#I just put it in the verse we talked about on skype

[couriersiccs]

finished alex hera's slenderverse docuseries and i just want to.. i don't know, collect my thoughts and share them, because the slenderverse had been a huge part of my emotional abuse-ridden adolescence and it was as much a saving grace as it was yet another source of trauma. and it's been really difficult to reconcile that! so here's a long fuckin chunk of text if you wanna read a personal memoir that's mostly just for me ngl.

I can't promise this will be coherent, and it won't have a place in the History of The Verse because it's just my personal experience, but yeah. Wow.

First off, the documentary was beautiful. Well-crafted, impeccably researched, and just very informative and enjoyable to watch overall. Kudos to Alex for the time, passion, and attention to detail that they put into it, because it's exactly what the topic deserves.

Ten years ago, I was an eighteen-year-old just finishing my first year of art school. I was out of my parents house, understanding for the first time that my upbringing was abusive, damaging, and actually pretty shitty. Not "the shittiest," which allowed my parents (specifically my mother, enabled by my father) to downplay it for so long. But it left me deeply scarred. It stunted my development in ways I've only, in recent years, been able to untangle - my ability to recognize and process emotions, my self-worth, how to understand what I need, the value of my wellbeing and basic health, the ways I'm capable of hurting people in my desperate, clawing need to avoid abandonment. Just to name a few key areas, off the top of my head.

I knew none of this when I discovered Slenderman and Marble Hornets when I was fourteen, maybe fifteen. Eventually, I discovered the fandom on Tumblr, and, most importantly, formed the Skype-based chatroom with my friends, known as Hornetcon.

Literally even just reading the name of it, my throat twists up and tears start to form. When I was in high school, as my mom's abuse got worse and worse, my social connections floundered. Nobody knew what I was really going through, because I didn't even know what I was going through. All I knew was that I felt bad about myself because I only ever seemed to make my mom upset. I couldn't understand how wrong it was of her to treat me the way she did until I had distance.

I became isolated. I stopped seeing the friends I'd had that were close to me. The friends I had at school were my friends, but we didn't hang out very often outside of school hours. I loved them and still cherish the fact that they enjoyed my company at all, but I didn't connect with them. My time was mostly spent on my laptop, hiding from whatever batshit alcoholic mood my mom was in that night, and I joined Tumblr at the behest of my school friends.

When Hornetcon started, I was a couple of days away from turning sixteen. I made very good friends there. I met people I connected with, for the very first time as a developing teenager, on a deep, understanding, accepting level. We bonded over the series, excitedly rapid-fire spammed the chat whenever there was an update, joked about shipping, shared fic and fanart, talked about queerness and transness and polyamory and everything my Good White Catholic Suburbs had shielded me from. The Internet was the gateway for my development, now, since I wasn't going to get it in "real life."

(That's probably it's own form of stunted development, but it was the best tool available to me at the time. shit was dire, folks.)

I got close to lot of people there. I loved talking with them, meeting up on tinychat, catching up with them when I got home from school, happily staying up WAY too late just to chat with friends in different timezones. I wasn't being shown, outside of that chatroom, that I was valuable as a person. That my interests were valuable. That people could find me interesting, funny, and even cute. Those were revolutionary concepts to me.

Alex talked about the pedestal the Slenderverse Creators stood on, and I remember how easily we put them there.

Some of them were in our chatroom! We got to talk with them, ask them questions, shoot the shit like fellow creative minds. We spoke with them like we were all on equal ground, but in reality, they really weren't. We showered them with love, with praise, with reassurances when they were having a bad day. We were all friends on Facebook, which signified a level of trust. We got to know them, or thought we did. Started closer, private friendships with some of them.

In retrospect, it's kind of hilarious that the most predatory of them frequented the chat most often. It isn't, but looking back, it's like...... of fucking course they did. Some were cool! Some were very fucking uncool!

I couldn't tell the difference. I didn't even know my own mother was harming me - how was I supposed to know that a friend I trusted, who was part of my refuge from her, was harming me, too? Harming my friends, who only came forward once I did?

How was I supposed to know that when, while visiting the Creators friends I'd made for New Year's 2016, I spent an evening drunkenly cuddling with one who was also a predator? The only reason nothing more happened is because I was unwillingly partnered (complicated for unrelated reasons. lmfao.) at the time, and he decided not to target me.

It wasn't limited to the Creators, though. Non-creators friends I made in that chatroom hurt me, too. When I think of the Slenderverse as a painful part of my life, I include them. And, most importantly, I include myself.

I hurt people, through no intention of hurting them, because I was scared and in pain and had no idea how to communicate with another human being. I had no idea how to handle relationships, how to express myself in my friendships with others. The time I was supposed to have spent developing those skills, I was instead being emotionally slingshotted back and forth by my parents, the people who were supposed to have set an example for me to follow and support me when I made mistakes. I tried to search for that support elsewhere, and I found people who were better, people who were worse, and I only knew the difference after it was too late.

I can only say that I was not capable of being a better person when I wish I had been. It is the only way I've been able to forgive myself and move on with my life, even if I still taste guilt and embarrassment in the back of my throat at the memories. If I were to ever speak to the people I hurt again, on a real, raw emotional level, I wouldn't expect them to forgive me based on "well, see, I was right fucked up and didn't really know it yet."

Thinking about the Slenderverse makes me think about the messy, reactive, depressed, and frankly manipulative person I have been. Being a "people pleaser" is, in my experience, a version of an emotional manipulator. Not for particularly nefarious reasons, but because when someone reached out to offer to me love, a desperate little girl with claws reached back. I didn't mean to hurt people, I didn't abuse a power structure to get what I wanted out of them. I was just utterly graceless with how I handled the emotional wellbeing of both myself and anyone who tried to show any care for me.

Another thing I've been working on is challenging my pattern of "black and white" thinking. Some people really were innocent, and I really did hurt them because I was messy. Some people may have started out innocent, but along the way I realized they wanted what I couldn't give, and I had to let them go. Some people may not have intended to hurt me, but did. Some people may truly have never valued me as a person, and only acted as if they did.

It's all grey. Kind of in a fog, really. I have few clear memories of that time, and I'm grateful that they are mostly good ones. Trying to dig them up by going back through my blog feels like performing open heart surgery on myself. I think it's worth revisiting, even though it feels like retreading over ground that is not a place of honor, where no highly esteemed deed is commemorated, where nothing of value lies.

I don't regularly speak to anyone from that era of my life. Even the friends that I love dearly, that helped me through some of my worst moments. It's like there's ooze all over my thoughts of the Slenderverse, due to the actions of both others and myself, and it's all over anything or anyone tangentially related to it. It isn't their fault. I just needed to move on, get some distance from it. Maybe now's a good time to revisit it, but I don't think I get to just walk back into anyone's life like I never quietly excused myself. I don't even think they see it that way. We all just have our own lives.

But I'm thinking of them, a lot. And I wish I could show them how much better I'm doing beyond the occasional social media post. I'm not living in a utopia or anything, but I'm sure as fuck doing better than I was before. I'm learning how to not hurt people, especially not like I used to, and how to apologize and make things right when I do.

I'm still kinda fucked up and probably always will be, in some ways. But I talk kinder to myself, now. I try to value my wellbeing as often as I can. I point out to myself when something should be communicated. I have fewer, but more solid, sources of support.

I'm doing my best out here. I hope they are, too. All of them.

It would have been funny to see Hornetcon mentioned in the doc. It wasn't a doc about the fans, though, so I get it. But it would've been funny to tell my perspective of the Verse at that point. And I was in it, technically! Behind the camera during the clips they used of the WhisperedFaith BTS video, and one or two of the Shamhouse! I had a place in the Verse solely due to the compassionate, if tumultuous, friendships that were built and later left to decay. I never created a Slenderseries, but I created fanworks, memes, co-created a big fangroup chatroom (though it wasn't an entirely successful or able-to-be-inclusive chatroom, all things considered. imagine a discord server of like a hundred people, dozens active every day, with only one channel. god the days of skype were dark.) I supported, I visited, I loved, I cared deeply. But my experience was only a microcosm of the big picture, and that was already captured quite well. I know where my place in the artistic collaboration was, however extraneous.

And I hope Tharol is doing okay. I was mean to him when he messaged me last, in like 2015, in a furious attempt to rid my life of that Slenderverse-tainted ooze. I wish I could tell him, along with so many others, that I'm sorry.

alright that's all i got, no editing no beta we die like jeff, send post

[fvrtvne]

DARP Advent 2024 - Day One!

Get to know each other! FIRSTS AND FAVORITES!

Preferred name: HAWKE / SARC.

Preferred pronouns: She/Her OR They/Them

Favorite dinosaur: Spinosaurus (I'm incredibly invested in the information we learn

about the species every few years. It's a scientific marvel we've yet to unravel, and I'm super excited to dig my shitty little archaeology major hands into it. )

What's the coolest rock you own or have seen: The Pagan Supply Store from my hometown had a Lapis Lazuli Pendelum that was absolutely gorgeous to look at. I'd give anything to go back in time and pick up that piece.

What piece of media was your first experience with Dragon Age?: The Origins Trailer --

What was your first Dragon Age game?: Dragon Age: Origins!

Which is your favorite DA game?: Dragon Age II has some good high-school memories for me. I remember playing it with my friend for hours on end, side by side on a Skype call while we discussed how our Hawkes were twins.

What was your first DA book or comic?: Silent Grove

Which is your favorite DA book or comic?: Tevinter Nights baby!!!!!!!

Who is your favorite DA character? (please don’t include untagged character hate in your answer – keep it positive!): I really can't pick, but if I had to, the tragedy of Knight Commander Meredith has always been one of my favorite bits of lore to explore both in RP and as a fandom. Aside from her, probably Isabela, Varric or Leliana. :)

What was your first ship? Romantic or platonic: Morrigan x Leliana -- (romantic)

What's your "forever" ship? Romantic or platonic: Isabela x Merrill, romantically. I am . . . obsessed with their dynamic. It's the sweetest thing to hear Isabela try to be not only reassuring, but GENUINE with Merrill. I wish I saw more of them, but alas, god hates me.

What is your favorite DA-verse creature? (nug, giant, halla, etc): I hope it's not seen as quirky to say, but the Spirits. They're so well designed, and Justice has a special place in my heart.

What's the best advice you've ever gotten?: You can't help everyone, but you can help yourself. Sacrificing pieces of yourself will only harm more people in the long run, so be as genuine with yourself as you can, and love will follow.

Are you comfortable receiving feedback / asks from others as the event goes on and will request on certain days that other people reach out? What are your boundaries? If you're okay with asks/comments, are you okay with them from anyone or followers only?: So long as the criticism is constructive, and we talk like adults, then yes, I'm open to all and any feedback. :) / Boundaries are hard for me to define outside of when they're pushed, but I hate feeling cornered. I had a 'friend' who recently spent 3 days berating me for cutting off a ship in D&D, so now I get touchy when I feel trapped in a conversation. Similarly, overly poking me will make me panic. / While I prefer Followers Only, if you're willing to have a mature conversation with me, then I really don't mind hearing your feedback!

Share a picture of something you're excited about/something that you love if you're comfortable doing so! ( put under the cut to shorten the post. )

this image doesn't look like much, but let's talk about significance.

this image was taken by my wife (on the hood of our car) after I had just been told I was laid off from my dream job. i was ugly crying, inconsolable, and could barely breathe through the amount of sobbing I'd done. i felt like i'd finally made it - then immediately failed.

this image was captioned ; "mom wants to ask if this will make you feel better / if this is enough leftovers lol" and you want to know something? it did.

i felt heard, seen, and like my wife grabbed me the last square of banana pudding before leaving.

she & her family have been nothing short of the best goddamn people in my life, and i know if i ever feel alone, they will always be there for me.

[rainydaze-rhys]

Do all 25 for borderlands. Yknow. For funsies.

There will be a readmore line here somehow because on god I’m about to say so much. let me preface: all my hot takes on the matter are a solid 4 years old at minimum, I do not keep up to date on the blands fandom, my enjoyment of the series exists exclusively in isolation these days, etc., etc., if things have changed then I simply do not know about it

1. the character everyone gets wrong

Handsome Jack. He is not a good dad. He is also not in his 30s. That man has an adult daughter and has been married twice. I refuse to believe he was anything under 50 during BL2.

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

DHKDGDJSHDJDJ I sure did forget this was one of the questions. Um. My faves are all verse and no one would refuse to do one thing or another.

3. description of the worst take you’ve seen on tumblr

I saved this for last and then still couldn’t bring myself to remember anything so this doesn’t get an answer because I simply do not want to remind myself of those takes

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

Back in my borderlands days I was afraid of blocking people so I simply did not do it. Took me until only a couple years ago to finally realize “Oh this rules and significantly improves my online experience” and now I block all the time, but this is an entirely separate blog from my borderlands one so it doesn’t have any crossover

5. worst discord server and why?

This one I can’t answer. Discord wasn’t a thing for my original dive into borderlands. We all were just on tumblr constantly and then me and a few friends also talked on Skype

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

Handsome jack/Rhys. I mean I was there. I was in the thick of it. I could see it. But oh my god the braindead takes on it and the aggressive insistence that it was basically canon! The number of people who actively harassed people who liked the actual in-game love interests! The amount of times I saw people say “I don’t personally like this so I’d rather people not discuss it around me” only to be bombarded with dozens of responses discussing it in detail! Wretched! One of the all-time worst collective cases of people insisting the biggest and most popular ship was effectively canon and getting mad at anyone saying otherwise

7. what character did you begin to hate because not because of canon but because of how the fandom acts about them?

Handsome Jack. lol. lmao.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

Handsome Jack is a dogshit father and every single fluff piece or “Happy father’s day lol” post or headcanon about him being a good dad to Angel is dead wrong to an astounding degree. He put her in a cage and used her as a computer for her entire life and frankly she should have gotten to kill him

9. worst part of canon

Borderlands 3.

I was going to say “I kid” but I don’t. It has its moments, but god, it sucks so bad. Killing Maya, replacing Angel with Tannis, writing off Lilith, doing what they did with Aurelia (she would NOT fuck that man), flanderizing the characters from TftBL (Vaughn’s… whole situation…), and— god I just remembered mid-sentence that New Tales exists. That one was actually worse than BL3 somehow.

10. worst part of fanon

Handsome Jack. I’m just gonna keep saying this for basically every question that asks about the bad parts of fandom because literally… him and the people rabidly defending him. (<- he is my favorite character and also I think he deserved worse than he got. these are not mutually exclusive)

11, number of fandom-related words you’ve filtered

See above re: blocking people, I didn’t filter things at the time and on this blog I follow almost no one who posts borderlands content

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Fiona is weirdly unpopular given that she’s literally a protagonist. The same with Lilith, actually, now that I think about it; people seem to either be “meh” about her or frothing-at-the-mouth enraged about her. And they’re wrong! Fiona is a great character who deserved to actually fucking exist in bl3, and Lilith is really well written as understandably arrogant and capable! Also, Nakayama and Vasquez. I can’t take credit for being into those two because other people with extremely good taste did it first and influenced me, but it remains true. And ELLIE. I know “unpopular” isn’t strictly true of her because I think most people would say they like her, but Ellie is a gold star across every game she’s in and I wish there was even more of her and I wish people appreciated her more. Love Ellie.

13. worst blorbofication

. handsome jack.

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

So many borderlands fics are a/b/o. Mpreg is like the DEFAULT. It boggles the mind. “Rhys Borderlands is Handsome Jack’s PA and then he goes into heat in his boss’s office and Jack is such a ruggedly masculine alpha he takes suuuuch good care of him!” Gives me the ick. One thing they don’t tell you about naming yourself after a video game character is the rammys when you try to read a fic and see Your Own Name in those situations.

