#I literally had to delete the app from my phone today cause I didn’t want spoilers

[ghostbeam]

Hey. Just watched the trigun finale

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 282: Aizawa Defeeted

Previously on BnHA: Oh my god do we even care about that at this point. Tomura made a speech; Gran Torino died; Deku lost his shit and tried to strangle Tomura to death with his bare hands; Ryuukyuu came back from Wherever She Was and tried to grab Tomura but he punched a hole through her giant hand; and now he’s grabbing his Quirk-Be-Gone bullets and is ready to cause some mayhem okay?? That about sum it up?? Is anyone even reading this?? CAN WE JUST GET ON WITH IT I’VE WAITED AN ENTIRE WEEK.

Today on BnHA: Well I guess let’s start with what doesn’t happen: Bakugou doesn’t lose his quirk. HE LUCKED OUT!!... for now, anyways. Because, thanks to a near-impossible-to-predict series of events (seriously, raise your hands if you had “Aizawa gets shot but goes full World War Z on his own ass” on your bingo card), Tomura has seemingly regained his regeneration powers, which means that his other quirks are probably back online as well! So we’ll see how that all goes. Anyway so in the meantime Shouto’s back, looking very mad that everyone temporarily forgot he was a main character. And Gigantomachia is back as well! Or almost, anyway. Also, you’ll never guess who broke another one of his arms! Go on, guess. But at least he still has the arm, though, which is more than we can say for certain other people’s limbs. Poor Aizawa is literally on his last leg. He and Tomura really got off on the wrong foot. He chopped his leg off, is what I’m saying. It’s that kind of chapter folks.

you guys I’m losing my whole fucking mind. I straight up deleted the tumblr app off my phone for 24 hours so that I wouldn’t be tempted to log in and risk potentially being spoiled. and I’m happy to say that it worked! so here we are now, completely spoiler free, and let me just say that if Horikoshi decides to cut back to Gunga Mountain now, I will either cry for hours or abandon the series forever and go do something more productive with the rest of my quarantine like learning how to play sad songs on the guitar

all right. here goes

so we’re opening with Deku, who is currently comprised of 100% rage and 0% mercy, and is doing that thing where only the whites of his eyes are visible. and basically he’s just thinking “I’VE REALLY GOT TO HOLD ON TO THIS GUY AND MAKE SURE HE DOESN’T DO ANYTHING ELSE HOMICIDAL.” which is a solid game plan, but perhaps not so easily accomplished

-- oh my god this poor kid is still in denial, I can’t. why are you doing this

is there even still a Gran Torino to tend to at this point? after Tomura bulldozed a hole through his torso, and you went and finished the job with your own fucking attack? sob

but I guess the law of Tragic Shounen Mentor Deaths mandates that Gran’s should be at least as drawn-out as Nighteye’s was, though. so he’s probably only Mostly Dead, which is still Slightly Alive if I remember my Princess Bride correctly, and I think I do

so now the rest of these stooges are finally catching up with us here

yes, my friends. a bullet. WELCOME TO MY LIFE FOR THE PAST FUCKING WEEK. anyways I have a LOT of pent-up energy here just fyi. there may be a lot of unnecessary screaming in this recap

FUCKING WYOMING SMASH Y’ALLSSSS

I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT JUST HAPPENED SOB. DID HE JUST HAMMER FIST TOMURA’S HEAD INTO THE GROUND. DID HE SNAP HIS FUCKING NECK AT 100%. IN AN IDEAL WORLD HE WOULD HAVE JUST CHOPPED TOMURA’S ARMS OFF WHILE SOMEHOW MANAGING TO AVOID BREAKING ANY OF HIS OWN BONES IN THE PROCESS, BUT I HAVE A FEELING THIS SITUATION WILL NOT BE RESOLVED IN ANY KIND OF MANNER ONE WOULD CONSIDER “IDEAL”

(ETA: fun fact: this attack did absolutely nothing except make things approximately 100x worse. but you tried Deku. you tried.)

THE FUCK KIND OF PORTENTOUS BULLSHITTING TITLE IS THIS. OH MY GOD, I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT EMOTION I’M HAVING RIGHT NOW, IT’S JUST A LOT OF LOUD THOUGHTS

anyway so if you’re just joining us, Tomura just pulled two bullets out of his pocket, the good guys finally noticed, and then Deku did a smash and everything exploded. the radius of this attack actually looks wide enough to have potentially involved Aizawa, who probably does NOT want to get any debris in his eyes right now, and also Gran, who probably doesn’t particularly want to be hit by another deadly attack for the third time in the past ninety seconds. anyway so I guess what I’m trying to say here is WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THAT YOU LITTLE GREEN LUNATIC

AHHHHHH

he got the one!! the one that was in Tomura’s right hand!! but what about the one in his left ahhhhhhh

(ETA: lmao at Kacchan being the one to blow up the same bullet I was so sure he was going to be shot with. saw the writing on the wall, huh kid? what do we say to the god of foreshadowing?? ‘NOT TODAY.’ ...except that we’re still not actually out of the woods yet so you still better watch yourself lol.)

...

based on the font here, these are Tomura’s thoughts. which he is thinking immediately after getting the lower half of his jaw very painfully cronched by the VERY homicidal sixteen-year-old still clinging to him. anyway so Tomura’s thought processes are as inscrutable to me as ever lulz

and Deku’s arm looks broken again, yaaaaay. but at least it’s his left arm and not his right! so that’s nice. now they can match

[SHRIEKS]

HE YEETED IT. IT HAS BEEN YEETEDED. HE DID A YEET. [sobbing] he DiD a YeEt oH my GOD

DID IT HIT SOMETHING!?!?!?

my reading process here is as follows: 1) scroll down exactly one panel. 2) scream even though absolutely nothing has happened yet. 3) WRITE THAT DOWN 4) REPEAT

DKSFJLKHSDLGKHLI

DID IT HIT HIM!?!? DID IT GET HIM IN THE LEG SOB ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS. JUST LIKE THAT?? BOOM GUN BULLET LEG!!?

YOU GUYS IT REALLY HIT AIZAWA AND NO ONE DID A GODDAMN THING?? it wasn’t even drawn out or anything??? it just HAPPENED, within like four pages??? NO SLOW MO?? NOT EVEN A REACTION PANEL WHAT THE FUCK

son of a bitch I would so dearly like to grab Manual and RockLockRock’s heads right now and just conk them together real hard. YOU STUPID FUCKS sob YOU HAD ONE JOB!!! IT REALLY WAS JUST ONE!! AND YOU WERE SHARING IT!! SO IT’S MORE LIKE HALF A JOB!! AND YOU STILL COCKED IT UP IN ABSOLUTELY NO TIME AT ALL OH MY GOD

(ETA: they should blow this panel up and make it into a t-shirt and make Manual and RLR wear the shirts every day for the rest of their lives. half a job, you guys. please go away I cannot even look at you right now.)

FUCK MY EVERYTHING

(ETA: I still can’t figure out if this horrific angle is due to the earlier damage from the Noumu, or if Tomura really just flung the bullet THAT hard. honestly I’m surprised it didn’t just slice right through him with that kind of velocity. “no thanks because then I wouldn’t get to write a scene where he chops his own leg off” oh okay well when you put it that way, Horikoshi.)

if I recall correctly this is the leg that he said was “twisted”, no? yeesh. might just want to chop it off real quick, then. s’not like it’s doing you any more good. does anyone know if zombie rules apply or not with this sort of thing?? shit

?!?!

“THANKS”?? okay what. did it hit him or not??

-- oh my god WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT

I WAS -- I WAS JOKING I -- FFFFFFFFKJK

jesus fucking christ. when I said “might just want to chop it off real quick” literally FOUR PARAGRAPHS AGO, I can tell you that the one thing I did NOT expect was for Aizawa to be all, “you know what, that’s a good idea”, and then YOINK OUT HIS TRUSTY HERO SHANK AND GO FULL 127 HOURS ON THIS BITCH. "LALALA WE’RE GONNA DO IT RATIONALLY TEEHEE” like excuse me, the fuck

anyways. I don’t even know what to say. thank you Aizawa’s leg for your sacrifice, and for always supporting him. literally. oh my god I came here ready for my son to enter a new phase of character development, and for the manga as a whole to enter a new phase of glorious, glorious angst. no one told me I’d be sitting here making puns instead. what a fine, confusing day

anyway though let’s just fucking hope it worked. and side note, if Aizawa Shouta really did chop off his own fucking leg just now and somehow STILL managed not to fucking blink, I think we might as well just go ahead and hand him the Biggest Badass In The Series award right now because no one is ever going to top that. nope. not happening

it is truly a testament to Shigaraki Tomura’s unfathomably mysterious sexy villain energy that he still somehow manages to look hot with only half a face

also no one in this manga actually feels pain, do they. not Deku, not Aizawa, not Tomura, no one. no wonder none of them have any self-preservation instincts to speak of

um

did someone just randomly explode just now. at this point it might as well happen, right

oh it’s the shockwave from Deku’s Wyoming attack, apparently. how nice of it to have a delayed reaction for absolutely no reason

anyway so Deku’s being flung back, but he’s grabbing onto Tomura again with Blackwhip. but oh shit you guys, if Tomura escapes Deku and Ryuukyuu’s clutches and still has any bullets left in his pocket, we may still be able to salvage this Bakugou quirk situation after all. would be nice to be able to actually do something with all of these “happy quirk losing day” balloons that I ordered

(ETA: actually, believe it or not I honestly like this better. Tomura using AFO was always the more dramatic option anyway. and now that we’ve done the bullet thing everyone has presumably let their guard down again, which, good.)

I love how Tomura apparently hasn’t noticed that Aizawa’s just amputated his own leg? to be fair he’s probably distracted by all the explosions and such

also gotta love how Deku’s arm-breaking attack seemingly just made everything worse for no reason. and also how Manual and RockLockRock are once again just standing there doing absolutely nothing

SO NOW GUESS WHAT’S HAPPENING

I MEAN IT! GUESS. BECAUSE YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE LOL

OH WELL OKAY THEN

just like we all saw coming!! ...

so is this Endeavor’s attack?? Bakugou’s?? either way, hot damn. fortunately for Tomura he is apparently operating under the same guidelines as the U.S. Federal Reserve, in which mutilated bills may still be exchanged at face value if more than 50% of a note identifiable as United States currency is present. basically as long as roughly half of him is still vaguely Tomura-shaped I assume he’ll be fine

(ETA: in hindsight I should have immediately been able to identify this as a Shouto attack based solely on how murdery it was lol.)

OH MY GODDDD

KRANCH?!?

OH MY GOD LOL WHAT. LOL. REMEMBER EVERYONE’S THEORIES FROM LIKE TWENTY YEARS AGO LOL. SHOUTO WHAT THE FUCK. DID YOU STOP FOR DRIVE THRU

AND MEANWHILE DEKU’S BACK ON THE SCENE GIVING ARGUABLY EVEN LESS FUCKS THAN BEFORE, IF SUCH A THING IS EVEN POSSIBLE. SO FAR THIS CHAPTER HAS PRECISELY ZERO THINGS THAT I ACTUALLY EXPECTED IN IT, WHICH IS VERY IMPRESSIVE

IT ALSO HAS A LOT OF SMASHING

a LOT. of smashing, guys. feels like... 60% smashing, 20% severed legs, 20% Kranch

-- oh no oh SHIT oh shit oh shit

(ETA: um so I really can’t tell how far that wound extends and whether or not Aizawa still has his right eye, shit.)

first of all how did Deku get here next to Aizawa when he was just over there with Tomura, what. and second, I think Aizawa just blinked, oh shit. probably on the verge of passing out after CHOPPING HIS OWN LEG OFF which STILL hasn’t been acknowledged yet?? did I just completely misinterpret all of that back there or what

(ETA: there was seriously so little attention called to this that I scrolled back up to confirm it probably like half a dozen times. apparently Horikoshi thinks that THE MOST BADASS THING TO EVER HAPPEN IN THE MANGA should be completely downplayed. whereas if it were me, there’d be an entire two page spread of JUST THE LEG. WITH MUSIC PLAYING. EVEN THOUGH IT’S A MANGA.)

YEPPPPPPP. fuck

look at him though. he’s so happy. this is why I can’t stay mad at you no matter how deranged you get you little maniac

so is quirk-stealing back on the menu then or what. don’t think I’ve been lulled into any kind of false sense of security by any of this lol

-- ARE WE SERIOUSLY CUTTING AWAY

so Todoroki really went after them ALONE. the better to put his dad right back up at the top of the Lose Your Quirk Sweepstakes finalists. well... second-to-top, maybe. like I said I will not be lulled

yuh-oh

why do I feel like the odds of Gigantomachia arriving to herald the end of this chapter just shot up DRAMATICALLY

so the next page is almost entirely just a list of cities that the news anchor is telling people to evacuate because they’re in Machia’s path. along with a bunch of dead heroes lying around everywhere, and Ochako being all ominous

(: weren’t they, though? heh. this is going to be so, so bad (: (: (:

-- fuuuuuuuuuuu

aaaaaand that’s it. hahahaha. okay then let’s summarize

Bakugou defied all expectations and kept his quirk (FOR NOW)!

Aizawa cut his own fucking leg off and it WASN’T EVEN REMOTELY ACKNOWLEDGED FOR REASONS I CAN’T UNDERSTAND (R.I.P. AIZAWA’S PRECIOUS LEG. YOU ALWAYS PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD)

Kranch showed up after 157 years and is probably wondering why the heck I keep calling him “Kranch” now. THINGS CHANGE WHEN YOU’RE MIA FOR A WHILE MY LITTLE STARBUCKS CHRISTMAS CUP

Deku broke his arm for the 78th time

Tomura regenerated but seems to think Aizawa’s quirk is actually gone for good, which I’m pretty sure it’s not. so if they can keep him from destroying everything long enough for Aizawa to turn it back on again, we might possibly still survive this

and lastly, Machia is about to kill all of these stupid people frolicking around outside of this fitness club who are probably so proud of themselves for not being glued to their phones 24/7 because they prefer to LIVE LIFE IN THE MOMENT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. well that’s on you my friends. at least it’ll be a quick death. ffff

[obxhoe]

Anon request//JJ x reader

I accidentally deleted the anon request but it was about Rafe and reader being in an unhealthy relationship and JJ helps/saves her. 

a/n: i tried my best with this and i hope this is okay!!! thank you for requesting! Sorry this is so late and that i have been lacking with content, work has been insane and i’m slowly getting back on track. I have a few things in progress. I tried to make this story as positive as it could be, having been in an abusive relationship myself and I didn’t wanna trigger anyone or anything. Soooo yeah enjoy!

word count: around 2,400

Warnings: drugs, abusive/unhealthy relationship (i tried to leave out graphic content, just a lot of yelling), swearing

He was high. Again. This had become the new normal, Rafe getting high out of his fucking mind almost every night. And it was usually the only time he was somewhat nice to you. It started out when he went from smoking with you or his friends to him smoking alone, multiple times, every day. Then came cocaine. One night at a party you two decided to try it. The rush was too much for you, a whiplash of sensations hitting you all at once and you decided to stick to weed from that moment on. Rafe on the other hand fell in love with it and well, shit hit the fan. Fast. It was exhausting having to deal with his constant mood swings. 

Last night was bad. He says he would never physically hurt you, but he’s gotten close to it before and it terrifies you. He grabbed your arm last night when you were trying to leave and this morning the bruise was already apparent. It was right above your wrist so it was going to be hard to hide, the humidity was insane and long sleeves did not seem like the move. But, you put on a long sleeve shirt anyway in an effort to hide it from your friends.

You arrive at the chateau, lugging your surfboard up the steps and letting out a huff. Beads of sweat were already forming at your hairline. You drop the surfboard on the floor of the porch and head inside. The rest of the pogues were in the back, Kie reading, and the guys playing soccer.

“Why does it always feel like we live in the actual jungle. The humidity is so disgusting my clothes are literally sticking to my skin.” You complain as you plop down into a plastic lawn chair. Your friends turn and smile at you, happy you finally arrived. John B and JJ run over and tackle you to the ground while Pope stands there laughing so hard that there are tears forming in the corners of his eyes. This is where you are the happiest, not with Rafe. It’s a red flag, one of the many you have chosen to ignore.

“Okay okay hello to you too, now get off!” You squeal. They climb off of you and sit in a circle.

“We haven't seen you in like, what? A week? Where have you been?” Kie asks. Your stomach starts to churn, Rafe doesn’t like it when you hang out with the pogues. The past week you’ve been with him or working.

“I was working, a lot, all the time.” You hope they believe your excuse. The boys seemed to believe it but Kie wasn’t having it as she raised an eyebrow and you gave her a look as to say ‘not now, please’. She nods, but you know that the next time you two are alone, she’s going to confront you.

“Okay well I need water or something because I am dying” Kie gets up and you can tell she wants you to follow.

“I’ll come with you, do you guys want anything?” You ask the guys, trying to seem less suspicious. A chorus of ‘beers’ rang out and you nodded, following Kie inside.

“So spill. I know you haven’t been working all the time because I called your mom and she told me you’ve been spending all of your time with Rafe recently. Yes, we hate him but you don’t have to hide that from us.” You can see worry in her eyes. Subconsciously you roll up your long sleeves, obviously overheating and needing some relief.

“Look, I don’t know why I don’t tell you when I see him. I honestly don’t” That was a lie. “He’s just frustrating sometimes and I don’t want to bring anyone into the relationship drama” You reach for the fridge and Kie kicks the door shut and grabs your hand lightly. 

“What’s this?” She asks in regards to the bruise Rafe left last night. Your stomach drops, your mouth goes dry and you don’t know what to say. 

“I was walking Ace and he just pulled a little too tight when another dog walked by that’s all, no big deal” You try to laugh.

“Y/n,” Kie shakes her head, nervousness filling your stomach. “This is not from a dog leash. You and I both know that. This literally looks like a handprint, like someone grabbed you way too hard. And it looks fresh as if it happened within the last day.” She says, releasing your arm and you bring your hands to your head, grabbing at your hair. ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry’ you repeat to yourself silently. But it doesn’t work. You choke out a sob.

“He doesn’t mean it. I know he doesn’t. He just gets really angry sometimes. It was my fault for trying to leave so early” Tears now falling and your breath starting to get falter.

“What is going on? Did I just hear what I thought I heard?” JJ slips in from the hallway, eyes almost all black, fits clenched and face bright red. This was the last thing you needed right now.

“JJ-” you try to calm him down but he just cuts you off.

“No. Do not ‘JJ’ me. Let me see your arm” You shake your head. “Y/n, I said let me see your arm!” He’s shouting now, causing you to cry harder, your body shaking. You stick out your arm and he spins and slams his hand through the wall.

“JJ!” Kie screams. 

“What the fuck” Pope yells as he and John B rush in, obviously hearing the screaming and slamming going on.

“I’m going to kill Rafe. I’m going to fucking kill him” JJ says in the darkest voice you’ve ever heard him use.

“JJ please. She’s been through enough for fucks sake. Look at her” Kie yells pointing in your direction. You’re now crumbled on the kitchen floor. He realizes what he’s done and rushes over and sits down next to you, immediately pulling you into his arms. He rubs your back and apologizes quietly for yelling, you know he just wants to protect you.

“Can someone please explain what is going on” John B runs his hand through his hair, flustered and confused.

Kie shakes her head no but JJ cuts in.

“Y/n has a bruise on her arm and she tried to play it off as if it was some accident her dog caused. It’s literally a handprint. Rafe fucking grabbed her, hard. He’s dead, I swear.” JJ keeps his tone surprisingly calm, remembering he scared you earlier.

“Ok well as much as I would love to kill Rafe,” Pope starts, “We would probably just be putting y/n in more danger.”

“Well we can’t sit and do nothing” JJ says.

“For once I agree with JJ” Kie states, “Not the killing part, obviously. But we can’t just do nothing. She’s obviously unsafe with him.”

“Well what do we do then?” John B asks, walking over as sliding down to sit on the other side of you. 

“I have to talk to him” You state, and everyone starts to tell you how that’s a bad idea and it’s risky etc. etc. “Let me continue. Jesus people, I’m not that dumb. As I was saying. I have to talk to him, but not alone. JJ” you turn and look at the boy “You’re coming with me.”

The group shouts, protesting against your wishes.

“Are you crazy, he’s going to either kill Rafe or get himself killed!” Kie yells.

“I thought you were the other smart one, what kinda plan is this y/n?'' Pope says, shaking his head.

“JJ can’t control his temper when it comes to you, this is not a safe plan” John B says looking over to you.

“Oh since when did you become the expert on safe plans JB? I know this sounds dumb. But Rafe gets scared of JJ when he’s alone, no Topper, no Kelce. I’m going to see him when he’s alone and JJ will be outside waiting in the car. I’ll be on speaker phone the entire time and if shit starts to hit the fan, and I expect it to, JJ will come in and help me.” You say, everyone falling silent. 

“Well” Kie starts, “That’s actually kinda genius. But can the three of us at least sit in my car down the road?”

“Yeah that’s probably best” You state as you stand up and look at your phone going to the “find my friends” app. “Well he’s home now, we should probably get going in case he leaves. I know for a fact he’s alone because Topper and Kelce are off golfing” You show them your phone with the boys’ various locations. 

“I guess having an overprotective, psycho boyfriend has given us an advantage today” Pope mumbles, referencing the fact that Rafe and all of his friends have your location at all times. You nod, the nausea starting to build in your stomach as you get more and more anxious.

You and JJ hop into the van and Kie, Pope and John B get into her car. The plan was to have Kie follow you but pull off the road before the Cameron’s giant driveway. You text Rafe that you’re coming over and get the thumbs up emoji in return causing an eye roll. If you needed any validation that this was the right decision, that was it right there. No enthusiasm or anything. You pull into the driveway and have JJ sit in back so no one sees. It wasn’t weird arriving in John B’s van, you often borrowed it at times because you liked it more than your own car, who wouldn’t? 

“I’ll run in there in a heartbeat if things start getting the tiniest bit heated” JJ says, taking your hand into his and squeezing. You nod at him, forming words right now is too difficult and you don’t want to risk crying beforehand. You rehearse the script you’ve been playing over and over in your head for the last hour. 

You get out of the car and drag your feet to the front door, opening it up and walking in. You spot Wheezie walking down the stairs, running to give you a hug. Rose pops her head out of the kitchen to yell a quick ‘Hi!” and goes back to cooking dinner. Thanking the universe that you were not alone in this house with just Rafe, you head upstairs. You call JJ and put the phone back into your back pocket so he can hear everything. Knocking softly on the door, you hold your breath as he swings the door open.

“Hi” he mutters, going back to the video game he was playing. Your jaw drops. His room is a mess, his eyes glossed over and rose tinted, the smell of weed emanating off of every object scattered across the room. 

“Uh hi.” You mumble back, staying close to the doorway so that this encounter would not happen behind closed doors. “Can we talk please?” your voice cracks, great start. He looks up at you confused but then starts to realize what's going on.

“You’re leaving me aren’t you?” He throws the controller onto the floor and stands up, making his way to you. You tense up.

“Rafe, I-” He cuts you off, face inches away from yours and fist colliding with the wall.

 “You can’t leave me, Y/n. You can’t.” You see sadness more than anger in his eyes and tears start to fall from your own. 

“I have to” you whisper.

“I’m sorry baby. I’m sorry for everything. I’ll do better I promise.” He starts to cry. This is usually when you give into him, but not today.

“I can’t do this anymore, Rafe. I’m exhausted.” You run your hand through your hair and he spots the bruise on your arm. He freezes in place, hand coming up to his mouth.

“Did I, did I do that?” He says reaching for your arm, but you tense and pull away. “Fuck!” He screams. “I don’t remember that. I swear. I never meant to do anything to hurt you.” You hear footsteps coming. You turn. Wheezie. Your heart drops, she just heard everything. She looks hurt and mad and storms over to Rafe.

“You let her leave this house now!” She screams, tears threatening to fall. More footsteps. Rose and JJ. Dear God, this is the last thing you need. You look over to JJ and shake your head and the two of them stop before they make themselves noticeable. 

“Wheezie stay out of this please” He says harshly.

“Rafe,” You break your silence. “I need to go. And I need you to let me go.” You say backing up. Thanking the universe that JJ was right there ready to run with you back to the car. Rafe tries to follow but Wheezie steps in between.

“Y/n please” He whispers and you just shake your head.

“Goodbye Rafe” You turn and walk towards JJ, grabbing his hand and running down the stairs. You want to wait to thank Rose and Wheezie, but you can’t risk staying in the house a minute longer so you remind yourself to text them after.

You get to the car and slide in the passenger seat as JJ hops in on the other side. All of a sudden a sob racks your body. You’re free. You’re finally fucking free. He just stares at you for a second before pulling out of the driveway and stopping next to Kie’s car. He gets out and opens the passenger door, climbing into the seat with you, pulling you on top of him. He holds you while you sob.

“You did it” He whispers into your hair, “I’m so proud of you”. He repeats his words over and over again and the three others step out of the car. He looks up and nods at them, confirming that everything was okay and you were finally free. Kie and Pope go back into her car as John B climbs into his and drives the three of you back to the chateau. 

Once you arrive, you climb out of the car and strip down to your underwear and walk to the water. You submerge yourself for as long as you can and rise to the surface, taking the deepest breath you’ve been able to take in a long time. You can finally breathe, you’re free. The rest of the pogues join you in the water and you go to hug JJ. You hold each other for what feels like two minutes.

