#all of my online friends are somewhat doesn’t active

[07009]

someone pls talk to me

[nonhumanwithin]

hi! im not exactly sure what i am (i think i would best be described as something like a demon and an animal), and i was wondering if you had any advice regarding managing a prey drive.

if it isnt clear by that first thing, im still figuring things out about myself and piecing things together. i do not have any past memories, but i have thoughts, needs, and occasional phantom sensations that i believe relate to my identity.

one thing ive come to realize is that im 99% sure ive had a prey drive since childhood. i used to manage it by chasing animals, but now that im older (…and larger and living somewhere else), that’s no longer an option for me. it’s also worth nothing that my prey drive became less intense for many years and has “come back” somewhat recently, so i didnt have to do much in the time between then and now.

i try to get my energy out by playing animal games online or playing with my dogs, but it just doesn’t feel the same and i get bored quick. im also worried that i may come to see my friends as prey and hurt them. this is obviously something i would prefer to avoid, but i know my emotions and urges have gotten the better of me these days. im VERY lucky my partner likes this kind of thing, otherwise id have next to no outlet whatsoever.

so my question is: what can i do to safely satisfy my urges and get rid of excess energy in regards to my prey drive? a list of activities, games, or general advice would help. thank you :)

Hey! I don't have a lot of experience with coping with prey drive personally but I'll do my best to help, maybe others who see this post can also leave some suggestions! :) I will say that if you are having intrusive thoughts about prey drive, I want to remind you that it is not your fault and you will not act on it. Dealing with intrusive thoughts can be tricky because you don't want to create a compulsive reaction to "get rid of it" because this can lead to OCD or OCD-like symptoms. It's important to desensitize yourself to your intrusive thoughts and not give them power over you. I saw a post about it somewhere, possibly on twitter but I wouldn't be able to find it again so hopefully someone else has some more specific advice!

A helpful question to ask yourself is what about your prey drive specifically is the thing that gives you urges the most? Like, do you most have the urge to chase things, or is it more the hunting part, like sinking your teeth into something or pouncing, etc? Think about the specific action that would satisfy you the most and try to recreate that somehow, like in a video game or by watching movies or finding a food that you can tear into in the way you like, etc.

Or if it's more an understimulated/overly energetic thing you could try exercising. Not just typical stuff like lifting weights or doing situps but maybe try some type of sport or something like jumprope, swimming, hiking, etc. Playing a sport that satisfies those prey drive urges such as chasing other people would be a great idea! I find that even just throwing a tennis ball at the wall and catching it can sort of replicate that feeling of "catching animal/thing" for me personally.

Another suggestion I have is to use creativity as an outlet. Draw, write a story or poem or song, whatever you want. It doesn't even have to be good at all and you don't have to share it with anyone!

That's all I've got but I hope this helps at least a little :)

[alexandriapubliclibrary]

The titular scoundrels of my series are the crew of Starpower Red, a repurposed cargo ship now used for stealing, smuggling, and whatever other piratey activities they get up to. I based the shape off a ship I got from an online spaceship generator—if I can find it again I’ll link it here. The first room I started drawing was the kitchen, since some very important scenes happen there. I don’t assume any of the crew are particularly skilled at cooking, but it’s the one spot on the ship without any security cameras, so they like to convene there (not that the ship’s cameras get a lot of use anyways—at least, not after the old captain is gone.)

I think the ship was originally only built with two bedrooms, probably for dock workers who traveled with the ship’s cargo. Everything else had to be gutted and repurposed when the crew took it over. This has led to a somewhat odd arrangement—for instance, the navigation room is a ways away from the bridge, and the medbay isn’t hooked up to any plumbing (much to the annoyance of the crew’s doctor, Josephine.) Still, they make it work.

Ships like this were made to be lived in, at least for a time, since space travel in this future isn’t lightspeed. I think the best comparison would be long-distance truck driving. Starpower Red has probably been modded to move a little faster than that, though. I leave a lot of that sciencey stuff up to my friends who are smarter than me. I’d like to come back to this concept—I want the ship to feel cluttered and lived-in, but I also don’t want to make myself create the “perfect drawing” of the interior before I write about it. Especially since I don’t have a lot of experience designing sci-fi settings! This blog is an archive for me to braindump on so I can remember all my ideas, it doesn’t have to be perfect. With that, a few other notes about Starpower Red’s kitchen:

> Starpower Red wasn’t designed to do Millennium Falcon-style flips, but the crew really puts her through the wringer. Fortunately, ship kitchens are already designed with movement and turbulence in mind (does turbulence exist in space?) Every cabinet, fridge, freezer, and drawer is carefully designed to contain everything so it can’t move around too much. Tableware is made from durable materials like metal or plastic. Cabinets aren’t open on the inside, but instead have slots and cubbies perfectly sized for whatever is being stored.

> Stovetops, oven racks, and countertops are either magnetic by design or can be fitted with “magpads” that prevent tableware from sliding. Tableware for space travel is made at least partially of metal. Likewise, chairs and tables are fitted with magnetic strips that allow them to hold on to each other. Tables are usually bolted to the floor.

> The crew’s most beloved luxury is their coffee maker. It is bolted down to the counter, and it’s a wonder it isn’t broken yet. The poor thing wasn’t made for space travel.

[lilsnowpea93]

Essay time: I can pinpoint exactly why I’m frustrated w capitalism and this current system of how we work in the US. I’ve figured out my place in the world right, I figured out what my “work I should be doing” is (if that’s even necessary morally). But I’ve found the closest things to a typical capital earning career, things that I’m uniquely good at and have “something to offer society” (again just appeasing capitalists w this speak, I’m explaining how the system doesn’t work for some ppl who should be included in society actively doing their thing.) Ok so my shit is like, I do graphic design for friends, we make things. I also make affordable sliding scale art. I make music and encourage ppl to stream/download it for free. I make content online sometimes (way more of a hobby), and I also sell miniature skateboard decks for very affordable prices, or bartering. To summarize, I’m a creative person making stuff that handfuls of people enjoy. That is enough for me, I don’t care about popularity (now that I have other income thank you) and I just want to make neat things and be mentally and physically healthy. Not too much to ask you’d think. NOW, to make this all fit into the capitalist system we are in.. We can spitball, I would have to have so many design projects, from multiple wealthy clients. Or I would also have to somehow get lucky enough to become a somewhat recognized musician and/or artist. Maybe I would become a real content creator. Or I would make my hand crafted items full time. Probably a layering of constant monetary successes in these fields would have to happen for a livable income.

So let’s investigate my specific case. 1. my design caters to liiike, skaters, small brands, etc. You can’t invalidate those niches, they have influence on overall design and are where cool shit sometimes happens. So small doesnt equal bad, most of the time. But small DOES equal not having much money to spread around. 2. Getting famous from art or music is so bad. Trying to do it looks cringey, actually doing it probably sucks so much. Not caring about return is so much fuckinnnggg better !!! I cannot express this enough. U make better stuff. Maybe if u want to be creative, just making it and being proud of it should be the baseline, at least for me. And if a few friends like it, even better. There’s nothing wrong with aiming big I guess but, s2g if there was a way to know the likelihood of that shit, it’d be like wild disproportional. Fuck outta here with that “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” bs. And for me my art/music is kind of specifically me on purpose like I’m gonna do my thing and no one has to like it because I didn’t make it to be like other things or be palatable in a way we contemporarily think of as normal. 3. The content I make online is organic. It’s mainly centered around filmed skateboard tricks. I hope it’s entertaining, I try my best to come up with ones that I feel like doing and that not many people have seen before. I want to add to peoples inspiration when they’re choosing what tricks they want to try. Thinking up rare tricks isn’t something you can just “content” pump out, that would be so weird lol. Like ew being a content creator at shit ruins everything. It wouldn’t even be feasible to make money at that nuh uh. I did try YouTube art vlogs for a year or two but nahhh 4. Bruh do u know how many mini skateboards I’d have to make to equal even half a “normal” jobs pay? They take like an hour or two each no that’s not feasible. Especially the way I make them, more organic and less templates/fancy power tools. I prefer the result that way, it’s harder to get right and takes more time but it’s a skill I have and there’s an art to it so frick offff.

Ok having explained all that- I do believe what I do is a positive force in the communities I’m part of irl and online. I know for a fact that people interact with what I make and are happier because of it. That is very fulfilling. I make things to make them, typically, but that is a huge added bonus, and reason for living frankly.

U may also recognize the thread of affordability or free-ness that runs through everything I like to do. People don’t have random money for buying stuff that’s not for basic survival needs rn. Especially my friends. This is just realistic, like no one’s gonna buy my art if it’s over $50. They can’t afford it, hell I wouldn’t be able to afford it. I used to stress over this, now that I have a steady job I could care less. I’ll give things away for free idc. Cuz good creativity is worth so much and nothing simultaneously I guess lol.

Now, viewing all this from the American capitalist workforce etc perspective: all of these activities are difficult. I put a so much time and effort into each one. I’m kind of a perfectionist and I have very specific tastes. Not to say all my work is good or perfect, but just saying that typically I super care. So I’m passionate about my hard work that I do. A small but not insignificant number of people enjoy the work I put out. However, it does not make barely any income (not my motivation to do my life’s purpose lmao I just do the things I’m good at and like). SO, does that insignificant income part then mean that, I shouldn’t do this stuff? To certain people who understand creative careers they would say that my current path can be a stepping stone to a more real career. To that I say, I’ve been at this step permanently for 10 years, this is it. And also, how are people who are legit at the stepping stone thing supposed to survive?

Now, why I mention all this stuff super hinges on this reality: Currently I work a 30-35 hr full time job at 17/hr and that has made my life a bajillion times easier (I can’t express), but I can barely do the shit I actually want to do, and barely still have good personal and space hygiene and mental health and do easy hobbies like MAYBE sometimes playing a game. If I wanted my life to be upgraded like, having a car, buying a small house, being able to buy the clothes I want, eating out instead of only always spending time making food personally, etc., I would have to work 8 hr 9-5 and find a job that pays even better, but I doubt I could do that because my “real” skills are cleaning the floor/toilet and sometimes fixing things, I could easily get paid less for less hours. Working that 8 hr 9-5 job that’s in a different field I probably don’t like very much would 100% kill all the other things I do. I know this because sometimes I have to work that schedule. Nothing else gets done, apartment doesn’t get cleaned, I barely take care of myself, let alone express the skills that feel like my “purpose”. Maybe that’s a me mental health issue, it seems like some people can do it. Imagine having kids added on to that, this is why I won’t have kids. My past Christian culture really wanted me to have kids. Ur trippin. I regularly fail at taking care of myself.

So what all this tells me, is that my actual skills, which I am pretty good at due to years of experience, have succeeded at so many times in terms of people effected, measurable good done.. I kinda probably shouldn’t have done it, I’m getting good at the wrong thing, it doesn’t make money as its first goal. Meritocracy my assss bro. There’s worth in what I do. The things people like me do are part of the culture. Absolutely not saying I make any waves in that department lol, but I’m part of it, I add my two cents. The culture is what makes shit interesting, it’s what makes people happy, ppls days better, it’s human connection thru shared interests and progression of an art form. Like idk what to tell u I think it’s cool. But to the normal viewpoint, all my stuff is just hobbies. But they’re kinda more than hobbies right? Like I’m just trying to check the capitalist boxes, I don’t think everyone should have to hold their things they do to wild standards of almost fitting into capitalism like mine do. But still, I can’t do it in the way they want, even with the help of having the internet.. and I’m not about to ruin and taint what I love to make not even enough dollars to live from. I don’t even know what I want bro but all I know is that shit doesn’t woooork. Like for some people it does! But not for ppl like I’m describing, who are definitely worth having in society and letting flourish etc. To me creative ppl are a bajillion times more interesting than someone who works in business. Like they can do that sure, that’s probably their thing I guess, buuut idk what are u adding bro, when u die what will u have done. Better been like donating to charities or something. The ppl this system wants u to be are so boring and inhuman. It literally wants to suppress creativity. I hope I’ve proven that here, I know I’m a unique case w my weird shit I do that goes beyond music or whatever’s popular rn. Like I add to society in these ways.. and my regular job does too, I’ve always worked for non profits I like. But still, objectively trying to do both is really gnarly. If only I could be randomly famous for one of those things I like doing to support the rest, I say jokingly because it is not feasible and will likely never happen. Let’s be real there, for most creative people it does not happen. But they still add to their communities and are positive facets of life and society at large. They should be able to do their thing! I also recognize that this experience is very very common. Like I’m granularly describing mine but there are definitely so many ppl with similar things happening all the time. We’re not free to do what we want. The system tells u the opposite but eh there’s a big twist. Sure I could be less free. Literally hate that argument so much tho because it’s always in regards to human made systems like, yes, AND humans COULD fix the terrible instances where the poor people are mega oppressed. We should all be on a better page. We have the resources to be but we’re not. The system and ppl who control it aren’t interested in that I guess. Like, clearly, that’s the reason. Our lives are all a little or massively worse for it. Humans can’t human as effectively, society is less colorful and interesting. As humanity we have less to offer and show for our time on earth.. We don’t even have a clear reason to explain why we’re here or why we’re conscious entities. If I know one fact about reality, we’re not here to solely make money. I refuse to get obsessed with that. But we’re all coerced to be, and the system is built to clearly influence that desire, at the risk of punishment. Like, no, fuck u and fuck money. It’s so awesome that this attitude seems so worthwhile and also so antithetical to living within our system. Fuck all that man that’s terrible. Again, I’m sure we could figure out a way to fix this, but we don’t. We also have bigger problems we refuse to fix. Humans are so cooool hahaha I love us awwee. Sorry for cynicism lulz but it is worrying! Hard not to think about it all the time ya know.

[sometimesrosy]

Hello! How are you? I have a somewhat different/maybe difficult question. I always had a group of friends when younger, but going into university that friend group kind of fell apart as we all moved to different places, and coming back we all have ours lives and some aren’t even here. During university, and in a big city, although I got along with many people, I got used to do things by myself if I wanted to do them. I even had depression (more than one factor, but I think the lack of connections had a role here) and still forced myself to leave the house and go cry at the mall or the movies. Once I came back to my hometown, I was already dating a friend from there, and then with the work field I was in and covid, I didn’t really get to develop a relationship with anyone else. Now, at work, I have colleagues I consider friends, but we rarely get together outside of work because most already have kids and live in the surrounding towns. This, to say that, I am pretty content with my partner, who accompanies me on most of the things that I want to do, and with my mom, who goes out for a coffee with me almost everyday, for example. BUT I feel like I don’t know how to do things by myself anymore. I feel like if there’s a movie or TV show I want to watch, I want to watch and share it with my partner. If he doesn’t want to watch it at the time, I get in a limbo not knowing what to do at that time. We’re both big into computers and video games, and we share an office, but I feel like I allow myself to get stalled mentally and end up doing nothing, and if I was alone, I would have been doing something for hours. This is a small town, so it’s harder for me to get hobbies outside the house. Physical activities are group classes at 7AM or 7PM, but I work most of the weeks on that later schedule, and the 7AM class would completely ruin my sleep pattern. Then you have yoga and pilates, mostly at those hours too, because it’s a small town so people aren’t available at other hours. I can’t find a languages class that isn’t online or basically private, which has super high prices. We don’t have a book club. We don’t have a music school that isn’t private and with individual classes. Everything is either at inconvenient hours for me due to my job (not complaining, just explaining) or super expensive because it would just be me or at least one more person. I feel like I’m dwelling too much thinking about my life and lack of friends, lack of money, etc, because I kind of have too much free time that I don’t know how to occupy anymore. I could spend an entire day doing absolutely nothing, just scrolling social media or something, because I don’t get myself to do anything at home. Then, when I want to do something and actually have no time because of work, I complain I don’t have time to do anything. I never thought I’d have a lack of hobbies, but here we are.

