#also a single issue of Dark Victory 9 for $1!!

[horsechestnut]

I got a bunch of new comics today and now I have to many to fit in my short box, but if I put them in the long box it won't be snug enough for the bags to crease :(

[nightwingmyboi]

Dick Grayson Comic Recs

I’ve been getting an increase in requests for comic recs, so I finally caved and decided to list a bunch of comics and series I recommend about Dick Grayson and put it all in one convenient place. I also wrote out a little description/review, to try to give people an idea if the comic sounded appealing and they wanted to check it out. Some of these are just single comics, others are some series to check out, pretty much in chronological order. 

Robin: 

Robin (1993) Annual #4: One of my preferred Robin origin stories. Fairly solid characterization, and a more reasonable timeline for events than other tellings. Provides an inside look at Dick’s thoughts during this time. 

Batman: Dark Victory #9-13: All of Dark Victory is excellent, these are the issues that Dick appears in. It could be considered another Robin origin story, though it is not solely focused on Dick. Everyone is characterized very well, especially Dick. The plot is very engaging, involving Two Face and a crime family, along with tracking down Zucco. As the name implies, it is a bit grimmer than your usual retelling. 

Batman Chronicles: The Gauntlet: Dick has been training to be Robin, and he thinks he’s finally ready, but he has to pass Batman’s final test--to keep away from him for a whole night. Of course, the test goes off track, and Dick soon finds himself the target of a ruthless mob boss, his deadly gang of thugs, and the GCPD. Batman chases after Robin, trying to save him before it is too late. 

Robin: Year One: This is a four issue run that gives you a snapshot of the time where Robin is just introduced in the crime fighting scene. It features villains like the Mad Hatter and Two Face. The art style is really fun and dynamic, and we get to see Bruce and Dick start to figure each other out. Lots of Alfred as well! 

Scarecrow: Year One: Another fun look at Dick and Bruce’s relationship, a little further along the road. Dick is very small and cute, and has also basically become Bruce’s therapist lmao! Not a great Scarecrow origin story though.

Legends of the DC Universe #6: The first time Superman and Robin meet. An absolutely delightful team up, I still have cavities from reading it because it is just so sweet. This one is so good, read it. 

Teen Titans: Year One: A short little origin story for the fab five (ie Wonder Girl, Speedy, Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Robin). A cute introduction to the original titans. 

The New Teen Titans (1980) and (1984): Forming the Teen Titans was a really important part of Dick’s development as a superhero, and some of his best stuff is when he is in a team setting. This run has the team you’d be more familiar with if you watched the animated Teen Titans show: it has Raven, Starfire, etc. Dick decides that he is going to leave Robin behind in issue #39. 

Nightwing: 

The New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract: This is the infamous run where Terra betrays the Titans. Dick dons the name Nightwing for the first time in this run (discowing style), and goes off with Joey Wilson to save the rest of the Titans from Slade and Brother Blood. 

Batman #416: Dick meets Jason for the first time, and eventually the two bond over beating up some baddies. 

The New Titans (1988) #55: You can read this series too for some Titans action, but even if you don’t you should skip over and read issue #55. It shows how Dick reacted to Jason’s death, and how Bruce and Dick had a huge falling out. It’s heartbreaking to read honestly. 

Nightwing (1996): If you want to read Nightwing, it’d be best to look at his solo run also. It starts with him moving to Bludhaven, and continues from there. If you’re looking for Batfam cameos, I specifically remember issues #6 and #25 for its really cute brotherly Tim and Dick moments. Issues #13 - #15 have Dick and Batman working together. #105 and #106 have Jason (as Robin) working with Dick. There are a lot of solid Barbara moments throughout with her as Oracle. #138 is when he meets Damian for the first time. There’s a lot here, so I would just pick and choose the arcs that interest you, and go from there. 

Action Comics #771: Another comic where Nightwing and Superman team up. Sue me, I love their dynamic! 

Gotham Knights #17: Dick finally gets adopted in this one. 

Batman (1940) #615: This one is smack dab in the middle of the Hush arc, an arc that focuses on Batman’s relationship with Catwoman and a mysterious new villain named Hush. I like this arc of comics (they recently made it into a movie!) so if you want to read the whole thing it starts at #608. This is just one that features Nightwing a lot. I include it because I really enjoy the dynamic Dick and Bruce have. It’s good stuff. 

Titans/Young Justice Graduation Day #1-3: It’s fun to see Tim and Dick’s generations interact and deal with growing up as superheroes, and there is a lot of drama. Pretty important crap goes down in these comics: several people die, including Donna, and as a result Dick disbands the Titans. If you want to read Outsiders, you should really read this one first. 

Outsiders Vol 3 (2003): Dick is mourning Donna’s death and self-destructing, so Roy forms a team called the Outsiders--a team that is meant to be just business rather than a family. Dick is more stern and his temper is shorter than usual, but I think it is all pretty in character for him, especially since he is grieving. Highlights include Roy and Dick’s lovely relationship.

Teen Titans (2003) #6: Ok, I almost didn’t put this one on here because it is very self-indulgent, but I couldn’t resist. This series has the Teen Titans starting back up again without Nightwing, but in this issue he makes a little cameo. If you’ve seen those panels around where Nightwing lectures the Justice League? This is where it happens. He’s just really cool here. 

Batman: 

Batman #687-688: This follows the Batfam’s initial reaction to Bruce’s death, and how Dick begins to approach being Batman himself. It is technically an epilogue to Battle for the Cowl, but that doesn’t have to be read for these comics to be understood. 

Batman and Robin (2009): This is the series where we see Dick and Damian transform into people forced together who can barely tolerate one another, to some of the closest partners in the Batfam. They develop their relationship very nicely, and we get to see how Dick approaches a lot of the emotional and physical challenges that come with being Batman. Some of the arcs are good, some of them very much miss for me. 

Batman: Black Mirror: This is a collection of Detective Comics #871-881. I’d say these are  my favorite Dick!Batman stories ever. All the cases are very good (really chilling), and the characterizations are top notch stuff. Lots of Gordon, Barbara, and some Tim also. I won’t spoil who it is, but the big villain they have for this book is one of the best I’ve seen for Dick, an almost perfect foil in my opinion.

Batman: Gates of Gotham: A good story, it’s interesting to see how Dick interacts with his siblings as Batman. I think this may be one of the first times Cass and Damian meet, though I’m not positive about that. 

Just as a heads up, I’ve left out some significant events and this isn’t an exhaustive list on everything there is to know about the character. These are just some comics I enjoy. I hope they help you get a start on who Dick Grayson is, and how he figures into the Batfam and the larger superhero community.

[ladylouoflothlorien]

Hi lovely! Saw that requests were open and I LOVE your writing 🥺 Would it be okay to request a little Dwalin x Reader? They’ve recently been married and the company won’t shut up about them being the toughest warriors ever falling in love. She tells them she’s pregnant thinking it would shut them up but oh boy it doesn’t 😂 It’s okay if not gorgeous ♥️ just wondering ♥️♥️

AHHHHHHHHH Any excuse to write for my husband!Dwalin :} I hope you don’t mind, I’ve changed the request a teensy bit but i hope it still captures what you had in mind.  ALSO I whipped this up really fast so if there are any mistakes I apologise but that’s just how it’s gonna be :’)  I’m calling this... uh.. “Expecting in Erebor.” heh  Words: 1812

The hour was late when Dwalin climbed into the bed he shared with his wife. You had gone to bed over an hour before, but he’d needed to wash from a rather gruelling day of training new recruits for the royal guard. Still, he wouldn’t trade his position as head of the guard of Erebor for the world – not even if he were offered the entire gold hoard Thror had managed to amass. Nor would he trade his position as husband, which was at least equally – if not more – important still. Carefully, so as not to wake you, he leaned over and placed a kiss on your forehead in a gesture so gentle that many wouldn’t have believed the bear of a dwarf could have been capable of it. You would have laughed at them; your husband Dwalin was the kindest, most considerate, most romantic person you have ever met.

Dwalin settled under the covers and curled a burly arm around your waist, and even in your sleep you nestled into the furnace-like heat he brought to the bed. In the blissful privacy of the dark room, he allowed himself to smile, and he thought back to the very first time he had met you.

-

An official visit to Erebor from Lord Elrond, the elf who had let the Company pass through his Halls without jail time, and was therefore welcomed warmly in memory of his own hospitality, but also a little stiffly – in memory of his being an elf. Naturally, Lord Elrond had not travelled from Rivendell to Erebor unaccompanied. He had brought a number of Elves, as well as a Handful of Men, much to the astonishment of the Dwarrow. The astonishment was heightened to amazement when it became known rather quickly that these men were Rangers, Rangers of the North.

You had been among them, dressed as any Ranger would. At least, that would have been the case if Lord Elrond had not insisted upon new outfits for all the Rangers who had accompanied him to Erebor. So in reality, your clothes looked rather cleaner and shinier than what you usually wore when wandering in the wilderness. Still, you had not been required to pay for the outfit so you had no issues with it.

The group had been shown around personally by King Thorin, and when they had reached the training grounds your attention was caught. The other rangers too – and many of the elves, though not as obviously – looked on with interest at the Dwarrow sparring there. You’d been so caught by the sight of a particular dwarf, all bulging muscles and dark tattoos, that you’d only caught the end of the conversation between Lord Elrond and King Thorin.

“A friendly duel, you say, your best fighter against mine?”

“It is an interesting proposition is it not, mellon nin?”

The King nodded, and barked out.

“Dwalin!”

-

Dwalin first set eyes on you that day. He was called from training by his King, and by the time he’d walked over you had been quietly asked by Lord Elrond to step forward also. He’d been told that the two of you were expected to duel, to see who was the better. Dwalin, who had never been beaten in single combat, had ample reason to feel confident, though he also knew not to underestimate his opponent. The dwarf hadn’t so much as bat an eyelid when it became obvious you were a woman, for female warriors among Dwarrow were only made scarce by their overall proportion of the population – only 1 in every 3 children born was a woman, after all – rather than any misguided ideas of which gender belonged in which roles.

The duel started slowly, the two warriors sizing up the other and their style of fighting. When Dwalin had figured you out a little, he’d had to start fighting more seriously, as it became clear you were certainly able to hold your own. As the fight had worn on, the crowd increased in size. To the onlookers at least, it eventually became clear that the two of you were at a stalemate, both incredibly skilled yet neither quite able to best the other. Many Dwarrow had started taking bets on how they thought the fight would end.

Dwalin, more exhausted by a fight than he had been in a long time, had let his guard slip long enough to let you get close to him. You’d pressed your advantage the only way you thought would actually work; you kissed him swiftly on the mouth, and your action so shocked him that he’d frozen just long enough for you to pin him to the mat and win the fight. He’d been in love with you from the moment you’d grinned victoriously down at him.

-

Your love story was one that Dwalin felt pride in and he wished to one day, Mahal willing, share it with any little pebbles the two of you might have. You felt pride in it too, but you rather wished the rest of Erebor would take a little less pride in it. Hardly a day went by when you did not hear of how you had stolen the heart of Dwalin, Erebor’s greatest warrior, with your quick blades and even quicker wit. When the two of you had finally married at the end of your courtship, you’d been shocked and rather flattered that you hadn’t been the only one crying tears of joy, but as your wedding faded into a fond memory you rather wished that Erebor’s citizens in general were less invested in your relationship.

There was something you hadn’t yet told Dwalin, for you’d only had it confirmed that morning. You were pregnant. You wanted to be able to raise your children free from any strange dwarvish romanticism that would undoubtedly shroud their existence if they were thought of merely as the blessed offspring of ‘Dwalin the Mighty’ and his fearsome wife. Perhaps it was hormones from this pregnancy that finally made you snap.

You were walking through the market, and you’d heard one too many barely hushed comments about the wonder of you and your husband for comfort, and enough was finally enough.

You climbed onto the nearest table and stomped your foot loudly over and over until you had the attention of all who were nearby.

“Now listen here all of you! I’ve heard quite enough whispered fantasies about my relationship with my husband for my likings, of how we’re both such fierce warriors that we must’ve been destined for each other, of how we’re the strongest pairing Mahal ever deigned to make, and much more! It was flattering at first, I’ll admit, but I’ve had quite enough of it now. I’ve got something to say to you all that I hope will get you to quit your jabbering about my relationship and mind your own business, because it’s rather important.”

You had a sudden cool flash of reason to cut through the overflowing irritation you’d had only moments before. If you told them you were pregnant, it was not likely to have the effect you hoped for in your anger. Still, you’d gotten the attention of over 100 Dwarrow, and it would be rather embarrassing to climb off the table without a great announcement now. You took a deep breath, wondering at your own stupidity, and sealed your own fate knowingly.

“Mahal bless me, I’m pregnant.”

Pandemonium broke out.

-

Unbeknownst to you, Balin had been part of the crowd that you’d called to attention at the market, and as soon as you’d screeched from the top of your lungs that you were expecting he’d all but sprinted to share the news with his little brother. When Dwalin had been informed that you, his wife, was with child, he’d squeaked a little, forgotten to breathe, turned red, and almost fainted. Once he had regained himself, he’d gripped his brother by the arms and brought their foreheads together as hard as he dared before sprinting off in the direction Balin had come from to find you.

Dwalin skidded into the market, what hair he had windswept and messier than ever, and his eyes honed in on you. You were sitting on a chair in the middle of the market, cradling a cup of something steaming, surrounded by Dwarrow of all shapes and sizes who seemed to be absolutely going out of their mind with excitement.

“A wonder, to be pregnant not a year after their wedding!”

“Tis truly a blessing from Mahal.”

“Ay, to reward their strength on the battlefield!”

Dwalin’s gaze was drawn to you, and for a split second it appeared to him that you were the only person in the whole market hall.

“Wife!”

His thickly accented voice carried across the hall enough to silence the chattering Dwarrow, for they could all tell to whom the voice belonged. You glanced up, eyes widening when you realised that someone must have gone to find your husband to tell him the news you’d neglected to tell him before announcing it to all of Erebor. The sea of bodies parted to let him pass, and he stormed over to where you were sitting, though by the time he reached you he verily was shaking. Dwalin kneeled gently in front of you, and someone unseen snatched your cup of tea so he could take your hands into his.

“By Durin’s beard… my beautiful wife, is it true? Are ye’…”

He couldn’t finish the question, but you squeezed his hands and answered him anyway.

“Yes love, I’m pregnant.”

The watching Dwarrow whooped and cheered as Dwalin wrapped his arms tightly around your waist and lifted you out of your chair, spinning you around – you had to bend your knees and tuck your legs up so they didn’t scrape the floor as he did, for you were taller than him, but the sentiment was all the same.

-

9 months later, as many Dwarrow as physically possible were crowded into the hallway outside where you were giving birth. Dwalin had initially been inside the room, but you’d screamed at everyone to get out and the only person who you’d been prevailed upon to let stay was the Dwarrow in charge of the birthing. Now, he was the only one in the hallway who had anything in the way of personal space, as the others had cleared a little space for him to nervously pace back and forth. You were certainly making your discomfort known; you were screaming so loudly you could probably heard as far off as Dale. All of a sudden the screaming stopped and there was silence. Everyone in the hallway held their breath. A second later, the door swung open and the healer poked his head into the hall.

“Dwalin! Get in ‘ere! Ye’ve got triplets!”

“TRIPLETS!?”

[tar-oh]

Pick-A-Pile! (2)

What will August bring you?

We’re almost half way though July, so I thought I’d do a pick-a-pile based on what your August will be like. I will be using some scrunchies I made the other day for the piles. Pick whichever scrunchie you feel calls to you (something I thought I’d never say...). Remember, you can have more than one! You might find something you resonate with in each pile!

Here are the scrunchies:

Pile 1: 

Oof, sorry for the bad quality picture. My phone is the absolute worst and is probably on it’s last legs. Maybe August will bring me a new phone?

Full Moon Eclipse, 5 of wands, the world, 5 of swords, the high priestess, 10 of cups reversed, 10 of swords reversed, princess (page) of swords reversed, the world, mannaz

“Questioning things I can’t control.” - I Think Too Much by Christian French

Something has reached it's conclusion in your life. It may have been a messy one, with agitation on your part or another's. Or possibly, just an overall painful situation. Nevertheless, a door is shutting. In your heart, you know this, but you're blocking this end. You got The World twice, which tells me it's done. Complete. You also have two tens, which further this idea. Now, you're just being asked to let go of your hold on this situation and allow it to end naturally. You know it's for the best. A part of you is accepting it, but you're still blocking this end from happening. Let go and don’t question this. You feel that it's time.

(sorry, this one was pretty short and to the point).

Pile 2:

(Sorry, forgot to put the scrunchie in the picture, clearly I am just a mess. This is the one that’s got pink and green)

Blue Moon, Full Moon in Sagittarius, The Magician, The Chariot (x2), 9 of Pentacles rx (x2), The Sun, 5 of swords, Knight of Cups, the lovers, the tower reversed, hagalaz

“And I know it’s bad, but I just can’t wait.” - Charlie by Mallrat

“I notice you when you notice me.” - The Maze by Manchester Orchestra

Some of you are going to be jumping into something new. You got the Chariot twice, and that card can talk about travel, but also victory! I see a lot of movement with it, and when I pulled the second one, I actually got the song Cannonball by Grouplove stuck in my head. When I looked at the lyrics, I found them quite fitting. "Had 'em screaming out "Oh, my Lord", being cannonball, bringing all hell to the board." I see someone just saying “To Hell with it” and jumping into a pool, as if you’re diving into the deep end of some uncharted territory for you. This new thing can be a new project, or for some, I see a relationship. I've heard some people refer to 9 of Pentacles in the reversed position as the card signalling the end of being single. I think this is one factor to these cards being here (you got it twice). I don't usually assume this with this card, but I kind of felt that maybe this was going in this direction (for some), so I pulled a few more cards and got the Lovers and the Tower reversed. I'm reading the Tower reversed as an extreme tower moment, actually. Like, a cannonball of action. You're coming in fast with whatever you want to do or say, and it's going to shock a few people. Or, this could be vice-versa. Someone could be heading in your direction quickly (though for most I think it's you acting). Prior to this action, I see that you were feeling defeat. You may have had some set-backs, or you were having trouble with your self-worth. I think this could have led you to being fearful of change. In August, you're going to be seeing things from a new perspective, and that you need to put yourself first. For others (even if you’ve been having issues with your self-worth), I think you may make a move towards someone. Both Knight of Cups and the lyrics "And I know it's bad, but I just can't wait" from Charlie by Mallrat really make me think this. I'm taking the "it's bad" to mean you coming in so impulsively. For others, it's just something you've really wanted to do, and you're finally ready to get into action. Whatever it is, it's going to bring you happiness. You’re unsure of what it will bring, but you’re still diving in. You're being asked not to be worried about the small things. Feel confident, because you're going to be lucky with whatever this is. It's definitely a rare opportunity ("Once in a Blue Moon"). Seriously, just cannonball in. (also listen to Cannonball by Grouplove because I think it might give you some motivation to do so).

Pile 3:

Supermoon, Page of Cups reversed, 10 of swords, 6 of pentacles, death reversed, The Emperor, 9 of swords reversed, the moon reversed, thurisaz

“What you think I am, it’s never been me.” - So Far, So Fast by The National (wow, first appearance today!)

“The Sun will rise, and we will try again.” - Truce, by Twenty One Pilots

You're currently going through a time of anxiety and fear, and your emotions are a bit wonky too. Negative thought patterns are circling your mind, and you're starting to question who you even are. You may be feeling like you're either too dependent on others, or that you're giving too much of yourself. This makes you feel exhausted and does not help your thought patterns. During August, you'll be learning to control these thought patterns and stabilize how you're emotions present themselves on the surface. You are changing, but currently you're avoiding this since you don't want to dive inside yourself any deeper. It's looking a little murky in there, and you're afraid to find more swords. Though, like the song Truce says, "The Sun will rise, and we will try again." So, even though it's dark right now, tomorrow is a new day. There are things you feel uncertain about, (especially who you are- "What you think I am, it's never been me".) but you have all the answers and you will be able to figure this out. I suggest writing down your favorite qualities about yourself. I know it may be hard when you’re feeling so anxious, but by having a list of them you’ll be able to focus on what you want to portray to everyone (and yourself). Sit and get to know yourself. I pulled The Emperor for your pile. The Emperor is someone who has control and power. They're stable. I'm seeing this as who you'll start to embody in August. You'll learn to take care of yourself better, thinking less negative thoughts. Or, you're learning how to be more independent. Whichever situation you find yourself in, I see August as being a big month for figuring out who you are and how you fit into this world. 

Let me know which pile(s) you picked and if they resonated at all!

[aion-rsa]

What Does Future State Mean for the DC Universe?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

It’s somehow almost 2021, which means the DC Universe is about to enter its Future State, the big two month crossover that kicks off the new year by pausing its regular line, and diving deep into the wild, varied timelines and parallel universes for new angles from fresh creators. And we are happy to have your exclusive first look at the February covers and solicitations for the Justice League family of books.

Since half the fun of solicits is trying to piece together what’s happening in the book from the 50 words and a cover, we decided to engage in some wild, semi-informed speculation on what might be coming from DC’s event.

Let’s get right to it: Future State has a very strong Seven Soldiers of Victory vibe.

The original Seven Soldiers were briefly a superteam from the ’40s, brought back sporadically whenever a comic needed a nostalgia boost, until Grant Morrison got his hands on them in the mid-aughts. He and some of the most brilliant artists of the era (Frazer Irving, JH Williams III, Ryan Sook, Doug Mahnke and more) put together a superteam crossover where a group of B and C list heroes stop evil faerie invaders from the future, come to harvest humanity. Also the heroes never meet. The climax is a series of brilliantly planned coincidences where the heroes just barely cross paths, or set up one accident that places the final blow just in time. It’s a superheroic Rube Goldberg machine.

The inciting events of each Future State book are all vastly different on their faces, but point to a more systemic collapse of something within DC’s multiverse/hypertime that could take a series of happy accidents to fix. The Speed Force and the Central Power Battery both go haywire at the same time. Something is different about dimensional barriers in Aquaman and Justice League – we’ve got a mystery Batman, a multiversal Flash, and an interdimensional hole in the ocean in Aquaman. The next generation of heroes are falling apart in Shazam and Teen Titans, and Amanda Waller has gone off the deep end in Suicide Squad. And it looks like magic users are hunted to a dangerous level between the Justice League Dark story and Swamp Thing.

The Black Adam One Million story feels like where something like a 7S conclusion might take place. It got a pretty strong push when we talked to Justice League group editor Alex Carr back in October, and that far in the futue, Adam might have the perspective and the means to nudge a couple of things into place in the past to try and set the multiverse right.

Finally, we’ll talk a bit about variant covers. That Red X cover, if conventions ever come back, is going to make Dustin Nguyen a substantial sum of money. The Future State Green Lantern variant will also likely bring in some cash for Jamal Campbell, but from a very different crowd. The kind of folks who are interested in hot G’Nortt original art. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to unsee that.

Now, let’s take a look at the goods, including one quietly disturbing variant cover:

FUTURE STATE: AQUAMAN #2 written by BRANDON THOMAS art and cover by DANIEL SAMPERE card stock variant cover by KHARY RANDOLPH ON SALE 2/23/21 $3.99 US | 32 PAGES | 2 OF 2 | FC | DC CARD STOCK COVER $4.99 US

“Andy Curry, daughter of Arthur and Mera, has had a pretty terrible month. Jackson Hyde, a.k.a. Aquaman, won’t stop calling her Aqualass when she’s told him a thousand times it’s Aquawoman. She’s manifested a new power that scares the absolute hell out of her. Oh, and she and Jackson just got ripped apart in the midst of a cosmic space ocean and she can’t find him anywhere! For the first time in her 14 years, Andy’s all alone—and it’s gonna take her wits, her will, and every single lesson Jackson ever taught her to survive.”

FUTURE STATE: THE FLASH #2 written by BRANDON VIETTI art and cover by BRANDON PETERSON card stock variant cover by KAARE ANDREWS ON SALE 2/2/21 $3.99 US | 32 PAGES | 2 OF 2 | FC | DC CARD STOCK COVER $4.99 US

“All hope is lost as Barry Allen races to save his former partner, Wally West. Armed with the  weapons of the Rogues who once tried to destroy the Flash, Barry plots an attack that’ll either free the former Kid Flash from the evil that’s possessed him—or end his threat forever!”

