#while stuff that has genuine heart and soul has to struggle for existence

[dyscomancer]

thinking about rwby possibly not getting renewed for vol 10 actually makes me feel sick lmao why am i like this

[icedroppedinparasolcider]

Thoughts on ena? Feel free to yap as much as you did in three shizuku one!

so, fun fact about me! i was an ena oshi from like. On This Blank Canvas, I Paint ensekai release to about Say Goodbye to Masked Me jpsekai release, when kanade took the crown (it's since ended up in airi's hands, if not obvious). so i have an absolute ton of stuff i could say about ena and figuring out where to even begin is always the hardest part of all of this. i won't even give myself a direction here i'm just gonna stream of consciousness this.

shinonome ena was probably the first character i got genuinely attached to among the cast, and while most of my thoughts and attention have strayed to other characters, she still remains someone i get incredibly insane about (frankly the entire cast does this to me, but ena is one of the highlight characters of this). and a lot of it comes from my reading of On This Blank Canvas, I Paint when it released on ensekai, because that event not only changed ena for me, but how i view the entire game and its story. that event changed my brain chemistry and nothing deserves the claim more than it.

prior to that event, i looked at ena like i do most "mean" characters, with a sort of dismissive attitude due to generally not being a fan of the archetype and the way many pieces of media write them (other fandoms i was part of before prsk largely ruined it for me). but that event, and ena herself completely changed my entire perspective on the character archetype as a whole, and while i still wouldn't say it's my favourite, i am far from dismissive of the character type and many of my favourites from other medias exist within it because i'm actually paying attention to why they're like this. On This Blank Canvas, I Paint was my first exposure to the why, and i've never been able to look away since.

while there's arguments to be made of this factor for every person in it, i personally stand at the opinion that ena is the representation of everything the solid heart class stands for. akito is really close, and he's in contention, but i'll get more into akito later on because there's so much i need to say about their relationship, their parallels, the roles they have in each other's lives and the reflection of these roles onto the people around them. but with solid heart in general, i think that ena exists as an epitome of everything they are, and the fact everyone except ena in-world is able to recognise that only further pushes my point. because unlike akito, ena believes herself a coward on top of being inadequate. she doesn't recognise the strength it requires to keep pushing forward through all this pain, she thinks herself weak for even experiencing it at all. while akito believes himself (at least up to BURN MY SOUL) inferior to his peers, there's not really a moment where he looks at himself as weak for struggling. he simply pushes forward, and Find a Way Out and BURN MY SOUL is the recognition that that is what gives him his power. ena doesn't even consider that possibility until Knowing the Unseen, when she learns about what her father went through.

solid heart is defined by its determination and unflinching will to improve and chase their dreams no matter who or what gets in their way. shiho continuing to practice and search for a band after convincing herself she's better off solo; airi's constant drive to be a better idol and reach the heights she set for herself; akito's refusal to back down from the unbreakable wall of rad weekend despite the entire town telling him he can't do it; nene's constant push through her story to be an actress worthy of the dreams she has. ena is just part of this, chasing the dream that is her art and the desire to garner a following from it, make a career out of it like her father has. she doesn't attach her name to the works of 25ji because she doesn't want its popularity to be the reason her artwork succeeds, she wants the effort and beauty she captures on the canvas to speak for itself. everyone in solid heart carries that wish, for their work to speak for itself, to not take shortcuts on the path to their dreams. most of them aren't offered many opportunities for it to happen, it's really just shiho and ena who have that chance; shiho with the entire event of Resonate with You and ena's combination of being the daughter of a famous artist and the illustrator for a growing musical group. but both of them turn down those short-cuts in the end, because it wouldn't be their dream as they wish it. shiho wouldn't be standing by the sides of those they made that promise with, and ena wouldn't feel like the success is actually hers at all, but rather the success of whatever name she's leaning on.

you can actually see this part of ena in a scene unrelated to her artwork, in Someday, This Wish will Transcend the Morning Sky. when mafuyu gets a call from her mother and ena decides to take over the conversation, there's a moment in it where ena thinks how she'd rather not bring him into the equation right before mentioning her father's name. she doesn't want to be associated with him, for any reason; both because of her problems with shin'ei as a person and her reservations with using the benefits she has through nepotism. she's fully aware she has that advantage, and does whatever she can to separate herself from her father to avoid having it. because it wouldn't feel like it's actually her success. it would feel like her father's success rubbing off on her.

yet, to bring this back to solid heart, despite the struggle she's facing to make a name for herself as an artist and the immense pain she faces trying to improve herself as an artist and a person, she doesn't quit. she nearly has, plenty of times; it's mentioned several times in early stories how often akito would have to step in to stop ena from throwing away and/or breaking all her art supplies and tools during her fits of anger, because he understands how important this venture is to her. he's solid heart too, his equivalent is the music he makes and performs in vivid street. he knows, firsthand, how precious the passion she has for art is, because he's been given that same drive and purpose for a different artform. ena didn't let him give up when he quit soccer, so he won't let her give up. however he can manage to do that.

there's a specifc moment in the stories of solid heart where you can see the moment they decided that giving up and backing away simply isn't an option anymore. shiho is a slight exception to this rule; there was never a moment in their story where they felt they should give up on their dream to become a professional bassist in a band, not once did they ever stop chasing that dream, for even a moment. shiho's shifts were always about how they chase that dream, with Resonate with You being the decision to not leave leo/need's side, and Don't lose faith! being the change of heart to stop holding back for the sake of the band, to let them catch up by knowing what to chase. but for airi, this happened in the more more jump main story; the recognition of minori's potential as an idol because of her refusal to simply give up, mixed with the mistake of her lashing out at shizuku when she shares the news that she'll be quitting her idol work, kicks airi back to a point of realisation of just how important to her being an idol is, and that she can't afford to just leave it behind. for akito, this happens during rad weekend; after having abandoned sports due to believing he's not dedicated enough, and ena introducing him to the world of music at the summer festival, his entire body and purpose is lit up by the emotional weight of rad weekend, giving him something to strive for and a reason to endure the constant loss that will come with chasing that dream. for nene, pieces of this occur in the wxs main story, but she's truly pushed into the unrelenting determination of solid heart with On a Holy Night, with This Singing Voice and the recognition of her potential from sakurako managing to grab at her competitive spirit and give her something to fight for; something brought to an extreme with The Canary Sings in a Quagmire as nene pushes herself harder than ever before to break down a barrier in her skill.

for ena, this moment was On This Blank Canvas, I Paint. while she never completely gave up on art before this moment, and Insatiable Pale Colour shows how much she wants to fight for her art and gives us a taste of her willingness to keep going, it pales in comparison to the scene captured in the On This Blank Canvas, I Paint untrained ena card. that moment is the decision that completely pivots the direction of ena's entire story into what she's become in modern project sekai. the decision to not look away—to stop looking away. ena is facing her art in a way she was never willing to before, a way she depicted herself in the art piece being critiqued avoiding. the ena of the past would've run away after hearing the harsh words yukihira had to say. we see, in the event, what happened the last time yukihira was harsh about ena's work: she completely broke down and it was the final straw to the shattering of her fragile self-esteem. but during the return to her art classes, which itself is a monumental step due to the pain attached to them, ena made the decision to stop running away. to take whatever yukihira had to say about her art and make it matter, make it have an impact on her growth as an artist. so she sits there, all the memories of the suffering she's gone through fresh on her mind and burning into her, and takes in the criticism. she doesn't fight back like she always had with 25ji, she doesn't look away like she did the last time. these are her failures, and she needs to take responsibility for them. because that's the only way to fix them.

On This Blank Canvas, I Paint also gives us a lot of insight into ena's relationship with shin'ei. not necessarily as much as Insatiable Pale Colour does, since that's a proper introduction to and exploration of their dynamic as both father and daughter and from artist to artist, but On This Blank Canvas, I Paint gives us the invaluable context around the moment that broke their relationship. how much ena had been going through already, how excited she was to continue chasing art, the way shin'ei completely shot her down from the high of being praised by yukihira—something we learn in that event is exceptionally rare—and the actions the next day of yukihira unintentionally confirming for ena everything shin'ei said. that, as she was then, she would never survive or succeed as an artist.

something i don't see really any recognition or mention of is just how much of a part yukihira had to play in ena's collapsed mental health. he was the one to convince her that she could make it by giving her praise, something that ena has always been attached and attracted to because of the lifelong emotional neglect of shin'ei. her receiving that praise from someone she looked up to as a professional and understood that the praise itself is a rarity from him resulted in a complete overblowing of ena's ego, the instant belief that she has what it takes and would be able to make it into and survive art schools with ease. that bubble is popped by shin'ei's words, the outright disapproval of her dream and doubt in her ability to chase that dream (at least, that's how ena takes it; we learn later on that isn't what shin'ei intended to happen). then, the following day, during a very fragile moment where she's reliant on the approval of a professional, yukihira continues to tear ena down with the statement that she'd never make it as an artist if all she looks for is praise. an echoed, if more specific, sentiment to shin'ei's own words. it breaks her. ena would probably be in a much better mental state, though still fragile, were it just shin'ei that knocked her down. but yukihira kicked her while she was down. and that proved to be too much.

i understand why yukihira gets less attention from the fandom, since ena's own story has a stronger focus on what shin'ei did to her than what yukihira did, and what shin'ei did is ultimately the one ena's mind has attached to as evident by the constant flashes to his words in her earlier stories and the entire nightmare sequence of And Now, This Ribbon is Tied, which i can hardly blame her for finding shin'ei's actions more damaging. despite the evidently bad parenting shin'ei has done for either shinonome, even before The SceneTM (akito had it is in his mind that success is impossible without talent even before finding music, and there's a lot of little details across side-stories that imply shin'ei has never been the most attentive father: my favourite of which being ena pushing him into a lake during a camping trip because he wasn't paying enough attention to her. the shinonomes appear to be really bad at communicating and even processing their own feelings, even before the moment ena and shin'ei's relationship fully collapsed, and i think a lot of it comes down to shin'ei being a neglectful and borderline absent father for both of them), ena clearly trusted and believed in shin'ei opinions as both her father and a professional artist by the way she used to study his work to improve her own, the way she went to him for advice on what art school to pick. shin'ei's action was ultimately a betrayal of all of that trust, and i personally believe their relationship is impossible to mend after that, at least to a degree that the shinonome household will be a safe space for either child again (unfortunately, i'm speaking from experience).

i had more to say and if it comes back to me i might reblog with even more yapping but i've completely lost my train of thought due to being distracted and cannot bring it back for the life of me. so i'm just posting this now. have fun ena fans

[neurotheascars]

Just opening this by saying I'm open to discussion about this and if you disagree with me, this is one of those few moments when I'm willing to hear you out. I would like my mind changed to be completely honest.

My biggest unpopular opinion is that unfortunately in my heart of hearts, I sympathize with Anne Rice's position on fanfiction and while I don't agree with what she did to fanfic authors, I understand the emotions she had about fan fiction and I understand why it was deeply upsetting for her to see people writing about characters that she poured her heart and soul into, effectively taking them for their own.

I really felt it when she said something along the lines of "Just make your own characters and stories please"

I also don't understand how this is an unpopular opinion. I don't understand why people think that it would not be at least a little upsetting to some authors to see certain fan fiction content of their work.

For some authors they aren't just characters. They are deeper than that and it feels really scary to share a story or share art, Knowing deep down someone may take it and rewrite it the way they want it to go, that they may write your person as someone they would never be. I think fan fiction is important because on the other hand, it must be such a joy to see people participating in your world and to not be the only writer of that world. but I really do struggle to see how fanfic writers don't get why people like Anne Rice have an issue with it. I can see both sides of this to be completely honest.

I don't share a lot of my paracosm that I'm from because I'm so afraid of someone kinning me. I really really don't want to be kinned. I don't want someone to introject me. I don't want someone to introject my friends and family. I don't want people to write about my friends and family doing things I don't imagine them doing, but there's nothing I can do about it if I share it.

When it comes to fanfiction I'm sitting on a fence and my ass hurts. Fanfiction is an important art form, I get why someone would see a piece of media and join in writing about the characters and contributing to the plot and yet I can't kick the voice in the back of my head saying why don't you just make your own? Why can't you just make your own? How isn't your own fiction not better than someone else's?

I used to have a superiority complex about this that I have been routinely questioning to pull apart and I still reach this roadblock where I can't ignore the fact that I do believe original content has more merit than fanfiction. I can't kick that. That's my opinion. But fanfiction has a place and should exist. That's as far as I've gotten

I'm also trying to make peace with the fact that sharing my story and artwork means that this might happen to me one day and I can't say or do anything about it. Because saying "hey I'm uncomfortable with fanfiction of my work" is like waving a flag saying hey please take my stuff to prove that I can't stop you. Like can we all at least understand why Anne Rice did what she did and not have animosity towards people who feel the same way about their own work? It just seems that I only ever see people saying that this view made her a bad person when it's really the lawsuits and how far she took those lawsuits that did.

You can't control the introjects people get. I know that. But the thought of someone introjecting me or my family stresses me out deeply and I think I'm allowed to say that???

Do I just say please don't ever show me or tell me if this happens to you?

I'm genuinely interested to hear people's thoughts on this. I'm sitting here willing to change my mind and I want my mind changed desperately because I'd like to share my work with the world.

I've just had trauma already with people grabbing at my characters that aren't even really characters but real people from my head that I know. I've had someone get intoxicated and pretend that they were one of my paras. Later that same year, when another alter introduced me to a server, someone immediately hopped out and was like "thinking about kinning this guy" and they backed off when I said it made me uncomfortable, but like holy shit it really can happen that easily.

[tophthedaydreamer]

my thoughts on guardians of the galaxy vol. 3 (part two!)

spoilers ahoy!

At the end of part one, I began discussing the humor, which I'll continue to do so here. As I said before, the guardians just kept arguing but it wasn't funny. It felt serious. And there definitely should be times when they have serious arguments, they're under a lot of stress what with Rocket dying and all. But like, a lot of their interactions felt like this. Even their attempts to be funny kinda felt like annoying incompetence at times. There were few jokes that made me laugh, whereas with the first two I'm usually cackling. Vol. 1 and 2 are hilarious in my book. Yondu at the jewelry shop. Rocket's obsession with stealing mechanical limbs from people. "I'm gonna die here surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." The dance battle at the end of Vol. 1. The whole bit with Taserface! And the iconic "I'M MARY POPPINS, Y'ALL!"

I think the humor struggles in Vol. 3 because all the funny moments are put on Drax and Mantis. They make for some great comedy, as we've seen in Vol. 2 and the Christmas Special. But they can't be the only ones who carry the comedy, even if they're very likeable. Quill is mostly working through his issues with Gamora's semi-death, which I am glad is treated seriously. But that means he has less funny bits. Gamora is.... low-key annoying because she is a lot more rude than I was expecting. Sometimes I thought she hated the guardians (I understand why she's hostile towards Quill, with him insisting they were once madly in love). It felt a little out of character for her to be this mean, as she's supposed to be Gamora from Vol. 1. Idk, I guess the Ravagers rubbed off on her lol. Sadly, Gamora wasn't very likeable for me, but she did improve as the film went on. Groot exists. He does some cool stuff but mostly sits in the background waiting for the next battle.

Later I realized why the humor felt off is because Rocket isn't present. In the first two films, he's often the one who instigates a lot of the comedy. He bounces off of each guardian really well and is just a fun character. It's no wonder why he's a fan favorite! I understand why he's stuck in a coma, it's the whole point of the story for guardians to save his life, but I'm bummed out he was in it for so long. My sister suggested the idea of him being awake while his kill switch is slowly shutting his body down. There could still be that urgency, but also Rocket funny moments. I think the heist at OrgoCorp would've been a lot funnier if he was around. It could also make for some more drama. It would be interesting to see more and more of his past being dredged up against his will, as he tries to brush it off like it's no big deal, all while trying to ignore the increasingly unstable state of his body. He's not okay, but he's trying so hard to be. Until he finally collapses when the guardians make for Counter-Earth. I love the scene where Rocket reunites with Lylla. It's so powerful, and if I hadn't been watching with my family I probably would've cried hehe. All the flashbacks of Rocket's past was heart wrenchingly well done, holy cow. Props to Bradley Cooper for letting out one of the most primal screams I've ever heard in my life. Baby Rocket is such a tender soul that I wanted to go into the TV, beat up the High Evolutionary and take Rocket and Batch 89 home with me. My maternal instincts were going haywire lol.

I think the third act of the movie is the best part because Rocket's back and the guardians are kicking bad guy butt and saving people (in this case, clone kids and animals!). The High Evolutionary is such a slimy, horrendously vile villain that it feels so good when the guardians beat the crap outta him. We also get genuinely sweet Dad Drax moments ("You weren't meant to be a destroyer. You were meant to be a dad.") as he takes the kids under his wing. And we get some great Rocket moments as he discovers he really is a raccoon and lovingly carries the baby raccoons (ouuughhh my heart!!!). "The name's Rocket. Rocket Raccoon." is such a powerful line. All this time he thought he was a monster, but now he's embracing what and who he truly is!!!! I like how he insists the guardians save the animals too, and they do. And most of all, I love that Rocket lives. I'd read an out of context spoiler when Vol. 3 first came out back in May that Rocket dies. How unsatisfying would it be if he did? It honestly would feel like the High Evolutionary wins if Rocket dies. Movies nowadays kill off main characters for the shock and drama (even if it doesn't make sense). I'm so glad that Rocket is alive and he gets to flourish leading a new team. I'm honestly very satisfied with each guardian's ending. Quill reunites with his grandfather, Mantis goes on a journey of self-discovery, Drax becomes a father again, Nebula builds the home she never had, Gamora finds a new home with the Ravagers, and Groot and Rocket guide the next generation of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Overall, I rate this movie a 8/10. It has its rough patches, but the final act wraps it up nicely.

(also sorry I forgot about Adam. he's neat. I wish he got more screentime. Everytime I see him I think of Eustace lol)

[latveriastrong]

cw // personal stuff, child neglect and emotional honesty and all that kind of thing

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My mother left when I was 6. I didn't mind it terribly, she'd made it clear I was an unwanted burden from about age 2 and, idk. The term "wire mother" comes to mind. I still don't really feel anything about it, she was simply an absence to my life. Children adapt.

I understand now that she had a lot going on. Still sucked, but I understand it. I was born with a heart defect and a sickly child is... can be a struggle, even for the most stable of parents, who desperately want them.

I used to practice staying quiet and pretending to be one of my stuffed animals. Don't recall if it was her idea or mine, but I got real good at it. I could just disconnect from myself for hours, playing in my head.

I wouldn't say I was poorly socialized by school age, so much as like, semi-feral? My older brother took it upon himself to teach me how to interact like a normal human. He had dyslexia, like me, and ADHD, and a comic book collection.

Cloth mother.

He was of mixed descent, Black and Latino. His father, like my father, had a "year-round tan," just of a different shade.

My mother was white. Irish, she insisted. I believe the family may actually have Romanichal roots in the UK, but they weren't Irish. We don't know her real surname, so nothing can be researched.

Anyway. My first word was my brother's name. We were close. And I wish there were a happier ending there, but yeah. He died trying to break up a fight, I don't like to get into the details. I don't fully understand them.

