#I didn't have the Tumblr app and I didn't realize you couldn't see the other Masterlist on there

[emptywires]

OOHHHHH!! TO END THIS POST WITH THE FIRST SENTENCE OF "JACKET"!! THATS SO COOL!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THESE PAST TEN YEARS!! PLEASE CONTINUE YOUR YAPPING TO YOUR HEARTS CONTENT!!

HAPPY TEN YEARS TO THIS BLOG AND JACKET

if you've been here as long as this blog's existence then, know i'm finna yap:

sorry but warning for me and my mental health and my journey here...

smiles i am only human after all <:3 without further ado—

i've put off this post for... many reasons (hoildays, stress, perfectionism, anxiety) but maybe i'll keep this rendition and not chicken out or delete it because it's not perfect?

i really still can't believe i missed the anniversary for this! nov 29th huh? (yes i can actually !!! at the time i had just started a new job and that's where all my willpower has been.) but i fondly remember those ten years ago, that nov 29th is just as close to december anyway. so i always lead myself to think it's dec and not nov! details !!!

i don't think it'd make a difference but i do so want to get this in before the new year... (adding unnecessary stressors to myself smh)

it's been quite a ride through addhell. it's weird... to think how much has happened here. it's insane to think about how this one white hair anime boy changed my live in ways i could never fathom

picture it with me, a no one in a group of friends. with nothing but... the ambition of friendship, and the love of writing to fuel him, and a new username ready to take on the world: mymastermine.

that group of friends holds three: me, my would be DIE, and my would be LP. (does... does anyone remember those days of us three causing chaos laughs - tho mostly two, i suppose) we would make our way into the fandom, make tons of things, meet some people, make things with those people and make friends, lose some people, and grow, grow, grow...

there's just been... so much in ten years. ten years guys !!! that's a lot !!! i was a proud senpai and kouhai all at once! i'd found a really cool sensei. i ran into artists who drew things for me and i wrote for them!

i watched the rise AND fall of void els (raise your hand if you're an oger), in real time watched vMM became a cultural phenomenon (you're lying to yourself if you dont think he was - ykb did something irreversible to the add fandom that day i fear 😂 he's still relevant to this day lmFAO thank ykb for ur service), i watched the top LP/bottom LP debates :/, i'd poked my head into the els tag to see yall fighting but then i'd see some cool things too! i've seen so many cool projects and zines -- hell, got to actually take part in one! (cringe as it was - our writing, not the zine but still proud of doing that !!!)

addcest/hellsword (tumblr) isn't what it use to be though. (hell tumblr itself isn't what it use to be, let's be real LMAO) but... i think that i love that hasn't stopped some of us for cherishing and/or still loving add to this day.

i think if you'd told past me i'd be doing this, writing for one (1) singular anime boy, i wouldn't be surprised - couldn't expect it to go any other way i think

i'm not sure how to feel that ten years later i am still writing for him - it's been quite obvious where i felt it wane (but that was more my life and mental health (was in quite few depressive episodes - still am lmao), and joy - or lack thereof at the times - of writing and placing my joy momentarily elsewhere) but... wow i'm still here? LMAO

but i've met so many amazing people because of him... i've made connections, some not quite lasting, but then... there's always someone else there isn't there?

(i met dez and rain-kouhai for the first time recently! i've met more people for add hell between now and maybe 2-3 years ago! can you imagine that??? people still interacting, still wanting to talk about add - i literally can't! i go on twitter kr/jp and go "wow new add fanart" and feel so lucky !!!)

it's just little joys like this that makes me appreciate such things

i guess what i'm trying to say... thank you add for all the connections i've had and made.

thank you to my original trio

thank you to addhell tumblr... ! (literally would have never known some of yall)

thank you to void els (for gay add marriage lmao but also some more cool friends and mutuals)

thanks discord for hosting gay add ramblings and ao3 for letting me put my gay shit there

thank you - to anyone and everyone who has ever read my work and supported me - friends, mutuals, strangers, anons - and to anyone who's drawn/wrote for or with me! (yes, i think about your comments, your kind words, your support! yes your comment, you!) 😭😭😭 it is the simple act of creating and sharing/encouraging that seriously drives me forward in every word i type... and this alone feels like it's not enough!

but mostly, thank you add, for everything, really

where da hell would this bnuuy be without you?

i was going to... add a more emotional spiel but i think this is good enough, don't nya'll think? :')

"i'm so glad you're still here even after all these past ten years"

you know what? i think i might just be too

thanks for the one whole decade everyone wahoo !!!

-

"they shared a bed together." - jacket, nov 29th 2014

[mahuhumaling]

JATP Season 2 Wishlist

that i wrote in my notes app back in:

and realized i never posted it here? tbf i'm rarely on tumblr. but because i really miss them rn i want to share my ✨ brainrot ✨ that i had back when i thought they were getting a renewal.

Carrie Wilson

she was my biggest flaw in Season 1. I wish her "redemption arc" is fleshed out more in Season 2; give her either more context & backstory to validate her reason for unnecessarily antagonizing Julie, or screentime to properly address how she's just projecting an emotion completely different into bitterness and anger into Julie's recovery

show particularly her earlier dynamic w/ Flynn and Julie? Maybe as Flynn calls her out, we'd get flashback glimpses prior to Rose's death (maybe even Double Trouble temporarily being Triple Threat 👉🏽👈🏽)

for some reason i'm picturing a scene where she's in her dance studio (she has one in their mansion, of course) practicing some of her Dirty Candy routine when she keeps messing up and not in the right mindset to keep dancing. i feel like the best (maybe easiest but whatever) way to guide the audience into her artist mind is to make her be a perfectionist. in frustration, she blows up for a minute before slumping onto the ground and reminisces her fun times with Julie & Flynn

also when you have her develop, please don't make her lose her femininity and the bubblegum pop music, it's great

Old Songs Resurfacing

it'll prove how detailed & thorough you are as a screenwriter if you pay off the songs mentioned in Season 1 in passing to be actual songs in Season 2

Unreleased: Get Lost, Long Weekend, Crooked Teeth, My Name is Luke, and if that riff from the scene in EP. 5 that spurred on the Bobby reveal isn't from one of these songs, add that too

Demo Album: Late Last Night, Lakeside Reflection, In Your Starlight

Willex

imagine your queer couple gets to have their first kiss first than your het main couple, not only will that settle Madi & Charlie's statements about being uncomfortable in doing a kissing scene and maintaining the priority of Juke's emotional over physical relationship, it would also make an powerful statement

Reggie's Character Arc

i know that he initially had an arc that involved a romance with Flynn but because of the ages of who they casted, they scrapped it and didn't have time to rewrite the scripts for him as filming neared, so they have time to adapt to how jeremy portrayed him for season 2: a lovable dork who craves familial love

since there's a possibility that lifers can now see the boys, maybe some found family trope for Reggie and Ray Molina?

he has pretty much formed a parasocial relationship with him at this point

so why not instead of a love interest, Reggie can have his character arc develop & we see his family before thru flashbacks and paralleling those in the current times because he sees Ray as a father figure

picture this: it's raining, Bobby opens the garage door to the sound of knocking, the boys find Reggie soaking wet and out of breath when he tries to say he doesn't know where else to go then the boys immediately figure out another fight in the Peters household happened. Reggie tries to talk again when Alex (because even though they're the airhead-sarcastic duo, they know they love each other) runs up to hug him and tells the other he doesn't have to say anything

cut to a freshly showered Reggie, quietly watching tv with Bobby, Luke, and Alex in the garage, eating whatever

also a solo acoustic country song, pls. just to make him happy

The Aftermath of the Deaths

for both the boys and Rose

we get parallels about how Bobby dealt with trauma and grief to Julie

like, the reason why the clothes are still in there (are to have costume changes for the boys) is because Bobby immediately moved out of the house (therefore also the garage) and left the clothes there because he couldn't bear to burn it, or visit the boys' houses to break the news to their families and return the clothes, or donate it somewhere so he just...left it. it would make for a more solid reason (for costume changes) and an emotional context as to how Bobby really tried to forget them because it was "easier."

it would also make sense why Carrie and Julie ended up friends. Rose probably was there for Bobby when they discovered what happened at the alleyway, so they stayed friends over the years and had their respective families but still kept in touch, (bonus points if absolutely nothing romantic happened between them! yay to normalizing platonic male-female relationships) and why Rose would immediately think of Bobby's three late bandmates to send for Julie when she was on her deathbed

Bobby never really "moved on" (because grief is a really complex thing). it's showed that he has a therapist and everything, and this could definitely have some aftereffects on his daughter. Carrie growing up seeing her father be this amazing rockstar but a negligent father and only showing love in ways she doesn't need (like riches and fame and connections to the music industry) because he's actually a really lonely man on the inside and no one can see that except for Bobby's spouse and Carrie. it'd explain why Carrie is spoiled, and other negative character traits that Carrie has on the surface

it's even why Bobby changed his name to Trevor: 1) Bobby is so closely associated to Sunset Curve and it's an absolute pain to be reminded of that every day, 2) it's a stage name and artists really do get that

More Worldbuilding

they already had some pretty creative concepts/ideas in the first season, so why not expand/expound on them a bit more

the instruments are attached to their souls that's why the boys at first can only touch them, like how Willie's skateboard and helmet are attached to him

which is why when they attach themselves to the world of the present, they gather up energy and focus on touching tangible things like the picture frame

this may follow the logic toward the end where they are finally able to touch Julie because she has become attached to their souls. emotionally.

More Creative Collaboration

i believe in the principle that when a story is finally released/published/told to the world, the world shares it. this is also visible in film/tv where when the scripts are finished and actors receive them, the story becomes part of theirs to work on. which means that they have some sort of autonomy over their characters' motivations, a chance to be heard of their ideas and pitches, and why some certain scenes wouldn't work, etc etc. it doesn't just become the director's story nor the screenwriters'.

the actors' ideas such as Perfect Harmony and their solos from Nothing to Lose are great because they let them in. they took risks, and it paid off incredibly well. more of that please. have them be a part of the writing process, (also the story), but never forget what made the music production great in the first place. be coherent and don't be like others that let too many hands work on one piece—it will lose its sound, its identity.

Julie Knowing

that Nick is possessed by Caleb. ohmygOD. hear me out.

the same S1 ending will play somewhere in 2x01, but it will be revealed that Julie was watching through the window the entire time and when she opens the door to receive the flowers, that last look she gives him is actually her scheming.

determined to get Nick back, imagine The Promised Neverland's level of mindgames Julie could play with Caleb because we already know our girl's smart

Free Willie Willie's Freedom

since the boys feel indebted to Willie's help, they insist on helping him too with getting rid of Caleb's stamp

maybe through his connection with Alex? or maybe Willie's family or friends who are still lifers (which is unlikely but either way). he needs to be saved !!

