#any mutual who likes my posts is included in this btw. just felt like shouting ghost out for that one in particular thx bud

[mars-ipan]

thank you to my mutuals for liking all my flop posts we will flop together <3

[fluffyfranny]

So hey! Might as well start posting! 

Starting off with an oldie in my past writing archives when I was at my peak in the Markiplier fandom. Still love his content dearly, but I don’t think I’ll write for his egos anytime soon.

Posting this with a lil motivation from @yaysof11037 who has become such a great mutual earlier on this week! (If ya haven’t checked out their works you totally should btw). In return for the lovely angst they provided for me, angst is what you shall receive in turn >:3

Hope y’all enjoy this piece I conjured WAY back in April :0

TW for descriptive gore, past and present character death and overall angst in general under the cut >:3

~Gone Too Soon~

Paranoia.

That was one of the primary emotions Eric felt all the time. The poor boy had been through a lot. He had lost a majority of his family, including his mother and the rest of his brothers, in a tragic accident, and he considered himself an “omen” of bad luck, of sorts, since things seemed to die around him.

Unfortunately, that was about to come true, once again.

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

It all started one brisk night, when Eric was having trouble sleeping for what seemed like the fifth time this week. He tossed and turned underneath the sheets, clutching his worn-down, yellow handkerchief with an iron grip in one of his fists. This lasted for about an hour.

The primary cause for this state of unrest, however, was not only his ever present state of anxiousness, but the fact that a nightmare unlike any he had ever dreamt was roiling through his mind.

He had dreamt that the rest of the Ipliers currently living in the manor, including his father, had mysteriously disappeared. Eric had been wandering the halls, calling out for them, his cries becoming squeaky as tears threatened to spill over...

Before he found his family and the states that they were in...

But then, he shot bolt upright in his bed. His breaths were rapid and his forehead was layered with a fine sheen of nervous sweat. He pinched his hand to make sure that it was all a dream, and fortunately, it was.

Eric tried to stabilize his breathing then and there, attempting to calm down. “It w-was all j-just a bad d-dream,” he kept repeating to himself. “None of t-that was r-real.”

With a sharp exhale of air, he dragged himself out of bed and left his room. He figured a walk around the vast, ever-expanding halls of the manor would calm his nerves, along with a glass of water.

The weight of his prosthetics made the stairs creak, but the other Ipliers knew better than to interrogate whoever was making such a ruckus. When they heard the familiar metallic clunk against the steps, they knew it was Eric, and they either left him be or awoke to provide him assistance, if needed.

As he made his way down the stairs and into one of the bigger hallways, he sensed that something was off. The air felt thicker, as if some invisible force was adding weight to the environment without anything actually being there.

In addition, he thought he caught a whiff of something along the lines of smoke. He shivered slightly at all of this, but shook his head in denial, brushing these factors off as remaining slivers of his nightmare that still plagued his mind.

Eric was just about to step foot into the living room when one of his prosthetic legs slipped in something wet, nearly sending him careening to the tile floor. Fortunately, he grabbed onto the railing on the side of the wall with a less than elusive yelp to stabilize himself.

He caught his breath and, with fear laced in his vision, glanced down slowly towards the ground. He nearly started having another panic attack when he saw a smear of red coat the tile and flow around the bend. The red coloration was so deep, it nearly appeared black as ink.

With even shakier steps, Eric clambered around the corner to locate the source of the stain…

Only to be met with the pale, lifeless stare of his father, lying in a pool of his own blood.

This time, Eric’s screech could be heard across the entirety of the mansion, had it been any louder. He immediately knelt down and began inspecting Derek’s clothes with quivering hands. His red, white and blue polo shirt was now dyed with an even darker crimson due to the blood seeping out of a massive hole in his chest.

“D-dad?” Eric whimpered, his handkerchief slightly speckled with Derek’s blood after placing it next to him. “W-what h-happened? Pl-please get up!”

He began shaking his parent’s shoulders rather forcefully, causing his head to loll to the side rather limply, then softly thumping back down onto the floor once Eric had ceased his actions.

Before he could let loose a scream of his own, several more heart-stopping yells proceeded to echo throughout the living room and the halls surrounding it, followed by the crashing of bodies. Eric’s head snapped up and glanced in all directions to locate who was screaming. However, despite the noises sounding like they were coming from right around him, there was nobody else with him. Aside from his father.

Then, that’s when he heard them.

“Why, hello there, Eric.”

His head whipped to his left to meet the gaze of a man talked about throughout the household, but none too kindly. Said man stood before him in a red tailcoat and black dress pants, both of which had gashes torn in them, and from these gashes seeped both red and black. Various other cuts also covered his bare hands and face. The red was definitely blood, Eric assumed, but why was this man bleeding black as well?

Either way, it didn’t matter as the man strode in Eric’s direction and placed the blunt end of the cane he clutched on the area where his heart would be before giving the area a gentle tap and stepping back again, smiling wickedly all the while.

“Wh-what have y-you done with m-my friends?” Eric stammered, trying to lace some confidence into his voice. “M-Mark?”

“Oh, poor, sweet Eric,” Mark tutted, shaking his head and scattering loose flecks of blood and pitch-black ichor. “I’ve been waiting a while now to exact my revenge against your...family here.”

“R-r-revenge?” Eric questioned with wide eyes and a more noticeable quiver in his voice. “B-but the others a-are so sweet t-to me. They’d n-never do-”

“Oh, but my friend,” Mark interrupted with a wave of his hand. “You’ve just missed out on all the horrendous things they have done to others. Even to me.”

“T-that’s a l-lie!” Eric tried to shout. “They’d never d-do anything b-bad to others! You’re just t-trying to c-convince me o-otherwise!”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Mark began to raise his voice, inky-black ichor seeping out of the corners of his mouth. “You’re just too naive to see it! The others are evil…”

“No, t-that’s y-you!” Eric finally found the courage to retort back semi-confidently. “Y-you’re the e-evil one!”

At this, Mark’s eyes widened, and he turned his head slowly towards him, a pissed look in his eyes and on his face. He snarled, his lips quirking up to bare his teeth back at the boy.

“You insufferable brat!” Mark said, ever angrier. “Just for all that you’ve said and done, I’ll show you what has been made of your “family” and be on my way.”

Before Mark disappeared in an explosion of smoky black mist, he gave Eric one final glare and remark:

“Don’t be surprised if you end up being next.”

And with that, he was gone.

However, once he vanished, the air around the room began to shimmer before the environment revealed a truly horrendous sight from behind Mark’s illusion.

Blood and gore everywhere.

Eric felt like he was going to be sick at the sight of his friends plastered around the house, laying in their own life essence. He hesitantly gazed around and, one by one, took note of what happened to each of them.

First, he spotted Wilford in the kitchen, draped over the countertop with the broken end of a wine bottle stuck in his head, the jagged ring of glass biting into his scalp and sticking there, all the while drawing blood that flowed off of Wil’s head like tiny rivers.

Then, he saw Bim hanging from a taxidermy deer skull in the living room, the antlers emerging from above his eye sockets to make it look like he had sprouted the appendages.

As Eric shook his head in both fear and denial, he practically bolted out of the conjoining rooms and down the hall he came from. There, he saw both Google and Bing’s dismembered parts scattered across the floor, with a few limbs laying on the stairwell and a head posted atop it. Whoever’s head it was was barely recognizable, for the artificial skin was peeled away to reveal the mechanical insides.