I think, though, that if you have enough things taken away from you often enough, you lose the ability to share your toys and play nicely.

I wasn't taught better. Without meaning to, I was taught that life is a giant schoolyard where you either learn to fight dirty and hold your precious things close to your chest always, or have nothing.

This whole stupid baring of my soul on here thing is like. Mostly hormonal, maybe (I have been listening to Neko Case for 48 hours, please send help) but also part of something that struck me like a tire iron on my way to work this morning: I internalized that who I am as a person is essentially unlovable at an early age. That I had to give something to be seen as worth anything. Ideally while doing a song and dance number so no one got a peek at the Actual Me under all the noise.

I don't think that can be true, though, if I also feel that all humans have an innate and immutable worth. If your compassion doesn't include yourself, it's incomplete, right?

I deserved to have a childhood. Buying things as an adult doesn't fix the absence of that. It doesn't replace what's missing. In some ways it just makes me angrier? But mostly it feels like a grim fuck-you to a wire mother who couldn't possibly care less. As empty a gesture as they make 'em.

So I'm gonna try playing with my toys instead, as an adult person, because I like that and it's fun.

This might be the first fully genuine post I've ever made here. I don't know how I feel about that. It's not meant to "fix" anything, address anything, it's just. Me, I guess? Wanting to exist and be seen. Hello, world! Something like that.

ETA: I know I've generally used "Hex" and I still prefer it, but I've always quite liked the name "Michael," if I had to choose a real person name, a legal one, it would probably be that. I'm just scared to say so irl ever bc it has baggage for others in my life. So, yeah. Just "Hex."

[yan-lorkai]

Brothers with a mc who hates them

Warnings: Yandere stuff, y'know. Guilt tripping, gaslighting, mention of punishments, implied death, Stockholm syndrome, kidnapping, broken mc, implied torture, usage of spells and drugs, blackmail, manipulation, death threat, toxic relantionship and much more. If something like this is happening to you, ask for help. Minors n ageless blogs will be blocked

Lucifer

His heart is so cold, so lonely. He saw each of his brothers fall from heaven, cast out for following him in his rebellion. He held his sister’s body in his arms as the life drained from her eyes. Lucifer was robbed of his fate by taking an oath to Diavolo; to serve him, to be his right-hand man. Lucifer knows more about the world and its pains than you could ever want to know. And you were just a small, fragile human. You were just a bunch of bones and flesh, thoughts and feelings. You were so pure, so innocent, no matter what you did. So it was more than obvious that he would want to protect you from the world so big and so scary, orchestrating a perfect plan for you to vanish and no one could ever find you.

But he can still remember, with a sour taste in his mouth and some regret in mind, how you used to scream and struggle to get rid of the handcuffs on your wrists, to lean away from his touch. And he didn’t understand that and neither did he understand the look in your eyes. Lucifer is not delusional, but so long trying to carry the world on his shoulders has taken away some of his reasoning. For a moment he actually thought that when he embraced your trembling form and whispered, most of the time, praise and promises, you would love him. That when he had you on his lap while he wiped your tears and calmly kissed your cheek, that you would adore him in equal measure.

But otherwise, you never stopped screaming. You never stopped trying to run away. And today as he drinks another glass of Demonus, he still remembers that you never screamed again after your first punishment, never again tried to tell lies about how you hated him for stealing your life and your freedom. You just sat there and stared at him with your cold, dead eyes, never responding to any comments he made. You couldn’t gather your strength for it anymore. And then there was the second punishment and then the third, each one trying to make you react somehow, trying to make you feel, but no matter how much blood came out or how much he was screaming and shaking you, you didn’t react. You remained emontionless, apathetic.

Maybe if he’d understood earlier that his overwhelming feeling wasn’t good or healthy, wasn’t as human as he thought he was, maybe he would have pushed you away to protect you and him. You hated him, he understood that now as he held your body against his, content to listen to your shallow breathing. The hate that your soul kept emanating even after it was broken was something that would imprint itself on him forever, it was something that would haunt him because you were right all along, although he would never, ever admit it out loud to you or to himself.

But its alright. After all you will love him one way or another. He guarantees it. The drug potion he chose guarantees that. And your hate will completely disappear, as if it never existed. You will laugh and smile and speak again. It doesn’t matter if you’re never the same person again as long as you can love him as he loves you, it doesn’t matter because he just let that hate disappear from your eyes.

⠀⠀⠀

Mammon

The second strongest, the second oldest brother most teased among the younger brothers. Mammon is like an ever-moving sea, he doesn’t know what he feels because he’s always thinking and he’s so confused. Like, he doesn’t know if he genuinely loves you or he just has a huge affection for you because you don’t make fun of him or call him scum. You are different from his brothers, you are more affectionate, he can feel the friendship you have for each other through your eyes. So of course he can act like a tsundere, but he’s on cloud nine every time he’s with you. Being with you is almost like being in heaven again.

He especially loves the weekends where you watch movies and sleep together. Having his arms around your waist or you holding him across your chest makes him fall asleep quickly, it’s just amazing how he feels every time that happens. His heart beat faster, his palms were sweating a lot and his voice shook every time he was beside you. But he’s afraid, he’s so afraid you’ll reject him. So he does the only thing he can: Mammon destroyed your relationship with your friends, spreading untruthful rumors among the most gossipy demons and your grades are dropping really fast. Lucifer is always demanding the best results for an exchange student, saying that you must improve. But the pressure is too much and you go to Mammon to vent.

The same person you seek comfort from, who is massaging your shoulders and neck, is the same person who caused all these problems in the first place, the same person who wants to monopolize your time entirely for him. And he doesn’t feel the least bit guilty and doesn’t have empathy for your current state, after all he can help you as long as you’re always on his side, as long as you look at him. But what the Avatar of Greed didn’t expect was that one of his friends, who had apparently stopped talking to you out of nowhere, would text you about the things he had done.

And oh god, oh god, you’re so mad at him that you’re shaking, biting your lip to keep from screaming but it’s in vain. You’re screaming about how everything he’s done is wrong, that he should stay away from you and how you’re going to tell Lucifer everything. And that’s exactly what you do, leaving that place and saying it out loud. “I hate you!”

The sweet MC he met has been replaced by this cold and reserved version, you never looked at him the same again, you never spoke to him the same way again and even used your pact to force him to leave you alone. But you’re so naive, Mammon’s crush on you can’t go away just because you want to. No, he spends the next few months thinking and planning how to get you somewhere else to live in peace and he executes the plan overnight. In the morning none of you know how busy the House of Lamentation is, looking for MC the human and Mammon their idiot brother. And you honestly don’t need to know, Mammon is here for you, to hug you, to kiss you, to tell you I love you, to comfort you and be your only source of contact.

Sooner or later, that hate of yours will be lost inside your own mind. Very soon you and he will be a couple united by obsession and stockholm.

⠀⠀⠀

Leviathan

Now this one is complicated. Levi knows he can be considered a yandere, he knows that what he feels is neither normal nor right, but he loves every moment you spend together too much to care if it’s healthy or not. And you always look so happy when you’re reading manga and playing with him, it’s not like he’s forcing you to be there. But it’s normal that he wants to spend time with you, after all you are his Henry, his first and only friend. So he doesn’t really understand why you want to spend time with other people, he really thinks he’s a good enough friend for you and feels jealous when you’re talking to others.

“I knew… Of course you wouldn’t want to spend time with a disgusting otaku like me and I don’t blame you for that. You can go, I’ll be fine here alone because loneliness is all I’ve known forever.”

He is a manipulator and is always trying to make you feel guilty about your choices. The paranoia inside your head, the fear that you’re doing something wrong, and the uncertainty always take you back to the demon of envy, back to the toxicity of that room and those games. But Levi pretends it’s okay, letting you always win at games and letting you copy his homework. He’s not as good at PDA as his brothers, but he tends to hug your waist and pull you closer when the two of you are alone, your face resting on his shoulder. And sometimes he even lets you lie on his lap.

What’s funnier is that you don’t notice how far you’re drifting away from your other friends until Simeon points out that there’s something wrong with your relationship with Levi, how he’s always looking for your presence, your friendship, your love, your everything. Levi is consuming your being little by little and you can’t do anything, you don’t want to do anything, because when you’re with him your mind and your heart are always calm, united. And you don’t realize how toxic this relationship is, despite the constant doubts inside your mind. And even though you realize it, if you fight that instinct to see him continuously every hour of the day, that you curse him for doing what he did, even after all that, you still carry a feeling inside of you.

If you didn’t know better you would say it was love. But the truth is, it’s hate, hate so pure that you could rival Satan himself for who is the true Avatar of Wrath. Fighting day after day with your emotional dependency on Levi is difficult, especially when you live with him and his brothers. But you start to pick yourself up slowly, little by little, just so that he pretends he’s a victim and that it’s all inside your head, that you’re crazy, that Simeon is jealous of the relationship you have and that you should listen only to him. It doesn’t matter if your hate continues, it doesn’t matter that little by little you’re so paranoid that you don’t communicate with anyone else, he still loves you and accepts you. Even if it’s wrong. And he knows a way for you to be his alone; locking you into a game that only he knows so that only he can see you and talk to you forever.

⠀⠀⠀

Satan

The polite Avatar of Wrath, always on the verge of exploding with rage when things provoke him too much, is someone you never see coming. He is cruel and very silent, when you least expect it you are meticulously caught in his web, unable to move without his permission, unable to think without his permission. Satan is sweet at the beginning of your relationship, listening to your problems, encouraging you to spend time reading with him or go with him to a cat cafe that recently opened. But you are a poor little thing, so stubborn. He could devour all of your essence because you make him feel like he does. It’s love. It’s definitely love. He’s read about it many times in his books and seen it in movies.

Satan knows there’s a good percentage of you hating him for what he’s about to do, but he couldn’t care less. He will destroy you and rebuild you to the perfect image; to the ideal partner for him. Spell after spell, your essence drained like water into a drain. Things are no longer the same, the joy, the excitement of being in a new place, the fear and anxiety of living surrounded by demons, the tiredness and satisfaction of getting good grades. Nothing is the same after a while. But you think it’s just the monotony taking effect, after all the routine of going to the RAD and back to the House of Lamentation is pretty boring. But with the exams coming in, your worries quickly fade and you find yourself spending more and more time with Satan, studying and debating, waiting for his approving smile and head pat you get every time you offer a positive answer. It’s natural for you now and when you don’t get it, you’re disappointed in yourself.

What you didn’t know is that you were being conditioned to think that way by Satan’s manipulation through Pavlov. A tactic used by psychologists. And you probably wouldn’t notice the manipulation if it weren’t for you entering his room when he wasn’t present, plans for what he would do to you once you were his. Tears streamed down from your eyes as you slowly realized what it all meant; the lie, the betrayal of Satan. But you’re so naive, of course he would do that, he’s a demon. Bad stuff is what he does to poor, innocent people!

And you turned to run from there. Run for help, to scream everything you found out but you never took a step. Satan was behind you, his arms holding you exactly in place as a wide, bizarre smile graced his lips. Your hatred is raging everywhere and he’s just enjoying himself, reveling in the situation, stroking your face as he walked over to drop a kiss on your forehead. See, he feeds on your hate and anger. He does not care. He just wants you to hate him, to try to fight him more and more so he can put you in your place, but he also wants you to love him unconditionally.

He doesn’t need to kidnap you or anything like that, after all with the spell he has Satan practically controls your mind and your will. He knows everything and lying to him is impossible. You’re going to break soon anyway.

⠀⠀⠀

Asmodeus

Asmo doesn’t want a partner. He wants a doll to wear and play with, he wants someone dependent on him and his attention, someone who also loves him as he loves them. If you had noticed how he was clingy with you, deciding things for you and speaking for you, if you had cared a little more about these Asmo quirks then maybe you would be free now. But freedom is just a taste forgotten in your mouth. You don’t laugh. You do not speak. You just stare at him, as if everything that happens in front of you is just a monotonous movie, as if you no longer feel anything.

But again, it’s not like Asmo cared. Sure, it can be annoying when you don’t react to the latest gossip he tells you or when he tells you about his day. But maybe you need a little more time to recover from everything he’s done; of threats and blackmail, but you were so innocent that he felt the need to protect you from everyone. It was all necessary after all, and you can’t blame him just because you don’t want to see things from his point of view. If you had understood things would have been easier, he wouldn’t have needed to punish you for yelling so much.

You two are always in the public eye dancing and drinking in clubs, posing for pictures at Devilgram and acting like lovesick fools. But if you know how to play the game of Asmo right, you can manipulate him by using his ego and his narcissism against him.If you haven’t already made a pact with him, it’s a wise choice to go to Solomon and ask him to get Asmodeus to stop acting that way. But even so, even though his feelings are being controlled by a mere pact, even though his brothers think he’s crazy about the things he’s done to you, he still loves you obsessively. He loves you that could choke on the feeling itself. It’s addictive madness!

Keep hating him. Keep looking at him that way. Keep noticing him. He wants everything you’re willing to give him. And enjoy while this time lasts because Asmodeus will have you in his arms one way or another, the possibilities are endless from a spell to break the pact to Solomon’s assassination and, in that way, the nullification of the command.

⠀⠀⠀

Beelzebub

This friendly giant here is the second easiest type of yandere to deal with, because he literally just wants to protect you from bad influences and he really takes your opinion very seriously. So the only way he can do you any harm is if he manipulates you into being a little more on his side, but even then he might not notice what he’s doing. I mean, he took you to help him exercise and then to eat at Hell’s Kitchen. It’s just another normal day for you, so why are you trying to make excuses for not following him anymore?

Beel probably thinks he’s done something wrong and handles it the way he knows best. He eats. He eats a lot more than usual, he even tries to eat a pillar in the Demon Lord’s Castle again. But he is promptly stopped by Lucifer who patiently talks to him and makes him find the reason for his problems. You. You’re the reason for his troubles, but don’t take it the wrong way, he doesn’t want to offend you. He adores you as a member of his family, it was clear that your rejection would hurt him. Beel is just trying to be friendly because you are a little human in Devildom, a lot of demons want to eat your soul and he won’t let you.

Except he doesn’t know how to apologize. He’s like a giant shadow hovering over your shoulders, following you around instead of having a dialogue. And food can’t really distract him because he carries an absurd amount of food in his backpack for him and you; your favorites foods by the way. But if you try to start a conversation with him about how uncomfortable you were and hated how suffocating he was, Beelzebub will try to change and stop these trends. Really, he’s trying. But he just can’t.

And one night incredibly sad and lonely because Belphie wasn’t there to hear him speak, he had a nightmare. Same nightmare with lilith being killed but you were the one in her place this time. And he knew deep down as he broke into your room and took you somewhere else, to a completely secluded place that only he and Belphie knew, that what he was doing was wrong. You would hate him. No, you already hated him. Your eyes were real about it, although you didn’t react to anything. He felt your hatred of him with every thing he did. But he’s okay with living with your hatred as long as you’re alive and safe from harm. He’s always feeding you your favorite foods, helping you with whatever you need and putting you to sleep.

⠀⠀⠀

Belphegor

Invading your dreams to turn them into nightmares was the thing that amused him the most after you revived. All of his brothers were happy with you, the fake copy of Lilith. But he knew more. And every night he killed your dearest people in front of you, seeing how you cried and cried for someone’s help, anyone, making you suffer just like the humans made him suffer when they killed Lilith. And the more you try to interact with him, asking him for a chance to see you as MC, the human, rather than MC, the descendant of Lilith, that’s when things get worse.

Hallucinations of strange beings trying to kill you, chasing you down the halls and whispering death threats you recognized as the same ones Belphie whispered to you, before killing you in the attic. But you like the good person you are and with the good soul you have, you try to forget and forgive him for all the evil he did, once again, putting up with things and trying to protect the brothers, carrying the world on your back. And that only makes Belphie hate you even more, hate you so much that he could kill you and revive to kill you again. Stop being good to him when he doesn’t deserve it!

He honestly spends more time making your life hell than sleeping or plotting against Lucifer with Satan like he used to. Your plans always go wrong, your friends are always avoiding you and nothing you do goes right. It’s just useless and tiring, yet if you talk about it with the brothers they’ll probably say it’s just something that’s inside your head because things are normal????

Anyway, you find yourself cornered by Belphie in every situation that goes wrong. With tears in your eyes and trying to look scary, you proclaim his hatred with a shriek filled with feeling, your fists shaking. You can try to run away, scream, run or fight, but regardless, now that Belphie has witnessed your hatred and anger towards him, such a negative feeling, he wants more and more. Come on, keep hating and cursing him, it’ll be more fun to carry out each of the death threats when you’re feeling what he feels for you.

[lubdubsworld]

Insatiable. ( Jungkook x OC)

Pairing : Jeon Jungkook x OC

Rating 18+

Genre : Vampire Au!!!! , DILF! Jungkook ! Bodyguard AU! Babysitter OC!   Age difference!!! [ bet you’ve never seen all of this in one fic before? ] 

[ Some notes : Born Vampires stop aging when they turn twenty five.  Turned vampires stop aging when they’re turned. ]

Summary : 

21 year old Hwang Sera is sick of being the only human in an entire clan of vampires. As an immortal human from one of the oldest bloodlines, she is a catch. The Vampire she marries would essentially be indestructible. 

Which makes her an easy target for greedy vampires everywhere. 

Determined to keep his precious daughter safe, her father hires an old friend , Jeon Jungkook as her full time bodyguard. 

Jungkook is 35 years old ( well technically 576 years old )  , father to an adorable five year old kid and he has zero tolerance for Sera and her teenage shenanigans. But , he needs the money and he knows his son would be safe in the  Hwang clan’s massive mansion.  

And suddenly, after years of despising vampires, all Sera can think about is getting into the gorgeous vampire’s bed and maybe into his heart. 

Chapter 1

“He’s so hot.” My sister sighed for the seventeenth time and I glared at her.

“He’s mine. Back the fuck off.” I bared my non existent fangs at her and she retaliated by showing off her own inch long fangs, eyes flashing ruby red in the confines of our huge sprawling bedroom. 

The man in question, my sparkling new bodyguard wasn’t here now. He was downstairs at the party, being introduced to the others as the latest addition to our clan.

My mouth watered when I remembered his gorgeous, handsome face. And that body , God. 

Sculpted by some higher being who wanted to show off, for sure. 

I had never given much thought to losing my virginity. It certainly wasn’t by design that I hadn’t had sex yet but looking at Jeon Jungkook in a fitted black suit, midnight black hair falling into his lovely red eyes and those delicious muscles.....

I kind of believed in fate now. 

This was why I’d always been repulsed by the vampires who courted me. 

Because Jeon Jungkook had been out there, waiting for me. 

And now fate had brought him here and he was going to be mine. 

I stumbled over a stray bra, nearly face planting onto the floor . 

 God, i hated how messy Somi was but I was also eternally grateful that she had skipped out on the party tonight, volunteering to help me with the kids. 

I ran a daycare in one of the larger cottages in the estate, keeping the little fanged devils in check while the parents went about their daily lives. On nights like this, when my father hosted guests from every clan in the country for one of his lavish parties, there was always a whole bunch of bite-happy toddlers in need of supervision. 

Enter me.

