#I have no sources beyond what my parents said

[coredesignixandnekonee]

The way I heard it(admittedly unreliably), he got is some political hot water (around Werner Von Brown, mom said) and stopped *publishing* his songs, but never stopped making them. I also heard his USC mathematics classes started really hard to drive away the people there just because he was a big name in music.

I cannot overstate how much I love Tom Lehrer's story. It sounds so fake but is entirely real.

He's a goddamn genius- he started studying mathematics at Harvard when he was 15 and graduated magna cum laude. He worked at Los Alamos for a few years before being drafted and working for the NSA, where he claims to have invented jello shots to get around alcohol bans.

He then went back to Harvard for a couple years before starting to teach political science at MIT.

Through all of that, he was writing and performing both some of the funniest shit you'll ever hear (Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Masochism Tango) and absolutely scathing political satire (Who's Next, Wernher von Braun, Send the Marines). Until the mid/late 60s counterculture gained momentum. He didn't like their aesthetic, so he stopped making music.

Shortly after, he moved to California and started teaching math and musical theater history at the UC Santa Cruz for the next 30 years.

I don't know if non-Californians understand just how goddamn funny that is. It's where stoners and math (and now computer science) kids who couldn't get into Berkeley go. Leaving Harvard/MIT for UCSC is peak academic phoning it in. And by all accounts he had a blast.

Plus the whole putting all of his music in the public domain thing. That fucked.

[outofconcheol]

The Sun Also Rises (LMH x F!Reader)

pairing: dancer!Minho x ballerina!reader (afab)

genres/au/rating: smut, fluff, some angst, strangers to lovers, travel au, 18+

summary: sometimes, one night is all it takes to change everything. and that's where Minho meets you.

warnings: pov switches, feelings of burnout and poor mental health discussed, alcohol, swearing, alcohol, kind of a language barrier (Minho can understand but is bad at speaking English), lots of tension, they're literally idiots I can't, Hyunjin being the voice of reason, Kento Yamazaki also makes a cameo (twinnn where have you been)

word count: 8k

a/n: consider this my early bday gift to me (and Minho), since both of our bdays are coming up in October. this is based on the film Before Sunrise. I'm very happy with how this fic turned out, it feels very me, so i hope you enjoy! thank you to Beezy @hobeemin for the lovely banner!

smut warnings under the cut!

smut warnings: sexual tension abound, lots of kissing (too much for two people who just met), grinding, beach sex (be cautious when attempting irl), nipple play, fingering (f!receiving), pull-out method (again be cautious and wrap it before you tap it), cumshot

The night breeze rustles through the trees, and even though it's late, the city teems with life. Whispers can be heard around every corner, the clinking of wine glasses muddled with the sound of laughter. Minho’s stomach rumbles, the warm, spicy scent of paella wafting from somewhere nearby, and he remembers he hasn’t eaten since this morning.

For a brief moment, he misses the food back in Korea – the deep, earthy flavour of a steaming pot of doenjang jjigae from his eomma’s kitchen. He should really call his parents – they’d probably want to know how their son ended up lost and halfway across the world, stumbling through Gracìa on an empty stomach. 

To be fair, Minho didn’t even know himself. If he was Hyunjin, he could have said that he was attracted to the abstract, flowing architecture of Gaudì, and he wanted to study it. Maybe if he was Jeongin, he’d point to the numerous shops and boutiques that lined the streets of Barcelona, a fashion lover’s paradise. 

But he was Lee Minho –  a failed dance school drop-out, kicked out of his own crew because one day, the music had just stopped. And so did he, frozen in the middle of the routine, before he made a break for it and ran. The weak link in the chain. A note slightly out of tune. 

The discordance of it all didn’t escape him – being here in such an enchanting city, when inside it felt like he’d stumbled and stumbled until he wasn’t even sure if he’d ever be able to dance again. 

And he only had himself to blame.

The streets continue to wind, Minho’s sluggish feet under their spell, going wherever they lead. He remains a prisoner to his thoughts, the sights melding into a blur around him, until suddenly, he hears it. Around the corner.

Music.

And not just any kind – real music. The jovial sound of a live band, so different from the synthetic beats he was used to when it came to choreographing. His feet have a mind of their own, entranced and leading him straight to the source of the sound.

The scene he stumbles into is beyond what he could have imagined for this time of night – under a canopy of twinkling lights, were dancers. Dancers everywhere, twirling and prancing like they were out of a storybook, perfectly in tune with the music. 

Minho ducks behind a tree, his foot tapping in sync to the beat, and watches them dance, their toes skipping from right to left as they move back in forth in a circle. It’s beyond captivating, and he longs to join them. 

He wonders if they recognize him as one of them, or if he seems like just another plain tourist, happily enjoying the feeling of getting lost in a foreign city. 

The circle stalls, the music changing into a slower, more enthralling lilt, to signal the entry of someone new. Minho’s eyebrow quirks when the sea of people parts, the moon’s spotlight now on a solitary figure. 

His breath catches in his throat as he spots you – nimble movements a stark contrast to the rustic giddiness of the common crowd. He knows you must be classically trained – movements precise and ethereal, your meticulous form a stark contrast to the fluidity that surrounds you. He’s spellbound with the way you move – a vision of grace, so different from the swift, powerful movements he was used to executing, watching how the music takes hold of you, like you’re a marionette on strings, letting it lead you wherever you need to go.

Time ceases to exist the longer he watches, taken with the elegant lines of your body, a smile pulling at his lips. He’s so lost in his mind that he doesn’t notice when the music stops, until he feels the rustle of a figure next to him.

Minho turns in surprise, and tumbles backwards into the tree.

It’s you. The dancer.

Your doe eyes look up at him in concern, and it’s only then that Minho feels the sharp twang of pain from colliding with the sturdy trunk, rubbing gingerly at his shoulder.

“Are you always this clumsy?” Your lips curve in a lovely grin, and Minho feels his ears grow hot.

“I’m sorry, I’m new here, I didn’t…” he manages to choke out, too drawn in by the way your eyes sparkle with amusement and mischief.

“Sooo, should I call you New Here, or…” you trail off, and Minho pauses, a few silent breaths passing between you before he finally gets it. His name. You were asking for his name.

“Minho.”

“Ah. Minho. I’m ____.”

“You dance well,” Minho manages to blurt out. 

The words felt heavy on his tongue, like it’d been ages since he’d talked to someone unfamiliar, too caught up in his comfortable ways. His schedule had been simple. Eat, sleep, dance, repeat. And of course go home to feed the cats. But being here felt like challenging everything he’d known.

“You noticed?” You raise an eyebrow in question, and Minho can tell that you’re wondering whether he’s being genuine or saying it just to say it. You were probably used to it – fleeting tourists who flirted for a brief moment before disappearing into the night, too captivated by your beauty to act reasonably.

Maybe he was a fool then too.

“I dance as well. Not here though. Back home. It’s different,” he steps closer, heart warming when you don’t back away, honoured that he’s won your trust. Dance was a language he could always speak, no matter where he was in the world.

“Different isn’t always bad,” you reply, tilting your head curiously. “What do you dance?”

“Hip-hop,” he rambles, feeling his shyness dissipate when you tune in to the conversation. “It’s not like you, I mean you were–, wow, but I like to tell stories. When I dance.”

He feels himself grow warm at his stilted words, silently cursing the fact that he hadn’t taken Chan up on those English lessons when he’d met up with him for coffee last time. But he never imagined he’d be here.

Your smile only grows as you nod your head along with his words, understanding exactly what he meant.

“So, Minho, what brings you here? To Barcelona.”

Minho bristles, unsure how to answer the question. There were so many reasons, and you were a complete stranger. Did he dare reveal the truth?

“Here, I can be lost, I think,” Minho whispers, hoping you’ll know he means in more than ways than one. “Seoul is different. I think too much. The noise hurts.”

“I know exactly what you mean. I moved here six years ago, and sometimes it feels like I’m living inside a painting. It’s both magical and lonely sometimes.”

A flicker of relief washes over him. You understood him. Minho had been searching for so long for someone who understood – his friends could comfort him, but they didn’t really get it. The paralysis he felt. 

“You’re kind. Kind and good at dancing,” he grins shyly, bunny teeth poking through his lips.

“You’re good with words,” you tease back. “You should have been a writer instead.”

“Too late for that now,” Minho sighs, his entire figure slumping, and he watches you freeze. He wants to tell you it’s not your fault he feels this way, that you didn’t do anything, but the words remain clogged in his throat.

“Well it’s barely 10pm. I wouldn’t say it’s that late,” you say, voice filled with warmth, and Minho slowly comes back to himself, giving you a chuckle.

“Can I, you, we, go somewhere? Together?”

Minho watches you pause for a moment, scared that what he’d offered caused you to hesitate. But something about you made him want to keep talking to you, even if it was only for tonight.

“Sure, I’d love to.” He watches your eyes scrunch in enthusiasm. “I can show you some of my favourite places around the city.”

You beckon to him with a hand, gesturing to the shadowy streets. Minho gulped – this was the biggest risk he’d taken since being here, almost a risk as big as leaving Korea. But with the way you’d captured him from the very first moment he’d seen you tonight, he wondered if it might just be one that paid off.

The night air hums with a new kind of energy as Minho follows you through the streets – whereas before, it all seemed a blur, now the city had truly come alive in his eyes. He peered through the windows of every building you passed, watching happy patrons laugh with each other, the heady buzz of alcohol in their veins.

Minho’s stomach only grumbles louder at the thought of booze, a pang of hunger hitting him. Embarrassed, he braces a hand around his stomach, hoping you haven’t caught on —

But you’re more perceptive than he gives you credit for, already turning around to face him.

“Okay, I definitely know where we need to go first,” you flick his arm, and Minho yelps at the surprising amount of force in the tiny jab. “You can’t dance on an empty stomach.”

Minho wants to tell you that he’d never planned on dancing at all, wasn’t even sure if he could anymore, but you’re forging ahead, on a mission.

A couple of blocks later, and Minho is hit with a tantalizing array of scents – the zing of freshly ground spices, the florality of fresh fruits, and the richness of cooked meats.

“Welcome to one of my favourite places in Barcelona,” you grin, gesturing to the wide variety of stalls laid out in front of you both. “Please take your pick.”

Minho knows exactly what he wants, heading straight for a stall serving paella. He’d passed too many damn places with the stuff already, he wasn’t going to miss out on it this time.

You following along, practically skipping with him, eyes alight with excitement.

Minho falters when the kind old gentleman running the stall greets him with an ¡hola!.

“I, uh, uno, por favor,” he stutters, ears burning with embarrassment. 

You step in, gracefully saving Minho from his shame, quickly tittering off a huge order to the stall owner, and Minho feels himself relax.

“He said it’ll take a little bit for the food,” you tell him. “Do you want to explore for a bit?”

Bobbing his head yes, Minho wishes he could so badly take your hand as you weave through the market. But he wasn’t sure if you’d find that overstepping. Whatever he felt, all he knew was that the night seemed endless in the best way, full of possibilities.

The loud voices of the vendors and the clanging of different pots meld together like s symphony in his head, and Minho feels his cold limbs fill up with warmth. Maybe, just maybe, he’d come out of this trip being able to dance again.

Out of the corner of his eye, Minho sees something that makes him stop in his tracks. He taps you on the shoulder, and your face falls with concern, but when you turn to see what he’s pointing at, your eyes light up again.

“Hola,” Minho approaches the flower stall more confidently this time. The fresh scent of many different blooms makes him think of his mother’s garden in Korea, full of mugunghwas. He sees the brilliant hue of a bouquet of red carnations, and silently puts up a finger, his eyes darting to you.

The lady running the stall understands him immediately, her eyes gleaming with excitement. She grabs one from the bunch, taking special care to trim the stem. Minho rummages around in his pocket for some spare change, handing the lady more than she probably charged him for, but his heart thuds as he turns around, holding the flower out.

“For you,” he says shyly. “You’re a good guide.”

He watches your lips part in a surprised oh!, and your entire face changes colour when he holds out the flower, suddenly becoming just as shy.

“Oh Minho, you shouldn’t have… thank you.”

You take the flower from him, thumbing at the soft petals and inhaling the sweet scent. You’d received hundreds of flowers in your lifetime, huge bouquets filled with every single kind you could think of, but somehow Minho’s humble gift of a single stem makes you feel the most special. Like he actually sees you.

The two of you remain there for a few moments, unable to follow the exchange with words, until you catch the lady from the stall eyeing you both curiously.

“I think… I think maybe we should go eat,” you finally manage to breathe out, breaking the haze of the exchange. You weren’t sure why it had been so charged, a still moment amidst the hectic market, but it felt like something you’d want to hold on to.

"___?” Minho looks at you, his voice soft. “I’m glad I came here. With you.”

You met his gaze, heart beating just a little faster. 

"Me too."

Belly full, Minho follows you again through the city. Anyone looking at the two of you would think he was a little lost cat, following you around. But really, it was the opposite. Something about him made you want to stay with him. In your six years in the city, you hadn’t made very many friends. You chalked it up the the demanding nature of your job, saying you were always tired after dance practice and your feet were sore from wearing pointe shoes 85% of the time.

But you knew that was mostly an excuse. Right here, right now, it felt nice being with someone. Sharing things with someone. It only made you think of what would happen when the night would end, and Minho would leave, your loneliness welcoming you into the abyss once more.

Turning the corner, you spot it. The cozy bar was tucked away on a quiet street, its silence punctuated by the soft clinking of glasses.

Pushing the wooden door ajar, you lead Minho into the small, quaint space, filled with flickering candles and the scent of citrus and spices. The bartender sees you come in, waving a hand in greeting, and his grin only widens more when he sees Minho trail in behind you.

“Hello Kento,” you wave back, and Minho pauses again, studying the man across the bar.

“おはようございます (ohayu gozaimasu),” Minho’s low voice rumbles among the quiet din of the bar, and your jaw drops open in surprise. Minho does nothing but wink, moving to a quiet corner to pull out a chair for you.

Kento comes by to take your order, tempting you both with some of the fine-label vermouth he keeps under the bar, and you watch Minho quietly converse with him for a few moments, exchanging hushed words in Japanese.

His voice is pretty, you think. In another life maybe he could have been a singer.

“You’re full of surprises,” you tease him, watching him fidget with his napkin. 

“Tokyo is close by to Seoul,” he shrugs like it’s nothing. “And I like to watch animes.”

“Where did you come from Minho? Why haven’t we met before?” You give him a wide grin.

Minho becomes quiet, his handsome face marred by what seems to be a dark cloud.

“Leaving Korea was not my plan,” he manages to grunt. “I have things there. My cats. An apartment. Dancing.”

“So what made you do it?” The words slip out, and instantly you regret them, watching pain twinge on his face. You’d hit an unexpected nerve.

“I’m looking for something,” he admits. “I don’t know what it is. My friend Hyunjin told me about Barcelona.”

“Well I think we were always meant to meet then. Hyunjin sent you to me so I can help you,” you reach over, grabbing his hand within yours. Under the dim light you study it – muscled and with prominent veins. He had a dancer’s body for certain. “Us lonely dancers only have each other to rely on huh?”

“Dancing made me happy. I, uh, what’s the word, like clothes, they–” he stumbles through his thoughts, but you don’t need him to voice them.

“Fit. It makes you feel like you belong.”

“Not anymore.”

“Why?” you blurt out, instantly regretting it when he recoils. “I’m sorry Minho, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, no it’s okay.”

Kento swings by then, with two glasses of vermouth, rich, and slightly sweet with a hint of bitterness. Watching Minho knock back the alcohol, you see his body loosen up, instantly feeling the tension from the previous conversation melt away.

“Have you ever had a bad dance?” Minho asks, brown eyes glimmering with interest.

“Oh, many times,” you respond with a light laugh. “One time, when I just moved here, I slipped during a performance of Swan Lake in front of a huge crowd. I locked myself in my apartment for a week.”

Minho chuckles, but then leans in, like he’s genuinely concerned. “How did you recover?”

You know he’s probably talking about the smarting ankle you must have had, but you think he means more.

“I walked in the next week and continued dancing like nothing happened, But it took time to get over. The pressure to be perfect can be overwhelming sometimes.”

Minho nodded, understanding the weight of expectations when it came to doing what you both loved. 

“I want to let go,” he says, gaze softening. “But it’s hard.”

“I believe in you, Minho. You’ll find the music again.”

“For you, I’ll try,” he teases softly, but you can hear the hint of determination in his voice.

Your eyes met, and for a moment, the air between you crackled. You realize this entire time, you hadn’t let go of Minho’s hand. And he hadn’t made you either. Pulling him up with you, Minho yelps in surprise, barely having a second to wave goodbye to Kento before you’re dragging him through the door, back out into the cold night.

“I think I know something that may help.”

Buzzing from the alcohol, you drag Minho deeper into the neighbourhood, the glow of the streetlights casting a warm golden hue over the cobblestones. 

Heat radiates from where his palm meets yours, a soft breeze helping to calm the racing of your heart. Eventually, you hear it – the echo of a faint tune reverberating from the nearby buildings, and you know you’re almost there. A group of street musicians come into view, their lively jig fading away to a slower, more sensual melody.

