#& claiming 'this thing was never good because this celebrity is cancelled now' is just so dumb lol

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

ok so you've heard of the 'I liked this before it was popular' crowd, now get ready for the equally insufferable 'I disliked this thing when everyone else liked it & now everyone hates it so I feel smug' lot lol...

[gorgeouslypink]

i just wanted to bring something to your attention bc you're the only blog that i think people acc trust

i think u know @trynafindbarbiee

sorry if this doesn't link but she blocked me so lol

basically she used to be a good void blogger but you can go look at her page yourself and now it's all just an ad for some random Instagram manifesting coaching account that she claims isn't hers (apparently it's someone who helped her manifest before she entered the void state but she never mentioned this before) but for some reason, keeps on advertising for and lowk gaslighting people into joining bc she says stuff like "do you not want your dream life? why don't you just pay already?"

her exact quote: “She’s open for coaching guys What are fucking waiting for? Don't u want your dream life? Are u not tired? Are u not fed up with all this? ARE YOU NOT?”

This is so disgusting to me to gaslight desperate people like this

Also, I was there when she first posted about that account. She said the insta account only charges $11.99 and then she changed it to $23.98.

Also all the success stories seem so fake. I'm not one to doubt success stories but the first few all seem like they're the same Indian girl and then the last 2 sound like random fictional novels. The second to last is a woman who was hospitalized and over 400 people visited her, like even presidents or celebrities don't get that many people and apparently she had money problems but none of the 400 people could give her any money or like the most recent one. the reason i even decided to call her out was because she made up a ridiculous story of a woman who got pregnant because she was taking antidepressants. i am majoring in healthcare and am very passionate abt this topic because some uneducated people believe this "that antidepressants can cancel out birth control" so they use that as a reason to not take them even though this is completely false and there is no evidence of antidepressants cancelling out birth control❗���

i am pretty sure trynafindbarbie is spiritual soya, it doesn't rlly make sense why she would be advertising her like this and ive noticed certain things like them both saying "peoples"but yeah i hope you can atleast just share this with your followers so they don't get scammed

i looked into this and you're absolutely right, it's a bit disappointing and i just get upset when i see people trying to gaslight and scam this community because the majority of this community are just young girls trying to get their dream life. i hope you guys know that you are so powerful and you can get your dream life on your own!

[itsnotablogsblog]

The Negative Effects of Being Off Socials to Noah “selling” his soul to fame

NOAH SEBASTIANS IMPACT ON BEING GONE OFF SOCIALS LEAD FANS ASTRAY TO WHAT BAD OMENS IS ACTUALLY ABOUT.

-the vicious cycle of Bad Omens negativity -

-The Mysterious Man who allegedly knows Noah-

Hi welcome back to another rant. We are discussing the issue and negative effects on how a person who is quite popular is impacting the fans, with not engaging.

So I’ve wanted to talk about this for awhile now, considering that Noah has been gone from social media back in December.

This is where State of the Scene Podcast took notice that Noah was no longer active on social media.

This is where fans are also being affected of him being gone from the internet as he wiped off his digital footprint.

Now we all know that Noah is highly highly private. Most of what we know we don’t know because of how private he is with his personal life.

In detail, from the interview from Loudwire, Noah didn’t exactly put a good description of detail to why he actually deleted socials.

A lot of people took it as a sign of him dealing with his mental health.

But to be fair the internet is just one place to dump but it never goes out further than what revolves around it. It can be a deep dead end, with no meaning behind it.

But what exactly are the side effects of being off social media whenever you’re a huge part of a fanbase that people want to enjoy? Let’s take a look at our first topic.

THE CYCLE OF NEGATIVE SETBACKS

So, in all when a celebrity decides to delete their social media, it’s taking away that experience with the fans. Leaving them alone and abandoned to what music and what type of content they decide to do.

This leaves with Noah Sebastian disappearing mid-December without fans knowing. It creates a divide with the fans, due to Noah being gone for a year now. This also raised a lot of questions on my end that I still don’t understand.

THE LOST CONNECTION TOWARDS ARTIST AND FAN

In my opinion, I think Noah did something completely dumb and stupid for deleting his socials. There seems to be a lot of disappointment for the fans when they want him back on social media. I think they’re right to express how they feel, even if Noah is gone, it makes the fans feel sort of left out to what the lead singer has to put out for the fans.

This gives them negative feedback on fans delegating that if they’re set out to be an exclusive merch store or if they really are a numetal band.

Plus it takes away all the interaction from the fans.

NOAH’S IMPACT ON BEING GONE

I think there’s going to be a lot of opinions and discussion to how I’m going to receive this information after posting this blog, but to me, that’s a lot more information for my ideas next blog.

So what is the impact Noah put on the fans that created this toxic atmosphere on social media?

Here are my theories

In terms, Noah created a twitch back in 2019, during Covid. This led him to postpone and cancel tour dates because of what’s been happening when they started quarantining everyone around the world.

There he met his best friend Keaton Pierce.

Allegedly i got told by a man, who claimed to be friends with both Keaton and Noah. His name I can’t remember.

After 2019, in the early year of 2020, he came out with the most listened album “THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND” right after he deleted his socials.

During his twitch streams with fans, a lot of it came from him engaging what the fans wanted to look forward to in their next album.

Noah on the receiving end, gave what the fans wanted in return.

But it seemed to not last long. Noah wanted to be part of the fanbase, to engage with fans, without the necessity of starting drama. So where did this all lead to the development of the toxic cycle of hate?

I’m not exactly sure where the toxic thing came from but from the tea blogs I have read came from one specific person. It’s honestly crazy to think that the toxic fanbase never goes away.

So what changed?

Noah’s presence online was in my opinion starting out just like any normal person on the internet. From his live twitch streams, playing with fans or people he met on discord.

To having his own discord server where fans all over the world can talk to Noah. Mind you this all happened in 2019.

They say he also had a tumblr account, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. That’s where I got stumped. He definitely deleted his account. But the original Bad Omens tumblr account still remains on here. Leaving it abandoned.

Noah’s trace seemed to be gone after Covid. Although he was pretty much active on Twitter all the time, a lot of fans loved interacting with his social presence being online.

It’s honestly pretty wild that I did not even know he existed during quarantining. All of this I have learned and met people that actually do know him and how he is as a person.

THEORY 1: Mental Health or Toxic Online Behavior?

This theory led me to think, that he probably got off socials because of how toxic the fanbase got.

Of course there’s the other reason as to his mental health declining. But since he seems to be doing fine as of now, he seems a lot happier being offline.

The fanbase can be toxic, and there’s a lot of people who get jealous and start acting like they want to pick on the person for being hateful or expressing their own opinions.

This has led a lot of fans start drama on the most dumbest things.

As for example their online merch store. A lot of it seems to come off there and start like a wildfire. From one person saying that their merch is AI, to another person saying that the Hentai shirt was p*rn*graphic. To Davis coming out and making a meme from all the hate it has given.

To a fan claiming that they humiliated. Like dudes. Chill the fuck out. You know how insensitive and childish that sounds? You guys are adults. It’s pretty annoying to see on the platform just because you don’t like something IN FACT Matt said something about this awhile back.

Here’s what he said.

“If you’re an old fan, don’t like the new material, then listen to the old content and shut the fuck up lol.”

I don’t think he was being rude. More to put it as a statement for others to understand that the band doesn’t owe anyone anything.

To those anons who think the band owes you something or say that the band knows you, it’s hard for me to understand if they actually know who you are.

This includes the circle where one of his ex-girlfriends decided to go public and start a tea blog of what Noah is like.

This led other anons follow up on what she had to say and what her relationship was like with Noah.

Obviously I don’t hate her, because I don’t know her personally.

The toxic online behavior looks like it’s all over the place. From what this man told me, he told me that several things of what he quote on quote said saying “if you think about it, Noah likes this perspective on music. More so to say that what he puts out in his music, he’s not just producing it. Whether in a sense, he likes and wants fans to enjoy.”

This man I tell you blew my mind. This is why I said allegedly. Whether or not he knows Noah, it’s sort of creeped me out by what I heard about Noah, that also confirms what’s been being said.

We do know Noah had a mental health issue leading him to delete socials which we all respect and appreciate while he gets better.

THEORY 2: THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK

Now this man, I tell you gave me goosebumps all over my body. From what I remember him telling me is that he sold his soul to gain momentum and gain popularity. He also said that Noah wasn’t looking for fame this quickly.

Of course, this made me think okay but if this was actually real, is it possible to sell or buy someone’s soul for their reputation in the sense to make them popular?

From what I heard, is that Noah did something very shady to get famous. Whether or not this is true, it’s pretty creepy and highly scary. This is from months ago when I first started knowing about Noah Sebastian.

Believe me being a fan and being to enjoy his music, to knowing the weird things that I got told. It feels like a gate to the unknown, more likely a gate to where people don’t talk about it much. It’s where you feel like you entered some type of illuminati shit.

The questions I asked him were mainly about how people go into the business in music. He stated that during his time knowing Noah due to gaming over the PC, he, Noah, and Keaton were talking about what makes music interesting.

Some of it I can’t talk about, because it gets really dark, really easily.

But due to the toxic environment of them having to deal with toxic people in the fanbase, Noah in a sense doesn’t like it. It makes their own fanbase look bad.

In terms of him being gone, a lot of new fans and a lot of the old fans that have followed them for years it seems like it’s causing the fanbase to know little about the band Bad Omens.

This is causing a whirlwind of people discontinuing to not liking their music.

The supportive fans will continue to support. While others don’t want to support the band.

How come no one is talking about this?

Well this leads to my next topic on the subject.

THE BAND NEEDS TO INTERACT WITH THE FANBASE

Many fans need interaction with the artist. Without that interaction, there’s a problem where the fans don’t know how the artist thinks. This leads to problems later on to fans coming up with rumors on how the band actually is like. To fans ranting out that they no longer want to be part of the fandom.

This is where it gets interesting, because I feel like Noah just quit social media because of how fans were taking everything too personally and too serious.

To where it leads the thought that Noah doesn’t want to do anything with the fanbase. Okay if he didn’t want to do anything with the fanbase, does that make him a bad person?

In other terms, as to what I have seen on his twitch streams, he enjoyed talking to people and enjoyed being able to talk to fans. Which led him to start his own discord, to him being on YouTube, to him having all these socials.

This is causing the fanbase to lose that interaction with Bad Omens.

The only interaction they have is Davis. He is the main spokesperson for Bad Omens when it comes to merch. Then there’s Matt. He interacts with people sometimes on the Twitter platform. Along side Folio, Jolly, and Ruffilo.

I think when it comes down to Noah Sebastian, I think he didn’t want to interact with fans anymore and that’s causing the main frenzy. Even though half of the band has socials, it’s pretty obvious that they have become highly private.

But there’s a bad side to it as well.

Even though the guys are very private about everything and little is known about what’s going on to their lives, I think it goes much farther than that.

A lot of the times, a band when it’s formed they need to have a fan interaction at some point in time. But with Noah not having socials, he’s distancing himself from that and it’s making him feel like every fan that follows Bad Omens is a bad person. Or fake fan that interacts in a bad way.

This is where I get confused, because without knowing what Bad Omens does as a band without the context of what they put on their merch site is in a sense a bit like saying “if they’re a band, why promote a clothing brand?”

CLOTHING BRAND OR MUSIC LABEL?

So with Bad Omens they promote an excellent merch collection. Differing from their old merch to the new merch for the death of peace of mind.

So what are they really? Are they both a music band? Or are they a clothing brand?

This is where some fans get highly angry. To where they’re getting bored with the same thing over and over. From Sumerian coming out with the same Concrete OST vinyl, but in different colors, to Bad Omens producing the old merch they had with their second album Finding God Before God Finds Me.

Like bringing back the most loved merch from their previous collection and releases.

This leads fans thinking that Bad Omens is just a clothing brand but doesn’t produce enough music.

I mean I get where they get this question and get mad at Bad Omens just because they want new music instead of the old content.

To be honest, from them starting a tour and then cancelling it due to Noah having a bad burnout, it really made a lot of fans upset. This leads to the other subject.

If someone goes off social media and deletes everything, that brings a lot of negative vibes to the fan base. Not just because of a mental health problem, but it also leaves the fans wondering why Noah left.

If you bring back the previous content I have blogged here, a lot of what I said revolved around Noah experiencing a bad fan base and how they appeared on his doorstep to pulling pranks on him.

Well let’s dig a bit deeper.

Since Noah is a very particular person when it comes to certain things. Like the fan base. He might have thought some point in time the toxic comeback that people have said, or thought about his career is full on bad.

Not just that, but the fact that during one of his livestreams on twitch, someone told him to “go ***”.

Okay. Thats sort of mean considering that this man just wanted to promote his album and his music for people to listen to. I think due to the hate he constantly had and received led him to delete his social media.

He sort of got bored with it in my opinion. Now that his band has become popular, a lot more fans are wondering the fact that maybe Noah shouldn’t have deleted everything.

THE CYCLE OF TOXICITY

The cycle of how we define toxic behavior online and what it does online, it can be a lot of topics from ranging from haters to fake fans to people causing rumors.

From what the man told me, Noah did not want to be in the spotlight of fame. He never really asked for it, but in time he did.

This comes from years and years of providing music, and publishing music vinyls. To tour dates even.

Listen I’ll tell you right now, there is a sacrifice that people do, in order to become successful. If Noah made a decision to stay off social media, then it takes away what the fans really want.

This leads to the theory that he sold his soul to or offered something in return for fame.

I’m not sure if you guys are familiar with the theory that there might be shady people in the industry where in California everything seems like you can afford something from doing something.

From what the man told me, Noah wanted sell out. He wanted the attention and the money. From his friendship with Keaton, they both wanted to succeed. Although im not quite sure why it has some part to do with the occult.

If there was some sort of cult in the music industry, then it’s a pretty big secret.

I know it’s crazy to think, but if Noah really sold his “soul” many people wouldn’t believe it. It comes down to how hard they work off and how much blue collar work they do. If Noah actually sold his soul for a contract to become big, it’s quite creepy to think, more so to where you completely abandon your own fanbase and just forget they even exist.

I mean that’s a pretty big ass move to even do. It actually upsets me because not only they’re a great band performing publicly, but they’re distancing themselves from the fans that actually support them. More likely Noah than the other guys in the band.

I think we need to show Noah that it’s not the entire fanbase that’s toxic. Some fans are nice, heck a lot of us enjoy his content.

The cycle where this comes in, I don’t think it’s ever going to stop. I mean you basically have people commenting and ranting that they don’t enjoy some of the songs they put in the albums they write.

Even if you ignore it, it never stops or goes away. I think Noah got sick of seeing people argue over the dumbest thing.

But anyways, yes he did leave because of mental health, but he also left due to the fanbase being toxic and that really takes away the fun that bands try to bring into the music world.

This created a toxic environment inside the bad omens community. Even if it comes from a specific group that always wants Bad Omens to fail as a band, it comes from everyone around.

Okay let’s face the fact here.

1. These tea blogs you read online, they only talk about Bad Omens either collaborating or touring around the world.

2. They actually don’t know Noah. All they say is hearsay.

3. They just talk about other people supporting different artists, and/or just bully them. If they actually knew Noah, I don’t think Noah wouldn’t like it.

