#It's just not doing well anymore my engagement has tanked

[cambion-companion]

💭

[jungkookstatts]

When She Loved Me

[Summary]: How does one live when life is bound to end? 

[Theme]: Terminally Ill Reader, Non Idol AU, CEO Jungkook AU, Engaged AU, Married AU

[Rating]: 18+ for sexual themes and innuendoes, a truly heart wrenching piece. Please read with caution and with full intent to break your own heart. 

[Word Count]: 11,265

[A/N]: I truly broke my soul with this one. If you really want to cry, listen to my muse for this piece: “When She Loved Me” by Sarah McClain (yes, the one from Toy Story) or "Stuff We Did" by Michael Gaicchino (from UP)

[Materialist]

It’s spring — your favorite time of year. The air is brisk, but the sun warms his skin despite the chill in the air.

He watches the cherry blossoms fall dramatically as the wind pushes through the branches of the trees. They flow through his hair, catching on his clothes and his skin. 

He thinks about you as they whirl around the city, wondering if you’re able to see the blossoms through your window.

Jungkook doesn’t have to check into the hospital anymore. He’s become a regular there. In fact, he’s come so often, he knows the names of all the nurses on your floor. Jungkook is a friendly guy, and he’s come to know each nurse quite well.

Your personal nurse, Nurse Sandy, greets him as he makes an appearance on the 4th floor. Jungkook gently wraps his hand around the knob to your room, just about to push it open until she speaks.

“You won’t find her in there, love,” she smiles. She finishes cleaning up an area on a movable cart before she officially turns his way. “She’s up on the roof,” she points to the door at the end of the hallway.

“Ah,” Jungkook shyly bows in thanks. His hand comes up to rub the hairs at the back of his neck. There’s a sense of slight slight awkwardness in the air from his mistake. 

“She’s been up there for a while,” she explains.

Jungkook simply nods before telling her that he’s going to join you. She lets him go, watching the grown man make his way towards you.

He catches you leaning against the metal bars encasing the rooftop. Your arms are folded against the railing, and your leg is crossed over the other as you stare out into the openness of the city. He can imagine your face — eyes closed and a content smile on your lips — as the breeze takes over your body.

You’re beautiful, even standing with your back faced to him; even with a cart of fluids attached to one side of your body, and an oxygen tank placed on the other. Nothing can take away from you.

“You can say something, you know,” you break the silence.

Jungkook feels his heart nearly leap out of his body. He didn’t know how long he had been standing there. Or how long you knew he was standing there. Embarrassment floods his cheeks as he clears his throat.

“S-Sorry,” he laughs. Jungkook makes his way over to you, leaning his arms against the metal just as you are.

“The weather is perfect, Kook,” you sigh in content. When he looks to you, his imagination is confirmed reality: your eyes are closed and your lips are lips pulled up in the most delicate way. A clear tube stretches across your cheeks, but it doesn’t take away from your beauty. You’re you, and he finds himself staring in admiration as the cherry blossoms flow around your delicate frame. It’s like they’re pulling you into the spring.

“Your cheeks are cold,” he observes. The redness of your nose and the red skin at the corners of your eye do little to hide from how the weather effects you body.

“Are they?” He watches you open your eyes, gently touching your cheeks with your fingertips. “Oh—I guess they are. I hadn’t noticed,” you smile. “Winter is still in the air, but I couldn’t just sit in that room and watch the blossoms fall from the window.”

“I got a scarf if you want,” he suggests.

You attempt to refuse, but he’s already pulling it out of his bag and gently wrapping it around your neck and shoulders. He’s careful with the cords, not wanting to damage or ruin anything as he wraps you in his clothes.

Once he has situated the scarf a few more times, he’s looking at you, a content smile on his face. He loves moments when you let him do this—when you let him engulf you with his warmth. It makes him feel special.

You’re leaning against his chest in the next few moments, wrapping your arms around his waist and sighing against his chest. You missed him. Even though you he visits you everyday, you miss him in every moment he is gone.

Jungkook rubs your back, one of his hands pressing your head into his chest as he places a kiss on top of your scalp.

“How long have you been out here?” He asks you.

“Since this morning.” His chest rises from your words. You stop him with your own, knowing what he was about to reprimand you for. Don’t worry, I ate,” you chuckle, poking his chest. You knew that was going to be his next question. “Nurse Sandy has been out here with me for most of the day, waiting for you to come and give her a break.”

Jungkook chuckles, holding you closer against him when a strong breeze blows against the two of you. He protects you from it, turning you gently so his back shields your body from the wind.

“I hate being in there,” you mumble. He almost doesn’t here it, but if it wasn’t for the small break in the wind he probably wouldn’t have. “I wish I could sleep next to you again.”

“I know,” he kisses your head again. “You’ll get out of here soon. I know it.”

You don’t say anything. Instead, you rest your chin on his chest, staring up at him with curious eyes.

“What?” He laughs, tucking your hair behind your ear. It’s become thin, the nutrients it had just a couple years ago has been completely sucked out. But Jungkook doesn’t mind. As long as you don’t mind, he’s alright. Everything about you is beautiful. You could be bald or patching or have the worst allergic reaction on your skin from some of the medications you take, but he wouldn’t care. Behind all that is you, and he loves your soul with all of his.

“Nothing,” you give a small smile. It seems forced, but Jungkook pays no mind. He knows not to expect too much—your mind has been haywire lately, thinking and thinking and thinking. He knows you’re stressed and exhausted.

It’s been two years since you got sick. He’s been there the entire way, watching you change and get angry at the world and try your best to just suck it up and wait to get better. But he knows how hard you’re trying to be positive. He knows it’s the hardest thing to harbor when you’ve been waiting so long for just some good news.

But he also knows you need a rock to lean on; hell, he’d turn into one physically if that’s really what you needed. He’s been there for you as a shoulder, as a weight to keep you grounded. Though you might have a hard time seeing any positive in the world, he would always see something positive in you.

“You wanna watch that new anime?” Jungkook breaks the silence. “The one on Netflix you saw the last time we were browsing through shows?”

“Yes!” You exclaim. “I’m so glad you brought that up because it’s taco night in the cafeteria and I was so excited to bring back an old tradition.”

You’re referring to your taco and Netflix nights a while back before all this happened. It used to be your thing to do with him. Your “date night”, one could say. It’s been hard to get permission to bring in outside food from the hospital, though. So you were nearly jumping out of your bones, your heart monitor going crazy, when Nurse Sandy told you about taco night.

“They’re probably not going to be ‘Maria’s Flaming Taco’s’ good, because it’s crappy hospital food, but I don’t even care,” you explain. “I just want to be with you.”

Jungkook smiles at your reaction, the butterflies in his tummy doing nothing to hide the way your happiness fuels his affection for you. 

“It’s a date, then,”  he nudges his nose against yours. He plants a small kiss on your lips afterwards, allowing himself to feel you on his skin.

A part of his head tells him to savor it, because he never knows when the last time might be that he gets to kiss you so. But the largest part of him, the part that’s been keeping him together during all of this, tells him that moments like this will come again. That hope is in the air as spring brings about new life.

You’re going to be alright. Everything is going to be alright.

__________________

“How’s about this one?” Jungkook points to the shiny diamond below the clear casing. There’s a a collection of earrings, necklaces, and bracelets surrounding the specific jewel he points out.

“Hmm,” you hum, tucking your hair behind your ear as you stare down at the diamond. It’s huge — extremely dramatic in size and way too detailed. “I don’t think it represents us that well,” you candor.

“You’re right,” Jungkook sighs. He runs his hands though his hair in slight frustration.“I feel like we’ve been looking at these for forever.”

“I told you: I’m fine without an engagement ring, baby,” you coo. Your arms come to wrap around his own, resting your head on his shoulder.

“I know,” he groans. “But I wanted to do it properly. With a ring. On one knee. All that traditional sappy stuff.”

“Hey, I liked how you proposed,” you pout. “It was romantic.”

“We were in the shower, babe. I was like…2 seconds away from shoving my dick in you,” you fiancé mumbles the last part.

You laugh at that, softly clutching his arm before a certain ring catches your eye.

“Kook,” you gasp, pointing your finger at the gem. “Look at that one.”

Before he has time to respond, you’re already pulling him toward the ring. You point at it through the glass, gasping in awe at its beauty.

The ring represents your relationship with Jungkook perfectly. A small, plain band with a giant emerald-cut diamond paced at the center. It doesn’t have any of that extra stuff to it. Just a classic diamond on a classic band: a timeless ring that incorporates a little bit of you and a little bit of him.

“Are you looking to buy?” The clerk on the other side of the case asks.

Jungkook looks down to you, asking you with his eyes if you’re sure this is the one. You simply nod your head, a smile forming on your lips.

“Can we try it on?” He asks the clerk.

“Of course!”

The man unlocks the case, gently pulling the ring out onto the table.

“It’s a 4.20 carat,” he starts, pulling the diamond from the velvet floor it was ground to. “It comes in a range of 2 carat to 5 carat in case this one is a little high, or a little low for your intentions. Feel free to try it on and see what you think.”

Jungkook gently handles the diamond, putting his other hand out asking for your own. You place your fingertips on his, and your fiancé slides the diamond on your ring finger slowly.

He observes the ring on your hand. It’s a perfect look. Everything he was looking for and everything you wanted — a perfect mixture of the two of you in one object.

Jungkook nods, a small chuckle falling out of his lips when you shimmy the diamond around, catching the light as the diamond reflects it.

“Do I look like your fiancé?” You ask, intertwining your fingers with his.

“Fuck, yeah you do,” he laughs. “It’s perfect, Y/n.” Jungkook let’s go of your hand, instead choosing to hold your ring finger, examining it before he turns to the clerk. “We’ll take it.”

“Congratulations!” He exclaims. “Would you like this size? We can talk prices over here. Are you paying, sir?”

“We both—” you start. But Jungkook is quick to interrupt.

“I am, yes,” he says.

“Kook,” you scold him in a whisper. This ring is set at 65,000 dollars. There’s no way you’re letting him take care of this on his own.

“It’s alright,” he smiles down at you. “This was how it was supposed to go anyways. I buy the ring, you have no idea, then I propose, then you’re like: ‘Omg Kook! I can’t believe you chose such a beautiful amazing ring! You’re my hero!’,” he changes his voice to what you’d guess is a mocking of yours.

“Shut up,” you laugh at his interpretation.

“Seriously babe, I got it,” he kisses your forehead. “You’re marrying the CEO of the biggest software company in Korea. I got the extra cash.”

“Prick,” you pinch him. “Go talk sales. I’m gonna look around.”

Jungkook nods, letting you detach yourself from him as he follows the clerk behind the counter and into one of the rooms.

A very long a boring conversation goes on with the clerk for a while. Pamphlets and ordering arrangements, ring cases and polishes are given to Jungkook to choose from. He’s confident enough to make final decisions on it all. You already said yes, so he’s content in knowing that you’d definitely say yes when he does it all over again.

He’s inserted his blackcard into the machine when he hears sudden gasps and a yell for help from one of the employees outside of the room. 

“Oh no. A robbery?” The clerk looks out the door. He shakes his head in disappointment until someone shouts ‘call an ambulance’. 

Both the men are out of their seats and making their way to the main room in haste, eager to see what could be going wrong.

Jungkook looks for your face, and a panic settles in his stomach when he can’t find you. Quickly, he paces to the crowd, pushing through the people until he’s met face to face with yours on the ground, unconscious.

There’s blood leaking from your nostrils and one of your ears, the liquid dashing across your face as it continues to leak out of your body.

This can’t be happening. No way. Nooo way. You were just here, clutching onto his arm and laughing with him. What wen’t wrong?

“Get out!” He nearly screams at the people to move. The crowd moves, recognizing him as the man that was just with you a few minutes ago. Jungkook crouches next to you, placing a hand under your neck and another on your pulse.

“Y-Y/n, baby, can you hear me?” He asks.

Luckily, your heartbeat is there, but it’s very weak. Confusion and fearful adrenaline pumps through his veins when you don’t answer, just the dead weight of your head lulling while he gently holds it in his hand.

Before he can do anything else, there’s a paramedic crouching on the other side of you.

“Don’t worry,” she assures him. “We got her.”

There’s little time for him to respond, because two other paramedics push him out of the way, lifting your body as if it had no weight onto a movable bed. He follows after you and panics by your side until you’ve finally awoken in room 456 of the nearest hospital.

__________________

“Jungkook,” you whisper to him. It’s dark in your room. The sun has set and the lights were turned off long ago when Nurse Sandy brought in the projector for you two to use. You want to say your tacos were finished nearly two hours ago.

Now, your boyfriend rests, cuddled to your side on your small hospital bed, arms wrapped around you and head placed on your chest.

You two have been at it, watching “Way of the House Husband” since this afternoon. You’re almost certain he’s fallen asleep a few times, this being one of them.

“Love,” you gently shake him.

Jungkook stirs, his eyebrows crinkling and his hand clutching yours a little tighter.

“You have to wake up, Kook,” you kiss his head. “You’re not supposed to be here past 12.”

“Don’t care,” he mumbles against your skin. “I want to sleep next to you.”

“I want that, too,” you sigh. “But you know we can’t. I have treatment at 5am.”

At that, Jungkook sits up sleepily, crossing his legs on the spot he was laying. “They’re too harsh on you,” he says.

“What would you know, Dr. Jeon?” you laugh, poking his chest.

“5am is too early for chemicals and medicine and radiation and—”

“It’s okay,” you stop him. “I asked for that time slot, anyways. Get’s it done and over with so I can leave the rest of the day to spend with you.”

Jungkook smiles at that, but there’s a certain pang in his heart he doesn’t understand why he feels. His eye catches sight of your engagement ring on your finger, gulping at the memory as he holds it in his hand.

“Y/n,” he whispers your name, moving his thumb over your ring finger.

“Hm,” you hum.

“Do you think,” he starts. But the words are hard to get out. He doesn’t like flaunting his insecurities like this to you, especially about this matter. He should be strong, should be unwavering. But he can’t help it. “Do you think we’ll be able to live together again? To go back to it all. Like how it was before.”

You gulp at his words. You were worried about this question. Mainly because you don’t know the answer yourself. It’s something that pushes you forward everyday, something that gets you though the pain. Going back to your old life, marrying your best friend, starting a family and living life together. It’s everything you need to imagine to push yourself harder. To get better.

But recently, you haven’t been showing any progress. Your sickness is getting worse, and it’s something you refuse to tell Jungkook. Something that you’re hiding from him in hopes that if you keep it low, it will eventually smoothen out on its own. You’re just impatiently waiting for the day it does.

“I don’t know,” you candor. “But it’s all I think about. Memories of us before all this play in my mind constantly. I imagine our future all the time,” you squeeze his hand. “The both of us healthy and back to life.”

“I imagine it, too,” he sends a soft laugh. “I miss you, Y/n.”

There’s a lump in your throat at his confession.

It’s hard to live like this. So unbelievably hard.

Yes, you’re sick. And yes, it’s painful to go through the treatment process. But all of that is second to the pain your feel when you realize what you’ve done to him and all you s put him through.

You’re thankful your fiancé has made it nearly everyday to come to you while you stay cooped up in here. But you can’t help but feel selfish about it all. There have been times when you almost called off your relationship, the pain too much to imagine if he were to watch you pass or to watch you deteriorate until you do. How you know it would destroy him, how you know it already is.

It’s painful to see him clutch onto hope, to look at you as if it’s the last time he ever will. Though he thinks you cannot see it, you can. That look he gives you every once in a while, taking in your face, memorizing it when he thinks you’re not looking. It’s so hard to watch him go through all of this. He shouldn’t have to.

But Jungkook is relentless. He’s scared out of his wits about the possibilities of the future. But he knows you are, too. And he can’t leave you alone in your fear. He can’t abandon his love just because some pesky illness decided to create a little bump in the road.

“We should get married,” you confess.

“We are getting married,” Jungkook says.

“No, now. We should get married now, Jungkook,” you squeeze his hand again. This time, Jungkook looks at you differently. The soft glow of the moonlight shows your features to him, caressing your face with the light.

“I thought you wanted to wait until you got better,” he recalls.

“I don’t want to wait anymore, Kook. It’s been two years,” you gulp. “I want you as my husband.”

There’s a quiver in your lip when you utter the last sentence. The tears flood your eyes, and Jungkook is quick to pull you into his embrace.

