#I follow her and everytime I’m on twitter someone is calling her a man

[deathtokillian]

Transphobes are so fucking weird. I’m on twitter and they are literally telling a cis woman she is a man, because she is saying “gynecological health care is for people who need it”.

[hematomes]

I saw your post about ppl losing their shiz about Kaeya fanart being “whitewashed” when it’s literally darker than he is in canon. I agree btw I love like basically all Kaeya art out there I love one eyepatch man.

anyhoo, I have a story. I once saw a tiktok about a kaeya art. it was specifically labeled “IN PROGRESS” or whatever so you knew the artist wasn’t done. it was a gorgeous piece of art btw. So far, the only thing that had been colored was his hair and some of his clothes.

pretty much everyone in the comments started harrasing her about how he was whitewashed and the artist had to be a white supremacist and i think someone said “see I knew everyone who played genshin was racist just delete the game at this point.”

i was just like 😳 wow jeez it’s literally IN PROGRESS the artist legit said so.

the artist eventually posted the final version (after having to delete the first video and deal with several threats) it did turn out beautiful, but on the comments there and on every post of theirs after people are lurkign in the comments bad-mouthing them.

as much as I definitely am for characters not being whitewashed (especially Kaeya bc I love him your honor) I think some people take it way too far when the person they’re yelling at literally just wanted to get people excited about their WIP.

hi! sorry im so late this issue became quite sensitive lol i had to work up the courage to come back to it. it's gonna be a bit long, but i really need to say all this

if there's one thing i noticed about the genshin community on tiktok and twitter, it's that there is a whole, whole lot of social justice warriors and overall it's extremely toxic. it's something that surprised me because the people i interact with on tumblr are all super sweet and not one bit toxic so? idk, tumblr is just a different breed i guess

your story is extremely saddening. everytime there's a kaeya fanart, people forget about the color theory and the artists' style and claim it's whitewashed and i genuinely don't understand why. if someone could explain it to me, am i missing something? im not an artist so perhaps im mistaken, idk, but i've never seen a fanart where kaeya was whitewashed.

the thing that pisses me off the most is that most of the time it's white ppl calling something whitewashed. i'm not saying you shouldn't call out racism if you see it just bc you're white, just that these people aren't even right - and often you see poc coming into the debate and explaining it's not whitewashed/saying it doesn't bother them. moreover, i've literally seen fanart of beidou as a black girl, which isn't representation in my opinion - beidou is already a poc, and asian people need at least as much representation as black people, so it's plain racism. same thing with kaeya, i've seen edits of him with stereotypical african features, and it's really sad that no one is calling this out but yelling about whitewashing as soon as he isn't the exact same color as the official arts. hell, someone even said "so what if it's darker? it's still whitewashing" and i??? am flabbergasted. whitewashing is absolutely disgusting, but ppl keep misunderstanding what it means and just using it to gratuitously harass artists.

now, don't get me wrong. i believe that you can draw whatever you want. but the thing is - if you get mad when someone draws kaeya white (if they really do, i mean), you can't just applaud someone else's that draws another character black. racism goes both ways, and it's bordering on fetishism. i, as a poc (mixed-race, caucasian + african), am extremely uncomfortable everytime i see this double-standard.

but anyway, the fact remains that sjw have plagued the genshin fandom. and it's not just about kaeya's skin color (we don't even know if he's really a poc - we know he's tan according to paimon, and i believe she called him "exotic"? so idk) but also about the ships. everytime i see a shippy tiktok, there's plenty of ppl out here saying it's wrong, claiming their own ship is the most canon. if i'm not mistaken, kaeluc is the one that gets the most hate, and i genuinely, once again, don't understand why.

i talked about them before and explained how it's not incest bc they really aren't brothers, but i swear every now and then i see people throwing death threats and slurs anytime someone hints at them. idk if you are familiar with the eng va's fandom, but sometimes they play among us together, aether's va does some livestreams where he invites different voice actors. but diluc's va is never there, and i was wondering why - recently i learned that it's because he retweet a fanart of kaeya and diluc fighting alongside each other (not even a shippy fanart, apparently) and people harassed him and excluded him from the fandom. and now the same thing is happening to griffin burns, childe's va, bc he retweeted (or liked, idk) a fanart of lumine and childe fighting or something and people called it pedophilia bc lumine would be a minor. i'm not even gonna dive into this bc the travelers are canonically like 30 times childe's age, but what i mean is - people are so full of hate and i can't fathom living like this?

the point is, i totally respect anyone who doesn't ship something i ship. i myself don't like certain ships - like zhongli/xiao, jean/diluc - but im not gonna harass ppl who do just because i can? that's messed up, i just don't get it. i wish the fandom wasn't that bad bc i really enjoy this game

anyway, im really disappointed but still grateful, bc my followers & people i've interacted with here have been nothing but sweet and respectful. i hope none of y'all come across the toxic side of the genshin fandom. stay safe y'all!

[volkswagonblues]

for @elilim​, because we were talking about gold standard fanfics

Romance of the Age, nimmieamee (Harry Potter):

“Snape did his best to comfort her. He did not want to do this in the usual and boring way, which was sure to leave her limp and un-excited. He saw an opportunity to enflame and arouse her. So, instead of assuring her that her parents had not suffered and were probably in a better place, he ended up delivering a passionate and truly stirring oratory on the insignificance of Muggle transportation and the worthless, banal horror of hospital authorities who hungered for identification. It involved a great deal of sneering. This was not what Lily really wanted. She was rather desperately hoping for some assurance that her parents were in a better place.“

this is by nimmieamee, whom i ADORE. I don’t think she’s ever super famous in any fandom because none of her fics become huge fandom “blockbusters”, which is just proof that talent never gets the recognition it deserves and readers are morons. (I’m not normally this mean, but I do get like this when it comes to writers I really admire). I think she is basically the gold standard plot+style+characterization. Her prose is so fucking musical and clever; reading this after reading a lot of, idk, “normal” fanfic is like chugging Veuve Clicquot after sipping on toilet bowl water for a week.

Romance of the Age is just...everything that a fic should be and shouldn’t be. For one thing it’s HARD to read. The author uses a very neat stylistic device where characters’ names are intentionally withheld to be revealed later at the right moments, and it’s so incredibly smart on a plot and a thematic level. It’s a social satire about rich, bored people that uses your knowledge of HP canon as part of its arsenal to make a satire about rich, bored people. I read it about three times before I understood who all these people were, but everytime I come across a new turn of phrase, a new clever insight, a new way of thinking about an old thing. This is like the opposite of emotional candy. It’s dense and difficult and intellectually nourishing. 

I think the best way to read it, if you’re not up with all the details of HP canon, is to skim through the wiki articles for characters like Narcissa Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Regulus Black, and Walburga Black. Yes, it’s fic that has homework attached to it. I KNOW.

The Mountain King, mldavies (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy):

There was a secret second story in the Circus, as there is most places men work, or live, or do business: you might even call it a second society. The women of the Circus walked through the same door that the men did every morning, and came out the same door every night; they sat under the same ghostly lights and trod over the same grey floors. And yet when the shopkeepers and postmen and vagrants watched them coming in and out of the brick building they usually took no notice: “Secretaries,” they said, if they said anything. If they were feeling particularly lurid they imagined what might happen if someone captured one of those secretaries and tried to extract secret information from her, but they were really only interested in the especially beautiful girls, and there weren’t many of them passing through the Circus doors. When they did, the men watching perked up, and started spinning theories about spies, and double agents, and imagining, depending on their particular proclivities, Lauren Bacall or Rita Hayworth or Ingrid Bergman in a sleek dress and some kind of fur garment—they were men; they didn’t bother with these kinds of details—stealing state secrets and then doing unspeakable things, for reasons that didn’t really require explaining, as these narratives were only the morning or evening fantasies of middle-aged men with rather dull home lives.

So TTSS was a John Le Carrre book turned into a 2011 movie with Gary Oldman and John Hurt and also Tom Hardy. The chances are...slim that you’ve read this book or seen the film, but this is basically a novella that I constantly think about. I follow mldavies on twitter: she hosts a podcast and she’s basically a Real Novelist, and my god the difference is real. You can tell the second that you open up this fic that it was written as “lit fic” and not “fanfic”, and not to say that fic isn’t valuable, but there are tangible differences that have nothing to do with quality. Literally the length of the paragraphs and the way line breaks are set up tells you that the author was thinking about writing for the page and not the screen. 

Again, it’s everything that a fic should be and shouldn’t be. It expands the world of the film and the book by exploring the lives of the silent background characters, it uses your knowledge of canon as part of its DNA to tell a richer story that builds off a story that you know already. The prose is just...again, chugging Veuve Clicquot, you feel? 

(she also has a few HP and Marvel and Teen Wolf fics, if you want to read her style in a fandom you’re more familiar in. https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189122) 

Prince of Apple Towns, kvkindi (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

In California, it doesn't matter so much. California is like someone sanded the earth down, just came along with a neat hard edge and wiped out everything out, and started from scratch. A fresh clean world. The sunlight hits the ground at strange angles. The trees smell like trees from the Paleozoic. The sea isn't old like the sea off Long Island. There's no history to it. He saw a campus exhibit on Polynesian navigation. There were maps made out of twigs, maps that look like geometric figures. Wooden maps of ocean swells, from the Marshall Islands. Howard didn't know how to read them. He doesn't like this idea, that some knowledge is secret.

Okay, so I know you’re not a MCU fan, but again, this is an actual novel that has worked some strange feat of alchemy to far surpass the base metals that it was forged from. I don’t know if you need to even know anything about MCU or Howard Stark or the Iron Man movies to appreciate this novel about WW2 and the invention of the atomic bomb and the way that science has eclipsed man’s ability to control it. I don’t know what to say. I think I left a hysterical comment on it back in 2016 that was basically just me having a breakdown 

...i just checked. I left THREE (3) SUPER hysterical comments. Let me quote from one of them:

“I'm incapable of speech. The world is empty. Our future is only a gun's recoil of the past. I'm walking into the Atlantic and the only thing I'm leaving behind is a shadow on a wall and the scent of burning. From now on I will cease speaking. I will only communicate via notes written on bar napkins. These notes will only be mathematical equations of special relativity. My sole caloric intake will come from coffee and lemons.My hair smells like sea salt. I think I just broke my hand punching through a wall. I'm a broken husk of a woman. I'm going to conquer the world. Holy fuck, this fic.”

Yeah, basically. also, this fic only has 225 kudos and very little fandom footprint, which again - TALENT IS NEVER RECOGNISED. I”M MAD.

[temporalwaveofmischief]

Two pairs of feet were pounding against the gravel.

Tim opened both the driver and passenger side doors. After assisting Jay get into his seat, Tim got in and slammed the door, turned the ignition, and sped the hell out.

Tim's mind was in a million different places. His mind felt staticky. All his mind could think of was just getting the hell out.

He would never get used to its effects.

But, he managed to stand up to it right? He didnt even pass out. What changed? It could've been the adrenaline. From running into the tall grass field screaming Jay's name, to facing that asshole, it was possible.

'Okay.' Tim thought.

Next thing, where the hell were they going to sleep at? The car was the least ideal place for sleeping. And that thing and Alex were still out there. Motel it is.

Tim clutched the steering wheel until his knuckles were white.

The adrenaline was starting to wear off. They needed to find a motel soon.

Finally.

At Jay's side of the car there was a dingy motel. Tim pulled into the parking lot and parked the car near the entrance.

When Tim turned off the car, he checked on Jay. Jay was babbling incoherently. His eyes were unfocused, and his mouth was slack.

"Jay," Tim began, "I'm going to check us into here. Can you follow me to the front desk and wait?"

Jay said nothing.

Then, Jay looked around.

"Mmhmm."

Tim exited out of the car, and helped Jay out of his seat. Tim slung an arm around Jay's shoulders and approached the lobby.

A woman who appeared to be in her late 40s was manning the desk. She had a cigarette hanging out of her fingers.

The lobby itself reeked of smoke and bleach.

When Tim walked inside, the woman looked up.

"Hello. Whaddya want?"

Geez. So much for feeling at home. Well, it is a dingy hotel that looks as though it was a local hangout for druggies. So, quality was not going to be part of the equation.

"Ah, yes, we would like to book a room."

The woman goes to the cork board behind the desk and gets a key. She hands it to Tim.

"What's wrong with your friend?" She asked, her lazy, glazed eyes suddenly observing Jay.

"He's drunk. He is a light-weight." Tim said tiredly, waiting for this lady to leave them alone so that they can sleep.

The lady surveyed them. Then she gave out a huff and said, "Enjoy your stay."

Tim and Jay went to their room and sat down on the bed. Since money was running low, they only got one.

"How're doing Jay?"

Jay just stared up at him.

Sigh.

"I think both of us need a good night's sleep. We'll be better once we recharge."

Jay remained silent.

Tim gave up and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash up.

Tim set up the camera on its tripod, and shed his trousers. Tim crawled on the bed and got underneath the covers.

"Come on, Jay. Time for bed."

Jay didn't respond.

Jay needed his sleep, so Tim got up and carried Jay to the bed. He tucked him into the covers and made sure he was warm.

Then, Tim got in beside him and turned off the bedside table.

"Good night, Jay."

Tim wrapped his arms around Jay's waist.

Tim woke up to a screaming Jay that was thrashing and crying. Tim tried to restrain Jay and calm him down, he received a kick in the face in return.

Tim fell to the floor in a dazed shock.

After the pain subsided after a few seconds, Tim restrained Jay again. Tim petted his hair and whispered comforting words like, 'everything is going to be okay.'

Gradually, Jay settled down and slowly went back to sleep. Tim wrapped his arms around Jay's form even tighter and kissed his hair.

Morning arrived when slivers of sunlight filtered through the blinds and hit Tim in the eyes.

Tim slowly opened his eyes, glaring at the sun for not allowing him to sleep longer.

Tim glanced over at Jay's sleeping form. Tim smiled at just how blissful he looks. Being on the road and running from people (and entities) that want you dead can rob a man of blissful peace. Something that most take for granted. Only when it's gone do you realize how much you've really needed it.

Tim ruffled Jay's hair and slowly got out of bed.

"Hey."

Tim was startled out of his mind. He was so startled in fact, he fell to the floor.

"O-oh. Hey Jay."

"Is tha' my name?"

Tim froze.

No. He can't. He-he can't!

"Jay, do you remember anything?"

Jay shook his head.

Tim pulled back his hair and brushed through them with his fingers.

Tim remembered his breathing exercises and let out erratic breaths. Slowly, he calmed himself down.

"Your," Tim began, "Your Jay Merrick."

"J-jay." Jay replied.

"Merrick." Tim finished. Jay looked down, and slowly wrapped himself in a blanket cocoon.

"And you're in a motel with me."

Jay looked up.

"Who are you then?"

Tim's heart wrenched.

"I'm Tim. Tim Wright."

Jay looked down again, immersing more of his body into the cocoon.

"Tim. Tim. Tim." Jay repeated his name over and over.

Tim let out an awkward chuckle, "Yeah, that's me."

Jay went silent. His eyes now had a blank film over them.

Tim shook Jay.

Nothing.

Sigh. At least that's progress.

Tim retreated to the bathroom and got showered and dressed. Once he got out, he made sure to replace the tape in the camera.

Tim's mind reeled. What was he going to do?He pretty much had no income, they were on the run from people trying to kill them, and Jay was mentally checked out.

But, his train of thought was soon disrupted when his stomach let out a loud, unruly growl. Before he was going to answer these questions and assess their situation, he was going to eat.

Tim went over to the bed.

"I'm going to get breakfast, Jay. Stay where you're alright?"

Where would he go?

Jay didnt respond.

Tim sighed once again, and tucked Jay snuggly into the blankets on the bed.

Tim went outside of their room and locked their door.

--------------------------------------------------

Tim unlocked the locks and stepped inside their room.

The breakfast was not the most terrible thing in the world, surprisingly.

He had eggs (which was burnt in some of the corners), fluffy pancakes drizzled in cheap syrup, and orange juice. His time in the café area was calm. He thought out some plans and ideas while he ate.

The plans were this: wait until Jay recovers.

Jay is in no condition to travel. If Tim were to go searching for something, and anything were to happen to Tim, then Jay would be vulnerable. And who knows what would happen to him.

"Breakfast." Tim called out to Jay.

Jay just laid there in the bed, his eyes transfixed in a nondescript corner of the room.

"You need to eat."

Tim put the breakfast on the nightstand. It was a simple breakfast: a muffin with some eggs and apple juice.

Tim grabbed the plastic cutlery and sat Jay up in the bed. Tim began feeding Jay.

Once he was finished, Tim disposed of the trash in one of their trash bins.

"Get some rest, bluejay."

Tim got out Jay's laptop and opened it up. He went to their YouTube and Twitter pages.

Tim spent the past few days in this routine.

Wake up. Get dressed. Check on Jay, make sure he's taken care of. Check their channel. Decipher codes with their followers until it was well into the night. Go to bed. Start again.

Then, there was a video uploaded to the channel.

The hooded stalker was looking for something in an abandoned building. Tim's blood ran cold when he saw it was a gun.

Then, the figure was descending down a street. Then, it turned down to a particular house, Tim's.

It was searching through his home. The cabinets, the living room. But then, he discovered that someone else had been in his home. Alex.

Fucking. Fantastic.

This set Tim incredibly on edge for the past few days.

To the point where Tim just. Cried in the bathroom. He threw things. He kicked and screamed. Tired. Just so fucking tired of this bullshit.

Jay seemed to make no progress whatsoever. Everytime he had tried to get him to do something. But, Jay would either respond with silence with that near lifeless glaze over his eyes, or with screaming.

Tim was in an especially dark place during that time. Self harming was on his mind frequently. He was just so. Fucking. Tired.

He had been dealing with terrible shit happening ever since day one.

But, if he did go through with the final act, Jay would get left behind. And, a small, possibly foolishly optimistic part of his brain didnt want to remove a chance of a happy ending for both of them.

To combat these feelings, Tim would play his ukulele and write in his journal. Just, random things. From little nonsensical stories he had been making up, to plans of what to do after this shitfest ends. It was... cathartic for him.

Then, a small beacon of hope came.

Tim was out on his usual run to get snacks from the gas station. It wasnt fancy, but it should get him going.

Tim drove back to their motel room.

Tim almost had a heart attack.

Jay was wandering outside of their motel room. Tim immediately got out, with the groceries, and led Jay back inside of their room.

"Where have you been?"

Tim froze. Jay seemed to be better. More coherent.

"Gas station." Tim replied, "needed some food."

"Are you alright, Jay?"

"Yeah?"

"You were really out of it for the past two weeks."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You were either staring off into space, or you were screaming. You didn't even remember your own name or where you were."

Jay sat in a stunned silence, digesting this information.

"W-what happened, Tim?"

Tim summarized everything that had happened and what their current situation is.

"We need to go back." Tim said.

"No, we do not."

"Yes, we do. We're at a dead end here. Alex was there. He was there waiting for us."

"Thus, we shouldn't go back."

"We have no other leads, bluejay." Tim said softly, his voice breaking on the last word. Tim began crying. He didnt know why he was crying. It could have been all the built-up stress and dark thoughts he had for the past few weeks.

Tim put his head in his hands.

Tim felt two arms snake their way across his body. This was what he needed. He just needed to be in Jay's arms.

"Let's get something to eat, yeah? You mentioned getting food from the gas station." Jay brought up.

"Y-yeah." Tim responded shakily.

Jay went over and got the contents from the bag.

They ate in silence.

They cleaned up, and went to bed.

Tim curled up against Jay, and Jay followed suit.

"Night, Tim."

"Night Jay."

And outside of their walls, there are entities beyond human comprehension, people who are willing to kill them without a moment's hesitation,

[ruffiorocks]

You don't need to bully people who don't ship what you ship.

Fan 1: "I love Kara in pants!"

Fan 2: "me too!"

Fan 1: "I liked the skirt, but it's nice to have a change".

Fan 2: "I'm glad Melissa isn't going to be cold anymore"

Fan 1 : "yeah!"

Fan 2: "wouldn't it be nice if Kara and Lena were a couple?"

Fan 1: "I'd love that!"

Anti : "Supercorp isn't real!! Lena and Kara aren't gay! "

Anti : "You're a hateful fandom! Stop ignoring the CANON lesbian couple!"

Anti: "You're all racists!"

Anti: "Lena is evil, it's only a matter of time! Lena's a murderer!"

Anti: "Stop hating on Mon El!"

Me: *re-reads conversation*

"erm.. how is the mere mention of the possibility of Kara and Lena being a couple hateful?"

"Did anyone even mention Mon El?"

" Are we obligated to give a shout out to every character on the show whilst discussing Kara's pants?"

"Since when is discussing pants or simply mentioning a head cannon couple racist?"

Why do I feel like I block some crazy anti every time I scroll through my feed on here or even Twitter? I mean it's decended into anarchy! People can't even say they like Lena or even mention the word Supercorp without being called all sorts of hateful things by people who don't know them and quite honestly have no reason to comment on their posts.

Kara gets pants and fans are happy, suddenly they are accused of bullying the show into doing it and taking it as a win even though Melissa has said she was cold.

Any mere mention of Lena is met with hateful comments about SuperCorp when it's not even mentioned.

