#PEOPLE THINK IM WEIRD FOR USING THE BROWSER THING LIKE WHY WOULD YOU WANT A WHOLE OTHER FUCKING THING TO OPEN AND DEAL WITH.

[skybristle]

I HAVE TO SETTLE THIS NOW

*IF YOU USE BOTH PC AND MOBILE JUST PICK WHAT YOU USE ON PC IGNORE THE MOBILE OPTION

[fangtastic-vampyra]

Reaaally hate how it seems I have to be "watched" by people from the system the whole rest of my life.

It's MKULTRA MILBAS targeted individual stuff. You know the people that they go after?

Those that would stick their neck out for somebody else.

You know. Yes. So. I have to do a Stinkin' re-assessment sometime next week, ish, Im like "Im in for a life sentence. Schizophrenia gets worse when you get older. Very few people "get better" [or whatever they think] whatever that means, not understanding why I keep having to do a reassessment." I mean, I really hate Drs, of all kinds, I can take care of my Fecking self, and I want them to Bugger off in general. It was creepy asf. What is so hard to understand, stop thinking shit in my head, voices, v2k, and then, making me feel like shit with uh military, weapons? thennn tormenting me in my sleep. LIEK IF I FELT BETTER, I WOULD BE BETTER. a poisoned, drug, prescription or otherwise, filled body, with emo. pain, and trauma, and not enough healthy meals, and shit, prolly aint going to be around very long. plus parasites and what have you. I CAN BE A SCREET DR. JKKK. Just a herbal supplement recommender. :] {been studying those since I was 16, got a lot of time behind me on that particular interest, yah, thats why got me all into trouble, rebelling against norms, well if Punch Line really is my ..mm.. hear voices saying dont go out with her buut...what could i get out of it? it will probably, if i dont try, end up like harley and me, im fubar.. F.U.B.A.R.} And that? Was Mr and Mrs Smith.

And she mentions the Govt program medicaid enforces it every 6 months. I'm like nooooo. Even though I know it's fake, and thats fake, I have too much rage, to not be on meds, but I don't think they're quite ready to let me only be on one anti-"psychotic" umm Vraylar and Seroquel, are my two, and we lol we -- are doing great.

Yes Im a plural, also. DID... MPD.

Anyway-- I think I "actually am" schizophrenic.. Not just a Fake illness.. But Idk maybe it's just damage from previous incarnations. Some lady read my palms and said I was reincarnated. Neat.

Meanwhile, I've gotten into some sick sort of reminescensing/revenge thing. Prolly the first male "plague rat" -- Waheyyy. Emilie Autumn fan. They want them young, to study, and observe, if ya know what Im saying. AND. They dont like to let folks go. Once they have ya. Since these bastards, think they are some type of Woman Inspector. I dont want Pig Ass Hybrids for my kids anyway, fuck off. I am no longer young, and a Cantankerous ass bitch, and One day, THOSE Fuckers, are going to compensate me, for all my TBC, and everything else. TBC/Thought Broad Casting.

WTF..!! THEY CRASHED MY BROWSER, I HAD TYPED LIKE FIVE MORE PARA. Yes. they got access to my puter. UGH!!

WELL HOW ABOUT THAT.. AND....GAWDDAMN.

Note to self/other authors, authoresses: WRITE IN WORDPAD.

Or something similiar.. There use to be one that had a black background. White makes me feel like I got a lined loose leaf paper with no.2 in a uncomfy plastic chair. YES. UNCREATIVE. Like. In a fecking institution.

Uhm what had I said... Mum also said people get sacrificed to the devil a bunch more than most think. She's kinda uh weird. yes. Used to be into goth, and horror, and metal, when she was Younger, and witch craft, lord knows umm, now shes just, Blonde hair, blue eyes. And everything else, normal, she wants to be Barbie. IDEK, this Family wsa NOT ready. She was just another Handler, my dumb ass thought fighting, was the answer. I want to SUE the pants off MKULTRA ( and associations/etc, off them.) If you know what I mean. Abuse. Trauma. Mum says it happens to boys just as much. OHHH WELL. IDK about that. Shes just another brainwashed handler. Tho.. pretty insightful if you can actually get her to say anything. Lol we're munsters, I got out the sun synchronization, or something ugh.

Im just nursing a wound. Not caring about anything else, but trying to stop the pain. I dont uh see any point in living this way? My head is aching like someones been smashing rocks against my skull for the past hour. "Okay ill stop" Like they harass and make fun of me as AFAB UNDESIRABLE. Fat and whatever, though they did it um. And call me a he/she, they did that to. And I just uh, want to punch something in the face that something is God, Idk, until it stops moving. yes. then i can be god. >.> IDK, like whyyyy me.

Why all of this. WHYYYY.

He says we are all equal, he says his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, he says the enemies are not flesh and blood, but spirits. Yes. SAYS humans are more close to him than angels, says this and that, that we have power as humans over the animals, and the demons. idk. somethings not adding up. i think he's a f*cking rapist. celebrating the black majick curses he places onto children. a pervert, a predator. yes. i try. to calculate what is going on here, i hadnt known what i know now, i rebuke the thoughts i had as a child, the gnashing of teeth, in hell, and that, i dont want to end up there. AND? I think he's a bully. There's always been a man.. sigh.. tiresome.. voice over my shoulder harassing me.

WHAT I WANT: To be the Court leader of the Neutral guise. Or herd or pack or whatever. *LOL.*

What should my name be? Circe.

brendan used the word "blessed" in association with the amount of food we have. Im used to high quality meals, this is like, yuck, sort of. I wish I could remember shit, I want to give up. There are no plans, Im jsut saying "i want to" im tired of hurting, im tired of suffering, tired of aloneness, tired of rejection, maybe showing vulnerability will help? Why are men attacking me? Idk, i think they are scared of me.. Tbh. I will get my one desire, to be my true self. And theres nothing they can do about it." If " they try to mess it up, I have my ways.

{Wow, have the inkling of intimacy / u might be a d00d, on ur page, I MEAN, AMAB, and got scammers messaging me "hot photos" and shit lololol. Im too lazy to remove. if they're not a native English speaker, some of the messages are pretty funny...}

[grasslandgirl]

4, 13, 14, 19 for the fanfic writer asks? <3

mwaaahhh bev!!! <3333 xoxoxo

4. How many WIPs do you have right now?

oh god. uh. so many. i have like six different gdocs open on my browser RIGHT NOW as i answer this ask, and thats not even a small amount of how many wips i bounce around between or have started

i have 26 discrete wips logged on my word counter spreadsheet- including ones i started last year- but that's only fics that i started/have worked on in the last like. year and a half. i have more wips lazing around in my gdrive i havent touched in even longer, and that number isn't counting original works/ oc fic wips i ALSO have. so many of ksjfnbskfjbnsb im a monster

13. How much planning do you do before writing?

uh it depends! not usually that much, if i'm honest- i've found that planning/plotting out my fics tends to make me lose the enthusiasm and motivation i have for writing them, but if i have a clear idea for a scene/beat i want to write next ill scribble it down before going back to the scene i'm in the middle of

and ofc the beast that is noble pining is the exception to that rule, bc if i didn't try to plan and plot out the arcs of that beast it would probably be even more of an incomprehensible mess than it already is lmao !!! i have like 3k of notes and outlines and character arc planning at the bottom of my doc for noble pining so i an always go back and refer to what i mean to write/have already written

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?

oh god. this is a really interesting question uhhh

first gut instinct is like. comic book/graphic novel adaptation of slasherfic?? like one of the classic all black/white/grey ones with a lot of dark red for emphasis/highlights etc ?? i feel like that would be really visually cool skjvbsnkbj

uhhh other than that i'm not sure ?? i have really clear visualizations for most of what i write but i don't know how much of it would like. cleanly translate into art/animation/live action etc lmao

19. Give us a small teaser from one of your WIPs.

ohohoh :))

Ayda’s mind is still spinning with the newfound information that Fig finds her pretty enough to be tongue tied about. “I don’t think you’re being weird,” she answers, and Fig chokes a little as she swallows, lowering the bottle from her mouth. There is lipstick on the clear plastic rim, and the dark red makeup around her mouth is even more smudged. Ayda isn’t sure whether she wants to fix it, or wipe it all clean away- smudges of dark red on her fingertips, Fig’s mouth beneath her hand- “But often times, people find me weird, or unnerving, or awkward. So I don’t know if my judgement is the most reliable in this circumstance.”

“I love weird people,” Fig says, immediate and fervent. She still hasn’t looked away from Ayda, even when she briefly attempted to drown herself via plastic water bottle. “You seem like the best kind of weird, no offense intended.”

“Why would I take offense at that?”

Fig shrugs. She’s tapping a rhythm against the thin plastic of her watter bottle, now, short nails making the water jostle and the plastic crackle under her hands. “Not everyone likes being called weird, I guess?”“I don’t- usually, I don’t enjoy it. People use it as an insult, or they say that it’s a good thing, and don’t actually mean it. But I believe that you mean it’s a good thing, Figueroth. Which means I- I like it. It’s nice.”

send me numbers from this fic writer's ask list !!!!

[sunlightsshadow]

Heal What Has Been Hurt Liveblog

hello and welcome to the first of 5 initial (but probably not Only) posts recounting my liveblogging of Heal What Has Been Hurt by @sunlitmcgee

ch1: and the universe said "I Love You"

c! tech did one (1) good thing and it was burning the egg

gogy mention/pos

its only ch1 and they've already gone DadMode. hasnt even even , talked to the boy yet/lh

XD :D

ch2:Flower Gleam and Glow

"weirdo mother hen guardian angel nanny thing." hehehe

moths moths moths moths moths

Clara :D

ch3: I've Been Ghosting Your Dreams

i wonder how tommy feels about warm rain

my browser crashed god dad is too powerful/j

ghostbur :DDD

oh i have so many feelings about ghobur

ch4:Come, My Child

not lots of thoughts just enjoying the domesticity of the bois

did enjoy the star freckles tho

ch5:Like A Busy Bee Taking Flight

"large purple man" thanos/neg

compass compass compass compass (im wearing my Your Tommy compass my bf bought me <3)

heheh dad said pogchamp

ch6:Flying Like a Bee, Black and Yellow Energy

hehe derivikat lyrics

xd dad god. why is that form even still in your rotation/lh

ranboo/pos. i love all Ranboos

hehehe time to sin!

c! techno/neg

xd having several children who are gods and can take care of themselves and having to focus your attention on the whole of creation is different than abandoning your litteral tiny children to go adventuring w a gladiator who hears voices

xd you could have shifted forms dont yell at them/lh

ch7:Cold. Why You Gotta Treat Me So Cold?

weird schlatt tubbo/neg nightmare tubbo/neg

GOD I hate exile

I am so emotional over them GODS

I need someone to be proud of me like xd is proud of tommy

I want a god dad. the yearning is strong

ch8: sweet like honey

any time someone writes tommy saying the phrase "ill be good" istg i feel my heart break

back sore, clue #1

micha 🥺

ch9: I Think You're All Insane

_beloved family/pos

PUFFY!!

every time i manage to forget the captain is dreams mom someone reminds me :/(/hj/nm/lh)

no more memory broke :D

am i using that emoji to much? i do not care<3

god enderman lore/pos

ch10: Deep In The Meadow

i also feel Okay. this is a good place to be

there is something so personal about tommy wanting to end the cycle of abuse and worrying he'll end up like the people who hurt him

good people have intrusive thoughts tommy:(

ch11:Here it's Safe, and Here it's Warm

hehehehe Wings also toms XD would never leave you :(

"you'll instinctively know" its not instincts if it hurts Philza

god i fucking love the personification of instincts. so much. its such a cool thing

ch12:Why, Tell Me, Father?

tommy has a perfect comfy bed and doesnt wanna move. mood

tommy is starting to heal and i love that for him/gen

how DID xd figure that out?

ive just decided just now while rereading that xd was too nice to phil

"you're still here" im gonna SOB

heal! emerald duo/neg

I wanna hug tommy :(

ch13:It's a Promise for Life Between Father and Child

what if i just [takes a white out pen to tommys trauma] look now hes just a lil guy! (someone do this to me)

[beats the doomsday bitches over the head with a stick] i will actually never be normal abt c!tommy

mmmm i should play omori

tinyboo. itty bitty

i dont wana read the interaction w technoooo [reads it anyways] its important

Ghobur! he back!

i think more people should let ghostbur get angry

ch14:How Would You Know?

idk how phil cant sense the Pissed Off aura xd must be giving off rn

in which xd is my spirit animal

:D(malicious)-XD

i like his hat :(

somebody please do this w my dad

ch15: Remember to be Patient

i am obsessed w instinct stuff. lil baby birb go peep peep

i was so lost in the euphoria of birb i forgot to have thoughts

ch16:Fold Up Your Wings, Close Your Eyes

WING TIME WING TIME WING TIME

"it's beautiful… except of course for the unholy screams"

xd " claws" and " adorable" are not generally words that go together

he is SAD the baby is SAD :(

what would xd do if tommy turned into an actual baby?

"its me?" AWWWW🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

hes a baby

i will kill any god for him

baby boy

precious

oh boo even *mentions* agere how did I miss that the first time? tommy is simply baby

ch17: See the Sunset

cant see glass<3

i want a cool space blanket (I have a non-binary flag space blanket tho :3)

I also like when things make click clack noises… am i birb?

I love hiiiiimmmmm

ch18:Nothing Could Tear Us Apart

they can both be clingy it's okay

i almost forgot to open my document when I started reading again

[wilbur voice] quackityyyyy

hes not even actually here but I'm lobe himb

hehehe lovey dovey qpps/pos

i adore my qpps and my bf

GOD i am not NORMAL about platonic soulmate clingyduo there is nothing normal abt my mind state towards them!

"You were worth more than L'manburg ever was…" grrrrrr growl hiss its so GOOD

more baby birb🥺

ch19:Come out and Play

is he a demigod now?

bird time again!

i love instinct shit have i mentioned that?/hj

baby baby boy/pos

i was reading this the first time and I was just like. hes so small

i fuckin love my comfort chara using my coping mechanisms

And with that it's back to reading<3

[laur-rants]

As we get closer and closer to the release of In Space with Markiplier, which will invariably be very successful, will be a huge, exciting thing that everyone will get some form of enjoyment out of, and is highly creative and innovative...

I’m seeing this weird, and slightly uncomfortable trend in Mark’s youtube comments that Mark should, for one reason or another, get a Netflix deal, and how cool would that be, etc etc.

And while however nice that thought may be... it is not a good thought to have. It feels as if people who continue to assert that Mark’s work would somehow be, I don’t know. Better? More accessible? If it was a Netflix original.And if people really think this... They’re missing the point of what Mark DOES, as a creator, on the platform he has chosen to create on.

Mark does not want you to have to pay for his content. Period. He wants, with all his heart, for his content to remain FREE AND ACCESSIBLE. Mark, as a creator, is someone I highly respect because he has a vision, and he has passion projects that yes, he pays people to help him create, but not only that, but he offers this content to the world, the universe, to anyone with access to youtube, FOR FREE.

No paywall. No membership. You get this because its FREE.

Netflix is not free. Netflix is exploitative to creators, it is horrible to its animators who never get paid enough, it is big budget, it does not properly promote its indie work that finds its way onto the streaming service, and when something does ‘poorly’ in their eyes (doesn’t get enough ratings) it is cancelled. It is not a website (though it can be watched on browser). It is a BUSINESS and it is a SERVICE.

Mark’s work, whether it be let’s plays or skits or drinking maple syrup by the jug, has been free content. He strongly insists that his work REMAIN that way. He wants his passion projects to be somewhere where NOBODY will pull the plug on him, where NOBODY will ‘cancel’ his next season (no i’m not talking about unus annus, im talking about his main channel, plus he CHOSE to delete that channel after a year, that was the point of that creative project in the first place but you never had to pay to see it), where HIS creative endeavors can flourish and inspire. He doesn’t need more money and he knows this. That’s why he doesn’t ASK for our money just to view his works.

To assert that his work would somehow be BETTER if it was streamed on Netflix is, quite literally, missing the entire point of Mark’s channel. This is his living, yes, he encourages people becoming members of the channel -- of course, as any patron-esque system would. But Mark never wants someone to actually have to PAY to see his work. He even puts out FREE COMMENTARY on anything he creatively makes, showing people how he edited Wilford Warfstache and Damien, and hyping up the actors and creators he collabs with. FOR FREE!!! I cannot stress this enough. People buy Blu-Rays with extended cuts and director’s commentary for $60-120 dollars a disk and here is Mark, giving more than that, for nothing more than a simple search and click on his youtube.

THIS MAN WANTS HIS WORK TO BE FREE. HE WANTS IT TO BE SEEN BY WHOEVER WISHES TO SEE IT.

So please, for the love of God, if you like Mark, stop asserting in his comments that he should go to Netflix. Netflix would give him nothing more than money (which he already has) and ultimately alienate his core audience (either because its on a different platform now, and thus removed from the competing platform, or because lo and behold NOT EVERYONE PAYS FOR NETFLIX) and would also cut into his core belief and his core purpose: To offer what he makes, for free.

I respect Mark a lot because he sticks by all of this so strongly. So strongly, even, that he is visibly distressed that In Space is seen by some as a paid service. It’s FREE! Mark’s work will always be free. And if we want it to stay free and accessible, the last thing any of us, Mark included, wants, is a Netflix deal. Trust Me.

[watchmegetobsessed]

Update - Harry Styles

i’ve been deep inmy harry feels and this thought just wouldn’t leave me alone so i had to write it. im thinking about starting a taglist for harry, i think i’ll write more about him in the future. let me know if you’d be interested in the taglist!

word count: ~5.9k

masterlist

Sequel: The best present

Harry is not that into YouTube videos, has never really been, which is kind of ironic seeing the number of videos on the internet that is about him. The man himself who makes everyone talk online feels weird seeing someone talking on his screen, looking into his soul as if they were right there with him. But today he felt the sudden urge to be like his peers and get lost in random rambling videos from strangers, who felt the need to put themselves out there.

He has made a mean cup of tea for himself, made himself comfortable on his couch with his laptop balancing on his thighs and now is opening up his browser to unwind in an unusual way. As YouTube opens in front of his tired eyes, he stops when he tries to type in the keywords he is searching for. What is he looking for really? He thinks to himself trying to remember what he heard from his friends when they talked about funny or interesting videos. One thing is for sure, he is trying to avoid watching videos of himself in any content. He has had enough of him for the day, it’s time to focus on someone else, even if he doesn’t know the person.

He scrolls through several pages of many different keywords until he settles for a video where a girl talks about how her latest moving day went. Starting off Harry feels weird listening to her talk about such personal things as where her bed went in her room, how she packed all her stuff to fit them in the boxes, but soon enough this feeling settles and he starts to realize it’s kind of relaxing.

It doesn’t take too long for him to fall down a rabbit hole and by the time his tea empties out from his cup he is intensely watching a guy rant about his boss at Subway while doing a mukbang. The latter is a new discovery for Harry, he has never heard of it before, but he can see why some people find it satisfying.

The video ends, Harry checks the time and sees that it’s already after midnight and he hasn’t even realized how fast time flew by.

“Alright, just one more,” he mumbles to himself scrolling down the column of the recommended videos until his eyes stop at one particular upload at the very bottom.

July update for my Sammy, ready the title and an eye-catchingly beautiful girl is smiling from the thumbnail. He finds her breathtaking, the lack of makeup, the worn out hoodie she is wearing and the many various plants in the background makes it appear she is sitting in the middle of the forest.

Harry finds himself clicking on the video before he could even decide consciously to watch it. The screen loads and the girl appears in front of him, this time in a much larger size.

“Hi Sammy, welcome back to our channel,” she starts with an angelic little laugh as she pulls her shoulders up to her ears as if the camera is making her shy. She has no reason to be shy, Harry thinks to himself. His second thought is about Sammy, he is one lucky guy to know this angel and have her think about him. “It’s Y/N here, your one and only sister,” she adds.

Sister. The word brings Harry relief and he is surprised to feel this way, but he has no time to think anything of it because she starts talking again.

“Here is my July update, I’m sorry I’m a little late, but we got back from Oregon yesterday. Aunt Ella is sending you kisses and hugs, she missed you at the barbeque, or maybe it was just your helping hand at the grill,” she chuckles to herself, probably recalling the memory.

Harry has no idea who Aunt Ella is or where she lives in Oregon, but the way she talks about it makes him feel like he is part of the family a little.

Y/N carries on and starts talking about everything that has happened in July. Painting the shed at her parents’ home, buying a new armchair, one her cat absolutely adores and refuses to sleep anywhere else now, she went to the hairdresser to get a trim, but not too much. She tells about her plans for August, how she is thinking about going to the farmers’ market more often, and she has been playing with the idea of adopting another cat.

“I think Henry has been feeling a little lonely lately. He could use a buddy,” she tells the camera, her eyes moving to the side from where a weak but moody meow can be heard as an answer. “Yeah, I think he agrees,” she chuckles and Harry finds himself smiling at the screen.

At the end of the video she asks a few questions from Sammy, how he has been doing, if his wrist feels any better, even asks about a friend called Matthew. Harry wonders if she has ever gotten the answers to her questions and where Sammy saw this video. What is he doing that made her want to do an update on YouTube?

When the video ends Harry clicks on her profile faster than he would willingly admit to anyone and it’s like he opened the gate to paradise. Tens and maybe hundreds of videos are queuing on her page, monthly updates, birthday wishes, short story times about family gatherings, news and happenings in her life.

Harry gets lost in her tales. He watches video after video, noticing the smallest details about her, almost mentally taking notes about her updates, finding anything and everything she talks about so interesting as if he knew those people and places she mentions. He comes to realization that Sammy is her older brother who is serving somewhere in the military. Y/N is making the videos to update him about her life even if she knows most of them doesn’t get to him until weeks later, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. He also learns that Sammy sends them back lengthy emails once a month and always ends them with a joke they made up with his mates at the army. Y/N loves them even when they're not even funny, she never fails to mention that she smiled reading them.

Hours pass by and the rising Sun peeks inside the window pulling Harry back to his own reality, shocked that he just spent the whole night watching her videos and didn’t even realize how deep he has gotten in her life. Lucky for him he has nothing planned until the afternoon, so shutting his laptop he sets it aside and heads straight to bed, but lying between his silky sheets he catches himself staring out the window, wondering what Y/N might be doing right now. From what he collected she lives somewhere in Spokane and has family in Seattle and Portland, which puts her quite a few time zones behind him. He finds the thought of them going to bed at the same time despite the distance a little funny. He lies in bed for quite some time before he finally drifts off to sleep with a particular girl on his mind, who doesn’t even know he is thinking about her.