Eric, surprisingly, only started to cry harder now, tears rapidly streaming down his cheeks as he realized that this was not just a dream.

It was a nightmare come true.

He then came across Dr Iplier, whose corpse was laying halfway inside a closet and covered with crudely stitched gashes that still leaked blood, which, to Eric’s horror, was a mixture of the red and black that Mark was coated in.

As he rounded the corner, avoiding going upstairs again, he nearly tripped over Host, whose blindfold was ripped clean off to expose his empty, bloody eye sockets. In addition, he was also missing the skin on one side of his jaw, exposing the teeth and bone beneath to give him a zombified look.

This drew a gag from Eric at the sight of Host’s mangled face, and he quickly fled deeper down the hall.

At this point, he had exhausted himself, so he simply let his back hit the wall and slide down to the floor, where he held his head between his knees. He then began to let loose gut-wrenching sobs that would make anyone else cry, as well.

He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and began to fidget with it, nearly tearing it in half with the force he was using on it.

Just as he was about to fling the cloth away, he felt the air around him drop in temperature, which caused him to look up. There stood Dark, his hair disheveled as if he were running his fingers through it all day. His jacket and shirt were both wrinkled, and his tie was missing.

At the sight of Eric curled up in a sobbing mess, Dark got on both knees in front of him and patted one of his own. He looked up to see the pale man smiling at him sadly.

“I’m terribly sorry, Eric,” Dark spoke at a low volume. “We couldn’t save them.”

Eric choked out another sob as he gazed up at Dark with watery eyes. “Th-they’re all dead! Even m-my d-dad is g-gone. My whole f-family is g-gone!”

He put his head between his legs again so Dark wouldn’t see him cry anymore. He felt a heavy hand rest atop his head and ruffle his hair, a seemingly kind gesture amidst these depressing times.

“Look here, Eric,” Dark said as he gently pressed a fingertip underneath Eric’s chin and raising his head to look back at him. “You still have me. We can be our own little family.”

“B-but what if M-Mark comes back f-for you?” Eric whined. “Th-then I’ll b-be all a-alone!”

“Trust me as you have in the past,” Dark drawled out, moving the hand away from his chin and dropping it back to his side. “He won’t be back.”

“P-promise?” Eric questioned, voice shaking harder than it ever had.

Dark merely responded with a nod and one word:

“Promise.”

Before he could get up and take Eric away with him, he let out a grunt and got back on his knees. Eric could only stare in horror as a spot on Dark’s dress shirt became soaked in black. The spot only grew bigger, as if he were hit with a bullet, and the blood was spreading further out.

Dark gently prodded at the fresh hoel in his gut before looking back up at Eric and uttering two words that would be the last he’d ever hear.

“I’m sorry.”

After uttering those final words, Dark collapsed right into Eric’s lap, his head landing in his cupped hands. He let out a shocked gasp and lifted Dark’s head up to look into his eyes and wave his hand in front of them.

“Oh...oh n-no, D-Dark, please d-don’t!” He began to babble uncontrollably, tears falling faster than ever, with a few landing onto Dark’s cheeks to make it seem as if he were crying. They ran down his face, which seemed to be getting paler by the second, even though it seemed impossible for him to pale any further.

“P-please don’t l-leave me,” Eric sobbed, cradling Dark’s head as he felt his blood soak into his own polo shirt, staining it black. “N-not alone in th-this place.”

Dark could only let out a faint wheeze that sounded like a chuckle before he took one final deep breath and let it out. His obsidian eyes seemed to dim as this last breath fled from between his lips.

Eric gasped as he heard this and, not wanting to lose the last friend he had left, clutched onto Dark’s body and held him close, his head lolling over and landing limply onto Eric’s shoulder.

He sat there, clinging to Dark’s body amidst the massacre of his family that had taken place just mere moments ago, and cried for hours on end.

This was truly a nightmare that Eric would never wake up from.

[t-underneaththeradardancing]

it seems just - and now  - now its awmost midnight a week later  - i cant remember - i kinda sucked last week yah   - oh yah i members now - didnt suck even a little tonight - made 1 good decision - so a couple that is also a band and nice peeps - really nice - did the host mc thing - there is an amp a srsly good one i could have used -  btw i should hav diss claimed at the beginning - wait maybe - i plan on some poetry about the moon - so maybe u should just scroll down till the words look poetic and start readin then - i could post the poetry separately but that wood not b any funatall 

oh yah and since its monday and the moon thing and apollo anniversary  - and cuz they just b good peeps  - big shout out to everyone at @writerscreed and thank you for using a line / query from one of my pomes if i wuznt lazy as fuck i woud find it and reblog - ego may takes me there anyway but not tonight  - all the love to everyone there  past present future - a wonderful resource and labor of love 

so post mortem - awready wrote something along the lines of i killed - i did srsly for 1 song  - lykke li side band liv  hurts to liv   - had played w arrangement just a bit this morning - nothing major - might have incorporated quick time some - ezily the best vocal performance course it aint recorded it dont matter - i stayed on mic mostly - didnt forget words - only 1 line and not on this one mumbled cuz couldnt wrap my mouth around - 1 bad chord also not on this - huge response mid song at he line “ everybody wanna be somebody long as it aint me “  huge applause b4 last note wrung out  - so the good decision - things run late - 2 many performers wanna - small technical probs  including cords shorting - plug my own cord into guitar - straight into pa - setting up amp could take minutes and something to go wrong  yah - and there are 2 huge ego reezons i wanna play well  - the kind that fuck me up often - the most interesting man in the world - according to cinder - a neighbor  -told me he was interested in coming to madrone and actually showed  - he has never heard me not a note - i didnt want the awkwardness of sucking and him having to pretend he liked it  - a much loved performer who only plays madrone a few times a year - the open mic anyway - his band gets paid gigs at madrone and the other bars owned by same person /ppl   and other places - few years ago they headlined Slims - wait is slims still open - anyway one of the top clubs in sf for live national/international music  - so he played - just b4 me - the last time i saw him wuz the 1st time after seeing each other albeit infrequently - for years now - that we spoke and that i knew he actually listened to me - i wuz ok that time but ego and started overplaying to impress - so i had chosen songs that were more vocal oriented before going - added an improvised blues in am to facilitate a harmonica player  - martian mike - he actually added - if i had the amp - and it had every sound effect known to man - i prob wouldnt have resisted the urge to over the top - so after finished had nice mutual admiration mutual love of madrone conversation - he video’d at least part of my set for utube on his channel and maybe his bands channel as well 

just b4 playing - went outside and thot of the ppl who send vibes love energy sundays  - it was like i could feel each one sending for a sec - some sent earlier -some yet to come - felt total calm - only for a moment mind u 

about the moon this was last night or saturday  - total fog cover tonight - just to make sure - i go outside cuz maybe - thats my relation  - love and attention - a focus  and the tide thing - pretty awesome  - only once - and i wuz being a dick and might have lied to myself like we do  when acting as such - only once that i remember - when i remember to look for and find ( most eves nights mornings ) have i failed 2 feel better at least a little for a moment  - a shapeshift trixter she b the moon - always changing always constant  - thinking what might have been what still could b  - we can look at the same moon at different times and be close for a hand clap cuz we zen as fuck - sometimes  - we get lucky 

its getting late im tired - its morning but not the wake up kind yet  - dishes to do - teeth to brush - a kitty to pet 

and 

presto sleepo morning and not early - sleepless in sf till 3 or so - kitty wants bfast early - or wants a good tawk  - she wants something she cant do fer her own self but yes she will kill and eat bugs if not fed - and yes the bowl is empty - omg yes she is a good kitty - back to sleep till a mumbled byedrivesafelove to the unpoet leaving 

sun just came out and enuff quiet to hear birdsong

love

[rainstormcolors]

A post that will only be of interest to maybe like two of my mutuals, but whatever, I want to write it. It’s a summary of the garbage Azureshipping fic I wrote many many years ago, while the dubbed Yu-Gi-Oh! anime was still airing. I included some excerpts from this story as well, though I’ve already shared them with a few of you. This story was never given a title, was never given an ending, is 350 handwritten pages long, and is crap. But I’m very fond of it even still. (BTW, this summary is very -very- streamlined. The work as a whole is a pure mess.)