Obviously I’m just a fan here, who experienced a lot and met people who actually know what Noah is like. I don’t know if I consider myself lucky, or just solely because I love this band.

But anyways moving on.

This missing interaction between Noah and the fans that came after him deleting socials, it says a lot about a person. Honestly if he didn’t delete socials and just stayed offline while he was working on his mental health, it could’ve been easier. Rather than deleting everything.

I think that fans should have this interaction with Noah, but I also feel like if Noah were to see the crap that people put on the internet, it’s nothing compared to what the fans want.

DID HE REALLY SELL HIS SOUL?

From what I heard, I’ll tell you I didn’t sleep that night. If Noah actually sold his soul to the devil, why does he reference the devil so much in Finding God Before God Finds Me?

Not to mention his four songs

DETHRONE

THE HELL I OVERCAME

GLASS HOUSES

WORST IN ME

In which he describes that the devil took his soul for the price he paid. In which terms he wanted to sell out tickets for the new album The Death Of Peace Of Mind.

He also references the devil in many ways. One where he took a picture with a goat. Or has a tattoo of a goat.

He also described how the occult takes something from you. Something meaningful.

From what I experienced I also met someone else, now I don’t know if they were legit crazy or just making up nonsense, but they told me to sell my soul to them.

I was like “no thankyou.”

Then comes to the fact that this other artist told me he was in a satanic cult group and that he worshipped satanism and how he was a satanist, stuff like that.

Listen, I’ll support bands that make really great music, but having the knowledge to know these things can be quite weird. Specially if someone is telling someone else that this whole music industry is based off of a cult.

I think you gotta look at the aspect of wanting to openly know about what famous people are like. I think I opened myself up to this a lot more than others, and made me make this blog. To finding out more on Noah.

Honestly, if a person has the ability to actually know this stuff and has the strength to go far and out and reach the tunnel of the unknown. Then that’s something.

But I think selling or offering your own services to devote a specific god more so the devil, I think it’s highly outrageous.

Believe me I had nightmares due to finding this stuff out for weeks. Weeks bro. I think I got a bit paranoid about it, so I had to take a major break from knowing all this stuff in the span of one year.

FANS THINK NOAH DOESN’T CARE

Okay if he was mean, that would mean that Noah definitely doesn’t like his fanbase. The only thing Noah doesn’t like is drama. He stays far away from it as much as possible.

Drama leads to all sorts of problems but the band doesn’t really care for much of it. They keep doing what they’re doing and have the best time selling merch and their albums.

While these fans (the anons) that says something.

These people include the inner circle that the public ex-girlfriend of Noah Sebastian has. To the inner circle of the anti omens fans who call themselves the dick riders.

Even if they’re famous for knowing who Noah is, I think they’re just wanting to want to know Noah, because he’s the most hottest person only being recently 29.

This leaves me with not interacting with anyone who just hates on people because they’re allowed to.

I feel like these types of people aren’t good or healthy friendships. The tumblr blogs they own, is solely just to leave a conversation of Bad Omens.

Listen if you had the time to know what I know from what I experienced, I think you’re just making up nonsense that isn’t even relevant.

That’s what I hate. That’s what I don’t interact with.

You definitely don’t know everything.

Also Noah isn’t mean. He’s just highly reserved.

MY CON-SENSES

If Noah made the right decision to leave socials, there’s got to be some kind of explanation.

Like I said, he is a particular man. I think he thinks differently than most people do.

But it leaves me with questions. If he likes his fans, why did he leave? Why didn’t he stay?

Why do people think that he’s not the nicest person around?

Why are fans always finding some way to disagree with merch?

Is Bad Omens doing something wrong?

If Noah came back on social media, it would be a surprise. I’m just highly upset that he deleted everything. Fans these days don’t have the ability to respect boundaries. Specially when it comes to parasocial interactions.

That’s also another reason. Noah leaving his fans and abandoning his social media makes everyone upset and not just me.

My only train of thought is that Noah made a dumbass move deleting everything that he had.

If he didn’t delete socials, then he would still be able to interact with people.

But I guess people ruin it for everyone.

If fans think Noah doesn’t care for his fans, then why is he putting out music for everyone to enjoy? If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have started such a great band and career.

Honestly I think the problem is with the people who want Bad Omens to look bad.

Even with the Concrete OST. If you don’t like it, then don’t buy it. You’re the one making a problem here.

If you aren’t happy with the band then move on. The band doesn’t owe you shit. They’re out there producing to make money. That’s what they do.

Anyways I think that Noah leaving socials, and the fans acting mean towards each other. It is also distancing the fan from the artist.

Without having to know the artist, and what they like producing, people will think that they’re not being heard or being listened to publicly.

This happens often on Twitter.

Or the problem where they showed us the concrete ost vinyl. Where when they launched their merch, a lot of people complained that it was not available in Australia or overseas.

A lot of people asked Davis, but Davis on the other hand, didn’t really answer their commentary.

I just think that Noah should have been more involved with fans.

My only advice would’ve been that he could have at least put some boundary between his twitch streams and fans showing up at his house.

BOUNDARIES DIDN’T HELP

Okay so this is where my next question is. If he put out boundaries, to where he told fans to not show up at his home or anywhere he went, then why did the fans not respect the rules?

It seems like the fans caused this break and distance to where Noah got a bit concerned and creeped out by what has happened to him. I think the fans caused this more than anything.

They didn’t respect his privacy, they were always wanting to hang out with the dude, they wanted autographs, and wanted to come party with Noah considering the amounts of partying he did with his friends and just live streamed on Twitch.

He wanted to show fans what he loves and adores which is music. Being involved with friends and hanging out by the pool or playing games.

I’ll call these people

“THE CRAZED FANS”

These people that came out of the closet to go such lengths to interact with Noah was not okay. From him saying in his livestream that people were showing up on his doorstep, to him asking them to leave. It’s highly disturbing and disrespectful. He also mentioned that it wasn’t okay for them to do that.

He did of course tell them to leave.

I think this plays a huge part and factor to why Noah also left social media. He clearly doesn’t like stalkers. It feels to me he could have been a lot more careful about his actions and decisions.

Him being gone for a year isn’t bad. But my worry is that it’s going to become controversial because he’s been gone and hasn’t returned to social media.

I think there’s going to be a lot more drama on him and at him from fans that are wanting new music and wanting new albums being released rather than merch being sold.

There’s definitely going to be interesting discussions regarding him being gone in the next few months.

This is all becoming very recent. So there’s going to be more topics on it.

I feel like the next few weeks and the next year, right after tour, I think people are going to be bored from them announcing a lot of merch. It’s giving them the abandonment that they seek for an artist to do.

And since Noah isn’t being part of the fanbase anymore, that’s going to be an issue.

[hologramcowboy]

I usually stay far away from Twitter and fandom drama and I don't follow fandom groups but given the dehumanizing posts I've been seeing online, I am going on a fairly long rant, this is just my view, of course, so please discard it if not relevant to you:

The people making posts like these:

are at the core of the bully mentality. You are dehumanizing a Human Being with the entitlement that you get to define how a negative experience affects them. You do not, in any universe, get to tell someone who has been affected by something at what level they have been affected. Simply because you are not them. Furthermore, you are biased and discriminating against Jared Padalecki because he is a celebrity. Jared is a human being first and foremost and, as we've seen in the past, he does do social listening. This means death threats and other cyber crimes do affect him, not to mention the very real stalking some of you do when he moves from country to country. You end up following him under his hotel or even worse situations.

This discussion happening within fandom should include him because he is a direct victim. Also, the intent to commit cyber crimes and sending death threats does not get cancelled out just because that person may or may not have read the thread/post. Do you get this? Do you understand that if your intention and energy is vile, whether the content reaches your target or not, your cyber crime is still in effect? "Jared is a big boy and he doesn't care". Really? In what universe would you be okay with receiving death threats, would your family love that for you? Oh, they would not? So why on earth would you say it is alright that Jared received death threats? Fans do affect an actor's psyche, actors live to bring you joy and when they see you go toxic and dangerous it does affect their psyche.

Aside from this, as mentioned earlier, some of you actually stalk him at cons and at different locations and do so with hateful intent. The gravity of your actions is what causes actors to hide in public, avoid open spaces, reinforce their security, have panic attacks and fear for their life. Yet here you are, online, claiming that it's all good because said person is a celebrity so who cares.

If you dislike Jared, that's a matter of taste and your business but if you dehumanize Jared to the point of denying the very real atrocious actions perpetuated towards him, then you are no different than the perpetrators. You are, in fact, the enablers so you are even worse. A bad intention or idea cannot form into action unless people enable it and you played a key part with your bias and lack of care.

Think of all that evil hitting your child or loved one or even yourself, is it still nothing now? Do you see how wrong it is to minimize the abuse people perpetuate? Jared is a kind human being, so he avoids getting into drama as much as he can but that doesn't mean he is not affected. Also, someone not being affected is never, ever, an excuse to abuse said person. It's pretty interesting how someone suddenly doesn't count as human in your eyes. Talking about the abuse Jared gets in no way takes away from the other victims, in fact, it provides evidence of the intent and maliciousness of the people who attacked those victims. So it is highly important to consider as well as discuss. If you actually care about the topic at hand and the people involved that is. If you actually cared about shifting paradigms and improving fandom experience.

Lastly, Jared does deserve an apology too, the behavior displayed towards him is inhuman, degrading and damaging. He's no different than all the other persons at the receiving end of atrocious behaviors. The fact that you cannot comprehend that shows you lack humanity and empathy. If this was you or a friend at the receiving end, you would do the right thing but because you resent Jared, you are trying to twist an important discussion to damage him further. Jared doesn't know you and never did anything against you yet you feel entitled to dehumanizing him.

Then there's this: The people who perpetuated these behaviors displayed them publicly as well, especially towards him, thus providing a horrible example for others to follow. If you really cared about resolving bullying you would know those were seriously damaging paradigms being disseminated online and encouraged. Those people felt entitled to tell others to end their existence and the reason this happened was because you chose to ignore it thinking "people are grown ups and they can defend themselves" and "that's a celebrity, I don't care". So you saw the very clear signs but ignored or encouraged. You enabled. Now you are trying to create drama centered on one of the victims instead of owning your part in all of that and working on ways to create healthier fandom experiences.

Let's look at this one:

"We can attack Jared haters(or Misha haters or Jensen haters) on any other day of the week" Not only is this person directly admitting to being no different than those perpetrators, she is actually saying that attacking is what they do on a daily basis. Is that supposed to be the normal response? To attack? So bullying is the solution to bullying? Since when? Since when has mobbing people become the norm? Behaviors can be addressed without even remotely attacking someone. If you've created vicious cycles where you gang up on each other then that's only going in one direction, the same one those cult girls had.

My point is, please gain awareness and focus on creating healthy paradigms rather than on victim shaming/blaming, attacking whoever you disapprove of (same pattern those cult girls had, silo mentality and one sided views) and stop enabling the people who created such a negative impact within fandom by allowing them to display disempowering behaviors. Stop feeding into negative patterns and starts building healthy ones. Change starts with you and, whether you are aware of it or not, your choices affect others.

It is truly heartbreaking how people can twist their love for a show into hating actors and other people instead of using that passion to connect with like minded souls and create beautiful experiences together.

[f0point5]

Your take on Chappell so wildly misinterprets literally everything that has happened to her in the last few months. She lives with Bipolar disorder for 1, and that means it can be very hard for her to navigate her mental state. She also has depression. Cancelling shows and making mistakes is going to happen when you are a new artist, but you are also a young person in general.

She never wanted the level of fame she has now, she's a queer artist, who makes music for queer people, of course she's overwhelmed and trying to navigate a world she never intended to enter. I think it's easy to hate on successful women who stand up for themselves and are honest about their problems because we don't like to see women succeed. Period.

You have alot of people who engage with your blog, I would imagine probably a lot of girlies, just based on F1 tumblr vibes, If I were you, I would wonder how I'm supporting and uplifting women in an world where we aren't especially supported rather than spend my time hating on a girl who makes music you don't like...

She's a vocal, passionate defender of art and culture, she donates money and time to Palestine and speaks up about LGBTQ and Trans issues, she rightfully called Kamala Harris out while still maintaining that she will never stand with republican values and will still vote for her and everyone wants to pretend they don't understand that tribalism is bad and she is completely right.

Music taste is completely subjective, no one said you have to like it, it's definitely a select audience it caters too, but disrespecting it and disregarding her entire discography because one song annoys you, is crazy.

First of all, I’m not here to uplift and support anyone. That’s not my sole purpose in life, my goal or my vocation. I like or don’t like or have my opinions regardless of the gender of the person concerned.

Second, I’m not here to hate on anyone. Saying that I think she’s unprofessional is an opinion. Hateful? I personally don’t think so. But you can disagree that’s fine.

Third, I haven’t listened to her entire discography and I don’t claim to have done so, I’ve listened to several songs, none of which are my vibe. Now, did I sardonically link that to her professionalism? Yes. It was tongue in cheek, but if that offended you, I can take that on board.

Fourth, she can defend or not defend or spend her money on whatever she likes. All I’m saying is, she expressed her opinions in a way that was not easy to understand twice. And I think that if you decide you’re going to be one of those celebrities who wades into politics, you are taking on the responsibility of being eloquent enough to articulate your point because people are listening.

But on the actual subject of the main thing I said - I think she is unprofessional. And I think that matters regardless of age and diagnosis. I think you have a responsibility to manage your health in conjunction with the job that you do so that you can still do your job. If that is not happening, you might be in the wrong career. I highly doubt that any singer starts their career thinking or hoping they’re never going to aspire to any level of fame and influence. I simply don’t think that’s why you do that job. And if you don’t want fame, maybe do your small shows instead of performing at the VMAs, maybe keep a low profile instead of getting involved in the most polarising conversation in the country. My point is, fame is a trauma. No one deserves that, and certainly not everyone is equipped - for whatever reason - to handle it in a way that will be good for their health. All I’m saying is, from the outside, it seems like she falls into that camp, and if I were someone who spent their money supporting her, I would find it annoying.

[matan4il]

Hi, I’ve seen some gifs of that Thai show, but are those two actors together in real life too?

Hi lovely Nonnie!

Oh wow, I did not expect an ask about Kinnporsche The Series / Mileapo, but I probably should have since I went off a bit in the tags of that gifset reblog, didn't I? XD Please never take me too seriously whenever I claim two specific individuals have invented love, I'm just joking around. Unless I'm talking about David and Jonathan, because they totally did. ;p

But if I'm to try and answer seriously, I would say that officially, the last time either Mile or Apo have addressed the issue of their romantic status, they both said they're single (Mile in Aug 2022, Apo in July 2021 if I'm not mistaken). Of course, that's also the response I would expect from them if they were together. Because just like there are opposite sex couples who meet on the sets of movies and TV shows, and fall in love or just have an affair, there are same sex couples who go through the same thing. The difference is that society (and the entertainment business even more so) is still so homophobic, that these same sex couples often can't come out. I mean, if opposite sex couples sometimes feel they need to keep it to themselves, and we only find out about their romances decades later, like in the case of Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve (if we find out about them at all), then imagine how much harder it is for same sex couples who fall in love as co-stars... (or even when there's a same sex celebrity couple, period)

Other than Mile, Apo and the people they trust, no one really knows if Mileapo actually are a couple and have to be closeted, or if they're just truly the best of friends who bonded so much as co-stars on the set of KPTS that their behavior is hard to distinguish from the way lovers act towards each other. We also have to take into account that they're from Thailand, and the cultural norms for how men are allowed to interact can be very different. Especially when we remember that they starred in a BL (gay themed show) together, and the norm for that is heavy fan service. I AM convinced that even then, their bond runs deeper than fan service, especially since the original production of KPTS was canceled, and the production company that was set up instead explicitly said it would not require fan service. Plus, this company was co-founded by Mile to save KPTS and give Apo his second chance to shine as an actor, after he had been previously bullied by homophobes into leaving the acting world. So yeah, I have every reason to believe their connection is real.

