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cinnaminsvga · 4 years

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A Boy Like You | Yoongi

→ summary: for whenever you are feeling low, always remember that there is a boy you know who would lift the sky for you.

{or alternatively: Min Yoongi loves you, though he never says it. He’s always been a firm believer in that actions speak louder than any words ever could.}

→ genre: coworker!au, f2l, fluff → warnings: an overabundance of shy!yoongi to the point where you’ll want to squish his cheeks; kinda ooc but it is what it is → words: 11.5K → a/n: whaddup kids it’s ya girl... back from the dead after months of not writing shit, and what’s this owo... it’s a fluff fic?? miracles do happen... anyway i wrote this bc i just thot “man, wouldn’t it be super epic if i wrote a super self-indulgent fic where yoongi fulfills every single one of my deepest desires?” well... here is THIS!! pls feel free to scream into a pillow bc i certainly did!! enjoy!!

There is a boy you know who likes to show his kindness quietly. It would go something like this:

The air is thick with static; your hair stands up on end: a warning. The scent of raindrops hitting hot pavement graces your nostrils as a waterfall drops from the sky. You see the sea of heads begin to disappear under a canopy of multi-colored umbrellas. You, the lone ranger, rush back into the building from whence you came, dragging puddles and annoyance with you.

You should have anticipated it, should have thought to check the weather app before scrolling through dull social media posts when you left your house that morning. Instead, your fingers are left cold and umbrella-less.

You tilt your head upwards, watching as gallon upon gallon fell from the sky in an endless cycle. The watch on your wrist reads 5 PM, but the sky says it is 9 PM. The dark, swirling mass of clouds above you will continue on its thunderous parade, pausing for no one, especially not for you.

Your work bag is practically weightless, devoid of anything that might protect you from the onslaught of rain. The only thing inside is a small wallet that holds nothing more than dust and a loose promise of a paycheck. There is no way you can call a taxi like this, and the nearest bus stop is at least two blocks away. You are starting to think that your childhood dreams of becoming a mermaid hadn’t been so ridiculous after all.

Then comes the hand of God. It touches your shoulder gently, hesitantly. You turn around to face a stranger, a boy with shaggy black hair and pale moonlight skin. It is not God, but he comes close.

In his other hand is your salvation wrapped in Kumamon print nylon. It is proffered to you with a silent nod, his gaze fixed somewhere behind you as he waits for you to take it. The tips of his ears begin to redden the longer it takes for you to respond. Eventually, your brain connects with your muscles as you robotically pluck the umbrella from his grasp, a stuttered “thanks” leaving your lips.

He nods stiffly once more, removing his palm from your shoulder as though he had been burned. He shuffles for a moment, mouth opening and closing as he struggles to find the words to say. You wait, patience never waning for the strange boy that you have come to know as your salvation.

He doesn’t find the words after all. You aren’t too offended by his silence, but he appears to be mortified. And so, he leaves just as quickly as he had appeared, like a whirlwind dressed in an oversized blazer flapping behind him like wings. He runs through the rain without another thought, an arm raised above his head in a futile attempt to avoid getting wet.

You try calling out to him, wanting to thank him once more and maybe to ask how you can return his umbrella, but he is long gone. A speck of black dashing through the gray.

You clutch the umbrella closer to you, a feeling of something new growing inside of you. It is too small to call anything, but it is warm.

x x x x x

Umbrella boy has a name, and he happens to work on the same floor as you. You know this because he is standing right in front of you in all his bespectacled glory.

He ducks out of view the moment your eyes meet his. There is a stack of folders in his arms, and he bows his head until his nose touches manila. It’s too late––he knows you caught him staring. He scurries behind walls of filing cabinets and desk cubicles, desperate to get back to his desk where he hopes you’ll never find him.

The office floor is large, but it is not large enough to hide in. It takes only a few minutes until you find him hunched over his desk, every inch of space taken by enough towers of paper to cover a forest. It is no wonder that you never encountered your mysterious umbrella boy; he does a wonderful job of blending in.

Your eyes trail his form, not out of any perverse intent, but just out of curiosity. You never would have guessed from his unassuming and meek nature, but the boy is devastatingly beautiful. The devil is in the details: you admire the soft slope of his nose to the adorable pout of his lips. His eyelids are charmingly mismatched and his cheeks are begging to be pinched. It takes a year’s worth of self-restraint to keep your hands at your sides, if only so you don’t scare him away before you can even introduce yourself.

(You can already imagine your HR department contacting you about nonconsensual manhandling… You admit that you tend to get overzealous with your affection, especially when confronted with cute things. This boy would definitely need to watch out for you if he knows what’s best for him.)

((Also note to self: Stop having these psychopathic conversations with yourself. Being stuck inside the cage which is your brain is torture enough, so let’s not encourage it to get worse.))

There is a lanyard laced around his neck, the gaudy orange color of your company’s logo emblazoned across the thin material. And just out of your line of sight, you catch a glimpse of his ID. His name is––

“Y-Y/N?” He stutters out–no–he squeaks. Ah, so he’s noticed you. The folder in his hand slips out of his grasp, an avalanche of white tumbling all over his lap. He curses loudly, frantically sweeping away the mess under his desk, as if he could somehow magically make them disappear if he just kicked them hard enough. Unfortunately, the papers stay stubbornly tangible, and he is left with a halo of accounting reports around his workspace as a result.

“Are you… umm…” You hesitate with your words, fearing that any sudden movement on your part might cause umbrella boy to combust on the spot. “Do you need help… picking those up?”

“I–Well, no–Yes, but–” His sentences are stilted, his brain struggling to catch up with his tongue. He clamps his mouth shut, then shakes his head like he’s trying to reboot himself. Finally, after a few more deep breaths, he goes, “No. I’m fine. Thank you for offering.” He says that, but he appears awfully content with staring holes into the keyboard of his laptop when he is speaking to you though.

“Still… I’m terribly sorry for startling you,” you say, lips tugging downwards into a frown. You should have guessed he was skittish from how he had acted yesterday, but it’s quite a surprise to see one man so… disastrous, for lack of a better term. It’s awfully cute. “I just wanted to properly introduce myself and thank you for lending me your umbrella yesterday, but it seems like you already knew who I was.”

His face does a weird thing then and there. It almost appears like he was caught in a time loop, like someone was manually reversing and replaying his facial expressions like a video. It takes a few minutes for his little stroke to settle down, but even then, his cheeks remain a rosy pink. “I–I just… remembered your name during the company retreat the other month. I’m not weird or anything, I swear!”

“Well luckily, I was never going to accuse you of being weird anyway!” You laugh, trying to ease the perpetual look of anxiety on his face. However, it only seems to worsen his nerves with how quickly his skin starts to redden. “In fact, I should be apologizing for not remembering your name, Mister..?”

“Min Yoongi,” he replies, pausing for a second too long. He must have realized his delay because he coughs awkwardly into his forearm, averting his gaze away from you in a futile attempt to become nothing more than an abstract thought.

He must be equipped with some sort of superpower, because you’re starting to feel his secondhand embarrassment flood through you like a tsunami. Are you that difficult to converse with? Does he want to be left alone so badly that he’s trying to subtlely tell you to fuck off?

You’re about to start apologizing and scurry off back to your desk in barely concealed mortification when Yoongi clears his throat, his gaze fixed somewhere to your right. Whatever caught his attention must have been revolutionary with how large his eyes are, although last you remember is that the wall behind you is the same dull jailcell gray that you have come to know and hate.

“I just… I’m sorry if I’m acting odd right now. I just wasn’t expecting you to come to my cubicle and I would’ve… I don’t know, tidied up? If I knew you were coming,” he mutters, propping his glasses back up when they start sliding down his nose. They make their slow descent back down immediately after, forever on an endless cycle of up and down his face.

“You don’t have to clean up just for me! I’m not your manager or anything,” you say, surveying the absolute disaster zone that is his workspace. For his benefit, you sure hope that he has a map of his desk and filing cabinets, as it would have been a miracle otherwise if he memorized where anything was located in his personal office sty. “Though, it would be nice if you could see the bottom of your desk every once in a while.”

To your immense surprise, Yoongi lets out a resounding laugh at your quip. Though Yoongi isn’t a mute by any means, it isn’t like he spoke with much volume either. You hadn’t even thought your joke was funny enough to deserve a strained Caucasian™️ smile, so you appreciate that he had considered that you were even slightly funny. You love the pleasant tinkling of his laughter, so genuinely joyous that you can’t help but want to make a fool of yourself just so you can hear it again and again.

When Yoongi stops, the familiar reddish hue that has made a home on his cheeks resurfaces, though it’s less from embarrassment now. His shoulders are more relaxed, and he doesn’t look like he wants to crawl out of his skin as much. He still has eyes averted away from you, however. “Sorry. I don’t know why I laughed too hard at that. I’m normally not this weird… I think it’s just the nerves.”

You cock your head to the side. “Nerves? From what?”

Yoongi freezes, mouth gaping open slightly. “I, umm…” He coughs into his white button-up sleeve, pupils shaking as he formulates a response. “Just from… work. Yeah, I just have a lot of paperwork to do this week and I’ve been, er, having difficulty relaxing.”

Yoongi visibly breathes a sigh of relief when you accept his flimsy excuse, not really lingering on the validity of his statement. “Oh, sure! Don’t overwork yourself too much, okay?” you say, smiling sweetly back at him. He stares, wide-eyed, not really sure how to go on with his life after he’d been blasted by the full force of your grin.

God, you hope you remembered to use a toothpick during lunch. Was there spinach in your teeth? Oh fuck.

“Gah,” he intones, his brain not fully cooperating with his mouth just yet. If you were any more socially inept, you’d probably be doing the same. Eventually, he clears his throat and tries again. “Uh. Yes. I’ll try to do better next time.”

Feeling like you’ve overstayed your visit, you decide that it might be best for you to leave him be before either of you do or say anything more awkward and stupid. Before you turn to leave however, you decide to extend your hand forward, hoping to erase all the previous awkwardness between the both of you and hopefully start afresh. Even though you’ve only just met, you can’t help but feel drawn to him, wanting to see him again and somehow gain his friendship. “Hey, no sweat. It was really nice meeting you, Yoongi-ssi.”

“Just Yoongi is fine,” he says, almost like an afterthought. He’s so busy staring at your proffered hand that you are afraid that you might have offended him unknowingly or something. Does he think you don’t wash your hands? Given by the fact that your office’s manager refuses to restock the soap dispensers at the washrooms, that isn’t that much of a stretch. Or maybe he was weirded out by your random handshake? Have handshakes become antiquated these days? Are the kids no longer doing it? Are you supposed to do those awful brohugs like the fresh-out-of-college interns do in the breakroom? Oh God, does Yoongi think you’re old?!

While you were in the midst of your mental breakdown, you soon begin to realize why Yoongi had contemplated returning your handshake for so long. Instead of taking your hand immediately, Yoongi rubs his own two palms together first, much like how one would when warming their hands in front of a fire. He takes care to blow on them slightly before grasping your hand firmly in his, finally bestowing you with your much awaited handshake.

“Umm..?” You stare at your intertwined hands, a little confused about the previous series of events that just happened five seconds ago. Yoongi, in all his adorable and flustered glory, releases your hand much too quickly like he’s been shocked, most likely realizing (belatedly) that what he had done might not be as clear to an observer as it is to himself.

“Oh, I – I’m so sorry about that, again.” Yoongi stutters, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. “It’s just – my hands are really cold so I was trying to warm them up before I held your hands. I’m – I only just realized how odd that must have looked. Sorry.”

A rush of endearment and warmth surges through you as you behold this high strung boy, your heart flooded with a mix of emotions that make you feel gooey and blissful in one perfect package. No, this boy is the perfect package, all soft edges and blushy cheeks. It’s going to take a mountain and a room of vengeful deities to stop you from walking past his desk to catch a glimpse of him at this rate.

Oh God, you’re whipped already and it’s only been a few minutes since you said hello. He warmed his hand for you for heaven’s sake! Surely your enthusiasm can be excused in this one instance.

“That’s, uhh…” Now it seems that it is your turn to be at a loss of words, your throat clogged with a clump of newly discovered feelings that you don’t have enough time to sort through at the moment. The hamster running circles inside your brain has long since ground to a halt, and if Yoongi is going to keep staring at you with those charming cat eyes for any longer, you aren’t sure you’ll be able to convince the little vermin inside your skull to puppet your body again. “That’s… really sweet. Thank you.”

Thank you? Really, Y/N?

“It’s, uh, no problem. Really.” And with that, Yoongi presents to you his most deadly smile to date: blinding whites coupled his prominent pink gums, with his cheeks stretched like proofed dough that make his dark eyes disappear. Is there a pencil wedged inside your chest cavity, or were you just spontaneously having a heart attack? It’s hard to say; all you know is that your organs have turned to slush, and you make a mental note to send the imminent hospital bill to a certain Min Yoongi.

Cause of hemorrhage: being too fucking cute.

With your daily dose of embarrassment fulfilled, you turn to leave with short stilted steps, as if you have to force yourself away from him like those stubborn souvenir shop magnets that never come off the fridge. “I guess I’ll see you around?” you say more like a question, unsure if he’ll even want to ever see you after that disaster of an interaction. Kim Namjoon from Accounting would be entirely too delighted if he ever found out that he wasn’t the most awkward human being in the office.

“Sure? I’ll just be here. As always,” Yoongi replies kindly, same gummy grin on his face, albeit a little more hesitant. “It was nice speaking to you, Y/N.”

When he returns his attention to his workspace, it serves as a signal to you that you really should be going. Before you leave, you take note of the subtle red tint of his ears that reaches the back of his neck, the gentle tremor of his hands as he reorganizes the files that he had previously dropped. It makes you feel odd for relishing in the fact that you hadn’t been the only one feeling the tension between the two of you, though that doesn’t help lessen the confusion that soon follows anyway.

Why are you so drawn to him? You have never felt so strongly for someone this quickly, and frankly it sort of frightened you. You’re too afraid to confront that blossoming curiosity inside of you. No, it’s much too soon for that. For now, however…

“Oh shit. I totally forgot to give him back his umbrella,” you curse yourself once you return to your desk. The smiling face of Kumamon looks at you knowingly, as if this had been planned all along.

Well. Now you have an excuse to see him again tomorrow, at least.

x x x x x

There is a boy you know who likes to show his tenderness quietly. It would go something like this:

Company dinners shouldn’t feel like as much as a punishment as it does, but that’s just how social gatherings with semi-professional coworkers are like. No one here really wants to be there, but the carefully worded e-mail sent to the entire company clearly suggests that this was more of a “go to the party or risk getting fired” type of deal than anything remotely enjoyable. As much as free food and booze are often harbingers of a good time, it hardly makes any difference when your inebriated boss spends the entire time chatting you up in front of the presence of a dozen or so indifferent associates.

“Oh, Y/N! Good job securing that deal with Mister Park the other day. It’s all thanks to my valuable tutelage, is it not?” your manager guffaws, slapping your back with misplaced camaraderie. He leaves his warm, sweaty palm there, feeling it slide an inch lower than you were comfortable with anyone being. The smell of cheap wine on his breath is making you feel nauseous, and the tacky black and white tiled flooring isn’t doing anything to lessen the incoming migraine.

“Right,” you say with a tight-lipped smile, unable to say anything else lest you lose your job over something silly like establishing boundaries. It’s no wonder that the number of female employees on your floor has significantly dropped over the years, especially with rumors attaching themselves like maggots all over your stupid manager’s name. You wouldn’t be surprised if his stomach exploded ala Alien (1979) style with how much bullshit resides in his body and soul.

You’ve long since given up on anyone saving you, not when everyone was either too busy taking advantage of the free food or too scared to confront your shitty boss. You resign to your fate, ready to scrub yourself clean with a brick once you get home in a futile attempt to rid yourself of the feeling of his hands on you.

That is, until someone clears their throat from behind you.

Salvation comes to you wrapped in a crisp white button-up, thick-rimmed glasses, and cat-like eyes. You almost want to start breaking into Gregorian chant just then to fully express your gratitude to the deities of above for sending an angel in your time of tribulation.

“Excuse me,” the (welcome) intruder says, voice quiet but clear even amidst the cacophonous music and chatter. Min Yoongi steps forward until he is to your right, and you don’t miss the way his shoulder “accidentally” bumps your manager hard enough for him to drop his hand from your back. When Yoongi smiles at your manager, it is all teeth and no mirth, his eyes carefully blank.

Thankfully, your manager isn’t quite as fortunate in his brains department as he is in his stomach. “Oh, Yoongi! It is so nice to finally see you attend one of our social functions. You are enjoying yourself, I hope?” your manager asks, guffawing loudly despite no joke being said. You never did quite understand how some men think they are the most hilarious thing to ever exist since clowns, though you suppose your manager was only missing the red nose to complete the look.

“Thrilled, Mister Lee. Absolutely thrilled,” Yoongi says in a dead monotone voice. You can’t help but giggle at his sarcasm, and Yoongi points a wicked grin back at you before returning to his neutral and passive “work” face.

The sarcasm flies over your managers head like you expected, though you can hardly blame the alcohol for his lack of cognizance. You wouldn’t be half surprised if you knocked lightly on his head, only to hear a resounding echo following thereafter.

“I have never seen you at any of our parties before, Yoongi. What’s with the sudden change of heart?” your manager asks.

“Sir, I’ve attended every single social gathering since I was hired,” Yoongi says plainly, his composure never faltering. He must have better control than you, because you’re sure you would’ve barely held yourself back from smacking your manager had it been you. Though in fairness, you aren’t sure if you’ve ever noticed Yoongi at any of the other parties before this one either.

“Oh really? Well then, you mustn’t have said hello before then!” your manager laughs, patting Yoongi on the shoulder. “Always so enigmatic, our dear Yoongi! Well, keep up the good work.” When your manager turns his attention to speak to another one of your poor coworkers, Yoongi visibly gags from behind your manager’s back, grimacing as he pats away all traces of that foul man’s hand germs away from his dress shirt.

“Gross. Now my sleeve is damp,” he mutters, just audible enough so that only you could hear. You laugh out loud at that, nodding in understanding.

“Same here. There’s probably a gross sweaty handprint on my back now,” you say, wincing when you do feel a noticeable damp spot near the small of your back. “Ugh, what a pig.”

“Tell me about it,” Yoongi shakes his head, making a move to get away from your awful manager. He gestures for you to follow him, and you are more than happy to oblige.

“Thanks for saving me, by the way,” you add, keeping in step with him. He leads you out of the disorienting ballroom, though he doesn’t head towards the exit like you had expected. He appears to know the building much more than you do, given by how assuredly he walks. Either that, or he could be leading you to a deadend, but confidently.

“No problem. You honestly looked like you were about to punt him across the room, though I doubt anyone would be opposed to that magnificent spectacle,” Yoongi jokes, same mischievous grin from before decorating his face. He is so different from the taciturn man you had met two weeks ago, back when he had half-hidden behind his desk like an animal being cornered. Though, that might not be the best analogy to think of, as it only painted you as some sort of predator who came after meek and soft-looking men. Which you aren’t. Hopefully.

“Oh, I would’ve done more than just that, so really he should be thanking you for saving him,” you snort, and Yoongi chuckles lightly in response. Like before, his laughter is just as pleasant as you remember. Your greedy heart yearns to elicit the same sound from him once more, for as many times as you can muster before the night ends.

You had been so immersed in trying to keep up with his quick strides that you don’t notice where exactly he has taken you. The two of you haven’t gone too far away from the ballroom before he stops right in front of a metal double door, the neon green exit sign about it glowing conspicuously in the otherwise dimly lit corridor. He pushes it open, allowing the cool evening air to blow across you and your hand-me-down dress.

“Are we… at the balcony?” you ask, though the view that greets you is answer enough. How Yoongi could have known where the balcony is, you can’t say for certain. But any sort of question dies on your lips when you see how beautiful the skyline is: the stars and city lights twinkling indiscriminately, the sound of nightlife and traffic sounding loud despite the streets being so far away, the smell of ozone signalling an oncoming storm.