Kaiba Corporation mysteriously goes under, and Seto and Mokuba are left penniless. I didn’t bother to going into detail regarding this, but it’s implied dark forces are at work. In the meantime, the brothers scrape by, living in a shabby apartment, and Seto seems to have given up. Yugi and Tea visit the brothers and Yugi offers to give them money, to which Seto’s attitude is, “Piss off! I don’t want your charity!” but as Seto’s turned away, Mokuba snatches the money from Yugi’s hand and whispers, “Thank you.” Meanwhile, in his dreams, Mokuba sees strange fragments of the past and the future.

Seto is deemed an incompetent parent to Mokuba by social services and Mokuba is taken away, but Mokuba runs away from the agency and takes to living on the streets for a string of days. A new Duel Monsters tournament is being held in a nearby city and Seto enters, hoping to win the grand cash prize, and is full of misery. Joey and Mai also enter this tournament. Seto and Joey duel, the two exchanging insults, but Seto wins and he proceeds to the finals. (I should mention I didn’t actually write any of the duels in this story. The moves are kept vague.) The final game is between Seto and Mai. Joey’s still unhappy about losing to Kaiba, meanwhile Yugi, “Yami,” and Tea watch the duel silently and uncomfortably. Tea then sees Mokuba in the crowd, watching his brother, and so in that moment she begins to cheer for Seto. Seto wins the duel and Mai doesn’t really seem to mind at all. But Seto isn’t given the prize money, because the tournament’s host has a grudge against Kaiba Corporation. (I don’t give any details for why.) And Mokuba vanishes, remaining hidden in the streets.

That night however, the Millennium Ring takes on a life of its own and teleports onto Mokuba’s body, and Yami Bakura’s energy possesses him. (I was making the Millennium Ring possess random people before DSoD made it cool!) Possessed Mokuba goes to the hotel Yugi and co. are staying in and he steals the Millennium Items, Joey’s deck and duel disk, and Tea’s cellphone, but Yugi and Tea catch him in the act. Possessed Mokuba races off into the night with the pair of friends in tow, when suddenly a man in a truck snatches up Mokuba (such an original plot point) and the Items from the street. The man rushes to an airplane held at the edge of the city, drives the truck into its cargo bay, and it flies off towards Egypt.

At some point around this part I decided this was going to be an Azure romance. While I realized the woman in Seto’s vision during his duel with Isis was far and away most likely not going to actually be Tea, I decided to give Tea a vision of that moment with the implication it’s her.

After finding him, Tea tells Kaiba what’s happened and he’s infuriated. Tea tells him to try tracking her cellphone and he does (just somehow), and they pinpoint his brother’s location in Egypt. Tea has enough money for two plane tickets, and while Seto isn’t happy about it, he needs to rescue Mokuba of course, and so she and Seto go together as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Yugi, Joey, and Tristan explain the situation to Mai and she decides to front the money for the four of them to fly to Egypt on another later flight.

Mokuba is still possessed by Yami Bakura as he’s brought to an underground temple in a secluded corner of Egypt. There are three siblings, who I make it clear care very much about each other: the oldest brother, the middle child who is the head of the group—a woman with short purple hair and wearing a black dress, and the youngest sister who has brilliant red hair and is in white robes. (I was ripping off the Ishtar siblings as villains before DSoD made it cool!) (I’ll also note it doesn’t seem they caused the collapse of Kaiba Corporation from earlier.) I wrote this story before the Millennium Scale was revealed in the anime, and it’s the Big McGuffin here. The siblings are the protectors of the Scale, which is said to be the most dangerous of the Millennium Items. The Scale is welded to a stone and only the chosen one may remove it, King-Arthur-and-the-Sword-style. There’s a prophecy inscribed in the temple walls, which states in part that the wielder of the Millennium Scale will become a vessel to filter evil from the Shadow Realm into the mortal world, and the siblings believe Mokuba is the chosen bearer of the Scale. Yami Bakura is gleeful at the chance to take hold of another Millennium Item but his spirit is unable to budge it, and touching the Scale ejects his grasp over Mokuba’s body. None the less, the siblings jump to the conclusion that they were mistaken, this boy is much too young to be the bearer anyway, and that it must be the older Kaiba brother who is the chosen one instead. Despite being the villains who kidnapped him, the trio are actually fairly hospitable to Mokuba. The middle sister is grouchy about how things have gone, though she’s happy to keep the Millennium Items for herself, and she has the friendly and pretty youngest sister (who is Mokuba’s age at that) take Mokuba into town in the morning.

Tea and Seto arrive at Egypt together and head to the place they’ve pinpointed, and in the town they find Mokuba waiting, and he and Seto have their sweet warm reunion at last. But tensions are high. Tea and Mokuba decide they need to get the Millennium Items back, and Seto agrees begrudgingly after Mokuba confronts him with, “How is it better?! What’s happened to you? You don’t care about anything anymore. […] If you go home I’ll come, but if you care, then help Tea get that stuff back.” Mokuba leads them to the temple in the nighttime and they sneak inside. They grab the collection of Items, but before they go, Mokuba finds himself strangely drawn to the Millennium Scale. It’s as if there’s a magical tug, and he goes to it and nudges it, whispering, “It is me…” before Tea and Seto call him to leave.

(Stuff gets really convoluted at this part and I’m really streamlining it here.) As they escape, Tea loses her sandals. There’s a confrontation with the trio of siblings, and soon Tea and Seto only have the Millennium Rod as all the other Items are stolen back, and the purple-haired woman challenges Mokuba to a duel for some weirdo reason, summoning the Shadow Realm as a test or something. Mokuba duels using Joey’s deck and duel disk but flounders. Tea shouts for Yugi, and with this, thousands of miles away, Yami realizes the others are in trouble. But as Mokuba’s about to lose, Seto uses the Millennium Rod to shatter the Shadow Realm, and so Mokuba’s soul is safe. Seto, Tea, and Mokuba steal the siblings’ car (noticeably not the truck; I don’t know what happened to the truck or airplane) and drive off, back towards the town.

Shadi appears to Mokuba in a vision spouting lofty nonsense about destiny at some point.