 “Do you think you can fall for someone you have never met?”

Harry’s question catches Mitch a little off-guard, but he is kind of used to his random bits of thoughts. Pouring some sugar into his coffee he follows the wondering singer to a free table in the corner.

“Isn’t it what all your fans feel?” he answers with a question, earning a surprised look from Harry. He hasn’t thought about this side, now the situation is kind of ironic, he supposes.

“Y’re right,” he nods stirring his coffee around in the small cup.

“Want to let me in on your thoughts?”

Harry feels a little shy to admit how he has watched all of her videos in the past few days, 207 to be exact and now he feels an oddly deep connection to this girl he has never even seen outside of a screen. Last night he dug up her Instagam profile, and even though she is not posting as frequently as she does on her channel, it was a refreshing change to see her in different settings. Chilling at a lake, having drinks with her friends, playing with her parents’ puppy, it amazed him that she has a whole life outside that small portion she lets him see in her videos.

Hesitantly, but he tells his friend about his latest hobby, if it’s not too weird to call it that, while his friend patiently listens and nods along his words while sipping on his morning coffee.

“D’you think I’m crazy?” Harry sighs leaning back in his seat, looking at his friend and colleague for validation that he hasn’t lost his mind entirely.

“Definitely not,” he chuckles shaking his head. “It’s like falling for that girl in school you know so much about but never really met.”

“Only that I’m stalkin’ this poor girl.”

“This is not stalking. We both know it’s far from that.” Harry nods with slight relief that his situation doesn’t seem as bad as he has been feeling lately. “Have you gotten in touch with her?”

“And what am I supposed to do? Comment on her video that I think her cat’s a cutie and I watched all her videos in three days ‘cuz I think she’s beautiful and I find her voice soothing?”

Mitch lets out a soft chuckle at the oddly specific answer he just gave and finds it amusing how interested his friend has grown about someone in such a short time.

“Maybe phrase it a little different.”

“So you do think I should reach out?”

“I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Use your personal YouTube, leave her a nice comment. Maybe she’ll reply.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know, Harry,” he chuckles. “Just go with it and you’ll see. You are obviously interested in her, it’s better than just sit and watch her videos.”

Harry agrees. It wouldn’t hurt to try to reach out to her, possibly in a not too creepy way. Maybe just a sweet comment on one of her videos and if she replies… Well, he doesn’t know what comes after, but he’ll figure it out.

 Y/N updates regularly. Usually once a week and mostly it’s Sunday when a new video gets uploaded. This next Sunday Harry finds himself checking her page occasionally through the day to see if there’s a new update, but it seems like she is missing today. Right until he is driving home and gets a notification from the app.

Y/N has just uploaded a new video! It reads and Harry’s heart beats a tad bit faster. He thinks about pulling over to see it right away, but he tells himself that would be a bit too much, so he is forced to wait until he is in the comfort of his home.

Finally sitting on his couch he opens up his laptop and clicks on the video that has the title: September update.

Y/N sits in her usual spot, Henry in her arms as she is gently stroking his head with a warm smile on her face.

“Hi Sammy! Welcome back to our channel,” she greets him with her usual words and Harry loves how she calls the channel theirs. “This is my September update, even though not much has happened,” she breathes out, eyes wandering to the window besides her and Harry wonders what she sees from her window every day. Does she live in the city? Is it an apartment or a house with a backyard? Are there any trees or does her room have a terrible view, maybe just another house next to hers?

She starts her talk about the month, which she spent mostly with working, a little shopping and meeting her friends. She tells him about her planned trip to the local shelter to see possible new kittens to add to her household and Harry feels himself growing excited about it. He even thinks about what kind of cat he can see get along well with Henry even though he has never even met him.

“Anyway, mom and dad miss you, I miss you too. I loved your joke about ducks in your latest email,” she chuckles sweetly, bringing a smile to Harry’s face as well. “Mom is excited to see you at Christmas, our cousins will come to Portland as well. Maya can’t wait to play Jenga with you, she said she’s been practicing.”

The video soon ends as Y/N tells Sammy how much she loves him and eventually turns the camera off.

He straight away moves the cursor to the beginning of the video and as she starts talking again he scrolls down to the comment section that’s entirely empty. There are only two views on her video, usually a hundred is the max, but she doesn’t seem to care about the views, it’s more about the message.

He clicks to type a comment, but his hands stop above the keyboard as he tries to think of what to write. Mitch was right about taking a chance at reaching out, but what is he supposed to write exactly? Everything that comes to his mind sounds so creepy and scary, and he knows it’s weird that he formed such a deep connection to an unknown girl online. At last he starts typing.

“Hi Y/N! I’ve stumbled across your videos the other day. Love how you keep your brother updated, it’s such a nice gesture. I hope life treats you and Sammy well, you truly deserve it. Good luck with finding a buddy for Henry! Love, an admirer of yours, H.”

He reads it back several times, deleting then retyping it again until he decides to just go with it. A rush of adrenaline washes over his body when he sends the comment and it’s officially out there. Secretly he wishes she would reply right away, but moments pass by, then moments turn into minutes and nothing happens. His comment stands there alone and he has to realize that maybe she will never even reply or even see it.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself as he shuts the laptop down and goes on to do his things, but he finds his thoughts wander over to her from time to time.

He has a busy day ahead of him the next day, quite a few meetings and a fitting. He checks back for a reply in the morning, but it slips his mind the moment he leaves from home and his phone rings right away. Throughout the day he basically barely has time to check his emails, his other notifications are just sitting patiently on the bar, waiting for him to acknowledge them. It’s way past five in the afternoon when he finally have some time for himself after his fitting. He is sitting in his car, people walk past him without even realizing who is sitting behind the tinted windows. Scrolling down he gets rid of everything that doesn’t seem urgent until his eyes stop at one particular notification.

“Y/N replied to your comment,” he reads it out loud, just to make it real, as if he is seeing it wrong and saying it with his own mouth brings it to life. He quickly taps on it and the familiar video opens up and while Y/N starts talking again the screen jumps down to the comments where, in fact, there is a reply from her.

“Dear H! Thank you for your heartfelt comment! I always forget it’s not just my family who sees these videos, but I’m happy you found them interesting enough to watch a few of them.”

“A few?” Harry huffs to himself feeling a little ridiculous he has watched all of them.

“I hope I didn’t bore you too much. Thank you for the well wishes for me, my brother and Henry too. He is sending his love to you. Y/N xx”

The comment was posted three hours ago. The thought that she has acknowledged his existence with not only reading but also replying to his comment brings him extreme joy. He reads her words over and over again, looking for any clue that would give away that she found his comment weird, but it seems like she was more surprised and happy that someone else saw her video besides her brother. Harry starts to type his reply without hesitation.

“Bore me? You saved me from watching another “what’s in my bag” video the other day. It was a pleasant change. I love your plants, by the way. Your room always gives off the most relaxed vibes. It reminded me I should have more of them in my home. H”

Harry smiles to himself posting his comment, the fear of appearing like a stalker long gone from him, the interaction is making his inside blossom from joy. For his biggest surprise a reply appears just a few minutes away and Harry reads Y/N’s new lines with deep hunger.

“Those videos suck the life out of me every time! I might be having a problem with buying too many plants, but I can’t help myself. They truly bring peace to me just by looking at them. I’m glad you are planning on buying some more, you won’t regret it!”

Harry is dying to reply, but he doesn’t want to look too eager and needy, so he opts for just liking her comment to let her know he read it and agrees. He locks his phone and puts it aside with the widest smile on his face as he starts his car and leaves his parking spot.

Two weeks pass by. In those two weeks Y/N uploads two more videos, one about her time with her grandparents, for a change it was filmed at their home and they even said hello in it. Harry feels wholesome seeing her with her granny and grandpa, it’s clear she cares a lot about them. The other video is just a short one where she has met some of Sammy’s old high school friends and she had a check in from them, sending a sweet message to him through the video. Harry doesn’t doubt how much these little things mean to Sammy, even if he doesn’t get to see them right away. Seeing Y/N alone boosts his mood every time she uploads a new video, he can only imagine how they make Sammy feel.

He leaves comments on her videos without a second thought and she replies to all of them, a lot of the time almost immediately. These are the highlights of his days without exception. Knowing that she has anything to do with him just fascinates him and he is starting to realize what his fans feel towards him on a different level. Whenever he sees the notification that she has replied to what he wrote or that she uploaded a new video he flies right to her page to check it, no matter what he is doing. Some of their comment threads turn out pretty lengthy, almost like a chat conversation and it has Harry wonder how they could maybe move it to somewhere else from the comment section.

He wants to ask for her number, but figures it wouldn’t be the best idea. Regardless of how much he enjoys their short little conversations, the situation is still weird and complicated and he doesn’t want to forget that.

But he is pleasantly surprised when she brings it up herself, to move the conversation to somewhere else.

“Would love to discuss that more with you. Up for exchanging IG names?” her question reads and he blinks a few before he fully comprehends that she wants to talk to him more in private. However there’s no way he can send her his real Instagram profile and making a fake one would be way too suspicious. Opening up the private messages he sends her a short, but informative message.

“I don’t use Instagram, but feel free to text me,” and then his phone number.

He sits at the dinner table anxiously, waiting for his phone to light up from a new text, and just a few minutes later it finally comes.

“Hi! It’s Y/N,” he reads from the notification and he saves the number right away.

“Hello! Save me as Harry. I haven’t even told you my name yet, how rude of me!” he replies chuckling to himself.

“Will let it slip this time. Harry. What a nice name!”

“Is it what you thought about from the H?”

“It was one of my theories. The other one was Hayes, but Harry fits you better.”

“You haven’t even seen me, how do you know what name fits me?”

“I don’t know. You had a vibe. There are many great Harries in the world, you seemed to fit between them!”

Harry wonders if she is thinking about him without even knowing that… it is him. He wants to ask her, but decides not to. Instead, he is enjoying that he can now reach her immediately and not through a comment section. He never thought this would actually happen.

 The texts never stop. They have so much to talk about! Their entire life to share, millions of thoughts and so much to discuss! Harry is not proud of the time he has spent with his eyes glued to his phone, but he wouldn’t miss a chance to talk to her for anything. Their friends are not blind to the change in him, but Mitch is the only one with a guess about why he has gotten so addicted to his phone.

“Is it the girl from the videos?” he asks Harry one time when they are at the studio, having lunch break. Different food boxes are scattered around them, on the table and the couch. Harry’s phone just light up from a text and he immediately dropped his lunch to type a response.

He glances up at his friend with a shy smile nodding his head. He hasn’t talked about his newly funded friendship with Y/N yet, it feels like as if he tells it to anyone it might evaporate into just a dream.

“So you reached out, huh?”

“I did,” he nods returning to his food once his message is sent. “She’s great.”

“Does she know who she is talking to?” Harry’s lack of answer tells enough about the truth to Mitch. “You can’t hide forever, especially if you are planning on meeting her.”

“I know,” he answers shortly. “But I just don’t know how I could even bring it up to her without sounding like a mad man.”

“She’ll need proof.”

“M’not ready to show m’self to her. What if it changes everything?”

“Then it wasn’t worth it,” he simply tells him.

Deep down Harry knows it’s the truth, but he is not ready to be robbed from the joy she is bringing him. He has never felt such a deep connection to anyone before and they haven’t even met. It’s just a version of her he is seeing on the screen, not her real self. But it feels real to him and he wants to keep this reality to himself for just a little longer.

 “I wish I could hear your voice, Harry. You are one big mystery to me, you know that?”

He forgets to breathe for a moment as he reads her message, lying in bed one evening, getting ready to sleep, but he wanted to check in with her before ending the day.

“You know so much about me already,” he types back.

“Not enough, I feel like. Sometimes I’m afraid Nev and Max are about to show up at my door and tell me that I’ve been catfished.”

He chuckles at her words, though he completely understands her fear.

“What do you want from me then?”

“Send me a voice message so I know you are real. That would put my suspicion to sleep. For a while…”

Harry hesitates for a long time until he decides just one voice message couldn’t hurt. Just a short one where his voice is not that recognizable so his cover won’t be over immediately.

“Good night, Y/N,” he tells into his phone and then send the recording to her.

He watches the status change from delivered to read and a couple of minutes go by before she finally responds.

“Thank you. Now I know that you are real. I hope I’ll hear your voice in real life one day.”

“I hope that too.”

 His time spent undercover is coming to an end and he knows it’ll happen soon. It’s been weeks since they started chatting, almost an entire month and she’s been hinting her will to see his face and though he has been putting it off, he knows it has to happen.

Fate is playing under his hands, because he is traveling to Seattle for a few days, exactly when Y/N is traveling there to visit her parents.

“I hope you know you can’t leave without meeting finally,” she wrote when she found out they are going to be in the same city.

“It never even crossed my mind!” he wrote back chuckling to himself, however it brought him extreme anxiety that he is now going to be forced to come clean about who he really is.

He spends his whole flight to Seattle making up possible outcomes for their first official meeting. Not all of them end well and it’s just fueling his fear that he might lose her for not telling her the entire truth.

But she is a smart girl, she’ll see your reasoning, he tells himself, however he can’t entirely convince himself that it will be the case.

In hopes of squeezing in more than just one meeting into the weekend they agreed to meet almost first thing after he lands. So after checking into his hotel he heads into the city to finally meet her in real life in a local café she suggested for the occasion. Arriving to the place he is running a little late and she already texted him she’ll be waiting for him inside. Harry is wearing a beanie with shades to try to keep up his cover and it seems to be working, no one has approached him yet.

Stepping inside the cozy looking place his eyes roam around and immediately finds her sitting in the corner, pouring sugar into her coffee, not even paying attention to the door at the moment, but truth is she’s been intensely staring at it in the past ten minutes she has been there.

Harry takes a deep breath and nods to himself before heading in her way, hands shaking nervously as he stops at her table.

She glances up at him with innocent eyes, a smile spreads across her face as she sees that her mysterious Harry has arrived and she doesn’t recognize her until he finally takes his sunglasses off.

Harry watches her face turn from happiness to surprise then utter shock as she realizes who is standing in front of him.

“You are… my Harry?” she asks, confusion laced through her voice and Harry can’t ignore how she called him her Harry. He likes the ring of it.

“M’orry if it’s a little too much f’you, I really didn’t know how to tell ya.”

Keeping his eyes on her he pulls out the other chair at the table and takes a seat across her while she is still staring at him with a shocked and puzzled expression sitting on her face. Then she looks around in suspicion as he wiggles his coat off his arms, before her eyes settle on him once again.

“It’s not an episode of Catfish, right?” she asks making him chuckle.

“It is not, don’t worry.”

“I’m sorry if I’m being weird, but this was literally the last thing I was expecting,” she admits leaning back in her seat. “I believed things like this only happen in movies.”

“Not just there,” he smiles, slowly relieving that she is still sitting there and hasn’t ran out. It’s going way better than he expected.

She needs a little time to put the whole picture together and befriend the thought that she indeed just developed a friendship with Harry Styles through her videos for her brother. The absurdity is still shocking to her, but the more time passes by with him still sitting there, the more she finds peace with it.

Once the shock and surprise is gone they slowly realize they are seeing each other in real life finally. Harry feels overwhelmed, she is even more breathtaking than in her videos and through texts. He is mesmerized by her whole being and could listen to her talk in person forever, he wouldn’t get bored of her.

Time stops existing as they sit at the little café, talking for hours even though that’s all they’ve been doing through texts, but they just can’t get enough of hearing each other, seeing each other’s reaction and be able to see each other and not stare at a screen while talking.

Unfortunately, time never stopped just for the two of them and soon she realizes she needs to head back home. Harry doesn’t want to let go of her just yet so he offers to give her a ride, thanking himself for getting a rental for himself upon arriving. Y/N accepts the offer so the two of them head back to her parents’ home, soaking up the last minutes of their precious time spent together.

“Thank you for today, I really loved meeting you finally,” she smiles at him once they are parked on the driveway.

“I hope I didn’t shock you too much,” he chuckles scratching his chin.

“Just a little,” she admits before they both get out of the car and walking around it she stops in front of him, after a moment of hesitation she opts for a hug that he returns more than happily.

It feels as if her frame was perfectly sculpted to fit in his embrace and Harry can’t imagine how he could go this long without even seeing her in person. He knows it’s gonna be utter misery to be away from her after they leave the city.

“Will I see you before you take off?” she asks letting go of him. Harry looks down at her, the urge to kiss her growing bigger with each passing moment, but he is not sure if it would be appropriate to give it a try on their first time meeting.

“I’m free tomorrow for a lunch,” he tells her and she nods smiling.

“Then I’m free too,” she chuckles.

There’s an awkward moment where they are not sure what else should be done or said and the more they wait the weirder it’s getting so Harry clears his throat as he takes a step back, sad that he has to leave without feeling her lips on his, but he is not trying to be too greedy.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he smiles walking back to his car. Y/N waves after him and sitting back to behind the wheel he takes a moment to himself to collect himself after everything that has happened today. His hands curl around the wheel and he is about to start the car when someone knocks on the window. Y/N is smiling at him through the glass and he rolls it down curiously.

“I just…” she starts hesitantly, her eyes wander down to his lips and Harry knows what’s about to happen, but it still catches him by surprise.

Y/N leans in through the window and presses her lips to Harry’s, capturing them in a sweet, long awaited first kiss they both have been dreaming of for quite a while. Harry smiles into the kiss, bringing his right hand up to cup her cheeks as they stretch the moment for as long as possible. Whenever one pulls back the other brings them back for just one more kiss that turns into two more, then three… It takes a long time for them to finally let go of each other.

“See you later, H,” she smiles backing out of the car and running up to the front door, smiling wildly as she waves in his way one last time before disappearing in the house.

 Lying in bed that evening Harry is scrolling through his Instagram feed when he finally realizes he can now follow her without a worry. He is quick to find her profile again and hit that follow button. He is happy to see she was already following him.

He is just about to put his phone aside and go to bed after such a busy but exciting day when a notification pops up on the screen.

Y/N has just uploaded a new video!

He taps on it quickly and her smiling face greets him from his phone’s screen.

“Hi Sammy! It’s me again. Welcome back to our channel,” she starts with a shy smile. The setting is new this time, he supposes it’s her parents’ home this time. “This is going to be a short video, but I wanted to tell you about something. Or someone.”

Harry’s heart skips a beat when he thinks about where it’s heading. He listens to her voice holding his breath.

“I met someone today. We’ve been talking for a while, but I could finally hug him today. His name is Harry, and he is a wonderful man. I think you two would get along well,” she says with a soft chuckle. “I love spending time with him and I hope he feels the same way. Actually…” Her eyes move up straight to the camera, something she doesn’t do often. She usually stares out the window or plays with Henry while talking. “I think he is watching it right now. Hi Harry!”

“Hello, Beautiful,” he greets her back with a smile as if she could hear him.

“I wanted to tell you how amazing you are making me feel. I hope I didn’t disappoint. I was so nervous to meet you today, I hope I lived up to what you imagined me to be.”

“You were so much better than that,” he answers again.

“Anyway… I hope you feel the same way. You are the first guy I’m talking about in an update, so appreciate it!” she tells him and he chuckles lightly. “I’ll see you soon, H. But until then… Know that I’m thinking about you.”

“M��thinking about you too, Angel.”

“Sammy, I miss you as always. I hope everything is well, can’t wait for your next email. I love you,” she smiles before the video ends.

Harry heads straight to the comments. This time he doesn’t leave a lengthy one, just a short line, but it has everything he wanted to tell her.

“I feel the same way.” The comment reads. Just a few seconds later comes the notification and he smiles sweetly at his phone.

Y/N liked the comment.

[cyancherub]

(preface before i rant: i love u and your writing 💕) i absoluteeelyyyyy hate seeing creators pushed off theirrrr blogs because people are toxic roaches to them…!,! i just wanna drop in and say i would willing come fight any twerps who try to come for you 🤨😤! i left tumblr yearsss ago and was in a diff fandom, and only recently came back…only to find the same bs happening to creators! like can people really not see HOW FREAKIN EASY IT IS TO JUST LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE IF YA GOT NOTHIN NICE TO SAY!? like both irl and internet. like literally it’s so easy to stfu on the internet. CLOSE THE TAB IN UR BROWSER! somethin bothers you that literally has 0 effect on your life and not causing you harm? CLOSE UR BROWSER. STOP TYPING. MOVE ON. like ugh. just makes me so mad to have seen two creators this week who suddenly had to leave for their own mental well being 🥺(i totally understand why they would and wish them all the best)… just don’t get these idiots online…SO LEMMEEE REITERATE: YOU ARE AMAZING AND KIND AND SPECIAL AND let us know if you ever need an army to fight these lil internet WEAK ASS trolls 🤨🤨😤😤🤨!…!!! (apologies if that was a bit much BUT JUSR HAD TO SAY IT..!!!!) hope you have a lovely rest of your weekend 💕💕💕 — 😤❤️❤️

WAHH THIS IS VERY SWEET OF U ,,, THANK U SO MUCH FOR THE KIND WORDS !!!

i think fandom can be a very toxic place. ppl will hide behind a screen and torment others for ? what? fun? entertainment? idk. and it's sad to see people go because of things like that. u are right !!! if you don't like someone, close the tab, block, move on. ppl who don't are just miserable and want to spread misery around. or they have nothing better to do i guess?? LOL uhh. which is a bummer because this is all supposed to be fun.

BUT THANK U FOR BEING SO SWEET I AM HUGGING U !!!! i am alright hehe just trucking along,, i don't really encounter much hate or drama which im grateful for (and if i do i try not to engage with it because i dont want to give weird people the time of day LMAOO) but i appreciate the thought !! ;v; have a great weekend as well !!!

[inkdemonapologist]

So I'm terrified of reading CoC. All of the art makes me so emotional, but I still force myself to read it because it's so good. Then I start try to make something as amazing as that and just end up crying???

Do you have any art tips or any words of advice? How do you find the motivation to do all of it? How do you not throw that motivation away because you just don't want to do it? Also how the heck do you make artist friends? I've been trying to make some so I can draw with someone, but I can't find anyone.

Oh my gosh!! THANK U…. I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABT THE CTHULHU BOYS MYSELF…..

