#also i realized by the second tweet that i had given all of them basically the same pfp

[helshollowhalls]

I have some thoughts. On Mysta's graduation. And the current state of Nijisanji in general.

At the end of the day, I am not surprised. I expected someone else to graduate first, hell I even expected Niji to keep more of an iron grip on their money makers aka Luxiem in order to milk them for more cash, but I digress.

Mysta is graduating and it only goes to show that their 'money first, talent... third? last?' approach comes back to bite them in the arse. This might be the potential wakeup call for everyone who has yet to realize that the entire English branch of Nijisanji is crumbling away in record time because of the absolutely abysmal talent management and treatment of the livers.

I refrained from speculating who would be the next ones to graduate after Nina - simply because I will leave that job to the anonymous leakers on the site/platform that shall not be named here. Apparently Shu and Vox were brought up as the potential next people to graduate (this is according to a recent Depressed Nousagi stream but he didn't show any screenshots so take that with a massive bucket of salt.) Mysta was allegedly also mentioned down the line, but he seemingly wasn't the first choice.

Honestly, if you think about it the entirety of Luxiem must be so done mentally. They didn't know what to expect when they signed up to become Nijisanji's first male English-speaking Vtuber group. They waltz onto the scene, explode in popularity all over the world out of nowhere basically and suddenly they're Niji EN's favorite child. The company is milking them for all they have because OH BOI do they rake in the cash - not to mention from a target audience that was completely ignored before in the EN corporate sphere - female viewers.

In a lot of things the boys weren't given any choice. Jazz On The Clock? The first ever second unit song in Niji EN ever and it was released even before their anniversary. With Luxiem being the fourth EN wave in total it felt a little counterintuitive - Wouldn't they start another potential wave of unit songs with LazuLight, their first wave? Well, now that Light Me Up is out and Pomu talked about the entire fiasco of LazuLight basically fighting management tooth and nail to be allowed a second unit song, I think most of us can guess how things are going at Anycolor. And in case you're not entirely convinced, just look at the amount of Luxiem merch Niji has put out compared to any other EN wave.

It's not just JotC, but their anniversary/irl Japan meetup stream as well. That stream was something that personally really rubbed me the wrong way because it felt very inauthentic. It felt like the five of them were just shoved into a room at the Niji HQ to play Smash and do some batsus while the executives and managers proceeded to lock the doors and breath down their necks for the entirety of the stream. The stream had a very different feel to it - Comparing it to other Luxiem collab streams or even other anniversary streams. Management didn't consider it necessary to order Obsydia or Ethyria to Japan and record their anniversary streams at the Niji HQ - Well, that would be because none of them make the company as much sweet sweet cash as Luxiem - Closest would maybe be Selen. And even she has been public about the management fuck-ups - I am talking about her outfit design contest here, of course.

But back to Luxiem. I don't follow them as closely as I used to in the beginning, infact I am only subscribed to Shu out of the five, so let's start from here.

The entire wave collectively tweeted very salty and sarcastic remarks about the official announcement of the EN 3D Live Concert being "postponed due to COVID" earlier this year. But out of all of them, it seemingly hit Shu the hardest. I noticed that he was streaming less and less, infact he still isn't streaming as much as he used to.

Ike... oh boi, where do I even begin. Judging from his spontaneous irl hangout with Vox recently and the amount of projects he has been involved in as a vocal mixer, not to mention his two recent songs of which one is an original, this man seems to be working 30 hours a day and is stressed to the max.

Mysta made his personal situation and his ongoing burnout/lack of goals to work towards very clear in his graduation announcement stream, so I won't go into detail.

Vox has also been streaming less frequently. During the course of his employment at Nijisanji he got diagnosed with ADHD and PTSD (I believe), started therapy and medication, had a panic attack during an ASMR stream, started new projects and also some personal issues in his private life to deal with.

I have to be honest about Luca - I don't really know anything about what is going on with him apart from the fact that he planned to move again and got a puppy.

In conclusion, I could see reasons for anyone of them graduating anytime soon. Management isn't treating them well - Management isn't treating anyone in EN well, it seems - and at some point that fact doesn't warrant staying with the company anymore. Plus, money isn't really an issue for any of them at this point I assume - Especially Vox and Mysta. Both of them have enough money to fulfill their potential aspirations as indies or under another agency or manager.

Infact, apart from a couple of livers I can see anyone graduating next because of how Nijisanji handles things.

Some may argue that it all started going downhill when they kicked Yugo or when Zaion got terminated - Regardless of what you think, at the end of the day, the entire branch is seemingly falling apart right in front of us and Nijisanji's reputation is tanking, especially with the English-speaking fanbase, while Hololive idly sits by and watches the drama unfold.

The consequences of Mysta leaving and the message it sends about Nijisanji and how they treat their livers can't be understated.

[phanfictioncatalogue]

(High School) Crush Masterlist

An Angel Out of the Blue (ao3) - Otpcruiseliner

Summary: Dan had always been somewhat of a loner, and he was fine with that. But he had never really been super close with any one person. Now given an opportunity for class extra credit, he is partnered up with a strange, tall, angelic boy with the brightest blue eyes he had ever seen. First piece on here, so please enjoy.

A Small Revelation - daniactuallysnuffledthatpopcorn

Summary: High school AU. Phil has a not-so-straight crush on a boy in his class.

Blue Tweets (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Prompt: At Dan and Phil’s high school, Dan is a talkative, popular teen actor, and Phil is a quiet daydreamer. Dan thinks Phil’s cute and constantly talks about him on his Twitter, danisnotonfire (no duh). What he doesn’t know is that Phil follows him, and starts to connect the dots. (High school au.)

Chocolates, Flowers, Poems, and Other Ways to Say “I Hate You” - placingglaciers

Summary: (tw) In which Dan is determined to show his feelings for Phil, the boy from school who barely knows him, before Valentine’s Day the only way he truly knows how.

Dan and His Butterflies (ao3) - Raspberrysaxophone

Summary: Very basic: Dan is terribly in love with Phil (the sporty jog). So much so, that Dan joins the school's sports team to be closer to him. As Dan awkwardly stumbles around, Phil starts to take notice of him. A party takes place and who knows what a drunk Dan might do...

Feel Good Inc - melancholymango

Summary:  Dan is your local sexually ambiguous religious boy. Phil is your local bad boy that sleeps with anyone that’ll have him and sins as if second nature. Then there’s also the poor original character that gets caught between them and their ridiculous amount of sexual tension. Threesomes, eh?

Here’s Hoping - adayinthelifeofphan

Summary: high school and phil just moved and dan is like mr.popular and like he hates him but secretly loves him and Phil finds something that shows that dan actually loves him and stuff like that.

I Care - dxnhowell

Summary: Dan and Phil are childhood best friends, and Phil happens to have a major crush on him. So one day he gets the courage to ask him out on a day, but things don’t quite go as Phil planned.

Learn me right - definitelythor

Summary: High school aged Fem!Dan has never got off herself because she doesn’t know how to do it. Fem!Phil shows her.

Lover Boy - cafephan

Summary: Phil is the shy new kid at school, taken under the wing of Dan’s group of friends. The two develop crushes on one another, but a secret from the past threatens to jeopardise everything before it even begins.

megaphone to my chest (ao3) - overjoyedlester

Summary: Phil is convinced that him and Dan are meant to be.

(Now all he has to do is work up the nerve to ask Dan out on a date.)

Of Stages And Sketchbooks - cocktailaunt

Summary: Dan is a confident, outgoing theater kid who has a crush on the mysterious, quiet art student that likes to wear leather jackets.

Out Of My Mind - hqcharbon

Summary: Pastel!Dan has always had a crush on punk!Phil, and Louise has always known it. That’s why she planned to get them to go on a carnival date.

Pastels (ao3) - pastelpunkdan

Summary: Phil has a thing for Pastel!Dan, but Dan doesn’t realize it in till he is at his most vulnerable.

Pink Roses (ao3) - roryonice

Summary: Popular!FootballPlayer!Phil comes up with creative ways to ask Pastel!Dan to Prom, but it doesn’t work out the way he’d hoped.

The Taste Of Your Cherry Chapstick - huphilpuffs

Summary: Punk!Phil has a crush, so when Pastel!Dan is manning a kissing booth for a school event, he finds himself showing up with a pound in his pocket.

Varsity Jacket - chocolatesaucelester

Summary: Dan has always been Phil’s close best friend, and that was not going to change now that Phil is the star of the basketball team and one of the most popular and most wanted guys in school.

Venus’s Looking Glass - auroraphilealis

Summary: Shy!punk!Phil has been crushing on confident!pastel!Dan for years now, but he’s never felt comfortable enough to do anything about it until he accidentally comes out to his brother Martyn, who is nothing but supportive. It’s Martyn’s idea to woo Dan with flowers - only, he didn’t mean do it anonymously.

[crapmagak]

Engage Drip Marketing: Anna, talking, and Bonus Firene Theories

This ones probably gonna be a quickie. And honestly, it’s nice to have a little breather.

Anna intro tweet…

Anna is a merchant in training. It seems she's traveling around various countries in search of treasures that might sell for a pretty penny.

And cutscene tweet…

Anna is surprised when she realizes Alear is the Divine Dragon. It seems her instincts as a merchant are at work.

"T-the Divine Dragon? Y-you're the Divine Dragon? I-I'm sensing a good business opportunity...

...Ahem, my name is Anna. Just call me Anna-san. Nice to meet you!"

Seems Anna’s a recruitable unit in the game, and not even dlc. In fact, she seems to be a main story recruit. And considering the background behind her, I think she’s recruited during or after the Fierenesse ruin chapter.

The crit clip just says Anna is an ax fighter, with nothing new about the class. Oh well, they don’t really need to make new bios for repeat classes anyways. Anna herself has never really had a dedicated class given to her either, but I’m surprised she’s an ax fighter instead of a thief. Maybe it’s a hero's reference. Or maybe ax fighters can promote into a more fitting class for her. We also see more of the bridge chapter, and the Brodian map theme. Maxes me eager for whenever the ost leaks to youtube.

But we’ve also got a bonus tweet about the talk action…

Units with the Talk icon on them can be conversed with by choosing the Talk command when next to them. There are units who will become allies when spoken to, so use the Talk command actively. There are units who can only be spoken to with certain ally units too.

So, this monk unit with a unique color scheme and design, that Alear can talk to, is absolutely recruitable. It’s also clear they’re among the villagers you’re meant to save in that one chapter. I’m guessing they’re a boy, probably our second healer unit.

Speaking of which, I think I have a better idea of how Firene is gonna shake out story wise. Basically, in the Dragon Awakens trailer, the subtitles reveal one piece of dialogue comes from Queen Eve. “My kingdom has another Emblem Ring in its possession.” So, I think this means those ruins our heroes seem to end the Firene arc on would be the ring's location (Perhaps Micaiah’s?). On the way there, our heroes clean up some local bandits, and recruit this monk, Yunaka, and Anna. But there are two things of note to me.

1: I find Eve’s voice kind of off. Like, it has the same deep, airiness I associate with sexy female villains. Like, before the subtitles I thought this was a line of dialogue from Ivy. Like, that could just be an odd line read. But the fact it’s playing during the ominous music cut in showing off a lot of villains kind of makes her look sus. And considering the everything about Emperor Morion, the leaders of the four countries aren’t looking too good. If the ruler of Solm is also evil seeming, this story may be going some interesting places.

2: In the Engaging with Emblems trailer, we get a look at a town covered in familiar windmills, burning to the ground, and full of Elusian soldiers. This makes me think at some point in the story, Firenze is gonna get invaded again, and that each country's arc doesn’t end on the first visit. This also makes me think if Eve doesn’t turn out to be a villain, she will also meet the fate of Fire Emblem parents.

All in all, it seems like there really will be characters skipped over in favor of the main royals and their retainers. Not a terrible choice considering how close release is, in my mind. Still, I’m absolutely gonna spoil myself when the game comes out so I know how to recruit everyone. 

[roseworth]

back on my bullshit (making arrow tweets)

[tteokggukk]

welcome to my youtube channel → kth

✳ pairing: idol!taehyung x youtuber!reader

✳ genre: fluff, taehyung scenario, stranger to lovers, reader is an artist who posts art videos on youtube

✳ warnings: none!

✳ words: 2.9k

✳ a/n: hello, this is my second bts oneshot/scenario. i just like to write for fun but if you’d like to let me know if there’s anything i can improve on please do so! i’d love to know how to improve. anyways, i hope you enjoy!

"Hey guys, welcome to my YouTube Channel."

You spoke in front of the camera. Sets of acrylic paint were spread out across the table next to a stand that held an 18x24 inch canvas. You were in the middle of making your seventeenth video, a highly requested one at that, and deep down you were ecstatic to start working on the painting.

Never in your life did you think you would ever start a YouTube account. You always considered yourself a very shy and private person, not one to go out of their way and broadcast themselves all over the internet. Your best friends, however, were two very well-known YouTubers and always found a way to include you in their videos and live streams. Somehow people liked seeing more of you, and so you were convinced by your best friends and the audience to start your own YouTube channel.

But you weren't very accustomed to bringing a camera everywhere with you to document and share whatever was happening in your daily life, you found it too awkward and you were still camera-shy, so you decided to create content in a way that would still keep you comfortable while doing something you loved.

An art channel.

Your channel blew up pretty fast. Requests started pouring in here and there. You became known for your very calm demeanor and artistic skills, so you took this as an opportunity to sell your works online as a way to earn some extra money for your future. Occasionally, you'd do lives to talk to your fans and you were happy at the support they showed you, which only encouraged you to keep making videos.

"This was a highly requested video, and I honestly can't wait to get started," you told the camera, mentally telling yourself to insert the comments and messages you got in your DMs to paint this Adonis-like human being. The requests started coming in after you had an Instagram live where you did some quick sketches while playing some of your favorite songs in the back, and people noticed one of the songs you played was by him.

"You guys also asked if I could sell this painting, but because of the "high demand"," you spoke, adding air quotes, "I'd like to keep it up for auction so the proceeds could go to different fundraisers."

You started mixing different colors in your palette and showed everyone the picture for your reference.

"So, without further ado, today I will be painting Kim Taehyung."

"Hey guys, welcome to my YouTube Channel."

Taehyung watched as you spoke in the video, looking behind you to see a bunch of art materials. The title of the video was left ambiguously, only being named most requested video, leaving him no clue on what it was you were going to create this time.

He's been watching your videos for quite some time now, ever since your channel started rising. Art was one of his major interests and he absolutely adored the way you made your videos with the calming, ASMR-like sound of mixing paint and how you skillfully glided the brush across the canvas. On days when he found himself tired and in need of a quick way to relax, he'd subconsciously find himself binge watching videos on your channel— even repeating several videos since you were only starting. He found it fascinating, but also because he found you interesting.

Because of your channel, he even created an anonymous YouTube account just to leave nice comments on your videos along with a private Instagram account to be able to watch your lives.

Needless to say, he didn't miss that one live where you played the song Winter Bear. It made his whole night, making him sleep with a smile on his face.

"This was a highly requested video, and I honestly can't wait to get started." 

He watched as a bunch of comments started appearing onscreen popping up one by one as they gradually got faster, eventually covering you. It took a moment before it sunk in that he was the highly requested person they wanted you to paint. He paused the video, wide-eyed, before shouting in excitement. Jimin had to come in and check what the whole commotion was about.

"Y/n's going to paint me!" Taehyung exclaimed, his mouth turning into his famous boxy smile. 

"Ah, the YouTuber you really like?" Jimin smiles before sitting down next to Taehyung who continued playing the video, "I wanna see."

"You guys also asked if I could sell this painting, but because of the "high demand", I'd like to keep it up for auction so the proceeds could go to different fundraisers."

"Wow, she seems really kind," Jimin says, while Taehyung only nods, his eyes glued to the screen.

"So, without further ado, today I will be painting Kim Taehyung."

He felt his heart beat fast when you mentioned his name, and without realizing it his ears have gone all red. 

On screen, you began sketching, "You guys have also been sending me a lot of questions lately, which is why I decided to tweet about doing a q&a."

"What questions did you ask?" Jimin asked Taehyung.

"I asked her if being an artist is something she'd like to pursue," Taehyung told him.

"Ooooh, trying to get to know her," Jimin teases, "Our little Taehyungie has a celebrity crush."

Taehyung rolls his eyes but breaks out into a grin anyway, "I just respect her artistry."

"Right, okay," Jimin snickers, obviously not buying it.

Taehyung knew he was telling the truth, though. It was impossible to have feelings for someone who you only knew through a screen. He found you attractive for sure, but he of all people would know that almost no one is completely one-hundred percent themselves on screen. Genuine as you may be, there are still things that are best kept to yourself. He couldn’t lie though, if given the chance to get to know you, he’d never pass up on that offer.

"Someone asked why I don't use that much ready-made paint," You spoke on screen, "It's ‘cause I learn a lot from mixing my own colors, and also I just really enjoy it."

The painting was beginning to come together halfway through the video and Taehyung's question finally made its way to you. "Kimyeontan95 asks, ‘is painting a career you want to pursue? I love your work, by the way’."

"That was basically I love you," Jimin holds back a laugh, earning him a light punch in the arm from Taehyung.

"Thank you so much, kimyeontan95, and no, painting is just a hobby of mine and a way to earn some future savings. I actually really want to be a novelist."

Taehyung smiled after hearing you answer his question. Later on, the video was over and his portrait was complete. He hurriedly redirected himself to the link that was provided for the auction.

Something in him wanted to have that painting no matter what, so he set himself as the highest bidder and eventually had it mailed to his home where he put your work up in his room to cherish.

A day after your video was posted, you woke up to a thousand notifications from your phone. Hundreds of people were mentioning you in tweets and you had numerous missed calls from your best friends and some texts telling you to check your online art shop. You groggily scroll through your feed, a bit confused as to what was happening.

I wanted to buy this painting and I had it in my list, but now it's unavailable!

Y'ALL WHAT RICH KID SET THE HIGHEST BID TO A MILLION DOLLARS IM CRYING

@yourtwittername are you planning to sell a new collection?

a million dollar bid wtf swownwowksodiowl

Someone just bought all of @yourtwitterusername's paintings. I'm crying in broke eye—

but like what if taehyung set that bid? @yourtwitterusername

What?

I just woke up and my mentions are pouring. What is going on? You tweeted.

Thousands of replies began coming in leaving you feeling overwhelmed and confused on where to start. Everyone was telling you to check your site, and so you did. You felt your heart almost stop beating when you saw that every single artwork you had up for sale were sold out. Nothing was left behind. You checked your emails, and the confirmations were there.

How could this have happened overnight?

ALL MY WORKS ARE SOLD OUT?!?!?!?? WHO COULDVE DONET THIS??? You tweeted, hands shaking.

You felt your heart race, a wide grin that could go even wider if possible was plastered on your face. You tried to stop yourself from screaming in excitement but couldn't so you ended up jumping up and down and doing happy dances before calming down to assess the situation. Finally, you sat down in front of your laptop to see where all your works were being shipped to.

Replies started coming in.

CONGRATS YOU FIGURED IT OUT

WILL U RESTOCK

AHSKWJOA CONGRATS BB

I'M SO HAPPY FOR U

BUT Y/N WHO BOUGHT THEM ALL

Checking your emails, you discover that your art works were all bought by one person. Anonymous. There was no name and someone requested to have their personal information redacted. 

Anonymous? Surely this wasn't a joke?

The person kept their name anonymous. You tweeted and muted the notifications just to allow yourself to focus on finding out who it was that bought everything.

At the bottom of all the removed personal information, there was one username that you were sure you've heard or seen somewhere.

@ Kimyeontan95. 

Underneath the username was a short but sincere message.

"Your videos have always helped me wind down after a long, busy day. I can't express how much you inspire me with your talent and how I wish someday you'd teach me to be half as good as you, as I'm not very gifted in the painting department. I admire how you put your gifts into good things, and I very much idolize you in one way or another. This is just a small way of showing my support for you, but also because all your works are amazing and I'd love to have a small room filled with my favorite art works. I look forward to reading works of yours soon, future novelist.”

Feeling the heat creeping up on your cheeks, you smiled to yourself. The letter was definitely heartfelt and you wanted so badly to thank the person who sent it.

Later that afternoon, you decided to go on live to personally thank the anonymous buyer for buying your works and for sending that wonderful note. You fixed yourself up a little bit and pressed live as thousands of your followers began to tune in.

"Hello, everyone," you greeted, smiling. Replies with greetings started coming in and you couldn't help but chuckle at the eager messages your followers were sending. They truly made you happy.

As expected, several questions began pouring in.

"Right, so, I wanted to do this live because of what happened. As you may have noticed, all my works were suddenly sold out which definitely took me by surprise," you started, "Unfortunately the buyer left everything anonymous. They only left what I assume is a username and a short letter, which I will keep to myself for personal reasons."

@follower1WHAT

@follower2 will you keep selling your works?

@follower3 THATS SUCH A SWEET GESTURE THO OMG/

@follower4 am I the only one who thinks a secret admirer bought it

@follower5 check my YouTube channel I made a theory on who bought her works

@follower6 i rlly think it's taehyung

@follower7 I’'m so proud of you :(((

"If the person who bought all of my paintings is watching this, I really want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate the letter as well, you've honestly made me the happiest person on Earth," you smiled.

@follower8 AWWWWW

@follower9 ANON COME OUT

@follower10 i really wanna know what the letter says

@ Kimyeontan95 I'm glad :)

Your heart stopped at one of the replies. You took your phone immediately from its fixed position with wide eyes and began scrolling up fast because of the immediate replies coming in. Wasn't that the username?

