#Saw a very cringe take from a very big event blog

[crash-bump-bring-the-whump]

Hm, perhaps let's not include amputation under the label body horror y'all. Let's not call people's very normal bodies horrific, let's not do that. Amputees exist beyond fiction, so maybe lets not make this space hostile to them yeah?

There's plenty of actual body horror to dive into and explore without veering headlong into painfully obvious ableism.

[ruershrimo]

HEEEYYYAAA SWEETHEART

so I saw your Christmas event thingy and wanted to request a #13 with lyney x reader, preferably fluff but not like overly fluff so it becomes cringe (I sound bitchy I'm sorry😭)

Anyways congrats on 2 years on the blog,don't forget to eat and drink, mwah mwah(⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡

the christmas mix | #13- baby it’s cold outside | lyney x reader

event masterlist

features lyney

notes: hiii<33!! thank you so much for requesting (and for being the first one too!!) aaaa!! anw I’m so sorry this came so late but I wanted to write something a bit longer (to be honest, I still feel like this one’s pretty incomplete, so I may write a part 2 for it!! I just didn’t want to take too much time so I just want to give this to you first.) and I really wanted it to be good because you seem so sweet aaaa <333. but ANYWAY thank you so much and have a merry christmas, mwah!! lmk if you need a rewrite of this and my apologies if there’s not enough (?) fluff (??) or if it's too short!!

warnings: none, except for the fact that it's fem reader, really (I hope that's okay!!)

summary: (set before the current events of the game) it's in the winter of his first show at the opera epiclese that he meets you. you think you may be falling for this stranger, this all-too-busy magician. it's alright if either of you have to go, though, the two of you can stay together-- it's too cold outside, after all.

The first time you meet him, the both of you are young and he’s a nameless stranger you meet at a friend’s party. You hit it off with him and glass bottles clink against each other before you bring the rim of yours to your lips and sip your fonta. 

“So, what brings you here?” you ask the stranger before you. He’s a new, unheard-of magician, you’ve been told. You think he’s the epitome of what magic should be in a world of surging elemental powers and mythical beings— a perfect mix of misdirection and secrets— with all his charm and mystery, and that little bit of dramatic flair he uses to present himself. 

“My sister and I were invited to perform, it seems,” he explains, taking his own sips in, “And you?” 

“Invited? Why, I just waltzed my way in like most of the others. Do you think I’ll be seeing you up there later, then, Mister…” 

“Lyney. Mister Lyney.” 

“…Mister Lyney.” 

“And you won’t be seeing me, anyway. I’ve told the host that my sister and I must attend to some urgent business concerning our first show at the Opera Epiclese tomorrow.” 

“Hm,” you hum, “The Opera Epiclese, huh? Glad to know I’m speaking to a future big shot. Remember me when your tickets are worth every gem and mora in Fontaine, won’t you? I don’t think I’ll be able to steal each and every one to see you again.” 

“Of course,” he grins, “And you won’t have to steal anything, I promise. Nothing would be worth as much as you.” 

“You’ve a penchant for words, I see. And here I thought budding magicians were often shyer than this…” 

“Our introduction to being in the limelight would not change my occasional sharing of the truth. Then he lays his bottle down on the table, and it’s silent and so very unlike how you thought he would based off your initial impressions of him, and so very different from how anyone else would after drinking fonta. He sets it down quietly, stealthily, as if if he were to clash any louder against the wooden table’s surface he would dart out of the host’s house while the liquid in the bottle barely moves, appearing like creases on a red velvety tablecloth. “But!” he exclaims, “Now I really must get going—” 

His voice is like a twinkle out of a music box, its melody even better than the one bursting out of your friend’s gramophone; his eyes are like a velvet coat that pair well with his cheshire cat-like smile; his hair is silky as it is silvery and you want to run your fingers through it. 

So you don’t want him to go. 

“Leaving so soon?” 

“Well, the magician’s life just so happens to be a busy one, dear [name]—“

“Oh? Mr Lyney, I don’t recall having ever told you my name,” you remark, quirking up a brow and holding him by the wrist as he begins to get up. 

The mister giggles, “I’ve heard of you before, of course. Our host informed me of who you were— and so did everybody else at this lovely soirée. Why, who hasn’t heard of the eccentric, renowned [name]? But I really should get going.” 

“Oh, but won’t you stay? It’s just so dreadfully cold out and it would be a shame if you and your sister were to get sick from the winter winds right before your grand show. Goodness, I’ve heard of the severity of all the snow and hail these days, and even some of my acquaintances have nearly succumbed to hypothermia due to it all!” 

He feigns a sigh, his voice like velvet wrapping around your eyes and ears and engulfing your senses, as he sits down again as you keep a firm grip on his wrist, “Well I hope they’re well into a good recovery, [name], but Lynette and I have the thickest coats and a great tolerance for the cold due to our brief time in Snezhnaya a few years ago—”

You pry a little further. “What got you into Snezhnaya, Mister?” 

“Oh, please, that’s certainly a story for another day—” he starts again, taking hold of his hat. 

“Well even if you wouldn’t like to tell me, Mr Lyney, I must know everything I can about you— everything you’d like me to know— in these few minutes you still have. So, please stay?” 

He sighs again, freeing his hat and his coat. “Alright, since you’ve been such lovely company, perhaps I’ll just stay for one more sip.” 

“Perhaps you could stay for one more bottle?” you cheekily suggest. 

“Five more sips.” 

“Please, just one more bottle…” you suggest again, “And come rain or shine I’ll be sure to come for all your future shows, whether they be in the Epiclese or not. Your first one’s tomorrow, right?” 

“…you, my dear friend, have a deal.” 

You laugh, “That took more convincing than I thought it would.” 

“Well you’re definitely persistent as you are eccentric,” he comments, digging into his pocket to reveal a deck of cards, “Now, allow me to show you a magic trick as we chat through our next bottle…” 

—

“Didn’t think you’d be the Casanova type,” Lynette jabs as he finally exits the building, “So you just left [name] there as she kept talking to you?” 

“Well, you know how things are,” he says. 

He already knows he can’t afford this. He’d been honing his magic for years from the streets to the halls of nobles’ houses to their rooms in the House of the Hearth for the sake of Father’s cause. If he were to let just anyone in, if he were to fall back from that tower of deception and secrecy and let it topple, then— 

“I’m sure that Father would be alright,” she states, a knowing, teasing lilt in her voice, “We won’t even be that late.” 

—

There are a handful of things you know about him by the second time you meet. That he used to perform solely on the streets and was then offered the chance to have a show at the Opera Epiclese after gradually gaining renown over the years; that like the cats he adores, he likes fish dishes; that he and his sister have a younger brother. 

The hall itself seems empty, the hues of each chair blurring together to form a sea of gold and red. 

“Why, it seems we meet again!” a voice echoes from behind you, then softer, it goes, “You’re earlier than I thought you’d be, though. And in the front seat.” 

“I know,” you smile, torso twisted, “I wanted to be extra early. And don’t ask how I got to the front seat, would you?” 

(In truth, you’d purchased it from someone who wouldn’t be available and was selling their front seat ticket at a much lower price than it should have been. No theft had occurred.) 

He moves in front of you. “To talk to me once more, I assume?” 

You pause and hum, tilting your head in an acted-out thought process. “Of course.” 

“Well,” he starts, “I still have more things to get ready backstage, and more props and tricks to prepare, so I don’t think I’ll be able to.” 

“Oh, I don’t mind, go ahead—”

He panics. “—But it’s you, so I’ll make some time. About five minutes, possibly— in truth, I do have a trick for you, dear [name],” he says, the words pouring out of him like a magician’s trick of pulling out an infinite number of differently coloured silks sewn together from his pocket. 

You lean forward in interest, and you try not to notice the barely audible gasp threat’s pulled from his lungs as he almost unwillingly backs away, then schools himself again. Maybe you were leaning in too much? “Show me, then,” you say. 

“Alright, then,” he begins, “I have a flower in my hands, and—oh? It’s disappeared!” he narrates, the sun-coloured flower vanishing with a flick of his hand. 

You raise a brow. 

“Now, have you noticed anything near your ear?” 

“My ear—?” Then to your surprise, you feel something tickling at the skin between your scalp and your ear, finding a whole stem tucked behind it. You pluck the flower away, bringing it to your nose and inhaling its scent. “Well, wouldn’t you know.” 

He giggles, “Do you like it?” 

“I do,” you reply, “I just thought you would’ve used a rainbow rose instead. But I love marcottes, too— they have such a sweet, light scent. Marcottes symbolise purity and sincere care,” you recite from a book you’d read, “And rainbow roses… well.” 

“Why, I’ve never learned of the language of flowers before,” he remarks, “…but I can start.” 

“Oh, really? Well, I don’t want you to take up too much of your time— a magician’s life is a busy one, no?”

“I suppose we all have to trade the time we have for something we care about no matter how little of it we have.” 

“Hm, I suppose so. Now, go—! Ten minutes have passed, mister!” 

“Oh—? But I’ve one more thing I need to say, dear [name],” he hurries, taking your hand and lightly pecking it, then letting his lips go and keeping your hands together, “You should stay later. It’s too cold outside for anyone to leave, but… if you need it, once everyone has left, you’re always welcome to stay and bask in the heating the Epiclese provides. Lynette and I will have to stay here for a while after, anyway.” 

You grin at his invitation— or his request, maybe. “I will.” 

“And, Lyney?” you call right as he turns back to face you again. “You’re always welcome to visit me in my own home.” 

You scribble your address on a piece of paper as people start to trickle in. It’s as if there are half as many people as there should be. It’s a sour thought, and, hopefully, in his next show, there’ll be more people.

The marcotte is tucked tightly between your index finger and thumb for the whole show. You bring its petals to your lips when the show is over. 

You hand the paper to Lyney after and you praise his show as you bid him farewell. You leave only a second earlier than he does with Lynette in tow. 

—

In the frigid winter weather, Lyney heads out, shivering, and buys a bouquet of rainbow roses as well as a book on the floral language of Fontaine. 

—

The show actually turns out to be a smashing success among the people who had watched it. The names Lyney and Lynette appear on the Steambird three days after the show, and you have the pleasure of reading an article about it, with details on a trick involving water and fireworks, written by one journalist Charlotte. 

The same day you read it, you open your door to see a bouquet of rainbow roses near your doorstep, hoisted and kept upright by the edge of the door and the wall. 

You wonder how they could have stayed alive without freezing, but you take it in. You already know who it’s from, even though there’s no name, no address— nothing. Nothing besides a note in elegant, cursive handwriting, saying “Thank you for coming.”

A dig through your house finally reveals an old vase of your parents’, a gorgeous, transparent vase of glass with patterns of roses embellishing it near the bottom that you trace with your fingers. You fill it with some tap water, remove the wrapping around the flowers, and place them in the vase. 

They rest near your bed and though the days are getting colder your heart warms at the sight of them every morning. 

So as it gets cold outside you think you’re falling for the all-too-busy magician, with his mystery and his tricks and his beautiful silver hair and violet eyes. 

You ought to invite him sometime during Christmas. And hopefully you can keep him for a while, too, as the fireplace crackles. It’ll be too cold outside, anyway. 

event taglist (please send an ask if you'd like to be added!):

wishing everyone a merry christmas ♡!

[lexygabe]

nandi mokena headcanons/rewriting/etc.

(june/11/1999)

gemini sun | taurus moon | scorpio rising

ENFP (Ne-Fi-Te-Si) - 6w5 - so/sp - 793 - Sanguine [Dominant]

general headcanons:

• either ace-het or ace-bi, cis, she/her,

• i think this is canon, but she is a gifted child in the family. she was in top 5 of the class and popular as hell,

• she is that mf of friend group that will always bring up snacks and drinks with yourself,

• her love language is making edits of funny/embarrassing photos of others with music that totally don't match vibe with anything included in edit,

• her tiktok and instagram likes are full of some people talking gibberish and cringe compilations, so if u want to get her joke you at least need to know lore of all of this people and incidents that happened x years ago,

• when we talking about memes, she loves absurdism humor, so when shakes send something to her that he thinks is funny, her face is like: 😐 how are we even related?,

• i also think she is reading the most surreal literature (franz kafka is her beloved),

• skarra pierced her ears for the first time,

• she is very loyal,

• her notes are full of stickers, adhesive gems and drawings. some of things are even written in glitter gel pen,

• her channel is pretty much all things mixed up. there is commentary, there is gaming, there is some art projects and video blogs, everybody can find something for themselfves,

• she goes to film school.

through the series (og tv show, rewriting)

SEASON 1:

• for me, season 1 starts at the time when shakes is 20 years old, so by this logic nandi is 17,

• there is no physical apperance of her, she is just mentioned by (mainly) shakes.

SEASON 2:

• at the beginning of the season her and shakes are talking about the fact that nandi moved to college (they have their little family bonding time),

• in s2e5 (el sound of silencio) spenz calls her to help him and fran, but she just listened to all of this shit and was like: ok bro 🧍🏾‍♀️*disconnects*,

• in s2e13 she tracked down skarra before this big "all stars vs supa strikas match" and interviewed him about this fucked up rivarly that him and shakes have (she saw both of them in tv last night), and why they even decided to have a bet of the pitch where they had great time together in past (like hell, nandi knew that this friendship was homoerotic, holy shit). ofc nandi "as annoying as the little shit she was" (skarra's words, not mine), she didn't take any type of crap from him about this whole situation. after this, she called shakes out on his stupid ass actions, in his apartament, and just left him with: you both are total blockheads. and shakes was like: both? who is both? wtf.

SEASON 3

• in season 3 nandi and shakes have this conversation about what nandi meant, when she literally lit into him in his own apartament before super league final. to which nandi,, replied with: ahh yeah. but this doesn't matter. at least this debt of yours and skarra's was dissolved :D. after, they had honest conversation and disscus about childhood and how this can't be put before good of the team (nandi wanted to argue with this, but then she quickly give up. all the stress that the shakes' finale cost her was enough for her),

• at this season we see more of nandi as a future filmmaker, because she trolls everyone on twitter with uploading this type of videos like fake interviews with celebrities (and with some footballers ;)),

• in college, she met woman from completely other school (remember this. i probably make headcanons for this semi canon character so wink wink) and became friends with her,

SEASONS 4-7:

• all of her story arcs focus on her career and school and on a few other events that will be described by me as i write about other women from strikas universe.

relationships with (disclaimer: i do not include her relarionship with shakes and their mom, bc it was pretty well managed in rookie season. i will probably make another post but about whole mokena's family dynamic):

• skarra: writers rotally fucked up. WASTED POTENTIAL.

their relationship definitely started as: you are my brother's (boy)friend/you are shakes' sister. and then, they became partners in crimes. when shakes, skarra and nandi went to school nandi always pulled out a card titled: don't talk to me like that, or i'm gonna call my brother and my brother's best friend. in othet occasions, skarra went to nandi and asked some stupid questions like: ey, nandi you have ruler to lend 🧍‍♂️?? (,,yo, nandi you want some hotdogs?", ,,nandi, we are going to shopping mall", ,,hey, nandi you have some time to hide a body----?"). why writers of rookie season acted like nandi wouldn't care that much about skarra, like he literally used to call nandi's mom 'auntie' wtf wtf wtf.

• klaus: YOU CAN'T TELL ME HE WOULDN'T BE HER FAV OUT OF SHAKES' TEAMMATES. nandi and klaus definitely have long conversations about shows that they watched, about ships, about premieres. they are just two little nerds with heads full of ideas <33333

• mara: me and @strudelbbg once talked about mara and nandi's possible relation and we decided that mara, when nandi was younger, probably carried her on her back and stuff. tldr mara sees nandi as "little sis 💞💞💞💞",

• others: ?

fashion headcanons

• i think she would wear these "crazy" make-ups like:

(i also think that people, who would be her fans and shakes' fans would create threads on twitter titled: nandi's makeups as team colors of supa strikas rivals')

(and nandi would reblog these posts🥰)

• has 3 pairs of dungarees,

• a lot of fandom t-shirts but not ones designed in "tomboy" way but in "girly" way, shirts with strawberry shortcake, winx club, princess peach from mario, destiny's child members etc.,

• HANDMADE RINGS, BRACELETS, NECKLACES, EARRINGS EVERYTHING,

• she is fan of crocheted clothes (especially sweaters, tank tops, knee socks),

• even tho she is popular, she wears second hand clothing and buys from smaller companies (rich people clothing ugly and she don't want to be one of them),

• wears bralettes as form of a lingerie,

• when she wears dress she NEEDS to have tights under,

• when it comes to shoes she likes: new balance, converses, CROCKS and mary janes but on a small heel.

music headcanons

• definitely had nightcore phase when she was younger,

• hates slow music,

• like i said destiny's child fan, probably likes also avril lavigne and mariah carey, and maybe blackpink.

[katyspersonal]

Hahaha, tough luck... It depends on what KIND of cringe!

*waits for the night, walks towards the mirror with a candle, stands with my back turned to it, takes deep sighs* Gehrman is a misogynist creep, Gehrman is a misogynist creep, Gehrman is a misogynist creep!

*as I said it three times, all my Insight drops to 0, and then FURTHER drops and becomes -1*

...now, that the ritual of becoming cringe is complete, Micolash will never consider me worthy of his time! XD Now, if you excuse me, I have a very important business to do online, such as complaining about annoying big-brained lorediggers which spam BB tag with their obnoxious essays and analysis instead of simply wallowing in how misogynistic Bloodborne is and coughing out easy-clout takes everyone is guaranteed to agree with like normal people! LMAOOOOO imagine using the original Japanese script as an arguement while being WHITE 😭😭😭 Says a lot about the values of those bigots to cover blatant racism with "wish to know the true story :'( Boohoo:(" Also imagine shipping Gehrmaria when Maria is wearing masculine clothes and cares about another woman 💀💀💀 Bisexual women only wear skirts and don't give a shit about their female crushes, just say you're lesbiphobic and go, I don't have time for your shit 😭😭😭 *continues actively spending 6+ hours online complaining*

Narrator's voice: When poor Micolash saw a person he had previously picked an interest in lose all her braincells in an instant, the fear of previously unknown kind had taken his entire being. The nightmares within which he submerged himself seemed like a sunny, happy walk in comparison with what he had just heard and witnessed. For months after that event, the horror haunted him, he was crawling on the floor tearing out his already thin and scarce hair out, crying and screaming "I WANT TO FORGET THE DISCOURCE" and begging Kos to help... And in the end, after all his torture, Kos did answer his prayers and comforted him because this game is written by misogynists who think of women as just tools, wives and mothers for war criminal men who deserved nothing but to rot forever! Ha! Didn't see this one coming? That's right, Narrator is a brainlet too now! Hahaha! This blog is under the safety dome now! Now, sit around my sweet children and let us discuss how making Maria slim in drawings is also a violence against women... Unless you want to go outside and spend eternity with that ugly madman AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

*everyone screams in horrors and runs away into Micolash's arms so he could protect them from ACTUAL insanity*

After carefully observing which kind of BB fans just mysteriously stop posting ever again or deactivate without anyone knowing why, I've figured it is always the most based Mic0lash fans :т He is abducting his most deserving devotees!!!!!!! If you are a Mico fan AND cool, either stop liking Mico (impossible) or become cringe to avoid his interest hgbgjvbn

[i-dont-want-your-hysteria]

The Hangover (Def Leppard x Reader)

(Happy birthday to my blog!! To celebrate 3 years of the place where I concentrate my insane Leppard obsession, I thought I’d celebrate by posting the FIRST Def Leppard fanfic I EVER wrote ((which I have NEVER posted anywhere before!)) I began writing this exactly 3 years ago today- the day I made this blog ((February 19th, 2018))- and officially finished it about a year later. This is not intended as a romantic/sexual fic, it’s simply just an x reader in which the reader is basically one of the guys. In other words, it’s on crack.)