“You’ve been talking this entire time about being bad at dancing, but I haven’t seen you actually do it,” You giggle, eyes gleaming with mischief. You take a few steps towards the middle of the square, beckoning Minho with a playful grin. “Come on.”

You watch Minho stall, and your heart races, thinking maybe you messed up. Maybe it was too soon for him, maybe he was scared and didn’t want to try again.

“Here? In front of everyone?” he replied, chewing nervously at his lip. 

“Why not?” you challenge. “Forget everyone else. It’s just you and me. Two people who love to dance.” 

You squeeze Minho’s hand in yours, squealing in shock when he pulls you close to him, arm wrapping around your waist. Leaning into his chest, you inhale his warm, woody scent, feeling yourself shiver.

“Okay,” he sighs. “But don’t think badly of me.”

“I could never,” you whisper into his neck.

Minho chuckles at that, stepping back to dramatically bow, before sweeping you into his arms once more. You move into the open space of the plaza, surrendering to the rhythm as the notes of the music envelope you both. Pressing lightly into Minho, your hand comes to rest in the soft hair at the nape of his neck.

“Tell me more about you,” you breathe against his lips. “I want to know.”

“My cats, they’re called Soonie, Doongie and Dori, they live with me in my apartment,” he smiles, pride taking over his expression when he thinks of them. “You?”

You twirl free from him, dress flaring for a moment,, then spin back, hand finding his once more.

“My mother was a ballet dancer. She hurt herself when I was young and could never dance again. It’s why I chose to follow her,” you admit, finally letting yourself break free from the walls you’d built.

You let your arms float gracefully above your head, marveling at the way you and Minho moved together. His movements  were fluid and free, a sharp contrast to your precision, bodies weaving together like the finest tapestry. The air between you crackled, the pull between you like two halves of a magnet.

“You’re beautiful,” Minho says, his gaze intense as it meets your eyes, then travels, to your lips, down your neck, even further. You feel a throb between your legs, sparks erupting across your skin everywhere he touched. 

The heat between you was palpable, an electric current that seemed to pulse with every beat of the music. The world no longer felt as big or scary anymore, narrowed down to the two of you, everything else fading into the background. 

Suddenly, the scene around you spins, and you’re looking up at the stars, Minho’s face hovering above yours. You lean in, lips ghost against his jaw.

“Am I distracting you, Minho?” His breath caught at your query, and he sighs, drinking in the subtle scent of your skin.

You gasp when he spins you around, back meeting his front. Shivers run up your spine when he leans in, chuckling in your ear.

“Yes, but I like it,” he groans, low voice ringing in your ears, and everything around you fades as you begin to move together. Hips swaying side to side, Minho’s palms settle below your waist, so close to where you need him, and you whine softly. Even though you’re turned away, you can feel his smirk in your ear, and it all feels like it’s too much. Yet you don’t want it to stop.

The haze lifts with one particular thrust of his hips into you. A small moan leaves your mouth, and everything clears, and your heart begins to race. Shakily, your eyes meet Minho’s, surprised to find them blown out in deep pools of lust.

Minho’s shaking fingers cup the line of your jaw, his lips pressing against yours. You comd your fingers through his hair, sighing against him, finally giving in. He kisses you first with the utmost gentleness, pulling back to search your eyes for anything wrong.

Despite the chill in the night air, you’ve never felt warmer.

When you nod no, Minho leans in again, his previous gentleness giving way to hunger, the tip of his tongue gliding past your lower lip, sighing at your taste. You feel like you’ll keel over if he’s not holding you, all the blood in your body rushing away from your head.

When he finally pulls away, breathless and wide-eyed, you feel your words clogged in the back of your throat.

“I-,” you struggle, seeking brief respite from the emotions coursing through you, but not wanting the moment to end.

“I didn’t expect this night to turn out like this,” you admit, voice barely above a whisper, filled with awe.

“I’m glad it did,” Minho replied. 

Looking around, you realize the music had long stopped, the band dispersing, no sign that they were even there to witness you and Minho’s dance.

“Do you have to go?” Minho asks, and his voice sounds impossibly small, like he’s afraid to know the answer.

You pause. So much waited for you ahead – performances, errands, the struggles of daily life in a foreign city. But you decided that right now, you had more than enough time to leave that behind. 

Shaking your head, you nod no, air swirling with the thrill of the unexpected. And you were ready to embrace whatever came next.

Minho feels the breeze ruffle his hair, and lets his eyes close, shoulders sighing in relief. The lapping of the waves against the shore becomes even louder, the sound of traffic and other people fading away. The sand squishes in between his toes, and he lies back on his jacket, looking straight up at the stars.  For the first time since he’d left Seoul, Minho felt completely at peace. Whereas uncertainty scared him before, now he completely welcomed the unknown. After all, it was what had lead him to you.

Minho feels his body heat when he thinks of you two dancing in the square, your face looking up at his, the feeling of your soft lips. It’d been so long since he was last with someone – dance always took over his life, leaving little time for love. But he thinks that maybe he’d been going about it all wrong.

He feels a tap on his shoulder, and he turns to see you lying right next to him on top of your coat. He can feel the warmth radiating from you, your hair tousled by the sea breeze and flying in the wind.

He really wants to kiss you again.

The two of you sit in silence for a moment, letting the rhythmic crash of waves fill in for the unspoken words in between you.

“Hey,” you interrupt the quiet with a whisper, like you’re afraid to shatter the serenity of this moment.

“Hey,” Minho says back, reaching over to brush a stray strand of hair out of your eyes. His fingers linger a little too long on your cheekbone before he drops it.

You stare at him, swirling patterns in the sand between you.

“I get it, you know. How you feel. I feel it every day when I dance. Ballet is beautiful, but it’s also... constricting,” you sigh. “Sometimes I just want to be free – free to dance, to live, to love.”

Minho nods, feeling a lump in his throat. 

“I also want that. But I’m scared. What if I’m free and I’m still not happy?”

There’s a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes, a rawness in his voice. 

“I think happiness finds you when you least expect it,” you say gently, your voice like a gentle pat on the back.

Minho had never expected you at all. But he was glad you were here anyway.

“Can I kiss you?” He manages to choke out, heart racing as he takes in the way the moonlight casts shadows against the curve of your jaw and the softness of your lips. The urge to touch you again felt almost unbearable.

The space between you vanishes, and Minho sees you smile, leaning in closer, and his heart thuds in his chest. He reaches out again, pulling you towards him.

Your lips meet softly, shy and tentative compared to the way he kissed you in the square. It’s as gentle as the lulling of the waves, and Minho feels the world fade away, only able to register the cold sand underneath him, and you. 

As you broke apart, breathless, Minho sees you search his face. 

“What’s on your mind, Minho?”

Minho knows he’s always been pretty poor with words. Chan was the lyrical one in the friend group. Where Minho thrived, and always had, was action. So he decides to show you.

. . . 

Minho leans in again, capturing your lips with a fierce urgency, releasing a euphoric sigh into your mouth. Not wanting to push more than you’re comfortable, he wants for you to respond, fingers carding into his hair, pulling slightly at the strands, warmth blossoming in his chest.

You wonders if he knows you can feel the rapid beat of his heart, his pulse point right there below your fingertips, and you reach for his hand. 

“I want you,” Minho finally manages to say. The words are strained, like he’s been holding them back for too long. 

“I thought it was just me this entire time,” your own voice cracks.” I thought you were just being nice.” 

Because the truth was, you’d wanted him the very first moment you saw him. He may have thought little of himself, but he was a vision in your eyes. A masterpiece to be admired, a person to be cherished.

Minho pulls you into him, body meshing with yours, until you can no longer tell where he ends and you begin. You gasp when you feel his hardness underneath his jeans.

“I am not just nice,” he smiles against your lips. His hands cradle your face, before reaching his arms behind you, fingers ghosting down the the curve of your spine. 

Kicking your shoes off, you feel his fingers run up and under your skirt, skimming against your bare legs and he your breath hitch, chest rising and falling in the pale light of the moon. 

Lips falling to your neck, he inhales your sweet jasmine scent, teeth grazing lightly against the soft skin. You whine into his mouth, hands fisting at the edge of his shirt, struggling to pull it over his head. He slides over you, using one hand to pin both arms behind you, reaching over with the other to slide your your dress down to your stomach, finally peeling it off, and you lie back, eyes alight with desire as you take him in.

The clink of his belt rings in your ears as both your clothes finally finish falling away, and desire pools between your legs. Sliding up against your warm coat, you spread your legs for him, a low hum escaping his parted lips at your messy arousal gleaming on your thighs in the low light. Trailing his eyes back up to your lips, he inches towards you, his breath tickling your bare skin as he leaves kisses on your jaw, your collarbone, in between your breasts. The veins in his arms bulge as his hands come up to cup both your breasts, rubbing your nipples between his fingers until they stiffen, and you let out a soft moan.

The teasing doesn’t stop, his lips enclosing over the hardened buds, messily sucking on them. While it felt amazing, you knew the sun would rise soon, and the time you had with each other was limited. You trap his hand in yours, guiding it to your throbbing clit. He nudges your legs, coaxing you to spread them further, before plunging a finger inside your wet heat, sliding it in and out. Your breath comes out in sharp gasps, your pleas for more being answered swiftly as he slides a second one in, laying his head on your stomach as more and more of your arousal coats his fingers. You mewl, unable to contain your volume as you swallow them deeper, loving the rough drag against your slick walls. His thumb grazes your clit, rubbing it in slow, delicate circles before speeding up, rubbing faster, and his grunts of determination are what push you over the edge as you come.

Breath leaving you in heavy pants, your lips find his desperately, and he teases you with his tongue, his hard cock rubbing up against your wet entrance. You gasp when he pushes in, and he pauses, wondering if it’s too much, but you nod, letting him know it’s okay. He thrusts shallowly, before pushing in all the way, watching you squirm underneath him while rutting your hips.

“Fuck,” he sighs, pushing his cock in deeper, bucking his hips against yours as your nails dig into his back. “You feel so good.”

“Oh my god, Minho, I can’t–, it’s too much,” you groan, rocking against him in an attempt to quell the burning in between your thighs..

“That’s it,” he grunts, trapping your clit in between his fingers, rubbing tight circles until you snap, seeking his lips once again, your orgasm flooding your entire body like a wave. Minho speeds up his thrusts to join you, groaning when he feels himself explode, pulling out and jerking himself off, white ropes of cum splashing against his toned stomach and onto your  stomach before slumping against you.

You can feel his his chest heave with the weight of his breaths, your sticky bodies curled around each other. You begin to shiver from the breeze, and Minho cradles your sticky body in his arms, brushing the damp strands of your hair from your face before pressing a kiss to your shoulder.

“가지마, 나랑 같이 있어 (gajima, narang gatchi isseo)” he whispers against your cheek. You don’t know what the words mean, but you hold them close anyway.

When the first light of dawn washes over the beach, orange and pink and purple poking out from between the clouds, you both know it’s time. It’s hushed – an eerie silence falling in between you and Minho as you scramble to throw your layers back on, the sticky feeling between your thighs a reminder that it hadn’t all just been a dream. 

From the corner of your eye, you see Minho hum absentmindedly to himself, running his fingers through his hair to tame the messy strands, and your heart lurches. 

The silence remains as you bid the sea farewell, the familiar streets of the city you called home greeting you once more. Only this time, you felt like a stranger, unsure of where your relationship stood. You supposed the same could be said for the man next to you.

It takes a few short moments before you’re seated at a café, stirring your coffee pensively. The rich, bitter aroma mixes with the salt from the sea that sticks to your clothes, and you feel nauseous. Across from you, Minho was gazing out at the horizon, his expression pensive.

You knew it was only supposed to be temporary. One of those single brief moments where two strangers met each other, eventually passing like ships in the night, both of them holding onto the memory forever. So why did it hurt so much?

“Are you ready to go back to work?” Minho asked, his voice warm and gentle, snapping you from your thoughts.

“Yeah,” you replied, forcing a smile. “I’ve been rehearsing for weeks. But…” 

You hesitate, heart feeling heavy.

“I know,” Minho finishes your thought. “It feels different this time.”

“I love ballet, I really do,” you continue, voice barely above a whisper. “But dancing isn’t my whole life. I think I’m just like you Minho. I’ve been searching for something real, something that goes beyond the stage.”

You watch Minho’s face twist, like he wants to say something, and you already know he would have asked you if you’d found it. Because he’d been searching for the same thing. It felt so cruel to have it ripped from your grasp the moment the sun began to rise.

You shared a moment of silence, the weight of everything hanging between you. You took a sip of your coffee, but instead of calming you, the warm liquid only makes your heart race.

“What are you going to do?” You asked Minho, watching his face jump to meet your gaze. “After tonight?”

“Go back to Seoul,” Minho struggles to keep his voice steady. “Maybe take a break from dance, to try something new.”

“Do it,” you encouraged, voice wobbling. “You owe it to yourself to explore what brings you joy. Don’t let fear hold you back.”

The café soon begins to fill with the clink of dishes, the laughter of patrons, the aroma of freshly baked pastries. It felt surreal, almost like a scene from a movie.

Minho reached across the table, his hand covering yours. “Thank you ___. For everything. I wish I knew how to say more.”

You squeezed his hand gently, eyes glistening. “You don’t have to say anything. Just promise you won’t forget this.”

You won’t forget me.

While you and Minho labour through finishing your breakfast, the clock behind you continues ticking, each passing second a reminder that time was running out.

By the time you leave, the sun has fully risen, casting a warm glow over the cobblestone streets. Walking side by side, you travel deeper into the city, the streets blurring into each other until you come upon a familiar one. The one that leads to your apartment. It was over. 

“What did it mean?” you ask him, voice tinged with sadness. “What you said on the beach?”

Minho’s smooth voice had lingered in the back of your mind all morning, and you wished you knew Korean, that you could say something back to him. Like he’d tried for you.

Minho looked at you, a hint of a smile on his lips, though his eyes were clouded with emotion.

“I can’t tell.”

Both of you knew it was because it might change everything.

You falter, wondering if you should say something, make a promise to keep in touch, to meet again. But it seems so useless, knowing Minho would probably never come back, and you’d never scrap together the time or money to fly to his side of the world.

You settle for throwing your arms around him, wrapping him in a tight embrace. You bury your head into his neck, committing his familiar scent to memory, wishing it could last forever.

When you pull away, you’re already backing down the street, Minho’s somber expression looking after you.

“I guess this is it,” you said, voice trembling slightly.

Minho nodded, a bittersweet smile on his lips. 

“Take care of yourself, ___.”

The knot in your stomach only grows tighter when you see him step away, tears pricking your eyes. With one last lingering look, he turned and walked away, the sunlight catching in his hair.

As he turned the corner, you whispered a silent wish to the rising sun, that no matter what happened, that Minho would be happy. And that if he was, maybe you could be too.

Adjusting your pointe shoes, the soft strains of music fill the air. You stand on your tip toes, gazing at your reflection in the mirror. What looks back at you looks the same as it always has – perfect form, straight posture, the picture of elegance. But only you know there’s something different now, a wild longing in your heart.

It had been months since that one night with Minho, but he’d never left your mind. Somehow, even though he was oceans away, his ghost trailed after you everywhere you went. When you spun, you could almost feel his hands around your waist, guiding you in a duet. When you came home to your apartment, you wished he was there, the two of you laughing over a cup of coffee. Every time you smelled the ocean breeze, you remembered his lips meeting yours, bodies tangled together in the sand.

He was everywhere and nowhere to be found, all at once.

When practice ends, you chat with your fellow dancers, wishing them a swift goodbye before running out the door.

When the longing built to its worst, you always knew where to go, the warmth of Kento’s bar waiting for you at the end of another rough day. Before, he would tease you, asking where your “special friend who spoke good Japanese” was, but now he only slides a matcha in your direction, his eyes sad while he chuckles about how you needed to cut back on the vermouth.

In a daze, you scroll through your phone, heart dropping when you realized there were no photos of Minho in your phone. The date remained a figment of your memory, like he’d never existed at all. And you had nothing to look back on.

Tears prick your eyes when you realize how stupid you’d been. So caught up in the moment that you hadn’t even thought of asking for his number, or any contact information. There were a million people named  “Minho” from Seoul to wade through every time you opened social media to check.

You wondered if Minho thought of you as often as you thought of him. What was he doing now? Was he happy?

Sighing heavily, you decide you’ll probably never know the answer.

Until your phone buzzes.

. . .

Minho sighs deeply, his muscles aching from another grueling day in the studio. He feels Soonie brush against his feet, his oldest friend curling up into a ball at his feet, and he reaches down to scratch between his ears. Looking out over the balcony, the twinkling city lights of Seoul gleam back at him, but his thoughts are full of another place. And another person. 

No matter how much he immersed himself in his routine—classes, rehearsals, and performances—something felt off. His friends would joke about his trip, saying he’d come back a changed man, like a monk who’d found enlightenment, but his serious expression always shut them down. 

He hears footsteps on the balcony behind him, and Hyunjin comes to sit next to him, holding out a steaming cup of noodles in his hands.