“Thank you JJ” You say against his shoulder. 

“Anything for you, y/n” He squeezes you tighter. “Anything.”

[mini-moongi]

Notification [REVAMPED] || 1

Taehyung x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Story prompt: What if you got an alert on your phone every time someone thought of you? They tell you their thoughts in the form of text messages.

Summary: Alert!AU, School!AU; A mysterious app appeared on your phone and you can’t get rid of it?? It texts you people’s thoughts. One day, you accidentally send the star basketball player, Min Yoongi, to the nurse’s office.

A/N: I got the sudden urge to revamp this old fic of mine bc it has SO MUCH POTENTIAL I just sucked at writing :,)) Anyways it’s been a good few years since my last written fanfic so--

Chapters: 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 coming soon!

series masterlist

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You tapped tirelessly on your phone; your eyes so dry you can hear yourself blink. It’s 3 am and you have school tomorrow, but you just have to download this new album you found whilst “studying.” After it finishes loading into your playlist, a notification popped up. You thought that maybe your years of illegally downloading music has finally caught up with you.

“ALERT: Unauthorized app: E C H O downloaded. [ERROR_606_RESET] LOG DELETED.”

You panicked, what if it’s a virus?? Going onto your home screen, you find an app called E C H O. Nothing else was out of the ordinary, except for the cryptid new app. After that fateful night, you’ve learned that it texts you the thoughts that people have about you. You couldn’t delete it, no matter how hard you tried, and you tried for weeks. Not many people think of you anyways, so it’s no biggie.

Thinking that was your first mistake.

Your friend, Byeol, was chasing you down the hallway with a dead roach she found on the floor. “Ew look, it’s guts are oozing out!!” She’s never been afraid of icky things, and will not hesitate in poking a dead organism with her bare hands. She’s a madman, and she knows you’re about to gag when she squeezes the guts of the roach between her fingers.

You’re running away from the horrifically explicit roach Byeol is holding, and as you turn your head to spew out an insult, you crash into another body. It sends you tumbling on top of them with no support to stop the fall. He lets out a deep guttural groan from the impact, and a loud “Fuck!” escapes the stranger’s lips.

Bumping into him was your second mistake.

You don’t even look at them, too scared to make eye contact as you blurt out,” I’m so sorry!!” You hastily try to recollect yourself and offer your hand to the poor victim. When you finally glance at him, you almost freeze up. You just whammed yourself into the school’s best basketball player, Min Yoongi™.

Min Yoongi is one of the seven guys at the top of the High School tier class. Some fan club even started the name, “Bangtan Boys” to address the seven handsome guys. He’s an excellent pianist, a fantastic composer, a basketball star, and unmistakably a bad boy. Guys and girls swoon over him, but he’s given them all the the cold shoulder. You recalled a friend of yours who said that his glare was so piercing, you literally feel your body tense and freeze up. You also happen to remember that he had to sit out on the last basketball game because he sprained his ankle. Ouch.

You look back over your shoulder, and of course, Byeol was pretending not to know who you were. She picked up conversation with a nearby stranger, hoping that they didn’t see the cause of this destruction. You didn’t blame her though, no one wants to get on Yoongi’s bad side. You were sure your phone had a ton of messages from ECHO, even though you’ve put it on “Do Not Disturb.”

Your guilt sinks in and it weighs heavy on your shoulders at the thought of you being the reason he’s in pain. “..Are you alright? Here, let me take you to the nurse.” You help him up and wrap his arm around your shoulder. “You can lean on me, it’s okay.” On the inside, it was definitely not okay. He accepted your offer, but he hasn’t said a single word to you this whole time. The air was thick and the silence was fueling your uneasiness.

You check him into the nurse’s office and explain the incident. Good thing it’s your lunch period, or your teacher would’ve chewed you out for being late. You check ECHO while the lady logs Yoongi into the records.

[11:37pm] Woah!! Did that girl just slam into Min Yoongi? She’s got balls..

[11:37pm] Should I pretend I don’t know her? Y/n will forgive me, right?

[11:38pm] What the fuck was that??? Why am I on the floor? And in pain??

[11:45pm] ...now what am I going to do? Who is she?

The nurse lady sets him up on one of those bed thingies, and you take this opportunity to apologize again. “I’m so sorry Yoongi, I should’ve been paying attention. If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you, just let me know.” The desperation must’ve been obvious in your voice.

“...What’s your name?” Yoongi stares at you. His eyes don’t waver when you look at him in surprise. He stays unmoving, waiting for your answer.

“My name? Oh, uhm... it’s Y/n. L/n Y/n,” You were not expecting a response from him, since he seemed uninterested when you tried conversing earlier. Yoongi asking for someone’s name is considered to be something really honorable; people would pay anything to have him say that to them. But then again, they would also pay Yoongi to step on them...

“I have a request for you then, Y/n.” He lulls his head to the side, thinking his decision over. “I want you to...” He looks at you with a gaze that you just can’t shake. Your breath is caught in your throat at his stare. What is he going to say? “Be my substitute.”

“Like a substitute teacher? I’m sorry but--” You try to quickly intervene. Does he think you’re an old hag?? You didn’t think you looked that old.. or maybe he means something else? “Or did you mean a substitute as in like for your basketball game because I don’t even know how to play basketball I just--”

“No, calm your tits. I meant you’ll act as my replacement for school and go where I usually go. I need you to be my eyes and ears while I’m stuck here and at home.” He draws out a long sigh,” You just need to collect my assignments and give them to me everyday after school until I get better. If you can, fill me in on what that day was like. It’s not that hard to do, right?”

You let out a sigh of relief. Just then, you hear a knock at the door. Three boys shuffle into the clinic, giving a casual greeting to the nursing staff. Your eyes widen, how could you forget? Of course the other Bangtan Boys would come check up on him. Kim Taehyung, Park jimin, and Jung Hoseok smile to acknowledge you and turn their eyes to Yoongi.

“Are you alright?” Hoseok asks him. He’s bubbling with energy as he speaks. “We were wondering where you went. I almost had a heart attack when they said you were here!!” Hoseok grabs at his chest like he’s in more pain than Yoongi.

Jung Hoseok is known for his positive energy and “legendary” hip work. He’s a street dancer who knows everybody, and everybody knows him. He’s also in medical class for vets, and he does charities in his free time. He’s super sweet and will sometimes send flowers to the fan club.

“Are you still eating lunch with us?” Jimin pipes up. He’s leaning on the nursing bed as he drapes himself dramatically across Yoongi’s shoulders. He whines,”What will we do without you? Please tell me you’re eating with us today..”

Park Jimin is also a dancer, but he does contemporary work. When he dances, he’s graceful, like a mythical creature. He’s shy and shorter than the rest of the guys, which makes people want to dote on him. If he dances with Hoseok though, he flips like a coin. He’ll act like a playboy and tease his audience when given the chance.

“Yah, You know I can’t.” Yoongi gestures to his ankle, and his inability to move due to the immense pain. “The nurse said I should stay in here for at least an hour or two.”

You don’t know if you should leave or stay. You were about to excuse yourself because your conversation with Yoongi ended a while ago. You shouldn’t expect them to talk to you when they don’t know who you are or why you’re there. You pick up your bag and sling it over your shoulder.

Taehyung mentions you, stopping you from escaping so easily. “Who is that?” He points to you. Leave it to Taehyung to point out the elephant in the room...

He’s popular for his charming personality and ethereal looks. Taehyung is in agriculture, and he often helps Hoseok out with the animals. He plays the saxophone, which combined with theatre class, drives the fans nuts. Taehyung also seems to be super observant, and he will point out small details other people seem to miss. If he was doing a police report, he’d probably be able to tell you the exact time the incident happened and what colored crocs the perpetrator was wearing. 

As if Yoongi just remembered that you were still here, he makes another request.” Oh, as the new Yoongi, can you also keep an eye on these guys? They’ll cause chaos if I’m not there.” 

“New Yoongi?” Jimin looks incredulously at you. “What do you mean--”

Yoongi retorts,” She’s my stand in, my understudy, my alternative, my stunt double, ecetera. Need I say more?” His cold demeanor doesn’t hesitate with the response. He talks as if it was a natural request, but what part of this is natural?

"How would I...” You trail off. You find yourself stammering, unable to voice your concerns. All of the guys, attractive ones at that, were staring at you.”..How would I even do that?”

“Isn’t it obvious? For starters, we all have the same lunch period, so just eat lunch with them or something.” Yoongi shrugs his shoulders,” Do I need to plan everything out for you?”

You’re quick to object,” No!! I’m.. I’m fine. It’s okay.” It’s bad enough that he’s injured, so you shouldn’t worry Yoongi anymore.

Taehyung’s eyes light up. He speaks as if he had a eureka moment. “We have the same forensics class, don’t we? No wonder I recognized you..” You were really hoping he wouldn’t have remembered that. If people see you hanging around these guys, they’ll get the wrong idea. 

“Well I guess that settles it. I’ll sit next to you in class, and we can be partners for that new project he’s assigning.” He takes you by the hand. His touch was so sudden and warm that it takes you a minute to realize you’re in the cafeteria already. He looks down at you and smiles. “This is our spot.”

Only when you part from him to grab your bag that you realize he held your hand this entire time. You start to miss his warmth, but you shake out any of those thoughts from your head. What were you thinking? Your heart pounds in your chest, and your cheeks grow hot. You breathe out a shaky breath, trying to calm down. Anyone would feel this way if they were you. You go from being an average joe to suddenly sitting next the the Bangtan Boys? It’s almost like you’re in a fanfiction. You shouldn’t fall in love with one of them, that would be too cliché and very, very dangerous.

You finished settling down your things and find that Taehyung was still waiting for you. Hoseok already rushed to the pizza line, and Jimin was swarmed by girls who made him bento boxes. He smiles politely to them all, unsure of how to decline. His eyes glance at you like a plead for help, but a girl starts to scold him so he looks away.

“What did you want to eat? Noodles?” It was pretty loud in the cafeteria, so Taehyung walked closer. He leaned down and whispered in your ear. “..Or do you want to eat me?” His hot breath tickled your ear. It was a deep and husky voice, one that sent shivers down your spine.

Shocked at his words, you jumped back. “W..What?” You never thought Taehyung was so bold. You’ve heard of him being flirty, but this was cutting it close. It was like dirty talking, but you’ve barely met him!!

He tried to suppress his laugh as he looked at you. “I said: Or do you want to eat meat?” He raises an eyebrow at you. He knows you’re flustered, and feigns innocence. “There’s a rice with two meat deal today. What did you think I said?”

You could’ve sworn he said “me” and not “meat,” but maybe you were thinking into it too much. You decided which one you wanted and Taehyung walks to the line with you. Whilst waiting for your turn, you check ECHO.

It was what you expected. Many of them were like:

[12:03pm] Wtf??? Who is that girl?

[12:03pm] Is she their girlfriend? No-- it has to be a cousin, right? But she’s so plain looking...

[12:04pm] Why is she holding Kim Taehyung’s hand? Don’t tell me--

[12:05pm] Y/n?? What did that girl do now.. ((((゜д゜;))))

Oh yeah, you should probably tell Byeol that you kind of have to sit with Bangtan during lunch now. Good to know that everyone is gawking at you now, I guess. There are hundreds of messages screaming about “who is that girl!1!1!!!!” so you scroll past most of them. One however, catches your eye.

[12:10pm] She’s so cute lol

You don’t think ECHO has ever sent you a compliment like this before. Someone thinks you’re cute? The thought warms your heart. This is the first time you’ve had an admirer.

“Hey, what are you looking at on your phone?” Taehyung rips you to reality. “How do you have so many messages?” He starts to lean over your shoulder to get a glimpse.

Antsy, you turn off your phone and press your hand to his chest to give some distance. “It’s.. It’s my online friends! They wanted to play the new game with me.” 

He stands back up, no longer breathing on your neck. “Oh? The one that was released just last week? What was it called...” He ponders for a minute,” Animal Crossing?” 

You nod. Conversation starts from there, and you let out that breath you’ve been holding in. You both pay for your meals and head over to the table. You could see Hoseok stuffing his face with pizza and sprite while he scribbles down answers to a worksheet. Jimin is desperately trying to get him to eat some of the bento boxes, but all of his attempts were futile. 

“...So I know you’re the New Yoongi or whatever, but what’s your real name?” Hoseok asks you. “If you don’t know me already, I’m Jung Hoseok, but you can call me Hobi!” 

Jimin and Taehyung look at each other. You hadn’t even thought to introduce yourself earlier, how much more embarrassing can this day be? Quick, be cool!!

“I’m L/n Y/n, but just Y/n is fine.”

“You probably know us already, but you can call me Tae or any various nickname you can conjure up,” He laughs,” The more creative the better.”

Jimin nudges his shoulder,” Like Spoiled Yogurt Kid?” It’s hard for the smaller one to contain his laughter.

“It was one time!!” Taehyung playfully shoves him away, clearly embarrassed. “It’s not my fault my sleep paralysis demon told me to eat the 3 month old yogurt at like 2 am.” He grumbled,”Ugh, it’s not like I tell everyone about your weird impulses..”

You couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. Hobi notices and adds fuel to the fire,”Yeah, get a load of this guy. He’s blaming all of his mistakes on his sleep paralysis demon. Poor demon, honestly.”

Jimin continues to mock Taehyung teasingly, getting him worked up.“You know what??” Taehyung growls as he whips his head around to face you. His soft brown hair falls over his eyes, and his jaw is clenched as he looks at you with an emotion you can’t quite read. His face is flushed, but he tilts his head up in a cool manner. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he was serving up some bedroom eyes. 

He runs his fingers through his hair and speaks with a voice that oozes sex appeal without meaning to,“If you don’t know what to call me, just say Oppa.” Taehyung’s eyes widen as if he realized what came out of his mouth. He covers his lips with the palm of his hand and instinctively looked at how you’d react.

 It was your turn to flush from embarrassment. Before your brain could process what just happened, the words croak out,”..o..okay?” 

Hobi is choking on his sprite,”Damn, what the--” He continues to try and suppress his coughs,” Who the hell taught you that? Namjoon? Jin?” Hoseok shakes his head in disappointment. You thought it was because he ruined his drink, but then he said,” Ah, I told them to stop doing stuff like that.. If Yoongi were here he probably wouldn’t even know how to scold you.”

Jimin’s mouth is agape in shock. He suddenly doubles over the table, unable to contain the fit of laughter inside of him. “Wha- that was so smooth!” He’s holding onto his stomach for dear life, and his shoulders shake up and down. He gives suggestive eyebrows to Taehyung, whose ears are scorching red. “I didn’t know Taehyung was such a player.”

Taehyung is trying to hide himself with the sleeves of his hoodie. He’s silent at first, but eventually he speaks barely above a whisper. “...I don’t know what came over me..” His words tremble and tread lighter than a feather so scared it might step on another bomb.

"Was it your sleep paralysis demon?” You make a witty remark despite the blush dusted across your face. 

Tae sinks farther into his chair,” Oh my god...” He can’t help but laugh a little at your joke. “..Please forget about what I said today.” 

Jimin’s laughter dies down as he looks at you. His smile is soft and reassuring. “Don’t worry, Y/n. He’s usually not like this. I swear, we’re all gentlemen.” The bell suddenly rings, signaling that lunch was over. Jimin starts to clean up his spot, stuffing the unfinished bentos into his bag for later. “Ah, Taehyung, you’re saved by the bell this time, but next time you have got to show me some moves.” He winks before leaving for his next class.

Hoseok waves to you and Taehyung,” I’d walk with you two if I could, but my next class is across campus. I gotta dash, but good luck with Forensics!”

You’d almost forgotten about Forensics with Taehyung. Unfortunately, Tae seems to stay unmoving from his spot. You would be like that too if you were him, but you really can’t be late for class. It’s better if you approach him now rather than later, so it’s not as awkward during class. 

“Hey...” You start out. He doesn’t respond as his head is till buried in his arms. You hesitate at first, but you put your hand on his shoulder. “...Taehyung Oppa?” 

Immediately he shoots up, his eyes are wide and he’s as stiff as a board. He brushes your hand softly away and grabs his bag. He avoids your gaze as he packs up, but he returned his gaze when you started walking in the hallway. His eye’s remain forward, but he speaks to you,“...I didn’t think you’d actually call me that.” He chuckles. 

“Oppa?”

He rubs his hand across his face and he licks his lips,” Yeah, that.” He sneaks a glance at you, but since you were already looking at him, he turns his face away. 

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

-A/N-

oof it’s been AGES since my last bts fic. If y’all are following me bc of my text au, I’m going to try and update that soon too! I... did not expect to have such a flirtatious Taehyung,, but honestly I’m kinda into it. (  ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[theexistentiallyqueer]

I really hate waking up to see that there was good meta that was circulating during the night and I have so many things I want to say but I have to go to work like a responsible adult in this capitalist hellscape. I’m specifically referencing this, this, this, and this, and I just got home from work and it was balls to the walls fucking crazy today, so excuse me if I seem incoherent and disjointed.

All of this made me think of a few very specific theories I have, which I’ve already mentioned in passing, but now I feel the urge to lay them out all together in one post, which are:

Loki is Goro’s original persona, and Yaldabaoth hand-picked him for a reason

Yaldabaoth, disguised as Igor, served the function of psychopomp cognitive guide to Goro that Morgana serves to Akira, Teddie serves to Souji, and Mitsuru serves to Makoto

Goro used Loki’s berserker power on himself so he could kill Wakaba

Robin Hood is the persona born from Goro’s bond with Akira and represents the justice he wishes he believed in

Goro is not a true wildcard and never was one

Plus some other ones reading today’s meta made me think about

So, without further ado.

Loki as Goro’s original persona aligns most strongly with two things: 1. actual dialogue during his boss fight, and 2. the larger framework of the game Yaldabaoth was playing.

For his boss fight I’m referencing specifically the JP-ENG comparison of that scene. One of the things the anon who did the comparison repeatedly references is that “psychotic breakdowns” is an incredibly erroneous translation of what Call of Chaos actually does:

!! 暴走させる means “to make [something] run wild/rampage/act reckless,” not to drive the psychotic. While it can be used to refer to someone wildly lashing out at others, it can also be used for a runaway car, losing control, acting without regard or just being reckless in a potentially dangerous way. In the Persona series, this term has also been used in reference to losing control of one’s Persona, and to a Shadow going berserk (for those who’ve played Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, the JP name for Shadow Frenzy, シャドウ暴走, also uses the term).

Goro’s ability makes people act recklessly without regard for others; it doesn’t make them outright psychotic. (Strangely enough, the first scene at Leblanc in the game translates the incidents related to this ability as “rampage incidents,” which is closer to what it should be, yet they consistently screw it up in later scenes.)

And the original dialogue follows up on that:

Makoto (JP): あんな、人を操ったり狂わせたりする力を、自分自身の心から生み出してたなんて…(“To think that the power to manipulate and drive mad others was born from his own heart…”)

And more subtly:

Futaba (JP): なのに人生ソロプレイだったから、目覚めた力は、自前の『嘘』と『恨み』の、たった２個だけ… (“Even so, ‘cause you went through life in single player, the powers you awakened were just your "lies” and “resentment”…“)

I feel like the original text upholds this argument, especially considering Goro consistently refers to Loki as his “true” power, and he is way OP with Loki in a way he’s not with Robin Hood–almost as if he’s had more time to level-grind with Loki than he has with Robin.

As for Yaldabaoth, I think the context of what Yaldabaoth actually wants is very clear: Yaldabaoth wanted Goro to win. He created a blatantly unfair “game” modeled after the normal “game” played between Philemon and Nyarlathotep, and the first thing he did was give a persona to one player two years earlier than the other. Yaldabaoth wants to destroy and remake the world, and he would have cherry-picked the angriest kid in the barrel to make that happen. Goro didn’t have some psychopomp cognitive guide in the form of a talking cat to explain the metaverse to him, and I think it stands to reason that Yaldabaoth groomed Goro as much as Shido did: Yaldabaoth was Goro’s psychopomp cognitive guide. Goro’s not-dumb enough to be immediately suspicious when a random app installs itself on his phone; it stands to reason that he only paid it any attention because some half-bald fucker with a nose longer than Goro’s Robin Hood mask planted the idea in his head of what it could be used for. Akira tries to delete the app twice, and it’s only after Ryuji accidentally triggers the Nav that he stops trying to get rid of it.

(I’ve seen the Goro was a subject in Wakaba’s research theories too as an explanation for how he could know so much of the metaverse without Morgana around to catsplain it to him. I’m not a fan of them, mostly because I think subtle writing is a concept Atlus is very much not at all engaged with, and if he really was a research subject that would have been dumped on us with all the subtlety of trying to assassinate someone by dropping roof tiles onto them, and I like my HCs and theories to be as in line as what can be explained most comprehensibly with canon until I decide to throw the entire baby out with the bathwater and say MY PLAYGROUND NOW. It’s a cool theory, it’s just not one that I’m into. The people who play with this theory are smarter and more valid than Atlus will ever be. And who knows, maybe Royal will prove me wrong. I am open to being proven wrong and Krist is already starting to feed me food from Royal that has me second-guessing, but I’m going to wait until the international release in March to have takes on this.)

As for Goro himself–I’ve always, from the first time I played P5 when I thought Goro as interesting enough in concept but wasn’t really ready to be a Goroboy, thought that Goro represented the Justice Arcana in reverse, which is interesting in that this Persona game you can’t reverse confidants’ cards. Goro is reversed Justice in and of himself within the main context of the narrative.

I don’t really jive with the idea that Goro started out with Robin Hood as representative of his ideals before he was manipulated and twisted by Shido, because it contradicts the context in which he had his awakening and it removes whatever degree of culpability or autonomy Goro did have in what he ultimately became. Goro is full of rage, and Goro acted on that rage. Goro got the slightest taste of power and went from 0 to acting on a desire from revenge in about thirty seconds flat. He definitely didn’t realize he was signing on for murder and Shido definitely groomed him into being his psychopomp hitman, Goro is the one who took the initiative to approach Shido in the first place because Goro wanted to destroy the man who destroyed his life and who did, in some sense, kill his mom. Not that I think it’s disingenuous to say that Goro did originally believe in a justice that was, well, more just, but there’s a vast chasm between the boy who used to pretend to be a hero of justice and a boy who decided what he wanted most was to humiliate his fascist of a father. Goro’s sense of justice was already hugely warped by the time he awakened to his persona. Justice is exposing Shido publicly and holding him accountable; justice for Goro was making Shido’s life a living very personal hell.

Loki’s power isn’t even necessarily to make someone go berserk. Goro actually explains how Loki’s power works at the start of his boss fight, and it’s carried through pretty well in the English translation.

Goro (JP): ちっぽけな存在でも、心の枷が外れると、桁違いの力を得る事がある。 ("Even a tiny being, once you remove the bonds on its heart, can gain unimaginable power.”) Goro (EN) Even the feeblest existence can gain tremendous power once the chains on its heart are broken. !! 枷 has a double meaning of both literal restraints (shackles/chains/etc) and more metaphorical ways to bind someone (such as relations to others, or societal restrictions on what you’re allowed to do). While “chains on its heart” is a valid translation, it fails to maintain that wordplay in English, and given how the power he’s talking about works, it’s almost certainly on purpose.

Loki’s power works by shattering the restraints on a person’s heart that stop them from acting recklessly in ways that hurt other people. I think a case could very much be made that the reason this seems to always result in violence on the part of those of Goro’s targets (and Goro himself) is because when you’re in that state, you stop feeling sympathy or empathy, and the dark impulses you bury deep inside (which everyone has) can reign unchecked.

When I first started to choochoo along the “Goro went berserk to kill Wakaba” train, one of the first things I started to speculate was that he was the first person he used Call of Chaos on. I started to reevaluate that today when I read all of that delicious food and found myself rethinking how Goro would have approached Shido, and I found myself drawn the conclusion that Goro brought Shido two things–the ability to gather secret knowledge and the ability to drive people berserk–but Shido would have wanted proof. And Goro’s an idiot, but he’s not dumb; he would have had that proof ready in advance. Goro would have been causing some psychotic breakdowns on a smaller scale before he approached Shido, just enough to make the news and catch Wakaba’s attention in her research, but not enough to cause widespread chaos on the scale that’s referenced in game, before he stepped foot through Shido’s door.

I find it very hard to believe that Goro didn’t know the basics of Wakaba before he killed her: single mom, no father in the picture, daughter roughly his age. Goro is the type to hoard information because it makes him feel in control, so he’d be given this name from Shido and want to know everything he can uncover about his target first–also he’s the one with the metaverse nav app and he’d need to know as much about her as possible to figure out what her distortion is.

(This is assuming Wakaba had a palace as opposed to residing in Mementos. I have no grounds to base this theory on, but I think she did. I won’t go into it in too much detail, but I HC that Wakaba’s palace was modeled after the Library of Alexandria, and Wakaba’s shadow was Hypatia. I’ll save the thematic whys of that for another post because they’re neither here nor there.)

I have a hard time buying that a teenager would just go from zero to being okay with murder without having some pretty critical hangups in the process, especially a teenager who kind of thinks of himself as a hero who has to get his hands dirty. You can’t really justify murdering an innocent woman who did nothing wrong when you measure her against people like Okumura. Especially when so much of that single mom’s life story should probably logically resonate with you.