It's not that you don't know how to do things alone, it's that you've gotten out of the habit.

You've forgotten how to be your own company.

As a problem, it's actually a good one to have, because you are entirely capable of fixing it. Because it's about you. And who you need to check with to do it is... you. And who you need to consider before pushing is...YOU. It' makes everything more simple.

I understand that you're looking for social activities you can do and you are blocked because of money/time. Totally understandable. And I see your struggle. One thing you can do is look for an event outside of your town. The next town over? Even a nearby city. You can make a day of it. But that's for events or classes. Just look around and see something that fits your schedule even if you have to drive to get there. My town is also tiny and not active at all unless you're churchy. But somehow I joined an art collective. And I used to go to the poetry club. And I know there are are book clubs at the library but I haven't joined. And there's a comic book store and I'm pretty sure they have D&D sometimes. The point is look around again for activities and expand your search. Maybe you just haven't found it yet.

OTHERWISE. My suggestion for you is to start dating yourself.

Seriously. Take yourself out for dates. Figure out an activity you'd like to do and then set up an itinerary and do it. You want to see that movie no one else wants to watch? Set a date with yourself to make it to opening night.

Take a book that you've been dying to read to your favorite cafe and sit there and read your book and have the best coffees and treats and maybe buy yourself a fancy bookmark.

Want to do yoga? Set up your ipad with a good video and take it out side to a park or beach or yard and do it outside with a green smoothie as a treat afterwards.

Start your own book club. Ask at the library to put up a notice, or on community boards. Maybe the library has a room you can use to meet.

I used to wander the city with my journal, looking for cafes, where I'd sit and write and sketch.

Or hey. You know what's cool? Going out on a date with yourself to take photographs. Go to a place you always thought was interesting, and just walk around and take note of things. Take photos. Then collect your favorites and post them on tumblr or instagram or wherever.

You're stuck right now, but that doesn't mean you will always be stuck. Don't beat yourself up for being in between hobbies. You'll figure it out.

[ifanimaltrapped]

What Was Lost in Translation in MMBN3: The Tally

Hello, friends. Despite having an active fanbase, I’ve noticed there’s not a lot of information on the MMBN series when it comes to issues of translation and localization. During my recent replay of BN3, I noticed something that had always bugged me when I played it as a kid: the “Tally” Key Item, which a guard asks for before you’re allowed to enter the Undernet, an area infamous in MMBN’s world for being lawless and highly dangerous. But just what is this tally? What does it count? Why does the guard want it? Let’s needlessly fixate on a small detail in a children’s game from 20 years ago see if we can finally unravel this decades-old mystery with the help of the JP text.

Debuting in 2001 and concluding in 2009 with a Japan-only remake of BN1, the MMBN series falls into an awkward “growing pains” phase of Japanese-to-English localization: just after the PS1 gold rush of JRPGs kicked off by Final Fantasy VII where localization was a lawless frontier, but before developers started grasping that localization was its own discipline that needed to work alongside game creators directly for crucial context and technical input. MMBN’s localizations are indicative of the era’s shortcomings as a whole: largely serviceable translations marred by obvious errors caused by localizers working in the dark without context.

The Tally confusion is emblematic of this problem. In BN3, you acquire an item called a “Tally” which you need to get by a guard in front of the entrance to the Undernet. Everyone who’s played BN3 has thought something along these lines: “What is this a tally of, exactly? Why does the guard let me pass when I show it?” Luckily for us, a quick glance at the original JP text yields the answer.

The JP text calls this item ura no warifu. Some of you may already know that ura, meaning reverse side or hidden side, is what the Undernet is called in the original Japanese script of MMBN. Look up warifu in most common online dictionaries, though, and you’ll get back a definition that says something like “tally” or “check”... but that still doesn’t answer what this thing is supposed to be or why the guard wants it.

Historically, a warifu is very similar to the Western concept of indentured documents: splitting a piece of paper or wood in half, both parties keep one half, and they fit the halves back together like puzzle pieces when the deal is concluded to prove their identity. Before international banking or ID cards, this was the only real way to do that. Hence the somewhat misleading definitions of “tally” and “check”: these were indeed once used as proof in transactions, like as a tally of goods, but what’s important in this context is how they were once a proof of identity too.

Take another look at the item’s icon in the screenshot above: it should hopefully be clear now that it’s supposed to be a piece of wood split in half in such a way as to make each piece too unique to duplicate, hence the odd “U”-shaped hole at the bottom. That’s why the guard won’t let you pass without it: denizens of the Undernet, being outlaws, don’t have any official way to prove they’re supposed to be there, so they have to resort to primitive methods like this. When he says you need a “Tally” to go through, what he’s trying to say is that you need the wood piece that matches his to prove your identity.

The reason this was all lost in translation is almost certainly because the localizers lacked the context to understand which aspect of a warifu was important. Back in 2003, it would have been common for localizers to just be faxed enormous spreadsheets with the raw JP text of the game’s script. Sometimes scene notes would be provided, but more often they wouldn’t. I’d bet money that some beleaguered localizer saw ウラ のわりふ in a lonesome cell on a gargantuan spreadsheet and wondered about it, but then realized he had an 8-character limit on Key Item names and still had 6,000 pages to go, so he just typed in “Tally” and moved on. With the benefit of hindsight, the best solution would’ve probably been to go with something like “UndrPass” (recall the 8-character max for Key Item names) and try to fit something in the item description about how it had been split in half as proof of identity.

Funnily enough, warifu actually cropped up in another recent game, but you probably didn’t notice it:

The above screenshot is from Elden Ring, and 割符 is how warifu is written in kanji. Literally, the kanji for warifu mean “split token” or “divided token”. As I understand it, this detail was omitted for concision and the item is simply referred to as a medallion (I have not actually played Elden Ring myself, so I’m just going off of wiki pages). Still, it just goes to show you never know when the lessons you learned from one game can appear in another!

If there’s interest, there’s a number of other topics I can cover in regards to MMBN and its troubled localization. Off the top of my head, there’s:

- Why is the End Area in BN5 called that? It’s a feudal Japanese town and not even the last area in the game; there’s nothing particularly final about it. The answer is probably the biggest mistranslation in the series, and it all comes back to - you guessed it - the localizers once again not having enough context!

- Did you know the fake names of countries were invented in localization, and in JP, MMBN expressly takes place in Japan instead of Electopia (although it’s spelled differently than how one would usually spell it, which raises questions of its own)? Further, numerous references are made to Akihabara, and the final level of BN2 is all but stated to take place in Yokohama, among other examples.

- The meaning of Mamoru’s name in BN3 has already been well documented, but did you know there’s still more to be uncovered? The TV in Lan’s house foreshadows the importance of the Ura Inn, and a pun lost in translation highlights the connection between Tamako and MetalMan.

- What’s up with everyone’s English names? What kind of name is “Chaud”, anyway? The answer is a classic case of a solution for one stand-alone game working perfectly... until you get a sequel and suddenly a detail added in localization starts to spiral out of control, like what happened with the first Phoenix Wright game taking place in America for the English localization. In fact, there’s a very special connection between Ace Attorney and MMBN... maybe I can go into it some more!

I know this is a marked departure from my usual fare, so do let me know if you’ve enjoyed this, and if you’re interested in any of the above. Have a great week!

Yours in gratitude, If Animal Trapped

[ignorethisemma]

Dream support and appreciation

not that this post will reach anyone at all, let alone someone willing to read a dream defense essay, but in light of all the dream negativity lately, i just want to clearly express why i support and love his content and also respect him so much as an actual human being. LONG thread btw, sorry 😵‍💫

1. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY! dealing with controversies

nobody’s born woke, obviously. dream’s open about the fact that he was a middle class white boy who grew up in florida; of course he was going to be raised somewhat conservatively and not very exposed to diverse perspectives. and of course through his years of creating content—since when he was a child—he has done and said plenty of things i don’t agree with or even just think he could’ve handled a little bit better. but that’s not the deal breaker for me.

dream never shies away from apologizing and taking full accountability for his actions, even the ones from years and years in the past. and sure, sometimes you can tell it’s difficult for him to own up, but that’s human, and i honestly can’t fault him at all for it. but what really sealed the deal for me was that hasan abi stream—hasan, who’s actually so woke lol, and they’d had tension on twitter until dream decided to come on stream and talk it all out. in that ONE stream, you could actually see dream actively growing and expanding his perspective and shape his views and opinions?? i don’t think he gets enough credit for this at all.

when i outgrow my old and often misguided beliefs, it is an active and constant battle. i have to convince myself and consciously choose to let my old beliefs go, and with that, a lot of my pride and stubbornness, and mould and shape and mould and shape until i eventually am able to accept that i’ve grown for the better. it is a long, difficult, sometimes painful and humiliating process. i need time; to unlearn, to let go, to swallow my pride and deal with the shame of having been wrong, to introspect and then talk it through and hear from people whose opinions i trust, and then finally realize my new opinions. dream was doing this in a huge platform, with the pressure of his status and in front of a live audience that was ready to pick him apart in ONE stream. he was listening to and learning from hasan. it was difficult, but it was happening, and you can actually see the moments he lets his defensiveness go (which i also can’t fault him for considering his internet reception) and really grow into his thoughts more. i don’t think i could do that now—nevermind if i was a white boy from florida.

and you can see how much dream continues to progress and grow and change so quickly! i can’t even compare him to who he was last year or the year before, because that’s how fast he’s growing and learning. that’s the moment i gained so much respect for him. and i see this so often in a lot of his online presence. sure, he’s not perfect, and i have no doubt there’ll be more moments i don’t entirely agree with him, but how can i hold that against him when i can’t imagine anything that could be as deserving of respect as this is? when it’s undeniable that he is purposefully taking advantage of his platform to educate and better himself?

2. not rlly smthn he specifically did, ig, but his views on sexuality made me lose it

i won’t go too much into it, but his views on sexuality and also just, relationships with close friends. i’m just so grateful to him. i’m a lesbian, but i do have some turbulence with my sexuality, identity, how others perceive me or their idea on how sexuality should work. but the way dream approaches his and also clearly explains his views when he’s comfortable really helped shape and develop my own views on mine. when he said it’s hard for him to identify with even one label a little bit more than another, because he feels it’s so much more complex than that and he doesn’t know how to compress it to just one word—something slipped out of place in me.

i won’t talk about all the nuances of my current perceptions on sexuality, mine or as a whole, but i respect him so much for this, and it was absolutely heartbreaking when every attempt dream’s made at seriously addressing his sexuality has been met with the assumption of insincerity. i honestly see a lot of similarities in our outlooks and situations in all of this, and i’m just so grateful and appreciative of him for helping me get a stronger footing of who i am.

3. he’s just a silly, goofy little guy

he’s just so fun and entertaining to watch. i love him, i love his friends, i love watching them dick around with each other. i love how close they are. and i’m so excited to see more of it now in the new era. his videos are so funny and i always look forward to them. simple as that.

4. i have a dumb little cat who reminds me a lot of patches. i have a parasocial relationship with patches specifically. my cat, too, drools on me when she’s sleepy and is a little challenged in the braincells apartment. patches my shining star

anyway that’s it i just wanted to get this out there. i have a lot on my mind and it’s been really hard to see a creator i care about get dragged so much both online and by people i know. i just need to defend my boy a little here—especially since i’ve long thought he’s been held to a ridiculous standard and pedestal and is kinda undeservingly the easy punch for so many online communities. so: i love u dream, i’m so proud of u for face revealing, i’m so proud of you for a lot more than just face revealing, and i’m so excited to see what comes next. (also my best friend and i guessed pre-reveal u’d kinda look like sapnap but just in a different font and i’m so sorry. i’m so sorry but i think we kinda nailed that one. it’s like papyrus to garamond istg. but that’s just confirmation that now there’s three pretty best friends <3)

[ronin-deactivated19851026]

kiwifarms being gone (for now, at least) really prompted me to reflect on the phenomena of this type of internet culture as a whole.

for the sake of full transparency i will mention that part of me is upset because i am anti-authoritarian and strongly against censorship, and i do believe that people should have some space where they can dump whatever content they want to.

that being said, there still has to be a line, and kiwifarms, lolcow.farm, and possibly other similar currently active places i don’t know of, have crossed it multiple times. the only positive thing about these places i can think of is that occasionally they would collect receipts/archive important data on people who actually need to be hold accountable.

but the overwhelming majority of internet users they follow, stalk, mock, and doxx, are pretty much just random online weirdos who used to make the internet fun back in the day. sometimes not even weirdos, but literally average people who happen to post something inappropriate or “weird” once in a while. and then they’re getting enabled, milked, by people who mock them.

sure, i’m aware that milking cows is prohibited, but who cares about rules? how can you be sure that anonymous readers will follow them? how can you post someone on a public space, point a finger at them, and assume this won’t lead to some consequences? okay, you may argue that the initial content that is being mocked also comes from a public space.

but here’s the thing, people tend to draw their attention at something that is directly indicated rather than spending their own limited resource of attention, which is already somewhat low in this day and age. that’s why level design in video games is crucial for the gameplay, that’s why street signs exist, and that’s what marketing/trending heavily exploits as well, but that’s another topic to discuss.

the bottom line here is, chances that majority of people will scroll past something weird without thinking too much about it are much higher than when someone pops out of nowhere and points fingers at something, asking to look at it and digest in a specific way as opposed to what you may have thought if you have stumbled upon the content in the wild. you’re not immune to propaganda dot jpeg and all that. or rather, manipulation, or even more specifically, influence.

the most common argument i stumble across is freedom of speech. while i agree that people should be free to say what they want, it still doesn’t mean that any possible consequence should be uncritically brushed off. i’m not against criticizing someone, or hell, even laughing at their content online, but this is a complex issue where multiple factors are involved. it’s not just a question whether it’s okay to state your negative opinion/criticism or not. framing it as such is intellectually dishonest.

---

i can’t stop thinking about how all of this is connected to cringe culture and general mental suppression/anxiety among modern day internet users.

like. i did say above that i’m against censorship, right? funny how it horseshoes back. the scale of cringe culture and lolcow harassment campaigns which, from my experience, are often excused by freedom of speech, recoil back into its own form of subtle censorship.

i mean, how many people out there are scared of sharing anything, connecting to others, fearing they might not only be laughed at, but also possibly put in danger? at least half of my friends have apologized for being “cringy” at some point, as if i’m going to judge them. though, i can’t really blame them, i too have developed this annoying type of anxiety that killed all fun of internet to me. i’m pretty sure i'm already somebody’s personal lolcow anyway, gave enough reasons to be deemed as one.

don’t know if i’m just biased due to nostalgia or what, but i think it was better back in the day. like, sure, this isn’t new. i have been reading encyclopeadia dramatica back when i was 13. still, cringe culture as a mass phenomenon didn’t exist yet and trolling/harassment campaigns were still in their infancy, with the first massive boom being chris-chan harassment campaign a year later after i learned that people apparently collect “receipts” on other people for eccentric behavior. sometimes those aren’t even actual receipts, just random taken out of context content, skewed to be perceived in a way that wasn’t originally intended. i wonder if callout culture is related to this somehow too? idk.

