongi closing you in front of his chest.

“What are you doing?” you asked, giving your head a small shake.

Your husband smiles, reaching up to pull his mask off of his face, removing yours as well.

“Not letting you do it alone,” he said to you, leaning in to press a kiss to your lips. As you could’ve guessed, the collective lost their minds.

“You’re gonna get in trouble,” you smiled up at him, laughing as he dramatically rolled his eyes.

“You two are always worth it,” he said. “Now, c’mon,” he stepped aside to hold you behind your back, keeping you tucked beneath his arm. Using his other hand he rubbed the baby’s back and gave her cheek a quick kiss, happy to find that once he joined you two she had calmed down. “Let’s go see Kookie.”

Her head shot right up with enormous dark eyes full of stars. “Koo-hee?!”

“Koo-hee!” Both you and Yoongi copy her tiny voice, making her giggle with the silly smiles you flash at her.

The world around you seemed to melt away the second you were in your husband's arms, like all of a sudden you had the strength to handle anything the world would have thrown at you. His grip around your body as he walked with you into the airport was enough to silence the crowd, and power your legs to get through the doors without an incident.

A mere twenty minutes later, the three of you were seated on the plane, your daughter snoozing soundly on her fathers chest while you scrolled through your phone, curious to see what the internet has had to say of your appearance already. Resting his head on your shoulder, Yoongi followed along, making a sweet comment at every single photo of you.

“Oh, that one is the best,” he said quietly, your Twitter scroll stopping on a picture of the three of you before you walked off. The big, genuine, happy smiles you and Yoongi wore were priceless as you grinned at your baby girl, one whose face didn’t make it into any photos- thank the good Lord that somebody believes in. “You should post that one.”

Giving him a sideways glance, you huff a gentle laugh. “To my Instagram? It’s just gone public, you want me to blow it up even more?”

Yoongi tips his chin up, flashing you pouty puppy dog eyes. “I just want them all to know you’re mine. Both of you. I want everyone to know I’m yours, and I always have been.” You gave his forehead a kiss.

“Okay,” you nodded, “I’ll post it. Her face isn’t in any of these, so I can post as many as I want.”

Settling comfortably on your shoulder once again, Yoongi gave you caption advice for the post- an emoji that seemingly had nothing to do with the photo… But, you used it anyway. The angel emoji, with a halo and little wings.

“That one’s perfect,” he whispered, tapping on it for you.

“If you say so,” you smiled. Yoongi sat up a bit, carefully to not disturb his sleeping daughter. “You always pick the random ones.”

“Every single one I use means something,” Yoongi gazed at you fiercely. “That little guy,” he pointed to the angel, “That makes four of us.”

Your lips parted in surprise, unsure of what to say. That week in December devastated you both. Your stomach flips while you watch him study your face. The whirlwind life you live hasn’t given either of you proper time to process, or grieve.

“Baby,” he whispered, closing the space between you to touch his forehead to yours. “You don’t have to post it if you don’t want to.”

Sucking in a deep breath, your eyes welling with tears, you furrow your brows. “What did I do wrong,” escaped you in an exasperated gust of air. Yoongi shifted, wrapping an arm around your back.

“No,” he said, putting on his strong facade. “We don’t do that, we’ve talked about this. You know there wasn’t anything you did wrong. There wasn’t anything I did wrong. You heard the doctor say it, baby, multiple times. You gave him the perfect home, you’re healthy.” Yoongi paused to gauge where you were, praying that you were listening to him.

You respond after a few seconds, bobbing your head. Taking a deep breath, Yoongi swallows down the lump in his throat.

“It just wasn’t his time,” he whispered. “He wasn’t ready.”

“Yeah,” you whispered fast. Yoongi’s thumb found your cheek, wiping away the tears that had fallen.

“And, you remember the last time we were there, they said we could try again whenever we were ready,” he said. The end of last month you had a check-up with your doctor, just to make sure things were back to normal, and that your body was holding up alright. Your second pregnancy was a surprise, much like the first, you and Yoongi haven’t seemed to learn your lesson. However, losing your son before you had even gotten the chance to hold him in your arms put a lot of things into perspective for the two of you.

There were routine check-ups, you were eating better- both of you! This second child was something that you and your husband both wanted, and though each of your emotions have been through the wringer… You would be willing to try again when you felt like you could handle it.

“I want to,” you whispered. Yoongi smiled, but you could see his own worries within it. “I know, I feel the same way.”

“Together,” he cuts off the nervousness quickly. “We’ll do it together.”

“Uh, we kinda have to,” you giggled, making him laugh.

“I can’t wait,” he sing-songed through clenched teeth with a grin, stealing a kiss from you. Yoongi backs away from you to check on your sleeping daughter who hasn’t made a peep. He was surprised she had let her eyes shut while she was beside the window, normally she’d be gazing out at the clouds passing by.

Picking your phone up off of your lap, you smile at the angel emoji and click post, letting the notifications flood in like wildfire. This was all brand new. You were allowed to make your Instagram public about a week ago, and since then you’ve reached four million followers, while you used to have forty-six. Silencing the notifications from the app, every photo you’ve ever posted amassed an incredible amount of likes. Your feed was a feast, and the public was hungry.

Four million followers and counting. The number was only going to get bigger.

Watching the photo gain twenty thousand likes whenever you refreshed the page, you nudged Yoongi’s shoulder to show him what was happening, and when he turned his head to look, an unknown number you’ve never seen before popped onto your screen, calling you.

“What the…” you mumbled, narrowing your eyes.

Yoongi snatched the phone from your hand and quickly snapped a photo of the screen with his own, then he silenced yours and went into it, blocking the number who tried to reach you. He called Branson over and showed him the photo, letting the head of security take his phone with him.

“Trace this, or, do something. Tell me who's number this is,” his voice is stern, on alert.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” you said, laying your head down on his shoulder. “People get scam calls all the time.”

“Not us,” he said, tone flat.

Not even ten minutes passed before Branson came back, kneeling on the row of chairs in front of your family. He placed his elbows on the head rests and took a deep breath, darting his eyes back and forth from Yoongi to yours.

“Well?” Yoongi asked. Branson handed him his phone and frowned.

“Uh,” he stumbled over a few words, unsure of how to say what he needed to say. “We, um… The phone number belongs to your mother.” His voice is hushed, quiet, like he was afraid to tell you, when in actuality he was afraid to tell Yoongi. Touchy subject. Especially now.

There had been a restraining order set in place since the day after your daughter's first birthday. Yoongi held the meetings and took care of everything, all you had to do was sign.

Neither one of your parents were allowed to contact you, speak to you or your daughter, or try to see you in person. They were not allowed to mail anything to you, send anyone to see you in place of themselves, nor were they allowed to be in touch with anyone close to you. Sunny included. You had to make a list.

Expecting him to jump out of his seat, you stretch a hand over his lap and grab his other hand, the one on your daughter's back. Sitting up, you turn toward him ever so slightly to catch a glimpse of his expression. It had not faltered. He was stone faced, and you were sick to your stomach.

“Sue her,” he said. Turning to you, he sighed. “We’re changing your number again.”

“D, come on, it’s not like-”

“I don’t care,” he said, peering down to admire his daughter. “She clearly hasn’t gotten the message that you don’t want anything to do with her.” He pointed his focus back to Branson. “Fight it. Do what you can.”

“Got it,” the guard said, and whisked himself away.

It’s quiet for a moment before Yoongi said, “Why are you defending her?”

“I’m not defending her,” you said, and he raised a brow, giving you a funny look. “It’s just… Super annoying to give everyone a new phone number for the third time.” Both your lips turn up into a smile. “Sue the bitch, I don’t care, D.” Yoongi laughs. “Just don’t make me change my number again, I beg of you.”

“Alright,” he said. “No new number. BUT!” His raised volume made your daughter stir. “One more thing happens, you’re changing it.” The little one lifted her head, blinking a few times before she grinned at her father.

“Fine,” you whispered, not that he was paying attention anymore anyway. Your daughter took his full focus, and all of his kisses.

It seemed silly to just now realize that today was something of a confirmation of the last eight years. Living your life, being a secret to millions of others, while you and the people you cared most about knew, was nice, and secure, and peaceful. But, now… Now that everyone knew, the peace grew. It swallowed you whole, engulfing you and your family with stability and ease.

No more accidental reveals. No more false stories. No more rumors the company had to shut down. No more hiding.

You were absolutely free, and for now, that was everything.

thank you for reading, I hope you’ve enjoyed this piece!

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leave me some here! <3

support my art here! <3

vegas tags <3 (i realize on the last post i missed some of you, i'm so sorry.) <3

@jewelrnicorn @yoongisducky @all-american-fangirl @funkylittlebisexuall @ahewlett @damn-u-min-yoongi @my-dark-happy-place

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here-there-everyfuckenwhere · 11 months

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Im so grateful for all the amazing fics in this fandom, every single person who is able to create and publish a piece of work, no matter what it is, and share it online for everyone to enjoy (for FREE!!) is so amazing

That being said I have one very specific ick that makes me immediately tap out of any OFMD fic and that is; when Stede talks like Aziraphale.

Idk if this is just me nitpicking, or because I’m Australian and therefore slightly more familiar with NZ accents/vernacular/etc. than the average American writer, but sometimes I’ll just come across something and immediately hear it in Aziraphale’s voice.

Could this be because there’s an overlapping fanbase and people who write for OFMD are used to writing in Aziraphale’s voice for other fics? Potentially. Could it come from people confusing the way Rhys Darby speaks with posh British accents? Maybe. I don’t know. But like. Just remember we’re talking about the guy who says shit like:

- I just stabbed you ya nut!

- THEY RIPPED MY POCKET THE FUCKEN BARBARIANS!

- Piss off izzy I don’t wanna talk to you

- well sussed!!

- it’s been days since I cut myself on my sword! oop, nah there we go-

Like yes he talks like a fancy gentlemen but also he talks like Rhys Darby most of the time

#ray rants and junk #personal #ofmd #our flag means death #fanfiction #Stede bonnet #I’m sorry if this sounds bitchy but it has to be said #don’t make him British 😭

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multifandoms27-blog · 8 months

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I tend to never be satisfied with my potrayal of Jeff. I'm going to try to nail it down today though.

Content: Jeff the killer HC's

Warnings: Bullying behavior (cyberbullying), toxic behavior, psychotic episodes, impulsivity, aggression, obsessive behavior

Notes: Inspired by my Toby list and my EJ list, and the song Tear You Apart by She Wants Revenge. This one is probably my longest one.

• ───────────────── •

(Art by kawacy on DeviantArt)

❥General

Okay, we should all know the drill by now. Jeff is psychotic, often hurting and humiliating others for his own entertainment. He's the biggest bully in the mansion.

When you join, he will immediately target you. He'll make fun of your appearance, try to cut you or burn you so he can get a sick laugh (normally when he's in an episode)

Why would you ever want to be anything more than acquaintances with him? He doesn't seem trustworthy at all, and he'll likely spill you secrets to BEN, who will then tell everybody online.

He's constantly getting into fights to prove to the others that he's "top dog," and that he isn't scared of anybody. Ironically enough, the only one he doesn't really try is Eyeless Jack. Motherfucker could eat him in like, two bites, so I understand.

Honestly, as much as he bullies you, you will never be as much of a target as Jane is for him. Which is good, that's a good thing.