This, of course, is what you imagine the view to be like. You know, if the ever reliable Seoul smog wasn’t there to obstruct any sort of magical, romantic view that you should have been privy to.

“Oh damn. I forgot the smog forecast today was especially bad,” Yoongi groans from beside you, quickly shuffling through his pant pockets for a face mask. He procurs two black masks, still in their plastic packaging, and hands one of them to you. “Jesus. Sorry about this. Didn’t expect the smog to be so bad… We can just go back inside, if you want?”

Then, you are reminded of your manager, who is basically pollution incarnate with how terrible his breath is. So, you accept Yoongi’s proffered mask and promptly put it on. “Yeah, no thanks,” you say, voice muffled slightly by the fabric. The implication of your acceptance makes Yoongi grin cheekily back at you (or so you think, guessing by how his eyes crinkle cutely above his mask.)

Now properly equipped to not inhale disgusting air matter into your lungs, you step out farther across the balcony, enjoying the way the cool night breeze feels against your alcohol flushed face. (Though, if you were being honest, the heat on your cheeks has less to do with the meager flute of champagne you had earlier and more to do with the company you currently find yourself with.)

“I fucking hate these company dinners,” you whine a little bit too petulantly, complete with the jutted lip of a child who has been forced to wait as her mother engages in an eternity long conversation with an acquaintance. You lean against the railings near the edge of the building, watching idly as Yoongi does the same. “Don’t you think that if they wanted us to get ‘closer’ with one another, they’d first want to address the fact that some of our coworkers happen to be pigs dressed in white collared shirts?”

Yoongi snorts at that, his right hand immediately coming up to his mouth to silence the unflattering sound. Not that it wasn’t completely charming to you, but you do enjoy the slight abashment that blooms across his face shortly thereafter. “Sorry, didn’t mean to laugh like that. But, I do agree with you… I can’t say that anyone in our department is especially fond of that Habsburg motherfucker.”

Maybe it was the little bit of alcohol in your system, or perhaps it was the sudden rush of realizing that Yoongi is strangely attractive when he swears, but the laugh that exits your mouth sounds a touch too crazed for your liking. Either that, or perhaps you’re finally dying from the pollution.

Luckily for the both of you, it seems that Yoongi likes your weird laugh just as much as you like his. He tries to hide a smile before continuing, “Like, come on! I’m sorry for saying that because attacks on physical appearance is always a low blow, but why the fuck does that dude look like he’s been compressed and flattened on Photoshop? He’s got perpetual flat-face syndrome. You could - you could land a damn plane on his face or some shit.”

The cork inside of your bursts, and you let out the most ungodly guffaw in your life. You don’t even have the time to be embarrassed by how loud your howls are, not when every word he says hits the mark a little bit too close to home. There’s nothing quite as pleasing than sharing mutual dislike for the same person, and it fills you with the utmost glee that Yoongi is no exception to that rule.

“Oh god… You’re right. You are absolutely right. I seriously can’t believe anyone can put up with him. I mean, the damned bastard couldn’t even remember my name until two weeks ago,” you say, shaking your head in disgust. The first few times he had forgotten, you had been gracious enough to laugh away his mistakes as little more than that: mistakes. But when five years pass and peanuts-for-a-brain still hasn’t deemed that remembering your name to be as important as when the “next big Game™” is, then it’s easy to understand the depth of your resentment towards your manager.

“Are you for real?” Yoongi asks, brows raised in shock. “How could anyone ever forget you – I mean, shit, uh,” Yoongi coughs suddenly, red-faced. You tilt your head in confusion, waiting for him to finish. He’s still kind of spluttering when he continues, “What I meant to say is… H-how could anyone forget their employees name after working here for so long?”

You shrug your shoulders. “I have no idea. Honestly, I think he’s trying to purposefully forget everything I tell him. One time, he had asked me what plans I had for Christmas, and I mentioned to him how I was going to be visiting my parents back home, and he has the gall to ask what country I’m from. Like???” Your face contorts as if you had eaten an entire lemon, so wracked with disbelief that Yoongi can see the hypothetical question marks floating above your head. “Bitch, do I look foreign to that bastard? I’ve lived here all my life!”

Yoongi hums, thoughtful. “Your parents live just an hour away from here, right?”

“I… Yeah, they do,” you reply. You eye Yoongi curiously, watching his all-too familiar flush resurfacing on his neck once more. “Wait… How do you know that?”

“You… You were talking about them, once. To Seulgi? Yea, you were, um…” Yoongi coughs unassuredly, rubbing the back of his neck. A nervous tick of his, you suppose. “It was a year ago? Something about visiting them during the weekend… Not that I was eavesdropping on purpose! I would never, er, do that…”

You don’t even register his embarrassment as you are mostly shell shocked that he had even remembered that little tidbit from over a year ago. Hell, you didn’t even remember going to your parent’s house until he mentioned it. “No it’s fine, I get it. I’m just surprised that you even bothered to remember that.”

Now it’s his turn to look at you strangely. “Of course I remember. Why wouldn’t I?”

You stare at him in disbelief. Fluttering of wings begin to erupt in your stomach, but you hardly have the peace of mind to fully grasp why you were even feeling so flustered in the first place. It was just that he had said it so… matter-of-fact, like there was no possible way he could’ve forgotten even if he tried. It was kind of disconcerting, but flattering all the same. But more importantly--

“Wait, you’ve been working at the company since last year? How have I never seen you before this month?!”

“Oh,” Yoongi coughs out a laugh, scratching the end of his nose. He turns his gaze away, looking anywhere but you. “I was just, umm… Really quiet? I don’t really talk to anyone unless I need to. I’m more of a listener.”

“Oh my God, now I feel even more terrible for not knowing your name! I must look like an egotistic bitch to you,” you despair lowly, cupping your face into your hands in shame. You feel another pair of cold hands clasp your wrists, and you watch in shock as he pulls your palms away with a determined expression.

“What? Of course not. You are definitely not an egotistic bitch, Y/N. In fact, you’re the complete opposite,” Yoongi whispers, so quiet that you might have imagined it. He grasps your hands tightly, like he’s desperate for you to believe him.

You stammer in embarrassment, staring wide-eyed at Yoongi as you try to regrasp your comprehension skills. It’s especially hard to concentrate with how close Yoongi is to you, the latter unaware of his own proximity. He had stepped closer towards you to hold your hand, and normally you hated it when people touched you without permission, but somehow… This was alright.

(Unbeknownst to you, this will not be the first time that Yoongi becomes your secret little exception. It’s only the first of many.)

“I-I don’t really know what to say?” Your gaze is locked on his firm grip on your hands, the only thing flitting through your mind: damn, this dude’s hands really are fucking freezing!

It takes another few seconds for Yoongi to calm down, and you know when it happens because the realization of what he had said makes itself apparent on his expression. He turns beet red in a second, stepping away from you with his arms flying off of you like those inflatable tube men outside car dealerships.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says, taking two steps away from you. You almost take two steps forward to keep the distance closer, but you have a feeling that he would keep walking away from you until you both inevitably fall off the balcony, so you smartly choose to stay away (even if it pains you to do so). You wait for his breathing to settle, all the while still reeling from his blatant confession just moments ago.

Could you even consider it a confession? Were you being delulu, or is there some sort of connection that you and Yoongi were both feeling?

“Yoongi, it’s fine! Really,” you smile wryly, raising your hands towards him open-faced, much like how you would do when approaching an agitated animal. Like a nervous kitty, you think privately to yourself. “I’m really flattered that you feel so… strongly?”

“I’m… I’m really not like this normally. Honest,” Yoongi says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I… I never… do that. Whatever that was. Umm.”

Because you’re a freak of nature and enjoy exacerbating awkward social interactions, you decide to respond to him like this: “No worries, I’m flattered, honest! But hey, maybe next time you try to give me a compliment, you could look me in the eye?” You know, like an asshole. Who points out people’s social anxieties like that? You bitch!

On cue, Yoongi’s cheeks bloom into cherry blossoms once more. “I––I, I didn’t mean to––uh!” he stammers.

“No, no, I’m sorry for even saying that!” You apologize profusely, bowing so low that he could probably see the top of your spine. “I didn’t mean to tease you like that! I’m sorry! That was seriously out of line!”

What a pair the two of you were… Like two trains crashing into each other at mach speed, continuously and eternally. A constant and ongoing catastrophe!

(The little gremlin living inside your brain is knocking at your empty skull, whispering deviously, “But doesn’t that make the two of you the perfect pair?”)

When he doesn’t respond back immediately, you have to wrack up enough courage to look back at him. You gasp audibly when you do, and you have to forcibly grip the insides of your bicep to keep yourself from squealing in pure anguish.

Because there, right before your very eyes, is a blushing Min Yoongi looking you straight in the eye with his face squished between his hands, as if he’s forcibly keeping his head locked in place. His pupils are noticeably shaking and his brows are furrowed in concentration, but he’s looking at you. Like you asked.

He’s… He’s too…

“Okay, let me try this again.” Yoongi takes a deep breath, steeling himself for what may be the most embarrassing thing he has ever done in his life. “Y… You’re a great person, Y/N. I hope you know that,” he whispers, voice trailing off by the end of his sentence.

He’s dry heaving like he’s just finished a marathon, but he hasn’t taken his eyes off of you. You’re worried if he even remembers how to blink with how intensely he’s staring you down, but you can’t bring yourself to ask him when your heart is quite literally beating out of your chest like a cartoon character from the 80’s.

“I…” You’re at a loss of words. If Min Yoongi can capture you like this with just a look, then think of how much more powerful he would be if he just learned how to use it. You’re slipping into real dangerous waters, and you don’t know if you’re just a frog in boiling water or if this is where you were meant to be all along.

“Yoongi, I didn’t mean for you to… force yourself like that, really…”

The moment breaks, finally, when Yoongi begins to cry.

“Shit!” you both exclaim, but for two different reasons. “Are you okay? Oh my god!” you reach out for him, not even thinking when you cup his cheeks in your hands. He gently pushes you away with one hand, while the other goes to scrub at his tears.

“Yes, I’m fine! A piece of dust got caught in my eye and I was too slow to blink it away,” he explains, still wiping at his cheeks. He pulls his mask down to his chin, pouting cutely at you. “Sorry. I’m not used to looking people in the eye yet. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Oh my god. At this point, you’d be surprised if your heart was located anywhere near your body. You were running purely on autopilot, so enamored by the boy in front of you that you could almost faint. He was entirely too unreal, unbelievably so. Perhaps, if you tried hard enough, you’d be able to find your heart again, and you know the first place where you’d look.

“Give it back,” you mumble, and Yoongi tilts his head at you in confusion.

“Sorry? Did you say something?”

“Nothing,” you reply, reaching over him and snapping his mask back on his face. You laugh as he splutters in surprise, floundering about overdramatically as if the elastic on the mask had done any damage to him at all. “Oh, stop it. You’re just being silly now.”

“Hey, I have delicate skin! You never know,” he jokes, but stops when you give him an unimpressed look.

“Sorry,” he laughs again. “And well, since I keep saying sorry today, and you look like you could use a little warming up, do you wanna leave this place and get some coffee? My treat.”

And really, who were you to say no to that?

And really, who were you to say no to Min Yoongi?

x x x x x

There is a boy you know who likes to show his thoughtfulness quietly. It would go something like this:

A steaming hot coffee cup from the nearby cafe manifests itself on your desk one Monday morning. In your sleep-deprived haze, you had originally failed to realize that there was a hand connected to that cup and that it hadn’t actually just materialized from thin air like you had thought. After much blinking and staring, you crane your head up to see Jesus standing in front of you, his glasses still fogged from the outside chill.

“I got you a drink. I hope I remembered your order right,” Yoongi says in lieu of a greeting, a small smile gracing his lips as he watches you lethargically reach over for the cup to lift the lid open. His grin widens when he sees your eyes light up at the sight of little marshmallows bobbing up and down in your hot chocolate, bits of whipped cream already melting away from the heat. When you take a sip, you breathe a content sigh, your eyelids fluttering shut.

“Yoongi, I’m going to kiss your feet right now and you can’t stop me,” you say, upper lip lined with cream and sugar. Yoongi’s hand twitches by his side, but he doesn’t move.

“Even if I have toe fungus?”

“Especially if you have toe fungus,” you say, downing as much hot chocolate down your throat without choking and barfing all over him.

From the rim of your cup, you can see that Yoongi still has his parka on, his signature black mask pulled down his chin indicating that he’s only just arrived at the office. It makes your heart jump a little, knowing that he went straight to you first before anyone else that day.

“I still don’t understand how you hate coffee. Like, I don’t think I’d be able to be conversing with you right now if I didn’t have caffeine running through my veins,” he says, staring at you(r lips) as you chew a marshmallow thoughtfully.

You want to tell him that Yoongi doesn’t talk a lot anyway in the first place, though you have begun to notice that he’s becoming more talkative the more you hang out with him. However, you aren’t quite sure if you’re imagining it, but it seems like Yoongi’s change in personality doesn’t really apply when he’s with anyone else. On the days where you’d pass by his cubicle on the way to the water coolers, he’d still have his usual stoic expression on his face as he goes through his paperwork with the grace of a robot. When he’s with you, however…

“Says the guy who’s started drinking frappes after I suggested them to you. Don’t lie to me, Min Yoongi.” You’re giggling softly, and you can tell Yoongi’s seams are already breaking. Pink gums and straight teeth are seconds away from peaking through. You wink cheekily at him. “You’re just as sweet as your personality is.”

“Stop, that’s so embarrassing!” he exclaims, hiding behind his hands. He’s already smiling. “I’m not as sweet as you think! I’m a mean guy!”

“Yoongi, you literally just bought me hot chocolate with marshmallows because you remembered what I like. I don’t think there’s a mean bone in your body,” you retort, rolling your eyes at the prominent pout on his face.

“Not true! I stole an extra coupon booklet when I was at the grocery store the other day.”

“Ooooh, I do love a bad boy,” you say, but the two of you are already laughing hysterically. “Seriously, thanks. I really needed this today.”

“Dang, bad morning already?” he winces, having noticed the purple moons under your eyes when he had approached you. He didn’t want to mention it without you bringing it up first, but he had been worried about you since last Friday when you had left the workplace with a slammed door.

“Try bad weekend. Mr. Lee has been pushing my buttons for months now, but I seriously didn’t think he thought it was a challenge. He’s been giving me shitty filing jobs to complete like I’m some overworked intern!”

Yoongi cocks his head, confused. “Aren’t you, like… In the advertising department? Why would he make you file things?”

“Exactly!” You’re all but roaring now, but Yoongi can’t help smirking at the stray dollop of whipped cream that had somehow found its way on your nose. He pulls his sleeve over his wrist, swiping it away with the fabric as nonchalantly as possible (which is to say, he’s as red as a spanked ass when he does it.)

You don’t even notice his actions, still deep in the abyss of your rage. “And also! My shitty phone ran out of storage space the other day so I’ve had to delete all the songs on my library and I can’t find any good playlists on Spotify to help me dissociate on the train!”

“Wow, that’s a mood,” Yoongi says, chuckling. He clears his throat, an idea popping into his head. He turns bashful all of a sudden, gaze diverting upwards as he musters the courage to say, “I-I mean, I think I can help you with that last problem, if you want…”

You stop huffing and puffing long enough to appear intrigued. “Oh? Are you gonna send me a playlist?”

Yoongi splutters. “I mean! If you want it, I do have some songs that I like listening to.”

Yoongi squeaks when you smile at that, radiant and all-encompassing. He wonders how he’s not dead right now.

“Oh god, that would be great actually! Text me the link, would you?” you say, already making grabby hands for his phone. “Here, lemme put my phone number in your phone.”

Yoongi almost drops his phone as he takes it out of his pocket, staring in awe as he watches you type in your number into his phone. He has to keep himself from outright howling when he sees you place a sunflower emoji beside your name. How fitting, he thinks to himself.

When you return the phone back to him, he immediately texts you the link to his playlist. You have to keep yourself from screaming to the heavens when you see the very Yoongi-esque title, “Songs for the Sleepless,” complete with the grainy-noir-film-type playlist art to complete the look. It was just so… personal, so Yoongi, and it’s making you clench organs that you didn’t know were clenchable.

You whistle at the sheer number of songs on the playlist, with the first song being—“Didn’t peg you as a Lana Del Rey fan,” you pipe up, scrolling through his playlist with acute interest. “Kendrick Lamar and Epik High, I understand. But Lana?”

To his credit, the playlist did seem like it had a narrative of sorts, despite the eclectic range of artists and genres. You only recognize maybe ten of the songs from his five hundred song playlist, and you’re very curious to see what type of songs he connects to.

“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it,” he shrugs his shoulders, though a little bit embarrassed. “Lana Del Rey could sing my obituary and I’d jump out of my grave in an instant.”

“Bit morbid but okay,” you laugh, finger ready to close your music player app when you catch sight of a song with an artist you didn’t expect to see. You reach over to tug on his sleeve, your sly smile already causing Yoongi to break out in hives. “Hey… I didn’t know you shared your name with a singer, unless, of course…”

Yoongi doesn’t even let you finish your sentence when he yelps in surprise, snatching your phone out of your grip as his eyes bug out of his sockets. His ears redden, words tumbling out of his mouth like a waterfall as he tries to explain himself despite your raucous giggling.

“I––You weren’t supposed to––I forgot about! That was––I was just––Ugh,” he groans despairingly, smacking himself in the forehead with your phone. You’re still giggling madly, enjoying the spectacle before you as Yoongi’s ears are practically shooting out steam.

“You’re so cute.” It slips out of your mouth with such ease that you almost don’t notice saying it at all; you’re still smiling dreamily at Yoongi as he stares at you in shock, mouth still agape from his earlier rambling. You gasp loudly when your brain cells finally catch up, but by then it’s already too late. Now, the two of you were a matching pair, with your fire engine red ears standing at attention.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said that,” you mutter into your hands. You wish the earth would swallow you whole right now.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you just said that,” Yoongi wails beside you, but you don’t notice the small satisfied smile he’s sporting on his reddened face. “Y-You can’t just say things and not expect me to…”

You look up, wondering why he’d suddenly trailed off at the end. “Expect you to what?”

Yoongi, once again, defies the laws of the universe by somehow turning even redder than humanly possible. “N-nothing. Ignore me. Let’s just admit we’re both embarrassing and carry on, can we?”

“Sure,” you agree, nodding enthusiastically. “But, does that mean I can listen to your songs, Mister Min ‘I’m-a-superstar-singer-in-my-spare-time’ Yoongi?”

“I’m not a superstar! I just record songs in my free time, that’s all,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Says the guy who apparently raps as a hobby! Seriously, I can tell I’m gonna love it already.”

His gaze is turned upwards, cheeks puffed up in embarrassment. He looks like he wants to say something else, however, and you wait for him as he tries to gather the courage to say what else is on his mind. “S-say, I was wondering… Since I’m already here and all, do you want to maybe go out wi—”

“Yo! Hyung!”

A deep voice from across the office floor snaps the two of you out of your little bubble in an instant. It doesn’t take a genius to tell who it is, not when there’s only one person in the entire company who would dare wear a sushi-print tie to work at one of the most lucrative companies in the country.

Kim Namjoon hobbles over to your little cubicle space in all his sushi-print tie glory, knocking over a coworker’s potted plant in the process. Between you and Yoongi, you had been more surprised by Namjoon’s sudden exclamation, mostly because you’d never been particularly close with the eccentric man. Yoongi probably can’t say the same since he had briefly mentioned that he and Namjoon go way back, though you’re starting to have some doubts about that due to the dirty glare Yoongi was currently pointing at the sentient noodles-for-legs.

