#* hard to like learn and absorb anything actually useful about driving

[pepprs]

ok yeah. i think i don’t want to drive. and i think i never want to leave my house again also.

[apas-95]

I’m an anarchocommunist that thinks a lot of other anarchists are stupid. For example, I don’t think that most people will just make insulin or do garbage collection/processing out of the kindness of their heart, and I also don’t think if it was genuinely done out of the kindness of their hearts that it’d work great. My idea is that for the “getting people to do the shitty jobs” question, the people that do those jobs should be compensated better in some way. Maybe a larger/nicer house, I’m not sure on the details. But other anarchists will say “all labor is equal”, and while I’d like to agree in the “work is hard” sense, I think things for the obvious common good, like teacher or garbage man or doctor deserve some sort of reward over other jobs. And for the efficiency of the labor, I think *specifically for labor* there needs to be some sort of organization, and we can use what’s worked before. We don’t need to have bathtub insulin if there’s a factory right there, and if there’s no connection from the insulin factory to doctors/pharmacists and truck drivers then it won’t work either. Really, my main problem with Marxism/Leninism or Stalinism or Maoism or any combination of those is that there are specific people with far too much power over others. I’m ok with light power in the way of “man you gotta drive the firetruck to the burning building even though you hate the dude that lives there”, but I’m not ok with the idea of a supreme leader or representatives in a political sense due to as I’ve amounts of power obviously corrupting people.

Really I’m sending this to you to get your criticism of my ideas- I think you’re pretty smart, and even if I disagree with you on some issues, I think I agree with you on others. I also want to say that not all anarchists are… like that.

So, years ago, before I started reading any Marxist theory, this is about where I was at politically. If you think about any of the practicalities, you come up to points where, very clearly, the maxim of 'no authority at all' conflicts with being able to do anything. If you're seriously considering how society could be better organised, if this is something you actually intend on bringing about, then you make some amount of concession to reality - as you did with the firetruck example!

Now, myself, I went on like this for a good while, coming up with methods of truly democratic organisation that wouldn't be susceptible to the types of totalitarianism I'd heard about, ending up very similar to your position. I was interested, however, in how these 'failed experiments' that I'd learned devolved into bureaucracy started out, and I started reading up on the history, and realised, with some discontent, that what I'd developed, once I'd made all the concessions for reality that would be necessary if this system were to be the actual one real human beings lives depended on, was essentially identical to the Soviet system.

From there, I read up on Marxist theory, still basically wary that this had all, at some point, been taken over by an evil dictator, but able to see that the earliest stages, at least, had been exactly what I was imagining, but put into practice. Reading the theory, reading how their experience experimenting with different forms of organisation, and the failures of some types, had led them to discover what did and didn't work, and adjust accordingly, made me suddenly appreciate why certain things were done certain ways. The harsh experiences of civil war had revealed certain dynamics and mechanics in the way society and production worked, which translates into political theories that bore out results I wouldn't have expected (and neither had the communists who had discovered them through practice!).

Eventually, with some chagrin and a significant deal of excitement, I realised that much of what I'd passively absorbed about socialism, many of the common-sense maxims that I'd been taught by capitalist society about the nature of power and so on, were very much artifacts of a decades-long war against these communists and the system they'd built, carried out by exactly the corporations and empires I had thought myself opposed to.

I won't critique any individual point of yours, but I will enjoin you to try out some Marxist theory - Dialectical and Historical Materialism, or Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, or Principles of Communism, or even the Communist Manifesto, and to read between the lines of whatever capitalist source you read on socialism, to notice every [citation needed] and wonder what actually happened such that someone felt the need to make something up.

[erinwantstowrite]

opinions on ai?

This is the perfect time to share something I wrote a few months ago when I was upset about it:

AI is the bane of my existence and I hate it so much. Not only because of the environmental impact that it has, but because of how it gives us absolutely nothing of value in creative spaces and is actually a detriment to our future, rather than being "innovative" like companies want us to believe.

If you're using AI to write notes for you, or to answer questions, to write your essays and your discussion posts, you are hurting yourself. But eventually you will hurt others with your willing ignorance. You are not learning, you are not taking the time to push yourself to new bounds. You are not absorbing the information you need, and for why? Because it's hard? Life is hard. Learning is hard. If learning was easy, you wouldn't be learning anything at all. And one day when you need to use these tools you put down and gave to a program in order to do your job, you are going to get someone hurt in some way. If you're going into teaching and you didn't bother to learn about childhood development because you let an AI take your notes because you couldn't be half-assed to sit through an hour long lecture, you will fail every student that comes your way. If you're an engineer and you had AI do the math for you, something that you make will break and it could kill someone. Because the AI can not even count how many times the letter 'r' is in strawberry, but you're trusting it to make bridges or design buildings?

And in a creative sense, you are not an artist if you use AI. I will scream it from the rooftops if I have to.

You are not an artist if you use AI.

Because to be an artist is to put your very soul into what you create. And an AI has no soul. To be an artist is to lay yourself bare for people to witness and interpret, and it's scary but it's freeing. To be an artist is to make a message with your art, to have people a thousand years from now sit in a museum and feel connected to who you were so far in the past. To think that humanity may be different but we are also inherently the same. To be an artist is to despair over the process of creating your art because it's difficult, and time consuming, and damn does it drive you crazy. But then you get that end result and you realize you learned something about yourself, you got better at something that brings you joy, you created and now you see what you are capable of, and what you will be capable of in the future. To be an artist is to connect with someone because of what you made, and that someone includes yourself.

We keep telling young artists that they need to be better now, they need to quit if they aren't good at it on the first try. We keep acting like we didn't start from somewhere ourselves, like we were born with the fine motor skills and the talent needed to create. It's because our attention spans can't handle over 20 seconds and we need multiple videos playing to drown out our own thoughts. We have to look at comment sections to see the court of public opinion before we make a judgement ourselves. If anything is out of the ordinary or doesn't look the way we expect or want, it must be shamed. And this existence is exhausting because at the end of the day, we have done nothing of value. When coming across a video of a young artist who took the time out of their day to create, we need to encourage them to continue going, tell them that their work is worthy. Because it is. It is worthy because they made it. If we shoot them down before they can go anywhere, we've just killed an artist that could have painted the next Starry Night, or created a sculpture that millions of people would try to visit. We've shot down someone who could teach others how to create one day in their future. We shot them down and killed their inspiration and motivation, and they might turn to someone else to do it for them because they will believe they are not worthy enough or talented enough to make it.

When I was still in school, my favorite part of the year was seeing the projects put up on the wall. The silly displays our teachers put up to show a holiday with slightly wonky paper snowflakes, the posters that the art students made with "too many lightning bolts around the guitar", the signs for school dances, the yearbooks that students spent all year making, the English class posters that depicted scenes from what they were reading and they were made with stick figures or they had someone draw out butterflies. I loved seeing the decorations for Homecoming Week, loved looking ta the booths that everyone made for our career and science fairs. I liked when we put on talent shows still, when we did pep rallies and fashion shows and we saw everyone get together to have fun and not care if it was "perfect." No one there was a professional artist, not yet, but that didn't make it any less entertaining or creative.

We dance because we want to feel how our bodies move and express ourselves in ways words cannot. We paint and we draw and make pottery and quilts and pictures because at one point, all we had were cave paintings of our hands, and we still look at them with reverence for where we started. We sing and we drum and we laugh because music is a universal language that anyone can understand, and isn't that breathtaking? We write so that people in the future can pour themselves over our words and learn from us, so that kids can hide their books underneath their covers with a little flashlight when their parents put them to bed hours ago but they just can't put our story down they have to know what comes next! We cook for our loved ones and have family recipes that mean we've been tasting the same food that our family we never got to meet were eating too.

We create because humans are meant to create. We put our love into the process, we put our dreams and our hopes and our hard earned lessons into these creations.

AI will never have that. AI has none of the process, and therefore, it is not art. We can gripe about how art has different meanings all we want, we can shout that art is only art if it invokes an opinion or a thought, but that is not what makes art. Because there is still effort put into placing a shoe on a pedestal, or painting a yellow square, or painting a mural on a wall, or writing poetry in a tiny notebook at school, or melting crayons together, or anything that requires you putting it together. If AI is doing all the work for you, then you've accomplished nothing. And you stole from the people that actually did accomplish something. You stole not only their effort, but you stole their process, their feelings, their hope and their dreams and their ideas of the future.

AI is nothing and will ultimately become obsolete. Because humans will not stop creating just because companies are pushing for us to stop and hand it over to them. They want us to stop creating, they want us to pay them for it, they want us to put blind trust into what they're doing, they want us to forget that they are stealing from us. I will not forget. I will never forget. Because I was born to sing and dance and write and draw and cook, and when I die, my body will go right back to the Earth and perhaps flowers will grow around my grave. I will still be creating even then. And even if AI is still around and still trying to steal from us, I will die knowing that it could never do the same.

[froznwater]

im so sorry this is incredibly random but if i dont write alenoah i WILL die but i cant think of anything to write. do u have any simple ideas. ignore if not

HI!!! tysm for your ask <3 i hope you can find something to write amongst all the ideas. These are a bunch of ideas have written down in my notes/google drive/tumblr posts and have not got gotten around to. I still might at some point in time but feel free to use them. I will still do my own take if I get the time/motivation. There's simply so many, why not share and inspire some fics :)

----

General ideas:

Noah knows/learns spanish. Bonus points if Alejandro isn't aware until the perfect moment.

Alejandro thinks he can get away with flirting with Noah in spanish. Noah starts shit talking in spanish. Noah learns so he can hear all the little comments Alejandro keeps making under his breath. etc. so many possibilities.

Now that the show is over and Noah's off to college, he realizes he’s missing something in his life. Maybe it’s his friends, maybe it’s a lack of ever-looming danger, OR maybe it’s Alejandro. Who fucking knows. He’s too busy trying not to be in love with Alejandro to figure it out. 

Their group project is failing, horribly. There’s one thing Noah knows for certain: Alejandro's to blame. At what point does slippery eel turn into a term of endearment?

They have never ever fallen asleep next to each other. Let alone in each other's arms. Never.

Time loop where Alejandro is stuck on the episode where Noah gets voted out and sticks himself to falling in love because he can’t let go of his pride long enough to simply let Noah stay in the game and move on.

Noah loses his contacts and starts wearing his glasses more often. Alejandro notices. Everyone notices Alejandro notices.

Alejandro and Noah team up to get their friends together (insert whatever ship you like) and end up together in the process/the other two were trying to do the same thing for them.

A commentary timeline on how Alejandro's charisma turn into exploitation, how Noah's patience turned into indifference, and how they parallel each other. (I've written a few hundred words for this one lol.)

Each thinks the other doesn't like them. Cut to third party POV that watches and witnesses them completely a mess for each other.

Noah, once voted out in I See London, learns about Alejandro's family. Who have been very vocal since the show started airing.

Exploration of how Alejandro tries really really hard. Yes, He's at the top of the class, but so is Noah. Noah who sleeps through classes and doesn't turn in homework and shows up late or simply not at all and is still right up there with him.

“I would kill to be like you. To just absorb all the information fed to me. If I were you I might actually- “(beat my brother) “Might actually what?” “I told you. I don’t want to talk about it, Noah.” - "Do you know how long I studied for that test? Hours. And you- You got a 96 with no effort at all." It was a 98. But this seems like a bad time to correct him.

Dialogue one-liners prompts i've written down:

"If we make it out of this alive, I'm going to kiss you."

“Why do I feel like I cant say no to you?”

"I know you don't actually care about me, but thank you for trying to pretend that you do." (Said by Noah is joking. Said by Alejandro is bitter.)

"You can't win against someone who has nothing to lose."(Alejandro OR Noah angst.)

Soulmate aus:

My big two: Telepathy/Mentally linked.(imagine this one as a wt rewrite omg) And Whatever you draw on yourself shows up on your soulmate. Matching tattoos.

First words on each other. (I've done this one already here. but feel free to do it as well!!)

Communicating through dreams. (If you know cardcaptor sakura; like that.)

General AUs:

Until dawn AU.

Gakuen Alice AU.

My Babysitters A Vampire AU. Zombie Apoc AU.

Harry Potter AU. Reality Dating Show AU.

Infinity Train AU!!!!!!

Veronica Mars AU!!!! (i wanna do this one ALOT noah is sooo veronica LMAO) OBLIGATORY IDEAS:

seven minutes in heaven.

wrong number.

trapped in a closet.

movie night. noah is sitting under alejandro and lol they are physically, platonically touching for awhile. (leads to finally getting together).

one gets injured, the other fixes them up in the nurses office :P.

short "prompt-ishs" i've started writing:

“What the hell is your problem, Alejandro?” And this time, the tone was so disgusted, so bitter, that something snapped, deep in Alejandro’s chest.

Fuck it.

“What’s my problem?” He asked, incredulous. “What’s my problem? You’ve got to be kidding me, Courtney. I almost died. I almost died, paralyzed and alone, and the only friend I thought I had didn’t give a single shit! The only person who cared was Noah, of all people. I quite literally come back to life and the only thing you can do is whine about your girlfriend problems.”

Courtney takes a step back.

“I was stuck in a robot for months, my legs barely work, my family moved on- actually, I don’t know if they ever actually even noticed,” He laughs, broken, “- and you have the audacity to ask me what my problem is?!”

Alejandro is over playing nice. He’s had enough.

-

this one is a rivals team up to get out courtney blurb

little idea about Alejandro getting into zodiacs.

moments where alejandro questions why Noah is so attractive

-

SEND MORE ASKS IF ANYONE HAS ANY QUESTIONS ON ANY OF THESE IDEAS!!! / IF THEY HAVE ANY IDEAS OR CONCEPTS TO ADD OR EXPAND ON :)))

[immoralimmortals]

Thank you for answering my burning character analysis question! I have tons more :D can you tell me about your thought process when you were writing each of the Akatsuki and how you put them together and how their personalities reflect in canon? Hugs

Oh...this is such a big question. I'll do my best! Answers under the cut <3

Honestly a big thing for me is to try to incorporate their actual way of speaking in my head? I try to notice the way they talk, and I think that's a big step into making them more convincing. I reblogged something before that's like...the best advice for writing, ever. Ask less "if" they'd do it and more "how" they'd do it. How, if you want something to happen, would this action be carried out by this character? I think this opens a lot of avenues for the imagination and helps make the story more fun. If you incorporate their manner of speaking, that's a big step into making the character believable (points in favor of you executing the "how")

For specific characters...here's some ideas I got in mind.

