#and im tired of investing into friendships like those

[fatuifucker]

its been a day and i still am upset about that interaction with that person they literally didnt do anything wrong but i keep thinking about 4th grade me getting excited when someone likes the same thing as me only for me to not impress them and then i go back home crying and wondering why i have no friends

[fish-bowl-2]

okay lmao you don't have to answer them all but im interested in your hot takes when you have time

7, 8, 9, 13, 16, 19, 21, 22, 24

😁 we need something to talk about in this micro fandom

Oh boy oh boy...

7. What character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because of how the fandom acts about them? Honestly, a bit of a hard one for me to answer because I don't really have one. I mean, there are always going to be fandom interpretations I am not into, but even so I don't really let that influence how I feel about the actual characters. A lot of those fandom interpretations don't seem to be the overwhelming majority anymore either. I feel that if I was invested in the EEnE fandom back in 2013-2014 I would absolutely be tired of Kevin, but that isn't really the case anymore. As far as I can see lol.

8. Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about? That all the Kanker sisters (excluding May) are irredeemable and will never break out of whatever cycle they are present to at home. I mean, I'm not asking for any neatly packaged happy ending when I say that, but idk, despite my issues with their lack of development and presentation on the show, I think they are really interesting. If you want to get deep, they are just kids after all, with a lot of room for change in their life going forward. I like to think that they ALL go onto better things. Better can be open to interpretation. I do not mean any kind of stereotypical college degree manicured lawn and job type stuff. Satisfaction can look like a multitude of things. A lot of people apply this to May, which is great! But does that have to mean pushing aside Marie and Lee in the process? I personally don't think that is very fair.

9. Worst part of canon? Harassment when it is girls towards boys = funny : / Also, this is more of a fandom thing, but there are so many youtube videos where ppl are titling them stuff like "Kanker sisters RAPE Eds" like wow so edgy and funny guys how about we keep this in 2009?

13. Worst blorbofication? Absolutely Edd. No argument. I don't think that this is an unpopular sentiment nowadays either. It has been discussed to earth and back at this point.

16. You can't understand why so many people like this thing: - That in high school/college Edd will make a complete 360 change in personality and become a complete bad-boy shadow the hedgehog recolor. Granted, I do think that Edd will grow to tone down his anxiety over following rules, BUT to completely change is out of the question. This is still Edd we're talking about. Rebelling for him would be something like jaywalking or wearing shoes inside someone's house he doesn't like. It nags me a bit when people completely ignore the defined quirks and personality of a character in favor of creating a whole new oc. You can of course be inspired by a character you like to create your own, but how about present them as that? - That Edd will start to drift away from Eddy and Ed as he grows older, or the other way around and Eddy and/or Ed drift away from Edd. I don't get how this head-canon keeps popping up. The WHOLE point of the show is their friendship and that they are blood brothers and meant for each other!!! This goes beyond their diverging interests and personalities!! The actual show proved this with the movie!! "But lots of people don't stay friends with the people they knew from childhood" umm and lots of people do? I am still closest with my middle school friends then any other people I've met in adulthood. My dad doesn't talk to anyone from university but still meets up with his childhood friends. And even so, I just don't understand the appeal. Their friendship kind of IS the whole show, and doing away with that ultimately defeats the purpose for me. I find it a lot more interesting to delve into aspects like how they would uphold these connections and friendships into adulthood, when work and responsibilities makes it a lot harder to get together regularly.

19. You're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like... Ngl I can't help feeling kind of shy about being super invested in a slapstick cartoon that came out nearly three decades ago. Even when I am talking to other cartoon/animation fans, I feel a bit silly about wanting to analyze their dynamics and traits when most people casually just remember the show as fun slapstick (of course it is but I also wanna get insane about it without being seen as MysteriousMrEnter or smth lmao).

21. Part of canon you think is overhyped? "What is under Double Dee's hat, guys?" "Why have they never confirmed what is under there?" "Any one else disappointed that they never showed Edd without his hat?" Umm idc lol

22. Your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores? - Probably the connection between Ed and Double Dee. I think it is really cute. I love how so many episodes kind of have them hanging out together. I don't think people acknowledge enough how their dynamic works. It is very Autism 2 Autism, like Edd gets to kind of info-dump about whatever to Ed, and even if Ed has no clue what he is talking about, he still enjoys the company and has fun in listening and partaking in whatever Edd is invested in. - I always really dig how Nazz is depicted kind of "cool" and "sporty". Idk it could have been very easy to make her just any kind of popular girl trope, but she kind of holds her own (even if she is super underdeveloped compared to the other characters). I think it makes her friendship with Kevin interesting. - On that note, I also really like Kevin and Rolf's dynamics in their friendship. I do actually see people discuss this a bunch, but I felt like I had to mention it. I really like how the typical American Apple Pie jock is besties with the foreigner with odd customs and both are kind of at an equal footing to each other. - Sarah is insanely strong, like almost on the same level as Ed. What is in that family's genes??

24. Topic that brings up the most rancid discourse? Shipping, probably. (When is it not shipping).

[viaetor]

exhaustion

im sorry for throwing this here in the first place. I generally don't post vents on tumblr dot com, but I've been under so much stress lately and I just. don't have anywhere I can dump things yknow?? i don't wanna feel like a burden to my friends or as if its their responsibility.

but I've been so, so exhausted lately. but it's so hard to just *stop* or *take a break*.

currently, im working 3 part-time jobs, participating in 4 uni projects, writing my thesis, finishing up my government-funded research, completing translations, on top of having my regular classes. not to mention more work and projects ive been "invited" to accept that are still starting up and my upcoming mandatory internship. my parents have been entrusting me with more and more responsibilities regarding their physical health as seniors. but i also need to keep an eye out so that my drug addict sister doesn't do anything stupid and gets thrown out of the house again. I'm also worried about another sister of mine.

Lately i tried to distract myself by involving myself more with my friends. I've helped a few friends out with their own stuff (moving, writing, job interviews, emotional support) and ive been reconnecting with long past friendships, which is pretty neat. and it was working for a while, but im starting to get drained from even the simplest interactions.

now every time I look at my phone or get out of my room, people are calling me to ask to do stuff for them. I'm so numb to it all, I just do it automatically even when my body is sore and my brain is dead.

the worst part is that I can't quit anything. there are no vacations waiting for me, and no way I can lessen my workload more than I already have. I'm numb to it all, it's exhausting, but I feel so ashamed for even feeling tired. I feel like I have no right to feel that. I'm so used to being "reliable" and "efficient" to others that I'm not sure if I know how to Not be what people expect of me.

Ive been trying not to smoke or stress-eat and instead just hit the gym to get rid of the stress and anxiety, but even that hasn't been enough.

I want to write. I want to draw. I wanna learn languages. I wanna study. I wanna chat. But I just don't have the energy to do the things that make me feel happy and healthy. even if I'm ironically already doing some of them. I feel like an ungrateful brat. especially since I'm surrounded by so many awesome people.

I'm really lucky to have you all. I love getting your messages, seeing your posts, writing with you. I'm so happy with how I've been developing bonds with people here. thank you so much for investing in me! i really do cherish and appreciate it. I just want to apologise for seeming so distant and emotionally unavailable, not to mention how long i take to reply sometimes. to those that have been nothing but kind and patient to me, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope I can make it up to you!

I'm just really, really tired at the moment, and I'm not sure how to juggle through everything in my life right now. so I'm really sorry.

I wish I had dottore's skills so I could make clones of myself ngl. that'd be pretty neat

[autisticempathydaemon]

This is for the matchups! :D

I’m sorry in advance for how much I typed personality quizzes/questionaires are my weakness. Thank you sm in advance if you decide to do this!!

⭒☆━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━☆⭒

song ✧.*

Fragile by Laufey! I wont call myself a hopeless romantic but listening to her songs makes me want that romance like oh my god?? It’s also really fun to sing (the only times i sing is either in the shower or if im screaming songs in the car w/ my sister)

My fav lines are:

Grew up in a case of fragile glass

But hammer away it's time to crash

And as it shatters let me shatter into you

(also the whole chorus 100%)

enneagram ✧.*

9w1! Very accurate since I hate any form of conflict and I’m a huge people pleaser in general. Also my MBTI is ISFJ!

video essays ✧.*

YES. My main form of entertainment now since I cannot find the brain capacity to get invested into a show. My go-tos are usually j aubrey (random social media scandals) or Wendigoon (horror, disturbing content icebergs)! Sometimes I watch social commentary like Jordan Theresa and Shansphere for funsies too. And if this counts I watch reviews/summaries of random books or games I’m really curious about but don’t have enough motivation to start?? Also media analysis (my current favorites are Night In The Woods and Midsommar essays). 

childhood imaginary friend ✧.*

I didn’t have one sadly but I was super into Undertale as a child LMAO

falling asleep ✧.*

It used to be random YouTubers (mostly storytime animators) or clip montages of shows I was fixated on but ever since I’ve discovered Redacted it’s only been sleep aids. My fave is the Milo one it knocks me out everytime. I’m always either holding my green dinosaur plushie or my bee plushie that’s shaped really wonky. 

name change ✧.*

Iris! I’m personally a sucker for flower names and flowers in general (I fucking love flowers oh my god). 

fave audio ✧.*

Bowling with the bois! I love the DAMN squad with all my heart and Gavin messing w/ Lasko is the funniest shit ever.

least favorite char (kinda) ✧.*

I’m really new to this fandom so I haven’t gotten the chance to listen to alot of characters (also thank you for your ‘new to the fandom post’ I’m so well fed now). There might be a chance I don’t know the character you pair me with but if I don’t know him I’ll definetely listen to his playlist! But if I had to choose I’d choose Ivan?? I’m only going off of the very brief time he was in Freelancer S1 so I know nothing

word for word ✧.*

Inside Job!!! Everyday I get sad over the fact Netflix cancelled it. 

platonic ✧.*

Asher! He’s just so sweet (the way he comforted babe on the elevator when they first met oh my god) and we’d definetely be gossip buddies. It’s funny because I got into the fandom for Asher and immedietely got sidetracked.

tired rambling ✧.*

I don’t ramble but I will laugh at almost anything. Like my humor gets 100x more broken.

gas station ✧.*

Starbux mocha coffee in those little glass bottles. I also get sour gummy worms and Haribo.

favorite playlist ✧.*

either my laufey playlist or fem rock artists playlist (destroy boys, sir chloe, etc!)

guilty pleasure ✧.*

Redacted. Fanfics too but I’m not that guilty abt those

anything else ✧.*

☆ Super introverted but if I’m with another introvert I’m able to be outgoing to a degree. All of my friendships consist of extroverts adopting me

☆ I prefer listening way more than talking

☆ I’m either thinking of 1920213 things per second or cannot think for the life of me

☆ Airheaded?? Lacking common sense in general

☆ I draw and play the guitar!

☆ I have too many plushies

☆ At first impression I’m super reserved but as time goes on I get more unhinged 

☆ Very easily distracted

☆ Sensitive but I don't outwardly show it

Hmmmm… I like you. I think you could work well with a lot of people and make them quite happy. However, something in my gut likes best the idea of you with Anton.

Your MBTI, Enneagram, and self-description give me the impression of a really sweet person inclined to fairness, introversion, mediation, and good vibes in general. Maybe that’s why you fit so well with Anton; he also has this chill, no-drama vibe of just trying to live a good life being himself, being with you, and being happy. Lowkey, I’m assuming you went with the pacifist route in Undertale first and maybe only. That’s fitting given I think Anton would take the same route (if he were a video game person which I don’t think he is. If anything, he’s a Tetris man.)

I think you have a really peaceful, stable life together- at least, once he gets back from his secluded, secret lab, of course. It’s a sweet life of Anton bringing you flowers randomly because he drove by the store or farmer’s market and wanted you to know he was thinking of you. He marvels constantly at your creativity, always loving watching you draw and play guitar, getting your favorite songs to play stuck in his head. Maybe he has you record some so he can listen to them when he misses you; that’d be really sweet.

Song:

I was just guessing at numbers and figures/ Pulling the puzzles apart/ Questions of science, science and progress/ Do not speak as loud as my heart/ But tell me you love me, come back and haunt me/ Oh and I rush to the start

This is such a “gimme” song and yet I don’t care! One, this is a super singable, sweet song that I can imagine translates well to a guitar. (I say imagine because I know nothing about guitar, please forgive me.) Two, scientist. Technician. I need not say more. Three, it’s a lovely, mournful song that, I think, is kind of about a break up but could also reasonably be about long distance and forced separation. It’s perfect.

Runner-ups:

Your runner-ups are really fun because you could make fun couples or a throuple! I like Damien for you because he’s a Type Six in my opinion, and they’re supposed to make really lovely matches with Type Nines. (This is me and my best friend so confirmed.) I also like Huxley for you because he has a lot of similar traits to you but just more extroverted. Also, plants. Together, you could make a beautiful triangle.

note: Thank you so much for waiting! October was a dickhead to me that delayed yours and the ones after you a lot, so you are so much appreciated~! If you haven’t listened to Anton yet, I highly recommend him, he’s so sweet

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

[quickdeaths]

GET TO KNOW YOUR ADMIN !!

name — Bryn

pronouns — She/Her.

preferred comms — Discord for sure! I'm on Discord basically all the time and I try to be pretty responsive to things. If you unlock the secret friendship tier, I will also bother you with memes/ship inspo/random conversation/etc. but even if you don't want that, it's got a big window and a search bar so it is infinitely better for plotting than anything else. That said, I do tumblr IMs too, if necessary.

name of muse — quickdeaths.tumblr.com/muses there's a lot of them take your pick

experience in RP — I started out 17-18 years ago on the forums for a D&D webcomic. Eventually I checked out of that scene, bounced around LiveJournal, had a cup of coffee in Gaia Online, and then came to Tumblr around 2012ish. Was pretty off-and-on here until 2015, and I've been part of the furniture here ever since. I've done a few things on Discord and through Google Docs since, but I think for better or worse, I'm just Here Now.

best experiences — Meeting my girlfriend will always be #1! We met here on tumblr and even though she doesn't RP as much anymore, I'm always going to be thankful for the things we wrote, and how RPing together helped us become friends, and then girlfriends. After that, all the things I've done with people that were long-term and plotted, with mutual investment. I've been doing this long enough now that even people who've left or who I fell out with, I still have a lot of fondness for those stories, as well as the long-term stories I'm doing now.

pet peeves / dealbreakers — The number one ultimate pet peeve for me is people dropping threads without personally notifying their partners. Not everyone lurks on dash, and it's easy to miss posts, and when people say things like 'gonna drop some of my drafts,' it's easy to feel like you've been put in a limbo state. Hiatuses are one thing but dropped threads like that just drive me crazy. Super long wait times on replies (I'm talking like, consistently 2-3 months or more) are rough for me too. Lack of communication as well, especially when it comes to choosing a muse(s) to write with.

muse preference ( fluff, angst, smut ) — Angst > fluff > smut for me. I'm an angsty bitch and I love the drama. I like drilling down into character flaws and weaknesses and forcing them to Go Through It and confront things they don't super want to confront, so I'll probably never get tired of writing angsty stuff. I like fluffy stuff too, but a bit more sparingly just because sometimes I think it can get a little circular. Smut... to be honest, I'm not against writing it if a plot calls for it and it makes sense for characters but I've had a handful of rough experiences in the past with people, and it's an area where I'm not very confident as a writer. You will never see a spicy sideblog from me though, I will simply put it on dash like a shameless heathen.

plot or memes — plots plots plots. Honestly, I would never do memes at all if it weren't The Culture here on tumblr. I never know who to send for, or from, when it comes to multimuses, I worry that the ideas aren't interesting and can't sustain long replies, and they don't usually inspire me. Plotting is great because you can figure out a dynamic, whether there's any preexisting knowledge, maybe a general direction you want things to go, etc. Almost everything I've loved doing has come from plots, but I'll still be offering both forever.

long or short replies — have you seen my blog i should be locked up and the key thrown away. I have lost the ability to write a reply under 5 paragraphs and with Certain People Who Know Who They Are I get up to like 8, 10, 12, occasionally some deeply unhinged 33 paragraph drabbles. I don't even have a good excuse really, it's just what feels comfortable for me to write. It lets me do all the inner world stuff that I use to round out my characters in a scene and contextualize them, while still (hopefully) having enough action and dialogue to respond to.

best time to write — It depends. Late afternoon/early evening is probably best, but later evening is fine too. Sometimes I will start a Particularly Ambitious Reply late late late and get too tired to finish it, and then finish it when I get up in the morning, and that seems to work for me too.

are you like your muse — Not really, I don't think? Although I guess that's for other people to judge. I try to give all my muses traits that I can relate to on some level, or at least one thing that feels connective between us, but I honestly think I'm too boring to be a very good RP character. I think Rio is probably the character I'm most similar to, but even then, I think it's more superficial similarities like hobbies than much else.

