#they’re a fun challenge and he’s learnt lots of new things

[avayarising]

They are absolutely not stupid or dumbasses, either of them. Just ignorant of the concept of soulmates, through no fault of their own.

If either of them ever looks up the phenomenon of ‘writing appearing on arm’ they will gravitate towards and preferentially look at results from the scientific literature, where the word ‘soulmate’ is not used (because it’s a very loaded term).

So Danny or Tim, reading up on it, will see lots of speculation on the nature of the carriers, and elucidations of the mechanism of the temporary skin pigmentation change, and glean from their reading that it’s a rare phenomenon that links two (or more) people together, and perhaps if they are still interested after that they will look at psychology journals where they will see studies on personality differences and similarities between members of skin pigmentation linked groups, and differential performance of linked and unlinked individuals in various tests and simulated situations. All with very small sample sizes, of course, because rare.

They will not pay any attention to lurid romance novels, teenage magazine agony aunt columns, tabloid speculation about celebrities’ love lives, or the occasional chatter of their school friends hoping they will be one of the few to ‘get a soulmate’. They have things to do and physics questions to answer.

Most psychologists in particular would heavily dispute the idea that people linked via skin pigmentation are Destined To Be Together, whether romantically or not, and there’s a lot of speculation in the physics journals about quantum entanglement and what coincidences in charge and spin lead quarks in distant and separated people to become entangled thus producing a cascade effect resulting in marks being reflected on the other person…

In short, despite popular western culture, most serious scientists are working on the assumption that ‘soulmates’ are linked by utter coincidence or at least on criteria that have nothing to do with personality, and any greater personal compatibility than normal is caused by social expectation or by spending years writing to each other and getting to know each other, and is nothing to do with Destiny at all.

So Tim and Danny, not readers of romantic fiction in general and certainly not the sort where having a soulmate is like having purple eyes, simply do not connect the popular idea of soulmates with what’s going on on their skin at all.

DpxDc AU: Tim as a child was never given a lot of information regarding the scribbling messy handwriting that appeared over night all over his arms- naturally he came to his own conclusions.

Tim Drake was home entirely alone at 9 years old and was about to go out for the night to test his brand new long exposure camera lens when he sees the writing on his arm. It’s not English, like he assumed it was at first, but it was using the alphabet to represent… Tim isn’t bad at math but this formula is complex for his little genius brain.

Looking at his camera, he decides he can spare a moment to look it up, solve it, and get back out into old town Gotham in time for Batman and Robin’s final patrol lap. He does just that, finding the problem to relate to some aerospace engineering and then quickly deduces what laws and theorems need to be applied. He finds a pen, writes down his findings in much neater handwriting onto his arm, and goes out. It’s barely a remarkable night at all. He gets a much more memorable photo of Robin roundhouse kicking a hench person.

Things just continued on that way. Tim would find some complex math, physics or chemistry prompt on his arm (surrounded by various question marks or notes or sad faces)- he’d answer it as best he could and move on with his life. Perhaps his parents were manifesting these pop quizzes? Perhaps his subconscious felt guilty about abandoning his studies for more Bat related pursuits? Tim really didn’t care to think much about it once he became Robin- there was too much on his plate and too many peoples problems for him to fix.

Notably, however, after the attack at the Tower, the pop quiz appeared and Tim wrote back that he wouldn’t be able to find an answer to this one. It was the only time Tim questioned the markings appearance and it was because the next thing that appeared was “Hope you feel better soon.”

… his parents wouldn’t include that on a pop quiz. Cursed then. Tim decided it must be a curse, whatever, he’d deal with the implications later in life.

Tim then has the worst year of his life, hes 15, no longer Robin and the questions from his curse are getting less math oriented and more… philosophical. A lot of mentions of death that, in hindsight helped him actually grieve, and a lot of theories about dark matter and souls. Tim answers back as best he can but he’s drained and his answers aren’t very good in his opinion. He gets minimal feedback.

It all comes to a point that he’s at a family dinner, Bruce is at the head of the table, Jason has promised just to stay for dessert, Damian hasn’t thrown a single insult his way and Steph was laughing at him- when a new theoretical model appears on his arm.

“You’re just as bad as Bruce, Timberly. Hiding a soulmate from all of us, how fucking typical.” Jason points out, while watching Tim scribble back some math with a question mark onto his arm.

“A what? No, this is just a curse. I get pop quizzes every now and then.” Tim bats away Steph who rapidly approaches and began to analyze his arm (the rest of the family isn’t far behind).

“Drake. Explain how you came to this conclusion.” Damian seems more curious than anything, if his lack of insults was anything to go off of.

“Since I was young I’ve had at least weekly math check ins, I never had a parent or anyone else around so I assumed my parents had me cursed to ensure I stayed on top of my studies. Sometimes it’s physics or chemistry, for a while there it was a ton of philosophy and behavioral psychology.” He shrugs his shoulders.

“Master Tim, I believe the lack of adults in your life has led you towards a false conclusion. That is most certainly a soulmate mark. The individual to whom you are responding is undoubtedly your other half.” Alfred attempts to calm the room before explaining to Tim. Tim isnt sure if he believes the butler, though Alfred only very rarely lied, so he grabs the pen once more. He writes his first question back: “Who am I to you?”

The room waits in anticipation and within moments a brand new line appears on Tim’s arm and he is vindicated: “We do math together???”

——

The reason Danny is failing English is because his built in homework helper sucks ass at metaphors and has apparently never read any classic literature. The tutor on his arm is great at puzzles and math tho.

Danny gets a reply back one night that he wasn’t expecting (Who am I to you?) and he mentions it to Jazz. Who goes insane that Danny didn’t even question it and just went with “meh, probably haunted” as his explanation for the phenomenon for all these years.

Apparently, if Jazz was right, he had a soulmate who was uh, super fucking smart. That was an overwhelming thought.

The next day Danny is in crisis mode and writes back “Wait, WHAT AM I TO YOU??? Can I help on your homework??”

Danny gets vindicated when the writing on his arm presents a shit ton of dates and information for an unsolved Gotham cold case. See, Haunted.

———

Eventually between Danny becoming the top candidate for astrophysics at Wayne Enterprises and Tim Drake being outed as having contributed tips to the GCPD that solved cold cases- they meet and realize just how dumb they’ve been.

[timkonshipper]

Random ash ketchum hcs

Ash is a legal adult in Kanto 

Ash and Gary are drinking buddies. Whenever Gary takes a break from his work to come visit Ash, they find a nice scenic location and let the alcohol flow. Gary always brings the good kantonese/kantonian(?) stuff while Ash introduces the specialty of whatever region they’re currently in

He doesn’t smoke often but after a particularly disappointing or challenging battle he lights up a cigarette or two when he’s alone. It helps him remain level headed and to think things through so that he can better analyse whatever mistake he made. 

That was what he was planning to do after losing to wulfric but he later realised he left his pack at home. That was kinda the last straw for him. Nothing seemed to be going right and he went into quite a deep funk. He wasn’t able to figure out what went wrong and it was all so frustrating. 

Serena snapped him out of it though. Sure the snowball wasn’t the best way to get out of it and yes he was allowed to be mad or unhappy sometimes but he also wasn’t the type of person who liked to wallow in his own misery. He always came back from his spirals. 

Ash is extremely loaded. He gets a monthly salary(quite a sizable amount) as he is the acting champ. of the orange archipelago. He’s entered into a lot of leagues and decently placed in a lot of them so there’s that prize money as well. Completing the battle frontier and other miscellaneous tournaments & competitions here and there also gave quite handsome rewards. 

The other champions also insist on giving him money every month because he is way too involved in world ending shit for his age. 

So he never really worries about money. He sends cheques with too many zeroes to count to his mom and buys random trinkets for his friends whenever he feels like it. He makes sure everyone around him is comfortable including all of his pokemon. 

There’s no way that he doesn’t video call his pokemon regularly. At least 2 times a week he makes sure to check in with all of them and spend online time with each of them individually. They’re always eager to show him whatever he learnt and listen to him talk about what he’s been upto recently. 

Right before leagues, Ash has a habit of kicking back and relaxing. But before that he puts everything he has into bonding with his team and making sure they can understand each other very well. The relaxation helps his brain function properly and comes up with those standard ash ideasTM. 

He lets whoever wants to rest with him stay and sends the others back to the ranch so his other pokemon can train them and teach them to hold back. 

He gives each league his all but he doesn’t actually let his pokemon battle to their full capacity (especially pikachu). The only time he ever did was against Tobias, however even that wasn’t enough to defeat multiple legendaries. He likes travelling and learning new things. Winning is always fun but he knows that losing is better at certain times. 

That’s why he can defeat legendaries one moment and lose to a rookie the next. 

Another reason why he does that is although he’s been on a journey for quite a long time and is knowledgeable about quite a lot, his pokemon haven’t. 

Sure he teaches them whatever he can but there are certain lessons that you can only learn first hand. To Ash, helping his pokemon truly learn these lessons and become great battlers is better than winning anyday. 

And of course, he gave his all against Leon. (However, he only used the same amount of supercharged moves that Leon did. Otherwise, the whole thing was at quite a disadvantage considering Ash is super strong when he needs to be and although Leon is undefeated he’s never been up against an extremely determined Ash)

He’s really good at grooming his pokemon and helping them feel relaxed and comfortable. He also absolutely adores baby pokemon and is quite overprotective over the babies of his team. 

He stays in regular contact with all of his friends and has group chats with all of them on the basis of regions, aspirations and one with all of them in it. 

[endofapaige]

A 2025 Mindset

The earth spins once more and another year rolls in. I am yet again sat in my bedroom wondering just what I am doing with my life. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a depressing post, just reflective, I think. 

I’ve evolved a lot in 2024. I’m starting to gain some confidence, something I never thought I’d manage. It helps having people around me singing my praises. You know that saying that’s like ‘say it enough and they’ll believe it’ that’s usually applied to bullying, I think it works for the positive stuff too. It’s my career mindset that has developed the most. Stepping into the editorial team on my university’s paper has been an absolute God send. I’m loving it, I really am. I’ve had so many conversations with different people in the team reflecting on if the job is what we expected of it, and it isn’t really, but it’s been such an incredible insight. I have learnt that I can manage people, that I am not useless, and I am approachable and friendly. I am capable of so much more than I originally thought, and I have met so many incredibly talented people along the way. 

I never thought I’d be in a situation where I’d be so passionate about something, and so good at it that external parties would be coming to me asking to write for them. But I am and they have and I have been able to partake in so many opportunities I would never have dreamed of because of it. 

2025 is going to be a year of new experiences. I’m moving out in July, just for a year while I do my final year of my degree. I did it before while I was at university the first time, but I don’t think that really counts considering I was at home more than I was in the flat. This time I’m moving in with friends and my boyfriend. It’s going to be a challenge for sure, can you imagine living with four boys? But it’ll be a fun experience, it’ll be a lot for my own personal development, though it remains to be seen whether I will end up sentenced with manslaughter or get out of the year unscathed and a semi-functioning adult. 

I want to develop a new mindset this year. Try to get over my social anxiety a bit. Try to chat shit to everyone like I do to my mum and dad, because I am an absolute hoot, yet very few people get to actually experience it unless I’m drunk. I want to take things less personally, manage my FOMO, come to terms with the fact that if my friends are hanging out without me it does not mean they automatically hate me. All that means is they’re doing something they know I won’t like, so really, it’s quite nice that they are subjecting me to it. I want to try and ween my way off my phone, become less reliant on social media and do more of the other things I enjoy. Read more, write more, get back into fiction writing, learn to crochet. 

Looking forward to 2025, if I can manage a fraction of the things I want to do this year, it will be a good year. A boring one maybe, as I’m saving all of my spare money for the flat when what I really want to do is to book a holiday or a thousand and one concerts and shows. I find it hard to be content with mundane life, but I need to learn to embrace it and fantasise normality or else I will be chasing an unidentifiable, unrealistic expectation for the rest of my life and I will be living unsatisfied forever. 

There’s a lot I want to do with my life, but it’s awfully hard to know where to start. I’m only writing this now because I was staring at my wall deciding if I wanted to colour or cross stitch, telling myself that I don’t feel left out that my friends are playing Lethal Company in a discord chat they have banned me from. Acceptance is the key to success, isn’t it? Accepting that all of this is okay, making the most of my friends when I do get to spend time with them rather than lingering on the gut feeling when I’m not. Prioritising the discord gossip sessions with my uni friends when we’re supposed to be completing our assignments, savouring every moment I get with my boyfriend so when he’s gone, I can tell myself it’s not so bad because in 7 months he’ll be just a room away at all times. 

I have to start somewhere. So, I am starting here. Telling the void what I intend to do, so I can hold myself accountable against it. Finally intending to do something about my insecurities rather than expecting everyone else to accommodate them. 

[blu-joons]

He Takes Your Child To The Studio ~ BTS Reaction

Jin:

“I’m sorry,” was all he could say as yet again Hobi had to cut the music after your son decided to walk into the middle of their dance routine, dancing away to himself.

“He’s in a world of his own,” Taehyung teased, capturing the tot as he whirled around, stopping him from getting dizzy.

Jin walked over and scooped his son up into the air, “I know this isn’t where you want to be, but mummy is busy, please stop giving me such a hard time.”

“Why don’t we just dance with him instead?” Namjoon suggested, sensing how helpless Jin was. “One day where we don’t work on the routine isn’t going to be the end of the world.”

Jin’s head snapped around, smiling appreciatively at his leader. “I can always just head back home if you want to work without me, I’d understand it if you didn’t want me here.”

“Don’t worry, we can dance with Y/S/N,” Hobi smiled.

“But no spinning, I don’t want to get dizzy like that.”

Jin smiled, placing your son back down. “All he does is spin around Kook, so if you want to dance like him, prepare for a fall or two.”

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

Yoongi:

“How can I take them like this?” Yoongi quizzed, staring innocently across at you as your daughter sobbed by his feet. “They’re going to cause so much hassle.”

“I can’t take them to my meeting,” you sighed, running your hands through your hair. “They’ll be fine once they’re at the studio.”

Yoongi’s head shook as your daughters crept back in your direction. “Is there not someone that can look after them at the office? It’s obvious they don’t want to leave you.”

“It’s a one-time thing,” you assured him, handing your daughters back across to him, “please just do this for me today. When I see the boys again, I’ll apologise for all the chaos.”

Before Yoongi could protest, you began to back away towards the front door. “You owe me a huge favour for this, it’s going to be impossible to get any work done today.”

“You’ll have a great time, I promise,” you cheered.

“That’s if I ever manage to stop them crying.”

Your shoulders shrugged, “just play some music in the car and they’ll be happy again in no time, you’re a great dad, don’t forget that.”

“Music? Is that really the answer to all my problems?”

Hoseok:

“Here he is,” Hobi cooed as he carried your son into the studio, instantly being crowded by the six other members who all wanted a peek of his child.

“He really is the spitting image of Y/N,” Jimin teased, smirking in Hobi’s direction as he glared across at him, shaking his head.

After a few moments, the boys began to give him a bit of space. “Y/N wrote down a list of his routine, so I know exactly what to do and when to do it.”

“How’s she feeling?” Jin asked him. Having fallen ill that morning, Hobi was left with no choice but to take your son to the studio to give you the space that you needed to recover.

His shoulders shrugged, “I’m hoping a day in bed without this little one to look after will help, she’s barely had an hour to herself since he was born, she’s with him constantly.”

“She’s probably exhausted,” Yoongi sighed, “maybe we should do more.”

“That’s why this one is with us today.”

Hobi’s head nodded at Taehyung’s comment, “I promise you guys won’t even know he’s here, I’ll make sure he sleeps perfectly.”

“We love having him here, don’t worry.”

Namjoon:

“Daddy!” Your toddler yelled as the song came to an end. Namjoon spun around to see your daughter running towards him with her arms opened wide for him.

“What is it?” He questioned, lifting her high up into the air. “Was time with Uncle Jungkook really that bad that you came back?”

Jungkook frowned as he followed behind your daughter, “the vending machine didn’t have the chocolate that she wanted, and apparently that’s my fault.”

“That’s because it is,” Hobi chuckled from the other side of the room, “why haven’t you gone to the shop or something to go and buy her chocolate? That’s what a good uncle would do.”

Namjoon’s head nodded in agreement, “I told you that she’s stubborn just like her mum, if you don’t go to the shop, she’ll never speak to you again. I’ve learnt the hard way.”

“You really want me to get this chocolate?” He asked your daughter.

“it’s my favourite, please Uncle Kook.”

His eyes rolled, glancing across at Namjoon. “How do you put up with this every single day? She really is demanding just like her mum.”

“I had plenty of practice from Y/N, that’s why.”

Jimin:

“Can I dance?” A voice whimpered from behind Jimin as the music came to an end. He spun around to see your daughter stood behind his legs.

“Why don’t we show everyone what we worked on at home?” He suggested, bringing her around so everyone could see her.

Taehyung knelt down to her height, “what have you been working on at home? Has daddy being trying to teach you some dance moves again?” He asked her.

“We were learning Dynamite,” she informed them, showing off the first move of the chorus that she’d learnt. “Daddy said one day if I practice hard enough, I might be able to dance with him.

“Why didn’t you say whilst I was gone?” Yoongi teased.

“We could have done with a seventh member with us.”

Jimin’s head shook across at both Yoongi and Jungkook, “MAMA couldn’t even give us proper dressing rooms, let alone allow a child to dance.”

“That’s true, there’s no way it would have happened.”

Taehyung:

“Look at this,” Taehyung smiled, guiding your daughter to the corner of the studio the boys had all set up to keep her entertained.

“We found all your favourites,” Yoongi smiled, taking a seat beside her, “we even found a new colouring book to try.”

Her head nodded, but as she looked around, her bottom lip couldn’t help but quiver. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d love all of this that we sorted for you?” Jin asked.

“I miss mummy,” she sighed, looking helplessly up at her father. “I always spend the day with mummy, and now she’s not here. Do you know when she’ll be home dad?”

Taehyung knelt down beside her, “in a couple of days when her work is finished. But until then, we’ll make sure you have the best time with us and try not to worry about mummy.”

“Can I have sweets if mummy isn’t here?” She asked.

“As long as you promise not to tell mummy.”

Her head nodded immediately, as her smile reappeared. “I promise not to tell mummy. Maybe being at the studio isn’t as bad as I thought.”

“We’ll have a lot of fun, don’t worry.”

Jungkook:

“What do we want to order?” Namjoon questioned as he sat down in the middle of the circle that the boys, and your son, had formed in the studio.

“Noodles,” your daughter squeaked before anyone else had the chance to talk. “Mummy makes noodles for lunch.”

Jungkook’s eyes rolled down at her, “you’re not with mummy today, you’re with daddy. Is there nothing else that you want to eat other than having noodles?”

“I want what mummy makes,” she instructed, looking to Namjoon to write it down. “She makes the best noodles, so we have to order from somewhere that is as good as her food.”

The boys could only sit back and laugh as Jungkook turned her around to face him. “What if everyone here doesn’t want noodles, maybe we could try some other foods instead?”

“But everyone likes noodles, so why not?” She challenged.

“Noodles aren’t great when we’ve been dancing all morning.”

Her shoulders shrugged, turning back away from Jungkook. “I want noodles, you can all get noodles with me too.”

“I think noodles might be the only option here.”

---

Masterlist

[thankskenpenders]

You recently answered a question about Tails new role in Colors, so I guess I could ask this now: even if Tails development was "resumed" -fixing what Forces did-, does this actually have any potential at all? Like, he'd learnt to believe in himself in SA1, many would say SA2 just recycled that, maybe Forces made him coward again 'cause that previous development had led to a dead end? I'd like to think there are ways to solve this other than, y'know, making him overly edgy & stuff.

Okay this might sound like an insane thing to say depending on your opinions on the art of storytelling, but like, the thing about characters in long-running series like that is that... they don't always NEED ongoing development?

I know there's tons of armchair script doctor advice out there all about character arcs and development and growth and all that stuff. Characters who grow are good, characters who don't are boring. This isn't true in all cases. Sometimes a consistent character is fine!

It's really easy to fall into this trap thinking that a character like Tails needs to keep growing and changing, and that having him overcome his self doubt as early as SA1 was a mistake because then he's got nowhere left to go. But why does a character like Tails in a series like Sonic NEED to have this grand arc across all the games where he keeps getting more and more confident? Why can't he just have that character growth in stories that are heavily ABOUT him, like the Adventure games, and then just have Tails be Tails in his other appearances? Maybe not completely sure of himself at all times, but always trying his best?

The thing is, Sonic is not a series with a clear beginning, middle, and end. They're gonna be making Sonic games until the sun burns out. So acting like the characters need to keep growing and changing all the time and have clear arcs across all the games in order to be interesting is a fool's errand. It's easy to end up with characters who are unrecognizable from the versions people initially fell in love with, like a weirdly confident Tails asking Shadow "whos your daddy?"

Like you look at a series like One Piece (I KNOW y'all are sick of this comparison but it's OFTEN RELEVANT) and most of the Straw Hats go through a particular process that's similar to the way a lot of Sonic characters are treated. First we meet them, and they have their own spotlight arc where we learn about who they are and where they came from, they face some challenges, they grow as people, and then they join the crew. After that, they often become fairly static characters. They face different challenges, we learn more little things about them, they're dropped into different scenarios, and since it's a shounen battle series their abilities continue to grow with practice. But as a person, Zoro in the Alabasta arc isn't really any different from Zoro in the Thriller Bark arc a few hundred chapters later

And you know what? That's fine! Because that's not the focus of the story! Each arc has its characters that it focuses on, including new supporting characters that get their own self-contained arcs before parting ways with the crew. Sometimes one of those focus characters will be a member of the crew, like when we learned more about Sanji in the Whole Cake Island arc decades after his introduction. But in a series this long with so many moving parts, it's okay to have some consistent characters who act as anchors for the story. Sometimes it's just fun to stick the same old characters in different scenarios and see what happens

[bonyarishitafuan]

A lot of people probably are gonna hate me for this, and if you disagree with what I’m about to say, please don't bother to respond, just ignore me completely and move on, go make yourself happy.