Itachi is a walking dead man. He knows he's dying. The thing that drives him is the execution of how he will die. So he keeps moving forward, at least so that how he passes on is the way it's meant to be. I think that makes it hard to enjoy life. I think he still treasures it-- i think he loves the little things like a sip of hot tea, a breeze in the air, the way someone smiles...but he's not exactly a thrill seeker. He doesn't go out of his way to enjoy things, especially if they're more outgoing in nature, unless it's to benefit someone he cares about. When it comes to said someones...he feels a great sense of responsibility. He's very subdued and doesn't intervene often, especially anything harsher than a suggestion, but when he DOES, it's quite controlling. Hence the whole assumption that using his genjutsu to solve problems being the right thing to do without their consent.

He's reflective, he's passive, he's tired...but he has very strong ideals that will cause him to act.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Kisame is a lot like Itachi in the sense that he's very understanding of receiving a poor fate based on his actions. However, it's like Itachi has a 100% assurance about life while Kisame still wavers. He has strong ideals, very much so, and he acts very surely...but he has trouble thinking of himself positively outside of how well he fights. Truth is very important to him, and I think he's always second guessing others' intents. Not always in the direction of "theyre treacherous liars", but also "they mean something besides what they say". Double speak, holding back feelings, that kind of thing. I think despite himself he has a strong sense of chivalry-- which I use less here in regards to gender itself and more as a sense of knightship, of gratitude and servitude to those he believes deserves it. He has rough hands and a monster sword; might as well put them to good use and stand between them and the thing that intends to harm.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

First and foremost about Deidara: he behaves as if someone in his life gave him the advice of "it is essential for your brain and health for you to make sure you are doing and learning new things" and he defined his whole existence around it. He WANTS to know more. He wants to learn, experience, he wants to expand his horizons. He isn't afraid of new information, at least not in itself. What's an artist if not also a critic, absorbing all the world has to give in order to reflect it in their work?

I also think of him-- since he's only 19 in the anime-- as someone who must have been a child prodigy, since he's so powerful and (presumably) feared. Here's a quote from chapter 22:

Being lauded as a genius from a young age is both a blessing and a curse for the clay ninja: a blessing because a lack of confidence is worse than slitting your own throat in the shinobi world. A curse…— ...Because Deidara so often forgets he’s hardly had time on this earth at all, at least not compared to his cohorts. You have to be quick on your feet to win the game. And so...he adapts(...)

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Sasori is, predictably, the opposite of Deidara in a lot of ways. He's very self assured in the sense that HE is right and YOU are wrong. He's not very assured at all in regards to new information and other viewpoints. I've described him before-- and I mean this in the most loving way I can-- shallow and painfully self-conscious. He isn't good with criticism, isn't good with seriously considering other's conflicting viewpoints, and it takes him a long time or harsh outcomes to make him change his tune about something. I think he's so impatient despite loving the concept of immortality and eternity because he has inflexible criteria for what he's comfortable spending said immortality with. Time is precious. Don't waste his fucking time!

He's a lot more sensitive than he'll ever admit. That's why he's drawn to aesthetics; that's why he's so regretful of having a human heart. That's why he's so controlling over what exists around him.

"...I know how hard it is to try to talk to people,” the singer confesses. “That...it’s easier to deal with what you like and know and can predict, make that last instead of going through the trouble wasting through things you don’t just in hopes of it being better. I want to help!” Her breath hitches at this sudden reveal, but she takes a deep lungful to quickly correct. “I mean...I want it to be... easy for you.” (...) “I found myself wondering, you know? You know good things are eternal. So why is it so easy for you to feel your time is being spent badly? At first it seemed weird to me...but now it makes sense. You want your time well spent, to be full of things you enjoy or can at least tolerate. I get that.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Kakuzu is...a heartbroken man at the core that's built up layers around him to prevent that from ever happening again. I think he's very pragmatic. He looks at the past, sees his mistakes, and tries to move forward. He's halfway between thinking his past self-- before failing his suicide mission-- is an idiot and halfway to wanting to lock that piece of him in a box and protect it forever. It certainly wasn't *right*! ...But it did happen. So what now?

I think his perspective of money is the most factual, realistic conclusion he could come towards about what's reliable and ultimately matters. I don't think of him as a Scrooge type who's greedy for the sake of being greedy. I think he's very mindful of where money goes on a personal scale, the scale of the Akatsuki, and even up to international politics. He can't singlehandedly fix the way the world works, so he instead weaves through it, finds space and finances to make it work.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Hidan is...absolutely fascinating! He decided the logical conclusion of life is to experiment upon himself (see: torture) until he has received immortality. But that's not the reward in itself, no, he FERVENTLY believes in his god and he's right. He believes that slaughter is important and I think the sociological aspect of that is just so interesting. Because you're supposed to slaughter your neighbor. Is this meant as an extension of "don't trust anyone besides yourself"? Is the extinction of the human race the *intended* result? WHY does Jashin want people to die? What's that all for! Huh!

Anyway it really must be a very high tension, radicalizing childhood/life he's had to get him where he is. I think something very important to him is his autonomy. He wants what HE wants and why do YOU get to tell him otherwise? I think this explains why he complains about praying before battle, doing rituals to be forgiven for leaving someone half dead, etc despite being loyal to his faith.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Writing for Konan and Pain/Nagato is going to be really interesting, because a lot of it is going to be me figuring out how I feel about them on a more personal level, interacting emotionally. What I do feel strongly about is that they are both very virtuous, have very strong values. I think you have to in order to do what they're doing.

I think being Konan in particular must be very difficult because I think she is *consciously* very selfless. She isn't a pushover, she isn't uncaring, she doesn't act merely because she has nothing else to do besides what you suggest. She gives herself fully to her role as Pain's angel. How much of yourself do you give away for that? Her own opinions, ideas, wants...she willingly gives it up like she's a saint. Her life's purpose is to carry out the will of whom she perceives as a literal god on earth.

...But that god was once her friend. The body he inhabits is the corpse of the man she fell in love with. I think you HAVE to be broken up over all this, even if you try to put it aside for the greater good.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

I think of Nagato very similarly, in that he's not himself anymore but what he *needs* to be. He's a god. He has to play the role of god. Do things he doesn't want to do, take on responsibilities that perhaps shouldn't be put just on one man. Your autonomy just...whoosh! It's gone. You're an idea now, not a person. You have a goal, that's why you exist. Is it inevitable? Is this the only way he could have made sense of the kind of life he lived? Can someone give this guy a warm blanket and a hug? Holy shit, that's sad.

The flip side is that as a result he's very straightforward and assured. It makes de-personalization from his choices a lot easier.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

I'm going to be honest with you: I haven't fully decided how Zetsu works! I've done extensive roleplay as fusion characters before (think in similar terms as Steven Universe) so I'm not uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the concept. I'm just not...entirely sure...how the concept is carried out? Like if he's always, literally, two people that happen to share a body or if they're one person. The solution in the roleplay I mentioned is that the answer has to be both. So that's how I write him! Sometimes thoughts are from one of them, sometimes thoughts are from another. They, however, have a LOT of common ground and it makes it easy to make him coherent when I write.

Zetsu has such a disconnect from other people. One half has a nearly scientific, detached sort of interest in humans while the other is, as far as I can tell, the personification of hatred for humanity and a desire to start over? I think that makes him a very callous person with a great sense of humor. I also think this makes it very difficult for him to know his feelings when it comes to feeling positively, connectingly towards those around him. Stop that, feelings! I don't like that! Surely what I *really* want is control and to belittle the person! ...Why don't I feel better.

He just stares. There she is, just as he wanted. Scared, desperate, underneath his thumb, remorseful of her actions...and yet. And yet. ...He is not satiated.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Tobi is a caricature of what Obito thinks of his child self, a genre-aware character who he uses to tell the kind of story he thinks life is. He is flagrantly foolish, cheery, useless(?), emotional, and personal. Tobi has all of the traits that Obito thinks he was as a naive kid and turns it up to 11, and THEN he uses the persona to be mean to people. I'm kind of obsessed with it, I think that's hilarious. When I write for him, I constantly think of how he compensates for having a masked face by greatly exaggerating his physical movements and tone of voice. He is, at heart, a performer doing a performance.

Obito himself...so he runs on the assumption that if he succeeds, then everything he's ever done will be justified. Right? I think that results in someone simultaneously so sure of themself while also feeling like he's stepping on nails every step of the way. Something deep in him has to be uncomfortable and hate it. For this reason, as the story develops, I think in the fic he's relieved. He sees purpose in seeing joy and relationships develop when Takara is there because he sees it as a demonstration of sorts. Him learning what it takes to try to make a world worth living in...which is ultimately what he plans to do.

If you want to know anything more specific, do let me know! Thanks for the ask uvu

[the-daiz]

heyyy i know drive knight is definitely hard to write about, but.. do you think you could write something about him slowly gaining feelings for the reader? i think itd be really cute (assuming hes maybe a cyborg like genos)

Drive knight, falling inlove?

Genre; fluff, hcs

Pairing: Drive knight x reader

side note; Hi Anonn, I didn’t expect my first ask for opm to be about drive knight tbh. Drive is definitely a complicated ask,, also there isn’t a single fic about him damn. Anyhow, you ask and you shall receive!

also this is longer than expected

Drive knight is an interesting and mysterious character. There really isn’t much information about him I can go off of.

Because he has the same core thing Genos has, i’m going to assume he’s a cyborg for the sake of this fic.

Drive is cold and does not care for much, he is simply focused on his own goals. The well being of others doesn’t concern him, hero or civilian.

So it was new when you caught his eye. It was probably your intelligence and calculated skills that piqued his interest in you at first. Your logic-oriented approach to things, and even your resourcefulness made him want to learn more about you. He figured your abstract knowledge and talent could aid him in his own objectives.

He observes you for awhile. Not in a weird or stalkerish way, simply just watching you whenever the both of you so happened to be in the same space together. He silently absorbs every word you say and every action or move you take. It’s not obvious at all, actually.

When he finds that he wants to learn even more about you or maybe he thinks you have information that maybe of use to him, He’ll start engaging in conversations with you, in a very tactical manner though. Most of the time He’ll interrogate you about information or discuss theories he has. The convos are often emotionless and very straight to the point.

solely from these interactions, and the fact he does not reciprocate any type of greeting or pleasantries, you’ll likely be intimidated by him.

moving on,

It all starts when Drive knight has some new theory he thinks you might able to help him delve deeper into. When he goes up to you with his usual monotoned call for your name, which is his way of greeting people, you assumed, and his gaze falls onto a patched up area on the whole of your lower arm. He feels something in him shift slightly and he asks you about it, before he even starts talking about his theories. It honestly caught you off guard . You tell him that you dropped some hot oil on your arm while cooking and burned yourself but it was no big deal.

he stays silent for a few moments, his one mechanical eye leering down at you, then he simply tells you that you should be more careful, and sustaining a hindering wound while doing such a mundane task is un-exemplary. You weren’t sure if he was worried or disappointed in you…?

then he quickly switches the topic to what he originally came to discuss.

Afterwards, Drive knight thinks back to that interaction and confusion settles in him. He didn’t know why he was eager to know what had happened to you, and why he even advised you to be careful… He brushes it off.

it was when he starts picking up, and I mean actually noticing other things about you, that he starts to grow truly perplexed. The way you walked, sipped your tea, brushed off the creases in your outfit and straightened your back whenever someone approached you, and many other subtle characteristics he picked up on, lingered in the back of his mind.

he started appreciating you, and those subtle acts of yours. He enjoyed how human you were.

Again, however, he ignored that little nagging voice in his head.

Subconsciously, he started doing things out of character of him. He started greeting you with a ‘hello’, which he never did, and even mutely acknowledged your presence with a curt nod even if he didn’t want anything from you at that time.

his core starts to warm up slightly when he’s speaking to you, and sometimes he gets lost in your eyes or even just your features when you’re speaking. He starts occasionally feeling worried about you, or might randomly start to wonder what you’re currently doing.

Of course, when he starts to act more warmly to you, you start seeking him out yourself, maybe just for advice or discuss your own theories or even just to tell him something random that happened to you.

When he finally realizes that his feelings towards you were romantic, he’s in conflict with himself. Does he just have to live with these feelings, at least, until they diminish and satisfy them with the small interactions you have? Would they distract him from ultimate ambition? Would his feelings grow to the point a mere exchange of words with you here or there might not satisfy him?

Thankfully, the feelings he has toward you rarely ever distract him. Even though you do cross his mind every now and then, it’s nothing too intense or he couldn’t push away.

He still prioritizes his goal above everything else.

He would start to view his feelings for you as simply another variable to account for. Maybe not positively at first. He starts analyzing you from a distance, trying to figure out why you make him feel the way he does.

after awhile of trying to grapple his emotions, he just comes to the conclusion that this was just a part of human connections, and if he wanted to live amongst them, he must learn to adapt to this.

After a very long while, he’ll confess. He’s very matter-of-factly about it, too. “Through my observations, I have determined that I hold a special interest in you. I would like to pursue further understanding of this dynamic.” And yada yada.

when you reciprocate his feelings, he feels something being lifted off his chest, something he didn’t even know was there.

how he acts in your relationship… very professional? He’s not affectionate, not physically or verbally, doesn’t really have a label for you either. He won’t call you his partner, boyfriend/girlfriend. You’re just Y/n to him, someone Maybe if you probe him about it, he’ll refer to you as his significant other.

his love language is acts of service,

his protectiveness over you would likely increase after you’ve made it “official”. In a very strategic way. He’ll analyze the threat then neutralize it as quickly and efficiently as possible before you’re even aware of any danger. And this also counts for unserious dangers.

ex: the eggs had run out but you were planning to have eggs for breakfast. Drive will quickly buy you some eggs and put them in the fridge before you even notice.

He would also improve your living conditions by installing Security systems, or fixing any type of mechanical/electronical issue.

he also gives you gifts that are more efficient than they are sentimental. Probably something that would personally help you or make your life easier.

Doesn’t complement you much on his own. If you ask if he likes your outfit or you if you look good, he’ll say yes (or answer honestly), really doesn’t go further than that.

Kissing… he can’t kiss you obviously, but you can kiss him. He doesn’t mind when or if you kiss him, he actually kind of likes it.

Won’t seek out sensual intimacy with you but will reciprocate it, rather awkwardly, if you offer it. (Ex: holding hands, hugging, cuddling, possibly.)

He generally just loves having conversations with you, whether they’re tactical or just random talks about anything.