@follower11 what's going on?

@follower12 y/n are you okay?

You could no longer find the reply so you set your phone down, fixing it back in place.

"For a second I thought the person who bought it was watching my live," you sighed and smiled nervously, "So anyways— I'd really love to express my gratitude so if they're watching, please contact me. I can't say thank you en—"

Suddenly the replies were frantic. People were sending keyboard smashes here and there. Only a few of them were actual coherent comments. "What is going on?" You asked as you began scrolling through.

@follower13 Y/N CHECK VLIVE

@follower14 TaEHYUNF IS ON LIVE

@follower15 I kNEW IT THOUGH???

@follower16 Y/N CHECK TAEHYUNGS LIVE

@follower5 Y'ALL I WAS RIGHT I SAID CHECK MY YT

Keeping your live on, you grabbed your laptop as fast as you could to check out the links being sent to your live. When it finally loaded, you could've sworn you'd have a heart attack. 

"Oh, I think she's watching me," Taehyung grinned through his live, holding his phone in front of the camera. He quickly shows the viewers his phone screen, which showed your live of you watching him through your laptop. Your eyes widened and you looked back at your phone camera that was broadcasting your live, then back at his live.

Taehyung started giggling, "I guess we're just watching each other, huh?" He smiled. Behind him were packed and unpacked parcels of paintings you recognized were yours. If it was even possible, your eyes grew even wider at this, "Oh my god," you breathed out.

"I should probably introduce myself," Taehyung spoke, "Hello everyone, I'm Kim Taehyung. How are you all doing? Today I’m planning on redecorating my room after our practice. What are the packages behind me? Oh, these are paintings I recently bought."

"Are those my paintings?" You asked out loud, though you knew the answer. 

"Are those my paintings?" Your voice echoed from Taehyung's broadcast as your live was streaming from his phone. He grinned sheepishly, "Yes, these are your works, I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," You smiled, "You were the buyer?" 

You mentally slapped yourself for asking such obvious questions, but you just couldn't believe everything that was happening now.

"Yes," he chuckles, "I really love your paintings." Suddenly the sound of Jimin’s voice echoed from behind and Taehyung quickly stood up to lock the door, knowing he’d get the teasing of a lifetime if Jimin came and saw him talking to you.

"Thank you so much, I—" Your voice began to crack and your eyes welled with tears that you tried to fight back, "I really appreciate it. And the letter, that was really sweet."

"No, thank you. Wait, don't cry—" Taehyung spoke nervously.

"I'm just so happy," You laughed while wiping the tears off.

The replies from both ends were coming in like crazy. On one hand, majority of everyone watching found the whole scenario cute and started pairing you two out of nowhere, though there were a few haters on the other. It didn't really bother you, you were just so happy someone you idolized noticed your work.

"I'm glad," he was watching you with a fond smile through his phone, then the sound of the Jin’s voice began coming from outside Taehyung’s room, "Sorry for this sudden grand reveal. I really can't stay on live for too long but I'd love to keep talking to you." He spoke.

"Oh no, that's okay," You spoke fast.

"Do you mind if I send you a message? Assuming you already know the username," he asks.

"No not at all, I'd love to keep talking as well," your heart was beating erratically now. You didn't have to see your face to know how red it was becoming.

"Alright, great. Um, before I end this vlive I just wanna say you're a great artist and to all my viewers watching this, please support y/n's artworks and her channel! If I see any negative comments, I'll be taking responsibility and I'll unfortunately have my agency involved in taking those out," he spoke in a commercial tone kind of voice, "And to y/n, I'll be keeping in touch.” The door from behind him suddenly bursts open and Jin, Jimin, and Jungkook rush inside.

“You were talking to her!” Jimin shouts excitedly.

“Finally!” Jungkook claps.

“Is that why you kept the door locked?” Jin teases.

“Bye, everyone!" Taehyung quickly waves goodbye to the camera and smiles before turning the broadcast off. 

You sat there stunned, almost forgetting you were also on live. You turned to your phone which was still recording you, "That was unexpected."

Suddenly, a notification in your DMs popped up. "I'll go ahead and process everything that just happened now, bye guys! See you in my next video." You ended the live with a wave and smile.

You quickly went into your direct messages and found the same username, Kimyeontan95. You opened it and found a picture of Taehyung holding one of your paintings with a peace sign on his other hand, the other members behind him posing with your other works, making you laugh.

Your heart fluttered at the message below the picture.

I hope this isn't too sudden, but would you like to go out with me sometime?

a/n: hello! if you finished it, thank you so much for reading! i hope you liked it hehe. i think i’m gonna keep posting the stuff i write bc i have so many ideas for the other members as well. also this is fun hehe. if you wanna read my other work, let’s fall in love for the night, ← here’s a link! thanks again for reading and please look forward to my future writing/edits.

[robinofgothamcity]

♡ starting prompt: based off a tweet i saw that said ‘we always kinda shipped them together. he kept scoffing that he didn’t like her and yet he always look at her first when someone made a joke to see if she was laughing too’.  

♡ pairing: walter hahn (WWE / NXT) x fem reader

♡ lyric inspiration: “come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination. take a look and you’ll see into your imagination. i’ll be begin with a spin....”

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes

"who’s that?” Walter asked his blond friend. Marcel looked up to see you, headphones in and blaring music so loud that everyone was able to hear. “oh, that’s ( your name ). she’s Timothy’s-,” before he could finish the sentence, Timothy came up to you and gave you a quick hug, “that’s his manager. she also works in the front office,” he continued. 

Walter’s eyebrows went down in confusion. never in the time that they were together in RingKampf had he ever took interest in having a manager and from the looks of it, you were the exact opposite of Tim. from afar, you were bubbly, excitable, and cute. 

Tim was nothing of the sort. polar opposites one might say. 

you were sitting in your seat as Tim was eating lunch. dancing to whatever you were listening, Walter couldn’t help but laugh at your antics. he knew Tim like the back of his hand so the decision to make you his manager was either his doing or something that was out of his hand. 

“she’s....interesting,” he said under his breath, making Marcel look at him for a moment, “any particular reason why you’re so interested in her? she’s been his manager for a while now,” Marcel put in. Walter shook his head, deciding not to respond. 

you were Tim, watching as he scarfed down his dinner while you finished up a few papers that needed to get done for next weeks taping. you were supposed to be dressed and ready to go by six but because of Tim’s new storyline with the boys from Imperium, you had to figure out a few things before the match. 

Timothy was a bit hard headed at first, stating that he didn’t need a manager but after a while, he got used to having you around. you were almost like a pest that he cared about like a sister. 

“hey, your friends are over there! why don’t you say hi!” you exclaimed, seeing Walter, Fabian, and Marcel in a corner, speaking to each other, “no. we’re not supposed to be speaking with each other,” was all he said before continuing to eat. 

you huffed before scooting out of your chair, “well, I’m going to say hello. since we’re going to be working with each other, I guess it’s only right to get formalities out of the way,” you stated, making Tim’s eyes go wide in panic. 

he instantly tried to get you to come back but by the time he tried to reach for you to come back, you were already prancing over to them. 

“hi!” you exclaimed happily. Fabian, the friendliest of the bunch gave you a smile, “i’m ( your name )! Tim’s manager. it’s nice to meet all of you!” you introduced yourself, giving them your hand to shake. 

Fabian introduced himself, giving you a hug instead. Marcel on the other hand just took the handshake and murmured his name to you. Walter remained looking at you, not bothering to say anything outside of giving you a simple head nod. 

to the untrained eye, like yourself and others, Walter’s reaction was a given. he was never a man of many words yet to the boys and Tim, they could see that Walter was holding himself back. almost like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. 

you giving Walter a smile, one that would’ve made anyone fall for you but he just turned his head to another direction and started to speak to Marcel in German. you gave Fabian a confused look, wondering why he didn’t tell you much but you felt a hand clasp onto your shoulder a second after. 

“evening boys,” Tim’s voice spoke from behind you. you gave him another look, wondering why he went back on his word from earlier, “they’re looking for you in makeup and they’re pissed,” he whispered into your ear.

your eyes widened, realizing you were beyond late to get your makeup done. you gave them a quick goodbye, shoving your work into Tim’s hands and screaming at him to put it into your office before basically darting off to the makeup station. 

Tim, Fabian, Marcel, and now Alex who had shown up looked at Walter with suspecting eyes. no one said a word but Tim could sense Walter had taken an infatuation with you. 

+

a few weeks passed since your encounter with Walter and the rest of Imperium. since you were working 'against’ them now, outside of the ring, you got a bit close to Marcel and Alex. they would invite you to sit next to them when Tim wasn’t with you. 

you tried to get closer with Walter but he always closed you off. he would say absolutely nothing to you and when had too, it wasn’t anything besides a few words. at first you thought that maybe you just annoyed him to the point where he didn’t like you but eventually, Tim told you that he was just that way with anyone that didn’t know him. 

“good morning to my favorite Germans!” you said, running up to Marcel and Alex, engulfing them into a forced hug. they stood stiff, basically embracing the forced hug, “and Walter!” you added on, giving him a brief wave. 

“where’s your boyfriend?” Alex asked, looking around. you fluttered your eyebrows in confusion, “boyfriend? wanna tell me who that is?” you asked. Marcel gave you a hearty laugh, “Tim. he’s asking for Timothy,” he stated. 

you let out a laugh, louder than you intended as you sat down next to Walter and Alex, “Tim? my boyfriend? that’s like saying it’s gonna snow in Florida. never going to happen,” you joked, trying to calm down your giggles. “very defensive about it, aren’t ya?” Alex added on. 

“people love the idea that we’re secretly together but Timothy is like an annoying brother. I love him but I wanna kick his ass 90% of the time. the other 10 is caring that he doesn’t get killed by you guys.” 

before you could continue, you heard a producer call your name, telling you that you were needed to clear up a few things for Hunter. you told them goodbye and went over to the producer. 

“so she’s single, huh?” Alex said, tapping his chin. Marcel looked at him, “why do you care?” he asked. Alex shrugged, “now that we know maybe this idiot will ask her out,” he mentioned. 

Marcel let out a laugh as Walter stared at him annoyed, “yeah right. he actually has to make conversation first and he can’t even do that with her. I’ve been hearing a few people have been interested in asking her out. not that she knows or anything,” Marcel said quietly. 

he actually had no idea if anyone was interested in you or not. personally, he could have cared less but he knew his best friend better than anyone else. Walter liked you, he was just too much of a chicken shit to actually admit to it. 

“who?” Walter asked almost immediately. Marcel closed the circle in, “for starters, in the NXT roster is Jordan Devlin and Sami Zayn from Smackdown has been rumored to have gotten her number,” Marcel lied. Alex perked at the names, “and how did you find out?” he asked, a bit suspicious that he knew. 

Marcel shrugged, not bothering to say anything for a moment, “oh, just heard a few of the girls talking yesterday while I was working out,” Walter stared at the table, his mind racing with thoughts. he never knew others actually had taken an interest in you, not that it was wrong to do as such but he was taken back that it was more than one person. 

“what has you so quiet all of a sudden?” Walter shook his head, not responding as he got up, taking his jacket with him and leaving the table. “I wonder what his problem is,” Alex murmured. Marcel laughed, “he’s finally going to grow a pair and ask her out,” Marcel stated. 

-

you were working in your office, sorting through a few different files you needed for a storyline in the women’s division. it was already late into the night as you filed the sheets away and started to get your things ready to leave.

“of course this week had to be my busiest week, now I have to call an Uber home,” you groaned. you had put your car in the shop because of a few issues it had and it wasn’t expected to get finished until at least Monday, “god damn it Tim, you just had to leave,” you huffed. 

just as you pulled your phone out, you saw Walter walking out of the locker room, “hey Walter! what are you doing here so late?” you asked, trying not to make it awkward, “I stayed working out late,” he said. 

you nodded, “ah, don’t overwork yourself now,” you mentioned, “but give me a second? I need to call an Uber home. my car is stuck at the mechanics until Monday and Tim already left,” Walter’s eyes widened, realizing this was his chance. 

“I have a car, I can take you home?” he asked, trying not to come off as intimidating. you perked up in relief, “really? that would be so amazing!” you said happily. he grabbed his keys and jiggled them, “my cars on the other side of the building,” he said.

you followed behind, trying to make conversation and interestingly enough, he was actually responding to you like a normal person would. not those snippets of conversations he would say around the others. 

the entire ride home, you were trying to crack jokes, seemingly trying to make him laugh which ended in you making an idiot out of yourself and making him laugh that way instead. Walter had never realized he actually liked you as much as the others would joke he did but now that it was just the two of you, he could sense the feelings were there. 

the ride to your house was a bit on the shorter side. you lived in a small two bedroom house, closer to Full-Sail than he thought. just as he put the car into park to let you get out, you turned around and gave him a smile, making Walter glad that it dark outside and you weren’t able to see his sudden red face. 

“I know this is weird but would you like to come in? I have food I made for myself this morning after I came from work and I’m sure there’s enough for you.” 

Walter sighed in relief. 

“I would love too.” 

[storiesforallfandoms]

he’ll never see this ~ noen eubanks

word count: 1994

request?: yes!

“Hi can you do one imagine of Noen Eubanks, like, the reader is a tik toker or influencer something like that and they have a crush on each other,and they Fans are Shipping them.

Thanksss💖🖤💖🖤💖”

description: in which she admits her feelings for a fellow creator during a stream thinking he’ll never see it

pairing: noen eubanks x female!reader

warnings: swearing

masterlist (one, two)

The sound of a new donation message coming in pulled you away from your game for a split second. The automated voice read the message out to you: “are there any influencers that you are totally crushing on right now?”

You chuckle to yourself as you turn back to your game. “You guys really wanna start something, huh? You realize this will be trending within an hour if I say anything.”

You glanced over at your chat to see they were begging you to tell them who your influencer crush was. You had mentioned a few times that there was a fellow influencer that you had a crush on, but you refused to admit who it was (for obvious reasons). Your viewers, however, were determined to find out who this mystery man you liked was.

“We promise we’ll keep it a secret,” you read, managing to catch one message before it disappeared into the void of never ending messages. “I don’t believe you guys at all.”

You laughed as you watched the chat blow up again. You finally paused your game and made your face cam bigger for the audience. “Okay, you know what? Fuck it, there’s no way he’ll ever see this and I’m not big enough of a content creator to have articles written about me. My influencer crush is Noen Eubanks. If you don’t know who he is, look him up on TikTok and you’ll totally understand why I have such a crush on him.”

Your chat went absolutely wild at this. You went back to playing your game, smiling to yourself as you did so. It felt nice to get that off of your chest, and you knew you were about to get a kick out of your fan’s reactions to this.

Like you said, you had no fear of Noen actually finding out what you said. You had a bit of a following, but it was nothing too big. Just enough that you could be classified as “Internet famous”, but not enough that admitting you had a crush on someone else who had a much bigger following than you would be a big deal.

Or so you thought.

After your stream, you decided to go right to bed. You were feeling tired and had to get up early to edit the video you were planning on uploading. You weren’t awake to witness the internet absolutely explode over your comment, but lucky for you it was still happening when you woke up the next morning.

When you checked your phone for the first time that day, you noticed that your notifications had blown up over night. You figured it was just your fans teasing you over your crush on Noen, which it partly was, but you noticed that it was also YouTube news Twitter accounts and internet tabloid accounts tagging you in their articles about your crush on Noen.

“Oh no,” you said, your eyes widening as you read through article after article, tweet after tweet.

Before you knew it, you had spent nearly two hours sat on the floor, reading through everything that mentioned both you and Noen. All the articles were the same: an brief introduction to you and your small Twitch/YouTube following, talking about you admitting to having a crush on Noen the night before, and asking whether the reading audience believed that you and Noen would make a good couple or not.

The reactions from fans were as entertaining as you figured - with many of your fans trying to come up with ship names for you and Noen and tagging him in clips from your stream - but then there were the less than entertaining reactions. Many people, whether they were Noen’s fans or just people who wanted to hate on you you weren’t sure, were saying you had mentioned Noen’s name just for clout, or that your “crush” was nothing more than an infatuation over his looks.

It wasn’t until your phone rang that you were finally pulled out of your trance and back to the real world. Your friend’s name lit up on your screen, and it took you a moment to collect yourself before you answered.

“(Y/N), have you been online yet today?” she asked.

You sighed and nodded, then remembered she couldn’t actually see you. “Yeah, I’ve been scrolling for the past two hours on Twitter.”

“You haven’t checked your Twitch page, or YouTube account yet?”

Your eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “No? Should I?”

“You definitely should.”

You put her on speaker and switched to your Twitch app. You were shocked to see that you had skyrocketed in subs overnight, same with your YouTube page. You had gained a solid ten thousand subscribers on both platforms, and it was still rising by the second.

“So this situation has gained me more subscribers, who cares? That’s not why I talked about Noen on stream,” you said.

“Oh no, honey. It isn’t just the situation that has given you new subscribers. Go check Noen’s Twitter.”

You knew what she was implying, but you had to see it for your own eyes. You immediately opened the Twitter app again and typed in Noen’s name. You were brought to his Twitter page, where his most recent tweet was a link to the clip from your stream along with a caption that read, “When your internet crush calls you *their* internet crush”.

You covered your mouth in shock. You were sure you were about to start screaming, but you were so speechless that you couldn’t force any sounds from your mouth.

“I’m assuming by the silence that you’ve seen it,” your friend said after a prolonged moment of silence.

“D-Did he just c-call me his...?” you trailed off, unable to finish your sentence.

“He did,” your friend confirmed. “And both of your fans are going wild. They’ve already come up with a ship name for you, which isn’t the most clever name but I admire their spirit.”

You could barley hear what your friend was saying. You were still staring at the tweet in disbelief. Your mind could barley comprehend anything else besides the fact that your online crush thought the same as you. You were trying to tell yourself not to get too worked up, as it was most likely that nothing was going to come from this besides some gossip for a week or more, but your heart was still racing with excitement.

You gasped as a notification popped up on the top of your screen: “@/eubanks_noen is requesting to message you”.

“He’s trying to DM me,” you whisper, so silently that you could barley hear yourself.”

“What?”

“He’s trying to DM me! On Twitter!”

“What are you doing talking to me?! Go answer his DM!”

You were too focused to laugh as you hung up the phone and went into your DMs. The familiar profile picture that you saw almost every day on your timeline was the first thing you saw in your message requests. Your whole body was shaking so much that you could barley see the screen as you pressed to open it.

“hi :)”

It was a very simple message, but it was enough to make your heart race even more.

You were debating on messaging back, wondering if maybe this was a fake account or something. But you knew there was only one way to find out for sure, so you took a deep breath and responded.

“hi! :)”

His response came near seconds later: “so...we’re the internet’s hottest power couple, huh?”

You chuckled to yourself. “i guess we are. sorry if i ruined your mentions last night. i didn’t think it would blow up the way it has. i’m not all that famous online.”

“are you kidding me? you’re like one of the best twitch streamers. i’ve watched every single one of your streams, including last night’s”

You felt your face heating up, but a slight groan of embarrassment came from your lips. You were thinking of all the embarrassing things you had said and done on stream, and now wished you could just melt into the floor or erase the entire internet.

“oh that’s embarrassing. i’d say i’m not that awkward and dumb in real life, but i’m actually more so”

“i wouldn’t say you’re awkward or dumb at all. i think you’re adorable”

“Oh my God!” you exclaimed to no one in particular. If your face got any hotter, it would be on fire.

“you really know how to talk to a girl”

“i really don’t, but i’m glad you’re enjoying my attempts to flirt”

“so you’re flirting? never would’ve known”

“i know, it’s hard to tell. i’m trying to be subtle”

You continued to message Noen for a while. It felt so natural, as if you weren’t talking to someone you had been crushing on for about a year now. You were extremely glad you weren’t coming off as awkward as you normally felt.

Finally, after having been sat on the floor for a good three hours, your back began to ache and your stomach was growling so loudly in attempts to get your attention. You realized then that you had put getting breakfast on hold in order to fall deep into the hole of internet gossip that had surrounded you overnight.

“love talking to you and all, but i’m gonna have to go for a little bit. i’ve been sat on the floor basically since i woke up and i haven’t eaten yet today so my stomach is very upset with me”

“why are you on the floor? 😂”

“when i’m stressed i tend to sit down no matter where i am, and i was very stressed to see my name plastered all over social media this morning”

“why were you stressed over that?”

“it’s not something i’m exactly used to. like i said, i’m not overly famous online. i just have a small following. i’m not someone who has an article written about every little thing she says. also like i said, i didn’t expect you to see me admit that i have a crush on you last night, so i was so worried about what your reaction was going to be”

“i guess i can understand that. i haven’t had a lot written about me. i’m not a big tiktoker like some of my friends are, but i guess that’s a blessing”

You started to type another message, but paused when you saw the three dots from Noen indicating that he was typing something else.

“for what it’s worth, i’ve had a internet crush on you since you first started streaming”

Your jaw dropped at this. You had started streaming months before you even knew about Noen, which meant he had known about you before you knew about him. Just when you thought this day couldn’t get any better.

“wow! that’s quite a while. you must be one of my first subscribers then”

“i’m up there i think. i’ll wear that badge with pride”

The three dots again. You waited anxiously to see what he was about to say.

“i liked getting to talk to you today, though. maybe we could talk offline sometime, like through text or phone call. maybe meet in person eventually”

Your smile was so wide that it hurt your cheeks. “yeah, i’d really like that”

You exchanged phone numbers and added his to your contacts. You finally pulled yourself off the floor and started making a super late breakfast while also starting to edit your next video since you had also gotten such a late start on that.