FUTURE STATE: GREEN LANTERN #2 “The Last Lanterns” written by GEOFFREY THORNE “The Last Lanterns” art by TOM RANEY “Teen Lantern” written by JOSIE CAMPBELL “Teen Lantern” art by ANDIE TONG “Hal Jordan” written by CHRISTOPHER PRIEST “Hal Jordan” art by DEXTER SOY cover by CLAYTON HENRY card stock variant cover by JAMAL CAMPBELL ON SALE 2/9/21 $5.99 US | 48 PAGES | 2 OF 2 | FC | DC CARD STOCK COVER $6.99 US

“Outnumbered but never outwitted or outfought, John Stewart leads the last of the Green Lanterns against insurmountable odds. Facing a bloodthirsty Khund cult dedicated to the “God in Red,” the onetime Green Lantern shows that even without a ring or the Corps to back him up, he’s still a force to be reckoned with! Plus, from the pages of Young Justice, Teen Lantern teams up with Mogo, and Hal Jordan reconnects with Oliver Queen after the power battery goes down!”

FUTURE STATE: JUSTICE LEAGUE #2 “Justice League” written by JOSHUA WILLIAMSON “Justice League” art by ROBSON ROCHA and DANIEL HENRIQUES “Justice League Dark” written by RAM V “Justice League Dark” art by MARCIO TAKARA cover by DAN MORA card stock variant cover by KAEL NGU ON SALE 2/9/21 $5.99 US | 48 PAGES | 2 of 2 | FC | DC CARD STOCK VARIANT COVER $6.99 US

“Exiled to a distant planet, the Justice League suspects an impostor in their midst, but not even the next Batman or Green Lantern can find the clues they’re looking for. Meanwhile on Earth, the terrifying return of a classic Justice League villain may spell doom for the planet! Doppelgängers abound, paranoia runs rampant, and only the Justice League can save humanity—if they can ever find their way home.”

“Plus, all the world’s terrible truths are revealed as the Justice League Dark make their last stand. Hunted, beaten, and harvested for their magic, Zatanna, John Constantine, Detective Chimp, Ragman, Madame Xanadu, and Etrigan all unleash a desperate plan that could destroy them—but is it worth the cost to finish Mad Merlin and his mysterious Knights? Only Doctor Fate knows, and the truth may spell hope or doom!”

FUTURE STATE: SHAZAM! #2 written by TIM SHERIDAN art by EDUARDO PANSICA cover by BERNARD CHANG card stock variant cover by GERALD PAREL ON SALE 2/16/21 $3.99 US | 32 PAGES | 2 OF 2 | FC | DC CARD STOCK COVER $4.99 US

“Shazam’s soul is laid bare as he’s confronted by one of the most powerful beings in the DC Universe! Revealing shocking secrets and the final fate of Billy Batson, the boy who was Earth’s Mightiest Mortal, this issue introduces a deadly new threat born from the ashes of the Teen Titans Academy: Raven!”

FUTURE STATE: SUICIDE SQUAD #2 “Suicide Squad” written by ROBBIE THOMPSON “Suicide Squad” art by JAVI FERNANDEZ “Black Adam” written by JEREMY ADAMS “Black Adam” art by FERNANDO PASARIN cover by JAVI FERNANDEZ card stock variant cover by DERRICK CHEW ON SALE 2/23/21 $5.99 US | 48 PAGES | 2 OF 2 | FC | DC CARD STOCK COVER $6.99 US

“Peacemaker attacks! Assigned to bring Amanda Waller back to Earth-1 at all costs, the Suicide Squad battles Waller’s private Justice League on Earth-3. As lives are lost and blood is spilled, the fate of the Multiverse will be decided by Superman! Also in this issue, the 853rd Century is burning, and only Black Adam can save reality from the onslaught of murderous rage from a new threat spawned from a former hero.”

FUTURE STATE: SWAMP THING #2 written by RAM V art and cover by MIKE PERKINS card stock variant cover by DIMA IVANOV ON SALE 2/2/21 $3.99 US | 32 PAGES | 2 OF 2 | FC | DC CARD STOCK COVER $4.99 US

Humanity strikes back! The shadow of Swamp Thing Supreme stretches across the globe as it has for centuries. The world is at peace, until a rebellious faction of humanity ignites their terrible plan, fueled by Woodrue Wilson’s appetite for power. But Swamp Thing, too, harbors a secret—one he must reveal in order to restore peace to the planet once again. But it will cost him everything he has.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

FUTURE STATE: TEEN TITANS #2 written by TIM SHERIDAN art and cover by RAFA SANDOVAL card stock variant cover by DUSTIN NGUYEN ON SALE 2/9/21 $3.99 US | 32 PAGES | 2 OF 2 | FC | DC CARD STOCK COVER $4.99 US

“Red X returns to the Teen Titans! The mysterious former Teen Titans Academy student joins the surviving Titans in a final fight to stop the threat unleashed by one of the school’s students. Nightwing, Raven, Crush, Shazam, Starfire, Cybeast, and Red Arrow face their demons as one of these heroes must make the ultimate sacrifice to save their world!”

The post What Does Future State Mean for the DC Universe? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3ppRdbs

[breath-of-venus]

30 Days of Deity Devotion in One Post - Aphrodite

I don't have ANY patience to do one post every day for devotion. Like, no patience and not enough memory, so I'll resume every single day of deity devotion in this post, and hopefully it'll be nice to read and maybe do some research.

30 Days of Deity Devotion was created by @alaskanlesbian

1 - A basic introduction

She's very energetic and enthusiastic and it's very pleasing to be hanging out with her. We dance together sometime, it's really fun! Also she's my matron.

2 - How did you became first aware of her?

We are introduced to greek mythology since very early, as kids, so I must've known her for quite some time, though she only called me in December. I think it's because now she feels that I'm ready to work with her.

3 - Symbols and icons of this deity

Bees; Red, pink and yellow with pink tip roses; A calm shore with no aggressive waves; A pink sky; Deep red lipsticks; Sea foam; Shells; Apple; Sweet scents, especially ripe apple; Laughter and smiles

4 - Favorite myth or myths of Aphrodite

The one I like the most is Aphrodite and Adonis love. It's tragical, yet beautiful. I get sad every time.

5 - Members of the family

I personally like best the version were she rose from the sea, but there's also a version were she's daughter of Zeus and Dione.

6 - Other related deities and entities

Ares, her main lover; her other various lovers; Athena, her main rival; The erotes; Astarte and Ishtar, goddesses she was based from

7 - Names and epithets

Ourania, Pandemos, Areia, Philomedes, Nikephoros

8 - Variations of this deity

The epithets listed above and Astarte and Ishtar, as they're deities Aphrodite was based from.

9 - Common mistakes about her

That she's all fluffy and pastel-pink. Like, all the time. Or that she's petty and superficial.

Bitch no.

She can be fluffy and pastel-pink, but thinking that she's like that all the fucking time is at least foolness.

She is the goddess of love, beauty and sex, but also of war, death, laughter, victory and so much more. She's a frigging goddess y'all, not a trendy youtuber.

Don't forget it.

10 - Offerings, historical and UPG

Chocolate; Yogurt; Strawberry dairy drink; Wine, especially the smooth variety; Lettuce (because of Adonis); Apple; Red fruits and berries; Red and pink flowers; Any artistic thing that you make for her; Make-up; Jewelry; Perfumes; Honey; Milk

11 - Festivals, days and times sacred to her

Every fouth day of each month

Every full Moon day

Every Friday

February 6th, honors to Aphrodite

12 - Places associated with her

Chypre (lol that's the only place I can think)

13 - What modern cultural issues are closest to this deity's heart?

I think self-esteem is the most well known issue she helps coming around atm

14 - Has worship of this deity changed in modern times?

I am very sure of it. We have trouble enough to find basic info about our deities, imagine a whole how-to-worship guide!

15 - Any mundane practices associated with this deity?

Having sex is the most obvious of them all, but there are far more pleasures in life than just sex.

Eating some food you really enjoy, for example.

Or putting some makeup on.

Expressing the beauty with arts, I guess.

16 - How do you think this deity represents the values of their pantheon and cultural origins?

That's way more complex than what I can answer without having to stress too much about it

Sorry

17 - How does this deity relates to other gods and other pantheons?

Historically, she relates to Venus and Hator. They were the closest. But in my opinion she's linked to every single love deity, especially female ones.

I found her and Freya very similar, mostly because of the warrior aspect of Freya, very similar to Aphrodite Areia.

18 - This deity's gender and sexuality (historical and UPG)

Historically she looks pretty cishet female, but in my opinion every god is kinda pansexual I guess.

They don't need labels as we do.

Also she's clearly a woman for me.

19 - What quality or qualities of this goddess do you most admire? What qualities of them do you find the most troubling?

I can't talk about her qualities without saying that I think she's perfect, sorry.

SHE'S PERFECT!!

Ok, now to the qualities.

In my personal experience with her she's like those kind of crazy mom's that are all like "ya wanna? Ya do!" but also very sweet (soft maybe? Idk).

She's very comforting and thinking about my practice I think she wants me to try not to be so dependable to pendulums.

And she got these vibes kinda like Mean Girls but a nice one

I don't think there's anything that I dislike about her really.

20 - Art that reminds you of this deity

Mostly break-the-rules love, or idk how to describe, maybe overcome relationships I guess

But if ya break some rules to kiss some mouths babe ya goin the right direction

Also I don't really see her in paintings. They're mostly blonde, and as far as I can "see" she've got wavy-curly dark brown hair and pretty yellowish-green eyes.

21 - Music that makes you think of that deity

Side to side, Gloriosa, New Rules, Toxic, TiK ToK, God is a Woman(yep, that predictable), Dangerous Woman, Thank U next, Strawberries & Cigarettes, Scars to Your Beautiful, Savages - Kerli

22 - A quote, poem, etc, that you think this deity ressonates strongly with

I have none, sorry

23 - your own composition — a piece of writing about this deity

I've tried doing it before. Like, actual writing for her, but I couldn't.

So I guess I'll stick to the motivational Tumblr posts I do about her :)

24 - A time when this deity helped you

I don't think that she's actively helping me with anything specific, since I never ask much.

Once I asked to meet a nice boy that I'd kiss.

Welp in my new school I've got quite a lot, so cheers 🥂

25 - A time when she refused to help

Can't remember any moment like this now.

She did punish me once tho 😂 it was actually funny and @thepastelpriestess witnessed everything from her very own screen

26 - How has your relationship with her changed over time?

It went to "I know you exist" to "I'd seek your help anytime soon" to "holy smokes you my mamma" to "hi guuurl ya doing great? Les hav sum tea n chat n laugh at nothing all night"

27 - Worst misconception that about her that you have encountered

That she's selfish

Like, she sure is in the myths and yadda yadda but Myths Aphrodite and Real Aphrodite are very different, actually (look Jessie I've learnt 😂)

28 - Something you wish you knew about his deity but you currently don't

I'm not really sure, actually...

I guess I'd like to hang out like face to face, have a talk-hear-hear-talk kinda conversation

Dunno

I guess then I'd know what I'd like to know that I don't yet.

29 - Any unusual or interesting UPGs to share?

She's the goddess of joy :)

30 - Any suggestions to others just starting to learn abou her?

Chase all her info in Tumblr like a crazy old lady going after her twelve cats through the streets of her neighborhood.

Basically, search a ton

[wildwhiskey236]

11/11/11 Tag

radiowmilkyThanks for the tag @emdop!

1. What’s you most recent obsession?

Six of Crows! It is so well written and such a good story and I just love bastard characters and found family dynamics, so if you like that you should check them out too!

2. What’s your go to book recommendation?

It really does depend on the person I’m talking to, but I'm going to say Six of Crows because it is the most recent story that has blown me away with how good it is. 

3. How much romance do you usually write into your WIP(s)?

It usually is a subplot or two. I don’t like for it to be the main point of the story because I think in new adult fiction we can be too narrows in how we portray the lives of 18-25 year olds as obsessed with love when in actuallity there is so much that is also important. That being said, I like making chracters kiss. I also get told I write it pretty well so I guess I should have more.

4. What colour do you associate with each of your main characters?

I’ve done this before for Hunting Witches, so I’ll do it for my other WIP, Embracing Shadows (which I haven’t released to Tumblr yet so be on the lookout for that)

Natia- Black and Silver

Hector- Red and Black

Lindsey- Navy and Gold

Davy- Dark Green and Gold

Lauren- Pink and Light Blue

Madi- Orange and Teal

5. Do you have any writing habits (your own or other people’s) that annoy you? (i.e. repeated word use, overused tropes?)

Oh boy, remember what I just said about romance? I hate in a lot of especially young adult/new adult fiction where the plot has super high stakes and the main character decides to worry more about the romance arc than the actual problem? Who cares if this most-of-the-time assholeish boy is distant when there’s idk a war going on? Lives are at stake? Can we care about that please?

6. Are there any characters you’re afraid people will ship when your WIP(s) is/are published?

I’ve been part of fandoms long enough to know there will always be one person who ships the most outrageous things. In Embracing Shadows, it’s probably Lindsey or Davy with anyone but each other. My boys belong together so don’t you dare mess with them. In Hunting Witches, it would be anyone with Dakor or Tobias.

7. What’s a name you want to use for a character but haven’t yet?

I will admit, I used to really like the name Alexa. Then Amazon did what they did and I can’t bring myself to use it. I also like Alex, so I may use that one day.

8. If you could pick one character out all of your WIPs to make real, who would you chose?

Damn this question doesn’t mess around. It would have to be Colin, my baby, my favorite character from Hunting Witches. He is sweet, he is sassy, and honestly just the personification of a golden retriever. But even if I could, I wouldn’t, because he wouldn’t be very happpy without Cassia for a long time. 

9. Do you have a usual time you write?

Sometimes if I have nothing else to do, I’ll write at work during the day, and on the weekends I can manage to write some during the day. Most of the time I write at in the evenings and at night. 

10. What are your OCs’ favorite holidays and why?

Cassia enjoys Christmas, or my fantasy version of Christmas. While she doesn’t like the cold, she loves that she and Colin both get the day off together and essentially eat and stay cozy by the fire. Its simple, fun, and meant to be spent with loved ones- exactly what she wants. 

Natia's favorite holiday is Ebarria’s Victory Day, wehre her country celebrates Ebarria keeping Nezath out of their land by offering up thanks to their gods, eating, drinking, and being very, very patriotic. 

11. Would you like to share your favourite bit you’ve written recently?

From Embracing Shadows in Natia’s POV:

Madi’s facade dropped for a moment, long enough for me to see her concern.

“There is also the issue of the next time you’ll see me. I can’t go back to Butcher empty-handed. I’m going to need a good excuse as to why the Princess isn’t dead and why I lost four Shadows.”

The air seemed to still, snowflakes suspended lazily in the sky. The wind didn’t rustles and even the squirrels outside the cave stopped to look at us. The words waited between us, needing to be said before the world could keep moving. It was almost nice not saying them, living in a single peaceful moment, but I couldn’t deny the satisfaction that came when I said them. 

“You tell Butcher he was trained better than that.”

I’ll tag for the same questions: @albarnesauthor, @gottaenjoythelittlethingzz, @confunderewrites, @weathershade, @chickenlittlefearsme, @crypticsx, @milkyway-writes, and @thatfizzyyyy

[iamchikara]

Results for Chikarasaurus Rex under the cut. As with yesterday’s results, only point gains will be recorded. Point totals will not be touched, as they are still in flux due to the Regency Furniture results fiasco. A full update to the point standings covering all three shows, as well as any others that happen in the interval (next one is in October so I really hope this isn’t dragged out for a month) will be done once those results are released.

Match #1: Singles Contest John Francis of Coronado vs. Jakob Hammermeier w/Der Wildebeest John Francis is starting to morph into this weird mish-mash of previous American-hero types, as he used the big boot and legdrop, several of John Cena’s moves, the Angle Slam, and the ankle lock. I’m not sure how to feel about that. Anyways, the ankle lock made Jakob submit. WINNER: John Francis of Coronado (1 point) Match #2: Tag Contest, Campeonatos de Parejas Defense #1 Travis Huckabee and Tony Deppen vs. Lucas Calhoun and Stray Kat First fall went to F.I.S.T. with a small package on Calhoun after a corner kick doubleteam...and then the second fall went to them as well, as Deppen hit a double stomp on Kat while Huckabee had her in the stretch muffler. For how long we had to wait for this first defense, F.I.S.T. taking it in two straight is a bit of a disappointment for me, though at the same time it also conveys the renewed dominance that F.I.S.T. has displayed lately. WINNERS: Travis Huckabee and Tony Deppen Match #3: Singles Contest Missile Assault Man vs. Kobald MAM got the win by submitting Kobald with the Sharpshooter, then was attacked by Hallowicked and Frightmare. Lucas Calhoun and Stray Kat came to MAM’s aid, with Calhoun telling MAM that he couldn’t fight the world alone before they shook hands. Trio #15? WINNER: Missile Assault Man (1 point) Match #4: Singles Contest Fire Ant vs. Cajun Crawdad Crawdad spent the entire match trying to blind Fire, but got put away with a brainbuster after Fire got sick of that. WINNER: Fire Ant (1 point) Match #5: Singles Contest BLANK vs. Penelope Ford This is prob’ly Ford’s last CHIKARA match, as she’s full time with AEW starting next month. Accordingly, BLANK ended his obsession with the Color Wheel. Post-match, he called out Still Life for King of Trios. Considering that we haven’t actually gotten much of a reason for the breakup of the Nouveau Aesthetic beyond BLANK’s obsession with Ford and Still Life having other things to do, it’s weird that we get to this point right now and not, say, at the Season finale or something. WINNER: BLANK (1 point) Match #6: Singles Contest, Grand Championship Defense #1 (as undisputed champion) Dasher Hatfield vs. Mick Moretti Lot of interesting notes described to me from commentary. Technically, this is Dasher’s eighth defense, though first as undisputed champion. Moretti’s facepaint resembled that of one of the Baseball Furies from The Warriors, with suggestions that he was using it to get under Dasher’s skin. Most harshly, Sidney Bakabella claimed that Dasher asked for the match to go on early so he could go home and be with his kids...even though Boomer’s match was on later. See? Toxic! Described as a hot back and forth match, and Dasher successfully retained. WINNER: Dasher Hatfield INTERMI...no, not quite, pre-taped interview from Ophidian hyping up Matt Makowski. Someone possibly jumped the gun with that, but considering how disruptive the Crucible’s been lately, it fit right in with their modus operandi. Then INTERMISSION. It’s time for the Crucible’s presence on this show, as the ropes are down and Ophidian brings out his entire cadre including their referee. Match #7: Crucible Exhibition #1 Matt Makowski vs... Thief Ant is out to answer the challenge, but is shut down fairly quickly and made to tap out with a cross armbreaker. WINNER: Matt Makowski (1 point...I guess? If our esteemed Director of Fun is legitimatizing this whole thing...) Match #8: Crucible Exhibition #2 Evan Matthew Demorest vs... Still Life answers this one, to a huge reaction from the crowd. Unfortunately for Still Life, they didn’t fare any better than Thief, and the match was stopped after they were knocked out with the Demoralizer (a variant of the Last Ride powerbomb). WINNER: Evan Matthew Demorest (1 point...I guess? It’s being treated as a legit part of the show...) Ophidian issues a third open challenge on the behalf of Tunku Amir... Match #9: Crucible Exhibition #3 Tunku Amir vs... ...which is answered by a voice in the crowd screaming “I WILL!” and Jawbreaker Josue/Joey, accompanied by Xavier Faraday and Josh Wells, appears. Joey scored what looks to be the first actual victory against the Crucible cadre, forcing Amir to submit, then racing out of the building with Wells and Faraday, leaving Ophidian to fume and berate Amir before leading his followers out. WINNER: Jawbreaker Josue/Joey (1 point...I guess? Didn’t go Ophidian’s way...) INTERMISSION AGAIN Mike Quackenbush is out to address the crowd. As he apparently suffered an injury at Earning The Lucha Libre Merit Badge, he’s withdrawing from his match on here, and has handpicked Hallowicked as Joey Janela’s opponent. Match #10: Singles Contest Hallowicked vs. Joey Janela In what’s prob’ly Janela’s last CHIKARA match as well (same situation as Ford), he scored the victory with a top rope elbow drop. I don’t get why that happened, but it did. Hopefully some kind of deal can be worked out with AEW, so that he can at least come back and not sit in the inactive part of the standings. WINNER: Joey Janela (1 point) Match #11: Trios Contest The Crucible (Lance Steel, The Whisper, and Devantes) vs. the Creatures of the Deep (Oceanea, Merlok, and Hermit Crab) Bouncing back from their utter humiliation earlier in the show, the Crucible returned to form here, as Devantes pinned Merlok after a TKO. Post-match, the Queen of the Deep was not happy in the slightest with her charges, berating and hitting the big fish in her fury, then told her subjects that they’d regret it if they kept losing. Oceanea, I love ya but they’ve been losing all along and you haven’t done a thing about it, what makes you think they’re going to take that threat seriously? WINNERS: The Crucible Match #12: Singles Contest Princess Kimberlee vs. Solo Darling Kim returned to CHIKARA in strong fashion, defeating Solo with the Alligator Clutch after a Ganso Bomb. Post-match, she shook Solo’s hand, then addressed everything that has been going on. (Below is the transcription, provided by Freakin’ Awesome Network forum lildude8218) "This is just Kimber Lee here for a minute. I need to get real with you guys. Everybody has a past. Every single person here. And in Pittsburgh mine hit me smack in the face. It's something I've ran from for SO LONG and so far even to the point where I gave up my crown to keep this hidden from you. I was a different person in the past, everything you heard it wasn't wrong. I did use Lance Steel as a stepping stool to get where I am. But here's the thing: in life we all do things we regret but it's what you do afterwards that defines who you are. And I am a different person now. So this crown jewel is going to do whatever it takes to make things right." Ophidian interrupts her. "I know how you can make peace with your past. You call yourself the Princess. The Crown Jewel. But you have no kingdom. You have no purpose. The way to make peace with Lance Steel and the Whisper is by becoming a resource of the Crucible." He tells the Whisper to get in the ring and pay his respect. He tells Kim to do the same. She does. "Your new purpose is to lead me and my team to victory at King of Trios. Leave!" So yes, the deep, dark secret that Princess Kimberlee has been harboring for years, the one that she left CHIKARA to protect, the one that she let herself be first blackmailed over and now outright conscripted, is that she was a jerk to Knight Eye 4 The Pirate Guy years ago. This is something that everyone paying attention to Wrestling is Fun! at the time already knew, that anyone not in the know could easily look up, and that I’ve never seen anything even remotely resembling an outcry over. The past is past. People change. We all know that. Dwelling on regrets and holding onto things long past their relevance isn’t healthy. Why Kim let herself be bothered by something like that this far into the future from it is...concerning. Perhaps she’s weaker-willed than we all thought. Who knows? WINNER: Princess Kimberlee (1 point) Match #13: Singles Contest Volgar w/Professor Hugo Nicodemus vs. Boomer Hatfield Boomer tried his best to fight back from the underdog position, even nearly surprising Volgar with a bulldog off the top, but Volgar scored the victory in the end. WINNER: Volgar (1 point) Match #14: Tag Contest Xyberhawx 2000 (Danjerhawk and Razerhawk) vs. Cornelius Crummels and Sonny DeFarge Danjer scored the win for his team with an O’Connor Roll pin on Crummels. Man, those legitimate businessmen can’t catch a break lately, can they? WINNERS: Xyberhawx 2000 (1 point) Match #15: MAIN EVENT, Singles Contest, JKI Finals Green Ant vs. Ophidian Green Ant attempted some psychological warfare by coming out with an Ophidian mask on over his own, but Ophidian wasn’t having any of it and bumrushed him (and even rolled out of the CHIKARA Special) before tapping him out. Post-match, the Crucible paid their respects to end the show. WINNER: Ophidian (1 point...JKI is one point per round adding up to the three)

[bambamramfan]