Okay lemme see if I can answer these questions in a non-rambling way!!

How do u not throw away motivation when you don’t want to do things? I think if you don’t want to do things, like you ACTUALLY don’t want to do them, and it’s something you’re supposedly doing for enjoyment, it is good and fine to just not do them!! Like, I only draw because I want to. If you don’t want to do something, and you stop and don’t do it until you want to do it again, that is not actually a failure. Obviously there’s exceptions and nuance to this -- sometimes you have to do art for work if you’re a professional artist, and sometimes folks will know from experience that doing art even when you don’t feel like it will ultimately give you joy and satisfaction so you do your best to get over that hurdle, but forcing yourself to do art when it isn’t enjoyable or fulfilling is actually how you get burnout. I also think that Doing Other Things And Cultivating Other Skills And Hobbies Besides Drawing is an almost essential thing for artists to do and highly recommend it. When you’re doing things in your free time, do the things you WANT to do!

How do you find motivation? The joke answer to this question is “hyperfixation lol” but I think the actual answer here is self-indulgence. BE SELF-INDULGENT!!! If you’re looking at a cool story or a cool piece of art and thinking “I want to make a thing that is as cool and impactful as my favourite thing” then like… what is there for your brain to even work with there? That’s so vague, and the pressure becomes so huge that it feels impossible. Whereas if you’re like “I LOVE MY OCs AND I NEED TO SHOW OTHER PEOPLE HOW MUCH OF A HIMBO MY ONE OC IS” or “I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT SAMMY LAWRENCE SMOOCHING JACK AFTER RECOVERING FROM TRAUMA AND I NEED TO CONVEY WHY IM SO EMOTIONAL ABOUT THIS” then like, THATS something you can get powered up about!!! People shy away from being self-indulgent because they think they’re supposed to be appealing to other people, or trying to figure out what other people think is cool, but the truth is that when you are really, REALLY absolutely into the thing you’re making? IT SHOWS, that love pours out of it and when you find the other people who wanted that content that you made just for you, they will get SO EXCITED. Draw the ideas that make you go HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH. The Call of Cthulhu game is MASSIVE self-indulgence for all of us and that’s why we’re so excited about it!! Every once in a while I think to myself “what would be a Cool Picture of Sammy Lawrence that other people in the fandom would like that might get a bunch of notes” and sometimes I even have ideas, but I never ever get around to drawing them because there are so many other things I would RATHER be drawing that are just very exciting to me personally. 

How do you make artist friends? As far as I know there’s not One Weird Trick to making friends of any particular sort, but my experience is -- (a) do things that you like, (b) join groups / communities / forums / follow on social media / discord servers for people who do the things that you like, (c) interact with those people in ways that are fun, (d) if you happen to both enjoy interacting and reciprocate with each other then you can interact more and invite each other to new and different interactions and lead towards some level of friendship! A lot of the art friends I have now are folks from a community for a browser game we all played -- I drew a bunch of fanart and liked their fanart and enjoyed yelling headcanons about the characters with them, and we ended up enjoying each other enough to want to do other things together, too. Friendship isn’t a thing where you like, find people you like and then try to figure out how to make them like you back, or an exchange where if you listen to someone talk about X then they’re required by friend rules to listen to you talk about Y. Instead, friendship is about running into people who are a good fit for you in circumstances where you click with them and have things in common, or things you can both share. So the part you can be proactive about is meeting people! And knowing that if people don’t become friends with you or a community isn’t fun for you, you can just wander off and try to meet other people. Sometimes this takes a bunch of tries, so I wish you the best in the art friend gacha!!

Anyway, that’s the best I got!! HOPEFULLY SOMEWHERE IN HERE IS SOMETHING THAT IS KIND OF LIKE AN ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION, ANON!! I wish u the best!!!!!

[cirilee]

i just found a text my browser had saved on a word count website, and i apparently typed it last november while being sad - i just wanna have a place to post it, and it explains why i was gone for most of may through november last year.

if you’re interested, u can read, it’s basically just a long long long vent and i wanna save it somewhere :’)

(and if you wanna, you can tell me what u think of the whole thing, maybe share if something like that happened to you too, because man, this whole thing was WEIRD for me)

bottom line is: i’m much better now and have way better friends then back then and in general, i’m a pretty happy person again^^

My parents and me had been fighting a lot the past years. I still love them. For a while though, it was just shouting matches between us. We weren't really speaking to each other throughout january 2019 until april 2019, so i wasn't informed by them that they were planning to mOVE OUT. And the place they wanted to move to only had enough space for 2 people. now my brother and me had 3 months total to find and finance our own flats. i was desperate. 2 months i unsuccessfully searched for a job or a flat or a way to make a deposit for said flat, without any saved up money. an old school friend offered to move out together. i only saw him once every month for group activities. he was nice, but we also had a bit of a history. 3 years ago he had acted kinda scummy and tried to get me to be his girlfriend because "he couldnt find anybody else” - ending in a "movie night with friends" that turned out to be a trap, where the only one spending the night was me because he only invited me. creepy. he apologized and i forgave him and we were chill and it was normal between us. i realize now, that i should have just left him out of my life at that point. but time was running out, so i gave in and asked myself "whats the worst he could do. i’ve known this person for 12 years and the he's part of my friend group" we set up basic rules, how we would pay for stuff, etc. .. we moved in. it seemed fine. then i noticed that he talked A LOT. and he wanted A LOT of attention. after a day of working on my diploma or working at my job, he would assert himself in my room and try to engage in smalltalk. i am not the hermit type. i engaged with him, i joined in on his conversation. but when i was already tired he wouldn't accept "i'm gonna go to sleep". there was always something else he needed to talk about. I was trying to make clear to him that i needed alone time too, but no matter how honest i was, the message either didn't seem to stick, or he'd get upset and start asking me if i hated him. With that, i could have kept up with in the long run. Then he started knocking on my door. even when it was already late and i already told him i was gonna go to sleep. Repeatedly knocking on my door. At some point he just opened the door. It was 1am. I pretended to sleep. I could hear him breathing, it sounded angry. He eventually closed the door. The next morning i confronted him. He argued it away as him trying to warn me that he was going to take a shower, so that i wouldn't use the bathroom. He started commenting on how i wasn't funny enough around him. in that friend group, i'm the funny one :c. but i cant keep up that energy 24/7 (this was supposed to be a home, not a free neverending standup act, for this one guy). that confused him. the next day he asked me if i had depression. My parents had given me a griller/toaster as a parting gift (there’s a backstory for that too but anyways) my flatmate ALSO had that same toaster. He demanded we make up our minds which one to keep. i didn't understand why this was important to him and i hated discussing this useless topic with him so i stored the toaster in my room. He repeatedly suggested i throw mine away (?). One evening i got hungry and decided i'd make myself a toast in my room. So i made some toast. Suddenly he bursts in. And he starts ranting. "why are you doing this are you CRAZY you cant TOAST in your own room thats DANGEROUS you're gonna start a fire, don't ever do that again, we have a KITCHEN for that. why don't you want to use the kitchen you cant just HIDE from me every day, this is OUR flat  and i want us to live TOGETHER!" He didn't stop talking and it overwhelmed me, so (this is embarrassing, but) i actually started crying and i turned away from him so i could try to control myself. and he just started babytalking me "awww its alright i didn't mean to scare you, but you see, you shouldn't have done that". he tried putting his arms around me, i told him to stop. "you need a hug right now" ...... i was so angry i think my brain might have short circuited because the next hour was me just acting the whole way through. i told him everything he wanted to hear. i was so sorry for almost burning the house down and made up some explanation that my parents were still making me sad, so i needed distance. The next big thing involved one of my best friends. she wanted to spontaneously go out for an evening. so i put on some pants and of course: HE appears in my room, asking where i'm going. i was surprised by the question and just answered "going out with Lina" he left it at that. then suddenly: "can i come too?" He threw me off with that question. Lina had said she needed some advice on personal stuff, so I said "no" because i didn't have a better answer. he got ANGRY. i explained. "Lina wants some privacy, i'm sorry" He starts arguing that Lina is just as much his best friend, and that he should be allowed to hear what she wants to say to me. Before i can reply he slams his door shut. "Don't even try to explain yourself", he says. I told my friend while meeting up with her and she began with the sympathetic "you should have said yes" and we argued about it and then she came out with this absolutely horrifying sentence: "you know how he is. you cant be *too* honest with him. he's sensitive. you need to lie to him so he doesn't get mad" it was as if i'd been splashed with cold water. i said i didn't agree with that. that that was actually unfair to HIM. nobody likes being lied to and treated less than. she called him, told him i was gonna apologize and he showed up with the angriest expression i ever saw in his face. he accused me of being depressed and that he now has the burden of my mental issues to bear. This he assumed because one night i told him about me dissassociating sometimes a few years ago. Then he wanted me to promise i would never leave him, because he's afraid i won't be able to pay my part of the rent. the crowning moment was my friend Lina mostly agreeing with him and both of them berating me for not having my life together because i still hadn't managed to find an open-ended contract job, only limited-time jobs. at the end he justified himself by saying he cant stand my parents phoning me. (at that point they had started calling me everyday and showed genuine concern ... i was trying to reform a bond with them) - apparently he resented that. he knew about my parents disciplining me with face slaps as a kid (when i was 9-11 yrs old) (they feel bad about it, and they they stopped doing it fairly early) in that moment my flatmate chose to tell me ..... (hoo boy i need to get ready to type this) .... "i'm concerned about you. if your father would ever beat you, i would beat him  to a bloody pulp" then he repeated "i would beat him/kill him" a few times, VERY agitatedly. it was scary and at that point i was numb. i didn't really respond, i just said "its fine" or something to that extent. the  thing that made me decide to move out (although certainly among many that followed that night) was this: one morning i informed him i was going to visit my parents that weekend. we had started talking again (as i mentioned before and i wanted to meet them without fighting for once). he says "but you're coming back, right". i say "of course don't be so nervous". i go to work. i get a LOT OF texts from him suddenly. i skim through it. he's mad about me calling him "nervous". i don't reply/read bc i am at work. Then he actually CALLS me. i don't pick up.  now i'm thinking: What is so  important, that he has to call me during work.  there's a 4 paragraph essay in my inbox. "watch your mouth", "you have no right to speak that way to me", "you should have more respect". he was mad i called him nervous. i responded that i don't have time to reply. he argued back. at one point i said "if i cant even call you nervous then i'm ACTUALLY gonna stay with my parents" he fiNALLY didn't reply to that. after a 10hour day i come home. i wanna shower. i go to my room, close the door and start undressing myself. of course, there's knocking on my door. i say "No" he flips out. i calmly tell him i'm only half dressed. he flips out even more, says i'm a horrible person who WANTS to fight because my "no" wasn't a good enough answer and i should have explained in full detail why he couldn't get in. he was actually SERIOUS. this was his reasoning for flipping out. he goes away. not even a minute passes by and he hammers his fist against my door again. "OPEN UP THIS TIME I *HAVE* TO COME IN" at this point i'm beginning to get kinda scared  so i say "come in" He comes in and says he needs me to disconnect with the wifi because he needs it for his work. i calmly say "ok" and disconnect my wifi. he goes away, leaves the door open. i stand up to go and close my door. HE ACTUALLY GOES AND PULLS AGAINST ME TO TRY TO PRY IT OPEN AGAIN. eventually he lets go and then he flips out FOR REAL. he starts screaming about how i'm a psycho, and that im crazy and awful and he has been nothing but nice and that he "saved" me and i haven't been thankful enough.

.... ..

yes, i was in a difficult position. but that flatmate arrangement was made on even ground. he had wanted to move out from his parents for years. i fled and left. called my parents, but they were miles away and laughed it off. i would have probably too. i called my friends. Lina offered to come and mediate. He continued screaming even with Lina there. It culminated with him roaring at me, pointing at the door saying "if you don't like how i treat you, there's the door, leave right now" with lina replying "don't say that, you NEED her money to pay rent!" it was awful, and an eye-opener. the next day, on the way to work, i decided i was gonna move out. and before i could tell him, i get a message from him (!). An ultimatum. he tells me i have 3 options. 1) leave immediately and take my stuff away within a week. i wouldn't have "pay any more than i've already payed" (it was the first day of that month and i had already payed my rent. nice) 2) stay for half a year, but immediately pay him something so that he knows i'll stay 3) stay indefinitely, but set up a " bevahiour contract" with him, so this "never happens again" i told him i'd take option 1 and then i stayed over at a friends house. then at a friends shared appartement. then at dormitary and soon i'm gonna move in with my younger brother. we've been estranged a bit but grown closer through this whole thing. now Lina and him are still friends and lina blames me for "everyone in our friend group" being mad at him. one of her first concerns, was that her birthday parties are gonna be weird now. i am completely done with her as well and don't want her in my life anymore. according to her, I left him with a rent he cant pay  and i should feel bad for that. except i dont. should i though?

[captainillogical]

Devil’s Ballroom ch.3

A year after the events from the earth’s final attack, Little Homeworld is finally complete, and there’s a new jazz bar where gems and humans mingle and drink. - As you’re typing back a reply, someone pulls the stool out next to you and takes a seat. You see a sliver of pink out of the corner of your eye as you try not to actually Look. Oh god. It’s her. God can’t help us now.

Spinel/Reader

collab with my lovely wife @firstofficertightpants

    She sets her mostly empty drink down on the counter, and turns to look at you when Bismuth walks over again, stealing her gaze right back.

“That was nice, Spinel. I think that was my favorite song of yours yet.” She says to her. “You want another round?”

“Aw jeez, thanks I guess, Bis.” Spinel says sheepishly. “And yeah, I think I’ll need it tonight.”

    You pretend that nothing weird has ever happened to you at all in your life, and down the rest of your drink. You want like, 5 more of these and then you'll be able to deal with this.

Y/N: Yeah. I remember the night. She's also sitting right next to me. Uh.

Alex: for real

Y/N: I might be internally having a panic attack.

    Bismuth pours Spinel her drink, and she sighs. "It's just, today was kind of rough. Blue called and wanted to apologize for things that she doesn't need to be apologizing about, and I kind of wish they'd calm down a little and let me exist in peace."

    Bismuth nods. "Steven has talked a lot about them. They seem really difficult to be around, if I'm going to be honest. They don't quite get.. real people problems."

"You have no idea." She replies, and takes a long drink. “They don’t even understand privacy. I couldn’t do anything without them basically following me everywhere. It was stifling.”

“Seriously, I’m not sure what I expected from the Diamonds, but if you told me that 5000 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you at all.” Bismuth says, “I’m just glad you have some much needed breathing room.”

“It was long overdue. Several months in their presence was more than enough.”

    Bismuth gives Spinel a tired smile, and turns to you.

“How are you holdin up there, Y/N?” She hands you another drink. “You’ve only been here 25 minutes or so, and you’re on your 3rd already. That kinda night?”

“Err, just in the mood I guess.” You reply and laugh. You weren’t trying to eavesdrop. Bismuth turns away to a couple of other patrons and busies herself making a few mixed drinks for them.

        Alex: dude kick her for almost killing ur dad

    Y/N: What, and get myself killed? Fuck no.

    Alex: ur a pussy

    Harper: did she say anything about you taking a pic?

    Y/N: No! Please don’t curse me.

“You know, if you wanted a pic so bad of myself, you could’ve asked.”  Spinel says, turning to face you directly. You stare at your phone and can feel your face heating up for being called out. You can feel your mouth working way faster than your brain can even comprehend.

“My friends are shitheads and didn’t believe me when I said I saw someone cute on stage.” You say, and immediately shut your mouth. If you could sink into the floor right now and disappear forever, that would be great. God doesn’t grant you this though, and you curse him for it. “I mean.. I’m sorry. That was rude of me to do without your permission.” She grins. 

“Ya know, I didn’t actually see who did it, I just saw the general direction of the flash and walked towards it, and happened to find an empty seat next to someone looking fairly nervous.” She laughs. “Way to out yourself there.”

    You look at her. Fucking goddammit. “I seem to be doing a lot of that today. Ughhhhh.” You drag your hand down your face in dramatic fashion, and take a drink. You’re starting to feel the alcohol slowly take a small bit of effect. “Song was nice by the way.”

“Oh, thanks.” She looks a bit surprised, like she’s not used to compliments. Hm. 

“I’m not so musically talented myself, but uh. I can make some mean enchiladas. AND I can make a calculator spell the word “boobs”.” You say, like it’s somehow impressive.

“What’s an enchilada?” Spinel looks at you suspiciously. Oh right. Gem. 

“It’s.. food. Hold on.” You say and pull up an internet browser to google the definition of enchiladas so you can show her a pic. You see the group chat go off a couple times and keep swiping away your friend’s rapid texts, knowing that they’re asking you too many questions right now and you’re determined to show this alien one of your favorite foods. Tonight sure is a weird night. You find a good pic of enchiladas, and turn your phone towards her. “See? Tortilla, cheese, meat. Great stuff. You can even change some of the ingredients and make them a couple different ways. All pretty good if I do say so myself.” You say as she looks at it, and you can see your phone chime with another message notification. You pull your phone away quickly before she has any chance to see whatever the fuck your friends are talking about.

“Humans are strange.” She replies, a pondering look on her face. She takes another drink and sets the glass down gently, keeping her hand lightly on the glass. You notice her fingernails are short and clean. You wonder if they grow like human nails? You wonder how similar gems are to humans in general. “You guys have to eat to survive? And you all grow so much all the time, and you’re constantly changing. You can’t even grow limbs back, or shapeshift. What’s the point?”

“The point?” You laugh. “I mean, science IS advancing and we can grow organs from plants, in a lab. Can’t grow limbs back.. yet. I can’t exactly change being human. Besides, you gems as a race don’t exactly look like you have any fun at all. Being human is all about having new experiences.” You say.

“Well, maybe I’m having fun now.” She says, tapping the rim of her glass. You kind of look at her for a second. She seems to be tapping her left foot on the side of the stool, maybe kind of nervously? Her hair is up in a ponytail, and she's pushing some of the fringe behind her ear. She’s cute, you think to yourself. 

“Oh?” You say as you smile slyly into your drink. You think you see her blush a bit.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here. Last time wasn’t so nice. Some guy tried punching me, he was drunk and recognized me from the earth attack last year. Bismuth had to kick him out.” She says stiffly, and takes a drink. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

“My dad almost died.” You say. She winces.

“I am really sorry. I do regret how I dealt with my entire situation.. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it." She sighs. "I’m just glad no one actually died. And thanks for not cursing me out, for all of this."

"He's hard to kill, anyway." 

"What?" She says, staring at you incredulously. 

"My dad. He's done so many stupid, dangerous things that I remember from my childhood. He must have some kind of divine blessing, because even when he fought that gator off grandpa's porch, he came out without a scratch. And that was one really pissed off gator." You say. Spinel laughs heartily. She's actually really cute when she laughs, and you can't help staring for a second. “There was also that one time this guy attempted to rob us at a gas station, and he took the bastard down with the unopened energy drink from his cup holder. You wanna know what he had to complain about afterwards? That he had to now go buy another energy drink. That’s my fucking dad, I guess.”

“Your life sounds interesting.” She says in reply.  “I can tell that you love him though.”

“Yeah. He’s kind of my entire life. He’s all I have left of my family.” You say, smiling. “He’s a good dad. He tries his best.” You hear your phone chime a couple more times, and roll your eyes. They’re so fucking needy. “My friends are extremely obnoxious, and must know what I’m doing at all times. You have anyone like that in your life? Because I could pawn off Alex on you if you want.” You grab your phone and open up your group chat to see what they’re talking about. There’s quite a few missed messages.

    Harper: she hasn’t said shit in a while and i’m kinda worried.

    Harper: what if she got kidnapped. D:

    Alex: shes probs in the middle of a bar fight tbh

    Alex: im pretty sure that alien started it or something

    Alex: she was probs all like “im gonna kill ur planet now and finish u all off!!”

    Alex: and Y/N was like “not on my watch BITCH” and decks her

    Alex: the whole bar claps

    Harper: shut up it’s been like 10 mins and she hasn’t said anything and i’m nervous.

“I have a few people who I’d call friends here. Bismuth, Lapis, Amethyst.. Steven. I kind of feel like I’m bothering them when I’m around, in general..” She says, swirling the drink around in her glass. She regards it, lifts to her lips, and takes a drink. “Steven sometimes asks how I’m doing.. I know he cares. I have a hard time letting myself be honest with him. Cause.. you know. He’d try to solve all my problems. And I try to deal with them on my own.”

Y/N: I'm not dead. We're talking. She's nice.

Alex: wow are all genocidal maniacs nice i wonder

Harper: TALKING. YOU'RE TALKING TO HER

Y/N: YES WE'RE TALKING.

Y/N: She even apologized about my dad, and the entire shebang, really. 

Y/N: She's nice conversation, anyway.

Harper: whoa she apologised?

Alex: youve got to be kidding me rn

Alex: lemme just go revive gengis khan so we can have a nice chat over tea

Alex: this is absolutely nuts why am i the only sane one here

Alex: im gonna go fucking feral 

"It's such a Steven thing to do, too. You should've seen how he was when he found out about my mother." You laugh, and set your phone down on the counter. "He literally tried to go out and find her. He's such a sweet kid, but I had to break it to him that even if I knew where she was, I didn't want to see her."

    Off to your left side, you feel someone approach you at the bar. You turn your face to see who it is. It's a man who looks a decade older than you are, and you've never seen him before. He nods to regard you. 

"Can I get you a drink, beautiful? You look absolutely lovely." He says, leaning in slightly.

"Thank you, but I'm alright." You put in your best polite, but fuck off smile. 

"You're just going to say no without even considering it?" He smiles, and you hate it. He's giving you terrible vibes and it's making you uneasy.

"I said I'm good." 

"Yeah bu-" He starts, but Spinel cuts him off.

"She says she's good, pal. Leave the dame alone." She crossed her arms over her chest, and glares at him. 

"Damn fine, stuck up bitch. Didn't want to talk to you anyway." He spews, and leaves to the other side of the bar. Thank god, you think to yourself.

"Thank you for that." You say to her, seriously relieved. "Fucker needs to learn how to take no for an answer." 

“Yeah, well. No one harasses a girl on my watch.” She regards you carefully. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

“No?” You lift an eyebrow in response.

“What happened with your mother?” She says, grabbing for her drink and taking a sip.