“Eat hyung,” he scolds Minho. “You have to be exhausted from practice today.”

Minho accepts the cup, picking up a few with his chopsticks, but decides he can’t stomach them, staring absently at the cup.

“Hyung, I don’t mean to pry, but,” Hyunjin sounds unsure, like he’s poking a sleeping dragon. “What happened in Barcelona?”

Minho shoots up at Hyunjin’s perceptive question, knowing his pabo face was terrible at hiding things. Especially from his best friend. 

Whereas Minho struggled to find the words with you, they all came flooding out in front of Hyunjin, recalling everything from the moment he saw you to how you continued to linger in his mind even now. How he couldn’t shake you no matter how hard he tried.

Hyunjin listens along, nodding his head in understanding, and finally leans back, brushing a hand over Soonie’s fur.

“Hyung, I know you’re stupid, but like, have you ever thought about just reaching out? Why are you torturing yourself like this?”

“Hyunjin-ah,” Minho pinches the bridge of his nose. “You don’t understand, it’s–”

“Complicated? What is so complicated about it? You like her. It sounds like she likes you. Why waste time on the what-ifs?”

Hyunjin pats him on the back, saying that if the weekend rolls around and Minho doesn’t have an update for him, he’ll threaten to air-fry him.

Minho sighs, taking a deep breath. He pulls out his phone and opens Instagram, thumb hovering over your username. He’d found you right after he’d left of course, easily putting your name and Barcelona together. But he’d never been able to take the final leap to reach out, to build on whatever had started that night.

But now, he decides he’s done wasting time.

When Minho steps off the plane, the air in Barcelona is thick with the smell of orange blossoms and the distant strumming of Spanish guitar. It had only taken a few messages back and forth for you two to fall into the same easy rhythm. Hyunjin teased him for constantly checking his phone for notifications from you, but deep down, he knew that his friends wanted him to chase whatever made him happy.

It hadn’t taken much longer for him to decide to decide to book a flight, seeing an ad for the ballet troupe’s latest performance on your Instagram story. Now, as he watches the streets pass by in the cab, he feels like he might be nauseous, wondering if he’d made the right choice.

But then he thinks back to how one night hand changed everything, and decides that you’re a chance worth taking. 

When he arrives at the performance hall, Minho ducks by the crowd, slipping into the plush velvet seat. Around him, the audience buzzes with excitement, but Minho pays them no mind, his eyes trained on the stage, dark for now.

When the lights go down and the curtains draw back, Minho has to hold in his breath. It was exactly like the first time.

You, in your silver and white costume, gliding across the stage like a wisp of smoke, letting the music lead you wherever you needed to go. Your performance cries with unspoken passion and longing and Minho wonders if all this time, you’ve felt the same way, unable to let him go like he had with you.

Minho doesn’t know if minutes or hours pass before the music finally stops, but he pushes his way through the audience, moving against the crowd to find the backstage exit. To find you.

. . .

“I’m sorry sir, you can’t come back here, this is only for performers…” 

The security guard’s voice booms at the door to the dressing room, and Sakura, your fellow dancer, nudges you, rolling her eyes. A laugh bubbles in your throat, wondering what crazy person had made their way backstage, but then you hear it.

A voice that stops you in your tracks. One you thought you’d never hear again.

“Please, I just need to –, please,” it begs, and you’re up out of your chair before you can even stop yourself.

Pushing past the guard, your eyes widen in disbelief when you see Minho outside. He looks different now, hair longer, and maybe the colour had changed, but the real difference is in his eyes. No longer empty, they light up when they see you.

“Minho?” You whisper, unable to believe that it’s actually real. That he’s actually here.

“Surprise,” he grins, taking a step towards you.

The security guard eyes you both suspiciously, Minho in his long trench and crisp pressed slacks, and you in your sweats, the remnants of your shimmery makeup still lingering on your face, before he slips away.

“What are you doing here?”

“가지마, 나랑 같이 있어 (gajima, narang gatchi isseo). It means that I want you to stay together with me,” he admitted, voice steady despite the whirlwind of emotions churning inside you both. 

Tears of happiness shimmered in your eyes as you moved closer, closing the distance between you two. 

“I thought you were just being nice,” you joke, but it comes out a sob.

Minho took your hands in his, and you feel the warmth radiate from his skin. 

“I am not just nice,” he smiles, reaching over to thumb away a stray tear rolling down your cheek. His lips fill the spot where the tear had once been.

“Come with me,” he whispers against your temple. “I have to show you something.”

. . .

Hand in hand, the cobblestone streets of Barcelona greet you both once more, only this time, everything had changed.

Minho comes to a pause right then, feeling the weight that he’d been shouldering for months finally lift from his shoulder now that he had you in his arms again.

“Do you remember this place?” he asked.

You looked around, a smile spreading across your face as recognition dawned. “This is where we danced that night.”

“Will you dance with me again?,” he poses, his chest  filled with fear and trepidation, but also hope.

You take a step back, sinking into a deep bow in front of him. Minho grins, catchind your hand to spin you back towards him. The world around you faded as you began to move together, time stopping for the both of you.

As he slowed, breathless and beaming, he feels you burrow into the crook of his neck., whispering against his skin.

“Am I distracting you Minho?”

Minho tilts his chin up to meet your gaze, a smirk pulling at his lips.

“Yes, but I like it,” he breathes, closing the gap to crash his lips against yours. “I like you.”

“I like you too, Minho.”

The sun would rise again tomorrow. But this time, you’d be by his side.

a/n pt. 2: this reminds me of Collision!Minho a bit, they're like two sides of the same coin haha. As always, any feedback or comments are much appreciated, but I appreciate you all anyway. Lots of love, Isi 💜

[thethiefandtheairbender]

as a lifelong ATLA fan who narrowly had ATLA dethroned as my top show by The Dragon Prince steadily over the past 5 years, the similarities between the two have very little to do with the surface level parallels that get regularly drawn between them.

Like ATLA, TDP has Books for seasons and chapters for episodes, but unlike ATLA, which only touched on storytelling sparingly as a theme, TDP is obsessed with interrogating storytelling and history and the presence of unreliable, biased narrators throughout many of its episodes (most notably 2x05, 2x06, 3x06, 4x04, and 4x07 among them). Half of what you learn in the 1x01 intro ends up being a lie once you reach S3, with more being steadily deciphered.

Yes, TDP has different magics with people living under those umbrella terms... for the elves. Humans are coming culturally at things from a completely different angle, and the elves' connection to their primal sources are discussed philosophically in detail, informing their practices and their culture first hand, including the way they chafe against humans, who are arcanum-less. Many animals in the world are also connected to magic, which influences both their design and which ones get hunted for humans' more 'clever' solution in dark magic, including each other.

The core issue of the Puppetmaster, down to being a coercive magic formed by someone deeply resentful of their imprisonment? Said puppetmaster is the main endgame antagonist of the entire show with all of S4 onwards being exploring the ethics of controlling people against their will in various methods, and the entire show itself being a thematic battleground of fate (imprisonment) vs free will for virtually every single character.

Where ATLA mostly concerns itself timeline wise with ending the war, very little thought is shown by any of the characters as to what they'll do after the war. This isn't a problem (as it reflects the sheer domineering scope of the conflict) but even Zuko being firelord is only ever really addressed with 2.5 episodes left till the finale. TDP, meanwhile, ends its 'war' in s3 and s4 opens up with dealing with the old wounds festering between people with centuries of history, the struggles that come when people aren't able to let go and believe they're safe or mourn in a healthy manner, and the religious/cultural clashes that may occur when trying to integrate different groups of people.

TDP also has an evil father with a devoted daughter and a brother who eventually defects, but it explores the reality of an abusive parent who loves/will sacrifice for you and your right to leave regardless, even if that means leaving the sibling you truly deeply love and who loves you in turn. Which means that when you and your sibling are on opposite sides of a deep ideological conflict, it actually really fucking hurts bc we've seen first hand just how much they love each other and also how and why everything fell apart not in spite of that love necessarily, but also because of it.

Is this to say that TDP is a 1:1 with ATLA or that it's better? No, not at all, and the latter is subjective. I prefer TDP, but I think they're about on equal ground when you look at each show currently as a whole (although TDP has two seasons left to go).

But TDP takes a lot of what ATLA was doing thematically with some of its most interesting beats and then builds or expands upon them further. It talks further and more consistently about the cycles of violence; in many ways, Jack De Sena's character, Callum, begins the series largely where Sokka had ended (and he's not the most like Sokka anyway; very much his own thing); we get Faustian bargains and centuries' long grief and fucked up people who are trying both succeeding and failing at not doing fucked up things. There are antagonists, but it is very hard to actually label anyone at this point a straight up villain. Moral greyness is where the show starts, and it just continues from there.

That's not to say the show is nothing but dark and depressing - like ATLA, there's a steady thread of hope and humour even as the show gets steadily closer and closer to its 11th hour point - but the show is usually emotionally heavier. There's more blood and potentially disturbing imagery with body horror and on screen death. There's so much foreshadowing you basically can't go more than 5 minutes into any episode without having something that's going to come back around or be referenced again like 3-5 seasons later.

Just to be clear - TDP is like ATLA, but it's like ATLA in interesting ways beyond the more shallow surface level that usually gets attributed to it, while still very much being its own show and its own thing. And that is why I tend to recommend it to people who like ATLA.

Thank you and goodnight

(Also, the fandom doesn't have any ship wars, and the show is queer as fuck)

[wishful-sinful-9]

WANNA BE YOUR DOG

Chapter One

Cagefighter!Logan Howlett x Reader

Chapters | Masterlist

Winter already has its icy grip on the world outside, but in this bar, it’s as hot as the equator.

There wasn’t a shot in hell you would’ve picked this job - bartending in a sketchy underground cage-fighting joint - if it weren't for sheer desperation. Sweaty bodies packed tightly together. Impatient men demanding service everywhere you turn. Grunts and shouts and wails of pain from the cage.

When the fighting was over, the majority of patrons stumbling out the door, you could finally breathe. Wipe down the bartop, wipe away the night.

“Hey, bub, can I get a beer?”

The Wolverine heaves his weary body on a barstool and makes his usual request - the bar owners’ main source of income, the undefeatable beast of a man got a drink free after striking every opponent down with a few swings of his fist. The body hit the floor; another bet was won.

“Here you go.” You avoid his gaze as you pass him the bottle. He grunts his thanks.

A few months ago, you lost your previous job, though fortunately you had a roommate to cover your half of the rent until you found another. Unfortunately, said roommate had already planned on moving out around that same time. Therefore this sad little nightly routine was the only means of avoiding homelessness. What would your parents think, if they were to see you in this dingy, overtly illegal, shithole of a bar? You smile slightly at the thought as you dry off a glass.

Sensing eyes on you, you glance up to meet the Wolverine’s dark gaze, expressionlessly trained on you. Heat creeps into your cheeks and you turn away to pick up another glass.

–

“Shit, shit, shit!”

You slam your car door shut behind you, aborting your fruitless attempts to start it. You wrap your fleece-lined jacket tightly around yourself as you glare at the crappy old piece of metal and go over your options. Option, singular. Walk down a pitch-black icy road. You cuss again and ram a boot into the door.

“You alright there?” A gruff voice from behind startles you.

Turning around, you’re met with the looming presence of the cage fighter, donning a motorcycle jacket, the high collar and angular shoulders making him look even more intimidating. He looks at you with a raised brow.

“Er - well - no, not really,” you stammer out, “my car won’t start.”

“Oh.”

He remains several feet away from you, as if approaching a wild animal. You scuff the toe of your shoe in the gravel like a shy schoolgirl. “Yeah. Um…”

“Would you like a ride?”

He’s offering you a ride.

You shouldn’t. This is a dangerous man; a fighter for a living. And beyond that, you had reason to suspect he might not be just a man. You were sceptical of the idea of mutants, but after watching him take many a vicious blow and emerging without so much as a scrape, you had good reason to believe you were in the presence of one. So you shouldn’t. You really shouldn’t get into the scary guy’s car. Even if your teeth were chattering and your toes numb in your boots. You shouldn’t.

If your parents would be terrified at the sight of your workplace, they’d faint at the sight of you meekly accepting the Wolverine’s offer.

You put all associations of kidnappers with white vans out of your head as you follow him to his. You jam your hands deep into your pockets and clench your jaw tight to prevent the audible chattering. Once in the passenger seat, you breathe a small sigh of relief when the first thing he does after switching on the ignition is turn the heater all the way up.

“Put your hands on it so they can warm up.” He grumbles. You oblige. “Why don’t you have gloves on?”

“I think I left them in my car,” you reply, feeling somewhat foolish. You wonder if making other people feel about two inches tall was a hobby of his or an unconscious habit.

He says nothing. He doesn’t turn the radio on. His eyes remain trained on the road ahead. You glance at him once or twice, but his expression is blank and his mouth is clamped shut. Behind you, you are aware of the narrow bed and minimalistic living set up that brings to you a wave of affection for your one-storey rental that has caused you so much grief these past few months. You had always assumed cage fighting must be pure sport to him, and that there was some daytime job he worked to support himself, but now you're beginning to wonder if his sole income is the bets placed on his fists.

He parks a little way down the opposite side of the road as there are cars in front of your house. You pause with your hand on the door handle, watching him scan the area before grunting, “Iʼll walk you in.”

You fumble with the latch on your gate, letting your hair sweep over your face to disguise your rosy cheeks when he leans over you to do it himself. Taking extra care not to slip on your doorsteps and make an even bigger fool of yourself, you jiggle your key into the lock and turn to face…you don’t know his real name. Oh god.

“Thank you so, so much…”

“Logan.”

“Yes! Logan. Thank you Logan.” You give him an awkward smile as he nods his head, again, expressionless.

He grunts a humble “no problem,” and turns to walk away as you step halfway over the threshold. Your mind returns to his van. The sorry little bed that you’re quite frankly surprised can support his broad stature. Before you can psych yourself out of it, you blurt out: “Wait! I have a spare room?”

He halts, caught off guard. “What?”

“If you wanted to stay the night,” you cringe at the words as you say them, “since you went through the trouble of taking me home. You're welcome to. If you want.”

The silence is deafening. He blinks at you and the sudden urge to shoot yourself in the head is overwhelming. Oh my god, what am I think-

“Alright. If it’s okay.”

–

Naturally, he’d gone to fetch a change of clothes and a toothbrush, and you took the few minutes to shove stray underwear in your laundry basket, bin the empty bottle of wine on your kitchen counter, and clear away the pile of well-loved makeup products cluttering the bathroom sink. You mentally cursed yourself for living like the cover of the Stereotypical Sad Single Female magazine.

A new wave of embarrassment washed over you when you showed him to your roommate’s old room, the bed still made in the comically girly pink floral sheets she had left behind. “Very feminine.” he’d commented.

When you’d hastily excused yourself to bed, you let out a long, self-loathing groan into your pillow.

–

It’s six-thirty in the morning, a blasphemous hour to be awake at, and Logan is trying to be quiet on the other side of the wall, in spite of his ridiculously heavy footsteps. You lie awake as he shuffles to the bathroom, wait until the shower is on, then haul yourself out of bed because part of you worries he'll sneak out like a guilty one-night stand without you getting the chance to atleast make him coffee.

By the time he’s emerged, dressed, from the bathroom you've managed to stick some bacon in a pan and made a pot of coffee. He seems taken aback, and it makes you far more comfortable to know that there's one emotion that can display itself on his stoic face: surprise.

“Sorry if I woke you up.” He glances at you as you set his plate on the table.

“It’s fine,” you reply, sitting opposite. Now that the Wolverine is sat at your dainty kitchen table, he seems less like a man-bashing beast and more like a stray dog you've ushered into your home. Thoughtfully, you begin to eat, suddenly feeling far more able to look at him directly. “Can I ask you something?”

He stops, looking at you slowly. “Ask me what?”

Now or never. You inhale deeply and softly say, “How come you never have a single bruise to show for those beatings you take?”

A pause. He chews his bacon and swallows it carefully, analysing your face.

“Do you really want to know?” his voice is low and eyes narrow. You nod. With a sigh, he sets down his cutlery and lifts a fist - the swift sound of sharp metal being unsheathed cuts through the domestic morning quiet as three knife-like claws protrude from his knuckles. Your eyes widen and your knife and fork clatter onto your plate.

“You’re a-”

“This metal runs through me. I think it’s attached to my skeleton.” He explains, rotating his fist so you can better gawk at the claws. “I can also heal extremely fast. There’s other things too, like my sense of smell being advanced…”

“Like a wolverine,” you say, “apt name.”

He grunts and you absent-mindedly lift a finger to touch the deadly metal, “They’re sharp.” he snaps, retracting them. You sit back quickly. He clears his throat. “Sorry. Just didn't want you to…”

“It’s okay. Ahem…”

You don’t dare ask another question despite the many that were whirring in your mind, feeling that the tension has risen once more surrounding the subject. The two of you eat, in silence again.

Once he has his shoes and jacket on, you show him to the door. In spite of the information revealed at the table, somehow his presence makes you a little less nervous than it did the previous night. He falters in the threshold, turning to you.

