#What is realistic about putting your hands up and saying the world sucks all the time???

[mintytrifecta]

Sorry but if you say you're "being realistic" or "seeing the world as it is" and then only spout of the negatives then you're not being realistic and your worldview will devour you whole. Pessimism is not realistic. There is no world void of joy and to believe that is to ignore the goodness in the world and only see things in an unrealistic, cynical perspective that is not and never will be how things are. Find some joy in the smallest of things or perish.

[btskitten7]

Silent Grace | x : "When it's good, it's bad"

Ship: Min Yoongi x Fem reader

au/genre: Mafia!au

rating: M

wc: 4k

Chapter warnings: some shady business is going on.

summary: It's Yoongi's big day!! ...maybe

tagss: @shadowyjellyfishfest @baechugff @maunosorioh @shelylamc @princess-sunshyn @scuzmunkie @wanceu @coldcoffee2121 @maunosorioh @massivelyfullenthusiast

Things died down after some time. Yoongi didn’t talk much about the altercation between him and Hoseok. You could tell the pain he harbored for Hoseok. You could only imagine what could have happened between the two. No matter how badly you wanted to ask him, you wouldn’t dare. Undoubtedly, it was a touchy subject, and you wanted Yoongi to be open about that on his own. You knew it was intense.

It was intense enough that Yoonig’s younger brothers practically didn’t exist in his world. His father practically wrote them off. You had to admit that you wanted to know more but you did not want to push any more than what he was willing to share. It was crazy to think that you had been talking to the very one that your man hated without even realizing it. You wondered if that was why Yoongi lost his mind when you came home.

‘Be for real y/n. Of course that is the reason’ you spat to yourself.

You assumed that since Jungkook worked with you, he probably told him about it. You couldn't say you were surprised, and you weren't upset about it either. It was already in the past, and there was no need to bring it up again. Now that you knew Yoongi didn't like him, you had to avoid him and his friends at all costs, especially since they had that big fight.

Realistically, you didn’t have a reason to talk to them any further. You no longer worked at the hospital so you shouldn’t be seeing them anymore. They don’t know where you live so you had nothing to worry about there.

You still felt guilty nevertheless.

While you were deep in your thoughts, you felt Yoongi shift around on his side of the bed, turning his body to face you, briefly opening his eyes, he noticed that you were awake. He lifted his head to look at his phone that was placed behind him, checking the time. He sucked his teeth and laid back down.

“Blossom, it’s 3 in the morning, why are you still up?” Yoongi mumbled as he wrapped his arm loosely around your waist, pulling you closer to him. You turned to face him admiring his beauty underneath the moonlight. His eyes were closed but you could still imagine the sleepy eyes he would give you.

You ran your fingers through his hair, playing with the loose stans gently before answering. “I’m just thinking about stuff, my mind won’t sleep” you answer. Yoongi opened his eyes and looked into yours. He was searching your gaze as you continued to play with his hair. “Thinking about what? If it’s about the fight, you have nothing to worry about, he will not put a hand on you. He’s an asshole but he isn’t dumb.” you shook your head with a small giggle.

“It’s not just the fight itself, it’s the guy too. I didn’t realize you knew him and had a bad history. I just didn’t think Seoul was that small.” You answered putting your hands back under your pillow.

“How could you have known who he was? I didn’t even know it was him you were talking about until Jungkook told me. It’s not your fault, you were just doing your job.” Yoongi hummed in agreement.

“Yeah but technically, I saved your enemy and accepted gifts from him” you admitted but Yoongi just shrugged. “You thought those gifts were from me and I don’t expect you to kill anyone for me.”

You sighed. “I know, but I still feel bad about it.”

“Why? What would have you done differently if you had known I hated him? You wouldn’t have done your job?” Yoongi asked seriously.

You were a bit taken aback by the question. Honestly, although you felt bad, you really couldn’t think of what you would have done or even could have done.

Yoongi chuckled and kissed your lips softly.

“Exactly, Blossom. Don’t worry about it,” Yoongi said, pulling you closer to him. “It’s all in the past now. I don’t hold anything against you. I think it would be unreasonable of me to be upset with you when you didn’t know”

You snuggled up against him, grateful for his understanding. You knew that he was right and that there was nothing you could have done differently.

“Now, blossom, get some sleep,” Yoongi grumbled as he scooted closer to you and tried to go back to sleep. But you still couldn’t sleep. Yoongi knew you too well. “What now blossom?” he sighed.

“I’m sorry, baby but…what am I going to do now? I’m going to be alone a lot since you’re going to be going back and forth doing your mafia stuff” You pouted softly. Yoongi chuckled “Mafia stuff?”

You hit his arm slightly “Yes mafia stuff” you whined hitting his arm.

“It’s not mafia stuff, it’s business,” Yoongi said. “And you’re not alone, you have me”

“But you’re not always going to be here,” you said. “What if something happens to you?”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” Yoongi said. “I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself”

“I know you can,” you said. “But I still worry about you”

“I know you do,” Yoongi said. “And I appreciate it. But I promise I’ll be fine. Seokjin, Namjoon, and Jungkook are always with me.”

“I can protect you too!” You said sitting up a bit. That tickled Yoongi as he began to chuckle sleepily.

“I will call you if I need you to,” Yoongi said pulling you back down to him. “Trust me.”

You sighed and snuggled closer to him. “Okay,” you said. “I trust you”

“Good,” Yoongi said. “Now get some sleep”

You closed your eyes and tried to sleep, but you couldn’t stop thinking about Yoongi and his mafia stuff. You knew he was a good man, but you couldn’t help but worry about him. You hoped he would be okay.

~~~~~~~~~~~

After the altercation with Hoseok, it spread like wildfire. Min found out about it rather quickly and was amused. He didn’t think his son would show his true colors in front of you, at least not in that way. He wasn’t a bit surprised about Yoongi’s sudden violence, he knew his son had a short temper, and that’s how he raised him. Min was a tough man, and he wanted his son to be tough too. Especially after that night too. He taught Yoongi how to fight, how to stand up for himself, and how to never back down from a challenge. Min was proud of the man his son had become, even if he didn’t always agree with his methods.

Min knew that Yoongi had a good heart, but he also knew that he could be hot-headed. He hoped Yoongi would learn to use his temper and properly run the family he knew he could. He was worried you’d be a distraction to him but seeing you bring the anger out of him, more than he could, he knew you needed to stay for the long run. And he was going to ensure you did. You had a hold over Yoongi in a way that he and the family never did. His other sons used to have that same hold but since they’ve been eradicated from the family, it doesn’t matter. But you? He had to make sure you never even think about leaving.

No matter what it took.

“I almost can’t believe he took the bait” Kim joked. Min chuckled nodding as he took a sip of his champagne. “Hoseok always knew how to press Yoongi’s buttons.”

“People in love do unthinkable things. He’s in love, Kim. He'll do anything to protect her as long as his little flower is around. Either to keep his secret or to shield her from how we operate. At first, I thought this would be a problem, but it may be to our advantage. He’d do anything to keep her safe.”

While the men were talking, Yoongi was escorted to his father’s office, clearly annoyed.

As he walked his father’s halls, he heard the whispers about him and Hoseok.

“Do you want us to go in with you?” Seokjin asked.

Namjoon did not want to go in with Yoongi. His father had left a bad taste in his mouth since their last meeting and he wasn’t in any rush to be in the same room for him.

“No. It’s not going to last that long. Just wait for me out here.”

Yoongi strolled into the dimly lit office, his hands resting in his pants pockets as he looked around his father’s forever-changing office. He knew it was his mother's doing. She loved decorating and if she changed one part of the house, the whole house got changed. It was one of her many ways of coping with the fact her husband and her sons weren’t the dream family she dreamed of.

Min’s amused eyes met with Yoongi’s cold gaze. The room quickly grew thick as the tension rose between them.

“I thought you didn’t fight anymore son,” Min said condescendingly, only irking Yoongi more.

This fight has been the topic of every conversation since it happened. He talked about it so much, that he grew annoyed each time it was brought up, even more than hearing Hoseok’s name. It got to the point where he threatened to hurt anyone who brought it up while he was around.

“I don’t fight until you push me to that point,” Yoongi said as he lifted his hand toward the woman offering him a glass of champagne. “I don’t like to act that way.”

Min chuckled.

“What was it like seeing your best friend again? It seems Yn is pretty acquainted with him. You should invite him over” Min poked causing Kim to laugh. “You know old times sake?”

“If your goal is to piss me off then I can go attend to my business,” Yoongi said in a monotone fashion.

“No, I’m just curious as to what the hell were you thinking,” Min began, his voice dripping with disappointment. “What made you react in such a way?”

“Hoseok crossed the line like he always does. He disrespected me as well as Seokjin. We tried to walk away but he insisted on continuing. If I don’t talk disrespect from you what makes you think I’d take it from the likes of him?”

“And fighting in the middle of a restaurant was earning your respect?” Min raised his eyebrow with a sly smirk.

Yoongi balled his fist in his pockets as he listened to his father. “He started it, I just ended it. Hoseok is a fucking snake, there’s no telling what he could have done and Yn was there, I needed to protect her.” his voice laced with anger.

Min scoffed, “You sound like a child. ‘He started it, so I ended it’ Please Yoongi.”

Min leaned back in his chair, his eyes glued to Yoongi. “I raised you to fight, yes but I raised you to be proper. You both should have stood outside and handled your business. As for Yn, you shouldn’t even be out with her. Seen with her. She may not know who you are but everyone else knows who you are and now they know who she is. “ Min started “You fight with your mind first then your assets. That’s the whole point of having soldiers. They handle small things like this.”

“Is this a new philosophy you’ve pulled from your ass, father? I don’t think I’ve heard this one.” Yoongi asked with a dark chuckle leaving his lips. An unsettling silence filled the room as the father and son locked dark gazes.

“If you want to take a stand, do it in a more, fashionable way. Fighting in the middle of a restaurant makes you look tacky and could lose the trust of the community. Imagine if the police had gotten a sick up their ass and tried to arrest you. What a drag that would be. You need to remember. The community trusts me and they know me. They trust you as my son but just because you have my last name does not mean you’d be able to open the same doors I can. You wouldn’t want to lose the crown before you even obtained it.” Min scoffed.

“Fashionable? The only fashion I care about is the one that makes me money. I gave Hoseok a chance, years ago when I told him to get lost and never come back. I gave him a chance when he turned my brothers against me-”

“You don’t have brothers.” Min snapped.

Yoongi sighed and shook his head “Regardless, I gave him a chance to walk away and he chose to return. I’m not going to play nicely.”

“Very well, Yoongi. You might want to keep your little blossom behind closed doors if you must make a point. You never know what could happen. I’d keep her on a tight leash if I were you”

Yoongi rolled his eyes, “She’s not a dog and I already know that. You don’t have to worry about her, I’m going to protect her before I do anything else.”

“Whatever you say, son,” Min said with a sly smirk once again.

Yoongi knew his father was up to something and he didn’t care to find out. He had other things to worry about.

“Oh before you leave, don’t forget that in a few days, it’s time for the ceremony. You need to figure out where Y/n is going to be in your life.”

Yoongi sighed before leaving his father’s office.

~~~~~

Hoseok had no idea he was going to fight with Yoongi. It amused him to know that he still had that effect on him. On top of that, Yoongi confirmed his relationship with you. So that made things all the more exciting.

“So I guess we’ve gotten one step closer to finding out who Yn is,” Taehyung said stretching his hands which were still a bit sore from the fight a few nights ago. “I can’t say that I am surprised though. He’s always been a helpless romantic.” he finished sarcastically.

“She looks so familiar though. The more I look at her the more I feel like I’ve seen her before.” Jimin said.

“Because she went to the same school as Yoongi,” Felix said coming in with his phone in hand and showing them the articles he had found. “She graduated the same year as Yoongi and shared a few of the-”

“Same classes.” a forgotten voice said, causing the men to turn around with wide eyes.

“Ji-hoon…when did you get here? I thought you decided to stay behind in Japan” Jimin said.

“Yeah, that was the plan until Hoseok told me about the altercation with my brother. I needed to come down and see what was going on. I felt it was time for a family reunion.” He chuckled as he made himself comfortable next to Hoseok on the couch.

The men were shocked as he sat so calmly. Ji-hoon hasn’t been in Korea for years. After everything had happened, his father told him if he had ever shown his face again, it’d be the last time anyone would see his face.

“I didn’t think you’d come so soon after us. If anything I thought you’d wait a year at least.” Hoseok said.

Ji-hoon chuckled. “I wanted to see if my father was going to keep his promise to me” Hoseok chuckles but Taehyung and Jimin do not.

“That’s not funny. Your father is fucking crazy. I don’t think he is okay in the head. He will kill you. He already pretends that Yoongi is his only child” Taehyung said.

“Oh, I’m not concerned about that. My mother wouldn’t allow that to happen. No matter how much my father THINKS he is in control. I think I should pay them a visit and my new sister-in-law? Hm?”

Hoesok chuckled as he turned towards Ji-hoon. “Your brother is a bit defensive when it comes to his little blossom”

Ji-hoon eyes widen as he tilts his head. “Blossom? Mm, he used to write about a blossom a lot when we were younger. Some girl he saw at school. I’ve never seen her.”

Hoseok smirked and looked at Jimin and Taehyung.

“You’ll see her soon enough”

Jimin sighed and stood to walk away.

“Where are you going?” Taehyung asked. Jimin stopped but he didn’t turn around.

“I have something to attend to”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's a late, cold evening and the sun is just beginning to set over the horizon. The crisp winter air carries the sound of light snowfall as it blankets the city in a layer of white. In the Min family's grand estate, preparations are already underway for the evening's dinner party. Yoongi was up early, feeling a mixture of anticipation and dread as he prepared to head to his father's estate. Kai had woken up early to prepare the suit he was to wear, all he needed to do was hop in the shower and get ready.

Yoongi was nervous but overall ready to finally take things into his own hands. The weight on his shoulder has gotten a bit lighter since he told you, mostly, everything. He doesn’t have to hide as much anymore which was something that caused him to suffocate. He was ready to experience the world with you.

He thought of all the places he was going to take you now that you were not going to work anymore. Yoongi wasn’t going to take you to meetings and things like that but he did plan on keeping you as close as possible.

After tonight, things could get a bit messy.

Although this is strictly for the Min family, a few extras always manage to get in. There are plenty of women his father has messed with that will find their way into this party, cause problems, or beg his father to figure out a way for them to “join the family.” They’ll do anything to make their lives a living hell for a few hours.

His father has tried to set him up with countless women throughout his life. Some his age and others older. Even though Yoongi made it clear that he was locked in with you, his father insisted.

After Yoongi got dressed, he went to Kai to look for you.

“How do I look?” Yoongi asked fixing his tie. You turned to face him with a smile, standing to your feet, you helped him with his tie.

“You look very handsome.” You kissed his cheeks softly. He looked at you with so much love as he leaned down and kissed your lips. “Thank you, Blossom. Are you ready?”

You nodded and turned to grab your purse.

“I’m ready! I’m also nervous. This is huge for you!” you say grabbing his hand as he held his out towards you.