It’s just that I honestly don't see how this:

can be the same as this:

Personally, I don't care for Dick-lite Pre-Crisis Jason at all, because he’s never seemed to me a real character with any real personality of his own, and I just really don’t buy the idea of a teenager, with still very recently murdered parents that might as well be every bit as the same kind of loving parents and positive influences to their kid as the Flying Graysons, getting over the loss of their old parents’ and accepting someone they’ve only just met around the time their parents died as his true new parent in practically no time at all...especially when it’s happened in a world where a preteen could end up spending the rest of his adulthood fighting crimes in a bat suit after witnessing his parents being gunned down by a mugger.

The only thing Pre-Crisis/Earth 1 Jason Robin seemed to have going on was being a son to Batman/Bruce (and a son to Nocturna, because clearly if he could’ve gotten over his real dad so easily, why wouldn’t he have also gotten over his real mom and come to think of this mysterious criminal lady as his true new mom when she had wanted so much for him to be her son and they had lived together for like a week)--and I feel that if the executives at the time had really wanted Bruce to become a dad, they'd probably just let him settle down and give him a biological child as in the Golden Age, but instead they gave him a second Robin; and the way they laid themselves out to make the relationship between him and this second Robin to be exactly father-and-son despite the fact that Bruce would’ve had to be real stupid to actively endangering a young person whom he consider his own little boy by bringing him to fight crimes just never sits right with me.

It always seems to me like they’re just trying to retcon the original Batman and Robin relationship without actually retconning Bruce and Dick, who hadn’t really been Bruce’s adopted kid just then and had often regarded his mentor Bruce as more of his older brother/closest friend rather than just plain old “dad”--It’s like they’re just trying to remove every implication that there's ever anything gay/creepy in the original Batman and Robin dynamic, simply by bringing in another Robin character, one with the exact same backstory as Dick and nothing that could actually differentiate him from Dick (except him being originally blond-haired and himself outright telling people that he’s “not Dick” in one of his few featurings in the New Titans where he’s portrayed as every bit as much as a smart, decent, capable young person equipped to be a successful young hero just as Dick Robin or Tim Robin would’ve easily been portrayed), and making his relationship with Batman to be plainly, unequivocally father-and-son, then with there being no actual difference between Robin II and Robin I and the two Robins being virtually the same, sure the viewers would see that the relationship between Batman and Robin II and the relationship between Batman and Robin I are very much the same too, and no one could say if there’s any resemblance of a gay couple with a creepy age difference in the original Batman and Robin’s dynamic ever again since they’ve always been father and son.

It just feels so manipulative to me and I hate it, but that’s just how I feel and I’m not saying that it’s truly the case. I’m sorry if this offends anyone who loves Earth 1 Jason. If you love him, that’s great. There’s nothing wrong to love a wholesome Robin and his altogether wholesome relationship with Batman, nor there’s anything wrong to love Red Hood Jason but prefer his softer New52 version which would’ve certainly seemed to be a less drastic change from his Pre52 version if he’s more like his Earth 1 counterpart to begin with.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong to prefer one version of a character to another, to just say fuck canon and recreate a character you love into the way you could enjoy them most and have all the fun you want with them.

What gets to me and drives me bonkers, is when people couldn’t just be happy with their headcanon, but have to go out of their way to tell other people that it’s fact that Pre-Crsis/Earth 1 Jason and Post-Crisis/New Earth Jason are the same character, while in actuality, they weren’t even meant to be the same in the first place.

If DC had ever wanted to just keep using Pre-Crisis Jason but give him a new backstory, they would just follow up on whatever he had been doing with Bruce as his pre-crisis self while casually throwing in his new backstory at some point, just as they did with a lot of other characters such as Donna post-crisis, not give him a full reintroduction in Batman #408 and rewrite his relationship with Bruce from the ground up.

It just makes me want to scream, when people, who never seems to have a lot of problems with Under the Hood and maybe also Lost Days, have to go out and call every portrayal of Pre-52 Jason and some of the more recent Red Hood Jason that shares a resemblance to him wrong for not portraying Jason as that sweet little bookworm he really truly was, and that an entire different life experience just cannot change a character in any substantial way, and Jason being an angry kid with aggressive and violent tendencies is just something that had never been established until the more recent retcon/the OOC work of Jim Starlin, while in truth Pre-Crisis Jason with the exact same backstory as Dick just simply cannot be the same as Crime Alley Kid Jason, who doesn’t even have the same biological parents as Pre-Crisis Jason to provide him with the same gene that the Flying Todds, which were Joe and Trina Todd, had created their son with. 

If Pre-Crisis Jason and Post-Crisis Jason are one and the same, then it’d mean Dick is also very much the same as Jason is the same as Tim is the same as Damian is the same as Bruce and no one character is truly unique and special because every character ever made is just an alternate version of another character.

It had been shown most clearly since his first appearance that Post-Crisis/New Earth Jason, other than literally being a different kid with the same name, was nothing like his pre-crisis counterpart, but rather a bold, outspoken, confrontational, fully independent and proactive ghetto kid, who had got some serious stones to rob Batman’s gear, actually succeed in taking the tire off the freaking Batmobile and getting away originally, and had only run into Batman when he had come back to steal more, and called Batman a “big boob” after he had given him a good hit right in his Bat stomach.

This precious cupcake here↓

↑...that was often used as a proof that the NE Angry Robin Jason is a later retcon/ mere misconception had actually only ever existed in Detective Comics #569-573 during the earlier part of the writer Mike Barr’s run. These 5 issues from Barr are all notably 60s-ish, and while they’re published after CoIE and Batman Year one, it’s clear that they’re Earth 1 stories, seeing that they’re written with characters such as Earth 1 Catwoman. It was only in #574 that Jason’s New Earth origin was first introduced in Detective Comics, right before Batman Year Two; and although the issue was still written by Mike Barr and it did seem to have followed directly after #573, the previous issue was ended with the caption of “The New Origin of Batman”, and the tone of #574 as well as the writer’s latter issues and his portrayal of Jason Robin were no longer the same.

↑Detective Comics #574↑

It was stated by Bruce repeatedly, in both his own title and Detective Comics, that the reason he had taken in NE Jason as his new Robin was to save him from walking down the wrong path and to provide an outlet for his rage.

While no doubt Jim Starlin’s NE Jason Robin (that everyone hates) was the most aggressive and violent, it had never contradicted how the character was initially written by Max Allen Collins, the writer of Batman #408.

↑Batman #410 by Collins↑

↑ Batman #411 by Collins, after Jason had found out that Willis was murdered by Two-Face and Bruce had been hiding the information from him ↑

Although in the end of Batman #411, Jason did seem to have gotten over his anger and saved Two-Face’s life, judging by the way he’d talked about his dad Willis in his first introduction and the fact that he’d never before bothered to find out what had happened to the man the whole time while he’s in the manor where he had all the resources to acquire the information, it was doubtful that he and Willis had had a good relationship, and what he’d felt for his crook dad then could hardly be the same as what he felt later in “The Diplomat’s Son” story.

NE Jason had always been consistent in being a fearless, proactive, feisty individual with a hot temper, even in the hand of a writer with a much mellower sense of writing like Mike Barr.

↑ Jason and Bruce encountered Two-Face again in Detective Comics #580-581 by Barrs ↑

It had been established from the get-go that NE Jason Robin was the type of kid who would challenge Batman and go out handling a criminal on his own without consulting him or anyone else first, and was morally questionable with tendencies to aggression and violence, which was perfectly understandable for someone with his background--Only at the beginning it’s easy to brush these things off, because there's never any real consequence to his behavior and so Bruce was okay when he’d behaved this way at the beginning, and since Jason’d still got a lot to learn and was eager to learn from Bruce at the beginning, it would only be right that he’s more agreeable and willing to obey Bruce, but once he had completed his training and been allowed on the field, it would also only be right for him to feel like he had learnt enough and gotten the hang of the business already, and so just easily slipped into his old habit of handling things on his own, just as he had always been while he had been surviving in the Crime Alley on his own before Bruce came along.

NE Jason Robin wasn’t suddenly turned from 0-100 in The Diplomat’s Son story (though I really doubt that it’d be impossible for someone, especially someone around Jason’s age, to go from 0-100 if they have to deal with what Jason had dealt with in the story)--

↓ This didn’t happen until after the diplomat’s son was let go by the police due to his status, and on his way out of the police station where he’d been initially brought in by Jason and Bruce for raping and kidnapping an innocent woman, the mofo called his victim right in front of Jason and Bruce and threatened her on the phone, which led the woman to immediately commit suicide. 

I’ve always thought it’s a good story and a lot more tasteful than it’s usually given credit for. It wouldn’t even have been the first time a “teenage superhero” has killed in the DCU (whether it was accidental or intentional); it’s certainly not something so dark and controversial that DC wouldn’t go for it, they could’ve easily just gone for it and had Jason Robin murder a criminal then, except they never really showed that he did. The audience just naturally assumed that he did because the whole scene was shown through Bruce’s view, and Bruce could see that even if Jason didn’t really kill the rapist then, he might very well be capable of it, and it makes the whole Under the Hood storyline as well as the continuation of Red Hood Jason possible.

The concept of Under the Hood and the continuing existence of Red Hood Jason works, instead of just being a complete character assassination like One-Year-Later Cass, only with Jason being his post-crisis version with all of his very established traits and his very established problems with Bruce.

If Under the Hood Jason is indeed Earth 1 Jason or similar to him, he would really need to be under some outside influence for him to do the things he had done, for there’s just no other justification for his action.

He would really have to be driven mad by the effect of the Lazarus Pit (which has only ever been showed to exist momentarily on other characters), he would have to be incapacitated the whole time, unable to control his own action or even form any conscious decision--and it would only make it extremely possible for him to do something truly awful such as killing some innocent or other heroes or even someone in the Batfam, since he wouldn’t be able to stop himself even if he wanted to, or be able to tell if that’s wrong; that’s what being incapacitated means, that’s why people who’s committed crimes, even as bad as murders, cannot be held legally accountable when they’re proven to be mentally ill--and if that’s truly the case, then Bruce as well as Dick (who had a pretty amicable relationship with Earth 1 Jason) and everybody else who has any knowledge about the matter would all have to be some real awful persons to not lift a finger to help him, by making it a point to stop him from committing any more murder that he wouldn’t have committed if he could help it, and figuring out a way to relieve him from the influence by means of the various science and magic overflowing in their world, like they’ve repeatedly done for many others who’ve been in the similar position, and eventually getting him the hell out of this altogether traumatic crime-fighting life, so he could finally begin to heal from his extensive traumas, including being forced to kill which has always been a very common cause of PTSD for soldiers at war; and even if Jason doesn’t leave the crime-fighting life forever, he could no longer continue operating as the Red Hood; it’d just make no sense for him to keep up the identity previously belonged to his murderer, and have it constantly remind him of how he didn’t just get brutally murdered, he was also forced into becoming a murderer himself, which.he never would’ve become if he wasn’t literally out of his mind.

Moreover, there could never have been a Tim Robin (even if Tim didn’t go by Robin but something else), if the Jason who died in A Death in the Family had the same disposition as Earth 1 Jason and none of his NE traits which was the one and only justification Bruce had for taking in Tim as his third teenage partner, seeing that Tim is patient and careful and cooperative with all the qualities to become the same kind of hero like Dick, and not at all “reckless” and “rebellious” like NE Jason, and so he’s likely to turn out like Dick and not get himself killed like Jason (that’s the only true significant retcon Pre52 Jason had. Although NE Jason Robin could be rather reckless and rebellious, that’s certainly not why he had gotten killed. They just made Bruce and everyone pretend that that’s what killed him, so it wouldn’t seem so utterly horrible for Bruce to endanger another teenage kid with no superpower or any previous fighting training by bringing them in the business that had already gotten one kid killed, and also for Dick and everyone else to just let him).

It’s a complete disregard of facts and logic to call Earth 1 Jason and Red Hood Jason the same character, which doesn’t really matter as long as it’s only headcanon; but when people push it as a fact, it really just sound to me like they’re saying that it’s wrong to like Pre 52 Jason/Post-Crisis Jason Robin, which I very much do because I actually think he’s an interesting character with an interesting and more coherent story than a lot of other DC characters.

It’s like they’re saying that it’s just plain wrong and unnatural for a person to have aggressive and violent tendencies and be inclined to criminal behavior simply because they had grown up in a most crime-infested place and had to rely on themselves and learned to do what it takes to survive since before twelve, or become more and more violent simply because they’ve been made to work in an extremely violent environment and have never been provided with any kind of actual aid for their mental health the entire time.

It’s like that if a person, after being brutally murdered and then coming back to find that their mentor/guardian who was the closest thing they had to a family and was also responsible for their death in a major way just didn’t seem to be giving any shit about that at all, is filled with such murderous rage that they could very well just go out and kill a bunch of criminals, but they aren’t actually a smol whump baby with no absolutely agency of their own that must be protected at all times all along, then they’re just no good at all and don’t deserve any love or respect or understanding.

...I don’t like myself for ranting about this. I hope I could just not give any shit about this dumb thing, but it’d been driving me crazy and I’d just got to let it out.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

if your still doing the c!primeboys au fic suggestions, maybe a lab au

Yeah it’s fun! I love writing them, and I’ve got a lot of free time since my bubble burst in school so I’m stuck at home now lol. Feel free to send in asks about previous AUs too I love em all.

There’s perks that come from power, Dream's learnt. Project Theseus is one of them. In this life, in this identity, he'd managed to get some form of authority over the creation of some government bioweapon. He takes one look at the creature curled up in the tubes, mismatched angel wings and dragon tail and racoon ears and deer horns and wolf paws and demon fangs, but so, so clearly a child, and he decides he can do something better.

He knows so many secrets, so many sins committed by everyone in power. He knows all the entrances and exits and the pathways inside and out in the government lab. And most importantly, he knows a bloodthirsty anarchist and an angel of death who could slaughter a secure lab filled with heavily armed government agents with hands behind their back and a blindfold securely tied over their eyes.

Three blood-drenched figures walk away from a burning, screaming compound, one with a mask and an emerald green hood holding a sleeping mismatched child in his arms, so fast asleep he could be mistaken as one of the dead if it wasn’t for the gentle movement of his chest up and down with his breathing. The masked man grasps him tightly enough bruises will form in the upcoming days, as if he’s afraid the child would be snatched from his grasp, at any second. A crow flies away, a boar leaves into the wilderness, and the masked man and the child are left alone.

Theseus grows up in a gilded cage, but for one so used to a cage without any gold he doesn’t complain. He is talked to and hugged and given gentle soothing words when he is hurt. He's taught and he learns, maths, English, assassination, manipulation, all the basics. He’s fed and clothed and given fascinating new things like toys and books and blankets. When he is a good tool, he’s praised, he has his ears pet and he feels pride swell up inside him.

Sometimes Dream's friends come around and they’re loud and excitable and Theseus thinks they’re the coolest, apart from Dream of course. He gets brought along to one of their little games where they chase each other down once. He wins within seconds, and Dream laughs and it is one of Theseus's most prized days.

Eventually, Dream moves into his own server, and it’s so full of exciting new scents and new people, and new people join every day. One of them is young like him, too, and he gifts Theseus two plastic music discs that he hides under his bed, scared Dream won’t allow him gifts from anyone but him. He learns his name is Tubbo, and he follows Tubbo day after day. Tubbo laughs and calls him Tommy.

But when another person, Wilbur Soot, joins the server and starts a new nation, Tommy is torn. Dream has been his whole life, Dream saved him from the bad place where they cut him up and stuck needles into him. But Tubbo and Wilbur are nice, in the weird way Dream's friends are where they don’t expect anything, and Tommy thinks maybe if he stays with them he'll be able to experience the strange “freedom” talked about so much within his books…

If anyone else wants to send in some more AU ideas it’d be lovely and I will make them heavily involve c!primeboys no matter what and again that’s a challenge.

[ofmermaidstories]

Spoilers for the latest chapter of Something!

I'm gonna go ahead and apologize now because this is long; please feel free to ignore my wordy ass, I just have a lot of feelings about a certain someone that showed up in the new chapter lol.

I am still trying to get my shit together enough to write a proper review, but I did want to come yell at you for making the grape boy somewhat likeable, like...

Firstly, how??? Secondly, why?????!?!

Lmao, in all seriousness tho, it's nice to see him have a personality that isn't just "Mmmm, tits" *drools* I like to think that everyone in the series grows up and (mostly) out of the worst of their habits, and while Mineta is still a bit of a lecher here he isn't nearly as offensive/creepy as he comes off in show. In fact he's actually sympathetic in a lot way. The bit about seeing his first dead body before "getting laid" hit different like... He tries to play it off like a joke, but dude has to have just as much PTSD as the rest of them, maybe even more given that he wasn't able to fight back in the same way as someone like Bkg or Deku would be able to with their super powerful offensive quirks. They were all just kids, but they had to face hell full on from jump, and let me stop before I get too in my feelings lol.

In a lot of ways, he reminds of you the boys from school — crude. Taking for granted the safety from being in a pack, unchallenged. Leering at posters, saying off-colour things because no one corrects them.

That's exactly the way I view him, just a crude little thing that refuses to be put in his place for long lol. Still, with his being a hero I would hope that he keeps a cap on it while he's on the job--in fact I'm sure he does; if he didn't I'm sure that Aizawa would've yanked his licence by now, the likes of Deku and Kiri wouldn't continue to associate with him, and that's saying nothing of the shit that would get posted to social mead and such. I feel like the only reason he says what he says to the Reader is b/c she's a little gremlin herself and he knows he's got a bit more leeway, yanno?

The little hangout session that they had at the end of the chapter was weirdly heartwarming?? I want a friend(???) that I can be a surly little shit with and draw on and that will call my bf that's not really my bf but should be my bf because he's (that is Mineta) got more emotional intelligence than me lmao. Never thought I'd see the day when the grape would make for such an excellent wingman--tho I gotta wonder what that text he sent to Deku said. Probably something along the lines of "come get yo girl, she must be bored/lonely af because she asked to hang out with me" followed by "are you ever gonna close the deal or not? or have you already hit it??? >:)" just to give the guy an extra push (or maybe he's got a better sense of self-preservation than what I give him credit for, idk lmfaooo...)

Okay, this is WAY too long, I just had to get it out of my system lol. I loved the new chapter lots and I cannot wait to see how things play out in the next one!!

LOL, oh Puck, i adore you sdlkfjsdlkfjsdlkfj

me being a shit-stirrer/asking myself questions i don’t have answers for under the cut

Cat asked me this question earlier today, actually — why Mineta. And honestly? Part of it is the challenge he represents — like, how do you write him into a fic and mature him up so that he’s at the very least, tolerable, but also keep the backbone of his character (which is being a little degenerate). Like, is it possible? One of the most popular tags on ao3 for mineta minoru is something along the lines of “mineta minoru is replaced with shinsou hitoshi” LOL so…….. why didn’t I just use Shinsou? Or Aoyama or Iida, as Cat suggested? And beyond the part of me that delights in giving myself perceived challenges, there were two stark reasons that stuck out to me, when i was first mulling over his inclusion.

1) the fact that he can draw. it’s literally as simple as that. ever since the BNHA exhibition opened up in Japan and it was revealed that there was a scene in there with a class blackboard and the kids having their little drawing competition — and that Mineta was objectively the most skilled — i was like, “i have to include that”. LOL. it’s like you say, Puck, our Reader is a little gremlin herself — i thought if I was going to write a Reader that could handle interacting with him (ie, be in a position to pay him out) it was going to be this one. I think being in the manga industry and starting out on this journey of creating and drawing a Shonen manga sort of put Reader in this unique position of… being in what seems like a boys’ club? So she’d be used to the male gaze within her field. I follow Horikoshi’s assistant (former assistant?) on twitter and let me tell you, that man is not shy about the things that he likes to draw LOL.

the 2) thing was the philosophy i’ve sort of accidentally given myself LOL and that’s the fact that — as a Bakugou stan, if i’m giving grace to a character who was a literal violent bully then………. i can use my magic powers and hand it around to the other characters, too, LOL. and like, i would argue that with Bakugou it’s different, like we’re currently seeing in the manga how he has grown and learnt and is actively changing, which is the key to any kind of redemption. do i think Mineta will ever undergo that in cannon? absolutely not lmao, i see him as being being Hori’s idea of comedic relief, he’s always going to be a horrible little degen. but i want it for him…… if only to justify why the boys of Class-A collectively ignore his bullshit, for the most part? Like, none of them actively call him out on it?? i think of the time he tried to climb the wall to spy on the girls in the onsen — and how it was literally only Iida scolding him and how it took a child to stop him. Or the one when he found the stupid hole into the girl’s changing room and while the boys all looked grossed out….. Jirou’s the one that point an end to that?????? I saw a TikTok (derogatory) suggesting how like, none of the girls of Class-A would trust Aizawa, as adults, because he didn’t do anything to put an end to Mineta’s bullshit, and it was a devastating suggesting. None of us want to believe that our favourites would be passively okay with this kind of behaviour, right?? Which means……. Mineta’s gotta change LMAO. And if Hori isn’t going to do it then imma borrow him and do it myself. Does it work? I have no idea LMAO i can’t judge anymore, my meter is broken. but i’m gonna work with what i’ve given myself and it either will, or it won’t LMAOOOO kldsfjlksdjflkdj fic is about having fun at the end of the day. :’)

But it’s like you point out, Puck — Mineta is also a child, when these kids get trotted out to their first War. And he’s also not as offensively built as the hard-hitters like Deku and Bakugou and Shouto are. Even if it’s not explored in the manga, that War is going to change them all somehow.