 I loved babies. I’d always loved them. They were adorable. And after three years of school , I was finally, officially qualified in caring for them. 

Oh and by the way did i tell you that Jungkook had a son? Jeon Joowon was possibly the cutest five year old I’d ever seen and yes I was a little biased but that was okay. I was going to be the kids step mom , after all. 

Listen, don’t look at me like that, I just really want to be with Jungkook okay?

I tripped over the same bra when turning back around and I swore.

Focus, Sera. You can day dream about hot vampire daddy later.

“ Why do you have to throw your shit all over the place like this? “ I whined, grabbing the offensive piece of fabric and tossing it at her. She caught is so fast I  went a little cross eyed. My sister never missed an opportunity to show off her super-saiyan, vampire powers. That made her a crowd favorite with the toddlers and younglings . 

“I still don’t think your choice of a career is smart. These fanged little beasts are impossible to control... ” She commented mildly, watching me stuff two whole cartons of baby wipes into the huge backpack I had propped against the bed. I’d forgotten to restock the day care with wet wipes and it was sheer luck that I had a pair of them lying around my room.

The very idea of entering a room full of babies and toddlers without baby wipes, made me shudder. 

“Listen, they’re absolute angels when you listen to what they’re saying. Just because babies can’t talk doesn’t mean they don’t have preferences. All you really need to do is find out what each kid likes and help them feel comfortable -”

“Please stop.” She rolled her eyes and I glared at her.

“I’m a little thirsty. Can i have a sip..” She said softly and I frowned.

“You haven’t drunk from me the entire day. Are you okay?” I held my wrist out.

She shrugged , grabbing my wrist and casually sinking her fangs into the vein . Pain bloomed, familiar and somehow comforting , replaced almost at once by the gentle numbing of her venom. She drank a little and pulled back soon after, linking the puncture wounds for good measure. I watched the skin knit itself together , whole and unmarred in no time. 

Perks of being immortal. 

The knock on the door made me jump. 

“Ms Hwang?” Jungkook’s soft, husky voice came floating through the door and I grinned, cheeks aching with how wide my smile was.

“You look like a maniac. Stop smiling.” My sister looked a little alarmed and I struggled to rearrange my features. Sticking my tongue out at her, I grabbed my sweatshirt, slipping it overhead quickly. I glanced at the mirror, grimacing a bit. 

Being with toddlers meant no make up or hair left free.... and so I had a messy top bun, and just lip gloss to look presentable. While the entire party teemed with gorgeous vampires in low cut gowns and blood red lips. 

Ugh. 

I grabbed the backpack and waved to Somi.

“Come as soon as you can alright?” I begged her and she waved me off.

I rushed to the door, throwing it open and smiling wide.

“Hi oppa.” I said cheerfully.

“I’m not your oppa.” Jungkook said automatically, barely glancing at me and instead reaching for the backpack. He directed me to the stairwell on the side, the one that led straight down to the ground floor and out into the gardens. He went in first and  I followed him,  climbing down carefully. 

I sighed, taking in the mouth watering width of his shoulders, encased in a perfectly fitted jacket. He looked so handsome I wanted to cry. And although he’d been here for a whole week month now, I hadn’t managed to get into his good graces. 

“What do I call you, then?” I made to hold his hand when we reached the end of the staircase  but he shook my arm off at once.

Did I tell you that he really can’t stand me for some reason? 

“As I’ve  mentioned a dozen times already, Mr. Jeon would suffice.” He said shortly. He held the door leading out into the gardens open and I walked through. 

“That makes you seem so old.” I grimaced, shaking my head and he gave me an amused look.

“I am 576 years old.” He deadpanned. The daycare cottage was just a five minute walk from the mansion and the pathway through the garden was absolutely beautiful, well lit and covered in the brightest flowers. 

I waved off his excuse about his age. 

“you don’t look a day over twenty five to me.” I said with a shrug. He shook his head, clearly too tired to carry the conversation on. We walked in silence and I felt incredibly content, just with him near.

 And he was going to be by my side for the rest of our lives, I thought softly. I would make sure of it. I’d never felt this way about anyone. Jungkook was a good man , evident in literally everything he did. He was kind, an amazing father and such a gentleman that he made me melt. 

Jungkook had been turned at the age of 35. And so he sailed through eternity with the gorgeous good looks of a mature , well kept man. His hair was thick, just a slight bit of grey peppering the edges and his features were sharp and well defined. 

“Is Joowon in the daycare already?” I asked with a smile and he nodded curtly. 

“He has Mr. Pepper with him. He refused to leave him behind. please just make sure he still has him with him when he leaves. He can’t fall asleep without the bunny “ He said softly and I felt my heart bloom ten sizes.

“Of course, I will -”

“Jungkook !!!” The shrill voice broke the stillness of the night like a hammer through a mirror. 

I turned around with a frown only to be greeted by the sight of a very pretty, very tall vampire in a blood red bodycon dress and a neckline that plunged all the way to her belly button. She had ruby red lips, and well made eyes. Eyes that now flashed red , dilating as they ran up and down his body. 

I felt myself clenching my fists. 

“I’m getting late....we need to go, I grabbed his arm trying to tug him along but he didn’t budge. i glanced at his face and felt my heart shatter at the small smile playing around his lips.

“Helena..... Surprise seeing you here....” He drawled, voice so much deeper than usual and I bit my lips. They knew each other? 

The vampire had reached us now and she gave me a disdainful smile.

“Who’s this?” She asked with a laugh, “ Are you babysitting now, Jeon?”

I bristled. To my utter chagrin, Jungkook laughed to.

“She’s the kid I’m watching. The Immortal human  of the Hwang clan.” He intoned dully. 

The lady’s brows went up in surprise.

“:The rumors are true, ....The Hwang clan’s hidden jewel.....with skin like the rarest pearl and eyes that steal souls. Fiercely guarded ...a beauty like no other.... I thought they were exaggerating, but I see they were not. . You’re exquisite.” She commented , seemingly genuine in the compliment as her eyes roved over my features. 

“ Um.. thanks?” I shrugged, not particularly flattered by the extravagant description.  

The poets in my clan tended to be a bit overdramatic at times. 

. She laughed.

“Are you unavailable for the night, then Jeon?” She turned her flashing eyes on him .

My jaw nearly dropped.

Did this bitch really just proposition-

“Afraid so.... Raincheck?” Jungkook smiled wide and he looked so beautiful that I had to bit my lips to stop from moaning. 

Helena waved softly, eyes shifting back to me.

“Be safe, little human. When the sun goes down, the ghouls come out to play.” She grinned wide, letting her fangs grow long, past her lower lip, eyes red and bloody. 

I stared right back. She laughed and waved before floating away into the night. 

Jungkook chuckled. 

“You’re not intimidated by us, then.” He said mildly as we began walking again.

“I spent the entirety of my childhood playing with vampires. Do you really think they didn’t spend every waking hour trying to scare me to death?” 

He gave me soft smile, and then went back to staring straight ahead. 

I relaxed when the familiar cottage came into view, the sound of laughing kids reaching me. 

I held my hand out for the backpack and Jungkook gave it to me.

“I’ll just check out the backyard and see if al the gates are secure and then I’ll be right outside the door, alright? Call out if you need me...” He said sharply 

“Will you come even if I call you oppa?” I bit my lips, grinning and he flicked my nose. 

“Behave.” He said shortly. I sighed.

“I’m not a kid, you know.” I said softly and he gave me a look.

“You are to me. Now get inside.” 

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

“There’s a monster behind the tree and I’m Hawkeye because I have the bow and arrow and Jieun is the princess.” Joowon said brightly, showing off the toy bow and arrow in his hand and I grinned, taking in his exquisite features. He looked strikingly like his father , except for the two adorable dimples that showed up everytime he smiled.

“That’s amazing... do you like fighting monsters?” I asked with a grin holding my arms out for him and he hugged me happily.

“Yes, I like fighting monsters and I like Mr. Pepper.” He waved the stuffed bunny in my face. 

“Make sure you keep him safe, alright? “ I stroked the soft skin of the 

“So what color does your daddy like?” I asked with a grin. I felt a sharp kick on my shin and I turned to my sister. 

“Don’t use the fucking kid for your sinful aims, you dingbat!” She hissed and I glared at her. 

“I did no such thing...I was just making conversation....” I hissed back.

“Dad likes black.” Joowon answered dutifully and I ruffled his hair. Jieun appeared then, having waited for her prince and gotten bored. She tugged on Joowon’s arm and I let him go, watching the two of them run off. 

“Its only been a month, Sera.... I think you should tone down the infatuation. You know dad would never approve.” My sister said gently and I frowned.

“No he won’t, Dad loves me , he wants me to be happy.” I said shortly. 

“Yes, but not with Jungkook. He’s a rogue vampire. He doesn’t have a clan. He has a kid ...”

“An angel of a kid...”

“he has a kid whose mother he had to kill because she was a bloodthirsty witch.” 

i stared at my sister feeling anger build inside me.

“What does any of that have to do with how I feel about him?” I demanded , moving to stop one of the littles from tripping over a stray rubik’s cube. 

“ You’re special. You’re being courted by some of the richest, most powerful  vampires in the country and you want to go after the rogue , broke vampire who’s only here because he needs the money and the safety of our clan?” 

“I’m not having this conversation with you.” I said firmly.

Somi sighed.

“I’m just saying. Don’t be so blatantly open about your feelings. You’ll be putting a target on Jungkook’s back.” 

I exhaled sharply. 

“If anyone tries to hurt him, they die.” I said softly.

Somi chuckled.

“I know.... but still, he’s not looking for trouble. Don’t bring it to his doorstep.” 

I didn’t reply, moving quickly to the other side of the room. 

the words left a bitter taste on my tongue.

Mostly because my sister was right. 

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

i stared at the tall strapping vampire, trying to comprehend what I was hearing.

“What do you mean he isn’t here for the night?” I demanded. 

“He’s a little tired. He told me had a little too much to drink and he wants to sleep it off. I’ll be here instead ... Just for tonight.” He tried to smile reassuringly and I was momentarily distracted by very deep dimples  but I could feel myself fuming. 

“and he didn’t think of saying that to me himself? He had to run off while i was closing up the cottage?” I glared. 

The Vampire chuckled. 

“He told me you might protest.”

“Of course i protest, I feel safer with him...” I said sharply.

The Vampire gave me a deep sigh.

“I’ve been doing this for three centuries, Miss Hwang. You’re definitely safe with me.” He bowed his head.

“What’s your name?” I demanded. 

“Kim Namjoon.” 

“Fine , Kim Namjoon ssi.... Let’s go. “ 

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

Giving Namjoon the slip was a lot easier than I thought. I waited for him to greet my great uncle, and slipped between two waiters carrying blood cocktails and weaved into the crowd easily. 

Jungkook’s bedroom was next to mine and it took me less than a minute to race up the stairs and to his room.

i banged on the door , determined to see for myself just how drunk he’d gotten. 

The door opened and i took a deep breath.

“How dare you leave me-” 

I froze when I realized that he was shirtless, fresh out of the shower. Water dripped down his torso , like little starbursts of liquid light and my mouth went dry. I swallowed, staring at the tightly packed abs, the dip of his v line as it disappeared into a fluffy white towel.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” He growled angrily.

My eyes flew to meet his and then my gaze caught something red on his bed and I peered over his shoulder.

Pain lanced through my heart so sharp that I felt like I’d taken a fucking brick to my chest. 

The sight of Helena, naked except for a red bra, stretched out on his bed got burned into my brain and I choked.

“You-” I began but he grabbed my arm, so hard that I knew I would bruise. He yanked me away from the threshold of his room, dragging me to the middle of the hallway as he slammed the door to his room shut.

“Where the fuck is Namjoon?”

“You ditched me to get laid? “ I hissed in disbelief.

“I can’t fucking believe you’re doing this-”

“Is she your girlfriend-”

“Sera-” he shook me again but I refused to back down. I had to know.

“Are you in love with her?!!!” I demanded, my heart breaking .

Jungkook growled.

“It’s none of your damned business!!” He snapped angrily .

“It is !!” I said shrilly.

“Why on earth-”

“Because I’m in love with you!!” I shouted and he froze. 

He let go of me like he’d been burned and stepped back, staring at me wide eyed,. 

“What did you just say?” He demanded.

“I want you. I want you to court me-”

“Sera stop.” He said sharply 

“I’m not joking...I like you and-”

“Shut up.” He growled, his voice shaking. 

I swallowed.

“If you say something as asinine as that to me , ever again... I  will  make you regret it. ” He warned softly.

I felt my heart jerk in panic.

“Jungkook-”

“It’s Mr. Jeon to you!!!” He growled. 

I bit my lips, staring at my feet.

“I’m going to pretend this never happened. You’re going to go to your room and wait for Namjoon. If anything like this ever happens again, I’m telling your father.” 

I laughed bitterly.

“I’m not fucking twelve years old you son of a bitch. Stop talking to me like I’m your toy or something !” I snarled.

“If you were my toy I would fucking spank you till you cry and lock you in a damn room!” He hissed. 

I flinched.

He took a deep shaky breath. 

“This never happened.” He said sharply. “ I’m not one of your boytoys. I have no interest in fledgling humans who know nothing about life. That's not the kind of woman I’m looking for. You’re not the kind of woman I’m looking for because you aren’t even a woman yet.” 

“ Jungkook !!!” Namjoon’s voice rang through the hallway and I stepped back. 

“Have a good night with your whore, Mr. Jeon.” I snapped, before turning on my heel and leaving. 

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

Author’s Note : Hot DILF! Vampire Jungkook is hot.  This brings back fond memories of me panting after my husband as a nineteen year old brat . I was a devilish teenager smitten with a twenty seven year old man. Anyways I hope you guys enjoyed :D

[lazycheesecakeee]

Stray kids as love languages

Ok so I started thinking and that’s never good and somehow this got CHUNKY AF :))) But I hope you enjoy reading my messy thoughts about skz expressing love :)

Bang Chan

Giving: Gifts/Words of affirmation

Yeah SO… we all know how he always seems to always give the closest people to him, like everything, including the moon and a fucking rocket to the moon as well, and build it too, that before he gets anything at all? He is definitely a giver. He buys food, drinks, anything.

Anything you would accomplish, no matter how small would be an excuse for him to go out and buy you a meal and while you are there, if you only happen to glance at something twice, you already have it? Yeah you might feel bad and try to pay or say “stop giving me things all the time” but he would not stop and he would buy you the thing and shower you with praises for how well you did, even if you think it is not such a big deal.

You have a normal day when nothing happened? You go to the store together, he pays. He comes to visit you randomly. On the way he buys a flower and a random chocolate or a drink because he remembers somehow that you said you wanted to try it like 3 months ago. And the list never ends. He has a good sense for what people want too. So if you are close to him he gives you EVERYTHING. Showers of praises and all of his fucking money :)))) BOY HAS NO LIMITS.

Receiving: words of affirmation

Listennnn, as much as he gives and never stops, like NEVER. (Take his credit card away lmaoooo), when you acknowledge his little appreciations and thank him sweetly or give him a hug to let him know you are grateful, he gets immense satisfaction. I feel like he is the one to give but if he feels like he is used in the slightest he definetly cuts the rope short real FUCKING FAST.

I feel like he def is SUCH a sucker for appreciation and words of affirmation AND COMPLIMETS. He wants to feel needed and like his efforts are worth it. And giving him the verbal queue that his efforts don’t go unnoticed, that despite his busy schedule you appreciate the time with him, that his hard work and struggles to be the best are worth it, that the nights in the studio are fruitful and he is doing a good job, THAT would really make his entire day and his anxieties dissipate. Let him know he is wanted. Poor baby someone give him a sleep schedule too and some melatonin :)))))

Lee Know/Minho

Giving: Acts of service

He def strikes as one weird cranky, moody, annoying bitch with his behaviour but if you pay closer attention he is actually so observant and thoughtful/caring. He seems like you would not want to go to him for things but I actually think that if you take the time and grow close to him he is one of the most caring and protective people tbh.

Like it’s in his nature to pay attention to what close ones are doing, their schedules, interests and habits. He is the kind of person to never purposefully say or make a fuss out of doing something but somehow he knows you need something or you want something. And he buys the thing and puts it in the fridge. Or changes the sheets because he feels you are too sad and unmotivated and that would be good. Or buys something definitely because “he wanted it” but gets more, and a side of the thing you like a lot, because “it was there”, definitely not because he thought of you and that it would bring you joy. Or he would like pick a prescription for you or refill your water bottle before leaving or tell you to bring band-aids because you complained those shoes hurt you. Or tell me this boy would not chop the onions for the pasta sauce so you don’t ruin your mascara (I am not sobbing you are).  And he somehow fits himself in and things add up so well and your life is so much easier despite him claiming he „did nothing”.

Receiving: Words of affirmation

Although it doesn’t seem like it, something tells me it’s true. I read on an internet thing that people that seem cold and don’t want/seem to have the need for verbal affirmation and validation from strangers get actually more satisfaction from it than people who say it explicitly.

He also def strikes me like he was raised to be tough, to recover fast, to not be a cry baby and just get up and do the job, suck it up, be strong and independent. A little bit of trust issues into the mix as well ☹ You can actually kinda see a sort of anxious behaviour type of thing in him. So I feel like if you actually grow closer to him (ahem Jisung), acknowledging his efforts and how he makes your life easier, THAT would bring out the asshole being like “oh really? Hm interesting you think I do so much for you huh?” but he actually does thooo and you saying it would bring him like so much joy and make his heart happy.

Like each time you give him a compliment TM he would act like “yeah I know” or act disgusted but high key it soothes his spirit and ego when you say such things. He just loooves to hear how much you loved something he cooked or how attractive he was while dancing or how he was really thoughtful, and you appreciate it sm. He seems to have the nature to give, and he seems to expect to go unnoticed but when and if you do acknowledge his heart is actually swooning over it.

Changbin

Giving: Physical touch/Gifts

I think he would be the type to bring weird things to you for no reason along with 1000 kisses and a hug that is a bit too tight you know? Like his mind gets occupied with you if you are close.

And like he saw this weird card at the store or a little figurine or something which has a weird patters and he thought “Hm they must see this. They would like this strange ass thing I bought which was overpriced”. And when he gives you the thing you give like an odd smile and in your eyes is a „love you but wtf is this” and he would take your hands and look down and kiss them and say “I don’t know i thought you might like it?” And you would tease each other and he would start doing ayego and get really shy and just hug you again and place his head in your neck to avoid the eye contact, then lift you up and spin you and from there you have no chances of escaping the embrace TM.

Receiving: Physical touch

I feel like he would be a sucker for physical touch as your love language as well. If you reciprocate hugs, kisses and stuff. You know he seems like the kind to find comfort in holding you for no reason, like a hand on the knee or on your waist and if you two are comfy and give him little pets, stroke his hair, place your hand on his shoulder or biceps or take his hand with both yours or grab his middle randomly, he would swoon. Also you clinging to him and letting him cling to you I think is like thing he wishes for most tbh:) I feel like he feels safety and love by holding onto you and you onto him like he can protect you. He would like to know you trust him with that, ya know? Like he is a strong bitch ready to fight anyone coming at you and can protect you but is also your smol koala child which you can never escape.