“Thanks, for letting me stay and everything,” he says. “You didn’t have to.”

You smile lightly, “It’s no problem, really. Thank you for the ride home.”

He nods, “See you, then.”

“See you, Logan.”

You watch him from the window in your door as he crosses the street, lighting up a cigar. If your parents could see you now.

a/n: so sorry for this shaky writing 😭 this is my first time working on a series and I suckkk at starting things so sorry if this falls a little flat - might go back and re-edit when I'm not so tired but oh well! if you'd like to be tagged in the next part please let me know :))

@fallout-girl219 @viviannagiorgini

[ohdearlingwhathappened]

A Pair Made in The Pits Chp 3.5

Summary: The aftermath of Y/n and Agent Fowler's Kidnapping back at the Autobot Base.

WC: 623

A/n: Have fun

First ... Previous

The base is silent. The kids have been sent home, allowing them to grieve in their own ways. The only child who remains with their bot is Miko, saying she doesn’t want to go back home to host parents who barely tolerate her, and she would much rather go for a ride with Bulkhead. Optimus leaves for his habsuite, exhausted by the turmoil from not only Megatron’s plans, but from losing two friends in the span of 48 hours. The normally proudly tall, strong leader now hunched, making his way down the halls half-sparked.

He broke his word. Again.

Losing his footing, Optimus leans against the wall to his left, pausing to recollect himself. His optics are shaky, unable to focus on any one thing, blurred beyond comprehension, and he’s sure if he had a set of lungs, they would be inoperable.

I didn’t keep them safe. I didn’t keep her safe. I didn’t keep him safe. I failed Cybertron.

I am no Prime.

“-imus. Optimus. Optimus!”

Startling out of his fraying state, the leader of the Autobots looks up and slowly focuses in on the worried look on his sparkmate’s face. Noting that he was looking up, he realizes at some point he’s fallen to one knee, still balanced on the wall. Using said wall as a weight-bearing source, Optimus lifts himself from the ground and closes his eyes, regretting anyone seeing him in such a state- he is a Prime and a Prime can not crumble.

“Ratchet, I apolo-”

“Up hup hup,” Ratchet shakes his hands, successfully cutting Optimus off. “As your physician, I am ordering you to get to your berth and rest after today… and as your sparkmate, I am asking you to talk to me.”

He wants to express his appreciation and gratitude towards his medic, but with the way Ratchet throws Optimus’ arm around his shoulder allowing himself to be leaned on for support, already going on about how he should be taking care of himself and to rely on him more, Optimus knows he’ll never be able to come up with enough words to even touch the surface.

Looking down at the one he loves the most, he quietly utters, “I promise, my Spark.”

And he swears to himself he will keep his word.

 Primus damn him if not.

* * * * * *

“Miko, I’m going to have to take you home at some point.” Bulkhead tries to goad the girl into finally agreeing to go home and rest. Said girl sitting in the passenger seat, blankly staring out the window, watching the desert sands fly by, her eyes drooping every so often.

“No. Just a little longer… we- we haven’t found her yet.” She whispers, her normal spitfire personality nowhere to be seen. Bulkhead rolls to a stop, conflicted on what to say. There’s nothing he can say or do to uplift her spirit.

“Miko, we don’t know where Starscream may have-. What I mean to say is, we don’t know where Y/n’s body is.” Bulkhead does his best to gently explain that they may never find Y/n’s body, knowing he’s failed when he feels the girl curl up on his seat, legs hugged tightly to her chest.

Another moment goes by before Bulkhead gets an idea, “You remember how I lost my friend, Cliffjumper? Well, since we couldn’t bring him back to base, we made a small site to remember him. I-I know it’s not the same, but you can visit it anytime you’d like.”

“...please?” She lifts her head just a smidge, something other than emptiness shining in her eyes since she was told about her first friend in the US.

By the end of the next hour, another rock structure stood by Cliffjumper’s gravesite.

Taglist: @the-unhinged-raccoon @hystericalanarchy @mythicallystupid @darkfangx399 @nixblizzard16 @crowleysthings @delectableworm

[antiporn-activist]

I thought y'all should read this

I have a free trial to News+ so I copy-pasted it for you here. I don't think Jonathan Haidt would object to more people having this info.

Tumblr wouldn't let me post it until i removed all the links to Haidt's sources. You'll have to take my word that everything is sourced.

End the Phone-Based Childhood Now

The environment in which kids grow up today is hostile to human development.

By Jonathan Haidt

Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent.

The problem was not limited to the U.S.: Similar patterns emerged around the same time in Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic countries, and beyond. By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries, the members of Generation Z (born in and after 1996) are suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, and related disorders at levels higher than any other generation for which we have data.

The decline in mental health is just one of many signs that something went awry. Loneliness and friendlessness among American teens began to surge around 2012. Academic achievement went down, too. According to “The Nation’s Report Card,” scores in reading and math began to decline for U.S. students after 2012, reversing decades of slow but generally steady increase. PISA, the major international measure of educational trends, shows that declines in math, reading, and science happened globally, also beginning in the early 2010s.

As the oldest members of Gen Z reach their late 20s, their troubles are carrying over into adulthood. Young adults are dating less, having less sex, and showing less interest in ever having children than prior generations. They are more likelyto live with their parents. They were less likely to get jobs as teens, and managers say they are harder to work with. Many of these trends began with earlier generations, but most of them accelerated with Gen Z.

Surveys show that members of Gen Z are shyer and more risk averse than previous generations, too, and risk aversion may make them less ambitious. In an interview last May, OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman and Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison noted that, for the first time since the 1970s, none of Silicon Valley’s preeminent entrepreneurs are under 30. “Something has really gone wrong,” Altman said. In a famously young industry, he was baffled by the sudden absence of great founders in their 20s.

Generations are not monolithic, of course. Many young people are flourishing. Taken as a whole, however, Gen Z is in poor mental health and is lagging behind previous generations on many important metrics. And if a generation is doing poorly––if it is more anxious and depressed and is starting families, careers, and important companies at a substantially lower rate than previous generations––then the sociological and economic consequences will be profound for the entire society.

What happened in the early 2010s that altered adolescent development and worsened mental health? Theories abound, but the fact that similar trends are found in many countries worldwide means that events and trends that are specific to the United States cannot be the main story.

I think the answer can be stated simply, although the underlying psychology is complex: Those were the years when adolescents in rich countries traded in their flip phones for smartphones and moved much more of their social lives online—particularly onto social-media platforms designed for virality and addiction. Once young people began carrying the entire internet in their pockets, available to them day and night, it altered their daily experiences and developmental pathways across the board. Friendship, dating, sexuality, exercise, sleep, academics, politics, family dynamics, identity—all were affected. Life changed rapidly for younger children, too, as they began to get access to their parents’ smartphones and, later, got their own iPads, laptops, and even smartphones during elementary school.

As a social psychologist who has long studied social and moral development, I have been involved in debates about the effects of digital technology for years. Typically, the scientific questions have been framed somewhat narrowly, to make them easier to address with data. For example, do adolescents who consume more social media have higher levels of depression? Does using a smartphone just before bedtime interfere with sleep? The answer to these questions is usually found to be yes, although the size of the relationship is often statistically small, which has led some researchers to conclude that these new technologies are not responsible for the gigantic increases in mental illness that began in the early 2010s.

But before we can evaluate the evidence on any one potential avenue of harm, we need to step back and ask a broader question: What is childhood––including adolescence––and how did it change when smartphones moved to the center of it? If we take a more holistic view of what childhood is and what young children, tweens, and teens need to do to mature into competent adults, the picture becomes much clearer. Smartphone-based life, it turns out, alters or interferes with a great number of developmental processes.

The intrusion of smartphones and social media are not the only changes that have deformed childhood. There’s an important backstory, beginning as long ago as the 1980s, when we started systematically depriving children and adolescents of freedom, unsupervised play, responsibility, and opportunities for risk taking, all of which promote competence, maturity, and mental health. But the change in childhood accelerated in the early 2010s, when an already independence-deprived generation was lured into a new virtual universe that seemed safe to parents but in fact is more dangerous, in many respects, than the physical world.

My claim is that the new phone-based childhood that took shape roughly 12 years ago is making young people sick and blocking their progress to flourishing in adulthood. We need a dramatic cultural correction, and we need it now.

1. The Decline of Play and Independence 

Human brains are extraordinarily large compared with those of other primates, and human childhoods are extraordinarily long, too, to give those large brains time to wire up within a particular culture. A child’s brain is already 90 percent of its adult size by about age 6. The next 10 or 15 years are about learning norms and mastering skills—physical, analytical, creative, and social. As children and adolescents seek out experiences and practice a wide variety of behaviors, the synapses and neurons that are used frequently are retained while those that are used less often disappear. Neurons that fire together wire together, as brain researchers say.

Brain development is sometimes said to be “experience-expectant,” because specific parts of the brain show increased plasticity during periods of life when an animal’s brain can “expect” to have certain kinds of experiences. You can see this with baby geese, who will imprint on whatever mother-sized object moves in their vicinity just after they hatch. You can see it with human children, who are able to learn languages quickly and take on the local accent, but only through early puberty; after that, it’s hard to learn a language and sound like a native speaker. There is also some evidence of a sensitive period for cultural learning more generally. Japanese children who spent a few years in California in the 1970s came to feel “American” in their identity and ways of interacting only if they attended American schools for a few years between ages 9 and 15. If they left before age 9, there was no lasting impact. If they didn’t arrive until they were 15, it was too late; they didn’t come to feel American.

Human childhood is an extended cultural apprenticeship with different tasks at different ages all the way through puberty. Once we see it this way, we can identify factors that promote or impede the right kinds of learning at each age. For children of all ages, one of the most powerful drivers of learning is the strong motivation to play. Play is the work of childhood, and all young mammals have the same job: to wire up their brains by playing vigorously and often, practicing the moves and skills they’ll need as adults. Kittens will play-pounce on anything that looks like a mouse tail. Human children will play games such as tag and sharks and minnows, which let them practice both their predator skills and their escaping-from-predator skills. Adolescents will play sports with greater intensity, and will incorporate playfulness into their social interactions—flirting, teasing, and developing inside jokes that bond friends together. Hundreds of studies on young rats, monkeys, and humans show that young mammals want to play, need to play, and end up socially, cognitively, and emotionally impaired when they are deprived of play.

One crucial aspect of play is physical risk taking. Children and adolescents must take risks and fail—often—in environments in which failure is not very costly. This is how they extend their abilities, overcome their fears, learn to estimate risk, and learn to cooperate in order to take on larger challenges later. The ever-present possibility of getting hurt while running around, exploring, play-fighting, or getting into a real conflict with another group adds an element of thrill, and thrilling play appears to be the most effective kind for overcoming childhood anxieties and building social, emotional, and physical competence. The desire for risk and thrill increases in the teen years, when failure might carry more serious consequences. Children of all ages need to choose the risk they are ready for at a given moment. Young people who are deprived of opportunities for risk taking and independent exploration will, on average, develop into more anxious and risk-averse adults.

Human childhood and adolescence evolved outdoors, in a physical world full of dangers and opportunities. Its central activities––play, exploration, and intense socializing––were largely unsupervised by adults, allowing children to make their own choices, resolve their own conflicts, and take care of one another. Shared adventures and shared adversity bound young people together into strong friendship clusters within which they mastered the social dynamics of small groups, which prepared them to master bigger challenges and larger groups later on.

And then we changed childhood.

The changes started slowly in the late 1970s and ’80s, before the arrival of the internet, as many parents in the U.S. grew fearful that their children would be harmed or abducted if left unsupervised. Such crimes have always been extremely rare, but they loomed larger in parents’ minds thanks in part to rising levels of street crime combined with the arrival of cable TV, which enabled round-the-clock coverage of missing-children cases. A general decline in social capital––the degree to which people knew and trusted their neighbors and institutions––exacerbated parental fears. Meanwhile, rising competition for college admissions encouraged more intensive forms of parenting. In the 1990s, American parents began pulling their children indoors or insisting that afternoons be spent in adult-run enrichment activities. Free play, independent exploration, and teen-hangout time declined.

In recent decades, seeing unchaperoned children outdoors has become so novel that when one is spotted in the wild, some adults feel it is their duty to call the police. In 2015, the Pew Research Center found that parents, on average, believed that children should be at least 10 years old to play unsupervised in front of their house, and that kids should be 14 before being allowed to go unsupervised to a public park. Most of these same parents had enjoyed joyous and unsupervised outdoor play by the age of 7 or 8.

2. The Virtual World Arrives in Two Waves

The internet, which now dominates the lives of young people, arrived in two waves of linked technologies. The first one did little harm to Millennials. The second one swallowed Gen Z whole.

The first wave came ashore in the 1990s with the arrival of dial-up internet access, which made personal computers good for something beyond word processing and basic games. By 2003, 55 percent of American households had a computer with (slow) internet access. Rates of adolescent depression, loneliness, and other measures of poor mental health did not rise in this first wave. If anything, they went down a bit. Millennial teens (born 1981 through 1995), who were the first to go through puberty with access to the internet, were psychologically healthier and happier, on average, than their older siblings or parents in Generation X (born 1965 through 1980).

The second wave began to rise in the 2000s, though its full force didn’t hit until the early 2010s. It began rather innocently with the introduction of social-media platforms that helped people connect with their friends. Posting and sharing content became much easier with sites such as Friendster (launched in 2003), Myspace (2003), and Facebook (2004).

Teens embraced social media soon after it came out, but the time they could spend on these sites was limited in those early years because the sites could only be accessed from a computer, often the family computer in the living room. Young people couldn’t access social media (and the rest of the internet) from the school bus, during class time, or while hanging out with friends outdoors. Many teens in the early-to-mid-2000s had cellphones, but these were basic phones (many of them flip phones) that had no internet access. Typing on them was difficult––they had only number keys. Basic phones were tools that helped Millennials meet up with one another in person or talk with each other one-on-one. I have seen no evidence to suggest that basic cellphones harmed the mental health of Millennials.

It was not until the introduction of the iPhone (2007), the App Store (2008), and high-speed internet (which reached 50 percent of American homes in 2007)—and the corresponding pivot to mobile made by many providers of social media, video games, and porn—that it became possible for adolescents to spend nearly every waking moment online. The extraordinary synergy among these innovations was what powered the second technological wave. In 2011, only 23 percent of teens had a smartphone. By 2015, that number had risen to 73 percent, and a quarter of teens said they were online “almost constantly.” Their younger siblings in elementary school didn’t usually have their own smartphones, but after its release in 2010, the iPad quickly became a staple of young children’s daily lives. It was in this brief period, from 2010 to 2015, that childhood in America (and many other countries) was rewired into a form that was more sedentary, solitary, virtual, and incompatible with healthy human development.

3. Techno-optimism and the Birth of the Phone-Based Childhood

The phone-based childhood created by that second wave—including not just smartphones themselves, but all manner of internet-connected devices, such as tablets, laptops, video-game consoles, and smartwatches—arrived near the end of a period of enormous optimism about digital technology. The internet came into our lives in the mid-1990s, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union. By the end of that decade, it was widely thought that the web would be an ally of democracy and a slayer of tyrants. When people are connected to each other, and to all the information in the world, how could any dictator keep them down?

In the 2000s, Silicon Valley and its world-changing inventions were a source of pride and excitement in America. Smart and ambitious young people around the world wanted to move to the West Coast to be part of the digital revolution. Tech-company founders such as Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin were lauded as gods, or at least as modern Prometheans, bringing humans godlike powers. The Arab Spring bloomed in 2011 with the help of decentralized social platforms, including Twitter and Facebook. When pundits and entrepreneurs talked about the power of social media to transform society, it didn’t sound like a dark prophecy.

You have to put yourself back in this heady time to understand why adults acquiesced so readily to the rapid transformation of childhood. Many parents had concerns, even then, about what their children were doing online, especially because of the internet’s ability to put children in contact with strangers. But there was also a lot of excitement about the upsides of this new digital world. If computers and the internet were the vanguards of progress, and if young people––widely referred to as “digital natives”––were going to live their lives entwined with these technologies, then why not give them a head start? I remember how exciting it was to see my 2-year-old son master the touch-and-swipe interface of my first iPhone in 2008. I thought I could see his neurons being woven together faster as a result of the stimulation it brought to his brain, compared to the passivity of watching television or the slowness of building a block tower. I thought I could see his future job prospects improving.

Touchscreen devices were also a godsend for harried parents. Many of us discovered that we could have peace at a restaurant, on a long car trip, or at home while making dinner or replying to emails if we just gave our children what they most wanted: our smartphones and tablets. We saw that everyone else was doing it and figured it must be okay.

It was the same for older children, desperate to join their friends on social-media platforms, where the minimum age to open an account was set by law to 13, even though no research had been done to establish the safety of these products for minors. Because the platforms did nothing (and still do nothing) to verify the stated age of new-account applicants, any 10-year-old could open multiple accounts without parental permission or knowledge, and many did. Facebook and later Instagram became places where many sixth and seventh graders were hanging out and socializing. If parents did find out about these accounts, it was too late. Nobody wanted their child to be isolated and alone, so parents rarely forced their children to shut down their accounts.