You were putting your food on a plate when your phone chimed, indicating a new text message.

“btw, it’s nice to finally get to meet you internet crush :)”

“it’s nice to get to meet you, too, internet crush”

You sat at the table, your heart feeling warm. And to think, it all came true thanks to one nosy donation.

Not sure how much I like this imagine, but I hope you enjoyed anyways!

[golbrocklovely]

Can i just say that these assumptions of them or one of them only posting “attractive” fans isnt only a tumblr thing. I just saw it all over twitter from fans saying they feel horrible or insecure because its the same fans. These same fans are now being posted from other male friends of theirs. One girl even questioned if she had to show more skin.

I personally blame it on the algorithm. I dont follow a lot of these people yet i see their tweets pop up so my guess is with two times one of them likes their tweets, they will keep seeing them pop up too. Plus these same fans get noticed once and from then on will tag them in every photo.

i did see one or two tweets a couple days ago that basically said something like "i guess i have to be pretty to get noticed" and that honestly breaks my heart.

a lot of the reason why ppl don't get noticed as often is literally the algorithm. once snc, or any creator, notice a fan, that fan is gonna come back up recommended to them more often than fans they've never engaged with.

also, some fans have more followers than others, which means they have more engagement/more ppl who will @ said creator to notice this fan over and over again. there are some fans that i know of that have 10k followers, and get 100s of comments. there's no way you can really beat that, even if you get a couple friends of yours to spam the comments with snc's handles.

another thing to remember to is sometimes it's just pure luck. literally it could be you missed them by a few seconds, and that's why they didn't see your post.

i think one thing, majorly, to keep in mind is that snc have a LOT of fans now. a lot more than they did back in the day. they literally have almost 7 mil subs on youtube. obviously, not every one of those ppl might be following them on other platforms. but at the very least, on any given day, there are a mil ppl yelling at them to notice them. that's a little less than the size of philadelphia.

snc have a whole ass city screaming at them to pay attention to them specifically. they most likely aren't going to notice you. and it's not bc they don't like you or think you aren't worth noticing. it is literally the fact that they can't hear you over everyone else.

i think fandoms as a whole need to realize that notices aren't important. i'm not saying you shouldn't be proud or happy if you do get noticed, but i do think ppl need to understand that just bc you don't get noticed, doesn't mean you aren't talented or special.

you shouldn't try to create art just for the sake of being noticed, bc let me tell you, you will never be satisfied. getting noticed is gonna feel nice, but only for a fleeting moment. you should create art that you are proud of, regardless of whether or not it will get noticed.

[breakingsomething]

Dawn Station - Pilot

Basic summary: Video game developer Jack Mcloughlin is finally releasing a new game after a ten year hiatus.

Content warnings: Murder, dismemberment, body horror

It comes as a shock to everyone, including you, when Jack Mcloughlin announces the release of a new game at the start of the second week of October.

There are several reasons why this is such a big deal. One: Jack Mcloughlin has been making games since he was twenty seven, and has released only five of them in the thirty years he's been doing it. Two: Jack Mcloughlin is world renowned for his fantastic horror games, all done in wildly different styles, but still notably his own. Three: Jack Mcloughlin has not, up til now, so much as mentioned working on a new game. The only social media site he's fully active on is Twitter - which you check regularly for any updates - and before the release of his last game, Ehrmann Lab, he had left a series of cryptic clues for two months leading up to the announcement. Those had been probably the most fun two months you'd ever had in your life, and even helped you make new friends. But this time around, there is no warning. The trailer is dropped at Purina Expo, one of the biggest American gaming conventions of the year. You were incredibly lucky to be able to snag tickets. Usually, this convention is where the hottest games that would be coming out the following year would be announced, trailers would be played, and developers would discuss - so everyone there on October 10th is shocked to not only be the first to see the trailer, but to hear from the man himself. Jack Mcloughlin takes the stage, gleefully announcing the release of Dawn Station on October 31st this year.

Now, the release of a new game from Septic Games - Mcloughlin's own software company, which he founded after his second game's release - is a big enough deal. But this… this is something else. Mcloughlin explains it before the reveal of the trailer, and you listen with great excitement.

"Dawn Station," says the man, practically bouncing across the stage with glee and shouting into his mic with a hoarse Irish accent. "is a feat of modern gaming. Now, I understand that when you play games, it can get boring to replay them later on after you've finished, because - well, you know how it goes! You know all the twists and turns, all the jumpscares, all the fights, all the spooks. But what if I told you that there was a way you could play where things were different each time?"

Behind the man, on a large screen, an image comes up. This is the first promo image for the new game to be shown to the people. The image is of a tilted hallway in what looks like a complex, broken down space station, overgrown with unusual plants that glow and spark. In the centre of the image is an astronaut. His helmet is on the floor, blood soaked. His face is half in shadow. All that can be seen is curly olive hair and neon green eyes - two on his face, and one embedded in his neck. The suit itself is torn, ripped open with a mouth and a dripping tongue where the being's stomach should be. A torch is on the ground behind him, attempting to cast light on the room. The words "Dawn Station" come up in solid, bright green font next to the being's face.

"This is Dawn Station!" cries the developer, over the many excited murmurs of the crowd. "The first ever virtual reality game with a fully developed artificial intelligence antagonist! An antagonist who learns from the players movements and choices, who grows and changes based off of what you do. You control the game, now more than ever! He's clever, he's learning, he knows where you are, and his objective is to kill the player - introducing... Alien X, otherwise known as… the Anti!"

Everyone cheers. Mcloughlin steps aside, a beam splitting his pale face, and allows the room to darken, and the trailer to play.

You're in awe. The trailer shows that you play as a character named Drew Oliver, an astronaut in their mid twenties who's aboard the Dawn Space Station, which has fallen to the planet you seemed to have been monitoring - the Othohiri 5RM. The game seems to revolve around attempting to explore the little bits of the planet that you can while repairing the ship and dealing with your descent into madness, all the while being chased down by the Alien X, a shapeshifting monstrosity who's eager to end your life before you can finish your goals. After watching it… well, everyone is absolutely blown away, especially you. This is unlike anything Mcloughlin had ever produced, especially to this scale. It's no wonder he hadn't produced a game in ten years if this was what he had been working on. You're practically vibrating with excitement at the breathtakingly beautiful scenery and realistic yet perfectly stylistic graphics, and the 8D sound design that seems to echo from all around you. It's incredible. The second you get back to your hotel room that night, you're one of the first to preorder the game.

Your week at the convention ends, and you go back home, counting down the days to the game's release. However, even more exciting things are happening. On Twitter, a few of your favourite youtubers are acting rather cryptic. KrisDoesGAMEZ and rrroadblock, two streamers you like, retweet Mcloughlin's announcement tweet with eye emojis and promises of the game being good. DUSSST, visualthursday and BroAverage make their own posts about it. PeachCheerio and TheSkinnerr upload short update videos promising exciting things to come.

On October 15th, it happens - ten youtubers each upload an early access demo of Dawn Station, having been chosen and given the code to play it by Mcloughlin himself. You don't watch the videos because you want to play the game yourself with no spoilers, but from what you've seen, it's fucking amazing. Critics are already calling it the game of the decade. The internet is thriving, and a few people have already cosplayed Drew, the main character. Your best friend uploads a joking cosplay of the Anti and walks around town with it on. He gets over a thousand likes and teases you about being too good for you now that he's internet famous. You're living for all of this.

On October 16th, youtuber PeachCheerio is murdered in his own home.

Everyone is shocked, rightfully. Here is a man who had streamed just the day before, chatting with his members and looking at Dawn Station memes on Twitch. Today, he was discovered by his girlfriend in his own home. Leaked police reports tell you that the man, whose real name was Ronald Murphy, had been messily dismembered, his organs removed, half of them missing. You're in shock. He was one of your favourite streamers, and maybe it's silly to mourn someone you've never met, but you're deeply, deeply saddened by the news.

However, it doesn't stop there. The very next day, youtuber DUSSST - or Louise Greendale - is found the same way Ronald had been. Louise's girlfriend apparently called the police in hysterics before panic tweeting about the incident. The posts were taken down an hour later. The screenshots of what she'd said trend of Twitter and Tumblr anyway.

This is when the conspiracy theories arrive. Two youtubers dead in two days, both brutally taken apart and missing organs? Some people mock the theorists for it. Who had even said Louise had been killed the same way as Ronald, anyway? That is, until more apparent police reports are leaked revealing the details of Louise's death. The internet goes wild. The Los Angeles police department posts a video begging whoever's causing the leaks to stop, to think about the families of the deceased. All this does is prove that they're true. This video, too, is later taken down.

You log off in disgust. Some people have no fucking shame.

Things heat up the next day, on October 18th, when user rrroadblock, or Aryan Jha, dies as well. The death is covered up for the first few hours afterwards, but eventually is leaked in the same manner as the last two murders. This time, the theorists are no longer labeled as crazy. In fact, everyone's getting in on this mystery now. Three popular youtubers dead now, each found in bloody states in their own homes, three days apart? No one knows what's happening, but that doesn't stop people from guessing. And while you refuse to involve yourself in any of this, you also find yourself wondering who or what - not what, of course it's not a what, that's just ridiculous - who is killing all of these people.

Day four. The internet is silent, waiting. And yes, sure enough, youtuber KrisDoesGAMEZ, or Kris Velvet, is dead.

This time, someone realizes something that makes everyone pause. Each of the dead youtubers are all the ones who were given the free demo of Dawn Station, and are even dying in the order that they played it in. Everyone goes insane. Even you're suspicious - of what, exactly, you don't know, because why would someone murder someone else so brutally over a video game? Despite that, this can't be a coincidence. People place bets on whether youtuber ducksontheroof, or Donna Campbell, is going to be the next one to be found dead. Donna herself makes a statement on her Instagram, expressing disgust at all the people who were spreading such information around. She then deactivated all her socials apart from her YouTube. The people who had been making bets were shamed, and you have to log off yet again. This is getting to be too much.

You stay offline until nearly four pm the next day. Your friend calls you up to give you the news, but you already know what they're going to say. Let me guess, you start, voice flat and tired. Donna Campbell's dead.

They confirm it. You don't know what to say.

Her family put out a statement asking people not to theorize about her death. People do it anyway. Reports state that the remaining five youtubers who had played Dawn Station, along with, surprisingly, Jack Mcloughlin himself, had been taken into police custody. For protection, you assume. Once again, the internet goes insane. This proves their theories about the game connecting all the deaths, and a silent dread and buzz of twisted excitement hangs over everyone. You're just disgusted. People are treating this like some kind of murder mystery game, like this isn't real, actual lives.

Two days pass without news. At the end of the second day, there's yet another leak. Youtubers Doomandgloom - Persephone Henry - and TheSkinnerr - Rodney Pratt - are dead. You're just numb. You're just so fucking numb.

This reveal, of course, inspires yet another debate. If the youtubers had been under police protection, how had they died? Had the police seen anything? Why hadn't the leak said anything about it? Who was killing all these people in so little time, how hadn't they been caught? Had, really, no one seen anything at all?

There are now three youtubers left who'd played the game. Hothothotstanley, or Stanley McIver, visualthursday, or Khia Herrera, and BroAverage, or Chase Brody. You met Stanley McIver, once, at a convention in London three years ago. You have a picture on your memory board of you standing in the convention hall, him with his arm around your shoulder, you with a grin and sparkle in your eye. You can see the picture from your bed. You turn away from it.

However, the next day is a surprise to everyone. A video is uploaded to someone's Twitter - a full, uncensored video of the murder of Stanley McIver inside the government safe house he and the others had seemingly been kept in. The video is immediately taken down and the Twitter deleted, but everyone has seen it. Including you. The video is… horrifying. Of course it is. Why did you watch it? But you do manage to see who it is that killed him. Everyone on the internet does. And this - this video, that's maybe five minutes long - is enough to make everyone go silent.

The killer looks exactly like the Anti from Dawn Station.

No one knows quite what to make of this.

Even less so when Jack Mcloughlin dies the next day.

He's murdered. Same way as all the rest of them, in police custody. Now this is enough to shock everyone into mourning silence. Only a few pricks are left, and their accounts, channels and blogs are swiftly deactivated. Nine deaths in nine days. Nine deaths. Nine. Jack Mcloughlin.

The next day, Khia Herrera - well, you know.

Chase Brody is the last one left alive. You never watched his channel that much - he's really into horror, and is known for his Walking Dead playthrough and his Undertale Genocide run - but you still already feel a strange sense of loss. A sort of emptiness. Something churns in your stomach that you don't understand. There's a lot that you don't understand.

The release of Dawn Station is cancelled.

You spend the night at a friend's house, and just bawl for hours. You shouldn't be so upset, you shouldn't! You never knew any of these people! But fuck, there's something about seeing all these people who you'd been watching online for so long, who have given you so many happy days, so many laughs and inside jokes… just die. How had this happened? Who was it who was doing this?

Your friend sadly suggests it's some sick Jack Mcloughlin hater who decided it'd be fun to cosplay as his newest character and kill people to scare everyone. But while you outwardly agree, you internally know it's not true. Because every time you watch that video, every time you watch Stanley die - and you watch it a lot, just trying to make yourself feel something, even if it's just sick - you can tell the person isn't human. You know that's ridiculous, of course. But there's something about its eyes. Its face. It glances up at the camera and makes eye contact, and grins with too many white, jagged teeth, like an anglerfish. The eye in its throat sees you too. It glows. You shudder every time, watching it shake with glitches and laughter.

You're scared. You feel sick and dizzy and you lock your doors out of fear. You stay inside and open Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram again.

Poor Chase Brody, says the internet. They're already mourning. Already accepted his death. Poor, poor Chase Brody.

You hope he's ok, wherever he is.

[wincestisasincest]

The Green Book (Thorin’s Company x Reader, Part 1)

Hello all! This is something of a rewrite for an idea that I had when I was like, 13, but I started it and it was a hot pile of ass, so we’re taking another crack at it. Basically, sort of like how Bilbo and Fordo recorded everything in the Red Book of Westmarch, this is a book where (y/n) records all of her adventures after falling into Middle Earth.

I have no idea how long this is going to be, nor if there’s going to be any more specific pairings, so feel free to shoot me one if you’d like to see something play out!

A quick note! This story is in first person, not in second person, but it is still about the reader. It is the reader’s later account of their adventures. I’m sure you’re all smart people and can figure this out, but I wanted to make that clear. 

Summary: (Y/n) falls into Middle Earth. Shocker. Somehow, she gets recruited to join a party of dwarves on their kinda crazy mission to reclaim their home of Erebor. 

Part: 1

Words: 1593

Warnings: Plot clichés, getting lost, fainting

To whom it may concern: This book is a project by myself, (f/n) (l/n), to record an official account of both my voyage through the land of Middle Earth, how it intertwined with the quest to reclaim Erebor, and what happened in between. All information here has been directly experienced by me and has been corroborated by other living peoples in Middle Earth, which shall be credited in the after section if any reader seeks to verify.

I write you, the person reading my Green Book, this letter at the beginning of the book because I want to make clear my intention. While this book shall certainly be used for historical record, and I am honored to have it serve that purpose, that is not my primary intention in writing it. I feel that, in the case of historical record, we tend to miss out on a very important element in the stories of our ancestors. Their humanity. 

Or dwarf-manity. Or hobbit-manity. Or wizard-manity. 

The point is that I have scoured many manuscripts in my years, and all of them treat those of the past as though they are sculptures created purely of dates, epithets, and conquest, and that is simply not the case. The deeds of this company are not going to be forgotten for a long time, but their personality, individual quirks, fears, loves, hopes, dreams, and heart, may fade into obscurity as their time comes to an end. 

That it what I wish to eliminate with this book. Above all else, I want you, the reader, not to remember them as historical icons, but as the caring, brave group of adventurers that I have come to love. 

No, I cannot completely fix a disconnected view of the past, but I can sure try.

***********

I got my start in adventuring at the same time I got my start in Middle Earth. And both of them were complete accidents. 

The land that I come from, just Earth, is wholly different from its Middle counterpart. There are no species besides that of the human race, which have ruled the planet for many centuries and divided into their own cultures with individual languages, practices, religions, and such. As humans are quite non-magical, however, this does also mean that there is no magic in this world. Instead, humans have conquered it through different applications of knowledge, through which they have created many a valuable devices that replace the need for magic. These devices may do things such as heal the sick, communicate over long distances, defend oneself, light up dark rooms, and so on. 

The only common trait that it shared with its counterpart was that it had no idea that there was any Earth besides itself. 

So, you can imagine that my stumble into Middle Earth was by no means intentional. 

I was a dreamy young lady of (your age) years. I had things to do that would take up most of my day’s energy, but when I did have a minute of downtime or two, I could always be found wandering in the woods. Something in its peaceful nature, in which I could not hear the hustle and bustle of the rest of society, was very relaxing to me. 

More often than not, I would recline on a large, flat rock deeper into the forest and go about leisure activities such as reading or drawing. Such leisure activities were exactly what I was occupied with on that very day that would change my life. 

I looked up from the pages of a very gripping read at an odd sound coming from the woods. Now, the woods are full of odd sounds, and to try to put a name on all of them would do the terrain a disservice, but something in particular about this sound woke up something in me. My curiosity could only be quenched by an exploration.

The sound itself mirrored that of language, as though some mysterious force were whispering words but were hidden from sight, however, the words were not from any language that I understood or recognized. Even after I had come to learn of languages particular to the land of Middle Earth, such as Elvish and Khuzdul, I still cannot specifically attribute any one of them to this whispering. 

I shoved everything that I was doing into my bright red backpack (or just pack, as they are more commonly called) and slid off my rock, walking towards the sound. One could almost say I was hypnotized, as it just dragged me in. Deeper and deeper I trailed into the woods.

At some point the whispering stopped, and I was snapped back to reality. I had completely lost track of time. I peered around, and realized that I could not recognize where I was. I whipped out my phone (a cellular device used for communication which I will expand on in later chapters) to check what time it was, only to be confronted with the fact that five hours had passed. 

This news was even more distressing, because, if five hours had passed, then the sky should be occupied by the moon and not the sun. I ran the numbers in my head. I had been on the rock at about six, and my phone now read that it was eleven at night. But the birds still tweeted, and it was still sunny, as though it was but a pleasant afternoon. 

I attempted to use my phone to possibly communicate with someone, or find out my location, but the technology failed. Resolving to save battery, I put it away and continued to observe my location. It did seem like this part of the world had been completely claimed by nature, with no sign of any sort of civilization in sight. I would’ve found it beautiful it it did not signal my possible demise. 

In my world, a common piece of advice for those who are lost is to wait in one place. This advice is most commonly given when one is traveling with a group, which makes sense, as a group would not only quickly realize that you were lost, but could easily fan out to search for you, which would only be made easier if you were prevented from getting any farther from where you had strayed from. 

However, I was not traveling with a group. I was alone. I quickly weighed the pros and cons of staying in once place, before deciding that, when combined with how big this forest apparently was, to how long it would take someone to realize I was gone, to how long it would take them to conclude that I was in the forest, to how long that it would take them to search the forest, to the fact that I had no concept of time anyway, that I would surely die before this technique yielded any results. 

No, my best bet was to continue forward and hope to come across something eventually. If not civilization, then food or water. Either way, I would not die in the forest.

Gathering all my resolve, I continued to trek forward. 

Slowly, but surely, night overtook this strange forest-land as well, and there was no sign of any civilization in sight. I had no food or water with me, which was only made clearer by my parched throat and growling stomach. 

Against my terrible luck, a heavenly smell (or perhaps a nasty smell that simply came to me when I was hungry) wafted over the trees and to my location. I had no choice but to follow it. 

It wasn’t something that I recognized, like beef or chicken, but was definitely a sort of meat. Regardless, I would eat anything at this point. My hope was only increased when I heard what sounded like conversations passing around a campfire. Perhaps, I thought, it was a group of campers that would be able to help out a very lost and confused traveller. 

I grew more desperate. I pulled leaves and branches out of the way and nearly tripped over rocks. Though I still couldn’t make out the words that were being said, they sounded oddly aggressive and simplistic. It was intermixed with the neighing of horses, sounding very distressed, though my animalistic impulses at the time elected to ignore that. 

“...and if it don’t look like mutton tomorra!” So that’s what the meat was. Mutton. That sounded delicious.

Finally, I could see the campfire peaking through the trees. I hopped out into the clearing, not even taking the time to think of what I would say or do, just following the food. 

In front of me were three of the biggest and ugliest creatures that I had ever seen in my life. You and I now understand them as trolls, but I had never seen a troll before, though, if you had told me at the time that that’s what they were called, I would not be surprised. Their bodies were large and their heads were tiny, with layers and layers of fat making up their bulging stomachs, around which was a loosely tied loincloth. Whatever was under that, I didn’t want to think about. Their faces had crooked teeth, large noses, sloping foreheads, and very stupid looks plastered on them, though as it happened, all of those stupid looks were looking directly at me. 

“Lads, we’re eating human tonight!” The middle one shouted gleefully, raising his arms and looking at me menacingly while getting up out of his chair. 

I fainted on sight.

******

Ahhh, I just negged y’all. We’ll see the gang in the next chapter, don’t worry, but I gotta tease it first. 

Next chapter will be out soon, by the way, because that’s what quarantine is for.

Also, if you’re interested, shoot me an ask/suggestion for what the reader has in her bag! I have a few ideas, but I’m really open to anything, whether it’s a specific book, a cool trinket, a sentimental object, whatever you guys have!