[jkoo-njoo]

gaming chair

summary : “You make me smile, even when I don’t want to.” ��� jk feels awful these days and he plays video games a lot to distract himself. But this time.... it’s not cutting it no more, and he definitely needs real help. So he calls the only person that knows how to soothe his heart no matter what : you.

pairing : college student! jk x college student! black fem reader

genre : fluff + a bit angst bc jk has some mental health issues. but dw there is loads of comfort

word count : 3769

warnings : description of anxiety, description of a slight panic attack, talk about mental health issues, light mention of suicidal thoughts, light swearing

author’s note : I wrote this while struggling myself with the problems jk is facing, so this will be very therapeutic for anyone needing some support right now 🥺 Jk and reader are asexuals so no smut or anything is implied ! when they hug, it’s just that— a hug lmao. And reader has braids :) Enjoy loves <3

Another average game.... sigh.

He’s been at it since, like,,, 1 PM. It’s already 8 PM.

God... this is awful. I can’t just spend my days like this instead of actually dealing with my emotions.

It’s what he tells himself every time, yet he can’t seem to act on it and actually get better.

He definitely needs some help.

It’s hard when you’re dealing with constant anxiety, you know. Because you’re afraid of failure, you’re afraid of disappointing people, you’re afraid you’re not working hard enough, that you’re not giving you’re all every single day.... and it paralyzes you.

You literally cannot do anything anymore because you’re too afraid. You’re frightened by the unstable and unpredictable future.

And it’s oh so exhausting.

The worst thing isn’t even the anxiety itself; it’s when you’re completely aware of it, yet you can’t seem to help yourself. You can’t seem to be able to pick yourself up and get it together. You just can’t because you’re already talking down on yourself so much every single day since you’re not able to function properly, that you manage to convince yourself that you don’t even deserve help. You don’t deserve to heal, you don’t deserve a redemption arc. And it sucks, to say the least.

When he finds himself too lost in his thoughts and rummaging too much in his own misery; he just needs distraction. He needs it to stay afloat, to give himself a semblance of mental care.

He found a bit of comfort in video games. Online, he is praised for his concentration, his tactic decisions and his sharp reflexes. It’s an instant rewarding activity : when you win, you are respected and looked up to. People always wanna play with you and there is no unnecessary long preparation to get better. It’s no secret : play more, win more.

At the beginning it was somewhat healthy : he only played a few hours on weekends so he could work on all the college shit he needed to do during the week and not interfere with his studies.

But, as time passed by, with college getting more complicated and exams coming up,,,, he couldn’t endure the pressure. All he did was play everyday, all day long. Even during the night.

Yes, it sounds very stupid, but when games are a way of escaping reality and relieving the constant pain in your head as much as the constant pull on your chest caused by all this pressure he felt,,,, it was a lot more than needed.

He could ask for help from friends or family or maybe some classmates. But he knew how judgemental people could be, and how tense and optuse they were when it came to dealing with mental health issues. He would just get remarks saying that he was being lazy or some other bullshit like that ; and he really didn’t wanna deal with none of this.

So he doesn’t talk to anyone about this.... except with you.

You’re the only person he always confides to and seeks support from. Your simple presence soothes his heart and calms his overwhelming thoughts.

Now,,, don’t get it twisted : you two were not a couple.

You met on campus.

He already noticed you walking around, and he did found you beautiful, but he never said anything to you and kept his distance, just admiring from afar. Nothing big.

One day, while he was visibly struggling over some dumb assignment that was due the day after, he did not notice when you sat next to him to study because the college library was packed and the only available chair was the one he used for his bag. He also did not notice when you looked over what he was doing and the way your eyes lit up when you realized you two were studying the same subject; meaning you were in the same course. He only became aware of your presence when you tapped on his shoulder and proposed to finish the assignment together.

Eventually, you grew closer and closer to each other. Ever since then, you’ve both always tried your best to help each other and stay by your side.

(He will never openly admit the crush he has on you though.)

You were truly and sincerely a really good friend, and it’s not the crush talking.

You were genuinely a great person : always offering a hand to help, always offering an ear to listen, and always offering advices to get through the hard times, only when he asked. You never judged him. You would never give unrequired mean comments and passive aggressive ‘motivational speeches’ or whatever the fuck his parents called the awful messages they were sending him.

He definitely needed a shoulder to cry on.

It was a bit complicated because... he never asked for this much before. He never asked for more than just some quick help, but you would provide him with way more than what he expected, every single time. He couldn’t deny your support, even if he wanted to.

So he pressed your contact name and sent you a message, asking to come to his place to help him get back to work.

Wait what time is it— 09:24 PM already ?!

Before he could tell you to forget it and come back another day, you already answered〈I’m on my way ☺️〉

Guess he just has to buy you pizza now.

______________________________________________

10 minutes or so later, you knocked on his door.

He just finished tidying up his room a little bit, to occupy himself before facing you. He musters up all the courage he has, and comes to the door.

Usually, he’s never nervous to see you and stuff, but this time,,, it was different.

His hands starts to sweat and he begin struggling to breathe.

inhale.......

exhale.......

After calming the pounding heart in his chest as much as he can, he finally lets you in.

You’re too taken aback by his obviously tired posture to notice the slight blush tainting his cheeks as he greets you.

“hi [y/n], thank you so much for coming. I needed you.”

Even though he tried his best to conceal it, the exhaustion he felt was dripping from his voice. And the rawness of it betrayed him by showing that it must be his first time speaking out loud to someone in a while.

He started to feel self conscious of his miserable state.

But, his concerns faded away as soon as you spoke up to him.

“hi jeon. don’t worry about it : I’ll always be there to help you.”

His heart skipped a beat.

As you took off your shoes, there was a huge silence between you two. While you’ve been passed the stage where silences are awkward, it still feels heavy.

When you were done getting rid of all your layers, you broke it.

“ok, you know that I know that you don’t really need me for some homework stuff. What’s going on jeon.... please, tell me everything that’s on your heart. I’ll try to help you deal with it.”

You took his arm and tried to bring him to sit on his couch, but he stayed stiff. When you looked back at him, he was looking at his feet and playing with his fingers. It caught you a bit off guard.

“uuh...... can we please go to my room instead..? I’ll feel, um, more comfortable.”

it was not the first time you went to his room so why was he acting funny right now ? You really started to think that something very bad happened, seeing how fidgety and unsettled he was.

When in the room, both of you sat onto his bed, and you patiently waited for him to tell you what was actually going on.

He took a deep breathe, and started to talk while looking at his hands and playing with them.

“I’ve been stuck in such a bad place lately. I can’t do anything. All I do is sleep all day and play. I’m not even good at it too, like my level is getting worse than ever everyday. And don’t get me started on my fucked up sleeping schedule. I’m a mess.” he chuckles, a humorless laugh leaving his lips.

He was still clearly uncomfortable, his voice not louder than a brittle, as if he was just talking to himself.

You nodded, signaling that you were listening. Even though he wasn’t directly looking at you, he got the message, and kept going.

“I... I struggle so much with concentration. I can’t focus on shit for more than 5 minutes. It’s driving me insane. Can you imagine not being able to concentrate on something else that video game or scrolling on social media for more than 5 mf minutes ?! Gosh, I feel so lazy and useless.” he said, rubbing his eyes furiously.

He was clearly getting heated, and usually you would’ve immediately jump in to tell him that he was wrong, that he was such an intelligent, very creative and overall wonderful human being.

But you understood that he only needed an open ear to listen to him for now, as he confides all his bottled up feelings.

So you stayed silent.

He continued.

“And, I know it’s not my fault, right ? like,,, it’s just a rough time, I’m just supposed to tell myself that I’ll be ok, that it’s all gonna be ok, and I’m supposed to magically feel better and keep it pushing. It’s how it must be, right ? ....but I feel like it completely is my fault. I feel like I’m giving up on myself, that I’m not taking the responsibility to care for me. [y/n]... I don’t want to push anymore. I don’t want to do anything anymore— I don’t have the energy to. I- I cannot stand the constant pain in my chest and... I cannot stand the chills that run down my spine when I realize a deadline is getting closer and closer while I still didn’t start an assignment, because I don’t have any motivation to do so. I cannot stand the everlasting fear of failure that lingers in my mind and keeps me from touching a textbook during weeks— because working frightens me. I’m- I’m... broken. I am literally broken.” As he unfolded more and more, his rambling became jerky and messy.

You could feel the pain in the way his voice cracks and the way sobs were falling out of his mouth.

“I’m so anxious about the future and about how I completely lost control of my life, that I can’t even sleep. I don’t eat much either. I’ve given up on life. I feel empty, worthless and tired. So tired. [y/n]... I’m tired of living.” he said, the last sentence almost too quiet to be heard.

Soon enough, he was crying. It was very hard for him right now. Still he tried to repress it, as he promised himself not to breakdown in front of you. But it was useless.

Way to go ! Now you look even more of a mess than you already are.

You reached out, and took one of his hands in yours while softly wiping his cheeks with your other hand. With the softest voice you could manage, you encouraged him to let go as much as possible.

“.... let it out. Let it all out. Cry as much and as loud as you want to. Please Jeon allow it to yourself.” you told him with a small smile.

And he did just that. He cried, and cried, and cried. And you stayed, patiently rubbing his hands and his cheeks.

Seeing him like this was breaking your heart so much, you felt your own tears coming up. You wanted to be there for him and protect him as much as you possibly could. You would never give up on him.

After a little while, he calmed down. You felt relieved because he seemed to feel a bit better as he has finally been able to open up and get rid of all these thoughts clogging his mind.

He felt the same, noticing how such a big weight has finally been lifted off his shoulders.

But still, he felt uneasy about what he was about to ask.

He started to fidget with his fingers again, and realizing that’s the body language he has when he feels nervous about what he’s about to do or say, you tried your best to ease him.

“Do you have something else you wanna talk about ? You know you can tell me anything. You know I’ll always be there for you.”

You kind of regretted the way the last sentence sounded a bit much but oh well, honesty has never killed anyone. Your feelings were genuine and you wanted to make sure that he knows there is someone there for him.

It visibly helped him loosen up a bit. So, he musters up all the courage left in his body, and he decides to request this one thing he’s been needing the most : “well hum... can you give me a hug please..?”

You almost immediately answered of course, and started leaning into him— but... it wasn’t exactly what he wanted.

“wait! no- not like this.”

You leaned back in your place and couldn’t help your eyebrows frowning, your confusion showing very hard on your face. You guys would hug sometimes so you didn’t quite understand his reaction.

why was he acting suspicious about it now ?

He saw the frown on your face, and it stressed him out even more. The last thing he would ever do is to make you mad or uncomfortable.

“ok, it’s not that I do not want to hug you, but can we do a different hug..? Like uuh... you hug me but like,,,, you cradling me on my, um, gaming chair.”

He wanted to tell you that basically he would liked to just... be spooned. But it was hard enough to get this request out of his chest, and he didn’t wanna startle you even more.

He didn’t see your reaction because he was looking at his hands instead of you, but sensing how you didn’t say anything, he looked up to you.

You were silent — fairly surprised — still processing what he just asked you.

But he, on the other hand, couldn’t really read your face ; and he started to panic because he got really scared that he ruined your relationship.

Like,, he knew you were asexual because you talked to him about it several times and it was no secret for the both of you ; but you didn’t really know about him being ace too.

You didn’t know that you sharing the ups and down of your journey on finding out about your asexuality to him made him realize that he felt the same thing and that he may be ace too.

You didn’t know how comforting it was for him to hang out with you, because he didn’t have to not be himself in front of you and that you would never have triggering discussions about subjects that were not interesting the both of you.

He never really talked to you about it, not because he wanted to hide this from you ; but because he was still finding out about himself more and more everyday, at his own pace. Even though he was practically sure by now.

So he felt like he kind of betrayed your trust in him, and that he betrayed himself too because,,, what if you think that he wanted to force you into a sexual setting when he obviously knows it will clearly make you uncomfortable ?

And other than that... even though he had a crush on you and he would definitely enjoy being linked to you in a romantic way.... you two were really good friends and he cherished the connection you already had with each other so much. You meant a lot to him. He would not handle losing this. Losing you.

What if you reject him ?

Just thinking about it made him feel incredibly dizzy.

His mind was spiraling so much that he didn’t even notice he started shaking because of all the overthinking ; until you grabbed one of his hands with both of yours and rubbed your thumb slowly on his skin.

The truth is you were silent because it startled you a bit. It’s not everyday that the guy friend that you have a soft spot for asks you to cuddle with him in his room.

And if you were being honest...

You lowkey (highkey) needed some sort of comfort yourself.

College life is very exhausting and draining, both physically and mentally. Showering Jungkook with all that support and help, and seeing that it was effectively making him feel better, was giving you the courage to try actively apply your own advices to deal with your own mental health issues.

Helping him was so beneficial to you both, you would never pass an occasion to do it. Plus, you’re hardly ever seeing anyone these days and you trusted him. So... a hug will not hurt anyone.

You answered.

“Don’t worry, it’s completely ok for me Jeon. And please, don’t feel ashamed to ask for help, especially from me. You know I’ll always do it, if it means I can ease you, even just the slightest. ”

After you reassured him, he released a breathe he didn’t even know he was holding. He was so sensitive and vulnerable... His state was really alarming. He did great giving in to his heart and calling you.

He smiled and gave you a small thank you so much.

Seeing how visibly shy he was about all this, you didn’t wanna make it harder than it was for him.

So you got up and took him with you. He followed you from behind like a lost puppy. He was so visibly vulnerable... it broke your heart and seeing his state, you knew you did great giving in to your heart and accepting to come right away.

Then, he sat down on the chair.

And, you got on top of him.

As soon as you settled, he embraced you and held you tight, close to him.

You felt how tense he was and how fast his heart was beating in his chest.

When you hugged his waist in return, he started to loosen up and relax. He even let out a content sigh he didn’t even know he was holding back.

A silence installed between the both of you. A comfortable one.

He started rubbing your back and slowly rocking you side to side.

You stayed like this, just bathing in each other’s presence. You wanted to remain like this with him for as long as you possibly could.

You breathing softly in the crook of his neck, with his heartbeat and the rhythm of his chest rising and falling soothing you.

Him caressing your back and occasionally rubbing circles with his thumb onto you.

It was such a nice feeling....

All of a sudden, your stomach lets out an incredibly loud growling noise. It just had to be right now.

Jungkook started laughing and you swear his laugh is like angels singing to your ear.

He knew he was laughing way too hard for what it really was, but it’s been so much time since he has been genuinely laughing. Genuinely enjoying the moment. Genuinely living life.

“Ah.. I guess it’s the time when I order pizza for you, right ?”

He said smiling. You smiled back a bit embarrassed, and he thought you couldn’t be cuter.

While not letting go of you, he took his phone with one of his hand and ordered the food. When he was done, he went back to embracing you, this time occasionally playing with your braids too.

After a little while, he confessed.

“You make me smile, even when I don’t want to.”

It was obvious he was looking at you, but you didn’t have it in you to look back at him in the eyes. It would be too much for your little heart.

You didn’t answer, you knew you didn’t have to. He knows you feel the same.

You both feel like it is enough just like this : just some soft, comfy, intimate hugs and vibes.

Cool display of friendship,,, between two friends.

Without being ironic, it was actually a very nice moment he was sharing with you. This will always be special to him, and from now on he’ll make sure he spends more meaningful time with you.

He was so happy that he mastered the courage to call you. He absolutely needed this.

Later on, the food arrived, so you parted during the time he went and paid for it. You ate the pizza on the couch, while watching a few episodes of some light hearted anime you were both interested in.

At some point, he looked at the time and— 01:37 AM

shit! I made her stay so late...

“Well it’s ass o’clock right now and I absolutely cannot let you go home, so! you might as well stay. You will sleep in my room and I’ll be on the couch don’t worry! I’ll go give you some shorts and one of my large t-shirt so you can go change and, uh, yeah.”