“It is. I’m just as nervous as you but you don’t have anything to be nervous about.” Yoongi smiled as he led you to the car.

~~~~~~~~

The party is to be held in the grand ballroom, with the whole family and associates in attendance. There will be delicious food prepared by the family's chef, festive decorations, and plenty of guests. As the festivities begin, Yoongi's father will take the stage and make a grand announcement - he is handing over the reins of the Min family business to Yoongi.

Yoongi’s mind was traveling miles a minute. As much as he was pleased to finally have the final say, he was still nervous. Anyone would be. He wasn’t nervous about his abilities, he knew that he could run circles around his father. He was more nervous about the select few who weren’t happy about him taking over.

His father still had die-hard “fans” as Seokjin liked to call them.

This is a momentous occasion for the Min family, and everyone is eager to see what the future holds. Yoongi can feel the weight of the responsibility on his shoulders, but he also knows that without his father's guidance, he can make the best decisions for the family. After a few speeches and toasts, the dinner party will end with a grand fireworks display, signifying the transition of power from Yoongi's father to himself.

You looked around at all the decorations. You were starstruck. Yoongi’s parents’ home was always beautiful but tonight, it was truly beautiful.

Yoongi stood behind you with his arms wrapped around you loosely. He was sipping the last bit of his liquor as you were finishing your wine.

Most people figured that Yoongi would be all over the place. Getting drunk, mingling with people or boasting about it. But he didn’t. He was ready to be the one calling the shots, the one that led his family to generational wealth. He wanted to make sure that long after he was gone his kids’ kids’ kids would be okay.

He didn’t want to be flashy like his father. Yoongi did not want to add anything more for someone to be pissed off about.

Yoongi passed his glass off to the waiter as he watched his father stand at the top of the grand staircase. With a mic in hand, Min was ready to give his grand toast finally saying what everyone was ready to hear.

A roaring applause filled the room as Min stood in place looking over those that were under him. After a few minutes, the claps came to a halt and Min had the full attention of everyone.

“I want to thank everyone for coming out here and celebrating with us this evening. I want to personally thank you for coming out tonight,” he started, “ Today is a very special day. A day that I’ve been waiting for since I first laid eyes on my eldest son. He has been reliable since the very beginning. Always wanted to know and learn about the business and how to make it better than me or my father had ever done. He watched very closely and adapted to everything we needed him to be and his ideas, oh, they’ve been wonderful. He’s thought about businesses that I would have never even thought about. Who knew Yn could get him into buying property and getting into real estate.” Min smirked as the crowd laughed and clapped.

You nor Yoongi were laughing. Yoongi sighed. “So, that was your cover-up?” You asked taking another sip of your wine. “Blossom, please do not start.” He whispered. “I’m not mad, not even surprised,” you said.

“Today is the day that things will change. A new leader will step forth and take over, leading us to victory. This person has kept me informed of everything that’s been going on from every aspect, even aspects that I didn’t even know. He’s trustworthy and I believe he will be the best placeholder until the next change in leadership. Let’s call this a test run shall we?”

Yoongi looked at his father confused. “What the hell is he talking about?” Seokjin whispered to Yoongi. “I don’t fucking know, he’s a lunatic,” Yoongi whispered back. You get a bad feeling in your stomach. It honestly made you want to vomit. You gripped Yoongi’s arm gently and sat your glass of wine down.

“Are you okay, Blossom?” Yoongi asked signaling Jungkook to take your glass from you. “Yeah, I just feel a little nauseous. I need to slow down on the wine maybe.” You said as Yoongi pulled a stool out for you to sit in.

“Now, I want to call my son up here. I want him to be on my side with this.” Min said with a smirk.

Yoongi sighed and turned to Seokjin “Make sure she’s okay.” he said before he walked up the long staircase and stood next to his father.

“Now son…you have impressed me beyond belief. You are so smart, a literal genius. I know you can bring this family to new heights,” he started before wrapping his arm around Yoongi and looking directly at you. “But…,” Min sighed which caused the room to tense up, “I fear you are not ready…”

The room was filled with gasps and whispers. You and Seokjin looked at each other before looking back at Yoongi.

He was pissed beyond belief.

“And what do you mean by that father?”

“I think you need to learn a bit more before I pass it to you. At this time I will announce the one who will be taking your place for now.” Min said with a smile. “It’s pretty close to home as well,” he said rubbing Yoongi’s shoulders

“The new leader of the Min Family is…”

“Kim Namjoon”  

[charliexclayton]

who: c + ? OPEN STARTER (no limits) where: the bar

10am. What was there to do in Arcadia at 10 in the morning, if one didn’t go out hunting like they usually did? That had been a dilemma for Charlie for all of five minutes because the answer was abundantly clear the minute she set eyes on the bar she had become a patron of the last couple of weeks. She had never been a big drinker before Arcadia, even when she had been in college. That wasn’t necessarily a weird thing, lots of people didn’t drink and maybe Charlie wouldn’t be a big drinker now if things were different. Or maybe this was how it was always meant to be. Maybe this had always been in the cards for her, stuck in a town, stuck in her head, stuck stuck stuck. Alcohol, to its merit, did a lot to make you feel unstuck. Feelings felt small and big at the same time when Charlie was drinking. Things sucked and they also didn’t suck. Time passed and also froze

It’s actually kind of insane how much alcohol could put Charlie in an in between space she didn’t really want to leave.

One of the benefits of a town that never had visits from the gaming and liquor commission was that the bar was open, like all the time. Who needs a liquor license when, as far as Charlie knew, this town didn’t even exist on a map? Who is going to enforce liquor laws when you could die at any fucking moment? Might as well go out having a bit of liquid luck in your bloodstream. So here she is, sitting on a bar stool and yapping about evolution (as one does under the influence of copious liquor). She is well aware she’s been shirking her hunting duties, but there are more than enough capable hunter in Arcadia to pick up her slack (As Paz would so bluntly remind her— what a cunt).

“…And then you know they had to come up with that shit like from nothing, whereas we already have the knowledge, the foressssight of this technology existing so realistically right, it shouldn’t take us that long to like invent things like planes or working cellphones or radios if we all like worked together or whateveeerrr. So maybe it is a resource issue but also maybe those fucking little witchesss in the settlement are right about one thing, maybe… just maybe right, hear me out, maybe maybe maybe there is no escape and we should just…” She hiccups, gesturing with a half empty drink in her hand.  “…Maybe we just need to accept that and start building our society. Obviously unlike the Aztecs maybe we can already skip the sacrifices and— and false god worships —the settlement can do that, you know if they want to, there’s nothing wrong with a little sacrifice, that’s I’m sure what Conor would say if— hmm.”

Charlie slams her drink down on the bar top, pivots and leans her head on the shoulder of the person next to her. They are a blur in her vision, but honestly, she couldn’t care less if it means she’s not alone. “I like your warmth,” she whispers sadly up at them. Her eyes start to droop and the hand that was around her drink moves to trace the rim of her glass. “Do you think the world will be this cold forever?”

[jovenshires]

hi katie jovenshires im a big fan. if ur ok with sharing, what ships are in the botb au and what are the vibes for each 👀

thank you so much!! <3<3<3

hmm i've been thinking about this and i think i'm only deadset on spommy, ianthony, kolivia, and amangela as far as like. my canon goes. not sure what if any other ships im gonna include... ive gone back and forth with shaymien and shaynse too but not sure!!

but, i will say, for the most part the edits are mostly left up to interpretation so you can all decide whatever ships you want really!! (or if you don't want any ships at all that's cool too <3) like i've said to me the botbau is a little collaborative barbie world that we can all make whatever we want out of. like i told someone the other day - if you wanna write a fic or make an edit or something for this and it doesn't exactly line up with what i might write or think ab the au... PLEASE go for it. it is out there, public domain now, do with it what you will. and i will love and eat it up no matter what!!

as for the vibes in MY head, i will throw them under the cut so this post doesn't get too long KFNLKNKFNF

spommy: i've covered this a little before here so if you want the full version check that out but BASICALLY spommy is kind of rivals-to-friends-to-lovers except tommy has an Extremely one-sided beef and spencer just thinks he's cool and wants to be buds. eventually spencer wins him over and then... uh oh! love! once again skimmin some details that, if i ever Write A Fic for it, will be spoilers. but that’s the idea you know

ianthony: taking this directly from my dms to lilac but basically. ianthony botbau my beloveds....... to relearn how to co-pilot something with someone that should come so second-hand to you but you're both different people now but your feelings carry through anyway for who they were and are and will be........ yeah theyre everything to me. in a way it's a mirror to life/what actually happened to them with smosh (art imitates life) but the divorce era was even MORE famous because they're like a household name so it was a lot more pressure. idk yet if they were together beforehand and then broke up and now they're getting BACK together or if they had unresolved feelings they never dealt with and now they're struggling to reconcile them with their renewed friendship AND reunited band/the fame that comes from that... but either way they are Messy. im obsessed.

kolivia: kolivia in this au fascinates me because in my head keith is kind of known for being a player and fucking around but i think he stopped that Ages ago because. these two are basically dating. like they don't put a label on it and it's not public and i don't even know if THEY know how in love they are. but they live together. they sleep together "just to blow off steam" (come on now). they don't date other people. everyone can see it but them type beat. olivia's like "he's not my boyfriend" and then picks up the phone and is like "hi baby do you want chinese for dinner" NDLFKNANKSFLN like they are exclusive and they have deep feelings for each other but they are both so deeply in denial that they swear they're not dating. they have realistically been in a relationship for like five years.

amangela: RIVALS TO LOVERS AGAINNNN i have talked about this one a Lot with baflegacy bc like. they are my roman empire. at least these two have met on multiple occasions and actually fought with each other - they keep meeting at gigs/in bars and bickering. angela "clearly abba is the best band ever" giarratana and amanda "WHAT about fleetwood mac you DUMB ASS" lehan-canto. like they meet a bunch and EVERY time they end up bickering. meanwhile angela keeps seeing thirst traps of amanda on tiktok and being like "why are all the lesbians obsessed with her she SUCKS" and chanse and arasha, who have heard this three million times, are like "yeah okay buddy whatever helps you sleep at night." meanwhile amanda is living her bliss <3 and then they realize they're both in battle of the bands and uh oh! things come to a head!

[smolwritingchick]

The Bangtan Gal Chapter 58- Fan Sign

Chapter Summary: BTS attend a fansign and Jennie deals with more discrimination as OT7 supporters skip and ignore her during the fan sign. Jennie meets and hangs with Sam Okyere

Words: 5,000+

Genre: Some angst due to mean words from anti fans towards Jennie but ends in fluff!! 

Author's Note: Not sure if they are still active on Tumblr but years ago the outfits were made by Darling-Illustrated! So credit to them! Thank you again for your creativity :) @darlings-illustrated

------

Jennie sat near the end of the table, in between Rapmon and J-Hope for another BTS fan sign. The American had a love/hate relationship with fan signs because there were bad seeds that didn’t like her and only wanted to support the boys. Over the years she has tried hard to make a name for herself. She did not want to be some forgotten member of the group. She seemed to have done well, making an impact as an African American in Seoul but it was inevitable that people just did not like her.

Most of the time, she did not like attending these fan signs and wished that there could be a way that she didn’t have to go. There were usually some OT7 supporters that tended to ignore her and skip her at fan signs, making her feel some type of way.

It sucked and it hurt.

It is 2015. 

Why are you still bitter that a young woman is with a group of guys? Professionally performing?

She didn’t do anything wrong but there were a bunch of antis that just did not like her because she was a girl in BTS.

What can you do?

It was the same reasons.

It’s a dumb idea, why would anyone want this?

This should not happen, it isn’t realistic.

No way in the world they would put a black person in K-Pop. 

Jennie had a hard time putting on a poker face as it clearly looked like she didn’t want to be there and was mentally preparing herself for those who were going to skip her during the fan sign. Most fansites of hers would film her reactions and express concern that she looked somewhat troubled when fan signs are supposed to be a happy time.

The members would notice and give her reassuring smiles, hand squeezes and place a hand on her shoulder for support along with encouraging words, which helped her out.

While signing autographs, there were written questions for her as she wrote down answers on sticky notes.

‘On ALLKpop, there was a poll for who is the best looking foreigner in K-Pop. You weren’t on the list. How do you feel about that?’

Mentally preparing for social media to give their opinions on her answer, she wrote, “Honestly, I’m not even surprised but in reality, who cares about a poll about who is the best looking? As long as you know that you’re beautiful, that should be all that matters. No need for a poll to prove that. I wish they’d stop that, tbh.” 

Some would probably say that she’s saying this out of spite because she wasn’t on the list, while others would agree and support her answer.

‘What male K-Pop groups have you been listening to lately?’

“I really like GOT7, they’re really cool and make some great music. Also, Monsta X and Seventeen. Ever since I came to South Korea, the members have been getting me into good movies, shows, and music.”

BTS had some unique fans and from time to time fans would like to ask Jennie this question, “Can I touch your hair?” and she would always respond with the same answer with a smile, “No, you cannot, hon.”

Jen liked to see male supporters of Bangtan come to the fan signs. Mainly groups have a bunch of female fans and it was a nice change to see guys pop up at fan signs. And those who were not from Korea. She loved the diversity.

“Jennie! Are you looking for any guys, yet?” one guy had asked her, intertwining his fingers with hers.

“Waiting for one to sweep me off my feet. Perhaps, it’s you?” she teased, making him feel shy.

“I-I hope so! Can we have a staring contest?”

She leaned up close to his face, staring closely into his eyes. As they stared each other down for a few seconds, Jennie ended up blinking and the guy happily celebrated.

When another male fan approached her, she sweetly asked questions like if he had eaten today and how he was doing.

“I heard you like to work out with Jungkook. Let’s arm wrestle to check out your strength.” he proposed

“All righty, you’re on!” she put her arm out, clasped his hand and they began. 

Slowly, she brought his arm down and gave herself a pat on the back.

“Ahhh, you’re stronger than I thought. Jungkook will be proud.”

“I hope so too, I’ll be sure to let him know.”

As the fan sign went on, Miss Bangtan continued to write down answers to questions on sticky notes.

‘Who do you think is improving the most in BTS?’

“Jin.” she wrote. “He deserves more recognition. His vocals, his dancing. I’m very proud of him.” 

‘Jennie, how did it feel to be a trainee for a short amount of time? Did you feel ready?’

“It was surreal for them to announce me as Miss Bangtan. I did feel ready because they gave me a chance and believed in me to be here. I won’t take it for granted. I will work hard, so keep being a great supporter and give BTS lots of love, mkay?”

When the next fan shifted over to her, Jennie smiled and greeted her. But, the fan rolled her eyes and went to Hobi instead.

‘And here comes the BS...’ she thought with annoyance as her doubts came back. 

Jen had heard Hobi ask why the fan skipped her and the fan bluntly replied that she just didn’t like her at all.

“Well, clearly you aren’t a true BTS fan if you don’t support all the members.” Jen bluntly pointed out, causing the girl to get annoyed and toss the album she was getting signed at the table, storming off. 

“Wow, really?” she frowned while the rest of the members looked irritated at the fan’s disrespect. 

Everyone around them wasn’t too pleased with the behavior either.

“Sorry, munchkin.” Hobi smiled sadly, giving her hand a gentle squeeze

“It’s fine.” she shrugged.

When given another written question that asked, ‘What do you have that is better than the members?’

Jennie wrote, ‘A big booty. Lol.’

‘Ennie-ah! When are you dying your hair?’ was the next written question as she chuckled at the next common question she was asked ever since debut. 

She wrote, ‘Good things happen to those who wait. I’ll dye my hair when you least expect it. Soon. I know everyone is anticipating it. It’ll be a color that’ll suit me. Please be excited!’

‘What’s your pre-concert ritual?’

“I used to do cartwheels but now I make sure to eat smarties and do jumping jacks to get the blood flowing. It calms my nerves. I also try to warm up my voice and pray before going on stage.” she wrote on the sticky note.

“I know you get flustered with things like this but I think you’re so cute when you attempt to do it. Can you show me some aegyo?” the next fan requested.

“Ah...” Jennie cringed. “Do I have to?”

“Yes, you do.” the fan giggled

“Okay. Fine.” she made a cute face which made the fan laugh.

When given another written question which was, ‘Would you date a fan?’

Jennie wrote, ‘Love is unpredictable. So yes, if someone catches my eye.’

‘Out of all the members, who would you date?’

‘Jin. He always takes good care of me and cares a lot. His cooking is great, who wouldn’t want to date him? Hahaha, we getting some serious SeokJen today, huh? Hope this feeds the shippers. I know what y’all are up to on Tumblr. Y’all crazy, lol.’

“Jennie, are you dating, right now?” another ARMY asked. When Jen shook her head, they added, “If you liked someone, how would you confess?”

“Hm...I think I’d be in denial first, thinking my mind is just acting silly. But I do want to be straightforward with the guy. I’m not quite sure how yet. Next time I’m asked, I’ll think of a better answer.”

“Who would you marry in BTS?”

“You,” Jen answered with a sweet smile, causing the girl to feel flushed.

The question, ‘Is it true you’re an advocate for Taehyung-ah being in Cypher PT4?’ was written on another sticky note

‘I’m REALLY trying to convince Yoongi but he’s not having it. I’m still persistent.’ 

‘Have you thought of marriage?’

Everyone liked to ask people this type of question, but Jen honestly did not have a solid answer and wrote, ‘Uh...not really. I'm trying to enjoy being young and getting my life on the right track. I'm not thinking of marriage right now.’

‘Do the members get mad at you if you don’t call them oppa?’

‘Nah. They’re cool about it. I feel weird calling them that. Plus a little disrespectful? But they’re understanding. I don’t like saying that word.’ 

The next fan approached her as Jen smiled and started signing her autograph.

“Can I ask you a question?” The fan asked

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Can you leave BTS?”

“What?” she looked up in confusion, after signing her autograph.

“Can you leave the group?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you left a group before. You can do it again. Please do it again. For everyone’s sake. The members don’t even like you. I bet they’re so happy when you’re not around.” the female anti glared at her.

Hobi turned to the anti and frowned. “Hey, that isn’t true. If you have nothing nice to say, you should leave.”

“No, I won’t leave.” she turned back to Jennie. “Truth is, no one likes you, here. You are so irrelevant in the group. It’s so stupid to have a girl in this group. Coed groups never work. It should be seven guys and that’s it. And before you even think about calling me a racist, I’m not. I have black friends. You don’t bring anything to the table. Your singing is annoying, you will never be able to join the rap line, you can’t dance half as well as Jin or Rapmon and your guitar skills will never be great. You are slowing BTS down.”