So, my gameplan for Mineta was to grab ahold of the tiny things about him — the talent for drawing, the like one [1] observation he has about the wreckage of the war/pro heroes during the war arc, his tears for Bakugou when B wakes up afterwards and how he tells Deku how cool he was and how much he admires him, in the current Bring Deku Home chapters — and try to envision a sleaze bag who learns that the bullshit he pulls won’t be tolerated, even if he’s still ultimately a skeeze LOL. i mean, he’s never going to drop that er…. appreciation for the female form. and i mean, hey, live your best life King, i’ve distinctly noticed a hand-fetish floating around on this site lately so i’m not gonna be like “NO men can’t like ANYTHING”. But the thing with him being a sleaze and open with his leering is like, he’s actively made the girls of his class uncomfortable with that in the past — how do you write it so that he’s not doing that in a position of power with the women he works with (and saves!), as an adult?? Maturity only goes so far. How much can I bank on the war and the subsequent bullshit they’re gonna face from it on…. transforming him??? It shouldn’t be up to the girls he’s learning with to police him, they’re just children. I have a vague gameplan for it — whether or not it works will be one thing; whether i can naturally shove it into the fic is another, LOL. Guess we’ll see. 🧐

SAYING ALL THAT,,,,, i’m actually really glad you liked (???) the ending scene with him because it’s my favourite LMAO lkdjflkdsjflkdjfkldsjf. 😭😭 Reader is by no means perfect, and she and Mineta both need to start treating each other with more respect, but her bullying of him was fun to write and I like imagining a Mineta who considers himself to be close with Deku (whether or not Deku thinks the same is up for debate) going along with it. i could see this version of Mineta being enough of a shit-stirrer to say something like, “gotta lock that shit down” to Deku LMAO kdfjlkdsjflkdsfjdklsfj and then getting left on a skyscraper somewhere…. RIP short King.

[fuck-you-i-am-spiderman]

Jal for the ask meme? 🥺

Thank you @hoodpane I love them so much  🥺🥺🥺🥺 

Who would be the big spoon/little spoon?

Jay is the big spoon and Mal is the bitter small spoon. Mal tries to deny cuddling, claims she hates it but Jay just flops onto the bed and drapes his arms around Mal. Jay would be very casual on the Isle, lots of draping his arm over Mal's shoulder and in their hideout they'd just lie on the end and he'd end up falling asleep spooning Mal. She'd constantly tease him about it and he'd be like "I don't fucking cuddle, shut up". But it keeps happening, they just revert to it and they always go to sleep at the hideout where they're somewhat safe. After a bad night for them both Jay just wraps his arms around Mal, tight and snug and presses his face into the crook of her neck. Mal is trembling and Jay places a feather light kiss to her shoulder and it helps them both relax when no one's around and they can just soak in the comfort they both need.

When they get to Auradon they need it even more, especially after the coronation. It doesn't matter how many detentions they may get, they have to all be in the same room and they all feel a lot safer being able to rest in one another's arms.

Who would wake up first?

Jay. 

Mal sleeps like a zombie. They both have insomnia, Mal's is more prominent. Jay likes to go for a run in the morning, he listens to a playlist Carlos made for him and lets himself be free. He always leaves a note because on the off chance Mal wakes up before he’s back, she'll freak out if he's gone with no explanation. Jay wakes Mal up by kissing her and she'll push him off and tell him to get a shower. He’ll always without fail be like “are you joining me?” 😉 and well what better way to wake up...

Do they have nicknames for each other?

I don't think Mal has a lot of nicknames for Jay, she insults people as a sign of her affection so I think 'dipshit' and 'loser' would be her most frequent ones. On very rare occasions she'll use Evie's nickname of choice 'Charmer' but she mainly sticks to his name.

'baby dragon' of course! Jay uses 'babe' a lot. He loves to tease her and will call Mal his little 'firecracker' and 'her royal majesty'. Mal rolls her eyes and constantly tells him to shut up but they can all see the slight pink tinge to her cheeks.

How do they apologize after an argument?

They’re both so strong willed and are so used to having this tough image so they usually both need to cool off before they can acknowledge they messed up. Neither feel particularly comfortable talking about it with other people but they don’t get angry with one another for long.

Mal makes Jay an “I’m sorry” breakfast and then tries to give Jay some space. Tries...because Jay is such a cuddle monster and just wants to have Mal in his arms. They talk about what happened gently and it takes them a lot of time because neither feels ready to fully open up but they get there eventually.

Jay sends Mal memes and awful puns. She’ll pretend to hate them and threaten to burn his phone to a crisp, but Jay knows he’s forgiven when he sees Mal cracking a smile. Mal blocks Jay at least twice a day.

What would they be like as parents?

Jay is definitely the type of parent to try and be their friend, he’s a lot of fun and the vk’s tend to flock towards him because he’ll just be running around the garden dramatically falling to the floor as kids pelt him with stuffed animals. Mal may or may not have encourage them to do so. Mal acts nonchalant and tries to ignore the way the kids tend to look up at her with awe. She’s naturally a leader and can easily get the vk’s to fall in line. Jay pouts when within 20 seconds Mal has gotten all of the vk’s to help tidy up and Jay had been trying to coax and bribe them into helping. Both of them are kind of terrible when it comes to curving their bad language and Evie is ready to kick both of their asses if she hears Dizzy call someone a “fucktard” again!

Who is more romantic?

Jay for sure. He is such a sap and he puts a lot of effort into planning their dates. He likes to try and surprise Mal with picnics. He'll always get chocolate covered strawberries and make playlists of Mal's favourite movies. Mal doesn't like big features, thinks they're stupid but Jay loves pulling out all the stops. He's learnt the way into Mal's heart is not through flowers but through soft touches and going for late night bike rides. The biggest gesture he did was get Mal's artwork features into an alternative art show and took her as a surprise. Mal nearly cried.

What sort of gifts do they get for each other?

Jay loves getting Mal gifts, he brings the receipts and loves seeing the shock on Mal's face when he gets her presents. He gets her art supplies and brings her strawberry candy. He made Mal a bracelet with purple thread and a dragon charm he found when accompanying Evie to a market. Evie teaches him how to make the bracelet and Jay spends weeks perfecting it. He's anxious to give it to Mal but when he does she's really quiet and looks up at him with soft, pale green eyes and she's brushing her finger over the charm and Jay just knows she loves it - she wears it every day and it makes Jay beam with pride.

Mal gets Jay gifts as a joke. She got him these really fluffy red handcuffs that she thought was hilarious but Jay actually really likes them and eagerly puts them to use. She gets him chocolate all the time and buys him more beanies (because she is constantly stealing his original one). Mal makes Jay a comic, she spends ages designing it and it’s full of amusing images of Chad and Audrey being chased by a giant serpent and Jay dressed as a superhero. Jay hangs it up above his bed.

They buy each other sparring pads and boxing gloves, gear for the gym - they go with one another at least once a week.

Who gets jealous easiest?

They both tend to get jealous a lot but I think Mal. Jay loves to whisper into Mal's ear how much he loves her and how he wouldn't want anyone else, he tells her how cute she looks when she's jealous and then chuckles when Mal bites his shoulder and mumbles a "Shut up". On the Isle Mal made sure everyone knew that she had claimed Jay and she is constantly re-establishing that in Auradon. She will not hesitate to threaten anyone that has the audacity to flirt with what's hers.

Jay gets a little possessive when Ben is around and makes sure he's always got an arms round Mal and gives Ben several glares for good measure. Mal rolls her eyes and tells him she isn't interested but secretly gets amused when she can hear Jay grumbling about it.

Who gets more excited for events e.g.. Birthdays, Christmas?

Neither get AK level of excited but I think Jay gets a little more swept up by holidays. Naturally he's a bit more social and doesn't mind indulging in the tourney Christmas party but he always comes home to spend time with Mal.

Mal is such an enabler and they end up stealing the school's Christmas tree because fuck it. Jay and Mal would always spend their birthdays and holidays together in the Isle. They wouldn't exactly celebrate but they had a tradition of spray painting things and stealing little trinkets for one another. Jay gives Mal his beanie and drapes a scarf on her as they walk and bump shoulders. Mal doesn't sleep on Christmas, she's not excited but on edge and whenever she'd get like that she'd find Jay and they'd walk together to plot their next raid. In Auradon they walk quietly together, away from all the noise.

Who is the most adventurous?

Oh you mean the Parkour king and Queen of Mischief?! Partners in crime, constantly challenging one another and the second someone even tries to doubt them they’re off looking for their next adventure to prove them wrong. Lots of breaking into abandoned buildings and adventure trails. 

They get so into one of those little adventure holidays full of rock climbing and zip wires. When they all go to the beach the two of them are off in search of jet-skis to race with. 98% of the time their dates are action packed, trying to smuggle a turtle back from the aquarium because Carlos wanted one, using the tourney field at night because they wanted to play, all the times they’ve definitely got up to some non-pg activities in semi-public places. They are the poster children for rebels with a cause.

Who is the most protective?

They're both very protective and often have arguments over who's the most protective which just consists of Evie and Carlos rolling their eyes at the pair as they squabble back and forth like:

"I'm the most protective, admit it."

"I'm not admitting what isn't true."

"Mal c'mon , just look at my arms!"

"I'm a fucking dragon Jay."

What would they have been like as childhood sweethearts?

🤔 Okay, so this an au where they're not from the Isle. I think they meet as young teenagers, they meet in detention and are both trying to escape at the same time. They end up working together to help one another get out of detention and they have a mutual respect for one another. They send one another notes in class and have this flirty banter that never ends. They both skateboard and Jay teaches Mal tricks and Mal shows him a bunch of abandoned places to skate. They're partners in crime, fierce as anything and no matter how much the teachers try to separate them - Mal and Jay always find a way to be together. Mal is always climbing into Jay's bedroom window to take him on a new adventure.

Who uses all the hot water?

Jay. He would spend hours in the shower if he could. Mal has timer for him and then she’s barging in and ordering him to get out. Jay loves making Mal’s face scrunch and it doesn’t help when he pulls her into the shower before she can protest and proceeds to make it up to her. The water is freezing by the time they’re getting out.

Who would accidentally set the kitchen on fire whilst cooking?

Mal. She always wants to do things herself, she doesn’t want Jay to get the items from the top shelf because “I am an adult, I do not need your fucking help. STOP LAUGHING AT ME!” and she’s reckless so she just throws shit into the pot and is like what’s a recipe?! She’d turn away to look at her spellbook and then poof flames and Jay is running in with a fire extinguisher and slinging Mal over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes to carry her to safety. 

Who initiates sexy times the most?

They’re both as bad as one another. Shirts are not a thing in their house. Jay only wears one if they have company. Mal is woken up with an orgasm. They’re both such horndogs and can’t keep their hands off of one another. They start watching a movie and never make it to the end. HORNDOGSSSSSSSSS. They’re terrible and wonderful and just constantly touching one another. 

People are definitely thrown off by how much Mal and Jay just don’t give a shit, if they want to kiss one another they fucking will and they don’t care who is around. 

Who is more dominant?

Mal. She doesn’t give up control a lot and she may be small but she is a fucking powerhouse and it’s rare, even with Jay that she gives that up. They’re pretty well matched because Jay is always teasing Mal and trying to give her a run for her money, but he’s also weak for her and finds her confidence very sexy.

What would they do if the other one was hurt?

Burn the world. 

Mal is very focused on getting Jay patched up as soon as possible. She always has a plan and she knows how to patch people up, she knows how to make sure they’re not bleeding out and she just keeps her focus on making sure Jay isn’t going to die on her. Mal will block everyone else out, she’ll snarl at anyone that tries to get in her way and has the possibility of hurting Jay more. She’s so protective and very firm with how she handles things. When she’s sure Jay is okay she gets self-deprecating and sad, she blames herself whenever any of them get hurt and she’ll cry when she thinks Jay can’t hear her.

Jay goes into panic mode. If it’s someone that’s hurt Mal he will beat the shit out of them, he’s so laser focused on attacking and protecting that he can sometimes lose sight of the fact Mal needs him. Once he realises he’s very attentive and caring. He just scoops Mal up and carries her bridal style. He doesn’t let Mal carry her things or do anything because he always wants to be by her side and to help her, to make sure she doesn’t get herself injured more.

Who gives nose/forehead kisses?

Jayyyyy. He likes to just lean over and kiss Mal's forehead or cup her face and kiss her nose, her cheeks, her lips. Mal rarely kisses him like that, she likes to trail kisses down Jay's neck and give him bruising kisses where she has to stand on her tiptoes and tug him down to meet her.

What their biggest fight was/will be about:

A miscommunication of feelings. They both find opening up hard and talking about their feelings is difficult for them both. 

One of their biggest fights was because Jay wanted to go to the school party and Mal didn’t but she didn’t tell him why. Jay assumed they’d be going and they got into a big fight with Mal saying Jay doesn’t care about her feelings and Jay saying Mal doesn’t make an effort. Mal walks out and Jay is freaking out and he’s annoyed. Evie calls him asking why Carlos is cuddling a crying Mal, she goes round and comforts Jay whilst Carlos comforts Mal. After calming down Jay goes to the girl’s dorm with a packet of chocolate-covered strawberries and opens the door to find Mal dressed in a blazer and her leather pants ready to go to the party. They go to party for a while but leave early to walk under the stars and wind down from all the drama. 

BONUS #1: Song picture to sum them up?

because @hersilentlanguage got me hooked on the idea of Mal and Jay as a hedgehog an a dog and I think it fits them perfectly. Look at how that dog is looking at the hedgehog and tell me that isn’t Jay?! You can’t.

[softtofustew]

an odyssey | afterword

rating: T

pairing: Hwang Hyunjin/Han Jisung

summary: Somewhere in the galaxy of the Stella Primum, Lieutenant Han is the best fighter on his team, a real ace shooter, with five gold stars to show. Too bad Second Lieutenant Hwang is not only great at battling the Ordinem, he’s also got disgustingly perfect looks to match, and now Jisung’s stuck in the same spaceship with him for possibly the most impossible task of their lives. Or the one where a rivalry is brewed across the skies and stars, until Jisung realises what there is to flying beside Hyunjin on a mission to save the galaxy.

if you haven’t read it yet, read here.

this is an afterword to ‘an odyssey’, where i write about the origin of the story, the characters, and my struggles of writing :’)

(i) The Origin

I’ve had this work in my WIPs since, believe it or not, January of this year. I’ve had this idea for so, so long. I wrote it intermittently throughout this year, with a scene or two in September, then October. 

Due to my exams, though, I couldn’t write as much as I wanted to. That’s why I only really started writing ‘an odyssey’ back in mid-November. The good thing was that I had more time to plan this out, because frankly, this is perhaps the heaviest fic I’ve written in terms of plot so far. 

I can’t for the life of me remember where this story idea planted itself in my head. All I knew was that I like space AUs, I adore Hyunjin and Jisung’s friendship, and I love enemies to lovers. Realising there weren’t any fics out there that combined the three, I knew it was my time to shine. Or something. 

(ii) The Plot

The plot was the trickiest to pull off. I’ve written an urban fantasy here and there, but I’m pretty sure if I reread them thoroughly, I’m bound to find a couple of plot holes. 

There were a lot of elements to cover: the Prophecy. The five gems. The push-pull relationship between Jisung and Hyunjin. The journey to discovering the whereabouts of the last Gemma. The last boss fight with a Governor who could wield the Force. There was!!!! So!!!! Much!!!! Going!!!! On!!!!!

Perhaps if I reread ‘an odyssey’, I might find another plot hole or two; who knows? For now, though, I feel quite contented with this work of mine. Considering it’s my first time writing something as long as this (50K+ are you kidding me?), I feel this is a first step for me to continue expanding my horizons when it comes to writing, to continue to challenge myself to write something different, something bold. Something new.

(iii) The Characters

I rewatched the Two Kids Room and One Kid Room episodes so many times, over and over again. There’s a reason why this story is centred around Jisung and Hyunjin, and why it’s written from Jisung’s perspective.

Their relationship is, after all, something coherently interesting. They really said “enemies to friends but make it irl”. I guess I took that concept and sort of exaggerated the extent of their ‘hate’ for each other, which isn’t exactly hate to begin with. The further you read on, the more you’ll realise that they don’t exactly hate each other — they just got off on the wrong footing, and have never tried turning back to start over once more.

It’s written from Jisung’s perspective because personally, I wanted the story to be told from the eyes of someone who was prideful, who was eager and determined, and who wanted to show his worth to everyone else. I feel like perhaps I didn’t expand on characterising Jisung to the fullest advantage possible, though, which remains a slight regret of mine. 

Another reason why I wanted this to be written from Jisung’s POV is because we can find out how Jisung feels about Hyunjin throughout the story. When he realises whose son Hyunjin is, he’s torn between wanting to pity Hyunjin and keeping things between them the same as they always have. (If I were in his position, though, I don’t know what I would have done lol.) It was hard to try and interpret his emotions, but there’s that.

Someone commented once asking if we’d ever get Hyunjin’s POV. Sadly, one of my biggest turn-offs is the switching of POVs in stories when it’s not entirely necessary haha. As much as I would want to know what Hyunjin is thinking when they’re arguing, or when they’re fighting, I like to keep on the suspension line. It gives you the feeling of immersing yourself as the Jisung in the story, of only seeing things from one perspective. 

As for the other characters, there wasn’t enough time to expand on all of them (for example, I mentioned Seungmin several times throughout the story, but really, he speaks only once haha). And as your fellow StayDay, it was definitely fun for me to include a few members of Day6. (please don’t ask me why I thought of ‘PJ and Honey’ while writing. I was probably hungry.)

I don’t know if I’ll continue to expand on the characters in this same universe, but it would be fun to think of the other relationships, for example Chan and Felix, or Changbin with Minho and Seungmin. (someone please save the seungbinho tag!!!!!!)

As far as characterisation goes, I’ve still got so much to learn. For now, though, I hope you enjoyed the dynamics between the characters and how Jisung and Hyunjin learnt to grow within a span of six chapters.

(iv) The Writing Process

Granted, the writing bit was a little easier in the beginning, but as I delved myself deeper into the story, I found it harder and harder to express the emotions I wanted to deliver in the story. One of the hardest chapters for me to write by far was the last chapter. I wrote two versions of the last chapter, simply because I felt the first version was too lacklustre for the ending of such a long story haha.

I had a clear outline of my story, but I did end up extending it from the initial 5 chapters to 6. For the first time, though, I didn’t add any random elements to the story, unlike how i wrote this story last year haha. The lesson I’ve learnt is that I should ALWAYS have a brief outline of the plot — detailed enough to cover the entire story, but brief enough to give me some creative freedom mid-writing.

The excitement of writing honestly wore off near the last few chapters. I’ve realised the importance of reading unfinished works in this way. Writers really need some form of motivation to keep them writing their chaptered works. So if you’re one of the real ones who started reading this even before it was completed, kudos to you. I really appreciate it.

Overall, writing this was fun. Hopefully I don’t need to do this again though; I absolutely hate writing chaptered fics because of all the time and effort put into them. I’d much rather be a ‘One-Shot Hotshot’ lol.

(v) The End (?)

I left a bit of wondering for the readers in the last chapter. If Atkins was able to wield the Force despite the false pretence that there was no longer any Force-wielders left in the universe, how many more of them could there be? 

That leaves an opening for me if I ever wish to return to this alternate universe sometime in the future. The Universe is ever-expanding, and so is our imagination.

(vi) The Inspiration

Obviously, I need to thank Star Wars. I also need to apologise because I absolutely butchered their universe. Fun fact: there was one huge plot hole I had to cover up halfway through writing. 

If you’re observant, you might remember the scene where Hyunjin asks Jisung why they didn’t just jump into hyperspace to reach Ilsanis. That’s because I was watching an episode of The Mandalorian where the Mando was forced to fly a ship without a hyperdrive engine, and I almost freaked out right there in the middle of the living room realising how weird that would be if I left the issue unattended in my own work (yikes). 

Long story short, I drew elements from the Star Wars universe and created a story of my own. I’ve been asked how I came up with the idea of the Prophecy. Frankly, I don’t know. My brain farts sometimes, I guess. Brain Farts = weird ideas that somehow make sense sometimes.

(vii) Lastly

If you have any more questions you’d like to ask (or plot holes to tell me about *shudders*), do leave me a question in my CC, or holler at me on Twitter (I’m hardly alive here on Tumblr haha). To anyone and everyone who has read ‘an odyssey’, I thank you.

This year has been a funky year, and even worse, it’s the year I had to take my IGCSEs. Writing has always been a way for me to create my own universe and release my tension and emotions, so not being able to write as much as I used to was a little tough. 

Writing will continue to be a medium for me to express my emotions and my thoughts while creating stories of my own, so simply by giving my fics a read, you’ve already fuelled my reason to continue to write. Thank you for all the support in ‘an odyssey’! 

(why did i write this entire monologue like i’m giving a speech at the Oscars or something lol im so dramatic :”))

[silent-silver-slip]

For the behind the scenes asks: 1, 4, 16, 18?

Me? Buzzing with excitement to respond to an ask? Always! Thank you for asking lovely. ♥️♥️♥️ I am somewhat sorry for such a long post, but I am incapable of writing small things it appears. 

1. What was the first fandom and/or pairing that you wrote fic for?

Oh god, I think it was Harry Potter? I started out with original works before branching into fanfiction, so I’m not certain though.

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline?

This one’s a bit up in the air to be honest! Sometimes I outline and sometimes I don’t. Almost always, I never outline anything under like 5k, which is normally written with a basic idea that keeps growing. There are also a number of longer things that I’ve done before that didn’t really have an outline either (some of my novellas happened this way). However, a number of my longer works do get an outline - either beginning with one or I hit a roadblock and begin to sketch an outline out and then it ends up being massive and more than I expected.

Parts of my outline go into depth and parts don’t, so as a result I usually keep pretty close to it. Occasionally an extra scene or a side character will take over a bit, but usually it’s very very close which is nice and helpful.

16. What is your most underrated fic?

Oh no, decisions. [I then leave this question blank, and forget to come back to it...] Okay, so I went back and started going through my fics and I was in struggle town, let me tell you.

In the end, I picked up two main ones that I think are my most underrated ones?

There’s the broken bones of our childhood which is an HP fic and actually sparked a piece of writing that got published online in the AZE which is neat. And the other is Everybody Knows (the deal is rotten) which is a Naruto fic that’s based on Orpheus and Eurydice and their legend, but is about family instead. One of these I appreciate because of the meaning behind it and it’s writing style, and the other was a lot of fun to write and I’m pretty proud of it.

18. What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

Firstly, this assumes I remember anything I write and it doesn’t just vanish from my brain straight away. I barely know what I did yesterday, let alone an actual scene or line I wrote.