Those that pretend to be calling people out don't seem to have realised that they are actually the ones causing the trouble. They comb through every post they can looking for any reason whatsoever to be offended. (Honestly GET A LIFE! this is beyond depressing).

Mel saying Kara loves Lena and shippers liking to think it's Supercorp is met with hate! 'a fight for Lena's soul' any head cannon that Kara is fighting for her love of Lena is met with hate! Where was the offense here? What did the poster do that was so awful?

The ironic thing that flys over the heads of people who do this is that whilst they think they are the most noble of people and have taken it upon themselves to rid the Supergirl fandom of these Injustices they are in fact the biggest bullies in the fandom.

Now I know what some of you are thinking, "well the Supercorp shippers are so hateful! They are the most vocal! We KNOW it's not ALL of them, it's the majority! But we're going to harrass and bully anyone who even dares to use the word."

So here's the thing, it is NOT the majority, if you pay attention you'll notice that most of the bullies tend to be the same handful of people. E.g. I saw a Supercorp account on Twitter that had thousands of followers, now I'm going to assume that anyone who likes a Supercorp account probably likes Supercorp, now can any of you honestly tell me that you have seen THOUSANDS of horrible Supercorp shippers? No you haven't. You've probably seen at best maybe 100 or so? So the percentage of hateful people out of thousands, (and remember that's just one Twitter account) is nowhere near 'ALL' of them.

The same goes for Karamel shippers, you've probably seen at best a few hundred of the same people. (possibly less than the Supercorp shippers because Mon El is gone).

Not every Supercorp or Karamel shipper deserves the uncalled for abuse they receive from people they have never even interacted with before simply for taking from the show what they enjoy the most. Whether it be canon or non canon. Whether you think Lena is an evil murderer or if you think Mon El is a misogynistic slave owner you do NOT have to have a go at the person who said it. Scroll past, that post didn't hurt you in anyway, you won't stop breathing because someone likes to think Kara is gay or that Mon El may have been better off with Winn.

Katie McGrath said herself it's art and you can take what you want from it. So you can take away the idea that Lena is in love with Kara or vice versa. You can take away that Mon El was awful or that he was a space puppy. You can take away that James Olsen sucks or you can take away that he is a nice guy.

Your ship doesn't hurt anyone at all because this is ALL fiction.

Now I know the next thing some of you will say "but those toxic fans shit on the actors to! Chris was bullied off of Social media! Mel and Chris even HAD to turn off the comments in their engagement posts".

Ok, first off stop giving social media trolls any credit. You can stand up for celebrities, no one is saying you can't, BUT spewing hate to anyone who simply ships the same ship as someone who was rude to Chris isn't you being a hero, it's you attacking an innocent because you think you're justified. Also news flash! These actors are professionals and ADULTS! They aren't children that need fans they will probably never meet or speak to spewing hate to anyone that breaths on their behalf. You may like to think you know a celebrities life because they occasionally post on Social media but the truth is you dont know them or anything about their lives. Chris is a grown man and you don't really know anything about him other than what he let's you know. Do you really think he's going to scroll through Tumblr proud that his fans are trolling people for simply not liking his character or simply for shipping Supercorp?

"hey Mel look at all these fans being hateful on my behalf? Oh look they're going the extra mile and attacking anyone who mentions Supercorp, neither me or Mon El are even mentioned on the post! Man I love fans that bully people on my behalf". << Yeah no! I don't know anything about Chris Wood but he seems unlikely to be happy his fans are attacking people. Honestly I bet he doesn't give a shit either way, he has a life to live, maybe you should get one to.

Also the comment in the engagement post on Instagram may have had the comments off, but the Twitter one didn't. So unless they are both incredibly dense (which I doubt) the comments weren't off to prevent hate.

The most bizarre things I've seen are:

"you don't watch the show for Kara? Well then you're not a true fan!" Sooo... You can't have a favorite character save the main one? When did this rule happen? Why didn't I get a Google alert that the rules on how to watch a show had changed?"

"I ship this non canon couple, BUT YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO SHIP THAT ONE BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE IT!!!" I can't even with this one 🤦

Oh and hating on Christ Wood because he's engaged to Melissa? I don't even know what to do with that one. But 'actors aren't their characters'. Shipping Mel and Katie in any other context than friendship is freaking creepy and disrespectful and I dont have to personally know either one to know they wouldn't thank you for it.

A few last points:

You are allowed to dislike or simply not be particularly bothered either way by a character even if they are played by a POC without being a racist. Believe it or not characters played by POC can be boring or crap in the exact same way a character played by someone who is Caucasian or Asian or whatever can also be boring or crap.

We have got to STOP calling people racist everytime they don't like a character who is a POC. Not liking one character does not make you a racist. I don't like James Olsen, it's not a secret, but I LOVE Jonn Jonzz, I loved Myrnn, I loved M'gann, i really liked Julia, I really like Col Haley and I like Kelly Olsen. Not liking ONE character doesn't make me a racist.

If you don't like the Lesbian pairing on the show you aren't necessarily homophobic. It could be you just aren't as engaged with them as characters.

You don't have to mention any canon lesbian couple in any conversation you have about a head cannon lesbian couple. Wanting Supercorp to happen but not being all that invested in Dansen doesn't make you a bad person or a racist.

That was a lot, but if one person reads this and realizes that spewing vile hate at anyone who hasn't done anything other than not ship your ship is a horrible thing to do then it'll be worth it.

Block bullies and trolls. DON'T respond to them, you can't win an argument or discussion with them because they arent going into it with the intention of debate, they just want to bully you. Feeding trolls just makes them bigger and therefore hungrier and they they have to find bigger Bridges to hide under.

Happy shipping people, in the words of Ellen "be kind to one another" ✌️

[sepiadice]

Art Direction of Tabletop RPGs

Dungeons and Dragons is good at being Dungeons and Dragons.

That shouldn't be a controversial opinion, and it's not worded as one, yet I have one friend who derisively labels it as a war game, and another friend who believes D&D is all you need in regards to TRPGs. These two are from distinct eras of my life, and have never met.[1]

My moderate view is such: Dungeons and Dragons is good. It's not the ultimate system, but if you want a western fantasy built on the framework of Tolkien, Fifth Edition is the way to go. You could use a different system, in theory, but no other system has the same reach and stability. Everyone knows D&D, which is valuable.

Its combat and mechanics are a good balance of grit and function, and it's mostly teachable. My friend's 'wargaming' derision is because he believes it doesn't support role-playing well. Something about the guy who wrote Dungeon World saying if it's not in the rules, it’s not in the game.[2] But I've always felt that D&D makes the right decision in not bogging it down with structure and dictating the 'correct' way to role-play.

However, if you want to do anything else (Sci-fi, non-european fantasy, superheroes, Slice of Life), best case scenario the seams will creak in the attempt. D&D is good at being D&D, and that's the limit.

I appreciate D&D. I'll play D&D, happily!

There's a reason I bristle when “DM” is used as the generic term.

That said, I've always had a sort of tonal disconnect when I play D&D, and it's because of the art.

Fair warning, what follows is a lot of personal interpretations and vague mumbling trying to relay a point. I’m not actually an authority on anything.

(Dungeons & Dragons owned by Wizard of the Coast . Image sourced from Wikipedia)

Dungeons and Dragons does not have pretty art. It’s technically well done, and far from ugly, but it’s not actually inspiring. Above we have the cover of the Player’s Handbook, the first thing most new players see. Setting aside that the focus of the cover art for what should be the book about Player Characters is a giant monster man[4], the cover is very orange. The actual people are composed of muted, neutral colors, and the background is vague and out of focus.

It’s not really conveying an air of fantastic worlds and larger-than-life characters (giant wearing a dragon skeleton aside). It coveys oppression, monotony, and “realism”.

(Pathfidner owned by Paizo. Image sourced from Wikipedia)

Pathfinder’s core rulebook, on the other hand, is colorful. Look at that big, bright dragon![5] Sensibly dressed Fighter Man’s brown clothes are still bright enough to pop him out from the green-grey dungeon background[6], and Fantastic Sorceress’s red dress is also bright and helps frame the Fighter as her hand glows with magic.

While both covers feature a woman with an orb of magic, D&D’s cover shows magic as contained and lighting a small space, while Pathfinder’s magic is big and trailing, hinting at movement.

Actually, D&D’s mage girl doesn’t have a cohesive movement. Is she falling from above? Jumping in from the left? Where is she going? It doesn’t really follow in a meaningful way.

Anyways: color. Yes, yes, I know the plague of brown and and muted tones is a much whined about criticism, and it might seem odd from someone calling himself SepiaDice, but neutral tones have their place; usually as background and supporting other colors to pop more.

Besides, Sepia has a noble history in film, the brown range isn’t a common image color, and Sepia is fun to say.[7]

Color choice is very important. Bright colors draw the eye and make visuals more distinctive. Bright colors also denote and bring energy to things. Dull colors are used for locations meant to be calm and sedate. If you want the characters and locations to seem fun and full of life, you fill it with bright colors.

Everything breaths, adventure can strike at anytime!

Dull colors, and it’s hibernation. People are around, but they don’t seem to enjoy it.

But let’s turn to the visual storytelling: what does each cover tell you about life in their setting?

D&D: lots of posing to look fancy, but there’s no real sense of energy. Jumpy Magerson’s weird Megaman hop has been mentioned, of course. The Giant has a look of dull surprise as he drops Jumpy Magerson,[8] as he holds a sword in the non-active hand. Foreground fencer man is wide open, holding his own foil up and away from where it might accidentally jab anyone. The locations is… orange? Looks like there might be lava geysers?

Patherfinder: A dragon roars at its enemies! Teeth bared, tongue coiled, tendons on display! Wings unfurled to make it seem larger! The fighter is yelling back at the dragon, his weapons mid-swing! Shoulder forwards to defend the rest of the body! The Sorceress is holding a firm stance as she casts a spell that crackles with arcane energy!

Pathfinder’s cover tells a story of epic combat, fizzly magic, and energy. D&D’s cover tells a story of two adventurers existing in a space also occupied by a giant.

Now, both of these systems have the same ancestry, as Pathfinder is an iteration on D&D 3.5.[9] But one sparks more joy when I look at it.

But let’s do another case study. I’ll need an audience volunteer, and my brother’s the only person immediately on hand.

I’m going to make him list three qualities of goblins real quick:

Green

Wimpy

Sneaky

Awesome. Don’t know if the green text translated, but those are what he wrote. Give him a hand!

So, with those three traits in mind, let’s look at a goblin picture from D&D Beyond:

(Owned by Wizards of the Coast. Source here)

Like, you can’t say D&D doesn’t call that a goblin, it’s literally on the goblin page.

This guy is yellow. He’s built like a four foot tall WWE Wrestler. He’s defending with his advancing arm as he rears up to smack ya!

(Okay, “Sneaky” is a hard one to argue.)

Moving on, what does Pathfinder call a Goblin:

(Owned by Paizo. Source here)

Look at this charming miscreant! Green. Big ole head. Good mix of of ugly and oddly adorable. Probably two feet tall, and happens to want your two feet, please, but you could step on him if you’d like.

He also looks like a Gremlin

(An adorable little chaos monster owned by Warner Brothers. Source)

Point is, Pathfinder’s more cartoony take on the classic monster feels more in the spirit of the thing. Every time I see one of those goofy faces, I feel like I’m in for an enjoyable time.

Bringing us back around to the point of this essay: the art direction of D&D bogs down my theater of the mind. The art in the rulebooks don’t inspire creativity or fantastic visions. It inspires… dull, lifeless people walking through dirt roads flanked by dead grass.

I don’t enjoy looking at D&D’s art. Relatedly, I don’t like looking at the art of Magic: the Gathering, whose style I can’t help by see in every D&D sourcebook cover I see. Neither game invokes an inviting world, but utilitarian ones that exist to give quick, forgettable visual flair to represent mechanical card effects.

To save making this long essay even longer and unfocused, I’ll save talk of actual ‘canon’ lore for another time.[10]

So why do I, a semi-professional funny man and sad dreamer who can’t actually draw, want to talk about rulebook art?

Well, I’ve always felt a disconnect when I play D&D. I make the characters, I roll the dice, I attempt to role-play, but I’ve always had an emotional gap between me and the character I’m playing. I like the concept, but when I use my theater of the mind, the character feels stiff and divorced from everything. Kind of like the 5th Edition rulebook.

Then I saw this:

(Source tweet. All of this artist’s work is great and I wish I could hire them.)

This half-elf showed up on my twitter timeline, and my first thought was ‘How come my characters don’t look like that?’

Soon followed by ‘Why couldn’t they?’

Then I completed the trilogy with ‘Why haven’t I imagined my characters in a style appealing to me?’

As I was deep into contemplating what sort of aesthetic I consider my “brand”,[11] it was entering a mind primed to start overanalyzing.

So, how do I imagine my characters? In the neighborhood of the D&D art, if I have  firm concept. Micah Krane always was mentally nebulous to me, just kinda being a generic half-elf dude. Trix (who was created for the brightly colored Pathfinder) is green-haired and wears a tail coat, but otherwise is also normal looking in my mind’s eye. In the last two D&D campaigns, Tybalt was also vague in appearance, and Teddi had Goat horns, but those were meant to stand out on a generic rogue character.[13]

But you know what I’ve never put on a character I’ve played? Glasses.

I hope that those who read my various media reviews[14] don’t need this overly explained, but I like glasses. I, myself, don’t wear glasses, but I find them to be great accessories in character design. Frames the eyes, come in a variety of shapes, adds bit of extra visual interest. I always point out Meganekkos and pay them extra attention.[15] I really, really like girls with glasses.

But I’ve never made one. Because there’s no cute design in D&D rulebooks. Just a range of handsome people to ugly halflings.[16]

That is the effect of art design in a system. It sets tone, expectations, and aesthetic for the players. It’s so ingrained that everytime I see art of players’ characters that break the standard, it always takes me aback. It’s inspiring to see artists who manage to divorce D&D the game from D&D the art.

I want to imagine fun, personally appealing characters. But the subtle direction of the insert art as I look through to rulebook, or the provided character portraits of D&D Beyond does not suggest things I like to see. It infects the mind, and leaves specific molds. People in practical, mundane clothes, walking down drab, uninteresting roads.

It’s the same lack of escapism that makes Western (Video Game) RPGs super unappealing to me.[17] Dark Souls, Elder Scrolls, Bioshock don’t look like fun places to be, they look tiring and full of splintery furniture waiting to do 1d4 nonlethal damage.

So I have to talk about anime now.

My mother was staying at my home a little while ago, and I turned on My Roommate is a Cat. This prompted her ask me about what about anime was appealing. I couldn’t form a competent answer for the question at the time, but it’s had time to churn in my head.

Anime is a good middle ground between cartoon and realism. It can broach deeper topics and more mature storytelling than children’s cartoons,[18] without sacrificing a light visual tone and fantastic imagery. Also, the fact that it’s produced by a non-American, non-European culture lends a degree of separation with cultural expectations and tropes. Enhances Escapism.

Luckily, in (very) recent years, after generations of exchanging video games and animation back and forth, Japanese Tabletop RPGs are starting to join in on the fun.

Which means I can look at Ryuutama.

(Image copied from DriveThruRPG. Brought over the pacific by Kotodama Heavy Industries. Buy this book.)

I love this system.

Watercolor art direction. Layout evokes a spellbook. Two Characters and a Dog take the focus on the cover, while the road signs and tiny shrine in the background invoke the emphasis on travel and wonder.

The interior art?

(Taken off the Ryuutama (english) website. Buy this book.)

Well, that makes the game just look like fun. Cartoony characters fighting cat goblins. Conflict, but it doesn’t make life feel like a constant struggle. A world I wish to inhabit. There’s also more detailed images of dragons and other world-establishing pictures mixed in to give the art range, but it’s this sort of charming that makes Ryuutama the first rulebook I actually sat and read cover to cover.[19] It’s a good system I already reviewed. Buy this PDF, maybe they’ll reprint the physical book.

Anyways, I’ll admit, the art’s a little too simple for D&D. Perfect for Ryuutama, and the end of the scale I want my mental image to be, but overshoots the sweet spot. And it’s difficult enough to find players for the much more popular 5e, so Ryuutama exclusivity would grind my playtime to zero.

Still, Ryuutama does a great job of setting it’s light, fantastic tone, where D&D has failed me. The art direction of the books, and years of exposure and defaulting to what I assume D&D should look for establishes a mental habit that’s hard to break. Wizards of the Coast has drowned nerd spaces with its particular kind of art, especially with MtG plastered all over hobby stores, deck boxes, dice, playmats, and even D&D sourcebooks.

That’s not even accounting for fanworks and the speculative fiction art in online spaces.

So what do I want to look like? Were I blessed with talent or with patient to actually learn to draw well, what would I be referencing?

What about what set my expectations of fantasy years before IndigoDice invited me to that fateful Traveller game?

(Screen cap of Tales of Vesperia grabbed from here.)

Well, okay, what I’m actually thinking about is Tales of Symphonia, but Vesperia’s graphics are kinda what nostalgia tells me Symphonia tooked like, as opposed to what it actually looks like.[20]

Look at that verdant town! Warm lighting, bright characters, leaves growing to depict life. A hotel built into a tree. This is a fantasy world that is unashamed about life thriving.

Forget solarpunk. This is my aesthetic.

As for the party members…

(Okay, Judith’s a little gratuitous, but The Definitive Edition lets me put her in a suit, and she’s awesome. Art stolen from here.)

Oddly enough, as far as JRPG outfits go, these are pretty tame with details.[21] Mostly bright, popping colors, even Yuri’s dark clothes are done in such a way to not feel grim and edgy, hints of personality, and I just enjoy looking at them.

The Tales series as a whole does a good job of taking European fantasy and applying Japanese whimsy to the design. Also yukatas. Every member looks like the hero of their own story, while still being part of a cohesive whole.

Which is, you know, the ideal way to operate as a TRPG party.

So, what’s the take away?

Artists, keep being creative. Pull inspiration in from things besides the rulebooks and Critical Role. Look at the other things you love and bring visual flare and whimsy to your art. Then share it. Ignite the passions of those of us who can’t do the draw-good thing.

Players, play with the tropes. I love doing it narratively and mechanically. My favorite rogue is still my neutral good stage magician who would never do a crime. Explore what’s possible in the freeform world of tabletop games, both in play and your Theater of the Mind.

Game designers, branch out with the art. And stop using Powered by the Apocalypse as a crutch.[22]

Hope this long ramble was enjoyable and cohesive. If you want more of this, my other works, and maybe to allow me to make an actual play podcast, consider supporting me through Patreon or Ko-fi.

Until next time, may your dice make things interesting.

[1] Though I would love to read a transcript of the two discussing it. It'd be a fun debate. [2] I don't like Powered by the Apocalypse for precisely this reason. Every actual play I've heard with the system has players talking about their characters in the abstract, because they're just pressing the buttons on their character sheet.[3] [3] I maybe should do a breakdown of PbtA one day. [4] Which is pretty poor direction. Do an epic group shot of characters battling a horde around them. [5] None of the D&D core books has a dragon on the cover. Come on, that should’ve been a gimme! [6] Similar note as footnote 5. [7] Also CornflowerBlueDice is too long to be catchy. [8] I figured it out! [9] I haven’t looked at at Pathfinder’s forthcoming second edition. Fifth Edition reclaimed it’s throne as The ubiquitous system after fourth lost its footing, so I don’t think there’s much point. [10] TL;DR: I ignore it. [11] Pulp Fantasy is too mundane. Steampunk is too victorian-y. Sci-fi fractals into so much. Solarpunk has appeal, but isn’t quite right.[12] [12] Haven’t really found the term. [13] Let’s not examine that I put more thought into female character design than male for the moment. [14] Which you should. Validate my efforts! [15] And desperately pray it’s considered innocent enough of a fetish that I don’t have to stop. [16] Never liked halflings. Gnomes are fine. Halflings, in art, have always been off-putting and malformed. [17] That and the emphasis of character customization kneecapping the Player Character’s narrative involvement. Can’t give them a personality if that’s the end user’s job! [18] Even Avatar: The Last Airbender felt like it had to sneak the narrative depth it achieved past corporate. [19] I do need to give it a reread, though. Relearn the system. [20] It still looks good, especially the environment, but the characters are kind of… leaning towards chibi. [21] This, specifically, is why I chose to highlight Vesperia over Rune Factory. [22] Technically nothing to do with this essay, but I can’t stress this point enough.

[mintypineapple]

I can't get to sleep. My mind just keeps playing the same scenes over and over again. I just keep wondering if I could have done something different. Or if I had done something different, would I be dead? If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, Toni and I had our car stolen at gunpoint.