Song Sequences Ideas

juke counter melody duet like Rini's "Even When/The Best Part," Shane & Mitchie's "Wouldn't Change a Thing," or dodie & Jon Cozart's "a love song/a non love song"

emotional carrie ballad paired with lyrical hiphop choreo

willex song - i absolutely have no idea where this could go directionally but maybe alex on an acoustic guitar with a really soft sweet tune

reprises of S1 songs but in the complete opposite of their original style (the fandom's lonelier All Eyes on Me version, i see u)

nick guitar solo - just because Sacha actually plays, idk how it'd fit in to the plot yet but hey

Nothing to Lose (Reprise) - back in the '90s, a producer manipulates Bobby to sign a record deal to become a star but on one condition: disassociate himself with Sunset Curve, to which he first declines until he slowly gets persuaded. (sort of like Todrick Hall's So Lucky to Be You meets Lyn Lapid's Producer Man)

"So how about it, Bobby Shaw? Do we have a deal?"

"Trevor."

"I'm sorry?"

"Call me Trevor Wilson."

i'm pretty sure someone made an animatic with this idea too but i cannot for the life of me find it !!

7. Season 2 starts the same way as Season 1 does before the opening song plays

Black screen that reads a text "Hollywood 1995"

a pan down to the Orpheum's overhead sign that reads "SUNSET CURVE SOLD OUT"

cut to the interior with Rose finishing up her cleaning when a stage manager calls out: "Sunset Curve!" to which Bobby abruptly stops his pacing back and forth to look up. he and Rose look at each other. music swells until...

cut to him running onto the alleyway, "are they still not finished eating? those gluttons are dead to me i swear—" he cuts off his own words when he sees the boys getting dragged onto stretchers. but we, the audience, don't see it. just a close up of bobby as the ambulance lights reflects his face. rose comes up behind him, still clutching their t-shirt.

[i honestly have no idea if Bobby should get on stage because it just proves Luke's theory of The Orpheum's opening bands eventually becoming big & successful so it'll explain the Trevor Wilson fame even though at first he only did it for the boys, or if he shouldn't because according to the article Julie googled he ran away immediately after they were pronounced in the scene] but either way, this is how the opening starts.

then it progresses to Rose and Bobby respectively having children so they could parallel each other blah blah

8. Julie plays a simple song on the piano while the guys watch her in awe

Storytelling through Props

let's dive deep into Rose's luggage/suitcase and use the props to head for Julie's emotional attachment with them

they already did it with the wardrobe: Rose wears the black leather vest in the pilot while Julie wears the same thing in EP 6

add depth to the characters' relationships like us finding out Julie's multilayered necklace is actually a gift from Carrie or something

SOYON ANN YOU'RE A GIFT FROM GOD. Bobby's necklace is present in both young and old!him

**Rose in flashback scenes should be wearing clothes we've already seen Julie in Season 1 just for greater effect.

The Bobby Conflict

definitely needs to be brought up again by Season 2; they only discarded somewhere in the middle because more pressing matters like the boys' existence blipping away was pushed to the forefront of the story

however, The Bobby Conflict changes. it'll be cleared up that he was offered a record deal as a solo artist by a manipulative producer. and given that the poor boy is only 17 (too, maybe), he agrees. what he doesn't know is the contract's fine print: giving up Sunset Curve's royalties

that information clears it up to the audience and the band, so the conflict becomes this: Bobby's Survivor's Guilt. god wouldn't that be so good tackling that in a kids'/family show.

[pearlbeads-and-honeybees]

In the wake of the confusion that is the Tiktok ban, I'm scrolling through my feed and I keep seeing people celebrating the ban as Tiktok spread misinformation.

And I just... Everywhere spreads misinformation. Our news broadcasters spread misinformation. Twitter spreads misinformation. Meta (FB and Instagram) spreads misinformation. Tumblr spreads misinformation!

That's no reason to ban an app. You can dislike Tiktok while also acknowledging that this ban will and has caused people harm.

Tiktok was where I realized I needed to go see a doctor about my period pain because it wasn't normal, despite the fact that I was told in real life it was normal for some women by doctors and nurses! Because of Tiktok I found out I have Endometriosis and andeomysis, because of a doctor (who specialized in Endo) on Tiktok talking about those conditions.

The comments under that Tiktok were filled with women/afab people who were exactly like me!

Was Tiktok perfect? No. But come on Tumblr, are we really ones to judge when staff can't make up their minds about what porn is and isn't? And whether or not to ban trans people every other week?

Let's be clear, Tiktok was banned because the government got paid by billionaires who didn't like the app and they used the excuse of national security when several congresspersons (who voted for the ban) were on the app themselves and were talking about governmental processes.

Tiktok brought in billions in revenue to the US government and took a cut as is their right. That is why they got banned, billionaires (musk and zuckerberg) not liking them and the fact that the US government couldn't profit as much as they *could've* from the app.

This ban was a 1st amendment violation, and truthfully nothing will change. Everyone who says they were radicalized by the ban is lying, they're not going to do anything.

There won't be a revolution, there won't be a civil war.

The American Government will continue to descend further into fascism until it kills itself and its citizens with its infighting and life will go on.

[belleame333]

how i overcame my phone addiction.

so for some background, i used to have a screen time of about 8 hours daily. i used my phone all day, every day, obsessively scrolling through tiktok and other social media apps. this did a significant number on my mental health and social life, and when i decided i wanted to work on myself i knew that this was the thing i needed to change first. so here's what i did to bring it down to less than one hour a day (some of the advice i took is from faye bate on youtube, go check out her video on the topic!)

turned off my app limit: this may seem counterproductive, but whenever i had my app limit on i would just press 5 more minutes until the next pop-up came and i would just press ignore and continue scrolling. i realized that it just didn't do anything.

deleted ALL games and social media: yes, even tumblr, and now i only have it on my laptop. i know many have FOMO (fear of missing out), and i did too, that is what keeps pulling us back to all these social media apps. no, it won't kill you if you do not see your friend's insta story or what your favorite tiktoker wore that day. trust me, it was hard to delete it all, especially since it gave me that feeling of being connected, but i just did it. that's what you need to remember in this whole journey: to just do it, even if you don't want to at first, you will not regret it. we see so much of other people's lives on social media that we forget about our own, that's why i cut my screen time so much, i wasn't focusing on myself and my own life.

put my phone far away/turn it off: whenever i leave a room i leave my phone in there, i put it up somewhere out of reach or i just turn it off completely, easy as that. also, when i go to school, i leave my phone at home sometimes so i don't go on it during class.

stopped listening to music: this was probably the hardest thing to do because i used to listen to music 24/7 but that fucked my brain up too since i just couldn't sit in silence without thinking about putting on music, and if i put on music, i also wanted to scroll through my phone. this also helped me to calm my mind a bit, because before i was constantly just singing in my head.

found other hobbies: i now do yoga, meditate, work out, read and solve puzzles; not long ago these were all things i didn't do because i was always on my phone. you don't even need a new hobby necessarily, you just need to do other stuff to get your mind off your phone, preferably something productive that's good for you.

did a dopamine detox: this is what i recommend most tbh. i found simonesquared’s videos on the topic to be the best and i followed what she did. i suggest you do your research into it but basically, it's not interacting with anything that gives us a dopamine kick (our phones, music, etc.) for a full day. i do this regularly now and it's been a great help with getting me away from my phone.

i truly hope someone found this helpful, love u xx

[lover-of-mine]

Your last post is funny bc just TODAY I watched that season finally. I’m literally 2 episodes into season 5 right now. As someone who just watched that for the first time (and hadn’t noticed it WAS the season finally when I started watching it) I was losing my goddamn MIND watching those episodes. Just constantly 😯😯😯. I began watching 911 when I started seeing posts circulating about Buck being bi. At the time I had no idea who he was other than the occasional gif set but it made me intrigued and I have been HOOKED. Literally trying to get through as many episodes as possible so I can watch the episodes live. Questions for you (since I have no one else to talk to about the show); when did you start watching? Have you had any predictions while watching the show that didn’t/ did come true? Like for me when I watched season 1 and Abby went to the fire department for the first time I SWORE up and down that her and Bobby were meant to be endgame (was clearly wrong lol). But also after Chris got stuck in the Tsunami I called it that something would happy to Harry later on (just a feeling that no one was safe lol, not even the kids). I’m just so curious to see what the fandom theories have been over time lol since I missed out on it!

Yeah, no, watching suspicion/survivors for the first time is WILD. Like, imma be honest and bit oversharing, I watched the show for the first time in a depressive episode, so I watched everything up to 5x10 in like, 6 days according to the posts I made on Tumblr about it, so I didn't realize theorize about anything, I was just hitting next episode like my life depended on it. But I didn't know anything about the show, like, at all, I had just watched 911 lone star in a weekend because it was on the tv and there were only like, 20 episodes of it out it at the time and a network in my country was just showing all of them on a loop, and I opened the Disney app fully intending to rewatch grey's anatomy, and 911 was the first show on my recommended to you list, and I had liked lone star enough, and was like sure why not. And I legit couldn't stop watching. All of this happened the week before 5x11 aired on the us, so 5x11 was the first episode I watched like "live" (the first episode I actually watched live was 5x16) but I watched it in the same week, I think I finished on a Tuesday? And the episode aired on Monday. I can't really give you any theories I have witnessed so far because they would be spoilers tho, but if you wanna come back once you catch up we can talk about some of the madness that goes around here. But I had the same thing happen to me, I didn't realize it was the season finale, and I didn't know anything about the show, so I had no idea what was happening, and I thought I had learned my lesson with the tsunami arc, because I watched 3x01 at like 3 am fully saying this is the last episode I will watch and then I'm gonna go to bed, and then the tsunami hit, and I was like well fuck and then Chris fell in the water and next thing I know is 5 am and Eddie is making me cry at the end there. But I saw the 13 and didn't realize the season only had 14 episodes and then everything kept happening. I seriously cannot imagine what it was like to be forced to wait a week between those 2 episodes it was SO CRAZY. When Eddie got shot I legit froze. Watching that for the first time not knowing it's coming is SOMETHING. I do remember thinking that they were gonna kill Shannon but I didn't expect to be right, I also remember clocking that Jason was Doug pretty fast. Something funny tho, I remember posting that meme that's like "I've had blank for 1 day and a half but if anything happened to him I'd kill everyone in this room and myself" with Buck and I waited until I had been watching for a day and a half, that means I posted it while watching the season 2 finale. I hit post and the truck blew up and I legit went like ????????? and that is still the most ironic thing that ever happened to me while posting about 911 kspskspkspakapkapa (here's the post, I actually came back to edit the tags because I was in shock lol) and I laugh every time I remember that lol but I'm glad you're enjoying the show, you can come back to talk to me about it any time!;

[lefluoritesys]

Hi! Random question but what's the funniest/most awkward situation you have ever been in with a headmate/headmates? Also, I love your Tumblr. It helps us through a lot of system denial :)

Thank you so much!! We're glad to hear that, we try our best to make it a safe and positive space!!

I don't think we have stories that people would count as incredibly funny, however, we have a few that stand out to us as at least amusing, lmao. And awkward... don't even get me started.