You can also shoot me pairings if you’d like though I may or may not have a very unpopular one in mind already

[atltexts]

STALKING & NO CONTACT ORDER (NCO) VIOLATIONS

TRIGGER WARNING: circuses & clowns

NCO: On the last week of August, the tile IX office increased the sanctions on BVH at ATL’s request. The medical school sent an e-mail with a serious tone to both BVH & ATL setting a new set of rules. BVH was assigned to one side of the school & one side of the classroom, while ATL was instructed to remain on the opposite side. This was a command to stay as far from one another as possible, not a suggestion. If the rules were to be broken, as the e-mail states, there would be “serious consequences”, including being tried, undergoing yet another Title IX trial which would have undoubtedly led to expulsion. That would mean a 5th trial for BVH, even though BVH was cleared of all other charges.

SOCIAL MEDIA: In the same e-mail, they request that they cease all social media posts regarding the situation. BVH had never taken the opportunity to defend himself online, let alone post about it (closest thing would be his expression of relief: the 1-0 narrative).

BVH’S MOTHER FALSELY ACCUSED BY ATL: ATL on the other hand had already been posting a series of tweets and instagram posts, some of which she even falsely accused BVH’s mother of intimidating her! BVH’s mother does not know anything about ALT’s identity (including her name or what she looks like), but ATL stared them both down as she walked towards & past them during a lecture of some sort. BVH brought his mother to class because he was terrified of going by himself after summer break. BVH’s mother did not notice the girl. When he dropped his mother off at the airport, she asked “by the way, was that girl there?”

CLAIMS BVH HAS IT BEST: In other tweets, she speaks about how the school does not support her because BVH has yet to be expelled (they want him expelled, trust me — staff stands in the doorways to watch his every move, and the campus security checks on his IQ room after every break. It is a circus) and writes as though she is not receiving the praise she is receiving, and as though BVH is not the scapegoat in this situation.

THREATS TO PHYSICAL SAFETY: In a tweet that is a threat to BVH’s safety, ATL wrote that she “has to” bring pepper spray to school (confusing — you’d think someone who is afraid of him would maybe NOT stalk him, trying to make themselves as visible as possible?). Understandably, this makes BVH feel extremely uneasy and on edge, especially when she follows his footsteps. As anyone would, he fears that if she continues to linger around his personal bubble, she will eventually find any excuse to pepper spray him & potentially cause his eyes some serious damage. The school was informed of this serious threat with a screenshot of the tweet attached. They didn’t care.

PRECURSOR: Prior to these new sanctions, BVH avoided to be seated near ATL as he’d rather focus on his studies and not be distracted. He almost always finds a seat before ATL decides which seat she wants to take. He has kept his distance, but ATL would deliberately sit unreasonably close to him nearly every day in class. On top of that, she sends most of her mass e-mails about a health group she’s in only while they are in the same classroom. Since she has sent these e-mails while sitting directly behind him a number of times, I can’t see how she could possibly forget to omit his name. BVH, knowing there’s a good possibility that she is looking at his phone, would delete these on the spot (obviously other students can corroborate the timing of these e-mails). I don’t think it’s just coincidence that she waits for class to hit the send button on these elaborate e-mails that seem to be pre-written. ATL has tweeted on several different occasions about how BVH has been trying to intimidate her, when in reality it was the other way around. He has not given her or the smear campaign any attention from day 1. Seriously, he minds his own business. Being in a class with the spotlight on him, it is not enjoyable, but he goes anyway with one focus in mind: his education and avoiding further harassment. Not only does ATL try to sit near him, but she also stares him down during class, making it difficult for him to concentrate. When BVH leaves class, ATL is usually found at the bottom of the stairs (nearest to his IQ room and furthest from her IQ room) waiting among a group of her friends. As he steps down these stairs to exit the school, ATL & these friends will stare him down in a way that is very unsettling (some of these friends are part of the class leadership who circulated the petition with inaccurate and unecessary accusations — see previous posts). In these moments, he is purposefully reminded of how isolated he is, that he is not welcomed by his peers & that some people really believe he has committed these terrible crimes that he would never stand for.

This is where it gets even more ridiculous…

NCO VIOLATION #1: The very next day (Friday), after the New Contact rules were established, BVH couldn’t believe his eyes. He caught ATL slowly pacing around the campus on his side of the school. He discretely snapped a photo from the balcony for obvious reasons (he is never taken seriously, therefore he has no choice but to collect more and more mountains of evidence) & reported her immediately.

The administrator who sent the e-mail responded promptly & assured BVH that it would be taken care of. The weekend passed without any updates.

NCO VIOLATION #2: The following Monday, ATL was again seated an the area that she was commanded to not sit in. BVH, following the “serious” NCO, sat far back in the class all by himself. While the rest of the classroom was in a cluster, ATL sat in the same cluster with students but in a seat that would be closest to BVH in the dead middle of the classroom. She was drinking a soup casually as though she can get away with anything she desires (I wonder why), and BVH snuck out his phone to collect more photo evidence.

BVH sent yet another e-mail to report ATL’s second violation, also asking for an update for Friday’s incident as well.

MORE FALSEHOODS: The administrator responded with even more false accusations that BVH had actually broken the NCO rules, as reported by ATL. It was reported the he stalked her, when in reality she was shamelessly & openly stalking him. They know how cordial BVH is — he would not break the NCO. Either they hoped they would, or they took this as another opportunity to wrongfully frame him.

HOW DID BVH BREAK THE NCO? Well, first of all he didn’t. When asked, they refused to tell him how, when & where. Fair, considering how much they truly & sincerely care…. about sabotaging every area of his goddamn life.

SHOCKING!: Even though school cameras can prove that BVH did not break the rules & that it was, in fact, ATL, the school decided to drop the new NCO rules. Their reason was “you both broke the rules, so it doesn’t matter. We’re not going to investigate it” This is something that could have easily been investigated, but since it does not benefit ATL, it doesn’t really interest them. In other words, I am just going to assume the rules only applied to BVH & I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew ATL was lying, but saw it as another opportunity to frame him.

The school, in their signature fashion, made excuses for ATL. For the first violation, they said “it must have been an accident.” For the second, they basically said in a more ‘professional’ set of words: “never mind. This is not working out in our favour.” Of course, the administrator made sure to CC the Puppet Master MD in all these e-mails. You know, the one who decided to ‘step out of the situation’.

Had BVH been the one really violating the rules & not ATL, he would have most likely been penalized. Surely, the school must have had a reason to establish these new rules to begin with, especially given how adamant they were about the repercussions. Again, it seems as though they have no interest in keeping BVH in a safe environment.

BVH just wants to stay civil & get through his studies in peace. He is not entertaining any of the drama and is doing everything in his power to avoid further conflict. It's unbelievably absurd and devastating. They even demanded that he take the “Martin Luther King approach” (as though he isn’t already), so I am going to take the Martin Luther approach and post all their egregious crimes.

ATL, again, has stood at the bottom of the stairs with a group of friends and waited until BVH would walk down those same stairs so that she could stare him down. I am not sure what she was trying to do here, given her claims that she fears him.

SUMMARY: The Title IX office increased the sanctions on BVH at ATL’s request, even though BVH was exonerated for the accusations made against him. After the sanctions were increased, ATL broke the NCO on multiple occasions and the Title IX office refused to investigate it, despite photo evidence. BVH was accused of breaking it and was reported. His reports on ATL breaking the rules were passed as “accidents” even though she broke them on a daily basis. There is not excuse on ATL’s part, nor the administrators. They only dropped the No Contact Order once they realized it would only benefit BVH and not ATL. Again, seems like another booby trap to get BVH kicked out.

MORE EXCUSES, MORE ��ACCIDENTS”: This is, despite ATL breaking the no contact directive back in February when she tried to FaceTime BVH, let it ring for a while, and cancelled before it went to voicemail. After the Title IX office “investigated this claim,” they determined it was also an “accident.” They also determined that all other No Contact Order violations were “accidents” even without investigation, again, despite photo evidence.

TO BE CONTINUED The next postwill be about what happens after the no contact order, how the subordinates of the Puppet Master MD proceeded to coerce and intimidate BVH into dropping out of medical school & to drop his Title IX complaints against ATL for the weeks of harassment from the text messages I have shown in previous posts (for ATL’s sake, I did not post the most vulgar ones, even though they are the most telling & revealing ones), even though BVH filed it back in November (before ATL ever filed anything!), and also his complaints against the Puppet Master MD.

& POSSIBLE PREJUDICE: Given the fact that BVH is a Filipino male, I do seriously wonder whether discrimination plays a role in this decision.

[ponett]

i was finally able to see the bad star war that everyone said was bad. as it turns out, it was bad. here’s a read more post with my thoughts on it so that i don’t spam my twitter with spoiler tweets

for a baseline: i like the original trilogy, but i don’t think any of those movies are perfect. i think the prequels had some good ideas but i were mostly terrible. i love the clone wars (both versions) and rebels. while i admit that tfa was extremely similar to a new hope, i thought it was executed great and had a wonderful new cast that showed a ton of promise. i liked rogue one, although i found its first act really sloppy. and i have some quibbles about tlj, but it had an incredibly strong vision and actual themes, and i’d consider it my favorite in the series

i’m exactly the kind of person who was always going to hate the rise of skywalker, because it’s basically a bad fanfic written by someone who didn’t like tlj and wanted to “fix” the story. like that bizarre story treatment jenny nicholson read for this movie. the bad one. it was like that

it wasn’t all bad i guess. here are the small things i liked:

some of the new environments were cool. there was cool imagery and practical effects work

i appreciated that the moon of endor where the death star wreckage was wasn’t just the one with the ewoks, and thought the vibe there was cool

zorii bliss’s armor was really cool

the image of the fleet of star destroyers all lined up was striking

i liked that the ghost showed up for the final battle

i liked that ahsoka was one of the jedi voices rey heard, even though that kind of implies that ahsoka is, uh... dead?

while extremely fucking trite and dumb, i’ll admit the closing scene on tatooine got me. yeah, rey has no real connection to this place and it’s just a nostalgic throwback, but i’m a sucker for full circle endings like that

uh. that’s about it

this movie kicks off in the middle of an action scene and just kind of keeps jumping to new setpieces nonstop until it’s over. new characters and locations get introduced and then moved past in the blink of an eye. there’s no time to let any of it sink in. it feels like abrams crammed two movies worth of shit into this one to make up for the the fact that some people didn’t like tlj, and as a result none of it resonates. i just felt so empty throughout most of the film. events were happening on screen and none of it mattered

thoughts about individual elements:

LEIA

putting the scenes with the recycled footage of carrie fisher at the beginning of the film completely took me out of it. it was so obvious that she wasn’t really responding to what was being said, and the conversations had just been built around the limited leia lines they could use

the dialogue scenes with leia felt like a space ghost interview

C-3PO

was in this movie a lot for some reason? i guess abrams wanted to make up for how little c-3po there was in the last two movies. they tried to have that emotional moment where his memory is wiped, but then they just turned his memory loss into a big joke?? and then he got most of his memories back anyway

in general, the movie is afraid to let the audience be uncomfortable for long. 3po’s memory loss. the supposed deaths of chewbacca and babu frik, that sort of thing. you’re not allowed to be sad. after tlj so effectively built tension throughout the film and really pushed the heroes to the brink, this is a disappointment

LANDO

is here because he needed to show up, and because it’s a throwback to have him pilot the falcon again. he’s just kind of there with little to do and no arc

FINN, POE, AND ROSE

before the movie came out, i had low expectations. all i really wanted was to get one last fun adventure with the new characters. when i started to hear about the spoilers, my expectations sank even lower. but maybe i would still get this

nah! rose gets like two minutes of screentime because redditors hated her, and finn and poe are barely even characters. they don’t have arcs in this film, they’re just sidekicks on rey’s journey

finn really hurts. prior to tfa’s release, finn was framed as the new star. this was, of course, a bait and switch, as rey was really the new jedi. (finn apparently IS force sensitive according to this one, but hey! we can only have one big jedi hero, so like leia before him, i guess we’ve gotta wait for some EU novel to give finn a lightsaber)

but finn was still a central character in the last two films, and he had so much potential. he was a stormtrooper who defected! that’s something new! that’s interesting! it complicates the black and white morality of the series. but no. that’s been all but abandoned at this point

many have complained about how tfa establishes that basically all the stormtroopers are people who were kidnapped as children and brainwashed by the first order... but then they still have no qualms about gleefully killing them. in the first two movies i was like “yeah, it sucks that they have to kill those guys, but if it’s to prevent genocide, it’s understandable. that’s just war. maybe they’ll touch on it in the last movie.” so in this one, they kept reminding the audience that the stormtroopers were enslaved as children. jannah is even introduced as another stormtrooper who defected like finn. but then... it goes nowhere. finn doesn’t get any first order troops to defect. they don’t care about the other stormtroopers. how many hundreds of thousands of enslaved soldiers did they kill when they blew up those star destroyers

it was nice to see finn and poe take the charge as leaders in the end, but it also feels like they didn’t take the lessons from tlj to heart. the whole point of that story was that one-in-a-million shot heroic suicide missions aren’t worth it, and that they’re more useful to the resistance alive than they are as martyrs. but then in the climax of this film they take like 30 ships to go fight a fleet of a hundred fucking star destroyers

on the subject of that final battle: i thought that the ending of tlj was so powerful. the resistance was decimated, but they still had hope, because they knew there were others out there who could help. people like rey, or the broom boy, who came from nothing but had good hearts. in this one, though, they say that apparently nobody responded to the leia’s call for help in the entire year since the last film. everyone only shows up during the climax after lando’s like “no, but for real guys, we need help”

and i did think that that sequence was cool. and i did like seeing the ghost among the ships. it was fun. the message that fascists like the first order rule by making people feel isolated, and that they’re defeated by realizing that good people are never alone? that was good. i thought that was a strong message. but it’s such a minor footnote on a movie that’s so bad in so many other ways

oh and they made the latino dude a drug dealer. okay. thanks for that

KYLO REN

i hate that they redeemed kylo and i hate the way they did it

yes, him being coerced to turn to the dark side by snoke (who was apparently just a puppet controlled by palpatine all along (UGH)) as a kid was tragic. but that doesn’t excuse his actions. kylo was given infinite second chances throughout the trilogy, and every time he responded with violence. he killed so many people himself, and willingly took part in a fascist regime that killed billions. yes, his story is sad, but he’s not some poor little boy, he’s thirty fucking years old and he vents his trauma by slaughtering innocent people

literally the entire main trio of the original trilogy died because of this asshole. han tried to talk to him in the first movie, and got stabbed and dropped into a pit. luke died astral projecting to face him in tlj. and now leia just kind of arbitrarily died to flip the switch in his brain from bad to good from across the galaxy. it’s literally as simple as that. he doesn’t have a personal journey here. he just stops being evil because his mom made him through the force

like, again. all those enslaved stormtrooper grunts who had been brainwashed since they were kids? gunned down. but giving kylo endless second chances is the most important thing in the world

and then they end the movie by having this creepy abusive stalker genocidal asshole sadboy kiss rey, retroactively framing their dynamic as a romantic one. just, gross as hell. even in this one, for most of the film, all he does is threaten rey and boss her around

i dunno. i thought the first order were interesting as antagonists. yeah, they were just the empire 2.0. but i thought it was appropriate! the idea was that just because palpatine was dead and gone didn’t mean that fascism was gone. there were still hateful people who wanted to rule the galaxy via genocide. like how we still have nazis in the 21st century. except, oops! palpatine was actually alive and pulling the strings the entire time, so now that theme’s out the window. we just have to kill him again FOR REAL this time and now the galaxy will actually be safe

people wondered where the first order would go after snoke died in tlj. but it was so obvious to me? kylo was in charge. kylo was always the most interesting bad guy. just let him call the shots and be the final adversary. but no. that wasn’t good enough. we had to bring back palpatine as the jrpg final boss to have an epic conclusion

REY

oh, poor rey. youtube critics got mad that a girl could be a strong jedi without being related to some other powerful force user from the old movies, so now she’s stuck being a palpatine forever

i will admit, the protagonist of the new movies being related to palpatine but still being a good person in spite of her heritage... that could have been something. but it’s so clearly not what they had in mind from the start, and it spits in the face of the last movie’s themes. it turns out greatness CAN’T come from anywhere. it has to come from one of these select few Special Bloodlines

oh! and this ALSO reframes rey’s parents abandoning her and selling her into slavery as an act of kindness, because they had to hide her from her spooky evil grandpa. so THAT’S fun. (edit: OH! and luke and leia knew about rey the whole time!!! and didn’t go out and look for her!!!!)

it’s just. it’s so bad what they did to rey. i don’t know if i even have much to elaborate on there, everyone’s already said how stupid it is

---

overall, i still wouldn’t say it’s the WORST star wars movie. it’s more watchable than the phantom menace, that’s for damn sure. the actors put in effort. the sets and practical effects are nice. it’s just so... empty

tros possibly feels the closest to how i imagined the new trilogy would be when it was first announced, but in a bad way. a movie built entirely on established ideas of What Star Wars Is with nothing new to bring to the table. it’s like a bad eu novel. just recycled imagery, cameos from characters we already know, palpatine coming back from the dead, that sort of thing. it’s a movie made by committee to appease reddit. it’s nothing

now i gotta use that free trial of disney plus to watch the mandalorian and wash the taste out of my mouth i guess

[backupblogforjg]

The racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism and cruel tropes in Voltron

So, it’s the anniversary of the ending of Voltron. And I’m getting really, really tired of people saying that only shippers hated the ending. There were many issues with Voltron, and they were neither limited to shipping nor to S8.

So, I’ve decided to compile a list.

It gets LONG. Turns out there was a hell of a lot of racist, sexist, ableist and cruel tropes in VLD.

In fact, I had originally planned on writing a list of both the terrible tropes and the plot holes. But there just wasn’t enough room for both. The post is huge as it is, and with the plot holes, it would have been twice as long, so I had to focus on only one thing.

Salt, obviously. So, so, so much salt. I could turn a lake into a sea here. You’ve been warned.

RACISM:

1) The Alteans are genocide survivors. Out of all the Alteans, only the black Altean was used for a Reverse Racism story where she resents a teammate for belonging to the race that exterminated hers. The white Alteans are totally cool with him, and with his race in general, and only hate the bad people. But the black one had to be taught that hating people because of their race is wrong.

2) VLD Allura is also the only version of Allura who is black. In every other Voltron media (several different cartoons and comics), Allura is blond with blue eyes. All the white versions of the character get a happy ending, while only the black version ends up dying to save the world.

While "hero sacrifices their life to save the world" is not a bad trope in and of itself, it becomes bad when it kills off one of the extremely few black female characters in leading roles. You kill off a white male hero, there are 463278462387 more. You kill off the black female hero, you are kinda screwed. Making it worse, Allura had been portrayed as suffering from depression throughout the latest seasons, so that her death comes across less as heroic sacrifice and more as suicide.

3) The brown Cuban kid who dreamed of being a pilot, and never once in 78 episodes ever expressed anything but sheer love for an exciting life, in the final two minutes of the final episode ends up realizing that the place for him is a farm.

4) As told in interviews, Lotor was meant to be a bad example of mixed-race person, to contrast him with Keith as good example of mixed race person. Do I even have to point out how messed up this is?

5) Even before they became Space Nazis, back when they were still on the side of the angels, the Galra invaded and conquered planets. This is portrayed as totally cool when they happily name the prince after a "hero" who invaded and conquered a lot of worlds, and the peaceful Alteans think the guy is just as heroic as one of their greatest scientists. Apparently there is such a thing as ethically killing people to steal their land.

6) They whitewashed Keith, a character who is poc in every other iteration of Voltron.

I’m sure a lot of people are going to get angry here, claiming that I hate Keith. Let me assure you, I don’t. I love Keith, and I hate what was done to him. I hate that they took a traditionally poc character and went to frankly ridiculous lengths to erase that part of his character. Keith should be Asian, and it would be incredibly easy to make him so in VLD (seriously, all they’d have to do is update the freaking bios, an intern could do it right now in 5 minutes). But they refuse to do it.

A lot of people don’t realise that the surname “Kogane” in VLD is fanon.

I’m serious. Check his official bios page. Keith is not actually called Keith Kogane in VLD. Fans started calling him that in fanfiction, and it stuck, but it’s not canon.

In every other Voltron media, Keith is an Asian guy. But in VLD, they:

- went out of their way to always avoid giving him an Asian surname

- gave him a Texan father

- refused to confirm his race, even when every other character had a specific race. Again, check his official bios. All the other characters got a race, Keith gets “human.” It got so ridiculous it would be funny if it weren’t sad. It pretty much went like this:

Fans: Keith is half alien, but about his human half, what is his ethnicity? EPs: oh, we couldn't possibly say, because the story takes place in the future, and in the future, everybody is mixed up! So, Keith is HUMAN, we can't give him a specific race because there are no specific races in the future! Fans: ok. And what are the races of the other characters? EPs: Pidge is Italian, Lance is Cuban, Hunk is half-black half- Samoan, Shiro is Japanese. Fans: but Keith...? EPs: HUMAN! There is no such thing as race in the future!

Some people at least hoped that Keith's Texan father had Asian ancestry because he kinda looked like Shiro, who is Japanese. But the EPs confirmed that the resemblance was just a coincidence, they never meant for the dad to look Japanese.

At this point pretty much the only evidence that Keith is Asian is that he is voiced by an Asian person. But then, Josh Keaton is not Japanese, is he?

7) After whitewashing Keith, they claimed he is the best leader of Voltron, better than his poc predecessor, because he has Galra blood.