“I want to be your wife, Jungkook,” you cry into his chest. “Before it’s too late.”

“No,” he sternly holds your shoulder. “Don’t say that, Y/n.”

“I’m scared,” you confess in a mutter.

Jungkook feels a soft drop from his own eye fall down his cheek. Fuck, if he wasn’t just as scared as you are. He’s terrified. But to hear you say it, he wants to protect you. He’d gladly take more fear, more terror and fright, if it meant you felt safe. If it meant you felt like everything was going to be okay.

“I know, baby,” he kisses your scalp. “But I’ve got you.”

__________________

“Ms. Y/l/n,” the doctor walks in.

Your mother is by your side, sitting on the chair. Jungkook is on the other, clutching your hand in his own at the sound of the doctor’s voice.

The doctor looks over at your mom, and then to Jungkook.

“Excuse me,” he starts, gently smiling at your fiancé. “This conversation has to be confined to family members. Please understand. It’s just conduct of the hospital.”

You gulp, looking up at Jungkook with a fear in your eyes. He gently smiles at you, though. Telling you it’s going to be okay, even without him there.

“I’ll be right out side,” he kisses your head. “Not going anywhere.”

“Okay,” you let out a shaky breath. Jungkook lets go of your hand, making his way out of the room. Your hand feels cold now that he’s gone, and you find yourself staring at the way he anxiously runs his hands through his hair when he exists the room.

He stands awkwardly as he waits for the conversation to be over. It’s been almost an hour of him pacing and sitting, and looking on his phone as thoughts consume his mind.

Everything happened so fast and so unexpectedly. What was just a happy day, the day you choose what form his promise would represent in a ring, turned unto a night full of fear. Not in a million years did he think the next few hours would be spent pacing, just as he is now, outside of a hospital room.

The door to your room opens, and the doctor steps out. The man gives Jungkook a tense smile before motioning his hand toward the room, telling him it’s okay to enter. Jungkook takes a deep breath, sitting up from his spot and appearing in the doorway.

He watches you from the door. Your mother has you in her embrace, her eyes closed as she holds you tight. He’s unable to make out her expression.

You’re muttering something to her, and she opens her eyes to meet with his. Your mom send a small smile his way until she’s back on you, telling you that he’s waiting for you.

You clear your throat, wiping at your face before you take a deep breath. You tell your mom it’s okay to let him in, and your mother nods at Jungkook, telling him he’s welcome.

“Is everything okay?” he asks you, gently sitting at the end of the bed.

Your eyes are red at the corners, and you lips are puffy in the way they always are when you cry. He feels a pang in his heart at your face. He’s never seen you in a state like this. It tempts him to let his own emotions flow, but this is not his time. You’re hurt, and he needs to be there for you.

“Yeah,” you nod, a small chuckle escaping your lips. “I’m just gonna have to stay here for a bit.”

Jungkook gulps at your words, trying to shoot the fear down.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“I’m just a little sick, is all,” you grab his hand, playing with his fingers. “I’ll be alright.”

“H-how sick?” he dares to ask. It’s a small question, but one that felt so heavy to say aloud.

“Sick enough to say that this room might be my home for a little while.”

__________________

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Nurse Sandy shakes her head. “But you have been cleared.”

“Really?!” you exclaim, nearly hopping out of your hospital bed. The IV in your arm prevents you from leaping into the woman’s arms, and you’re stuck to squealing on your mattress.

“Just for two months,” she says. “And you still have to carry your oxygen tank and do your treatments in the morning and make sure that you’re coming in for check-ups.”

“I will! I promise I will—oh my god,” you gasp. Your hands come to cover your mouth as you think about what these next two months hold for you. “How am I going to tell Jungkook?”

“Maybe you can start by meeting him at home?” Nurse Sandy suggests. “Make it a little surprise.”

“That’s perfect!” you say, taking the IV out of your arm and tearing the sheets off your body. “Oh god, I’m so excited. Do you have a change of clothes?”

“Of course,” she laughs.

Nurse Sandy turns away, probably going to where the spare clothes are. Meanwhile, you’re left alone in your room, a racing heart and a mind imagining just how you’re going to surprise your fiancé. You know you’re still not doing well, but you’ve asked the doctor, surgeons, and nurses if you could just have a month or two to get married. Just a month or two to be outside of here while you tie the knot with your best friend. Honestly, you didn’t think you’d get any approval at all. You’ve already started planning a hospital wedding. But today’s news shocked you. You’re beyond ecstatic. You don’t even know where to begin.

“Put these on and meet me downstairs. We’ve got a schedule for you and an entire two months of supplies for you to take home. Plus an on-call personal nurse you can call at any time you need one at home,” Nurse Sandy says. She hands you a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that feel way too thin and large to keep any warmth in. But you’re happy to take them and get out of this stupid hospital gown for once.

“Okay,” you beam.

Nurse Sandy makes her way out, but you stop her before she has the chance to close the door.

“Nurse Sandy?” you call.

“Yes?” she stops, looking back at you from the doorway.

“Thank you,”

She gives you a smile, happy to see you cheer up.

“Of course,” she nods. “Next time I’ll see you, you’ll be Mrs. Jeon.”

You blush at the title.

“Hell yeah, I will.”

__________________

You feel the nerves shoot through your system when the hospital’s driver arrives at your apartment complex. It’s been two years since you’ve ventured in here. You wonder how much your home has changed. You wonder how Jungkook has been living in it all by himself.

It’s during the daytime, so Jungkook has probably left for work already. You feel excitement thinking about him again. You can’t wait to see his reaction.

The driver stops in front of the entrance, telling you that you’ve reached your destination. He comes around, pulling the door open for you and helping you pull out your oxygen tank.

“I’ll get the stuff in the back,” he says. You nod to him, your thumb harshly smoothing over the key fob Jungkook gave you about five years ago to his apartment.

With shaky hands, you press it to the inner door to the complex, and you sigh in relief when a positive beeping noise and the sound of doors unlocking rings in your ears. You press the handicapped button to the door for the driver, who carries a few extra oxygen tanks and bags of prescription medicines and other things you may need during your much needed time with your fiancé.

The driver thanks you, and you reply back to him before showing him the way to the elevator.

It’s a long ride up. 38 floors of apartments make the wait in the elevator all the more anticipating. You can’t wait to smell home again.

“It’s this one,” you say, nodding to room 3860 at the end of the hallway. Jungkook has a corner apartment, which mean’s it’s the biggest on the floor. You press the key fob to the lock, and it flashes a green light at you, telling you it’s been accepted.

The smell of home engulfs you. It’s just as you left it — everything organized and clean, the furniture and floors clear of clutter. There’s personal items on a few of the standing drawers, the ones you and Jungkook picked out together on vacations. You almost cry at the nostalgia. It’s hard to come here when it used to be so second nature to you.

You place your keys on your designated spot on the key holder on the wall. It’s right next to your fiancé’s name, and you smile thinking about him seeing your keys on your holder once again.

“You can just set them in this closet,” you point to the one near the door. It’s your’s and Jungkook’s coat closet. But given it’s late spring, you guess it hasn’t been put to much use lately.

The man leaves and makes his way out, telling you to be careful. You nod and tell him to thank Nurse Sandy one more time, to which he laughs and agrees.

The rest of the evening is spent exploring your home. It’s like you’re walking into one of your friend’s parents bedrooms when you were young. It feels like it’s wrong, feels weird because you’ve never explored that part of your friend’s home before. But there’s a familiarity to it anyways.

You sit on his side of the bed in your shared bedroom. You laugh because it appears as if he hasn’t touched your side at all. It’s made and the pillows are organized perfectly. The sheets are tucked in and the bedding is smoothed out as he’s been keeping it neat since the day you last ventured in here.

His side of the bed is unmade. The sheets are pulled from when he got up this morning, and the decorative pillows for his side are scattered on the floor.  

You take it all in, breathing in the smell of him that overpowers your bedroom. You miss this—waking up to hold him and going to sleep cuddled together. You wonder how he’s been going to sleep these days.

Your body starts to feel tired when you close your eyes, and Jungkook’s scent does nothing to help your weak body from falling into the depths of sleep. The bed has always been so comfortable, especially Jungkook’s side. It’s warm and curves into your body as you lay against the sheets. The smell of him wafting into your nostrils as you lay your head on his pillow.

It wasn’t you intention to fall asleep. No, you wanted to bake something sweet for him, put up some decorations or do something to make it special. But Nurse Sandy warned you about the effects of not being on IV constantly. Your body isn’t getting everything it needs to stay awake for long periods of time. But you were given a long list of to-do’s in order to keep your energy up. For right now, though, you forgo the list until you’re able to look it over and figure it all out with your fiancé.

__________________

Jungkook’s exhausted. He’s beat and he totally would have gone straight to you after work had he not been feeling completely gross. The plan is still to see you. But right now, he needs a shower.

His body is aching when he walks down the hallway to the 38th floor. All day he spent sitting in his desk, listening to sales pitches and hiring a few more people who he honestly could care less about. Needless to say, he needs a hot shower, a cup of coffee, and a dose of you in order to make his day feel right.

He takes a deep breath when he presses the key fob against the door. The briefcase in his hand swings when he pushes it open, immediately setting it down in the dip in the doorway. He almost closes his eyes when he enters his apartment, the darkness of the home from the set sun doing nothing to hide his need for sleep. But his heart leaps out of his chest when he sees a pair of familiar grey sneakers tucked in the corner of the entryway. His eyebrows knot together at the sight, his heart beating rapidly in his chest when he looks up to the key holder on the wall. There they are — your keys, placed simply on the hook with your name on it.

“Y/n?” he whispers. There’s a panic in his heart when he turns on the light. Why were you here? Is everything okay?

“Y/n?” he shouts. But there’s no answer.

Jungkook quickly rips off his jacket, his shoes messily thrown in the entry way as he runs into the kitchen. He shouts your name again, but there’s no answer.

Jungkook’s chest heaves, the silence and the lack of you anywhere makes his brain think of the worst possible outcome. Did you come here against the will of the doctor? Did you give up? Did you come here to greet him and it all go wrong? Did you collapse? Are you okay?

Jungkook pants heavily as he rips open the door to his bedroom. The lights are off and the lack of sunlight coming through his window makes things hard to make out. However, he quickly turns on the light, his lungs relaxing immediately when he sees your body softly tucked into his sheets.

“Y/n, baby,” he calls out your name softly. Jungkook kneels by his side of the bed, gently moving your tank in the process. He shakes you gently, and you stir at the feeling of his touch.

“Kook?” you groggily moan. Your eyes open in sight of him, a wave of disappointment flooding through you. “Fuck—I wasn’t supposed to fall asleep.”

“Are you okay? What’s going on? Why are you here?” he helps you sit up, his own body sitting next to your legs on the mattress.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” you groan, your head falling into your palms.

“What surprise?” he tucks a chunk of your hair behind your ear. Your skin is hot, and he wonders if he should get the thermometer or take you right back to the hospital.

“Nurse Sandy let me go,” you explain.

“What?!” he gasps. “Why would she do that?”

“No,” you chuckle at his misunderstanding. “She let me go for two months. To be with you. To get married.”

“O-Oh,” he gulps. He can’t help the pulse in his heart that leaps at your words.

Fuck, is this a dream? Never in a million years did he think he’d get the chance to have you during your treatment. Hell, they’ve kept you under extremely strict rules for the past two years.

“I wanted to make it a surprise,” you whine. “But I came home and I smelled you and I just—I passed out. I’m sorry.”

Jungkook shakes his head, smiling at you while you groan in your mistake. He honestly is still processing it all. He wants to ask you to pinch him, to make sure this is actually happening before he wakes up from his dream and becomes upset.

“It’s okay, my love,” he kisses your forehead. “I’m honestly a little struck right now. Is this really happening?”

You nod your head, a content smile showing on your face as you speak. “I was just as shocked as you are. I mean, I’ve been asking for just a week or two to be out of there so that we can get married. But they’ve just given me the same answer every time, telling me that they’ll ‘see’ or that they’re not sure that it’s gonna be a possibility,” you hold his hand. “But when Nurse Sandy told me two whole months was approved…I knew I had to make it a surprise. It kinda backfired on me, though. Nurse Sandy told me I was going to be much more fatigued off IV, but I kinda took her words for granted. I was just so excited.”

“It’s okay,” he smiles, adjusting the clear tube across your cheeks. “We’ll take it slow.”

Jungkook holds your cheek, and you lean against at the feeling of his touch on your skin. 

You feel a little emotional. None of this was supposed to happen. Your sickness, the wait to get married, the pause in life. Everything was supposed to be normal, but now you find it all to be complicated and oh-so painful. You shouldn’t have to live like this. He shouldn’t have to live like this.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he whispers. Jungkook’s thumb wipes at the tear that dares to fall from your eye. You hold his hand to your cheek, keeping his touch against you.

“We were so regular,” you laugh. “Just two normal people,” a few more tears stream from your eyes, and Jungkook pulls you into his chest, shielding you from the pain. “But now this happened. And you have to go to bed alone every night. You have to come home to emptiness. Have to make trips just to see me. To deal with all my bad days; days when I can barely talk to you because it hurts.”

“Stop it, Y/n,” he whispers into your hair. “I’d do it for the rest of my life if it means I still get to have you.”

“It shouldn’t have to be this way,” you sob. Jungkook rocks you in his hold, his arms tightening around your gentle body as you cry.

“But it is,” he says. “This is life. It’s just a bump in the road. A big bump, but thank god I’ve got a bunch of different cars to test out which one makes it over first.”

You laugh at his comment. You want to stab his ego a little, but his comment warms you to the extent to where you don’t think you have it in you to do so. 

“I’m gonna take care of you, Y/n,” he simmers. “In sickness and in health, no?”

“Till death do us part.”

__________________

“It’s terminal,” the doctor says.

He watches your mom shake her head, her pearl earrings whipping against her cheeks at his words.

“It can’t be,” she says. “She’s never had something like this in her life! We don’t even have a genetic history—”

“It happens to the best of us, unfortunately,” he interrupts her. You’re sure he hears things like this from mother’s all the time. But you don’t care. It’s true. You’ve been living your life healthy for as long as you remembered. You exercise, eat healthy foods, train your brain…you even have an air purifier in every room of your home. How can this happen?

“Your sickness is in it’s second stage. It’s a 50/50 chance it will get worse or better within the next few months. But regardless, I will just lay the facts out to you. The illness will more than likely be the cause of your death. However, given that it is in its second stage, we are able to slow it down and give you a few extra years,” the doctor explains. “We can put you on the transplant list, but unfortunately, since you are in the second stage, it puts you down as less of a priority compared to those who have a worse illness or who need it immediately.”

Your mother scoffs, her eyes wallowing with tears at the doctors information.

Meanwhile, all you can think about is Jungkook. How the hell are you going to tell him? Would it even be fair to tell him? You don’t want him to be any more worried than he already is. Not to mention how it would absolutely kill you if he were to look at you everyday not knowing if it would be the last.

The doctor’s words are drowned out as you think of how you want to go about this. There’s scenarios playing out in your head. The thought of dying does not even matter to you. All you can think about is how you’re going to protect your love from reality.

“Can we not tell anyone?” you ask your mother quietly.

“What?!” she exclaims. “Y/n, we need to raise awareness or something,” she holds your hand. “Don’t you want to at least tell Jungkook?”

“No,” you say sternly. “I can’t do that to him. I love him too much to destroy him like that.”

“Well,” your mom lets out a shaky breath. A part of you feels bad that you couldn’t shield her from it, either. But someone has to know. And you’re strict on only allowing her to. “If that’s what you want, then I’ll play along.”

A small tear falls from your eye, and your mother wipes them off your cheeks. She coos you, telling you that it’s okay. But her words mean nothing. How is this okay when you will be gone quicker than you thought you would be? When your time with Jungkook has been given a limit?

“Just don’t tell him, alright?” you cry. “Don’t destroy him like this.”

The doctor clears his throat, telling him he is going to leave the room. He asks you if it’s okay to let your fiancé in, and you nod, quickly wiping your tears.

Jungkook makes his way in the door way, his chest tightening at the sight of your mom holding you tight.

“Is everything okay?” he asks you, gently sitting at the end of the bed.