((I am aware this is kind of cringe-worthy at times... but I still like a lot of things about it. While I revised it very slightly before queuing it,  I was still 16 when I started writing this, okay... gimme a break...))

(Illustration by @paper-sxn​)

Words: 8,684 Prompt: Dublin, 1984. You’re with the Leppards in their early pre-Hysteria era house. You all wake up with hangovers after a boozed-up night at home, and you each try to put the pieces of the previous night back together. Meanwhile, you’re praying that one particular piece won’t fit in anywhere... (partially inspired by the “Blitzgiving” and “The Pineapple Incident” episodes of How I Met Your Mother)

-----

Gently piercing white light made its way through the windows of the bedroom. It hit your eyelids, and it hit your brain, igniting a brief but killer headache. As your eyes clasped together more, you turned your face into the gloriously soft pillow. For a second you asked yourself why you would have a headache so early in the morning, but then…

You laughed quietly into the bed, recalling without warning some vague happenings from the night before. There wasn’t much you remembered, but you clearly saw the image of the guys flat out drunk at some point (you along with them). There were some blips of you all singing together, Sav hanging from a door frame, you chugging some scotch, Joe chugging some vodka, Steve’s hair being in pigtails, and you think Phil might’ve been giving you a lap dance... or vice versa. It was, all in all, hysterical (at least- that’s what you wanted to think).

 Other than those faint events, unfortunately, the night was gone. Still, you were thrilled that it happened. Crazy times with your boys were always good.

You rubbed your eyes, ready for more sleep to combat the pounding in your head. When you did, they opened a little, and you realized��� this wasn't your room you were in. Squinting around, you noticed that you were sleeping in Phil’s room instead of yours.

Oh, it’s not that much of a problem, you mused, I’m sure he doesn’t mind. I’ve woken up to worse in this place.

You let your eyes close again easily, and you found peace as you began to fall under again. That is, until you felt someone move next to you.

When it happened, you became aware of the warmth coming from someone else in the bed. They only shifted in their sleep a little bit before going still again. Your eyes went wide, and you held your breath. You don’t remember getting into bed with someone (in fact, you don’t remember getting into bed at all). Turning your head, you looked to see what sort of stranger was in bed with you currently. Instead of a stranger, scraggly blonde hair over a kind and shy face met your sight, and you were instantly calmed upon realizing that it was just Steve. That was good, that was good, but why were you and Steve sleeping in Phil’s bed? You were sure you didn’t have sex last night- at least, not with Steve. This tiny moment of appeasement and confusion was cut short by the faint sound of guitar chords coming from downstairs. The music echoed to your ears, signaling that it had to be Phil, and that he was playing the opening to Bringin On the Heartbreak. Cautiously taking the covers off you- not wanting to wake Steve- you felt obliged to go to the other guitarist. When you stood up and began walking, you nearly fell forward from the sudden vertigo of your hangover. You had to hold onto the counter of Phil’s dresser for extra support, and that’s when your reflection in his mirror caught your eye. Not only that, but that’s when your outfit also caught your eye. One of the guys’ Union Jack tank tops had been slipped over you somehow, and two hand prints were on either side of your face in dried paint; one was blue, one was green. "What…?“ you whispered, touching your face and feeling the shirt on you. It seemed to fit you alright, which made you wonder whose it really was. You were also in black underwear, and nothing else. While eyeing yourself, you took notice of Steve in the reflection. You now saw a few big red lipstick stains on his face, untouched and unsmudged. It was pretty cute, you had to admit, but another thing that came to your attention was that it wasn’t you who was wearing the lipstick at the moment. So then who kissed Steve all over his face? You treaded carefully down the hallway, putting one foot in front of the other and dragging a hand on the wall for support. The melody of the distant guitar didn’t cease the whole time you trekked through the house to get to Phil. When the chords of the song dragged on to the part where the vocals should have begun, no vocals came. Everything in the house looked remarkably the same (despite everything you remember from last night). There were large, ripped pieces of cardboard in the middle of the hallway;  scattered out as if leaving a trail. Alongside that, there was a piece of paper labeled “pay 2 the orerr of Rick: one fuckin bendee straw” in what may have been Sav’s handwriting on top of the stairs, and blue paint smudged on the railing going downwards (guaranteeing that whoever did that eventually got to your face, too).

Step by step you descended as the scenery of the house teetered around you (a little too reminiscent of Me & My Wine, you would add). When you reached the bottom of the stairs and looked into the living room, sure enough, Phil was there, strumming away.

“But it’s easy come and easy go…” he hummed.

“You’re…” you mumbled, burped a little, and continued, “Awake. How?” He stopped playing and crossed his arms, quietly sassing you, “Ah, she rises again. You regrettin’ anything yet?” You blinked and rubbed your eyes, scratching a little bit of paint off of your face and inquiring in a scratchy, tired tone, “I guess so… but- how? You, how?” Phil took off his guitar and stood up with his hands in his pockets, “Because I barely drank at all last night, and I also sure as hell didn’t shag Steve in someone else’s bed!” “How do you mean- I didn’t- wait- and Steve- what?” you rubbed your head, getting dizzy, causing Phil to guide you to the couch. “I didn’t- I didn’t shag Steve last night,” you insisted. “Mm hmm,” the guitarist hummed disapprovingly, “Alright.” “What the hell are you on about?” Phil smirked evilly and laughed, “He carried you upstairs, we heard the door close, and then some rather happy noises were heard, so we all just assumed-!” “That’s not-” you swallowed and lay your head back on the couch, “-a valid assumption.” “Oh, you poor thing,” came the sarcastic remark, “You really don’t remember, do you?” “Well I figured if I ever fucked any one of you I would- you know- remember it!” you raised your voice at him, then rubbed your temples. “I’m touched, really. But I’ll fill you in a bit,” Phil yanked up his guitar he’d put down, placed himself next to you, and played the into to “Ballroom Blitz”. Then a bit of the night came back to you. “Oh... that’s what started it all, didn’t it?”

~The night before~ Rick began banging out a tune on his drum kit in the house with you, Sav, and Steve sitting close by, them being at the ready with their guitars. “You ready, Steve?” you mimicked the original lyrics. “Uh-huh,” he replied exactly like Steve Priest in the original song. “Savy?” you said next. “Yeah,” Sav bopped his head to the beat. “Rick?” “Okay.” “Alright, fellas,” you called out, “Let’s go!” The two guitarists let their instruments ring out around the house, playing the all-too-familar tune. As soon as they started this, the front door opened, and none other than Phil and Joe walked in. Joe was holding a bag that was weighed down by the mass inside it (a painfully obvious sign that there were a few bottles of booze). Although the two of them weren’t talking, they were physically hushed upon hearing the situation you and the others had created. “Oh life’s been getting so hard, living with the things you do to me…” you sang lowly and quietly along with the music being made, just to make sure the musicians knew their places. You noticed Phil run out of the room in excitement, and into the one where he keeps his guitars. Joe, on the other hand, stayed put and watched the rest of you from afar, fighting a smile. “My dreams are getting so strange, I’d like to tell you everything I see…” You stood up, and Joe began walking towards you when you called out the next line of the song, “Oh- I see a man in the back, as a matter of fact, his eyes are as red as a sun!” Joe chimed in without warning at the next line, putting an arm on your shoulder and pointing at you, “And the girl in the corner, let no one ignore her, ‘cos she thinks she’s the passionate one!” *** “It’s, it’s a ballroom blitz, it's, it's a ballroom blitz,” Phil sang the ending teasingly to you when he put his guitar back. It felt like he was rubbing his energy in your face (since you lacked it). Before Phil could continue, Joe suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Yeah! It’s a ballroom blitz!” he announced, throwing his arms into the air and taking a bow. He sounded a bit tipsy still. Joe was wearing his Union Jack shorts, but no shirt. Instead of a shirt, though, he had the words “PROPERTY OF DEF LEPPARD” sloppily painted across his chest in blue and green paint. Right over his nipples there were also two handprints, almost exactly matching the ones on your face. Joe stumbled in the doorway, falling to his knees and groaning in discomfort, “Ohh... probably should’ve stayed in bed.” Phil sluggishly trekked over to the singer and pulled him partially to his feet, yanking him towards the couch, “Oh yeah? And by ‘bed’, you mean-?” “Definitely not the bathtub.” Joe assured him, but winked at you. “No matter where you slept, it’s still not as bad as where she slept,” Phil pointed at you, “And what she did there.” “Why? What’d you do?” Joe’s tipsiness wore away in his sentence, making him sound genuinely concerned and curious. You rolled your eyes, knowing exactly what Phil was going to say, “Phil, I-” “It’s not what she did, it’s who she did- she shagged Steve in my bed!” the guitarist accused you again while pointing a finger. Immediately Joe exclaimed, “Nice!” and held up a hand to high-five you. “Joe!” you scolded him, surprised that he took this as good news. “Oh-uh, not… nice?” he took away the offer of a high-five and scratched the back of his head awkwardly instead, “Also, is that my shirt?” You took a look down at the Union Jack tank top you were wearing and back at Joe’s torso. Then something clicked in your head. “Ohh…” you continued staring at Joe’s chest, feeling yourself blush as old memories unraveled in your head, “I think... I think I remember something else that happened last night.” *** You were all drunk; it was no lie. After your quick jam session, there was a booze-filled music fest going on in the house. Joe had even put on his Union Jack outfit, pretending he was getting ready for a show. At one particular point of this “festival” you'd all created, records were being played, and you ended up dancing in front of Joe to REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run”. “You’re bringing up your white lines, you’re pullin’ on a bedroom eyes, you say you’re going home, but I won’t say when,” you sang the wrong lyrics as you swayed and drunkingly made flirty faces at Joe on the couch. Sav, meanwhile, was playing with some old craft paint off in the corner. The blue and green substances were all over his hands (but somehow, one color managed to stay on each hand). “Yeah, you dance for him, Y/N!” Rick cheered you on from the kitchen as Steve and Phil sat on the couch. Phil was perfectly sober, and Steve was giggling and laying with his head on Phil’s lap. You, on the other hand, were now moving closer to the singer, almost like you were giving him a lap dance. “You take it on the run, baby,” you sang along, slowly taking Joe’s Union Jack tank top off of him (with no objections from below), “If that’s the way you wanna, baby...” In return to Joe being shirtless, you slowly took off your own shirt (triggering wolf-whistles and cheers from the guys) to replace it with Joe’s tank. “Sav, mark him up!” you ordered the painted bassist in the corner as you tried to dress yourself. He happily made his way over to you and questioned, “What should I mark him with?” A single hazy idea came to you, and you eagerly whispered it into Sav’s ear. He giggled in response, and proceeded to move over to Joe, drawing something on his chest in the paint. To keep Joe from looking at what it was, you went behind the chair and covered his eyes, ordering coyly, “No peeking!” “All done!” Sav announced and retreated back to whatever he was doing in the corner. “Now, wait, Sav!” you sped over to him, lifted his hands up, and double high-fived him, getting the paint on your hands as well. To finish off what Sav had started, you ran back over to Joe on the chair, and slapped your hands on his chest, right over his nipples. Laughter erupted from everyone in the room (including Joe) and you repeated Sav’s words. “All done!” Joe gazed down at the words “PROPERTY OF DEF LEPPARD” on his chest as you continued to dance to the song playing. “You’re mine, now! You take it on the run, baby... if that’s the way you want it, baby...” Joe tried to tell you in a sexy voice, “Am I your baby now?” “If that’s the way you want it baby,” you repeated the words from the song to him, “Now I’m done dancing for you! Somebody dance for me!” Steve began pointing at everyone individually, childishly suggesting, “It should be, eenie, meenie, miney, Phil!” “Why me?” Phil laughed in objection as you took a seat across the room. “Because you’re not wasted,” his terror twin argued, poking him on the nose. The sober guitarist looked over at you with happy anticipation, awaiting a comment, while all you did was wiggle your fingers at him with a goofy grin. After that, you returned the gesture to the man on his lap, giving Steve a sexy wink. *** “Oh my god...” you put your head in your hands shamefully as Phil and Joe giggled at the memory of the previous night, “I can’t believe I did all that...” “That was a treat!” Phil laughed, hugging you from the side and pulling you closer to him in consolation, “It was funny! We never get to see that side of you!” “There’s a certain reason why you don’t...” you moaned with embarrassment, then asked out of guilty curiosity, “How many times did I grab your ass during that lap dance...?" Phil thought for a bit before telling you, “Four. Well- four and a half...” You gave a loud groan of protest as Joe laughed and slumped back into the couch. “Oh, you only did those things because you weren’t thinking!” Phil consoled you, swayed back and forth with you in his arms. Joe chimed in, “Yeah, and see what happens when you don’t think? You do! Most importantly, you do Steve!” “I didn't do Steve!” you shot your head up and yelled at Joe. You received only laughs and snorts from both men in reply. Suddenly, Sav appeared on the staircase and began singing “Squeeze Box” by The Who with a tired yet cheeky smirk, “Mama’s got a squeeze box she wears on her chest, and when Stephen comes home, he never gets no rest-” Joe and Phil joined into his song with, “Cos' she’s playin’ all night, and the music’s alright! Mama’s got a squeeze box, Stephen never sleeps at night!” You just put your head back in your hands, trying not to accept your fate of being teased. You didn’t want to think that you possibly shagged Steve. He always seemed so innocent to you in a way, and you feared that this would kill your friendship. If everything the boys said was true, you would never hear the end of it, and you don’t even know what Steve would think of you from now on. Was it possible that he remembered anything about the night before? “It didn’t happen, it didn’t happen...” you repeated to yourself in a whisper as Phil unwrapped his arms from you. Sav came all the way down the stairs; his body language making him look grumpy with the world, but his tired grin signaling that he was pleased with seeing you. “Oh, it happened, sunshine!” the frizzy-haired bassist laughed, but quickly regretted it and rubbed his head with his still-painted hands, “Ah- yep, it happened. You could probably hear you two up the whole damn street.” As Sav wearily joined you all on the couch, Joe complained, “Sounds like that was a treat; I wish I remembered it!” Phil was caught off guard at the comment. His head turned to Joe in the blink of an eye and gasped, “Wait, you don’t remember hearing them?!” “I wish I could say I do, but there’s nothing there,” Joe stood up after he spoke, and quickly held onto the wall nearby. His hand went over his stomach as he whined, “Oh... fuck, Y/N, why did you make me race you last night?" “'Race me'?” you squinted as you inquired, “Race you with what?” Joe didn’t answer, but slowly took steps into the kitchen, using the wall as his guide. His answer came when you, Sav, and Phil all heard him throw up into the sink. You sighed, resting your hands over your eyes, trying to remember the cause of Joe’s sickness, “Oh no, was that really my idea?” *** “Look what I found!” you trotted into the room tipsily, holding two bottles; one of scotch, one of vodka, “Only half full! Who wants em?” While you weren’t full-on drunk, it was no secret that the title wasn’t that far away. After your little Ballroom Blitz, it was one beer after the next, then it was digging into the fancy liquors that Phil and Joe had just brought home. Your judgment was impaired, no doubt about it, and so was the judgment of all the guys. Joe even changed into his normal live-show-only Union Jack tank top, claiming that he was gonna "put on a show." The only one who was still sane and sober was Phil, who seemed to be staying away from your poison. Upon registering your sacred offer of alcohol, Rick ran forward, chanting, “Me! Me!” You lifted the bottles away from him, commanding, “Uh-uh! I get the scotch.” “Oh, bollocks, then you can keep the vodka,” the young drummer grumbled and turned away from you. Just as Rick rejected your offering, Joe sprung up and eagerly trotted over while shouting happily, “I’ll take it!” “Sold!” you handed the bottle over to him, “Betcha can’t finish before me!” “Betcha I can!” he sneered back before taking the cap off his bottle. There was no official “ready, set, go” for the race; you both just kind of went for it without any saying. While your throat and stomach were already protesting your actions (and you could almost sense that Joe’s were doing the same), you didn’t stop once; neither of you did. You held up your bottle and announced, “Done!” Looking over, you saw Joe was also finished. “I finished first!” “Nuh-uh!” you insisted, “It had to be me! Tell him, guys!” The four others hadn’t been paying attention to you and Joe’s little competition; they were instead focused on a box that Sav had pulled out from a cupboard. From the box they pulled out bottles of paint and various types of used makeup.

Joe scolded them all in a more sober manner, “Oh come on, you lot weren’t even watching!” “Yeah, yeah, it was probably a tie, anyways,” Rick chuckled, pulling out more items from the box. “This box is much more interesting, too," Phil protested, holding up a stick of lipstick as Sav held up two bottles of paint, "This is a box of makeup that I had for me and the lads in Girl! Just look at it all! Think we can have some fun with this?" "Oh, piss off," you threw the empty bottle onto the couch, "We need some music." Joe had slumped down onto a chair, and you stumbled your way over to the shelf with all the records on it, flipping through and eyeing them all as carefully as your body would let you. After only a few seconds of searching, your eyes lit up at a discovery. "Here's a good one!" you exclaimed as you pulled out a copy of Hi Infidelityby REO Speedwagon, "Let's give it a spin!" ***

Joe wandered back into the room and fell onto the empty couch with a grumble. “Sorry, Joe...” you muttered over to him, realizing that you pressured him into more consumption of the booze. “It was probably gonna happen anyway...” he admitted, wiping his hands over his face, “It’s was my stupid choice to go through with it.” “Woah,” Phil pointed out out of nowhere, looking at you with great surprise, “What’s that on your neck?” You felt your heart drop into your stomach. “What!?” you shot up from where you sat (bringing on more dizziness), and rushed over to a mirror. Once your dizziness subsided, and you could finally see your reflection, the pink shape of a hickey on the side of your neck was now clearly conspicuous. You wondered how you hadn't noticed it before. Joe exclaimed with a smug and proud grin, “Is that from Steve!?” You groaned angrily, feeling yourself become more and more defeated. “I can’t believe it,” you gasped, slapping a hand over the mark, “Something did happen between us-!” “Y/N,” Phil pointed out again, “There’s lipstick on your thigh...” Looking down at your legs, you saw that he was right. There was a single red symbol on your right thigh that marked a kiss from the night before. Upon seeing this, what you saw when you woke up popped into your head. “Looks like Steve went to town down there,” Sav smirked at you, only wanting to rub it in more. “Guys,” you softly noted, “That wasn’t Steve... he has lipstick marks all over his face from someone else...” The three men all exchanged confused looks with each other. There was a dead end to the story of the previous night. None of them knew how to solve the mystery of the lipstick. Not even Phil, who was as good as sober 12 hours ago, didn’t have any input. Sav suddenly blurted out, “Wait a minute, I know what happened- I think...” No one said anything, but eagerly leaned forward, ready to hear the tale the bassist had to tell. “You lot remember how we found that box of old makeup last night?” he began, “Well, I walked into the bathroom with you afterwards, Y/N...” *** Rick looked at himself in the mirror in the bathroom, carefully applying the makeup to his lips, and being extra careful to not get it on the blazer he was wearing. The drummer put on his best suit just to see how it would look with the makeup he was putting on. He thought he was doing a good job for the most part; he didn’t look half bad at all! It was far easier than he expected it to be, and wondered if he was good enough to help you with your makeup at times. Thinking of you seemed to have made you appear in the doorway next to him. Both of your hands were still covered in paint. “Sink,” was all you commanded of the drummer. He moved without a word and you began to wash your hands. At the same instant, Sav appeared nearby. He grabbed the doorframe and began to swing from it, leaving conspicuous handprints afterwards. “Aren’t you gonna wash up, too?” Rick crossed his arms to sass him. “Nah, I want the colors, they’re makin’ me feel- colorful...” Sav grinned, walking over to you at the sink, requesting, “C’mere.” You looked up, only to have your face taken in Sav’s paint-covered hands. He softly giggled as you squared your vision in on him with a sneer. “Rude,” you teased, then went back to washing your hands; paint now all over your face. “What’s really rude,” Rick pulled back the shower curtain and taking a step into the tub, “Is you two interrupting my makeup time! Good night!” He sat himself down in the tub and laid himself down as if he was going to sleep.

