#but today has been. idk. i had a breakdown last night bc i feel like im not doing enough to make things happen

[izzy-b-hands]

tumblr stop flashing random messages while im trying to search a tag on a mutuals blog challenge

bc when u do it's always RIGHT by the spyglass and follow/unfollow buttons and in my rush to make the message go away i end up fucking. unfollowing and having to refollow ppl and just. the lil for sale things are cute but let me make the choice to go look at them, just let me navigate a damn blog without that worry

[illanabehir]

Medical update

While there hasn't been much going on bc they're trying to get MRI and pet scans scheduled I have been extremely frustrated by some of the staff. Yesterday the helper on night shift did my obs and said they needed to do them at the beginning of shift. (I was annoyed bc I was in a normal raid in 14 as a healer) Change over is done by 7:30. She came for obs at 3minutes to 9. It wasn't even the first I saw her bc around 7:40 she asked if I wanted a hot drink. I've been here forever I know when shift starts and it isn't fucking 9pm. Then this morning she decided she had to raise my head on the bed so my obs wouldn't be low but I wasn't laying on the bed right for that and she just hurt my back in doing so. So I'm fucking frustrated. I already didn't like her bc when she did an ecg on me last time I was in the hospital she for some reason put two of the things basically on my fucking vagina like wtf are you doing and they left the door open like okay what about my privacy my decency. They struggle to get blood from the PICC line every morning and I have to do a ton to help it maybe flow and half the time they just try for 2 minutes meanwhile I had to pump my arm prior drink a bunch of water and turn my head and cough constantly during it which has strained my neck with how often I've had to do it (multiple times a day) it's fucking annoying.

And yesterday I realized today is Thanksgiving and I'm stuck in the fucking hospital. I should be home. I should've made the dessert. I should be meeting my brother in law at the dinner. Gwen and I should fucking be there. Instead I'm stuck in a hospital with shit food and not even having visitors today bc it's a stream day. So I just get to wallow and if someone tells me I shouldn't cry I'll just be like it's a big family holiday in the states tell me I can't cry again. Bc it feels like any time I'm crying about something it feels like they're telling me to stop crying stop feeling and I'm just like fuck off sometimes you need to let it out ffs. Idk I had a breakdown the other day that was about the money and the whole situation. Today it's about Thanksgiving and being stuck here.

[nayrusl0vee]

Sigh I had a mental breakdown in my car last night. I had to pull over and just cry my eyes out. And it was fitting bc it was raining hard too. 💀😭

I was just thinking about all the things I've been through mentally and emotionally this year, and man, it was a lot. But God is still good. God is still great.

I ended up blasting worship music to calm down, which did help. But I feel like absolute crap today. My feelings still feel numb, so that's fun. At least I'm recovering from whatever cold or flu?? I had?? Idk.

I've learned so much this year and connected with some really great people, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I've gained brothers and sisters across the miles. 🥺 I have many things to be thankful for even though things feel so unsure at the moment. God is God and he's in control.

I'm really hoping the people I have in my life rn will continue to stay, Lord willing 🙏

Some people come into your life for a season, lessons are learned, and then they leave.

But some people, by the grace of God, return. And that return has its own meaning and purpose... I'm still trying to figure out that part 😅 but I know I won't get those answers yet. Bc I thought I understood, but once again, I literally understand nothing.

This year, God made me strong

Next year... perhaps happiness? We shall see.

Goodbye 2023 ❤️

[husbandhoshi]

OKAY. the time has finally come for me to read this award winning fic and yall are gnna get the FULL almost comp lit major breakdown

greed had always been your deadliest sin, despite everything. you want, and want, and want. you want what you can’t have, you tell yourself, but you stop at the thought. that's not it. pause, rewind, play. because the truth of the matter is, you just want what you don't deserve. you don’t deserve this—the sun-soaked kitchens, the teasing glances, the rhythmic sway in each others' arms as you wait for the rice cooker to beep, your timer set for the oven to ring, the world to finish turning from gold to dark blue to midnight.

ok this one ALWAYS hurts my feelings bc not ONLY is the "greed deadliest sin" line soooo good, the way this part is phrased is soooo..... guilt-laden and weighty and burdened. like a perfect example of show not tell.

it's 12:03AM when your phone lights up again, eyes burning in the brightness. you can only watch as you bleed.

i just love this one. that's all. it just sounds so good

he scoffs, harsh breath crackling over the speaker. “he didn’t need to. he’s locked himself in his room since last night and won’t talk to anyone else. it isn’t hard to figure out when you were the last person he called.” the influx of questions almost come pouring out before you bite your tongue—doesn’t he have schedules today? do you know if he slept last night? did he even eat at all since then— “oh,” you manage to breathe out.

HEART HURTY.... imo the kindest form of love is worry. also you truly made sunwoo sooooooo sad and pathetic.

(heat surges to the bridge of your nose, pressure builds at the back of your eyes. those three minutes had passed, so it was okay now, right? it was okay to let go?) on monday morning, six minutes past ten, you sit tourniquet-tied in a pool of dried blood of your own making, and you cry.

grrrr the prose is sooo good. also just a side remark here but the dialogue is GOOD in this scene too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! idk What you were worried abt. like the flow is good and it sounds natural

sunwoo furrows his brows, leaning closer. the earbud wire dangles precariously over the desk, headphone jack connected to your phone in the middle. breath held, you try to ignore the close proximity in favor of focusing on the chords, the bass, the melody. even with just the guide melody, each note sounds like a confession, like a secret waiting to be unveiled, wanting to be stripped and laid in the open.

i just grabbed this paragraph bc it sounded good but i like this section! it's like....wattpad au grown up bc yn has depth and you can already see the Cynical School Politics (tm) that shape yn's view of being an idol!!!!!!!!!!! like there's that element of passion and duty and capitalism and it isnt just baseless apathy towards sunwoo or like shoddy characterization but like more Informed motivations. you know.

(for when he calls, they had said gently, pushing the cupcake and the unopened candle towards you. you can blow it out with him, make your birthday wish together.) it paints you orange, the soft glow just warm enough for you to barely feel it as shadows dance on the table. ten minutes away from midnight, you hold your breath, something in your chest deflating as you close your eyes, readying yourself to blow out the candle.

NOT.....the taylor swift all too well moment. prose is chefs kiss. but alsooo i love how there's a reciprocal element here. like i hateeee one sided things bc it just feels so unfair and unrealistic but the fact that there are Actual Problems in the relationship is so refreshing

"sunwoo," you call softly. the line goes quiet. you almost regret it, the words catching in the back of your throat when you try to speak them, but you imagine what it would be like if you forced your tongue to form them anyway, awkward and wooden and hurt. “i…” it was my birthday, today. did you know? did you forget?

i loveee this part. idk

it wasn’t so much that sunwoo had forgotten your birthday, but it was everything that it encapsulated, everything it makes you realize. how he was so much bigger than this, than you, how you shouldn’t have expected him to remember every little thing when he already has so much on his plate and a hundred more important matters to worry about. didn’t you hear the rasp in his voice? the exhaustion that coated each word? how he still took the time to call you at three a.m even after a full day of work and schedules?

ugh and the guilt comes BACK. i love how this scene is interspersed with yn wandering thru their psyche + this is tied in with the environment and setting and the prose. like thematically its so good and also it really puts you into the scene. i dont even normally think like yn but this got me thinking Like That.

“i mean, i’m fine,” chanhee says, a hint of ‘of course i take care of myself, who do you think i am?’ in the retort, “but.” he pauses, taking a breath, and you can tell he tests the words on his tongue before he speaks them. “are you sure it’s me you’re worried about?”

mwah chefs kiss!! the dialogue is just a window to the nature in their relationship. it doesn't do Too Much and yet you just know how good and vulnerable the friendship is

(the memory flashes by in an instant. the chill of a cool spring night, the squeak of the swing, the dim golden light of the street lamp above. you can still feel it, sometimes, the condensation slick on your fingertips, the bite of cold metal through your palm—the warmth, in spite of that.)

the parentheticals are sooo good. as someone who uses and abuses them i think when u do it its like perfect

“and also, i just really want to see you in another one of my shirts.”

ur so mean for this. ouch

“how could you!” he exclaims, pulling his hand away. “ye of little faith…” sunwoo’s voice goes grave and solemn. “don’t you want to see me in a sexy apron.”

and then

“i mean, i know i don’t have to,” he purses his lips, frowning. “it’s not like i feel obligated or anything, but i want to.” i love you, he means. i want to love you, i choose to love you.

the whiplash this scene gave meeeeeeee........................under all the laughter and unseriousness there is STILL the guilt. bc it never goes away. its just sooooo. bangs head against wall. why does love hurt!!!!

“you were in my dream last night.” you remember the morning you’d woken up to this voicemail, remember your thumb hovering over play but not finding it in yourself to press it. you know—you’ve known since the beginning that the recording would only add to your troubles, but on a night like tonight where the noise of the work party still echoes in your head and the apartment feels lonelier than ever after a tipsy ride home, the bruise feels too tender for you to do anything but press into it, over and over and over again.

THIS SHIT HURTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! also idk if ive said it too many times but the prose is soooooooooooo good. like i find it hard to read thru long introspective prose but yours always hooks me in

you ignore the calcified shame within you, play ignorant to the cycle that will inevitably repeat itself the next time a night like that comes again, and you pretend that this is the one thing you won’t let go of, even if it turns into all you have left.

ur end of scenes are always sooo good

“of course i will.” tonight’s moon waxes, its light peeking through the clouds. “i’ll always be rooting for you, kim sunwoo.”

again just grabbing the end of scene to talk abt the whole thing but THE SWINGS....................we have come full circle. and i love how yn isn't wooden. likee we love a stoic personalty but HERE i like how the roles are reversed and yn is the cheerful supportive one.

but you’re trying, slowly in your own way, to not do things like that anymore. after all, eventually the shirt needs to become just another shirt, and your voicemail will one day go back to having no more recordings saved. 

ok i love this line. i feel like the prose here is fresh its lik a good syntax change.

and yet you were the one who had smeared the paint before it could finish drying, the one who had felt so alone in watching the wear of a bridge you had deemed impossible to save. and at the end of the day, maybe the fault fell partly on both of you, stepping onto that unsteady footing together with the rope of the bridge fraying with the weight of time, but you were the one who had taken that last step to the other end without him even knowing.

yass we love that character development!!!!!!!!

but you suppose it’s always been like this, ever since the night you broke up with him—how sunwoo has been choosing to love you still, even after, and how you’ve been choosing to still love him too by refusing to truly let him go, orbiting around each other like how gravity is both the reason why a planet circles a star and why they can never ever fall into one another (again). perhaps this is just where the frayed edges of fate have left you, coming together only once before your ends are split away forever.

this is excellent i love the way the title comes back and the way this whole fic has been wrapped in such a wonderful paragraph

and despite everything, gravity fails, just for an instant, and you and sunwoo collide into each other once again.

ROARING..... RIPPING MY HAIR OUT......what a superb way to just. wrap it up. thematically artistically and the sentence reads soooo well . also YAY happy ending. i couldnt be happier

OKAY those are all the grabs i took BUT overall i loved this!!! i do NOT read angst but i greatly enjoyed every moment. there's a good mix between the heavy melodrama and the lighthearted flashbacks and i actually really like how you mixed them because the mood isn't as dour BUT you also see the happy moments through a new lens. so all of it just works well together and the pacing benefits from it.

in terms of the characterization i've said most of my thoughts. BUT like one of my pet peeves is when someone is one-dimensional or like totally blameless OR just totally impenetrable/cynical and it's all For The Drama. but i feel like you did such a good job at realistically balancing ppl's personalities and motivations and it felt organic. sunwoo is romantic BUT naive and out of touch is yn is steadfast and sincere BUT goes thru the whole arc of like becoming emotionally Unconstipated. it all works well tgt.

loved the chanhee friendship and yn's Mind Palace was so well developed and thought out. there were times i was like Yeah totally! and i don't really identify with yn at all.

ok rant over. i know i've seen bits and pieces of this over the past few weeks but it all works beautifully together and you really pulled it off. SOO proud and i can't say it enough. i am not nearly as coherent as this deserves and im writing this on my busted ass keyboard too but i hope the admiration i have for u comes thru!!!! excellent wondrful work but i didn't expect anything less <3

gravity (is the distance between you and me)

kim sunwoo x gn!reader

you tell yourself that this is for the best, that you’re only doing what needs to be done. even if it hurts now, even if it never stops hurting, maybe this is truth you’ve been running from this whole time. maybe this is just acceptance. — or: you break up with sunwoo because you love him, because you refuse to let him fall back down to earth with you; everything that follows after is an inescapable gravity.

idolverse!sunwoo x non-celeb!reader, exes!au, mostly reader-centric // 13.6k // angst with a teeny bit of fluff in between // told in alternating past and present timeskips, vaguely canon timeline but don’t look too close // 🪐fic playlist (for full experience)

if you enjoyed the fic, please leave feedback!

prologue. (love is…)

it occurs to you on a sunday night, the second-hand of the clock only a few ticks away from midnight, that this was never meant to be.

you try to not hear echoes of sunwoo’s voice in your head, admonishments scolding you gently to go to sleep, but it plays in your head regardless. truthfully, it had always sat on the edge of nagging, but you supposed that when it was him, it ended up more endearing than anything else: the pout in his lips, the scrunch in his brow, the worry in his eyes as he'd brush a strand of loose hair out of your face. 

there was always something else in his gaze, something you could never quite pinpoint—like he saw something you couldn't, like his gaze had stripped you bare of everything you'd put up to protect yourself. you try not to chase the rabbit's trail thinking about it, shoving the ghost of the memory beneath a quick, heated blink of the eyes.

it doesn't matter anymore. you've lost the chance to figure out what it had meant.

you almost laugh at the reminder; it seems you haven’t changed, even now. greed had always been your deadliest sin, despite everything. you want, and want, and want.

you want what you can’t have, you tell yourself, but you stop at the thought. that's not it. 

pause, rewind, play.

because the truth of the matter is, you just want what you don't deserve. you don’t deserve this—the sun-soaked kitchens, the teasing glances, the rhythmic sway in each others' arms as you wait for the rice cooker to beep, your timer set for the oven to ring, the world to finish turning from gold to dark blue to midnight. it's softness that makes your lungs collapse in on themselves, tenderness that burns your skin from even the gentlest brush.

you've been selfish for long enough, you think, indulging in pleasures that should have never been yours. and no matter how tightly you want to continue clinging onto sunwoo's sweet words and empty promises, the little voice in your head drowns it all out in the end. 

it's not supposed to be painless; it's rational, practical, inevitable, but so is snipping off the dead leaves off your plant after they've died, tying a tourniquet to a limb before cutting it off to prevent the infection from spreading. 

(it's for his own good. you should have done this a long time ago.)

so you pick up your phone, send a single text message to sunwoo, and wait; your knuckles turn white with the knife in your hands, like the first press of the blade to your skin. tie the knot tight, grit your teeth, you can never go back to what once was.

it's 12:03AM when your phone lights up again, eyes burning in the brightness. you can only watch as you bleed.

after. (love is sacrifice.)

chanhee calls you monday, the morning after.

it’s not so much that you weren’t expecting it, moreso that you were hoping that you’d be proven wrong, that maybe chanhee could have let it go, let it all play out without any extra fuss, but thinking back on it now, you suppose the mere thought of that was already a hopeless endeavor. phone vibrating on the counter, the caller id blares ‘choi chanhee’ in big white letters, predictably incessant. 

you can practically feel the pensiveness in the buzzing. the bated breath, the knit brows, his finger tapping on the table as chanhee waits for your voice to replace the dialing tone over the speaker. you have half a mind to just let it ring.

after all, what more could he really say? it was all over and done with, and he’d just be wasting his breath trying to convince you otherwise. but still, your phone continues to ring, and despite your better judgment, your finger slides to accept.

(if you were going to start it, you might as well go until the very end of the aftermath.)

“hello?”

chanhee lets out a sharp breath, his voice falling to a hush. “are you serious?”

not even a ‘hello’ back, you lament silently. your bottom lip catches between your teeth, nail picking at the loose skin on your thumb as you try to form a reply on your tongue. “about what?”

he calls out your name in response, exasperated. you can practically see the wrinkles knit tight in his forehead, each word stressed more than the last as he continues to scold you. “don’t play dumb with me,” chanhee retorts. “did you seriously break up with sunwoo?”

ah. straight to the point, as expected. you shift your gaze to the clock on the wall, focusing on the rhythmic ticking as it works its way through a new hour. your breathing slows to match, heart steeling, your voice thinning out into something you know you can control. “he told you?”

he scoffs, harsh breath crackling over the speaker. “he didn’t need to. he’s locked himself in his room since last night and won’t talk to anyone else. it isn’t hard to figure out when you were the last person he called.”

the influx of questions almost come pouring out before you bite your tongue—doesn’t he have schedules today? do you know if he slept last night? did he even eat at all since then— “oh,” you manage to breathe out.

“what are you doing?” he asks plainly. it’s a simple question, and it’s one you don’t know how to answer.

“i…” you chew your bottom lip, eyes picking out a small scuff on the side of your coffee table. funny, you don’t remember it being there before you had moved. “i’m not sure what you mean.”

“don’t do that, you know exactly what i mean,” chanhee counters back. “why did you break up with him? and don’t give me some bullshit excuse, because we’d both know you’d be lying.”

the clock continues to tick on the wall, and you drag your eyes over to it once more, its needle in a constant state of motion. three minutes. you could unravel the truth to chanhee in three minutes, at least the parts that really matter. choi chanhee is many things—nosy, opinionated, a gossip, but he isn’t tactless. no matter who he ends up spilling his complaints to about you and sunwoo and this entire situation, you know not a single word from his lips will ever reach sunwoo’s ears. no matter how close you and chanhee are, you would have ended the call then and there if you weren’t certain of it.