A Response to Postmodernism: Asymptotes

(Inspired most recently by this random ask about metanarratives, but for people just stumbling on the topic check out this SSC post “Postmodernism for Rationalists”. And when discussing pomo, I am always reminded of this tweet by St_Rev: Postmodernism is like nuclear fission; true but too dangerous for humans to be trusted with.) Let’s back up a bit. Lacan broke down mental experience into three parts: the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic. I’m going to accept this, but a) ignore the Imaginary, and b) append Social to Symbolic because they are the same. Which is to say: Our experience of the world consists of the Real and the Social/Symbolic. What does that mean? The Real is well, actual reality that exists independent of human understanding. It’s the stuff that’s still there if you close your eyes. It’s the fact that there isn’t enough food no matter what the Emperor says, or that we will all one day die, or the cruelty of cancer, or the unimaginable gulf between the stars. It is the reality that victory goes to the side with more guns not the nobler cause, or that some people won’t get along no matter how much you love them both and try to negotiate peace. The Real is usually far too complicated and chaotic and unbounded for us to comprehend. Like in the question of “when were the Dark Ages” in the linked SSC post, the Real is all the individual lives and experiences of people over that time period. It’s too big to even put into words, but it’s still undeniably there. Any attempt to just ignore the Real is called repression, and the Real will eventually rise from that and disrupt your plans. The Symbolic is our attempt to make any sense of the above. It is how we split infinitely varied things into simple categories and binaries, like the insistence that everyone is male or female (or good vs bad.) It is the map instead of the territory, and *every single word* we use is just a Symbolic interpretation of far too messy Real. (Like this post recently asking just what is a boss anyway? Or the well written post “The Categories Were Made for Man, Not Man for the Categories”) Whenever we try to say something about every type of apple, or define what “life” is, or come up with an ideology that pits an obvious group of good guys and bad guys, or just try to predict the results of a scientific experiment with a probability curve, we are still thinking using the Symbolic. This is not a huge sin. After all, we can not actually think about the ineffable Real, let alone communicate about it. If we want to make any progress at all, either in reasoning about the world or working with others, we *have* to use the Symbolic. It’s like physicists using models assuming spherical cows - it gets you somewhere, eventually, at least. (Certainly a tribe using imperfect Symbolic thinking would outcompete and defeat a bunch of brainiacs just meditating on the Real. Existence without using the Symbolic is just not sustainable.) I even upgrade the term to Social/Symbolic since all of our social existence depends on how we use the Symbolic to express concepts to others. That’s well, what language is. And once you have a Symbolic term, and you share it with another via mouth-sounds or ink-scratches, then it takes on an independent Symbolic existence that can be read and interpreted by people who are neither you nor your intended target. Then these symbols really do have an external existence, spreading throughout the population, with no direction by a conscious mind. Words and concepts are like a virus living in the social body this way. The narrative or metanarrative, is a Social/Symbolic entity this way - fairly detached from the Real that gave it meaning, and evolving based on what is most efficient for the social rules it inhabits. Two brief examples: - Science. Science is obviously a quest for the Real, and that is admirable. And yet even when trying hardest to do this, we create standards of objectivity and merit that reflect Social/Symbolic understanding. We talk of p-values and grant writing and peer review and hundreds of ways this search for the most raw truth is filtered through simplistic understanding, and incentive schemes that have long since become normal status-seeking rat races. - Capitalism. Markets are a method of social relation of course. And yet the values and prices of things fluctuate in response to the necessities of the Real. If food becomes scarce, or a movie is truly terrible, or a new writer is brilliant beyond precedence, no matter how unexpected these things are to the powers that be, they can earn money and renowned in a market, proving some glimmer of the Real in doing so. Now the price of something is not an untainted mark of its true value, but it is at least related to it somehow. Anyway, the tumblr version of Postmodernism (which is to say, that version that is most politically useful to the class of people who have currently discovered this concept - laypeople arguing about politics on social media) could be reduced to this: 1. In no cases do we ever know the Real, without relying on narratives found in the Social/Symbolic. (We can’t know when the Dark Ages began or ended.) 2. So choose which narratives you want to pursue based on Social/Symbolic reasons. (Do you want to align yourself with the narrative of the Dark Ages spread by the Catholic Church? By labor historians? Etc.) The problem with these is that they are true, but also noxious, as they would always mean dropping the evidence of our own eyes for the narrative of the class we are trying to support. And people who do this too much are very evidently stupid (in action, not in essence.) We see the results of this in Holocaust deniers and Stalin apologists and 9-11 truthers. The issue is that they are forgetting that the symmetric case is true: the complete Real may be inaccessible *but so is the complete Social/Symbolic*. While amateur pomo knows you can never completely reach the Real, it forgets you can never *escape* it either. In actuality, total Social/Symbolic is an eternal fantasy. It is referenced in FALC or the singularity, where you are immune from any needs and can spend all your time engaging with only concepts, or only the social sphere you have chosen, free of all messy entanglements. It is a powerful dream (or nightmare), with a lot to say for it, but it’s as impossible as knowing the mind of God. There will always be some element of the Real under the fantasy, repressed and pushing back in the ways we least expect or want. Everything we know is between two asymptotes - which can approach the Real, but never reach it, and we can approach the pure Social/Symbolic but never realize it. So an attempt to choose your narrative *solely* on Social/Symbolic grounds (like which side you want to support) will find itself constantly interrupted by rude counter-evidence. It might be the people voting against you, or your story not selling, or just an anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach. It’s really impossible to predict how the Real will erupt, but it always will. You have to accept you are just stuck as a mutt in the muddled middle, never have authentic Real knowledge or pure Social/Symbolic simplicity, but a mix of both at all times.

[bangjeon]

Laissez Faire → PT. 1

→ Credit For Media: Here!

→ Jungkook x Reader | Yoongi x Reader | BodySwap AU | Enemies 2 Lovers! AU

→ Comedy | Fluff | Angst | Smut | Some clinical but explicit sexual stuff that isn’t even hot but this is a heads up anyways | Also I don’t know if this is crack but it might be(?) so 

→ Synopsis: Going home with the young and charming Jungkook on a whim was supposed to be an ephemeral unwinding from your relatively ordinary, stressful life as a twenty-something woman. However, it seems the universe had different intentions for you entirely when you find yourself waking up in a body that isn’t your own. And to make things worse, Jungkook isn’t as easy to get along with as you had initially thought. 

→ Word Count: 18k

“You know what you need? A boyfriend.”

Somin’s sudden advice, albeit not at all surprising coming from her, makes you guffaw. “Yeah, I’ll pass. Although, takeaway sounds good right now.”

It’s only the earlier part of a Wednesday evening yet your colleague still had the nerve to insist on coming along to your place after work hours. You’d call her a hindrance to your social life but at the peak age of 27, living the single life with a dead-end job that was certainly not 9 to 5 as it had promised in the contract, it was nice to have her around.

Equally as unsurprised by your blunt rejection, she continues to file her nails with indifference. “C’mon, I could set you up with so many nice, rich guys. You wouldn’t even have to live downtown or work in that god damned job anymore if you ended up hitting it off with one of them. ”

You lay down onto your sofa with a over-dramatic groan. Truth be told, Somin was describing the fantasy you kept close to your heart which you knew would never come true.

“I’m feeling Chinese tonight.”

She groans and gives you a hard look, only to whine when you stare back at her with indifference. “C’mon, Y/N, you should give it a shot!”

“Any guy that refers to himself as a nice guy is already off my list,” you say with a distasteful scrunch of your nose. It wasn’t you being picky, it was only due to your past endeavours that you held such views. Your last break up being example A. Three months ago, you had ended things with him after a 2 year-long relationship. If that had taught you anything, it was that heterosexual men were untrustworthy and essentially, trash in the grand scheme of things. 

You shifted to face Somin, sitting on the carpet, who was currently deeply invested in her nails. “If anything,” you begin, half incoherent with the way you face is pressed against a pillow, “I need to get laid.”

At this, she pauses her nail care routine and glances towards you with a glint of something you can’t make out in her gaze. “When’s the last time you got some?”

“Jeez, I, uh, haven’t done stuff since Seokjin. There’s possibly some cobwebs down there,” you bashfully admit, barely able to remember the last time you had seen a penis that wasn’t on a screen. “But I admit that it’d be nice to have something quick and one-off to remind me I’m not a virgin.”

Somin sets her cosmetic utensils down on the coffee table before springing up. “Then that is exactly what you’ll get!”

You look up to her with your eyebrows set in dismay. “Whatever it is you’re scheming, forget it. I was only just being honest.”

A glance towards the transparent balcony doors tells you that the evening had only just begun as you spot the setting Sun far on the horizon. Normally, from this time onwards you’d spend relaxing and recovering from what gruelling labour you’d have to do in that forsaken cubicle but with the unreadable glint that shone within Somin’s gaze as she grinned at you, there was the inkling feeling you wouldn’t be able to do just that tonight.

“But-”

“Last time I listened to you, we were lost on the other side of town at five in the morning.”

“Just hear me out,” she pleads, sending you a exasperated look so you bite your tongue and listen. Another telltale sign that you were about to hear some sort of tomfoolery was the way Somin begins to comb through her newly-dyed blonde hair with her fingers. “There is a new club that opened a few blocks from here recently,” she muses with a soft sigh. “And I’ve heard that it’s particularly great for hooking up. So what do you say?”

Your eyebrows, once furrowed, shoot up to your hairline as you begin to understand the implication of her words. “Are you serious? Clubbing on a work night? When I said I’d like to get laid, I didn’t mean right now.”

“Sure! I mean, it’s a great plan, actually. It won’t unbearably busy since it’s a Wednesday night and even if you don’t get to hook up with someone, per se, you could get their number at the very least.”

“The only people at clubs on Wednesday nights are old, fat men and, not to be picky, but I’d rather not.” Your protests to Somin’s suggestion does not make her mien of determination budge even slightly, completely undeterred by your flat-out rejection. If there is one thing you have learned about Somin, ever since she first became your cubicle neighbour last year, is that once she has an idea, it is a mission to make her forget it. “But we can always plan to go for the weekends!” You weakly add on in a last attempt to sway her.

“No point. Anyways, they’re always too crowded and someone always vomits on the dancefloor before the fun can begin. Unless you want to end up deflowering a college boy that doesn’t know your vagina from your asshole. Saturdays and Sundays are crawling with them,” she calmly responds with a little shudder at the end. “Anyways, it’s seven now and we should go about, nine-ish. Giving us two hours to get ready, so, pray tell, lead me to your closet.”

“Is there anyway I can convince you to not do this?”

“Hm, no.”

There’s no avoiding it, you silently resolve. Releasing a heavy, drawn-out sigh of resignation to your fate, you lift yourself from the haven of your sofa and head towards your bedroom. “This way.”

Somin giggles in victory and takes your lead.

Inevitably, you do end up outside this club your co-worker and, unfortunately, friend, had been so set on taking you to.  If you were going to be frank, it looked like any other nightclub within the city.

A subtle entrance, surrounded by two or so bouncers with the faint yet taunting beat barely audible from the outside. Somin was right in the sense that it wouldn’t be as near as buzzing as the weekend tended bring out as the queue that usually accompanied the outside of the night club was near non-existent.

As the Uber that had brought you here quietly departs in the background, it then that you realise you are stuck to make do with the environment. In all honesty, you don’t expect much from this expedition to the heart of the city. What sort of ideal fuck hangs around at a club on a Wednesday night? 

You take in the sight with a slight grimace, still not particularly convinced if this is all worth the loss of sleep and possible hangover you’ll have to face and deal with at 9 AM tomorrow in the office. A pause in your qualms has you grasping that this is you getting old. Side-glancing at the comparatively excited grin that’s wide across Somin’s lips has you confirming just as much.

Despite the autumnal season, Somin had also insisted on you wearing a dressing with the thinnest material she could’ve picked from your closet of sweaters and hoodies. “Can we go in already? My tits are gonna freeze off,” you struggle to say, shivering slightly as a soft breeze passes.

She nods and leads you to the entrance, saying something to the bouncers which you don’t catch as you focus on tugging your dress down for that extra inch of modesty. The hem stops slightly above your knees however the white material acts as a second skin, clinging to every contour of your body. It’s rarely ever made it out your apartment since it’s brave purchase but despite your discomfort with the fitting, you admit that it’s more club-appropriate than any of your other clothes are.

Whilst occupied with your fussing, Somin tugs your hand away and leads you ahead, delving into the depths of the club. She glances towards you, amusement sparkling in her eyes. “Haven’t you ever been in a club, Y/N? You look terrified.”

“Not since I turned twenty-one,” you confess, gingerly taking a few glances around the club. With the fluorescent moving lights and the accompaniment of house music, you take extra care to cling onto Somin, worried you might stumble on the high heels you chose to wear. “So – uh – what do we do now?”

Somin giggles at your question, patting your cheek endearingly. “You’re so cute. Let’s head to the bar and have a few drinks. Maybe you’ll attract a few guys since you’re looking like such a snack.”

Her kind words make you soften at that. Maybe, if not sex specifically, you could use this as a way to loosen up from work. Since you were here already, having spent the time and effort to dress up for it, that's the mindset you should adopt from now on, you decided. “Okay,” you easily comply and allow her to lead you, weaving through the significant amount of people. There were more than you’d expected to be in here.

Reaching the seats adjacent to the counter of the bar, you freeze upon hearing Somin’s request for particularly strong drink than you would’ve liked to consume but before you can address the issue, your friend takes lead in the conversation by switching to a new topic. “So, what type of guy is it?”

You blink at her a few times, still getting used to the dark lighting. “Type?”

She rolls her eyes at your puzzlement. “What is it you look for in a person? What do you find attractive?”

You hum for a few moments trying to gather an honest answer. All your exes were abstractedly different whether it be appearance or personality and so you came to the conclusion that was nothing specifically you were adamant on. If anything, when it came to grouping all your exes together, all it indicated was that you had a habit for taking a liking to assholes.

Biting your lip in hesitation, you parted your mouth only to close it several times before you came up with a lame answer. “Someone who has the same political opinions as me and recognises the issues that needed to be tackled in our modern society? …And they’re funny?” 

The tone of your response makes everything you say sound like a question, as unsure as you are about your ‘type’. You had never thought of dating someone or fucking someone in such a linear way; you fell for someone when you fell for someone. But, as your history also pointed out, you weren’t the most successful in your approach either.

The countenance that sits on Somin’s features informs you that your answer probably wasn’t one she was expecting. “Right… so imagine you’re having a drink at a bar by yourself and the hottest guy in the whole room comes up to you and wants to get to know you but you find out he doesn’t agree with you on some stuff, what will you do?”

A scoff escapes you as you assess the situation, you cross your legs. “What do you mean?”

She taps her acrylics on the table just as the drinks arrive, brightly coloured cocktails slide towards the two of you and you offer the bartender an appreciative nod. “Let’s say you were mid-conversation, and you’re already planning on all the positions he’s gonna fuck you in, but homeboy drops that he voted Trump. What would you do?”

You pull the most horrific face, struggling to find even in what universe you’d let yourself be wooed by a Trump supporter. Sure, your exes were all different sorts of dickheads but at least they had more than two brain cells. “I’d backflip out the window and run away.”

“Really? Just for one night, you wouldn’t let this Republican sex god blow your back out?”

“Not a damn chance if he wants to infringe on my human rights like that.”

Somin shrugs with little disagree on that topic and takes a long sip from her Martini. “Okay so an open-minded guy that’s funny. We can work with that. Keeping in mind that fact that you did just break up with Seokjin, try to keep your visual standards a little bit more reasonable.” There’s a pause in the conversation, the chatter and music in the background filling into it. Eyeing your untouched drink, you weigh out the pros and cons of getting drunk.

As much as you tried to deny it, you were a lightweight and the contents in your glass was more than enough to have you feeling lightheaded. At the current moment, you choose to abstain a little longer from the refreshment. When you glance back up at Somin, she’s focused on something else. “Hello?” You say, waving your hand in front of her. “What are you looking at?”

She doesn’t reply quickly enough and you turn to look over your shoulder, curious at what possesses her attention but Somin quickly grabs your hand before you make the move. You blink a few times, perplexed by her behaviour. “Am I missing something?”

“Don’t make it obvious but there’s a really cute guy not far from us and he keeps looking over at us and talking to his friends. I think he might come over,” Somin whispers to you with a body language that is anything but obvious. You press your lips together for a moment, compressing the bubbling laughter that threatens to escape you at the sight of her spying. “Oh my god, you really hit the jackpot Y/N. If you fuck him with those set of thunder thighs and live to tell the story, I will personally need a full-length report on it tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah but what if he supports that piece of chicken liver President?” You offer, sceptical. In this moment, you give into your desire and take a large sip of the martini. With your lack of alcohol tolerance, you can instantly sense the slight influence of the drink but with Somin’s restless excitement, you suppose that this is a good time to opt for some liquid courage.

Your friend looks to you and chuckles, shaking her head as she runs her tongue along the inside of her cheek. “I doubt it.” A quick side glance spared back to her apparent target, Somin stiffens. “He’s coming this way, he’s coming this way,” she mutters and subsequently grabs her drink to attempt what she thinks to be acting natural.

Her enthusiasm makes you smile fondly but you already plan on not taking anyone home tonight despite Somin’s tactics in getting you out here for that sole reason. You’ve already made up your mind – the thought of having to shoo someone out after a quick fuck and mediocre orgasm, that is if you even manage to get there, is unappealing when you then come to think that your job starts within the next couple hours. Its inconvenience had put you off as you valued sleep more than that at this current stage in your life however, this journey could be utilised in other ways.

For all Somin’s attempts in getting you back in the dating game after your break up, she had been soaring with the single life well before you. Although she had already placed her money on you hooking up with him, you’d be happy to let her take the reins and have at it. It’d be nice to see her hit it off with someone, even if that meant you’d have to deal with the wrath of her with a boyfriend.

Thoughts making you momentarily forget your situation, a male voice interrupts you from your pondering. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before,” he says.

Whilst Somin is already smiling brightly, you look like a fish out of the water, snapping away from your daze and tilting your head up to catch a glimpse of the strangers. He’s looking straight at you.

His hair has a russet hue, parted to reveal a tantalising expanse of forehead and eyebrows. His slightly tanned complexion looks clear and soft, even in the poor lighting the club provides. There’s a slight grin to his features whilst he studies you the same way, weighing you up, and you use the chance to look at his body and it is then you notice how perfect the proportions are of his lithe figure. As you take in the sight of the young man, you come to the conclusion that he is indeed hot as hell.

This guy radiates a sense of confidence, cockiness and buoyancy you’ve become familiar enough to associate with particularly younger men. Intimidation rises within you and begin to chicken out, wondering if excusing yourself to a restroom visit is appropriate. You need a guy who isn’t fresh out from college to take you out, not one of the college guys that Somin had earlier warned you of.

Your gaze lingers long enough to the point that you have to break away or it’ll just become weird, so you clear your throat. “This is our first time here,” you say, sounding almost like a robot with your monotonous voice.

Somin helpfully picks up on your struggle to begin small talk and, as skilled as she is, continues for you. You send her an invisible brain signal of gratitude as she opens her mouth. “I need to visit the restroom so I’ll be back in a bit. Have fun, kiddos,” she gracefully executes an excuse, lifting herself off the seat.

Your jaw drops, she’s abandoned you! When you send a clearly troubled look as she begins to walk off, Somin winks with drink in hand. ‘Text me if you need something’ she mouths with unnecessary theatrics.

The man, still unnamed, takes what was once your best friend’s seat. “I’ve only been here like twice so that wasn’t the best of starters,” he admits, the corners of his lips subtly tilting upwards.

Staring at this gorgeous piece of meat in front of you, you want nothing more than to grab your purse and breadsticks and whatnot and make a run for it. As beautiful as this man is, you’re not prepared to flirt and woo him over. You sigh and pick up your glass, swirling the contents within it. “It’s okay, I don’t even know what to say if that helps.”

He bites down on his lip, raising his brows at your resigned look. You don’t mean to be rude, he looks like a nice guy, but if he’s expecting to get something more than a boring conversation from this, it’s his fault. You’re not gonna do it, you’re not gonna go home with this guy, you don’t need this. Heck, it sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself more than anything. Maybe all he wants from this is an amiable conversation.

“I’m Jungkook.” Jungkook’s voice is soft, not deep or raspy, but it has a nice sound to it. “So... what brings you to a club on a Wednesday night?”

Your lips quirks up at the cheesy choice of starters but you refuse to let your sight off your suddenly incredibly fascinating cocktail. “A stubborn friend that doesn’t take no for an answer or fear of getting fired, if you must know. But I could ask the same thing to you.”

“Ah.” He nods in understanding. Wearing a plain black hoodie and ripped black jeans, you allow yourself to take advantage of your downcast gaze and sneak a peek at his thighs that Somin had so lovingly described earlier. The denim material clings to it generously and gives you a nice view of just how thick and solid they looked. Your eyebrows raise only slightly since you’re trying to avoid making your admiration obvious.

“I work where hours aren’t so strict and I can sleep in a bit, so it’s not much of a mission to go to a club on a work night.”

The news that he in fact has a job also makes you pause since you had so quickly written him off as a student. “Oh… what do you work as?” You can’t help but ask.

With your new show of interest, you notice his grin widen substantially in your peripheral vision. “A music producer. The studio is pretty lax with work hours.”

At this, you finally take the chance of making eye contact with him, surprise clearly written over your face. “I wouldn’t expect someone so young to have a full-time job.”

“So young?” He repeats your word with a snort, as though taking offence to.

You take the time to finish the rest of your martini, hoping the contents would make you less timid and loosen you up. “Sure, I would’ve guessed you to be a college kid or something.”

Jungkook scoffs at your assumption. “You can’t be any older than me but I guess I should take that as a compliment?”

Waving him off, your lips curve into a small smile. “Nah, I’m surprised you’re hitting on a lady like me when there are plenty younger ones on the dancefloor.”

“I don’t even know your name but how old you are, may I ask?”

“Twenty-seven,” you say as though it physically pains you. The years have passed by and, for the most it, gone to waste far too quickly. Taking a wild guess from the look of Jungkook, it was probably safe to say he looked near the 21 mark and younger guys never really appealed to you like that.

Releasing a laugh almost unpleasant to hear, you’re happy to find that Jungkook does indeed have at least one flaw. He clicks his tongue in reprimand. “I’m only two years younger than you,” Jungkook reveals. You cock your head, twenty-five then. “And who said I’m hitting you?”

“Anyone with two eyes actually,” you say easily. The alcohol seems to be doing its part in helping you forgo your polite, sober mannerisms. Placing an elbow on the counter and propping your chin onto your palm, you watch him raise an eyebrow in curiosity. You grin at him, to make clear you don’t intend your words to be understood in the unkind manner. “Unless your only interest in coming up to me was to gain a friend, to which I’d be pleasantly surprised by,” you add on lightly as a second thought.

He cringes at that, indirectly proving you were right with your assumption. “Do you not like being hit on? I can leave if you want.” Jungkook says this considerately which you appreciate. “Ah, I should’ve used a different opening, Namjoon said it usually works,” he says quitter with a nervous laugh. You probably weren’t supposed to hear that, you muse whilst watching Jungkook ruefully cards through his hair. It’s… cute.

You release a laugh with such sudden force that you snort. Embarrassment fills you as you reach to cover your mouth, badly attempting to stop your bubbling laughter. Macho and mighty might’ve been the initial aura that radiated from Jungkook but looking at him now, after these few awkward minutes, you found him quite endearing to watch actually.

Still recovering from your fit of laughter, Jungkook watches you with a mirth dancing in his gaze, pleased with the sight. He must’ve done something right to get you so breathless.

“D-don’t worry,” you struggle to say as you recover from the amusement he’s caused you. “I’m bad at this whole thing too.” Avoiding his gaze by playing with the tropical straw of your cup, you feel an uncharacteristic shyness rise within you. “Although I fail to see  how you could fault at this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Offering him a pointed look, you scoff. “You know exactly what I mean! Flirting and being charming comes naturally to attractive people. Hot people privilege, I think they call it.”

Jungkook straightens with a new sense of pride, a leering smirk on him. “So, what I’ve gathered is that you think I’m attractive.”

“I’m sure you get it often enough,” you say with a small shrug. There was no other way to go about it, Jungkook was definitely a winner of the genetic lottery. Ten minutes of talking and you already felt significantly more comfortable speaking to him. Perhaps it was the drink – or maybe Jungkook was just naturally really easy to talk to.

Despite his pleasure in finding out you somewhat reciprocate the allure, Jungkook clears his throat whilst trying to school his features into something casual, not wanting to appear as jubilant as he felt. Older women were always noted as his type and he often found that not many of them took him as seriously as he wanted to be, brushing his attempts off for his youth. Annoying as it was, the term happiness was an understatement for what he felt upon realising you hadn’t completely written him off just yet. Or so he hoped.

Fishing for more compliments by furthering the topic didn’t seem like a good choice so his eyes dropped to your empty glass. “Do you wanna order some drinks?”