15. that one thing you see in fanart all the time

I actually don’t really remember the fanart well enough to say about this. I vaguely remember a lot of art of Rhys Borderlands strung up like a puppet controlled by Jack, but beyond that, I’unno

16. you can’t understand why so many people like this thing

Can I be very fully and entirely honest. I don’t love Tim. I don’t hate Tim! And I’ve turned around on him a lot, his appearance in the Handsome Jackpot DLC in bl3 is phenomenal and he’s a great character! And it’s a super interesting concept! I just still don’t love him.

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

I want more fics where Angel survives and gets out from under Jack’s influence. Let the Crimson Raiders be her new parents. I want her to be Maya’s best friend and I want her to date Gaige and I want her to be there in person to kick Jack in the dick when he loses badly and then dies.

18. it’s absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on…

The Pre-Sequel. The Pre-Sequel. The Pre-Sequel. YES the gameplay can be tedious at times. However. I love the Pre-Sequel so much. Love the writing. Adore the plot. Cherish the individual Vault Hunters. The Claptastic DLC remains one of my favorite DLCs. Love Elpis. Fucking love Janey Springs. Hate the way they left so many loose ends to be tied up plot-wise and then just kinda went “lol nvm all that” in the next game.

19. you’re mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like…

IYKYK ;)

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

A lot of the Pre-Sequel is going back and forth across very large open areas using Stingrays which are a vehicle I do not love. A lot of BL3 is also going back and forth across very large open areas using vehicles which control like the Stingrays. There are so many quests that are just “drive around and kill 30 guys and pick up 8 items then drive here and kill 30 animals and pick up 8 more items then drive back and kill 30 guys and give me the items.”

21. part of canon you think is overhyped

I don’t really think there are overhyped things unless BL3 entirely counts as overhyped, which… not anymore. Honestly most of the stuff that’s hyped is fairly understandable. The most popular DLCs are inevitably the ones which are the most well-written with interesting mechanics.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

I already said the Pre-Sequel. Uh, if “everyone else” includes the writers, then TftBL, because they absolutely just threw all of that except Rhys and Vaughn in the trash and then ran those two through a meat grinder.

23. ship you’ve unwillingly come around to

No “unwilling” about ‘em, I’m usually pretty much open to whatever, but I also don’t even poke my head into the tags these days so I haven’t experienWAIT no I just remembered Zer0/Rhys is a thing. I used to not like it. I do now. Silly goofy.

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

“Is it okay to like Handsome Jack?” I will not be elaborating because thinking too much about the endless debates gives me hives

25. common fandom complaint that you’re sick of hearing

Once again I am too disconnected from the greater fandom these days to actually know and be annoyed by what people are complaining about.

[game-weaver]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER. ( REPOST DO NOT REBLOG ! )

NAME: Mac, Weaver, Willow, Wisp, Wispy

PRONOUNS: She/Her

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: Best way to get my attention if you need me here on tumblr is by message. But I'm always active on Discord

NAME OF MUSE(S): My main muses are Atem (Macabre-Shackles), Yugi (here), Maha Vailo (nexusinpacem), and in the past I have written other Atems, Bast, Anubis, older Anzu(briefly), Lelouch and Priest Set(somewhat) but these two were only on discord

EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?): I've been writing on Tumblr since 2012, but have been rping since 2004(?) (we don't talk about it)

PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED: good ol' days of skype, AIM, Discord, Tumblr, and if you want to get REAL old days, various forums. Some we will not mention and leave to dust

BEST EXPERIENCE: The shattered AU Cathedral Verse was just....Some of the best writing I was ever part of as well as had me making some of the best of friends I could ever ask for that have kept me going through some of the worst of times.

RP PET PEEVES/DEALBREAKERS: Godmodding and powerplaying. You can have all powerful characters without controlling someone elses muse. Half of the fun is seeing how other characters react to situations after all. Please don't tell me how my character is feeling or reacting.

FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT: I write all. Though I do love cute fluff, angst and plot development is always my bread and butter.

PLOTS OR MEMES: I'm okay with both, but I love a good plot. Plots are what get my creativity flowing the most.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: I'll write both, but I'm a sucker for long form. It just lets you build more in a post and the environment and such.

BEST TIME TO WRITE: I'm a night owl so usually evening

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): Depends on the muse. Each muse I think has facets of me but I suppose Yugi and Atem(Mac) do have more similarities like my want to make sure others are happy and okay, not putting my needs first (I'm working on it) as well as my protective streak when coming to those I care about. Confrontation when it comes to me? I'll crumble. Confrontation involving a friend? I'll fucking fight to the death.

Tagging: @arcanelight​ (I’m dragging you into this because I know you haven’t done one of these in as long as me) @doomstarmagician​ @historias-multorum​ (if you haven’t done one lately ^^) and anyone else who would like to! 

[natblda]

tw ;; rp abuse

reivcn

@alaskaslayer 

 @kennedybtvs 

 @tylerlockwoof 

 @sunnydalescoobies

i wasn’t going to do this. but i’m doing this. the next time you tell someone i was in love with you and talk shit about me or my muses in any fandom...check yourself. because i still have EVERY SINGLE MESSAGE, EVERY CHAT, EVERY GODDAMN THING BACKED UP AND DOZENS UPON DOZENS OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE LEARNED STRAIGHT FROM YOU HOW TOXIC AND ABUSIVE YOU ARE...ALL ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT THE HELP FROM ME I ASSURE YOU. YOU ARE INTERACTING WITH PEOPLE YOU TALKED SHIT ABOUT, I have all of that documented too, and you are interacting with them under a different alias. the number of messages i have received unprompted from people coming to me about the LIES YOU SPEW OUT, IS A MORE ABSURD NUMBER THAN YOU ARE A PERSON. 

YOU are the reason you have NOTHING but your delusions, and NOTHING is keeping me from putting every single message i have on a google document because you are literally a predator to this community. i wasn’t going to do this, i really wasn’t. because the fact of the matter is...for someone who’s so ‘in love with you right’....you mean nothing to me. you DID THAT. not only did you abuse and gaslight me for YEARS, you abused my muse, you slut shamed her for having other verses, you called her a cheater for seeing other people, you threw in my face and her face nearly every goddamn time that luna interacted with anyone else ...that I QUOTE “RAVEN DOESN’T NEED OTHER VERSES JUST LUNA, WHY DOES LUNA NEED MORE THAN RAVEN, WHY IS RAVEN NOT ENOUGH, LUNA IS ENOUGH FOR RAVEN. WHERE IS RAVEN IN THIS REPLY? TELL THE OTHER MUSE RAVEN IS THERE SO THAT THEY KNOW LUNA IS TAKEN.” 

like NO. how many times i said...get raven out there, let her explore, let her meet other people? it’s GOOD FOR HER? IT’S GREAT FOR MUSES? and you flipped at ME with that same gaslighting again. RAVEN ONLY WANTS LUNA. IT’S LUNA WHO CLEARLY NEEDS MORE. like honestly. the emotional abuse that you put me through and my muse through, to the point where i almost quit writing her? to the point where luna couldn’t even look at your raven without seeing YOUR NASTY BEHAVIOR BEHIND HER VOICE. and you would say...i cant interact with others bc no one in this fandom likes my raven, they all blocked me. BECAUSE OF YOU. BECAUSE OF YOUR SHIT, AND DON’T WORRY, I HAVE YOUR MESSAGES SAYING THAT IT WAS YOUR FAULT AS A MEANS TO MAKE ME GO ‘awe poor you, you’re just misunderstood. they just know you like i do’. but the truth is? THEY DON’T KNOW YOU THE WAY I DO AND THE WAY EVERY PERSON WHO BLOCKED YOU DOES. POOR ANYONE WHO COMES INTO CONTACT WITH YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE A PREDATOR AND A LEECH IN THE RPC.

I DO NOT BELIEVE IN CALL OUT POSTS. BUT I DO BELIEVE IN SAYING MY PIECE WHEN I HAVE BEEN ISOLATED AND SUBJECTED TO YOU FOR YEARS UPON YEARS. and you have the audacity to talk shit about me saying that I WAS THE ONE WHO DID ALL THE ABOVE MENTIONED THINGS TO YOU? yeah that sounds familiar, bc everyone in the world abuses you, you are a victim of everything. literally everything. the number of times i heard you say “not to be racist but...” and then proceeded to spit something racist out of your white mouth.  the number of times you were transphobic, hell...i don’t have to mention that, most people saw that on the dash because you outed yourself with ‘in 2012 people like me could use any fc we wanted with any gender orientation and it was fine so i can still do that!” like..no. i let slide so much that i should NEVER HAVE ALLOWED. I BIT MY TONGUE BC I THOUGHT...maybe she just...needs to be educated on these things, maybe she doesn’t know what she’s saying, maybe it’s just not registering how to be an honest and genuine person. like i get it, people bicker, they have misunderstandings, but at least have the goddamn audacity to be straight forward with it. 

i learned today from a few people...that you accused ME of doing these things instantly upon meeting these people, not even knowing them, and you so readily spilled lies about me. and i figured out why...because you don’t have control of me anymore, you don’t control my muse anymore, because i cut the strings and i cut you out and i kept moving forward, i kept going on, happy...without you. interacting with raven’s who ARE RAVEN, NOT YOU and your narrative behind her face and name. 

the hours i devoted to you, the hours, days, weeks, months, stating over and over again how I WAS YOUR FRIEND AND NOTHING MORE THAN THAT, AND YOU TRIED COUNTLESS TIMES TO BAIT ME. let’s see if you remember this. 

“i told my friends you’re my girlfriend i hope that’s okay.” 

and me...going, i mean we’re friends, i am not in the country, but assuming it was an issue with your self-esteem i said...i guess that’s fine but we’re friends, we probably hang out as much as gfs do but we ARE NOT. and then you turned around with...now you’re giving me mixed signals are we girlfriends? LIKE YOU LIED TO YOUR FRIENDS, YOU STRAIGHT UP KNOW WE WEREN’T , hence the ‘i told my friends you’re my girlfriends’ like you KNEW WE WEREN’T, SO YOU ALREADY KNEW THE GODDAMN ANSWER WAS NO, BUT YOUR DELUSIONS LITERALLY DONT GET IT AND SO YOU ATTEMPT TO BAIT. i’m sorry that after 4+ years sitting on skype every day i can not imagine being with someone i watched eat more out of their nose than of actual food. that was just the tip of the iceberg because then we’re going right back into all of the toxic nightmare you put me through, all the shaming you put luna through., and that carried into threads most of the time, luna having to look at raven and feel like a cheater. like you know what, like i said i wasn’t going to do this, but having just met some amazing rpers i am so blessed to be able to write with and hearing the kind of lies you spilled about me and this whole situation.

i’m going to go to the time when luna was single verse, single shipped with your raven, and when she would interact with FRIENDS, she was slapped for it, i was slapped for it. the time when you tried to pimp raven out in the IMs of one of our mutuals and then that mutual came to me and went...look, im not comfortable, my muse isn’t interested, i’m trying to respect the fact that you guys are single shipped but basically rowan is trying to get my muse to have sex with her. and i went...news to me, i thought we were single shipped, but from this day on...it’s best that we are not. because you know what, considering how many times luna had already been shamed for having friends at that point, to find out that you were ACTUALLY DOING what you were shaming luna for doing, when luna wasn’t doing it? pissed me off and completely broke my rp partner trust in you. and you were only pissed because you got caught, bc someone else was a genuine and respectful person enough to tell me about it. after all the shaming you threw at luna and it was YOU breaking the single ship status. NOT ME. and from that day forth i guess you know what they say...faithlessness breeds a guilty conscience.

i DO NOT HAVE TO PROTECT YOU. YOU DO NOT DESERVE PROTECTION FROM ME. A PREDATOR DOES NOT GET TO SIT BY AND SAY...I’M BEING BULLIED. and i know that’s what you’re going to say, i know because you’re a victim of everything and you depend on my silence and me protecting you bc i cared about the muses. BUT I DO NOT HAVE TO PROTECT YOU. YOU DO NOT DESERVE MY SILENCE. I WILL NOT BE SILENT TO PROTECT YOU. I WILL PROTECT MYSELF AND MY FRIENDS AND EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER BEEN SUBJECTED TO YOU, EVERYONE WHO WILL EVER HAVE THE MISFORTUNE OF BEING SUBJECTED TO YOU, AND WHILE I DO THAT, I WILL BE MAKING THAT GOOGLE DOC.  

SO...ROWAN, HIDING UNDER THE ALIAS OF CASS, [ an alias that she used in the past to make it seem like she had backup during an episode of her toxic behavior. yes. she created the alias and a clarke blog and conversed back and forth with herself on the dash so that it looked like she had someone backing her up when she was being passive aggressive on the dash ] she will likely find a dozen other alias to go by. i haven’t had to change mine, i haven’t had to hide, or move blogs, or switch anything just to get people to NOT KNOW WHO I AM, to trick people into interacting with me so that they think i’m someone else. she relied on my silence, she depended on me caring about the ship too much to speak up and defend myself or others, but i am done being silent. 

[hotchscotchh]

Reimagined; Chapter 1 - Chester Hardwick

The comparison between this and the first time I wrote this chapter is honestly kind of crazy. I’m so excited for this rewrite! I will only be redoing chapters 1-7 :)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Spencer Reid

Warnings: mentions of sexual activity, canon typical violence

Word count: 1.8k

Reid helps Hotch sort out some issues

Read on AO3

Chapter 2

Based on 3x14, Damaged

Chester Hardwick. A serial killer that managed to take the lives of twenty-three women before he was caught. Hardwick had decided he was ready to talk, and Spencer Reid couldn’t be more excited to get into this man’s mind. Aaron Hotchner, on the other hand, was just plain angry, and for good reason. Haley was being completely unfair with this divorce. He figured that if he had something else to focus on, the pain and anger would leave the forefront of his mind, at least momentarily.

None of that interview had gone as planned, though. Hotch had tried to fight Hardwick after he revealed his plans of killing two FBI agents as a way out of the death penalty. He thought maybe he’d put some of his anger to good use. Thank god for Reid, though, who had been able to talk the psychopath down, probably saving both of their lives in the process. He’d managed to talk for a full thirteen minutes until the guards returned. Hotch shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was, he’d heard Reid go on for hours about nothing before. Even if no one was listening.

He might’ve been surprised, but he was also impressed. Extremely impressed. He’d never seen someone district an unsub for that amount of time, let alone completely throw off his plans of killing. But, play on narcissism was always a strong one.

Reid was… well, Reid was turned on, to say the least. This sort of adrenaline got him going for some godforsaken reason that he would probably never completely understand. That combined with seeing his (extremely attractive) boss puffed up, ready to kill a man in their honor? Well, that memory was one he would reserve for a later date.

“So, Haley wants me to sign the divorce papers uncontested to nobody wastes money on lawyers,” Hotch started when they were in the FBI issued SUV on the way back to D.C.

“You don’t want to?” Reid questioned.

Hotch sighed. “What I want I’m not going to get.”

Confused, Reid answered, “What is it you want, Hotch?” He didn’t get an answer.

----

Back in Quantico, the rest of the team had just wrapped up a case of their own. Reid was currently witnessing an encounter that he didn’t understand one word of. Technical Analyst Kevin Lynch confronted David Rossi, claiming they needed to talk “man to man,” whatever that meant. Then JJ sang some song about Garcia and Kevin and a tree. He had no idea what was going on. Rather that continuing to sit there confused (no one would explain it to him, apparently what was happening was obvious), Reid decided to go check on Hotch. His superior had obviously not taken the request from his soon-to-be-ex-wife well, and he was sure to get some flack from Strauss about the outcome of the interview.

“Hotch,” Reid said quietly, rapping his knuckles on the door frame to Hotch’s office and poking his head in.

“Come in, Reid, close the door,” Hotch answered, not looking up from his paperwork.

Reid sat in the chair across from his superior and handed him a file. “My reports form the interview, sir.”