“it’s for the best,” you say softly, and it sounds so simple when you put it like that. like the nights toiling over sending that final text were all for nothing because this was just how it was meant to be, like you were just fighting the inevitable.

“you can’t actually believe that.”

something in your chest sparks, a flicker of a flame that lends itself to “we both know—” before you cut yourself off, catching the growing volume and thickness in your voice before chanhee can pick it out and lay it bare. “we both know it was never going to work out like how we wanted.”

you tense, waiting for chanhee’s incoming rebuke, but he goes quiet for a few moments before trying to speak again, slowly and carefully. “what happened?”

“nothing happened,” you stress, shaking your head, and you smear over the memory that flashes by, the hurt and loneliness that fades into nothing more than streaks of color and silence. “i just did what i should have done a long time ago.”

“you—”

“i have to go, chanhee.” choke it back. hold it in. “take care of him, okay?”

chanhee makes a noise of protest, but you hang up before he gets the chance to say anything more. you try not to look at the clock on the wall again—you already know those three minutes had passed a long time ago.

(heat surges to the bridge of your nose, pressure builds at the back of your eyes. those three minutes had passed, so it was okay now, right? it was okay to let go?)

on monday morning, six minutes past ten, you sit tourniquet-tied in a pool of dried blood of your own making, and you cry.

before. (love is youth—)

it all starts out as whispers at first.

rumors of a new transfer student spread quickly through the halls, jokes about new competition within the school said just as easily and nonchalantly as discussing the new main course added onto the lunch menu, or the latest news about which celebrity they think would make it onto dispatch headlines within the next year. it’s routine, at this point, their gossip becoming just another common occurrence during the school year. all of it is just too familiar, too predictable, your classmates’ voices droning on in your head as their gossip goes through one ear and out the other.

the new kid gets introduced during homeroom first period, and the whispers grow to a murmur. the clacking of the drumsticks from a couple kids in the back of the class stop, and the boys playing guitar in the corner of the room go silent, eyes bright and watching.

he introduces himself as kim sunwoo, an applied music major, and you wonder if he’s just another kid wanting to fulfill their idol dream—a trainee? a trainee-wannabe? there certainly weren’t a lack of those in the applied music department, and at a school like hanlim, most transfer students ended up being one of the two. repressing a sigh, you bury your head inside the crook of your arm, slumping against your desk. as if there weren’t enough empty desks scattered around the classroom belonging to students skating by their classes in favor of trainee and idol life.

you’ve heard too many whispering aspirations from other trainees about gaining fame and popularity, thousands of adoring fans loving them through their music, but you know it never really is about the music—it’s always just a means to an end, not that you could really fault them for it. everyone was working hard in different ways for their dreams, but after months of being paired with and surrounded by people who were barely around and hard to reach with a noticeable lack of passion for the same music you came to hanlim for, you’ve grown a little tired of it all. 

even the class president, park jihoon, couldn’t be excluded from that nasty habit. with more absences than attendances on his record, you had to wonder if all that struggle as a trainee at such a major entertainment company was worth it. but still, at least he tried his best at his job whenever he was here: leading the class, keeping everyone under control whenever they inevitably got frisky, and—(your eyes catch him walking over to the sunwoo’s desk and introducing himself)—making small talk with the new kids.

“where are you from?” jihoon asks, head tilted curiously. “seoul?”

sunwoo nods, and from the bits of conversation you overhear from a few desks away, it’s just as you guessed. the transfer to hanlim was only to get him one step closer to becoming an idol. you can see it all so clearly, another empty desk, another dream of wanting fame.

“are you in a company, then?”

“no, i…” sunwoo rubs the back of his neck, shaking his head half in a stupor. you can practically hear his thoughts in his poorly-veiled expression, the culture shock of the applied music department in a school like hanlim striking him swiftly. “not yet, i’m looking for one now.”

“ah, i see,” jihoon nods faintly, a spitting image of a cool class representative, and you stifle a snort beneath a hidden smile. as if jihoon didn’t only just get accepted into yg entertainment two months ago. he’s lame as always.

the boy sitting behind sunwoo chirps in after, asking him questions and starting up conversation along with another kid in their column. chin rested on your hand, you turn your head towards the window again, tuning out your classmates in favor of watching the clouds outside drift slowly along with the wind. 

(he was planning on being a trainee, after all; there wasn’t really a point in becoming invested in someone you knew you were never going to see much of again.)

except, a couple of weeks later, your teacher announces a month-long songwriting project, and sunwoo’s name gets called out next to yours as random pairs are chosen as partners. he meets your eyes from across the room, giving you a small nod of acknowledgement, and you try not to let the apprehension show on your face when you give him a polite smile in response.

you don’t even know if he knew how to write lyrics.

“so we’re writing lyrics given our assigned theme, right?” sunwoo asks after class, chair pulled up to your desk as you brainstorm for ideas.

you nod, peering over at his sheet cautiously. “do you have any ideas on how to start?”

“well,” sunwoo starts, lips pursed as he taps his pencil on his paper. “the theme is ‘love,’ right? so we could do anything about that, but…”

“it’s too broad of a topic,” you finish, frowning.

“yeah,” his eyes flicker to yours, mouth gaping open slightly, his eyes a little wide. “exactly.”

you hum in thought, a few seconds passing in silence before you pull your wired earphones out of your pocket, offering him an earbud after. you figured if you were partners, you might as well work hard together. “let’s start with this, then,” you try. “what do you think when you listen to it?”

songs were stories, after all, even without the lyrics. like putting together parts of a puzzle and assembling it piece by piece, it was your job to find what part of the story was untold and fill in the missing words.

sunwoo furrows his brows, leaning closer. the earbud wire dangles precariously over the desk, headphone jack connected to your phone in the middle. breath held, you try to ignore the close proximity in favor of focusing on the chords, the bass, the melody. even with just the guide melody, each note sounds like a confession, like a secret waiting to be unveiled, wanting to be stripped and laid in the open.

“it’s a sad song,” you comment, breaking the silence, “but it’s like…it sounds like there’s more to it than that?” you let the question hang in the air, looking at him half-expectant.

“it almost sounds…” sunwoo begins, trailing off as he mulls over his words.

“bittersweet?” 

sunwoo nods as he hurries to scribble down a few words onto the sheet of paper. the puzzle piece clicks into place. “that’s what i was thinking too. like there’s still something left to remember even if it’s all over, like…”

“like even in the hurt, it’s still—“

“—love.”

before. (love is lonely.)

party streamers littered on the floor throughout the living room, the metallic gold strips of paper and plastic scattered amongst silver glint in the darkness, catching in the lowlight. balloons of all different types of assortments were sprinkled throughout your apartment as well, regular colorful latex balloons floating above your couch and set atop your coffee table and fallen beneath your stools, while the fancier balloons had been pinned on an empty wall of your kitchen, ‘happy birthday’ with an extra exclamation mark and heart balloon spelled out in big bubble letters.

sat at the kitchen table, you watch in silence as a small candle flickers in front of you, placed in a single cupcake that your friends had insisted on saving for you after the party. 

(for when he calls, they had said gently, pushing the cupcake and the unopened candle towards you. you can blow it out with him, make your birthday wish together.)

it paints you orange, the soft glow just warm enough for you to barely feel it as shadows dance on the table. ten minutes away from midnight, you hold your breath, something in your chest deflating as you close your eyes, readying yourself to blow out the candle.

your phone lights up, ringing; you scramble to salvage what lingering traces of hope you have left.

you try not to think too much of it when the incoming call shows up as a voice call rather than video like it usually is, but your greeting slips out a little too quickly, too obvious to tell that you were waiting for him to call. “hi, sunwoo.”

“hey,” sunwoo greets back, words spoken slowly, his voice tracing the edge of a drowsy rasp. any trace of bringing up the voice call goes out the window. if this had been any normal circumstance, you would have teased him for mistapping his screen, playfully badger him to switch over to video call so you could see him in all his bare-faced glory. (but then again, a small voice in the back of your mind interrupts,  if this were any normal circumstance, he would have just been here instead of across the world.) you push the thought away; a small drop of wax begins to melt down the candle.

“we just got back to our hotel,” he tells you, and you can see it clearly almost as if you were there. the contents of their luggage messily splayed about the carpeted hotel floor, outfits for tomorrow draped on the chairs, and dirty clothes piled in a hamper in the corner. you can faintly hear a shower being turned on in the background, and sunwoo comments on it before you can ask. “can you believe this? changmin-hyung kicked me out of the bathroom as soon as we came into our room,” he complains, and you know that his lip is jutted out in a pout of indignation at the injustice of it all. “he said that i’d take too long and use up all the hot water if i went first.”

“well…” you chide softly, a smile faint on your lips. “he’s not exactly wrong, sunwoo.”

sunwoo whines, and you can hear him kick the sheet on the mattress. “you’re siding with him?”

“sorry,” and you don’t sound apologetic in the slightest. “you know i can’t lie.”

he grumbles something unintelligible as you breathe out something resembling a laugh. silence lulls for a few seconds, your shadow long on the tabletop, and you try to harden the twist in your gut, gathering the courage.

“i—”

“today—”

you stop, and so does he.

“oh, you go first,” sunwoo offers, but you hesitate, offering back.

“no, it’s okay, you go.”

sunwoo insists again, but you can sense his fight against his heavy eyelids growing closer by the second, the yawn that he stifles every time he pauses, so you force down the confession, keep your wish tucked away within the flickering candlelight. he would know, right?

“no, i mean it—what were you going to say? how was your day? how was the flight?”

there’s a moment of uncertainty where sunwoo tries to decide whether or not to continue the exchange, but he gives in eventually. “the flight was good,” he begins, albeit still reluctant. “the plane food was better than usual, surprisingly.”

you hum in acknowledgement, encouraging him to continue.

“and i fell asleep an hour in and—chanhee-hyung,” he interrupts himself, suddenly remembering. “i fell asleep and chanhee took these photos of me and—”

“were you drooling?” you guess, sympathetic.

“how did you—i mean no! i was not drooling!”

“chanhee’s newshots will never lie, you know.”

“ugh,” sunwoo groans. “remind me why you’re friends with him again?”

you contemplate, humming. “birds of a feather?”

(chanhee had actually sent you the photos earlier this morning, along with the text “happy birthday, here’s a loser as your gift.” he followed it up with an additional message of “your loser…i guess.”)

“oh, speaking of birds,” sunwoo adds, “that reminds me. i saw two ducks swimming in the river today. mandarin ducks, i think.”

“oh?”

“yeah.” his voice grows quieter, almost embarrassed as he mumbles, “they reminded me of you.”

you go still. you try to fight the hardened knot in your stomach from softening and twisting further. he’s just a hopeless romantic, you tell yourself, but the knot wrings tighter, creeping up into your chest the more you try to not think about it. mandarin ducks, the symbol of love.

(“they mate for life, you know?”)

sunwoo tries to change the subject, ears surely burning red as he stammers his way to the next topic while half-muffled into a pillow. “anyway, i didn’t call you too late, did i? it’s three a.m. over here, and i wasn’t sure. i didn’t wake you up, or anything?”

your ears ring as you swallow hard, eyes burning as you look at the clock on the wall. it ticks, once. “no, it just turned midnight here.” 

(you suddenly remember that chanhee had sent you another message afterwards, one that you never opened properly to read. “he’s said happy birthday to you already, right?” you had wanted to open it when you could respond with a “yes.”)

“oh, okay,” sunwoo smiles over the phone, love and affection still tangible even through the tiredness in his voice, the drowsiness that permeates through the speaker. “that’s good to hear. you should probably sleep soon, though, i don’t want to keep you up too late.”

“yeah,” you say, barely audible. were you expecting too much? “changmin should probably be done by now, too.”

“hey,” he frowns. “you okay?”

“yeah, i’m okay. just tired,” you tell him, tight-lipped as you smile.

“we never got to talk about your day,” sunwoo mentions, a reminder with gentle insistence. even on the verge of sleep, he was still trying.  “i’m free after dry rehearsal, so we can call again tomorrow night? i wanna hear about it first thing.”

you draw in a breath to agree, but something else slips out instead, the one thing you had tried to keep contained since the beginning. maybe you had brought this upon yourself, holding out for it until midnight slipped between your fingers, the hope in your chest slowly unfurling. you wonder if it was obvious, the remnants scattered at your feet.

"sunwoo," you call softly. the line goes quiet. you almost regret it, the words catching in the back of your throat when you try to speak them, but you imagine what it would be like if you forced your tongue to form them anyway, awkward and wooden and hurt. “i…” it was my birthday, today. did you know? did you forget?

by the kitchen, the big trash bag tied to the outside of your trash can is filled to the brim with plastic cups and paper plates. there’s still wrapping paper you need to throw away left on the counters, leftovers that need to be transferred and stored and put in the fridge. you wonder if you would have felt better about the hassle if sunwoo was there with you—to toss an empty cup into the open bag from across the room, to listen to you talk about your favorite memories from the celebration, to turn off the final light with you at the end of it all. like the old times.

even on call, he could have done most of those things, maybe even save you time from giving him a chiding look when he’d inevitably miss throwing the cup into  the trash bag by half a foot. he never really had to be here, he had just always been with you, in one way or another.

but it wasn’t not really your sunwoo anymore, was it? not really. not since he became more than that kid in the practice room with a pen between his teeth and a metronome in his hand, not since he became synonymous with the brand his name was attached to. and it was unfair of you to expect those kinds of trivial things from someone so far out of your reach now, right?

so the question remains a lump as you swallow it down—close your eyes, blink back the tears, it's your fault in the end, anyway—and smile. "no, nevermind. you must be tired, you should sleep soon."

“are you sure—“

“bye, sunwoo.” 

you watch as the reflection of the flame trembles in the small pool in the center of the cupcake; the wax has long since melted onto the frosting. you blow it out, and the candle leaves only a trace of smoke curling in the air in its wake—silent, alone.

it wasn’t so much that sunwoo had forgotten your birthday, but it was everything that it encapsulated, everything it makes you realize. how he was so much bigger than this, than you, how you shouldn’t have expected him to remember every little thing when he already has so much on his plate and a hundred more important matters to worry about. didn’t you hear the rasp in his voice? the exhaustion that coated each word? how he still took the time to call you at three a.m even after a full day of work and schedules?

you place the melted candle into the trash, carving out the tainted top with an extra knife lying on the counter. don’t be a bother. don’t hinder him with needless things.

the next morning, sunwoo calls in a panic, hurried apologies blurring all his words together in a flurry as he frantically promises to make it up to you when he comes home. you tell him it’s fine, you knew he was tired and busy and you didn’t want him to worry about it, but the soft assurance can’t hide the underlying hurt that splinters between him and you.

and he does keep his promise when he returns. the day after the plane arrives home, sunwoo’s first order of business is to insist on a full day spent together, making it his mission to be at your beck and call the entire time. he showers you with countless presents from his trip overseas and twice as much affection for each day that he was gone, but even underneath all the cheery smiles and excited banter, you can’t shake the feeling from that night. the mess on the floor, the shadows distorted in orange light.

it never really is quite the same, after that.

after. (love is a martyr.)

life goes on; it always does.

not much changes, at least nothing that isn’t glaringly obvious. you throw yourself into your work like you always have, going to countless songwriting camps and workshops, sending in drafts of songs to a&r teams of various companies only to be rejected then revised and then offered again for other songs and artists by other companies, a continuous cycle that seems to blur all the following days together. the only difference is that your phone stays eerily quiet—no scheduled ding at lunchtime reminding you to eat, no pictures shared throughout the day, no good night phone call to lull you to sleep.

though, you still talk to chanhee from time to time, if only because of his persistent insistence on the matter.

“we’re recording tomorrow,” he mentions, voice crackling over the speaker. you pause for a split second over a half-open cardboard box, hand faltering over the frayed edge of the flap. you’d only recently gotten around to unpacking the rest of your boxes from your move months ago; it wasn’t as if you were too busy to get around to it, but you suppose a part of you wanted to prolong the finality of it all, whether consciously or not. and on this wednesday afternoon on a day off, you figured it was better to do it now than never at all.

you let out an “oh”  in response, grabbing a few things from the box and placing it on the floor to reorganize later. “another comeback?”

chanhee’s chair squeaks as he hums, leaning back. he was in his practice room at the company—you can tell by the way he doesn’t whisper his words to you like they were a secret kept and hidden away. not like whenever he calls you at the dorm, careful of what wounds may open up again if someone were to overhear. “the teasers should be released soon.”

“you seem busy, lately,” you comment distantly, placing the phone on the table and setting it to speaker as you collect as many mini decorative plates and bowls in your hands before you stand up, ready to place them in various places around the living room and kitchen. remnants of the afternoon’s rain slips down the window glass, clouds casting the sky and your apartment a wash of dull gray. “first the tour, then a japanese album, now a comeback—are you sure you’re okay? you’re still taking care of yourself, right?”

“i mean, i’m fine,” chanhee says, a hint of ‘of course i take care of myself, who do you think i am?’ in the retort, “but.” he pauses, taking a breath, and you can tell he tests the words on his tongue before he speaks them. “are you sure it’s me you’re worried about?”

you place a bowl down on the windowsill a little harsher than you mean to. “chanhee.”