At nightfall, Tea and Seto have this embarrassingly written romantic moment:

[from pages 206 to 211; it’s goofy and bad and overwritten and so so so woobified]

““Oof!” she groaned w/ a loud thud, Tea had rolled off her bed onto the floor. There was no difference from when Tea had her eyes shut and when she had her eyes open, it was darker than the pitchest of blacks. “Hrmm,” she groaned rubbing her eyes, she was still very sleepy. As her eyes slowly adjusted, she could see an extremely dim light barely visible to the human eye seeping through the cracks of the flap hung over the back entryway as a tacky, cheap cover. Tea pushed up against the side of her invisible bed to help her stand and from there she felt her way round the tiny room, pushed through the flimsy flap to the outside world which left her totally breathless.

It was beautiful, the sky was speckled w/ what seemed like a trillion stars. Tea had never seen so many stars in her life. Back in Domino City, the bright lights almost always left the nightscape completely starless. Now that she was out in the middle of nowhere there wasn’t a single light source to fade the sky and everything from up in the heavens shown through, and she could see to the edge of the universe. Then Tea saw a dark figure radiating a faint silvery lining. It was Seto, staring off into the unknown. Seto didn’t seem the type to enjoy something as simple yet precious as stars, but this didn’t surprise Tea. There had been enough hints of his fascination w/ the sky. From how he held his tournament on a blimp and a high up tower, to him simply peering out the window as they flew here. Even his favorite duel monster could fly far up into the atmosphere.

She walked over and stood next to him. They didn’t look at each other, they didn’t say anything, there was absolute quiet, but the quiet didn’t bother Tea this time. The 2 just stared off into the silvery-blue desert silently. There was a gentle breeze, a soft whirling sound pierced the air.

“Why are you up?” Seto finally said in a tender voice, his eyes still fixed up to the moonless starscape.

“hmm, oh, I fell off my bed,” Tea quietly replied, “and why are you still up? We found Mokuba and you’ve been awake for several days straight.”

“more like a month”

“A month? You haven’t been to sleep for a month? Is that even physically possible?”

“Unless you count me passing out, yes.”

“Why?” He didn’t say anything, he shut his eyes like he was trying to sleep standing up. Tea looked at him, he was so broken. “Seto? Erk- I mean Kaiba!” she shook her head trying to snap some common sense into herself, “Sorry, I’ve been hanging w/ Mokuba too much and I’m starting to talk like him.” Why do I keep calling Kaiba Seto? I-

“Tea, Seto’s my name,” he reopened his eyes slowly, “you’re suppost to call people by their name. I never got why you and your pals call me Kaiba.”

“Well that is your last name,” she pointed out to him.

“My adopted last name. The name of my evil, wicked stepfather. Don’t even have the company anymore.”

Seto’s stepfather, a topic his mind seemed hopelessly stuck on. It haunted him in ways no one else could ever really understand, as icy essence that would always linger in the back of his thoughts. He was a little boy, the forgotten boy lost in time, forever running from this tangled fear, forever trapped in this endless chase, too afraid to stop and be devoured by this monster locked inside his frigid heart. Too afraid to even look back.

“You really don’t like your past, do you?”

His eyes were hollow and lifeless. Seto slowly rocked his head back and forth, lost somewhere in a numbing trance.

“Was it really that bad for you? I mean if that creep hadn’t adopted you, you never would of…” Tea stopped herself. Since he no longer held the position of president for Kaiba Corp, all the good had been sucked away from his adoption.

“It depends whether you value youth or not. Guess I did. But I just have to put all that behind me.”

“You mean forget?”

“It’s nice for your little friends to spit at me for that, especially when they have no idea what it was like.”

“You’ll never forget trying to forget, because in trying to forget you’ll remember and it will always be there. Don’t try and forget, try and let go,” Tea explained. Seto remained stuck in his daze. “So do you not like being called Kaiba? Besides Mokuba, and me too I guess, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody call you by anything else.”

“It was alright when I owned Kaiba Corp, it was one of my accomplishments, earning that name. But now it shows my failure.”

“If it bothered you so much, why didn’t you tell us?”

“What ever.”

“Ah. Well anyway, why can’t you sleep?” she asked getting back to the point, returning the conversation’s personality back to quiet and mellow.

“I just can’t, I lost my company, I lost Mokuba,” he explained to her.

“Stressed out then?”

“I’m a failure, a throwaway…”

This was not the Seto Tea grew to know, before all this rained down on him, Seto was always going on how much more superior he was to the others, now he was ranting how much more worthless he was. “Oh come now, you’re not a failure. Your company was stolen, I know you don’t believe in magic, but it was some ancient magic power that did this. You’d only be a failure if it was actually your fault, and it’s not. You’re really smart and skilled, I’m sure you’ll eventually bounce back. We’ll fix this. You know what they say, when you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up.”

“And you fall right back down,” he grumbled.

Tea was not getting through to this guy, “What do you mean?”

“What do you care? This is only going to result in one of your long, annoying speeches like it always does.”

“It does not.”

“Oh yes it does. You don’t even know the half of it.”

“Tell you what, if I promise to not say a single thing will you tell me?” she coaxed trying to come to a compromise.

He hesitated, feeling Tea’s waiting gaze upon him. “Look at my life, it’s a disaster, it just goes up and down, up and down, it never stops.” Seto quivered a little as he spoke, “Everytime I think things are starting to look good, I plumbit back down. My and Mokuba’s parents died, our remaining relatives stole our inheritance and then just dumped us off at an orphanage and no one cared for us. I tricked a rich CEO into adopting us and I thought things might change, but he turned out to be a heartless, dictating snake, so I overthrew him and took control of his company. Things were okay for a while, and now this! I have nothing, everyone hates me! My life has been ripped to shreds!”

Tea looked at him, she had never heard Seto talk so openly. His eyes looked so sad. She had known a little about Seto’s rugged past, but for some reason hearing it made her finally understand Seto’s bitterness, his distrust for people. “Everyone does not hate you, what about Mokuba? He doesn’t hate you.”

“Yes he does. And I can’t blame him. I’m a horrible person…”

“He just wishes you’d be more light hearted, try having fun. I mean, why aren’t you ever happy? Try smiling every once in a while.”

“Yes, I should try smiling, who cares how I actually feel? I should just pretend to be happy and smile, even if I’m dead inside, cause as long as I’m smiling everything’s alright.”

Tea thought about that for a second. “Are you really always that unhappy?”

“Speech, Tea. This is turning into a speech.”

“Well I can’t help it, you’re ranting on about how tenuous a life you have, and maybe you’re right, but you’re afraid of your past, you’re afraid of your future, I strongly doubt you like your current position, what is it you want? What would have to happen to make you happy?”

He finally turned to look at her, his deep blue eyes reflecting the dazzling stars. Tea felt a bizzar pull to him, like some force was bringing them together, it was weirding her out. Just a week ago the thought of talking to Seto left a foul taste in her mouth, she had been beating herself up for dragging herself here w/ him. But not anymore, instead of talking at him, she was talking to him, she could see the world through his eyes, everything had changed.

“You promised you wouldn’t say anything,” he gently said.

“Sorry, I forgot,” she whispered back. The 2’s personalities were an absolute contrast, there was no chance of ever hitting common ground, Tea was a jovial, kind-hearted girl, Seto was a bitter, withdrawn boy who lost his place. Still, there was a strong connection between them as they gazed back up into the star-frosted heavens, absorbing it’s pale silver glow.”