[vajazzly]

thinking some thoughts about lily and sirius besties......

bc i think lily when she was young was very .... hmm not necessarily very confident in herself, i think her lasting friendship with severus really was bringing her down, being in such a manipulative friendship, and like, she has a hard time even really accepting that james has feelings for her even though it was probably fairly obvious - and i think a large part of her not accepting his feelings or even believing they were real was because he was a pureblood, and popular, loud, etc. like, the marauders in general are kind of intimidating from the outside - incredibly close, fairly well known around school, reckless - and snape had instilled in her for years that she was lesser than for being muggleborn and that the marauders were scary bullies because they stood up to snapes blood supremacy. he literally isolated her from who shouldve been her friends (in her year and house) because they were mean to him FOR VERY GOOD REASONS.

and then of course lily has enough of snape and friend-dumps him, and realizes slowly that like - the marauders arent actually these scary bullies, and of course theyve matured a lot as well, and i think at that point she had figured out that remus really was a werewolf and that all of those boys she thought were so mean were PROTECTING him! and of course sirius is intimidating to her - hes from a notoriously conservative pureblood family, hes effortlessly talented, he does not give a fuck about anything or anyone unless he (rarely) decides to, he sort of maybe tried to kill snape that one time - but hes also like, actually really sweet, as she finds out, and she can talk to him about her problems with her sister because he GETS it, and it turns out yes he WOULD like her to put some eyeliner on him, thank you very much, and he'll listen to muggle music with her in silence for HOURS, and even though hes a pureblood he doesnt think any less of her for being muggleborn, in fact he thinks its SO COOL that she knows how to use the train and the telephone and would she teach him to drive?

and for him like. he really wants to like lily because james obviously likes her SO MUCH, but hes so wary because shes friends with snape, until she dumps snapes greasy ass and starts standing up for herself, and of course he knew she was smart but oh my GOD shes clever, and interesting, and she knows all this cool muggle stuff and doesnt think its weird that he wants to try on her skirts or learn how to do his makeup because if freddie mercury and bowie are doing it then why cant he, and quickly he realizes that lily isnt someone who sympathizes with blood supremacy to protect herself like he thought - shes just someone with the same kind of intense loyalty he has with his own friends, just directed for a long time at the wrong person.

like their friendship is SO sweet, and i think kind of healing for both of them, because sirius is so afraid that hes subconsciously absorbed all of those awful blood supremacist things he was taught and so much wants to learn about the muggle world, and lily is working through all of the self-hatred snape instilled in her for being muggleborn, and they both have difficult relationships with their families that most of their friends cant really relate to. and they can sit around and giggle about boys and do their makeup and listen to muggle records and learn from each other and god theyre just so sweet!!!

[darkboysroadtrip]

Oh of course the six year old can't drive what was i thinking? It should definitely be the ten year old instead - 👽

"I - I really shouldn't, sides I'm probably not tall enough to get the pedals either."

"Ahem" Logan gets their attention "I may be younger than you Patton but I do have a higher than normal reading level than most my age and I theo- theoretically know how to drive as well as road laws."

Everyone is staring at her.

"What?" She says flatly trying not to show emotion in her voice, but her cat ears flattens to show her discomfort.

"How would you have learned that?" Dee asks.

"Oh well, the orphanage doesn't have that many books available so I sometimes look around the offices for anything new I could read, I've read some drivers manuals."

"And you understand them??" Roman asks incredulously.

Logan's ears perk back up and she has a small smile on "oh yes! They were made for people to learn how to drive and the laws of roads, they are not that hard to understand."

"I feel like she's too smart for this group" Remus leans over to Roman to stage whisper, Roman snickers.

Logan's smile vanishes and her ears go back down, she shifts uncomfortably before putting a neutral expression back on.

Patton bounces over to her noticing her discomfort, he puts an arm around her shoulders "wow Lolo! You're so clever and cool! Can you teach me about car stuff?"

She hesitates for a second absorbing what Patton just said, a blush forms and she stutters out "of-of course I can Patton."

"Woah hey wait!" Remus shouts "me too me too I wanna know how ta drive!"

"It would be fun" Roman muses.

"If anyone can teach these dummies it'll be Logan" Dee remarks.

Virgil nods in agreement but voices his concern "I don't think it's a good idea to actually drive though..."

"How else would we get out of the forest, we needta driiiive!" Remus pushes.

Everyone looks towards Logan.

"Um. It wouldn't be the safest for any one of us to drive, but it also wouldn't be safe to just walk around..." She grabs her tail, petting it as she starts to think.

The others wait.

"Maybe..." She starts but then adds "no, maybe not..."

"What?" Remus asks "whatever it is we can do it! I'll do whatever you want me to!"

Logan's ears swivel up pointing their direction to Remus.

"Whatever I want? You'll listen to anything I say to do?"

"Aahennnnneeeeeethiiiiing!" Remus pleads, he's on his knees.

"Okay" Logan decides "class is in session."

"Class is what now" Remus slumps.

[swolesome]

What's your favorite film about fathers and sons?

Since so much of your content is about masculinity and how we learn about it, I wanted to see if you had any thoughts or examples from pop culture that explored that relationship. (And obviously, it doesn't need to have a "father" or a "son", but somehow connected to cultural ideas of masculinity.)

For me, I've always loved grifting stories, so Catch Me If You Can is an all-time fave. I love watching Frank Abagnale Jr as a mindful student of his world up until the moments when he needs to perform inside of it.

And ultimately, having to "perform" masculinity is an overwhelming prospect. It's so stressful and exhausting that, eventually, Frank realizes it's not even worth financial security or prestige.

When we meet Frank's dad, he's telling a story at the rotary club about "two little mice" falling into a bucket of cream, frantically flailing for life until they churn it into butter.

Later, while pretending to be a doctor with a law degree, Frank tells that same story to his prospective in-laws. It moves them so much, they don't hesitate to give permission to marry their daughter. It also creates the image of an impossibly hard-working man that Frank will have to spend the rest of his married life trying to prove.

It's not until we see Frank catching up with his dad at a diner that we see how much this has been tearing him apart. After learning his father has fallen into a secure, yet boring, mail job and is no longer pursuing his ex-wife, Frank begs his dad to "Tell me to stop". The performance is causing him too much stress and, ultimately, isn't worth the financial and familial security of maintaining the grift.

On the other side, we have Carl Hanratty, an FBI agent who couldn't care less about performing for others. When in a car with two other agents, Hanratty doesn't laugh at one of the other agents' lewd stories. Annoyed, he asks why Hanratty never laughs, so Hanratty asks if they want to hear a joke. When they say, "Yeah," he sets up a "knock knock" joke only to reply, "Go fuck yourselves." He's not interested in performing for other people, even the masculine tradition of telling off-color jokes.

By the end of the movie, Frank has a closer relationship to Hanratty than his own father, and the main reason is that Hanratty wants Frank to be himself. Sure, that means letting himself be arrested and confessing to his crimes. But it also means letting himself be vulnerable: to let himself be arrested instead of shot down, to share his secret about passing the Louisiana Bar exam, and to help others instead of just himself. It's such a strong motivation that Hanratty lets Frank get on a plane, breaking his parole, and says he trusts him to come back to work.

So yeah, watching his father perform masculinity left such a strong impression he let it absorb his entire life to the point that he became an internationally wanted criminal.

(FYI I don't know how Tumblr works; i just started using it and don't know if this will show up on my feed, like a post, or will be direct messaged, so this is me trying to learn this system as much as anything else; thank you for your time.)

I absolutely love this question, and your example, as well. This is something I've thought a fair amount about (I actually have a video on fatherhood in media planned for the future!), and I have a whole handful of answers, but I'm going to go with the first one that jumped to mind:

How to Train Your Dragon is definitely up there for me. I really appreciate the way it tackles patriarchy in a sort of... non-judgmental light while highlighting the problems with it, if that makes sense? It's not framed as "Clearly this traditional, combative Viking (masculine) way is bad and terrible and destructive and shameful", but rather based around fear of the unknown and the drive to protect one's own. For that reason, it's understandably glorified, even in its violence, because that violence is seen as serving an essential purpose.

Hiccup and Stoick's relationship is so fascinating to me, because it's clear there's love between them, but the fact that they have nothing in common means the relationship begins and ends at familial, there's no friendship or connection beyond that. You don't get the sense that Stoick is disgusted by Hiccup's poor masculine performance so much as worried about his ability to stay safe and fit in. I'm not going to go so far as to say he's not embarrassed by his son's eccentricity, even Hiccup calls it out that his dad wanted a son who's all power and glory, but Stoick never says that himself, he more just laments Hiccup being different. Stoick's own words point more at apprehensiveness where his son's safety and social future is concerned, as well as frustration about how to raise him. He talks about his own boyhood, his father telling him to bang his head against a rock and doing so without question, the way he was taught that being a Viking (man) means power, ruthlessness, and following orders--how he embodied that as a boy... and Hiccup doesn't. For me, this reads less as him being ashamed of his son and more as him simply not knowing what to do because the blueprints he was given are useless. We even find out he's tried typical father-son bonding activities, but Hiccup's nature always means they deviate from the plan and he's left at a loss again.

That Stoick feels this way is really driven home when he finds out that Hiccup is a natural born "dragon slayer", his love for his son is so obvious here when he says "We finally have something to talk about," and is downright giddy over the opportunity to connect with him. But that promptly falls back into their usual distance and awkwardness, because the problem of Hiccup pretending to be someone he's not hasn't been solved; he's just gotten more skilled at lying.

When Hiccup eventually does try to show his dad his truth, Stoick isn't ready for it. Eccentric deviation from the norm is one thing, but he's gone so far off course that it poses a much larger threat, welcoming in the Dangerous Other they've been at war with. Because of this, Hiccup isn't just confronting his dad with his own truth, he's confronting his dad with the fact that he, Stoick, was misled. That his entire worldview of what it is to be a Viking (MAN) is based on fear and misunderstandings rather than an accurate assessment of the world.

So he does what that misinformed framework taught him to do in the face of opposition. He lashes out, doubles down, and refuses to communicate and engage with the fact that maybe he's just wrong. He fights. Again, this comes from that protective impulse, but we begin to see where it becomes internally destructive in addition to its external destruction; it's been paired with the fear of fallibility and a threat to the status quo.

What a love so much about Stoick realizing his mistake is that before anything else, this rock-headbutting, skull-crushing pinnacle of manhood apologizes. He apologizes and he verbally acknowledges his son's autonomy. After the grand finale, he recognizes that it's his son's differences that not only make him wonderful, but were the key to solving an ongoing problem of violence and suffering. "Turns out all we needed was a little more of this." "You just gestured to all of me." The call back on that one is just *chef's kiss* The Old Way was one of defensiveness and mistrust, and The New one of empathy and understanding. I love the way this message is given, and the way it highlights how guidance in growth is a gift children can give to their parents, as well, when given the space to do so.

[nostalgebraist]

Eliezer Yudkowsky seems really depressed these days.

Is he, like, okay?

There was this change, sometime around the "Late 2021 MIRI Conversations.” It's visible in those dialogues and all his more recent output.

The change does not seem to consist in him changing his mind about anything, in the usual sense.  Some of his "higher-level" opinions have changed -- I don't think he used to be as critical of literally all existing alignment research -- but in a way that he struggles to explain in terms of specific, lower-level facts and mechanisms and arguments.

It doesn't look as though he noticed a worrying trend, or devised a worrying argument, and became full of despair as a result.  It looks like he just Became Full of Despair, as an atomic action.

And now he has this deep, intuitive sense that his brand of despair is deeply correct, true, fundamental, simply The Way The World Works  -- a sense that is beyond his power to transmit in words to anyone who does not already hear the same song ringing deep in their own mind.

The earlier “MIRI conversations” are full of lamentations that he cannot convey, or does not have the energy left to convey, the special thing(s) he knows, the ones no one else gets, which would drive you to Despair too, if only you could be shown:

In particular [...] I also have a model in which people think "why not just build an AI which does X but not Y?" because they don't realize what X and Y have in common, which is something that draws deeply on having deep models of intelligence. And it is hard to convey this deep theoretical grasp.

[...] past experience has led me to believe that conveying [”my intuitions about how cognition works”] in a form that the Other Mind will actually absorb and operate, is really quite hard and takes a long discussion, relative to my current abilities to Actually Explain things [...] (source) I don't know what homework exercises to give people to make them able to see "consequentialism" all over the place, instead of inventing slightly new forms of consequentialist cognition and going "Well, now that isn't consequentialism, right?" (source)

I think that to contain the concept of Utility as it exists in me, you would have to do homework exercises I don't know how to prescribe. (source)

I just... don't know what to do when people talk like this. [...] This just - isn't how to understand reality. [...] This isn't sane.  (source)

Some of my current thoughts are a reiteration of old despair: It feels to me like the typical Other within EA has no experience with discovering unexpected order, with operating a generalization that you can expect will cover new cases even when that isn't immediately obvious [...]  They have no experience operating genuinely useful, genuinely deep generalizations that extend to nonobvious things. [...]  So trying to convey the real source of the knowledge feels doomed. It's a kind of idea that our civilization has lost, like that college class Feynman ran into. (source)

And empirically, it has already been shown to me that I do not have the power to break people out of the hypnosis of nodding along with Hansonian arguments, even by writing much longer essays than this. [...] Reality just... doesn't work like this on some deep level. [...] There is a set of intuitive generalizations from experience which rules that out, which I do not know how to convey.  [...] But this, I empirically do not seem to know how to convey to people, in advance of the inevitable and predictable contradiction by a reality which is not as fond of Hansonian dynamics as Hanson. [...]

And then there is another essay in 3 months. There is an infinite well of them. I would have to teach people to stop drinking from the well, instead of trying to whack them on the back until they cough up the drinks one by one, or actually, whacking them on the back and then they don't cough them up until reality contradicts them, and then a third of them notice that and cough something up, and then they don't learn the general lesson and go back to the well and drink again. And I don't know how to teach people to stop drinking from the well. I tried to teach that. I failed. If I wrote another Sequence I have no idea to believe that Sequence would work.

So what EAs will believe at the end of the world, will look like whatever the content was of the latest bucket from the well of infinite slow-takeoff arguments that hasn't yet been blatantly-even-to-them refuted by all the sharp jagged rapidly-generalizing things that happened along the way to the world's end.

And I know, before anyone bothers to say, that all of this reply is not written in the calm way that is right and proper for such arguments. I am tired. I have lost a lot of hope. There are not obvious things I can do, let alone arguments I can make, which I expect to be actually useful in the sense that the world will not end once I do them. I don't have the energy left for calm arguments. What's left is despair that can be given voice. (source)

And like, sure, he’s always kind of talked like this, about how no one understands AI risk like he does, and that’s why they aren’t scared like he is.

But that’s just the thing -- he has held something like this set of positions, and something like this role in relation to the broader “AI conversation,” for well over a decade.  And yet he was not like this until very recently, until the change.

I could take him at his word, and suppose that a straw simply broke the camel’s back.  That there was some specific number N such that he could beat this drum for N years but not N+1, some number M such that he could write M blog posts trying to explain the same thing but give up before writing the (M+1)st.  Maybe that is true.