“sorry.”

chanhee at least sounds apologetic when he says it, but he interrupts the silence that falls soon after slowly, tentatively asking. “you’re going to listen to it though, right?”

you swallow hard, breathing out a long sigh as you pick up the phone again, holding it to your ear as you speak. “of course i am. did you even need to ask?”

“no,” he replies, a second’s pause where you think he shakes his head. “i just wanted to hear it from you for certain. to hear that you were still listening to us.”

 ‘to sunwoo.’ the words go unspoken, lying heavy in the air. it’s almost cruel, the way chanhee picks and pulls at the confession you have hidden like a wound just finished scabbing over, especially when he knows your answer just as well as you do. of course you would still be listening to sunwoo—that’s what you had promised him, way back when.

(the memory flashes by in an instant. the chill of a cool spring night, the squeak of the swing, the dim golden light of the street lamp above. you can still feel it, sometimes, the condensation slick on your fingertips, the bite of cold metal through your palm—the warmth, in spite of that.)

a small part of you whispers, what were promises really worth, in the end? you aren’t the same person you used to be, and neither is he. sixteen is a far cry from where you are in your twenties, the weight of the years lived through making you let go of the things a teenage-you wouldn’t have ever dreamed of—and that was normal, letting bits and pieces of your past selves be carried away by the passage of time. you know the same holds true for him, too.

but still. even if everything else had changed, you feel like it’s your duty, almost. to always be listening to him till the end.

“i have to go, chanhee,” you tell him, quiet. he makes a small noise over the phone, and before he can apologize, you interrupt with a small, “you’re fine. i just need to finish unpacking my stuff, and i promised myself i’d finish it all today.”

“you still haven’t unpacked?” he asks, baffled. “it’s been months?”

“i know,” you sigh, giving a little shrug. “i’ve just never gotten around to it. that’s why i have to finish it today or else i know i’ll never get back to it again.”

chanhee tells you to take care of yourself, to which you dryly remark to focus on following your own advice first and you say your farewells goodnaturedly, pressing to end the call.

it’s like a switch flips, silence falling almost immediately throughout the apartment, the heaviness in your chest weighted down even further in your solitude. you run a finger along the textured edge of the cardboard flap again, staring blankly at the items still wrapped tight in the box. a breath—in, then out, and then you blink it away, getting to work.

the box of posters and prints gets emptied out first, a roll of tape by your side as you hang up any remaining decorations that you’d left to a later affair when you’d first moved into the apartment. afterwards comes the books that you shelve carefully in alphabetical order in the small slot beneath the tv, then the living room curtains, the pack of postcards and holiday wishes kept in a tin case for safekeeping, the old journals you wrote in years ago and never looked back on since. you sometimes wonder if you should just throw them away, but you could never bring yourself to do it; you try to chalk it up to being too attached to the idea of the memories, even if you could never truly look at them again.

you heave the final box into your bedroom, hours later, huffing as you set it down in front of the drawers. sliding the bottom drawer open, the crumpled pile of clothes stuffed inside stares back at you. outside the window, golden hour peaks through your blinds, the sunset shedding just enough light for you to see in the dimness of your room. you crouch down onto the floor, knees knocking against the wood as you slowly take each article of clothing out, one by one to refold.

it was all clothes that you could afford to spare a second glance at, old shirts and pants that you never truly wore on a daily basis, clothes that were kept as another ‘just in case.’ and like the postcards and the journals and everything else in those boxes, the clothes crammed in that small space just seemed like something you kept choosing to not look at, to refuse to address in any way but in brief memory. you had told yourself that you’d always come back to it whenever you’d unpack the rest of the box of clothes, but looking back on it, maybe that was just a way of comforting yourself amidst the avoidance.

still, in the faint darkness of the room, you take each shirt out carefully, smoothing out the wrinkles and folding each crease to be in its proper shape. you had forgotten some of them existed, drawing out a small smile when you see the old mickey mouse shirt your mom had gotten you on her trip to disneyland, the student-made shirts from your high school graduating class, the club shirts you had joined in college. each refolded shirt gets stacked onto a pile beside the box, a reminder to go back and put the clothes from the box back in the drawer as well, but when you pull out the last shirt jammed in the far end of the drawer, you stop.

it’s nothing special, really, just a faded pink t-shirt with what seems like some semblance of a barely legible logo printed onto the front, but you clutch the fabric between your fingers, a memory from long ago surging back.

(“sunwoo…”

“yeah?” sunwoo pokes his head around the corner, morning sun dyeing his black hair a shade of light brown. he has a towel half-folded in his hands, corners lined up unevenly with one another. “what’s up?”

you frown, partially because you see a very near future of refolding all of the laundry he didn’t pay enough attention to, and partially because of the thing in your hands. “...you didn’t happen to put that one vintage white shirt you had in the latest pile, right?”

he frowns, eyebrows scrunching as he thinks. “i don’t know, maybe? why?”

slowly, as if to make him bear witness, you present to him his formerly treasured white shirt, freshly washed and dried, now dyed a clean shade of pale pink. “you put them in with my reds.”

sunwoo’s mouth gapes open just slightly, a small ‘ah’ escaping his lips. “i’m guessing we can’t do takebacksies on that?”

you groan, smothering your face into the shirt as you let out a long, exasperated “kim sunwoo…”

he tosses the towel in his hands onto the edge of the hamper as he steps into the laundry room, taking a closer look at it. “hey, it’s not even a big deal!” sunwoo reasons, trying to gently pry the shirt from your hands, but you wave it around accusingly before he gets a chance to get a firm grip on it.

“what do you mean,” you stress, waving the shirt that much more vigorously. “it was vintage! who knows how much you spent on this damn thing! and now it’s…” your eyes fall to it, defeated. “pink…”

“you know what, though?” he begins, taking your hands in his, and you meet his gaze, doubtful. “this is good. i’ve been wanting to give you one of my shirts anyway.”

“wha—”

sunwoo’s eyes light up, holding your hands excitedly. “it’s like, symbolic, you know? your shirt with my shirt dyed all together, it’s like…” he pauses, giving you a cheeky smile. “it’s like it’s you and me together forever.”

you can’t control the giggle that escapes after he says it, letting go of the shirt as you smack him lightly with bubbling laughter between your lips. as infectious as his smile is, dust floating in the streams of sunlight between, you call him lame for the cheesy comment because he is—he is lame for coming over to your place on his rare weekend off and of all the things he could do, he offers to fold your laundry together while simultaneously ruining one of his pieces of clothing in the process of trying to help, and then spins it in a way where none of it really matters because at the end of the day he knows it’s always just going to be him and you.

“and also, i just really want to see you in another one of my shirts.”

you throw the abandoned towel from the hamper into his face and tell him to go fold it instead, affection ever-present in your eyes. lame.)

that morning seems so far away when you think of it now. you bring the shirt to your face again—maybe for nostalgia’s sake, maybe to get some trace of what once was. wrinkles littered throughout the fabric, the smell of old wood from being stuffed in a drawer for months permeates through the shirt; darkness falls in the room as the sun fully sets, leaving only a sliver of dark orange lining the horizon.

you remember it, still. the scent of freshly washed fabric softener and the soft morning light and the heap of other clothes you and sunwoo had painstakingly gone over twice to make sure nothing else had leaked through and been dyed other colors, playful and teasing. you wonder what he would say to you if he saw you now, sitting on the floor with piles of clothes folded even with the wrinkles still tight. what he would say to you, if you listened.

and when you hold the shirt still for a second longer, breathing it in again, you realize that even the small traces of his old cologne were gone, too, all washed out with time.

you remember it all, and none of it is there anymore.

before. (love is like clouds, like fog.)

it’s a bit floaty, how the night comes to an end.

(sunwoo had arrived at your place around one a.m., hands shoved in his jacket pockets as he rocked back slightly on his feet, giving you a half-cheeky half-abashed grin. “i don’t suppose you’d be in the mood for a midnight snack, would you?”

already clad in warm pajamas and almost all finished washing up, you had stared at sunwoo for a long moment, slowly blinking, before creaking your door open wider and stepping to the side. “it’s cold. do you want ramyun?”)

he’d come immediately after practice, the sessions where they’d spent the entire day at the studio and only managed to come home at the insistence of their managers. it was for something they were preparing for, you know that for sure, so you hold your tongue from chiding him for not calling you ahead of time and instead shuffle to your kitchen, pot clanging onto the stove.

he was under enough stress as of late; you tried to support him in the ways you could, no matter how little they were.

when you both finish the two packs of ramyun and he offers to wash the pot, you shoo him away with a threatening slap of the pink rubber gloves by the sink, telling him to go wash up instead under the pretense of his post-practice sweat stinking up your entire apartment. sunwoo gasps, retorting that he smelled perfectly fine, but you give him a single look and he trudges away into the hallway, a weak indignant kick to the floor as he mumbles under his breath.

it never really comes up directly, the topic of disbandment, from you or from him. you talk of the preparation of road to kingdom, the exhaustion and stress that comes along with it, the weight its potential success carries unspoken between it all. you’re not entirely sure if the avoidance of the topic is deliberate on his part or not, but you try not to push for it too much. you know just as well as he does, and neither of you try to make it anything more than that.

“you know what,” he starts, later in the night when both of you are washed up and curled up in bed. “i’ve been thinking about it recently; it wouldn’t be so bad.”

you raise a curious brow, propping your head up as you turn to get a better look at him. “what wouldn’t?”

“you know, becoming a house husband.”

“sunwoo,” you blink. “what.” it was way too late for him to just be saying shit like this.

“i am just saying!” sunwoo gestulates dramatically with a hand, trying to prove his point. “if it doesn’t work out, i can definitely do the cooking and cleaning around this place while you go to work.”

“you can’t even clean up after yourself.”

“i can, i just don’t want to!”

you cast him a doubtful look, one filled with the knowledge that eric still complains daily about the pile of clothes tossed in the living room that are definitely sunwoo’s no matter how hard he tries to deny it, and that changmin loses half a year of his life every time he discovers another face mask sunwoo had slapped onto the wall or ceiling of their dorm room, and that the electricity bill at their dorm would run them to mere pennies if younghoon was never there to turn off the lights that sunwoo was supposed to. “is there a difference…”

“yes!” sunwoo insists, a strangely adamant look on his face. “i could totally do it. you would come home from a long and busy day of work and i’d have your entire dinner hot on the stove with a warm bath ready for you—you wouldn’t even have to lift a finger if i was there.”

you place a hand slowly on his, a placating gesture. “baby…” you coo, appeasing, and sunwoo tries to control his expression to keep up the indignancy. poorly, with the way he almost fumbles his entire stance at the mere mention of the petname, but at least you can tell he’s trying his hardest. “i think you’d burn my entire apartment down. or flood it, depending on which one goes horribly wrong first.”

“how could you!” he exclaims, pulling his hand away. “ye of little faith…” sunwoo’s voice goes grave and solemn. “don’t you want to see me in a sexy apron.”

“if i wanted to see you in a sexy apron, i would just give one to you.”

and even though sunwoo sulks and pulls a face at you, his insistence turns a bit softer when he repeats, “really, though.”

 he goes quiet, picking at a loose thread on your comforter. “it wouldn’t be so bad, if…if it doesn’t work out.” ‘it’ being road to kingdom, ‘it’ being their next album, ‘it’ being the boyz as a whole; your heart sinks. “i think the rest of us would just go back home, you know? maybe we’d pretend that these past years never happened, maybe all these memories would just turn bitter, but…” sunwoo gives you a lopsided smile, soft. “i would still come back home to you.”

the sentiment aches a little, your breath hitching as you try to rifle through the layers of emotions that sink to the bottom of your stomach, like picking at skin still raw underneath and not yet ready to peel. you wonder if he means it, if he truly sees you as a home to come back to or if you’re just something familiar, something safe; it’s not much of a distinction, but the details make all the difference—whether you’re somewhere he belongs, or if you’re simply kept sepia-tinted as a place to keep his preserved youth. the words escape from you before you can stop them.

“you don’t have to, you know.”

sunwoo pauses, and there’s a silence that falls soon after that makes you shrink into yourself, regretting words that can’t be taken back. “what do you mean?”

“if it doesn’t…” you don’t want to speak it into existence—they’ll do well, they have to. you try to form your words carefully, deliberately, so that they’ll be spoken correctly and convey exactly what it is you mean, but it all comes poorly anyway, clumsy and messy as you trip over your own tongue. “you don’t have to…you know.” your mouth goes dry. “stay.” 

sunwoo tries to not look offended at the suggestion, even if his furrowed brows say it all. but despite his own feelings on the matter, he tries his best to reign in his instinctive reaction, instead going to slowly coax you away from the ledge you’ve driven yourself to.

“i mean, i know i don’t have to,” he purses his lips, frowning. “it’s not like i feel obligated or anything, but i want to.” i love you, he means. i want to love you, i choose to love you.

there are a lot of things about sunwoo that you don’t quite understand—how he can internalize his envy to fuel his ambition, or how he still remains soft-hearted even after all these years, but you can’t begin to understand why sunwoo still holds onto you when you’ve long since stopped being something that he needs, nothing but a safe reminder of what once was. does he know? can he sense the way the two of you have started constantly tiptoeing around each other while trying to keep up an easy sense of normalcy, the memory of youth neither of you can return to? 

you’ve been holding back from each other—not just him, but you too. it’s easy, to slip into old banter and avoid the things bothering you, to play the part of your teenage selves full of passion and hopeful, unattained dreams, and maybe sunwoo knows this too. maybe he knows and he doesn’t want to admit it, allowing his world to be rose-colored to cling onto a past that leaves him loveblind to what he really needs, to keep him from acknowledging the fact that you’re nothing but a fragment of the past, something kept to fester.

sunwoo is a star, you think—no, you know. you’ve known for quite some time now, how he was bright and shining and meant for things lightyears away from anything you could ever see, and yet here he was instead: inside your apartment late at night in your bed, talking about how he was ready to fall back down to earth to be with you. like you were tying him down to somewhere he was never meant to stay, he was never meant to be.

and an hour later, when time sits between the precipice of twilight and dawn, you whisper an apology to him so faint it lingers in the air, floating between you and sunwoo’s still form. you’re sure he doesn’t hear it, that he’s been sound asleep for the past couple of minutes and it remains a secret between you and the not-yet-risen sun, but sunwoo shifts slightly, blinking at you in the dark, and ah. he wasn’t asleep after all.

turning to fully face you, he sits up to match your posture and takes a breath, a hand coming to rest on the back of your head as he bumps his forehead gently into yours. his eyes flicker over your features, concern etched clear even in the blinking drowsiness. “what?” what are you talking about, are you okay?  “what for?”

you shake your head, leaning into his touch as if to have the memory of him last just a little longer on your skin. it’s too much to say, too much of a weight to have sunwoo shoulder alongside you. so you tamp it down, swallowing back the lump in your throat as you blink away the heat behind your eyes. i’m just sorry. for everything.

sunwoo’s brows furrow, sheets rustling as he shifts again to sit up straighter, but you find his hand gently, threading your fingers through his as you smile—something soft and tender and so full of burdens it slips through and becomes fragile instead.

“it’s okay. nevermind.”

after. (love is a dream, lingering.)

you’re not sure if you can feel your face by the time you come stumbling back into your apartment.

fresh from a work dinner, the alcohol still buzzes in your system even through the barbeque you’d eaten along with the soju, even after the taxi ride home. too many seniors had offered to pour your drinks, all attributing them to the success of the most recently released song you’d worked on, and of course, you had to take it all with two hands, a polite smile, and the burn of the liquid on its way down. even if the taxi ride home had sobered you up slightly, your head still remains fuzzy and unfocused by the time you find the right key to your apartment and fumble with it before opening up the door.

you kick off your shoes by the front and drop your bag somewhere by the kitchen before making your way to the living room, coat thrown on the ground as you crumple yourself in the space between your coffee table and the foot of the couch. slipping your phone out of your pocket, you wince at the sudden brightness of the screen as it lights up. the apartment always seemed loneliest, like this.

it’s late, almost two in the morning from what you can make out from the glare of the screen, but you only look at it for a second before you swipe up, squinting as you enter your passcode. everything after this, you know, has morphed its way into being muscle memory more than anything else. 

you ignore the warning that pops in the corner of your phone in a red-laced ‘20% remaining’ and you let the practiced motions take over, tapping phone, then voicemail, and before you know it you’re back where you always are, staring at the only recording in your inbox before you press play.

a few seconds of silence fill the air, static crackling over the speaker, and then a voice speaks.

“hey.” it comes out shaky, just barely enough for you to tell. you want to say you probably wouldn’t have been able to hear it if you hadn’t listened to it so many times by now, but truthfully, you’d heard the slight tremble in the voice since the very first time.