Before he had the chance to catch some shut-eye, you marched over to the tub and objected, “Rick, if you’re gonna sleep, I want a goodnight kiss first.” Without another word, Rick sat up and planted a kiss on your thigh (since it was closest to him). There was now a bright red imprint of his lips on your leg. “Thank you.” you smiled down at him, “Now goodnight.” “Don’t leave the water on, you hear?” Sav nagged him, pointing a colored finger, “You’ll drown." Rick chuckled with his eyes closed, “I’ll drink myself out. I'm in a drinkin mood, anyways." “Oh yeah? You haven’t got a straw or anything,” the intoxicated bassist continued to argue with him. “Then don’t let me drown! Get one!" “I’ll get you one later. I’ll just-“ Sav burped, and continued, “I’ll write a note or something.” “Sounds good, mate,” Rick slumped further into the tub and pulled the curtain closed, “Now you gonna stay here all night?” “Actually,” you noted out loud to yourself, different alcoholic emotions boiling up inside you, “I wanna go downstairs- I just need to see Steve- like right now...!" You turned on your heels, speeding past Sav and flying back down the stairs. *** “So that explains the paint on my face, and the paper in the hallway, and the lipstick, but what happened after that?” you asked Sav, as you were now slumped on top of Phil’s arm again. “Beats me,” Sav ran his still-painted hands through his hair, “That’s all I’ve got.” “But wait, if you said that Rick fell asleep in the bathtub...” Phil began his sentence, only for you and the other two men to exchange knowing looks with each other. All four of you immediately sprung up and rushed (as much as you could) up the stairs and into the bathroom. Upon getting there, Phil flung back the shower curtain to reveal a partially awake Rick, dressed in a suit, and still wearing the lipstick from the night before. “Mornin’,” he groaned as he stretched, then winced, “Ah, fuck- sleeping in here wasn’t the best idea for me neck.” Sav looked back at the paint on the doorframe and asked the drummer, “So then why did you sleep in here?” “Oh,” Rick looked around the tub, stating as-a-matter-of-factly, “The porcelain keeps the suit from wrinkling. I guess drunk me was very careful last night.” “I’ll say,” Joe complemented, “The lipstick’s still holding up pretty well.” Phil halted the conversation, “Wait, so you were in here when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night?” Rick chuckled, “Yeah, and let me tell you, for a smaller guy, you’ve got a big bladder.” “Wait,” you slowly turned and pointed at Joe, “I thought you said you slept in the bathtub-?” He gave you a cocky smirk in return, “I told you, ‘definitely not the bathtub’...” Rick sleepily laughed and pointed at you, “Ha- Y/N, you look like Joe!” “Why, just because of the shirt?” you inquired, pointing at Joe’s tank top on you. “And the paint!” Rick corrected you, “I can’t believe you guys didn’t wash it off yet!” In a second, you felt a rush of worry upon realizing that Rick hadn’t said anything about you and Steve yet. It made you suddenly come to the possible conclusion that he may not know about it all. “Wait,” Phil snapped his fingers, “So you do remember some stuff from last night?” “Yeah, a bit, I think. Why?” “Philip Kenneth Collen, don’t you fucking dare....” you growled at him in an almost pleading manner, rubbing your temples and grinding your teeth. “What do you remember?” Phil asked him, not giving any sort of reaction to your begging. Rick thought for a few seconds, clearly as hungover as the rest of you. It didn’t take him long to list off some brief happenings he recalled. “Well, I remember us singing Sweet, there was a lap dance, I remember- uh, being denied a bottle of scotch, there was, uh... there was lipstick... and did I try to ice-skate on pieces of cardboard down the hall...?” “Is that why there’s cardboard all down the hallway?” you motioned towards the door. Rick gave you a big proud smile and a nod in response. “So...” Joe looked around, definitely looking eager, “What’s the last thing you remember before falling asleep?” Rick rested his head back on the tub again, thinking as hard as his hungover mind would let him. You hoped to every god there was that he didn’t say anything about Steve. “Just Phil comin’ in here and having a long piss, that’s all.” came the verdict. “You sure you didn’t hear-“ Phil anxiously began to ask him, but got a hand slapped over his mouth by you. “No!” you yelled on impulse, sending more daggers through your burned-out head. All eyes were now on you, and silence fell. For a few tense seconds, you stared into Phil’s eyes, sending him visual messages of both threats and desperate requests. “...what the hell happened last night?” Rick broke the silence in a tone of utter confusion, knowing that something more serious than what he remembered had taken place. You pulled your hand back from Phil’s face, “Yuck, Phil, come on!” “You licked her hand, didn’t you?” asked Sav. “Yes,” Phil confirmed, and continued without missing a beat, “And I’m glad you asked that, Rick, cos' I know what happened after Y/N and Sav paid you a visit last night.” “Phil, if you love me in any way, shape, or form, you will not tell Rick what happened,” you begged to him as you began to walk out the bathroom door, heading back downstairs to wallow in more of your shameful hangover, “I refuse to believe it happened until there’s hard proof.” “Well what more proof do you want? A positive pregnancy test?” Phil shrugged, but suddenly slapped his own hand over his mouth, realizing what he’d just said. You shot him an angry look. You were too tired to have it out with him, so you stumbled away. Right about now, you were ready to give up and accept the fact that you probably did shag Steve. Phil turned to Rick, gaping, and slowly began to speak again, "Right... so last night, after those two were in here, I think that’s when they came back downstairs..." *** "So why are you tying up my hair again?" a drunk Steve asked Phil, who was happily putting his hair into pigtails. "Because I knew you’d look pretty, and I knew you wouldn't object, either," the other guitarist laughed evilly as he finished tying the second bundle of golden locks together, "There, you're all done now." "Cool... I think," Steve tilted his head, staring at himself in the mirror on the wall as footsteps began pounding their way down the stairs. "I think you look pretty, Steve. Pretty, pretty, pretty," Joe giggled as he was flipped off by the pig-tailed guitarist. As this happened, you trampled the stairs in your descent, calling out, “Steve- Steve! Come here!” More than happy to be ripped away from Phil’s pigtailed plans, he let you run up to him as you belted out, “I’ve got an idea...!” He didn’t say anything, but he did let you whisper something in his ear. The second he heard your idea, his eyes lit up and an evil smirk crossed his face. Steve was always in the mood for causing terror. You pulled back and exchanged the same look of understanding with the guitarist. He stared at you with a sort of appreciation, and without another word, swept you off your feet, carrying you bridal style now. With a quick smooch to your lips, he began carrying you up the stairs as you giggled with some sort of glee. Phil’s jaw dropped, looking at Joe with astonishment in the process. The singer’s face mirrored the exact same expression. “I should’ve bloody known...” Phil gasped in astonishment, “She’s been eyeing him up real funny all night... I can’t fucking believe it!” Sav came down the stairs slowly, his life depending on the railing as he dragged his hand on it. He left a long streak of blue paint as he did so. “What’s gotten into their pants?” “Each other, apparently,” Joe scoffed, taking a sip of a beer he found, “Lord knows how the hell that happened.” *** You were all sitting back on the couches in the living room, all seemingly regretting the night before (you knew you most certainly were). Everyone knew that the end of Phil’s story was the true ending of the night. Now there was really a dead end to the whole tale. “I can’t believe it,” you whispered with sorrowful acceptance, “Me and Steve...? What happened next?” Joe scoffed, “Well that’s kind of a stupid question.” “That’s where it ends, Y/N. I went up to bed afterwards, only to hear-“ Phil cleared his throat to impersonate you and Steve, “‘Oh, Steve! Yes!’ coming from my room! So after an immense helping of disapproval, I slept in Rick’s room.” “No, no, that can’t be it!” you insisted, “Guys, what really happened next?” “Can’t say,” Joe mumbled, holding his head. “Sorry, mate,” Rick apologized. Sav remained silent, but looked apologetic. “That can’t be where it ends...!” you persisted, “Sav? Tell me I’m right!” Sav rolled in his lips, and darted his eyes away from you. You continued to stare at him suspiciously, but no one else thought anything of it. Phil tried to finalize your fate sympathetically, “Give it up, Y/N, at least it’s all over now.” “But it still happened! What am I gonna say to Steve when he wakes up? You know what- no. It didn’t happen, I refuse to believe that it did.” “How much more proof do you want?” Rick shrugged, pointing at Phil and Sav, trying to make you face the terrible truth, “They both heard ya, and Steve even gave you a hickey.” You hung your head, thinking you might just decide to cry out of shame. Yes, you loved Steve, just as you loved anyone else in the band, but you never had (or planned to have) any sort of sexual relationship with them. Even if you ever did, you were afraid it would ruin everything your friendship had stood for. “Sav, what’s wrong, mate?” Joe asked out of the blue. The bassist in question was still avoiding the conversation, staying eerily silent and weaving his hands together. At this point, you noticed that he was also blushing. “That wasn’t Steve.” he stated bluntly, still not looking at you. “What wasn’t Steve?” you asked as you stared at him dead on, your heart now pounding. “That hickey... that wasn’t Steve,” he paused, “That was me.” Immediately you gasped and slapped a hand over the mark on your neck. “What?!” the other three exclaimed. Joe and Rick immediately hissed at the searing pain their outbursts caused. “Sav, what the hell?!” you scolded him, finally happy that you weren’t the only one being called out for their mistakes. “Now before you say anything else,” he finally looked at you and held up a hand, “It was your idea.” Your face fell, softly asking him, “What do you mean?” “Well, after you and Steve-you know- and only Joe and I were downstairs, you actually came back down, too- wipe that smug look off your face, Joe. You’re not entirely innocent here, either.” *** You stumbled down the stairs, giggling to yourself. Your mission was now accomplished, and Steve was asleep upstairs. In a word, you were pleased. In two words, you were still drunk. Records were still being played when you returned to the living room, and Joe currently had his copy of Sheer Heart Attack on the turntable. “She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stilettos)”flowed softly from its speakers. “There’s our killer queen!” Joe cooed to you happily. He was now sprawled out on the couch, two empty beer bottles on the floor beside him. Sav wasn’t too far off. The paints on his hands were now dry, and he was reclined in a chair across the room, twiddling a bottle in his hand. They both looked ready for bed, and it made you wonder how they held out for this long. The singer slurred on with an interested smirk, “You two have fun?" Sav spoke up with a scoff-like laugh, “Sure sounded like it!" “Oh, you know it,” you gave them a wink, setting yourself down on the couch next to Joe, “Guess Phil finally ditched, huh?” “Yeah, the wanker went to bed- but you’ve lost your pants!” he gestured to your black underwear, made room for you to lay down with him, and took you in his arms like a teddy bear with a sigh of appeasement. You reached back and playfully poked at Joe’s dimple, “Steve's fault." “Well, that’s no good,” Sav objected, pushing the footrest of the chair in and returning to a sitting position. “What isn’t?” Joe asked him, "Steve gettin' into it with her?" “No, that cuddlin' you're doing- it’s boring. You stay like that, you’ll fall asleep on me!” He was certainly right about this. With you in Joe’s arms and his face nuzzling into your hair like some sort of animal, he was already falling asleep. “What do you want us to do?” you chuckled, thinking that Sav was only jealous of his friend. Joe mumbled happily into your hair, “How 'bout you just do me like Steve, and we’ll be good.” At this point, you noticed the feeling of something pressing lightly against the bottom of your back; a certain weight where Joe’s hips were, and a weight that wasn’t there at first. “Joe,” you whined at him, “You’re fucking gross.” He chuckled, then slowly moved his hips to lightly rub himself against you, a low quiet moan rising in his throat from the temporary pleasure it provided. “Ah- Joe!” you protested again, reaching back and hitting him as best as you could. You wiggled out of his embrace as he burst into giggles like he had just accomplished something. Sav, on the other hand, cringed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re even hornier than when you’re sober!” you grabbed a pillow and whacked Joe with it. “You’re one to talk! You just shagged Steve!” he smirked evilly, "Why not me?" “Ha! The only way I’ll do you is by some miracle, or at least a dare,” you threw yourself onto the other couch, picking up a nearly empty beer bottle and pouring whatever was left into your mouth. Sav’s eyes finally lit up, “That’s what we oughta do- truth or dare!” “Ooh, sounds like terrible fun,” you turned yourself so you were sitting upside-down on the couch, “Sav, truth or dare?” “How come he gets to go first?” asked Joe, “I wanna get down to business!” “Dare,” Sav declared, ignoring the singer’s objections. Immediately, your intoxicated mind thought of a scheme. Despite the plan you and Steve had executed ever so perfectly, you were still a child seeking more terror. You knew Joe wanted you, and it was no secret either, so how exactly would you use Sav to reign terror over him? You wanted something to rub in Joe’s face- something that would leave a mark on him. “I dare you to-" you clumsily pointed to your neck, "Gimme a hickey.” Joe's jaw dropped with offense and jealousy; exactly as you had expected. Sav began to laugh rather loudly at the request, and stood up, now understanding your true intention of making Joe jealous. “C’mere,” he motioned with his hand. More than happy to obey the command, you strutted over to him and paused, waiting for him to make the first move. He took a step so your bodies were practically pressing together, moved your hair out of the way on your neck, and dove right in. You smiled with glee, taking in the feeling of Sav’s mouth and tongue moving over your skin (as well as Joe’s groans of protest coming from a few feet away). As the bassist sucked on your neck without hesitation, it only made you think of one thing: “Wow, there’s definitely gonna be a mark after this.” *** Rick and Phil were staring at Sav with their mouths open in shock. You kept a hand over the mark he left on your neck to prevent everyone from looking any more than they already had. “So, wait, if it was you who gave me this, why didn’t you say anything before when we said it was Steve?” you asked Sav, more suspicious than outraged now. “I- ah, didn’t... wanna say anything...” he looked away, beginning to blush again, “I guess I was too embarrassed." “I think the only person who should be embarrassed is you, Joe,” Rick turned his attention back to the singer, “You fuckin dry humped her!” Joe exclaimed in his own defense, “Yeah, and I don’t even remember it! It’s not my fault- I was drunk and horny!” “See! Just like me and Steve! I don’t remember shagging him, either! So I guess we’re even.” “Even Stephen,” Phil scoffed. You slumped into the couch more, staring blankly ahead and realizing, “So I pretty much got to second base with all of you last night...?” “I think you made it all the way home with Steve,” Rick pointed out. “Thanks, Rick,” you kept your head hung, “I feel like a slut.” “You mean you’re not?” Phil joked, only to be hit in the arm by Sav.

Just then, you all heard the sound of movement upstairs. Your heart stopped and your blood ran cold; Steve was awake now. Everyone's jaws hit the floor, and for a second, you thought they were all afraid of what you were fearing. "He's awake..." Rick announced in a sing-song voice, teasing you. “Oh no...” you gasped quietly, “Oh no, oh no! Oh god, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna say to him?!” “Hate to break it to ya, but this isn’t necessarily our problem!” Joe shrugged in a panic, hearing Steve’s footsteps get closer. “But guys! You’ve gotta help me! You’re his best friends! What should I say to him?!” “Just act like it didn’t happen! Maybe he doesn’t remember-?” Sav proposed. Rick suggested, “Just straight up ask him if he remembers anything!” “Just get out of here!” Phil made a swatting motion towards the other room. “None of those are gonna do me any good! It still happened!” you yelled at them in a whisper, “I have to live that with that fact, even if neither of us have any memory of it to live with!” It was too late for any salvation; Steve was already at the top of the stairs. The band members held their breath, and- without words or warning- all scrambled out of the living room. “No!” you whispered, “Guys- wait!” You caught Rick by the wrist when he stood up. “Rick, c’mon, please don’t leave me here!” you begged. He yanked out of your grip and apologetically condemned you, “Sorry, Y/N, but this is your business.” As the four of them retreated, you tried to bolt after them. As soon as you hit the doorway, however, Phil turned around and pushed you back on the couch nearby as slowly as he could. It was so sudden that you were on your back before you knew it, and they were all gone. “Hey!” you called out after them, “Assholes!” Steve’s voice suddenly came to your ears (rather closely, too), “What’s their problem?” You jumped, “Ah- Steve!” He had a silent step, and made it down the stairs and across the room without making a sound. He also looked just as he did a little while ago when you first woke up; scraggly hair, lipstick stains all over his face, but no visible evidence of a hangover. “Hey, wow,” you forced an awkward chuckle at him, “Nice- uh, nice- lipstick...” Steve slumped down onto a chair and grumbled, “Thanks. Who even did this to me? Doesn’t look like it was you.” “That was, that was Rick- I’m assuming... I don’t remember that happening and I don’t think he does, either. He’s still got the lipstick on, too.” He played off the remark with a tired smile, “Oh, nice... last night really was something, wasn’t it?” Heat rushed to your face, and you tried to look away without being conspicuous. “Ha ha... yeah... really something!” you faked your amusement for him, now wondering if he was implying anything about the previous night. Steve leaned forward and asked, “Do you remember Sav and the paint? That was pretty funny, wasn’t it?” Still blushing, you darted your eyes around the room and nodded in agreement, “Mm hmm, yeah... he was like a toddler or something.” He sunk back into the chair again and closed his eyes, reminiscing about the events of the previous night. For a second you thought you were in the clear, and that maybe he didn’t remember the specific event that Phil and Sav did.

That illusion was shattered when his eyes snapped open, whispering “Wait a minute”, and sitting back up. Immediately, your heart dropped into your stomach.