We went out to Birmingham to see a show, so we stayed at an Airbnb. We were getting ready to leave to get breakfast, see some museums, and head home when I heard someone behind me say "Give me your keys." I turned around confused and I saw a guy walking towards me and my brain got confused and thought he asked me for change. I said "I don't have any." And he again asked for my keys. And then I saw the gun. Nothing from that point on felt real. I started fumbling with my keys. They were hooked to my belt loop with a clip. A woman came up next to him. I can't remember what they were saying. Telling me to hurry up, I guess. I finally give them to him. Toni is on the other side of the car and says "He can't have our car keys." I figure she can't see him, so I say "He has a gun." He's given the woman with him our keys. He's turned away from me and for a brief second, I think "Grab his gun." I don't. He runs to his own car and drives off. Toni and I are just staring at each other as the woman starts our car. Toni is still standing with the passenger side door open. The car starts pulling forward. I grab my laptop backpack out of the backseat, as I'm still standing with the backdoor open. Toni says something like "No. Fuck this. This is my car," and gets in the passenger seat. And the car takes off. I scramble to get my phone out to call 911. I don't know what I'm doing. I start running towards the car. I grab the handle, thinking maybe I can open the door and get the woman out. The car speeds up and I can't hold on anymore and I just scream "You have my wife!" The car disappears from my view. I keep running and start dialing 911. I crest a hill and see Toni standing on the side of the road, crying. Later she tells me when she got in, the woman was like "Get out! If you don't, he's gonna kill me" and Toni was like "Get out! This is my car!" Then the woman said, "Fine, I'll just crash the car" and that's when she sped up. She also started swerving. So Toni convinced her to slow down, so she could at least get out.

The whole time this was happening, it didn't feel real. It felt like I was watching a scene in a movie and soon it would end and real life would kick in and we'd still have our car. That feeling hasn't fully gone away either. Because the thing is, real life has continued. My parents came and got us and there were moments of normal conversation and everytime I would think "How are we talking about anything other than what happened?" But at the same time, whenever we did talk about it, I didn't want to be talking about it at all. We ate dinner at a Chinese buffet. A woman was celebrating her birthday at the table next to us. It felt so surreal. It didn't make sense to me that this could be happening at the same time that my wife was clutching onto my arm, afraid to let me go.

I just keep seeing the gun. The car pulling away from me with Toni inside. I keep imagining we never left the Airbnb. I keep thinking what if I had grabbed his gun? What if the woman had hurt Toni? What could have went wrong? Could I have done something better? Like, I somehow feel like this is my fault. And I know it's not, but I feel that way anyway.

I've pushed it away most of the day, trying to be calm and clear-headed, so I could talk to the police, so I could be there for Toni, so I could explain what's going on to everyone, so I could take care of the things that need taking care of, (not just insurance claims and calling our bank because Toni's wallet and cards were in the car, but we're also in the process of buying our first house and mortgage lenders were emailing me for some information about house stuff and I had to be like "Could have died. Please hold.") And then I just distracted myself with movies and alcohol.

But now I'm trying to go to sleep and I can't get these scenes out of my head. The weird thing is that I can't even really tell you what the man and woman looked like. I don't remember their faces or their clothes. Don't even remember the color of his car. All the important details are a blur. But I can clearly see that gun. I can clearly see the car driving away from me. I can clearly see Toni standing alone, crying. And I can't stop seeing it.

[hockeytrashgoblin]

Found you (AustonxAshley)

Author’s notes: Am I aware that this timeline is fucked? hella. However I don’t really care that much. Sorry if you do but oops.

I was laying on the floor of my kitchen scrolling through my instagram. The day at school had been absolutely horrendous and sometimes you just get in a mood and need to cry on your floor for a bit and need someone to care for you. Nothing wrong with that. Except that I had no one to take care of me and I was just moody on the floor but oh well that didn’t matter much.

I kept scrolling through my instagram until I got a text from my friend.

‘K I couldn’t care less about your sports shit but like some hockey boy is looking for you and I think you showed me his butt one time?’

Almost immediately my mind went to Auston but it couldn’t be, there was no one way in hell he even remembered my name let alone be trying to find me.

‘Sure Leah whatever you say, I really believe you.’ I replied to her rolling my eyes.

After a little while of laying on the floor I got up and started making some pasta for dinner before the hockey game. I called Grandma too to talk to her about how awful the people of my program were today and to talk through the hockey games.

“What games do you get tonight?” I asked her while stirring the pot.

“I get the Capitals vs Vancouver and eeeew the Leafs vs Nashville.”

“Oh yikes. Which are you gonna watch?”

“I’m gonna have to watch the leafs, I can’t stand Ovetchkin.”

“Poor grandma.”

“I hate the leafs but I hate the Capitals more.”

“I know you do.” I said putting the phone on speaker and sitting down to watch the game.

“And who are you going to root for?”

“Nashville of course.”

“Oh no but what about Fredrik Andersen? And little sunshine william? Oh and who could forget Aaaauston.” she was teasing me, knowing that I made a special exception for those three. And sometimes Mitch depending on what he was doing.

“Yeah, yeah whatever. I love them. They are the exception. Go Nashville and Freddie and Auston and William. That’s it.”

“You better not be rooting for the leafs tonight.” Grandma hadn’t liked the leafs in a long long time. She got me into the sports I liked and she let me know who we like and don’t like. Sure I was able to go off and like whoever I wanted but the leafs sure made it easy to not be a super big fan of, messing things up all the time. But those three were my boys and I was always rooting for them and Grandma knew that.

“I won’t, God. But if Auston gets a goal I’m gonna yell.”

“Like he did when you punched him in the face the other day?”

“Grandmaaaaa I didn’t mean to! It was an accident.” my whole family had been teasing me about this for the past two days and I was still just as embarrassed about it as I had been when I called grandma frantically from the ramp as soon as I was out of Auston’s sight.

“A vicious little thing.”

“No I’m not I love him.”

“Tell that to your fists.”

“You’re annoying.” I said with a big mouthful of pasta making her laugh at me.

“I’m just teasing, dear.”

“Speaking of annoying I don’t like this person singing the national anthem.”

“When do you ever?”

“When George Canyon does it.” and with that the game started and we just talked about the game, me not having enough hockey knowledge to completely understand everything going on and some of the calls or rules. I was relatively new to hockey and this was my first full season watching. They kept showing Auston and everytime they did I got teased again. It was a loooong first period. A bunch of commercials came on and I was walking around my house still talking to grandma.

“Ooooh Ashley, they’re interviewing Auston.”

“What?!” I yelled running over and jumping on the couch. “I almost just fell off the couch trying to get here to see him.”

“Oh my god did you do that to his face?!”

“It was an accident! How many times do I have to say it uugh.” I was about to continue but was shushed. I pouted but then paid attention to the tv.

“So Auston you’ve got quite the bruise right now, what happened there?” the reporter asked him, he nervously chuckled before answering with a smile.

“Yeah uh a girl punched me in the face. Scratched me too.” he said it with a fond smile. “When I went to the Jays game with uh Mitch. She was standing in front of me ya know at the high valley concert and she got excited and stuff. She didn’t mean it. She even took care of me after to make sure I was okay.”

“That was nice of her. Does this mystery punch girl have a name?”

“Yeah Ashley.”

“Are you going to be seeing this Ashley again?”

“Uh haha I uh I hope so. I’ve been trying to find her. But uh who knows? She turned down my offer to sit in the suite with me, Mitchie, Freddie, and Will to sit in nose-bleed seats so really who knows?” he was still smiling though.

“Alright well thank you for your time and good luck finding her.”

“Yeah no problem, thanks I appreciate it.” Auston got serious again and left for the dressing room.

“Hellooooo?” Grandma said on the other line.

“Um hi yes? Hello.”

“Did you catch all that?”

“Um yes I think?”

“Auston is looking for yoooou.”

“This is nuts. No way. This is the literal best news I’ve heard in my life.”

“You know what else is nuts? You giving up a chance to sit with all your favourite boys to sit in your seat with all those party poopers around you.”

“Okay but I didn’t know they’d be party poopers and the seat was great. If the Jays had won it would’ve been perfect.”

“Well you’re a jinx.”

“No I am not!” just then grandma let out a big laugh. A suspicious one for sure. “What are you laughing at over there?”

“They just showed video of you punching Auston Matthews in the face.”

“NO THEY DIDN’T.”

“Yes they did so!”

“Oh no.”

“Could you be any less graceful do you think?”

“No probably not.” I groaned going back over to the tv to see it again. “That really wasn’t very graceful was it?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Literally everyone I know is laughing at me right now.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

“No grandma you don’t get it. Every person I know is messaging me laughing at me. This has gone all over the place and now I keep getting texts and messages about it. I’m never going to live this down ever.”

“Oh come of it. That’s a little dramatic don’t you think?”

“If I were laying on the floor, THAT would be a little dramatic. This is the perfect amount of dramatic.”

“Are you gonna try to reach out to him?”

“ARE YOU CRAZY?! NO!!”

“What do you mean no? You’ve been all about Auston this whole season and now he’s trying to find you.”

“Why would be ever want to find me? That would be so dumb of him.”

“Stop that right now. Did you see the big smile on his face when he was asked about that bruise?”

“Yeees.” I said quietly blushing and smiling.

“Just try it.”

“I’m going to put one thing on social media. And if nothing happens, then I guess that’s it.”

“Yes do it. I really think you should. Get your hockey boy.”

“Alright fine. I just need to think of the right thing to say first..” I thought about it for a while during the beginning half of the second period before I found what I thought was the right thing that would let him know for sure it was the same sarcastic girl he met the other day. I took screenshots of my phone blowing up and then went to twitter and I wrote out ‘Thanks to @AM34 and @sportsnet for exposing me to all of Canada lmao’. I thought it was funny. It made me laugh at least. I went back to watching the game and during second intermission I paid a little more attention.

“I wonder if anyone has seen your post yet.”

“Yeah I dunno. I guess we’ll see.” I was really nervous about this. A lot more people than usual had retweeted my post and just overall interacted with it last time I had checked but still not enough to really make any impact I didn’t think.

“Did you really need to be that sarcastic?” Grandma asked laughing as I ran back to the tv.

“God I didn’t think it would be on tv jeeeeeeez.”

“Well on the plus side I think that Auston is gonna see it for sure now.”

“Look how many people tagged him! This is crazy. I’m gonna die.”

“Now THAT is too dramatic.”

“I don’t think so. I feel like I’m gonna die.”

“No you don’t. You’re just nervous. All you can do now is wait, my dear.” she said still laughing at me. “Let’s just watch the game and see what happens. You’ll have to keep me updated on this one though for sure.”

“Well duh. If this works out you get to meet Auston Matthews. Are you excited?”

“Oh yeah thrilled.” she said sarcastically.

“I can hear you rolling your eyes at me. Stop it.” we watched the whole game with lots of teasing of course to me about the whole thing. I continued to cheer for Nashville though. “Wow Kevin Fiala is a beautiful man.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“What?! He is!” I said defensively.

“If this goes into overtime I’m not gonna be happy.” she said changing the subject.

“Why not? Overtime is fun.”

“Oh pfft sure. This from the same girl that just yells the entire 5 minutes.”

“Oh wow well I woooonder who I got that from?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t. It’s not like you were the one who made me love hockey or anything.”

“Nope not me.” I rolled my eyes as the clock was running out.

“Looks like we get some overtime Grandma.”

“Darn.” after the break they came back for it and I was excited.

“I love overtime.”

“No you don’t. You love shootouts.”

“K, well yeah but I need to go through overtime first.”

“No shootout. I have to get up early tomorrow.”

“Yes shootout.” we watched the overtime and it was almost done and I was getting more excited for the shootout that would follow but with 15 seconds left Auston got a goal. “YES WOW YAY.”

“What was that?!”

“Oops.”

“Oops she says. God I thought you were rooting for Nashville.”

“In my defense I did say that if Auston scored I was gonna yell.”

“You’re a goofball. I’m going to bed, I’ll talk to you tomorrow and you can tell me all about what happens the rest of tonight.”

“Okay, bye grandma, love you. Goodnight.”

“Love you too. Bye sweetie.”

I hang up the phone and continue watching sportsnet. They interview Auston again and I pay very close attention to that although I didn’t care for his lame nervous hockey answers, I wanted to know if they say anything about my post. They don’t until the very end.

“One more thing Auston and then we’ll let you go. During first intermission you were talking about a mystery girl named Ashley. She reached out on twitter.”

“Wait she did? Uh what did she say?”

“She thanked you and us for exposing her to Canada with screenshots of her family and friends messaging her about it.”

“That sounds like her for sure.” he said with a laugh. “Well if it makes her feel any better for ‘exposing’ her I dedicate that winning goal to her.”

“So now that you know that she was watching how do you feel about how you played tonight?”

“Well uh pretty good. I mean like, I scored the winning goal and I feel like I played really well tonight so I’m glad she chose tonight to watch.” he said laughing again.

“Alright Auston Congratulations on the win. And thanks for your time.”

“Yeah of course no problem.” Auston left for the locker room and I was freaking out. I went into my room and changed into my pajamas. I got snuggled up into my bed trying to answer all the teasing messages I had received when I got some twitter notifications. The ones that killed me though were the ones from Auston. One was him retweeting and the other was a direct message from him. After talking back and forth a couple times I gave him my number and he called me.

“Hi Ashley.”

“Why hello there Auston.”

“I found you.”

“I would’ve made it easier if I had known I was being looked for.” I said making him laugh.

“Fair enough I suppose. What are you up to?”

“Well it’s like 11 so I’m in my pajamas cuddled up in bed right now.”

“Oh sorry, where you going to sleep? I can never sleep after games, I forget.”

“No don’t worry about it. I get too hyper after games to go to bed. I just like being cozy.”

“You’re ridiculous.” he said laughing again.

“Yeah you aren’t wrong. So what are you up to?”

“I’m driving back to my place.”

“Aah fun times.”

“Yeah I guess. I like driving after games alone. It settles me down. I’m glad Mitch went home with Steph because there is no calming down when Mitch is in the car.”

“Yeah I believe that 100%.” I said laughing.

“He’s like a child on a sugar-high. It’s fucking crazy.”

“He does seem like a lot from what I saw at that ballgame.”

“Why didn’t you come with me at the game?” he asked abruptly.

“Um well I didn’t know who you meant by other friends first of all. I get nervous around groups and didn’t want to be all awkward and annoying to everyone. Besides that I had a really good seat.”

“You don’t like groups and you went to a game by yourself?”

“Yeah.” I said simply.

“How was that different?”

“Baseball games and concerts are the only groups or crowds I can be in without panicking and that’s because I’m just having too much fun to care.”

“What about hockey games?”

“I’ve never been to a hockey game.”

“What? Never?”

“Nope. I can’t afford to. Baseball tickets for where I like to sit are never more than 40$, hockey tickets are hella expensive. Plus I just got into hockey.”

“Hockey tickets aren’t that expensive.” he said quietly.

“Maybe not for you. I’m living off OSAP right now my guy. Not a lot of extra money for hockey.”

“Oh shit I guess not. Alright well I’m back at my place and I desperately need to shower. Can I take you out sometime? Please? Without you punching me in the face this time preferably.”

“Oh my god shut up.” I exclaimed making him laugh. “I’m really sorry about that.”

“I’m not. So what is your answer?”

“I’ll allow it.”

“Okay cool. I’ll text you tomorrow, bye Ashley. It was nice talking to you again.”

“You too, Auston. Bye.” I said with a big smile on my face as I hung up.

[solastia]

Beneath The Surface | 5

Chapters: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Pairing: Jung Hoseok x Reader

Word Count: 5,746

Genre & Warnings: Angst, very sad Hobi Hobi ( I feel like that should be an actual warning lol), some fluff, Jisoo is an annoying bitch and calls everyone Oppa and Unnie, obviously cussing because it’s me. This is mostly an MC character growth chapter, where Sunflower’s past gets resolved so she can move on and be more open to possibilities in her future. 

Notes: I really hate making my Hobi sad, so I hope you guys realize how much work went into this chapter. I literally made myself cry. 

“Hold up, she said what?”

Hoseok gawked in disbelief at Bang PD. He really hoped this was a fucking nightmare because he was ready to wake up. 

“Hoseok, she already told me everything, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t act dumb. I just wish you would have come to me with this sooner so we would have a more concrete game plan. For now, we just have to post a couple of pictures and maybe have Jisoo show up at a concert or something. We’ve already made the official announcement on Twitter.” Bang PD sighed and rubbed his temples like he was forming a migraine. Hoseok felt like he might be developing one as well. 

Bang PD looked at Hoseok with such a disappointed gaze as he waved a paper in the air that he felt like a worm, even if he was innocent of this. 

Bang PD cleared his throat and read the paper. 

“As the leader of Hypnotic, I feel like it is my duty to come clean with any personal matters that may affect my group. So I am happy to announce that I am officially dating Jung Hoseok of BTS and that I will be making it public knowledge.”

“But none of it is true!” Hoseok yelled, slapping his open palm against the desk. He was just so frustrated. Why wouldn’t anyone listen? “I’ve never even said anything to her beyond hello and goodbye. I’ve never been alone with her, I’ve never touched her, and I am certainly not dating her.” 

“Hoseok, can you really blame me for believing this? You’re literally still on lockdown because you got caught sneaking out to see a girl. I hate having to treat you guys like kids, but it is for the good of the entire group. Now we have to deal with this. Hopefully, the fans won’t freak out too much and just accept it. Give it at least a few months, and we’ll announce a split if you’re still set on it.” 

“Of course I’m still set on it. I don’t know or like her. Please, don’t make me do this! Just say it was a mixup or a misunderstanding! I never ask you for anything! The girl that I’m on lockdown for, she cant see this! I’m with her, not Lee Jisoo.” Hoseok pleaded, unable to control the tears anymore. 

Bang PD quietly sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Hoseok. It’s already been announced. As far as the world is concerned, you’re dating Lee Jisoo.”

Hoseok crumbled into the desk chair, shoving his face into his hands as he sobbed. He was so close to being done with everything. So sick of feeling like he wasn’t good enough, sick of not being able to live like a fucking human. And now...now they were taking away his hope. His Sunflower. 

“Don’t be afraid to stand a little closer, you two. This is a couple photo after all.” The photographer chuckled as he pushed Hoseok and Jisoo closer together. 

Hoseok was so uncomfortable, and he’d never been so close to punching a woman in his life. He’d been practically choking on his rage since the moment she’d step foot in the office. Her smug strut and overconfident smirk had him seeing red. He didn’t understand. Why him? She could have pulled this stunt with any of them. Why the hell did she pick him? He’d never done anything to encourage her or piss her off that he knew of. He didn’t know when they’d get a chance to talk alone, but when they did, she’d learn he wasn’t all sunshine and smiles. 

“Achoo!”Jisoo sneezed delicately. Followed by a sniffle, then two more mouse-like sneezes. Hoseok glared down at her only to see her gaze narrowed in on the sunflower pinned to his shirt. 

“I’m terribly sorry, Hoseok Oppa, but that flower has to go. I’m allergic.” Jisoo batted her eyelashes up at him, and his scowl deepened. No way in hell. 

He ignored her and focused on the photographer. He saw her fake smile start to slip a little from the corner of his eye and gained a little bit of satisfaction from that. He tried to zone out enough to where he couldn't hear the annoying sniffling. She could deal with being uncomfortable for a few damn minutes considering she’s fucking with his life. 

“Jisoo, why does it look like you’re crying?” The photographer asked, walking up to them with a slight frown. “I can’t shoot with you looking like that.” 

“It’s just that I’m allergic and can’t be around flowers. Hoseok Oppa has a sunflower on his shirt.” She responded quietly, almost sounding apologetic. 

“Ah, I see. Hoseok, as charming as you look with your flower, we'll have to get rid of it to get through this,” the photographer sighed. 

Hoseok was about to fight to keep it when he saw Manager Sejin shake his head from behind the photographer. Hoseok dropped his head in defeat. Sejin was under orders to add another day to his lockdown everytime he acted out during this whole debacle. With a trembling hand and a weary heart, Hoseok unpinned his sunflower and gave it to Sejin to hold onto for the duration of the shoot. He couldn’t help feeling like it was almost symbolic. 

Seeing Jisoo’s satisfied expression as he got back into position pissed him off, so he let his mask drop. He let every hateful thought, his disgust with this situation and her, and general unhappiness shine through in all its glory. Her eyes widened, and he swore he heard a little gulp. Good.

“Let’s get this over with, yeah? And quit fucking calling me Oppa.” He slipped back into his Jhope persona, smile as wide as the sun, and prayed his Sunflower would see through it. 

“Stop looking so good.” You groaned at the television in frustration. 

After the news with Jisoo, the media had been going crazy, and now every channel you tried to watch had something BTS related. They’d even mentioned it on a cooking show! The news was always paired with yet another stunning picture of Hoseok, and it was driving you mad. You couldn’t get away from him. Even Momo missed him. Anytime something played that had Hoseok’s voice, Momo’s ears would perk up, and he’d give the saddest little whine. You were both pathetically whipped for the man.

Just as you’re about to throw something at your TV in frustration, your friend Nari lets herself into your apartment. She shakes bottles of raspberry soju knowing you’ll let her stay thanks to her offering. You sigh and scoot over, patting the spot next to you on the couch.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you and those lovely bottles, but whatcha doing here?” You ask as you crack open one of the bottles and take a sip. She follows suit and sinks into her seat. 

“You’ve been either moping here at home or working your ass off in the studio, so no one’s seen you in forever. We’re all worried. What’s going on? Can you finally tell me?” Nari asked softly, looking at you with her big brown eyes filled with worry. 

You sigh and decide it’s finally time to clue someone in on all the madness. You’d never told your friends you’d seen Hoseok again after that time at the bar when you’d first met. You’d wanted to respect his privacy, and while you trusted your friends, you’d just wanted him to be safe. God, that seemed like a lifetime ago. And even though you were hurting right now, you still couldn’t find it in you to be regretful about bringing him home that night.