(it was sunwoo, after all. how could you not know?)

sunwoo takes in a sharp breath, the beginning of an apology readying to end the call caught in his throat; you sometimes try to imagine a world where the apology goes through, where he instead tells you sorry, i shouldn’t have called and hangs up before the point of no return, but you’re glad this is the world you live in instead. the one where sunwoo swallows past the regret and starts to speak again, too light and full of faux casualness for his easy demeanor to be sincere, the one where you have the chance to hear his voice again. “strange hearing from me, right? shit, i don’t even know if this is still your number—i guess i could have asked chanhee-hyung to make sure but i’m not sure he would have been too happy to hear me ask about you.” 

he pauses, and from the amount of times you’ve listened to it you’ve made into something resembling a little game, filling in the gaps of what he could have done in the pockets of silence—like he’d squeezed his eyes shut at the thought, or he’d pressed into the spot between his eyes to fight away the image of chanhee’s disapproving stare. “he always did that, you know. for a long time after…” sunwoo bites his tongue. “i think it was pity, like he felt bad. not that he needed to, or anything, but you know how he is.”

he pauses again, as if scrambling for what to say next, what direction to take the one-sided conversation. “i, um, i don’t know if you heard, but we recently moved to a new dorm. we split into three separate ones, so we all got our own room, and you think that’d be great and everything after sharing a room with kevin-hyung for the past few years but we played rock, paper, scissors for our room picks and—” indignancy sneaks its way into his cadence, and you smile at this part always “—i really think i got the smallest room. i’m pretty sure it’s smaller than the bathroom. and jacob-hyung got the biggest room!” sunwoo continues, grumbling. “i’m not mad about it or anything, it’s fine… it just seems a little unfair, don’t you think? and, and…”

your eyes flicker, watching the seconds on the timestamp tick by as sunwoo continues to ramble about the most miniscule of things: more dorm shenanigans that sunwoo insists he was completely innocent in, how he’d run into jihoon backstage during a music show after not seeing him for a while, the pictures his members had posted for his birthday that he claims could have potentially ruined his ‘sexy and charismatic’ image with the fans forever. it all feels like he’s scraping the surface, the real reason he called still buried deep beneath all the frivolous hedging; it’s become almost obvious, given the amount of times you’ve listened to it, how each word is just another second stalled trying to build up enough courage.

and finally, when all of sunwoo’s pretense dies, when the lull at the other end of the line comes again, whatever he was planning on saying next deflates as he goes quiet, finally gathering enough courage for the whole truth. you mouth the words, ears buzzing, the timing and cadence seared into your memory.

“you were in my dream last night.”

you remember the morning you’d woken up to this voicemail, remember your thumb hovering over play but not finding it in yourself to press it. you know—you’ve known since the beginning that the recording would only add to your troubles, but on a night like tonight where the noise of the work party still echoes in your head and the apartment feels lonelier than ever after a tipsy ride home, the bruise feels too tender for you to do anything but press into it, over and over and over again.

“i’m not even sure why i called you just to tell you that—i didn’t even get to say it to you.” sunwoo lets out a wry laugh. “i mean, of course you wouldn’t pick up, it’s five in the morning, i don’t really know what i was expecting, but i…no.”  the confession tumbles from his lips, shaky and vulnerable and no matter how many countless times you’ve heard it, it still feels like slicing open an old wound. “i think i just wanted to hear your voice.”

sometimes, you let this section play out fully, his words like tiny shards of glass forming cuts on your skin without stopping; other times, you press pause just to replay it, just to hear him say it again, just to feel the sting and ache as you try to recreate the rawness you’d felt the very first time you heard it. salt in a wound is still salt no matter what name it tries to go by, but you suppose that’s why you’ve trapped yourself in this routine in the first place—to make sure the bruise still hurts, to pick at the scab just to see it bleed.

“i guess it just didn’t work out though, did it? your voicemail’s still the same automated message it’s been since high school, so all i’m really doing here is embarrassing myself.” everything laid down and exposed with no walls left to hide behind, sunwoo’s words come quiet and fragile. “i think a part of me expected it to still be the same, but—maybe the other part of me hoped things had changed. isn’t that ironic?” he breathes out a small resigned laugh. “change is what got us here in the first place, and now here i am, talking to myself and leaving a voicemail to a number that i’m not even sure is yours. pretty stupid of me, right?”

sunwoo swallows hard and so do you, the memory of the words ringing in your ears before he speaks them. “i miss you,” he says eventually. “i’m sorry.”

the faint static on the other end of the line tapers on for one, two, three seconds more before the recording finally ends, stretching into true silence. the first few times you had listened to it, you’d kept your ear pressed to the speaker, replaying those last few seconds desperate for anything else you could have missed, anything you could make out after his final words. now, you simply stare at the screen, still burning bright in the dark.

it’s almost funny, the way this has formed itself into something resembling a bad habit. every time, you go through the motions like they’re old and used and worn because they are, no matter how much you refuse to admit it; and each time, you take the shame and the guilt that curls in your stomach and ball it up inside of you, letting it seep into your bones, so that the next morning when you wake up, you can look at yourself with your newly polished and clean exterior and pretend that it’s merely something left in the past.

but for now, you hit play on the recording again, watching the seconds tick by once more.

(the next morning, you wake up to your phone still in your hands, battery completely dead, the previous night nothing but a pounding headache and a blur of what might have been. a new day, and yet it all feels like the same motions all over again. 

you ignore the calcified shame within you, play ignorant to the cycle that will inevitably repeat itself the next time a night like that comes again, and you pretend that this is the one thing you won’t let go of, even if it turns into all you have left.)

before. (—you were my youth.)

it’s a tuesday night when you see sunwoo again.

dressed only in sweats and a jacket for extra warmth, you had just finished your regularly scheduled convenience store snack run, plastic bag in hand, when you turn the corner and see a glimpse of him: backpack slung over his shoulder, trudging steps, wearing single gray hoodie that was no doubt too thin for him to not catch a cold on an early spring night. blinking, you register the familiar face for a split second before you call out after him, half-jogging to catch up.

“hey! hey, sunwoo!”

for a moment, it’s almost as if he doesn’t hear you; and then, his foot stops in front of the other, hand moving to take out an earbud. sunwoo turns around, gaze wandering until he meets your gaze. his eyes light up in recognition as he makes out your face in the residual light from the convenience store windows, the glow of the street lamp a few feet away.

he holds up a hand for a polite wave. “oh, hey.”

“heading home?” you ask, peering at him. you hadn’t really seen much of him these past few months, other than the increasingly sparse times you’d spot him in class.

“yeah,” sunwoo nods, a slight smile to go along with it. “just got back from training.”

“ah, i see.” it’s a little strange, looking at him now. even if you hadn’t taken a good look at him recently, you could still tell something was a little off about him; maybe in the way he was carrying himself, the heaviness of his step, the half-hearted way his smile didn’t look quite like the one you were used to.

then again, what did you know? it wasn’t as if you were best friends or anything—after you’d partnered with him for that one project months ago, you’d only talked to him a handful of times, either in passing or when you saw each other around. calling him a close friend would be far from the truth, but calling him just a classmate wouldn’t exactly be accurate either. you suppose he stood in a strange middle ground, one you didn’t seem to mind.

but even so, maybe even just the implication of friendship was enough for the concern to fully settle itself into your mind, the reason why you can’t bring yourself to just brush off his exhaustion as a result of the late hour, and why you impulsively jab your thumb towards the neighborhood playground a block away, the plastic bag in your hands rustling from the motion. “you wanna make a small pitstop before you go?”

and surprisingly, despite a moment’s hesitation, sunwoo takes you up on the offer.

it’s how you find yourself sitting together on the swingset, the subtle squeak of metal on metal almost serving as a familiar comfort as you rock back and forth, heels digging into the bark beneath. “i heard you got into loen, right?” you try, peeling your awkward stare from the chipped paint on the side of the swing over to the boy next to you. “how is that going? i never really got the chance to congratulate you on it.”

“it’s good,” sunwoo replies, almost on instinct, but before he can continue, he closes his mouth instead. the rest of the sentence tapers off into an awkward silence, leaving you to fill in the gaps.

“tough?” you ask, more of a rhetorical than anything else. maybe you were overstepping your bounds by prying, but the least you could do is offer a lending ear, especially now that you were both here anyway. “i might not be a trainee,” you offer, “but i know it can’t be easy.”

sunwoo presses his lips into a line, swallowing in contemplation, before nodding.

“i don’t know,” he confesses, the toe of his shoe digging a hole into the woodchips. “it’s definitely hard, but it’s not just that… i like that it’s hard, you know? it means i’m challenging myself and it means i’m learning, it’s just—they said they’re selecting the debut lineup soon.” the swing chain squeaks between the rustling of the bark. “what if i don’t make it?”

(what if i never make it?)

you get it—the uncertainty that haunts every step of this path. you’ve seen enough of your friends and classmates drop everything to pursue their dreams, only to have it thrown back in their face, failures either resulting in a renewed perseverance or the battering of their soul. and even if you weren’t taking part in the same rigorous and merciless training process that plagues them, the crumbling foothold follows you too, at times, all for a dream you can’t ensure will spare you even pennies in return.

but you do it because you want to, because you have to, because you love it too much for there to be any other option you’d be willing to fathom. and in spite of the short time you’ve gotten to know him, you’re sure the same holds true for sunwoo, too.

“then you try again.” his head shoots up, and you meet his eyes with a smile. “and you keep trying and trying until you can’t anymore—because you love it, right? dancing, singing, performing? you wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t.”

you watch his expression carefully as your words land, waiting for the smallest sign to back off, but instead, sunwoo gives you a resolute nod, taking each word to heart.

“you can do it,” you tell him, every word sincere. “i know you can.”

there’s a certain weight in his gaze afterwards that almost makes you regret having said it, almost like you’ve overstepped in your own direction instead. what were you even doing?

 the sudden intimacy of the moment settles into your stomach all at once, and you try to grasp at anything to bring back the lighthearted mood of a few minutes ago—for your own sake. clearing your throat, you try to dispel the sudden heaviness in the air.

“in any case,” you start, rifling through your bag. fishing out a container of strawberry milk, you stand up and walk over to sunwoo, pressing it against his cheek; he jumps from the sudden cold against his skin. “you know we have exams coming up, right?”

sunwoo groans, raising a hand to take the milk. “what if i just dropped out like jihoon?”

before he can grab it, you press the container harder into his face, frowning. “don’t even think about it!”

“but…” sunwoo looks up at you with sad, shining eyes, panhandling for a single ounce of pity. “that means no more exams…”

“and then what,” you reply dryly.

he finally takes the milk from your hands, pressing it to his forehead with his eyebrows furrowed, the beads of condensation threatening to slip down his palm. “okay, you have a good point.”

you roll your eyes, but sunwoo snaps his head up after a second of thinking longer, milk sloshing in the container at the sudden motion. “you wouldn’t leave me out to die all on my own, would you?”

“huh—”

sunwoo pleads your name in a dramatic fashion, hesitating a little before grabbing your hands to continue his spiel. you have a brief yet vivid image of his resemblance to a raccoon digging through your trashcan in your front yard. begging for scraps… “you have to remember me when you’re famous, okay…”

“sunwoo,” you exasperate, trying to pry your hands away from his, freezing and wet from the cold milk. “you aren’t dropping out and you are not becoming homeless.”

he nods enthusiastically. “right, because i’d have you!”

“don’t you have any other friends?”

sunwoo looks you dead in the eye, his grip tightening. “i have friends, but you would have the songwriting royalties.”

“for the last time,” you groan, finally slipping your hand away from his grasp. “you’re not gonna drop out, and you’re not going to become homeless! and you’re going to make it!” you rub your hand gingerly on the side of your jacket to wipe off the excess condensation. “enjoy the strawberry milk, i’m gonna head home.”

you turn and take a few steps, only for sunwoo to call out to you again. “hey, wait.”

pausing, you look back curiously. “yeah?”

“if…” he starts slowly, staring at the milk in his hands. “when i debut,” he rescinds, meeting your eyes. “will you listen? to me, i mean—even if you’re the only one?”

“i definitely won’t be the only one,” you chide, stuffing your hands in your pockets. the night air was growing colder by the second, remnants of winter lingering in the beginnings of spring. funnily enough, you don’t really seem to mind the chill. “we’ll make it, okay? we’ll make it together.”

you attempt to leave it at that, but the way he looks back at you, sunwoo holds the question between the two of you, still waiting for your answer—like he would have waited forever for it, if he needed to. and despite your previous unfamiliarity with sunwoo in this sort of setting, you figured it would be cruel to deny him of at least an earnest answer.

“to answer your question, though.” you try to look away to break the weight of his gaze, but you find yourself pulled back to it anyway. finding the resolve to match his, you step forward again. he needed to hear this; and maybe, you needed to say it, too. 

“of course i will.” tonight’s moon waxes, its light peeking through the clouds. “i’ll always be rooting for you, kim sunwoo.”

after. (yet. love is always, always, a choice.)

the first few times you see the video on your recommended page, you try to ignore it.

you shove it to the back of your mind and you tell yourself it can wait just a little longer, that there’s no difference from watching it a few days from now. except the days stretch on into weeks, and it still remains untouched, lingering forever in an endless present. the video itself isn’t anything big, objectively speaking, but the heaviness of it weighs on you every time you see the title, knowing what it consists of: special release from kim sunwoo of the boyz, self-composed track.

it’s not exactly breaking the promise you had made to him all those years ago, more like putting it on hold. and maybe it’s for the best, the waiting period, but the longer you wait, the more things just keep piling on and shoved into the shelf to collect dust over the past few months—their last single, the mini-album that followed after, and now this. you had tried, that first time chanhee had asked you about it. you couldn’t make it far before you had to turn it off.

you tell yourself you’ll get around to it when it stops hurting, a soft assurance to still keep your promise, but you know it’s hypocritical to give yourself that easing comfort when in the same breath you’ve been pressing into the bruise again and again, never giving it the time and space to heal. the pain has never stopped you before, rather, you’ve grown close with the ache, the faint memory of the wound, but there’s something distinctly different about listening to his music that hurts too much for you to continue. 

maybe it’s the way it brings you back to that classroom and that swingset and everything you know you can never go back to; or maybe, despite the voicemail that you still come back to on the loneliest of nights and the wrinkled shirt that remains crumpled in the corner of your room, a part of you knows that the salt in the wound would be nothing compared to digging an even deeper, uglier wound in a cut scabbed over. that’s only what it could feel like, if you listened to him before you were ready. 

you want the memories as a lingering taste alone, but you’re scared that if you go back to that promise with two feet planted and an open heart, if you delve into the memories completely, you won’t be able to come back out.

tonight is different, though.

you want to blame it on the hour that hosts the beginning of dawn, or the way you can’t go back to sleep, or the dream you’d had before you had woken up, the details fading more each second. but when the video appears once again, thumbnail ingrained into your mind, you don’t even need to look at the title before you finally click on it.

(you had dreamt of him, that night. 

it was a good dream, you think, at least in the moment—more of an old memory than anything else. sunwoo had come over the night before his birthday for an early celebration, insisting on being congratulated by you first thing once the clock struck twelve. you remember it being a small celebration, just the two of you in your apartment together with cheesy decorations and balloons blown up spelling out his name and a golden ‘hbd’ strung along the walls. 

the rest of it comes in and blurs together in flashes: the strawberry cake you’d bought to share together, the way you’d wiped the frosting on his nose only for him to smear a bigger chunk onto your cheek, the shoddy match that came with the cake that sunwoo couldn’t light, no matter how hard he tried to save himself from the embarrassment.

and usually when you wake up from a good dream, you fall asleep again soon after, just to catch the traces of the dream before it’s gone forever. but you’re trying, slowly in your own way, to not do things like that anymore. after all, eventually the shirt needs to become just another shirt, and your voicemail will one day go back to having no more recordings saved. 

you want to think you have it in you—to let the wound finish scabbing over and heal, to finally let it fade into almost nothing but a brief mark of time in your skin.)

the music starts the second the video starts to play, and you feel a pull at your gut, an inner voice whispering. you can still back out, it says, soothing. you haven’t hit the point of no return yet. it’s okay if you’re still not ready.

but then sunwoo’s voice cuts through the noise, each word sung with his heart on his sleeve, and that part of you grasping for any form of protection left instantly goes quiet. if it were about anything else, maybe you could have rationalized it to yourself and clicked out of the video, convince yourself to go back to sleep and that it was okay to wait. another time, another day, another world.

when he sings, he sings of you, he sings to you, and you remember that you had never truly listened to the words he’d wanted to say to you since you’d sent that text that ended everything that night—not really. didn’t you owe him, then, at least this?

so you swallow hard, and you blink until lights dot the inside of your eyelids, and you listen.

(sunwoo’s lyrics talk of love, how he had wanted to be yours. he had wanted to be yours forever, and yet he ended up losing you and maybe that was his fault; maybe if he had shown you his love better then you wouldn’t have let him go, then you would still be by his side instead of appearing only when he closes his eyes, unsure to call you a dream or a nightmare. not that it mattered, you were still his universe, no matter what. even in the hurt, it was still love)

it’s all wrapped up in pretty lyricism and intricate metaphors to keep the listener guessing for the true meaning, but you’ve always understood him best when it was through song. you think you had forgotten that, after so many years together and knowing him through everything else, but with the music playing through your headphones and the screen of your computer flashing the images in the silence of your apartment, it was like coming back to your roots. like you were in that classroom with a pen and paper and that playground with the chill of spring still warm on your beating hearts and how you’ve known him intimately before you even knew you could.

it all felt so simple, back then. like budding love was all you would ever need, before everything else got in the way, but—no. you stop at the thought. that’s not quite it.

(pause, rewind, play.)

it was always simple to sunwoo. he was a star burning bright and blind to you, growing farther from your reach each passing day, but to him, you were never anything less than the universe itself. was it truly so horrible—bearing attachment to his youth? you were still growing beside him, right? you were the home he wanted to return to, weren’t you?

and yet you were the one who had smeared the paint before it could finish drying, the one who had felt so alone in watching the wear of a bridge you had deemed impossible to save. and at the end of the day, maybe the fault fell partly on both of you, stepping onto that unsteady footing together with the rope of the bridge fraying with the weight of time, but you were the one who had taken that last step to the other end without him even knowing.

lit match in your hands, you had burned that bridge for what you’d perceived to be the greater good, to destroy it before it could collapse and take both of you with it. an act of cowardice disguised as selflessness, you’re left to stare at nothing but the ashes and cinders you had set aflame. but in the wreckage, only after everything do you finally understand what that indiscernible emotion was in his eyes when he looked at you, what he had meant that night by choosing to love you.

in the silence, daylight breaks, your once dark apartment beginning to tinge a soft yellow glow.