And the fact that this is a part of their unhinged story (that they met briefly as models 7 years before they auditioned for KPTS, that they obviously thought the other one is an attractive man and remembered each other all of these years, that Mile watched Apo's shows, that they re-connected at the auditions and seem to have been inseparable since, for over 2.5 years now, that they fought together for KPTS to be made and then gave us on screen an astounding love story, that they chose to go on working together on their next projects, including the upcoming queer film Man Suang, and continue to hang out even outside of their busy schedule together) brings us to what is most meaningful to me about them. Whether their bond is romantic or platonic, it's clearly so deep that I wouldn't hesitate to call them soulmates. They love and care for each other, support one another, and I think they healed each other in ways that make me feel soft and happy to know that such love exists in the world. So I'm going to continue rooting for them, and possibly joke about it like I know that they're a couple, because in a very profound sense of the word, even if it's not romantic, they are.

This was probably way too long, my apologies. Okay, have a Mileapo being in sync gif just to make it a bit better...

Have a good day! As always, my ask tag. xoxox

[hello-nichya-here]

There is such a strange obession with always having to humble Michael Jackson.

He fits like the extrem case of a Tall Poppy Sydrome.

1# His brothers (Jermaine) how they say he wouldn't be Michael Jackson without the Jackson 5. Kind of dismissing his talent and wanting them to be a part of his success.

2# People who claim Joe beat talent into Michael. And is success is thanks to his abuse. If that was the case. What went wrong with the others then?

3# The constant comparsions with todays artists. Who not only benefit from the streaming era but are also way below him talent wise or impact wise. Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Drake, Chris Brown... Them naming new King of Pops like Justin Timberlake, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles. The comparsions can be looked as a compliment that he is looked as the standard or as an insult because they try to dismiss him and put him om the same level as these artists not respecting he is a league on his own..

#4 These stupid lists billboard or rollingstone put out ranking him ridiculously low. Like tf you mean Michael number #86 on the best singers list. Or the 20 best Halloween songs doesn't involve Thriller eventhough it's the most recognizable one.

#5 Claiming Eagles Greatest Hits was the best selling album of all time back in 2018. Eventhough it was only in the US. ( allegedly) But of course these trash tabloids had to make it look like it was the world.

#6 The stupid allegations. If they put any effort into reading would know are bs. When their smear campaign failed they just made it look like "separating art from the artist" bs.

#7 Them reporting other artist broke his record. Eventhough it isn't comparable. You can't compare Drakes shitty number ones who are mostly features in it or he features in them to Michaels number ones where he is mostly on his own and also wrote most of it. The songwriting is also something they can't believe and try to dismiss aswell. Also Drake has the benefit of the streaming era. Michael didn't. Aint nobody buying a bus tickets to drive 15 minutes downtown and purchase an album of Drake.

Their pathetic attemps really knows to bound. They would literally choke if they just admit he is the greatest.

The one about his father's abuse being the thing that "made him what he was", as well as the unfair slander against MJ for accusations that were so ridiculously they were laughed out of court are, by far, the ones that piss me off the most.

Joseph abusing his son was not the reason why Michael was the greatests, it was one of the many reasons why we lost him so soon. I'm always EXTREMELY suspicious when people try to push that kind of narrative of "abuse is not that bad and has positive consequences if you're not a crybaby", especially when it's someone in a position of power, because it just screams "I want to get away with exploiting people AND I want to be praised for it."

The lies of "Michael was a pedophile" are just the kind of stuff that breaks my heart and makes me furious. And I gotta laugh when the same people that tried to destroy MJ because of stuff they KNEW was bullshit now pretend it never happened or, like you said, use the "separate art from the artist" argument. It just proves that Michael had earned so much respect from both the public and the few decent people in the industry, AND was so fucking talented, that those idiots were eventually forced to realize that they would have made much more money celebrating him than they ever made by tearing him down

And we all know THAT is why they did it, the good old business model of "Give the public a great icon, then tear said icon to pieces in front of them." The people that are still on the hate/devalue MJ train are split between people that are too proud to admit they fucked up, and the people that built their entire lives around telling the public which popular thing is actually not that good (be it in a "I'm too good for stuff that the masses like" way or in a cancel culture type of way).

Plus, we all know Michael was not afraid to openly trash the media and even his own record label when they pissed him off enough, and you just know some rich assholes that are not used to people talking shit about them and getting away with it and still hold a grudge for it.

As for the comparisons with modern idols - it's not just things like streaming that make said comparisons not just unfair, but downright nonsensical.

The very fact that people will go "Oh, this person is the new Michael Jackson/King Of Pop" is already a contradiction. The reason Michael has the status he has is because there WASN'T a "king of pop" before him. He had people who influenced him and there were artists that were HUGE, sure, but there was no one that fit the role of "The MJ before MJ" so to speak. The closest "match" I can think of is Beatle Mania, and even then, that was a group. Even when people talk about the "most important/famous" Beatles, it's always Lennon AND McCartney.

Michael Jackson's fame as a solo artist was on the level of "People legitimately did not fucking know someone could be this famous" and to this day nobody has done it again - which is a big deal since, like you pointed out, it is a lot easier to have acess to an artist's work now.

And yet everytime one of today's artists is called "The new king/queen of pop" in some internet article it just never catches on... yet the title of said articles DON'T have to add a "(Michal Jackson)" after saying the words "King of Pop" because if you know these three little words, you know the ONE person they refer to.

Another important factor here is that all of these "new coronations" so to speak happen literally every year - to more than one artist. We are TOLD "this random music critic saying this about this artist is a big deal" but it doesn't match what we're SHOWN because, again, to reach Michael's level of fame, one would need to be literally "The only artist that matters, everyone elsa can just fight for the title of second best." If everyone is "the new MJ" then no one is, not really. At most they're just "Super popular artist" and there's nothing wrong with that.

Things like the internet and streaming have also made the term "fifteen minutes of fame" much more literal than it ever was. So sure, you easily find people that went viral - but how many of them had any real, lasting sucess? How many times did an artist do something cool that pushed to everyone all over the globe, and then just a month later they were a has-been?

And even the well-stablish artists of today, even though who started really young, don't have the same kind of long career Michael had because most artist don't start singing at the age of five, spend their entire childhood and adolescence gaining more and more fans, and then spend their adulthood as the biggest thing ever because they put out the first AND second best selling albums of all time. Michael had already been performing, and been absurdly famous, for nearly two decades when he finally released Thriller - which just got a 40th anniversary edition because even after four decades since it's debut, and 14 years since Michael letf us, he is STILL such a powerhouse that the world just had to celebrate his music once again.

Comparing that to artists that have only had one or two decades in the industry is ridiculous because of course they're gonna lose, just like their modern songs are obviously going to be front and center instead of the ones made decades ago, from an artist that is deceased and whose sales did not benefit from streaming, or even CDs, for a long time. And once again, the fact that Michael STILL has a presence on Spotify, Youtube, TikTok and literally very platform ever speaks volumes of just how solid his legacy is. Meanwhile all these singers he's being compared to are still making stuff that will one day become their legacy. It's comparing apples to oranges.

And since I mentioned the (ungodly evil thing) that is TikTok, that brings me to yet another major difference between MJ fame and modern fame: how artificial it all has become. Don't get me wrong, musical trends and popular "formulas" to make a hit have always existed, but things today are often SO calculated to have "viral qualities" (a part the is guaranteed to become popular on TikTok, never going over a specific length, everything needing either a sped up version or a slow reverb version, etc) that they might as well have been made by algorythm.

Meanwhile, Michael became the biggest singer ever because the priority when making anything was to make sure it was GOOD, no matter the style, length or topic of the song. Michael often said his approach when making records was to have no songs you can skip - compare that to artists and labels trying to make 20 seconds of a song catchy to blow up on TikTok, rest of the thing be damned, and you have yet another reason why MJ's legacy is solid, while plenty of promising new artists disappear overnight.

And, finally, we that brings us to the final difference between Michael and plenty of artists today: how he COMPLETELY altered the industry, in every way.

Michael Jackson is the reason why Superbowl performances are a thing, why music videos have all kinds of cool aesthetics and even enough plot to be considered short films instead just being an artist dancing to their own tunes on camera. He was the first black artist to ever have his music videos air on MTV. Fans passing out during his concerts was a regular thing. Plenty of artists all over the globe have him as a reference to how they should sing, dance, dress, or even just stand on stage because Michael had such presence he could stand on stage without moving for an entire minute then slowly, dramatically remove his sunglasses, and people would still be screaming their heads off.

Once again, let's look at Beatle Mania: it was a level of fame nobody had seen before, for artists that were breaking all the rules. But nowadays a group of young men playing love songs and having seemingly every teenage girl in the country following them around is nothing out of the ordinary, and while their songs are still fantastic, plenty of bands over the decades have done awesome things with rock music that are just as revolutionary, if not more.

Meanwhile, Michael is still THE reference, and his music is still the definition of "quality." If you hear his biggest hits, you can totally tell which bits modern singers were inspired by - yet if you didn't know who he was, you could wrongfully assume some of these songs are modern because they were SO ahead of their time they still sound groundbreaking today.

Seriously, there's a reason NONE of these artists that was ever compared to Michael tried to actually claim his title: saying you're as good as him is one hell of a bold claim that gives people a ton of impossibly hugh standards that you better meet, without flaw and making it look effortless, otherwise you look like the most arrogant person who has ever lived - and nobody wants to deal with that kind of pressure.

[petefromarma]

thank you this is a safe space for communist fall out boy fans. i love em but hate them and thats okay. i do wish they were better. i think one reason why people act like that in the fandom is they spent a lot of time associating with it and spending money and making it part of their identity which i am guilty of and still do, its almost an attack on them. to rethink what they consume. i think a lot of people just dont want to ever think of letting them go. and i get it it can suck. ofc i am not saying people should let go of them entirely or whatever but realize your faves may not be as progressive as you think they are and to acknowledge that flaw. i think one thing that sort of helped me “grow apart” from fall out boy is deadass making ocs. sure they don’t have a whole fandom or actual media but its honestly helped me a lot with just being able to put in my creative energy into something else besides fob. i still like to dabble in the fob fandom but its nice to have something else beyond fall out boy and sort of a “safety net” if things truly go south if fob gets actually “canceled” if they do something that i truly can’t really be all fandomy over if that makes sense hahaha

i think you're probably right tbh re fans feeling guilty abt spending money on them; a fair amount of western activism revolves around consumerism, which makes sense for a capitalistic society but like i really do wish these people would just get real and own up to the fact that their enjoyment of fob has nothing to do with their politics for better or for worse and if they actually believed that it did they would stop spending money on concert tickets and stop spending money on merch, not as a form of boycott or anything like that (imo most forms of western modern day boycott are ineffective in terms of constituting material change bc they focus on conglomerates; we should boycott bc it is the right thing to do to not pay in to companies that are supporting genocide, not bc we are expecting large scale change to come of it) but because it would be in line with the ideological/moral boundaries they have set for themselves

imo engaging with art/celebrity in a capitalistic society is a net neutral, for the most part; simply saying this among the most radical of accelerationist twitter grifters would get my head chopped off for paying attention to a band instead of the glorious revolution that's supposedly forming amongst russian soldiers doing genocide in the donbas or whatever but unless leftists want to actually get serious about global suffrage then idk what to say lol people are going to look to art as a coping mechanism and continue to pay in to these systems bc it helps them survive mentally/emotionally. now that being said that's why i think it's hypocritical and grotesque to participate in faux outrage against a band that you like by doing pretend activism bc none of these people actually give a shit that fob do business with/are friends with zionists, they just want to look good in front of their friends for caring about the right thing at the right time. if their disgust was genuine they would quietly drop them and move on but they're more invested in their own comfort than doing what they perceive as being right. so i guess to clarify i don't think spending money on and paying attention to a band with milquetoast lib politics is inherently materially harmful; what i do believe is actively harmful to the cause you claim to serve is when you put on a performance for a few days because the band you like fucked up in a way that can't be ignored and then never talk about it again and go back to pretending that pw is a radical leftist and not a run of the mill democrat. like if you're just going to stop talking about it eventually don't even bother bringing it up in the first place lol

i support you tho i do think OCs are a good idea esp if you want to pull away from engaging with IP tbh and i think just a good thing for enhancing your writing/creativity in general

[walker-290]

How fucking dare you fangirl over Jensen’s concert when you said he wanted Jared to die? FUCK YOU. I hope you have a horrible rest of your life.

1. I never explicitly said Jensen wanted Jared to die. I raised a question about his intentions and motivation of saying Never Keep Fighting a few minutes after he himself said Jared was lucky to be alive. Always Keep Fighting are the three words I tell myself everyday and to hear never keep fighting from the mouth of someone I used to look up to hurt me in a way I can never explain to you or anyone else.

But for a minute, forget all about it. Before I made that post questioning Jensen's mindset, I read at least 15 posts from AAs and hellers claiming the exact same thing, more explicitly than me, but they were celebrating it, they were applauding Jensen for it, did you wish for their horrible future too?

Am I the problem because I asked if Jensen was happy about Jared's accident? Or am I the problem because I hated Jensen for it rather than applauding him for it?

2. How dare I enjoy the concert. Hmm, I should have boycotted Jensen altogether. Because truly, honestly I don't like the person I see in Jensen Ackles anymore. I really don't see the guy I used to admire anymore, not even in the panels with Jared, not even when he is telling Jared "I love you too" or when he is calling Jared "an idiot". I think he is putting up a front. I don't feel like his smile reaches his eyes anymore. Or anything he is saying is genuine, and not something he is saying what he thinks people want to hear.

Having said that, for 4 years I admired him. I loved his music even before he released his first album. I have listened to all of his songs from both albums and each SNS a million times. When his albums came out, I kept my Spotify open 24/7 for a week and played the songs over and over again to help it make the top one on the chart. I didn't shut my laptop literally for a week.

If you go to my twitter or Tumblr, before prequel-gate and Walker, you'll see how many Jensen's SNS GIFs, Jensen contents I have posted Vs Jared or anyone else combined.

You just don't stop liking everything a person does just because their behaviour turned shitty. No matter how asshole your ex was, do you never miss the good things he used to do or something?

I have seen people who love Jensen and don't like or care about his music much because the type of music he does is not their cup of tea. For me, I love the type of music he writes with Steve. I still think, in the last 2 years, the most genuine smile I have seen on his face is when he was singing.