“How did our plan go?” he questioned quietly, figuring that the others were still somewhere nearby and listening. “P-plan?” you stuttered, partially afraid of what he meant, but partially caught off guard, “What plan?” “You know-” he whispered again, thinking you remembered, “It was your idea. Did they believe it? We were convincing enough?" You darted your eyes down to the floor, confused, but also embarrassed. 'Convincing'? What did that mean? "Oh come on, don’t tell me you don’t remember!” he smiled playfully. As you stared at him with fearful confusion in your eyes and redness on your cheeks, his smile was suddenly wiped away. He muttered under his breath as his face fell, "Oh... you don't remember... bloody hell, okay, this is gonna be hard to explain..." "Then explain it, because I'm really fucking confused..." your voice wavered with a sarcastic chuckle. Steve sighed and leaned forward, slowly weaving his hands together. He didn't know where to begin. "This is one of the few things I remember from last night..." he started off, "And there's no way to make this sound... good... in any way, but you came up with the idea of us pretending to shag- like making noises and shit like that- to trick the others into thinking we really did. For some reason I thought it was a great idea, and I'm pretty sure I carried you upstairs, too.” Instantly, a huge weight was lifted off your shoulders. It wasn't real; you didn't shag Steve, and he could even tell the guys himself! You blew out a big sigh of relief, and slumped back into the couch, closing your eyes. "Oh, god," you slowly panted, "What a huge relief- I suppose we were really convincing, then." "Why d'you say that?" You laughed tiredly, now feeling rather thankful for your raging hangover, "The guys are all convinced that we fucked last night. Only Phil and Sav seem to remember it, though. They've been hounding me about it all morning. I kept telling them it couldn't be true- and I was right!" "What, would it be so bad if we actually did?" he teased you in a hushed voice. "Well, I've had to live my day so far under the impression it did happen. I was teased, ridiculed, embarrassed, and felt guilty about it. I was afraid it'd ruin our friendship if it was true... I was kinda hoping you didn't remember so we could just forget..." The red in your face returned all over again. Steve, however, didn't seem bothered. "If you really want to, we can keep pretending it happened and steer into the act; give em' what they want." "What? No!" you laughed out loud, standing up, "You're crazy, Clark! I think I better go tell the others the bad news. They'll be disappointed-ha!" You walked across the room to go find the others and disclose unto them the "bad news", giving Steve a pat on the shoulder when you passed him. Once you were gone and out of sight, Steve also blew out a big sigh of relief. "She didn't remember anything," he thought to himself, "That was a close one." While he knew you two didn't go all the way the previous night, he figured if you didn't remember it, then it was for the best you didn't find out. It was nothing serious; just a bit of fooling around, really. Just a bit of drunked-up teasing, and nothing more. The guys had no proof that anything actually happened between you two, and you were about to tell them the partial truth anyway, so why say something to reignite the suspicion? After all, they were all hungover to begin with, so there wasn't much memory of the whole affair, either. "Thank god for these hangovers,"Steve thought, "Thank god. I couldnt've asked for anything more." ~Epilogue~ When you got to the top of the stairs, Steve put you on your feet and spun you around. "You ready?" he whispered, childish excitement in his voice. You nodded with equal excitement, "Take me away, Clark." The two of you began eagerly walking hand-in-hand to whatever room you pleased, but before either of you had the chance to pick one, the bathroom door opened, Rick popped his head out and commanded, "Stop right there!" Both you and Steve froze and looked at him. He still had his lipstick and his suit on, and a kind of serious look overtaking his face. A finger was kept in a pointing position at you, a few large pieces of cardboard were underneath his other arm, and he slowly took steps down the hall to meet you. Neither of you moved, but both of you waited. When Rick got to you, he didn't say a word, but did take Steve's face in his hands (dropping the cardboard in the process), and proceeded to the kiss the man all over his face.

Steve remained silent, and let Rick have his way until he decided to stop. When he did, there were several lipstick stains on various parts of the blonde's face.

"Thanks, mate," Steve muttered sarcastically as Rick kicked some of the cardboard pieces in different directions. He then stepped on two of them, trying to slide down the hall on them as if they were ice skates. When he got back to the bathroom, he went back inside and shut the door again.

Without another word, you turned Steve's face toward you, gave him a peck on the cheek as Rick had done, and kicked open the door behind you (which just so happened to be Phil's bedroom). You both fell back into the room, giggling with makeshift lust in your eyes.

After all, you had to make this authentic, right?

[thedevildomdaily]

Demonic Possessions Ch 9: Love Advice & Interior Design

Note: Here’s the Master List for the full story. I recommend reading my stuff on my actual Blog if you enjoy OM! official music! Thank you so much for the support. Please let me hear from you in the comment section. I wanna talk OM!

I decided to make this chapter with more light banter and fun interactions and give the nephilim brothers some attention.

Warnings: Swearing, NSFW implied, light stuff this time ********************************

A couple weeks had passed. Construction on the attic was nearly complete. Lucifer and Azriel had negotiated a schedule in which the nephilim brothers would work on the attic bedroom for their sister. This helped avoid chaotic mornings, at least where the nephilim were concerned.

The overall mood of The House of Lamentation had shifted from the unease of having a new occupant amongst the Brothers and Lilly, to an odd sense of which the brothers had never experienced before. A shift in their dynamic as a family twisted due to a certain blossoming relationship.

Leviathan had become more outgoing and less reluctant in participating in events. He was more welcoming of everyone hanging around his room as well and his mood was less-likely to sour thanks to Lena. His brothers were happy for him, but it was an unusual experience for them as well. It was hard to ever find the two of them apart from each other.

“Thank you for doing my nails Asmo!” Lena chimed, “Your skills are amazing!”

Asmo grinned with brimming confidence, “Of course they are Leee-na. I’m an absolute master with nail art.”

“He’s also the best hair stylist.” Lilly chimed.

Asmodeus’s room had transformed into a spa for the two female residents and himself. The human was laying on his bed with a face mask and cucumbers over her eyes as her toe nails dried. Her hair was in a towel and she was completely relaxed as she sipped on her mimosa.

The nephilim had a peel on her face as she sat in a lavish chair while the demon painted a cute black cat on her accent nail. She too had her fill of mimosas as they relaxed from a week of cramming for a chapter test in alchemy. The math involved was exhausting, but she’d probably do well enough.

“Your brother is almost as bad as my old man when it comes to studying. I’m doing my best to be civil about it, but it’s getting on my nerves…”

Asmo gave a dramatic sigh, “If you think he’s bad now, wait until midterms. It’s a boot camp nightmare.” He then exchanged looks with Lilly as she peeked at them from her cucumber. He was underselling Lucifer’s regime.

“You know….” Asmo began with a sly voice, “I’m surprised Levi isn’t in here to get his nails painted…” Lena knew he was just baiting her at the mention of his brother. He wanted to open a dialogue to gossip about their relationship.

Shrugging, “I offered an invitation but Levi’s nails are still great from the last time you painted them. He’s also really engaged in a super hard game. The last time I saw him, Beel and Belphie were watching him battle a boss. It was getting intense in there…” It was also extremely cute, she thought.

“I’m just saying, given the fact that he’s the Avatar of Envy, I figured Levi to be a little more possessive and be following you around a lot more.” his younger brother admitted.

“Not gonna lie…” Lilly added, “I kinda anticipated that myself.” The brothers were all very possessive and it was easy to picture any one of them being like that. Well, Lucifer excluded. He was too damn cocky to believe anyone would stray from him ever.

Lena thought about it for a moment, ‘Well, I took your collective advice and talked directly with him when we went on that first date. I laid it all out for him: I’m not being held down to any single relationship. And in a kinder manner, that I basically don’t want to deal with jealousy. I’ve given up on monogamy….” he chuckled for a moment, “He actually compared me to you Asmo, and then asked if I wanted to start a reverse harem...and ya know what, I kinda like that idea haha!”

The other two blinked for a moment and joined in the laughter. “Pffft, that’s definitely a Levi-type of conclusion…” Lilly chuckled. She peeled the cucumbers off and ate them as she sat up. “It looks like you guys reached an amicable agreement then?”

The nephilim looked upward, clearly thinking about it for a moment. “We have. He agreed to an open relationship and to not be overly clingy with me. It’s beneficial to the both of u-”

“BOTH!?” Asmodeus interrupted, “Please explain!!?! Has my big, nerdy brother been hiding some secret affairs over these past few centuries?!” Why would it benefit the both of them, when only one of them has even been in multiple relationships?

“Oh, it’s quite simple really,” Lena chuckled, “His 2D waifus. I won’t ever complain about them or come between him and his fandom and I can have relationships with others as well. Besides, we’re immortal beings...forever is a realistic timeframe for us...why cling to each until we both become miserable? Monogamy hasn’t ever worked for any immortals I know...what about you?” Of course she was asking Asmo as he finished her last nail.

The demon shook his head as he released her hand and got his DDD ready to take pictures of his work for the gram. “Not that I’ve ever paid attention to it, I really can’t think of anyone...even angels drift apart and take loooooong breaks.”

“Well that’s a bit depressing….” Lilly mumbled.

“Oh, Lilly dear...don’t get depressed about it. It’s the beauty of humanity. You guys are far more capable of having a one, true love...not that you have to stick to it. It’s a valid option though.” She didn’t mean to depress the human. In her very long life, Lena had been in 100+ year relationships with various long-lived beings and it never seemed to work out. She was now trying this open relationship thing so that she didn’t feel tied-down or tired. She didn’t want anyone she was with to feel that way either.

“It’s all good. I was teasing for the most part.” Lilly smiled, “There’s only so many ways a person can spice things up and keep their relationship fresh; I’m sure an immortal couple could really struggle after a few centuries. It’s that case in my favorite vampire novel series anyways…”

Asmo didn’t comment on the matter. He couldn’t relate since he was loved by all and could charm anyone he wanted. He never for a moment considered a relationship because he could never love anyone more than himself.

“So, since you’ve found a way for things to work, have you guys……?” He smirked at the nephilim.

“ASMO!” Lily shouted. He merely chuckled.

“It’s none of your business…” Lena responded.

“That would be a solid ‘No’ then.” He quibbed. Lilly exchanged a look with him and nodded.

“Y’all are both horrible! It’s hard given he’s so reclusive and nervous. But also very cute….NO! I’m not talking with you guys about this, especially you Asmo. I’m not giving you any ammo to blackmail Levi…” She paused for a moment and contemplated, “I know he’s shy. But I also….”

“Also what?” Lilly blinked.

“I don’t know how to approach him. I’ve never been with a demon. Are you guys...very different for other beings?”

“Oh, you wanna see? Hmmmm?” Asmo teased. Or was he?

“Stop it!” Lilly smacked his shoulder lightly.

“Lena. You’re gonna have to make the first moves on Levi. Good news is there won’t be much effort you’d have to put into seducing him. It’s just finding the opportune moment when you’re feeling it.”

The girls both stared at Asmodeus for a moment.

“What? Is there something on my gorgeous face?” He immediately felt his pale, rosey cheeks.

“No, you’re just being surprisingly perceptive and giving profound advice on the matter.” Lilly said, “Lena should definitely wait until she feels right before taking the move. Like you said girl, you’ve got eternity. Take your time. Levi is a great guy and I know he’d never pressure you...”

Lena smiled and looked-up while thinking about him. “Yeah, he’s great. Special. I have so much fun with him. It’s nice to have someone interested in the same nerdy stuff as I am and not being picked-on about it 24/7.” Her last relationship went down like that. “When he blushes simply by me taking his hand, or how shocked he gets when I sneak behind him and wrap my arms around his waist...oooh... He’s too cute!!!!”

The nephilim squealed and shut her eyes hard thinking about her Levi-kun and the other two just laughed at her. Her responses to his cuteness just didn’t match her aesthetic at all and they found it hilarious to watch.

"Oh.." Lilly chimed in again, "They're 'normal' I guess."

Lena and Asmo blinked at the human for a moment.

"You asked if they were, ya know, compatible. I've had the horror of accidentally entering the men's bath when we went on a trip to a demonic hotspring before...I wanted to shove hot pokers in my eyes..." Lilly cringed.

"Oh, that's right! Lilly got to see me in all of my glory...jealous?" Asmo grinned.

The trio laughed and picked on each other all afternoon.

****************************

“Okay, we need a few more pieces of paneling. I want some nice filigree border work.” Azriel said to himself out loud as he took a step back to look at the progress made on his sister’s room.

Zak stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets, as he watched his brother pace across the room. “Hey bro. It’s looking good. You really outdid yourself this time.” His siblings were super artsy, creative types. He couldn’t keep up with them on that. Instead, the middle sibling put any creativity into vehicle design and engineering. “Let’s take a break and go to Hell’s Kitchen for lunch. Then when we get back, you can spot anything else we need to do….”

“You do have a point. Let’s eat and come back with a new perspective…”

**************************

The nephilim brothers went for lunch, meeting up with Beelzabub and Belphegor. The twins were in the back corner, where the owner often put them so they weren’t a distraction for the other customers.

Belphegor had his arms folded on the table, propping his head up as he watched Beel chow down on ten burgers.

“Hey guys, can we join you?” Zak asked when he approached the demons.

“Sh--rr” Beel nodded as he wadded another large bite of food. Zak could have sworn the demon’s jaw had unhinged to take such a huge bite.

Azriel took a seat next to Beel. The two of them were the same height, though Azriel was much thinner, with more of a swimmer’s body then a body-builder’s. Zak sat by a groggy Belphie. They too, were the same height but different build. Zak liked to work out when he wasn’t working on a new engine.

“You guys about to finish remodeling?” Belphie asked with a yawn at the end, “I’m curious what you’ve done to my old...space.” Was it a bedroom or a prison? He didn’t know quite how to label the attic Lucifer kept him in.

Azri gave a pleasant smile, “Yes. It’s all coming along smoothly. Lena will be thrilled with it. It’s a touch of old european with her beloved gothic asethetic. She might not like the light-colored flooring, but it makes the space look bigger…” he went off into deep thought for a moment. Then, he saw some green in the corner of his eye and smiled, “excuse me for a moment…”

“Sorry, I swear Azri has ADHD or something...don’t mind him. ‘Creative Genius’ at work 24/7” Zak chuckled and looked at the menu.

“S’okay.” Belphie nodded and closed his eyes for a moment. “Sounds like you’ve had a lot of things to do. It’s nice putting in that effort for your little sibling.”

The twins and Zaksalamel chatted and ate their lunch, nearly forgetting that the elder nephilim had even came to Hell’s Kitchen. When he finally returned, there was an empty plate left at his spot.

“You shouldn’t have ordered and left when sitting by Beel…” Belphegor responded after seeing the shocked expression on Azri’s face. “Your food didn’t stand a chance...and apparently the napkin…”

“S-sorry….” Beel scratched the back of his head.

After a moment of silence, Azriel sighed, “it’s okay. That one was definitely on me….”

Zak noticed his brother’s cheeks get a little rosy. His mind was elsewhere clearly. What was he up to. “Hey, Devildom to Azriel...where’d you disappear to?”

“Oh, forgive my rudeness..again.” He suddenly returned to the conversation. “I just happened to see someone I know and asked for their opinion about the flooring choice…”

“Mmmh-hmmm…” Zak’s eyes narrowed at his brother, knowing there was something else to it. Azriel’s voice tone was suspicious. He’d leave it alone for now.

“So, anyways, I made the right decision, and I think we will be finished with everything in 2 days.” Azri clapped his hands together, chipper with the apparent results of the consultation he’d just had. “Beel, if you’d like to make it up to me for eating my highly-anticipated lunch, could you help carry furniture upstairs? You must be very careful…Lena is going to flip out when she sees it!”

As the four of them returned to the House of Lamentation together, Beel and Belphie walked some space behind the nephilim.

“They sure seem to care a lot about their sister to spend so much time on this room. I don’t think it was that bad..” Belphegor said quietly.

‘True. But, we’d do the same thing for our sister too. And that means Lilly as well…” Beelzebub nodded.

Agreeing, Belphegor let out a small sigh. He wasn’t sure about his own opinion of Lena so far. They didn’t start off on the best of terms. No, he’d admit that he behaved like a brat that day. But he never had the opportunity to get to know her or to apologize for his overreaction. Maybe he’d help with the furniture too?

[annetteblog]

Intro & My take on KM

Hi!

I’m new around here so it’s supposed to be (not so short) introduction, since I don’t know how to start a blog heh. I hope to sprinkle my 0.5 cents into the KM conversation and maybe to bring a new perspective from someone, who is not a part of the typical English-speaking West.

Who /the hell/ Am I?  

(please, consider it to be said with NJ’s voice from Intro: Persona :D)

I was born in Siberia (it’s in the Asian part of Russia), currently live in the European part of the country while studying at a Uni (European in terms of geography, not in terms of everything else i’m definitely not shading rn lolllll). English is not my first language, I’ve just kind of learnt it to some extent. Due to this it takes me more time to write a post; and I may (and will) make some grammatical & other mistakes. Plus I’m lazy AND busy with Uni, so I won’t even promise to be consistent in posting smth lol. But I thought I need more practice in terms of writing in English, so here I am, actually scribbling something. This feels weird, because I’ve been around stan Tumblr since 2015, but never ever interacted, just read.

How I ended up around Jikook/Kookmin (and BTS) & My (long&messy) take on this matter

Although I had heard of BTS before, I became an Army only in October 2018. I had kinda avoided them, because you know... boybands.... sing songs about romantic love and how they love girls.......... (+I had been around Twitter when 1D been at their peak and I remember a quite toxic community of fans, whom always had scared me). Shortly, hello stereotypes. Obviously, after I got engaged I felt terribly sorry that I had been sleeping on them, but what is done cannot be undone. 

Someone I knew back then reposted one of their MVs and I, during my sad hours of procrastination, decided to watch it. Then I saw their live performance with the same song. And I thought “wow these guys can sing and dance and the music is kinda cool, i need to check this out maybe??” 

Then a funny thing happened. One of the next videos I watched (the same person had it added to their page) was a 2016 BangtanBomb where JM and JK practiced their Coming of Age dance. 

Do you know this moment with Gina from the 1st episode of Brooklyn 9-9:

Well, that was precisely me after I watched it. I don’t even know how to explain this, it was kind of a gut feeling? Whatever you call it, I started to get suspicious and couldn’t even explain to myself why. /actually now a do have questions to this vid and the main one - why does everyone cringe that much? if it’s a girly choreo than they had done some “girly” moves before. why is there such strong reaction??/

I started to get deeper and went to some ru-shipper communities. Shipping culture among Russian speaking fans is... well, weird to some extent, but I maybe address this topic some time later. You need to consider that (as far as you probably know) Russia is quite homophonic country and sadly is not the greatest place for LGBTQ+ community at the moment. The non-frienly influential attitudes hanging in the society + the general shippers’ weirdness = the result is not that nice honestly. 

I struggled for some time in order to find more mature people (not just in terms of age but in general sanity), failed, ended up with some EXTREMELY toxic ru-fans of TK, which was/is the most popular pairing here, spent among them like 15 minutes and ran away horrified. After that I didn’t even try to engage with shippers or believers or whatever of any pair and just decided to enjoy the music and the content (which is a great idea, highly recommend!)

After a couple of days I discovered that JK makes videos. I love video, films and visual art so I immediately found them on YT, saw the titles with names of different cities from all over the world and was like “Oh that must be so cool, he’s visited so many outstanding places I’ve never been to, so I really need to watch it! I shall enjoy some beautyyy”. Then I clicked on GCFt.

Well, what can I say. I did enjoy some beauty, but not the type I had initially anticipated. The biggest clickbait in my entire life. JK should be proud of himself.

                                       /as I said - the beauty/

I had already known Troy back then and I known the song’s lyrics so it would not be an underestimation to say - the video just blew my mind. I was like - hold on is this real? seriously?? no really really????? he manage to get away with something THAT obvious?????? dude how

As a person who edited videos AND is not a native English speaker, I don’t buy the explanation “oh he mustve didnt get the lyrics lmao”. You just don’t do that. You don’t. DON’T. You google and translate every shit you don’t understand, every word and idiom you’ve never encountered, because otherwise the possibility of an epic failure is very likely. You wouldn’t want to give your mum a video as a birthday present and then discover that you used a song with WAP-ish lyrics, right? (well maybe that would be okay in your family, I don’t judge, but that’s not the case for people I know). So don’t you dare to degrade JK’s intellectual capacities; such assumption is really offensive. He is a smart boii, he knows exactly what he’s doing in terms of his art.