He was so much more joyful and his eyes glowed with sparkles, compared to just a few hours ago. You were really happy for him.

“Thank you Jeon it’s so nice of you really. Do you feel better now ?”

He replied right on the spot I do! with the biggest smile on his face. Even his adorable dimples were showing.

The butterflies in your stomach were partying right now.

______________________________________________

After giving each other one last goodnight hug you both went to bed. While lied down on the couch, he looked back on the night he just spent and.... He realized how lucky he was to have you by his side. His heart warms thinking about you.

How sweet and understanding you were, despite him being so emotionally exhausted. How nice it felt to have you close to him, and to enjoy the comfort of your embrace.

Ah.... He feels so happy and content right now. He almost cries, and this time, his eyes are full of tears of pure joy.

He manages to settle his fast-beating heart, and eventually falls asleep. Needless to say this night was the first time he’s had a good rest in a while.

Masterlist <3

[vidavalor]

Bucky’s dual-era dog tags in TFATWS (and when & where he decides to wear them) are giving me some SamBucky-related vibes...

...in addition to the just interesting stuff related to Bucky’s various identity issues. So let’s talk the dog tags. 

First things first, these really do not seem like they’re Steve’s dog tags-- they’re Bucky’s own. Why? Look at the promo still below which is the best view I’ve seen of them in TFATWS. Notice that they are not of the same era. One of the dog tags is a WW2-era tag-- the darker, wider one is not only period-accurate for WW2, it’s identical to the ones Bucky was wearing during WW2 in the movie canon already, most visibly in the “let’s hear it for Captain America!” moment. The *other* dog tag Bucky is wearing in TFATWS, though, is of a more modern issue. It is the kind that would be made for soldiers now and over the last couple of decades. So, how does that mean that they’re Bucky’s and not just Steve’s and what does this have to do with Sam? 

Dog tags are only meant to be separated off the chain in the case of death, as everyone probably knows. Soldiers wear two tags with the same information on them into battle so that one remains on them if they die and the other can be pulled off the chain as proof of a fallen soldier during battle, with the army then usually passing the single chain to next of kin. If Bucky were wearing a pair of WW2-era dog tags in TFATWS, I’d say it was more possible that he was wearing Steve’s tags because Steve didn’t actually have them on when he went into the ice so, somewhere, Steve’s pair of WW2-era dog tags exist as a set, still on the chain. They probably wound up in the Smithsonian at some point but back to Bucky-- his, based on the canon we know, would have been separated after the freight car. 

Bucky was wearing his dog tags when he fell off the train car because he was at war. We know that the Russians found Bucky and then handed him back over to Zola. The Russians, to cover this up, would have taken one of Bucky’s dog tags and given it to the U.S. Army, claiming that they had found them washed up on the shore near where he fell or something. What did the U.S. Army do then? They didn’t know what Zola had done to Bucky beforehand that would enable him to survive the fall so they wouldn’t think to question the Russians on this-- they’d just be like hey, thanks for this and we’ll continue to do the same for you. They would have taken the dog tag and marked Bucky off as dead and then done the next thing, which is to give the dog tag to the soldier’s next of kin. 

Bucky died during war time and everyone knew he and Steve had been friends before the war so whatever general got the dog tag probably just gave it to Steve. Steve *could* have given it to Bucky’s sister at some point-- and we know she exists in the MCU because Bucky briefly mentioned her in TFATWS but we don’t know if he’s gone to see her yet-- but we also have no idea what she’s like in the MCU or if Steve might have just decided to keep the dog tag for himself. Given the trauma Steve went through of witnessing Bucky’s death and them not finding Bucky’s body, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that even if Steve was the one who told Rebecca about Bucky’s death and all that, that he kept Bucky’s dog tag. The other one, that was on Bucky at the time when he was given back to Zola, was destroyed by Zola during him being brainwashed into The Winter Soldier. 

So, maybe through seeing Rebecca but probably really through Steve, Bucky gets one of his WW2 era dog tags back. Given that he isn’t seen wearing dog tags again until TFATWS, it’s likely that Steve gave it back to Bucky sometime in the Endgame aftermath before Steve went back in time. Let’s unpack how Steve’s heart was in the right place but that was a bit of a loaded gift here...

Free from being brainwashed-- as free as he’s been *since* WW2 anyway-- Bucky is essentially handed by Steve the symbol of what he just can’t be anymore-- that guy that Steve used to know. He’s still somewhat that guy but he’s been through so much that he’s not going to ever go back. Steve is into going back-- back to the same girl, back to the same era, back to a time when things felt less confusing and safer to him, where things will hurt less. Bucky has always been the absolute opposite of this-- while Steve was always desperate to fit the mode of the model man of the WW2 era, Bucky-- a good-looking, able-bodied soldier who can hot-blooded American male with the best of them-- was never a man of his time, always a bit ahead of it. Steve is Captain America-- Bucky is Captain World of Tomorrow. He’s more realistic about what America is because as a guy putting on a show for the world to pass in the society that Steve worships, Bucky has a very different perspective on all of it than Steve did. (See also, obviously, why Bucky and Sam understand one another and are better for one another than either of them with Steve.) Bucky is touched that Steve had this and is trying to do something nice by giving it back to him but it’s the singular dog tag bearing ‘James Buchanan Barnes’ like it’s literally being his own next of kin at this point as Steve’s about to go back into time-- it’s being handed a reminder of the demise of his sense of self and his *literal almost actual death* right when he’s trying to figure out how he’s going to view himself and what he’s going to do in this world now that he’s going to stay in the present. 

So, he’s not wearing it. He doesn’t really know what to do with it. He’s with Sam at the time (maybe not *with* Sam but I mean they’re sharing a lot of the same space, either at the Avengers compound or Sam’s apartment, in the whole Endgame aftermath time period but pre-TFATWS) and Sam sees it and Bucky tells him he’s putting it away because he can’t wear it. Steve was trying to do a nice thing but Bucky’s like I can’t wear one of these things, my old WW2 one-- it’d be like I was a walking corpse. Sam agrees. So, from here two things could have happened...

One is that Bucky could have made the decision to just get himself a modern secondary tag but keep in mind that Dr. Raynor actually had to clear Bucky for active duty and that wouldn’t have happened right away. More importantly, some military guys basically never take off their dog tags but we have evidence that Bucky used to actually *not* be like this so much. While he had them on during the war, much has been made (and should be made, for sure) about how Bucky’s wardrobe changes after his first encounter with Zola compared to when he first left for war. The Bucky in uniform on the double date with Steve is spiffy and spotless; the Bucky in the bar with Peggy and the Howlies is barely hanging on. The most major difference is how much he pushes his uniform away from his neck and stops wearing a hat-- some have theorized that Zola was trying an early version of the mind crown on Bucky before Steve found him, prompting Bucky to develop a trauma-induced need to have things away from his neck. 

This actually doesn’t change that much after Civil War, when he’s free from his handlers and on the run. By necessity, there’s a baseball cap at times but he wears a lot of henleys and there’s not actually any necklaces or dog tags until TFATWS. So, what changes? The addition of the modern tag and his reclaiming of the idea of being a soldier. So, the two options for how Bucky got the modern dog tag are really either a) he went and had one made for himself or b) Sam gave it to him. Let’s look at why the former would be kind of a healthy choice for Bucky but why it’s probably not likely to be what happened. 

One scene that stands out for me is the single scene in TFATWS where it’s really obvious that Bucky is *not* wearing the dog tags. They show up all over the place-- he has them on for basically the entire series. He’s even *sleeping* in them, waking up with them on during a nightmare where they’re prominent in the scene and then also in its contrasting scene, on the couch in Delacroix. So, the one scene we don’t see Bucky wearing them? His first therapy scene with Raynor. 

It’s made pretty clear that while Bucky got a thing or two out of his time with Raynor, it’s not really because of Raynor herself, who is basically a terrible trauma therapist. It’s also clear that Bucky doesn’t trust her and for good reason. We see that he really shouldn’t-- she’s forcing him into rules he can’t actually live by instead of helping him find ways through those scenarios when they invitably pop up (“don’t hurt anyone” is a recipe for failure) and she’s treating a man violated in every way under the sun in a way that’s invasive. She’s monitoring his phone. She threatens his compliance by *bringing out a book that she’s writing his secrets in* like... this isn’t the healthiest scenario here. What we also see is that Bucky subtly rebels against her. He somehow got himself cleared for active duty by her so he’s been b.s.ing her. He is later seen with a smart phone he knows how to use at Zemo’s (and had to have something on which he was online dating profile perusing) but Raynor thinks he just owns an old flip phone. So, it’s something really interesting that this is the one scene where we can’t see the chain of his dog tags. Why? Why doesn’t he want Raynor to know about them? 

Because he’s hiding what they mean to him. If he wore them in, he’d have to talk to her about them. The dog tags represent his real efforts to reconcile his identity and what he wants that to look like-- he’s vulnerable about them because they represent what little hope he has left. If Bucky had gone out and gotten that modern dog tag for himself and began wearing them, it’d be something healthy to share with Raynor. He’d want to show it off, all eager to show the doc the decision she’d see as healthy and let her analyze it with him. We know that Bucky is struggling to reconcile his identity-- it’s literally his whole story arc in TFATWS-- and yet, he’s wearing dog tags that cut to the chase of it, in a lot of ways. Which is why those dog tags were on in New York all the time except for with Raynor-- why he wore them to bed, even-- and why he leaves them on when he goes to see Sam. 

Sam got Bucky that newer tag. Probably when Raynor cleared him as a congratulations thing or maybe just when he saw Bucky left with a friend who went back in time and left him with nothing but a notebook of things to check out and a corpse necklace and felt for him. In essence, Bucky is wearing around another pair of dual identities in TFATWS-- the Bucky who died in WW2 and the Bucky who is still alive again now in the present-- as given back/given to him and represented by the once and future Captain Americas, who also happen to be the guys he’s loved (in different ways) the most in his life. That he’s wearing them is a sign that he wants to be Sgt. Barnes again-- this newer version of himself. It’s progress from the man who shuddered at stuff around his neck and TFATWS shows us that in other scenes as well, in other ways (his hoodie & jacket combo when they go to talk to Zemo; his signature jacket with a higher collar than we’ve seen him in since he left for war.) The wardrobe choices show an evolution-- a willingness to try to a new place of managing what he’s been through. 

But wearing those dog tags around Sam in TFATWS? (And wearing them when he and Sam weren’t really communicating ahead of it?) Yeah. The parallel to Bucky showing up in Delacroix with a whole new outfit for Sam’s new identity as Captain America is that it was Sam who gave Bucky the modern half of his dog tags (and the chain, which is lighter silver and from the present era) and that’s why Bucky has been wearing them. Steve gave him a reminder of the guy he used to be, even if that guy was still pretty dead but Sam gave him a duplicate-- one that represented the guy who belongs to more modern times and is alive. One tag is death; two is life. 

[waithyuck]

smile

***part of the nct almost collab by @hyucksie***

pairing: zhong chenle x reader (f)

genre: ANGST, a single grain of fluff

word count: 7k

warnings: swearing, depictions of depression, overall sadness, frustration/anger, the reader is sort of obsessed with chenle, heartbreak, descriptions of a panic attack + anxiety, chenle becomes an ass :/, forced kissing, hyuck is a good friend :)

a/n: my piece for the ALMOST collab! I hope you all enjoy this mess of feelings 🥴 idk if this is actually good or not but I think I’m happy with the way it turned out ??? idk anyway enjoy lmao

———

Ever since you could remember, you’ve had a crush on Chenle.

Literally ever since you could remember, considering he’s been in your life since you were five years old.

Classic boy next door trope, you could say.

You attended the same school and even shared classes together throughout your elementary and middle school years. High school obviously had a lot more freedom, giving you the opportunity to pick and choose classes that suited your interests. naturally, that pulled the two of you apart in a certain sense.

You could recall one instance in the very beginning of your freshman year where you caught Chenle and some random girl kissing behind the bleachers. It tore you apart inside, so young a fragile at the time, but you threw on a smile like you always tended to do, and let out a quick and airy apology before running off into the safety of Donghyuck’s arms.

Nonetheless, you and Chenle were pretty damn close; kind of like those best friends you see in books or stories...except that in fiction they usually end up together, and you and Chenle, well...haven’t yet.

You still had hope though, that maybe he felt the same way you did for him. You held onto that hope and cherished it, considering it was the only reason you could get up and face the world on most days.

Yeah, you knew it was pathetic. at least you could acknowledge the fact that relying on feelings from a boy you liked was incredibly stupid, but hey, you had the brain of a senior in high school.

Anyway, you and Chenle were very friendly toward each other, and of course you would talk to each other out your individual windows sometimes late at night, but it wasn’t like those stories people read online. You were simply really good friends; nothing like brother and sister, but certainly not anything more than just friends.

You’d say you probably know more about Chenle than most; besides your shared friends Donghyuck (who was already in university, and your closest friend next to Chenle) and Jisung (who was just a tad bit younger and too shy to really hold a conversation with you). You paid close attention to him because, well, who doesn’t want to know everything about the person they’re crushing on?

Even so, it was definitely a given that Chenle was extremely passionate about his schoolwork and his future career. This kid wanted to be the ‘best lawyer the world has ever seen’, according to himself. You were always supportive of him, egging him on when the workload got to him and assuring him that everything would be okay in the end, even when he was exhausted from all his extracurricular activities and volunteering. Chenle seriously seemed like he would work himself to death.

You never really fully processed what him being passionate about his future would mean for you, and how it would affect your relationship and friendship with him. You didn’t even know that he applied to universities at all (since he didn’t tell you and you were kind of oblivious, to be honest), let alone which ones he strived for.

Fast forward to the present, it was currently the middle of November and school was going full swing, your senior year of high school passing by like a breeze. You were currently hanging out with Donghyuck, who was in town for the weekend from his university in the next city over. It was always nice to see him, his presence always putting a smile on your face.

You both sat at a window seat in the middle of a fairly busy restaurant, joking with each other and picking at your food lightly as you conversed. It grew silent for a moment, your chuckles dying down from some stupid attempt at a joke by Hyuck, before he broke it.

“Did you hear that Chenle got into Harvard?” Donghyuck absentmindedly spoke quietly, picking at the salad seated in front of him on the restaurant table. “Full fucking ride.” He didn’t even look up to meet your now bulging eyes.

Your blood ran ice cold as your heart began to seemingly stop beating, freezing just like your veins.

“He what?” you practically screeched, causing the boy across from you to jump slightly.

Hyuck looked at you then, his cheeks filled with food as he grasped his chest dramatically.

“Uh yeah?” he replied like it was obvious. “He’s really passionate about his career choice, you know.”

“Of course I know!” you shrieked at him, your hands going up to pull at your hair exasperatedly. You chewed your lip, your heart pounding and squeezing in your chest at the notion of Chenle’s inevitable departure from your life. “What, you think I wouldn’t know that the boy I’ve known since I was a LITERAL CHILD, isn’t passionate about his future?!”

Donghyuck was now looking around the both of you, taking notice of the strangers who were now staring at your visibly panicked form.

“Y/N, calm down, please–“

“I’m calm! I’m perfectly fine! ahah,” you chewed on your nails frantically as you tried to quiet your mouth and your mind, your leg shaking nonstop under the table, causing the silverware to shake.

You distracted yourself by looking out the window to your immediate left, trying to watch the people walk by like it was some sort of therapy for your bustling thoughts.

“Why didn’t he tell us he was applying to–“ you cut yourself off quietly, stopping your question short. ”...How does he know already?” you asked, your voice small.

“Early action or some shit, I guess.”

It was quiet for a few minutes between you both; Hyuck continued to munch on his salad and you could feel his eye warily watching you as you chewed your nails to nubs.