Tagged by: @more-than-a-princess Tagging: i will fill this in later, if you are seeing this post then i forgot to fill it in and that means it is a runabout, you can steal it, no one will ever know

[entropy-sea-system]

This blog and our sideblogs will be on hiatus/inactive at least for a while.

I think being online may be a bit overwhelming for us, I don't feel like we got much out of it and its so easy for us to leave servers and block people when everything doesn't seem perfect, we don't have any actual attachment to anyone online so it's easy to just leave.

And this time at least w the discord servers I don't even feel very angry or upset, just maybe left out of anxiety and feeling like I need a change in the spaces Im in. I also wonder if in some cases I eventually get tired of a space or people and need to leave, Im not used to stability, and especially have no incentive to stay when I don't have a connection to someone.

I think currently I only feel that stability with my in sys partners, and sometimes Im still not used to that, I haven't cared about people that intensely for that long until having relationships with them.

We see a concerning amount of people hold views we can't agree with, and have been blocking these people as well as just ppl whose posts were not things we were interested in / may have been things we disliked or were triggered or repulsed by. We have blocked so many followers and unfollowed or blocked some ppl we followed because of these things, and its just better for us this way.

We haven't liked being in spaces mainly with minors, but maybe that was just the nature of online aro and apl spaces as of now, and some fandom spaces. But some discord servers geared towards adults seem to imply minors are 'annoying' and I don't agree with that, it feels antithetical to youth liberation and generally just respecting people.

I just prefer interacting with adults personally, and most of the system is this way since we are an adult. I feel like Ive been around minors like for so long (body has younger siblings and we were a minor until like 3-4 years ago) that I'm preferring to be around adults because I want to feel more like Im actually an adult, and don't feel like spaces with more minors are for us.

I think maybe I just got a bit tired of being around the age group of 'my age and younger' for so much of my life its like I don't want a repeat of that. I don't know anyone I really trust outside the system(not a priority to find this either), and I've never had an older adult mentor figure I could trust in my life, and I don't even know if I want that since some older adults may see me as 'like their child' and I'm afamilial. I'm also plato repulsed and it doesn't appeal to me to just hang out with people, I may be more plato repulsed than I thought (extending more into some things seen as friendship) which is really saying something.

This doesn't mean minors and youth are prone to always having views we disagree with (although we understand there are some reasons minors may be less likely to be informed about things or be influenced by the way the world has been, but that goes for any age group and/or culture in different ways) or that adults cannot interact in appropriate ways with minors, its just personal preference. I don't feel like on purpose interacting w minors in online spaces, and I don't even seek online interaction w anyone much to begin with. I think often, we just like talking about our interests and maybe like the attention we may get from people online.

There's nothing else we find positive about it, and the way online spaces can become very invested in discourse is.. irritating and like yeah I do talk about discourse and have opinions on it (not much posting abt on main, but used to a bit more in vent channels or other channels on discord servers) myself it's just maybe I want to avoid it for now since it doesn't seem like a good use of time or energy.

I want to avoid people who very obviously have opposing views to ours or make space for those who do for some topics at least, and I don't want people to target us for not agreeing with them. Frankly, I'm seeing a lot of harmful attitudes from so-called leftists and generally people in the mogai community, especially usamericans.

Anyways, all this is to say we will probably be taking a break from tumblr and discord or at least try it out for a bit, see if it feels better than being online a lot.

(-Rift)

[burned-phoenix]

Damn, what timing. Scrolling through my own posts again, and see this. I guess it is a pattern. I thought I was used to it by now, but I guess not. I feel like it's kind of like being homeless. You invest so much into building something beautiful, only to have it gone in what feels like an instant.

For me, it's happened repeatedly, right when I feel like I've finally found my "home". A couple years later...gone. At what point do I just stop starting over fron scratch with new people? I pour my heart and soul into those I care about, and then they leave, and I'm left behind that much less of a whole.

Im tired...

Part of me wishes I was capable of treating others like they treat me. And another part of me is angry that I can't be like that. If I care about you, you best believe I'm not going to hide it. I'll happily invest as much as I can into the friendship. But they all seem to end the same way

Again... I'm tired

[rlymakesuthink]

tuesday, november 28, 2023. 11:44 pm.

loneliness is the most bitter and insidious of all the shames, i fear. there is not a place or situation on earth where admitting that you are so, bone-deep, soul-crushingly lonely is a casual and accepted thing.

if you are with another person to tell them, then surely you can't actually be /that/ lonely, right? there must, then, be something wrong with YOU. why aren't you gaining what you're supposed to from your social interactions? why aren't you filling up your tank and fully satisfied by the moments you share throughout your day? if you're that lonely, date someone. just do it. find someone and be with them.

not to sound like the world's biggest drama queen, but it is a special kind of painful to have people in your life that seem to be invested and caring and kind, but to still feel so fundamentally empty.

ive thought a lot about love languages, how you have certain preferences for how you like to receive love from friends and family and significant others. i know how i like to express love, but when i think "dang maybe my friends just aren't giving me the type of love that i need," i realize- they aren't really giving me anything. quality time is rarely, if ever, initiated by others, i can't remember the last time someone offered words of affirmation unprompted (aside from my dad at thanksgiving), physical touch is pretty much the same, and is so so so achingly absent in my life that sometimes i feel like a hollow husk, a shell of a person who hasn't been touched for so long that maybe all it will take is a single positive touch to blow me into a thousand tiny pieces.

oh, and i guess gifts and acts of service are whatever, and again, i can't remember the last time i received a gift outside of a holiday. im so so tired of pouring myself out into those around me, these friendships i have invested so much time and energy and affection into, and receiving nearly nothing in return. what am i doing wrong? what did i do? where did i mess up? when did the universe decide i was fundamentally unworthy of love?

[lilachoneyx]

it’s strange how the people that you think will be in your life forever can so easily slip out of it

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hello, so i want to ask you something. I have been in a 'friendship' with one of my friend. She have lots of problem like trust issue, abandon issue, father and mother issue, also feel related to yanderes and etc. There times I try to ask her to go to a pyschiatrist and a therapist but she reject it cause of her not wanting to talk to a stranger and tell them about her problem but ya.

Everytime she vent it always drains me inside like at the first time she vent I try helping her but she always denies ir but now its been months she been venting to me and everytime i see her chat I always get drained. Idk what to do tbh, like im glad she feel comfortable to me to open up her problem but it also makes me guilty that i feel drained cause of her venting to me. I give her advice, she reject it. She has said that she knows her way of thinking is bad but she also says she doesnt want to change her mindset. Tbh ya i try my best to listen to her but its damn hard to do. Both of us is still young and I tbh dont know what to do anymore.

Soo I want to ask what should I do, I'm glad she's comfortable to open up but i felt guilty that I'm mentally tired hearing her. Im also curious on have you experienced like this ? And also I like to apologize if this doesnt make sense. Thank you in advance ^^

------------------------

Question for reflection: Do you genuinely believe that you are an equal member of a relationship? Are your needs, preferences, and wants just as important as the other person's? If you answer 'yes' to these questions, then your beliefs should inform your decisions, so where is the proof of your principles? What actions have you taken to assert your needs, preferences, and wants?

If you say "nothing" (so far) because you feared creating a conflict and/or hurting your friend, then it is a lie that you see and treat yourself as an equal member of the relationship. Her behavior is having a harmful effect on you and has been for awhile, but you kept putting yourself aside to satisfy her needs?

If you wait until you are close to "fed up" before doing anything, how do you think the communication will go, considering the pent up resentment/anger you then harbor? You are more likely to play a "blame game", which will make it very difficult for the both of you to discuss and negotiate calmly and maturely. This is why it is of the utmost importance that you learn to confront relationship problems as soon as possible. The longer you leave them, the more they fester. A lot of relationships break up for seemingly trivial reasons because those "trivial" things went unaddressed and became unnecessarily severe problems.

Healthy relationships need to have a sense of equal give-and-take. When your needs go unsatisfied, your preferences dishonored, and/or your desires dismissed, it is incumbent upon you to speak up and advocate for yourself, in order to right the imbalance. Ideally, this should be done through skillful communication, please consult the article about Communicating Through Conflict.

Two people are bound to run into some differences and disagreements at some point. A vital aspect of friendship is a willingness to readjust behavior as necessary to prevent harm and keep the relationship in a healthy space. If you meet someone who's stubbornly unwilling to examine the ways in which they hurt/harm you and refuse to change for the better, they are not your friend and not worth your continued investment of time, feeling, and energy.

It's neither your duty nor your job to be a therapist or a nanny for people. These caregiving tasks do NOT fall under the role of "friend". That said, an important part of friendship is lending each other help and support, but it has to be within reasonable and mutually agreed upon bounds. Psychological problems of the kind you list are serious matters that require specialized expertise to address. You do not have that professional expertise, and even if you did, you do not owe it to a friend to provide it, because there should be a healthy boundary between personal and professional life. Also, without the right expertise in psychology, your "help" has the potential to be harmful rather than helpful, because you don't know what you're doing.

Respect your needs and boundaries, which means you have to be aware of what is/isn't acceptable to you and where you will draw the line to protect your own well-being.

Communicate your needs and boundaries in a respectful, responsible, and matter-of-fact manner, as soon as the problem arises, before negative emotions get the better of you.

Make a reasonable request of people to fulfill your needs and honor your boundaries (out of care/love for you).

The rest is in their hands. You can't control how other people behave or react. All you can do is communicate to the best of your ability and hope that people meet you halfway for reaching a suitable compromise.

Listening to people's problems, empathizing with them, comforting them, helping them, etc, costs you mental energy and brings you emotional hardship. When you are required to control and manage your emotions for the sake of other people's well-being, it is called emotional labor. A friend isn't entitled to your emotional labor nor should they demand it from you; you should choose to give it willingly, out of love and care.

However, you are just one person, with limited energy and capacity to perform emotional labor. Thus, when you have reached your limit, it's up to you to inform people and stop them from violating your personal boundary. Simply convey that, while you value the friendship and are willing to offer what help you can, there is a limit as to how much emotional labor you can perform, and you hope they can care for your well-being in return by not pushing you past your limits.

[tuanhood]

hypnotic | part one

paring: vampire!im jaebeom x reader

genre: angst, eventual smut (part two), vampire au

warnings: language, cringey vampire cliches i’m sure

word count: 9,800+

summary: jaebeom has been waiting 200 years to find his mate - the one who can break his trance and isn’t affected by his hypnotic abilities. You don’t seem to be that person, but he just can’t seem to get you out of his mind… why? 

a/n: hello guys! so i originally had this planned to post tomorrow (the 30th) but it was so long i decided to split it up and post one part today and the other part on the 31st! This first part is mostly Jaebeom and not a lot of Y/N but SO BE IT. This is also my first time writing in the genre of vampire/fantasy loL so please forgive me because it’ll probably be cringe and not make sense. if that’s the case lol drop me a message!! also vampire jaebeom was requested FOREVER ago. so here it is practically 3 decades later. and i attempted to make a banner. if someone can make me a better one it’s v much WELCOME.

part two

Knock Knock Knock 

He wished he could just pretend like he was asleep. He wished he could use that as an excuse to not answer the door, but based on the very strong feeling he was getting from who was behind it – that wouldn’t work. 

“I know you’re in there! Just answer the damn door Jaebeom!”

Jaebeom rolled his eyes, leave it to Bambam to be at his front door before the day even had a chance to truly begin. Before letting him in, he went through all the possible things or excuses he could use to get out of whatever his younger friend had in mind.

“Is your vintage YSL here or is it still at the dry cleaners?” Bambam asked, pushing past Jaebeom as soon as he has the door partway open.

Gruffly, Jaebeom turned back into his apartment to Bambam already halfway to his bedroom – no doubt to look through his closet, “What are you doing here Bam?” 

“What does it look like? I’m here for the vintage YSL asshole!” 

He’s learned by now that it’s better to let him do his thing – whatever that may mean. So instead of following Bambam, he plopped down onto the same couch he’s had for nearly 15 years. “You know when I first bought that shirt it wasn’t considered vintage!”

Jaebeom waited for a response, but instead, he was met with silence. After a few moments – many of them thinking about how maybe it was time to replace the couch – he felt his “vintage” YSL button-down hit him in the face. 

He groaned; the impact was surely going to create wrinkles in the material he tried to keep in pristine condition. It was ironic since he was often heard making fun of how much Bambam cared about clothes, but Jaebeom liked to keep his things nice. “Bam I just got it back from getting cleaned a couple of days ago.”

“Put it on.” 

The tone of his friend’s voice seemed rather impatient. If he had closed his eyes, Jaebeom would have thought he was talking to Jinyoung or even himself. 

“Why do I need to put it on? It’s 8 in the morning; where are we going?”

“Um excuse me? Did you forget what day it was? Now come on, we’re meeting Jinyoung at that new café down the street in fifteen.”

He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, trying to picture the café on the mental map he keeps in his mind, “the one that used to be a video store in the 90s?”