(This is another reason I get upset that nothing in canon ever has Goro actively acknowledge his murder of Wakaba, because if it did it would have to grapple the between Goro and Futaba and the fact that Goro did to Futaba was exactly what was done to him, but way more directly. Atlus is not subtle and is also not capable of nuance or depth.)

So the logical line of thought is that Goro used Call of Chaos on himself to break the chains on his own heart (the feelings that would make him sympathize with Wakaba and see his own mother in her) so that he could kill her. I’d also argue that layered on top of of all of this is that Goro didn’t know killing her shadow would kill her, because Shido guarded her research closely and Yaldabaoth wanted a boy who would be willing to smash things. They were both grooming him to be their perfect little murderer.

By the point we meet him in the game Goro is heavily tied up in Shido’s conspiracy and all that that entails. His already jaded sense of justice will by this point have been warped beyond repair–until he meets Akira. Akira is probably the first person Goro has ever bonded with in his entire life, and a wildcard’s power is rooted in the ability to form bonds. Positive bonds specifically, because it’s only through those that their power can grow. I think we can all look at Goro’s life and agree that his relationship with Akira is the only positive one he’s had since he was like…….never years old.

And I specifically think that it’s through his relationship with Akira that Goro starts to reawaken to his true sense of justice. It’s textually canonical that Goro is jealous of the fact that the Phantom Thieves found a way to achieve their goals without collateral damage. I think that bonding with Akira–in a way Goro has literally never bonded with anyone else before–is what caused Goro’s second awakening and his tentative re-embrasure of the belief that justice is about helping, not hurting. Except he’s in two such different places at this point. I’m very on board with the BPD!Goro hc that’s become a thing lately, thanks to Krist and the goroboys discord server, but I’m not going to go into specifics because I’m not BPD. I just think that from what I’ve read of BPD it sounds valid, and if a person who is BPD says they get that mood from him, that’s extra valid

But Goro’s sense of self is clearly very split between Loki and Robin Hood and what they thematically represent. He wants to be a hero, but he still dresses like a tokusatsu villain half the time. He wants to be a hero, but he’s also a murderer. He can’t reconcile these aspects of himself.

Goro isn’t a true wildcard because he lacks the ability of connection. While the wildcard ability is granted by a cosmic entity (Philemon/Igor/Yaldabaoth/etc.), the degree of its manifestation is dependent upon the wildcard’s ability to connect with other people. The case could be made that Adachi and Namatame are wildcards because they’re both selected as game pieces by Izanami, but only Souji manifests the wildcard ability because only he is able to connect with others. The implication to be taken from that is that a cosmic force can grant an individual a persona and the corresponding wildcard ability, but that ability can’t manifest itself unless the individual is capable of wielding it–which Goro is not.

And very much unlike a wildcard, if you take the necessary steps Goro’s two personas do fuse into an ultimate whole. If you complete the development of Goro’s character to the extent the game requires, then Loki and Robin Hood fuse to become Hereward. I have some thoughts about this in relation to the fact that I can’t find any evidence that Hereward is tied to the Robin Hood myth, but all that aside: Goro’s warped sense of justice and his true sense of justice fused together in a way that’s, uh——-

Robin Hood is very bara and Loki is very twink. Hereward looks extremely similar to Robin Hood, but has a dark grey, an almost black, color design. Hereward literally represents Goro embracing that justice is grey, and that it’s okay for Goro to both want to be the hero and to want to see people struggle with the hard questions of how the hurts they’ve inflicted, intentionally or not, have impacted the people affected by them.

Goro was never a true wildcard to begin with. Yaldabaoth chose him because he was isolated. That he found his other half in Akira was dumb luck of the draw.

[realtalkingpoints]

Opinion:  How social media and the Obama administration lead to the Impeachment of Donald Trump.

Placed historically, the real explosion in social media use occurred during the Obama administration. Advances in technology were allowing developers to create new platforms and new versions of old platforms faster and faster, each time learning from previous builds.  Big data was coming into it's prime, learning more about user habits than ever before. For the first time in history, millions and millions of people had not just cell phones in their pocket, but smart phones that could access the internet.  And cell phone services, along with internet capabilities were expanding to handle the new demand.  The Obama administration created subsidy programs offering low cost or no cost smart phones and service providers to low income households that qualify.  And apps for phones were developed, to be small versions of popular websites, to run fast, efficient, and anywhere people wanted to pull out their phones and surf them.  The stage was set for a social media explosion.

All different kinds of platforms were introduced.  We know the most popular ones, because they've gone viral and turned into the worlds most powerful platforms, and some are still growing.  Perhaps startups today, will topple the giants in tomorrows media fad. But what we know now, is that people love to chat with each other, and interact with each other in real time, at the speed of the internet, across continents.  People want to share stories and photos, promote businesses, and discuss the news of the day.  The people of the world have never had an exchange of information that was this fast, this easy, and this accessible to literally billions of people.  It was only a matter of time before news and politics moved at the pace of social media, and not the other way around.

Having not done or even read any case studies, and cannot conclusively say, but it seems obvious to me that younger generations were the first to adopt the internet, and social media.  If you have seniors in your life, it's no secret, that they struggle at times with internet technology.  The internet didn't even exist for most of their life, and now suddenly in twenty or thirty years its users have gone from thousands of college geeks and researchers, to billions of excited people trying to find one another.  Our youngest generations don't know a world without the internet, some don't know a world without smartphones, google or twitter.  And when a new platform idea comes along, even one with a seemingly silly name like 'Twitter', there's plenty of young people comfortable enough with internet and smart phone technology, to give it a try.  They don't fear the unknowns, the hacking and 'spying' and data collection that has the older generations so apprehensive. To the younger crowd, the worst that can happen is they don't like it and they delete the app.  But the good ones don't get deleted.  The ones that are effective at capturing people's attention with reality tv type stimulation and peer to peer interaction, grow exponentially into massive social media networks. According to my theory, the first massive waves of users were younger.

These days, younger means more progressive, more liberal in political leaning.  Their comfort level with the internet means they look there first to answer any question they might have, or for things the want to purchase.  They have developed a sense of enlightenment, confident that they can find instantly, the answer to any of life’s mysteries.  While waiting for a latte, while sitting on a bus, beach, or the couch at home, they can satisfying their deepest curiosities, and perhaps too often, accepting the veracity of the information delivered to them without question.  

It doesn't take a genius to see the gold mine of opportunity that influencers of all types saw in social media platforms.  Millions upon millions of young impressionable minds, looking for answers and perspective from their peers.  Advertisers and retailers have embraced the social media craze, inventing creative new strategies to reaching new customers, specially those willing to try something new.  It has literally created new industries because someone tried something, told their friends, and now everyone is selling it.  For example, what is 'goat yoga'?  Don't know, just google it.  Its a thing, it's out there, and it owes it's success to social media.  It's a revolution in the exchange of information like never before in history.  Before long, social media would also be recognized as an essential tool in the fight over politics.

How better to potentially reach millions and millions of people with your political message than to put it on social media, and allow people to share that idea just by clicking a button.  It's too easy.  In the 2008 Presidential election, Barack Obama harnessed the networking power of social media for the first time in a Presidential election.  Using still developing platforms like Twitter and Facebook, he connected with millions of young, progressive thinking voters, most of whom were willing to share his message with their peers. It was a major advantage to his campaign, since supporters of his opponent, John McCain were much older on average, and therefor much less likely to even be on social media.  It gave a free soapbox to Obama that was heard by millions and millions of progressive Americans, and it was virtually all his.  The voices of opposition just weren't there.  The hoards of young impressionable minds thought that everyone agreed with the exciting ideas they were hearing from an enthusiastic Barack Obama.  They had accidentally created their own media bubble of like minded, similarly motived, ideologues, all enjoying a strong confirmation bias.  Slowly, the older more conservative Americans did adopt social media platforms, but they had a lot of catching up to do.  When re-election came around, Obama's opponent in 2012, Mitt Romney made a modest effort to connect with supporters on social media.  Reporting at the time was something like $8 million by Romney vs $45 million spent by the Obama campaign on social media advertising.  It was clear, that the social media advantage was still firmly in the hands of the progressives, and the number of users was growing rapidly.

A skillful politician, Obama quickly learned how to generate large swells of social media activity to support his various agenda items.  I'm sure they had lots of data, certainly from intelligence agencies, about the habits of trending topics on social media.  Being the first American presidential administration to preside over a social media crazed nation, there must have been moments of epiphany with regards to the reaction(s) of social media communities on various policy decisions and press releases.  As Facebook has acknowledged, social media cause the Arab spring.  How much the Obama administration had to do with that is still up for debate.  Ideas were ready to go viral in their respective communities, they just needed to be put out there at the right time, by the right influential people.  

Just as politicians saw the obvious advantages to social media messaging, so did the press and news media.  Journalists would use their own social media accounts to post their news stories and build followings that would supplement their print or tv audiences.  I would assume the same principles apply, that younger more progressive journalists migrated toward the platforms first, giving them a jump on their older more conservative counterparts.  Furthermore, the fact that these platforms are presumed to be populated first with predominantly young progressives, the approval rate and popularity of ideas and stories reported by early journalists on social media is likely skewed towards liberalism.  Many of these young progressive reporters and the networks employing them rode the social media bubble to prominence and challenged their older more conservative colleagues on the national stage in popularity ratings, often successfully.  The result of this effect was a national news media that favored a  more progressive, liberal narrative.  An unfortunate side effect of this, was the reality that popularity of news stories among social media followers, not accuracy or factual reporting, was driving viewership ratings.  As news outlets realized that their new social media followers enjoyed stories about successful progressive policies and praise for the Obama administration, they began to build their staff and organizations around a strategy to deliver just that.  Seemingly out of no where, Obama became the darling of the liberal press and social media.  

The endless stream of positive feedback from the press and social media had it's effect on the Obama administration.  They soon realized that blunders and mistakes could get washed up in a circular round of praise and applause on other topics of the day, while the bad news went completely ignored by a majority of the news media.  Their audience simply didn't want to hear the bad news, so they just didn't report it.  Knowing their misdeeds would go largely forgiven by a lapdog media, the Obama administration began to push the norms of public approval with their progressive policies.  The highly controversial Affordable Care Act, was signed into law despite zero Republican votes for the package.  Republicans were waiving their hands in the isles of congress, shouting as loudly as they could that the math didn't work, and that millions of hard working middle class Americans were going to carry the burden of this bloated package.  But they didn't have the social media push or news media support to get their message out, and those Republicans were labeled as one of many hateful stereotypes by the social media mob. Other Obama moves like the targeting of conservative non-profit groups by the IRS during the 2012 presidential election, and the dreadful Iran deal, which should have received much media scrutiny, all got passing grades from news reporters and their social media echo chambers.

It was probably during Obama's second term, conservatives woke up to realize that social media was where the real conversation is.  Not that they hadn't been participating thus far, but as a whole, the conservatives had been sluggish to migrate toward social media platforms.  But watching liberalism taking over news media, and frightened for the future of their nation, conservatives began to challenge progressive liberals on social media in numbers large enough to cause a stir among their ranks.  And many of them reacted poorly.  Platforms that had long been safe spaces for liberal rants and conservative defamation were suddenly being challenged by patriotic Americans who showed up and said, 'I disagree, here's why, and here's the evidence'.  The young, progressive ideologues who had populated social media en masse had never needed evidence to back up their opinions, nor encountered such opposition to their group think, and began to lash out at their new critics.  Twitter battles flared, and for the first time, young progressive social media users were forced to examine their hardened ideals in the light of contradicting evidence.  But many of them had taken very public, emphatic positions based on liberal policies and news reporting that they had taken as gospel.  For many liberal ideologues, backing down from their stated positions was more injury than they could conceivably sustain, and instead would band together with their news media heroes to defend their proclaimed moral high ground at all costs.

Enter Donald Trump.  No stranger to the media spot light, real estate developer and reality tv star Donald Trump was a natural at using news media to reach the American public.  He saw the trends and recognized how to maximize his influence.  He grew his Twitter audience with constant engagement and used even bad press coverage to get his message out.  Much like Obama in 2008 and 2012, Trump used social media to achieve victory in the 2016 presidential election, this time by appealing to the millions of new, perhaps more conservative minded social media users, who felt alienated and bullied by the entrenched liberal social media mob.  The liberal reaction was swift and often unruly.  Think Women's March, Antifa, and Russia Collusion.  Unable to manifest their desired reality through social media and news stories, the liberals resorted to real world activism in an all out effort to undo an election result that they could not fathom.  They looked to their hero Obama and his collection of bureaucrats installed in the nation's intelligence community to dig for evidence that he had cheated the election.  We know now, that multiple efforts (likely underhanded in nature) to sabotage his election were underway.  The social media mob and their news media cohorts pushed relentlessly to add credibility to claims of Russian Collusion by the Trump campaign and worked 24/7 to drive incriminating headlines into the homes and minds of Americans.  Biased, partisan investigations lead to a special counsel investigation that progressives hoped would finally get the goods and rid them of the surprise President that had popped their media bubble paradise.  But this time, the social media push was from the right, and verifiable evidence of corruption and bias of investigators was plastered on social media for everyone to see.  Conservative news media had finally landed a foothold on social media platforms and began to tell its side of the story to an American public eager to hear some truth.  

Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation ended with no hard evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to cheat the 2016 election, delivering yet another heavy blow to liberal America, who had spent many years under Obama, assuming that their positions would always be supported by bureaucrats and news reports.  Trump blamed 'the deep state' for the internal attempts to sabotage his presidency.  He asked the DOJ inspector general to investigate the investigations that had targeted individuals from is campaign, and the IG report has confirmed, that many inside the FBI and DOJ were willing to bend or break the rules to obtain surveillance approvals on Trump campaign members.  This provided conservatives with yet another huge victory over their liberal activist counterparts, who still can't believe what is happening.  Many of the young progressives who had driven the political agenda through social media activity had never experienced a news cycle that they couldn't control with their activism.  And many liberal politicians and deep staters who relied on the media mob for support and cover for their potential misdeeds had never considered what they would do if suddenly all the negative news stories actually got printed.  Claims of political favoritism, liberal election rigging, and big money foreign policy peddling are now a daily occurrence, and both the politicians and the media mob are in a panic.

So that brings us to our current situation.  The liberal's last stronghold of power in American government resides in Nancy Pelosi and the House of Representatives.  They have engaged in partisan investigation after investigation, hoping to find something to re-ignite their liberal base, that would warrant the removal of Trump from office.  Impeachment.  Special counsel and IG investigations delivered reports that devastated the credibility of the liberal news media, along with politicians and intel personalities that still claim Trump is the one lying.  Seemingly out of nowhere, a whistleblower report lands on the desk of discredited intel committee chair Adam Schiff, that President Trump has been bribing the Ukrainian government to interfere in the 2020 presidential election by investigating Joe Biden.  Unable to stunt the flow of news and information the way they once had, media mob liberals are as aware as there rest of us, that the origins of said whistleblower complaint are highly questionable, and that there are credible allegations of Biden's mis-dealings in Ukraine.  Indeed, congressional impeachment hearings produced a parade of witness testimonies that stated, one after another, they had heard from others, sometimes others who had heard from others, that the president had done something wrong.  Literally no one was able to testify that they had been instructed to withhold foreign aid to Ukraine in exchange for an investigation of the Bidens.  American news polls show Americans are tiring of the endless investigations of Trump and the push for impeachment. Once again, the liberal news media and the progressive social media ideologues had been unable to sway the news cycle in a decidedly favorable direction.  But they pushed hard.  So hard in fact, that Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler are moving forward with the impeachment of the president of the United States of America.  

It appears that they will have the votes in the House to impeach the president.  Democrat house members appear to be unaffected by the lack of hard evidence against Trump, or the mounting pile of evidence that this was a setup to oust Trump and protect a swamp of corruption from being exposed by impending DOJ criminal investigations.  Instead, a Trump re-election is what they fear the most.  Most Democrats in Washington see impeachment as their most destructive tool in the fight against Donald Trump.  Impeachment is their destructive response to a power vacuum they never saw coming.  Having become complacent with years of favorable media coverage, and friendly social media audiences, the liberals and Democrats let their corruptions run unchecked.  They did not predict the storm that is Donald Trump, or the urgency with which the conservatives would take to social media to defend truth in news reporting and accountability in government.  The Democrats have lost control of the narrative and they know it.  They now see no other option but the Hail Mary impeachment of Donald Trump.  Polls suggest it still won't prevent his re-election, but they are out of ideas, and out of time.  Considerations that this impeachment on flimsy evidence will lead to many unfounded future impeachments are not in their calculation.  This is purely desperation.  I for one, hope that the news media, social media and the American public will punish the Democrats for decades over this irresponsible abuse of their constitutional authority.  

[honeyedhoseok]

Stitch | The V2 Series

Genre | Angst (literally only angst in this part), Taehyung x reader,  friends->lovers->friends? au, The V2 Series

Word Count | 5.1K 

Summary | “I’ve been an anchor that’s pulling on you / Stopping and stalling is all that I do / You were so bright but I painted you blue” It’s been exactly 58 days (and counting) since you last spoke to Taehyung. After weeks under your new facade, all it takes is a simple Instagram post to send you spiraling. [Takes place after the present-day argument between Taehyung and Y/N in Forever, Fire Burning Blue !]

Warnings | Mentions symptoms of depression, sadness, and anxiety. Language. 

A/N | Side Warning: Taehyung might break reader hearts by the end of this chapter. But I’m really excited to see what you all think!! Enjoy <3 

Read the other parts of The V2 Series HERE!

It’s been exactly 58 days since you’ve talked to Taehyung.

The only reason you are reminded of the number is because one of the last pictures in your phone is from the day before your argument. You two are posing with the pizza in his bed—you, with your slice covering half your face as you try not to laugh too hard at Taehyung, who had just taken a bite and slapped hot cheese on his chin.

The picture is blurry because as soon as it happened, Taehyung yelled out in pain and almost dropped his slice—so his body is a moving whirl of colors in the picture, not exactly a part of the fun that was supposed to be conveyed, while you sit there posing, perfectly content with your own piece of pizza.

You suppose it’s a good representation of how things felt in the last fleeting moments between the two of you.

You can’t delete it. Every time your thumb hovers over the trash can icon in the corner of the picture, the hurt in your chest comes back—an aching that you cannot even begin to describe, much less figure out how to get over it—and you end up exiting out of the photo app, saving the dilemma of deleting it for yet another time.

To say the least, you miss him.

To say the most, you miss him so much it feels like you’re not exactly you anymore. You miss him so much you haven’t slept well in two months. You miss him so much that nothing seems enjoyable anymore—going to work, hanging out with friends, getting dressed for a night out, going to school. Hell, even eating has become a monotony to you because nothing tastes as good, and you find yourself leaving more and more food on your plate each time you push your chair back from the table.

Despite all of this, you are doing well. You are doing well on the outside because you refuse to let anyone know the raging storm of emotions that are happening on the inside. In reality, you can’t let anyone know.

You don’t hang out with your friends as much, but you do go to work—bar tending on the weekends when you don’t have school—and you make drinks and you talk with the customers and you put on a fake smile for all the dirty old men who flirt with you after they order their third, fourth, and fifth beer.

You spend a lot of time with Hongbin, trying hard to devote all the time and energy that you didn’t have before to showing him that you now undoubtedly care for him like no other person on earth.

You are living a lie. But it’s okay because you hope one day it will merge itself into the truth if you just keep pretending long enough.

Another week passes by under your new facade.

You are sitting in the living room with Hongbin, eyes glazing over some sitcom on the television that he insisted on watching each night after dinner, when your phone lights up on the table in front of you.

You pick it up, eyes still trained on the TV, letting out a small giggle at the antics of one of the characters. When your gaze finally drops down to the lit-up screen with the notification sitting in the middle, your stomach drops at the tiny words alerting you of the one person you’ve been trying to forget.

tvehyung posted to their story for the first time in a while

You read it over a few times, trying to decide if you should even indulge in looking at his social media. The two of you hadn’t deleted each other on anything—you were still friends on Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook, as well—you just weren’t talking or acknowledging each other’s presence.

Taehyung’s social media accounts had been inactive for the whole two-month silence. What could he have posted, suddenly?

You shift the blanket covering your legs over to Hongbin, untangling yourself from his embrace to walk to the bathroom; he hadn’t noticed the stiffening of your body when you looked at your phone, which you were grateful for. If you were going to break the personal limitations set for yourself, the least you could do is allow yourself to do it in private.

You close the door behind you with a soft click, choosing to sink down onto the fluffy, white rug in front of the bathroom cabinets rather than perch on the closed toilet lid or the side of the tub. Your hands grip your phone with sweaty urgency as you finally click on the notification, holding your breath while your screen pulls up Taehyung’s Instagram story.

It’s just a picture of him at a café, clearly taken earlier that day—a coffee sits in front of him and in the corner is a geotag for the place. It’s nothing special and so you let out the breath, feeling triumphant in overcoming an obstacle—what obstacle you aren’t sure, but you know the feeling of relief that flows through your veins is one you welcome.

However, you make the grave mistake of clicking on his profile afterward—suspecting that you are going to see the same pictures he’d previously posted and hadn’t updated in months.

You are extremely mistaken.

Sitting—beautifully, you might add—in the top left corner of his feed is a new selfie that has your shaky fingers clicking on instantly, your eyes drinking in the photo and caption. At first you are excited—it’s Taehyung in all his handsome glory, staring with mild disinterest in the camera—but the caption is what gets you.

“Han Yeseul?” you breathe out, your stomach knotting at the just the sound of the syllables all together, at the images they send flashing through your brain, at what they mean for your quickly-crumbling facade.

You click on her name and have to close your eyes for a second to stop the rolling nausea that floods your system; her profile contains, in a neat row at the very top, three pictures of Taehyung with his new petunia-colored hair—all posted within the last week.

He is walking in front of her in one—stylish as ever in a chic button down and black trousers, his overcoat thrown over his shoulder.

He is smiling in the next, happy as hell as he sits across from her at fancy restaurant downtown.

He is brushing his teeth in the most recent, looking messy and pretty from having just woken up—with Yeseul obviously in the same state behind the camera lens from the early morning time stamp on the picture.

Each caption is vague, but they don’t need to say anymore—the pictures do enough to justify the situation at hand.

Taehyung is not mourning your separation by not sleeping, not eating, not feeling; no, Taehyung is living. Unlike you, Taehyung is moving on.

Specifically, to another girl.

You press a hand over your trembling lips, tossing your phone to the side in the bathroom as you scramble toward the toilet, gripping the edges as you release the jittery contents of your stomach into the porcelain bowl.

It’s about a week later after seeing the picture that Yeonwoo wakes you up by pounding incessantly on your apartment door.

You groan, rolling out of bed and rubbing sleep out of your eyes as you stumble towards the sound, thinking of all the cuss words possible to spew at her when you finally open it—

“What?” you snap, squinting at her through the lines of your screen door. “What is it?”

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” she asks, shoulders slumping. “I’ve been calling you all morning.”

“I was sleeping!” you exclaim, opening the door to let her in.

“Y/N it’s 2 p.m.,” she responds, looking at you wearily. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you grumble. “It’s my day off—I had two double shifts at the bar.”

Yeonwoo walks into the kitchen, setting her purse down on the table.

“Well, I don’t know if you remember or not, since I haven’t heard from you since I asked—” She presses the button on your coffee maker and pulls two mugs down from the cabinet, “—but I asked you to ride to town with me to get stuff for the party this weekend.”

You slump down at the table, still halfway out of it from the rude awakening you’d received just a few short moments ago.

“A party?” you croak. “Who is throwing a party?”

“I am,” she says, sighing. “We talked about this.”

“Right, right,” you say, waving a hand in the air dismissively. “Listen, Yeonwoo. I forgot and I’m tired, I really don’t feel like walking around in town—”

“Y/N, please!” she says, clasping her hands together. “You promised you would because Hyejin can’t!”

Your eyes glaze over her pouty face, taking in the shiny lip gloss swiped across her poked-out bottom lip and the lashes that graze her eyebrows as she widens her doe-like eyes.

“Please,” she says again. “I’ll wait for you to get dressed—I’ll have a cup of coffee and watch TV so you can shower!”

You groan, running a hand through your hair—it gets caught in one of the knots caused by your incessant tossing and turning in bed and you drop it back to the table, ignoring the twitch of Yeonwoo’s mouth at the action.

You know that you should go out and do something—you haven’t been out of the house in God-knows how long, which is why Hongbin wasn’t around today. It was his day off as well, but he was out with some guy friends from work. Asking you to do something the night before had ended terribly—you two got into an argument and he’d slept on the couch. He’d obviously gotten up and dressed while you were still snoozing happily in bed.

You’d also asked him to stop the get-togethers at your apartment every other weekend; you didn’t want to have to deal with the possibility of him inviting Taehyung—just the thought of that situation made anxiety twist in your stomach.

You knew you were being ridiculous, but you couldn’t bring yourself to snap out of it. You just wanted to be left alone to wallow in whatever self-pity phase you were going through until you could get over it yourself—not because someone else wanted you to or needed you to.

“Hyejin and I are really starting to worry about you,” Yeonwoo adds on quietly, gaze dropping from yours. “You know you can talk to us if something is bothering you, right?”

You nod, fixating your gaze somewhere out the window in the kitchen. “I’m fine,” you repeat dryly.

“We even tried to ask Tae, because we thought you were mad at us or something—”

“You talked to Taehyung?” you say, your eyes immediately finding hers again. She looks surprised at the urgency in your tone, but she nods.