Hyunjin

Giving: physical touch

Now this might seem weird to you BUT. He seems like he touches people out of nowhere sometimes and kinda clings. Not like all the time but enough. Like he likes being really close to you if he is close to you, you know?. He would be all up in your face with his weird ass mannerisms and humour but if they are reciprocated and he feels safe and good around you he naturally starts to cling if that makes sense? Like in a way a sort of telling others: “mine, you cannot have them before me” but also in the sense that you know he would do anything for you if you ask in those instances. Like YO, you have me, soul and body next to you, I am here :)))

Like he doesn’t seem like the type to buy things a lot (cheap ass I see you :)))) although he would sometimes) But he makes up by being there and encouraging you despite not knowing how to act or what to say all the time, he lets you know you can count on him and he is there. I feel like his touch expresses appreciation.

Receiving: words of affirmation/quality time

He strikes me as attention demanding lmao:)) OH I am yours pay attention to me I am your baby I require love and affection, undivided.

So if you make time to have lunch with him or have conversations before bed in peace (my dude seems like his thoughts overwhelm him all the time and honestly same :/ it’s kinda yikes tbh), or watch a movie/tv show, or just be in his presence when he is both excited or down, and listen to him rant and give him solutions or rant with him about random subjects and jumping around between them subjects, you would get all the uwus and he would probably be ready to dedicate his entire existence to your well being and desires.

He is just like that, a dramatic ass with overly changing emotions who wants a good connection, like a genuine one, where hours go by and someone truly understands him and things flow, ya know? (seems like the type to believe in fate type of love, which I find interesting)

Han Jisung

Giving: Physical touch/ Words of affirmation

He seems really touchyyyyy TM. But like in the way that shows physical affection because he seems a little insecure? That is kinda what he strikes me as. Like he wants to hold you. He wants to show you have him. He wants to be appreciated :( my child (and bias) help me I am sobbing:))) and he wants to make sure you know he appreciates you just as much.

Like he would hold your hand, hug you a lot or place random kisses and linger in those places? An he would compliment you and tell you your work is amazing and that he is proud and he would make lots of idiotic jokes to cheer you up, no matter the mood (we stan crackhead humour in this household) and he would tell you the most random shit he likes about you. Like “I like your socks” or “you changed your bag” or “the perfume is oddly floral just like your shirt and I like it”.

And he would make random short freestyle raps (kill me now I am in too deep) about you or a random thing you are doing. And he would just linger around you when you are busy and can’t give him attention. He wants to show trust and love through little gestures and trusts you to see them as a sign of his love because you make him happy and all.

Receiving: ALSO Physical touch/words of affirmation idk

I feel like he would like physical touch back? Like he would be fine if you didn’t like it, but like since he is like anxious and (to me) seems like a little overly aware of his “flaws and deficiencies”, he would like to know he has your “hold”. Like some sort of security type of thing.

Like small gestures, your hand on him, a little kiss, a hug, a squish :))), a little grip of reassurance and a nod of “you are doing good”. I think he would be a sucker for that. And also despite him lowkey rejecting your compliments like “yeah I know I am the best”, giving it to him would boost his self-esteem a lot, as I think he has many insecurities and quite a few complexes that are hard to express for him. So that, along with your touch and words to reassure him, he would love and get the idea that you want him close too, that he’s desired enough for you to seek his love, something like “you my dude are seen and loved for who you are”.

Felix

Giving: Giving gifts/Physical touch

He is defiantly a giver. He literally seems like he is so thoughtful and cares so much. Like we all know how his fellow members said he is great at gifts. Well duh. I feel like his gifts are not always big but like a small food or drink he brings because he knows you always love it, a flower he saw in the front of a flower shop he thought was pretty. Something you said you needed (or you didn’t say) but he knows you do need it because he just pays that much attention. A pendant necklace. A ring. A small ice-cream because the day is hot so why not. A donut that had flower sprinkles because you like to post aesthetic foods and so on. You name it. They would not be obnoxious, but it would sure show how much you are occupying his thoughts.

We also always know how he is attached to the hip to the people he is close to and he loves skinship. He said he loves back hugs, hugs, kisses he wants it all:)) So he gives plenty of cuddles for sure. You can never escape the octupus arms as you go to sleep each night, so might as well set up the air conditioning in your house as it’s about to get warm but affection and love above all, right? :)))))))

Receiving: Words of affirmation/Physical touch

I think he thrives if you return his little ministrations of affection. Does it matter? A hug, a kiss, holding him, a little massage, hand size comparison, throwing yourself on top of him on the couch or the bed at the end of the day. He LOVES it. You are also competing with Chan lol but no worries, he has plenty affections for all:))

Also I think he needs reassurance and a sense that people that are closest are proud of what he is doing(wipe your tears bitch). So I think acknowledging his hard work and the fact that he pulls through despite certain mental heath problems and telling him he does an amazing job and complementing his work would definitely mean a lot to him.

But give the boy your affection, A VerY tOucHy BoI. It makes his heart swell with joy knowing you pull him close and feel so much love for him that you don’t hold back from giving. Be an octopus with him tambien😊

Seungmin

Giving: Acts of service

Another one for acts of service. Our smol good boi which somehow does not seem smol at all because he exudes maturity and rationality lmao.

He would be such a servant if he loves you. AND YOU WOULD NOT EVEN NOTICE at first. Like I feel like he does stuff in a way similar to Minho where he makes sure your life is as easy as can be. Like puts your shoes out of the way, checks the weather so you don’t leave dressed inappropriately (forces you to take the puffier jacket despite it not going with your outfit, because “do you want to catch a cold, hm?”), gives you an umbrella. Fixes a random necklace which you broke by accident because he knows it will sit there for like 3 years if it’s in your care, and you like the necklace 😊. Makes sure you eat something healthy too(would definitely bring you washed and cut-up fruits after going out to eat at mcdonalds). And he for sure does not expect you to really notice, but if you do he is getting flustered and runs out the room with a big smile😊 what a baby tm.

Receiving: Acts pf service

I feel like he would appreciate most if you also took time out of your day to ease his life too. I feel like he would feel such relief and happiness and his heart would swell with affection and appreciation if you took on one of his (no matter how insignificant) tasks. Like he would be in a rush to leave and you woke up earlier before work to make him a coffee. Or when he comes home late you already put his clothes on the bed and prepared a bath. Or getting up and asking for extra napkins if he was not given any, or simply asking how can you make his day better. I feel like being helpful and listening and paying close attention to him would be what makes him happiest.

I.N./Jeongin:

Giving: Quality time/Gifts

He gets awkward when he tries to express feelings with words and is def not the most fond of skinship. However, I think if you were close he would be an amazing listener and sit with you and you could both share and grow together so much. He would give you the feeling he is ready to listen and be with you if you need him. 

That and also I feel like when you are out and about it makes him feel good to know he can buy you things you can enjoy, and you are appreciative of them and he has that power to brighten your day and be a mature adult by buying you things, despite not really needing them sometimes.

Receiving: Quality time/Words

You know how he struggled a bit with the dancing at first and you know how the other members say that he does nothing when someone criticizes him, he just goes out of his way to fix his “mistakes”? And also in Vlive when he said he doesn’t like to watch his own fancams because all he sees are his mistakes? My baby seems to have a bit (quite some) of an imposter syndrome and since he is young and everyone teases him, although with love, I feel like it gets a bit uncomfortable and tough. He seems he just wants to keep up, and be the best at what he does but it gets tough when you have to catch up with people who have been doing the thing for many more years than you and you are struggling with your feelings and figuring things out as you grow within a demanding contract. So I think someone to listen to his worries and give him undivided attention without judgement and put in their input without being intrusive would be the most amazing thing to him. That, along with compliments and acknowledgement of his efforts, telling him that he is doing GOOD and you are proud (although he might think that you are just saying it, since he seems to only see ways he needs to improve) would be good at raising his self esteem and encourage him to continue with his hard efforts.

[sixteenthshen]

post-finale stuff

Possible spoilers. Beware

Last night, I happened to check the scriptwriter's Weibo and saw that she had liked this fan's post. It's the only non-work related Weibo post that she had liked, so of course, I went to read it. 

The fact that this is the only fan post she's given her approval to must mean that it is on point and she agrees with the characterisation. I thought it's pretty good, so I've gone ahead to translate it here. I own 0 rights to this. I just thought it's a good perspective that may help others like me who struggled with the ending. 

I think I've mostly made my peace with it now, and to sum it up:

Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all that they are. 

A-Xu never once blamed Lao Wen for how things turned out because he understood that. And he’s clearly a better person than I am (lol).

Let me be clear about my stand - the real victim of how the drama unfolded in the last six episodes is WKX. When we feel our hearts ache for ZZS, it's because the show let down WKX (the character). If your heart is only hurting for WKX during episodes 33-34, you should try to ship WKX with someone else, ok? If you think the last six episodes were great and that WKX was very romantic (and only romantic), then I honestly don't know what to say. 

I ship wenzhou. That means I like both Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu. I want them to love each other, be good to each other and live happily ever after. And I want them not to be OOC. 

The rest behind the cut. Spoilers for the whole drama. 

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First, the source. Here is a link to that Weibo post, by 爱吐槽的栗小姐. I will delete this if requested by the OP - because this is really in a grey area imo. But I think the intention of a public post is for it to be shared? (especially something like this, which argues a point) 

Secondly, the poster does try to be fair in her post, but as the problem here is WKX's ruined characterisation, ZZS's character is analysed primarily concerning this issue only. There's quite a bit left to ZZS's character and backstory that isn't relevant. I believe that's why the post doesn't elaborate on it, or so I hope.

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Ever since WKX faked his death, I received three to four waves of fellow sister fans' mournful wails: "Lao Wen actually faked his death; does he have a heart?" "They were supposed to be of the same heart and treat each other with honesty. How did they regress?" "What happened to their innate soulmate-ness?" "Why does A-Xu always say to face things together, yet Lao Wen always keeps his plans from him?" "A-Xu loves Lao Wen, yet Lao Wen only loves himself"…….

Wait. What have you guys misunderstood about the meaning of soulmates? 

Soulmates are about values, but a person's behaviour… that's methodology FFS! 

(Do they no longer teach this in political affairs class in high school anymore?) 

Wenzhou, these soulmates, are incomparably compatible and mesh well in terms of values. According to the scriptwriter, the entire jianghu wants and tries to get the pieces of Glazed Armour, save the two of them. Not only do they not care for the peerless martial arts, immense power, nor the massive wealth that the Glazed Armour represents, they don't even care for the power they hold in their hands –Ghost Valley and the Window of Heaven. Both of them willing to give it up without a second thought. 

Before they met each other, they were so tired of (ZZS) and so angry at (WKX) this earthly world that they didn't even want to live on anymore. 

After they met each other, they gradually began to feel the warmth in this world again. How nice it would be if they could live in seclusion, hand in hand and just bask in the sun. 

In this world, where everyone else is fighting for power or wealth, they are true soulmates. To intelligent people like them, whether or not they're honest about their identities or secrets is merely a matter of formality. They had already determined their attraction to the other's soul early on and have never doubted it. 

There may be some here who would criticise loudly at this point, "Then can't you be more considerate for your soulmate (the actual phrased used is "spiritual companion")? A-Xu has said many times, let's face everything together, I'll bet that you will be honest with me. If you really love him, then why can't you care for his feelings?" 

----- You guys, you've never been married. 

If two souls meeting can naturally resolve all behavioural conflicts and disagreements, then the theory of "breaking in" * would not exist. 

Let us take a look at what kind of a person WKX and ZZS each are.

Wen Kexing, he's a lone wolf. 

After his parents' death and his entering the Ghost Valley, his smooth sailing life suddenly fell off a cliff. Ever since then, the only person he could rely on was himself. That deep-seated hatred is carved into his bones, yet he can't speak of it to anyone else. He isn't the same type of person as the rest of the ghosts in the Ghost Valley; he isn't the same type of person as A-Xiang, who he raised. If we talk about the world and everyone who lives in it, he doesn't have any fetters or feels any (positive) emotions. 

His supposed craziness is a form of indifference. He's indifferent to others' lives, nor his own, because he just doesn't care. (T/N: I think he does care for his own life, but only for revenge, after that, he's indifferent. Indifferent isn't suicidal. I don't know why some fans seem to be confusing the two. Although he didn't plan to, if he somehow manages to stay alive after getting his revenge, WKX will continue to live on, even if it's only to keep A-Xiang happy because he is indifferent.)

Growing up like this, being solitary became his style. He's used to doing everything alone, used to making his own decisions, used to digesting all his emotions himself. 

Every time he argues with A-Xu, he digests his emotions himself. The next day, he faces A-Xu with a smile again. 

This is how he loves, to take it upon himself to face danger, difficulty and pain alone. It's how he had supported A-Xiang all these years in the Ghost Valley and what he's used to. 

While Zhou Zishu, he's a lead horse (of a herd). ** 

Since a very young age, he's taught to take responsibility. He's used to bearing everything on his shoulders, be it the responsibility of his family or the responsibility for the Four Seasons Manor, even the responsibility for saving commoners from disasters. 

Unlike the lone wolf, the lead horse is ultimately a social animal. 

Regardless of his identity as the Manor Lord of the Four Seasons Manor or the Leader of the Window of Heaven, he's always the one to lead the herd and rarely fights alone. So, A-Xu not only has leadership ability but more than that, he also knows how to be tolerant and accepting of the differences of his team members. You can see the various ways he managed to influence Lao Wen along the road; he's firm when he needs to be and soft the other times. It's absolutely textbook in managing your lover workplace management. 

Zhou Zishu believes in communication whenever there's a problem, that they should be open and honest. So, teamwork is what he's used to. 

Does it mean that when a horse and lone wolf fall in love, that there won't be a breaking in period? 

Obviously not. 

I guess this is where some may say again, "isn't this part of a character's arc/development? The two of them quarrel time and time again. Did WKX not grow at all from it?" 

Of course, after meeting each other, they both grew and saved each other.

When he first left Window of Heaven, A-Xu was lonely with regret. Unlike the lone wolf who's used to doing everything alone, a lead horse without the last of his herd has no way to bear the bone-deep loneliness and merciless self-recrimination.

ZZS wandered around this world aimlessly until Lao Wen started pestering him, until he picked up Zhang Chengling, right up until he felt he hadn't singlehandedly destroyed the Four Seasons Manor. This lead horse finally regained a goal in life. He gained a partner and a lover. Lao Wen sticks to him, Chengling relies on him, and the abandoned Four Seasons Manor became like-new in his hands. He finally reconciles with himself. 

When he first came out of the valley, Lao Wen carried a rage strong enough to burn the world down. But when he met A-Xu, he also met the beauty of the world. 

When the Four Sages of Anji died, WKX understood how he caused innocent suffering. When Gao Chong walked to his death knowingly, he understood that although some may desire power, they could still be righteous and upstanding people. When he learned of everything Long Que sacrificed to protect his family***, he finally relaxed his guard. 

There were so many types of good people and things that he saw along this journey that he hadn't seen in the Ghost Valley. When A-Xu told him he was a good person as they basked in the sun, he genuinely wanted to return to the human (vs ghost) realm and be a good man. 

Along their journey, A-Xu made up for the morals and values that WKX lost in the Ghost Valley and showed him a new world outlook. He appeased Lao Wen's anger, tempered his extremism. The process wasn't easy, but not that difficult either, because, in the end, Lao Wen is kind at heart. 

But in the end, being a lone wolf is how he survived and succeeded in a place like the Ghost Valley. When A-Xu was so heavily injured and needed a lot of rest (for Wu Xi) to save his life, Lao Wen suddenly recalled his enemies and how such an excellent opportunity to take revenge just fell into his lap. Everything was in place, and all he needed to do was hide it from A-Xu; he could leave for a short while and have it settled quickly. Upon returning, he could then live happily ever after with his wife. To a crazy lone wolf, why would he not take a gamble? 

What he couldn't predict was the news would've been leaked (to A-Xu), and he didn't know that by doing so, he would've forever lost his love. 

Both of them were using their own methods to love the other person. Zhou Zishu is more forgiving and accepting because being forgiving is in his blood. While what WKX learned in his years in the Ghost Valley is -- love needs to be protected, like how he has A-Xiang, who he considers a sister, call himself master (to protect her). 

Only when faced with painful consequences can a person's deep-rooted habits and approach to things change. So I don't think faking his death ruined the characterisation of Wen Kexing, but I regret that the last two episodes did not have a scene to show us Lao Wen's heartbreak when he learns the truth. 

Until I know what it feels like to have lost you, I will only love you in my own way. 

T/N: 

*I can't think of the correct phrase for this as I don't read all that much about relationships >< please let me know if you know of it. Here, I'm referring to the process of wearing something new (like shoes) that will hurt at the start until it becomes soft and comfortable. 

** I did some side-reading, and omg, A-Xu is TOTALLY the lead mare. Although he's not the stallion and weak/dying for most of the show, he's the head of their little family, and he expects "to be obeyed", aka, I'm not going to learn how to cook. Call me for dinner. Kthxbye. 

From Rutgers' website: A herd of wild horses consists of one or two stallions, a group of mares, and their foals. The leader of the herd is usually an older mare (the "alpha mare"), even though one stallion owns the herd. She maintains her dominant role even though she may be physically weaker than the others. The older mare has had more experiences, more close encounters, and survived more threats than any other horse in the herd. The requirement of the lead horse is not strength or size; if this were so, then humans could never dominate a horse. Dominance is established not only through aggression but also through attitudes that let the other horses know she expects to be obeyed.

***I think this is important here because WKX wasn't crying for his loss. I think a big part of him was realising not everyone in the world was callous and turned their backs on his parents, that he could've gone his whole life without ever discovering what sacrifices some people have made. Good people suffer quietly and in silence. It's a big moment to realise he was wrong about many things that he had let hatred blind himself to the world. Because although he was sad about the Four Sages and somewhat shocked by Gao Chong's death, he hadn't truly faced up to his actions until now. 

(screenshot of the scriptwriter liking the above post) 

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To add: 

I'm not sure how many of you read my "opinion" posts, but I've been struggling to find a way to accept the last six episodes of Word of Honor.  I first tried looking at open forum postings, comments, and Tumblr posts. None of it worked because it was just arguing and emotions and no one made points good enough for me to accept things. 

So I gave up and went back to reading Chinese sites. I found many posts discussing the plot. Some I liked, some I didn't, but none satisfied my need for a reasonable explanation. I felt they had biases (both ways), or else it lacked logic. After a time, I realised that I should be looking for WKX-stans (or pro-WKX fans) because they would be more motivated to explain his side, but also because well-written posts by wenzhou-fans & ZZS-stans made me super sad.

I'm sorry, but those who keep trying to explain why the ending was good completely missed that episodes 32-34 are the real problem to those who don't like it and only focused on 36. I can understand if people don't think those episodes are a problem, but no one could provide an articulate and sensible reason. There are just too few well-reasoned plot-focused posts in English (sorry). I've seen too many examples of WKX-fans arguing with people who are upset about the ending, backed by nothing more than "look how much WKX suffers, woe is him. And how romantic is this????" *dies* 

Lastly, if you spot anything inaccurate, let me know & I will correct it.