(the ground beneath your feet steady, you look to the other end of what once was, carrying the pieces of wood in your hands. if you tried to build that bridge towards sunwoo again, panel by panel, could you rebuild something stronger from the ashes? would sunwoo help if he knew, repairing each step together with you?

you’re not afraid of finding out the answer—not anymore.)

epilogue. (love is gravity.)

the sun rises fully soon after, the sky turning into a brighter, deeper shade of blue as the hour passes. still lingering along the edge of dawn, you know if you looked outside you would see the frost beginning to melt on the blades of grass, the slow trickle of cars onto the road as people were starting to head to work. it’s subtle, the difference between five a.m. and six a.m., but it’s enough for you to feel the shift in the air.

gnawing at your lip, you reach for the phone lying on the table. it’s an aching sense of déjà vu as you unlock your phone and scroll through your contacts, searching for a single name. you can only imagine if this is what sunwoo felt like, the night he’d called you, half-hopeless as you press the phone to your ear, the first dial tone ringing. 

(you want to let yourself not hurt anymore—to allow the wound to heal, to finally let go of all the shame inside of you. it’s your first step in trying to repair that bridge you had once burnt down, your first choice where you try to move forward. but sometimes, to move forward is really to move back to where you want to be, back where you belong.)

each additional ring that repeats comes with decreasing expectation, and you brace yourself for the voicemail message that will inevitably come. of course he wouldn’t pick up this early in the morning, you tell yourself, another ring echoing. you wonder if this will become a new pattern, one voicemail to another, always barely missing each other in efforts to reconcile, always a little too late. trading in one bad habit for another, maybe this was just how it was meant to be.

but you suppose it’s always been like this, ever since the night you broke up with him—how sunwoo has been choosing to love you still, even after, and how you’ve been choosing to still love him too by refusing to truly let him go, orbiting around each other like how gravity is both the reason why a planet circles a star and why they can never ever fall into one another (again). perhaps this is just where the frayed edges of fate have left you, coming together only once before your ends are split away forever.

but when the sixth ring sounds and you prepare to hear the automated message, drawing in a breath to scramble together a message to leave at the beep, you hear a single voice instead. your breath hitches.

“hello?”

your lip trembles as you press the phone harder to your ear, heat surging to the bridge of your nose, the back of your eyes. you try to keep your voice steady but it comes out watery instead, words spilling over before you know it. “hi. it’s me.”

and despite everything, gravity fails, just for an instant, and you and sunwoo collide into each other once again.

[missmonsters2]

today I feel awful... idk my insecurities are taking over me and I just want to curl into a ball and cry. maybe it's my hormones maybe the fact that I weighted myself and found out I gained weight (I can't fit into my jeans 😭) and the fact that I saw my sister in a tight skin dress looking perfect while I'm in my pj's just destroyed my confidence. I need something angsty to read to make me forget about my sad, miserable lffe right now. would you be down in writing sth angsty with nat maybe? you don't have to though. it's fine either way. I really appreciate all of your work and I keep reading on repeat whenever I'm feeling down. makes me cheer up. thank you, van ❤️

It's like we're the same person because I also went to visit my sister recently and my sister has gotten her life together and is living her best hot girl bod while I...let's not go there.

I just want you to know that you're hot as fuck and a body is just a body that we can change with time and effort. We're lit rally in this together. This time next year, we will be rocking the body that makes up happy and we'll be healthy!!! 💘💘

But I will still give you nat angst...but with a happy ending bc I said you deserve a HEA!!

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The Withers of Springtime Bloom

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

Summary: Spring is a time of blooming and when things come back to life. You can't help but notice things that may be causing your relationship with Natasha to wither.

Warnings: self-esteem issues, insecurities about body, relationship with working out and food, seasonal depression. angst with HEA.

Count: 2.1k~

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You're not sure when things changed.

Things change so slowly after all.

Without you noticing, things change and change and change until one day, you do notice.

You notice that Natasha has become quieter, somber.

You notice the lack of date nights and affectionate touches.

You notice that you've let yourself go a little.

You're standing in front of the mirror, staring at your body with a frown. You've gained weight since dating Natasha, but relationship weight gain was normal, wasn't it?

But you remember how Natasha was just as fit as she was before she met you. Sure, she was a superhero, and you were a regular civilian; there was no reason for you to train long hours as Natasha did.

Still...

You turn to the side and peer at yourself in the mirror again.

You can't help but wonder...were you becoming less attractive to her?

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It had been the beginning of fall when you met Natasha. You loved the season of change and when things turned into warm colors before withering away for winter to come.

Natasha had come like a blessing, and in the winter, she was just warm as the colors of fall. Instead of withering away, she bloomed and invested that warmth in your relationship with her.

Despite always being an early riser to work out, weekends were the days she stayed in bed with you just a little longer. There had been so many breakfasts, lunch, and dinner dates. You found yourself moving things around or neglecting to work around her busy schedule.

Perhaps that was when things began to change. Eating out so often and forgoing working out to spend time with Natasha was what led to this.

Spring has arrived, and things are coming back to life. Yet somehow, your relationship with Natasha was withering away.

"Hey," you greet her as you come home, shopping bags in hand. You bought some more clothes when things felt like they didn't fit comfortably anymore. The experience had been upsetting for you, and you didn't end up buying too much, telling yourself you didn't want to spend too much when you were going to lose the weight.

Natasha was working in her office, peering down over reports, and barely acknowledged you other than with a hum.

"Long day?" You ask her as you put your things away and walk over to her.

"Yeah," Natasha sighed. "Trying to get these reports done since Maria needs them tomorrow."

That had been Natasha's excuse for spending long hours in her office every night for the last two weeks.

You place your hand on Natasha's shoulder with a reassuring squeeze, but she leans to the side as if to readjust herself, but still away from your touch.

The sting immediately comes, but you try to push it down, so it doesn't hurt as bad.

"Right," you say hoarsely, but Natasha stares on at the reports. "I'm just going to get ready for bed. It's been a long day and all. Let me know if you need anything."

Natasha gives you a nod as you leave the room. You feel awkward as you lie in the bed you share with her. You wonder if you're taking up too much space.

There's a pang of something as you try to curl yourself to be smaller and only distantly realizing you've skipped dinner before you fall asleep.

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You fall back onto the mat, chest heaving and your lungs burning.

It's been a while since you've worked out, and now you're definitely paying for it with how unfit you are.

The gym is moderately empty with the hour it is. You hate going to a public gym because it always feels like someone is staring, but it's better for strangers to stare than working out at the Compound for people you know to stare at you.

The rational part of you knows that you should just talk to Natasha, but the emotional side of you whispers that you won't like what Natasha has to say, that she might even end it before you've had a chance to change yourself.

When weeks pass, and you weigh yourself again, you almost start crying because you've only lost a couple of pounds.

It's normal, you know it is. You're losing weight at a normal rate, but it's not enough. You know fast weight loss wouldn't make sense for your body but you also feel you don't have half a year to go back to your normal weight.

You sit on the bathroom floor for hours, debating what to do when you hear a quiet knock.

"Sweetheart, are you in there?" Natasha's muffled voice comes through.

You wipe at your eyes furiously as you stand up.

"Y-Yeah," you answer back. "I'm just in the tub soaking."

There's a moment of silence through the door before Natasha answers back, "Alright. Enjoy yourself. Did you want me to order anything specific for dinner?"

"No, it's okay," you tell her. "You order anything you want. I already ate on my way home." You think about the chicken salad you've been eating for the past two weeks and almost sigh.

Natasha answered that she just came back to see if you've eaten, but she actually had to head back to the Compound. You were Natasha shuffling around before leaving through the front door, and you let out the breath you were holding.

You actually take a long, hot shower before putting on sweats and a big hoodie.

The truth was, you were hungry. The chicken salad was okay on the way home, but it had been a couple of hours since.

You knew starving yourself wasn't the answer, so you went into the kitchen to see if you could find something healthy to hold you over until you could go to bed.

But you can't find anything in the fridge except for Natasha's leftovers from whatever she ordered the day before. You can't find anything except frozen pizzas and microwavable foods.

You check the calories on the back and let out a frustrated sigh. Checking your watch, you realize it's too late in the evening to go grocery shopping because, by the time you get there, stores will have closed.

You slump down on the floor, leaning against the cabinets as you let out a pathetic whimper while your eyes became hot with tears.

You miss Natasha. You want Natasha holding you and telling you it would be okay. But you couldn't have that until you were back to what you were when you met her.

The front door suddenly opens.

"Have you seen my—sweetheart?" Natasha started to call before she noticed you sitting on the floor. "What's wrong?"

You use your sleeve to wipe at your eyes as you sit up straight.

"Nothing," you sniffle before you start to stand. "I just stubbed my toe against the edge of the kitchen island. What were you looking for? USB? You left it next to the bedside."

Natasha stares at your back, hair still wet as she takes in your attire.

"It's a little hot to be wearing a hoodie and sweats, isn't it?" Natasha asks softly. "Doesn't seem like you turned on the aircon in here."

You keep walking, but Natasha starts to follow you.

"'m cold," you say quietly so she can't hear the tremble in your voice.

"Are you feeling sick?" Natasha asks with concern as you sit down on the couch, turning on the TV. You pull the blanket over you as if to make your point.

"No," you tell her because you don't want her to worry. "Just cold after a bath."

Natasha sets her things down before she takes a seat next to you. Even in the low lighting, she can see your eyes rimmed red and dampness of them.

You're refusing to look at her as you have your knees drawn up to your chest and stare stubbornly at the TV screen.

Then she hears it.

Your stomach grumbles.

"Are you hungry, sweetheart?" Natasha asks softly again. "We can just order food and stay in tonight."

Your cheeks grow hot. "Don't you have to be at the Compound?"

You don't mean to snap at her, but you can't help but feel embarrassed.

Natasha remains quiet for a moment, quickly thinking over the last few weeks before she feels guilt trickle in.

She doesn't remember the last time she ate with you—doesn't remember the last time she saw you eat.

"Sweetheart," she calls you gently again, and you bristle at the tone. "Is there something wrong?"

The fragile dam you've built to keep the weeks of compiling emotions at bay breaks, and you're hurtling down the stream over the waterfall.

"Are you not in love with me anymore?" You choke out as you begin to cry.

You can't even register to feel horrified at your breakdown because you just need to know.

"I know...I know my body has changed since we first met and I've gained weight but I really am trying to lose it. I just—I feel like you're avoiding me. At first, I thought things at work have been really stressful for you, and I wanted to give you space but you're gone all the time. You're gone even when you're here."

Natasha can barely understand anything you've said after hearing you say the first part. Her breath hitches painfully in the back of her throat, and she legitimately feels appalled at herself.

She starts to say something, but you keep going.

"I'm sorry, I don't want to make this about me because if you're going through something then I want to support and be there for you. But I can't help but feel like you're grossed out by me. I mean—I feel grossed out when I look at myself. I feel like I'm taking up so much space—"

Natasha cuts you off abruptly, pulling off the blanket as she pulls at you until you're in her lap.

"Nat—"

"You're not gross and this is not about the weight you have or have not gained. You hear me?" Natasha says forcefully as she holds you close to her, hand over your thigh to keep you against her.

"God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry if I've been making you feel like you're not attractive me," Natasha's eyes well up as your tears wet her shoulder. "You're literally still the most gorgeous person I've ever met and you're always going to be that to me."

Natasha's hand at your waist dips underneath your hoodie, her fingers trailing up your back as she sighs at your warmth. "I should've told you, but the springtime is just really hard for me. It's odd because it's a time for things to come back to life but some of the worst things have happened to me during the spring and things blooming makes me think about things that aren't coming back. I think it's also just a little bit of seasonal depression too. I'm just the rare percentage that gets it in the spring."

The explanation makes your body sag with relief because while you feel so horrible that there is a reason Natasha doesn't like spring, she's not falling out of love with you.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize that I was hurting you," Natasha apologizes again. "I didn't mean to be so distant but I didn't want to bring your mood down as well, which is why I've been working so much to keep busy."

"It's okay," you muttered as your turn your head, forehead pressed against her neck. "I'm sorry spring is depressing for you."

Natasha merely hushes you as she kisses the side of your head.

You begin to feel awkward, thinking about how you must be heavy on her and try to move, but Natasha doesn't let you.

"Sweetheart, I don't know how to convince you that you're perfect to me," Natasha says so seriously as she forces you to look at her. "If you want to lose weight because that is what you want, then I support you. But I need you to understand that I love you no matter what. I don't care either way because you're so fucking lovely to me always. Do you understand?"

Timidly, you reply, "Okay. Thank you."

Natasha presses her lips against yours in a long kiss before she pulls back.

"Now, I'm going to ask again. Are you hungry? We can order in and watch that new show on Netflix I heard was pretty good from Wanda."

You feel lighter. You think you might still want to work out because that would make you happy, but you don't feel the rush like you did just a couple of hours ago.

"Yeah," you say shyly. "But maybe something not so heavy?"

Natasha nods as she presses another kiss into your cheek as she helps you settle onto the couch right beside her to grab her phone.

"Anything to make you bloom."

[shu-sakamaki]

Hello Shu-san and Admin!

Sorry to bother you but I think I’m going through mental breakdown again and I really need someone to talk to.

I am a nursing student and recently because of my classes I’m going through so much stress. I have to take care of my younger siblings on top o f that and my parents are not the responsible type. Yesterday I finally finish my midterm for one biology class and I was so happy I really wanted to go to sleep early since I haven’t been sleeping for weeks (literally barely made it pass 10hours a week). I’m so stressed out and tired but I also have sleeping issues. Last night I came home from the test and I found out no one cooked or even left any dinners for me. I was so stressed and tired taht really just made my day downhill. And then at night decided I am going to sleep early but my parents friends who came to visit and kicked my sibling to sleep in my room (I also have trouble sleeping with other people makes my whole body hurts) was so loud and I had enough of it as it not only kept me awake but also my younger sibling woke up. I got up at 3 am and I told them to either let me take my sleeping pills and sleep (my parents won’t let me) or tone it down a little. I have class at 8 am the next day. Then my parents, after I got home from class at 8pm today did not cook dinner again and they also told me I have a bad attitude. It’s like they’re telling me it’s ok for me to die from lack of sleep or smt and that they don’t care because they felt that I was disrespecting them (as much as they were disrespecting my space, sleep, and life) and that I made them lose face. Not only that, they’re friend uses my stuff and crossed my personal space AKA my room multiple times and I haven’t said anything I don’t understand was it wrong for me to tell the to be quiet so I can live? They all know I have sleep issues and that I haven’t been able to sleep for weeks. Idk it makes me feel stressed, tired, and really disappointed in the way they think. It’s like they don’t even care about and whenever I open my mouth to say something they always say that I have bad attitude and stuff it’s really getting on my nerves.

(My friends has also told me to stop babysitting my siblings Bc they r old enough but I always gets worried about them since my parents are never with us really and I took care of them myself since like forever. Before I move I had my grandparents, now I don’t have anyone that can help me)

(I’m so sorry for how much I’m ranting u can disregard this if u want, I just need someone to talk to)

((I'm really not capable of helping anyone when it is about living with stress and multiple responsibilities, because that has been something normal for me.

((But all in all, I guess you should listen to your friends, and stop taking care of your siblings as if you're their parents. You're not.

((You're their sibling, not their parent. You can help in the basic and minimal. But it is not your responsibility to fulfill the role of a parent for them.

((Ofc I'm saying this because I imagine your siblings are not, like... Babies/Newborns.

((And I do can understand that even if that is normal for me, it is not for some. So, I think you should respect your limit first, and listen to your friends. They're closer to you and your reality so I'm sure they can give you better advice than me ^^'' I'm sorry.

[transsexualhamlet]

sherlock holmes reactions part 4 (?) ive lost count already but unsurprisingly ive grown even more attached to him

using this as the cover image because i made him a playlist. cause im awful

no legit this is gonna need a read more because it's SO LONG SHIHEWIESHEFSHIEWHF

Had three mental breakdowns this week and realized i do in fact kin sherlock motherfucking holmes. this does not bode well for anything in my life mentally I've diagnosed him with so many things

Oh boy lol you want the list I think hes autistic (undisputed honestly) plus also adhd but on top of that there's the manic depression and uhhh the bpd lmao I dont even think that's it those are just. the obvious ones

But yeah man's a fucking mess and a shit person but in the same way as me so 👍

Some highlights I thought were very funny:

watson: we are in fact going to be waltzing into a place where people are Shooting People you do not have your gun. this is a problem

sherlock: don't worry watson I have my trusty stick!

watson: visible pain

This clearly happens like every day or so with them

but yeah there were some really honestly sweet scenes with them at the apartment and why am i getting soft over the crusty man being gay

have you considered tho. have you considered them

have you considered sherlock, who usually only plays absolute garbage on his violin serenading watson to sleep when he was tired and in pain and watson being so fucking in love with the man and waxing poetic about falling asleep to his music and waking up to see him fallen asleep on the couch next to him and oh my god them

They're just really sweet together for such a completely dysfunctional couple so much of the time lol I just. Sherlock being like.