Hotch looked up then, meeting Reid’s eyes with a smile that didn’t quite reach his own. “Thank you. I appreciate you getting this done so quickly. I wanted to apologize for the situation I put you in today, it really was not appropriate. I shouldn’t have provoked him the way I did.”

“Hotch,” Reid started again, pausing to make sure the words that were about to come out of him mouth were going to come out correctly. “Let me take you out for dinner tonight. I think you need someone to talk to, and honestly, I probably do too.” Reid didn’t really need to talk, he had been doing much better in the aftermath of Tobias Hankel recently, but he did know that Hotch would be much more likely to say yes if he thought it wouldn’t only be benefitting him.

Hotch looked up from his paperwork again, giving Reid a look he couldn’t quite decipher, and thought for a few moments. “Well,” he finally answered, “that actually sounds great. Let me just finish this last file and I’ll come get you. I’m assuming you took the metro?” Reid nodded. “Okay. I’ll drive us and bring you home after. Think about where you want to go.”

Reid left his superiors office with a smile on his face. Sitting down at his desk, he thought back to the way Hotch looked preparing to defend himself and Spencer from the psychopath that had threatened their lives just hours before. He felt himself getting hard. He shook his head as if he could shake the thoughts from his head as he stood back up and made his way to the bathroom. There, he splashed some cold water across is face. He wasn’t supposed to think about coworkers like that, especially not his boss.

Reid reminded himself that his boss was married. Sure, it was a failing marriage, but a marriage, nonetheless. That single thought sobered him up. He made his way back to the bullpen to find Morgan giving him a weird look.

“What, do I have something on my face?” he asked.

“No,” Morgan replied. “You just were in Hotch’s office, come back all pale, and ran off to the bathroom. Are you feeling okay?”

Spencer huffed defensively. “Fine, just got a little nauseous. I’m okay now. Thanks for asking though, I appreciate it.”

An hour later, Hotch descended the steps from his office, finding Reid lost in a book at his desk.

“Reid,” he called out softly, placing a light had on his shoulder in an attempt to not startle him too much.

Reid jumped anyway, and looked up at him. “Hotch! You scared me,” he exclaimed before looking around and realizing that his coworkers had left without his noticing.

“Sorry,” Hotch chuckled. “I’m also sorry I took so long; I got a call from the Wichita police department.” Reid looked back over at him; disappointment evident in his eyes. “No case,” Hotch amended quickly, “they were just letting me know how that case from a few weeks ago turned out. Our unsub was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, landing him a life sentence, no parole. Have you decided where you want to go for dinner?”

Reid took the change of subject and went with it, nodding, standing, collecting his belongings, and making his way towards the doors of the BAU.

Spencer didn’t begin to feel nervous until his was sitting in the front of Hotch’s SUV. When they were settled, Hotch turned to look at him and asked, “so, where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise,” Reid answered with a blush. “I’ll be your personal GPS. Turn right out of the parking lot.”

----

Twenty minutes later found them in from of a small Greek diner. “Did you know that Greek is my favorite?” Hotch asked, a small smile playing across his lips.

His very kissable lips, Reid thought. He blushed again, not breaking their eye contact, before answering, “Yeah, thought you might want some comfort food. I’m not well versed in the realm of divorce, but I know what you’re going through can’t be easy.”

Hotch’s smile grew imperceptibly. “Thank you, Reid.” They got out of the car and made their way into the restaurant, finding a secluded booth towards the back.

“I’ll bet you that I can order for you and it’ll be exactly what you were thinking about ordering,” Hotch said out of nowhere.

“What’s on the line?” Reid asked.

“Loser pays for dinner.”

“You’re on, I’ll make the same bet,” Spencer answered, silently deciding that he would wait on the difficult conversation until they received their food.

The waitress approached their table, and Hotch informed her that they would be ordering for each other. She gave a small smile, looking between the two of them. “Of course,” answered, leaning down to look over Hotch’s shoulder to see what he was pointing at on the menu before turning to Reid and doing the same.

The next fifteen minutes were filled mostly with Spencer finally getting an explanation as to what had occurred between Garcia, Kevin, and Rossi. Spencer laughed, not believing he hadn’t picked up on it. Some profiler he was. Their food arrived, putting a stop to their conversation. The two men looked down at the food set in front of them. Reid had ordered a Greek soup for Hotch, and Hotch had order Reid a pork gyro.

They looked back up at each other and both said, “you win,” before laughing.

“How about this,” Reid proposed. “I’ll pay this time, and you get the next one.”

“The next one?” Hotch asked.

“We’ll I was hoping there would be another. I don’t know about you, Hotch, but I’ve really enjoyed myself tonight.”

Aaron looked back up, smiling in a way Reid had never seen before. “I have too, Reid.”

“So,” Reid started cautiously. “Let’s talk. You never answered my question in the car before. What is it you want?”

Hotch heaved a sigh, looking down at his lap before resignedly looking back up to meet his subordinate’s gaze. “You can’t tell anyone about this. I want to keep it quiet.” Reid nodded earnestly, excited that the man was going to open up to him. “Haley wants full custody. Which, in reality, makes sense because of how often we’re away, but it means I’m not going to be able to see Jack anywhere near as much as I want to.”

Reid thought it over for a few moments. “Why don’t you ask for a Skype or phone call at least every other night? I know he’s little, but hearing your voice will be good for him. And for when you’re home, ask to have him at least two nights a week. Weeks we have off and holidays can be negotiated by the two of you privately. You know, her lawyers probably just making an unfair offer to get you to contest it so they can make more money. She’s a reasonable person. I’m sure she’ll be willing to compromise.”

Hotch took a moment to process that. Letting out another sigh, he looked back up at Reid and replied, “that’s actually fairly realistic. I’ll talk to her about it. If she’s not wiling to change, this is just going to have to get messy.”

Relaxing back into his seat, Hotch gave a small smile. “I should come to you for advice more often, Spencer.”

Thant night, when Spencer got home, he got himself off to the thought of Hotch. The strong man he saw earlier, and also the soft one he had seen that night at dinner. He only felt guilty about it for an hour. Maybe two.

[tangledstarlight]

julie’s ready for a year away from home, studying and trying to refind the magic in music. luke’s about to start on a summer tour around europe opening for a band. they meet one night, sparks fly and emotions run hight. now they’ve just got to try and see if they can maintain a long distance friendship.

DAYS GO BY AND SEASONS CHANGE (LETS TRY AGAIN NEXT WINTER)

trigger warnings!! swearing and mentions of death (julies mum)

also on ao3 –– [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | extras 1 & 2 ]

autumn

There was a parcel waiting for her at the school's little post office building. It wasn’t a very big box, about the size of a shoe box, if she had to guess. It was just a little too big to fit in her bag at least. The handwriting on the label was hard to read, the ‘j’ in her name looking more like a ‘t’ and her last name practically blurring together. Julie suddenly understands why the girl working behind the desk had taken so long to find it and looked so unsure when handing it over.

Julie thinks back to her last call with her dad, tries to remember if he’d mentioned sending her anything. But it’s definitely not her dads writing or Victorias, and Carlos’ is messy but never this bad. It’s only when she puts it down on her desk when she’s back in her dorm room that she notices the postmark from France.

Which explains the who of it all, but not the what or the why.

With a frown, Julie tears the brown paper away and unfolds the flaps of the plain cardboard box that’s waiting for her. There’s a folded sheet of paper on top of something wrapped in grey tissue paper and she picks it up, carefully unfolding it.

Julie,

You gotta get back into music when you’re ready to, not before and not for anyone else. But, for whenever you do, I thought you might like these. And if you never do, you can always use them for school notes or something.

See you soon.

Luke x

She holds the note for a moment, staring at the words as if they’ll stop her heart from racing the way it is, because she’s pretty sure she knows what’s hiding under that tissue paper now. Biting her bottom lip Julie puts the note to the side and picks up the gift, gently peeling away the sellotape until she’s faced with two soft notebooks.

The first one is dark purple, soft faux leather with a cluster of stars embossed in the top right corner and the words ‘shine bright’ in silver lettering in the opposite bottom corner. Slowly, as if in a trance, Julie runs her fingers over the cover, opens to a random page to see the clean lined pages made of the thick sort of paper that you know won’t tear easily.

The second notebook is a dark blue, but this one has little music notes stamped in the corner. There’s no words or phrases written on this cover and for that she’s thankful because anymore words of encouragement might push her to the edge. She puts the two notebooks down on her desk, side by side.

Sitting back in her chair, Julie simply looks at them for a moment. Let’s herself think about how she feels about them. Because this is more than just some pretty notebooks and a kind message. She wonders if Luke knows, if he realises what that they might mean. But he must. She’s told him all about her struggles with music, how she’s lost that spark that wanted nothing more than to sing and play and write.

And he’d understood it. He’d got it. He’d also told her she was magical when she played, something she tried not to think too much about, but still remembered.

And he clearly remembered her mentioning once, in passing, how her favourite type of notebook are the ones that are slightly flexible, but feel solid when you hold them. She’s going to try not to think too much about what that means too. 

Her fingers slowly trace over the lettering on the purple notebook as she thinks over his note.

‘When you’re ready’, which is part of the problem really. Because Julie doesn’t know if she’ll ever be ready to play or write properly again without her mom.

But, she’d written with him.

The thought hits her suddenly and out of nowhere, a breath leaving her lips in a rush as she lets it settle within her. She’d been writing with him. She’d been sending him melodies over voice notes. She’d been scribbling lyric ideas in the margins of her work for weeks now.

Over facetime at 3am and on phone calls while she made herself lunch and silly little texts throughout the day. She’d been writing with him. She’d helped him finish songs without that all too familiar sense of missingmissingmissingmissing creeping in.

Tapping her fingers along the arm of her chair for a moment, she bites her lip, before shaking her head once and carefully wraps the notebooks back up in their tissue paper and puts them back in their box and pushes the whole thing to the back of her desk. Out of sight, out of mind. Sort of. 

It’s one thing to suddenly realise she’s been slowly edging her way back into music, it’s another to dive head first when she’s not sure if anyone will be there to save her if she goes too deep, too soon.

(It’s two days later and after a facetime call with her dad that she pulls the purple notebook out of the box, picks up a pen, crawls onto her bed and writes something that feels real for the first time in nearly five years.

She calls Luke at 2am her time and 3am his, tears on her cheeks and rasp in her voice from lack of use and asks if she can play him a song. It’s a little rough and the second verse feels unfinished and she rushes through the last chorus too quickly, but when she’s finished the last note she feels more centred then she has in years.

“That was-” Luke trails off, and she can hear him breathing and suddenly wishes she’d done this as a facetime call instead, so she could see his face right now. See what he was thinking, feeling. Instead she’s left with bated breath and chewing on her bottom lip.

“Fuck Julie, that was amazing,” he lets out a short laugh, light and breathy like he can’t believe something, “You’re amazing. And talented and beautiful and a goddamn star.”

He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, with so much conviction and surety in his words that for a moment, Julie believes him wholeheartedly.

“I think the second verse needs something, can you help me figure it out?” She asks after clearing her throat and brushing tears off her face. The simple ‘yeah’ she gets in answer makes her smile enough to think about the old notebooks carefully hidden in her suitcase and maybe finally looking at the songs she's avoided. )

//

It wasn’t until she’d started living in a different country, alone, that Julie realised how many different types of bread there were. Which was a weird thing to realise, she knew, but there were just so many to choose from. So many options. Too many options. She really hated having too many options. Decision making really wasn’t one of her special skills. And the longer she stood in front of the bread without Luke talking, the faster her thoughts seemed to loose all sense of focus. 

Holding her phone against her ear Julie picked up the closest loaf of whole wheat bread she saw, it was seeded and while she was sure Victoria would have had something to say about it, she didn’t. Seeded bread it was. Maybe next week she’d branch out and try the weird half and half down on the bottom shelf. God, she needed to get out of the bread aisle. 

Putting the bread in her trolley she pauses for a moment, head tilting to the side to try and hear if Luke had returned to his phone or if she was still on ‘hold’. His version of hold at least, which consisted of him saying ‘give me a minute’ and putting his phone down for much longer than a minute while he answered a skype call with his parents.

All she can hear is faint talking in the background, tone of voices but none of the words. Holding the phone with one hand and pushing the trolley with the other, Julie makes her way out of the bread aisle and mentally checks her shopping list in comparison to where she is in the store. She’s half way down the coffee and tea aisle, grabbing for the cheapest jar of coffee she can see, when a huff of air in her ear makes her jump. Clutching the jar close to her chest as she pulls the phone away for a moment and blowing out a breath. Luke’s already started talking when she puts it back, her mind filling in the blanks for what she’s missed.

“– that. Shit timing on their part. What were we talking about again?” There’s something off about his voice. She wouldn’t have noticed it a few months ago, but she can tell now, can hear the forced cheerfulness behind his words. And, if he wasn’t obviously forcing himself to sound happy, Julie would probably take a moment to appreciate she knows him well enough to know his different tones.

But there’s something wrong, and she wants to help him. So far, Luke’s been pretty quiet about his parents, so quite in fact that all Julie really knows about them is their names are Emily and Mitch, that they love him, they don’t get him and that the best way to describe their relationship is ‘strained’. All that she’d picked up from vague mentions and what Reggie had accidentally let slip.

Luke had helped her understand some of her feelings about her mom, listening to her cry at three in the morning, listened to her talk about her dad. She wants to do the same for him. She wants to make sure he knows she'll listen too. So she puts the coffee jar down and slowly starts walking out of the tea and coffee aisle while she talks.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asks, the call, the ‘strained’ relationship, all the unsaid emotions clearly at war in his head. It’s quite on the other end of the phone, all she can hear is his breathing and Julie starts to worry that maybe she’s wrong. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it, or maybe he does, but not with her. Not sure which option is worse, she’s just opening her mouth to take it back when Luke blows out a breath and a flat laugh that sounds loud in her ear.

“They just- they don’t get it. What music means. What I’m trying to do with it. They don’t get me,” there’s a pause where Luke laughs again, flat and hollow and so, so wrong, and Julie thinks that’s all he’s going to say, but then he starts talking again. It’s like he’s been shoving plates into a cupboard without stacking them and now he’s opened the door and they’re all crashing to the ground.

“And it’s like, they don’t even seem to try. Not really. They listen to me talk about all these shows we’re playing and how we’re making all these awesome connections all over the world and how we’ve started recording a fucking album. And they’ve gotta be able to tell I’m excited, because Alex is always saying I’ve got no subtlety, and I’m pretty sure I’ve even said in those exact words. That I’m excited. That this is a huge deal for us. And they just - they listen to all that and then they-” he huffs out a breath, and Julie can almost see him shaking his head, at his next words, “And then they ask about what I’m going to do when I get back home. If I’ve given college anymore thought.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that, because well. It is obvious how excited Luke is about the band, about the album they’re making, about music in general. You’d have to be blind not to see it, blind or just deliberately ignoring the obvious. And that’s even without ever having actually seen him play on a stage. If Julie could tell how good he is over staticy and unreliable voice notes and facetime calls, then anyone who’s seen him play live should know for sure.

“You know they’ve never seen us play?” He sounds small, and Julie wishes she was with him right now to give him a hug. 

That explained that, at least. They'd never seen them play. She’s standing in the fucking cereal aisle of a supermarket on a Wednesday afternoon, one hand gripping tightly to the handle of her trolley, and she can hear Luke sniff, wipe at his face and let out a wet laugh and it hurts. Julie thinks it’s almost worse than the hollow one and she feels tears spring into her eyes.

“Never?” She asks, because what else can she say? Her parents had never once missed an opportunity to see her play, she can’t even imagine standing on a stage again and her dad or Victoria not being in the audience for the first time.