[spencers-renaissance]

Rain is a Chance to be Touched Ch. 4

what you can do with what there is

Chapter Three

This is the fourth chapter in my ongoing hotchreid fic! Please click here for the fic summary, full tags, trigger warnings, more information etc.

Last Chapter: Last Chapter: some time passed and Spencer is still struggling, especially after he felt betrayed by Rossi on the Solitary Man case. Georgetown tried to recruit Spencer to run their Chemistry department.

In This Chapter: Aaron comes to some heartbreaking realisations, gets very protective, and Stuff Happens in Alaska.

TW: haley & foyet as well as grief mentioned; chapter centres on an outsider's view of depression.

Word Count: 4.4k

RCT Masterlist // Main Masterlist // Read on AO3

AARON

Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is. — Ernest Hemmingway, The Old Man and the Sea

Much of the year passes in somewhat of a blur for Aaron. He focuses on looking after Jack, dedicating absolutely everything he has to his son when he’s at home while throwing himself into the cases that come across his desk at work.

A small part of him he’d thought was dead regenerates as his work serves as a stark reminder of all the people he saves, all the good he can do with his job still. Maybe he couldn’t save Haley — something that will no doubt haunt him for the rest of his days — but he can save other people’s loved ones. There is still good to do, and he tries to draw his strength from that.

Grief, of course, still flickers relentlessly in his heart, and no matter how hard he tries he can’t quite seem to extinguish the flame burning its way through the tired tissue, but at least the smouldering doesn’t hurt quite so viscerally anymore. He’s learned to live with it. Getting up in the morning feels easier day by day, and sometimes he’s even able to look at Jack without seeing Haley’s face — and if he does, it doesn’t punch him in the gut in quite the way it used to.

As soon as he’s back to work he tries as hard as he can to keep an eye on Spencer, but the hectic nature of the cases and the younger man’s talent for melting into the background when he wants to is making it far harder than he’d like. He’d come over to his place a few times after Aaron had invited him to stay for lunch and he’d seemed a little more comfortable each time, brightening up considerably as he sat on the sofa with Aaron or let Jack take him on a tour through his lego sets.

The problem is that even though Aaron knows Spencer’s mental state is deteriorating, he has no idea how to bring it up. Sometimes it’s even easy to miss: it doesn’t affect his work, he avoids the rest of them as much as possible — Aaron and Penelope appearing to be the only exceptions for some reason — and his fake smiles seem to have the others on the team pretty much convinced.

He can’t exactly order him into his office and demand to know what’s going on, especially since his work is still exemplary, nor does it seem tactful to bring it up when Spencer is sitting on the floor playing trains with his son. Broaching the subject of emotions isn’t something either of them are exactly comfortable with, and he knows he’ll scare him off if he ambushes him.

Something had changed after their case in New Mexico, but he still can’t quite put his finger on what. An element of relief has been playing over Spencer’s face and body language; something of the deep uneasiness he’d been carrying lifted.

He’d be relieved if Spencer had had even a single conversation with him outside of work since that case. Surely if he was genuinely feeling better his visits to Aaron’s apartment would only increase, but they’ve stopped altogether.

Between working hard to distract himself from the pain of losing Haley and looking after Jack, he just can’t figure it out.

That is, until the Alaska case.

🌧

Aaron makes a point to get on the jet last. Spencer’s been avoiding him, but if he chooses a seat first, then Aaron can slide into the seat opposite. He doesn’t exactly have a game plan, but he wants to at least stick close to Spencer, to have at least one conversation with him.

Having him close has felt more and more essential recently. He chalks it up to feeling Spencer’s avoidance all too acutely, but really — if he’s being completely honest with himself — he knows it’s more than that; something deep inside him is shifting. If it is what he thinks it is, he’s in for a world of trouble.

The jet always feels cosy at night, the soft lighting and comfortable seating a decent environment to get a nap in, and as he climbs in, the door closing behind him, he sees the rest of the team getting ready for a few hours of sleep before they debrief an hour or so before landing. Spencer’s tucked into the corner closest to the door, feet curled up under him as he faces towards the window, the blackness of the night and warm light of the plane reflecting his tight, pensive face.

As he slides in opposite him, Spencer’s eyes open briefly. He’s careful to school his expression, but Aaron sees the turmoil in the miniscule movements of his face muscles. He wants to wrap him up in his arms and hold him until his anxiety passes but he doubts that would be helpful: he’s clearly playing at least a part in the pain Spencer’s going through.

“Okay?” he murmurs, as the quiet roar of the jet engines starting up gives them a little privacy for conversation.

Spencer nods, keeping his eyes closed as he shifts a little. Maybe it’s the gentle illumination of the cabin or maybe it’s just one of the first real times of clarity and concentration he’s had in months — barring his fierce focus on the cases — but in this moment Aaron notices. He notices how Spencer’s lost a significant amount of weight, how his face is gaunt and exhausted, his body language tense and self-protective. It’s like all the confusion that’s been playing across his mind is answered in an instant.

Aaron’s stomach clenches with guilt. How did he ever let it get this bad? How did he not see? How has everyone else not seen?

He’s been operating in such a haze of trauma and grief it’s as though he’s been floating through life, not focusing on anybody but Jack longer than necessary. Even when Spencer was sitting on his couch and clamming up whenever he brought the team up or discussed something that made him uncomfortable for some unfathomable reason, he just couldn’t see it. He’s been so wrapped up in himself and Jack, he’d missed the signs of someone who means so much to him spiralling down into a black pit of… what? Exhaustion? Despair? Misery?

Aaron clears his throat. “Spencer,” he starts — it feels more appropriate to use his first name — as they take off towards Alaska, “you can be honest with me.” He tries for gentleness, and reaches across the small table between them to brush Spencer’s hand with the pads of his fingers; meant to be a reassuring, non-assuming touch.

His stomach does a somersault as his fingers meet Spencer’s cold skin. As much as he wants to pretend it’s nervousness, some sort of anticipation, plain and simple worry for the wellbeing of a colleague, he can’t. Every fibre of his being is begging him to take Spencer’s hands in his, hold them until they warm up again, until his eyes open and meet his own, until he climbs into Aaron’s lap and lets him make everything better.

Instead, Spencer’s eyes squeeze tighter as a small tear makes its way past his eyelashes, sliding down his pale cheek and Aaron’s chest burns at the sight.

“Oh, Spencer,” he says, voice hoarse as emotion crawls up from his chest, invading his throat. “I’m so sorry.” Sorry for not noticing sooner, sorry you’re in so much pain, sorry I can’t make it better.

Spencer just shakes his head, eyes still tight and wrinkled, withdrawing his hand from where it’s still resting under Hotch’s cautious touch. “Not your fault,” he whispers eventually, bringing himself together enough to manage a watery, self-deprecating smile. “I’m being ridiculous.” He wipes another tear away and inhales deeply, letting out slowly as he looks down in his lap. “I’m tired and we need to sleep before we get to Alaska. Can this wait? Please?”

He’s definitely telling the truth. His eyes are dark and every muscle in his body is belying his exhaustion, there’s no question about that.

Aaron knows he needs to relent. Spencer is right, they all need their rest so they can focus their full attention on the case once they arrive in Alaska, and it’s not like he’s going to spill his soul to Aaron on a jet surrounded by people he doesn’t seem all too happy with.

“Okay,” he sighs, trying to school his face rid of anything that could be construed as pity as he tries for something closer to empathy. “Let’s talk about it after this case.” He doesn’t add a question or leave any room for argument: he’s going to get the truth out of Spencer if it kills him.

Spencer nods once, closing his eyes and drawing even tighter in on himself. Aaron doesn’t quite trust he’s really agreeing — he’s holding something back; his face is a little too blank to be natural, his body language tense, and Aaron isn’t inclined to believe it’s simply apprehension for such a conversation. But pushing won’t get him anywhere. He takes his comfort in at least knowing now, knowing what to look out for, knowing he needs to protect Spencer, as well as a tentative agreement.

He closes his eyes, not intending to sleep but to think. Something’s gone horribly wrong, and he needs to figure out what. With Spencer involved, he’ll move heaven and earth to get to the bottom of it.

Emily and Derek are taken on a tour of the small town as soon as they arrive by seaplane, and the rest of them are directed to Carol’s Tavern by the Sheriff. Aaron tries not to be obvious, but he can’t help himself from hovering a little closer to Spencer than normal, itching for an excuse to touch him as they enter the inn and start to set up.

Spencer sits quietly in an armchair, speed-reading through the existing files and documents on the case supplied by the police department, and he looks so small Aaron wants to cry. He didn’t have weight to lose in the first place: he’s skin and bones and he looks utterly exhausted. He’s flipping through the papers slower than usual, rubbing his eyes and face constantly as his leg bounces up and down. It’s so unlike Spencer, Aaron has to ask himself again in utter bewilderment how on earth a team of FBI profilers all missed this.

“Everything okay?” Dave asks as he sidles up to where Aaron is standing, pretending to fiddle on his phone while he sneaks covert looks in Spencer’s direction.

Aaron’s known Dave long enough to hear the implication in his voice, and he fights to keep his cool, to keep the blush off his face. “Yeah,” he says as nonchalantly as possible, ignoring whatever he’s trying to imply. “The Sheriff is going to escort me to the police office as soon as he wraps up talking with Carol. I want you and Spencer to head to the ME.” Even if Spencer is having problems with people on the team, surely Dave will be a comforting fatherly presence. As much as he itches to go with him instead, that would only raise suspicion, and he knows Spencer would never forgive him for that.

“I hear it’s actually the town doctor,” Dave says, raising an eyebrow, “not an ME. But we’ll head out as soon as you do.”

The Sheriff wanders over and Aaron sends Dave a flat-lipped smile and follows him out of the inn. He catches a final look at Spencer’s bone-weary face as Dave collects him to go to the doctor’s office, and nothing registers on Dave’s face to say he’s noticed Spencer’s misery; he simply taps him on the shoulder, tells him where they’re going, and collects his coat.

To some extent, he forgives himself for not noticing Spencer’s suffering despite the guilt he still feels, but the rest of the team — Dave, his father figure — not seeing it, not reaching out, not doing everything they can to alleviate it feels unforgivable.

Anger rises in his chest as they walk the short distance to the police office. How long has it been like this? No wonder Spencer was so cagey when he bought up the team: they abandoned him in his hour of need. He forces the swelling fury down as they walk into the building as best he can though; it’s unproductive and they have a case to solve. He’s going to work relentlessly until it is, until they can fly home and he can fix this.

They regroup back at the inn that evening, sharing their facts and theories from the day’s work. The fire is going, a cosy antidote to the freezing Alaska air outside, and Aaron’s sure he would probably feel quite content if he wasn’t so damn worried about Spencer.

It’s the sort of place he could properly relax and enjoy on holiday. Haley was always a two-weeks-in-Europe kind of person, but he’s always preferred a cosy, private cabin in the middle of winter. His therapist has slowly got him used to the idea of one day moving on with someone new, and he thinks that maybe he’ll have to revisit Alaska and take that person with him one day.

(He ignores the part of his heart that longs for that person to be Spencer.)

“Alright, so we have a psychopath with hunting skills who knows the routines of everybody in town,” JJ sighs, resting her head on her palm, curled into the corner of one of the sofas. “How do we keep everybody safe?”

“Sheriff, I suggest you institute a curfew until we have the unsub in custody,” Aaron says, voice grave. “Nobody out after dark.”

“I’ll have one of my deputies patrolling around the clock.”

He nods. “Garcia, how’s it coming with town records?”

“I've run everyone who's been printed through CODIS, nothing's come up so far. I'm gonna pull an all-nighter, finish going through the town records — should have background checks by sunrise.”

“Good,” he says, nodding appreciatively in her direction. His eyes are still half-watching Spencer. “The rest of us should get some sleep, start fresh in the morning.”

“I’ve got four of the rooms available upstairs,” Carol says, clearly anticipating less than pleased reactions.

Spencer’s head snaps up at that, “uh, four?” Anxiety is written across his face, not for the first time today, and Aaron itches to hold his hand, calm his worries. His instincts, let alone his feelings, are getting harder and harder to ignore.

“It's the best we can do. Your team is double the size of my department,” the Sheriff replies, somewhat harshly as he gets up to leave. Aaron winces at the way it makes Spencer draw in on himself, almost flinching at his tone. “See you in the morning.”

“Looks like we’ll have to double up,” Aaron says, inching closer to Spencer’s armchair. He ignores the Sheriff’s good night. Anyone who speaks even somewhat rudely to Spencer doesn’t deserve niceties.

Immediately, Derek scoffs. “I’m not sleeping with Reid,” he says, and it’s so out of the blue that Aaron nearly does a double take. How uncalled for, he thinks, and his heart sinks at the sight of Spencer retreating further inside himself, a hurt, bewildered expression colouring his features.

(He once again ignores the part of his brain that responds to Derek’s comment with ‘I’d like to’. That is wildly unhelpful right now.)

“Dibs,” Penelope says, resting her hand on his forearm as they share loving glances with one another, but Aaron barely pays them any attention, his eyes glued to Spencer and his heartbroken expression. He realises that it probably feels like a double rejection for him, both Penelope and Derek choosing each other for him.

“I’ll sleep alone,” Dave says knowingly, coming up behind him and resting his hands on both his shoulders for a moment before grabbing his bag and heading upstairs, room key in hand.

Spencer seems frozen in time, thoughts clearly going a million miles an hour, so Aaron waits until JJ and Emily have paired off and gone upstairs with Derek and Penelope before crouching down in front of Spencer’s armchair.

“Hey,” he says softly, touching his palm to Spencer’s arm briefly. As soon as his eyes come back into focus, a flash of that expression Aaron hasn’t been able to put his finger on — relief? — whips across his face before he carefully schools it into neutrality. Aaron can still see the undertones of pain and betrayal written in his eyes, though. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

Spencer starts at that. “You want to share a room with me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Aaron asks, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

He shakes his head and gathers himself, grabbing his bag and heading to the stairs without replying.

Aaron enters the room a moment after him, surprised to see the ensuite light on and door locked already. He heads towards the only bed in the room, a spacious double, and dumps his bag before sitting on the edge and fixing his eyes on the motel art hanging on the wall opposite him. He takes a deep breath in before exhaling slowly: he can do this, he can share a bed with Spencer and not make it weird.

It’s a good few minutes before Spencer exits the bathroom, changed into a relaxed t-shirt and pajama bottoms with his long hair combed and fluffy around his shoulders. Aaron tries very hard not to think how utterly delectable he looks and simply offers a small smile as Spencer approaches the bed.

“I can sleep on the floor if you prefer,” Aaron says, completely sincere. He’d do anything to make Spencer more comfortable. Any other time he’d expect Spencer to stay polite and insist it’s fine, but this version of the younger man seems to be teetering on the edge of reckless carelessness and furious irritation just precariously enough to say what he really means.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Spencer crawls under the duvet, not meeting Aaron’s eyes as a blush colours his cheeks. “The bed’s big enough for the both of us.”

Aaron gets ready for bed as quickly as he can before joining Spencer under the covers, feeling the warmth of his body heat and desperately craving more. He tries to stamp those feelings down. He’s only recently lost Haley, and where did this ridiculous crush on his youngest subordinate come from anyway? He squeezes his eyes tightly shut for a minute as his chest tightens with the flood of all these confusing emotions before he turns his attention towards the man lying next to him.

“Spencer?” he whispers, rolling over to face him.

He doesn’t respond, just turns his head a little and blinks slowly.

“Derek shouldn’t have said what he said in the lobby,” he murmurs carefully, not wanting to upset him. “I’m sorry.”

Aaron feels the mattress move as Spencer tenses up, curling in on himself but not turning to face the other way. He can’t help it when he reaches out to place his hand on top of Spencer’s clutched, freezing fingers.

“What do you think he meant?” Spencer whispers, voice vulnerable and strained as his big, blinking eyes meet Aaron’s.

Aaron swallows as his stomach dips at the intensity of sad, hazel eyes staring into his own, and he squeezes Spencer’s hands a little tighter. “I don’t know, Spencer,” he says sadly. “I really don’t. He probably didn’t mean anything by it, but it was cruel and uncalled for. He’s the one missing out.” He smiles a little in the soft light of the streetlamp streaming in through the curtains, trying to convince Spencer how serious he is.

A gallery of emotions play out across Spencer’s face. They’re gone too quickly for Aaron to read, but he can gather enough to know he’s conflicted about something.

“You know you can talk to me about anything, right?” he promises softly. He feels so unprofessional right now, but there’s nothing he can do to stop himself: Spencer is hurting and every part of him is itching to make it better. His reasons are unimportant and irrelevant at this moment in time, all that matters is Spencer’s well-being.

Spencer looks away at that, shifting a little as he pulls his hands away from Aaron’s. “We should get some sleep,” he says quietly, rolling away to face the window.

Neither of them sleep for hours.

He keeps Spencer as close as possible for the rest of the case, and once they’ve finally wrapped it up — Aaron quietly proud of how clever Spencer is for figuring out the driving motive for the unsub — they clamber onto the jet and collapse into their seats.

It’s nice to be flying home in daylight for once, but the bright light of the clear sky is clearly hurting Spencer’s head as he curls into himself in the same corner he chose on the journey there. The first thing he does when he sits down is close the shutter, heart fluttering at Spencer’s thankful smile.

Aaron works through his paperwork as Spencer sits opposite him silently, not joining in with anybody’s conversations like he used to do, instead seeming totally wrapped up in his own head. It’s nice to sit in the configuration they’re both so used to, although Aaron definitely prefers to sit at the other end of the jet, and he’d relax into it a little more if Spencer wasn’t so obviously in pain. He cracks on with his work, trying his best to focus on the knowledge that the second they get back to Quantico, he can talk with Spencer and they can get started on fixing what’s wrong.

“Hotch?” Spencer says quietly, unravelling himself from his curled ball as they approach landing.

Aaron looks up from his careful organising of the case notes into his binder, and can’t help it when his face softens the second he meets Spencer’s eyes. “Yeah?”

“Can I talk to you?” he asks, looking a little fearful for some reason. “When we get back to the office?”

Aaron is immediately torn between feeling elated that Spencer wants to confide in him and not completely trusting that this is a good thing. Spencer didn’t exactly seem like he was chomping at the bit to have the kind of conversation Aaron is hoping for, and he doubts that two nights of sharing a bed changed that drastically.

“Of course,” he says, regardless of his doubts, but his suspicion is only raised when Spencer’s expression turns to something like shame at Aaron’s cautious smile, turning to look out the window instead.

Aaron watches as Spencer eases himself into the chair opposite his desk as soon as they get into his office, wringing his hands as he waits for him to situate himself. Watching his body language, he’s still torn: this really could go either way, but his gut is telling him to prepare for the worst. Aaron prays he’s wrong, but he knows that this is instinct; his subconscious has picked up on things he isn’t even aware of and it’s telling him to brace himself.

“I’m resigning,” Spencer says. “Effective immediately.”

Aaron’s head swims, his vision blurs, his heart pounds — considering the implications of Spencer Reid resigning from the BAU is dizzying him. He does his best to keep his cool, but Spencer is a profiler. He’ll be able to see the raging emotions through the cracks in his mask.

“Is…” he starts, before clearing his throat and briefly glancing down at the table, “is there anything I can do to change your mind?”