Security stepped in, to try to escort the girl away but she stood her ground. “If there was going to be a girl in the group, it should at least be an Asian girl. Not no American. You stupid Americans take over everything! Now you wanna come here and take over K-Pop? Just leave K-Pop alone and go away! You are too dark to be in K-Pop. Americans shouldn’t even be in K-Pop. Leave already! You already did once.”

Jennie exhaled slowly, trying so hard not to slap the girl. It wasn’t worth it. But lately, people have been testing her patience. 

“Exactly what did I do so wrong to you?” she looked at the Anti fan.

“You’re breathing.”

That was extremely uncalled for and not cool at all. Jennie became so upset that she was this close to grabbing the anti by her hair and dragging her across the table. But that wouldn’t be a good idea for the sake of Bangtan’s public image. She couldn’t do that to the members, no matter how much she wanted to beat the girl’s ass. 

So much for positive thinking...

The members began to get upset at how rude the girl was and started to speak up, while the security guards escorted her out.

“I agree with her.” the next fan approached Jennie.

Wow, so this was all planned out?

Jeez. The Lord was testing Jennie today because she really wanted to attack somebody.

“Joining BTS was a mistake for you. I hate how you want everything to be in English.” They went on

‘I never said anything like that.’ Jen thought with annoyance.

That was just another bad rumor to make her look bad. Antis even had #MissBangtanIsCanceled trending on Twitter a few weeks ago.

“You are so rude, you don’t even call them oppa. You think you know everything. It’s like you want to be Korean but you’ll never ever be Korean. And I hope you don’t think you’re going to be dating anyone around here because why would anyone want to date a pig like you.”

“You done...?” Miss Bangtan raised a brow, trying to keep her anger in check.

“No, I’m not done! You don’t know anything about our culture. You are hopeless. I give you until the end of the year before you decide to leave Bangtan. Because all that you are is a weak little girl that decides to leave when things don’t go her way.” the girl stood up from the table and started to yell at her while security interfered. “How dare you waltz into K-Pop? You had such a short training period and that is unfair to all those trainees that worked hard for years and still don’t have a spot in a group. So what did you do to get a spot in Bangtan? Did you have to pay Big Hit for a spot? How can Big Hit choose someone like you? They should’ve made you leave after the whole GLAM scandal in the company. You should go back to your country! Go back to Africa or whatever ditch you came from! I don’t get why anyone would have a black bastard like you in K-Pop.”

It took the strength of God for Jennie to not punch her in the face. That made her angry and it got under her skin. It was also hypocritical of the anti to say that she didn’t deserve the spot in Bangtan when other idols had shorter training periods than her and still gets embraced by fans. For instance, Yeeun from Wonder Girls and even Baekhyun. 

What was wrong with people these days? All of this for what?

What was the reason?

They had no solid reason to act this way about her. It was sad and pathetic.

“You know what? You’re making me upset. Take a chill pill.” Miss Bangtan responded. “You have no valid reason why you hate me. I bet the reason you’re doing it is because you’re following what others are doing and it shouldn’t be like that. It’s quite sad you’re acting this way. It’s also unattractive. You are so beautiful but no one is ever going to want to date someone with such a disgusting personality. I’ll be praying for you. I hope one day you can support all of Bangtan and not just seven members. Now, I highly suggest you get out of my face and have a blessed day.”

The girl didn’t have anything to say after that, stunned by her response and was kicked out of the fan sign. The members felt extremely bad about how much discrimination she was getting from those two antis.

Jen was so angry, that some tears began to fall and she quickly wiped them as the fansites continued to film.

“Jennifer.” Namjoon placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Are all Koreans, like this?” she asked and shook her head in disappointment. “Is this going to happen every time we have fan signs? ‘Cause this is very tiring and I don’t feel like catching a case on some of these bad seeds because one day I’m going to snap and beat someone’s ass. And I don’t want to do that but they really trying me, Namjoon. I’m so over this. If they think I’m going to leave because of a few bad seeds, they’re wrong. But this needs to stop, like, now. This has been happening for a couple of years now and I can’t take much more of this. I get it, you don’t like me. I don’t care, it’s reality, and not everyone is going to like someone. But do you have to be this unnecessary?” 

As she ranted, Namjoon gave her a pep talk which helped her cool down. After a while, the next fan who approached her looked sympathetic and wiped Jen’s tears from her eyes. 

“I apologize on behalf of those rude antis. They are not BTS fans if they can’t support all eight of you. Please don’t let it get to you. I don’t want to see my bias mad or upset.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it. I won’t.” Jen began to feel calm as she kept her head up high. 

As the fan sign went on, Jennie continued to be in a better mood, having some stickers on her face thanks to some fans, and even was given a Captain American themed headband to wear, which annoyed Jungkook.

“Are you ever going to do any solo work? Like, create a mixtape or a mini album?” she was asked.

“I have a bunch of songs on my laptop that I made over the years but I want to rerecord them when my vocals get better and then I’ll think about releasing them. As of right now, no plans anytime soon. I personally feel like I am not ready for that, yet. I don’t want to release half-assed music for ARMY. Maybe in a few years.”

The next fan had given her a written question and once Jen read it, she chuckled softly. 

“Wow. You guys are bold today, aren’t you?” she asked with amusement.

The question was a personal one. Extremely personal. It boldly asked if she was a virgin. 

“You don’t have to answer. I just saw this all over the internet and was curious.” The fan responded nervously.

This has also been over social media ever since she debuted. All the assumptions are that she sleeps with the members since she lives in the dorm with them. It was just too much. So, hopefully, this will shut everyone up with the rumors and accusations.

Jen wrote, ‘Yes and I’m aware of all the not safe for work comments about me on social media. Y’all thirsty af. I also have seen the various assumptions about me. The first and last time I am making it clear that I am waiting for someone special instead of hooking up. Hooking up is not my cup of tea. I want an emotional connection with someone. Not something casual. And it is sad to see people look so shocked when they hear that someone like me is a virgin. I don’t think me being a virgin is a big deal. Honestly, who cares? I wish people would stop hypersexualizing black women.’

“Can you speak English for me?” one fan who approached her asked, shyly.

“Thank you for supporting Bangtan. It’s people like you that are the reason that Bangtan is here, today. Also, have you tried smarties? They’re absolutely delicious!” she responded.

“Ahhh your voice! It’s so different from when you speak in Korean. I love you, so much!”

“Aw, thanks, I like to be loved.” Miss Bangtan grinned and shared a laugh with the fan. 

The fan had also given her smarties which made her day better.

Another question someone had written was, ’Would you ever get plastic surgery?’

'Nothing against those who get it but no, absolutely not. I don’t want to change anything about myself. I love how my body is, even with the flaws. I’m glad Big Hit loves my natural beauty, unlike one of the other K-pop companies that I auditioned for. One day I'll spill the tea. I'm glad I chose Big Hit, I’ll just keep it at that. To be blunt and honest, the beauty standards here make me sad. We should embrace our natural beauty and not feel obligated to change our looks because of what others want us to look like.’

‘Favorite brands?’ caused Jennie to smile.

‘Nike is my LIFE. It’s a must! As long as you buy me Nike stuff, I’m happy. I also like American Eagle and Forever 21. Oh, and Victoria’s Secret. I love how I look in their expensive af underwear, despite their prices being an arm and a leg. And I like how my butt looks when I wear them LOL. I dunno why but for some reason, I like how some of their red, black and yellow underwear looks on me. I look cute in them. My skin color looks great in those colors. Especially black, I love black. Oh jeez, I think I just gave you Tumblr imagine ideas. Should I be concerned? LOL. It’s cool, I don’t care what you do.’

“Hi, Jennie!” the next fan sweetly greeted her in English, with a bright smile on her face. 

The fan looked about her age and was American, which pleasantly surprised her.

“Girl! You came all the way from the USA to see me?” Jennie couldn’t stop smiling at her.

“Of course! I finally get to meet my favorite idol! You are way prettier in person. And I am so happy that I get to tell you how you made me start believing in myself. Thank you for being you 100%. You are so real and I hope you never change. I hope you continue to work hard in Bangtan and stay in K-Pop. True ARMY loves and supports all members. We love you! I hope you know that.”

The fan's words almost made her tear up as she nodded and held her hand. 

“Always.”

------

A few days after the fan sign, Sam Okyere, whom Jen had been following for a few months now, reached out to her on Instagram via comment about wanting to meet. She immediately responded that she would love to meet him and quickly DM’ed him to figure out a good date to meet. Within the next day, she made her way to a private place where they wouldn’t be disturbed by any fans

After a few minutes of waiting, she felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned to look up to see Sam smiling.

“Jennie, hello!”

“Hi! It’s so nice to finally meet you!” she embraced him. She felt so happy as she felt a rush of positive vibes when in front of him. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you. I really enjoy watching you on Korean TV.”

“Really? Wow, thank you!” he sat down with her.

“I’m glad you reached out to me. I’ve been wanting to for a while but kind of chickened out.”

“We’re here now. Don’t ever hesitate to message me.”

As they got into conversation to get to know each other, Sam brought up, “I heard about what you went through at a recent fan sign. I’m sorry to hear about that.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what I did so wrong. I thought they would be so much more mature than that. The hostility is brutal. It often angers me and I want to yell and scream but public image is everything. How do you do it? I get so angry about this stuff, it’s really frustrating. I know racial discrimination is everywhere in the world. But is there advice on overcoming it?”

“I always think it’s best to try your best to know about the culture and language. Koreans think you’re standoffish if you don’t know Korean. How did they react when you spoke in Korean?”

“Boy, they were pretty surprised, I’ll tell you that. I would get compliments on it and everything. Some even talked to me more once they heard me speak their language. Normally people would hesitate and ask me if I know Korean because most don’t know English, just their primary language.”

“You see that they tend to open up all of a sudden when you know more about their culture.”

“Mm-hm. What’s the hardest thing you faced in Korea with racial discrimination?

“When I attended college, I really didn’t know much of the language then. I didn’t have any friends so I did feel lonely and upset. There was this black music club at the school and I joined as the first black person.”

“Wow.”

“There was this guy I knew and he said that he had studied abroad in Canada and he told me that he understood how I felt here in Korea. So he wanted to treat me better. He wanted to work on assignments with me that I had struggled with and wanted to eat together.”

“That’s really good that he feels like that,” she responded. “I always feel lonely when I don’t see someone who looks like me. Someone that I can relate to. But I do have friends who accept me for who I am and never treat me differently because of the color of my skin or being a foreigner. I hope that people here can learn more about the world and other cultures.”

Sam nodded. “I understand how you feel. It is frustrating. Although I experienced racism here in Korea, people ask me why do I stay. I say that it’s the word, us. Despite the bad experiences, I had good experiences, too. I made tons of amazing friends. Whenever I’m going through a bad time, they tell me, ‘Don’t worry, you can get through this because of us.’ Around Christmas do you ever feel lonely?”

“Lowkey, yes because I’m not with my family.”

“That is also how I feel because I get reminded about my family. Foreigners in Korea, they get the most lonely during Christmas. My friend, he asked me what I would be doing for Christmas and I would tell him that I want to go back to Ghana but the airfare is too expensive so I’ll be staying in Korea. My friend offered for me to spend Christmas with him and I was planning on leaving after the meal but stayed for three days.”

“Wow.” she looked on in amazement. “That is so sweet of him. With Bangtan...” she started chuckling and began to tear up.

All those pleasant memories she spent with BTS hit her hard as she tried to blink the tears away.

“People have no idea how those boys have made my experience in Korea so...painless. Taehyung was the first person I met when I came to Korea. I was a trainee then. He took time out of his busy schedule to hang out with me, show me around places in Korea, and even got me into trying various Korean foods. He is so incredibly sweet and welcomed me with open arms. Supported me while I tried out to try to be the Bangtan Girl of BTS, too. And Christmas with Bangtan...I miss my family but they make me feel like I’m at home. We exchange gifts, fight over who puts up the decorations for the tree, we make a mess, it’s just...pure happiness.” she explained. “And I’ll always cherish that. They always tell me that I’m never alone even if I’m in another country, away from my family. That I have them and good friends who love me for who I am and won’t discourage me. It makes me feel less lonely. “

As they continued to talk, Sam brought up, “I cooked some Ghanaian food.”

“Oh snap, you have? Right now we’re gonna eat that?”

He nodded and smiled. “Let’s bring it out.”

Plates of various foods were in front of them and she smiled. “All of this looks so delicious! Wow. I never tried African food.”

“Really? You are African American?” He asked

“Yes, born in America. All I really had was American food and the soul food that my family makes. I do enjoy eating different foods from other cultures as well.”

”I’m sure you’ll enjoy all of this. Have you learned of your ancestry from black racial groups in Africa?”

“I haven’t but would love to know actually.”

“I can help you look into that.”

“That would be great.”

“Let’s dig in. This is Jollof rice and fufu. But try the soup first.” he pointed out as she took a spoon and tried it.

“I like it.” she praised and took her chopsticks to pick up some meat to dip into the soup. “What type of meat is this?”

“It’s goat meat.”

“Ooh, first time trying this.” she took a bite and nodded in approval. “I like that kick.”

“Yeah, it’s a little spicy,” he responded and ate some goat meat with her.

“And what about this? Finger food?” she pointed to another plate.

“Yes, you eat this with your hands.” He responded and she took a piece and ripped a piece off before placing it in her mouth. “You have to swallow it.”

“Not chew?” she asked, surprised.

“Nah.” He chuckled. “We don’t chew it, just swallow, right away because it’s a soup.” he demonstrated and she mimicked his movements.

“This is so delicious! Thank you for this. I’m definitely telling my mom to try to make all of this.”

Sam licked his fingers clean and she did the same. 

“My mom always tells me to not lick my fingers and to just wipe them off with a towel because it’s not polite,” Jen added. “But how can I not with this soup? It’s so good. I still act rebellious towards her and lick my fingers anyway when I eat.”

“I’m sure your mom won’t mind this time.” he laughed

Sam gestured to her to try the Jollof rice next, letting her know that it was somewhat similar to Korea’s kimchi fried rice. Jen took a bite, eating it with him while sighing in delight.

“Is there like some way you can come by Bangtan’s dorms and cook for me?” she teased and they ended up laughing. “Cause this food just reminds me of home. Like I never ate any of this but I just feel at home. It's so good!”

“I’m very happy that you do.” he beamed as he ate a small chicken leg. “With the chicken, sometimes I even chew the bones because it has flavor.”

“Oh, I have some family members that chew bones too. I never actually chewed on the bones. But I’ll try it today. My mom is a dentist so she was always up my behind on making sure my teeth were well cleaned. I’m sure eating a bone won’t crack my teeth.”

“She sounds very passionate about good teeth.”

“Trust me, she is. It can be so annoying!” she groaned.

“How are you in K-Pop? Are you held to unfortunate high standards?”

“Yes, sadly. I remember wearing a traditional Korean Hanbok and I was so nervous because I knew I would get a wave of criticism about it. And like I predicted, I did.” she shook her head. “Before I came here, I tried to make sure I was prepared and knew a lot of the language and culture. And of course, some claim I’ll be prettier with lighter skin. I will always be respectful here and respect their culture. But I refuse to live up to their beauty standards just because they don’t think darker skin is attractive. I won’t change myself for someone else.”

“I’m glad you have that mindset of not changing for anyone. Keep that. How are you in SOPA? High school in Korea hard for you?”

“You know it took a while for me to transition to their school system but overall, I’m one of those people who enjoys learning in school, so it isn’t that bad. But I still do get stared at all the time, no matter where I am. Being abroad, you learn about yourself and learn how capable you are. It’s a challenge. But I hope that my tolerance will grow as I continue to be here in Korea.”

After their meal, the two embraced, took a few selfies and she posted them on Twitter, ‘Thank you for everything!! It was so nice meeting you! I’m looking forward to hanging out with you again. #Jen’

After meeting Sam, Jen felt her loneliness and doubts decrease and she went back to the dorm with a positive attitude. She was eager to tell her family about learning more about African foods so they could enjoy it together when she was able to go back home.

[lizzydizzyyo]

Listen I'm not american I don't know shit about what you're going through, and to be honest, between the people who keep telling everyone to vote blue no matter what and the people who say both dems and reds are equally bad, idk who to believe anymore because I'm not there.

In perfect circumstance, you won't have to vote for either. The thing is, if you don't want to, you have to put in the work. You have to go down the streets and make your own grassroot movements to make sure you get enough people on board with an independent candidate. You need to do some sleuthing and deep research, quickly. Then stick with that.

I'm sure the "vote blue no matter what" people want to vote for a decent candidate too, but at this point, there isn't one that is feasible. Dems are slightly, marginally, microscopically better, so they latch onto that because there is nobody else. If you want independent candidate to be elected, you need to do more than just reblogging and writing tags about how "vote blue no matter what" people are fucking dense and evil and part of the problem.

These people latch onto dems because they don't know anyone else having good chance of winning, that is just not republican. Yes, you can argue all you want about how Biden is just as bad when it comes to immigration and Palestine genocide issue (although he was trying very hard to find ways to absolve student loan and codify gay marriage before everything went to shit, and for better or worse, he took US army out of Afghanistan in 2021). But you still don't know how much worse/better/similar it would be if Trump were in charge right now. It's not like when Trump held office, there wasn't any major Palestine/Gaza conflict or immigration issue either.

You need to convince these "vote blue no matter what" people to switch to your side, not with derision or insults or swearing or blaming, but by presenting them with an option who actually has a chance of winning. This candidate also needs a lot of backing because they're not just going against one party, but two parties.

You need to choose one independent candidate, at the very least by March, and do hardcore hands-on campaigning for this candidate until ballot day. Again, not with insult but with educating the plus points of this candidate and call for action. You need to be willing to be vocal beyond reblogging angrily on tumblr. You need to get over yourself and get the fuck off your high horse and start picking and sticking to your independent candidate you choose.

As someone coming from a country with upcoming election in 2024 too, who actually has three pairs of candidates to choose from (and mixture of parties, because there are over a dozen parties in my country and they can form coallition freely), it isn't the end-all-be-all that you think it is. It isn't easy or reassuring because the "good" candidate cannot rely on party backing or culture backing (one of the candidate is hardline syariah muslim campaigner so they have religious extremists' backing, and the other is the right hand man of my country's past dictator who reigned terror over the country for decades so they have the military's backing).