“Nope,” he pops the ‘p’ and blows out a breath. “And I mean, I guess I could understand them not supporting the band and trying to push college on me if they’d ever actually fucking seen us. But they haven’t. It’s like they’ve just - they’ve decided we’re not good and that it’s all a waste of time. Without any evidence for it. Because, I- I don’t wanna sound egotistical here but fuck, we are good. We’re fucking awesome. And they won’t even consider that as a possibility. That this could work.”

“That’s their loss then,” is the first thing that comes out of Julie’s mouth, “Because I’ve only ever seen people's shaky phone videos of you guys playing and that was enough for me to know that you’re good. That you guys are amazing.”

They were more than good really, Luke was right, they were pretty fucking awesome, and if his parents couldn’t see that. Well that was on them.

“Yeah?” he sounds unsure for the first time, and Julie’s reminded that Luke might be a pretty confident guy but even confident people need a little reassurance sometimes. She relaxes her grip on the trolley’s handle and smiles a little.

“Yeah. And if they can’t see that Luke, if they don’t even want to try to see that, that’s on them. And they’ll either realise it soon enough and sort their shit out. Or they’ll try to deny it forever and end up regretting it.” She really hopes they sort their shit out, that his parents wake up and see that their son is gonna be a star, one way or another. And that they’ll want to be there for it, that he wants them there for it, to smile and clap and cheer for him.

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen us play,” his laugh this time is lighter, not quite up to his usual infectious quality, but maybe warmer. Softer. Julie doesn’t know how to describe it, but she wants to be able to hear it every day.

“I know, I’m a fake fan clearly.” Julie smiles, blows out a shallow breath as she blinks back the sudden tears that had found her eyes and lets him change the subject. She didn’t come to do her weekly shop expecting an emotional spiral in the cereal aisle of all places. The freezers with the ice cream might have been more appropriate.

“We’ll have to fix that when we’re back on the same stretch of land. Personal concert, just for you.”

The teasing tone is enough to make her roll her eyes and start moving again.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

//

“So we’re back in the UK on December 10th.”

The statement almost makes Julie choke on her drink. And she’s glad that she’d put her phone down while she’d reached for it so Luke couldn’t see her reaction. Theoretically, she’d known they were approaching the end of November, that the band had finished their tour last week and had been using their free time to do some exploring, that they’d be back in the same country soon.

That, despite all her worst thoughts and assumptions, they were still talking. They were friends.

Wiping her chin with her sleeve, Julie picks up her phone again, trying her best to keep her face neutral. There’s a chance Luke doesn’t even remember the sort of deal they’d made. It had been nearly twelve months ago and it had been late at night and they’d both been pretty drunk.

“Really?”

He just looks at her, an eyebrow slightly raised and she can see the way he’s biting down on his lower lip. He almost looks – Julie blinks, brow furrowing, he looks worried. Which she doesn't understand.

“Are you okay?” She asks, leaning forward to peer closer at her phone like it will be able to give her answers.

“Yeah, yeah I just –” Luke pauses and Julie watches as his eyes seem to circle around his screen (which is technically her face, her mind oh so helpfully supplies) in search of something, and whatever he finds seems to be enough because he blows out a breath and nods once, more to himself she thinks. “We’ll be in the same country again and you’re going home soon and I– I was wondering if you still wanted to try that um night again. Maybe just you and me this time.”

Julie isn’t sure she’s breathing. Her mind has gone blank and all she can hear is her heart beating and Luke is just looking at her. All wide worried eyes and bitten lips and curls escaping from his beanie.

He’d remembered.

And he was asking her – out?

That thought knocks her mind into action again. She opens her mouth to reply, to say something, anything, but all she can get out is a slightly strangled,

“I–” Because Julie had been so sure that if they’d made it to this point and were still friends that Luke wouldn’t want anything more then that from her. She’d cried on the phone to him, at least twice.

“I mean we don’t have to I was – it was just an idea y’know? But I mean it’s fine, we–” Luke starts, taking her silence for her trying to let him down gently and not just an internal freak out.

“No!” She doesn’t mean to shout it, but it comes out as a shout anyway, startling them both. Luke just looks at her, mouth still half open and looking confused. Julie has a flashback to seeing him look exactly the same way when she’d said she couldn’t kiss him and it almost makes her giggle. “I mean yes, yes, I want to – to – to see you. To try that night again.”

“You do?” She watches as his confusion morphs into relief and into a smile, lips tugging up and eyes brightening.

“Yeah,” she smiles back, it would be hard not to smile back at him. “So, December 10th. I’m free the weekend after?”

It takes them a while to make a plan, mostly because Luke keeps having to ask Alex or Bobby where they’re staying or when they’re in the studio or what day they’re flying home. And then they bicker over where to meet because ‘London is so cliche Julie! We’re not cliche.’ which she’s pretty sure their friends would disagree with, but Julie pulls up google on her laptop and they look through different cities and towns until they find one they both like the sound of.

Two hours later after they’ve said goodnight and shared giddy smiles, Julie lies on her bed staring at the ceiling and for the first time since that first night they’d met, she lets herself feel excited for what might happen between them.

[piraticalarchive]

I’m always very curious about if ooc love comes first in writing partners or if the ic love does. were your affections opened by ic play...or were they completely separate to start? is rp sometimes a doorway to an actualization of feeling, or should they be considered opposite things entirely?

I just woke up from an impromptu nap while sitting up so I don't know if this is going to be a coherent answer or even an answer at all. There is so much variance in this kind of stuff, I think it changes from situation to situation - so my generic, overall answer would have to be that I don't know. All i can do is speak from my own experience and point of view. This is gonna sound so weird but all I can do is tell the truth and hope maybe it somehow answers your question. When I discovered fanfiction for the first time ever (like 4-6 weeks before I made hook's blog), I was reading through bbc robin hood stuff because i was literally in the middle of a rewatch and i had robin hood brain rot. I was so disappointed in the stuff available and was about ready to call it a day when I found a Guy fic that made me go - woah. Didn't like Guy in the show, couldn't stand the way he was written, thought he had a lot of potential - I loved the way this fic portrayed him. The writing itself just hit me like an oof. It was weird. I can't explain it. Makes no fucking sense.

Fast forward, I joined tumblr and followed amy's original meg blog from afar, never approaching. She left her and i was like .. damn :( because i had never had the courage to reach out and be like 'hey yes excuse me your writing strokes something inside of me' and we ended up writing with hook and guy like two weeks later maybe? I had no idea it was the same person. But the first time I read a reply of hers on Guy (not even to me) and we talked ooc I was sort of just like .. oh. It's like my heart was just - it's you. Hook and Guy were like an instant ship from the get go. They clicked it and it was just bam, a thing. We had to plot out their beginnings because we were talking three months later like "okay so we're writing them together but how the heck did they get there?? How did this happen?? What is going on?!"

I don't know. In the beginning I didn't have a crush, I didn't have what I'd call this moment of 'omg im in love with this person' - it was just this i'm home sort of deal from the first moment i added her on skype. It was the same feeling that was sort of behind all of Hook and Guy's interactions. Hook was just like 'yep. this is him. I think our relationship definitely grew from our writing because obviously we talked more and more out of character but like ??? I never once found myself blending the lines where there was no distinction of Guy from Amy and Hook from me - i don't think either one of us did. Eventually that home feeling did turn into something way more (obviously) but it was never rp related. I don't love amy for any 'guy' qualities she might happen to have and I don't think she likes me for my inner hook (if she does - jokes on her. that went away when i was medicated lmaooo). So in that regard, I don't think the blurred lines of ic and ooc are a thing in our situation.

I will say that, god help her, Amy took my au where I put every trauma I had into killian's character in a way to cope - and she never broke character once or let on that she knew, but when we would kik (yall remember kik? i just aged myself) she would do it for hours in that particular verse. Funny enough, for that specific reason, we say Killian and Guy in Guy's detective au are the pair that are the most like us and ... lmaooo jokes on us because they're the verse that doesn't always mesh super well together at all.

As far as everything else - writing can be a good way to figure things out. Does that mean it becomes an actualization? I don't know. I do know that you should never presume that in character interactions are equal to out of character interactions. I have best friends that I ship with and who I love - but I'm not in love with them. I have no feelings besides friendship, even when its on a deeper found family level. I also don't think just because you have romantic feelings together means you're gonna ship with the other person. Guy and Hook are like the only ones amy and I have pulled that off on. and prompto and ignis for a short bit. But every other attempt has never really gone anywhere. On any of our muses.

I think you owe anyone you write with/think you're developing feelings for the respect of keeping your emotions separate from your rp relationship and if things are tangled together and you can't tell if its ic and ooc lines crossing - remove yourself from the situation and perhaps write with them on a different muse until you know or give yourself space and don't write at all, focus on an ooc relationship.

this got long but i literally don't know how to say what i'm thinking so i rambled.

[btschooseafic]

Hey you, what’s your dream?

Pairing: platonic!oc x ot7

Details: manager!oc, predebut/idolverse, partial BTS World!verse

Summary: Aviva and Hoseok celebrate their birthday at the dorm.

Warnings: This is a fictional story based on real events. The characters presented here are not the same as their real life counterparts. [9/2/21: some minor edits] [Masterlist]

Track 20: Birthdays

Birthday- The Beatles

“You say it's your birthday

It's my birthday too, yeah”

February 18th 2013

Aviva’s three-day suspension ended just before her birthday. Hobi suggested they both ditch and do something fun for the day, but she knew he was joking (mostly). He was in crunch time, really pushing to prepare for the debut, and she was eager to get back to work and do her best to support them.

It was a fairly normal day at work, with no one mentioning or treating her any differently because of the suspension. She was surprised when the office gave her a cake from Paris Baguette during her lunch break, even though it was a fairly standard policy, she had thought they might want to exclude her this time.

After work, Aviva went for out for a late dinner with Soonyoung. She stopped back at the office to pick up some paperwork, and was surprised to see the van still in the parking lot. Jin had offered to drive the boys back, so why were they still here? She went to the Bangtan Room and found them...

“Are you filming a Harlem Shake video?” She wondered, having walked in on a strange number of poses. Everyone froze. Namjoon blushed.

“Yep.” Hoseok tipped the brim of his cap away from his face to grin at her. “You’ll edit it and post it before the night ends, right?”

“What? No way.”

“But it’s my birthday!” He whined.

“But it’s my birthday!” She whined back at him. Everyone laughed.

“Won’t you bake me a cake at least?” Hoseok asked, pouting at her.

“Hmm…” She glanced at her phone. “It’s getting late. Anyway, didn’t the company give you one?”

“Yeah, but yours are better!”

“Paris Baguette is pretty good, I think...” But she was smiling.

“Why don’t you hang out with us, noona?” Jimin suggested. “We were gonna watch a movie at the dorm after this.”

“I can make extra popcorn!” Jin said excitedly.

“I don’t really care about popcorn… but, maybe I will hang out,” she thought. “Let’s head back to the dorm, okay?”

Jimin, Jin, and Hoseok cheered.

She texted Soonyoung to let her know, and then got to work baking a cake. They ate cake and popcorn as they watched Hoseok’s favorite movie (which also happened to be a favorite of Aviva’s). Aviva found herself on the floor leaning against Yoongi’s legs, with Jimin and Tae snuggled on either side of her. At some point Jungkook migrated his head onto her lap with his legs sprawled over Jimin. Yoongi and Namjoon and fallen asleep curled up in the corner of the couch, while Hoseok stretched out with his feet in Jin’s lap.

As the movie came to an end, Jin stood up and started to clean. Aviva tried to move to help him, but was weighed down by three growing boys.

Jin waved his hand. “Just let them rest for a few more minutes. Hoseok-ah can help me clean.”

“But it’s my—” Hoseok stopped at a sharp look from Jin. “Yeah, okay, hyung.”

“Hmmm, are you sleeping on the couch again, Aviva-yah?” Yoongi wondered, rubbing his eyes as the boys started heading off to bed.

“Yeah. I already pulled the blanket out.”

He nodded. “Do you need clothes to sleep in?”

“Damn.” She snapped her fingers. “I knew I’d forgotten something.”

“You can sleep in my clothes, noona!” Jimin said. Everyone looked at him suspiciously.

“You sound very… enthusiastic about that, Jiminie,” Namjoon commented.

“No, I just…” Jimin blushed. “I just thought she’d look cute…”

Aviva smiled apologetically. “Sorry, Jiminie, but there’s no way I’d fit into your clothes. You’re too skinny.”

He frowned. “I’m not.”

Aviva ran her hand through her hair. “Maybe skinny isn’t the right word…”

“She means she’s got a chest and hips and you don’t,” Hoseok said.

“Yah!” Jin hit his arm. “Don’t talk about her like that!”

“What?” Hoseok looked at him. “I thought I put that very politely. Anyway, with an elastic waistband, she’d fit in mine, Yoongi, or Tae Tae’s pants likely.” He looked around at them. “Rock, paper, scissors for it?”

Yoongi shrugged. Taehyung nodded, holding up his fist.

“Wait a second,” Aviva said. “Isn’t anybody going to ask me what I want?”

“What do you want, Avi-yah?” Yoongi asked, looking at her steadily.

She froze, her face going pink.

“Ah, never mind,” she said quietly. “I don’t… I don’t want to inconvenience anyone. Maybe I should just go home…”

“No, it’s too late to be driving,” Namjoon told her. “Anyway, you’re never an inconvenience, you’re our friend. We’ll take care of it, okay?”

“…You’re just saying that cause you know your shirts are the only one she fits in,” Jimin muttered. Hoseok tapped his chin.

“Actually, because they prefer a baggy fit, Yoongi-hyung’s sweaters, and some of Jin-hyung’s tops would work,” he thought. Namjoon looked at them.

Yoongi shrugged again. “I don’t care. This is stupid.”

“I agree,” Jin said. “…But I do kind of want to see Avi-yah in pink.”

Yoongi snorted. “Obviously she’d look better in white,” he thought.

“I think black,” Namjoon said. Hoseok nodded.

“Two rounds of rock, paper, scissors it is.”

Aviva turned to Jungkook. “Aren’t you still growing? If we end up the same size I’m only borrowing your clothes and staying away from this nonsense.”

Jungkook shrugged. “I don’t care. We all share everything anyway.”

Aviva ended up wearing Hoseok’s sweatpants and Namjoon’s baggiest Supreme shirt.

February 19th 2013

In the morning she turned over, glancing at her phone. It was fifteen minutes before her alarm was set to go off, so she decided to get up early. She went to the bathroom and washed her face, pulled her hair up, and then went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

“Avi-yah?” Taehyung squinted at her sleepily.

“Mmm. Morning Tae. Are you waking up?”

“Hmm…what time is it?” He glanced at the clock on the wall and shook his head. “No, I think I’ll sleep a little more, just need the bathroom... you’re waking up?” She nodded, shivering a bit. It had gotten weirdly cold over night. He looked at her thoughtfully. “Want to borrow a sweater? I bet I have one that’ll fit you too.”

“…Okay.”

He smiled. “Great. One second.” He went to the bathroom and then moved over to the closet, pulling out a large green cardigan. “Is this texture okay?” He asked, knowing she didn’t like things that were either too soft or too scratchy. He held it out to her and she ran her fingers over it.

“Just right.”

“Hmm.” He smiled again. “Let me help you.” He motioned at her.

“I can put it on myself.”

“Want to help you.”

She sighed and got down from the stool at the counter, letting him manipulate her into the sweater like she was a giant doll.

“Thanks.”

“Later.” He kissed her cheek and walked off, yawning. She stared after him for a moment and then shook her head, settling back down on the couch and pulling out her laptop.

Just as she was finishing editing Hoseok’s video, she got a message from her sister.

 ‘Hey, u ok?’

 ‘Yeah. Y?’

 ‘… u forgot, didn’t you?’