Spencer shakes his head, despondency evident on his face. Did he really manage to miss such miserable expressions all this time, or has Spencer finally stopped concealing them now he doesn’t have anything to lose?

“I can’t do this anymore, Hotch,” he says, allowing himself to be vulnerable with Aaron again, and despite the circumstances, he treasures that trust more than anything. “I’m tired. I don’t want it to affect my work, and I have no joy in this anymore. I’ve been offered a position at Georgetown, and I’m accepting it.”

When Spencer joined the bureau at 22, three years below the standard eligibility age, one of the conditions of his contract had been the ability to resign without notice: the brass’s attempt at insuring his mental health and covering their own asses. Three years away from a contract renewal, the condition remains, and Spencer is free to leave if he wants to. Even if it makes Aaron’s heart sick.

“I’m… incredibly sorry to see you go, Spencer.” He’s sort of at a loss for words. “I hope you know that you can still talk to me, even when you leave. I know you’re unhappy, I know there’s something going on and I want to help. This team is a family, and that doesn’t change just because someone leaves to do something else.”

“Well, I’m not sure how welcome I really am in this family,” Spencer responds, an edge of bitterness in his tone that catches Aaron off-guard.

“What do you mean? Is it what Derek said?” Aaron knows it’s something bigger than that, but he still hasn’t figured out what. He knows Spencer’s been a bit left out since everything happened with Foyet, but the specifics are lost on him, and he’s desperate to know, desperate to fix this.

Spencer deflates, suddenly looking incredibly tired. “No, I—” he trails off. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I am worrying about it, Spencer,” he says, firm and kind. “I worry about you. I care about you.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But I need to go home. I’m exhausted,” Spencer says slowly, standing up to leave. Aaron’s at a loss for what to say so just stands up with him, hoping against hope that this isn’t the last time he sees him. Spencer pauses in the doorway. “Did you mean… what you said? That I can talk to you still?” His voice is small and apprehensive, refusing to meet Aaron’s eye.

He softens at that, feeling some of the intense emotions raging inside of him quieten as he looks at the smaller man standing in his doorway, hanging on with his fingernails. “Yes,” he promises quietly. “I meant every word. You can call me anytime, day or night. If you think I’m just going to let you walk out of my life, Spencer, you’re sorely mistaken.” His voice is fierce, emotional in a way he doesn’t often allow.

Spencer meets his eyes then, and Aaron wants to drown in them, consequences be damned. “Thank you, Aaron,” he whispers quietly, before he opens the door and makes his way across the bullpen, both ignoring and ignored by Emily and Derek chatting happily at their desks.

He doesn’t turn around this time, and Aaron doesn’t wave. He sits at his desk, and he cries.

Chapter Five

If this chapter brought anything up for you, hotlines are in the endnotes of the AO3 version of this fic. Bigger countries are listed and a link is included if you live somewhere else in the world.

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @suburban--gothic @strippersenseii @takeyourleap-of-faith @makaylajadewrites @iamrenstark @hotchseyebrows @reidology @i-like-buttons @spencerspecifics @bau-gremlin @hotchedyke @tobias-hankel @goobzoop @marsjareau @garcias-bitch @marvel-ous-m @oliverbrnch @sbeno22 @aaron-hotchner187

[spectrumed]

8. book

I decided to start writing a book. A novel, it’s going to be fiction. It’s a big project. I dread big projects. I don’t feel as if I am ever able to complete them. It’s going to be left unfinished, why do I even bother? So many projects that I’ve started and never finished. I get an idea, then I can’t make myself do the actual work to make it a reality. Why do I think I can write a book when I can barely read books without becoming distracted and doing something else instead? I give up too easily. But, then again, do I really have it in me to produce something that is good? That people would want to read? Insecurity creeps in, telling me that I will fail. I fear failure. Of course I do, who doesn’t? Whenever people say that their greatest fear is failure, all I wonder is who out there is not afraid of failure? Is there someone out there with so much confidence that they absolutely do not in any way fear failure? Even narcissists technically fear failure, it is what leads them to such ridiculous overcompensation, putting on the facade of bravado to mask their actual dire sense of insecurity. Do not fall for the scams, no person is truly without self-doubt. (Well, I guess maybe psychopaths, but there’s a whole lot of things amiss with them.)

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve entertained myself by coming up with stories, fictional universes that I would populate with characters of my own invention. When I was a kid, what I really wanted was to become a comic book writer and artist. Well, in between other gigs I imagined would suit me, including at one point wanting to be a “singing farmer,” as I put it. Still, I’ve always returned to fiction and storytelling. There’s something about creating a world that lets you so fully distract yourself from all the stressful daily hullabaloo that goes on around you. Escapism, it’s fun, it’s therapeutic, I think. There’s a reason why humans have been telling each other stories for millennia, since even before we lived in houses. Back when we were all huddled around the fire, wearing our best comfortable animal furs, sharing tales of the hunt. Your uncle who once took part in killing a mammoth, the impressive beast nearly gorging him with its big tusks. How clever he was when he noticed that the mammoth had one leg weaker than the others, and used that to his advantage. How the entire hunting party banded together to bring the behemoth down, getting all that meat to feed their families with for months! Stories make you feel good. Like as if you have something to celebrate, even when you might be starving due to the more recent hunts not having gone as well. Damn that saber-tooth tiger that killed your uncle…

Storytelling is linked to acting. Both with acting and with storytelling you have to commit. Whatever you are doing, whatever role you are performing, you have to sell it. You may be on stage talking about that time you went scuba diving with your future wife, and how you encountered an oyster with the most magnificent pearl inside, and how you made a ring for the pearl and used it when you proposed to her. You have to sell it. You have to get the audience laughing, gasping, crying, going “aww,” feeling as if they were there with you that day. Of course, they don’t know it is all just lies. You made it up. It’s all fiction. But you committed, so they won’t ever know. Storytelling is a gift to others, people will appreciate you if you tell good stories, but you’re also kinda deviant. Even if it’s technically based on a true story, you’ve certainly added your embellishments. You’re a trickster, a devious individual. No wonder actors have historically been seen as dubious folks. They come into town, romances all the young women and men, telling them big tales of their lives on the road, and they can’t possibly know if you are telling the truth or not. You may just be lying. You probably are lying. Let’s be honest, you’ve probably not told a single true thing in your life.

I am bad at the hustle. No, I can talk quite well, and I can keep people’s attention for a long while. But I can’t be a huckster. Going out there, putting myself on the line hoping people will swallow my bullshit. I can’t really avoid speaking from my heart when I do speak. Or when I write, as I happen to be doing now. This blog has so far been thoroughly candid in places, in such a way I may come across like I’m at a confessional. Not that I have much evil to confess, but I can’t help but be transparent. I can’t flip into different kinds of personalities, each with its own schemes and plots, being some master manipulator, someone who you can never figure out what they're truly up to, or what they truly want. No, what I am is clearly written on my face. I’ve got one self, and it is the one before you. He’s hairy, and tall, and a bit of a dork. I am happy to talk to you, to engage with you, but I won’t be anyone but myself. I am me. I hope that’ll do.

Of course you are familiar with all those pick-up artists that plagues the internet. Or well, not just the internet. Go into any old-fashioned bookstore (where they store books on paper, not in digital code,) and you are bound to find some sleazy book written by a sleazy guy about how to sleazily seduce women. Those books don’t want you acting like me. According to them, seduction is all about manipulation. To figure out the very right thing to say to get women to fawn all over you. They don’t want you to be sincere, telling the truth as you see it. Nah, you gotta keep that stuff bottled up, deep down inside your soul, because most likely, your true self is ugly. It’s interesting how you can get little details from these pick-up artists depending on the sort of things they say, the tips they provide. The fact that all of them seem to harbour this festering misogyny is no big surprise, but every so often, you get these little glimpses of these people’s true worldview, one where power is everything, true love is a fallacy, and happiness is a lie manufactured by Hollywood to make us all into docile consumers. No wonder the “red-pill” so often leads to people taking the “black-pill.” First hucksters will lure you in, telling you that they’ve got the secret as to how to be a success, then when they’ve got you isolated, they reveal to you how truly misanthropic and bleak their actual beliefs are.

I am fascinated with cults, for much of the same reason why I am fascinated with storytelling. What is a cult leader if not just a great storyteller? They’re something like the modern day shaman, capable of spellbinding people with their weird idiosyncratic way of speaking. High-functioning people with autism are often said to have an idiosyncratic way of speaking. No, I am not suggesting that cult leaders are all somewhere on the spectrum, though it wouldn’t surprise me if some famous cult leaders did turn out to have been on the spectrum. However, for an autistic person to become a cult leader, I think they would have to be a true believer, and not some fraud just looking to scam others. Ultimately, no autistic person would want to surround themselves with people unless they truly do believe it is essential, to like, save mankind from damnation or something. It’s the difference between sincerity and insincerity. It is difficult for autistic people to be insincere, as insincerity requires a lot of social skills that autistic people struggle with. Having to juggle all these balls in the air, making sure you keep the big lie going, that you remember to change your behaviour depending on who you are speaking to in order to keep them from figuring out that you’re a bullshitter. Hollow people are great at being insincere. People like L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the highly profitable cult that is Scientology, was at his core a hollow individual. He had no problems twisting the minds of the people around him, because he never felt a need to be sincere. If an autistic person were to become a cult leader, I can guarantee you that it wouldn’t be a profitable cult. Nah, autistic people aren’t in it for the money, we’re all about keeping it real.

Being a sincere person, surely I should be able to write a novel and make it feel earnest. Like it was delivered with passion, because I wouldn’t be able to write anything that wasn’t true to myself. Well, I do hope so. Having something I’ve made be referred to as genuine is something I see as a great compliment. I’m a student of art history, I’ve made some “serious” art before, I know how terrible art can be when it is not delivered with good faith. Sure, some art is cynical, or ironic, but even then, it tends to come from a real place. Good artists, even when they’re fully armed with the dada mindset, must believe in what they are doing. Whether they are doing it for a laugh or not, that’s irrelevant. Even if all you wish is to be silly and make something that is comical, you have to believe in what you are creating. Or else people won’t bother engaging with it. Why look at a painting by someone who is just interested in making money? Insincere artists do exist, and they can end up becoming quite successful, but ultimately, history won’t be kind to them. Damien Hirst comes to mind, heard he's into NFTs now.

Sure, I don’t like insincere people. Does that make me a bigot? Like, it’s not as if they can help themselves. It’s just who they are, spineless maggots with no soul. It doesn’t mean we have to hate them. No, no, no... I am just generalising. Don’t go thinking there’s just two kinds of people in the world, the sincere and the insincere. It’s not a binary. Most people are both, just like with introverts and extroverts, humans are complex. But there are definitely those that decide to feed into their insincere side, realising that it is often the key to success. Through insincerity, you learn to let go of self-doubt, you stop worrying so much about what others think of you, because you are never truly yourself. If they hate you, then so what? They don’t actually hate you, they just hate a role that you are playing. So what if you seduced that woman, made her feel as if you were the perfect match, then you ghosted her and completely forgot about her? It’s her fault for falling for your tricks. You were clearly just playing the game, being a super-seducer, she should have known better. By embracing insincerity, it’s like gaining a superpower. No longer do you have to care about the impact you have on others, no longer do you have to worry about what it means to be a social human being making choices that affect the others around you. Because you’re not the person they think you are. Actually, you’re not quite sure you’re the person you think you are… Who are you?

I’ve got the plot all laid out in my head for the novel. It’s going to be based in the fantasy world that I’ve been working on for the last few years. I’ve been working on this world for almost half a decade now, come to think of it. Why do I keep feeling as if I am never able to keep to a project, when I’ve clearly been working on a massive project all this time? Sure, it’s all just in my head, but it’s not as if most people have the kind of patience to keep going back to a single big project, even if it is just in their head. Not once, while thinking about my fantasy world have I been distracted and started thinking about cute puppies, instead. And you know how difficult that is. Maybe I am too hard on myself. Maybe I will finish this book, and maybe people will want to read it. Maybe it will even get a minimal number of angry reviews, like, I may get a book published without some folks trying to harass me into committing suicide for daring to think I can write. Some people may even be enthusiastic, blowing up my ego with great praise. Maybe someone will come along and tell me that they want to buy the rights to make my book into a movie or a television series. Maybe I will get rich? Maybe I will get famous! Woo! Success here I come!

Well, no, here I go being insincere. That’s not what it’s about. I should be writing this book because I want to write it. Because I want to prove to myself that I am able to write it. Sure, it’s not as if there’s not a little brain goblin inside my mind whispering sweet nothings about how one day I might turn out a real respected author. One with real fans that gets to do big book tours talking about how brilliant I am, how brilliant my work is, and how brilliant things are going for me. I am not going to pretend I don’t have the same aspirations for success that others have. Inside of me you will find the same greedy piglet of an ego hungry for more adoration and more validation that you will find in any person. Humans don’t know when to quit, we always want more. But I am at least safe knowing that I will never debase myself, descending to the same depths as those inhabited by soulless grifters who go through life abusing the trust of others in order to get by. I’m sincere, in the end. I always turn out sincere, in the end. I am a good boy.

And I am also really sexy. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before on this blog, but I am really, REALLY, sexy. Like, you wouldn’t believe it. Oh, I am so hot. And if you follow and subscribe and hit that bell, I will teach you how you can be just as sexy as I am! And buy my book! And my merch! And my new single! And of course, my new cryptocurrency, by the name of “autism-coin.” It’s going to be a real success on 4chan, let me tell ya!

[skinner17]

Dissecting Red Spider Arc-The arc that non shipper find it disturbingly (For those who mind) Shippy

I’ve been watching gintama for the past couple of weeks. And since lately I encounter sleeping problem, lets turn this energy to talk about one of my favorite arc. The controversial arc that invite polarized opinion among Gintama fans.

For  Tsukuyo fans, Red spider is a certain favorite together with Yoshiwara in flame and Courtesan of the nation.  This arc fleshed her background and deepen her bond with yorozuya, especially Gintoki

For casual fans, this arc is the first time they see a glimpse of gintoki past, The first time  gintoki in a berserk mode, the first time he act by his own volition. And somehow he appeared like a true shonen hero saving the heroine.

By then tsukuyo was far from heroine status. She just recently introduced a couple episodes back. Yoshiwara in flame focused more on Hinowa and seita story. But Tsukuyo already  rose in ranking because her unique character design (in sacchan word, she has a lot of ‘hooks’) aside being badass in general.

For naysayers, Red spider arc is that arc that destroy Tsukuyo character. Reduced her into damsel in distress, mere love interest and what not. Of course its people’s right to interpret a work however they see fit. People enjoying entertainment in a different way afterall. Maybe they are a strict feminist type who wanted a true xena like character?  disappointed when a strong female charachter ended up saved by the male hero? (Tho I wonder why they don’t care with preceeding events where Tsukuyo saved gintoki a couple of time)  

The other would say this arc is such a big jump from previous arcs. A sudden transition they would say. And heck they’re right. Red spider arc  Is different compared to other serious arc before it.  Its lustrously dark, whispery,  not much emphasis on family nor comedy, not much explosion nor machismo.

And more importantly, its uncharacteristically Intimate.  

What do you expect? It took placein Yoshiwara-The Red light District- afterall.

The curtain raised with Jiraiya, the ex teacher of Tsukuyo, the main villain of this arc, On his post coital glow pondering about his object of creation. After enjoying the service of yoshiwara, He looked at the moon and probably feeling another rush of excitement reminiscing his dear beautiful student and the plan he’d set for her.

Not long after, Tsukuyo feel someone dangerous infiltrating her city. She and her Hyakka squad has been working hard to push down the crime that on the rise after the city lost its night king. Nearing their limit, she turned to Yorozuya, wondering if they can help with the drug problem.

Somehow, Tsukuyo and Gintoki teamed up just the two of them investigating the shady group with spider tattoo trademark. The result was assortment of classic romantic comedy skit : To-Love-Ru type of ‘accident’ and pretend couple.

Ok at this point its just natural that people start to see the two as potential couple. When they bicker they’d scream their heart silly, forgetting  whatever  adult persona they had in mind. Yet when the time come, they play along really well with the others bullshit act. They are on the same frequency already.

Back to the story, Later, they found out the drug lord is Jiraiya who apparently the long dead master (teacher who take care of  protegee under their wing) of Tsukuyo. With his unique ability he nearly killed Gintoki and captured Tsukuyo.

Some Naysayers disappointed at this point because Tsukuyo who supposedly a good fighter became useless in front of jiraiya. Ok let me use this opportunity to explain the technicality of how that’s possible.

She was shocked.

It was a surprise attack

Jiraiya, knew his student fighting ability the best and knew how to immobilize her.

Even Gintoki Almost killed because of his weird technique

She used the last of her strength to saved gintoki from jiraiya’s final blow.

“Huh? But gintoki didn’t turned into a useless mess when he met his long dead master alive?”

Lol what are you smoking? The old master  would split gintoki’s head from his body if not because Kagura’s help.  Also Utsuro/Shouyo goal was to crushed the rebels and nothing to do with Gintoki. While Jiraiya’s goal was to capture Tsukuyo. Understand the difference?  

Ok now that its out of my system lets continue.

Later Gintoki learned about the nature of Jiraiya and what this student-master relationship actually are from Zenzou. She-who believed every word of him and followed his foot step- was his creation and his prey at the same time. This method is sickening for Gintoki who loved his master to death.

For Gintoki a master should be more or less like shoyo. Strong, kind, wise and selfless. The kind of sage who gave his life for his student. Its infuriating to learn that a good women like tsukuyo has a psychotic monster as a master.

“see..Its not because of Tsukuyo that gintoki willingly revert to his shiroyasa self. Its because the master-student thingie that made him mad af”

Was the stuff I read from naysayers.  And for this one, I kinda agree. The main thing that infuriate gintoki about Jiraiya was that he used  master student relationship for some psychotic goal. As we know later, whenever topic about his own master brought on, Gintoki turned into a different beast.

Even I can see this arc’s intent beside telling tsukuyo’s past and cementing her as one of the recurrent character was also to foreshadow  Shoyo related arcs in the future.

However among all of that baggage brought by this arc, theres this one dialogue that caught my attention.

G : "give up already, theres nothing in your web. This entire time there was only a pathetic little spider spinning thread into sky while gazing at distant moon"

J : "What are you babbling about?I already knew that long ago"

The ones who ascociate Tsukuyo with the moon are the one who cherish her like hinowa and the hyakka squad  or the bastard who obsessed at her like Jiraiya. It’s a secret nickname people gave to her beside Shinigami Tayuu / courtesan of death. Wt  

At that  moment, Gintoki  speak about what Tsukuyo is to Jiraiya existence : A moon to a little insignificant spider. This confirm that Gintoki understand Tsukuyo’s epithet-wich means at that point of story he is familiar toward  Tsukuyo more than the viewers aware of.

To add, This is probably just me but the way he said that stuff about Jiraiya, whispering  while gazing at the sky, as if its applied to him aswell.  

Well, I just think that because throughout the fight he keep rambling about being on the same level as Jiraiya.

G: Do you know how to survive the spider nest? By eating the spider.