“Oh. Um,” You’re a bit surprised that she seems to genuinely care. You’ve known her for all of like.. a half hour. “She left when I was 5. Just had enough of dad and I, I suppose. Dad says it just came out of nowhere, and he has no idea what happened. We were a happy family, and then one day after dinner, she went into their room, packed some things in a single bag, and left.” You pause to take kind of a long drink. “And no one knows where she went. It’s been 17 years. Not a single word. It actually really fucked me up for years. I felt abandoned and absolutely worthless. How could you raise a child for 5 years, and just fucking bounce? Like, did she read a manual on how to fuck up your kid and give them emotional problems for the rest of their life? God, what a fucking bitch. I can’t even IMAGINE doing that to a kid.”

    Spinel is staring at you with wide, shocked eyes.

“Eventually I ended up gaining some friends that helped me get over it, for the most part. They’re stupid and I love them. And if they ever found my mother, they would murder her in a heartbeat.” You say, chuckling. Spinel is still staring at you. “Are you okay? You ask. 

“I’m fine, it’s just.. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like me.” You watch her fiddle with her fingers. She moves slightly, and you see her shirt open, heart gem glimmering in the low lighting. You don’t want to be caught staring at it, like a crow to a shiny object. (You want to touch it. You want to touch it bad. Is it warm? Is it cold? Is it smooth? You need to know.) “I also had a very important person abandon me. The MOST important person to me, actually. For uh.. 6000 years.” You look up and your eyes make contact with hers.

“What.” You say. “6000 years.”

“Yeah.. It’s kind of embarrassing now, though.” She shrugs. “But it was terrible, and now I’m here. I’ll never get closure the way I want from Pink Diamond, because she’s gone forever. Anyway,” You kind of want to hug her. “I’ve been surviving, and I think I’m doing okay.” She smiles slightly. Bismuth is suddenly in front of the two of you.

“I saw some commotion all the way from the other side. That guy bother you? Want me to deal with him?” She says, all while refilling Spinel’s drink without even asking.

“Nah, he fucked right out of here when Spinel told him off.” You say, and finish the rest of your cider. Blegh. Warm.

“Is that so?” Bismuth say, grinning. She’s pointedly looking at Spinel. Spinel is giving Bismuth a dirty look. Oh my, what is going on there? You feel your bladder cursing up a storm inside you.

“Bismuth, I’d like another beer please.” You slowly get up on sleepy, wobbly legs. “And I’ll be right back, gotta pee.” You turn and look at Spinel, who looks back. “Guard my purse.”

“Cannnn do.” She says while taking another drink.

    You make your way slowly over to the bathroom that was actually just 15ft away from you, and go over to one of the stalls and plop down onto the toilet, pulling out your phone to look at group chat. 

    Harper: so my brother got catfished again

    Alex: LMFAO

    Harper: how many times is this? 4? for fucks sake

    Harper: he’s 29. you’d think he’d have his shit together by now, but noooo.

    Alex: that is honestly the saddest thing ive heard

    Alex: wins most pathetic man of the month

    Y/N: oof.

    Y/N: Yeah that’s just sad.

    Alex: Y/NNNNNNNNNNNNN!!

    Alex: how are yoooouuuu

    Y/N: I’m fine. I’m having a nice time.

    Harper: you still hangin with the not-evil-now alien? :p

    You choose to reply later, and instead finish your business in the stall. You come out and wash your hands, making sure you wash them thoroughly. You never know what kind of germs are in bar bathrooms. You’re drying your hands when you hear the bathroom door open, and someone is walking in. You turn to look, and it’s a familiar figure. A man. 

The man from earlier.

[aenslem]

Doctor Who Tag Game

Tagged by: @thirteenstardisfam thank youu and i am so sorry it is so super long lmao i did not mean too, but somehow ended up with it, and also i think i will make fandom hate me for some stuff about 11, but i love him! don’t you dare to think otherwise :’D

im tagging: @tennant @luke-skywalker @panlyra @stupidape @buffyrosenbergs @expelliarmus idk who of you whovians wanna do it out there feel free to say i tagged you and go on ;)

Favourite Doctor:  still Ten, i love 12 and 13 almost as much, even if not harder atm, but if it comes to choosing 1 fav doctor then it’s always Ten, so far no one stepped higher for me :’D I loved his era, i loved so many episodes with him, his season arcs, his companions, his relationships with everyone, and this is the only Doctor whose regeneration was smooth for me, he was continuation of Ninth Doctor and it felt like that. I was not like ‘but he is so different in so many ways’ nope, never. Maybe it’s because companions were the same, everyone was still around which was great btw, and I fell in love with the show with Tenth Doctor, dare I say that I stopped watching back then when Matt Smitt became doctor? lmao, must be shock for some but yes, I dropped this show because of THAT lmao??now i laugh at my own self but yeah, i did. where’s everyone, why it feels so different? that was huge nope. Only years later I got back into it, thanks to amazing Michelle Gomez. Actually I was not even going to watch other doctors at that moment, but I watched episodes only with Missy, then i said well it’s not bad I like it and Missy and Twelve were?? OOOF LOVES OF MY LIFE FOR SURE because their relationship were so cool and of course i loved it, so i started a huge rewatch, the first since i dropped the show. Fell in love with Doctor/Master all over again, Ten was as amazing as I remembered, Nine was perfect and I love him too!!! and then... i got to s5... oh god, i was like, let’s give him a chance, what do i lose? but it still felt so weird, and the show was so different, and suddenly everyone else is so important but where are old characters? but i got into it because i have already seen some of 12′s episodes and i got used to the style?? i guess. and then River appeared, not because of her but around episode 5 or 6 i was into it already, not as much as i was before but anyway, maybe weeping angels helped because i loved them and it reminded me of Ten, i felt some kind of a connection to old doctor. I liked River with 10, i thought i will like her with 11 too... but alas, still felt like you know those boys who have never had sex but try to act like they know everything about it and hit on every moving thing and think they do it cool? :D i am sorry if i hurt someone’s feelings with it, but that’s how 11 was for me back then, and while I do understand river/11 it’s the least of all river ships for me, 11 is still the least fav doctor because of those feelings i had back then when i stopped watching, they are not rational i know that now but still feel them, but i love him now, and will protect that kid at all costs! i love ponds, i will kill if anyone says anything bad about Rory Williams! and Amy and Rory? quoting my favorite star trek couple? DUDE WE GO TOGETHER OR NOT AT ALL!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! and even if i was not into all river/11 relationship i loved the story, and of course i liked 12, but s8 still feels like what the hell for me, not because of the doctor but because they tried so hard to show clara as bossy, i mean, i liked her with 11 and then suddenly they turn her into some control freak, it was not so MUCH with 11... but i know now why they did it, so Missy’s words have an effect and all. but still, i love clara before and after s8 :’D s9 clara? i will kill for her too. it’s too long but idk  :’D and actually, this shows that if you give it a chance even if you don’t like actor/actress at first - you might love the show ;) so stop acting like jodie is miscast honestly, i am ready to fight anyone for saying that :D say whatever you want about plot choices, but do not fucking act like it’s Jodie’s fault! actors are not responsible for show runner choices. She acts amazing with the material she has. anyway, 10 is my fav idiot!

Favourite Master: Missy, always was and always shall be. My favorite character in general in the show, no one tops my girl!

Favourite Sonic: honestly? i don’t really remember any sonic but 12′s glasses :D so... glasses. I mean, i don’t really care how it looks like, it does its job... most of the time lmao, but i liked those glasses and the thing with browser history was my fav :D

Favourite Companion: oh it’s soooo hard!!! either Donna or Bill. I can’t choose. but yeah, those are both with whom there were no ‘romantic’ relationship implied, i love friends more than couples. and I just loved 10 and Donna as a team and Bill and 12, i still wish they had more time. also Martha, the smartest companion lol she was amazing.

Favourite Story: anything involving The Master :D all episodes with them are my favs, but i can’t just pick one story, i still remember the first episode i watched back when it was airing and are you my mummy stuck in my head for the rest of my life giving me brrrr feeling, like it was not scary but somehow made me super uncomfortable? also vashta nerada?? duuuuude, you can’t just look at the shadow the same way. and ten/river together were really great, i mean, he did not know who is she, the mystery, i love shit like that?? yeesss!!!!! there are so many great ones. I don’t want to choose.

Favourite Soundtrack: that unreleased tiny melody when the master dies in the last of the time lords T--T and this is gallifrey and clara’s theme! those are my favs. and I also really like 11′s theme, kinda ready for adventures and doing some weird but funny shit :D

Dream Actor for next Doctor: ooooof OOOOF dude! you know what, usually it is one actor for 3 seasons, that’s how it was for the last 3 doctors, i want Jodie to break that rule and stay with us for 4th season as well, i just want to see how pissed off those haters will be lmao i really really think the entire timeless child thing will not feel the same with someone else yet, and i don’t think they will reveal much in 13th season, that’s HUGE thing, or they should make it so good and the next doctor... aaah i don’t want to feel that change again, like i did with 10 to 11, and felt with the every next doctor, but i overcome that shit and just give them a chance, it’s the doctor after all and im sure loving all of them now. not sure it can disappoint me even if most of plot choices in the season are ... weak. idk who, there are so many great actors but whoever i choose will not be as great as someone they choose, because they always somehow cast amazing people, but i agree with emily it’s time for a doctor of color! tho, they can’t go back to white male actor right now, i just can imagine how it will look like, with all the hate Jodie received and how people still whine about female doctor, it will look like they tried and decided to go back to white male doctors, one half will be happy but the other one will eat them alive! so yeah, i am pretty sure it’s not gonna be white man again yet lol

Dream Composer: idk

Dream Story: well, considering 13 is in jail now, i would love to see someone “we know” rescuing her, because honestly if they just showed me jack and left it like that, i will not accept it!!! but also since yaz will be the only one left with the doctor, since bradley and tosin leave the show, i hope we will have some yaz and doctor relationship development without anyone else, maybe jack could stay because i love him, but jack’s presence did not hurt doctor and rose relationship development back then, so it should not hurt now also. but if they bring someone new, at least don’t make it right away, let yaz and 13 have an adventure at least 1 episode, some talk and stuff. so when yaz leaves also... (and i kind of had that stupid feeling that yaz will die in the end, because somehow everything hints on that for me? idk maybe it’s because i rewatched and giffed orphan 55 today and vilma (?) telling yaz to run and stay alive kinda felt like something that hints on yaz’s future... and yaz is always going somewhere without thinking, to random alien ship, to save the doctor, she steps into trouble like a doctor hoping everything will somehow be ok, but im not even sure she hopes, it’s more like i am as good as her so i can do it, not in clara’s way when everything hinted she is like the doctor, because let’s be honest she was and even got her own tardis, but she thinks she is, but she is not, i think some day that might end bad for her... so when she also leaves i don’t want it be like well yeah, what’s next? i mean, i still miss Bill, that was like NOOOOOO with tears and screams for me, i loved Bill! and we had 2 seasons with yaz and i still don’t feel the same connection to any of the current companions atm, so i would like the show to make me love them more, i do love them, just not as much as those i still miss, but im sure defending any of them lmao i love them anyway. you know what i mean...

A Companion You’d like to see back: oh OH. we cant bring them back for entire season right? but doctor can meet Donna at some point, which will have no point lmao cos she doesn’t remember and it will only hurt doctor and i don’t see how her appearance will help any plot, it will be just fanservice cameo. But Bill is out there with Heather, they are powerful creatures now, i think it could somehow fit into the story, I want Bill back. But also, Clara is still one heartbeat away from death, she can be out there, and she has tardis. tiny cameos will be fine for me :D and Martha, but also Madam Vastra and Jenny, Kate and Osgood, where they are??? bring them back and it can make sense, their appearances. I mean, imagine someone from UNIT in s11, not unit itself but osgood??? it would feel so much different. 

An Enemy/Alien/Creature you’d like to see again: weeping angels!!!! OOOF they were creepy, and i love them, like, DON’T BLINK!!! how can you not blink for so long? that is cool, i want them back. and also the most beautiful shots are always with angels so... :’D

If you could travel with one of the Doctors, which Doctor and why?: oooh, while 10 is my fav, and I totally would hit on 13 :D i will choose 12, 12 from season 10, because he was such a grandpa, no lovey dovey stuff, he would lecture me on thing i do, give me new info about something, we would explore shit together and he would be like a grandpa i never had. We would definitely have long discussions about stuff and have good laugh together and i would make references to movies and then we would watch those movies :D i would act like Bill lmao yess i want to travel with 12!!!

[jjkfire]

Navy; pt. 1

Reader x Jungkook // childhoodfriend!AU, idol!AU // 17k words

Summary: He’s your best friend, practically your other half and the two of you have always promised to be there for each other no matter what. The both of you have dreams of professionally making music together one day and to you it’s almost like reality, a given really, and with each day, the dream starts to feel like it’s within reach. But, one day, with one sentence, Jungkook destroys it all.

Genre: Fluff, Angst

A/N: hey this is me trying to dig myself outta my writer’s block! please know that this is just my imagination running wild and i’m pretty sure big hit didn’t take their phones away from them and there are like other inaccuracies but !!! just humour me hahah. also it seems like the keep reading feature doesn’t work on mobile? im so sorry for clogging up your dash ): and the formatting is all weird on mobile lol idk what’s happening!! it’s best if you just read this on desktop or mobile browser

Part 2

Busanbeats.

At aged 11, both you and Jungkook think that it’s the single most coolest name on Earth for the little home-made studio that you have in your bedroom. 10 years later, you’ll realize the name is as basic as basic comes but it would be a name that holds too many memories, memories both you and him will treasure for the rest of your lives.

Truth be told your so-called studio isn’t even one… it’s just your computer hooked up to some speakers that your neighbour had thrown out some odd years ago. On top of that, the midi keyboard you have is not top of the line either. It’s just some mediocre brand but you had gotten it for a steal at a garage sale and as long as all the keys worked, you didn’t really care.

To think that making horrendously simplistic music on second hand equipment is what will change both yours and Jungkook’s life forever is almost unfathomable and yet, that is all that it is. It would push both of you apart and bring the two of you together again, almost as if finding that midi keyboard buried deep under a pile of broken electronics in a stranger’s yard had been fate at work that day.

It all started on a summer day, in the seaside town of Busan that both you and Jungkook call home. The two of you were grinning with excitement at the thought of becoming teenagers soon. Looking back now, you wonder why you were so excited to become one because if given the chance, you’d choose to be 5 forever because being 5 meant the hardest decision would be picking which crayon to use next. Being 5, the closest thing to heartbreak is the feeling you get when the ice-cream you just bought falls onto the ground. In any case, 11-year-old you did not know about the heartbreak that was to come in only two short years. 11-year-old you only knew that you were more than excited to show your best friend Jungkook what you had set up in your room just that Friday night.

 “Won’t you just tell me what it is that you’re so excited about already?” Jungkook groans, truthfully a little irked by your over-enthusiasm today.

“You’ll see,” You grin as you lead him up the stairs to your bedroom, basically running up the steps.

Jungkook is no stranger to your bedroom. In fact, it’s almost like his second home. Every day after school, he stops by your house for lunch and ends up doing homework with you until both his parents return from work. Your parents love him as if he’s another one of their children and his parents love you as if you’re one of their own. Both your families would have dinners together pretty often and in that way, it always felt like Jungkook would be a permanent fixture in your life. Ah, but life, it never really plays out the same way as it does in your head, does it?

Jungkook ambles behind you boredly, chalking up your excitement to perhaps new bed sheets or curtains… You oddly get excited over small things like that, he sighs. So, really, he isn’t expecting much from you, but it’s when you open your bedroom door to show him the new layout of your room, your table now tucked in a different corner with wires all over the place, that he tilts his head in confusion.

“Ta-da!” You gesture with your hands outstretched towards your study table. “We can finally make music like we’ve always wanted!”

It’s a dream the two of you often speak about in the middle of music club, as you play the piano and he sings. You’ve been learning how to play the piano since you were at the ripe age of 5 and you’re no grand master, you’re just… mediocre at best but you know enough to play a popular song on the piano if you were given music sheets. In fact, that’s how the two of you met at the beginning of primary school. You had been playing a rather new pop song on the piano in the music room after school had ended and Jungkook who had been hanging around the back of the room shyly, began belting out the notes after you had coaxed him into doing so. After many weeks of just you and him loitering in the music room after school, a friendship blossomed, one that had started out awkward and quiet but then developed into one where the both of you become comfortable, in fact too comfortable you think because Jungkook and his jokes, which really are just insults, makes you feel like strangling him.

Jungkook approaches your new setup carefully, fingers grazing the worn out speakers before they prod at the keyboard.

“Do you even know how to work any of this?”

“Uhh... not really,” You admit. “But I’m sure we'll figure it out somehow! It can’t be too hard…”

Except it isn’t as simple as you think… of course it isn’t. You had highly underestimated just how hard it is to make music at all, let alone good music. Turns out just pressing a few keys and recording Jungkook’s voice on top of it won’t actually give you a song that sounded remotely like anything that’s playing on the radio... but you were determined and disciplined so a few weeks or so at the library, reading up on books on basic music production gave you just enough to figure out how to finally make a song… at least a mediocre one and with the creation of that song comes the birth of Busanbeats.

It becomes some sort of routine, the both of you coming home from school, working on homework and then moving on to make some music. In the span of 2 years, both you and him make countless tracks together, and they’re not amazing as per se and nobody but the two of you ever hears them but it brings the pair of you inexplicable joy. The studio is like a new world, a secret world for just you and him. As the two of you grow from eleven to twelve and finally to thirteen, both you and he grow as artists. For starters, though Jungkook has always sounded like an angel to you, his singing has only become better and you often wonder just how good he’ll become one day when he finally starts taking those vocal lessons he’s been talking about taking recently. He doesn’t know how to tell you but he’s never really thought much of his voice but it’s because of you, because of how you continually encourage him, how you continually spur him on to create music that he sees a future in the music industry for himself. In fact, making music together hadn’t been something he thought of at all until you brought it up but he’s more than happy now about the fact that the two of you are doing this because it’s through you that he finally learns where his passion lies.

Musically, between you and Jungkook, you’ve done the most growing because in the span of just 2 years, technology has moved at such a fast pace and the internet has become a wealth of information for you and with that, your music production skills have now moved beyond layering vocals on top of the instrumental piano piece. Suddenly, the songs you make now have bass, drums, cow bells, traditional percussion instruments and anything you wanted to sample on them, and Jungkook always voices out that all of this would be nothing if it wasn’t for you and you simply blush, waving away his compliments. He thinks you’re some sort of magician, having learnt so much in just the span of a few months but that’s mostly because he’s a technological Neanderthal. The boy never got onto the growing social media bandwagon, for he doesn’t even have an email, nor an account for chatting. The only way to reach him is on his little phone that he only uses to call less than a handful of people. In fact, you would have to call him every once in a while to clear his inbox when you wanted to send him a text because yes, that’s the type of phone he has! He never saw reason really to get fancy new gadgets or try out this new and growing thing that people call social media. It’s all a waste of time he believes, and in his mind he thought he didn’t need it because all his friends are just at maximum, a 20 minute walk away, really. So, you let him live in his little technologically handicapped world because he was right, he didn’t really need it as per se if he was going to be right here in this small area within Busan.  

Now, the tracks both you and he make are actually decent enough for either of you to show your friends and family but… neither of you do because this music thing, it’s mainly just for you and him. At least for now, it’s just a hobby and you rather liked keeping it a secret because it’s almost like your safe haven. One day, you would always tell Jungkook. One day, when we graduate from college and make enough money to put aside some time to pursue this hobby as a career, we’ll let everyone hear our music then. It’s a sentiment you thought he shared because he never seemed to voice an opinion that said otherwise, the boy always nodding in agreement with you.

It’s not like you didn’t wish you could drop everything and just make music for the rest of your life, you definitely did but you’ve been told over and over again that the arts... there’s no future for kids who go down that path. Of course, it didn’t help that your parents aren’t too fond of your newfound passion for making music and they often remind you that it’s nothing but a hobby, that you are destined for far greater things. Destined for college and a job at a big company, destined for happiness... as if music wouldn’t be able to give you that. Essentially, your parents are living out their dreams through you and you don’t blame them because all they want is for you to have the life they couldn’t. You are their only child and so you carry the future of the family on your back. No matter how much you love music, you know it’s a risk you’re not willing to take, at least not just yet, but you will, someday, one day and you would do that with your best friend by your side.

By now, you’ve been friends with Jungkook for 6 years and your friendship has grown leaps and bounds from when the two of you met in the music room at the age of 7. The two of you are so close that everyone regards the both of you as a package and they aren’t wrong, you and him are absolutely inseparable. It’s as if the two of you are conjoined twins… except you know, you aren’t attached in any single way. It’s almost scary to everyone else how either of you know what the other is thinking, like as if there is some telepathic connection the two of you have. Everyone’s just holding their breath, waiting for the day where the both of you proclaim your love for each other because there’s no way the two of you wouldn’t eventually become a couple, you and him already looked like one. It’s a thought you often laugh at because Jungkook doesn’t see you that way and you don’t see him that way either. It’s the thing where you just know someone too well that you can’t possibly see them as a significant other. Granted, Jungkook gets everyone all excited because whenever these rumours surface, he plays along, making everyone think that the two of you are finally dating because he loves seeing you flustered, vehemently denying it as your classmates and friends choose not to believe you, instead throwing out references to instances where you and him act like a couple. 

We’re just best friends! You would scream. I don’t know, but best friends don’t take naps on the same bed! That’s what boyfriends and girlfriends do! They would reply, and you would gasp before turning to Jungkook with your fists clenched. Jungkook would often laugh, running away before you can catch him, and he’d hear you scream why did you tell them that!? You’re only making things worse for us! Often he’d let you catch up, let you throw a few playful punches before he apologizes but his heart isn’t really in it when he says sorry because you’re wrong. He’s only making things worse for you, not himself, because unlike you, he rather likes the prospect of you and him being a couple. Of course, he’s tried telling you that a fair few times, albeit rather cryptically, but you’re horrible at picking up hints and he’s horrible at dishing them out. A match made in heaven, that’s what the both of you are.

You always sulk and give Jungkook the silent treatment the day after he instigates those couple rumours, but usually it barely lasts an hour and before he knows it, both you and him would be laying down on your bed, talking, because as always he convinces you to take a break from doing some homework, which then often leads to both of you taking naps. He’s a horrible influence, really, but you can’t deny that you do love a mid-afternoon nap and Jungkook can’t deny that he loves the feeling of falling asleep next to you.