I’ve been staring at a few passages for a while, and this is awful I cannot make decisions. However! I figured I’d go with one that I haven’t mentioned in an ask response before and also isn’t too tricky to explain and comes with a good explanation? And fit my current mood I guess.

This scene comes from tonight’s our time which is a Naruto fic. It was a short fun piece to write and definitely related to something I felt back in summer. My comments are in italics.

And she reaches out, offering her hand, and Minato grips it, tight. Their hands are sweaty and gross, because of the weather and how it’s somehow still humid even as the sun sets, streaking the sky with pale purples and pinks and oranges. (Fuck yeah, I love the sunset! And the sunrise! The sky just looks so pretty almost all the time okay. But also - just the idea of people reaching out to each other even when it’s uncomfortable because they want to and they love each other regardless?)

The sky, however, is not what Kushina or Minato pay attention to. Rather, then launch forward, uncoordinated and laughing, towards where the sprinklers send water over the grass and pavement, turning it dark. (The idea of not paying attention to the sky because someone else is there and more important, more beautiful, definitely strikes a cord with me. And launching forward, laughing and unbalanced and just complete chaos? I can imagine it and it feels so good? Just letting go and- and I don’t even know, living, I suppose.)

They don’t go through the edges of the sprinkler, where the water’s a mist and light, they run through the worst of it, laughing and holding hands. Immediately, they’re soaked, clothes plastered to their skin as droplets of water run down their arms and faces and necks. Minato’s hair falls over his eyes whilst Kushina has flyaway strands finally pinned down, and she rubs a hand across her forehead, shoving them to the side so they stop irritating her. (Not gonna lie, this was partially me just working on descriptions, but hey. If it’s hot and humid and gross even at like 8.30pm, hell yeah I’m gonna run through the worst bit of the sprinkler if my friend wants too as well. That weather is gross and you’re dying, okay? Trust me on that one, it’s not fun. But, well, to meet up with a friend after so long, there’s not much I won’t do.)

Now out of the sprinkler, they turn. The weather no longer feels so hot and muggy. It’s cool and warm and the perfect temperature, even though their clothes have darkened with water and their hair will definitely turn fuzzy. (More description stuff.)

Looking at each other, they laugh, loud and wild and happy. This is, undoubtedly, what life is all about. Laughing and living, looking at each other and grinning. They’re adults but that doesn’t mean they have to leave childish acts behind them. (They’re just so happy!! They’re in their like twenties and they’re “adults” but they’re having such a fine time and they’re loving and happy and it’s just glorious. This is what we all deserve, okay? Around work and uni and life in general - we deserve to be happy and loving and loved in return, laughing and glorious and far frome alone.)

Because of the challenges I had figuring it out, there are a few of the ones I was tossing up beneath the line.

My favourite bits are in bold.

Scene from i don’t believe that love was made to break:

“Hey look,” Reggie says, “the sun’s rising.” And it is, painting the sky with colour. The sun itself is a circle of orange and the lake is fractured by every golden ray, colours rippling across the water.

Yet not one of them watches it. Instead, they are caught by each other. How the sun makes them glow. How the light gentles their faces. How they smile at each other.

The day grows warmer, the sun goes higher, and they are trapped in a single moment, aware of the way they are pressed up against each other, the way they are happy, the way they are loving without reserve.

Scene from the sea isn’t yours but you’re still the sea’s which may or may not be an AU of my own AU:

Sometimes kindness is an innate part of us, sometimes it’s there regardless of whether or not we know it. Sometimes kindness is apologising and saying ‘What can I do to help?’ Sometimes kindness is helping when help isn’t wanted but needed anyway.

In one world, there would be an information network growing in the shadows, spreading further and further with no one aware of it but one boy. In another world, there is no information network growing, but something else grows instead—hands stretching out, faces looking down. Kindness shared is kindness that can be passed on. Small things can stack, one on top of the other, and sometimes they lead to massive changes that are unforeseen. When a boy extends his hand out to a homeless child, she reaches back cautiously, but their story will end in trust and loyalty, (always).

Scene from Wayfinders‘ epilogue:

“This is what it means to be human.” The words seem to shock everyone and Toru smiles as he watches heads turn to one another, muttered discussion growing once again. “It is human to fight when the odds are against you,” he says. “It is human to say ‘we will keep living’ when it seems impossible. It is human to find a way to survive when an army marches towards you.

“It is human to fight. Sometimes this is against another opponent in a test of strength and sometimes it is against grief that threatens to overwhelm you. Sometimes you fail. Sometimes you fall. Sometimes you bow your head and give up. But you are not alone. Someone will reach ask if you’re alright. Someone will gift you a kind word. Someone will reach out a hand. There will always be someone reaching out a hand.

“A new era is dawning,” Toru lifts his chin, looks not to everyone below but to the sun overhead, shining down. “A new era is dawning and it is not one of war. It is one of peace, of love, of acceptance. It is one of kindness, of family, of friendship.” He smiles. “I speak not only to my people now, but to all of you. Let us remember hope, in times of hardship. Let us remember kindness, in times of cruelty. And let us remember to reach out and lift one another up high for you are never alone.”

(There are so many things Toru wants to say. He wants to engrave the lessons he learnt into people’s skin. He wants them to know what he does, that kindness is not a flaw, that mercy is not a weakness. But they will only learn that in time. And they have the time. They have the opportunity. Toru will see that they have all the time in the world.)

 (In the end, there is only one village that hears the words Toru does not say. One full of ghosts and laughing people. One full of refugees and fighters. One full of survivors and graves. Uzushio hears him and hears what he says with every word that escapes his lips.)

 (The sea will never die.)

[daesthete]

guess the TWENTY THREE OLD JANUARY baby just arrived to dallyeog! it makes sense, because ONG DAEJUNG is just as UNEXPECTED as the month of JANUARY. wait, why do they remind me of HWANG HYUNJIN? beyond that, they seemed CONFIDENT AND PRACTICAL upon first glance. i heard someone say they’re sort of STUBBORN AND RESERVED though. i hope they get acquainted here in APT. 1 / FLOOR 2 ; they seem to have a lot going on with HIS job as CHOREOGRAPHER AND DANCE INSTRUCTOR. 

hello! sorry it took me so long to get this done but work. my name’s lu and i’m really excited to be here with none other than my incredibly piece of work daejung. i’m in the -5/6 tz (idk anymore bcs of the dls). i’m a little slow with the messages, but i’ll eventually get to them pls be patient with this old hag. my boy’s stats, personality, background are all up and here you’ll find a tldr of his background (because it’s a long read and i’m incredibly sorry, idk when to shut up). meanwhile, here’s a trivia and down below it, some plots and prompts.

trivia:

⇢ his mom is the one behind his love for dancing, being a dancer herself back when she was in high school, though from a very different discipline; ballet. this is one of the many reasons why he was a better relationship with her than his father. 

⇢ he’s danced his whole life, but stopped doing it once he entered middle school and mostly because his new friends made fun of it, saying it was lame and such, which made him insecure regardless of his mother reassuring words. 

⇢ the reason he struggled so much with college were the theory-based classes and this is a burden he’s carried his whole life. however, in more practical classes, he was outstanding. reason why he wasn’t expelled from college neither losing his scholarship.

⇢ he’s pretty decent at playing other sports such as basketball and soccer, but after an injury that seemed worst than what it really was, he got really scared of getting hurt and unable to dance, so he’s very cautious in those rare occasions he decides to play.

⇢ got obsessed with videogames back in the states and only recently he got his very first playstation ever. he likes fps and rpg games, his favorites right now are overwatch and the witcher 3: wild hunt.

⇢ he’s a pretty decent neighbour... except when he isn’t. most of the time, he’s mindful of not disturbing the others, but every now and then he likes to throw very loud parties at his place just for the sake of it and they run till very early in the morning. 

⇢ daejung is not a morning person. even though he wakes up at 7am sharp, it’s not advised to make long conversations with him before this, the most he will respond with is a hum or an inaudible mumble. 

⇢ has several playlists on his phone, all for different reasons, moods and occasions. he can spend hours trying to curate the perfect playlist and loves sharing this with people he’s close to. if he likes you and you two have a good friendship, it’s really likely that he has a playlist with your name. 

⇢ likes covering dances a lot, especially those with more challenging choreographies and has a collection of videos he’s filmed, but never seen the light. sometimes she shares clips of them on his instagram account and has considered several times to open his own channel. it’s a thought that constantly sits on his mind.

⇢ despite his overall behaviour and attitude, he’s really good at teaching, especially kids. he’s learnt to be patient and professional in the practice room and he often wishes that could translate to his personal life. he’s trying to be better though. 

⇢ really values his job for all the opportunities it's brought and all the doors it's opened for him. he feels like he’s finally found purpose.

⇢ his family however it’s a really sensitive topic for him and will avoid talking about any of them, especially his mom. his relationship with his father is improving though, they have little moments in the waiting room whenever daejung visits his mom. his sister, on the other hand, doesn’t want to see him at all, and neither does he. they’ve said pretty awful and hurtful things to each other. there’s a part of daejung that wants to fix the relationship but he’s too prideful to. 

plots:

ex-best friend ( f / m ) open

the worst part was that there wasn’t even an argument, not a proper one. no big blow out, no screaming words of closure. they just stopped talking and as the days turned to weeks, then to months both had no idea how to breach the chasm between them anymore even when you wanted to. daejung might’ve seemed disinterested but it was because he didn’t want to dwell in the sadness that losing his best friend brought along. ​

​it’s tough ( f / m ) open.

ever since his mom was diagnosed with leukemia, the ong family visited the hospital constantly. the first year was the most difficult. daejung found it hard to stay in the room for more than few minutes as the doctors went over the treatment and such, reason why he preferred to stay in the waiting room. they were there one day (reason is up to the typist). somehow both ended up pouring their hearts out about how difficult everything was and bonded over sorrows and crude jokes.

polaroids ( f / m ) open

daejung’s gotten as a birthday present an instant camera and likes to snap photos of what he finds beautiful. one day he decides to take a picture of this beautiful, old fashioned building that you happen to be standing near. you notice that daejung is taking pictures. “well if you wanted to take my photo just ask.” daejung clarifies that it isn’t the case. regardless, you continue and even strike some poses, saying that you’re ready for your photo to be taken, making daejung laugh for a while, eventually agreeing to take a photo.

​short plots:

⇢ someone gave me a fake phone number and it’s actually yours. ⇢we hate each other but we both have a mutual friend so we have to put up with each other. ⇢while playing video games, a fight broke out over who got to be player ⇢ one and who player two, it escalates into something reminiscent of a war between them. ⇢ we had plans to do something fun, only to have those plans gone horribly wrong

dialogue prompts:

⇢ “you’re making a mistake.” “and that’s very on-brand of me.” ⇢ “this is without a doubt the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. of course i’m in.”  ⇢ “how long do you think it’ll take me to get arrested?” “what is this, a competition?” ⇢ “you had best rethink that sentence and try again, buddy." ⇢ "if you want me out of the way then move me yourself." ⇢ "okay okay, i can only handle so much sappy crap in one night.” ⇢ “i apologize for him. he has a severe case called….douchebag.” ⇢ “contrary to popular belief, I’m actually quite competent.” ⇢ “well, well, well… who the fuck are you?” ⇢ “i hate to disagree with you—” “please. you love to disagree with me. it’s your favorite thing in the whole world.”

[buckyreaderrecs]

So Far Away: Chapter 5/?

Summary:  Bucky Barnes doing what he does best. Saving. Loving. In this particular case, the object of both is you. (Bonus: Bucky Barnes happy, healing, doing really well!) 

First chapter in series. Previous chapter. 

Chapter 5:  It’s time to find your family.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Reader Characters: Bucky Barnes, F.R.I.D.A.Y., Cecilia Reyes Additional tags: mostly canon compliant (Infinity War and Endgame didn’t happen, Stark Tower still exists),  she/her pronouns, more tags/characters to be added with future chapters, hero Bucky Barnes, canon typical violence, warzone/disaster zone setting, Alpine the cat, other Marvel characters mentioned but not central to the plot,  Warnings: possible triggers for anxiety and PTSD, major triggers for death of loved ones and grief, chapter 5 only possible trigger for food

Note: Please heed the warnings for this chapter; it’s a bit intense. As always, I’d love to know what you think. xo Rhi

So Far Away Chapter 5/?

The first night you'd spent at Stark Tower was forgettable in the sense that you had completely forgotten most of it. Vaguely, there was a bath, and Bucky, then bed. That was pretty much it though. So, it wasn't like the day after needed to do anything particularly special to be considered memorable. And yet, it was.

As Bucky put all the Mexican food trash into the paper Ubereats bag, you flicked through channels on television.

"Have you seen this?" you asked, stopping on Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

"I know, I know! I don't know shit about anything, but in my defence, I've been busy helpin' to save the world since I've been… good," Bucky replied, highly defensive but also still in good humour.

"Um… I just meant, 'cause it's a super underrated Disney movie. And nobody's seen it, like Hercules," you told him, holding back a grin.

"Oh… Sorry. Sam's always yelling at me," he explained, throwing the Ubereats bag in the bin and walking back over the couch from the kitchenette.

"About movies?"

"About everything," he said, rubbing his face. "He's cut up about me missing, like, all of hip-hop."

It made you laugh, which motivated Bucky to continue his bitching about Sam Wilson. "And! He thinks me and Steve should have more 'refined taste' in everything." He used air quotation marks, which Natasha Romanoff had taught him to use, much to the dismay of Steve. ("Captain America.")

"Refined taste?"

"Yeah, basically he loses it when he we like anythin' he thinks is bad. Like…" Bucky cycled through his list of favourite things. "The Fast and the Furious movies."

An image flashed in your mind of Steve and Bucky, completely decked out in their respective gear, marathoning the films, cheering at every car stunt and use of the NOS button. It made you smile, genuinely happy.

Bucky continues, "They ain't my favourite or anythin', but they're fun, ya know? He's probably just upset that whenever we get in car races it's mostly someone trying to kill us,"

"I guess that's… fair, but he's… The Falcon… that's super cool?"

Bucky grinned, but quickly shook his head. "Don't ever tell him you said that, okay? Never tell Sam you think he's cool,"

"Is it like feeding Gremlins after midnight?" you asked.

"I watched that one! And, yeah. It's exactly like that,"

"But it's not like you guys don't get to see cool things… and be cool,"

"I guess… We're used to it?" Bucky thought for a second or two, wriggled into the couch and rested his arm along the back of it. You turned to face him, legs crossed and entirely attentive. "Before the war I loved reading about what new gadgets were comin' out. Used to drag Steve to anything with tech stuff. But then, Hydra. I wasn't really conscious enough to realise I was in the future," he told you, chuckling a little to himself like it was funny. It was so nonchalant that it shocked you a little. He hadn't stuttered saying their name, or shifted to a darker mood. "Whenever I got re-programmed, I was re-trained too. Whatever advancements they made, I learnt. Meant when Shuri fixed my head up, I wasn't that inept. Got it a lot easier than Steve that way,"

"Just movies and T.V. and stuff that you missed then?" you asked, feeling like you needed to keep him talking because you'd never heard anything so goddamn interesting.

"Yeah. Hydra didn't exactly have a Netflix subscription for me," he said. You said nothing. "That was a joke. You can laugh," Bucky told you, softly nudging your knee.

"I don't know how you joke about it," you said honestly.

He shrugged. "You'll joke about all this too, one day," he replied.

No. No, I won't.

Bucky saw the conflict flash across you face.

"It's not like there isn't things that still blow my mind… Wakanda, for one," he continued, pulling you from your thoughts.

"Is it as cool as it looks on T.V.?"

"Cooler. It's gotta be one of my favourite places. And when I met Wanda… She thought I was a bit of a meatball. Never met anyone with powers like hers, you know? She's amazing. And Vision. Still don't really get what he's about,"

"So, you are friends with Wanda Maximoff but you think Vin Diesel is cool?" you asked, affronted.

Bucky laughed. "No. I think the cars are cool. The stunts! Vin Diesel seems like a jerk."

Another image flashed. Someone in the world, Vin Diesel, knowing that The Winter Soldier thought he was a bit of jerk.

Bucky watched you laugh.

"Come on, then. What's this one about?" he asked, turning back to the television.

"Atlantis-"

"Underwater city? I'm in."

That's about where you realised that Bucky Barnes was a massive nerd.

It took Bucky ten minutes to tell you that you needed to keep warm, putting the knitted blanket over you. It took twenty to have him scoot closer to you, his arm still on the back of the couch, behind your head. About half an hour in, Bucky said, "Yeah, this is better than Snow White. I love this little mole guy."

Bucky was watching, listening for any signs that the lack of conversation had given you time to think, to spiral. But, it hadn't. Atlantis was a comfort movie for you, a distraction. He could see you smile and frown along with the characters.

"It was pretty obvious that this was gonna happen," Bucky said at the high point of the plot twist. He was aiming for a reaction. You looked at him fast and dramatic. "I'm good at picking the bad guys. Kinda my job."

At the rolling of the credits, Bucky asked, "Ice cream?"

As he put a collection of Ben and Jerry's on the counter top, Bucky caught himself in a sudden realisation. He was keeping you busy. Eventually, you'd notice, or the day would carry on and bedtime would come; the quietness between 'goodnight' and sleep would crush you, pushing from you anxiety and grief. But first, Bucky thought, ice cream.

"Half Baked," you said. Bucky handed you the pint and a spoon.

You watched him open the Strawberry Cheesecake, Cherry Garcia, and Urban Bourbon. "Variety is the spice of life," he said grinning, his voice a strange mocking tone, like he was parroting someone you'd never met.

"I genuinely don't know where all that food goes,"

"In here," he answered, lifting his shirt and patting his tummy.

"Yeah, but like, do you have one of those trash compactor things that mooshes it all down super small?"

Bucky laughed. "Maybe. Who knows what's going on inside 'ere."

You were sitting on a bar stool, leaning against the kitchenette's counter. Bucky put the spoons in the dishwasher and the uneaten ice cream away. He liked things in their place, you noted.

"So," he said, too casually. It felt, correctly, like a lead up. "How are you feeling?"

"Full," you answered, honest, but also not really.

Bucky looked at you, nodded. "What else?"

You dropped your gaze, breaking eye contact. A nervousness grew in you, the gatekeeper to all the bad. It was telling you to flee - answering the question wouldn't be nice. You could tell that Bucky wouldn't change the subject though. He could wait in that silence all day for you to speak.

"I…" you began. "I don't know. There's just… a lot,"

"Yeah. That makes sense. There is a lot… Probably good to start telling me about it." When you said nothing to that, he added, "Or someone else. We can-"

"I feel guilty," you blurted out, partly to stop him suggesting you talk to anyone else, partly because the gate was opening and the guilt as behind it in abundance. Bucky nodded like he already knew what you were going to say, and what you meant. "I… I'm here. Where I'm more than safe," you said, looking around at the suite. "But I haven't done anything to deserve it-" Bucky went to say something but stopped himself. "I'm not the most hurt, or the most useful person to save or anything like that. And then, I haven’t even looked-" That was it. The tears began to stream down your face, heavy and hot. You could feel them pooling in your shirt somewhere. The sentence you started was lost, completely drowned out by sobs.

Bucky remained composed. He fetched tissues from the bathroom, took it upon himself to clear your face, ready for the next wave. It arrived immediately. "Come 'ere," he said, pulling you into him. There would be wetness and snot all over his hoodie when you would eventually move, but you didn’t think of that in the moment and Bucky really didn’t care. He stood between your legs, rocking you gently on the stool for a minute before you spoke again.

"I haven't even looked for anybody," you said, so softly and so painfully that even priests in confessional booths would have hung their heads.

"How could you?" Bucky asked.

During the time before his head was really put back together, that is what everyone did with him. They challenged Bucky's questions, forced logic on him, rending much of the harmful conclusions he'd drawn about himself incorrect. It was a good strategy and he'd learned it well.

You half shrugged and kept crying. A cycle had begun in your mind. You were crying because you felt guilty, but that made you feel selfish and stupid. You thought you should be crying for other people. All of that, of course, made you feel more guilty, starting the cycle all over again. But maybe that cycle was easier to loop on than any real feelings of grief and loss.

"When were ya meant to have time to find people? Couldn't do it in the refuge centre. Too much goin’ on. And your hand was smashed, probably killin' you. And like Doc said - in shock," he said, paused, waited for a response.

Bucky's hands were moving up and down your back with enough pressure to calm you sobs into softer hiccups and sniffles.

"Yeah?" Bucky prompted. You nodded and shrugged simultaneously. "Okay, so, couldn't have done it on the way here or last night. You were exhausted. Could hardly keep yourself upright. Ain't much use to anybody like that."

You covered your nose with a tissue and sat up. Even if he didn't care, you didn't want him to see you with a face covered in snot. Bucky had the tact to look away while he continued. You listened as you wiped your face clean.

"This morning, whisked ya away to Medical. Then force fed you some food. And now, we're here. So, if you're asking me, darlin', not too sure when you think you were meant to do all this people finding, you know?"

Bucky could see it in your face that you knew he was right. When you nodded, saying, "I guess," he felt completely victorious.

You drank the glass of water Bucky poured for you, then took a breath in, two, three, out, two, three.

"Okay," you said, voice almost normal.

"Okay," he repeated in solidarity.

"Can we find them now?"

…

The room was definitely not for civilians, but nobody stopped Bucky from walking in with you. It was a buzzing hub of activity and urgency. Voices spoke fast, people moved faster.

"It's kind of like a command centre," Bucky tried to explain. "Whenever there's a threat, we have a response team that do… I guess what would happen if there was an earthquake or somethin'. Search and rescue. Coordinating relief."

You nodded and stayed close to Bucky's side, not wanting to get in anyone's way.

"Sergeant Barnes," a very tired woman greeted.

"Hey. I'm really sorry to-"

"No time for that. What can we do for you?" she cut him off.

"Finding people that were in the attack zone," he replied.

"Everything we know, F.R.I.D.A.Y. knows. Integrated systems. Find a computer, preferably not in here, and ask her. Anything else?"