Namjoon waves cheerily at you before cutting to the chase as he envelops Yoongi in a not-too-gentle hug. “Hyung! I’ve been looking for you. You weren’t at your desk this morning so I was wondering where you’d wandered off, but of course I’d find you here at Y/N’s de––”

Yoongi promptly stomps on Namjoon’s feet, causing the younger to yelp out in pain. “Namjoon. I told you I’d talk to you later.” Yoongi smiles sweetly, but you can see the aura of danger radiating off of him in waves. “Emphasis on later.”

Namjoon pouts petulantly, but he doesn’t look all that offended. “I was just gonna remind you to ask Y/N if she wanted to join us for lunch la––OUCH! WILL YOU STOP STEPPING ON MY FEET!”

Yoongi appears unbothered, not even looking back at Namjoon’s shouts of betrayal. All the while, he still has his gaze trained on you, never wavering for one second.

“Please ignore my colleague. He can a bit… Unnecessarily loud,” Yoongi says, accompanied by Namjoon’s splutters of indignation.

“Umm?? I’m right here?? Your actual best friend?? Geez!” Namjoon huffs, looking at the both of you incredulously. You just shrug your shoulders, completely dumbfounded by the last five minutes of human interaction.

“As Namjoon was saying before we were so rudely interrupted… I was going to ask if you wanted to have lunch with me? Namjoon can join too, but only if he behaves,” Yoongi jokes, smirking at Namjoon’s ireful glares.

You giggle quietly at the unlikely pair, amused beyond belief at this new side of Yoongi that you hadn’t been aware of. So this is how he is with his friends… Cocky Yoongi is definitely someone you wouldn’t mind talking to occasionally, you admit.

“Sure, I’d love to. Just let me finish all this filing crap for Mr. Lee, then I’ll head over to your desk at around 12?” If you work at a breakneck pace, then you could probably finish sooner if you didn’t let anything else distract you. “Oh! And I should probably return your umbrella before you leave. I keep forgetting to give it back to you.”

“No worries,” Yoongi says. “You should keep the umbrella. I’ve got a spare anyway.”

Namjoon’s head whips toward Yoongi at that, staring at him skeptically. “Dude. Ain’t that your favorite Kumamon umbrella though? Didn’t you almost murder me that one time I forgot it at the McDonald’s last mo––WILL YOU STOP STEPPING ON MY FEET! I’M GONNA GET FLATFOOT SYNDROME!”

“Not my problem,” Yoongi replies, pinching Namjoon’s nose for good measure. He turns to you, waving goodbye. “See you in a few?”

You stretch your back, psyching yourself up to get back to work. “Right. I’ll text you when I’m done okay? See you at 12-ish!”

The boys make their leave, bickering all the while. You catch wind of a bit of their conversation as they turn the corner, their voices echoing down the hall.

“Hey, I noticed that you were looking Y/N in the eye when you were speaking. Why don’t you ever look me in the eye when we talk!”

Yoongi snorts, flipping him off. “It’s because you’re not as nice to look at. Simple as that.”

In your seat, you smile secretly to yourself, butterflies erupting in your chest. Filled with newly found fervor, you chip away at the pile of work on your desk until it starts to vanish from view.

Before you know it, you’re off to see Yoongi once more.

x x x x x

There is a boy you know who likes to show his vulnerability quietly. It would go something like this:

x x x x x

There is a boy you know who likes to show his love quietly. It would go something like this:

Your day begins with a phone call: a warning. Your boss tells you to come into work as soon as possible, not a note of enthusiasm or friendliness in his tone. He ends the call just as abruptly as it had come, the silence following soon after deafening your ears. Your heart races marathons in your chest, and your brain goes to the worst place it can go.

Your hands are sweating gallons upon gallons as you shrug your coat on, fumbling with your keys as you struggle to place them in your pocket. For a brief moment, you think about calling Yoongi for moral support, but think better of it. You don’t want to bother anyone, especially not him.

You, the lone ranger, walk out of your apartment and into the murky urban outdoors, the first pitter-patters of rain making their descent the moment your foot meets the pavement. You don’t have quite the energy to go back inside to grab your umbrella, not when you’re unsure if you’ll be courageous enough to leave your bedroom once more if you did.

You’d always been a coward, a soft-hearted fool. Content with shouldering the consequences of your actions without another word: a sufferer in silence. For the past few weeks, you thought you might have changed. You’d been smiling a lot more, laughing a lot more. Your cheeks were often more red than any other color these days, and it was all thanks to a boy you know.

He was shy, but brave. Quiet, but talkative. Mysterious, but vulnerable.

He made you realize that there was no need to settle for one side of a coin, not when you could have both. The longer you stuck around him, the stronger your desire was to become… more.

You wanted to be open; you wanted to be known. You wanted to be able to ask for what you want, and never feel the crushing sense of guilt that usually came afterwards. You wanted to be unapologetic, wanted to keep your hands open, waiting for good things to come your way. To never cower in the face of a gift being handed to you. You wanted to have all that life has to offer––

(Him. Him. Him.)

But there is something pitiful about being unable to keep your own promises. The embarrassment of returning to the state where you once were, of turning meek at the first sign of adversity. The dreams of a happier life drifts away from you like mist under the morning sun, and the pressing weight of the world once again makes its home on your shoulders.

And so, you do not cry when your boss tells you to pack up your things within the hour.

You do not cry when you cut your finger on the corner of your desk that had never been replaced during your five-year stay at this company.

You do not cry when one of your potted plants smash to the floor when you try to carry too many things at once.

You do not cry when co-workers you’d only barely spoken to come over to your desk with showers of condolences, as if you’d already died.

You do not cry when Kim Namjoon walks over to you, quietly bending down to help you carry your boxes down to the lobby.

And when all is said and done, you most especially do not cry when Min Yoongi runs to you with his lungs burning in his chest, glasses still fogged up from the morning cold outside. His hair is in disarray and his shirt is on backwards, as if he’d jumped out of bed the moment he knew something was wrong. When he skids to a halt right in front of you, the pain etched on his face is as plain as day.

Wordlessly, he takes the last box out of your hands, placing his car keys on top when he can’t hold onto them both. His eyes flit towards your clenched fists for a second, but looks away the moment you notice. Instead, he walks out to the elevator, and you follow soon after.

You do not cry when Min Yoongi helps you load his car with your things. You do not cry when he takes a first-aid kit out of his glovebox and puts a band-aid on your finger. You do not cry when he offers to pass by the local home depot to pick up a new plant when he notices yours is gone. You do not cry when he doesn’t treat you like your life has ended.

(But you feel it. Pricking along your eyes like a dam about to break. He is doing this to you. He’s making you feel again, and it fucking hurts.)

And so, he drives you home.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Yoongi starts after a while, tapping a rhythm away on his steering wheel as he waits for the morning rush traffic to subside. He glances at you from the corner of his eye, worried when you don’t respond. You keep your head pressed against the cool car window, staring blankly at the gray skyline.

“I… I hope you don’t mind if I play you something. Just… Just listen to it, okay?”

You don’t see him, but you hear his fingers switch their tapping to his phone as he unlocks it, searching for the song he wants you to hear. It takes a moment or two for him to find it, soft curses tumbling from his lips as he goes through his Google Drive for the unfinished draft that he hadn’t meant to show you until it was complete, but well––

You were always an exception to him, weren’t you?

The first notes come creeping up from behind you, and it reminds you of the way Yoongi would speak to you. All soft whispers and gummy smiles, like he’s restraining himself. Slowly but surely, the music grows louder, more confident with its sound. You can picture Yoongi standing upright, hand outstretched towards you as he asks you to follow him.

The song is unfamiliar, but there’s something about it that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand at attention. You’re trying to go through your memories, sorting through the hundreds of songs that Yoongi has made you listen to but none of them seem to ring a bell. You’re still trying to figure out if you’d heard this before when the lyrics finally start.

“Lost in the sea of my regrets, you became my polaris.”

Yoongi’s voice comes from the radio speaker, jolting you from your seat. Your spine straightens, and you stare bullets at Yoongi’s phone as the song continues to play. When you look towards him, Yoongi’s face is a statue; the only thing giving away the fact that he was with you at all was the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“The shadows, which had been my haven, no longer feel as good as they once did. You, my light, have changed all of that.”

You gasp, and Yoongi’s grip on the steering wheel tightens. It seems like the two of you stop moving at that moment, neither of you daring to breathe. Even the outside traffic sounds muted compared to the sound of your hearts hammering inside your chests.

“I’ve long since forgotten to pray, but I will remember for you. I only dream of happiness for you, my morning light, my northern star. And I’d give it all up for you.”

Yoongi notices your tears fall before you even do; he’s quick to fluster, scrambling through his car side door for a tissue to hand to you, but he stops the moment he feels your hand fist the elbow of his sleeve. He turns to look at you, all blotchy and tear-stained, but beautiful all the same. And even through your tears, you smile just as radiantly as when he had first seen you.

“Thank you,” you mouth, fingers trembling as you fight to keep more tears from falling, but nothing can stop a dam from breaking. Not when you’re sitting beside the hurricane who broke it in the first place; it was the boy with feelings that never did quite fit in his body the way other people’s did.

Luckily, they fit right in with you.

When the song comes to the end, you’re sniffling up a storm, but you still haven’t let go of him. When you’re only a few minutes away from your apartment, Yoongi parks a little bit far off from your doorstep, so you have to walk the rest of the way home. But you’re still unwilling to let go, not yet.

Gently, Yoongi pries your hand away from his sleeve and you’re about to protest, but the words die on your lips the moment they form when Yoongi rubs his hands along the side of his slacks before placing them in yours. His hands are still cold, but comforting all the same.

“Let me walk you home?” he whispers.

You nod. Of course, you want to say. But he knows what you mean, anyway.

When he goes to unpack your things from the trunk, you shake your head, stopping him from moving any further. “I… I don’t feel like sorting through those things right now. Is it fine with you if I just… Go home for now? Please?” Your brain feels like lead in your skull after all the bottled up tears had finally escaped from years of constant pressure, and you don’t think you’re quite ready to go through all those emotions again. You feel deflated, but better. He always makes you feel better.

Yoongi closes the trunk, locking his car before stretching out his hands for you. You stare at the proffered hand for a moment.

“Oh, right.” Yoongi goes to rub his hands to warm them, but you stop him once more in his ministrations. He looks at you, confused, as you grab his hand from him. You rub circles into his palm, staring at the ground in embarrassment.

“You’re always warming your hands for me… So this time, I’ll warm them for you, okay?”

Yoongi doesn’t say anything in response to that. Instead, he tugs you along towards the sidewalk and keeps you close to him. As he walks with you, you notice the way he leans slightly to the left, like he’s drawn to you––like he can’t help be more than an inch further from you.

You keep glancing back down at your linked hands; he’s shaking, but then again, that could also be you.

You arrive at the gate of your apartment quicker than you would have liked. Neither of you move to separate; when you look back at Yoongi, you see that his eyes are trained on you. He doesn’t even flinch away like he used to. His lips are pursed, like he wants to say something but he’s still too afraid to.

So you say it for him instead.

“Do you have… somewhere to be?” Unlike you, he still has a job. He still has commitments. He still has a life outside of you. You’re hit with fear, once again, at the sudden change in your circumstances.

You might never get to see him again. Is this where your paths cross, never to intersect again? Your stomach drops at the thought, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth.

“No, I don’t. I could…” Yoongi trails off, glancing at your apartment with soft hesitance. “If… If you want me to…”

Yes. Please. I’d love it. I love yo–– ”Yes. Stay with me?” you mumble.

“Always,” he promises.

The pair of you trudge up to your apartment, passing by the prying eyes of housewives with your heads bowed in embarrassment. They don’t miss your pinkies linked behind your backs, nor the subtle blushes on the apples of your cheeks. Thankfully, they don’t comment when Yoongi enters your apartment after you, but they do giggle when his coat gets caught on the door handle in his rush.

When the two of you are finally alone, the air isn’t as awkward as you had feared. You work like two cogs in a machine; he readies your TV and scrolls through your Netflix for a movie, while you go to your kitchen and have a small mental breakdown (while also microwaving some popcorn). Soon, the two of you are snuggled into your small couch, elbows barely brushing against each other.

You’re only half paying attention to the generic action movie that Yoongi had put on; you were still deep in your thoughts. You’re picking away at your hangnail, worrying your lip as you try to enjoy what might be the last time you’ll ever get to hang out with Yoongi again. You’re so deep in your musings that you don’t immediately feel when Yoongi wraps his arms around your shoulder, nestling your head into his chest.

“W… What?” You crane your head and stare at Yoongi in shock, but he’s already returned his attention back to the movie. His cheeks are burning.

You’re still stiff with tension despite his comforting caresses against your hair, so he changes tactics and brings your hand up to his.

You think he’s just going to hold your hand, but he keeps bringing your hand up until it gently caresses his face. Just as you’re about to ask him what he’s doing, he curls your fingers until only your pointer is left unfurled, and casually uses it to poke himself in the cheek.

He leaves it there for a second or two, and when you finally turn to face him, he’s smiling so sweetly at you that you almost feel compelled to cry again. His eyes and nose are all scrunched up, rose petal gums on full display. Your finger is still pressed gently into his soft cheeks.

“You said you liked to dream about poking my bread cheeks. Well, here’s your chance,” he says, like it’s nothing at all. As if what he has done was as simple as breathing.

Yoongi’s smile brightens when he feels your form relax against him, giggling softly when you go to pinch his cheek for good measure.

“Bread cheekies,” you say, like you’re in a trance.

Yoongi nods. “Bread cheekies,” he repeats. “And it’s all yours.”

There’s a promise in there, you know. Somehow, he had sensed your worry and had thought of the perfect way to calm you. Like always, he never has to say it. He’s never needed words, anyway.

The two of you stay like that for hours. The sun sets as surely as the moon rises, and Min Yoongi stays with you through the night. When your mind drifts off and only your steady breathing fills the room, Min Yoongi brushes a small kiss against your forehead.

“Dream of happiness, my love,” he whispers into your skin, just when he thinks you’re asleep, “I’ll dream of you, too.”

It’s a promise that he keeps.

There is a boy you know who never learned how to say he loves you, but it never mattered all that much to you––not when he’s willing to show you over and over again. It goes something like this––

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okthatsgreat · 3 years

Note

Pleeease tell me about your roleswap au

YES YES funky-art-cactus ILY. get ready everybody i’m going to start ranting. entering my annoying arc

(here is the art btw!!)

OKAY so first of all adaine abernant who has swapped with fig. this is an adaine who has accepted LONG AGO that she wasn’t the favorite child and she was never going to live up to her parents expectations, so instead of trying or meekly protesting adaine goes into a remarkably rebellious phase where she listens to punk music and swears and smokes!!! there will always be a part of adaine who is insecure about the family she comes from and i do think a part of her arc would come from the realisation that she’s putting on some sort of persona not because she wants to because it’d be the biggest “fuck you” to her parents. and then she starts further questioning if the people around her would like her if she revealed these insecurities.... also, she’d still be a wizard (before her rebellious phase she was a real arcane nerd lol) and everybody keeps making fun of her for it lmfaoo

riz gukgak swaps with fabian!! i imagine that sklonda pushed for riz to use his dexterity and play sports instead of fixating on another mystery and losing tons and tons of sleep lmfao. he's still an inquisitive rogue, and one of the reasons he joined the bloodrush team is because he had a few suspicions about their coach. but this little guy is a BEAST on the field. he runs so fast that he practically IS the ball. they dont call him riz "the ball" gukgak for nothing!!! riz is still socially awkward but definitely tries very very hard to make friends (mainly because he cant stand upsetting his mom), but i imagine that he isn't the most popular on his team due to his inquisitive nature. this version of riz is a lot more desperate to please others and be the popular guy than the original riz is!! id say swap!riz would rather make friends than solve the mystery, which completely reverses the original. much of his arc would be him realising that pushing himself to be somebody he isnt isnt the best thing for him.

kristen applebees swaps with gorgug! this is a kristen who is remarkably insecure, probably concerning her sexuality and her faith, and definitely tends to underestimate herself. shes a cleric from the twilight domain, having grown up in the church of helio but had a religious revelation before freshman year when she started to realise that she was attracted to girls. she's much more timid and shy, and definitely tends to beat herself up a bit regarding how awkward she can be. also, since this is a swap au, i guess that would make her parents........ super supportive and nice?????? like the thistlesprings are??????? maybe they were all supportive of the church but left once they discovered how Off it all was. a lot of her arc would be about self-discovery and growing comfortable in her own skin. also tracker would swap with zelda so they'd meet each other at school :]

fabian swaps with adaine!! this fabian is more than desperate to prove himself in the eyes of both his parents and his peers. his dad already has a pretty horrible reputation, one that fabian recognises and ultimately feels shame about, so he definitely leans more into his mother's heritage than he does his father. this fabian attempts to be classy and prestigious in order to prove to his classmates that he is worthy of being there and that he is NOTHING like his father. he duels with trainers and instructors (as he is still a fighter), but i imagine he has never duelled to the death before, meaning that the first encounter he has with the corn monster is just absolutely horrifying for him lmfaoooo. like adaine, he also suffers from fairly severe anxiety, and the need to not be like his father definitely plays a role in that. i feel like his arc could go either way: either he realises that his father was never as terrible as people said he was or he accepts that he is his own person with unique motivations and aspirations, and therefore he is nothing like his dad.

FIG SWAPS WITH KRISTEN and honestly i think this one excites me the most because it's a tiefling cleric!!!!! a tiefling cleric !!!!!!!!! imagine a fig who grew up in the church of helio, who sings at church every sunday and is the lead vocalist, who was told by priests and her parents all her life that she was the "chosen one", that she was helio's beloved child. and now imagine fig waking up one day, only to see HORNS GROWING ON HER HEAD. how MORTIFYING WOULD THAT BE. this is a fig who has been told her entire life that she was going to corn heaven only to wake up one day and discover that her mom had an affair with a demon!!!!!!!!!! like wtf!!!!!! this version of fig wears a hat over her horns to hide them and is much, much more secretive about her being a tiefling than the original fig is, and spends much of the first half of fantasy high frantically attempting to keep up this holy persona. and then when that crumbles to pieces and people start noticing her horns, it becomes an inner conflict within herself in regards to her faith and her falling out with religion. her arc would concern self-discovery and finally finding out her identity outside of the church, an identity that she has been scared of revealing for so long.

and finally, gorgug thistlespring swaps with riz :] gorgug has grown up with adoptive parents all his life and was basically set to become a barbarian from the get-go. however, one day his babysitter (who most likely is swapped with another maiden, katja maybe???) disappears! and not only that, but her disappearance might be connected to his LOST DAD???? this version of gorgug is so desperate for answers regarding his birth parents and his vanishing babysitter that he basically becomes an impromptu investigator overnight. he's not great at it by any means-- his intelligence is not incredible and his lack of charisma often scares witnesses away-- but he still asks questions as much as he possibly can. he carries a metal flower that his babysitter made with him as potential evidence. if simple questions dont work, then brute force can!!!! the comedic potential is THERE-- just imagine some 6'4", absolute UNIT of a teenager walking up to you and asking if youve seen his lost babysitter. what are you supposed to say, no??? youre gonna tell this kid, who has a metal flower sticking out of his vest, no????????

thank you for asking, and thanks for reading if you did !!! :]

#just figured out how to do the keep reading thing! you learn smth new every day #fantasy high #long post #dimension 20 #adaine abernant #riz gukgak #kristen applebees #fabian seacaster #fig faeth #gorgug thistlespring #funky-art-cactus #swap au!#ask lee

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bruhstories · 3 years

Text

Baby, I’ve Already got Your Heart

Summary: An accidental meeting between Armin and Y/N leads to an unhealthy obsession. Pairing: Armin Arlert x Fem!Reader (modern AU) Warnings: stalking, language, unprotected sex, loss of virginity, fingering, oral sex (male receiving), oral sex (female receiving), switch!Reader, switch!Armin, rope is involved. Word Count: 2.5 k

A/N: This fic is heavily inspired by this song. It is surprisingly wholesome, considering the tags xD

Armin Arlert. The purest man in the world. You accidentally met him one cold, rainy day when he entered your coffee shop for shelter and warmth. He naively talked to you, grateful for how nice you were with him, grateful for the cappuccino on the house, grateful for the towel you offered him to dry himself off. Little did Armin know, a fixation sprouted in your mind and heart, developing into the unhealthiest obsession. He was just so cute — and you just had to have him. It helped to know that you were both going to the same university, and after that, you knew everything about him: his Facebook, Instagram, email address, hell, you even knew his real address. To be fair, it was a piece of cake, the boy was absolutely clueless and whenever he 'accidentally' met you, he thought it was by pure chance. The next and most obvious step was to befriend people in his social circle, one Jean Kirstein, one Sasha Braus and one Connie Springer. Naturally, you did your homework, and you knew his best friends were Eren Jaeger and Mikasa Ackerman, but they weren't easy targets. Besides, it would jeopardise your entire plan, as you found Armin was considered a genius. An oblivious genius. He didn't know it yet, but you loved him and he loved you too, right?