It’s through these little conversations that you and he have before your daily naps that the two of you have come to learn so much about each other. He knows every inch, every nook and cranny of your incredibly complicated self like he knows the back of his hand. Your dreams, hopes and fears, your darkest secrets, your insecurities, he knows them all and you would say it’s the same for you, that you know him just as well as he did you. With a 6-year friendship, especially the kind you both you and him have, surely there would be no secrets between the two of you and on your part, there aren’t any. You could only assume the same could be said for Jungkook. Ah, but only fools assume…

Though you always find yourself screaming, he’s just my friend! You know deep down he isn’t just a friend. Of course, you’re not trying to distinguish between romantic and platonic. It’s just that Jungkook is so important to you that you can’t simply place him in the friend box where so many other people reside. He’s more than that. He’s your confidant, your rock, your inspiration and every time you envision your future, Jungkook is a permanent fixture because you cannot imagine life without him. Whether you're 30 or 80, whether you're married or still single at 70, you would imagine Jungkook would still be there then, would still be your best friend no matter the year, no matter the season because he’s always going to be there as you would be for him. It’s a promise the two of you have made to each other numerous times over and never once have you doubted it. Perhaps that had to do with being a naïve 13-year-old. You just never thought things could turn out differently than how you imagined them to be and for now, you imagine that life is simple, that you just had to do as you’re told and in no time, both you and Jungkook would be taking the music industry by storm.

It's funny, but your friendship with Jungkook is basically a series of never-ending promises and maybe that’s why you think it will go on forever. Of course the core promise of the friendship is that you would be there for each other, always, but it also has tons of overly-ambitious ones like how one day the two of you are going to travel the world together, or that the two of you would one day move to Seoul and live in the most expensive apartment there is, but really the both of you are just dreamers, big ones. 

The only promise you think will actually happen for the foreseeable future is the one where you and he will eventually make music together, professionally and it’s a promise you look forward to every day. You often tell him you know the years ahead will be hard, but it would all be worth it when the two of you can finally do what you love for a living.

“You’re sure it’ll happen?” He questions, almost sighing as if he doesn’t believe you.

“It will! It definitely will,” You smile.

“But what will we be? What would our concept as musicians be?”

“I don’t know,” You huff. “But we’ll be famous, that’s for sure,” You laugh, hoping that maybe if you put it out there, that the universe would grant you that wish.

“Alright then,” He grins, before scooting closer to you, his hands hovering over the keyboard as if he’s thinking hard. Hesitantly, he plays a few keys, just 5 single keys. He plays it over a few more times before he records the 5-key tune, smiling as he saved the file.

“That’s going to be our first hit,” He smiles. “You’re gonna have to make good on your promise and make us famous.”

“I will, I seriously will,” You assert, renaming the file as No.1 Hit. “But you’ll have to sing on it.”

“Of course I will,” He snorts. “It won’t be a hit if I’m not on it,” He smirks, cocking his eyebrows and you groan, shaking your head at him before you shove him away.

So, make a hit song together, that would make it promise #762. Of course, both you and Jungkook knew half the promises you make to each other are really just the two of you saying things for the heck of it. You don’t expect these things to actually happen, though you hope they will, you know that most of them are highly improbable situations. Truth be told, as long as you and Jungkook are still friends when the two of you are old and wrinkly, you would still be happy. It’s something you consider a given, something you don’t even question, but that all comes crumbling down with just one single sentence and it hits you hard, like a ton of bricks. It’s on that day that you realize that you’re a fool. A fool for assuming, a fool for never doubting, a fool for believing that everyone else sees life the same way you do.

“Y/N, I… I’m leaving,” Jungkook mumbles, biting on his bottom lip. You look at him questioningly, confused as to what he meant by that. “I’m moving to Seoul,” He huffs, gulping as he looks at you.

“W-what?”

“I leave tomorrow.”

“Jungkook, stop. This isn’t funny,” You grumble, shoving him.

“I’m not joking,” He murmurs, pausing for a while. “It’d be really nice i-if you could come to the train station to send me off.”

“W-What… I don’t understand…”

“I uhh, I auditioned for a show, a talent show and I didn’t get in but a few agencies they approached me—”

“You what?”

“Don’t… don’t get mad, please, Y/N…”

“When did this happen? Why did you… not tell me?”

“It was a few weeks ago… I didn’t tell you because I know you wouldn’t have wanted me to go.”

“I mean it’s just… I thought we had a plan. I thought we were going to wait until after we graduate from college and get a job, and we would—” Your voice wobbles and you can feel tears beginning to build up.

“Y/N, tell me honestly… Do you really think we will do half the things we say we are going to?”

“No… but I’m pretty sure of this one! Jungkook this… this has always been our dream. This is the only thing I-I think of doing once I make enough money for my parents.”

“Y/N, both you and I know you’re only lying to yourself. You say it’ll be just until you’ve made enough but when will that be? When you’re what? 40?” He sighs. “This is my chance to make it right now. This is a solid chance. This isn’t just us joking about what might be. This is something real. This isn’t just dreams and promises that will never be fulfilled.”

“I get it,” You scoff. “So, this is all a joke to you isn’t it? Everything we’ve ever made here—” You gesture around your bedroom. “— is a goddamn joke to you isn’t it?”

“Come on, you know that’s not what I mean. You’re just putting words into my mouth,” He grumbles. “You’re being so unreasonable right now.” 

“Unreasonable,” You snort. “I’m being unreasonable? You’re the one that just dropped a bomb like that as if it’s nothing and you think I’m being unreasonable?”

“You’re making all of this so much more of a bigger deal than it really is,” He grumbles, rising from his spot on your bed, pacing around your room.

“How isn’t this a big fucking deal, Jungkook? We’re… we’re best friends! How can you just go ahead and do something like this without telling me?”

“Because I know you would react exactly like how you’re reacting now!”

“You don’t fucking know that!”

“I do, Y/N! Tell me that if I told you I was going to audition for a show that you wouldn’t stop me.”

You stay silent because it’s true. He knows it and you know it too. It’s just you couldn’t see why he would want to when the two of you already have a plan, one that’s been in place for years now.

“Exactly,” He huffs, noting your silence. “I know you too well.”

“Maybe,” You sigh. “Maybe you do, and I guess I’ve been wrong this entire time because I thought I knew you too, but it looks like I don’t know you at all.”

“Oh, come on, don’t say that,” He groans, shutting his eyes as he cards his hand through his hair in frustration.

“We promised each other that we’d be there for each other always, Jungkook. We promised each other that there would never be secrets between us. We promised each other that we’d make music together one day.”

“Well, I’m sorry Y/N but this is… this is just me doing what’s best for me.”

“So, none of the promises we made to each other mattered to you then?”

“Of course, they matter to me, but don’t you understand? Some of the things we say we’ll do, just won’t end up happening.”

“How can you just decide that it will never happen? How can you just… give up on it without even trying to make it work?” You mumble and at this point, there’s no use in holding back your tears because your heart has been ripped out of your chest and stomped on by your one and only best friend. “How can you just… give up on us like that?”

“Us,” He huffs. “You keep saying there’s an us but really in this equation there’s only you. What you’re asking is for me to wait until you’ve graduated and gone to work but what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

“The same, obviously!”

“Y/N, I’m not you! I don’t have life planned out like you do… I don’t even fucking know what subjects I would take. I don’t even know if I can get into college!”

“We’ll figure it out!”

“You’re always so stubborn,” He sighs. “Why can’t you just be happy for me?”

“I am.”

“You aren’t,” He shakes his head, his fingers silently playing with the hem of his shirt.

“Well I’m trying to be, okay?” You defend. “But I mean this… if this isn’t betrayal, I don’t know what is.”

“It’s always… it’s always about you, isn’t it? Maybe I just want to be selfish for once. Can’t I do that?”

“Why are you asking me that when you’ve already decided on it?”

“This isn’t meant to be like this,” He mumbles. “This isn’t supposed to be as if I’m abandoning you.”

“But you are!”

“No, I’m still here, we’ll still be us. We’re best friends and—”

“I don’t know how you can say that when you’ve destroyed everything that our friendship stands on,” You sob, tears rolling down your cheeks. “Just go,” You sigh.

“Y/N—” 

“Leave, you asshole!” You shout, shoving him in the chest towards your door and you can feel Jungkook resist you, standing his ground because he just wants you to look at him. He moves to reach for your hand because he can’t stand this. He hates seeing you like this and he hates that he’s the reason for your tears, but you pull back easily, hand reaching for your bedroom door. “You’ve already decided this friendship is nothing but empty promises anyway so just go, please.”

You don’t even give him a chance to say anything in return, the slam of your door enough to tell him that there’s nothing more he can say. He holds back his tears the entire walk home but the moment he reaches his bedroom, he sinks down onto the floor, and lets his tears soak through his bedroom carpet.

[21:50] Jungkook: My train leaves at 9.30 am tomorrow… Please don’t let our friendship end over something like this. I hope you’ll be there.

You see the text light up your screen minutes before you choose to retire to bed and you scoff at it. You can’t believe he had the audacity to ask you to come. You had made up your mind long before the text that you wouldn’t show up but… it’s Jungkook and even if he had just obliterated your heart, smashed it into smithereens, you find yourself setting up an alarm for 8 am tomorrow.

Jungkook, you sigh.

The bunny teeth and doe-eyed boy. To you, he could do no wrong. It’s like even if you wanted to be mad at him, you couldn’t be. Everything he had said during the screaming match you had with him had made sense, but you couldn’t help but feel betrayed. You couldn’t help but think he was leaving you behind and perhaps that’s what hurt you the most. Maybe, just maybe, you’re afraid. You’re afraid that he’d go to Seoul and he’d forget all about you while you’d be stuck here, still hoping and wishing for his return, like an idiot. Perhaps, he’s right, that the two of you would still be an ‘us’, no matter the distance. Maybe you just had to believe him, maybe in a few more years, the dream would still come true. Maybe in another 10 years or so, you’d find yourself in a studio with him, making music together as you had promised each other.

Saying goodbye is never easy and saying goodbye to your best friend is almost impossible.

“Please, don’t cry,” He mumbles but it’s too late, he could already feel your tears soaking through his shirt. You hate how you look right now. You hate that you’re crying in public, on display for everyone to see but this boy has been there for you for every single second of your life after you had met him that one fateful day and standing here in this train station, with everyone whizzing by, you can’t help but feel like it’s the end of an era, that even if he promises nothing will change, you feel like everything is about to be turned upside down.

“I don’t think they’ll let me use my phone, but I’ll get an e-mail account as soon as I get there and we can talk to each other that way. Nothing’s going to change, I promise,” He smiles, wiping away your tears with his thumb.

You barely say anything because you don’t trust yourself to. He wants you to be happy for him and so you try your best, plastering on a fake smile and holding back the rest of your tears. As the second-hand ticks closer to his boarding time, you can feel yourself grow anxious at the thought of your best friend, your soulmate, leaving you. You can’t help but feel like you’re being ridiculous, that you’re making it seem like you would be nothing without him and you know it’s not true, that you’re a person of your own and you can stand even if he isn’t by your side but it’s the fact that he’s leaving so suddenly that makes you feel like you’re drowning, like you’re trying your best to hold onto something to stay afloat.

Before you know it, the announcement for his train rings around the station and you start to feel like your throat is closing in on you, your chest tightening as you watch him reach for his large suitcase. Jungkook offers you a shy smile and you can see tears start to well up as his parents hug him goodbye for the final time.

He pads over towards you, a heavy sigh leaving his lips as he tips your chin upwards, so he can see you one last time.

“Don’t get too famous while I’m away yeah?” He mumbles jokingly and it makes you laugh despite the fact that you’re seconds away from bawling. “We’ll see each other soon, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Is your only reply, it’s the only thing you trust yourself to say because even with that single word your voice is already shaking.

“We’ll always be… us,” He smiles. “You got that? We’ll always be Busanbeats,” He laughs.

“Don’t forget that while you’re there,” You mumble. “Don’t forget me.”

“Never,” He smiles.

The last thing you remember seeing from that day is watching him disappear down the escalator, wearing a navy-blue cap that you had got him for his birthday last year. He turns back one last time to flash you a smile, waving goodbye to you and his family and then he’s off, disappearing into the sea of people. The last thing you remember feeling from that day, is a low dull ache right where your heart is, and you remember wondering if that pain would ever go away.

That following Monday in school is nothing but a shit storm as word gets out that Jungkook had left for Seoul over the weekend. Your classmates ask you question after question and it only wears you out because truth is you only know just as much as they do. You didn’t know anything past the fact that he had left because a few agencies had been interested in him. You didn’t know who he picked, you didn’t know where he was going, you didn’t know if he was going solo, or if he’ll be in a duo or group. You only know that it feels weird without him here, that it feels oddly empty now that you have to walk home alone, do homework alone and take naps alone. You had not realized just how much space he took up in your life and now that he was gone, you just felt so… alone.

In the next few days and weeks, you slowly but surely begin getting back into the groove of things, finding a new routine for yourself with your other friends that you have grown much closer to now. You hadn’t heard from Jungkook but from what his mother tells you, he’s been really busy trying to settle in and so you give him the benefit of the doubt, holding on to the fact that his mother had told you that he said hi and that despite how embarrassing it is to tell his mother this, that he wanted her to tell you that he misses you so much. You sigh at that, wishing that you could just pick up your phone and call him but apparently his personal cellphone has been kept by the company in order to make sure he would concentrate on his training. Truthfully, you almost feel bad for him and sometimes when you take a break from your homework to lay on your bed, you find your mind drifting off to him and often you find yourself hoping that he’s doing fine, that he’s happy in Seoul, out there chasing his dreams.

It had been perhaps 3 months since his departure and you had pretty much given up hope on personally hearing from Jungkook yourself but you come home from school one day to find your mother telling you Jungkook’s new email account and you had zipped up the stairs straight to your computer to send him an email. Kookster97 is his chosen username and you smile at that, thinking about how he would probably come to regret that username given a few more years. You had spent close to 20 minutes curating the perfect email to send to him and you sat there staring at your computer screen, refreshing it every few minutes or so only to find no reply. You decide to retire to bed but you wake up that morning to find no reply either and you find yourself not thinking too much about it because perhaps like his mother says, he’s busy. You let another day pass, and another, and another and then you let a whole week pass, and still no reply. You send him another email because maybe it just didn’t go through but a few days later, you still get no reply. You want to ask his mother if perhaps she could ask Jungkook why he hasn’t been replying like he said he would but you find it a little embarrassing to ask her that so, you simply ask her if his email is indeed Kookster97 and she nods her head, telling you that it is what he had told her. So, all you do is continue to send him emails, hoping one day he would reply but he never does. In his absence, you find your will to make music diminish. You had not touched your keyboard since the day he left and when you boot up your computer to perhaps work on some music, you find the file titled No.1 Hit in your recent section and when you play it, it’s like you’re taken back to day one where all you could do is mope and frown at the thought of your best friend being so far away now. You bury the file within a file and hide it among 100 other ones, hoping you will never return to it because when you hear that 5-key melody, all you feel is pain.

Weeks turn to months and it’s maybe 9 months since he left that you realize when his mother talks about Jungkook, she doesn’t tell you the usual message of him saying that he misses you, anymore. Tell him I miss him, you remember saying meekly, and she said, of course, I will! But the next time the Jeons came over for dinner and she talked about how Jungkook was getting along in the dance workshop in the US that his company had sent him to, she again, had no personal message from Jungkook to deliver to you, simply a blanket yeah, he says he misses everyone. His mother goes on and on about the new boy group that Jungkook is slated to be a part of and she talks about the other members, the current concept of it being a rap/hip hop type group and though you know you should be happy for him, that all of his effort is coming to fruition, you can’t help but feel annoyed, almost angry whenever you hear about him. It’s with each passing day that you grow bitter and each time the Jeons come around for dinner, you find an excuse to leave the house, citing a group project, or a sleepover you had to attend because you didn’t want to hear about how great Jungkook’s life in Seoul or wherever in the world he is, anymore. Just hearing his name made your blood boil because you just couldn’t understand how he had the time to tell his mother all of this but didn’t have the time to leave his mother just perhaps a word of greeting for you or how he couldn’t just reply to any one of the dozens of emails you had sent. Soon, you end up resenting him so much that you push him out of your mind completely, not even choosing to devote any one of your thoughts towards someone who seemed to want to have nothing to do with you.

Skip to year 2013, it had been far too long since you’ve given the boy you had once called your best friend a thought. You’ve managed to separate everything from him and now whenever you make music, you don’t think of him. Whenever you see his parents, you tune them out when they talk about him. All the pictures of both you and him that you had taped all around your room, are no longer there. As far as you were concerned, Jungkook was just a memory to you, someone who had once been a part of your life and you were happy with that decision for you had no qualms about not thinking of him. In fact, it had happened rather naturally instead of it being a decision you had made hastily over anger or bitterness. It was more of a decision of if he could move on without you then you could do the same. You laugh when you think about it because you make it seem like you and him are a couple and the two of you had gone through a break-up. Dramatic, is the only word you can think of on the off chance that you think of him and think of the day when he had told you he was leaving. You were 13 then, young and stupid, and when you think of the whole conversation, you guess it must’ve sounded so stupid if anyone had heard the two of you arguing. You can’t really remember why you were so angry or hurt back then and that’s really because you’ve chosen to block out all things Jungkook.

You had been doing so good, excelling in school, making memories with your friends, sneaking out late at night just to hang out with them and not a single thought of Jungkook had crept up on you in years but then that one day in June, you hear your mother shouting for you from the living room, asking you to come down quick to see what was on TV. You walk down the stairs rather lazily, sighing by the time you got to the living room only to let out a bored what? Your mother points to the TV and your eyes almost pop out of your sockets when you see him, see your ex best friend on national TV, performing his heart out. You’re speechless because that’s him, you’re sure of it but he looks so different in his stage costume and since when could he dance that well? He sounds different, the song he’s singing is much more different from the songs you made with him in your bedroom because first of all it’s professionally produced and secondly you don’t remember him ever rapping on any of the tracks you and he had made but regardless, he still sounded good. There are screams when the song ends and the screen fades to black before they show the members individually, their name and pictures side by side and when you see Jungkook’s picture flash on the screen, you can’t exactly pinpoint the emotion you’re feeling. It’s somewhere between happiness, pride and jealousy all mixed into one. By the time the second song ends, the screams are even louder, and you watch as the closing sequence shows all 7 boys with their chests heaving, sweat dripping down their faces, all of them secretly enjoying the fact that their debut stage is over despite the fact that they’re still in character, snarling at the screen.

It’s almost surreal seeing him on there. It’s crazy to think that in just 3 years, he had already achieved what you said you would with him once you had graduated from college and gone to work. It’s with that thought that you finally understand what he had meant all those years ago, that this was his shot at achieving his dreams and so far, it looks like he’s only getting closer to doing that. You’re happy for him of course you are, how can you not be… but then why is it that you have this bitter taste in your mouth? Why is it that you find yourself frowning when you think of him?

In the weeks, months and years to come, you actively try to keep any news of him and his group away from your social media but it’s hard when all your classmates ever talk about is him and his group. BTS, is what they call themselves, that much you’ve learned and year after year, they continue to release new music and though you try not to listen to it, you can’t help but listen to a short snippet whenever it’s on your timeline before you force yourself to exit out of it, turning away from your social media for the day. You claim you don’t know the slightest thing about them, but your timeline had been a ruckus when they won new artist of the year in 2013 and the subsequent year when they had performed at an award show, your timeline had just about erupted. Aside from all of that, time seems to pass by faster and faster no matter how much you beg it to slow down and though you’re sure for Jungkook it’s like there aren’t enough hours in the day for him with all the practices, recordings and shows, the same could be said for you too because before you knew it, you were sitting for the college entrance exam and then you blink your eye and you’re standing on stage, finally graduating from high school.

When you graduated from high school, you thought you would have a good few months to breathe but a few weeks later, you find yourself in Seoul, ready to embark on a new journey, finally entering college like your parents have always dreamed. Of course arriving on campus, everything felt like a dream because it was your first time in the capital city and it was your first time living in the dorms and everything seemed like a new experience. Seeing so many new faces and so many people your age, all in one place was exhilarating but as soon as classes started, and work started piling up, the excitement of being a college student disappears and is instead replaced with the reality of what it really is and that is being stressed, depressed and occasionally well dressed. The entire first semester is a whirlwind and somehow you survive finals week and make it to summer break but then just as you’re beginning to enjoy it, you’re swept up again as the second semester rolls around and you’re back to the daily grind. Your seniors tell you to stop and enjoy each day because before you know it, you’ll be graduating. Good, you thought. You just wanted to graduate and leave, anyway.

At college, avoiding BTS seems to become a tad bit harder and you’re always slightly irked whenever you hear girls talk about the group or Jungkook in particular because it finally hits you how big they’re staring to become. Granted, they’re not exactly world-wide superstars for the time being but hearing complete strangers fawn over someone who had spent afternoons in your room, picking his nose, will never not be strange to you. You see BTS from time to time on the TV in your dining halls and somehow you find yourself smiling because for one performance you see them in various costumes, Jungkook himself dressed as a police officer and to you, it’s hilarious because you never thought there’d be a day you’d see him in anything but his usual jeans and t-shirt but yet, here he is, in a police officer uniform of all things. He’s happy, or at least you think he is because he has on that smile when he’s performing and just seeing him dance and sing, it just seems right, like he’s exactly where he belongs. You can’t help but think what could have been if Jungkook hadn’t gone to Seoul way back when and at this point, it’s not really something you want to think of anymore because one day, you see him and the rest of BTS looking rather stunned after their first win but soon they’re all smiles and though you haven’t really been following the group, their expression told you all that you needed to know. From then, it was win after win after win and you’re happy for Jungkook, you really are and yet just like the time you had first saw him debut, there’s this bitterness that seems to linger.

As expected the second semester damn near knocks you out with all the work and midterms you have to sit for and this time you find yourself barely being able to crawl your way through finals week and finally, when all of that is done and dusted, you let out a heavy sigh, glad that you can at least rest during the winter break. It’s your first time spending the holiday season alone and most of your friends have gone home for the break, but you’ve decided to stay because you part-time job pays you double when you work during this season and you know you need the money. Sometimes there are slow days at your workplace and you find yourself just mindlessly watching the music program that plays on the TV. There are occasions where you see the familiar doe-eyed boy on TV with the rest of his group and by this point, you’ve given up trying to avoid the group as it is simply impossible. You hear their music being played on the streets, you see the buskers performing to their songs and you see their posters hanging outside music stores. They’re just everywhere and you suppose that’s a good thing.