We had no idea what we were doing.

4. The High Cost of a Phone-Based Childhood

In Walden, his 1854 reflection on simple living, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The cost of a thing is the amount of … life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” It’s an elegant formulation of what economists would later call the opportunity cost of any choice—all of the things you can no longer do with your money and time once you’ve committed them to something else. So it’s important that we grasp just how much of a young person’s day is now taken up by their devices.

The numbers are hard to believe. The most recent Gallup data show that American teens spend about five hours a day just on social-media platforms (including watching videos on TikTok and YouTube). Add in all the other phone- and screen-based activities, and the number rises to somewhere between seven and nine hours a day, on average. The numbers are even higher in single-parent and low-income families, and among Black, Hispanic, and Native American families.

In Thoreau’s terms, how much of life is exchanged for all this screen time? Arguably, most of it. Everything else in an adolescent’s day must get squeezed down or eliminated entirely to make room for the vast amount of content that is consumed, and for the hundreds of “friends,” “followers,” and other network connections that must be serviced with texts, posts, comments, likes, snaps, and direct messages. I recently surveyed my students at NYU, and most of them reported that the very first thing they do when they open their eyes in the morning is check their texts, direct messages, and social-media feeds. It’s also the last thing they do before they close their eyes at night. And it’s a lot of what they do in between.

The amount of time that adolescents spend sleeping declined in the early 2010s, and many studies tie sleep loss directly to the use of devices around bedtime, particularly when they’re used to scroll through social media. Exercise declined, too, which is unfortunate because exercise, like sleep, improves both mental and physical health. Book reading has been declining for decades, pushed aside by digital alternatives, but the decline, like so much else, sped up in the early 2010s. With passive entertainment always available, adolescent minds likely wander less than they used to; contemplation and imagination might be placed on the list of things winnowed down or crowded out.

But perhaps the most devastating cost of the new phone-based childhood was the collapse of time spent interacting with other people face-to-face. A study of how Americans spend their time found that, before 2010, young people (ages 15 to 24) reported spending far more time with their friends (about two hours a day, on average, not counting time together at school) than did older people (who spent just 30 to 60 minutes with friends). Time with friends began decreasing for young people in the 2000s, but the drop accelerated in the 2010s, while it barely changed for older people. By 2019, young people’s time with friends had dropped to just 67 minutes a day. It turns out that Gen Z had been socially distancing for many years and had mostly completed the project by the time COVID-19 struck.

You might question the importance of this decline. After all, isn’t much of this online time spent interacting with friends through texting, social media, and multiplayer video games? Isn’t that just as good?

Some of it surely is, and virtual interactions offer unique benefits too, especially for young people who are geographically or socially isolated. But in general, the virtual world lacks many of the features that make human interactions in the real world nutritious, as we might say, for physical, social, and emotional development. In particular, real-world relationships and social interactions are characterized by four features—typical for hundreds of thousands of years—that online interactions either distort or erase.

First, real-world interactions are embodied, meaning that we use our hands and facial expressions to communicate, and we learn to respond to the body language of others. Virtual interactions, in contrast, mostly rely on language alone. No matter how many emojis are offered as compensation, the elimination of communication channels for which we have eons of evolutionary programming is likely to produce adults who are less comfortable and less skilled at interacting in person.

Second, real-world interactions are synchronous; they happen at the same time. As a result, we learn subtle cues about timing and conversational turn taking. Synchronous interactions make us feel closer to the other person because that’s what getting “in sync” does. Texts, posts, and many other virtual interactions lack synchrony. There is less real laughter, more room for misinterpretation, and more stress after a comment that gets no immediate response.

Third, real-world interactions primarily involve one‐to‐one communication, or sometimes one-to-several. But many virtual communications are broadcast to a potentially huge audience. Online, each person can engage in dozens of asynchronous interactions in parallel, which interferes with the depth achieved in all of them. The sender’s motivations are different, too: With a large audience, one’s reputation is always on the line; an error or poor performance can damage social standing with large numbers of peers. These communications thus tend to be more performative and anxiety-inducing than one-to-one conversations.

Finally, real-world interactions usually take place within communities that have a high bar for entry and exit, so people are strongly motivated to invest in relationships and repair rifts when they happen. But in many virtual networks, people can easily block others or quit when they are displeased. Relationships within such networks are usually more disposable.

These unsatisfying and anxiety-producing features of life online should be recognizable to most adults. Online interactions can bring out antisocial behavior that people would never display in their offline communities. But if life online takes a toll on adults, just imagine what it does to adolescents in the early years of puberty, when their “experience expectant” brains are rewiring based on feedback from their social interactions.

Kids going through puberty online are likely to experience far more social comparison, self-consciousness, public shaming, and chronic anxiety than adolescents in previous generations, which could potentially set developing brains into a habitual state of defensiveness. The brain contains systems that are specialized for approach (when opportunities beckon) and withdrawal (when threats appear or seem likely). People can be in what we might call “discover mode” or “defend mode” at any moment, but generally not both. The two systems together form a mechanism for quickly adapting to changing conditions, like a thermostat that can activate either a heating system or a cooling system as the temperature fluctuates. Some people’s internal thermostats are generally set to discover mode, and they flip into defend mode only when clear threats arise. These people tend to see the world as full of opportunities. They are happier and less anxious. Other people’s internal thermostats are generally set to defend mode, and they flip into discover mode only when they feel unusually safe. They tend to see the world as full of threats and are more prone to anxiety and depressive disorders.

A simple way to understand the differences between Gen Z and previous generations is that people born in and after 1996 have internal thermostats that were shifted toward defend mode. This is why life on college campuses changed so suddenly when Gen Z arrived, beginning around 2014. Students began requesting “safe spaces” and trigger warnings. They were highly sensitive to “microaggressions” and sometimes claimed that words were “violence.” These trends mystified those of us in older generations at the time, but in hindsight, it all makes sense. Gen Z students found words, ideas, and ambiguous social encounters more threatening than had previous generations of students because we had fundamentally altered their psychological development.

5. So Many Harms

The debate around adolescents’ use of smartphones and social media typically revolves around mental health, and understandably so. But the harms that have resulted from transforming childhood so suddenly and heedlessly go far beyondmental health. I’ve touched on some of them—social awkwardness, reduced self-confidence, and a more sedentary childhood. Here are three additional harms.

Fragmented Attention, Disrupted Learning

Staying on task while sitting at a computer is hard enough for an adult with a fully developed prefrontal cortex. It is far more difficult for adolescents in front of their laptop trying to do homework. They are probably less intrinsically motivated to stay on task. They’re certainly less able, given their undeveloped prefrontal cortex, and hence it’s easy for any company with an app to lure them away with an offer of social validation or entertainment. Their phones are pinging constantly—one study found that the typical adolescent now gets 237 notifications a day, roughly 15 every waking hour. Sustained attention is essential for doing almost anything big, creative, or valuable, yet young people find their attention chopped up into little bits by notifications offering the possibility of high-pleasure, low-effort digital experiences.

It even happens in the classroom. Studies confirm that when students have access to their phones during class time, they use them, especially for texting and checking social media, and their grades and learning suffer. This might explain why benchmark test scores began to decline in the U.S. and around the world in the early 2010s—well before the pandemic hit.

Addiction and Social Withdrawal

The neural basis of behavioral addiction to social media or video games is not exactly the same as chemical addiction to cocaine or opioids. Nonetheless, they all involve abnormally heavy and sustained activation of dopamine neurons and reward pathways. Over time, the brain adapts to these high levels of dopamine; when the child is not engaged in digital activity, their brain doesn’t have enough dopamine, and the child experiences withdrawal symptoms. These generally include anxiety, insomnia, and intense irritability. Kids with these kinds of behavioral addictions often become surly and aggressive, and withdraw from their families into their bedrooms and devices.

Social-media and gaming platforms were designed to hook users. How successful are they? How many kids suffer from digital addictions?

The main addiction risks for boys seem to be video games and porn. “Internet gaming disorder,” which was added to the main diagnosis manual of psychiatry in 2013 as a condition for further study, describes “significant impairment or distress” in several aspects of life, along with many hallmarks of addiction, including an inability to reduce usage despite attempts to do so. Estimates for the prevalence of IGD range from 7 to 15 percent among adolescent boys and young men. As for porn, a nationally representative survey of American adults published in 2019 found that 7 percent of American men agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I am addicted to pornography”—and the rates were higher for the youngest men.

Girls have much lower rates of addiction to video games and porn, but they use social media more intensely than boys do. A study of teens in 29 nations found that between 5 and 15 percent of adolescents engage in what is called “problematic social media use,” which includes symptoms such as preoccupation, withdrawal symptoms, neglect of other areas of life, and lying to parents and friends about time spent on social media. That study did not break down results by gender, but many others have found that rates of “problematic use” are higher for girls.

I don’t want to overstate the risks: Most teens do not become addicted to their phones and video games. But across multiple studies and across genders, rates of problematic use come out in the ballpark of 5 to 15 percent. Is there any other consumer product that parents would let their children use relatively freely if they knew that something like one in 10 kids would end up with a pattern of habitual and compulsive use that disrupted various domains of life and looked a lot like an addiction?

The Decay of Wisdom and the Loss of Meaning 

During that crucial sensitive period for cultural learning, from roughly ages 9 through 15, we should be especially thoughtful about who is socializing our children for adulthood. Instead, that’s when most kids get their first smartphone and sign themselves up (with or without parental permission) to consume rivers of content from random strangers. Much of that content is produced by other adolescents, in blocks of a few minutes or a few seconds.

This rerouting of enculturating content has created a generation that is largely cut off from older generations and, to some extent, from the accumulated wisdom of humankind, including knowledge about how to live a flourishing life. Adolescents spend less time steeped in their local or national culture. They are coming of age in a confusing, placeless, ahistorical maelstrom of 30-second stories curated by algorithms designed to mesmerize them. Without solid knowledge of the past and the filtering of good ideas from bad––a process that plays out over many generations––young people will be more prone to believe whatever terrible ideas become popular around them, which might explain why videos showing young people reacting positively to Osama bin Laden’s thoughts about America were trending on TikTok last fall.

All this is made worse by the fact that so much of digital public life is an unending supply of micro dramas about somebody somewhere in our country of 340 million people who did something that can fuel an outrage cycle, only to be pushed aside by the next. It doesn’t add up to anything and leaves behind only a distorted sense of human nature and affairs.

When our public life becomes fragmented, ephemeral, and incomprehensible, it is a recipe for anomie, or normlessness. The great French sociologist Émile Durkheim showed long ago that a society that fails to bind its people together with some shared sense of sacredness and common respect for rules and norms is not a society of great individual freedom; it is, rather, a place where disoriented individuals have difficulty setting goals and exerting themselves to achieve them. Durkheim argued that anomie was a major driver of suicide rates in European countries. Modern scholars continue to draw on his work to understand suicide rates today. 

Durkheim’s observations are crucial for understanding what happened in the early 2010s. A long-running survey of American teens found that, from 1990 to 2010, high-school seniors became slightly less likely to agree with statements such as “Life often feels meaningless.” But as soon as they adopted a phone-based life and many began to live in the whirlpool of social media, where no stability can be found, every measure of despair increased. From 2010 to 2019, the number who agreed that their lives felt “meaningless” increased by about 70 percent, to more than one in five.

6. Young People Don’t Like Their Phone-Based Lives

How can I be confident that the epidemic of adolescent mental illness was kicked off by the arrival of the phone-based childhood? Skeptics point to other events as possible culprits, including the 2008 global financial crisis, global warming, the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting and the subsequent active-shooter drills, rising academic pressures, and the opioid epidemic. But while these events might have been contributing factors in some countries, none can explain both the timing and international scope of the disaster.

An additional source of evidence comes from Gen Z itself. With all the talk of regulating social media, raising age limits, and getting phones out of schools, you might expect to find many members of Gen Z writing and speaking out in opposition. I’ve looked for such arguments and found hardly any. In contrast, many young adults tell stories of devastation.

Freya India, a 24-year-old British essayist who writes about girls, explains how social-media sites carry girls off to unhealthy places: “It seems like your child is simply watching some makeup tutorials, following some mental health influencers, or experimenting with their identity. But let me tell you: they are on a conveyor belt to someplace bad. Whatever insecurity or vulnerability they are struggling with, they will be pushed further and further into it.” She continues:

Gen Z were the guinea pigs in this uncontrolled global social experiment. We were the first to have our vulnerabilities and insecurities fed into a machine that magnified and refracted them back at us, all the time, before we had any sense of who we were. We didn’t just grow up with algorithms. They raised us. They rearranged our faces. Shaped our identities. Convinced us we were sick.

Rikki Schlott, a 23-year-old American journalist and co-author of The Canceling of the American Mind, writes,

"The day-to-day life of a typical teen or tween today would be unrecognizable to someone who came of age before the smartphone arrived. Zoomers are spending an average of 9 hours daily in this screen-time doom loop—desperate to forget the gaping holes they’re bleeding out of, even if just for … 9 hours a day. Uncomfortable silence could be time to ponder why they’re so miserable in the first place. Drowning it out with algorithmic white noise is far easier."

A 27-year-old man who spent his adolescent years addicted (his word) to video games and pornography sent me this reflection on what that did to him:

I missed out on a lot of stuff in life—a lot of socialization. I feel the effects now: meeting new people, talking to people. I feel that my interactions are not as smooth and fluid as I want. My knowledge of the world (geography, politics, etc.) is lacking. I didn’t spend time having conversations or learning about sports. I often feel like a hollow operating system.

Or consider what Facebook found in a research project involving focus groups of young people, revealed in 2021 by the whistleblower Frances Haugen: “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rates of anxiety and depression among teens,” an internal document said. “This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”

7. Collective-Action Problems

Social-media companies such as Meta, TikTok, and Snap are often compared to tobacco companies, but that’s not really fair to the tobacco industry. It’s true that companies in both industries marketed harmful products to children and tweaked their products for maximum customer retention (that is, addiction), but there’s a big difference: Teens could and did choose, in large numbers, not to smoke. Even at the peak of teen cigarette use, in 1997, nearly two-thirds of high-school students did not smoke.

Social media, in contrast, applies a lot more pressure on nonusers, at a much younger age and in a more insidious way. Once a few students in any middle school lie about their age and open accounts at age 11 or 12, they start posting photos and comments about themselves and other students. Drama ensues. The pressure on everyone else to join becomes intense. Even a girl who knows, consciously, that Instagram can foster beauty obsession, anxiety, and eating disorders might sooner take those risks than accept the seeming certainty of being out of the loop, clueless, and excluded. And indeed, if she resists while most of her classmates do not, she might, in fact, be marginalized, which puts her at risk for anxiety and depression, though via a different pathway than the one taken by those who use social media heavily. In this way, social media accomplishes a remarkable feat: It even harms adolescents who do not use it.

A recent study led by the University of Chicago economist Leonardo Bursztyn captured the dynamics of the social-media trap precisely. The researchers recruited more than 1,000 college students and asked them how much they’d need to be paid to deactivate their accounts on either Instagram or TikTok for four weeks. That’s a standard economist’s question to try to compute the net value of a product to society. On average, students said they’d need to be paid roughly $50 ($59 for TikTok, $47 for Instagram) to deactivate whichever platform they were asked about. Then the experimenters told the students that they were going to try to get most of the others in their school to deactivate that same platform, offering to pay them to do so as well, and asked, Now how much would you have to be paid to deactivate, if most others did so? The answer, on average, was less than zero. In each case, most students were willing to pay to have that happen.

Social media is all about network effects. Most students are only on it because everyone else is too. Most of them would prefer that nobody be on these platforms. Later in the study, students were asked directly, “Would you prefer to live in a world without Instagram [or TikTok]?” A majority of students said yes––58 percent for each app.

This is the textbook definition of what social scientists call a collective-action problem. It’s what happens when a group would be better off if everyone in the group took a particular action, but each actor is deterred from acting, because unless the others do the same, the personal cost outweighs the benefit. Fishermen considering limiting their catch to avoid wiping out the local fish population are caught in this same kind of trap. If no one else does it too, they just lose profit.

Cigarettes trapped individual smokers with a biological addiction. Social media has trapped an entire generation in a collective-action problem. Early app developers deliberately and knowingly exploited the psychological weaknesses and insecurities of young people to pressure them to consume a product that, upon reflection, many wish they could use less, or not at all.

8. Four Norms to Break Four Traps

Young people and their parents are stuck in at least four collective-action traps. Each is hard to escape for an individual family, but escape becomes much easier if families, schools, and communities coordinate and act together. Here are four norms that would roll back the phone-based childhood. I believe that any community that adopts all four will see substantial improvements in youth mental health within two years.

No smartphones before high school  

The trap here is that each child thinks they need a smartphone because “everyone else” has one, and many parents give in because they don’t want their child to feel excluded. But if no one else had a smartphone—or even if, say, only half of the child’s sixth-grade class had one—parents would feel more comfortable providing a basic flip phone (or no phone at all). Delaying round-the-clock internet access until ninth grade (around age 14) as a national or community norm would help to protect adolescents during the very vulnerable first few years of puberty. According to a 2022 British study, these are the years when social-media use is most correlated with poor mental health. Family policies about tablets, laptops, and video-game consoles should be aligned with smartphone restrictions to prevent overuse of other screen activities.