That same night, Yugi, Yami, Joey, Tristan, and Mai arrive in Egypt.

In the morning, Seto gives Tea his shoes, and she, he, and Mokuba have a “day of fun” in the town since they don’t know how they’ll get home yet. Seto plays a casual duel with Tea as if it was a lesson. Seto and Mokuba go off together and leave her alone for a bit as well. Later, sitting and watching the sunset together, Seto finally falls asleep and he slumps gently against Tea.

Then Tea’s friends find them and it’s all bustle and explaining things. They decide they’ll make another attempt to re-capture the Millennium Items because this shit is dangerous. Seto leaves them. When Tea meets him later, he pulls out the Millennium Rod from under the bed and asks her why she didn’t tell her friends about it, and she tells him it’s his. He forces it into her hands but she holds it back out to him. Seto then places his hand over hers on the Rod and bends down to her but she stumbles back, saying she should be getting back to the others now, and he lets her go.

Tea, Yugi, Yami, and Mokuba go to the temple and approach the Scale on the stone together (apparently the sibling villains are really really incompetent at guarding it). Tea guesses that Yami is the chosen one and he steps forward, but something feels wrong and evil, and Mokuba begins to see things and is able to read the scripture on the walls. Tea tries to comfort him. Then the purple-haired woman confronts them. She tells the group it’s one of the Pharaoh’s rivals who can pick up the Scale, and Mokuba feels confused as he hears this. She gives them the Ring as a peace offering. She offers to return the Millennium Necklace to them if they would be so kind as to bring Seto Kaiba to her to activate the Scale.

Tea and Yami aren’t sure what to do next, but as they leave with the Ring they find Seto standing outside the temple. As it should turn out, some kind of hallucinatory vision had carried him along with them and he’s just as confused as they are. They tell him about the situation. Mokuba, knowing he’s the only one who can remove the Scale and wanting to put an end to all this, tells Seto to try it. Seto does and is able to lift it with ease, and Mokuba is shocked. (The idea is Mokuba’s nudge was enough to free it, but he didn’t realize that.) The purple-haired woman is ecstatic, reveals that there’s dark magic inside the Item, and she challenges Seto to a duel to claim the Item’s powers. The youngest sister goes to Mokuba’s side. The woman and Seto duel, everyone watching, and Seto wins.

And so Yugi, Yami, Seto, Mokuba, and Tea leave with all the Items in their possession, but Yami and Tea are very concerned. They return to the others, and Mokuba is disturbed as things are explained and considered.

Here’s another excerpt:

[from pages 305 to 316; bad bad bad and overwritten and woobified again, now with terrible melodrama]

“Seto leaned over the sink in the inn’s bathroom. It’s edges were lined with scuz and sludge ringed the foucet, it’s handle was very loose. There was a shower, but it didn’t work. Washing his hair in the sink had grown used to him. He had done it back when he and his brother were living in that broken down apartment of deferred dreams and causes, and at the airport in London while waiting for his and Tea’s plane to arrive, but being without soap he couldn’t get it too clean. He wished the water was colder.

“Seto, are you OK?” Mokuba asked him standing in the restroom’s doorway.

He didn’t look up, “Why?” he said through the dribbling sound of running water.

“Because the girl you decided to f-“

“Mokuba, please.”

“Sorry,” his eyes shifted to the millinium scale that had carelessly been laid on the floor, “Heads up, Joey and Tristan might try to steal that from you.”

“Steal what?”

“The millinium scale, for some reason they seem to think it’ll make you go crazy or something.”

“Idiots. And let me guess, Tea-“

“Did nothing. Talk to her already, or do you want me to do it for you?”

Seto finally pulled his head out from under the grummy, near-broken sink. “Mokuba, you’re not helping,” he said as he squeezed the water out of his tangled hair with his fingers. Then he picked the polished scale off the floor. “See, this is why I don’t make friends,” he grumbled, “I knew this would happen.”

“Seto, you can’t just give up, that’s so unlike you.”

“She’s made her choice, let it be.” He walked out of the restroom, his hair damp and spirit low, “I have nothing, I don’t deserve her care.”

Mokuba stared blinklessly at his brother a bit horrified at what he was saying. Seto walked away and disappeared down the sliver of a hallway.

Hours were swept away never to be retrieve or re-lived again. The brief sandstorm had passed away a short while after noon broke, and the gang would of probably started to head to a city and airport so they could set their sights on home, but w/ this idea an ugly problem showed it’s face. Not even half of them could fit into that pathetic car to transport them anywhere, so for the moment they were stuck.

“OK, here’s my plan,” Tristan announced.

“If it involves leaving Seto and I stranded here…”

“First off, no it doesn’t,” he replied to Mokuba. Everyone was sitting outside in a ring formation, discussing ideas and ways to tackle this issue, everyone except Seto. He was off leaning against the side of a building feeling feverish and soaking in his aloofness. “Tea, did you ever get your cell phone back?” Tristan continued on.

“Umm,” Tea reached into the shallow pocket of her brilliant apple red skirt with grey, yellow, and forest green cross hatching, “yeah, why?” she said as she felt it’s hard, plastic surface.

“Cause we can call someone up then to come and pick us up or drop off another car or something.”

“And who do you propose we call Tristan?” Mai said.

“I dunno, anyone.”

“Yo, Kaiba! Do you have any ideas?” Joey yelled over at Seto, who was nodding off, “Hey, wake up! It’s not night time yet!”

“You always have to find some way to make a nussence of yourself Wheeler, don’t you?” he said, “figure something out for yourself for once.” Seto pushed off the building and walked away wishing not to be bothered anymore.

“Fine! We don’t need your help!” Joey barked at him as he left.

Tea watched as he turned into the building. “Ahh, I have to go to the bathroom.” She hopped to her feet and followed Seto’s footprints that he left in the pale, colorless sand. Mokuba crossed his fingers.

Unaware of the fact Tea had followed him, Seto let himself fall limp onto one of the beds, his worn out body, as weak and tired as it was, had reached it’s limit. How he could stay as perky as he’s been he’d never figure out. He heard someone else enter the room. “Tea?” his heart lifted a bit.

“Um, yeah, Kaiba, where’d you put the millinium rod? Cause the thing of it is-“

*Clank* Seto had quickly pulled it out from under the bed and threw it bitterly against the wall. The loud sound it made as it clashed against the wall made Tea flinch, she hadn’t expected him to throw it. He didn’t throw it at her, in fact he had thrown it at the opposite end of the room from which she stood, sending a strong message.

“Take it,” he spat.

She glared at him for a second, then moved over to pick it up. Right now she didn’t know how the rod’s magic might affect Seto, and it was Yugi’s. It was wrong for her to have handed it over to him to begin w/.

“Tea?” Seto said, his voice had calmed down and now came off as tender.

But Tea ignored him and went back outside. The second she passed through the cloth flap though she stopped and looked down into the millinium rod held in her grasp. What had she just done? Part of her wanted to run back immediately into the room and return it to him. No, she couldn’t do that, what was wrong w/ her? She wished it would just disappear right out of her hand.

“Tea? You took it back?”

Tea shot her head up. There Mokuba stood before her, his glassy, oversized eyes reflecting the deep navy sky painted over w/ pale pink clouds.