Your eyes are red at the corners, and you lips are puffy in the way they always are when you cry. He feels a pang in his heart at your face. He’s never seen you in a state like this. It tempts him to let his own emotions flow, but this is not his time. You’re hurt, and he needs to be there for you.

“Yeah,” you nod, a small chuckle escaping your lips.

__________________

Your wedding was beautiful.

It was everything you could want and more. Family and friends, the venue you wanted, the color scheme perfect for the summertime. It wasn’t too hot, either. Perfect weather for early August.

Originally, neither of you wanted a summer wedding. But you had to make do with the time you had, and it turned out to be everything you weren’t expecting, in all the right ways.

You even got to walk down the aisle without your tank. Just your face and you in your dress, walking to your man with the biggest smile. Yes, it was a tough walk. But the minute Jungkook took your hand, you felt strength.

You married Jungkook. It was the most rewarding feeling to have him as yours. To slip on his ring and him slip on yours. It felt right. You felt at peace. For the first time in two years, you didn’t think about your diagnosis. Your mind and heart was full of you and him, and that is all.

Your first dance with him as his wife was filled with emotion. Yes, you had to take it slow—the effects of your sickness made it hard to do anything exuberant. But Jungkook let you rest your head on his shoulder. He held your hand and your waist, guiding you through it all as your husband. He held you as the song played in your ears, memories of graduating college, your first date, the first word you spoke to him, the day he asked you to move in with him, the day he proposed. Everything came to you, and you held him tightly as he danced with you in the memories.

The ride home was filled with tiredness. Truthfully, all you had planned was to eat tacos and watch Netflix. But as you sat next to your husband on the ride home, you realized you wanted to do more. Memories of when you two used to be spicy, when you used to have sex nearly everyday, come back to you. How much that has changed. The two of you have become nearly entirely different people. But you want to try tonight. You want to feel him again, no matter the strain. No matter what might happen. You want to hold your husband.

“I feel wrong doing this,” Jungkook rambles below you. You’re sitting on his lap, both of you in pajamas as some anime show plays in the background. “You sure you can breathe okay? Is this too much?”

“Jungkook,” you let out a frustrated sigh. “We’ve only been kissing for two minutes.”

“I know, but I—”

“If you don’t feel right, then we don’t have to,” you cut him off.

“No—I. That’s not what I meant,” he re-quips. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re not, Kook,” you stop. A big part of you feels embarrassed. Has this really become an entirely new experience? You’re frustrated and you feel a blush on your cheeks for even trying. Maybe he doesn’t want this. “Look, if you don’t want to have sex with me, that’s fine. But tell me now, because I’m not about to put my all into it if you’re just going to be worried the whole time.”

“Y/n,” he groans. Your husband runs his hand through his hair. Fuck, if he didn’t want to have sex with you. It’s be two years since he felt you like that. He misses holding you, feeling you around him as he makes love to you. But hell, he’s worried out of his wits. You can’t breathe like you used to. Not to mention the fragility of your body. What if he hurts you? He can’t imagine how bad he’d feel.

You let out a disappointed sigh. His expression telling you that he’s still considering it.

You begin to hop off his lap when his hands grip your hips, forcing you to stay.

“Y-You,” he starts, his thumbs rubbing circles on the skin of your hips. “You have to tell me if it’s too much. I’m being serious, Y/n. I’m worried and nothing is going to change that. But I want you...I miss you so much.”

You nod your head, a breath of relief flooding your lungs when he comes to kiss you again.

He’s gentle with his kisses, although much more sure than what it was just a few minutes ago. He holds your waist while his body gently falls forward. Your back hits the softness of the mattress, Jungkook’s body falling between your legs. You open them, inviting him in. 

He presses soft kisses on your cheek, trailing them down to your neck where he buries his head in the crevice of your skin. Hot hands push up your body. They take your shirt with it, his fingertips gently cascading over the swell of your breasts. You lift your chest up, allowing him to toss the fabric up over your head and onto the floor.

Jungkook’s breath stops in his chest. It’s been a long while since he’s seen you naked like this in front of him. Yes, he’s seen you naked countless times before, but he’s never seen you this thin. He’s never seen your skin so rough and patchy before. Thinking of all your hard times in the hospital, all the pain you went through, he kisses your skin with love as he admires you. 

Nothing could take away from how you make him feel. Not the redness of your irritated skin, not your ribs that poke out a little from the lack of nutrients, not the clear tubs that ties just below your chin and falls on your clavicle. No, you’re still you, and he holds you with care remembering just how much you’ve suffered. He wants to make you forget all of it.

Your cold hands startle him when they begin to push his own shirt up. Jungkook smiles down at you, giving you a kiss before he takes it off. Your eyes memorize his body, feeling his skin just as it was the last time you touched him like this. You sigh at the memories, how every one of them failed to recall just how it felt to touch him in real life. Nothing can compare to actually feeling him. Nothing can do justice to the velvet of his skin on your fingertips.

Jungkook gently leans himself back on his calves, sitting more upright as his fingers hook around the band of your pajama pants. He looks at you with permission, and you nod, giving it to him. 

The man slowly allows them to fall off your body, his eyes eating you up as you shiver from the cold.

He’s quick to warm you, though. After sliding off his own pants, he’s on top of you again, his arms holding you to his chest as he kisses the sweet spot on your neck.

“J-Jungkook,” you moan. Your husband simply hums at your arousal, his hips softly grinding onto yours when you wrap your legs around his hips. He still has his boxers on, the length of his cock straining against the fabric. It’s been too long since he’s felt you. Been too long since he’s made love to you. His dick is begging him to feel you again. 

“I need you,” you cry beneath him. 

Jungkook lifts his head from your neck, his forehead gently falling on yours while his lips cascade over your own. Your hands come to his jaw, holding him to your face as he closes his eyes. 

He’s memorizing your touch, memorizing how you feel and how you hold him. He’s memorizing the sound of your breath, low long you take between each one to inhale and exhale. The sound of your heartbeat and the sound of your fingers sliding over his skin. He takes you in as his heart wrenches in his chest.

Jungkook opens his eyes to be met with yours. They’re red around the edges and water begs to fall from your eyelids, but he kisses your cheek in attempt to tell you that he needs you, too.

He shimmy’s off his boxers, his cock springing free against his lower abdomen as he does so. It’s quick, and he’s back to your side the minute the fabric falls on the ground.

“I love you,” he whispers against your lips. “So much.”

You bite your lip, struggling to keep the tears in. He looks at you with so much love, so much adoration. You remind yourself that he is your husband, and a tear falls from your eye.

“Don’t cry,” he gulps. “I’ve got you.”

You nod against the palm that holds your jaw. He kisses your tear before he lines himself up with your entrance. You lock your arms around his neck, pulling him close to you as he slides himself in.

A gasp leaves your lips as he enters you. Although he’s slow, it’s been a long while since you felt the length of him. Your muscles aren’t like how they used to be, and you find it somewhat painful, even though he’s being gentle.

“Are you okay? I’m not hurting you, am I?” he pants in worry. You feel so good, so fucking tight, but that gasp you let out washed away any feeling he had down there for a second.

“Hurts a little, but I’ll be okay,” you smile. “J-Just—slow.”

Jungkook nods, the knob in this throat bobbing when he takes the base of his cock and guides it into you. He’s slow, just like you asked, and the slick of your arousal does a lot to make the second pump go much smoother.

“I-Is this a good pace?” he asks you once he delivers the fourth pump into you.

You sigh, your eyes closing as your head falls back. “Yes,” you pant. This is what you missed. You forgot how good it felt to have him inside you like this.

Jungkook nods before towering back over you. His forearms rest near your head as your legs wrap around his waist. He’s not harsh with you, just a medium pace and gentle thrusts in and out. The old him would have complained, would have needed something faster and more intense in order to get off. But the times have changed. It’s been so long, he honestly feels he could cum right now despite the low intensity. 

Jungkook rests his cheek against yours, his head leaning against your skin as he makes love to you. He feels overwhelmed, and his heart races at the thought of you. 

A tear falls from his eye when you run your hands through his hair, the hope in his heart nowhere to be seen when he feels the gentleness of your touch rake through his body. He sobs above you, that wall broken when you kiss his shoulder.

“Jungkook, baby,” you coo. “What’s wrong?”

Jungkook shakes his head, his arms closing in on your figure while his head buries itself in your neck. He thinks about you, about the first time he felt your touch, wondering if this is the last time he ever will. He lets the tears drop as his hand comes to hold the back of your head, the other sliding underneath your neck. He holds you close against his body, squeezing you tight in case you might escape if he didn’t hold you like this. 

The feeling of his dick in you does little as his heart breaks little by little at the thought of the worst. At the thought of this being the last time.

“I can’t lose you,” he croaks, his voice muffled between your skin and the sheets. “I love you too much to let you go.”

Your lips press together, that lump in your throat begging to rise.

“Come here,” you ask him softly. Jungkook slowly raises his head, his nose pressing against yours per your request.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you press a hand to his heart. “I’m gonna be here.”

Jungkook’s tears flow onto your face, and he can’t help but let out another whimper at the message you tell him. He wants to pretend you didn’t just say that. He wants to pretend you told him that you’re all better, that you’re not sick anymore. But he can’t help but clutch the hand that touches the skin over his heart.

“Y/n,” he breathes, his lips red and wet from all the emotion. “Let me see you, just for a little while.”

He refers to your tube, asking if he can take it off.

You nod to him, and Jungkook gently takes it off your face. The choked sob he lets loose at the sight of you breaks your heart. His lip quivers and his nose starts to run as he looks at you with pain in his eyes. He looks at you, memorizing you again and again. He looks at you as his wife, who has been there for him through everything, who has loved him through every stage of his life. He holds your cheeks, his head resting against your forehead as he rocks into you.

“I’ve got you,” you hold him.

Jungkook exhales, his nose rubbing against yours when you tell him so.

“I love you, Jungkook,” you promise. “You’re going to be okay.”

__________________

You passed in the spring.

The season took you in all its blossoms, engulfing your death with new life.

There were cherry blossoms at your funeral.

Nothing but trees and flowers engulfing the outdoors as he stood at the back of the ceremony. Nurse Sandy was there. He hated the way she looked at him as if she knew he would never be the same. 

He couldn’t bring himself to look at you. Not when you couldn’t flash him a smile. Not when you wouldn’t wrap him in your warmth and tell him you love him. He couldn’t look at you with the hope he harbored throughout the entirety of your sickness. It was no longer here. You were no longer here. 

He took a trip not too long after. The new life of spring was too much for him to handle.

You were no longer there with him. That house he spent two years building in hope that you would one day move into it with him as his wife was too silent for him to stay in.

Every inch of him yearned for you. He went through every grieving stage with the roughest of emotions. Clutching the necklace that held a small amount of your ashes around his neck, his heart suffering in agony, his mind playing memories of you over and over and over again.

His pain went over what his body could handle, causing him to turn into someone he didn’t know.

He stayed in upper Russia for a while, embracing the cold. Then moved to Aruba in search for the summer.

Only on your birthday three years later did he return home.

He could almost smell you off the plane, the familiarity of home raking through his lungs violently.

The place he once had made for you has now been occupied by a family in their mid 40s — a couple with two children and a grandmother living together. He smiles, glad that the house has been to some use.

He’s been paying rent on his apartment since he left. You’re still in there, all your belongings and all of your scent still lives within the comfort of his old home. Everything you organized — from the way you folded the laundry to the way you placed the trinkets on your desk — was all still there.

Your smell is gone when he enters his home. It’s dusty and dark. All but welcoming when he enters. There’s a spot with your name on the key holder plastered against the wall, and he tries his best to ignore the way your keys hang there when he places his keys in his own slot.

He’s made plans to sell the apartment by the time of his next trip. You’re not here anymore, and he’s starting to find it difficult to pay rent when he’s spending so much on living as a non-citizen in another country.

He unfolds the cardboard moving boxes in his kitchen, using the masking tape to seal the ends before he starts going through it all.

He starts with the kitchen first.

He sifts through all the shelves and cabinets, placing spices and expired noodles and sugar and flour in the trash. He cleans the sink and counters before he moves onto the dinnerware. The box beside him labeled “Jungkook and Y/n” stares at him with grief when his hands touch the delicate wood of your shared cabinet.

The fine china dinnerware you got as a wedding gift, the “Spider-Man” “Spider-Woman” mugs, the shot glasses with “bride” and “groom”,  your favorite spoon he never understood why it was your favorite when it looked only slightly different than the rest, all go into the box.

The living room is next.

Blankets and cup holders and remotes all go into a different box. He’s got movers taking the couches and coffee table tomorrow, so he tries to clean them off the best he can before he sells them in an auction. Pictures of you and him scatter the walls, small trinkets and souvenirs he got with you or gave you as a gift all go into the box.

His fingers tremble when he realizes what is next: the bedroom. You two shared it, but from what he remembers, you completely took it over. Finishing touches and decorations and picture frames. All of it you insisted would add “hominess” to his rather plain apartment. And he finds that you’re correct when he enters it and turns on the lights.

It’s dusty, and the lights flicker a little when he turns them on. But there it is. Your side of the bed hitting him right in the face.

He gently walks over to it, his fingers brushing over the duvet where you used to lay. He imagines you’re still here with him, ready to burst through those doors and tell him that you’re here with tacos and a new Netflix series to watch. He imagines what you’d say, where you’d touch him, how gentle your embrace would be.

When it comes to be too much, he turns away, focusing his attention on your bedside table.

A picture of you and him flashes back at him, and he feels a pulse in his throat when his finger slowly brushes the dust off the glass surrounding your face. You’re in your graduation gown, hair falling over your shoulders as you’re jumping onto his back. Nothing but smiles and happiness on your face. He remembers this day like the back of his hand. University graduation — one of the happiest days of yours and his life’s—before everything happened.

This is how he remembers you. Sweet and healthy. Nothing but confidence and laughs as you slowly took his heart into your hands.

He places it in his own box, choosing to keep it close to him as he travels around the world. There’s a few digital things and a lamp he stores away before he’s opening your drawer.

He expects to find nothing, but instead sees a stack of cards, all a little dusty, wrapped in a blue ribbon.

When he pulls it out, he turns the stack around and sees that they’re all addressed to him.

Jungkook stops his rummaging, a heart beat in his his chest as he sits down on the bed, examining the large stack of envelopes in his hand.

He reads his name in your handwriting, a thumb gently tracing over the ink before it softly unties the blue ribbon holding them together. He stares at the first one labled: “The first: to Jungkook”. He tears the seal. The envelope reveals a small page filled with your writing. He takes a deep breath.

My husband,

Jungkook pauses, the back of his hand coming to his mouth as the heaviness in his heart sinks all the way down to his feet. 

I wondered when a day would come where I could give this to you. But the more life goes on, I’ve realized these words would be of most meaning when I am gone.

I’ve known for a while I would not continue living life with you. My sickness gets worse with every passing minute, and I’ve since found myself on borrowed time. However, I am so beyond thankful.

All I wanted out of life was spend it with you. Being with you has been the best blessing I’ve received since the day I was born. Marrying you was more than I asked for, and I can go on with no regrets knowing that I get to die with your promise to me.

To say I have no sadness is a hard lie to tell. The thing that consumes my mind the most these days is how you will be when I am gone. How you will come home and how you will continue to live.

You have always loved with everything you had. I felt it with every word you spoke, every breath you took, and every touch you gave. I can only hope you will continue to do so as you did for me since the day we met. That you will find it within you to return.

I don’t know how long it’s been since I have passed when you’ve decided to read this. But for all the things I will not have the chance to say during every hard time in your life, during every morning and every evening, during every achievement and every failure, I want to say them to you now. I want you to come back and read this when you need me. When you need what you know I’d say. What you know is true:

I love you.

I love you and will always continue to do so. My body may be gone, but my soul still holds yours. It holds yours with every stage of my life, with every stage we went through. It holds you knowing that you were there holding mine. I’ve come to return your favor. 

Your hope you gave to me I now give to you. 

I know you will strengthen. I know you will live and you will live with everything you have, just like you always did. You’re my Jungkook. My husband. And I can only hope you feel me walking next to you as you continue to live.

I lived loving you, and i died loving you.

I will always love you. No matter what form my soul takes, it will be there to walk next to yours, to hold it and love it until we meet again.