“...Are you okay?” he finally questioned, his voice comforting as he pulled you from out of your own head.

“Just,” you bit your lip, your eyes spaced out as you stared down at the floor. “Why couldn’t he have picked a school around here?” Your voice was small and quiet, and you could hear the boy across from you sigh. “Why couldn’t he just do that, like you?”

He didn’t really say anything then, picking up the fact that those were most definitely rhetorical questions. You didn’t touch any more of your food, your stomach tied up in knots, making you feel sick.

“Y/N...”

You didn’t look at him, your face hot with embarrassment from how much pain your heart was actually feeling at the news that Chenle, the boy you have loved for years, would be leaving you.

“He’s really excited about this...you…” he trailed off, trying to pick his next words carefully. “You need to show him some support, even though I know it hurts you.”

You knew that deep down, Hyuck was absolutely right. What kind of friend would you be if you were selfish and kept yourself wrapped up in your own feelings? You sniffled and picked your head back up, finally looking at him.

“You’re right. you are absolutely right.” you finally breathed out, trying to slowly calm your aching anxiety. “Just like always, Hyuck.” You cracked a slight smile then, and he returned it, seeming relieved that you snapped out of your panic, even if it was just a little bit.

“At least you can acknowledge it, angel.” He sent you a wink along with the pet name, and you jokingly gagged, which caused the both of you to laugh.

With the mood seemingly lifted, you were able to enjoy the rest of your time with Donghyuck, even if the anxiety of Chenle leaving was still a heavy presence in the back of your reeling mind.

——

That same night, you laid yourself across your pillows and stared up at the ceiling, not even bothering to change out of your slightly uncomfortable jeans. The lights were on and all was quiet as you laid trapped in your own thoughts, the inevitable scene of your crush of many, many years leaving replaying on loop inside your head.

You tried to distract yourself by working on some miscellaneous homework assignments, trying to get your work done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

You were just getting in the flow of writing a rough draft for an essay when you heard your mother yell up the steps at you.

“Y/N!” she called, startling you. when you replied with a ‘Yeah?’ she continued, “Chenle is here, I’m sending him up!”

Your heart jumped and you quickly shot up from your bed, trying to get rid of any clothes strewn around your floor to at least make your room somewhat presentable. As you slammed the hamper lid shut, you heard a small knock on the door before Chenle let himself in, already beaming at you.

“Y/N, I have some awesome news!” he immediately spoke, shutting the door behind him. You will yourself not to let your heart sink, already knowing what he wanted to share with you he reached behind him to grab his book bag, and once it was in his grasp he set it on the floor, taking a seat beside you on your bed.

You tried not to let your heart race as his shoulder brushed against yours, and you tried to convert up your nerves by giving him a smile in return. Chenle rummaged through his back before angrily grunting, turning to face you.

“I left something at home that I wanted to show you, shit,” he murmured, his hand coming up to swipe over his face. “I can go grab it real quick–“

“Let’s just go to your room, it’s literally right across. We can climb,” you suggested, wanting to escape the suffocating warmth of your own bedroom. Plus, you were always more comfortable sitting on his mattress anyway. “It’ll be fun, like when we were younger.”

You two both grinned at each other then, Chenle nodding his head in compliance as you both stood, preparing yourselves for the leap out of your bedroom window.

You didn’t bother with a jacket; you were only going to be out in the cold for about five minutes tops, anyway. You allowed him to go first, his body jumping out and landing on the roof of your shed with ease. You quickly followed suit, landing a little rough but still in one piece, nonetheless.

He generously offered to prop you up first so you could skillfully open his window from the outside, which you gladly accepted with a smirk on your lips.

“You’re the best at it.” he replied, slightly whining at your smug reaction. “Always have been. For some reason I can never get it open!!”

You ignored him after that, focusing on keeping your balance on his shoulders while you lifted the window open, pulling yourself up on the sill and throwing yourself inside with a dull thud. You heard the scrapings of Chenle making his way up the side of his house, and he toppled in not long after you.

“I’m definitely never doing that again,” he panted, laying flat on his back on the floor for a few moments. You stared back at him from his bed, giggling at his heavily rising and falling chest. “Maybe not never...but not again anytime soon, that’s for sure.”

He managed to pull himself up from the carpet, dusting off his pants and shrugging off his coat before joining you on the bed. He pulled a piece of paper from his nightstand, and your heart began to pound with untamed anxiety.

“This,” he started, his eyes sparkling as he looked at the piece of paper before looking back at you. “is my acceptance letter to Harvard. I got in, Y/N!!!”

Chenle was so excited, and you couldn’t help but swoon at the absolute elation in his eyes as he went on about what he was accepted for and even what the letter said.

You, of course, didn’t tell him that you already knew, courtesy of Donghyuck. If you would have known that Chenle applied to Harvard, you would have had no doubts from the very beginning that he would get in.

Maybe he didn’t tell anyone just in case he wasn’t accepted, and if no one knew then there would be no one to disappoint.

You knew that no matter what, you could never ever be disappointed in Chenle. He was too smart and too good to ever be thought of in that way.

All you could do was smile and smile some more as he went on, barely breathing before he finally took a short pause. His eyes fell down to look at his denim covered legs, and he bit his lip as you watched him in the sudden quiet of his room.

It didn’t last very long, and he took a deep breath before breaking the short silence.

“They want me to fly out there as soon as possible,” he finally spoke, looking up at you from where his gaze was previously on his lap. “I talked to our school, and they’re willing to let me graduate early. I have all my credits, which is really cool.”

Chenle seemed excited, but he spoke softly, as if he knew how hard this news was for you to hear. You surprised yourself at how composed you were acting, despite the jabbing pain you felt in your heart with every word that passed through his lips.

“That’s great,” you commented, a tight smile lining your face, your voice so close to breaking. “When do you leave?”

A question you didn’t really want the answer to. You didn’t want him to leave at all, and gaining the knowledge of a deadline wouldn’t ease your aching heart any.

He shuffled on the bed, pulling his legs up to sit fully on the mattress facing you. He clasped his hands together and sighed, his bleached blonde hair falling into his eyes.

“The end of December, right before new years,” he chewed on the inside of his cheek, his eyes trying to gauge your reaction, even though you weren’t really giving him anything to work with.

That was really soon…

“Wait, but that’s before our semester ends—“

“I know.” he cut you off, smiling brightly. “Like I said, the school is alright with this all happening. They’re really happy for me.”

You sighed, nodding in understanding. It was silent for a moment once more between the two of you; only the sounds of distant cars driving down the otherwise quiet street could be heard for a few moments.

“I just want you to know that I’m really happy for you too, Chenle.” you softly spoke, your hand reaching out to boldly cover his own sitting on the bed in front of you. He stared down at your now touching fingers, but didn’t move to pull away from your warmth.

“Thank you,” he smiled, surprising you by taking your hand in his own and squeezing it, taking your contact with each other a step further. “It means a lot coming from you.”

“Does my approval matter to you?” you questioned, not able to keep it from slipping past your lips. His eyebrows quirked up and he tilted his head a little, looking away briefly before making eye contact once again.

“Yeah, I guess it does.” he replied. “I never really thought about it before, but now that you brought it up...it really does, so thank you.”

You stared at each other then, your lips parted and dry, your brain not sure what to say to him in response. Your heart was hammering in your chest and your ears were consumed with the rhythmic beating and blood rushing happening within your own body.

His brown eyes and dyed blonde hair captivated you and your tongue felt like sandpaper inside your mouth. he looked like he was fighting with himself in a way; restricting his body from moving closer to your own as you sat there in the silence of his room. Your body seemed to mechanically move on its own as it scooted closer to him, your fingers tightening around his as you situated yourself against his body, your face now just next to his. His eyes flicked down to your lips before moving back to your wide eyes, and you felt your stomach jump in anticipation.

Before either of you could do anything, a loud bang came from outside of his bedroom door, followed by a yell from his mother.

You sprung away from each other and you immediately shot up from his bed, already sprinting to his open window from which you came in from. Chenle stood as well, looking between you and the locked door that held his mother back.

“I’ll see you at school.” you hurriedly whispered, taking one more glance at his red cheeks before leaping out the window and down onto the grass below.

You climbed your way up to your own open bedroom window, using the shed and throwing yourself inside quickly before shutting it and closing the curtains. Once you were sure everything was locked and the lights were all off, you slammed yourself down onto your mattress, shoved your face into your pillows, and screamed.

——

“Can we go for a walk around the neighborhood? I want to see all the Christmas lights before people start taking them down.” Chenle spoke through the speaker on your phone, his face not in view on the screen as you FaceTimed each other. You heard shuffling on his end as you focused your attention on your laptop screen, mindlessly shopping online for random things to keep your mind off of the fact that Chenle was leaving in just three days.

The few weeks you had with him passed by like a blur, and you both tried to spend as much time together as possible. Between having to spend time with your family and other friends, it wasn’t as much as you would have liked it to have been.

“Yeah, sure.” you mumbled, closing the laptop on your bed with a soft clack. “Meet you outside in fifteen?”

“Make it ten.” he replied with a smile in his voice, before hanging up.

You sighed heavily before putting your coat on, bundling yourself up for the bite of the cold outside. It was bitterly freezing, and you knew without your whole winter ensemble that you wouldn’t be able to feel your fingers within two seconds flat of being out there.

Fumbling with the buttons and zipper on your coat, you managed to make it outside in seven minutes even, meeting him on the sidewalk just down your driveway.

“Wow, not late for once.” he commented, nudging your shoulder as the two of your began to walk in sync down your brightly lit street.

“Knock it off, I can be on time when I try hard enough.” You rolled your eyes playfully at him, a hint of a smile gracing your lips as you began to take in the beautiful lights around you.

Christmas truly was a beautiful time of year; not just for the holiday itself, because not everyone celebrated it obviously, but for the decorations and the sense of home and warmth.

Chenle and yourself both kept relatively quiet as you walked on, only making noise when you wanted to get each other’s attention to point out certain decorations on some houses. It was rather peaceful, and your heart was swelling with warmth in adoration as you looked to admire his face, which was illuminated by the colorful Christmas lights surrounding you.

Your stomach jolted slightly. This may be the last time you see him for a while. You didn’t mean for the intrusive thought of his absence to wiggle its way into your mind, but it was too late to fight it off.

‘I should just confess’, you thought, now nervously picking at your nails, and chewing your lip to bits. ‘There may not be another chance like this, not for a while.’

It was selfish...but it was now or never.

Too shy to actually confess your feelings first—and thinking back to certain moments that you’ve shared with Chenle to come to this conclusion—you decided to take a different approach.

Get him to confess first.

“I need to ask you something,” you blurted out, your brain scolding your mouth silently for being so goddamn reckless in a moment of weakness.

Maybe this was a bad idea...

Chenle quirked his eyebrow up at you before stopping, turning to face you entirely.

“What’s up?” he replied, his hands stuffed deeply in his pockets in a desperate attempt to keep them warm. His nose was red from the chill in the air and his lips were the same shade from him biting them, the sheen of his chapstick almost completely gone now. His eyes were glassy from the wind blowing and even though his cheeks were blotched in crimson, you thought this was the most beautiful he had ever looked.

You couldn’t do this. Fuck, you really couldn’t do this. Why did you have to open your big, stupid mouth—

“Hey Y/N? Are you in there?” he suddenly broke you from your own thoughts, causing you to jump a little in your boots. “What did you wanna ask me?”

“Uh,” Quick, think of something dumb! “You know, why is perfume so damn expensive?”

You wanted to throw yourself into a frozen lake at this point, as you watched his brow furrow in confusion.

“Uhm, I don’t know,” he bit his lip for about the hundredth time since you started your walk. “Ingredients maybe? Higher end perfumes probably have stuff in them that are more hard to come by, so that’s probably wh—“

“Do you like me?” you interrupted him loudly, squeezing your eyes shut as you practically belted out your original question.

He seemingly froze in front of you, and definitely not from the cold air whipping around your bodies as the wind harshly blew.

“Do I...like you.” he repeated back, formed as a statement more than a question. “Like...as in romantically?”

You didn’t even have to nod for him to know what you meant; the look in your eyes told him enough. The pleading, glassy look as hope swirled beneath your irises, just absolutely begging him to say that yes, he did like you in the way that you liked him.

“Yes,” you confirmed audibly anyway, heat flickering throughout your entire face. “You know, b-because I think before we almost kissed in your room that one time not too long ago, and we’ve been more touchy lately—“ you would have continued on your panicked rambling if he hadn’t cut you off, beginning to speak solemnly.

“Y/N...I..” he started, shaking his head as he tried to get his thoughts straight. “I do. I really do,” your heart jumped at his confession, and you allowed it to spread in your body like wildfire. It didn’t get very far, because he continued to speak. “but I...I can’t.”

You visibly deflated; your heart shattered like glass and everything colorful around you seemed to fade into a greyscale, the holiday lights surrounding the two of you no longer sparking any kind of joy. “This scholarship...my future...it’s important to me. I can’t let anything stop me, I’m so sorry…”

“Chenle...” you whimpered, stepping closer to him boldly, unsure of how to properly express your feelings to him at this point. You dared to breach his personal space, and he watched your every move with those same, glossy brown eyes that you adored every day for so many years.

You tilted your head, your lips ghosting over his own as he let out shaky breaths, yours matching his as you stood together in the cold.

His lips were right there. unmoving, as he didn’t pull away from you. If your leaned forward just a little more...almost….almostalmostalmost—so close—

“Y/N, stop.” he suddenly muttered, pulling you out of your trance. His head drew back as he stepped away, still in your reach but far enough to where your lips weren’t brushing against each other’s anymore.

You gritted your teeth at the rejected feeling that bubbles up inside you, the tears welling your eyes before spilling hotly down your frozen cheeks.

“I love you, Chenle.” you cried, gripping the rough material of his jean jacket. The darkness of the night could have hidden your tears if it weren’t for the moonlight blaring down on the two of you like a spotlight. “Please, I love you.”

He looked like he was trying to hold himself together, his lips set in a straight line as he looked away from you, his hands hovering over your wrists. Chenle gripped them suddenly, not hard, but with enough force to get you to pay attention.

“I love you too, Y/N.” he finally admitted, his voice quiet as he tried to restrain his emotions. “But I can’t pass this up. I just can’t.”

You should have forced yourself to understand. This was his life, for fucks sake. You shouldn’t have let yourself feel selfish, thinking that he would drop everything to stay here. With you.

“We can’t be together. I’m sorry.” he finished with that, slowly dropping your wrists from his hold. “If I…” he swallowed thickly. “If I let you kiss me, I know I wouldn’t be able to leave. I know it.”

He took in your figure at last, watching as your tears fell freely from your eyes in hot rivers down your already stained cheeks.

“Look, maybe someday this would work...but just, not now.” he sounded exasperated, running a hand through his hair. “Your life is here, and my life will be starting there. I’ll be busy constantly and it just...won’t be fair. It really won’t, you have to understand, Y/N.”

He watched as your hands shook when you lifted them to wipe your face, solemnly nodding in acknowledgement to his words.

“Okay.” you croaked, not meeting his eyes as you turned to walk away, leaving him in the middle of the park you used to play at when you were kids.

You weren’t going to put up a fight. You weren’t going to plead with him anymore. You were going to try your absolute hardest to stop yourself from being selfish in that way.

You were just going to have to live with that fact that you couldn’t have him right now. That you almost could have had him.

Almost.

——

Chenle faded out of your life like he wasn’t even present in the first place. You barely heard from him after he left; there would be miscellaneous texts here and there but overall, he was right in the end. He was really always busy.