Bambam made his way into the living room, picking up a few glasses that rested on the coffee table Jaebeom’s feet were on top of, and marched over to the small kitchen. Jaebeom has lived in this apartment more years than he’d like to admit, especially because enough time had passed that the neighbors he had were clearly aging and he just stayed 26. The thought of moving somewhere new often enters his mind, but with this place, he just can’t bring it in himself to go quite yet. It’s almost as though something is tying him to this city, this place – like he’s waiting for something.

“Yes, and a speakeasy in the 20s both of which are not important right now because we live in the 21st century Jaebeom. Now come on, Jinyoung’s waiting – that asshole is always early.” 

He heard Bambam mumble something along the lines of known him 100 years, would it kill him to just be on time for once, as he furiously dropped the glasses on the kitchen counter.

“Do I have to go?” 

Bambam paused his motions of putting Jaebeom’s dirty dishes into the sink to stare the older vampire down, “Jaebeom you only turn 200 once.” 

He scoffed in response, “Jesus don’t remind me.”

“We have to make a whole day of it! So please just put the shirt on, because I want you looking presentable,” he stopped in the middle of his sentence, suddenly wiggling his eyebrows, “you never know what could happen.” The final word is drawn out, almost sing-song like and it drives Jaebeom up the wall because he knows exactly what Bambam is referencing.

For Jaebeom and those like Jaebeom, they didn’t consider the day they were born as their birthday, but instead as the day they turned. There was no point in celebrating their birth anymore as they were no longer alive. However, at this point after 200 birthdays, – alive and dead combined - Jaebeom was beginning to believe that there was no point to those either. He always knew being immortal was a curse but day by day that idea was only solidifying itself in his mind.  

Jaebeom let out a gruff breath which only made Bambam look up from the fork he was scrubbing, “Bam I don’t know what you think is going to happen today… but it certainly isn’t that.” 

The “that” he was referencing was one of the main factors that as of late had made him feel like living forever was indeed a waste. It was the thing that was supposed to make him feel “complete.” According to old texts and traditional vampire folklore, he was now walking around half full, but once he met his mate, he would become whole. At first, he didn’t believe the tale. He had gotten by so far without a mate that the idea of him not being complete made him laugh. But watching both Bambam and Jinyoung find their mates – Bambam 70 years ago and Jinyoung 16 years ago – made him finally acknowledge and reflect on the piece of himself he was missing. 

And fuck he was lonely. 

Bambam chuckled at him as if being in on his own personal joke. His friend was strange like that sometimes, “just put the shirt on Jaebeom.” 

By the time he’s had the shirt on and Bambam has somehow convinced him to let him wear his Rolex he got as a gift from his friend Jackson in 1920, Jaebeom feels mentally prepared to leave the house and embark on this dreadful day. The reminder that he has now been around for 200 years and still is not whole.

“Finally,” Jinyoung sighed when Jaebeom and Bambam finally reached the café down the street, “I’ve been waiting 20 minutes.” 

A disgruntled Bambam checks his watch, “well if you don’t want to wait every single time, don’t be so fucking early,” he promptly turned to Jaebeom to share his grief regarding their friend, “you think he would learn after all this time.” 

“Let’s just go order,” Jaebeom shrugged, not caring to be in another disagreement between his longer than life friends.

“Be honest you’re early on purpose just so it gives you something to complain about and a reason to make us feel bad!” 

Jinyoung ignored Bambam’s theory, replying to the oldest, “no need. I already ordered for the three of us. It’s a special day, the birthday boy doesn’t need to pay,” he glanced at Bambam, “you on the other hand…” 

The two new arrivals, flop down into the sofa chairs on either side of Jinyoung, along of them situated to make a half-circle in front of a low coffee table. The three of them had somehow stuck into this… pattern. Years of friendship that contained years of Bambam/Jinyoung squabbles that Jaebeom would often have to mediate. Patterns were nice, but sometimes they would get old – especially after so long. 

As the two of them argue over whether or not Bambam should pay Jinyoung back for a simple iced Americano because Bam swears he got the drinks the last two times, Jaebeom looks over to the counter where the baristas work on – no doubt – the plethora of orders they have. The factor of the café being new has certainly been the cause of the popularity and amount of people in the shop. He can’t help but feel bad for the individuals working on the drinks – three years ago he had been one of them for roughly 18 months and knew that it wasn’t as easy as it appeared to be. 

In retrospect, Jaebeom didn’t have to work. He had so much time to learn and understand what it meant to be financially responsible. Not only that, but he’s literally had hundreds of years to save. Plus, his early investments in companies ended up landing him some pretty substantial and valuable shares. Jaebeom was sitting on quite the pretty penny. 

“Wow your portfolio is remarkable… I’ve never seen one like it,” his latest financial advisor had said to him in complete awe, “I mean an early investor in Amazon? Apple? Mastercard?” 

Jaebeom had laughed nervously, “What can I say? My grandpa had good intuition, I guess.” 

Money aside, he had wanted something to do with his time – hence his barista job. It was fun, but like most things, Jaebeom just grew tired of it and as he watched the girl working the espresso machine let out an exhausted breath, he realized that he wasn’t missing it. 

Jaebeom has become good at studying people. It was something he still wasn’t sure of whether it was a vampire thing or just something he had picked up over time. Watching the girl at the machine, her hair is in a low bun, a few strands falling in front of her face. It’s clear with the way the hair tie is situated, that the hairstyle was once a bit neater, tighter, and sat at the middle or even top of her head. However, the now fallen placement and slight disarray signal how busy she’s been working and how fried she must be feeling. 

He looks to the string bracelet on her wrist, visible from far away enough for Jaebeom to conclude that she must have someone in her life deemed important to wear one of those “friendship” bracelets. He never saw the point, but humans were strange creatures, despite him once being one. 

Jaebeom’s breath hitches when he catches sight of the delicately drawn tattoo on her wrist near the bracelet. It’s of lavender and it immediately reminds him of his mother who had loved exploring the lavender field that had been near his home when he was a child. Despite all the time that has passed since he lost his mother, the pain that aches inside of Jaebeom when he thinks of her isn’t any less. 

His thoughts are interrupted by the call at the coffee bar, “Order for Jinyoung.” 

The call comes from the overworked girl he had been studying and Jaebeom wants more than anything to stand up and retrieve their orders. He finds a weird want to hear what her laugh sounds like. Maybe he could say something or strike up a conversation that would-

“What are you doing?” It takes Jaebeom a moment to notice that he has partially stood up from his chair as if he’s about to go somewhere. Cluelessly, he replied, “going to get the drinks.”

The youngest shook his head, “No way! Birthday boys don’t get their drinks, they don’t lift a finger.” 

He knew Bambam was one to take birthdays seriously, but this was beginning to feel like it was going the extra mile too many. 

“I’ll get it.” 

Jaebeom watched Bambam get up to retrieve the drinks. He expects him to just grab the drinks and return to the table, but instead, Bambam says something to the girl. Arching his neck to the side, he tries to make a clear path to eavesdrop on what’s being said, hearing being one of the benefits of turning. Unfortunately, the café is too loud for him to focus on the conversation and he’s defeated by the fact that he’ll have to stay in the dark.

The girl laughs loudly at something Bambam said and Jaebeom can’t help but feel mixed about it. On one hand, he got his wish – hearing her laugh – but on the other hand, he wasn’t the cause of it. For some reason it makes him bring his clench and unclench his fists which rest on the arms of the sofa chair. Jinyoung takes notice.

Jaebeom quickly looks down at his lap when he senses that Bambam is returning to where they’re sat, not wanting to give away that he had been staring. First, he places Jinyoung’s and his drink on the table, soon turning back around to go back and fetch the last drink – Jaebeom’s. 

When he comes back, Jaebeom looks up to see a large grin spread across the youngest’s face. He has that look again – the one as if he knows a joke Jaebeom doesn’t. 

The latter nodded his head in thanks for getting the drinks as he inspects his green tea on the table. Just as he’s about to pick up the mug, he’s stopped in his tracks by an announcement coming from the coffee bar. 

“Hello everyone! Sorry for the interruption, but I’ve been told that we have a birthday here today,” you said. Giving announcements wasn’t your strong suit, but you figured now that you were an actual owner of something, you were going to get over your shyness. But you didn’t think it was going to be that often that a tall, skinny and pale boy with a Rolex on his wrist would be asking you to get your coffee shop to sing happy birthday for his friend. Even when you were a barista working for someone else no one had made such a request. This was a café after all, not an Applebee’s.

Jaebeom wished more than anything that he could sink into his seat and just disappear. If only that cliché that vampires turned into bats were true, then he could just fly away at a moment’s notice. Leave it to Bambam to torture him like this. It wasn’t intentional of course, but it certainly felt like it to Jaebeom. 

It was especially tragic to him because the girl he had been studying was the one leading the entire café in singing “Happy Birthday.” He did his best to avoid looking at her, feeling like his entire body was heating up in embarrassment even though he couldn't heat up. 

You on the other hand felt a little insulted by the birthday boy’s lack of eye contact. You hadn’t even managed to get a good look at him before you started singing and now it was not possible with the way that he was looking down at the ground, his long hair falling in front of his face, concealing itself to you. It wasn’t difficult to conclude that he felt awkward about a bunch of strangers he had never met singing him happy birthday, you had felt the same whenever your friends tried to ambush you on your birthday… but you at least looked up and acknowledged the presence of the people singing. A tight smile from this guy would even be happily accepted. 

When the song is over and the claps that follow finally subside, he looks up to see the café back at its previous state of normalcy, not a single person looking at him anymore. Jaebeom lets out a sigh of relief. 

“You could at least act like you liked it,” Bambam huffed in annoyance. He wished Jaebeom could appreciate the idea of birthdays like he did. 

“I really didn’t need to be the center of attention today Bam.” 

“But it’s your bir-” Bambam begins to explain, but Jaebeom abruptly cuts him off, not wanting to hear his reasoning for today’s antics, yet again. The day hadn’t even started.

“My birthday, I know. Thanks for reminding me.” 

Jinyoung clears his throat and plays with the spoon that came with his Flat White. Just as Jaebeom is the mediator for Bambam and Jinyoung, sometimes Jinyoung has to be the mediator for Jaebeom and Bambam. Essentially the commonality in the disagreements of their trio friendship is Bambam and currently, Jinyoung feels as though he should route the conversation elsewhere.

“What else is in the cards for tonight then boys?” 

It’s then based on the look on Jaebeom’s face, that Jinyoung thinks that maybe talking about the plans for tonight – on Jaebeom’s birthday – isn’t re-routing the conversation. Especially since it’s Bambam’s whose eyes light up and is the one to reply to him.

“Obviously we’re going out tonight,” Bambam paused and turned to Jaebeom, wagging his finger in the latter’s face, “there’s no way you’re getting out of this. I’m not taking no for an answer this time.”

Jaebeom rolled his eyes and didn’t respond as he knew he didn’t have a choice in the matter. He had rejected Bambam’s invitations to go out consistently for the last 6 months and on his birthday of all days, Bam was going to force him out of the house just as he had done this morning to come to the café.

He looks back to the front counter, his eyes searching for the barista who has now suddenly disappeared. A frown begins to make itself known on his face, feeling a bit disappointed by the fact that she may have left already or gone elsewhere, but soon she’s popping up from behind the counter, no doubt getting something from the cabinets below. Jaebeom feels relief. 

“What did you say to her?” he asked suddenly looking back at Bambam.

He cocked his head to the side, confused, “What did I say to who?” 

“The barista behind the counter.” 

His friend nodded his head slowly, suddenly realizing what Jaebeom means. A smirk appears on his face, “nothing much… Just how it was your birthday and it would be really good if we could all embarrass you by singing about it. She’s not a barista, by the way, she owns the place. Kinda backward thinking there Jae. It’s the 21st century, women can own things now, they can vote.” 

“I know that,” Jaebeom hissed. 

Bambam puts up his hands in defeat, “I’m just making sure.” 

“Don’t you know her?” Jinyoung asked, “isn’t that why we came here?” 

Jaebeom’s interests are perked. It’s not often that the three of them meet new people. It’s not like there’s a huge point to it. The last new person the three of them met was Mark – also a vampire – a bartender at their favorite club in the city, but that was in 2007. 

He waits for Bambam’s explanation as to how he knows this girl and why they came here specifically beside it just being near Jaebeom’s apartment. 

Waving his hand nonchalantly, the Thai boy gives his answer, “I don’t really know her. Minji does. Met her in some kind of class, I think. SoulCycle? Pilates? Zumba? I don’t know. I can’t keep up with her and her activities these days.” 

Minji is Bambam’s mate. He had turned her only a month after they met. 

Jaebeom’s not sure what he would do if he met his mate. He doesn’t know if he would want to subject them to turning and living the same kind of life as him, but he also doesn’t know if he could continue life alone after meeting his mate. If he ever meets them.

“Why the curiosity?” Jinyoung asked, for once finding it hard to remain stone-faced. Even his usual chill, non-revealing demeanor seems to fade away when it appears that his older friend might be attracted to someone. 

Jaebeom simply shrugged, “it’s nothing…” 

“What do you think? Could she be the one?” Bambam asked teasingly, pointing to the girl behind the counter. 

Jinyoung rolled his eyes almost immediately at the younger boy, “if you’re going to keep bothering him about it, don’t make it so obvious idiot.” 

Jaebeom had been alive – or more like undead – for 200 years and more than half of that time he had to listen to this same conversation from his friends over and over again. His patience was wearing thin and 180 years later, he was tired of their pestering. 

He leaned forward slowly and grabbed his green tea off the table, making sure to visibly flinch at the heat of the drink, Bambam, and Jinyoung chuckling at his reaction. Out of the three of them, Jaebeom certainly had the most practice when it came to “putting on a show” for the humans and “acting” the most human. Taking a sip, he looked back at the girl behind the counter. 

The youngest vampire had spent many of their outings and conversations hypothesizing who Jaebeom’s mate could be. Despite being the oldest of the three, Jaebeom was the only one left who still hadn’t found his mate and he was beginning to feel hopeless. Typically, Bambam pointed out any human girl as a candidate – all of them of course ended up not being his mate. Therefore, Jaebeom didn’t pay attention to his picks anymore, but he had to admit… He did get a strange feeling from the girl behind the counter. 

Jaebeom looked to you, hoping to catch your gaze as you quickly made the coffee orders for the few people waiting to the side of the cash register. Just when he was about to give up and focus his attention back on his friends, you tore your concentration away from the drink in your hand and looked up at him from across the cafe. 

Jaebeom focused his gaze deep onto you with his eyes – testing, checking, and trialing your focus. You didn’t look away, instead, you trained your eyes deeply into his and stared at him until finally, it was Jaebeom who broke the contact. 

He shook his head at his friends, disappointed by your inability to break the trance and ultimately confused at the feeling he still got from you despite that. 

Jaebeom took another sip of the tea, “it’s not her.” 

“Did you have to debate that Uber driver on the Twilight franchise?” Jinyoung groaned at Bambam as soon as they’re out of the car. 

The entire twenty-minute ride, he had got into a heated discussion with their driver on how Twilight was not “true” or realistic to most actual vampire folklore. It had been an excruciating thing to listen to. 