But it does seem noteworthy how the change happened so suddenly; how it did not seem driven by any particular set of events in the outside world; how it did not result in a simple sigh and the words “I’m tired of explaining,” but instead in a stream of posts and “conversations” attempting to communicate some new, dark view about the utter inexorability of utter failure, which even his closest colleagues struggle in vain to grasp on an intellectual level.  How he now sounds like my own inner monologue does in spells of depression, when he never did before, not in all those 15-odd years of Cassandrahood.

I know "Yudkowsky critic" is supposed to be part of my online "brand," or something, or at least it was a decade ago, but in all seriousness -- I hope the guy is all right, and I hope there are people close to him who would be able to notice and help if he weren't.

I also hope that his recent writing doesn't send a bunch of other people spiraling into despair, beyond what would be licensed by its capacity to rationally persuade them of some despair-inducing set of conclusions.  And if it does send some people into despair simply via its depressive tone, or because they think "a guy I respect is panicking, so I should panic too," then I hope they can find their way back out swiftly.

[spinji]

Quirkless AU where all of the villains are twitch streamers:

Shigaraki has a big following but is infamously hated, including by his own fans.

He gets trolled constantly and donation comments are almost always to mock him.

Because his reactions when he gets riled up (which is not hard) are pure gold.

Fail and rage compilations abound.

He mostly plays RPGs but occasionally gets tricked into playing horror games like DDLC.

He hates getting scared but refuses to stop until he finishes the game just to stick it to whoever recommended it.

Kurogiri will constantly walk into his room to check on him and ask things.

He hates that too.

Not because of Kurogiri inquiring if he wants some piping hot pizza rolls, mind you.

But because his chat will never shut the fuck up whenever Kurogiri peers into frame.

They call him Shadow Man because the shitty lighting in Tomura’s room makes it impossible to make out his features.

He eventually needs to cave and make a Kurogiri emote just so everyone stops donating just to say “are you winning son?” or “get the fuck out of my room I’m playing Minecraft”.

They still do it, even when they promised they wouldn’t if he made the emote.

Kurogiri eventually takes up streaming too, just for fun.

He goes live very rarely but most of Shig’s audience starts following him the moment they find out.

He’s usually very quiet and pretty much only plays tactical games.

Yet he gets more positive reception than Tomura.

He doesn’t have a webcam though, so his face is still a mystery.

Toga is a classic, unhinged e-girl.

Does her makeup before every stream, has a cute as fuck room, and a cat ear headset.

Only plays the most violent shit ever published.

Mortal Kombat, Hatred, the works.

If it’s gotten banned from Twitch for violence/gore she has still tried to play it live.

She has a merch line of pastel animal patterns, but the animals are all bloody, mangled corpses.

People love it anyway so whateves.

Absolutely sold gamer girl bathwater and she is making bank.

Easily the most popular out of the whole league.

Dabi is an overachiever fuckwit.

All of his streams are speedrun records, soulsborne games, or those old flash rage games that were specifically designed to be impossible or unfair.

The difficulty never fucking fazes him, and everything he does is impressive but he’s so calm and smug about it that it’s actually kind of infuriating to see him play so well.

In earlier archives you can occasionally hear Enji yelling at Shoto or Natsu in the background and he just lets out an annoyed sigh.

In his current streams, Hawks will occasionally saunter by the camera in just a tanktop and boxers, looking like a fucking mess.

It always results in a chorus of fried chicken emojis from chat.

Dabi never acknowledges it.

Twice plays just about anything. He gives no shit about what games are well reviewed or brand new.

He will pick up a mediocre licensed game from 2006 and it’s the best.

He just fucks around and has a good time.

Tends to start and end his streams very abruptly, catching one live is hard and very sought after by his fans.

He has a soundboard and spams it constantly.

He and Toga collab for silly co-op games a lot.

It’s the only time you can find Toga playing games that aren’t gory.

Spinner plays almost exclusively driving games.

Claims that these games are how he learned how to drive IRL.

He’s oddly proud of it when he really shouldn't be.

He’s also very passionate when it comes to his opinions on said games.

Gets really pissed if you even insinuate that every Forza game is exactly the same.

So of course he gets shit disturbers in his chat who do exactly that.

He goes on a rant and blocks them immediately.

He and every other league member has played the FNAF games.

Shigaraki is the only one that doesn’t love it.

Spinner specifically gets absorbed in the lore.

Maybe a little too much.

Compress is a V-tuber instead of using a standard webcam setup.

He has the most distinct persona separate from his regular personality.

His reactions to things are always so over the top and odd that you can’t help but enjoy it.

About a year into gaining a following, he started constructing a really convoluted lore around his character.

His fans love it and he’s constantly receiving fanart and watching theory videos about himself in his downtime.

It gives him a good chuckle.

Stain is still a creepy mother fucker.

He’s always rambling about purges and the blood of the weak.

But he’s weirdly really good at rhythm games??

He flips out if he misses a single note.

Most people only watch him out of morbid curiosity.

Any laugh you get from watching him is an uncomfortable one.

Overhaul is the one that seems like the most normal person.

At least among this weird group of loosely acquainted fuckwads.

He doesn’t have particularly strong reactions.

He plays most of the new critically acclaimed games and gives his thoughts on them.

The more interesting thing is his community.

That is absolutely convinced he is a serial killer.

There is a subreddit entirely dedicated to collecting evidence to support this theory.

Random banging noises caught on his mic.

Shadows of people out of frame even though he claims to live alone.

One time he needed to end a stream abruptly and didn’t say why and they went nuts over it.

Chisaki eventually needed to make a public statement to address the rumors.

No one fucking believed him.

Exposed videos are still trickling out to this day.

Gentle is mostly an IRL streamer.

A bad one at that.

But he sometimes shakes things up by playing solitaire on stream.

He has 12 followers.

La Brava is currently minting Gentle NFTs

[ladyartemesia]

TEASER: Kim Seokjin and the Mean Omega

Pairing: Nerd Alpha Kim Seokjin x Popular Omega Reader

Genre: A/B/O • Enemies to Lovers • (Sorta) College AU • Best Friend's Brother AU (Who is surprised? No one?)

Teaser Word Count: 3.6K

Teaser Warnings: A/B/O sexual dynamics • suggestive content

Rating: Explicit (18+) (Teaser is PG-13)

Summary: In the modern world, alphas are almost unheard of so why even bother learning about them? After all, as a spoiled (but reasonably kind-hearted) omega who is used to getting whatever she wants, you have better things to do. However, when unexpected circumstances throw you in the path of (extremely) nerdy and (probably?) shy Kim Seokjin, you're shocked to discover that he won't be wrapped around your little finger as easily as all the rest. Bringing that infuriating geek to his knees quickly becomes your personal mission in life... But it turns out that Kim Seokjin is not what he appears to be and the mean omega who eats beta boys for breakfast is about to get way more than she bargained for...

Author’s Note: This story would not be here without the love, support and friendship of my incredible support system. You talk with me, you laugh with me, you listen when I’m crying, and you read my chaotic drafts when I am ready to pull my hair out of my head in frustration. I love you all. @ppersonna @xjoonchildx @untaemedqueen @lemonjoonah. ALSO thank you to each and every one of you who encouraged me to post this story. This fic is dedicated to all of you as a token of my love and appreciation. Your support keeps me writing. Never doubt that for a second.

“...due to discriminatory anti-alpha policies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, alphas were nearly eliminated from the general population…”

You heaved a weary sigh and rolled your shoulders—stretching the buttons of your high-end Oxford shirt to their limit. The beta sophomore to your right whined audibly and you smirked.

“...despite efforts to restore the genetic balance of designations, alphas currently comprise less than one percent of the population…”

Your back arched slightly as you crossed your legs, letting the absurdly short hem of your skirt ride up even higher. The poor boy you were tormenting shifted miserably in his seat.

How was he supposed to focus on a Human Biology and Designation Studies lecture when the living breathing embodiment of every sweaty undergrad’s fantasies was twisting her fingers in her hair and wrapping her pretty pink tongue around a strawberry lollipop right there in the middle of class?

“...unlike betas and omegas, alphas possess enhanced strength and the ability to compel other designations with their voice. Unmated alphas especially were often baselessly feared and distrusted...”

You knew exactly how you affected boys like him. You were a shameless tease who relished their attention and the power it brought you. Who needed drugs when driving a man mad with desire was a rush more potent than any high?

“...and that’s all for today so please read pages 450-466 in the text over break and remember to turn in your essay on scent and consent in intimacy—”

That poor sophomore looked like he had finally worked up the courage to speak to you, but you were already out the door and tearing down the hall toward your beautiful (and entirely platonic) counterpart, Kim Taehyung.

“Do you think Professor Moore is unaware that class is over at 3:25 or is he just torturing us for science?”

Taehyung shrugged, falling into step beside you with practiced ease.

“I mean I would torture you for free so it’s hard to say.”

The corner of your mouth quirked up at his characteristic dry humor, but the irritation at being held in that sweltering lecture hall for an extra ten minutes had frayed your temper.

“It’s the last class before spring break, I’m sure he was on some sort of twisted power trip.” You dug around in your purse for some chapstick, ignoring Tae’s amused snorting, “Alphas barely exist anymore and none of us are likely to meet one. Why bother learning what they can do?”

Taehyung tilted his head in amusement.

“You might be surprised.”

The final party before the beginning of spring break was always a laid back affair.

Many people had already caught planes to their various destinations, but your flight was scheduled for early tomorrow morning—leaving you with some time to kill.

Taehyung pressed his newest experimental concoction into your hand within minutes of entering the house (a surprisingly neat bachelor pad owned by two seniors, Jung Hoseok and Min Yoongi) and then darted back to the kitchen to craft more questionable alcohol potions like a deranged party warlock.

You had just found a comfortable place on the couch and were contemplating whether sampling your best friend’s mad scientist elixir would be worth the probable damage to your body when—

“H-Hello...”

It was that sophomore from your Designations Studies class. What was his name again? Jungwoo? Jinwook?

“Jungkook,” you smiled, delighted to have remembered before it became awkward. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

You motioned to the empty cushion next to you and the man in question scrambled over like he’d won the lottery.

“I—I know we don’t know each other well, but I noticed you were absent during Professor Moore’s lecture on intimacy and scent consent so I—” he blushed deeply, “I wrote the essay for you—and I brought a copy on my flash drive if-if you want it.”

Your heart melted immediately.

“Oh my gosh Jungkook, that is so sweet of you!”

Your gaze darted over his muscular form and thick brown curls.

Sweet indeed.

“I don’t want to miss out on the learning though,” you pouted, placing a hand on his tattooed bicep. “Can you explain it to me?”

Jungkook nodded vigorously even as his wide eyes fell to where your fingers were sliding slowly over his chest.

Scent consent was a pretty basic and universally known concept, but you really were touched by the handsome sophomore's consideration.

Why not give him (and yourself) a little reward?

“Um so basically if two people are involved in...intimate activities—”

You leaned forward to nip his ear lightly and he whimpered.

“Like this?” you asked innocently.

“Y-Yes. Like that.” He gulped. “In an intimate situation consent or refusal can be smelled. The scent of refusal or reluctance in intimacy is strong, unmistakable, and has a high chemical potency.”

“Is that so?” you drawled, sliding over onto his lap. Jungkook’s eyes rolled back into his head and you bit back a grin.

He was adorable.

“Uh-huh—it—oh my gawd,” (you were nibbling on his ear again) “it can immediately block sexual arousal and performance in the other partner. Meaning, if consent is not present, then it becomes difficult or—ahh” (his voice began to waver under your continued attention) “—or even impossible to continue with intimate acts.”

Your hand slid up to his cheek, bringing him closer till your lips were almost touching.

“Then what does it mean if I’m still so turned on right now?”

“It means,” Jungkook shuddered—nearly delirious with your scent, “that I really really want you.”

Across the room, Park Jimin chuckled as he watched you seduce his enthusiastic friend.

Jeon Jungkook was such a sweet kid.

Hopefully he wouldn’t get too attached.

“Wow... Some people are genuinely born blessed I suppose.”

Jimin turned to see Jung Hoseok eyeing the dimly lit corner where you and the eager young sophomore were exploring each other.

It was a rather...provocative spectacle. Not quite raunchy (you weren’t truly an exhibitionist)—just insanely sexy.

Jimin’s gaze lingered on the smooth curve of your thigh where Jeon Jungkook was currently holding on for dear life.

Lucky bastard.

“Ah you know how she is,” he sighed. “That boy isn’t going to get any farther than anyone else.”

It was relatively common knowledge that you liked to mess around but rarely—if ever— fully hooked up with anyone.

Jimin asked you about it once during a drunken game of truth or dare and you had just shrugged, mumbling something along the lines of avoiding STDs (which—to be fair—was at least part of your motivation), but the truth was a little more complicated than that.

In terms of experience, you weren’t a virgin, but... you hadn’t actually had sex in years.

You loved the chase, the foreplay, the build-up—the game of cat-and-mouse between two people who were attracted to one another.

But the final consummation was always so…

Wildly unfulfilling.

Every encounter left you frustrated. Empty.

Grumpy—even.

So you stopped bothering with it all together. (That was what sex toys were for after all.)

At the end of the day you were perfectly content being labeled a tease—it meant that people tended to know what they were (or rather weren’t) getting into when they rolled the dice with you.

Besides…it hadn’t even put a dent in your throng of admirers.

You were sunny, spoiled, indulgent, almost universally adored—

And you loved every minute of it.

“You know…” Hoseok took a long sip of his drink. “I always thought she would end up with Taehyung, but it’s been three years.”

Like you, Kim Taehyung was a trust fund brat and it was only natural that two beautiful and absurdly privileged people would gravitate to one another. You met at a freshman pledge party and had been an inseparable (and formidable) dynamic duo ever since.

The undisputed king and queen of campus.

Yes—maybe the two of you were a little self-absorbed at times, but it was hardly your fault that people tended to instinctively cater to the force of your combined looks, wealth, and charisma.

And it didn’t hurt that neither of you were ever intentionally cruel or unkind.

Just... habitually thoughtless.

(Though not when it came to each other. If anything your friendship was one area where you were both a little more human.)

Jimin shook his head.

“Nah that’s never gonna happen.” He tapped his nose. “They’re scent-crossed.”

Hoseok’s eyes widened.

“Really?”

Scent-crossed pairs didn’t smell sexually attractive to each other.

Like. At all.

No matter how physically or visually appealing an individual might be, it would be near impossible to form a sexual or romantic attachment to them if you were scent-crossed. Alphas, betas, and omegas were all subject to their noses first and foremost in the realm of attraction.

You and Taehyung smelled like comfort and home to one another...

But you were more turned on by a crisp cup of apple juice than you were his scent and the feeling was quite mutual.

He might as well have been your actual brother.