A text from Sasha, months after you first met the angelic man, set your plan in motion. A casual gaming night at Armin's place, and you were invited. How perfect. Poor glutton Sasha had no fucking clue how much you were using her, how you told her you want to meet a cute guy, someone nice and caring, someone smart and attentive. The girl put two and two together and decided she just had to introduce you to one of her friends, especially that he was also interested in meeting a girl like you. Unbelievable — you acted surprised, met up with Sasha and left for Armin's little gaming night. You wouldn't let this opportunity go to waste. Starting from tonight, he'd be yours. Forever.

"Armiiiiiiiiin, I brought a plus one!" Sasha barged into his house. "This is my friend, Y/N. Y/N, Armin! Oh shit, pretzels!" The brown-haired woman left the two of you in the hallway and the blond flashed you a smile.

"I feel like I've seen you before." He mused as he closed the door behind you.

"If you ever drink coffee at Rose's you might've seen me there." You smiled and removed your leather jacket, revealing a Pearl Jam t-shirt.

"No way you listen to them!" Armin blurted.

"Are you kidding me? They're my favourite!" You lied through your teeth with a sickly-sweet smile.

"Mine too! Oh, I know, you're the girl who gave me a free cappuccino months ago!"

"I remember! You were drenched in rainwater." You laughed as the two of you entered the living room. "I had to mop up the puddles you left behind."

"I'm so sorry about that..." He blushed. Your heart fluttered and you couldn't wait to get your hands on him, but for the time being, you needed to behave.

"No worries, I just hope you didn't catch a cold." You assured Armin and sympathetically placed a hand on his shoulder. There he goes, blushing again. It couldn't be... was he a virgin? Fuck. This was better than you could've imagined.

"Who's this?"

"Oh, Mikasa, Eren, this is Y/N. She's friends with Sasha."

"Nice to meet you!" Eren shook your hand. "Oh, God, you listen to Pearl Jam, too? You nerds are going to get along just fine." He joked.

The night went great, and you actually had fun with Armin and his friends, despite not intending to mingle with them too much. People started leaving around 2 am, but Eren and Mikasa stayed longer. Too fucking long — and things were boring now anyway. You and Armin kept talking about video games and books, Mikasa fell asleep on Eren who was playing fucking Farmville on his phone. They had to leave as soon as possible.

"Hey, Y/N, we can take you home." Eren suggested and you froze. Shit.

"Didn't you say you're almost out of gas?" Armin questioned his friend.

"Ah, fuck, you're right. I still don't know how that happened — I fuelled the tank yesterday!" The brunette scoffed. "Guess you're on your own, Y/N."

"It's alright, I'll take an uber." You politely smiled.

"Alright, we'll wait for you."

Oh, for fuck's sake. Truth be told, you appreciated how nice and caring Armin's friends were, but you had a different goal to accomplish.

"You really don't have to, plus I have to use the bathroom." You excused yourself. "Um, where is the bathroom exactly?"

"Upstairs, first door on the right." Armin told you while gathering plates and cups from the table. You nodded and climbed up the stairs. Your hand hovered over the bathroom doorknob for a good minute, eyes drifting to the door next to it. Armin's bedroom, by the looks of it. Surely, you could take a look, right? Fuck it. You opened the second door and at first glance, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. LED and fairy lights encircled a corner of his room and, curiously, you walked closer to see what that was, because it didn't look like a desk. Your Y/E/C widened when you saw tens of framed photographs of yourself on the square table, objects you thought you lost and — Jesus, was that your bra? A rush of anxiety hit you, but before you could do anything, a blow to your head blurred your vision.

•°☆°•☆•°☆°•

Dark lashes fluttered as you opened your eyes. The sudden realisation that you were naked and restrained to a bed made you jolt. What just happened?

"Fucking finally, I thought you'd never wake up." Armin greeted you, but his voice was different, deeper and darker.

"Ar-ugh, Armin?" You groaned at the stinging sensation at the back of your head.

"You know, I was relieved you didn't leave with Sasha, otherwise you would've slipped between my fingers again."

Again?

"Ugh, and Eren and his stupid idea. 'We'll take you home.'" He mocked his best friend with a high pitch. "I've been dreaming for this moment since I walked into that shitty coffee shop."

You were at a loss for words. This was not the Armin you fantasised about, not the Armin you wanted. He was much more and much worse. And. So. Much. Better.

Alright then, you'd put up a show for him.

"P-please, Armin, please untie m-me! I'll be good, I p-promise!" You stuttered and whimpered, trying your best to sound genuine.

"Why, so you can run away?" The blond scoffed. So, he didn't know you stalked him. What a twist.

"I won't r-run, I swear!"

"Bullshit." Armin bent over your body, hands around your neck. You gasped and pretended to be startled by his touch, but in reality, your core was already burning with lust. You knew you couldn't keep up with this charade. "No, Y/N, I won't untie you. But we'll have so much fun." He sneered.

"You promise?"

"Yes. Wait—"

Your laughter filled the bedroom, genuine laughter that baffled Armin. Was this some sort of reverse psychology trick?

"Oh, Armin, even when you reveal your true colours, you're still oblivious to the reality of what's in front of you."

"Then enlighten me, what am I so oblivious to?" He folded his arms across his chest and waited.

"The fact that this was my fucking plan, too." You stretched as much as your restraints allowed you to and licked your lips. "I guess we both stalked each other without even knowing. How ridiculous."

"I think I would've known if you stalked me, Y/N."

"Really? Let me prove it, then. Your favourite food's Carbonara pasta, your favourite drink is peach and lychee iced tea, favourite movie is Interstellar, you lived on Sheena street until you were 12–"

"That's common knowledge, Sasha could've told you any of that." Armin blurted, growing impatient.

"You watch BDSM and asphyxiation porn between 10 pm and 11 pm every Tuesday, you're a virgin, you own a fleshlight–"

"Fuck, alright!" He threw his hands in the air, defeated. "So, what next?"

"You untie me and you tear me apart, Armin, that's what's next."

The blond hesitated before removing the cuffs on your ankles, still unsure about the ropes around your wrists. Clearly, you weren't making things up, but what were the chances of both of you stalking each other? For a brief moment, Armin felt guilty for hitting you and practically holding you captive, and you could see that on his face, but obsession and desire soon took over, and he reverted back to his darker self. His soft hands moved from your ankles to your knees, up your thighs and stomach, stopping above your chest, deciding it's best if you're not fully free. Armin licked his lips and climbed on top of you, unbuttoning his flannel shirt. You thought was surprisingly strong for such a thin man, but when the unbuttoned shirt revealed his chiselled abdomen, it made sense why he was strong.

"The wrists, Armin." You insisted but the blond clicked his tongue.

"I like you better when you're helpless." He pressed his lips onto yours in a hot kiss. A great kiss, you thought, your tongues wrestling for supremacy.

"Please, I want to touch you! I need to..." You trailed off, intoxicated by his smell, notes of saffron and cardamom. His hands roamed your shoulders, tickling your axilla and groping your breasts. "Please let me touch you, Armin!" You begged again, but he didn't say a word, his hot breath fanning over your oversensitive nipples, goosebumps all over your skin. His pink tongue poked out of his mouth and you watched him painstakingly slowly lick one of your nipples. It literally pained you to be unable to touch him, pull him closer to you. Alas, you had no choice, and despite yearning to be in control, it aroused you to have him control you.

"You smell so sweet." He abruptly stopped. "I bet you taste sweet, too."

"Armin..." His words made you brace yourself. While you weren't a virgin, you've never had anyone eat you out. The blond was already in between your legs, one hand resting under your thigh, the other gently touching your slick folds. Armin was so careful, like you were made of glass, and the ticklish sensation didn't help you at all. You wanted him to ram his cock inside of you and rearrange your guts, but he wanted to take his sweet time. The teasing only made you dizzy with pleasure, and you bucked your hips, trying to get him to move faster.

"You really need to learn to be patient, Y/N." Armin purred, pressing gentle kisses on your thighs. He lazily dragged his tongue across your slit, electricity shooting through your body. God, how you wanted to rip those ropes apart. Two fingers entered you and the blond gingerly licked your clit.

"Fuck– so... so good ah–" You couldn't form a sentence even if your life counted on it. Gradually, you could feel your orgasm building up and Armin sensed it, picking up the pace. His fingers thrusted harder and you arched your back, the intensity too much for you. "Armin, please! I wanna come with your cock in me!" The begging didn't stop him, he was determined to make you finish then and there. And he did — within seconds you melted under his touch, legs trembling with pleasure. Armin pulled back, his mouth messy with saliva mixed with your juices.

"You come when I want you to come." His voice was low, almost like a growl. He unbuttoned his jeans, and you watched him like a hawk, waiting to see just how big his was, and you were not disappointed.

"Please please please let me suck it, please!" You begged him, eager to taste him. He smirked and kissed you, all the while rubbing his cock.

"You want this?" Armin quirked a brow at you. The little shit, jacking off in front of you and you couldn't even do anything about it.

"Armin..."

"Say it. Say you want it."

"Armin!"

"Say it, Y/N." He groaned, precum leaking from his member. Fuck.

"I... I want it..." You eventually gave up.

"Good girl." The blond climbed back on top of you. He raised your hips and you placed your legs on his shoulder, his first thrust slow and deep. Armin couldn't help the moan escaping his lips — this was so much better than that shitty fleshlight and countless porn videos. You couldn't deny the fact that it hurt, despite your soaking cunt, but you quickly adjusted to his size. As Armin pounded you, the bed underneath the two of you started moving and screeching, and the ropes tied to the metal bedframe loosened and you felt your arms fall onto the pillows. In his frenzy, the blond didn't notice, so you took this opportunity to lower your legs and wrap them around his waist, one hand grabbing his soft locks, the other wrapping around his neck. You used his weight against him and turned him over. You were in control.

Armin was taken aback by this, but the feeling of your fingers squeezing his throat only turned him on more. You bounced up and down, throwing your head back and groaning. He gripped your hips tightly, thrusting his own hips against yours.

"F-fuck me harder, Y/N!" He begged and you sped up. You felt like a queen — no, a goddess — when he asked you to fuck him, the feeling of him inside of you so addictive. He was your drug, and your rehab, your poison, and your antidote. And you were his and his only. His cock was twitching in your cunt and knew he was close but you didn't want to risk it. Swiftly, you got off of him and wrapped your lips around his dick, bobbing your head up and down. It didn't take long for him to finish, hot liquid shooting down your throat with one final grunt. You swallowed it all and threw yourself next to him. It was breaking dawn already, but you weren't tired. Physically, yes, both of you were exhausted, but mentally it felt like you discovered a hidden gem.

"What the fuck did we just do?" Armin calmly caressed your hair as you nuzzled his neck.

"Are we talking about the obsessively stalking each other part or the part where you hit me in the head? Or the fucking?"

"The everything." He explained. "This is wrong."

"Did it feel wrong?" You asked him, your fingers idly tracing circles over his chest.

"Well, no..."

"Then it's not wrong." You shrugged. "Am... am I yours?"

"Yes." The blond instantly replied without a trace of hesitation in his voice. "Am I?"

"You've been mine the moment you set foot in that shitty coffee shop." You laughed.

"And what are we going to tell the others?"

"That we ended up talking all night and I stayed over?"

"Sounds like a plan." Armin kissed your forehead.

"By the way, I really don't like Pearl Jam." You admitted.

He laughed and it filled your heart with warmth. You have no idea why you and Armin were like that, or how things would be from now on, but you had a good feeling about it. Things were okay. You two were okay.

#armin arlert x reader #armin x reader #snk smut #snk x reader #shingeki no kyoujin #armin arlert smut #aot smut #aot x reader #attack on titan #armin arlert

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knowyourworth-sellyoursoul · 3 years

Text

Proposal

Ask: Hii welcome to fandom 😆 i hope you have lots of fun 🤭❤ so i saw your post and i was thinking: could you please write Bucky proposing to fem!reader? Like he tries to come up with something special but gets a bit nervous and ends up just telling reader why he loves her and does the whole kneeling thing hahaha 💗

Thank you so much for your ask @alotofrandomfangirling. Here it is!

This got away from me and I am not sorry???

Author’s Note: Brief mention of anxiety. This is fluff central. Seriously it is going to rot your teeth.

This is my first fic for this fandom and I would love to have more prompts! I am just getting back into the writing game and this was so fun to do! Also in my world I do not acknowledge Nat, Steve and Tony’s deaths. RIP Marvel but I’m different.

Bucky paced anxiously inside your small foyer. You had sent a text twenty minutes ago letting him know you were on the way home. He flexed his arms in the t-shirt he was wearing-one of your favorites on him- and glanced at the door again when he passed it, willing it to open. On his second pass in front of the door, he pat his pocket, making sure the small box was still there. A snort behind him made him look up. Steve stood in the doorway leading into the living room.

“It’s going to be fine Buck.”

Bucky grunted and continued pacing. Steve watched for a moment before snagging his shoulder, stopping him on his fifth pass in front of the door.

“Seriously Buck, what’s got you all worried.”

Bucky looked him in the eye for only a moment before his thoughts came tumbling out.

“The flowers. I ordered too many. She has allergies Steve! She’s not even going to be able to stop sneezing long enough for me to-“

“Buck they’re carnations-her favorite- which she told you was because they didn’t make her allergies act up and-”

“-‘they last forever’,” Bucky interrupted, smiling at the words you said each and every time he picked up your favorite flowers for you. “What about the candles? We have cats Steve! Those goblins knock everything over if it so much as touches a surface they want to sit on.”

Steve laughed as one of your cats, Queen, took the opportunity to come prancing through the foyer to follow her brother up the stairs. Bucky watched as she swished her tail at him. Queen was originally your cat and she had not taken too kindly to her new brother, Bronx, that Bucky had introduced to the family after a particularly awful mission.

Bucky took a deep breath and smiled at Steve. “Okay I guess the cats won’t be a problem.”

Steve nodded his agreement and released Bucky’s arm. “Just relax pal. She’s going to say yes.”

From the other room a large crash came through the walls. Bucky ignored it. Sam and Nat had said they would help set up the living room for tonight. They could handle it. Another second later he heard a curse through the wall and a quiet thump that had him wondering if they had broken your favorite picture frame. Steve held up his hands to keep him in the foyer as he went to investigate. With the situation under control, Bucky began pacing again.

Three minutes and twenty seconds later, Bucky heard your car pull into the driveway. He took a deep breath and shook out his arms, the metal clinking lightly when he shook his metal hand roughly. “She’s here guys.” Without another word he watched Nat, Sam, and Steve leave through your side door. He could only hope they had successfully set up the room for him.

Bucky took one last steadying breathe as your keys jangled in the door and you pushed it open in a flurry of movement. You looked windswept, keys in your left hand, three bags slung over your right shoulder and your phone pressed into your ear through what Bucky could only assume was the reversal of gravity.

“-and I understand your frustrations Ms. Danner, but we need to work together to come up with a plan for Dante. At this rate, he is going to fail English I and I certainly don’t want him to have to repeat the class again next year.”

Bucky met your eyes as you registered his presence and couldn’t help his breathe catching for a moment. You smiled at him largely, eyes crinkling slightly and cheeks turning a dusty pink. He returned your smile and grabbed the bags off of your shoulder as you kicked the door closed. Seeing you working was something he could never grow tired of. He asked constantly to come watch you teach at your high school. Each time you laughed lightly at him and smacked his chest playfully. “The students would think I’m trying to intimidate them with my extremely handsome and famous boyfriend.” He would roll his eyes at your compliments and ask once more. Your response was always the same, “Once I can introduce you as my husband and people can see you’re mine, then sure.” It always made Bucky laugh how possessive you were over him. It wasn’t an unhealthy amount as he knew you trusted him, but he still loved to see you want him and want other people to know you were his.

You brushed past him with a small peck on his cheek while kicking off your shoes. You headed up the stairs and into the bedroom. Bucky knew you would be changing into your comfiest clothes. He walked your bags into the office to the right of the foyer and set them down. As he waited for you to come back downstairs, he watched Queen and Bronx run down the stairs. Before he could grab them, they sprinted into the living room.

“Hey babe!” He turned to see you coming down the stairs in your sweatpants and tank-top, hair pulled back into a messy bun and glasses sitting askew on your face. He smiled as you reached him and wrapped your arms around his waist. He corrected your glasses as you looked up at him. Before leaning in to kiss you, he bopped your nose gently with his metal finger, sending your face into a little scrunch that he adored.

“Hey doll.” He gave you a kiss. “How was the last day before break?”

You sighed and leaned your head against his chest. He could feel the tension leaving your muscles as you stood there, just breathing. It was something that you had started doing a long time ago to help him with his anxiety and dissociative episodes. You called it co-regulation. Bucky tightened his arms around you as he matched his breathing to yours, finding the moment with you in his arms the calmest he had felt all day. After a minute of standing together, breathing and hugging, he felt you pick up your head.

“It was fine. I had to make the last few phone calls about failing students. It seems even after the Blip, kids don’t want to show up to school even to socialize.”

Bucky laughed and let his arms slide away from yours. As he opened his mouth to respond, a massive crash sounded from the living room. You both turned in that direction to see Bronx and Queen running back out from there and up the stairs.

“Shit.” Bucky muttered as you walked into the living room. He heard you let out a large gasp and an “oh my gods”. He followed you and groaned at the scene before him.

Where there was once what Bucky could only assume a delicate display of flowers was now a massive puddle with petals scattered everywhere. Candles were knocked down from their perches and wax covered surfaces Bucky wasn’t even sure it could get removed from.

“Those goblins! I am going to put them back out on the streets I swear!”

Bucky watched as you surveyed the room with a questioning look. Suddenly the box in his pocket was extremely heavy. He felt his right palm get sweaty and he flexed the fingers on his metal hand.

“This isn’t what I planned.”

You turned around to him, the questioning gaze still sitting on your face.

Bucky glanced around the living room, eyes frantically searching for something that he could anchor himself with. It was ruined. He couldn’t propose to you like this. It wasn’t right. He felt his pulse jump slightly as your hand gently rested on his chest. His eyes snapped back to yours and it wasn’t until he felt your hand moving up and down rapidly that he realized he was hyperventilating. You looked at him calmly, waiting for his breathing to slow down.

“I wanted it to be perfect.”

He watched you nod.

“It isn’t.”

You smiled then, shaking your head. “It’s our home Bucky. It’s always going to be perfect.”

“There’s wax in the carpet.”

“I have a trick for that.”

“I’m going to throw those two monsters out onto the streets.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I will!”

You laughed then. “Honey, you’d miss them too much. You’re their dad through and through. You once threatened the neighbor when they complained about Queen running into their garden.”