“Got to stand up for our kind dude.” 

“Okay, but what happens when she starts asking how you know all these things or why you’re so interested in vampire stuff?” Jinyoung tended to always be right. This wasn’t an exception.

Brushing off his pants, Bambam gives him a nonchalant wave, “chill out man. Everyone loves vampire stuff.” 

“Maybe in 2008,” Jaebeom said just barely loud enough for his friends to hear them. The two of them laughed, Bambam shoving him playfully on the shoulder, “Birthday boy getting funny on us.” 

“I was always funny,” Jaebeom deadpanned. 

“Funny and looking good tonight. Let’s get you laid, shall we?” 

After a day that was jampacked full of various activities planned by his youngest friend, the last thing Jaebeom wanted to do was spend extra energy on trying to get some girl to come home with him tonight. Besides, he wasn’t that guy anymore. 

Jinyoung scoffed, “he doesn’t need to get laid tonight.”

“Yes, he does! Jaebeom how long has it been?” 

This time it’s Jinyoung that shoves Bambam’s shoulder – except it’s not all that playful. 

“Fine don’t answer that, but I’m just saying there will be quite a few girls here that you can have your pick of, despite your plain outfit.” 

Jaebeom looked at the clothes he had changed into when Bambam spared him a sliver of time to go back home to digress and feed his cats. The latter had wanted him to borrow clothes of his, but instead, Jaebeom decided on pulling pieces from his closet that felt more like him, less like Bambam. A plain pair of ripped jeans, an oversized black shirt that he had bought at a shop from his trip to London last year, and his mother’s necklace that often wasn’t missing from its spot around his neck.

Bambam’s earlier critique was that he was dressed too basic and that no girls would bat an eye at him. Girls don’t like plain guys, he had said. The comment makes Jaebeom wonder about you and whether you’d fall under the category of not liking “plain” guys. 

He bites the inside of his cheek. It was probably the eighth time he had made himself do it today. Jaebeom had found his mind often drifting to you throughout the day for some unexplainable reason. During their walk in the park, he wondered if you would take strolls during your breaks from the café or when Bambam forced him to go paint pottery for an hour and a half he thought about what you would paint. It frustrated him because he hadn’t even spoken to you – not a word and yet you were clearly on his mind for one reason or another. It wasn’t even like you were his mate. He had tried to see if you were unaffected by his trance, his hypnotic capabilities, but you had just stared at him completely fixated just as everyone else was. 

Jaebeom was not going to think about you any longer. He was already planning on avoiding your café. 

“We’re on the list,” Bambam tells the bouncer when they arrive at the entrance of the club. He scans the list and motions his head towards the direction of the door to signal to the three of them to go on ahead. There’s a bit of a whine coming from the people waiting in line which admittedly so makes Jaebeom feel a little guilty, but Bambam ensures him it’s fine, “why have a friend who works at a club if we can’t use him for the perks?” 

“Why does he keep bartending again?” As soon as the question is out of Jaebeom’s mouth he realizes it was a stupid thing to ask since the answer is apparent. 

Bambam laughed at him, giving his long – irreplaceable he’d like to remind everyone – leather coat to the person at the front of the club. Jaebeom swears he hears him tell the coat check guy the “proper” way to put it on a hanger. 

“Obviously for the girls Jaebeom.” 

Mark’s mate – Hana had passed on a long time ago. Jaebeom had never got the chance to meet her, only hears about her in passing from some stories that Mark has told the three of them. He hadn’t turned her. Jaebeom’s never asked why. 

“Girls… of course.” 

He can’t help but think about how Mark must feel inside. Although Jaebeom doesn’t know him as well as he knows Bambam and Jinyoung, whenever he’s with the older boy he’s always got a smile on his face. Often quiet, but he’s always got certain energy bouncing off of him that would indeed make him popular with women. However, if what they say about mates is true, would that mean that a piece of Mark was now missing? Did he feel like he was less of a person? Jaebeom felt like that sometimes and he hadn’t even met his mate yet. Mark had his, but now he didn’t. 

“Drinks?” Jinyoung asked the two of them and Jaebeom is partly surprised. Out of the three of them, Bambam was the one who was the most comfortable in a club or even bar setting. He figures that Jinyoung must be using his birthday as an excuse to cut loose and become someone else for the night.

Bambam instantly nodded his head at Jinyoung’s suggestion and Jaebeom finds himself trailing behind the two of them as they make their way over to Mark at the bar who is throwing his head back at something the girl across the bar is saying. Judging on Jaebeom’s intuition – it’s a bit fake and overplayed, but you got to do what you got to do.

“My man!” Bambam yelled over the music, leaning against the counter in a way to make sure he doesn’t get the elbows of his long sleeve turtleneck wet. Mark in response, turned to them and smiled, then routing his attention back to the girl, giving her an apologetic smile. Her half-smile says everything Jaebeom could need to know – this girl would not be going home with Mark after his shift tonight. 

“What can I get you guys tonight,” Mark turned to Jaebeom and the latter can barely make out his sharp canines in the dark club, “birthday boy you want anything special?” 

Before Jaebeom can reply that he wants to be at home, Bambam answers for him.

“Could we maybe get something that’s off the menu?” He wiggled his eyebrows at Mark who gave him a shit-eating grin, knowing immediately what he was talking about. 

“Off the menu” meant Mark’s secret stash of O negative underneath the counter. While alcohol had the same effect on them that it had on the average humans, adding a bit of blood just made a little bit better. Okay… it made it a lot better. 

“Three negronis coming right up,” Mark winked to give a little signal that these would most likely not be as well composed or put together as a negroni, but due to them being in public, he couldn’t necessarily announce a shit ton of alcohol mixed with human blood was going to be served up to them. 

“How has your birthday been Jae?” Mark asked as he was in the middle of placing three glasses onto the countertop in between them.

It was difficult to explain since to Jaebeom it had just been another day except for a little bit more excruciating. The celebration of another year “older” filled him with thoughts of how much time has passed, whether he’s done anything truly important and why he still hasn’t found the person who is meant to complete him… but like he said only a little more excruciating than any other day. 

Jaebeom shrugged in response, “Bam planned a lot and for the most part, it was…” he paused for a moment, wondering if he should say how he felt – numb, lost, and wishing the day would come to an end as if tomorrow won’t bring the same thoughts or problems. But as he looked at his friends who had tried so hard today to make him happy and celebrate, he decided to guard them against the ultimate truth, “for the most part it was fun – really good. I mean besides the singing at the café of course.” He throws in the last part to at least have some kind of believability to his story. 

He notices Mark’s eyebrows lift out of curiosity as his concentration focuses on measuring out each part of the drinks, “An entire café sang you happy birthday? Damn, I don’t think I could ever get through that, so I can only imagine how you feel.” 

“That was Bam’s idea,” Jinyoung muttered. 

Once again, Bambam does his nonchalant waving of the hand, “it wasn’t that bad. I mean okay, maybe it was… But Jaebeom was obsessed with the girl who led it.” 

Jaebeom suddenly feels like he wants to put duct tape over his friend’s mouth. 

“I was not obsessed with her! I don’t even know her!” Jaebeom for some reason felt the need to defend himself, which was probably the worst option. Him getting defensive was usually a tell-tale sign for his friends being right on whatever they were confronting him with. 

Bambam scoffed, bringing gliding his drink across the bar to be directly in front of him once Mark has poured it neatly into the short glass, “I noticed you staring at her before I went to get the drinks. That’s why I asked her to do it in the first place.” 

“So, she doesn’t know Minji?” Jinyoung questioned. 

The youngest takes his first sip and immediately lets out a hissing noise, signaling to Mark that it’s both strong and good. “No, she does, but Jaebeom’s weird staring only made it that much better.” 

Mark pushed the other two glasses towards Jinyoung and Jaebeom, “Was she your…” he drifted off, almost as though he was finding it physically difficult to get the word out. Jaebeom can’t help but feel the want to reach his hand out towards Mark and place it comfortingly on his shoulder, but his group of friends don’t do that. Instead, he saves him the trouble by answering back right away, not forcing him to say it.

“No, she wasn’t.” 

The bartender nodded slowly, suddenly avoiding his gaze from the three familiar boys across the bar from him, “That’s uh… too bad that she wasn’t able to break the trance. Sorry, Jaebeom.” 

He knows that Mark is just trying to be nice, especially when they’re on a subject that he clearly can’t and doesn’t want to talk about, but the attempt to be comforting makes Jaebeom nauseous. 

“Well maybe he’ll find her here tonight,” Jinyoung quipped, placing a hand on Jaebeom’s back. Sometimes the latter swore that his friends treated him he had just found out he had a terminal illness. 

“I sincerely doubt it,” Jaebeom commented gruffly. 

There’s a sound from the other side of the bar from a customer who seems fed up with the conversation being had between the four of them – distracting Mark from serving anyone else. He gives a signal to them to notify them that he’ll be there in a second. “Well… come to me if you guys need more drinks.  It’s on me tonight.” 

“Thanks, man,” Jaebeom tells him honestly because he might need a couple more drinks before he gets to the state of wanting to be in this room.

Mark said a final word of “see you guys later” and heads to the other end of the bar to help customers who have been waiting. Grabbing their drinks, Jaebeom, Jinyoung, and Bambam turn around to depart the bar, to find somewhere to sit for a bit before the drinks truly begin to hit them.  

With his drink in hand, Jaebeom took a sip and reveled in the perfect balance of alcohol to burn his throat and blood to soothe it. The drink was probably the most relaxing part of his day thus far and as he looked out at the crowd, he could already tell that maybe the mixture was going to his head due to his sudden thinking that this place wasn’t all that bad.

Despite not being a club guy, if he were to go out, Jaebeom would always choose this club that Mark works out. To put it simply – it was vampire friendly. With Mark behind the counter and his “secret” supply free-flowing, it became a notoriously known place for vampires in town. If he had to guess, the attendance on an average night was probably evenly split 50/50, humans and vampires.

The humans weren’t aware of the vampires of course – for the most part.

Jaebeom cleared his throat once they’ve found a booth to sit in, “so… Bam what do you know about that girl?” 

Both Jinyoung and Bambam exchange glances before looking back at the birthday boy. The latter tried his best to conceal the smile on his face, “not much… just that she owns the café, knows Minji, and is very single.” 

For some reason, Jaebeom’s stomach does a little flip, but he wishes it wouldn’t. “S-So?” Through his stutter, he tries to remain as confident as possible, but his friends see right through his façade.

Jinyoung leaned forward until his elbows rest on the top of his thighs, “Jaebeom you can be honest with us… Why the sudden fascination with this girl? Are you sure she didn’t break the trance? Just with the way that you’re acting…” Jinyoung drifted off, not bothering to finish his final sentence, but once again looking at Bambam. It makes Jaebeom lean forward in his seat as well. 

“With the way, I’m acting? I’m completely normal. I’m fine. She didn’t break the trance and now I’m just curious about her as curious as anyone would be about someone they meet.” 

There’s the silence between the three of them until Bambam speaks up, “You didn’t meet her though.” 

It dawns on Jaebeom that he didn’t even speak to you and he wonders why does it feel like he did. Why did it feel like he knew you but didn’t at the same time? Why haven’t his mind and body been cooperating with him since this morning at the café? 

Just with the way that you’re acting…

The way he was acting? What did that mean? Was the way he was acting mean something specific? 

He feels like he blinks and thirty minutes go by. And in that past thirty minutes, Jaebeom had somehow managed to drink 6 of Mark’s “negronis.” He felt like his head was beginning to get dizzy. It wasn’t often that Jaebeom found himself drunk on the verge of drunkenness due to alcohol not affecting him as much as humans. To even remotely get to that state, he had to drink a lot and it had to be strong. 

“You feeling it Jaebeom?” Through the darkness and the haze of the alcohol, Jaebeom could barely make out the hint of the smile playing on Jinyoung’s face. He had switched to a glass of wine at some point while Jaebeom was binge drinking which had to be the most Jinyoung thing ever. Who drinks a glass of wine in a dark, sweaty club? 

He’s afraid to answer him verbally which would give his friend an obvious sign of how he was feeling. So instead he just shrugged – as usual. 

“Dude let’s get out there!” The youngest shouted, motioning his hands to the middle of the club, “dance… maybe find you a girl?” 

Jaebeom watched the people pressing up against each other on the dancefloor, moving their bodies, and drinking like their lives depended on it. He wondered if he wanted to be a part of that. Everyone out there was so full of life and vigor… he just wasn’t. He also didn’t know if he was that drunk, but bless Bambam because he didn’t need alcohol to be out there. 

For what feels like the millionth time, his mind drifted to you. Was this your kind of place? Would you come here? If you did would you come alone? With friends? Someone else? You didn’t seem like the type of person who would like this place. You seemed more like him – the observant, calm, inquisitive type who would much rather be at home with a book than at a party. 

Then for a moment, he can picture it. It’s almost like he’s in a trance – an image of you curled up on a couch – his couch – under a large white cable knit blanket fills his mind. Rather than reading, your painting with watercolors – the kind that seems to be in every elementary school classroom – and he hears a voice out of view. His voice.

“Painting really?”  

Jaebeom sees you glance up from your painting to look at him, smiling.

“Looks like I’m gonna have a lot of time on my hands so… might as well get good at something.” 

Jaebeom hears himself laugh, “Okay but watercolors?” 

He feels like he’s going to pass out when he finally hears it – your laugh. 

“Let the artist work Im Jaebeom! She needs to get good enough to live off auction house money once her paintings get sold! Shh!” Despite your words, you smiled and suddenly moved the tools away from you onto the coffee table. You lifted half the blanket off of you and patted the space of the couch beside you, “you know I can’t say no when you give me that face. Come here.”

And just like that, the vision is gone. Jaebeom feels confused because it didn’t feel like a dream or fantasy, but it felt real… it felt like a memory. 

“Hello, Earth to Jaebeom?” 

Right… dancing. Maybe dancing would help him forget whatever game his mind was playing on him.

“Yeah let’s fucking go.” 

Another instance occurs where Jaebeom blinks and everything moves so fast. Suddenly he’s no longer sat at the table with Bambam and Jinyoung, but instead in the middle of that mess on the dancefloor with everyone else. He almost feels like one of them. He almost feels human again. But as soon as that feeling washes over him, it quickly dissipates. 

He knows it must be the drinks doing all the work, because otherwise, he would have never found himself in the middle of all these people, thinking that dancing is a good idea. Dancing had never done anything remotely good for him before, so why now? To help forget? Was it going to help him do that? 

“I swear it’s like he’s not even here.” 

Jaebeom tuned back into the moment, and it’s when he realizes that Jinyoung and Bambam have been trying to get his attention this entire time.

“Sorry I was just- the alcohol you know…” He says it so quietly that he knows his friends won’t be able to hear him over the music and the millions of conversations happening around them. But he thinks that maybe it’s better that way and that it truly doesn’t matter what he says.