“Yeah, he said you just needed some time alone—and so we’ve been trying to give you that but, we miss you, Y/N.”

Your lips press together in a hard line. So far, Taehyung had been very adamant about keeping the fact that you two weren’t talking under wraps. Even in the face of your best friends, he was still acting like everything was perfectly fine between you two, and not like you hadn’t talked in over two months.

“Is everything okay at work?” Yeonwoo asks lightly. “Maybe you should take some time off, I know it’s hard to juggle that and your night classes sometimes—”

“I really don’t need anyone else suggesting what I need to do for myself,” you snap, rising from your chair. “Hongbin does enough of that for everyone. I know what I can handle.”

Yeonwoo presses her lips together in a tight line, nodding. “Okay.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” you say, returning to your bedroom quickly before the hurt in her eyes can make you feel any worse than you already do.

Yeonwoo talks animatedly in the front seat as you drive downtown, catching you up on all the things you’d missed in the group chat with her and Hyejin during the weeks before.

You felt bad for silencing their messages, but it was annoying to see their constant stream of texts when you had nothing to say—you hoped that if you stopped reading and replying, they’d get the hint and take their chats into a separate group; thankfully, they did in the end. The chat had been silent for days, which is when you supposed they asked Taehyung about your current distanced disposition.

You do more listening and making small agreement noises than talking during the ride, letting your eyes drift over to the scenery passing by in a blur by the window until you start seeing the familiar store fronts of downtown.

“Do you mind if we eat something first?” Yeonwoo suggests, looking over at you with caution, as if at any moment you could bite her head off for the second time that day at a suggestion she made.

You nod in silence, deciding to let her have this one thing. You were a little hungry, so you could do this for her.

“Something small,” you suggest quietly, and that’s enough to sate Yeonwoo. She straightens her back, placing her hands higher on the wheel and gives a quick flash of a grin your way.

“Great,” she says. “There’s this café downtown I wanted to show you.”

You don’t ask which one. You don’t want to start Yeonwoo on a rant again. Instead, you lean back in your seat, allowing your head to press against the backing and close your eyes. She picks up on your obvious dislike for the conversation she was trying to carry on and quiets down, turning the radio up a few notches and singing softly to a song.

The café is one that you’ve never been to before, but your curiosity immediately heightens as you get out of the car, eyes tracing the name hovering above the door that sparks recognition in your brain.

Café Du Monde.

It seems so familiar, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on when or where you’d heard it before. Yeonwoo is already out of the car, pushing the door open to the café and holding it for you. She looks back over her shoulder, eyebrows furrowing at the troubled look on your face.

“What’s wrong?” she says. “I promise the bagels here are really good!”

“It’s nothing,” you say quickly, speeding up to catch up with her. You follow her inside, taking in the quaint atmosphere of the coffee shop—everything is wooden and modern, and strings of white, holiday lights line the walls; Yeonwoo watches you, trying to gauge your reaction.

Your eyes finally meet hers and you smile at her. “It’s really cute.”

“Isn’t it?” she says, bouncing on her toes a little. “They sell real macchiato here—like the espresso shot, not the sixteen-ounce version in a cup you get from Starbucks. And I heard the chai latte and the hot chocolate are really good, although, I’ve never tried it, but I heard from Mina that—”

You’re half-listening, half-not because you’re gazing at the menu behind the bar, looking at all the different flavors you could get in your coffee. The bell above the shop door tinkles again as the door is pushed back open, and your eyes graze over to the newcomer in the shop.

Your heart sinks.

The door swings shut behind the customer, and reality comes crashing down on you all at once. Café Du Monde—it’s the same cafe that Taehyung had posted about on his Instagram a few days before. But the thought doesn’t reach you until you’re swinging your gaze over, landing on the countenance of a gorgeous, five-foot-ten man that you know better than anyone else on the planet.

But your stomach doesn’t ignite in delight like it normally would, because when Taehyung’s eyes find yours, the look is empty—unfeeling and void of all the emotions you’ve seen it hold for you before. He doesn’t acknowledge your presence in the slightest, and instead, gets in line a few customers behind you and Yeonwoo.

You eyes want to follow his retreating figure but you whip your gaze back towards the menu, trying to calm the hammering in your chest as Yeonwoo steps up to the counter—completely oblivious to the situation at hand unfolding just a few inches behind her. You feel like you’re vibrating, unable to control the unrelenting tremors of your fingers as you search around your wallet for your debit card.

“I’ll just take a coffee, black,” you say quickly when it’s your turn, slapping your debit card on the counter and sinking your teeth into your lip to stop it from trembling. The barista takes their time, swiping your card and whipping around what looks like an iPad on a stand for you to tip and sign.

Yeonwoo is already seated at a table near the front of the shop, and you walk over slowly with your mug, avoiding looking up until you are settled in front of her. She nods disapprovingly at your choice.

“I thought you were going to get something,” she says—emphasizing that something meant a drink along the lines of the sugary, whipped concoction she was clutching in her own hands. “But maybe their classic roast is good?”

“I don’t think my stomach can handle that right now,” you confess, giving her a small smile.

Yeonwoo hums, eyes tracing your figure with curiosity. “You look so thin these days. Are you dieting?”

“What? No.” you answer, half-listening. “I like eating.”

You break, and glance back quickly over your shoulder at the line to the cash register. Taehyung is at the counter now, giving his order to the cashier in a calm tone. The murmurs of his honey voice float over to where you and Yeonwoo are sitting, weighing heavy on your heart. When you turn back around, she is looking past you at the line as well, and your heart beat stutters when her eyes light up in recognition.

“Isn’t that Taehyung?” she says, sitting up a little in her seat. “Hey, Tae—”

“Yeonwoo, uh, maybe we shouldn’t—he’s like—” you stutter out but it’s too late.

“Taehyung!” she calls again. He turns around with his drink in hand, raising his eyebrows at Yeonwoo as if he didn’t see her—or you—at all when he first came in. “Come here!”

You grip the sides of your steaming cup, focusing in on the feeling of hot ceramic burning your palms as you hear Taehyung’s soft footfalls come closer. He stops at the edge of your table, and you peek a glance at his navy slacks as you slowly bring your cup up to your mouth, stalling for the inevitable moment you know is coming very, very soon.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Yeonwoo says, smiling at him. “Isn’t this place awesome?”

He nods. “I’m just meeting a friend here.”

“Oh, cool,” Yeonwoo says, and you meet her eyes over the table. She raises an eyebrow at you but continues. “What’d you get to drink?”

Could she tell how uncomfortable you were? Was it suddenly louder in the cafe? Hotter? Could she see the literal static buzzing between your ears from being in the same room, much less, the same personal space as Taehyung for the first time in over two months?

“I got a Black and Tan,” Taehyung says.

He laughs a little when Yeonwoo makes a face. The sound makes you feel breathless.

“What? Is that not good?” he asks. “That’s what I’ve been getting since they opened! The barista recommended.”

Yeonwoo shakes her head in disappointment. “You and Y/N are so similar,” she says. “She just got black coffee.”

“Oh yeah?” Taehyung says.

You can feel it coming before it happens. You stiffen in your seat, muscles contracting as if bracing yourself for the hit that is Taehyung’s gaze finally falling on you. The first words that he’s spoken to you in two months come out slowly, as if you can see every movement of his lips and tongue in slow motion as he says:

“You’re not much of a coffee drinker.” His face stays passive, unemotional. “I’m surprised you’re here.”

You press your lips together, giving the smallest shrug you can muster at his comment. It’s true, of course; what you had in front of you was absolutely disgusting, but it’s contents void of any real flavor was soothing and easy to swallow—especially now to your particularly parched throat. The comment feels just the slightest bit sinister, as if Taehyung was annoyed by your presence at a place you weren’t normally a fan of. As if you were intruding on his own personal time away from you.  

Your quickly eyes drop from his, embarrassed.

Luckily, Yeonwoo reels his sharpened gaze back to her. “Who are you meeting?” she asks. “Would you guys want to sit with us for a bit?”

The thought of being there any longer was starting to become unbearable to you, so you pipe up quickly, “Well, we were just heading out, right? Didn’t you want to go shopping, for the party?”

Yeonwoo’s brow crinkles at the urgency in your tone, but there’s little you can do to hide it. You hope for once she understands and asks questions later—when you were both away from Taehyung.

“Party?” Taehyung asks, taking a cautious sip of the hot drink in his hands.

“Yeah, next Saturday at my house,” Yeonwoo chirps, grinning. It falls quickly and she looks back and forth between you and Taehyung. “Y/N didn’t tell you?”

“I’ve been busy,” Taehyung covers—cool and collected as always. “I must’ve forgotten, sorry. I’ll be there, though.”

“Great!”

Yeonwoo pulls her purse strap up on her shoulder, using her other hand to grab onto her drink as she stands up from the table. You do the same in a more hurried fashion, keeping your eyes down. You feel like a kicked puppy, but you can’t quite put your finger on why. You want to be angry, more confident, more assertive in the situation that was unfolding between you and Taehyung. Instead, seeing him made you feel worse. It reminded you that this whole thing was happening because of you—because you were greedy and selfish and completely deserving of his steely stare and the feeling of tucking your tail between your legs and running like a coward away from it.

Just as you are saying your goodbyes—or, rather, Yeonwoo is saying them for the both of you—the doorbell to Cafe Du Monde chimes again, alerting the entrance of another customer. As you are shuffling past the newcomer toward the exit, you hear Taehyung call out in his honeyed baritone, “Yeseul! I got us a seat over here.”

Yeseul. Han Yeseul.

Your head whips around over your shoulder and you see her petite frame walking towards Taehyung. It’s not her presence that bothers you the most, because it’s Taehyung’s face that you have the clear view of. His countenance has changed—he is smiling broadly as she bends down to land a small kiss on his cheek before sliding into the booth across from him, sunbeams practically radiating between the spaces of his teeth as he looks at her.

You press your trembling lips together, letting go of the cafe door and letting it slam with a bang! behind you on accident. But you can’t be bothered with the embarrassment that comes with it—there’s already too much weighing on your heart from your previous conversation, mixed with grief, shame, unsettledness, and just the tiniest dash of jealousy.

In reality, it’s more jealousy than you would ever be willing to admit.

Your body feels unable to carry the weight of your withheld feelings anymore, and so, when you slide into the passenger seat of Yeonwoo’s town car, the first tear rolls down your nose and drips off onto the lid of the coffee cup in your hand.

“Was it just me, or was Tae acting kind of weird?” Yeonwoo asks, pulling her mirror down to check her hair and reapply her lip gloss.

Another tear follows, creating a bigger puddle on the plastic. Followed by another. And another.

“Is anyone really too busy to remember the date of something?” she asks, frowning at her own reflection. “Well, I mean, I guess you were today. But that’s an exception—” She giggles a little and finally looks over at you. “At least he corrected himself, rig—oh my god, Y/N. What’s wrong?”

You shake your head, sniffling and wiping away the tears harshly. You don’t speak for the sake of keeping your lips pressed tightly together, hiding the sob that’s forcing its way up your throat.

“Don’t lie to me,” Yeonwoo presses, reaching out to put a hand on your back. “Something has you like this. Talk to me.”

“I—” you pause, feeling the tears flow down your cheeks as you search for what to say.

It didn’t make sense why this was bothering you so much. It wasn’t just meeting Taehyung in the cafe, it was the feelings you’d been battling with for two the months. The loneliness and bitterness and emptiness you felt without him. And you certainly couldn’t relay that information to Yeonwoo—not yet, anyways.

“Tae and I—we’re—” You pause to sniffle again and Yeonwoo’s eyes widen.

“I knew it!” she says. “You two were being too weird back there. I knew something was going on!”

“What?” you say, lifting your head up and looking her fully in the face.

Suddenly your friend seems to have stumbled across a discovery that had been brewing underneath the surface of her thoughts for a while, the way her eyes search yours both pensive and knowing at the same time.

“No,” you say, “We’re just—we had a fight. A bad one.” You wipe at your eyes with a tissue that Yeonwoo finally hands you from her purse, and she nods cautiously, encouraging you to go on. “It’s all my fault and because, you know how I am—I don’t know how to make it better, Yeonwoo.”

“Oh,” Yeonwoo exhales. The sound is both one of relief and of pity. “Oh, Y/N. It’s Taehyung. You guys have been friends for so long, don’t you think he just needs a little time to get over it?”

You blow your nose into the tissue, shaking your head. The tears are constant now, all your feelings rushing over the brim of your eyelids in the form of fat, hot droplets that drip off your chin and onto your shirt and jeans. The way Yeonwoo is gauging your reactions to her questions makes you fidget in your seat—did she somehow know? That was impossible, right?

“What did you guys fight about?”

“Yeseul,” you answer honestly.

“Yeseul? Who is that?” Yeonwoo asks, before her mouth drops open, “Her? The girl that just walked in the cafe to sit with him?”

You nod. “He’s kind of busying himself with her lately—which I understand, I left Taehyung to spend time with Hongbin before, too—but, I don’t know. I just—”

“Miss him?” Yeonwoo finishes. “Aw, Y/N.” She reaches across the middle console in her car, pulling you in for the awkwardest of hugs she can manage with both of your seatbelts on. “Don’t worry, okay? It’s going to get better. Taehyung just needs some time, but maybe you should try to talk to him. I’m sure he doesn’t know it’s bothering you like this.”

The understatement of the year, you think. But you accept her hug, pressing your face into the soft material of her top and hoping you don’t pull away to see the black streak of your smudged mascara.

“Do you want me to uninvite him from the party?” she asks when she pulls away, keeping you at arm's length. Her brows furrow over her innocent eyes, making her look comically mad in a way that makes you want to smile. “I can go back in there right now. I’ll tell him to keep his ass away from my house—”

“No,” you say quickly, shaking your head. “No, Yeonwoo, really. It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” she says. “I know you love him and all, but I can go take back my invitation if it means saving you some awkwardness next weekend.”

You try not to let her choice of words bother you. She studies you for a minute—taking in the redness of your face and nose, the glassiness of eyes fresh from crying, the way your lips still tremble a little when you’re not talking, the tightness of the grip you have on the crumpled tissue in your left hand.

“I’m good,” you say. “Really. I promise.”

Yeonwoo continues to look at you and for a second, it scares the shit out of you—as if she’s seeing right through your facade and down to the real problem: you didn’t just love Taehyung; You were in love with Taehyung and had no fucking clue what to do about it.

Yeonwoo’s mouth opens and closes, and you’re so sure she’s about to call you out that your heartbeat triples in your chest, hammering a steading rhythm that you hear in your ears, almost drowning out what she does finally say.

“Fine.” She presses her lips together. “I won’t go yell at him today. But he’s a real jerk if he can’t tell that his attitude isn’t making this any better.”

You sigh in relief, settling back into your seat as Yeonwoo puts the car in reverse and backs out of her parking spot.

It was starting to look like you didn’t give anyone enough credit for perceptiveness—the faint adrenaline rush receding from your veins was evidence enough that you needed to be more careful when showing your emotions, and not just when Taehyung was around. The realization has you second guessing every interaction you and Taehyung have ever had in front of your friends, expecting them to brush it off as two people who were extremely close from years of friendship.

You give Cafe Du Monde one final glance before you pull away, delivering the TKO punch to your gut for the day. At a seat by the window, you see through the clear glass window where Taehyung and Yeseul sit—laughing, happy, oblivious, and full of life and love as they chat with each other.

[ashleaannya]

The 2200, Chapter 1

Everything for Kamiya started with a deep breath. She took a deep breath before writing her hit single “Marketplace,” an semi-autobiographical Indy rock ballad about how men (her exes) treated women’s bodies like a grocery store. It was a hit. “It resonated” was how Billboard described her riffs and runs about feeling like, quote, a “man’s meat market”, with no say in how she should be loved. That was five years, two Grammy’s and three tours ago. She still took a deep breath before approaching the microphone, before recording herself in the studio, and before giving her fans the BTS (Behind The Scenes) content her 35 million fans craved—no, demanded.

           “Let’s do this,” Kamiya said to her herself, breathing deeply and sitting on the goose feather bed in her presidential hotel suite. She adjusted her DSLR camera to better frame her upper body and flipped the lamps on the hotel suite’s end tables. The tripod creaked with newness as she made the micro-adjustments to get her and her hotel suite backdrop in perfect focus. It was a little dark, but it would fit the mood she was about to create for her fans.

           Her phone pinged and vibrated beside her as another thousand comments on her social media rang through. Text messages burst through as people who wanted her money, attention or both made their voices heard in all capital letters, exclamation points and emojis. Without looking away from the camera flip screen, Kamiya reached beside her and powered her phone off. She glanced over at her hotel door, looking at the silk and gold furnishings and designer dresses hanging on a rolling rack. Rows of flowers from athletes, and fellow musicians wanting to sleep with her wilted on a glass dining table designed to seat twelve. No one ever ate there. It was a reservoir for gifts and miscellaneous stuff. She lived in this room now. The floor of this hotel was more her space more than the three homes she paid ghastly mortgages. Kamiya’s eyes lingered on the cream colored double doors, making sure it was locked. What she was about to do would cause her team to beat her door off the antique hinges. By then it would be too late.

           The camera’s light flickered and then settled on a bright amber. Kamiya knotted her fingers in her lap seeing the word “REC” blink in the upper corner of the screen. It was time. She had already left written, detailed instructions for her manager, accounting team, design team, social media team, and news outlets she wanted to break the story. The courier would deliver her instructions in exactly one hour. The timing mattered. Her wishes were explicit and once her video aired, the necessary parties would have no choice but to honor her demands. There would be nothing to second-guess. The video especially would be very clear. She practiced how she would do it and even recorded herself doing mock versions of the act to make sure she would not loose her nerve.

           “You got this, Miya.”

           Kamiya also knew that nothing else “groundbreaking” would be going on in the social media sphere that would distract from her message. The good thing about being connected was other celebrities in her circle and members of famous teams (say a stylists or nanny) told her what dates to avoid. For example, when Kamiya’s second album was set to drop on Sept 1st, a friend of a friend whispered that she should not use that date because TMZ was about to report on an impending divorce. Divorces in her world were common enough, but this divorce was a megachurch pastor and there was digital evidence the break-up of his marriage was due to a transgendered mistress who had a massive social media following. Needless to say, she changed the date. Her album release would have been overshadowed and her release week would have been abysmal. She released a week earlier to the delight of her voracious following and debuted at number one on the Pop charts. The same connections would today make sure her choice went viral. This was her one life. She should get to live her life on her own terms. A tear fell down her cheeks, realizing that her freedom was on the other side of this post. She would have her body back, her mind, her music, her voice. Should she go live instead? That way people knew it was real.

           Kamiya jumped up off the bed and grabbed her laptop. She would record both. Just in case.

           “Hey guys,” Kamiya said, waving at the screen.

           The numbers in her Live Chat jumped from 300 to 3,000 to 2 million instantly. Kamiya swallowed. Her mouth was dry and her hands were damp with sweat. Texts jumped up on the bottom of the screen as her followers flooded the Live Chat with emojis, declarations of love, and sexual comments that would make a porn star blush.

           “Whoa, whoa, guys, this is going to be quick so I can’t answer a million questions right now—um, guys, whoa, um, no, no I can’t do a video chat with anyone. Thank you though that went bad last time,” Kamiya said, laughing awkwardly.

           She glanced up to make sure her camera was still recording. It was.

           “Ok. I have an announcement. I wanted to record it and make it all fancy, but my career started here, right?”

           Thumbs up emojis and hearts flooded the screen in unison. She smiled and tears pricked at her eyes, but she coughed and rubbed her eyes into her sleeves. People were commenting about how they had followed her since abandoned building days.

           “Wow, that’s a throwback. Um, for those who don’t know, let me explain all of the abandoned buildings comments.”

           Kamiya sat up and twisted her long curly extensions in around her fingers. She dug her nails into her spray-tanned legs, leaving pink nail marks. She was already black, but her team told her, going a shade darker would make her skin look even and was the ideal skin tone for her audience.

           “Ok. So most of the videos have been deleted because, well, I was fat then.”

           That comment was met with encouraging remarks and angry emojis. She felt relieved at that response. Then as if reading her mind, onscreen comments appeared. Some people were proud of her ‘healthy weight loss journey’. This pride flooded the comments. She ignored them. She was thin now with the dimensions of a doll, narrow waist and all. She ate 400 calories per day and had more cosmetic surgeries than a Kardashian. She was discrete about them and timed everything so it looked more believable, but nothing was healthy about her new body.

           “Um, yea. I actually started on social media for singing in abandoned buildings with my sister. She would record me singing in old churches and subways and other random places that were technically condemned but had great acoustics. That’s how I build my fan base and YouTube channel. A lot of people think it was from Marketplace, my first single, but I didn’t get attention until after my Abandoned Concerts page went viral or whatever.”

           The comments zoomed by so fast she could barely ready them. The emojis were all wide-mouthed shocked faces and then there were demands for her to post the old videos. Kamiya shook her head and laughed. She did not want to see her old body ever again. Kamiya froze seeing a familiar handle enter the Live Chat. It was @Camera_Cat, her sister. She was in the hotel lobby grabbing dinner and would likely be banging on her door at any moment. Everyone knew that Kamiya hated going live so Cat would be giving her the Catrina patent “WTF” face.

           “Okay, guys, real quick. I have an announcement,” Kamiya said, straightening her back and lowering her voice. She had to say this seriously or people would think she was playing a game. As you all know, I hate social media and, like, hardly ever post, because—well, let’s keep this all the way real, okay. You guys are trash.”

    ��      Question marks and angry and shocked emojis flooded the screen at lightning speed. Kamiya smirked ready to drop every bomb in her arsenal before the grand finale.

           “Yes, you are. Half of you lie to yourself and to others every day and will never accomplish your dreams because you are inconsistent and talentless. There. Now you know.”

           Kamiya jumped hearing rapid knocking on her hotel room. She pulled her laptop closer and swallowed. She could hear her sister calling her name.

           “I don’t care if it hurts your feelings. It’s true. You aren’t loyal to yourself or your dreams so why should I expect you to be loyal to me or care about my mental health. I have done so much and sacrificed so much to make you bastards happy. I’m literally so damn lost right now I barely recognize myself. I hate having you guys around me.”

           Some of the comments were consolatory and others were curses and name-calling. Kamiya did not care. She was right and she would show them.

           “If half of you were forced to be honest about how jealous you are of my life before you could comment on my posts, you would never hate on me. You hate me because your dreams are dead and your work ethic is trash. Do you have any idea what I go through to be here. I’m supposed to be nice to you hateful bitches when you are all collective trash.”

           The banging on the door sounded like thunder. Muffled yelling echoed outside of the room. The voices were getting louder and Kamiya was glad the deadbolt was on because her sister and manager had keys to her room. Well, technically, they could access her room through the hotel app. The app could not work against a deadbolt and an old fashioned chain.

           “I’m being honest when I say I hate most of you. I wish you never heard of me. I wish I never shared my music with you. You don’t deserve me. I give so much to you people. You people who are supposed to be the woke generation. I hope you die alone.”

           Kamiya sat back and watching as the number of people watching her quadrupled. Screenshots of her and clips of her ‘rant’ would be viral in seconds. She smiled ready for the final blow.

           “Effective immediately, my social media is closed. My website is closed. My brands are closed. I am closed. You hear me? You no longer have access to me. You all have officially been fired from being my fans.”

           The word ‘no’ with about a hundred Os flooded the screen, followed by side-eye emojis and comments about her going crazy.

           “There is one exception,” Kamiya took a deep breath. “Moving forward, I am only accessible to 2200 loyal fans. I will hand select these people. If you look at my main page now, you will see that no one is following me and I am following no one. You will also notice that all of my posts are now gone. In one hour, my page will be private, so get your screen shots now. Yes, I’m talking to you Shade Room.”

           The number of people watching her, now exceeding the number of followers she had ever had on any platform. Tears pricked her eyes realizing she finally had their attention. The same question kept popping up: “How do I join the 2200?”

           “You don’t join. I choose you.”

           Kamiya slammed the laptop closed and fell backward on the overstuffed pillows of her European king bed. Phase one was complete. Now on to phase two.

[girlmeetsliv3]

Paradiso: Thirteen

Author’s note: this is it, folks, the beginning of the end. It’s a little short because the hell rides that the ending is going to be tbh. Hope you enjoy it! Remember this is all fiction and does not represent the character of Bangtan, thank you. Enjoy ~~~

Sunday mornings were always peaceful. A perfect time for staying in bed and relaxing, having breakfast with the family, or spending time with the ones you loved before the horror of Monday and the work week began. The calm before the storm – that’s the perfect definition for this Sunday morning. Be assured that a storm was headed your way, both a literal and metaphorical one, but let’s not dwell on that now. You lay in a cocoon of blankets, pillows, and Hoseok’s body. Truthfully it was moments like this that allowed for a much-needed break from the anxiety, dread, paranoia, and terror that seemed to consume you whenever Hobi was conscious. Moments like these reminded you that the man sleeping so peacefully next to you was human and that had a lot of implications you didn’t want to dwell on. It was easier when he was awake when his cold eyes would pierce through your own and the word monster echoed in your head. But there’s no point in questioning these things in the few seconds you’re permitted to be alone. Sadly, even your thoughts weren’t your own anymore.