“Huh, oh, well it’s Yugi’s,” she said.

“You’re taking it back because you’re afraid he’s evil aren’t you?”

“No, it wasn’t mine to give away to begin with. I’m taking it back because it’s my friend’s,” she told him.

“Seto is your friend!” he cried.

“Um,” Tea became figety and nervous, she squeezed the millinium rod so hard her knuckles turned white, “I have to go, they’re expecting me back you know.” She brushed past him and headed back to Mai, Joey, Tristan, Yami, and Yugi.

Mokuba clamped his teeth hard together. He couldn’t just let it be, this was wrong. “Why are you ignoring Seto?!” he angrily yelled at her.

Tea didn’t even get 6 feet away. She stopped and turned back to look at him, “Mokuba?” she weakly muttered.

“How could you just of forgotten this past couple days?” Mokuba had so many things worrying him, so many thing picking at his stability, but he thought he could finally stop worrying about his brother being friendless. He wasn’t about to let Tea piss it all way. “He opened up to you, doesn’t that mean anything? I’ve never seen him open up to anyone before until now. Why have you just thrown it all away?” He looked at her, hungry for her reply.

“I- Mokuba. It’s really complicated and we just don’t know. I’m sorry my friends don’t trust him right now. My friends and I have been through so much together, I can’t just abandon them,” she explained.

“So you abandoned Seto?!”

She didn’t know what to say. Mokuba was exactly right. “Look, this is really hard for me-“

“-Not as hard as it is for him.” Mokuba cut in, his voice grew serious and low, “No one has ever cared for us before like this, until you. Even when Seto pushed you away, you still stuck by him. And it meant something to him, it really did.”

“Mokuba, what am I suppost it do?! My friends mean more than anything to me and they’re concerned,” she cried, “And I mean more than anything to them. Our friendship is forever.”

“Your friendship with him could be forever too…”

“I’m sorry Mokuba, I just can’t.” She slowly turned back around, staring empty into the ground. But before she could head off anywhere, Mokuba said one last thing that caused her to freeze up.

“He loves you!”

Tea quickly jerked her head back around, “Love? That’s an awfully strong word.”

“Well he does.”

“Mokuba, don’t take this the wrong way, but your brother doesn’t seem the type to fall in love,” she told him.

“I know, and that’s what’s so cool about it. I never thought Seto could grow so attached to someone, but he did, and it’s you!” Mokuba looked pained, she could see he was telling the truth. “He loves you, he told me! It was yesterday, when we went off for a walk…”

-- “Seto,” he said snapping his pendant shut, “I have a question. It’s about you and Tea.”

“What about me and Tea?” he lazily replied snapping his pendant shut as well.

“Are you guys like friends or something? I mean I’ve never seen you like this before,” Mokuba asked.

Seto had his eyes fixed over the sands of the desert as they bathed in the deep orange rays of the sun, “Yeah, well, no one’s ever cared for me like this before,” he replied in a tone that Mokuba never quite heard his brother use before.

“I care,” he said.

“Not like this, this is this is different…” his voice was so soft.

“Oh my gosh,” it hit Mokuba, his later bloomer brother was finally, “You lo-“

“Weird, isn’t it?”

“I never thought I’d see the day where Seto Kaiba falls in love,” he said joyously, “Tell her!”

“Mokuba, we’re going to have to go back to reality eventually. You’ll be placed in foster care, who knows where I’ll be, and once Tea meets her little friends again, she’ll forget about us,” he cooly explained.

“No, Tea wouldn’t do that!” Mokuba argued, “Tell her!”

Seto let out a weak sigh, “We’ll see…” he said, shutting his eyes slowly. --

“… And he was right!” Mokuba cried, “The second your stupid friends showed up you forgot about us!”

“… Seto loves me?” Tea slowly mumbled as if in a dream, and to be honest, not all too surprised to be informed of this.

“Yes, or at least he did. But then you started ignoring him,” he said calmly, “Tea, I understand that you would care much more for your old friends than you would ever for Seto, but you mean so much to him. Very few people have ever gotten to his heart, in fact there’s only 2, me and you. But once you’re there, trust me on this, you’re never coming out. You know, I always knew eventually down the road you’d be forced into choosing, but I thought it’d be Seto’s doing, not your friends, what does that tell you about them?”

“Mokuba, it’s not like that!”

“Are they really your real friends?”

“You know how close we are, of course they are!” she growled disgusted.

Mokuba paused, he paused for a long while, staring longlingly into her eyes. And then he walked away, off towards the rising silver sliver of a moon.

Tea watched him as he shrank away into nothing, she was alone now, left to think over everything that had just been told. The millinium rod was a retreat, for her to compare the Kaiba she once knew to the Seto she now knows. Tea stared into the gold for several minutes, studying the warped reflections. Her decision was made as she remembered she was wearing Seto’s shoes. He had been walking around bare foot this whole time.

The sun was swallowed up by the earth, a few white speckles had been sprayed into the deep heavens. The clouds that hung in the sky had transformed into a brass color, it was pretty.

“Where the heck is Tea?!” Joey grouched.

“Calm down Joey, girls always take a long time in the bathroom.”

“Hey!” Mai spat at Tristan, who snickered.

“She’s probably off talking to that brat Kaiba again. What the heck is going on with them?” Joey grunted.

Yami? It was Yugi, his spiritual essence hovered around Yami like a mist.

Yes Yugi? All their talking was done telepathically, both being souls trapped in the same body.

Don’t you think it’s kind of mean to assume Kaiba might go crazy from the millinium scale? Yugi had been neutral since the start of all this, in fact the truth was he was rooting for Seto. And Yami had been neutral too up until this morning, but something changed.

These items are dangerous. We have to protect Kaiba and Tea too. Yami replied.

Who do you think you’re kidding? This isn’t about us and Tea, this is about you and Tea. Ever since we saw them watching the sunset you’ve been weird. I can see your thoughts. I think you’re jealous.

Jealous?

Can you admit it or not? Talk to her.

I can’t.

Why not?

Yugi, I live inside a piece of jewelry, just a spirit who takes temporary control over your body. I’m not even sure how long I’ll be here…

What will it hurt? Hey, you 2 have been through so much together, how could she reject you? If it calms you down, I’m for it.

Different parts of Tea’s head pulled her different ways. Eventually Seto had come out of the room. If he had seen her, he gave no acknowledgement. Up against the grit wall, Tea just observed him for a minute. Once again she found him staring up into the sky speckled w/ silver. She walked up silently to him.

“Seto?” she barely murmured. He didn’t look back at her. “Seto?” she repeated, a little louder this time.

“So you’re calling me Seto again?” he finally said, his voice cold and dead.

“Well that is your name,” she playfully replied, but it was obvious Seto was in no such mood.

“I’m not sure I want you calling me by that anymore.”

She held out the millinium rod to Seto, despite the fact he wasn’t facing her, “Here, take it,” she insisted, “I didn’t give it back to Yugi. You don’t take back a gift.”

Seto stood stiff, still staring into the sky’s great vastness. Everything became a shade of blue as the stars and moon cast majestic silver shadows over the earth.

“Mokuba said you loved me.”

“Did he?”

“You’re not angry at him, are you?”

“Why would I be angry at him?”

“Because he either lied to me or spilled out your secret.”