Jinyoung comes closer to Jaebeom, until his mouth is right next to his ear, “we were just asking if there’s anyone that you’re interested in.” 

They’re still on this idea? Jaebeom asked himself. 

Even in his drunken state, he didn’t think that finding some random girl to fuck was going to help with the emptiness he’s been feeling lately, but for the first time since getting up and onto the dance floor he takes in the people around him. As depressing as it was to observe, most people were here with someone else. 

It’s then his gaze falls onto a couple that stands far on the left side of the floor, behind where Jinyoung is standing. The two of them have their fronts pressed up against each other, dancing so closely with arms exploring one another’s bodies. The female has her head resting on the male’s shoulder as if she’s too exhausted to keep going, but can’t dare to part with him. It’s like they’re part of each other and any distance would cause them to lose all sense of themselves.

The girl lifts her head off the male’s shoulder and gives him this look that makes Jaebeom’s heart – if it was still beating – ache. She says something to him and he nodded happily in response. Even through the dim lights and large crowd, Jaebeom could see the sharp teeth inside her mouth.

She placed her head back against his shoulder, this time, however, the male had his head angled back, stretching out his neck. The girl moves in closer until her mouth just ghosts over the skin, breathing on it until the boy shuts his eyes awaiting the sting and pleasure that will come next.

Biting down against his flesh, breaking skin, the girl drinks from her partner. Even though he’s at a distance from them, Jaebeom can tell by the look on the man’s face that he’s enjoying being fed on and that it certainly isn’t his first time. 

He feels like his eyes are frozen on the couple. It’s been so long since he fed off someone instead of the stuff that he gets from his connection at the hospital. Jaebeom tries not to think about the way his fingertips tingle and his throat dries up at the thought of drinking from a warm body. The alcohol has only dehydrated him and made him feel even more thirsty – he’s afraid that going back to the bar and asking Mark for a glass of O negative exclusively isn’t going to make that go away. 

After a moment or two, the girl removes her mouth from the boy’s neck and drags her tongue over the spot where she had drawn blood from, ultimately covering the wound and signaling that she was done drinking. 

He thinks of how risky it is to do that at a place like this. Although half of the people around them also take part in the activity of drinking blooding and granted most of them aren’t paying attention to those around them – there are still unsuspecting humans everywhere. If one wrong person were to see then that could be it for this club being a haven for the vampire community in the city and that would probably be… it for vampires in this city in general. 

But who was he kidding? He was being a hypocrite because he’s for sure done the same thing. 

You’ve once again entered his mind. However, this time it isn’t an image, picture, or vision that occupies his thoughts, but instead just the idea of how you would react to who he is, what he really is. Throughout his time that he’s been undead he’s only done the “reveal” to a handful of people and even then, it took him a long time to get there. Well except for one person who ultimately was a mistake and his friends hadn’t hesitated to let him know.

With you, Jaebeom felt that you wouldn’t be the kind of person to judge him instantly based on what he was. You would be shocked of course, maybe even scared, but you wouldn’t let that cloud your judgment. You wouldn’t let yourself reject something just because it was unfamiliar. 

What the fuck was he on about? 

It must be the alcohol doing this to him. He would have to thank Mark for making them strong this time around, but also make a mental note to never let this happen again. Jaebeom was already a deeper thinker, but this was getting out of hand.

There’s a sudden grasp of Jaebeom’s elbow and he feels himself jump at the sudden touch. His eyebrows furrowed when he realized it wasn’t one of his friends considering Bambam and Jinyoung were both dancing over to his right side. 

When he turned around to greet the person who had grabbed him, he was disappointed, surprised, and annoyed all in one. It was the last person he had expected to see her, except not really because it made perfect sense. 

“Jaebeom… hi.” Ara smiled shyly at him, tucking a string of hair behind her ear and slightly looking down at the ground. He wants to groan because he knows she’s doing this because he had once mentioned that he thought it was hot when she looked innocent. He shouldn’t have ever said that.

He’s not sure what to say, because what are you supposed to say to someone you’ve been trying to avoid for the past year and a half? Jaebeom had said everything he had wanted to say to her. 

At one point in his life, he had been stupid. He had been stupid and he had abused the power that had been bestowed upon him since the day he had been turned. Perhaps one would assume that he’d been foolish with his ability just at the start – 100, maybe even 150 years ago. Instead, Jaebeom had gone through a rough patch about a year or two ago. 

The overwhelming pressure of finding his mate had started to get to him again. All he needed was someone, anyone to break the hypnotic trance and that was it. A task that seemed so simple, yet never came. So, Jaebeom had used hypnotism to his advantage, getting as many girls as he could in his bed in the shortest amount of time possible. He wasn’t proud of it and it was something he would constantly regret as long as he was ali- around. 

One of those girls… had been Ara. 

Jaebeom felt relieved when she didn’t wait for him to answer back at her greeting, “How are you? I-It’s your birthday, right? How old are you turning again? 27?” She winked immediately after her question and he wants to roll his eyes.

She was the mistake by the way. The mistake that knew about who he was. 

He doesn’t even remember how it happened, how his secret slipped, or what the circumstances of her finding out was. Part of him thinks he was just horny, thirsty, and weak, but she found out and she… loved it. 

Weirdly enough, Ara loved the idea of him being a vampire and his “lifestyle” which at first Jaebeom didn’t think too much about. He thought okay she’s taking this extremely well… better than anyone else I’ve ever told, but whatever, but then it became strange. 

She was what those in the vampire community call a “vampire fetishizer.”

He coughed awkwardly, his gaze wandering over to Jinyoung and Bambam, hoping they would catch sight of him stuck with Ara and come rescue him. Jaebeom wasn’t that lucky though, not even on his birthday, “Yeah… 27.” 

Jaebeom can’t help but look at her neck. It’s fully on display and it was clear that Ara had come here to find someone to feed on her. He had been the one to show Ara this place before he had been clued into her little… vampire obsession. 

“Well did the birthday boy get everything he wants today?” She smiled and gave Jaebeom those eyes. He feels his cock twitch in his pants and he realizes he has to keep himself in check because he’s not that weak tonight… right? 

His eyes flash to her neck again and Jaebeom feels his throat get even drier. He was so thirsty and he knows Ara would be so willing. 

No Jaebeom… No. 

“I-I uh yeah… you know got- yeah today’s been good,” he stuttered awkwardly, bringing his tongue out to wet his dry lips. Judging on the look on Ara’s face, she’s taken the action the wrong way. 

“You look thirsty Jaebeom… do you want a drink?” 

He knows what she means and Jaebeom swallows hard in an attempt to distract himself, to remind himself that he’s not that thirsty. He doesn’t need it that bad.

“I-I think I am.” 

The words come out faster than his brain can process to stop them and the part of Jaebeom that’s coherent, sharp, and aware wants to punch the weak and drunk Jaebeom in the face. 

Without a word, Ara turned from Jaebeom and began walking to one of the exits at the side of the club. He feels like he’s the one in a trance, mindlessly following her through the people, not even hearing Jinyoung and Bambam calling out to him. The only thing that Jaebeom makes note of as he follows her is Mark’s face behind the bar, giving him a tight smile. It almost stops Jaebeom. Almost. 

When they finally get outside through the exit door, they find themselves in a small alley between the club and a dry cleaner. 

Jaebeom doesn’t even get a moment to think before Ara is pushing him against the wall of the dry cleaner, her hands roaming up and down his body, her lips going to his own. They’re pressed up against each other so closely that he recalls the couple he had watched earlier. He feels sick comparing this moment now to the two of them. 

“Fuck I missed you so much,” Ara sighed seductively into this ear, making Jaebeom’s stomach churn further at her clear longing for him. Well not him, but the vampire part of him.

“Please, I need it,” she mewled. At her words, he almost puts a stop to this whole thing and has to question whether this is the right thing to do. Jaebeom wonders if this is old Jaebeom behavior – the one that just used women and threw them away later like toys, but then he remembers that this is Ara. She’s using him as well. 

It’s almost as though that old, cocky, snide Jaebeom appears out of nowhere as he says his next words and brings himself closer to her neck, “do you really need it?” 

“Yes, Jaebeom I do, please.” Ara already sounds so desperate and he’s barely done anything. He can’t help but smirk at her reaction.

“Then I guess I better give it to you then.” 

He’s about to do it. He’s about to bite down and finally relieve his thirst, his craving, but then he looks to the side of the alley – towards the street. He feels like he’s seeing things again like he’s in the middle of a hallucination or mirage. That thought is pushed away when he locks eyes with you. 

“Don’t mind me,” you placed your hands up in front of yourself, to show him you’re not eavesdropping. Your action frustrated you because it would have been much better to say nothing, but you felt yourself panic. The prolonged eye contact with him while he’s just seconds away from pressing down – bitting down? – on the girl’s next for some reason pushed you into defensive mode. Not to mention his eyes… his eyes were – red? 

The girl hadn’t noticed you; you aren’t even sure if she heard you, but she certainly noticed Jaebeom’s stare fixated on you. When she faces you, she wears an unpleasant sneer, clearly annoyed by your interruption of whatever this was. 

“Can you go?” She said, the agitation in her voice more than apparent. 

Rather than immediately leave the scene, you continued to stare at Jaebeom. It’s difficult to say why you decided to walk this specific way home despite it being so late and dark out, but for some reason, you couldn’t help but be pulled in this direction. You weren’t someone who believed in signs or fate, but it felt so wrong to go any other way tonight. That was another thing, you felt this kink in your neck that practically forced you or taunted you into looking down the alley between this dry cleaners and club. It was yet another thing about today that felt unexplainable to you as you certainly weren’t expecting the birthday boy from the café today to be in a compromising position with some girl. 

After a moment of more uncomfortable staring – something else that had happened at the café today with him – Jaebeom breaks your gaze and looks down at his feet. The eye roll and acrid look on the girl’s face don’t go unnoticed by you. 

You shouldn’t be here. 

“S-Sorry. I’ll just get going then,” you concluded, unsure why you felt an uncomfortable sickness spread throughout the entirety of your body. 

You barely knew this guy – all you really knew was that today was his birthday and that he was friends with Minji’s boyfriend. Basically nothing. Yet now and even earlier back at the café you had felt this weird sensation within yourself. Not even when you looked at him, but just being in the same presence. It had been so hard to focus on making coffee today when he was seated across the room. Every part of your body just wanted to get closer, gravitate towards him. It was fucking weird… and scary. 

The girl nodded as if to signal “yeah about time,” at the announcement of your departure. Jaebeom on the other hand, still had his eyes glued to the ground as if looking at you once again will cause him some kind of pain.

Just as you’re about to continue your trip back home, you stop yourself and look back at the couple in the alley. 

“Happy birthday by the way…” you paused wondering if it would be weird to say his name considering he doesn’t even know yours, but you shove the thought out of your mind, “Jaebeom…”    

Hearing you say his name causes that tingling feeling in his fingertips to come back and his entire mind is sent into a frenzy. He feels too awkward, too shy to look at you again, but a sudden thought washed over him. What if earlier was a mistake? What if you are his mate? With the way he was currently feeling just at you saying his name, the visions he had in the club and the nonstop place you know had in his mind, it was difficult to believe that you weren’t his mate. 

Bambam and Jinyoung had found it difficult to explain to him what it felt like to find your mate, but surely what he felt right now wasn’t normal behavior or feelings. Unless he was a psychopath. 

Tightly shutting his eyes and drawing together all his strength, Jaebeom aims to try once again to see if you can break the hypnotic trance, unaffected by his abilities. However, as soon as he’s finally ready, head turned up to face you – you’re gone. You didn’t wait for him to respond to the happy birthday message. Instead, you simply left not wanting to be a burden or troublesome to whatever it was those two were doing in that alley. 

“Thank fucking god, let’s get back to it,” Ara concluded with a final roll of her eyes, gripping Jaebeom’s shoulders to get him close to her once again. He stares at her neck, but this time he doesn’t feel anything. He no longer feels thirsty and his appetite is gone. 

Jaebeom shrugs her off slightly. The encounter with you has caused him to wake up and realize what a bad idea it would be to do this right now. He hopes that Ara won’t put up a fight – he doesn’t want to have to hypnotize her if he doesn’t need to. 

At his actions, Ara takes a step away in disbelief, as if she actually can’t believe that Jaebeom is changing his mind and no longer wants her, “are you serious?” 

He doesn’t say anything but instead avoids eye contact with her just as he had done for you. 

Snorting, she glared at him, “Fine. Whatever. I don’t fucking care. I can find someone else to feed off of me. Yours never felt that good anyway. Asshole.”

Just like that, she’s out of his life once again and Jaebeom can’t help but feel thankful. He should have never been weak enough to be dragged out by here anyway. He had just been consumed by thoughts of you, alcohol, and the couple on the dancefloor. Then again, not coming out here would have robbed him of the opportunity of seeing you again and finding out that you actually knew his name. 

That’s when it dawned on him. 

Fuck… how much had you seen? What did you see? 

Jaebeom realized that he might have some explaining to do

[heyitsyn]

Prove Me Wrong

M!Reader x Oikawa

a/n: SDKLFJSLDKFJDLSKF OKAY I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW ITS BEEN SO LONG SINCE I LAST UPDATED BUT I REALLY INVESTED MY TIME INTO RESEARCHING AND READING FANFICS WITH AN M!READER BC I REALLY DIDNT WANNA GET IT WRONG SO I APOLOGIZE IF I DID SOMETHING WRONG AND I HOPE THIS ANON LIKES IT!!!

anon:

-heres an interesting thought. what about flamboyant oikawa with a cold boyfriend😳😳

YEYYY I FINALLY UPDATED

LETS GET STARTED SHALL WE?

okayokayokay

so in the request above

this is a m!reader

meaning you will be male in this one so hehe yep the story starts now

you are,,,

distant

and cold

but its mainly just because you were,,,

too tired to actually put in the effort of socializing

between bouncing between part-time jobs to care for your siblings and to schoolwork and book club

the mans can only do so much

so you spend most of your time in school just trying to catch up on sleep bc youre too busy studying up all night for exams since yanno

✨gRaDuaATiOn✨

unfortunately for you, your class had the famous manwhore oikawa tooru

why is that a bad thing?

well, imagine just trying to get some shut eye and suddenly, you just hear a bunch of screaming girls and it gets louder the closer the guy approaches your classroom and when he opens it,

the screams become 10x bass boosted

then imagine that with your sensitive hearing

now,,

it does bother you but it wouldnt bother you as much if he told them to leave

BUT NOOOOOO

he decides to let them in and chat with them and flatter them and continue with that bs until the bell rings

even then,

the girls in your class cant help but keep giggling at him and he always whispers in that obnoxious voice and youre just like two seconds away from ripping his tongue out

now

you dont hate him

you just genuinely dislike his way of living

and the way he talks

and the way he acts

yea see?

no hate

theres a difference

then there was that one time that you got so fed up with it that when oikawa settled on his seat and the fangirls circled him like some cult

they started talking to him all at once trying to get his attention

so it was a garbled mess of sounds and you growled, burying your face deeper in your arms because you would snap really really soon

then one girl shrieked when oikawa smiled at her and then you really just let go of all bearings

your chair made a squeak as you shot up, palms slamming against the wooden desk and your eyes glaring straight at them

‘go back to the farm, ya squealing pigs’

DSKFJLSDFKJSDFKDJS SORRY I LOVE TSUMU

this made everyone silent-even the others in the class just minding their own business

they all knew you as the quiet kid who didnt really talk much but those who did were really scared at you and the way you talked to them with such a cold and monotonous voice that they started spreading rumors about you

even absurd ones like your eyes are so cold bc youve killed so many people that you have no life and empathy left

LIKE WHAT THE HECK YOU STRUGGLED TO GET A SPIDER OUT OF YOUR SISTERS ROOM THE OTHER DAY LIKE EXCUSE YOU

but apparently they were just,,, so scared of you that when you finally got done with them and bursted out, the girls started crying

YALL KNOW THE SAYING LIKE HELL HAS STARTED WHEN THE QUIET KID SNAPS

the females run out of the room scared and the others nervously looks at you

your eyes sweeped through the room and each one of them flinched when you made eye contact with them

YES ASSERT OUR DOMINANCE M/N

the only who didnt was oikawa tooru himself

your eyes landed on him and he still had that stupid smug look on his stupidly gorgeous face and you wanted to ki-WAIT NO SLAP it off of him

‘the hell you looking at?’

you grumbled at him and he just merely shook his head with a smile

‘you remind me a chihuahua, m/n-chan. so cute when its angry’

‘HAH?!’

now it isnt a surprise to hear oikawa tooru say that to a boy bc wowza the school loves him so much that hes a bi icon in seijoh and hes such a king like who cares?

but they were surprised to see you turn red, the tips of your ears to the base of your neck were all flushed

‘see? so cute, right, everyone?’