“She’s a cat! They can’t expect her to understand property lines.” Bucky smiled and then looked around your ruined living room. On the mantle was one flower still intact. He reached over and grabbed it, handing it over to you. You plucked it from his hands and pressed it to your nose.

“I love you, (Y/N).”

He waited until your eyes were open again before kneeling down. His metal hand whipped the box out of his pocket and quickly flipped the lid. Inside was a beautiful ring, subtle in design and shining brightly against the back satin of the box.

“I wanted this to be a romantic moment for you because we aren’t doing this a second time. I don’t intend on letting you go anywhere (Y/N). For as long as you’ll have me, I’ll be here.” He watched as a few tears fell from your eyes and you began to tremble. His other hand reached out to hold your waist gently, grounding both you and him in the moment.

“I thought that I was too broken to find something special like this. To find peace. Then I met you and my entire life shifted. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I never went to pick up Peter that day and I just can’t imagine. I love you so much sometimes I wonder if there is room for anything else in me. I want our life together. I want our family- cats included.”

At this you chuckled and dropped down to your knees in front of him. Both hands framing his face as your watery eyes searched his. Bucky smiled and plucked the ring from the satin, holding it out to you.

“Will you marry me?”

It took only two seconds as you collected yourself to choke out a yes. Bucky grinned wildly and slid the ring onto your finger. You wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him. He kissed you back enthusiastically, pulling you closer and then both of you up into a standing position.

Bucky pulled away and looked down as something grazed against his calf. Queen looked up at him and meowed. Bronx came into the room and laid in the mess of petals on the carpet, proceeding to groom himself.

“We’re late for their dinner time.”

Bucky groaned and as he pulled away from you.

“Can’t I have one moment!?”

#bucky barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes x you #Bucky Barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction

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nochiquinn · 3 years

Text

campaign 3 episode 8: loreian

I'm late bc Power Rangers The Movie and also bc I was trying to avoid whatever this is

my kid riffed "it's thursday night" into "it's thursday butts" and frankly idk why comedians are still trying, she's clearly perfected the form

chEtney

I still extremely enjoy chetney's art

"call me when you get your shit together" he was never heard from again

I'm already doing my "other people are asleep" fingersnaps

travis just made this character so he could react to laudna in-character like he does in real life

"I'm so confused!! :D"

liam's inability not to call old characters grandmother/grandfather

saM

"why are you so mean to meeeeeee"

oh no he broke travis

tonight is just 4 hours of corpsing

...no pun intended

"BALLS" my kid WOULD fit right in

"I'm dorian's friend"

mala: friends of dorian

"hi my name is chetney, I killed santa"

"not that fourth one"

oh I just processed the design on robbie's shirt, that's nice

HEY WALL

trek out to the Hubble

do not tell fearne how much money you have you will not wake up with it

mariSHA

sam

UNPROMPTED WHISPER

"essence" [kill bill sirens]

oh we're just gonna unpack this right here at the table huh

"like werthers" sam

it's almost gotta be cyrus right

"maybe I could throw something at him"

"laudna's making crazy eyes at you what's she saying"

"my very good friend" gay

orym: just fuckin - just get up here

I adore travis' little elf shoes sfx

I'm love him

I've had to stop actually snapping bc I was hurting my fingers

orym: I am SHORT you KNOW I'M HERE just STOP

DM's mercy

just pictured the guy with his shoes pinned to the floor with tiny chisels

c h e t n e y

I love robbie's "stop making me acknowledge my backstory" noises

"first you had a flask now you ARE a flask"

"is your dick out?" "...I'd have to look"

travis' face lmao

[shakes dorian until his backstory falls out]

"I don't trust them" SIR

I am offended on their behalf

"I believe THAT part" chetney

imogen: [nokia ringtone]

🎵 tip me over and pour me out🎵

"just because they're different doesn't make us strange" "but we are very strange"

"like a reverse baby bird" oh I hate that

HEALING POTION KEGGER

in the presence of family dorian has developed a younger sibling bitch response that I greatly enjoy

matt: zanotto me: [psychonauts hell]

dorian you showed him it was POSSIBLE

the long pause before and after "dorian"

"escort work" can mean a couple of things lmao

"handle those swords"

"please don't tell mom and dad" "that would require me to talk to mom and dad"

cyrus what

OH I also heard it that way

travis

is it weird I would watch an entire show around cyrus' story

I want a weird west fantasy train robbery

(I want weird west fantasy everything)

good to know anxiety and social awkwardness runs in the family

orym is very disappointed in you

cyrus needs to stop calling me out as an oldest sibling

"what do you think that MEANS"

upcontinent

"""go to vasselheim"""

the mysterious npc in a flashy cloak to socially anxious disaster pipeline

ashton

oh no they're stockbrokers

no dorian you just almost put on a vestige of the fckin spider queen that's much better

"who's your employer" ashley

"are there conventions" "not lately"

BRONTE

I swear we heard that at one point in exu, am I going crazy

"b r o n t e with a [kchke]"

bronte wyvernwind!!

that's so fucking cool???

"I didn't think I'd get this far"

this sounds like some one piece shit, I'm into it

robbie's mind blowing in the background

relax she's just putting it out there

don't leave alone after dropping all that lore

death flags death flags

stop talking about how good you are at fighting

"she grows on you" "I would burn that off"

cyrus you fuckin HIMBO

if cyrus dies I riot

mattholomew

matthew

MATT

gonna fight him in the parking lot

slasher film starring chetney

reani my beloved

(no I didn't realize this had dropped)

...okay that's pretty much how the first obann fight went tho

fearne

ashley. travis. c e a s e

"it's how we met" cries

do you wanna be a big shot

"was it grog" samuel

"that'll be useful" it's ashton, will it really?

we're not telling them about the stone? we're keeping that a secret? dorian? sir?

[nextdoor voice] this information has been reported to the police

"fearne takes a bong hit out of fcg"

fearne don't be a dick

awww

fantasy xanax

oh shit I tried to come up with something like this for a setting, now I gotta file the serial numbers off

"a layer of black material" "oh, LA Square"

leeroy no

"how are we supposed to focus on anything, travis"

laudna

chetney

y'all

oh he's not getting his deposit back

"dire wolf attack" WEREWOLF

matt: werewolf travis: :D matt: also ghosts travis: D:

"I put my vacuum arm on" we found it, we found the hoovel

"air d&d"

as opposed to an expected dire wolf attack?

"I cast detect thoughts" BINGO

pate no

boutta get frumpkin'd

MATTHEW

"dead in 2022!!"

for THREE WEEKS

#critical role #spoilers #crititag #liveblog #reaction post

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rosezure · 3 years

Text

Todoroki Family - My Opinion

MANGA SPOILERS FOR BNHA/MHA ahead!

CW: parental neglect and abuse, anxiety, therapy, Touya Todoroki/Dabi, Enji Todoroki/Endeavor, spoilers, swearing (please remind me if I forgot anything).

Disclaimer: All of the information on the Todoroki family dynamics is based on my interpretation of what’s been (so far) revealed through the anime and manga. These are all just opinions, you are free to agree or disagree respectfully. I do not wish to invalidate anyone’s opinion. Family dynamics have always been a very sensitive and triggering subject to me, so I hope that you respect that if you wish to discuss this with me.I would like to give my own two cents on the Todoroki family situation. As someone that has dealt with abuse and neglect in a (slightly) similar way my whole life, this story hits very close to home. I will try to be as thorough and objective as possible. But, feel free to call me out (respectfully) if there is anything ambiguous or if problematic. Thank you.

I am going to focus on Touya/Dabi and Enji’s story. I do not know enough to talk about Rei’s role in all of this, so I will not mention her. But, I might update this as new chapters come out.

I will talk about Dabi’s early years by referring to him as Touya since that was his identity at the time. Any comments about him as an adult will be referring to him as Dabi.

I was a psychology student for about two years, and when we learned about child development, here is what I gathered:

When you are a child, all you want is to be loved, to be safe. This is essential to a child, as it is what develops them into a healthy and independent adult. And, this is especially important concerning parents or guardians. Effective parenting practices ensure that the child will have a better chance at developing according to their age and needs. This will grant the kids skills that they will use and perfect as they grow up. In other words, children that are well-taken care of have a higher chance of being strong, healthy, and emotionally developed adults.

When a parent or guardian is ignorant of how they can impact their child’s growth, it has many negative effects. In Touya’s case, Enji Todoroki was clueless. This does not mean Enji should not be held responsible just because he was ignorant. Enji knew he was not being the best parent, but he did not know how exactly. And, at the time he was blinded by his greed and ambition, so he would not have been paying attention to that. Even so, (personally) I do not think parents are afforded the luxury of ignoring their bad parenting if they are made aware of it. They are responsible for another human’s life and growth. They should be held accountable if the child develops issues and hurts themselves or even others.

With that being said, Enji Todoroki was a horrible but clueless parent. From what I have understood from the manga and the anime, at first, he had no idea why Shoto was so "rebellious" (in his opinion). He also seemed to not understand Natsuo and Fuyumi. So I am led to believe that he was, at the time, oblivious to how much he negatively impacted Touya.

Touya just wanted his father’s affection. If that meant grueling training and preparing to become a hero to defeat All Might, then so be it. It was the attention and affection he knew. He was not led to believe otherwise. Touya's sole positive interactions came from him showing he could fulfill his father’s sick dream. In a child’s mind, that was the only way to secure parental love and approval: To train as hard as possible and become what his father so desperately wished for.

Then his hair started turning white. He started getting injured because of his quirk. His only source of positive attention, his only hope for affection, was killing him. And it had to be stopped. I am sure in Touya’s mind, this meant he would not be loved anymore.

And then Enji stopped training him. Natsuo was born. Shoto was born. And Touya felt that his source of love was directed to that baby. The baby that Enji saw as a success. Enji made Touya feel like a failure, a broken toy. And he was being replaced by a newer, shinier one: His brother.

When he tries to attack Shoto, he is trying to take back his place. Touya was trying to gain back his father’s love and attention.

Enji wanted to prevent Touya from hurting himself more. But he failed to communicate that. Instead, his words made it seem like his plan was foiled. Touya wasn’t enough, so Enji’s chance of using him to end All Might vanished. Touya wasn’t what Enji needed anymore.

Touya’s world didn’t collapse all at once. It didn’t even crack all at once. From what I understood, it was a collection of hairline fractures that never healed. It was a dislocated shoulder that was never put back in its place and was left to hang. It was a pounding headache that only grew more and more painful over time.

When Dabi was born, Touya had been buried in bruises, paper cuts, minor broken bones, chronic illnesses. Touya was killed by exhaustion and pain. He didn’t die at one point, he was dying all along.

As someone who suffers from chronic issues, I know that the somatization of symptoms and other sources of pain can turn a simple illness into something much more serious. Think of it as a butterfly effect, but all inside one person: Every single negative experience, from both outer and inner sources, all summed and turned into one massive festering wound.

Touya’s mind was a living open wound, it seems.

So Dabi was born. To seal the wound shut. Clean it? No. Protect it? Maybe.

But this particular type of wound (the psychological, emotional one) if left untreated can become infected. And infected wounds are harder and more painful to clean and treat.

Dabi’s mind is a bandaid over an infected wound. It seems objectively okay, maybe even sane. But he’s clearly in pain. He’s not in his right mind. His decisions all stem from the pure rage and anger of a child that was abandoned.

What chapter 300 brought was the perspective of a child that just wanted to be loved. That's all he wanted. And the only love he knew was when Enji Todoroki trained with him, no matter how gruesome and painful it must've been.

I'm gonna briefly and superficially compare his situation to mine. Of course, I didn’t suffer half of the pain he did, and I won't go into any detail as to not trigger myself. But, I only got attention when I was either extremely sick or I was needed as a trophy child of some sort. Even then, if I was ill, the attention I got was so I could get well soon and go back to being "useful". I was an extension of them, at best. But I still craved their attention. I still do in a way to this very day. It's not something that just goes away once you realize how toxic and abusive it is.

No matter how much pain I’m in, no matter how love-starved I am, I still want their approval. Inside me, there’s still a scared child, crying out for her parents to love her. That child is now my responsibility. I have to give her love, nurture her so she can grow with me.

Does that make sense?

I have no idea how Dabi is feeling. And I don’t think we’ll ever truly know. He is fictional, after all, and there’s no telling if Horikoshi will be delving into that.

But maybe Touya is still inside Dabi, crying, screaming to be loved. And Dabi is trying his best to tend to that child, but he never truly grew up to know how to take care of another being. Dabi doesn’t know how to take care of himself emotionally.

I’m learning because I, thankfully, have access to therapy. But it hurts. It hurts to realize the ones that were meant to take care of you, didn’t. It hurts to look into yourself and see a shaking, teary-eyed child begging for crumbs of love.

Now, with the whole "redemption" thing being debated, here's my own personal opinion. You don't have to agree, and I'm not asking you to. Again, this is just how I view it. As a survivor, I'd be relieved to see my parents try. The damage is done, true. I'll never regain my childhood. I'll never have what people with different, better, parents have. The past can't be reversed. And I'm seeing it repeat itself with my little brother. But, if there's a minimal chance that my parents can own up to what they did, that they open themselves up to changing their behavior and learning, then maybe we can build something new.

Build. Not rebuild. The foundation of our past relationship was rotten from the beginning. A new one must be built. A new foundation must be developed if we ever hope to make something of our relationship.

If the Todorokis, really want to reconcile, reconnect, rebuild, then they must start from scratch. If Enji Todoroki wants that, he’s gonna have to start from zero, from nothing. And I'm not entirely sure if Endeavor is doing that, but he is trying, somehow. We don't know for sure if he even has the emotional skills to do so. We can't say for sure that he's got what it takes to man up, own up and learn. But, he seems to be trying.

And that's something I've accepted I'll never have.

So if there's at least a 1% chance that he is truly trying, that Enji wants to redeem himself, then let him. Let their family try and heal together if that's what they want.

I'm not sure about the Japanese culture when it comes to family. But where I come from, a family is an important base of our personal and social development, to the point that reconciliation more often than not is the best route.

Still, I know it's not for everyone. So I respect you if you believe he doesn't deserve a chance. I understand if you say Enji Todoroki should be kept far away from his family. You're right, and you're valid.

But, please, please, if the author decides that he redeems himself and does try his best to start a new relationship with his family, let him. Let them heal. Together. Let them try and make up for the lost time in the best way in the present. Let them rebuild.

I know I'd give anything to rebuild my family.

Let Touya be healed and put Dabi to rest. Touya needs to be loved, he needs to be taken care of like he never was as a child. Dabi needs to be told he tried. He needs to be told he did what he could.

But Dabi is also an adult now. He’s got legal responsibilities. The pain and devastation he’s caused and helped cause can’t be overlooked. He needs help, but he also had to be held accountable.

Touya/Dabi needs to face himself and start over. He needs to face the man he’s become and at the same time take care of the child he wasn’t able to be.

If the Todoroki family is reconciled, I dearly hope he gets to be a part of this new book. Not a new chapter, they need to throw that whole book away and start a new one. And, if possible, I’d love to see someone like me get the ending I won’t be getting.

I hope this made some sense at least. Again, if anything is unclear, ambiguous, or problematic, let me know and I’ll do my best to correct or remove the bad parts. If you’ve read this far, thank you. If you share a similar experience, I’m sorry, and I’m here for you.

#bnha #mha #bnha 300 #bnha 301 #bnha spoilers #bnha discussion #touya todoroki #dabi #enji todoroki #shoto todoroki #todoroki family #fuyumi todoroki #natsuo todoroki #rei todoroki #touya #shoto #endeavor #endeavour

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vivithefolle · 4 years

Note

Hi Vivi, can you share some thoughts on the "Hermione deserves to be/should have married to XYZ because she is way too good for Ron" mentality of this fandom??

I’m gonna copy-paste a Quora answer of mine, because recycling is important!

Claiming that Ron is “out of Hermione’s league” is a statement rooted in sexism, classism and probably a bunch of other -isms.

It might seem like I’m just throwing buzz-words around but let me explain.

First off, the sexism.

Oh, the sexism.

As I’ve pointed it out in yet another one of my answers (I’m so sorry for drowning you all in a plethora of links), Ron is very much a female-coded male character.

Ron is emotional, wears his heart on his sleeve, has anxieties and inadequacies, walks off in order to cool down, has a temper, puts other people before his needs, and pretty much adopts Harry when he rescues him in the second book. He’s the Heart of the Trio: he doesn’t rely on sole logic, he can believe something without proof, he is sensitive and thus is the easiest to hurt emotionally.

Whether you call it a “beta male”, a “wuss”, “defying gender roles” or a “soft boy” is your own business, but the core of it is that Ron doesn’t meet the standards for people’s vision of a “desirable” masculine figure.

The little things Ron quietly performs in the books - when he helps Harry into his pyjamas in Chamber of Secrets because Harry’s arm is bloop; when he’s worrying about Hermione’s whereabouts in Prisoner of Azkaban; when he helps Harry unwind after his visions in Goblet of Fire; when he puts food onto Harry’s plate and wakes him up from his nightmares in Order of the Phoenix; when he beams that Hermione was “perfect, obviously” when she passes her Apparition test - all those caring gestures don’t seem like much, but if you bother to think about it, they paint an enormous picture.

Who gets Hermione to stop overworking while making her feel good about her accomplishments? Who comforts Harry from his nightmares and cares for him in the dead of the night, when nobody is awake? Who makes sure his friends are healthy and happy? Who wards off the dark and depressing thoughts, be it with his fists or a joke?

It’s Ron.

When you think about it, “traditional masculinity” in Harry Potter is as much frowned upon as “traditional feminity” is - which sometimes bites Rowling in the butt when you remember how she obviously seems to consider that Hermione and Ginny are the only desirable kind of girls.

Vernon Dursley? The entrepreneur “king of the household” prejudiced suburbian middle-class Dad? Fits in the usual tropes of traditional masculinity.

Dudley Dursley? The typical “boys will be boys” spoiled middle-class only child who’s the apple of his parents’ eyes and even takes up boxing, as if he wasn’t traditionally masculine enough.

Draco Malfoy? See Dudley, but toss in “upper-class posh aristocrat bully who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty so he has henchmen do it for him because he’s too rich for this sh-t”, would remind you of a few Christian Greys or Gatsbys.

Dolores Umbridge? Oh no, cat pictures, decorative plates, talks to teens as if they’re babies and PINK, SO MUCH PINK!!! So disgustingly feminine!!

Rowling very much frowns upon traditional gender roles - with Molly Weasley being an exception because Rowling feels very strongly about being a mother, and relates to Molly a lot.

Right - so, being a beautiful mess of paradoxes and contradictions (a “soft boi” who also punches bullies in the face, a fussy mother-hen who swears like a sailor, a tall athlete with badass scars on his arms who’s nurturing and sweet; in short, a wonderfully human character), Ron is obviously going to be a polarizing character. You painfully relate to him and get defensive when he’s criticized, you feel his characterization hits a bit too close to home so you hate him, or you disregard him completely because you can’t see anything “special” about him…

Now, onto another very, very sexist point that is often made.

People say that Hermione “deserves better” than Ron, often claiming that they “aren’t intellectual equals”, then citing Harry (who is mistaken as being some sort of slumbering genius but honestly, the kid is really a bit daft) or Draco (since apparently, being rich must equal to being intelligent) or, god forbid, Snape (because he’s a teacher and teachers are meant to be clever).

Soooo, I could go the loooooong way and pull out all the receipts that prove that none of these characters are perfectly intellectually matched to Hermione…

Or I could go the long way and simply give you this: this obsession with finding an “intellectual equal” for Hermione reflects the mentality of “women are not allowed to be better at something than their husband”.

Yep.

A woman has to be all-around pretty good at everything, whereas a man has to be the absolute best in his area of greatest competence (surely better than any puny female!) with a help-meet there to compensate for his weaknesses. People are very, very uncomfortable when Ron and Hermione reverse this dynamic. Hermione is extremely intelligent and dedicated to intellectual pursuits, but is complete pants at things like self-care and people skills. Ron is bright enough to keep up with her and strong in her areas of weakness.