No social media before 16

The trap here, as with smartphones, is that each adolescent feels a strong need to open accounts on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms primarily because that’s where most of their peers are posting and gossiping. But if the majority of adolescents were not on these accounts until they were 16, families and adolescents could more easily resist the pressure to sign up. The delay would not mean that kids younger than 16 could never watch videos on TikTok or YouTube—only that they could not open accounts, give away their data, post their own content, and let algorithms get to know them and their preferences.

Phone‐free schools 

Most schools claim that they ban phones, but this usually just means that students aren’t supposed to take their phone out of their pocket during class. Research shows that most students do use their phones during class time. They also use them during lunchtime, free periods, and breaks between classes––times when students could and should be interacting with their classmates face-to-face. The only way to get students’ minds off their phones during the school day is to require all students to put their phones (and other devices that can send or receive texts) into a phone locker or locked pouch at the start of the day. Schools that have gone phone-free always seem to report that it has improved the culture, making students more attentive in class and more interactive with one another. Published studies back them up.

More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world

Many parents are afraid to give their children the level of independence and responsibility they themselves enjoyed when they were young, even though rates of homicide, drunk driving, and other physical threats to children are way down in recent decades. Part of the fear comes from the fact that parents look at each other to determine what is normal and therefore safe, and they see few examples of families acting as if a 9-year-old can be trusted to walk to a store without a chaperone. But if many parents started sending their children out to play or run errands, then the norms of what is safe and accepted would change quickly. So would ideas about what constitutes “good parenting.” And if more parents trusted their children with more responsibility––for example, by asking their kids to do more to help out, or to care for others––then the pervasive sense of uselessness now found in surveys of high-school students might begin to dissipate.

It would be a mistake to overlook this fourth norm. If parents don’t replace screen time with real-world experiences involving friends and independent activity, then banning devices will feel like deprivation, not the opening up of a world of opportunities.

The main reason why the phone-based childhood is so harmful is because it pushes aside everything else. Smartphones are experience blockers. Our ultimate goal should not be to remove screens entirely, nor should it be to return childhood to exactly the way it was in 1960. Rather, it should be to create a version of childhood and adolescence that keeps young people anchored in the real world while flourishing in the digital age.

9. What Are We Waiting For?

An essential function of government is to solve collective-action problems. Congress could solve or help solve the ones I’ve highlighted—for instance, by raising the age of “internet adulthood” to 16 and requiring tech companies to keep underage children off their sites.

In recent decades, however, Congress has not been good at addressing public concerns when the solutions would displease a powerful and deep-pocketed industry. Governors and state legislators have been much more effective, and their successes might let us evaluate how well various reforms work. But the bottom line is that to change norms, we’re going to need to do most of the work ourselves, in neighborhood groups, schools, and other communities.

There are now hundreds of organizations––most of them started by mothers who saw what smartphones had done to their children––that are working to roll back the phone-based childhood or promote a more independent, real-world childhood. (I have assembled a list of many of them.) One that I co-founded, at LetGrow.org, suggests a variety of simple programs for parents or schools, such as play club (schools keep the playground open at least one day a week before or after school, and kids sign up for phone-free, mixed-age, unstructured play as a regular weekly activity) and the Let Grow Experience (a series of homework assignments in which students––with their parents’ consent––choose something to do on their own that they’ve never done before, such as walk the dog, climb a tree, walk to a store, or cook dinner).

Parents are fed up with what childhood has become. Many are tired of having daily arguments about technologies that were designed to grab hold of their children’s attention and not let go. But the phone-based childhood is not inevitable.

The four norms I have proposed cost almost nothing to implement, they cause no clear harm to anyone, and while they could be supported by new legislation, they can be instilled even without it. We can begin implementing all of them right away, this year, especially in communities with good cooperation between schools and parents. A single memo from a principal asking parents to delay smartphones and social media, in support of the school’s effort to improve mental health by going phone free, would catalyze collective action and reset the community’s norms.

We didn’t know what we were doing in the early 2010s. Now we do. It’s time to end the phone-based childhood.

This article is adapted from Jonathan Haidt’s forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

[hwanchaesong]

☞🍹Seventh Drink: Beyond the journey of espresso to dry martini, the only thing that he manages to remember is his baby. 🍸

🎧: The Weeknd - Blinding Lights

wc: 651

genre & warnings: angst, fluff, comfort, singer!jisung, bar setting, drinking, implied friends to lovers, etc etc

a/n: this is a part of The After Hours Bar series. if y'all want, you can read the other album inspired fics of other groups here.

"Don't you think you're overstaying your visit?"

Jisung tilted his head to look for the source of the voice, spotting you beside him, sitting in the bar while you motioned the barista to give you a drink as well.

"I work here." he chuckles, answering your question and relaxing in his seat more, "What brings you here?"

Interrogation is necessary for you, considering that you are not one to go to bars. You usually stay at your house, enjoying ramyeon and rewatching your favorite movie.

You hummed, sipping on the alcoholic drink that the barista concocted before cringing at the bitter taste, "I am here for you."

He points at himself, "Me? Why is that? And why are you being weird?"

You gave your friend a side eye, slightly offended by his words, "First, I am not weird. I am completely normal. Second, you are the one being weird because see, your gig just finished but here you are..."

Your sentence trailed off, not wanting to continue it but he understands.

He'd usually go back to his own flat after a performance at the bar, but this time, he stayed for a drink. Which for you, his neighbor slash friend, is unusual.

So you went on a journey, despite clubs not being your thing, to check up on him.

It was safe to say that you were worried about him. You are well aware that you might have overstepped his boundaries but you really couldn't care, his welfare comes first.

"Can't I loosen up a bit?" he smirks at you, then his mood suddenly turns gloomy, "It's blurry."

He admits and you listen intently as he attempts to open up to you.

"I don't understand what is happening, actually." his eyes are downcast, slowly swirling the glass of tequila on the wooden table, "You know how much I love performing, right?"

"Yes, why?"

He laughs without any humor, and your concern rises when he blurts out his next words.

"I feel like I can't do it anymore. Like.. I am slowly losing my passion for it and I don't know what to do."

Your eyes widened, not expecting his confession because this man loves singing. Maybe he's confused? Or what he said a few minutes ago, he's tired and he needs to rest?

Surely, he must be mistaken because this, this city that he chose is his lifeline.

The way he talked about it made you realize that achieving your dreams in life is possible if you worked hard for it, just like he did.

He basically fought his parents for this, going against their wishes for him to become a doctor— and if you're going to be honest, his zeal for singing made you love him the way he is.

"Jisung I-" you stopped yourself, is it really worth it?

You urged yourself to do it, if no one else will push him, then you will take it upon yourself to do it.

You left your seat in lieu of extending your hand in front of him to take, and you gulped your nervousness.

"Listen, Jisung. I am not well versed when it comes to things like this but," you bit your lower lip, bashfully meeting his curious gaze, "let's go back to my apartment and think of ways on how to motivate you."

He raised an eyebrow, not moving an inch until you groaned in exasperation, grasping his hand in yours.

"Come on! If you lose interest in this then.. I'd miss those moments where you sing to me the new songs that you're composing."

It is now Jisung's turn to be surprised.

Amidst the neon lighting of the bar, illuminating the place and promptly blinding the eyes of people who dare to look straight into it, Jisung thinks that he's already seen the brightest glow of all.

But strangely enough, he can clearly see how gorgeous she is.

taglist:

@sunghoonsgfreal @yeosayang @mystverse @shakalakaboomboo

[furicookiebndz]

Lucifer x !FemReader : My old friend

Hello everyone, it is my first time writing this, i hope it will be good enough, have fun! This fan art isn't mine. Full credits to the amazingly talented artist/creator.

It has been thousands of years since evil began.

Lucifer, whose pride blinded him, attempted to dethrone the creator, only to ultimately fail and be banished from Paradise.

Lilith, who refused to submit to Adam, in turn fled from this magical place, but which hides many facades.

Yet few people know that with them, a third person flew out of Paradise. And even rarer are people who know the cause, 3 to be precise.

However, behind this unusual act lie very dark secrets, seen as…

-Can you stop, Vag'? You're giving me a headache.

The young woman turned her head towards the source of this execrable voice, a spider who was visibly lying carefree on the sofa, arms behind her head, a bored expression on her face.

Refraining from answering him, she continued:

Tragic, some thought it was another rebellious woman, others a fallen angel because of a serious crime, but that wasn't logical, what's worse than to confront the creator?"

-That doesn't help all of us, the young woman noted, running her hand through her hair, frustrated.

-It would be beneficial to have her on our side, especially if she has such a significant influence on the world of the living and beyond, Charlie concluded thoughtfully.

-But she hid from the world, living as a hermit. Many think it's a myth, but given what's been happening lately, I believe it's much more present than sinners think.

Vaggie rubbed her temples, trying to come up with an idea.

-Who the hell are you talking about? I hate it when you pretend to be Sherlock and leave me like the old cookie in the back of the cupboard.

-Are you interested in what we do? retorted Vaggie sarcastically

-No, more about why you were busting my balls, joked Angel.

-You don't even have one, asshole, mumbled quietly Husk, taking a sip of his cheap booze.

-Want to check~? It is free for you kitty cat.

-Not even for a thousand balls, growled quietly Husk, who was beginning to lose his patient.

-Ouuh finally a price there is progress, Daddy, the spider sent him a kiss

Alastor, who was reading a book by the fireplace, decided to speak

-Charlie, Darling, you seem concerned about this person Let me see…

He seemed surprised for a moment, before smiling more, if possible.

-My my, what a terrible coincidence. The person you are looking for is one of the most sought after. Didn't Lucifer tell you about Lady (Y/N)?

-Um… We're not exactly talking about all that-

“Daddy issues,” Husk muttered.

Alastor continued:

-As reported in this document, she flew away shortly after your parents. She was a person living in Heaven, she was not human, but not an angel entirely though, she had two pairs of wings, although she is the appearance of a mortal, yet she had her own power, not to be underestimated. She embodied humor, justice and determination. In short, all these things that are way too boring-

-Cut it short, Alastor, Vaggie said, snapping her fingers.

-But when Lucifer challenged God, she did not follow him, not because she had to beat him, but because he knew just as well as she did that what he was doing was wrong. For the first time in her life she felt an immense disappointment in the love he had once inspired in her, and the semblance of a relationship that was perhaps tending to end disappeared with the appearance of the first demon, your father, Charlie.

However, you are aware that shortly after the creation of Lilith, she quickly became friends with your mother, and when she flew away from Paradise, and she learned the cause, she entered in a black anger, so black that Gabriel had difficulty in containing it, Until then, she had always been obedient, never contesting the decisions, which were of infallible Justice, but this departure had torn away part of her herself. She confronted the lord, she tried to rally the others to her cause, but nothing changed. Disappointed, she left that place, and no one ever saw her again.

There was a heavy silence for a moment, before Angel said:

-So…Is she still a virgin?

Vaggie rolled her eyes before Charlie had an idea:

I'm sure she's not that far away. Maybe I should ask my father to contact her again. She must care about him, at least I hope so, and if I convince her, Gabriel won't be able to object!

Vaggie refrained from adding a comment, she knew it was too good to be able to do it, but in front of her girlfriend's adorable face, she couldn't refuse anything.

______________________________________________________________

-No, Lucifer said firmly, before Charlie could even finish his idea.

-But dad-

-End of discussion, I don't want to hear anything, he turned around and mechanically squeezed the rubber duck in his hand, like an anti-stress ball.

Lucifer seemed elsewhere, deep in thought. His friend, his old friend…

.

.

.

“Luciferrrrr!” A burst of joy appeared as she walked towards him, a smile on her lips, a book in her hands.

Lucifer as usual had a lyre in his hands. He looked up at Y/N and smiled.

One discussion led to another, he shared his ideas about the mortal world, while she agreed with some and shared her opinion on others. They would sometimes just stay silent, or she would read aloud from a book, and he would then accompany her with his lyre.

Such a beautiful memory…

.

.

.

Why Lucifer?! Why did you do this?

This same friend was there with her eyes filled with tears, disappointed in him.

Lucifer looked down. One mistake, just one mistake, had caused him to lose those he considered family, and his closest friend.

He wanted to tell her that it was just a misunderstanding, that it was for the best, but the damage was already done.

He took Lilith's hand and without a word, left for their new home.

The young woman, in tears, could only watch them leave, the man she loved and her friend, without being able to do anything, because her principles prevented her. Gabriel placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, and said nothing. If she knew, he couldn't imagine how she would have reacted

.

.

.

-Dad?

Lucifer seemed to come out of his thoughts and focused on a family portrait. Lilith was already gone, after their separation he only had his daughter left, and after a second of thought he sighed and said:

-I'll see what I can do…

-It's true? Oh thank you Dad, thank you thank you thank you!, cried Charlie enthusiastically.

She took him in her arms, and Lucifer said to himself that finally, if having a hug from his daughter meant having to seek the 7 rings of Hell and even the beyond, he would do it without complaining.

Now all that remained was to find it, the most complicated part…

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

Lucifer, Charlie and the hotel members thought for several days, using all their knowledge and powers to find her. If she was neither in Hell, nor in Heaven, or even in the mortal world, she must be between the latter options-

Lucifer suddenly had an idea, remembering a conversation they had shared long ago, and he cast an incantation, which opened a portal to a world- no, a unique place, so messy and blurry, and yet so… familiar, as if he were…

“In the middle of a dream,” Charlie whispered softly. The rest of the team followed her, looking around curiously. Lucifer asked himself so many questions, was it a place where souls rested between life and death? He did not know it. After all, the soul left the body for a while when it slept, that would explain the place.

-Who are you? I sense human souls, but something else…

They saw several women advancing, of great beauty, similar to fairies, but armed, ready to defend themselves, if it was not for another who stopped them by raising her hand, she advanced slowly, and Lucifer recognized her completely. right now.

-(Y/N)..Lucifer seemed upset to see her, and tried to pull himself together by talking to himself. "Ok, Ok. It's going to be okay buddy, you can do it, you can do it", When he met her gaze, he lost all his courage and hid behind Charlie.

-Dad!

-What? I-I'm just covering your back Charlie.

-At least what I thought of you is true, you're just a sissy Lucifer, Alastor sneered.

You looked at him for a moment, the man you had loved for thousands of years, it was..strange. You didn't know whether you should greet him or hit him.

-Lucifer, what is the honor of this visit worth to me? In 10,000 years you have never had the decency to come visit me.

Sarcasm. Something unusual about you, he couldn't help but admire you. Your two pairs of wings were now grey, but your eyes were still this soft (e/c) shade, but now full of resentment, and perhaps.. mockery?

-And you, you must be his daughter, mhh?

You moved closer to her and observed her suspiciously, while she was sweating profusely, and Vaggie seemed on the edge on attacking you, and to her surprise, you smiled widely and took her in your arms, with surprising strength.

-My lord you are his carbon copy, so pretty~, you squish her cheek cheeks and gush about her, while she laughs awkwardly.

Everyone was stunned by how fast the tension dissipates, and the women behind you giggle, seemingly aware by how fast your emotions tend to change. Lucifer smiles, maybe he still had a chance..

-But you seem so polite, unlike some, you cast a dark look at Lucifer, and greeted the others with a sympathetic and curious look, their offering to sit down for a while to talk.

...maybe not finally.

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

-If I understood everything, you created a hotel to rehabilitate sinners… and are trying to convince Heaven, is that right?

She nodded and Lucifer tried to add something, but you stopped him:

-I don't speak with traitors and liars, especially if they forget to send me a life message for eons.

Lucifer doesn't say anything wanting to make anything worse. He knew he was wrong, and sighed heavily.

(Y/N)-1 Lucifer-0.

-Damn, this girl is awesome, Angel whispered excitedly.

Vaggie continued:

-Lady (Y/N), you still have decent relationship with heaven.Could you try talking to some highers-up about it? Like Gabrie-

-No, this thing is no longer part of my circle of close friends, I can still try to talk about it again with Sera and Emily, but I can't do anything with the other weirdo.

Charlie felt hopeless, and she took your hands and looked at you with a miserable expression.

-I beg you, you must speak to him, my people are dying every year at the hands of the exorcists, and I-I cannot stand by and do nothing. Can you try..?

At his beaten puppy look, you widened your eyes, it was exactly-

Please don't tell them where I was, Lucifer pleaded with adorable eyes. You sighed but smiled, nodding your head.

-Well, i will. But I'm not promising anything though-

-Thank you thank you thank you, she hugged you, and you hugged her back with a smile.

Lucifer felt his heart beat faster, these two women who are precious to him have finally met, and got along better than he expected.

Now all he had to do was sort out one last problem.

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

Explanations were made. You listened patiently, and after a while you answered:

-Why Lucifer, didn't you tell me before? I-I thought I was your friend.