You cuddle up next to Nari and pour it all out. You told her of your date, the time apart, the week you’d worked together. You’d told her that you were head over heels in love with Jung Hoseok. And that it didn’t matter because somehow he was now dating one of the girls you choreographed for. You observed in amusement as her eyes widened with each twist or reddened when she was angry, or you’d perhaps shared a little too much. 

“Y/N. This whole time. I knew you were upset about something, but I assumed it was because of your ex. Holy shit though, JHope and you! I didn’t know you were going through so much. I feel like a horrible friend.” Nari’s face fell, and she threw her legs over your lap and cuddled up to you. You chuckle and pat her head fondly. 

“I’ll be fine.” You reassure her, but she looks at you like she knows that’s a lie.

“I know you say that, but your eyes tell me a different story. The way you talk about him...you never sounded like that with your ex. Like, never. I was never even sure you liked him, let alone loved him. When you talk about Hoseok though? I’m almost envious because he sounds like your soulmate. You really loved him, didn’t you?” 

You should tell her no, keep repeating the lie over and over until it sticks. Instead, you just tell her the truth. “Yes, I did. I still do. I can’t make it stop, and I don’t know if it ever will.” You pat her shins draped across you with a heavy sigh and give her a bittersweet smile. 

“What we need to do is get this Jisoo chick out of the picture,” she declared, causing you to raise an eyebrow in amusement. 

“You sound like you’re in the mafia now.” You laugh. “Besides, she’s an idol. Even if I do work with her, there’s nothing I can do.” 

“I will gladly join the fight.” Nari declares, fist to the sky.

“There’s nothing to fight against. Get your shoes off the couch and stop quoting Hamilton.” You giggle as you push her legs off you and get up. You weren’t as drunk as you wanted to be and the two of you had run out of soju. You were sure you had some wine somewhere around here. 

You were distracted from hunting through your cabinets when you heard a gasp. You quickly turn around to see if Nari was okay. She was staring at her phone in shock. 

“What is it? What’s wrong?” You ask, trying to peek. Nari quickly slammed the phone against her chest, blocking it from your view. She looked up at you with alarmed eyes. Clearing her throat, she murmured, “Nothing.” 

“Nari...” You spoke in a flat warning tone. Somehow you knew what you were about to see. “Just show me.” 

With a great show of reluctance, Nari handed you the phone. Right there on the official BTS twitter was a picture. A couple picture. Of Jung Hoseok and Lee Jisoo. 

Your hand was shaking so much that you couldn’t keep the phone still, but you could still make out every detail. Jisoo looked so proud and beautiful as she stood next to him, her tight pale green dress complementing Hoseok’s grey and green suit. He was smiling widely, and you didn’t know if it was just a vain hope that you thought his eyes looks unhappy. Your eyes scanned the picture, feeling like something was missing. You stared, wondering what you were looking for when it suddenly hit you. 

The sunflower. There was no sunflower. 

You scanned the entire picture, thinking maybe they’d told him he couldn’t wear it with that outfit. Perhaps he’d had to hide it somewhere. So you looked at every corner and crevice the picture showed, zooming in on everything. Not only was there no sunflower, there wasn’t even a single flower of any kind in the picture. 

It was over. Hoseok didn’t want you anymore. 

You inhaled shakily and handed Nari back her phone, not meeting her eyes. You push yourself up off the couch and make your way to the kitchen to renew your search for the wine. You needed it now more than ever. 

“Y/N...Do you want to talk about it?” Nari asks tentatively as she walked behind you. 

“No. What’s there to talk about? He’s moved on to someone in his own world, someone his company obviously approves of. He looks happy. That’s all that matters, right?” You answer, voice shakey as you try to keep your emotions in check.

“Stop pretending you’re okay, cause I know you’re not,” Nari whispers as she hugs you from behind and the contact makes you break down. You crumble to the floor and Nari follows you down, gathering you up and rocking you gently as you sob. 

Tomorrow, you promise yourself. Tomorrow you’ll go back to being fine. You’ll go to work and pretend that seeing Jisoo doesn’t kill you inside. You’ll go back to trying to live your life without Jung Hoseok in it. 

But tonight you needed to be miserable. Tonight you needed to cry and mourn what was probably the love of your life. So you let Nari play with your hair as you wept all over her until you finally fell into an exhausted sleep and hoped he’d be in your dreams.

You stare at yourself in the dance studio mirror as you wipe the sweat from your face. You’d had the girls working for three hours now, and you were tempted to add another hour in hopes it would wipe the smirk off Jisoo’s face. 

This whole time you’d been wondering how Hoseok and Jisoo had happened. You didn’t even remember them ever talking, but they apparently had because she was looking at you with such venom that there was no way this was about dance practice. 

She knew. 

Jisoo was looking at you with pride and disdain. The look of a woman who’d won. The look of a woman who probably pitied you. If she knew, that meant Hoseok had told her, because you were sure the two of you had been careful enough. Why would he tell her? Did they sit around and laugh behind your back? Were you really so desperate for love that you’d become an easy target? 

“Y/N Unnie, you look distressed. Is everything alright?” Jisoo asked sweetly, her eyes wide and a worried look on her face. The overall effect was ruined by her smirk. 

“Oh, I’m just super Jisoo. Just worried about the choreography. If you were a better dancer, it wouldn’t be an issue, but I’m wondering if I should dumb it down a little. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, sweetie.” You mock in a dulcet tone.

The rage that filled Jisoo’s face made you childishly happy. You turn away and prepare to leave when Jisoo grabs your wrist and digs her overly long nails in. 

“I’m so sorry, Unnie. Maybe now that I have Hoseok Oppa, I’ll get better. It’s amazing what those hips of his can do. But you already know that, don’t you?” She coos, and you have to clench your fist behind you to keep from smacking her. You tear your wrist away, momentarily allowing your irritation to be seen. 

“You are far from the innocent you portray yourself to be," you answer in a monotone. You clench your teeth and hope you can keep your emotions in check. Your job was more important than Jisoo’s enjoyment of your pain. 

“Oh, Unnie. Are you upset that I took your man? Don’t be. I’m doing you a favor after all. Eventually, he would have gotten bored with a nobody like you. He needs someone who understands life as an idol, someone who looks beautiful next to him. Sadly, that’s not you. Don’t worry, I’ll treat him well.” Jisoo smiles evilly. 

“You know, the truth about what a bitch you are is going to come to light, and we’ll see how much of an “Idol” you are then. If I find out this is all fake and you’re hurting my Hobi, I will fucking end you.” You growl, your patience finally nearing its limit. 

Jisoo’s throws her head back and laughs. “You think you can threaten me? You? You’re nothing. Hoseok already told me all about your little camping trip fuck. Said it was the easiest lay of his life.” Jisoo narrowed her eyes at you, searching for signs of weakness. You gave her nothing and quickly turned to storm out of the room. 

“Get back here. I’m not done talking to you, wench!” Jisoo shrieked.

“Sorry. I don’t speak skank.” You taunt as you slam the door behind you. 

You quickly make your way to your car and throw your duffle bag into the seat next to you. You lean back and finally let your tears fall, angrily hitting the steering wheel. You couldn’t remember ever crying this much over anything. You didn’t even cry when your fiance had cheated on you. You didn’t want to cry anymore. 

You wanted to get drunk. 

You start your car and call Nari, ordering her to get the girls together. It was time for a night out. 

It felt bizarre sitting in this club again. The last time you were here was when you were drinking away the fact that it was supposed to be your wedding day and you’d met Hoseok. A night that seemed so long ago when it really wasn’t. Now you were back, mourning your shitty love life yet again. In the same seat at the same table with the same girls. Nari had already told you she’d tried to invite the boys again, but their lockdown was no joke. She hadn’t been able to get a hold of anyone but had left messages letting them know they were here.

You zone out as the girls chat around, your gaze narrowed on the booth that Hoseok had dragged you to that first night. You want to laugh and cry at the same time as you think about all of the stupid “get to know you” questions Hoseok had asked you. Beyond the usual “What’s your favorite color,” he’d also asked ridiculous things like “What cartoon character turns you on the most?” and “What kind of dance style should our firstborn specialize in?” You smirk to yourself when you remember his judgemental look when you’d told him clog dancing was probably going to be pretty popular by then. God, you missed him.

You are brought back to the present when your friend Tiffany pokes your side. “You might want to look over at the bar.” She says, and your eyes follow her pointing finger. 

At first, you don’t see anything out of the ordinary. The usual assortment of greasy men and sad women. A little flicker of hope wants you to believe it’s Hoseok she’s pointing out, but you hadn’t told her anything about him yet so it couldn’t be that. Your eyes flutter across the bodies assembled in front of the bar, and you finally spot who your friend is pointing out. Even from behind you can tell who it is. With a heavy sigh, you observe the man with irritation as he turns around and meets your eyes. 

Your ex-fiance Seon smiles like he’s genuinely happy to see you. When you notice he’s walking towards your table, you nod towards another open booth, not wanting to subject your friends to whatever drama he was about to start. 

“I’ll be right back.” You murmur to your friends, smiling reassuringly at Nari who was looking at you with concern. 

You slide into the booth and stare at Seon. He’d obviously come here straight from work, as he was still in his suit pants and white shirt. You thought he’d maybe lost a little bit of weight and wondered if he was forgetting to eat again. He did that sometimes when they were working on something big at his company. You shook your head and reminded yourself it wasn’t your problem anymore, although five years of worrying about the man in front of you was a hard habit to break. 

You were a little surprised with yourself. You’d imagined various situations where you’d run into him again and you’d always pictured you’d be an emotional wreck. Instead, all you felt was mild irritation and trepidation over whatever he wanted to talk to you about. 

“What are you doing here?” You ask, trying to force yourself to keep a civil tone.

“Work. We’re celebrating closing a huge deal. You remember that one with the CEO from Japan that we’ve been talking about for almost a year? It went through. Probably going to get a promotion after this.”

“Congratulations, Seon. I’m happy for you. I know you’ve been working hard for that one.” You were amazed by much you really meant it. 

“You look good, Angel.” He says softly, smiling as he fidgets with his drink. 

You snort at the use of the nickname. “Did you pull that overused line straight from the post-breakup manual?” 

“Does that exist? I could use that. How to survive breakups for absolute morons.” He joked, and you genuinely laughed. His smile softened as he watched you. You return his stare and just sit in silence for a minute. Seon keeps searching your face like he’s looking for something or memorizing your features.

“Why did you come over here?” You blurt, growing uncomfortable. 

“I wanted to apologize.”

You cock an eyebrow and prepare to say something snarky, but his expression makes you pause. He looked like he was sincere. Of course, you’d thought he was nothing but honest and sincere throughout your entire relationship and look where that got you. Still, you nod for him to continue. 

“I’ve wanted to call you since then to talk to you, but I either chicken out or decide it’s better to just let it be and let you move on with your life. However, I just can’t pass up the chance to tell you how sorry I am. I know that nothing I can say will erase what I did, or how unbelievably stupid I was to do it, but the least I could do is tell you that I regret it so much and that it was never your fault.” 

You bite your lip and soak in his apology. You’d always wondered if you’d done more, if you’d been more, would he have cheated. You’d felt like used trash for months, so this was nice to hear. 

“Thank you.” You whisper, looking down at the remnants of your drink. 

“I just...kinda want to tell you why? I mean, I didn’t go out and choose to do that with a reason clear in my mind, but I’ve been moping around the apartment alone for six months now. Plenty of time for introspection.” 

You look up surprised that he’s willing to give you more. He’d never been the most emotionally open person. You nod and observe as he takes a deep breath before locking eyes with you. 

“I think...it was mostly because I was scared? You know how my parents are. Poster children for a marriage gone wrong. The rumors are that once upon a time they were madly in love. Now they have screaming matches three times a day and make jokes about waiting for each other to die. I just...didnt want that to happen for us. I didn’t want you to wake up one morning and realize you were just waiting to die to get away from me. I didn’t want to see the love in your eyes dim year after year as you realize I’m not worth it. I wanted you to be free to find someone who deserves you more than me, someone who’s not so fucked up. So I kinda subconsciously did that in the hopes of being caught so you’d end it without regrets. I realize that I went about it in a shitty way, but that just proves my point of how I don’t deserve someone as great as you. I should have manned up and told you my fears. Then you could have just hated me for being a coward instead of a cheating coward.” 

To say you’re surprised by everything he’s telling you would be an understatement. This was probably the most you’d ever heard him speak about his feelings. You sigh deeply and grab his hand. 

“I don’t hate you. I was angry, though. So god damn angry. At myself, at you, at the world. I was disappointed. Afraid. I worried that with any future relationship I had I would be waking up every morning and wondering if that was the day they’d grow bored with me too. But I never hated you. It’s hard to really hate someone that you’d spent five years loving.” You tell him as you pat his hand. 

“Never bored. Five years and I was never once bored. Sex with you was always amazing so you can take that off your list right now.” Seon jokes and you giggle and slap his arm away. 

“I just want you to know that I’m not telling you all this because I want you to take me back. In fact, I would be incredibly upset if you did take me back after going through all that to let you find someone better than me. I just...wanted to give us both some closure and I wanted to make sure that you knew that it was absolutely not you. You took such good care of me that six months later I’m still trying to learn how to cook and do laundry. You supported me in everything, and I always appreciated how much you were there for me. I will always, always love you. You were the first person to love me and even if the both of us end up married to someone else in the future, I will always regret never marrying you. I just never thought I deserved your love. The blame is all on me and my issues. Speaking of which, I actually started counseling last month, with the therapist that you told me to look into about my parents. I decided that I probably needed it so that I don’t try to sabotage my relationships again in the future.” 

“That’s great! I’m glad you’re doing that.” You smile at Seon warmly. You were starting to feel a little lighter inside. At least one of your issues was getting resolved. 

Seon chuckles before clearing his throat. “Also, I know it’s a lot to ask, and I totally don’t expect you to take me up on it right away, but I was hoping we could still see each other? I don’t mean see each other, but like, hang out? It’s just...for five years you were not just my girlfriend, but you were also my best friend and my one constant in life. I wake up, and I forget that you’re gone. I start your coffee and toast, put on pants and grab a leash to take Momo out for a walk, and it’s not until I wonder why I can’t find him that I remember you’re not there. I just really miss talking to you. I miss you. And I miss our son. How is Momo?”

“Your son Momo is fine.” You grin. You’d forgotten how he always called Momo his son. “He missed you for awhile. Refused to sleep in his crate unless I put a shirt of yours in there. Look, I can’t promise to be able to easily become your friend again, but I’ll try. And in the meantime, you can have visitations with Momo if you wanted. I’ll admit that beneath the anger, I did miss you too. We did have five years of good memories before that day.” 

“Thank you. You didn’t even have to talk to me, so thank you for listening, and I hope you’ll want to see me again sometime. Thank you, Angel. Goodbye.” Seon’s eyes were suspiciously watery as he grabbed your hand and placed a soft kiss on the back of it. You smile and pat his cheek. 

“Thank you. I was worried I’d be bitter forever. Call me in a couple weeks, and we’ll set a day for you to take Momo to the park or something.” You say as you stand up. You spot bright red out of the corner of your eye as you step away from the booth. Out of curiosity, you glance towards the bright color only to be met with Hoseok’s shocked eyes. He frantically looks between you and Seon, confusion and hurt in his eyes, before hardening his gaze and stomping away. 

“No, HOSEOK. Come back! Shit...” You yell after him, trying to make your way through the sweaty crowd. You spot Nari at the bar and corner her. 

“What are they doing here? I just saw Hoseok?” You shriek, grabbing her by the arm as you keep walking towards the door he exited out of. 

“I guess Sejin saw my texts on their phones since he’s the one holding onto them and decided to give them a free night for good behavior. Most of them are at the booth already. I guess they can’t stay that long tonight though since they have some meeting tomorrow. Come sit, I’m sure he just went to get a drink.” Nari tries to reassure you, no doubt seeing your panicked eyes. 

“No. He saw me talking to Seon. He probably thinks I moved on because of the stupid dating announcement. God, the way he looked at me, Nari. There’s no way that dating thing is real. He looked genuinely hurt. I have to find him. I’ll talk to you later.” 

You storm out of the club, frantically searching for Hoseok. You walk up and down the streets and dark, scary alleys. Your feet were still in your stilettos, and they were in so much pain. There were even bloody blisters on the back of your heels that would make dancing considerably painful for a while. Finally, after an hour and a half of searching, you decide to give up, mostly because you could barely walk anymore. Either he’d found a taxi, or he just didn’t want to be found. 

You head back to the club and search for your friend's table. You wanted to at least try to get one of the boys to relay the message to Hoseok that what he thought he saw wasn’t right. As you finally get close enough to the booth, you see it’s once again a girls-only table. You ask Nari, and she tells you that they’ve all gone home already. Your last option is her, so you tell her to text them all that you needed to talk to Hoseok. You text him yourself as well, although you know the chances of Manager Sejin relaying your messages are slim. 

It’s time to give up and go home, you decide. You say goodbye to your friends, receive a hug and an order from Nari to call her later, and order a taxi. You have him stop at a convince store and buy four bottles of Soju. You were going to need them. You stumble into your apartment in an unhappy daze, stopping to peel your high heels off your blood crusted feet, before plopping onto the couch. You scratch Momo behind his ear and crack open your first bottle, forgoing glasses altogether. Soon enough, your mind starts to blank of everything but Hoseok, and you fall asleep thinking of his dismayed expression.

You couldn’t remember ever feeling this hungover in your life. 

Since the moment you’d woken up and rolled off of the couch to crawl to the bathroom, you’d been throwing up. You’d only made it through two of the Soju bottles before you’d passed out and you usually made your way through six at a time with no problem. You wracked your brain trying to think of what else it could be. Maybe something you ate? It couldn’t be anything else because you just had your...

You weakly grab your phone and find your tracking app. Your last period was two months ago. Right before you’d met Hoseok. 

“Shit...shit...fuck...” You call Nari in a panic, saying two words you’d never said before. It was a code you’d all established back in college when scares were the norm. It meant I need you and bring the stick.

“Code Stork.” 

[oppatxtme]

Christian Yu: Red String

x Christian Yu x

Note: Read at Your Own Risk ~~ (ง⌐□ل͜□)ง Type: One Shot Word Count: 2,621 [ masterlist ] A/N: Just wanna say hope y’all like it and advance sorry ^_^

 "I love you, Y/N," Christian said all of a sudden while the two of you all cuddle up on his bed and currently watching Grey's Anatomy.

   "Did you say something?" you heard him the first time, but you want to hear him say it again.

  He took the remote in your hand and press the pause button. He moved a bit to adjust himself to take a better look at your face.

 "I love you, Y/N." he said, you see no hesitation but the only pure passion in his eyes on that very moment.

  You smile as you lean on his chest while still looking at him.

  "Did you ate something? Why you're extra cheesy today Christian? Don't tell me you did something, what is it?"

  "Nothing Babe, why? Is it wrong for me to say that I love you?" he said in a very bedroom voice he can make. And that made your body feel weird.

  "Well, I love you too Babe-- so much." you said.

  He holds both of your hands, he's caressing the back of your palm with his thumb. The both of you stayed like that for a moment.

  "You know what," you broke the silence between the two of you, he looked at you still caressing your hands with his. "sometimes, I always thought that we don't deserve each other." you saw how his face turns all worried.

  "Why so?" he said while he holds firm in your both hands. "Did I did something that you don't like? Or do you want me to do something that I didn't? All you have to do is tell me whatever it is Love."

  "No, that's not what I meant." you smiled at him to make assure him that there's nothing wrong with him. "What I'm trying to say is, I am the one who's not deserving to have someone like you."

  He looked at you all confused, and you always find that cute about him. Well, it's not every day you see Christian looks clueless since he almost knew everything.

  "Because" you continued since he really looks like he doesn't get what you mean. "You're Christian Yu. You're this really amazing, hard-working, good at everything you do and of course, let us not forget your -- eheeem" you took your hands from his to form a square shape at your face shape to emphasize what you mean and that made him smile. "So, if you asked me, you deserve someone... better than me."

  Again he took your hands.

  "You Y/N, my love. You're also amazing in everything you do. You're that person who makes others -- you're loved ones -- as your number one priority. You always put them first before you. You love everything you do, that is why you deserve nothing but the best the world can offer. And I am who I am now all because of you. Now that you have me, well, I guess that made me the luckiest man alive." he smirked.

  You smiled. You can tell how that made your face all red.

  "I know for a fact that there are so many gorgeous women out there in this city," he said again.

  That made your smile drop and your eyebrow went up.

  "Well, that's really an amazing observation you have there Mr. Yu," you said full of sarcasm.

  "But the thing is this," he said while he put some of your hair behind your ear. "after a while, you just want to be with the one that makes you laugh." he wiggles his eyebrows at you.

  That got you - really hard. So you just pinch his nose so he can stop looking at you like that. Because one more second and you're about to melt.

  He laughs and hugs you tight. You stayed like that for a while until Lori came biting the hem of your shirt.