“That explains so much.” Hoseok snorted as he watched a drunken Taehyung do a flying leap on top of both you and Jungkook.

“Why is sunlight so offensive?” you croaked, dragging yourself and your luggage toward the boarding ramp next to an equally miserable Taehyung.

“The next time I book a flight before 9 AM, please shoot me,” he grunted.

Your parents were celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with a month-long European cruise so your best friend had graciously invited you to spend two glorious weeks of spring vacation at his family estate.

The invitation had actually come as somewhat of a surprise because—for all your closeness—Taehyung was uncharacteristically tight-lipped about his family.

Not that he was deliberately withholding information per se… It was just that he never really brought them up beyond an occasional passing comment.

The one time you did ask him about them directly he sighed and said—

“We’re very close, but… I suppose we’ve just gotten used to being very private.”

There was clearly more to the story, but you were confident that Tae would share it if and when he was ready.

“My parents are in Seoul opening a new branch of the company. They took my little sister with them and my older brother has his own house so it will be just us.” He snuggled deeper into the first class seat directly next to yours. “We’ll hang out by the pool and chill during the day, then hit up some of the new clubs or whatever at night.”

“So… No one from your family will be there?”

Perhaps the invitation was not so surprising after all.

“Nope. Just you and me and thirty acres of ocean front property.”

You grinned.

“Perfect.”

“Whose room is that?”

The two of you were lugging your bags down the main hall of Taehyung’s expansive mansion when a strange hint of...something caught you right by the nose.

Your friend turned to find you frozen and staring curiously at a familiar door near the balcony.

His eyes widened, but you were too preoccupied to notice his momentary concern.

“That’s just Jin’s room.”

A firm hand wrapped around your wrist and dragged you away, but your eyes stayed glued to the source of the mysterious scent until you were around the corner and out of sight.

Your suite for the next two weeks was right across the hall from Taehyung’s. There was a whirlpool, a full bath, a balcony, and an ocean view that would rival the cover spread of any travel magazine.

Tae headed for the shower (to ‘wash the airplane off’) immediately after showing you the room and you were thinking of doing the same except…

Your mind kept going back to that door and the hint of scent you detected.

There was something… different about it.

It was faint—and far from fresh (which made sense considering that one of the few things you did know about Kim Seokjin was that he hadn’t lived in this house for years).

But still…

The need to smell it again pressed insistently at the back of your mind.

Suddenly the sound of Taehyung singing raunchy lyrics in the shower carried over through the walls and you found your feet moving almost of their own accord.

What Tae doesn’t know won’t hurt him, you rationalized, making your way down the hall toward Jin’s door. Besides—it’s not as if I’m going to steal anything…

You just needed to find that scent again.

By the time your fingers closed over the knob every one of your nerves was strangely—acutely—alert but nothing could have prepared you for what was waiting behind the door.

Oh. My. Gosh.

“What a colossal nerd.”

The room was covered floor to ceiling in Nintendo memorabilia.

Bright primary colors assaulted your eyes from all directions in the form of action figures, posters, pillows, and every other conceivable merch variety known to man.

In the center of the suite stood a large king-sized bed covered in a custom black couture toile-style Mario-verse bed set (that looked every bit as expensive as it was geeky) and a mountain of high quality Nintendo character plush toys.

Everything was simultaneously luxe and nostalgic—a rare combination of sophisticated aesthetic balance and childlike indulgence.

And the scent was there.

It was faint and covered under layers of cleaner and air fresheners, but still lingering just below the surface—too weak for you to get a really good whiff, yet potent enough to torment you.

You moved forward unconsciously toward the strongest source of the hypnotic smell—the strangely inviting expanse of Kim Seokjin’s mattress.

Suddenly the urge to climb—no crawl—across the bed itself and roll around in it like a kitten in catnip gripped you out of nowhere.

“What the hell?” you muttered, rubbing absently over the mating gland at the base of your neck.

Something very odd was going on with your body.

Your restless gaze zeroed in on one of the stuffed toys piled atop his pillows. It was a cute little mushroom man your brain recognized as a Mario character named ‘Toad’.

Take it.

Your mouth dropped open in shock.

You need it.

“Am I going insane?” you wondered aloud.

You have to take it.

Muscles in your hand began to twitch involuntarily. You bit your lip.

Bring it back with you.

Several minutes later a freshly washed Taehyung wandered over to your room and found you sitting perfectly still on your bed while staring off into space.

His head tilted in curious concern.

“Everything ok?”

You started a bit at the sound of his voice, but recovered quickly.

“Never better!” you chirped—almost too brightly. “Let’s go get some dinner, I’m starving.”

Then you grabbed his hand and pulled him down the hall toward the kitchen—shutting the door before he could catch a glimpse of his brother’s stuffed Toad doll stashed underneath your pillow

“...a critical water main rupture in the city’s New Market district early this morning has forced several residents out of their homes as flood water swelled up to nearly two feet. The governor declared a state of emergency and ordered hotels around the city to accommodate the displaced citizens. Crews are still clearing the water and assessing damages. We expect—

“Hey!” you shouted through a mouthful of cereal, after Your best friend switched off the television, “I was watching that!”

“And what you should be doing is getting ready for the pool.” Tae snatched your cereal bowl and dragged you by your shirt collar toward the stairs. “It is the first morning of our vacation. I’m not trying to waste any time. Now go.” He shoved you forward, smacking your ass for good measure.

You swatted back at him half-heartedly as jogged back up to the room where you enjoyed a surprisingly restful sleep last night.

Kim Seokjin’s door glared at you accusingly as you shuffled past—unable to let you forget that you had kidnapped it’s little mushroom man in an unexplained fit of kleptomania, but that was a problem for your future self.

The you of right now was going to zen out in the Kim family's premium glass-enclosed indoor pool (it was still a little chilly for the outdoor pool) with her best friend and bask in the simple joys of good company and no responsibility.

...Or not.

A few minutes later you bounced into the living room wearing a simple black tankini with a cute floral cover only to find Taehyung on the phone with his head in his hands.

“Yes, sir. I understand… I...I know this is my responsibility...”

That didn’t sound good.

After a few more tense moments, Tae hung up and collapsed backward into the couch with a heavy sigh.

“That water main break you heard about on TV this morning was the last straw between the province and its current contractor. They called an emergency meeting for new bids.”

Your heart dropped as you sank down beside him.

“Your dad wants you to go...doesn’t he.”

Taehyung nodded miserably.

“He can’t leave the Seoul opening on such short notice and managing government construction contracts is part of what I’ve been training for. This could be huge for our company.”

“Well...why doesn’t your brother go?”

“Jin is the brains behind most of our patented gaming and tech innovations. He wouldn’t even know where to begin with this sort of thing. Besides,” his lips quirked up in a rueful grin, “my brother doesn’t have the patience to stroke entitled geriatric egos for hours on end—which is likely what I’m going to have to do.”

The two of you headed back to Taehyung’s room where you helped him pack some suits and toiletries for his trip.

Naturally you were disappointed but...this was a great opportunity for your best friend to prove himself in his chosen field and you both knew it. In fact, he was already starting to brighten a bit.

“The meeting is about a hundred miles north of here. My dad’s secretary already handled the flight and hotel room.” His eyes darted around the suite to see if he was forgetting anything.

It was clear he was nervous, though you were sure he didn’t need to be. Kim Taehyung was a trust fund brat, but he was also talented and deeply passionate about his family’s company.

Someday this would be the norm. The two of you were stealing time in college, determined to live a little before the expectations of your powerful families transferred fully onto your shoulders.

It was becoming more and more clear, however, that your carefree time was slowly running out.

Mother had already spoken to you about potential marriage alliances and your father expected you to intern with his Vice President this summer just as your elder sister had...

Taehyung’s voice suddenly interrupted your bittersweet introspection and you couldn’t help but smile at how grown-up he looked in his suit and briefcase ensemble.

Everything was going to change, but not quite yet.

“They estimate negotiations should take around a week or so…” He walked over and pulled you into a tight hug. “There should still be some vacation left for us when I get back.”

“Hurry back then,” you mumbled grumpily into his chest and he chuckled.

“I will.”

Taehyung had been gone for less than twenty minutes when you decided that the best use of your time would be to eat more snacks.

The last thing you expected when you skipped merrily into the kitchen was to find it occupied by a shaggy-haired homeless man in glasses.

Your first instinct was to scream which caused the homeless man to drop the apple he was biting right onto the floor where it rolled around for a small eternity before coming to rest at his ankles.

Your second instinct was to grab a butcher’s cleaver from the nearby knife block and wave it chaotically at the intruder while shouting something along the lines of—

“You’ve made a huge mistake! My boyfriend is the biggest, meanest mafia boss in Seoul! Leave now and he might let you live!”

The homeless man continued to stare at you with a mixture of confusion and shock, but made no move to run away in terror like you were hoping.

So you tried again.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?! The last man who touched me drinks his steak through a straw now! Do the smart thing and leave before my boyfriend comes down those stairs and it’s too late!”

Infuriatingly, the homeless man was still not fleeing for his life and frankly you were starting to get frustrated. You drew in a deep cleansing breath and were prepared to issue another grandiose threat when he finally spoke.

“I’m sorry, miss. I... think there’s been some sort of mistake. Who is your boyfriend?”

There was no rational explanation for what came out of your mouth next, but it rolled off your tongue so smoothly and you didn’t even flinch.

“Kim Seokjin.”

For the first time in your entire exchange, the intruder looked truly alarmed.

Now that’s more like it.

“You’ve heard of him I see. He’s a dangerous man and my body belongs to him.” You slammed the cleaver down onto the countertop with a (hopefully) menacing slash. “Kim Seokjin doesn’t like when other men put their hands on what belongs to him.”

There was a long, unpardonably tense moment of silence…Then the stranger slowly reached forward and picked up a mobile phone from the table in front of him.

His eyes remained locked with yours as he pressed a quick series of buttons, brought the phone to his ear, waited a few seconds and said—

“Taehyung… Would you mind telling me why there is a half-naked, knife-wielding omega in our kitchen claiming to be my girlfriend?”

Hello! Please comment on this post if you would like to be added to the taglist!

You guys were all so wonderful, and encouraging, and excited that I literally got this teaser out in three days! If you like what you read so far, please let me know! I cannot put into words how meaningful and valuable feedback is to me. I truly treasure it! It fuels my creativity and keeps me writing. I would love to hear from you!

[flareish]

Rival

akaashi x reader

summary: you and akaashi are fighting for that #1 class rank. however there is not just a scholarship at stake here but some deeply hidden feelings too

genre: rivals to lovers

word count: 2.1k

warnings: kissing, there is a kinda sexual joke

a/n: ahhh! my first request thank you so much! I haven’t written for akaashi yet but he is so great so I hope this does him justice. Love our pretty setters. 

Rage consumes you. You want to throw Akaashi out of the wall of windows right now. It’s only one test you tell yourself. One test that he managed to scrape in one point higher than you. You got 99% and somehow this idiot gets 100%. Quickly putting your stuff away you try and slip out of class before you he finds out. You would like to avoid his snarky remarks. 

“Oh, that’s a pretty good score.” Too late. Akaashi has appeared from behind you, smugness ran through his sarcastic comment. You compose yourself and bounce right back.

“Thought I’d give you a little something since I’ve been crushing your scores lately.” You fire back. He’s not the only one who can play at this game.

“Careful you might just give the spot away at this point.” That spot being #1 in class rank as well as the hefty academic scholarship that goes with it. The spot you’ve occupied for the past two years and suddenly this guy comes out of nowhere and tries to take it from you, right before it really matters. 

“Haha. Well some of us actually have stuff to do. Have fun playing with your balls.” You walk straight past him and out the class. He held a smug grin the whole time. No matter what you did it never left his face. The amount of insults you’ve thrown at each other and every time it’s you who always gets bested. 

Anger fueling your walk to the point onlookers might think you were exercising, not walking home from school. You make it home in record time. As soon as you’re in your room you immediately start studying. You’ve never had to study this hard before in your life. You don’t mean to sound conceded but academics just kinda came easy to you. Sure, you had your rough patches but you just seemed to absorb information. You didn’t really have many other passions either but your parents always said that could come later right now isn’t for fun and games it is for learning. So learn you did. 

The next day, your teacher had started a new project and decided to assign partners. 

“Akaashi and Y/N. You two will be working together.” What did you do to deserve this? You remain in your seat waiting for him to come over but he never does. You look over and see him still sat there, reclined back in his seat talking with Bokuto who sat behind him. That’s when you realize he is waiting for you to move over there. Cocky bastard. Taking a deep breath, you swallow your pride and move over there.

“Please don’t rush, I would hate for you to strain yourself.” You snap sitting down. “That’s so great you got the hint, I wasn’t planning on getting up. Thank you for being so obedient.” Still wearing that grin. Oh, what you would do to slap it off of his face. You ignore him and start working on the project. He simply resumes his conversation with Bokuto, who never does the projects anyway. Seems like you will be doing this all by yourself. Half of you is tempted to purposefully fail but then it would just hurt your grade too. Although it would be pretty funny to see his face. He ignored you for the rest of the class. Once again you part ways.

When you go home and open your computer to continue working on the project to find that it has been already done. Did he seriously not lift a finger in class just to do a rush job right before his volleyball practice. You roll your eyes before reading through his work. You realize it hadn’t been a rush job at all but was perfect. Now you weren’t sure to be happy he actually did it or pissed that it was better than what you could have done. 

After you’ve cooled down a bit you take a moment to think. Maybe he isn’t as bad as you think. You’ve never taken the time to think about why he is doing this. You just immediately jumped on that he was out to get you. That’s pretty childish now you think about it. Maybe he really needs this academic scholarship so he can go to college. There is no way you can be nice to him but perhaps you could be tolerant. You weren’t giving him that scholarship though. No matter how much he needed it, you did too. 

The next day in class you are determined to stick by your discovery. With it including being nicer to Akaashi. You were talking to your friend when he came into the classroom.

“You’re so loud Y/N I swear I could hear you from across the school.” You don’t say anything just look at him and smile. You almost see his grin falter, you’re not sure if he is surprised or scared at your smile.

“Wow have I finally broken you.” You keep ignoring him. This annoys him and he pokes you. You swat at him and he chuckles before walking off. Your friend laughs at the two of you. The teacher came into the room and everyone quickly settled down and class began. You could feel Akaashi’s stare from across the room but you didn’t dare look at him.

When class ended you are your friend took your time and ended up being the last people in the classroom.

“So is ignoring him your next idea?” Your friend asks amused by the earlier interaction, “Can’t beat him then just will him out of existence.”

“No, I’m trying to be a nicer person and embrace competition.” Your friend bursts out laughing.

“That’s not going to last long. Before you know it you will be at his throat again.”