Even if Ron was as dumb as a sack of rocks (he’s not), his other virtues are more than enough to “justify” Hermione loving him. (Because she needs an excuse?) But no. A woman has to be with a man who outdoes her in her area of greatest strength. - credit to @lytefoot

People don’t want Hermione to be with a man who’s her “equal.” They want her to be with a man who can be The Man so she can know the contentment of being The Woman.

But, with this sexist line of thought, how do we justify how Ron is supposed to be such a bad match for Hermione? Because if it was just about mere sexism, Romione would surely be more popular. Imagine! Ron happily raising the children, being a house-husband and proud of it, while Hermione is out there fighting for justice in the wizarding world! What a power-couple, defying norms and gender roles and not being the least bit conscious of it, prime OTP material for sure! So why do people still want Hermione to put Harry, Draco, or god forbid², Snape in Ron’s place? Is this an irrational hatred of redheads? An Harmionian’s delirious wet dream? A failure to separate the actors from their characters?

It’s all this and, quite frankly, something more: the inherent classism that comes with Ron’s status as an explicitly working-class coded character.

I know, I know, “Vivian! Calm down with the buzzwords, you’re starting to sound like an online pretend-feminist magazine!”

Or “Come on, people who don’t ship Ron and Hermione together aren’t all sexist or classist!”

Of course, of course! I know that! I’m not implying that!

But some of the “reasons” why they claim that Ron and Hermione can’t work - are extremely classist in nature, that’s just it!

Come on, think about it! What are the Number Ones arguments people always pull against Ron? Or the most common Ron-bashing tropes (look at fanfics and watch the number of stories that use at least one of those)?

Ron is stupid/mediocre

Ron is lazy/useless

Ron resents his wife’s hard work/success

Ron is a homophobe

Ron is a drunkard

Ron (the big prude who at 16 had never kissed a girl and sees a first kiss as the prelude to a wedding) is massively oversexed and cheats on Hermione with anything that moves

Not only do these “reasons” completely ignore ALL OF RON’S CHARACTERIZATION - except for the “lazy” bit but come off it, all teenagers are lazy and Hermione’s the exception to the rule - but it matches perfectly with the negative stereotypes associated with working-class white men in fiction.

It’s also very funny to note how many (assumedly middle-class or financially secure) fans look down on Ron for being “whiny” or “greedy” when he expresses the desire to have money of his own, or blame his parents for “not knowing when to stop” or “being irresponsible”, or even look down on them for being “too proud to accept help”!! Also how shocked people are when Ron dares to stand up for himself when Hermione or Harry act badly towards him. How dare this country boy not listen to the wisdom of his social “betters”?

So, obviously, because our Heroine can’t go with a Nasty, Mediocre Working-Class Man, she must be paired off with someone of Proper Status: say, a Hero that was raised in a middle-class home and might be a bit psychologically damaged but it’s nothing all those gold coins in his vault can’t fix; or this Rich Posh Aristocrat who actively rooted for her death, he’s a little bit eccentric and has some exotic pet-names to call you, but I’m sure you’ll learn to love him and will unearth the gold coins in his bank account… I mean, the heart of gold that lies within the surface; oh, why not a Way Too Big An Age Difference Teacher if you’re looking for a “cultured man” who has zero things in common with you; we can also bring Convenient Plot Device Famous Rich Foreign Athlete if you want some diversity and you don’t feel original!

But we can’t - oh, we mustn’t let her be with this Terrible Working-Class Boy! His brothers are fine, they have money, they have jobs, so they’re obviously Not As Mediocre. But let our precious Hermione be with this Just-Got-Out-Of-School hooligan? She can’t possibly be in love with him! You’ll see darling, you’ll get bored eventually! He’s too mediocre for you, you deserve a man who outclasses you - I mean, who can provide for you! You’re a fragile little flower who scars people for life when she’s not happy with them, what makes you think that this boy can possibly handle you even though he’s done so for the past seven years?

You wanted it, you got it.

People are shallow, have misconceptions about Ron’s character that they are unwilling to correct or use classist and sexist arguments to try to make it so that either Ron is the Devil himself / Hermione is a higher kind of being that can only orgasm if sufficiently “intellectually stimulated” / what-have-you.

#vivi answers #ask #ron weasley #hermione granger #romione #ron weasley defense squad #ron weasley defence squad #sexism #classism #hp meta #fandumb #hp fandom

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linkspooky · 4 years

Text

The Curse’s “Creed”

Jujutsu Kaisen has a set of unique antagonists. Curses that are made of and emerge from the darker side of human emotion, and yet have gained intelligence and emotions of their own. They are at the same time, human and completely inhuman. Underneath the cut let’s explore the unique psychology of Jujutsu Kaisen’s most terrifying villains.

1. Living True to Their Desires

In chapter 92-93 after already sealing Gojou there is a unique dialogue scene where after gaining victory, Mahito, Jogo, Choso, the three intelligent curses still decide to throw caution in the wind simply because they can. They act according not to logic, but to their own desires. To summarize the situation lightly all three curses, plus Fake Getou engineered the Shibuya incident with the primary goal of sealing Gojou. They also have a secondary goal of giving all of sukuna’s fingers to Yuji in order to grant Sukuna possession of the body and persuade him to their side, with those two objectives victory would be on their side. However, rather than doing the logical thing, Mahito suggests they do the illogical thing.

They kill Yuji now, not because it serves any strategic purpose but because Mahito simply wants to. He wants to throw the whole plan off not for any good reason, but just because he strongly dislikes Yuji. It’s a situation that is all risk and practically no gain. For a human there would be practically no reason to do this besides “I want to”, but for a curse this move almost makes sense. Curses are the living embodiment of whims. They are desires. Understanding that curses lack the ability to say no to their own desires the way humans do is important to understanding them.

The origin of curses lie in human beings. As Megumi explains, negative emotions that are regularly repressed subconsciously flow out of people and gather in places. These story concepts are based on several real world psychology concepts.

The Shadow.

In Jungian psychology, the "shadow", "Id", or "shadow aspect/archetype" may refer to (1) an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself, or (2) the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious. In short, the shadow is the unknown side.

Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one's personality, the shadow is largely negative.

Repression.

Repression is the psychological attempt to direct one's own desires and impulses toward pleasurable instincts by excluding them from one's consciousness and holding or subduing them in the unconscious. Repression is a key concept of psychoanalysis, where it is understood as a defence mechanism that "ensures that what is unacceptable to the conscious mind, and would if recalled arouse anxiety, is prevented from entering into it."

Collective Unconscious

Collective unconscious (German: kollektives Unbewusstes) refers to structures of the unconscious mind which are shared among beings of the same species. It is a term coined by Carl Jung. According to Jung, the human collective unconscious is populated by instincts, as well as by archetypes: universal symbols such as The Great Mother, the Wise Old Man, the Shadow, the Tower, Water, and the Tree of Life.

Basically to put these three ideas into practice as an explanation for the emergence of curses. Every person has an unconscious part of their mind. This is made up of all the anxieties and undesirable aspects of ourselves that we are mostly unaware of. People do not live their lives constantly confronting the worst aspects of life, or their own negative emotion, so to live from day to day most people choose to repress, that is a defense mechanism that pushes unsavory things to the back of your mind. Finally if everyone has an unconscious mind comingles and forms a society, then Jung posits that everybody in that society collectively generates an unconscious as well.

For example in the fight against Toji, Getou summons a Kuchi-saki Onna. This isn’t a traditional Yokai, but rather an urban legend that went around in the modern ages. It’s a story that people started telling about a woman who wearing a face mask walks up to a man, asks them if they’re pretty, and if he says no she kills him, if he says yes, she cuts his face up to look exactly like hers. This urban legend is told and retold enough times and enough people believe it that it basically enters the popular conscious. Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious is the same, that myths emerge from the fact that people existing in a society all tend to share the same experiences in life and therefore often tell the same stories over and over again.

Curses’s emerge from this collective repression that humans do. Humans are built from lies. Humans feel hatred, murderous intent, but choose to repress these emotions instead of acting on them.

What Jogo is referring to is the persona. If the shadow is what’s underneath the surface, then the persona is the surface. It’s the mask that all humans wear.

The persona, for Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, was the social face the individual presented to the world—"a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual"

Persona is the way humans engage other people. Behavior is in part a performance. The way you behave changes based on who you are around, you don’t swear in front of your grandma, but you might if you’re hanging out with friends. Therefore you’re always intentionally presenting a portion of your personality and trying to show what you consider to be your best traits rather than your worst traits. The conscious mind decides, it acts, it performs, whereas the unconscious mind that we have no control over simply is. Which is why Jogo says that curses products of an unconscious mind are simply more honest than regular human beings.

Curses lack that mask. They can’t repress, they can’t lie, and they can’t ever deny their whims.

2. I Desire

This panelling in Mahito’s plan to either kill Yuji or offer the fingers to Sukuna is symbolic of this divide between conscious and unconscious. There are two faces to Yuji Itadori. There are two people essentially dwelling within the same body.

There is the forward facing Yuji, a well meaning boy who wants to save everyone he possibly can and surround himself with friends so he doesn’t want to die all alone like his grandfather. Then there’s Sukuna, the reverse face, the other side violence, selfishness, and the idea that might makes right personified. They may seem like total opposites, and yet they exist within the same body.

Sukuna... Sukuna is literally called a two faced spectre. He’s thematically designed around the concept of having too faces. But, Sukuna and Yuji aren’t the only two faced characters. Everyone has two faces, ultimately.

Yuji seems like he is too much of a good boy to have anything in common with Sukuna, but once again the idea here is dualism and not opposites. Yuji and Sukuna are two sides of the same coin. Yuji for all of his good intentions, is also capable of murderous anger, and relying on violence and strength above all else to solve his problems. Sukuna isn’t Yuji’s opposite, but rather someone who exist on the other side of Yuji.

And Jung would argue that this collectively exists for all people. Yuji can have a terrifying curse like Sukuna existing in his shadow. Getou who was a decent, caring person can suddenly snap one day and decide to kill every last person on earth. Curses argue that these violent desires, these horrible urges, are not inhuman but rather that they’re perfectly human and emerge from human nature. Jogo uses this reasoning to assert that because they are unfailingly true to these desires that curses are more human than human beings themselves.

This is in part what the small fry and reverse retribution arc was about.

Junpei, who is for the most part a normal good kid who loves his mom is also casually thinking about how if he had a button to press that would kill all of his bullies he would press it without hesitation. At the beginning of the arc Junpei isn’t seriously thinking of killing them of course, but those negative emotions exist in his head. Junpei is the standin for the everyman character. It’s an understandable feeling, if you were being bullied consistently and didn’t have a happy life, part of you would just wish the bullies would go away by any means necessary.

It’s not that hard to believe that the desire to kill is a completely human urge rather than an inhuman one. After all, humans make weapons, humans make wars, all of these are ugly sides of human nature that we often turn a blind eye too rather than confront.

Mahito argues to Junpei that there’s no reason for him to restict themselves. Because Mahito lacks what most humans would call a conscience, or a set of restraints. It’s like most people might feel the urge to kill their bullies just because they want the pain to end, but also most people have a switch that prevents them from acting on those urges. For Mahito that switch is broken. He has no mechanisms of repression, he’s pure desire.

So he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get why people would choose to restrict themselves in any way. He doesn’t understand why people would want anything other than absolute freedom. What Mahito encourages Junpei to do is to live more like a curse. To do what he desires when he desires without needlessly holding himself back or thinking of the consequences.

It once again sounds inhuman but it emerges from human psychology. There’s an idea that overlaps with the shadow called the Id. Freud and Jung basically had models for the unconscious mind, Jung had a split model with Persona / Shadow while Freud split the mind into three.

In the ego psychology model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual desires; the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic agent that mediates, between the instinctual desires of the id and the critical super-ego

The id is a set of uncoordinated instinctual desires. For example if you had a cookie on a plate in front of Mahito and you told him not to eat it for five minutes, Mahito would have already eaten the cookie before you finished telling him. Mahito is pure Id, without any other part of the ego to interfere in his decisions. Freud split the ego into three planes, and just by coincidence there are now three major curses left.

Mahito, Choso, and Jogo. This is what we call a freudian trio, each character corresponds with one area in the model of the psyche. Mahito who is the most impulsive and desirious of the three is the Id. Mahito is unrestrained, while he seems to enjoy the company of the other curses he doesn’t seem to mourn Hanami’s death at all (when even Jogo reacted to it), and decides everything even his involvement with Junpei who he merely found interesting until he didn’t based on a whim. He lives his life unrelated, unattached. Which makes sense because Mahito is literally the embodiment of the fear to connect that stops people from getting close to others.

Choso is the opposite of Mahito. He’s the one most tied down. While Mahito emerges from the human psyche, Choso himself is literally a half-human half-curse hybrid with human emotions which makes him the most human of the trio as well. Mahiro is unrestricted, but Choso deliberately chooses to bind himself to his family, and his blood ties. Unlike Mahito he’s genuinely upset when he loses those ties and feels an obligation to kill Yuji to destroy them. He literally even uses blood as his weapon, and blood is a symbol of connection. This makes him the super-ego, because he’s the overly restrained and critical one.

Jogo, the middle ground between those two extremes who is also the only one trying to stick to the plan is the ego. While he’s the one trying to remain logical, it’s also easy to appeal to his curse nature and just like it’s the ego’s job to negotiate between the Id, and Superego, Jogo is the Ego because he serves as the middle ground between the two extremes who keeps their long term goal in mind.

Mahito can only think of his goal in the short term, and Choso can only think of the family ties he’s obligated to uphold, which makes the role of being the one to reconcile them both into looking at the big picture falls to Jogo.

Jogo is still a curse ultimately though, and he’s easily persuaded by Mahito’s appeal to desire rather than his logic.

Despite being capable of logical decision making Jogo is ultimately, prey to his impulsive nature as a curse. He doesn’t want to lose at the game, or left behind from all the others, or deny his desires and because of that he gets lured by Mahito into making the illogical move.

If in humans the conscious mind is the ruler, and the shadow is the subject then its the reverse in curses. The shadow is the ruler, desire will trump everything else while conscious mind will always fall underneath the rule of desire. Curses are capable of thinking and being logical, but they don’t have the switch that lets them repress themselves like humans do, and that’s what makes them so deadly.

#mahito #jogo #choso #jujutsu kaisen #suguru getou #curses #jujutsu kaisen meta #jjk icons #jujutsu kaisen theory #jjk meta

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cinnaminsvga · 4 years

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A Boy Like You Preview | Yoongi

→ summary: for whenever you are feeling low, always remember that there is a boy you know who would lift the sky for you.

{or alternatively: Min Yoongi loves you, though he never says it. He’s always been a firm believer that actions speak louder than any words ever could.}

→ genre: coworker!au, f2l, fluff → warnings: an overabundance of shy!yoongi to the point where you’ll want to squish his cheeks; kinda ooc but it is what it is don’t murder me!!! → words: anticipated 15k (?) → a/n: it’s like so fucking late rn and i have a midterm to study for but you know what....... you know what....... sometimes you gotta write blushy yoongi to make yourself forget that you are a poor college student whose boss just cut your work hours in half, so yea!!!!!! here’s whatever this is

There is a boy you know who likes to show his kindness quietly. It would go something like this:

Then comes the hand of God. It touches your shoulder gently, hesitantly. You turn around to face a stranger, a boy with shaggy black hair and pale moonlight skin. It is not God, but he comes close.

He doesn't find the words, after all. You aren't too offended by his silence, but he appears to be mortified. And so, he leaves just as quickly as he had appeared, like a whirlwind dressed in an oversized blazer flapping behind him like wings. He runs through the rain without another thought, an arm raised above his head in a futile attempt to avoid the rain.

You try calling out to him, wanting to thank him once more and maybe to ask how you could return his umbrella, but he is long gone. A speck of black dashing through the gray.

You clutch the umbrella closer to you, a feeling of something new growing inside of you. It is too small to call anything, but it is warm.

———

Umbrella boy has a name, and he happens to work on the same floor as you. You know this because he is standing right in front of you in all his bespectacled glory.

He ducks out of view the moment your eyes meet his. There is a stack of folders in his arms, and he bows his head until his nose touches manila. It's too late––he knows you caught him staring. He scurries behind walls of filing cabinets and desk cubicles, desperate to get back to his desk where he hopes you'll never find him.

(You can already imagine your HR department contacting you about nonconsensual manhandling... You admit that you tend to get overzealous with your affection, especially when confronted with cute things. This boy would definitely need to watch out for you if he knows what’s best for him.)

((Also note to self: Stop having these psychopathic conversations with yourself. Being stuck inside the cage which is your brain is torture enough, so let’s not encourage it to get worse.))

“Are you… umm…” You hesitate with your words, fearing that any sudden movement on your part might cause umbrella boy to combust on the spot. “Do you need help… picking those up?”

“Min Yoongi,” he replies, pausing for a second too long. He must have realized his delay because he coughs awkwardly into his forearm, averting his face away from you in a futile attempt to become nothing more than an abstract thought.

“I just… I’m sorry if I’m acting odd right now. I just wasn’t expecting you to come to my cubicle and I would’ve... I don’t know, tidied up? If I knew you were coming,” he mutters, propping his glasses back up when they start sliding down his nose. They make their slow descent back down immediately after, forever on an endless cycle of up and down his face.

You cock your head to the side. “Nerves? From what?”

Yoongi visibly relaxes when you accept his flimsy excuse, not really lingering on the validity of his statement. “Oh, sure! Don’t overwork yourself too much, okay?” you say, smiling sweetly back at him. He stares, wide-eyed, not really sure how to go on with his life after he’d been blasted by the full force of your grin.

God, you hope you remembered to use a toothpick during lunch. Was there spinach in your teeth? Oh fuck.

#my wips #bts scenarios #bts fanfiction #bts imagines #bts reader insert #yoongi scenarios #yoongi fanfiction #yoongi imagines #LISTEN I KNOW I SAID I'D POST FOX RAIN 4.5 AND I WILL #I JUST..... OVERESTIMATED MYSELF AND I THOT I'D FINISH EARLIER THAN EXPECTED #WELL!!!!!!! JUST ANOTHER DAY OF ZEE FUCKING UP AND WRITING SOME OTHER BULLSHIT INSTEAD LOL

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anything-disney-that-i-like · 4 years

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SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE MOVIE!!!!

DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND WATCH THE MOVIE ASAP!!!

The really beautiful thing about Onward is that it gave us a disfuntional sibling relationship where the older sibling isn’t the paragon of success and the pillar of idealizaation for the younger sibling. The last time we had this was Lilo and Stitch, and even then the relationship they had was much more parent-to-child than it was sisters.

Sure, Lilo and Nani fought like sisters, and they bickered, and they very much shared the key dynamic that is much older siblings caring for their much younger non-womb-incured baby but that’s the thing. Their age difference and maturity level required that Nani be more of a mom a lot sooner to Lilo than a sister. I relate to that because I have 2 sisters, and their relationship is sooooooo different than the relationship I have with either of them. The relationship I have with my youngest sister (15 years younger than me) is the relationship Nani and Lilo have with each other.

Every time I see that movie, I feel Nani’s frustration when she’s trying to correct Lilo, when she’s trying to get her to do something. When she loses her patience and then says some stuff she really shouldn’t have and gosh dang it, this authority figure who was NOT supposed to hear that heard and now I have to figure out how to not get in trouble bc FUDGE BROWNIES!!! But their relationship is more like what we see when Nani gets fired and when Lilo asks her if it was her fault, she says that no, that he boss was actually a vampire and he wanted her to join his army of evil undead.

What does Lilo say? “I knew it.”