So, instead of bringing up any sort of legit reason to justify why Keith should be in charge (like his empathy or pilot skills), they go with "the half-white guy is also half space-nazi and that's why he should give the orders instead of the poc guy."

If you think I’m bashing Keith here, please ask yourself why you are getting angry at the person pointing out the whitewashing instead of getting angry at the whitewashing. Especially when, again, making VLD Keith canonically poc could be done anytime with zero cost and zero effort, and DW just doesn’t want to.

- Hunk, the half-black half-Samoan guy, was going to be killed and replaced as Paladin by a blue alien. The EPs were pissed when DW forbade them to, and complained in the interview about it.

SEXISM:

Every single woman who is ever put in charge ends up going insane, making terrible decisions that endanger her planet, or losing all of her authority.

Allura starts out as co-leader of Voltron and leader of the Coalition. Ends up as a foot soldier who takes orders from the new leader and his right-hand man, and is treated as a cadet by the Earth military.

HOMOPHOBIA:

1) Dreamworks, Netflix and the EPs very, very, very heavily promoted S7 as GLBT-friendly. The EPs gave whole interviews about the past relationship between Shiro and new character Adam, retweeted a ton of posts celebrating Shiro’s homosexuality, and enthusiastically sent tweets like "you are going to see more of Adam in S7! :D" from their personal accounts after they showed the episode that introduced him.

In S7:

- Shiro's homosexuality is so ambiguous that even the Brazilian voice actor didn't realize that he was supposed to be gay. Just by watching the show, without knowing the World Of God, you can’t tell he and the other guy were engaged.

- Adam gets about 30 seconds of screentime after that one episode they had already shown. Then he dies screaming in pain and terror in a fire.

A lot of people claimed that it was okay to kill Adam because Shiro was supposed to be our rep, not Adam, who was a brand new character we knew little about. And, out of context, that would be true. Adam was pretty much a NPC, why would his death matter?

But the problem here is the context:

- Shiro is closeted in S7, you need to read interviews to know he is gay. So, if only Shiro is meant to be the rep, they couldn’t even do that right.

- They very heavily marketed both Shiro and Adam as gay rep, and specifically talked at length about Adam in several interviews.

In THAT context, REGARDLESS of what you ship, killing off Adam revealed a complete willingness to manipulate the audience to the point of outright lying. Even if you hated Adam, even if Adashi is your NOTP, the clear evidence that the creators had absolutely no problem making empty promises was NOT a good sign.

2) The moment Shiro is revealed to be gay in interviews, he is practically quarantined from the Team.

3) Shiro is also given a Totally Not AIDS deadly disease.

Making it even worse, Shiro never actually gets cured in canon. We are told he is cured in interviews, but the show itself drops the topic entirely. Depending on where you lean in the Word Of God VS Death Of The Author debate, Shiro may be doomed to die.

4) A female villain is revealed to be a lesbian. 30 seconds later she gleefully tortures a little girl. Then she, too, dies in a fire.

(Fan outrage about pulling two Bury Your Gays in the Season that had been very heavily promoted as GLBT-friendly caused DW to retcon her death and bring her back in S8, but she was originally meant to die in the explosion)

5) Shiro ends up marrying a random character who doesn’t even get a name in the show.

ABLEISM:

1) Shiro's PTSD magically disappears offscreen. In interviews, the EPs claimed that he "got over it" between S6 and S7 because "he is a professional." Wow! Who knew being a professional magically cures mental illnesses!

2) Shiro is an amputee. The EPs admitted that they never put any thought into his status as disabled rep, they just wanted a character with a cool-looking arm. It literally didn't occur to them that making him lose his arm (TWICE! First up to the biceps, then up to the shoulder) meant anything. Also worth noting that Shiro’s new arm makes him look like the guy who tormented him.

3) Shiro is systematically robbed of his agency.

- He is the only Paladin who never gets to use his bayard.

- He loses his bond with Black for no given canon reason (and the reason they give in interviews makes no sense, they basically say that transferring his soul out of the Black Lion makes her stop loving him. But she still lets Zarkon fly her!).

I know that Keith is traditionally Black’s pilot in Voltron media (although that shouldn’t matter, because VLD made a lot of huge changes to the traditional status quo). But if they wanted Black Paladin Keith that badly, they could have given some non-insulting reason for it. For example, say “because Shiro has spent so much time within Black, their bond is now so strong that he will get absorbed again if he flies her again.” Or co-pilots in Black (if Pidge can co-pilot with Matt, why can’t Shiro co-pilot with Keith?).

- He is defeated not only by Sendak, but also by a bunch of random Alteans. He basically can’t win a fight anymore unless it’s played for laughs.

- His new robot Atlas is bigger than Voltron, but also much weaker, and can only buy a few minutes for Voltron to come save the day.

- Every single enemy he ever defeated comes back to be finished off by somebody else (even the friggin' Gladiator from S1 comes back in S8). In the epilogue, he retires in his twenties.

4) Narti, the disabled General, is fridged shortly after her introduction. For a while at least it seemed like her death had affected the remaining three Generals, but then it turns out that the "For Narti" line was a trick and they never actually planned on avenging her.

CRUEL TROPES:

1) They intentionally baited the fans by pushing the plot thread that Lotor would be redeemed. They named the episode where he defects "A New Defender," they kept saying in interviews that they come from Avatar and they are very familiar with Zuko *hint hint*, they showed his family as incredibly abusive and Lotor himself as desperate, they showed that Lotor was a victim of severe racism (he is mixed race, and as stated above, the Galra are Space Nazis and are pretty obsessed with blood purity).

Then, after revealing him to be a villain, they gave an interview where they practically dislocated their shoulders by patting themselves on the back as they gleefully bragged that "we made them think we would give them a Zuko, but we gave them an Azula!"

(Nevermind the fact that Azula herself was a 14-year-old child, not a monster, and that Aaron Ehasz himself confirmed that he always wanted her to be redeemed).

When fans who are survivors of child abuse told them that the bait-and-switch was really hurtful, they laughed it off, and claimed that Lotor was just beyond redemption. Then they proceeded to redeem Lotor's abusive parents, who were objectively much worse.

2) Shiro’s clone, who sincerely believed he was Shiro and always meant well, was dehumanised, demonised and discarded like his life meant nothing. His short existence was full of pain from literally the moment he first opened his eyes, as Haggar kept torturing him with migraines to manipulate him. In the end, she brutally violates him body and mind, and brainwashes him to force him to turn on the family he was so desperate to find in The Journey. He dies in incredibly questionable circumstances, without ever getting to learn that his family survived Haggar’s plans. He is victim-blamed for the things she forced him to do against his will with mind-control, and is never mourned because the only family he ever had writes him off as a “thing” and “evil.”

In fact, the horrific treatment of Kuron foreshadowed S8. The Medium article “It never stops at one - Why Voltron: Legendary Defender's tragic ending wasn't a surprise and why more DreamWorks' series will follow suit” explains how.

The tl;dr version is that, when a story posits that the circumstances of your birth determine the value of your life, so that good intentions and hard work mean nothing, and long-established bonds can be discarded with zero thought and care, and your very humanity can be revoked over something you have absolutely no control over, and the whole sociopathic disaster is celebrated as a happy ending... it really, really can’t end well. Not just for you, but for the entire cast.

[araisbored]

Obelisk

That’s the only quirky title I could come up to make this a little bit more interesting.

I’m reviewing my favorite book again. More like making another post about it. Because I seem like the type of person to not shut up about something she truly, truly, deeply love. Though, I won’t really making a review. Because I am in no state to make one of those. I don’t know I just I’m not that qualified to that yet. Though I read millions of books, I still won’t. I re-read my last “review” and it just make me cringe because I can’t understand what I’m saying and there’s a bunch of errors on my sentence. Not that this whole post won’t containing grammar errors, but still. Also, the cringing intensifies when I saw that Jennifer Niven (the author of this book) liked my bizarrely wrong blog entry. Ms. Niven, if by any chance, reading this again, I love your work and I’m sorry for a lot of grammatical errors. Ms. Niven, your work changed my life and help me get through a rough time. Sounds cliché but its the truth. 

To repeat what I typed, I won’t make a review. Yet, I’ll post a very private diary log which where I somehow discuss my opinions about this book. So here it is. 

Trigger warning: Suicide topics, cutting and mental issues might come up on the next following paragraph. And it’s really graphic. Because it is a personal log on my digital diary. Beware. 

May 17, 2019: Theodore’s death, Avengers: End game and GoT discussion.

I never had a proper review of this book. Because lets be real here. Its me and probably won’t matter. Last time or more like last last year, I made a book recommendation/favourites about this book. And I emphasize on that blog post that it’s not a book review. NOT A BOOK REVIEW. At all.

Because:

I am scared of the internet scrutinizing my opinions and views about this book.

It’s about mental health or part of it. So it is really a sensitive topic and I even haven’t figured myself out. So I’m not really sure if  I’m the right person you want to have an opinion regarding with this topic. One thing about me is that you don’t go asking me questions on how you figured your life or how you deal with depression because, oh boy oh boy you’re in a wrong place honey.

Last night I searched Theodore Finch on twitter. Yes, twitter. Because that is where you get the real opinions. Real tea. As well as the stupid ones. And I read one thread or whatever you call it, some sort of a conversation or replies from one girl to another. (I just assumed you’re girl and I’m sorry if you’re not. I am really sorry for misgendering you.) The other girl said that she’s kind of annoyed how everyone around Theodore doesn’t get the signs when it’s literally on their faces. When you come to think of it. Its true. All the signs of Theodore’s disease was there. Bluntly on their faces. It’s kind of fascinating how it’s not noticed by his family and friends or even Violet. But again right now thinking about it, maybe because it happened when this world just slowly noticing or paying attention about mental health. Hold a second, let me search when it was published. Yeah, I'm right its 2015. A year of coming of age for the late Baby Boomers are introduced to depression and when people, mostly teenagers are committing suicide. I would be very harsh on my words because it was just me talking to myself anyways. So yeah, that's also the year where I'm cutting myself and wanted to kill myself. So no wonder Finch’s family have no idea about his mishaps and adventures. So about that discussion, it was already solved. That year was just the year where naïve people are introduced to mental health and issues. Anyways, back to that conversation. The other girl defended the book/author. That the author, Jenifer Niven, was just portraying real life happenings. That these things happens in real life. People really die because of mental health issues. By the way, Finch mental diagnosis wasn’t really mentioned on the book directly. As far as I can remember. That’s why I'm re-reading it again now. But so far zero mentioned of diagnosis or bipolarity(Is that even a word? idc.). Just the mention of him wanting to kill himself, the erotic changes in his moods, lack of appetite and being insomniac. He doesn’t sleep one night or he sleeps then have very bad nightmares after that. It’s pretty obvious but again, let’s refer to the points given above. Oh, oh! Then there’s one time he repainted his bedroom from blood red to blue. If that’s not alarming enough then idk anymore. But yes, 2015. The coming of age and the year where we birthed more stupid late boomers. But, yes. Wild book. A very wild and very BRILLIANT book. It’s the stupid characters or the people in Finch’s life that suck. Which is why I kind of sided to the girl who said that that the author doesn’t really write the characters well. Let’s call her Girl A. And the other girl who defend Niven, Girl B. I’m pretty sure you’re both girls but just in case, I’m gonna apologize again if I'm  misgendering you. Or if you don’t wanna be called a girl. I can’t say or disclose that Girl B was wrong because he clearly have a point too. It happens in real life. People die from depression and I might be one soon.

Just wanna say that It’s a good discourse. Arguments like that are my favorites where both sides are not wrong nor right either, makes you really think. A read. Both the book and that twitter discourse. If you happened to read it, good. But if not sorry I can’t link it for you. 

So for my opinion (oh no, here we go) I agree on both of them , as if its not yet obvious. I guess if it was written in the present days the author could’ve change the characters and made Finch alive. Or checked-in in a mental institution or he’ll be given a medical assistance he really needs. Because the only medical attention he was given was thru his Guidance councilor, Embryo. Which is a good thing, but also I think Finch’s situation needs more professional attention. No offence to all guidance councilors out there. I know you guys try your best. But you know, Niven can make Finch visit a psychiatrist in a clinic/mental institution right? Like violet. I know Finch’s financial state is bad but.. idk there’s something can be done here. But again it was during that time where people are shouting “Depression isn’t real”, stupid people posting tweets and Facebook status on how “Suicide is for the week”; they watch 13 reasons why and decided to skip the whole point of the show and just assumed that “yeah depression is for the weaklings”. It only shows how ignorant people are. They’re the kind of people who standby when you get punch on the face or laugh when people spreads rumors and lies about you. Basically, bystanders. I’m sorry I’m a little snappy. If you haven’t noticed. I don’t know I’m just mad today.

I think the book still holds it. And justify the ending. Though part of me really hate it too. But it kind of made me realized about a lot of things, not just about me but also about how I should interact with other human beings. I hate the ending because it breaks my heart but I guess it was necessary?? Or not. Any how,  It was a good ending. Maybe its just me because I’m a masochist. But I can not think of any other impactful and realistic way on ending it. (Rereading this again and I just need to clear things up. That IM NOT A MURDERER OR A KILLER. I DONT NORMALIZE SUICIDE,  but from a standing point the ending is justified. Its sad but its, again, realistic.) But still, breaks my heart, Theodore is a precious boy. Who deserves nothing but love. And I hope his story was more known by the people so jackasses would know how to treat their family and friends better. 

[This part was cut because I talked about Avengers and GoT ending; Which is very relevant to this topic]

Love,

Ara xx

So yeah, that’s some of my diary entry. Re-reading it makes me realized how funny I am. Jesus I should read more of these. Who knows, I might post it here. If it’s not that personal. I’ll end this here now. I hope wherever you are you’re having a good day.

Ttyl, Ara!

[dutten-does-the-fanfic]

I Want You Here With Me (Is It Too Much to Ask for Something Great) ch. 13

Title:  I Want You Here With Me (Is It Too Much to Ask for Something Great) ch. 13 of 14 (ch. 1)     Pairing: Isak Valtersen/Even Bech Næsheim     Word count: 14.350 Warnings: Language, explicit sexual content, internalized homophobia, closeting, using alcohol as an unhealthy coping mechanism

AO3

Summary:  The one where it’s been two years since Isak last saw or spoke with Even, and no one knows that Isak ever knew Even at all

Present

Nothing is magically solved after that.

Even spends five awful hours yelling on the phone – Isak can’t tell at who specifically, probably more than one person. He’s never heard Even sound this furious and it’s honestly a bit terrifying.

Isak had always been the one who’d been quick to yell and shout, bottling things up until everything spills out. Even had internalized everything, going quiet and letting the hurt fester.

Maybe the turning point had been receiving shady divorce papers already signed and then being completely ghosted except for one phone call where he’d been told to come pick his shit up or it would get thrown out. Not that Isak had thrown anything out. He’d saved the stuff he wasn’t able to part with and then left everything else behind for Even or his team to take care of.

Once the phone call is over with, Even hides himself away in Isak’s room and doesn’t come out for two hours, all of which Isak spends pacing between the hallway, the kitchen, and Jonas’ room, debating whether or not he should go in and check on him.

He wouldn’t have hesitated before, he knows, but things aren’t exactly the same as before. They’re different, because they’re supposed to be. ‘Different’ is going to be ‘better’.

When Even comes back out, he’s hesitant about it, looking at Isak with big, vulnerable eyes. The apologies are falling out of his mouth before Isak’s finished taking the first step towards him.

A lot is learned from that phone call.

The NDA is technically rendered invalid – even if there hadn’t been so many shady legal issues with its existence in the first place, any signature of Isak’s was void the second the information became public knowledge.

The divorce never got finalized – Isak hadn’t doubted that Even hadn’t signed the papers, but at this point he’s far beyond taking things at face value and believing that goddamn legal team couldn’t have wormed their way into getting things to be how they wanted them to be.

Knowing he’s still married doesn’t come as big of a shock as it did when Even had told him, but it still feels like a punch to the stomach, makes him feel hollow and full at the same time and so off kilter he has to sit down.

Even looks at him with worried eyes, so Isak lets him run his fingers through his hair until he doesn’t feel as off-centered.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to be married, doesn’t want to be married with Even, it’s just that he’s spent literal years thinking he wasn’t, and knowing he is takes a bit more adjustment that Isak had thought it would’ve.

Even’s new management team – new in brackets, because apparently the team from hell hasn’t represented him since his second short film had come out – wants him to do interviews, wants for him to be out there, riding the free publicity wave to the fullest, but Even refuses.

It freaks the both of them out, though, reminding them that this is so much bigger than the two of them. It makes Isak question any future that they could have, because Even is a public figure, he’s a world-famous director, and Isak is a university student, hasn’t even gotten his BA yet.

Which is how they end up having their first massive row since that day in the kitchen when everything had blown up and finally come to light.

“What are you supposed to do, show up on the red carpet with me on your arm?”

“What’s wrong with having you on my arm?”

They’re not mad at each other, that’s not what it’s about. It’s years upon years of deeply layered insecurities and being terrified.

Even had ended up doing a series of tweets in the middle of the night when he hadn’t been able to fall asleep because of the nerves. His hands had been shaking, and he’d done typo after typo until his fancy phone had almost given up. Then he’d shut his phone off entirely and had kept his focus on Isak so he wouldn’t be tempted to check what people were saying about him, about them.

Isak can’t remember if they slept that night, in the end so exhausted their bodies had just given up, but he does remember the feeling of lying with Even, so close to him, and doing nothing but enjoying being with each other. It wasn’t exactly like they’d never done this before, but it had been freeing in a sense, the threatening knowing that they had to keep quiet, keep to the shadows, gone.

Then there are the things that you can’t learn from a phone call.

Magnus – for all of his support and kindheartedness – had been the first one to break and ask if they’re done being Debbie Downers yet so he can invite Vilde over.

Isak is left so flabbergasted he doesn’t even get a good one in about Magnus and Vilde apparently being an actual thing now.

Coming out is easier when you’re technically already out.

Telling people isn’t as difficult as Isak had always feared. The words, “This is Even, he’s my husband,” sound weird coming out of his mouth, and most time he only manages to get out “This is Even,” before he clamps shut.

Still, Even meets Eskild and Linn and he meets the girls – Sana he apparently already knows. It kind of blows Isak’s mind that Sana is Elias’ sister, that they’re siblings, that Isak has been so close to the people who mattered to Even and hadn’t even realized it.

In turn, Isak meets Even’s boys, feeling awkward as hell. Mikael he’s already met, but he hasn’t exactly made the best impression on him by first running away and then being the stranger that Even had married and who was now taking care of him after not speaking to each other for two years. It’s weird with all of them, though, because Isak feels like he’s technically known all of them since he was fifteen with how vividly Even would describe everything.

It goes well, though, for both of them. Eskild is clearly still a little hurt, but he’s putting his best foot forward without being forced to by Isak’s begging looks. Eva’s great at being welcoming, but she always was. Yousef is a little stilted with Isak, but Elias has apparently appointed himself to be the tension-diffuser which means telling stories about dumb shit that the group used to get up to. Isak doesn’t tell him that he already knows the stories, that’s not the point.

Sana shows up with an armful of notebooks, giving him a look that isn’t nearly as chilling as it would’ve been when they’d first been forced into each other’s orbits. He grins at her, tells her “thank you, Sanasol,” which makes Sana roll her eyes, but she’s smiling as well.

She doesn’t comment on how this was why Isak had been so wrong, why he’d taken to hiding away from the world, sometimes using her as a means for it. She also doesn’t say anything about his breakdown in the empty classroom. She really is a great best bud, Isak had been right about that.

Isak is lucky. He knows that. He knows a lot of people don’t get to have this positive a response from the people they’re closest to. But then there’s also the fact that it isn’t only the people in Isak’s life that he’s come out to, that it’s everyone in the world who knows and who feels entitled to express their opinions on it.

There are a lot of opinions on it.

Isak makes it a point not to look himself or Even up, but his restraint hasn’t improved in the past two years where he’s been making himself that promise anyway and is yet to manage keeping it.

He can’t remember ever having been called this many names, not even when Elias and his friends had been ganging up on him for most of his time in school. It puts him in a weird mood, a real funk that he can’t seem to shake himself out of.

The boys try to help, but they don’t understand. Isak isn’t sure he understands it, either.

It’s not until he one morning wakes up alone, panicked because what if, what if, what if and stumbling out of bed to check if Even’s gone, that he manages to shake himself out of his rut.

Because he finds Even in the kitchen, bathed in the early morning sunlight, wearing the Jesus t-shirt that Isak probably should’ve given up on years ago, bare footed, and wielding a spatula, scrambling up some eggs and toasting two slices of bread.

He smiles when he sees Isak, albeit a bit concerned at the state of him, and he welcomes him with open arms when Isak treads closer, holding him tightly and shielding him from the heat of the stove as he continues to mix the eggs.

It doesn’t matter, Isak realizes. It doesn’t matter one single bit what everyone online or in real life is saying about him or about Even or about him and Even. As long as he gets to have this, this is what matters.

Even leaves for a week to live with Mikael. Not that they really suspect the forced proximity of basically living together is doing anything good or bad to them, it’s just a precaution. They haven’t even been together in ages, but Isak is still surprised with how much he’d gotten used to Even just always being there.

That week is awful, and the time Even isn’t over at Isak’s anyway is spent texting Even the most inane, random things just because Isak’s heart can’t handle the risk of losing Even again.