I (co-host) keep texting people trying to make friends, and don't ask nor tell anybody. And then I just dip. I think it's a pretty effective strategy. :D

The amount of times somebody told us something that we know we would have memorized by hard. Like when we're supposed to have our lessons. And then we'd switch, be asked about it, and don't know the answer as to what that thing was. It puts us in such awkward situations IRL cause of our parents.-

Today, remember the couple that went on a date? One of them had to front to take our sibling to their classes, and they were sulking, so our co-host & persecutor-caretaker had to keep their composure when their partner, from the inner world, said our sibling looks like an offended ostrich.

We got berated for eating the host's chips. We now have a policy about eating chips. Because people ate their bag of chips...

One of the funniest stories were probably with one of our alters who went mostly inner now, though. They once purchased a premium on an app we use a lot without telling anybody, and at the time, we could buy a whole McDonald's meal for that amount of money. Then, we put them in charge of English classes, and they were definitely working, but their way of working was roasting everything and cracking some of the most hilarious jokes we've ever heard. That same alter then offered our mother cyanide.

Some of the things we say are so fucking funny that we made a quote book. For ourselves. And our partner systems. There, we not only have hilarious quotes, but some of the funniest roasts we've ever seen, one of our favorites being:

Host: It's kinda funny how I can do everything alone at front, and y'all have to do it collectively when I'm not around.

Co-host: Nah, we're just healthy.

Our co-host sprained our foot. And called the bandage on it "foot prison." I am not elaborating on their behalf. /laughing

In the inner world, we have this thing where we can track people and where they are at that point in time (especially our robots can do that), and sometimes people decide to play tag. And since our inner world is our inner world, what we basically see is a dot (that represents a person you're watching) telelporting from point A to point B to point E in a matter of seconds. Which doesn't sound funny, but picture it, lmao.

The number of posts we made that were purely targeting each other is insane. And you will never know that they are targeted unless we say something, we are sneaky like that.

At some point some people in the inner world discussed fucking Jesus?? And I mean doing the deed, not the "fucking Jesus." We still have no idea who or why.

And then another two people, whose names we know, discussed our partner system's semi-sentient hotel and what its type would be. In detail. And who they could pair it up with.

Our host is still salty at one of our prosecutors because they bought them cocoa instead of coffee, didn't tell them, and our host couldn't figure our why the coffee was sweet but tasted well, considering we hate coffee with sugar. And then they realized.

Our host address purple so much that now all of us gotta keep up with the idea what "we, a singlet, definitely a singlet (/s), love purple so much" because explaining to our bio family that we don't like it anymore but we also do but also don't would be too difficult for a number of reasons.

One of us can just decide that it's chicken nuggets day, and we will have chicken nuggets for lunch. Not because we don't want to upset this somebody by refusing but because we'd literally switch on the streets halfway to chicken nuggets, stare at the distance for a couple of seconds, and accept our fate.

We generally talk to ourselves in public constantly, we have no shame about that, especially since it's mostly in English, which is not our first language. That got us a lot of looks. We also do that in VCs with our partner system, and we openly switch in front of them and talk about inner world shit.

Hope that gave you a few laughs. /g /pos

-host, co-host & persecutor-caretaker, sexual persecutor

[bratkook]

Hello. I was trying to figure out the best way I could go about this, but I too was wondering what happened to two point five pt. 2, and after hearing that it was flagged, I have a really bad feeling that it might have been my fault. Actually, even if it might not be me, I want to take the time to formerly apologize to you. I was looking at the fic under the 'for you' category (since I didn't know there was a second part) and while I was trying to like and reblog it, the tumblr app malfunctioned and I was desperately trying to scroll down to quickly like or reblog it before it disappeared. I did end up seeing a green bar saying thank you....something so I thought that it registered the double tap to like it before the app crashed. I did later realize that I already had the first part saved as well as having already memorized your blog name, so I could have just gone back and checked it later. I got distracted and ended up doing other things since I knew I could come back, only to not only see it missing from my likes/reblog, but that it also disappeared from your blog as well. I figured it was probably removed or deleted as it is your story and your decision. But....It's too much of a coincidence at this point, and yes I do feel like an asshole even if it wasn't done with such intention. I would like to apologize to both you and everyone who liked, reblog, and enjoyed all your hard work. I'm not asking for your forgiveness. I can only recognize that you are hurt from being forced to have one of your wonderful pieces of writing being removed because of my mistake. You're a wonderful and talented writer. The way your story writing just flows and the ease I have in reading it is truly amazing and shows how dedicated and talented you are to your artistic pieces! I was so enthusiastic from reading part 1 that I couldn't stop myself from reading it multiple times. I only hope that you don't let something extremely stupid that I have done to you to affect the way you perceive your writings. I will always be eternaly sorry for putting you through this. My sincerest apologizes.

hi cutie, omg pls don’t stress about it! part two is still up, its just flagged as mature so in order to see it you have to make sure your settings aren’t restricted or have mature content blocked. people are still very much liking and reblogging it still so its more so an annoying hurdle to jump than anything else LOL. i appreciate your heartfelt apology but even if you were the one that flagged it its not that big of a deal at the end of the day

[bakerstreet-and-beyond]

Hey please be careful in sharing things like this because a number of these things folks are claiming you can't search/get flagged since the Ban you very much still can search and or were things that were already being flagged for review BEFORE the 19th ...

Like- did we all forget talking about this over a year ago when there was a decrease in Pro-Palestine content due to outside suppression on the app or when real time Lives of fighting in Ukraine were being taken down? There's a reason why people on TikTok were using 🍉 and 🌻 instead of the flag or actually naming the countries.

Also the majority of negative comments being flagged about these awful people is because it contains the word "Fuck" which on Tumblr y'all've been dunking on how on TikTok you couldn't/can't say, "Fuck" "Kill" "Sex" "Die" etc in comments and descriptions for YEARS... Literally if you put those words in as tags, descriptions, captions or comments you get flagged; We've known this for A WHILE.

They took 170 MILLION users offline and then back, some issues people are reporting are literally growing pains of putting the servers in weird limbo life support after taking them down (technically the app is STILL banned) like the Live Feature needing about 24hrs to come back online and quality being nuked.

Certain users are missing or aren't uploading anymore because they deleted the app not because they are "Banned", which still since the app itself IS STILL technically banned, you can't re-download in the app store currently. We all thought it was the end and some actually deleted their accounts the day of because of how sure folks thought it was over.

Also the primary editing software people use for TikTok, Capcut, isn't back either because of this purgatory the app is in so people can't even make the videos they normally make too.

Under the cut here the actual results when you type in those terms into TikTok search and what I saw for Lives literally 48 hours ago

When Lives Feature came back on literally the first Live I got on my FYP was for a MLK Day parade and it was someone zooming in on a sign a little girl was holding that said "This is the Kings day, NOT his" followed by the next Live got was a gentleman walking around his neighborhood speaking in Spanish about how he's been up all morning checking out suspicious trucks in his neighborhood worried that they may be undercover ICE vans. Next Live I saw was someone talking about how no one can see her live and yet there was 5,000 people watching 🧍🏻the next video I literally got was a Luigi Update; unfortunately I didn't realize I should've taken screenshots of all this but also,

I'm in the US and not using a VPN, here are my results for the following as of 1/22/25:

The Radio Station only comes up as a banner at the top suggesting the account but, all the results are tho what you'd expect

These videos also are still here,

And this is what you get for searching "Fascism"

And our boi is still very much here

I hit my photo limit, but I implore you to type those terms in that supposedly have "no results anymore" and see they very much do and or realize that some things have already been removed well before the 19th

I really think letting us purposely spread that the app is now overly censored and the Meta buyout rumours is a tactic to further divide us. I really think, right now at least, the only thing they had to do was put "Thank You Donald Trump" in the return message, without having to actually change anything else, and then let folks go wild with the accusations, rumors, and conspiracies so then we all turn on the app ourselves and thus we won't cry about it being gone or that it gives us some falsely created moral high ground for deleting it/not using it anymore/etc and again will keep us more divided than together.

Literally this is destabilization tactics our government uses on other countries and it's own communities...

Thankfully there are creators on there who are also pointing this out as well as, just look at the comments on this post and you will see that others are saying, again in the US without a VPN you can still search these things in the post above.

It doesn't excuse the other fuckery definitely happening by any means but, they are letting us destroy ourselves and the 3rd space we created where we were the most united we've been on a platform in a while. They know how to push our buttons and we're all being played.

Already seeing people on tiktok saying “I still hate trump but he ate with this one” like … babes … you just got propagandized … that’s literally exactly what he created this situation in the hopes you would say …

[kennieswrld]

kenji vs. the internet

i've held a closely intimate relationship with the internet since i was around 7 years old. it began with children's toy websites, evolved into youtube, tumblr and porn throughout middle school and somehow snowballed itself into forum sites and tiktok in my early adulthood.

from this "second life" experience (if you would). i think i may be closer to the internet than my own mother. i thought for the longest time that i was in control of my internet experience, until recently.

now, i've always held a belief in the back of my mind that i am deplorably stupid. like insane levels of stupidity. im talking rock in the cranium shit. and yes, that is a huge sign of low self esteem but it's also interesting when pairing it with my other belief that i am somehow so smart i cannot be tricked by online shenanigans and propaganda. but boy oh boy was i wrong.

from elementary to midway through middle school, i feel like my internet usage was pretty run of the mill for kids born around 2003. i saw boobs, i played cool math games, and watched vine compilations daily. yknow, easy level brain rot shit.

but, my middle school experience changed completely as i became more and more obsessed with boyband culture. i began chatting with random strangers in chatrooms about the bands and how much we loved them. it was innocent really. but tumblr! my god will she pay for her sins.

it began with the oneshot stories, simple fanfictions about imagining dating one member of a boyband. then transformed into consuming NSFW material about these boybands quickly. i saw how huge and vibrant the NSFW communities were at this time. i was a child, anything that would make my mother faint intrigued me deeply. and how she would've fainted if she saw what i was looking at.

from there i began to romanticize themes such as mental illness, suicide, star crossed lover scenarios, drugs, and even self harm at a point. i didn't share any of my online activities with any of my friends in real life as i knew there was a reason that they were so deep cut into the apps i was on. i was ashamed. i knew i was doing something wrong. and to this very day, i pray that if i get a redo in life i have a friend who tells me that what i was looking at wasn't okay and i needed help. but i live in reality. and what's done is done.

being a lonely teenager and having unrestricted internet access is a suicidal combination. most think it will lead to overt changes in a person. but it doesn't always. you have a few kids that will act out publicly and a few that act out online. i was the latter. the themes that i romanticized online seemed to follow me offline. i thought of suicide and self harm often. the fan-fictions i read where the main love interests would kill themselves as a sign of ultimate love became engrained in my head. i was too far gone. combined with my growing love for absurdism and male centric media, i saw myself becoming something i didn't know.

i never had a "deep alt right" phase. i had a "deeply suicidal and pessimistic asshole" phase. i feel i'm still in it some days. and i really do blame the internet for this. i was a child. i didn't understand. i couldn't understand. even today, i feel so fucking ashamed of my digital thumbprint. interacting with adults who knew i was a child and took advantage of my naivety.

even today, i still feel so conflicted over my internet phases. i usually feel very alone in this shame, until realizing im not alone. people need to speak more openly about the internet damaging their childhood. and what gets me the most is, it's still happening. but i can see it now.

i don't really know why i wanted to post this, it's very vulnerable. but with the recent US politics around tiktok, i've been seriously reconsidering my relationship with the internet and social media. has it ever given me anything good? is this stockholm syndrome? i feel like it's ruined my life for good. all i can do now is rebuild the things it took from me and learn how to build the things it never let me learn. that's all.