  The relationship you and Christian have been known and acknowledge by others. At first, yes it was hard. Every time he'll post a picture of the both of you on his Instagram or Twitter account, mixed comments are there. But after awhile, you learn from Christian how not to care at the bad comments and focus on the good ones.

  You love him and he loves you, that's what important.

  Some still question the relationship the both of you have. Some will even say that it won't last long. But as far as you remember, you're in a relationship with him nearly for four years now. If that doesn't count long, then you don't know what is anymore.

  Next Monday will be the fourth year anniversary of you and Christian. You told Christian that you don't want any extravagant celebration that day.

  You already request a leave on that day from work, you just want to stay in, either in his place or yours. Since he informs you a month before that he'll be going home to Australia before the usual five days before Christmas.

  It's because one of his cousins will get married and he's the one in charge of all the visuals of the whole wedding. So, he'll be staying there for less than a month or so. He even asked you to go with him, but the both of you knew that was not possible.

   It was a Saturday early morning when the ring of your phone woke you up. You swipe your screen without opening your eyes since you knew by the ringtone alone that Christian sets for his number.

  "Uhmmm," you said still half asleep.

  "Morning Love!" he said all cheerful.

  "M--ning."

  You heard him laugh.

  "Wake up. I'm here outside of your building. Can you buzz me in? It's quite freezing here." he said.

  "What?!" you're eyes shots open when you understand him. "Wait, I'll buzz you in. Wait. Don't press that doorbell and Hoody might kill us both." you shared the apartment with her and you remember that Hoody reminds you that she's out with a gig last night and she doesn't want to be disturbed on her sleep for she went home late.

  You just grab your glasses on your side table and hurry to get out from your room to not let Christian wait long.

  As you opened the door, you are taken aback when a note falls hanging in front of you.

  *You have a smile that can put any rainy day shines.* as you read what's written on the note. The handwriting was definitely Christian’s.

  When you tried to pull the string where the note is hanging - a balloon follows.

  'Oh my...' you said when you realize there are a lot more balloons with notes attached to the end of each string.

  You tried to read another;

  *You have the most attractive eyes everytime you look at me.*

  *There's no bad photo every time I took a shot of you with my cam.*

  *You're the most honest person I know.*

  *Lori loves you more than me.*

  *My Mom adores you.*

  There's a lot more for you to read. But you knew nothing and what's that for. So you continue walking towards the main door since Christian said he was still outside.

  You're about to walk past thru the living room when you get a glimpse of someone standing there. That made you stop, walked backward and checked who it was.

  "Yaaah! What's this?" the first thing you said to Christian whose still all smile while holding a bouquet of your favorite dark red flowers - carnations.

  "Flowers?" he chuckled and you looked at him all serious. "Here." as he gave you the flowers. "A flower for my only goddess."

  You went silent as you accept the flower. You told him the reason behind why that's your favorite flower and since then, that's the only flower he gave you every chance he has.

  "But seriously Christian, what's all this for?"

  "Happy Anniversary Love!" he said then pulled you into an embrace.

  "Our anniversary is still on Monday. Or did you forget that?" you raised an eyebrow at him.

  You saw guilt and sadness on his face after what you said.

  "So you really forget huh?"

  "Of course not..." he shakes his head. "It's just that I'm not here by then, so..." he said apologetically.

  "Huh? Why -- what do you mean?"

  "I just received a call from Mom last night. She said that the wedding is being pushed early than as planned. It was because of the condition of my cousin soon to be mother-in-law is getting worst. So I need to be there by Monday." he explained.

  You can feel that he doesn't want to leave but he has no choice, he has to and you understand that.

  You smiled at him and put your free arm around his.

  "It's okay. There'll be more next time to come for us to celebrate so don't worry about it." he returns your smile. "But I remembered that I told you no surprises."

  "You said you don't want to be surprised on Monday, today is Saturday so..." he winked at you and you can't help but just laugh at his childish ways.

  You knew deep inside you that you're more than happy with what he did. The both of you spend that day together, and you know you won't trade it for the world.

    Sometimes, it is true that the more you enjoy the time, the more it runs fast. And by that, you are now standing at the airport in the departure area. You watched how Christian takes out his luggage from the back of your car.

  You have this itchy feeling that you want him to stay at least one more day, well, tomorrow is your fourth anniversary. But you kept it inside you since if you tell him to, he might do what you say for he knew how important tomorrow is for the both of you.

  You shrugged and keep that itchy feeling behind you as Christian faced you before he enters the airport.

  "So..." he said as he gave you that smile of his. "I'll miss you Love." he pulled you closer for an embrace - a tight one.

  "Aigooo ~" you chuckled a little. "Stop it, you're acting as if we'll not gonna see each other after two weeks." you slap his back while you're still in his embrace.

  "I love you, Y/N," he whispered it so softly in your ears.

  "I love you too, Christian," a tear escape your eyes when you closed them. "Advance happy anniversary." this will really be the first anniversary that the two of you can't spend it together, he can't even call you on the stroke of midnight like he always does for he'll be on the plane.

  He loosen his embrace to looked at you , he didn't response as he carefully looked at your face, as if he's memorizing every bit of detail on it. Then he smiled and leaned closer to kiss you.

  Your drive home was really hard, there's always a time that you need to pull over somewhere to sobs your tears. But still, you manage to crawl into your bed and sleep.

  You plan to sleep all day since you're on leave from work. You'll just wait for Christian's call once he arrived in Australia.

  You where awaken from continues knocks on your door. You looked at the clock on your side table. It's almost twelve noon, you grab your phone and check on any notification from Christian on your way to the door.

  Hoody came in when you open your room. She has that scared face on her, she walked past you when you're about to asked what's wrong.

  You looked at her as she roams your room as if she's looking for something, then she came close to your side table while the remote from your TV on her hand.

  "What's wrong babe?" you manage to ask as she signals you to come near her. You felt weird about how she's acting.

  She kept quiet till you're in front of her then she guides you to sit down on the edge of your bed facing the TV. You can see some trace of tears on her face. She then opens the TV and change to some news channel.

  "I'm so sorry Y/N," she said all of a sudden and that made you wonder what for.

  As you looked at her, she cried when she saw something on TV. So you looked at whats on. There, you saw a flash news.

  **----AIRLINE TRAVELING TO SYDNEY FROM SEOUL CRASHED IN THE COASTAL SEA - COASTGUARD STILL LOOKING FOR ANY SURVIVOR.**

  After hearing what the news anchor said, you can't hear anything else but static. Your whole body went numb. You can't even notice the flow of tears coming from your now blurry eyes.

  "No... Christian..." you keep shaking your head as Hoody kept hold of you because she can see that you're about to become hysterical. "NO! THIS IS NOT TRUE!! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME CHRISTIAN YU!" you screamed your lungs out, but still you can't hear anything but static and your body was so heavy that the last thing you remember was darkness.

    "Many here might know him as Rome, Ian, Christian and Barom by his family - but I called him MINE. And he is and always will be the greatest love of my life. I love him to the point that no words can fully express and define my love for him," you looked at the people who attend Christian's funeral as you deliver the eulogy.

  "I won't tell you how we met or how our love story began because I assure you all that it will take a lifetime for me to even explain how is Christian is my true love. Christian and I never discuss our future, like wedding and making our own family stuff. Because even if we don't talk about it, we both know that we’re heading that way.

  I remember how he explained me the legend behind the red string of faith and how sure he was that we're the one for each other. Even back then I believe him, and now, I still do, I still feel the string we have that can never be broken even by death.

  Because I know, someday Christian and I will meet again. Someday we will hold hands again. Someday, we will live till we get old as we watch our grandchildren play." you stopped when continues of teardrops wet the paper you're holding, it was a blank paper but still you hold it as if you're reading your speech there, but everything you've said is what you really feel.

  You took your handy from your pocket and wipe your tears. You manage to get a glimpse of Christian's parents and yours who is seated in the same row. Like you, they can't stop crying.

  To be honest, you want to end your speech there because all you really want to do was sit in the corner and cry as well. But there's something inside you that made you open your mouth to talk.

  "I won't cry anymore," you said with a defined tone that made everyone stop and look at you. "I won't -- for I know, if not today, but surely someday, even if it will take a lifetime, still I'll use my other lifetime, I know I can prove to all of you here that Christian and I are meant for each other. That's just how the red string works." then you walked back and bowed. "So please continue to watch over us."

[ masterlist ]

[itsmecessy]

Having You Near Me

Most people say that I shouldn't care much on looking for someone to be with given my young age. But I couldn’t just shrug the thought when most girls in my age are already in a relationship.

It hurts and made me feel so frustrated because every time that I hang up with my squad, my role is just a “third-wheel” and I’m so tired for that role. All of them are holding hands while walking with their boyfriend or girlfriend and as usual I look like their maid following them anywhere they want to go.

By the way, I’m Queencess Quinn Dela Torre, an 18 years old girl living in Olongapo City and currently Grade 12 HUMSS student at Maxwell Prime University . When I was a child I’m just a simple girl staying just on my room watching cartoons and playing indoor games at home, in short I am an “introvert girl when I was a little”. As time passes by, everything has changed about me when I meet my bestfriend Hailey, Hailey Chantal Buenavetura. AsI witnessed her long time ago, I describe her as DORA because she is an explorer girl. She loves exploring something that is new in the present nor traveling.

Well, Everyone knows me as a simple and a minimalist girl before but for some reason, because of I learned to explore and enjoy trends in today’s generation. In this time of pandemic we need to be quarantined not because we are infected but just for our safety. Even though I used to be alone before, I still feel or experience boredom.

For the reason that I was bored, I contact my bff for me to surpass those problems because its killing me.

 “bebs!! I’m bored. I don’t know what to do! I don’t play games thooooo.”

 “besh…. explore, explore, explore!” Hailey said.

 “Ughhh there you go again dora! HAKHAKAHKA.”

 She smirked and said “STOP!! Grrrrr!”

 “HAKAHKAHKA, youre so cute everytime you act like that bebs! Can you just do it one more time?”

 “stop it its not funny!” she said.

 “no more bully… but bebs!! help!! I’m bored!”

 “okay..fine! I use yugo whenever I’m bored”

 “huh? what’s that?”

 “besh, it is an app wherein you can make friends with others.”hailey said while eating.

 “but.. how?”

 “its like a dating but not usually like that. You can swipe left and right too if you want to add someone also you can search if ever you have someone you know that is also using that app. The difference of of the two is you do live stream and watch with your friends there and meet new people in live..uhggg its hard to explain.” hailey said while discussing it hard.

 “owwwww.. thats cool… I’ll try it later!”

 “just explore the app and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

 “thank you bebs!! you’re the best!!! luvyah dora!”

 “stop calling me dora!!! hays”she smirked again and said “luvyah too.” with disappointment on her face.

 “HAAKAHKAHKHA!! okay fine! Byeeee. Mwuahh”

 “bye besh!”

 At first, I didn’t enjoy the app because I’m not used to it. I’m just a simple girl and if you try to look my phone, the only application that you can see are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Youtube. Yes, I’ve changed and not the girl tat they know before but duh, yubo is not my type. I don’t do live stream and I don’t feel talking to someone I didn’t know.

After a month, I gave yugo a second chance. I patiently explore what is the beauty of that app. I started to watch live streams and unexpectedly enjoy watching those streamers who are enjoying the bond they have. One night, I open up my yugo and started live hopping again to watch different streamers and as time passes I received invitation to stream with them but for some reason, I’m not that confident because I’m shy so I declined. After a week, I still do my yugo routine but this time I accept invitations already and I do live stream already and have friend with everyone.Yugo app helps me to fill up myself whenever I’m bored for so many months.

 There was I time, my junior highshool classmate shakira marie called me and had some talks about life or something. Honestly, that was the beginning of our friendship and we started to talk and have fun during quarantine. Since its been a month since I’m using yugo, I decided to take a rest from using it and continue having fun with kira.

 “kira!”

 “long time no talk!” kira said

 “how are you? I missed you!”

 “well, I’m good and still pretty same as you and I missed you too gurl!”

 “HAKHAKHAAHK”

 “do you know yugo?.” kira asked.

 “yes, I’am!. I have yugo account too!”

 “what a coincidence!” kira said with excitement.

 “let do live stream sometimes!”

 “sure why not!”kira answered.

 After knowing that kira knows about yugo, we have been live streaming for almost five months, we already had a lot of friend in yugo and enjoys streaming every night. For five months, we never missed one day of streaming, everyday and every night we do yugo “routine” sounds fun right?. We’re tripping and having fun whenever someone came and stream with us (sometimes we flirt).

 One day, when kira and I are waiting for our online class while we were streaming, someone raised his hand wanted to live stream with us and his name is King Glean Javier he’s from Infanta, Quezon Provice same as me Grade 12 student taking STEM curriculum. Kira and I had fun with him but for awhile, kira felt so hungry and left us streaming. While king and I are streaming alone and no one is watching, king open up and started to talk about his past.

 “cess, have you been in a relationship?” king asked.

 “why’d you ask?”

 “how long have you been in a relationship?” he asked again

 “okay okay… yes I’ve been in a relationship but it last just for 2 months I think?”

 “why did you guys broke up?”

 “actually my ex and I have never been I a fight, I just let him do what ever he wanted to do but I think did something wrong in that part because I just let him do everything he wants?”

 “but by do you think you’re wrong?”

 “ I’m wrong in the way that I “tolerate” his vices because I let him do what ever he wants to do to the point that I let him forget that he has a girlfriend waiting for his chats. I’ve been too considerate for him even though he doesn't make time for me anymore because I want him to be happy. To be honest, I don’t want him to let him go but I think there’s something wrong”

 “awww, he’s so lucky but he didn’t prioritize you and keep you with love, I understand what your point is. I hope you’re okay now.” king said.

 “how about you? I think you had something you want to say about your past for some reason.”

 “actually I’m broken, I’ve been in a relationship in two years and five months.” he said

 “aww! That’s long, but why does it ends?”

 During this quarantine, were not allowed to roam outside since we are just a minor. One time I chatted her that I am supposed to go on their but suddenly she no, and she is so sorry because she doesn’t love him anymore and she’s with her new man. Even though she refused, I still go to their place and yah we talked to each other and she said sorry to me. But all I can is just to accept and let her go even if it hurts.” king said with mixed emotions.

 “aww, that hurts but we just did our part.”

 “yess! Kira is already here!!” king shouted.

  When kira is already in, after fifteen minutes we decided to end up our live stream because king had to go and prepare for hin onlice class at one o'clock on the after noon and kira and I doesn’t have class that time. Around one thirty pm while I am scrolling at my social medias account, I saw King Glean sent me a friend request and that was an expected things to me and because I know him already, I accepted his request and I unexpectedly received wave message from him and yes, I waved back to him and started a conversation that day.

King told me that he didn’t expect me to accept his request since we just meet online which is on yugo and I told him that “why would I do that if I know you?” also he keeps telling that he is very comfortable with me and just like that and I am fun to be with and that day that we chatted to each other, that was the beginning for to know each other well. As time passes by, we had a lot of talks about our past and he send some picture like family pictures, we do random video calls, updates and were having fun a lot of time.

 King made me feel excited every time that he is sending me a message and calling me every-time, I don’t know what to do but to stop what I am thinking for because there was a time that our topic is about entering again in a relationship again. One day he asked if ever that some will come into my life again, am I ready to be in a relationship again? And I told him yes but I asked that question back to him but hi didn’t answer. Also there was a time that he asked me if he’s attractive and I said “yes, you’re attractive the you are.” also the thing that I felt so excited because of him and he reminded me that he was not simping and he was just showy and clingy person. For some reason, king asked me like if am I “ghoster or not” because some of the other girls did that stupid things to him before and made him felt so bad.

 “queen, I’m not saying this to you just to disappoint you or hurt you haaa, I was just thinking of you ghosting me someday.”

 “uhmmm, its okay that you asked something like that to. But I must to you that majority of those guys or friends who came into my life are the first people who got tired off, not me. I don’t usually have an intentions of doing that stupid thing to someone because I know the feeling of being left behind or ghosted. So why would I do those event to people who are welcome to me but unfortunately, not welcome to them?” I answered.

 “well, I got your point but this time, I want you to know that I will not let you feel what you felt from those people did that stupid case to you, I promise.”

 “ I wanted them to stay but they’re  looking for better person that I am. But you know its not our lost and we deserve better.” I added.

 “yes we are.” he answered

 “ you if I will be given a chance to tell something to those people who left you, I will tell the that “you lost a potential guy” jakahkhaka, bumble be like!

 “how crazy lil silly you are!” he said

 “king, lets just put in our mind that we did our part, they just let their stupidity dominant than being intelligent when it comes from hitting up!” I said.

 “they need seminar from us!” his naughty answer.

 After a week of communication, king suddenly didn’t send good morning because I’ve never missed receiving good-morning message for him and it made me feel sad. Eleven o’clock in the morning kira and I decided to stream and had talk about ourselves. While streaming I saw king watching our live and I started to share something about me while he still watching us.

 “kira you know what, I’m clingy and approachable in person.”

 “of course I know that” kira’s answer.

 “but online, I’m not. I want someone will hit me up not me. I just want the first way of hitting up with someone in an opposite gender. In our culture before, the girls are sitting in pretty white the guys are the one who do the first move” I said.

 Kira answered back, “sisz, at this point in time, we had an different world!, this, the girls are the one who’s doing the first move or the one who’s hitting up first not the guys anymore…. but not all the but most of the time hkahkahah”

 “well, I’m just telling my side thooo, that’s my stupid mindset!”

 “then try hitting up first so you will no gonna bored sisz!” kira said.

 After that conversation with kira, king left and we just continue our talk. After thirty minutes that he had left, king is back and I said hi to him and he replied, “hello my baby”. after that reply, I felt so fluttered and that’s why I don’t know what to say but to laugh. That day I’m still curious why he’s not messaging me and I’m not feeling good that day that is why I post a status at my social media saying “aww, no chat and no good morning for today :(“.

 As I woke up the next day, I felt so happy because he already messaged me and unexpectedly confront about my status.

 “Good-morning baby, char” king’s message.

 “aww, good-morning!” while I felt so fluttered.

 “what was that drama?” he asked

 “what?”

 King sent the screenshot of my status.

 “ahhhhh, don’t mind it thoooo. HAHKAHKA”

 “wait for awhile, my mom calls me to eat and you too” king asked.

 “okie, eat well”

 While king is eating, there’s a lot of thing out of my mind. I’m curious about his moves. He’s too sweet all of a sudden.

 “hello my baby! Char” he said

 “too fast ha.. hkahka”

 “too fast?” he asked

 “too fast to eat…” I answered.

 “ahy, I had the wrong idea.. hakhka”

 “huh? Hkahka”

  At that point, I already knew about what is in his mind. I started to doubt and over-think what will happen next. I had this feelings that I can’t really even explain why am I too nervous or paranoid about something. There was a time that, because of this bad  feelings, I always think about something that made my mind boast.

 I had a lots of “what ifs” in my mind, “what if this guy left me?”, “what if he likes me too but he’s hesitating to tell or open up with me?”, “what if he still love his first love?”, “what if his first came back and left me behind?” ,“ what if we were not having a one sided love?”. but as time passes by, all those “what ifs” that I was scared off  are suddenly happened on its time. Not in a negative way but positive and fluttering.

 King said, “what is this?”, “what are this convos of us?”

 “hala (omg)” I said as I felt my heart aching because of beating so fast.

 “ I’m just asking, we had a lot of random video calls, right?, I always update you about me and you almost know my routine everyday, my errands, even my movements hkaha joke, etc.” he said.

 “uhmmmmm.” speechless me.

 “ for you what are these?” he asked.

 “uhmmm, for me, this was just a typical convos just what like the others doing.” I know you and I know your side thooo.” I answered.

 “but, what do you think you know about me?” he asked

 “well, as far as I know, you don’t have plans to flirt since you’re not yet healed from you past right? You told me that you’re just showing who you are truly, right?” I said.

 “ let’s say that “I’m not yet totally healed from the past”, but for me, I’m okay now. I already accepted the fact that we are not together anymore and we already had clear and good closure.” he said. “ I’m just holding back to open up with you before but since we were just seeing or meeting each other online.” he added.

 “then, what do you mean by that feelings?” I answered. “how cute you are hkakhaa”

   “I LIKE YOU, but the thing is I don’t think that fell the same way as me. Also were long distanced to each other” king said.

 “ wait, is this a prank?” I asked

 “why am I pranking you in this serious conversation?” king said.

  All this time, I told king that, “I thought that it was all one sided”. For the reason that I don’t want hoping for someone and holding on to someone that will never last, I always taught myself not to be stupid in this kind of situations.  Before this time came, I forced myself not to fall for him even though he shows motives about having feelings for me. I forces myself to put in mind that “two broken people will never make whole”. I forced myself not to be “fragile as glass” wherein someone will make me fall and no one will catch me and became just like a broken glass. I’m tired, tired of being left behind or ghosted, and begins from the start just like a cycle of pain, but suddenly my world stopped and I look like a dog, a dog that making face like I did something stupid, sitting on the corner of my room, thinking about ,“should I give a chance for us to flirt and build love for each other  or not?”

 Even though I over-think about him, I always think if how could I I know the answers about certain things that made think badly if I would not give it a try?. Everything has its different outcomes, they may be negative or positive. So what if I give it a try and in result, it will give happiness?