“Uh, I don’t know, it depends.” Fine, you’ll give this guy a shot. You tilt your head up at him with a humoured expression.  “Am I going to have to pay for it?”

To answer your query, Jungkook simply pulls out his wallet and sets down a few paper notes on the counter. “You think I’ve come all the way over here for a free drink,” he laughs with a shake of his head.

“Maybe. When have men ever been reliable,” you say with a slight bitterness you didn’t mean to slip out. Perhaps you still hadn’t completely got over your post-relationship grief but you had done a darn good job of masking it till now so you move on. “So, is being a music producer as glamorous it sounds?”

“It has its perks. At the end of the day, it’s what I love and I can make a living off of it so what is there to complain about? I’m no big name in the industry but I think I’ll can get there, someday hopefully.”

“That’s… really cool, actually. I’ll be sure to buy all your songs legally then, if it’s any help.”

“Not illegally downloading music like the rest of us do, just for me? I’m honoured.”

You both admire and resent the candour his words hold. It’s inspiring to see Jungkook so adamant and passionate on his career. On the other hand, you can’t help but notice the slight jab of jealousy that hits your gut. Being able to love your job and have a passion for your work was something most people couldn’t find, yourself included, and Jungkook had managed to get there at an age like his. A bartender arrives when Jungkook waves at her, whispering the order before sliding the cash to her. You hear a faint, slightly flirtatious giggle but it goes unheard in your deep monologue of life.

However, it is finally interrupted when he turns to you, “What about your office job?”

You blink a few times, straightening your posture as you come up for an answer and nervously laugh. “Yeah, I just have a real passion for staring at spreadsheets and being hounded at by male colleagues who think they’re supervisors due to some type of internalised misogyny but, oh you know, I love it,” you reply, tone drenched in a playful sarcasm. “I suppose it’s okay as far as any nine to five office job can be, y’know?”

Jungkook regards you first with a furrowed brow but begins to chuckle. “Are they really that bad?”

“I mean, it’s not that bad. Not when I have Somin being it’s saving grace,” you smile at the thought.

A tray filled with an array of shot glasses arrives in front of you, indicating this was Jungkook’s choice of order. Lovely, you think with surge dread. As if your embarrassingly low tolerance could even manage four of these without getting  incredibly tipsy yet there were many more than ten presented in front of you. Slowly, you turn to Jungkook with a raised brow.

He shrugs, offering you’re an apologetic yet cheeky smile. Picking up two of the glasses, Jungkook then offers one to you. “You in?”

Having shots with a man you met little than fifteen minutes ago was probably not the adult choice to make but God, did you want nothing more. Even if it meant everything you had previously aggravated over on the car ride here was going to be compromised. Biting your lip, you nod and accept the glass. You share a single look with Jungkook, unable to not smile and not think why the hell not even though there are several answers to that. A nod, and you both drink to a new friendship and perhaps something more.

After the first, slightly off-flavoured shot, the rest of mush together and you can’t seem to differentiate from what was the third and what was the fourth.

The trey is still occupied with a few untouched glasses but you feel like you’re buzzed enough. More than enough. Drunk as in your stumbling and you’re giggling a bit but you’re not about to immediately vomit your stomach’s contents out straight away, which is good.

It’s good because you don’t have worry about running off to puke. Not now. Not when you’re up against the wall in an alleyway beside the club with Jungkook’s tongue down your throat. You’re not exactly how it escalated so quickly but asking him won’t make much of a difference since he’s just about as wasted as you, and anyways, it’s not like you don’t want this. How long have you been making out with him? Ten minutes or twenty, you seem to have lost complete count of the time.

One of his hands comes to frame your jaw whilst the other finds pushes itself on the flesh of your ass, groping with as equal ferocity as the way his mouth frames your own. When his tongue sweeps across your lower lip, a moan claws its way out your throat as you feel a direct shock to your core.

Jungkook is the first to pull away, strands of saliva evident then disperse as he parts from your lips, panting equally as heavily as you. “D-do you want to take this somewhere a bit, uh, better? My place?” He mumbles, forehead against your own. The question reminds you that you’re in a fucking alleyway and your white dress is definitely not stain resistant.

Gulping down a large breath of air, you nod ardently. “Yes, please,” you respond.

As intoxicated as you are, you’ve still the bit of conscience left in you to know what you’re agreeing to when you say yes and you’d like nothing more, to be honest.

He isn’t a man who asks twice. Jungkook reluctantly pushes himself off of you, pulls at your hand and heads to hail a taxi.

Making out in the back of one isn’t the most refined thing to do, especially when you have a something-like-70-year-old man driving it so for the small ride it is. So, you manage to put off Jungkook’s advances for the time being despite wanting to reciprocate just as fervently.

When his groping and whatnot become too difficult for you to stay silent and your occasional warning glances remain unnoticed, you pinch his hand to keep his wandering fingers at bay. Instead, Jungkook opts for leaving his hand atop your upper thigh, gripping to it throughout the rest of the duration.

Merely watching the veins that decorate his forearms move as his grip adjusts is enough to get you going. Celibate for something like three months without a problem but now, with his hand on you like that and his jaw clenched at such a fine angle, you feel as though you’re going to burst if you don’t have his fingers or whatever else of his inside you sooner or later.

And by the time you reach the outside of Jungkook’s apartment block, the lust in the vehicle is near palpable with such a stretched time for desire to marinate.

He fiddles with his keys clumsily, having them slip out more than once before he finally manages to reach the inside of his abode. “Hurry up,” you whined with a mixture of annoyance and desperation. At this rate, you’d pass out before he’d even manage a finger inside of you.

“I’m hurrying,” Jungkook returns in an equally as frustrated tone. Finally, the lock gives way and the two of you stumble into his abode. Normally, you’d take a few moments to look at your surroundings, weigh it out, maybe snoop to see a few family photos but such frivolity was very much at the back of your mind. All you could think manage to think of was the growing arousal that was most likely forming a dark spot through your panties.

Thankfully, after a quick slip of shoes, Jungkook wastes no time in returning back to current affairs. Hands grabbing at your waist, he pulls you in for another rough kiss to which you easily comply to. Given your state of mind, it isn’t the most artful of make outs you’ve experienced. This is sloppy, messy, aggressive even with the odd clash of teeth but it only fuels the burgeoning desire within your lower stomach.

One hand of his slides up from its hold on your side and cups your left breast, softly massaging it through the thin fabric of your dress. Your unpadded bra does little to hid the strain of your pert nipples against the garment. Jungkook gently pinches it causing you to pause in your kissing, groaning from the gratification his movement gives you.

“D-didn’t expect you to be such a g-good girl,” he mumbles during a momentary breather. “I bet you’re - nngh - so wet already, spending all night staring at my thighs. Maybe I’ll let y-you fuck yourself on them.” Jungkook’s words are stuttered as he struggles to continues to let out strings of explicit words that only make the emptiness between your legs even less bearable. All you manage to respond with an agreeing moan, bucking your hips into the prominent bulge outlined in his jeans for some inch of relief.

As a need for further intimacy forms, the two of you stumble to his bedroom. And quickly enough, all your garments discarded and left chucked on the floor.

A throbbing headache is the first greeting you receive at the sound of your alarm, severely so. It feels like stabbing to the head.

Your eyes flutter opens only briefly but in your state of deterioration, you can’t quite manage to keep them open long enough. You let your alarm ring a few more times, hoping it would switch off soon enough so you could comfortably enjoy your self-rewarded few more minutes of shuteye.

Getting drunk never boded well for you, only resulting in an unforgiving headache to be dealt with the next day like you were currently experiencing. You shuffle under the sheets, drowsily trying to recall the events of last night ready for the strong splash of remorse to hit you. The club with Somin, speaking to Jungkook, taking drinks with Jungkook… the rest from then on were fragmented memories that did enough to clear the picture. You cringe as the reminders of having work in a few hours also pops up as an afterthought. Apparently, your resolve wasn’t just as strong enough as you had hoped, being that everything that you didn’t intend to happen did in spite of your autonomy.

Your partner is still fast asleep, not wasting glance because you could already feel the bodily heat emanating off of him. Well, there was no point wasting time here then, as fun as it had been.

You take care not to disrupt Jungkook’s tranquil slumber as you sit yourself up in the bed, rubbing your eyes vehemently. Once you finally manage to open your eyes properly, you take in the messy sight of the bedroom. Seeing last night’s clothing left sprawled out on the floor, you take that as a sign to hurry up with things.

As you let out a yawn, you stretch your arms out in front of you in preparation for having to get a move on within the next few minutes. You lazily blink at the scene in front of you.

It almost goes unnoticed.

Your hands don’t… look like this; masculine and veiny. You do a double take at the first observation, scrutinising everything you certainly hadn’t been familiar with before. Shock settles within you and your processing takes a good minute before you take a further step.

Hesitantly, you press your palms to your chest. Hard and flat. Not to be over generous, but you had always had a fair amount of bust on you but if anything, your chest felt nothing but mostly horizontal under your touch. Your shock quickly turns into a blend of panic and confusion.

“What the fuck?” you say aloud for the first time in the morning. The manly baritone makes you instantly go still. Another question enters your mind that’s already near the edge of hysteria.

Slowly, your hand slides down the torso of your body, noting the abs that seemed to have suddenly formed overnight, and grab your crotch. Something was there that certainly wasn’t there before. Silently screaming at the scenario playing out, you grip the body part and give it a vehement shake to make sure it isn’t anything that isn’t attached to your skin and all that results in is a sharp and strong strike of pain to your nether regions.

You inhale a shaky, deep breath. “This is just a bad trip. I’ve taken some drug and I’m just having a really, really bad trip,” you mutter to yourself with the conviction of a worshipper. Maybe it’s just a dream and you pinch yourself to test the theory. When another much less significant bout of hurt stings you, it is with a heavy heart you find you’ve been proven wrong.

Only five minutes into your day and things were already off to a terrible start. To put things into perspective, you had… physically become a male over night? Nothing was making sense and your freaked thoughts did nothing but make your hangover headache have an even strong throb to it.

The sound of bed sheets ruffling beside you as supposedly Jungkook shuffles tears you from your breakdown. Surely you couldn’t be the only one affected by this odd turn of events.

Prudently, you peer over to the body beside you and angle your head to have a better look at the face.

“Oh. My. God. Oh my god. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck,” a litany of expletives are all you can mumble, unbelieving as your eyes go wide as saucers.

Beside you, was your body. The one you had had for the past twenty-seven years. And you weren’t in it. The out-of-body mindfuck is all too much for the weak state of your brain. You double over and release a drawn-out groan, your new body reminding you of the hangover nausea with a dull, throbbing ache in your head as if this couldn’t get any worse.

In your huddled form, you take a moment to play out the consequences of this revelation. If you’re not in your body and Jungkook is nowhere to be found…

Realisation wrapping itself slowly enough. A body swap?

You contemplate just how on earth to react to this. You silently chuckle, your body shaking as you shake your head in incredulity. Of all people, it had to be you to have to deal with something as bizarre as if. On top of all your projects, your deteriorating love & social life, at least now there was a paranormal addition to really top it off.

To confirm your suspicion of who exactly you might be inhibiting, you hastily get up from your warmed bed spot to head to the connected bathroom, running so fast you nearly trip over yourself in the process.

Although you had predicted as much, actually witnessing the abnormality of not having your own face when looking into your own reflection is still every bit as shocking. For a brief moment, you wonder just how many people have had to experience such a feeling, such a situation.

Jungkook is every bit as handsome even in a fresh-out-of-bed state. His dark hair tousled and unkempt from a cruel, unexpected night of sleep and whatever antics had occurred just before that, chapped lips and a dried streak of drool by his chin. You can only just stare at the reflection in both horror and awe, too scared to make a movement and have him copy.

All you can do in your daze of disbelief is wait for your own body to wake up and see how Jungkook responds.

As if directly answering your curiosity, there is a sudden scream from the bedroom. You rush in to find yourself – Jungkook? – staring into the front camera of his phone. You imagine that his parted-lip, furrowed-brow expression is near the mirror image of what you first looked like.

“J-jungkook?” you gingerly call out.

Dark, distraught eyes meet yours in response. “What the hell is going on?” he demands in what was once your voice. “I have boobs. And I’m… you.” He looks as though he’s about to cry and for one small second, you take offence to how distraught he is by having your face.

You look incredulously at him. “You think I have any idea about this?” Motioning at your face and then to him in reference. Everything is moving far too fast for you to get a proper grasp at comprehending how to handle with this. In your depleted state, you reluctantly move to sit beside him in the bed.

A blanket of silence falls over the room as the two of you are too immersed in your own silent thoughts of fright and bewilderment. You feel the bed shift slightly as Jungkook properly sits up.

“So… we’ve swapped bodies?” He finally asks.

Taking a gulp, you can only nod as you turn to him. “I-I think that’s what’s happened.” In retrospect, before going to his apartment and letting him insert his penis into your vagina, you should’ve perhaps spent more time figuring this guy out. For all you knew or could care to remember was that he was a young music producer. “Out of curiosity, does this happen to you every time you have sex?”

The question doesn’t bode well, apparently too light hearted for the current dread that was occupying the atmosphere because Jungkook looks like he’s taken offence to it. “No,” he responds tightly. “Does it happen to you?”

You shake your head. “Nope. Never.”

There is yet another pregnant pause in the conversation. It seems there is still some processing being done, as there would for such an atypical position. “Well, what do we do now?”

Moping around Jungkook’s apartment won’t make any much of a difference. Despite this, you still each had lives to go on with. After a deep inhale, you stand up. “I suppose we could on with our schedule as per usual.”

Jungkook blinks at you once, and then again. “You really are going to work after something like this? How the fuck are we going to do this? Can’t you just call in sick?”

Memories of highlighted deadlines pop into your head, causing a gush of worry to fizz through you. Adamantly, you shake your head. “No, you have to go in my place,” you say leaving little room for debate. “I can’t slack or I’ll have Seokjin lighting a fire in my ass,” you add, taking on a more pleading tone. One piece of advice; never date your superviser. “The projects, the deadlines, the filing; I can’t slack on it.”

Even in the midst of bad decisions, it seems as though your choice in men wasn’t too shabby since you saw his stubborn resolve quickly dissipate under your beseeching gaze. He shakes his head, giving in. “Okay, so if I do go in, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“It’s an office job, Jungkook. It doesn’t demand the IQ of a genius, so long as you know how to use Microsoft excel. Hell, I lied about knowing how to use it on the resume. If there are any questions then ask Somin.”

“And what am I going to wear? You want to walk into an office in your clubbing outfit and indirectly tell everyone that you got drunk and lucky last night?”

The vulgarity of his words brings about a heated flush to your face as you falter to reply at the first attempt. “Don’t you have an ex’s clothes lying about somewhere?”

Jungkook can only snort. “Yes, because I certainly have nothing better to do than keep souvenirs of my past endeavours.”

You glare at him for second or so.

“You were so much nicer when you wanted in on my vagina,” you concede and fold your arms, not finding the energy to quarrel in your newly male state. This morning had been the epitome of disasters, one you wouldn’t even have imagined could happen. You couldn’t even have a one night stand without having something severely fuck up.

“Yeah, well I have my own now which is great,” Jungkook doesn’t miss a beat in the repartee, his sharp words dripping with sarcasm as he rolls his eyes. “You’ll have to excuse my mood since I don’t have my own penis anymore.”

“It wasn’t even that great anyways. I don’t know what you’re so sad about.” You shrug.

Offence is clear on his features (or should you say your own?). “I’m sorry, what was that? Oh, don’t you need me to go to work and do your boring job? Actually, that’s perfect. I don’t feel too well anymore now that you mention it.”

A sigh of defeat escapes you. Exchanging insults wouldn’t get you anywhere and seeing as this wasn’t an issue that couldn’t be fixed within a few moments, ruining your relationship with Jungkook as quickly as it had started didn’t seem like the best option.

“Alright, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to berate you but this is just as fucked up for me as it is for you, okay? But you could cooperate with me then that’d be greatly appreciated.”

Seeing beyond reason isn’t entirely crossed out in Jungkook’s books it seems because his expression turns to something that looks considerate. “I guess I’m partly at fault too,” he admits.

Glad to get past that hiccup, you nod easily and make towards Jungkook’s closet. Swinging open the doors, you realise there’s only the smallest variation, white t-shirts, black hoodies and grey sweaters filling up the most of Jungkook’s minimalist closet. “There must be something in here you can wear.”

“Wait, I think I have a cashmere sweater that shrank a little bit,” Jungkook trails off.

“You do?” You instantly abandon your digging efforts and look to him, eyebrows raised. “If so then that’ll be perfect. You can just wear the sweater over the dress and it’ll look like a skirt!” You exclaim. Normally, you’d feel filthy for not showering before work but desperate times call for desperate measures so you try not to dwell on it.

“Sure.” Jungkook looks like he doesn’t necessarily understand your notion but continues to drag himself off the bed, only clad in your bra and panties from last night. The sight makes you cringe. “Jesus, why do your nipples get so hard so easily?” He grumbles sleepily and bends over pull over the white dress left sprawled on the floor.

“Because you’re naked and it’s cold,” you reply blandly, watching him bend down to search through a few drawers before fishing out a charcoal-coloured sweater. “Wear that,” you instruct softly, assuming it’s the sweater he had mentioned before.

“You don’t say.” The cynicism you force yourself to let go in effort to avoid any further quarrels and allow Jungkook to dress himself with the timing of a sloth.

It’s not the cleanest look but it’ll have to do since you’re already late. When he looks over to you for confirmation, you give a quick nod of approval. You take a quick look at the time, already ten minutes pass the usual time you leave the house. Considering that you don’t even know the distance from Jungkook’s place to work, you pick up your phone and send Somin a seemingly normal text to inform her of your tardiness. Nothing mentioning the fact that you were on the hovering suspicion that you had just about lost the plot.

Not more than a minute later, Somin only replies with a winking smiley face to which you grimace at. You consider telling her the rest of the details the issue entailed but thought better of it. She’d think you’re mad.

“Could you perhaps… do this with a little more urgency?” You say, tapping your foot impatiently. Still in just a pair of boxers, you probably weren’t in the position to be hurrying Jungkook.

“Unless you want me to walk into the office and offend everyone with morning breath and unbrushed hair, you’re going to have to give me a minute.”

As Jungkook heads to the bathroom to fix on exactly that, you spent the time pulling on a pair of black jeans from the identical array he neatly had stacked. Next, you slipped on a thin white t-shirt which again was one of the masses. Working as a music producer probably didn’t have as a formal dress code, you imagined and therefore put less effort into looking the part.

Once he emerged from the bathroom, having spent the time freshening up, you gave him a satisfied smile at the sight of tamed hair and un-chapped lips.

“We should arrange a meet up during the lunch break at the cafe beside my studio,” he speaks up. “So, we can have a proper conversation on how to fix this thing,” Jungkook gestures between the two of you. “You’re going to the studio, right?”

“I’m not just going to wallow about in your apartment,” you respond.

Jungkook arches a brow at that, angling his head to look at you. “Are you sure you wanna do that? I mean, do you even know how to produce music?”

“Nope,” you say with enough confidence. “But how hard can it be? I just fiddle with some button and sounds and that should be enough for the time being.”

It earns a scoff from Jungkook as he struggles to slip on the simple heels. “If you need some help with it just ask Yoongi or better yet, call me.”

“Yoongi?”

“I work with him in the studio for the most part so he’s always there. We work as duo so he can help you out if you wanna know anything but be discreet, at the very least. I don’t need him thinking I’ve lost the plot.”

“That I can do,” you nod affirmatively, internally still thinking what exactly will be so hard about pressing buttons and making sounds.

Being Jungkook is still awfully new having found out only about two hours ago, not to mention unsettling, for you but you know it’s not like you can go into hiding until the situation was fixed (which still remained a mystery as for now). You were not used to driving an automatic, or used to standing up and aiming to pee, or even wearing skinny jeans to work but alas, this was Jungkook and so for the time being, all you could do was get used to it.

You glance down to the text from Jungkook before returning your eyes back to the sight of the studio you had parked in front of, making sure you weren’t intruding into somewhere. The casual nod the receptionist offers you as she buzzes you in nearly makes you faint. 

You’re Jungkook. An attractive, young music producer and you have no idea how to make music. Great. The elevator journey is spent nearly entirely on a quick, panicked search of ‘introdyctipn to creeatingh mukic’  to which you learn nearly nothing due to the bad service except a recap on musical notes you faintly remembering being taught at one point in middle school.

Little before you know it, the ding for floor seven arrives and you rush out in an awkward manner having just realised that’s your studio. For now, anyways. To calm yourself, you inhale deeply as you inspect the layout of the floor. It’s a quality label, you’ve come to realise with the professional, clean set out and laid back atmosphere that faintly smells of coffee. The elevator opens up into hallway, deep purple, velveted walls with a sleek black-tiled floor.

Understanding dawns upon you, realising how he can pay for that penthouse of his.  

Studio Fourteen you remind yourself as you begin to search, reading each studio number as they pass. The some of the names indented beneath the signs are even recognisable. 

You don’t miss the records and awards hung in between the studios, proud displays of the probably very talented producers behind the doors. It looks so sleek and professional, the hallway nearly completely silent due to soundproof materials within the walls, you assume. In a heartbeat, you can admit this workplace is better than your loud, bustling office you work at, in that cubicle that isn’t even a separate room.

As the memories of your workplace are conjured, feeling so distant and long ago despite it only being yesterday, your thoughts are diverted to Jungkook. You wonder how well he must be faring, dealing with Somin on the right and Alex on the left who’s actions probably breached the harassment rule, considering how many times he had offered you a relationship of the sorts outside of office hours. You find yourself grinning at the thought of Jungkook having to deal with that sort of change.

On the other hand, you could get used to this. A soundproof studio where all you had to do was press some buttons and deal with a guy who had never met before, who was probably a professional by the looks of where he worked. How hard could it be? You learnt the keyboard in ninth grade, although you had forgotten basically everything, you supposed to wouldn’t take long to consolidate your knowledge.

“Uh, Jungkook, why are you staring at Jessi’s studio door?” You hear a male call out, disrupting the silence and your thoughts.

At first, you almost don’t respond, not used to being called by a name that isn’t yours, until it hits you that that’s exactly what your name is for the time being. You startle and turn to the stark blond male, a very delayed reaction but he only raises his eyebrows at you.

You take a quick second to analyse this new face. His ruffled flaxen hair being the most attention-grabbing feature, you take care to look at the rest. Judging by a glance, the man is thinner and shorter than Jungkook. His features are soft, feline almost, are contorted in a bored look as he stares upon you and you decide that he is definitely not unattractive but he’s also Jungkook’s partner so you don’t push the thought further. 

“Uh, Yoongi?” You gingerly ask, unsure if this is the partner Jungkook earlier spoke of but seeing the matching description of blond hair, you feel like this isn’t a bad guess.

The blond man scoffs at your hesitation. “Hurry up and get in here, you’re already late, Kook.” He then disappears into the studio, leaving you slightly perturbed by his blunt mannerisms.

If he was the man Jungkook worked day in and day out with, you guessed that were would be some lacking of formalities. For him, for you, this was supposed to be just another day as a hot music producer. You inhale a deep breath for the umpteenth time before following into studio fourteen.

The set out is normal, although you must note have a very narrowed idea of ‘normal’ considering this is the first studio you’ve ever physically set foot in. Normal, for you, meaning it looked like how they did in the movies which by anyone’s standards is then deemed as not too darn shabby. You let your eyes roam the rectangular room, gently shutting the door behind you.

You’re not exactly how to ‘be’ Jungkook, per say. Your whole idea of him is also fairly narrow, showcasing him to be either a very smooth-talking and comforting boy-next-door you barely remember speaking to in a nightclub or a downright asshole.

“So, uh,” you begin in a timid voice as your blonde partner takes a seat in one of the swivelling chairs, not wasting any time in starting up whatever system was laid out in front of him. “What are we doing today?”

God, that sounded like the dumbest fucking thing you could say. Making music, duh.

Yoongi, who’s already slipping on his headphones, pauses to look at you, confirming what you’ve said is probably not best choice of words. “How many drinks did you have yesterday?”

“Why?”

“Because you look like shit and you just asked that... so my guess would then be, a lot.” Yoongi expertly swivels his swivelling chair all the way to you, although you’re not quite sure why he couldn’t just get up and walk to you. In his hand, he holds a thin wad of paper and offers it to you. “I get you’re living your life as an attractive, young man but please remember that we have to produce at least thirty demos for that rapper’s debut album by the start of next month so perhaps don’t get too carried away, okay?”