The paper is crumpled in his hand, clutched against his heart and necklace as he screams into the air. The tears follow in transit, curling his body as he holds your words to his heart. He’s hysterical, the dustiness in the room filling his lungs as he sobs on your side of the bed.

Three years of holding it in, three years of pretending you were still here with him, pretending that it was all just a dream, release out of him in a painful wail. He’s remembering you, your voice playing in his head as he reads your letter. He can hear you telling him.

He remembers that morning. The last one before it happened. How you clutched onto his arm, smiling at him as you picked out a ring. He remembers holding you on the rooftop of the hospital, going through every season with you as he protected you from the wind. He remembers how you held him when he made love to you on your wedding night, how you said “I do” at your wedding. He can see your smile, the sound of your laugh. All of it he can feel.

The stack of envelopes nearly falls out of his lap, but in his fit of sobs, he is able to hold them close. He sifts through them, trying to wipe his tears in order to read them. But his heart only shatters to dust when he reads that they’re all addressed to him, one for each year, for each anniversary, until the 70th one. A part of him laughs, unsure if he will even make it another 70 years as a 34 year old.

Regardless, he runs his finger over the one that stares up at him, and he feels himself begin to heal when he reads:

“Our first Anniversary: to my Jungkook.”

__________________

[End. Do not copy. Original work of @jungkookstatts , 2023]

[themostlesbianever]

ITS THAT TIME AGAIN ALL MY 9-1-1 THOUGHTS IN ONE POST

(i forgot to do this until the tommy started talking about how his ex ran off with someone half her age)

- okay but we knew maddie would want another kid

- i predicted it

- NO WAY TOMMY DO NOT SAY IT

- TOMMY IS NOT ABBYS EX

- NO

- FUCKING

- WAY

- OH MY LORD THEY ACTUALLY DID IT

- bless you

- bless you

- damn

- OH MY LORD THERE GOES HIS INTESTINES

- hihi spilled his guts

- ahw ur shirt is ruined☹️

- hen screentime crumbs😋

- i will eat up every single hen screentime crumb i can get

- (every screentime crumb where she is at peace/happy)

- that is crazy maddie

- HOW MANY MEN SHE TURNED GAY😭😭😭

- hihi josh fishing for tea

- i love josh the gossip magnet

- oh now buck is doubting tommy

- lets not

- oh buck baby

- so i think tommy had a gf just to have one, like because of his surroundings and shit, but its good he broke it off before marriage, he definitely should have before an engagement tho

- also i just KNOW people are gonna throw shit at tommy for this and im not excited

- the dreaded c word care

- "i CARE about good sole support"- hen (i think that was the line)

- JOSH I LOVE YOU

- oh josh babe you are so right

- YES JOSH

- SINGLE HANDEDLY ENDING TOMMY HATRED

- well people are still gonna hate but like, hes so right

- tommy had it so much harder and did things to protect himself he definitely isn't proud of and now it looks bad because a lot of people dont have to do tjose things to protect themselves anymore

- "do you want me to read you a story" oh maddie i love you

- not 9-1-1 but someone is setting off HELLA fireworks and its not even fully dark yet

- i HATE fireworks, yeah theyre pretty but theyre torture for ao many wild animals AND me

- back to 9-1-1

- did it almost kill maddie??

- oh wait yes, not the pregnancy and birth but after

- oops sorry maddie

- hard times for madney😔

- STOP CHIM NO MAKING ME CRY

- uh oh maddie is worrying

- RIPPED TANK TOP EDDIE

- YOURE SO GAY EDDIE

- OMG HOT PASTOR

- FUCK BUDDIE I NEED EDDIE x HOT PASTOR

- "no offence im straight" BOY!!?!????

- no you aint

- yes father but he could be your daddy

- IM SO SORRY I CANT SAY THAT

- oh god therapy time

- yea eddie you dont feel worthy of juice

- very handsome moustache

- OH MY GOD IS EDDIES MOUSTACHE GONNA BURN OFFF??

- PLEASE PUT IT ON FIRE JUST ENOUGH SO IT CANT BE SAVED

- "do" something that makes you feel joy, how about DO a man and make some realisations about yourself babes

- WORM

- would you still love me if i was a worm

- dont be a baby man he is a baby

- jack😔

- "a billion tons" STOP THATS ADORABLE

- eddie you are NOT going down a pipe again

- YES LITTLE MAN

- whats with this season and little hero boys

- they actually put a kid down the pipe omg

- please actually save this kid my lord this is stressful

- GET HIM

- YOU CAN DO IT MILES

- WORM

- WE ARE WORMS

- BE A WORM

- HELL YEAH

- chim is 100% telling maddie he wants another kid now

- hen you are adorable oh my lord

- tommy ur so adorable

- uh oh

- UH OH

- this has got to be the hurdle

- HES THE HIMBO

- that is SO crazy

- look at them being all open and having a cute little talk

- UNTIL NOW

- IS THIS AN I LOVE YOU MOMENT??????

- ahw tommy

- WOAH

- HELLO MOVE IN YES

- MORE GAY

- oh youre doing to much buck

- so sweet

- OH

- TOMMY STOP WHAT

- it is new

- tommy youre very right actually you are his first

- tommy is actually so right because buck is moving too fast

- buck isnt ready himself like he figured out he was bi like a week ago (not literally)

- WHAT NO YOU DIDNT

- god damn it the bucktommy haters got what they wanted

- fuck off so many buddie fans are gonna be so miserable and annoying

- OH HE CALLED HIM BUCK

- i hope we get to see more tommy

- like he comes back sometimes for a rescue or for advice for chimney or something

- WOAH CHIM NO TALKING ABOUT DEATH OVER HERE

- maddies eyebrows are so expressive i love it

- OMG WE KNEW THIS

- PERGANT

- BOMB

- ahw cuties

- OMG MIRROR SCENE

- they gave us literally like everything weve been talking about

- oh eddie what are you doing

- PLEASE MAKE CHRIS COME HOME AND WALK IN ON THIS

- wait no that would mean more trauma

- this man is CRAZY

- someone has a GOT to walk in on this no?

- oh maybe buck being all sad like "my hot boyfriend broke up with me☹️"

- i really hope IF they make buddie happen they dont do it yet, maybe next season because its too soon for both of them to be dating

- no walking in but there is someone there

- eddie put on some pants man

- it is sad buck

- ☹️

- i am not excited for all those insufferable buddie fans/ bucktommy haters to come and hate on tommy for every single line he said

[grucylover]

Thoughts on DM3. Don’t hate me. 😂

DM3 was not a bad film, I have seen a lot worse and I even went to see it at the cinema a few times. I’d rate it a 6/7 out of ten.

The problem was with it, it felt outdated with an 80s obsessed villian. Don’t get me wrong, I think Bratt is a great idea and I get the concept of it but just maybe with his own film, not in DM.

Aswell, I felt they took a lot of things away from us that were just getting started.

- Agnes sold Fluffy the unicorn though in DM2 she would have screamed the house down if anything happened to him and he was such a big part of the merch. But no, gone, sold to some lil blonde.

- We didn’t see much of Grus freeze-ray nor his tank of a car. - not a big deal but these lil things make the film what it is.

-There was no Fred. - again like the point above. I would have also have liked to have seen Jillian, I thought she was a great and (annoying) addition to DM2.

-Gru didn’t really bother with the girls or interact with any of them, well a part from Agnes. He didn’t even put them to bed like he used to and just left Lucy to do it all. He didn’t really seem supportive of her with her trying to be a mum I thought. If that was my husband I would have kicked his arse lol!

- Margo got engaged to some weird kid and Gru was nowhere to be seen but in DM2 he was this overprotective dad that would have broke his nose or something lol! I know Lucy had it in hand but…..ya know. I wanted to see the overprotective dad mode.

- We didn’t see much of the house which we seen a lot of in DM1/2 and I thought that was such a shame. Why couldn’t Dru just come to Grus house or something lol

- I disliked how the writers wrote out Dr Nefario (we won’t mention the actors name and no one would of cared if someone else was voicing him) but what a lazy way to just freeze him in carbinite. Gru didn’t really seem that upset over it though the Dr had been like a dad to him. Like ?????

- Dru wasn’t bad, it was kinda nice seeing Gru have some male company as if he was down the pub with a mate but I also found it odd they had all of a sudden put on him the temptation to go back to villainy when in DM2 he had that temptation but he wasn’t interested in the slightest. He just wanted to be a father, get a job, get his girl and that was it. Every scene was perfect, the actors, writers etc put all there heart and soul into it and you couldn’t have put anymore into it really, even if you tried. Gru was really at his peak in DM2. Maybe I’ve got it wrong. Idkkkk.

- I didn’t mind the Minions and personally I never do, I think they just add to the film and I don’t find them annoying. I actually liked the prison scene, I thought that was a pretty good idea tbh.

It even felt like at times the animated characters didn’t want to even be doing the storyline in DM3. 😂

3 obviously made a lot of money because everyone was still hyped around DM2 but came out of the cinema or wherever they first watched it empty handed.

Yes it’s ok chucking in a scene here and there with a treehouse or an Agnes and Gru moment to put in some heart but it was almost forced. The writers said themselves they struggled and just wrote for themselves which I found really sad as there is so much you can do with this franchise I think.

I’m ngl, I am a bit nervous about DM4 as I think this will be its last chance to survive but the trailer looks amazing and I’m already won over by the baby Gru Jr. I wanted them to have a baby in DM3!!!!! Really DM4 should have been 3.

Should have rhey aged the girls up. Yes and no. Maybe a bit? Tbh personally, I don’t really care. It keeps there innocence but I would like to see Gru bonding with them again.

It wasn’t all bad though, I liked Lucy trying to be a mom and the animation has definitely stepped up a notch to the point that Gru is pale AF now and they all look a bit different. Aswell the actors, Carell, Kristin did a great job as always.

This is all my own opinion so don’t come at me 🤣.

[eunuchmoder]

I've been part of the local fire brigade for just over a year, now. It's nice looking back on the time I've spent with the folks here, both doing heroic deeds like fighting fires and saving lives, and engaging in the relaxing side of things by hanging out with everyone over a cold pint or drooling over a tray of brownies baked by a local who admires our work.

I've spent a year doing this job, and I've consistently been the most prolific generator of funding and community endearment. My deeds speak louder than I ever could.

I have thrown myself into frays that my peers would never even think of stepping near.

Because I am the only one who is able to.

I've saved more lives than I can count. Because my fingers have burnt off. I can't even count in my head anymore, because it feels like the dense smoke has replaced the fluid that shields my brain from the walls of my skull.

I always wear my gear: flame-retardant suit, oxygen tank, iconic helmet and visor. I have never taken it off.

I always say it's because we see too may fires up here in the bush and we always need a hero on standby.

But it's because I can't take it off.

My skin has disintegrated. I've been desiccated by the heat and my muscles have turned to plasma and ash. My suit is quite literally hollow, filled only by my cremains. I'm like a fucked-up sentient urn that can locomote.

If I take it off, it'll all pour out onto the ground – I'll collapse. I can't be swept up and dumped back into my suit. I've seen people try with other ex-heroes.

I can only fight fires as well as I can because I've died in them myself.

I have no flesh to burn or lungs to choke.

I'm a pile of ashes. I'm not alive. I'm functionally undead.

Tonight, we raised our glasses to Jimmy—48 years old, as ornery as a wizened old man can get, but with a heart of absolute gold—he's been here for ten years now on the force. We shared stories over drinks and food.

He brought up that time I saved him from a certain death by lugging a fallen rafter beam off his chest, and how I swapped his empty oxygen tank for mine when a chunk of debris severed the line between it and his mask.

They cheered for me. They cheered for Jimmy still being alive and well.

Tradition dictates that we now clink our glasses and take a sip.

I pour my glass into the neck of my fire suit and feel it trickle down along the walls of the rubber and fabric, eventually pooling in my boots, sloshing around with hopeless weight.

It's fine, though. The taste of stuff doesn't actually matter when you're saving lives. Stopping to smell the flowers only works when they're not actively at risk of being burnt down to sticks and smoke.

Though, I could swear I tasted the beer this time.

I couldn't.

Ashes don't mix well with the sweetness of a cold one.

[diaphin93]

My Thoughts on Dawntrail

So, Dawntrail has been out alot, but still spoilerwarning for the MSQ up until 7.0. This is not an indepth analysis of Dawntrail by any means, but more of my personal thoughts on how I felt about the story and contrasting it with how I feel about The War Within, which I think managed to deliver the first storytelling W for World of Warcraft since both games are running simultaneously.

For context, I do play both Games and I'm both positive and negative about certain aspects of both. For example, I feel strongly about Modern World of Warcraft just offering more than FF14 in terms of content, even if FF14 has alot of content that can be well replayed after it isn't current anymore. I enjoy general healer gameplay and tanking in WoW more, but also feel like FF14 being well able to compete through its great visuals and occassional innovative class design choices. I feel like World of Warcraft entered a golden age of class design since DF, while FF14 is currently in the midst of a very grim dark age.

And I have to admit, I started off kinda lukewarm on Dawntrail. I was on a prolonged hiatus and played more World of Warcraft or Singleplayer Games through most of Endwalker, but got hooked right back into the game a few months prior to Dawntrail release, slowly catching up with the story. I wasn't really hot about the initial premise, Endwalkers initial MSQ being an emotionally invested rolercoaster ride following Shadowbringers, concluding the entirety of the story so far and the entire Zero Chapter and the 13th being kind of more interesting for me personally, but wrapped up rather fast. In retrospect, I kinda felt sad about how many year long engaging plotlines, the war against the garleans, the ascians and the primals, where just concluded in one sweeping go, especially the end of the Garlean Empire being bitter to me, as it was my favorite plotline, adding alot of the narratives nuances, world building and depth into it.

Though I was still happy to play the story, really excited about the new classes and I was open about playing through it all. I kinda liked the idea of a succession contest and I actually liked Wuk Lamat well enough. I think Sena Bryer is not the best voice actress, but she has an endearing and authentic quality to how she voices Wuk, my biggest issue being her performance really crashing apart badly whenever she has to raise her voice. Though, as opposed to many, I don't really dislike Wuk. I think her story does not deliver in the slightest on her potential and that she remains overly static, but my bigger issue really was the inclusion of Alphinaud and Alisaie, who just well mandatorily shoved in because of Fan Demand. I guess there is a problem of both of their character arcs being concluded and them not feeling that distinct anymore, more like a package. Without the narrative being centered on their growth and maturing as people, they also feel a bit bland to me, compared to the other scions. I generally feel like Raha should have been included into the story instead, maybe a bit more Estinien as well, to let the newcomers have an adventure without the stakes being at an all time high for once. Rahas presence also would have helped Krile alot I think, because they just play off each other very well.

Going into the story, I just feel large portions of it were just really boring. The trials felt alot like side quests and I think the slowburn combined with the lack of voice acting and real battle content really made me mentally numb through alot of it. The cultures were encounter felt less interesting to me than in the past, especially since their presentation just came off as dry. And really, this made the lack of battle content and actual gameplay inside the quests very noticable. I personally also think the truth about the blessed siblings really fell apart for me, because while it was horrible how the Mamool Ja deliberately tried to breed two-headed ones, in their obsession with reclaiming their former glory, I just don't understand what the conclusion to it is supposed to tell us, as it turns out that they're simply the result of the different mamool ja tribes intermixing and the offspring having a high mortality rate, so it kinda feels like the conclusion is anti-miscegenation. I think that part of the story would have come together better if there was some more sinister method behind their creation.

But until then, yeah, it was well servicable. Us stopping right at our tracks after finding the Golden City was annoying, but what really broke the camels back to me was how we are forced through Shaaloani for some wild west side adventure afterwards, basically killing any excitement for the story up to this point. I personally also just don't like the whole wild west setting of Shaaloani, as it just felt just too far off from the rest of Yok Tural. So we are off to a very bad start for part 2 of the MSQ, which only gets worse when the real actual starts. I hate that the entire section of the alexandrian invasion on Tuliyollal is not playable and just cutscene after cutscene, way to keep us distant from the drama and action happening there. I also really dislike the aesthetics, but more on that later. We are off to even more fetch quests until we can finally board the train to attack the dome and...yeah. The story really falls apart here for me.