Again, I do not like the person Jensen is right now. And I still would never want him to have a horrible life. I wish him the best and if he is at his best when he is doing music, I hope he gets to do it more and on a bigger platform. The only bad thing I want to happen in his life is TW getting cancelled.

I am a random person on the internet who asked a bad question about a celebrity you like, and you are that much hurt about it to curse my whole life in an anonymous ask. So, try to imagine loving and admiring someone above everyone else for years and hearing mockery from their mouth about something that helps you be alive everyday...

Even if you don't believe me, whoever you are, I am genuinely sorry that my posts, takes or questions hurt you. I never meant to hurt anyone. But I am also deeply hurt and I know in my head that he is just a random celebrity I should totally avoid and let go, but it's still something I am struggling to recover from.

[gwydionmisha]

I need to do a general disclaimer.

I do not follow things celebrities say outside of a queer context close enough to know what their political opinions are unless they do something really egregious and obvious (EX: Mel Gibson, JK Rowling, Jeffery Epstein, etc.) that even I can't miss it. I don't watch TMZ, read gossip magazines, and my social media is basically Dreamwidth, Tumblr, and one hobbyist bboard for a hobby I can't afford and lost energy for but where I have friends so i stay marginally involved. I've never joined Facebook or X(Tw)itter.

I have no idea who said what about what's going on in Gaza right now. I'm not willing to take anyone's word second or third or forth hand that someone said something terrible without investigating it personally, the same way I fact check other claims about wild statements in the media by politicians, or abuse allegations, or what have you, because I don't like how that game of telephone tends to play out. It is way easier for me to go look up assault allegation coverage or coverage of fashy things a politician said an evaluate for myself than to sort out fact vs fiction on a gossip site or my learning how to pick through a Celebrity Xitter. I have a good idea of what news sources for larger regular news are reliable about what and what their biases are than i do for entertainment news, since mostly i just use that for obits.

I can't do it. There are not enough hours in the day for me to do things I need and/or want to do already.

I don't want to do it. For example, I didn't join twitter before it became a neo-NAZI propaganda platform. Why the fuck would I do it now so I can't check what celebrities are saying about something that infuriates me and rips my heart out, which I am already having to strictly limit genuine news intake on. Making myself do something I have ethically objections to (using Xitter) and has a massive opportunity cost and also is really bad for my mental health is a non-starter for me.

This is not a judgement on people who do care what a particular celebrity said about it; it's just a statement that i don't have the mental bandwidth to keep track of this stuff.

I have no idea who's cancelled for saying what right now. If you tell me, odds are I will have forgotten in a few days because there are a ton of things I care about more that I am keeping track of. (Which is more important: me knowing which politicians are saying what and what policies they are espousing or keeping track of what C and D list celebrities are Xitting about it? I know which matters more to me, and it's one or the other).

Think of it as information triage.

Remember also that at last check a few days ago, the things coming out of my queue on the fandom side for TUMBLR went in around the 26th of October. I've been running about two weeks lead time for a while. Even if I did hear about and investigate something someone said, the effort I'd have to put in yanking them out of queue is a big fucking hassle. I could be spending that time on something else, so I generally don't. My Tumblr programming for aesthetic stuff is waaaay behind, which is a thing that happens in early November because I love October, but it wears me the fuck out. So my Tumblr is mostly fandom and politics just generally right now. The hours I would have to spend to research and deal with figuring out who is cancelled and why and weeding shit already in the hopper, I'd much rather spend reloading the aesthetic side of my tumblr queue because I find the sorting process soothing. (I have a whole system involving time slots, season, time of day, special events.)

So please don't @me for not knowing who everyone's angry at right now.

[lookwhatilost]

Smearjob metoos can happen (with and without legit allegations), but russell brand feels more like a "washed up, burned too many bridges, not useful to Big Guys, nobody is suppressing the allegations anymore" metoo. In a sense I can see why some metoo'd guys get a martyr complex because they did this shit for decades, with a bunch of other guys who did that shit, and never had problems until one day they were more useful as a scapegoat/example then as an entertainment product.

this is probably the new trend –once your career/connections decline to a certain point, you get all your dirt exposed as a kind of ritual sacrifice to public sensibility which preserves all the guys who are still considered worth protecting and if you play it right, you recuperate it into a right-wing grift as a martyr to elite hollywood groomer wokedom and end up making more money and getting more attention than you would've otherwise and everybody wins.

not to say it's a bad thing for a powerful public figure who uses their public power to commit abuse to be outed. it's what you accept as a consequence of being a powerful public figure. but one should always be aware of the business of everything imo. One looks at the back and forth of WB and Disney's rising stars getting “cancelled” and one wonders if there aren't teams of guys digging/amplifying dirt on rival studios casts, or sometimes stuff just breaks containment and it's nobody's plan. can't know from outside.

I'm not a proponent of "everything is part of the plan" ultra-narrative mindset, but especially in the world of media and entertainment, you can't ignore how whole networks and institutions exist and make their business just on spin and crisis management. Imo the key to parsing speculative claims is to never imagine big groups/classes/institutions as being all homogenous, nor omniscient, but to imagine overlapping webs of normal petty self-interest pulling all different directions.

What I'm saying, just to be clear, is that he did bad things but it didn't catch up to him until now because he's no longer valuable enough to anyone to protect — no manager or producer, studio or agency can be bothered to kill stories for him. when you're still headlining movies, bringing in big fees for your agencies, being a lynchpin face for a franchise, whatever, you have whole teams of people, connected to other people, that bribe/threaten journalists and victims, astroturf shit, etc... when a celebrity gets metoo'd after years/decades of doing nasty shit, there's good odds (i think) that it's because they lost value and/or burned bridges and lost the protection of those networks and institutions.

That said, persistent allegations bubbling into public consciousness can erode a celebrity's value itself so, like with all things, it's a multilateral feed of incentives. and as I mentioned above, you've got the opposing incentives of salacious stories and hostile factions. It's just this but instead of badly made cars causing accidents it's celebrities doing sex crimes.

[marya-blackbone]

sleepover redux

A/N: max and el do espionage and learn something about steve

One of the first things Eleven does after moving back to Hawkins is to invite Max to a sleepover. Max is really glad – after that first sleepover last summer, she hoped it would become a recurring thing for her and El (minus the uncovering of a horrifying body-snatching conspiracy, of course) but they never got the chance. Now that El’s back, Max is secretly pleased neither of them made any new friends this past year and finds it surprisingly easy for them both to slot back into each other’s lives once the UD dust settles, and accepts the invite with zero hesitation.

Eleven asks if it would be alright if she invited some other people too, to which Max nods, of course, feeling warm and fuzzy about the fact that El asked her first and checked if she would mind – Max hasn’t had a best friend since kindergarten and El’s earnestness has turned her into such a sap. She doesn’t mind, but she is curious as to who else El wants to invite given there are only a handful of people who even know El exists.

The guest list currently includes Nancy, Robin, and Erica. It will be a girls' night, El says. Max hasn’t spent too much time with any of them but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea – El should get to have more friends who are girls, but she can’t exactly meet new people at the moment, so it makes sense that she would want to get closer with the ones already part of their monster-hunting club.

Max comes over early to help El set things up. Hopper and Mrs Byers have been especially indulgent of El this evening, leaving the table laden with plenty of drinks and a mountain of snacks before heading off to Enzo’s. Will helps them gather all the pillows and cushions and blankets they need from around the house, and when he admits Eddie has cancelled D&D for tonight, both Max and El agree that he should stay. And so it becomes girls’ night plus Will – none of the girls even bat an eyelid at his inclusion when they arrive, it’s just smiles and laughter.

It goes really well, despite the spread of ages. Erica is really mature for eleven, and Robin and Nancy seem to enjoy getting to act silly and giggly again. They paint each other’s nails, braid each other’s hair, and make it through one and a half John Hughes movies before they have to press pause because suddenly everyone needs to pee, and then forget to resume because they’re too caught up in gossiping.

It’s Eleven who tentatively proposes the finding game. Max didn’t think she would want to play again given how badly things ended last time, but all that stuff is gone now – and gone for good this time. Eleven says that she can feel so in the Void and going there actually helps her to remember it’s over. She promises she doesn’t mind – she already has a sheet of poster paper and marker pens ready for writing names and everything.

They shuffle into a circle while Max explains how the game works, and they each add a name to the sheet of paper. Max puts Lucas, El puts Hopper, Will puts Mike, Robin puts Steve, Erica puts Suzie (because apparently, she needs to verify the hotter-than-Phoebe-Cates claim), and Nancy goes for Debbie Harry, after which everyone complains that they didn’t know celebrities were an option, so they fill the gaps with an eclectic mix of actors and pop stars, and then they’re ready to spin.

It stops on Steve first. Max reminds her to get out of there if he’s with a girl or doing something gross, and Eleven nods her understanding before putting on the blindfold and filling the air with TV static. It doesn’t take long for her to find Steve.

“I can see him. He is smiling and I think he is talking to someone but I can not see who it is,” says Eleven. “He is holding a black guitar,” she observes.

When Steve starts to play, she pushes the sound through the radio so everyone can hear the soft strumming. It isn’t until he starts singing that Max recognises the song – it’s on the mix-tape Lucas made for her the last time he was trying to win her back; it’s a love song. Steve plays it surprisingly well. If Max didn’t know any better, she might think Steve has fallen in love – real love, reciprocated love; the kind that Steve deserves. But if Steve were in love, they’d all know by now. He’s all grand gestures and public affection and boom-boxing outside bedroom windows, not secret late-night serenading.

The lyrics taper off, and Steve asks, “Why are you looking at me like that? Not metal enough for you? I know it’s no Master of Puppets, but I thought it wasn’t hal-mphh!”

Max hears something over the radio that could be mouth noises and moans at the same time Eleven says, “I think they are kissing.”

That’s their cue to dip, Max realises, and is about to say as much to Eleven just as the radio crackles for a damning and breathy, “Because I loved it, big boy.”

A/N: i have ideas for a part 2 soonish

[avintagekiss24]

Hi! I don't want to start anything on here and am always willing for civil conversations. At this point there's so much I've found out about Seb (besides the video he liked, the tommy lee thing, and the girlfriend thing) that I feel so guilty if I would continue to support him. I love him sm but it just doesn't look good rn. He is associated/follows an organisation (for helping veterans) that has posted a blue lives matter flag picture and who's co-founder has sexual assault allegations against him, and worked with him in 'The last full measure'. His friend Paul Walter Hauser has done blackface in the past, and when called out on it he just listed a few people that also did blackface. There's more, I found a discussion on here that I can link. I seriously don't support "cancel culture" bc I don't think it helps anyone but there are just a lot of 'mistakes' and shady people that can be linked to Seb, I wish it wouldn't be that way. I honestly don't know what to think about it anymore.

Hi! I’m also open to having civil conversations and I don’t believe you’re trying to start anything. I really do think this situation of dragging up a four year old video and taking it completely out of context is harmful not just to Black people, but to fandom/activism in general. This is gonna be long because I’m going to take your points one by one, and I want to preface this by saying that I will not answer any derogatory, sideways asks pertaining to this subject. I will delete every single one and will block your silly ass. I’m not going to argue with people who think I’m blindly supporting Sebastian because I’m just trying to get fucked by him, or people who think I hate myself and am trying to appease some white man.

So, on with the discourse!

The video he liked - this video was taken completely out of context and that is my main issue with this whole situation. It was not a video of a white man saying that he thinks he should be able to say the n word as everyone claimed it was. They were quickly debating on whether or not it's okay to say in rap lyrics. He was told no, that's not okay, that's never okay and they moved on from it. That's it. End of story. That somehow was twisted into a click bait style headline of "Sebastian Stan likes a video of a white man defending his right to say the n word" when that is absolutely not true. My other issue is that people are more upset that Sebastian liked the video than they are about the white man in the video literally saying the n word. So, do you really care about the use of the n word like you're claiming? Cuz if you do, you'd be more upset at the white man that said the word than you would be about the white man simply liking the video. Or, are you just using this as an excuse to grandstand against a white man you don't like?

The Tommy Lee thing - Sebastian Stan playing Tommy Lee does not make Sebastian Stan a bad person. Is Charlize Theron a bad person for playing Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who started murdering men? Is Leonardo DiCaprio a bad person for playing a slave owner? Is Edward Norton a bad person for playing a nazi sympathizing racist? Actors play bad people. That doesn't mean that they themselves are bad people. 1990's Tommy Lee was a bad person, but that should have no bearing on who Sebastian Stan is or his character as a man.

The gf/Paul Walter Hauser thing - Why are we holding Sebastian accountable for what the people around him are doing? Again, why are we more upset that Sebastian is associated with people who have done questionable things than the specific people themselves? I'm not going to speak on the kimono wearing -- I'm not Asian. It's not my place to say whether or not its offensive because it's not my culture, but she posted that picture and attended that party before she started dating Sebastian, quite possibly before she even knew him. Same with Paul. I think that black face thing was long before he knew Sebastian. Now, if Sebastian was defending these actions, going around saying "I think it's okay for white women to wear Kimono's" "I think black face is fine" "I think white people should be able to say the n word" then we'd have a different story, wouldn't we? But that's not what we have, and that's not what he is doing. He is not responsible for the things his friends do or have done in the past just because he's more famous than they are, and he is not required to speak on them. Let's put it this way -- would you be comfortable having to be responsible for something a friend of yours did before you knew them? Would you want to have to be forced to answer for your friend when you yourself had nothing to do with the questionable behavior?

The organization that supports the military/blue lives matter - Sebastian cannot control what message that foundation puts out and it does not mean that he is or is not pro-police himself. There is not enough concrete evidence -- if any evidence for that matter -- that Sebastian is a blue lives matter supporter. Did Sebastian donate before they put up the blue lives matter post? Or after? I don’t know, cuz I don’t follow him that closely, but if he donates before they come out with a particular stance, that means he should be held accountable for that? I know I donated to an organization once and they turned out to support something that i’m 100% against. That means I’m a bad person because I couldn’t see into the future? Another point, how can we be certain that Sebastian saw the blue lives matter post in the first place? I know I’m not online 24 hrs a day, I miss posts all the time and I’m just an average person. I make three or four tumblr posts a day, and I’m gone. I have to play catch up on social media, and even then, I still miss stuff. So I’m sure the same happens to a working actor. As for the co-founder, I don't know who this person is and would rather not get into any allegations against them because I don't want to trigger anyone who comes across this post. If Sebastian knows about these allegations, is a willing participant/supporter of this person then yeah, that's pretty shitty, but we don't know the inner workings of this friendship/acquaintance/work relationship. We don’t know how close they are or if they even still speak.

I’m a pretty big fan of Don Cheadle. He’s a stand up guy, he’s a great actor, he’s funny, he’s political and stands up for what he believes in and in a very public way. I support him. Don Cheadle is also friends with Chris Evans, RDJ, Mark Ruffalo, and Letitia Wright (just to name a few). Chris Evans has a bipartisan forum that highlights/promotes right wing politicians, RDJ defended Chris Pratt during the whole “he’s the worst Chris in Hollywood” crap, who’s technically done black face, and who once said to a female reporter “nice tits” when she walked into the room, Mark Ruffalo just walked back his support of Palestine, and Letitia Wright retweeted/supported an anti-vaxxer/anti-trans Pastor who equated an ingredient of the covid vaccine to the devil because it contained some parts of the word Lucifer. Does that mean Don is now a bad person because he’s friends with these people? Why isn’t he getting any heat for his friendships with them? Why isn’t he being held accountable for what they’ve done and said? Oh right, because he’s not a white fave. So people don’t care one way or the other, which brings me to my next point. 