"No. Thank-" but she was gone.

Bucky hooked an arm around your waist and walked you back to the elevator.

"She was amazing," you said.

Bucky grinned. "Never met her before, but yeah, lot of people like that around here."

On a floor of the tower that was much calmer, Bucky and you sat in what you supposed was some sort of crazy high-tech boardroom.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"

"James,"

"Oh, it's James now?"

"Yes. How can I be of assistance?"

The first step was making a list of everyone you knew who lived or worked in the part of D.C. that was affected. You named them, confirmed through social media accounts and DMV records.

"Do you guys have access to, like, everything?" you asked Bucky.

"Probably shouldn't answer that," Bucky replied, winking.

Step two was all F.R.I.D.A.Y. "I work fast, but I'd like to check my work, Y/N," she told you.

"If you can, can you check with-" Bucky went to ask.

"First responder reports?" F.R.I.D.A.Y. asked.

"Must be the day for being cut off by women smarter than me, huh?"

"I could be mistaken, James, but isn't that every day?"

Bucky laughed, looked at you for back up, but saw you staring at screen in front of you. The list of names.

Once you'd actually made it, you realised there were likely less people to find than you first though. Your housemate, Lucas, was a bike courier. He may have been out of the zone, 50/50 chance. Elizabeth, your best friend, lived on the next block over. She was home when the attack happened. You were watching her Instagram live; she was feeding her pet snake, Salem. Then, the girls at the hole in the wall café you worked at, Glory. You didn't know who was shift, so you listed all five.

There were more, but felt like naming everyone you knew would be greedy somehow. Bucky said, when you were ready, you could look through the list of the deceased. Even hearing the phrase made you feel sick though.

"Do you want to wait here?" Bucky asked.

You turned to him, ran your hands through your hair. "I don't know… I can't…" but whatever you couldn’t, you couldn’t even articulate.

Bucky nodded. "How about we get some fresh air? When we get back, F.R.I.D.A.Y. will have something for us?"

…

Out on the street, everything was loud. The whole back-in-reality thing really took you off guard. Seeing the city from the top of the Tower was different to this.

"I got ya," Bucky said, coming to walk right by your side. You looked over at him, and he offered his hand. You immediately accepted.

As you walked by multiple cafés, you wondered if Bucky had a favourite, or maybe there was a secret superhero club behind a hidden door in an inconspicuous bodega or Chinese restaurant. Alas, earwax - no such luck. Bucky held the door of a standard looking café open.

The guy behind the coffee machine nodded. "Buck,"

"Hey, Gee,"

"Seen ya's all on the news. Everyone okay?" Gee the barista asked, the genuine concern evident in his tone and expression.

"Ah, yeah. You know - nothing they can't handle," Bucky replied; you suspected it was the party line.

"Good, good. What can we get for ya then?"

"Don't worry about it, bud. I'll jump in line."

Gee shook his head and smiled as Bucky took his place in the queue to order. "You wanna grab a table? Or wait with me?" he asked you.

"Stay," you replied, stepping closer to him.

While you held your body in a way that shielded your broken bones from people's paths, it was easy being close to Bucky. He was probably very accustomed to being around the injured, so never accidentally hit the cast. You were grateful.

Bucky reached out and curled hair behind your ears, then leaned in to kiss the top of your nose. It was intimate, and brought solace. It was also very public; as he moved away, started greeting the girl at the counter, you realised there were more than a few pairs of eyes on you. Turning from the room, you stood closer to Bucky and listened to their conversation.

"You know I can't tell you that," Bucky said, leaning against the counter like he owned it.

"But, like, it's over, right? We won?"

"Tiff, would I be standing here if there was something else I could be doing?"

Tiff nodded, made a face like she'd been let in on a state secret. "Hmmm," she pondered for a second. Then, with pep, "So, the usual then? For one of Earth's mightiest heroes?"

Bucky rolled his eyes at her. "I hate you," he joked before looking at you. "What will it be?"

You hadn't really thought as far as ordering. Already feeling self-conscious and spaced out, the burning in your cheeks was getting hotter.

"Thinking maybe a pot of tea to share?" Bucky suggested, casual, but also sending you a quick wink - he was saving you again.

"Tea's great," you said.

After ordering, Bucky chose a couple of oversized armchairs by the window to sit in. He let you breathe, let you stare through the glass and people watch for a long time. He answered messages on his phone, checked in with Steve while you daydreamed. So deep in thought, or maybe just completely zoned out, you didn't even notice Bucky had made a call, or that the pot of tea had been placed on the small table between you.

Bucky said your name, but you failed to move. He reached out, tapped a knuckle against your knee. You gasped, felt your heart skip a beat.

"Sorry!" he said immediately. "Didn’t mean to scare you…"

"No, it's alright. I'm just… um,"

"You're alright, darlin'. How do you take your tea?"

It was a simple enough question, but you looked down at the table like it was all alien.

"Maybe you can make your own," Bucky said, pushing the tea tray closer to you. "Give you something to focus on. Bring you back down to earth."

…

Although you were hardly touching your tea or the cookies the staff brought over as a gift, Bucky let you sit for much longer than what anyone normally would. It was starting to get dark, the café closing around you, when you finally seemed to become aware of the rest of the world again.

"Oh. Should we go?"

"Sure," Bucky replied, standing and holding his hand out again.

After thanking everyone, you were out in the city, walking back to the Tower.

The silence that existed between you and Bucky was a comfortable one, but the closer you got to your destination, the more nervous you felt. Something in your mind snapped, told you to try to be normal. So, you started to talk. Fast. And a lot.

"Do you all go there? Like, the Avengers? It was nice. They really like you. The cookies were good-"

Bucky cut in, stopping you more than actually wanting to answer. "It's easier to go to the same places. The novelty of us eventually wears off," he told you.

"Yeah, people don't really stop staring, do they? Must get tiring, having everyone watch you all the time. And treat you different." You internally begged yourself to shut the fuck up.

"Guess I don't really know what 'normal' would be… Don't like people giving me free stuff all the time though. Don't need it. Not really a skip-the-line type of guy," he said.

You wondered how much charity he needed after Steve brought him back into the fold. Instead of asking about that, you thankfully went with, "Must be nice sometimes though?"

Bucky thought for a second. It was one of the changes in personality he experienced after Hydra. Bucky in the 30s and early 40s was a little bit of an attention seeker, a true lover of the limelight. Not so much anymore. He thought of you then - how you'd considered him to be a hero, and how you had needed him. How you still needed him.

"Maybe there's a couple perks."

You nodded, went quiet again. Bucky noticed that you switched between that frantic, almost manic state and scary quiet a fair bit. He rolled with it, a little notorious for the odd mood swing himself.

It was in the elevator of Stark Tower that you started to get jittery. The palms of your hands started to sweat, but Bucky didn't let go. He also tried to not seem like all of his attention was fixated on you, but it was. When he took you back to his suite, rather than the crazy high-tech boardroom, he thought about explaining why, but figured it wasn't one of the main things on your mind.

Sitting on the couch in the same place you'd eaten burritos for brunch, you pulled the knitted blanket back over yourself.

"Ready?" Bucky asked, sitting down next to you and putting a glass of water and box of tissues on the coffee table. You nodded. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., how'd you go?"

You felt sick, real deep down in your stomach. It was a pushing force, making you hot and uncomfortable. Suddenly, the blanket was too heavy and you pushed it away with a weird anger.

Bucky wanted to hold you, but he knew the sensation of feeling trapped by grief. He gave you space and braced himself for what was about to hit you.

"I'm not sure what the best order to deliver this is," F.R.I.D.A.Y. admitted. She knew the limits of her programmed humanity, and it was probably the most impressive thing about her.

"Good news first," Bucky said.

"I've located Lucas and Elizabeth. Lucas is currently residing in an apartment just outside the affected zone. It belongs to a Jacob Short,"

"That's his boyfriend's dad," you said, nodding to yourself. Lucas was safe.

"Elizabeth is currently admitted to Howard University Hospital. She has a broken clavicle and humerus, and damage to the glenohumeral joint - all to her right side. She is in stable condition."

You breathed out hard, then took a tissue to your face. You'd not even noticed that you'd started to cry.

"Glory was destroyed," F.R.I.D.A.Y. continued.

That's when you looked up from the patch of floor you'd been staring at. On the screen of the television, F.R.I.D.A.Y. had been showing you relevant things - the Facebook status geotagging Lucas at his boyfriend's family home, the rental agreement that showed who lived at that address, Elizabeth's medical records, even security footage of her in the hospital.

You shouldn't have looked up.

For a moment, Bucky didn't understand why your breathing had all but stopped. Average people don't get a slideshow to accompany their bad news. He looked at the screen. A photo, then another, showed the entire building Glory was a part of reduced to rubble.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., maybe we don't need the show with the tell," Bucky said.

"No!" you yelled. "I need to see."

If there was information, visual or verbal, you needed it.

"I logged into WorkForce using your credentials to view the roster. Two people were working at the time of the attacks: Carly Underwood and Ellie Gilbert," F.R.I.D.A.Y. told you. Before she said it, you knew it. "I'm sorry, Y/N. Both have been put on the list of deceased. Carly has been identified officially. Ellie is pending, but using our facial recognition and matching, I can confirm it's her."

You stood up, ripping the hoodie you were wearing off. If it was too hot before, now you felt like you were made of lava.

Bucky watched you start to pace. Your expression was alarmingly flat.

"The rest of your co-workers are safe. Only a Tara Constantine was in the affected area. She was on a bus moved to safety by Peter Parker."

There was footage taken from somebody's phone of Spiderman saving bus and carloads of people.

"I used your social media accounts to create an index of known people. As far as I can tell, you do not directly know anyone else on the list of deceased."

The phrase was still making you feel sick.

Bucky mistook that as F.R.I.D.A.Y. being finished. He thanked her, asked her to keep him updated if anything changed.

"Sorry, Sergeant. There's more."

Both you and Bucky went still. What else could there be?

"Your parents, Y/N,"

"They live on the other side of the city. Probably worried about me, right?" You turned to the screen, expected to see a worried Facebook posted asking if anyone had seen you. How could telling them you were safe not be your first thought? Stupid. Selfish.

On the screen was a grainy traffic cam photo of your parents driving. It was time and date stamped.

"They're fine," you said.

"Y/N, I'm sorry… Your parents aren't on the list of deceased-"

"Yeah, because they're fine!"

Suddenly, you remembered you did call them. You were still in the refuge centre, and it took you an hour to find someone with a phone willing to share. First, you called your dad, but it went straight to voicemail. Your mum didn't pick up. Only a month before, they'd had the landline switched off. How did you forget calling?

"But using street surveillance, I tracked their car into the affected zone. They got caught in the attack-"

"No. No. They hate that part of town. I didn't even move in that long ago and they already hate it. There's no reason for them to be there," you said, angry. No reason… except you.

"I checked through unidentified photographs-" she tried to continue, her voice noticeably more robotic than Bucky had ever heard it. He was grateful to have her then.

"The what?" you asked, confused and flustered and still feeling so fucking sick.

Bucky sighed, figured he should explain that one. "It's the same as natural disasters… When they find bodies, move them to try to identify them, they make a catalogue of photos to help. F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s saying she checked through them,"

"So? They're fine,"

"Our facial recognition and matching have a 100% accuracy record, but… I could be wrong," F.R.I.D.A.Y. said.

Bucky knew she wasn't, and was discomforted by her attempt at gentleness.

"Wrong about what?" you spat, already knowing.

"I believe your parents have passed away,"

"Show me," you said.

"Y/N, I-" from Bucky.

"Show me!" you yelled, moving to the screen, standing so close you swore you could feel the electricity buzzing from it.

The photographs from traffic cams were still up, static. You stared them down, waiting.

Bucky walked to you, stood behind you, held his breath.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. didn't speak again. She showed you all the photos of your parents she had found to base her conclusion on. The reach of her skills became apparent and terrifying. There was no way she and everything she could do, was legal. As photos from private accounts, devices, and websites flashed up, along with dozens from the DMV and work place IDs, you felt all the heat you'd brewed up drain from you.

Your body began to meltdown - you needed to pee, your mouth went dry, and earaches formed out of nowhere. It felt like you were being stabbed in the lower back. None of it made sense.

The screen went still again.

"Show me," you said once more.

Two overexposed photographs appeared on screen. Both were framed similarly - head shots of undeniably dead people. Also undeniable was the fact that they were the corpses of your parents.

"Turn it off," Bucky said.

The screen went black but you didn't look away. As long as you stayed there staring, the image wouldn't fade. You could see them in your mind. You could see the indent in your father's head, skull visible. You could see the blood on your mother’s face. Tape held their eyelids closed.

"Y/N," Bucky whispered, standing close. He waited for a response. Time was ticking by excruciatingly slowly. "Y/N, I'm gonna help you to bed," he said, but you flinched, so he stopped moving towards you. "Okay… That's okay. You can stay-" but before he could end the sentence with 'here,' you screamed out a guttural cry that mutated into sobbing.

Very quickly for Bucky then, time sped up again. It was moving too fast though. Your legs gave up, and he caught you only just before hitting the floor. You crawled out of his arms, along the floor, dry heaving between sobs and yelped of pain as you ignored the fact one hand was crushed. In the couple of seconds it took him to work out if you were going to throw up, you did. You puked all the Mexican and tea you'd had, then continued to crawl, making it close enough to a wall that you could lay on your side and lean against it.

Bucky knelt in front of you, tried to pull your hair into the tie that was usually around his wrist. Once successful, he went to retrieve a cold, wet wash cloth. He wiped your face but gave up when the sobbing seemed to get louder. He could make out words sometimes. For the most part, there was nothing coherent in your mind to articulate. You curled up into a ball, switching between deep sobs and outright screams.

Eventually, it all subsided into an even crying but you stayed in a tight ball. Bucky sat beside you, pressed close enough that he could feel each movement you made. After hours, once you'd gone quiet, Bucky whispered, "I'm gonna look after you, Y/N. Promise."

Chapter 6 coming soon...

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The Vampire Diaries Thoughts & Opinions (rewatch)

S1 :

OMG I completely forgot how cheap was this show! The dialogues in s1 feels so forced and fake 🤮 Not to blame the actors, but sometimes it feels really unnatural, like you know you’re in a fantasy young adult tv show. It doesn’t feel like real life, like what real people would do/say. It’s too obnoxious and dramatic and... overly intense ?? 😕 Rewatching it, it might be the biggest flaw of the early seasons 🤷‍♀️

They all look SO YOUNG tough 😳

Mmmm... Stefan acts like a total creep in s1, it’s really giving me Twilight vibes 😅 like if I was Elena/Bella, I would be terrified of Stefan/Edward ! 😰 They’re creepy and stalky and weirdly intense / edgy about ordinary stuff... Their entire personality screams : “I AM A VAMPIRE AND I CANNOT CONTROL MYSELF AROUND YOU” which... #yikes 🤔

Caroline Forbes is my favorite character of the entire show, I love her SO much ❤️ “I’m never the one” is still one of the most powerful lines, for me, and I loved her characterisation throughout the show

Matt has been irrelevant since s1 🙄, honestly he was maybe funny/quirky in the double-date episode and regarding his relationship with Caroline (while not having moved on from Elena)...? But that was like a couple of episodes and apart from that he was just useless. I do not understand why he stayed alive that long

Jeremy.... oh Jeremy 😔 He was... such a cliché! He was what adults see as the “typical” rebellious edgy teenager who does nothing of his life except smoking weed. And no, I don’t like that caricature. His relationship with Vicky... 🤷‍♀️ I mean, sure, it was sweet that he cared for her that way and that he saw more in her than just the “stoned-ass trashy girl” 💁🏻‍♀️ that she was supposed to embody. But Jeremy really acted like “The Nice Guy”and it seemed like he was expecting something for being nice with Vicky. He acted like if Vicky owed him something, while she never asked for him to interfere in her problems 🙅‍♀️ I don’t know, I guess he was just supposed to be a lost teen, damaged by trauma, and I get that.

OK, so if I was Elena, seeing Katherine’s picture would FREAK. ME. OUT 😱 I would run away. So far away. I would tell everyone I love to run away 👀 I would just completely shut down. I would never want to see the guy ever again (who clearly has a fetish and an unhealthy obsession!!). I mean, talk about being clinched to your ex

Damon and Caroline’s relationship was SO TOXIC in s1 !! 💥 And the show never really acknowledged that!! I mean, sure, they did, but I don’t think Damon realised the pain he caused her: he manipulated her, fed on her, hurt her, compelled her, used her to get what he wanted, abused her, put her life in danger, over and over again 🤢🤬😡

LEXIIIIIIIIII 💖💖💖 Finally! I remember I liked her a lot, but she’s just one of the best, purest character! I’m so happy Stefan can AT LEAST count on her 💕

WHAT?! 😱 SHE DIED SO SOON IN THE SHOW??!?? 💔😭 I didn’t remember that at all! I think my mind erased that fact from my mind because it hurt too much!

Ugh, Logan 😑

I hate what they did with Bonnie 😡 In s1 she’s this incredibly judgy character who ruins every single plan by having ridiculously high moral standards (for this fictional universe, at least), ugh. I love her but they used her to create unnecessary conflict in the show and she didn’t deserve that. Also she didn’t deserve all the pain, the deaths & the misery. She’s one of the (many) characters who have suffered SO MUCH throughout the seasons and they really did her dirty and i’m so mad about that !!

The flashbacks from 1864 were quite well done. I always found it interesting to learn more about Katherine’s past and the Salvatore brothers’ tragic origin story.

*sighs* John Gilbert... urrffffgh 🙄

Isobel being Elena’s biological mother AND Alaric’s ex wife was... so weird 🤨

Overall, I don’t have a lot of opinions for that season because I was bored half of the time 🤷‍♀️ I just really wasn’t interested about the plot and/or the characters because it was all so cliché and cheap. This season was really bad. It’s not working at all, for me at least.

S2 :

Katherine is a GREAT character and you can’t fight me on that 💁🏻‍♀️👠👑

The addition of the werewolves was quite a good idea, though it was predictable so far. Werewolves and vampires often come together in fantasy 🤷‍♀️ Tyler’s storyline was interesting though 🤔 The whole idea of a curse that you activate when you become responsible for someone’s death, no matter your intentions, was good.

CAROLINE BECOMING A VAMPIRE WAS ONE OF THE BEST THING HAPPENING TO THIS SHOW : YES ! 👏 She was such a better person as a vampire. She was arguably the best vampire of them all, the one who truly succeeded the most at adapting at her new life 💕

I DO NOT understand WHY Damon would ask for troubles to Mason, a werewolf, whose bite is DEADLY to him 🙄

Elijah was so different in s2 than I remembered. So uptight, and yet so evil ?? I remembered him as the nice brother in the Michaelson family. But the way he relentlessly targets Rose and her family and friends... yikes 😣🥺

Klaus was so HYPED by the show. Even Katherine herself was terrified of him 😱 And when you think about it, he might be one of the most dangerous creature of TVD’s lore... 🧐 But compared to other vilains, he was quite friendly.

Bonnie and Jeremy... mmm.... sure. You know what, it doesn’t scream “soulmate” but it doesn’t have to be. It can be just a messy, complicated, unexplainable crush. It can just be two people liking each other and enjoying each other’s company without trying to look for a deeper thing. Plus the situation is so awkward, with Jeremy being Bonnie’s best friend’s little baby brother, that it was fun to watch! 😄

My heart still feels for Jenna 💔 She had just learnt the truth about vampires and she had JUST figured out why everyone in her life was acting so weird... and then she died. And idk she was a lovely, messy, funny, pure heartface, completely lost gardian... 💕 and I’m gonna miss her. I would have liked to see her react to what happened next on the show (and how she could have supported Elena & Jeremy through all of this, etc.) 🥺

OF COURSE STEFAN WOULD MAKE A DEAL WITH KLAUS TO GET A CURE FOR HIS BROTHER! Is this Supernatural?

So, yeah, same thing here: most of the storylines developed in this season didn’t interest me whatsoever. So I don’t have a lot of things to say about this season, but just bear with me pls 🐻

S3 :

I absolutely adore Stefan as a ripper in s3. Especially regarding his complicated relationship with Klaus... I think his dependency / addiction to blood is really interesting 🤔 Stefan can’t be a regular vampire, drinking blood from humans then erasing their memories / drinking from blood blags. He can’t because he feels so guilty for the lives he takes / the pain he inflicts on other. So he’s like all or nothing 🤷‍♀️ A human blood-free diet guy. Or a merciless killer.

Regarding of the whole delena / stelena ship war... *sighs* 😔 I honestly don’t know 🤷‍♀️ Both relationships seem hella toxic (for different reasons, but still). I do believe Elena loved them both (maybe not at the same time, though). So, I don’t know who she should have ended up with... I remember shipping her with Damon on my first watch, but now I realise that was purely for the bad boy vibes (i.e bad boy, who, deep down, isn’t so bad because turns out he can change and blah blah blah... ugh what a cliché i know 🙄). So anyway, I’m not gonna defend Delena, it’s as messed up as Stelena if you ask me. But that’s where my heart went on the first watch and that’s who she canonically ends up with, so I’m not gonna fight it and try to make a case of whether she should have ended up with another person (or alone?). In my head, she’s with Damon 🙃 Just cause’ it’s easier, more convinient, and I’m lazy that way 😅 But I understand people who ship/prefer Stelena over Delena. I’m just not THAT invested in this freaking love triangle anymore ✋

The show really took off when they introduced the original vampires if you ask me 🧛‍♂️ Their backstory is so tragic, and after that, it makes more sense why Elijah, Rebekah and Klaus are so close, trust each other so much and manage to forgive the worst of each other💖

Rebekah, that poor girl who only ever wanted to have a human normal life and to BOND with people (whether they were family, friends or more than friends...) 💕has been betrayed by EVERYONE 🔪She was daggered more times than I can even count, and I’m surprised she hasn’t killed everyone out of pure revenge yet!