It's not the magical solution that you think it is. Some people simply plan to not vote at all because they have no hope that the "good" candidate will win and they don't want to give any vote to the other two either (Sound familiar? Anyone?). "But your country has popular/ranked voting!" Yeah, and guess what, when my country's dictator was the president, the "election" was by popular voting too.

Fact of the matter is, your country doesn't have it, and won't have it anytime soon. So be realistic.

If you want an independent candidate to win, you need to suck it up and be kind to the "vote blue no matter what" people. Present them with hope and solution instead of compounding their already deep sense of impending doom. You're doing yourself, your country, and the world (yes, hate it all you want as I do too, but USA unfortunately has quite a big influence globally) disservice by alienating them instead of inviting them to become your comrades in championing a decent independent candidate.

You need to make "vote blue no matter what" your allies, not enemies.

[businesstiramisu]

Okay I rewrote the post. Thoughts on the last tenth (or so) of Worth the Candle:

[I don't really expect this to be interesting to anyone except me, but i do want to save these for future me, lol]

 I found the ttrpg Fel See Incident much more satisfying than the Aerb version. No, not satisfying, it was horrible. But it was exactly what the story had been building it up to be, for 1 million plus words, and that's quite an accomplishment. Whereas the Fel Seed of Aerb.... I think the problem is scope creep? When the stakes get Too High and the antagonists (or protagonists, for that matter) get Too Powerful my brain just gives up and I disengage. Like "sure, whatever, just tell me who wins". Whereas the ttrpg version, and the real world-level drama around it, felt horribly plausible.

I did like "we'll win the second time because, if Joon had gotten a second chance at the game, he would have let the players win." That was a nice bit of narrative reinforcement/article of faith.

 I love the Long Stairs. It's almost enough to make me think I should give SCP a more serious look, but I'm still worried the horror will be Too Scary for me. (And don't get me wrong I would hate to play a ttrpg campaign in it... actually, maybe it wouldn't be worse than usual? I could just follow the RDP instructions instead of my usual choice paralysis. well, depends on how often they come up. I probably wouldn't like having to make new characters constantly b/c they keep dying.) But like when Juniper wished they could've stayed in the labyrinth and explored the other cultures living there, I was right there with him.

The final reveal of Uther/Arthur..... hmmm, complicated feelings. On the one hand, ugh! why couldn't he just apologize, and admit to being terrible!! Well, he kinda did later... to Juniper, after they'd spent a long time rebuilding camaraderie and basically giving each other a pass for the horrible shit each considered the other to have done. And that was depressingly realistic. Well, idk that anything in my life compares (fortunately) but the most serious, scary arguments in my life have mostly gone like that.

Juniper and Arthur's ultimate goodbye felt appropriate, even cathartic. Raven and Bethel didn't get anything comparable though. Just Uther brushing them off (or in Ravens case saying "I understand this is hard for you but you've got to suck it up", basically). Which, yeah the world ain't fair. It wasn't justice, though. They didn't get their due like Juniper did.

The final conversation withe the dungeon master was also surprisingly satisfying! I liked it a lot more than when Sophie's World did the same thing. (And I've probably read more books that have the character confront the fact that they're characters in a novel, but that's what came to mind lol).

Maybe b/c it was really funny how the DM told Juniper "you're all characters in a novel I'm writing" and Juniper immediately rejected that explanation as bullshit.

Similarly, the Narrator, as the actual Juniper who was writing WTC

Heaven!Fenn though, felt overly self-indulgent to me. Which is maybe ridiculous, b/c the whole story is an exercise in self-indulgence/self-examination, but i dunno she just didn't work for me

Well, it's pretty hilarious that she was The One Person In Aerb Ever To Go To Heaven, and was always destined to be that one person. Hilarious in a pretty arbitrary way.

Someone in the comments to Ch. 245 or 246 said that "Worth the Candle but Reimer died instead of Arthur" is a great fanfic premise and... i dunno, it would be a massive amount of work, but it's tantalizing to think about. Seems like Aerb would have to be very different with--well, idk, would it be a whole collection of Reimer's characters, since he never seemed as devoted to one of them?-- instead of Uthur Penndraig, but with the themes of putting people on a pedestal, using their tragedies as an excuse to wallow in your own grief and depression and rage, and also the DM presumably having the same goals, I have to wonder how much it would even matter?!

Wow, the void beast was a metaphor for global warming?! kinda kicking myself for not picking up on that. Unless I just forgot about it; this story is really long.

[doodleoogles]

It happened again. I got tired, burned out and exhausted from trying. Right now I'm starting to think it may really be my inability to stick to one single good thing in my life. I'm not sure though if I am simply just impatient or I easily give up on people or both. It sucks because I'm not even someone worth sticking around for. When people choose to stay, I find something I am not able to deal with for long. I'm writing this not to justify my poor choices in life but I would like to put it out there that when you're over 30, sometimes your priorities change. To put a little context, we grew up completely different (and yes you're right I should've given it more thought when I was starting to get to know him as a friend years back), I had a rough childhood, learned how to be street smart and all. I had no one to rely on, but myself. I would've wasted my life years ago but realized I want to rise from the rubbles of the world I was born into. I want a better life. Sure I didn't do all the smart things before but I worked hard to be where I am now. On the other hand, he always had an amazing life - supportive family, patient mom who gives him all the best even when he don't deserve it at times. It's true indeed that how children are raised will have a huge impact in their adult lives. This resulted in certain differences in how we handle life. He is definitely willing to compromise and I've seen him change some of the habits I disliked. I tried being patient and give support as much as I could. Of course I'm very much lucky to have someone who accepts me despite everything he knows about me. So why can't I do the same for him? 34 years of living - I put my hands up and say I'm simply weary from having to always take care of people. I want to be taken care of. I want firm decisions, realistic goals and effective plans. The sweet talks and handsome face just don't cut it in this harsh environment. Reality is at this age, I need stability and I could not wait for someone to be at par with the goals I have set for myself. Am I being too harsh for always wanting more? Maybe being alone is really what I am good at. I don't have to worry about anything else. I only have myself to look after. I've gotten used to it so much I cannot see myself even sharing my bed with someone else (my dog and cats are an exception of course). So I guess this is it. I don't want to try anymore. I just don't.

[mariposakitten]

Listen, I get it, it absolutely fucking SUCKS that in a two-party, first-past-the-gate system it's almost impossible to hold a politician accountable for their fuck-ups. It SUCKS DONKEY BALLS that they don't have to do anything more than being marginally better than the other guy; that they can betray us and all we stand for, that they can do evil in our name, and still be assured of our vote.

It is wrong. It's unfair. It's a shitty fucking system. I am ANGRY about it, on a bone-deep level; there SHOULD be consequences! If you fuck up as badly as the Democratic Party has fucked up, there should be some fucking repercussions! You shouldn't be allowed to keep on winning when all the people you represent hate what you're doing!

But this is the system that currently exists. This is how it works. Pretending otherwise is burying your head in the sand.

It is deeply naive to pretend that not voting for Biden will do anything, fucking anything, other than putting a Republican in power. Trump, or (more frightening) someone who thinks like Trump but with a braincell. It is deeply naive to think that any of the issues we're angry about would not get 10x worse with a Republican in charge.

And I understand. I'm angry about Palestine. I'm more than angry. There's a video: a little girl, maybe a year or two younger than my daughter, weeping inconsolably because she found the decapitated head of her best friend. I think about that video every fucking day, it is seared into my soul. I don’t believe in hell, but I believe whoever is in charge ought to invent one for every single person who's had a hand in letting this happen. Biden is on that list. There is no forgiveness in my heart for that man. I am so furious I can barely think straight.

Barely.

Because I have to think straight. Because lashing out in pain and grief and anger is not actually going to make things better. Because the cold hard facts are that Trump or his surrogates would be, at best, just as bad for Palestine; more likely, they would be even worse. While also doing more harm to more people, at home and abroad.

Find me a viable alternative, someone who actually has a snowball's chance in hell of winning, and I'd JOYFULLY vote for them. But the key word there is "viable." In our current system, that is... unlikely.

"So change the system!" No shit, Sherlock! Of course we have to change the fucking system! But if it could be done overnight, it would already be done. Anyone wanting to do a complete overhaul of US electoral politics needs to come to terms with the fact that they're playing the VERY LONG game. And in the meantime, the world continues to turn. Elections continue to happen. The outcomes continue to matter. And if there isn't a realistic option that will make things better, you vote for the option that will do less harm. That will ultimately kill fewer people.

Don't talk to me about morals. If your morals say that you have to sacrifice people's lives to keep your own hands clean (which is what, at this point in time, refusing to vote for Biden would IN PRACTICE do), then your morala fucking suck.

sorry but i want to hit every american talking about not wanting to vote democrat anymore with hammers. lol

[screamingversesintothevoid]

a series of texts sent in conversation after a breakup

You are putting so much pressure and power into the way the two of us are defined in your head, the words dating and girlfriend are combinations of letters strung together we get to decide what they mean, realistically they’re generally supposed to mean that we both decided in a world filled with people who suck, we like or love the other person enough to want to support and spend time with them in a more meaningful way, we are seventeen, this world is big and beautiful and scary and right now the word dating should mean that we’ve found a hand to hold as we navigate the darkness, I cannot make you love me, I can’t make you see it the way I do, And there might be a need to reinvent our relationship to better fit us right now, but the way I see it that doesn’t mean it should end, people changing is a part of life, but I love YOU, every version and if this chapter of your life involves you needing a little more attention or us needing time to work on ourselves, then I want to be there to make sure that happens, I’m not here to stress you out, I’m here because I know that being with you makes me happy, and because I want to support and make you happy too, loving yourself goes hand in hand with creating an environment of people and things that you also love and enjoy, you are allowed to have both and figure both out at the same time, I know you’re scared, and I know definitions and labels are scary and feel very real and important but they only have as much power as we give them, that power can either be placed in a couple of words, or it can be placed in how it feels to hold your hand in mine, it’s up to us

I think it all only feels big and scary and heavy because we are making it feel that way, it’s our relationship, just us, and I think just us is napping in the afternoon and philosophical discussions out of nowhere and talking about everything and nothing and watching tik toks together and falling asleep on the phone it’s holding hands while I’m driving and making playlists and instagram posts, its talking about the future, it’s wanting you by me even if we don’t say anything at all, it’s getting excited for each others achievements and writing letters to each other, its leaning on each other for support when we’re upset, it’s black and ginger cat pictures and just all of the tiny things that make up us together, and none of that is scary or heavy because it’s just us

And then there’s the text I cant send

I miss you so much I miss how things used to be I wish you would be kinder to yourself and let yourself have this if it’s going to make you happy I wish I didn’t feel like every conversation was walking on eggshells like I can’t say anything too deeply into what I really feel or you’ll get scared away like I’m reaching out to a wild animal in the woods and I miss having you here with me I am a fucking mess I haven’t gone a day without wanting to throw up at the thought of losing you but it’s happening before my eyes and I’m completely powerless to stop it and I don’t know what to do because I love you with all of my heart and you can’t even say it back 

[hanzi83]

Wrestling Racism Discourse

Whenever I think maybe for a week I can stop doing a blog because I got my thoughts out plus I am doing it often on the podcast, and whenever I tell myself I am not going to be sucked into the wrestling discourse, you know I always end up giving in because they can manage to have so much thrown at you and if you are online consuming it and other promoted mental illness, someone like me who has mental illness, starts feeling really vitriolic to the system that helps organize and gimmick the discourse where we still don’t want to admit we are basically playing characters online who are trying to act like human beings and I feel I am one of few who is trying to break through from this real life kayfabed shit, and because this discourse is planned out, even if the lawsuit goes nowhere, the fact that is has become cannon online, is basically the system playing with people’s emotions, having their shills set more fires as the world is burning, we need to add more comedy to the situation because apparently we don’t have enough of that in our world. In the last decade, they promoted more diversity and inclusion even if it was still limited, I thought we were going in a more revolutionary direction, but it feels like so much as imploded, that we are now pushing back against the system that is racist, and people who used to claim to be truth tellers are now making excuses for larger racist issues, but will call out the most transparent and cartoonish, over the top shit, like people complain about forced diversity when it seems like a liberal agenda but I never remember a time where the ideology of white supremacy has now a diversity headcount, normally people like that go off on forced liberal minded shit but when people realistically call out the system for the racism, then all of a sudden the people who shit on the diversity head count then use it as a badge of honor when bigger issues get brought up. Like even this situation with the writer who is suing the company, there has to be this fucking doubt about if she can prove this matter, but hasn’t there been enough obvious racism and corruption to kill any benefit of the doubt for this company. If I put this specific situation to the side, in my personal opinion, these entertainment institutions have always had their hand in fundamentalist level shit and it is obvious by who they are aligned with politically, how this alleged mafia world can destroy people’s lives for exploitation so there can be a future documentary about the fall of that person, because once you are a public figure, especially these days, everything is for sale. I know people online want to act like that is not realistic, while they continuously get worked by planted online narratives, and having to cling on to a kayfabed reality of WWE being pure because they momentarily got rid of Vince so you could prolong your unhealthy obsession for this fandom. This isn’t one of those “You people” type of rants, because I feel bad for the brainwashed, and I have empathy for people who used to be human but now reduce themselves to be uncharismatic cookie cutter regressive edge lords, because the system is gonna destroy them. You can get mad at what I say as you and your group chats secretly analyze and make elitist jokes, you can keep doubling down, but the more and more you cross the line in the secretive way you do, it will eventually seep it into your mind, some people can make break free from there but some of these people enjoy this way too much, it feels like you could very well be broken for a very long time, and if it is not there mentally, your nice aesthetic could crumble down. That is how exploitative and mentally ill I perceive the system, even if you don’t buy into my “conspiratorial narratives” I can at least look at the patterns of stuff in the political and entertainment world. There has to be a reason why there seems to be some kind of far right wing pipeline from pro wrestling and since we are headed into a world where we are sports entertaining ourselves into fascism, it becomes scary to see what kind of mindset and regressive shit influential people are doing. 

So these pitches were so over the top and I am not saying they are not problematic at all but I feel since everything becomes material for online narratives, it feels a way for the attitude era reboot online to amplify the racist shit and kind of in an “ironic” way try to amplify the ideas because they want that reality and they constantly will advocate for it but if they have to see someone who is out of the closet and using their identity as part of their character, you have to see people like that cry about it because they might accidentally get an erection because they are self hating closeted people who have embraced sensationalist anti LGBTQ shit and that isn’t people who “don’t give a fuck” they have to make it seem like that so it feels like it is the early 2000’s again and like most bigots they rather be problematic as the cool straight guy rather than doing it because there is self hatred there.  No one who is am employed social climber online politicking for a gig can be taken seriously about their takes on these limited guise of racism, when you have reduced and dumbed down Vince McMahon to an America’s dumbest criminal level villain who randomly calls every other black employee Shelton, because if we make up a narrative that is spread online so we can embrace made up shit and think we are owning Vince. People who got their gigs have tried to discredit everyone who called out a racist system, and didn’t have a mental breakdown the appropriate way. I don’t forget. AEW shills don’t have a leg to stand on when a lot of people piled on Big Swole for not even saying anything too offensive, but valid criticism, she could’ve even gone deeper I feel, but even that tamed down criticism had to push a bunch of racists to call her all kinds of names, and then a bunch of the mentally ill shills, not the over the top mentally ill shills, but the ones who create chaos so they can act out them being the “Jim from the Office” role, those mentally ill shills then suddenly had problems with the company and they could only do it so we facilitate the fucking ego of someone who has already been vindicated in CM Punk. Not saying I don’t empathize with the guy and understand being in an abusive and mafia system it will fuck you up, but sometimes it feels like he has been so into this system that he is creating his own problematic cult and it only matters when he fucking gets screwed over but because someone like Swole is not a big star, it is okay to pile on her and throw her away. Sorry that shit is not acceptable. I will always bring it up. People also owe ACH a fucking apology, and a bunch of these fake ass shit head mental health advocates online saying “Just because you are mentally ill, or have a break down, doesn’t men you can be an asshole” I am not saying if someone crosses the line you don’t prevent it from getting worse, but dealing with a racist system and it goes deeper than just a racist shirt, already dealing with enough of pressure that comes from being a minority in this world, especially a mafia industry that has had some of the worst racism, mental and physical abuse, and corruption, and people gave him a more aggressive exile because he didn’t mentally ill the right away and these people don’t actually care about mental illness because they don’t disclose what drives mental illness to be fueled and they don’t talk about the layers upon layers that could break someone down. 