G : She is stronger than you ever be. A coward like me is enough for a coward like you

To Fight Jiraiya, Gintoki  drew parrarel between himself and Jiraiya. And its not impossible that parrarel extended until that moment.    

I  came to the conclusion At that moment Gintoki  already  admire Tsukuyo. Wether  her virtue, her  face, her quirk  or her phisycal attractiveness, it could be anything. The fact is Tsukuyo basically embodies everything gintoki like in a women.   

However because of his mindset and his self sabotaging lifestyle, he understood Jiraiya’s point of view of admiring an existence that is too good for them.

The episode ended with Tsukuyo learning his master’s past  and accepting his flaw after killing him. The moment when Gintoki implied that he would never be a good student to their master as tsukuyo is pretty touching too.

The last episode of this arc is a short one with majorly comedic skits. Another To Love Ru accident. And  a classic wingman setup to force a couple to be alone together.

Lol too much couply stuff happening in this arc.

Later after the crazy terminator drunken stupor, Tsukuyo asked gintoki if she didn’t has this scar, would her life be any different?

At this point I realize the pain endured by her, even though she said she was fine, physically and mentally, she actually struggling with the realization that all her past was something different than she perceived to be, that rather than genuine student master relationship, its an elaborate plan by her master to kill himself.

Its like realizing that we are adopted after all this time living in a loving family. From the surface it might not changed anything because its all in the past, But it changed everything within. It changed the foundation  of what we stood upon all these time.

Gintoki then assured her that her life is one that she choose, No one make her choose that. wether it’s  driven by a psychotic manipulation or a trust in a teacher who wanted make her strong. The life is still hers to behold and cherish

Gintoki further assured that her face Is not ugly, Its pretty face carrying clean soul. Or something to that effect (since translation vary)

As you see “Soul” is the overarching concept on Gintama. Its like “Adventure” on One piece and “Hard Work” On Naruto. It’s the Idea that the shounen protagonist holds dear.  

Shoyo first teaching to Gintoki was  how to protect his soul. In the war Gintoki choose to kill Shoyo to save his master’s soul. Means he choose Shoyo over his friends and himself. In effect, one of the friend’s soul was corrupted. While Gintoki turned himself into a vessel  whose purpose was merely to protect people he deemed fit and procasinating on his own growth.

Gintoki speak about Tsukuyo’s soul in her face is another testament of how deep their trust and bond has formed. 

Even though Gintoki has innate ability to peek into the human character, its not his fashion to directly address it. He usually find a roundabout way to make the others understand that they are being understood. But with Tsukuyo, everything he do about her  is direct.

“Don’t be a stranger, Lean on me, laugh with me and cry with me. I’d be there, cry and laugh with you ” Said Gintoki to tsukuyo.

 The Gintoki who often avoid emotional baggage from a stranger.

In conclusion, Red Spider Arc is such an awesome arc. The vibe is cool, the soundtrack is awesome and its has an intense emotionally charged action.

It is also the breeding ground for gintsu shipper, wich probably gonna make some part of fandom upset. But it is what it is and we can just enjoy or choose not to.

[memory-hoarder]

WARNING (LONG POST AHEAD)

I turn off the lights, scrolled my phone and clicked the Spotify app currently listening to (calming acoustic) 10: 05 PM, best time to unleashed all emotions that piled up from nowhere. I covered myself with a huge blanket and placed the laptop on my lap and decided to visit my page. I know, I'm being inactive lately but I'm doing my best to update my journal publicly to remind me of my long absences.

Tonight, I decided to post the questions I received a night before my birthday celebrated. I kept this on my file for a month now. Admittedly, this is the huge decision I made on my birthday. So, I asked a random people on my messenger lists - some are my work colleagues while others are acquaintances. At first, I am hesitant to ask for favor to anyone but I did. Well, I guess it was successful though I received different reactions - some confused and thought I was making fun while others are game on to sent their questions. Obviously, it took days for me to answered cos it turns out that I wasn't prepared myself for few questions that somehow affects me literally.

The twist here is I am not allow to send my answer to their questions. However, I can answer it through this journal. Which I described as bravery.

Here are some of the questions:

How’s Life? How’s Life?

A question that been asked me twice. Well, this year was the great sadness of my life that challenged me mentally, emotionally and drained me physically. Sometimes a mere struggle on financially. I’m doing fine but lots of times I seriously breaking down especially the trauma of what happened 8 months ago. But today, I accepted the fact and slowly healing me and appreciate what really God’s intention and plan for my life.

Are you happy right now?

Not sure how to put it into words but there is no reason not to be happy. Right? If you just appreciate the life you are living right now or even the smallest thing that makes you smile or giggle I guess there is no reason to be sad at all. Although, lots of times I felt happy, sad, angry or lost. But there are still lots of reasons to celebrate or be joyful too. I juts let myself felt all the emotions that life wanted me to experienced to remind me that I indeed exist. There are people who could bring me joy and sadness at the same time but all I know they are all part of my journey.

Have you ever missed me before we lost our communication? Do you consider me as true friend?

Of course, I do. I miss the old you the person who I genuinely treasured during my college days. And, you are one of the reasons why I indeed survived college. I just don’t understand why we both let this friendship died. Was it because we no longer catch up? But, how I hope building friendship again will no longer hard as I imagined. But, please know that you became part of my story. I always count on you whenever I am sad and confused. I feel comfortable sharing my thoughts because I know you will never judge me. Hope to see you again soon. Take care of yourself!

Why there are times you don’t have the mood to talk?

Because, I read my surroundings and I feel comfortable being alone not to isolate but to process my own thoughts with myself which my normal thing growing up and I choose this way - became aloof at times not wanted to talk to anyone or go out. It makes me sad to think only few understand my personality. However, I can't just normalize this because of extrovert people I knew. I don’t have mood to talk and I push away people closed to me because I find a happy place being alone. Its not sad or dark what it gives me is peace of mind that no on can offer.

Would you like to change your past or stay on your present path? Why and why not?

I believed majority will choose the past, we all wanted to change one thing that we regret of doing - apologies, goodbye's, places to travel, opportunities we must have and other important things we slip away that is why I choose the past over my present. One thing I am eager to experience all over again is my mom's precious life, only if I had the power to bring her back. I was just 16 years old when she died, and I think the years of her being a mother to us will never be enough. However, her life is a blessing and all the valuable teachings that she imparted on me and to my siblings will remain on us forever. How I wish for her to at least see as growing up especially my brother that she spoiled a lot, and for us to give back all the things she deserved. I imagined date her on a restaurant, buy her clothes, treat her to the salon or accompany her on the grocery store. I also wanted to visit the past to catch up with my high school friends – Mira and Jeno, I will never forget how they literally brings me deep joy and the reason I am early bird during junior high because of the dare. I just missed the sound of Jeno's sense of humor, I treated her more than a friend rather a sister and it broke me when I received the news that he's gone. I was not there for him nor visit his and mom's grave for years now. I wanted to comfort Mira, but I am too far away and impossible to have my own money for my flight expenses. What I did is to cried and prayed for his soul. All of the good memories flashed back once more yet I realized God might took away two beautiful souls in my life but I am confident they watching over and guiding me through life.

I am or was curious regarding James situation, did it ever cross your mind you regret James being your boyfriend?

In all of the questions I received this one hits me hard to the core. For everyone’s knowledge James and I are in a relationship for over 4 years now. Just like other couples we did fight over little things yet we matured and grow together. One thing I really loved about James Charlie is how kind and pure his heart. He helps people as long as he can even himself are struggling to live. Not to mention his over confidence that I am jealous of. I guess, because of how friendly and inviting his amour. Also, a talented one he knows how to dance, sing and imitate different kinds of sounds, He’s grammar and vocabulary are lit. He can also play guitar very well, draw portrait’s and even writing a poems. He knew, he won my heart through his creative abilities. I was also surprised how he interested over history of aliens, bermuda triangle, mermaids and what I consistently heard of the Pyramid of Giza, life documentaries and other related history of it. I find him sexy whenever he talked about some of it. Our age gap is never an issue on our relationship and I am lucky that he guided me on everything, considered my opinions or thoughts and when I freaked out badly which occasionally happened he handle me perfectly and I appreciated his temperament level during my anxiety attacks or whenever I choose to isolate myself him being shut off. He understood me in my own terms and be myself. Yet relationship will test your loved from one another, there were also things that I don’t like of him doing however James does listened to me. He listens to advises either coming from me or from other people that cared for him. He is a vocal person, that one thing that I fall for him is his sense of humor. I guess talkative and being clingy towards person is his nature especially growing up in a broken family. Consistent communication is a key. I remembered he told me that I was different to all the girls she dated on his past life. That I am out of his league, he doesn’t know that he is of out my league too but when I know him deeply he taught me lessons in life and felt his warm love. Over the course of our relationship he respect the limitless of our love language and he accepted and understood the love without intimacy is a different level of love and respect and from his perspective I wanted everyone to know that James has a huge respect towards me, my beliefs and reasons. How someone could wait for something that he can easily took away something on his past relationship. Our relationship is somehow changed us individually into a better person. Getting older, he became dreamer and goal oriented. I witnessed all his hard work, that he celebrated through silence. He wanted to build home and think of small business that will be our retirement in the future. How many kids we wanted or how many dogs we will going to breed. I guess, some people misunderstood James for so long, how miserable life that no one to talk and curse during your victories or failures? Friends and addiction in alcohol and other stuff are his way of escaped, escape from the reality that lead him to take his own precious life once. I know how difficult life for him way back on his early 20’s that he fought all his battle alone and how he overcome his depression and addiction without someone to lean on. And nowadays, everything makes sense to me that I realize being independent sometimes is not a choice but more on a decision. decision and accepting no one will guide you through your journey so you have to do it alone either it brings you sadness or happiness in a process, not to count living alone and make money all by yourself. I agreed he might do bad decision in life but that doesn’t mean his life has no purpose at all. Instead, God is confident that he will win this battle not for everyone, not for the sake of me or our relationship but for himself. As for our current situation, I know being with him and fight through the end will inspired him a lot. Yes, he currently working on his self and will prove to everyone when the time comes that he will be able to regain his new

life and continue living.

We introverts, tend to think a lot, like really overthink a lot. What do you mostly overthink and how deep? Deep, like does it leads you to think more negatively resulting to depression? (mild depression, maybe).

I overthink some scenarios on my head when it really affects my whole being and when every time I think of it, obviously it trigger my anxiety not depression I guess. I can recall one or two hard situations that happened to me, and I know it wasn’t me trying to act that way. I even punished myself and literally breakdown trying to hurt myself, call me freak or whatever cos now I asked myself too how I even allowed myself to did terrible things, because anxiety creeping on me and telling me to do it. But, mostly I think of is my future and myself – deep that it scared me a lot. I have lot of questions of this world that I keep on searching by myself until now.

Why it took for you to share your problems?

Honestly, when I’m having a serious problem I am not confident to share to anybody except to my family who already knew. It took too long because advises no longer work for me, I listened because it was normal people do – advise and advise. Maybe, it was me who are picky to share my problem with, sometimes people listened but never in heart. Not all people deserve to know your struggle and during your lowest times, I have my own terms of coping so you do.

How do you maintain your petite body? If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?

Wow! I never see this coming. Well, I guess being fit is what I inherited on my father's side. They not so fat unlike on my mother's side. I have no limit on foods I intake in other words not your discipline person to look up to. I do eat carbs, junk foods and sodas is always on my list. I never worried if I am physically fit aside from walking Maxine during days off. I don't know how do I maintain this body I guess I'm never. Being fit actually is my insecurity. However, I do loved my body whatever what happen.

Well, if I had 3 wishes in life - first, to end this pandemic so that everything will back to normal. second, for James to have peace of mind and good health while waiting for the process of his case. And, lastly, for me to be strong, lasting patience and strong faith.

How would you solve your problems?

Problems is always part of lives. But, I believed it is always about the degree of the problem. Whenever, I had problem sometimes I resolved it in time but other times I need more time and space to think what will be the resort of it. And, pray for some guidance.

As independent being, how do you handle depression and anxiety?

Good thing to end all of this questions, I became independent when I graduated from college. I have to commute 131 kilometers back and forth from another city just to apply on my first job and the process is never easy at all. When you sent all of your applications form on each companies but never accepted It brought so much sadness, one point of my life I am eager to seek job because I used it as my coping mechanism to walked away from home which I did now, I walked away to protect my peace of mind especially having anxiety growing up and having this thing is hard as people imagined. You might only see darkness and feel of losing but for me, I guess for a year now I handled myself perfectly I never allow this condition to swallow me whole and affect my way of living. I reminded myself to keep strong and remain optimist and always protect my peace of mind at all cost.

.

I am 24 now strong and happy and leaving Haruki Murakami quote: "And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what storms all about"

[erictmason]

The Road To “Godzilla VS. Kong”, Day Four

(Sorry for the delay on this one, Life proved just a bit too busy the other day to finish it; my “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” review is gonna be pushed back as a result too.  But!  No worries, on we go. ^_^)

KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Writers: Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly, John Gatins

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly

Technically speaking, Gareth Edwards’ “Godzila” from 2014 was the first entry in what is now generally referred to as “The Monsterverse”, an attempt by Warner Bros. Studios and Legendary Pictures to do a Marvel Studios-style series of various interconnected movies (and which, like most such attempts to cash in on that particular trend, hasn’t really panned out; “Godzilla VS. Kong” seems likely to be its grand finale as far as movies are concerned, the only two “names” it had going for it are Godzilla and Kong themselves, and even at its most successful it was never exactly a Powerhouse Franchise).  But the thing is, when that movie was made, the idea of a “Monsterverse” did not yet exist; it was only well after the fact that Legendary and Warner Bros. got the idea to turn a new “Kong” project into the building block of a Shared Universe of their own that they could connect with the 2014 “Godzilla”, with a clear eye on getting to remake one of the most singularly iconic (and profitable) Giant Monster Movies of all time.  As you might guess from that description, however, said “Kong” project also had not originally been intended for such a purpose; it would not be until 2016 that it would be retooled from its original purpose (a prequel to the original “King Kong” titled simply “Skull Island”) into its present form, which goes out of its way to reference Monarch, the monster-tracking Science organization seen over in 2014’s “Godzilla” and which includes a very obviously Marvel-inspired post-credits stinger explicitly tying Kong and Godzilla’s existences together.  

The resulting film is fun enough, all things told, but that graft is also really, distractingly obvious.

Honestly, I wish I knew why I’m not, generally, fonder of “Skull Island” than I am.  It’s not as if, taken as a whole, it does anything especially bad; indeed it does a great deal that is actively good.  Consider, for example, the rather unique choice to make it a Period Piece; that’s decently rare for a Monster Movie as it is (indeed one of the only other examples that springs to mind for me is Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of “King Kong”, which chose to retain the original’s 1933 setting), and it’s rarer still that the era it chooses to inhabit is an immediately-post-Vietnam 1970’s.  Aesthetically speaking, the movie takes a decent amount of fairly-obvious influence from that most classic of Vietnam-era films, “Apocalypse Now” (a fact that director Jordan Vogt-Roberts was always fairly open about), and it results in some of the movie’s strongest overall imagery (in particular a shot of Kong, cast in stark silhouette, standing against the burning sun on the horizon with a fleet of helicopters approaching him, one of a surprisingly small number of times the movie plays with visual scale to quite the same degree or with quite the same success as “Godzilla” 2014).  It also means the movie is decked out in warm, lush colors that really do bring out all the personality of its Jungle setting in the most compelling way and, given how important the setting is to the film as a whole, that proves key; Skull Island maybe doesn’t become a character in its own right the way the best settings should (too much of our time is spent in fairly indistinct forests especially), but it does manage to feel exciting and unusual in the right ways more often than not.  The “Apocalypse Now” influence also extends to our human cast,  which is sizeable enough here (in terms of major characters we need  to pay attention to played by notable actors, “Skull Island” dwarfs “Godzilla” 2014 by a significant margin) that the framework it provides-a mismatched group defined by various interpersonal/intergenerational tensions trying to make their way through an inhospitable wilderness, ostensibly in search of a lost comrade-is decently necessary.  Though here we already run into one of those aspects of “Skull Island” that doesn’t quite land for me.  Taken as a whole, it sure feels like the human characters here should be decently interesting; certainly, our leads are all much better defined and more engagingly performed than Ford Brody, to draw the most immediately obvious point of comparison.  Brie Larson (as journalistic Anti-War photographer Mason Weaver), Tom Hiddleston (as former British Army officer turned Gun For Hire James Conrad), and John C. Reilly (as Hank Marlow, a World War II soldier stranded on Skull Island years ago) definitely turn in decently strong performances; I wouldn’t call it Career Best work for any of them (Hiddleston especially feels like he’s on auto-pilot half the time, while Larson has to struggle mightily against how little the script actually gives her to work with when you stop and look at it) but they at least prove decently enjoyable to watch (Reilly especially does a solid job of making his character funny without quite pushing him over the edge into Total Cartoon Territory).  I likewise feel like Samuel L. Jackson’s Preston Packard has the potential to be a genuinely-great character; his lingering resentment at the way the Vietnam War played out and the way that feeds into his determination to find and defeat Kong is, again, a clever and compelling use of the 70’s period setting, it gives us a good, believable motivation with a clear and strong Arc to it, and Jackson does a really solid job of playing his Anger as genuine and poignant rather than simply petulant or crazed.  But there’s just too much chaff amongst the wheat, too much time and energy devoted to characters and ideas that don’t have any real pay-off.  This feels especially true of John Goodman’s Bill Randa, the Monarch scientist who arranges the whole expedition; the Monarch stuff in general mostly feels out of place, but Randa in particular gets all of these little notes and beats that seem meant to go somewhere and then just kind of don’t.  Which is kind of what happens with most of the characters in the movie, is the thing; we spend a lot of screen-time dwelling on certain aspects of their backstories or personalities, and then those things effectively stop mattering at all after a certain point, even Packard’s motivations.  A Weak Human Element was one of the problems in “Godzilla” 2014 as well, though, and you’ll recall I quite liked that movie.  There, though, the human stuff was honestly only ever important for how it fed into the monster stuff; it was the connective tissue meant to get us from sequence to sequence and not much more.  Here, though, it forms the heart and soul of the story, and that means its deficiencies feel a lot more harmful to the whole.