           The sun crept higher in the sky and began to illuminate most of the room, however, due to the position Hoseok was sleeping in and where the pillow was placed, a large shadow was cast over his face; only a sliver of light hitting it. You stared at him in a mixture of awe and contempt, one more than the other – though which one you did not know for certain. His beauty was unparalleled, and you finally understood how it is people could be tempted into sin. Hell, he should have been a capital sin himself. A sound distracted you, one you recognized as the notification sound from a phone. Your eyes darted past the sleeping figure to the nightstand on the right of the bed. There seemed to be two typical cabinets, but the longer you stared it, the edge of the lining of the nightstand was slightly protruding. Ah, there it is. Detangling yourself from your capture did not prove an easy task, but Hoseok was exhausted after last night. A memory that brought vile up your throat, but if it meant he would be in a deeper sleep than usual it was a price you were willing to pay.

           Sound was the enemy. You strived to be as quiet as inhumanly possible. Even the rustling from the carpet made to much noise, so you settled on walking nearly on your toes until you reached the stand. Thankfully, the hidden cabinet slid open without resistance and you began to think for once fate was on your side. There were two objects that stared at you in the face: one a black bloated leather wallet, which was too feminine to be his, and a black phone with a small light in the corner blinking. This was the fork in the road and you knew the decision was yours to make. Your hand hovered slightly over both and your heart began to pound loudly in your ears. The brain and the heart are often at odds, but now they were determined to go to war over this, but in the end,  one won out. It doesn’t matter who you were, all that matters are what you are. The phone turned on the moment you grabbed it and several notifications appeared on the lock screen: emails, a missed call, a voicemail, and a notification from the news app. The phone was surprisingly unlocked and the first thing you focused on finding was the map.

           The little blue dot alerted your precise location and required you to zoom out until the form of an island surrounded by the sea took up the screen, its name in bold black letters: Jeju island. Hoseok hadn’t lied about it being an island and that disappointed you greatly. There was simply no way out and if something in the back of your head hadn’t pushed you to open the search app and type in the name, you would have surely resigned yourself to your fate. The loading bar inched little by little and you felt the clock was starting to dwindle down. Finally, the information popped up resulting in the name, image, and basic information of the island. Your eyes skimmed through it until you landed on something that caused your eyes to tear up and your heart to jolt: “Population: 621,550.” Adrenaline rushed through your veins and a new sense of determination and hope soared through your entire being.

           You quickly deleted the recent history off the phone and placed just how you had found it, before making your way back to bed. Tangling yourself with Hoseok’s limbs caused him to finally awaken and he gazed at you drowsily. A smile so wide, it crinkled the corners of your eyes, appeared as you kissed his lips softly. “Good Morning, Hobi. Sleep well?” His mind was not fully awake yet, so he didn’t catch the edge behind your voice, didn’t notice the light that returned to your eyes, didn’t see that though you had lost all the pawns you still retained your queen; and that the game was far from over. In fact, it had now truly begun.

-

“Hello, you’re are speaking with the Korean National Police Agency. What is your name and what may I assist you with today?”

“I’m calling to report a crime and would like to remain anonymous.”

“Sir, unfortunately, we do not handle lower level crimes. However, I may be able to transfer you to the provincial police if you inform me where it is that the crime is taking place.”

“It has to do with drug smuggling through Jeju.”

“… Do you know where the drug is being smuggled through, sir?”

“There’s a man that lives off near the Coast towards the East of Jeju. Private property. He’s responsible for the smuggling of Ddaeng into the country. Works for you know who.”

“Sir. Please, you’re talking to fast if you could please reiterate the information slowly.”

“I’ve done my part. The rest is up to you.”

“Sir –“

“Goodbye.”

[jhope-seok]

I have a lot of things to say about Tinder.

This is a personal rant about idiot boys on tinder. So if you’d like to read my CRAZY FUCKING ESCAPADES IN THE DATING WORLD. PLEASE. GO AHEAD. CLICK READ MORE. IT’LL BE INTERESTING. And fun. To watch me implode then explode.

Warnings: mentions of sex/sexting, lots of cursing, men being disgusting--potentially triggering, and one angry ass woman.

Warning part 2: this is A LOOOONG ASS POST, probably with a lot of grammatical errors. It’s 2am. (just so we’re all aware, it’s about 2.3k worth of ranting plus pictorial evidence)

So here’s the thing about me and tinder. I’ve been on the thing since I was in college, probably around junior year when I really came into the realization of my sexuality/being a pansexual person. Keep in mind this was like.....5 or 6 years ago now. I was interested in exploring my options, exhausted from going to countless frat parties and having random makeout sessions with boys who never asked for my number, and/or went on to makeout with the next girl they found at the party. Over the years I have collected an INFLUX of over 1,000 matches. I am not saying this number to brag, I am saying this number to give you an idea of how much of a credible fucking source I am when I present my case. And my case is as such.

ALL MEN ON TINDER ARE THE FUCKING. ABSOLUTE. WORST.

For perspective I have also dabbled in the following dating apps:

OKCupid (absolutely horrid. don’t do it. the shit i went through on this app....just. don’t get me started. I could make a whole other post about the atrocities of this site)

HER (really sad option for lesbian/bi/pan/women looking for other women)

Bumble (pretty successful but forcing the woman to speak first is annoying as hell and then giving a STRAIGHT MALE ONLY 24 HOURS TO RESPOND. Utter hell.)

Hinge (just...downright annoying)

CrossPaths (for christians. Honestly a good idea. Poorly executed. Poorly advertised).

Badoo (honestly...what the fuck)

Coffee Meets Bagel (good idea; too complicated)

Skout (nope)

The Game by Hot or Not (i don’t remember using this but my phone says it’s in my cloud)

And probably some others I can’t remember

What you should take away from this list is that

I’m a needy bitch

I was VERY DESPERATE at times

And i’ve tried a LOT OF OPTIONS.

therefore: don’t comment on this saying: well this worked, well that worked, try this, try that. No. Tinder is still one of the only options that actually works consistently and will continue to work because it is one of the least complicated among the dating apps.

Now. To my point that all men on tinder are the absolute fucking worst.

Time for some examples.

I will not be using these people’s real names, because that’s just mean. So I will present them to you in cases.

Case #1:

Me and this man matched about a year and a half ago, end of 2016. We were unable to meet up because I had a bunch of plans going on--at the time I worked in a law firm and my commute was hell so i only had time to go on dates on the weekends. And being that it was december I was busy every...single...weekend. Which he was fine with! (Awww what a kind gentlemen). No.

He had made it pretty clear from the beginning that he was really only in it for the sex. which for me at the time was fine. I let him know that I didn’t just fuck around on the first date. I lived--and still do live--with my mother and so he couldn’t just come over whenever and i couldn’t just leave whenever i wanted to spend the night at his place in D.C. He said that was fine. However, apparently he was not fine with that.

We talked for a month, lots of sexting, lots of naked snaps, whatever, whatever, we were basically waiting to jump each others bones. But I had also told him that I did not fuck on the first date. I had a rule. I would not break that rule. Again, he said he was fine with that.

On our first date--in a CROWDED RESTAURANT--for brunch, he kept whispering to me about how he wanted to push all of our plates off the table and fuck me in front of all those people. I politely told him to shut up because there were people sitting less than two feet away from us and that was inappropriate for sunday brunch to be talking like that (how proper of me....). Anyways, I let him walk me to my car in a garage, and as we approached it he came up behind me and forcefully turned me around to kiss him. I was like “ooh how hot. I like this.” Anyways, I drove him to his car, we made out a little, then we went on our separate ways. We had a second date not much longer after that, where we had agreed to go out to dinner BUT that first we were gonna fuck in his car. So we met up in a garage and we waited for the cars around us to leave and then we made out, and i sucked his dick. I did N O T let him have sex with me because I was annoyed that he was trying to push me to it--he had a daddy kink--and kept saying “ooh how hard do you want daddy to fuck you”. I said “You can only fuck me when I say you can, and I say no.” thank god he respected my boundaries. So I sucked him dry, then he “MAGICALLY” got a call from his work calling him in. I barely heard from him after that. Because he told me I should come over and spend the night so we could fuck. I said no. He ghosted me.

Case #2--Who knows:

Soooo many fucking men. Have ghosted me. For no reason. Like we’ll have a good few opening lines. And then....nothing. Forever. Where in the FUCK DID YOU GO?! Did you find someone better? Did you grow uninterested with our conversation?! Did you forget how to speak the English language? Did you decide you regretted swiping on me? The worst is when they don’t unmatch you and then it’s just left there....hanging.

Case #whatever:

The fucking men who ask if it’s okay to text. And then don’t text.

I don’t even remember this dude’s NAME in the first place to omit it, but we got into an argument because he supports the store brand cheese puff that is America’s president, and I matched him only so I could yell at him (yeah I know...whatever...I like to prove my dominance and tell boys why they’re wrong. Also because half of the time I use dating apps just to have conversations with people because I’m bored). Anyways. we got in this heated debate and he was like “I like your fire, you should text me here’s my number ____” blah. So I texted him cause i was interested enough in our debate to continue it. THE BITCH NEVER ANSWERED ME. LITERALLY....FOR MONTHS. PROBABLY OVER A YEAR. And then out of fucking nOWHERE he responds like “hey who is this again?” Dude...... NO.

Case #The Never Ending Message Senders:

These men are the worst. So I should explain myself first. I don’t really ever unmatch someone unless it’s for a good reason. Like they’re being disgusting, racist, homophobic, gross, call me fat, ugly, whatever. For the most part I don’t unmatch with someone because in the old days of tinder, unmatching would just PUT THE PERSON BACK IN YOUR CIRCUIT (good job tinder). I’m assuming they did this in case you deleted your tinder, or your app crashed and you had to restart, or you accidentally unmatched someone, whatever. So I don’t unmatch for the sole reason that I don’t want these jerks, who never took the time to respond to my hello or witty opening statement, back in my playing field. I don’t revisit my old matches, I don’t try to restart conversations with them.

If only men could learn the same fucking thing. I have so many men who CONSTANTLY message me. I’m talking like once in every blue moon. It’s like they let the conversation lie for a while, and then BAM another message. The ones I do actually unmatch are the ones that don’t wait a while. They just constantly message, hour after hour after hour until I either respond or unmatch. I don’t know a woman who WOULD respond after having gotten 10 messages of the same “Hello? You there?” “Member me?” (yes one dude has actually said “member me” to me. Not “remember me”...”member me”) etc. etc. in the course of a few hours. Take the hint dude. Please. I don’t enjoy being ghosted, but I know when to take a hint.

A perfect example of such case is the following!

(Context: I just updated the pictures in my tinder account today! So through tinder’s cool new facebook timeline! you can see when your matches update their profiles. to scroll through and judge them even further to see if they’ve gotten cuter or uglier through time).

Please take note of the dates attached to the message. For clarification, “today” is August 27th, 2018!

I have since unmatched him. Buddy. Please. Take the hint. (Also, how fucking creepy of him to say that I’ve gotten closer since a while back....like are you tracking my distance every time you message me? Please dear lord, no).

Case #THE IDIOTS WHO WAIT YEARS TO RESPOND.

This. THIS. THIIIIIS RIGHT HERE. IS WHAT HAS GOT MY BLOOD BOILED SO MUCH I NEEDED TO MAKE THIS POST. THE FUCKING IDIOTS WHO MATCH WITH ME. AND THEN CLAIM THAT THEY DELETED THEIR TINDER. OR THAT THEY LOST THEIR PHONE. JUST REDOWNLOADED. DIDN’T SEE MY MESSAGE. FOR FUCKING. YEARS.

OOOOOOOH BOY. You’ve gotta have some damn nerve to pull that shit. If you lost the app, deleted it, got a new phone, WHATEVER. Your profile would not continue to show up on the matching feed. People would not be able to swipe on your face to find that they matched with you. You would not exist in the eyes of tinder. You would be GONE from the system.

So don’t pull that shit with me. So many dudes have had the audacity to pull this shit with me, and when I call them out on it, most of the time I get either one of three responses: they say “oof yeah I’m sorry, I’m a dick can we move on?”, “Hahaha sorry” and then they continue to ghost me, or people who pull the shit I listed above.

These next photos are from THE SAME DAY AS THE PREVIOUS PHOTOS. Please take note of the date of the first message. (“today” in this sense is technically August 28, 2018 because it’s past midnight.)

Although I deleted his name, I gotta say. My insult was pretty on point. Anyways.

Like how the fuck can you live with yourself with that fucking lie?! Own up to that shit. Be like “yep oops sorry, didn’t think you were cute the first time but this snapchat filter making u look damn good” like don’t be a DOUCHE DUDE. Men are just honestly so fucking frustrating. And yes you better fucking believe I sent that reason for unmatching to tinder. You best fucking BELIEVEEEEEEE I did that. I’m so fucking mad at men. Like how in the hell.

I’ve HONESTLY had better luck matching with MARRIED COUPLES on tinder than I have had with straight men. Married couples at least know how to respect people. God damn.

YOUR MOTHERS DID NOT RAISE YOU TO BE LIKE THIS, MEN. LEARN HOW TO BE DECENT HUMAN BEINGS. JESUS CHRIST.

All in all, if you’ve ever toyed with the idea of downloading tinder: Don’t. Stay out of the fucking awful shit that is Tinder and dating apps for as long as you can. I have my settings set up to men in their 30s, and honestly older men do not mean more mature men. Just absolutely frustrating.

Also, as an addendum: 

Case #Don’t put my height in my bio/or do and say “Cause I guess it’s important/matters”

To all males on the planet earth: PUT. YOUR. FUCKING. HEIGHT. IN. YOUR. BIO. It fucking matters. As a tall as woman, it is so fucking annoying to match with a cute dude and then have them say “Hey I’m 5′2″ is that okay?” um....no. I’m sorry buddy. That is not okay. I have strict height limits for this ride and 5′2″ does not pass the riding restrictions.

We’re gonna call in a CELEBRITY SHOT for this story, I matched with this dude on bumble who didn’t have his height in his profile. (Context: my bumble profile says “5′10″ cause it doesn’t matter” <--a nice jab at all the straight dudes out there) and we go about having this great conversation, we’re clicking, he knows one of my friends from college, we bond, we go on a date. THE FIRST THING OUT OF THIS ASSHOLE’S MOUTH ON OUR DATE WAS “WOW. You’re taller than I expected.” BITCH HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CAN U READ. IT’S THE FIRST THING IN MY BIO.

Sub case: I once had a guy match with me, tell me he was shorter than me, then asked me if I would be okay owning him as my slave. I understand and respect everyone’s fetishes, considering I have a slight dominance fetish as well, but a hello would have been nice first.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[theokotrain]

Vestige - Chapter 2: As If You Know The Story

Wattpad Version

Well I have known you for just a little while

But I feel I've known you, I feel I've seen you when the Earth was split in fives

And in your words, I should let it out, I would see it die

But I'm a watcher, I see it watch her, it's in your afterlife

---

I stood by the pickup counter, lightly tapping my foot as I waited for the employee to ring the bell on the counter and shout my name. The café was surprisingly busy, much more so than I remembered it usually being. I had ordered two egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches, along with two coffees for Liam and I. There weren't many tables to sit at, so they were all taken. Thankfully, we weren't planning on eating in here anyway. While I was getting our breakfast, Liam went to the store a few doors down so we could get some groceries to last us the trip. He never really learned how to cook much, with the exception of instant ramen or microwave dinners, so I thought of this as a good idea to fix that. I wouldn't call myself a good cook or anything, but I used the shared kitchen in the dorms pretty damn frequently because I never signed up for the university meal plan.

I never really know what to do with my hands when I'm just standing around like this. I switched between checking my phone for notifications and then just putting my hands in my coat pockets repeatedly. I keep my eyesight generally trending towards the floor, trying to avoid making awkward eye contact with the other customers. While looking at my phone again, someone new walks up to the till right next to the order pick-up area. I don't look to see who it is, but I vaguely recognize the voice, a feminine one. I keep looking down at my phone, not wanting to say anything and risk it being a complete stranger. I hear her handing cash over the counter, thanking the employee a bit loudly. I guess she noticed my ears perking up from her voice, because she walks over to me as I pretend to remain ignorant of her presence.

"Jake!" She says, mildly surprised. "It's been a while! What are you doing back in Vestige?" I instantly recognize her. Ms. Addams, the therapist I started seeing in grade eleven. I didn't really think I needed to see a therapist back then, but my parents made me choose between that or weekly visits to the school guidance counselor who was notorious for preaching confidentiality and then telling the parents basically everything anyway. She turned out to actually be pretty cool, at least to sixteen-year-old me, and I kept seeing her up until I left for university, although pretty infrequently.

"Oh, Allison! I'm in town visiting everybody for spring break." I replied, in the most sincere voice I could conjure.

Her eyes widened, "Everybody? As in everybody everybody?"

"Yeah, everybody." I said, a smile of acceptance on my face.

"That's good to hear!"

"I probably wouldn't have done it if Liam didn't insist." I say, quickly realising that she has no idea who that is.

"Liam? Is that-"

"Friend from university. I asked him to come with me, probably against my better judgement." I say, jokingly.

"Ah, 'friend', right," She said, laughing. Allison was the one who helped me make the apparently obvious discovery that was my sexuality, so I was usually pretty comfortable talking about that stuff with her.

"Ms. Addams making a joke at my expense? That's definitely something new," I reply sarcastically.

"You aren't my client anymore, so there's no obligation to be entirely respectful, at least to some extent," She jokes, pausing for a moment. "So, is he here?" She says, subtly scanning the occupied tables. I always failed to understand how she manages to act so professionally when she needs to. That was a huge insecurity of mine back in high school when I wanted to be seen as an adult who could make his own decisions, to no avail.

"Nah, I'm just grabbing us breakfast." I said, realising that the food I had ordered was taking a weirdly long time to be ready. "But..." I grab my phone from my pocket, opening the photos app and scrolling, trying to find a specific picture. There aren't a lot of them since he's really picky about how he looks and makes me delete the bad pictures. After a bit, I found the photo I'm looking for, "Here," I say, turning the phone over to her. The picture was from back in October, when we went to an outdoor concert with Liam's friend, Nathan. October was always hit or miss when it came to warmth, and we definitely got a miss that day. Liam and I spent the last half hour or so of the concert in the back of Nathan's pick up truck with blankets, listening to the performance. The last song the band performed was pretty dramatic, and they set off fireworks during a really crazy guitar solo. So, I obviously had to seize the moment and get a picture of Liam with the fireworks in the background, even if it was just with my phone camera. That was probably one of the best photos I had ever taken, to the point that he actually asked me if he could post it online, which was pretty flattering.

"Aw, he looks really sweet!" She says with the kind of tone you'd use to talk to an eight-year-old.

"Yeah! It's too bad you can't meet him right now, I don't think he's gonna come in here, we're heading straight back to our place after this," I sigh, making an effort to have it sound mildly disappointed.

"I have an order for Jake?" The café employee calls out. I grab the bag with the breakfast sandwiches in one hand, and do my best to hold both coffee cups at the same time and thank the employee, turning back to Ms. Addams.

She looks off for a moment, thinking about something. "...You know, you should come to my office one of these days while you're in town! It'd be nice to see how you've been doing since you left." She says, smiling.

"I'd have to see what days would work, but that'd be cool!" I didn't really want to, but it would be nice to just talk to her, even if I didn't really need therapy anymore.

"Great! Well, my contact info hasn't changed, so just let me know!" She replies. My phone loudly pings, but I don't have a free hand to grab it from my pocket.

"Oh! That's probably him," I say, nudging my head down towards my pocket. "I should probably get going, but it was nice to see you again!"

"You too, Jake! I hope the rest of your trip goes well!" I nod in return and push the door open with my shoulder, trying not to spill any coffee.

I can see my car a bit further down the parking lot with Liam sitting in the passenger seat. It's a bit hotter out today than it was yesterday. At least, hot enough to actually start melting the small amount of ice still on the ground. Hopefully that means we could actually go outside during the trip without having to wear multiple layers. It was mildly busy, though for a town like this it's a pretty low bar to be considered such. When I get to the car, I have to set the coffees on the roof so I can open the driver's seat door.

"Hey! Run into any problems at the store?" I asked, handing him his coffee.

"Nope! Pretty sure I got everything you said." He replies. I grab my coffee off of the car roof and hop in the car. I put my keys in the ignition and start the car before taking a sip.

"Man, I ran into my old therapist in there, definitely not a conversation I was expecting to have today," I said, chuckling as I shifted into reverse, ready to pull out of the parking lot.

"You had a therapist? Like, in high school?" Liam asked. Yeah, I guess there's a lot I still haven't told him about myself.

"Yeah, parents thought I was depressed, didn't think so but it wasn't really up to me."

"...Were you?"

"Uh- I don't really know- probably? I never had to go on antidepressants or anything but it definitely helped with the teen angst."

"Oh my god, please tell me you had a rebellious phase, that's hilarious," Liam put his hand on his forehead as he laughed.

"Incredibly regretfully, but yeah," I replied, sighing, Liam still laughing. "What, you weren't also embarrassing in high school?"

"Of course I was! I was the nerd that no one wanted to be friends with!"

"Ohhhhh, so you were a walking high-school-movie stereotype?" I remarked, laughing.

"Jake, I didn't even go to high school with you and it is so clear to me that you were the misunderstood kid that desperately wanted to be different. Literal stereotype!" He retorted jokingly.

I paused for a second, "...Ok, that might actually be pretty accurate but you are literally a psychology major so it's not like it was totally obvious!"

"...So are you!"

"Yeah! But I mean, like- a good one! Important distinction."

"A 'good one'? Have you seen my assignments?" Liam laughed.

"You specifically don't let me look at them like half the time, so no." I said, smirking.

"Exactly! Cause they're garbage!" He exclaimed.

"I think we both know that's bullshit," I replied, looking over at Liam, his ears subtly twitch in response. For the relatively short amount of time I've known him for, it was very clear from the beginning how insecure he was about anything he did that was remotely creative. Although, he's definitely started opening up more recently.

As we drive down the highway towards the cabin, the morning sunlight reflects off of the lake. I've always hated posting pictures of myself online, so my social media pages were typically just taken up by landscape photos, and the lake was a huge subject for me. I thought I wanted to be a professional photographer growing up, and I took basically any photography course that I could find at high school. But for a small town school photography department, they were definitely limited in the availability of equipment that wasn't twenty years old. I eventually moved on to music as my main hobby- I mean, I didn't really think I was ever gonna do anything actually important with music, but I looked up basically any guitar lesson video I could find, and I've kinda kept with it ever since. Plus I got the benefit of being the annoying asshole with a guitar at any campfire or social event whenever I wanted. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't impress Ty back then, along with Liam now.

"Hold on- weren't we talking about your therapist? How did we get that off-topic?"

"Oh, right! There's not really much to say, I saw her monthly for most of high school, found out I was kinda depressed, probably fixed it - but who really knows - anyways this is not important because we have plans that need to be put in motion!" I say as I reach down for my phone and unlock it, handing it over to Liam while trying to keep my eyes on the road. "Can you go to the group chat I have with everybody? Ask them if they'd be free tonight to come over and we'd like make food and shit - you should probably word it better than that but you get the idea."

"Ah, a truly upper class vocabulary," He laughed, the soft clicking sound of the phone keyboard playing as he typed the message.

"I think they have to have gotten used to my inane word choice at this point," I said. I could tell we were nearing the cabin. "You could probably add your number to that group chat too, if ya want," I offered.

"Oh, uh, sure!" He responded, his tone faltering somewhat.

"...You don't have to if you don't want to?"

"No, it's cool! I just barely know them still, though" He said, ending with an awkward chuckle.

"I thought you and Elliot actually hit it off last night? Plus Alex really seemed to like you, too," I said, trying to reassure him.

"Well, yeah... probably just me being irrational anyway," He paused for a moment. "I don't think Ty directly spoke to me at all last night, either."

"Oh... yeah, I wasn't really paying attention to that. Sounds about right, though," I sighed, "Don't worry. He'll definitely warm up to you eventually, he's always like that around new people." I say as I turn into the cabin driveway. A soft silence continues on as I drive through the dirt and gravel up to the front of the cabin and shift into park. I hear the message send sound effect from my phone.

"Well, I sent the text and added myself." He exclaims, handing the phone over to me.

I grab the phone from his hand and give him a kiss on the side of his muzzle, "Well, we just need to go put all this away and we can head down to the water!" I said, attempting to change the mood.

"Is the beach, like, sand? I don't think I've actually paid attention to that anytime we've been on the highway," He asked, chuckling. I got out of the car and opened the backseat door to grab some grocery bags.

"Kind of, close to the water. Mostly grass, though, which is arguably better for sitting on," I answered.

"I think any sane person would probably agree with that, sand gets literally everywhere and you still end up finding it months later," He complained. I grabbed the bag with our breakfast sandwiches as well and headed to the front door.

"Oh definitely, that's the one thing I hated about going to the beach in Vancouver."

"Yeahhh, but I appreciate the ocean, so it kinda makes up for that."

"Really, a cat likes the ocean? I never would've expected that," I said, smirking.

"That's a stereotype!" Liam exclaimed. I looked over at him, sarcastically incredulous.

I have to set a few of the bags on the ground so I can grab the key out of my pocket. unlock the front door and swing it open. I head inside after picking up the bags, Liam following closing behind with the rest of them. "Did Shae go somewhere?" He asked.