“I don’t know. Think why does he want to be #1 so badly? The scholarship. He probably needs it for college.” You say seriously.

“Ha! As if.” Your friend laughs as if she knows something you don’t.

“Why is he secretly loaded of something?” You ask kinda curious as you pack up your stuff.

“I don’t know about that but I do know he already has multiple athletic scholarships lined up.” You pause at that.

“What?” You are in complete and utter disbelief. If he didn’t need this scholarship what was the point in stealing it from you. Did he seriously hate you that much? You were beyond angry now. You throw your stuff in your bag messily and march out of the class room heading straight for the gyms. If he wanted this scholarship so badly from you, you were going to get an answer. 

As you near the gyms however you hear something that stops you in your tracks.

“Are you seriously going to study for all those classes tonight?” One of his teammates asked in shock.

“He’s got to if he wants to keep up with Y/N.” Another teases. You make sure you are out of sight and continue listening in. 

“Wait why do you compete with Y/N. I thought you were a jock, not a nerd.” You hear laughter and something being thrown at someone. 

“Can’t you see? Our Akaashi is smitten!” You recognize Bokuto’s voice.

“Shut up you dumb owl.” Akaashi didn’t deny it though.

“He’s so crazy for them that he decided to bring his class ranking up so they would notice him,” Bokuto breaks into laughter “But now they just hate him. We got a real  player here, am I right.”

You hear Akaashi yell at him and then you hear some hitting and decide to leave before you got caught. However, not once did you hear Akaashi deny it. He was just silent and then would yell at them for outing him. For telling the truth.

Akaashi likes you.

What an idiot. Who decides the way about trying to get to know someone is by threatening their biggest goal?! You can’t deny though he’s not the only smitten one. Although lately, you have absolutely hated him, before all this you actually had a crush on him. You never acted on it because you were so busy with academics. Is now a second chance? You decided to wait for him after practice. 

By some miracle he is the last one left in the gym, meaning you can confront him without an audience.

“What are you waiting to jump me? I’ll warn you I’m not afraid to fight back.” He snapped at you but you kept quiet. This silence was driving him crazy. At least when you were arguing back with him you were acknowledging him but now. It was like he didn’t exist all over again. He was about to lose it when you spoke up. 

“You know there are better ways to gain someone affection than trying to take the scholarship that they have been working towards for the past three years away from them.” It was your turn to shoot him a smug look. He looks like a deer caught in headlights. For once you’ve caught him off guard, good and proper.

“Wha-Who said I wanted your affections.” He tried to play it off but it was written all over his face. He truly did like you.

“You know I would have said yes.” You say nonchalantly as you begin to walk away. He snaps out of his confused stupor and grabs your arm, turning you around.

“What did you just say.” No longer is he embarrassed or caught off guard but intense and desperate. Like he had misheard what you just said. Like it was a dream.

“That maybe if you had just asked me, I would have said yes.” You try to be as confident as you were a moment ago but that was hard with a blush spreading across your cheeks.

“And what about right now?” He asked, almost pleaded. This was no longer the Akaashi you had known the past year. This was something different. Something raw and intense. 

“What?” You were shocked. Was he seriously about to ask you out? Like this?

“All I ever wanted was you to talk to me. I thought that if I got my rank up that you would respect me, that I’d be smart enough to hold a conversation with you. But no matter how high my rank went, it never felt good enough so I decided that #2 would be the greatest spot I could reach. Then instead of getting you admiration and praise, you thought I was trying to steal your spot. Maybe I should have just explained then that I wasn’t but you were actually talking to me. What if after I explained it we just went back to the way it was before. Suddenly we had some common ground, so I just kept going. When you stopped talking to me today, I hated it so much. So please I know our relationship is in a weird place and we’re not even friends but-” He trailed off. He didn’t even know what he was begging for. 

It was so strange to see him like this. Normally, even with his friends, he was guarded, quick-witted, confident. Now he was so vulnerable. It sparked something in you. At first, it was just a quick thought in your brain but before you knew it your body was moving. Acting on it.

You pulled your arm out of his grasp and with it his face dropped, thinking this was you rejecting him. You didn’t pay it any mind and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling his stupidy tall body down.

With that, you kissed him.

He was frozen for a moment before jumping back to life. His hands came up to your face and he kissed you back as if he would never get the chance to again. He definitely wasn’t expecting this but he wasn’t going to waste this once in a lifetime opportunity. Eventually, you pulled away and his lips chased yours back. You caught his eyes and he relented. 

“Maybe we could work something out.” You say began a smug smile. You run your hand down his side and into his pocket, his eyes blew wide in surprise not really sure what you were doing. You pulled his phone out of the pocket and started putting your number in.

“Call me tonight.” When you handed him his phone back he matched your smug smile with one of his own. 

“You bet.” He said as he watched you walk off. Once your back was turned you couldn’t help but let out a giddy giggle.

[moonbinu]

Moonbin 1st Look Vol. 242

translation: joytranslations

It seems like you exercise really hard. The firm muscles that they say only people who train diligently every day have are impressive.

Moonbin: I try to exercise hard. But these days I had a lot of work so I wasn't able to exercise properly. It was hard to find time to focus completely on it. Instead, before going to sleep, I have been doing light push ups or home training. Even if I'm tired, I actually have to move my body even a little bit in order to gain energy and refresh my body and heart (mind).

You said that exercising has been your hobby for a long time?

Moonbin: Yes. There is joy to exercising while sweating. It's an activity that's very honest. Because I can see changes in my body as much as I move and as much as I try. I like how it's that clear and honest. That's also why I like dancing. The trust that I'll improve as much as I work hard, and as I build results on the basis of that trust, I gain easygoingness too. The confidence that I feel like I can do anything. Although I think I might be putting too great of a meaning to it. (laughs)

It's nice how we can feel your energy. We received good energy the whole time today too while filming. What surprised us a little was how you quickly absorbed the filming concept and expressed it. Now that I come to think of it, I think you pull off a variety of different concepts like refreshing, pure, sexy, dark and dreamy, whenever you do promotions.

Moonbin: Well, honestly when I evaluate myself, I'm not satisfied but I try to show new things each time. For each album I try to go with a good middle point that is neither too much for the feeling of the song nor not enough. Out of the vocals, dance, facials, or gestures, if even one is expressed to fit the concept, then I think the other parts will naturally seem to fit well too. In order to do that, I have to practice and practice and prepare it perfectly.

More than anything, I think your facials on stage are abundant.

Moonbin: Oh, you could say that's thanks to Fantagio's early education. (laughs) In the trainee education curriculum there's a seperate time to learn gestures and facials. It's practicing by copying the performance videos of sunbaes that do the so-called 'eating up the performance' (doing very well). Honestly, I was part of the poor students that always were scolded. My personality is introverted and I'm not used to expressing my emotions outwardly, so it was so hard. I was scolded a lot that I was like a barley bag that wasn't woven completely. The way I am now is the result of real, hard effort. (laughs)

For you, a 'stage master' of a wide spectrum, what is the concept you're most confident in?

Moonbin: I don't think I'm good at it, but if I were to choose the vibes I liked the most, I think it's our fifth mini album's 'Crazy Sexy Cool'. I like that kind of pop-like music. And the vibes of the performances had a refreshing baseline with a dreamy feeling and the addition of a slight sexiness. It was even more special because we were able to show Astro's growth and change.

But of course, when it's Astro, it's 'refreshing', right? You really showed your signature 'refreshingness' with promotions for your 3rd full album 'Drive to the Starry Road' promotions that ended recently.

Moonbin: For this album, after MJ hyung enlisted in the military, we thought it out more deeply and prepared even harder so that you wouldn't be able to feel his empty spot. We thought about it mainly with “what is the thing that Astro can show best”, and in the end, we agreed “let's do what we can do best”. The company also said that we should consistently push forward with our own color. But we have to show slightly new things with each album, so we have to find something unique within refreshingness too. This time, should I say it's like a 'laid back refreshingness'? We melted our growth and maturity into it. Something is filled tightly into the fast beat, but rather than having a calculative feeling, we amplified Astro's charm though a skilled and natural 'refreshingness'.

This album also included a song that you yourself wrote the lyrics for.

Moonbin: I participated in writing the lyrics for the title song 'Candy Sugar Pop'. I didn't have high expectations but I was so happy that it was chosen. I had listened to the song a lot because the song flowed right into my ears from when I heard the demo version. It was really good. I kept thinking about what story would be nice to be put into it, and then before filming, in the waiting room, I was chased by time and wrote it quickly. There are times when the content that is written this quickly is better. I wrote the story thinking as much as possible that the person who is listening to it is right in front of me. The part that says “you reflected in my eyes, me reflected in your eyes" also came out like that. The fans said they related to it a lot when they listened to it, so I was really thankful and happy. Writing lyrics is hard but in a way it's a really fun job. It's like giving a gift of a small story to the world.

I heard you normally enjoy writing. Do you consistently write things these days too?

Moonbin: Occasionally. When I want to scribble something. Rather than 'getting right in position' and sitting down and writing, I just let out things that come to mind in the moment. There are many times when it has no meaning. It like starts with “the weather is very nice today" and goes to "the kite floating in the sky, kite?" and then I write something with the kite as the topic.

What is something you wrote most recently about?

Moonbin: Just a moment. (he takes out his phone and looks for his notes) I wrote about a dream. There was a memorable conversation. I wrote "When something is tilted, there are many times when it's difficult to return it back. Why? Because usually you realized the moment right before it falls and touches the ground. What do you realize? That it was tilted" Oh, and now that I think about it, there are many times when I open my eyes in the morning and write about my dreams. There are times when I remember my dreams clearly and I quickly organize them before I forget.

Is there a word or expression you use often?

Moonbin: I write a lot about nature. But it's so diverse, so I'm not sure about what I write about often. Spider web, thermometer, imagination, leaves, luck... Just looking at the titles right now, there's no consistency! (laughs)

Are you going to write something after going back today? How are you going to record it?

Moonbin: That it was a day when I received a lot of cheering and support and filmed happily. To be honest, it made me a little shy too, but I think I did well thanks to the cheering.

While filming I noticed that your skin is very nice. Is there a special secret behind your healthy skin?

Moonbin: I think you'll be disappointed because it's not an interesting answer. There's really nothing special. To be honest, I haven't been putting much effort into skin care in the past. These days I've started applying the Jayjun Farming Fresh line every day. It was definitely different applying care though.

It was very charming how you were smiling freshly the entire time during filming. I also thought that you go especially well with the image of this summer.

Moonbin: Summer, it's a great season. A time when you sweat a lot. (laughs) I like summer. This is something I felt newly these days, but I think perhaps it's not spring, but rather summer that is the season of new beginnings. You feel a strong sense of liveliness when you look at how the sunlight during the day reflects on a tree. Everything around you is a clear green and should I say it's like something is growing and blooming? I like it because it feels vivid.

Is there anything you really want to do before the summer passes?

Moonbin: It would be nice to rest with leisure in the green nature. Or a fun trip would be nice too. I want to go on vacation with the members. I don't think we've ever gone on a trip other than filming for a variety show.

Photoshoots are a given, and even singing, dancing, rap, acting and variety shows. Is there an area that you, an all-rounder who can do everything, want to try more in the future?

Moonbin: The word 'all-rounder' is unmerited (too much) for me. To be honest, I am lacking in many ways. I want to do well with everything and do things well, but something I felt during promotions for the recent album is my thirst as a vocalist. I'm going to practice more focused on singing in the future. I think that is how I can do the music I love more and do better.

In an interview you said "I think every moment after debuting has been my youth". Do you still feel that way? What period do you think you are in right now?

Moonbin: These days I really feel that I've gotten really old. (laughs) Well, you know how I'm MCing on a music show. So I meet new people every week and the're all really young. People born in 2007, 2008 are debuting. Sigh, I'm still 25 too but... Well, I guess physical age isn't important. Every day that we live is our youth, right? (laughs) First, I think I'm in a very important period right now. A time that I can't get back again, the summer of 25 that's most ordinary and most precious.

In the future, when you think about your 25, what is a keyword that you think will be included?

Moonbin: First, I think I'll definitely remember today's filming. Hm, healthy passion? Youth that works hard? Things like this. In many ways, I am trying to more passionately improve more than right now. No, I have to. I think that's how I will be able to endure and also accept myself. To be honest, I try very hard to be perfect. So I always live while being pestered by the struggle of a perfectionist. So that I won't be embarrassed of myself, I will push forward against things and work harder than anyone, and I will overcome it. Just like a hot summer day.

[doctorofmagic]

My thoughts on What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?

The very title of the episode sends a shiver down my spine. And this is where we’re going to start.

~ long post under the cut ~

A year ago, I wrote this post as an attemp to dive into one of the most important traits in Doctor Strange’s personality: love. Stephen is a being made of love, made to love, no matter which interpretation you have when you watch Infinity War. If you don’t read comic books, you’ll understand the moment you meet Donna. You’ll begin to understand how her death reshaped his entire subjectivity out of fear of failing, being powerless and unable to control everything around him (especially death), thus the arrogant and yet a disaster of a man we all know.

Where do I even start? Stephen loved her sister deeply and felt responsible for her death. And then, slowly, he also lost his parents and his brother. He fell in love with Clea but he also pushed her away. He loved Zelma platonically and lied to her, which was enough for them to break their bond. He felt attracted to Kanna but screwed things up, even though they remain friends. He was forced to kill the Ancient One, the only father figure he had ever since his father died. And lastly, the only person who would never leave his side... also left. Yes, even Wong. Stephen has SO much love to give but he’s also afraid because he’s cursed. He truly believes his love in poison. And would you look at that? What If really delivered a story where this is actually true.

What If Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?

The level of understanding when it comes to the character is... inconceivable. What could possibly reshape Stephen into following a dark path but love? The very premise of the whole episode. This is so much more than a love letter. This is literally too much, in all senses.

Fine, let’s begin.

What if the best of intentions has very strange consequences?

No. You used the word “strange” for the pun but this is not the word. Nah-ah. I’d go with ATROCIOUS, for starters. Things are gonna escalate so quickly, my friends.

Seriously, tho? Christine is SO SO SO SO beautiful, they’re so cute together. I have this feeling that MCU!Stephen was quite toxic because of his arrogance and this is why they didn’t work out. But WhatIf!Stephen???????? He’s always praising her, teasing her in a healthy way, respecting her and listening to her. HE TRULY LOVES HER, I’M GONNA CRY ALL OVER AGAIN, PLEASE, NOT THE CRÈME BRÛLÉE, PLEASE

I’m going to leave this shot here because we need to go back to it later. Hold that thought.

And bonus points to “Yeah, well, I would call that quite remarkable.” / “Well, I would say the same about you.”

GODS. THE PAIN. STOP THE PAIN.