You watch the TV curiously as confetti pops on the stage and BTS is yet again announced as the winner for the night and despite all that has happened, the smile on Jungkook’s face still makes you feel all warm inside. He looks so familiar and yet he seems someone so entirely different. It has been 5 years since you had last saw him at the station and of course he’s changed because so have you. With each passing day, BTS grows in popularity and you feel yourself being slowly roped in. You feel yourself growing curious as to just what made them so special. That night, out of sheer boredom or rather curiosity, you find yourself looking up their latest album, already having doubts in your mind when you hit play but when the intro comes on and you hear the husky voice of one of the group’s rappers, you find yourself slightly intrigued.

The song plays and as the lyrics talks about being doubted, about proving the naysayers wrong, about moving forward despite it all, you feel your doubts about the group slowly melting away because he had put into words your struggles and in that one song alone, you had found hope. As you slowly make your way down the track list, you feel guilt begin to creep up on you. You listen to the album for days on end, their lyrics speaking to your soul, their melodies igniting a fire within you and you regret it so much, regret thinking of Jungkook as a sell-out, as someone who had gone with whatever they told him to do just to be famous because you were wrong, so very wrong and you should’ve known better, should’ve known that Jungkook would have been the type to go for something less than conventional because he saw potential, because he saw a chance for him to become the musician he has always wanted to be.

From this mini album to the one prior, you feel youth itself being captured in the songs, from teenage angst, to the carefree attitude that came with being young, the mini albums had it all. He’s grown from the young thirteen-year-old who sang about the trivial things in life to someone who helped write and produce songs that talked about pain, love, joy and an amalgamation of emotions you never thought he was capable of. You’re sucked into some sort of hole and before you know it you’re on YouTube watching videos of him and the boys, living out their idol life. You see the struggle behind what you thought was easy success, you see the 6 other boys as big brothers, slowly shaping him into the man that he is today. You laugh to yourself thinking about the years you wasted mindlessly hating the boy and by extension the other 6 members over a few unanswered emails, over a decision he had made at 13 that has quite possibly changed his life for the better. Jungkook is out there inching closer to his dreams, living the best possible life he could and who were you to be mad at him for doing that? If anything, you were sad that you couldn’t be a part of that but really, that didn’t matter because as far as you know, he’s happy and that’s all you could ever wish for. So, maybe over the course of a few weeks you learn more and more about the group, about how they produce their own music, how they write their own lyrics, how their music resonates with you and mirrors so much of what you feel and suddenly, you find that you don’t hate them so much anymore.

Like a fool, you decide to spend little of what you have on their newest mini album. It’s to support your childhood friend, you reason. One who hasn’t so much as made an effort to contact you but he is, or rather was your best friend and though you haven’t spoken to him in 5 years, you see that he’s very much the same dork you know but just a lot more famous now. Truthfully, he’s still the boy that holds your heart, though you deny it very much and so you send in your order for the album within a heartbeat. It wasn’t much, in fact it's nothing compared to the many other fans who buy dozens of them, but this is all you can afford, and you hope your one album sale helps them in some way.

It is after the discovery of your new-found love for BTS that you finally return to producing music, dragging out the keyboard that you have long forgotten in the closet of your dorm room. You find peace in finally making music again, feeling as if you’re home again because after all, music is your love and you have neglected it for far too long. In the loneliness of the winter months, you make track after track, uploading a handful of them under a pseudonym that you’ve picked.

Navy, had been the name you had gone for because it’s a gender ambiguous name and in an industry that’s so cutthroat, you didn’t really need anything else working against you. To be fair, you expect nothing out of posting your songs online because there are no lyrics to them, only beats but it felt refreshing, pushing out original creative content and you just needed to have a place you could display them all for you to maybe one day come back and see how much you’ve grown.

The second year of college, took everything out of you and by the end of the winter semester, your will to go on was only hanging by a thread. You had been pushed into pursuing a career you know you weren’t made for, but you needed to do this, needed to succeed for your parents’ sake. When winter break finally comes around, you’re hit by yet another pang of loneliness and you turn to your trusty laptop and midi keyboard to forget about it all. The music you had posted online had gained some traction and you don’t like to brag but you have been paid a fair few times by a few large companies for some of your music and you watched as they become the base beats or samples for some of the largest hits of the summer. Of course, it hadn’t been an overnight success, it was a slow and long climb but all it took was one big break, and suddenly, you watched emails start to pour into your inbox. It’s rather interesting because there’s some sort of satisfaction with getting to see your pseudonym printed on the song credits section in the albums. Seeing it printed alongside some of the biggest names in the industry tells you that this will all be worth it, that once you’ve done your job as a filial child, you could go on and make music and it wouldn’t feel like you’re chasing an empty dream.

You produce most of your tracks during the break and usually, it doesn’t take you too long to get into the groove of making a new track or at least a catchy beat but this time, no matter what you did, everything you created either sounded horrible or too basic. With BTS’ songs playing in the background, you dig around your old files to see if you could salvage any of your abandoned WIPs but nothing seems to work. You decide to procrastinate, rearranging all your folders, sifting through old songs just for the heck of it. You play a few songs that you had made back when you were thirteen and you cringe at how they sounded so badly produced, Jungkook’s voice truly the only saving grace for a few of those tracks. It’s fine, you laugh. At least now, you could see how much you’ve grown as an artist. It’s hours after sifting through old files that you finally stumble across one that says No.1 Hit. You grin at the file fondly, remembering how Jungkook had played a simple piano melody and you had promised him that you would one day make it into a hit. You open the file, hitting play and it’s like a wave of nostalgia hits you as you hear those 5 simple keys being played. Mindlessly, you use the 5 key melody and choose to build a song around it, and you’re glad because it’s a lot better than you remember it to be, the 5 key melody Jungkook had played a relatively easy one but it wasn’t just 5 keys played in ascension, it was melodically unique enough to sound anything like a generic run of the mill ballad and for the first time in days, you manage to make progress on a track.

You work on the song tirelessly, it’s the only thing you do for days now that you have this new-found drive to make some music and so, you finish the song just a day away from Christmas and you tell yourself it’s a gift from you, to yourself. The finished product is a reminder that you still had it in you, that despite the fact that the semester had absolutely destroyed you, you could always return to music and make something you were proud of. You’ve come so far, you smile and perhaps you’re not as successful as Jungkook, not even close, but you were making a name for yourself and you allow yourself to take that as a small form of victory. You find it so funny that back then when the two of you were just sat in your room, talking about what ifs and what your future would be like, you would have never imagined this. You would never imagine Jungkook becoming an idol and you would never imagine yourself creating hit songs in a small dorm room. You play the song over and over again, and you’re taken back to 6 years ago in your bed room where he had first played the simple piano melody and you find yourself imagining Jungkook’s voice on the track, his soft crooning warming up your heart in the middle of your bedroom but ah, it’s a dream that never will be. He’ll never hear the song anyway, you scoff. You play the song another handful of times before you decide to head to the convenience store that’s just a block away, hoping that some alcohol might help dull the loneliness and pain you seem to be feeling.

It’s when you take a swig out of your now half empty bottle of soju that you play your song another time and at this point you wonder if it’s considered vain to play something you made over and over again, almost as if you were just staring at a picture of yourself for hours on end. After taking a short break from hearing your song for yet another time, the cheap convenience store soju gives you the brilliant idea of creating a faux email for the day just for the heck of it. You can hear your brain telling yourself that it’s the worst idea on earth but really with the amount of soju you’ve drank, you can barely discern right from wrong anymore. Your fingers type hastily on your keyboard and you think hard before laughing as you type in a new username. Busanbeats, you type out. It’s the silly little name you and Jungkook had given your so-called ‘studio’ when the two of you were 11. 

Congratulations! You have just made a new account. Hello, Busanbeats. 

You snicker at the new email sitting in your inbox. Busanbeats, god, how long has it been since you last saw that name? You’re surprised you even remember it.

You click on the compose button, a small window opening up for the new mail you’re about to send. Your cursor blinks in the recipient section of the e-mail and you mumble to yourself trying to remember just what his username is. Kook… Kookster? Kooksterz? Was there a Z or was it an S instead? Kooksterz97, you mumble to yourself… and you sigh typing it in before you pressed enter. You wonder if he still uses this email. Perhaps he’s abandoned it, probably having created a new username, a more professional one instead. Doesn’t matter, you shrug. Whether he really got the email or not didn’t matter to you. You just needed to put it out there somehow, that you on your own had created a song off of a simple piano track that had been played some 6 odd years ago, and this email was just that, a small trick to tell yourself that yeah, you did it, shared it with someone you actually personally know… or rather knew.

Merry Christmas, is the title of your email. You had decided on it as you watched the minute hand tick closer to midnight. You stare long and hard at the empty email, trying to think of what would be an appropriate message to send an ex-best friend. You’re not so sure he remembers you, let alone Busanbeats. For all you know, you’ve got his username wrong, you laugh or maybe like all those years ago, he wouldn’t even read the email. The cursor blinks in the empty box and without thinking, your hand sweeps across the keyboard, typing out what you’ve actually been wanting to say for 6 years now.  

I miss you. I hope you’re happy wherever you are.

10 words, that’s all there is to your email.

You attach the sound file after glancing at your message again, quickly smashing the send button before you sign out and slam your laptop shut. You turn off the lights, crawl to bed and tuck yourself in just so the soju won’t give you anymore grand ideas. Merry Christmas, you whisper to yourself as you glance at the clock on the wall that showed that it’s now just a little past 12 in the morning. As you drift off to sleep, you wonder where Jungkook is because you remember that summer you had heard BTS was on yet another world tour. You let out a short snort, remembering how the two of you had once promised each other that one day, the both of you would travel the world together. You wonder if those faraway countries are anything like he’s imagined them to be. Truthfully, you’re a tad bit jealous because there he is slowly ticking off dozens of items on the checklist of things you had once promised each other while you on the other hand... you’re just here, trapped in a life that you’ve realized too belatedly that you’re not meant for. You can’t help but think that Jungkook has everything. He has the career, the 6 members that are family to him and an army of fans that love him and his group wholeheartedly, while you’re here, just… feeling alone, alone and alone.

Jungkook is exhausted, his limbs are screaming at him as he lays in his bed, finally able to rest after a tiring day of practice for yet another award show. He looks at his phone to see a new email, one sent to the spare email account from his childhood that he uses to sign up for games. He opens up the app to see the new message staring back at him and he damn near drops his phone.

Busanbeats.

The username makes his heart drop and soar at the same time and he doesn’t know what to do. The title of the email says Merry Christmas and he’s so afraid of opening it because what if it isn’t you? What if it’s someone sending incriminating photos of him to blackmail him with? Not that he’s done anything incriminating as of late, but the email is so out of the blue that he doesn’t really know what it could be. What if it’s some fan who’s done way too much research and has found out about his past, found out about you? Not that he’s embarrassed of either but it’s his little secret, one he wants to hold onto forever because his mind often returns to memories of you and him in your bedroom making silly tracks. Those memories make him smile, make him long to travel back in time just to hear you laugh with him again.

He misses you so much, by god does he miss you. He thinks about you all the time, too much in fact. He’s always so close, so close to dropping you a message on any one of your social media accounts, all of which he’s following under guise of a fake account. He wonders why you let strangers follow you but hey he’s not complaining because this way he feels as though he gets to see you go through life, almost as if he was right there beside you. He realizes just how creepy that may sound but honestly, it’s one of the little joys in his life, watching the little stories you post or the pictures you post, accompanied with captions about the day or just a funny one-liner. Though the two of you are apart, he feels like the two of you are growing up together because as odd as it seems, you’re still irrevocably you. Of course, you’ve changed in some way but there are still things about you that hasn’t changed, like how you constantly groan about homework or how you would light up whenever you see a dog on the street, which is evident from the stories you would always post and truthfully, no matter how many times he sees them, he never gets tired of it. Whenever you talk about that new song you like or that new movie you watched in any one of your posts, he tries to nonchalantly fit it in somehow into either one of the behind the scenes videos his company puts up of him and the boys or in one of his rare tweets, hoping on the off chance that you’d see it and connect the dots. Though, he finds that to be an idea that’s a little too far-fetched because from what his mother had told him, you didn’t really care about him anymore. Of course, she had put it in a much lighter, softer way but he knew that’s what she meant.

Jungkook lets out a sigh, once again staring at his screen. His phone is literally trembling in his hand, his thumb hovering above the email and he shuts his eyes, letting out a deep breath before he taps onto the message, finally opening the email up. Slowly, he peels his eyes open and he sees that the message has 10 words to it and all it takes is those 10 words for tears to start forming at the corners of his eyes.

I miss you. I hope you’re happy wherever you are.

There’s a muffled sob that leaves his lips and he quickly wipes away the tears that are beginning to roll down his cheeks. He can’t be sure that it’s you but if it is, he wants you to know that he misses you too. How much? He’ll never be able to put into words, but he misses you so much his heart aches whenever he thinks about you. I hope you’re happy wherever you are, is what your message says and of course he’s happy where he is now. His body may feel like it’s breaking apart with the amount of work he’s put in as of late but he’s happy because he’s able to do what he loves as a job but as cliché as it sounds, he’d be happier if he was able to share it all with you because after all, you are his best friend and he’s never thought otherwise even if the two of you haven’t spoken in years.

Jungkook sighs, just staring at the email until he notices there’s an attachment at the bottom of it, an mp3 file that simply says, untitled, and his heart stops beating for a second because is it you? Will he finally get to hear you say his name after 6 long years? Are you laughing in it? Are you screaming at him in it? It doesn’t matter… as long as he could just hear you say his name again, he’d be happy.

He hits play and there’s a few beats of silence before he hears a tune play. It’s a song, and it seems vaguely familiar, yet not until he hears the 5 keys, the same ones he had played all those years ago and he knows, it’s that song. It takes everything for him to not break down and cry and he plays the song over and over again until he finds that it’s way past his bedtime. That night, or rather morning, he spends a good half an hour or so typing out paragraph after paragraph. By the time he finally gains the courage to send you the email, it’s well past 3 in the morning. When he finally tucks himself into bed, he goes to sleep with the sweetest smile on his lips, his mind drifting off to thoughts of you.

In the following days, Jungkook and his phone are inseparable as he constantly refreshes his email again and again. The other members notice the youngest being rather odd, always muttering by himself, nervously gnawing on his lips as if he’s anxious about something. Must be the stress, they think because the last few days of the year are always the most stressful as they would have back to back performances at all the year-end award shows and if that wasn’t enough, they’re thinking about the nominations they have, heart fluttering at the thought of perhaps snagging a few awards of their own.

Jungkook sends the email again to the Busanbeats account far too many times but at this point he’s gone far past desperate and all he wants to do is to talk to you. His fingers hover over your various social media accounts and all he has to do is send it to you there, to any one of those pages but with your picture staring back at him, it suddenly feels too real, and he’s afraid that the Busanbeats email isn’t from you. He knows he’s being ridiculous because it can’t possibly be from anyone else but you but maybe what he fears the most is being left on read, or even worse, getting a reply from you where you just tell him how much you hate him. He spends days mulling over what to do before he decides he would just continue to care for you from afar, his fragile ego stopping him from doing what he wants to do the most, which is to reach out to you. Instead, he spends many of his days hunched over his table, writing down line after line of lyrics, his bin slowly being filled up with crumpled paper as he finds that he can’t seem to find the right words to fit the song.

As 2016 bleeds into 2017, Jungkook and the boys gear up for the upcoming world tour that they have, one that’s slated to be the longest tour they’ve ever been on. They practice day in, day out trying to iron all of the kinks out in their dance routines, making sure the spacing is perfect, that the band is ready and that the back-up dancers are prepared. There’s so much going on that Jungkook feels he barely has time to stop and breathe. In fact, the only solace he finds in all the crazy days he’s had is when he returns home and gets to watch your story for the day. Usually it’s nothing much, just what you ate or perhaps a few pictures of the streets of Seoul or maybe a dog that you had met at the park. It’s the mundane little things that you do that oddly brings him peace. He’s often imagined what it would be like to run into you on one of his off days. He wonders if you’ll even recognize him, wonders if you even know he exists anymore. Though he isn’t left wondering for long because when he opens up your story for the day after a particularly exhausting day at work, he’s met with a small snippet of you bobbing your head along to BTS’ latest song, an embarrassed laugh accompanying your dance before the video fades to a picture of the drink you had got at a café. Jungkook replays the short video so many times that he thinks he might be slightly deranged. It’s the tiny caption that’s on your video that gets him. It’s a few lines of text saying, this is the 4th time I heard this song today. There’s no escaping BTS huh? (ps guys, don’t lie… how many of you have dropped the I went to school with Jungkook line just to impress someone?). Jungkook can’t wipe off the smile on his face because his name… you had typed his name… You know of his group and you know their songs and you still thought of him… maybe not in the way he wanted you to but at least you did. It’s lame and childish, he knows but he can never think straight when it comes to you and anything you say or do that’s remotely cute sends his heart bouncing off at a speed he’s not comfortable with. Yet again, because of you, he goes to bed that night with the stupidest smile on his lips.

In the midst of your winter break, around early February, you get a rare call from your mother saying that a letter had arrived at the house, one that was addressed to you and that she had forwarded it to your current address. Confused, you decide to check your mailbox that day to find a dozen or so pamphlets and spam mail before finally, you find a letter with nothing but your name and home address printed on it. You open up the envelope to find two things. A ticket and a short letter. You furrow your brows in confusion, smoothing out the folded piece of paper to read its contents.

Hey Y/N, it’s been a long time. How have you been? Good, I hope. Anyway, the boys and I are having a concert in Seoul soon. I hope to see you there.

Best,

Jungkook.

You stare at the letter in utter confusion because, Jungkook? Is this really Jungkook? Is this a joke? It has to be… Perhaps one of your friends from primary school had decided to play a prank on you. You fish out the ticket to see the holographic sticker on it, indicating that the ticket is indeed real and it’s one that puts you in the VIP section along with special guests and family members.

It’s odd to think that Jungkook would send you this… It has been 7 years since you last saw him and it has been 7 long years of silence. Why now? You question. You read the letter a few times over before you let out a short snort. It’s Jungkook for sure, you can tell as much from his handwriting but his letter sounds so prim and proper, so robotic... nothing at all like the Jungkook you know but then again you realize you haven’t seen him in a long time and by now, he’s practically a stranger to you. If you really thought about it, you hadn’t really known him back then either because if he kept that audition 7 years ago a secret from you, who knows what else he’s hidden from you. You tuck the ticket and letter back into the envelope, placing it on your desk, looking at it from time to time, wondering if you should really go.

Technically, going to a BTS concert is an opportunity of a lifetime. Their tickets sell out in a matter of minutes and as far as you know, scalpers were selling them double, triple the price and even then, there are still people who are willing to pay that price. Though you’re not really ready to admit it, you rather like the band. You love the sincerity in their lyrics, the variety in their songs, the insane dance routines, the complexity of their accompanying story about youth and of course, the fact that all 7 of them look like they’ve been carved by Adonis himself, only helped sell their case more. It’s their music that spurs you to create more, to challenge yourself to become a better artist and if you asked yourself if you really wanted to go, the answer would be without a doubt, yes. Yet, you find yourself hesitating, debating between going and just staying home but soon enough, the day comes and hours before the concert you tell yourself fuck it before you grab your phone and head out the door.

When you get to the venue, it’s like a madhouse. You see the queue snaking around the stadium, tents set up for merchandise sale along the pavement and people everywhere with banners, posters, fans, whatever you could think of, they had it. The LED screens light up with footage of the boys, their names and pictures being displayed. Seeing Jungkook on the big screen, seeing the excitement first hand, honestly, it scares you a little. You stand in the queue alone, not knowing yourself where to go or what to do. There’s an obvious air of anticipation around the outside of the stadium, thousands of fans eager to finally see the boys kick off their live tour. As you get closer to the front of the queue, your heart starts to palpitate for no reason whatsoever. When the beep of the handheld machine used to scan the tickets grow louder, you wipe your hands at your pants, unsure as to why you’re feeling so nervous. It’s a split-second decision. With only a few more people until it’s your turn, you decide to jump the barricade and head on home. You can see people staring at you quizzically but the pressure of finally seeing your ex-best friend after 7 long years just makes you feel anxious and at this point in time, you think, it’s something you can’t deal with just yet.

You’re an idiot, a certified idiot because you return home to watch the concert through crappy handheld live streams when you could’ve been there watching it with your very own eyes but no, you’re a coward and you’re stubborn so you’re here dealing with the consequences of your personality. BTS are all smiles that night and it warms your heart knowing how much this concert means to them, how much their fans mean to them and when it’s all over and done with, you return to your own bed, feeling rather blue, as if you had actually attended that concert that night and you were feeling the full effects of post-concert blues.

Jungkook and the boys retreat back stage after they finally say goodbye to their fans and the curtains come down, signifying the end of the show. They bow diligently towards each other, and the staff, thanking each and everyone for their hard work tonight. Jungkook sinks down onto the couch, wiping away his sweat as he drinks a cool bottle of water. Everyone’s in a relatively good mood, congratulating each other for putting on a good performance and the boy pipes in on the conversation every once in a while, reminiscing the notable moments of the second day, somehow quite glad that they were able to close out the Seoul show with a bang. As the conversation continues, he slides off to the far corner of the room, searching for a particular staff member and when he finally finds who he’s looking for, he feels his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

“Did… did she come?” He asks, his voice barely a whisper.

The staff member looks at him rather quizzically before a moment of realization hits him when Jungkook gestures towards a ticket.

“Oh! Uhh, I’m sorry but nobody showed up,” He frowns.

“Ah, right… that’s okay, thanks,” He smiles weakly before bowing at him.

To be fair Jungkook didn’t expect you to show up but he sure hoped that you would. The ticket had got to you, that he made sure of because his mother had informed him that yes, your mother had sent it to you. He wonders if you were busy, if you perhaps had something better to do with your weekend. He tries not to think about it but he can’t deny that he’s a little hurt. In any case, he isn’t given much time to dwell on his feelings because the week following the Seoul show is as chaotic as ever. The whole company in an absolute ruckus as everyone ties up the loose ends before the boys head over to Chile for their first international show of the year.