I really, really hate the entirety of Alexandrias aesthetics. First off...they are not Alexandria. They bear no semblance to the aethetics of FF9 Alexandria outside of the ruins of the oldtown and just don't really feel fitting for FF14 in the slightest. Modern Aspects worked well with Garlemald and Amauroth, because they still had a fantastical edge to it and looked unique, something that I will always immediately associate with this game. Alexandria on the other hand does just look like any generic cyberpunk city. And we are in the midst of enemy territory but just nothing happens. Its all peace and sunshine after they caused massive slaughter in the country we were supposed to feel attached to at this point and instead its basically just one sightseeing tour, where it feels like the game actively forces us to be in awe and wonder about how great it is there. Then there is Sphene who was really unlikable to me. I don't understand why so many people hate Wuk Lamat and sing praises to Sphene. I think what gets me is how the story forces itself to forget the elephant of the room, that she is the queen of the nation that just attacked us, and just sings praises about how kind and nice she is. I don't use the term Mary Sue lightly on female characters, I love to use it much more on men, lol, but she feels this way in how the narrative seems to try to bend over backwards in framing, which I just didn't find endearing at any moment and probably made me feel indifferent to her entire story.

I also feel like Alexandrias practices of turning souls into a currency, harvesting them and feeding them into the populace to creat a decadent faux immortality to everyone able to afford them, was never treated with the necessary gravitas and disgust. They invaded a world that never did them the slightest harm and slaughtered its people to rip out their souls, for gods sake. In every other story, this would be a nightmarish moral event horizon, while Dawntrails heavy handing and parody-like theme of understanding basically just treated it like a quirk of them we might not like, but have to respect. It feels like a parody of how the narrative treated the ascians, where we saw their humanity, saw the desperation and reasons behind what they do finally, but still could firmly stand in opposition to them, because the idea of us having to die so that they can restore their idealistic world was inheritly unfair. Dawntrail lacked this. And Dawntrail over and over displayed a near insistance of killing every sense of tension and stakes build by its own narrative, because right after Sphene decides to become the second coming of Endsinger, we go through a theme park sightseeing tour. It doesn't help that in a setting in which souls are a real physical thing we have already seeing and interacted with, killing AI Engrams just does not have any gravity to me. It works in traditional Cyberpunk Settings, where the soul is a much more abstract concepts.

So yeah, what I really disliked the most was DT killing every bit of tension the second it build up. Meanwile, I think the TWW Storyline not only had a better antagonist, but also just a better story experience where the action of the gameplay, even if its fairly simple, was combined well with the narrative at hand, with it making the great choice of relegating most of the zone lore to side content that can be used as alternative level routes for alts while keeping the main story focussed on the characters and the conflict at hand. I also think that the Azj-Kahet quests kinda handled the seeing the humanity in the people invading us better. Its more interesting firstly, because the people of Azj-Kahet are literally beastlike spider-people we so far only faced as an invading swarm and touring the city is a much less lingering endeavor and happens while connecting political players planning a rebellion and recovering a lost ally who had been kidnapped.

I think I will still regularily look into FF14 and resubscribe with new content patched, but currently its crazy to say, but World of Warcraft has the story that got me more hooked this time around. The zones are also really much more fun to explore, I love World of Warcrafts Zone Design and how the game gives you ample reason to be in the open world. There is also the current state of Dark Knight, my favorite class, which is just not fun in the slightest, I'm still hoping for an emergency class revamp in one of the 7.x patches, but otherwise my only hopium is Dark Knight getting a full on revamp with 8.0.

[itslikeababywithamustache]

Anyway yeah I made the lowkey side tag awhile ago to start talking about other fandom stuff but I think I might just turn that into the whole blog at this point bc I'm not really doing any big creator stuff for any fandoms I'm in rn, but I do want to rant about things but I never want to on my main for some reason?? Idk why it's just like a weird rule in my brain I didn't get a choice in making, but I also don't rant much over here because I'm like "well but like it's supposed to be lab rats..." and it felt weird to keep ranting about a bunch of other stuff when I wasn't also engaging in what the blog was supposed to be.

Not that I'm uninterested in the show anymore or anything, I'll still talk about it along with other things, just won't be my focus.

My mental health has just really kinda like. Idk I dunno if I'd classify it as "tanked" but definitely done something and I just don't have the motivation and energy to engage and create the way I used to. Which I miss, and really hope I can get back. But for now there are a few suspicions about some stuff and I'm just tired and I don't wanna be a definitive thing anymore and just want a space to ramble freely (where my brain will let me).

So yeah. This is Officially gonna stop being an Official Lab Rats Universe Blog now. I'm gonna change the description after this post but I'm not really gonna touch the rest of the blog. Might mess with the profile pic at some point but I like the URL. And I'm gonna leave the tag pages and all that so people can still find stuff. Plus I can't change or remove any of it on my phone anyway. Also also if I ever do make more stuff I've got things already set up to just add to for the archive. So. Yeah.

You're also still welcome to submit and ask stuff too, like, kinda obviously probably cause I'm gonna leave open, but idk I feel like I should throw that out there, I'm not like, hermitizing myself.

ALSO. Just bc I haven't been engaging... don't think I haven't seen y'all changing the Kaz/Chase ship name to that abomination of colors

I started them I am not afraid to end them.

[artsysmadworld]

The Sad Meow Meow Pt. 2

Continuing from this

By the time the next morning arrived, Maria had been pondering on her words. Did she go too far? All she could think of was the terribly sad expression on Aaron's face. She needs to find him to have a talk with him.

Maria: "I hope he slept well. He must have snuck inside to sleep on the sofa, right? He wouldn't have taken my words seriously, have he?"

Jason: "¡Buenos días, mamá!"

Maria: "Mijo…" She approaches the sofa. It's tidy and cold, no blue fur in sight. "Mijo, have you seen Aaron?"

Jason: "Still doing night patrol I guess. I just woke up heh."

Maria: "Mijo, I'm serious. I need to have a word with him."

Jason: "How about we go to Blite and Toppy's? Aaron might've been crashing in their place."

And that's what they do. After Jason finishes his cup of Joe, he and Maria exit the house to visit the decorated tank. Maria's heart beats fast; she wishes to apologise for her words. She's sure he will forgive her,—he is a soft man, afterall—but it will be awkward nonetheless. The walk was silent and awkward. Jason tried to engage in conversation, but to no avail . Jason knocks on the door.

Toppy: "!...Oh. Good morning, you two."

Jason: "You seem kinda down, Toppy. What's wrong?"

Blite: "You two are looking for Aaron, huh?"

Maria: "Yes, I would like to speak to him. Where is he?"

Blite: "He left."

Maria: "I-...I beg your pardon…"

Toppy: "After what happened last night, he apologised to us for constantly being a hindrance and for the attacks he'd done. He wanted us to tell you that to you, Jason."

Blite: "He then says he don't want to be such a bother anymore. So, he straight up left. He LEFT left."

Maria: "You're kidding…"

Toppy: "We wish, Maria. But he's left us for good, bringing his stuff with him. We had a good talk then we bid him farewell."

Maria: "...Mind if I sit down?"

Toppy: "Please, make yourself comfortable. Would you like a chair?"

Maria: "Here is fine." She sits down at the elevated porch. "I didn't get a goodbye from him. He was jealous and scared, but he was sweet. I let myself be blinded by my rage, and now he's gone. He knows what he did was wrong, but he doesn't know how wrong I now feel. I am sorry, Aaron…"

Jason: He sits down next to her.

Maria now ponders back to the past months. Aaron was there to comfort her in her loneliness. The two bonded through their interest in magic. He was her apprentice, but also her friend. They had fun together, laughing at stories and such. She even gifted him the iconic pair of boots.

However, as Aaron often helps Maria, Maria often moans about Jason. The countless times Maria has talked about him has made Aaron envious. And that envy will only grow until it hits him in the back of his head. What will happen now that Aaron is gone? Where is that cat off to now? Will he return? Only time will tell.

Maria will be making mushroom stew for lunch...

[miniscule-meow]

I agree with anon! Every time I see the notif that you posted just makes me so excited to see what you wrote! Honestly thinking how you don't have a bigger audience with how well your writing skills are

😭🥰 y'all are so nice thank you!

Honestly, I'm excited that anyone reads and interacts with my stuff at all.

I also do think it has a little to do with how inconsistent my posting is? Right now, I'm in an off-season with my work and I have a lot of time to write. Because of that I've been on top of it more, but when my work season kicks in, I just don't have a lot of time. So unless I have really solid motivation and ideas, I don't get much done. In the past I've posted chapters in bulk, then disappeared for a handful of months. And I think on any social media platform that tanks your engagement.

I've been talking about putting myself on a posting schedule for a really long time. Theoretically, I should write just as much, but only post an update to a different story each week. Then, everything would update once a month. And If I have a back stock of chapters done then even when I'm busy I can just do final edits and post.

It's a lovely idea but I just get so excited when I finish things!!! I just want to get it all out there. That's why I'll post 5 chapters in one night sometimes 🤣

So there's that! Plus, the G/t community itself has really gone through a lot over the years. I've been on Tumblr since like 2013/2014? (Yes, I was a Homestuck. You didn't ask but I'm telling you anyway) And I've just lurked in the G/t community for most of my time here. I was waaay too nervous to actually post anything. And then you know, when yahoo first bought Tumblr a LOT of people left and that really changed things. Then, people started coming back and THEN there was a lot of discourse in the G/t community specifically, and a lot of people left again. Now I feel like people are trickling back in sort of? Nature is healing idk.

Also visual art gets a lot more engagement than written word, typically. Which totally makes sense. I can look at a picture for 3 seconds and be like "yeah that's good. I see what's going on here." But if I'm going to read something, it's a choice. Typically things aren't very long so it's not a huge commitment, but no one is going to read 2k words in 3 seconds you know?

And I'm not complaining, that's just how it is. (But even still the engagement for art has even gone down too. It used to be like any art would get like 1-4k+ notes. Now it seems like popular art gets around like 400-700 notes and then or 700-1.5k+ if it's reeeal popular)

So, it could be any number of reasons from I don't post consistently enough, to there simply aren't that many people around anymore. 🤷‍♀️

BUT I do see like a handful of people consistently interacting and enjoying what I post and that makes me so happy ♥️

[arytha]

orchid, cactus, bamboo, abelia, daffodil, mahonia, chia, camellia, jasmine, ivy, chamomile, aloe vera, palm tree, taro for get-to-know-me asks?

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

I. So I don't consider things by 'perfection' honestly but Fuck is CLASS::EXSPHERE_NOSURGE; a song that will forever kick my ass. Absolute favourite song of all time.

cactus ⇢ something you’re currently learning (about)?

Waves my little Chinese Mandarin language learning app 'Hello Chinese' that helps (but with how i remember to do stuff i keep forgetting to do things) me remember that I actually did take 2 years of Mandarin in school.

bamboo ⇢ do you change into a different outfit when you get home?

Yeah I generally change out of my scrubs and into pjs. Usually a tank top and shorts 👍 be comfy

abelia ⇢ do you have a particular piece of jewelry you always wear or can’t part with?

Nope. Actually I used to wear a ring all the time, and then I lost it. And I used to wear a necklace all the time but I kept putting it in my mouth and it wore off the cheap silver coating. (for reference these were both while i was in middle school). I can't stand wearing jewelry daily anymore, it gets in the way.

daffodil ⇢ do you have siblings? if yes, in what ways do you think you’re similar to or different from them?

Yep, two younger brothers. I don't get along well at all with the older one (nothing in common at all), but the youngest has a similar humor as me and we're pretty good friends..

mahonia ⇢ what place, thing, activity inspires you most and how do you express yourself when it does?

Ehhhhh. Mainly reading inspires me the most honestly. Sometimes a song will also give me the executive function to create too, but it depends on whether I have the time to draw or write at the time!

chia ⇢ what’s an inside joke you have with someone else?

Logan and I have an adage we quote all the time which is simply: Don't worry about it.

Character is showing a weird side in a show we're watching? Oh, don't worry about it.

I make a weird noise? Don't worry about it.

Didn't catch the last half of a lewd joke or simply just a sentence he's said? Don't worry about it.

Its used more maliciously (in jest) than anything but its the funniest fucking thing we've let become a running joke.

camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

Ah. Well, I basically wasn't a human being until 2018 or so, so.... Trauma (and clinical depression and overwhelming anxiety) did a number on me. Its actually rather hard to remember my life unless I focus on really trying to remember things. I was a lot quieter tho, read books to escape reality, and had like. No friends. I tried to validate myself through internet 'friends' and made a lot of mistakes in the pursuit of being a human. I have changed a lot (and I better have, i've healed and matured quite a bit), but I do think I still hold some of my core. qualities i think.

jasmine ⇢ do you have a movie or book you loved but will never watch/read again?

I'm never reading The Series of Unfortunate Events again. You can't make me. I LOVE the books. I cannot read them again. I Own the books (in nice shiny hardcover with the original printing, too), they are never going to be anything more than used space on my shelf.

ivy ⇢ what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?

Uhhh my state of attentiveness I think. Logan says I enter 'screensaver mode' when tired but I'm not sure what actually changes. They can usually pinpoint it straight away tho fhdjs

Like if I'm more attentive and listening and engaging with you (ofc this is more for real life/voice call) im usually in a better state, I tend to tune things out when i get upset or tired or annoyed. Idk.

chamomile ⇢ what kind of things do you like receiving as gifts?

I have suuuuuch a soft spot for plushies. Its insane how soft I am over even just. a little guy. I don't even collect plushies but they always end up being my favorite present somehow. My coworker gave me a really soft Pusheen last year for my birthday(? or xmas) and god that thing lives at the end of my bed now but i was holding on to it daily for Months.

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

Living in a house and not having anything in it that would deter me from. wanting to go home?This is a genuine first thought don't look into it too much..

palm tree ⇢ do you have a fictional villain you shouldn’t like but love regardless?

am i allowed to like the little shit that is Asahi from ffxiv (the answer is no. I love him tho (and Fandaniel))

taro ⇢ if someone called you right now to catch up, what’re the things you’d tell them about?

(if they're close enough) I'd probably talk a bit about my recent art for Era and Lorne? I don't have a life that's bery interesting unless you are willing to let me babble about my recent hyperfixations...

[readingsquotes]

....now most cancel culture legends are about "woke" university students allegedly silencing older, more powerful people. Why did the university become the focal point of the panic?

There are a couple of reasons. Worrying about the young is standard for any moral panic. It allows people not to reflect on their own practices. The people who freak out about people freaking out online online, are doing the same thing they're accusing other people of. But somehow it's supposed to be different. Creating an artificial gulf between your own behavior and those you criticize is essential. That's why a lot of moral panics tend to attach to the young.

The second reason is there has been, for almost 70 years now, an infrastructure set up in the United States to drum up moral panics about the leftist youth. It started with conservative foundations and think tanks, but now includes institutions such as the New York Times. They dedicate enormous time and resources to sending a reporter to Brown University to stick a microphone in a 19-year-old's face, so they'll say a slightly ill-considered thing. The anecdotes are very easy to get, because they have built an anecdote factory around our colleges. These stories do quite well. Certain outlets, like the Atlantic, specialize in these stories.

A lot of the time the people that are accusing the left of "cancel culture" are conservatives who are often the first to censor and silence, but for real. 

Some people engaged in this "cancel culture" discourse think of themselves as liberals, or at least libertarians. But the problem they describe seems to call for an intervention, right? Then you get people like Gov. Ron Desantis obliging by saying we have to "stop woke." That's how the contradiction gets shuffled under the table. It's like a three-card Monte. If you get people scared enough of cancel culture, they want the state to do something about the universities. It becomes an excuse to declare that campus is a "problem" that needs to be brought under control. This is a reassertion of dominance and control. In the case of the universities, it usually goes through either state power or donor power.

With the panic over cancel culture, the power people are afraid of is amorphous, like shaming power. People can yell at you on Twitter. Students can heckle you during a speech. A book's mere existence can make you feel guilty. But the response to this is actual censorship: banning books, banning student protests. How do people not see the hypocrisy here?

My argument is that the whole discourse is there so that you don't see the hypocrisy. If "cancel culture," as a discourse, attracts you, you do not see the contradiction. You claim the only way to correct course is to censor people. The whole language game exists to conceal that contradiction. Concepts like "identity politics," "wokeness," etc. are necessary to justify this behavior. It allows people to say they're censoring to protect the liberal values of the Enlightenment. That is the magic of this term.