So in this reality, Stephen didn’t caused the car accident because he was checking his phone while driving. Also it was not the reckless attempt to pass the truck. Well, maybe it was the consequence of this act? The fact is, the car behind them loses control, which makes them crash. Does it matter? We’ll learn later that no, it doesn’t.

And yep... Christine dies. Have you noticed the shattered heart? Ah, the pain only gets better and better.

Again, Stephen blames himself. More than anything, this is so important because Stephen is all about guilt. We still need to meet Donna so we can add yet another layer of guilt. But the feeling exists. This is what corrupts Stephen’s heart and soul in all his iterations. This is what makes him the character I love so much. I love this SO. MUCH. In addition, his stubbornness to accept his condition. Man won’t take a no. This, this is Doctor Strange in character. Stop complaining about NWH Stephen, it’s pathetic.

Okay, “grief-stricken”, Stephen found the Mystic Arts and became a sorcerer. That’s when he learned about the Time Stone, the Eye of Agamotto and Dormammu. Nothing changes, he saves the universe. But time does not heal his deepest wound.

I love Wong so much. Every time Wong does something, the world is healed. Really. We’re going back to him as well but for now I’ll just leave this shot.

BUT STEPHEN, DOING SOMETHING RECKLESS? HE’D NEVAH

Aaaaaaaannnnnnd then he did.

He goes back in time. It’s been two years since he lost Christine. I think he reacted pretty nicely, despite the circumstances. Now let’s go back to that shot I said I was saving for later.

Stephen is so light-hearted here. Also, during the first time he lost Christine, he had no idea what “The Price is Right” was. He knows now, which means he probably tried to learn more about the show because of her, because of grief. HAHAHA MORE PAIN

AND THEN HE

AND THEN SHE DIES AGAIN

AND THEN HE KEEPS GOING BACK IN TIME

AND SHE KEEPS DYING

AND THE MUSIC

AND HIS VOICE

AND HE TRIES TO CHANGE FATE BUT IT CAN’T BE AVERTED

HE EVEN TRIES TO STAY AWAY FROM HER LIFE BUT SHE DIES ALL THE SAME, WHY

AND EVERY TIME THEY CRASH, HE FEELS THE PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL PAIN AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, WHY

I’M-- *ugly sobbing noises*

Apparently, not.

And this scene when he simply... closes his eyes before she dies again...?

This is where this episode had me in endless tears. It got me the four times I watched it. I’m dead serious.

Okay, so, next the Ancient One appears to Stephen, explaining that Christine’s death is an Absolute Point in time. It cannot be changed. Stephen needs the accident to become the Sorcerer Supreme and defeat Dormammu.

And this is where Stephen starts his journey into darkness. “Nothing is impossible, you taught me that. I only require more power.” Disobeying the Ancient One, Stephen then travels in time, seeking the Library of Cagliostro. Now, if you’re not aware of that, Cagliostro was a sorcerer who studied time in comics, and later became Sise-Neg (there’s a recent post on this because of the new Defenders run). It’s funny to think that Sise-Neg also destroyed the world when he became a god, however he grew past his pettiness and remade reality. Stephen did not possess such power, as we’re about to see.

PS: “Stop torturing yourself, Stephen.” Naur but he should use this line like a mantra. Especially comics!Stephen.

Not gonna lie, tho. This place reminds me of the Temple of the Vishanti from T&T (of course I was going to insert T&T somewhere, it’s me).

And of course they’d go for a pun with his name haha. I don’t know how to feel about this, tho. I feel like the episode is too heavy and dark for comedy. But it is what it is.

Okay but why some books are in cages??????????? And wow, it seems Cagliostro also gathered knowledge about several fields of magic.

And then Stephen learns that, in order to break an Absolute Point, he needs to absorb more power. This is when I went “oh-oh, here we go”.

And for real, is this Shuma-Gorath? Why are they keeping his name a secret? Is this the same creature from the first episode with Captain Carter, right? RIGHT? It has to be Shuma-Gorath.

Of course he tries to be polite and ends up all hurt haha. O’Bengh warns him about love but he will not listen. “Love can break more than your heart. It can shatter your mind.”/ “Is she worth the pain?”. Please, this is Stephen. He eats pain for breakfast.

Also, also, let’s take a break. We’re finally going to get monsterf0cker tentacle-lover Stephen Strange. It will cost us everything but here we goooooooooooo (yes, I went frame by frame for your more obscure fanservice needs)

Gods, I love this sequence so much it hurts. Okay, here we go.

Shmebulock???????????

AND HE STOLE THE CAPE??????????? AND DREW THE LINE ON BUGS??????

The grasp this man is holding on me right now...

Some of you will understand. I’m with you.

And here are the grostesque ones. These are hard to take SS but I had to.

Animation, sound effects, OST? CHEF’S KISS TO ALL

And lastly... the tentacles. Yeah, if you’re new... this is a thing.

Fanservice. Fanservice everywhere. (low-key the reason I also waited to write this review, I wanted to enjoy this part so badly but I was too sad for that lmao)

Okay so. O’Bengh is suddenly OLD and DYING, until we realize that Stephen spent CENTURIES absorbing mystic beings. CENTURIES. WTF STEPHEN. He had nothing in mind but the goal to save Christine. And people wonder why he went insane???? I’m sorry, O’Bengh, but I can’t take you serious when you still call Stephen Sorcerer Armani. Oh, and also because you watched him absorb beings for centuries in silence lmao. But I guess I have to because you said that Stephen is split in two since the Ancient One cast a spell on him, splitting the timelines and making them exist in the same reality before he could travel back in time. I know, it’s complex. Anything for the plot.

And now good!Stephen has an evil!twin who wants to absorb him back in order to become whole and break the Absolute Point. Cool.

I said I wanted to talk more about Wong because I think people are not talking about him enough. Wong is so important in this episode. He’s the one who’s trying to heal Stephen after Christine. He’s Stephen’s anchor.

Also, THEY FINALLY USED A SPELL WITH THE NAME OF THE VISHANTI. HOORAAAAY

So, for the sake of our understanding, I’m addressing the characters as evil and good!Stephen. Let’s go. Evil!Stephen summons good!Stephen and gods, he still holds such a strong grasp on me... unbelievable. THE DEEPER VOICE BENEDICT USES???? PLEASE, DIDN’T WE HAVE ENOUGH?

Imagine his strength to hold so many beings inside him, fighting to control him. BRO, THIS IS TOO TOO MUCH

Fine, I’ll not post SS about the fight because I’d be here all night long but I WILL say this: NOT CLOAKIE!!!!! NAAAAAAAAAAUR

Also if you ask me if I recognize any of the spells? Maaaaybe the Flames of Faltine, the not-so-crimson Bands of Cyttorak and a little trick Magik does with her portals. That’s how far I go.

I’ll not comment on the “seducing yourself to stay in the trap”. I will not. I’ll just say that the first person Stephen thought of when “Christine” was talking about the crème brûlée was Wong. That’s it.

And finally evil!Stephen absorbs good!Stephen and releases... UNLIMITED POWER (I love when the stone goes red as if it was bleeding aaaaaaa)

I can fix him...

This scene here? Poetic cinema. (I love his wings so much)

And when Stephen says her name and the other monsters’ voices echo “Christine”, AAAAAACKKKK

AND OF COURSE CHRISTINE WOULD FREAK OUT, BRO. LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE BECOME BECAUSE OF YOUR TWISTED LOVE. I’M NOT DOING FINE.

Oh, but it’s too late anyways because Stephen broke reality haha. This scene is interesting because Stephen is the only one who sensed and/or talked to the Watcher until now. I read an interview that the Watcher kinda showed up but it’s also about Stephen’s keen senses. Bit of both, let’s say. Still, man, 616-Watcher is not that cold. 616-Watcher would watch this and say “how about I intervene anyway?”. WhatIf!Watcher is brutal.

The way Christine looks at Stephen one last time also KILLS ME, DESTROYS ME, BREAK ME INTO A MILLION PIECES.

And this is where my soul left my body.

This is how they end the episode. This is how you leave me speechless and with teary eyes. This is how you give me a whole existential crisis.

This... this was brutal to watch. Really.

What can I say after this? I’m used to reading painful things when it comes to Stephen. Aaron’s and Cates’ runs are heartbreaking on so many levels. Hickman’s New Avengers is not easier. Coincidentally, What If? Magik Became Sorcerer Supreme and The End. And now Death of Doctor Strange. And yet, after everything I’ve been through, I’d never expect to watch something so brilliant, so tragic, so heartbreaking and unexpected in the MCU. Never. This is top tier content and this is my favorite character with SO MANY LAYERS and SO MUCH UNDERSTANDING. I can’t put into words how meaningful this whole episode is to me, or how deep it touched my heart and soul.

I’ve been struggling to find the proper words since then, I still can’t. All I can add is, I cried for the 4th time now. This is too, too much, even for Stephen stans. Even for the ones who are used to pain, regardless of which media you’re into: comic books, live actions or animated movies. This is literally more than I can take and yet I’m so, so grateful. The voice acting, gods, how did Benedict manage to create a better Stephen than the one he’s literally playing in real life???????????? HOW

This episode really took the max potential Stephen had to offer as a character, added tons and tons of layers based on his grief, depression, arrogance and need to control everything and created a tragic masterpiece. In 7 years of being a Doctor Strange fan, I've never read or watch something that could go this deep into the character. The closest I can think of is Mr. Misery and the metaphor of Stephen's depression. This is a whole new level of respect and understanding. This is more than a love letter. This is peak maestry. It’s perfect, it’s heartbreaking, it’s... gods, I can’t.

Sorry for dragging you until this far. Before I wrap up this review, I just wanted to remind you all that Stephen will appear again, he will smile again, he will be surrounded by people again. So this is not the end. It was painful but be brave. We still have a few more steps to take.

[watermelonlipstick]

Stabbed

This was written following an anon request that read as follows:

Hello sweetie, can I please request a dean x reader one shot in which she gets stabbed during a rough hunt and it's a race against time to save her (maybe Sam is the one driving and dean gets in the backseat with her?) And dean is scared of losing her and he has a panic attack after she wakes up but she manages to calm him down?

Obviously everyone’s experiences with panic attacks are different, but I tend to think if Dean had one it might manifest more externally as a violent outburst; I think he would subconsciously feel like it’s a more acceptable way to express ~freaking the fuck out~. This fic is sort of loosely set during early season 3, partly because that contextualization made sense to me with what you were describing and partly because I feel like that tenderhearted, slightly-less-jaded Dean would be more likely to allow himself to be perceived as vulnerable in such a fraught moment. 

I’ve also taken a couple liberties with the medical situation described for literary purposes. 😋 Don’t @ me, I know this isn’t exactly how hypovolemic shock plays out.

Title: Stabbed

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 4206

Summary: Dean’s anxiety gets the best of him when the reader appears fatally injured on a hunt, and is soothed only after the danger is gone. 

Warnings: canon-appropriate violence, description of panic attack, swearing

           Sam slammed the door once Dean had hauled you into the backseat, propping you up like a mannequin next to him on the bench. Your vision was starting to fade in and out, but the sense memory of the muscles in Dean’s side and the leather seat underneath you were comforting anyway. It seemed like the car started flying before Sam had even closed the driver’s side door and you tried hard to focus on Dean’s babbling.

           “You’ll be able to give me shit about this one forever, right, kid? Should’ve listened to you, you said they would’ve left the barn by the time we got there. Always so smart, when am I going to learn?” He was trying to chuckle but it came out breathy and wrong, Dean never quite able to actually hit the casual affect he wanted in moments like this. Honestly, it made you more nervous, knowing that for injuries he wasn’t worried about he wanted to look over you with clinical precision, chastise you for being careless. He only did this pretend calm when he was trying to keep it together—you used to think it was only for you or Sam but after a few years and more than a few bad scares you started to understand it for the defense mechanism it truly was. Not that you needed extra evidence that this was bad; you could feel the life leeching out of you like a water balloon with a pinprick leak.

           “Hey, come on—open your eyes for me, lemme see those stunners,” he said, guiding your chin up where you had begun to slump onto his shoulder. “Perfect, yeah, just like that. Hey, stay with me—”

           You mustered up everything you had to swim to the surface of the sleep-darkness your body so desperately wanted and straightened your spine to take a deep breath. Bad idea, the wounds in your side feeling like they were splitting you clean in half even through the haze. At least it woke you up for a moment to catch Dean’s eyes, fiery with panic even as he tried to smile.

           “Dean, I—” you started, feeling like your throat was full of broken glass.

           “Babe, don’t try to talk, it’s okay, you can tell me whatever it is when we get to a hospital.”

           Sam turned his head away from the rural highway the Impala was absolutely sailing down to look back at his older brother. “We’re hours away from a hospital, we’ve gotta go back to the motel,” he said, low and serious.

           “If we’re hours away from a hospital then I guess we’re driving for a couple hours, aren’t we, Sammy?” Dean was getting worse and worse at covering the hard edge of fear-driven anger in his voice as the seconds ticked by.

           “Dean, we—she’s—we don’t have a couple hours.”

           Dean closed his eyes tight and set his jaw firm. “We’re going to a fucking hospital.”

           His brother swerved deftly around a giant pothole, somehow able to turn the wheel so slightly that the car’s path barely changed. “Listen to me. She can’t bleed like that for long enough to get to a hospital. We have to try to handle this one ourselves or there’s no chance—”

           The whole conversation felt like it was happening to someone else, your senses starting to detach from your body, and you couldn’t hold onto those trains of thought for long enough to process them. You were forced to expend all the energy you had on what you needed to say, and reached for Dean’s hand with a weak grip.

           “Dean, look at me.”

           He sounded like a hurt puppy when he said, “please,” and you knew he was asking you not to make him listen but you were worried you were out of options, out of time. That frantic smile looked almost crazed as it started to quiver on his face, eyelashes clumping with moisture.

           “Sam, can you hear me too?” you asked, frustrated in an abstract way at how frail your voice sounded.

           He gave one tight nod in the rearview mirror with a jaw set firm as iron, and when he said “Yes—yeah,” it was choked.

           “I love you idiots so much. These last—ow, Jesus—however many years have been some of the most fun I’ve ever had. I wouldn’t take it back for anything. Sam, I—you’re the best friend I’ve ever had and I—fuck,” you winced, something about the breath you took to keep from crying sending an electric jolt of pain through you and doubling you over.

           “It’s okay, I know,” Sam said up into the rearview mirror, and you couldn’t tell if the way the headlights were falling on the trees impossibly fast was something about your sight being distorted, because if it wasn’t then you were surprised the Impala hadn’t broken some kind of land speed record. You made a mental note to tell Dean to start drag racing before remembering you might not tell him anything ever again. What you were nearly positive you weren’t imagining were the break in Sam’s voice or the reflection of tears on his cheek as he locked eyes with you in the mirror.