I am just saying we will look back at racism and past ignorance and denounce it and pat ourselves on the back because it isn’t like how it was back then, but the systemic shit has never fully been explained in this mafia world, and you don’t know how much this shit has advanced and we have paid social climbers to keep up a limited narrative and a lot of times it has lead to going more to the regressive side. This is why people take wrestling seriously because this has seemingly been the playground for other fields and industries have taken from to put out in the atmosphere to manufacture consent. Like when people had an issue with the Apollo Crews character, people online were told that it is racist to not give this shit a chance and it made me second guess myself, because maybe it would be used to mock racism from society and WWE has done that before in 2005 when the Mexi Cools debut, their initial promo was about how this is how America sees them and sarcastically encouraged them to mock them and then proceeded to call the crowd gringos, and then it never got mentioned again and it went on to just be the standard stereotype and this is what Apollo Crews’ gimmick turned out to be. It feels because someday there will be a documentary correlating past shit with current controversies that are real but they are presented gimmicked, this is why they keep throwing repeated documentaries and introducing them back into the public sphere because there will be more twists and turns. If you accept that this might be the reality then it would expose how exploited cogs in the system turn out to be fucked up mentally and some will just go into major depression or others become more successful even if they become more mentally ill, but now they will use their mental illness to use resources where you can fund social experiments and causing more chaos into the world. It feels between the 9/11 character, telling Bianca to talk more “ghetto”, Shane Thorne being a guy who hunts people and one of the people pitched was Reggie, which is not good aesthetic, it feels like it is just another way for WWE to further cement themselves as villains because they have been going that way in general, and when their political affiliates will regain whatever power, they will double down on creating a more regressive product. Like it is easier for the fandom and maybe some of the analysts for this to exist so we can keep denouncing this, but no one is gonna politic for more progressive characters, like when Muhammed Hassan appeared, normally I would get mad that some Italian gets to play the Muslim and for a reduced stereotype, but because I felt his promos in the beginning for inclusive for Muslims to feel like they had a valid gripe against the racism, I felt like I was included, it seems like they will make sure to put effort that there is nothing radical about any character. You can’t even have characters acknowledge in kayfabe there has been racist behavior normalized. MCU just finally started doing that shit, and even in a limited way people will shit on it but they are okay with the regressive shit existing because they can pretentiously denounce it but actually wanting that discourse to exist. We have become parodies in that regard. You would think some of the progressively minded people in the industry would advocate for that, since by default regressive shit is the right wing status quo. People gained credibility for calling out another cog in the system in Hogan who I feel has been designed to be this scandal like figure because that is where the entertainment storylines were going, but what gave it away that it was gimmicked for Hogan mainly, people were ignoring other racists like Flair and we waited until sexual harassment claims to “cancel him” but is he really canceled or was this another way for another celebrity to make this right wing pivot. Again everything I am saying might have some truth, but these are my opinions. Remember you who decided I was to be irrelevant and discredited have weaponized my mental illness, so I am not allowed to use my mental illness to put out theories since I am not important to the masses anyways. 

So this woman will probably have to deal with harassment and people downplaying her claims and they will have trolls look up shit she ever posted and discredit her so they can knock another minority down a notch like you did for that other woman writer who WWE hired and then suddenly the radio shows like Busted Open and other shitty system shills, ones who claim they don’t even watch WWE, suddenly were invested in destroying this women’s life, making fun of her comedy even though their online boosted humor is not that enthralling and I have seen it done by better people. Like even with Mercedes leaving right, I feel like because WWE has systemic control of the entire industry because they are that powerful in my opinion, I feel like when people leave and go onto shine somewhere else, they still orchestrate the booking so Mercedes is supposed to do better outside WWE because they never properly utilized her in kayfabe despite having a loyal following and because Noami is not on Mercedes’s level as far as internet credibility etc, people think they know what her limitations are and make her seem like she is irrelevant and not as talented because she may have not have had the best storylines in the WWE, like WWE doesn’t do a good job limiting people’s full potential, but besides being really athletic, in 2015 before Becky/Charlotte/Sasha aka Mercedes debuted, Naomi was killing it on the mic, she didn’t flat out called out racism, but her promos had that tone of her not getting as many opportunities etc and it was really compelling and people forget that and even though I liked Team BAD, it felt like it kind of didn’t ride out the momentum of what Naomi’s character could’ve been, and I saw potential, and despite her booking she has gotten cosigned by Beyonce and people are into her, but even in the “outside the WWE” narrative, you have a bunch of paid social climbers always doing subtle racist shit and rooting for her to fail and acting like she can’t be anything bigger and a lot of it is fueled in racism. This shit is normalized and this isn’t just random crazy assholes, these people in my opinion are funded by the system to constantly put that out there. So this racism is beyond this over the top scandal that is leaking out and it won’t get any better, it will just create more limited conversations that will always end up bargaining with the right wing side so they can always sneak in their fucking bigotry and ignorance while people are not allowed to have revolutionary characters, they want the regressive nature of bra and panties matches, but they are scared to have another Nation of Domination, or another Muhammed Hassan. We have to give this industry the benefit of the doubt constantly and present it like a mom and pop shop and compare Vince to whatever cartoonish boss from your favorite fucking television show. 

You have to understand how the entertainment we consume daily and has been part of our lives have helped encourage this manic behavior. I was on Stern Show, i don’t know if any of you reading knew about that, it is not like I ever mention it or anything but when his fandom, the regressive types missed his 90’s persona of ignorance because they viewed him going politically correct, so to appease that fandom I felt I needed to say the craziest and most shock jock level thinking even if Howard Stern officially says he doesn’t support that, he will say if you are interesting he will ride with your call, but if you try to act normal he will get rid of you and only when he sense some instability in your head he will amplify you up and laugh at the regressive shit so you feel kind of pressured to do that shit but officially I can’t really put it on Howard, even though you have a feeling someone of his stature wants that kind of shit, so when people think that this shit in WWE is so random and over the top, what kind of culture has that company fostered where people think this is the stuff that would get approved. We have to continuously give these entertainment institutions and corporations the benefit of the doubt. Don’t think because I don’t get my face punched in, that people with power will use their power to amplify more shit to fuck with me, or make my life more uncomfortable. Everyone can be touched, I don’t ever think nothing won’t happen to me, I know I have their attention with my blogs, that is why there has to be extra effort to drive me crazy by having more more ignored and not acknowledged but they miscalculated because they figure I would just explode and go away but me giving my opinions about how this could play out or how this might be playing out, they do get nervous and they have to align with the trolls who have harassed me over the last decade, they have been on the low right now, but when they are on the low that is when I feel the real planning is going on. And anyone who tries to speak about about shit in various ways other than the kayfabed and limited shit, people get fucked with, but I just lose my mind when I see calculated racism being used while we try to create other gimmicked ways for this to be presented. I am supposed to take people’s concerns about physical health seriously when people love to amplify situations where people’s lives are more in chaos and you are making their followers worse mentally since everyone is now kind of part of a cult. Instead of talking about how this mafia industry could possibly have their initiations and sacrifices to the system where injuries are supposed to happen, trust me if they didn’t want injuries to happen, they could easily fix shit to prevent shit in this day and age. Again my personal opinion, like what MJF said which was in real life kayfabe because he mentioned the pay window and winning the match but I hate when these people tweet and delete and then the company’s shills can lie about the responses it got that they swear were so vitriolic, not saying there isn’t that but generalizing the fans when the system is the one who trains these people to accept this. Ever since the Benoit/Eddie situations, people read the riot acts of how it needs to be more safe and it took a while to getting used to because of the attitude era made us immune to thinking it was a big deal, so now you had a generation give a shit about what these people face, and now we are undoing it more and people can’t just change it so now injuries become subject of discourse. So if MJF really gave a shit, he would call out the bosses that want that kind of shit to happen, in fact people will think WWE is too clean cut on some level, but I feel they advocate for it to happen in other organizations because to me it is part of the initiation process, and maybe someday it can change. Also the way these athletes are this day and age, nothing makes sense, I don’t believe it is just good exercise and healthy living, I will be fully conspiratorial right now and think that there is like a fucking super serum these mother fuckers are taking, maybe they can even afford an illuminati clone, who fucking knows. It is impossible for someone like Bobby Lashley to look 20 times younger than he was 20 years ago. This is why I say these celebs are not like regular people, doesn’t mean they don’t deal with some serious shit but they have to make shit relatable, but I don’t disagree with MJF’s sentiment of not trying to kill yourself, and these companies constantly promoting it while pretending they take the health seriously, if I am judging it by the basic rules you are applying, then it just shows me how exploitative the entire thing is. Maybe that is why I cling on to these shitty conspiracy theories because I wouldn’t want to believe people are this fucking soulless that they even have to practice how to emote human vulnerability on queue. So when sports entertainers shills start generalizing the entire community it gets fucking annoying and as much vitriol as I have for other cogs in the system, my main anger is and will always be this shitty system that creates this hell hole yet we continuously give free passes to it and we love to have these heel turns take place, you know John Mulane is going heel, he planted his seeds by first having people hate him for the parasocial shit of him breaking up with his girlfriend, I don’t care about that shit because most of these celebs are in open or fake relationships, part of their storyline arc now is their relationships, then they gimmick his whole appeal about his drug addiction so now it gets used so it can create art, but on tour he brought out Chappelle unadvertised and not being considerate to people who maybe wouldn’t have gone if they knew he was there, and now the John Cena Hollywood hairdo, it is signs of someone going to be used to being a fucking heel since everyone is becoming one these days. These political analysts will reduce and dumb shit down so we are in this right wing vortex of Candace Owens and Steve Crowder so even though they are both pieces of shit, we have to love one side for a little bit, because again everything has to be levitated with comedy and we just continue to water down that more. And you wonder why I just watch Sopranos rewatches, because nowadays I think humor is at its most useless. I am not saying there isn’t anything funny but it feels like everything has to have humor latched onto it and when we keep doing that, we are watering this shit down, haven’t you gotten sick of that already? Does everyone have to be a fucking comedian? This world is going to shit and every day they are normalizing more shitty laws and continued oppression of marginalized groups only for us to represent the issue by what a celebrity is going through but then we have to sports entertain that too, where we are not getting to root causes of some of the repeated behavior in this world. And for what? More documentaries, more social climbers to aspire to be the main character in this discourse. This is how unwell our entire society is and I know, I know, you will get more mad at me rather than getting mad at the people who helped create this and help fund it. Everyone has to devalue everyone and I am not fucking different, I don’t like getting all irrational and lash out because I feel people are selling their soul and to make shit worse and become status quo type of people, why would I want to root for people to get more success so they can become more awful, because the system tries to make you that, some people are not completely gone and they try to counter the propaganda to some degree, I don’t want to be nihilistic, just because I don’t have desire to be in this world as it continues to crumble, doesn’t mean I don’t want other people to be happy in the future and maybe they can be free from this shit on some level. So you might not like my fucking message, but maybe on  some level I am sabotaging myself from getting a gig because if I do, then I will have to become a soulless hypocrite who is being lured into the dark side, I can get myself canceled and then blame the wokeness for it and because these people who get canceled want to hang on to relevancy, the right wing are the only ones saving them, and I know I am not likeable, maybe I would be a better committed heel, it sure as hell easier than trying to be the good guy, but I want to maintain not being a full piece of shit where I fucking trivialize people who have a right to be angry at the system for the shit they do to people, the constant trauma, I am supposed to join that side and become an elitist so I can put people down because I can’t lash out at the real powers that are making me this miserable person. I might never find peace, and I have accepted that, but I don’t want to end up being regressive, I don’t want to be the guy who becomes more conservative the older I fucking get. Maybe being irrelevant and being able to express my irrational thoughts has made it a bit easier not to fall into regressive habits, because anyone who tries to collaborate with me, seems like they are sent to be the voice of the system narrative and keep an eye on shit I am saying. Again if this is not true, again chalk it up to my mental illness and reduce me to a guinea pig and parody that you mock because I don’t want to be an elitist type of person, I don’t even want to be around that kind of shit. If these people wanted to make this industry more exciting, they would let real inclusion to get a voice instead of a diversity headcount, you want everything else back from the shitty and overhyped attitude era, but you don’t want any progressive shit and since we live in an era where it is post BLM protests of 2020, it feels like it is like how it was 20 years ago, where they pushed back against social consciousness and we marketed fake anti establishment people like an Eminem, or Steve Austin, or a fucking Tony Soprano, and we are doing that now, where the person who is “anti establishment against wokeness” gets more traction than someone who wants some more revolutionary change and someone claiming shit is racist, they have now pushed back against it because they might use sensationalist examples of people who had agendas or shadiness behind them to discredit their entire point. So yeah it sucks, and I know me being sad about this going this way is music to people’s ears but trust me, as much as you hate me for going about it the way I am, one day you will be faced with having to deal with these thoughts and the more you double down it will keep getting worse but maybe you are in a mind state where you don’t need to worry because being protected by the system you don’t have to be accountable. I have to be accountable, I have to put disclaimers because I can’t technically prove every theory I have and I don’t expect people to believe me 100 percent and that is fine, I have to accept it. But you have to accept that not everyone has to go down the regressive lane and get a bag to help make the world worse, because when I was dumbed down, me putting energy into shit that I didn’t know was destructive, is bad enough for me and I always tried to look at all angles because even the conspiracy world has even limited people’s thinking and they are the ones who think they are critical thinkers. 

Anyways per usual, this blog gets out of control, but every day the wrestling world knows how to fucking get me to react to this nonstop discourse over and over. I look like the biggest hypocrite who can’t separate from this shit, I really wish it was not this way. I hope there is some progressive revolutionary shit but chances are we are not ever getting that, the more people who buy into the system, they will then have their propaganda that they will be okay with even if it means you can kind of be forward thinking to some degree. Who fucking knows. I clearly don’t have the solutions because look at me, I am irrelevant and my aesthetic is all the wrong things with this fucking world apparently but you guys are good looking and have suits and are going to important events etc, so clearly you are the better person because there hasn’t been a fucked up person who has a nice aesthetic before, but you have the propaganda machine creating villains to match the aesthetic so when they discover my blogs and podcasts, you can lump me in with the worst, and I accept people will assume the worst, but as long as I know I am not the biggest piece of shit on this planet, I will sleep as comfortable as I can be. But whenever this discourse gets propped up, this is what the system wants, mentally ill behavior where we are at each other's throats. So maybe you didn’t like how I put this shit out there, but I am sick of the same repeated discourse over identity politics when there is not gonna be a real solution presented, it is just designed to push back so people can say that political correctness and wokeness is what is driving this world crazy and not the normalized fundamentalism within the guise of entertainment taking us into a more fascist future. Congratulations I guess.

[hyperfresh]

A frustration on procrastination.

In 2016, Linus Torvalds talked about not being a visionary. As an engineer, he looks at the ground wanting to fix the pothole right in front of him before he falls in.

As an aspiring software engineer myself, I can't blame him - but I find it hard to put myself in those shoes. I can't call myself a visionary either.

It's all about procrastination.

I have many coding projects that I've always wanted to get back to. For example, I want to redevelop my custom Discord bot that I made for my own private server. I want to continue building that application that can inform people about fires near them and whether they should evacuate.

I end up never touching those. Yet, I aspire big to where I have all the money in the world and I wouldn't even spend it foolishly. If anything, 100% would go back to the planet. I dream of making a positive impact to the world around me as a person who lives on it and I do not take it for granted.

I dream of things that may not be realistic now, but when I have a stable job. Unfortunately, I'm not there yet. I've got years to go. It hits hard in adolescence with all those ideas in your head, playing pretend with different names, building rocket ships and flying to outer space, and reality yells at you to make money. Sounds familiar?

I find it frustrating that in today's world you can continue to go around in circles and not get anything done. It's bureaucracy at best, corruption at worst. Even with some semblance of employment, it's a nagging cycle between a job provider who doesn't seem to be interested in the best interests of me or my current employer. There's worse examples I know of, but it's just depressing.

It's all about procrastination. Scheduling time in has worked, and even works for my Twitch streams, yet I can't get back to doing what I want to work on because I'm continuously floating up and down on how I want to make a difference to the world and people around me. It sucks that reality would like to stop my plans and glue me back onto the ground.