When he isn't in his psychotic episodes, he'll still be very snarky, but he won't be going around and getting into people's faces anymore. It's during his calmer moments when you'll be able to start befriending him.

• ───────────────── •

❥Romantic

Jeff won't really be receptive to you trying to befriend him for a while. He knows how he treated you, he knows who you are. He doesn't care about you, but he'll stick around while you talk to him about whatever. He's just kinda shocked that you've decided to try to get close to him of all creeps. But he'll come off as indifferent.

Don't trust him with your secrets right away. Even if he's not in an episode, he's still going to tell BEN everything.

Just making an effort to talk to him though, not really attempting to get to know him, will start to make him interested. You know who he is, yet you're not...interested in him? His past or why he looks like this? At all?

That was new for him, considering Jane, Liu, Nina, BEN and Slenderman. In fact, he thinks about it so much that he'll begin to obsess about you when he goes back into a violent episode. He'll rip you away from anyone you're with - if it's not a creep, he's killing them on the spot - and will try to force you into his room.

He'll want to talk to you for hours on end, about you. He wants to know you. Why aren't you interested in his past? What was your past? Why are you here?

He goes from not caring about you, to caring about you way too much. Anything negative he's told BEN, he'll go to him and threaten him to take it off the internet, completely scrub it. BEN is confused, but he does it.

Jeff will use that as evidence to him being good to you. He won't admit that he wants your approval, but its pretty obvious.

He begins to spend less time with BEN and more time with you. He wakes up before you? He's pounding on your bedroom door until you open it so you can be up with him. You want to play a game with another creep? He's either watching or forcing his way into the game.

This guy will eventually try to spend every waking moment with you

He goes from not wanting to be around you to becoming OBSESSED

He wants to know everything about you, but he wants you to tell him when you're alone with him. Others don't deserve to know things about you, especially BEN.

This would be around the time he begins to develop feelings. Now, he's still in an episode, so he'll be impulsive with it. It doesn't matter how long you guys have been friends, he wants you and he's going to have you.

He'll pound on your door and when you open it, he'll kiss you on the lips. No prior notice as to how he feels about you, no warning about the kiss, nothing.

You think he's messing with you and you shut the door in his face. He angrily pounds on your door again until someone else comes to take him away.

He thought that was you rejecting him and he went back to hating you. He told BEN a shit ton of things you told him in confidence and you sobbed as you saw gossip about yourself online, along with rumors that weren't true.

Jeff made you out to be the mansion whore, sleeping with anyone for anything - benefits, food, clothes, whatever. It didn't have to make sense for it to spread.

Your other creepypasta friends came to your aid, which irked Jeff even more. Especially your guy friends

It wasn't until he heard you tell Toby about your feelings for him that he realized how much damage he had caused

This whole time he thought you didn't like him...oh, he fucked up

He takes to the internet to debunk the rumors and fight anyone who kept up with them. He once again told BEN to scrub any evidence, leaving the boy confused.

Jeff will come to your aid, but his heart clenches when he realizes that you don't trust him anymore.

He begs and begs for forgiveness, and finally you give it to him so he'll shut up

He's back to following you around like a puppy, and his feelings resurface. He's not in an episode now, and he wants to handle this delicately

His way of doing it delicately is by...giving you one-liners. Yep.

He'll stalk you on your social medias and check out every account you follow, and get jealous if you follow another guy. He's not even in a relationship with you yet!

Finally, he asks you out while you two were playing a game. You had to pause it to look at him and see if he was even serious

So, the two of you start going out. He goes full blown crazy boyfriend

He forces you to move into his room pretty soon, and he keeps tabs on everything you do

He's super paranoid you'll cheat on him, so he's always hanging around in the mansion. You'll never be alone with your friends again now that you're with him.

You don't dare fight him on it, he's the most unstable one and can be super aggressive at the drop of a hat

Probably installs a tracker on your phone so he can monitor where you go and when you leave the mansion if he can't be there for whatever reason

Knife fights anyone who brings up his past behavior or the rumors from before about you, and always wins. He uses this to get praise from you

He wouldn't trade you for the world - you are his world, and he'll make sure everybody knows it. You will never know peace again, even if you manage to run away from him, leaving a breakup letter behind.

You're stuck with him.

• ───────────────── •

Here is my Masterlist in case you want to request, or look for more of your favorite character!

#jeff the killer #creepypasta #creepypasta jeff the killer #jeff the killer x reader #jeff the killer x you #jeff the killer x y/n #Spotify

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katnisspeetaprim · 10 months

Text

Secret's Out

Bang Chan/PlusSize!Reader

Summary: You and Chan were childhood sweethaerts, having known each other since you were babies. You've managed to keep your relationship secret, up until now.

Warnings: Plus size reader, fem reader, established relationship, idol!au, online hate, body image issues

Word Count: 2185 M.list

You and Chan were practically attached at the hip since birth. Your parents had always been close friends, so the two of you naturally spent a lot of your childhood around one another.

You could even go as far to say that the two of you were childhood sweethearts, considering you would run around holding hands, and kissing each other on the cheek when you were toddlers.

The two of you officially got together at age 16, when he was a trainee in Korea. Considering you were still kids at the time, you both made long distance work pretty well. Plus it didn’t hurt that you had amazing parents, who funded your many trips to and from Korea, multiple times a year.

The day you were finally able to up root your life and move to Korea permanently to be with Chan, was one of the best days of your life.

You’d managed to get lucky with YouTube, and amass a big following of a couple million. Being able to live comfortably because of a following you created, made you feel super proud of yourself.

Chan of course made secret accounts so he could secretly support you. Though there was one time he accidentally liked one of your Tweets from the official Stray Kids account, but he realised almost immediately and quickly unliked the Tweet. To this day, you are pretty sure nobody managed to catch the slip up.

Of course the public knew nothing of your relationship. He couldn’t even meet you at the airport, since chances were that someone would recognise at least one of you, and people would put two and two together.

Over the years, Chan had turned into an excellent example of a man. He was a gentleman through and through, always putting others before himself, not to mention all the hard work he’d put into his body.

You on the other hand, although you were healthy, you’d always been a little on the bigger side. Your body image was one of the biggest things you had to work on when you began your YouTube career.

You still didn’t love your figure, but you had learnt to just ignore the hate comments.

‘Chan! Oh my god that was amazing!’ You embraced Chan as soon as he was backstage, having just performed at lollapalooza, Paris.

‘Really? Did you not see me rip my pants?’ He laughed and returned your embrace. The other boys skirted round the two of you, all still high on the adrenaline from the show.

‘Hey noona! Why don’t we all get this treatment when we get of stage?’ Changbin smirked as he walked past.

‘Find a way to turn into Chan then we’ll talk.’ You shot back over your shoulder with a laugh.

‘Don’t tease the kids.’ Chan held back a laugh as he settled his hands on your hips. You turned back to him and gave a soft smile. Chan smiled back and leaned down to press a quick kiss to your lips.

‘C’mon. Let’s get to the dressing room. I think we have food in there.’ Chan pulled back, but placed his ar round your shoulders, guiding you away.

Little did you know, someone was filming the whole interaction from across the wing...

You and Chan were blissfully unaware that someone had filmed your little moment together. That was until a few weeks later when you were back in Korea.

You were live on stream when the video dropped.

You were in the middle of playing a video game, when you noticed something in the chat that made the blood drain from your face. People were talking about Chan.

‘Why are you guys talking about Stray Kids all of a sudden?’ You tried to play it cool , but it’s clear that your chat saw right through you.

Fan1: Girl how could you keep that from us!?

Fan2: How long!?

Fan3: How did you bag a guy like that...

Fan4: We know about you and Bang Chan.

The game was long forgotten now, just left on the pause screen as you stared intently at your chat. You watched as messages kept pouring through. Some were just as confused as you were , but most seemed to be privy to information you didn’t have.

You didn’t know what to say. How could people know about your relationship. Without a word, you just shut down the live and slumped down in your chair.

With shaky hands, you picked up your phone and noticed one of your moderators had sent you a message containing a video link.

Your breath hitched in your throat when you saw the video. It was a grainy, shaky video, but you could quite clearly see that it was you and Chan in the video. Phones had been banned from the backstage area of Lollapalooza, so you both thought it would be safe to share a moment together...

The phone suddenly started ringing in your hand, startling you slightly. Chan’s name flashed across the screen. You didn’t even get a chance to say hello when you answered.

‘Have you seen!?’ His voice was slightly higher pitch than usual, a dead giveaway that he was nervous.

‘Yeah, just now... Chan what do we do?’ your voice was barely above a whisper, but Chan had no clue what to say to you.

‘We should have been more careful...’ You shouldn’t have scoffed but you couldn’t stop yourself.

‘Bit late for that now, isn’t it?’ Chan was silent on the other end, you could just hear his quiet breathing. You sighed and dropped your head onto your hand.

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t snap at you.’

‘It’s ok. I know you didn’t mean it.’

‘Are we in trouble?’ You mumbled. Chan chuckled dryly.

‘Well the company isn’t pleased we let it slip, but we technically haven’t done anything wrong so I think we’re ok..’

‘Ok...’ You replied, not entirely convinced.

‘Look babe, I need to go. Everything is a little crazy right now, but I’ll see you tonight, ok?’

‘Ok. I love you. Don’t stress to much.’

‘Love you too babe, but you know me.’ He laughed, trying to lighten the mood. You both said goodbye and hung up.

You groaned and looked down at your phone, as notifications began to pour in at an alarming rate. You knew you shouldn’t be curious, but you wanted to so badly know what people were thinking.

Fan1: How did a pig like that manage to seduce our Channie?

Fan2: she’s way too fat for him.

Fan3: Chan deserves better.

Fan4: People being mean to her are disgusting. Chan is clearly happy...

Fan5: Of course she’s a YouTuber... Probably just using him for views.

-----Fan6: How so when she’s been a YouTuber years before now?

Fan7: I want a man to look at me like that :(

Pig... fat...deserves better... You were used to nasty comments, but when it came to your weight, especially when it came to your relationship... It just hit different.

You suddenly found yourself hyper aware of your own body, how big your stomach and thighs were. Plus some clothes did feel a little tighter in recent days. Chan said he’d see you later, but you suddenly felt the need to hear his voice. You held he phone to your ear and nervously bit at your thumb nail.

Ring...ring...ring... call ended.

Your heart sank when he didn’t answer. You sighed quietly to yourself. Not wanting to disturb him anymore, you were about to go drown your sorrows, when a text came through. A lump formed in your throat when you read what it said.

Chan: I said I was busy right now. We’ll talk later.

Tears suddenly welled up in your eyes at his dismissal. Getting up, you trudged your way to the bedroom in defeat. For the first time in almost 10 years, you started doubting your relationship with Chan. Maybe you really weren’t good enough to him.

‘Hey hyung, Y/N just tried to ring you.’ Hyunjin almost didn’t want to approach his leader right now. the energy he was giving off was negative to say the least.

Chan was a bit all over the place all things considered, not to mention he had managers and supervisors pulling at him from all directions to figure out what to do.

Needless to say, the man was stressed. Also angry, and an angry Chan was a scary Chan.

Chan let out an annoyed sigh and practically snatched the phone from Hyunjin. He quickly typed a message to you and threw the phone down with a clatter.