I can guarantee you that if Sebastian’s gf or Paul or this co-founder were not associated with Sebastian in any way, nobody would give a shit about her wearing a kimono, about Paul doing black face, or about the co-founder/organization being blue lives matter supporters and in that lies the actual problem. Being critical of people and their actions should be consistent and should happen all the time -- not just when they interact with your white fave. That’s when it becomes performative and looks like you just want to be able to show internet people that you follow/support/stan unproblematic celebrities, when really, you don’t care.

I think the moral of this post is that I think it's unfair to hold a complete stranger to a standard that I cannot hold myself to. I also don't view celebrities the way most teenagers/twenty somethings do, and that’s because when I entered fandom we didn't have social media, so I grew up with a wall between myself and said celebrities. There is no wall now with the presence of social media. "Fans" nowadays have a weird ownership feeling over celebrities because they can read their personal thoughts or view personal pictures and think that they have this personal quasi-friendship with them. I can't get on board with that. I prefer having the wall and I still keep the wall.

If supporting Sebastian makes you uncomfortable, then by all means, stop supporting him. Just make sure you are making this decision for yourself based on credible sources and concrete evidence and that you're not letting this fake woke activist mob make you feel uncomfortable. Internet activism means nothing unless you put your money where your mouth is in your real life and 90% of the social justice internet warriors do not. Real activism is bigger than changing your avi to a black square.

[rafivadafreddy]

Kissing Secrets

A fivr part story about our favorite ADA Rafael Barba and his FBI gf.

Summary: What happens when the SVU squad meets Rafaels’ girlfriend, but under not so great circumstances?

Word Count: 2,373 Warnings: Cursing, angry couple, Spanish, angst, talk of rape and drug case.

Dating never came easy to Rafael Barba. But when he found someone with a job as hectic as him. It was perfect. Neither expected much from the other, when one had to cancel the other would understand. 

Of course, Y/N would be more than understanding. She had two bachelor degrees under her belt and after long days and nights with the 20 weeks of New Agent Training with the FBI at Quantico. She, just like Rafael, worked hard to get where she was. Trying to make a name for herself. Starting at twenty-five and becoming a special agent before her twentieth eight birthday, Y/N knew she would make it.

Y/N and Rafael met when she was looking for a job, needing to complete two years of work experience to become a special agent. Working as a rookie cop in a district in Brooklyn. Well, one night an angry cuban man walks into the precinct. His fancy three piece suit was a mess and he claims he was assaulted. Knife wound to his arm, Y/N was the cop to take care of him.

One thing led to another, Rafael left the precinct with a smile. Having left his number behind for the cop. To ‘call’ if she had any questions about his assault. Of course, Y/N was able to find the guy who assaulted the ADA and was able to get his phone back from the man.

Almost three years passed and they were still happy with the other. Dinners, nights in and a couple who were in love with the other. Y/N met his mother and his abuelita, things were perfect. So, when Y/N graduated, celebrating the fact that she made it through the FBI academy. Thankfully, Y/N was able to stay at the federal bureau of investigation in New York City.

»---------------------►

A few months into her new job, Y/N felt as if she was on a high. It was her biggest case yet and it was hers… well, her’s along with her partner, Agent Shawn Carter. Having been staying overtime the past month, getting together evidence and witnesses to take down an organized sex trafficing crime involving a drug lord that’s on their most wanted list, Y/N wasn’t about to let anything get in the way of her bringing every last one of them down. Especially when the last victim she was notified of was a thirteen year old. 

“Hola mi amor…” Y/N smiled at the call of her boyfriend. Rafael had been her rock the past few years as Y/N worked on getting into the FBI.

“Hola mi corazón…” she heard him chuckle into the phone. “Dinner tonight? Think you can make it?”

Glancing at her watch, Y/N thought about it. “I think so yeah. We’re going to pick up a perp right now and if it all works out. I’ll be able to spend all night with you.” She told him and sighed. “I’m sorry for being super busy lately.”

“Hey, none of that. I understand. It 's your job. My girlfriend, the badass FBI agent.” the two laughed and Y/N smiled.

“My boyfriend, the hot shot ADA. I’ll get out early to have dinner with you. No matter what, you’ll come first tonight.” She told him, noticing they were nearing Manhattan.

“Now, now… You know you always come first when we’re together.” Y/N could hear the smirk as he spoke and she just laughed.

Saying goodbye with many ‘i love you’s’ Y/N put her phone away and sighed, the smile feeling permanent on her lips. 

Ten minutes later, the black car pulled up outside the Special Victims Unit of the 16th precinct. Both Y/N and Shawn looked at one another before nodding. It wasn’t going to be fair and it wasn’t like they knew. But the SVU team had picked up a perp they had been watching and started an investigation on him. Something Y/N couldn’t let happen. No this was her case.

Walking into the building and getting directions to the SVU floor, Y/N walked with her head held high. The skinny jeans she wore, along with the blue button down shirt. She made sure to have her badge clipped to her pants. Gun in its holder and ID already out in her hand.

“Can I help you, agent?” a woman asked, making Y/N turn to look at a blonde who walked over. That caught the other detectives attention. 

They were already wondering why the FBI was there. 

“As a matter of fact you can. I’m special agent Y/N L/N and this is my partner, Agent Shawn Carter. I’m afraid I’m here to collect the perp you have in custody along with everything you have against him.” she told the women, except her eyes were on a brunette woman. Whom Y/N knew was in charge. She did her research before storming into the precinct this way.

“Why should we do that? This is our case, don’t see why the Feds want a low life like him.” another detective spoke up and Y/N looked over at him. From his voice and stance, it was obvious he was angry.

“Calm down, Amaro.” the brunette finally spoke up. “Olivia Benson.” she introduced herself and Y/N shook her hand. “Now, you say you need this guy. Why? From what we’ve gathered, he’s just a scum who likes underage girls.”

With a sigh, Y/N nodded. But she didn’t say anything when a familiar voice spoke up. “What’s going on here?”

“Ah! Barba, you’re going to love this.” The Amaro fellow looked amused. “The FBI is here to take our case.”

“Oh yeah? On what grounds?” Barba asked.

“On the grounds that he’s a suspect in an ongoing Federal case.” Y/N said, turning to look at the man she just told she loved, not even half an hour ago. “Miguel Hernández raped and murdered a thirteen year old girl three days ago. And I know you guys picked him up cause he was caught in the act of raping another victim. Now imagine my surprise when I found out that SVU caught him. Even though notice went out to contact the FBI if Mr. Hernández is picked up by officers or detectives of New York.” she spoke, informing all of them, even though her eyes stayed on Rafael.

“He also has information about Lorenzo Torsney.” Shawn spoke up for the first time. 

“Wait, Torsney, the guy linked to the sex trafficking ring with the underage girls? The same Lorenzo who’s rumored to be the new Drug lord of New York?” some guy spoke up, his thick accent catching Y/Ns attention. 

“That’s the one.” Both agents spoke at the same time. “So, Lieutenant. The case files and Miguel if you please.” Shawn said and followed Bensen into her office to grab the paperwork to make the transfer. 

Y/N on the other hand went to look at the window that showed into the interrogation room. Hearing footsteps, Y/N smiled at the male and nodded to the detective seeing the coffee he got her. “Thanks…”

“Ah, Dominick Carisi, Jr. but everyone calls me Sonny.” the thick accent said and Y/N raised an eyebrow.

“I get the feeling, no one calls you, Sonny… Sonny.” she smirked and looked at Miguel again.

Thankfully he got quiet after that. Though what Y/N failed to notice was Rafael standing in the doorway. “Excuse us, Carisi.” he said, in his ‘this is my mad, but trying to stay professional” voice.

Sonny couldn't get out of the room faster, not that Y/N blamed him. She would have ran as well.

"You couldn't have told me on the phone that you were coming to pick up the guy from my case?" Rafael whispered, looking real mad. 

Yet, Y/N just rolled her eyes. "Tu caso? Last I heard, you were still working in fucking Brooklyn! Que diablos, Rafael!" She hissed at her boyfriend. "You changed fucking districts and never told me?"

"Oh, that's rich. Coming from the one always canceling our dates!" 

"¡Vete a la mierda!" Y/N narrowed her eyes. "Who canceled the last THREE dinners? Wasn't me, that's for fucking sure." She scoffed and pushed past him. 

"Real professional Detectives.." Y/N rolled her eyes at the SVU team all scrambling back to their desks. Pretending like they wern’t eavesdropping on Y/N and Rafael. 

"Y/N, vuelve aquí, ahora." 

Only, Y/N ignored him. Pulling out her phone, she had to put in a call for another agent to come out to the district and collect Miguel. All while ignoring Rafael. Who was trying to glare her into submission.

'Good luck, papi. Not gonna work now.' Y/N thought and  looked away from the detectives. Answering emails and texts on her phone. Already getting a location of where Shawn and her needed to go after leaving SVU. 

»»---------------------►

As Miguel was getting put into cuffs, both around his wrists and ankles. Y/N watched, making sure nothing would go wrong. Turning to the detectives, she gave them a sad smile.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t let you guys have this case.” she told them, sounding sincere. “If he wasn’t important to catching Torsney, I would have let you keep the case.” she added, thanking Shawn as he handed Y/N her FBI jacket.

Hearing two different scoffs, but from two cuben men. Y/N rolled her eyes and shook Olivia’s hand. “It’s fine, at least you’re getting him off the streets… and something tells me, you interrogating him will make what we did look like preschoolers.” she smirked and Y/N shrugged.

“Let’s just say, the cameras are not on all the time.” Shawn spoke up and Y/N shook her head. 

“Yes they are, thank you for giving me a heads up to watch all the interrogations you do from now on.” she narrowed her eyes and told him to go wait in the car. Saying goodbye, Y/N turned and made her way out. 

Getting into the car, Y/N rubbed a hand over her face and told Shawn they were needed over in the Bronx.

“So… that was your boyfriend. Huh?” the male next to her spoke up after a few minutes of silence in the car. 

Of course, with her telling him to shut up the car ride continued on quietly.

Hearing her phone let out a ping Y/N grabbed it and read the text from Rafael.

Papi: So, I guess we need to talk later.

Y/N: Yeah, I’ll tell you when I get off. Don’t know when that’ll be. There was a bomb over in the South Bronx. Was put on the case to deal with it.

Keeping the reply simple. Wanting Rafael to know she was mad at him. Not even replying to his ‘stay safe’ and not cause she didn’t want to. But because they had arrived and the scene they saw. It was a complete mess. 

News crews were filming everything happening, people being put into ambulances and being taken care of.

“OK! What do we know?” Y/N asked, tying her H/C hair up into a ponytail.

As they were getting information, Y/N looked around. Not knowing cameras were pointed towards both her and her partner.

Turning to the officer telling them what had happened, Y/N frowned. “What time was the explosion? Exactly.” she asked and Y/N felt like she paled when being told it had been Nine minutes.

“We need every emergency vehicle headed here stopped outside the perimeter, and evacuate the building.” she commanded and stopped when the Battalion Chief spoke up. 

“I got half a dozen guys inside checking structural damage, twice that many going door-to-door --”

 Y/N just cut him off. “Have them grab anyone they see, and get out. Now.” her confidence leaves no doubt and the man nods. Talking to everyone he can and getting as many people out as possible.

With Shawn helping out on the other side, also helping people move away from the building the explosion went off in. It left Y/N to run after a woman who was running towards the apartment building. Crying about how she wanted her son's body

Y/N was able to get her away, but when the second explosion hit, both her and the woman were flown forward. Y/N being knocked out.

Rafaels’ POV:

He was getting shit for not saying anything to the team about his FBI girlfriend. Not like he knew if they were even going to be that later on when they talk. But still, he sat there and let them poke and joke around. The team had gotten takeout and were relaxing since there were no other cases. Rafael deciding to join them (not like they gave him much of a choice in the matter)

“Hey, Barba… didn’t you say Y/N was out in the South Bronx?” Rollins asked, causing Rafael to turn away from Liv and look at the blonde detective.

Moving his head to see what she was looking at, Rafael felt a chill in his stomach as he watched the News on the TV. They were covering the story of what was happening.

The team were all quiet listening to the man speak, the camera moving to where Y/N stood with her partner. Rafael watched as she took charge of the situation, he felt proud of her. But he had a nagging feeling, seeing everyone move quickly at whatever command she gave.

“By the looks, Agent Y/N L/N of the FBI gave orders to evacuate the building. Will there be another explosion, how does she know to get everyone out of the building? Whatever it is, everyone seems to be listening….” but Rafael turned the man's voice out. 

In the background he could see Y/N running towards the woman and he shot up out of his seat when the second explosion happened. Cutting short the camera. No one was moving or saying anything as they just watched Rafael, who looked on the verge of a panic attack.

Taglist: @witches-unruly-heart

[renjuseyo]

if ur requests are open can i pls request Jaehyun x male reader where the reader is so drunk that he forgot that his boyfriend(jaehyun) is his boyfriend. then he asks a member if he is taken and they said yes and that will make reader to silently be sad in the corner and jaehyun asks if readers ready to go home......... andddddddd ill leaveee the rest to u hehehehe (iloveurwriting so much)

tipsy ; jaehyun

group: nct

pairing: jung yoonoh / reader (male)

synopsis: both you and jaehyun knew how much of a lightweight you were, but when has that ever stopped you?

genre: fluff, crack

warnings: implied sexual content, explicit language

i lost inspiration for this, so i hope this mess of a fic is okay anon! as always, feedback is appreciated!!

when you peek through the peephole, you expect to see the delivery man holding the package you had ordered online. instead, you’re pleasantly surprised to see your boyfriend on the other side of the door, wrapped in a hoodie, mask, and tinted sunglasses. his disguise is pretty unnecessary given how your neighbors are mainly made up of old people who have never heard of nct, but it gets the job done.

once you’ve unhooked the chain bolt, you unlock the door and swing it open. he slightly jumps at the noise, but visibly softens when he sees you. “hey (name),” he greets, slipping off his mask and sunglasses.

“hey yourself. what are you doing here?” you ask. with how hectic his schedule has been after promotions with the nct 2020 project and working as an mc on inkigayo, you two hadn’t seen each other in weeks. though you missed him, you sympathized with the tireless hours he spent working as an idol. at least you preoccupied yourself with netflix.

he slips off his sneakers and enters your home, taking off the rest of his disguise. you close and lock the door behind you, trailing behind him. “i managed to squeak in some free time today, so i came to visit you,” he explains. he faces you with a smile, pulling you close. you subconsciously lean your head onto his shoulder, humming as he sways your bodies.