If only it wasn't that way. Less work, more play, isn't that what they say? And yet, it seems we're going the opposite direction. It's as if the world doesn't care, because it ain't broke until your world is at peril.

If only things were different and you could clap your hands and the world would be united. Yet, a dictator sends troops on a special operation, two superpowers argue over a balloon and the world stands on their feet wondering why there's no way to prevent mass shootings in the only nation where it regularly happens.

Perhaps I'm not the only one who procrastinates to a minor scale. There's people like me, probably more stubborn like me, who don't want to stand up because it doesn't benefit anyone. Well, it's easier to say "have you tried?" than to actually try.

It's about how the world goes around in something humanity should really fix. And yet, incompetent politicians around the world can't get shit together. So the world goes nowhere. And we all procrastinate over it and we stand still. We're back to square one, and I think that's where we will be unless something changes.

Knowing the world, it won't. After two years of a pandemic, political bullshittery and climate crisis, humanity got so tired and went "idgaf anymore".

And who can blame ourselves? It's all about procrastination.

[theyamwizard]

(hi this is my sideblog for rambling)

YEAH the coworker energy between them is incredible. I'm obsessed with the workplace comedy potential of the vione. Dilandau literally would stick a fork in an electrical outlet if left unsupervised.

OKAY ARM THEMES. in a rite of violence against a dragon, which are established as being a mirror of men's hearts, he gets his arm ripped off. his right arm, his sword arm. the arm represents his capacity for violence. once it's gone, the dragon backs off. the violence has been removed from him. he's ready to die, he's at peace with this. he had hangups about killing it anyway.

then he wakes up, not dead, with a big metal robot arm. which he finds explicitly horrifying. like can we take a second to acknowledge the body horror of having a cyborg arm put on without your knowledge or consent?? that thing is PERMANENTLY ATTACHED to his body. it looks heavy. in close ups you can see how the connection points on his chest pull at the skin. it looks super uncomfortable. dornkirk saved him and, without consulting him at all, gave him a new sword arm, with big metal claws full of tranquilizers. he promises him a perfect world without war, and gives him back his capacity for violence, against his will.

folken very rarely uses the arm, despite being established as right handed by the fact that that was his sword arm. which is realistic, arm amputees typically prefer their flesh arms to prosthetics even if its their non dominant hand. thematically, it's because he is a fundamentally gentle creature, and it is his personal capacity for violence. he doesn't want it, but he accepts it because he thinks it's necessary. the same way he feels about all the war crimes. he has to Do Violence to make dornkirks perfect world, but still he can only stomach it when it's from a distance. to do it with his own hands is still antithetical to all that he is. the only times he Uses it (as a hand, he uses the claws twice, once to draw his own blood and once to tranquilize van) as far as I remember are 1, in a few scenes where he Grabs Someone with both hands, 2, dramatic 'join the dark side, brother' gestures, and 3, the 2 times he uses his sword (to disarm van and to kill dornkirk)

in the episode where he joins the good guys, hitomi says "you're just like naria. your bodies were changed..." and I'm OBSESSED with that line and the way he reacts to it. she fucking CLOCKS HIM IMMEDIATELY. the parallel is like "this is a thing that was done to you, by someone you respect and trust, but it's hurting you. it's killing you. you're a casualty in this war too." she meets him for like five minutes and immediately sees through him. BUT LIKE. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIM AND NARIA. is that he regrets what he did to the cat girls and he was WRECKED by their death. dornkirk does not regret anything he's done to folken.

folken never fights. he never hits anyone in the whole entire show, which stands out when everyone in zaibech is slapping their underlings. don't get me wrong he's responsible for a lot of horrible things, but he doesn't do any violence with his own hands until his last scene, when he uses his new metal sword arm for what it was made for, and kills dornkirk. and it kills him! she was right!

his flesh arm represents the violence he was born into, and the metal arm is the violence he was reborn into. the horrible things he has to do to achieve dornkirk's dreams. he almost died the first time he used it to fight the dragon, and dornkirk saved him, but he couldn't change his fate, he was only prolonging the inevitable. in the end folken dies the next time he raises his sword to kill a living thing, because killing fundamentally destroys him but it's what the world demands of him. not unlike the way committing violence damages van and celena. he's a sharp example of the central theme of the show, which is that violence sucks for everyone involved.

(and that's why in my fixit fic in my brain where he gets brought back from the dead with the power of atlantis bullshit he comes back without his arm. so he can finally be free of his violence and work to help rebuild in peace)

found your folken posting and went "oh thank GOD someone who's as fucking insane about escaflowne as me" thank you so much for putting all that into words. I LOVE your analysis of escaflowne. I started watching escaflowne because my friend was liveblogging watching it and I saw screenshot of folken and went "I NEED to see this sad gay clown." after that the autism latched onto dilandau HARD but i still lay awake at night thinking about The Themes of folken's robot arm and writing fix it fics in my head. "a swaggy martyr" you're SO fucking right. I see a character with fallen angel imagery and i lose my mind

oh my word, i hope you don't mind me responding publicly? this is so unexpected and so nice to hear, thank you! i'm really actually relieved my stream of consciousness ranting and raving is hitting because it's hard to see outside of my own ass after letting escaflowne marinate in me for. Oh, God. 20 years?i'm gojna throw up. But my partner has only just now seen it and instantly embarked on some persuasive essays so... There Will Be Posts

lmaooo ok i do love dilandau and folken's big time 15-and-40yo coworker energy. their Boys Night Ins where folken watches dilandau stick a fork into an electrical outlet. he's a damn freak, i completely understand how he commands autistic captivation.

if you don't mind, PLEASE... DO tell me about your robot arm themes and theories! beyond the theme of characters being... forced away from/denying their base selves, the way i've thought about it is like, left a piece of himself in fanelia, is a— hm, ok, this sounds ableist and possibly is, but i wondered if it was a visual representation of him being emotionally spiritually less whole w/o van 🥺 MOREOVER ... AND PUN GENUINELY UNINTENTIONAL BECAUSE I MEAN IT EMPHATICALLY: DISARMAMENT! SWORDS TO PLOUGHSHARES! a strategist, nonviolent... passive, even, perhaps. alright. now you tell me what's up please and thank you

(oh i'm also thinking about nuadha... which in turn reminded me that fanelia was developed with a ""celtic"" influence in the film. sick sick sick)

[docholligay]

As someone who read a LOT as a kid but as an adult, I am kind of burnt out from reading even though it has been a good amount of time since i graduated, (Gifted Child Program so I was going through several books a week) I want to start reading again but I have no idea where to start without having burnout.

So we're familiar with my work, before I answer this. I am a very straightforward person and I don't often mince words. I can't be sitting across from you, and so you can't read my body language. So you'll have to trust that while I'm gonna be a little hard on you, it's done with a smile and the understanding that you wouldn't ask me if you didn't want an honest answer.

First off, we're all a little old to be blaming being a gifted kid. I was also in Gifted and Talented. I am, realistically, neither. That is not me dogging on myself. I don't think I'm a useless or whatever person. I just think, I'm just as gifted and behind, in a patchwork as anyone. I think some people trip on discovering, when they get older, that they were never ever special, they could just read well or do math good or whatever, and it didn't spin out to success in life.

That's...actually not the G&T program's fault. We can argue if the G&T program is a good thing--I think it's mixed bag--and we can argue that one's parent's made you think it meant something, but: We're all adults now, and the statute of limitations on blaming a program that told us we were SMART when we were, what eight to twelve? For our lack of motivation now, is pretty much over. We gotta own our own bullshit, friend. That's the start.

I graduated with a whole-ass double major in literature and history, despite being an ADHD sack of shit I cannot TELL you how many books I read in a week, and how often I read a book in a DAY sometimes because I put it off. I still love to read.

Having read a lot of books when you were ten is not the problem. I say this with my hand on your knee and a kind eye, but its the truth.

You probably loved to read when you were a kid because it was your form of escapism, and as we've gotten older, forms of escapism have gotten incredibly sophisticated and made specifically to encourage addiction/addiction-style behaviors in us. It's your phone. I'm talking about your phone. Flash games, social media, etc, its all designed to fuck with us. And whenever I say this, its ASTOUNDING how many people are like, "well fuck can't do anything about it then" instead of getting pissed off. I got pissed off ahaha. I don't like to be taken in!

So let's take the word "burnout" off the table. I don't find it helpful. I guess if you find it in some way a useful tool, more power to you, but let's refocus our way of thinking about our behaviors as things we control rather than things that happen to us. Just try it on for size for me.

I think reading is a fantastic tool to reteach us how to focus our attentions, and help us regain things that technology intentionally seeks for us to lose. You can absolutely sit and do something for an hour or two, I know this because I would be willing to lay every dollar of money in my bank account on the fact that you can sit and play on your phone for an hour. This isn't me saying you suck, or you're stupid, or anything like that. I can also get caught up in bullshit.

You have to set up specific time to allow reading to work for you, and that means renegotiating your relationship with technology, often. For me, it is reading in the bathtub and putting my phone in another room. I'm not going to get out of the tub, walk into another room, just to see if someone hearted my comment*. I read in bed at night, and at night? My phone gets turned all the way the fuck off. This has helped my sleep immensely, for starters. After 10 pm, or so, I am dead to the world. If there's an emergency, I trust the pony express. The odds are low.

Before I had the baby, Shabbat was specifically set up as a time where I didn't have my phone at all, it got shut up and put in a drawer, and I HAVE to get back to that, it was such an incredible reshaping of my mind and my relationship with myself.

So, like so many things in life, it's SIMPLE, even if it isn't EASY. Pick up a book you know you like--I'm a big believer in pushing ourselves with our media but first things first**. And make time to read it. Start with a half hour three times a week. The phone is not allowed to be around. Let yourself dip back into WHY you liked reading. Let your imagination run wild, let yourself live another person's life, learn to see things in your mind again! Anyone can do it, if they want to. And it's okay...not to want to. If you genuinely would rather play video games and watch anime, that's actually fine. Just be straight up. "I don't like reading. I like to play video games and watch anime." Honesty is the best policy. Don't just say "I love to read but I can't but" just because you wish you were the kind of person who loved to read.

It's like I often say to myself, 'The shitty thing about calling myself a distance runner is it means I have to run distances' as I trod off to run another ten miles ahaha. Like, I think it would be easy to say, 'Oh I love to clean and organize, but I can't because I have a baby" Bitch I love to clean and organize, except for the fact that I fucking hate every minute of it, and my behavior bears that out. I clean! But because I have to, to be a partner and family member. I will NEVER EVER take my spare time to do it outside of my chore cahrt that I force myself into. NEVERRRRRRR. Even with all the time and label makers in the world.

This is because I don't like it. Same with other shit I wish I liked doing: strength training, sewing, drawing.

But I believe I could learn to like those things, if I made it a part of my life. I believe that thoughts often follow actions. Whe I started running, I did not like it, and sometimes I still don't, but overall I love being the person who runs, and I love how I feel after a run.

You can be the person who reads!

*Again, I am human! I also desperately want the validation and connection of these things. But I ALSO know I need to be wary of such.

**Another good way to do this, initially, is to allow yourself comfort with books but not tv/movies. If you watch tv or a movie it has to be something challenging instead of comforting, but in books it can be ca comfort read. Just to start changing associations.

[fics-n-stuff]

A Nice Christmas

Thanks to @gayhistorynerd for the prompt, see here (I kind of deviated from it a little maybe a lot but the story still stemmed from this prompt)

Pairing: Wilhelm × Simon

Summary: Wilhelm may have denied being in the sex tape, but that doesn't mean that the world has forgotten. The Christmas break proves to be difficult for both Simon and Wilhelm, one suffering from ongoing harassment and the other feeling completely isolated, and they find that they can't help but be drawn back to each other.

Word Count: 4.5k

A/N: This took me so long to write because I got writer's block right after I started it. This doesn't have a super happy ending because I wanted to try and keep it pretty realistic, but it is pretty sweet and wholesome.

Taglist: @probablyprocrastinatingrightnow @rika90 @angelwilhelm

Wilhelm had never felt more alone than he did being home for Christmas break. He spent as much time as was physically possible holed up in his bedroom, not wanting to see or talk to anyone, especially not his mother. He hadn’t turned his phone on for three days, he had bitten his nails down to the nailbeds and he hardly had any appetite. The ache in his chest was constant and unyielding.

He lay in the dark most of the time, his curtains closed throughout the day and only sometimes opened at night to let the moonlight in. Besides that, he didn’t have much idea of how time was passing.

He did know that it was Christmas eve though. And it must be the morning because nobody had come to drag him out of his bedroom to join the celebrations. A cursory peek around the curtain confirmed that, as Wilhelm saw that the sun hadn’t even fully risen yet.

A deep breath settled the stone in his stomach, and he reached for his phone with a shaky hand.

When the device turned on it immediately started going crazy with notifications, and Wilhelm felt his heart rate increase with every buzz.

5 messages from August

Ignore.

10 messages from Mamma

Ignore.

2 missed calls from Felice

Wilhelm paused in swiping away the notifications. Felice had called him twice and sent him three messages. He clicked on the message notification, sitting back against the wall and holding in a breath without realising it.

Felice: Hey Wille, how are you feeling being home?

Felice: I just wanted to check in but I can’t get a hold of you, I hope you’re doing alright

Felice: You probably don’t want to talk but you can call or text me whenever you do

Wilhelm sighed. Of all the people that he thought that he could depend on, Felice was the only one that he still had. He swallowed the lump in his throat and called her back.

It rang for a while before she answered, and he’d almost decided to hang up the call when it stopped ringing.

“Wille, good morning.” Felice greeted, cheerful but clearly tired. “Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah, merry Christmas Felice.” Wilhelm replied feebly. His voice was hoarse from disuse.

“Are you alright? Do you want to talk about something?”

“Uhm, I- I don’t know, I just... I don’t know.” He stuttered, wrapping his free arm around himself.

“Okay, well, what are your plans for today?”

“I’m not sure, I haven’t really been talking to anyone. What, uh, what are your plans?”

“Oh, you know, just the usual. We’ll watch Kalle Anka's Jul and play some games before dinner, then we’ll open presents.” She explained. The tinny sound of her voice through the phone was actually quite calming.

“What about for the rest of the break?”

“Um, I’m going to New York to see Maddie for New Year, so that’ll be fun. And I’m going back to Bjärstad on Boxing Day to see Sara. I’m gonna stay there just for one night.”

“So you’ve been talking to Sara a lot then?” Wilhelm questioned, moving to bite at his almost non-existent nails.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Has she said anything about Simon? Do you know if he’s alright?” His words came out more rushed than he had intended. Clearly, he was more eager for some sort of information on Simon than he had thought.

“Um, she hasn’t said much but I think he’s pretty okay.” Felice replied, but it was followed by a small sigh that let Wilhelm know that there was more to the story. “Sara says that things have mostly gone back to normal, but Simon goes out a lot less and she’s had to make her Instagram private. I think they’ve had a few people show up at their house.”

Wilhelm swallowed hard, a feeling of guilt crawling under his skin. Simon’s Instagram account had been private ever since the video had been leaked, so it seemed that now people had found Sara’s too. They had attention on them that they had never signed up for, and Wilhelm knew that it was his fault and he felt terrible for that.

“Okay.” He replied shakily. There was a short silence before Felice spoke again.

“How are you, Wilhelm? Really?” She asked.

“Lonely.” He answered. “Listen, I have to go. I need to take a shower before someone comes demanding that I take part in the Christmas celebrations.”

“Alright well, call me back whenever, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Bye, Felice.”

“Bye, Wille. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Wilhelm ran a hand over his face, letting out a groan of frustration and sadness. Why couldn’t he just be a normal kid?

He stared down at his phone in his lap, gnawing at the nail of his right thumb in contemplation. With a shaking breath and trembling fingers, he picked it back up, opened his conversation with Simon and typed a short message. He dropped his phone in mild panic as soon as he hit send, and rubbed his hand over his chest as he took a deep, steadying breath.

+ + +

“Simon, wake up. Rosh and Ayub will be here soon.” Sara’s voice stirred Simon from his sleep and he rolled over to look at her. She was already dressed.

“What time is it?” He asked with a yawn.

“Nine o’clock. Get up and come help with breakfast.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m getting up.”

Sara rolled her eyes and left the room, and Simon reached out to his bedside table blindly until his hand landed on his phone. He squinted at the screen as he sat up, faltering when he saw the notification on the screen.

Wilhelm: Merry Christmas Simon

He felt his heart race as he stared at the screen, only snapping out of it when he heard Sara shouting at him from downstairs. He blinked, dropped his phone and set about getting dressed.

Every Christmas eve since they were ten, Simon, Sara, Rosh and Ayub would have breakfast together and then go for a long walk. It was tradition for them at this point, but Simon found himself unable to feel excited for it this year. It was all well and good to pretend like life was going on as normal, but it was hard not to feel uncomfortable when people stared at him everywhere he went.

Rosh and Ayub arrived just as he and Sara were finishing up making breakfast, and they exchanged Christmas well-wishes as they sat down to eat.

“You’re being real quiet over there, Simme. You alright?” Ayub asked after a while, and Simon realised that he’d been completely zoned out.

“Sorry, just thinking.”

“About Wilhelm?” Sara questioned. Simon pushed a bite of food into his mouth and shrugged.

“You have to move on, Simon.” Rosh said. “I know you care about him but he’s not worth all the trouble that he comes with.”

“I know. That’s why I ended things.” He replied. “It still sucks though.”

“You’ll get over him eventually.” Sara told him, putting a comforting hand on his for a few seconds before going back to her food. Simon smiled slightly.

He didn’t tell them about the text.

Despite all of that, he was in high spirits when they set out for their walk, happily joking and laughing with his friends, and they made it half an hour before he heard the first comment.

“That’s the guy from the sex tape.” Muttered a girl to her friend as they passed, and Simon felt the smile fall from his face.

“Just ignore them.” Sara told him, wrapping an arm around one of his. He nodded, but it had gotten to him. For the rest of their walk from that point, Simon felt like every person that they passed was looking at him and judging him.