"Yeah, pretty sure her parents needed her to do some stuff since she's in town," I replied. She didn't get specific about the details, she never liked talking about family stuff anyway so I was used to it.

"Ohhhh, right! I think she mentioned that yesterday," He acknowledged.

I set the bags on the kitchen counter and took another sip of my coffee. After making sure we got everything out of the car, we started unloading the food into the fridge and cupboards. I was planning on making a tofu stir fry for everybody tonight, hoping they were even gonna be able to come, given the kinda short notice. Which reminds me...

I pull my phone out of my pocket and check the group chat.

Jake: Hey! Planning on making dinner tonight, would you guys wanna come over?

Yeah, he definitely worded that a lot better than what I said.

Shae: If I can get out of here in time to actually be there, then sure

Shae: if not ill just eat all the leftovers lol

Nobody else had replied yet, which made it obvious that Shae was bored out of her mind and probably just scrolling on her phone. Though the only one in the group who had a sporadic work schedule was Ty, so it was usually pretty typical to assume they were available back in high school, and Ty used to always tell me his schedule anyway so it wasn't a problem.

I then came to the very apparent realization that I had left Liam to finish putting away everything. And, not wanting to be an asshole, I go back and help him with the last few bags, an apologetic grin on my face. Although, he doesn't seem phased by it, so I don't mention it. Once everything's put away, I put my hands on my hips and look around the room, "So, we good to go?" I ask.

"I think so, let me go grab my jacket," He answered, and went to our room. I check the time on my phone, 11:43 AM.

"I should probably get a head start on that research paper today too, as much as I'd like to procrastinate it until the last second." I lightly shouted towards our bedroom.

"Oh! Right, ugh, thanks for reminding me," He shouted in return, clearly not excited about spending spring break writing on his laptop.

A few more moments pass as I drink my coffee, waiting for Liam. It tastes nowhere near as good as the coffee at the campus café, but I appreciate the nostalgia. Eventually, he comes back to the kitchen with his coat in his arms. I take our sandwiches and one of the blankets off of the couch and we head out the door. I stick close to Liam, leading a bit in front as we walk down the patio steps and down the driveway. Even if it's not necessarily summer weather, we should be good for an hour or two, especially with our jackets. The forest surrounding us is pretty thick, and is mostly pine trees so you can't see too deeply into it at all. The only thing on this highway past Vestige are houses, a campground, and a boat launch area for the lake. Most of which don't get any real use until the summertime, so cars were an uncommon sight out here.

"So, where is this place?" Liam asked, his voice somewhat faint from behind me. I turn around and he glances past me towards the highway. There's a small forest there blocking the potential view of the lake.

"It's a little path, kinda hidden. The owner of the cabin told me about it, you just follow it down and it goes to a little clearing by the water." I said, trying to point towards the path with the hand holding our food. The path is definitely not too noticeable to someone driving down the highway, but I can see it pretty easily from here. It's a small clearing between a few trees, with a visible lack of grass forming a pathway. The gravel driveway is not enjoyable to walk on, being a bit slushy from the melting ice.

"I'm starting to think I didn't need my jacket." Liam said. He was definitely right, the sun was beating down now, negating the effect of any wind-chill.

"It'll probably get colder by the water, so I wouldn't rule out a jacket so fast."

Liam quickens his pace, trying to walk next to me. We stop for a moment when we reach the road, making sure we don't get run over by some truck driver going thirty over the speed limit. The wind seems to pick up significantly here, ruffling my jacket sporadically. Standing at the entrance of the pathway, I can tell it's a bit of a bumpy walk down to the spot. I grab Liam's hand, leading him behind me down the small path. The ground is fairly uneven, and I almost trip a few times, trying my hardest not to take Liam down with me. I can see a bit of the water through the trees, and it doesn't look like the path goes on for long at all. There isn't much of any ice on the path, but the dirt is somewhat wet.

After a minute or two, we reach the clearing on the side of the lake. It's the exact same lake I've been so familiar with for about sixteen years, but I've never actually been to this part before. The sun is shining across the lake onto the nearby mountains, and the water is crystal clear. I had absolutely zero interest in swimming in a freezing cold lake, but it was a nice scene to sit next to. Liam made some comments about how adorable this place is, and I had to agree, at least for this specific area. The rest of the town? I might be a bit more inclined to object, but if he liked it, that was good enough for me. I hand Liam our sandwiches and take the blanket out from under my arm, unfolding it out onto the grass.

"You know, this is pretty cliché for a date idea." He says, I'm assuming jokingly from his laugh afterwards. We both sit down on the blanket as I grab the sandwiches out of the bag.

"Well- I wasn't really thinking of it as a date... Just like, I don't know, something fun to do I guess?" I said, my usual ability to construct proper sentences lacking. I hand him one of the sandwiches.

"I mean, that's literally what a date is."

"If you prefer to consider this a date then I am happy to oblige, but I usually put more effort into that stuff,"

"More effort? This is like, par for the course for the kinda dates I plan,"

"But there's so many variables! I can't just say 'Hey let's go here'" There's a light breeze rustling the trees around us as I take a bite of my breakfast sandwich. Just as good as I remember it.

"Can't you? We're doing that right now." He remarked.

"Yeah, but I didn't consider this anything special. And even then, I got the idea like three days ago and still had to do some planning," Liam laughed under his breath, "What?" I ask.

"It's just funny to me that you're the one putting all this effort into our dates," He says, smiling genuinely.

"...What do you mean?" I asked, taking another bite. We never really had actual plans for when we would spend time together, we would usually just suggest whatever came to mind. But I would still plan them a few days in advance. I don't really know why, I've just always liked having any potential issues accounted for, which would always kind of freak me out when I couldn't do that for spur of the moment plans.

Liam didn't say anything for a few moments, "...You remember yesterday, when you told Elliot how we met?"

"...Yeah?" I replied, not really knowing where this was going.

"That wasn't the first time we met." Liam said.

"What? Before the party? ...I honestly don't remember ever talking to you earlier than that." Hopefully this wasn't significant enough that I would actually be an asshole for not knowing the real first time we met.

"Yeah! I don't really blame you, it was like the beginning of our first year at university." He said.

"Really?"

"It was a group project for... I think it was the introduction to cognitive psychology course? I don't even remember what the project was about, but I made a couple friends in the class, and you ended up joining our group since we needed one more! And we obviously only really talked through the project group chat so I didn't know anything about you, other than I thought you were cute. I think I asked for your social media at one point? And you gave it and said you'd follow me back."

"And I obviously didn't." I said, kinda mad at myself.

"Yeah!" Liam exclaimed, laughing. "I didn't know you were gay at the time, so I didn't wanna embarrass myself, plus we didn't talk after that anyway so I only knew you through your online posts and from seeing you in lectures. Fast forward a year and a half, I went to that party with a few friends and you know the rest." He said as he put one of his arms around my shoulder, pulling me in for a side hug.

"Wow... How do I not remember that? I feel like I should remember that."

"It was almost two years ago, I don't remember at least ninety percent of the shit that happened that year, other than the usual stress about being a new student and having no clue what I was doing." He reassured.

"That entire year was basically one big blur, all I really did was go to classes and cower in my dorm room."

"Was Eric your dorm mate yet?"

"Yeah he was, I mostly just avoided talking to him until the second semester though, so I just huddled up in the dorm half the time while he actually had a social life," I joked, my self-deprecating humor in full-force.

"Well hey, now you got me to drag you places against your will!"

I didn't really know what to follow up with after that, so I opted to stew in my own mild embarrassment for a while as we finished eating our breakfast. I went to check my phone again, seeing if anybody else had replied to the plans we were making. To my surprise, everyone else was also able to come, which I wasn't expecting to be honest. I let Liam know and set my phone on the blanket. A fair amount of time passed as we sat there, enjoying the moment.

Before I got here, I made it a personal goal to use my phone, and technology in general, a bit less. I didn't tell anybody about that, just cause I thought it was kinda stupid, but I spent way too much time at university on my laptop - most of the time not even doing anything productive. So, I thought of this return to my hometown where they had barely started getting rid of dial up internet at the start of the decade as a good opportunity. Of course, there was no escaping the assignments we had to submit when the break ended, but I was still gonna try.

"Thanks for bringing me here, by the way." Liam said, suddenly taking me out of my head.

"...To the lake?" I replied, mildly confused.

"No! Well, that too- I mean on the trip! I know you were kinda iffy about bringing me to see basically your entire childhood." He said. I've started noticing recently that his voice gets a bit higher pitched when he's being sappy. I usually try to avoid being over-sentimental simply out of embarrassment.

"...well, this is only the second day! Believe me, you'll have plenty of time to start to regret ever thinking coming here was a good idea." I joked.

"I'm sure!"

As I finish the last few bites of my breakfast sandwich, I can hear Liam's phone going off in his pocket. He sets his sandwich back in the wrapper and grabs his phone. I can't see who's calling from the angle I'm looking at, and he answers it before I can move over.

"Hey! ...A few minutes away, why? Oh! Yeah! Yeah, just gimme a minute. Okay, we'll just be a minute!" He hangs up the phone, putting it back in his pants, "Did you lock the door to the cabin?"

"...Yeah?" I replied, thinking nothing of it.

He sighed, "Shae can't get in."

I groaned, dramatically, "I didn't think she'd get back until tonight!" I quickly stood up, "Wait here. I'll go let her in and come back."

"Hurry back!" He laughed, probably at how I locked the door of one of the most remote cabins within a fifty mile radius. Locking my door had become second nature at university anyway due to a couple guys breaking into my dorm and stealing some of my roommate and I's stuff, and breaking my TV. It happened early on in my first year, so I'm over it, but I still kept the habit of locking the door. Besides, Eric had his own key so it was never a problem.

Walking back into the forest brought the noticeable lack of noise to the forefront of my mind. All I could hear once again was the crunch of the leaves and ice underneath my shoes along with the occasional car driving down the highway. It's noticeably darker from the trees blocking any sunlight from reaching the forest floor. When I make it to the highway, I am greeted by fog, and lots of it. There's no way this much fog showed up here while Liam and I were down by the lake. Although, fog wasn't exactly uncommon around here, especially at this elevation near a mountain range. I start heading up the driveway, trying to see if I can spot Shae at the door. As the cabin comes into view, the only car I see out front is my own, and Shae doesn't appear to be outside. Maybe she found a way in? I step up the stairs onto the porch, the wood creaking under me. The whistle of the wind is high pitched, swerving throughout the nearby trees, rustling the leaves. I try the front door, seeing if Shae unlocked it, but it seems to be locked still. I grab the keys out of my pocket and insert them, unlocking the door.

As I go to open the door, my ears perk as I hear the sound of footsteps on the gravel near my car. I silently hope that it's just Shae, but my irrational fears seem to be taking hold. I walk over to the patio fence, looking to see if someone's down there, but there seems to be nothing, at least that I can see.

Fuckin- god.

I turn around and head inside, not wanting to deal with whatever bullshit is currently happening. I figure I'll just call Shae and see what's up.

"there's nothing for you in there."

[chanshine]

What what tf happened where were you

It’s a loooooong story but i was planning on explaining everything so i’ll do it here! Short ver: i got suspended for saving & not using a huge amount of URLs.

Long ver: under the read more (for anyone that loves drama and wants to waste 5 mins listening to me complain) 

So! 23 days ago, on Monday 26 of February i got an email from Tumblr informing me that my account got suspended because i had saved and never used a huge amount of URLs. Ridiculous reason to get suspended right? but i did have a LOT of URLs i didn’t even want to use (more than 100 for sure) so it makes sense why Tumblr wanted to “take action”. Now, if you’re wondering why i had all those URLs saved, it’s pretty simple. I saved them when i first started this blog, almost 4 years ago and i never deleted them because it takes a lot of time and i was lazy and i didnt thought tumblr would actually suspend me or anything fdkjdfjkfdk

Anyway on that sad Monday i wake up, go to work, scroll through my dash and notice that i cant reblog or post anything. At first i thought it was a bug but then i noticed that i cant post from my phone too (browser & app) and i couldnt find my blog. That was when i panicked real hard. I checked my Line account and i saw my friends trying to figure out what happened with me and if i was okay cause they thought i deactivated or smth. At that point i (still panicked and scared af) send a message to the tumblr support team asking what tf happened to my blog. After i send that message i checked my email to see if they got it and that was when i found out about my suspension and everything. The email Tumblr send me about it, it said that i had to delete all the URLs, inform them and they would restore my access to my account. I was pretty shocked tbh but that line “Let us know when that’s been done so we can restore your access.” made me feel a lil better cause i thought my blog would go back to normal very soon lmaoSo then i started deleting all the URLs and they were so many and it takes so much time that i had to stop and finish deleting them at home (i was at work and i had to actually do my job you know fdjkdfkj). At around 8pm my time i was back home, all the URLs deleted and ready to get my blog back. I replied to the email tumblr send me, telling them im sry and that i deleted all the URLs and that was it, that was when the drama started. 

I waited 2 days and Tumblr didn’t reply to me. Not a “we got your reply, we’ll restore your account soon” no anything. Complete silence from them. I messaged them again and again for a whole week and nothing, no reply from the support team. I ended up making a new blog and messaged them from there (in case they blocked my email or smth) and no answer from them again. My friend Ana emailed them too about my blog and they told her “tell your friend to contact us” (lmao i was doing that for a week and yall ignored me but okayy). I messaged them again and again and nothing. I even send a report at Tumblr Security, complaing that the support team is ignoring me. I send that from a different email (in case the email tied to my blog was indeed blocked) and i did get a reply from a dude named Doug, saying i should email tumblr security again but from the email connected to my blog. I was so happy when i got that response, i thought Doug was my hero but sike, i couldnt message Tumblr Security from my email and when i told Doug he ignored me.

After about 50 emails from me and some friends who messaged tumblr about me (and got ignored just like me) i had lost all hope, i stopped messaging the support team and my plan was to message them again after ½ weeks when they would have forgotten about me and how they were ignoring me and maybe someone would reply to me by accident lmao (i didnt really believe that would work but i wasnt gonna go away without an explanation). But i was rly convinced i wouldnt get my blog back so i made a new blog a few days ago and saved the 3 good URLs i could use for my new blog. 

That was until today. Today i woke up thinking i will finally start my new blog and i was thinking of ways to track all the gifs i posted on chanshine and reblog them so i had them on my new blog etc etc. Later at work i decided to message tumblr one more time (before i gave them a break and started my plan from above) and that email was so ridiculous lmao i srly send them this: “hello, its me your sad girl Mary. I just want to ask a lil question from the lovely support team. Will i ever get my blog back or should i just make a new one lmao”. I didn’t think anyone would reply tbh, i was ready to get ignored but after some hours, when i got home i checked my email one last time and saw that they did ignore that message BUT! they replied to the one they send me 23 fucking days ago! Their reply was very simple “Hello, Thanks for letting us know. We’ve restored full access to your account.” and tbh i wont even ask for an explanation, they might suspend me for good fdjkdfjkdf

After i saw this email i freaked out, opened tumblr and saw that i had messages (before i couldnt open the messages cause my blog “didnt exist”) and i saw that i can make posts and find my blog and url and all dfkjdfjk

So yeah, thats all it, thats what happened and after living all of that i got a few last things to say:

1) DELETE ALL YOUR SAVED URLS I DONT CARE HOW CUTE OR RARE THEY ARE IF YOU DONT USE THEM DELETE THEM ALL DFKJDFKJDF (or at least reblog smth on them from time to time so they arent completely empty)

2) The Tumblr Support Team is a joke, i don’t know what they were doing all these days, i literally informed them i deleted all the URLs on the same day they suspended me and they have done absolutely nothing. So try your best to never end up needing the Support Teams help cause you aint gonna get it.

3) I think my suspension (more like, tumblr checking my blog) came after an american dude claimed my olympics gifs cause that literally happened on the same night so yeah, be careful of not giffing stuff that “Jonathan Cheban” thinks he owns or he’s gonna claim them and make tumblr delete them

[fureniku]

The return of my blog or something idk

Looks like in my last blog I said I’d not post my semi-private stuff here, only to a private blog.

Honestly, I can’t remember the name of the private blog; let alone the login/password. I think I only made one post there, to zero followers, and kind of lost the point of doing it. So fuck it, lets just go back to being here.

Days since last post: 614 Todays date: 30th September 2019 Start time: 20:39

Well, I guess we have some catching up to do.

I don’t know how many people on here were following me before. So, I guess I’ll start with a sum-up. My previous blog was just me ranting about anxiety/depression related things. It was a good platform for me to vent my thoughts without real life friends knowing; I had a few RL friends who followed it which was great as they could give me some support, but most of them didn’t know about the blog, which was also great as they then didn’t know a side of me I’d generally prefer to keep private. That blog was deleted in early January 2018, when the drummer from my then-band found it. I had made some comments about my frustrations in the band which were true, and I stand by them - but naturally it caused drama. I deleted the account, and instantly regretted it - I only had maybe 50 followers, but now I have two, so yeah.  Life since then has been... chaotic. Not specifically in a bad way, just a lot of things happened. When the blog ended I was; - Single - Playing guitar in a band - Working a dead-end job in a Warehouse - Had no ambition/drive to progress life

Three of those things have since changed; I’m still single (not for lack of trying but whatevs). I guess I’ll cover a timeline? Jan 2018: I deleted my old blog, and made this one, and a second one with a more secretive/anon name. I made a couple of posts on each, then abandoned it. Instead, I started relying mostly on just one friend to help me. May 2018: I got a new job, working for a games developer. It literally changed my life. Anxiety/depression started to clear up a lot, things just generally improved. June/July-ish 2018: I left my band. There was an argument about the fact another band was using our space for free, after we had offered it to them at a split rate and they declined. I instigated the argument, other members didn’t see eye to eye with me, so I quit. It was a final nail in the coffin kind of thing, but it was certainly the healthy thing to do. The whole situation had been kind of toxic for a little while, but I now get on just fine with all of them - I think if I had stayed much longer, that might not be the case. Our vocalist left very shortly after me as well - I don’t know the reasons why, but it seems the terms were... less happy.

September 2018: I started taking Japanese classes. Met a girl, had a crush on her for a bit, it didn’t go anywhere as usual. No biggie.

December 2018: Depression came back a bit, as it always does around then. Not much I can do about it so I just power through.

February 2019: I got made redundant from work. I was cool with it, I could see it coming for a while and there was like 12 other people too, my boss had fought hard to keep me but the game wasn’t doing so well, so I totally get it. I got a nice redundancy pay (which they by no means had to give me, so I’m super grateful). I applied for a job with another studio; quite a big one called Jagex. They were far from me so it would’ve involved moving and stuff, so quite scary. I made it to the final stages, but didn’t get it.

I now had a fair lump of cash (I had been saving for a house anyway), but not quite sure what to do with it. Followers of my previous blog can probably guess what I decided to spend it on...

April 2019: I went back to Japan! My mental-health-reset trip mark 2. I spent about two and a half weeks there (despite fucking up and accidentally buying a ticket to return mid-may... whoops). I got detained in China on my way home too but that’s a whole other story (it was all sorted and fine in the end).

While in Japan, I had time to clear my head and think. I decided I wanted to go back to university, so started thinking about how that would work. Here in the UK, we get a student loan to pay for university. It’s a bit complicated, but the way it works is you get your course length plus one year of funding. The day you set foot on campus, you use one year of funding. Now, I had already been to university previously - I studied music production. Totally dead industry, I dropped out about three weeks into my second year. That meant, I only had course length minus one year’s funding left available. So I have to pay the first year of university myself. At a cool £9,250.

My dad agreed to pay one term, so one third of that. I managed to save up another terms worth by working over the summer. I’m sat in my uni dorm right now, still not quite sure how I’ll pay for the third term... but I’ve got 6 months to figure that one out.

May 2019: I returned to my original job, back in the warehouse. Picking and packing sacks of bird food, so much fun. My mental health naturally slipped again, although everyone was really friendly to me while before it was kinda like I didn’t exist, so that was nice.

Around this time, I also joined an Overwatch team. It was a pretty big team with maybe 14-15 members, it was cool to make some new friends. Except one guy, was a dick. This OW stuff is like a whole side story from hereon... Anyway, I said to my squad leader (We’ll call her SN) that this guy is a dick. She said ok and she’d go talk to him. She said do you agree you’re being a dick, he said no. She said do you acknowledge one of the squad members thinks you’re being a dick? He said no again. Some other stuff I don’t know happened, and he got kicked off the team. He turned a load of people against her, caused loads of drama, and everyone blamed her when it was 100% my fault. So that was fun. The only reason I didn’t leave the team right then is because if I had, the entire drama would’ve been for nothing.

June 2019: My old boss who didn’t work there appeared at the end of may. I have a job for you. Ominous... but ok. Turns out, there was a new system being implemented on another contract. As I had experience with QA, and had done some IT stuff for them before, they wanted me to help with the testing and implementation. It was a job that would test my brain, while requiring little physical work - it was perfect for me. I really enjoyed it. It was supposed to be a four week thing, but we found lots of niggly little problems in the system... as far as I know, it’s actually only just gone live - but may have been delayed further.

While working up there, obviously there was downtime while waiting for fixes to be implemented. “What, you want this label a different size? oof, that’s gonna take about three weeks”. However, I got to stay in the office, doing odd jobs and stuff. One of the “odd jobs” ended up being a full on Android app, that my boss and me developed together. It was super fun to work on and really rewarding. That was worked on on-and-off between June and August.

July 2019: an interesting month. There was a major incident at work where a shelf holding very heavy metal shit stirrers collapsed. (The contract was a water treatment etc company, who provide all the clean water and water recycling for my local area. The things on the shelf literally stirred shit.) No one was hurt but it was a lot of drama, which was kind of entertaining to me as I was totally bunking off for the whole week where it happened. Not just the occasionally check Facebook on your phone at work kind of bunking off; I literally just messed about on Discord and worked on Minecraft mods for about two weeks straight. They had given me quite a big project to do, I automated the process... gg ez.

Around this time, the game I had been a part of before was to be officially cancelled. My old work invited me down to the studio to be a part of the formal funeral for the game, which was a big honour. I even got to fly the sky-whale which was awesome. It was bittersweet though, as the game meant a lot to me and had literally changed my life.

August 2019: haaaaaa august was a meme. I’d gotten kinda close with a girl (we’ll call her AP) in my Overwatch team. Like, we’d arranged to meet up at the end of August anyway but yeah, she was the first crush in a long time who actually knew I liked her. And she had certainly implied she felt the same way... like she’d been sending lots of hearts and stuff and talking to me 24/7, tagging me in “X has to take you on a date to Y place” memes and so on.  Anyways, so SN had apparently picked up on the fact I liked her, and started getting super pissy with me. I was pretty good friends with SN and we got on well, but in August she suddenly started getting crazy angry with me over tiny things. It all came to a head when I let AP kill me in a game (long story). Turns out, SN was like in love with me... despite breaking up with her boyfriend of over a year like 2 days before this conversation. So yeah, she told me to fuck off and that was that, she left the team etc, which thanks to chain of command meant that I was then in charge. fun. 

Anyways, get to the end of August, and I was due to meet AP. We met up, it was pretty cool. We hung out at a gaming festival, then suddenly like half way through she was like “lets split up for a bit” and I was like ........ok thats weird but alright. We didn’t meet up again until literally when she had like 2 mins to go, but it seems like she had a lot more fun without me being there. Clearly I’d done some major fuckup, which I still don’t actually know what it was. I had an anxiety attack before I even reached my car... and not a little one either. It’s quite possibly the biggest anxiety attack I’ve ever had, I barely made it to my car before having a total meltdown. It was the first one I’d had for about a year and it hit hard. It took me about 30 mins to calm down, then I headed home. 

I messaged her that night and asked her what happened, and she replied with “oh I never said I liked you”. It hurt a lot, like I’d been totally lead on. But hey whatever, that’s my life in a nutshell right? “Oh you want this happiness? this happiness right infront of you? HA nah”.  She said in the same message that I “seemed cool” and she’d like to hang out again sometime. But literally within a week she was clearly interested in another guy, so yeah whatever. We’re still friends and play games from time to time but I know she likes this other guy, so yeah. I still like her but whatever, not much I can do about it.

Work was a meme as well. I got taken off the fun and interesting projects to do paperwork. Literally, my job was to scan 35,000 documents because they couldn’t find a couple of bits of information. I suggested much better and more efficient ways, but the boss of the contract was like “no thats bad do it this old fashioned way we don’t want any fancy apps or anything” (I had suggested a spreadsheet or database). It took me about 3 weeks of just standing by a scanner which would jam up every 15-20 sheets in. It was mental health hell, especially in the last week after all the AP stuff had happened.

September 2019: I had one week left at work. I finished the hellish scanning project on Monday afternoon. “Oh as a thanks for your massive hard work we’ll make sure to find you things to do for the rest of the week” No it’s fine, I’m happy to just finish a few days early so I have more time to prep for uni. “No no no, we’ll find you stuff to do” They did not find stuff for me to do. I literally sat there, with nothing to do bar a few odd jobs “hey can you fix this printer”, for four days. It was incredibly mind-numbingly dull. The only thing ticking me over was “hey, maybe they wanna give me a card on my last day or something to say good luck and bye and thanks for doing this literal £20/hr job for half that because you’re agency staff”. But nah, a few people said cya later, but a lot forgot I was leaving entirely. So that was a fun way to finish what had mostly been a decent job...