Sherlock half of the time: watson you're fucking stupid. no i won't take care of my personal needs stfu. watson get a goddamn life. watson shut up. watson no one cares about your goddamn opinion. no i need to disturb you in the middle of the night it's for science. hey watson mind if i manipulate mansplain malewife

Sherlock the other half of the time: HELLO SIR YOU ARE MY FAVORITE MAN TO EVER MAN HELLO MAY I SPEND THE REST OF MY DAYS WITH YOU HELLO I WILL DO ANYTHING FOR YOU WE ARE PERFECT MATCHES I LOVE YOU AND I NEED YOU YOURE SO MUCH BETTER THAN ME PLEASE MARRY ME

They're... they certainly are.

ALSO OH MY GOD.

THIS ONE TIME WHEN SHERLOCK WAS JUST PACING AROUND THE ROOM AT 3 AM GOING "IT DOESNT MAKE SENSE >:(((" AND HUDSON LIKE BARGED IN TO COMPLAIN AND THEN WATSON WAS LIKE DUDE YOU GOTTA STOP DOING THIS AND PROCEEDS TO SAY THE LINE "YOU ARE KNOCKING YOURSELF UP, OLD MAN"

BAHGHSFHGRHEWHEWHIFEW

BRB SOBBING

CALLING HIM AN OLD MAN???? KNOCKING HIMSELF UP?? I DONT KNOW WHATS FUNNIER

The main highlight of this part was I have now gotten to see him have a great time watching his homo homie get married

Its so fucking funny.......

I was prepared for a funny reaction by yuumori sherlock's face when he said it lol but. Damn i was really not prepared tbh

watson: I'm engaged!

sherlock: *pained groaning*

watson: do you... not like her?

sherlock: no she's fine she's great you'll be wonderful together bUT I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE ARE HETEROSEXUAL WATSON DO I HAVE TO MARRY MYSELF THEN WATSON? ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE ME MARRY MYSELF.

watson: yeah... yeah... fair, I feel really bad because you did this whole case and I got a girlfriend out of it and all you got was me leaving you alone fuck man im sorry what are you gonna do without me

sherlock, highly sarcastic: dont worry watson I've always got my handy cocaine! *pulls it out and gets high in front of watson just as he's about to leave*

watson: *in fucking agony*

sherlock: good for you!

I DONT EVEN- THIS SCENE KILLED ME MULTIPLE TIMES OVER WHAT

ITS SO GODDAMN NONCHELANT ABOUT IT SHERLOCK IS JUST LIKE YEAH I WILL IN FACT NOT BE MENTALLY HEALTHY IF YOU ARE NOT WITH ME 24/7 BUT WHATEVER YOU DO YOU /S

I'd like to apologize to watson on sherlock's behalf lmao. man is being a bit too codependent on main

The last thing about sign of four I do need to address is yeah, there's the Horrific Amounts Of Racism in that one and the whiplash hearing it is just ridiculous because they seem to be so knowledgeable in all other areas and fairly... politically correct, taking sherlock's original misogyny as a purposeful character flaw, but then they just mention someone indigenous once and suddenly its all parrotting racist propaganda and just... really awful shit. There's no way I'm gonna speak for the group that just got absolutely hate crimed here but anyone can tell the author just has no clue what he's fucking talking about and it's physically painful.

And I don't know, it's just so bad it seems out of character? Doyle's making these motherfuckers say shit that honestly, Sherlock would know better about. And especially Watson. Come on, you cannot tell me watson is mentally capable of being prejudiced against someone. Please do not make him that way.

I'm not sure how to handle it specifically, or what's the proper way I should handle something like that in a media I otherwise like. Is it ok to say Doyle was clearly a piece of shit on the matter and separate those characters from his bias or is that insensitive?

I don't know, I was Not a fan of it and I'm glad to see they've at least finally shut up about the guy

But anyway yeah, uhhhh onto the short stories because I'm trying to read those before I get to the final problem

Scandal in Bohemia was a fucking ride, first of all, before we even get to Sherlock's girlboss arc we have to discuss how gay the whole situation was and how Doyle's attempt at making them less gay failed spectacularly

Like he's all "ah yes I need to marry off watson and uhhh make sherlock ummmm interact with a woman so they dont look gay" but he does it SO BADLY that it makes them look EVEN GAYER

cause i mean, even the conversation they had about watson getting married back in sign of four was gay af, but how Doyle handled things afterward was in no way straighter.

Cause you know, the man kind of wrote himself into a corner with the fact of Watson narrating these stories. So Watson has to be around to witness them, and to witness Sherlock's own thought process rather privately, so he has to be around sherlock at night, a lot. But trying to come up with a reason for that happening just... it didn't occur to Doyle. He just went. Ah yes this makes sense. And it's Watson just like Sleeping Over At Sherlock's like every other goddamn day and every time his wife leaves town and having them basically still live that cute domestic home life but they have absolutely no excuses for doing it anymore. It's quite funny

Like it was gay already the way they interacted when they officially lived together but it was like, a necessity for them. Now it's not, Watson just comes over because he goddamn wants to, and it's hilarious to me.

LIKE IDK I THINK THEY KIND OF BROKE UP FOR A YEAR OR SO BC OF WATSON GETTING MARRIED AND THEY LIKE DONT HAVE CONTACT WITH ONE ANOTHER BUT ONE DAY WATSON JUST INEXPLICABLY HAS THE URGE TO COME VISIT SHERLOCK ON NO NOTICE AND THEN SUDDENLY THEY ARE TOGETHER NEAR 24/7 AGAIN LIKE BARELY ANYTHING CHANGED AHIEHOEWH

SIT DOWN AND TRY TO TELL ME THOSE ARE NOT HOMOSEXUALS

Watson walks in on no fucking notice after a full year and Sherlock is just. In the middle of some experiment obviously but hes like

Sherlock, carrying around unidenfiable chemical mixtures: W A T S O N you look good you look good! i see you've gained seven pounds!!

watson: uh. thanks??? Hey lol *awkwardly waves* Uh um Wanted to Uhm sEe you

Sherlock: ABOUT gODDAMN TIME AND YES WONDERFUL LOOK LOOK SIT DOWN I HAVE THINGS TO INFODUMP ABOUT

watson: :) ok :) *turns to camera* and we were back to the old days

sherlock: makes a deduction

watson: wowwwwwwwwwwww !! so true bestie !!

sherlock: !!!!!!!!! :))) !!!!! :))) uh fuck im supposed to be smooth Its Elementary Lol

watson: *turns to camera* when i stroke his ego like this and compliment him he blushes like a girl like i just complimented his dress so i do it more because he likes it. this is a homie trait

watson: well i should probably get going! my wife will notice that i am gone my dear buddy bro homie!

sherlock: NO DONT LEAVE IM LOST WITHOUT YOU (pretty much a direct quote lol) your. wife doesn't. get back home until monday. I know this because I am smart and definitely have not been stalking you.

watson: alright :)))))

AND THEN HE FUCKING SLEEPS OVER LMAO FUCKING HOMOS

So yeah they're right back where they were before pretty much and there's a case bc of course there is

And honestly I think this short story specifically was so insane mostly just because of how absolutely fast it all went. Yuumori kind of made me believe the original Irene Adler was more of an important character than she really is? And I think that's. Honestly so funny. Motherfucker shows up for ten pages, girlbosses her way around town, and changes sherlock's entire opinion of the female gender while still keeping him gay?

LIKE NO LOL SHES NOT IN ANY WAY A LOVE INTEREST AND WATSON GOES OUT OF HIS WAY TO SPECIFY THE FACT THAT IN NO WORLD WOULD THEY HAVE BEEN ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED BECAUSE. SHERLOCK. DIDN'T DATE WOMEN.

HE WAS JUST??? SO IMPRESSED AND SHELL SHOCKED BY HER EXISTENCE HE DECIDED IT WAS TIME FOR GIRLBOSS APPRECIATION DAY TODAY AND ALL DAYS HENCEFORTH???

AND THEY HAVE LIKE O N E INTERACTION?? God, the power this woman(?) has. Watson looks at her once like. damb shawty 😳 and she's like "no<3" and he's like FUCK

Like yeah it's pretty much just the king walking up like "help girl the whore is blackmailing me" and sherlock being like "ok lol this will be easy" and then it proceeded to not in fact be easy or even possible

sherlock like... posed as a dead body and tried to get her to give up the location of the photo but she out-acted him and skipped the town the next day after doing the 'good night mr. sherlock holmes' thing with sherlock completely tricked

and she just. sends a letter like "dear sherlock holmes. you're a fucking idiot and i think it's funny that you lost. nice job tho mad respect" and sherlock just SHORT CIRCUITS

the king comes back a bit later like "hey Dude where's my Photo" and sherlock's like oh yeah uhhhhhhhhhhh about that and the king is like HOW COULD IT POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN THAT GODDAMN HARD i would have dated someone more noble if she wasn't so pretty i swear im on a whole different level from her

and then. GIRLBOSSIFIED SHERLOCK HOLMES RESPONDS "from what I have seen of the lady, she seems indeed to be on a very different level from your majesty" ABSEHHESHEFHHFES ROASTED

and the dude just LEAVES

After that I read a few more of the short stories and well the highlights I got from that pretty much were these conversations

Watson: sherlock. honey. have you. eaten anything today

Sherlock: IT DIDNT OCCUR TO ME DEAR WATSON

Watson: ITS FIVE PM

and:

Sherlock: *having one of his Moment Moments at three in the goddamn mornig* GRRRR CRIME ISNT WHAT IT USED TO BE

Watson: MY DEAR SHERCOCK WHAT IS CRIME S U P P O S E D TO BE LIKE ACCORDING TO YOU

Sherlock: no one's original anymore fucking copycats

Watson: so you want the criminals to make things harder for you specifically.

Sherlock, exasperated: yes!

I love them your honor.

[mego42]

hi! a song inside the halls of the dark is an absolute masterpiece of plotting and pacing (and prob my fave fic I’ve read for the show so far), so for the ask a writer meme, I’d love to hear about your planning process(es). the idea of even plotting out something like that, let alone actually finishing it, just breaks my brain lol. do you do a lot of outlining? how much does the outcome end up looking like the ideas that sparked it?

adsfghgsj okay well first off, thank you! that is unspeakably flattering and i don’t know how to cope! my weird robot emotions are misfiring! but also, thank you for this question bc this is the kind of nerd shit i LIVE FOR and up until, idk, 5? 6? months ago my answer would’ve more or less been ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but sometime in between now and then i leveled up how much of a nerd i am.

okay so, the short answer to your (first) question is yes, i do a lot of outlining though the scale of outline varies based on the complexity of the story. in song’s case, how i outline actually evolved significantly over the course of writing it (see that level up) and if i were to outline it today, it would look very different from what i originally started with.

the short answer to your second question is in song’s case, the original idea was a v short, almost fluffy stuck in a hotel room for a night one shot i daydreamed up while listening to a halsey song (is there somewhere, if you were wondering). obvs what it turned into was uh, v different.

digging into how i outline is going to get long, excessively nerdy and borderline terrifying so i’m hiding the rest of this under the cut, read at your own risk.

I preface everything here with a couple of reminders:

1. i am a crazy person who straight up does not know how to have hobbies like a normal person

2. i am actively trying to push myself and grow as a writer including developing new skills and training myself to practice certain habits bc at some point I would like to push myself out of the nest and try my hand at original fiction one day with a vague goal of maybe seeing if i could get it published. idk if i’ll ever actually do that BUT in the meantime, i do stuff like the nightmare that follows to myself

initial outline / what happens next list

okay so the most basic of my outlines (and how i originally outlined song) are p much just lists of what happens next. i do them as bullet lists bc my brain finds them less intimidating and i just start with one and then ask myself what happens next. sometimes the bullets are v vague, sometimes they get so specific i end up writing what becomes dialogue, i try not to think too hard about it, i just keep asking what happens next.

it’s really specifically about what happens next, not asking myself what i want to happen in the story, bc next implies the bullet before informs the one after, so you end up with an overall picture of what you want with a base level of causality built in. it also gives you room to surprise yourself (i think literally every what happens next outline i’ve done has had me going oh, okaaaaaay at some point).

sometimes, this is all you need. for trade my heart for honey, i started and stopped here bc at the end of the day, the skeleton for that fic is super basic: beth and rio attempt to play pool without tripping over their horrendous sexual tension. they fail. the end.

for your monster looks like mine, i did a version of the what happens next list, but i brought in some of my tricks from the pace structuring method i’ve been honing for the multi-chapter i’m currently planning. instead of mapping tentpole beats by story pace, i mapped tentpole beats for what points i wanted beth and rio to be scoring against each other and then mapped out the lead-up and fallout to connect the two and also what they were doing to each other physically at the same time so i could see how it all played together so the conversation supported the smut and vice versa. it was a TOTALLY normal approach to writing pwp. not over the top at all. 

song’s original outline was basically a SUPER long what happens next list and if i could go back in time i would slap myself upside the head like bitch you have no idea what you’re getting into and you are WAY TOO COCKY ABOUT IT, but it’s okay i learned.

the spreadsheet method

somewhere around when i was in the middle of i want to say ch 9 of song, @pynkhues posted about her outlining process including a super awesome spreadsheet she uses (i cannot for the life of me find the original post, forgive me but know that it was hers) and i immediately jacked a version of it to use as my own and oh my god it changed my whole life. 

iirc hers was a bit more in depth but since i was sort of baby-stepping into it, i stripped it down into the following and did a sheet for each of the remaining chapters (well, ch 10 and ch 11, ch 11 ended up getting wildly out of control so i split it in two and mushed the epilogue i’d been planning onto the end of it as a closing breakout scene:

plot

character

it’s a lot of repetition, tbh BUT once i started using it, i found the repetition was incredibly clarifying and by making myself take the time to go through each column and go through the same stuff over and over, it honed in on the strongest, most relevant bits of what i was planning and helped me see patterns and connections i maybe hadn’t been thinking of on the onset.

when i outlined swear i used this method and added a layer to my chapter overviews where i track the lies and corresponding truths worked into the chapter narratives (bc that’s a key theme of the story), and color-coded the beats that corresponded to the main plot vs individual character arcs vs foreshadowing so i’d have an at a glance visual reference to make sure nothing was getting lost and all of the characters (even minor ones) had stuff happening to them and didn’t just feel like cardboard cutouts coming in and out of the story as i needed them

pace structuring

these are all fine and dandy but one thing they’re missing is pacing! for song’s pacing, i will be real with you, i v much went a lot with my gut. i’ve spent most of my life consuming and paying a lot of attention to stories. i’m fascinated with how they come together and literally cannot shut off the part of my brain that likes to pick them apart to examine the pieces to see how they all fit together. as such, it’s left me with a p instinctive grasp for how a story should feel when it’s working which is fantastic when it is, but really useless when it isn’t bc i struggle to identify where and why sometimes so i can fix it.

for the buffyverse, once i started to realize (with no small amount of horror) the scope of what i wanted to write, i realized p quick i needed some kind of tool kit to help me figure out the arc and pacing bc this was going to be a lot closer to trying to plot a whole novel from the ground up (which is great bc one of the things i want to practice is pacing and plotting out novels from the ground up, hahaha)

i’ve been working with a two main docs (and neither of them are spreadsheets, yet, bc one thing the spreadsheet method taught me it’s that while i find them very soothing, my brain works in bullet lists so i’m starting with bullets and then i’m gonna strain it through a spreadsheet):

1. Thoughts:

just a doc where I word vomit out anything I’m thinking, I don’t worry about keeping it organized, I just throw whatever I’m thinking in there so it’s memorialized and I can sort through it later.

2. Act Timelines / Scene Breakdowns:

basically, i have a basic three-act story structure with tentpole story beats broken out by general ballpark percentages of how far into the story/act they should occur for the pacing to feel right. i use that as the framework i run my plot and character beats through and do it in a couple of passes:

high level: i go through and break out what’s happening in the story for each tentpole beat (what the specific story and plot focus is)

by character: i go through and fill in (at least) one sub-bullet beneath each plot tentpole beat with what’s happening with each main character in their individual subplot, how they got there, what their general feelings and mindset is, if they’re having any revelations, etc (one thing i fucked up with song is not making sure i had stuff going on for all of the characters, the plot was super focused on beth and while i generally knew what rio was doing and why, ruby and annie more or less floated in and out of the story at whim and i hate that, so i’m trying to be better about it going forward)

by relationship: now i go in and fill in a layer of bullllets with how the plot and character beats are shaping relationships and how they’re progressing through each tentpole beat

at this point i’ve got a pretty fleshed out outline hitting on plot, character and relationship development at least in broad, general terms. i can look at it like a map and see how characters are growing and changing throughout the story and look for areas where the plot is pushing the characters vs the other way around and places where it seems weak or poorly connected/supported and i tinker with that for awhile until i feel like it’s in good shape.

next step is applying the what happens next approach to the scene by scene breakdowns. i’m trying an experiment with this one where instead of breaking the fic into chapters first, i’m breaking it into scenes and working out the beats of them so they incorporate all of my outlined stuff and then i’m gonna go back and see where the chapter breaks look like they fall.

I’m like, 75% of the way through my scene breakdown for this particular fic and once I’m done with that, I’m going to take everything and plug it into the spreadsheet I worked with for the last couple of chapters of song and highlight/color code like I did for swear to make sure my chapter breakdowns align with everything I’m trying to do and I’m tracking all of my themes and details and setting things up to pay them off later.

so, you know, an absolutely normal amount of planning for a hobby i do entirely for funsies in my largely nonexistent spare time. 

(sorry this was i am assuming WAAY MORE INFORMATION than you ever wanted or needed to know but once i started i couldn’t stop)

(and seriously, thank you, am truly verklempt that you love song like that 💖)

bts fic writing q’s IF YOU DARE hahaha

[caphayzardous]

honestly... relieved to say that I’m feeling pretty good now that I am moved here, 3/4 unpacked and making this space fucken killer. 