 I said to king, “i understand you concern for me and you, yes were long distanced to each other, but don’t be too sad for it.”

 “ I know that this is fast, but what if the time comes and you’ll the true colors of me? Would you still like me or not?” he said. “I know this isn’t formal, but I like you”. with sad emoji. “and I thingk you’re holding back”. he added.

 “ I want you to know that I’ am not holding back. Honestly, I thought everything was just a one sided “feelings”.  also, one of my weaknesses is attachment and I think I am attached from you.” I said.

 “ therefore, that explains the rant on you facebook status?” he asked.

 “yes, because I’m used to it already. Every I have good-mornings from you but suddenly, in just one changes it feels so bat for me.” I answered with sad emoji.

  “ I just did that because I want to know if you will still chat when I an not messaging you, if you will look for me when I’m not around or online, but as u said in live with kasi, you’re not hitting up yourself and what you want is someone will hit you up on chat.” he said.”

 “ but I messaged you that time!” I said while laughing.

 After this, king told me not to tell kira about us, and as I respect his decision, i promised him that I will not tell kira about us for him. And continue our conversation about the fb post.  

 When king didn’t chat that time, I wasn’t supposing to chat him at night because I don’t know how to start, I don’t have any topics to start with but some of my friend pranked about lazada something. So that was the topic I brought up with him.

 Although, I had this negatinve mindset in my head,  i cant stop thinking about him. King is very different from all those guys that I have met online. He is very genuine, respectful, and an ideal guy for me. He respect me the way he respect his parents as I’ve seen in every video call we had and no words can explain how go he is. I like him just the way he is.

 So as we continue our conversation that day, king told that he was just holding back before but fuck I was too far from him and he cant go here for me.

 “ don’t that I was just holding back before because you’re too far from me and I cant go there for you?” he said

 I said, “don’t you thing that I was just “nagpaparinig” or telling those things for a purpose? But it was true..”

 “I can't be with you and i cant see yo, I can't hug you, I can't smell you and it’s fucking frustrating.” he sadly reply.

 “aww, too cute…hmmm”, “ don’t message me on my second account ha, I want you here in my main.” I said.

 “well, why do you need second account huh?” he asked?

 “ that was long time ago, don’t be too curious.”

 King suddenly became so funny and said, “Im just clingy not horny, HAHAHAHAHA.”

  I replied, “well, that’s good, I’m scared from those who are like that… hkahka”

 I thought when king wasn’t chatting me, that was the end of us but its not. He told that whenever he was not messaging me, he is busy doing something. After telling me about that, we have talked about how long is the traveling hour from here in longapo to infanta and it was too long. As I estimate the hours on how long the travel from olongapo to manila, it was two to three hours away and from infanta to manila, it was three to five hours. Therefore the estimated time from infanta to olongapo, it was too tiring to travel because it will be six to eight hours of traveling.

 Within the day of our conversation, as I said before, king is always flooding me with his pictures. I already have his family pictures, pictures with his classmates and friends, his pictures of a beautiful view when he was resting after long ride of biking, also from being toddler to present. And I was so fluttered about it because the reason why he send his pictures is for me to avoid feeling lonely when I’m alone.

 “i’ll send you my pictures ha, I just wanted you not to feel bad or lonely when you’re alone.”

 “ awww, you’re too cute and sweet..” I replied.

 “well, I’m cute when I was a child but what happened now?”he ranted.

 “you’re still cute until now, you’re cute when you smile, that’s why I felt so fluttered whenever I see your smile..” I said.

 “so you like my smile, you’re turned on whenever I smiled?”

 “yes? Hkahaka” I said.

 “ can I say I love you?” he asked

 “of course! Why not?” I answered.

 “ I love you my queen” he said with emojis showing love

 “ I love you too my king” I replied when feeling so fluttered.

 After a month of getting to know each other well, one of the thing that I have been flattered about him is that, he asked me all of a sudden about “what is my favourite song is?”. And  I told him my favourite song was “having you near me”. When I told him about that, after a minute of time, he called me and I was shocked because as I answered his call, my favourite song is playing on his laptop. And as we were video calling for a month already, he still playing it and lip syncing it for me.

 So for a month of knowing each other, king decided to tell kira about us. And we planned to tell her in live so there’s a lot of fun that will be hold on.

 “babe, lets do live at yugo and tell kira about us.” king said.

 “sure, no problem but how?” I asked.

 “we’ll let think, since sometimes her brain-cells are slow, hkahkaha.” he replied.

 “you’re too harsh babe! Ahakha.” I replied.

 “let’s go then..” he said.

 When we were live streaming with kira, we were just acting like normal. We acted normal until the time comes for us to do what we planned awhile ago. During our stream, I told kira that I have something to tell her but there was a viewer who wants to stream with us and she send an invitation for it and suddenly didn’t hear and asked me what did I said.

 “hi sisz!!!” kira said.

 “hello, king ask if what time are we going to stream and I told him that “right now” I said to kira.

 “hhkahak, hey king is here now!” kira shouted.

 “come up here king!” I said.

 “hello guys!, wazzup? ” king said.

 “hello!” kira and I said.

 “kira, queen had something to tell you.” king said.

 “whatttt!????” I shouted.

 “wait, someone wants to stream with us, let me invite her.” kira said.

 King and I continue to talk like at the same time that’s why its too loud to here.

  “hey, what are you guys up to?” kira asked.

 “nothing thooo, hkahkahka” I answered.

 There was a viewer named “love” and everyone said “sana all love”

 “sana all love” I said.

 “ I love you babe!” king said

 “ luhhh!, are you guys flirting?” kira said!

 “ uhmmmm, yes?” I answered.

 “ now, you knew it already! So we don’t have to think that much about us when it comes to you.. hkahka” king said.

 When kira already knew about us, kira started to asked non stop about us, he aske so many things like how we started to open up to each other and king was the only one who’s answering all those question from kira since he was just the that kira was asking for.

 “omg, king what’s poppin! Char”. kira asked.

 “hkhahka,” king laughed.

 “so, you like her?” asked kira.

 “yes, I like her and I love her” king answered genuinely.

 “sana all!” she shouted. “ but how and why?” kira asked.

 “ I like and love her just the way she and no words can explain how I feel for her” king answered.

 “stop asking, but the only thing that we can say is were both mutual, we like and love each other, hkahkah” I said.

 “okay, fine! Sana all!” kira said.

 “hey king! I just want to remind you ha, don’t make my bb gurl hurt ha or else you’ll be dead from me.” kira’s threat.

 “ of course no!, I know the feelings of being hurt and why would I do those thing to my queen. She deserve to be loved not to be hurt” king answered.

 “so, if you guys needs help, I’m always here for the two of you! I luh yuh” kira’s advice.

 After our stream, king and I talked in facebook chat about the reaction of kira when we already told her about us. We were surprised about her reaction, she shouted and her eyes widened and she flustered about us.

 On the next day, since king told me that they will be having a long ride from five to nine am, I waited for so long for him and flooded him a lot of messages until they came back home and called me even he’s not yet changed. I told him to rest but he resist because he wants me to see and to talk with.

 Since we were running out of topics, I opened up someone who wont stop hitting me up, he’s too cringy and he doesn’t stop calling me baby, love, babe or something and he’s getting into my nerves every time he’s asking me for time even though I’m not that interested to him. Upon knowing all my rants about that guy, king decided to confront him and ask him to keep distance from me. while confronting him, the guy replied a lot of things that not makes sense as we were screen-sharing messenger. He opened a lot of thing like I had a bumble account and king doesn't even care about it because I didn’t use it anymore. After confronting the guy, we hang up our call so we can do thing that we need to do like doing requirements and online class.

 A week after, I visited my yugo. Upon visiting, I saw jess “a gay” streaming with king. King saw me and said hi to me but jess is simpig with him without knowing that king and I had something together. Jess continue flirting while king is resisting from him. I had a lot of trust for him so I don’t get jealous about them. King invites me on their stream and pushing jess to king as making fun and enjoy with them at the same time until king has to leave the stream for the reason that he needs to attend his online class at that day.

 Since king left the stream, jess and I continue to have fun. We did a lot of chika about something. He told me that he likes king but king said he had someone for a month or two months I think.

 “is it true jess? You like him?” I asked.

  “uhmm, yess hkahkaha” jess answered with feeling shy.

 “hakhkahakha” speechless me.

 “ can you help me?” he asked.

 “uhm, hkhaha sure?” I replied.

 While streaming with jess, I messaged king since he’s live hopping that time and told him about what jess said during our conversation but he initiate first. But eventually after a minute of time jess and I ended our live.

 “babe?” king’s messaged

 “i’m live streaming with jess.” I answered.

 “i’m live streaming babe” he said.

 “yes, I saw you online and watching” I replied.

 “ but what are you guys talking about?” he asked.

 “well, jess told me that he has crush on you.” I replied.

 “wait, what!?” he loudly asked.

 “ he said that he’s serious about you.” I replied.

 “he’s just making fun form me, I know his trip thoo, hkahka” he said.

 “ what if it’s true? He’s serious?” I added.

 “ are you jealous?” he asked.

 “no, I’m not, I promise.” I said

 “are you sure, I’m just asking so I know what I need to do.” he replied.

 “i’m not, promise” I answered.

 “ I love you then.!” he said.

 “I love you too, babe!” I repplied.

 An hours after our conversation, jess and I started a live and talk something about his side for king. At first, he just great me like we were close and then he started to ask about king.

 “cess!, how are you?” he joyfully asked.

 “here, doin’ great, hkahka” I said while laughing.

 “so what’s poppin girl?” he asked.

 “nothing much bb!” I answered

 “well, I felt so fluttered because kind said “I love you” awhile ago!” he’s fluttered answer.

 “is that so?, hajhajhja” I said

 “but I don’t take it as an advantage because he said that he had this girl chatting with him for 2 months I think?” he said

 “awww, is that so? I know that he had but I’m not sure thooo.” I replied.

 “do you know her?” he asked.

 “no, I don’t” I said.

 After this convo, king started to watch our live and jess started to flirt at him again but because king is straight and not interested on him, he decided just to go with the flow and make jess feel so fluttered.

 “bb, king is already here!” I said to jess.

 “oh my gosh!, hello baby!” excitedly answered.

 “hkahkahakha” I just laughed at them and watch them.

 While we were streaming, king messaged me and told me everything like how’ he feeling about jess’ trip.

 “ I think that jess is just tripping up with me!” king messaged.

 “ don’t you know what jess told me awhile ago? He said that you made him fluttered by saying “I love you” to him. Hkahkaha” I said.

 “yes, I told him that but in the end, I said char!”.”he’s too naughty thoo, he’s trippin’ me or making fun of me, then I’ll go with the flow.” I added.

 “hkahahakhaa” I just laugh

 “I don’t know if he’s serious or not but I never mind it anymore because for me, you’re my one and only babe.” he said.

 “but babe, lets not tell jess about us ha.” my favor for him.

 “sure, why not!” he said.

 “i just want to know something about him when it comes to, making sure that he will not steal you from me.” I naughty replied at him.

 “what a crazy mind is that my queen? Hahhaa, remember that you’re always be my babe. I love you” he answered.

 “ I love you so much babe!” I replied.

 At this point, I felt so fluttered about him but I’m still streaming so I came back from our live but this time king is not watching anymore. So as king left the stream, jess started to tell chikas about him.

 “bb, I streamed with king awhile ago and I saw that girl he was saying because he did screen-sharing.”

 “ where?” I asked

 “on his instagram bb!” he replied.

 (I got nervous but fighting since we don’t have some proof.)

 “ but bb, I’m not sure because I didn’t recognized her well, and I saw a girl too on his messenger but I don’t thins that’s it too because there are so many chatheads and it’s all groupchats as well.”

 “ahh, okay hkahakha.” I answered.

 “bb, help me ha.” asking favor.

 “yessss, promise..” I responded.

 Jess and I had a lot of chika during live streaming. We had a lot of fun during that time. From all those news that I got from jess, I put in mind that king is not making stupid things as much as cheating because he knows how painful it is. I just prayed to God that I hope king is serious about me and not cheating to another girl. And I just thought that it was just a friend that he was talking with.

 A night during at the same day, kira and I started live streaming again. At first, I critically think if should I tell kira or not about those news I heard from jess. I’m thinking because I know kira, kira is a judgemental person. Kira will say anything that she wanted to tell even without proof but for some reason I told her about it.

 “sisz, I have something to tell you.” I said.

 “what is it ?” she asked.

 “sisz, jess said a while ago in our stream that king have someone in instgram like they were chatting there.” I said.

 “aww, bad new siz!” he answered.

 “hkahka” I just laughed.

 “that’s a red flag siz. Be mindful, stop what you are guys up to!”. she said.

 “no, were not sure about it since we don’t have any proof about it!” I replied.

 At this point in time I got pissed off from kira. She had a lot of thing that she said against king. She misunderstood king and judged him without knowing the truth as well as not having a proof. I got angry on her, she messed up king’s name with other people and the reason that I got into that feeling is because I don’t want someone will be hurt just because of me. Many guys misunderstood king since there was a viewers that time before. I defended king against them but they insist that I should stop being stupid for him in that situation but I keep pointing out to them that “why would I stop without knowing his side”, “ I know what to do, and what I need to do is t seek for the truth and let him explain for his side.”, and “In the end, I don’t want to regret that I didn’t let him explain his side.”

After the argument, king join us streaming without knowing that he was our topic. Even king was in our stream, kira continue to say anything about certain problems connected in my situation. King stay still and and keeping on quiet. Because of the fact that our live title is “RED FLAG”, I think king got the point of it and he left the stream and I panicked about it so I messaged him as soon as possible.

 “babe?” I asked.

 “yes babe?” he asked.

 “why’d you left?” I asked.

 (messenger’s ringing, he called)

 “babe, why’d you left?” I asked?

 “ I just left because I can’t understand what are you guys up to.”

 “ but babe, is it true that you had someone on IG?” I asked?

 “what?, who said those things to you?, is that the reason why “red lfag” is the title of your live?” he asked like he’s stressed out.

 “i must say yes?, I don’t believe jess about it thooo.” I said.

 “if that so?, let me show you the dm section for clarification.”

 (king showed me his dm section and messenger through screen sharing)

 “see?, I don’t have another girl. The girl in my instagram is my yugo friend, the reason why I’m chatting with her is that I’m asking her if what time they are going to live.” he said.

 “well, don’t be too stressed out about that. I trust you babe. So have a good vibes..” I said to him.

 “i’ll hang up this call, go to your live and vibe with them” he said like he’s hurt.

 “don’t mind it anymore babe, just put in your mind that I trust you.” I said before he hanged up.

  “okay” he said.

 After the call, king messaged me saying “I love you” and I answered back to him “I love you too”. I cheered him up by telling him that I have trust on him that why I keep fighting for him.

 “how could you trust me? Why are you keep saying that you had trust on me, thooo were just talking on yugo and online?” he asked.

 “why?, you don’t want me to have trust on you?” I asked him back.

 “it’s up to you” he replied.

 “well, I’ll trust you anyways that I want.” I said.

 King said,“we still cant be on an intimate love.”, “were not meeting in person, we two are just hoping, and this is just a “HOPE”. it will be a long time for us to reach or pursue this kind of intimate love.”  

 “it will never be intimate if you would not give it a try, right?” I answered.

 “i just don’t want you to be hurt” he said.

 “why? Do you have plan to left me and find some other girls near to you? You don’t trust me or not?” I asked.

 “ughhh! Fuck, this is so hard to explain.” “ how could this type of our situation work?” he’s frustrating asked for me.

 “it will never work if we will not try it king.” I said.

 “so you’ll take risk, even though its an online relationship?” he asked

 “i’m ready to take risk tho, but I don’t know if you’re ready too.” I said.

 “ I want it too, but I’m too coward for this because I don’t want to cause you pain” he replied.

 “it will work if the both of us will fight together” I said.

 “ just let the time work, lets wait for the right time for us, okay?, I’m just here.” he said.

 “ I LOVE YOU” he added

 I replied, “ I LOVE YOU TOO”.

 After this conversation, I almost cry because I overthink and I overthink about what will happen the next. I had a lot of what ifs again like, “what if one day he will not chat me anymore?”, “what if he left me hangging?”, “what if he’s restraining himself for us to have an intimate love?”, “what if someday he will tell me for us to stop?”. That night I felt so unwell, I felt so empty and that time, I loose appetite to stream in yugo but after thirty minutes, That point in time, I must say that, that was the worst night that I had in my life. My what ifs that I was scared off suddenly happened on its wrong timing. My world crumbled and the only thing that I can do is to cry secretly. Not as being an exaggerated person but I asked God why did this thing happened to me?. king was the only one who made me feel that I deserve to be respected, I deserve to be love, and I’m worth it just I am. I thought he’s the one, the one that will never leave me behind.

 (king messaged me)

 “babe?” he asked

 “yes?” I respond.

 “why did you fell for me?, we don’t have label but we’re calling each other “babe” and saying “I love you” back to each others?” he asked.”I’m just clearing things up tho,”

 “I fell for you because you’re different from all those guys that I met before.” I answered.

 “ like how?” his ask.

 “i like you just the way you are. Because of you, I felt so excited to wake up in the morning, and no words can explain how different you are” I answered.

 “ cess, we don’t have label right?” he asked

 (at this point, I got very nervous, he called me cess already, there so many things came up in my mind and I don’t even know what to do.)

 “yes” I said.

 “can we stop this for a while?” he asked.

 “but why?” I asked him back.

 “ I’m having a hard time because of this, I’m studying and I’m worried if someday I cant be able to make you happy, I cant be able to update you, I cant be able to talk with you and I cant be able to make you smile” he said.

 “what if I’m not willing to stop of what we have for so long?” I asked. “ I understood your point, were both student here and all we can do is to go with the flow and sorry if kira misunderstood you before.” I added.

 After that, king called me and explain his side, he told me to stop the things that we are up to and be friends this time. He told me that he will never change, the king that I know before will be the king until the end. He’s too sorry for me, he told me that if there is something wrong about us is that could be him. I don’t need to blame myself about us because it’s all in him. He love me but the distance woke us up to reality that it will be hard for us to enter in a relationship that we were up to. In that point, I don’t know what to do but to cry and accept his decisions.

 “cess,please don’t cry anymore” his message.

 “i’m okay, thank you” I replied. “ but agai, sorry for messing up your name. I ‘am also wrong to let my feelings brought me up on what we are before.” I added.

 “it’s okay, we cant really control our emotions and again, I’m sorry” he replied.

 “yes, masakit pero ayos lang (it hurts but it’s fine)” I said.

 “i’ am really sorry, it’s all my fault” he replied.

 “ thank you for everything, for making me feel that I’m worth it to love and to have.” I said.

 “ you’re worth it, but you’re not meant for me” he said.

 “thank you king.” I replied

 And king answered, “thank you queen”.

 After our conversation, I visited my yugo and I saw jess streaming. I watched and I was invited to his live. Even though I’m still crying that time, I accepted his invitation and act like I had flu but behind that, I was still crying for what happened for awhile. Since jess and I used to talk about king, he asked me again and I answered it all.

 “bb, do you know the girls now? The girl that king talks about?” his ask.

 “uhhmm, why do you keep aking me about her?” I asked him.

 “well, I’m just curious” he said.

 “honestly, I was the girl who you wanted to know!” I answered.

 “omg, is it true? I’m sorry” he said. “how are you guys tho?” he added.

 “actually, we just ended up what we are before I stream with you. And the reason that I have runny nose it is because I’m still crying right now.” I replied

 “what was the reason?” he asked.

 “honestly because of what you’ve said before, I told kira that king has someone on his IG and she started to make assumptions against king, tho I’m not believing on that thing since I don’t have proof about it. And I think the reason why he did that decision is because he felt so down about what din kira said before” I said.

 “omg, I felt so bad for that. I think its all my fault. In our place, they always call me a relationship wrecker because I’m always messing up relationships. Today, I have I messed up three relationship. Sorry, its all my fault.” he said.

 “don’t be sorry, its not your faulth bb.” I said.

 “ I know how king loves you, he’s always sharing something good about you. He’s always flexing you cess.” he said

 “i felt that love from him jess, but I think he downgrade himself and brought himself into that decision” I replied

 “ it’s okay not to be okay bb, everythinh will be alright.” he’s cheering me up.

 “i met a lot of guys before but he’s the only one who made me feel like this, I will wait for him. I’ll wait for one week and will not entertain some other guys and if king didn’t message me within a week, I’ll let him go.

 Jess replied, “I’ll support you in any ways, I’m just here for you.”

  On the next day, I felt so empty, I don’t have appetite to attend online classes, I just wanted to sleep all day and that feeling was what I felt for a couple of days. The people that I am with in our home keep asking me “what happened to me”, I am acting different for a couple of days, and I became quiet and I just want to be alone. Because of the fact that I am broken, I brought up myself into this situation. Since I don’t know what to do, I keep on crying all day and open up from some of my friends on yugo. I did not entertain kira for three days but as a friend I forgave her.

 As time passes by, I’m still broken. I always posted a lot of “hugot” message for him, I shared posts related to my situation and how I felt since he left me, I always post memes for a purpose and all of those are for him, but as I’ve said, time passes by and the most awaited time for a couple of days just happen on its perfect timing.