Aviva tilted her head, trying to remember what she had forgotten. Oh! She was supposed to be on a Skype call with her family for her birthday. She glanced at the time. She had long enough to speak to them for a while before everyone woke up and got ready for the day. She clicked through some settings and made the call. Her parents and her sister were sitting on the couch in their living room, Jen’s arms crossed over her chest as she pouted.

“I can’t believe you forgot about your own birthday call!” Jenny said.

“Yeah, hello to you too, Jen,” Aviva said. Jenny huffed. Their mother smiled.

“It’s good to see you,” she said. “You look... cozy. Is that a new sweater?” Aviva touched the cardigan.

“Ah, no, it’s not mine, I’m just borrowing it cause it’s cold in here,” she told them.

“Where are you?” Her dad wondered, his eyes searching. “It doesn’t look like your apartment.”

“It’s the boys’ dorm. I… was editing a video,” she said vaguely.

“Oh, is JK there?” Jenny wondered, looking around excitedly.

“Hmm, he’s probably not awake yet,” she told her.

“Ah, too bad,” their mother said. “He was such a polite young man. And handsome too!”

“Mom!” Jenny said, her face flushing. Their mom just grinned. Their dad shook his head.

“What video are you editing?” He wanted to know.

“Um, just another meme one,” she told him. “I don’t know if you’d understand…”

“I still don’t understand what a meme is,” he muttered, rubbing his chin.

“Yeah, and I keep trying to explain it to you,” Jen said, shaking her head. The three of them talked for about fifteen more minutes before the door opened, and a sleepy Yoongi wandered in. His hair was impressively mussed, and his eyes were barely open. He was hugging his laptop to his chest.

He automatically went to sit on the couch, almost sitting on top of Aviva.

“Ah, oppa, I’m on a call, sorry!” She called out in Korean. He froze, and then slowly looked at the screen. His face flushed.

“Hello,” he said awkwardly in English, bowing.

“Um, guys, this is one of the group members, Yoongi,” she told her family.

“Oh, if he’s awake does that mean JK is awake?” Jen reasoned.

“Probably not,” Aviva thought. She looked at Yoongi, who appeared frozen in his bow. She nudged him. “It’s fine,” she told him in Korean. “You didn’t do anything wrong. These are my parents and my sister.” She pointed them out.

He straightened up and waved.

“I can’t… I’m not awake enough for this,” he muttered in Korean. “I just wanted to get some editing done, I forgot you were here…”

“Is anyone else awake?” She wondered. “They can come say hi if they want before I sign off. Jen would really like to see Kookie.”

“Hmmm. I’ll wake him,” Yoongi said reluctantly. “But you owe me coffee.”

“Sure,” Aviva said, not really caring. “Just don’t go back to sleep, oppa, it’s almost time to get ready to go anyway.”

“No promises.” He left the room.

“…He’s cute,” Jen decided. “Not as cute as JK, but…” Aviva snorted.

For the next ten minutes, various members drifted in and out to say ‘hello’ with Jungkook staying the longest.

Namjoon was excited for the opportunity to practice his English, although a lot shyer than he usually was when he practiced with Aviva.

“Is it true you learned from watching Friends?” Jen wondered.

Namjoon nodded. “Ah. Yes. Good T.V. show.”

“Avi!” Hoseok said, poking his head through the door. “Seokjin-hyung wants to know if you want an egg or toast or something.”

“I’ll take whatever,” she called back to him, glancing at the time again. “Ah, we should get ready.” She smiled apologetically at the screen.

“Okay,” Jen said. “Have a good day at work, Avi—practice hard, JK!”

“Yes, I will!” Jungkook said happily in English. “Thank you!”

“Nice to meet you, Namjoon, and good to see you again, Jungkook,” their mother said. Namjoon and Jungkook bowed.

“I will send you that article, Avi,” her dad said.

“Okay, baba, thanks!” She signed off and sighed. “I don’t want to read that article…”

“I thought it sounded interesting,” Namjoon said. She frowned.

“You read it, then.” She yawned. “I want to take a shower before we leave… are there clean towels?”

“I’ll find one for you, noona!” Jungkook said, running off, still buzzing with energy from having seen Jen.

“…He really might become your younger brother some day,” Namjoon thought.

She smiled. “I wouldn’t mind.”

Later that week, Kyungsoo finally called her into his office to lecture her about Namjoon’s song Expensive Girl song. Aviva did her best to smooth over any backlash from him and random Internet commenters, but it was a lot of work.

As their punishment, Aviva had Namjoon alone on dorm cleaning duty for the whole week, and assigned Hoseok to extra public speaking lessons.

She came to the dorm to pick Hoseok up for his lessons and found him cleaning. She squinted at him as he froze in the position of sweeping the entryway.

“Hobi… don’t tell me you two switched?”

“Okay…” He said. “I won’t tell you.”

She sighed. “Hoseok, it’s not a punishment if it’s something you enjoy doing. I know you secretly find cleaning relaxing, and Namjoon-ah finds the public speaking lessons fascinating.”

“Hmm. And that’s the problem.” He booped her on the nose, laughing as it wrinkled. “You know us too well, dear manager.”

“Just go wait in the car,” she told him. “I’ll have to speak to Namjoon-ah before we go.” She looked around. Hoseok pointed his thumb behind him.

“He’s in the living room.”

Aviva shivered as she entered the room. Namjoon was on the couch, holding something like a hockey mask in front of his face as Yoongi, who was sitting at the table, curled over laughing. She couldn’t help smiling, pausing in the doorway for a moment before stepping inside. She shivered again.

“You still haven’t gotten the heater fixed?”

Namjoon froze. “Ah, Avi-yah.” He put the mask down, his face going pink. “No. We couldn’t find anyone to come look at it, so I tried, and I think I made it worse.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“Hmmm.” Aviva walked over to the heater, pulling off the top. “I think I can do this. The toolbox is in the bathroom closet, right?”

“Yeah, um. I could go get it for you…” His brow furrowed. “Are you sure you can do it?” She nodded.

“Pretty sure. I helped Soonie’s grandpa fix the heater at their place, and it looked pretty similar to this one.”

Namjoon nodded and left.

“A girl who knows her way around the toolbox… that’s kind of hot,” Yoongi thought, leaning back as he studied her. She raised an eyebrow at him. He flushed slightly. She walked over to him and ran her fingers over his soft fluffy hat, her lips twitching. He stiffened. “What’re you doing?”

“You look adorable,” she told him. His cheeks flushed even pinker.

“I thought you didn’t like soft things?” He grumbled, grabbing her hand and pulling it away from his hat.

She shrugged. “I couldn’t resist.”

He shook his head, smiling slightly.

“What are you doing over here, anyway?”

“Dropping Hobi off at his classes,” she told him. “There’s a nice cafe around there—want me to pick up anything for you?”

“Hmmm…” He played with her fingers for a moment before letting go, turning back to the computer. “I’ve been thinking, since you were technically off duty when Namjoon-ah posted that song… doesn’t that mean it’s not really your responsibility?”

“I’m still your manager, oppa, even if I was… suspended, at the time.” She rested her hand on her hip, studying him. “Are you saying I shouldn’t punish them?” He shook his head.

“No, I don’t really care about that. I just don’t want you creating more work for yourself than necessary.”

She smiled softly at him. “Yoongi—”

There was a loud crash. A moment later, a red-faced Namjoon rushed into the room.

“Okay, so I may have dropped the toolbox, and everything is everywhere, but I don’t think anything’s broken!”

“Aish, Joonie.” Aviva clicked her tongue, shaking her head. “I’ll clean it up—ah, but I can’t leave Hoseok-ah waiting in the car for so long…”

“Hosekie can take the train,” Yoongi said. “Namjoon-ah and I will help you clean up.” Aviva nodded.

“Thanks, oppa. Hobi better not skip his class.”

“Oh, I’ll make sure he doesn’t.” Yoongi grinned evilly. Namjoon shivered.

“Chen Aviva!” Hoseok sang out as he entered the kitchen.

“Huh?” She looked up at him from the sink. “How did you know I was still here?”

“I have my ways…”

She turned around, frowning as she noticed him staring at her.

“What?”

“You look really hot right now, like, figuratively, but also literally, what were you doing to get so sweaty?”

She glanced down at herself. She had stripped down to her undershirt, which was soaked through with sweat.

“I fixed the damn heater, but then it got too hot and I had to adjust it again before it killed Yoongi-oppa’s equipment and he killed me in revenge.”

“So… it’s okay now?” He wondered. She nodded.

“Finally, it’s okay. I’m gonna borrow your shower, I just needed to clean my hands off first and the bathroom sink is kind of… There was like… grease?” She shook her head. “I don’t know, Joonie did something weird.”

Hoseok nodded absentmindedly. “Well, after you get out of the shower, you can eat this.” He held a paper bag out to her. She peeked inside, her eyes widening as she smiled.

“How did you know?”

“Yoongi-hyung mentioned there was a cafe near my classes you liked, and so we Instagram stalked you to find where it was and what you like to get there.”

“That’s creepy, but also sweet,” she thought. “How did your lessons go?”

“Not as bad as I thought they would be, actually. I’m gonna start beating Joon at public speaking, next thing you know.”

“I don’t think it’s a competition, but I’m still proud of you.” She gave him a peck on the cheek on her way out.

Over the next few weeks, a few of Namjoon’s freestyles, as well as one of his and Yoongi’s collaborations had gotten Aviva thinking about the draft. Namjoon and Hoseok, having just turned twenty were eligible candidates and were required to take physical exams. Afterwards, they went out for drinks with Jin, Yoongi, Aviva, and Soonyoung. Aviva was trying to understand more about it, but it just wasn’t clicking for her.

“I don’t think it’s something you can really understand without growing up here,” Yoongi said.

“You’re probably right,” Aviva thought.

“Hmmm. You don’t have anything similar in the US?” Hoseok wondered.

“There hasn’t been a draft in the US since the Vietnam War,” Aviva told him. “I do remember my dad talking about how much anxiety it caused him and his friends. And my mom was worried about her brother when she was growing up.”

“Hmm, yeah. America has a lot of issues, but that’s not one of them, currently,” Soonyoung said. She sipped her drink. “Like, we could totally talk about the socioeconomic and racial aspects of US Army recruitment, but that’s a somewhat different problem.” Namjoon stared at her. “The system is majorly flawed, dude.”

“Most systems are,” Yoongi thought. He looked at Aviva. “But why are you bringing this up?”

“You’re right it’s not something I can personally understand. But… I see it’s stressing you out, so… I’m here, if you need me.” She looked around at the others. “For all of you, I mean.”

“Yah, that’s nothing special, Avi’s always been there for me,” Soonyoung said, wrapping her arms around the other girl possessively.

“Hmm, but that’s because you’re special to her, which must mean we’re special to her as well!” Jin reasoned cheerfully.

Soonyoung smiled at him. “Aren’t you sweet?”

Jin blushed. Everyone laughed.

[secret-engima]

Random HCs for Some of My Verses

Future’s Blurry (the Past is a Trap) verse:

-Glaucus has no idea how he wound up with a pet mad scientist. He WENT there intending to kill Besithia, he DID. Instead he found himself with a mad scientist on his heels, complaining about not having a fancy lab anymore and needing it if he’s going to prove Glaucus wrong.

-Oh yeah, Glaucus thinks with a squint, somewhere in the whole “somehow not killing the scientist” (not that he COULD, Prompto had come from that man and if there was a chance ... well, he loved Prompto more than he hated Besithia, it would be worth the annoyance) Glaucus had said that Besithia wasn’t smart enough or skilled enough to be Really All That™. Besithia had immediately taken offense, forgetting all about his life being in danger in favor of his pride, and demanded HOW DARE. OF COURSE HE WAS.

-Glaucus had snorted something to the order of how if he was REALLY all that he would be able to make a cure/vaccine for the Scourge, not just piddle around infecting things with it and claiming to have done something NEW (the scourge infected everything by nature, essentially infecting machinery wasn’t new, it was just calculated stupidity).

-Glaucus thinks that might have been what led to his acquisition of a scientist actually. Besithia so insulted he’d been willing to defect from the empire that they both knew would never condone a vaccine for their precious Scourge just to prove Glaucus WRONG.

-At one point he has to stop and laugh hysterically over the fact that he just took out Niflheim’s R&D division at the kneecaps. By doing a slightly (SLIGHTLY) more adult version of Double Dog Daring their head scientist.

-There’s also the fact that, to get proper funding, housing, and equipment for his new pet scientist, Glaucus could no longer just subsist on bounties from Hunts and dragging Ardyn from hotel to hotel. No, he needed money, manpower, resources that couldn’t be tracked.

-Lucky for him, he was once Cor the Immortal, the guy in charge of busting illegal butts and then later in charge of the surviving population of humanity in the Long Night. He knew a thing or two about discreet resources and acquisition of funds.

-The Insomnia Underworld had no idea what hit it. It feels like one minute their going about their days, discreetly infighting between the families, laundering their illegal items, the next minute everything is being taken over like dominos by an icy-eyed TEENAGER that can’t seem to DIE no matter what is thrown at him.

-By the end of the year post getting his scientist, Glaucus had (unwillingly) re-taken his title of The Immortal and was the shadow king of the entire freaking Underworld of Insomnia and a good chunk of Lucis. Anyone who didn’t like his new rules of conduct were killed or kicked out and those who were smart enough to swear loyalty found themselves magically bound by their word (Glaucus had no idea how he pulled off that trick, he blamed the KoL and their shenanigans during the time travel). Glaucus then put some of the less scummy and more intelligent ones in charge and calmly swanned off to go back to running around the wilds taking on Hunts and blowing up Nif bases.

-The new Lieutenants in charge of the underworld on behalf of their new Underworld King all just ... kinda blinked at each other and silently asked “What Just Happened?”

-And that is how Cor/Glaucus ended up the reigning king of the Lucian underworld and Besithia got to play mad scientist in a hidden laboratory all Right Under King Mors’ Nose thank you and good night.

...

Risk the Fall (We Have Felt It All) verse:

-The others in the main cast of the first game get reborn too, don’t @ me.

-As we all know, Lightning is the new Crown Princess of Lucis and Hope is the new Crown Prince of Tenebrae, the others are also their own characters so to speak except for Snow and Serah but we’ll get back to them in a sec.

-Sazh is an Armaugh. He’s Weskham’s nephew and his new name is Sors. He’s three years older than Lightning this time around, but he STILL gets teased as the “Old Man” of the group, which he bears with good humor. He ends up being her Hand, just like Ignis is for Noctis.

-Fang and Vanille are reborn as half-sisters who look nothing alike. Fang is the elder of the two and just as Throw Hands as ever. She’s like- three-ish years younger than Lightning. Vanille is five years younger than Lightning. They don’t have the same mom, and only stumbled on each other by happenstance. They started by recognizing each other from their past life and then started comparing their current one and talking about it was funny that they both came from a fling rather than a marriage. Then they start talking about their respective moms (At least Vanille’s is dead I think? Who knows, but this way Fang gets to adopt Vanille and drag her home) and from there they talked about what little they know of their respective dads.

-And find out their descriptions of appearance and temperament described by their mothers match.

-Eerily so.

-“We’re sisters!” Vanille (who needs a new latin name btw) squeals in joy, throwing her arms around Fang, who just snorts dryly and says,

-“I swore that if I ever met ‘im, I’d stab him where the sun don’t shine. But since he gave me you ... I guess I’ll just give him a black eye. Maybe break an arm.”

-Far, far away in Insomnia, Cor pauses and reaches for his sword on instinct, sure for a moment that someone was plotting bodily harm against him. There is no one in the study but him, Regis, and Clarus however, so he shrugs it off a moment later. Probably just the nifs cursing him out for his latest mission or something.

-Snow and Serah come back as canon characters. Because I Said So.

-Luna is 8 years old when she tentatively creeps up to Zagreus/Hope, tears in her eyes, and softly asks “Hope” if she can see her sister.