I knew it’d be a bit better once I just got it done, the impending severage from ‘home’ was destroying me? but now its like Done and making my room here Home has gone very surprisingly well. just like... this room has so many shelf space that my entire apartment (no shelves) fits in it, so the size/space issue isn’t as bad as I feared. it’s all gone a lot better than I expected. Having the LEDs light strip up makes a difference too, it doesn’t have the sickly sorta yellow-light-on-blue-walls thing that was both unpleasant in general and also overly-familiar, settin up my cool lights (mostly switchin between pink, purple, n blue) makes it like a ‘present-day Bri Space’ calming to be in. I also scooped some drawers out of tthe cupboard to repurpose the space as a desk and get my speakers in, so that’s when I was like, ‘true return to form’ about all of htis. it’s like really,,, in the last few days this room has become cooler than my apartment ever got to, and expresses like... character. and, and,

my bro is like annoying in some regards (as siblings must be, even when you get along...) BUT they n their partner have made dinner enough for me the last few nights, including yesterday they made burritos so good I could have cried, and I had leftovers of it today adn again was like what in the fuck this is so goddamn good. and my mums also like, bought some food for me and (eg: right now) made vegetables enough for me when shes cookin for her and hey boyf, so. thats been like really good for the adjustment period if I’d been responsible for buying my own food /thinking of meals this last week... just wouldnae have happened lmao. cohabitation has irked me a few times already but not having to make my own dinner every night fffar outweighs that haha... even if it’s just for now.

I’m not sleeping much rn but that’s mostly been by choice, I stayed awake for 40 hours the other day/s, and awake late/up early last night too. I’ve just like... gotta power through sorting my stuff and space out, and it keeps going late into the night, then I practice the bass at like lmao 4am or something because I refuse to miss practice haha. Idk I also just am determined to power through and stay on top of things because I really fear becoming ‘complacent’ again and the ease of living since moving makes that seem real possible, yeahah. like. I’m gonna rest when it’s sorted hahah I will allow myself that but y’;know.

so, yeah. really relieved and grateful. and like. feeling positive about the future now that i’m like, “ah good I have a Bri Space here so I wont be in Spatial Hell every day”. yes I am also feeling maybe uhh like... bashful(? or just stupid?) about how hm viscerally upset I’ve been in the lead-up to this, to the point of recent outright depressive relapse but uhh. well. it’s kind of only NOT gone badly because I’m putting in a lot of effort each day (ok and bc of the dinner thing hah) so there’s that. and it may yet become hell lmao probably i will still be having breakdowns if I am asked about my future At All. anyway t\hough. relieved it’s going well. yeah.

[isitthescreaming20syet]

Do all the numbers you coward

– disclaimer: i did this at like late at night o’clock, while trying to avoid my fourth breakdown that hour. and i didn’t have my glasses on. so . if there’s any spelling errors that i didn’t catch, let me know.–

ok cool. imma just pick a post and go at it then.

1. what colour are you’re eyes?

Usually they’re like a green/brown ig?

2. do you like your name? why?

Yes, I love my name. I picked it myself with the help of some of my friends. It comes from a couple different book characters who are both super strong physically and emotionally and they’re honestly an inspiration to me.

3. what is your relationship status?

…. single as fuck man. Is it too much to ask for a guy who is sweet and not pushy and bigger than me so I can steal his hoodies and be swamped in them??

4. describe your personality in 3 words or less

“another fucking breakdown??”

5. what colour hair do you have?

currently a really gross red, (well I think it’s gross but i just don’t like reds) but on Thursday I finally re-dye it and im gonna go green!!

6. how would you describe your style?

either I pull smth out of the drawer in the morning and hope it goes together, or I spend three weeks planning it.

7. what size bed do you have?

P sure it’s a queen? my dog manages to take up half of it and he’s the size of a bread loaf.

8. any siblings?

Ye, two half sisters!! 

9. favourite t.v. show?

The Umbrella Academy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

10. describe your dream date

uhhhhh, smth outside? like a picnic. at night, but with plenty of lights. and star gazing!!!! bc spACE!!!

11. what colour socks are you wearing?

uh… one crew that’s white and purple and one ankle that blue and white…. 

12. how many pillows do you sleep with?

trick question!! I don’t sleep with pillows. I use throw/travel blankets and stuffed animals. I do have two pillows on my bed, but they’re for my dog to sleep on.

13. do you have a job? what do you do?

I do! I just started a week or so ago and I make drinks! ISTG IF SOMEONE ORDERS ONE MORE GODDAMN MINI SLUSHI IM GONNA KILL A MAN.

14. how many friends do you have?

hhhhh, i think i have abt 0. but in reality i probably have 10ish actual friends?

15. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

I’ve done plenty of shitty things but im not in a good place to answer this one rn.

16. what’s your favourite candle scent?

Another trick question! i despise candles and nearly anything that has a smell. good or bad.

17. three favourite boy names?

Klaus bc my boiiiiiiiiii

Ethan istg anyone i know irl brings this up you will regret it

Ashton

18. three favourite girl names?

ooooo boyyy,

Claire

Isabella (spanish pronounciation obv)

Vanya bc yk i had to make another reference but also it’s rlly pretty and just look at it!!

19. who is your celebrity crush?

ik it’s basic but cole sprouse is the first one that comes to mind.

20. do you read a lot? what’s you favourite book?

yes I read all the time bc reADING IS GOOD @dodo-likes-to-tumbl

my favourite book is probably Six of Crows.

21. top 10 favourite songs?

hhhooooohhhhhhhhkkkayyyyy not really any particular order:

1) Istanbul by They Might be Giants

2) Roaring 20s by P!atD

3) I Wait by Day6

4) Monster by EXO

5) Choke by IDKHBTFM

6)Tempo by EXO

7) Awkward Silence by Stray Kids

8) Chained Up by VIXX

9) Singularity by BTS

10) Get Cool by Stray Kids

22.  What is your biggest fear?

another one that im not able to answer at this time.

23. What’s your go to hairstyle/

Literally don’t have one. I get out of bed, get dressed, and go to school. I don’t do anything.

24. who is your role model?

Idk. I don’t really have one. I really look up to my sister, Ella, a lot. 

25. what was the last compliment you received?

idk, the most recent one I remember was my moms friends mom was going on about my hair colour even though I hate it and we were literally standing by the hair dye in walmart looking at new colours when she walked up and interrupted.

26. What was the last text you sent?

Confirming smth for a talent show group im gonna be a part of.

27. How old were you when you found out santa wasn’t real? (if this is a shock or a spoiler for you, you’re either wayyy too young for this site or wayy too stupid) 

I was probably about 5 or 6? I had a lot of cousins who were older than me who liked to spoil things. I was able to convince my parents I still believed until I was about 11 tho.

28. what is your dream job?

Dream job? I thought I’d be dead in the trunk of a car by now!!

not really, but uhh idk

29. how many pictures do you have on your phone?

Idfk? five years worth ig?

30. have you ever peed in the woods?

Wtf kinda question is this? but yeah when I was younger. like 4-7 ish maybe?

31. Do you still watch cartoons?

Tbh not nearly as often as I’d like. I love Gravity Falls and I wanna get into Steven Universe, though from what I’ve seen it’s not a cartoon it’s art. 

32. Favourite dipping sauce?

no

33. What do you wear to bed?

Sweat pants and a hoodie

34. Have you ever won a spelling bee?

Nah mate. I can’t spell for shit.

35. what are your hobbies?

crying in the dark instead of doing my hw.

36. tea or coffee?

yes

37. are you going to change your last name when you get married?

hah “when”! idk if I do get married I’ll probably hyphenate or steal my sisters idea and do some sort of mash up of the last names, kinda like a ship name.

38.  do you believe in ghosts?

meh

39. what’s your biggest pet peeve?

People

40. the last person you called?

I facetimed @panickingposters

41. chocolate or rainbow sprinkles?

hah GAY

42.  what shirt are you wearing?

damn another trick question! I’m wearing my PFTW Tour hoodie.

43. what is your phone background?

lock screen is FoB lyrics - “ I love the world, i just don’t love the way it makes me feel”

and home screen is a space edit of the trans flag.

44. do you like it when ppl play with your hair?

As long as they do it right @goodmorningchicago

45. have you ever been drunk?

no but i wish i was

46. favourite lyrics rn?

“Like awkward silence..

caw

caw

caw”

47. summer or winter?

autumn

48. day or night?

sleep during the day, everything else at night

49. dark, milk or white chocolate?

k first of all? white chocolate isn’t even fucking chocolate. so that ones out.

second, milk chocolate is just sugar and milk. also out

Dark it is!!

50. who was the last person you cried in front of?

My therapist earlier today

[thankyoumskobayashi]

happy 10th anniversary to the day my dad found my cats on the side of the road

i have thought alot of times abt what id do if i met the person who left them there. probably punch that person for being a dumb jerk. but if it werent for them leaving blossom on the side of the road, my depression could easily have taken a turn for the worst during middle/high school. my floof merr has been my reason for living, even moreso than spite. now im at a place where im enjoying life a little and learning sorta how to be an adult. i'd probably thank whoever dropped my cats off but also punch them for being a jerk.

anyways, my point is that if you don't believe in yourself, or you hate your life, find something to live for. Anything, no matter how unimportant others may deem it. for me, my love for my cat and desire to make sure she's happy overrode my depressed thought. treatment was definitely a step in that, but if you can't find that find blogs abt coping with depression in everyday life and read as much as you can. after my diagnoses i read a lot from other people with depression anxiety and adhd. maybe this helps others too idk

rember too that change doesnt always happen right away either. we are constantly changing ourselves and reinventing ourselves, and it is exhausting to make the conscious choice, again and again, to be a better person. but it is a necessary one because otherwise society remains stagnant.

and stagnating things cause breakdowns and decay.

good luck in finding yourselves, and your companions throughout the journey of life. i may not be a psychologist but i can listen if you need someone to, and i can reblog that list of suicide hotlines bc your life is worth too much. im crying right now actually bc a kid in my hometown khs, probably due to not being believed over mental health issues. people "not believing in" mental illness gets me so fucking pissed off bc this shit matters! it's not little things that people complain abt, it's the small symptoms of a much larger, and much more malevolent whole which moves through the mind like a hurricant. it destroys so much of your functioning and leaves you struggling to swim in the productive direction against the current of a deeper and stronger force.

being ridiculously persistent, as adhd folks tend to be, is probably also another reason i'm here. i love my friends too much to ever let them suffer like that, so i'd hold on to the point of walking through hell and back. in that way i found the hyperfocus i wield like a double edged sword and honed the loyalty i have always developed. i love my old friends, and i love my new friends, and i'm just so goddamn happy to be having friends on this planet. i dont need a romance, because i love myself enough to not need one for validation. i think that having a relationship when you are not really into someone else as much as they are into you would feel very weird. kinda like early marina & the diamonds being in a relationship. i don't know.

why the hell am i telling you all this? because it is a stream of conscious and i am allowing you unfiltered access to my inner thoughts because these are the only thoughts i have had or will ever have at this moment at this time. and because people in the future may look back on them to see what is relevant to history. and in my case i will say that i hate donald trump, i had a great dream last night that he died of a heart attack, and they were debating whather to put his secondary prez as the next in line bc they expected p*nce to do such a horrible job too.

we need to help the environment and in order to do that we need to limit the pollution companies can create. everywhere. all across the globe. it would take huge efforts. the leaders would probably be assassinated anonymously by the ceos of huge megacorps which steal billions from the workers. we need to create huge amts of inertia, so how do we do that??? education.

we need to teach abt environmentalism. we need to teach it like it is a basic tenet of humanity to care about it, at levels that challenge & excite kids instead of bore them. this is my poetics and i guess im spelling it out now that im tipsy bc i havewords flowing from my mind. i have to go get my charger hold on. its an external battery pack that my overly controlling mother had me put in her purse this mornig. the song "hotline, hotline.... calling on the hotline to your love" has been stuck in my head for a lot of the day today and i hate it. today i was the magic carpet operator it was really cold. i hate the magic carpet for being so cold but there was a squad of 5 kids today who got a big kick out of riding the magic carpet to the top, then taking the stairs back down again. it wasnt malicious or anything it was fun and gave me smth to do other than stand coldly thinking abt how cold i was.

the woodstove hoever is very warm and i am tired and need to use the bathroom before i bring my cat upstairs to watch guardian & possibly even kamen rider kuuga before falling asleep. oh and dont forget to brush teeth before u pass out too. good night everyone. this is who i have found myself to be now. so, who are you?

[coffee-styles]

EXPOSE TIMEEEEE🙃 

(my friend dared me for this one, haven’t read it yet so I’m nervous...here I goooo)

01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

kind of...it’s a mess but I try

02: Who did you last say “I love you” to?

one of my bff’s, Anna

03: Do you regret anything?

if living or having my existence in a human-natural form counts...yes

04: Are you insecure?

VERY. From head to toe😃

05: What is your relationship status?

Single bc I’m a mentally unstable Libra with ptsd, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, mental breakdowns daily and honest which makes me mean

06: How do you want to die?

✨ Suicide ✨

07: What did you last eat?

Hot Cheetos

08: Played any sports?

Umm...soccer?

09: Do you bite your nails?

I used to

10: When was your last physical fight?

Nothing serious or anything but today. My crush called one of my bff’s Anna a bitch and then called her a midget, then stole my other bff’s (Izzy) her sketch book and got them both mad....SO, I pulled his hair and his shirt making him choke and I made him say sorry or I threatened I’d break the hair out of his skull. So now I’m sort of over him other than the fact that he looked sad or smth after that and I felt bad😃 (help meee)

11: Do you like someone?

Too. Fucking. Many.

12: Have you ever stayed up 48 hours?

Damn essay due in 2 days...guess how many words🙃

13: Do you hate anyone at the moment?

MANY people for MANY reasons...I listen (and sing) to songs that remind me of them

14: Do you miss someone?

My normal self in the past as a kid

15: Have any pets?

2 puppies

16: How exactly are you feeling at the moment?

Somewhat good...I have a stuffy nose so......

17: Ever made out in the bathroom?

NOPE

18: Are you scared of spiders?

Hell yeah!

19: Would you go back in time if you were given the chance?

FUCK YEAH!

20: Where was the last place you snogged someone?

Outside school parking lot

21: What are your plans for this weekend?

Nothing much really, ik the holidays is coming up but im all set! weird, i have the gifts ready and wrapped, i have the names listed on them, i actually KNOW what im doing and where im going...anyways, I’m going to Port St. Lucie for Christmas and South Carolina for New Years!!!

22: Do you want to have kids? How many?

Maybe, just one...they’re too...not annoying (well, kind of) but just loud and sometimes hard to take care of

23: Do you have piercings? How many?

In pairs? 2 which is my earrings and my piercings on top of my ear (so my earlobe)

24: What is/are/were your best subject(s)?

Art and music...no hesitation

25: Do you miss anyone from your past?

My Pre-K teacher...she just LOVED everything and everyone. She used to play Queen on Friday’s and we’d have freeze dance and extra recess (idk how it’s extra recess if it’s literally Pre-K)

26: What are you craving right now?

Pizza and fries or cheese burger with bacon and fries

27: Have you ever broken someone’s heart?

Nope

28: Have you ever been cheated on?

Yup🙃

29: Have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry?

Mmm...no actually now that I think about it

30: What’s irritating you right now?

Little sister😊

31: Does somebody love you?

My bff, Anna, has a friend who lives in Texas that finds me cute, not sure about “being in love”

32: What is your favourite color?

Light purple, light blue (not baby blue), black and that vintage kind of brown

33: Do you have trust issues?

Eh...if I know you and we get along very well, you’re good

34: Who/what was your last dream about?

Can’t remember, mostly nightmares...and living in a dorm by yourself with no one at night is HORRIFYING

35: Who was the last person you cried in front of?

My bff, Izzy

36: Do you give out second chances too easily?

Not really?

37: Is it easier to forgive or forget?

Forget

38: Is this year the best year of your life?

I guess you can call it that

39: How old were you when you had your first kiss?

16...I made a fool out of myself when this cute guy in school kissed me and I fell in love but a week later when I literally exposed my feelings to him, he said he already had a girlfriend and it was just a dare. I COULD’VE moved countries but noooo.

40: Have you ever walked outside completely naked?

Naked-naked, no. With a robe, no. With a hoodie, yes. With a long and baggy shirt, yes.

51: Favourite food?

Pizza and french friesssss

52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

Not really...5th grade fucked up my brain REAL hard

53: What is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night?

Cry myself to Larry Stylinson edits and proof

54: Is cheating ever okay?

NO

55: Are you mean?

I’m honest...I say what I think, that’s what makes me mean.

56: How many people have you fist fought?

4 and I don’t regret it

57: Do you believe in true love?

Uh, YEAH

58: Favourite weather?

WINTERRRRR

59: Do you like the snow?

HELL FUCKING YEAH

60: Do you wanna get married?

HELL FUCKING NO (im still waiting for 1d to get back and for Larry to get married, then we can talk✋🏼🙄)

61: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby?

mmm...yes?

62: What makes you happy?

Harry Styles, Larry Stylinson edits and the Marvel cast

63: Would you change your name?

Probably not

64: Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed?

YES!

65: Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

I’m a female, so they’d be a boy...a boy bestfriend....oh! umm...slap the shit out of them

66: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex who you can act your complete self around?

NOPE!

67: Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to?