“i missed you,” you tell him, fingers ghosting his waist. he makes a noise of agreement, resting his chin on your head.

you eventually pull away, eliciting a grumble from jaehyun. contrary to popular belief, he was the clingy one of you two, always using the excuse of “you’re just the perfect size for cuddling.” “stop grumbling, jae. you’ve come so far, so it’s only fair i make you something to eat,” you tell him, making your way towards the kitchen.

he follows suit, hand grabbing at the hood of your hoodie. you stop in front of the refrigerator and open it, canvassing the food you have in there. as you debate what to make for lunch, he rests his chin on your shoulder and snakes both arms around your waist. you roll your eyes, though you don’t make any movements to pry his arms off. “i can always eat something else,” he smirks.

you realize too late the implications of his comment, absentmindedly sorting through the bags of vegetables in your fridge. “do you want takeout instead then? mrs. moon from two doors down said that there’s this really good pho house near here.”

he nuzzles into your shoulder. “i’d really like to eat you,” he says as nonchalantly as one can, considering his implications. you nearly drop a bag of spinach, spluttering incoherent words as you spin around to swat his shoulder. he laughs, loud and proud, a stark contrast from the quiet, polite laugh he’s practiced.

“you’re the worst,” you hiss, reluctantly closing the fridge. he pecks your cheek, eliciting a disgusted screech from you. he leans back with a laugh before attacking your face with kisses. you shut your eyes as you try to wiggle out of his grasp. but jaehyun’s been working out, evident from his arms, and he’s always had an intense grip. when he leans away, satisfied, you flick his forehead. with how clingy jaehyun’s being, making lunch isn’t an option anymore. “i hate you.”

jaehyun eventually relinquishes his attacks, threading his fingers with yours. “you’re usually not this clingy, jae. actually, now that i think about it, you don’t flirt all too much either, much less suggest sexual innuendos. what’s the occasion?” you ask as he walks you two to your living room. he doesn’t immediately respond, flopping down onto the couch and dragging you along with him. you land on his chest with an oomph, your cheek squished against his chest.

he combs his fingers through your hair, smiling as you make a noise of approval. “well, i wasn’t going to say anything before the news outlet, but...” his smile only widens when he sees you look up at him with curious eyes; he nearly coos at how innocent you look. “a certain idol you know might make his acting debut soon~”

your eyes widen, and you quickly prop yourself up with your elbows. “what! no way!” you exclaim, jaw hanging open. jaehyun laughs at your shell-shocked reaction, though it’s a given; when you were in a mood to vent, he would always take your hand and pepper your knuckles with butterfly kisses as you ranted about how he deserved better and shouldn’t only be seen as a visual, whining about how sm failed to show his talents as a singer and an actor. well, those days are over now, he supposes.

“yes way, love. are you excited?” he isn’t sure why he asked that question, considering how shell-shocked you already look. plus, the squeal that leaves your throat and the way you throw yourself onto him is answer enough already.

“do you even have to ask? you used to send me videos of you acting out different roles because you wanted to try acting, and you always did them so well! i’m really proud of you, jae. you deserve it.”

“i’m really glad you think so, (name). do you want to hear-”

“no!” you interrupt, slapping both of your palms on his mouth. he tilts his head in confusion, surprised by your sudden outburst. “knowing you, you’re going to accidentally tell me everything, and then i’m going to know the whole story line before the show even airs!”

he’s about to refute your claims, but he can’t really considering how you’ve layered both of your palms on his mouth. plus, judging by the look you give him, he’s certain he’s going to be eating his own words sooner or later. with a sigh, he peels your palms off. "you’re no fun. can i not even tell you the name and the basic plot?”

“i’m sorry for wanting to give you ratings,” you snort. “and no. then i’ll be waiting in anticipation and will force you to tell me everything, even if you tell me you can’t because i told you before not to say anything. you can’t even give me a drop of information.” well, jaehyun supposes that is true. you’ve always been enticed by television shows; he’s personally seen you react to cliffhangers a show gives before it ultimately gets cancelled. needless to say, it isn’t a pretty sight. “this calls for celebration! we can invite the boys too... do you want it to be extravagant, or are we keeping it low key?” you ask, sitting up and reaching for your phone.

“what happened to just you and me?” jaehyun asks, batting his eyelashes with feigned innocence. “i can think of a lot more fun things we can do.”

you don’t even bat an eye; unlike earlier, you were prepared for this kind of comment. “shoving my foot up your ass sounds really fun, but unfortunately that won’t get me any food. the boys probably already knew before i did, so you’ve probably already celebrated with them... i guess we can keep it simple.”

“i’d take your foot any day,” he fires back with a heavily exaggerated moan, to which you respond with a slap on the arm.

“i’m telling johnny to bring over beer.” you’re texting a group chat with you and the other 127 members. you’re only dating jaehyun, yet sometimes it feels like you’re dating all of them with how close you are. plus, gossiping with jungwoo about your boyfriend is always fun. with him being his roommate, you both often share similar struggles.

he rolls his eyes, stretching over to wrap his arms around your waist. he peers over your shoulder to look at your screen. “please, (name). you’re the lightest lightweight i’ve ever met. who are you telling to bring over drinks? you’re like a baby.”

“fuck you.”

“i think it’s the other way around, but i’d gladly let you order me around~” he flirts.

you shove a pillow in his face as you fire off a text.

after ordering pizza, tteokbokki, and fried chicken, your dinner is nearly complete. the boys were coming over soon, with johnny being in charge of drinks, jungwoo in charge of takeout, and donghyuck in charge of entertainment. you had a nintendo switch jaehyun had gifted you two years ago, and you intended on making full use of it tonight.

(plus, you have yet to beat yuta at super smash bros. today is going to be that day.)

you had finished clearing the table for the food before you notice jaehyun’s sleeping frame on the couch. you’re about to walk over and reprimand him for being unproductive, but seeing how tired and peaceful he looks stops you. instead, you grab a blanket from your room and drape it over him.

you’re about to walk away and grab water bottles for everyone when you feel something tugging your hand. craning your neck, you smile at jaehyun’s hooded eyes laced with sleep. “c’mere,” he murmurs.

water bottles can wait, then. you pat jaehyun’s side, and he scoots over to allow room for you. as you slot yourself in his arm, spreading a leg across his, he makes a noise of satisfaction, eyes fluttering close. “someone’s tired,” you observe, pushing the mop of black bangs obscuring his eyes. “did practice run late?”

he avoids your gaze. “no, i spent the night playing uno with johnny, ten, and mark,” he admits.

you laugh. “must have been intense. i bet you were so burnt out from uno,” you sympathize with sarcasm. “but in general, don’t overexert yourself, okay? i know you’ve been busy, but you need to remember to take care of yourself.”

jaehyun nods, but a yawn rips out of his chest. you give him a knowing look, one that reads what did i say? which causes him to laugh. “yes sir,” he lazily responds.

“as tired as you may be, don’t go falling asleep on me now. the others are going to be here soon. what would they think, the guest of honor asleep at his own party?” you chuckle, leaning down to press a chaste kiss on his forehead.

he beams at the gesture. “give me more kisses and i’ll think about it,” he coaxes.

usually you don’t give in to his bratty demands, but seeing how tired he is reminds you of the accomplishments he’s achieved in the past year. a kiss is the least you could down. you lean down, breath fanning his lips, and he closes his eyes in contentment.

a few seconds pass, but the kiss never comes. when jaehyun opens his eyes, he’s surprised to see you’re no longer by his side, instead standing by the door. “that’s one way of telling a guy to come and get it,” he sighs, sitting up. he wearily rubs his eyes, blurry eyes watching you.

“sorry jae, taeil-hyung just texted saying they’re here,” you apologize. he sighs, eventually standing up after a few moments of stretching.

just as you had said, knocks resonate throughout your home, signalling their arrival. you peek through the peephole to verify their identities and sure enough, all nine other members stand outside, arms loaded. you undo the chain lock and swing the door open, greeting everyone.

“thanks for having us,” taeyong smiles, stepping into your home. everyone else echoes his message, but it comes out mumbled, like they hadn’t thought of saying anything until taeyong. the power a leader has, you suppose.

“no problem. here, let me grab some of the food.” you scurry over to jungwoo and mark, whose arms were loaded with the takeout you ordered.

as you grab a box of pizza from mark, johnny slaps you on the back. you nearly lurch forward and drop the pizza; if you had, johnny would be first on your hit list. “so jaehyun finally told you?” he asks with a grin.

“thank god. he spent days talking about ways to tell you, knowing how excited you’d be,” sicheng snorts, slipping off his shoes.

you laugh, especially when you see jaehyun spluttering in embarrassment. “you could’ve fooled me. all he did was waltz in and drop the news after he nearly fell asleep. made me feel like a proud parent and everything.”

“you may feel like one now, but wait until you watch him act. just going to be lots of cringing and teasing,” doyoung sneers, elbowing his shoulder.

yuta rolls his eyes. “like you’re one to talk, mr. lead actor.”

your eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. “lead actor?!” doyoung laughs, answering your question. “good for you, hyung!”

jaehyun narrows his eyes. “why do you look more amazed at his news than mine?!”

i’m not a lightweight, you told yourself. i can handle whatever yuta throws at me, you told yourself.

you were sorely mistaken.

jaehyun notices this too, seeing you sway in your seat. he chuckles at the sight; you were never able to hold your liquor, and when you got drunk, you were quite the spontaneous drinker to deal with. one time you had drank so much that you cried over cute things, like when sicheng showed you a picture of his dogs. or the one time you were a man on a mission, flirting with all of the members. needless to say, that led to a very interested jaemin and a very pouty jaehyun.

you had initially planned on just sticking to soda, but yuta had wanted to make things more interesting and challenged you to a game of super smash bros. each time the loser lost, they would have to down a can of beer. despite your inability to hold your liquor, it activated your competitive nature. but of course, yuta is crazy good at any games he suggests, completely demolishing you with lucina. no matter which character you chose, you were just no match against him.

after several fruitless attempts, you’re seated between taeil and sicheng, who seem way too interested in the tteokbokki to notice your behavior. everyone else seems occupied, too; johnny, yuta, jungwoo, and donghyuck are playing mario kart 8, taeyong and mark are immersed in yet another one of their deep, contemplative conversations, and doyoung’s watching the whole scene unfold, supervising everyone (probably to ensure nothing ends up in flames). on the other hand, jaehyun’s sitting on your sofa, alternating between watching the four men in front of your television screaming and you in your tipsy state. he decides to stick with the latter.

eventually you lift your eyes up and make eye contact with jaehyun, who responds with a wink. seeing you flush and look away has his chest swelling with giddiness; you’re just too cute sometimes. the table isn’t far from the sofa, so he can hear any conversation that goes on there. he watches as you take another sip of your can, eyes shifting back and forth from the television and to him. you stare at him for a bit longer, eyes canvassing his face, his posture, his thoughts.

it seems sicheng notices your staring, sitting back down and nudging your shoulder. “what’s so interesting that it’s gotten your attention?” he asks, purposefully raising his voice so jaehyun can hear.

you flush at how loud he is, lazily putting a finger to your lips. “shhh, i’m staring at the pretty boy there.” you point your chin towards jaehyun, who pretends to not see. you’ve never been subtle when you were drunk, but telling you that would just lead to you loudly slurring your arguments. “do you know if he’s dating anyone?”

jaehyun nearly spits out his beer. of all the times you’ve gotten drunk, you’ve never once forgotten that you were his boyfriend - if anything, you were all too eager to prove just how much you belonged to him. he’s not sure whether to feel startled or amused.

sicheng chooses the latter, a smirk forming. “yeah, he has a boyfriend,” he tells you. jaehyun hopes you’ll realize that you’re the boyfriend in question, but seeing how you deflate like a balloon, he guesses not. he questions how much you’ve had to drink.

you slide off of your chair, pouting. “of course a guy as attractive as him has a boyfriend. i’m not surprised,” you grumble, crossing your arms. jaehyun can’t help the amused smirk that makes its way on his face. watching you envy yourself for being his boyfriend is very amusing.

sicheng must feel the same, stifling his laughter. “don’t look so bitter, (name). his boyfriend’s a good guy.”

you pout, crossing your arms. “well, i bet i can treat him ten times better! pretty boy there doesn’t know what he’s missing out on,” you boast, standing up.

sicheng can only watch in amusement as you stagger towards the kitchen. if only you knew how strange that statement was. “if you’re so confident about that, then what are you doing? planning on hiding in the kitchen to wallow on your sorrows?” he teases.

“i’m not!” you protest. “i’m just going to get some water because i’m dizzy as fuck and possibly cry about how single i am.” you mumble the last part, though because sicheng has uncanny hearing, he probably heard, if the smirk on his lips is anything to go by.

jaehyun decides it’s time to intercept, because as amusing as things were, he hoped you weren’t actually going to cry about being single, especially since you had no reason to. he stops by the dining table where taeil and sicheng are. “so i heard you and (name) were talking about me.”

sicheng snorts, rolling his eyes. “just because we said pretty boys doesn’t mean we were talking about you.”

though unaware of the topic, taeil leans in, chewing on a mouthful of pizza. “yeah, for all we know, he could be talking about me!” he chirps. he’s met with an annoyed glare from sicheng (though both of them can see him stifling his laughter), which he responds with an air kiss. typical taeil.

“well, i’m going to check up on him. i’ll leave you two lovebirds alone for now,” he teases. taeil looks a little too happy at the joke, whereas sicheng threatens to stab him with a fork. it’s amusing watching their reactions, considering how everyone around them already knows that they’re dating. those two just haven’t admitted anything yet.

he follows you into the kitchen, though you don’t seem to notice, too busy pouring yourself a glass of cold water.  “(name),” he greets.

you jump in surprise, nearly spilling water on yourself. when you turn to face jaehyun, your confident nature immediately disappears, quickly replaced with one of bashfulness. “you know me?” you ask, in awe of how said pretty boy could possibly recognize you.

if only you knew just how well he knew you, he thinks to himself. instead, he decides to play along; you’re obviously too drunk to realize how silly this seems. “i do,” he hums, patting your shoulder. he isn’t sure if your red cheeks are from the alcohol or him, though he hopes for the latter. he never gets less prideful when you get all shy because of him.

hoping to maintain the confident facade you had earlier, you quickly clear your throat, looking away. “how can i help you?” you ask, taking a sip of your water.

“well, i was hoping if we could talk in a more... private area?” he asks.

you nearly spit out your water, eyes the size of saucers. he has to stop himself from laughing, afraid the drunk you would get the wrong impression. “just to talk, that’s all. it’s kind of loud here, don’t you think?”

the screams from the living room (which are mainly from johnny and donghyuck and the occasional ones of distress from taeyong) and the volume of the television are evidence enough, so you nod in agreement. “yeah, sure.”