They should probably do something to stop it from developing into a codependency that would be really unhealthy for the both of them, but for now they’re both a bit extra clingy, nerves frazzled from finding out that the past two years of their lives have practically been one big lie that could’ve prevented months upon months of heartbreak. It’s not an easy pill to swallow.

It’s still a necessity learning how they fit together again. Isak still remembers how Even takes his coffee and tea and what he likes for breakfast when he’s happy or when he’s stressed, but now there are new things about Even that Isak doesn’t know – like what he’ll insist on throwing into the grocery cart, although Isak’s certain most of it is simply to make Isak laugh.

Isak draws the line at the line of spices Even insists are a necessity to have in one’s spice rack. Isak tells him that he refuses to believe him until he’s able to pronounce Pottagaldrar correctly. Even spends the next minute pronouncing everything just a smidge wrong, and then laughs so hard he has to sit down in the middle of the isle when Isak sing-songs Kardemomme.

Isak is slow at taking off his jacket. He can hear Even in the kitchen, putting away the groceries and rearranging the fridge to his liking, and Isak has missed this.

He had spent so long missing Even that he’d forgotten about all these little things that made up their life together; the grocery shopping and Even putting it away, and Isak picking up after them and doing the laundry, and he has missed this domesticity that they so easily fall into every single time.

The fridge door closes and Even comes out to see why Isak is still loitering in the hall, his jacket hanging limply in one hand.

“Did you fall asleep out here?” Even laughs, then comes closer to grab Isak’s jacket to hang it up on the coat rack.

Even’s leaning down over him when he reaches down for his jacket. He smells good, like clean soap and a scent that’s distinctively Even and a little bit like Isak because he’s wearing his shirt, and he’s all up in Isak’s space and Isak can’t not.

Even steps back once he’s gotten the jacket out of Isak’s limp hold. He’s still smiling and Isak knows he’s just waiting to tease Isak further. He can already see how Even turns to look at him instead of the coat rack.

He’s smiling, wide and with his teeth and so hard that it makes his eyes crinkle. Isak waits until Even’s looking at him to let his eyes wander down to Even’s mouth.

Even when he’s smiling like this, his bottom lip looks plump and Isak really, really wants to kiss him. They haven’t kissed once this entire time, and Isak lets himself have his fill of looking, of following the curve of his cupid’s lip right up to the corner of his mouth that comes closer and closer the more Even stops smiling.

Isak briefly looks up to look at Even’s eyes to see if something’s wrong.

Even looks… so taken aback, but not uncomfortable in the slightest. He misses the knob on the coat rack so Isak’s jacket falls to the ground. Even doesn’t even move to look at it, doesn’t do anything that means he’ll have to look away from Isak.

He swallows, and Isak trails the movement in his throat as well, briefly stopping at his lips when he goes back to look at Even’s eyes again.

Isak licks his lips once, just a peek of his tongue against his bottom lip, but that’s all it takes for Even to take two massive steps and then he’s in Isak’s space.

He pushes him up against the wall harshly enough that Isak loses his breath, and then Even’s lips are on his and Isak can’t keep in his muffled moan at the feeling.

It’s frantic and a bit wet and messy. It feels like the floor is swimming underneath Isak’s feet and he has to touch Even, has to, so he grabs on to whatever bit he first touches – his sides – and curls his hands along his ribs underneath his open hoodie, nails slightly digging into his back through his t-shirt.

Even makes a muffled groan that makes Isak’s blood rush downwards; something that isn’t lessened in the slightest when Even grabs on to his hair and clenches his hand into a fist until his hold is so secure he can move and direct Isak around however he likes.

Even is a warm force pressed up against him, and Isak can feel he’s already hard from where his crotch is pressed up against Isak’s hip. Isak is well on his own way there, if he isn’t there already. God, he can’t breathe, but he isn’t sure he actually wants to. He’s gasping into Even’s mouth at every opportunity and Even is doing the same, but neither of them move away to let the other breathe properly.

It’s so hot and a bit filthy and Isak should probably be worried that they’re doing this out in the hallway, but he literally doesn’t have any part of his brain left that isn’t fully enraptured by Even.

So he doesn’t stop to think until they hear the front door open up and whatever conversation that had been going on halters immediately.

Both Isak and Even tense up before Even draws back. He can’t get far with the way Isak is still holding on to him so desperately, but then again, Even’s hands are still in his hair so it’s not like Isak could take a single step back if he wanted to, had he not already been pressed against the wall.

Jonas is obviously trying to keep a cool, relaxed expression on his face, but Mahdi is grinning like an idiot. Magnus is too far back behind the two of them, but Isak’s willing to bet he’s gaping at them.

Jesus, this is the first time Isak and Even have even kissed in front of them, of course it had to be a heavy make-out session as well instead of an innocent peck before one of them is out the door.

Fuck.

Fuck, Isak can’t breathe and it feels startlingly horrible compared to just seconds before when he hadn’t been able to breathe because of Even.

“Well, well, well,” Jonas is grinning now. “Did you get the grocery shopping done?”

Even clears his throat. This conversation feels very misplaced considering Isak is still pressed up against the wall with Even pressed up against him and they’re in the middle of the hallway and none of them are moving. “It’s in the fridge.”

“Sweet,” Jonas nods. His eyes are soft when he looks at Isak and Isak doesn’t even dare think of how he looks – a bit debauched if anything and quite possibly like his friends are a firing squad here just for him.

Jonas nods again, but this time it doesn’t feel as much as an acknowledgment they’ve gotten the grocery shopping done, but more of a reassurance for Isak. Isak can almost hear Jonas’ thoughts shouting at him across the distance, you’re allowed to kiss your husband!

And Isak – Isak can’t help the grin slowly stretching out across his face, because, yes, he is allowed to kiss his husband. He shouldn’t feel like he’s not allowed, shouldn’t let anyone, whether they’re in his life or not, tell him he can’t kiss his husband. He’s so, so in love with Even, and if he wants to kiss him – and Even wants to kiss him – then he’s going to kiss him.

Jonas must see it on his face, because he’s properly grinning now as he nods one last time.

“Yeah,” Isak should probably clear his throat as well. Despite the interruption, he feels Even’s dick twitch against his hip at the slight raspy sound to his voice. “If that’s all then –“ he leans up on the tips of his toes to press his mouth right up against Even’s ear and whispers, “I’d really like for you to be inside me.”

Even makes a choked sound as his hands momentarily tighten in Isak’s hair. Isak pushes against his stomach until he stumbles back a step, his hands flail for a moment before Isak grabs one and starts tugging him in the direction of his bedroom.

“Alright-y,” Jonas says and reaches over Mahdi to grab onto the door handle. “We’ll just go and play some football, then, if you don’t mind.”

“Really don’t,” Isak calls back. God, he can’t stop smiling and Even is smiling right back at him.

“Wait, what’s Evak doing?” Magnus called out. “What are you do- what are they doing?”

Isak giggles as he drags Even into his room, the slam of his door shutting close keeping out whatever else Magnus might’ve been saying, and then Isak leans up and they’re kissing again.

It’s been literal years since Isak last kissed Even, and he’s fucking missed it. He’s missed Even’s body pressed up against his own, he’s missed the feeling of Even’s lips against his own, against him in general, and he’s missed Even.

It’s goddamn everything.

It’s rediscovering each other, which is a little bit of a weird feeling when Isak remembers just how much time they used to spend just making out. That probably makes it easier to pick it up right where they left off, though, because it doesn’t take long before Even’s kissing him long and deep, turning Isak pliant and needy.

Things don’t feel as terrifying when he’s kissing Even.

Having kissed Even in front of the boys doesn’t feel like the death sentence Isak had thought it would be. Having people know that he likes boys, that he likes – loves Even – doesn’t make his world fall apart.

Isak makes a soft noise when Even pulls back, immediately leaning back in, but Even’s grinning too widely to kiss Isak properly, the way he wants to be kissed. Isak frowns and opens his eyes, hoping a grumpy look will make Even pull himself together quicker.

“I can’t believe you just did that,” Even whispers against his lips, immediately causing Isak’s cheeks to heat up.

He squirms a bit, but he doesn’t feel terrible, not in the way he’d thought he would’ve.

Isak tilts his head back, jaw set as he looks at Even determinedly. “Would you rather I’d have to be quiet?”

All of the air in Even’s lungs comes whooshing out. His fingers dig into Isak’s hips until he’s wriggling forward, trying to get closer or to get Even moving away from the door.

The bed. They should – things suddenly feel a lot more urgent, like it had when Even had dropped Isak’s jacket in favor of keeping his eyes on him.

Isak pushes at Even’s chest to get him moving, but Even is already dipping down to kiss Isak again, delaying Isak’s plans and thoughts for a few seconds before the heat gathering in his center is too insistent for Isak to forget about it.

“Even, Ev, come on – “ the words come out muffled when his lips are still moving against Even’s, but Even still manages to understand him.

“Did you mean it?” he asks, standing still when Isak tries to stumble forward, tries to get them closer to the bed that’s literally so close. “What you said? Did you mean it? Because we don’t – we don’t have to –“

And Even trying to be gallant, trying to let things go slowly when this is hardly the first time they’ve done anything – just the first time this time around – shouldn’t be this much of a turn on, but it is. Isak literally feels dizzy with it, completely breathless as he pulls back just so he can look Even in the eye when he tells him.

“I want it,” he says, then gets shy at the thought of having been too blunt.

Maybe Even had been trying to pause it because he didn’t want it, had changed his mind, had –

“Do – do you?” he asks quietly, suddenly unable to look past the corner of Even’s eye. Asking takes a lot, but that’s a thing they do now, asking. Talking. Because not doing so had been what had made everything so messed up for so long. “We don’t have to –“

Even cuts him off with his lips, which hurts a bit because their teeth end up knocking together and Even somehow manages to nick Isak’s bottom lip slightly with his canine.

“Of course I want to,” Even tells him, licking with the tip of his tongue where his tooth had caught Isak’s skin. “Silly, beautiful boy, of course I want to.”

Even the tips of Isak’s ears feel like they’re a flaming pink.

“Maybe you didn’t,” he counters, not sure why. The knot of anxiety in his heart isn’t easy to get rid of.

Even’s eyes are soft when Isak gets the courage to meet his eyes again. One hand cards through Isak’s hair gently.

“I do,” Even says, sending a hot surge of want through Isak when he remembers an entirely different time when Even had looked at him like that and had said those words to him. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, I promise. Please don’t doubt that, don’t doubt –“ don’t doubt me, Isak knows Even wants to say but probably can’t bring himself to.

Isak not trusting Even and his feelings for Isak had been part of the mess after all. Some wounds need time to heal. Neither of them are entirely okay yet, but they will be. For once, Isak’s entirely certain of that.

“Okay,” Isak says, giving Even two short pecks before he tries to push him backwards towards the bed again. “Okay.”

Even’s malleable this time around, so it doesn’t take more than two seconds before the back of his knees knock against the bed and he sits down, grinning up at Isak.

Leaning down to kiss Even also feels like a novelty that it shouldn’t, because they’ve done this before, Isak keeps reminding himself.

Even must be able to sense the inner turmoil Isak’s tumbling around with in his thoughts, because he pulls back to check on Isak again.

But Isak does decidedly not want to be checked on, so Even doesn’t get further than opening his mouth before Isak falls forward at the same time as he’s pushing Even down so they both end up lying on the bed, facing each other.

“Faen,” Even laughs, hurrying to curl his hands around Isak’s waist again. “God, you startled me.”

Isak’s grinning, wants a little bit to tease Even and tell him, “good”, but he wants to kiss him more, so he does that instead.

Kissing is good. It’s so good. Isak never wants to stop. He twists onto his back so he can pull Even on top of him, improving the angle immensely. Feels Even tongue against the seam of his lips, pushing in just slightly before he pulls away again, breaking their lips apart.

Isak didn’t mean for the whine to come out, but Even hadn’t been there to muffle it, so it sounds a lot louder than Isak had thought it would’ve.

He feels Even’s breath huff lightly against his cheek when he presses his lips there instead of on Isak’s mouth, then feels his lips press against his jaw, and then down, down, down.

The giggle bubbles out of Isak’s mouth before he can stop it, and he squirms away from Even’s mouth, pressing his cheek against his shoulder reflexively.

Even pauses in confusion, but soon a way too satisfied grin splits across his face.

“What was that?”

Isak flushes and kicks out at Even weakly, his knee more so caressing his side than anything else. “Nothing, kiss me,” he tries to deflect, but Even leans back when Isak clenches his stomach to hold himself up.

“You turned into a little girl when I started to kiss you.”

“I wasn’t ready for neck-action!” Isak protests, his cheeks warm, but he’s laughing as well.

“’Neck-action’,” Even laughs, finally leaning down, but he kisses Isak right at the dip of the base of his throat. “If you’re not even ready for ‘neck-action’, then how will the ‘dick-action’ go down?”

“’Dick-action’,” Isak groans, hiding his face behind the palms of his hands much to Even’s amusement. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You did not just say that.”

Even is laughing too hard to reply, the asshole. He’s a heavy weight on top of Isak, body gone too limp to hold himself up anymore.

And Isak should be groaning, should be teasing Even relentlessly for actually having said the words ‘dick-action’ out loud, but instead he shuffles his left thigh out from underneath Even’s weight and uses it alongside his right leg to wrap around Even’s waist, pulling him in closer and closer and closer until he can’t breathe.

This time it feels like he can’t breathe because he’s laughing too hard for Even to be lying on top of him like this. For all of the reasons why Isak has been unable to breathe in the past, this is probably one of his favorites.

“The mood is all over the place,” Isak complains, says more than anything really.

It’s difficult to complain when Even is smiling like that at him.

“It’s good,” Even assures him, pressing his hips down against Isak’s so he can feel for himself just how good it really is.

Isak has to admit that it does feel dizzyingly good.

“I forgot how fun this is,” Even whispers, fingers running along Isak’s hairline softly. “Or, well, not forgot necessarily, but – you know what it’s like when you know about something because you used to do it every single day, like, you know how hard it was to get up at six every morning because you had to go to school, but you don’t remember the feeling of being so tired and just wanting to stay home? It’s like that. I knew I always loved you and loved having you this way, but I wouldn’t and couldn’t let myself fully remember what it was really like.”

Isak knows. Isak knows this, because he feels it too, but he doesn’t know how to explain it to Even, so instead he pulls Even down by his neck and presses his lips against his.

It doesn’t feel as frantic as it had out in the hall, but it feels deeper than anything else Isak has ever felt. He feels it in his stomach, in his heart, in his lungs, all the way down to his toes.

Even plucks at the hem of the hoodie Isak’s wearing. “Love seeing you in this.”

Isak licks his bottom lip, Even following the movement as if in a trance. They’re both breathing a bit harshly. “But maybe not right now?” he finishes for Even.

“Maybe not right now,” Even agrees, and then they’re shuffling until Even’s up on his knees and Isak’s crunching high enough that he can get the hoodie off with Even’s help.

Isak falls back on the bed with an umph, but the sound has barely left his lips before he’s leaning up again to wrench off his t-shirt, and then help Even out as well.

“Too many layers,” he complains much to Even’s amusement.

“It’s late autumn. In Norway. What do you want?”

“For you to not be wearing this many clothes,” Isak tells him bluntly, because this is a thing he wants to get good at, wants to be able to tell Even the truth without hesitating or second-guessing himself.

Even pauses, but his eyes are dark, cheeks a bit flushed, and he’s staring at Isak like he’s a few seconds away from devouring him.

Then he lifts his shirt off as well, crawling his way back over Isak. The feeling of his skin pressing against Isak’s makes Isak gasp, hands flying up to steady himself somewhere, anywhere, to let Even help him feel grounded.

One hand ends up in Even’s hair, the other clutching at his shoulder.

“One day,” Even pecks Isak’s lips so he can keep talking, “I’ll take you with me to see the world. All the warm places so you’ll never have to put any clothes on.”

Isak feels a bit like he’s made out of goo, that he’s actually melted here in Even’s arms. He cards the hand he has in Even’s hair gently through his locks. “I never needed to see the world,” he says instead of joking back. “That was never what it was about.”

Even shifts his weight onto his elbows so he can get close enough to breathe the same air as Isak.

“I know,” he tells him. “I know it wasn’t, that it isn’t. Let me spoil you, please.”

Isak blinks the tears out of his eyes frantically, looking off to the side even though he knows Even isn’t able to miss it, not when he’s this close. He doesn’t want to cry right now, not when he’s this happy. “Well, if you want to spoil me.“

“Menace,” Even grins, pressing his nose into Isak’s cheek until he’s managed to get his tear ducts back in line.

Isak hears the sentiment for what it is, though, hears the darling loud and clear.

It’s what makes him kiss Even again. Or, maybe it’s everything that makes him kiss Even again. Maybe it’s everything that makes him want to never stop kissing Even again.

The heat that fills Isak feels unbearably good. It’s difficult to breathe sometimes, but Isak doesn’t think not being able to breathe has ever felt like it does right now, with Even’s weight on top of him, his lips against his, his hands searing as they make their way around his body, easily manipulating it into moving this way and that until they’re both entirely undressed.

Isak’s breath hitches in his throat and he can’t seem to tug Even back down on top of him fast enough.

He just – he wants. He wants so much, and he wants so much more, but at the same time it already feels like it’s so much – more than he can handle.

He’s so hard, and Even is too. He gasps when he feels him against him, heat swirling around in his abdomen, making him squirm until Even finally manages to open up the lube and pour some out on his fingers. His hands are shaking a bit, though, and a drop spills onto Isak’s stomach.

He hisses from the cold, startled. Before he knows it Even has closed the lid and dropped the bottle in the sheets – which will be a bitch to search through in a second – so he can place his warm hand on Isak’s stomach. He looks positively massive like that, his fingers spanning all the way from his hip to his ribs.

God, Isak loves the feeling of it. That hasn’t changed in the slightest.

Other things have, though. Even’s more careful when he pushes the first finger in, in a way that he hasn’t been since the very first times they’d tried this.

His hair is different too, done up in the way he always does it; quaffed and stylish. It’s a bit disheveled from Isak messing it up right now, though. Isak sucks in a breath and has to grab on to Even’s hair again, just because.

Even looks up at him cautiously, checking if something is wrong, if Isak’s in pain, but whatever sight Isak makes only has his eyes darkening and lips parting slightly as a harsh breath leaves him.

“Fuck me,” Isak whispers, begs probably. He bears down when Even presses another finger against him, so ready, ready, ready and needing Even to just move on already. “Please.”

“Shh,” Even hushes him, pressing his lips against Isak’s right hip, then moves down to his inner thigh.

If he’d expected it to have a calming effect, it does make Isak feel like drawing in the next breath doesn’t feel impossible, but it serves nothing to quell the frantic energy building inside of him. He reaches down to grab a hold of himself, but Even bats his hand away before he can get a single tug in.

“Not yet,” he promises, grins when Isak whines in reply.

That’s a thing that isn’t different, Isak notes. Even is still as much of a tease as he’s always been.

As if Even can tell what he’s thinking, he curls his fingers perfectly. Isak’s legs curl up reflexively as he grows a million degrees hotter in one second. He accidentally bangs his knee against Even’s elbow, displacing his fingers inside of him. He lets out a soft, complaining noise at the odd movement that Even hurries to hush, his hand returning to Isak’s stomach.

His thumb draws small patterns along the bottom-line of his ribs in a hypnotizing manner.

“You’re good,” Even tells him, asks, Isak can’t tell. He wants to always have Even’s hands on him, wants to always feel like this, wants to always have Even between his thighs, wants time to freeze like this.

Or when he’s actually finally gotten Even inside of him. That’s probably better, definitely better.

“Even,” he gasps, trying to get his point across without saying the actual words. His tongue feels too thick to form words, his lips already sore from all the kissing. The skin on his chin feels a bit itchy from the scratch of Even’s stubble.

“Faen,” Even swears. “Do you have any idea what you look like right now? How you feel around my fingers?”

Isak burns with the flush heating him up. “Do you?”

“Christ.” Even doesn’t even bother closing his mouth now, just folds himself over Isak so he can kiss him.

Kissing Even both is and isn’t the same as it’s always been. He still likes to lick into Isak’s mouth, but it’s more controlled now. His lips are softer too, from stylists needing to present him in the best way possible. But he tastes the same, feels the same against Isak, and Isak can’t get enough of it.

Even’s just breathing now, sharing the same breaths between them over and over again. He works two fingers back inside Isak again.

“We’re good together, aren’t we?” Even’s voice is soft, a little shy, a lot insecure.

Isak cups his cheek. “Always. We’ve always been good together.”

Even nods, pressing his nose against Isak’s. “I wish you’d just called me, back then,” he admits in nothing but a whisper, “so I could’ve told you what a load of rubbish it was.”

It’s difficult feeling the pleasure of having Even inside of him at the same time as the cage around his heart tightens.

“I know.” Isak sort of does too, but there’s also a part of his that doesn’t. “I just – what if that had been it? What if they’d said ‘alright’ and made you pack up and leave? I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let our marriage be the only epic story you’d get to live.”

Even kisses him quiet.

“Still,” Even presses the tip of a third finger against where his other two fingers are, “I wish I hadn’t fucked up and made you believe that was a reality. That it was something I would seriously do, that I would feel like that.”

“We both fucked up,” Isak rectifies. “I shouldn’t have stopped talking to you. We shouldn’t have stopped talking altogether. That’s why it went so wrong.”

He tugs at Even’s hair to get his point across, to make sure he has Even’s attention and that he understands and believes what Isak’s telling him.

“We’re already doing better, aren’t we?”

“We are,” Even agrees. Isak loosens his grip on his hair. “I just wish I could’ve had you with me.”