As soon as the phone left his hands, he lowered his head onto his palms. Hyunjin shared a look with Felix who was sat near Chan. The other boys were scattered round the room, not wanting to crowd their leader right now.

‘Hyung, are you ok?’ Felix prodded gently. Chan peered up from his hands and shot him a piercing glare.

‘Ok yeah. Stupid question.’ Felix laughed nervously, fidgeting in his seat.

‘Sorry. I shouldn’t take my anger out on you.’ Felix shook his head and placed a comforting hand on Chans shoulder.

‘Don’t worry about it. You’ve every right to be angry.’

‘Do I though? We should have been more careful.’ He mumbled to himself.

‘phones shouldn’t have been back there. This isn’t your fault hyung.’ Hyunjin piped back up, wanting to try to make the older man feel a little better.

‘Yeah...’ Chan looked away and down at the table. Felix and Hyunjin shared a look and was about to talk again, when at that moment a manager walked back into the room.

‘Alright. We’ve done all the damage control we can do for now. Go home Chan.’ That caught the other boys attention.

‘Why’s he being punished? He’s done nothing wrong!’ Changbin butted in and frowned deeply and the other members were nodding in agreement.

The manager immediately back peddled, not wanting to deal with 7 angry members right now. He pinched the bride of his now with an exasperated sigh.

‘He’s not in trouble, but there’s no use staying here and getting more stressed.’ Chan wordlessly agreed, getting up and gathering his things before bee lining to the door.

‘Oh by the way.’ The manager called after him. ‘We’re releasing a statement tonight!’

(line break)

You stood before the full length mirror in the bedroom with your shirt off, scrutinizing your own body.

Turning to the side, your hands ran along your stomach and your heart sank at what you saw.

Maybe the comments were right. How could Chan find you attractive when he looked the way he did. He’d be more happier with someone else, maybe another idol.

Just as thoughts began swimming through your mind, the bedroom door swung open with a slam.

You let out a startled scream and tried to cover yourself as you spun round, only to immediatley calm when you saw Chan standing in the doorway. You had been so caught up in your head, you hadn’t even heard the front door open.

‘Chan! Wha-‘ Before you could finish your sentance, Chan was across the room and pulling you into a much needed hug.

‘I’m so sorry..’ He mumbled into your neck. You slowly ran your hands over his arms, and placed your own round his body.

‘Why are you sorry?’ You whispered back.

‘It’s my fault. I should have been more careful in public...’

‘Don’t be silly. You couldn’t have known someone would break the rules.’ You pulled back to see his face and gave him a sad smile.

He looked back to you but he didn’t smile.

‘I saw what people were saying about you online...’ Your smile faltered as you tried to play it off. You unconsciously looked down at yourself suddenly remembering you were still just in your underwear.

‘Ah...yeah. Don’t worry-‘

‘You know it’s not true right!?’ He cut you off quickly, knowing you would play the situation down.

‘I don’t want anyone else. You’re beautiful and perfect the way you are!’ You looked down, feeling awful that you couldn’t fully believe him.

Chan cupped your cheeks and forced you to look up at him once again.

‘Please believe me... I love you so much baby.’ He started placing light kisses across your face as your eyes began to water.

‘I love you too...’ You tightened your grip around the man and squeezed your eyes shut.

He whispered sweet nothings in your ear an gently ran his fingers along the curve of your back, as the two of you stood in a warm embrace.

You didn’t stream for a few days after that day. Both you and Chan had gone radio silent, not wanting to add more fuel to the fire. Hopefully people will calm down eventually, and then maybe you would feel more comfortable sharing your story with the world. Heck, if Chan was comfortable, you may even do streams together on your channel, but it all came down to what Stay thought of you at the end of this mess.

#stray kids #skz #x reader #imagine #one shot #scenario #reaction #angst #smut #fluff #idol!au #bang chan #kpop

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ahgasegotarmy116 · 11 months

Text

L0v3 M3

Summary: You're both each other's escape but he can't tell you who he really is... Pairing: y/n x idol Yeonjun Word Count: 4.2k~ Warnings: Like one or two curse words lmao... that's it a/n: Requested by a lovely anon <3 I hope you like it :)

🟢 y/n is online

🟢 Yejun is online

Yejun: How's your day been? I haven't heard from you today :/

y/n: I am so sorry Yejun! Things have been pretty hectic at work and I wasn't even able to eat lunch today :(

Yejun: Oh my gosh that's horrible! How are you feeling? You must be exhausted! Have you eaten yet?

y/n: *send picture of your favorite food* Yup! I figured I would treat myself today!

Yejun: You definitely deserve it after the crazy day you had!

y/n: Enough about me though, how have you been? Did you do anything fun today? I know you said it was your day off so I hope you did :)

Yejun: Not really, I hung out with one of my roommates since we both ended up having today off so we just played some video games.

y/n: Oh did you guys try out that new game you said was coming out soon?

Yejun: Yeah we did! It came out on Friday but we didn't have time to check it out until now so it was fun trying to figure it out together.

y/n: Did you win?

Yejun: Of course

y/n: As expected from my champion <3

I smile down at my phone after rereading your message for the 10th time before responding. "What are you smiling at?" Beomgyu says walking into the living room after waking up from his nap. "Nothing" I say locking and putting away my phone before another ding rings out notifying the both of us (unfortunately) of another one of your messages coming through.

"Doesn't look like it's nothing" Beomgyu says tilting his head trying to see my phone hidden behind my back. "Well either way it isn't any of your business I say defensively. "Yeonjun be honest, you're still talking to that girl aren't you?" he says, obviously disappointed in me.

"So what? What's wrong with that?" I say continuing to defend myself. "She doesn't know who you are right? You know it could cause a huge scandal if-" "I'm being careful. But no, she doesn't know who I am. I know better than that" I say hoping the conversation is over and we can move onto something else. "You better..." he says trailing off.

"What's that supposed to mean? Last time I checked I was the hyung here. You really think you can talk to me like that?" I spit out getting fed up with him. "Okay I'm sorry I'll stop bugging you about it damn" he mumbles. "I'm sick of your disrespect Beomgyu. When are you gonna sto-" "Yeonjun that's enough" Soobin says walking into our dorm trying to defuse the situation.

"You know what I'm done, I'm leaving" I say walking towards the door and heading outside. Luckily some of our staff are still hanging around outside since they had just dropped Soobin off. "Can you take me for a drive? I just need to get out of my head for a while" I ask knowing that taking a walk instead isn't really possible with my current idol status.

The staff nods and opens the car door for me before going over to the drivers side. "Do you have anywhere you would like to go or just somewhere away from the city?" he suggests and I'm happy to hear that he's able to read my mind. "Away from the city please, I need to get away from all the chaos" to which he nods and starts the car doing just as I had asked.

I pull out my phone after our drive is underway and I remember that I had left you on read.

🟡 Yejun is busy → 🟢 Yejun is online

🟡 y/n is busy

The last message you had sent me was asking if I had any plans for the rest of the night. I'll be honest I downloaded this app with the intention of pretending to be someone else. I just wanted to be a normal guy, talking to normal people and having normal conversations. But when you're an idol that privilege gets ripped away from you and you don't realize how much you're going to miss it until it's too late. So my name on here is Yejun and he's basically me except with a new face and a new name.

Choi Yejun, Yes I know very creative but I did't want to lie too much

Age: 24

Birthday: September 12th which isn't a complete lie because it's the 12th in America but the 13th in Korea

Height: 6ft, yes I did add on an inch okay, sue me!

Blood Type: A

MBTI: ENFP

Education: Batchelor's degree in Music with a minor in dance. This one however is a lie laced with some truth okay, let me have this one.

I got the pictures of "Yejun" off of instagram after looking through hundreds of accounts, trying to find one that fit my vibe. Luckily the account that I take the pictures from belongs to a very very narcissistic guy so I'm constantly getting new picture to send you if I need to. Do I feel bad lying to you? Yes of course.

I wasn't even planning on keeping this account for long. I just wanted to try and use it as some sort of escape. We met by chance and somehow along the way we just started messaging each other everyday and it's gotten to the point that I feel like there's something missing if I haven't heard from you that day.

Some days are busier than others and I hate it. I wish I could just spend the day with you. Not just messaging you on my phone or computer but really spend time with you, in person. Somewhere along the way I started to fall for you. Don't ask me why or how, it kind of just, happened. I noticed it when I started to compare every woman I encountered to you, and none of them could live up to what you mean to me. Call me crazy but something in me is holding out the hope that someday we can be together, or at least meet.

We've been talking to each other for months but I'm afraid that when I finally gain the courage to call you that you'll recognize my voice and that could be the beginning of the end for us. You're not even into Kpop like that, let alone my team (it hurt my ego a little bit but I got over it) but it still scares me. My attention is soon brought back to my phone as I see that you've come back online and responded to my message.

🟡 y/n is busy → 🟢 y/n is active

🟢 Yejun is active

Yejun: Hey sorry I got busy there for a second but no I'm free for the rest of the night. What about you?

y/n: I'm free as well :)

Yejun: Good

y/n: Good?

Yejun: Yeah because you can pay attention to me after neglecting me all day :(

y/n: I already told you I was busyyyyyy

Yejun: Yeah I know I was just teasing

y/n: If it makes you feel any better I really missed you <3

My breath hitches a bit at the confession. It's nothing big but for some reason it has my heart racing nonetheless.

Yejun: Yeah you better! But I missed you more ;)

y/n: Good, what are you up to?

Yejun: Nothing really, just relaxing, trying to clear my head.

y/n: Oh, is there something wrong?

Yejun: It's just that things have gotten really busy at work and I feel like I'm being stretched way too thin.

y/n: Could you maybe talk to your boss? See if there's anyways that someone could help you out?

Yejun: There's already four other people working with me so they can't really afford to spare anyone else. Plus it would throw us all off if someone else did join this late in the game.

y/n: Oh okay that's understandable. You guys don't want to mess up the synergy you have going on right?

I smile happy that you're starting to understand me and my world without really knowing it.

Yejun: Exactly! I couldn't have put it better myself :)

y/n: You know you can tell me anything right? I know that you like to keep things to yourself about you work and everything but if you're struggling with say your friends or you're feeling down then I'm always here <3

Yejun: Thank you y/n I really appreciate you and our friendship so much! You have no idea how much you've helped me since we first met. Life for me is just so fast paced so it's really nice to have someone who likes me for me and not for what I can do for them you know?

y/n: I totally understand, I feel the same way about you. Even though we haven't met in person I feel like you're the best friend I've ever had. Like a true friend, so thank you Yejun. You've made my days so much brighter and my nights so peaceful. I just don't know what I would do without you.

It's really me that needs you. Everything in my life from the age of 15 to 19 has been about debuting and now that I have it's just, well I don't know, things are just not the way I thought they would be. Seeing my Sunbaes debut before me just made me so excited at the prospects of someday following in their footsteps. I kept counting the days, waiting for that time to come when they would finally tell us we were going to debut.

I was the first member of the team that would become Tomorrow x Together and the other guys trickled in bit by bit in 2016 and soon we were put together. It still took us about three years until we debuted but we worked hard every single day until we finally made it!

A few months after we debuted though the pandemic hit, and everything about the way that idols and idol groups promoted their music and performed had completely changed. The day they told us that BTS had to postpone their world tour was the day that I knew everything was going to change.