So I was shocked, but decided to look for the context - maybe I missed some previous events regarding this Tokyo thing (another great idea - always check the context). Well, apparently I didn’t, because the whole narrative with the trip for two, lovely selfies etc. made my poor brain lowkey explode. (I still don’t buy the rings theory thing though)

But I didn’t give up lol! I’m a bit stubborn and it’s very hard to convince me in anything, so I decided to search for more context, more of their interactions, moreeee. Remember, the late October 2018, there were no swan lakes, RB, and even MMA18 hadn’t happened yet. 

This time I ended up watching content in more or less consistent way, and when I saw all of these scenes with affectionate JM and a cool badass i-don’t-care-about-anyone-i’m-a-manly-man-with-no-feelings-whatsoever JK, I just hysterically laughed. 

Homophobic Russia, remember? I recognized this. Growing up here being LGBT myself, taught me the same type behaviour during my high school days. When a girl I kinda liked but didn’t what to admit it to myself was nice to me or (oh god) flirted with me, I did something similar. It’s like a huge panic mode. Being an introvert doesn’t help either. The funniest thing is that you may not entirely realise what exactly is going on in terms of your own feelings, especially at that age (16-18ish). In my personal case, I thought I liked her but as a friend, only later to realise that well not as a friend oops :DDD The second thing (already not so funny) is that you actually consciously or unconsciously try to avoid the subject as much as possible, as long as possible and pretend that nothing is going on. We’re just bros. Stop doing this stupid gayish thing and don’t look at me like that, you’re annoying. If you ever do this again I (gently) kick you. I’m straighter than a straight line in my math textbook. IDK, but probably that’s your brain is somehow trying to protect you. Again, in my case&position I knew that the consequences for any non-straight person being outed would be bad (TW not to the point of being killed bad, but to the point of being excluded from a big part of society). So for me it was a mixture of the internalized homophobia + lack of self reflection + just being a bit emotionally slow + very! straight community around. Shit happens, I was a teenager and made my share of mistakes, but that experience helps me to recognize the same pattern of behaviour up to this day.   

So coming back to KM, because the post is already waaay too long and I just ramble. It’s been 2+ years for me being a part of this fandom, and what can I say... Things become more intense and eventful with every year passing by ;) Funny how I felt that vibe from the 2016 dance practice video. Seeing the Black Swan performance a week ago almost had me choked, no joking. They are amazing.

                                                    Pure Art

However, and I would like to emphasize that, I do not incline that KM are 100% romantically involved and/or gay or whatever. I tend to treat people with respect and not to make too much assumptions about their private life. That’s not my business. However, I’m also not a fan of heteronormativity, so I’m just sitting here and observe everything that’s going on putting some distance and not forgetting being generally polite and critical thinking. But if they are just straightest besties please give them an Oscar before Grammy

Anyways, I hope this blog won’t kick the bucket from the very start and I will post something every now and then. You can always ask me questions about some BTS/Jikook related stuff or something about Russia and a Russian view on mass culture topics, since I’m pretty sure some of you have very stereotypical view of what is going on here :) However, do note that I’ve never been to America or Europe, therefore I may not be aware of something verrrry obvious to you or just have a completely different experience. 

P.S.  And yeah, I’m used to say Jikook, since it’s the name which is used much more frequently in Russian.  i like it better and what will u do haha

[mrvdocks]

Nightcall P.1

Request/Summary: Kurt is obsessive over a model and kidnaps her, taking her along for the ride of the night. 

After

The flurry of phones ringing off the hook and background noise felt foreign to you, it was just a buzzing in your ear. You pulled the safety blanket around you closer, grabbing it in fistfuls. You don’t know how long you’ve been here, but it feels like hours. The fluorescent in the room probably only made you look even worse for wear than you were hours before, but it didn’t matter now. In a span of 24 hours, your life had changed. 

The guarded door opened and an officer pulled up a chair in front of you, dropping photos of the gruesome scene you’d seen firsthand. She slides the photos closer, her thumb obscuring the killer’s face. You didn’t need to see it a second time.

“You were found in the residence of Mr. Kunkle, with one Jessie Adams and a John Doe, who seems to have been the victim of Mr. Kunkle’s spree amongst others.”

Even his name brings chills down your spine. 

“I already told the police everything.” You say groggily, your throat still sore from the whole ordeal.

“Yes, but there seems to be some doubt on your partnership with Mr. Kunkle. Footage, eyewitness accounts,” she’s studying you no doubt. Any sort of tick or movement you made without thought that could somehow lead her to think you were lying about anything you had explained earlier. 

“What was your relationship with Mr. Kunkle?” She pries, bringing multiple photos of Kurt to be splayed out in front of you. Some good, some bad, some….disturbing. 

“I - none. He just knew me through the socials.” 

“And you were also the target of his mania.” There’s something unsettling in how much she’s liking interrogating you. You ignore it. 

“You think it’s my fault he did this.” 

It was not your fault. None of this was. Kurt was just too power hungry. Maybe you were too trusting. You didn’t want to see Kurt for what he really was until it was too late. 

“I’m not saying it’s your fault, but your compliance does seem suspicious.”

“I-I didn’t know him very well. He was just my Spree driver for a day. But he was always nice to me.”

“He was also your kidnapper.”

“Like I said, he was a nice guy.” Your voice breaks. 

They’re all nice guys until they aren’t. 

“And you didn’t think to call the authorities when you were alone? Were you helping him lure these people?”

You can feel her eyes burning into you. 

“I’m not stupid,” you cry. “I know how this sounds. But I’m telling you, he gave me a ride and then he - all of this. Oh God.” 

You bring your shaky hands to run through your worn and tired face, specks of dried blood still prominent even through many washes with soap. It’s another way Kurt managed to stay with you. 

“Let’s start at the beginning,” she sits back with her arms folded. “And spare no detail.”

Before

He scrolls through your feed for the millionth time today.

Photos of you on your daily walks, exploring hidden LA gems, posting places you were shooting at, people you were hanging out with, all at the touch of a button for him. The bell notification alerts him, telling him that you’ve posted. He taps the screen in the blink of an eye, meeting your face as you giggle about falling while skating. 

You pout as you show the damage, remarking that it was lucky you weren’t shooting that day otherwise you would’ve had to cover up on such a hot day. 

In a vain industry, you try to keep yourself humble and that’s what he loves about you. Though he’s never met you, he thinks you could live up to the image he’s created of you. One that matches your optimistic and humorous one. 

He re watches your story, pausing at random moments where he screenshots and saves to his photos. His home screen is a shot of you in black and white, seemingly topless from chest down and looking back with an enticing smile. He loves the way your hair frames your face, the way pieces of it were meticulously picked out to give it a sort of messy look.

You could make anything look good, he thinks.

Bobby gives him a hard time about you, bragging about how he knows you and that although you’re more well known than he is, you are the one who should be grateful for his exposure.

Kurt thinks it’s bullshit but he wouldn’t be surprised if it were true, maybe you’d come around to meet him one day.

The vibration of a text brings him out of his daze, seeing Bobby’s name in big bold letters. 

He can’t believe his eyes when he opens the text. It’s an off guard video of you behind Bobby, giggling at something on your phone before noticing that he’s recording and flashing a cheeky smile and a peace sign.

“Found your girlfriend.” Bobby mocks before erupting into hysterical laughter.

Kurt replays it until his phone dies, Bobby’s words echoing in his head.

An idea pops into his head, it would be difficult if he didn’t know your exact routine but thanks to your fan accounts and the power of gossip blogs, it’s a definite success. 

He calls Bobby immediately, hearing him and his entourage in the background as they talked about a video idea. 

“What do you want, Kurt? I’m busy right now.” His annoyance is clear but Kurt is way too focused on you to notice.

“I need a favor.”

It’s amazing what the internet contains about a person. It’s also quite terrifying. Through just a few minutes of research, he’s found out your schedule along with where you went to school, where you live and your closest friends. 

In a photo Bobby had taken, the location of the next shoot you had taking place somewhere was barely visible.

He connects the dots, thinking about how your involvement could help him get  #TheLesson out and make him a household name. 

And it’s exactly what he does the day of. He parks near your neighborhood, foot bouncing and anxiously looking at his phone. He declines the others in hopes of finding you according to the schedule. You almost never use your real name on anything when going out but he recognizes your fake name and location, he puts the car into drive and talks himself up. 

He parks across the street, giving him a better view of you.  

His heart skitters when he sees you look in his direction, your brows quirk up as you give him an easy smile and cross carefully. 

You stop and bend to meet him at the passenger window, “Kurt, right?”

His name coming out of your mouth is something he’s dreamed of since he first saw you. He almost pinches himself to know if this is real. 

He knows he’s grinning like an idiot because you laugh at his speechlessness. 

“Sorry,” he motions to the backseat, “Hop in!” 

“I take it you know who I am.” 

You’re not oblivious to your recognition, but with some guys it was just always a hit or miss. They either wanted you to take your top off or asked for some weird things.

“Are you kidding? I’m like your biggest fan.” He beams, going back on the road. 

You’re not good at accepting compliments, so all you can manage is a shy smile and a, “Thanks!”

You notice his set up of cameras and ask him about it, to which he says they’re just for protection. Throughout the ride you learn more about him, particularly that he was going something the next day called The Lesson. He had a very particular view about this digital world you both lived in, talking about these odd jobs he’d been doing along with trying to build up his following. In between talking about himself, he mentions Bobby and the events of last night from the video. 

“Oh right, Bobby.” You roll your eyes at the mention of his name. 

Bobby was a pain in your ass sometimes, acting all high and mighty all the time and just like he was the overall shit. 

“Yeah he’s alright. He could just tone it down a little.”

“Oh yeah - definitely, he was the same when he was a kid. Just pure chaotic energy.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

In between other conversations, Kurt brought back the spotlight to you, asking you about different people you hung out with. It was pleasant conversation, you felt like you were talking to an old friend and letting off some steam. The red flags hadn’t gone off just yet. 

To let loose and make you live a little, Kurt races past a red light and nearly misses being in a collision. 

It startles you but he assures you there’s no danger. 

“You trust me right?” He asks, glancing back to you.

“I mean, yeah.” 

The confirmation is validation to him. It’s all he needed to begin.

He picks up another passenger, an older man who definitely did not hide the way he was staring at your body. You’re thankful for sitting a little father from him but when Kurt initiates conversation with him, everything goes downhill.

“I know you from somewhere.” The man points out, his obvious staring makes you cringe as you stay silent.

“You’re that model, I’ve seen your stuff around Westwood. Bangin’ body.”

You can feel the anger in your chest rise as Kurt finally notices.

“What’s going on?” He glances to the back, meeting your shifting eyes.

The man ignores him. “Sweetheart when someone compliments you, the nice thing to do is smile.”

That did it.

“Excuse me? I don’t owe you shit!” You grit.

“Whoa! Whoa! Sir you can’t be saying that anymore.” Kurt changes lanes, ready to stop if the situation gets worse.

“She should be proud she doesn’t look like her people. All of ‘em just fat and lazy.”

“Excuse me?! My people?” You’re sure you don’t look the least bit intimidating but it doesn’t matter. You were willing to kick this man’s ass if need be.

Kurt pulls off the the side of the road, “Alright, get out.” 

“What? No, I paid for this ride fair and square. I’m not leaving for shit. I can say what I want.” He says adamantly.

“Sir if you make those comments again I’m going to have to cancel the Spree.”

Something clicks in Kurt’s head as he remembers the water bottles. 

He motions for you to take the passenger seat which you do without much hesitation. 

Kurt waits a minute before merging again, glancing at the man every so often and taking more desolate streets. You don’t notice the absence of cars and you definitely don’t notice when the man takes a bottle and practically chugs it. 

Kurt smirks as he slows down. “Hey maybe you should let them know you’re not going to make it.”

Confused, you glance at Kurt and then at the man who’s now starting to grab at his throat and coughing violently.  

Your eyes widen as you attempt to get Kurt to stop the car but he doesn’t move, instead he keeps his eyes trained on the road.

“Kurt, stop the car.”

The man’s coughs get worse by the second and he turns a very bright red. 

“Kurt! Stop the car!” 

You’re frozen, helpless to watch the man as he tries to grab at Kurt from behind but coughs up blood and passes out in the backseat. You slink back in your seat, utterly terrified of what just happened. 

Adrenaline and fear course through you. You side eye Kurt who is not as affected by this as you are as he merely readjusts his camera. 

You begin to hyperventilate and try the passenger door. When it doesn’t budge you shut your eyes and cry.

“I won’t say anything. I won’t I promise. I promise, Kurt. Please.”

Kurt sighs as he retrieves a piece of cloth from his pocket. Your eyes widen as he comes close and pins you in your seat and smothers you with the cloth. You struggle under him, pushing against his chest to no avail. 

The smell of the chloroform inundates your senses and in a matter of seconds you feel your eyes roll back and everything go black. 

Once you’re knocked out, Kurt takes both your phone and the other passengers to knock suspicion off of him. He has plans for the racist prick in the back, but for you, he has much bigger plans.

[readerinsertfanfiction]

Dear Penpal,

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Character: Shigaraki Tomura / Tenko Shimura

Prompt: Childhood friends to enemies

A/N: Gearing up! Also, huh what? I’m a multi-fandom blog?! Why, yes indeed! I still am. 

Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5| Part 6 | Part 7

“Helloooooo?” Waving a can of coffee in front of your face you are startled out of your reverie by your colleague, straightening yourself in your seat as you realise that you once more have dozed off at work, the happenings and the revelation of the past weekend still clear in your mind’s eye as you try to make sense of it.

“Shigaraki is on the move again,” your colleague says as they nod towards the television running in the breakroom, “was it in your calculations?” comes the next question and you cringe as the familiar ally comes in view, a journalist explaining how the remains of a small-time thief had been found here just this morning.

“No,” you admit honestly, as you forcefully turn yourself around, not needing a refresher course on what Shigaraki’s quirk was exactly. “We all expected him to lie low for a bit after that announcement and then come back big,” you nervously continue as you twirl your thumbs, realising that last night’s events were perhaps outside of Shigaraki’s plans as well.

“It is going to bog the calculations,” you whisper, more to yourself and your colleague just laughs, an uncomfortable chuckle escaping them as the coffee can is put in front of you.

“Relax, okay? You look terrible. Like you saw a ghost or something.”

You scoff at the irony of their words, clearly clueless on your involvement within the case, or what had even happened afterwards.

Tenko, he let me go. Just like that. Why?

Clicking your ballpointer nervously you wonder what to write down more. What would help ease your mind? Feeling a shadow fall hovering over you quickly cover the note you were writing with your hand as you look up at Endeavour.

“Ah, sir, uuh?”

Losing the ability to speak you pale up at the imposing figure of the number two hero who is hovering over you like a villain, his expression stern and displeased as he takes a seat in front of you, his arm resting on the shrinking table of the teacher’s office.

“You saw the news. Shigaraki is on the move which was out of our calculations,” the man says and you sweatdrop at the repetition of the conversation, your head nodding obediently as you don’t dare to express yourself, or even relax around the man. “Have you started up new calculations yet? Gotten through the past files that the helpers gave you?”

Gulping you take in a deep breath as you face the man as bravely as you can, not wanting to seem incompetent or like a doormat. “I will get to it as soon as possible,” you speak without excuses, knowing that if you were to explain the situation it would only grow worse. After all, who fraternised with the villains and even got saved by them, not to mention by their very boss?

Endeavour’s gaze holds you for a few more moments before he finally unleashes a deep sigh, one of which you can swear a small flame escapes from his lips as he averts his eyes from you. “Tomorrow. I want a new analysis tomorrow,” the man declares before he gets up from his seat, clearly done with talking to you as he walks off, leaving you both a little breathless and infuriated.

Between Endeavour and Shigaraki I’m not really sure who is the bigger villain. Tomorrow? What do I look like to him? A computer? I bet this man can’t even calculate what 1+1 is without a calculator!

Venting off your frustrations on the little note addressed to your friend you pause for a fresh breath of air as you let the earlier adrenaline flow out of you. You knew that you were being petty, just as much as Endeavour was being unreasonable with you, but it came with the job. They had warned you for it beforehand, before you moved to Japan and you had taken it anyway for the sake of Tenko.

Hey Tenko, why did you not tell me that you had given up on your dream of becoming a hero?

It was a question you had asked yourself several times, spurning several theories on what might have happened, speculations, assumptions, even probability calculations. None of them made sense, however and in the end you were still left unsatisfied and guilty of an answer.

The address in which he lived before was gone, the man himself was untraceable, there were no records remaining. Slowly you were starting to expect the worst, something that you rather not think about. But it was a possibility that you may have to address sooner than you wanted.

Not wanting to give up so soon you turn on the laptop given to you by Endeavour’s company, logging in on the secured network provided as you take in a deep breath. With another click you find yourself in the secured files that are part of the investigation along with the VPN access to the databases that you will need to be able to work and collaborate.

You knew that they were able to trace your activity and what files and databases you were accessing. You also knew that the chances of them picking you out specifically for a routine checkup was small and according to probability you figured that you were fine if you kept it to this one time. Especially if you kept your search short and innocuous.

Releasing another breath you typed in the old address you had memorised since childhood, your heart racing as you started to pull up the files of the police investigation involving the family…

Shimura. The name stood stark against the rest of the words, the tragedy barely registering as you couldn’t really make out what the story was, your mind running a mile as you felt your mouth go dry. The whole family gone, presumed burglary, but nothing was stolen. No survivors. The story made little sense, but it was a small case that seemed to have been shut just like that. Without any attention to spare and your best friend gone.

Gulping you feel your eyes burn as you wonder why your friend had to be so unfortunate, a bile of bitterness and blame rising up as you tried not to let your mind wander off too far, not wanting to get into this ugly pattern of blaming all and everyone and shifting responsibility.

Had the family that moved into the newly built house afterwards received your letters? What was their reaction, or had they not cared about some random kid abroad?

Looking at the date of the events you knew that it all lined up perfectly. That Tenko had perhaps died that very day. That he had faced some terrible tragedy in the last moments of his life. What was the probability of such a tragedy striking? You knew that with heroes like All Might around that the probability had diminished, but All Might had been in America back in those days.

Somewhere you clicked through to the next report in the file, gulping audibly as you realised that it was a detailed report on the damages as your eyes went down the detailed description the coroners had made and signed.

‘Turned into dust, absolutely obliterated. As if a raging fire ran past, but there are no traces of gas exploding or actual fire.’

Blinking you felt that the description of the destruction was rather familiar, your breath quickening once more as you think back of that night in the alley, when Shigaraki had saved you.

Tenko, I will avenge you. I promise. I will solve your cold case and tell your story. I will give you a voice like you always wanted to give everyone else a voice and a face. I will catch Shigaraki.

[tuggism]

just a little note

So I haven’t been on this blog in a whileeeee and I'm not even sure anyone will see this. But I was a longtime fan of RT/AH during my literal formative years - completely obsessed for maybe 2012-2017. I loved all the shows and especially LOVED Achievement Hunter, as you can probably tell from the blog lol. I’ve slowly stopped watching videos, but I still have those “comfort” videos you know like the ones that you’ve seen so many times but you keep watching bc its like meeting an old friend again. now I dont know if I can anymore?