Yeeeeep. Still ships Klaroline. ❤️

My God, what would I give to see Caroline explore this world and enjoy the perks of her vampire life with Klaus...🥰 She wanted that. She secretly dreamed of that. And frankly, she deserved that. She deserved to feel happy and fulfilled and excited about her future! She deserved more than the life she got in Mystic Falls ✨ More than Tyler! More than Jessy. More than Damon. And more than Stefan too, even if she did seem happy with him in the end. I think I liked Klaus as a romantic option for the same reasons I liked Damon back then. For the challenge. For the way they always push their girlfriends further, and make them want more of life than what they’ve got. For the way they make them ambitious.

I think the reason this season feels so useless is because they try to find a way to eliminate the Original family... only to find out that if they do that, EVERY VAMPIRE EVER WILL ALSO DIE 👏

I despised the whole evil alter ego trope that they did with Alaric 😪😴 I liked the idea of the ring having real bad consequences. But here, Alaric can’t take responsibility for wanting to cheat on death precisely because he has a second personality that he cannot control. The blame is just put on somebody else, an entire other person that just cohabits in Alaric’s body. I never really liked the whole Dr Jekill & Mr Hide trope 🤷‍♀️ And I don’t think it was bringing anything to the table, honestly. It’s boring (because SO obvious and predictable) and it takes forever to deal with (ugh) 😑

NOOOOOOOOOO RICK 😭💔 He was one of my favorite character. I really loved his relationship with Elena and Jeremy + his friendship with Damon. I’m gonna miss him really hard. The scene with Damon on his grave was really sweet 🥺

S4:

Elena being a vampire : YES! 👏 We’ve been waiting for this for so long, the show really needed this to go on (realistically the show would have had trouble to move on if Elena would have stayed human for a lot longer). So I’m really glad about that being the premise for s4 ☺️ Plus her transition is well handled, with her memories coming back + her emotions being heightened (the scene where she bursts into laugh and cannot stop was really funny and somehow relatable 😂).

The scene in the car with Stefan, Matt & Elena VS Stefan, Elena & her father was really well done! 👏 I loved the parallel where she wants Stefan to save Matt first, just like her father wanted him to save Elena first. So touching 💕 It’s a tough choice and Stefan will have to live with both consequences for the rest of his life, which will NOT be easy with Damon blaming him for Elena’s death. But, really, Damon kinda has a point : "in what world are you [Matt] the one that gets to live?”. Matt has been saved so many times on the show and it’s legit to ask yourself : WHY? Why him? 🤷‍♀️He’s so irrelevant and useless. But I get that’s the whole point. Human life is irrelevant and useless (in the great scheme of things). And yet, we fight for it ✊ Because somehow it matters.

S4 helped me remember what I didn’t like about Stefan, regarding his relationship with Elena. He really had a big problem with her being a vampire, and he spent half of his time trying to “control” / “fix” her 🙄 He’s got such high standards for Elena when she turns into a vampire. It’s like he expects her to not make the same mistakes as he - or any other vampire in the history of vampirism - did. He desperately wants her to be a “good” vampire right away and avoid the “killer without humanity” phase 🤔 Which is understandable. He doesn’t want her to become a bad vampire who doesn’t care about human life, as he was during his ripper phase (or like Damon).

Damon truly accepted her, the new her, vampire! Elena 👐 You can argue that it’s because he’s selfish and he wants people to act as bad and carelessly as him (that’s why he tried to manipulate Stefan into drinking human blood again in s1 : he doesn’t want to be alone and he needs someone else to party with)... But he isn’t selfish when it comes to Elena 🤷‍♀️ The show proved us that. He wanted her to have a human normal life, to be happy, to grow old and have children. He wanted to give her that, and that’s why he would have saved her over Matt on the bridge. He’s not happy that she is a vampire. That’s not what he wanted. Never. But now that she is, and that there’s nothing they can do about it (that they know of), Damon tries to make the best out of it

Anyway, Caroline is such a better teacher then Damon or Stefan 😅 Drop the Salvatore brothers and get educated on the vampire life with your bff, Elena !

Elena being sired by Damon, OMMGG! 😮😮😮 So much drama, I really loved it. It was smart to use that as a way to postpone Delena for a little bit - playing on the general doubt that Elena might not truly love Damon and she might just be under the influence of the sire bond. Which, let’s be honest, was a legit consideration to have. So, yeah... REALLY GLAD that, in the end, the sire bond didn’t create those feelings out of nowhere, it only heightened and amplified what was already there beforehand. Otherwise, it would have been really problematic, especially regarding consent issues 😕

I love that Damon makes the right choice again with Elena and “sets her free”. He doesn’t want their relationship to be fake. And so he uses the sire bond to send her away, to be herself, to live her life without worrying about what makes him happy. You can say everything you want about Damon, at least he gets it right by her ☝️Just like when he confessed his feelings to her, but compelled her to forget because she’s in love with Stefan and he doesn’t want to mess it up. He was not selfish when it came to her.

It was really heartbreaking to see Jeremy becoming a hunter and having the sudden urges to kill his own sister and basically everybody else in his life 😢

Poor Carol Lockwood! 💔 She didn’t deserve to die. She tried so hard to help for Tyler, even when she learnt he was a werewolf, she cared so much for him...😭

Their inability to communicate with each other is INSANE. At some point in s4, they all know Shane is practicing a magic called “Expression”. Damon and Stefan also know that kind of magic is incredibly dark and dangerous (from their little trip to New Orleans when they tried to find a way to deactivate the sire bond and the witch there told them she wasn’t practicing this kind of magic). But NO ONE has still put two and two together. And so, Bonnie keeps blindly trusting Shane and hanging out with him 🤦‍♀️

The whole search for the cure was quite interesting and entertaining to watch! Each one of them wanted it for a different reason : destroy it, use it, share it, give it away, save it for later... Which really well portrayed how people can react to the idea of mortality. The fact that there’s only one dose was really genius! That makes it even more interesting to see who’s gonna fight for it (i.e. Rebekah, Stefan), who’s gonna just drop it because turns out they didn’t really want it to begin with (i.e. Damon, Caroline), who’s gonna exchange/bargain it and for what (i.e Katherine, maybe), who’s gonna get it the end and what will they do with it. Will it all be worth it? 🧐

Jeremyyyyy 💔😭 R.I.P 💀

Honestly, even though I still think Matt is irrelevant to the show, let’s remember he also has lost every single person in his life (his dad and his mom are basically gone, Vicky is dead, Tyler left town again, his goddamn history teacher died too) - and now he can add Jeremy, his best friend, to the list 😭 He’s handling it all WAY better than anyone else. I mean you don’t see him burning down the house he grew up in for instance! However, I agree that Elena have lost more people in her family than him (her adoptive parents, Jenna, Alaric, Jeremy, even John... and Isobel is basically gone too). But it’s not like you can compare their lost, anyway. They boty suffered a lot, but I just wanted to say... I liked that the show acknowledged Matt lost someone important for him too 💕

No humanity! Elena, OOMMMGGG!! 🤯 I was so mad when it happened, because Damon could have just used the sire bond to make her deal with her brother’s death, he could have just helped through the grief and tell her it was going to be okay. He didn’t need to make her turn off her humanity 🙄 Real dumb move here!

I kinda liked the friendship between Elena without humanity and Rebecca! Their little trip starting off in NY was fun!

Katherine is, and will always be, the baddest bitch in town! ❤️ I was quite surprised to see her kill Jeremy so heartlessly, but I guess it fits the character. She’ll always be looking out for herself and the opportunity to take the cure and be one step ahead of everyone was obviously too good to leave out. She always had to fight for her own survival, in a world that’s always been dangerous and ruthless against her, so it makes sense she became who she is 🤷‍♀️

Of all the things that could have triggered Elena’s humanity flip switch, really? Matt Donovan? 🤨😑 I mean, it makes sense since Elena seems to value his life over everything else, including her own. But from what we’ve seen so far, she wasn’t really happy when she was dating Matt 😕 They used to fight a lot, they didn’t want the same thing out of life, they just were really different people. And that’s fine, they didn’t work out as a couple, but they can stay friend... Except you don’t really see them interract THAT much as friends. I mean it’s a lot of "say" and not enough "show", for me 🧐 You don’t feel the bond that two best friends should have... between them. You don’t see inside jokes, common interests, similar hobbies, laughters and tears, serious conversations that last for hours, or small talks over the phone... Anyway, from what we were shown so far, she shouldn’t feel that close to Matt. Not more than, idk, Bonnie, Caroline, Damon or Stefan for instance! So the fact that she cares SO MUCH about him is kinda strange 🤔

“He was your first love, I intend to be your last. However long that takes” LOOK WHO’S BAAAACK 👀 My favorite hybrid! Awww of course he was gonna come back for Caroline ❤️

Btw the ceremony was very cute 💕 It’s the end of high school! The end of an era! And they all graduated 🍾🎊🎉

Awwwwww, when Bonnie dropped the veil and everyone got to see their dead friends and family again! Stefan & Lexi, Damon and Alaric, Elena & Jeremy 💖

BONNIIIIIE, OH NOOOO, WHYYY 😭💔 oh no no no no no no no, she wants to keep her death a secret from everyone, that is such a bad idea!!! 😣

OMG SILAS IS A DOPPELGÄNGER OF STEFAN !!! 🤯 POOR STEFAN IS STUCK IN THE BOTTOM OF THE LAKE AND NO ONE KNOWS, NOOOOOO 💔😭

S5 :

The whole college experience with Caroline and Elena was so fun to rewatch😁 I wish Bonnie could have been there though, even if she kinda was.

It feels good to watch Elena and Damon being happily in love together and enjoying the summer ❤️☀️ But when you think about Stefan drowning over and over in that lake... it feels so bad :(

Katherine as a human is devastatingly entertaining! "I’m the freaking moonstone" 🤣 So iconic that she, of all people, took the cure! I loved that twist.

I loved the complicated and messy love triangle between Quetsiya, Amara and Silas. I want to empathise with Quetsiya and support her, because Silas screwed her over in such a supernatural, mystical way... he cheated on her and tricked her. He manipulated her to get what he wanted. So yeah, I’m all team Quetsiya ✊ but then again, she is sort of over-paranoid and obssesive? 🤷‍♀️ And being screwed over by a guy doesn’t exactly justify her quest for vengeance. So... I guess the only one who’s okay is Amara?? We don’t see a lot of her but I respect her wish to die after thousands of year in pain, as the anchor of the other side (which, btw, was BRILLIANT! 🤯 Quetsiya’s a genius! o.O)

"You are my life" ❤️ GOD, Damon always finding the right words!

I hate the travelers storyline 🙅‍♀️ I find it incredibly boring and I’m not that attached to Nadia. The only thing I liked about her was her relationship with her mom, Katherine. But apart from that, I don’t really like them as villains, nor as their storyline with Silas 😑😕

Stefan loosing his memory is okay-ish. It’s such a cliché as a trope, but it sort of works because Paul Wesley does such a great work at portraying different Stefans 👍 and it’s always entertaining to watch. And even though I usually ship Delena, I have to admit Elena recreating some moments with Stefan was very cute! 💕So it works but I’m not a big fan.

What I am a big fan of is the evolving relationship between Damon and Jeremy! 🥰 I mean, you can see that he didn’t really care about him, that he was mostly protecting him as a way to please Elena... But then, something changed 🤔He started caring for him for real, kinda like a big brother would:)

"You’re Katherine Pierce. Suck it up" hell yes 💪 keep fightingt, love !

Awwwwwww Bonnie 💔 Why do you always have to sacrifice yourself and put everyone else’s happiness before your own?? It’s really sad to see her becoming the anchor of the other side, feeling literally every single death of all the supernatural beings out there :’(

The Augustine vampire storyline!! 😮I’ve had completely forgotten about that! I love how they connected Damon with that institution, and how they introduced Enzo as Damon’s old mate. Well done👍

Katherine in Elena’s body: OMG! Love it! She’s such a survivor ❤️ That’s gonna mess things up so bad xD (btw the fact NO ONE notices anything is kinda weird and if I was Elena, I would be offended)

Nooooooo, don’t break up with Damon as Elena !!! 😱😱 Uuuughhh!!! Whyyy 😭

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG CAROLINE SLEPT WITH KLAUS !!! ❤️HELL YAS B**CH!!! SHE FINALLY ADMITTED HER FEELINGS FOR HIM !!! THEY KISSED !!! IT’S OFFICIAL !!! (i know klaus will never come back to TVD ever again buuuut... i’m still so so SO happy about that Klaroline reunion!)

Awwwww my baby Liv ❤️ I’ve missed her, she was so precious in season 5 !

Katherine AGRESSIVELY flirting with Stefan, while pretending to be Elena, was... both fun and hard to watch 😅Katherine was soooo pushy! And the fact that Stefan still doesn’t see she’s not Elena was infuriating! Like there’s just no way Elena would ever act like that!

"You’re never gonna as interesting as the next guy she wants to sleep with” poor Nadia 😭 that’s so true though :/ she didn’t deserve to die, I was really sad for her. She deserved a better life than the one she’s got 💔💔💔

FINALLY! 🙌 Finally they put two and two together and figured out Katherine is inside Elena’s body! Thank God 🙏 Caroline made me laugh so much with her "it��s Elena, we would have noticed something" speech. I was like YES. MY POINT EXACTLY 👏 I loved when they figured out all the little details that have been wrong ever since the beginning of this whole mess, like : Katherine was the reason that Tyler knew Caroline slept with Klaus. And Caroline’s like : oooohhh it all makes sense now. Wow. Congrats for figuring this out just now! 🙄

R.I.P Katherine ❤️ Weirdly, she will be missed. She did deserve better.

Jeremy was kind of a jerk with Bonnie in s5 ? I mean he was okay in the first few episodes i guess but then he completely ignored her... not cool bro, not cool 👎

The whole "Why do people seem to expect more of me?" speech of Caroline felt very relatable 👏 Just because she’s kind, because she’s trying to do good, doesn’t mean it’s easier for her! 😤 Plus, why do people keep slut-shaming her for having sex with Klaus when she’s not the first, nor the last, to have had one night stands with - arguably - bad people! ✋

Damon and Elena breaking up : lol 😆 As if. We know they’re endgame. Please. It’s only a matter of episodes until they find their way back to each other, which is why they are kinda cute as a couple.

Ugh 😑 Markos 🤦‍♀️ I just can’t ✋

Bonniiiiiiiiiiie !! Stop lying to everybody!! I hated how she was pretending she had a spell to escape the Other Side collapsing! Haven’t you learnt anything by now? Talk to your friend, figure out a plan together and if not, at leat say your goodbyes and enjoy your last moments with them!

Did I already say I hate the travelers storyline? Well, I do. I hate it 🤬

Season 5 finale was PEFRECT, I loved it. Bonnie resurrecting everyone, Liv doing the spell, Silas helping them just to be destroyed in the end (a fitting ending), Damon and Elena driving through the Grill to kill all the travelers, Alaric coming back, Markos dying... BUT. But, but, but, I was so upset about Damon!! It was just a matter of time and if they would have just kept going with the spell for a few seconds (damn you, Luke!), he would have been able to come through! And Lexi, omg 😭 at least she found peace❤️

Btw, that’s exactly what I meant about Bonnie’s character. Throughout the seasons she never stops sacrificing herself for other people (sometimes those people don’t even deserve it). She keeps lying to everyone. She lied when she died the day of graduation. She didn’t say how much it hurt her to be the anchor. She lied when she said they had a way to bring her back from the Other Side when it was collapsing. She kept minimising her (big-ass) problems. She kept putting other people before herself. And she’s one of the characters who suffered the most. Her storyline revolves around pain. The show doesn’t allow her to be fully happy. And btw, no one truly cares about her happiness (except maybe Jeremy and then Enzo), at least not when somebody else’s safety or comfort is at play. She’s never number 1 on the priority list. If somebody needs her to do a spell or whatever, they will use her. No matter how much danger she puts herself in 🤬

"Please don’t leave me” 😭😭😭 I felt that... It crushed my heart 💔

S6 :

I loved the way everybody coped with Bonnie and Damon’s deaths 💕 Elena got addicted to some magical herbs that made her hallucinate Damon again because she couldn’t deal with his death. Jeremy left a tone of angry voicemails to Bonnie’s old phone - which he paid for. Caroline got dragged into work and research in order to find a way to get back in Mystical Falls. Stefan moved on completely and started off a new life. It’s just... a nice way to show grief 😊

Ooohh I smell some Steroline moments!! Poor Caroline. To me, she deserved better than Stefan! He was such a jerk to her, especially in the beginning 😤😡

NOOOOOOOOOOOO 💔 ELENA DON’T ERASE YOUR MEMORIES! WHAT! WILL! YOU! DO! WHEN! DAMON! INEVITABLY! COMES! BACK! Elenaaaaa 😤 You have to learn how to deal with grief for real !

The fact she trusts Rick completely to do that was so beautiful though... They’re family and it was nice to see their bond.

Bonnie and Damon were kinda cute ! Like I don’t ship them, per say. But I get why some people do 🤷‍♀️ They had chemistry and they worked as an enemies to lovers trope. Anyway, I personally liked their friendship, how they both learnt how to support each other, how to function as a team, how they helped each other through the worst! In the end, Damon truly cared about her, and that’s why he was ready to do anything in order to save her 💪

Kaaaaaaiiiiii 🙈 i’m so conflicted about ya

I totally ship Jalaric ! ❤️ I loved how Elena tried to fix them up together! They’re really cute together. They both have complicated pasts and a messy family. They understand each other :) And Jo is such a confident woman! She knows what she wants, she’s not afraid of speaking her mind, she’s kinda fierce!

The fact that Elena wanted her memories back JUST when Alaric became human again was just... aaarrghh 🤬

"I think I deserve better than that” YES 👏 YOU 👏 DO 👏 CAROLINE! Stefan treated you like shit and you’re right to protect yourself, sweatheart 💕 I really didn’t like how he tried so hard to make amends... without acknowledging how much he hurt her, how he abandoned everyone, how he behaved like a jerk. I liked that Caroline took some distances for her own good 💖 #SelfRespectIsReal

The Gemini coven was really interesting. This idea of such a dysfunctional family, with a psychopath brother who killed half his siblings to merge with his twin sister in order to get leadership for the coven... it was all very compelling! Loved it ❤️

I think I have a thing for storylines about supernatural families in TVD : the Salvatores, the Mikealsons, the Parkers !

Liv and Tyler... mmm... don’t care 🤷‍♀️

You’re telling me that Damon got out of the prison world, even KAI got out, and BONNIE still gets stuck over there!! 🤬 Wtf ?? Why does this show hate this character so much? Why is she always the one who gets screwed in the end?? I just hate the way they treated her!! 😱

There was literally no good outcome to that whole twin-merging-together mess. If Liv merged with Luke, one of them would die and that’s not an option! If Kai merged with Jo, there was a huge chance he would win, which is simply not acceptable at all. Anyway, what a mess!

Kai literally sucking all the magic from the travelers’ spell, finally breaking it, allowing vampires to come back to Mystic Falls, was just... wOw! o.O

Luke merging with Kai 😭 R.I.P 💔

The ONLY good thing about that merge was watching Kai trying to deal with his feelings like ??? what’s going on??? 🧐🧐Why do i... feel??... stuff ?? 🤨🤨

"So I googled how to process emotional pain", i mean i hear you my boy, let’s not pretend that’s not my usual monday 👩🏻‍💻 "so i start writing and this water literally started pouring in my eyes ?? does that ever happen to you ??”, again same 😂

Jeremy going to art school... meh, it was okay. Clearly they didn’t know what to do with him anymore, so yeah, why not art school? 🤷‍♀️ The going-away party was nice :) Damon giving a joint to Jeremy was sort of sweet, Elena smoking it with him was also cool and quite funny!

Ugh 😑 Enzo & Sarah Salvatore... 🙄 this storyline was so boring, i just didn’t care

First Steroline kiss! 😳😮 Okay, that was kinda cute, I have to admit. But still, I don’t like the fondation of this ship, I think that Stefan hurt her too bad and, most importantly, didn’t respect her enough to get to come back and kiss her.

Sheriff Forbes being sick was KILLING me 😭😭😭 She didn’t deserve that at all, she was the sweatest, kindest, purest, most compassionate woman on this show... and she passed it on to Caroline...

The scene with the bike and little Caroline was so touching ❤️❤️😭 RIP Liz’!

OMGOMGOMG!!! Caroline flipped her humanity switch! 😱 "I just need the pain to be gone" 😭 I get why she did it, and I also thought Elena was being a little bit condescending with her. She had the right to turn it all out. Everyone else did. I get why she thought it was unfair :/

BONNIE’S BACK Y’ALL ❤️❤️❤️

I do not understand why people on this show just won’t accept people turning off their humanity switch 🤷‍♀️ I mean, Stefan, Damon, Elena,... they all did it! And every single time, the others tried really hard to fix that. And I’m like : why? I’m not sure it’s the smartest move here 🧐 Because they usually end up making things worse 😑 Look at Elena : she just wanted to not feel the pain of her brother’s death for a while. She even tried to make a deal with Stefan and Damon : leave me alone, let me do my things and I’ll behave. But of course, they refused 🙄🤦‍♀️ Because they couldn’t accept the fact that their precious Elena would ever be bad and do bad thing 😒🙄 And then Elena became ruthless! Who would have thought? 🙄 Same for Caroline! The poor girl lost her mother. She just wanted to get waisted, sing some karaoke songs, and live her vampire life without any care in the world. She even erased Liam’s memories when she fed on him. Her first instinct was to buy new clothes to start over and come back to her dorm to keep leaving her old college life! She kinda had it under control 🤷‍♀️ And then, she suggested a deal, kind of like the one Elena tried to make with Stefan and Damon :☝️ one year without humanity, and she behaves and doesn’t kill anyone. That’s a good deal if you ask me 🤷‍♀️ Why not let her have that? Why not agree with that deal? Caroline without humanity is still Caroline (sort of) : she’s functional, and to quote Caroline herself : she is not an idiot. She doesn’t want to feel so she’s ready to do anything to not be bothered. I think she would have respected her end of the deal. If you take a good look at it, in both cases, it’s when other people tried to bring them back, when they broke the deal, that Elena/Caroline became killers.