It was hard being a new idol group and not being able to get the love, energy and support that most groups get. It just makes all of the hard work worth it when you get to see the look on people's faces and hear them cheering for you. Although my idol journey hasn't been the same as idol groups that debuted before me I wouldn't change it for the world.

The pandemic brought our team closer, but it also pushed us apart at times. Having to live together with the uncertainty of it all was nerve wrecking. It's all thanks to our Moa though, they really kept us going when times got tough. But even after the pandemic started to calm down I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing, that I had lost something and I wasn't sure how to find it. That's when I found you.

I had wanted to find some way I could escape from this whole idol world and just be me. Not Tomorrow x Together Yeonjun, just me Choi Yeonjun the kid who worked so hard for his dream and made it come true. I want people to like me for me, but things started to change with the people around me when I debuted. Some idols would try to befriend me, only to get closer to BTS and the friends that I had made before when I was still a trainee started to treat me differently now that I was "famous".

The members of BTS and especially Namjoon hyung really helped me navigate this whole scene and always gave me the best advice. I watched them grow, from their tiny debut showcase and their even smaller fan meet, to their first win with I Need U. Everyday since the beginning I've seen what they're capable of and I want us to be that kind of group someday too.

Thanks to them they've opened up a lot of doors not only for us but for the whole industry. I'm always thinking of them and how much I've grown to love an support them, I always have and I always will. Plus they're all just so hilarious, they never fail to bring a smile to my face and I could never thank them enough.

I know I'm rambling but those are the thoughts that go through my head when I try to process my life these days. There are days I want to say "Fuck this" and just leave, but there are other days that I just couldn't imagine myself doing anything else. It's come to a point where I don't think I could go on without being a part of this team, and that's gotten really unhealthy for me. This whole mindset I've found myself trapped in for these past few weeks has been utterly exhausting and the only thing that's kept me going has been you.

I know I have my members and Moa and the company to rely on but I just want to be seen as a person, not an idol or an asset, just me. You've really brought me back down and helped me embrace my humanity again, as dramatic as that sounds it really is true. It's easy getting wrapped up in the glitz and the glamor of it all but having you really reminded me that I'm still my own person apart from all of this. It's just, I don't know...freeing I guess? Being able to just be myself, but I hate that I can't be my true self with you.

I've adopted this persona that I have to stick to, for both of our safety. It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I want to keep you away from all of this and keep your view of me as the same guy you've known this whole time. Yes with a new face and some tweaked physical traits but it's still me. I hope that someday if we get to meet that you won't hold it against me. I hope you'll realize that It was safer this way because I really want to keep you in my life but only for as long as you let me.

y/n: Are you still there?

Yejun: Yeah I'm sorry I've got my head stuck in the clouds but I really do feel the same way :)

y/n: What's got you so distracted?

Yejun: Just life I just can't seem to separate myself from work you know? My work life balance isn't the best but unfortunately with the kind of job I have it's pretty much impossible to do so.

y/n: I swear you get more and more cryptic everyday

Yejun: I'm sorry I'll stop talking about it. What are you up to?

y/n: Nothing really, I just put on a show that I've seen before as background noise but I really have kept my night clear to talk to you and I'm glad it worked out :)

Yejun: Me too, but hey I have a question for you. Well more of a proposition...

y/n: You're scaring me but I'm all ears

Yejun: Would you maybe be free to talk right now? I just really need to hear your voice.

I've told you time and time again that I didn't feel comfortable talking on the phone but I think I need to make an exception for this time.

y/n: Are you sure? I mean yes I would love to talk to you but I just know you've been uncomfortable with the idea of calling but yes! Call whenever :)

I ask the staff to pull over into a pretty much abandoned parking lot hoping this will provide me with enough privacy. I step out of the car and let him know that I'm going to take a call and it might take a while, to which he nods and tells me not to wander off too far.

My thumb hovers over the call button for a few moments before I finally take a deep breath and press it to start a call. It rings a few times and I can feel the anxiety build with every ring that plays until I hear a click telling me you've picked up.

"Yejun?" I hear your voice resounds melodically.

"Um yeah hi" I say in english. Us living in different countries has also proved to be an obstacle in our relationship but it's honestly for the best.

"Oh my gosh is it really you? I can't believe I'm actually hearing your voice!" you say clearly excited which releases so much tension I've been holding in my body all day.

You've sent me voice notes before and if I'm honest I listen to them about twice a day but who knew that something as simple as actually speaking to you could make me feel so at peace.

"Me neither, I don't know why I was so scared to call you but I'm so happy we are finally doing it" I say feeling like a new layer has been added onto our relationship.

"Me too, you've been sounding really down today though. I know you've already told me about it but is there anything I can do to help?" you ask.

"No it's okay love, why don't you tell me about your day instead?" I let out and start looking up at the stars.

"Love?" you repeat, clearly surprised.

"Shit I mean-"

"No it's okay, I like it" you respond and I can hear how shy you've gotten from the accidental term of endearment.

"Really?" I ask now feeling embarrassed but also happy that you don't mind if I call you that.

I've gotta try out other pet names to see how they will make you react because even if I can't see you I can clearly tell you're blushing.

"Really" you say and the line goes silent for a while, neither of us knowing what we should say next.

"So are you gonna tell me about your day silly?" I resort to, amused by your shyness.

"Oh right, well when I got there this morning we..." you say telling me every little thing you could think about that had happened you today, and I mean it when I say that you tell me every detail but I can't help but find it incredibly endearing.

"Yejun?" you say catching me off guard, I'm not really used to responding to that name when it's said aloud so it took me a second.

"Hmm?" I hum in acknowledgement having lost track of your story.

"Were you even listening to me?" you laugh, clearly knowing the answer already.

I list off a few things that I had thought I had heard but unfortunately had gotten wrong.

"Yeah you said something about spilling your tea on yourself while you were at home and had to change again before you left right?"

"It was actually coffee and I spilled it on my coworker and they had to send it out for dry cleaning but luckily he keeps a spare set of clothes at his desk"

"Oh yeah and he said that you had to give him the money to pay for the dry cleaning"

"No he was really chill about it and I offered to buy him lunch as an apology so I went to go pick something up for us on our break so it would be ready for us during lunch"

"Right right and you went to go get fried chicken and they took forever"

"I swear your mind is something else because it sounds like you know the plot but somewhere along the way lost all the details of the story" you say laughing at me and I know know now that I got it bad. I know it might seem foolish to say that I'm in love with someone that I haven't even met but there's just something about you.

"I'm sorry love, I just really love the sound of your voice so I kind of got lost in it. I'm not ignoring you I promise I guess that I'm just getting a little tired"

"Oh so I'm boring you to sleep?" you say sternly

"No y/n that's not what I meant I-"

"I know, I just wanted to hear how you would sound when you were panicked"

"You're mean" I pout, really feeling scared that I already messed things up between us.

"Aw you love me" you say so simply that I choke on air before my mind can even fully process what she had just said.

"You okay over there?" you laugh clearly amused at my reactions to your teasing.

"Yep *cough cough* all good" I say trying to calm myself down, this is so embarrassing, I don't even know how to respond to subtle flirting from you. It's come so easily to me when I'm with my members and even Moas but I guess since I don't have feelings for any of them like I do with you it's just a little more nerve wracking.

"Maybe I should let you go so you can get some sleep. It's probably really late over there right?"

"Yeah I guess you're right. I just wish that the time difference didn't make things so difficult for us" I say taking a deep breath in and letting it out to calm myself.

"Me too, but we finally spoke on the phone so at least that's something! We should do this more often!" you say trying to cheer me up.

"Definitely! I'll let you know next time I'm free to call and you do the same for me okay? Maybe we could squeeze each other into our schedules a bit more" I say hopeful that something like that might work.

"Sounds good. Goodnight Yejun" you let out in a melancholy tone.

"Have a good rest of your day love" I finish before hanging up.

After finally getting back to the city and making our way to the dorm I'm reminded of the way I left in the middle of an argument.

"Are you going to be okay Yeonjun?" the staff asks, clearly concerned knowing that something set off the need for this impromptu trip. "Yeah I just lost my temper but I'll be fine. Thank you for tonight, I know I kept you out for a lot longer than you're used to". "It's okay kid, I knew you needed it. Let me know if you need anymore late night drives again. Oh and Yeonjun" he calls out before I'm able to close the door. "I hope she's worth it" he says with a sad smile, clearly aware of what had just happened. "She is, don't worry" I say giving him a shy smile in return. "Have a good night, get home safe" I say and close the door after we finished saying our goodbyes.

Walking in the door I'm greeted by the sight of Beomgyu sitting in the living room with a dim light providing us with a soft golden glow. "I really don't want to hear it tonight" I say starting to make my way to my room. "Please, I just want to apologize" he lets out, clearly remorseful. I stop in my tracks and think for a second before finally caving and sitting down on the seat opposite of him and wait for him to continue.

"I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you today, it was uncalled for and I know that" he says pausing, giving me a chance to respond. "I know you're just concerned for the team and you're right, we have a duty to each other as a team but also we have a duty to each other as people. This has been going on for months and no one else has found out besides you because you're nosy" I say smiling at him, showing him a playful attitude rather than an accusatory one.

"I'm being careful don't worry okay? I wouldn't jeopardize the team like that. As much as it hurts me to have to keep my life a secret from her, she's very understanding about it all and isn't pushing me to tell her anything. Just please let me have this Gyu, I've got it under control" I say hoping we can leave it at that. "Okay, I trust you" he says and we sit in silence for a while until he speaks up.

"You spoke to her on the phone tonight didn't you?" he asks with a sly smile. "No...yes...how do you know?" I ask confused as to how he could read me so quickly. "Because you looked so happy when you came in here verses how you left. A miracle had to have happened to curb that temper" he says clearly happy he was right. "Goodnight Beomgyu" I say and get up to make moves to go to bed, rolling my eyes at his cheekiness before I smack him upside the head and run off with him yelling and running after me.

"Choi Yeonjun" I hear being yelled from inside of Soobin's room clearly having been woken up by our shenanigans. "Goodnight everyone" I yell back and close the door and lock it behind me providing me safety for the rest of the night. I let out and breath and shrug off the jacket I had been wearing and throw it on my desk chair and I soon hear a quite notification pop up and confused as to who it might be I pull out my phone right away and I smile instantly reading the message over and over and over again.

y/n: Goodnight love talk to you tomorrow <3

Read L0v3 y0u to see what happens next <3

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#fanfic #kpop #fanfiction #yeonjun #choi yeonjun #txt yeonjun #txt #tomorrow x together #idol au #kpop idol #yeonjun x reader #fluff #yeonjun fluff

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meganelixabethh · 2 months

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In light of Biden stepping down and Kamala Harris potentially being the presidential candidate, I have seen Americans begin to have the debate online about why they should vote for Kamala when they don’t agree with her actions. As an English person I want to talk to you about this because we’ve just done this like a month ago.