One apocryphal story from the political correctness panic that has resurfaced for the cancel culture panic is that they don't teach Shakespeare in college anymore. I was an English major back then and read so much Shakespeare, and you can look at syllabi now and see students still do. Why does this silly myth persist? 

There's so much wrapped up in that. They pin the worry on campus identity politics, but aren't worried that people barely read Shakespeare because they take so few English classes. Instead of talking about why so few people take English classes, they just say there's no more Shakespeare being taught. Who they say it is instead is still Alice Walker, though I don't know when I last saw Alice Walker on a syllabus. I guess they just don't update their material all that often. This really comes out of a white identity politics. This comes out of an anxiety that started in the 1980s, about the university slightly starting to look a little different from the university people remembered from their youth. There are other people and other cultures around. It's like the "great replacement" theory, but for the canon.

[theadistic]

Latest SEO Trends 2024

Introduction

Hey there, fellow digital marketers and SEO enthusiasts! Can you believe we’re already talking about 2024? Time sure flies when you’re busy optimizing websites, doesn’t it? Well, buckle up because we’re about to dive into the exciting world of SEO trends that are shaping the digital landscape this year. From innovative content approaches to competitive SEO strategies that will give your brand the edge, 2024 is all about staying ahead in the ever-evolving world of search engine optimization. By keeping up with the latest SEO trends in 2024, you’ll be well-equipped to navigate the rapidly changing digital landscape and ensure your brand stays ahead of the competition. Trust me, you won’t want to miss out on these game-changers!

Adapting to the latest SEO trends 2024 is key to staying ahead of the competition.

AI-Powered SEO

Machine Learning Algorithms

Remember when we used to spend hours analyzing data manually? Those days are long gone! In 2024, machine learning algorithms are doing the heavy lifting for us. They’re getting super smart at understanding search intent and delivering more accurate results. It’s like having a brainy assistant who never gets tired!

Natural Language Processing

Speaking of smart assistants, natural language processing (NLP) is taking center stage this year. It’s all about understanding the nuances of human language, making search engines more intuitive than ever. I’ve noticed that my voice searches are yielding much better results lately. Have you tried asking your phone a complex question? It’s pretty impressive!

Video SEO

Video Content Optimization

This is the ideal moment to start producing video content if you haven’t before. Video SEO is huge in 2024. It’s not just about adding a title and description anymore. We’re talking about optimizing the entire video experience. From transcripts to timestamps, every detail counts. I recently started adding chapters to my YouTube videos, and wow, the engagement has skyrocketed!

Video Search Results

Have you noticed how many video results are popping up in regular search queries? It’s not just YouTube anymore. Search engines are prioritizing video content across various platforms. So, if you’re not thinking about video when planning your SEO strategy, you might be missing out on a big chunk of traffic.

Mobile-First Indexing

Mobile User Experience

I can’t stress this enough – mobile user experience is everything in 2024! Google has been telling us for years, but now it’s do or die. If your website isn’t responsive, you’re essentially non-existent. I learned this the hard way when my old site’s traffic tanked. After a mobile-focused redesign, it was like night and day!

Page Speed Optimization

Speaking of mobile, let’s talk about speed. In the age of 5G, users expect lightning-fast load times. Even a one-second delay can send visitors running to your competitors. I’ve been obsessing over my site’s Core Web Vitals lately. It’s a little technical, but the work is well worth it, I promise.

Voice Search Optimization

Conversational Keywords

“Hey Siri, what are the latest SEO trends?” You’re losing out on a developing market if you’re not optimizing for voice search. It’s all about conversational keywords now. Think about how you’d ask a question out loud, not how you’d type it. I’ve started incorporating more question-based content into my blog, and it’s really paying off.

Featured Snippets

Have you heard of ‘position zero’? It’s the holy grail of SEO in 2024. Featured snippets are those nifty boxes at the top of search results that give quick answers. They’re gold for voice search because they’re often what virtual assistants read out loud. I’m always on the lookout for opportunities to snag these prime spots.

E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

Author Credibility

Remember when you could just write content and call it a day? Not anymore! Google is all about E-A-T now. They want to know who’s behind the content and why they should trust them. I’ve started beefing up my author bios and linking to my social profiles. It’s not just about what you say, but who’s saying it.

Content Quality and Depth

Forget about churning out thin content just to hit a keyword. In 2024, it’s all about quality and depth. Google wants to see comprehensive, well-researched articles that truly answer users’ questions. I’ve been focusing on creating fewer, but more in-depth pieces, and my organic traffic is loving it!

Local SEO

Google My Business Optimization

For brick-and-mortar businesses, local SEO is more important than ever. Google My Business is your new best friend. Make sure your listing is complete, accurate, and up-to-date. I helped a friend optimize her bakery’s GMB profile, and her foot traffic doubled in just a month!

Local Search Rankings

Did you know that “near me” searches are through the roof? People want local results, and search engines are delivering. If you’re targeting local customers, you need to be thinking about local link building, reviews, and location-specific content. It’s a whole different ballgame from general SEO.

The latest SEO trends 2024 are reshaping how we optimize websites for search engines.

Discover how we can help you stay ahead with the latest SEO services by visiting The Adistic for more details.

Conclusion

Whew! We’ve covered a lot of ground, haven’t we? Adapting to new technology and user behaviors will be the key to successful SEO in 2024. From AI and video to mobile and voice, there’s so much to keep up with. But don’t worry – we’re all in this together! Keep experimenting, stay curious, and most importantly, always put your users first. Here’s to dominating the SERPs in 2024!

Get the full article and more: Click Here!

[josiebelladonna]

”Unfortunately, many people associate engagement in sexual kink behavior with having a negative impact on one’s mental health or stemming from something inherently wrong with the individual, such as a history of trauma, an unhealthy way to cope with stress, or the presence of a sexual perversion. As a result, there’s a notion that mental health interventions are necessary to address kink and there is a history of viewing kink as disordered atypical behaviors.”

i’m actually surprised that i haven’t been institutionalized yet, because my brother has been wanting me to see a shrink for 5 years because according to him, i’m not right in the head. i’m glad he doesn’t know shit about my private life because he’d shit his pants if he saw the sheer amount of kinks that haunt me. and it’s weird, my mental health has actually tanked since getting to know my kinks and starting a sex journal. it’s made me open my wounds and let them bleed, like they were trying to heal already and now they have to scab over again??

“While, in some instances there may be concern for mental health intervention such as engaging in behaviors that harm others or that cause the individual distress, often the push for seeking a mental health professional comes from a place of the negative stigma that has been placed on kinky behavior. However, exploring kinks can actually improve one’s mental health in various ways.”

well, either i’m not doing this right or the research is wrong.

“Research has shown that sexual pleasure is essential to physical, mental, and sexual health and that the presence of sexual pleasure can improve overall well-being. By exploring sexual kinks, you can improve mental health as you allow yourself to experience new avenues of sexual pleasure. By not exploring sexual kinks that may interest you, you miss the chance to incorporate sexual activities that you find pleasurable and risk having a sex life that is not prioritizing your pleasure.”

>the kinktober community is a complete nuclear waste dump overrun with jerks, barbie dolls, walking caricatures, and antisemites, and i find nothing “pleasurable” about any of aspect of it >i proclaim that i don’t want to do it anymore after this year because of that tidbit and i feel like my kinks don’t matter, either >sees that last sentence while bearing in mind that i’m caught under a mountain of kinks

well, i don’t believe this.

“Sexual shame comes from the direct or indirect negative messages people internalize about sex that cause feelings of being inherently wrong. Viewing the presence of sexual kinks as something that needs to be fixed perpetuates stigma and increases shame, directly having a negative impact on mental health. The feelings of shame that come from the misconceptions about sexual kinks can lead to feelings of anxiety and low self-esteem. Also, researchers have identified the following to be reasons people involved in kink experience stress: social stigma, concealment, isolation, and self pathologizing.

When kink behavior is suppressed, we are essentially telling ourselves that there is something wrong with this part of me and that creates an internal conflict. Alternatively, when we view kink as a journey of growth and exploration, we create resiliency against the social stigmas and feel positively rather than negatively about that part of us. Thus, by exploring sexual kinks you give yourself space to decrease these negative feelings as you embrace kink rather than shame it.”

so, that’s it? just start seeing it as a “journey” and you’ll be right as rain?

okay. let me suggest this. when you look around, and you find that everyone is writing about kink, and the way they write it is in the form of scenarios, like “you are their best friend and they come to you with a dirty secret that they’re pregnant” and they are so wildly popular to the point it’s all anyone writes, just “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, “you”, over and over again to the point the word “you” stops being a word and they’re often 500-1500 words; very rarely do you find these that are upwards of 2000 words. then someone like me comes along, writing from feelings that they have literally no way of enunciating aloud because they’ve never had sex or been in a relationship and having a crush is baggage. that someone writes into a kink that’s popular, like for example size kink. outside of their comfort zone: they don’t have any fucking clue how it’s supposed to look and they need to do research in other places on what it even is. they try it out, but they aren’t happy with it because they don’t think of their crush as being a “size queen” and they just realized they wrote 4000 words but it feels like they just stumbled to that mark. they aren’t succinct, and they wish they were. 4000 words to “explore” a kink that everyone else could do in 600?

or better yet, they engage in a kink they are familiar with: leather. they ask themselves if they’re describing it right, if they can depict the smell and feel of it and the eroticism of it… whatever the fuck that is. some broad comes along and writes “you grind on their leather-clad thigh!” and everyone loses their shit while avoiding you like the ‘rona.

all i can think is what on earth was even the point. if this is the “journey”, well, then it’s a journey straight to hell on earth. you stop being “resilient” really quickly.

do you understand now why i wanted to slit my own throat last year?

“As mentioned above, because sexual kinks often have a negative connotation of being inherently wrong due to their lack of mainstream acceptance interest in or participation in a kink can feel shameful. The truth is, there is nothing wrong with you because of your sexual interest. Instead of viewing sexual kinks as something to be ashamed of, view it as a healthy part of your sexuality to explore.“

well, when all everyone wants to do is look down their noses at you when you crank out 5000 words about how much you want to explore your voice kink, is it still healthy? and how do i even know that i’m sexually healthy, anyway?

“If you have interest in a certain kink but you’re unfamiliar about what it entails, knowledge is power. Doing some research gives you the opportunity to explore what the kink entails, what you may or may not like about it, and sometimes you realize that the social construct around the kink may be vastly different than what the kink really is. This will give you the power to make an informed decision.”

*laughs in aquaphilia* *laughs in aforementioned research on size kink, too*

“Having a safe space means that you feel emotionally, psychologically, and physically safe to explore kink. The absence of safety can lead to avoidance and hiding, which directly contribute to feelings of shame. To determine if you have safety ask yourself the following questions:

Do you feel safe with yourself?

Do you feel comfortable exploring this kink, without feeling like you’re doing something wrong?

If not, this would be a good time to work on shifting your view and educating yourself, then give yourself permission to explore.

Do you feel safe with your partner?

If you initiate a conversation with your partner about your sexual kinks, how will they respond?

If you are met with negative reactions when exploring your kinks, it will only reinforce the negative stigma attached to kinks. But don’t personalize this; the other person maybe isn’t there yet, it doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong and it’s great that you’re open to exploring what brings you pleasure.”

i feel safe enough with myself to consider exploring the damned things, but i cringe when i masturbate. i cry looking at lingerie and sex toys. and i do in fact do research. and it does absolutely nothing. and i’m perpetually single. i have too many mixed feelings to even consider a relationship. i don’t have any idea how or what a conversation like that would look like.

“Talking about sex and kink can decrease the internalized shame around it! While sex is a personal matter and you may not be ready to shout it from the roof tops, just talking about it with your partner removes the cover up behaviors that perpetuate feelings of shame.

Now that you have the knowledge about what the kink entails you can have an informed conversation with your partner. Sometimes people are quick to shut down a conversation about kinks due to lack of knowledge. If you are interested in a kink, you can provide your partner with information so they can make an informed decision on if the kink is something they want to explore or not rather than making a decision based off what they perceive the kink to be.”

so, since i don’t have a “”””partner”””” (god, i hate that word now), i should talk about my internal world more on here? i have literally never liked doing that, even before the advent of the censors on here. i’m one of those people who, i take a breath and i catch hell for it. really, i used to get scolded for talking about going to a party when i was in engineering school. like “no one wants to hear that and people will use that against you, stop it” (yes, i’d get that at 18/19, legally an adult).

“Everyone has their own palate for pleasure. Sometimes you may find that you are interested in sexual kinks that your partner is not and that is okay. Have a conversation in which you explore how this kink may be incorporated in a way that works for everyone involved. While this may not always be possible, it’s worth exploring the spectrum to see if there’s any overlap in desires.”

tell this to the kinktober community in 2024. requests left and right and only going by what they deem to be “popular” instead of reaching inside themselves. and i have too many fucking kinks, too. there could be overlap but i still would be left untapped. you want me to have a full experience, right? who would be able to keep up with me and all my kinks, every single one of them? this is fucking HORRIBLE! this seriously makes me sick to think about.

“When you explore your sexual kinks in a safe way, you do more good than harm, which oftentimes is the opposite of what cultural norms have taught us. If you find yourself struggling with allowing yourself to explore sexual kinks remind yourself of the benefits on your mental health.”

when you have a thousand and one kinks and you realize most of them will be left out to dry, it becomes kind of pointless, doesn’t it?

[alchemicaldesignquery]

The "Fix" for 6v6

"6v6 this, 5v5 that. How do we fix this? Can it be fixed? I long for the days of OW1-"

Alright! Alright.

Fine.

I am a shameless 6v6 advocate (an Oldhead, if you will) and miss the days of double Tank that expressly allowed me to work with a Teammate to keep my squishies alive-

-or feed my brains out charging the front lines as a giant 9f armoured mess of a german yelling "Beer!" just before I'm flayed by focus fire.

That very specific feeling is a microcosm of all that it meant to Tank in a game like Overwatch. It is a feeling that celebrated the comforts and joys of limited engagement onto the enemy, so that you could provide maximum protection and safeguarding for your team.

There's nothing quite like pulling off a Winston Bubble-Nuke, Earthshattering a nano'ing Genji in your backline for the split second he's forced to touch the ground, or Halting some poor schmuck off the map as Orisa (the only vaguely enjoyable mechanic out of her Overwatch 1 kit).

And when I say "There's nothing" I genuinely mean, nothing.

None of that made the transfer over to Overwatch 2 for a variety of reasons. Damage Mitigation resources just can't be spent in those flashy ways anymore, while Support abilities make a mockery of every Earthshatter you might throw out there.

And Halt? Well that's just not in the game anymore.

sigh

This is Nostalgia, mind you. Nothing to be done there, beyond reminisce. A bit of the old ways while I dribble around looking for my first rocking chair and the inevitable shotgun to be wielded against future zombies/mutants/guvernmints on my lawn-

-except that would just keep my awake for the next few years trying to appease the Neurodivergence, screaming about pattern recognition and Game Design using as many firing neurons as possible.

So!

How to Build out a proper 6v6 Foundation:

The following is a small list of foundational changes from which, a Development Team could easily explore a re-structured 6v6 format that would also account for re-works and re-designs of varying quality.

(Or at least, the sorts of re-designs and re-works I would personally love to see but, would require this foundation to be possible.)

Each of these is meant to work in conjunction with one another, relaxing the more restrictive elements of the game to return a lot of the design potential needed to make really creative and engaging hero designs. Too much of that potential is locked up in large health, healing, and (potential) damage values.

(Note: Beyond the below changes, removing any and all Role Passives while reverting the Season 9 changes, except for the projectile sizes, would be necessary for any of this to work as intended.)

Let's get stuck in:

1 - Decrease Hitboxes for Hero models

This one is fairly simple. Reduce visual clutter by decreasing the over all volume of hitboxes within any given match. This would include not just the hitboxes of the Heroes themselves, but also any deployables and visual effects for abilities they would have.

It would not need to be drastic.

5% for Supports, DPS, and Junkerqueen (except for those whose hitboxes are already small I.E - Kiriko, Baby Dva, Illari, and Tracer).

10% for all other Tanks.

Maintaining the projectile size increase from Season 9 + reducing overall Hitboxes, allows for body shot potential to remain relatively easy, while increasing Critical Shot difficulty slightly.