[omnium-gatherums]

Genuine question out of curiosity and I totally understand if you aren't comfortable answering it, but I was just wondering what led you to get assessed for DID?

I don't want to be nosy or rude or anything! I just see you mention a lot of things around feeling like you're basically all "you" rather than seeing one another as separate parts and stuff like that, and got curious because it seems like that's a presentation that would be less likely to get easily noticed by a therapist and/or prompt the person to seek an assessment.

I don't mind answering :P

So context for my life, brief CSA mention, when I was 14-years-old, I told my family about the fact that my brother was sexually abusing me, and that led me to moving in with my mom all through high school.

I'm pretty sure I just, like. Forgot, I guess, how much worse my dad is over my mom, but I ended up moving back in with my dad after graduating when I was 18.

From 18-20/21, I started realizing many things about myself; that I'm autistic, that I probably have ADHD, and that I have experienced a lot of abuse and trauma for essentially my whole life.

I have a friend who I knew had DID (I'm still friends with him, you know who you are JMSKDKND) and we have technically been friends since I was like 17 maybe, but we never talked much and weren't that close. But I knew she had DID and I don't know for sure if these were actually amnesia due to alters or not, but I woke up on different occasions to see that my phone was left open on random things. I don't mean "woke up" as in I thought I just went unconscious, I mean that I LITERALLY just. Fell asleep at nighttime and when I woke up the next morning, random stuff was left open on my phone. I didn't experience it as "passing out and then waking up" or anything.

One time it was just open on an college essay I wrote, another time it was left open on a.. Random Reddit news story about legalizing weed or some shit? I genuinely don't know if those incidences were from alters fronting while I thought I was asleep or what. It's just weird because I can't imagine any alters just.. Fronting and reading our college essay and a random Reddit news story?? I have no idea. But my phone requires a pass code to unlock, so it couldn't have just been me somehow accidentally opened up random apps in my sleep.

And because of my friend, and because I knew that DID was caused by childhood trauma, I also found out (I don't know where or how, this wasn't something I knew off the bat) that DID isn't all that rare or anything, so because of my realizations and knowing my friend with DID, I ended up wondering if I could have DID.

I didn't take it all that seriously, I was convinced that it was too much of a "jump" to question DID, that it was obvious I didn't have it and it was ridiculous and a joke that I ever questioned it. And didn't tell anyone, but eventually did of course and then years upon years of researching, questioning, excruciating denial, not understanding how alters and switching works, so on and so forth, I finally got diagnosed in Nov. 2022.

I think that, had I not known about my friend with DID, I still would have eventually started to question DID because I think I would've come across DID discussions SOMEWHERE on Tumblr and then started questioning further. I just probably would've found out much, much later.

And if I didn't use Tumblr, I probably would've just never even questioned or known or even got diagnosed at all. Just because I feel like system spaces are pretty big in the spaces that I also frequent on Tumblr, and I don't use other social media platforms, but I can't imagine systems spring up as often on those, even TikTok. But then again, I don't know lol.

There are probably other details that I've forgotten for sure lol. If you wanna ask more specific questions, I don't mind answering :P

[ilightmytorch]

How I Won NaNoWriMo in Three Easy Steps

Here's where I ended on November 30, 2023:

I've participated in NaNo since 2016, but the only year I won prior to this one was 2017. So, what did I do differently than I did in 2018-2022?

Go for the Par Badge.

This little baby made all the difference.

In prior years, I would tell myself I couldn't possibly write 1,667 words during the week with working full-time plus an hour+ commute. So I'd play this game, "I'll write less on the weekdays and make it up on the weekends," except I would quickly get so far behind that I'd need, say, 4,000 words per weekend day for the final half of the month, which is more than I can write, and then I'd lose heart.

This year, I decided to go for the par badge, which meant writing 1,667 words every single day. Which meant I never fell behind and never lost heart.

2. Sprint.

Sprinting on Discord has been a revelation. I've realized I haven't been writing very efficiently. I'd "write" for an hour and only get a couple hundred words, at best. But something about having that timer going and knowing I'm going to have to report back at the end of 20 minutes helps me focus, especially when other writers are sprinting at the same time.

It's also helpful for when it's past 10 pm and you're tired, but you're only at 1,300 words for the day. It's like, "OK, you need 367 words, so one good sprint or maybe two. Less than one hour and you can go to bed."

I'm absolutely going to be sprinting whenever I write in the future.

3. Write Easy Words.

If writers fall on a spectrum from planner to pantser, I'm 70-80% of the way toward the pantser end of the spectrum. For this year's NaNo, I wouldn't say I became a planner or anything, but I had a list of specific scenes I wanted to work on, and at least some sense of what was going to happen in those scenes.

I looked at my spreadsheet for last year, and during November 2022 I worked on a brand new story idea that I'd just gotten (bad idea, because that probably went slower than it needed to because I hadn't had time to think it through) and smut (very bad idea, because I'm a slow writer in general, but particularly slow when writing smut).

Bonus: Dictate.

About 4,000 of my words for the month were dictated into my phone using the microphone button in Google Docs. This is what I do whenever I'm stuck in traffic, which is all too often, unfortunately. I'm a big fan of talking through my story, especially when I'm struggling with it. Often I'll realize that there's a logical problem with the sequence of events, there are character motivations that I need to clarify, or that I'm using the wrong POV. While stuck on the interstate last night trying to get to the last write-in of the year, I identified a logistical problem but also got a really good idea for what my villain is going to threaten to do in the climax, so I'm excited to work on that scene in December!

Bonus 2: Cold Turkey.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my favorite app, Cold Turkey. You start by setting up a block list (it comes with a preset list which you can add to or remove from as needed). When you turn it on, it won't allow you to see any of the websites you've blocked. So, no wasting time scrolling Tumblr when I need to be writing!

[lynsburner]

your fics are so amazing!! where do you usually get inspiration from?

Thank you so much! Also, my apologies, because as always, it's time to give an unnecessary, long-ass answer to questions that should take a second to respond to.

So, this is threefold.

One: I love me a rom-com. I love two people who should be together finally find their way to each other. Some of my favorites are What If? (also called The F Word in some places) which to me is friends to lovers excellence, and there's a scene where they turn the "grand gesture" trope on its head that I LOVE, About Time (and the message of living every day to the fullest), and I really did like Plus One, which is another great friends to lovers time. Also, as we know, I am a sucker for Practical Magic. I just like writing stories like these lol

Two: .... don't hate me for this, but spite/determination LMAO. There were fics that I wanted to see/read but couldn't seem to find them... so I wrote them myself!

I didn't really get into reading/writing self-insert until a few years ago, and even then, I was mostly reading the silly/Wattpad-level bad ones with friends as a joke. But, like most things I do, it went from being ironic to unironic really quickly and I thought to myself, "Hey, if these people can do this, so can I!" Most of these stories lived on my notes app and I exchanged them with a single friend. The more (once I realized who and who wouldn't judge me for writing these) friends who saw them encouraged me to publish them. And now I have this burner account lol.

So, long story short: there are just things I wanted to read and I thought "Well, if no one else will... guess I'll have to step up to the plate. "

Not that I think I'm writing anything revolutionary. This is my burner account self-insert blog. My name isn't really Lyn. This is my little secret aka my commitment to the bit is truly... unmatched.

And three: My first ever published fic from this account was inspired by a genuine long-distance relationship I was in at the time (he was also just as tall, and had long hair, but from a neighboring country lol) and being frustrated I couldn't meet them because of the pandemic. So I kind of channeled that want (and even some of the moments we had shared) in there.

The second one in that series was inspired by more real-life experience, as well as a shit ton of tik-toks of plus-size women having shared their experience of more conventionally attractive people trying to flirt with their significant others in front of them. I really wanted to attempt to subvert expectations with that one and say while it might feel good in the moment, constantly being overlooked because of the body you lived in fucking SUCKS.

The third in that series literally came together in a week of just an idea I had that was just like... yeah this relationship is hard... and no one's perfect.. but love, man! I also just desperately needed a vacation IRL lol Plus, a lovely anon kept messaging me about that series and I had the urge to revisit it.

With the most recent one, that angst was actually scrapped dialogue from the third in that series that I just wanted to explore more? Like that one had the end goal of them getting engaged and I knew if I had them genuinely yelling at each other, that engagement wouldn't be earned. So to a blank slate of a couple it went to! Also, lbr, Unreal Unearth is truly so tragic when it comes to its themes (specifically about love) so I pulled from there a teensy bit.

And, then the chaptered one was fully inspired by that tumblr post that was like "He's a sound guy. Shite Craic. Would not have him round for cans, on my life" where they described Andrew as a dude who only mopes and smokes weed. I just thought it would be very funny to make him a bit of a cynical asshole. Plus, I technically have a film degree, and dreams of becoming a professional screenwriter in me, so writing dialogue is my absolute favorite thing. Love silly banter between two people who just need to kiss already.

Again, so sorry for this being so long, but I am a sucker for an ego-boost-filled deep dive.

[nientedal]

I wanna preface all this with, if I sound frustrated here, it's not because of you or anything you've written. 100% of my disgust rests on the situation and on D themself.

Short version: they were obnoxious, they got a warning, they continued to be obnoxious, they got upset and left, and they got banned so they couldn't come back...and then they got incredibly fucking butthurt about it and pedojacketed our admin and three other people who had dared be polite and then disagree with them.

Long version below the cut. This is STILL as short as I could make it.

First of all, here is a link to a folder with screenshots in a PowerPoint of all the interactions D had with the people they accused originally. The folder also contains a document D wrote with the "proof" of their abuse in our server, which I have annotated to add context. I have also included a link to the transcript of the ticket the mods opened to privately address D's behavior with them.

Filthy is likely not going to weigh in on this personally, as the whole thing is still extremely anxiety-inducing for him, but I've known him for something like 12 years and have been dating him for more than 2. He is not a damned groomer. He worked really, REALLY hard and was deliberately careful to create a server that would be as safe as possible for people of all ages, because he was groomed and hurt as a teen and he is not fucking interested in letting that happen to anyone else on his watch. It is incredibly disheartening to have this lying little weasel screaming they were abused and groomed and it's a horrible server run by toxic pedos, blah blah. We take safety extremely seriously! We are very firm about keeping NSFW stuff away from our minors, and we have enough adult-only channels that adults don't have to post in minor-friendly spaces at all if they don't want to. Mistakes are really rare. I honestly can't remember if anyone has posted anything overtly nsfw in a sfw channel...the most "exciting" thing I can think of was some fanart of a character wearing silly underpants, and that's not NSFW lol, I'm sorry. Everything posted to SFW channels is stuff you might see on public access TV.