           By the grace of whatever higher power the Winchesters were on the good side of at the time, you connected with him in the reflection, were able to absorb some fraction of the bone-crushing, pick-you-up-off-your-feet hug you wanted so badly from Sam in that moment. You tried to be thankful for what you got and drifted back to Dean’s gaze.

           “And Dean, baby,” you continued, some bizarre flutter of second wind giving you enough force to clench your hand tightly around his and remember to keep your breaths shallow, keep talking even if your eyes couldn’t quite focus. “This was not your fault, you gotta—promise—me you know it wasn’t.”

           “I, ah—” he faltered, throat vibrating as he tried to keep the inevitable tears down.

           You gripped his hand tighter, felt your fingers going numb, and tried to smile hoping it didn’t look too grotesque on a face almost certainly drained of lifelike color. “C’mon, gotta obey a last wish, right?” The grief-stricken chuckle of surprise that dark joke punched out of Dean opened the floodgates, and tears burst forward to stream down his face. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

           You’d thought of some goofy punchline to try to give, some ‘no sleeping with random girls for at least a year, want you guys to pour one out for me every day’ bullshit but seeing the love and pain in Dean’s eyes as your vision came in and out zapped it away. “I love you baby. I just—thank you for—everything—and—”

           It was getting too hard to take even those shallow breaths, your hearing gone fuzzy around the edges, and the last thing you remembered was seeing a streetlight on the edge of town as Dean took your face in his hands, “I know, kid, I know, come on—please,” fading out like he was being zipped away through a long tunnel.

           You were completely motionless in Dean’s arms, pulse gone thready enough that Dean was having a hard time finding it through the rumble of the car.

           “Fuck, Sam, FUCK!” Dean screamed, one hand wrapped up in the hair at the back of your neck as he fought desperately to keep you upright.

           Sam muscled through the lump in his throat and tried to stay focused. “When we get there you need to be ready to go, okay, Dean? HEY, listen to me. Don’t quit on me like this,” he barked, trying to catch his brother’s eyes in the rearview mirror without taking his focus off the road, terrified at the speed of the Impala and the potential of repeating what had happened the last time he’d had someone he loved bleeding out in the backseat.

           The car skittered around two corners and Sam prayed as hard as he had ever prayed for anything that there weren’t any Keystone cops looking to meet their month’s ticket quota by hanging around dark parking lots with radar guns, willed Dean to stop punching the window of the car with the hand that wasn’t clutching your head to his chest. He couldn’t decide if he thought it would’ve been better to have Dean drive, if he would’ve been able to hold it together any better than Dean was right now, if Dean could’ve focused if he was driving and not feeling you drift in his arms. There wasn’t time to figure it out and it ultimately didn’t matter, his brother turning into a bomb in the backseat and Sam needed to figure out a way to funnel Dean’s sheer panic back into the denial that would fuel him to keep moving, do anything to keep you alive, regardless of whether there was any hope left.

           “It’s not over, you’ve gotta keep it together. She needs you. See, we’re right around—"

           But he didn’t get to finish through the flurry of action as he pulled into the motel. He careened the Impala straight up to the door of the room, more than half of the car parked over a strip of grass intended to make the nondescript building feel more homey. By the time he’d torn the keys from the ignition Dean was practically leaping out of the backseat, carrying you into the room a quarter step after Sam half-busted the door open, laying you on a bed and tearing your t-shirt off with his bare hands like a cheap wrestling gimmick.

           Sam didn’t bother closing the motel door, moving too fast to care as he ripped a cork out of whiskey bottle with his teeth and poured it all over your now-exposed side, grimacing with nausea at the way it didn’t make you draw back in pain even a little. Dean tried his best to thread a needle with floss and remember whether it was better or worse that the blood was still flowing fast and bright red out of those stab wounds rather than slowing or oxidizing—this is bush league shit Dad pounded in years ago why can’t I remember fucking any of it? His hands shook with too much adrenaline to get the floss through the needle but Sam was already working on patching the biggest wound, tying knots with the rapid precision of a surgeon.

           It was only when he started getting in Sam’s way that the younger Winchester said anything more, encouraged that Dean was at least trying to pull himself together. He began talking through the stitches, muttering when he had to pull one tight with his teeth.

           “We—Dean, look at me.” Sam drilled into him with those brackish eyes, struggling to maintain the appearance of being in control that his brother needed of him when he could feel you going cold underneath his fingertips. “We’re going to need to give her a lot of fluids when she wakes up; all we have is beer. Go get some stuff for her to drink—electrolytes, she’ll need electrolytes.”

           “I’m not going to fucking leave, asshole!” Dean was strung out and not even pretending to hide it anymore, voice taking on that juvenile squeak Sam had only heard a handful of times since Dean was a teenager.

           He took a deep breath in an effort to soothe himself before speaking as clearly and firmly to Dean as possible, no room for negotiation. “Dean. This is not helping. The best thing you can do for her is to go get some fluids. Gatorade, OJ, bananas too, if they have them. She’ll need iron but we can deal with other food once she wakes up.”

           “What if she doesn’t—” Dean half-moaned, sounding like he’d been struck by something that was sucking all the oxygen from his lungs, looking like he was on the last ten feet of a hundred-mile race.

           “She’s going to wake up.”

           And Sam’s stubbornness actually did help Dean a bit in that moment, knowing that even if his life was about to change radically, that never would. “Go get some fucking Gatorade.”

           By the time Dean came back—arms filled with so many bags of sports drinks that it would be comical in any other context—his brother had stitched up every wound, cleaned off most of the blood, and put all your limbs atop high stacks of pillows in an attempt to get as much blood to your vital organs as possible. Dean was near catatonic with the singular focus of a task, which was Sam’s intention. One thing at a time.

           After about five minutes of sitting alongside Sam watching you, thick, viscous panic bubbled back up to the surface.

           At first, he was muttering like he was talking to himself. “She told me, she fucking told me they wouldn’t be in the barn anymore, I didn’t listen. I should’ve been right behind her, Sam, what the fuck was I thinking—she was—she—she was alone, they wouldn’t have—” and then the way his voice built to a fever pitch matched his body, Dean perched on the mattress like a sailboat in a tempest, slammed against invisible waves of panic.

           “It wasn’t your fault, Dean. You couldn’t have known—”

           “She was alone against five of them, Sam, do you get that? I left her fucking ALONE!” Dean wailed, springing forward from the bed with eruptive energy and bashing the nightstand lamp hard enough that its base shattered against the opposite wall, coming clean out of the socket as easily as if it hadn’t been plugged in. Sam flinched but didn’t get up, instead taking a quick visual inspection that no shards of ceramic somehow bounced back to cut your still body. By the time he glanced up again he only had a millisecond to react as Dean threw a chair from the kitchenette against the wall, exploding the mirror there into shimmering beads of glass and ricocheting back, forcing Sam block it with a forearm lest it hit him or you.

           “DEAN, enough!” he yelled, crossing over to his brother with a few powerful strides and grappling with him, battling to keep Dean still as the older of the Winchester brothers fought to destroy the room to match the chaos in his mind. Sam knew exactly what was going on, the way Dean’s brain converted fear to rage, but hated when his brother got like this, not only because it cut so deep to see him in pain but because the explosiveness was so similar to the knock-down drag-outs they’d grown up with, made it impossible to try to fix the root of the problem.

           Sam tackling Dean to the ground was the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes.

           “Do I pull this shit when you guys are sleeping?” you croaked from the mattress, trying to sit up and immediately abandoning that plan, stilling yourself and holding your breath until the pain settled a fraction.

           Sam and Dean scrambled to get to their feet and ran over to you, hovering over the bed looking like their backs had a light dusting of glitter rather than a million tiny shards of glass.

           “What’re—are you okay? What do you remember?” Sam blurted out, grabbing a bottle of Gatorade out of a plastic bag and cracking it open for you. He snatched a pillow and helped you sit up slowly, jamming it under your head so you could drink.

           “Well, I’ve definitely felt better,” you tried to chuckle, but the tension it caused in your abdominal muscles made you wince. “I’m really sorry, you guys, I shouldn’t have—” you began, immediately stopped by the way Sam and Dean shook their heads, sucked on their teeth.

           “I’m—ah,” Sam started, smiling self-deprecatingly through the shake in his voice and looking down at the ground for a beat with his tongue in his cheek. It was like his body knew that the worst of the crisis had passed and refused to let him hide his emotions for one second further. After a second he met your eyes again, faintest hint of tears in his eyes. “I’m really glad you’re up.”

           Behind him, Dean collapsed into himself, his expression simultaneously complete relief and like he’d seen a ghost. You peered around Sam to meet his gaze. “Hey, dork,” you breathed, unable to come up with anything to match the weight of the moment.

           He opened his mouth a few times and couldn’t find anything either, wincing and biting his lip hard as he rubbed the back of his head nervously. “I’m so sorry,” he finally choked out.

           As always, Sam knew what Dean needed and snatched the car keys off the table as his brother tried in vain to keep his restless limbs still. He gazed at you with such naked thankfulness it made you smile involuntarily. “I’m going to see how much red meat I can find you, I’ll be right back, okay? Drink as many of these as you can and don’t stand up alone.” You nodded gratefully to him as he backed out the door.

           When Sam left, Dean still shifted uncomfortably on his feet, clenching and unclenching his hands until he ultimately jammed them deep into the pockets of his coat with enough force that it shook loose almost all of the glass, sending it floating to the ground around him as if he was a mirage. You could see, even as he stood a few paces away from the bed, that his breathing was quickened from the rapid, shallow movements of his chest and neck. “I’m—ah, I didn’t think—I shouldn’t have—” he stammered against a jaw locked shut tensely enough to make the muscles bulge out of his cheeks, and the lack of the self-assuredness that was normally so Dean to you made him seem unbelievably young, made you want to leap across the room and wrap him up in your arms. As it was, you beckoned him over with a shaky hand.

           He walked over to you hesitantly, only sitting down on the side opposite your injuries when you patted the sheets next to you. Awkwardly trying to move your torso as little as possible, you tossed the pillows on that side to the floor and motioned for him to lay down.

           “I don’t want to hurt—”

           “I’ll be fine. Please?”

           Reluctantly taking off his coat and dropping it unceremoniously to the ground, he gingerly tucked himself under your arm and laid his head on your chest. You faintly dragged your fingertips down his back, waiting for his heartbeat and uneven, shallow breathing to slow down. When they didn’t and all you felt was a spreading wetness on the remaining upper half of t-shirt you still had, you twisted laboriously to see Dean’s face.

           Tears streamed down onto you, Dean biting his lip so hard to keep quiet you were shocked you couldn’t see blood, the whites of his teeth almost matching the pressure-blanched skin.

           “Oh, Dean,” you hummed, pulling him close to you with your one arm. “Babe, I’m here, I’m right here. Everything’s okay; I’m okay, you get to treat me like a princess for a few days and I’ll learn for the hundredth time that I shouldn’t go off by myself.”

           “I—I thought you were gone,” Dean whispered between stunted sobs breaking the words off in short staccato, still fighting to speak as though he wasn’t crying even as his tears soaked you.

           You craned your neck slowly to kiss the top of his head. “Not gone, right here. Always going to be right here.”

           “You were bleeding so mu—just like Sam, it was just like when Sam—” he faltered, speaking slowly to try to grab the reins of his voice as it shook.

           “Not just like Sam, baby, I’m still here. Everyone’s okay. And Sam’s okay too, right?” You waited for him to confirm what you knew was true and emphasize your point, drawing back to meet his gaze when he didn’t. “Right?”

           Reluctantly, Dean nodded. The redness around his eyes made his irises seem almost unreal in electric green contrast and you couldn’t believe you were so close to never seeing them again. His lashes were even darker than normal, spiky black frames formed with salty tears like cartoonish mascara. You waited a beat then let him settle back into your chest before continuing, feeling the choke-hiccupping of his breath stop even if it stayed rapid. “Everyone’s okay. You’re okay,” you hummed into his hair. “You’re okay, baby.”

           The two of you stayed like that until Dean’s breathing finally steadied, waiting past the clearly forced long held breaths and through to the point that he genuinely seemed like he’d hit the smooth rhythm you knew so well. “How are you feeling?” you murmured.

           “Like a bitch,” he grumbled softly against your chest, and you couldn’t help but smile, thankful beyond anything for the glint of humor back in Dean, that shimmer of normalcy returning.

           “Sorry for scaring you.”

           “I’m never fucking letting you out of my sight again,” he said, words still sticky with swirling emotion and muffled by his cheek pressed against you. You knew he was only partly joking but also that now was not the time to push back, just kissing his hair in response.

           There was no way it took Sam an hour to get you a diner burger but you were thankful for his intuition nonetheless, because by the time he got back Dean was calm enough to get up and had even helped you to put on a new t-shirt—one of his black ones; he said it was because it was looser but you suspected it was some kind of metaphor, covering you with part of himself—and shimmy into a pair of mesh athletic shorts. Standing up for a shower was still too ambitious, but the fresh clothes made you feel a little less gross. He was trying his best to clean up as much broken glass as possible when his brother opened the door and tossed him a paper bag with a bubbly illustrated hamburger on it.

           Walking into the room without taking his jacket off, Sam set your food on the nightstand and grabbed a motel binder of local attractions (minimal) as a makeshift tray for you to eat off of before carefully helping you to sit up a little more. “Double cheeseburger—eat it before the fries, you need the iron. Oh, and I almost forgot—couple of these too.” He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved two bottles in one big hand that appeared to be acetaminophen and an iron supplement.

           “You’re the best, Sam.” It was nice to hear your voice sound more normal, lubricated with two bottles of Gatorade already, and you tried not to imagine how awkward or painful it was going to be to try to get up and go to the bathroom later.

           The Winchesters sat on the other bed, still in their boots because of the rug of broken glass no one wanted to acknowledge, and Sam turned on whatever dumb comedy he could find first. For a fleeting moment it felt like any normal night on the road, nursing an injury and eating greasy food in a room you’d never see again past tomorrow morning, and you almost forgot that (minutes? hours? you still didn’t know how long you’d been out) earlier you thought you were saying goodbye to the two people you loved most, who’d moved heaven and earth and miles of rural highway to bring you back, whose superhero resilience you’d seen start to crack at the thought of losing you. A searing jolt of pain when you reached for another Gatorade reminded you all too much, and when you hissed both Sam and Dean leapt off the bed with faces contorted in concern.

           “Just stretched too far, I’m okay.”

           Watching them take twin deep breaths could’ve been funny and you hoped it would be in a few days—hoped in a few days laughing wouldn’t feel like being impaled. For now, you tried to drink in this little moment of peace and made a promise to yourself that you wouldn’t take another one for granted ever again.

-

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