I just wanted to vent and its funny how the urge to vent brought me back into my childhood Tumblr lol. but I heard the news last night and I, like everyone, was COMPLETELY blindsided. I cant even begin to explain the flurry of emotions and thoughts I had inside. I loved Ryan. I truly loved them all. I’m so confused. I’m so sad that hes leaving but then I feel bad for feeling sad because of what he has done. I feel so bad for his family. this is such an ethically muddled situation

He cheated on his wife for years. This shit wasn’t just a single instance - it was over the course of like what? 2 years? Maybe if I was younger I would’ve thought of this differently. Maybe I would’ve been able to personally move on from this and still enjoyed him in past videos and maybe even preached to other people to forgive him. But I’m not my younger self. I’m 22, in a loving committed relationship, and there is only pain even at the thought of being cheated on. That is all there is. I cant imagine the pain? his wife might be going through. I saw the video Tess posted. I slowed it down, even read as much as I could. It was some inexplicable attempt at forcing myself to bear witness to what he had done, in order to finally take him down from the pedestal I didn’t even know I had supplied him with in my mind. It was disgusting. It had all the echoes and similarities with gross and cringe conversations you have over snap with boys you meet on tinder. He even mentioned his kids to her a few times. That really kicked the fucking bucket over. Why would you ever mention your kids by name to your mistress? What was he thinking? what fucking insane state of mind was he in??

He was always the wholesome, family man, married to his high school sweetheart, 2 young kids, HAPPY NUCLEAR FAMILY. Well that online persona did not age well. There are so many issues with this situation. The fan/celebrity dynamic that’s beyond fucked up... I’ve never experienced anything of that magnitude but I remember a few years ago when a guy that was considered “a name” started talking to me. And I ignored all the red flags because even the small rush of adrenaline was so good. A few years ago I was at a university event and was constantly hit on by this guy who was more popular, slightly older, and it felt good. We didn’t do much but when I found out a few days later that he had a girlfriend for the last 3 years, the guilt was immeasurable. But I'm not going to lie. Even after the fact, there was still this TINY, SMALL, like 2% of me, that .. wanted even just a little bit more of that attention. So when Tess says that she did things she normally wouldn’t do because of the attention from her LITERAL idol, I believe her. I believe it. As crazy as it sounds, thats the thing that could've made all thought of Ryan’s family not enter the decision making process.

It is selfish of me, but I cant help but feel so sad for AH. These people worked with him, were friends with him for the better part of a decade. I dont think you could deny his part in AH’s popularity. To me, he was so integral. I thought AH and I thought Ryan Haywood. So many iconic moments that I think of with the HIGHEST childhood nostalgia, involved Ryan. All that is tainted now. Completely tainted. everything feels wrong, everything feels off-colour. I basically grew up with AH and this man. I grew up with them. AH was literally my safe space when serious trauma happened in 2017-2018. I’d put on my old favourite videos and play them so that I could fall asleep easier. That’s how much I loved them. 

I dont know what im saying. I just needed to say something and get it off my chest so that I can move on. I dont know what my personal relationship with RT/AH will look like now. I’ll be lingering to watch how they deal with this situation, but honestly I’d become a very very casual fan anyway by this point. But its more the detriment to my memories of AH that have caused me great sadness. ITs just all sadness. All sadness.

I agree that people can make mistakes. Cheating just happens to be a VERY BIG mistake. I’ve personally known people who have cheated on their partner. They’re not the most vile, unforgivable people. They just made a mistake. And they have changed. I hope Ryan can get the help he needs. Most of all I hope his family can forgive him. If his family is broken over this he will literally spend the rest of his life atoning for it. Nothing else - nothing about losing his job or fans or public reputation being ruined - will compare with the loss of his family. Dont get me wrong - my opinion on Ryan has drastically changed in the last 24 hours. But I want to be emotionally distant. I want to move on with my life. 

This was so long and so incoherent. I just rambled on and on. I dont expect anyone to have read this lol but just know that if you’re confused and conflicted, you’re not alone.

[transrightsjimin]

i want to make a list of very real and funny or interesting bts concert related events that i experienced, mainly focusing on the nice ppl ive met!! bc i have honestly focused too much on the bad shit due to poor venue organizers. the list would include stuff like

- meeting a couple of visitors (i mean def armys but also they went there for various acts) at night before the kcon paris convention building (2016, but i mean there was only one kcon paris) and meeting them again when walking towards the queue for the concert section, where they brought me over "because we became friends earlier today right? ;)" and they brought me to like a little beyond the 500th spot where ppl stopped numbering visitors in the line. when someone from behind us came near us to accuse us of cutting in line they were so protective nd didnt even allude to me not being part of their group despite me not knowing them well nor understanding their language and i just. i could just sit there it was wild.

- meeting @yeonjunicorn who was beside me at that spot, chilling by a tree. also i do still love when we linked arms w you and your dad and those girls when the hall opened nd we didnt want anyone to lose each other in the crowd like holy shit that was intense

- recognizing a guy from an anime convention maid cafe i used to work at (dont ask) nd telling him abt how hoseok drew my name in a lottery and said it and stuff nd how excited i was, nd he was just like. ok. IGZSAUFSFI LIKE DUDE i felt almost like i shared something that wasnt even that big of a deal judging by his reaction

- meeting a very flamboyant gay army in a group of lgbt army at night when queueing (amsterdam 2018). he asked me nd my friend who we thought his bias was. she said jimin nd he said no nd made me guess. he wore his blanket over one shoulder like it was a huge roman emperor robe and i said jin. correct

- two girls later on near us in the queue being similarly cringed out by ppl behind us singing really loudly nd poorly, not liking the cops that arrived, and buying us dinner despite not even knowing each other well. i regret to this day not talking to them more bc omg they were truly angels 🥺🥺 i should gain more confidence nd just ask ppl more abt adding them online or smth so i dont lose all these kind ppl ive met!!

- people behind us going so through it with queueing nd having not slept that they went there nd joked that the next bts era after love yourself and speak yourself would be called pee yourself 😭😭 nooo

- meeting a belgian army earlier that day nd talking w her bc @trespassers-will liked her bi flag and stuff.

- a year later in 2019 saint-denis day 1 i happened to walk into the belgian army again, not at all expecting it bc initially she'd only go to london, nd we chatted and it turned out we were both about to pick up our confiscated lgbt flags (mine trans, hers bi) at the same booth like HOW in the hell did that happen

- before the arena opened i went up to an army who dressed fully in Angelic Pretty stuff and i chatted w her bc i went to the AP store the day before and like lolita fashion etc and it turned out she didnt even go to the concert that day but the next but wanted to just go to the venue nd walk around. i was very confused at first bc shes white nd spoke french but she actually lived in a south asian country but stayed w someone in paris. also she said she wanted to get into the japanese fancafe so she could attend a japanese bts concert bc those had the best setlists nd amazing organization nd also jist fun insider content on the fc thats hard to find outside it. we had a fun time listening to the soundchecks echoing through to the outside of the stadium.

- meeting up the day after 2019 bts w a czech army ive known from tumblr for a few years (though she deleted her blog) nd saw once before, nd we would meet up at a mac donalds near a certain metro station in paris but there were like 3 of those near it so i kept walking wrong nd tried to rush and fell hard on the pavement and scraped my knee like a dumbass?? but anyway we had 1 hour to meet up before i had to travel to my train again and we had a rly fun time just talking, mainly about university systems and fascism, in particular japanese nationalists i guess bc shes read abt the weird theories those spread?? it sounds weird but it was fun to meet her

- unexpectly meeting two french armys in the metro, who were wearing buttons w my illustrations on it as i had given away a bunch the day before w a belgian army, nd the girls were so sweet nd were ok w me taking a pic of them w the buttons nd i was just so giddy

- once back in rotterdam at the train station i stopped by a drugstore to get some stuff and the cashier told me she liked my (bts) shirt and said she went to see bts earlier that week in london?? dggjfh

[c-ptsdrecovery]

Why it’s So Easy to Gaslight a Child

The parent-child relationship isn’t one of equals—in fact, it’s terrifically lopsided. All of the power is vested in the parent and while it’s a thought that might make you cringe, where there’s power, there’s also the potential abuse of power. A mother controls not just the little world a child lives in—she sets rules as well the table, decides whether it is stable or chaotic, comforting or scary—but she also, as Deborah Tannen has observed, dictates how the experiences and events in that world are interpreted. That’s fertile ground for gaslighting, especially since a child is hardwired to look to her mother for an understanding of how the world works.

There’s a terrible and painful irony in even considering that the very person charged with helping you discover the reality of you—helping you master skills, manage emotions, become sure of your own worthiness and solidity—could be the one who actively undermines you and your reality. Yet that is precisely what an unloving and unattuned mother does.

It takes work to gaslight an adult. In the movie, the bad guy played by Charles Boyer has to manipulate the physical environment—footfalls in an empty attic, the flickering of the gaslights—to make his victim feel crazy. Gaslighting an intimate partner requires a consistent game plan. Boyer uses what he knows about his victim's fears and insecurities to manipulate her, using her love as a cudgel or accusing her of being too sensitive or neurotic when she catches him in a bald-faced lie. Alas, gaslighting a child is, as the saying goes, like shooting goldfish in a barrel.

There’s not much work involved making a love-deprived and insecure child doubt his or her reality. Think big and little (tall parent and loud voice, small child with a voice easy to silence) in the following scenarios:

Carrying a platter of food into the dining room and having it fall, break, and splatter all over the floor. The child registers that the plate is slippery and that’s why it happened. That’s not what her mother says: “You did that on purpose. Why do you always do stuff to make me angry?”

The child is bullied by her older brother. She cries and asks her mother to intervene. She answers, “Well, when you stop bothering him, he’ll stop hitting you.”

Walking down the street with her mother, feeling happy. And then: “Stop skipping. Can’t you ever be normal? Your skipping is making my heels catch in the cobblestones and you will ruin my shoes. Do you have to ruin everything?" (This is a direct quote from my childhood, translated from Dutch.)

The child is told that if she plays quietly and lets Mommy work, Mommy will take her out for ice cream. She spends the afternoon playing and then asks her mother when they’re going for ice cream. The response: “I never promised you ice cream.” When the daughter protests, the mother simply says, “Stop making things up. No one likes a liar.”

Childhood gaslighting? Easy peasy.

Why it’s Hard to See That You’ve Been Gaslighted in Childhood (or Beyond)

The reasons gaslighting is hard to see vary. First, all small children accept the circumstances of their household as “normal” because it’s all they know. Second, the child’s hardwired need for her mother’s love and approval actually facilitates her own gaslighting. To recognize gaslighting you have to be confident in your own vision and trust your emotions; most daughters in this position don’t. Finally, as one daughter described it, your mother’s voice may actually be part of a chorus:

"My father always insisted that my mother was the final authority. And my two brothers—one older and one younger—always called me the ‘cuckoo bird’ because what I said or did was supposedly so crazy. When I confronted my mother, she’d simply deny what she’d said or make up a reason for why she acted as she did. I was a bad person, an ungrateful person, and I believed it up until I left home. It was only then that I realized that, no, I wasn’t the crazy person after all. That said, now I’m 30 and, from time to time, I still wonder if my view of things is skewed. It’s hard getting my family out of my head."

Because gaslighting is about control, some mothers may actually amp up the volume when their daughters begin to talk back, question their vision of things, and begin to believe in their own perceptions. That was certainly true in my case, although it worked less and less well as I got older. I no longer believed I was crazy, but my mother’s words and actions were still crazy-making, and I continued to wrestle with the problem of needing her to love me.

I was finally thrown a lifeline in my first therapist’s office when I was almost 22. I had been in therapy for months—which felt like forever—telling story after story about my childhood. I was lying on a couch—yes, the Freudian set-up—and the therapist was behind me. I’d finally gotten used to not seeing him and not having eye contact, and even the fact that he only spoke when I went silent and then only to ask me a question: “Was that usual at your house?” or “How did her saying that make you feel?” I was beginning to despair because nothing was happening, even though I saw him twice a week and he was well-respected, even famous. I was afraid that if he couldn’t fix me, no one could.

One day his voice floated out above my head and I heard him say, “Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that your mother is unspeakably cruel and punitive—perhaps even crazy? Think about it for a moment. What could a three or four-year-old possibly do to deserve that treatment? What are you saying or doing now that justifies the terrible things she continues to say to you? The ways in which she makes you feel awful about yourself?”

It’s a moment I still recall word for word, four decades later. But while that moment effectively shut the door on further gaslighting, it did little to resolve the conflict between my need for my mother’s love and my need to be free of her poison.

The Lasting Legacy of Gaslighting

Gaslighting is emotional and verbal abuse. Like other kinds of verbal aggression, it changes the development of a child’s brain and is also internalized. Believing in the validity of her own feelings and perceptions is often a lifelong battle for the unloved daughter, even in adulthood.

"I realize that my timidity and the way I always second-guess myself get in the way of actually living my life. I’ve been taken advantage of by other people who have recognized my need to please and my willingness to take the blame for anything that goes wrong. But it took me forever to realize that this was tied to my childhood experiences with my mother. Can you imagine? I turned 50 and realized for the first time that it wasn’t about me or anything I did but about my mother’s own manipulative nature. Even so, it’s such an easy habit to fall back into."

There is good news, too: By paying attention to the unconscious behaviors we learn in childhood and pulling them into consciousness, we can set about changing them. The brain remains flexible and responsive throughout the course of life. While it takes time, we can change how we think about ourselves and develop the self-trust our younger selves lacked. It’s in this moment that other explanations for the flickering lights and footfalls in the attic come to mind and we can finally see Mom, the master puppeteer, as separate from the girls we were and the women we are now.

[commentaryvorg]

An anon sent me a series of asks to my main blog, but since they mentioned my commentary a few times in it, I feel like it'd be more appropriate to consider them commentary asks and answer them here. Hopefully anon still follows this blog too and will see this!

Dude I watched a complete playthrough of the drv3 a while ago and I just realised what was fucking me up about Kaito's: in his "ultimate fantasy" or whatever, he doesn't think his crush will return his feelings. Right now I think that's to do with his issues with close relationships that you brought up in your commentary, but do you have any other ideas?

thinkin about my earlier ask about kaito's love suite event ... does the dream continue for him when he leaves the room? cause if it does, it likely ends with his ideal turning out to reciprocate his feelings which is kind of sad because of the friendship issues you mentioned in your commentary, but if it doesn't continue afterwards it means he so thoroughly believes that his friends (/fantasy rival) dont care about him beyond his ability to be inspiring that he cant imagine it even in his ideal

WAIT is momota's ideal, a rival, someone who doesn't have the same expectations of him to be strong that a sidekick would have?? like yeah there are some expectations of always being ready to compete and all that but it's more an expectations out of spite deal than expectations to be invincible ideal. for them to even be properly competing a rivalry has to be somewhat close to equal: momota mentions he and his rival being at a complete tie, so his rival doesn't expect him to be invincible.

sorry i keep sending you asks about the love suite event, i read a post recently about momota not believing his ideal would return his feelings and i can't stop thinking about it

So, uh, this has been a bit of a ride for me.

Fun fact: Kaito's Love Suite event was, until today, the one bit of canon Kaito content I had not seen and had no intention of ever seeing. As you can very much gather from all my grumbling about amatonormativity in the commentary, particularly in the first post for Salmon Team, I do not like it when romance gets unnecessarily shoved into my adorable friendships and my characters who usually prioritise friendship over romance. If Salmon Team had not also been heteronormative on top of its amatonormativity and had therefore shoved romance into every character's scenes, including the guys', I wouldn't have covered Kaito's Salmon Team content at all. It’d be the same as how I didn’t cover Kaede’s FTEs because they’re pretty romantic; I'm just not remotely into that, and when such content does exist, I'd rather skim over it and think about anything else. So any of Kaito’s content that really actually was a victim of this mode’s amatonormativity (and let’s be real, while the Love Suite scenes are available in the main story, they really shouldn’t have been and should just be considered Salmon Team content) was not something I ever even really wanted to see in the first place.

The entire concept of how the Love Suite scenes work also makes me deeply uncomfortable even aside from the part where it's glaringly just a cheap excuse to throw in some unneeded romance. The subject has a dream where they act out their ideal fantasy at Shuichi, except Shuichi is awake and conscious and will remember it, and the subject doesn't know this? And Shuichi apparently has to play along and do what they want him to do, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes him, or they'll "have a bad dream" or something, as if their comfort matters more than Shuichi's does? That is massively violating the concept of consent for both people involved here. Ugh. Ughghghgh. And from the handful of scenes I have actually seen (which is admittedly not the worst ones), the writing does not remotely acknowledge how gross and fucked-up this is and just plays it like it's totally okay. Ugh. No.

Of course, there was a small chance that Kaito's scene was an exception to this nonsense and actually had something interesting going on in it that I'd like to see (Rantaro’s and Ryoma’s are actually pretty interesting, from what I remember!). So I had my friend antialiasis, whose judgement I trust on these kind of things, read Kaito’s scene before me and give me a summary. The topic of it seemed kinda fun albeit not especially deeply interesting, but then she described it as "not textually romantic but pretty clearly trying to be shipbait". So I pulled a big Nope on that and decided it wasn’t worth it and I'd be happier never seeing the scene after all.

It was therefore very deliberate of me that I completely ignored the fact that this scene even existed for my Salmon Team posts. I was kind of quietly hoping nobody would notice or care - and I told myself that if someone did care and asked me what I thought about it, they'd have to make a very convincing argument for it being relevant to Kaito's issues for me to decide it’d be worth me cringing my way through the romantic undertones to see the issuey part.

And, well, congratulations, anon, I guess you basically just made the impossible possible, because I went and read it just now.

Aaaaaand it was even more eye-rollingly shipbaity than I was expecting it to be and really not worth it for me at all.

Not that this is your fault, anon! I am not mad at you and there's no need to apologise. I'm really happy that you cared so much about my input on this, not to mention very impressed that you did manage to convince me the scene might be relevant enough to Kaito's issues to catch my interest. I'm also thrilled that you're using ideas you learned from me about Kaito's issues to have been thinking about this yourself even with parts I never talked about! That's exactly the kind of thing I hoped my commentary might do for people!

I'm just mad at the game's writing for being a huge fucking disappointment. Please rest assured that any frustration I express here is entirely directed at the game.

Long story short: I'm not convinced this is a legitimately well-thought-out piece of character writing for Kaito that actually has any deliberate connection to his issues. It just reads to me like whoever wrote it saw the Love Suite thing as an excuse to throw in something shipbaity and romantically-undertoned involving Kaito, and they decided that someone like him would work best with the stereotypical "rivals to lovers" trope, so they just threw together a scene about that.

There's no reason to buy that Kaito's "ideal fantasy" would even be with a romantic interest in the first place. He's literally not shown giving the slightest fuck about romance at any other point in his story! Romantic relationships are not inherently the highest relationship ideal (any claim that they are is amatonormativity speaking and needs to go away), and Kaito in particular definitely seems to be someone who would understand that.

It is interesting to think that Kaito's idea of his relationship ideal could be a rival - someone who's essentially more of an equal to him than a sidekick. All the points that you make on that topic are really great and insightful, and that’s what made me want to check out the scene! But then the scene just goes and shifts to being all about how Kaito has very-obviously-implicitly developed romantic feelings for this rival, and ugh no no no this is not the point and not necessary. If Kaito really did subconsciously think of a rival as being his ideal relationship, someone who's his equal and to whom he doesn't have such a huge responsibility to never let down, that alone would be the point, and his subconscious wouldn't go and then make it about romance!

If this scene is about Kaito's issues as you propose, then it’s as if the writing is trying to insist that Kaito subconsciously knew that he needed to have this arguably more healthy, essentially-equal relationship in order to be able to achieve romance, because romance is obviously the highest goal and what he's really wanted all along and if only he got over his issues then he’d be able to have that in reality! and NOPE nope nope nope that's amatonormative and tedious as all hell and get that bullshit away from Kaito. (The actual "ideal" relationship Kaito should be striving for, though he wouldn't understand this himself, is something like the one I talked about at the end of Salmon Team, in which he's learned to open up to Shuichi and ask for his help too and they are friends and equals who support each other, and that doesn't need to involve romance to be an ideal end goal!)