I'm not sure what exactly D told you all about their time with us. They were in Evil Lair for, I think, three weeks? And their barrage of harassment went on for MONTHS, literally JUST because (1) an adult who didn't want to be friends with them was polite to them a couple of times anyway, and (2) D was butthurt about being banned from the server (and about realizing someone who was nice to them out of basic decency didn't actually like them). I wish I was exaggerating! But that was seriously it, and they screamed on Twitter, they screamed on Tumblr, they sent friends into the server under false pretenses to gather "proof" (there is no proof, because nothing goddamn happened), they sent friends to harass one of the mods in DMs. One of their friends came in and harassed one of the other victims. They even made a parody OC of Filthy and drew him being sexually creepy. It was Fucked. Up. And this was AFTER they flat-out admitted the "grooming" was neither sexual nor romantic:

Platonic grooming is not a real thing.

D left the server because they didn't like being told to block people and filter tags to keep themself safe on 17+rated apps. D left, and Filthy banned them so we could take a fucking break, because us mods were exhausted from dealing with them. We try HARD to keep the server friendly and welcoming, and D made it difficult for us every goddamn day. 'Megamind' is a movie that attracts a lot of people who have been bullied and socially traumatized for harmlessly liking "weird" stuff or for being "weird" themselves in some way, and the server had been getting noticeably quieter as D slowly revealed themself to be deeply judgmental and unsafe to share things with.

(In retrospect, we probably should have just said "If you think someone here is honestly a threat, open a ticket and speak to the mods so we can evaluate. Otherwise, either block who you need to block and move on, or get the fuck out." But they hadn't seemed malicious yet; they honestly seemed happy to be there and eager to make friends. We didn't actually want to ban them, or we would have done it way sooner.)

Anyway, you mentioned D putting up a facade before revealing themself, and I think that's exactly what happened with us as well. They didn't have stories about "grooming," but they were on their best behavior for a while as they tried to figure out whether we would support them. From what you've said, it sounds like D has now figured out how to win sympathy by crying about being groomed, and is using that to make people care about them? Fucking disgusting, if so. I don't blame you at all for believing them, to be clear - I would have, too. But holy fucking shit. I fully believe SOMEONE hurt this kid, and I understand they need help, but that doesn't change the fact that they are the most terminally online, virulently toxic talking anus I've ever had the misfortune to interact with. I am so, so sorry y'all have run afoul of this person. All I can say is, block, ban, find a good support system to bitch with, and resist the urge to check their Twitter. My sympathies.

Guys, I fell into the D*psy Rabbit hole after seeing big blowout she made in my gf's server and this post, and it got me thinking, who else was harassed by this kid? I want to see the "abuser" point of view because she did talk about Filthy in her previous joining of the RGTK server being her groomer (we didn't know at the time that it was false) and I finally saw Filthy's POV of it, which I am very sorry of what she done to you.

So it's understandable if you guys don't want to talk about it publicly. In the DMs would be fine because after seeing the context from the Megamind fandom, I started to think that there were other fandoms she put up a facade for before showing her true colors.

This isn't a hate post, I'm just curious about how others were around her. I would blame those drama vids to get me climbing down this D*psy Rabbit hole.

[emjenenla]

Masterlist

Headcanons: (#Emjen’s Headcanons) -Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars) x -Cardan Greenbriar (The Folk of the Air) x -Declan Lynch (The Raven Cycle) x -Firebenders (Avatar: the Last Airbender) x -Herondale Birthmark (The Shadowhunter Chronicles) x -Hideo Tanaka (Warcross) x -Jace Herondale (The Shadowhunter Chronicles) x -Kanej (Kaz/Inej) (Six of Crows) x -Kaz Brekker (Six of Crows) x -Lightwood Siblings (Alec, Jace, Isabelle and Max) (The Shadowhunter Chronicles) x -Nine and Twelve (Zankyou no Terror) x -Sizzy (Isabelle/Simon) (The Shadowhunter Chronicles) x Fanfiction Recommendations: (#emjen recommends) -Best 25+ Chapter Fanfics -Gansey Recs (The Raven Cycle) -Kaiba Recs (Yu-Gi-Oh) -Loki Recs (Marvel Cinematic Universe) Rambles: (#emjen rambles) Multifandom/Booklr -Characters who Canonically Don’t Sleep op | rb 1 -A-Z Book Recommendations -A list of near fandom-less/small fandom books you should all read -Portal, urban and high fantasy featuring TRC, TFotA and Daevabad [with @theinquisitxor​] Alex Stern Series -Who Darlington killed The Daevabad Trilogy -Portal, urban and high fantasy featuring TRC, TFotA and Daevabad [with @theinquisitxor​] The Folk of the Air -My favorite TCP quote and Cardan’s coping methods -Faerie true names -Jude, Cardan and Understanding -Cardan and Asha -Changelings being unable to lie -Thoughts on Bustle excerpt of QoN and Taryn Duarte -Portal, urban and high fantasy featuring TRC, TFotA and Daevabad [with @theinquisitxor​] The Gentleman Bastards -A (very) short musing about Locke Lamora and Kaz Brekker Grishaverse -Where were the Crows during the Grisha Trilogy -Pekka Rollins didn’t actually kill Jordie -A (very) short musing about Locke Lamora and Kaz Brekker -Changes is my OC Espen’s characterization Grishaverse TV -Speculation on who the Crows will be stealing from in the TV show -Where did “Kirigin” come from, why call the Darkling that, and rants about storytelling in film [with @nina-zeniks-cleavage and @immyownghostwriter] -Why Ben Barnes is the perfect age to play the Darkling Haikyuu! -Lack of teams dealing with their cohesion issues in Haikyuu! I Hunt Killers -Jazz as an unreliable narrator The Naturals -Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s original plans for series length Peaky Blinders -Why Tommy freaks out when he can’t get his coat on in s2 [response to a gifset posted by @ohfuckyeahcillianmurphy] -Tommy’s behavior in the boxing ring scene in 4x06 [with @deadendtracks​] -Tommy’s emotions and the family dynamic [with @deadendtracks​] -Is Tommy’s sense of responsibility unrealistic? [with @deadendtracks​] -On Shelby family dynamics and responsibility [with @deadendtracks​] Shadowhunters -Thule Jace and villain motivations -Reminder: Hodge knows there are two Jonathans -Is Simon/Clary/Jace a real love triangle? -Reactions to part one of Qoaad -Will and Gabriel drinking in the Whitechapel Fiend -Will exhausted in Clockwork Prince: a quote collection -Some Things I Noticed While Rereading CoLS -Will telling the truth about his curse The Raven Cycle/The Dreamer Trilogy -Are Carmen and Jordan dreams? -Portal, urban and high fantasy featuring TRC, TFotA and Daevabad [with @theinquisitxor​] Star Wars -Ten Platonic Anakin Skywalker Relationships That Really Should Have More Fanfictions Written About Them -Emjen Reviews: Lost Stars by Claudia Gray -Ten Anakin Skywalker Quotes in honor of Hayden Christensen’s Birthday The Stormlight Archive -Things I want from Stormlight Archive Book 4 -Elhokar’s reaction to Kaladin’s boon Throne of Glass -Favorites and Least Favorites: Throne of Glass -Manon takes Dorian seriously -Empire of Storms/Lorcan Salvaterre Mini Rant Uprooted -Sarkan and necromancy

Other Tags: Quotes: #quote (all quotes on this tumblr even ones I didn’t originally post are tagged like this) #the great quote rampage! (quotes I personally posted) Asks: #emjen answers Short Thoughts: #emjen muses Substantial Reblogs: #emjen reblogs

[hms-no-fun]

i both really wish (and dont wish) cohost had a similar ask system to tumblr because im 300% more comfortable on that website than this one but ive had this particular burning question since i binge read godfeels during a covid ridden fugue

The more general version of this question is: how has optiministDuelist been involved in the writing of godfeels 3.1? (or even the future parts you're working on, if you can do so without spoilers)

The more specific version that makes this a question better suited towards you rather than shooting the question towards optimisticDuelist, and is rather a series of questions extrapolating on the first one is: why did you involve them? are they helping you write dirk or jake? are they providing input/advice? and that goes towards other people you've had help with the project too, if they're comfortable with being spoken about - i was just a fan of od's analyses and was surprised to see his name attached to godfeels! in fact im so curious about the nature/process of collaboration in godfeels it seems reductive to even try to condense it into questions that would be easier/faster to answer, in that i fear that what i put in will be what i get out, and that logically it's silly of me to bank on the fact that you might go more in depth than how these questions may imply on first glance. i fear my words make no sense and rather instill anxiety into the reader. anyway these are more like guidelines for something i was hoping you could talk about

oooooo this is a good one! i've written a fair amount about my collaborations in the past. here's a post where i talk about working with taz on chapter 8.2. here's a post where i talk about working with janet girlpillz on chapter 8.6. and here's a post where i talk about working with julia on the nsfw interlude 'stomach'! and then for bonus points, here's a piece my gf zoe wrote about working with me on the first official godfeels art in chapter 7.

but you want more, so here's more.

to start with, taz and i have been friends for some years now! back in early 2019 i was on the hbomberguy donkey kong 64 stream where i (briefly) tried to defend homestuck, which i guess gained me some form of notoriety/infamy. i can't remember if it was taz or kate who reached out to me first but i know taz liked my stuff (and i liked his!). then kate had me on pgen, i joined the pgen server, we all started gaming together and talking about homestuck in group chats. this period, pretty much through the entirety of 2019, is when i went from feeling like i had zero grasp on homestuck to becoming cohost of an at-the-time popular homestuck theory podcast! it's funny going back to my first appearance on pgen because you can tell i was so in over my head. i couldn't remember the names of the hiveswap trolls and still didn't even really know all the homestuck trolls by name. AND I OPTED OUT OF TALKING ABOUT VRISREZI LMAO. oh how turned the tables did the tables did turn

[[[oh god i just realized the pgen website expired and i'm not sure if the eps are still up anywhere... i should talk to kate about that lmao]]]

anyway, i actually talked to taz a bunch when i was first writing godfeels 1!

shortly after this we all did a stream for the launch of the epilogues with folks from the pgen server as well as hiveswap writer/director aysha u farah. i played gamzee lmao i still have the clown horn app on my phone from that

i guess i don't really know to what extent any of this is common knowledge anymore now that i think about it! this feels sort of superfluous to me but i guess this was FOUR YEARS AGO lmao

early godfeels straight up would not have existed without all these people. i cannot stress enough that literary obsession is a social contagion. i was not born a homestuck, i was made. and i think maybe some of the extremities of gf2 especially feel a little weird or dated these days, because on top of everything else godfeels was responding to it was also responding to the particularly toxic 2019-era vriscourse. so a big part of june's confrontational nature came from me being fucking sick of the baby's-first-conservatism that took root in the wider fandom when us cancelable queers had the audacity to like problematic womens and not apologize for it. i won't say anymore about that because like, whatever, it's all dead and buried now even if the ghost lingers. that ghost will have its day eventually! but not anytime soon.