Isak has to bite down on his tongue. “We can’t keep going over it like this, it’ll kill us. We’re going to move forward instead. Right?”

“Right,” Even nods, but he still looks sad so Isak kisses him again. “I just – I’m sorry I hurt you. I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Isak promises. “And I’m sorry I hurt you. I never wanted to do that. I don’t want to hurt you again. That’s why we’re working so hard to do better.”

“I know. We will. We are.” Even is the one to kiss him this time.

It’s slow and warm and good and it makes Isak feel like his lungs are able to fully expand inside of his chest. Even also looks happier when he pulls back, when he moves the two fingers he still has inside Isak.

Isak tries to muffle his groan against the pillows, but Even guides him back to face him instead with his free hand.

“Don’t,” he breathes. “Don’t do that. Let me hear you, please. It’s been so long, I want to hear – I want to see –“

Isak couldn’t muffle the noise he makes even if he wanted to. It’s raw and guttural and Even looks breathless from it.

“Fuck,” Even mutters again, and then there are three fingers inside of Isak and he can’t do anything but repeat the sentiment himself.

“Please,” he breathes, not even sure what he’s begging for. “Please.”

“I’ve got you,” Even promises. “I’ll take care of you. Let me – let me take care of you.”

Isak’s nodding, his eyes are squeezed shut so he can’t tell how Even looks. He can’t open them, he’s so overwhelmed with how good he feels and how much he feels.

Another soft noise escapes him when Even draws out his fingers.

“Uhm –“ Even hesitates, and Isak finally manages to open his eyes.

Even looks as disheveled as Isak feels, just as out of it and not wanting to miss any of it. Isak almost thinks that he’s going to ask if Isak’s sure, if he really wants this, or that he might bring up that he’s sorry again.

“You don’t know what happened to the lube, do you?”

Isak pauses as he registers Even’s words. Then – “Oh, for fuck’s sake, I literally thought that when I heard you just toss it –“

“Hey,” Even protests, but he’s laughing too hard to pull it off. “I was distracted.”

Isak snorts. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yes,” Even agrees. “I have the most gorgeous boy underneath me, how could I not be distracted?”

Christ, Even shouldn’t be able to make him blush this easily, not in a moment like this. But Isak’s cheeks are heating up and he’s squirming underneath Even’s intense gaze. “If you hadn’t been distracted, you could’ve been inside this boy already.”

“God,” Even breathes, a bit like all the air has gotten punched out of his lungs. “Fuck, alright, please help me find the lube.”

“The sheets,” he directs, pulling at the corner of the duvet mostly unhelpfully. “Come on, please.”

“Fuck, okay,” Even mumbles, frantically patting down the duvet until he finds the bottle. “Okay, I’ve got you, come here.”

As if Isak has moved.

He pushes his feet up further on the mattress so he can lift his bum up onto Even’s thighs for easier access, his stomach tightening at the noises of Even slickening himself up.

And then he’s inside of him, and Isak has to fight to keep breathing, to not lose his breath entirely.

He slides in slowly, like Isak is something to be careful with.

“Ev- Even,” he breathes, hands flying out until he can steady himself on Even’s arms. “Even.”

Even’s breathing is labored already. He can’t tear his eyes off of Isak. “Christ, you’re tight. Isak, baby –”

“Can you –“ Isak moans when Even rolls his hips, keeps sliding in slowly, slowly, slowly until Isak’s certain there can’t be anything left. “Even –“

“I’ve got you,” Even promises, leaning down once he’s finally slid in the last couple of inches to kiss him. “Baby, I’ve got you.”

Isak doesn’t mean to moan at the endearment, but he does. God, he’s missed this, he loves this, he loves –

“I’ll always pick you,” Even promises him. “I never want you to doubt that ever again. I pick you.”

Isak nods, kisses him again. “I pick you too, you know. Always. Can you – please, move.”

And Even does. He pulls out about halfway, and then spends ages pushing back in to the hilt. Isak pushes himself up even further, hooks his knee around Even’s waist so he sinks in impossibly deeper on the next thrust.

It’s good. It’s impossibly good, and Isak loses himself to the feeling quickly.

He’s sweating. Even is as well, breath coming in short pants as he moves quicker and quicker, working Isak up to the edge dizzyingly fast. He doesn’t want it to end yet, though. Not when it’s this good, when it means so much to him.

This is the boy that Isak had fallen head-first in love with when Even had broken into the Botanical Garden just to get him a picture of a flower. This is the boy that he’d snuck around with everywhere because neither of them dared to meet in the sunlight. This is the boy that he’d fumbled through awkward blowjobs before they’d gotten the hang of it, the first person he’d ever kissed, ever had sex with, ever fell in love with. This is the boy he’d married, had vowed to spend the rest of his life with. The boy he’d thought he would never get to have like this again, who didn’t want him anymore. This is the boy that Isak will get to spend the rest of his life with.

“Baby,” Even croons sweetly into Isak’s temple as he presses a kiss there. “Baby.”

Isak mewls beautifully even as he chokes on a sob. Tears are wetting his eyelashes and he’s feeling so much he can’t process it.

“Baby, you’re crying,” Even tells him, reminds him, Isak doesn’t know, can’t focus on anything that isn’t Even slowing down until he’s lazily twisting his hips, grinding so deeply inside him. “Why are you crying?”

And there are so many reasons why Isak’s crying, but mostly because it’s been so long since he’s had this, since he’s had Even, and it feels like he’s been lost, wandering for years and years and now he’s finally gotten to come home.

“Love you,” Isak babbles, choked and breathy and whiny and so, so beautifully. “Love you, love you, love you.”

Even might be crying a little bit as well.

“My baby,” Even presses small kisses down his cheekbone, his cheek, his jaw, licking away any tears that have escaped. “My sweet, beautiful, brave boy. So good for me, so good to me.”

A sob breaks out of Isak’s mouth. “Love you.”

He should’ve told him a million times, should’ve never stopped saying it.

“I love you, too. God, Isak, I’m so close, please tell me you’re close as well,” Even begs.

“I’m close,” Isak promises, grabs Even’s shoulder to keep from getting pushed up the bed by Even’s hips. “I love you. I’m so close.”

“Isak,” Even moans, lying down on top of Isak so he can kiss him, his hips picking up the pace again once their chests are pressed together, Isak’s dick is trapped between their stomachs. “What do you need, what can I –“

“Kiss me,” Isak begs. “Just that, just kiss me, please.”

And Even does. His lips glide over Isak’s messily, because his hips are losing their rhythm and they’re both panting but also way too close to the edge to really care.

Isak shoots off between them without a hand to help him along. Even’s hips rock up twice into him before he hides his face away in Isak’s neck, sucking the skin between his teeth to control his moans.

“Baby.” Isak whines at the name again, feeling oversensitive and used and so fucking in love. “It’s always been you. It’ll always be you.”

“I love you,” Isak replies, grunting when Even pulls out.

He only just manages to shift his weight onto one arm before he tumbles onto the bed next to Isak, short of breath and flushed and the most beautiful thing Isak has ever seen.

“I love you,” he whispers, not caring if Even doesn’t hear it. He just needs to say it, needs for the words to be out there in the universe.

It sounds like some bullshit Vilde would probably say, he thinks. How if you tell the universe about what you want, it’ll give it to you.

Isak doesn’t need for the universe to grant him anything. Not when he’s already got what he wants the most. Now he just has to work on keeping it, but he doesn’t think that’ll be a problem – not with all the people he knows he has in his corner.

Even’s still lying on his back from where he tumbled onto the bed. Isak can’t stand not being closer to him, so he rolls onto his side, then continues onto his front until his shoulder bumps against Even’s chest.

“Umph,” Even grunts, but it’s for show and he’s already worming his arm underneath Isak’s neck to support his head. “Halla.”

“Hei,” Isak grins, feeling a little silly because of how shy he suddenly feels. “You alright?”

“I’m fucking amazing,” he grins, moving his elbow so Isak rolls a little closer. He’s smiling softly at him as Isak moves to accommodate him. “And – are you?”

Isak hums pleased. “A little sore.”

Even’s free hand lands on Isak’s hips, the tips of his fingers pressing against his lower back wonderfully. Isak groans at the feeling, pushes up against Even’s touch even as he moves further down towards his cheeks.

“I like it, though,” he admits, squirming with it as Even looks fully captivated by him. “I like you.”

Even’s smile is blinding. “I like you.”

Isak’s own smile might be blinding as well. It makes kissing a little awkward, but by god is Isak going to do it anyway –

The front door slams open.

“Hello, fellow remaining roommates!” Magnus bellows, voice a little muffled through Isak’s closed door, but not enough to easily tune him out.

Or Mahdi, for that sake. “We have returned, because the weather was utterly shit and rubbish for football, so we went to get kebabs, and now we’re freezing cold and with no other excuses to stay out.”

“Oh my god,” Isak groans, shoving his head into the pillow. His mouth sort of lands on Even’s bicep, though, which means his head ends up being a bit shaken about because Even is laughing.

“Don’t worry, though, because we are in the mood for music!” the yelling continues, Jonas this time, because all of Isak’s friends are assholes.

“The goddamn theatrics on them,” Isak complains. “And I thought living with you or Eskild was bad.”

“Shush, you,” Even curls the arm Isak’s lying on to gather him closer. “At least they’re courteous enough to let us know they’re back without just walking in.”

Isak snorts. “’Courteous’. Yeah, right, good one. They’re a bunch of assholes, just you wait –“’

The words haven’t even left Isak’s mouth before The Lion King soundtrack starts blaring through the apartment.

Even’s laugh comes a close second in terms of loudness – a full-on belly laugh that leaves him breathless and with shining eyes as he curls closer to Isak.

“Assholes,” Isak repeats. “I hate them. Let’s move out.”

Even’s still giggling, but not so much that he can’t press a kiss to Isak’s temple. “Not yet, baby. Let’s enjoy this a bit longer.”

He’s smiling and beautiful and he’s Isak’s fucking husband, and it’s so easy to smile back and fall a little more in love to the tunes of Elton John’s ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’.

“Okay.”

OOOOO

“If you’re late for Movie Night-night one more time, Isak, I will personally drag the two of you apart, do not test me!”

“Five more minutes,” Isak mutters against Even’s lips, stubbornly kissing him even as Even laughs.

“I don’t think we have five minutes,” Even tells him, but then he’s kissing him again, so what does he know.

They do not, in fact, have five minutes.

Isak’s door knocks against the wall, startling the two of them apart.

“Oh god, my eyes!” Mahdi is screeching despite not even having peeked in and the fact that both Isak and Even are fully clothed. Their lips aren’t even pink and swollen yet – they haven’t been kissing for more than ten minutes because Isak had to finish up his reading first and Even had to fix an issue with a colleague’s script directions. “It burns!”

“Shut up,” Isak groans, tries to pull Even back down on the bed to kiss him. Who cares if the door is open, that’ll show them to not interrupt the sacredness of a closed door.

God, what does he need to do, put a sock on the door handle as well?

Even only lets him for two kisses, though, then he’s pulling back and moving off the bed.

“No,” he whines petulantly, making grabby-hands at Even. Maybe if he pouts long enough Even will take pity on him and tell the boys to fuck off, he has a boy to kiss.

That doesn’t happen.

“Up,” Even orders, only leaning forward long enough to smack at Isak’s hip once, way too fast for Isak to grab on to him to pull him back down.

“It’s a movie night,” Isak complains, hoping Even will see sense and come back already.

Even just laughs, the asshole, from out in the hallway. “What is my favorite thing in the world?”

“Me.”

“Second favorite,” Even amends from out in the kitchen. “What snacks do you want?”

Isak sighs for a good minute, loudly so Even knows of his displeasure. “Chips.”

“What flavor?”

Isak stomps into the living room without looking back at Even in the kitchen. “Onion, because like hell am I kissing you again tonight.”

“Hello there, grumpy boy,” Jonas greets him, probably in an attempt at saving Even from Isak’s wrath when he hears just how loud he’s laughing. “Thank you for gracing us with your presence – umph!” he groans when Isak sinks down on the couch, a well-placed elbow ending up in Jonas’ stomach.

Mahdi and Magnus have gotten comfy already; Mahdi’s scrolling through the movie options, and Magnus is sitting sideways in the armchair he’s dragged closer to the couches.

He’s looking at Isak, frowning thoughtfully. “You know, you’ve gone without getting any dick for years by now. Surely going five minutes without Even’s dick isn’t the end of the world.”

Isak wouldn’t be able to bite his tongue hard enough to refrain from giving Magnus a scorching remark. “Said by someone who has clearly never tried it.”

It was meant to be a dis about Magnus being a virgin. In no way possible has Isak ever expected Magnus to interpret it as something else.

Magnus bats his eyelashes exaggeratedly at him. “Why, Isak, are you offering to ‘show me the ropes’, so to speak?”

The snort Jonas makes is entirely unattractive, and Isak sort of wishes he’d recorded it just for holding it over his head, but then again he’s really glad he’s not recording the atrocity that is this fucking conversation.

“Absolutely not,” he protests. “That’s, like, the biggest turn off in the world.”

“Bullshit!” Magnus calls. “As if you wouldn’t fuck me if you had the chance.”

Isak just looks at him. “No.”

The look on Magnus’ face is so shocked and affronted Mahdi ends up spewing a bit of juice out of his nose.

“Bullshit!” Magnus repeats, snapping his fingers at Isak. “Come on! Out of the three of us, who would you bang first?”

“None of you.” Isak doesn’t even have to think about it.

Magnus squawks, indignantly outraged. “Lies. Lies and slander I tell you.”

“Ranking is in, right now,” Jonas puffs at Isak with his elbow, ignoring the chilling glare he gets in return. “Haven’t you seen all the YouTube videos?”

“It’s only three places,” Magnus whines. “Isak, come on! First, second, and third in the competition for Isak’s dick.”

“You’ve all been disqualified.”

“Isak!”

“Magnus,” Isak finally snaps, “look at what I’m working with. None of you compare.”

Magnus blinks. Then blinks again and shrugs. “Fair enough.”

“That’s it?” Mahdi cries out. “I’ve been listening to your whining and you just give up like that?”

“It’s Even,” Magnus stresses, like that’s an explanation in itself. “There isn’t a single person in the world who wouldn’t want Even. You know what – everyone in this room who has ever wanted Even, raise your hand.” Magnus‘ hand flies up immediately. He sends Isak a dirty look. “Isak, you too.”

“No.”

“Isak –“

“Come on, man,” Mahdi breaks in, nudging Isak’s knee with his foot. He has to stretch comically far to reach him, but even the sight of it isn’t enough to lift Isak’s mood. “It’ll just look weird if you don’t. As if we don’t know it already.”

Isak levels a glare at Mahdi instead, but he also sighs and raises his hand.

“There you go!” Magnus laughs, leaning forward to high-five him. Jonas barks out a laugh at the cross look on Isak’s face.

“What the hell am I walking in on?” Even laughs, holding a packet of chips in one hand, two chocolate bars under his elbows and balancing two cups of tea by their handles in his other hand. He’s grinning obnoxiously at Isak, waggling his eyebrows. “So much for not wanting to kiss me tonight, huh?”

“Fuck off,” Isak groans, but it’s ruined by a giggle he has to hide away in one of the sofa cushions once the teasing starts.

This is good, he thinks when the lights have been turned off, the opening credits rolling as they all get comfortable.

Magnus and Even are already complaining about the composition, Mahdi calls bullshit because they haven’t gotten past the movie companies’ logos yet. Isak leans his head down on Jonas’ shoulder who accommodates him easily, then presses his toes into Even’s thigh.

Even doesn’t even flinch, just curls his fingers around Isak’s ankle, squeezing him once before he pulls his feet fully onto his lap. He’s laughing at something Mahdi said, and even in the horrible lighting the TV provides he’s the most beautiful thing Isak has ever seen.

“You alright, man?” Jonas whispers when the opening title music starts.

Isak nods, lets himself finally breathe completely easy at once. “Yeah. Better than alright. I’m great. I’m really, really great.”

Jonas grins back at him. “That’s ‘great’,” he teases, but Isak knows he means it.

It really is, he silently agrees as Even’s thumb draws circles along his ankle joint. It’s better than, even. It’s just really, really great.

It’s dark, but Isak can still tell when Even smiles at him.

Isak grins back.

 Past

Isak flunks every single one of his exams. He only finds out about it because he gets an email that tells him he needs to manually sign up for his second out of three attempts, it won’t be done automatically.

Whatever, Isak thinks, letting the roar of the crowd swallow him whole. He’ll just re-sit come February. It’s fine.

OOOOO

It’s less fine when Isak isn’t drunk anymore.

He’s stuck on the results page, sees the list documenting his failure, wouldn’t be able to look away even if he wanted to. His fingers itch to get a drink in them, but Isak just keeps sitting at his desk in front of his computer, staring at the screen.

This isn’t Isak.

Isak isn’t sure who he is anymore, hasn’t been for months now, but he does know that this isn’t him.

It’s not like Isak believes he’s only worth the number of his grade, but this – Isak isn’t stupid. He isn’t unable to understand the material he’s supposed to have spent the months between September and January learning. This isn’t him.

It would be easier to just get a drink. Much easier. That’s probably why Isak’s been doing it for so long, deflecting from everything and using it to hide away.

When Isak pushes himself away from the laptop, it’s not to grab his jacket that’s now definitely too thin for the weather and find a bar or a club somewhere. It’s to dig out his textbooks from underneath his bed where he’d put them right after purchasing them and hasn’t moved them since.

And when he sits back down again, he keeps the tab with his grades open, but he also opens Canvas so he can see the slides from the lectures and the assignments from the tutorials.

For the first time since starting at university, Isak cracks open his cell and molecular biology book and starts to read.

OOOOO

Isak’s got a headache the first time he attends a lecture when second term has started.

Not as earsplitting painful as the hangover-headaches had been, mind you, but it’s still there and he isn’t able to ignore it.

He knows quitting drinking cold turkey can be a bit of a dangerous approach, but Jonas’ eyebrows had been furrowed an uncomfortably large amount when he’d caught Isak sipping a beer at seven in the morning, so Isak had gotten out of bed this morning and headed to his lecture hall with a headache instead.

Turns out that lectures are a lot of fun when you don’t go there as a means to pass the time or when you’re hung-over as fuck. It’s a lot of fun, actually, and it’s so interesting Isak actually forgets to take any notes, he’s that captured by the professor.

He ends up spending an hour and a half on campus afterwards. He finds an unpopulated nook and scrambles with the keys to get down everything he remembers.

And then feels actually good about himself once he’s done. It’s a novel feeling, if Isak’s being honest. That would be a novelty as well, technically.

OOOOO

Isak’s honestly surprised that the light in his desk lamp hasn’t blown up yet from the sudden switch between having never been used to suddenly never getting a break.

He types up another definition, changing the format of certain words so they’re easier to spot when he scrolls through, then grabs his pencil to write it down on a flashcard.

Two knocks sound on his door.

“Hey,” Mahdi sticks his head in.

Isak immediately lowers his head, focusing on his scratchy handwriting instead. “Hey.”

“We’re going over to the Union,” Mahdi explains, nodding his head in the direction of the front door. “Want to join?”

Isak grimaces. It’s not that he doesn’t want to hang out with Jonas, Mahdi, and Magnus, it’s more that he doesn’t get why they would bother inviting him along. He pushed Mahdi, he’s constantly snapping at Magnus because of his complete inability to take a hint and shut up about Even whilst Isak is there, and Jonas is clearly frustrated with his behavior.

“Sorry,” he says, voice cracking. “I can’t.”

Mahdi nods, doesn’t look surprised, but he also doesn’t look relieved. Isak doesn’t know what any of it means. “It’d be cool if you came, though. When was the last time you took a break?”

Isak shrugs instead of replying. He can’t remember. He thinks he might’ve forgotten to eat dinner as well, now that he’s thinking about it, so going to the Union is definitely a ‘no’, then. He’ll fuck up everything if he drinks something on an empty stomach.

“It wasn’t a big deal, last time,” Mahdi sighs, “If that’s what you’re thinking about. Why you’re saying no. It’s fine.”

Isak winces. It really isn’t fine. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, I’m not like that –“

Mahdi rolls his eyes. “We know that, Isak, otherwise we wouldn’t be putting this much fucking effort into getting you to go out with us again.”

Oh. Isak flushes a bit, hopes he just looks warm from the scorching light of his desk lamp. “I’m kind of on a roll right now, though. Maybe next time. And I promise I won’t get violent.”

Mahdi points faux-threateningly at him. “Next time, then, Valtersen. We won’t take no for an answer.”

OOOOO

The thing about alcohol that makes it so tempting isn’t the feeling of letting go of your inhibitions, or your sense of reality slipping away until you feel like the impossible is possible. It had provided him with a blissful numbness.

Isak isn’t numb anymore.

So it had been about wanting to not feel anything, and then it had been about how it made it easier to forget.

Or, not forget, because he never did that, not really, but it made it easier to not constantly think about it.

Now that he isn’t drinking anymore, he has to actively not think about it, but actively not thinking isn’t easy at all.

Studying only goes so far. Memorizing and focusing on the coursework helps, but only temporarily. It all – Even, papers, signatures, secrets, lying, the shame, and the guilt, and the loneliness – stays with him now that he doesn’t have a method to make it go away – even if it’s in the background, it’s still there.

And it weighs so heavily on Isak’s shoulders. It leaves him absolutely exhausted to keep up the charade, to make it seem like, no, nothing is the matter, everything is fine and like he actually has managed to get his life in order, when it really feels like he’s about to fall apart as easily as he did back in May when the fantasy world he’d lived in came crumbling down on top of him.