I then had two weeks of freedom, before moving to university on the 21st. I was nervous; who wouldn’t be? but it was cool. I finally moved out of my house, and had a place where I could make a lot of new friends (LOL). On the day I moved in, I met up with someone I’d spoken to online a few times who was living in the same building as me, we’ll call her S. She was nice, we got on well, and it was kinda cool to have a friend who was a girl that for once I didn’t have a crush on (coz I’m still totally hung up on AP). We ended up going to a club in the evening which I’ve literally never done in my life, and she brought me out of my comfort zone a lot. She was great for my anxiety and really helpful. We’ve hung out a few times since, but I kind of feel like I was just a “filler friend” until she made new friends. She actually totally blanked me when I walked past her today, so that was fun. She has my Switch atm too coz I let her borrow it, I’ll probably just get it back later this week and then be done, its like I put in all the effort to be a friend and she couldn’t care less.

Anyways, so as I said I moved in on Saturday. I met one of my four flatmates on Saturday and another on Sunday, but hadn’t seen the other two at all. It gets to Thursday and I’m tidying the kitchen a bit, my mum’s about to pick me up so I can move in my last few things, and one of the mystery people appeared - she hadn’t actually moved in yet and was just unloading her stuff. She had loads of kitchen stuff, seems she’s really into her cooking.

Anyway, mum picks me up, we go to get my stuff, then we’re driving back, and my phone starts blowing up. S: Are you in? Me: No, why? S: Your building’s on fire. Me: lol nice joke S: no really *picture of everyone evacuated with fire engines outside* S: It’s your floor too, idk which flat. I wasn’t far out, so found her outside when I arrived. I’ve seen people going in, not being funny but one of them looked like [one of my flatmates]. Shit.  A few mins later, the girl who had just moved in came over. You know it’s our flat right? Shit. Turns out the extractor fan on the cooker malfunctioned. I won’t share the video itself coz one of my flatmates is in it, but yeah it just started spraying molten something all over the hob and surfaces. (They said it looked like molten metal, and they were there - but I don’t see how it would’ve gotten hot enough to melt any metal. My best guess is fat that hadn’t been cleaned from last years tenants)

So yeah, we got moved into another flat. The open cupboard right there was my one - I rescued my custom cup from it that the games studio had given me. It’s no good to drink from now, but it still looks ok so I’m glad I can keep it for decorative purposes at least. The rest of the food is waste, and I have to wait for the plates etc to get cleaned. I’m currently eating ready meals out of their cook-in containers, because I don’t have any plates, and only one fork and spoon. I bought some paper plates today though so I’ll use those from tomorrow, but I still don’t have any saucepans or anything.

I wasn’t around when they sorted out the replacement accommodation. Because of that, the other four from my flat went to the same new flat together, with one new person. I was put into a different flat which also had one other person in, my building manager assured me they’re “really nice”. I asked if they knew I was coming, BM said “they’ll know when we get up there :)”. That was Thursday, today is Monday. The only food in the kitchen is mine, I’ve not seen anyone. I’m 100% positive I’m alone in this flat.

And so yeah, that’s my uni experience so far. I had my first lectures today, it was cool because I already knew all the stuff so I got to feel smart (I’m doing computer games programming, and it was mostly about design docs which I read through extensively while working at the studio, so I knew exactly how they worked etc). But, I didn’t really make any friends. I kind of joined in with a couple of other people in each lecture, but it seems like they weren’t really interested, so whatever. I had an anime society taster this evening as well, and it was when I was on my way to that that S blanked me and I just got hit my like a wave of loneliness. I didn’t make any friends at the anime society, so I kinda just gave up and came back to my flat, and started writing this. As I was getting the fire picture from above though someone asked me if I wanted to hang out, so guess I’ll see how that goes. Not holding out much hope tbh and I’m at the point of becoming a full on hermit... I mean hey, at least I’d get a perfect score on my degree if I just focus on that and eliminate any social aspect right?

Finish time: 21:38 Length:  3,302 words/16,759 characters

[5hfanfiction]

(Camila/You) - Phantasm - Chapter 1

“Here you go. Have a good night.”

I smiled at the older woman and watched her children practically pull her out the door. They were probably excited about the chocolates she bought and for sure they were going to eat them in the car. I watched her drive away before turning to a door opening on the far side of the store. Stuart made his way towards the register and placed two cans of Coke on the counter in front of me.

“Good  job today, Y/N,” he said, making his way to the side and crouching so he could pass through the small space to get to the inside of the register. “You can go home now, I can handle the night shift alone.”

“Are you sure?” I asked him. But I already sat at the counter and slid backward, landing smoothly on the tiled floor on the other side.

Stuart was my boss and owner of this small convenience store in our even smaller town. And the thing with small towns was that everybody practically grew up with each other. Three years ago, when I just finished high school, I remembered him telling me not to let this small town get to me. And that I should strive to go outside of this shithole place. Make a name for myself and take my family to a better life.

I was full of dreams back then. Now, I just knew better.

He packed me a few groceries and included the two cans of Coke he took earlier. He handed the bag to me with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. This man was like a father to me and I was concerned about his well-being.

“Are you okay, Stuart?”

He looked at me and I was surprised by the pain I saw in his eyes. “You’ll just think I’m meddling,” he uttered.

“No, no, tell me.”

“I hate that you’re here.”

Now I know why he was cautious of me thinking he was meddling. Of course, I perfectly knew what he meant. It wasn’t that he literally hated my presence. But that he hated the reasons why I was anchored to this town.

I was the one who broke the silence. “Goodnight, Stuart.”

“Careful on your way home.”

I made my way outside with the shopping bag clutched tightly to my chest. I wondered what made Stuart say that to me after all this time. Since I asked him if I could work at his store, he’s never once mentioned my failed attempt at leaving this town. I tried, I really did. I went to college and tried to pursue music, but after one year, I had to stop.

That was when my dad left my mom.

He just packed his bags and left without even a second thought about his own children. I put up a brave front that day and didn’t cry. I instilled it in me to be strong for both my mother and sister. After all, it was only us left. So I stopped my studies and went home so I could help my mom. She kept telling me it was okay, that she could still support me, but I knew better. I had to put my dream on hold for her.

I watched the stoplight turn red before I crossed the street. There really wasn’t any car this time of night but I didn’t feel like going home. I knew my mom wasn’t going to be there and my sister would probably be sleeping by now so I’d be all alone.

I was just tired of being alone.

After a few more minutes, I arrived at our front door. Fortunately, my dad had the decency not to kick us out of the house when he left. But there wasn’t any consolation at all since the house was small, old, and beat up. I mean a two magnitude earthquake could probably make the whole house crumble in on itself.

But it was a roof above us.

As I walked into the living room, I knew I was right. The whole first floor was dark with only a dim light on in the kitchen. I walked over to the refrigerator and saw a note my mom left us. She was out on her job again. Honestly, she was seldom home. And I don’t blame her because she was practically working three part time jobs simultaneously just so we could live day-to-day. I felt really bad for her but at least by working for Stuart, I was helping her with the expenses.

After re-heating a day old lasagna in the microwave, I made my way up the stairs and into my sister’s room. I opened the door slowly, careful not to wake her up. Peering into her room, I saw her sleeping quietly under her covers with Penny, her stuffed penguin, cradled in her arms. She was only eight years old but she was already a lot more mature than me.

I remembered when my father left, she was only six years old and I was afraid she wouldn’t understand why he was leaving. But both mom and I were surprised when she didn’t cry at all. I still remembered what she said when I asked her about it.

“Dad just needs some time for himself. He’ll be back.”

I don’t know about the last part but, maybe she was right about the first one.

I slowly closed the door and made my may to my own room. There was nothing for me to do so I grabbed my guitar from the corner and plopped down on my bed. I closed my eyes and just strummed a random melody. Memories of my high school days spent writing songs resurfaced from my mind. Sometimes I would even skip lunch just because I had an idea for a song that I needed to get on paper before I forgot. I convinced myself that songwriting was what I wanted to do in the future. My songs would be sung by famous singers and everyone would be clamoring for me to write songs for them. But that was a distant dream now.

Sighing, I placed the guitar beside me on the bed and grabbed my phone. My phone was more for apps than messaging, really. I mean I literally had no friends to text. I went to the App store and scrolled through the free apps. I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular, I just wanted to distract myself for a few hours.

I yawned in my hand and was about to put down my phone when I saw a peculiar app. Its name was ‘Phantasm’ and had no review nor downloads. Poor app, no one cares about you. Like me. I pressed the app and read the description. But there was only one line written on it.

I can make all your dreams come true.

Now that sounded like a porn tag. But it was still weird because the icon was just a red P with a black background. Of course that could stand for porn but… why hasn’t anyone downloaded it then? I debated whether to download it or not. It was definitely weird but if I don’t like it then I could just delete it and be done with it, right?

Finally, after about two minutes, I decided that there was no harm in trying it out. The moment I saw it downloading, I placed my phone on the nightstand and let my eyes drift off to sleep. I wonder when my life would change, or if it ever would. Well there’s no point thinking about it now.

Maybe tomorrow would be better.

-//-//-//-//-//-

My eyes slowly fluttered open when sunlight hit my face from the window. I really didn’t want to get up yet but—wait what time was it? I fumbled around the nightstand for my phone and pulled it to my face once I had it. I was expecting to see the time but I saw a pop-up on the screen instead. Careful not to let the guitar beside me fall on the floor, I sat up on my bed and wiped my eyes.

Finally, I started to focus on my phone. The background was dark red and there was a pop-up window in front of it.

Do you agree with the terms and conditions?

At first, I was confused but then I remembered the app I downloaded last night. Was this the Phantasm app? I pressed the agree button without looking at the terms and conditions. I mean, who reads those things anyway?

The moment I pressed the button, however, my phone suddenly shut down. Did I forget to charge my phone? I was trying to find my charger in the drawer when I felt my phone vibrate. I breathed a small sigh of relief when I saw the apple logo on the screen. Good, it must’ve just restarted. I really couldn’t afford a new phone so I needed to take care of this one.

I was expecting my lock screen to show after the logo but what appeared was not what I expected at all.

“Hi!”

“Oh what the fuck!” I cried out, throwing my phone on the floor. My sudden movement caused my guitar to fall on the ground which causes me to fall off the bed too.

I crawled back to the wall and clutched my chest. My heart was racing and I was running out of breath. What the fuck was that? I was staring at the screen, waiting for the time to show when a woman’s face suddenly appeared and greeted me.

I didn’t dare move from where I was. Who the hell was that woman? And why the fuck was she on my phone?

After a few minutes of trying to get myself to calm down, I finally had the courage to stand up. I could see the outline of my phone on the far end of my room but I couldn’t see if the woman was still there or not. I slowly made my way around my bed until I was only a few feet from my phone. I carefully peered forward to look at the screen and saw that it was back to my lock screen.

Oh, thank god.

I sighed and walked over to my phone.

“Boo!”

“Shit!” My butt finds the floor again and I can hear a woman laughing. I was closer to my phone now and I could see the same woman was still inside of it.

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my phone?” I shouted. She has to be some kind of phone demon right? Can you even exorcise phones?

She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at me. “Aren’t you going to pick me up? I can only see the ceiling, you know.”

It took me a few seconds before my shaking hand finally grabbed my phone. I made sure to give sufficient distance between her and my face.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my phone?” I repeated.

“Hi! I’m Phantasm,” she replied, smiling. “And I’m here to make all your dreams come true.”

Well that answered one thing. So this really was the app I downloaded last night. But what is she saying about making my dreams come true?

“What are you talking about?”

“Simple, I’m here to grant you wishes.”

Wait, hold up. I have a fucking genie on my phone? This was too weird and I needed to sit down. I made my way back to my bed and sat on the edge. I looked at the girl who called herself Phantasm. Her hair was dark brown and she had brown eyes. She was smiling at me and I could see a slight dimple on her right cheek. She seemed friendly and not really a demon that needed to be exorcised

“You’re a genie?”

She pouted. “Somewhat.”

I shook my head because I still couldn’t believe a thing she was telling me. “Are you like an upgraded Siri?”

“Oh please,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I told you, I’m Phantasm.”

“This is insane. You’re insane. And I’m probably insane too.”

“Didn’t you read the description of my app?”

“I did! I thought you were a porn app!”

“I’m offended.”

This must be like an experimental A.I. program that got uploaded in the app store. Yeah, that’s probably it. Maybe it’s in beta and the makers are trying to get some suggestions and that’s why no one has downloaded it. Yeah, that’s gotta be it. It makes no sense at all but it makes much more sense than having a genie in my phone.

“So, what’s your wish?”

“Leave my phone!”

“No can do, dear. Try again,” she said, and this time she was grinning.

“There is no such thing as genies or fairies or whatever thing that grants wishes, okay? That’s just not possible.”

She wagged her finger at me. “I beg to differ. How do you explain why I’m here?”

“I can’t. I really can’t, okay? I just want you to leave me and my phone alone.”

For the first time since I talked to her, the amusement on her face was replaced by impatience. She was biting her lower lip while staring at me. Somehow, her stare was really, really intimidating.

“Just wish for something.” I opened my mouth but she held up her finger to stop me before I could say anything. “You’ve got nothing to lose after all.”

She had a point there. I have nothing to lose if she’s lying. And besides, if I humor her, she might be willing to go and leave me alone.

“Fine, I’ll make a wish.”

She immediately perked up and clasped her hands together. “Great! Alright, make it good, this is your only free wish.”

I wasn’t taking this seriously so I just wished for the first thing I thought of. “I wish I was rich.”

“Hmm, a classic wish, I like it. Now, just for clarification, where would your riches come from?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Well, I mean, I can’t just suddenly give you a billion dollars out of nowhere. There’s gotta be some way for you to get the money. Preferably legal.”

“Fine,” I said, waving away what she said. “I wish I was a rich Grammy award winning singer and songwriter.”

Her lips slowly formed to a smile. “Perfect wish. I hope you’re ready for your dreams to come true, Y/N.”

Wait, how did she know my name?

“How—”

“Wish granted.”

And just like that, she was gone. The app closed by itself and I was left staring at my home screen. Okay, I’m seriously freaked out now. I am getting rid of this damn app. The first thing I did was delete it.

Well, I tried to.

Every time I tried to delete it, an error would pop-up. I tried it over and over again but to no avail. Next I tried to open the app again but after I saw the red background Phantasm was standing in front of earlier, the app would just force close all the damn time. After ten minutes, I finally gave up trying to do anything with the app. This has to be some kind of dream right? I mean, I’m still at my old, beat-up house and I still didn’t have any Grammy on my shelf.

“Y/N? Are you here?”

I heard my mom call for me and I quickly hopped off the bed and walked to the door. Before I could, I glanced back at the phone on top of my bed and debated whether I should take it with me or not.

“Y/N?”

“Coming, mom!” I answered.

I ran downstairs and pushed all thoughts of Phantasm out of my head.

-//-//-//-//-//-

I waved at Sam as soon as I saw her out the door.

The moment she saw me, she immediately ran towards me and engulfed me in a hug. “Hey, little sis! How was school?”

“Great, Y/N!” she said excitedly.

“Alright,” I said, opening the car door. “You can tell me all about it on our way home.”

In five minutes, we were cruising on the road and listening to the radio. I asked Stuart earlier if I could borrow his car so I could pick up my sister from school. He agreed to cover for my shift so I could spend some time with Sam. It was about time too since whenever I got off of work, she was already asleep. My mom and I were the only ones she had left and I didn’t want her to feel alone like me.

“Y/N, Y/N!” she called out.

“What is it? What’s got you so happy?”

“Brandy had this extra ticket for Fifth Harmony’s concert next week and she asked me to come with her! Can I, huh? Can I, please?” she asked, grabbing my hand away from the clutch.

“Woah, Sam, easy there,” I said. I glanced at her and saw her face practically pleading for me to let her go. She was my baby sister after all and I would always have a sweet spot for her.

“It’s okay with me, Sam. But we still have to ask mom about it, okay?”

“Yes! Thanks, Y/N!” She hugged me and I almost swerved to the sidewalk. “Oops! Sorry.”

“Easy there, sis. We want you to live long enough for that concert.” We both laughed and I glanced at her again. I hope she could never know pain or hurt. Her smile was the only thing that made me happy these days. I’ll protect her as much as I could, that much I’m sure.

A sax tune suddenly played from the radio and Sam starts bouncing up and down her seat. I was just about to ask her why she was making the seat a trampoline when she suddenly cried out. “It’s Fifth Harmony!”

I laughed at her hysteria. “If you’re like this on hearing their song on the radio, then I’m pretty sure you’ll pass out when you meet them.”

She rummaged through her bag and pulled out her notebook. The cover was full of pictures of Fifth Harmony. I found myself laughing again as she waved her notebook around as the girls sang on the radio.

Once the song was over, Sam finally calmed down but I was still laughing. Her hair was messy from all the head banging and I saw some loose pages sticking out from her notebook.

“There’s five of them, right?” I asked.

“Yes!” she answered enthusiastically. “All of them are awesome.”

“Who’s your favorite?”

“Her,” she said, pointing at a photo on her notebook. I stopped the car at a stoplight and looked at the girl she was pointing to. “She’s Camila.”

I took the notebook from Sam and focused my attention on Camila. She was really pretty. Granted, her face was a little bit blurry but her smile was still clear as day. I traced her outline with my thumb. I wonder what it would take for someone like me to be with someone like her. She was probably rich, sophisticated, smart, unlike me. There was probably no chance for someone of her status to ever consider someone like me.

“Y/N, the light’s green.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed. I returned Sam’s notebook to her and put the car in drive. We drove in silence after that. I glanced at my sister and saw her smiling while she looked outside the window. I’m sure she was thinking about seeing her idols for the first time. There was nothing I wanted more for her than to have the future that was taken from me. That’s why I needed to be strong for my sister. I wouldn’t let her have the same fate as me.

After all, the time for me to change my life has already passed. But for her, maybe, it’s not too late.

I dropped Sam off at home before I returned to the store. It was another monotonous day and I couldn’t help but think about the fact that I might be working here forever. I mean, Stuart is nice and all but was being a cashier the highest point in my life?

My shift finally ended and I made my way back to my house. It was quiet again and I didn’t need to call out to know my mom wasn’t home. She looked horrible recently and I knew it was because of her lack of sleep. But no matter what I tell her, she wouldn’t listen to me and just says she can handle herself. If Sam and I lose her—I don’t know what we’ll do.

I placed the can of Coke Stuart gave me on the nightstand and crashed on my bed. I felt something poke me through my shirt so I pull it out from under me.

It was my phone.

Oh shit, I forgot about what happened that morning. I unlocked my phone and stared at the Phantasm app in front of me. I tried deleting it again.

Nothing.

I tried opening it again.

Still nothing.

I sighed and placed my phone beside my Coke. The day was almost over, and yet, I was still my normal self. Nothing’s changed. Maybe Phantasm really was a joke. I was surprised at the disappointment I felt. Did I really want the wish to work? Well, there was no harm in that, right? Who wouldn’t want their dreams to come true? But in the end, I had to face reality. Who I am now, is who I will be until I die. I closed my eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep.

At least in my dreams, all my wishes could come true.

-//-//-//-//-//-

“Y/N.”

I groaned at the sound of my name. I didn’t want to get up yet, I’m sure it was still early. I mean, the sun still hasn’t hit my face so it mustn’t be up yet. And if the sun is not yet up then I am not getting up.

“Y/N.”

The voice sounded strangely familiar. I yawned and decided that it was impossible for me to go back to sleep anymore. I slowly sat up and rubbed the sleep off my eyes. The first thing I saw was a flat screen TV.

Wait, I didn’t have a TV, let alone a flat screen.

Slowly, my eyes began to focus on the other things inside the room. There was a table on the corner with bottles of wine lined up. On the right side of the bed was a big Jacuzzi that could probably fit ten people.

This… this wasn’t my room.

I quickly stood up and pressed my back to the wall. Where the fuck was I? I was beginning to panic and my heart was starting to race again. Was I kidnapped while I was asleep? Wait no, kidnappers can’t afford this set-up. And my family had no money!

My eyes quickly scanned the room for anything familiar but the only thing I recognized was my phone. I grabbed it and slowly made my way to the balcony. The moment I opened the doors, I was immediately assaulted by a flurry of sounds. When I looked down and saw cars and people littering about the street, I immediately realized I wasn’t in my small town anymore. This was the big city.

But why was I here?

“Y/N.”

There was that voice again. I looked around and tried to see if I wasn’t alone in the room when a memory suddenly hit me. I raised the phone to my face and was met with the face of a familiar woman.

“You did this,” I spat in accusation.

Phantasm raised both her hands in mock surrender. “Guilty as charged, your honor.”

“Where am I?”

“You’re in California.”

My eyes widened in surprise. Going to California on my own was only a dream for someone from a small town like me. I walked inside the room and sat on the bed. “Why am I in California?”

“Why? Well because you’re a Grammy award winning singer and songwriter, of course.” I could practically hear the amusement dripping on her tone.

Just then, the memory of the night I met her came barreling back to my mind. “Get out of my phone I need to google something.”

“So cranky today,” she complained, but ultimately bringing up the web browser. I immediately googled my name and watched as millions of hits appeared. I opened my Wikipedia page and felt my jaw drop as I read my credentials.

I have one album, my debut album, which was officially Diamond certified in the US.

And I won three fucking Grammys.

“Is three enough, I wonder,” I heard Phantasm say. “Five would be overkill I think and one is too cheap so somewhere in the middle sounds a lot more plausible.”

I ignored her for now and checked the songs on my debut album. The songs were all songs I’ve written throughout the years. I was credited as a writer in all songs. This… has to be a dream, right?

“Is this a joke? I’m going to wake up and this would be a dream, right?”

Phantasm smiled at me. “This is your new life now, Y/N. Get used to it.”

A sudden knock on the door made my heart jump. I tried to calm down before I walked over to the door and slowly opened it. A well-dressed man with a calculated smile was standing outside.

“Uh, can I help you?”

“I’m here to tell you that your ride’s waiting for you outside.”

My ride? “Yeah… thanks.”

I closed the door before he could say anything else. Once the door was closed, I just stood there and took in what was going on. My dreams suddenly became a reality. All because of that one app I downloaded. I pinched my cheek just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. And if the pain I felt was any indication, I was really not dreaming.

“You know, you should get ready, Y/N,” quipped Phantasm. “You don’t want to be late, I have a surprise for you.” She winked at me before the app force closes again. I grabbed some clothes from the closet, ones that I was worried weren’t mine because I normally couldn’t afford the brands I was wearing. After putting on what I hoped was an acceptable outfit, I made my way to the lobby and saw two burly men waiting at the entrance.

Once they saw me, they immediately led me outside towards a black SUV and locked the door behind me. One of them climbed on the passenger’s seat while the other one went to another SUV that followed behind us. As our car traveled the streets of California, I was still reeling from the fact that my wish actually came true. I wasn’t a cashier at a store anymore. I was finally someone relevant.

Someone that mattered.

Our car stopped at an intersection and I spotted a group of teenagers talking outside a store. I wonder if they’ll recognize me. I rolled down my windows and called out to them. I saw their eyes widen and rush to our car. I barely got the window up when they started pounding at the window, trying to get to me.

“Oh my god,” I uttered before the car finally lurched forward and the girls were left chasing after us in the distance. A huge smile plastered itself on my face. I really am famous. My songs were finally getting the recognition they deserved.

After about ten minutes, we finally arrived at our destination. I got down from the car and entered a recording studio. I was already familiar with them since my friends and I went to one when we were freshmen in college. An assistant motioned for me to follow her but I excused myself to go to the bathroom before I did. Once inside, I immediately locked myself in one of the stalls and pulled out my phone.

“Phantasm, I need to talk to you.”

The app suddenly glows and Phantasm appeared afterwards. “Enjoying being a superstar?”

“My wish came true,” I said under my breath.

“Of course it did,” she said, looking offended. “Did you think I was fake?”

“No, no, I didn’t,” I assured her. “This is just really… surprising.”

She nodded. “I understand. But just to give you an idea of what’s happening here, you’ve been given the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m here to grant you any wish you want. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.” I had no doubt she could do just that. But this has to have some sort of repercussion, right? “You can wish for a puppy. You can wish for world domination. You can wish for anything… even love.”

I opened my mouth to ask her about the catch but a knock on the door stopped me. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“You know where to find me.” She winked before finally disappearing again. I apologized to the assistant and let her lead me to the studio. She opened the door for me and the moment I stepped inside, my eyes immediately land on the five girls seated on the couch.

The first one to greet me was an older man sitting with the girls. “Hi, Y/N! I’m so excited to work with you, I’m Julian, one of the producers. Let me tell you, Fifth Harmony and I were all surprised when you agreed to help us with this album.”

“It’s… not a problem,” I stammered. That’s why the girls seemed familiar, they were the band my sister was obsessing over. And I’m supposed to help them with their album? What has Phantasm gotten me into?

One of the girls walked over to me and gave me a hug. “It’s great that we’re going to be working with you. We’re all excited. I’m Normani.”

“I’m excited too.”

A smaller girl approached me and I hugged her as well. “We’re all big fans. I’m Ally.”

“Hi, Ally. Good to meet you.”

“It’s an honor,” I heard another girl say. Her face was unique and distinguished, probably Polynesian but I can’t be sure. “I’m Dinah,” she said, moving in to hug me. “Sorry, I’m hella nervous.”

“All good, Dinah, don’t worry about it,” I said laughing it off so she would feel less nervous.