Let me briefly introduce you to the British voting system- each country is split into sections that- at one time- had roughly equal populations and each one is called a constituency. Each constituency has an elected leader called a Member of Parliament (we call them MPs so I will be using that term moving forwards) and each of them has a seat in parliament and is able to cast the vote for their constituency on behalf of the people who voted them in. Most MPs are affiliated with either the Conservative Party (colloquially referred to as the ‘tories’ and most similar to the Republican Party) or the Labour Party (no nickname, like the Democrats). There are other parties such as The Liberal Democrats, The Green Party, Reform UK, The DUP, UKIP, BNP and there are even a few MPs who are independent and therefore not affiliated with any party. The general idea is that all the MPs who are in the same party will vote the same way, so if you have over half of the seats in parliament affiliated with your party, you are prime minister and you can usually expect your party to vote the things in that you endorse. This is a TLDR of the British system so it’s way more complicated than this but all this to say, if a party gets 326 seats they have the power.

In 2010 the Tories gained a majority over the Labour Party for the first time in 13 years, and immediately began stripping money out of public services and funnelling this to Tory donors (again I just want to take a moment to say all this is very complicated and I’m glossing over a lot so missing a lot of nuance) so essentially we were paying tax and that money was just not going towards sustaining our national infrastructure. In 2016 Brexit happened and this worsened the problem. In 2019 there was a concerted effort from the left to get the tories out, and while the tories needed to be propped up by The DUP, they maintained their majority. Enter COVID. Our already crumbling public services were put under a level of pressure they simply could not sustain. People were going bankrupt trying to heat their homes during winter, food prices spiralled, schools crumbled both physically and metaphorically. You can’t get a GP appointment to save your life. People are dying in corridors at A&E after waiting 9 hours to be seen. You can’t buy a house nor can you rent one and homelessness soared. The future is bleak here. Children are starving. But it’s fine- life goes on- you come to understand how the people you read about in history books carried on like they did. You come to grow used to living in unprecedented times as everyone else in the world seems to be. You complain to your colleagues about how long it will take to get through to the doctors to try and get a repeat prescription, you turn the heating off in another room and eventually just take to getting in bed as soon as you get home in winter. You know someone who has a wood burning stove so you consider how often is too often to invite yourself over. As you sew up the rip in the seam of your jeans again, you wonder if the world was actually better before 2010 or if everything just seemed better because you were a kid. You know whatever the answer to that question is, you never struggled to get a doctors appointment back then.

Our elections don’t function quite like yours- they don’t happen at a set time. The ruling party have to dissolve parliament to call an election, and they have to do it within 5 years of their last win. The normal convention is 4 years, but 5 is what’s actually in the law. We knew the tories would try to cling on to power as long as they could- so we knew it would be 2024 before we got an election. We had a local election when we would usually have a general election, but finally, FINALLY, on a rainy day, the prime minister told an angry people that we would have an election in six short weeks and we immediately had exactly the same argument you’re currently having. The left argued back and forth about whether tactical voting is moral and if moral voting was actually enough to dig us out of the nightmare. We considered the party leaders actions, we agreed that we didn’t like them, that he was basically in the centre, that he supported the genocide in Palestine and that he didn’t do enough to protect trans people, that he wasn’t what we WANTED. And then we looked at the burned out husk of our lives and we voted for him anyway. He is now Prime Minister and Labour have a very significant majority.

He’s scrapped the Rwanda Scheme (very expensive scheme to ship asylum seekers who reach Britain to Rwanda for some reason?), he’s lifted an onshore wind ban that’s prevented the country expanding its green energy infrastructure for the last decade to try and reduce energy prices, he’s made more progress with striking doctors in about 3 days than the tories did in years, announced plans to nationalise major infrastructure back from private industry, held water companies to account for dumping raw sewage in our waters and ordered an immediate assessment of public funds to try and stop so much public money pouring out of infrastructure after 14 years of Tory restructuring (to make themselves richer if you remember from above). He’s only been in about a month. I was 13 when the tories took power, and for the first time almost since I can remember, there’s a very small stirring of… hope I think? The nightmare might be over soon.

He’s not perfect and neither are Labour, but if I have a choice between being shot in the face and drinking cyanide, I’d drink the cyanide because I might live to drink another glass of water that’s got less cyanide in it. There is no best, there is only better; and if we keep voting for better we might end up at the best we wanted in the beginning. Sometimes, you just have to vote for better and hope. She might not be what you want, but she’s probably not going to set the world on fire and play the fiddle while it burns, and that might have to do for now unfortunately.

#us elections #kamala harris #joe biden #donald trump #uk elections #kier starmer #tories out #fuck the tories

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anendoandfriendo · 6 months

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WE NEED MORE POSTS TALKING ABOUT BEING SYSIAN AND PLURILLEAN AS LEGITIMATE ORIENTATION TERMS OUTSIDE OF BEING ASPEC.

That doesn’t make y'all invalid if a system is sysian or plurillean and that DOES make them aspec.

But not acknowledging this as a separate orientation reeks of sysmedicalism to a lot of us (as in, us, Rusanya), we see a lot of things that do this that aren't intentionally sysmedicalist but are like Just There as a direct result of plurmisic oppression (see: our vents about how roles are used, how people assume endogenics cannot have CDDs and how that implies to the world we're magically immune to trauma! regardless of your actual intentions, and similar vents).

Critical analysis skills are in fact at an all-time low and that includes being sociologically-minded, we finally figured out the words for it, thank fuck. Being able to treat a thing as legitimate as well as justified while also understanding some of the nastier aspects of the history of that thing does not suddenly mean you're endorsing the nastier thing lmao, that's like saying because you're using roman columns you're like, wdk, entirely and fully devoted a dead empire and everything it has ever said and done and condone every single tiny thing it did in the name of its wars and atrocities etc etc etc.

You get what we mean?????

But because (from our observations) that skill is just so blatantly not there for so many people everything is read in bad faith and it's assumed our intent is to attack when our intent is to, like, point out something we percieve is an actual problem. Like. Constantly. We feel like we cannot talk about things we percieve as issues (or at least, if not issues, maybe just things that are unacknowledged) pretty much ever lest we get disembowled by the online community. Jeez.

Saying it one more time: we could be wrong here, but our observations have indicated that a lot of people do not have adequate skills to identify the actual repercussions of living in a society. Not just the things that are told to you, but also what is NOT said, what is simply assumed, and what the meanings of words are to the normative power versus what YOU are saying.

And in order to like, discuss actual issues. And. Not rip people apart. That's...do people understand that is a necessary skill to have so you don't fall to propaganda, for starters?

We feel like this explains a lot of things (not in their entirety but as a common thread maybe?):

Antishippers

Sysmedicalists

Transmedicalists

Any -medicalist to be honest

People who fell down the alt-right pipeline in some way unintentionally (so, pretty much all of the above but like, can be its own thing too so worth mentioning)

And like, probably way more, but. Like. We know we're rehashing an ages-old discussion with ourselves especially when we say "propaganda exploits that type of ignorance and unwillingness to analyze things," and so, when we say "words MEAN THINGS" what we generally are saying, so, when you're deconstructing them, you HAVE to understand how those words are used when a normative power applies them to a marginalized one.

-------

That's why we also fucking fixate on system roles so much we think, they're the most direct example that we can easily apply that is relevant to us in a way that makes them easy for us to deconstruct. "Role" to us has a very specific connotation and in relation to the normative power, a "role" implies a point of purpose. The way singlets call their friends a "protector" implies a personality trait as in "oh my friend is such a protector, you know?" but saying "my headmates role is a protector" implies a point of purpose, something that as far as we are aware, is a concept introduced by singlets and then forced onto our communities as plurals and systems.

We will never tell people to stop using words the way they personally like, but, for us, the way we can see this being fixed is...just saying "my headmate is a protector" or "she's such a caregiver haha" because it no longer implies a point of purpose.

And the point of that analysis is more about "is it even useful to imply a point of purpose" because, as much as we all hate it, we DO live in a society. It's not exclusionism to ask yourself WHY you use a label, and the pathways that could have led you to that and what the alternatives could have been or could be.

A point of purpose is the language of dehumanization when applied to systems and plurals. So, let's make it so even respectability politics is no longer respectable. Nothing would make a singlet more uncomfortable than forcing them to admit we are people and to wrangle their own language against them.

Do you understand what Rusanya is trying to say when Rusanya says all of this? 😖

#getting this down BEFORE we forget or just decided to chicken out on it

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splathousefiction · 5 months

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Thinking casually this evening about the hyper-connectivity of The Modern Internet and how it's broiling ever closer towards overt puritanical fascism because a single evangelical group (Exodus Cry) is strong-arming payment processors, and randomly remembered bathroom wall graffiti.

Always anonymous, it was an effervescent and disgusting way to shout into the void. You had "Jesus Saves" next to public contact information of queers. You had slurs and ongoing arguments that lasted until they were literally buffed out of the steel panels or painted over. Depending on the locale, the walls would be thick with the words of people long dead. Carved into the wood, granting them a fleeting immortality in a vacuum. Coated in piss, grime and shit, but still there after all this time.

Long after the words themselves had been wrote over, blacked out, buffed out, coated and pissed on. Something of those people remained. If you took the effort, if you peeled back the swastikas and Sherman Williams, something was writ that said "I was here, I existed, I was real. Remember me, please god".

And.

I don't remember the last time I saw that kind of graffiti.

I don't remember the last time I was in a truck stop and I saw "ON THIS DATE IN HISTORY, JOHN DOE SUCKED MY COCK RIGHT HERE". I don't remember the last time I saw poetry, pictures, art, stickers, arguments so trivial, insults so fucking obtuse in nature that you had to be there, man. Every time I stop for a piss or shit in public now, it's all clean. The walls are bare. They didn't just patch the gloryholes, they replaced the entire fucking wall.

The world has grown sterile and strange and persistent, an entirely liminal space with a corporate logo sign over the door when you walk inside. FFS, the doors don't even chime anymore. And used to, you could at least avoid this gross, brutalist corporatizing by escaping online. You had escape hatches into the unfiltered insanity and beauty of human nature so long as you had a modem.

Maybe the art sucked, maybe the ramblings were incoherent. Maybe it was someone just calling me a [Litany Of Slurs here] for having a different opinion. But in the filth and grime and shit and piss of the world, I was still able to feel something. I could be traumatized and laugh my head off and cry my eyes out in the course of an afternoon.

I had a choice.

We had a choice.

But gone is the bathroom graffiti. Gone is the reality of choice, and in it's place is a convincing funhouse mirror of curation. The paths towards learning new things, being exposed to new ideas and concepts and ways of life have been made clean, clean as those steel walls between the toilets. They put guard rails up so you don't accidently hurt yourself on enlightenment and damnation. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, et al.

It's not just us freaks, geeks and faggots either. That's the really depressing part. The internet has become so grossly corporatized that life saving resources, educational opportunities and more are now being blocked in schools, public libraries and sometimes by demand of the state. You can't do research, you can't find new art, new music, new ideas without a fucking VPN anymore just to access legitimate and legal resources.

And for what? To what end? So some corporate entity can have a 5% increase in earnings that quarter?

Evil isn't always some dude with a cape and a mask cackling. It's not always some elderly senator begging for us to bomb more people. Sometimes, evil is a slow poison that rips the soul out of something. Sure, what's left still walks and talks and smiles, but it's off, man. And so it will limp along until it's violently fish hooked into the Akira-like fleshmass of some corporate interest.