ANYWAY, so, going back to the beginning even though i wrote godfeels alone, it came about in a context of lengthy conversations with other homestuck theorists. so when gf3 started to blow up in scale and become less about my trauma specifically, it made a lot of sense to broaden my horizons and get some new blood into the mix. the posts i linked at the start will fill in a bunch of gaps for you there, i think. it’s worth noting that a bunch of us already had a history of at least attempting to collaborate. we had a thing building for a while like a visual novel with one choice that was basically, what if we wrote every possible version of “transgender john” and just had them all together as branching paths. this was before some of the broader fandom really dug their heels in on the reactionary transphobia, after which point i at least lost some of my taste for that project. maybe we could come back to it someday, we wrote some cool stuff for that...

as far as my collaborative philosophy goes, idk. i first started writing fiction on the zeldapower forums in the early 2000s and developed a thick skin for critique pretty fast as a result. i wrote and rewrote constantly, shared what i could with friends and talked about plot/story/character ideas with them. when i realized in year two that writing school had nothing to offer me, i transferred to film. but i did so explicitly not wanting to be a director or writer or anyone above the line, really, because i didn't know what i wanted to make or even if i wanted to make something of my own. what i wanted was to help other people realize their own visions and see how they did it. so that's how i ended up working grip/electric in the oklahoma film industry, because it turns out all it really takes to get your foot in the door is to lose the ego and make yourself useful. it helps that i am cursed with constant psychological awareness of absolutely everything in my vicinity at all times, so i gained a reputation for being practically psychic the way i could know exactly what my bosses wanted lighting-wise before they even said anything.

i miss that job tbh. i loved the people, i felt more physically and psychologically fulfilled than at any job i've ever had. oklahoma has a relatively small film scene so it wasn't long before i was on a first name basis with most everyone working on my side of the state. when a crew is all on the same page, man, there's nothing like it. not every set can or should be like this, but some of my favorite experiences were on sets where it felt like everyone was the director. the director had their own vision but they knew how to adapt it to the location, to the ideas of technicians and craftspeople who had their own insights. a good director knows how to let their collaborators take ownership of the work, even when they reject their suggestions! i loved film work and i think about getting back to it sometimes. problem is it's extraordinarily physically demanding work and it leaves no time for anything else. 12 hour days five days a week minimum. i quit because i wanted to focus on video essays, one thing led to another, now we're here and homestuck changed my life lmao

so that's where i come from as writer. i have very strong opinions about my work and what it means and what it needs to do, but i try very hard not to have an ego about it.

the way we work together is pretty simple. when i finish the first draft of a chapter i’ll post it to the work server, and then folks will leave comments. but also, every member of the team has their own little corner of godfeels that they’ve adopted. taz is the dirkjake whisperer, julia is the queen of dana and the upsilons, etc. so when i write these characters i’ll ask for their insight, and invite them to modify or add to the scene as they see fit. sometimes this means prose, sometimes this means dialogue. our understanding is that nothing goes in the final published work without my approval, but that also that nothing is entirely off the table until we’ve had a conversation about it.

i get a lot of my storytelling philosophy from the tv show LOST, where every question was introduced with an explanation in mind but with the caveat that those explanations only remained true until the writers came up with something better. this gets back to something i said yesterday about needing a story to be dynamic and not planning things out too much in advance. for more detailed explanations, here’s a post i wrote about my hooks & hats philosophy, and then here’s another post about my process in general. but basically, i have this massive web of interconnected plotpoints going out very far into the future right? so when someone makes a suggestion i know exactly how possible it is to fit within that framework. i know how much information about any given hook has been introduced, so i know whether one explanation has been seeded too thoroughly to be changed.

but the flipside of that is that now my collaborators are inventing OCs! taz created a fantastic character named xifus that i can’t wait to write more of in 3.2A. we talk about this setting all the time, we talk about what makes sense for it, what would be cool, what mistakes would absolutely RUIN IT, how we can avoid the mistakes of our predecessors, all that fun stuff.

collaboration is all about honesty. godfeels has become what it is because we’re all fans both of homestuck, of anime, of broader culture... and of godfeels. my dirty secret is that i love writing godfeels because i’m its biggest fan. it frequently does not FEEL like i am composing this story, but rather that it is just happening to me. always i am wrangling cats in this petting zoo. i don’t want to be making this thing for the rest of my life but also this story is SO COOL and we are all chomping at the fucking bit to get to the upsilons and so much other shit besides. is that egomaniacal? idk. i think the idea that you’re supposed to be neutral leaning negative on your own work is kinda bullshit. but also, i don’t see the creation of art as bound to suffering or even being a process that requires much expertise. writing isn’t magic, even if it can feel that way sometimes.

i talk a lot about my work and how i write because i want to help demystify the process and try to show that it’s a learnable craft same as anything else. imo the preponderance of mediocre-to-great artists is not proof of Exceptional People but rather that it’s actually dirt simple to become a mediocre-to-great artist. all you need is time and money and access to the right tools! which is why so many mediocre artists are the rich failsons of killfactory millionaires. which is why every artist should be pro student debt relief, pro public transit, pro affordable housing, pro welfare, pro socialized medicine, pro deprivatizing mass media, and pro wide-ranging government arts funding. our nightmare neoliberal media landscape is the result of decades of making the creation of art & culture economically inaccessible to the working class, hence everything being set in rich suburbs with giant houses, hence the inescapability of pro-capitalist pro-nationalist messaging, hence the refusal of all national media to talk to trans people about trans issues, because only the middle and upper classes get to touch the levers of public perception and they have a direct economic incentive to convince the working class that they are middle class.

the notion that this stuff is at all mysterious or naturally the purview of those who can afford expensive degrees is just the narrative they sell to working people to cover up the fact that once you ascend past a certain income bracket, absolutely everything is just nepotism. it’s all just rich guys giving their rich friends and their rich friends’ stupid fucking libertarian manchildren high paying jobs forever. that’s why they never go away, that’s why they always fail up, that’s why trans women and queer people can get bullied off the face of the internet for half-joking that a fictional woman who did a murder was blameless in her crimes while grifters who moonlight at raytheon can weather blow after blow and stir the pot and solicit donations they don’t need and never disappear no matter how hated they are, because they HAVE money and they HAVE security so none of this shit is a real threat to anything besides their shallow fucking egos. which, you know, to be fair, threatening a rich person’s ego is basically the same thing as killing a man in cold blood, so who can say what is wrong or right?

there’s obviously a lot of complicating factors to the anticapitalist yarn i’ve spun here, but that’s how i see it. the rich want to own culture, they commodify it through copyright and box it up and insist that we are trespassers if we try to reflect those “““properties”““ through ourselves. that is, in part, a big reason why i haven’t given up on godfeels or tried to “file the serial numbers off.” i love this story and i am treating it with as much care as i would something original, because i believe this is art that stands up even with its imperfections and it’s insulting to me that “fanwork” is considered naturally lesser than “original” work when literally everything around us that is owned by disney et al was stolen from what was once an open culture. i reject the enclosure of the commons of our imagination, and andrew hussie themself quite famously said that postcanon homestuck belongs to the most conscientious and invested members of the fandom.

and frankly, even as i wish i COULD make a living off of godfeels alone, i like that my art isn’t particularly monetizable. i like that it is considered low art. i like that many people see it as shameful or a waste of time. i do not want to create a commodity. i do not want to run a business. i do not want to be famous. i want to make art that is freely available that maybe, just maybe, can help a handful of queer people deal with the shit going on in their life and have a good time in the process.

in short: we have no choice but to revolutionize the world.

UHHHH wow that got off the rails at the end there didn’t it? i love giving writing advice hahaha!

[woniehugs]

chapter 4 - sim jaeyun

                                ╔═══*.·:·.✧    ✦    ✧.·:·.*═══╗

                                         who you want to be with

                                               is entirely up to you.

                         ╚═══*.·:·.✧    ✦    ✧.·:·.*═══╝

—✧ summary: two down, it’s your third date, and the person you’re going with may or may not have given you sparks ever since your first interaction with him, sim jaeyun.

—✧ words: 5,375

—✧ tagging : @chiefturtlebonkghost @myaar @sunshineshouchan @ncityy04 @cha-raena @love13tter @rubyanne @yunapixie @youreverydayzebra @ellynabi @dear-dreamie @whatinthebts @sunghonkers @woniebuns @jjikyuu @rinyx @dontshowmethemaknaesforehead @iceuwubear @rinhyun @hyuckslvr send an ask if you want to be added! :3 (can’t be tagged @/ghjasksdk, @spacxmann, @pqgibig, @thinkingabtriki, @kristen201)

—✧ a/n : i forgot i wrote this series pls. i already posted this part on wattpad but i decided (a little too late, sorry 😭) to post it on tumblr as well since not many have wattpad accounts so here you go. i’m having seconds thoughts if i should continue this or not bc it’s been so long and i’ve been really busy. i’ll probably stick to drabbles here and then.

                ══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════

"it went better than i had anticipated." you said out loud, flopping down on your bed face first. a series of groans escaped from your lips when your head hit the pillow. it was indeed a tiring day, jay really gave it all he got with his chance.

you wondered if the rest of the boys would stoop up to his level. not that it would affect your choice if they didn't.

the first two that took you out sent your standards so high, they could become the bare minimum at this point. turning your head to the side, you let out a sigh. it was too early to worry about this but you couldn't help it.

not after the way heeseung spoke his feelings out to words to you.

not after the way jay gave out his best for the chance he was given with you.

"who's next..." you thought out loud, sitting up from your bed and motioning to get your phone from your bag. clicking on the messages app, your thumb hovered over heeseung's chat box. should i ask him?

biting your bottom lip, you decided not to. the situation between you is already bad enough, bad enough for him to be occupying half of your thoughts when you were out with jay earlier. you didn't want to add more fuel to the fire, thinking that when you ask, he'll get it to his head that you were more than excited to go out with the others.

i'm not though, he wouldn't think that, not unless he's that jealous you thought again, reaching for your phone once again, cringing when you realized what you were about to do. "yeah no, let's not do that."

whoever it may be was going to end up being a surprise for you, either way.

. ༻❁༺

the transferee from two years ago. how did that slip from your mind?

the memory was still vivid to you when he first introduced himself to the class. he was pretty shy at first, wifh his glasses that made him look even smarter than he already is, his disheveled hair that looked so soft you wanted to touch it so bad, his facial features that complimented each other and his face perfectly.

basically, you found him handsome. and most of all, attractive. you weren't sure if the rest of the class thought so, you probably just had a better taste than all of them.

as young and as naive you were, your first thought was to approach him and start a conversation with him, see if that will lead you two anywhere, but the moment you realized that you were the one who had to make a first move to make that happen, you stepped back from that crazy idea.

you didn't want to look obsessed.

seriously, is that how most people see girls give it a shot nowadays? why are boys praised and girls are talked shit about? you thought, and you kind of regretted not going through your first choice.

fortunately for you, he was assigned a seat literally right next to you. it was as if the gods above heard your prayers, that you should make your first move, then things will start from there.

you let out a quiet gulp when he sat on the chair next to you, moving in his place to make himself comfortable and placed his bag beside him. he pushed his glasses on the bridge of his nose, his eyes darting over to you.

panicking, your mouth was the only one thinking when you said out a "h-hi, nice to meet you! i'm yeoji, and you?"

fuck, i can't believe i did that you mentally cursed to yourself, your eyes shifted to your hand that you let out for him to shake. do people still even shake hands when meeting someone new these days?

saving yourself from the awkwardness, you were about to take back your hand and act like you were waving at him instead, when he suddenly takes out his hand too and shakes yours.

why is his hand so soft?