-Zagreus stares at her in shock, then slowly kneels down to be eye level and whispers, “Serah?”

-She nods, blue eyes so much older than they were just yesterday before something caused her to remember, and Hope kisses her forehead before hurrying off to find his computer. Over Skype, Lightning and Serah cry for joy and sadness.

-“We’re not sisters this time,” pouts Lightning just a little.

-Serah smiles, sugar sweet and innocent, “I guess you’ll just have to hurry up and marry Hope so we can be sisters-in-law.” Both of the elder reincarnates choke on their spit while Luna laughs.

-Meanwhile, somewhere deep in the jungles of Galahd, Libertus tiredly puts ointment on Nyx’s cuts and scrapes while the grinning Ulric holds an ice pack to his black eye, “Just had to pick a fight, didn’t you,” mutters Lib, “always gotta be the Hero.”

-Nyx smiles, and Lib notices it’s that strange, far-off sad one he gets sometimes, the one that makes him look way too old and weary for his years, “I promised,” he says simply, an apology and unknowable explanation all in one. Libertus doesn’t ask WHO he promised, he knows Nyx won’t tell him. “I promised” has been his excuse since they could barely walk. Libertus isn’t sure he wants an answer at this point. Some things just aren’t for mortal men to know.

[brokendevilwrites]

Nerd!Verse but make it Anya.

I’m going to split this particular ask up into sections as there was lots of questions and they weren’t in order chronologically, but also I wanted to write some little bits before I went back to work.

Anyway: Nerd!Verse presents...Anya.

Also very aware I don’t know my own timeline for this verse so if shit is out of place just, like, ignore it? Thanks loves.

[Find NERD!VERSE here.]

What does Anya say to Clarke after Lexa takes her back? from this ask

Lexa falls through the door around noon. 

She’s covered in rain and tears and regret and Anya ends her Skype call almost immediately, throwing out a harried excuse to her agent, and she barely makes it to Lexa in time before the brunette is dropping to her knees. Sobs rip through the girls rib cage and Anya can’t do anything but fucking stare at her. 

(She’s seen Lexa cry before; granted Lexa was six and she had just landed face first into some gravel at a pretty high speed. They never were allowed to ride their bikes down the hill after that…)

When she finally gets her act together Lexa has stopped heaving out sobs like they’re physically hurting her and she willingly stands up with Anya when the woman wraps her arm around her. Together they make it to the bathroom and Anya runs a hot bath for her friend, complete with the designer bubble bath stuff she was asked to advertise, and she helps Lexa to undress. It kills her to see her friend shake and she wishes she could un-hear the shaky ‘thank you’ that Lexa gives her as she removes her bra for her. Nobody should hurt like this, Anya thinks. 

As Lexa sinks into the hot water she seems to relax a little. There are still tracks on her cheeks and her lips are chapped and Anya doesn’t even have to ask her friend to explain what the hell is going on. 

She already knows. 

Clarke has done this before and Anya told Lexa she would do it again. She’s always been wary of the Griffin girl. Not to be mistaken with not liking her. Anya liked Clarke well enough and she thought she complimented Lexa greatly but she didn’t think they’d last and she hates that she’s right. 

They were too different.

Eventually one of them was going to break and Anya always knew it would be Clarke. Lexa was so deep in love she would have sacrificed herself to the Gods before she ever thought of upsetting Clarke. 

With gentle strokes Anya washes Lexa’s hair and she hopes the water is helping to warm her up. The weather is bitter outside; she’d wrapped up in several layers that morning to get some pastries for breakfast and she was on her second coffee to defeat the chill when Lexa had stumbled in, all heartbroken and sad and so unlike the girl she knew. 

Anya loses count of how long they stay there but when Lexa finally moves her knees are numb from where she’s been kneeling and Lexa’s cheeks are pink despite the now cool water. 

“I’m going to go to bed,” Lexa says and her eyes look so, so, tired but Anya knows that it’s not her body that’s tired. She refrains from saying anything about it being early afternoon, or that sleeping won’t help, and stands up with Lexa. Her friend looks so lost that Anya finds herself reaching for a towel and holding it wide. The action clearly snaps Lexa back into action and she bites out “I’m not a baby,” with an offended scowl.

“Get in the fucking towel, Woods,” Anya rolls her eyes but there’s no heat behind it, no malice. There never is. Lexa gives her a smile but it’s barely there before it fades and she steps out of the expensive claw-footed tub--a present from Anya’s dad when they moved in--and right into the towel. 

Anya wraps it around her friend and ignores the marks on her shoulders and her neck that tell the story of where she was last night.

“I’m ordering Chinese for dinner. Make sure you’re awake.”

;;;;

Anya clears away the cold Chinese when she wakes the next morning and puts it into the fridge with a note letting Lexa know that it is hers.

;;;;

Two days later she throws it away.

;;;;

To everyone else Lexa seems fine. 

She emerges from her bedroom on the third day looking like death and gulps down two cups of coffee and finishes a bowl of oatmeal. By the time Anya checks on her to see if she wants to go and meet Lincoln for some drinks she looks human again.

Lexa has always been amazing at putting on a show. She was incredible at it at high school, it was how she made her way to the top with such precision, and it’s clear that she’s a damn expert at it now.

During drinks it comes up in conversation that Clarke broke up with Lexa and Anya braces for the breakdown but Lexa takes a sip from her cocktail and shrugs, like it doesn’t matter, like she didn’t retreat for two whole days over it, like Anya hasn’t lost sleep.

“Is she okay?” Lincoln asks when Lexa goes to the bathroom and Anya stares at the space Lexa had been sitting in.

“I don’t know.”

;;;;

They go out one night and Anya gets so phenomenally drunk that she doesn’t realise that Lexa takes Clarke home.

She finds out the next day when Lexa slams around the apartment, nearly breaking a coffee cup with a picture of the moon on it in her temper, and Anya pauses her show to stare at her.

“She asked me how many girls I’ve slept with since we broke up,” Lexa gives as an answer and it makes Anya’s eyebrows fire up into her hairline. Lexa has barely been able to eat a full meal in the weeks since the breakup and Clarke is asking bullshit questions like that? “That’s not even something I’ve thought about but it’s something she thinks about me. Is that who she sees me as?”

Anya shrugs and unfollows Clarke on social media. 

;;;;

Weeks ease into months and soon Clarke’s name stops feeling like a grenade in Anya’s mouth. 

Lexa smiles again and she laughs in the way she used to and things seem to have settled. It’s on one of those nights--when Lexa is laughing and her eyes are bright--that she encourages Lexa to delete Clarke from social media completely. She’s been complaining about Luna non-stop and Anya is sure Lexa thinks they’re dating and she just wants to protect her best friend. 

Besides, how is she ever going to move on if the first thing she checks in the morning is Clarke's Instagram?

“There,” Lexa slurs happily around her wine glass and she drops her phone onto the couch triumphantly. It makes Anya happy to see Lexa so free, so carelessly her again, and she almost cheers in happiness. Almost. “She’s gone.”

And just like that...Lexa is sad again.

“She’s gone. It’s really over.”

Anya sighs and goes to the freezer to grab some ice-cream because Lexa is still heartbroken and Anya is her best friend.

;;;;

“Is Lexa here?”

“Who?”

“Anya, please,” Clarke begs. It’s pitiful, Anya thinks. She’s trying for the wounded look; big eyes, pouting lips, broken body. But it’s not going to work. Anya isn’t in love with her. In fact, Anya can barely look at her and Clarke is damn lucky she doesn’t slap her in the face right there. “I just want to talk to her. Please?”

She doesn’t spare Clarke another glance when she shuts the door in her face.

;;;;

Lexa crawls into her bed at about two am and Anya already knows the conversation that’s going to take place. 

“She’s going to break your heart again.”

“It’s mine to break,” Lexa tells her firmly and Anya agrees but it doesn’t mean she likes it. “You don’t have to understand, Anya. You don’t even need to like her. But please respect my choice to love her.”

Anya turns over in the bed. The sheets are satin and they feel nice as she turns which is lucky because expensive sheets put her in a good mood even if Lexa is making Anya angry enough to frown. 

Which she tries hard to not do. 

Any facial expressions tend to lead to wrinkles and she’s not about to lose out on a contact with the highest bidder just because Lexa is a dumb fucking lesbian.

“I’m on your side, Lexa. Always. But you think with your heart too much,” Anya tells her and that’s that. 

Talking about feelings isn’t exactly something they do.

;;;;

They’re having a games night and everyone's invited. Lexa and Anya host. Obviously. Their apartment is bigger than anyone else’s by miles and it makes sense because they also have two spare bedrooms. One is used as Anya’s dressing and filming room, whenever she’s doing something for YouTube or Instagram, and the other is storage but both have beds in and a place for people to crash.

Lincoln arrives with Octavia first. It’s kind of amazing how their friendship group remained so perfectly intact from high school. Anya has been friends with Lincoln and Lexa for as long as her memories go back and she doesn’t know how the dynamic would work if they had never met Octavia in freshman year. Costia had long since broken off from them but Anya still notices the likes on their pictures--only if Clarke isn’t in them. She definitely noticed that. 

Lincoln immediately heads to the ridiculously large TV and switches on the Sports Channel and loses himself. Lexa sends an amused look to Anya from where she is cooking up some tapas for the night. It’s always been like this and Anya finds herself at her most comfortable around her people.

And then Clarke arrives.

Clearly she doesn’t hide the annoyance on her face quickly enough because Octavia laughs around a mouthful of chips and Lexa quickly kisses Clarke to distract her. 

;;;;

Clarke wins at Scattergories like she always does but Anya finds she doesn’t really mind because Bellamy brought a bottle of wine that was delicious, but everyone else thought was awful, so Anya shared it with herself. Clarke is a lot easier to handle when she’s three-quarters into a bottle of wine and, really, Lexa should be thanking her. 

A ring interrupts them and Clarke excuses herself with a glance to her phone. Lexa uses the opportunity to pipe up, just as Anya is pouring her final glass, and honestly Lexa should have known what was coming as Anya finished the bottle off. 

She can’t be blamed. 

“Can you please be nice to Clarke?”

“I haven’t said anything!”

“Exactly,” Lexa snaps and she just looks at Anya like that answers everything. Anya stares at her as she sips her wine slowly and waits for her friend to continue. “Everyone else is including her but you’re completely being ignorant.”

“Maybe everyone else is being ignorant to how she dumped your ass and we had to fix it.”

When Lexa gets angry she twitches her jaw and it’s the first clue that Anya is pushing it too far. But the thing is, Anya wants to go too far. She wants Lexa to react. Besides that first day, where she completely broke, Lexa hasn’t really shown any type of emotion and Anya was born for the fight.

Clarke broke her best friend and Anya doesn’t think it’s fair that Clarke started this damn issue  without a single idea of how she was going to end it. It’s not fair that Anya picked up the pieces and Clarke gets to enjoy the finished product.

Just because Lexa’s forgiven her doesn’t mean she has to.

“Anya,” Lexa warns but then Clarke comes back in and immediately notices the tension. Anya can feel the stares of her friends but she’s never backed down from anything in her life and Lexa isn’t an exception. “Stop. My decisions are my own.”

“You make your choices. I make mine,” Anya shrugs like she isn’t fighting with her best friend. She can sense Lincoln tidying away the games as a way of distracting the rest of them and not for the first time she’s glad for his emphatic nature. Her eyes flick to Clarke, and she almost smirks at how the blonde flinches back slightly, but she continues regardless. “Difference is your choices are going to ruin you.”

“Enough.”

Anya breathes out laughter through her nose but she’s not amused. There’s no point in even trying to get Lexa to acknowledge what Clarke did--twice--because when Lexa sets her heels in then there is no moving her. It’s a flaw that’s going to get her into danger one day and Anya will be there to pick the pieces up once again.

“Maybe I should go?” Anya hears from Clarke and Lexa looks at Anya with so much fury that it makes Anya’s head spin with how quickly she can soften her features when she turns to Clarke.  

Anya practically growls. “Stop with the damn victim card,” she spits out because she’s so tired of everyone pretending that what Clarke did was okay. She broke Lexa’s heart for no fucking reason and then when she decided it was too hard being single she wriggled back into Lexa’s life and forced forgiveness from someone who wasn’t even fully over her. “I’m allowed to dislike you, Griffin. I don’t have to be your friend. Not everyone is going to think you’re amazing and that’s life. Lexa might have forgiven you but I remember what you did. The quicker you figure that out, the better.”

;;;;

For the first time since she bought their apartment Anya sleeps in a different building.

When she wakes up Lincoln is sitting on the chair next to the sofa and he nods his head at the bottle of water on the floor next to her. She takes the aspirin that lay next to it and thumps back into the pillows, a hand over her eyes, and she remembers why she hates Lincoln’s apartment. They have floor to ceiling windows that capture the light at all times of the day but they don’t have coverings for them and Anya wonders if this is what torture feels like.

“How much of last night do you remember?”

Anya groans. “All of it.”

“That sucks,” Lincoln says but he doesn’t sound like he feels bad for her. “You were an asshole.”

“I’m aware.”

“Are you going to say sorry?”

Anya just groans louder.

;;;;

Lexa doesn’t speak when Anya finally comes home and it’s such a full circle that Anya nearly laughs. She spots her reflection in the mirror next to the door and she’s glad she isn’t due to do anything until Tuesday because she looks ill. 

“We’re not kids anymore,” Lexa says and the way her voice has levelled makes Anya pay attention. Lexa has only ever really been angry a handful of times that Anya can remember, she doesn’t usually lose her cool, but for the first time in their friendship Anya is actually worried she’s taken it too far. “You’re not my mom. You don’t get to tell me what I can and can’t do. And if you’re unhappy with the decisions I’m making then I need you to talk to me. Throwing a tantrum is for children, Anya. We’re adults.”

Anya clicks her jaw in annoyance and says nothing.

“You’re my best friend. I need you to be on my side for this.”

“I’m the only one fighting in your corner,” Anya scoffs and she decides right then and there she doesn’t have time for this. Lexa can sleep with whoever she wants, she can fall in love with whoever she wants, and she can have her heart broken as many times as she wants. “I’m not about to pretend that what she did was okay just so I can spare your girlfriends feelings. She didn’t spare yours when she said you didn’t make her happy anymore. She didn’t spare them when she asked if you were sleeping with other people.”

“We’ve spoken about that. I’ve forgiven her.”

“Good for you. Forgiveness is the first sign of weakness,” Anya snaps before she takes a deep breath and wonders when she became her father. “You’re asking me to respect your decision to forgive Clarke, right? Respect mine that I can’t.”

“My relationship isn’t your business.”

“No. But you’re my business,” she says and Lexa stops at that, her eyebrows high. “You and Lincoln and Octavia. You’re all my business. I’ll protect you all exactly the same way and I’m not going to apologise for that because I know you’ll all be there when I need you too.”

Lexa nods and just like that they agree to disagree on the topic of Clarke Griffin.

---

Summer arrives and the tension lifts.

Anya tries to be civil around Clarke and, in turn, Lexa doesn’t try to push for everyone to get along. A lot of the time the easiest way of dealing with it is with avoidance and it’s working out for everyone so far. There’s no point in fixing what isn’t broken so Anya doesn’t speak to Clarke and Clarke doesn’t speak to Anya and it seems to work because their little group of friends intertwines enough that they never really have to interact.

Lexa has certainly been happier since forgiving Clarke and it’s so clear to see that denying it would be ridiculous. She hates being wrong but she secretly hopes Clarke proves her wrong about this.

“Thank you,” Clarke says as Anya stands in the kitchen of her apartment. She’s dressed in tiny shorts and a tight top and Anya wonders if she’ll be able to record the stuttering mess that will be Lexa when the girl sees her girlfriend. When Anya says nothing and takes a drink of water, Clarke continues. “For being there for Lexa. For looking after her. I didn’t do too great at that last year and I’m just really glad that she has someone looking out for her the way that you do.”