Lucifer held her gaze, and for the first time in millennia he took his courage in both hands and took hers:

-I didn't want to see your disappointed look, I know I made a mistake, but I only thought about doing the right thing. And I-

-You got scared?

He nodded, and you sighed:

-I don't blame you, at least not anymore.

He raised his eyes, feeling a bit of hope, and feeling Charlie's encouraging look, he continued:

-So, can we try again? I mean our relationship- Well our friendship!

He blushed slightly and you chuckled softly:

-Yes, always Lucifer.

[vixxdaemon]

Would you like to share your thoughts with the public about O’saAbella? Like anything, whether that would be the reason why you started shipping them, au's, scenarios that are running in your head 24/7 ect.

I was hoping for this day to come…

Alright so, it all started when I saw this happen in the confessional cutscene, when you tell O’saa you have a crush on someone from the train. First person he mentions is Abella :

Like, this is undoubtedly meant to be Abella, no doubt. So certainely he must at least perceive her as attractive for him to think of her literally above anyone else. (He does mention Karin instead of you play as Abella but like. Most likely cause it’s just that, you already are Abella so he would not ask you if you are into Abella lol.)

THEN FUNNILY ENOUGH the way I started to ship O’saa and Abella together was by wondering if they were any fics with…Ah, Abella tending to O’saa, if you catch my drift. Take care of him. In bed. Dominating him, gonna say things as they are. (There weren’t any at the time.)

So it lead me to think of them more and actually realize that their dynamic would be entertaining to see and how they would actually make a cute couple. I started to look for more things between them in game, and besides the Party Talks that are pretty fucking funny, I had figured out something.

In the Tunnel 1, exactly where you can recruit O’saa, the only way to get him in your party is having him ask you if you know anything of the tunnels you are in, you HAVE to reply to him in the affirmative.

(Source is on wiki gg, but feel free to go check that out of yourself, you will see that he won’t suggest to join you if you tell him you don’t understand what is happening in the tunnels.)

So, guess who amongst literally everyone in the Contestants that is well versed in machines and more importantly, tunnels ?

That’s right, Abella. The Mechanic.

What I am suggesting right here is that it’s highly likely that «canonically» (as in the intended storyline that happens during Termina), Abella is the person finding O’saa and helping him out. Not only because she knows how the tunnels works, but also she is most definitely one of the few characters that would be willing to take in a wounded person with her and help them get back to their feet in the cast.

Now there isn’t even this evidence we have in canon, but there is also the fact that their personalities are opposites, and even more than that, some of their themes too, all the while having actually quite important points in common. Let me explain.

Abella has grown up a caregiver, having helped her parents take care of her younger siblings since she is a child. She has an actually quite peppy personality beyond that frown on her portrait, she enjoys romance books and literature. She expresses sadness or disgust at death, if not straight up distress when she sees people actively suffering (the people hanging at the ceiling yelling at the shopping district of Prehevil). Abella suffers for others, as she Moonscorches literally while she is trying to find pieces for the train, doing a thing she always did : helping other people.

O’saa has grown up most of his life away from his family, and since really young has adopted a «fend for yourself and only yourself» kind of mentality. He does not care for the homeless, if not immediately mocking them, he is completely unphased at violence and the suffering of others, he even threatens to hurt YOU if you come too close to him for his liking. O’saa suffers for himself, as we can see his Moonscorch reveals his struggle with wishing for his autonomy and escaping the control of higher powers.

That being said, the points in common they have is that they are both very very dependant and self reliant, both very much the kind of character to take matters into their own hands and get their own hands dirty to get what they want. And if they want something, they WILL get it by all means necessary (see Abella’s Ending B of her learning astrophysics and building a whole ass spaceship to get in contact with the Moon, while O’saa’s Ending B is him BECOMING the higher power, aka a cult leader, to not be controlled anymore and instead BE the one in control, which in my opinion is tragic in its own right but I won’t elaborate on O’saa on his own here.)

All that being said, as a couple I would imagine that most of it would happen outside of Prehevil, in a canon divergent ending of Termina.

Abella, knowing O’saa is erudite about magic and the surnatural, would ask to stay in contact with him because she feels the need to know more about what happened during the festival. O’saa would accept, happy to have an occasion to have his ego being stroked while he teaches someone else about what he knows.

The pair would travel the world to learn new things, spend a lot of time together, and Abella would even teach O’saa a thing or two about mechanics as a trade off for him teaching her about the occult.

Eventually both would have feelings about eachother…On Abella’s side it feels natural for it to happen, as they do spend a lot of time with eachother and enjoy eachother’s companies and hobbies. On O’saa’s side though…needless to say he is having an existential crisis because he did not even know having simple, romantic feelings for someone was even possible for him. I think sexual feelings he views as not shameful, because it’s what his body would need and not his feelings, but there he is having a proof that he’s not as dead inside as he tried to be for years.

Abella is aware of this, as O’saa grows visibly more hesitant and dare I even say coy with showing affection to her that goes a bit too uncomfortably close to the line between simple friendship and romantic attentions. She decides to let him figure it out by himself, but that does not mean she doesn’t enjoy seeing him very subtly avoid her gaze when their eyes meet.

I also have. A whole thing with me and associating them with Gro-Goroth and Sylvian imagery. This bit is not a theory or trying to prove anything being canon, but it’s more about symbolism and narratives that I like to associate with them cause I do like some religious imagery. I can most definitely get into detail about it, but the post is already too long as it is by itself LOL

Hopefully this will feed your curiosity.

[under-my-pillow]

how do you feel with all the people calling soo won aromantic because of his scene with lily when he said he doesnt really understand romance or love but he likes people?

Hello, @spriderlili,

It is a very interesting question. Thank you for asking, but keep in mind my response might be biased as I am personally not a fan of labels, and the fandom gives him plenty of silly ones, so most of the time I am - Even if he is dying, you don't have to be in a hurry to pick out a label for his gravestone quite yet, thank you. - kind of mood.

But I'll elaborate on this particular one.

The word 'aromantic' has a very vague meaning - little or no romantic attraction to others

Does it mean unable to have/devoid of romantic feelings? Or is it referring to people who have never had romantic feelings in their entire lifetime?

For the former, no, he is not devoid of/unable to have emotions - a sociopath or psychopath (I know they call him that, but he is neither) He feels, pain, anger, sympathy, joy, longing, etc., etc., as we have seen in multiple instances, so it doesn't make sense to just be unable/devoid of only romantic feelings.

If it is the latter, we are a little too early to say anything, because despite being "king" and wise beyond his years we often forget that Soo-won is only eighteen years old. Even if we go with the average lifetime of a person being 60 years old, he hasn't even completed half.

Now, is it referring to how he was unaware of Yona's feelings or how he doesn't understand the emotions of love or romance? Or how he seems to not really have attachments to people?

I do not believe the answer to these is - 'aromantic'

To make it a little clear, let's take Yona.

Why was she able to understand romantic love and why is Soo-won unable to?

Why was she able to love and adamantly insist on marrying Soo-won without considering anything else?

1. Because she had the freedom to be a child.

2. She had the freedom to be immature.

3. She had emotional freedom and creative freedom which were not restricted by adult burdens.

4. She was taken care of by a loving parent and allowed healthy emotional development.

For Soo-won, it is the opposite.

The privilege to be a child, the privilege to be immature, the privilege to rely on others, love immaturely, quit immaturely - he lost all that to the dream of making Kouka strong and secure.

Sure, that was his choice, but it was not his choice to lose a major source of parental affection & guidance while the remaining semblance of one was just a wreck.

Children are naturally emotionally reliant on their parents/guardian. So, what happens when a reliable source of emotional stability is just knocked out from right beneath their feet? Where do they put their feet?

For Soo-won, I believe it was in the memories of his father. This is sometimes seen in the way we see him clinging to the memories of his father for guidance.

So,

1. Heavy responsibilities, even the adults did not bother to do.

2. A limited social circle, predominantly made up of adults.

3. A fudging time limit.

It's like asking an athlete with a hundred miles left to the finish line and a 20 minute time limit if he could solve your algebra homework on the way.

I am not saying Soo-won is emotionally underdeveloped either. He is very excellent at controlling his emotions as we have seen. I'd say he is emotionally exhausted.

Romance is not in his priorities.

Romantic attraction is something generally experienced in leisure, when there is freedom to express the heart, when there is that subconscious freedom to trust your heart with another person.

Soo-won is not like Yona. She constantly has Hak or the four dragons whom she can be vulnerable with.

Who do we see Soo-won constantly be vulnerable with?

He has not had emotional freedom.

In the age to run, play, make mistakes, he had already become sensible, self- reliant, set in his beliefs — he's already run half the course before he even turned eighteen while the greatest worry for girls around his age was probably Geun-Tae getting married.

That's a major bandwidth problem.

I think we can all agree that based on what we have seen so far, Soo-won is not a love at first sight person. If he is going to fall in love with someone it is going to be a gradual process.

So, the person at least needs to be someone who can understand his views and talk to him on equal ground. Someone whom he can be emotionally free with. Someone whom he can eventually be vulnerable with.

Lili is a great example (Yes, I won't miss an opportunity to ship my top couple, but also seriously...)

Prior to the story's start Lili was probably just a love sick teen pining after Geun-Tae, but by the time Soo-won's coronation is over she is aware of the water tribe's major issues.

She wants to help, tries, fails miserably, tries again, gets help, slowly matures enough to be able to command the respect of the tribe in her own name.

Among all of Soo-won's female acquaintances introduced in the story so far which you can count on one hand she is the closest to have come to understanding the reality underlying Soo-won's decisions.

So, my point is, maturity wise, girls around his age circle are just catching up.

When there is someone (preferably Lili) whom he is comfortable with expressing his thoughts and emotions to, someone who actually understands him (Not like Hak), he'll eventually come to understand what it means to hold romantic affection for another person.

He just needs time and the right person.

[edgy-ella]

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice thoughts

Overall I really liked it! This is definitely Burton’s best outing in years. His signature quirky sense of humor is back, and it’s got some fun performances and a nice blend of practical effects and CGI. Go see it if you can.

From here on out I’m gonna get into spoiler territory so proceed with caution.

This movie along with the original Beetlejuice have made me realize that one of Burton’s unsung strengths as a director is his strong pacing. Both movies are very zippy, never lingering on one shot or scene for too long. That’s a good thing, too, because I don’t think this movie would’ve worked otherwise. The script juggles a lot of characters, old and new, and subplots that don’t tie in very well to each other, leading to a climax that feels like everyone lining up to get a slap in the face before exiting stage left. Burton’s directorial touches—snappy pacing and cartoony German Expressionism visuals—are what make the movie work.

There’s some sequel gap syndrome at play here but it’s not very distracting. I think it helps that there is a huge time skip between the two movies rather than something like Psychonauts 2 which takes place literally the next day after the first game ends. You don’t really question how Beetlejuice unshrunk his head or how he has a bunch of other shrunken head people working for him now; so much time has passed that you can just sort of infer it on your own. That being said, the movie seems to have abandoned the concept of afterlife social workers all being suicide victims.

There is meta humor but it’s all very subtle. It’s never a big punchline where the actors pause for the audience to laugh, it’s always incorporated into the dialogue fairly naturally and there for people in the know to chuckle at. One character says that she’s “never doing Disney again” while talking about Halloween costumes. Neither of my friends picked up on this bit, but I got a nice giggle out of that one. Like you go Tim you’re finally out of your abusive relationship with the mouse.

For those of you that have seen the musical, it is a little distracting early on in the movie because it seems like Lydia and Astrid’s character arc is the exact same one that Charles and Lydia go through in the musical. The kid’s got a dead parent and living parent won’t talk about them, which becomes a source of tension. Astrid doesn’t go running into the Netherworld to find her dad like Lydia does for her mom in the musical, but strangely enough, she just…kinda bumps into him? It’s very strange. He’s working for customs in the afterlife and they just so happen to pass by each other as Astrid is nearly sent to the great beyond. I’m too tired right now to go into what this kind of thing means thematically.

Jenna Ortega gives a good performance as Astrid, but I wasn’t really sold on her character. I appreciate that she’s not just Lydia 2.0, but the Snarky Politically Active Teen Who’s Above All Of The Superficial Blonde Girls™ has been done to death already. I don’t see her having the same cultural impact that Lydia had when the first movie came out.

Monica Bellucci’s character, Beetlejuice’s ex-wife Delores, honestly feels like trailer fodder. She suffers the most from the movie’s lack of focus, especially for how much she’s hyped up at the beginning. Once again, she gives a good performance, but the script isn’t doing her any favors. Bizarrely enough, they didn’t really keep the gag of Beetlejuice keeping her chopped off finger/wedding ring? She’s still missing a finger, but she doesn’t get it back from Beetlejuice. It’s just there with the rest of her. She staples it back onto her body the same time she does her torso and legs.

One of the writers definitely has a pregnancy kink. There’s a couple of those “the writer’s poorly disguised fetish” moments in the movie, which honestly got a laugh out of me for how blatant they were. Congrats guys, you got to see Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega give birth. There’s also an inflation scene, but that only happened once, not twice.

Lydia is shown taking either antidepressants or schizophrenia meds, which her fiancé throws in the trash in like the first scene of the movie which just made me think of that scene in the Fnaf movie where Vanessa throws Mike’s sleeping pills in the lake.

On a similar note, there’s a shot that is more or less frame for frame that scene from the Casper movie where Kat and Casper start levitating while they’re dancing. It even serves basically the same narrative purpose. Seeing it gave me whiplash. You can’t do this to me Tim.

Kind of related to the meta humor, but I got a kick out of how they wrote Jeffery Jones (the actor that played Charles) out of the movie. I mean, they definitely had to, but still. We see Charles’ death through a pretty goofy stop motion segment, and in the afterlife he’s walking around without a head (presumably played/voiced by a different actor). Conversely, the Maitlands (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) don’t show up at all. Lydia says that they “found a loophole and were able to pass on” and that’s it. I wish they got a stop motion segment the same way Charles did.

Bob is my goat. He’s very Sir Dan-coded. He did not deserve the fate this movie gave him.

I wouldn’t say I prefer this movie over the original, but my god, it’s leaps and bounds better than all the remakes, reboots, and gap-sequels we’ve been getting for the last ten years. It could’ve benefitted from a tighter script, but in a movie like this that’s not really what matters. It’s dark, it’s funny, it’s charming, it’s memorable. It doesn’t feel forced or corporate the same way that movies like Hocus Pocus 2 or that new Indiana Jones movie do. It’s worth a watch.

[hmspogue]

Outer Banks Season 3 Shot by Shot Trailer Rundown

I do not own any clips or screenshots, all rights to Netflix and the creators.

To say I'm still reeling would be the understatement of the century, let's get into it.

John B: "From the very beginning, it was always Kooks..."

Even though they're set on us prying this orange filter from their cold dead fingers, these first two shots are actually stunning?

"...and Pogues"

Holy hell, we know we have all the ohter Pogues reuniting with their parents after they get back home, so JJ being all alone at this house is actually so heartbreaking.

Jiara nation rise, it looks like Bracelet Touch™ takes place at the empty Maybank house I'm not well.

"Some people with everything..."

Why are season 3's always everyones haircut season in shows like what is the source of this phenomenon?

But Rafe and Barry with the key

This hiding job is on par with JJ throwing pew pillows over it in the church.

Although, kind of think this is them getting ready to try and melt the cross down (which makes me so beyond furious), because off to the side you see the lighter fluid and the muffin tins, then later there's shots of gold.

"...and some with nothing."

The DIVIDE. I actually love the dynamic of Kooks vs Pogues heating up and the two cultures that try and exist on a very small island together. Especially since this season seems to be Kiara centric, her whole identity being called into question about where she falls I NEED IT.

I cannot even begin to express how sad I am that we're probably going to get approximately 3 seconds of them hanging out on Poguelandia because look at them!!! Let them be happy!!!

"That's the way it's always been."

SDHCULAISUEHLWAG JIARA FISHING ISNT JUST A MONTAGE I REPEAT JIARA FISHING WILL NOT JUST BE A MONTAGE.

I LOVE HER SO MUCH YES BABE GO FISHING!!!

Pope and Cleo making a signal fire together. Looks like that scene from the teaser of them walking in the field was probably them trying to scout out a good spot for it.

Jarah B looking fine as hell John B I know that bandana is your father's but i cannot even begin to imagine how disgusting it is at this point I'm sorry-

IM BEING SO NORMAL ABOUT THIS!!!!

I feel like both this shot and the previous one are them being saved by the plane that lands.

(@whitetrashjj the mullet truther, your time has come).

"Until now."

This may be my favorite John B set up narration so far.

Also, like I said, them getting rescued by the plane. Kiara looks almost hesitant? Could be the same shot as above where her and JJ aren't too sure about this plane or the people on it.

MMMMMMMM VERY concerning JJ bike crash. Pope and Cleo (or maybe Kie?) in the back of the truck with a crate.

Okay this is SO intereting to me because Ward with blood all over himself (whatelse is new?), Rafe, and Sarah helping him? I can't tell what's in his hand. But the family dynamics this season are goign to be somehow even messier, I can feel it.