Stefan shutting off his humanity was so dumb 🤦‍♀️🙄 Elena was going to find Sarah, he still had time! And even if she didn’t, and Liam killed Sarah, it’d be one ☝️ dead body. But by turning off his humanity, Stefan practically ensured that there’d be more dead bodies after that!

Damon’s mom... urf, yeah? sure. I guess I should care? 🤷‍♀️ Honestly, even when I first watched the show, I found that storyline super boring. She didn’t inspire me anything whatsoever. Anyway, using her as Stefan’s emotional trigger was sort of smart, but kinda reckless. I mean, they had no idea if it was gonna work or not, and still they still risked it, I-... urf 🤦‍♀️

I liked Stefan’s little revenge 😈😈 He’s like : no, no, no, Caroline, you don’t get to have an elaborate system that protects you from feeling guilt whenever you’ll decide to turn your humanity back on. I’m gonna make your life a living-hell. I’m gonna break you. You don’t get to ruin MY life and keep being the same control-freak, organised, college girl 💁‍♀️

Alaric&Jo thinking about baby names 🥰

The cure is BACK??? Hell no 😤 I mean, sure, it was interesting the first time, don’t get me wrong. But we’ve already watched that storyline. So 🤷‍♀️

Btw, I hate how suddenly, everybody’s like "omg poor Elena will NEVER get the life that she truly wants, she’s condamned to an eternity as a vampire, without ever having the possibility of settling down and starting a family" 😱 like i don’t know Elena’s been FINE about her vampirism for like 4 seasons. She seems happy, she seems to have found a way to make the best out of it. But sure, NOW that the cure is back, she feels like her life is unbearable - how convenient🙄

"For the first time, I’m putting ME first" HELL YES, BONNIE ✊🏿 I wish she could do that more often though.

Awwww Caroline getting her humanity back was really sad and emotional 💕💕The LETTER 😭 The fucking letter 😭 "I’m sorry Stefan, I ruined everything" 😭

Are we gonna address Matt, Tyler and Alaric’s alcoholism or are we simply gonna pretend they don’t have a drinking problem and their behaviour is totally socially-acceptable ?? 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I know it was her choice and it was probably for the best, but I think Elena taking the cure was a big mistake 😕 The show was way more entertaining when she was a vampire, and they basically erased every possibility of a "happy" ending for my favorite characters 💔 Elena will loose everyone she ever cared about, including Stefan and Caroline. She will have to move out of Mystic Falls and isolate herself from all her former friends. Damon is taking the cure with her so he will have to say goodbye to his own brother, the only family he has left. All of that... for a human life ?? A meaningless job?? Bills to pay?? School?? Money issues?? A house to maintain?? Misery and despair?? Children?? In that messed up world?? With that economy??? And the environment crisis we’re living?? Nope, I don’t get it 🤷‍♀️ I just don’t.

Secretly, I had always dreamed of Elena, Stefan, Damon and Caroline all being vampires and spending eternity together. And double date forever, I guess 😅

NOOOOOOOOO 😭😭😭 R.I.P Jo 💔

LIV !!!! 💔 NO, NO, NO, NO! Whyyyy 😭

AND THAT BASTARD GETS TO LIVE!!! What did do you do Lily? Oh my freaking God, why would you turn Kai into an heretic? He was already such a pain in the ass and now he’s even more powerful! Thanks to you, he has killed his entire family and he gets to live!! 🤬🤬

I ABSOLUTELY HATE WHAT THEY DID WITH BONNIE AND ELENA!! That whole "I linked your life with Elena’s" 😡 Cause it’s like : OF COURSE, we want to pick the main character. Of course we want Elena to come back to life. Of course we would be ready to sacrifice Bonnie if it means that Elena gets to live in the present with her friends and family. BUT BONNIE DOESN’T DESERVE THAT! She deserves to be the one, as Caroline used to say, to be picked upon everybody else. She deserves to live as much as Elena, even more (after everything she has done, everything she has sacrificed for her friends). She deserves to be happy! But now, everyone resents her for being alive, because if she’s alive then that means she is taking "Elena’s place". Now she feels guilty for being alive and breathing. For. Fucking. Being. Alive. Think about that. Again, I’m sorry if I repeat myself but : WHY THE HELL DID THIS SHOW HATE BONNIE’S CHARACTER SO MUCH?? 🤬🤬🤬

I’m just gonna say it once : The show is just not the same without Elena 🤷‍♀️

Btw, I KNOW Kai specifically said not to try anything to undo the spell he casted - otherwise Elena and Bonnie would BOTH die... But I’m surprised they didn’t even try to search for a loophole 🤔 I mean, let’s be real, when has Damon ever listened to anyone trying to reason with him? When did any of them? 🤷‍♀️ Bonnie would NEVER stop looking for a magical loophole to save her best friend. Caroline would read an entire library of mystical books to find a clue. Stefan and Damon would travelled the whole world to meet with different witches, trying to find some kind of magic that could undo the spell. No one would ever listen to Kai and just do nothing! I mean, he could be bluffing for all they know 😵 He could be saying that in order to mess with them. Were they really gonna take his word for granted? 🤔 I’m not saying "try the first anti-spell you find and roll the dices", but at least try and look for something!

S7 :

Anyway, AT LEAST, we get to see some good sweet Bamon scenes ! I love how Damon seemed to genuinely care about Bonnie. He didn’t want her to die, even if it meant he would see Elena again 💕

"You’re my best friend" awwwwww ❤️

I... liked the Heretics!😳 They were a fun new, even if they reminded me of Pearl and her vampire friends (in the "we are trying to coexist with humans but some of us don’t want to" trope). And again, I kinda have a thing for supernatural dysfunctional family, so... 🤷‍♀️ Valerie was very relatable as a depressed immortal being, Beau was so loyal it was really sweet, Malcom was boring but he died pretty quickly so he wasn’t in the show for long, Mary Louise and Nora were... the absolute cutest couple ❤️

How many times can they evacuate Mystic Falls without people realizing something’s wrong? 🤔 How many stories about gaz leak can they come up with?? 🤦‍♀️ Where are all the humans going? They’re moving away because they’re all compelled, sure, but to go where? like how can that many people find new homes in new cities, especially considering this crappy housing market? It just seems pretty unlikely that these people would just start over so easily, find new jobs, new homes for their families🧐

Stefan & Valerie was basically Steferine all over again 🤷‍♀️ I don’t have anything against Valerie herself. I think she’s probably the nicest one amongst the heretics. I even liked her chemistry with Stefan but it’s the same storyline recycled all over again, so I don’t really care much. Plus, I liked the idea that Katherine was Stefan’s first love (💕). First of all, Katherine being Stefan’s first love makes their story... EPIC. We, as an audience, care deeply about Katherine (whether we like her or not). She’s a regular and important character. We want her to have a compelling story, one that fits the legend that was Katherine Pierce. Valerie, as nice and interesting as she can be, only appears in the two last season. Plus, if Stefan had already been in love with Valerie and had already had his heart broken BEFORE knowing Katherine, then he should have acted differently when he met her 💡 He should have been way more suspiciously towards her 🧐 he wouldn’t have so easily trusted another woman, coming at his door with a pity story... if he had already been betrayed and abandoned by THE FIRST WOMAN he ever loved, the one who took his "v-card", his first love.

Hello Oscar... Goodbye Oscar 👋

Are you kidding me ? Bonnie is in pain yet again, because of some mystical element AGAIN, and nobody cares AGAIN. People keep using her, lying to her, manipulating her to get what they want and I- 🤬 Btw HOW is she okay with this? How would Bonnie ever agree to help raise people from the dead? What about her values and morals? What about everything she believes in??

These "Three Years from Now" scenes were just TERRIBLE 🤦‍♀️ Epic failure. I simply don’t care about whatever happens in the "future”. I’ll make my own headcanons, thank you ✋

JULIAN... UGH 🤢🤮 Could you be even more despicable?? Beating up a pregnant woman to the point of loosing her baby?? Poor Valerie, she didn’t feel like she could tell her own mother about that cause’ she knew Lily wouldn’t believe her 😢

Awwwwwww Ric bringing ""Jo"" back from the dead 😭💖 I felt bad for that poor vampire who just woke up in somebody else’s body, after years being trapped in some hell... And It was really heartbreaking to watch him get his hopes up and then realise she wasn’t his wife :’(

OMG CAROLINE’S PREGNANT??? 🤰WITH RIC’S BABIES??? 😱 I... I don’t even know what to think of that. I don’t really know how to react... Good for the twins? I guess? Yay, they’re alive? But... I don’t know, seems kinda rapy to put someone else’s babies inside a woman’s body without her consent ?? 🧐

The fact that Valerie HAD to confess her very traumatic story, to multiple people, MULTIPLE TIMES... because it was convenient to the plot was disgusting! 🤮🤬 She was merely used as a reason to try to kill Julian... Valerie was beaten by Julian to the point she lost her baby! She never said anything because she was afraid no one would believe her/people would judge her/people would hurt her - which is completely understandable considering how traumatic this must have been for her! But then she comes back to MF and Stefan keeps asking her to justify herself like she owes him a goddamn explanation for not having returned earlier as she had promised... um? I get that Stefan had his heart broken back then, but aren’t you mature enough NOW to understand something wrong must have happened?? And that maybe she just doesn’t want to talk about it because it still hurts?? It’s HER life and she is entitled to live it however the hell she wants?? EVEN if she just changed her mind and decided not to come back for an entirely different reason, it’s her choice! Having sex with someone ONCE doesn’t mean you OWE them anything! 🤦‍♀️🤬 Promises were made, sure, but they were both very young and things can change! ANYWAY... And when they need allies to kill Julian, she is almost forced to tell her story again, just to make people feel pity and sympathy... She’s not a damn tool, for God’s sake, respect the poor girl! 😤

While rewatching the show, I kind of like that they addressed Lily’s romantic patterns and how she had a tendency to chose violent, controlling, abusing husbands (first Giuseppe, and then Julian...) 🧐 It was touching to hear her story, and to understand that she only stayed with Giuseppe back then to protect her sons, Damon & Stefan. She had a plan to run away, she wanted to escape because she knew she was in danger with him, she was well aware he wasn’t treating her right. But sometimes you can’t just go away. Sometimes things are more complicated. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ I liked that she realised her own pattern and that she tried to stand up for herself against Julian after that... even though it didn’t end well (which... seriously? 🤦‍♀️ She killed herself? Is that the message you wanna send to all the people stuck in abusive/violent relationship? 🤮)

Poor Lily 😭😭😭 R.I.P. 💔

Damon burning Elena’s coffin... 🔥🔥 Yeah. Sure. As if 🙄 Honestly, even on my first watch, I wasn’t believing it. The show without Elena is such a catastrophic mess! If she had died in her sleep, it would have been devastating. I don’t think the show would have survived that. I think it would have been cancelled before s8, or something like that.

Stefan was... surprisingly not reacting a lot to Caroline being PREGNANT🤰?? I mean... I don’t know... I was expecting some kind of big talk about it. Like "hey Caroline, how are you feeling about all this? What are your thoughts about having Ric’s babies? Do you even want to pursue the pregnancy (cause you DON’T have to carry someone else’s babies!)? What does this pregnancy mean to you? What will happen once the babies are born? Would you consider having shared custody with Ric? Or if you don’t want to be involved at all, would you like the twins not to know you were the one who carried them? Did you ever or would you ever want to be a mom? Would you want to have children of your own in the future? Do you ever think of that?” 🤷‍♀️ And those are just EXAMPLES. He didn’t have to ask all of these questions all at once! But you know, I wish they could have at least discussed some of these points together. Instead, he just let her "handle her things", because good old organised Caroline has every figured it out, of course! 🙄🙄 sure, she can take care of everything on her own 🤦‍♀️

I didn’t like the idea of putting Damon & Stefan in the Phoenix Stone... if it was all JUST to do THAT in the end. They tried to add some PTSD, pain and remorse but failed at making it compelling to the audience. Wooow, Stefan must let go of his toxic relationship with his brother in order to save himself... How obnoxious can you be, TVD? And oooohh, Damon must get rid off his toxic masculinity to face the fact that he loved and misses his mother... how original!! 🙄 I just feel like TVD was trying hard to be deeper than they were, and it didn’t work (for me)

FINALLY JULIAN IS DEAD 🙌🙏🎉

The Huntress was, like, a JOKE, okay? She’s supposed to have killed a thousands of vampires. Even heretics feared her. Stefan & Damon should already have been dead by now! What is she doing? How are we supposed to be afraid of her? She’s not doing anything, she is barely a threat 🤦‍♀️

Am I the only one who kinda saw great chemistry between Nora and Bonnie?💕

I LOVE how Klaus just IMMEDIATELY understood that Caroline was NEVER gonna let go of these kids 😍 I just love how he ultimately gets her, how he’s able to predict exactly what’s she’s going to do because he just knows her that well. Their phone talk was VERY cute ❤️ I love how he teased her with her own words : how she said she couldn’t possibly allow herself to be with him because she was "in college, building a life for herself” and he just wasn’t in the picture... and then turns out... she had kids! 😅 He sounded surprised but not completely shocked and I love how he was very understanding and sweet with her, she needed that 💕

Btw this season is just desperately LONG!

Awwww... Caroline... 😬 I understand why she wanted to stay in Dallas, and why she asked Stefan to consider moving here... but she should have been honest with him right away, the minute he picked up the phone. She should have told him she wanted to be involved in these kids’ life. I know that she was afraid Stefan wouldn’t want to “settle down" with her and take care of the twins... but she could have asked him. Directly. Clearly. Maybe he wouldn’t have minded living with her and raising the twins in some kind of shared custody 🤷‍♀️ Family comes in all shapes and sizes (💖), and as long as they told the truth to the twins, it wouldn’t have been a problem. And if Stefan didn’t want that at all, or wasn’t ready, or whatever, then they could have ended their relationship in a healthy way. By acknowledging they both wanted different things and that it just didn’t work out, as it often happens in life. But here, they’re just stuck in the middle... and it’s awkward 😳😐 Clearly, Caroline wants to live near the girls. She wants to be their mom, and clearly Stefan doesn’t seem THAT into it. But no one is saying anything and it’s just weird! 😤

I understand why Damon would make the choice of dessiccating in a coffin until Elena came back 🙂 He didn’t do it just for love. Not just because he missed her. Not because life was unbearable without her. That would have been really lame btw 😒 He did it because he didn’t want to directly or indirectly hurt people around him. And you know what, for once that was kind of the best, most reasonable - and most noble - decision to make. I was proud of him. The letter he gave Alaric was pretty sweet, but I’m glad Bonnie got to catch him before he left 💕

Bonnie saying "I’m not okay with that”😭 I was soooo glad that FOR ONCE she said what she was really thinking ! 👐Damon is her best friend, and I truly believe learning he left in a letter would have been devastating for her 😞 His choice means she will most likely NEVER see him again, ever, in her entire life 💔 I can totally understand her asking sincerly "are we friends?" cause if one my friends dared to do that, I would be pretty upset. I liked that she asked him to be honest. No joke. No deflecting mecanism. No sarcasm. No insults. Just the truth. ❤️

I REALLY REALLY don’t care about what happens "three years from now" 🤷‍♀️ Ugh I hate this season, things are so slow and boring, the storyline isn’t interesting at all, and frankly... i wanna die💀

NOOOOO MARY-LOUISE AND NORA DIDN’T DESERVE THAT 💔😭😭

Ugh 😑 The whole idea of the vampire souls trapped in the Phoenix’s stone being reunited with the wrong bodies was just lame and boring 😒

I genuinely felt bad for Valerie 😞 you can see she truly loved Stefan and it must have hurt to see he didn’t feel the same, despite having spent basically three years together :/ Again, that’s kind of my general problem with Stefan: he’s so afraid he’s gonna hurt people that he’s never fully honest with anyone! 🙄 Same shit with Caroline. He just abandoned her because he couldn’t deal with this situation. What Stefan fails to realise is that he does hurt people by keeping things from them, by always running away. I’m sorry but women around him deserve better 🤷‍♀️

Bonenzo... I remember shipping it back then, but now, I just don’t feel it 🤷‍♀️ i get why people do, sure they both care deeply about each other and you can clearly see that (the guitar scenes were very cute 💕)... but it’s mostly flashbacks and that doesn’t have the same effect on me. Because I wasn’t there to see them developing a special bond over time. I still think they’re cute and I’m happy to see Bonnie finally fall in love with someone who truly loves her back ❤️

OF COURSE BONNIE IS THREATENED BY SOME MAGICAL ELEMENT THAT IS SORT OF CONVENIENT FOR THE STORY. OF COURSE. 🤬😡 I’m so mad, I’m so fucking mad at the show for treating her this way. She’s always the one in danger. She can never be happy for more than two episodes!!

Ooooohhh nooooo Bonnie’s the new Huntress 😭😭😭 She’s gonna want to kill everyone: Damon, Stefan, Caroline, even Enzo!! Nooooo 💔

OH THANK GOD, SHE DIDN’T KILL ENZO 🙏🙏🙏 I was so afraid. For Enzo but most of all for Bonnie! She would have been devastated if she’d killed him!

“You changed my life” awwww I feel bad for Ric, the same way I felt really sad for Valerie... They both hoped the moments of pure happiness they shared with their partner would turn out to be something more. They both dreamed of starting new with their loved one, to have their own perfect little happy life... 💕 even though they knew deep down the other one didn’t love them back. Not the way they wanted to be loved. And that’s sad 😭

Damon & Enzo being manipulated and brainwashed by that thing in that vault, at the end of s7 🙄 seriously? Who would have seen that coming ? 🙋‍♀️

Ugh, s7 was PAINFUL to watch 😑

S8 :

Yiiiiikes 🤢🥴 whatever that thing is, it’s not friendly! That scene where Damon and Enzo feed it was kinda freaky!

Ric running the armory makes sense actually! I’m quite happy about that :) he’s been wanting real hard to get back to his Indiana-Jones type of life ✊ He would have never been happy with a perfect little family life... even with Jo, I believe 🤷‍♀️ He truly loved her but at the end of the day, he has just seen too much. He knows too much to just stop fighting at all. That’s what makes him Ric.

A SIREN !!!! Cool ! Now we’re talking 😎

I understand why Damon would submit completely to Sybil : he has always hated himself for all the terrible things he’d done, he has always thought he wasn’t worthy of redemption, and now Sybil provided him a proof of that, a vision of literal Hell, of eternal torture... 👺😈 plus she erased all memories of Elena 😭 he has no reason not to work for Sybil. She’s the only one who can provide a way out of Hell. Who wouldn’t take that deal? If I suddenly found out no matter what you do, you’re damned to an eternity of pain and misery and loneliness, and the only way to escape that is to work for Satan, aka Cade, I would probably do it too 🤷‍♀️

The way Enzo resisted Sybil’s mind control for Bonnie was really sweet 💕 I felt bad when he had to shut down his humanity to save her life 😭

Honestly, I know I should care about Tyler’s death but he was never my favorite character and he’s been so... in and out of the show that I kinda stopped caring about him at all (since he wasn’t exactly a regular character) 😕 But he surely didn’t deserve to be collateral damage in that mess :( Also, I thought Caroline would react a bit strongly. I mean, Tyler was important for her and she barely said something? Weird 🤷‍♀️

CAROLINE AND STEFAN ARE GONNA GET MARRIED !! 💍 She said YES! OMG! Tbh I might not ship them (because I think Stefan got away with the pain he caused her a little bit too fast) but I’m happy for Caroline: she finally got to have her June Wedding!! 💛🎉 (though I’d prefer she married Klaus of course!)

I really liked the whole mythology of the sirens 🧜‍♀️ the story about the village girl and the island girl becoming sisters, having to kill and eat people in order to survive, was heartbreaking! But I was so sure Sybil was the “nice” one 🥺 Poor girl

Noooooo, poor Georgie 😭💔 knowing she is going straight to Hell is horrible, considering she’s seen and experienced it before and she knows what awaits her :(

Sebine played her game very well, no one suspected her to be Sybil’s sister 🤔 she’s really creepy and I’m so so so afraid for the girls 😱 she clearly has an evil plan for them and I’m so anxious 😱

"I’m your brother and I love you. Please come home with me” awww Stefan ❤️

Awwwwww Enzo and Bonnie ❤️ “I’m never leaving you” okay now I remember why I shipped them! They’re adorable! She chose him over her own best friend. She picked Enzo because no one else did. Ever. And she thought he deserved a chance, because deep down he is such a sweet, loving, caring person. He might not look like it, but he’s maybe the one who cares the most and who’s actually ready to do anything for his loved ones. I think Enzo might be the big love of her life. And I’m so happy she got to have that. I’m so happy she got to meet him, to enjoy his company for a little while, to appreciate every happy moments ❤️

AAAAAH SELINE TOOK THE GIRLS!! 😱

Caroline finally doing the healthy thing and prioritising her daughters over everything else 💖💖💖 Take that ring back, Stefan. At least for now. Caroline took the right decision. She cannot make compromises when it comes to the girls. She cannot allow herself to add any more variables to this already messy situation. Yes, it’s selfish but she has to be.

WHAT? I seriously hope you’re kidding Ric! HOW DARE YOU telling Caroline she isn’t the girls’ mother? 🤬😡 She carried them, she agreed to pursue the pregnancy and give birth to kids who weren’t even “her own”, she raised them, she put food on their table, she tucked them in at night, she loved and cared for them more than anyone could have ever askef her, she basically had to let go of her entire life in order to live with them as a family... She IS their mother. She will ALWAYS be ❤️

Damon and Stefan’s deal with Cade to take the twins’ place !! 😱😱🔥 I really hope they find a way to get out of this one, but I don’t see how, right now... And Stefan is heading to a dark place :/ I hope Damon will be able to bring him back!✊

Speaking of Damon, I am SO glad he got to free himself from Sybil’s influence! 🙏 Stefan, on the other hand... meh? 😒 I’m not so sure I’m a fan of the old ripper storyline, I mean we already watched it once and we KNOW it’s not gonna last for long cause they have to wrap it up eventually, and I feel like this is just here as a cheap way to create drama between him and Caroline and idk that was kinda unnecessary 🤷‍♀️

ENZOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😭😭💔 NONONONONONONONONOOOOOO!!!!! Poor Bonnie 😭 She was finally gonna get the happiness she deserved! RIP Enzo ☠️

OMGGG STEFAN’S HUMAN 🤯🤯🤯 Wow I wonder how he’s gonna take it, I mean on one hand being a vampire brought him a lot of pain, but on the other, it’s all he has known for centuries... rethinking your entire life, the basis of your existence, after all that time... ouch!