Gently, you pluck the wad from his grasp and take a look at the contents. Compositions of the sorts and in other words, complete gibberish since you can’t differentiate a B minor from a B major because you don’t really know what B was in the first place. Alas, this is your job for the time being and you’ll soldier through it somehow, so you try to make an expression that looks like you know exactly what it reads and not like you have no fucking idea. Just for show.

“This is…?”

Carding musician-worthy fingers through his hair with a harsh sigh falling from his lips, you get the feeling he’s starting to lose his patience with you. It’s quite unfair. Jungkook gets to hang out with that airhead Somin who probably doesn’t give a flying shit about whether you know what you’re doing and you get this grumpy asshole who looks like he’s about to manifest into something that’s a little more threatening than the thin, pale guy that he is.

“The most recent compositions you’ve produced this month. Did you hit your head and get amnesia, dude? We’re on a tight schedule here so try not to slack.”

The irritance he clearly speaks with makes your lips twitch but you silently nod and take the over swivelling seat. But as you make your way, you can’t help but let out a quiet, “Don’t have to be so rude about it.”

In spite of your effort to keep it to yourself, Yoongi picks up on it but whilst you expect him to half rip your head off and eat it, you instead notice his features soften. Just the slightest bit. “I’m sorry for being an asshole, Kook, you know me when I’m stressed,” he says.

The thing is, you don’t know but again you nod and let yourself dwell on how you’re going to do this. WikiHow it is, then.

_

Jungkook has had just about fucking enough. These last ten minutes in the building have been quite the rollercoaster from him. Once upon a time, he could dial in and get coffee, his usual Godiva blend, delivered to his room by that hot assistant he just might’ve fucked in the toilets at one specific staff christmas party. Now? Now he had to haul his has all the way to the other end of the floor to get it.

And between him getting up and him getting his coffee, he had several obstacles to overcome. That Somin or whatever her name was had been haggering him ever since he stepped a foot into the building would make the effort to distract him, there was Alex who’s effort in making a conversation made Jungkook feel oddly comfortable in a body that wasn’t even his own, causing him to tug down on his dress on several occasions, and then countless other people who had each shrugged their own bits of paperwork onto Jungkook to deal with. After that trip, he was far too scared to dare make one for the toilet.

He doesn’t have one clue. And the confining walls of this cubicle and the lack of Yoongi’s presence are just about going to be the death of him. The only good part of this entire day was that he could touch your, slash temporarily his, boobs whenever he felt like it. Sitting in his chair, staring aimlessly at the desktop in front of him, Jungkook again indulges in the pleasure of groping his chest before releasing a dramatised sigh and dropping his head to the desk in despair.

On top of all of this bullshit, Jungkook has an album to co-produce that’s due next month and he has that girl stuck in his body, setting him back with probably not one given fuck on what to do. He can’t exactly blame her though, looking at his current position. Was it bad that he had partly forgotten her name? Y/N.. or something like that?

Well, he certainly had learnt a lot more about her job. The proprietorship company was some pet-food related stuff and she worked within the treasury. Tillating. He had done enough google searches to complete his idea of what exactly being part of the treasury management meant. Some of the tasks burdened on his shoulders proved to be somewhat simple, so he focused on them first in an aim to distract the ever-building distress that had arisen when he first realised he has a two holes instead of one. The better half of the uber here was spent on figuring out what sort of bad deeds he had committed that would create such a comeuppance to his being.

However, a distraction is not necessarily possible with Somin to his right. Her head pears over the small barrier and Jungkook feels the need to groan at the sense of her presence.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” she says above, her acrylic nails tapping along the thin barrier that separated them. “You don’t respond to my texts from last night, end up wearing the same dress as yesterday night and have the audacity to not speak a word about it.”

Reluctantly, Jungkook pushes himself away from his desk to slowly look up to the women he had already grown to despise. “Continue.” He muffles a yawn.

“Do I need to elaborate? Spill.”

A wrinkle appears on his forehead as Jungkook tries to figure out what exactly this girl wants to know before it suddenly dawns on him that this was the girl who sat with you before he came over and fucked both of your lives up. “Ohhh, you wanna know what happened?”

Somin looks at him as though he’s a complete idiot. “Duh, dumbass.”

“Well.” He clears his throat and strokes his chin, attempting to recall back on the blurred account he had from last night. “Well, um, we spoke for a while and ordered shots then we made it back to my- I mean his place.”

“And?” She pushes him to continue.

“And we had sex. Wait, wasn’t that a bit obvious?”

Rolling her eyes, she then leans forward an inch to manage to flick Jungkook on the head.  Emitting a yelp of surprise mixed with the unexpected pain that caused, he regards her bitterly. “Give me the fucking details!”

“No! Why are you such a perv?” Sure, Jungkook might spill a few pieces explicit content to Yoongi and the guys in the studio but retelling it to a girl whom he, till now, had never met before? He internally cringes.

“Did you take an aspirin yet? Y/N, this is how we communicate. We tell eachother every detail of our sexual rendezvous’ so - was he a good fuck or not? I did not waste my time last night to have you go home with a guy that can’t beat cheeks up properly.”

Jungkook lets himself dwell on this information, a Cheshire Cat grin beginning to develop on his face. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about that. Now that you mention, Jungkook was probably the best fuck I’ve ever had in my entire life,” he begins to dramatically retell as Somin grows more and more satisfied with his showy recounts. It feels odd to speak of himself in something that isn’t a first person recount of him but the expression Somin wears is more than enough to keep him going.

It isn’t a total load of bullshit that he’s spewing. Sure, it was no porno with purely vaginal orgasms and crazy, gymnastic-worthy positions but Jungkook thought it was a relatively good fuck despite not remembering most of it due to the amount of alcohol he had taken in beforehand. Doggy Style and Girl On Top were the few remaining memories he still possessed and yeah, an eight out of ten by his standards which was pretty rare.

By the time he’s finished is embellished story, Somin is practically foaming at the mouth and Jungkook begins to wonder if she is some weird perv. “This is so great for you! It’s your first step in getting over Seokjin.”

Raising an eyebrow, Jungkook’s features stay blank. “Seokjin?”

Somin frowns at his lack of response. “You know, Seokjin…?” She pauses, nodding at him.

Feigning some sort of recognition, Jungkook nods along. “Ohh, him. Sure, sure. He’s my, uh…”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Somin finishes off the sentence for him with her brows knitted, slightly confused by his weird actions.

Jungkook clicks his fingers, “Of course. Ugh, last night was just so good that I forgot about him entirely,” he quickly saves the discourse.

She snorts at that but buys it at least. “Anywho, I was thinking of getting a Subway for lunch, you wanna come?”

God, no. Jungkook certainly does not. He’s still trying to figure out if his pee and shit come out from the same hole. But this girl is who he’s stuck next to for a good eight slash nine hours every day till he figures out how to break the laws of science once more, so he figures it’s rather inappropriate to flip her off and tell her to leave him alone. Plus, she’s Y/N’s friend, he adds on as an afterthought.

“Uh, now that you mention it, I planned to spend lunch with someone I need to speak to so maybe tomorrow, yeah?”

Somin tilts her head to an angle with a bemused expression, apparently not used to being rejected for lunch outings from Y/N. “Who’s taken my place?”

Fuck, Y/N had it easy. Min Yoongi was a man of not many words when consumed with his work so she was probably having a breeze learning the differences between a minim and a semibreve. Unlike himself, feeling more so like an malefactor than an office worker, with these imprisoning cubicle walls and the interrogator herself situated just beside him.

“Uh, that guy from last night. I left something at his house and he said we could meet up at a cafe for lunch,” Jungkook weakly explains as he reaches to scratch the back of his neck, a habit that often showed up during his nervous situations.

At that, Somin’s face lightens up visibly. Knowing her, the reason behind her elation is probably something to do with it being her work that set you up with a guy that finally broke your dry spell. A heartwarming intention, and you obviously love her and would quite possibly die for Somin but the only thing that Jungkook can currently appreciate is her naivety.

She giggles, leaning into the thin barrier with such reliance that it threatens to fall over before she catches herself from letting it happen just before Jungkook’s panic begins to truly arise. “You’re such a minx,” Somin sighs. Jungkook doesn’t really know or care for what that means but he goes along with it, something he’s been doing pretty much since he woke up, and smiles in return. “I love it. You gotta tell me afterwards, though. I mean, you guys might even become something more.”

And with that suppressed parting squeal, Somin returns back to her own quarters. A breath Jungkook didn’t know he was holding escapes him. Moments of silence pass as he aimlessly watches out of the window behind his desktop before he leans forward to bury his face in his hands in pure disparity, resigning himself to this fate

Four hours. Four full hours you had to spend in the room with not a single clue of how to conduct yourself and by the time you’d reached the cafe, you were half convinced you've developed claustrophobia within that time.

The wafting aroma of coffee and the sight of worn-out, empty cushions are like a breath of fresh air to you and whilst there is obviously much to be desired, you feel oddly at home in this low-maintenance cafe in comparison to the sumptuosity the record label’s building oozed.

Jungkook had beaten you to it, sitting comfortably in a place nicely tucked into the corner, his head tilted downwards to look at his phone. It catches you off guard because, of course, it’s technically your head and so you’ll need a little bit of getting used to see your face in anywhere but your reflection. Without trying to draw attention, you take a beeline towards the corner and sit down, finally earning the attention of the man trapped inside a woman’s body.

“You’re five minutes late.”

“Oh, hi Jungkook. I’m doing okay, thanks. It was really lovely for you to ask since I’m in your work place and could’ve been up to just about anything,” you say in an avidly enthusiastic voice, causing the man to raise both eyebrows at you.

“I take that you’re faring well then, at least,” he says in your voice, lacking energy and sounding partially dead. Apparently, he hadn’t recovered from his mood this morning.

You give him a look of disapproval. “Have you been like this all morning?”

He spares you a brief glance. “Like what?”

“A lifeless asshole?”

“How can I not be?!” Jungkook retorts with a sudden show of emotion in his voice. It’s sharp and sardonic but you appreciate it more than the miserable and unresponsive tone he first spoke with. “God, you really weren’t kidding when you said that your job was shit. Why does that girl talk so much?”

You try to find a scintilla of offense taken but there is none since he’s not too far off from the truth you can’t even deny yourself. “Who, Somin?”

Jungkook’s expression darkens at the name, almost as though it pains him. “I’m going to request a cubicle change if I have to put up with her any longer than a day.”

Stiffening at his proclamation, you widen your eyes. “No, wait, don’t!” The sudden increase of volume earns a few head turns from the two young ladies behind the counter, who are probably thinking this is some sort of oddly-timed break up. “Try to be amiable with her, please? She can sometimes,” Jungkook snorts at the choice of word, “be a little overbearing but she’s really, really lovely. And not to mention sensitive, so don’t be mean to her, okay?”

Even though you yourself sometimes have a difficult time sitting beside the girl, you wouldn’t do anything in the world to really hurt her, like request a seat change. Oh, God, no, her heart would positively just about break at that. You reach for Jungkook’s hands, the man finding it odd how stuck you are on it, and encase them in your new, very large ones.

“Promise me you won’t do that.”

“Are you guys… more than friends or something?”

Your face turns into one of perplexion before you understand what he implies. “Oh, no, I just… really care for her, platonically.” When Jungkook’s expression remains unconvinced, you sigh. “She’s my best friend and I don’t have many friends, let alone best friends, so I’d really appreciate you don’t ruin that relationship. Deal with her for me… please?”

“I barely know you.”

“You knew me enough to stick your penis in me.”

“I stick my penis in a lot of people, don’t think you’re special,” he stubbornly responds, indifferent. You feel a small prick of hurt at his words, once again reminded you’re just a one night stand gone wrong. And to think, you thought you could’ve been his friend.

Pinching his hand with your newfound strength, Jungkook yelps and pulls his hands away in surprise. “Well, you won’t be sticking anything in anyone anytime soon so I suggest you keep me happy if you want this disgustingly attractive body back. God, you’re such an asshole.”

Jungkook’s stoic resolve breaks at your genuinity and he rolls his eyes but nevertheless, you sense the acceptance he’s conceded himself to. “Fine but I need you to remember I’m only human.”

You beam now that’s been dealt with as one of the ladies behind the counter arrives with two seeing hot cups of tea, nodding as you offer her a quick thanks. When she’s a good distance away from your table, you continue the conversation. “Did you manage to find out what our… condition is exactly?”

Across the table, Jungkook shakes his head with an aura of despondency. “I tried googling it but all that came up were some weird Quora answers. I’m afraid we’re a bit stuck.”

The tea is scalding on your tastebuds but you take a sip of it anyways, ignoring the lingering sting as you nod. “But there has to be some explanation, even if it isn’t scientific. These things don’t just happen out of nowhere.” Silence falls over the two of you like a blanket as you both let yourselves dwell further on the issue before you click your fingers. “Do you have any friends that are… like, mystics or old-school alchemists or whatever? The weird spiritual type.”

“Hm, let me think,” Jungkook goes along with the suggestion since he has none of his own and has partially accepted this is some type of punishment for being a bad person, if he even is one. The plus side to being an avid socialiser and partially well-known music producer is that he has plenty of contacts. “Oh, shit, I think I do. There’s this guy that lives somewhere on the eastside and he’s all into that.”

Eyes bulging out of their sockets, you for once thank your poor luck. “You think he’ll have something we can work with?”

“Not sure but anything helps, right?” He shrugs, appearing not as excited by the prospect as you do.

You nod avidly as a flower of hope blooms within you. “So when do you want to visit this guy?”

“Tonight, I guess. We’re better off having this over and done with as soon as possible so I’ll call him up and see if he’s down for it. Kim Taehyung is a pretty busy guy.”

“Really?” You ask with a doubtful look.

“Yeah. White people really dig that tantric stuff so he gets business,” Jungkook admits with a flippant wave as he takes his first gulp of the now-cooler drink. “But I’m sure he can fit us in.” He stays quiet for a bit before glancing back up to you, aimlessly watching outside the window. “Are you finding the studio okay?”

A grim expression surfaces as you recall the experience. “I’m learning stuff and trying to figure out what all those buttons mean but your friend is a pain in the ass. I’m three naggings away from beating his ass all the way to hell and back.”

“Ah, Yoongi,” Jungkook recognises with a pleasant snort. “He can be a bit much but you’ll learn to deal with him.”

“Yeah, I doubt it.” Throwing your head back for added effect, you pinch your nose. “He got angry at me because I asked him who Rap Monster was. Like it’s my fucking fault! Why would I ever know someone with a stage name like that in the first place? So I had to run a little wikipedia background check on him.”

“Rap Monster?” Repeating your words, Jungkook widens his eyes when hit with realisation and buries his head in his hands. “Fuck, I completely forgot we have him booking for a recording session tomorrow!”

“Oh, great,” you say with feigned enthusiasm. “I’m definitely looking forward to that. No, really, his songs sound… creative.”

Your attempt at dry humour doesn’t help his sullen mood when he looks up but instead earns an intense glare. “Are you even fucking bothered by this? We’re experiencing something that doesn’t even fucking exist and by the looks of it, I’m the only one that’s worried by this. Quit acting like a child. We could be stuck in each others bodies forever and you’re joking around?” He adds a scoff whilst running a hand through his hair, his frustration becoming even more visible.

Irritation flares within you. This entire day he’s had a huge chip on his shoulder, and whilst you resonate with that and can understand, there’s no reason to aim it so viciously at you. “Of course, I’m fucking bothered! But guess what, Jungkook? I’m not going to start being a little bitch to everyone because I’m acting like an adult and can deal with tough situations without acting like I have a stick shoved all the way up my ass.” You don’t think before you respond just as accusingly, your voice growing louder than you intended to and clear hurt written all over your face. “It’s not my fault we’re like this so you should stop hating me like it is! At least I’m trying to be your friend. After this is over, you can act like I don’t exist for for now you have to learn to work with me.”

The change in atmosphere is more than evident and you feel embarrassment begin to kick in as you notice the few customers and workers once again discreetly looking your way, mumbling things. Jungkook bites his lip like he’s caught in some soliloquy of his own before he deflates with defeat. He’s about to say something when you interject, “And I’m sorry that I might come across insincere but you need to know that I’m really bummed out by this turn of events. I want one crummy orgasm and I end up in a dude’s body; I don’t need this either. I’ll try to stop being so damn funny but you need to agree to stop being such a Debbie Downer!” Tears begin to spring in your eyes, glossy as your bottom lip begins to wobble.

“Hey, hey, stop it, people are looking,” Jungkook whispers when he’s caught onto the attention and inhales deeply. “Look, I get it, I’m being an ass and I need to stop. It’s just- you’re really freaking me out. You don’t know anything about my job and you’re joking about it where, in reality, I could end up getting fired for the incompetency. I really need you to take this seriously and it’s freaking me out. Plus you’re making me looking weird,” he says and gestures to the rest of the people who still glance at the two of you every so often.

You sniff and intensely rub at your eyes to fix your state. Jungkook genuinely looks scared when you return his gaze and you start to feel sorry for him. God, it must be annoying to be so young and fresh with such a promising career and having it suddenly ruined with a body swap with a completely dumbass like you of all people. “Okay,” you breathe out and wet your lips. “I’ll try to take your job more seriously.”

“Thank you.” He visibly relaxes at your promise and leans back into his chair. “I’ll try not be a… Debbie Downer, did you say?” There’s the slightest hint of amusement on Jungkook’s face as he tilts his head in question.

“Look, I was sad and didn’t want to cuss in front of the old ladies,” you argue with a side look to the grey haired two behind the counter who kept sending concerned glances towards your table. “And, thanks. Took you long enough.”

And for once, there’s some sense of amiability in the air between the two of you, something there hasn’t been an awful lot of, so you appreciate the shared grin. However, the comforting post-argument moment is quickly dispelled when Jungkook looks at his watch and gasps. “You should be back at work by now!” He exclaims and gets up in a blur of hurry, grabbing his coat and the untouched sandwich to keep for later. Stumbling behind him, you get your things.

“Be back at mine straight after work so we can head to Tae’s,” he reminds you, opening the door.

“I didn’t even get to eat anything!” You call out behind him in a whine as Jungkook fumbles with his phone to order an Uber. Thankfully, you only have a five minutes walk ahead of you with these new long and muscular legs.

He humphs, watching you speed walk away, “That’s because you talk too much,” he finally responds but you’re already well out of sight by then. You manage to hear his response, although, you don’t think he heard you laugh.

You arrive back at Jungkook’s place in a hurry. The rest of the time spent in the studio with Yoongi was not as draining as the first half after you began to understand the odd few musical terminologies and got used to your temporary partner’s mood and dry humour. Although you’ve convinced yourself another week or so in this situation won’t do much damage, you can’t deny the excitement that’s been simmering in you at the thought of fixing this tonight with the help of Jungkook’s friend - Tayoung or something like that?

It’s a huge weight off your shoulders the moment Jungkook opens the door, finally granted some privacy without day-to-day life interfering. A lazy greeting is all you can mumble before collapsing onto a sofa.

“Long day, huh? How was it?” Jungkook asks after hearing your theatrical sigh as he leans against the kitchen countertop with his arms crossed. You had almost forgotten that the kitchen and living room interconnect like those chic upstate apartment blocks.

You only nod, appreciating the comforting silence that hangs in the air after hours of listening to the hundreds of stupid sound effects Yoongi had bombarded you before insisting you insert some into the tracks. If you ever heard one more ‘skrr’ again, you might just drop dead. “I’m still getting used to aiming.” The image of your mess pops up into your head and you cringe. Jungkook grimaces ocne he catches onto what sort of aiming you’re talking about. “But I’ve been getting better so don’t worry. I also learned what some of those buttons do so Yoongi isn’t being as much of an ass as he was in the morning. You?”

Your vague recount satisfies Jungkook, judging by how his brooding expression is not as intense as it once was earlier in the day.

“The things I have to do are pretty simple so it’s not too bad, actually. Whenever I get a bit confused, Somin helps me out so it’s safe to say I don’t completely hate your friend anymore.” His change of heart is enough to bring a smile to your face, you knew you could count on her. Even though this whole ordeal was technically her fault but who would guess this could happen? “Yeah, there’s not much you can say about sitting in front of a spreadsheet all day but you don’t need to worry about losing your job because of me. Anyways, I texted Tae and he said he’s free at seven. It’s six thirty now and it takes half an hour to drive to the other side of town so, get up.” He gracefully chucks you your coat you discarded only moments ago.

A drawn out groan is your first response as you throw your head back in irritation. “I just wanna sleep,” you whine as Jungkook tugs you up with visible struggle. “I barely had enough sleep last night.”

His useless tugging at your arm halts for a second when he gives you a bored look. “You were the one that insisted for a round two and kept us up.”

“That was my first time have sex in months, do you blame me?” You hurl back. Nonetheless, you painfully heave yourself up, no thanks to Jungkook’s help, and slip on your still-warm coat. “Anyways, do you really think he can figure this out?”

“He told me he knows a ton of shit about weird stuff like this so I’ll take his word for it,” Jungkook reluctantly admits with a yawn, scratching the back of his neck. He doesn’t seem nearly as convinced as you hoped he’d be but the idea was a long shot. This guy, despite as much as a spiritual passion he might claim he had, could be an old ugly con man. But then again, thinking about the guy Jungkook was, you doubted he’d be in company of someone like that.

Even as physically and mentally drained as you currently are, you spend a good few moments considering how many theoretical lotteries of life Jungkook has won; he’s incredibly attractive, has a pretty dick, young as well but owns a nice place and has a well-paying job. Sleeping with you was probably just a normal night for no-strings-attached sex and here you were, messing up things you didn’t even know you could mess up. Now he was stuck in your body and had to live your life, which, to the average person, wasn’t necessarily terrible but you know he must hate it. You can’t help but feel more sorry for him than you do for yourself.

Shrugging his hand away, you make your way towards the door. “Ladies first,” you say lightly, which is enough to earn a glare from Jungkook but he takes lead anyways.

You had high hopes for a silent car ride, giving you the chance to catch up on thirty minutes of lost sleep but apparently Jungkook’s mood had done something like a one eighty spin and he suddenly felt the need to talk without end. “This is one of the songs we produced that stayed on the charts for seven weeks,” he continues with blatant pride and reaches to turn the sound up.

 You’ve barely taken in more than a sentence of his blabbering but the consistent rise in volume from the audio player was a minute away from causing you to defenestrate yourself. Although, this is the first time he’s been so vocally enthusiastic since the incident and you wouldn’t dare to jeopardize something so rare.  “Yoongi didn’t think the backing vocals-”

“Jungkook, I have a small migraine so if we could just-” you slowly move to turn the sound down, carefully figuring out what topic you’re going to jump to. “Whilst we’re stuck in this traffic, we should lay out some ground rules.”

Not affected by your tactical switch of topic, you internally celebrate when he nods without further argument. “Okay,” he says with slow enunciation, “I’ll go first. Move in with me.”

Your posture stiffens. “What?” He couldn’t be serious.

“It makes sense. We need to be around each other more to be able to deal with this… thing a little more aptly if this takes more than a while to fix. We can’t really coordinate our lives if you’re all the way somewhere else. So, for the time being, you should move to my place and settle in the spare bedroom,” Jungkook explains like it’s not a major step and the two of you haven’t spent the better half of the day bickering relentlessly.

But when you dither on the proposal, it doesn’t seem entirely inappropriate. You and Jungkook will have to work accordingly to keep each other’s daily routine intact and living a lengthy twenty minutes away from him didn’t scream convenience. Yet such commitment and involvement inevitably did cause your stomach to stirr. You bite down on your lip and the metaphorical bullet and nod. “Okay, done.”

“Cool. On the way back we’ll stop at your’s to pick up whatever you need and bring it over.”

“Shit, Somin,” you begin and wince. “She comes over to mine after work on most days. What do I tell her?”

Jungkook hums in contemplation, eyes still trained on the road ahead of him as his taps his fingers along the steering wheel. “Make something up. Say a pipe or something burst on your floor or they’re doing renovations and you have to stay at your parents’ place whilst they get it done.”

Whilst he thinks his plan is foolproof, you, on the other hand, are far less convinced as you turn to give him a helpless look. “She’s, like, bestfriends with my mom and dad. She’ll come back to theirs after work either way,” you sigh and stare out the window. A week of sunshines and the odd few clouds, the sudden show of rain seems like just another effort the universe makes to mock you and your horrible fate.