 One day, on the afternoon, I was just scrolling at my social medias and unexpectedly king sent me a picture saying that “ thank you sun for the warmth, thank you clouds for the shade, and You, thank you for existing.” my heart aches because it beats so fast, I felt so fluttered about that and I rashly forward it back to him.

   After this event, everything has returned. We begin right from the start but at this point in time, we put God in the center of our relationship until he grant us the grace and time for us to meet after waiting for so long and suffer long distance relationship. Now, we are the characters of our on story, no supreme beings, no power, no fairy, and sailing on a huge sea while putting in our mind that our relationship is not like a book or a movie anymore that runs fast as flash and began and started to last.

[ourloveisforthelovely]

Fallout 6

A/N: smutt and stuff

Words: 3,661

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“What?! No! Not at all sugar. Are you?” Kate shook her head wrapping her hand around Richard’s that was resting on her thigh. “No. I’m just worried about my brother.” Richard nodded. “Yeah that is going to be a barrel of monkeys. Look Kate, I’m serious when I say I don’t regret marrying you. My regret was not asking you sooner. I just don’t want people thinking the only reason I married you is because I got you pregnant.” He slowly brought her hand to his lips kissing her before returning his focus to the road ahead. Kate meanwhile, laid her head back on the headrest looking down at her wedding ring. A few weeks ago she would have never even considered marrying Richard. They were only repairing their broken relationship. However, after the eventful trip to Europe, finding out that she was pregnant, being involved in one of the most weird train incidents to hit northern Europe (big shout out to Jared, she thought with a smirk), and finally getting some alone time with Richard things had started to look up. “What’s so funny?” Richard asked as he began to mess with the radio. Kate chuckled. “Just thinking about Jared causing havoc in Europe.” Richard rolled his eyes. “We are seriously never traveling with them again. I thought we going to jail. Amsterdam was nice though.” “We didn’t get out of bed for two days.” Richard gave her his best “innocent” look. “That was my point. I may be keeping you in bed for the next week and a half. When we get to Missouri to see your mother you may not be walking straight. You may want to think of a clever excuse to tell your mother so she won’t know what you have been up to.” Kate rolled her eyes. “You are so full of yourself! You won’t be able to go straight for a week in a half. You may play an angel on TV but hate to break it to you love you are just a man in real life….and kind of like a bottle rocket the moment you get inside me.” She watched as he gave her the most confused and bewildered expression. “I can go for a long time….if you recall in Amsterdam it was you that needed to keep taking naps. Baby girl I can get hard for you any time any place. Speaking of which, we could always pull off and fool around.” Kate shook her head. “I am not letting you fuck me in some roadside bathroom where tourists might show up.” Richard rolled his eyes going back to the radio. “Didn’t stop you before.” Kate gave up trying to argue with him knowing he would have some sassy comment that she wouldn’t be able to keep up with. “Ugh everything in this state is damn country music. Do you see why I moved to LA now? Imagine growing up in Nashville.” Richard grumbled before giving up and stopping on some random station. “We’ll be there soon.” Kate said softly running her hand over his crotch. Richard groaned looking over at her again. “I’m really about to pull this car over.” Taking her hand away, Kate leaned back with a satisfied grin on her face. “It doesn’t take much for you to move me Just the way you’re leaning into me It’s a holiday when we’re together I want to stay with you forever Somewhere, somewhere sunny and 75 You and me on a beach chair Yeah, I’m so there everytime I look in your eyes Kissing you and the salt air I can taste it, I swear Take me somewhere sunny and 75 “ Kate was pulled out of her light nap when Richard said her name. “Huh? What’s wrong?” She focused on the radio. “In other news, musician and Supernatural actress Katherine Benedict married co star and long time boyfriend Richard Speight Jr. yesterday…” Kate’s mouth dropped as Richard turned off the radio and pulled over. Both sat in silence for a moment before Richard laughed shaking his head. “Well that cat is out of the bag!” Kate groaned realizing that everyone knew now. Their little secret was out.   “So much for having a week of peace.” She looked down to her phone that started ringing. Seeing Jared’s name followed by Jensen, both Marks, Matt Cowen, Sebastian, Misha, Vicki, and everyone else they seemed to know but Rob she groaned. Richard looked at her shaking his head. “Don’t answer it.” Richard said calmly running his hand through his hair. Kate frowned. “Do you think Rob knows?” Richard shrugged. “He hasn’t blew my phone up yet so I’m guessing no. Sugar turn the phone off. Let’s just enjoy our week of peace. We can worry about the mess back home when we get home.” (Meanwhile in Missouri) Rob’s morning started like any other. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Crystal left to go to work around 8 am. Rob shuffled into the living room picking up his ipad. He frowned looking down at his cell phone. Still nothing from Kate or Richard. Rob couldn’t help wonder what in the world was going on with those two? They never just disappeared and avoided him like this. Logging onto Twitter, Rob had enough if they wouldn’t answer his calls or texts he would blow their pages up until someone talked to him. Going to Kate’s page Rob froze when something caught his attention. “Katherine Benedict Speight.” Rob frowned muttering “the fuck?” under his breath. Taking out his phone he dialed Kate’s number and it automatically went to voicemail. “Katherine it’s Rob. Call me now!” He did the same thing to Richard before sitting down with a frown. Seriously what the fuck was going on? Rob was beginning to regret his decision to unplug from the world while he was getting over his stroke. Looking further down Kate’s twitter page he froze seeing all he needed to see at the mention of Kate and Richard getting married. “Is it that hard to pick up a phone?” Rob muttered before angrily closing the iPad. How could they not call him? Just because he was across the country didn’t mean he wouldn’t want to be there when his sister was married! “They’ve lost their fucking minds!” Rob thought angrily before trying to formulate a plan.

Meanwhile…

Walking into the cabin Kate was bound and determined not to let the stresses of their life come in the way of a nice honeymoon. “Are you ok sugar?” She looked up as Richard shut the door. “Yeah. I’m good.” She knew he didn’t believe her. Richard walked to her pulling her into his arms. “If you’re feeling bad it’s ok to say so. You haven’t been at all like my ex. She’s was sick all the damn time.” Kate smirked at the fear in his eyes. Most men seemed to have this look when it came to their pregnant partners. “I’m fine. I promise.” Richard nodded as he picked Kate up sitting her on the island. He had been keeping a close eye on her since she said the word “pregnant.” He was no longer questioning whether or not he really wanted a baby. While he wasn’t fully on board over the moon at the moment Richard had accepted it. He tried to smile and appear happy when Kate mentioned anything baby related. Surely by the time the baby was born he would feel a little more at ease. Kate meanwhile, watched his facial expression carefully. She knew Richard wasn’t thrilled with the baby but he wouldn’t say it. After she almost left him over the baby Richard had changed his tune. He was more attentive and gentle towards her needs. She had even caught him stroking his fingers over her stomach a few times. “So are you going to fuck me on every surface of this cabin?” Kate asked with a smirk. She pushed a strand of Richard’s hair away from his eyes before leaning in for a kiss. Richard groaned into her lips. “Richard, can you please just lose control like you used to and man handle me?” “Kate, I can’t hurt you right now. You’ll have to deal with soft and easy until the baby is born. Don’t give me that look!” Kate didn’t listen to his last sentence giving Richard a pouty face. “A lot of people have sex while pregnant Rich.” He shook his head pressing a few kisses to her neck and the exposed parts of her chest. “Not like what we have.” “You’re not being fair! You have me sounding like a slut again.” Richard smirked as he stood back up yanking her sweater and tank top off. “Well you can be a slut for me. That I’m cool with.” Kate whimpered trying to ignore the need building inside of her. From the time she got pregnant she was almost always horny. The pregnancy hormones were driving her nuts. “And you talking like that isn’t helping!!” Richard smirked. “I never said that I wouldn’t fuck you sugar.” Kate slid off the counter only for Richard to reach out and put her right back. “Fucking tease.” Richard smiled looking genuinely pleased with the comment. “You take my cock so well sugar!” The look on Kate’s face made Richard chuckle as he reached behind her to remove her bra. “How the fuck do I get this thing off?” He asked upon finding no clasp in the back. Kate took his hands placing it on the front between her breasts. Richard rolled his eyes mumbling about stupid lingerie designers and their fancy ideas. After a few tries he started to pull. Kate quickly pushed his hands away. “Oh no you don’t! I paid a lot of money for this bra. You’ve torn too many of my lingerie items when your turned on.” Richard shrugged unbuttoning his shirt and undoing his jeans. “Well I didn’t get a fucking MIT degree in bra engineering. It either opens in the back or gets ripped off.” Kate carefully undid her bra before tossing it aside. Richard reached up pressing her breasts together before taking one in his mouth bitting down. Kate whimpered pulling his body closer to hers. “Stop being a fucking tease Richard.” Richard smiled against her lips grinding his painfully obvious hard on against her thigh. “What’s the rush sugar? We can play for a while? We have all week to consummate our marriage. How I about I eat you out in front of the fireplace? I can make the wait worth your while.”   Kate looked like she was ready to scream at this point. “Richard Speight JR if you don’t make love to me I will blue ball you until this baby is born!!” Richard stood up straight looking at her honestly surprised. “You wouldn’t…” “Try me.” Kate said with a smirk as she went to put her sweater back on. Richard lunged forward tossing the sweater somewhere behind him. “Fine, bossy.” He reached out pulling Kate into his arms carrying her to the bedroom. “I still plan on eating you out in front of that fire place.” He said with a devious grin before gently laying her on the bed. Kate quickly wiggled out of her remaining clothes as Richard undressed getting into bed beside her. “I have to say I do enjoy these pregnancy hormones. You being horny all the time will make it better for me to just bend you over whenever I damn please. ” “Well that would be lovely. You’ve always taken what you wanted so bending me over when you damn well please isn’t anything new. Seeing as we have spent a lot of times in airplane bathrooms, closets, dressing rooms I think your sex drive is as crazy as mine.” Kate’s lips were on his neck while her hand wrapped around his erection. Whatever sassy comment Richard had in mind left his mind as she tightened her grip slightly making him if possible harder. Kate bit down on his neck as Richard bucked his hips into her hand. “Sugar…please.” Kate slowly eased her way onto Richard placing herself right over him rubbing herself against. Richard groaned raising his hips to grind further against his. “What’s the matter baby? You want me as bad as I want you huh?” Richard nodded looking at her with the best puppy eyes he could come up with. “Sugar you can dominate me later. Let me make love to you know.” Kate shook her head. “Sorry lover boy. You made me wait now you have to wait.” Richard glared up at her. Normally he would have flipped her and pushed in. Once he was inside she wouldn’t have made him stop. Now it was different. There was no way he could do that now. “It will make your orgasm better.” Kate cooed as she leaned down pressing a soft kiss to his lips. “At least do something. You sitting there looking hot as hell rubbing your pussy on me is killing me!” Kate smirked rubbing herself against him again. Richard groaned when she got off of him. The sudden loss of pressure was more than he could handle. “Sugar please…” He panted as she lay with her back the opposite direction so it was possible to see how wet for him she was. “Now you get to watch me. I don’t want to see you touch yourself.” Kate watched with a smirk as Richard put his hands behind his head. “Whatever you want baby.” He watched with hungry eyes as her hand slipped between her legs, stroking over her clit, and began to toy at her entrance. From her position, Kate could clearly see the lust filled about to loose all grip on reality look on her husband’s face. Richard gripped the sheets so tight they ripped off the bed. Richard sat watching a moment long before quickly moving over Kate. “I’m done waiting. I want what’s mine.” He pushed in before Kate could make any protest. Kate cried out as he sunk in balls deep. Richard made sure not to put too much weight in Kate as he began to move.   “Mmm sugar you are so tight right now” Kate cried out as he began to slowly push into her. “Harder, please.” She moaned. “Well looks like little ms. bossy has changed her tune.” Kate smiled against his lips as Richard moved a little faster. “Rich, for the love of all things holy, please go harder. I’m not that delicate!” Richard ignored the comment before pressing a kiss to her lips blocking anymore comments. Kate moaned against his lips as his hand went between their bodies pressing hard on her clit. “Since I can’t fuck you sore I can think of other ways to make you come like crazy. I know you like this.” Kate tried to ignore the tingling in her core. As usual he was right. There wouldn’t be any holding on much longer! “You can come for me any day now. I’m not going to make it much longer after you teased me like that.” Richard moaned between gritted teeth. “I thought you wanted to eat me out in front of the fire place?” Kate asked with a cheeky smile. Richard’s eyes rolled down to hers. “Darlin you have a long fucking week ahead of you after this today! Now like I said come already!” Kate dug her nails into Richard’s back as one final thrust pushed her over the edge. Richard pushed in a few more times before coming hard as well. “Well being bossy sure got you all hot and bothered.” Kate said with a grin as Richard slowly pulled out and yanked her into his arms. “Yeah yeah. You’ll be paying for that too princess.” Kate snuggled against his chest. She was fully his wife now and she was fully happy. Kate didn’t let the thoughts of Rob, Crystal, or their friends reaction bother her in the slightest as she drifted off to sleep. Around 5 am, Kate was awoken by the sound of Richard’s cell phone ringing and from him moving to get it being dropped out of his arms. Richard muttered a few cuss words under his breath as he flipped on the beside lamp before finally locating his phone. He had reluctantly turned it on halfway through the night at the thought of something being wrong with his kids. Fishing around for his cell phone that must have gotten knocked off during the previous nights activities, Richard couldn’t help but be annoyed. Who the fuck called someone at 5 am? Someone had better died! He wasn’t a morning person anyway and after getting fucked like he had the previous night all Richard wanted was to sleep. Finally finding the phone, Richard didn’t even look to see who it was before answering with a curt, “hello?” “So you finally decide to answer your phone?” Hearing Rob’s voice, Richard froze before getting suddenly angry. “I guess I should ask you the same question. So is it customary to call people at 5 am now?” Richard kept his voice cold. Rob was silent a moment. “You married my sister!?” “Hey look you can check the internet. Too bad you couldn’t check your phone. So I get we aren’t friends anymore is this why you called me at five am…to torture me? You know I’m not a morning person!” Rob was silent for a few moments. “Wait why aren’t we friends? Richard rolled his eyes. "Well shit Rob I don’t know! You ignored mine and Kate’s calls for the past however, the fuck long you’ve been in Missouri.” “You idiots haven’t called me!” Richard rolled his eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about?! We’ve called and texted you. Not to mention your Cuntzilla of a girlfriend who always says he will call you back. You want our phone records because I will send them to you! Rob, you really hurt your sister and that’s not cool. Right now I just don’t have the patience to deal with this. Call me at a normal human hour. I have to go I have a pregnant wife to deal with…” Richard hung up when he heard Rob say… “Pregnant?! Richard wait!” Kate was sitting up looking at him sadly. “Sorry sugar.” Kate blinked looking down at her lap before Richard pulled her back against his chest. “Rich even though I want to be stubborn we should hear him out. You two are too good of friends to have it end like this.” Richard closed his eyes. “Yeah. We’ll listen to him when we get back to Vancouver.  Remind me to print those fucking phone records!” @greenappleeyes

[sambart93]

2017.03.07-08 HatsuKoi Monster [Review]

I had the amazing opportunity (amazing because it’s MakiChan that’s literally why) to go and see Hatsukoi Monster TWICE - last Tuesday evening/night show alongside an AfterTalk. and last Wednesday afternoon show. I was also super lucky that they were filming on Wednesday for the DVD(!) but more on that later. I’ll probably refer to the performance differences by saying either Tuesday / Wednesday or Night / Afternoon.

Official Website here Official Twitter here Press Reports 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Dress Rehearsal Video here

CAST and CHARACTERS

Aramaki Yoshihiko as Takahashi Kanade Okuda Kokoro as Nikaido Kaho Sagawa Daiki as Kaneko Tom Kamisato Yuki as Sannomiya Ginjirou Shane as Noguchi Kazuo Yuutarou as Shinohara Kouta Ono Kento as Taga Atsushi Tanaka Ryousei as Nagasawa Arashi Hoshino Yuta as Nikaido Daikoku Gomoto Naoya as Takahashi Shuugo Ensemble: Hanatsuka Rentarou and Kitagawa Yuuya

NON-SPOILER

I was super worried going into this one because the main girl lead is only 14 years old and I’d watched the anime and I was super worried about ‘almost 30 year old actors trying to be 11 years old who’re trying to be romantic with her’,

BUT I was surprised how they handled illegal-ness of it and it ends up being this rather innocent (not really existent) romance. 

The major selling point of this play is the comedy and the audience participation. Everyone was constantly laughing, even the actors couldn’t hold it in at times (I’m looking at you MakiChan!). It’s absolutely ridiculous but also brings back some nostalgic moments of childhood at the same time. So it’s all wonderful and fun! Also they get the audience to clap along to the music and different songs and they go around the audience a lot which makes it even more enjoyable.

The stars of the show are definitely Tanaka Ryousei and Hoshino Yuta - they are both hilarious and go all out as their characters and they create a lot of hysterics from the audience.

Due to this stage having two minors as actors, this play is a short 90-100 minutes play but it’s so jam packed and fun and entertaining!

Rating: 9/10

STORY

The stage follows the anime story pretty faithfully so, just go watch that but if you’re too lazy then quick synopsis here:

Nikaido Kaho leaves home to live at a dormitory for her new school year. Shortly after arriving, Kaho is saved by a tall, handsome stranger. She confesses her love to him. To her shock, he is in fact a fifth grader! Deciding that she can't date a fifth grader, Kaho intends to break up with him. But as she spends more time with Kanade, she begins to care for him even more, even though she feels and knows its morally wrong.

And thus ridiculousness and hilarity ensues.

SPOILERS

As per usual a dissertation length review is about to occur. Sit back and enjoy.

STAGE

The stage is really interesting, it’s set out as a circle that comes out from a little stage so it’s in the center of the room and there’s chairs about pretty much 280 degrees around it. The theatre itself is only 6 rows and then a slightly upper row and then there’s the second floor which I imagine only had about 2 rows. So tiny and super intimate which made it all the better! There really isn’t a bad seat. Although, from about row 3 and back, sometimes you can’t see the action when the actors are creeping around the front of the stage or when they’;re led down because someones head is going to be in the way, BUT that rarely happens and I never really had a problem with seeing the stage and I was in rows 4 and 5 rows.

EXTRA: Also, if anyone ever asks me again how good my Japanese is, I will never saying ‘it’s sometimes alright’ because I was laughing so hard. I was one of the loudest laughers when I watched this which proves my understanding of Japanese...right?! XD 

CAST BREAKDOWN and SCENES

Aramaki Yoshihiko as Takahashi Kanade:

Like I said I was originally worried about MakiChan having to do a job where his romantic interest is a 13/14 year old girl in real life. BUT luckily everything ended up being really innocent and actually it did really just look like friends or family rather than a romantic interest so that’s a relief.

It was hilarious seeing a grown 27 year old guy play a 12 year old. He pulled off the innocence and the childishness very well. All his adlibs were great and even when he couldn’t control his laughter he was adorable! The wendesday performance was being filmed and MakiChan messed up a lot and it was so funny! The first is when he goes to tell is dad he’s dating Kaho, but because she doesn’t want it found out she starts screaming over his words. Usually he says ‘Yes because Kaho is my girlfr- *Kaho screams over him*’ but during the Afternoon show MakiChan accidentally said, ‘Yes because she’s my private teacher *Kaho screams*’ and then into his mic quietly he’s like ‘private teacher?!’ and everyone in the audience is wetting themselves and not paying any attention to Kaho doing her monologue, we were all too busy looking at MakiChan who was laughing at himself and then Naoya too was looking at him like ‘you really just said that?’ xD another part during the same scene in the Afternoon show is when MakiChan’s decided to play his Melodica while his father was talking seriously to Kaho and Naoya hit MakiChan on the leg with a smile and said ‘do you mind? I’m trying to talk here,’ and MakiChan cracked this huge smile back and was like ‘I’m sorry?’

There’s also a hula hoop scene where the hula hoop drops from the ceiling and MakiChan catches it and then (as Kanade) says he’ll break up with her if he can’t do 200 hula hoops. In the evening show he got to about 50 hoops before he went ‘oh this is strange, I’m already in pain!!’ and in the afternoon show he was like ‘what are my hands doing?! Where do I put them?!’ and then he’d start to laugh himself and the hula hoop would go off balance and of course, for the sake of the plot, he’d not hit 200 hoops and be like ‘Kaho... let’s break up.’

There is a kateikyoushi (Private teacher) musical number where each of the boys get a chance to quickly ask a question and every day it changed. In the afternoon show we got:

Tom: What’s the different between cider and soda?* *Cider is a soda soft drink in Japan.

Gin: Why is being tied up with rope more fun than skipping rope?

Kanade: Why is Hatsukoi Monster’s theater called Teen x Teen theatre?! Depending on the person, people hear it differently and if you say it fast it becomes Teen-*music blasts out so he’s cut off* 

It was hilarious that he ran out of time xD he tried his hardest to say all his stuff at once.