What does Nani respond? Nothing. She just rolls with it and doesn’t make her second guess her words. Their relationship is sister when it comes with dealing with each other’s quirks and not pointing out they’re quirks bc they’ve grown up together. They know all the weird things that would be weird from other people, or even WERE weird at some point but their parents reprimanded them for being rude about how they pointed it out, and so now they’ve learned to shrug it off or just not even flinch around said quirks.

But Ian and Barley’s relationship is much like the relationship I have with my slightly older little sister. She’s 13 years younger than me but by god would you swear the ages were reversed. She’s smart, creative, clever, logical, very organized, EASILY embarrased by me, and has her life already planned out and ready for success.

I am only like Nani in how I know my youngest, and how we’re disfunctional but functional in our own way. And thank god, we don’t have to worry about it just being us. I am much more like Barley. I already graduated but I’m kind of in my own gap year at the moment. Not so much bc I’m taking a break but because I’m having such a hard time finding a job. I’m very enthusiastic about things I’m passionate about. I can be loud and obnoxious, and sometimes when I try to help I make things worse. I absolutely adore my siblings and am always giving them hugs and am just very *loud* in how I express my love for them. With my Lilo, she could care less. She rolls with it bc this is what I’ve always been like and she doesn’t know any different version of me. But with my Ian, she cringes. She freaks out. She pretends to not know me. She’s embarrased by me...

I am her Barley and I cringed when I realized (literally as soon as Ian started complaining about him and his “toys”) bc this was the very beginning and I get that there were going to be some brotherly conflicts but I did not expect the level of similarities the brothers would share to my own dynamic with my sister.

I cried a lot during the movie and not so much because of some heartbreak or sad scene or whatnot. I cried because there were so many scenes were Barely was doing his best. Where he was saying something he really shouldn’t have been saying but he didn’t realize that’s something you shouldn’t say bc he’s so pure and honest and his filter doesn’t work and gosh dangit, now he’s in trouble! There were so many things that caused my sister to yell “That’s you!” and just as many that made me yell “I’m sorry!” But the scene that we both felt that we were both extremely tense and quiet through was the transformation spell and the lie Ian said that hurt Barley so much.

I know my sister thinks I’m a failure. She literally tells me every time she’s made “At least I’m not the 25 year old without a job.” Or “Please, when I’m 16 I’m probably going to be the one teaching you how to drive.” And my “favorite,” “I should be the one in charge bc I’m not the one with a disease!” What disease was she reffering to? Social Anxiety. Depression. Autism. Queer. I’m not the sister she expects or wants. I’m the one she’s stuck with. And because I don’t reach her standards for what she thinks someone my age should be like, she thinks I’m a failure.

This movie made me cry so much. I hope it made her think about our relationship too, and maybe how we can both improve how we interact with one another. It’s only been 1 day since we saw but it really struck a chord (multiple actually), and I can’t let it go.

Onward gave us brothers who don’t see each other equally. Barley loves his brother, but he will always see him with a fatherly lense. He can’t help it. His life experiences shaped that role in him too much. He’ll be a world class dad when he has his own children, but he’s too much of a dad to his little brother. And Ian sees Barley as his immature brother. He took the fact that he didn’t have his dad around as a cue to grow up as soon as possible. To be the adult he thought his dad would want him to be. He may have just had the personality that made him much more mature, more needing adult acceptance, and needing to have some sort of control, but it was the presumed lack of a father figure that made him act older and not give himself to enjoy the llittle things or see what was right in front of him.

I love that their relationship becomes much equal. Yes, Barley is still a father figure, but he also stepped down to be more of a brother to give Ian space. And Ian recognized what Barley did for him, what Barley always tried to be for him. He accepts Barley’s affection a bit better because he recognizes that Barley needs Ian to know he really does love him. He also understands better why Ian is the man he is, and why he makes the decisions he makes. They understand each other better and though nothing has really changed in how they interact, it’s the paradigm shift that was what saved their relationship so that when they’re 50 and look back on life, they can look back at all the wonderful memories they’ve shared and not look back on a life where they grew distant as soon as Ian was old enough to leave for college and not be forced to interact with his brother.

Onward is an amazing movie with a powerful sibling relationship. Not because they loved each other so much and fought to show the other how much they loved each other but because they had them realize what they already had and to not squander that.

If you read this and haven’t watched Onward, what are you doing???? Go get your booty to the nearest screen and either rent it or use the DIsney+ free trial to watch! If you did watch it, thank you for listening to my personal essay and why Onward means so much to me. I know I probably overshared but this movie is my “in an alternate, genderbend-fantasy-universe, My Ian and I are Barley and Ian” movie. I love it and I hope you do (or will) too.

#Onward #Critique #Personal Essay #SPOILERS #onward spoilers

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thewillingnessproject · 4 years

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Why you shouldn’t shame a narcissist

We can trace narcissistic behaviors to a narrow set of coping strategies for anxiety.

In other words, a method for controlling the environment to reduce certain thoughts and feelings that are painful to experience. Someone who is "a narcissist" is someone who engages in behaviors to manipulate the environment in order to reduce the turmoil that's inside of them.

Most narcissists suffer greatly from feelings of inferiority and fear of abandonment. They lack a fledged out "I"- a sense of "self"- and make up for that by generating a grandiose, bold identity. It's an armor. It looks tough, but it's frail.

Narcissists put a lot of effort into controlling their environment, too. Because life is often unpredictable, and the sad truth that people do leave (they die, change jobs, etc.), trying to hold onto the goodness of connection and so on, results in the unwanted feelings. For instance, I have a mentor who lived nearby for a few years. She then moved hours away. It happens. For some people, however, abandonment (or FEAR of abandonment) can lead to developing narcissistic traits.

Narcissism isn't a disease. It's an adaptive method of control. Some LEARNS these behaviors.

So narcissists will tend to make a lot of chaos. As long as they were responsible for it, they feel a sense of control. It's kind of a paradox: more chaos mean more sense of control. Narcissists push people away. Again, they don't get the connection they deeply desire, but at least they were in charge of the pushing, and weren't abandoned by someone else.

It's a vacuum, however. Because the controlling leads to more chaos and loneliness, the temporary relief from fear works, but the long term relief is never gained. So narcissists get very good at manipulating the environment to make it seem like it's not them, it's you. Doing so gets them off the hook for their own self-defeating behaviors.

Partners of narcissists, for instance, are often confused, unsure if they are responsible for problems. They might be manipulated into apologizing for their behavior, when actuality, it's their narcissistic partners who are problematic.

We all possess some narcissism. In small dosages it's normal and not often an issue. Many celebrities and politicians are more narcissistic than others, though- reaching a status of power creates a sense of control. Again, the environment might be controlled, but the internal fears and lack of "I" festers and festers. More power is gained. More fear.

Only narcissists who are willing to step out of this cycle can begin to develop new, more functional behaviors.

This article is about the narcissist who isn't:

So, let's just say, hypothetically, that we have a narcissist in a position of extreme power, like a president, (or something). And let's say that this president (or whatever position) is nearing the end of his term. That's right: he might be losing power, losing control of his environment. It's very likely his manipulative behaviors will increase in a desperate grasp for control.

Someone in this position will lean towards eliciting chaos, fear, anger, and so on because, once again, it's more predictable than harmony, closeness, and wellness.

Let's say someone like this is president during a pandemic. He likely didn't start the pandemic, but he will absolutely want to leverage the chaos and fear a pandemic creates in people.

And if the climate is- (still hypothetically, of course)- in a terrible state, this same politician might want to disrupt the climate more, harm the environment more. He might want to drill deeper. There's some power in that, when the reverse- trying to heal the planet- is a bigger unknown.

And let's say that something like racism is an entrenched and horrific source of separation and anger. This guy didn't start racism, but he will leverage it for his own benefit.

Therefore, you have someone who wants you to feel angry at him, to yell at him, to fight him. This ensures he has a sense of power and control. He adds it to his armor. He's not the problem. You are because you're the one yelling and fussing. He's in power and only doing his job.

And, like most narcissists, this person of power will likely be very good at having people feel confused, angry, isolated, and so on.

He may, for instance, want people in masks, not because it's a healthy thing to do, but because it covers up our faces. We can't see or connect with people. The masks elicit a sense of fear and division. This matches this guy's own inability to connect with people, and constant fear of "getting to close to someone."

If he can't get close to others, he won't want you to be able to either!

If you don't agree with the policies, bullshit tweets, and responses to global crises that this person makes, you might call him out. You might swear about him on social media. You might argue with him. You might feel angry, scared, and so on. It certainly feels productive to hold him accountable by not ignoring his unhelpful, destructive behaviors.

However, I urge you to consider that your approach might actually be fueling the narcissist.

He wants to be pushed away, wrong, and terrible. This proves his schema of a broken, messed up fake. He doesn't have to change because he's right. You're wrong.

To work with narcissists, I'm going to encourage you to get beneath this armor and speak to the wounded, frail disaster within. When he wants to take rights away from the LGBTQ+ community, you can say:

"I can see why you'd want to do that. This community has been gaining support and rights, and is a strong, beautiful community fighting for the goodness of all people. I'm not surprised you're trying to hurt something so much more powerful than you are."

When he tells police to "not be so nice" to "criminals", you can say:

"I'm not surprised you want people to be meaner to one another. If people are kind to one another, there's no disconnect. We're all working together. Except you. You're on the outs. No one can work with you. It's us against you. Too bad you can't be a part of us. We are strong and powerful."

Beyond that, can you love the narcissist?

I'm not saying adore, praise, or admire him. I'm saying love him. A mother who loves her child will hold him accountable for his actions. Love is unpredictable, uncontrollable. To tell the narcissist, "You must be suffering a great deal inside. No one suffering that much would try and hurt others. I see your vast suffering. I'm going to ask that you find another way to heal your own pain. This way will not work."

I read many honest, sometimes humorous stabs at particular narcissists in power right now. One by Motley Crew drummer Tommy Lee is particularly enjoyable.

I appreciate the brutal pushing, the naming of his fucked up behaviors. I also know that this gives the narcissist the sense of power he wants.

We do need social change. Big time. Our education, penal, food, and health systems need drastic overhauls. Any anger, confusion, hatred, or scorn you feel is completely valid. I'm not asking you to ignore those feelings. I'm suggesting that how you go about making change isn't going to work. It's going to make things worse.

I, for one, hope to help narcissists contact the pain beneath their armor. I want them to know that I see them for who they are beneath the facade; wounded and scared. I don't want to let them trick me into interacting with the armor. There are many ways to fight injustice, times and places to shout, scream, yell, speak, be heard. Don't go silent.

Hold boundaries with the narcissist in a dispassionate way. Say, "This is the limit." And importantly, don't disconnect, isolate, operate from fear or rage. This feeds the narcissistic traits in an otherwise hurt person.

#behavioral science #acceptance and commitment therapy #education #narcicism #narcisistic #mental health

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whookami · 4 years

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Ohhhhhh nooooooo.

Okay, so I’m looking in my asks and I realize that several have the anonymous heading, but beside the text is that person’s avatar and name. So, like, does this mean that the reverse is true? If I send something anonymous can the person I send it to see that it’s me??? Oh gosh. I get so nervous and embarassed and wracked by my social anxiety that I send a lot of things to people I admire on anonymous because I want to talk at them and tell them how cool they are and ask questions, but I’m afraid that if they know it’s me constantly bugging them they’ll think I’m some kind of weirdo (okay, honestly I am, but the good kind I hope swear!)

Is this a thing? Is the anonymous button totally pointless and have people known it’s me all this time???? I am so potentially embarassed right now!!

#social anxiety #I am so painfully awkward #thinking about dumb questions ive literally sent peolple tonight

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superheroshippinq-archive · 5 years

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Self-Insert Info [ EARTH-1 ]

[ anyway i wanted to do full info for my flash self-insert because i changed her a lot ]

[ my self insert from before is the same for earth-38 ( winn and brainy’s earth ) so this self insert is just specifically for the flash. ]

Name: Quill West ( fraternal twin sister to wally west, younger sister to iris west )

Alias: “ Thunderbird ”

Species and abilities: Metahuman, electrokinesis

Ethnicity: African-American

Gender: female ( technically genderfluid but mostly presents as female )

Sexuality: biromantic asexual ( sex repulsed )

Home Earth: Earth-1

Occupation: part-time superhero, full-time mechanic/electrician for S.T.A.R. labs and team flash

Status: dating barry allen

Personality

quill is a lot like wally in personality. she has shown to be fun-loving and very playful, and fairly light-hearted, even in serious situations. quill is also very fond of making puns and pop-culture references, almost too frequently. shes pretty silly, almost similar to ray, and tends to get giggly, especially when flustered or just in a really good mood. however she is a lot more easy-going and laid back than wally, having been excited to connect with iris and joe despite being equally bitter about having grown up without a father figure. she doesn’t often get worked up easily by things, only mildly irritated, which often followed by a pretty comedic reaction. she is very sassy and is always making witty, snarky comments. she can be sarcastic too, making her butt heads a lot with harry and ralph. though sometimes she can overtalk ( ok, more than sometimes ), something she is very insecure about, and sometimes won’t make a comment on situations until provoked. she’s not as impulsive as her brother is, instead of more cautious and level-headed, favoring thinking and planning over running in blind. quill is a major coffee addict and can almost always be seen with a cup of it in hand or nearby. she can usually be found at jitters in her free-time, often accompanied by wally, H.R., or joe.

Abilities

quill’s meta ability is electrokinesis, or electricity manipulation. her body acts as a lightning rod, able to absorb electricity, as well as an electrical conductor. she can run electricity through her body, as well as release it or shoot it out at any amount of power she wants ( within reason, of course ). she can also shape it, such as making an electricity whip or spear. When using an overload of her power, her eyes turn bright yellow and spark, however this can cause her to ‘shortage out’, or lose her memory for upwards a whole day depending on how much she exerted herself. she’ll usually regain it, but it’ll come back to her quicker if she takes a nap. team flash takes turns keeping track of her whenever this happens.

Backstory

quill west is the youngest of the west siblings and the twin sister of wally west. she wasn’t raised with iris and joe but instead with her mother, francine west, as well as her brother wally. for most of her late teen years to early twenties she worked as a barista at cc jitters, until the night the particle accelerator exploded. at the time, she had been in central city, trying to fix the electrical box at their local jitters location ( a power outage was caused right before the explosion due to poor weather ). since she had some skills in mechanics they sent her over, but the explosion, much like barry, caused her to get completely electrocuted.

she was in the hospital for a week before they let her go, surprised she didn’t have any burns or injuries, other than a few bruises and a slight concussion. It wasn’t until the day after she was released from the hospital and returned home that she discovered she was a meta. she accidentally shortaged out the light in her room, and eventually the whole house, unable to control her electricity. she hid this from her mother as well as the rest of the world for a long time, and ended up never getting the chance to tell her that she was a meta. but she did tell wally, who helped her practice controlling her powers in secret.

pretty quickly after reconnecting with joe and iris, quill began to get to know team flash and become extremely close with them, especially barry. she accidentally figured out he was the flash by walking in on them at S.T.A.R. labs when looking for iris. they made her swear not to tell anyone, and as a sure agreement, she revealed to them that she was a meta. not long after, she began to handle the electrical work and some mechanical work in S.T.A.R. labs, usually alongside cisco or harry. eventually, she started going out on the field alongside barry and the others, picking up the superhero alias THUNDERBIRD.

Headcanons

-unlike wally, she doesn't live with the west fam, she lives on her own in a loft nearby, kind of like kara but quill’s loft is a little bigger.

-she has a comfort animal, a golden retriever named buddy !! he's her baby !!

-everyone thinks thunderbird is a boy. most likely because she wears her hair like wally's whenever she's out being super. she's VERY popular among girls, which she really doesn't mind. she now presents as male when out as thunderbird.

-she has a drink named after her at jitters !! the 'thunderbird' is an expresso with the foam in the shape of a thunderbolt. it has so many shots its guaranteed to make your heart stop.

-her favorite drink at jitters is actually the reverse flash, a secret menu drink. she'll also go for the zoom, sometimes.

-shes like ?? never wearing her own clothes. she borrows shirts and sweaters and hoodies, etc. from barry and wally all the time, and sometimes even iris.

-she does struggle with social anxiety. she may act pretty social and crazy around team flash and her family, but outside of that she's heavily introverted and EXTREMELY socially awkward. to strangers she may come off as just really goofy and weird, but on her end shes usually really anxious and trying to cover that up with overtalking and unfunny jokes. she does get very stressed in long social situations and can be physically exhausted if out around people too long.

-her suit was made by cisco ( of course ) and is heavily based off of his own vibe suit, which she often tells him looks really cool ( or 'dope' more specifically ). its made mostly of leather, with heavy rubber padding inside the chest area to protect her from accidentally shocking her heart to death. but it also lowkey smushes her chest, not in an uncomfortable way, but definitely contributes to her more masculine appearance.

-the wings on the back of her suit are supposed to be bird wings!

-cisco calls her 'pikachu' and she literally cannot stand it. and harry calls her sparky which shes indifferent to.

-she's EXTREMELY close with wally. they grew up together and took care of each other a lot, especially when their mom got sick and was in the hospital. they've always been there for each other and continue to be. they're best friends and nearly inseparable !!

-wally and quill love to tag team ... wally can charge quill with a lightning throw and quill can create a REALLY powerful attack from it. it's like their ultimate move, but also always puts quill out of commission afterward, so they try not to do it often ( though sometimes they can't help showing off).

-quill loves to act cocky while on the field, but she's actually quite humble and is very thankful for her powers. she's one of the few metas who loves their powers and wouldn't trade them for anything.

-shes a big superhero fan and knows A LOT about every super, including her friends like barry and oliver. she studies the multiverse and it's heroes occasionally too, and sometimes visits earth-38 to study with kara. she got to meet superman once and she never shuts up about it. she also loves wearing shirts with superhero logos on them.

she’s team mechanic and usually fixes up S.T.A.R. labs after meta of the week destroys it. shes also an ‘electrician’ of sorts and can get the place to light up again if the lights shortage out.

loves film and theatre, a whole lot !!!! will fight you about why highschool musical 2 is better than highschool musical 1

she loves loves loves loves loves her speedy boyfriend

she has got some thick eyebrows and eyebags lmao

#will add more headcanons later #will i ever upload anything other than creepy ass chibi sketches ??#nah #self insert #ME !!!!!!!!#she technically can be interchanged between the flash and arrow but fffff #who cares lmao #my art #thanks to anyone who ready all of this

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shhhnottom · 4 years

Text

I Got Bored. Here's A Book

Just a quick warning before we actually start this mass roller coaster of bullshit. If you are easily offended, feel free to stop and reverse your hand to the home page.

Also, this is not a story of any kind. It's just a random bunch of subjects that mean something to me and I ramble on about. I drank quite a lot whilst typing 90% of this and watched a fair amount of Netflix

Just take a look at these chapters. I think you could see where this is going to go:

Depression

Anxiety

Television

Self Harm

Procrastination

One Word Chapter

Didn't See That Coming?

Swearing

Panic Attacks

The End?

Just another warning, there will be a fair amount of swearing in this so if you want to censorit out, feck off. It's safer, trust me.

Depression

Yeah, lets start off dark. That seems like it's going to be a great plan. Let's face it, everyone has their bad days. Try to lie, I dare you. I have mine and they get me to a point where I just want to throw myself into a keg of ale and a couple bottles of whiskey. Has to be the good stuff, otherwise my sadness is made more sad. I mean, who wants to depressed and drink a bottle of Tesco value blended shite when there is a long list that will make you feel slightly better, like Jameson's, Tullamore Dew and Paddy's. Yeah, I went straight for the Irish whiskeys, sue me.

Anyway, after my lengthy dabble with the art of drinking myself into a coma every night, waking up for work in the morning, finishing work and continue to drink, I decided that I need to ruin all of the relationships I have built over the years with a combination of heartfelt insults and trying to throw myself into traffic when they are looking. I'm a lovely person, aren't I?