The next few months are complete chaos as they go from city to city, from Chile to Brazil over the course of just a few weeks. As if performing overseas itself isn’t already a dream to him, then comes the notification of their nomination at the BBMAs and an invite to attend the award show. Subsequently winning the award and seeing all the international stars that he’s only ever had the pleasure of seeing through a screen, stand right in front of him and talk to him, it’s almost like he’s in heaven but of course, he doesn’t have much time to savour that feeling because the next day, he finds himself on another plane, on to another place. They hit a myriad of cities in America before heading back to Asia to perform in a slew of different countries, the boys entirely excited to put on show after show no matter how tiring it is. All 7 of them simply get into the routine of putting on shows and enjoying little of what is their down time, exploring a few cities here and there. Just as they think they can finally relax, then comes the announcement of their performance at the AMAs and the boys find themselves back in America again. It’s an exciting experience, one that Jungkook thinks he’ll never forget but when he finally returns home, months later and performs the last two shows to close out the tour, he breathes a sigh of relief, glad that the year has been nothing but good to him.

All the while as he flew from country to country, he never once missed any of your posts, the little pictures and clips of Seoul has him yearning to return but then he sees the sold-out stadiums each night and he remembers why exactly he’s out there traveling the world. He had returned to Seoul with a light heart and a bag full of postcards that he adds to his ever-growing collection. He thinks his year can’t get any better but mid-December as everything settles, the shock of winning a few more awards finally starting to ebb away, the boys get news that they finally got a slot with the ever elusive up and coming producer who went by the pseudonym of Navy. Everyone’s on the edge of their seat, counting down the days they finally get to meet the mysterious Navy. There’s been huge debate amongst the boys and resident producers at the company on who Navy actually is and though they’ve scoured the internet for clues, the theories online only make things seem murkier, a hundred and one theories floating around as to who exactly Navy is.

Navy.

Jungkook furrows his eyebrows whenever he hears the name. He’s visited their online profile a fair few times, reading the small blog posts they link whenever they answer a few questions from fans. Jungkook can’t explain it but this Navy seems so familiar and honestly, he thinks he’s a little crazy but whoever Navy is… seems to be a lot like you. From your favourite food, to your favourite colour and even down right to your favourite Disney movie. Jungkook knew all of those, still did even though it’s been 7 years. Oddly, all those details seemed to match with you. Aside from that, the songs they produce obviously does not sound like anything both you and him used to make but one day when a fan asks what one of their old songs sounds like, Jungkook thinks it’s definitely you because when hears the clip, he notes that it sounds like one of the clips you had played for him some years ago and he can’t seem to shake the feeling that somehow, Navy is his childhood friend, his best friend. As he listens to each song Navy is accredited to, he seems more convinced it's you because he notices a trend, notices you using similar instruments, the unconventional ones you’ve always loved using. Be it the odd strings here and there or the uncommon percussion instruments from various traditional instruments, the songs sound so you, albeit it’s a new and improved you. Of course, Jungkook didn’t want to tell anyone… afraid he would sound like a madman. So, all he does is wait, wait for the day Navy would walk through the front doors of the building.

2017 zooms by you before you can even blink. Your last year in college was perhaps the worst out of all your 3 years here but as you look at yourself in the mirror, standing in your graduation robe with your graduation cap in hand, you can’t help but smile at the thought that you’ve finally made it. On a chilly winter day, in the middle of the hall, you along with hundreds of others throw your caps up to the ceiling, celebrating the fact that now, all of you could finally go out and venture into the real world. The day is filled with many smiles and despite the amount of stress you had been through, the amount of sleepless nights you had begrudgingly suffered through and the numerous mental breakdowns you’ve cried your way through, you think it’s all worth it when you see your parents grin at you, telling you the 4 words you’ve always wanted to hear, that being, I’m proud of you.

Though your parents have always wished that you would go on to get that classic office job, you’ve pretty much shown yourself that you love music enough to be able to make it into a career. You know they haven’t always thought so, not even when the money you sent home seemed to be far too much for a college student to be making but it’s after a lot of coaxing from your part that they finally relent. Of course, the little luxuries you bought them helped push them over to your side. At least you have a degree to fall back on… in case things don’t work out, they murmur, and you snort, thanking them for their confidence. You understand though, they only want the best for you and to them the best was doing what was conventional. But you, you’ve always been rather the opposite of conventional and though your parents have always known that, perhaps they didn’t want to admit that until now. When they leave to return back to Busan, you can’t help but cry. They’re mostly tears of joy though because you feel like you’ve done what they’ve always expected of you and now that’s another burden finally rolling off your shoulders.

When you move out of the dorms and into the new apartment you’ve rented, it feels like the start of something new, the start of a new chapter and maybe you’re only this excited because you finally get to pursue your passion as a career. You huff, checking your schedule for the next few days when you see a big red Big Hit Entertainment taking up the Wednesday of your week. It’s rather ridiculous for you to think that you’re finally going to be able to work with the band that you love so much. Truth is, when you saw the email sitting in your inbox a few months ago, you had screamed and then subsequently archived the email away, feeling rather unworthy of being able to work with them, almost feeling like you’re not good enough. But as the end of the semester approached and graduation was just around the corner, you thought to yourself, what the heck, that you had nothing to lose from saying yes so, you email Big Hit back 3 months, yes three, after they had sent you that email. You had said something along the lines of if they’re still interested then you would love to work with BTS. Their response had come back almost immediately and by the end of the exchange, you found yourself booked to meet BTS and a few of their staff, the week after your graduation.

The Wednesday you have been waiting for comes soon enough and it’s just after midday when you stride into Big Hit’s headquarters. You approach the desk meekly, citing the appointment you had and with a smile, one of the staff leads you up to the meeting room. The room looks exactly like one of those big board rooms you see on TV and you can see a dozen or so people sitting around the table. As you take a glance, noting the 7 boys seated at the end of the table and the main producers at the company sitting off to their side, your palms begin to sweat, your bag almost slipping out of your grip. You can see Jungkook swiveling his chair around, excitedly chatting with the boys and you swear you could hear the sound of your heartbeat in your ears, the prospect of seeing him after so many years suddenly hitting you full force. You hesitate at the door, taking a step back, bumping into the side of the staff that had led you up here.

“I’m sorry,” You mumble. “I just need a few seconds to just—” You let out a large nervous sigh and she gives you a polite smile, nodding her head in understanding.

Through the small glass panel on the door, you can see all the producers you’ve only dreamed of working with, you see the band you’ve only dreamed of meeting. You want to work with BTS, of course you do. Their music inspired you to begin again and to work with them would be an absolute honour. But Jungkook… what if you meet him and he’s nothing like you remembered him to be, not the same boy who till this day still holds a major part of your heart. What if he looks at you and he hates what you’ve become? You don’t understand why you’re putting so much importance on what he thinks when he was the one who had abandoned you in the first place. His opinion shouldn’t matter, you thought and if anything, you’ll be able to get through it, you sigh. It’s with another deep breath that you finally turn to the lady, giving her a small nod and she smiles, reaching over to push the door open for you.

When the door swings open and you take a few hesitant steps forward, the room falls into pin-drop silence. You gulp, looking around the room, trying hard to avoid any eye-contact, your eyes darting around before you purse your lips and begin,

“Hello… I’m uhh… Navy.”

That sounded horrible, lame, you groan. It was nothing like the persona you had wanted to project.

There’s excited murmuring before everyone greets you and you’re shown to your seat. You gladly take your place, noting that your knees were about to give in from how nervous you are. This is your first time corresponding with artists and producers in person. Most of the time, your work is mostly done through numerous emails and calls and you’ve never actually had the experience of being in a board room like this.

Introductions begin, and they sweep around the room, from the producers, to those in charge of vocal arrangements, to anyone you could think of that was part of the music making process until finally, it reaches the 7 boys. They all greet you excitedly, stating their names one by one and you nod your head intently at each greeting, flashing them a smile, each time. It finally reaches the boy at the end of the table, the one you’ve avoided looking at since you stepped into the room and when your eyes meet his, you hear him clear his throat before he licks at his lips nervously.

“I-I’m Jungkook, the main vocalist of the band,” He stammers and despite your nervousness, you almost let out a light laugh. 7 years on and he was still the same shy boy you had met in the music room almost 13 years ago.

Everyone peers back at you, waiting for a proper introduction and you straighten your back, before you start.

“Like I said earlier, I’m Navy but uh… my real name is Y/N,” You smile, rubbing your hands together as you gaze around the room, your eyes meeting Jungkook’s for a second too long. “It’s nice to meet all of you.”

It’s a dream. It’s a dream. It’s a dream. That’s all Jungkook can think this is. He almost wants to scream for everyone to leave because all he wants is just a moment with you. Just one. It breaks his heart how nonchalant you look, your eyes sweeping over him as if he’s just like everyone else in the room. He knows that you know him, that you remember him but nothing you say or do shows that you even care that this is the first time you’re meeting him in years. In his mind, he’s thought of this situation over and over again. He’s thought about meeting you on the street here in Seoul, meeting you perhaps back in Busan over the holiday season, even someday meeting you right here in the company. Never once has he imagined you like this, so cold, so uncaring towards him. Of course, he’d want the reunion to be happy but he knows that’s unlikely and he’d rather see you sad or furious, or just see some type of emotion, any emotion because at least then it would mean that you care but this, seeing you so detached from him makes his heart ache in more ways than one.

The meeting edges more towards the serious side and you have to stop yourself from almost letting out a laugh when both Namjoon and Yoongi pipe up to tell you that they too take part in the music production side of things. You almost want to blurt out that you know that, that you also know all of their names by heart, maybe even knew their birthdates, but you guess it isn’t really the time nor place for that. Instead, you play track after track, noting the responses from the room, the small comments from the producers and the boys and you won’t lie, maybe you’re blushing a little because everyone seems to be enjoying the short snippets you’ve played for them.

“I can really see this track being one of the main songs on the next album,” One of the producers say as everyone in the room nods in agreement. You can do nothing but smile stupidly, because all of this feels like a dream to you and at this very moment you’re on another plane of existence, one where you’re feeling inexplicable joy.

It’s just about the end of your repertoire and you’ve played all the tracks that you think would suit BTS. There’s one more track sitting at the end of the list you have compiled and you hesitate, wondering if you should play it. You look up quickly to note Jungkook sulking in the corner and even if he’s said nothing the whole time, which honestly hurts you a little, you wonder if you could coax him out of his shell with this one track. You wonder if he remembers it and though you know you had tried sending it to him while drunk that one time, you’re quite sure he didn’t get it or maybe he did… and he actually hates it, you’ll never know because you had tried signing into that Busanbeats email account the day after but you couldn’t seem to figure out the password that drunk you had set the night before. But, you’re rather proud of the track. It’s in a style you’ve never tried before but still, it sounded great and you knew that this song fits BTS perfectly, especially since it was their music that night that had got you started on working on the track and the fact that Jungkook had in some way helped in the creation of this song, you think it’d be a rather fitting addition to their upcoming album. You shrug to yourself and decide on playing it for them because the worst that could happen was that they could say no, right?

“Oh, uhh… this next track,” You start, interrupting the conversation that was happening between a few of the people sat across you. “I… I actually made it while I was in a slump and it was your music—” You gestured towards the boys, your eyes stopping at Jungkook for a short while before you turn away. “—that helped me out of it. It was your music that sparked my muse.”

Everyone is waiting intently, listening in for that first beat. The music starts playing and it’s too familiar, Jungkook thinks and after just two seconds, when the first piano note sounds, Jungkook already knows the song. He’s stunned for a moment, his mind reeling as he watches you glance around the room nervously. He turns to see everyone else smiling, clearly enjoying the song and he shouldn’t say anything, he should just keep quiet like he has been doing the entire meeting but he’s speaking before he can stop himself.

“No. We wont be using this song.”

“Jungkook!” You hear Taehyung scold, the other boys soon following along.

“W-Wh— I think it’s perfect for the group,” You defend. “It’s a soft ballad with space for the rappers—"

“No.”

“Jungkook, what’s wrong with y—” Yoongi grumbles, obviously frustrated with the younger boy’s sudden outburst before he’s interrupted by Jungkook himself.

“I made that melody and I say, we can’t use this song.”

“Dude, what are you on about?” Hoseok questions.

“Jungkook, I-I thought you’d be happy,” You mumble. “Honestly, I thought you’d like it… with 7 of you on there it’ll—”

“It’s our song,” He murmurs. “You can’t give away our song.”

There’s an eerie silence to the room and you can feel the awkward tension in the air, the confused faces staring back at the both of you making you squirm in your seat.

“Okay… So, that’s a no to this song then,” you smile awkwardly. “That’s umm… all I have for today really so…” You clasp your hands together uncomfortably, slowly rising from your seat, unsure exactly how these meetings ended.

Thankfully, one of the staffs calls you to the side to talk about scheduling, asking for any more of your free days and a few of the other producers join in on the conversation. Oddly, it makes you feel a bit better after what had just happened and you’re glad that everyone is simply brushing the situation aside, instead talking about how they’d like you to help them develop some of the tracks they have in the works and perhaps how they could work with some of your tracks too.

When all the scheduling is over and done with, a few of the boys come over to apologize on behalf of Jungkook and you wave your hand at them, telling them that it was fine and you know everyone wants to ask the same question, wants to ask you what he had meant exactly when he said that he had made the melody but from the clenched fists and intense stares that Jungkook sent you during the altercation, they think it’s best to hold their tongue. With a last few goodbyes, you finally move to exit the room and you thank the fact that Jungkook has long since disappeared. You don’t really know what to do or say if he had been there and everyone would be watching the both of you, waiting for some sort of explanation for the weird tension between the two of you.

You step out into the hallway, insisting that you could find your own way out and you don’t tell them this but it’s really because you don’t want anyone to ask you any Jungkook related questions during the awkward silence in the elevator ride down to the ground floor. You’re humming to yourself as you wait for the elevator, smiling because despite it all, you deserve a pat on the back today for handling a big meeting on your own so well given the weird circumstance you were put in as well. When you hear the elevator ding, you let out a large sigh of relief, glad you could retire to your home soon and take a big fat nap.

Your feet wobble in the high heels that you had put on today and you click lightly on the button that says the ground floor. There’s the sound of hurried footsteps just as the door closes and without thinking, you click rapidly on the open button, glancing up only to fully regret your decision when you’re met face to face with your ex best friend. You panic, and you’re not sure why you do it but you try to push him out of the elevator, slamming on the close button but Jungkook must’ve anticipated your move because he fights his way back into the elevator and you let out a groan of defeat when you see the door finally close behind him.

Jungkook’s chest is heaving with exhaustion from the tiny scuffle and you’ve retreated to the corner, simply staring at your feet because you’re not sure where else to look.

“Y-Y/N, how’ve you been?” Is his sad attempt at trying to salvage the situation.

“Um, alright, I guess…” Is your reply and you’re not entirely sure what this is... this weird polite conversation you’re having. Is he genuinely trying to make small talk with you right now? Regardless, you assume you would have to keep the conversation going because what were you going to do? Stay silent as the elevator goes down another 15 floors? “And how about you? Great, probably,” You laugh, very awkwardly and good god this conversation is so painful that you almost wish you could just dissipate into thin air.

“Well, I’m better now that you’re here. A whole lot better,” He smiles and you let out an ugly snort before you shake your head at him and laugh, because really? Of all things to say, he chose to say that?

His heart flips in his chest at the sound of your laughter, because as cliché and gross as it sounds, it’s his favourite sound on this entire earth.

“Hmm, I see you’re even more of a charmer now too, huh?”

There’s 1000 things he wants to say, had thought up multiple words, sentences to say to you when he was in the bathroom just minutes ago, practicing his lines in the mirror but right here, right now, his mind is drawing a blank.

“Oh, by the way, I’m sorry about the song…” You mumble, noting now that perhaps you should’ve asked for his permission first before playing it because he was right, he did make that base melody and so that meant this is just as much his song as it is yours. “I guess you don’t like it but I—”

“No, no!” Jungkook shakes his head vehemently and the expression he gives you is almost like he’s horrified. “I love it. I love the song. I’ve been listening to it ever since you sent it to me.”

Sent it to him? Oh… Oh… So he did get the email after all?

“Oh right, that,” You laugh. “Then what gives?”

His heart breaks when he hears you say that because how could you not see how special the song is? How could you be so ready to give it away?

“It’s just ours,” He mumbles. “Yours and mine and maybe I’m just… selfish like that,” He murmurs, shifting his weight from one feet to the other and you let out a quiet scoff, noting how much the last part of his sentence had sounded just like what he had said all those years ago.

“I guess not everything about you has changed then,” You smile as the elevator dings, prompting the both of you to walk out.

Jungkook doesn’t say anything as he continues to follow you, walking by your side until you reach the exit. His mind is nothing but a big mess now and he can’t seem to be able to string a sentence together because seeing you right in front of him, it’s like his body is still in shock. He didn’t know what to say first, didn’t know whether it was appropriate to just tell you how much he misses you, that he’s so happy for you because you’ve finally graduated and he knows how much of a struggle college was for you, that he loves all the songs you’ve managed to produce over the past years... but he didn’t want you to think he’s a stalker. It’s been 7 long years and it almost feels like this is him making a new first impression but before he can get any one of those things out, he hears you saying a quiet, well, bye, I guess... and he calls for your name when he finally registers your sentence but by then, you’ve disappeared into the taxi and he’s left standing at the front entrance of his workplace looking like a complete fool.

With his head hanging low, Jungkook retreats back up to the meeting room where everyone is still lounging around in and the moment he steps in, he could feel everyone staring at him.

“Honestly Jungkook, what was with your attitude the entire meeting and what’s with the whole song thing?” Namjoon asks.

“We just… we know each other,” He mumbles. “I grew up with her. She’s my… was my…” He can’t even complete the sentence now, not after all that has happened today.

“Oh, she’s her,” Jimin shakes his head, almost laughing. Jungkook didn’t talk much about his life back in Busan, but when he did, he would almost always talk about you. The details about what happened between you and him remain blurry to him and to the rest of the boys but all that they know is that you and him were once best friends who made music together and he had left abruptly to come up to Seoul and join the company.

“Wow, you’re friends with one of the upcoming and most talked about producer in the industry and you didn’t tell us?” Jin jokes, trying to turn the situation around, noting the deep frown Jungkook is wearing.

“Well I didn’t know for sure until today…” He sighs. “And then she played the song too… the song with the melody that I… the one we promised each other we would…” He lets out another series of sighs and everyone in the room is only more confused because Jungkook isn’t really clearing up anything with all his incomplete sentences. “Let’s just go for practice, please,” He grumbles, leaving the meeting room with his shoulders drooping down, his hands buried deep in his pockets as he mumbles to himself. So much for a first impression, he mumbles to himself.

Meeting Jungkook again isn’t what you had expected it to be. You had always imagined telling him just how much him leaving you had hurt you, that the fact that he had slowly forgotten you had hurt you even more but when you saw him standing in front of you, all quiet, looking at you as if he was waiting for you to say something, you found yourself tongue-tied. You guess it’s for the best, that you should leave all of that behind because it’s stupid to hold a grudge for so long and if he could move past everything that has happen, then you can too. You can be the bigger person and let everything slide. All you want is for the both of you to have a professional relationship at most, hopefully never having a repeat of what had happened in the meeting room just a few minutes ago. You’ll be heading back to Big Hit in just two days to explore more ideas for the upcoming album and you hope that then, you and Jungkook can finally clear the air.

Part 2

A/N: I swear this was meant to be a oneshot but as always, i got carried away lol so there will be a part 2!!!!!!! anyway thank you for reading! and as always, feedback is welcome (:

[morgana0anagrom]

Random Questions ^^

if you want to ask something from this list just send me an ask with following numbers. lets have fun guys ^^ it kinda feels as if im forcing this on you guys :D (sorry about that) its my freaking first time doing it :X 

1. You just opened up a web browser. What is the first site you visit?

2. You just walked into a bookstore. What section do you go to first?

3. You are hanging with your closest friends. What are you most likely doing?

4. Do you have any pets?

5.  What’s better, having high expectations or having low expectations?

6. Complete this phrase: You cannot buy happiness, but you can buy____.

7. What would you do if you woke up as the opposite gender?

8. Are you more likely to cook for yourself or buy food from a restaurant?

9. If you had to lose one of your senses, which one would you rather lose?

10. Describe your perfect man/woman.

11. What are your favorite boys names?

12. Would you rather be rich and dumb or poor and extremely intelligent?

13. Do you have any piercings? Do you plan on getting more?

14. You just walked into a supermarket. What section do you first go to?

15. Do you like hugging people?

16. You just won the lottery. What is the first thing you do with your winnings?

17. If your best friend admitted that they have a crush on you, how would you react?

18. Do you watch anime?

19. If you could have any job in the world and get paid millions of dollars a year for it, what would you be and why?

20. What was the first thing you learned to cook?

21. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, without any consequences, what food would you choose?

22. It’s Saturday night. What are you most likely doing?

23. You go on a blind date. Your date is extremely beautiful and physically captivating, but you hate their personality. Would you want a second date?

24. Describe your sense of humor.

25. Name three songs that make you want to dance.

26. Do you have any talents or skills?

27. Did you ever do anything weird as a child?

28. If you could go back to college and choose a different degree to study, would you?

29. Where do you see yourself ten years from now?

30. Did you have a dream last night? If so, describe it.

31. Would you attend a same sex wedding if invited?

32. So far, what has been the greatest day of your life?

33. Describe the worst/ scariest dream you’ve ever had.

34. If it could be one season year-round, what season do would you want it to be?

35. If you could do anything (and I mean ANYTHING) right now without consequences, what would you do and why?

36. Have you ever had a near death experience?

37. What offends you the most?

38. Have you ever been in a physical fight?

39. At what age did you have your first alcoholic beverage?

40. What do you think happens to us when we die?

41. If you could have a superpower ASIDE from being invisible or being able to fly, what would you have?

42. If you could take home any one animal from the zoo, which animal would you choose?

43. Do you believe in aliens?

44. What scares you the most?

45. What personality trait turns you off the most?

46. You got offered a job to do something you hate, but the pay will make you rich. Do you take it?

47. Do you believe in ghosts?

48. How often do you get mad or upset at yourself?

49. If you could choose one celebrity to be your parent, who would you choose?

50. If you could only listen to one musical artist for the rest of you life, who would you be listening to?

51. If you could make one mythical being real, who/what would you make?

52. Had anyone you were close to die way too young?

53. Do you get tan, or do you burn?

54. You go on a blind date. You date is extremely ugly and physically appalling, but you are madly in love with their personality. Would you want a second date?