But also, because the writers of this scene are being so eye-rollingly amatonormative about things, I'm not convinced they even actually thought as deeply as you have about the implications of the rival thing. If they understood Kaito's issues about heroes and sidekicks and friendship to that extent, then they'd probably also be able to grasp the idea that romance isn't the goddamn point here.

So, yeah. You're free to continue to interpret it the way you've been doing if that floats your boat, anon, but my take on it is just that I don't think the writers cared.

I'd also like to throw out there, while I'm here being a Grumpy Aro about things, that someone not expecting their crush to reciprocate their feelings isn't that sad and tragic, at least not from where I'm standing - it's just sensible. Sure, platonic affection is expected to grow naturally through shared experiences and hangouts, to the point that someone feeling like their friend doesn't consider them a friend in return is tragic and probably rooted in some kind of issues. But while romantic attraction can sometimes arise, from all sorts of interactions, it’s never a thing that should always be expected to do so, and it literally can't happen in certain orientations a lot of the time. Not expecting romantic feelings to be reciprocated doesn't have to be related to any kind of lack of self-confidence; it should be the norm. It's just statistically unlikely that they would be.

Like yeah, sure, obviously most people with a crush would like it if it was reciprocated, and so there's no harm in asking. But if the other person doesn't reciprocate, then it's not their fault and not their problem, and it's also not the first person's fault for "not being good enough" or anything like that. That's an attitude that I wish I saw more of outside of aro circles, and it's also something that I'm pretty sure Kaito would already understand and agree with. Respecting other people's autonomy, acknowledging that they exist as their own person outside of how you feel about them and not making their lives about you are all principles that are already a big part of how Kaito treats others, in any context.

[follow-up post to this]

[navk]

An Open Letter to the Reader

Hello, lovely human. It’s me, Naveed - also known via the internet as Nav K. Actually, there’s a lot of people in the real world that still refer to me as Nav K. I always find that oddly amusing, it’s something that just stuck with people. I never thought it would, but it did, and that wasn’t even ever the intention. 

This Tumblr blog was born in 2010, about either a month before or into my university career. That would make it about 9 years old now. Almost a decade. There’s so much here that documents these past 9 years. A lot of personal struggle, world events, politics, rants, debates, sadness, joy, 5am existential crises. 

The purpose of this blog was just to write and have a place to put them. I never had any real intentions other than that. But over time, it grew to be so much more than that. It grew to be a part of a larger community of people, worldwide, that somehow became convinced to strap in and come along for the journey. And that - that by far, is incredible. 

I have no idea how my readership and fpollowercount almost reached 8000 or so. I never really kept track, and why would I? I had no idea what I was doing. It was organic. It was fun. It wasn’t work. It was just a kid in university writing his heart out. Things got gritty. Things got tough. I wrote about love. I wrote about sadness. I wrote about family, friends, and all the things that were happening in the world that I felt so passionately about. 

I always wanted to change the world. But somewhere along the way, I thought to myself that maybe the world as a whole is too big for me to change all at once. Maybe it would be a gradual thing. Maybe, just maybe, I could change one person’s life. Maybe I could impact them in such a way that it would inspire them to do the same for someone else, and so on and so forth. 

But I had no real idea as to how I would ever achieve that. And I never thought to myself that writing would be it. But maybe I’ve been along that very path all along without knowing it. 

Disclaimer, I say maybe a lot. Maybe and perhaps and absolutely. Those are my words. They are so powerful to me, and I love them. 

So people often ask me what inspires me to write. It’s such a simple but complicated question with so many variations of answers. But truly, the most honest answer I can ever give you is that I write because it saved my life. I write because it helped me live another day, helped me see through things I otherwise thought I couldn’t. It helped me survive through the mess of this world, and in a large part, shaped the greater part of who I am today. 

One of my personal goals have always been to achieve the best version of myself possible. Writing has enabled me to be introspective enough and vulnerable enough to identify what I need to one day get there. And I’m still working at it. I know I’ll never achieve it, but the best I can do is come close. 

When I started this blog to share my writing, I was nobody. Actually, I’m still nobody. I never considered myself a writer. I still cringe at the thought of calling myself that. Why? Because I simply don’t think I’ve earned it. I’ve just told myself throughout my life that I’m just a guy who writes. But doesn’t that make you a writer? I don’t know. Maybe it does, maybe not. 

I chose to share my writing as a leap of faith. It was my belief all along that I was just sending it off into the void, never to really achieve anything from it at all. Like a vessel launched into the stars, drifting cautiously towards some distant abyss. But what began happening over the years astonished me. When I think back to it now, it still leaves me in disbelief. 

What happened? 

You happened. You, who maybe happens to be reading this. You, who supported me. You, who shared my writing. You, who shared with me how in awe you were by my words. You, who messaged me privately and shared with me the emotions it evoked in you. You, who provided me with feedback. You, who gave me constructive criticism. You, who cheered me on silently. You, who sent me love and kindness and support and prayers. You, who were so kind to purchase my work and encourage me to produce more. 

You, who saw something in me that I failed to see in myself all those years. I was so grateful to you then, but I never quite allowed myself to accept your kindness. To truly believe in it. It was so hard for me. It’s still hard for me. But I’m learning to be gentler with myself. It’s that introspection that my writing has afforded me that has allowed me to realize how amazing this platform has been for me and despite its waning numbers and inevitable maturity, I am still so, so grateful. 

Sharing my work has never been an easy feat. In all honesty, I hardly ever shared everything I wrote. But then I started sharing less, and less, and less, to the point where I didn’t quite feel okay with sharing anymore. 

I actually attributed a lot of reasons to this, such as the bastardization of writing, the rise of the “instapoet” trend, the “hashtag” poetry, the tweet poems, all that and what not. But if I’m truly being honest, I stopped sharing because I didn’t feel good about the writing, and that was more of a reflection of how I felt about myself for some time. I wrote less, and then I wrote nothing at all. I’d be happy to get a meaningful sentence out on some days, but even those days were rare. 

I couldn’t write. I was stuck. I didn’t seek help. I left it. I left it alone in hopes that it would be there for me. When you’ve written for as long as I have, I would tell myself, it must be like driving - it’s muscle memory. It just comes back. 

But it doesn’t just come back. Nothing is ever that simple. It takes work and effort. And the courage to be vulnerable - with myself - which I had lost somewhere along the way. 

What became of Nav K, the writer, the accidental brand of sorts, was somewhat of a miracle in my own eyes. The fact that this platform has shown so much love and support is, to me, rare and incredible, and perhaps in some ways undeserved, but that’s just me being hard on myself. But you showed your love by elevating my work and having it seen, read, shared, loved by the count of “notes” - ranging from a few hundred to over 160,000. I mean, shit. Thank you. 

What’s the point in all this vivid reflection, you ask?

Well, it so happens that I’m falling (hopefully gracefully) into the tail end of my twenties. Soon, I’ll be 30. And sometime before I fade to dust (okay, I’m being dramatic, but maybe I’m not), I want to be able to really be able to leave something behind in this world that I’m proud of. 

That was the purpose of publishing my own work. It all began with Cheap Therapy in May 2012. I don’t love that book. In fact, I kind of hate it. But so many of you loved it for it’s raw honesty. I’ve had messages from people from all over the planet telling me how much it spoke their truth, that it voiced things that they felt but could not say. 

There was this one instance that someone messaged me saying that they had been reading it in one of their university classes at some point, just casually on their own. Their professor caught a glimpse and asked to see it, read a page or two, and told her that it was actually really good! 

DUDE. I was barely 21 when I wrote that. I was still, technically, an adolescent (in terms of psychological development). But I never let that get to my head. I studied English literature in my undergrad in hopes to become an English teacher (I did, but the market for teachers sucks so much!) and I tried so hard to maintain a sense of honesty and compassion and not even let a literary education get to my head. I just wanted to be real. Always. 

But I never quite felt accomplished. So I self published again. And again. And again. And … yeah, you get what I mean. In total, I self-published about 14 books. Yes, 14. And you’ll never really know or find them all anywhere because there’s a bunch under my name and another bunch under pseudonyms and heteronyms. Yes, I did that. Why? Because I wanted to write so badly that I didn’t just want to be a great writer, I wanted to be 5 great writers. Where am I on that counter? Probably still at 0, because I’m still far from great. 

But then I received other messages too, about how my work has inspired others to write. How it inspired you. How it saved you. How it allowed you to survive. How it allowed you to see yourself out of a dark place. How it allowed you to feel. How it gave you hope. How it made you appreciate the world. How it made you want to love again. How it made you see things differently. 

Not too long ago, I received a random private message on social media from someone (who I obviously won’t name) who told me that they were so inspired by my writing that they decided to pursue it as a career, and that they had just completed their master’s degree in journalism. 

I was in awe, and even that is an understatement. I mean, I did that?! I inspired you? HOW? 

So in a way, I suppose I did change the world, or at least small parts of it. I impacted you as individuals, and I pray that you strive to do the same for someone else. That you seek to enrich and inspire and keep doing good. And to keep striving to be a better version of yourself. And no matter what, never stop creating. 

And that’s what made me realize that I should perhaps take my own advice. 

From my self-perceived worst (Cheap Therapy, 2012) to my best (By Bodies of Water, 2014), I feel as though I still have so much to give to you and this world. I feel like I’ve just begun even though it so often feels otherwise. But that’s the struggle, that’s the process, and that in itself is beautiful in its own way. By Bodies of Water was 5 years ago, and today, it just doesn’t hold up in my eyes as the best representation of who I am and the work that I am capable of producing (most of which I have not shared anywhere, period). 

I’ve never really been good at self-promoting or talking about myself. I’m the worst at it and cringe every time I try. But I realize now, more than ever, that I need your support. That I can’t create work without you. Because this work is for you as much as it is for me. 

In the past, whomever I have utilized an illustrator or designer, I have always tried to pay them for their contribution. Admittedly, this has been incredibly difficult for me because I never really put my work out with the intention of making lots of money from it. In fact, using a platform like Amazon, which I currently still use for self-publishing, takes a significant cut from any sales proceeds because it’s hosted and managed by such an established platform. So, I actually have never been able to have a budget for my books and any work I commission from others by way of illustration or design comes out of my own pocket with little to no hopes of ever really making it back in a sensible way. Yeah, I know it sounds awful, like why would anyone do that, but I did it for the love of the craft. In fact, putting work out with illustrations has resulted in net losses every time, and that’s further driven by the fact that I don’t promote my work. 

Ideally, I would love nothing more than for a publishing deal that remedies these aches and pains fo self-publishing. That’s the dream. That’s the ultimate mark for me, but I have no idea if that is ever going to be a reality. Some dreams stay dreams. But I really can’t let that stand in the way of creating my own mark on this world. 

If you still have love for me or my craft (well, hopefully both, it’s kind of a package deal, ya know?), then I ask for your support. I ask for you to help share my work, to help contribute to sharing the love and the joy you feel and have felt. 

My publicly posted work can all be found under a single hashtag and contains all 9 years of works posted. Find them here: https://navk.tumblr.com/tagged/navk

If you would like to support my work and help me produce more and pay other artists that I employ and help cover related costs, please consider some of the options below. I would love for you to have something of mine in return, and there is no better way that I can personally think of than to offer you my actual work! 

If you would like to contribute by purchasing my work, you can find physical/digital versions here: https://www.naveedk.com/books

You don’t have to spend anything if you don’t want to. I still believe that somethings in life should be free. I have PDF copies of some works available online for free, or you can contribute whatever amount you choose. Some have a nominal fee attached, some are up to you. Anything helps. You can find them here: https://payhip.com/navk

Pay what you want digital package (500 pages of work /5 books and 1 sample), here: https://www.naveedk.com/downloads

Personalized Signed copies of By Bodies of Water, here: https://www.naveedk.com/signed/water 

If you are feeling generous and would like to simply donate, you can do so here: https://www.paypal.me/navk

- 

As always I am so eternally grateful. Thank you for joining me on this journey. I hope you choose to stay for the ride, because we’re just getting started. 

Find me on social media

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_navk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/_navk

Web: https://www.naveedk.com

Love, 

- Nav K

[gg-astrology]

Update Pt. II: Self-Realization and What I’m Going to do with my Old Posts

i.e. You ever experience having Big Fear of saying something on a subject, but being scared someone/something is going to Crash Down on you with a c/o about how Wrong you are? Here’s how I’m dealing with emotions and expectations and Big Fear of Consequences (incase it helps, but its just my personal experience + thoughts) 💕❤️💗

🚫long post🚫

*this is still just an update on what’s been happening in my life?? So this is literally just what I’ve thought about, processing and dealing with. It’s not really meant to be like - here’s a full-out well-explained educational post with an ending conclusion on the subject. I’m literally just recounting events of what happened and how I feel like I’d do to a friend irl - so I hope you guys can take it as such as well! 

It’s not a big deal but I think it’s good to process, share and talk about overcoming my own personal issues with you guys!! 💕❤️💗

So:

There’s one day where I woke up (when I was still without my laptop) and saw someone comment on my old post. I have tumblr linked to my email for certain notifications - just so I can screen and know what to expect when I come into my inbox/replies.

Basically, it was an old post that I wrote trying to help anon but I was factually incorrect (to the point where I cringed at the first sentence and then shamed myself to bed 5 hours later) This made me realize my Top 10 Nightmare of Tumblr Paranoia had came true (at long last).

It’s probably bad to expect it to happen? But it  happens y know. And I’m actually glad they commented because phew I want to actually make this blog a place where I can actually help people and talk about things more objectively. So heres the thing:

I’m going to go back and clarify parts of it. I’ll mostly keep most of the content intact because I think I had good intentions, I was just Lacking A lot of Fundamental Theory and Boy That’s Not A Good Thing For An Astro Blog NOT To Have.

I want to keep it as a process and archive of how far I’ve come and how much I’ve grown/learnt. I’m? decidedly not that proud of my earlier works - and there’s things I’m still concerned about that I want to go back and address/re-edit so it could be better. But I think it’s low-key kind of fun to see who you are in the past and how present me would view past me now?

It’s like a scrapbook of my astrology journey as well - like yeah I was wrong on things, but seeing me do more research and making actual pieces of work to complement my studies is like a portfolio of what I’ve done, how far I’ve come, how my objectives have changed (if they have/haven’t) what I could stand before but couldn’t stand now, or maybe some inspiration/insights that I lack now that I might’ve had before. Idk? I just think it’s a cool neat thing to not delete or erase, or Big Fear people will come see because it’s. It’s just there and it’s me.

BUT I do think? I should make it Good for everyone who still have access to the past works. It’s basically in my masterlist so it’s available to literally everyone who decides to check. And it’s NOT good if people get the wrong info because I lacked the knowledge and wrote it in a post, and still made the post accessible to everyone. That’s just.. irresponsible? On my part. And how I put everyone else up to it as well bc of my irresponsibility.

That’s Not Good. So I’m gonna do better to scan through past works and hash it out bit by bit, it’ll take some time but I’ll start with the one that was pointed out - and work my way to other ones as well just to check if they’re ok or not ok.

For Those Who Has The Big Fear as well: 

I mentioned at the beginning, this is just me talking about what I want to do about it. I just wanted to share that experience, how I feel (Complete and Utter Shame, that was mixed with Embarrassment and Horror at myself - took me a good 3 days to Process my Feelings and came to that conclusion) -- and just y know --  I’m sure this is not just a Me Thing where you see your past stuff and you Know you’re embarrassed to talk about it. But. It’s not a bad thing. And here’s me living through it.

I think in the future - I’ll continue to be embarrassed by my lack of knowledge because I have a lot to learn. There’s plenty of people - you, me, this new person who seems to know terms you haven’t heard of before, this other person who has very formed opinions on things based on their own knowledge - who learnt things and know things.

It’s? difficult to be on top of it all the time, or know everything if you haven’t learnt about it before. So don’t be ashamed or scared that you don’t? Know everything?

When you’re beginning to learn a subject, I don’t know about others, but me and my friend have this Big Fear of saying the wrong thing or coming off too confident in something that’s Wrong and then someone coming after you/calling you out for it  -- it was a mistake, or a lack of knowledge but you can’t be faulted for that. 

How are you supposed to know something if you didn’t know? That also can’t be shamed. Maybe because we think we have to be accountable for ourselves and our lack of knowledge-- so we don’t offend someone Big who may be more knowledgeable and personally offended by just-- a person not knowing something.

I think we fear the consequences, sometimes more so than talking about it or enjoying the subject in open-ness to each others who have similar interests (there’s also an issue with inadequacy and comparison, but we’ll talk about that later see topic headers below). 

I think the idea that we could get Wrecked and Hurt, Completely Mauled Over by something or someone’s influence/ideas that is Larger than us - intimidates us at a moderately core-level into Not Addressing It (i.e. Not Taking Action/Talking). Because the repercussion seems to be... wild, and Maybe We’ll be a ScrapeGoat of an Unfortunate Event and Thats Not Cool At All Yikes. 

Addressing All The Fears (a Bundle Around This Big Fear Context) 

I’ve talked about it before, like way back earlier in the days. But I’ve always had a Big Fear of this. That’s part of why I get so intimidated when someone I like/look up to follow me?

There’s always the tiny nagging suspicion and doubt underneath my anxiety regarding this topic - like I’m unsure whether they’re going to see how I talk, what I say, what I’m providing for others and cast judgement that it isn’t good enough - like maybe I’m wrong about something and I’ll have to live with it (unreasonable but still, a Fear) and they can See that and Know i’m wrong. That’s a big Shame and Embarrassed feeling for me (i.e. making a fool of myself, which is?? essentially what this is on)

I think throughout my time here... I’ve begun to slowly mend my ideas about that fear. Part of it is because I’ve learnt more, I’m more active in using my skill-sets.

It’s because I have this blog - that I decided I’m going to start it, and it’ll keep me active in learning that I got to build up my skill-set and kept myself in-check from there. I got to interact with different topics and themes, double-check my own understanding of topics/subjects, sure I don’t know anything and everything. All of this is just what I’ve learnt, and me actively learning as I go - and while it was -- Big Fear and Unstable Ground for a while, eventually I learnt to rely more on -- the support system and people who do appreciate you, like you, what they talk about with you. 

You learn to appreciate the systems around you - the ones who interact and likes or ask and talk about stuff. The Fear and Responsibilities gets less and less fearful, because I’ve built trust in others - and it’s a reality check: that not all that’s in my head is good for me. Not even myself and my own thought is as good to me as the reality you live/have around you sometimes. And thats -- a fortunate thing, that’s something to not be taken for granted, and something I have to be thankful for. It directly addresses possible issues I didn’t know I had -- about how much this was weighing on me, by relieving me from it bit by bit as well. 

And that’s what I should note on, because even just a solitary ‘like’ on a social media site-- when you’re scared or unsure of whether you’ve made a right call -- is enough of a support for you to rest a little easier, knowing someone else got what you intended and support you morally as well. 