Still, those deficiencies really aren’t that severe, and moreover, like I was saying before, there’s a lot about “Skull Island” to actively enjoy.  The Monsters themselves do remain the central draw, after all, and for the most part the movie does a solid job with that aspect of things.  It does not, perhaps, recreate “Godzilla” 2014’s attempt to make believable animals out of them (even as it does design most of them with even more obvious, overt Real World Animal elements), but there is a certain playful energy that informs them at a conceptual level that I appreciate.  Buffalos with horns that look like giant logs with huge strands of moss and grass hanging off their edges, spiders whose legs are adapted to look like tree trunks, stick bugs so big that their camouflage makes them look like fallen trees…the designs feel physically plausible (especially thanks to some strong effects work that makes them feel well inserted into the real environments), but there’s a slightly-humorous tilt to a lot of them that I appreciate, especially since it never outright winks at the audience in a way that would undercut the stakes of the story. Kong too is very well done; rather than the heavily realistic approach taken by the Peter Jackson version from 2005, this Kong is instead very much ape-like but also very clearly his own creature (in particular he stands fully erect most of the time), with a strong sense of Personality to him as well; some of the best parts of the movie are those times where we simply peek in on Kong simply living his life, even when that life is one that is, by nature, violent and dangerous.  Less successful, sadly, are his nemeses, the Skullcrawlers; very much like “Godzilla” 2014, Kong is here envisioned as a Natural Protection against a potentially-dangerous species that threatens humanity (or in this case the Iwi Tribe who live on Skull Island, but we’ll talk more about them later), and while they’re hardly bad designs (the way their snake-like lower bodies give them a lot of neat tricks to play against their enemies in battle are genuinely fun in the right sort of Scary Way), they’re also pretty bland and forgettable, even compared to the MUTOS.  That said, they serve their purpose well enough, and their big Action Scene showdowns with Kong are genuinely solid.  Indeed, the movie’s big climactic brawl between Kong and the biggest of the Skullcrawlers has a lot of good pulpy energy to it (particularly with how Kong winds up using various tools picked up from all around the battlefield to give himself an edge), likewise there’s a certain Wild Fun to the sequence where our hapless humans have to try and survive a trek through the Crawlers’ home-turf.

Where things get a bit tricky again is when the movie attempts to put its own spin on “Godzilla”’s conception of its monsters as part of their own kind of unique ancient eco-system. The sense of Grandeur that gave a lot of that aspect such weight there is mostly absent here, especially; there are instances where some of that feeling comes through (Kong’s interactions with some of the non-Crawler species, for example, do a good job giving us an endearing sense of how Kong fits into this world), but far more often it treats the monsters as Big Set-Piece Attractions.  Which is fine as far as it goes, it just also means a lot of them aren’t as memorable or impactful as I might like.  Meanwhile, the way the Iwis have built their home to accommodate, interact with, and protect themselves from the island’s bestiary feels like a well-designed concept that manages to suggest a lot of History without having to spell it out for us in a way that I appreciated (I would also be inclined to apply this to the very neat multi-layered stone-art used to portray Kong and the Crawlers except that the sequence where we see them is the most overt “let’s stop and do some world-building” exposition dump in the whole movie).  But the Iwis in general are one of the more difficult elements of the movie to process, too; it seems really clear there was a deliberate effort here to avoid the most grossly racist stuff that has been present in prior attempts to portray the Natives of Skull Island, and as far as it goes I do think those efforts bear some fruit; we are, at the very least, very far away from the Scary Ooga-Booga tone of, say, “King Kong VS. Godzilla”, and that feels like it counts for something.  I just also feel like there’s some dehumanizing touches to their portrayal (in particular they never speak; I don’t mean to imply that Not Speaking equals Inhuman, but the fact that we are not made privy to how exactly they do communicate means we’re very much kept at arm’s length from them in a way that seems at least somewhat meant to alienate us from them), especially given their role in the story as a whole is relatively minor.  

At the end of the day, though, all the movie’s elements, good and bad, don’t really feel like they add up together coherently enough to make an impact.  And I think if I had to try and guess why, even as I find it wholly enjoyable with a lot to genuinely recommend it by, I don’t find myself especially enamored by “Skull Island”.  It has a lot of different ideas of how to approach its story-70’s pastiche, worldbuilding exercise, Monster Mash-but doesn’t seem to quite succeed at realizing any of them fully, indeed often allowing them to get in each other’s ways.  It isn’t, again, a bad movie as a result of that; there really isn’t any stretch of it where I found myself bored or particularly unentertained.  But I did paradoxically find myself frequently wanting more, even as by rights the movie delivers on basically what I was looking for from it.   

[spkmth]

SOME BANAL KBNZ HEADCANONS.

HOW THEY MET, BECAME FRIENDS, AND FELL IN LOVE.

•   they met as children,  during a battle in the wild area ;   piers saved raihan from some camp interlopers one evening,  and raihan’s enthusiastic gratitude,  while grating,  meant that he immediately endeared himself to piers.     they never had the chance to become rivals,  as piers’ journey got cut short when he had to become marnie’s full-time caregiver ;   but he never fell out of touch with raihan,  and they texted one another at least once a week.     when raihan left for the isle of armor,  and then for university in kalos right after,  their messages passed less and less frequently ... and when raihan returned nearly a year later,  a fully-fledged dynamax master and certified dragonkeeper,  piers could scarcely recognize him.

•   the attraction was immediate,  but it took a long while for love to grow.     as a man both in the closet and in the spotlight,  raihan couldn’t deny his physical and mental attraction to piers,  but had to stuff his feelings to save face in front of his family and his adoring fans  ( and initially out of fear that piers wouldn’t feel the same ).     for his part,  piers made his intent apparent,  but not too apparent to jeopardize their long-time friendship ;   he’d had hundreds of one-night stands,  infamously never going back for encores,  but by the time he’d cajoled raihan into bed with him,  he realized that he was going to have to break his one-and-done rule.     they hooked up pretty regularly after that,  always in secret,  always in spikemuth for raihan’s peace of mind.

•   raihan admitted to having feelings first.     piers initially thought it was a joke or a slip of the tongue ;   he’d seen the way raihan looked at leon  ( spoiler: it was the same way he looked at raihan )  and figured that their hook-ups were just for fun.     but leon is untouchable,  and piers is warm and comforting and sweet beneath the tight leather and spikes and neon colors  ——  raihan reassures him that he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,  not for all the pokégram clout in the world,  and that’s when piers realizes that  holy shit this is real.

•   yes,  they are in love.     no,  it isn’t a ruse,  a front,  or some scheme to make leon jealous.     no,  they aren’t just fucking because they’re two hot guys and people on the internet like that.

RELATIONSHIP QUIRKS.

•   yes,  raihan gets on piers’ nerves sometimes,  with his constant selfies and his exuberant,  loud personality.     piers gets on raihan’s,  too ;   his non-stop partying and continuous self-deprecation get under raihan’s skin.     but they love each other anyway  ——  no love is perfect,  and they acknowledge that they aren’t perfect people,  and they don’t expect to break the mold in this regard.

•   yes,  raihan is attracted to leon.     piers is attracted to leon too.     they have a standing agreement that if it ever came up,  leon is the only person they are allowed to have a threesome with,  or sleep with one-on-one.     but raihan likes leon on a personal level,  too,  whereas piers only sees him as  happy-go-lucky champion time guy.     indeed,  piers resents leon to some degree,  due to raihan’s fixation on him ;   its fine if raihan wants his body,  but only piers gets raihan’s heart.     piers is also genuinely suspicious of leon :   the guy’s too happy ... what has rose done to him? ( i hate when people make them a happy ot3 when piers has never been in the same room as the guy. do i think they have potential? of course. the internet exists solely for things like that. but GIVE ME CONFLICT DAMN IT. )

•   they never lie to one another.     the foundation of their relationship is  honesty.     raihan is expected to hold himself to a certain set of standards in his city and around his family,  and even on his pokégram ;   the only time he can let loose and be wild is on the pitch ... and with piers.     and of course,  for piers,  punk is about shunning social norms and truly being oneself,  and piers is the dictionary definition of a punk.     he’s genuinely never lied to raihan,  not as a child and not as a grown ass man ;   in fact,  sometimes his bluntness gets him into more trouble than a lie would.     but as a couple,  their honesty has always saved them and kept them together.

•   raihan has yet to introduce piers to his parents,  even as a friend.     they’ve seen piers on tv and have made it clear that they dislike his lifestyle.     it’s a good thing they don’t use pokégram,  or else they’d see piers’ face plastered all over raihan’s feed.     none of this bothers piers :   he won’t be introducing raihan to his parents anytime soon,  either,  because wyndon prison has strict visitation rules and piers couldn’t care less.     in fact,  the only familial validation he needs is marnie’s,  and she’s given it in spades.     marnie adores raihan,  and couldn’t imagine a better partner for her dumpster fire of a brother.

•   piers loathes the idea of marriage.     its a societal construct used to declare that a relationship is Supreme and those people are off the table,  when basic human dignity and respect should be enough for that.     unfortunately for him,  raihan is a sucker for marriage,  and has his mind set on it.     someday,  raihan.

•   raihan doesn’t like piers’ drug use,  and does his best to curb it,  but won’t ask him to stop altogether.     piers is happy living a short and explosive life,  and raihan wouldn’t change that ;   he simply keeps an eye out for him and is constantly brushing up on his cpr skills,  just in case.

•   raihan is incredibly educated,  and some would argue that he is far smarter than piers ;   as a man with full tertiary education,  as well as a certification in the most dangerous pokémon type and mastery of the dynamax phenomenon,  he could talk circles around piers if he wanted to.     but raihan knows that having an education doesn’t make one  smart ;   piers is street savvy,  much more so than raihan could hope to be,  and he knows his way around a dollar better than any professor raihan ever learned from.     and marnie is a perfectly well-educated and wonderfully socialized young lady,  mostly due to her brother’s efforts ... so anyone who makes insinuations about piers’ intelligence around raihan will always end up with a fist in their face.     for his part,  though,  piers enjoys listening to raihan prattle on about the function of a dragon’s scales,  or something else he learned in school ;   its something he’d wished he’d been able to do,  something that he hopes he gets a shot at in his next life.

•   despite being a bleeding heart who loves to spout shakespeare,  raihan struggles with physical intimacy,  sexually or otherwise.     piers is a surprisingly discerning and compassionate lover,  able to tell what his partner wants at a glance,  and completely capable of fulfilling those needs without having to be asked ;   its something that raihan envies.     he’s great at displays of affection,  and boy howdy can he explain it with words,  but he doubts he’ll ever be as intuitively gifted as piers.

•   piers has never written a song about raihan.     when asked why,  he’ll say that he simply can’t put the depth and scope of his feelings into words.     he wants to,  but every time he puts the pen to paper,  it tries to spit everything out at once,  leaving incomprehensible scribbles behind.     he doesn’t have words for the ache in his chest,  the shaking of his fingers,  the simultaneous thrill and fear of being vulnerable with someone who truly cares about him ... so he writes songs about fucking the system instead.

WHO IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER AT...

•   CARING FOR THE OTHER.     they spend equal amounts of time caring for one another ;   they’re both natural caregivers who love tending to others.     raihan is much more ready to admit when he needs to be taken care of than piers is,  as piers is used to doing everything on his own and struggles to ask for help ;   but raihan is tuned into piers’ nonverbal cues well enough that he silently steps up right when piers silently gives in.     piers,  for his part,  is happy to surrender to raihan as well ;   raihan has proven time and time again that he would never intentionally hurt him ... at least,  not without a safe word. ( the concept that piers is a uwu uke who needs to be taken care of bothers me because of his apparent willingness to relinquish control, something that canon piers has some pretty clear issues with doing. he strikes me as a man who needs to be needed,  and who enjoys being a caretaker even if he’ll never admit it. the vulnerability of letting raihan take care of him, when piers has cared for others his whole life, is what attracts me to this pairing, not a hot goth boy getting railed in the ass. it isn’t that he NEEDS to be taken care of; its that he WANTS to be taken care of, by raihan. that’s good shit. and also piers isn’t a goth. )

•   COOKING.     raihan is the better cook,  but piers makes a better cup of tea.     raihan is the whip-shit at making curry ;   its probably the one thing he’s beaten leon at.     for his part,  piers’ cups of tea are as legendary as his singing,  and he has his friends’ and family’s preferences memorized.

•   SINGING / MUSIC.     piers,  purely for his understanding of musical constructs and ability to read music.   raihan can’t read music to save his soul,  but he is great at learning by ear,  and has a wonderful grasp of pitch and tone.     piers has a wider range,  but raihan has a purer voice ;   years of chainsmoking has added a distinctive rasp to piers’ voice,  but that’s one of the things that makes him famous.     the first time the public got any inkling of their closeness was a spontaneous duet at a karaoke bar  ( and surprisingly,  they were sober ).

•   FUCKING.     piers,  no contest.     he’s talented and infamous for his exploits,  and if he hasn’t tried it,  he wants to.     raihan certainly isn’t wet behind the ears,  but sex isn’t his priority ;   he likes connecting with people on an individual level,  and then a physical level if they’re compatible.     piers has the higher libido of the two,  and this sometimes bothers raihan,  partly because he wishes he had a greater sex drive and partly because he wishes piers would stop and smell the roselia with him instead of constantly trying to get him out of his clothes.

WHO DOES WHAT MORE?

•   SMOKING / DRINKING.     piers smokes way more than raihan,  and raihan prefers hookah to cigarettes.     they’re both drinkers,  but skinny little piers can drink the dragon under the table.     however,  raihan is aces at concealing his level of drunkenness until he’s beyond the point of no return ;   piers is shit at hiding it.     drunk piers is baseline horny,  sometimes happy,  sometimes angry ;   raihan is the happy / sleepy kind of drunk.     raihan is picky and prefers mixed drinks,  and piers will drink anything that isn’t cheap beer.     raihan greatly prefers drinking at home,  as he’d seen piers get roofied at a pub once and it traumatized him.

•   STAYING UP LATE.     piers is the king of the night-noctowls.     raihan is lucky to make it to midnight.

•   CHECKING THEIR PHONE.     raihan.     always raihan.     piers’ poor rotom-phone has abandonment issues from how little it’s used.

•   TOPPING / BOTTOMING.     piers is 90% power bottom and 10% service top.     he loves getting fucked and telling his lover how he wants it,  but he’s also great at pleasing his partner no matter what they want from him,  and loves taking care of his partner and making them scream.     raihan is 70% service top, 15% power top,  and 15% genuine sub.     as nice as it is to flex his muscles and use his ungodly height to his advantage,  sometimes its nice to just be taken care of.     fortunately for raihan,  piers is great at understanding nonverbal cues,  and can easily tell what mindset raihan is in without having to ask.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Winter 2020 Anime Overview: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Keep Your Hands off Eizouken! follows three high school girls: Midori Asakusa, Tsubame Mizusaki and Sayaka Kanamori, as they work together to create their own anime. They form a club on their high school campus, which they dub “eizouken” (the rough meaning of which is “film association”).

Awkward and spacey but endlessly creative, Asakusa takes on the job of director and also handles background animation. Mizusaki is a part-time model who has to dodge her parents disapproval over her pursuing anime, but she’s a whiz at character animation. And finally, there’s the tough-as-nails, blunt-as hell Kanamori, who doesn’t have much passion for animation itself but has a lot of passion for selling a good product, and she wrangles the two artists and reminds them of the bottom line.

Eizouken! is a vibrant artistic triumph bursting with wonder and ingenuity. I can’t really communicate just how good it is- this is truly a show that speaks to the existence of nerds, creative weirdos and (if you identify with Kanamori), the poor souls who have to deal with how ridiculous creative weirdos can be.

 The show finds great visual ways to express the creative and planning process for an enterprise, having the girls literally climb around in the settings and concept art they create, struggle to fly the planes they’ve designed, and so on. By doing this, it transforms what could have been a more standard narrative into a more unpredictable tale that switches between being a a thoughtful meditation on the different aspects of the creative and production process and a rollicking, wacky adventure story.

And it’s all carried by very strong characters. Even their designs are bold and distinct- its very rare to see a main protagonist female character in ANY sort of animation have a constant, unflattering grimace like Kanamori does, but it suits her cynical self perfectly. Eizouken! focuses on female characters, but unusually for anime, and let’s be real, animation in general, it doesn’t sand off any unique edges to make them as  generically cute’ as possible. Mizuasaki is the closest to a standard conventionally cute design, but that suits the fact she’s a part time model.  Thanks to the great animation, the girls also have a wonderful expressiveness that matches their striking designs. The great article The Glorious, Geeky. Goofy Girls of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken goes into this more in depth. 

(As the article mentions, the storyboard director of episode 1, Mari Motohashi, said they animated the characters in a consciously gender neutral manner too, saying of the original manga that“ she liked the "gender neutral" feel of it. She described Asakusa as like an elementary schooler, Mizusaki as having some girlish aspects still left in her, and Kanamori as like an intellectual yakuza. She said that Kanamori's pragmatism was refreshing, and felt true to life regarding how the anime industry works, which may be why creative people tend to enjoy the manga. “)

It’s not just the main three! Side characters are distinctive too and unusually diverse for an anime taking place in Japan. The setting itself encompasses this diversity, you see signs in many different languages and so on. The mangaka has stated it was based on her own experiences attending a public school, saying on twitter:  "I was attending a public elementary school. There were Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Americans, Iranians, Brazilians, Egyptians and Nigerians. Those are normal. And there were various skin colors, religions, and various names."

Of course, strong designs and animation need strong writing to match them and Eizouken! provides. All the characters are deeply loveable in their quirkiness and struggles, and they play off each other well.

Kanamori became particularly beloved with the fandom- she could have easily been a one-dimensional greedy producer type, but while she takes no shit and wants that money (oh boy does she) she also really genuinely hates seeing great small businesses fail due to poor management, and knows how harsh the world is and wants people to succeed in it.

 Also, because the student council leader genuinely smart and take-no-shit pragmatic too, her rivalry with Kanamori actually becomes fun to watch instead of being the usual generic one-sided battle we typically club anime- they’re equals.

Asakusa and Mizusaki also have really strong character focus too-for example, when we get into why Mizusaki loves animation, you find a surprising attention to detail and practicality hidden behind her starry eyed passion. One of Eizouken’s greatest strengths is how, while its brimming with joy and love of artistry, it doesn’t bullshit its audience and try to define artists in vague, idealistic terms, or act like it isn’t incredibly tough out there for animators, or anyone trying to make doing something they enjoy. The anime is defined by the tug of war between the wonders of imagination and the harshness of the actual world.

But it also acknowledges that like, sometimes high schoolers just wanna animate a girl fighting a tank with a sword cuz like how cool is that.

It makes for a message that’s still hopeful and inspirational to people who want to do what they love, but more in touch with the actual world (and the dire conditions of a lot of the anime industry, even if it doesn’t directly talk about it). Like with it’s characters, the show doesn’t sand off the rough edges of trying to make and sell art!

In the end, Eizouken! is both an ode to and a peak example of incredible creativity and all the effort that goes into getting art out there The only real flaw in it is that sometimes the info-dumps on the animation concepts can get overwhelming, but even that just means more cool stuff to comb through if you’re in the mood for it.

And there are a million strengths to offset it. Like how It’s funny and smart, striking a great balance between snappy, relatable moments and deeper musings on artistry and trying to make it in a confusing world. It’s got a lot for animation and anime geeks to snack on and is clearly made by people who both know what they’re talking about and don’t feel the need to sugarcoat it. It captures both the ridiculousness and loveliness of nerdery (you WILL see these dweebs arguing about giant robots in wonderfully/horribly specific detail). It’s a visual feast that switches art styles to express different feelings, and revels in every colorful detail. It’s full of great girls being awesome dorks.  

It’s likely to stand out as among the best of years to come and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it still going strong in “anime of the decade” lists when we hit 2030. I definitely recommend this series with no reservations- not just for artists and lovers of animation, but anyone who wants to have a blast. 

So please feel free to use this humble Tumblr post to spread the word about this show, though never forget Kanamori’s wisdom:

For we must always hold this knowledge deep in our hearts.