Denying the grime, piss and shit of human existence, denying us a chance to experience the ugly, the mundane, the horrific and the divine in equal measure is to deny us an inherent path towards understanding ourselves. Safely curated corporate spaces don't beget curiosity and questions-it holds a pillow over both of them in their cribs, applying pressure until they stop flailing. Then it tries to sell you the pillow at a discount.

It takes the multi-faceted splendor of the human experience, and shoves it in a sterile room with other similarly-minded people. It bolts the door from the outside, and by the hour begins reducing the oxygen within. It gets sold as some kind of cleanse in one of those instagram ads you see, posted by a robot with art created by AI and at no point in any part of this series of Posting Good Capitalism was a human touch ever involved.

Capitalism kills in meat space, and it's being predictably successful in online spaces as well. They're not just blocking access to DIY HRT and queer history, they're removing any evidence of it from servers. They're seizing your ability to buy drugs (if you want, as a consenting adult). God forbid if you want to look at porn (again, as a consenting adult) anywhere south of the mason-dixon line.

The net isn't just getting cleaned, it's getting made sterile through a slow series of psychological assaults on our very existence.

So before the whole shit-house goes down in flames, a few things.

You gotta keep being openly, loudly fucking weird. If we're going to be subjected to data curation from AI, your posts have to be so openly radioactive they'd make the flesh slip right off an entire advertising department. You gotta make a CEO afraid you're gonna shit on his desk and piss all over his paper work. Who cares if you get bullied or people think you're cringe. Fuck, at least you'll be you. At least you'll be authentic. At least you'll be fucking human and feel something.

And.

If worse comes to worse.

And you find these words somehow, some way, buried beneath the off-white eggshell paint, carved right into the sheetrock above that freshly-cleaned porcelain.

we were here, we existed, we were real. Remember us, please god

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conkreetmonkey · 1 year

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Why I was banned from r/curatedtumblr: a very belated explanation/apology post

Before migrating here from Reddit, I used to be a regular participant in r/tumblr as a commenter, then r/curatedtumblr when r/tumblr became unusably bloated with repost bots, and the useless mods did nothing because Reddit's leadership system is dumb and broken. Hence the name, curated tumblr; an r/tumblr replacement that was actually moderated. All of the regulars, including me, migrated there, and now r/tumblr is like 90% karma-farming bots endlessly upvoting each other, presumably so the accounts can later be sold for advertising or political astroturfing purposes. Happens all the time.

I explain this because it's important to understand that a) I was a part of the community for quite a while, and b) r/curatedtumblr was heavily moderated, so as to avoid the mistakes of its predecessor. Fine and dandy.

I was a high schooler at the time, terminally online and working a shitty fast food job to save up for the PC I'm typing this on. Thus, I'd spend the days endlessly interacting with the people on r/curatedtumblr, and the evenings working at a Taco Bell, unable to use my phone until breaktime.

One day, I forget the exact context, but the subject of r/FDS came up, which for those of you who are unaware is a hive of femcels. Named as an acronym for Female Dating Strategy, the sub was infamously sexist towards men, going on about things like "high/low value males" and how men below 6' were inhuman scum and basically doing everything incels do but with the gender roles flipped. And just like incels, everyone there was unaware the real reason The sub featured a nauseating glittery pink colour scheme a la Claire's, and everybody there talked like a popular high school girl in a Nickelodeon movie, all "yaaaaaass queen" "you go girl!" and shit like that.

So this sub comes up, and if memory serves we were shitting on it, or at least I was? Again, the context has been lost to memory, and since the sitewide search tools you used to be able to use to find multiple year old comments have all kicked the bucket, and the Reddit UI for finding old content is stupid and requires you to trudge through the entire histroy of a user chronologically until you find what you're looking for with no option to jump to the desired time period, I'm probably never going to be able to find it. I was making fun of the kind of shit they said on that sub, and I said something like "yass kween dump his low-value ass he only makes 800k a year ur worth more gurl," and then went to work.

Now, I didn't know it at the time, but as I worked, somebody saw the comment and thought I was mocking AAVE. They accused me of being a "4 Chan Nazi." Things kind of snowballed from there. Now, and this is embarassing and I've been hesitant to admit to it, but I'm here to explain and apologize, so:

when I was in high school, I did not know what AAVE meant.

I took offense to being accused of being a Nazi, and I forget what my reply was, but it was snarky towards the accuser, which made me look like a POS. Since I did not know what AAVE was, I did not refute the claim that I was making fun of it, and this made me look really, really bad to anybody who did.

I was then banned for this alleged racism. I looked up what AAVE was, realized I totally did look like a racist in that situation, but rather than fight the allegations, me, being an anxious teenager, instead eternally procrastinated on doing so, afraid of further anger directed at me.

It was a dumb choice to make, because now I'm afraid anybody on here from r/curatedtumblr who remembers those days might still think of me as "that guy who turned racist out of nowhere and then ran off." It's been eating at me for years, so I've decided it's time to rip the bandaid off and finally clear the air. I should have done this a very long time ago.

tl;dr, I made a string of bad decisions that made me look like a racist piece of shit. I could have easily undid this by immediately explaining the situation, but being an anxious, then-internet-inexperienced kid at the time, the sudden social rejection scared me, and I hid from the problem.

I'm sorry. It was a bad move. I never intended to mock AAVE, nor appear as if I was doing so. It's a valid English dialect, it's culturally important, and I respect it and those who speak in it. I apologize to anybody I may have offended by accidentally appearing to imply otherwise.

I hope anybody from those days who still remembers me can find it in their hearts to forgive me. Or they can choose not to, as is their right. I'm not here to beg for forgiveness, I'm here to finally explain things and put them to rest. This is what happened, I am sorry, and I hope you also see it as a poorly-handled misunderstanding and nothing more. I just needed to finally move on from this.

#r/curatedtumblr #r/tumblr #reddit #apology post #apology #explanation post #explanation

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tallsuperstar · 1 year

Text

I probably shouldn't talk about stuff but that post I just reblogged struck a chord with me and I wanna kinda just type it out and get it out of my system. So if you don't wanna see my "not as bad as it could have been" rant about my parents you can just ignore the rest of this post.

A bit ago, I asked my parents why they take me to see any kind of doctor or psychologist when I was a kid despite my very obvious problems.

And they didn't answer the question. My mom gave a non apology about it saying she was "sorry" that she didn't know I needed help when I was a kid. Which...is factually incorrect, sorry?

My brother got diagnosed with ADHD when he was a very young child. Like, he was that stereotypical "boy with adhd," very rambunctious, couldn't sit still, etc. And my mom did everything she could to help mitigate it, with this being the start of her caring about physical health and trying to give us a more balanced diet. No more instant ramen every night.

But I didn't get any of that? And to be clear, I wasn't a quiet kid. It's actually insane that they did completely nothing about my behavior as a kid. I was violent! A bully! I destroyed school property to the point that my parents were fined! I got suspended for physically beating up one of my classmates, getting so worked up by the tiniest thing that I would break down into tears and lash out at anyone who got too close. You know those jokes about how as a kid you would poke your eraser with your pencil and create a bunch of holes in it? I never did that. I used scissors. And not on erasers.

But my brother was the one who needed the psychologist bc he was hyperactive.

I don't blame my brother. I wouldn't live with him if that were the case. It's not like this was her fault. But what kind of parents just choose not to do anything when they have a kid who is clear a danger to their peers and themself?

It's this clear favoritism that annoys me.

They instead opted to doing nothing. Actually, nothing isn't the right word for it. I was punished very harshly when I was young. I don't remember it, though. I get a headache if I try to think about it which probably isn't good. They just didn't do anything about my behavior outside of the home. No fucking wonder one of my teachers tried to call CPS.

I think, they realized that there was something a little wrong with me when I developed trichotillomania. I guess ripping out my own hair to the point of bald spots was when they thought "hey, maybe we should get this one tested for anxiety." I guess stabbing myself with scissors wasn't a VERY OBVIOUS ISSUE. By that point, I was no longer the bratty, overactive child who my parents recorded whenever I angry cried over the stupidest things. I was a kid who hid in oversized sweatshirts and locked themselves in their room and only came out when strictly necessary and roleplayed pokemon hunger games online and was in "special" classes that taught how to talk to people and had detention once a week. Not like my parents cared. If they cared, then they would've realized me not doing schoolwork but still doing well on tests was for a completely different reason than why that was the case for my brother and sister...

Skipping past high school, at least I was finally able to get out once college rolled around...being out on my own has done a lot for me to better understand myself.

I still don't even hate my parents...this is just a small snippet from one specific angle about my childhood, but typing it out...helps.

#aj rambles #vent #tw self harm

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loregoddess · 11 months

Note

3, 11, 13 and 14 for the Fire Emblem ask game?

3. What titles have you played? So far I've only been able to play the newest titles, Awakening, Fates, Echoes, Three Houses (and it's Warriors spinoff), and Engage, although I've technically played the DS Shadow Dragon remake via an emulator bc my DS copy got sold but I just uh, got bored and have never finished it. Also playing FE on a computer emulator's a...really weird experience and I prefer using a console, so I've had a hard time getting into the older games (although I did read the entire script for Path of Radiance and part of Radiant Dawn, and one of these days I'll watch playthroughs of both games if IntSys doesn't remake them or port them to a system I actually have).

11. A character that deserved better? Oh where to start. I feel like a lot of the Fates cast suffered in the characterization department bc there were so many characters and the writing team got stretched way thin, and so there's a lot of playable characters that get ignored by both IntSys and the fandom who I think are a delight if people would just look past their joke trait for five seconds, but for unplayable characters I think Lilith could have benefited from more attention bc she's very cool but there's so much going on in Fates that she's kinda...sidelined too. (Also I have a Lot of thoughts about Ikona as a character despite her being very dead, never getting a design, and barely having any story significance, but that's probably more a me thing).

For Echoes definitely Faye (rip) bc damn if the writers and fans didn't do her dirty. Like Fates, we'd be here all day if I listed every grievance I had about every 3H character, but my guy Cyril deserves the world and not the treatment he got from the writers (mostly for the spinoff) and especially not from fans. For Engage, which I am fairly happy with overall, well...Marni, you would have loved Alear's giant friend-family-group if only the writers loved you as much as I (and a few other fans) do.

13. What do you like most about Fire Emblem? Oooh, there's a lot, I mean I keep coming back to the series for a reason, right? I really enjoy the overall gameplay but especially some of the weird mechanics that make it so I can do wild things every playthrough despite usually sticking to similar strategies overall. Narratively I love, love, love the characters and especially the supports, there's always such a wide variety. It's also really neat to see the art style change every few games bc it means there's never really one "look" to FE (even if I'm way biased bc Hidari has been my favorite lead illustrator so far; I really do enjoy seeing all the different art styles, it's so fun). Also the music is always excellent, and I've actually quite enjoyed the full voice acting the past few games

14. Something you really don't like about this series? The fandom. I mean, okay, yes there's lots of things I could complain about for the games themselves (I'm not fond of the loli dragons as a visual design trope, I think a lot of the fantasy racism is handled in poor taste, I'm not a huge fan of the split-routes as a gameplay or story mechanic, the gender-locked classes are so stupid to me, etc. etc.), but like? Honestly more so over the past few years than when I first got into FE, the fandom's been a really exhausting experience bc any problematic tropes that get used in the narrative are nothing compared to the actual issues I've come across in the fandom (i.e. some fans are racist--and specifically antisemetic--towards other fans over these fictional characters, and honestly I think real live people getting harassed over some fiction media is way scarier than the issues of race being handled poorly by the writers).