Seto finally spun around to her, “Is it really that big of a secret?”

Tea looked away, “… no.” She already knew, ever since she first cheered for him when he dueled against Mai, she felt something changed. That was the turning point. She looked back over at him, “Seto, I’m sorry. It’s just- my friends just appeared out of nowhere, and you guys kept fighting over nothing, and they got worried about these stupid items and prophecies, and I didn’t know. We’ve been through so much, but th-“

“Tea, stop talking.” Seto took 2 steps towards her. She found herself staring into his eyes. She had never noticed before how they changed color. Sometimes they looked turquoise, other times they were almost lavender, now they were very distant and dark. Hope lived in them again.

And that left her to think about yesterday, when they almost- If her friends hadn’t suddenly shown up, would she have gone through w/ kissing him? The more she thought about if she’d have done it, the more she saw herself doing it.

He was so close to her, it should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn’t, it really wasn’t.

Are you sure about this? Yami asked Yugi.            

What are you afraid of?

They were slowly traveling over to where Tea had vanished off to. Yugi and Yami at this point had figured that, being gone for as long as she was, Tea had gone off to Seto. But they were OK w/ this. Yami just wanted to get the facts known and get the facts out there. What was Yami so nervous over? It’s not like Seto had any romantic interest in Tea…

Yami froze, and from a distance watched the lip-locked couple numbly. Yugi was in shock as well.

… that’s… interesting…”

I know there are about 35 more pages to the story, but it’s at this point when it begins to fizzle out. It’s more that it takes that many pages for the story’s thrust to finally die.

I wrote this story during a dark place in my life and it became a kind of oasis for me. I felt alone and full of anger and self-loathing, but when I was writing, those feelings dimmed and it was like I could breathe for a moment.

I’m sorry to anybody whose time I wasted with this nonsense, but this was once something very meaningful to me. That’s all.

[bbhl-incporated]

what happened in 2014? what was that post about?? (Btw I only now just noticed ur url is "goth"chanbaek not "got"chanbaek...)

L O L don’t worry about the url… I haven’t changed it since summer 2016 (when Monster came out and my mutuals made “goth” urls falsdk;jfaldsf)

So 2014 basically got hit by a huge shitstorm. The Sewol Ferry sinking of course was a national tragedy and left many idols devastated; some kids on the ship were very much fans of different idol groups and relatives / friends reached out to the idols to tell them so. I cried during the whole fiasco and I wasn’t even in the country …. the debacle just made my heart ache.

Related to the actual kpop industry itself, Kris did leave EXO in May of 2014 and opened the flood gates for the biggest SM scandal since the breakup of DB5K into 2VXQ and JYJ. (DBSK had the largest fandom to date, called Cassiopeia, and it had fans in China, Korea, Japan…. they were especially known for how big they were in Japan. Breakout and steady success in what was considered Asia’s largest music market, by foreign and non-American artists was absolutely amazing. For the record, it has names specific to each language: Tong Vfan Xien Qi = TVXQ, the Mandarin name; DBSK = Dong Bang Shing Ki, Korean name; and Tohoshinki is the Japanese name. They technically debuted as a Japanese act and not a Korean act releasing things in Japanese which adds some nuance important for considering record breaking and setting, money, etc which are not important for our purposes here.) Kris’s sudden departure opened wounds older kpop fans had considered closed since the breakup of Kpop’s largest act (BigBang wasn’t shit in comparison for quite some time and even LeeSooMan apparently considered SJ throwaways from DBSK) and cast yet another huge, negative, ugly spotlight on the abuses of SM Entertainment in the past. The sticky part is how people started to analyze why this departure was not so sudden, and I will return to that in a bit.

This departure itself was ugly because Kris left in the middle of Overdose promotions and a few weeks before EXO’s first tour would commence. For context, Overdose came as a follow up to EXO’s smashing 2013 success with Growl Repackage and Miracles in December. They became the first artists to become million-album sellers in years with Growl and they won Album of the Year at the Mnet Asian Music Awards, when G Dragon had won pretty much every thing else that night (lmao) and SHINee was also up for the award. So they, a rookie group less than 2 years old, managed to win that award despite the STIFF sunbae competition on top of becoming million sellers… All eyes were on them no doubt and the public and fans were looking forward to their next promotions and their first concert tour… … SO you can imagine the laser focus this drew to the group and to the company. I will tell you right now: Not. A. Pleasant. Experience. The fandom was l i t e r a l l y imploding and people were taking pro-Kris and anti-Kris stances everywhere and calling him a traitor and calling fans fake and — and there was the part where only Suho was on stage to receive EXO’s award right after the news came out and my soul broke in half and the days you could tell EXO had been crying before coming onstage and and and – THERE WAS JUST SO MUCH SAD AND ANGRY IN THE FANDOM I hated it.

There are many bloggers who were around, who I followed during that time who aren’t around anymore. T_T

If I tell and explain everything wrong that happened in 2014 I could be here quite a while, so I’ll keep it short and jump to Baek’s instagram post. He made that post (xx) and one or two others I think, in response to the vicious and heinous reactions he and Taeyeon received after Dispatch revealed they were dating. Yes, this happened even in the aftermath of Kris’ departure. Yes, this only made things worse. Why? Well to add fuel to the fire, Baek had made a sort of cheeky promise that he wouldn’t date until EXO had made it, weren’t rookies anymore… basically he “promised” not to date until around 5 years after EXO debuted. That would be this year… so you know …. those deluded fans who took him seriously flipped out. Add on to that the fact that Taeyeon is many years his sunbae in terms of activity in the industry and the leader of the Nation’s Girl Group ™ and both jealousy of her and resentment of the fact he was in a relationship caused fans to make vicious posts and comments on Instagram–BOTH of their Instagrams, though his was far worse–and many other social media sites and forums. (Twitter comes to mind too.) THEN to top it all off, Baek was an MC on a music show (Inkigayo maybe?) and YOU COULD SEE HE HAD BEEN STRESSED, SLEEP DEPRIVED AND CRYING on many days and so-called “””fans””” had the nerve to shout and call him a traitor–among other things–ON LIVE BROADCAST like h o l y  s h i t this was bad. Baek should not have had to ~apologize~ for dating Taeyeon, as he did in the post.

Okay now winding back to what I mentioned earlier: rumor theories. Theories about every damn thing started floating around. There was a big theory about how Kris had wanted out of EXO since before Wolf (Wolf preceded Growl, but both were in 2013) and that Kris fabricated his visa issue. I have that on my blog and can hunt it down for you if you want to read the full body of “Evidence ™” but it’s actually plausible. Another theory was that Taeyeon and Baek were not actually dating–and this has many strains. One strain indicates that the entire relationship was fabricated as a distraction from the Kris departure and lawsuit , while the other states that they did date at one time but broke up way before any of the drama started–SM just used them since they had been together before as an easy cover up. These kinds of theories did not help a damn thing and just seeded further distrust and resentment within fandoms. Like seriously you had SONEs and EXOL screeching at other over this relationship, and even though they were not majority or mainstream fandom members / opinions, they still became pretty vocal. Many bad egg EXOL attacked both Baek and Taeyeon, and fewer SONEs attacked one or both. The theories that surrounded their relationship, including that they gave “hints” with couple items and that Taeyeon gave Baek a fan gift just . It was so ugly. Kpop fans showed their ugliest side. There were venomous comments for weeks. Baek and Tae even left Instagram for a while and Baek stopped being energetic and talkative when with EXO. I hated it so. fucking . much.