"hello yeoji, i hope you don't mind that i'm sitting next to you since i'm new here after all." he replies, smiling at you. "i'm jaeyun, but you can call me jake."

your mouth went agape at that, letting out a quiet oh. well, he definitely looked like a jake, that's for sure.

you nodded, sending a smile back at him, "i hope you'll enjoy being in here, jake. you can always come talk to me if you have any questions or, well, if you need a friend."

that was the first time you two communicated, and soon after that, the both of you began to talk more. you got to know each other better and found out about each other's interests: he liked soccer, anything related to physics, and his dog that he loved so much named layla. you even thought he looked like his dog, too.

"knowing that you have a golden retriever, it's safe to say that you act like one too."

"what do you mean by that?" jake asks, walking beside you to your next class.

"you're always smiling and look so happy." you replied, "it's a good thing, you seem to be the one brightening up the classroom with your mere presence. and you always look excited, i wish i was that enthusiastic."

jake smiled at your compliment, messing with your hair which made you fake out a groan, a smile forming on your lips. you were the first person jake talked to when he first transferred to this school, and you were happy about that. you were his first friend too, not regretting a single thing when you decided to talk to him first.

not even five months had passed with your friendship, you ended up gaining an interest in him. not that you weren't interested in him in the first place, it's just that, this was a different type of interest. a crush type of interest.

and the moment you realized that, the more your feelings blossomed like a flower. it grew bigger each passing day, with every interaction, every smile, every contact, every second.

you didn't think that a single realization could hit you with reality one day, because as feelings grew, the more you didn't want to lose him too. you weren't going to risk a friendship just because of your feelings, you were sure he didn't feel the same way.

so you stopped.

to you, jake never realized your interactions with him become seldom now. you rarely talk anymore, only when needed, and you two usually only exchange eye contact from across the room here and there.

and it just went on like that for the next years when you were classmates, as if nothing ever happened between the two of you.

but for jake, he never really lost you and you never really lost him because why would he keep the pens you supposedly "lost" and let you borrow his?

jake is the classmate you had a crush on, the boy you had told heeseung two years ago, the one you only ever felt sparks with.

. ༻❁༺

"you haven't had a real interaction with him in so long, are you sure you'll be okay with this?" soyoung asked worriedly, watching you put your remaining books inside your locker.

your locker keys dropped to the ground, causing you to crouch down to pick them up. "i think you already know that i don't have a choice, but hey, don't worry, i'm sure it'll be alright. we were friends after all."

soyoung scoffs, "not you saying that when you cut ties with him thinking he didn't like you back, what if he felt the same way all along? what if he considered your friendship up until now and here you are saying you guys were friends."

she leans on her side beside your locker, "and now he's taking you out, isn't that nice? you two are cowards, you could've been dating for two years now."

shutting your locker door closed, you fumbled with the locker to lock it. "as if i didn't know that, thanks for hitting me with the harsh truth. i'll be sure to look back on my life decisions and cry about it."

"jake's a great guy." soyoung ignored your sarcastic remark, smiling sadly when she realizes your fake demeanor disappear. "i can never understand how easy it was for you to just drop your friendship with him like that in the first place. because of what? your fear of him not reciprocating your feelings?"

"i hate to say this but you're right." you reply, turning to face soyoung. "i was scared, that's why i stopped talking to him. my pride was high, i couldn't let him know i liked him when i know he didn't and he would never feel the same way."

your best friend sighed, "fear is a normal thing for us human beings, yeoji, but sometimes, you gotta learn to overcome that fear. you can't stay scared forever. the reality is, you have to set aside your pride for someone you care about because if you don't, you'll never get them. even if they don't feel the same way, the least you can do is let them know, at least you tried."

"i know this isn't a big deal- maybe it isn't for me because i'm not you, but imagine the chance you lost if jake liked you back. have you ever thought of that possibility?"

you nodded, "of course i have! a million times, soyoung... you have no idea."

"well, i do now. you can't change the past but you can do whatever it takes in the present for you to have a good future, whoever it may be with." she states, resting a hand on your shoulder. "i'm happy for you, that you were given a second chance with him because turns out, he likes you too. i don't know if you still like him though...unless?"

you stayed silent at that.

"but then again, there are 6 others who you have given a first chance too. i know you, yeoji, you won't mess this up."

someone tapped on your shoulder a few moments after soyoung said that. she cocked her head to the side to see who it was, her mouth went agape before closing them shut, a smile formed on her face. you looked at her in confusion as she gave you a look that said, look behind you.

turning, you see jake standing behind you. you looked dumbfounded, eyeing him up and down to see if this was actually happening. you turned back to see soyoung, dumbfounded when you witness that she was now out of your sight.

"uhm, is this alright? i'll be the one taking you out today." jake spoke to you, rubbing his nape with one hand. turning back to the boy in front of you, you hesitated for a second before nodding.

jake eyes you up and down for a bit, making you shift  your weight in your place. it's not that you were uncomfortable, it was just awkward now that you're finally talking to each other after knowing that he supposedly likes you when you liked him before.

"so, are we going now?" you asked, the awkwardness can be heard in your tone, forcing out a genuine smile. "i mean, unless you have other plans? i'm just going along- i'm sorry, i'm just really nervous."

"oh, right." he replies, clearing his throat. "you're not gonna get anything out from your locker now? you're all good?"

smiling, you nod at him again. jake flashes you a smile back before taking a hold of your hand, holding it in his. your breath hitches for a second, "is this okay?"

you couldn't bring yourself to answer him with words. mentally, you were screaming and dying inside with whatever was happening right now. so, you nod at him again, praying to the gods above that you weren't completely red in the face as jake guides you out of the locker room.

the boy bites his bottom lip to prevent himself from smiling even wider when he witnesses your reaction, that you had failed to notice.

. ༻❁༺

ah, you should've known. jake took you out to one of the malls you always went to. it's not like you were expecting anything grand, though a small part of you hoped that he'd take you somewhere private so you two could talk things out.

but he picked the latter. it's fine though, the fancy restaurant he chose to take you out in definitely made up for it. he had good taste, you always knew that. there was definitely nothing you can do about it, he's the one taking you out anyway, not the other way around. he couldn't have known.

but he should've, we knew so much about each other you thought, looking out the restaurant window. letting out a sigh, you immediately put that thought to the back of your head. you shouldn't think that way, be glad that you two are together now, and whether it was in a private or public setting, you were more than content that jake was finally right beside you.

your eyes turn to jake whose eyes were concentrated on the menu he was holding. you never really noticed but he looked more mature looking, more good-looking, you could never admit that out loud. the numerous times he had lent you a pen ever since you two had a falling out, you always avoided his gaze.

and now, you couldn't stop yourself from looking away.

"have you decided what to order yet?" he asked out of the blue, his eyes looked up at you through his lashes, his head not moving an inch. you snap out of your daze, accidentally hitting your knee on the underside of the table.

you wince out in pain, immediately reaching out to your knee and rubbing it soothingly with your palm. breathing out heavily, you let out a nervous chuckle at jake who was now looking at you worriedly. "are you okay? your knee-"

"i-i'm fine, don't worry!" you laugh out, feeling tears form on the corners of your eyes with how much it hurt when your knee made contact with the table. you probably looked like a lost kid right now.

this is fucking embarrassing. someone bury me right now.

this is what i get when i look at him for too long.

as jake was about to speak more, a waitress approaches you both, asking if you two were now ready to order. you beat jake to replying that you were ready, grabbing the other menu from the table and ordering the first dish that you thought looked delicious.

once again, failing to notice the way jake looked and smiled at you when you did.

. ༻❁༺

"you really don't have to. the lunch was delicious, i'm content with that already." you told jake, trailing a bit behind him as he walks inside the jewelry store. panicking, you rush up to him, stopping him from going in any further.

jake holds back a teasingly attractive smile, "well, guess what? i'm not, i'm just doing what's best for you, and besides, i've always wanted to buy you something that could potentially remind you of me."

you scoff, not minding the butterflies that were fluttering in your stomach right now. damn him, he always knows how to make me act up.

"hm?" you hear jake say, looking at you in the eye. "nothing, i just... don't want you to go all out for me. am i even worth it?"

"of course you are." you were taken back by his immediate answer, eyes widening in surprise. "nothing you can say or do is going to stop me from doing what i want for you, yeoji. remember that."

he looked like he was about to say more but he lets out a sigh instead, not wanting to talk about everything that was going on between you just yet. jake grabs your hand once again, tilting his head to the direction of where he wanted to go in the store to which you just nodded in defeat.

frankly, you didn't complain about the fact that he had interwined his hands with yours, holding them tightly, like he was afraid of letting you go again.

. ༻❁༺

with the way jake was excited about going to a dog cafe with you, you couldn't bring yourself to be upset the whole time. not with how big his smile was.

you couldn't know yet what he had bought for you from the jewelry store earlier, he said he'll hand it over to you in a much private place where you two could finally talk everything out but for now, he wanted for you to have fun.

"look! that golden retriever looks like layla!" jake exclaims, rushing inside and quickly petting the said dog. you run after him, taking out your phone and taking a few shots of him laughing and having fun with the cute dog.

jake motions for you to pet the dog as well, "this is yeoji, she's a friend of mine that i happen to like very much." he says as the golden retriever walks over to you, his tongue out as if it was waiting for you to pet him.

the words jake said stuck on your mind though not stopping you from petting the dog. "such a good boy." you smile, laughing when you notice how much the dog was wagging its tail with the way you were petting it. you sat yourself on the ground and began giving it rubs all over, giggling when the dog suddenly licked your face.

for a while, you forgot jake was right there when you were busy playing with the dog.

"you never told me you were a dog person." jake says out loud, making you turn to him. hugging the dog, you smile at him, "well, now you do. i guess i just happen to be when dogs are this cute, seriously, look at this guy!"

jake laughs at you, reaching over to pet the golden retriever on the head yet his eyes were stuck on you. "yeah, cute."

"i know right, i can't blame you." you reply without thinking, staring and giggling at the dog and then looking at jake. you stop laughing when you notice that he was staring at you, not at the golden retriever, you.

your mouth went agape and the both of you stared at each other's eyes for what felt like hours. the eye contact was finally broken when the dog suddenly licked the side of jake's face making him whelp.

the two of you laughed as the dog barked, proud with what he just did.