Standards and Logic: Ideals

I still get Big Fear because of my own ideals - like sometimes I have a mean voice? That just goes ‘you’re an astrology blog - your core/most basic requirement is to KNOW basic facts about astrology’ and then it goes ‘you NOT knowing something about the subject -- something basic, and STILL getting it wrong is absolutely irredeemable’ 

You know what’s the worst part about the mean voice? It’s because it’s my brain, it’s how I reason and logic. This is how I hold my own standards and ideals, and no matter how kind I am to others, my own core self isn’t kind to myself. Fundamentally --- since I couldn’t resolve it, I believe it’s my standard and is underlying in how I treat others too (even if I actively work to Not Let That Happen or Be True, it’s still a part of me).

I don’t want to treat others like that. That’s the scariest part. Part of the reason why it’s so hard - is because we see reason why our mean voice makes sense. To me, that’s objectively the ideal and standard. I already gave it my consent and agreement by understanding it’s logic - and now I fear it.

A part of me just going through this - is confronting this standard issue and my ideals. I think -- all of us who have Big Fear in some ways, understands the logic in just being Good at what you start out to do. Fundamentally, objectively. It kinda makes sense that if you’re going to write about biochem - you should get it right so you don’t fuck up about it. 

But I think you all can tell now - reading it in third person - how you’re allowed to make mistakes? If you’re willing to say that to someone else and understand that-- even if you write about biochem, but you might’ve missed a few marks because you got the answer wrong--- it doesn’t mean you’ve completely jeopardize the subject itself and everyone who’s a master at it. You’ve just made a mistake. And everyone - realistically - realizes how little it matters when you admit or realize you’ve made a whoopsie.

Making Mistakes - Accepting Being Wrong To Not Become an Asshole

A mistake is a mistake, it’s a human error. People fuck up sometimes, but -- we learn from our mistakes. 

It’s just a matter of accepting it in the first place? Being able to accept the mistake is what differentiate being an asshole to actually not letting it hinder you and moving on. 

I think -- just in my case -- I can see why it’s easy to cling on. If you only have your skill-sets to hold onto to, it’s hard to accept any other form of opinions or ideas that challenges it. I think that’s -- ego -- but also defense/offensive action. 

Not -- ‘im offended’ but more like, a tactical offense. I’ve seen people who manipulate others because they only have their skill-sets. Making the audience sway in their narrative and perspectives because they say it’s the ‘truth’ and that they’re knowledgeable or have experiences. I don’t necessarily agree with what they do, but that’s -- not on me, and I don’t care because that’s not something I?? feel comfortable addressing. 

I offered this brief example - because it’s the opposite of ‘well I don’t feel adequate about my knowledge, maybe I shouldn’t say something because I don’t have anything to offer?’ - here’s an example of someone who has knowledge, and is saying something. But is perhaps doing it in a way that isn’t... ideal as well. 

So if you think about the alternative: Which would you rather be? 

We just gotta know how to deal with it and address all the different elements to it as we can (what we’ve touched on earlier: own voice, judgement from others, concrete-starting something and self-expectations, fearful of expectations, not accepting being wrong or making mistakes as an OK thing to do, and how to deal with it kinda)

  Future Embarrassment (Continuous habit of being Embarrassed and Feeling Inadequate About your Skill-sets/Knowledge)

I’ve always thought about this - like how do I stop myself from being embarrassed and ashamed when I can’t fault myself for not knowing before - the only solution I can find for myself is just to do good.

Not suddenly go research and be on top of it with information + overloading myself like That kind of Good-good (‘im good at what I do’ -- not that type of good, confidence in skills doesn’t cover up insecurities and fear, but you can be confident in other areas you can shine light on better about yourself!) 

Do good to me is to chew what I can, say when I can’t, have good intentions and offer the things you CAN give. If it’s insight, clarifications, open-opinions - most people who are coming to you and asking for you are people who appreciates intentions. Just as you expect the same back.

The most consistent thing I’ve ever done is to just be in the mindset of wanting to be good and pushing myself to be good. I’m not saying I’m like -- 100% whole-heartedly a Good Person. But if I just focus on my intent, how it underlines everything, keeping things clear with that intention in mind. As long as I aspire to be good to others, there’s not much else anyone can say to harm me or my motives I think.

Maybe I’m not that good in terms of skill-sets, but more in terms of wanting to do objectively the best that I can, and wanting the best for others. That’s the two things I keep in my mind and goals; in your own heart. Regardless of everything - these two things will keep you going if you truly want and work towards it.

Comparison to others/Inadequacy 

I think that to others - maybe other people who have the same goal in mind; maybe same heart, maybe this would mean to do what they can and perhaps they are capable of achieving skill-sets, overcoming insecurities with knowledge and Not Feel Overwhelmed. 

But I know that’s not for me? Not how I work or the best I can offer - of course I attempt it too and yeah it works sometimes, but my constant and my ideas haven’t been about being right or correct whenever I post or say something (although I strive to try and do it right, as much as I can) -- it’s always been about realistically - what can I do, what can I give that’s 100% me and what’s needed/capable of doing?  

It’s hard because there’s also -- ideals about what IS the best solution. Like when presented with the same problems, same ask. You have two different people who share the same ideals and thoughts - both agreeing that the best way is to do it ‘like this’ - but one does it better and the other watches it knowing they couldn’t have executed it as flawlessly. 

And maybe you’re the other - but that, doesn’t make it any less obvious when you see it in third-person that the other person has their own gift and methods that is just as valuable as the one who did the good execution. They provide and support one another, just have to find their wings and respect, appreciate and cherish (lift up) one another’s skill-sets and capabilities as well.

It’s hard to apply it back to yourself -- that your thoughts, words and knowledge is valuable to anyone or that it’s Not lacking in some ways. What you see of yourself - there’s others who sees it in a more tender way than you do. What you can control, and what you can do best, is to not expect yourself to be unrealistic - but expect to be realistic about what you can provide, if all else fails, anyways. 

Stick to your guns - I’m basically just trying to say that. The feeling of inadequacy (that’s literally the core of it, underneath the shame) is fine -- and yeah. I don’t have? I’ve written alot but I hope this comes through well. 

I’m working through it but I hope, this helps a little. If you’ve read it at all. It’s long and rambly, but I hope this -- helps? Anyone else? Or just myself who’s working through it. But -- I hope this gives strength or support to anyone who needs it. Thanks for reading if you’ve read!!!

[annakie]

It took three and a half months, but I’ve finished my Doctor Who Rewatch.

It’s time to talk about seasons 10, 11, overall wrapup thoughts and some best/worst lists.  Very long post below.

I started doing this back at the end of August as more of a joke when I was going back and cleaning the terrible cringe stuff off the first few months of my blog, then ended up taking that project from when I started the blog in May, 2011 until late 2016.  I realized that I had too much going on IRL right now to revisit my life at the end of 2016 when things took a sharp turn the wrong way, so I haven’t picked that back up again.  I still might at some point.

After the start of the nostalgia tour I:

Cried about Doomsday

Still hated the Manhattan episodes but renewed my love for one of my favorite characters of all time.

Reflected about Martha Jones and being an overly-zealous defender of a fictional character

Cried a lot over meeting and losing River Song in the span of an hour and a half.

Made my way through Season 4 and found myself still mostly loving the show.

Finished Season 4 and was starting to tire of Ten but knew I had more content to get through.

Didn’t post again til I was done with Amy and Rory.  Loved Amy, Rory and River even more, especially Rory.

Watched an episode I remembered I didn’t like just because of the guest actors.  Only marginally helped the episode.

Disliked the second half of season 7 even more than I used to.  Felt meh about Clara.

Warmed to Clara more in seasons 8 and 9.  Still, was ready to see her go.  Loved Twelve, though the first half of season 8 continued to be rough.  Adored the Husbands of River Song for the 6th+ time.

 Took a brief moment to love Bill.

Full disclosure on the rewatch: I skipped most of Fear Her except the first and last few minutes, and actually haven’t gotten back to Waters of Mars or the one 11 Christmas Special with the kids who’s father dies.  I may or may not pick those up in the next week or two.

So tonight I finished rewatching all of Thirteen’s episodes and wanted to talk a bit more about Bill, and then a lot about Thirteen, and some general thoughts about the whole rewatch.

Bill Potts is too good for this world.  I remembered loving her during her season but was blown away on the rewatch with how much I loved her, and almost all of her season.  Her energy, her story, her smile, it’s infectious.  It’s infuriating that so many people didn’t watch Bill because wow she deserved a lot more attention that I feel like she got, and also I feel like the show itself turned a real corner that season.  Season 9, yes, definitely better than 8 and 7.5.  But It’s like Moffat or the writers in general kinda grocked into several important things and made the show more progressive and less cringe?  

There wasn’t an episode I thought was bad, even the more filler episodes like the one in space with the air being a commodity was tense and fun.  I’m not sure I’d skip a single episode.

And then Bill, I think, ends up getting an even shittier deal than Martha in her season.  Left alone for ten years in a shithole mopping up floors, only to be turned into a cyberman and get left extremely traumatized, and sacrifice herself.  A very good story.  A very sad and frustrating ending.  Except that she does get to “transform” and travel the universe with Heather.

Maybe she did eventually go back home and finish living her life from not long after she left in the TARDIS the last time -- it’s entirely possible.  The Memory-Bill in Twice Upon a Time (the Twelve & One crossover) remembered traveling with Heather, which means her memory was taken from some point AFTER.  So maybe she got to be an ethereal being for a long time, and then eventually went home to Earth.  Or maybe she’s still out there traveling the stars with Heather.  Either way, she deserves a good life, and a good ending, even if we never know the true ending.

Twelve -- I love him.  Again, he had a really rough start but Capaldi is an amazing actor and he owned the role. I don’t think it’s actually possible to rank my favorite doctors from the new Who era, they’re all different, all great.  And Missy -- such an amazing villain.  Paired with Simms-Master was so, extremely fun, but even on her own, I think she’s now my favorite incarnation of The Master.  (I’ve only seen a few episodes of Old-Who with Delgado, and I really love Delgado’s Master as well.)  

Nardole was also a fun addition to the season.  I know technically he was considered a full companion and enjoyed him when he was there, but tbh, to me it was all about Bill.

But hey, when Twelve left, it was a good time for him to go -- I really think three seasons is the sweet spot for length of a Doctor.  I was so ready for Thirteen and The Fam.

I remembered loving Thirteen when her episodes were airing and, I was right to.  Jodie Whittaker is so good -- I never doubt for a second that she’s The Doctor.  The show one again feels very different with a new doctor / companions / showrunner.  I honestly loved the lack of Doctor-Angst in the season.  Thirteen is so much more brightness and sunshine and I think it was a good way to swing the Doctor after Twelve.  I also liked that there were a few comments about changing genders, a little bit of frustration from noticing how people treated her differently, but it was neither an earthshattering thing that made EVERYTHING DIFFERENT nor was it a non-event.  I really think they handled it well.

I will say that I think some of the critics were right, that the season itself could have used a bit more of an arc.  Not a heavy arc, like seasons five and six had, but a bit more than Tim Shaw showing up in the first and last episodes of the season.  It looks like next season is going to have that.

The arc that was there though really came from Graham and Ryan’s grief about Grace and their relationship growing.  Honestly, I remember when we learned that one of the new companions was going to be a 60-ish year old dude I wasn’t looking forward to that at all, but honestly, I love Graham.  He’s an actual good guy, he loves deeply, he’s allowed to show his emotions, he handles things WELL.  He’s not perfect but also I felt like they wrote his character so well, he wasn’t an arrogant guy expecting everyone to follow his orders, he cares deeply for Ryan and even had some great scenes with Yaz.  

Ryan and Yaz are both also just so fantastic.  I loved getting to spend time with Yaz’s family both current and past.  I actually learned a little history in the episode that took place in Pakistan (and loved having a benevolent alien storyline there, love that episode so much).  I also loved that they allowed Ryan to show grief and sadness, and vulnerability too.  

I was definitely feeling the 13/Yaz vibes on the rewatch, and although I wouldn’t say I’d be upset if they did end up doing a Ryan/Yaz storyline, I also wouldn’t be upset if they didn’t do any romance storylines at all.  I didn’t miss it this season, and 13/Yaz seemed more likely than anything.

I also loved that they took on racism in a couple of big ways this series.  I felt like the only big swing-and-miss episode was Ker-Blam! where they were so close to really hammering down a good message in the episode and then it felt like Jeff Bezos himself came in and rewrote the last 10 minutes.

TBH there were a couple of episodes that I had COMPLETELY forgotten about, especially the one with Chris North and the big spiders.  Like while I was watching it I had a vague memory of seeing it before, but not up until then.  I’d also forgotten about the New Year’s episode last year with Ryan’s dad.  I only remembered to watch it because after the final episode I was like “Wait, wasn’t Ryan’s dad supposed to be in this season?” and so I went to hunt for the episode.

SO... that’s it.  I was actually a little shocked last night when I finished up the New Year’s episode and realized... I was DONE.  I made it back through eleven seasons and... it was worth it.  

Some final thoughts... and I’m just picking a few things out here off the top of my head, I wasn’t keeping a list all the way through so I’m sure I’m going to think of other things after hitting Post, but here we go.

---------

COMPANION RANKINGS: God Tier: Martha Jones

Faves: Bill Potts, Rory Williams, River Song

I love you so much: Donna Noble, Amy Pond, The Fam (All together!), Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Wilfred Mott

Very very Good: Rose Tyler, Nardole

I Still Like You: Clara Oswald

---------

FAVE SEASON: I mean, it’s still gonna be Martha’s season with an honorable mention of the second half of 4.

If you take Martha Jones out of the equation, it’d probably be either 6 through 7.0, or Bill’s season.

LEAST FAVORITE:  The second half of 7, for sure, and the first half of 8 is kinda rough.  It’d be easy to say season 1, as well, but I don’t think that’s entirely fair, as I think the age of the show really shows there and there was a lot of getting-on-their feet they had to do.  There’s still a lot of good there, you just have to look for it harder.

---------

Favorite Specials: 

The Husbands of River Song, #1 favorite no question

The Day of the Doctor a close second. 

Honorable mention to the Night of The Doctor for the canonical return of Eight.  Seriously, the first time I saw that it may have been the single most joyous moment of New Who for me.

Least Favorite:

I mean, I haven’t rewatched two of them yet since I remember not liking them.  

Also Voyage of the Damned was just even worse than I remembered it.

I Cried The Hardest:

Amy and Rory’s leaving in The Angels Take Manhattan

River’s death in the Library

The end of Doomsday

Danny’s death

The end of Vincent and the Doctor

Prem’s death in Demons of the Punjab, maybe the only single-episode character death that hit me that hard.

Happiest Tears: 

Martha leaves the Doctor

The group in the TARDIS towing Earth home in Journey’s End

Twelve and River get 24 years together

Ryan calls Graham “Grandad”

Jackie and Alt-Pete meet/”reunite”

Heather shows up and... “saves” Bill, they go off on adventures.

Best Twists: 

John Simms Return at the end of season ten.  

YANA is the Master

Oswin is actually a Dalek

Heaven is run by Missy, and the Cybermen. (Damn I really love twists concerning the Master don’t I?)

Bill discovers she IS a Cyberman

Loudest cheers: 

Mickey showing up in Doomsday

Martha laughs at the Master

Rory’s speech at the beginning of A Good Man Goes to War

The Doctor punches a racist who insulted Bill

Best dramatic moments: 

Jack and the Doctor talk about Rose in Utopia

Twelve takes several billion years to punch through a wall

Just This Once, Everybody Lives!

Turn Left

The Doctor says goodbye Idris in The Doctor’s Wife

Missy and the Master’s mutually assured destruction.

Biggest Laughs for a good reason: 

The entire poison scene in the Unicorn and the Wasp

Basically everything about the Doctor attempting to be normal in The Lodger.

Right, putting Hitler in the Cupboard.

Doctor, when I’m on a date, do not put the Pope in my bedroom.

Biggest Cringe: 

Penis-head half-human Dalek

Concrete blowjobs

Anytime a lady slapped/hit a guy not in self-defense

Old goblin Ten / Jesus Ten in Last of the Time Lords

Most of The End of Time part 1

Eleven forces a kiss on Jenny in The Crimson Horror (THAT deserved the slap.)

There’s a lot of things I could point out in season 1 but I’m grading season 1 on a curve.

Favorite non-companion recurring characters: 

Danny Pink

Brian Williams

Jackie Tyler

Worst Villians: 

“Love And Monsters”

“Fear Her” 

The eye-crud sleep monster with Twelve

I kinda wanna say the Daleks are so overdone it’s hard to get excited about them anymore, though I did kinda like what they did in “Resolution” (13′s New Years episode last year.)

OK I honestly don’t know if I want to put “A sentient universe who is in the form of a large frog and just wants a BFF” in best or worst but I feel it belongs SOMEWHERE.

Best Villians:

Missy

Whatever the fuck that thing is in Midnight

House

Got a Raw Deal award:

Adam (Seriously, he was told nothing and did nothing wrong via what he’d been told?!

Donna

Bill (Seriously, TEN YEARS SCRUBBING FLOORS? only to not be saved by 2 hours and then turned into a cyberman and killed again?)

Most Bothersome Lack of Continuity:

The rules for meeting yourself / interfering in the past.

Uh so who was the Not-Danny astronaut in “Listen” anyway?

Most Improved on a Rewatch:

The Fires of Pompeii because... ten and twelve?  It used to be one of my least favorite eps of season 4.

the Daleks in Manahattan episodes I guess just because I liked them more this time though they’re still not great. 

Seeing all of River’s timeline in such a short period of time

Gotta say I enjoyed Planet of the Dead a normal amount when before I used to really dislike it.

Best Premiere of a Doctor:  The Eleventh Hour Roughest Premiere of a Doctor: Deep Breath, since I’m grading season 1 on a curve. Best Exit of a Doctor: Honestly?  I’m gonna give this one to Nine.  He sacrificed himself to save Rose, and he died too soon.  It seemed a fitting end, if too quick.

Roughest Exit of a Doctor: I’m going to go with Eleven here.  It came at the end of what I felt was the worst period of New Who.  The episode itself was... I kind of felt like it was overwraught and didn’t pack quite the same punch as the other three.  Say what you will about the “I Don’t Wanna Go” line with Ten and Twelve needing to be convinced to regenerate at all.  Matt Smith did the best with what he was given, but he wasn’t given much in the entire last run of his episodes after having some of the BEST episodes the previous two and a half seasons.

Best Premiere of a Major Companion: Honestly?  Still gotta go with The Eleventh Hour, for both Amy and Rory and the great way they were both set up and the mysteries of the season.

Worst Premiere of a Major Companion: If you don’t count Asylum of the Daleks (which I thought was great) as Clara’s premiere, then it was definitely Clara’s “The Bells of Saint John”.  No contest.  I don’t think ANY of the rest of them were done poorly, TBH.  I guess I’d have to go with “Rose”, because the Autons themselves are pretty meh and the plastic wasn’t great.

Best (Main) Exit of a Major Companion: This one is more difficult. Doomsday deserves a nod.  Martha Jones walked the world and ended on her own terms.  Journey’s End saw the end of an entire era of companions we loved.  River showed up and died on the same day, but her final appearance is one of my favorite episodes ever.  The Angles Take Manhattan was SO GOOD.  But The Doctor Falls was exciting and tense and tragic.  Hell, even Clara’s final episodes were great.

Honestly, this shouldn’t even be a question.  I can’t choose.  I can’t think of a single one I didn’t love.

Anyway, thanks for reading this, if you got this far!  Know what?  Doctor Who is still a great show, even if it’s not an obsession anymore.  I can see myself doing this rewatch again in a few years, and I’m super looking forward to the next season starting in a couple of weeks!