Like, yes I still haunt the FE tag bc I have half the fandom here blocked, but it's exhausting to have to keep updating my blocklist after so many years. Anytime I talk to someone in-person about FE I always add the "but listen the online fandom sucks, so maybe avoid it". Like, sure the fandom's not as toxic as what I've heard about some other games, but damn.

Not to say the fandom's all bad--I never would have found your blog if not for FE, and there are so many fans who are chill and fun, and I love seeing all the fanart and headcanons and theories and other fun things, and I do enjoy reading a good critical analysis when I can find one too as well as just general analyses like when people look at the Buddhist themes in the games or the recurring narrative themes (brings me back to reading research papers in college if they're written a certain way), and I still love making my own art stuff for FE and coming up with my own silly headcanons and theories and analyses. Because despite everything my experiences with the negative side of the fandom have somehow, miraculously, not withered my deep love of the characters and series overall. So like, there is a lot of good here too, and I try not to focus so much on the negative aspects of things I enjoy bc it doesn't do anything for me. But sometimes I am Very Tired, y'know?

#unsuspecting-person #ask game #I still don't have an ask tag #for context the fandom was already a bit exhausting before 3H bc of Fates but 3H kinda was my breaking point regarding the fandom #like I didn't start liberally blocking blogs until the batshit fandom nonsense of 3H #but I still love the series a whole lot and those fans who are chill and kind and I will continue to be insufferable about FE bc I love it

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sk8termikey · 2 months

Text

Chapter 28 of 21 questions

better interface on wattpad

Seeing as Nick, Matt and Chris were supposed to post their newest podcast today, they had quickly recorded one almost as soon as they had arrived back in Los Angeles. They had used up all the ones they had pre-recorded before going on tour, and so it felt fitting that today’s podcast had been about them summarising the Versus Tour they had ended two weeks ago.

The triplets had been on tour for a month and had gone to fourteen different cities across the United States. They had gone on explaining how eye opening it had been for them, even on a personal level as they had felt like it had deeply impacted them. They’d focused on the idea that they had never been expecting to achieve so much and that nothing had prepared them for meeting so many people at once, which had been a massive accomplishment for Matt as they had gone on stage in front of seven hundred to two thousand people depending on the venue.

Going on tour had also been a way for Nick, Matt and Chris to assert their individuality as the whole concept had been based on the fans’ dynamic with them. Indeed, their fandom was divided into ‘Nick girls’, ‘Matt girls’ and ‘Chris girls’, which helped the triplets feel like individuals in a group. It had truly been an experience that was shaping them for the years to come as they had been able to meet their fans for the second time this year, in a playful and fun atmosphere.

They’d eventually finished the podcast by mentioning how glad they had been to have had their friend Tril touring with them for the last shows and they’d talked about the activities they all did together off camera. It had then led the triplets to talk about friendship, and especially making new friends either in person or online. This had unknowingly been a special conversation for Matt as he had thought about the friend he had finally met by chance. Nick and Chris had picked up on Matt’s discreet change of attitude regarding the topic as the oldest triplet then talked about randomly meeting a “mutual” in real life when it wasn’t planned, which was how Matt had met Lily after several months of talking to her. Although they had met under the circumstances of an ‘artist-fan’ relationship, it had eventually felt natural when they both switched to the ‘Matt and Lily’ dynamic they’d been having when texting.

After reminiscing about this, Matt saw that he had received a text from his shared groupchat with his brothers and friends from the East Coast.

east coast VS west coast

Alex

THE NEW POD I CAN’T

The cake story got me dying fr

Lily

Not even the story in itself tbh, mostly how it was told

Chris

Glad to know we’re entertaining

Alex

Please never doubt yourself

Also when nick got aggressive to the mother matt talked ab

‘Yeah and she can choke’ cracked me up

Lily

@Nick never change please

Nick

You know me

Do you always watch our videos together?

Lily

Oh hello matt

Yes we do, most of the time

Alex

I rarely watch the pod with her tho bc it’s her day off while i work

But this was ab the tour so how could she not wait for me

That’s cool, I’m glad you liked it

Chris

Yeah, sometimes idk if our fans enjoy the pod as much as the other videos so it’s nice to know y’all do

Lily

Ayo

How could they not??

I love the pod sm😭 it brings such comfort

Alex

I second that!!

Nick

Thanks guys, means a lot to us

Lily

Always<3

Also fun fact

When i first called matt, I thought that he would fit well in a podcast

Who was gonna tell me-

In what way?

Lily

Well, you have a nice and calm voice so it’s perfect for a pod

I don’t wanna be the victim of loud jumpscares while i’m trying to relax

Alex

LMAO CHRIS THIS IS FOR YOU

Chris

Damn the favouritism is real

Nick

Fair enough, you’re being way too loud sometimes

Matt is often too quiet though so it’s a balance ig

Lily

Matt only seems quiet bc of how loud y’all are used to be so

Thank you lily

Finally someone on my side

Lily

Always bro

Alex

And he got bro zoned

Rip soldier

Chris

Brb nick and i are preparing a funeral

You’ll be missed matty b

Nick

*insert sad and emotional violins*

Lily

STOP

That’s insane

Y’all act like I never call you bro every 5sec

Alex

Of summer?👀

Lily

Nice one babe

She didn’t get a bro

I feel betrayed

Lily

Matt no

Hear me out😔

Alex

I can pull up receipts of me being called bro

Will that make you feel better poor matthew

Chris

Please do

Nick

He’s sulking right now

Frowning as we speak

No I'm not???

We’re not even in the same room💀

Nate

Am I missing a bully matt conversation?

Lily

Naaate

Nate

Lilyyy

Alex

Aleeex

Sorry

Wanted to feel included

I don’t want this to be a bully matt conversation

Let’s stop it here or change the subject

Nick

We’re having fun though

Chris

Agreed

Lily

Back to da pod bc I needed to add smth then forgot then remembered

Yeah?

(thanks for the support)

Lily

If y’all ever end up doing this crafts live nick mentioned at the beginning, please consider us

(no problem babe)

Alex

War is over!!

He upgraded from bro to babe

But fr tho it would be so fun to see you do crafts and arts even without us

We’ll send an application if we hear more about it

Nick

It was a bit of a random thought tbf but yeah we’ll think of you two if we ever go through with it!

And sorry to cut the convo short but we have to film our next video so we’ll talk to you later :))

Lily

Oooh nice!

Alex

Do we get a spoiler?

Chris

It’ll be out in 2 days bro

I think you’re able to wait

Alex

Damn christopher

Disappointed but not surprised😔

You’ll have to wait a bit to get special treatment from us

Nate

Yeah you're not on my level yet

Lily

Never been so jealous of a guy

It's nate tho so I'm fine w that

Alex

Correct

He deserves special treatment from everyone

Nate

That's sweet, thanks

Chris

Once again, favouritism💀

“What are we actually filming?” Matt asked as he joined Nick in the living-room.

“The Fortnite vid, you remember the plan?” The blonde replied.

Matt nodded, before he and his brothers got ready to film the introduction to the video. They would all play together, and everytime one of them would make a kill in the game, they would swap places and try to achieve a Victory Royale. They then actually began playing and recorded Matt choosing the design of the character they would use.

Everything had been going great during their first rotations, the triplets mostly celebrating the way they would successfully transition between them. That was until Chris was the first one to be killed, ruining their chances to win.

“NOOOOOO!!” Nick and Matt exclaimed at the same time.

“We were doing so good!” The oldest triplet was devastated as he had been hoping that they would get it on their first try. Like earlier, Nick was once again the first to go as he was landing on the map. “AAARGH YOU FUCKING BITCH!” He yelled as someone was attacking him even before he had finished landing.

Nick was now on the run to try and find his attacker, with the support of Matt and Chris behind him. Following his success, Nick then left the chair and gave the controller to Chris who took his place. Each time one of the triplets was the one playing, the focus on their face was obvious as they were all taking their mission very seriously. Matt’s turn then came again, but he eventually got killed which made him hit the desk as he was mad at himself and at the player who had killed him.

“Sorry guys,” Matt said as he calmed down.

“No problem bro,” Chris reassured him. “It was only our second attempt so we’re good.”

Unfortunately, it seems that Chris had jinxed them as they were now on their fifth attempt, and still no Victory Royale on sight. None of them were ever mad at the others for being killed as they had all been laughing every chance they got when swapping places. For the next hour or so, they eventually did eight different tries – all unsuccessful, which Nick was deciding to later cut in small segments.

“No way in hell will I show how shit we are right now”, the blonde said as the camera was cut.

“Not really my fault though”, Chris replied. “I’m not the one dying the most.”

“Shut up Chris, we’ll see how you do now.” Matt was becoming annoyed as he knew he was getting killed a bit too often for his liking.

“Yeah, yeah.” Chris rolled his eyes. “We’ll see how you do, getting killed again.”

And that he did, as Matt got indeed killed during their ninth attempt. Another couple attempts followed, with Nick in between two asking his brothers to pose for their thumbnail.

“I feel like Alex gonna enjoy that shit”, Chris said with a laugh as it took them a good minute to all pose.

“For real”, Matt agreed. “She’s definitely bullying us for putting that in the video.”

“Wait”, Nick called. “Should I leave mentions of her in?”

“I don’t think we should,” Chris answered after thinking about it for a couple of seconds. “Maybe later if her or Lily ever end up in one of our videos, well actually in it you know.”

Nick nodded at Chris’s explanation, and therefore decided that he would cut the moments in which they would mention their friends – who had technically never been exposed to the public, apart from their names having been called out during the baking video they had filmed. The oldest triplet also knew that at one point, Matt would eventually mention Lily as Fortnite was one of their common points and Alex had now quickly been brought up.

For the next couple of attempts, it was noticeable that Nick was getting better, which led to Chris encouraging him more and more as they kept going. Matt was trying his best to stay focused and not get killed again, which proved to be somewhat difficult as his brothers were saying random stuff behind him:

“Drinkie drink”, Chris started. “Take a sip of drinkie, little drinkie.”

Matt was doing his best not to laugh at his brothers’ antics, but he couldn’t help the smile on his face when Nick began talking about getting drunk. Playing with Lily is way more peaceful… Matt thought as another smile took place on his face, although it still looked like it was due to Chris and Nick.

Nothing much had now been going on, apart from Nick twerking after a kill and Matt getting mad again as he was still the one getting killed the most out of them, which happened again during their twelfth attempt.

“WHAT!” Matt angrily exclaimed.

“Are you gonna die every time?” Nick asked, almost unbothered but still done with how Matt kept losing. “I wonder how Lily can stand playing with you if you always get killed.”

“I–” Matt was now at a loss for words. Although Nick had only wanted to tease him and get on Matt’s nerves, the middle triplet took it seriously. “You can ask her, I’m an excellent player!”

“With her, maybe, but not with us right now”. Chris raised an eyebrow at Matt who was almost starting to sulk. “And we need you right now, so think about Lily later.”

“I wasn’t even the one to talk about her first!” Matt retorted, currently feeling bullied by his brothers and definitely planning on complaining to Lily.