His school workload was heavy, and you were aware of that, but a selfish part of you always seemed to get angry at him for not responding to you.

The worst part was not knowing whether he wanted to reach out to you at all.

He didn’t come home during summer break, which broke your heart a little bit. Donghyuck tried his best to be there for you as you went through the motions; you were constantly miserable at the reality that you most likely would never call Chenle your own.

Chenle didn’t keep in contact much with Hyuck or Jisung either, seemingly leaving you all in the dust as he went about his new life away from you. His parents talked to him all the time obviously, and your own mother would dawdle on about something that Chenle achieved at school to you, but you’ve come to pretty much ignore everything that had to do with him.

You went about getting your own education, passing your classes by the skin of your teeth during the first semester and then producing the same results during the semester after that.

You really couldn’t blame yourself for feeling so utterly heartbroken; you were in love with that boy for most of your life, and for him to suddenly rip himself away from you like that was wholeheartedly agonizing.

Chenle rarely ever came home; he did briefly for Christmas, but then hurriedly left immediately after, not even staying for the full duration of his break.

You actually ran into him by accident one day while he was still home, but you didn’t stay in his presence very long before wanting to go to the safety of your bedroom and cry.

“Did you even miss me?” you whimpered out, exhausted after your small talk had turned into a bit of an argument. He sighed heavily, frustrated no doubt. you could hear it in his voice as he spoke to you.

“What do you want me say, Y/N?” he countered, scoffing at you as you held back the pain you felt burning behind your eyes, desperate to cry. “I haven’t even had the time to miss anyone, let alone you.”

You stood in silence for a moment, baffled at his dismissive attitude of it all. It’s like he didn’t even remember that he told you he liked you too all those months ago.

“You...” your voice cracked a little, and you looked away from him. “Did you even try, Chenle? Did you even try to find the time to talk to me?”

He didn’t say anything back, only staring at you before tearing his eyes away, his jaw locked. You felt as if you already knew the answer.

You turned to leave, but felt his hand immediately circle around your arm, roughly pulling you back to face him. Taking one look at his face, you knew he was angry.

“Do you know how much it hurt, Y/N?” he barked out, making you flinch back slightly. “Do you know how much it hurt to leave you? I–“ he cut himself off as his voice cracked, turning his head away and swallowing heavily before continuing. “I wanted to, so bad Y/N. You have no idea.”

Your lips parted in shock, and you had a million things you wanted to say, but you managed to keep it all inside as he went on.

“But I had to control myself. I already came to terms with the fact that this,” he gestured between the two of you, “wasn't going to ever work out. I figured that out a long time ago... I had to distance myself from you, I’m sorry.”

You really didn’t want to accept that apology. You really really didn’t. Your anger was swirling inside you, a typhoon of emotions building and building as you stared back into his now cold brown eyes. To you, they used to be so full of warmth and friendliness, and now they looked distant and unentertained, like he didn’t want to be here in the first place.

That hurt like a bitch.

You scoffed at him, making his eyebrows raise in confusion before they furrowed, his eyes narrowed at you.

Yeah, you were probably being a bitch for not accepting his apology, and all of this was turning out to be super petty, but you felt like he deserved it just a little bit.

Deep down you knew he had a point; his reasoning was valid and it all made sense, but when did having feelings for someone like you had for him ever lead to rational decision making?

“You know, Chenle,” you started, shoving your hands in your pockets roughly to shield them from the cold. “I really thought that we could still be friends after all the bullshit, I really did.” He watched you carefully as you practically spat forth those words, venom dripping in your tone. “But then you went and messed it all up.”

You probably shouldn’t have added that last part; playing the blame game never worked in anyone’s favor in the end, but your emotions once again got the best of you.

Smoke practically blew out his ears as his mouth parted in shock. Your heart dropped when you heard the sound of sarcastic laughter falling out of his mouth, knowing full well that you fucked up this time.

“I messed it up? Me??” He was pointing to his own chest for emphasis, and you had the audacity to give him a quick nod. “Ahah, wow Y/N, that’s really rich coming from you.”

You didn’t even have a second to get a word in before he crowded your space, so close that your chests were touching. You drew in a sharp breath, not sure what in the hell he was doing right now.

“You were the one that was practically begging me to kiss you that night, remember? You were trying so hard,” he spat, so close to your face now that you couldn’t even feel the cold nipping at your cheeks anymore (whether it be from the embarrassment lacing through your veins or the extensive heat from his body, you weren’t sure).

You couldn’t think of anything to say in response; all you knew was that he was dishing out pretty low blows, and each word was like a knife being plunged into your chest.

“Like, how desperate are you?” he added in, now moving his hands to grip your waist, making you squeak in surprise. “You want a kiss so bad? Get fucking ready.”

You weren’t sure what he meant and your brain was having such a hard time comprehending anything going on in that moment, the pressure of his hands gripping your waist making all thoughts fly out of your head besides one.

Him.

“Wait, Chenle–“ you placed a hand on his chest to try to push him away, unsure of how you felt about this situation.

“What, you don’t want it now?” his voice was borderline malicious as he spoke to you now, making you feel incredibly small and vulnerable under his gaze.

“No I–“

“You come to me and give me all that bullshit, and now when I’m trying to give you something that you wanted,” his grip grew tighter. “you don’t want it anymore? Make up your damn mind, Y/N.”

You did want it. There was still a huge part of you that screamed at you to just let it happen, but you knew it would be wrong. So fucking wrong. He wasn’t doing this because he wanted to; he was doing this because he wanted all this to end right here.

You were scared. He was scaring you with the way he was acting right now.

“Chenle, please—“

“Just shut up.”

Chenle didn’t allow you to get another word in before he crashed his lips against yours, roughly pressing his against your own so abruptly that you felt your teeth pierce the inside of yours. You tasted blood, but it wasn’t the first thing on your mind at the moment; Chenle moved his mouth against yours aggressively and without any emotion besides anger behind it, and you absolutely hated it.

Sure, it felt nice to finally get what you wanted, but in a way, you definitely were not. This isn’t what you wanted at all. You wanted to love him and you wanted him to love you...and you wanted it to feel nice.

His hands slid down to your hips and your stomach jumped in surprise as you tried desperately to match his pace to at least kiss him back a little bit. It didn’t last long, and with a strong push on your hips he effectively pulled away, your body stumbling back from the force of his shove.

His lips were red and puffy and his eyes were dark as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, panting slightly. You probably looked somewhat the same, but didn’t even move from where you stood as he stared at you. You felt your eyes become glassy from staring into space too long, and you felt your hands shake, but most definitely not from the cold.

“There’s your fucking kiss.” He finally said, taking two steps back. “Goodbye, Y/N.”

You didn’t even watch him walk back into his house. You ran as fast as you could back into your own home and immediately slammed the front door shut behind you, darting up the stairs without a single word.

You barged into your bedroom and without even removing your winter garments, you threw yourself down onto your mattress for what seemed like the millionth time in the last year, and began to sob.

——

Chenle’s parents said that he had commitments at the school, some sort of research or whatever, and that’s why he couldn’t stay home long. At the time, all you really thought was ‘good riddance’, but you knew that your heart would be back to obsessing over him in no time, even after what had happened between the two of you on the day you try so hard not to remember.

Well, at least he was flourishing at school.

When Donghyuck found out what had happened between you and Chenle during the time he was home from university, he was ready to kill someone. That someone being Chenle.

“He did what to you?!” Donghyuck screamed over the phone, causing you to pull it from your ear from the sheer volume of his screeching. “I’ll kill him, Y/N. I swear I’ll fucking kill that kid.”

“No need, Hyuckie. It’s not that big of a deal.” you replied somberly, sighing as you relaxed on your mattress against your pillows.

“Not a big deal??? Angel, he basically forced that shit on you,” Hyuck was speaking softly to you now, a stark contrast to his yelling from a few moments prior. “You should be furious at him. You need to tell someone—“

“I’m not mad,” you replied quietly, chewing on your bottom lip. “A part of me wanted that to happen, Hyuck. It just…” your voice trailed off, your brain trying to think of the right words to say. “Wasn’t what I was expecting, is all.”

The line was quiet and you weren’t sure what to say next, and Donghyuck must have felt the same. It was a really fucked up situation, you had to admit.

“I think I…” your voice sounded broken, but you continued. “I think I still love him.” The words came out as a whisper and they surprised even yourself, not expecting to admit such a thing after all that has happened.

“Oh, angel…” was all Donghyuck replied with before you quickly made up some lame excuse to hang up the call with him. You hurriedly pressed the ‘end call’ button and threw yourself back on the bed, spacing out once again just like you always do.

You managed to bear with not seeing or talking to Chenle after the incident (a huge part of you didn’t want to, after hearing what he had to say and also what he did during Christmas break), but when you stumbled across a post of his one night a couple months after while scrolling through Instagram, it had your heart shattering completely.

“What the fuck,” you whimpered, already struggling to hold back tears as your watery eyes stared daggers at the photo displayed on your screen. “What. The. Fuck?” you said it louder this time, with more malice, and you threw your phone across your bed to get it away from you.

Chenle had posted a photo of himself and another girl, kissing each other while snow fell in some random park you didn’t give a fuck about. He found someone else. He fell for someone else.

The hypocrisy.....he didn’t want to be with you because he wanted to focus on school, but then he goes and starts up a relationship with someone else anyway?

Maybe he did it to spite you.

At first, you felt pathetic for crying about it. You tried to muffle your cries in your pillow, holding back the ugly sobs that you so desperately wanted to let out. You silently cried, your heart aching and your lungs gasping for air as you fought the pain in the dark pit inside your chest.

You began to grow angry after a while, your thoughts spinning wildly out of control as your chest heaved, your nails digging into your sheets to keep yourself from clawing at your own burning throat.

You screamed.

You screamed and screamed and cried until there was nothing left inside you. You needed to let out the festering hatred you had grown for him since he left over a year ago. It was ugly and it was cacophonous, but you didn’t care anymore.

Your parents were luckily out, and you didn’t give a fuck about your neighbors. You poured out every raw emotion you felt until you sensed yourself beginning to calm; your chest no longer rose and fell like you had been running a marathon, your heartbeat quieted to a low thrum in your ears instead of a pounding drum, and your muscles relaxed, allowing you to lie down flat against your mattress.

Your pillow was soaked through with tears and your head was thumping, like your brain was smashing a baseball bat to the inside of your skull. You breathed in, five long seconds, and breathed out, seven seconds more, before bathing in the quiet of your room.

Your phoned buzzed from the end of your bed, and you hesitantly picked your head up, sliding to sit and reach for it tentatively.

It was a text message.

From: donghyuckie :P

hey, saw chenle’s post. ice cream in 20? I’ll pick you up

You smiled, surprising yourself entirely, as if you weren’t just screaming your head off just five minutes ago. You were incredibly happy to have such a good friend in your life, immediately knowing what you needed when you needed it. You were quick to reply.

To: donghyuckie :P

sounds good, I’ll see you then :)

You smiled again, and didn’t stop the whole night, Donghyuck's presence always comforting and joyful.

You would be okay, you knew you would. All you had to do was just live your own life, forget about Chenle, and be happy...always with a smile.

[iamarchived]

Vent // Struggling to Maintain Relationships

Yeah so I might be oversharing a bit, but fuck it

So I’ve noticed that I have a hard time maintaining relationships with people. Not because of toxicity issues or fights, but because of differences in likes and interests, lifestyle, personality, etc. It’s really frustrating and lonely. Anxiety doesn’t help either. My all-time biggest rule in life is the old “Be Yourself” quote. Authenticity is a super important aspect of my life. Problem is, when being yourself means having rapidly changing hyperfixations, overindulging in the retrowave/synthwave aesthetic (and just neon colors in general), and being very chatty and over-expressive as an individual with strong opinions, and wanting to do things that others would see as “childish” (i.e. go to those arcade/bowling alley/minigulf/lazer tag places, playing video games, watching movies, etc.), people tend to have a hard time connecting with you, and maintaining a connection is equally if not more difficult. Being a furry certainly doesn’t help either (the number of times I’ve had to explain that yes, I’m Demisexual (a form of Asexual), and that I’m a furry and that NO it’s not a fetish/sex thing ew gross why).

Being short (4′11″), plus my all-over-the-place personality (thanks ADHD), tends to lead to people treating me like a toddler they have to babysit, which is incredibly irritating as an adult. My fragility due to my osteogenesis imperfecta just adds a sense of “I have to make sure they don’t hurt themselves” and it leads to my family and even (somewhat former) friends treating me like a handicap.

Now that highschool is over, I’m looking back and seeing that I never had a real “friend group” until highschool. Never dated either (I had a few “boyfriends” but we never did anything couple-y. We just said we were dating but that was it. It ended quickly when I admitted I never really felt anything romantic towards them and just saw them as a friend). 

Now looking forward, my friends are leaving for college, going their own ways, and I’m losing touch with them. We only ever interact online now, which is hard for me because I put such a high value is physically spending time with people. I want to build pillow forts and watch movies, I want to take them to arcades/bowling alleys, I want to go to the park and hang out. But I don’t get to do those things now. They may not be out of my life completely, but they are physically, and I feel isolated.

I struggle with loneliness and isolation and my mental health tanks when I’m alone. I may live with my family, but I have zero relationships with them. I can’t stand my family and they don’t accept me. It leaves me feeling ignored, alone, and unappreciated.

At this point, I’m desperate for someone to so much as actively thinking of me without me having to prompt it. I need physical affection? I have to prompt it from others. Now I’m touch starved and sensitive to contact. I want to spend time with someone? I have to ask. Because no one’s going to actively think to ask me first. I don’t get asked to hang out or do things with people. The only time anyone thinks of me is when they want me for something, whether it be chores, work, or an opinion that has to do with them and not me.

I may not be able to get a relationship, partly because of my sexuality, but also because of just how eccentric I am, but at the very least I want friends. I want the kind of friends that become family. That are willing to walk the same path of life as you, but in their own way. Or invite you on their path of life in your way. People who actively want to be around me and want me around them. People who think of me and smile.

A found family.

[ladyyatexel]

I Went On A Manga Binge

So you don't have to

For those of you who have wisely avoided the shreds of it I've left around the blog thus-far, I had some weird notion to go re-experience Yu-Gi-Oh uuuuuh a week ago? We'll go with that. Time is meaningless.

I'd been able to read a good portion of the early manga at the end of highschool, and somewhere in my stacks and stacks of paper is fanart from this dark time, so you know I cared. I also still own a Dark Magician action figure somehow, so. I'd also watched a large portion of the anime with my brother because it had been laced with some kind of crack and we couldn't look away? I remember when we both were just like shit, wait, don't change the channel, I can't stop looking at it. And the next thing we knew we were waiting for new episodes and I was doing research on the Japanese original because I was that kid.

Anyway, unnecessary backstory out of the way, here are some... let's call them Observations and Consequences of having read somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 chapters (and growing) of a manga primarily hinged on card games from a spectrum of sources ranging from boringly lawful to sketchy as fuck.

Surprise actual character that develops in typical shounen fashion being Jounouchi. My limited experiences with the 4Kids dub and only early manga had not painted him in a particularly good light. I don't know if episodes were being aired out of order or if I had just missed the ones that established that he was making shit up as he was going along, but Wow I liked him a lot more going through the manga than I ever did watching the (dubbed, heavily edited and censored and thrown into a slurry machine) anime. I'd managed to come out with the impression that he was just as reasonably experienced with the game as Yugi back in the day. Wild.

I'm now reading every single comic-style post on Tumblr backwards.