Kiara getting kidnapped and taken to wilderness camp, I'm so not ready for this like. It's for sure the Carrera house in the back, the two shirts say Kitty Hawk Adventure.

For a long time, we all thought this was going to be something they ended the season on, but now it seems like it'll be a plot point in the middle. Thanks to @sun-undone and her unhinged costuming documents, we know that this yellow halter top is after the Carrera anniversary party we got BTS from (with the Jiara gate fight and John B rocking Topper's shit and Mike's "see, this is what I'm talking about, JJ"). We know Kie is seen later witht he Pogues, so Blue Ridge may be a quick, one episode plot mid season.

If they've been holding Blue Ridge over her head the whole season, then John B beating the shit out of Topper at the party is sort of the last straw, I cannot een begin to imagine the fight that he and JJ will have about it????

JJ and Kiara INSIDE the Chateau and a fire being lit OUTSIDE? If someone's trying to burn the house down witht hem trapped inside there will be heLL TO PAY.

IF THE CHATEAU GETS BURNED DOWN IM COMING FOR THE PATES I STG DON'T DO THIS TO ME WHY DO I FEEL LIKE IT WOULD BE MY CHILDHOOD HOME BURNING KJDFLAIUDHFAL??????

I know that Cline talked about having to mentally take Sarah to some very dark places this season and this shot just confirms my theory that I seriously think Sarah's going to kill someone and deal with the emotional consequences of that.

I want this to be feral JJ so badly after Kiara's taken, but, sadly, he's not in the right outfit. Not the first time we've seen machete!JJ though.

We saw this shot in the teaser, but looks like they're climbing up an abandoned elevator shaft. They're in their clothes they have on get reunited with Kie. I think it's from the same abandoned hotel the Pogues (minus Kiara, probably because they're going to save her) are in front of in a different shot.

Andd here it is: the new plot of the season and confirmation they're going after fucking EL DORADO NEXT LIKE.

Important to note this is shot on a plane as well.

Oh the Twinkie, how I missed you.

oh look they remembered a mom besides Anna this season WHY MY EYES WET LIKE THESE REUNIONS ALSO WHILE JJ IS COMPLETELY ALONE. HEYWARD, ADOPT HIM YOU COWARD!

Kiara's relationship with her parents is so askjhfailsuh COMPLICATED because I think they really do love her. And she wants more than anything for them to understand her and they just keep missing each other.

"My father and me..."

This shot is very aesthetically pleasing to me. That's all I have to say about it.

YEAH OKAY AND THEN I STARTED FUCKING WEEPING BECAUSE THIS?????? I CANT BELIEVE THEY PUT BABY JOHN B IN THE TRAILER?????

If they only do baby Sarah and Baby John B I will do something so drastic-

"...the treasure was our way out."

The way he's looking at his father? Like the pride in his eyes? I know this relationship is going to sting so badly with the way the Pates have talked about John B having to reconcile the idealized version of his father in his head with the one that left him for gold.

This is a kid that hasn't been hurt by the world or his father yet and I wanna hug him.

(post will be continues apparently i can only up load 30 images at once)

[meluiloth]

Tauriel Rewrite, pt 1.

As I've been delving into Mirkwood and Silvan Elves, my mind keeps drifting to Tauriel; I've mentioned before how I've had a conflicted opinion of her (do I dislike her, or do I dislike the writers' decisions, or is it a mix of both?), and recently, I've had a few ideas of how her story could have gone so differently. So, I've decided to compile my thoughts into a brief outline, a rewrite of her arc in The Hobbit movies. Mostly, I'm working to get rid of her love triangle with Legolas and Kili (instead developing a sibling bond between her and Legolas and a friendship between her and Kili), develop a mentor-mentee / father-daughter relationship between her and Thranduil, and make her a more independent character in her own arc. Her desire to help Mirkwood by reaching outwards, conflicting with her peoples' isolationist views, could have been really interesting, since she is both loyal and determined.

Despite my numerous problems with the movies' story choices (and the changes they made from the book) this rewrite will follow the plotline of the films. This outline got way longer than I thought it would, so I'll be dividing it into separate parts! Let me know what you think of it!

Tauriel is a young but highly skilled huntress and warrior, and one of the youngest Captains of the Guard Mirkwood has ever seen; some say it is mostly due to favoritism from the King (being his adopted daughter really makes life easy, doesn't it?) but they cannot deny that she is worthy of the title. For her part, she earned the position on her own, refusing any help from Thranduil.

She is a few decades younger than Legolas, born shortly before the War of the Last Alliance, which claimed the lives of her parents; she grew up with Legolas as his adopted sister, watching the decline of Mirkwood, but unlike many of her people, she is curious and hopeful and wants to seek outward for help for her kingdom. Despite being told many times that the other lands have no interest in Mirkwood's concerns, and she should focus on her own home, Tauriel is not convinced.

Imagine her surprise when, after clearing out a nest of Spiders, she discovers a group of Dwarves among them. She regards them with stoic hostility and follows Legolas's orders to take them to the Elven fortress as prisoners, but inside, she can't keep from feeling curious about them.

She watches them carefully, taking note of every move and word, trying to figure out why they are in Mirkwood and if they're as awful as the rumors said; she's noticing that they are loud and very rude to the Elves, refusing to answer any of their questions with anything other than insults and demands, but they are also hungry and exhausted. She brings this up to Legolas, who orders that they are to be given food and water, and that they are not to be harmed.

When the Dwarves are put into their cells, she notices that the smallest of them was wounded by the Spiders; she gives him a small handful of athelas and tells him what to do with it before leaving. She is not as skilled at healing as she is at fighting, but she knows a little; her mother was a healer.

Tauriel goes to report to Thranduil, they are both concerned about the growing threat of the Spiders. Tauriel suggests that they investigate Dol Guldur, but Thranduil warns her that Dol Guldur is too dangerous, and that it lies beyond the borders of their forest. Tauriel argues that if they don't stop the Spiders at their source, then they will continue to grow in Mirkwood and spread to other lands. Thranduil hesitates, then says that other lands are not his concern, and that protecting their own domain is the priority. He compliments her on her fighting that day - Legolas has said her skill is unmatched - and says that Mirkwood is lucky to have so competent a protector, but Tauriel is dissatisfied. She bows and leaves in disappointment.

A few days pass, and she volunteers to take the most shifts guarding the Dwarves; her curiosity in them is growing, and she realizes this might be her only chance to learn about the outside world. Most of the Dwarves regard her with disdain and say nothing, but Kili, the one she gave the athelas to, is far easier to get along with; he is young, and doesn't even have a full beard yet, so he doesn't have the deep-rooted dislike of Elves that his companions do. They become friends, and he tells her about what the world is like - after all, he's had to be a traveler since he was a child - and also shares a little about his own culture. Tauriel is intrigued, and she sympathizes with him when he explains that his home was overtaken by a great evil; after all, that is what's happening to her own home. She compliments Kili for doing what it takes to take back his land, prompting him to urge her to release him; she is conflicted, and even considers it for a moment, but in the end, she reluctantly shakes her head. She is loyal to her own people first and foremost.

She switches with another guard so she can leave the Dwarves and go feast with the rest to distract herself, but Legolas catches up to her; he confesses he was watching her, since he's noticed she has been acting differently since they brought the Dwarves in, and he's worried. She is indignant about being spied on, and even moreso when he says it isn't a good idea for her to be making friends with Dwarves. She argues with him about how the Dwarves aren't nearly as bad as she's been told - what else could the Elves be wrong about? Perhaps if they helped the Dwarves, they would gain a powerful ally in combatting the evil in their own land. Legolas takes his father's side on the matter, but he can't deny his frustration about Mirkwood's state. He says he is doing everything he can in the best way he knows how, which softens Tauriel a little, and she admits she's just tired and worried. Legolas smiles and says she could use some song and drink, and that she should stop swooning over Dwarves. Tauriel smirks and says she's not swooning, and that she can handle more wine than he can anyways. But Legolas says his singing voice is better.

The next morning, she goes to check on the Dwarves, but finds that they have escaped somehow - the butler and guard she left are both drunk, and there's no sign of the prisoners anywhere. She is outraged (and feels a little betrayed, too), and orders the sentries to search for them. Legolas finds them floating down the river in barrels, pursued by Orcs. The Elves kill all of the Orcs - leaving one alive to be questioned - and return to the kingdom. Tauriel regards the battle as a severe loss. Her first thought is to go after them, but Legolas stops her, saying that the river the Dwarves were following would lead them outside the boundary of Mirkwood. Tauriel is obligated to return, but she swears that this isn't over.

That concludes part 1 of my Tauriel rewrite! If you have any thoughts, let me know!

part 2 part 3

tagging @sotwk, @lawyernovelist, @acornsandoaktrees

[2024-grimoire-challenge]

October Week 4 - Witchy Things

This week we’re going to look at familiars, covens, and interactions with people outside of our belief system. How to navigate our inter-spiritual relationships and so on. A couple lighter topics with a couple heavier ones in there as well. Let’s dive in!

Monday - Familiars

Research/ new page - what are familiars in witchcraft? Do different cultures hold different beliefs about what they are, where they come from and how they fit into the craft? What’s the difference between a pet and a familiar? How can you find one and work with one? What is the history of familiars?

Research - herbal study - pick another herb from your list and research everything about it! Culinary, practical and magical uses and associations! How to grow it! Its history and where it comes from, how to grow it and anything else you can discover!

Tuesday - covens

Research/ new page - what is a coven? Define it and all of its aspects. Who can be in one? Does one /have/ to be a witch to participate in a coven? Where can you find them? How are they formed and what rules do they follow? Are there covens you know of, historically or even in pop culture? Find out as much as you can about them!

Introspection/ practical - are you part of a coven? Do you want to be? Do you have friends that practice that you would want to ever be in a coven with or just work or practice with? If you can, and it is safe, reach out to other practitioners if you’re interested in being part of a coven.

Safety First - when interacting with others (in general, not even just in the witchcraft community) be safe. If you’re leaning anything from anyone, make sure they are a legitimate source of information and that boundaries are respected both toward you and from you. If anything someone does or says makes you uncomfortable, trust that feeling and cease the interaction. Especially if you’re a minor or are younger than those you’re involved with. Keep yourself safe. At all times.

Wednesday - “types” of witches

Research/ new page- while a relatively new phenomenon, there are various lists of “types” of witches that go beyond and sometimes transcend cultural practices and beliefs. What are some of these types of witches you’re aware of? Would you define yourself as one of these? Several of these? Is there overlap in some of these definitions? Where/ when did this idea come into play and come from?

Research/ new page- gem study- pick a gemstone from your list and learn all that you can about it! Practical and magical uses and associations, what chemical makeup it has, where it comes from and how to source it, everything!

Thursday - Inter-spiritual interactions and relationships

For context, my wife is devout Christian, though she is very supportive and open minded toward things outside her faith. She supports my practice and beliefs as I support hers. We find middle ground and compromise in life and build our home together based on trust, understanding and love. That said, there are still times we disagree and have to separate some parts of our faith from one another. For instance, I do not attend church with her, but support her going, and she asks that I only perform spells and rituals in one specific part of the house. Compromise is a good thing.

Her parents and my own parents however, are a different story. My parents are catholic, strict and true. Her parents are Pentecostal pastors. There is a lot of eggshell stepping and a fair bit of secrecy or at least quietness to my beliefs and practice in those relationships.

Research/ introspection - it can be hard to have relationships at all, let alone when we different beliefs from those people we surround ourselves with. Navigating those relationships can be difficult. Sometimes opposing ideologies can intermingle and teach each other, sometimes they can’t. What are some ways you can stand firm in your beliefs in the face of those who disagree with your beliefs? How do you face opposition to your beliefs? How can you politely (when you can) tell people to leave you alone? How can you best restrict people’s access to you to have peace in your craft and practice? Are there parts of your craft and practice you have to keep secret or outright hide? What are some calm and level headed ways to interact with people of differing faiths and beliefs?

Journal- think about your relationships in your life, and how you navigate them in relationship to your practice and craft. What and who are those that accept it, or at the very least, aren’t worried about it? Who are those who have confronted you about or disagree with it? What have these interactions taught you about them, about yourself, about your craft and practice?

Friday - stereotypes and how to face them

This sort of goes adjacent to the above prompt.

Research/ introspection- what are some witchy stereotypes you’ve faced? Things people think about your craft or practice and beliefs that are outright false, or founded in stereotypes and only partially true? Do you fit into any stereotypes, or does your craft? At least outwardly? What stereotypes are you aware of that some witches you know fit into? What are some other stereotypes that you’re aware of and where did they stem from?

Thanks again and I hope you’re all enjoying the challenge! More artsy prompts are coming in the last couple months!

-Mod Hazel

[weiwuxianismybae]

My fandom pet peeves

Lan Wangji’s dislike of Jiang Wanyin

So, I dived back into the world of fanfiction and was quickly reminded of all the fanon things I hate. Starting with Lan Wangji’s unreasonable dislike of Jiang Cheng. In order to promote "Wei Wuxian's little brother Jiang Cheng", Lan Wangji's very good reasons to hate Jiang Cheng are reduced to some petty, stupid bs like "He [LWJ] didn't like how often Jiang Cheng hit Wei Wuxian." And later on we get this gem: "After some time LWJ understood that violence is JC's way of showing affection." Like, wtf? If my younger sibling (and I have one) showed their affection through violence, I wouldn't see it as love, but as abuse, 'cause that's what it is. And I'm not talking about the normal sibling fighting because that's not what Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng's relationship is. I mean, just reread the Cloud Recesses Study arc. The only thing Jiang Cheng seems to know is how to belittle and criticise Wei Wuxian. I'm not gonna lie, I found some of the remarks quite funny (I'm a passive aggressive bitch myself), but when that's the only thing that comes out of Jiang Cheng's mouth, it really starts to eat at you. I deeply respect Wei Wuxian's ability to not take it seriously. And when Lan Wangji’s actual grievances with Jiang Cheng are stated, we get the "but he [JC] still loved his brother" nonsense. Lan Wangji’s real reasons to dislike Jiang Cheng are as follows: abandoning Wei Wuxian, being the prime reason and catalyst of Wei Wuxian's death, spreading hateful rumours about Wei Wuxian (who else could have been the source of "WWX is responsible for Jiang Clan's massacre" if not the only surviver, besides Wei Wuxian, of the said massacre?), and hunting down the so-called demonic cultivators because "what if that's actually Wei Wuxian." I commend Lan Wangji’s restraint, because if it had been me, I would have long since punched that guy in the nose. And I absolutely love Lan Wangji’s attitude of "I won't look at you; I won't speak to you. Sizhui, you may speak on my behave."

"Lans only love once"

Please tell me I'm not the only one who gets toothache whenever I read this. When I came across it for the first time, I didn’t think much of it. Like, at first, I thought it was cute, but then it started grinding on my nerves. Why? Because it diminishes Lan Wangji’s love, trust and devotion to Wei Wuxian to a mere fate thing that is beyond your control. He is already being reduced to some block of ice (by the mob in mdzs and the fandom), and now you also simplify such an important part to his character. Like, where did this even come from? Yes, we have the famous Lan "I will leave this world, because my love is no longer in it" An and Lan Wangji, but that's it when it comes to die-hard romantics in the Lan Clan. The story of Qingheng-jun and Madam Lan is not really romantic (I'm not gonna speculate on what there was and wasn't between them because Lan Xichen telling Wei Wuxian about his parents had a different purpose, namely, to esteblish Lan Wangji as someone who doesn't just listen to what his elders have to say, but as someone who seeks to understand and then judge the reasoning by his own moral beliefs). And that's it. So where is "Lans only love once" coming from??

So why did I write all of this? Well, I'm just tired of seeing this over and over again. Aren't we all so creative? Come up with new head-canons (so that I have more things to criticise /jk) or stick to canon characteristics. Please.

[knavetheodore]

The goddamn dichotomy of constantly being told you're intelligent and well informed by you parents, only for you to voice an opinion that differs from them and they turn around and deny all that you've said in the name of you being young, too sensitive, overly politically correct etc. My intelligence and knowledge is only respected if I don't rock the boat too much; racism is bad! 'yes yes good!' oh encampments at university and the disruption they cause is good and your criticism of said disruption completely misses the point!, "no no no, you don't understand, what sources are you getting this from?? People should be able to be comfortable and not have to be confronted by the genocide they are complicit in! it's just instigators causing this, this isn't the feelings of the actual students!'.

its such neo-liberal nonsense. its the same thing all these universities are pushing!! 'break the mold! study here and change the world! Oh! you're actually breaking the mold? Well then we'll arrest you and kick you out!!". It's beyond frustrating.

The lives of Palestinians can be not only disrupted, but ended, their culture destroyed, but how dare the lives of some students and staff in prestigious minority-world universities have classes disrupted?? It's abominable and endlessly upsetting. You somehow have compassion for these university students but you can't show and compassion for the people of Palestine.

I'm so goddamn sick of it.

stand up for something beyond fucking symbolic change for once in your meager little lives.

also don't pretend you give a shit about Indigenous lives in this country if you can't show even the smallest ounce of solidarity with the Indigenous people of Palestine!!