They walked both Rosh and Ayub back to their houses before heading back to theirs just a bit past noon. They had almost gotten home when they were approached by a group of teenagers probably slightly younger than them.

“Are you the guy from that viral sex tape?” One of the boys asked unabashedly, the group coming right up in front of Simon and Sara and blocking their path.

“Uh, I don’t want to talk about that.” Simon replied stiffly, still trying to be polite.

“Oh my god, it is him!” A girl exclaimed.

“Was it actually the crown prince in the video?” Another chimed. Simon felt lightheaded.

“He already said that it wasn’t.” He deflected, trying to sidestep the group.

“Yeah, but there’s a lot of people that don’t actually believe him.” The girl laughed; actually laughed, as if this hadn’t been an earth shattering event for Simon.

“If it wasn’t Prince Wilhelm then who was it in the video?” A boy asked, and that was when Simon spotted the phone filming him and his stomach dropped.

“I’m not discussing my sex life with a bunch of strangers.” He scoffed in disbelief, shouldering his way past the group with Sara close behind him. “Please leave me alone.”

“You could just tell us if it was actually the prince or not.” One of them pressed, the group now following after Simon. “If it wasn’t him then you don’t have anything to hide.”

“Oh my god, did the royal family pay you off? Did they make you sign an NDA!?”

“Were you, like, boyfriends? Or was it just a hookup?”

Simon kept walking, keeping his head down and not answering any of the questions being hurled at him. He could sense that Sara was just as tense beside him. The group followed them for a full block before Simon finally lost his cool and came to a dead stop, turning to face them.

“I’m not going to answer your questions. The fact that you’re following me is not going to make me answer your questions. I’ve had my privacy majorly invaded once already and now you’re invading it again. I’m trying to enjoy Christmas with my sister and you’re chasing me with a camera, I’m sick of people harassing me.” He fumed, making sure to meet the eye of every one of them at some point. “Whatever you choose to believe is not my problem. It doesn’t matter whether you think that the crown prince is telling the truth or you choose to make up some type of theory, I deserve my privacy.”

He didn’t wait for any type of response before he turned around and walked away, thankful to find that they weren’t going to follow him anymore.

“You handled that well.” Sara said quietly once they had turned the next corner. Simon didn’t reply.

When they got home, he went straight upstairs without a word. He slammed his bedroom door shut and buried his face in his pillow, unable to hold the tears back any longer.

By that same evening, the video was viral.

+ + +

I bet that girl was right and the royal family made him sign an NDA

If he didn’t want people to think it was the prince he would have just said that it wasn’t so either the prince was lying or this guy is seeking attention

He’s literally a kid why can’t people just leave him alone??

I don’t care if it was the prince in the tape or not, this guy is hot

The way he said that people are making up theories makes me think that it actually wasn’t the prince in the video

I feel bad for this guy, getting followed around like that must suck

Wilhelm scrolled through the captions and comments on the seemingly endless posts of the video of Simon, feeling like somebody had a vice grip on his heart.

The first time he saw the video had been right after Christmas Eve dinner. He’d had a full blown panic attack and locked himself in the bathroom for half an hour. When he came out, his mother had tried to talk to him about the politics of the situation and he had immediately retreated into his bedroom once again. He missed Erik desperately.

He hadn’t been able to sleep, he'd only gotten about three hours of broken, fitful sleep all night, and now he couldn’t pry himself away from his phone. He knew that it was bad for him, he knew that it was making him feel terrible, but he wanted to know what people were saying.

He had been hesitant to text Simon, especially since he hadn’t received a reply to the merry Christmas text that he had sent in the morning, but in the end he mustered the courage to reach out. He had asked how Simon was doing and apologised for getting him into this situation. He wasn’t surprised when no answer came.

Christmas day was proving to be probably the worst day of Christmas break for Wilhelm. His chest felt like it was bursting open and like it was an empty chasm at the same time. He didn’t eat breakfast or lunch, he didn’t respond to the knocks that came at his door. He felt like he was trapped in a glass box and someone was shaking it.

Wilhelm didn’t know how long he had been scrolling through multiple different social media platforms when his phone buzzed in his hand and an incoming call appeared on the screen. He faltered, sitting up and almost dropping his phone, when he saw that it was Simon. He ran a nervous hand through his hair as he raised the phone to his ear.

“Simon?” He croaked.

“Hi, Wilhelm.” The reply came through the phone, and Wilhelm felt his shoulders relax at the sound of Simon’s voice.

“Hi. H-how are you.” He fumbled, and Simon sighed on the other end.

“I’m okay, I guess. As okay as I can be after... well, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry for putting you in this situation.”

“This wasn’t your fault, Wille.” Simon muttered. “I just wish things were different.”

“Why, um... why did you call?” Wilhelm asked. There was a short stretch of silence that rung in his ears before Simon answered.

“I just wanted to hear your voice, I guess.” He confessed, and Wilhelm couldn’t help the soft smile that pulled at his lips. “Honestly, I was kind of surprised that you didn’t delete my number or something.”

“Why would I have done that?”

“I don’t know, I guess I just thought that you weren’t supposed to have any ties with me since you said that it wasn’t you in the video.” Wilhelm winced at that.

“It's not like my contacts list is available to the public.” He replied, trying to keep his tone light. “I’m not gonna let that kind of thing get in my head again.”

“Is your mum mad?” Simon asked, and now it was Wilhelm’s turn to sigh.

“I’m not sure, I kind of shut myself in my room so that I wouldn’t have to deal with her.” He answered tiredly. “How is your family?”

“Uh, shaken. Sara’s off in her own world with her sketchbooks and mamá can’t go for more than an hour without checking on us both, but we’re handling it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologise.”

There was a silence again. Wilhelm ran his hand across his leg, back and forth in a soothing motion, not sure what he should say but not wanting the conversation to finish. In the end, Simon spoke first.

“Did you mean it, what you said before you left for the break?” He asked softly.

“Yeah, I did.” Wilhelm answered without hesitation. “I know it wasn’t a good time to say it, and you probably didn’t want to hear it, but I just had to say it out loud. At least once.”

Silence again. Wilhelm heard Simon sigh, and pursed his lips nervously.

“I miss you.” Simon said.

“I miss you too.” Wilhelm replied with a nervous yet relieved chuckle. “I miss you a lot.”

Another pause.

“Where do we go from here, Wille?” Simon whispered.

“I don’t know.” Wilhelm mumbled. “But I... I want to fix this. Or at least just try to fix it. You don’t deserve to be harassed like this, and it’s my fault and I feel terrible.”

“It’s not your fault.” Simon reassured with a sigh. “It was everything else. We still didn’t do anything wrong, and that includes you.”

“No, I did. I promised we would be in this together and I broke that promise.”

“I understand why you did it. And I’m not mad at you. Honestly, having thought about it, you probably made the best decision for my sake too. I mean, I’m getting harassed enough as it is already. I can’t imagine what it would be like if you had told the truth.”

“I’m still sorry anyway.” Wilhelm said softly, and Simon chuckled. “So, um, Felice told me she was visiting Bjärstad tomorrow.”

“Yeah, her and Sara have gotten close. It’s nice, you know, that Sara’s made friends. And Felice is cool.”

“Yeah, she’s great.”

There was silence again, and Wilhelm bit at his nails thinking that Simon was done with the conversation.

“Are you alright, Wille?” Simon asked after a while. “I know this is your first Christmas without Erik, and I guess things with your mum might be a little... well, I just hope you’re okay.”

Wilhelm swallowed. He could lie, pretend he was fine and wave away Simon’s concerns, but he knew the lie probably wouldn’t hold up. Or he could tell the truth and admit how painfully lonely he was, how much he hated being home because the palace felt empty without Erik and how much he longed to be with Simon with every fibre of his being.

“I’m coping.” He sighed, settling for a middle ground of vagueness. “It’s lonely here. The ceilings feel too high.”

“Have you had stuff to do?”

“No, not really. I haven’t really been in the mood for Christmas, but I guess none of us are particularly festive this year anyway.”

“Would you - I mean, if you would even be allowed to, but maybe if you could – would you want to come down here for a day?” Simon asked, and Wilhelm could just picture him fidgeting nervously as he stumbled over his words. The image brought a smile to his face.

“Yeah, I’d like that.” He answered softly. “I’ll try and convince my parents.”

+ + +

Going to Simon’s house had been an absolute no go with his parents. “Just too risky” his mother had said. However, with enough persistence, he managed to wear them down to a compromise.

That was how he ended up in a car on his way back to Hillerska the day after Boxing Day. While Simon’s house had been absolutely off the table, it would be easy enough to get back to Hillerska without being seen. The only people who were there during the break were security and the people who came to take care of the horses.

He had been worried at first that the inconvenience of it would make Simon not want to bother, but when he texted to ask if it was okay he had been met with a quick agreement.

A security guard unlocked the door for him when they arrived, sworn to secrecy of course, and he headed up to his room to wait. He didn’t realise he was biting his nails until there was a knock at the door and he was knocked out of his anxious thoughts.

The door opened slowly, and Wilhelm felt like all of the air was knocked out of his body when he saw Simon step inside, dressed in his beloved purple hoodie under the coat that he took off and draped over the back of a chair that was within reach. The door clicked shut behind him, and silence hung in the air.

“Hey.” Simon greeted finally, and Wilhelm took a deep breath as if he was just remembering how to breathe at all.

“Hey.” He echoed. “How are you?”

“Better.” Simon nodded. “Did you get into a fight with your parents?”

“Yeah, kinda.” Wilhelm muttered. “It’s fine though.”

Simon crossed the room and took a seat beside Wilhelm on the edge of the bed, a good few inches of space between them. It felt like miles.

“You look tired.” Simon commented.

“I’ve been having a hard time sleeping.” Wilhelm replied weakly, eyes downcast, fidgeting with his hands. “I get that way sometimes. It’s fine.”

“Is it?”

He looked over to find Simon watching him, and he practically crumbled under his gaze. He took a very unsteady breath and shook his head.

“No, it sucks.” He mumbled. His hand drifted back up to his mouth and he gnawed on the nail of his thumb nervously.

“Wille, you’re bleeding.” Simon said, gently grabbing his wrist and pulling his hand away from his mouth. Wilhelm looked down at his thumb and saw a bit of blood pooling in the side of the nailbed, becoming aware of the taste of it on his tongue.

“Oh, I didn’t notice.”

“How much have you been biting your nails?” Simon questioned, pulling Wilhelm’s hand towards him to get a look at them. Every nail was jagged and uneven, bitten down to stubs. The skin around them had been bitten at too.

“I don’t know, I do it without realising.” Wilhelm shrugged. “Probably a lot.” He resisted the urge to curl his fingers around Simon’s hand and blinked back the tears that threatened to fall.

“You shouldn’t have to bottle everything in, you’re destroying yourself.” Simon murmured.

“I don’t have anyone to talk to.” Wilhelm’s voice broke halfway through his sentence, a single tear managing to fight its way from his eye. “I used to be able to talk to Erik about at least some of it but now he’s gone and I don’t have anyone, and sometimes it feels like the ground is falling out from under me and I just don’t know what to do.”

He didn’t notice that he was hyperventilating until Simon pulled him into his arms. Wilhelm’s chest was tight, rising and falling rapidly against Simon’s body. Simon's arms were wrapped around him tightly, and Wilhelm was suddenly overwhelmed with how much he had been craving a hug as his hands grasped at the back of Simon’s hoodie and he hid his face in the crook of Simon’s neck.

Wilhelm had always been told not to cry. Ever since he was a child, whenever he began to cry he was told to stop. The seed had planted itself in him when he was very young, but the fear of letting himself cry didn’t truly grow until he once saw an article in a tabloid. He was barely eleven and he had fallen and hurt himself at an event. He had hardly cried, just a few tears and red cheeks, but the tabloid had had plenty to say about it. He hadn’t let himself properly cry since, except for when Erik died. Even then, he had waited until he was completely alone before he let his weakness show. But now, with Simon, he felt an overwhelming need to let his tears fall.

“I’m so sorry.” He whispered into Simon’s shoulder. He could feel the tears coming out of his eyes but they weren’t falling down his face, instead absorbing into the fabric of Simon’s hoodie.

“It’s okay.” Simon soothed, a hand moving up to stroke over the Wilhelm’s hair.

“I never wanted any of this. I never wanted to be a prince.”

“I know.”

“I just wanted to feel normal. Just for once.” Wilhelm said through his tears. “You made me feel normal.”

Simon furrowed his eyebrows, sympathetic. He loosened his hold on Wilhelm and leaned back, sliding the hand that was on the back of Wilhelm’s head forward to rest against his cheek.

“You made me feel normal too.” He replied softly. “At school I was a social outcast because I’m not rich, and at home I have to take care of my mom and Sara. When I was with you, I didn’t feel like I had to take care of anyone or watch where I was stepping. Well, except that one night.” Wilhelm huffed a slight laugh at the comment, lifting a hand to wipe the tears off of his cheeks. “I’ve never seen you cry before.” Simon commented.

“I’m not supposed to.” Wilhelm replied with an awkward chuckle, his head tipping forward in embarrassment. Simon sighed through his nose and lightly touched his forehead to Wilhelm’s.

“You have to cry sometimes, Wille. Everyone cries.”

“I’m not supposed to be everyone.”

“Okay, but sometimes you need to stop worrying about what you’re supposed to be.” Simon told him. “I know you know that.”

Wilhelm took a deep breath. This close to Simon’s face, he could feel his breathing too. He wanted to kiss him, but he didn’t know if that would be okay. He nodded slightly, covering Simon’s hand on his cheek with his own.

“Yeah.” He breathed.

When Simon leaned forward and connected their lips Wilhelm responded automatically, though it took his brain a few seconds to catch up. Once his brain did catch up, his hand took hold of the back of Simon’s neck and pulled him impossibly closer, holding onto this moment like it was his last. Maybe it would be the last time he got to kiss Simon; he couldn’t know. He hoped it wouldn’t be.

“Thanks for coming to see me.” Simon said when they broke apart.

“Thanks for wanting to see me at all.” Wilhelm replied. “I really missed you.”

Simon hummed, a faint smile playing at his lips. He watched Wilhelm for a few moments before kicking off his shoes.

“Come here.” He said, shuffling over the bed towards the wall. Wilhelm followed suit and allowed himself to be guided down to a lying position, Simon’s chest against his back and arm around his waist. “You need to sleep.”

“It’s the middle of the day.” Wilhelm protested, weak as the protest may have been.

“People have naps all the time, and you know that you need it.” Simon said firmly, adjusting the pillow under his head with his free arm and finding Wilhelm's hand to hold in the other. “It doesn’t have to be for long, okay?”

“Okay.” Wilhelm nodded, feeling suddenly very relaxed. He took a deep breath settling into the comfort and warmth of Simon’s body around his as his eyes fell shut. “This is nice.” He mumbled after a while.

“Yeah.” Simon agreed softly. “Go to sleep, Wille.”

It wasn’t long until he felt Wilhelm’s breathing change, signifying that he had fallen asleep. He smiled, fondly but with an edge of sadness to it, and pressed a light kiss to Wilhelm’s shoulder before closing his own eyes. They would deal with the rest of the world when they woke up.

[ohmyjinsus]

the very first night

lee heeseung x gender neutral! reader

a non idol! college friends to lovers au || 4.8k

another fic…..inspired by another taylor swift song ……. whoops (also this tweet is killing me so) I mean it’s the very first night of 2022 so why not post this ??? I wrote it really quickly so here’s hoping it doesn’t suck (also there’s cursing and drinking and it gets suggestive at the end so …. you have been warned)

summary: falling for your best friend is stupid in and of itself, but falling for your best friend knowing he’s only here on exchange and has to leave in three months is even more stupid - naturally, that’s exactly what you wind up doing

“I have a gift for you.”

Heeseung pulls an envelope out of his carry on bag. The two of you are standing in the middle of the airport. He asked you to drop him off because he was too scared to come alone. You suggested he bring a different friend, but he was adamant that you were the one to see him off.

“You didn’t have to…”

There’s a mix CD and a discman in your own bag with Heeseung’s name on them, but you weren’t sure if exchanging gifts was a thing you were doing. The more you think about it, the more pathetic your gift seems. Although, if he’s giving you something, you may as well do the same.

“It’s nothing big,” he tells you. “But I don’t want you to forget me.”

“How could I ever forget you?” He smiles at you, but your heart starts to sink.

The realization that you won’t see him again for a long time suddenly hits you. You promised to visit each other, but realistically, you’re both broke college students. That probably won’t happen any time soon.

“Here." He hands you the envelope.

“Can I open it now?” He nods, so you rip open the top, trying not to damage whatever’s inside.

“Don’t read the letter in front of me,” Heeseung says, quickly. “Read it when you’re alone.”

“Okay.”

Once the envelope’s open, you dig around for whatever’s in there apart from the letter. It’s a polaroid picture.

The very first night you dragged Heeseung out with your friends, one of them brought a camera along, and all of you took some questionable photos. This one is taken from behind.

You and Heeseung wound up way ahead of your friend group, lost in your own world. Someone must have taken this while you were walking down the street. As you look closer, you notice the two of you are holding hands. You don’t remember being that bold. Maybe you were scared he would get lost.

“Thanks,” you say, quietly.

“Read the bottom.” You didn’t notice his handwriting at first.

Do you know how much I miss you?

“Don’t be silly,” you tell him, looking up. “I’m right here.”

“Not for much longer.” He glances at the time on his phone. “I should really get going.”

“No,” you whisper, before you even think about it. Heeseung smiles but you can tell it's not genuine.

“We’ll see each other again soon, don’t worry.” When he reaches out for a hug, you shake your head.

“I have something for you too.”

You reach into your bag and pull out the CD and discman before you can second guess it.

“I know I could have just made you a Spotify playlist, but it didn’t feel the same, and I thought you could listen to it on the plane, I don’t know, and I remember you saying you didn’t know what a discman was so I thought it would be nice if I got you one of your own-”

“I love it, y/n.” Heeseung cuts you off before you keep rambling. When he takes the gift from you, he keeps his hand on yours for a second. “Really, thank you.”

You just nod, watching as he puts the things into his bag. You wrote him a letter as well, but you tucked it inside the CD sleeve. He’ll see it later, you tell yourself. There’s no point in bringing it up now.

“You should go,” you say, awkwardly, once he’s zipped up his bag again.

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” He’s just playing around, but you can’t help but get a little teary-eyed. Heeseung must notice, because he immediately pulls you into his arms. “Hey, hey, don’t cry.”

You hug him back, holding him as tight as you possibly can. The longer you can keep him in your arms, the better.

When you first met him in your intro to technical writing class, you didn’t expect to become best friends. Part of you almost wishes you didn’t. When you found out he was here on exchange for one semester, you should’ve distanced yourself instead of falling for him like this. But how could you when he was so kind and sweet and smart and funny?

You were his from the first time he spoke to you, and you'll likely be his for a long time. Even if nothing romantic ever happened between the two of you.

“Hee,” you say, as he lets go of you. “Text me when you land.” He nods. “And when you get home.” He nods again. “And after that.”

“I will.” You’re a little shocked when Heeseung places a kiss on your forehead, but you don’t mind. You’ll commit this feeling to memory.