Striking inverse to first point, wow, I don't like Seto Kaiba. Though he gets points for his general philosophy of the future, and the line I read in my sketchy online combo of scans and scanlations in which he said, "If God is in your way, you run him down," was Metal As Fuck. I somewhat shame-facedly admit to enjoying him a lot more as an Abridged Series character. (I watched Abridged as it came out back in the day! The experience of watching the anime with my brother had been so fresh that I got all the in jokes about the way things were edited and dubbed, it was great. Series remains influential part of my life to this day, which is hella weird.)

I almost understand how Duel Monsters works now. I don't want this.

That said, wow a lot of the decisions made in the anime made everything a lot more ridiculous than the admittedly already ridiculous original. I got the distinct feeling in the manga that the Duelist Kingdom stuff we were seeing was designed to be used and exploited in ways that don't make sense in an actual cardgame just played on a table like a normal person and this was part of testing everyone to think higher, differently. Maybe this is obvious to everyone already, I don't know. I had always liked that it was very, 'Not so fast, I'm going to blow up the moon to change the tides,' but I'm not really sure the anime gave enough explanation that this was an extra layer added to things for that event? You can see people actively getting used to it in the books, and people who aren't considering the real or 3D nature of it getting owned, but my memory of anime version is everyone just like, 'oh, shucks, fuck me, I forgot to consider the phase of the moon before i played this card, can't believe I forgot.' No one calls Yugi on any of this stuff because it's valid play in that situation. Plus Yami Yugi had mad trickster energy in the beginning and it suited him to think of ways to do things inside these little simulation boxes the way it suited him to set perverts on fire. I imagine the real card game trying to emulate this element as something that would be to its detriment, but I neither know nor particular care haha

Ryou Bakura.

Really, though. I think he became kind of casualty of 'wow, we have a lot of characters who really aren't able to do anything in this story anymore,' despite the fact that his whole inner life could have been as interesting as Yugi's. I always like thinking about the possibilities of stories in which main character falls into magical world and is given magical item and told they're the hero and then they find out they've been the bad guy the whole time. The first several volumes of manga were about the quiet weirdo kid that no one talked to who was always blacking out and turning into a fucked up version of himsef because he was so attached to his ancient Egyptian jewelry, so like, Bakura could have much the same shit going on. I want to know what's happening with him so much. He clearly doesn't love being possessed, but he's also so drawn to the ring. Despite it having stabbed him at least twice and him knowing it's a danger to him and his friends, he keeps being pulled back into it. You see so much more of him being like, 'Oooh, a creepy thing, I love that! :D' in the manga than ever in the anime, which I'm all about. Also more blood. I'm very about that as well. Though my memory of the anime also made it look very much like normal regular daily Bakura was just a weird facade in places before he ever would have been. I think that was it trying to compensate for what people didn't see from the Toei anime, but okay whatever, that I love everything about this guy is not news, I don't need to talk about Bakura excessively here, I'm pretty sure that's gonna show up on my blog by itself

On a related note though, damn, more of these people need to talk to each other. Can we have some existential crisis support clubs or something. Can we get like some apologies or something? "I respect you as a duelist." "Cool, but you literally built a tower designed to specifically assassinate me and my friends? You were supposed to get Better after I retaliated by putting you in a coma, but you kinda didn't." "Why would the coma have made it better" "I just told you it didn't" ---- "Sorry I went along with the plan of your evil parasite stabbing you, misled you, and then also jumped in and took up some real estate in your head too." "I understand, I also have an evil thing inside me that does things while I'm blacked out." "...no, I was conscious for all of that." "Oh." "..." "..." "..." "Do you like Ouija Boards?" "sure okay" ETC. Like damn we are reading shounen manga because no one is talking extensively about their feelings here and I'm tapping my foot angrily.

Holy shit there are so many mythologies happening at once. The ancient family guarding the Egyptian Pharaoh has a surname that's a Mesopotamian goddess. None of the god cards make any Egyptian sense except Ra, and just like. Baaarrrrely. Somewhere either Evil Ring Bakura or Mar/lik makes a reference to cremation and spirits being taken to heaven with smoke which several things, but definitely not Ancient Egyptian. Marik/Malik meanwhile is clearly trying to head Arabic, along with Rishid, but then, hey, our sister is just Isis. Goddess McGoddess. Sometimes they're the same goddess! Her name could be Isis Isis or Ishtar Ishtar. Meanwhile, all the obviously 'occult because Christians think it is freaky' stuff. ~ancient egyptian pentagrams~~~This isn't a complaint, I guess so much as a 'Wow, I can kind of see the cultural spot the author was coming from and where he was aiming' kind of thing.

Wonder where things would have gone if the card games had not been latched onto the way they were.

Managed to forget how gross the pre-cardgames stuff was on the sexual harassment front. I'm glad there was a sort of explanation of everyone drifting away from being dick heads and that that decision was made. It got way more comfortable to read after no one was bringing Yugi p*rn on VHS.

Yugi looks better with a nose, glad we got that upgrade.

Interesting to watch the series style shift as it goes away from being horror to being over the top cardgames and friendship (with blood!). The first picture of Mokuba is fucking Jarring. Also noticed that the nicer a character is, the less their teeth are defined.

Glad manga did not go as completely off the fucking the rails about Marik's face. I never got as far as seeing him back in the day because college occurred, but I remember seeing pictures and stuff and being like, "what in the Fuck happened to that dude, I think the house style has collapsed in on itself"

Things the author Really Likes: motorcycles, belts, SHOES, holy shit the shoes. These are some of the most lovingly rendered sneakers I've ever seen. All the detail on his characters goes straight to their feet and then it's stretched upward until it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in 3000 years of trauma and bake face down in a crumb coat of scattered mythology. Remove when you roll two zeros.

Where the fuck am I going to put the extremely large omnibus volumes of this comic I purchased in order to balance out how much I would be reading for free on the internet. I should have grasped that a three in one edition would be Thick and yet somehow I was still :O when it arrived. Have I strategically purchased volumes that contain my favorite parts, maybe, what's it to you will i eventually get the whole thing because incomplete book series gnaw on my soul? yes

Wish the transition from "I've murdered several people in delightfully karmic ways" to "all you need is friendship in your heart and cards in your hand" Yami Yugi/Pharaoh had been discussed more/transitioned better. Buddy, where did you get this approved for television high horse? Please go back to strangling people with yo-yos or at least tell me why you stopped.

I still can't tell anything that looks like a big robotic monster apart from any other big robotic monster. My dude, I can't tell cars apart, all these monsters look the same.

Yami Yugi fascinated me way more in highschool? Maybe because it was still super early and the anime was like 'we need to torture you about his origins WeEkLy. Now I'm just like 'wait hold on, can we go back to Bakura and Marik for a minute, there's some extreme unpacking to do here?' Those two are paying so much more in baggage fees here my guy wow

Violently uninterested in any of the spinoff media

[bondsmagii]

Miceál, my brother has become an incel... He used to be such a smart and, deep down, sweet boy, but now all he does is play lol. He almost never leaves is room, he doesn't shower, doesn't wash his clothes, doesn't ventilate his room, all of that makes him smell like a death animal. He survives off coca cola, fries and burgers and vent his anger by harassing women and minorities. I suspect the reason he is the way he is now is because of some traumatizing events during our childhood, I guess the way he coped was playing online game to forget about everything. My parents no longer give a crap about what is he gonna do once he becomes a legal adult, but I'm personally deeply worried about him. After all, I kind of understand that after all, he's just a 16 year old who didn't get the emotional support he needed. Do you have any advice on how can I help him realize that his lifestyle is not healthy at all? He won't listen to me (nor anyone else, really), whenever I try talking to him he just tells me to fuck off and leave him the fuck alone. Sorry for bothering with such things, but when it comes to this type of stuff you seem to give good advice.

honestly, this is the worst situation I can imagine when it comes to ideology and people you care about. unfortunately the only tips I have are time consuming and often unsuccessful -- with this kind of thing, the person has to consent to helping themselves, too. if they refuse, there's not really anything that can be done.

unfortunately I'm speaking from experience. a short while ago I had a friend I was close to and who I'd known for two years. one day, totally out of the blue, she told me she felt we were close enough that I would "understand", and that she didn't think I would judge her because I was so "open-minded", and a bunch of other compliments that she laid on thick before telling me she was a TERF. her own words. she was a straight-up TERF, ran a discourse blog full of TERF shit, had an entire group of friends who were TERFs... it was a mess. at first I talked to her about it, and similarly to your brother she had been through a lot of trauma when she was younger, relating to her sexuality and gender presentation. it had forced her into making changes to her body that she regretted and was in the process of reversing. she was angry and bitter, and rightly so, but again like your brother she was misdirecting her anger towards those who didn't deserve it rather than the system that allowed it all to happen in the first place. at first it was promising, and she really did seem to realise what she was doing wasn't the right way to go and made some real progress in moving away from the circles... but then a few months later she was back into it again, sending me link upon link to "proof" and trying to persuade me that she was right. at that point I broke off the friendship and stopped contact with her.

I'm sorry this doesn't have a happy ending, but unfortunately these groups -- TERFS, incels, Nazis, etc -- are very good at targeting the vulnerable and telling them exactly what they want to hear: it's not their fault, all the shit that's happened to them and the pain and resentment they feel. it's the fault of whatever minority or group they want to target, be it women, trans people, immigrants, Jewish people, whatever. it's an attractive concept for these people because it means it's not their fault and there's a cause they can rally behind to make things Right. these groups are also very good at indoctrination, building up slowly and exposing people to the really nasty stuff when they're ready to accept it. it is a form of grooming, and it's so slow-burning and insidious that we often don't notice until it's too late. the left is also catastrophically bad at recruiting and maintaining activism because of the purity culture and the constant infighting; a lot of the jokes the alt-right make about the left are completely true. to somebody like your brother, the incel community is organised, saying what he wants to hear, and the political altnerative is a bunch of weirdos shouting at one another about children's cartoons. it's a no-brainer. he feels powerful and enlightened, which is a very attractive thing for someone who is, at root, a traumatised child.

the best thing you can do at this point, I think, is try to separate him from as much of this input as possible. you'll have to work slow, and subtle, but the more time he's away from this indoctrinating information the more likely it'll be that phase two is successful: beginning to essentially reeducate him. to do this, you need to find common ground and validate it, and then slowly turn his annoyance and opinions around to the real cause of it. it takes time and has little chance of succeeding, but unless he decides to throw it in on his own, it's his only chance.

he's still young, and while he's living at home his potential to cause harm is thankfully at least somewhat contained. be patient, work subtly, give him other options. try to keep him away from his incel friends, distract him with things that keep him busy and give him a sense of real accomplishment and satisfaction. build up his confidence, compliment him when he does something worth admiring, and try to avoid outright conflict. remember: common ground, and then gradual education. at the end of the day only he can make the final call, but these communities rely on total isolation so that even if somebody wants to get out, they've burned all their bridges and realise they can't -- they'll have nobody left. for as long as you're able, emotionally and morally, keep that bridge open for him. even having just one person to fall back on might be enough for somebody to find the courage to leave one of these cults.

[sapphire-innit]

DRISTAAAAA TIMEEE

VOD: TommyInnit Speaks To Dream’s Sister AGAIN

(rp): Drista!! I love this chaotic child and am looking forward to seeing the children bully each other lmao. I especially love the mythos around Creative mode, and that the most benevolent god on the Dream SMP is just as likely to ban you as hand you a shulker box lol.

I do wonder how in character cc!Tommy is going to be able to stay during this stream: on one hand he’s a master at staying in character even during lh moments, and on the other Exile arc is some Dark Shit and Dristas like what, 14?? Overall I expect this to be one of the lighter streams, with a smattering of moments where we remember that, oh right, Tommy’s pretty actively suicidal at this point and he sees this as one of his last hurrahs.

Speaking of our boy Tommy: it's very clear we are getting closer and closer to the infamous pillar. He switches rapidly between Fight and Fawn reflexes and has mostly internalized Dream’s treatment and conditions at this point. The one stand out moment being him calling out Dream killing Mexican Dream last stream, and pointing out he was changing his story even when Dream tried to lie and say he died of “a drug overdose [...] or natural causes”. I’m curious if Tommy is going to bring it up again, and even more curious if he eventually believes Dream about it; something to watch out for, for sure. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this moment of rebellion happened right after he had someone both stand up for him and spend time with him that wasn’t actively hostile or going to end (supposedly, at least by intention)

Hey we didn’t start off drowning for once!! cc!Tommy was also singing, though that could have been mostly out of character as well. Still, remarkably in a better mood, he even mentions having an appetite! You love to see it, and it's clearly because he’s looking forward to Drista’s visit

He’s building a log tower and on one hand, Tommy building Towers is a natural state of being, and on the other…. I know the pillar is coming and I am scared

A mention of the Anti-Dream hole… I still worry about when exactly and how Dream is going to find it. Still, I’m glad it exists, both for Tommy having a space for things important to him, as well as what it represents about his mental state re:not giving over completely to Dream

DRISTA!!!! LOL she was already online we didn't even see her join LOL. CHAOS GREMLIN she just flew over in creative mode and started wrecking shit, as is her right lmaoooo

“You massive jer--, (quieter) whats a nicer way…, YOU MASSIVE DICKHEAD” oh, Tommy..

I like how he tries to punch her even when shes CLEARLY IN CREATIVE MODE ADSADASD

The violence inherent in fourteen year olds,,,, adsfsadfsdfds

I hate this conversation why is this the conversation asdffdsfsd TEENAGERS

DREAM YOUR NOT EVEN A TEENAGER WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING THE SAME LOGIC

Well SHE can destroy the obsidian asdfsdfds She just Spleefs

“What would Dream do” Probably worse lets be honest

Is he actually gonna go back to L’manburg?? I don’t believe it but I also want :(

Again with the stabbing

AND DOWN HE GOEEEESSSS

“I have the fork, but I'm also killing you” afsafsdfdsf Tommy why are you wearing your good shit omg

Lol cc!Dream trying to defend his character for mocking Tommy’s accent adsfsdfds “I would NEVER” in the totally not believable tone lmaoooo

DID SHE REALLY GO AT HIM WITH A FORK I'M FUCKING DYING DSAFDADSFDS

“I will take it from you and I’ll kill him”... I have so many thoughts about how this works in lore. Is Drista possessing Dream? He can kick her out clearly, but she still has God Powers…

Lol and now SHES mocking his accent lmaoooo (... is it bad she sounded pretty close to me? lol)

Adsfdsfswd casual chaos Drista just broke the Nether Portal

Asking Drista to stop destroying things is a big ask to be honest lmaoo. Also she seems to be at least somewhat informed that ‘Dream is not supposed to be nice to Tommy’ or at least seemed hesitant to do /weather clear

GOD THE LAVA BUCKETS AND THE POTION OF HARMING adsfsdfsdf

“Tommy [beheaded him] actually… and killed Mexican Dream” Dream you motherfucker

“How to Sex 3” THE PANIK!!!!!! From Both cc!Dream and Tommy!!! This server is Not Child Friendly lol (Doesn’t…. That not even include sex things…. afasfsd)

Honestly I can’t stop smiling this is so wholesome somehow even with all the cursing and violence

Pigstep IS a bop, Tommy is right

“Just let him, just let him this one time” :(

“Tommy I still have the Fork” Drista totally willing to stab her brother to visit L’manburg

HE TOOK THE FORK ASDASDAS

Yes, closing your eyes will totally protect you from Forks lol

“I don’t need school, I dropped out” Is this Lore Crumbs, is this Lore

HEYYYY ITS THE BEDROCK, the one piece of bedrock he has lol, I think he still has that in current day right?