55. In your opinion, what is the worst way to die?

56. Do you believe in God, or some form of higher deity?

57. If you could save someone you deeply cared about, but it meant breaking a law, would you do it?

58. What was the last thing you bought?

59. If you were to make a YouTube video about what you know most about, what would the subject be?

60. What do you think is your greatest personality flaw?

61. If your friends spoke to you the way you speak to yourself, would you still want them as friend?

62. Have you ever “woke up like this”?

63. You got offered a job to do something you love, but the pay is one of the worst out there. Do you take it?

64. What do you think is your best physical feature?

65. What’s the last thing you read that made you cry?

66. Have you ever bought a CD? What band was it for?

67. What are some of your favorite physical activities to do?

68. Describe how you would survive the zombie apocalypse.

69. How would you reject a date offer from someone you didn’t like?

70. Which do you think is worse: Failure, or never trying at all?

71. Who’s your favorite character?

72. If you were told that if you killed someone, you would save 100 people, would you do it?

73. What is a video game you can play over and over again?

74. What do you have within arms reach of your bed?

75. Do you have any posters, pictures, or art hanging on your walls in your room? If so, what are they?

76. What is something that you’ve never done but would like to try?

77, If you could choose three famous people or characters to be friends with, who would you choose and why?

78. Post a line of dialogue from one of your WIPs without context.

79. If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?

80. What is something that you can never say ‘no’ to?

81. Describe your plan of action if you were home alone and you heard someone break into your house.

82. What is a quote that always inspires you?

83. What is your favorite genre of music?

84. What is your first memory?

85. If you could possess one talent, what would you be able to do?

86. What is something you think about before you sleep?

87. If you HAD to have one plastic surgery, what would you get and why?

88. What’s the last thing you read that made you laugh?

89. What’s next on your ‘to-read’ list?

90. Are you more spontaneous or more of a planner?

91. Do you find it easy to drop toxic people from your life that you’ve known for a long time?

92. What toy did you want as a child that you never got?

93. What is your zodiac sign?

94. Name some of your favorite colors.

95. If you could speak three additional languages, what would they be?

96. What do you want done with your body after you die?

97. What three physical features do people compliment you most on? What do they say about them?

98. Are you good at holding back your tears?

99. Are you a KPOP fan?

100. Type of music you dislike most?

[lostpioneer]

Can’t Sit Down and Write? Same Dude

Alright, buddy, I’m going to lay this out flat on you, whoever you are. I’m absolute garbage at writing. I don’t just mean skill, I mean all aspects- Commitment, focus, grammar (though I try my hardest,) and pretty much anything you can think of, I’m bad at. I probably have more unfinished writing ideas than I have days left on this Earth, and I can never dedicate myself to just one idea. Even short stories, besides ones I wrote back in middle school that I pretend don’t exist, remain unfinished and collecting virtual dust in my computer files while I do literally anything besides write.

The one strength I might possibly have, though? I soak up anything- And I mean anything- that I can about writing. Tips and tricks, websites, apps, styles- Everything I can get my hands on. So here’s my grand idea: I’m going to write this blog in an attempt to help other people like me, and maybe even people that don’t have the same issues I have.

The way I see it is writing is a complex art- And just like in any other type of art, you want the best tools you can possibly obtain. Like paintbrushes for watercolor, or graphite pencils for visual art. Those tools help you do better in whichever focus you have, so shouldn’t writing tools do the same?

You can argue that writing comes from within, from years of teaching, and I get that and agree with it- but there’s nothing wrong with a little extra help.

So, here are some of my (im)perfect tips for perfect writing.

 -         Sit your ass down. I’m sure a lot of you have heard this one but I can’t stress it enough. It is an extremely important aspect of writing that can start as a building block for success. When you make yourself sit down at your desk and put pen to paper (or fingers to keys,) it helps you commit yourself to the project even more.

-         Set word goals. There’s a lot of neat sites and programs that can help you keep track of your word and character counts, and these sites usually come with extra functions as well, so it never hurts to “shop” around. The point of this, though, is to have realistic goals. Of course, the end goal is to finish your paper, end the novel, or complete your short story, but you need smaller goals in between, especially if your project is a rather large one. Think like a chapter or two a day, or 1,000-1,600 words a day. These are just random values I shoot for, but yours don’t have to be as extensive- Just set the goal. When you get to a certain word goal, there’s a sense of accomplishment that can follow, and even sometimes you’ll have the urge to keep on trudging through it. Writing is also a pain sometimes, which is why word goals are so important- Set small ones if you get easily restless, or you don’t have a lot of free time to set aside. The important thing is having a goal you can reach, or at least get close to.

-         Write first, Edit later. Now this may sound easier than it is, and for some people (me in particular,) I have an insanely difficult time not editing on the way. And sometimes that’s okay. I usually find myself just fixing a word or grammar error, like a missing period or misspelled word. What I mean about not editing is when you stop your writing and go back to review what you’ve done. This is okay if you’ve found a good stopping point or reached a goal, but to backtrack in the middle of a writing process can hurt your workflow and get your mind off the current task. As painful as it might sound, sometimes you have to grit your teeth and push through that nagging urge to double-check what you’ve done.

-         Take breaks (if you need to.) If you’re anything like me, you might have a hard time sitting and clacking at your keyboard for more than 20 or 30 minutes at a time (I can barely manage that.) So the logical way to stop yourself from getting worn out is to just take a break. Watch a YouTube video, look at Pinterest or Tumblr, or IG- Anything you want. The key here is to give your mind time to process something different and keep it from getting worn out on the same thing. The other key is to return to your writing once you’ve given your mental muscles time to breathe. It’s a weird thing to balance, but if you can find one, it does wonders.

·         Find a writing buddy. Now this is a recent one for me, but it also helps a lot with your consistency. Basically find a friend or relative that bears a similar interest in writing that you do, one that can go through the journey of writing with together. If you can’t find someone that will write with you, at least find a friend that can hold you accountable. A good way to do it is ask them if they can keep you responsible- Tell them what you’re writing, what your daily word goals are, what times during the day you’ll be writing. It’s a new experience for me but I 100% recommend it to anyone that struggles with staying committed.

-         Find an idea and stick with it. This is probably the hardest one for me personally. I have so many ideas that I’d love to see played out in stories and novels, but I can never make myself focus on just one. And that’s the key- You have to find the one. Now, it doesn’t mean you can’t have other ideas, but unless you’re an amazing multitasker, you need to focus on the one that you’re working on then and there. If I had a dollar for any idea that distracted me from finishing another idea, I’d be rich enough to hire someone else to write this for me. (Not really, I’d probably spend it on candy bars or something, but you get my point. Right?)

 So those are just a few ideas off the top of my head. I might come back to this post at some later date to add more if any come to mind, or just start a new post entirely; call it part two or something. But that’s it for now on the Tips!

So below here, I’m going to list some of my favorite apps/websites that enable writing, ones that I personally enjoy and why I enjoy them. Here goes:

 -         sta.sh: Nothing too special here, basically just a free writing tool that’s similar (though not as extensive) as Microsoft Word. The cool thing about it is that it’s 100% free, all you need is a DeviantArt account. Sta.sh is 1005 online and backs up your files online as well automatically. It’s all private as well- No one else can see your stuff except for you, and if you do want to show it off, it generates a shareable link for your projects. Another cool perk is that you can store stuff besides writing, like pictures or videos.

-         Wordcounter.net: Kind of a similar format, but the importance of it is basically in the website name. It counts up your word and character counts, but also a few other interesting things, like how long it would take someone to read your material. The site also determines your “reading level” based on the type of words and such that you use (though you should take it with a grain of salt.)

-         Draftin.com: A free online website that just lets you write. An interesting mode it has, though, would be the “Hemingway Mode.” When you select this, you literally cannot change anything. I mean it- Try to backspace, nope. Try to highlight a word to retype it, nope. You can only go forward- Which could be either the greatest or the most infuriating thing you’ll ever see. Either way, I think it’s pretty neat.

-         HemingwayApp.com: You would think that this site would have been the ones to come up with that neat little perk, but nah. This one’s still pretty cool, though- it has a writing mode and editing mode. The writing mode is very simple- Just write, nothing special aside from basic editing like bold, italics, etc. But the editing part shows a few neat things: sentence length, grammar errors (to a point) how many adverbs you have, and alternative phrases you can use. It’s pretty nifty if you ask me.

-         Writer.Bighugelabs.com: My oh my, this one takes the cake for me. Call me weird, but I’m a sucker for certain sounds, and the clicking sound of a typewriter is among my favorites. So this app makes your keyboard sound just like that, as well as saving anything you write in the browser. Any time you leave, it’s automatically saved, and anytime you come back it pulls it right back up. The app is 100% free, but there is a pro membership if you want to go above and beyond the normal benefits of it.

-         Hanxwriter: Now this is an iPhone app that is pretty much the same as the one above- make your phone keyboard sound like a typewriter. That’s it. But if you ask me, it’s the greatest thing ever, so go take a look.

-         WriterDuet: Now I haven’t dipped my feet too far into this one, but from what I’ve seen I’m impressed. Once again, a phone app (unsure if it’s iPhone exclusive) that assists with your writing, and it’s really helpful for structuring scripts and the like.

-         Notebook.ai: This right here? This is the mother-load. I don’t even care what you’re writing, but you need to check this out. It’s a website that helps you collect all your world building ideas or even ideas for papers or essays. (Just mostly for world building) It asks you important questions about your universe as well, and there are too many awesome perks to talk about on this blog- Just check it out! You won’t regret it.

-         cerey.github.io/fighters-block: This is a fun, cute lil’ app that can push you intensely, or just give you some polite nudges. Basically you set a word goal and you have to keep writing, otherwise, the big bad monster will beat you up. Like I said, kind of cute, definitely entertaining.

 That’s about all I have for now! Like I said, I might come back to this post to add new stuff later on, but I’m fresh out of ideas at the moment. If anyone reads this, I hope I was able to help in some way or another!

Just remember guys and gals: Dedication is the biggest but most important step. Just write- worry about everything else later.

P.S. Let me know if I should add screencaps of these apps/websites, or if I should just leave it as it is. Peace!

[theskoomacat]

Shower gave me a short burst of inspiration so stuff about a game I’ve been thinking about potentially making in some distant future under the cut

Ngl stard/ew valley is to blame for this in general. Procedural generation and pixel art are big turn ons for me so here’s almost the rest of the inspo for it.

Plot. Basically you’re minding your own business when suddenly you receive a letter for your ex-lover/friend in which they confess that they have been lying to you and the truth is that they’re That most famous thief. Too bad their last most daring burglary turned out to be a trap and they got cursed and will turn to stone before the letter reaches you:’( For all the good times you’ve had together they beg of you to make a special potion and set them free.

Generating ingredients. Here comes the procedural generation (I do hope I’m using this term correctly here) bit. Every game a list of ingredients is created anew, and you have only unfamiliar names or certain traits. You’ll need to go to libraries and talk to npcs to figure out what exactly you need and where to find it. These plants (mb smth else too?) are created randomly and adhere to certain rules which can also help you. For example, if it is described as very smelly, you will find it by the concentration of flies, if it has certain visual traits of a certain plant group (like... odd number of leaves and petals) it will most probably work like the rest of them, if you find it in a certain area, etc... I’m hoping that this will also make replaying not only repeating the game, but also using the rules you’ve im/explicitly learned to be more effective at this. I am not yet sure how the process of finding ingredients itself is going to look - on one hand I want it to be accessible, on the other I want it to be entertaining like goddamn Mari/o Party mini-games. So, idk yet.

Farming. But foraging is not your only option and requirement, of course we’re gonna farm! In the beginning I will probs give an opportunity to set the difficulty level aka how much of a rich fuck you are, so you’ll either purchase land or work on others’ farms to grow what you need. 

Now to venture a bit into worldbuilding the planet is going to look kinda like this:

(excuse me for busting out paint) It has a pretty big orbital inclination (3) so it’s top side is always lit and down is always dark. Except there is a giant mountain thing that obscures the sun and creates some kind of night time for the ppl on top (2). The planet rotates in such a way that if you stood on the top part it would look like the sun is just rotating around the mountain (1). The middle part is the most sane part with normal nights and days and the downside is a hellscape full of sunless life (but tbh I need to read up on chemosynthesis and polar nights and deep ocean and shit).

Coming back to farming, so since the game will be happening in the top part there will be a mechanic that will calculate how much sunlight every plant is going to get depending on where the sun is and how tall their neighbours are. I might also do smth about simplest soil properties like acidicity and shit. (If you’re thinking “hell why are you making this so complex can we do this without science please” - well this is who I am so no.)

Fighting. So obvs there will be npcs and you will (be forced to) travel around the continent (quests are also a way to get the stuff you need). You will meet people, you will befriend them or be an ass, and if you want to, you can get into the fighting part of the game. It is 150% inspired by the very first in my life browser mmo with a very simple mechanic - you play rock-paper-scissors against enemies using units, each successful hit taking away their HP. In that game they had dragon-princess-knight, I’ll have smth like cunning-smart-strong (this is... really raw but you get the archetypes I hope). With every level you will be able to get bonuses to a class of your choosing. This is not a very realistic part but you will get units from encounters - getting some faction’s favor or bullying them into following you, so the more you interact with the world, the more choice in units you’ll have. I know, the rps mechanic sounds boring and random but I think it will be more fun if I give different enemies different tactics (with an odd troll sending the same class every round so that every next one you’re left thinking “when are they going to switch? what if now? what if not?”). Also I bet it’s not that hard to make the game analyse your moves and predict them.

But I think this part will be optional, even though as any other it will provide alternative methods to get the stuff.

Sugar priesting. I failed to mention that the setting has magic but it also has gods. They are mostly forgotten but you can find them and get their favour. For example, you can plant your plants in a certain pattern, leave offerings, and get something from it. This is something you’ll be only able to find by yourself in books and weird ruins. After you’ve unlocked this part you will also get a new damage mechanic in the fighting part.

My brain has already left my body and went to bed so this is all I can squeeze out of it, so no tldrs or summing up. Sorry if this is incomprehensible

[poeplepound]

!!! i !!!! love these guys so much!! theyre so spectacular omfg !

also i tried to do this once already ! and i was very far into a very long info dump about these guys and i was ALmost done ,,, and my browser crashed, but im doing it again anyway because i need it (i might make typos and sound like a bum jus btw)

sean bonnette and benjamin gallaty started releasing musci together in 2005 after having worked together in a coffeeshop in pheonix arizona - sean was 18, and the buds released their debut album “candy cigarettes and cap guns” and have since released four other full albums, a handful of singles, two eps, and a compilation

sean has a bachelors degree in social work, and has always been working in homeless shelters, volunteering with youth programs, and trying to give a voice to one of the largest groups of stigmatized humans on our planet

candy cigarettes and cap guns was released when sean (30 y/o) was only 18 - and he has since recieved lots of negative feedback on offensive content in ajj’s older songs - to this, sean apologizes but says , quite frankly , that he was a yung edgy boi at that time in his life, and even if his music was offensive then , it represents a time in his life and hes not going to let its content discount that relevance

this is similar to how ajj changed their name from “Andrew jackson jihad”, sean and ben publicly decided to stop using the old band name because they aren’t muslim and have to right to use the term jihad as a part of an aesthetic - neither of the guys expected ajj to get so big, and andrew jackson jihad was adequate for a yung edgy boi garage band

ajjs vast discography centers around themes of social anxiety, privilege, depression, mania, loving how horrible life is, making the most of nothing, being nothing, and how wonderful our shitty planet is

ajj is considered folk-punk, and to a certain degree i agree with that, but to me music genres are irrelevant, and often times musicians fail to fit a category

the idea of organizing music by genres is restricting to a musician and songs and music grow as people do.  in an interview with verbicide, sean said that he acknowledges ajj’s influence on “folk punk” but how the identification of what folk-punk actually is is very vague and unclear, what really Is folk-punk?

ajj has albums that are way more based in folk music, and some that are way more based in punk - some songs are very poppy, some kind of choral in nature - but somehow, ajj has a very cohesive, recognizable sound that never fails to impress and comfort me

this is in part to sean’s wonderful lyrics, they are so very very raw and uncut - he is incredibly relatable while staying poetic, and i admire that So Much.  his use of metaphor in his lyrics has alwasy been apparent, but even more so in his more recent albums, and his political commentary songs are more prevalent in older songs - but they stay SO RE l AT a b LE !! every time i listen to ajj, i feel so whole and accepted and like im listening to my deepest internal thoughts and feelings in the form of beautiful lyrics and entrancing music

when asked if sean’s lyrics are a reflection of a darkness inside of him, he usualyl replies by saying that hes no darker than anyone else is - he just has a way to express and expel that darkness.  after the release of knife man, sean was asked if his emotional songs were about his past and what he’s been through as a person, and hes replied by saying that a lot of what he sings about is stuff that hes seen through his job, and learned about through people he’s met and interacted with.

shortly before christmas island was recorded, sean’s grandfather passed away.  his grandpa had lived with him from the time he was 13 tot he time he was 18, and he was a very major male role model in his life.  christmas island has lots of imagery around death, and a lot of the songs on the album personify grief and death.  sean has said that christmas island is an album about “pre-grief” meaning the way that people feel bad about death and grieve loses before theyve even happen, just beause they know theyre coming.  sean’s grandfather’s death was not unexpected or sudden, and he died very happily - surrounded by all of his grandchildren, and the feeling of knowing someone you love will die shortly is what fueled a lot of the tone of christmas island.

sean is a big big fan of 90′s hip hop, and a lot of his lyrics and writing style is heavily influenced by his favorites - aesop rock, brother lynch hung, biggie, and ol dirty bastard (seriously sean is SO Iconic)

i’ve been listening to ajj since their release of “knife man” in 2011, i could never pick a favorite album of theirs  - i love each of them and theyre each incredibly important to me

their 2007 album “people who can eat people are the luckiest people in the world” gave me a completely new worldview , and showed me that the world is incredibly imperfect, and humans are incredibly imperfect, but life is so worth living, and there is still so much good amazing stuff in the world

in 2008 they released the ep “plant your roots” and in 2009 “cant maintain” - both of theses eps were the first time i had found relatable emotional music that felt so accurate to myself - it was raw, it was unapologetic, it was beautiful, and it was sad.  these eps have an incredible tone, and theyre both so different (cant maintain being more light and - dare i say - playful) but still so connected and deeply rooted (pun intended ;) ) in my head as near perfect expressions of my feelings

“knife man” was released in 2011 and it came into my life at a time where i was trying to learn about myself and discover who i was, and this album guided me in such a strong positive direction - it introduced me to white privilege, taught me about forgiveness, how to be unapologetically me, but still let me stay in touch with my dark, cynical, pessimistic side of myself - knife man is somehow so negative but still so positive and i think thats how a lot of real life is, and ajj captures that incredibly well 

knife man was the first ajj show i ever saw, and i will never forget how captivating sean is when he preforms, his body language and his expressions reflect so much of what he’s singing, theyre so true

in 2014 they released “christmas island” and im not gonna lie when i first heard it i really didnt like it - i thought it was too poppy, and not raw enough like how ajj usually is - it felt wrong to me.  but alas, i kept listening, and i soon fell in love with this album.  it is indeed poppier than their other stuff, and when it came out in may of that year, i didnt really want to like it that much - and so i avoided it, and once Taylor Swift’s super poppy 1989 came out that october, i avoided it Even Harder because i felt like 2014 would be the year of great musicians selling out to labels to gain hits.  eventually, i let myself sink into christmas island - i allowed myself to like it, and boy o boy did i fall in love. i saw the show and i cried. the album seamlessly ties together themes from older albums - optimism, death, unrest, self-loathing - but it introduces a new style to seans words - theyre less direct, less blunt, less in-your-face , he starts using metaphors that dont make sense the first time you listen, his lyrics take on a new type of poetry on this album - and its beautiful

christmas island is softer, its more about introspection and knowing why youre the way you are - its about emotional intelligence - this album taught me how to know whats happening, and how to accept it and learn form it and let myself dream and live, despite how shitty stuff is, and i love it.

in 2016 “the bible 2″ was released, and i waited to listen to any of it until i went to see the show - i binged the album twice through right before i went to see them, and i had really really mixed feelings about it - some of the songs i didnt understand, i didnt like the sound of some of them, and i felt like they got very preachy.  once i saw them play the song “small red boy” though, i was 110% hooked - it suddenly made sense to me as an album.  the sound is so personal to me, and i connect with the radio static and the messy raw noise, and the lyrics take on such a poetic, innocent tone, and all the songs are equal parts inspiring, funny, and dark.  i really really really truly love this album.

this is kind of just a silly extra, but in 2015 they released a single called “keep on chooglin” and i honeslty dont understand what most of the song means, but its really a bop and its poppy and upbeat and positive, and i can gather that basically to “choogle” is to be yourself unapologetically and just do your own thing and basically fucc the haters, and its a nice song to listen to if youre feeling down because the lyrics are funny and the message is bright

ajj’s discography has gotten me through some of the hardest years of my life, and have seriously, literally, kept me from killing myself on so many occasions and i am forever grateful - if i had not stayed alive until now, i would miss so much and i would throw away my life, just because i didnt feel like making it, and now i can say in full confidence that this band has ridded me of all my suicidal ideation , and if anyone is down here reading this, im gonna make an ajj “dont die” playlist that i Will post here

in 2012, ben gallaty recorded a couple songs under the name wiccan babysitter, adn then a few years later (2016) he recorded a few more under the name benjamin galaxy - he compiled these songs in 2016 onto an lp, one side being the wiccan babysitter ep and the other being the ben galaxy ep.  i didnt know this was a thing until recently? which is weird? but i have listened through the lp many times - i still dont have a strong grip on what the songs mean, but i can say that the wiccan babysitter/benjamin galaxy lp is super comforting to me as well.  the sound is unique and different from ajj, but it is still warm and whole feeling, and the lyrics are still relatable to me, and i want to read more about what ben wrote about and why, but im having trouble finding info on this project

im mostly done for now, it’s very late at night, and i have work tomorrow morning, but i’ll leave u with this - youre an irreplaceable human soul with your own understanding of what it means to suffer, and thats a huge bummer