Anya doesn’t say anything and Clarke nods like she kind of expected that, her fingers curling in on themselves a little, and Anya watches.

“Your relationship isn’t my business. I’d never tell Lexa to choose and I never have,” Anya finally says and her glass makes a dull noise as she sets it on the white counter. “But I also know I should probably cut you some slack.”

It’s the closest Clarke will get to an apology or an acceptance and the smile Anya gets in return lets her know how happy Clarke is about it. “I won’t hurt her, or me, again.

“Don’t promise me. I don’t care,” Anya says with a cool tone and it makes Clarke laugh. 

;;;;

Lexa smiles at Anya later after whispering with Clarke about something and Anya knows it’ll be fine.

“Are you going to follow her on Instagram again?” Lexa asks later when they’re putting away dishes. Anya takes a plate from the rack and puts it in the cupboard, taking her time before answering.

“Absolutely not, no.”

[straykidsupdate]

Stray Kids are shaking up K-pop’s status quo

The South Korean pop band Stray Kids are clustered around a laptop for a Skype interview, pale in the screen’s glow as heavy rain turns New York City to grey. It’s a fitting backdrop for the group: from their 2017 pre-debut release “Hellevator” to the latest single, the snarling, trumpeting EDM of “MIROH”, the K-pop group have made similarly dystopian environs their visual backdrop, where neon and CCTV screens flicker and the group are hemmed in by skyscrapers, tarmac, and tunnels as they attempt to escape or defy their surroundings.

This concept – of attaining freedom – is central to the group, and it’s an idea that’s rooted in reality. The group’s leader, Bang Chan, handpicked each member for the group from their parent label JYP Entertainment’s roster of trainees, a process unheard of in K-pop, where that power lies with executives and creative directors. Stray Kids write and produce all their material, too, and are one of the few idol groups to do so. Their music focuses unflinchingly on their youth – the anger and frustration, the ecstatic highs and ragged lows – while questioning their own shifting sense of identity.

With bleached bangs falling into one eye, Bang Chan recalls not the gravitas of the opportunity to form his own group, but the pressure of picking wisely. “There was a lot on my mind,” says the 21-year-old, speaking during the band’s run of sold-out North American concerts. “Choosing the right people was a must, because I’m going to be with them for a long time. Because I’d been a trainee for so long,” – seven years – “I think I had the ability to figure out what potential they had.” He turns to his bandmates and namechecks them: Woojin, the eldest at 22; Lee Know; Changbin; Hyunjin; Han; Felix; Seungmin; and the youngest, I.N, who turned 18 in February. “With everyone around me right now, I’m really glad we’ve become this team.”

Bang Chan and 18-year-old Felix, whose cavernously deep voice is at odds with his Bambi-innocent looks, were both raised in Australia, and the broad twang of their accent conveys a cheerful, anything-is-possible resonance. It’s the former who helms the conversation. He’s an engaging speaker and a careful listener, stopping to translate questions for the non-English speakers. At times he falters, and at others he deflects to well-worn answers (a reflection of their newness), but he’s unmistakably a leader, a role he wears effortlessly.

As a whole, Stray Kids are known for their friendly, indefatigable rambunctiousness, but with nearly a dozen rookie awards and five EPs in just over 12 months, it’d be foolish to underestimate their tenacity. Their start was a baptism of fire. On Stray Kids, the eponymously-named survival TV show that they were formed through, they were required to write tracks and perfect performances to short deadlines, then ruthlessly critiqued by the CEO of their label, JYP Entertainment. Two of the group members, Felix and Lee Know, were initially eliminated, although eventually reinstated in the final episode via a public vote. Felix, axed due to his less-than-fluent Korean, hasn’t forgotten the sting. “I still think about my Korean and how I use the language,” he sighs. “I try to learn, and fix it.”

You can see his determination when Stray Kids appear on Korean variety shows to showcase their work and their personalities. Felix’s shyness in speaking had resulted in less camera time but, in recent months, his studying has appeared to pay off and he’s a far more confident presence, able to convey the charm that's endeared him to their fans. It’s the result of constant help from his bandmates, he says, radiating positivity (which is, delightfully, Felix’s default setting). Lee Know, however, who’d had only a short idol training period and was cut early in the series, favours a more stoic approach. “I think I’m here thanks to that feedback. I worked really hard then, and I’m still trying to work hard now too,” he says, and although his small smile seemingly hints at something more pronounced, he settles on a double thumbs up and sits back.

“Choosing the right people was a must... With everyone around me right now, I’m really glad we’ve become this team” – Bang Chan, Stray Kids

Their rough-meets-polished sound was set up by the darkly anthemic “Hellevator”, but the thundering EDM and guitar riffs of their official debut, “District 9”, cemented them as a fresh force in K-pop. In its music video, they flee a clinical-looking prison and use a school bus to smash through to the safety of the titular District 9, although even there they’re left searching. “I don’t know who I am, it’s frustrating, it always worries me / Answer me, then give me an answer that will clear it all,” Hyunjin raps with a volatile urgency.

This ceaseless quest weaves through last year’s EP trilogy (I Am NOT, I Am WHO, I Am YOU) and into their latest EP, Clé 1: MIROH, the clear narrative allowing for sonic experiments (from the minimalist electronica of “3rd Eye” to the bright pop drawl of “Get Cool”) without losing momentum. In their song “NOT!”, they celebrate breaking out the “system” – the status quo – and the strength of being different. For Stray Kids, this is more about ambiguous storytelling than holding a deliberate ’us versus them’ mentality. “We usually don’t compare (ourselves) to others,” says vocalist Seungmin, in English. “Like in the song ‘My Pace’, we’re saying we don’t care about others’ (achievements), we’re just talking about Stray Kids’ own way.”

While Stray Kids have definitely created a richly empathetic musical tapestry, their chosen path raises a pertinent observation: in breaking out of one “system”, they’ve joined another. The idol system that they’re now a part of often appears more restrictive than the one they leave behind, and as they move towards the bubble of fame and money, there’s also the potential to lose a sense of oneself. Both feel paradoxical to their story. Bang Chan pauses. “Well, honestly, we wouldn’t call it a system, let’s say a ‘world’, and we’d call it a decision that we made. In order for us to get out of the main system, we chose being idols, and through K-pop we can show the message we want to express.”

Han, the 18-year-old rapper, singer, and songwriter/producer, drapes himself, cat-like, over Felix’s head and neck to get close to the camera. “I think fame and success can be dangerous to a person, depending on how they feel about it, but we’re going to try to always be positive and good natured about it,” he opines, gesticulating rapidly. “We’re still lacking so much, but we’re going to try really hard to understand other people’s feelings and be a good influence.”

Given Stray Kids’ formation, creative freedom, and growing success makes them something of an anomaly, might their presence provoke change in the idol world? Bang Chan furrows his brow. “I suppose so,” he says with the questioning tone of someone presented with an unfamiliar concept. “I guess it’s up to how people take it in.”

Stray Kids, evidently, have been more preoccupied with looking inward, and, when examining their new EP, it’s apparent their gaze has been in flux. Clé 1: MIROH, which Bang Chan describes as “us being really confident because all nine of us are together”, presents a new fearlessness on tracks like “Boxer”, “MIROH” and “Victory Song”, where Han triumphantly raps:“A laidback victor, a smile spreads on my face / Who else is like me, there’s no one.”

“When I was becoming a singer, some people didn’t support my dreams, so I was sad. I remember that and put those feelings into this song” – Changbin, Stray Kids

They pose fewer existential questions than on previous EPs, but, says Bang Chan, “if you look at tracks like ‘Chronosaurus’ and ‘Maze Of Memories’, it shows nervousness or anxiety, and a feeling of being lost as well.” The latter, its doomy hip hop propelled by tense piano and bursts of foreboding strings, was an emotional outlet for their silver-tongued rapper, Changbin. “When I was becoming a singer,” he says, in English, “some people didn’t support my dreams, so I was sad. I remember that and put those feelings into this song.”

Yet despite sieving emotions and thoughts through the music, their biggest questions, says Changbin, remain unanswered. “But we’re trying,” he smiles. He points to the close presence of their fans, known as STAY. “Maybe we can find the answer soon, through STAY.” How does he intend to discover deeply personal epiphanies through others? “I’m young and lack a lot of experience,” replies Changbin, reverting to Korean. “There are still a lot of childish elements about me as well. By watching those around me, I can find out what I like through them. I feel like I can find myself through (others’ journeys).”

For now, Stray Kids simply continue doing what they’ve done so well thus far – capturing the human condition, including tackling difficult subjects like depression (“Hellevator”), anxiety (“Rock”), and negative thoughts (“Voices”), all of which, Bang Chan says, they’ve experienced first-hand. The group’s core writing team (Han, Changbin, and Bang Chan, together known as 3RACHA) have not only refined their style over the past year but, according to I.N, “improved on their speed of making songs. They’ve gotten really fast,” he says with a sunny grin.

3RACHA’s Soundcloud days are far behind them, although, to their credit, they haven’t deleted the handful of songs that were posted pre-debut. Some will remain just enthusiastic learning curves, but others were raw and powerful, such as “Broken Compass”, which was refashioned into “Mixtape #4” for Clé 1: MIROH.

The “Mixtape” songs, which are only found on the physical versions of their EPs, are where, Hyunjin says, “we all contribute, and fill our individual verses with our personal stories”. In January, 3RACHA revisited a few songs during a Vlive broadcast, and cringed to the point of sweating profusely. As Changbin and Han crease up, Bang Chan covers his face, mock-groaning. “We can’t listen to them now!” But there’s a glint in his eye. “We do have to do episode two of that,” he adds, grinning.

It’s not just the songwriters who are evolving; from being wide-eyed, ambitious and nervous trainees who didn’t always get along, as Hyunjin recently revealed, Stray Kids have become compelling performers with close bonds. They’d clung tightly to Bang Chan during their survival show, but do Stray Kids today feel less lost – or at least more secure in their responsibilities? “I’ll just leave the room so the guys can talk more freely,” jokes Bang Chan, even as Changbin, owner of a bone-dry sense of humour, simply yells, “No!” Vocalist Woojin leans in. “He was very good to us while we were filming the show. At that time we always followed him very well, and relied on him a lot.”

“I don’t have a lot of confidence but when he’s next to me, I know I can do this,” adds Felix, as they ready to depart for the next schedule in a packed day. “But,” Woojin says, “now we’re all developing our own selves, too.”

Source

[hyucksong]

hibiscus. | huang renjun

hey! my first real nct dream fanfic, that isn’t a little baby post or smth, hope you babies love it :)

summary: You give Renjun a hibiscus with every planned meeting you two have. Rejnun doesn’t know why, or what the flower means, but he finds himself curious when he finds out that almost every flower has a meaning. 

warning: Some cursing, :P

word count: 1.8 K

   Renjun smiled at the flower in his hand. He couldn’t help it, after all. It was instinctual for him to smile whenever he saw you, because no matter when you saw him, as long as it was planned, you’d give him a flower. And if you two happened to run into each other on accident, you’d say to him, “Sorry, I’ll give you two flowers the next time we see each other!” And lo and behold, the next time you two saw each other, you’d give him two more flowers. 

   Admittedly, he didn’t know what the name of the flower was, but he didn’t really care, he just appreciated the sentiment. (and the pounding heart you gave him, but he’d never say that out loud) 

   He was walking back to the dorm he shared with the other NCT DREAM members, and saw Jaemin standing outside of the door. 

   “Hey Jaemin, what’s up?” He casually asked, walking past Jaemin to go and unlock the door. Jaemin’s face lit up when he saw Renjun, throwing an arm around his fellow member’s narrow shoulders when he got closer. “Nothing, I just forgot my keys, that’s all. How was - oh? Is that what I think it is?” Jaemin stopped mid-sentence, eyeing the plant in Renjun’s clenched hand. Renjun smiled and scratched the back of his neck shyly. 

   “Yeah, it’s another flower that Y/N gave me. It’s pretty isn’t it?” Renjun said, finally turning the key to open the door, and he slowly pushed open the door to walk in. He kicked off his shoes and walked through the front entrance to the living room where the rest of the members were lounging around doing various  things. 

   “Oh~, so she gave you another flower.” Jaemin sang teasingly, before walking into the living room and plopping down next to Jeno before whining to him about not letting him in when he knocked on the door.

   “I thought you were just trying to get our attention, sorry.” Jeno nonchalantly said, tapping his finger to his screen repeatedly. Jaemin rose his eyebrow. “By locking myself out of the house?” Jeno simply shrugged, caring about winning his game rather than comforting Jaemin’s pouting face.

   Renjun was secretly relieved that the topic changed from you and your flowers due to Jaemin’s whining. He walked past the members as inconspicuously as he could and opened the door to his room. He let out a huge sigh and took off his jacket, throwing it on his bed before going over to the windowsill and putting the new flower in with the rest of them.

   He softly stuffed the flower on the side and caressed the others that were laying peacefully in the disturbed water, watching at the sun shone off of them prettily. He didn’t know why you always gave him such pretty flowers. he almost felt as if they were going to a waste because he didn’t even know what type they were. Every single one of them were pink flowers with a very prominent nectar stem sticking up from the middle of the flower, and though it seemed like it would be a defining feature for a flower, Renjun wasn’t well versed in the language of plants. 

   The brown-haired boy scoffed to himself. “Flowers can’t mean stuff. Other than a rose, I guess.” He quickly shook the thought out of his head and changed into comfortable clothes before throwing himself on is bed and unlocking his phone to browse and relax. That was, until he noticed he had an unread message from you.

   His heart leapt into his throat and he let out a sigh of affection, not being able to ignore the feeling you gave him. 

   bean: hey there renjunnie! i had a random thought after i gave you the flower today,,,

   renjunnie: what was it y/n?

   Renjun felt himself cringe at the awkwardness of his text, wishing that he was smooth like Johnny or Ten, or funny like Haechan, or old and mature like Mark. but after thinking for a second,  he wiped the last thought form his head. Mark was more awkward with girls than Renjun was by tenfold.  

   bean: well, you know that i give you the same type of flower every time, right?

   renjunnie: really? i thought they were different 

   bean: oh? i guess you’re missing a few brain cells then

   bean: stop hanging out with dong-dumb, he’s ruining your brain :\

   He let out a laugh at your remark. Though you were were very cute, every person knew that the good-girl persona you put up was only for your idol-group during promotion, even the fans knew now. It was something that you only really did when you felt like being ironic. Your sass was natural, and in Renjun’s opinion, cute and attractive.

   bean: anyway, wanna know what they’re called?

   renjunnie: yeah, hit me with it baby

   bean: ???baby? holy??? shit???

   Renjun practically dug a grave for himself at that moment. He had a habit of texting things on impulse, but he never thought it would get him in deep shit. Of course, calling you baby wasn’t the end of the world, but he was sure you hated it. Why? No reason, he just felt a sneaking suspicion. He turned off his phone and plunged it in his pocket, before walking to the living room where he fellow friends were before he saw (or think he’d see) a slurry of angry texts from you.

   No one said anything when he fell lifelessly on the couch, not until he let out a groan filled with absolute agony. Chenle gave him the side-eye, “Really? That loudly?” He teased, ready for a comeback, but only being met with silence. Chenle looked down at Renjun after the unusual quietness, and was shocked when he was met with more dead than usual eyes. 

   “What happened, hyung?” He gasped, putting his phone down and turning towards his distressed friend. Renjun sighed and lifted himself up to sit properly on the couch, his sigh attracting the rest of the members attention. “Well, you know Y/N and her flowers, right?”

   “Yeah, what about it?” Jisung asked, without much interest in the conversation. His question was followed with Jaemin’s soft inquiry of “yeah, wonder what type of flowers they are”

   “Exactly!” Renjun yelled towards Jaemin’s soft question, throwing his head back on the couch. Haechan’s previously un-included self suddenly joined in. “Oooh, teen angst?”