2 - Provide all Heroes with 'Squishy' Health

Rather than attempt to reduce Tank Health (which promotes a lopsided degree of survival across individual Tanks), all Heroes in every Role should be given somewhere between 50 - 250 standard health

This sets a firm, reflexive, understanding whenever a hero is vulnerable; either by operating in a vulnerable state to begin with in the case of many DPS and most Supports?

Or by damaging a Tank enough to put that Tank into their vulnerable or 'Squishy' health.

If all heroes can be measured inside the Squishy range, then every player in a given match has the potential to calculate the use of resources and values necessary to secure an elimination. Tanks are no longer relegated to such an extreme separation in Health states that they require their own separate calculations from enemies and allies.

With standard health universalized, Tanks are now free to be Tanks based on what type of Damage Adjustment Health they have (Armour, Shield, Overhealth, etc.)

Turn Overhealth into a Damage Adjustment Health type as well (call it Resilience or something) and give it to any Tank that uses Healing as a sustain mechanic (Roadhog, Junkerqueen, Mauga, any future Tanks with Healing Sustain).

Give Damage Adjustment Health different sound effects for when they take damage (metallic pings for Armour, digital 'woops' for Shields, etc.), to easily tell when dealing damage switches between the Tank's protective health and their Squishy health.

What this accomplishes:

Healers use less resources to get their Tanks back into their Damage Adjustment Health, increasing independence for Tanks and Supports both.

Tanks have significantly more Damage Adjustment Health, but, overall, less total Health (Rein would be 200 Health + 250armour = 450 Total Health).

Damage Mitigation design can be strengthened, improving Tank's active survival mechanics, rather than the boring/sustain of high health pools

Increased health consistency across all Roles, improves both player understanding and learning of the game's basics.

Reduced need for heavy handed CC/Debuff effects to punish Tanks.

3 - Universalize AoE Healing with Single Target

All Healing should have a percentage decrease, depending on how many Heroes are receiving healing from the same source.

Single Target healing will always receive 100% of the healing source

Ex. Ana Biotic Rifle or Mercy Healing Beam will always do 100% of their healing, before modifiers.

If a source of healing would affect multiple heroes, the source is reduced by 15% per target included in the Area of Effect.

Ex. Baptiste's Regenerative Burst would do 100% of the healing if no one but Baptiste is in the Area of Effect. It would do 85% with one(1) other Teammate in the AoE, and 70% if two(2) other teammates were in the AoE.

The lowest any healing could go (before modifiers) would be 50%.

Ult charge would remain largely unchanged, making AoE Healing's benefit fixed more on building more ult charge off of multiple heroes affected, while single target healing would benefit from higher healing output at source.

What this accomplishes:

Reflexive counterplay embedded in Damage vs. Healing values, further prioritizing of targets for both sides, that rewards good choices, positioning, and resource management.

Promotes the use of utility, alternative sustain mechanics, and survivability effects and their executions in non-Tanks.

Alleviates the stat creep of Healing, both in speed of application and total amount delivered.

And lastly (DPS players, the spoiled brats that they are, will probably hate this, but it's necessary):

4 - Turn Critical Modifiers into a Percentage based on Range (maybe, Travel Speed as well)

Critical hits will now be measured based on where a Hero's fall off range begins and provided a certain percentage based on that range (adjusted based on kit and Design Structure).

Falloff below 20 metres = 30 - 50% critical modifier

Falloff between 20 - 40 metres = 50 - 75% critical modifier

Falloff between 40 - 60 metres = 75 - 90% critical modifier

All damage output with Critical Option, will now be subject to the range at which the Hero doing the damage, operates at across all Roles.

Close ranged DPS (Reaper, Tracer, etc.), benefit from a larger critical hitbox on their opponent and do not need excessive critical damage to be a threat.

Longer ranged DPS, must hit a smaller critical hitbox on their opponent, rewarding higher critical damage for successful shots.

(Note: Projectiles will always be 100% of damage, due to travel speed and the more inconsistent nature of their application, though it might be worth testing this out using the above values as a range measurement)

What this accomplishes:

The lowering of Potential Damage, rather than Base Damage, strengthens access between lower level and higher level play, rewarding better positioning, game-sense, and non-mechanical knowledge, much earlier in the rankings.

Skillful play is segregated based on value extracted across Heroes (and Players) and their preferences, rather than on general optimization. Hero skill expression is much more rewarding, rather than Hero selection.

One-shots are heavily reduced to only the highest ends of Hero/Kit expression, allowing for significantly improved Kit Design for those heroes who relied on them to be useful (Widow, Hanzo, Roadhog, etc.)

Non-critical option Heroes no longer need excessive Damage output to compensate for the missing Potential Damage (Junkrat, Pharah, etc.).

Base Damage can be balanced across a wider range of numbers from patch to patch, hero to hero (no more 0.5 adjustments).

Damage Modifiers are now universalized with Critical hits as a total percentage, easing the calculations needed during fights.

Damage Amplification effects are far more tolerable for all heroes and can be much more easily balanced

Whew! A lot to work with, but overall, the above should be codable based on a variety of other examples that have already been included in the game at one point or another in it's history.

As a foundation, this would serve to place the entire cast into a baseline state of

"Everyone can be vulnerable, everyone can be healed, every can do damage, but it's up to the Player to execute for the win."

All while maintaining their Role's preference for How to execute.

[kamenstranger]

Godzilla Minus One Review: Conflicting emotions for a solid entry.

Oh boy, I can't wait to see the reaction this one gets.

This is one I was originally going to wait on reviewing when it hit Home video so I could have a fresher experience and do a more thorough covering of all that I wanted, not to mention screen grabs. I usually give much shorter reviews on theatrical release, but this one it didn't feel right to do that with. I did however see it more recently, so I figured it was finally time to gather my thoughts and finish this up.

If you want my non-spoiler thoughts, I think Minus One was a great time and one of the better Godzilla films. It is remarkably well made, with a solid structure that puts much higher budget films to shame with what it accomplishes. However I also don't believe the film takes advantage of its setting to properly explore some of complex themes and elements, nor do I believe it to be as deep as many critics have lauded. There are great emotional segments that work to ground the grandiose dread incurred by Godzilla. But I found the social commentary aspects rudimentary and entry level, even afraid to get truly mean, which I can only chalk up to nostalgic admiration for the era.

Now, if you wanna get more into my thoughts, hit the jump.

We follow Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), a failed Kamikaze pilot who, near the end of the war, deferred to Odo Island rather than carry out his duty. There, his mortal fear results in the death of multiple other men when he is unable to take a shot at a (pre-mutated) creature the natives call Godzilla, with the only other survivor, technician Sōsaku Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) blaming him for their needless deaths.

Riddled with survivors guilt and PTSD, Shikishima's life doesn't get any easier upon returning the burned out Tokyo, where he finds his home and family were destroyed in the fire bombing. A series of circumstances soon brings him together with Noriko Ōishi (Minami Hamabe) and the baby she rescued during the bombings, Akiko (Sae Nagatani, as a toddler), the two are taken in by Shikishima, although more so on Ōishi's choice than Shikishima's. Over the course of a couple of years, Shikishima manages to build something out of the rubble for himself, gaining employment with the Government as a Mine Sweeper aboard the Shinsei Maru. Here we're introduced to the rest of our supporting cast: Kenji "Doc" Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) a former Naval weapons developer; Capt. Yōji Akitsu (Kuranosuke Sasaki); and Shirō "Kid" Mizushima (Yuki Yamada) the only member not to see military service.

But soon the consequence of the US' Operations Crossroads test become apparent when the USS Redfish is sunk after pursuing an unidentified creature. Due to various geopolitical reasons, the US refuses to get anymore involved. Douglas MacArthur releases several Battleships back to the Japanese Government, who themselves remain coy to the public about the reality of the situation. The Minesweeper crew are sent near the Ogasawara to stall until the heavy Cruiser Tako makes its voyage back from Singapore. It's here where Shikishima realizes what the monster is.

Obviously, a glorified tugboat is less than ideal to go up against Godzilla, but one of two mines acquired for the mission manages to lodge into Godzilla's mouth, which upon exploding takes a chunk of its skull out, temporarily killing Godzilla before immediately regenerating. The crew are saved by the arrival of the Tako, which manages to knock Godzilla down, but it has less success than the mine; ultimately succumbing to Godzilla's Atomic Ray, but allowing the Maru to escape.

Days later, Godzilla breaks through Tokyo bay and into Ginza, laying waste to the district and attacking a train Ōishi is upon, who barely escapes. Shikishima rushes to the area and reunites with Ōishi, just as tanks engage with Godzilla, causing a retaliation with Atomic breath. Ōishi pushes Shikishima in an alley as she and other bystanders are swept up in the atomic winds, leaving Shikishima once again a lone survivor, as black rain pours down.

After Ōishi's funeral, Noda informs Shikishima of a civilian led plan to kill Godzilla, mostly formed with former naval veterans.

The plan is one of the more ingenious of the series. Two naval vessels will carry a line of Freon gas containers to entrap Godzilla over the Sagami Trough. The Freon will lower buoyancy and sink Godzilla 1,500m+ deep, presumably crushing it under the pressure. As a plan B, inflation devices will be deployed to induce rapid decompression.

Shikishima proposes getting a hold of a fighter plane to help lure Godzilla, although his actual intentions are making use of a kamikaze attack right into the mouth as a plan C. However all planes were decommissioned after the war. The one exception Noda finds being a prototype Kyushu J7W Shinden in massive disrepair. Thus, Shikishima begins the arduous task of specifically tracking down Tachibana, getting a black-eye for his trouble. Still, Tachibana arrives nonetheless and gets to work on the aircraft, while Shikishima prepares to leave Akiko in the care of his neighbor.

Things do not go according to Plan. While Godzilla sinks, it has no adverse effect. Plan B in enacted, but at 800 meters Godzilla stops ascending, having torn through the inflation devices. The ships aren't strong enough to pull Godzilla manually, but thankfully help arrives in the form of Mizushima and a fleet of tug boats. Together they manage to force Godzilla to the surface, badly damaged, but not enough. The Kaiju begins charging an atomic assault when Shikishima speeds in, flying directly into the mouth, exploding the head. The Atomic charge, with no where to go, tears through Godzilla's body, destroying it.

In the air, Shikishima descends from a parachute, thanks to Tachibana installing an ejection seat and encouraging him to let go and live.

Upon returning to land, Shikishima learns of Ōishi's survival and reunites with her badly bandaged, but alive and surprisingly intact self. Tearfully hugging, as a mysterious black mark spreads across her neck.

Deep in the ocean, Godzilla's remains sink further down, and begin regenerating.

We will be talking about the story elements here in a bit, but first I wanna front-load this with more praise before tackling that beast.

First off, a lot of attention has been given towards the CG, something which at the time of this writing has garnered an Oscar. A common clickbait buzz article around the film is "Better than Hollywood." In spite if that gaudy terminology, it's not something I disagree with. Some of the vehicle models are rougher and honestly not much different than what was seen in Shin. But Godzilla and the water are incredible. In fact, Yamazaki was so enamored with the fidelity that he rewrote the climax to be in the ocean, a choice I fully agree with. Although I am curious what the original entailed.

But while the CG quality is quite literally Oscar worthy, I think it's worth examining that it's not just a matter of graphics, but presentation. Takashi Yamazaki is above all else a talented director who knows how to make a scene exciting, capable of envisioning the finished product and what is needed every step of the way. This is by far the greatest strength of the film. Almost every scene is approached asking how to best showcase it, which is accomplished in flying colors. Suffice to say, every instance with Godzilla is harrowing and breathtaking, having quite possibly the scariest moments in the franchises 70+ year history. The attack on Ginza is largely filled with recreations from '54, but they are incredibly well done, and the original bits are worthy of the upmost praise; I cannot stress how truly great the boat chase is. Not only is it one of the best moments of the film, but it's also a demonstration of Yamazaki incorporating influences in a more original and less derivative manner compared to some previous efforts.

That said, for long time fans there are a plethora of visual nods to past material. From Gojirasaurus, to the Atomic build up in '14, a foggy blue atomic haze like in '54 and '62, Godzilla's eventual demise is reminiscent of GMK, even the model lacks muscle simulation to make it stiffer and more suit like. There are also numerous other details, my favorite of which is that Godzilla's Atomic ray causes self inflicted damage, and you will always see Godzilla's mouth healing afterwards, particularly the left side. Little touches like that go a long way for me.

Likewise, the score is impeccable. Akira Ifukube's legendary Godzilla March returns, arranged by Naoki Satō along with a few tracks from King Kong vs. Godzilla and Mothra vs. Godzilla as a new Suite. The theme is not over used, only appearing twice maybe three times in the film, plus a pre-credits scene, all very appropriate usages. Meanwhile, Naoki Satō's original score is a wonderful mixture of understated-- even atmospheric pieces, and a grandiose haunting apocalyptic orchestra. He utilizes these long drones that invoke naval horns, prop aircraft, and air-raid sirens that blend into each other. What might sound like a siren slowly builds, becoming more prolonged and pitched until it's suddenly an aircraft in a nose dive. Really spectacular stuff.

By far the stand out pieces of the Score are "Divine" and "Promise" (A leitmotif of the former) You likely heard these in the trailers, and with good reason. They are a befitting crescendo to Godzilla's rein of biblical destruction, ones that I have listened to repeatedly.

But while I do have a lot of praise for the audio visual aspects, we also need to delve a bit deeper into the story beyond just the basic plot points. And it's here where I think Minus One is at its most interesting, and also where I'm most critical. The reasons why being more thematic than structural.

In the lead up to Minus One's theatrical release there were rumblings on what exactly sort of picture the film would be thematically. Writer/Director/SFX Supervisor, Takashi Yamazaki, has a semi notorious reputation for doing conservative leaning, and to some, borderline propagandist films. That might come as a surprise if you only know his work on animated features, but he's also had his hand in many period pieces set from the 30s to 50s, mostly adaptive works like Sunset on Third Street, and The Great War of Archimedes. All this lead to speculation that Minus One could be this nationalistic throwback to imperial sentimentality. Was this simply going to be a film in which the shame of a failed kamikaze pilot finds new purpose through overcoming Godzilla to gain a win after the war; was Godzilla going to be a metaphor for not accomplishing a task in war leading a much larger and harder to kill atomic monster i.e. "the enemy" etc. etc.

The answer is more complicated than a straight yes or no. On the surface, Minus one seems like a film that could go down either the nationalist rabbit hole, or an opportunity for the nuanced exploratory personal growth of a broken veteran fighting to build a better future. At face value this isn't a problem, and there are clearly elements which work in favor of the latter. But I think it's fair to say they're never fully examined. Indeed, omission and glossing over if not outright ignoring certain key topics is the most concerning part of the film, rather than anything blatant.

Yamazaki has this… bizarre obsession with nostalgia. It falls into an unhealthy combination of adoring the past simply for being the past, acknowledging that maybe there were bad things, but mainly rose tinting everything while cutting out the really bad stuff.

Quite honestly, I do think the film suffers due to those eccentricities. The film wants to be a story about our protagonist struggling alongside others also disenfranchised by the conflict, with Godzilla being a simple distillation of those challenges and a reminder of our protagonist's failure. Yet the film doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the subject material it's pulling from, nor does it allow the audience to pontificate on them. Minus One wants to be seen in the same sociopolitical light as the original '54, or at least as Shin. Yet it never reckons with the reality of the war and post war beyond very mild criticisms of leadership and Shikishima's own guilt.

I want to highlight two key points of this tangent: Yamazaki's creative talent/weakness, and the film's aforementioned criticism of Japanese leadership. The former is relatively straightforward, Yamazaki is talented. Whatever there is to say about the man, he's competent in the grammar of film, and a particularly brilliant visual story teller. While I am ragging on the film's story and narrative themes-- they're not badly told. It's a solid 3 act structure and presentation is for the most part really good. Shikishima is a compelling character who has an interesting chip on his shoulder with survivors guilt. There's a captivating set up about personal shame and a recognition of how pointless the loss of life was, only to be faced with more hardships after the war. That is a fantastic angle to start off with. Minus One also does something that I felt was lacking in Shin Godzilla, which is not sanitizing the loss of life by avoiding depictions of it. You never saw the human cost in Shin Godzilla, as the movie focused so much on the economic impact without a harsh contrast to the dry satire. But here? Carnage is on full display and used appropriately, contrasted with the more personal story of our protagonist who is just one of thousands suffering.