Kai is BACK ? Seriously ? Again ? I mean I like him, but let’s just say there are other people I would like to see again (#enzo❤️)

Btw I’m really conflicted about Bonnie trying to bring Enzo back : I want her to do it, of course, I want Enzo back, but I don’t want her to loose herself in the process 😱😭 I’m so scared for her :(

Stefan literally killing the Devil like 😎😎 “oh yeah bitch, bet you weren’t expecting that uh” ☝️ I am so so PROUD of my babyface :) also I’m really glad they got rid off Cade (ugh, I was so done with him)

Ahah, Kai’s in another prison world 🤣

OF 👏 COURSE 👏 KATHERINE 👏 IS 👏 THE 👏 QUEEN 👏 OF 👏 HELL 👏

Aaawwww I really really loved when Damon gave Elena’s necklace to Caroline 💕 their little chat was very cute: he knew she was quite sad because her wedding was being rushed and used as an excuse to drag out Katherine; she was going to walk down the aisle without her mother; Bonnie wasn’t gonna come; Elena wouldn’t be there; Alaric didn’t want to come... the MOST important day of her life was basically ruined 👰 and... idk he was being very sweet and compassionate with her :)

OOOOHH THEY’RE ACTUALLY GETTING MARRIED FOR REAL THOUGH! And Bonnie’s here!! Soooo cute 💖 I love how Damon insisted on the “does anybody want to object against this wedding?” part, like “really? No one?”

NOOOOOOOO THE GIRLS 😱😱🔥🤬

Omg they’re fine, I’m so relieved 🙏

Awww Bonnie saying goodbye to Enzo for real... that was so... bittersweet 😭 But he’s right: she’s gotta live her life. She cannot spend her entire life thinking about the people she could have spent more time with: Enzo, Elena, for instance. She has to focus on herself. On being happy. And I’m really glad for her ❤️

Katherine is literally gonna blow up the WHOLE TOWN !! Seems a bit extreme but I’m really not surprised xD such a Katherin-y thing to do, if you think about it

OMG FINAL EPISODE 😱😱😱

Okay, first I was like “I don’t understand why is everybody so obsessed with the idea of saving Mystic Falls”. 🤷‍♀️ Sure it’s their home, their childhood town, full of memories and all... but since Matt helped evacuate the entire town, there was no immediate danger for the population of MF. And at the end of the day, it’s JUST a town 🏙 It’s just buildings and roads and objects that can be replaced. It can be rebuilt over time. So Bonnie, Caroline, Damon, Stefan... they could have all just run far way from MF and then everything would have been just FINE 👍

But THEN Katherine captured Elena and trapped her in the high school 😈 NO WAY the Salvatore brothers would have just sacrificed Elena in hellfire 🔥🙅‍♀️

NOOOOOO I don’t want Damon to die 😭 But I also don’t want Stefan to die! Why do their plans always include one of them dying? Sounds like Supernatural 😅

THANK GOD 🙏 Bonnie’s here to save the day 💖 Damn, what would they ever do without her?? I liked how she fought for herself till the very end :) “it’s not my time” YOU BET YOUR ASS IT’S NOT 👏

OOOOMMMMGGG STEFAN’S DEAD 💀😱🔥 HE CAME BACK!!! HE CAME BACK FOR HIS BROTHER!! HE SAVED DAMON!! HE SACRIFICED HIMSELF!!! HE LEGIT DESTROYED HELL!! AND HE KILLED KATHERINE WITH IT!! 🤯

AND DAMON IS HUMAN!!! 🤯🤯🤯

AWWWWW LEXI IS THERE!! 🥰 I’m so happy to see her! I’ve missed her! Awww he found peace with his best friend 💕 I’m so glad for him! He deserves that!

“I was feeling epic” 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Honestly, it felt kinda cheap and too easy that Bonnie would just suddenly realise she had enough power to do ANYTHING, including breaking the spell that she wasn’t supposed to interfere with in ANY way, because she would be risking Elena’s life (and probably her own). Like, ok, she destroyed hell and that boosted her confidence enough that she decided she would just try it ? 🤷‍♀️ mmm... seems too easy... like why didn’t she do that earlier then ? Why did this entire season even happen then ? What was the point? What was the point of Bonnie realising she was worth living her life and that she didn’t have to feel guilty about Elena? Why would the show erase that wonderful character growth??? I- 🤷‍♀️

“We’ll see him again” ❤️ awwww I really love how they decide to develop Damon and Caroline’s relationship in the end... They both really acted like brother / sister in law. And that was genuinely cute. They both lost someone they loved and cared about deeply. I like that they know they can count on each other.

Awwwww Stefan got Caroline’s message, that’s really cute :) I hope it will help her move on, knowing he heard her, and he will love her forever too 💕

BONNIE’S HAPPY!!! SHE’S ALONE BUT SHE IS FINE BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T NEED SOMEBODY ELSE TO BE HAPPY! SHE LOVES HERSELF AND SHE LOVES LIFE AND SHE’S GONNA ENJOY HER LIFE TO THE FULLEST AND TRAVEL THE WORLD!! YAY! 🌈🎊🎉

The Salvatore boarding school : so it’s basically Hogwarts? Okay why not 🤷‍♀️ It’s not the big ending I was expecting for Caroline and tbh I’m a bit disappointed (but I guess her story doesn’t stop there and it’s more of a To Be Continued kind of ending) but it makes perfect sense for Alaric 🤔 Jo seing her daughters 💖 And Jeremy is a teacher there LMAO 😆

Awwwwww my Klaroline feels ❤️❤️❤️ “however long it takes” I CANNOT BELIEVE THE SHOW GAVE US A “MAYBE” FOR THAT SHIP. Honestly it’s more than I ever wished I would get! I’ll make my own headcanons, it’s perfect!

“I owe it all to Stefan” awww, true :’)

So what I got from Elena’s monologue: she had a great life, she was happy, she became a doctor, she grew old in Mystic Falls, she married Damon (funny how she doesn’t mention having kids? It was one of her biggest dreams, so idk 🤷‍♀️), then I guess SHE died before Damon did (-> what makes me think that is the scene where she holds his hands and says something along the lines of “I know peace exists and I know he will find it someday even though he doubts it” and then he disappears and she finds herself in the after life), and then she found peace and got reunited with her family in death 🧐 So bittersweet, I liked it! 💕 Even if I think it would have deserved to be a bit longer, a bit more explained, a bit more developed than just a “here’s what happened” 🤷‍♀️ It did feel rushed :/

“Hello brother” WAS THE LAST LINE OF THE SHOW! HOW. EPIC. IS. THAT.

[mysaldate]

(UM seduction methods anon here) Im in awe over how much you write for so many character, every day! Do you have any hc on how they live? (where they live? living conditions?) BUT please dont push yourself or anything either!

Thank you so much for worrying about me! I’m simply trying to do my very best for all of you! And thank you also for such wonderful and original requests!

The living conditions of the Upper Moons headcanons

Daki&Gyuutaro

This one will be short since we know quite a lot about them. They’ve lived in the red lights district for their whole lives. In the streets and usually with little more than just their clothes on but they had each other.

They stayed in even after they became a demons. No surprise, there’s plenty of food and nobody will really care if a couple girls disappears.

They don’t have separate rooms of course. These two are literally inseparable so of course they wouldn’t bother with something like that. There’s nobody to tease them about it either since people are not aware of there even being two of them and as for their fellow demons, those just don’t care. Except maybe for Douma but he wouldn’t tease them about it.

We got to see their room so there’s not much to be said about the decorations either. Daki is a stylish girl and she likes to show it off even in the way she sets up their room – even if nobody much gets to see it.

Kaigaku

He never really had much of a home per say. He became an orphan at a young age (if he wasn’t abandoned as a baby already) and then was chased out of Gyomei’s temple as well. Jigoro took him in but unfortunately enough, that relationship didn’t really work out either. Strangely enough, he felt most at home when he was outside, travelling from one mission to another.

After he became a demon, he stayed with Kokushibou for a short period of time but that was just before Muzan approved of his existence. After that, he had to find his own territory – which wasn’t really too hard anyway. He picked a run-down old house as his shelter from the sun for the day but he didn’t really care much how it looked, at least not at first.

It’s not that he wouldn’t like company but there’s not really anyone to share his place with. Humans wouldn’t hang out with him, other demons literally can’t. Other Upper Moons won’t.

He first didn’t care at all how the place looked but after some time, he decided that since he didn’t have anything to do during the day anyway, he could at least try to decorate the place a bit. So while the sun is up, he does little things inside, like sweeping the floors or painting the walls. He even learnt to sew to make curtains. And at night, when he’s not out hunting, he does other reparations. Even he is surprised by how much fun he can have, giving the place a personal touch.

Gyokko

Being an artist, it’s not unlikely that he lived in an open, arid room before he became a demon. Lots of sunlight too. And occassionally, a companion or two but those never really stuck around for long. His place was filled with various unfinished art pieces.

Now that he’s a demon, he can’t have the luxury of a sunny appartment. His pots, however, work as a little pocket dimension so that’s an upgrade? Of sorts? It doesn’t really have a set shape either, it’s a little bit like Nakime’s Infinity Fortress but shapeless, like the walls are made of water or another liquid and constantly change form.

He lives with plenty of goldfish. The entire place is nearly filled with aquariums of various shapes and forms. You know how people make mazes for hamsters, guinea pigs or even cats? Well, those are nothing when compared to the lengths Gyokko goes to for his fishies. It’s not just glass, coloured or plain, either. Sometimes he would use the nichirin blades or pretty hairpieces of his victims’ to decorate the elaborate fishtanks as well. If a human ever strays in, it’s the last thing they say.

Gyokko LOVES decoration. Aside from his fishtanks, he has numerous statues, paintings and just about everything else you can think of. Both handmade and stolen. For his handmade art, he usually uses bodies or bodyparts of his victims, possibly their blood too. It serves both as an artpiece and a food reserve just in case he ever gets to a position where he’s forced to starve. Surprisingly enough, his pots are great at preserving things. Oh, and let’s not forget about the amount of detail he puts to the exterior of his pots! 

Hantengu

Back when he was a human, he didn’t really have a home, naturally. He couldn’t afford it. And most people wouldn’t let him stay more than one night, chasing him out often with sticks and stones. He had to travel all the time and preferably somewhere far away where the rumors about him didn’t reach yet. Due to this, he becomes restless when he has to spend a long time in one place.

Now, as a demon, he also doesn’t stay in one place all the time. He usually sneaks in a house, kills the family and stays there for a few days before moving on to the next one. Some of his other personalities, namely Sekido and Karaku, find this a little useless and bothersome but they wouldn’t really fight him on it.

Speaking of whom, his other personalities split when they have time to be alone as well, taking care of him and the house. It’s a great way to keep him safe as well since at least one of them is always on guard for possible intruders. They get along... somewhat well. There are the usual conflicts between Sekido and the others. Karaku is careless about their cover, Yoroko likes to make pranks on them and Aizetsu tends to lock himself in his room for hours on end. Poor Sekido is left with the task of housework, making sure they don’t get discovered too soon, acting as the voice of reason... and he still has to go out hunting and stay on guard when it’s his turn.

Yoroko likes decorating stuff and Karaku loves to watch him but their taste is strange to everyone but them. Surprisingly enough, Hantengu as well as Aizetsu both can actually create rather beautiful tapestries and Zohakuten sometimes paints when Sekido is just too done with the three useless dorks.

Nakime

She used to be your typical hikikomori. Nakime spent all her time in her room, with nothing but a pile of books and her biwa. It wasn’t a big room either. While her room did have windows, she prefered them covered and read in the light of an oil lamp. As expected, it wasn’t too good for her eyes...

She lives in the Dimensional Infinity Fortress now. A place she can fully control and knows everything about, one that bends to her will and where she can transport anyone anywhere at any time, just as she wants. The only exception seems to be Muzan who comes and goes as he sees fit (at least until the current arc but y’all already know how I feel about that). It’s not that she minds it, she still knows where and when he enters and leaves and even if she didn’t, it’s not like he would ambush and kill her for no reason (right?).

Despite providing rooms specifically suited for the Upper Moons, she much enjoys her solitude. Even when they’re in and she has to keep an eye on them (I’m sorry, I’ll stop with the puns now), she keeps her distance. Try to annoy her, or even just seek her company, and you will mercilessly get thrown out. An exception, again, is Muzan. He doesn’t live there with  her though and only seeks her out when he has work for her to do.

Decoration of the rooms varies greatly, mostly based on what are they used for. Most of the Fortress is not decorated since Nakime sees no reason to waste time and effort on that. However, there are special parts that deserve special attention. Just as an example, there’s Muzan’s upside-down lab, Douma’s lotus pond, that traditional japanese area Kokushibou first appeared in... And of course, the execution platform that’s now decorated with the red of the Lower Moons’ blood.

Akaza

Again, we have a very good canon idea about his life as a human. First living with his father and then spending some time in the streets, he eventually ended up staying at Keizo’s house, taking care of Koyuki. He had his own room there too but it didn’t really matter because he spent most of his time by Koyuki’s side anyway. Rumor has it he dragged his futon to her once when she was having a nightmare and never moved out until she got all better.

He’s pretty much a street rat as of now, looking for challenges and new foes to fight for the most part. During the days, he usually stays still outside, in dense forests or deep caves. He’s not particularly picky. Sometimes he stays there during the night too, setting up a campfire and waiting for someone to wander close. For some reason, he doesn’t really like cities, especially during the festival season.

So yeah, he lives alone. At least usually he does. It’s not all that rare for Douma to find and bother visit him. He doesn’t want company. Getting attached would make him weak. The more people you care about, the easier it is to take advantage of you.

The only thing he cultivates in his surroundings is his own body. No, I’m not talking about the tattoos, though those certainly are a decoration as well. Rather, it’s his muscles and strength. However, he still prefers to have some manners over raw power, hence why he keeps refusing Douma’s more than generous offers to hunt down some girls together even if that could make him stronger.

Douma

Grew up in the temple in the forest. High up on a mountain overlooking a small town, it’s not a place with the most access to society. But cults are usually like that. When he was about three years old, his father planted two magnolia trees in the courtyard so that the place is a little more lively and the trees can grow tall to provide lots of shade in summer since the sun could be quite annoying. If only he knew...

Loyal as he is, Douma stays at the temple even now. He had it expanded a little and even had a lotus pond build right behind his room so he can calm his thoughts at least a bit after every session. He used to need it more than he does now, especially since he now also has the one made by Nakime that is way better and more spacious.

Canonically, there is at least one temple servant staying with Douma at the temple. But honestly, it wouldn’t be quite like him to satisfy himself with a single person. There’s probably a number of people taking care of the place, both temple servants and maidens. They also serve as a source of entertainment and possibly even as a last-resort snack just in case. There also used to be Kotoha and Inosuke for a short period of time but well...

While he is quite childish and it might sound just like him to go overboard with decorating stuff, that’s not entirely true. Really, the most he has is the skull closet with engraved golden door. That and the pot in which he planted Kotoha’s head but that one is a gift from Gyokko so it doesn’t really count.

Kokushibou

As with most of them, we were blessed with enough info on Kokushibou’s, or rather Michikatsu’s, homes. Growing up a samurai, he never had time to spare, little to no friends and a bride who was most likely found for him without him having any say in it, it’s really not that much of a surprise he would elect to leave it all behind and become a demon slayer since it gave him significantly more freedom.

Even as a demon, not much have changed. During the day, he stays at a mansion like the samurai lord he is, and at night, he goes out to hunt down the pests in the area, more often than not treating himself with a bountiful feast while he’s at it. He also has a room in the Infinity Fortress but like the majority of the Upper Moon demons (actually everyone but Douma), he enjoys his solitude way more.

He has a few servants at the mansion. Ones that get replaced every once in a while when they mysteriously disappear. But the salary is high enough to let any major rumors die out in a blink (I know, I promised, I’m sorry) so the most he has to deal with are whispers about him overworking his servants to the point where they rather abandon the money and run away under the cloak of the night.

You would probably find the house eerily plain but he’s used to it. The backyard is where he spends most of his time aside from his room and those two are the only actually decorated places in the house. And they’re still kept neat and practical for the most part. He rarely has anything that wouldn’t serve a purpose, both when it comes to items and people.

[checkoutafrica]

By Xavier; A man of many talents

Internationally acclaimed, sought-after South African photographer, Xavier Saer is a man of many talents who rediscovered his passion for music during the first lockdown. This passion resulted in two radio single releases which got him noticed and signed to Tiësto’s record label, “Black Hole Recordings”, one of the world’s leading Dance Music Labels.

Most people know him as a photographer (having one of the most impressive celebrity catalogues in South Africa) however, not many people know that Xavier was a club DJ, he has two SAMA Best Pop Album nominations under his belt for the song writing he did for two artists’ albums, he has four of his own albums to his name and has written over 2000 songs. I told you guys, this is a man of many of talents.

By Xavier is an amazing story to come out of lockdown and also speaks to people’s ability to reinvent themselves, home in on previous passions, and give in to creativity and see where it takes you. I spoke to him a couple of months back and this is what he had to say;

Who is Xavier Saer? Tell us your story.

I’ve been a lot of things and I’m just about trying new things all the time, I think that is really what life is about, it is really about the spice of life, trying new and different things and just seeing and learning new things. I just think that really makes life a lot more fun. I’m actually and economics by trade, so I study that, I did it for my parents. I was like guys here is my degree, bye I’m leaving now and  I want to go be a DJ. I did that for a couple of years at the top clubs in Joburg and from then I travelled and lived all over the world which was very interesting. I then became I recording artist  for about 3 years, I toured and I did a couple of albums. I’ve been everywhere and I’ve  done everything to the point where I even had a bit of an existential crisis so I wrote a book which took two years and was published then I had another what do I do now moment ahahah. I just live challenges and now with lockdown, I’ve just been signed to a major label so it looks  like life is taking me back to music again. 

At what point in lockdown did you realise that you wanted to make music again?

In a way, musics chooses you, you don’t choose music, it’s always in you and it’s always been in the back of my head, I just  had a very busy photographic career, I’ve been busy for the last few years so I haven’t had time to do anything but photography and I’m one of those people that like to focus on things 100% so if it’s photography, it’s nothing else and if it’s music, it’s nothing else. And now I’m trying to balance it all, but music has always been my first love and you never forget about your first love. I’m really enjoying this process, it’s a really beautiful creative journey. 

What do you love the most about creating music?

Gosh Uhmm. I’ve had a very straight story, like I’m not a guy that sits down and writes music but it always comes to me. I’ve written over 4000 songs in my lifetime, it’s the most natural thing  to me, like this latest single, it just came out to me when I was cooking. It’s like this little tingle that happens. I guess when I’m very creative, a lot of things happen, I mean sometimes I can write up to 5/6 songs in a day, I just have to put time into it and it flows like a river. 

Why did you choose to go under the name “by Xavier” for your music?

So as a photographer I have a very strung brand in South Africa – by Xavier. I’m from Peru originally so my name is actually pronounced havier in Spanish but if you say Xavier here in SA it can be very confusing so I prefer to be just Xavier because it’s an English pronunciation and also not that hard to pronounce. It’s simple and it’s easy. A recognisable brand. 

Tell us about your new single “beat is strong”

So the song is an analogy about life, about perceiving and not giving up on your dreams. So I almost feel like i wrote it for people who are in creative spaces, for example there are people that are waitressing but wanting to be actresses or people that wanna be musicians but are doing something else. It’s almost like it’s a song for when they’re rich and this is their struggle to get there, it’s about the journey of being a creative but anything really because anything you wanna be takes time and discipline. It’s an uplifting song of never give up on your dreams really. 

You have done so many things and you have been so many things, what would you say your biggest achievement in life is?

I think just being alive is an achievement on its own. But I guess my book means a lot to me, it took me two years to write and I just remember writing for months and months, for hours and hours so that was one thing. I would not recommend tho ahahah, do not write a book guys, it’s HARD, but if you have the time, go ahead. 

what is the one quote that you try and live by?

It’s a quote by Helen Keller and she said “life is an adventure or nothing at all” and I try to make my life an adventure on a weekly basis. That’s literally in my diary, every Monday I tell myself that I will make this week an adventure somehow. Every week I make sure that my life is interesting, that there is something motivating me, that there is something inspiring me and I try to live my life like that. Life is way too short so we have to make it exciting. 

You’re also an avid traveller, where is your favourite place to go in the world and why?

I guess my favourite places to travel are the places that I don’t know yet. I dream of going to Japan, I am fascinated by everything Japanese, I mean I don’t know why but maybe it’s because I had a jaiden se neighbour as a kid – he was like Mr Miyagi to me and he taught me so many things, he made a huge impression in my life. 

I also love Mexico, the people in Mexico are amazing. I always say it’s not really the place but it’s the people that make it, there are so many places where The place is amazing but the people aren’t that great meaning that the experience itself wasn’t really that amazing.

I love Africa, there is something here, I mean I live in Africa for a reason. It’s like it just stays with you done how! I’m Peruvian so I love the mountains, I love the Andes. I just think everything is beautiful, it’s hard to pick just one. There is beauty everywhere. My advice to you is to travel, travel, travel, travel. You always come back a better person. 

what is the biggest lesson that you have learnt from your travels?

That we are all the same. We keep fighting for the most ridiculous things uno, we chase and kill eachother for politics but when you meet someone, you don’t even need to speak the same language cause you can see it in their eyes that they just want love and compassion, we wanna laugh and just enjoy life. We’re all the same. 

Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

I’m not a guy that looks at the future too much, because the future is uncertain, the past is gone already. All I can do is now. How I create my future is what I create with my thoughts today. So I see myself still creating creating music photography and I see myself cooking actually. I will retire having opened up my own bakery and I will feed the poor – that is main goal.

Listen to his single here;

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