Drista is writing her name in BEDROCK adsfsdfds “I’m not going to be able to get rid of that actually” “That's the Point”

LOL SHe also recognized the burrito as from Mos lmaooo

Somehow “I really want to go to the other place.. I don’t know why he won’t let you” hit hard… it was def ooc, and she doesn’t have the full context, but still… its just someone else wanting and asking for Tommy to be able see L’manburg…

Afsdfsd the Small Gasp when she spleefs herself omgg

HES THERE!!! HES THERE!!!!!! L’MANBURG!!!!!!

Punz!!! WHY!!!! Were you there bc Drista might let Tommy through, was this a safeguard for the LORE. Also he’s currently working for Dream directly right, as a merc?

Drista trying to save Tommy!!!! Punz why are you winning a fight with someone in creative adfsadfsd He’s too good lol

They have negotiated a visit… I’m so emotional I wasn’t expecting this…. No one told me we got a real L’manburg visit !

BIG Q SHES FOURTEEN!!! Omg they didn’t tell him it was Drista. BIG Q!!! BIG Q DON’T SELL HER DRUGS

“He was Naked” good for you Drista, good for you. There’s something so hilarious about Drista just stabbing Quackity over and over again cause she’s uncomfortable lol (as is her right)

LOL THE FINAL KILL WITH MAGIC WHEN HE’S ALREADY DROWNING IM

Wha --- what video was it????? What is this Tommy picture on the Technoganda???

….”are you sure I’m allowed here” Dream’s conditioning is strong :(

“At many minute I could get mugged” To be Fair Tommy, that was true before

Did Tommy just suggest spawning in a Wither asdfsdfds

DRISTA DOG ARMY!!!! Aww and Tommy has one too~

THE BENCH!! THE HOUSE!!! Aaaaaaaaa He’s sitting on the bench nature is HEALING

AAAAAAAA A BLAZE!!!! Pfffft

…. Who destroyed the front of Tommys house?

,,,,Drista what are you doing with that soULSAND

“OK we'll turn on him” adsfsdfsd

OH HEY TECHNO!!! Lol “Oh god he meant me” fucking mood big man

……. Tubbo hallucination……… fuck

LOL HE COMBAT LOGGED “YOU CALL THAT COMBAT” I'M

To be fair, logging against a /kill is probably the only way to get away lmao

…...F

“Getting thrown off a cliff is literally how Theseus died!!” lol its also hilarious to me that Tommy def does not remember being called that. Personally I don't think it fits him super well anyway, but I do like it as something Techno calls Tommy, that shows how much he misjudges Tommy's character and intentions. No heroes here, just a kid trying to do good by their friends and what they care about

Techno actually looking up how to kill someone in creative mode

…. :( I just want my actual clingyduo content this is meeeeannn

OH HEY TECHNO …. You fucker he would and it would be HILARIOUS (get mad if Drista opped Techno that is lol)

….

….

IS THIS WHY THEY’RE BEDROCK BROS????? BECAUSE THEY BOTH HAVE DRISTA BEDROCK??????????????????????????

HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS ???

LOL TRUE DUO SUPREMACY TUBBO’S GOT TECHNO'S BEDROCK

Oh F Techno got him with the Obliterator lmaoooo

“I have 114 levels PLEASE” asdfdasfsdf

LOL Tubbo with the TNT there's our nuke boy, I'll take my crumbs where I can get them

THE SHULKER HOLY SHIT

“Don't let someone get it!!”” ADSFDSAFSDFDS they all tuRN CC REAL QUICK WHEN THE SHULKER BOXES COME OUT

Awesamdudes like: MORE PLEASE AFDASFDSF

Techno immediately snitching about Elytra and dRISTA GETTING THE ACHIEVEMENT

EVERYONE SNITCHING IN CHAT I'M!!!! DREAMS REACTION ASDFSDFDSF

Drista being the chaotic giver of illegal gifts is so fucking good I'M THRIVING

THE RUN ON PUNZ !!!! omg

Also can we just take a minute to appreciate Tommy being allowed around people <3 <3 This is so wholesome and good and chaotic as all hell

“I thought I was Tom Cruz for like a whole week” ...TOMMY??

LOL SHE BANNED TECHNO OMG

Dristas on a banning Rampage afsdfsdf

BAN GOGGY OMGGG

Omg shes actually making a wITHER DASDASDFAS

Oh no poor Tubbo I didn’t know he was liVE

319k viewers jeezus

Awwwww Techno hyping up Wilbur's song :) that's so sweet actually

…………….Fuck you Dream :( saw the chance to Twist the Knife in c! And TOOK IT

LOL THE FUCKING FORK IS THE BEST BIT LOLLLL

Lol ironically the Bedrock bros song is the oNE COPYRIGHTED ONE, god why did Minecraft ever copyright Pigstep what a shit move honestlyyy

Pigstep fucking goING TO TECHNO LOLLLLLL “this is the most powerful item on the server since it DMCA’s people”

LOL PUNZ TRYING TO STEAL ANOTHER SHULKER

Poor Sam he actually has to BUILD give this man a SHULKER

Lol Everyone wants a shulker so much

….aww he tried to toss the pigstep disc lmaooo DRISTAS LITERALLY HOLDING IT Scaaaaaammmmed

Drista “I NEED IT ON HAND” So committed to violence !!!

The fucking creepers on the way out omg fuckign PERFECT

LOL TOMMY WASN’T READY FOR THE TURN AROUND ON CURSING LMAO You can tell he's always been the youngest who people aren't sure how much they can curse around lmao He's so soft honestly he talks such a big game and then CRUMBLES when called on it lol

Asfdsfs she fell through the same hole again afsdfsdfsd

Drista has been introduced to a Weapon and she’s gotten ATTACHED lmaooo

Wait HOLD THE PHONE Dream has multiple sisters??? Lol

“Yeah I like Shit” Dream: “whAT???”

Bye Drista it’s been nice!!! I hope she had a good time, she seems like a good kid (who is definitely not a content creator lol though she keeps up admirably)

Drista’s one of the few people who can make Tommy speechless lmaooo he looks actually shocked lol

Also first mention of GhostInnit…. cc!Tommy…..

Keep preparing…. Was his original plan to rush Dream even if (maybe especially if…) he died? Fuck man

Also holy shit was this stream right before Quackitys? ? amazing

This was honestly such a BLAST and a really good time, and I can see why its viewed as one of the few breaks we get during Exile :) I feel so refreshed and it was so so nice to have Tommy hanging out in L’manburg having fun with his friends (even if Tubbo was stuck being a Hallucination and Also Banned lol) No deeper insight, I just haven’t stopped smiling for an hour and a half <3

[shorkbrian]

Give in to Love

so I have several thots about this. Like with Kiri, he would be like, relieved you’re being submissive but then he’d become like super depressed that you aren’t like idk seeming to live in your body, like you’re just a husk and he’d get so worried and sad and pamper you with so much love.

Yeah so aside from Kiri, a yan that I imagine this type of scenario is with someone like Victor Nikiforov from YOI 

yes. This Bitch right here.

So first fucking off, he’s rich. Money is no problem for him.

Second off, he’s so confident that he would not hesitate to do whatever he wanted.

Third, he’s actually pretty kind (especially to pretty, vulnerable little things like you)

It’d probably start out with the man spilling coffee all over you or something SUPER cliche like that. 

(Warnings - not much. NSFW but only the teeniest tiniest bit. barely even a mention. but obvs Yandere, dub con, dark content.)

He’s in a rush, he was bursting out of the coffee-shop, you just so happened to be walking by and in the direct path of the door and so smacks into you, knocking you onto your butt.

Immediately, you’re being helped up by a silver haired man, he’s apologizing heavily, patting your clothes into place, smoothing your hair, steadying you onto your feet. He’s so sorry, he didn’t even see you! And then the man stops, looks at you, smiles blindingly and blurts out that you’re pretty.

You’re understandably stunned. but you quickly just brush it off, his accent is foreign, it’s probably just a cultural thing. 

Then he’s offering to buy you something to make up for him trying to give you a concussion, asking if you like coffee, sweets, maybe a sweater? You look cold.

And you’re just so tired, life is exhausting, you don’t really even care anymore what happens to you. You don’t protest as the man doesn’t wait for an answer, immediately grabbing your hand and marching you into the coffee shop he had just burst out of.

“Pick anything you’d like, my treat! An apology for not paying attention to such a beautiful thing.” He smiles, gesturing at the menu.

You study it for a second, but there’s too many choices, and it’d just be easier if you didn’t have to, and you’re so used to people telling you what to do and making decisions for you and you’re lost. Where do you even start?

After a few moments of silence, the man (who's been not-so-subtly watching you as you deliberate) speaks up. “Can I pick? I LOVE their raspberry cheesecake! So good!”

It sounds fine, and you’re somewhat relieved that he was going to choose, take the burden of responsibility off of your shoulders.

He buys one of the giant slices, ushers you to table, sits you down. The man watches you take a bite, his face lighting up and giving a little clap when you give a thumbs up. He has his own fork, and he takes bits and pieces here and there from the slice. While you eat, he talks.

His name is Victor, he’s from Russia, are you from around here? What’s your name? 

“That’s such a pretty name!” He says your name once, twice, rolling it around in his mouth like it’s something to savor. 

Victor is a ball of energy, confident, full of life. He’s frankly an intimidating man, with how attractive he is, the obviously expensive suit he wears, the way he dominates the conversation and expertly handles your awkward silences and uncomfortable pauses.

By the time you leave, he’s entered his number into your phone, quickly scrolling to find your own number (even though he was only supposed to put in his own - but you really didn’t care) and note it down.

You’re pretty sure he won’t actually be texting or calling you - he was just being polite, feigning interest in someone as boring and pathetic as yourself.

Lo-and-behold, that evening you get a notification that “Vitya! (:” has texted you.

Hello! Is your body feeling alright?

Immediately confused, you send out a reply

Who is this?

It’s Victor!!! From the coffeeshop, haha. 

Oh, hi (: your contact name says “Vitya” lol what a typo

Not a typo, I like it when pretty girls call me Vitya (;

Baffled, you don’t reply, and no further messages are exchanged.

A few days go by, Victor texts you on the fifth day, asking if you wouldn’t mind recommending some fun local activities. You have to apologize - you don’t get out much, you’re sure there’s info online though.

Victor asks why you don’t go out, you decide to be blunt and succinctly explain the fatigue, you’re anxious, this is your first time being out on your own and you’re so used to other people dictating your life that it feels uncomfortable and wrong to be able to make decisions. 

The man asks if you would go to that coffeeshop again with him. The switch of topic relieves you, but at the same time you’re frowning. You probably word-vomited all over him, complaining about your problems. 

For some reason, you agree.

He meets you at the coffeeshop again, this time not even bothering to ask what you’d like to order. Victor just gets a few cookies, leads you to a table and plops down, spreading them in front of the two of you 

“In case you don’t like one of them. And if you have allergies!”

You smile at his explanation.

Victor slowly becomes a constant in your life.

The texts turn into quick calls, inviting you places, begging you to come sit with him in the park, feed some pigeons. Go to the grocery store with him? He’s lonely, don’t make him go by himself!

Even if you refuse, you’re gently bullied into doing virtually everything he says. It’s not like you mind though, you’re used to it.

He starts showing up at your apartment, you aren’t even sure when you gave him your address, but now he invites himself inside.

The first time he had shown up, completely unannounced, you had protested only once before letting him in. You could tell he was scrutinizing your home, but what did it matter? Victor was wealthy, everything you owned seemed shabby and poor.

He came over most nights, sometimes bringing food, making you sit with him at your table and eat. Sometimes he brought a book, or his laptop, and quietly sat on your couch while you puttered around. He’d always get distracted from what he was reading though, chattering towards you about this or that or the other.

Victor was nice.

He made decisions for you, he made you eat, he quickly picked up on when you were too tired to function, when all you could do was collapse somewhere and fall asleep.

But Victor was also threatening.

If you tried refusing him too many times, or if you mentioned your coworker telling a funny joke (It’s not like he wasn’t funny, the joke was hilarious - Victor just didn’t seem to like it) Victor’s face would sour, eyebrows drawing low, a deep frown etched onto his face. HIs voice would take on a commanding tone, low, as if he was going to do something that neither of you would enjoy if he had to ask again. 

It was scary sometimes.

But he had invaded your life, and you had stood by and idly watched. It’s not like you had put up a fight. You didn’t even know why he hung around you so, with the way you were constantly tired, moving through life like a zombie, sad and sleepy all the time.

Months passed and like every other year of your life, you could barely remember them slipping by. When had Victor become so comfortable in your apartment? It made you uncomfortable, but you were used to discomfort.

It came to a head when you retreated to your room for a nap, body sore and fatigued from merely existing. Victor followed you, nagging about wearing something cooler, to drink some water, how he heard about this new thing recently-

He followed you into your bed.

Like it was normal. Crawling under the covers with you, still maintaining a respectful distance, still talking. You were so tired, you didn’t care about how it made you uncomfortable.

When you woke up, he was curled around you, holding you tight. When you shifted, he had perked up, peeking around your shoulder to see your face. He had been awake the whole time, just chilling.

It was weird.

You were too tired to fight it.

Victor started paying for too much.

Of course it started small, as everything concerning Victor did. Sweets, small little gifts, occasionally a week’s worth of groceries. 

Then it escalated. He was paying for your medications, for your therapies, for your health aids. He started trailing after you to doctor’s appointments, introducing himself as a concerned friend.

You knew this wasn’t good, wasn’t healthy. Something was wrong about this, but you just didn’t care. Something was always wrong, you were always being directed and pushed towards this or that. You just had to accept it.

Then Victor was paying your rent, buying you clothes (since when did friends buy each other underwear?) surprising you with bigger and more expensive gifts until you tried to put your foot down.

You had gotten a stern talking-to, treated like an ungrateful child. And maybe you were? Victor was doing so much for you, shouldn’t you just accept his care?

Victor suggested that you move into his house, since he practically lives at your little apartment anyways. 

“My place is so much cozier! I have a fireplace, I miss it! I want to spend time with you but we could hang out in a more-” He looked around at your apartment “-comfortable place?”

You tried to argue, you did. But it took one disapproving glance from Victor and you were subdued, meekly agreeing to do whatever he wanted.

He called your landlord to terminate your lease. He helped you pack your clothes (that he had bought) into boxes (that he had bought) and arranged for your furniture (that he had bought, always complaining that your couch was bad for his back) to be sold.

Once moving in with him, he got more and more affectionate.

Right from the start, you quickly realized that Victor was very tactile-oriented. He wasn’t shy about physical touch, always wanting to hold hands or giving super long hugs, or begging to cuddle. He didn’t think it was weird, so you tried not to think so either.

Now that you were in his house, his gigantic, expensive house, Victor became even more physical. He showered you with kisses on the cheek, pressed to your forehead, on your shoulder, your neck when he curled around you at night (because of course you slept in the same bed. Victor had just laughed when you asked where your bedroom was)

Eventually, he kissed you on the mouth.

You were surprised, but you didn’t fight it. Why would you?

A heartfelt confession followed - how he had fallen in love with you at first sight, and how every day he fell more and more in love with you. You were his everything, the light of his life, he would die for you.

Don’t you feel the same?

You did, because that’s what Victor wanted to hear.

So now the two of you were dating, sharing kisses and intimate touches and eventually sharing bodies, letting him touch you even though it made your flesh crawl, touching him because he asked you to.

He provided everything, it was simpler just to do what he asked, what he desired. You didn’t even really mind being told what to do, what to wear, what and when to eat - it gave you a sense of comfort, knowing that you didn’t have to make decisions for yourself like that.

Victor would take care of you.

Even when you didn’t want him to

After all, it was simply easier to give in to love