“She sounds like a stalker more than a best friend,” Jungkook comments in a dry tone.

You poke him in the side, half for Somin and the other half to bring his attention back to the now-moving traffic. You ignore his yelp and continue, “Shush, she’s nice. She’s better than any man could ever be.”

“So why don’t you go date her then?” He doesn’t skip a beat, looking at you incredulously. “She might as well be attached to your fucking hip.”

That earns another jab to the ribs and this time Jungkook only wordlessly sends you one of his trademark glares. “Because I do this thing called loving and cherishing my best friends! I don’t need romance to keep me happy. Unlike some people, who actively seek out women in clubs and trick them with a facade of an easy going personality until you wake up and find out they’re an absolute jerk. But I won’t name drop,” you finish with a light, bordering mocking tone as you fold your arms.

“I’m part of that is due the fact that he never intended to trade bodies in the process,” Forever hung up on that little detail, he rolls his eyes. “Anyways, that’s not seeking romance, that’s seeking sex, Y/N. There’s a difference.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’d have a ton of knowledge in that department. Seeing as any girl or boy would love to date a whole grown ass baby like yourself,” you bite back, your fatigue and hunger sourering your mood even more by the minute. “And is being in my body really that bad?! God, you act like it’s the end of the world or something.” 

You’d thought you’d be more offended by how bluntly he expressed he only looked for a quick fuck in the club but weighing things out, that’s all you wanted as well. At the current moment, you were more offended by how irritated he looked every time he was reminded he wasn't in his. But your body. Not that you could really blame him.

Jungkook catches onto your change in mood quickly enough and shifts as much as he can in his seat to look at you properly, wearing an expression of something that you think is as close to apologetic Jungkook is able to express. “It’s not like that, ____. I’m just really missing my male anatomy and being able to walk in a street without being cat called every five minutes. Speaking of which, do you really have to go through that stuff every day?”

At least he’s reminded you what you miss least of being a female. “Yeah. That’s not the worst that’s happened. A guy started following me once so I went round in circles in busy streets but he still didn’t stop so I had to go into a shop and hide there for an extra thirty minutes but he was waiting outside so I ended up having to pay for an Uber after I reported him to the owner. Fun stuff.”

“Damn,” he says with a whistle before pulling a face. “I couldn’t ever do that.” You raise your eyebrow before he quickly clarifies, “Catcalling, I mean.”

“Oh, that explains. I didn’t think not being a stalker was a characteristic that needed pointing out.” You both laugh at that until the car behind you honks, reminding Jungkook that the light had turned green. “But I’m missing my body a lot too,” you add on as an afterthought, longingly taking in the sight of you. “Especially my boobs.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve been taking good care of them,” Jungkook assures you, putting emphasis on his words by using his free hand to cup a breast. “I think I’ve groped myself like ten times in the past three hours.”

This time, you pull a face, “That’s a little weird. But speaking of bodies, let's put up some boundaries since we’re technically a guest in each other’s body. First of all, you can’t masturbate.”

Although he’s far too busy focusing on turning him, you notice the way his eyes bulge as he splutters for a response. “H-how can you just decide that?” Jungkook glances at you momentarily, his face turning harsh. “Fine, you can’t get off in my body either.”

“Uh, I don’t think so. There’s a difference. When I get turned on, people will be able to see it, Jungkook. And keeping in mind those tight, tight jeans you own, I’m sure that’s committing public indecency to some extent. So, therefore, I should be able to jack off. Stop looking at me like that! It’s not like I want to jack off but there’s a possibility I’ll have to.” 

When you don’t hear any protests, you look to him and study his face. It’s weird but you feel some sense of pity as you take in the way he’s deflated in his seat before you let out a conceding huff. “Fine, you can masturbate in my body as well. Just… be careful.”

The joviality is instantly visible as you grit out the permission. “Holy shit, that might be the only good thing about this.”

“Shut up,” you groan as Jungkook turns into a street full of lavish highrises, filled with apartments you could only guess where inhabited by the elite. Whoever this guy was, his business must’ve been successful if this was where he lived. “But no sex.”

“That, I can agree on,” Jungkook says as he parks up.

“Stop gawking like that, you’re making me look goofy,” Jungkook chastises you as the both of you wait for his friend to answer the door. It’s not like you can help it; you feel worth less than a dollar by simply standing in the hallway of the penthouses for millionaires. The whole place oozed of money, from the marble floors to the mini chandeliers that hang from the ceiling. Not that you had ever been there, but you felt like this was as close a glimpse of inside the Four Seasons hotel you could ever get.

Snapped out of your daze, you huff and Jungkook’s constant pessimism which has quickly reappeared after a five minute break. “You always look goofy,” you say with an unaffected, cool voice which Jungkook still somehow is able to mimic.

“So then, you must be into the goofy type, I gather, considering how-,”

It is a silent blessing that Jungkook is stopped from beginning a new fuss, you thank the divine for that one subtle mercy, by the opening of the large door, emitting a creaking sound throughout the whole hallway. Whatever image of you had envisioned Jungkook’s friend to be, this man was certainly not anything like it. At this point, after meeting Yoongi and now this guy, you’re considering asking Jungkook to host an orgy and invite you, after this whole thing is over, if all his friends are this good looking.

The man is the same height are you (read: Jungkook’s body) but has a thinner build and slightly deeper complexion, you quickly observe from a first glance. His face is angular and his eyes, decorated with gold, circle-lense glasses, are heavy-lidded as though he’s just awoken from a nap. Wearing only silk pajama pants and a robe that’s slipping off one of his shoulders, it leaves a generous amount of tanned skin revealed that you would very much like to take time to properly appreciate but would rather not pop a random, unexplained boner.

“Jungkook!” He exclaims with such a low, velvety voice when his eyes land on you. All you do is give him an acknowledging nod and pained smile. Right, he doesn’t know yet, you assess by the way he acts as though you genuinely are Jungkook. Moving out the way to let you into his home, he slaps your butt as you walk past which took you off guard. His brown eyes slide to the female figure as Jungkook follows you. “And this is?”

“Y/N,” you answer first, your name feeling odd on your tongue in such a situation. You don’t miss the way the guy takes his time to have a proper look at you and you almost lose your act entirely when you consider how uncomfortable Jungkook must feel being checked out by his friend.

“A pleasure,” he says with a small grin as the door shuts behind him, “I’m Taehyung.” You’re biting down on your lip so hard, you’re near drawing blood when you see how awkward Jungkook is in smiling back but you’d rather not break down into yelps of laughter so early on. “Let’s go the living room so you can tell me about whatever it is you needed me for.”

There is a spa-like aroma that follows throughout the whole place, with a scent of what you think might be jasmine, and many creative, slightly weird, accessories decorating the walls. The whole spiritual and tantric thing this guy apparently had going on is beginning to become a bit more believable as you continue to follow him till you reach the living room the looks over the rest of the city. “Geez,” you mumble absent-mindedly as you take in the sight, sitting down on the sofa.

“So, what’s up?” Taehyung speaks and you’re ripped away from your daze.

To explain this is probably the hardest challenge you’ve ever been tasked with. A sudden silence takes over as the two of you both struggle to find the right words to explain. 

Taehyung’s eyes dart between you, and before you’re able to come up with something, he cocks his head to an angle and looks at you disapprovingly, taking a guess. “Jungkook, you did not get her pregnant did you?!”

“What?! No!” You hear Jungkook immediately respond, straightening up in the seat he’s taken beside you. You grimace at the very thought of something so unpleasant - even more so that the actual truth.  “It’s nothing like that,” he quickly corrects, “It’s something a lot… weirder so you need to be a little prepared to hear us out.”

“I’ve had people asking me if I’m interested in partaking in toe fetish tantric sex. Go ahead, honey,” Taehyung urges like he’s not going to be surprised at all, as if he’s seen it all before this.

You bite the bullet. “We’ve swapped bodies.”

Taehyung blinks once and then twice, still wearing that permanent small smile. “Come again?”

“Swapped bodies. As in I’m Jungkook and that,” Jungkook makes a show of pointing to you, “Is Y/N. We don’t know how, and before you ask, no, I haven’t taken acid for months. We just woke up and it was like this and we have no fucking idea how it happened and you’re the only person I know who might have some modicum of experience with this shit.”

The grey haired man looks serious, which puts you at some level of relief instantly. You had prepared yourself for him to roll his eyes and kick you out like drunk teenagers, but instead he sits with a contemplative look about him whilst Jungkook continues to ramble on. “So… you’re not actually Jungkook,” he slowly starts, eyes boring into you before moving onto Jungkook, “... she is.”

Both of you nodding avidly at this basic understanding, Taehyung leans further into his seat and hums in thought, revealing both nipples in the process to which you try your utmost not to stare at. 

“A bodyswap? Hm. I don’t know, man, I’ve never really encountered this. But I might be able to find something to help you out a bit, at the very least,” he says and glances over to the bookshelf that takes up an entire wall before back to you. “So don’t get your hopes up. But whilst I get out some useful material, explain what lead up to this.”

You look at Jungkook expectantly, waiting for him to go on, but the bastard shakes his head and nods to you. With a final glare, you inhale and explain as Taehyung begins to sort through his row of books. “We didn’t really even know each other till the night before it happened. We met at this new club and shared a few drinks before taking it back to Jungkook’s place to, well, take it up a notch,” you gingerly explain.

Taehyung hums along as he listens, pulling out a heavyweight book and then another, before returning to the sofa. “Safe sex, I hope?” He asks as he gives you a waggish grin.

“You know I don’t go in raw on the first time, Tae,” Jungkook easily responds, looking hurt by the very question itself.

He shrugs. “Just checking.” The first book lands on the table with a resounding thud, it’s sheer width larger than probably your own face. Taehyung wets finger before flicking through, diagrams and words you find are completely foreign to you but Taehyung seems to know exactly what he’s looking for so you patiently wait, unable to ignore the rise of anxious thoughts. What if he can’t help?

“Ah!” Catches your attention when Taehyung finally settles on a page with a satisfactory smile. “It reads here that magic that’s intended to modify or completely change a human’s physical state can only be achieved through intake of a liquid or solid substance,” he reads off the page before adjusting his glasses, the handwriting far too small and cursive for you to follow so you listen closely instead. “So, through a food or drink with the magic ingredient, no pun intended, hidden within.”

The other male squints in doubt at the information. “Are you sure this stuff is reliable? Magic, Taehyung?” He scoffs and folds his arm, as if logging off entirely. His nearly instant rejection earns a dirty look from you.

“How on earth do you think something like this happens, Kook? I know you’re not a fan of this stuff but you have to admit, there’s no other explanation and this is possibly the only thing that can help you so I suggest you heed what I say,” Taehyung lightly chides, only momentarily glancing up from his studies to give the other a levelled look. You internally rejoice at the mature admonishing of Taehyung.

“Of course and then we can both sign up for you Dark Arts classes, Professor Snape.”

“Anyways.” He punctuates his words with an eye roll before reaching for the other book and flipping through like he did the first, “That’s as far as the first book divulges about cases similar to your own but if you were questioning how it came about, that should answer it. As for curing it... “ There’s a weighted quietude as you anxiously wait for further information. It goes on for a minute or so before Taehyung continues, not before deflating with a sigh. “I can’t find anything that might fix this. There’s no reverse, and I certainly am no connoisseur of potions so I could barely attempt it if there was one either.”

Jungkook humphs, almost triumphantly despite the bad news. “I told you it wouldn’t make a difference.” This time, you are unable to withhold yourself and give him a gentle whack on the arm.

“Shit. What are we going to do?” You mumble, hopeless, after a few moments, hunching your back as your forehead presses onto your legs as the news properly marinates in your mind.

Your midway figuring out how you’re going to spend the rest of you life living in this body when Taehyung finally speaks. “Not necessarily,” he has a calm voice, far from distress unlike yourself. “I’ve heard of these cases before, despite not actually being involved with one till now.” Curiously, you peek up from your depressive state and Jungkook, thankfully, keeps quiet in the small pause.

“I can tell you that this isn’t something that’s never happened before and I’m confident that this will certainly not be permanent.”

A scintilla of hope slowly retreats to you and you straighten in your seat. Glancing to the boy beside you, you even notice, although he tries hard to hide his interest, he has one eyebrow raised in question. “A-are you sure?” You hesitate.

Taehyung offers you a reassuring smile, and when you search, you detect no mendacity. “Positive, sweetheart. There’s no amount of magic that can carry on for so long, unless you meet Gandalf or something, you’ll live to see yourself back in your body again. Potions always wear off, there’s never one that’s permanent so that’s a positive. For now, I suggest you think back to the moments when you two shared any type of food or drink.”

“The bar. That’s the only time we drank together before this,” you immediately answer, leaning forward.

“So, either one of the bartenders or a random person intercepted your drinks and boom, there’s your culprit. Not that you can prosecute them or anything,” Taehyung says with a light-hearted snort in spite of the atmosphere, tugging his robe up again for it to only slip down once more, as if the laws of science want to see him naked as much as you do.

Jungkook clears his throat, both heads turning to him. “You said this was temporary.”

“Pretty sure, I did,” Taehyung happily agrees.

“How long is temporary, do you think, in this situation? Like, a few days. Maybe a week at max?”

“Ha! A week? That’s funny.” Scratching at the back of his neck, Taehyung’s features contort into a sheepish grin when the two of you stare at him. “Hm. For this to wear off, my rough estimate would be, maybe... six months or so?”

Although you’ve found it hard to agree on nearly anything with Jungkook up till now, you’re certain that you hear the sound of both of your hearts sinking into complete pits despair.

[coolgirl]

how do i start reading about the batkids i’m really overwhelmed help

fuck it if I know… probably the smartest way to tackle it is to follow this list, which pretty much covers the vital Batman related arcs. PERSONALLY, I don’t care about reading about all the batkids, I just picked my favorite ones and just.. read everything I could about them (and lucky for me my favorite batkids don’t have thousands and thousands of comics so ! yay!) here’s some reading orders I made (except for the Damian one)

Jason Todd

Stephanie Brown

Cassandra Cain

Damian Wayne

Duke Thomas

Okay so, if u wanna read it in some kind of order, heres a bit of a general chronological-ish list thats probably innacurate bc i haven’t read all of these and the ones i did read was.. a long time ago. anyways, i hope this is useful, and again, imo its not necessary to read everything in order, but this might help to know a bit whats the timeline of some major events i guess? also i’m definitely going to be editing this post as people point out the mistakes rip! 

(the batkids i added to this timeline are the ones that have active roles in rebirth atm, Dick, Barbara, Jason, Helena, Tim, Stephanie, Cass, Damian, Duke, and the basics of Azrael, Kate, and Luke because i love them)

Dick’s time as Robin (that i have no clue how it goes but uuuh read Robin Year One / The Long Halloween / Dark Victory / The New Teen Titans up until #53)

Batgirl: Year One  

Birth of the Demon and Son of the Demon (here’s the original comic about Damian getting conceived)

Jason time as Robin (post crisis) stop before death in the family

Nightwing: Year One 

Batgirl Special #1 - The Last Batgirl Story 

unfortunately… you gotta at least know a bit of what the killing joke is about

NOW read death in the family… two blows one after the other, If you’re reading the trade that includes a lonely place of dying DON’T read that yet

now you can read the rest of the new teen titans up to #59

now A Lovely Place of Dying, which is Tim’s introduction. 

rest of ntt if u wanna

NOW for oracle!barbara you can either read the suicide squad comics as a whole, which includes little hints of her coming back, or you can skip to  issues #48 and #49. Then The Batman Chronicles #5.

Huntress Vol. 1 - Helena Bertinelli’s introduction

NOW! Steph’s introduction happened on Detective Comics #618

Stephanie’s list, if you’re following the whole list stop at Robin #70 (Tim’s solo is really good to know about them)

Azrael vol. 1: Fallen Angel - Azrael’s introduction

Batman: Knightfall - you know the infamous pic of bane snapping batman’s back like a stick? here it is.

Nightwing (1996)

Young Justice (1998) (NOT the one based on the tv show)

Birds of Prey i would say.. up to #7 

Batman: No Man’s Land

now it’s Cass Time!  Batman #567 was her introduction, and Detective Comics #734 n Legends of the Dark Knight #120 are vital to her story.

Batman & Huntress: A Cry for Blood / Huntress: Year One

Titans (1999)  

Batman Gotham Knights (2000-2006) is a good comic for batfam interactions

Rest of Birds of Prey ig

Teen Titans (2003)

Batman: Hush

Batgirl Volume 1 up to #52

War Games (when Stephanie dies rip)

rest of Batgirl

Batman Lost Days / Batman: Under the Red Hood 

Robin #172-174 (2008) steph comes back!!

Batman: Batman and Son He (Damian) is here babette

Batgirl volume 2 (2008-2009) and  Batman and the Outsiders (2009) are good cass comics up to #14

Robin/Spoiler Special (2008) 

Batman R.I.P. 

Final Crisis

Batman: Last Rites

battle for the cowl SUCKS the only important thing to know is that Dick is Batman now

Batman & Robin (2011) up to #12

Batwoman: Elegy 

Batgirl (2009) up to #14

The Black Mirror is a really good bats dick story.. or so i’ve been told

Red Robin

Batman: Return of Bruce Wayne #1-4 

Batman and robin from #13 to #14

Batman: Return of Bruce wayne #5-6

Batman and Robin #15-16

Batman:The Return 

Batman INC. (2011)

everything else in Batman and Robin, and Batgirl

Gates of Gotham #1-5 (2011) 

OK NOW.. N52. So new 52 was the reboot and it basically just took everything i just mentioned and threw it out of a fucking window. Changes: Barbara is Batgirl again, Cass and Stephanie didnt exist in this timeline for like four years, somehow Jason isnt such a dick, i think Damian didn’t get so fucked over, and uuuh i have no clue what happened with Dick and Tim but i think their whole story with their teams (teen titans / titans / young justice) got incredibly fucked over. Almost every single member of the Batfam (that didn’t get booted from this contuinity) got either a solo or a team book, which are. super good to start, reading order be dammed, but the batfam went through a lot of shit (court of owls, the joker, bruce kinda died, jim gordon became batman, bruce didnt remember anything, dick kinda died and got exposed but came back as a spy, damian died, bruce lost his mind, they kinda went to hell, damian came back, dozens of robins ran around, etc etc etc) so im gonna try to order it as best as i can T__T

Batman, Vol. 4 (Secret City) / DC Comics: Zero Year / Batman, Vol. 5 (Dark City)- Okay so, this wasnt the starting storyline for New 52 but its basically the basis of the batfam and co and introduces Duke and Harper so it’s kinda vital.

Ok so here you can start reading the first volume of.. any of the titles lol. Red Hood and the Outlaws / Batgirl / Batwing / Nightwing / Batman and Robin / Teen Titans

Batman: The Night Of The Owls  

Batwoman (2011-2015) 

Batman INC up to #6 - im gonna be honest this run fucking sucks but uh important stuff happens here

Nightwing / Red Hood and the Outlaws / Batgirl / Batman and Robin / Batwing / Teen Titans Vol. 2 (approx the issue #9 of all these runs were included in the Night of the Owls crossover)

Death Of The Family - this one.. bad.. but ig its important

Nightwing / Red Hood and the Outlaws / Batgirl / Batman and Robin /  Batwing / Teen Titans Vol. 3

Batman INC #7-8 - okay so. Damian’s death. 

Requiem / Batman and Robin: Requiem - the aftermath of Damian’s death. The first one isn’t collected afaik so i liked you to a reading order if you’re interested 

Nightwing / Red Hood and the Outlaws / Batgirl / Batwing / Titans Vol. 4 (here’s Luke Fox’s introduction!)

Forever Evil - the one where shit happens to Dick that i think leads to Grayson and all that spy bs

Yeah.. Grayson now (vol 1-2) - Helena gets re-introduced here!

Red Hood and the Outlaws / Batgirl / Batwing / Teen Titans Vol. 5

Batman Eternal - where Steph gets re-introduced

Batman and Robin: Robin Rises

Batman Endgame (Batman #35 -#36, Batman Annual #3, Batman #37- #39) - Duke is back!!

Grayson Vol 3 

Superheavy (Batman #41-44 / Detective Comics #41-46) - ok so Bruce is gone and now Jim Gordon is Batman.. just nod and smile

Ok so now, Red Hood and the Outlaws and Batgirl don’t get involved in any big storylines anymore, and Teen Titans started from #1 again. 

Teen Titans Vol. 1-2

We are Robin Vol 1 

Batman and Robin Eternal - where Cass gets re-introduced 

Robin: Son of Batman Vol. 1

Red Hood/Arsenal Vol. 1

Robin War 

Grayson Vol 4

Teen Titans Vol. 3-4

Red Hood/Arsenal Vol.2

We Are Robin Vol. 2

Robin Son of Batman Vol. 2 

Super Heavy Part 2 (Detective Comics #47-52 / Batman #47-52 )

OKAY SO. Rebirth is a continuation of New 52, but with some changes bc almost every single damn character got.. lets say nerfed, and people didnt like it so they’re slowly bringing back some elements from pre 52. Here basically just read whatever whenever unless you wanna get into like. the metal event. then i would recommend you to start off the bat with that to get it out of the way as some comics have tie ins. Then heres where the kids appear

All-Star Batman (2016-2017): Bruce and Duke 

Batgirl (2016): Barbara and sometimes Dick

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey (2016): Barbara, Dick, and Helena

Batman (2016): originally Bruce and Duke but now its the Batman and Catwoman show

(if you’re interested in Duke i would say to read those two first as it explains where his character stands on Rebirth)

Batman and the Signal (2017): pretty self explanatory

Batman/Shadow (2017): Damian appears sometimes but.. i heard Bruce is a dick to him here so fuck it

Batwoman (2017): Kate and Julia 

Detective Comics (2016): Cassandra, Azrael, Kate, Tim, and Stephanie

Nightwing (2016): Dick, and sometimes Damian and Helena. 

Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016): Just Jason except for the annual that had Dick too

Teen Titans (2016): Damian.. baby boy leads a team

Titans (2016): Dick

Super Sons (2017): Damian team sup with Jon Kent (Superman’s kid)

and finaaally.. some elseworld stories (basically aus) that have cute batkids interactions

Tiny Titans (2008-2015)

Lil’ Gotham (2013-2014)

[casualarsonist]

Matty G’s Quick AF Video Game Review Rundown

Hi there! My name’s Matt, and I’ve played a whole shitload of games recently - some for a little bit, some for a long while - and while I have opinions about each and every one of them, I’ve worked 13 days on and 1 day off and haven’t the energy or inspiration to write a full review for all of them. So zip your pants up and strap yourselves in for a rapid-fire short-form series of random reviews!

TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER (PC)

Let’s start on a high: Total War: Warhammer is the best Total War game I’ve ever played. That’s not to detract from series greats such as Rome, or Shogun, or others, but this game has something in particular that, in my opinion, every other game in the series lacks, and that’s a roster of factions that each have their own incredibly detailed personalities. I played a long campaign as the Dwarfs, and every victory against the Greenskins felt like something to celebrate, whilst every loss felt like a moment of mourning. My plucky little soldiers didn’t have anything by the way of cavalry, but were like a stone wall when engaged in single combat against other units, so I had to adapt to playing defensively, which allowed for some wonderfully cinematic gameplay as the enemy warriors marched slowly towards my stubborn line of beardy-boys wedged strategically into the corners of the gameplay map in order to avoid being flanked.

Diplomacy played a far-larger role in my game than it ever had before as I reforged alliances with human factions with whom I had diplomatic bonuses due to our long history in the lore of the series. I also befriended and confederated with other Dwarven armies, and tried to maintain an ethical balance with the armies of certain non-human tribes towards whom I felt an affinity, such as the wood elves. And all these decisions were not born of some calculated effort to manipulate the rules of the game in order to win, but an emergent and dynamic set of decisions that came from an emotional engagement with the game’s design.

In this game, diplomacy feels more necessary - your allies aren’t simply an impediment to your growing power, but a reliable support against mutual enemies. Certain factions have a trait called ‘shield of civilisation’, which means that they will become diplomatically lenient when it comes to the issue of protecting the world against greater threats such as the hordes of Chaos, and in the face of the advancing desolation, they will join you in order to fight them, even if you’ve slighted them in the past. This feeling of camaraderie is further enhanced by the existence of difference races of creatures - Orcs and Dwarves are naturally in opposition to one another, so it’s a comforting feeling to know that you are united (to a point) with others of your race against those who are united against you.