After their sixteenth attempt, Matt now had the perfect opportunity to somewhat get back at Nick.

“Oh my God, we’re awful.” Nick dramatically put his hands on his head.

“You’re awful”, Matt immediately replied in the most monotone way.

“You just died,” Nick quickly retorted. “You’re just negative right now because you’d rather play with someone else.”

“Actually, yes.” Matt decided to appear in front of the camera as he was getting fed up. Facing it, he started talking to the future viewers. “Y’all should know that I have a friend ten times better than Nick here, so please excuse me for missing the times when I actually won.”

“That was insane”, Chris said as his voice sounded a bit muffled due to him being away from the camera but the microphone had still picked up his comment. “You’re down bad bro.”

“Ok Nick, cut that shit.” Matt was absolutely not ready to have people – also known as their lovely and peaceful fans, absolutely not invasive at all for thirteen year olds – prying into his private friendships.

When they eventually went back to playing, it led to a tense moment with Chris trying to kill two players at the same time, while also being out in the open. Matt and Nick were stressing behind, the latter prepared to switch places as soon as Chris would succeed – which he did.

“Who’s the fucking best?” He asked as Matt offered him a high five. “I’m the fucking best!” Chris then left the frame of the camera before coming back with a proud grin and repeating his last sentence several times.

It then seems that the triplets were on a roll as Nick and Matt successfully took out a player each, before it was Chris’s turn again. We can do it, Matt thought as he was carefully watching his younger brother focused on the game. When Chris killed a guy that had just landed, Nick quickly took the controller as Chris gave him the headphones. Still as careful as before, Nick was making his way on the map while his brothers tried to give him advice:

“Turn to the right a little”, Matt suggested.

“Shut up”, Nick bluntly replied as he needed to do it by himself.

Still way more peaceful to play with her, Matt repeated in his mind as he thought about how Lily was always sweet and kindly accepting Matt’s advice when they played together.

Nick had however been right to act like that as soon enough, he killed the player he was hunting before giving up the seat for Matt to take. At that moment, the three brothers realised that they were the closest ever to a Victory Royale. For the next few minutes, they were now harbouring nervous yet excited smiles as they were watching Matt’s every move on the computer screen.

“YES!” Nick and Chris both cheered when Matt killed the last player left, therefore granting them the long awaited win.

Congratulating their brother, the oldest and youngest pulled Matt into a group hug before Nick decided that he needed to document their success with a picture – eventually posted on their weekly Instagram dump.

“Guys”, Nick began. “I wanna thank my mum, I wanna thank ‘OG’ Fortnite coming back, I wanna thank my freshman year self… oh my gosh!” He then happily sighed.

All of them now had proud smiles on as they were glad to have achieved what they did.

“I’m so proud of us”, Nick softly said as he had his arms around his two brothers while they were reviewing their stats.

“I’m gonna go to bed”, Matt announced as they were finishing the outro for the video.

“Will you, though?” Chris asked with a smirk. “You should share your accomplishments with someone first, don’t you think?

“Shut up Chris”, Matt retorted. “I don’t wanna spoil her the video so I won’t mention it.”

“Crazy how Chris didn’t say any names but you directly thought of someone specific”, Nick teased before turning the camera off – he would cut out those last sentences later so he didn’t care about it still recording.

“Oh my God, leave me alone.” Matt was only half annoyed as he knew his brothers were right, deep down, so he just patted them on the back before leaving. I do hope she’ll be proud though…

~~~

A couple of days later, the video of the triplets playing Fortnite had been released; and on the same evening, Matt received unexpected texts that made him weirdly smile when he saw the author as he then thought of a reply.

Lily

Glad to know i’m a good player in your eyes, a compliment coming from the guy who made the last kill

I also miss our time on fortnite together

We should plan another gaming sesh soon :)

That’d be my pleasure

Thank you for reading. Votes and comments are always appreciated if you like this story :) The story is co-written w @/little_grapejuice on wattpad

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leraneacide · 8 months

Text

RIP OMEGLE

💔

The ongoing project "you're watching two strangers" is officially over.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C.S. Lewis

“In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” — Douglas Adams

Dear strangers,

From the moment I discovered the Internet at a young age, it has been a magical place to me. Growing up in a small town, relatively isolated from the larger world, it was a revelation how much more there was to discover – how many interesting people and ideas the world had to offer.

As a young teenager, I couldn’t just waltz onto a college campus and tell a student: “Let’s debate moral philosophy!” I couldn’t walk up to a professor and say: “Tell me something interesting about microeconomics!” But online, I was able to meet those people, and have those conversations. I was also an avid Wikipedia editor; I contributed to open source software projects; and I often helped answer computer programming questions posed by people many years older than me.

In short, the Internet opened the door to a much larger, more diverse, and more vibrant world than I would have otherwise been able to experience; and enabled me to be an active participant in, and contributor to, that world. All of this helped me to learn, and to grow into a more well-rounded person.

Moreover, as a survivor of childhood rape, I was acutely aware that any time I interacted with someone in the physical world, I was risking my physical body. The Internet gave me a refuge from that fear. I was under no illusion that only good people used the Internet; but I knew that, if I said “no” to someone online, they couldn’t physically reach through the screen and hold a weapon to my head, or worse. I saw the miles of copper wires and fiber-optic cables between me and other people as a kind of shield – one that empowered me to be less isolated than my trauma and fear would have otherwise allowed.

I launched Omegle when I was 18 years old, and still living with my parents. It was meant to build on the things I loved about the Internet, while introducing a form of social spontaneity that I felt didn’t exist elsewhere. If the Internet is a manifestation of the “global village”, Omegle was meant to be a way of strolling down a street in that village, striking up conversations with the people you ran into along the way.

The premise was rather straightforward: when you used Omegle, it would randomly place you in a chat with someone else. These chats could be as long or as short as you chose. If you didn’t want to talk to a particular person, for whatever reason, you could simply end the chat and – if desired – move onto another chat with someone else. It was the idea of “meeting new people” distilled down to almost its platonic ideal.

Building on what I saw as the intrinsic safety benefits of the Internet, users were anonymous to each other by default. This made chats more self-contained, and made it less likely that a malicious person would be able to track someone else down off-site after their chat ended.

I didn’t really know what to expect when I launched Omegle. Would anyone even care about some Web site that an 18 year old kid made in his bedroom in his parents’ house in Vermont, with no marketing budget? But it became popular almost instantly after launch, and grew organically from there, reaching millions of daily users. I believe this had something to do with meeting new people being a basic human need, and with Omegle being among the best ways to fulfill that need. As the saying goes: “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.”

Over the years, people have used Omegle to explore foreign cultures; to get advice about their lives from impartial third parties; and to help alleviate feelings of loneliness and isolation. I’ve even heard stories of soulmates meeting on Omegle, and getting married. Those are only some of the highlights.

Unfortunately, there are also lowlights. Virtually every tool can be used for good or for evil, and that is especially true of communication tools, due to their innate flexibility. The telephone can be used to wish your grandmother “happy birthday”, but it can also be used to call in a bomb threat. There can be no honest accounting of Omegle without acknowledging that some people misused it, including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes.

I believe in a responsibility to be a “good Samaritan”, and to implement reasonable measures to fight crime and other misuse. That is exactly what Omegle did. In addition to the basic safety feature of anonymity, there was a great deal of moderation behind the scenes, including state-of-the-art AI operating in concert with a wonderful team of human moderators. Omegle punched above its weight in content moderation, and I’m proud of what we accomplished.

Omegle’s moderation even had a positive impact beyond the site. Omegle worked with law enforcement agencies, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, to help put evildoers in prison where they belong. There are “people” rotting behind bars right now thanks in part to evidence that Omegle proactively collected against them, and tipped the authorities off to.

All that said, the fight against crime isn’t one that can ever truly be won. It’s a never-ending battle that must be fought and re-fought every day; and even if you do the very best job it is possible for you to do, you may make a sizable dent, but you won’t “win” in any absolute sense of that word. That’s heartbreaking, but it’s also a basic lesson of criminology, and one that I think the vast majority of people understand on some level. Even superheroes, the fictional characters that our culture imbues with special powers as a form of wish fulfillment in the fight against crime, don’t succeed at eliminating crime altogether.

In recent years, it seems like the whole world has become more ornery. Maybe that has something to do with the pandemic, or with political disagreements. Whatever the reason, people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s shared humanity. One aspect of this has been a constant barrage of attacks on communication services, Omegle included, based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users.

To an extent, it is reasonable to question the policies and practices of any place where crime has occurred. I have always welcomed constructive feedback; and indeed, Omegle implemented a number of improvements based on such feedback over the years. However, the recent attacks have felt anything but constructive. The only way to please these people is to stop offering the service. Sometimes they say so, explicitly and avowedly; other times, it can be inferred from their act of setting standards that are not humanly achievable. Either way, the net result is the same.

Omegle is the direct target of these attacks, but their ultimate victim is you: all of you out there who have used, or would have used, Omegle to improve your lives, and the lives of others. When they say Omegle shouldn’t exist, they are really saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to use it; that you shouldn’t be allowed to meet random new people online. That idea is anathema to the ideals I cherish – specifically, to the bedrock principle of a free society that, when restrictions are imposed to prevent crime, the burden of those restrictions must not be targeted at innocent victims or potential victims of crime.

Consider the idea that society ought to force women to dress modestly in order to prevent rape. One counter-argument is that rapists don’t really target women based on their clothing; but a more powerful counter-argument is that, irrespective of what rapists do, women’s rights should remain intact. If society robs women of their rights to bodily autonomy and self-expression based on the actions of rapists – even if it does so with the best intentions in the world – then society is practically doing the work of rapists for them.

Fear can be a valuable tool, guiding us away from danger. However, fear can also be a mental cage that keeps us from all of the things that make life worth living. Individuals and families must be allowed to strike the right balance for themselves, based on their own unique circumstances and needs. A world of mandatory fear is a world ruled by fear – a dark place indeed.

I’ve done my best to weather the attacks, with the interests of Omegle’s users – and the broader principle – in mind. If something as simple as meeting random new people is forbidden, what’s next? That is far and away removed from anything that could be considered a reasonable compromise of the principle I outlined. Analogies are a limited tool, but a physical-world analogy might be shutting down Central Park because crime occurs there – or perhaps more provocatively, destroying the universe because it contains evil. A healthy, free society cannot endure when we are collectively afraid of each other to this extent.

Unfortunately, what is right doesn’t always prevail. As much as I wish circumstances were different, the stress and expense of this fight – coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse – are simply too much. Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically. Frankly, I don’t want to have a heart attack in my 30s.

The battle for Omegle has been lost, but the war against the Internet rages on. Virtually every online communication service has been subject to the same kinds of attack as Omegle; and while some of them are much larger companies with much greater resources, they all have their breaking point somewhere. I worry that, unless the tide turns soon, the Internet I fell in love with may cease to exist, and in its place, we will have something closer to a souped-up version of TV – focused largely on passive consumption, with much less opportunity for active participation and genuine human connection. If that sounds like a bad idea to you, please consider donating to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that fights for your rights online.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who used Omegle for positive purposes, and to everyone who contributed to the site’s success in any way. I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep fighting for you.

I thank A.M. for opening my eyes to the human cost of Omegle.

Sincerely, Leif K-Brooks Founder, Omegle.com LLC

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