The Afternoon show he asked; why is a 27 year old man playing an elementary school kid?! xD

Every curtain call and ending, the actors go around the stage and wave to everyone. MakiChan definitely spotted me in the crowd during the Tuesday night show and gave me a big wave and a smile and (me being me) I shyly waved back xD but it made my night!! Even now it makes me happy ^_^

Okuda Kokoro as Nikaido Kaho:

She has a very deep voice. Deeper than the guys, which makes sense because she’s supposed to be the oldest of them all BUT it sounded super weird because she’s like 4ft10 tiny girl with a cute face. Also the deep voice didn’t help her during her solo song. Every time I cringed a little.

But she was fine. She played Kaho decent enough. Unfortunately her comedic parts felt very forced and unrealised so no one ever laughed during those - especially the opening scene where she’s pretending to be a drama queen and it’s supposed to be funny, you know it’s supposed to be funny, but no one laughed. But you can tell the script and everything wasn’t in her favour. Even though in the anime she’s the main, she was very much kept as a side character in this. Pretty much whenever she was on stage, the boy would be at the back doing something stupid so 95% of the audience would be laughing and focusing on them rather than paying attention to her struggles and her monologues and stuff - I admit I was the same. I don’t remember her because I was too busy following what the boys were doing. Especially the final scene between Kanade and Kaho; Kaho is talking to Kanade all seriously BUT the entire audience is too busying watching and laughing at Hoshino sneak around the stage and pulling facing and doing comedic stuff to entertain us.

And like I said, it looked more like she was MakiChan’s daugther or younger sister, rather than her dating an elementary school kid so didn’t look too creepy xD

Sagawa Daiki as Kaneko Tom and  Kamisato Yuki as Sannomiya Ginjirou:

I did not realise who the guy playing Tom was until I properly looked at the pamphlet the other day! He’s the geeky glasses boy from 3rd season Tenimyu! He looks SO much better in this stage and his skin is pretty flawless and very young! Also he did an amazing job as Tom! He had the perfect annoying balance and his dynamic with Gin/Kamisato was brilliant and he comedic punches were very funny!

Kamisato as Gin as also perfect! He had the right balance of childishness crossed with perviness. Gin is such a weird kid. There’s some pretty unfortgettable scenes thanks to Kamisato playing Gin so pervy-like and I can already see his perv/stalker face in my head and it’s making me giggle.

So let me cover some, Tom, TomxGin and Gin moments:

- Every time Kanade says goodbye to his friends they poke their butts out and say ‘unko // poop!’ and everytime Gin runs off stay he just giggles to himself ‘ふふ　受ける～ // (it’s difficult to translate but) Haha that’s funny’ he does it about two times and it’s more hilarious every time.

- There’s one scene where Kazu wants to talk seriously with Kaho so the other three boys go off and play with rope. the Night show ended up with MakiChan and Daiki tying Kamisato up in a ball which was hilarious and then once he was unwrapped, Daiki then started hitting Kamisato’s butt with the rope and Kamisato was signalling at him to do it harder xD the Afternoon show MakiChan and Daiki took each end of the rope and hit him lightly with in on the shoulder and head. In both performance, the scene ended with Daiki tying the rope around Kamisato’s hands and then as they leave they grab the handle bars of their bikes and Kamisato (having his hands tied together) held one side of the bars and was like ‘事故になりそう // Looks like I’ll get into an accident’ xD

- There’s a hide and seek scene in the stage and in the Night performance, Daiki found an aisle seat to the right of me and sat there but in the Afternoon show there were no aisle seats and so he ran around the back and eventually found a seat on my row about 6 seats in (I was seat 15) and he pretty much climbed and stumbled over the audience at super high speed to get to the seat and then made some jokes that the girls around him were wetting themselves with laughter. He was there for a good 5 - 10 minutes.

- Tom and Gin end up kissing in this stage. Before seeing this play I had read a few tweets and remembered some that interesting me and this was one of them. And people weren't lying about the Tom x Gin kiss(!) It’s right at the end during the ending song/credits and Gin just kind of attacks Tom and kisses him, and Tom is in shock like ‘you stole my first kiss!!’. Everytime the audience reaction is amazing. Thinking about it, Gin as a character does seem a little gay - I can definitely imagine him coming out when he’s older -  so makes sense he would be curious about his friend and maybe does like him, and kids being kids do kiss their friends sometimes, mainly out of innocent curiosity. It’s a very cute scene. Unfortunately from where I was sat, the kiss was always blocked out of my view (I only ever saw the back of their heads) so I’m very much looking forward to the proper and full view of the kiss scene on the DVD ^_^

I wanna mention a scene involving all three of the main boys: If you saw any of the genepro/dress rehearsal pictures then you definitely would’ve noticed that one of the pics is strangely similar to that of the YowaMushi Pedal stage; and you would be correct in thinking such a thing.  The YowaMushi-like scene too did NOT disappoint! It’s so hilarious! They start running and they come down the step and run past the audience and around the back and they do the whole ‘I’ll pull us up the hill! I’ll be the ace!’ etc. and it’s hilarious and so good!

Shane as Noguchi Kazuo:

This kid is adorable! And so well mannered and so professional! Freaking HUGE kudos for him!

I really enjoyed Shane’s (and Yuutarou’s) performance, just because (they) he fits (their) his character so well and (they are) he is so freaking cute!!! I want to take both of them home! Every time it was Shane’s first scene in the stage, you could just feel like atmosphere of every girl and her ovaries in the room explode and just go ‘omg he’s adorable!!

He was spoken of very highly during the aftertalk so jump there so see those comments.

ALSO, MakiChan had a live stream last night and he spoke highly of Shane against and explained how during the rehearsals Shame came all the way from Hiroshima on his own (with his manager) and stayed in a dormitory during the month long rehearsals which is freaking ridiculous! And then during the performances, he and his family stayed in a hotel. MakiChan was like '12 year old me would find it impossible to move all the way to Tokyo and live on my own for a month!’ and I totally agree. And spoke of how mature Shane in and how amazing that is of him. MakiChan also found it difficult to be strict on Shane and Kokoro because of how young they are so he basically told them ‘ask me any questions, whenever you have them and the most important thing is to apologise, if you mess up just apologise, if you’re late just apologise’ which makes him such a good senpai. But he admits he couldn’t find it in himself to scold them because they’re both cute xD also on the final day apparently Shane hugged MakiChan and was trying to hold back tears and asked him to go to Disneyland with him one day - HOW FREAKING CUTE IS THAT! Also Shane saw all the presents MakiChan got every day and was like ‘that must be nice’ and MakiChan said ‘you’ll get them one day too’ awwwwww! My ovaries...

Yuutarou as Shinohara Kouta:

Like I mentioned in Shane’s section; he’s a cute! He’s actually playing my favourite character in the stage and he played him so well and I ran out and got his bromides as soon as the firs performance I saw was finished! His skin is so flawless too! Lucky bugger!

I am very happy about the crossdressing scene and seeing him play such a timid and shy character who’s brain jumps to the wrong conclusion every time. For example, he here’s Kanade and Kaho in Kanade’s room and all he hears is:

Kanade: Does that feel go?

Kaho: That feels great.

Kanade: What about here?

Kaho: Ohhh that hurts a little

Kanade: Okay I’ll be softer

And when Arashi storms into the room, turns out Kanade was just giving Kaho a massage but Kouta totally thinks they’re doing something else.

Speaking of crossdressing(!) Kouta is in a tourquoise schoolgirl outfit and it’s all for a favour for Arashi. And the other three boys join in: MakiChan in a maids dress and these two cute ponytails, Gin in a tartan school skirt and Tom in a long skirt and boob tube top. There’s a musical number then there’s a scene where they’re all talking and during it Tom is going around just pulling up everyone’s skirts and stuff and he puts his head in MakiChan’s skirt xD and Kouta tries hard to keep his skirt down while Tom and Gin pull it up. And then we get Gin who just lets Tom constantly lift it up without any shame. Also one point, Arashi is led on the floor (he’s in a pink cheerleader outfit by the way xD) and Gin just straddles himself above him and almost goes to sit on his face xD what the hell Gin/Kamisato >.<

Also they added in the little ‘Kazu falling for Kouta but he thinks Kouta is a girl’ scene BUT they don’t expand on it, which makes sense because Shane is only 12 years old. BUT I’m happy they added in that little inkling between Kouta and Kazu xD it was a cute moment where Kazu is like ‘I know I’m in love!’

Another scene I liked was right at the beginning when timid Kouta greets Kaho and she thinks he’s the landlord and she goes into a daydream and Yuutarou spins around and suddenly becomes 

Yuutarou is so open and direct in real life which is a great contrast to his character. Yuutarou is hilarious in how direct he was with his opinions and stuff, especially towards Kamisato xD he’s still young and it’s his first stage too, and he’s so cute and adorable. He’s definitely a character - see the AfterTalk section for more.

Ono Kento as Taga Atsushi:

Ono played Taga perfectly and I’m kind of glad they didn’t really put the whole ‘Taga liking and forcing himself on Kaho’ plotline into the stage. The furthest they go is when Arashi and Kouta find Taga confronting Kaho about Kanade and the age difference and Arashi is just like ‘he can’t leave he alone even though he wants to because he’s likes you’ but Taga constantly denies it and when Kouta hears this he gets so sad and is like ‘YOU LIKE HER?! *sigh*’

Ono is always a great actor and his slight lisp is always cute too xD

I kinda want to see him stop playing such serious characters or at least characters who deliver comedy very dryly. He’s so funny in real life (see the AfterTalk) and he’s a really interesting guy so I want to see him do different characters.

Tanaka Ryousei as Nagasawa Arashi:

I feel that the shining stars of the show are definitely Tanaka Ryousei as Arashi and Hoshino Yuta (previously known as Furukawa Yuta) as Daikoku. 

For some reason, my brain has REALLY low expectations of Third Season Tenimyu boys, which is completely illogical and I don’t understand why my brain thinks in such a way because I’ve never been disappointed in them during their time in tenimyu or even now. I’ve seen many 3rd Season boys in other things once they’ve graduated/left Tenimyu and I’ve enjoyed them every time(!)

So seeing Ryousei in this and seeing him being so freaking hilarious and being this extreme, silly, over-the-top character and seeing him perform the humour so perfectly, I was super impressed because of my silly brain and it’s assumptions that I can’t shake. He plays Arashi so perfectly too, and maybe even better than the characterisation in the anime! I’ve already mnetioned a lot of his scenes when discussing the other actors so I don’t have much left to say.

But I do wanna talk about the character himself in case you don’t know. Arashi is a university kid who is obsessed with dolls and young boys (especially when they’re dressed in girl clothes) WHICH is why Yuutarou and co end up in girl clothes at one point because Arashi asks them to so he can take lots of pictures of them. He also has a thing for Kazu and every time he sees him he’s like ‘he’s so cute! *takes picture* even from the back!’. One time he even says ‘Kaho, can you take Kazu swimming with you one time and let him wear a (girls) swimsuit and let me take pictures of you both? I’ll give you the money, you just choose which swimsuit is best for him!’ and she’s like ‘no!!!!’ xD

Another scene involving all the boys is when they’re playing with Arashi’s dolls while Arashi and Kaho talk (I have no idea what they talk about because I always paid attention to the boys at the front of the stage playing). In the Night show, MakiChan put the dolls into sitting positions and then put them on each of the boys’ shoulders. Then he put his doll on Kazu’s head and Shane continued his line and continued to stand up as the doll was on his head and the audience were making noises worried it would drop as he moved but it didn’t ^_^ in the Afternoon show halfway through the scene we heard this POP and one of the dolls legs had come off. I think it was Gin who did it BUT MakiChan kept holding them and because of this it ruined his line at the end because the audience just died of laughter and drowned out his line and he started laughing too. At the end of the scene Kazu would always say ‘I’m sorry we broke your doll’ << talking about a doll they’d ruined much earlier  - but in the Afternoon show it had a double meaning and caused more laughter from the audience; I don’t even think Ryousei had realised the doll was broken because he was at the back of the stage talking to Kaho while it happened.

Hoshino Yuta as Nikaido Daikoku:

Both of Tanaka and Hoshino’s selling points are definitely their comedy and comedic timing in this stage: they're absolutely hilarious!

The entire last 15 - 20 minutes of the stage are just stolen by Hoshino and his comedy. The audience never stopped laughing. Hoshino has a talent to make the funniest faces. He spends his time being possessive of his sister Kaho and everytime Kanade goes towards Kaho or turns his back away from Hoshino, Hoshino would just pull faces of disgust towards him and it was hilarious - I am not doing it justce! And when kanade would turn back he’d immidiatly pull a nice face again. And when Kaho and Kanade are seriously talking at the end Hoshino goes around the stage and everyone is just dying of laughter and paying attention to him instead xD

Seriously, I cannot wait to rewatch Hoshino’s part in this stage on DVD over and over again. It’s definitely worth the wait to watch the first 70 - 80 minutes of the play to finally see his perforamnce. He is gold. He also had adlibs every day. So Kanade and him decide to have a show down as to who should take and deserves Kaho and so Kanade decides on the game Daruma-san ga Koronda AKA Red Light, Green Light AKA Statues AKA I don’t know the name of this. It’s similar to ‘What Time Is It Mr Wolf?’ if you’ve ever played that. And so Kanade tries to catch them (Daikoku, Taga and Kaho) out but it takes too long so he speeds up ‘Daruma-san ga KoronDA! da! da! da da da da da’ and then we enter Hoshino’s adlib of the day.

The Night show Hoshino did a Terminator adlib; he sang part of the song while saying “I’ll be back. 私は夏歩さんを必ず守り抜く！ガシャンガシャーーン! // I’ll be back. I’ll definitely save Kaho! *makes transform noises*” MakiChan just died of laughter and I could see his back bouncing up and down as he laughed. Finally he could speak “who the hell is this guy?”

The Afternoon show Hoshino went into a song of his own saying “In the city my beautiful sister Kaho was *forgets the next part and pauses, causing laughter from everyone including MakiChan* dumped which sucks! It’d be great if her ex-boyfriend would leave!!! Kaho, let’s live together instead!” MakiChan replies “You tried your hardest to come up with that didn’t you?” xD

Absolutely gold.

Gomoto Naoya as Takahashi Shuugo:

I’m so upset at how little stage time he got BUT his dynamic with MakiChan (especially during the Afternoon show) was so good and he played the papa role very well and he was very comedic and got an adlib about whatever plant or flower he was gardening that day and what the flower/plant’s name meant. I also really like the scene when Kaho faints and she has a dream where Kouta is some sadist, mean guy and hits people with a club, and Taga has become this really nice and cutie guy, he even does the cat pose and says nyan and then we have Naoya in this animal dog print onesie and in a grumpy man voice and it’s very funny! I wish he’d had more stage time though =[ I love Naoya. His outfit was NOT falttering by the way; he’s in a sweat suit and it really does age him. Doesn’t show the shape of his body well at all =[ it isn’t flattering. My poor Naoya.

Ensemble: Hanatsuka Rentarou and Kitagawa Yuuya: 

 The two ensembles guys really did a great job. I recognised Rentarou at least and pretty sure I’d seen Yuuya before. They did a variety roles and they were great and had comedic moments themselves. During the crossdressing scene these two come out in a nurses outfit and a chinese dress and they’re supposed to look awful and it works really well. They really do look (in the words of Yuutarou in the AfterTalk) ugly in that scene. In the Afternoon show, they both came over to my side of the audience and crouched down at the sides and spoke to some of the girls and made jokes xD There’s essential to the cast and definitely weren’t just some forgettable ensemble.

MUSIC and  AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

I’ve mentioned the songs and the music a few times but I feel it needed its own section. The songs in this are amazing! They’re so fun and comedic and so enjoyable and a lot of them allow the audience to join in either shouting or clapping and the actors run around the audience while they sing or do poses and stuff. It’s very interactive and participation is needed. It’s definitely the most interactive stage I’ve been to and it was so much fun!!

I don’t think they’ll bring one out but I’d really, really love a CD of all the songs on it. Even if they don’t, once the dvd is out I am ripping the songs and putting them into MP3s! << do we still say MP3s(?). I mean audio files!

TUESDAY NIGHT’S AFTERTALK

The aftertalk was MakiChan, Kamisato, Yuutaro and Ono!

Before the aftertalk even started, during the curtain call MakiChan said “本日は帰りの会と言う名のアフタートークがあります。今日残ってくれる人は… // After this is an AfterTalk, Those participating are....“ but we thought he was talking to the audience and half the audience put their hands up, including me, which Naoya noticed and went “wow that’s not a lot of people” and then MakiChan realised what had happened “Not the audience!! I meant which out of US!”

The aftertalk was naturally a shambles and non-stop hilarity also. There were five questions that they got asked (from the audience) in the aftertalk:

1. What’s your favourite scene or part?

Kamisato: The fact we can say unko/poop and chinko/penis. MakiChan: We don’t normally say it right... this stage was probably the first time I properly used and said those words. Yuutarou: I really like Arashi’s doll scene. I think Arashi is actually the nicest. He’s a huge perv but in that scene he really shows how nice he is. Ono:  Why can’t I dressup as a girl (in this stage)? MakiChan: You wanted to do it?! Then why don’t you do the dance now. Yuutarou stood up and brought Ono to the center of the stage and taught him the dance he does in the crossdressing scene. But Ono couldn’t really do it so went “I give up” and sat back down xD

2. Who’s the most childish or doesn’t act their age?

Yuutarou: Well it’s obvious (who’s the most childish) * immediately pointed to Kamisato* Kamisato: Why me?! Yuutarou: Ryousei aisthe same level as Kamisato. もう、ほんとにバカで心配になる // You really are an idiot, it’s concerning Kamisato: WHY?! What?! Why me?! MakiChan: The person who acts older than their age.... Shane. He’s only 12 but he’s really proper and mature. Kokoro as well, being only 13 but acts properly. Only the young ones are act mature... But Shane is cute right?! During rehearsals he came in with Jinroh Game on his mobile and was really excited about it. We played it a lot. Everyone agreed on Shane’s cuteness. MakiChan: How about out of us four? Ono: とりあえず一番低いのは決まってるじゃん(神里)。あとオレとまっきーって同じくらいの高さじゃない？  // Well it’s already decided who the most childish is (Kamisato) and I think Mackey and me are the same level. Yuutarou: あー、分かるかも。何かしっかりする時はして、バカな時はバカって感じ  // I get what you mean. You act appropriately when you two have to be but you’re also idiots when it’s okay to be.” Which is something I can personally relate to ^_^ Kamisato: Yuutarou is pretty calm for his age. But backstage he always joins in on ‘Get You’ (MakiChan’s final solo song in the stage)  MakiChan: You join in on my song?! Yuutarou: I really like the song. The ‘Nai nai na~i’ and the ‘Get you!’

3. Who looked the cutest in the crossdress?

Ono: *to Yuutarou* You’re gunna pick yourself ain’t ya Yuutarou: No! Well... hmmm... BUT(!) did you see the two ensemble guys? They’re super ugly (in that scene)! Everyone: That’s mean! MakiChan: But you’re right... with that hair and that nurse and chnese dress outfit... Yuutarou: I was shocked at how ugly they were the first time I saw them, so I was determined to look better than at least them two. Kamisato: Well we never get a chance to wear skits really do we, so it was fun (to wear them). I wanna always wear one. MakiChan: I don’t really get it but... Yuutarou: Gin’s ugly ain’t he. Kamisato: Wait, what?! Yuutarou: Before we tried Gin with a pink skirt but it was just... it looked so bad! Kamisato: well that’s rude! *laughs* Yuutarou: So now he wears blue. He looks alright in blue. MakiChan: Who do you think Kento-kun? Ono: I think Ryousei looks the best. The other three: What? Ono: His legs are long and pretty, it’s kinda sexy. MakiChan: sexy? *laughs* ... Kamisato: Tom looks cool doesn’t he. MakiChan: Yeah he does with the long skirt and everything... I wanted to properly wear the skirt with those frilly white pants but I don’t have much time (between scenes) so I just keep what I have on completely. Gin has black underwear on right? Kamisato: Yeah I do. But after this (stage finishes), we won’t have a chance to wear skirts again. I want to wear them more. MakiChan: Then do it. Kamisato: I want to but when... MakiChan: You can... at home. Kamisato: If I do that, won’t it be weird?!

4. Have you ever kept a secret from your parents, even if it later got found out or not?

MakiChan: If I say something (now that) I’ve never revealed, my mother’ll be on my twitter going ‘why did you hide this from us?!’

Mainly they spoke about how they’d hide from their parents that there was a girl they liked. But Ono couldn’t relate, saying he was a straight forward kid and never lied. Yuutarou agreed he has that kind of image about him xD  But Ono admitted that he would ignore girls that he liked, everyone else was like ‘ignore?! why?’ and couldn’t understand until he said ‘because I was embarrassed’.

5. If you could go back to being an Elementary School kid, what would you do?

MakiChan: Ono is there anything you’d wanna do? Ono: Dodge ball! Dodge ball! Kamisato: So blunt.

As you can see, Kamisato got so much abuse from mainly Yuutarou and he got called バカ  (idiot) and ブス (ugly) but all in a lovable manner and in the right context.

ATTENTION AND CREDIT: All the tweets and Japanese are thanks to this tag and this tag, and mainly these guys 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and all photos are credit to the press sites linked at the top!

GOODS

LOOK HOW CUTE YUUTAROU IS!!! And I got so lucky with the randoms and the trades! ^_^

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And there we have it! Hope you enjoyed that (once again essay) review!