KSDFJLSDKJFS

THE NERVE OF THIS MAN

the class didnt say anything except just put their heads down bc as much as they wanted to agree with oikawa at how suddenly hot you looked, they were too scared that you might plummet their faces to the ground

maybe thats when everyone started noticing you more

again, you were very quiet, you didnt talk much, you just sat there and listened so obviously you didnt really stand out but then that outburst made you more noticeable

you started seeing girls in your class staring at you then blush and look away abashedly

then the guys in your class started greeting you, even people in the hallways

ngl the attention you suddenly got was overwhelming

especially when oikawa seemed to call out to you all the time now

as you were walking down the stairs, hed see you and he’d shout and wave to you

‘m/n-chan! hiii!!!!’

his loud voice would make everyone turn and look at you and you dont do well with public attention so you turn red and you glare at him

‘shut the hell up, idiot. and dont call me by my first name. we’re not friends’

you turned to walk in the classroom but you looked at him again after taking a few steps

there he was

smiling and giggling with those girls

all he does is smile and giggle and shit

its so damn fake that you cant believe everyone fell for it and the worst thing is oikawa’s doing it to get everyone’s acceptance and validication

it was pathetic and disgusting

poor oikawa :(

now on to baby flatttykawa side,

he was kinda hurt by that

like how the heck are you not friends when youve been going to high school for 3 years?

sure, its only been casual greetings and him waving at you when yall made eye contact

but its still something, right?

right?

when you walked back into the classroom, tooru cant help but feel down at the declaration of the lack of friendship you had

his form slouched and his eyes trailed down but the voice of some girl brought him back to where he was and to fix his attitude

‘oikawa-san? are you okay?’

the others muttered in concern with her but they were eased when he raised a peace sign with the signature smile 

‘yep! all good!’

GOD I REALLY CANT STAND IT WHEN HE USES A FACADE TO EVERYONE BUT LIKE I LOVE HIM SO MUCH BC HES SUCH A STRONG CHARACTER THAT DOESNT BREAK AND HES SO INSECURE AND IT PAINS ME SO MUCH THAT HE FEELS THE NEED TO HIDE BEHIND A MASK EVERYDAY AND AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

truth be told,

oikawa has always noticed you

not only do you work at the one bakery with his milk bread but you also work at the convenience store that the team sometimes visits

then he also noticed you picking up your brother from the volleyball practice that takeru’s part of and he cant help but frown at the eyebags under your eyes that he always sees

he lies awake at night just thinking how you would look without those eyebags, without the sickly looking complexion, or even just the lack of life in your eyes

then during class, you sat by the window

tooru knows this bc his eyes always fixes itself on you whenever he opens that door and he has to hold in the need to hug you when he sees you sleeping on your desk

others might call you lazy

others might call you a video game all nighter kid

but they dont notice the things you do

the nervous habits hes seen from you at the times that tooru couldnt help but stare

he knew it was creepy to do it

but you were so silent

you blended yourself into the background and you made sure to stay there 

thats why nobody knows anything about you

with good looks like yours and a smart brain (he knew this from mattsun and makki being your students), why exactly were you not known?

maybe thats why it drew you to him

all his life he chased, 

but now hes the one chasing?

tooru knows that your left eyebrow lifts when sensei writes something you dont understands

tooru knows that you like to do sudoku in the convenience store while you worked

tooru knows you eat the same meal during lunch every day from the same lunchbox

and he also knows that your brother talks so highly about you from takeru

the little things your brother brags about like your ability to cook f/f or your weird ability to just assemble something without looking at the instruction manual

he notices and knows all these things about you

things that people never really even bothered to 

oikawa didnt even know he liked you until iwaizumi pointed it out during lunch

the third years liked to go and eat at the rooftop where it was nice and windy

oikawa was sitting and leaned against the tall wire fence, his eyes fixated on you down below on the bench as you ate your lunch

then you accidentally loosened the chopsticks causing your food to slip off

that made oikawa giggle

he was chuckling and giggling that the others noticed him when he suddenly went quiet

‘oi, oikawa’

makki nudged him back to them and tooru flinched before smiling at them

‘hm? so you do notice me!’

iwa glared

‘idiot. of course we do. youre laughing over there like some damn schoolgirl. did one of your fangirls posses you or something? if not, cut it out. its ugly’

oikawa shot him an offended look

‘what?! iwa-chan so mean!’

mattsun took the liberty to peer over the edge to see what he was looking at and smirked

‘eh? were you looking at l/n-sensei?’

oikawa blushed, feeling like he just got caught doing something bad

‘and what about it? im looking at you too, right now, mattsun!’

makki cackled at oikawa’s poor attempt of reasoning

‘i mean, i dont blame you. if issei wasnt here, id definitely get with him’

SEDKLFJSDLFISDKFJ MATTSUHANA YALL :”)

oikawa’s eyes wandered back down to you and he noticed you put the bento box to the side before sneezing

‘gosh, even his sneeze is cute’

he mumbled then jolted when he heard his own words 

iwa sighed

‘what are we going to do with you, shittykawa?’

‘what?! what did i do?!’

iwa’s eyes scrunched and he scrutinized his best friend

‘boke. i feel bad for that kid, doesnt know this stupid idiot likes him’

so thats how oikawa came to terms of it

he thought he was just interested and fascinated with you but he really does like you

and to be honest, he doesnt really want you to know that bc duh, you dont like him so why bother?

baby oiks doesnt interact with you much anymore bc he knows you get uncomfy with attention but he still does look out for you and decides he should just admire from afar

he will live every day just holding his feelings in for you and one day they will disappear

but today just wasnt the day

maybe today was the start of the worst yet the best part of your life

last night was particularly rough as the convenience store you worked in had a drunk person who wanted to fight with you and your manager had to call the police and it was just a mess

to add on to it, midterms were around the corner-like next week- so you were studying up for that

but your sister got sick so you were also trying to take care of her and making sure her fever was going down and her crying ever few hours about her tummy ache didnt allow you to sleep

hehehe single parent working late tingz

ALSO SHE DOESNT HAVE MISS RONA JFC

so yep haha you did NOT get any sleep

so you walked into school that morning, looking tired as hell and mad as hell but you just wanted to sleep bro

the one kid you tutor, matsukawa issei, and his friend who usually tags along, hanamaki takahiro, noticed you dazedly pass them in the hallway and poor dudes felt bad for you

mattsun actually pays you to tutor him bc he knows you need the money while taka preferred to buy you snacks and drinks as compensation

so it was normal that he had an energy drink in his bag that he was going to give you tomorrow during your tutoring day

‘oi! l/n!’

your head perked up at the call of your name and you nodded in greeting at the light brown haired boy

‘hey’

you muttered and mattsun placed his hands on your shoulder to keep you upright

‘oi, l/n, you sure you want to be here? you can go home and we can tell them youre sick or some-’

but you waved your hand

‘nonono todays an important lecture so i cant miss it’

the two guys didnt look convinced but they respected your need to be in school since they too need to be in class for midterms

‘here. at least take this’

makki placed a drink on your hand and you nodded and gave them a small smile

‘thanks’

you mumbled before wandering off

once they saw you at a distance away, makki wrapped an arm around issei to get his attention

‘ya think we should tell oikawa to keep an eye on him? make sure he doesnt keel over and die or somethin?’

mattsun stopped before nodding

‘yea thats a good idea’

SKLFJLSDKJFD NOT MATTSUHANA BEING YOUR PARENTS

oikawa was already in class when you walked in and he cant help but tear his eyes away from the girls to you as you sluggishly walked to your seat

the drop of your bag and the thud of your head meeting the desk made him worried bc you looked worse than usual

his phone buzzed and he checked it to see a message from mattsun

‘keep an eye out for your boyfriend. mightve been working late last night and yanno how he is. just watch out if he faints or something’

okay that made him super worried

totally ignoring what mattsun called you, oikawa knew he needed to talk to you

but these fangirls were the first problem

he shut his phone off and looked up at them with a grin that made them madly blush

‘ladies, class is about to start. oikawa-senpai would hate for you to be marked. so study hard for me, okay?’

like hypnotized cult members, the girls ran to their classrooms and tooru finally had the opportunity to talk to you

he stood up and walked over to your seat

‘m/n-chan’

he called out, looking down at you

‘m/n-chan’

he tried again and was about to put a hand on your shoulder when your hand snatched it

‘dont touch me, oikawa’

you grumbled and tooru furrowed his eyebrows

‘m/n-chan, i just wanted to ask if youre okay’

he whined and you didnt bother to look up but just let go of his hand

‘i was until you came over, idiot’

ouch

tooru was thankful that the teacher came in then and there bc he didnt know how to respond to that

he wanted to brush it off but it hurt him a little

and he knows he shouldnt entertain his crush on you but he couldnt looking at you and watching as you got up to use the bathroom 

as class went on, oikawa was starting to worry

now again, hes no stalker bc his observation skills were just phenomenal due to volleyball

so he noticed that youve been in the bathroom for like 20 minutes now

DONT JUDGE US, OIKAWA. WE’RE JUST TRYING TO PUSH OUT THE BIG PIECE OF-

okay nevermind

anyways

tooru, worried that something happened, raised his hand to go and use the bathroom and the sensei wasnt exactly paying attention so he just let him go

thank god he has long legs bc he was able to reach the bathroom quick and he stifled a shriek when he saw your passed out form inside

‘M/N-CHAN!’

he yelled and he cursed when duh you were alone and who knows how long youve been there

and ew bathroom floors is bleh

you were in no way light but you werent exactly heavy either so he was able to muster up all his strength and hoisted you on his back

tooru’s heart thrummed in his chest and he knew it couldnt be that serious but he cant help but think of the worst

and yep

the nurse just told him that your heartbeat was okay and you were snoring so you mustve been exhausted by the dark circles in your eyes

‘keep an eye on him for me. i have to tend to midoriya over there. the kid broke his arm again and i dont know how’

she grumbled at the end but tooru didnt care as he sat on the chair next to your bed

he sighed before laying his head on the cot by your hand

his eyes settled on your face and how peaceful it looked

gosh, you really were so cute

your personality just sucked ass

constantly telling him to shut up and calling him idiot

hmph

not long after oikawa fell asleep, you woke up and cursed, immediately realizing you fainted and you missed class

as you were going to rub your eye, there was weight on your hand and you looked down to see a head full of brown hair that could only belong to a certain someone

a certain idiot

‘oi. oikawa, wake up’

you shook his head and when he didnt budge, you just pulled your hand from under him making him jump awake

at first, he was confused

looking around like a lost puppy and his eyes bleary

yea it was cute and what about it

then he noticed you sitting up and he smiled

‘you feeling better, m/n-chan?’

he asked, leaning close 

but you placed your hand on his face to push him away

‘yea. and stop leaning so close, idiot’

you grumbled and he whined

‘youre so mean, m/n-chan! i was so worried about you!’

he complained and you rolled your eyes

‘i didnt ask you to be, idiot’

SLDKFJSDLKFJKL M/N IS SO MEAN WHAT THE FAK

oikawa frowned

‘i cant help it. i like you, m/n-chan’

you froze, looking at him with scrunched eyebrows

then you chuckled dryly

‘yea, okay sure. im okay now so you can go to class’

wOW OIKAWA DESERVES BETTER WHAT

tooru was taken aback

‘wh-what? thats it? after i just told you that i liked you?’

you blinked at him

‘what do you want me to say about that, oikawa? how do you want me to react? im not like your fangirls, squealing and shit’

your words cut deep in him and oikawa held your arm

‘no wait a minute. what do you mean by that? do you not believe me?’

‘who the hell believes something that’s fake?’

there was a snip in your tone and oikawa knew you were talking about this facade of his

‘what? i-’

‘you think i believe you? you telling me you like me? do you even know who you are?’

you asked and tooru sniffled, eyes staring at your chest

‘for years, you told people what you wanted them to hear, regardless if you meant them or not. not once have you ever told them no. who the hell accepts chocolates when they dont even like them to begin with?’

at that last part, oikawa snapped up to meet your eyes

‘how did you know’

you rolled your eyes

‘our brothers are friends, idiot. he gave him some of the chocolates you gave to takeru since the brat couldnt eat them all’

oddly, that brought some warmth in tooru’s chest

so he wasnt the only one who knows the stupid stuff

but you continued on your rant

‘for a guy who doesnt like sweet stuff, youve accepted their nasty treats all the time, like why? oh, wait i know why, because you want them to like you. it doesnt matter if-if this-this persona of yours isnt real because as long as they like you, you dont give a fuck. isn’t that true? am i right? because please, prove me wrong’

maybe your dislike for him came out at that tangent and you half expected him to cry but you were surprised when he glared at you with teary eyes

‘i will. ill prove you wrong, m/n, that i do like you and i will make you like me. ill make you like me with the real me. i swear.’