Certain gameplay changes feed the necessity of these alliances, particularly the fact that you can’t lead an army without Lord at their helm. I resented this to begin with as it meant that most of my regions were left undefended, but after a time I found that this handicap went both ways, and resulted in there being a definite benefit even to just wounding an large enemy army because they can’t simply call over a half dozen cheap units that were lying in wait to fill the gaps. Even losing a battle feels like a worthwhile endeavour if your men can do enough damage to the enemy, because they will have to retreat and lick their wounds if they wish to avoid another army crushing them in their weakened state - this meant that I took over last stand battles myself and made sure that the aggressors paid in blood for every life they took.

These small changes all result in a far more engaging and dynamic experience than I had ever played before. Whereas in Total War: Rome, for instance, you might ally with Spain knowing that there was no way to predict when they would turn their back on you and come for your land, in Warhammer you get a definite sense of just how much you can trust the factions around you. This leads to some thrilling and treacherous alliances that mimic real-world geopolitics, in which you find yourself making a concerted effort to befriend factions whose culture is clearly at odds with yours, in order to maintain stability along your borders. I had to forge an uneasy truce with the vampire families that bordered my lands, if for no other reason than I didn’t have the strength, men, or money to open up a war on two fronts. I always knew that our inherent opposition to one another would eventually lead to a confrontation, and so it was that they eventually made the mistake of breaking our non-aggression pact after I had closed the other front, at which point I diverted my armies and ran roughshod over them. It was almost sad when their last surviving leader sued for peace on the eve of their destruction, but they had made their bed with their continued antagonism towards me, and now they had to lie in it.

This culture clash is tangibly felt by way of provincial ‘corruption’. Vampires, Orcs, and Chaos-aligned factions spread corruption throughout their territories, and this corruption leeches into neighbouring areas, damaging armies and spreading discord amongst the people. This means that maintaining cities next to these factions becomes a constant battle against the corrosive darkness that can only be relieved by eliminating its source. Dark vs light is a far more understandable conflict that the rather vague and opaque cultural and religious differences that appear in other Total War games, and the fact that your provinces can never achieve true stability while a corrupting force is nearby (or vice versa if you’re playing as the vampires) really solidifies a genuine feeling of unrest at the existence of culturally incompatible neighbours.

The Total War series has always suffered, to varying extents, from the gameplay limitations brought on by its three-pillared combat system - infantry, cavalry, and missiles. There are only a certain amount of ways to win a battle with the various combinations of these units, and it’s my experience that once you’ve played one army you’ve played them all. Total War: Warhammer is the first game in the series in which I feel a true, measurable change in the level of individuality and character in each of the factions. You can play as one of the human factions and its rather traditional Total War unit roster, but how you combat a rock solid wall of dwarves will differ to how you fight a monster army comprised of creatures that can just smash their way through your lines. It’s not just the simple scissor-paper-rock gameplay of other games in the series, and it makes a huge difference to the game’s replayability, longevity, and sense of character.

This review wasn’t short at all. Oh well.

9/10

***

THE ROOM, THE ROOM 2, THE ROOM 3, THE ROOM: OLD SINS (PC, MOBILE)

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Instead, The Rooms 1-4 are the best puzzle games currently available on mobile, and perhaps some of the best puzzle games ever made. Developed by a small Guildford studio ‘Fireproof Games’ on a shoestring budget, the premise is simple, and refined to perfection. the contiguous gameplay element being the unlocking of puzzle boxes: the first game involves solving a single, ever-more intricate puzzle box, the second involves completing rooms which each contain a number of puzzle boxes and requires you to move back and forth between them in order to finish the stage, the third game increases the scale even further with a number of interconnected rooms containing a number of different puzzles within them, and the fourth game features an intricate dollhouse, containing multiple rooms, containing multiple puzzles.

Throughout the series Fireproof have managed to build on the complexity and scale of each prior game whilst expertly maintaining an awareness of the game’s core hook - the second game holds the best balance of puzzles to scope, and while the third proves itself more cumbersome as you’re forced to watch tedious cutscenes when moving between different rooms again and again, they rectify this cleverly with the fourth game, which features greater intricacy than the third, but cuts down on the useless wandering back and forth by simply letting you rotate the doll’s house and choose which room you wish to view. Perhaps it sounds rather abstract when describing it this way, but in practice the execution is perfect.

The games look gorgeous, especially 1 and 2, which are also available on PC. 3 and Old Sins are only sold on mobile stores, and you lose some of the glorious and realistic detail they’ve put into it, however, each and every one of these games stands among the top 10 mobile games available for purchase. There is no better time waster when commuting, because playing these games doesn’t feel like a waste of time - the puzzles are exceptionally well-balanced, and it’s a rare occasion when you feel like like you’re struggling because the game is unfair; it’s far more common that you simply realise that you haven’t been paying close-enough attention, or that you’ve ignored previously established rules, or that the answer is just sitting there in front of you in the periphery of your vision and you’ve haven’t looked hard enough.

And one of the most important features of the game, in my opinion at least, is that all this fantastic gameplay is nestled amongst a light, creepy narrative that carries over from game to game. While the concept and puzzles are standout on their own, the spooky story allows these titles to transcend the expectations of a mobile game and become something singularly excellent.

You’ll be played each game for between 2 and 7 hours depending on which one you buy, and won’t feel cheated in purchasing any of them, however I advise that you begin at the start and move onwards from there, as they logically progress in complexity. I highly recommend these games to literally anyone (other than babies, obviously - fuck ‘em); they���re actual gems, buried beneath a sea of free-to-wait shit on the app stores, and have single-handedly demonstrated to me the great potential of a mobile game done right.

THE ROOM: 8/10

THE ROOM 2: 9.5/10

THE ROOM 3: 7.5/10

THE ROOM: OLD SINS: 8.5/10

***

EVERSPACE (PC)

Everspace is the rogue-like space-shooter baby of Elite: Dangerous, Rogue Legacy, and FTL, taking the visual beauty, inching progression, and randomly generated, zone-based scenarios from each game respectively. The Steam reviews are a litany of players complaining about the rogue-like aspects and the flight controls as if they’ve never encountered either, but honestly, it manages to combine the best of both genres into one tight, unassuming package, gorgeously rendered in the Unreal 4 engine.

After a short while playing I was ready to palm the game off as a cheap thrill and a distraction, but after persevering for a little while longer I began to see Everspace with fresh eyes. The general point is to accumulate enough cash during a run to upgrade your abilities for the next, and while initial progress is slow and the repetition in your first few runs can be a bit of hurdle to overcome, there’s a point where the small gains you’re making between playthroughs begin to make a distinct and measurable difference to your success. Small groups of fighters aren’t so scary any longer, and as you start to venture deeper into each sector, the actions you previously avoided taking for fear of being destroyed start to look like the kind of thing you could get away with now. You’ll begin to meet in-game characters who give you missions that expand the scope of the goals you’re looking to achieve, and the story unfolds as the game reveals itself to you as a reward for your persistence.

And don’t get me wrong, being easy to pick up and play, Everspace IS a cheap thrill at times, and a great distraction, but it’s also deeper and more rewarding than my initial impressions suspected. As you progress, your runs will stretch longer and longer, with my last one clocking in at nearly an hour before I was killed. And since each sector, and each area in each sector, is somewhat randomised in its make-up and content, yet cohesive in design and often genuinely breathtaking visually, beginning a new session becoming increasingly enjoyable as the game opens up.

In short, Everspace could have easily been a throw-away piece of fluff, and while there are aspects of its design that are exceedingly simplistic when compared to other, more genre-committed space games, it’s a beautiful and fun game that rewards the player the more they invest themselves in the experience. Don’t enter expecting to be completely immersed as you would in something like Elite: Dangerous, but if you’re looking for a fun, accessible space-shooter that doesn’t demand you give up your day job in order to get the most out of it, Everspace is a good place to start.

8/10

***

PLANET COASTER (PC)

Planet Coaster is the Cities: Skylines of theme park simulators - the best modern attempt at resurrecting a genre you haven’t looked twice at since your childhood. I might not be the best person to review it (which is why it’s here) because I tend to devalue games that you can dominate in one playthrough, but the mark of quality in a sim title like this is in how many times one can come back to it and do something different with the mechanics we’ve been provided.

I’m perhaps not the most creative of individuals when it comes to this genre, and have little of the vision or patience required to bring a particular style of park to life, especially when you have to fight against the financial and logistical realities of running of the park at the same time. This is further exacerbated by the fact that, much like Cities: Skylines, Planet Coaster only lets you use certain rides after getting the population of your park to a certain size, meaning that you might want to build, say, a pirate park, and yet only have one pirate-themed ride available for a long time. This system works far better in Cities, because you don’t start having fires until you unlock the fire station, but here, if you want to craft a park to a particular style, you’re often simply hampered by the lack of available choices.

Somewhat offsetting this is the ability to make your own buildings using pre-made assets. Blank, box-like confectionery stands can be modified to your heart’s content, and the ability to design and stylise the landscape helps balance the lack of control you have over the type of rides you can put down; this kind of creative freedom greatly compliments this type of gameplay, and it’s in this mechanic that the true builders among us will find shine. 

There is also a surprising amount of depth in the characterisation of your attendees. Hordes of sweaty guests could quite easily be rendered with little thought for the details, but almost every feeling and expression is available to the player, to view either through their actions, or through their little character bubbles which give you all their details. If a piece of park property has been vandalised you can hover over the nearby people and see if any of their thoughts reveal their guilt. These kinds of actions are rarely unjustified, and the urge to smash is usually brought on by frustration at certain aspects of your park, as well as being more common in teenagers that others, so once you’ve nabbed them you can order your park security to kick them out and watch as the guard chases them down and ejects them from the premises. It’s great fun, and gives you a real feeling of personal ownership over the people, places, and things in your business.

Unfortunately the game also runs like hot garbage at its highest settings, and even powerful computers will start to slow down once your population stretches into the multiples of thousands. With the simplicity of its visual design, it’s hard to understand why it chugs so much, but I suppose that it’s as much to do with the cost of computing the actions of thousands of characters as it does with the actual visual detail of the park itself.

However, if Theme Park or Roller Coaster Tycoon were ever your thing, then I think you’ll feel right at home here. Planet Coaster is easy to pick up and play, and while it’s not exactly the most flexible sim in terms of where you can build and adjust your paths and building, it’s about as detailed as games like this come, and rides a nice balance between accessibility and micromanagement with a hell of a cute veneer over the top of it. 

7.5/10

***

FAR CRY: PRIMAL (PS4)

Whenever I try to write ‘PS4′ I always end up holding the shift key down and writing ‘PS$’, which is an hilariously apt, if accidental commentary on just how fucking expensive PS4 games are despite almost invariably being inferior to their PC counterparts.

Big-budget first-person shooters are an excellent example of this.

I’d been eyeing Far Cry: Primal one for a long time after release, as I love the potential of the Far Cry series, if not Ubisoft’s actual execution of the property. As a die-hard fan of the second game, Far Cry 3 and 4 were profoundly underwhelming to me, and yet, despite the fact that Far Cry: Primal was ostensibly cut from the same cloth, the idea of playing a game set twelve thousand years in the past isn’t something that comes along every day. For a long time, though, that alone wasn’t enough for me to take the leap, especially as the paltry discounts on the game always left it hovering at or above a price that I felt was unreasonable for something that I knew would ultimately be a copy-and-paste job.

So when I spotted it on sale for £10 on the Playstation store I decided that that was fair enough, and I finally decided to see what the deal was here. The first thing I noticed was that it ran at 30 fps - not a deal-breaker, but being a member of the god-like PC elite, it’s a hard thing to unsee. The second thing I noticed was that playing with a controller made targeting the game’s primitive bows and spears a challenge, and this triggered a third revelation - that this challenge made the game scary. Holy shit, a Far Cry game in which the enemies are actually a threat?! Am I dreaming? No, friend. You are not. And this small but impactful distinction makes all the difference in the world. While it might be the same-old Far Cry game for all intents and purposes, fighting with cumbersome weapons and against cumbersome controls as a screaming prehistoric man rushes at you with his club raised is genuinely tense, and it was the first time I’d felt tense playing a Far Cry game since I last heard the revving of a 4x4′s engine as I hid in the long grass of the African savannah. For the same reason, this also transforms the game’s animals from a pointless nuisance into an actual hazard, and coupled with the beautiful, sun-dappled overgrowth and enormous trees that litter the landscape, Far Cry: Primal leans into the brutal and wild nature of its setting.

I’ll also commend the developers as well for the fact that there isn’t a word of English spoken in the game either - each faction speaks a different dialect of the same ‘reconstructed Proto-Indo-European’ language, which seems like a really laborious length to go to, and an effort that Ubisoft haven’t made since…well, since Far Cry 2 (detecting a theme here?).  

Yet for all the good these details do, they’re not enough to completely distinguish the game from the typical tropes and flaws of the series, nor from the internal anachronism of Ubisoft’s ‘THIS IS A VIDEO GAME’ design vying for influence with the ancient setting. Things are at their best when the player is under-powered, and so the typical Far Cry power-fantasy actively works against the strengths of the premise. It also has some of the worst DLC I have ever seen - Legend of the Mammoth in particular is ugly, broken, repetitive, tedious, and unfathomably un-fun. So despite the novel setting and certain laudable aspects of its design, Primal remains (like so many of the ‘better’ Ubisoft games) in the ‘yeah, it’s one of those Far Cry games’ pile. Had they taken the risk of maintaining a level of moderate difficulty and removed much of the audio-visual guidance garbage that litters the HUD, Primal might have remained interesting for the length of its playtime, but a Tyrannosaurus Rex painted on a wall does not Jurassic Park make, nor do simple stylistic changes make this anything other than the same old wander-y collect-a-thon at heart. At least it doesn’t have guns. Get it cheap and on PC, play with a controller, and/or crank the difficulty to maximum.

7.5/10

***

That wasn’t the slightest bit quick af. Sorry about that. But I got these reviews out of my system at least. There’s probably about half a dozen more games I could put here, but let’s not drag this along any further than we have already. 

Until next time!

Peace xx

‘and yet’ count: 4

‘in any case’ count: 0

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 7 Page 18

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LOGO: Sega

LEGALESE: Sonichu is © 2008 by Christian Weston Chandler and all subsidiaries. All rights reserved. Playstation and the “PS” family logo registered by Sony. Wii is trademarked by Nintendo. Sega and their logo is registered by Sega. All rights reserved.

Here we see the first inkling of what would become Chris’s most famous fake game and the first one to not be Sonichu focused, Christian Weston Chandler’s Adult Chronicles. Plot wise it would seem to be similar to the Sub-Episodes - Chris fighting valiantly, with Sonichu and Rosechu serving mostly as backup, against Mary Lee Walsh and her band of evil jerkops and manajerks. For the longest time Chris was rather vague about what exactly the game would be like, until late 2017, about 9 years after he drew this, that Chris mentioned the game would be reminiscent of one of his new faves Life is Strange, a game I’m sure you will be able to find a lot about while browsing through this delightful website you’re currently viewing called Tumblr. Basically it’s a graphic adventure game where you can rewind time and it’s a fave of Chris likely because it’s also all about dykes dykes China. Presumably, in this fictional game of his, you would play as a third-person Chris who would explore Chris’s hangouts around Ruckersville and Charlottesville, interact with some of his friends (Chris singled out Megan and Anna McLerran) along with Sonichu and Rosechu and his parents, and fight off Mary Lee and the rest of Chris’s rogue’s gallery. A bit surprisingly the way Chris talked about the game in his “An Important Update” he implied that the final boss fight would be between him and his “Dark Half”, likely referring to Reldnahc and the climactic showdown between him and Mary Lee would happen earlier.

Chris hasn’t been the hero behind the hedgehogs in about five issues. Chris has been the hero in front of the hedgehogs, eclipsing them entirely.

Interestingly, this page’s reference to Mary Lee, even in the CWCipedia retconned comics, was never changed to Slaweel.

The cover shown on the game boxes themselves shows what appears to be the ending of the game - Chris stands victorious, the 4-Cent-Garbage symbol underneath his foot, the EHPs beside him. Strewn across his backyard are symbols representing Chris’s main foes in the comics: from top to bottom we have Naitsirhc’s blue goggles (from his original outfit), the smashed sceptre of Count Graduon, left slumped on its side like a discarded ice cream cone, the Jerkief’s delicious wooden badge, the severed mechanical sword arm of the Merried Seinor Comic, Mary Lee’s cracked hair devil horns helmet, and what appears to be the Robotnik medallion from Sonichu 1.

Shown above the games themselves are the two consoles Chris would develop this game for, Sony’s Playstations 2 and 3 and Nintendo’s Wii. One of the many facets to Chris’s unbreakable brand loyalty is his undying love for the consoles of Nintendo and Sony and hatred of those produced by Microsoft. Dubbed by him as the “HEXBox”, he has never offered any real reasons for this dislike besides basic console wars reasons. During Chris’s childhood, he showed an equal distaste towards Sony’s consoles due to his infatuation with Nintendo and Sega’s consoles. After Sega left the console market in 2002, Chris filled that void with a cheaply bought PS1, and it and its successors has become his ally and lover ever since.

The rating in the bottom left, “M for Honest Content”, has become another meme among Christorians as a way of denoting NSFW Chris material on sites like the CWCki.

Soul Calibur is a series of fighting games that’s ideal for beating up representations of your foes like deans that tear up your signs or artists that draw pickles on your FEMALE characters. Chris’s favorite character is Cassandra Alexandra, for obvious reasons.

That legalese at the bottom was almost certainly copied directly from something. Here’s some fun trivia for ya - the phrase “All Rights Reserved” has been obsolete in America since 1989 due to the US signing on to newer international copyright treaties that don’t require copyright formalities like “All Rights Reserved” such as the Berne Convention, and it’s never been applicable to countries outside of North and South America like Japan, where Sega, Nintendo, and Sony all originate.

[cyanoticfireflies]

Pokémon Sword Avatar Challenge Playthrough Part 9

We just keep rolling right along!  It’s kind of fun to be in the snowy part of the game when it’s starting to get cold here - but no snow yet.  Still, let’s celebrate with something new.  Something fun.

If you missed Part 1, it’s available HERE. If you missed Part 2, it’s available HERE. If you missed Part 3, it’s available HERE. If you missed Part 4, it’s available HERE. If you missed Part 5, it’s available HERE. If you missed Part 6, it’s available HERE. If you missed Part 7, it’s available HERE. If you missed Part 8, it’s available HERE.

2020 is rolling right along and we’re in the downward slide.  Maybe we’ll finish the replay before my office closes for the holidays.

We now have the Rock Uniform along with TM48 “Rock Tomb.”  Sonia takes us out to eat to celebrate our victory over Gordie at Bob’s Your Uncle.  Of course this random restaurant has a tapestry from the Darkest Day on the wall for her to freak out over.  Though how sad to see the sword and shield on tombstones.  We’ll go wake them up.

We follow Sonia over to Hero’s Bath then have a fight with Hop right in front of it, which I’m sure everyone loves.  It’s pretty much a beatdown even if I did forget that Pincurchin has “Lighting Rod.” We do get “Boomburst” on Haku the Toxtricity; time to mess some stuff UP!

Since we’ve moved into the later part of the game, I go ahead and treat us to another wardrobe upgrade and hairstyle change.  Can you guess what one of my favorite parts of X/Y was?  Anyway.  We head south and beat on some trainers without any issues, though we do get to see our first Galarian Darumaka in a battle with a Dancer.

We come across some Team Yell goobs harassing a guy in a facemask and scrubs, and since we respect our healthcare workers and mask-wearers during this time of COVID we intervene to kick some butt.  To repay our kindness, we now get a Rotom Bike that can go over water.  This is absolutely what we needed!

I’ve been thinking about this for quite a long time.  We’ve made it pretty far with Kovali and Rorou, but to be honest they’re starting to fall a bit behind.  Plus, I did say I wanted to emphasize Gen VIII Pokemon for this run, but we’ve had the Vanillite family since almost the beginning of the game.  With us now entering the down slide to the end of the game, I have something in mind.

With our new Rotom Bike water mode, we go ahead and go over to the Lake of Outrage (not to be confused with the Lake of Rage).  As soon as we get snowy weather, we’re all set.  We’re hunting Mr. Mime!  Galarian Mr. Mime is an Ice/Psychic type that is able to evolve into Mr. Rime at Level 42 – and we can catch Mr. Mime at Level 50.  What this also does is allow us to bring that Sizzlipede from Motostoke Gym onto the team.  Remember: Bug-type Pokemon are allowable for all nations in the Avatar Challenge rules. This keeps all the same types we already had but adds the always-important Fire type to the team. Finally a way to deal with those Steel-types!

We catch our Galarian Mr. Mime, an Ice/Psychic-type.  It’s a female Mr. Mime because that… makes… sense….  We name her Aleyla.  She has “Vital Spirit” so it’s impossible to put her to sleep and the Lonely nature for more physical attack but less physical defense.  It will be very interesting indeed to see how that plays out on what should probably be a Sp. Attacker, but we’ve done more with less in this playthrough for sure.

And our Sizzlipede is named Okama.  The ability is “White Smoke” which prevents its stats from being lowered by other Pokemon’s moves.  Adamant nature, so more Attack and less Sp. Attack, which could make for an interesting Fire type.  Sizzlipede is usually a physical attacker anyway, so this is going to be pretty darn good.

We start training both of them up right away, particularly Okama who needs to catch up with the rest of the team ASAP.  Things even out around more-or-less level 55-60, which is more than enough to get us through.  Of course, getting to this point also included Okama evolving into Centiskorch. And Aleyla is now a Mr. … Ms. Rime.

With that very interesting sidetrack out of the way, it’s back to the business of making our way south. Going over the water gets us to all new Pokemon and all new trainers, but there’s nothing particularly eventful until we reach the south.  Turns out that the way into Spikemuth is blocked off!  Oh, no.  Now what will we do?  Right, we’ll ask the locals for help.  Gotcha.

Luckily, our new team members are ready to rock and roll.  We tiptoe through the super sneaky grass to a battle with Marnie where we, frankly, kick her but.  Even while switch-leveling Aleyla a bit more on the Dark-types.  Yes, we got a new Psychic-type right before the Dark gym. Still, not worried in the slightest. We’ve got this – we’re currently around 15 levels higher than Marnie’s Pokemon.

Before we can go beat down Big Brother, though, we have to do the alleyway rush.  Well.  Is it a rush if you can go back to the Pokecenter whenever you want?  Whatever.  (I always get a kick out of the Pokecenters in places like Spikemuth and Po Town in S/M/US/UM.)

Compared to all of the other gym challenges in the game, Spikemuth is such a letdown.  I understand what they were going for an thematically it works, but they couldn’t have thought of anything more interesting? Battle of the bands?  Spray paint completion where each win gets you a new section?  Something? Meh.

Since none of these gym trainers/Team Yell members have more than a single Pokemon, these go by rather quickly and we’re ready to take on the gym leader.

[nbatrades]

Atlanta Hawks Re-Acquire Jeff Teague In Three-Player Deal

On January 16th, 2020, the Minnesota Timberwolves traded guard Jeff Teague and forward-guard Treveon Graham to the Atlanta Hawks for guard-forward Allen Crabbe.

Jeff Teague became a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves when he signed a three-year, $57 million deal with the club in the 2017 offseason. The third year of the deal was a player option. Teague joined a revitalized Wolves franchise looking to make the postseason for the first time in 14 seasons. Minnesota had made significant moves to improve their roster. This included adding Teague, signing Taj Gibson and the centerpiece move, trading for All-Star Jimmy Butler.

The three new players started alongside Minnesota’s two young cornerstones and former number one overall draft picks in Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins. The new look Timberwolves got off to a solid 10-5 start. At one point, the team was 31-18 and third in the West after 49 games. Looking to capture homecourt advantage in the first round of the postseason, Minnesota’s hopes would be dashed by a knee injury to Butler that required surgery.

The Wolves went 16-17 over the final 33 games to fall all the way down to the eighth and final seed. Butler’s eventual return did help the Wolves hold on to a playoff spot. Minnesota needed a victory in the regular season finale over the ninth-place Denver Nuggets to take the last playoff spot.

Teague was solid during the 2017-18 campaign, but there were questions of his long-term fit. Teague was productive, posting 14.2 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 7.0 APG and 1.5 SPG in 70 contests and 33.0 MPG. But he was neither the dangerous shooter or consistent defender that Timberwolves fans had hoped for.