It all leads to sleepless nights and sleepless nights lead to Isak steadily going out of his mind.

Pent up emotions seem to be treading lightly the edge of keeping it in and bursting out of him, and Isak can’t let that happen, he can’t. Not only does he still not want anyone to know anything about him, not like that, but now if something were to slip out he wouldn’t have Even to fall back on. He’d be alone, and a lot more alone than he already is right now.

Isak fucking hates being alone.

But he also doesn’t have a clue how to actually do anything to fix it. Focusing on his studies clearly doesn’t work. Drinking had worked, but he can’t start that shit again, because that’ll lead to him spiraling so far down he’ll never climb back up again. Talking to someone about it is out of the question.

Which means he’s out of options. And getting more frantic which each passing day to just figure out something so he won’t accidentally spill over and ruin everything he’s built up so far.

“Are you okay?”

Surprisingly enough, it isn’t someone who asks Isak that, but Isak who asks Eva.

Her eyes are red and puffy, she’s obviously been crying, but now she’s apparently moved on from being sad to being angry.

She softens a bit when she sees Isak, though.

“Hey,” she mutters, shoulders slumping. “Jonas isn’t here?”

Isak shakes his head. “No, he’s on the grocery run this week, drew the short straw.” They have a rotational shift schedule, but Isak is just really good at getting out of doing his share of the workload. Instead, he repeats, “Are you okay?”

Eva shrugs, but her bottom lip is quivering. “It’s just Jonas being an asshole,” she explains, the anger suddenly coming back. “It’s not like I don’t know you guys smoke, okay? I don’t know why he insists on lying to me about it, because it just makes me feel like shit and paranoid – because if he’s lying about that, what else is he lying about, you know?”

Isak doesn’t know. They’d made it a point not to lie to each other, not when they were lying to everyone else.

Then again, Isak is here, by himself for the rest of his life, so what does he know. “Do you want me to yell at him when he comes back?” he offers.

Eva laughs a little snottily, but it’s real enough. “No. I had a good cry about it. That always helps, doesn’t it?”

Isak hasn’t cried since he packed up his stuff and whatever belongings of Even’s that he hadn’t been able to part with. Maybe that – maybe. Maybe it isn’t all too terrible an idea.

“Anyway,” Eva shrugs, seemingly calmer now that she’s gotten some of it out of her system. “I’ll just – talk to him later, I guess.” She leans in and gives Isak a hug. “Takk, Isak.”

“You’re welcome,” he mumbles, not paying attention because his head is stuck somewhere else.

In a shoebox-sized apartment in Oslo that two people had shared before one of them had gotten a better offer, to be precise.

Crying hadn’t fixed anything, hadn’t felt like the catharsis Eva had been talking about – it had just made him feel sweaty and disgusting and utterly pathetic, and had just about cemented the fact that Even wasn’t coming back, because why the fuck would he when this was what he’d be coming back to.

But Isak is desperate, and this is an option that Isak knows won’t be difficult to attempt, not with all these emotions swirling around inside of him, too close to flooding.

He just needs one thing, and that thing he’s got hidden away in his room, so he walks back inside, going directly over to draw the curtains.

Isak isn’t the one who left. He’s the one who fucked up and made Even stop loving him, yes, but he can’t keep going like this. He shouldn’t keep punishing himself over it; it’ll never stop if he continues like that.

He’s still pissed at Even, absolutely furious, but the hurt is the most prominent feeling now that he’s sober, and the gut-wrenching hurt is the emotion that wins out.

It takes a while, because Isak had shoved the box into the very back of his closet for a reason – that he never wanted to see any of that shit again, but now he does. He wants it, and it takes ages to dig through overdue laundry and random items he’d forgotten he still had.

And then the box is there, with a layer of dust accumulated where it hadn’t been covered.

They’ve been left untouched since Isak stashed them there, and he honestly can’t really remember packing them either, so he’s a bit startled when he opens them up and sees the absolute disarray that it’s in.

Most of the things he doesn’t even remember Even owning, and then there are a few camera lenses that have cracked from neglect – Isak doesn’t know why he grabbed them, doesn’t remember, but feels very stupid that he didn’t at least also grab the camera they go with.

Isak isn’t interested in the cameras or the lenses or the drawings. Right there, not at the very bottom, but far down enough that Isak had started to get worried that he hadn’t packed it, that he’d misremembered, that he’d left it behind for Even to have or throw out, is Even’s hoodie. The one Isak had practically stolen and never given back, and Even had let him because it was his favorite thing to see Isak in his clothes and he’d loved giving him long hugs so he could just enjoy the soft material as well.

It’s still soft, despite having been mistreated so badly for months now. The drawstrings have still retained the color of the paint. It doesn’t smell like Even, probably because Even hasn’t been near it for over a year, now. Doesn’t even smell of Isak, if he’s honest. Smells of dust more than anything.

But Isak doesn’t need to scent to feel like a freight train has run him over.

This is a moment where he’d resort to alcohol, but he can’t do that now, not like this, not over a stupid hoodie. He’s been doing better and he won’t let it be ruined by this fucking weakness of his.

So instead he scoots over on the floor until he reaches his laptop, opens Spotify and presses shuffle and play and turns it up louder than vibe-guy has ever played his music.

Next, he locks his door. And when that doesn’t feel like enough, he tries to push his desk in front of it.

Which turns out to be a complete fail because the desk has been nailed into the wall. So Isak pushes his bed instead and hides away in the corner it had stood in.

The opening of the song hasn’t even settled into the first chorus before the tears are streaming down his cheeks and breathing is ten times harder than it’s ever been.

It’s ugly, and Isak feels horrible all throughout it. His nose clogs up and he can’t see through his blurry vision. His speakers are blaring happy pop songs that Even would’ve loved – which just makes it worse – and he needs it to be loud enough that no one can hear him through the door or the walls, but that leaves him with a headache.

It doesn’t make it impossible to hear the intermittent pounding on the door when people desperately want for him to stop making all of that noise.

For all that Isak feels the positively worst he’s felt in a long time, he also isn’t ready for this to stop. Not yet.

The hoodie is crumbled up in his sweaty hands. There are spots darkening the material that Isak can tell come from his tears. And then another set of spots from his tears when it had gotten so intense Isak was certain people would be able to hear him over the music.

When the tears stop falling and his breath stops hitching and the headache from getting too little oxygen into his system has settled in, Isak wouldn’t say he feels better, per se, but he doesn’t feel as frazzled.

Still, this was the last time he’ll do this, he promises himself. He won’t spend any more time crying over an idiotic past. He’s done.

OOOOO

“Is that a new hoodie?”

“No. Just recently stumbled upon it whilst I was cleaning.”

“Cool.”

OOOOO

Isak does end up going out with them the next time. It’s a Friday evening, he’s just finished his first re-exam, and he doesn’t feel completely awful. It’s nice.

He’d had a beer with the boys before they left the house, and the mix of the warm, pleasant buzz inside of him and the not bitingly cold spring air not making it feel like his jacket is way too thin for this time of year leaves him in a good mood.

They head to the Union, because there’s a deal going on – like there isn’t always a deal going on in a place catering to poor university students – but it’s not like Isak is going to buy more than a beer, so what does he care where they end up.

He should’ve cared a bit more, he realizes once they’re in the midst of the crowd and barely able to hear each other speaking, and Magnus has slunk off to talk to some girl, Mahdi has just disappeared ,and Jonas has gone to the bathroom, leaving Isak all by himself.

Isak hasn’t gotten any better at being by himself, and being in a place like this isn’t helpful in the slightest.

Just because he had a proper cry about it doesn’t mean that Isak is okay. As much as he tries to fool himself into believing it, the hurt is buried so deeply inside of him Isak doubts he’ll ever really be okay.

And standing here surrounded by people who are happy and having fun when Isak has to work so hard just to feel one of those emotions, even harder without the aid of something extra, is way harder than allowing himself to have that cry had been.

He should leave. He’s about to find one of the guys – Mahdi or Jonas, because they’ll make the smallest scene when Isak tells them he’s getting out of there – when a hand clamps down on his shoulder.

“There you are,” Jonas says, dragging Isak backwards towards him and towards the exit. “It’s way too crowded in here, we’re bailing.”

Isak has grabbed his jacket and is waiting by the entrance before Magnus and Mahdi have had the chance to get their stuff ready. Magnus is wearing one of Mahdi’s shoes, apparently, which Isak isn’t sure how they managed to pull off.

It takes them five minutes of jumping around once they’ve gotten outside, Magnus wobbling on one foot because he doesn’t want to dirty his socks, before they manage to switch back around and get on their way.

“Fuck, she was so pretty, though,” Magnus complains, throwing his head back and groaning when he recalls just what the girl he’d been talking to had looked like.

The guilt churns in Isak’s stomach. He should’ve just told them he was heading out, that they didn’t need to come with him. It was obvious it hadn’t been too crowded for them. Just for Isak.

Mahdi huffs out a laugh. “I saw her, too. Trust me, you didn’t stand a chance. You should be thanking us for saving you from a fate of humiliation.”

“Hey!” Magnus protests halfheartedly, scuffing the tip of his shoe against the asphalt, then nearly tripping in the process.

Isak hadn’t seen the girl, and he does know of Magnus’ track record, but that isn’t the point that keeps the guilt swirling inside of him.

“Where are we off to?” he asks instead. He shoves his hands into his pockets, curling them up into fists as he waits for the answer.

Jonas shrugs. “What’s the rush for?”

Isak doesn’t reply. He hasn’t got an answer, doesn’t know how to tell them that he knows why they left and that he doesn’t get why they did that for him.

He expects for them to head into the bar close by that also caters to poor students, seeing as they’re headed towards it, but they pass right by it. And they pass by the next one. And the next one. The guilt makes Isak feel heavier and heavier with each step they take.

“Gutter!” Magnus points excitedly before bounding over to the walkway with an iron handrail. “This is fucking perfect.”

“What the hell are you on about?” Mahdi calls out after him.

“I need one of you, I’m having my Titanic-moment!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jonas laughs, hiding his face behind his hands as his shoulders shake from laughter. “Get down, you idiot, you’ll fall off and end up in a coma!”

Magnus sticks his foot between two guards, stepping up. “Then come over here and hold me like one of your French girls!”

Paint, Isak doesn’t correct. Paint me like one of your French girls.

“He’s fucking insane,” Mahdi laughs. Isak tries not to flinch at the word.

“I’ll go,” Jonas volunteers, jogging over so he can climb up behind Magnus. He barely manages to stay up, though, from the giggling. “This is so gay.”

Magnus spreads his hands out when he’s sure Jonas has gotten a hold of himself. “I can’t hear you over how much I’m flying, Jack!”

“You’re an idiot,” Isak tells him once he and Mahdi get close enough. “You couldn’t have just done the I’m the king of the world instead?”

“Do you know what, Isak?” Magnus sasses. “It sounds like you’re jealous that I found myself a Jack and you haven’t.”

“I’m out,” Jonas laughs, jumping off the railing, giggling like mad when Mahdi has to dive forward to catch Magnus to keep him from actually braining himself into a coma.

“Idiots,” Isak complains, but he’s laughing as well. “Fucking idiots, all of you.”

They don’t go to another bar or a club or even to buy something to drink in the 24-hours open store that they pass. Isak doesn’t try and lie to himself as a reason why not, but the tiny spark of happiness it ignites is enough to quell down the guilt a little bit. That, and the fact that they end up making Magnus laugh so hard he has to sit down lest he starts to pee his pants.

Mahdi throws bird seeds at him, which none of them know where or when he got a hold of, but it just makes the situation worse. Or better, depending on if you see it from Magnus’ bladder control point of view or judge it by how easy it is for Isak to breathe.

OOOOO

Isak aces every single one of his exams. Both the ones he’d had to re-sit, and then the next ones.

He did it. He actually fucking did it.

He sits and stares at the results-page on his laptop, can’t stop looking at the row of perfect grades that aren’t supposed to define how good of a person Isak is, but right now the rows of numbers are the only tangible proof that Isak is actually getting better. That he might in fact be worth something.

He likes that feeling. He’s not going to let it slip away from him again, he’s going to fight to keep feeling like this.

Isak is going to get better. That’s a promise he makes himself that he intends on keeping.

OOOOO

“We’ve been looking into a couple of apartments.”

They’re leaving. He’s finally somewhat figured out how to do this, how to live without – how to live and how to make friends and they’re already leaving.

“Oh?” he asks nonchalantly, or he hopes it comes across nonchalantly and not absolutely terrified. “Found anything?”

Jonas nods, taking a sip of his beer. He sits down on the railing of the balcony they’re on. Isak can’t remember whose house they’re at – not because he’s had too much to drink to remember where he’s at, but because Magnus had been the one who knew about the party and his explanation of how he knew about was just too long for Isak to pay attention from start to finish.

He knows all about how this person’s mama used to have a goldfish collection when she was a kid, but he doesn’t know who actually owns the house. Figures.

“Yeah. A four bedroom, not too far from campus. A tram stop or two.”

“That’s cool,” Isak says, hopes it doesn’t sound as detached as he feels.

They’re leaving. They’re actually leaving. Isak should be used to people leaving him by now, but he isn’t. He really, really isn’t.

“Yeah,” Jonas agrees, but there’s something to the tone of his voice, something that forces Isak out of the protective bubble he’d already started to build up so he can look dubiously at him. “That fourth room isn’t the living room, by the way.”

Isak blinks.

Then he blinks again, still not saying anything. He can’t say anything, because if he gets it wrong he won’t be able to handle it.

Jonas rolls his eyes. “Christ, man, are you really going to make me say it?”

“Yes,” Isak doesn’t hesitate, because yes, he needs to hear it. Not for the reason that Jonas obviously thinks – that he’s teasing or self-centered and wants the confirmation that they’d be honored to share a living space with him, but because it doesn’t fit in his head why on earth they would want to share a living space with him.

“Isak,” Jonas starts. Isak barely hears it, his heart pounding too fast and beating too loudly. “Would you mind paying the rent until we can find a fourth roommate?”

“Asshole,” Isak knocks his knee against Jonas’ foot, but it comes out too soft, a little too out of breath for Jonas’ eyes not to soften and his teasing grin to smooth into something a little more sincere.

“Seriously,” Jonas ensures him. “Would you like to?”

Yes, Isak should say, because he does. Yes, yes, yes should be the only word coming out of his mouth.

“Why?” comes out instead.

If Jonas is surprised, he doesn’t show it. “You’re trying,” Jonas takes another a sip of his beer. “And we like you. We really like you, man.”

Isak tries to blink the tears out of his eyes.

“But if we’re doing this, you can’t fall back into your old ways.”

Isak feels cold despite the warm summer air. “I won’t.”

Jonas looks a bit dubious, but he just nods. “Do you want to do this, then?”

There are tears prickling in the corners of Isak’s eyes, and he just hopes he can blame the dry wind or the beer or something, anything, that isn’t something finally going Isak’s way.

“Yeah, bro,” he sounds choked up. “Yeah.”

Jonas grins and holds his hand out for Isak to shake. “Let’s do this then.”

And Isak’s smiling, actually smiling – full-on grinning and meaning it, and he’s moving in with Jonas, Mahdi, and Magnus and it all feels too good to be true.

He folds his hand into Jonas’, and Jonas tightens his grip so much Isak almost thinks they’re going in for that awkward bro-side-hug when all Jonas does is ensure Isak can’t draw back until he gets out the rushed, “And you have to be nicer to Magnus.”

Isak dramatically rips his hands out of Jonas’ hold and groans and whines and moans that none of it is worth it if that’s what it takes while Jonas cackles and nearly falls over the railing, and Isak’s nearly giggling so hard he can’t pull him back down.

Magnus and Mahdi find them lying in a heap on the balcony, giggling like fools.

Mahdi does look at Isak dubiously for a couple of seconds, like he’s expecting for him to be so out of it again despite the fact Isak hasn’t had anything harder than beer the last couple of months.

Whatever he’s looking for, Isak passes the test, and both Magnus and Mahdi grin as they fold themselves around him and Jonas. Magnus starts pointing up at the sky, telling stories about the signs, and both Isak and Mahdi call bullshit whilst Jonas tries to spin everything that comes out of Magnus’ mouth in a claim why the government is shit.

And Isak is moving in with these idiots.

He hasn’t been bad for months now, hasn’t done something he’d regret the next morning and hasn’t done something that would make him forget everything that had happened prior to waking up. He’s better than that, now he just needs to get better concerning everything else.

He can feel it; lying on a balcony at some house party he doesn’t know the hosts of, and he can just feel it. It feels like a turning point of some kind, like this is the moment things will actually start to get better, to get easier.

It’s not like all of his problems have suddenly disappeared. He still gets mornings where it doesn’t seem worth it to get up, still has moments where he just hurts so much he doesn’t remember how to breathe. And then there is the fact that the boys he’s decided are worth betting on don’t know that he’s not actually hooking up with girls left and right, don’t know he isn’t interested in girls at all. They don’t know why he got so bad in the first place.

But he’s moving in with these three idiots he’s ready to call his best friends, and he’s passed his exams with flying colors, and he’s signed up for his third semester, one year closer to getting his degree, and he can feel it.

This is going to be his year. Isak swears he’s going to do everything in his power to make it happen.

This is going to be his year.

Next part

[discountdyke]

I know nothing about TMA but I’m a gossip pls release the rant if you’d like 👀

firstly id like to say this ask is a christmas gift in itself, i LOVE an excuse to rant about tma. this is gonna be long tho so lets head under the cut

tma is a podcast produced by rusty quill which really means that it started with a few white guys, and as such, the voice cast is almost completely white and its one of those media with “aracial” characters. however, they’re clearly written as white bc, well, there wasnt any effort to do otherwise. so this is the beginning of many problems.

the biggest instance of racism is with a family of avatars of the flesh - a horror power involving flesh/meat. the family is chinese, and sells ppl human meat in their chinese restaurant. this is extremely and overtly racist, and back then they didnt have any sensitivity readers or common sense i guess, so they just. did that. one of the episodes involving them had a “horror” element in which one of the characters speaks in english. this is supposed to be scary bc “how could a chinese person know english??” in order to avoid addressing this, in a later episode the characters only refer to them vaguely without names. this issue was unaddressed for YEARS before an apology was given, only for them to do what? more racist shit.

two of the main characters in tma are cops and as such are a heavy-handed metaphor for police brutality. one of them, daisy, commits violent atrocities bc she is an avatar of another power called “the hunt”. she basically just kills whoever the police tell her to. her cop partner, basira, excuses her actions bc “they were criminals”. its clear that these characters are supposed to be bad but then things get weird - theres an entire arc about whether its morally correct to kill daisy. bc she has a little redemption arc. unfortunately, if ur a cop, u dont deserve a redemption arc. so theres this big thing about “well shes a better person now” etc coming from all of the characters, not just her partner. it really waters down the message imo.

so, what do you do when you write a horror podcast with themes about capitalism and police brutality? you write an episode about a white person going to prison and experiencing police brutality. i cant even begin to express how inappropriate that is - especially since its a lazy attempt at horror. their excuse was “well, 2020 is unprecedented”. uh, cops have been committing police brutality since their invention. the blm movement started in 2013 - no excuse for saying ‘we wrote the eps in advance and theyre just hitting close to home”. 

and, tbh, it could have been written well but it just wasnt? and then there was a high profile police brutality case in the us so they delayed release until the next week - bc police brutality only happens once in a while, right? imo it wasnt the episode itself that was the most offensive, it was the idea that black ppl are only murdered by cops every once in a while and its just a topical issue, not something that happens every day.

i started off with the racism bc i think thats tma’s biggest problem, but the thing about it is this: tma is well written. or it was, up until season 5. but when season 5 started airing it was bad. it was really bad. it throws away the entire formula that it used for the first 4 seasons, has a couple that constantly argue and try to undermine each other, the main character has suddenly flipped into full murder mode so that each week they just kill off another character. it became extremely bland, the horror which was generally surreal - random doors appearing, uncanny valley creatures, skies that never ended - into everyday horror. it was a huge tonal shift and now instead of hearing about an endless neighborhood with no people, it became “capitalism sucks. the government sucks. the police suck.” over and over again which, while true, does not a good horror podcast make.

the point of this is: when you look at how bad season 5 is, you realize how bad the rest of it is as well. it doesnt hold up under its own writing. little details that could be ignored, or even huge problems like the continual racism suddenly became glaring issues. not to mention character arcs which had developed slowly suddenly took huge turns in s5 out of nowhere. 

the worst example (which i stopped listening so ive only heard this second hand) is a character who was a spooky woman who had a weird door that made u crazy, turns out to be politcally conservative the whole time. and she was about how, like, you think you know ppl, and then theyre conservative. or something. just, really bad political analysis. 

id also like to point out that in the prison episode in s5 which is a culmination of the “police are evil and bad” theme ends with the characters talking about how this one guy deserves to be in prison. liberalism at its finest here. 

there are a lot of narrative issues in tma but it really boils down to this: we excused a shitload of racism bc there was good writing. and now theres no good writing. also jonny sims singlehandedly created the most annoying gay characters to ever exist.

i dont think that jonny is a bad guy but he is woefully inequipped to deal with the big real world problems and themes he built on. its sad, tbh, bc its something that COULD have been really amazing. 

he tweeted once that the s5 finale would be a “chocolate torte of tragedy” where i assume hes going to kill off either one or both of the gay characters, but the real chocolate torte was the way he ruined his own podcast.

tldr; tma’s writing built up to something it couldnt actually do. and that made the whole thing collapse. also its really, really racist.