   “Shut up, i’m 20.” Renjun spat, before looking at his phone’s black screen.    “Well, Y/N texted me saying that she thought about something after giving me the flower today, and I was like, “spill the tea, sis”, and she said “haha lol wanna know what type of flower it is?” aND THEN I SAID, “hit me with it, bABY.” I SAID THAT. I CALLED HER BABY. WE AREN’T EVEN DATING.” He screeched, burying his head in his hands, wanting to die right then and there.

   Haechan looked judgmentally at him, wanted to make fun of him due to his member’s unreasonable amount of stress, but seeing the pure amount of suffering on Renjun’s face made him think twice. Which wasn’t enough to stop him.

   “And? Don’t girls like being called that?” Haechan said, looking at his nails sassily. “Well, yeah - but not when you aren’t dating them! She probably hates me, oh god.” Renjun muttered to himself, ruffling his hair which tranlsated to wanting to throw yourself off a cliff in the language of anxiety and stress.

   “Hm, possibly. Telling from the amount of texts you’re receiving from her, it’s either that and she’s asking for a restraining order, or telling you to stop being stupid and kiss her already. I vote either, but eh.” Jeno mused, scrolling through his Instagram feed. Jaemin slapped his shoulder lightly. 

   “What?” Renjun whispered, before looking at his phone go on and off three times, telling him that someone was rapidly texting him. Gulping, Renjun unlocked his phone and went to his messaging app. 

   bean: huang renjun??? where art thou?

   bean: golden hands prince???

   bean: oh well, i’ll just tell you i guess

   bean: it’s a hibiscus! they’re my fav flower and i started giving them to you because i thought the meaning really suited you, so you should look it up, and then decide if calling me baby is something you wanna keep doing or not.

   bean: and if it isn’t, then i mean i guess that’s cool i guess i mean, yeah it’s fine i guess yeah

   Renjun felt more confused than anything, and looked at his phone with his head cocked to the side. He then decided to take your advice and search up the meaning of the flower, something he was surprised flowers had. 

   Part of him was expecting a flower that meant “i hate you lol, also i’m getting a restraining order on you :/” So, when he opened up Google and found the real meaning of the flower, he felt himself melt into the couch with relief.

   Hibiscus: Delicate Beauty

   Renjun lifted his head, and gave the look you give to someone when you just survive 8 AP tests in a row, a look of wanting the sweet release of death but also a look of ‘thank god’. 

   However, it took him a good five minutes before he realized what the meaning of the flower meant for him and Y/N. He stopped moving, before he reopened his text app faster than Jaemin runs to Jeno after not seeing him for a week. 

   renjunnie: holy sh - you what?

   bean: hey there, it’s year 2550, you’ve responded quite late. there are now robotic boyfriends and no need to breed with mere flesh

   renjunnie: im,,,going to ignore that

   renjunnie: but???? you??? think i’m a delicate beauty???

   bean: oh yeah, yeah lol

   bean: it’s okay if you don’t like that, i’ll stop if you want me too 

   renjunnie: nO! i really like it

   renjunnie: like,,,really like it

   renjunnie: like, i wanna call you baby for the rest of my life-like it

   bean: oh

   bean: i mean, a mi tambien

   bean: um,,,i’ve gotta go but i wanna talk about this later with you, i really do, renjun

   bean: i’ll talk to you about it later okay? we’ll skype, i promise :)

   Despite feeling a little disappointed, Renjun smiled. The feeling of reciprocated feelings was greater than anything he’d ever felt, especially after feeling that you hated him.

   renjunnie: alright :)

   bean: also, i’ll be giving you an ambrosia flower when i see you next :)

   Renjun quickly pulled up his Google once again, and searched up the term ‘ambrosia’, he found ‘food of the gods’, but he doubted that she’d be calling him gold-like, so he added ‘flower’ to the search, and what he found lit a bigger fire in his heart than the hibiscus.

   Ambrosia: A Greek symbol for ‘your love is returned’.

[edenslostwallflower]

Munday Meme Part 1 | @teokyeo​ please do all the symbols that u havent done yet for the munday meme

Ask and you shall receive. Here we go.

😀 ; Do you enjoy your interactions and rp community?

Yes! I enjoy all my interactions! The community is sort of a yes/no cause less be real sometimes I feel like an outsider lookin’ in but y’know, tis what it is. I do enjoy what I see though!

😁 ; Have you made any friends since creating your blog?

Yes! A couple and I love them all!

😅 ; Have you ever done something embarrassing or made any mistakes that you can’t forget about?

flashes back to something i did in the 5th grade that my mind still won’t let go of

😉 ; Are there any ships for your muse that you enjoy, or ships that you would like to see happen?

Lynna x Everyone & Leanna x Everyone.

😳 ; What is something or someone you have always wanted to write with? i.e. a particular plot, a character, etc.

I want to write with everyone and do everything. 

🙄 ; What are your biggest pet peeves when it comes to tumblr?

Biggest pet peeve is treatment of female muses/ocs. Always bugged me but I never say anything about it. And when I do it’s usually when I’m in the middle of a breakdown over it but nothing really changes.

😠 ; Is there anything you dislike about your muse?

Aside from her Free! verse, her other verses are hard to talk to/interact with because of how I heccin’ wrote her and it’s really annoying sometimes. Free!Lynna I can just throw her at anyone and it works. Robot Leanna is like HOW. DO I GET HER. TO PEOPLE.

☹️ ; Do you have any insecurities about writing and/or interacting with other people?

I don’t do that aesthetic stuff. I don’t format my posts or know fancy words/ phrasing and I often worry that’s why people don’t write with me. 

😮 ; What is your favourite thing about your muse?

It’s hard to say cause she’s a 15 year old muse. That’s a lotta years of work I put into her. She’s really developed. All from my own brain.

😴 ; What time of day are you more inclined to write?

Any time, honestly. Probably not like an hour or so after I wake up but I can sit down and write a reply any given time.

😂 ; What are some similarities between you and your muse?

1 brain cell. Loves cats. Cottage core aesthetic. 

🤔 ; What are some differences between you and your muse?

I have a wee bit more common sense than she does. Not a lot.

🐼 ; What are some of your favourite hobbies?

Cooking, writing, cosplay!

🌸 ; Have you ever met an rp partner in real life? Would you like to?

I technically have but it was from a different fandom. Anyone from here? No. Would I love to? YES.

📱 ; Are you open for sharing social media with your rp partners? i.e. Skype, Discord, Messenger, etc?

Yeah! If anyone ever wants my personal Tumblr or Discord I’m a-okay with sharing it. And if I’m super friendly with you, my Instagram (where you can see my cats all the time).

❤️ ; Are you currently single or in a relationship?

Single and quite frankly tired of it

[terranoctis]

invisible string

There’s a part of me that is not certain anyone will ever be as perfect for me as you were in that time, flaws and all, but it also goes to show that maybe the person I became might be better off living life without a hand to hold. Is it because of the scars we’ve traced all over each other? I wonder. I find myself putting a distance even between myself and those I care about the most. You look away when I talk about others the way I used to see you and I know that it’s a blurred line we’ll never find the right chalk to draw with. We’re constantly remade like the sidewalk after rain comes and goes.

I know, like I knew then. I want to be in your life, and you want to be in mine, but it’s a nostalgic, lost feeling. I think of sitting on your bed as we talk about music only we know. Even after all these years, we seem to find each other in the dark. I think of someone else and you come with your hand outstretched, asking me to walk with you. I know better now than to entertain the dance, but so do you. We find ourselves just walking along the streets of a city we grew out of. We never talk about the people we came to see in that light after we lost each other. 

Our song feels as old as the world’s. It’s a mystery, this string of red we’ve tied loosely to each other’s wrists. 

I ask you if you’ve seen a show we talked about so long ago, and in a matter of days you catch up to where I am. It makes me wonder, but I say nothing--because this has always been us. For two people who don’t like to talk much, we loved to talk. We loved that with one another so much it hurt. Your voice over a skype call and your desire to have me play games with you even though I was so terrible... the song has numerous verses I couldn’t put all into one album.

You talk to me about how much you loved that I had called your name that day you had nowhere to go and kept you close.

I keep inside my heart how much it meant to me that you found me that night, when I couldn’t even put my tears into words. 

There are two sides to our story. One is a story of missed timings, of words we said too late and words we never said at all. We felt the worst of this in every moment of the great silence and when we met again. The other side of our song, the one that I tried to hum to you the day you broke down in front of me, is the one of how utterly beautiful we were together. 

Past all those scars, I find your face in the dark smiling at me like I put all the stars in the sky, and your hand against my cheek. I hear you laughing across the abyss when I fail in a silly manner at what is a simple task. I listen to your voice speaking softly on an overnight train ride to our hometown because for some reason, I’m the one you want to talk to. Your loneliness matches my own, and I find it in our walks and late night talks.

I find it in the hand that held mine tight on an abandoned playground.

Past all my scars, you find me calling your name and referring to you affectionately as “mister,” at any time of the day. You hear me singing happy songs to the point you ask me to stop because it’s overloaded you. You listen to me panic and go straight to you for help because for some reason, you’re the one I trust to be there at my worst. My loneliness matches your own and you find it in our text conversations and our late night games.

You find it in the arms around you when I hug you hello and goodbye.

We find it sometimes in those quiet moments when out of nowhere you touch the back of my head and softly stroke my hair. I smile at you and make a face. You say nothing as we walk to the restaurant across our way together, on a day meant for couples. Even when we don’t say anything, we know.

It’s strange to think that there’s still a soft affection there between the two of us now that we’ve tended to our wounds. I don’t think you’re the one for me now, but you were very much so then. Our scars have made it so. Maybe I’ll wonder for a long time if there was something else we could’ve done to make us right... but it had never been my choice to make. You know that as well as I do, when you find me on the other side of the train tracks, stepping back from you.

I used to think it was something of a curse we would always go back to each other. And on the other side of that same song, what an invisible string that holds us together. Timing is everything in this world, and so is this odd series of circumstances that keep us in touch. 

Isn’t it just so pretty to think that all along there was some invisible string tying you to me? 

Isn’t it some kind of irony to believe that all along there was a red string binding me to you? 

It makes me laugh a little, because I’m under no illusions about who you are to me and what I am to you. Even so, I know like I knew then. We take a breath and find each other in the dark.

There’s a soft twirl of string on our wrists as we wonder how the other is at the very end of this red thread. 

Our song feels as old as the wind in these woods where you found me again. It’s a mystery, this invisible string that pulls us closer some days. 

[aplaceforthesoul]

Anonymous submitted:

Advice

Hi. I really need some advice. I’m in my first year of uni and obviously it’s all online now. Each week in our zoom classes we get put into random ‘breakout rooms’ and meet a bunch of people. Obviously there isn’t much time to socially interact because we have assigned work to do. However, there have been a number of instances where I’ve met people who seem somewhat nice and people I’d potentially want to be friends with. Despite that, I don’t really know how to really initiate a friendship with them in a non weird, non awkward way. The first point of contact would be email but I have no clue what to say (well I did draft something out but I’m afraid they’ll be so weirded out thinking like we only talked for a few minutes and now she’s emailing me wanting to talk more and be friends, what a complete weirdo, how desperate can someone be etc). Also once we email and then text or whatever, it’s really hard to develop let alone maintain a friendship that is solely online. What would we talk about? How often is considered normal to text?

To give you some context (since it may come across like I am a socially inept idiot), I have never actually had true friends in my life. I’ve gone above and beyond for people and tried so hard to be the best friend anyone could want and never got anything in return, putting in all the effort and being there and no one giving a fuck about me in the end. Everyone takes friendships for granted and I would kill to experience one true friendship. Also in this quarantine where people are constantly moaning about how it’s so awful to be away from their friends does my head in, I would give anything to have people like that in my life. Anyway I try to distract myself but sometimes when I sit idly or just lie awake with my thoughts at night, I realise how truly alone I am and feel so fucking empty inside. It’s just me and my parents. I don’t have any siblings and the family I actually care about are all across the world. So I suppose this is question is in parts.

I do want to know how exactly to start a friendship with people I’ve met through random allocation into groups online in a completely natural, confident manner, like a step by step manual because sometimes I’m not even sure I remember how to make friends anymore because it’s been so long. Like what exactly to write in an email and how to keep communication going via text, how to actually start a friendship that is strictly online and how to then suggest to meet up once this is over all like a normal person. I have a tendency to be clingy at the start which people never understand is because I’ve never had a friend so at the start it’s something so exciting and dear to me and I feel so out of the loop, I don’t know how often to text someone to have a healthy friendship but that doesn’t appear needy and annoying.

Also, there is one more thing. I’ve gone to all girls schools my whole life and as a result have been completely isolated from guys. In all honesty, even if I have had like zero contact with a person in the male species, I can already tell as time goes on and I finally make friends, I will end up with more guy friends. But the thing is, I have absolutely no clue how to talk to guys (in a completely platonic way mind you), and as I’ve said, I am not particularly well versed in the social nuances being void of friendships so I don’t know whether emailing a guy a similar message about wanting to talk more and then meet up once this whole pandemic is over would suggest things I obviously don’t mean. Like I don’t want any guy to get the wrong impression that me contacting them is anything other than a friendship. I feel like nowadays the slightest thing can be misconstrued and I don’t want any guy to get weirded out because they misinterpret me wanting to be friends as something it’s not. But I also just generally feel so alone and I don’t deserve to. I always tried so hard to be a good friend to others and I got nothing in return from toxic people who never actually cared about me. Apologies for the rambling. Thank you if you made it to the end lol.

hi there :) about your online classes, zoom and wanting to become friends with some of the people in the classes? social media is where it’s at 😌

I find emails quite a formal way of introducing yourself to someone? 0: and unless it’s work / school related, not many people I know of use email much anyway! social media is a lot more relaxed and informal, it’s what everyone uses in some form or another so it makes it much easier to get replies from people and to start building a friendship. if you don’t have social media, would you consider making an account? instagram and facebook are two of the big ones when it comes to both public posts and private conversations, it’s easier to create new friendships if you’re both using the same platform. 

I agree that it’s hard to maintain friendships that are solely online, but it doesn’t have to be that way. even if all of your university classes are now online due to coronavirus, that doesn’t mean that everything has to be there. when lockdown measures start to lift, you could maybe suggest to meet up and grab a coffee? or create a study group? there’s lots of ways of to keep friendships going in real life without always needing online support. you could talk about anything haha, the weather, what they got up to on the weekend?! ask lots of questions and get to know them better, don’t be afraid to share parts of your personal life too :) talking a few times a week would be best when starting off a new friendship -- too much contact and they might feel a little overwhelmed, not enough and suddenly there’s a bit too much distance and things feel weird. 

it’s a bit hard for me to give a step-by-step manual, because most friendships occur organically and naturally? also, everyone’s different! there’s no one set rule or manual that you can follow and things will work every time, sometimes it’s a trial and error process. what I do know however, is that the more you practice something then the better you are at it and the more natural it feels. a few general tips: smile if you’re chatting to them on zoom / skype / video call, use emojis if appropriate, maybe throw in a nice compliment about something they’re wearing or how they’ve styled their hair? being nice to someone and making them feel good and confident about something never hurts :* this post here could be helpful to check out as well, give it a read and see what you think.

if you don’t want future guy friends to get the wrong impression about meeting up? just be honest and clear about what you want :) communicate the fact that you wanna be a friend, maybe drop hints of a “partner” to make it clear that you’re not interested in anything sexual etc. communication is key!! in any relationship, be it romantic or platonic or otherwise. treat guys as you would anyone else haha, they’re human just like you and me. say hi, smile and have open body language, ask questions, get to know them on a more personal level, share aspects of your life too, take it one day at a time. I hope this helps you lovely, all the best <3

- tash