‘mhm. okay. sure, oikawa’

do you regret it?

i mean,,,

kinda?

but not really?

because you loved watching the girls faces fall when oikawa rejected their treats the next day

you were walking to class when you noticed him with his cult by the entrance and you saw him smiling at some girl before gently pushing away a can of cookies

‘gomen. i actually dont like sweets that much anymore. if you want, you can give me milk bread?’

you stopped and oikawa caught your eye and he grinned

you nodded in greeting before continuing to walk

but he noticed a small smile on your face and gosh oikawa sighed like a lovesick fool

it took iwaizumi to finally send him back and his fangirls were looking at him worriedly

‘could you be less obvious, shittykawa?’

rip iwaizumi hajime in episode 546546546 of daily adventures of oikawa tooru

you noticed that oikawa has started to become distant with his fangirls and hes been sticking to you during lunch, leaving behind the others

makki and mattsun looked like proud parents as they peered down over to you flicking oikawa’s forehead and they smiled

‘god, that kid deserves this’

‘hah? that sounds like more of a punishment to me. but i dont care. it takes him off our hands for a while’

IWA I SWEAR HES SO MEAN BUT HE STILL WUVS TOORU SO ITS OKAY

oikawa would pick your brother up and take him home when youre too busy to go get him yourself and sometimes, he even takes your little sister too which causes them to have a mini sleepover and you sleep there too

also, whenever youre working in the convenience store, tooru would buy sandwhiches and a drink just for you so you can eat them while youre on break and not have to waste money and you told himyou dont want him spending money on you but he doesnt wanna hear it

‘i dont want you buying me-’

‘ssshhhh dont. im doing this because i want to and becaus i care for you, m/n-chan’

overtime, 

yea

sure

youve started to like him

youve started looking forward to seeing his stupidly cute face and his stupidly cute giggle

you went to his games and gave him a tight hug when hes about to play as a ritual for good luck and you would open your arms for him wide whenever he wins

then he didnt

against shiratorizawa, you noticed how he was so disappointed

even as you walked home with him, he continued to smile and tell you how good his team played

until you couldnt take it anymore

you pulled him over to some alleyway and you pushed him to the wall

DSKLFJLSDKFJLSDFJ WOW WHAT

oikawa nervously fiddled with his jacket and gave you a shaky smile

‘m/n-chan, what are you-’

‘tell me what youre feeling right here, right now. no bullshit, no lies, tell me everything in that pretty head of yours’

you deadpanned and tooru looked away

‘im fine’

‘are you lying to me, tooru?’

your voice was even but he could tell you were serious

he gulped before taking in a shakey breath

‘im fine. so stop asking about it!’

he exclaimed and you sighed

‘listen, i know its not official yet but you want me to be your boyfriend right?’

tooru flinched before he flushed at the word ‘boyfriend’ 

then he nodded

‘as your boyfriend, you have to lean on me, tooru. i dont want you to hold it to yourself because i wanna be there for you and i want to go through everything with you because i,,,,,’

you stopped and hesitated, debating if you should say it or not

‘because i like you, idiot’

you confessed and swallowed thickly

oikawa met your eye and his eyes watered

‘im so angry! im so disappointed! but i know my team did their 110 percent! we’re just not strong enough! so its not their fault! but ushijima is such a freak and hes too strong and its not fair!’

he complained and he cried loudly

not once in the 3 years of knowing oikawa have you seen him cry and you were so proud of him for being able to trust you enough to show him being vulnerable

you rushed forward held him close to your chest

‘for what it’s worth, you looked so incredibly hot and cute playing’

you whispered and pecked his neck 

of course oikawa couldnt hold his surprise at the feeling of your lips on his neck so he squealed a little

you gigled and continued holding your boyfriend close, even if it was at some nasty alleyway

yall became official and ngl, they didnt see this coming

some nobody dating the grand king oikawa tooru?

what in the wattpad?

yall know that tiktok of like ‘guys you cant dm me anymore. i have a girlfriend now. what else? and i love her’

IF YALL DONT KNOW IM SORRY

but you totally made oikawa tell his fangirls that

YOU KNOW THE FUNNY THING?

when yall became official, you actually gained your own little fanclub

maybe its because you gained clout from your boyfriend but they started noticing you and wowza you were hot

before, it was you getting jealous over tooru but now, it was him getting possessive of you

hes such a brat that he sits on your lap before class and youre just all smirking and feeling all good bc your baby is so cute when hes jealous

YOU CANT DISAGREE THAT HE DOESNT RADIATE UKE ENERGY

but all oiks has to do is pull down your collar and expose your purple littered collarbones and they will know who you belong to

theres a reason why iwa-chan is now the kids babysitter

youre still kinda cold and distant to people but youre soft for your baby and you always hold him close when hes in sight and you just cant get enough of him

:’)

also!! 

your sister loves dressing you up and oikawa has his sisters makeup and they both do your makeup and you guys have tea party with the boys and just the cutest domestic stuff

you still call him idiot though

but like affectionately yanno?

and over the years youve turned it down to dummy

and ngl tooru loves it when you call him that

what in the dumbification-

because he knows that equivalent to babe from you and he absolutely just loves you lmao

youre def the more quieter and calmer one in the relationship like you absolutely dont react much

while tooru is the overreactor and hes very animated with his facial expressions and stuff

like the one time

he was cooking some chicken pasta and you cheekily grabbed a piece of chicken and he made a dramatic gasp

‘*le gasp* oikawa m/n how dare steal a piece of chicken!’

you cackled before crossing your arms at the sight ofyour lover with his pursed lips and hands on his hips

‘excuse you. its more of you who’d take my last name’

it was so easy to make him flustered and tooru quickly turned around to tend back to the food but he was really just hiding his red face

‘b-baka. thats not going to happen’

‘not if i do it first’

you shrugged and smirked, wondering if he will fall for it

and as expected with oikawa tooru

‘yea okay sure’

‘i will!’

‘prove me wrong, m/n-chan~’

‘turn around right now’

oikawa rolled his eyes playfully before turning with a smile

‘what are you-*le gasp part 2*’

his hands covered his mouth at the sight of you there in front of him, kneeling on your knee tightly clutching a silver ring between your thumb and index finger

your heart was thrumming in your chest but you gulped and smiled

‘i win. now marry me, dummy’

oikawa screamed

a/n: sorry if this sucked booty :((( but i just really like the thought of uke oikawa and just him with a cute boyfriend for a change like please we all know oikawa is a bi king and thats on docosahexaenoic acid

[violentviolette]

You have ASPD but it seems like you also have a lot of friends and are nice to them. How does that work? Is it all just performitive or do your other disorders make it easier to have those relationships?

LOL so okay I am actually gonna answer this seriously but firsr I have to take a moment to acknowledge "u have aspd but ur nice?? how does thst work??" alshskslsjsjs

but okay. so. firstly "a lot" is a very relative term, but the short answer is by structuring them very specifically so as to make it the easiest for me to be nice lol

so like, I classify friends into 2 categories. casual friends and close friends

casual friends make up most of my relationships. these are people who I respect and like and therefore view as equals and real people. I have about 10 or so people who fit into this category rn, tho that is the largest circle I've ever had. these relationships are very low matinance tho and thats why they're easy to maintain. they dont rely on or ask much of me and I dont rely on or ask much of them. we simply exist in the same orbit and enjoy eachothers presence and company because we vibe. I like them, they like me, its not really much deeper than that and thats okay!

if someone isn't in this category and they begin to rely on me or expect things of me, or if someone in this category starts to expect too much of me, or they require more effort to maintain that relationship than I think they are worth then I usually tend to ghost (or if u happen to be a dick to a cute boy i like in the process then i call u out in the gen chat and tell u ur unlikeable as a person before I dip lmfaoowhoops) someone has to be worth the effort I invest in them. (and by worth i just mean that I know I will get a reciprocal amount of energy and effort back or because I think the person they are inherently is worth cultivating and keeping in my life for one reason or another)

my close friends work very differently. I put in a shit ton of effort into those friendships so I only have 3 of those rn and thats like max capacity lol and whether someone is a close or casual friend is a conscious choice and decision i make. my behavior towards them isn't really driven by an inherent sense of emotion or empathy or pull to care about them so it's more a yes/no thing for me.

if I find u to be deeply enjoyable and also worth the effort, to the point where I become invested in ur happiness and decide I want to take an active role in ur life, then u get put into that category and unlock Care lol which, because this is a conscious choice, once I decide to care about someone I am very loyal and there's very little I won't at least try and do. I trust these people not to take advantage of me or my kindness, time, and energy because they see the value in it and appreciate it, so I give freely. because I know if they are asking, its because they really need it. and I know that because I've observed thru their actions that thats the kind of person they are.

I look at close friendships as plants that I cultivate. I want to keep the plant alive because its existence brings me happiness, so I agree to learn its needs and put in the effort to care for it properly because thats how I achieve my goal. if I stop watering it, it will die, which isn't what I want. so even if im tired or annoyed or don't want to, I still make myself put in the work because its what I want in the long run.

so like. thats how I have friends lmfao and really all my relationships like my wife absolutely falls into this as well. hopefully that made sense and answered ur question and wasn't like. Too Long lol

[ruzek-halstead]

For your if they had a kid can you do Burzek and Upstead 🥰 ily

pls send help, this just made me emotional - what could’ve been omg

burzek kid

name: luke burgess ruzek

ruzek wasn’t all about those long ass names either 

gender: we’re talking about a mini adam here

general appearance: brown hair, brown eyes (the best of burzek) adorable deep dimples (idc if dimples are hereditary I WANT BURZEK’S BABY TO HAVE DIMPLES)

personality: the joker; if he’s not making someone laugh at all times, he doesn’t feel right. he’s strong, independent, uses sarcasm as a defence mechanism (but who doesn’t???) he’s a little bit reckless; sometimes he doesn’t think through his decisions bc he’s a live in the moment type soul (kim: “i wonder where his recklessness came from”) (adam: i wonder where his sarcasm came from”)

special talents: name a sport. any sport bc whatever it is, he’s tried it. his favourite is lacrosse, but he signs up for any team regardless. and you bet your ass burzek are always there on the sidelines cheering him on (maybe adam’s been banned a few times bc high school teachers don’t know how to referee and maybe kim has nearly throat punched another kid’s mom but that’s besides the point) sometimes you’ll find intelligence on the bleachers too, especially kevin bc luke is his fav little man 

who they like better: honestly, he can’t choose. adam’s always there to practice sports whenever he needs, but kim is always there when he’s tired and needs to relax. he’ll lay his head down in her lap and she'll run her fingers through his hair while watching a movie, until he falls asleep. his favourite part is when they’re all together - doesn’t matter what they’re doing, as long as they’re together (i cannot believe the writers took away burzek baby from us i aM SO EMOTIONAL RIGHT NOW)

who they take after more: it’s a good mix, but definitely adam. he has his temper and reckless nature, but he also has his fierce loyalty and ability to love (although he gets that one from kim too). sometimes he has trouble communicating his thoughts and feelings, but adam gets it, he’s been there before. so there’s no one he rather talk to than his dad.  

personal head cannon: i’m going to be honest, i have little to no idea what this means so i’m guessing from what i learned on google

but i’m picturing a solid friendship between luke and upstead’s daughter (spencer, if we’re going according to the same post i did for upstead a few minutes ago)????

idc if it gets romantic down the line, but im just picturing them attached at the hip, going through school together. she’s always there with her family and his cheering on all his games, and he’s the protective brother scaring away any potential boyfriends bc he doesn’t want her to get hurt. (omg i’m too invested in  these two already, i have to stop while i’m ahead)

face claim: what. honestly, tumblr makes me feel old af sometimes??? is this who they look like??? bc its adam. picture a younger, wide-eyed, dimpled adam ruzek. 

[lady-plantagenet]

What hasn’t already been said: The Spanish Princess 2

Episode 1: CamelNOT

[Lively Music Plays]

I shit you not... that’s what it said in the CCs.

Tower of London (?)

*Catherine looks at the array of crowns like a museum curator and the proceeds to strut down the halls*

Wolsey: *gives her this strange look which is a mixture between damn girl and the eagle is my spirit animal.

Then Catherine gets fake detained and taken to Henry in what must be a strange variation of the whole Robin Hood/Maid Marian roleplay they historically engaged in.

... did she just call his erhm manhood his kingship? Well that’s original, I’ll give them that. Also funny how Bessie Blount initially looks on in fright... don’t worry girl that will be you soon.

———————————————————————

*the four ladies have a brunch friendship moment together*

I see Blount is among them... I see they are setting her up as Catherine’s friend in order to play up the whole betrayal.

Alright. Jokes aside, I realised how much I’ve played myself. I was inspired by @melusineloriginale ‘s sporks (which if all this TSP episode posts got you in the mood for PG show mockery I urge you to check out here - you’ll thank me later). In truth, Henry VIII’s early reign is a bit too late from my main area of focus for me to make intelligent jokes.

I’ll content myself with just bullet-pointing random thoughts that came into my head, and if some intelligent thought gets through, well that would be the pinnacle. In any case I’ll aim to not parrot some of the stuff that’s already been said, repetition can get annoying.

This image embodies this post, but maybe not the show. I’ve noticed those Starz productions get better by the end.

First Scenes:

- The recap just reminded me how much I will miss Margaret Beaufort in the coming episodes. I know her portrayal was innacurate but Harriet Walter just made everything better.

- They are making such a big deal out of this whole ‘we were crowned together, we rule together’ thing in this episode - it makes no sense. Catherine was an influential Queen but she was definitely no more than a consort and never saw herself as more.

- Ruairi’s new haircut is pleasing to my eyes.

- When she says ‘Abuelo’ it’s super adorable awww

The Ferdinand and Charles V scene:

- Bessie Blount looks so much like Ursula Pole lmao. Also they totally got the Pole children’s birth order wrong and UGH WHERE IS GEOFFREY POLE???

- I like Mary Tudor’s actress and her facial expressions. However, this whole polyglot image they are representing is innacurate. I am fairly certain she knew no spanish and I recall reading a contemporary account which said that she was not very learned.

- I’m pretty sure it would be considered bad luck to prematurely crown your son ‘Henry IX’ while you’re still alive.

- I actually like the whole Grape motif in this episode. It’s probably the smartest thing they’ve come up with so far for this episode. I know a lot of you will be all like ‘there’s no record of Ferdinand being abusive’ but this choice sort of makes sense when you recall Joanna’s treatment. Also I appreciate them for not being tacky and showing flashbacks of more overt abuse eg physical. The sugared grape is also fairly symbolic (the sugar is like a gilding, the grape easily crushable)

- OMG the guy from Garrow’s law is playing Thomas More!

- AND PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME IM NOT SEEING THINGS? Margaret Pole x Thomas More is happening?? Please god that is a historical crackship I am getting behind. Yes. This is what I’m most invested about.

Margaret Tudor and Scotland Scene:

- The whole ironic cutaway to Margaret being all depressed after Charles Brandon’s statement about her charming Scottish king is such a cliché movie technique.

- If this were a more artsy film I would think the whole setup resembling a stereotypical middle-class family breakfast was done on purpose for humorous effects or to create a link with the past. But here I don’t have as much trust in the producers. I think they just failed to capture the time period accurately.