Let me tell you. Within SM? It only gets worse. Outside of SM? It gets much worse.

Within SM… Luhan also leaves EXO in October of that year. That’s TWO members, both Chinese, leaving the SAME up-and-coming and ~spectacular~ group, in the SAME year. Boy did that get media attention. Oh, and SM’s stocks took a much bigger dip after Luhan left than when Kris left. Oh, and Luhan’s deteriorating condition was much more visible than Kris’s and just stoked the flames of hatred against SM all over again.  Oh, and Luhan was EXO’s biggest China connection and most popular member in China … hence the stock drop. A few months later, Luhan was making literally millions on his own, which reinforced the premise that the dude was worth wayyyy too valuable for SM to give up willingly. Which of course they didn’t , which is why the main lawsuit lasted for about 2 years. But yeah now the forever-12 group with 4 Chinese members was down to 10 and only 2 Chinese members (bad for connecting to the Chinese music market which is full of $$$$) and media was losing its mind ! So was the fandom! Now the definition of traitor had shifted and you were a traitor and YOU were a traitor and we’re all traitors !!!! 

And JESSICA LEFT SNSD TOO !!! The only way I can characterize everyone’s emotions at the time is: WHAT  T HE F UC K ??? Luhan and Jessica’s respective departures literally happened within two weeks of each other !!! What were we supposed to d o ??? Between all three departures, you felt like you were getting punched in the gut, then the face, then the genitalia, then kicked on the ground. SNSD was forever nine man, nation’s girl group, biggest Kpop girl group ever and suddenly a main vocalist is gone ??? B O Y !

Oh, I forgot to mention how Tao posted on his Instagram very …. resentful things when Kris left . Mmmmm yeah it was bad, not gonna elaborate too hard but … he took it back later in 2015. You probably know that he, too, is now a former EXO member by now.

2014 was good in that you had groups GOT7, Mamamoo, RedVelvet, WINNER, Akdong Musician, Lovelyz, JJCC, etc debut that year. But it was bad due to circumstances surrounding some of  those debuts. 

Notably, Red Velvet was accused of having their debut rushed because SM wanted to cover up the ongoing lawsuit news. Now I know this sounds ridiculous: a dating scandal AND debuting an entire group early just to cover up some bad publicity about an idol leaving your company? Well given how persistent the press was and how bad the lawsuit and allegations made SM look … it’s not that difficult to believe and it most definitely was not hard to gobble up as reliable gossip at the time. At the time, it was considered the norm that SM covers up bad news by Any Means Necessary, and to generate positive publicity. The BaekYeon thing backfired tremendously in that it gave hatred to artists instead of positivity but it sure as hell kept folks’ minds off the lawsuit for a bit. (Also there’s the whole strain of thinking corporations and business control and influence the media, which is something many of us can relate to and why this can appeal so strongly.)

I believe the fact that Yeri joined RV later and was going to be a permanent addition, and the only addition, only helped this theory. After all, apparently she was intended to be with the group from the start, but she was too young when RV debuted. This seems to imply that RV debuted sooner than they were supposed to. ~X files music plays in the background~

WINNER also got shafted pretty hard. They won the big reality idol-elimination show WIN: Who’s Next? hence the title WINNER (formerly Team A) and then YG highkey neglected them because  …well honestly YG wanted the Next Big Bang ™ and WINNER’s ballad style wasn’t going to do that–no matter how much Mino you throw in the song. Plus he demonstrated obvious favoritism to Mino, Bobby and B.I. in general and once WINNER highkey disappeared after they dropped their release (as rookies you are supposed to do follow up promotions the same year and within a decent time frame – EXO did not do this like they were supposed to, again because of Kris visa issue [hey that theory’s looking mighty Fresh again]) it became clear that YG wanted the next group out of the WIN cycle to get the spotlight–that group became iKon (formerly known as Team B). 

Lovelyz had an issue with one of their to-be-debuted members name Jisoo. Jisoo was accused of … well have you heard of the things the boy trainees under Produce 101 are being accused of ? If so, think along those lines. If not: suffice to say it involved manipulation, lesbianism and abuse within the relationship…. bad stuff to be accused of in South Korea lmao so the group was involved in scandal before even debuting! In the end, Jisoo did not debut on account that the allegations were being investigated and taken seriously–in addition to claims that she was ill due to the drama on the internet and within her live as a result of the accusations, and that she needed to recover.

I will end with those three examples of debut issues. Let’s go back to a group that debuted the same year as EXO: B.A.P. 2014 was the year B.A.P sued over “slave contracts” with TS Entertainment. According to the suit, since debuting in 2012, B.A.P had earned over 9 million dollars, yet the company had only given each member $16,000 on top of forcing members to perform to the point of hospitalization and fainting.

ZE:A, which debuted in 2010, also revealed issues with their company (shocking!!! at this point) and the group leader Junyoung (Lee Hoo) took to Twitter  to criticise his managing company’s, Star Empire’s CEO Shin Joo Hak for allegedly mistreating idol groups and their unfair contracts. He also alleged that CEO Shin Joo Hak both abused him and lost the company money. So there were accusations of financial and human capital abuses. He even posted income receipts on Twitter. You can read through (reliable!) translations of the events here: xx.

I want you to imagine hearing about all this shit throughout the year and thinking things are “over” and then just getting whacked whacked whacked whacked all about because you care about all these groups at the same time . J US T . :~)))))) I was fine : ^) everything : ^) was fine : ^) Nothing bad :~) was happening at all :~)

Oh and let’s add to this list, another thing that got negativity and didn’t deserve it: Super Junior’s Sungmin marrying Kim Sa-eun in 2014. ELF (SJ fandom name) were f u r i o u s at him for marrying so suddenly. ELF were trending #SungminOUT on Twitter because they wanted him kicked out of SJ for marrying. I was a pretty big SJ fan at the time so between everything !!! I WAS SCREAMING what the hell was wrong with people ???? Mad about a marriage ! They weren’t even mad at the lady (which doesn’t make it better), but purely the fact that he was getting married and didn’t give … idk some kind of prior notice? I knew he was enlisting soon after, but that wasn’t the source of the anger… anyway, other ELF counter-trended the #SungminOUT thing with a positive tag instead, and sent him lots of love, so it worked out…. but still many ELF were mad at him. If memory serves correctly, it was primarily K-ELF (korean SJ fans) who felt this sort of entitlement to him that led to the anger and it was …. yikes.

What else is there to say about that year? Of course people re-examined previous abuses by companies, including SM Entertainment’s maltreatment of DBSK, Hangeng of SJ (SJ’s former Chinese member who sued, won, and left the  group and the company due to mistreatment), disbandment of H.O.T., Shinhwa’s departure from SM, etc etc etc so you had layers of SM stan pain. SHINee and f(x) became known as SM’s only groups to not lose a member or disband … and then f(x) lost Sulli in 2015 … :| 

This is the most I remember or came to light when I looked up different issues I had thought of. If anyone wants to add to this list of catastrophe then please, go ahead. .-. I’m not even proofreading or else I’ll just get emotional for the umpteenth time. Hope this answers your (and 3 other folks’) question well!