“perfect. let’s go then~” jaehyun laces your fingers together before you can say anything, and your ears are practically fuming with smoke. you’re too distracted by his touch to question how he knows where your bedroom is. when you both enter your room, he flops down on your bed, patting the empty spot beside him. at this, you gasp, scandalized and very flustered. he chuckles at how shy you’ve gotten, shaking his head. “my my (name), get your head out of the gutter. we’re not going to do anything... unless you want to,” he flirts.

jaehyun never tries to take advantage of you, especially when you’re not sober. but when the sober you would throw pillows (or anything that wouldn’t actually hurt him) at him for flirting with you, the drunk you would always fire back with equally flirty remarks, or the shy you would just splutter in embarrassment. he can’t help it, spewing sweet nothings to you - you’re just too fun to mess with for him to not to, especially when you’re drunk.

reluctantly you place your water on your bedside table and lower yourself beside him, heart thumping erratically. he chuckles at how timid you are, a stark contrast from the snarky (name) that he knows so well. he turns to face you, both of your faces only centimetres apart. the smell of alcohol lingers on both of you, though it isn’t as prominent on him as it is on you. he makes a mental note to ask yuta how much you’ve had.

you squeak at how close you two are, hands flying to cover your face. “you have a boyfriend,” you whisper. you’re undeniably flustered, but you would rather die than be known as a homewrecker!

his laugh startles you, even more so when he presses a hand to the small of your back. you look like you’ve committed a heinous crime, potentially causing an attractive man like jaehyun to cheat on his boyfriend. the statement is so abusrd though, considering how you’re the boyfriend in question. “i do, you are right. he won’t be mad at me, though,” he hums, leaning in so close your noses would touch if it weren’t for the makeshift barrier you’ve made from your hands. you flush red in embarrassment, hiding your eyes behind your hands. if you make eye contact with him, you’re sure you’re going to melt into a puddle.

“even if he didn’t mind, i don’t think we should be doing this. i know i wouldn’t be happy if my boyfriend did this,” you whisper.

jaehyun sure is having a field day with this. you’re too flustered and worried to notice the pure look of adoration he’s giving you. “call it a hunch,” he says. “i promise you, he won’t be mad at this.”

“why?”

“you’ll find out tomorrow.” he pauses as a yawn rips out of his chest. “i’m really tired, so i’m going to sleep. the boys probably won’t quiet down on my account, anyways. you can always go back to them if you want, though,” he offers. a small part of him hopes for you to stay and cuddle with him, but judging how you’re so sure he has a boyfriend who would be absolutely devastated for literally sleeping with another man and how you have no knowledge of where you stand, he wouldn’t be surprised if you left.

what does surprise him, though, is when you stay rooted in your spot on the bed. “i’m tired, too,” you say.

jaehyun smiles so sweetly, the one that has his eyes dripping with honey, that your hands fly up to cover your face again. his boyfriend must be lucky to see that sight all of the time, you bitterly think to yourself. still, even if you’re not sure why he’s flirting with you or where you stand, you decide to savor every moment that you get to spend with him. even if you don’t really know who pretty boy is, he’s sweet and kind. plus, only a fool would cover their eyes when someone as beautiful as him lays before you.

he moves an arm to pat your thigh when he freezes in midair, remembering how he’s supposed to have a boyfriend to stay loyal to (even though he’s right in front of him). he retracts his arm and instead pulls your blanket to cover your lower bodies. “goodnight, (name),” he hums, shutting his eyes.

before jaehyun can begin the long process of trying to fall asleep, he feels you tug at his t-shirt. cracking an eye open, he sees you laying before him, staring at him with curious eyes and red cheeks. oh no, now he’s really tempted to kiss you. you’re impossibly adorable, seeing how vulnerable and curious you are. “yes?” he hums, trying to stay awake. the effects from last night’s uno matches have really begin to take a toll on him.

“i don’t think i’ve gotten the chance to ask, but may i know your name?” you ask.

jaehyun chuckles. he’s flirted with you and is even sleeping in the same bed as you, yet he’s forgotten the basic courtesy that is introductions. he didn’t think he would’ve needed it, considering how you’re his boyfriend. but then again, you’ve forgotten that you are his boyfriend. “my name’s yoonoh, but you can call me jaehyun or jae.”

no one actually calls him jae except for you. it’s a short and simple nickname that you have for him, nothing endearing. but because it’s something that only you call him, even though there isn’t a meaning to it, he’s grown fond of the way it sounds leaving your lips. which is why hearing it from anyone that isn’t you only leaves a weird taste on his tongue.

you’re so drunk you don’t even remember jaehyun, nor who he is to you, so it isn’t surprising that you stick with jaehyun instead. he doesn’t mind though, because he knows when you’re sober again he’ll hear you calling him jae and cuddling into him and doing all of the coupley things he wasn’t able to do tonight.

wow, jaehyun really is a lovesick fool. it’s only been one night of not being able to cuddle or kiss you, but he feels like he’s missed a whole eternity of them. he really isn’t sure how he’s lived before you came into his life.

for an hour, you pester jaehyun on how you two became acquainted and who you were to him. he indulged you, of course, purposefully skipping over the part of you becoming boyfriends and doing things that friends definitely didn’t do. his stories seem to be an effective way of getting you to sleep, because in the middle of a story of how a pair of swapped backpacks led to your relationship, you’re lulled to sleep, tired hands clutching onto his t-shirt.

he can only chuckle, leaning down to press a kiss on your nose. you’ll sure be in for a storm when you sober up tomorrow morning.

your jaw drops as you stare at the video on doyoung’s phone. it’s of you and sicheng, and right now you can only watch in horror as you pester him for information on the pretty boy you were so interested in last night. you have no recollection of last night’s events, though watching the video makes you glad you don’t. the problem is, the boys were there to witness them, even recording evidence of it on their phones. you’ve already seen pictures that johnny and taeyong have taken from when you and jaehyun were cuddling in your bed.

“please tell me that isn’t me,” you whisper, utterly mortified.

mark pats your shoulder in sympathy. “that’s you, all right.”

at his confirmation, you groan, burying your face in your hands. doyoung and donghyuck are cackling at your demise, with sicheng reciting your complaints word from word to a very amused johnny and yuta.

“...and then he was like well, i bet i can treat him ten times better! pretty boy there doesn’t know what he’s missing out on,” sicheng mimics, purposefully raising his voice an octave higher as he mocks you. out of embarrassment, you reach for a pillow on your couch and fling it at him. unlike jaehyun, he’s very good at dodging, proven when he ducks. instead, the pillow smacks yuta square in the face. he throws it back at you with even more force.

you duck, the pillow smacking an unsuspecting jaehyun. he really is horrible at dodging things - how shameful. “what the hell was that for?” he splutters, picking it up from the floor.

you turn to face him, eyebrows furrowed with annoyance. “you watched me make an utter fool out of myself, and you didn’t once try to do anything about it?” you hiss.

jaehyun frowns in confusion until doyoung dangles his phone in front of his face. when he watches the video, his face eventually contorts to one of amusement. “oh, that.”

your face is red with embarrassment. “yeah, that! like seriously? where is your loyalty? do you not care about my well being? you know how vicious these monsters can be!” you whine, gesturing at the said nine monsters behind you.

he nonchalantly shrugs, though you can see the corners of his lips threatening to curl into a smirk. “i do, but you were just too cute, seeing you all flustered. what about my own well being, huh? seeing you like that isn’t good for my heart,” he coos.

your heart leaps, but you mask it by smothering his face with a pillow. “you’re the worst,” you grumble.

“you act like you don’t like it, but i know you do~” he retaliates, albeit muffled from the pillow.

behind you two stands nine other boys, obviously unimpressed. watching you two engage in petty banter is always amusing, but not when it makes you flustered and encourages jaehyun to flirt with you like the cheesy, lovesick fool he is. “they’re so gross,” donghyuck gags.

johnny nods in agreement. “let’s get out of here before they start fucking on the counter.”

at johnny’s comment, you turn away from jaehyun so fast you swear you hear your neck crack. “do you have no filter?!” you shriek, exasperated.

with your guard down, jaehyun takes this as a chance to wrap his arms around your waist. a noise of surprise leaves your throat as he places his chin on your shoulder. “you’re so mean, (name). i liked the shy you a lot better~” he hums.

the other boys don’t even blink. “we’re going to leave now before things get bloody. good luck, (name),” taeyong says, saluting you.

jaehyun’s already tugging at the hem of your shirt and peppering your neck with kisses by the time the boys leave.

[heyyyharry]

Deep End - Chapter 2: Birthday Boy

…in which Harry gets the birthday surprise he didn’t ask for.

Word count: 4.7k

AU: famous!harry, siren!mc, adult modern retelling of the little mermaid? lol, fake dating, enemies to lovers.

WARNING: MATURE THEMES

All chapters / Synopsis / Moodboard / Playlist

Wattpad link

A/N: Thank you for all the love for Harry and Ezi after chapter 1. Please let me know what you think about each chapter so I can be motivated to write faster 😆

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“Humans are so funny. You make up false stories about us and refuse to believe anything that isn’t the same as your imagination,” the siren said.

Harry tossed his head back and laughed. He held out a finger at her. “No, mermaids aren’t supposed to exist. You’re not supposed to exist.”

The siren narrowed her sharp gaze, and Harry quickly moved back a bit in fear of her grabbing his leg and pulling him into the water. To his surprise, she said, “And who are you to decide that? A useless human with a useless tail–”

“Okay, enough with the tail joke.”

“–can’t even survive the drowning deep. You don’t want to believe we exist, so you won’t have to carry the guilt of trashing our homes and murdering our kind.”

Baffled, Harry worked his jaw while silently cursing himself for never taking part in those debate classes back in school. Well, to be fair, he couldn’t have known that one day he would have to debate with a deadly siren in a cave on his goddamn birthday!

He shut his eyes and sucked in a breath. “Look, lady. I’m only one small human, with a bigger than average human tail, FYI.” The siren eyed at his crotch in disbelief, so he quickly crossed his legs. “But that’s beside the point! What I was trying to say was that, if you’re seeking revenge, I can’t satisfy you because I’m not responsible for trashing the ocean or shit like that. I’m a singer, alright? And I don’t even live here. I’m from London. A land far away. If you wanna murder a human, I suggest looking for Elon Musk.”

The siren stared at him like he was the mythical creature. “I’m not familiar with all the names you mentioned,” she said, folding her arms across her chest, which had been a big distraction for him. Good to know that he could still get horny while facing death.

“Don’t you guys have fish Wikipedia?” he asked, and she tilted her head, looking rather confused. Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed that you should know all the facts about humans. That sounded like discrimination against sirens.”

For the first time since Harry met this siren, she actually smiled at him. “You have a lot of funny words, you strange creature,” she said, her eyebrows knitted in fascination.

“You know what?” Harry exhaled sharply. “Since you’re my kidnapper, I’m gonna stop arguing with you in case you still wanna kill me. But today is my birthday, so I can’t be kidnapped. I haven’t posted a thank you message on Twitter yet, and I might get cancelled for that. Celebrities get cancelled for literally anything nowadays. It’s annoying.” The siren blinked at him, her pink lips slightly parted. “Right,” he breathed. “You don’t have a Twitter account.”

“You said you were a singer.”

“That’s all you got from my long speech?”

“What is it? Singer.”

Harry bit his dry lip and frustratedly combed his fingers through his damp hair. “I sing. Use my voice to entertain other people.”

“Oh, like sirens.”

“I guess.”

“Except that we use our voice to kill people.”

“What?”

“Sing for me,” said the siren despite Harry’s horrified look. She seemed excited as she rested her folded arms on a boulder and gazed up at him with a twinkle in her crystal clear blue eyes. “Let’s hear it. I didn’t know humans could sing. Let’s see if it’s good.”

“Fine.” Harry blew out his cheeks and cleared his throat.

He began to sing.

“Walk in your rainbow paradise–”

“What’s a rainbow paradise?” the siren asked, but he didn’t stop singing to answer her.

“–brown skin and lemon over ice.”

“Why are you singing nonsense words?”

Once again, he ignored her, this time, closing his eyes. “I get so lost inside your eyes. Don’t you believe it? You don’t have to say you love me.”

“Love,” the siren repeated the word as if she had never heard of it in her whole life.

Harry opened his eyes and found that she was looking at him as if she could see right through him. He went on, “You don’t have to say you’re mine. Oh honey, I-i-i-i walk through fire for you. Just let me adore you.”

“Why would you walk through fire for someone?” the siren wondered out loud as she stared off into the distance, her strong brows knitted. “That's stupid. Fire is hot. I saw the humans on the boats use it one night. I almost burned my fingers trying to touch it.”

“Yeah, don’t play with fire.”

“Then why would you walk through it?”

The siren pouted, and Harry caught himself smiling at her naivety. “It’s supposed to mean that you’d do anything for the person you love. Even risking your life.”

“That’s stupid,” the siren repeated her earlier remark. For a second, Harry saw a curious little girl and not a dangerous sea creature from earlier.

“Well, it’s just a song,” Harry told her. “I personally wouldn’t do that for anyone, either, but some people do love with all they have, and would sacrifice everything for the one they love.”

An angry frown had replaced the siren’s previous perplexed expression. “Some humans murder the ones they claim to love,” she said in a cold voice. Harry felt a chill running down his spine, but then the siren went on with a softened expression. “Sirens are not supposed to love. Love is a weakness for my kind.”

Harry nodded. “Bet you don’t even have a heart.”

The siren cocked her head; a corner of her mouth raised subtly. “Every living and breathing thing has a heart. Sometimes it’s valuable. Sometimes it's not.”

“Only valuable if it’s the heart that you want,” replied Harry.

For a long moment, the siren looked into his eyes as if she was trying to read his thoughts. Could she do that? Read his thoughts?

Beads of sweat were trickling down his back as his heart began to race; he could hear it in his ears. Suddenly, the siren was pulled beneath the water. Harry stiffened at once. The ocean was still for a moment, then two sparkling tails burst through the surface. Harry’s jaw fell slack with a soundless scream when he saw another siren sinking her fangs into the first one's neck.

The other siren had bright red hair and a silver tail. There were visible scars all across her pale, lanky arms, and he couldn’t see her face. Legs too stiff to run and hide, he stood on the edge and watched in absolute terror. The scene in front of him was madness as the sirens screeched, their tails flapping, creating violent waves as they sank their claws and teeth into each other’s flesh. Harry could see blood. The first siren was not as strong as the one that was attacking her. He must save her. Maybe a part of him knew that she wasn’t entirely evil. Maybe because she was the only hope for him to get home. Either way, he couldn’t just stand by and watch her die.

Before Harry could even think of a way, a bony hand wrapped around his ankle and dragged him into the sea.

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Harry’s dreams were thick with blood and haunted by the siren’s face. He’d been in the dark water, drowning, and the last thing he’d seen was her sapphire eyes glowing with the sunlight above as she’d stretched out her arm to grab him before he sank deeper. He woke up gasping, still feeling the saltiness of the ocean on his tongue and the pressure of water on his lungs.

He found himself lying on his bed, fully naked under the covers. Had he been dreaming?

Kneading his temple to chase away the headache, Harry scanned his sore eyes around the room and screamed when he saw her sitting in the corner. Naked. He looked away as soon as he caught her ocean blue eyes staring back.

The siren was in his room. And she had legs!

“You’re alive!” she exclaimed.

He heard her standing up but couldn’t bring himself to look. She sat down on the edge of his bed, smelling like the ocean. Not the fishy kind of smell; one that was unique, and Harry liked it even though he shouldn’t.

“This is a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream,” he mumbled to himself while clutching the duvet to his chest.

The siren, now a human girl, let out a sigh. “It’s not. This is real. I’m real.”

“You’re not.”

“Look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“You’re...naked.”

Even though Harry wasn’t looking, he could feel her questioning gaze pinning on him. He grabbed the covers and shoved them at her. “Cover yourself.”

“Oh...okay.” The siren did as she was told as Harry quickly placed a pillow on his private part. He finally looked at her, and she smiled while covering her upper body and the area between her legs with the duvet.