What I decided to do after several attempts on my own life, well two attempts anyway, is to take the fucking hint and realise I'm not supposed to die. Did you know, that therapy is actually effective and gets you to the place where you feel a lot better and not suicidal any more. You see, it's almost as if the doctors who say you are depressed and need therapy are speaking the truth. Who knew? You know what I found doesn't really help. If you decide that you don't need therapy and that finding pictures of celebrities who have decided to end their own lives and post that shit to Facebook, saying that “Even The Happiest People Are Sad”. Its almost like they decide, before they leave the house, that they don't want people on the outside who have cameras and social media accounts to take pictures of them whilst they are having a bad day, and post it all over the fucking place. Fucking hell, I went to therapy for a year before realising that I'm just a massive idiot and if I thought a little bit differently, I could get over all of that nonsense that was going on inside my head. I, now, look at my depression like its one big fucking meme and take the piss out of myself because that's how I can deal with it. I mean, I don't read books and here I am fucking writing one.

The main reason why I look so differently at depression now is because of the millennials who think because something hasn't gone their way, they have to post shit over social media complaining about how hard life is. You haven't even hit 20 yet, you pricks. Wait until you get to 25 or 30 and come to realise “I'm in a dead end job, going nowhere and I have no money”. Oh Jaysus, wait until that comes along. You will think that not getting laid in that shitty club is a holiday.

I mean, there are some great positives to come out of having depression, going to therapy and getting to a point where you are comfortable with living the life you have been given. I, myself have reconnected with people who I thought I had lost, through my incessant need to push them away. I have a better relationship with my parents, now that we have started communicating properly again. I am a lot less selfish, and have developed a form of empathy I had no idea I had inside. I've even tried to help some people in their times of need, when they were feeling at their worst. I once wrote a letter to someone to try to make them stop going down the same road I went down:

“I have this incessant need to do stupid things to hurt myself

I have broken my hand multiple times to avoid mental harm but have inflicted physical harm on myself

I have destroyed possible relationships in the desire to remain alone, to stop myself inflicting my mental harm upon others

I have kept myself busy in order to stop myself from pursuing a premature non existence”

Told you before that I was a lovely person.

It turns out that maybe, my experiences, aren't as bad as other peoples. It might also turn out that your experiences aren't as bad as mine but I'm not going to presume. Hopefully, you've enjoyed the first chapter, I have no idea what's going to happen in the next few chapters, mainly because I haven't written them yet.

Anxiety

Disclaimer,

I was fucking hammered and heavily depressed writing this chapter and tried to write it completely in the 3rd person. Enjoy.

Have you ever noticed when people get really offended they decide to inhale very dramatically and hold their chest as if they have been hurt so badly that their heart has been hurt? Imagine if those people develop a heart condition. You'll never be able to tell if they eventually do have a heart attack or if you've just told a really funny joke.

Just to reiterate, “this book” is just my thoughts written down whilst I have a couple of drinks and watch Netflix.

Someone once told me that a persons feelings are subject to the person they are. I know people that are massively bitter and their stomachs always hurt. All they do is moan about what other people do or think and then constantly moan that they are ill.

Here Tom, isn't this chapter about anxiety? I'm fucking getting to it. Chill the fuck out.

Getting back to what I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. This person also told me that they get a sore throat every time they want to say something but they force themselves not to. Can you imagine what that's like? To not say what it is you want to say, just to not offend people.

I get super anxious around people who are better than me. I know someone who is literally the most caring person I have ever met. They care more about other people and how they feel than they do about how their life is going. Another thing I get anxious about is when I think that I've not accomplished what I thought I would have done by this point. I mean, I could claim that I was from a broken home, had to move from my home country to another and had to start my life from square one but I, then, realise that there are so many more people that go through that and I'm not special.

I've just poured another glass of whiskey. Its just about a half a glass. This shit is difficult to write about, can you tell?

If you haven't noticed yet, I like to make stupid jokes just to pass off that I'm OK in the head. “shakes head dramatically”. I put that in because you cant physically see me and I'm shit at drawing my head shaking.

I know a lot of people who smoke an arse tonne of weed just to get over their anxieties. Have you ever smoked weed? That shit is scary. I remember one time, New Year I think, I was working. Showed up at 10am, was supposed to be on until 6pm but it was so quiet that I got sent home after 2 hours. I went to the nearest town and drank like half a bottle of whiskey, well Jack Daniels. Does that count as whiskey? Its basically sugar with some ethanol. Along with several pints of beer and a shit burger from a Wetherspoons. Anyway, after drinking myself into a stupid comatose state where I was still somewhat functioning, myself and one of my friends went back to his house and he broke out the weeds, the green, the marry Joanna. After quite a lot of smoking and a bit more drinking I decided I needed to rest my eyes for a moment, just a single moment. Suddenly, I felt slightly ill in the stomach. I remember saying to him, “If you don't get a bucket, I'll throw up all over your floor”. However the video suggests something different. Yeah, there's a video. It goes something like this: “mmmmmmmmmmm mumuumumumu bucket muumuu floor”. The point is, there was a massive stain on his bedroom carpet for 6 months after. He didn't let it go. At all. The bastard.

That whole story doesn't explain how weed doesn't help my anxiety but I ran out of shit to say and I thought that would break some tension. Hopefully.

I'm currently listening to a song that tells you how to kill yourself. Yeah, this got dark really quick. Although, it has a great message. Don't rely on pop stars to write a song that will resonate with your feelings. Lady Gaga doesn't care if someone found her lyrics about the paparazzi inspirational enough to make them not kill themselves. (There are many pop stars out there who do the same thing, Lady Gaga was just the first person who came to mind). They've made their money, after that they just carry on making new “inspirational songs” and go on a new tour, make more money and the cycle continue. I listen to Twenty One Pilots' album Vessel when I feel really anxious. Seriously, those guys write about what they feel instead of what some songwriter thinks what other people feel.

Hey Tom, how are you going to bring this chapter out of the hole its in? You expect me to be funny and make a point? Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah,Nah....Hey Jude.

I've been at this chapter for too long now. I'm fucking done. Good luck understanding this mess I've just read this back. I mean, seriously, if you've got through this well done.

Television

Ah now for fucks sake. Who's idea was it to put in Television as a chapter? Mine? Nah, doesn't sound right. I'm not that fucked up to put this in here. I mean I'd put in music or video games. I'm more interested in those than I am in TV. Fine, Fucking, Fine. I'll talk about this stupid subject. I mean, fuck me. Dumb ass.

At this current moment in time I am watching the second season of Jack Ryan and I can conclusively say that I am not disappointed. Two episodes in and it has been a massive thrill ride. I mean, to go into Venezuela at the current moment is brave just to film a TV show. They must have spent more money picking the safest place to film there than it cost to pay the actors. I could imagine that John Krasinski isn't that cheap to hire after the first series and after the US Office. Not including his directorial debut in the Quiet Place. Magnificent.

I've also watched the Netflix series Daybreak about a dirty bomb going off in L.A and only people under the age of 18 surviving. Very clever concept for a show, and the fact that they managed to film in parts of L.A is even more impressive for a small time TV show.

3 paragraphs I managed to get through before getting to a point. I decided to throw on the last thing I was watching on Netflix to emphasise said point. Yeah, I'm watching the last series of How I Met Your Mother. DONT START. Seriously, I know. Up until the last 2 episodes it was OK. It was a great story overdone by bad direction.

4 paragraphs, look at me.

OK, by this time, I'm sure you're getting it. TV is a great way to distract yourself from the real world. A great way to distract from your problems in the world. I mean, you've got to find the right show for you but there are so many out there at the moment and so many ways to watch them. There will always be people who say that you shouldn't waste your time sat and watching TV, go do something with yourself. Just imagine what those people do when they get in from their days at work. They come home, sit in an empty chair and look at their walls. I mean, they could be reading a book. Preferably, this one. Or maybe not, but my point is still valid. You could read your books and force your brain to imagine the world that the book is coming to or you could spend the time to celebrate the people that have done that before you and decided to 'Do something with themselves' and make their favourite book into a magnificent visual performance. I mean, at this point, I have switched to the modern Sherlock Holmes series, which as everybody knows is brought to life from the many stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. This TV show is 90 minutes long per episode and is very entertaining, so you never seem to notice that the time goes by. This means that if you are feeling a certain way at the start of the show, there is a 90 minute period where your feelings could change, your opinion of the world could change.

OK, I have nothing left to rant about here. If I were to speak about another music or video games I would have been here for another 6 pages but I figured your time would be spent better here.

I mean I wrote the names of the chapters before I wrote the actual chapters themselves so you're as stuck as I am with what gets written. I could change this but where's the fun in that.

Good luck reading the next chapter. I promise, I will be completely hammered writing it because I'm going to continue writing after this chapter. I am currently on the verge of tears now so, I guess good luck to me too. Thank you for reading up to this point if you have. I've tried to keep it fun but now I'm into serious mode.

Self Harm

Hey people, lets enter dark mode. I mean every other company on the planet has already done it. I mean, apart from Facebook but those bastards let political propaganda through, so I guess that counts.

I mean, that's the shortest joke I've told so far so, for the people that know me, know that this will be a bastard of a chapter. And also ,for people that know me will also be looking at this chapter going, 'He's not seriously going to talk about this, is he?' Yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Over the last five years, there have been several moments I am ashamed of. All of which are my own fault. I once launched an egg at someone because the oil that I was supposed to put it in splashed at me.

Did you know that even talking about a certain subject can sometimes bring up feelings you hate? Coming to realise that.

I fell for a woman. Gorgeous, smart, beautiful. We had a lot in common. She was my perfect equal apart from she was caring and humble about it. I'm an arrogant bastard. She was single at the time and I thought I had some form of chance to win her over not knowing everything about her. At this time, I was a very possessive person. I would have done anything to be with her. I let this attribution take control of me at the worst time. I wanted to play the long game, get to know her and eventually ask her out. I went out for drinks with a friend one night. Got absolutely rat arsed. I found out, that night, that she had been asked out by somebody else and she had accepted. I didn't know her very well by this point but because of my possessive compulsion, I took this very personally. It was neither of their fault, just myself.

Some time had passed and I was trying to prove my self worth to this woman. She was still with the same man and I was still jealous. Another night, another time these people were around me, another time that I tried to make it about me.

9 shots of tequila later. 9 exactly. Someone kept count by keeping a tally on my arm. In marker, before you get to excited. I'm not sure of how many other drinks on top but it was 9 tequilas. Anyway, I'd had some minor thoughts in the past of how my life should end but that night my head went into overload. You know, that summer was so bad for me I don't even know if this was the same night. Anyway, after some time and a lot of drinks later, I figured that this was the end of the night for me. Well, end of something for me. I had decided that this was the last straw for my bad luck in this world.

There is a point where half the people I know think a certain habit started but in actual fact this story is where my habit actually began. Everyone has their own stories, where they cut their wrists to fill some form of void, to feel. There are some people who look for it sexually, unfortunately I'm not the lucky. I decided this night out of pure frustration to pull said woman aside, point at a wall and told her that was how I felt when I was around her at that point. I was a brick wall. I wanted noting else at the time to kill that brick wall. So, what I did next is, by far the thing I regret the most. Out of everything I've ever done and believe me, I've done some bad shit. Over and over again, I punched that wall until I could no longer feel my hand and then, I carried on until I broke my hand and then, I carried on until somebody pulled me away from the wall. By this time, I had broken my hand in 2 places, I was bleeding all over the place and I had broken every friendship I had built and every relationship I had hoped to build. I think the most embarrassing thing for me was, the person who bandaged me up was the person who had the balls to ask the woman I had fallen for. Could you imagine? This was the person I had blamed for driving me to the place I was. He helped bandage me up and the woman who I had fallen for was consoling me and trying to help me get through what was in my head. I could not take this. In my head, I would never be able to recover from this. I continued for another 18 months to cut myself, punch walls, headbutt walls, kick and break my hand and other bones in my body. I was always in a mental state where I never thought that I was good enough until I decided that enough was enough.

Surprisingly, when people say that therapy works, they are telling the truth. Big wow. I think its safe to say I am definitely stupid enough to continue writing this nonsense. Well there's a few more chapter so lets see where we end up.

Procrastination

OK so its been a solid 2 months since I wrote the last chapter, which is long enough by anyone's standards, but for me, being the stubborn prick that I am, is no time at all. I mean, I can not do something for an extended period of time. It took me a year to launch a business I could have launched in 6 months only because I changed my mind on whether or not I wanted to start the bastard thing in the first place. It took me spending a grand on my first design to actually say, “Yeah, I'm in too fucking deep here to pull out”.

I've gone through 90% of my life not doing things when they needed to be done in favour of doing them the very last second, mostly because I was scared that they would never work out in the way that I wanted them to and that I would constantly be they failure I feared I always would be. I never believed that anything I was doing was worth the time or effort to do. I decided at the very end of college that I wanted to go to university but by the time I had decided this, it was too late to take seriously and I missed out. I did 3 years in college whilst everybody around me only did 2 because of this. Still, I never went to university so I guess that third year was pointless but the point was that I spent so much time on the internet playing online games instead of revising for exams and concentrating on my coursework.

This got very serious when it got suggested to me that I might need to go to therapy to sort out what was going on inside my head. I kept telling people that I would go eventually because I never though that I was “that” bad but going by what you have read in the previous chapters proves that I made the mistake of putting it off. Big woop. I did go in the end but it took some serious relationship breakdowns, quite a few broken bones and the attraction to my inevitable early grave to accomplish.

I think the message here is to not be afraid of what you thin will fail. Give what you want a try and if it fails, get back up and try it again in a different way. Never give up on something if you really want it to happen and listen to the people who you care about, who also care about you. Especially when they are telling you something is wrong and they are concerned.

One Word Chapter

Vukei

Didn't See That Coming?

Yeah, you probably should have seen that one coming. Its literally called a one word chapter.

It took me two minutes to choose the word. I had an unlimited choice to go with across multiple languages, so me being me went for the most obscure language of Fijian. What does the word mean? Do I look like Google?

There is no moral to this chapter. I just needed to fill in a gap to make this “book” look more full than it actually is. I mean, the moral could be that I've got to a point where I am comfortable enough to actually start doing what I say I am going to and then do it. I still get people telling me to do the most ridiculous things and saying that I will never do them because of the person I used to be. Imagine the look on their faces when I actually come through with the goods. I started a joke with a friend where , when we worked together, we would always listen to Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus whilst we worked and when we stopped working together, whenever the song came, we would SnapChat the other whilst the song was on. We said that this wouldn't last long so I personally made sure that the joke carried on. At the time of this being written we haven't worked together for over a year and the joke is still going.

Swearing

Welcome to this shit storm of a chapter. Do you ever notice that when you hurt yourself in a bad way you cant help but swear. That's because it releases a small amount of dopamine into your brain to help ease the situation you are in and stops some pain in the process. Weird, right? I'm in the strange occupation of chef where I am constantly getting burnt, cut and verbally abused in different languages, so swearing is one of those things that helps with the day to day survival of working in kitchens. I could fall into one of the other 5 habits that a chef develops as a result of the stupid work that we have to do. Those habits being:

Drug Abuse

Alcohol Abuse

Gambling Addiction

Caffeine Addiction

Smoking

I do suffer from 2 of these. Not saying which ones but I do have people around me that think I'm on at least 4 of them so that's nice but in every profession there is the secret, hidden thing that helps them through the day and that's the swearing aspect. I don't think, in the last 3 years, I have gone a day without telling someone that they should fuck themselves or that they are a cunt with them being aware that I am just taking the piss out of them an I don't mean half the shit I say. It just becomes habit to tell people to fuck off or suggest that they shove a large object up their rectums.

I used to knock the shite out of walls to relieve stress but I would always swear like a cunt after I would do it thinking to myself “You are a stupid prick and I hate you”. I would then look at my hand, laugh and say out loud “Ha you are a cunt”. The thought was always I would get over some of the pain if I constantly just swore to myself and carried on as if nothing had happened. Of course, my hand would always hurt for days afterwards and I would be swearing until it healed only to find another wall to knock shite out of and the process would start all over again.

Panic Attacks

A friend once said to me, “Bring A Harmonica Everywhere You Go, So If You Have A Panic Attack You Can At Least Make Some Music”. I never bought the harmonica but it is a very good way to portray what its like to have regular panic attacks. Could you imagine just busking in town, guitar in hand trying to be the next Ed Sheeran and then suddenly, your heart starts to blast out of chest, you feel light headed and you start to hyperventilate. That would be the best time ever to pull out your harmonica. You'll be on the floor with tears rolling down your face but you'll be smashing that cover of You Don't Know How It Feels by Tom Petty.

I starting writing this back when I was having regular panic/anxiety attacks, every 2-3 days in fact, but getting to this point its a bit more every month so, yay progress but I wrote the chapters out months before and I said I would follow through with it so here I am.

Funny story, I once had a panic attack in a nightclub whilst sat on a replica of The Iron Throne from Game of Thrones, whilst my friend was out on the pull. That's the whole story, seriously, but could you imagine having a great time up until the point when you realise you are surrounded by 250+ people you don't know, with a severe case of crowd anxiety and your friend abandons you for the prospect of sex. My head exploded and there was a very attractive looking wall outside that I felt needed a makeover. Never got the makeover, the lucky bastard.

I used to make the biggest mistake for myself whenever I felt anxious, panicky or depressed because when my depression was really bad, my drinking made it so much worse because I lost the control that I had over myself. My mistake in recent times is that, when I started to feel like my old self, I would have a drink to try to combat it. That is the mistake I would make. Try to stay away from my old self by doing what my old self would do.

Its got to a point now where, even where I am reading this back, and nothing in my body reacts. No anxiety, no panic and no depression. Well, saying that, I still have those feelings but they are not nearly as hurt filled as they were in the past. My secret, apart from therapy, on how I deal with life and why I am the way I am now is.

The End?

I mean, is there really an end to a story, an idea? I do have secrets, everyone does. My biggest is that I made a character in myself to try to avoid loving myself and anyone else. I acted as if I didn't care about other people to make it easier on myself if it came to a point where they let me down or, in the more realistic circumstance, where I let them down. I always tell people that I'm not a nice person to put them off this fact so that they see me as the character I made up. I make certain jokes to people to put them off and I say things to them to give them the idea that they need to avoid any form of relationship with me so that they don't get hurt in the crossfire of what I am.

In the 2 years since I have made this character, only 3 people have seen through it and seen me underneath, no matter how much I have tried to put them off. One of which is my mother, another being the woman mentioned in the Self Harm chapter and one more person who I fell for but not in the way I have before. Only because I am afraid of what would happen to me if I had made the same mistakes from before. Its really irritating trying to get people to keep the secret that I am a horrible bastard so I can stay in my own little bubble.

At the time in which I am typing this, I have not been to therapy for 2 months. In this time, I have learnt that:

Not everyone is out to get me

Not every decision I make will fail

I have the self control to not hurt myself physically or mentally

My emotions are not here to hurt me

I am capable of loving myself along with someone else

I am a nice person and I don't need to hide behind my old self

Swearing actually does help, I don't have any regrets there

Bring a harmonica to a panic attack if I want to be the next Tom Petty

Don't throw away the opportunity to love if given it. It will bite you in the arse if you do

Safe to say, even though I have my bad days, I have, recently, barely gone a day without having a smile on my face. For those who know me will know that this is a rare occurrence.

I don't think there will be a day where I don't think about the person I used to be. I'm sure I will use this as a defence mechanism in the future but I know that I will eventually get over it. If you ever see me later, if I ever just clench my fist. Just know that I am trying to counter act my old self. Not very helpful but still.

I want to thank every person who has helped me become who I am now because who I was previous was, to put it lightly, a total cunt. I have become a functioning person, with some glitches, only a couple though. I decided to thank everyone who helped me in person months ago but it needs to be said again to solidify my authenticity.

If you have read it to this far, you are one of the people who have helped me, inadvertently, but still thank you.

Tom

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