- The modernisms continue: ‘Negassi please stop playing’ idk, there just something so modern about this for some reason ahaha

- Also again, I’m getting tired of all this ‘Catherine is basically queen herself’, ‘Catherine is a political genius’, ‘Catherine Catherine Catherine’ ugh. I don’t think the producers understand that Henry VIII was a very autocratic and traditional ruler. He didn’t make any show of joint-rulership (correct me if I’m wrong).

- The teeth thing is funny, smart and I liked it.

Back to Westminster:

- I like Ferdinand’s actor!

- Also Catherine’s response to ‘who are you loyal to?’ was not that smart. I feel like the producers wanted us to be impressed. What if Spain and England’s interests conflict, ey??

The Joust:

- I care too much for the whole Margaret Pole plotline. I’m so invested.

- I could watch a series of More and Pole just exchanging lines. I love the actors too and this is my hope for this series. The whole frustrated parents is SO CUTE.

- I didn’t know More tutored Reggie, I would be curious to know more.

- The way compton says groom to queen’s stool is freaking hilarious. He looks like a pervert.

- Henry Pole is a darling and must be protected at all costs.

- Oh Christ oh Christ that eyeball shot was just... good job on the special effects guys. Don’t know what the point of that choice was.

- I found the whole armour mentions after interesting, it looked so set up as a PR campaign because Stafford speaking about the armour just sounded like a statement agreed on beforehand ‘should have worn the same’ and the Catherine with ‘steel in the bones’ and Ferdinand’s impressed face (it was him playing them?)

- Am I giving this show too much credit?

- Also whats up with “God save the Queen?”

War Counsel:

- Henry VIII’s actor is quite charismatic in this scene. It’s almost as if Catherine is the hothead and Henry the wise one that speaks less but more significantly. It almost feels like they gender-swapped them.

The Bedchamber:

- Did Catherine breastfeed the baby? I thought it was Anne Boleyn. Doubtful... I’m tired of the trope of ‘you’re a good woman if you insist on breastfeeding the child yourself despite social conventions’. For a feminist show, the writers seem very attached to some 1950s perceptions of motherhood.

- I feel like the age difference between Catherine and Henry is well conveyed.

Scotland Again:

- ‘All the sheep were pregnant’ 👀 oh touché Margaret. oh my. Did she just?

- I know they are playing out this disenfranchised Margaret arc to reinforce how great Catherine and Henry are (cheap technique) and to build up to her involvement in Flodden (innacurate historically but I know what the show will do). But I will say this: the humour is pretty good in the Scottish scenes! But I know it’s unintentionally so... (I highly doubt they wanted us to laugh at Margaret hitting James or calling Alexander a pig).

Westminster and the baby chamber:

- What’s are those red splotches on the babies face??

- Oh that shot of Margaret and silent Reginald :((( it makes me sad.

- And now the Poles are at church! I just love the look of them.

- That scene of Maggie and Catherine was needed, as we didn’t get the best friends vibe much in this episode. The whole thing looked a bit pagan though, but it was nice :)

The whole Ferdinand’s betrayal segment:

- The grape motif again was fitting, him snapping the fruit right before she gets to it even despite her knowing what he’s like and what he’ll do, was a good parrallel.

- I’m tired of hearing of this ‘Camelot’. Even in the novel, Camelot was Catherine and Arthur’s dream and... can we just live it up with Arthur?

- Ursula Pole’s, Bessie Blount’s and Mary Boleyn’s actresses look way too similar.

- I fail to see why Catherine thinks she’s turning into her father... she doesn’t strike me as much of a game-player or subtle two-facer.

- I’m intrigued what will happen with Oviedo and Lina... I feel like they won’t stay in England long.

- He was made knight bannaret... nice... but why does he thank Catherine publicly for this? It was in Henry’s gift that he was made a commoner Knight.. if this transpired irl Henry would have been gravely insulter.

Catherine’s Dead Baby and thereafter:

- Guys. In all seriousness, I don’t think the TV series is trying to imply that Catherine killed the baby with her negligence. I mean, they are so bent on us liking her they wouldn’t do that. It would be a bit too ballsy anyway. Remember the red splotches I mentioned earlier? Could those have been a sign that he was already ill but no one noticed/was in denial?

- The pebbles in hands would have had more emotional payoff if it had been established earlier if you know what I mean. Basically, this episode is too fast and entire arcs begin and end within it which extinguished any build-up.

- Oh man Henry is so sweet in this, how will they build him up as the tyrant he was historically if they keep this up?

Scotland Again:

- I must admit, I don’t like all those nicknames they keep using. But somehow James calling Margaret ‘Meg’ is nice and seems fitting.

- What’s a hermana sister?

England Last Mourning Scenes:

- YOU DID NOT BUILD CAMELOT ughhh

- Why is Catherine giving the speech and not Henry?? It turns out Catherine was more emotional historically then the whole perception of ‘perfect queen of stone’ to which some people hold her. However, I doubt it would have been proper of her to give a speech in such a emotional manner.

Conclusion:

6.5/10

Some of the dialogue was stilted, the costumes are confused as to which era they’re supposed to be (aesthetically distracting) and many other characterisation issues.

I don’t have high hopes for this series in terms of cinematography or art but I sure as hell expect it will be entertaining. So far, everything is just getting set up and I find some aspects promising. As you can tell I am truly excited over how the Margaret Pole plotline. I am also interested in how Henry will be portrayed, with Catherine being so OTT and pushy this episode Im starting to Stan him more. In this show he appears sensitive and serene and kinda... adorable. Kind of like a little brother hanging onto his sister’s skirts.

But in a way that is a disservice to the real historical figure which would not tolerate such a representation. I am very irritated by this whole ‘joint-rulers’ thing which is just sooo innacurate. These STARZ shows have an obsession with showing women turn into men for the purposes of feminism - I see.

Catherine overpowers Henry too often and it sometimes feels like he’s HER consort. Of course, the feminism in this show is schizophrenic as we get the overemphasis of Catherine as a 1950s motherly ideal with the whole breastfeeding angle (“you’re better than other noble woman who would find this beneath them”, “they’re not as motherly as you���).

So the relationship dynamic between Henry and Catherine is a bit off at the moment, but oh well.

Mary Tudor is a bit distracting with her dark hair but I find the actress extremely endearing and promising. I know there will be emphasis on her storyline too and I hope they’ll not be clichéd with it.

[mayabishopapologist]

station 19 - season 4, etc

this is long but i want to put down my thoughts before thursday comes and i guess i have A Lot To Say.

honestly didn’t pay much attention to this show until halfway through season two—  always liked maya and was glad that they gave her more to do. going into season 3, i was excited for more character development &stronger storylines. however, by the end of  301 the dip in quality was glaringly obvious. a quick google search revealed that there was a new showrunner and, well, it showed. 

while the show had been going in a really good direction with balancing the screen time between andy and the other regulars, this season, the plot was all over the place. it was uber dramatic and just. so much happened just to happen? seemed like every other episode had a major event(deaths alone; ryan,rigo,pruitt?!!?). they were so frequent, it was hard to process. it was also hard to get invested as the characters themselves moved on(or were shown to have moved on, extremely quickly!) 

i enjoy the show for what it is and i have no delusions about broadcast tv shows (or shondaland productions, for that matter)but the suspension of disbelief.... i mean: a stabbing, a robbery, a shooting and a car crash? all in one episode? please! lmaooooo. drama for dramas sake is always boring and weakens the story.  

& as for the characters... .

everyone felt like a hollow version of themselves this season and it was hard to watch sometimes, actually. characters switched motivations /personalities for the sake of the current episode and i know this show is very ‘monster/emergency of the week’ but. some consistency! please! like—

maya: she’s always been determined and focused but they went so far with it this season, it was almost cartoonish. her competitiveness was hinted at in season 2 but she was always portrayed as self aware. ‘the beast,’ as she dubbed it to andy, was something she knew of and tried to contain, because she knew it could get out of hand. 

yet, in season 3 she suddenly forgets this and just. becomes the most power hungry/singularly focused person, ever. she goes after the captain position behind andy’s back, (citing andy’s emotional state, because of the death of her best friend as a reason she shouldn’t get the job?? huh. since when is maya this purely callous??!) she just doesn’t give af, suddenly, about andy at all, and goes for a job that she is hardly qualified for(she was lieutenant for like, a few months?)

and then after she gets the position, she just. loses all sense of reality? literally she was so unhinged(fun to watch but so much) and it was like. um?? maya has never been the uptight one (they've mentioned and depicted andy as being the one like this, multiple times!) and we know she knows how to have fun, so, for her to all of a sudden just. not know how to read the room? yeah okay. to make her so intense and severe, especially w the drills and training was, a choice. a bad one, on the writers part. like, i get that they needed her start as captain to be dramatic or whatever,  but there were ways to do that. and even the animosity with the team and her went so far, i just think that whole storyline was amazingly lazy, honestly.  

and the friendships!! andy and maya’s friendship is just, a mess. at this point they've spent more time at odds, and the idea that they're supposed to be best friends with this super close bond? yeah, i just... i dont buy it tbh. if they'd spent more time building up their connections and making us understand why they would be friends and showing them being there for each other past a few scattered scenes her and there? maybe. but so far, that hasn't been the case.  making that bond real, solidifying that friendship, would have made this conflict have more of an emotional impact. but doing it now? making maya ‘turn’ on andy, this soon and this drastically just. it made her seem like she was extremely jealous and had been waiting to pull the rug out from under andy all along. and also, why would they stay friends when, so far, maya has showed, time and time again, that she’s willing to let her wants/ambitions leech on her loyalty to andy? (jack thing, job thing, etc). although, it’s not like andy’s a good friend to maya either, she’s selfish and seems to like it when maya is in her corner but isnt always there for her. they went so far with the idea that maya was this coldly calculating asshole that she was almost a villain?? it was so silly to me.

and the traumatic home life plot they gave to maya was clearly their attempt at some adding nuance to her character and trying to explain why she would act the way she did, but to me? it fell flat. it was rushed, and they went from zero to 100(why did her mother come to talk about her divorce/abuse at maya’s job? like she was literally working? idgi. no boundaries lmaoo) 

and i actually relate and sympathize w maya a lot. and while i liked that they were exploring the many ways abuse can present itself, it was very... hm, ham-fisted. just super rushed and then wrapped up so quickly. they have, i think, written themselves into this dark place i fear they have no intention of exploring. 

and while i understand it, i hated how far they let maya go, especially because i don't feel they’ll adequately address it. they move on so quickly( maya was deaf for like half a season and then. she just. wasn't) and i hate the idea of her just being ‘fixed’. a relationship and an apology doesn't undo years of abuse, idc. also will they ever address maya’s um, thoughts about death??? because that was super heavy and not just something someone gets over? going to need for her to get actual professional help. that isn’t her girlfriend, like. asap. 

speaking of carina, i do like her and maya together a lot. big part of why i watch, ngl. but i need their relationship to be a lot more reciprocal. like, lets dial it back on the codependency, maybe. carina cant (and shouldn't have to) hold her up so much ! that’s not love. also maya needs to start being a good girlfriend. they started off that way, i know they can get back there. but like, we hardly got to see them settle into it, we got those cute 30sec clips of sweetness then maya was lashing out and cheating and it was like. wait a minute! what??? 

for s4, i want to see them working at reconciling—im talking, groveling, awkward in-between moments where carina isnt sure she can trust her. okay, tough conversations, hell, even jealousy because let's be real. maya working with jack is a lot for carina to just. take? i know i absolutely would not be happy about that, but i also wouldnt take maya back so... anyway! brushing over that would not just be a missed storytelling opportunity, but it would also be super unfair to carina and do a huge disservice to their relationship as a whole. as cute as they are, having cute moments with no real depth would get very old, very quickly.

carina: what can i say but-perfect, amazing, fantastic, WOW

seriously, carina is almost unrealistically perfect. she takes a lot and has been through the most (can they be nice 2 her this season? like just for fun) going forward, im going to need her to be more than a plot device to calm and soothe maya. i get that she was introduced as a love interest, but in season 4(as a season!!regular!!) that cant be all she is.

speaking of, it was really weird to me that she was promoted to station 19 and not greys because... what is a gynecologist going to do at a fire station? the general consensus seems to be that she’ll join warren’s PRT but like. she’s not a general surgeon so that’s a reach but, i want her around so ill buy it. i just want better and more for her tbh. not just screen-time, but also character development and depth! also friends! tired of carina being isolated, they did it on greys which. a waste! i meaaan, amelia was RIGHT. THERE. just look at the material! for s19, i want her, vic and travis to be friends or even just her and vic, like yesplease! i also want to know more about her and im tired of her being treated badly. like, i think society had progressed past carina being shitted on, thanks!

vic: my fave!!! they did so lazy by her this season ugh. she’s so charismatic and charming and just so good!! yet, her storyline was all over the place. we hardly got to see her sit with her grief  (spontaneous crying aside; barrett doss is so good!) she was just kind of... around. and that relationship w jackson. lol. it was so obviously for crossover potential and well. i didnt hate it or like it. actually, i was mostly indifferent. bored, even when they were onscreen together. i just didn't care and wanted more of vic, not vic and whoever. i know they're up in the air rn but i wouldn’t be torn up if he doesn’t come back. 

i want more for vic past just romantic entanglements. i know we’ve gotten a bit of her past, but i would like to see more! also, what about employment accomplishments? her artsy theatre friends? her family? just. more vic, please!!

she’s so fun and cool and when they let her, she shines. they need to let her! 

jack: my boy! so dumb, but i love him sm. he def needs like. major help, though lmao. and maybe it’s just me but im tired of his sex addict plot. like, we get it, but can we move on now? kthanks. they need to let him work on himself especially, the constant self sabotage. it's getting old. for ALL of them, actually, seriously, how many times can they all get in their own way.

andy: don’t really think about her. the mom storyline seems like it would be wonderfully dramatic, im intrigued. she and sullivan are cute, i guess. hope they make it.

ben: no major issues w his storyline, hardly remember it honestly. i liked the rapport he was building w vic and want them to explore that relationship more, its cute. 

travis: so funny and adorable, let him do more.

dean: loved him in all his entitled first born African son glory. i didnt so much love the baby plot but that always bores me. his sudden love for vic though. lol. since when? it def, came out of no where and while i really enjoy their friendship, to me, there is zero romantic chemistry there so i would prefer it if they just. stopped. lmao. also. the way he treated her because he could get a handle on his emotions? ridiculous. has humanity not like, gotten past the ‘he’s mean bc he likes you’ thing?? like grow up maybe?

and this isnt just about dean but like. are there not more single young people in seattle? why do they all have to sleep with the same 5 people. ik for the sake of plot, workplace relationships are easier but still. i think they should branch out. really. 

overall, i want better for all of them, and i think if the writers would just. take a moment and stop trying to tell so many stories in such little time, they could do better! also, whoever’s out there. please, enough w the crossovers! dont want to be forced to watch greys just to know what’s happening on 19. i get that they're in the same universe. it’s only mentioned every other episode. we. get, it. i liked what they did with private practice, it was like once every few seasons. and i know they won’t do that, but maybe, two a season. 

this is so much. but this how does have a ton of potential and i just really want it . like, get there.