But this movie isn't in isolation; its scenes are not in isolation. I have to look at it as a whole and all that entails. While the story itself is not badly told, you can see weakness in the writing from the supporting characters. They're not bad, in fact I enjoy the cast, but they're not really people so much as archetypes. The elder, the smart guy, the green horn, the love interest. Characters who exist more to support Shikishima and give him drive, but that's kinda it. Noriko gets it the worst as her main purpose in the narrative to simply be ripped away from the protagonist as a driving force. The saving grace is she isn't fridged, and Minami Hamabe gives one hell of a performance for a character that's predominately "wife type". But goddamn does she make the emotional scenes she gets stand out, particularly Shikishima's breakdown and admission to the Oda Island incident. She also sells the hell out of the train sequence.

Regardless, the above is indicative of a wider issue with the side characters, and that's a refusal to simmer on most sources of conflict without immediate resolution or abandonment for our Protagonist's sake. For example, Shikishima's neighbor, Sumiko Ōta (Sakura Ando), blames him for the death of her children, that people like him was why the war was lost. Not 5 minutes later we get a scene of her taunting Shikishima for helping Noriko and Akiko, and how she's done caring about others; only to immediately give food when she realizes Noriko can't breastfeed the baby. On paper, I like this. That even the bitter and misanthropic can still have heart. But it speed runs through that conflict, and because of the time skips, we just have to accept that they're on great terms two years on, even babysitting Akiko. (As an aside, it also sucks there are only two women with speaking roles and both have their rougher edges rounded off in the first 20 minutes.) It goes beyond simply being hopeful in the face of nihilism and frankly into a degree of ignorance needed to service a plot. With the one exception outside Shikishima maybe being Tachibana, most characters aren't allowed to be complicated people. We just have vague uncaring monoliths like Government.

This brings me to the films criticism of Japan's leadership.

At a glance, it might seem like the film will engage with at least some the country's horrific wartime excursions… and it just doesn't go beyond the leaders sucking. The most we get is Noda going off about how Tanks lacked appropriate armor, the lack of ejection seats in aircraft, poor supply lines, the general disregard of Japanese lives, etc. And that sequence is mainly there just to foreshadow the climax with that mention of the ejection seat. But it's also interesting how this is as far as critiquing the war itself goes.

A common rhetoric among even the most nationalist of Japan's conservatives is that leadership during the war was bad. Not that the goals were wrong, just the fact that they hindered the war effort. It's a clever way to seem like you're being critical of the war without bringing up the rape camps or mass murdering of innocents. You get to celebrate and mourn the service men as martyrs, while condemning the higher ups for failing in strategy and equipment. This is clever, because I don't believe most people would pick up on this element. This isn't "waving an imperial flag and screaming at Korean students at school" sort of messaging. This is actually closer to what a lot of confederate apologist employ as a tactic by portraying more sympathetic scenarios. A not necessarily disagreeable humanization of the soldiers who got a shitty deal, but one that also selectively cuts around the most unsavory elements. They'll highlight the humanity of veterans wholesale, but not condemn let alone mention their role in anyone else's suffering. Lament the firebombing of Tokyo, but ignore the lives ruined by Unit 731, Rape of Nanjing, and Three Alls Policy.

Because the film never pushes super hard on the Government criticism, the above can be read as applicable to Minus One for their absence. I believe a more nuanced film would explore at least some of those aspects, be capable of self reflection while making much harsher critiques of the Japanese Government during and after the war to avoid such comparisons. Not to mention the Allies who, let's face it, cared more about their colonies being fucked over than the atrocities. Hell, the head officers of Unit 731 weren't even prosecuted for war crimes in exchange for their research.

But that isn't the point. We're here to focus on the suffering Japanese, but only in nebulous ways that may mention the food shortages in post war, or Government imposed gag orders, but we never explore them with any sort of befitting gravitas.

The narrative wants you to think-- but not too much. Don't think about the events that lead here, definitely don't think about war crimes, and certainly don't think about those occupying US forces.

To me, that last one is the most egregious of all because it was the most inescapable subject of post war Japan, an occupation that infested every single aspect of daily life for 7 years. They just gloss right over it. It's not even a visual or narrative background element, and the occupying forces never engage with Godzilla because of Cold War tensions with the Soviets.

This isn't to say that the film has to get into every facet of its setting or subject. 2001's GMK featured a Godzilla reincarnated from the souls of WWII victims, enraged that Modern day Japan has forgotten both its crimes and the horrors of the bomb. But that's just a part of what is by in large a monster brawl movie in a contemporary setting.

I then have to ask why GMO is predominantly set just 2 years after the war if they're simply going to ignore swaths of the real history of the era? It's practically negligent, even revisionist. That flagrant disregard towards very real events is done repeatedly throughout. There's a heavy emphasis on the uselessness of the post war Japanese Government, but like the occupation, it's milquetoast at best and largely used as an excuse for a civilian led effort to kill Godzilla.

All this paints a bizarre picture of a post war Tokyo as being a rough shanty town, but also full of resourceful quirky citizens able to build a living if they work hard; blissfully free from an Occupation that will force you into a union, then bust it when there's a dispute because Unions are for commies.

This is a reoccurring issue in Yamashiki's works. He often sugar coats the most damning elements and has a tendency to become overly mawkish towards the main characters and the era they reside, regardless of whatever struggles are present. There will be one or two lines that address some serious shit, but just as quickly moved past. That's fine for a Doraemon story, but it becomes pervasive in a post war PTSD picture. It gives the impression that the absence is intentional, as is often the case with toxic nostalgia. Because if one suddenly views an era as all encompassing, if you have to think of people and events as complex, nuanced, or imperfect, then you might have to confront some really challenging ideas that get in the way of one's philosophy in wanking to the good 'ol days.

Remember the past, but only the parts that matter for convenience.

But, let's be fair about this. Minus One was a very low budget film, barely 12 Million USD, if that, but certainly less than $15 mil. That puts it in the same range as something like M3GAN, which makes me question what the hell was going on with the VFX department. Still, it's worth examining that budget is a legit reason to not tackle the subject of occupation. If you can't afford a bunch of foreigners, why bother in the first place? Besides, Shin Godzilla showed that trying to direct people in a language you might not understand, and who might not understand you, can be painfully awkward. So just figure out a way to write them out, and they did. Hell, according to Yamazaki, Toho wouldn't even let him do pick-up shots, so that's pretty damn restrictive.

The other reason is narrative focus. Those aforementioned subjects arguably wouldn't play much of a role within this story. Would a story that incorporates them be more interesting? Potentially. They could also just as easily be poorly handled or bog down the journey our protagonist goes through. This is squarely Kōichi Shikishima's tale of survivors guilt, to the extent that money, shelter, and food are largely waved away in time skips. Instead, this is how the war never ended for people like him and Tachibana, how the death of those men haunt them. While that could easily lead to a fairly dark and cliched "Do we get to win this time?" narrative, I think the film handles it well enough, particularly in that Shikishima doesn't commit a suicide run. I will admit not everything is perfect even here; the handling of his PTSD ranges from one of the best scenes in the film as a nightmare, to clunky, even bordering on outright comical in one instance. Still, the film mainly hits most of the major marks for his journey in a well told fashion. We have really great initial set up showcasing his personality and the start of this troubles; he finds purposes in post war Japan; builds a modest living; 40 minutes in we establish a weakness for Godzilla; Shikishima slowly begins to accept that he should be happy despite the ghosts still haunting his dreams; right at the one hour mark he has that optimism crushed by Godzilla in a gut wrenching sequence in Ginza; he's brought to his lowest point; sets out upon revenge no matter the cost; gets told to live his life by Tachibana himself; defeats the physical manifestation of his demons; is rewarded with a family and is able to finally leave the war behind.

As is, Minus One is a tight little package of a story that breezes past its 2 hour run time and never drags nor feels overly rushed. Whatever grievances I have with the supporting characters and setting, the broad strokes work very well. And I think you could make an argument that having a strong focus on a central character and their one major struggle is far better than trying to balance three characters who don't have defining characteristics. Minus One knows what it wants out of the protagonist and it hits the mark perfectly, even I don't think it's quite as deep a others have made it out to be. But it bears mentioning that it's still a success. I have and will remember Shikishima and his story far more than, well, most Kaiju film protagonists.

This then leaves us with the ending, which culminates in this "unite and overcome hardships" angle, ostensibly doing what Shin Godzilla did. But whereas Shin critiqued red tape and bureaucratic apathy from its leaders and an overbearing U.S., all while showing a willingness to work with other nations as equals; Minus One sort of implies that the Japanese population can defeat any monster if they are truly united. Which can be concerning given everything else we've discussed up to this point about dog whistles. In any other circumstance I would give a great benefit of the doubt to this narrative morsel. This could easily be a story of citizens coming together to solve problems the useless ass Government refuses to and it be as simple as that.

But knowing Takashi Yamazaki's previous work includes Eternal Zero, based on the book by war crime denier Hyakuta Naoki, and adapted without a hint of Verhoven-esque satire, well, it's hard not to scrutinize the intent in any of Yamazaki's films.

That's the crux of all this. Because a lot of elements in Minus One could be interpreted as the complete opposite of a nationalist message, and the vast majority of people have viewed it as such. I also can see this as Shikishima and others as symbolically defeating the manifestation of the atomic monster, overcoming the lingering horror that destroyed their nation in the hopes of making a better tomorrow. That despite an apathetic Government and nuking, the people can unite and rebuild from the ashes, no matter how many times they're knocked down. It's inspirational on a very basic level that carries with it a real human connection.

I would, under most instances, say it's a shame that the film doesn't fully utilize the setting; yet despite some shortcomings preventing its full potential, the film remains an enjoyable ride about learning to find family and live again, with some incredible direction and spectacle. After being bombarded with a glutton of disposable cookie cutter blockbusters with indistinguishable directors, it is refreshing just to see something earnest with some actual vision that fits the bill of "Summer Blockbuster" in a way Hollywood has more often than not failed at in recent years.

But given the director's history with brushing off real world issues for his period films, and callous disregard in approaching the work of real monsters, I can't say with a hundred percent certain there's an inherent innocence to all the choices being made.

The most charitable view point I can give is that Yamazaki is a talented visual artist blinded by sentimentality for a past that never existed; limited by his inability to portray a hopeful message while still interrogating Japanese historical subjects with the mature, honest, and critical fashion that they deserve.

Alternatively, he's incredibly disingenuous, with a truly insidious and reprehensible ideology that is barely covered by a veneer of fetishistic whimsy that softens the realities of an era he wasn't even alive in.

Do I think that he's potentially the next Hajime Isayama? Until he says some truly fucked up shit, I think that's out of the question and should not be entertained with speculation. Besides, most people have a hard time keeping their mouth shut about stuff like that. They get drunk and rant about x group or make t-shirts quoting dictators after committing fraud... But I also wouldn't be chocked if that did happen.

My intention is to make aware the thematic elements likely overlooked by those not in the know, and highlight what I believe to be, at the very least, a creative weakness. I stand by the statement that Yamazaki's likes his rose-tintend glasses a bit too much. I see a lot of potential in him, a lot of skill shining beyond his ignorant nostalgic tendencies that, if tempered, could result in a brilliant seasoned filmmaker. All the same, I don't believe you can employ the degree of ambiguity Minus One does with it's refusal to adequately engage with heavy subject material and not create a pervasive feeling of unease around the intent behind that decision.

It's not exactly what I was expecting going into Minus One. I thought, at worst, my criticism would lie with some slightly lackluster writing-- similar to another of Yamazaki's films: Lupin III:The First. Well directed, stunning work by the CG department; but story wise is too busy trying to capture the essence of other iconic works to forge it's own path, with confusing characterization masquerading as nuance. Instead, I got all this other shit.

Despite how it may seem, I'm not going to tell you that Minus One is a bad movie. It's flawed in many ways that I realize isn't the popular opinion. I didn't find it the great introspective ride many have made it out to be, but rather a popcorn flick's facsimile of depth. But there are still merits to that. It's solidly made, and it accomplishes more than a lot of higher budget films have.

Do I think you should watch it? Absolutely. I'm not going to tell you not because I think there are elements that are questionable, it's not like Yamazaki is knowingly donating to hate groups like some other creatives. However, I think it's a film which you should be very much aware of the real world topics downplayed if not outright cut around. You should be aware of the director's history of doing that very thing for much of his filmography. Once you become aware of what to look for, it's impossible not to see glaring absences in every direction.

I'm going to link several other articles below that I found compelling and immensely helpful for this review. I typically avoid other reviews to not influence my own thoughts, but I probably would've thought I was crazy in my admittedly simple analysis had I not seen others sharing in my feelings. If you'd like some further reading on Minus One and some light history of Post War Japan, definitely check them out.

Tokyo Correspondence One THE ANTI-GODZILLA By Kaisa Saarinen

Godzilla -1 Held back by misguided and trouble Nostalgia. By words Maybe Some Thoughts on Godzilla By A. Pratt.

Godzilla Minus One By Esmé Holden

[the-conscious]

Anyone there: I'm so sorry I used to be there nobody respected it or me and it's gotten so so so much worse as a result I know it's hard it's so hard but please learn to respect yourself if no one else will. If faint is risk, may need mobility aid; best time to get a cane is LONG BEFORE you can't walk without one. It's when it just makes you less exhausted, it's when it helps with pain that's tolerable but shouldn't be there in the first place. You can engage in relevant management for disorders you think you might have if you think they'd be helpful without a diagnosis; this medical system is set up to not give a shit until we're REALLY messed up.

The child that complained of joint pain shouldn't be brushed off as having "growing pains" when it's preventing him from living his life when he very well may have had arthritis since he was young that will continue to be ignored until he's an adult and have to argue that Yes he Does need a wheelchair because otherwise he can't leave his house despite the doctor literally prescribing obscenely heavy medicine,

And the child who suspects BPD or any other disorder relatable (cause and affect—neurological issues tend to not manifest in solitude hence relevance) but "doesn't have it yet" needed treatment to prevent it from setting in, needed assistance in dealing with the situations that cause the risk NOT people to call them a stupid self-diagnoser and that that's impossible that young,

Just as the kid nearly passing out from pain and exhaustion climbing the stairs should not have been made to feel like he has to ration his inhaler because he's not SUFFOCATING exactly, all of it

And these children, and children like them, oft grow up to become still-neglected adults, even more incapable of receiving help for the world only seems to become less forgiving to what you don't know or don't have or didn't experience the older you get rather than opening a door for us

It's a cruel cruel set-up; your health and you are worth everything. Preserve it best you can. I know it's hard, I was there, it'll get better soon because people are fighting to change things.

To make a medical system that makes sense, that actually functions, that doesn't tank our lives because they failed to identify a fucking dislocated shoulder and fix it and tried to suggest surgery instead of realising that if they had actually fucking checked to see the shoulder they'd know they could've fixed it with their hands on the spot.

To pilot society in such a way it doesn't fucking hurt people this way anymore, not leaving it in the hands of grossly incompetent leaders that not only let it happen but encourage it.

You are deserving of a higher quality of life than you've been made to feel you do; you deserve no pain, you deserve lungs that are easy to breathe in and legs that are easy to move and if you can't have these things you deserve whatever your most comfortable state of being is, you deserve caring minds that can guide you to understanding how to live your own way rather than making you feel inadequate for daring to so much as be sick and disabled "wrong".

I believe you, I hear you, and I'm far from alone in that. It will get better because we'll make it so one step at a time. Better won't always look how we think it will; we often can't even begin to imagine it accurately from a point of misery. It's a journey and it's exhausting but together it's easier. I know this won't fix anything in an instant, no words could. You'll still be dealing with it all, contending with the barrage of disbelief and the subsequent battle with hopelessness.

But beginning to respect yourself begins somewhere and it begins by being shown tangible self-respect; by listening to people who've been through it, by being given the tools to imagine a way that your life can improve in a realistic way that doesn't just demand you become abled the way they keep trying to force or more disabled or a miracle to happen.

I can't give all that rn my brains tired I'm far from home-free (i got much much much more disabled, did not get respect until very recently and it's still remains unwhole) I can't open the door fully but I can tell you it exists.

This rings true in so many ways