Harry let out a sigh of relief. “Better. Okay, why are you here?”

The siren’s eyes widened. “You don’t remember?”

Harry shook his head.

“We were talking when my sister attacked me, then dragged you into the water. You were lucky I saved you twice and brought you back to where I’d found you. This is the only palace on this beach, so I assumed it was yours.”

Harry sat and stared her face, trying to detect a lie but failed.

The siren rolled her eyes. She seemed disappointed as she swept her long black hair over her shoulder, exposing the huge bite mark on her long pale neck. The skin had healed, and the blood had dried, but the area was still bruised. Harry fought the urge to touch it. There was no way this was really happening.

The siren shot a glance at his ankle. And that was when Harry noticed the red claw mark around it. He shivered at the flashbacks of a siren with red hair and a silver tail charging straight at him with her mouth wide open, her sharp teeth ready to tear off his flesh.

“Sorry about my sister. She could be very...deadly,” the siren in front of him said, looking remorseful.

Harry eyed her up and down once again. Finally, he broke his silence, “What happened to your tail?”

The siren refused to look him in the eye as she said, “My mother found out that I saved you, a human, so she cursed me.”

“Cursed you?”

The siren said nothing; the corners of her mouth lowered as she stared down sadly at her legs.

What kind of The Little Mermaid plot is this? Harry thought to himself, yet didn’t say it because it shouldn’t be a joke. She’d lost her tail, which meant she couldn’t go back to the ocean. Ariel from The Little Mermaid had wished to become a human. This girl had been cursed with the life she never wanted just to save him twice.

Harry buried his face into his palms. “Shit. Fuck. I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

“It is your fault.”

His head whipped up at her honest response. “You always say what you think, don’t you?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

Harry sighed and ran his palm over his face. “Never mind. How...how do I get you back to your mermaid form?”

“Siren.”

“Sorry, siren. How do I help turn you back?”

“I don’t know,” she said sadly, clutching the duvet to her chest. “But I need a place to stay until I figure it out.”

Harry thought for a moment and nodded. “I’ll pay for your hotel room.”

“What’s a hotel?” the siren asked, her eyes round. “And why can’t I stay here in your palace? It’s big and you live alone.”

“This is a house, not a palace,” Harry said. “But I’m going back to London tomorrow, and I can’t take you with me.”

“Where is London? I want to see London.”

Seeing her so excited made Harry laugh. “No, you don’t; trust me. It’s not sunny there. Always dark and gloomy and raining.”

“It’s not sunny underwater, either.”

Harry held up a finger and kept his mouth open for a moment as he pondered over what she’d said. “Good point. But I’m still not taking you to London. That’s not a good idea.”

The siren’s eyebrows drew together. “It was your fault I’m in this situation.”

Harry gasped. “You’re so manipulative!”

“I don’t know what it means.”

“It means you say things like that to get me to feel sorry for you, and so I have to help you.”

“Oh, then, yeah, I’m manipulative,” the siren said. “Take me to London with you, or I’ll find you in London and make your life hell.”

Harry tossed his head back and groaned. As if he hadn’t been traumatised enough by all the events that had happened today, now he had to take responsibility for the life of a mythical creature. If he had been a bad guy, he would have just let the government have her and keep her in a lab like that Oscar-winning movie about the dead girl and her fish lover. But Harry wasn’t a villain. Sure, he could be an asshole, but he couldn’t betray someone who’d risked her life to save his. Twice.

Maybe if he’d just say yes and then leave quickly in the morning, he wouldn’t have to deal with her. He’d ask someone to take care of her, pay for a place for her to stay and her food. Her mother would have to take her back eventually. He didn’t know about sirens, but even in the animal kingdom, mothers never abandoned their children.

“Fine, I’ll take you to London,” he said. Seeing the smile on her face, he was lowkey thankful that he was so good at lying. “First, you have to put some clothes on. Wait here.”

Carefully, he slipped out of bed, holding a pillow in front of his crotch and one behind him to cover his butt, then padded awkwardly to his closet to change and get her something to wear. When he returned, she was still sitting on his bed, humming a familiar song and kicking her feet as if testing out her new body parts. He found it endearing, but of course, he wouldn’t tell her.

He handed her a bathrobe. “Put this on. I’ll find some real clothes for you later.”

The siren accepted the bathrobe and stared at it as if she’d been told to put it in her mouth and chew. She glanced up at him. “I don’t understand the purpose of this.”

“To cover up your private parts.”

Suddenly, she seemed sad. “I think I’m broken.”

Harry blinked. “What?”

She looked at him again, pouting. “I don’t have a tail.”

“I can see that.”

“No, I mean, a tail like yours.”

When Harry realised what she meant, his face burned, and he cleared his throat into his fist. “You’re not supposed to,” he said awkwardly. “You’re...a female. I bet male sirens don’t look the same as you, right?”

“There’s no male sirens,” she told him.

Harry cocked his head to the side, squinting his eyes. “Huh? Then how do you guys...you know?”

She blinked innocently at him. She didn’t know.

“Mate.” The word made Harry cringe. “How do you mate?”

“Sirens mate with mermen. We only need them for children.”

“Okay, that’s...new…”

Harry would be glad to find out more, but this was definitely not the right time. He waved his hand, urging her to hurry up. Clumsily, the siren got to her feet. Harry didn’t intend to stay here while she changed, but since she could barely keep her balance, she had to hold onto his arms. He stood there, staring at the ceiling as the duvet dropped. She was completely naked in front of him now and so dangerously close. The voice inside his head was telling him not to peek. Fuck. Why did she have to be sexy?

“Do you...um...do you need help?” he asked as she seemed to be struggling with the bathrobe.

“No, thanks. I got it!” she said between ragged breaths, then, “Hey your tail is growing!”

Harry’s eyes dropped to the front of his boxers, his face heating at the sight of his erection. He gently pushed her back onto the bed and rushed to the bathroom.

“Where are you going?” she shouted after him. “I need to see it in its full form!”

“This is its full form!”

“It’s still small.”

“Shut up! It’s not!”

.

.

.

Ezili felt bad for lying to this human.

Well, lying was the whole point of her mission, but he had been so nice to her when he found out she couldn’t return to the ocean. She blamed her new human heart for these emotions. Siren Ezili would never feel sorry for this ugly creature. No, wait, this one wasn’t ugly. The mermen were ugly. As much as she despised humans, she must admit that most of them were beautiful.

When this human wasn’t looking, Ezili would regard him with as much curiosity as he had regarded her in secret. The way his brown curls swept back messily. His defined jawlines. The deep dimples in his cheeks. The look of wonder in his eyes. He looked about her age, but his eyes were innocent, greener than seaweed.

She looked away as he caught her gawking. They were sitting at a small table on the floor. The room was darkly lit by the light in the corner. On the table was a mushy pile with little fire sticks on top.

“What is this?” Ezili asked, inspecting the object.

The human smiled at her, the firelight dancing in his leaf-green eyes as he said, “It’s a cake. We’re celebrating my birthday.”

“You told me not to play with fire.”

“We’re gonna put it out anyway.” He winked at her. “A little fire won’t hurt.” Ezili watched the human take out a little black thing and flick his thumb. Fire flared out, making Ezili flinch. “Relax,” he chuckled and the fire vanished. “This is called a lighter. It makes fire. This is a cake. These are candles.”

“What do we do with the cake?”

“We eat it.”

“You eat fire?”

The human laughed at Ezili’s distressed look. “No, silly. We blow out the candles, then eat the cake.”

“Oh,” she said, making him laugh harder. She found it disrespectful and annoying. Was this creature making fun of her? “What’s so funny?” she asked through gritted teeth.

The human stopped laughing, yet his dimples were still visible. “I can’t believe I’m celebrating my twenty-fourth with a siren,” he said.

“Who do you usually celebrate with?” Ezili asked.

“My friends or family,” the human said. “My friends were supposed to be here but their flight got cancelled due to bad weather.” The sadness in his eyes disappeared as he gave a dismissive wave and laughed. “Oh well, it’s not bad being alone. In fact, I’ve been alone my whole life.”

“That’s sad,” Ezili murmured, mesmerized by the candles.

“It’s not,” replied the human. “Some people live their whole life surrounded by others, and yet, they’re still lonely.”

As he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, smiled, and blew out the candles, Ezili sat there and pondered over his last words.

They didn’t eat the cake right away, because the humans said they ought to eat it after dinner. Apparently, humans ate three main meals a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Sirens ate when they were hungry, so this was very new to Ezili. She picked up the small shiny thing that shaped like her mother’s trident and pushed around the foods on her plate. “What is this?”

“Fish,” the human said with a smile.

“Dead?”

“You expect me to eat alive fish?”

Ezili scowled at him. “That’s what we eat.”

“You’re human now. Try cooked fish.”

When she didn’t do anything but stare at the plate, the human nudged her hand with his knuckles. “Come on. If you don’t like it, I’ll get you the raw fish in the fridge.”

Ezili doubted that this imbecile creature would poison her with these colourful foods to get away with his responsibility, but at the same time, nothing was impossible.

However, she would probably faint if she didn’t eat. This dinner actually smelled good, and her stomach was rumbling because she hadn’t eaten since yesterday. And so she stabbed the fish’s burned flesh with her little trident, closed her eyes and put it into her mouth. It was soft, salty and a bit spicy, and...surprisingly delicious. She quickly took another bite, and another, and another.

“Wow, you’re really hungry, huh?” The human chuckled. “You like it?”

Ezili nodded fast, unable to answer because her mouth was full.

The human seemed satisfied. “Good. Means I’m a great cook.”

Ezili chewed fast and swallowed as the human began to eat. She tried to copy the way he held the little trident and the knife, and felt like she’d changed. Her mother would hate her so much for enjoying this. And Koa would make sure everyone in their kingdom knew and turn her into a laughing stock.

“Do you have any questions for me?” she said, breaking the silence, mostly to distract herself from thinking about the mission and her family.

The human thought for a second. “Hmmm, I have a bunch so I don’t know where to start.” Then, after a pause, “Why did your mum do this to you? Doesn’t she love you?”

Ezili wished she could stab him for bringing up the topic she’d been trying to avoid. Instead, she sucked in a breath. “She does. It’s just...the way sirens show love is different from humans. We teach our children to be strong from the moment they are born. Sirens live dependent on one another to survive, and so we always have to look out for one another. I guess that’s love for us. My mother is the Sea Queen. She’s very powerful, and so she has high hopes for my sister and I. My sister is better than me, though. I’ve always envied her.”

“Your sister is scary as hell,” the human remarked. “But if your mum is the Queen, you must be a princess.”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, so does that make me Prince Eric?”

“Your name is Eric?”

“No,” the human chuckled. “It’s a reference from The Little Mermaid. You should watch that film. You’d probably hate it though. Anyway, it’s so weird that we don’t know each other’s name. I’m Harry.” The human, well, Harry, put his hand across the table. Ezili didn’t know what to do with it so she just stared.

“I’m Ezili.”

Harry smiled, picked up her right hand and shook it. His hand was bigger than her and warm. She liked it.

“Cool name. Can I call you Ezi?”

Ezili instantly pulled her hand back. “No, you filthy creature. That’s not my name!”

“Ezi is short for Ezili.”

“What?”

Harry ignored the look of confusion she was giving him. “Or I could call you Bubbles. That’s a cute nickname.”

“Why Bubbles?”

“Because…” He tossed his head back and groaned. “Damn, woman, you gotta read the story, too. I can’t make these jokes if you don’t get the references.”

Ezili had so many questions. Just as she was about to ask, the black thing on the table lit up and started playing a song that startled Ezili.

“Sorry. My mum’s calling,” Harry said as he picked up the thing and swiped his fingers across it. “Right on time.”

“Is your mother trapped in that thing?” Ezili asked, clutching the hem of the shirt Harry had told her to wear. It was too big on her but she loved that it was comfortable and kept her warm.

“No, this is a phone,” Harry said, shaking the magical device with light coming out of it. “So my mum’s in London, and when she calls me on the phone, her voice gets transferred through it, and I can hear what she says.” He pushed himself up and told Ezili, “I’ll be right back.”

Once Harry was gone, Ezili sat there and tried her best to process all the new information. It was only her first night on land and she was already going through it. This mission was harder than she thought. Still, she had no choice but to continue. She must have that heart, and her mother would be so proud.

.

.

.

When Harry woke up this time, he was on his private jet.

“Hey.”

He screamed, causing Ezi to fall back into her seat in front of him. He whipped his head around and saw that they were the only two people in this cabin. Before he could even come up with a question, Ezi got up, her hand resting on either side of his seat as she leaned forward, until her face was so close to his that he could smell the vanilla scent of the cake in her breath.

Her eyes sharpened at once. “I know you were trying to get rid of me.”

“No...I didn’t.”

“You did, Harry. You were going to leave me at your beach house. I heard you talking on the phone last night with someone else after talking to your mum. You mentioned a hotel room.”

Harry had booked a room for her on the phone last night. He should have done it on the website.

“But guess what?” A corner of her mouth lifted. “I might not have the ability to control tides anymore, but I still have my voice. And so I can control humans with it. I sang you to sleep last night. Then when your servants came to take you to this metal bird, I made him carry you to the magic black carriage and I came here with you. You think you’re one step ahead, you’re wrong. Try that again. I dare you.”

Harry swallowed hard. He could feel his palms sweating as he rubbed them against his thighs. “Okay, I’m sorry for that,” he said.  “But you can’t control people like that. If someone found out what you’re capable of...what you are...you’d be in big trouble.”

Ezi arched an eyebrow as she slowly backed away and stood straight with her arms across her chest. Thank God, Harry’s mother called just in time. He immediately got up and excused himself to answer the phone. He left a pouty Ezili in the cabin and went to the exit to talk to his mother.

“My precious boy, are you on the plane right now?”

“Yes, Mum,” Harry sighed.

“Good. I just need the name of your date for the seat arrangement.”

Harry stiffened for a second then quickly glanced over his shoulder to check if Ezi was eavesdropping. Fortunately, she was distracted by a magazine.

“Like now?” he asked his mum.

“Yes. Last night you told me you found one.”

Yes, Harry remembered that part, but he’d only said that so his mum would stop pestering him.

He took a deep breath. “Yeah, I did.”

“Her name?”

He hesitated before saying, “Ezili Hans.”

Hans as in Hans Christian Andersen. The writer of The Little Mermaid. If he had the energy to be happy, he’d give himself a pat on the back for the creativity.

“Great,” his mother said, sounding as if he’d just told her he was getting married. “I’m so excited to meet this girl.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, dear?”

“I-I said ‘Well, of course’,” Harry said and covered it up with a nervous laugh.

When he got off the phone with his mum, he felt a light tap on the shoulder and turned around to see Ezi. Shit, had she listened to–

“I promise I won’t use my singing voice to control you again,” she said, to his surprise. "Please. I cannot survive on my own." She twisted the hem of his band-tee uneasily. Even though she looked super cute in his t-shirt and joggers, she was still too underdressed for someone that was travelling on a private jet.

“Fine. You can stay,” he heard himself say while trying to imagine her with actual clothes that fit her.

Ezi’s blue eyes lit up, and the smile that rarely showed up on her face caught Harry off guard. He almost forgot what was happening.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “But we need to set up some rules.”