“Okay,” you pull him back for another hug. “Bye.”

“I don’t want to let go of you,” Heeseung whispers, into your hair. You lean back, so you can look at him. He seems like he’s about to cry too. Knowing this hurts him just as much as it hurts you makes you feel slightly better.

“You have to go,” you remind him. “Your parents will be happy to have you home. And so will your brother.”

“You’re right.” He drops his arms, readjusting his backpack. “Walk with me?”

You nod. He checked in online, and you dropped off his suitcases as soon as you got to the airport. Now, he just has to go through security and to his boarding gate. You can’t go with him beyond this point.

“I’ll see you, y/n.” He says, when you get there.

“You better.” Heeseung laughs.

He reaches down to brush your hair out of your face. For a second, you think he might kiss you, but he gives you a light peck on your cheek instead. It makes you flustered, regardless.

“Bye y/n.”

“Bye Heeseung.”

===

“Should we go to the arcade next?”

You grab your wallet so you can pay for your meal, while the rest of your friends nod in agreement. All of you are officially done with exams, so you’re free for the summer. You may as well celebrate.

“I’ll use credit,” you tell your waiter, pulling out your card. As you do, a photo falls out of your wallet. You grab it off the table, taking a quick look.

Do you know how much I miss you?

Right. It’s the one of you and Heeseung.

After he left, you put it in your wallet, so you could take him everywhere with you. It’s been 3 months since, but the two of you don’t keep in touch as much as you used to.

At first, you were texting and calling constantly. But then second semester started for both of you. As you and Heeseung are both extremely competitive when it comes to your grades, all your free time was consumed by schoolwork. You still text each other occasionally, but it’s not the same.

You try not to think about it too much. Every time you imagine what you and Heeseung could have been, you wind up drunk or in tears.

“Here’s your receipt, have a great evening.”

“Thank you so much.”

You put the picture back in your wallet, refusing to look at it again. Your friends have found an arcade that’s only a few blocks away, so all of you pack up and head over there.

When you walk in, all of you lose your minds. It’s one of your favourite places to hang out. You love to lose yourselves in the games for a while, forgetting about your responsibilities. Now that you’re in college and overwhelmed 90% of the time, it’s nice to act like a kid every now and then.

You tag along, playing all your favourites. You aren’t that good at them anymore, as it’s been a while since you last visited an arcade.

That must have been 6 months ago, with Heeseung. The very first night you hung out, your friends all dragged him here.

Well, not here. It was a different arcade, closer to campus. You push him out of your mind. It’s been long enough, you should be over him by now.

You distract yourself with air hockey and claw games. You don’t think of Heeseung at all while you play Skee Ball, or when you buy a pretzel from the snack bar, or when you exchange your tickets for a stuffed toy, or when you leave the arcade, walking down the street arm in arm with one of your friends.

“We should do this more often,” you say, resting your head on her shoulder. She laughs.

“You’re right, y/n,” she replies. “You barely leave your apartment anymore.”

“Leave me alone,” you mumble. “My 4.0 GPA won’t maintain itself.”

While your friend’s laughing, someone bumps into you, knocking your new plushie out of your hands. You immediately turn around to pick it up, but you and the other person bend down at the same time.

When your hands touch, you jump away, saying sorry immediately.

“Here you go,” he says, giving you your toy once both of you are standing again. “This is so cute, deers are my favourite.”

“Thanks-” When you look up, you almost pass out.

This has to be some kind of joke. There’s no fucking way.

“y/n.”

“Heeseung.”

You can’t stop yourself from hugging him. Thankfully, he seems to feel the same way. His arms are tight around you as you bury your face in his neck. He smells just like you remember.

“I didn’t know you were coming back,” one of your friends says from behind you. You and Heeseung let go of each other, awkwardly stepping back. You forgot your friends were with you for a second.

“I thought it would be nice to visit since it’s the end of the school year.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Another one of your friends asks. That’s a good point. You raise your eyebrow at Heeseung as he makes eye contact with you.

“I, uh,” he hesitates. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me.”

“Idiot,” you roll your eyes. Surely he knows better.

“What are you up to? Do you want to come hang out with us?”

“Sure,” Heeseung responds right away, pulling out his phone. “I was going to meet up with some other friends, but I can tell them I’ll be a bit late.”

“It’s okay if you want to see them instead,” you say, quickly. You don’t want him to feel like he has to hang out with you. Especially if he wasn’t planning on doing it anyway.

“No, I want to spend time with you.” You almost drop your plushie again. “Where are we going?”

You wind up visiting a bar that’s not too far away. It’s one you frequent often. All of you have visited as a group multiple times. It’s one of the places you took Heeseung that night.

“I miss this city,” he says, as you all sit down. You take a sip of your water, still trying to process the fact that he’s back here, in front of you again.

“We miss you,” one of your friends responds. “Some of us more than others.” When he raises his eyebrows in your direction, you quickly look away. Hopefully no one notices the way your cheeks are turning red.

“It’s nice to be back.” You nod in agreement. You would probably feel the same way if you were to leave.

Heeseung doesn’t have anything alcoholic to drink the whole night, which surprises you. The two of you used to get tipsy pretty often. You always secretly hoped that one of those nights you’d have the guts to tell him how you felt, or you’d be brave enough to kiss him. Part of you is tempted to drink tonight, to see if you can finally work up the courage to do it, but you ultimately decide not to.

After about an hour of everyone catching up, you turn to Heeseung.

“Weren’t you supposed to see your other friends?” The two of you are cramped next to each other in your group’s booth. Your voice is low as you lean over, so he can hear you.

“I was,” he says. “But I’m having fun with all of you.”

“Really?”

“Well, I’m having fun being back here with you.” That catches you off guard. You want to say the same, that you’re elated he’s back, even if it’s only for a short amount of time, but you chicken out. “Why? Are you trying to get rid of me, y/n?”

You freeze, remembering how he said that to you at the airport three months ago. It’s insane how you remember that entire conversation like the back of your hand. You’ve run over it in your mind countless times, wishing you had confessed then. Not that it would have done any good.

“Of course not,” you tell him. When you glance around you again, all your other friends are lost in conversation, talking about who knows what. You and Heeseung are the odd ones out.

It was like this all those months ago, when you came here the first time. You adore your friend group, but you always felt out of place with them. Once you had Heeseung, you felt a lot more comfortable. You finally had someone who was just yours.

That first night, the two of you decided to ditch everyone and go on your own adventure. Now, having him in front of you, you’re tempted to do the same thing.

“Should we get out of here?” He asks, before you get the chance to. You can’t hide your smile.

“I was thinking the exact same thing.”

You turn to your friend, who’s sitting on the other side of you, making up some excuse about Heeseung feeling sick and how you’re going to take him outside for some fresh air. You’re pretty sure it’s the same thing you said last time, but your friend doesn’t notice.

When you and Heeseung are finally outside, he grabs your hand and starts leading you down the street. You don’t question it, interlocking your fingers with his. There’s no one in the world you trust more. And you’re grateful things still feel the same between the two of you.

“Where are you taking me?”

“I’m not telling.” He squeezes your hand and pulls you along.

There’s a bubble tea place nearby that you’re obsessed with. You showed it to Heeseung the first time you came downtown together, just the two of you. It’s out of the way, so you don't come often, but sometimes Heeseung would surprise you by ordering delivery. You’re elated when he pulls you into the shop, but also shocked it’s open so late.

“Your order hasn’t changed, has it?” When you shake your head, he smiles and heads to the counter. It isn’t until he comes back with your order number that you realize you should have offered to pay.

There aren’t that many people in the store so it doesn’t take long for you to get your drinks. Once you have them, you head to your usual table in the corner and sit down across from each other.

While you drink, you catch up on everything you’ve missed. Heeseung tells you about his family, and how he’s told them all about you. Your mind tells you that’s not platonic friend behaviour, but you don’t want to get too caught up in that.

You also ask him about his trip. He arrived yesterday, and he’ll be staying for a week. He promises to spend more time with you while he’s here. That makes your heart swell, but you push it down. Again, it’s not like he’s asking you out or anything.

He asks about you too, and you tell him nothing’s really changed. You’ve just been busy with school, work, so on and so forth.

“My god, y/n,” he says, taking a sip of his bubble tea. “You need to learn how to relax.”

“I haven’t relaxed a single day in my entire life.”

“I know,” Heeseung responds. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Oh?”

“Let’s have some fun before I go.” You know he doesn't mean it like that, but your thoughts can't help but turn R-rated. You hate yourself for it. “Starting now. Are you finished your drink?”

You nod, so he grabs your cup before getting up and throwing it away. You follow him back outside onto the street. When you check your phone, there’s a message from one of your friends letting you know where they are in case you and Heeseung decide to rejoin them. You roll your eyes, knowing you definitely won’t be doing that.

“What time is it?”

“Almost one,” you tell him, trying to hide your yawn.

“Are you tired?”

“A little bit,” you admit. “It’s okay though, what do you want to do next?”

He shakes his head. “I want you to rest.” You smile, touched by how sweet he is.

“I’m fine, really.” When you yawn again, he rolls his eyes at you, grabbing your hand.

“How did you get here?”

“I took the underground with everyone.”

“That’s going to take too long,” he says, mostly to himself.

“What?”

“I was going to take you home but that’s like, a 30 minute train ride away.”

“Heeseung, I’m really not that tired.”

“Maybe not now,” he responds. “But I know you. You don’t normally stay out this late.”

It takes you a second to realize he’s genuinely concerned. He’s right though, when you used to go out together before, you would always be home by midnight. And it’s true that you are quite sleepy. If you were to close your eyes, you'd probably fall asleep right away.

“So, what’s the solution?”

“My hotel isn’t that far away.”

“Are you inviting me back to your hotel room?” Heeseung’s eyes go wide when he realizes what he’s said.

“We’ve slept together before.” When you raise your eyebrows, he stutters. “You know what I mean, I’m not messing around, I’m just trying to help you.”

You hope he doesn’t see the disappointment on your face. You wouldn’t mind messing around with him, not that you could ever say that.

“How far away is it?” You ask. “A hotel bed would be much softer than mine.” Cuddling him while you fall asleep would also be much nicer than falling asleep alone.

He pulls out his phone, checking. “10 minutes if we take a taxi.” You glance around you. There are tons of them around. That sounds like a good plan.

“Okay,” you say, pulling him towards one. “Only because I’m exhausted.”

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for you to flag one down. Heeseung tells the driver the name of his hotel and the two of you hop into the back.

Trying to act casual, you shift over so you’re in the middle seat. Your leg is right up against Heeseung’s. He doesn’t seem affected by any of this.

You sigh, resting your head on his shoulder.

“Talk to me,” you tell him.

“Hm?”

“I need you to keep talking to me,” you clarify. “If you don’t, I’m going to fall asleep right here.”

His shoulder shakes as he laughs, but he agrees.

“Do you remember the first time you stayed the night at my place?” You think back. You spent the majority of your time in Heeseung’s dorm, all the memories have blurred together.

“Kind of?”

“You got a little bit drunk,” he starts playing with the rings on your fingers. “You were dancing in the kitchen.”

“Oh right,” you smile to yourself. “I don’t know why you stayed friends with me after that, I was constantly making a fool of myself.”

You feel him place a kiss on top of your head. You hum in response, moving closer.

“I joined you, remember?”

The image of you and Heeseung dancing together in the kitchen suddenly comes back to you. It was late, but the two of you were having so much fun. You don’t remember what music you were listening to, but you probably couldn’t hear it over the sound of your laughter anyway.

Your heart races as you recall being so close to him. Close enough that you could’ve kissed him then. You had so many opportunities, you don’t know why you didn’t take any of them.

“What else?” You intertwine your fingers with his. He thinks for a second before speaking.

“You know the CD you made me?” You nod. “I listened to it on the plane ride here.”

“You did?” You ask, quietly. That makes your heart flutter too. You’re pretty sure you put some love songs on there. You wonder if Heeseung noticed.

“Yeah, I brought my discman with me and everything.”

“I keep your letter in my nightstand,” you say without thinking.

“Oh god,” he groans. “That was the worst thing I’ve ever written, I’m so sorry you had to experience that.”

“I love it,” you reassure him. “I read it when I can’t sleep.”

“Really?” He sounds surprised.

“I miss our sleepovers." You readjust your head, so you’re more comfortable. “Since I can’t have those, I figure this is the next best thing.”

Heeseung doesn’t say anything. He just squeezes your hand.

Your cab pulls up at the hotel soon after, so you sit up and pull out your wallet. Heeseung offers to pay but you push him away, reminding him he already bought you bubble tea.

After you’ve paid, both of you get out of the car. Heeseung takes your arm, leading you towards the entrance, but you tell him to wait a second. He watches as you struggle to stuff your credit card back into your wallet.

“Let me do it.” You hand your things over.

“Thanks.”

“Wait a second,” he says, glancing sideways at you. “What’s this?”

When he holds up the polaroid he gave you, you blush.

“Nothing,” you mutter, trying to grab it from him. He puts it behind his back, so you can't reach.

“I’m so touched, y/n.”

“Don’t get all bigheaded about this.” You already know it’s too late, based on the way he’s smiling at you. He laughs as you snatch your things out of his hands.

“I missed you too.”

Before you can even process that, Heeseung’s heading through the doors into the lobby. You follow him, walking quickly so you don’t fall behind. He leads you to the elevator, where both of you travel up to the 7th floor. His room’s not too far down the hall.

Once you’re both inside, you immediately fall down onto his bed. Heeseung lies down right next to you, so you roll over on your side to look at him. He does the same.

The bed’s smaller than you realized. Or maybe the two of you are closer than you thought. You can feel him breathing.

“Ready for bed?” He asks, in that teasing voice of his.

“I’m actually feeling much more awake now,” you admit, sitting up. You kick your shoes off. They fly further away than you anticipated, but you ignore it. You can deal with it later.

Heeseung sits up as well, holding out his hand. “Give me your rings.”

“What?”

“So you don’t lose them,” he says. “While you’re sleeping.”

He knows you so well. There have been countless times when you’ve had them fall off in the middle of the night. Heeseung was constantly finding your things under his bed, or around his dorm room.

“You take such good care of me.” You hand them over, and he places them on the nightstand.

“I’m surprised you didn’t fall apart while I was gone.”

“Not physically,” you say, mostly to yourself. You wonder if it’s been the same for him. He’s not the type to cry and get drunk like you. At least, you don’t think so.

Heeseung must hear you. He pulls his legs up and crosses them underneath him. You do the same, so you’re facing each other. There’s even less space between you now.

“Not physically?” He asks, looking directly into your eyes.

You usually don’t feel nervous around him, but today he’s really been messing with you. Then again, whenever you were together in the past, you never pushed any boundaries. You couldn’t dare to risk your friendship by mentioning your feelings for him. You would’ve died. But now, after watching him leave once, you know you’ll regret if if you aren’t honest with him in this moment.

“Do you know how much I miss you?” You ask, quietly, quoting his words. You reach out for him but drop your hands quickly, not wanting to do anything stupid. He notices, taking one of your hands in his.

“Missed.”

“Sorry?”

He presses a light kiss to the back of your hand. “Missed, past tense.”

“I … don’t get it.” Heeseung smiles.

“You’re so damn cute.” You hope he doesn’t notice how flustered that makes you. “Past tense because you don’t need to miss me anymore. I’m not leaving again.”

“What do you mean?”

“I lied when I told you why I’m here,” he says. “I’m looking for an apartment.”

“You’re what?” You’re glad you didn’t have anything to drink tonight, you’d be even more confused than you are right now.

“I miss it,” Heeseung tells you. “And your school has a much better journalism program than mine back home, I would be stupid not to transfer. I’m going to find an apartment, go home and get my things, then come back here and start in September.”

“But what about your parents and your brother and-”

“They don’t mind,” he smiles as he cuts you off. “They know this is what I want and they’re supportive.”

“Won’t they miss you?” Your eyes search his face, looking for some kind of insecurity. He seems so confident in his decision.

“Won’t you miss me?” When you look down, Heeseung takes both your hands in his. “I’m moving back because of school, but I’d be lying if I said you weren’t a part of it.”

“What are you trying to say, Lee Heeseung?” He laughs at your use of his full name. You only use it when you’re winding him up.

“Come on y/n,” he says. “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

Your heart starts to race when you realize what he’s getting at. He couldn’t possibly mean- No, there’s no way. You’re delusional for even thinking it’s an option. He probably just means he misses your friendship.

“Don’t play around with me,” you tell him, slowly. “I’ve been losing my mind since you left.”

“Me too,” he whispers. “I think about you all the time.”

“No, you don’t.” He rolls his eyes at you.

“I do,” he replies. “Everywhere I go, I wonder what it would be like if you were with me. Everything I do, I can’t help but imagine how much better it would be if you were there. I know we haven’t been apart for that long, but I can’t stand being away from you.”

You feel the exact same way, but you have no idea how to express that in words. All you really want is to kiss him.

“I’m so glad you’re coming back,” you say, before leaning in to press your lips to his. You're too scared to do anything else, so you move away quickly. He drops your hands, cupping your face instead.

“I’ve been waiting so long for you to kiss me, at least do it properly.”

You blush at his words, before kissing him again. It starts out soft and slow, but it quickly gets more heated. You missed him so much, and it’s apparent how much your body missed him too. When you climb into his lap, he pulls you even closer, his arms tight around your waist.

“Thank fuck we have a hotel room,” you murmur, lips trailing down his neck. “My roommates would not let us do this in our apartment.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, y/n?” Heeseung asks you. When you lean back to look at him, he's got an eyebrow raised.

“I-” He smirks, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“I want you too,” he whispers, and you swear you could die right there.

“Heeseung-” Your grip in his hair tightens, so he just holds you closer, mumbling in your ear.

“There are so many things I wish I did with you before-”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” When you pull away to look at him, he’s definitely blushing. You kiss him again, deeper this time. When his hand slides under your shirt, your suspicions are confirmed.

“You’re not innocent either, y/n.” When you feel his fingertips on your bare skin, you let out a shaky breath. Heeseung notices this, looking pleased with himself. He knows you're putty in his hands.

You need to change the subject, right now. Before you completely lose it.

“I thought you were going to ask me out or something,” you tell him, running a hand through his hair.

“Oh, I’m doing that too,” he clarifies. “But it’s like, two in the morning, I can hardly take you on a date right now.”

“Later?”

“In the morning,” he says. “I promise.”

“Good.” The two of you smile at each other, before he presses another kiss on your jaw.

“Now, where were we?”