Minnesota broke their streak of failure and ended up in a tough battle with the 65-17 Houston Rockets in the first round. In the series opener Rockets superstar James Harden had 44 points. Butler had a chance to tie the game late, but missed a three with 1.5 seconds left as the Rockets held on for a 104-101 victory.

The second game saw Minnesota take an early nine-point lead, but the Rockets used a decisive 55-22 run over two quarters to turn the contest into an easy 20-point victory. In Game Three, Butler led the way with 28 points and seven rebounds. Teague chipped in with 23 points and eight assists as the Wolves used a decisive second half run to win 121-105. 

In the fifth game, Houston took care of business closing out the series with an 18-point win. Harden had 24 points and 12 assists in the series finale. In the 4-1 series loss, Teague amassed 13.0 PPG on 45.1% shooting, 3.6 RPG and 5.8 APG in 30.6 MPG.

With a chance to tie the series at home, Minnesota was in the game, trailing by just a single point at halftime. Houston would take over from that point dropping 50 points on Minnesota in the third quarter to take a 31-point lead in the fourth quarter. The game was over at that point as Minnesota made the score a little more respectable in a 119-100 loss.

In the 2018 offseason, the Timberwolves added wing Josh Okogie in the draft and also signed veteran Luol Deng. The team also made a full commitment to star center Karl-Anthony Towns with a large supermax contract extension. With Towns and Andrew Wiggins signed to extensions, the next question was Butler.

That question would be answered, but it wouldn’t be to Minnesota’s liking. Before training camp, Butler demanded a trade from the Wolves, citing his likeliness to leave the team in the summer of 2019 as a free agent. He gave Minnesota a list of teams he would want to be traded to. The list included the New York Knicks, Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Clippers. 

Butler’s trade demand would cause a dark cloud to hang over Minnesota as the season began, and dual president and coach Tom Thibodeau refused to trade Butler until he received the right bounty in return. The situation was so bad that a heavily publicized practice where Butler talked trash to teammates, coaches and team executives drew national headlines.

The Wolves started out the season with Butler available and playing. Minnesota started the season 4-9 when they finally dealt Butler to the Philadelphia 76ers for  Robert Covington, Jerryd Bayless, Dario Saric and a second round pick in 2022. Two months later Thibodeau would be fired in both of his roles in the front office and coaching staff. Assistant Ryan Saunders was named as interim coach. 

Minnesota recovered after dealing Butler getting back to .500 after 48 games. They fell apart down the stretch and ended up with a 36-46 record. Teague’s second season in Minnesota was marred by injuries. A left ankle issue caused Teague to be in and out of the lineup. he ended up playing in a career-low 42 games. Teague finished the season with a stat line of 12.1 PPG, 2.5 RPG, 8.2 APG and 1.0 SPG in 30.1 MPG. As the regular season was coming to a close, Teague underwent a debridement on his left ankle.

In the 2019 offseason, the Timberwolves hired Rockets vice president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas as new team president. The interim tag was eventually lifted off of coach Saunders and he signed a deal with the team. Treveon Graham arrived in Minnesota with Shabazz Napier in a trade with the Golden State Warriors. 

Graham and Napier had both played for the Brooklyn Nets during the 2018-19 season, but were traded to the Warriors in a sign-and-trade involving Kevin Durant before being rerouted to Minnesota. Minnesota’s primary transaction was a draft night deal where they moved up to the sixth pick to acquire Texas Tech guard Jarrett Culver.

The Wolves got off to a surprising 3-0 start during the 2019-20 season, but all hope for the playoffs would quickly dissipate. In December, Minnesota lost 11 games consecutively. They were 15-25 when they decided to deal Teague and Graham. Teague had appeared in 34 games with Minnesota that season, averaging 13.2 PPG, 2.6 RPG and 6.1 APG in 27.8 MPG. 

Initially a starter, Teague and coach Saunders agreed that it would be best for Teague to come off the bench in favor of the rookie Culver. Teague’s inability to deliver the ball to Towns in the post and his penchant for over-dribbling and isolations had made him a poor fit in Minnesota’s slowly developing three-point shooting and ball movement based offense. A clip of Towns frustrated with Teague opting to shoot rather than pass went viral at one point during the season.

KAT was fed up 😂 pic.twitter.com/M9oTU3OGjo

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport)

December 10, 2019

Graham started a bunch for a thin wing rotation in Minnesota. Though he provided some admirable defense on the perimeter, Graham’s inability to shoot (24.1% on 83 three-point attempts) cramped Minnesota’s spacing on offense. He played in 33 games (20 starts) and posted 5.2 PPG, 3.0 RPG, 0.9 APG and 0.5 SPG in 20.1 MPG.

Teague finished his time in Minnesota with a stat line of 13.4 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 7.1 APG and 1.2 SPG in 146 games wit the club. The point guard shot 44% from the field, 36% from the three-point line and 84% from the free-throw line in that time.

Allen Crabbe became an Atlanta Hawk after he had been traded by the Brooklyn Nets in a deal for Taurean Prince. Known for his ability to shoot from the three-point line, Crabbe was expected to receive some playing time in Atlanta. Recovery from arthroscopic right knee surgery in April caused Crabbe to miss the start of the season, He played 28 games with the Hawks and had a difficult time making shots. Crabbe shot just 32.3% from three while putting up 5.1 PPG, 2.3 RPG, 1.0 APG and 0.5 SPG in 18.6 MPG. The Hawks were an NBA-worst 9-32 when they traded Crabbe.

All three players involved in this trade were on contracts set to expire after the season. Atlanta lost a small amount of cap space by taking on $20.6 million combined from Teague and Graham, while sending out $17.8 million from Crabbe. Though the financial impact of the trade was limited, it did serve a purpose. Crabbe’s shooting was crucial for a Timberwolves roster soft on shooting. The Hawks had been absolutely smoked in the minutes Trae Young was not on the floor and needed a backup point guard to stabilize their bench.

After the trade, the Timberwolves had hoped that Crabbe’s outside shooting would help prop up a team in need of perimeter help. Crabbe struggled in limited minutes with the Wolves. The 6′5″ wing appeared in nine games, shooting 23.1% from three and 32.4% overall before he was bought out of his contract and waived by Minnesota in late February. Overall, Crabbe finished with 3.2 PPG, 1.3 RPG and 0.6 APG in 14.6 MPG.

The Hawks had hoped that Teague would solidify the backup point guard spot. Teague had a lukewarm stretch in his second go-around with Atlanta. In 25 games (four starts), Teague managed 7.7 PPG, 2.2 RPG, 4.0 APG and 0.8 SPG in 20.8 MPG. He posted his lowest true shooting percentage (51.2%) since his rookie season. Graham had a relatively nondescript stretch with Atlanta. The forward appeared in 22 games and compiled 3.3 PPG on 37.3% from the field, 2.3 RPG and 0.7 APG in 12.1 MPG.

The Hawks finished with a 20-47 record before the NBA season was temporarily suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March. When the league resumed play in a “bubble” at Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida, the Hawks did not finish with a good enough record to qualify for the bubble.

When the 2020 offseason began in November of 2020, the Hawks opted to go in another direction, signing guards Rajon Rondo and Kris Dunn. Teague ended up signing a one-year deal with the Boston Celtics. Graham also did not return to Atlanta. He signed a training camp deal with the Milwaukee Bucks for the 2020-21 season.

Jeff Teague on how he was excited to be traded to Atlanta (via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution):

“Then, they said 'Atlanta.’ And I was like, ‘I can't be this lucky.’ I was happy. I couldn’t believe it. The excitement kind of came. But now it’s kind of hitting me all right now.”

How he had always wanted to return to the Hawks in the future:

“It was always like a little plan, and it just came a little earlier than I thought. I knew I was going to be a free agent coming up this summer, and Atlanta’s always been a destination for me ever since I had been here. I always wanted to come back, and those things just kind of run through your head. And I look at the team and the needs and things like that I thought they may need. I was like, a backup veteran that can help a little bit trying to help lead the guys, I thought that could be my role.”

On his role:

“Just try to be a leader. There’s a lot of young guys who are going to look to lean on you. They’re all really talented, but they’re young, so they haven’t been through some of the things that I’ve been through, played in some of the big games that I’ve played in. So they’re going to look at me a little more. And that’s cool, I’m here for that. I’ll try to help in any way I can on and off the court.”

How he loves Atlanta:

“Then I found out it was one of the best cities in the world. The people are great, the fans were always great to me. The people in the organization, from my first year to my last, were great. And I just love it.”

On his time in Minnesota in his first game back as a member of the Atlanta Hawks (the Bemidji Press via the St. Paul Pioneer):

“I had an opportunity to meet some great people here. I met some lifelong friends on the team. It was great to me. I had a good time, I enjoyed the city, the people was cool with me.”

How the team’s playoff run was special:

“We saw something special. Just seeing the atmosphere, that was cool to be a part of that.”

On the team’s collapse after one playoff season:

“Coaching staff, the expectations, the team. We went from competing to be a contender to rebuilding, almost. So, in two years, it was like a whole different overhaul. It was pretty extreme, but I embraced it. I liked all of it. Enjoyed all the coaches and all the players, all my teammates, it was all fun.”

Allen Crabbe on the trade being a surprise (via Minneapolis Star Tribune):

“I was taken aback. I didn’t hear anything leading up to this... It definitely was a shock to me, but it’s not my first time being traded. It’s the business side. The only thing you got to try to do is pack up, get to your new team, get implemented and show up and go to work.”

Crabbe on his fit in Minnesota:

“I mean, it’s a match made in heaven. They like to shoot threes, I love to shoot threes. So I can’t ask for anything better than that.”

How he feels about learning the new plays:

“They had very similar sets to what they run over here. I got in [Sunday], did a little workout with [Timberwolves assistant coach] Pablo [Prigioni] to get some of the concepts down on the offensive side. At the end of the day, it’s basketball. We all go out there and do the same thing, run our sets, execute the game plan. I feel like I can put myself in a good situation.”

Minnesota Timberwolves president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas on Jeff Teague (via Minneapolis Star Tribune):

“I’ll give Jeff a lot of credit for trying and doing whatever was asked of him, to try to be a good fit in our system. I think, big picture, it’s just a different game. And the way he plays, this system is maybe not as complementary in that we need our lead guard to be a guy who pushes tempo, is more of a creator than a scorer... He’s been very successful in this league a long time playing the way he plays. But at the end of the day, I think as personnel develop you can either fit or not fit. Jeff did everything he could on his end.”

On Allen Crabbe:

“The combination of his skill set, profile, his age, those are areas that have been key parts of our approach with that position. We feel like the ability to add a player who’s add some experience in those systems has an opportunity to improve our shooting and is at an age where we can get a strong evaluation.”

How Crabbe fits what the Timberwolves need:

“We need guys that are two-way players that can shoot, guard, defend, or impact the system in other ways. But overall, shooting is always welcome. You just want to be able to acquire it in a way that it’s a player that can be in your rotation, and a player that can develop. Allen has that profile.”

Figuring out the point guard position after dealing Teague:

“I’ve got a time line, unfortunately the 29 other teams are not on the same time line. But we’re working on that to figure it out. We’re going to be very aggressive through development of our guys. We’d love to see our guys take advantage of those opportunities.”

Atlanta Hawks general manager Travis Schlenk on how Teague plays could be an audition for next season (via The Athletic):

“That was one of the areas going into the summer that we knew we were going to have to address is point guard. This is a great opportunity to have a dress rehearsal to see how it goes. We are hopeful. We think Jeff has a lot of good basketball left in him. We’re going to see how it goes, but in a perfect world, it would be a great scenario.”

How Teague can take pressure off of Trae Young:

“Adding him to our group and play with Trae and take some pressure off of Trae was one of the things we were looking to accomplish here. Anything we can do to help him, whether that’s putting another shooter on the floor to open the lane for him or to allow him to get some rest is what we want to do.”

Timberwolves head coach Ryan Saunders on trying to ease Crabbe into the team (via Minneapolis Star Tribune):

“You let him feel his way out first. You want to make sure you have a number of conversations with him and make sure he is comfortable. He’s got some former teammates on this team too that can help ease that transition. But a lot of times when there’s a change, guys’ heads can be spinning when they’re coming into a new situation. So what we’re trying to do is make sure he’s comfortable within the offense, the defense and just within the team setting.”

How Crabbe plays well off of others (via Minneapolis Star Tribune):

"We’re fortunate Allen is a guy who doesn’t necessarily needs to have a package of plays put in for him initially. He’s a guy who plays well off others. His ability to shoot the ball throughout his career is something we’ve been keen on. Those days in Portland, his ability to run off screens and catch and shoot situations just adds another dimension to what we can do offensively."

How the team is looking at Crabbe's body of work over his stint in Atlanta:

"Very encouraged and that’s what you should look at right now. Atlanta plays in some different situations and I think that Allen, he’ll like a number of things that we’re able to do moving forward and we’ll like things he can do. He’s had some productive games this year already too, but he’s had productive stops in this league and I think he’s going to add a nice piece to us on our growing wing depth."

On Treveon Graham and Jeff Teague:

"[Graham’s] got a beautiful family and we’d always share stories because he had his son around the same time I had mine. We were able to connect through that and Jeff is one of the most enjoyable guys I’ve ever been around away from the court too. I think that’s something fans and people don’t always get to see about these players and I really hope that at their next stops they excel."

Hawks head coach Lloyd Pierce about Teague’s enthusiasm for playing on the Hawks (via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution):

“I believe him from the standpoint that he spent the majority of his career here, still has a home here, is beloved here and is a great opportunity to come back to somewhere you’ve had success. So I do believe that. I do honestly take his word for it.”

Hawks guard Trae Young on the addition of Teague (via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution):

“I know a lot about his game. He’s very smart, really good scorer, knows how to draw fouls, knows how to get his teammates involved.”

Timberwolves center Gorgui Dieng on Teague (the Bemidji Press via the St. Paul Pioneer):

“He taught me a lot of different things. He’s a great man. That’s very important. All this basketball stuff is going to end, but the person is more important. I think Jeff is a special person.”

Timberwolves guard Shabazz Napier on Crabbe (via Minneapolis Star Tribune):

"He’s a great teammate. Very solid, does everything you ask. He can [really] shoot … Great defender. Has everything this team needs."

On how him and Crabbe met as teammates in Portland:

"He’s a cool guy, easy to get along with. He and I met in Portland and the first time I met him he was quiet at first, as we all are, and we just started communicating more and became closer. He’s a close friend of mine. I was excited to see him, to come in and just be himself."

Related Tweets:

👀 Welcome Back My Brotha !!

— Trae Young (@TheTraeYoung)

January 16, 2020

@ATLHawks @Timberwolves pic.twitter.com/4V08ixnBE2

— Treveon Graham (@TreBall21)

January 18, 2020

Missing you already my Guy!!! Best of luck with your new squad!! https://t.co/it8B052GKX

— Pablo Prigioni (@PPrigioni9)

January 19, 2020

Image Credit:

Allen Crabbe: via Getty Images/Hannah Foslien

Jeff Teague: via AJC/Hyosub Shin

Treveon Graham: via Getty Images/Scott Cunningham

[xtruss]

Argentine Soccer Hero Lived a Life of Extremes!

AT THE PINNACLEDiego Armando Maradona holds the World Cup trophy in triumph in 1986 after Argentina defeated West Germany, 3-2, to claim the championship. (Carlo Fumagalli Associated Press)

— By Hector Tobar | L.A. Times | November 26, 2020

A mop-haired boy from a Buenos Aires slum, Diego Armando Maradona dribbled and dazzled his way to world fame, becoming one of the greatest soccer players of all time and achieving a godlike status in his homeland when he led Argentina to victory in the 1986 World Cup.

But he also was one of the most self-destructive, a volatile man of prodigious appetites whose excesses landed him in the hospital again and again.

Never far from the spotlight he chased with such fury, Maradona died Wednesday of a heart attack, the Associated Press confirmed. He was 60.

Maradona had been plagued by health issues in recent years and was recently released from a Buenos Aires hospital after suffering a subdural hematoma, which required brain surgery.

As the news of Maradona’s death circulated around the world Wednesday, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez called for three days of national mourning, while UEFA, soccer’s governing body in Europe, announced there would be a minute of silence before its Champions League and Europa League games this week.

Soccer stars past and present took to social media to say goodbye.

Pele, the Brazilian legend and perhaps the greatest player of all time, wrote on Twitter that he “lost a great friend and the world lost a legend.... One day, I hope we can play ball together in the sky.”

Cristiano Ronaldo, the five-time world player of the year from Portugal who currently stars for Italy’s Juventus, tweeted, “Today I say goodbye to a friend and the world says goodbye to an eternal genius.”

Like that other famous Argentine export, the tango, Maradona brought flair, passion and an undeniable sense of darkness to his sport and his life. On the field, few could match his artistry, skill and creativity.

During a professional career that began on a Buenos Aires field when he was 15, Maradona scored hundreds of goals, many of them the stuff of legend, including two in a single match against England in the 1986 World Cup. The first is considered by many the most notorious goal in the history of the sport, and the second is among the most celebrated.

He went on to lead Argentina’s national team to the World Cup title that year, marking the summit of his career. But drug abuse and other acts of self-destruction tainted his final years as a player, and he retired in 1997 just a whisper of his former self.

Maradona played 91 games for the Argentine national team and was a star for teams in Italy and Spain. He played his last World Cup game in Foxboro, Mass., in 1994, escorted off the field for a drug test he would fail.

One of eight children of a laborer who had migrated to the city from rural Corrientes province, Maradona was born Oct. 30, 1960, in a villa miseria, or slum, in the suburban Buenos Aires community of Villa Fiorito. The family lived in abject poverty.

In his autobiography, “I Am El Diego,” he recalled walking to school kicking a ball along streets, up stairs and along railroad tracks. He spent hours playing pickup games in a nearby horse pasture.

When he was 9, a friend invited him to a tryout at Argentinos Juniors, an adult professional soccer team. He impressed enough to earn a spot on the Cebollitas, or Little Onions, a feeder club for the team. The Little Onions would go on to win 136 games without defeat, with young Diego often scoring three or more goals a game.

By the time he was 12, he was working at professional games as a ball boy, becoming a favorite of the crowds for his halftime juggling skills. A television variety show invited him to show off his talents and in soccer-mad Argentina, he became a minor celebrity.

Just a few days before his 16th birthday, the coach of Argentinos Juniors brought him onto the first team. He first stepped onto the field as a substitute, with the coach telling him, “Go, Diego, and play like you know how to play. And if you can, dribble through someone’s legs.” Minutes later, the young Maradona did just that.

“That day,” he said later in his autobiography, “I felt like I touched heaven with my hands.”

Leading Argentine teams began a bidding war for Maradona’s services. He moved his family out of Villa Fiorito to an apartment. Eventually, he joined the famed Boca Juniors team.

He was first named to Argentina’s national team in 1977, when he was 16. But coach Cesar Luis Menotti did not name him to the squad that won the 1978 World Cup, which Argentina hosted. Maradona was crushed.

“I knew he was a great player, who was going to have the chance to play in many more World Cups,” Menotti would say years afterward.

In 1982, after leading Boca Juniors to a league championship, Maradona signed with the Spanish club Barcelona. It was there, friends say, that he got his first taste of cocaine.

“I was, I am now, and I have always been, a drug addict,” he would acknowledge years later.

But on the field, his powers seemed only to grow. After fighting repeatedly with Barcelona management, he moved to the Italian club Napoli, scoring a series of remarkable goals that quickly endeared him to the notoriously fickle Italian fans.

In the 1986 World Cup, played in Mexico, the full range of his skills was on display. During the tournament he scored five goals in leading Argentina to its second World Cup victory, but he will always be remembered for the two he scored in a quarterfinal match against England. Passions were high for the game, played just four years after Britain defeated Argentina in the Falklands War.

With the game scoreless, Maradona challenged English goalkeeper Peter Shilton for a high pass. Maradona punched the ball with his fist into the goal, a blatant violation of the rules seen by nearly everyone but the referee. Asked afterward if he had used his hand, Maradona said the goal had been scored “By the Hand of God.”

Five minutes later, Maradona scored another, the decisive goal in what would be a 2-1 victory over England. Taking the ball in his own half of the field, he dribbled and weaved past most of the English team, then tumbled to the ground as he fired a shot that beat Shilton. In a poll conducted two decades later by soccer’s international governing body, FIFA, it was selected the greatest goal in the history of the World Cup.

“Today he scored one of the most brilliant goals you will ever see,” English coach Bobby Robson said after the game. “The first goal was dubious. The second goal was a miracle.”

“It was as if we had beaten a country, more than just a soccer team,” Maradona would recall in his autobiography.

When Argentina defeated West Germany, 3-2, in the championship game a week later, he stormed off the field and into the locker room shouting obscenities; for Maradona, victory was always tinged with the lingering anger he felt for his rivals and detractors.

Still at the peak of his powers, he inspired Napoli to its first Italian league titles in 1987 and 1990. He married childhood sweetheart Claudia Villafañe in 1989, but would admit later to being unfaithful to her. In 1991 he was again suspended for 15 months after testing positive for cocaine.

Noticeably overweight, he went on a crash diet before the 1994 World Cup, hosted by the United States. But after scoring two goals in three games, he failed a drug test for ephedrine, a performance-enhancing drug. He was kicked out of the World Cup and banned from the sport for 15 months.

“My soul is broken,” Maradona said. But he blamed FIFA officials more than himself. “They cut my legs out from me just as I was trying to come back.”

Maradona eventually returned to play for his old Argentine club team, Boca Juniors, from which he retired in 1997.

Away from the field, Maradona seemed a sad, rotund figure. He traveled to Cuba to seek treatment for drug abuse in 2002 and eventually struck up a friendship with Fidel Castro. When he returned to Argentina, he sported a prominent tattoo of the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, one of Castro’s top lieutenants during the Cuban revolution, on one arm.

Shortly after his 2004 divorce, Maradona began another downward spiral and was hospitalized after a drug overdose and then again for alcohol poisoning. His family had him hospitalized in a psychiatric facility after he threatened to leave the intensive care unit where he had been receiving treatment. He was released but returned a few days later after a bout of overeating.

His death seemed so imminent that daily newspapers in Buenos Aires prepared special sections to run with his obituary.

But after a few weeks he was released and went on to host a popular variety show on Argentine television, “Night With No. 10.” And throughout his career, he never seemed to forget where he came from, lending his name and profile to dozens of charitable endeavors that raised millions, mostly for children’s causes.

He coached briefly, and erratically, for two teams in the Argentine league and then, in a move that stunned and delighted the nation, in 2008 was handed the reins of the country’s national team, which was struggling to right itself before the World Cup. The team advanced to the quarterfinals, hoping that new superstar Lionel Messi’s sublime soccer skills would overcome the confounding coaching decisions made by Maradona. He was dismissed in 2010.

In 2018, Maradona — whose gait had now turned to a shuffle and once-crisp voice to a mumble — was hired to coach the Dorados, a professional team based in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, in the heart of drug country. The only person more famous than Maradona in Sinaloa was Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the legendary drug kingpin.

“Taking Maradona to Sinaloa is like taking a kid to Disneyland,” sportswriter Rafael Martinez wrote on Twitter.

But Maradona, silencing critics again, made it work. Hobbled by knee injuries and using a cane as he shuffled about, he managed to take a young team buried deep in Mexico’s second division to the playoff final, where it lost by a goal in overtime.

“He is very happy, very satisfied with his work,” Fox Deportes analyst Daniel Brailovsky, a former teammate, said. “It’s his passion, it’s his life. It’s everything for him.

“Maradona can’t live without football, and football can’t live without Maradona.”

Six months later, Maradona left Mexico, quickly resurfacing in Argentina as manager for the Gimnasia de la Plata club.

His story was told in the 2019 HBO documentary “Diego Maradona,” with filmmaker Asif Kapadia combing through 500 hours of never-before-seen footage. The result portrays Maradona as he was: a man both tortured and talented, a superhero, antihero and villain, brilliantly gifted on the field and maddeningly flawed away from it.

“Maradona is the synthesis of Argentina,” suggested Guillermo Oliveta, president of the Argentina Marketing Assn. “He came from dire poverty and went up so quickly in social status. And then he crashed, just like the country.”

Tobar is a former Times staff writer. Times staff writers Kevin Baxter and Steve Marble contributed to this report.