I looked at the girl beside Dinah and the first thing I noticed were her green eyes. Her hair flowed smoothly down her shoulders. She was really beautiful but for some reason, I could sense her uneasiness.

“Hi,” I greeted.

“Hi,” she said, unsurely. “Sorry, I’m just a really, really big fan and I don’t usually fangirl but—” She stopped and bit her lower lip. I had to admit it was really sexy.

“No, it’s cute.” It was supposed to be an honest remark but I wasn’t expecting the blush that appeared on her cheeks. Nevertheless, she moved in to hug me.

“I’m Lauren.”

“Glad to meet you, Lauren.”

I was still looking at Lauren so I didn’t notice the girl moving in to hug me. “Hi!” I moved my hands to hug her back and strangely, I felt calm while holding her close to me. She smelled like strawberries for some reason and I was strangely attracted to her—I mean, it.

I was strangely attracted to it… not the girl… but the smell… of the girl.

Once she pulled away from me, I finally got a good look at her face. That’s when I realized that she was Camila, my sister’s favorite member of Fifth Harmony. I remembered looking at her face on Sam’s notebook but seeing her in real life can’t compare. Her eyes were beautiful pools of chocolate that perfectly complemented her face. Her smile was bright and genuine. Her hair fell in beautiful curls and for a second, I wanted to run my hands through them.

“I’m Camila.” Her voice dragged me back to reality and I smiled at her beautiful face.

“Happy to meet you, Camila.”

After the introductions, Julian headed a meeting about how the album was going to form under the next months. He told me what I was going to be doing and he did the same thing with Fifth Harmony. More than once though, I found my eyes travelling to the petite brunette seated on the sofa. She was listening intently on what Julian was saying so she probably hasn’t noticed I was staring at her. Before, I asked myself if someone like her would ever consider someone like me. But now that we were on equal footing, I had a chance now, right?

As fast as the thought appeared on my mind, I pushed it out. What was I thinking? I hardly knew the girl and now I was debating on whether I had a chance on Camila or not? But as my eyes found her figure again, I can’t help but remember what Phantasm told me earlier.

You can wish for anything…even love.

A/N: If you haven’t already, check out my finished Lauren/You entitled Just A Job. Okay so this is a girl/you and some of you might say I should finish the ten other fics I have posted here BUT this one has 25 chapters already written so I’m pretty sure I can finish it.

Anyway, follow me on Wattpad (@laurensguy) for faster updates and exclusive photos like what Phantasm looks like. Also news on other fics and author interaction. So love you guys, hope you support this one!

- Vince

[worksofphiction]

prompt#2(inspired from pinof)dan really likes being a gross bf& picking phil up and carrying him places and pulling things out of his reach bcz of the few inches he has on him& basically being really cheesy& annoying p &making p blush& giggle but one day he doesn't realize that p had been in a vbad mood and keeps teasing him till he bursts into tears& when d apologizes& tried tocalm him p simply puts his arms up silently asking to be carried& d just picks him up n rocks him,sorrys n sleepycuddls

Phil Lester and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

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Summary: Phil has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day and Dan makes it all better.Genre: Fluff, Hurt/ComfortWord Count: 3,398Reading Time: 00:12:33Disclaimer: Characters are works of fiction and no copyright infringement is intended. I do not own Dan or Phil and as far as I know, this never happened.

Dan Howell loved everything about his boyfriend. Absolutely everything. Phil was his perfect compliment and he wouldn’t trade his best friend, lover and second half for anybody in the world.

When Dan was getting to know Phil, he looked up to him. Both figuratively and literally. Phil used to have a couple inches on Dan and at the time it was perfect. They were the perfect height for those romantic kissing scenes that were in the movies, they fit together perfectly when snuggling in bed and they could hold hands with no strain on the other person. Ever since Dan went through his growth spurt at 20 however, he caught up to Phil. So much in fact, that he gained a couple inches and surpassed his boyfriend’s height. This was no problem. Now Dan would be the bigger spoon and when they kissed, Phil would angle his head up a little bit. It didn’t change their dynamic, it only made it better.

One of Dan’s favorite things about being taller than Phil was his ability to hold things just out of the other boy’s reach. This was a game that Dan liked to play a lot when they were lounging about. Dan would offer to grab something for Phil and then hold it above his head playfully, making Phil jump to grab it. Sometimes he would set things on the top shelf in their kitchen where Phil would have to ask Dan to lift him up to fetch whatever it was. Dan would always snicker behind Phil and right when Phil was about to grab the object, Dan would step back a couple steps and put it out of Phil’s reach once again. When he put Phil down after finally letting him grab the object, Phil would chase Dan down the hall with it, yelling about wanting to kill the younger boy.

But of course, he never did. Phil would just chase Dan to his room and they would collapse onto the bed together, giggling and heaving from their tiny bit of exercise. Dan would kiss Phil on the nose and tell him that he loved him, followed by a million more kisses on his cheeks. Phil would blush and turn his head to hide it, only causing Dan to squish his cheeks and kiss him sloppily on the mouth.

This was Dan’s favorite past time.

And things were perfect. They always had been.

That is until one afternoon. Dan was sitting in the lounge playing around on his phone and deleting apps that he didn’t use anymore when he saw the Pokemon Go app that had been collecting dust since his Farfetch’d quest. He chuckled a little as his thumb hovered over the little X in the corner that, if pressed, could delete the app and all its data in one go.

“Hey, Phil?!” Dan called, knowing that the other boy was just around the corner in the kitchen. Phil didn’t answer, so Dan used his voice and called louder. “Phil!”

“What what what?” Phil came in wearing two blackened oven gloves and a sour expression. Dan glanced at his flour covered self and shook his head, choosing to ignore the frazzled state his boyfriend was in.

“What are you doing today?” he asked casually as if Phil wasn’t smack dab in the middle of something.

“Um…well I was just about finished with my-”

“Great! Want to go on an adventure with me?” Dan interrupted, hearing just about finished and deciding that was enough. Phil answered with a skeptical look and he glanced back in the direction of the kitchen.

“Um…sure. What for?” Phil shifted on his feet.

“Well, Pokemon Go came out about a year ago now, right? I was just about to delete it but I was thinking we should give it one last horrah? You know…for old times sake?” Dan said all this in an enticing tone, so Phil wouldn’t be able to say no.

“You wanna film it?” Phil suggested, shrugging. That was all the confirmation Dan needed however and he quickly stood from his chair.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” He gave Phil a tiny kiss as he snatched on of Phil’s oven mitts.

“Hey!” Phil fought, running after Dan who was, as usual, holding it above Phil’s head. Phil jumped a couple times before being able to grab it, shoving it back on his arm and giving Dan a chuckle. Dan rewarded Phil with another kiss on the cheek as he ventured to his bedroom for something to wear. “Be ready in ten!”

“Can we make it 30?” Phil responded, his voice barely audible from where Dan was now.

“25!” Dan shouted as he locked himself in the bathroom to do his hair.

When Dan left his room so many minutes later, totally ready to go, he got a whiff of something super strong coming from the kitchen. He covered his nose with his sweater paw and grimaced.

“God, Phil. What is that smell?”

When Dan entered the lounge, he was greeted with Phil trying to tie his laces with a pout.

“I burned my cake.”

“You what?” Phil didn’t usually cook many sweets. Dan would know, the bought sweets were coming from their joint bank account. They were Phil’s weakness. Plus, neither of them could bake for shit.

“I was making a cake and it burned.” Dan noticed that Phil was having particular difficulty with his shoelaces, seeing as one was much much shorter than the other.

“Come on, Phil! We have to get going or we’ll lose daylight!” Dan tugged on his boyfriend’s arm, yanking him out the door. Phil sputtered a little but he eventually just tucked in close to Dan as they walked out of their apartment and into the real world. “I was thinking maybe we could get some dinner while we were out. What do you think?”

“Sure,” Phil answered, the idea seeming to spark interest in the other boy.

“What are you in the mood for then?” Dan asked, bumping his hand against Phil’s, this being the only way they could act close in public. It sucked sometimes not being out to everybody, but it was worth the privacy in their relationship.

“Maybe Chinese?” Phil suggested with a small smile on his lips. Dan knew that was his favorite. And he knew just the place to take him.

After walking a few blocks away from their place, Dan pulled out the camera and decided this would be a good place to start filming. He passed the camera to Phil and told him to start it up. This was a pretty common procedure and because the game was Dan’s idea, Phil would film him first.

“Dan…” Phil mumbled after messing with the buttons.

“Hm?” Dan was working on fixing his hair, not trying to look like a rat for the entire internet.

“The battery isn’t charged,” Phil said. “We didn’t charge it after the last time we used it.”

“What? Lemme see that.” Dan grabbed the recording device from Phil’s grasp and inspected the flashing light on the side. He sighed. “Fuck.”

“That’s okay. We don’t need to film today. We can just-”

“Weren’t you the last person to use it?” Dan turned to Phil, his eyes landing on a shocked expression painted on his boyfriend’s face.

“I mean, maybe…I don’t really reme-”

“Phil! You have to remember to charge it!” Dan whined as he bumped into Phil’s shoulder with his own. This happened every now and then, especially with their profession. Usually, they take it pretty light heartedly but Phil looked pretty guilty so Dan just dropped it and sighed, opening up his app and beginning to hunt for the little digital creatures without the audience. He might catch more without it anyway.

They were hunting for a few hours when Dan’s stomach started to growl. He consulted Phil and they decided that they should start heading for food. Luckily, they weren’t far from Phil’s favorite Chinese place and when they arrived, Phil reached for the door.

Except it didn’t open.

Because they were closed.

“What?!” Phil exclaimed, his whole body slumping. “They’re closed?”

“Aw man. I was looking forward to the dumplings as well!” Dan whined, a hefty sigh leaving his throat. He put his hands on his hips as he scoured the street for something else while Phil just stared painfully at the closed sign above his head. “Wanna do pizza instead?”

“I guess,” Phil responded, his voice quieter than anything now. Dan felt bad but there wasn’t much he could do about it now. He was hungry and they needed to eat something.

The pizza took thirty minutes to finally arrive to their table and in that time Dan had caught 15 Pokemon. Phil was clicking away on his phone with a bitter frown while Dan was mildly distracted. And once the pizza was placed in front of them, Dan excused himself to the bathroom to wash his hands without even noticing that the toppings were incorrect.

-

When Dan excused himself to the bathroom, Phil put his head in his hands. This had been the worst day that Phil Lester had had in a long time.

He woke up at 7:00am to an angry phone call from his brother, something about the website and a glitch in the system. He got up to take care of that and he stubbed his toe on the bathroom sink while he attempted to put his contacts in, but when he lost a contact in his eye, he decided to just go with glasses which were for some reason giving him a headache. He traveled into the living room where he messed around with some website settings to make his brother happy, ultimately curling up on the couch to catch a couple more ZZZ’s. When he woke up a couple hours later, all he wanted was some chocolate and luckily they had some chocolate cake hidden in the back of the pantry. Phil decided he would try to make it, however, he must have accidentally hit the oven’s temperature knob with his hip while he was mixing because it got way too hot and the entire thing burned in minutes. He stained his corgi shirt with chocolate batter and then while he was trying to tie his shoe, his lace snapped and he couldn’t get a proper loop. He just tucked the lace in which had fallen out thrice since, causing him to trip. Their camera battery was dead and it was probably his fault, his favorite Chinese place was closed, his brother sent him another angry email and now their pizza had come with the wrong ingredients and he couldn’t find the energy to care.

Obviously, none of this was Dan’s fault and he didn’t want to inconvenience the other boy with his own problems, so he had done his best to keep his mood neutral, but when Dan returned and didn’t even notice that the pizza hadn’t come with their specific toppings, Phil was just about ready to go back to bed.

“Hey, you okay?” Dan asked, probably at this point, picking up on Phil’s sour mood. He wasn’t doing much to hide it anymore, to be honest, and his frown was probably noticeable. That and he wasn’t even eating the pizza. “You have to eat, Philly.”

The endearing nickname was something Dan used to make him feel better on a day where maybe things were slightly off, but today was a lost cause. The nickname only irritated Phil because he wished it would work like it usually did.

“I’m not hungry,” he mumbled, giving his best attempt at a smile and Dan just shrugged, grabbing another slice.

“Hey, didn’t we order sausage on our pizza?” Dan asked, his mouth full of cheese and pepperoni. Now it was Phil’s turn to shrug, his eyes focusing on the waiter who was coming over with their bill.

It wasn’t long before they were en route to their place again. With only Dan eating, the pizza was boxed up rather early and now Phil was carrying it as Dan was catching another Pokemon.

All Phil could think about was getting home and ending the day. He wanted to climb into their bed and pass out, starting over the day and hoping it went better than this one. But of course, they still had a mile to walk and there was a group of girls screaming and coming right for them.

Great.

Just what he needed.

He put on his friendliest face and sighed when Dan kinda stepped away from him in an effort not to out them. Phil knew it was protocol, but he still felt a little sting. He wanted Dan near him, now more than ever.

“Hey guys!” Dan spoke, pulling them into a giant group hug.

“Oh my God! I can’t believe it’s actually Dan and Phil!” One girl exclaimed, her smile spreading and her nose poking into Phil’s rib cage.

“Yupp! That’s us!” Phil said, his eyes glancing over at Dan, wishing that Dan could read his mind and hurry this up.

“Do you guys want a photo?” Dan asked, gesturing to one of the girl’s cellular devices. They all nodded and handed Dan (who had the longest arms) the phone to take the picture.

For some God forsaken reason, the photo kept turning out blurry and it was forever before they were able to shake the girls that seemed to be freaking out a little. They kept asking why the pair was outside at all and Phil was in no mood to deal with it. He tried his hardest to seem kind, but it came off as being short and he actually received a glance from Dan because of it.

“Wow Phil, what, do you have to pee or something?” Dan commented on Phil’s shortness, prodding at Phil as he usually did. Phil said nothing and shook his head, Dan just laughing a little.

They finally walked through the front door of their apartment and Phil literally slumped. He kicked off his shoes and started for the bedroom.

“Hey, where are you going?” Dan asked, grabbing Phil’s arm.

“I’m really tired. I think I’m just gonna head to bed,” Phil was salty but he wasn’t going to take it out on his boyfriend. Dan did nothing wrong. It wasn’t his problem. Plus, if he brought up how terrible his day was, he would have to relive it. It was better off he didn’t talk about it. He tried his best to be calm and collected as Dan came closer.

“Not without a kiss you aren’t,” Dan threatened playfully, closing in and wrapping his arms around Phil’s slumped body. He went in for a kiss, like usual, and then without any warning, picked up the older boy and started shuffling towards the lounge.

“Dan!” Phil yelled, flailing a little, trying to process what on Earth his boyfriend was doing. “Dan, put me down!”

“Make me!” Dan giggled, picking up speed and going towards the sofa. He threw Phil onto the furniture and started to tickle him, Phil’s legs kicking and his arms trying to push Dan off.

“Dan! Please!” Phil couldn’t help but laugh, he was really ticklish, but this was not what he wanted. He appreciated the effort, Dan clearly picked up that something was wrong, but he had no idea how bad of a mood Phil was in.

Suddenly Phil was thinking about his whole day all over again and how he just wanted to sleep. He thought about his yelling brother, his failed cake, the restaurant he just wanted to eat at and now this? He couldn’t help but close his eyes and start to cry. His cheeks flushed and then tears were rolling down quickly, as he just gave up.

Dan wasn’t stupid. He looked up to see Phil’s smile and was greeted with tears that alarmed him immediately.

“Oh God, Phil! Did I hurt you? Oh my God, I’m sorry! What did I do?” Dan stopped and scooted back so that Phil had plenty of space, just in case Dan had hurt him in some way. Phil just shook his head and rolled over so that his face was inside the couch. His body racked with sobs, Dan sitting behind him with no clue what to do. “Phil?”

Dan reached forward and rubbed Phil’s back gently for a few minutes, saying nothing and Phil appreciated that. That was what he wanted. Silence and comfort.

“Baby, I’m so sorry. Did I do something wrong?” Dan said meekly, a guilty tone laced within his words. Phil knew he would blame himself and that’s not at all what Phil intended. He shook his head. “Well, then what’s wrong? Talk to me.”

Phil took his tear streaked face from the nook it was in and he took a deep breath. He looked into Dan’s eyes for a long time, taking comfort in the big brown orbs that had always soothed him. He glanced at his lap and then he sighed, doing something he had never done before. He raised his arms into the air and bit his lip.

-

Dan stared at Phil while he sniffled, noticing how blue Phil’s eyes got when he cried. Dan felt sorry and he wasn’t even sure what had happened. But then Phil was doing something he’d never seen the boy do before. He was lifting his arms up. Like a child did when they wanted to be carried.

“Phil?” Dan asked hesitantly while Phil just looked at him silently with his arms in the air.

Dan contemplated what to do. He was pretty sure Phil was asking to be picked up, but he didn’t want to screw up again and hurt his boyfriend who was already in an emotional state. Phil was staring at him with those big blue eyes and suddenly Dan couldn’t help himself. He stood up and walked over to his boyfriend, who seemed extra small right now, collecting him in his arms (who knew he was this strong) and carrying him to his bedroom. Phil didn’t fight in, only hummed gently into Dan’s chest when he made contact, sending butterflies to Dan’s stomach. Phil had never looked this vulnerable.

Dan placed him gently on the bed and looked down at the boy who suddenly looked the most tired Dan had ever seen him. Dan couldn’t remember if he had looked this way all day or if this was after the tears.

“Phil, want me to go to bed with you?” Dan offered, wanting to wipe away the sad in any way he could.

Phil just nodded, curling into himself on top of the duvet and Dan sighed happily, already excited to cuddle up around his boyfriend for the night.

He gently pulled the duvet from underneath Phil and shed both of their clothes, climbing into the bed and around his sulking boyfriend.

“Would you like to tell me what’s wrong?” Dan suggested softly, letting his body heat soak into Phil’s usually cold body under their blankets. Phil nodded and wiggled his body to make himself comfortable against Dan.

“I had a very bad day,” Phil mumbled, his eyes shutting and his heart rate slowing.

Dan nuzzled into the back of Phil’s neck, the feeling of Phil’s skin was always comforting, even when he didn’t have any problems of his own. He hoped the same was true for Dan’s skin on Phil’s.

“I’m sorry, Sweetheart. I shouldn’t have dragged you out of the house.” Dan realized his mistake, going over the facial expressions Phil had made a few times that morning. Maybe he should have paid a little more attention or asked Phil for his opinion twice. “Can I do anything to help?”

Phil shook his head and just mumbled, “wanna sleep.”

“Alright.” Dan wrapped around his beloved even tighter, after reaching and turning out the light. He rocked Phil gently as they lied there for a while. Phil’s sniffles got less frequent and soon his breathing had slowed. “Sleep well, Philly.”

“I love you,” Phil said in the most quiet of voices. Dan would have squealed it was so cute, but Phil’s ear was right next to his mouth and that wouldn’t have been pleasant. He just kissed the other boy’s earlobe and whispered,

“I love you too.”

[narcolepticprince]

ooc;

Thought about whether or not to post, but I feel like it would make me feel better if I did.

Angsty stuff I wrote earlier that I really needed to let out below the cut. Feel free to ignore, especially if you’re enjoying A New Empire. You might not want to read it. |’3

I’ll be drowning my emotions in leftover sea salt ice cream and Terraria. Replies on Friday/Saturday. (Got a visitor on Thursday) If you’ve got Steam, let me know so that I can add you~

TL;DR at the bottom.

First off, this is not a post telling you to uninstall or not support the A New Empire. You’re free to do whatever you want. This is just me complaining, and me just letting out why I plan on not supporting the game, even though it’s FFXV and I’d pretty much drop money at the drop of a hat for FFXV.

A New Empire came out and Sharky/Cera ( @captaindrautos ) tells me to download it and join their guild. I do. While I’m playing it, I was like, “Bro, I’m trying to play this game as a player, but my mind keeps reverting to a game developer/designer mind, this UI is horrible, there better be sounds in those buttons I see there because there is no visual response, wtf are all of these icons doing on one page…etc etc etc” I was playing without sound, because I was at my workplace on break and didn’t want to bother the people who were still working. My dev mind was just going off. Brave Exvius was an amazing skin with additions over Brave Frontier, why was this a shitty skin, y’know?

Then all of a sudden, Sharky goes “Ew”. At first I think it’s a joking response to my previous comment. My plan was to name my character “Noctoooooooo” or some shit because it sounded like Ignis/Gladio/Prompto/Regis screaming his name and telling him to get back this instant, a prince shouldn’t be doing those dangerous things, etc.

Me: Ew? Sharky: [name I don’t recognize because I pronounced it weird in my head] worked on this game. Me: Who? Sharky: [my ex’s actual name]. Me: ………….

Sharky posted a guild call on Facebook for A New Empire and my ex commented, “Enjoy the game, we worked hard on it!”

I felt this sense of dread grip my chest, and I’m pretty sure my mind stopped working for like 3 seconds after I read those words and confirmed them myself. I was getting pretty much flashbacks, and not the pretty kind, but I suppressed at the time them because I was at work.

My ex was emotionally and mentally abusive to me, and all my friends seemed to realize it except for me. It took me six months after our breakup to unfollow him from Facebook. It took me another 5-6 to realize the extent of his abuse. Not only was he preventing me from growing as a person, but he turned into a whole different person when we started living together.

He had anger issues. He never hit me, but he would punch walls and furniture and slam doors whenever he was “in a mood”. He broke my 360 controller and a few of my belongings in his rage, but paid me back for them. During my times of depression, if he was frustrated with my behavior (I wanted him to leave me alone, but he kept being in my face, and if you’ve ever seen someone clinically depressed, you know that they need mutual understanding, support, AND/OR space when they ask), I remember that he would often either threaten to leave the lease (rent was like $2200 and I had a monthly income far below that at the time), leave me, or he would hit himself over and over and make me feel guilty because I was the cause of him getting so enraged that he started hitting himself. He made me feel like I was physically abusing him with my behavior, even though he was the one hitting himself. He would make me feel like shit if I didn’t want to hold his hand every time we went out, even after I told him that I personally hate doing PDA and he agreed not to do it all the time, he did it all the fucking time. There were a lot of things that he did that, months later, I realized was abuse.

As we lived together, his small “quirks” that were just quirks to me before became annoyances. Irritations. Before we moved in together, I was considering marrying this guy. Now I saw his true colors, as he became comfortable with me. I always had to be happy. I always had to be perfectly sane. I wasn’t allowed to be depressed, or if I was depressed, I was only allowed to be depressed for a day or two. I wasn’t allowed to have clinical depression.

Which brings me to A New Empire.

I love mobile games, and I am an indie developer myself. I am the type that is willing to drop $100 on microtransactions a month if the game gives me a good time. I have the income to do that. As a developer, I know how much it costs to run those servers and keep up with regular updates to the game. I understand.

It is not my ex’s fault that he got to work on A New Empire. But A New Empire, even though it has a shitty UI and is an obvious clone, is part of the FFXV universe, a universe that I do love. FFXV helped me out of some rough patches. The fact that my ex had a hand in creating this excuse of a mobile game in one of my favorite universes and franchises turns me off completely.

I will not be supporting A New Empire. At least not monetarily. Because I am not comfortable supporting my abuser.

I will probably play because it is in my habit to play mobile games. Then after a while, I will just...stop. Since the company that makes this also made two other generic mobile games, and A New Empire is literally just a FFXV reskin of those two mobile games. Sharky realized this when I brought up that my ex’s company was in charge of [very well-known notorious game 1] and [very well-known notorious game 2 that is a clone of 1]. If you know what I’m talking about, you can probably tell what company it is, their ads ALWAYS pop up in mobile games/apps that have ads enabled.

I cannot fathom giving support to my ex. I don’t like throwing around the word trigger, but he is my trigger. I actively avoid him as much as I can nowadays, because he makes me upset. I bawled my eyes out in the bathroom stall today because as soon as I was alone, the flashbacks hit me hard, one after the other, of his abuse. Of how stunted he made me. Of how shitty he made me feel in that relationship, and how he always made me feel like something was always wrong with me. I can go on and on about what he did to me. I didn’t even write the worst part of what he did to me, and it makes me shudder because at the time, I didn’t realize that it was also a form of abuse.

You, reader, of course, are free to do whatever you want. Spend money on the app, play the app, post screenshots, whatever. This is just my rant. I really needed to get this off of my chest, because as soon as I found out that he worked on the game, a flurry of emotions spilled out. It will be some time before I can look at the game again without the flashbacks hitting me like they did today. For now, I think I’m going to delete it off of my phone until I feel better. If it does turn out that there is “story” in the mobile game that adds more richness to the FFXV verse, I might pick it up sooner. Otherwise, I mean, it’s just going to be a generic mobile game reskin to me. Why do you think Square Enix didn’t showcase nor mention this at E3? Especially in their FFXV Universe E3 trailer/segment?

I may or may not delete this later. I ask that out of respect, you do not reblog this. Writing this out and posting has helped me deal with my emotions and thoughts immensely. T-T But if you’ve read this far...thank you, and please send hugs to Nocto, because seeing Nocto get hugs makes me feel warm inside.

TL;DR: My mentally and emotionally abusive ex worked on A New Empire, and I will not be supporting the app monetarily nor play anytime soonish, because I get flashbacks of his abuse. Send Nocto hugs.