. ༻❁༺

his house is huge you thought to yourself, mouth agape at the sight you were seeing through the window.

after going to the dog cafe, jake had told you he wanted to take you to his house. it was quite a shock for you since you had never went to his house before, even while you were still friends before you guys fell out. you had no energy in you to say no because you actually did want to go, and see what else he had in store for you.

well, if there is.

"you... live here?" you mumbled out, turning back to jake who was eyeing you since earlier. he sat beside you in the taxi you rode in, jake messed with his hair in shyness before nodding. "yeah, i could've taken you here way back then but..."

"ah, right." you reply, turning to the view of his house once again. you hear the door open beside you, indicating that jake had gotten out of the taxi to which you followed as well.

you trail behind him to the door of his house, surprised that he took out the keys and to unlock it himself. "i'm guessing no one's home?" you ask out of curiousity.

jake nods while fuddling with the keys, "my parents are out the whole day during the weekdays so they always leave me with the keys, which is why you see me at times going out with my friends or alone, anywhere but here."

the door finally opens, jake gestures for you to come in first. you obliged as you took your shoes off, placing it on the side. while jake takes off the rest of his things, you admire in amazement the interior of the house.

you weren't really surprised that jake lived in a house this modern. back when you two got to know each other, you remember him telling you that his house was pretty huge. with the way he was telling you, you concluded that he was a really humble person. that was one of the things you liked about him.

"layla!" you hear jake call out, seeing a golden retriever run pass you and towards jake who greets him with licks and happy barks, trying to climb up to her owner. "oh you missed me? i've missed you too! who's a good girl?"

the dog replies with a happy whoof! as jake laughs, hugging layla happily. you smile at the view in front of you. you could see why jake was really fond of his dog, he talked an awful lot about her, not that you were complaining.

"she's so cute!" you gushed, walking over to them as you reached out to pet layla. you grin when she lets you do so, walking over to you and puts two paws on your thigh, barking happily. "how'd you get her?"

"her former owner was a neighbour of ours back then. they told us they couldn't bring layla with them since they were moving out so they asked my family if we could take her in and we accepted." jake explains, walking over to you with layla who you were now giving belly rubs now on the floor.

"it's great that you did, she's a sweet dog. i don't think i've encountered a dog this nice before." you say, giggling when layla licks your hand. "you're pretty lucky."

jake smiles at that, looking over at you who didn't seem to pay no mind. "lets go head to my room, i want to show you something. bring layla along if you want."

nodding, you stand up from the floor and follow jake, pleased to see that layla was following right beside you. you both walk up the stairs and to jake's room that was only a few steps away. jake opens the door as he enters, you trail right behind him with layla, he closes the door as soon as the two of you were in.

"i didn't know you guys were that close, i thought the reason why you were talking now was because of this thing you guys planned." you say out loud when you notice a picture frame on his desk. the picture consisted of jake and the six other guys who you were all familiar with.

they look so happy. i don't want them to grow apart because of me. you thought sadly, seeing how wide their smiles were.

is it really worth it?

am i worth it?

"no, actually. they were the ones i got along right away with when i transferred, after you, of course." jake replies, now standing beside you eyeing the picture. "i didn't think we'd click but we did despite not all of us being in the same grade."

you let out a hum at that. "sorry for only noticing now, you know now that i do not pay attention to my surroundings. i would've known if i did. i never saw you seven hangout together in school, unless i'm that ignorant."

the boy laughs, "that's because we don't, you usually see us in three's or four's or in pairs but that's because not all of us have the same schedule. also, we joined something like a club outside of school so that's how we usually get together and hang."

layla whimpers beside you, trying to grab your attention. you walk over to sit on jake's bed and pet his dog, "like a band? that's the only thing that slipped my mind."

jake shrugs his shoulders, "not really, but something like that, i guess. turns out we like to sing and dance and all of us happened to be signing up to the same studio that had something exactly like that."

"wow, who would've thought? heeseung never mentioned that to me before." you find yourself say without thinking and jake looks at you. "maybe because we sort of grew apart, since i had soyoung now."

"you and heeseung? growing apart? why is that?"

"that's what he told me when we... you know." you reply, messing with layla's fur, looking at jake who sat on the chair in front of his desk. "i didn't think that though so i was surprised to know that's what he felt. this just confirms how ignorant i can be, i should've known."

jake finds himself thinking deeper as he witnesses you and layla getting along so well in front of him. he smiles, yet what you were telling him about heeseung bothered him a bit. it wasn't like him to think like that, he always talked things through, at least that's what he did with him.

so he was a bit taken back when he heard what you told him.

"you're not ignorant." jake blurts out, catching your surprised look. "it's neither right or wrong for you to not notice what was happening, the least he could do was talk about it with you."

you smile at jake, "thanks but i don't think it matters anymore. now that i know how he really feels about me, and the rest of you."

"are you guys really okay with risking your friendship for someone like me?"

jake stays silent at that, not really expecting that question to come from you but then he couldn't blame you. how could you not? now that you know that your seven suitors turned out to be such good friends.

"i just... don't think it's worth it, you know?" you continue, letting out a sigh. "i never even thought it would be possible that all guys from the same peer group would like the same girl, that's like a one in a million possibility. it's just a girl they all happened to like at the same time, but risking a friendship? a bond you all grew together getting thrown away because of a girl?"

"we've talked about that." jake replies, stopping you. you look at him again. "you have nothing to worry about, we already sort things out with that. we're not gonna get mad at each other no matter what happens, we'll respect and be happy for whoever you decide to choose. so don't worry, okay?"

you let out a sigh, "i hope you're right. i can't help but think though."

silence filled the air in jake's room, you petting layla while jake sat there. when it was starting to feel suffocating, you spoke out again. "what was it that you wanted to show me?"

jake stood up, walking over to the side of his bed. you watch, surprise took over your features when you see him take out a guitar. he sits beside you on the bed as you gesture for layla to stay. you turn to him, eyes glued on his hands that played with the strings.

"you play? wow, i can't believe i didn't know a lot of things."

a laugh erupts from jake's lips, smiling sheepishly. "i actually didn't play when we first talked. i learned how to not too long ago."

you nod at him, grabbing one of the plushies that were at the edge of his bed and hugging it, eager to listen to what he was about to play for you.

a familiar tune played in your ears and you sway your head a little to it.

do you remember when we were young you were always with your friends wanted to grab your hand and run away from them i knew that it was time to tell you how i feel

you look at jake who focused on playing the guitar, his eyes filled with so much passion, his fingers dancing with the strings, his lips singing the lyrics that he always wanted to say to you. you couldn't look away, and you didn't want to look away.

so i made a move, i took your hand my heart was beating loud like i've never felt before you were smiling at me like you wanted more i think you're the one i've never seen before

i want you to know i love you the most i 'll always be there right by your side 'cause baby, you're always in my mind just give me your forever

jake looks up at you, his eyes meeting yours. your eyes never tore away from him the moment he started playing. you felt drawn to him, and for some reasons, your heart skipped a beat.

i want you to know that you'll be the one and i'll be the guy who'll be on his knees to say i love you and i need you and say i'd die for you (just give me your forever)

you regret walking away, you regret not giving him a chance, you regret not letting him know what you truly felt before. soyoung's words stuck in your head: you can't change the past but you can do whatever it takes in the present for you to have a good future, whoever it may be with.

will it be okay that i decide to choose him again?

is it not too early to conclude?

you break your stare from him, looking at his guitar instead. your head now filled with the numerous possibilities of what could be with jake's voice sounding heavenly in your ears.

jake plays the last chords, finishing it off with the last lyric as he strums the strings. you eye him again, heart pounding loudly in your chest that it scared you a bit.

"i liked you."

jake's head shoots up at that, almost dropping his guitar in the process. you see his ears turn red and his cheeks a light shade of pink. his eyes widen in shock, "w-what?"

"i liked you, a lot, before." you tell him, ignoring the loud pounding in your chest. "i remember how you caught my eyes when you first transferred to our school, and i knew i had to be friends with you right away. it was just a silly crush and i thought it would fade away the moment we talked but it didn't."

you look at jake for any reactions to what you were saying but he didn't move an inch so you continued talking. "i was scared that i'd be too deep into this, you know, falling for you. so i stopped before it got worse, i-i walked away. i'm sorry, i'm so sorry for pushing you away. i was used to always being one-sided but i didn't want to get hurt when i actually faced it, especially not with you."

"i didn't want reality to slap me right in the face."

you were about to say more but the words quickly slipped from your tongue when you notice jake's face shift. he didn't have that shock look on his face anymore, you couldn't exactly describe it but, he was in awe.

a part of you was screaming for what you were about to do but you found yourself leaning in, and he leaned in too. you shut your eyes close, prepared for what was about to happen. you could care less anymore, all that was in your mind right now was jake. jake, jake, jake.

before your lips could make contact, you let out a squeal when layla suddenly licks your face. you laugh, bringing you back to reality and turning to jake who laughed alongside you.

"layla!" you both scolded the dog, layla just barks and licks jake's face making him groan in annoyance as you laugh at him.

when you two notice that it was getting a bit late, jake leads you out of his house, waving bye to layla who watched the two of you leave. he walks you home, it was silent along the way, what else was there to say anyway.

minutes had passed and you finally see your house come into view, breathing out a quiet sigh of relief. you turn to jake who looked at you, making you look away, growing shy in his gaze.

"i guess this is it, thank you for today, jake. i had fun." you smile at him, going near him and pulling him into a hug. you were hesitant at first but with what almost happened earlier, you could care leas.

you feel him shift in your embrace, bringing his hands out and hugging you back. you sigh, breathing in his scent, you missed him a lot.

pulling away, you let your hands rest on his shoulders. "i appreciate you a lot, i hope we'll still get to hang after this."

jake nods, grinning at you, he hands you the paper bag that contained the jewelry he had bought for you in the mall. "i'm sure we will. i missed you a lot, did i already tell you that?"

"i don't think so but i'm glad you did, because i missed you so much too." you reply, "everything i said earlier about before, it's true. i'm sorry i let my selfishness get the best of me, but i did like you a lot, maybe there's a possibility i could feel that way again."

"and..." you trailed off, thinking of the right words to say. "i'm sorry for losing you, or the other way around, either way, it's my fault. i should've come in to terms with my feelings."

jake pulls you closer with his hands that rested on the small of your back, he smiles at your reaction. "i never lost you, and you never lost me. i'm still here, and i'll always be, no matter what happens. thank you for being honest with me, yeoji. lets still hang around whatever your decision may be, okay? we can still be friends and hang out like we used to, no matter what happens. i don't want our friendship to end because of this."

you nod at him as the two of you pulled away. you say bye to each other one last time before you walked over to your house.

stopping in your tracks, you turn to see jake still looking at you. he nods at you to continue walking. smiling, you wave bye at him and he reciprocates, grinning.

turning away again, you enter your home with a big smile on your face and a happy heart, gripping the paper bag that had jake's gift for you.

yet nothing could compare to the way you were feeling right now.

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. you haved finished chapter 4!

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