My crushhhh

68: Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

My tea spillers, Anna and Izzy ❤

69: Do you believe in soulmates?

hands down, YES

70: Is there anyone you would die for?

MANY people😊

Go ahead and ask

01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

02: Who did you last say “I love you” to?

03: Do you regret anything?

04: Are you insecure?

05: What is your relationship status?

06: How do you want to die?

07: What did you last eat?

08: Played any sports?

09: Do you bite your nails?

10: When was your last physical fight?

11: Do you like someone?

12: Have you ever stayed up 48 hours?

13: Do you hate anyone at the moment?

14: Do you miss someone?

15: Have any pets?

16: How exactly are you feeling at the moment?

17: Ever made out in the bathroom?

18: Are you scared of spiders?

19: Would you go back in time if you were given the chance?

20: Where was the last place you snogged someone?

21: What are your plans for this weekend?

22: Do you want to have kids? How many?

23: Do you have piercings? How many?

24: What is/are/were your best subject(s)?

25: Do you miss anyone from your past?

26: What are you craving right now?

27: Have you ever broken someone’s heart?

28: Have you ever been cheated on?

29: Have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry?

30: What’s irritating you right now?

31: Does somebody love you?

32: What is your favourite color?

33: Do you have trust issues?

34: Who/what was your last dream about?

35: Who was the last person you cried in front of?

36: Do you give out second chances too easily?

37: Is it easier to forgive or forget?

38: Is this year the best year of your life?

39: How old were you when you had your first kiss?

40: Have you ever walked outside completely naked?

51: Favourite food?

52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

53: What is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night?

54: Is cheating ever okay?

55: Are you mean?

56: How many people have you fist fought?

57: Do you believe in true love?

58: Favourite weather?

59: Do you like the snow?

60: Do you wanna get married?

61: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby?

62: What makes you happy?

63: Would you change your name?

64: Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed?

65: Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

66: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex who you can act your complete self around?

67: Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to?

68: Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

69: Do you believe in soulmates?

70: Is there anyone you would die for?

[shinyworld]

ok story time im still 27 but ive been hanging out with a lot of 30 somethings lately and its crazy how u can literally see some of them already wasted by years of alcohol or substance abuse and they start making no sense even when sober. last night this girl (idk if she was drunk or coked up but she had to be on something) asked me which countries have i visited and how did i get to college since i told her i came from a public school. said she was sooo lucky because she has travelled around the world. started her calling her bf a fucking idiot in front of everyone. he was also a rich kid but you could tell was really ashamed lmao..... there were a couple of awkward silences. i was polite but shocked like she said that with no shame....... ive met rich drunk ppl before but nothing like this. i left a little early bc i was high and getting annoyed bc she was killing my vibe!!! well today the friend who invited me told me i missed her mental breakdown bc they ended up asking her ass to leave and she started screaming and calling my friend a communist and what else. i feel like its a warning from my guardian angels to stay away from drug abuse. anyways rich people are unreal. also she was an anti vaxxer

[diaryofanormalkid]

I’m sad.

Pretty sure it’s a combo of me being on my period, getting seasonal affective depression and my preexisting depression as a side effect of ADHD burnout, guilt, shame etc.

But yeaaah I’ve truly been hella in my feelings this week. Today it hits hard bc weekends are usually really hard for me anyways. I always have a hard time taking care of myself.

Idk what it is about weekends that make me so helpless and careless. Maybe it’s because I don’t have to go anywhere, I have no desire to do anything but rest and recover.

That includes not caring about hygiene either, unfortunately. I haven’t showered since Thursday night since I skipped last night. Haven’t brushed my teeth since 6am.

And that was only because I woke up out of my sleep from being so hot and forgetting I didn’t brush my teeth before I fell asleep last night. So I did that and went straight to sleep.

Idk today been pretty much a bust bc I haven’t done anything productive. Only ate one ~real~ meal today so I’m starving, but dinner is ready so I think I’ll go eat soon.

I’m just very moody and would rather not be around anyone rn but my mom keeps bothering me by coming into my room and asking if “I’m feeling it” it meaning depressed.

Can’t you tell miss? It’s like no, I guess she’s never been able to tell. That’s the problem. Bc I don’t communicate but she also can’t just read my emotions if I don’t tell her anything.

I’m not sure why I expect people to be able to help me when I don’t express that I’m feeling like crap when I’m feeling like crap. I would think from my actions it’s pretty obvious.

But I guess after 23 of acting like I have mood swings, they’ve never been able to tell. So why do I assume just bc I had my breakdown way back in May and explained it, they can now?

My mood is very genuinely: disappointed but not surprised. It’s like I always knew even if I opened up, they’d never support me or be able to help me in the ways I need.

But I also am not doing anything to help myself when I don’t open up to them. I guess it’s my fault. But also I feel like they never learned anything from what I told them.

This is why I explained to my mom that there’s only a little sense of relief because they still don’t understand me or try to understand me. I still am being neglected like before.

So it’s almost like nothing changed except me just deciding to be happier and have a positive attitude about things. And that can only take me so far if no one else is helping.

It just still feels like I’m alone and no one is there to fully understand or support me bc they don’t get it. They don’t know what’s in my head, which is the loneliest feeling.

They’ll never understand my struggle of feeling like you will never get past the point of not being able to function by myself. I just feel like I’m so behind. I won’t get anywhere.

Do you know how much it hurts to not be able to do basic tasks everyday because of the way your brain is wired? It’s literally the most tiring, draining, upsetting and frustrating thing ever.

And then feeling like if you explained it to your family, they would just try to give you tips to counteract it or tell you, it’s something you can get past with only God.

My mom when I told her I for sure have ADHD almost dismissed it. It’s like she acknowledged it for 0.2 seconds bc she saw I broke down and it made me upset, then moved past it.

She moved right on because she thinks God can just take it away like it hasn’t been a part of my life for 23 years. And I tried to explain to her yes I believe He can, but is He meant to?

Like bc He made me this way. I don’t believe He made a mistake. But she’s making it seem like it’s a problem that needs to be fixed by Him. And I’m trying to explain what if that wasn’t His intention?

She’s so stuck on the fact that she wants me to get past it and be done with it. And I don’t think that’s something that can just be fixed and done.

I know God heals and God restores. But that’s not the kind of support I need rn. I need you to acknowledge this is something that I’ve struggled with MY WHOLE LIFE.

Has set me back so many times for so many different things without me even knowing I had it. I’m sorry if I’m having a hard time getting over it, but it’s affected me in so many ways.

I can’t just get over it that easily! I’m offended that she thinks I can. Bc everyday I realize more and more how it has and does affect me and how very real it has always been.

And she likes to just think it’s going to ~go away~ suddenly. She isn’t supportive of me taking meds either so it’s like... what is the solution bc it doesn’t get cured just treated.

She skipped a step by trying to ask how can we ~fix~ this as if it’s something that has a cure. First of all if you’ve done any research, you’ll realize it’s not something that can be cured.

So then she’s asking ME what I want to do about it to help myself and I’m like IDK if I did, I don’t think we’d be in this mess, now would we? Like you already declined the meds suggestion.

Like it’s the emotional unavailability for me. You tell me to open up but when you do, it’s always you suggesting solutions or saying you struggled with this too or dismissing me.

Sometimes I just need you to listen, be there and hear what I’m SAYING. This is what I’m STRUGGLING with. There doesn’t always have to be a solution. Just be my mom.

Not my therapist, counsellor or psychiatrist. Yes, IK you’re trying to be practical. But practical isn’t getting us anywhere. And I’m just tired. I’m so fricking tired of it all.

I’m just so tired.

Life is so hard. And it’s even harder knowing that many of my problems are just mental and since people can’t see that, they’d probably think I’m over exaggerating my struggles.

Like nobody takes your struggles seriously when they’re mental bc you can’t measure them and there’s no way of knowing what the person is really going through.

EVERYDAY doing minimal tasks is the most brutal, dreadful thing. Just to WAKE UP and do tasks and homework is so hard for me. And no one will get that...

[sweetlikekkul]

Run! Day

run was great i love them, cant wait for minimoni next week

today is weird again. the last 5 days i woke up naturally (idek how tf) but not today. and within 10 mins of waking up i was sitting in the kitchen eating fish :/

today also wasnt that weird, idk. nearly 3am now and i am feeling less weird than in the afternoon, no damn clue how that is possible. sidenote: my dads new motion sensor for automatic light at night is actively discouraging me from going to the bathroom in the evenings.

but i dont know, i think i am fine today actually. what was for lunch hmmm oh yeah i already mentioned the fish. i have to cook tomorrow. meh. that means i have to get up. meh. this feels sooo strange timing-wise rn, i couldnt remember the lunch bc i was sure fish must have been yesterday, bc it feels so long ago. the days feel really long in itself, but at the same time it is just over in a heartbeat bc i dont do anything (expect be online-) and days pass in total... Fast ? day 46 of no hugs today. and it doesnt feel like i only stopped specifically counting 6 days ago, at the same time.... stopping counting nearly a week ago? that sounds right. my wrist dot only being 13 days old???? as fckn if. time is weird. but that was my actual point when i started this post too, cuz.. tuesday? sounds fake. it's Run! BTS day.

and i wanted to write some stuff about yesterday and the day before, too, i like the random titles too much to change it there, so this is gonna be one Massive post.

two days ago: i had the strawberry cheesecake muesli mix with fresh banana and strawberries and it was reallyyy good.

yesterday: i went on a lil walk taking selfies ay and i loved some and even posted some! and i like them, they turned out really cute, i love my septum in them, the trees look fantastically green. yas actual validation through likes and comments! (lmao) oh i forgot that i was really looking through songs i like recently for the caption but i still ended up with 00:00 hah it be like that

i dont remember anything else. idk. nothing worth saying i guess. oh, had some breakdowns i assume. OH yeah i was insanely unreasonably angry. i posted the flower series (three days ago now) and my one friend liked i think five of them that same evening. i was like ok, she isn't the type to check my whole profile then, so i unarchived nearly all of the a few days older ones. but. the next morning she had liked all flowers and more of the older ones too. and i cant explain it, dont know why, but i hated it. i hated that ""my aesthetic of no likes was ruined"" idk. i was so angry. and i softblocked her i might go to hell now. really relieved my mind for some reason and yeah. well. got only 3 followers now lmao. and she didnt even see the most "revealing" ones with the most text. so.... i was freaking out over normal functions of instagram. and two days ago another friend posted a picture and i got angry over that???

and i really did not do anything today. oh, i didnt go on walk today bc it was really grey and meh. thats part of why i didnt like waking up bc it felt so dark and grey, the blue sky has made md spoiled oh wow i am very much glued to my phone again. and i Do Not like it, but. it's hard. somehow. i was painting the lil chest some days. oh haha my parents didnt like that i used the water based paint basically on the floor bc it could get into the small spaces between the cork. uh i think it is too late for that, that already happened a couple of years ago when i was painting more colorful stuff. i actually did pick up my clothes from the floor... yesterday maybe? or longer ago? and changed the bedding. and that's about it. but i still want to try. try more. do better. i want to leave this functioning. thinking about getting a job again. might as well, especially with slim plans to do anything at all in summer.

[meepface]

i’m in a mood and i’m bored please ignore

1: Name 

elyse

2: Age

20

3: 3 Fears

settling for less than i deserve or for something i don’t want just because happiness seems too hard or would hurt someone, the ocean, scorpions

4: 3 things I love

making people laugh, holding hands w my girlfriend and walking past another gay couple or someone in a LGBTQ+ related shirt n smilin at each other, when dogs have the lil tiny stump tails and they wag em so fast, when candles smell like christmas

5: 4 turns on

freckles, ambition/drive/passion for something, humility, uhhh also eye contact during sex can also be super hot

6: 4 turns off

apathy, moodiness, arrogance, people who are extremely loud all the time

7: My best friend

i have two and they’re great!! one leaves for japan in two days though and she’ll be gone for a month so that highkey sucks for me but she’s gonna have a blast. n my other best friend is so good to me she always takes care of me n listens to me and the other day she bought me alcohol so that was nice

8: Sexual orientation

bisexual but maybe just gay? idk i would date a boy but prolly wouldn’t fuck a boy ya know but i’d do both with a girl so who knows

9: My best date

this question originally said “my best first date” but most of em have been goin to movies and so i changed it bc my best date just in general was probably when my gf and i went and ate at our favorite place to eat n then we banged in her car in a department store parking lot and then afterwards she was like “wait nobody’s at my house i’m sneakin u over” bc her mom can be a lil weird about me going to her house so i never really do and i had never seen her room so she snuck me over to her house n we cuddled on her bed n she showed me this shoebox she has in her room with every tiny lil gift i’d ever given her in it and it made me cry a little. another nice date was when it was flooding at our university and so they canceled classes and we went to walgreens and bought shirts bc ours were soaked from the rain and i bought socks bc my socks got Wet bc i stepped in a puddle and we just stayed in my car and ate candy in our comfy clothes waitin for the rain to let up and yeah TMI ahead but basically she ended up eating me out for the first time so that was nice lol

10: How tall am I

5′7

11: What do I miss

i dunno i already miss my best friend Kate even tho she doesn’t leave for Japan until Wednesday morning. also i kinda miss how things were before this year bc my life was less chaotic and stressful and sad last year and now i’m in a rut a lil bit

12: What time was I born

uhh 11:30 somethin AM

13: Favorite color

i like cerulean which is sorta like a teal blue and then yellow and then brown and then dark green

14: Do I have a crush

ya i have a gf

15: Favorite quote

“if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely”

16: Favorite place

i like to be in my bedroom a lot but there’s also this roof i go to with friends a lot that’s really nice at night and i have so many memories there. it’s a really happy place for me

17: Favorite food

i like japanese food but not the seafood kind

18: Do I use sarcasm

no never

19: What am I listening to right now

praying // kesha

20: First thing I notice in new person

i guess just their general vibe

22: Eye color

very green but they were blue for a good half of my life which is kinda weird bc they’re so green now lmao

23: Hair color

red lmao

24: Favorite style of clothing

idk i go through a million styles in a week but my fave is just a cute oversized shirt n leggings bc it’s comfy and effortless

25: Ever done a prank call?

oh yeah i used to do a ton, i even used to have a character that i’d prank call people with actually. her name was Sonya and she sold breast enhancement cream

27: Meaning behind my URL

that’s actually a secret lmao

28: Favorite movie

the secret life of walter mitty

29: Favorite song

uhh idk but lately i’ve loved do re mi by blackbear 

30: Favorite band

twenty one pilots (can i make it any more obvious that i hate myself), two door cinema club, of monsters and men, the 1975, the wonder years

31: How I feel right now

generally okay?? today was a nice day but i’ve felt sorta sick all day and i haven’t been sleeping enough so that’s making me a big ol emotional baby so i feel like i could have a breakdown at any given minute but for the most part i am good tonight

32: Someone I love

my girlfriend

33: My current relationship status

taken

34: My relationship with my parents

oh i love em to death but sometimes they’re difficult n the two of em weren’t meant to be together honestly so i think they’d be better off n a lot less stressful to be around if they divorced but it’s okay maybe they will work it out

35: Favorite holiday

christmas eve. it’s so much better than christmas day!!!! 

36:Tattoos and piercing i have

i have a sun and moon tattoo on each wrist and the word “lovely” on my left bicep and i’m gonna get more but that’s all for now. n i have three piercings, one on one ear and two on the other. i was supposed to have two on both ears but one got infected and i didn’t know what to do so i took the piercing out and it fucked it up and it closed up so i gotta go get it repierced someday but that’s annoying so i just haven’t bothered yet

37: Tattoos and piercing i want

don’t want anymore piercings after i get that one redone tbh. but i want a pine tree tattoo i think on my ankle and a equals sign tattoo but idk where yet and lil mountains on my shoulders, also a sunflower maybe ??? i’m still tryna figure our which one i wanna get next and where. i also have been thinkin about maaaaaaybe getting the female symbol on my middle finger but idk if i want a hand tattoo ya know

38: The reason I joined Tumblr

i really liked this youtuber charlieissocoollike and he did a video about tumblr so i was like ok cool and made one but then i didn’t understand it and never used it and then caitlin one day was talking about tumblr with our friends oliver and jennica and i was like dang i wanna be cool like them so i started using it again and i found their blogs and stalked em for a while 

39: Do I and my last ex hate each other?

not hate but i’d never speak to him again. doubt he hates me tho

40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts?

yeah from my gf

41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted?

yes

42: When did I last hold hands?

today

43:How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?

if i’m trying to look nice 45 mins-1 hour and if i’m not trying to look nice like 20-30 mins

44:Have You shaved your legs in the past three days?

no but i need to lmao they a lil prickly

45: Where am I right now?

my bed and i am so happy to be here 

46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me?

my gf would be there 100%, if not her then i’d say my friend Stein but she’d prolly be more fucked up honestly. my friend Kate would be there too

47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level?

louuuuuud unless i’m in a weird sad mood then i like it real soft

48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad?

yeah but hopefully i’ll get my fucking act together and move out within a year but i’m still kinda figuring everything out for the time being

49: Am I excited for anything?

idk honestly i have nothing to look forward to coming up anytime soon so that sucks a lot. probably my best friend’s 21st which i think is in a few weeks?? and this music fest a good friend and i are going to at the end of this month

50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to?

yeah my good pal Joe and also my brother and my friend Brendon too but him and i haven’t talked in a while so :/

51: How often do I wear a fake smile?

this is emo as shit

52: When was the last time I hugged someone?

today i hugged like four people!!!

53:What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me?

i’d be so upset and i’d break up with her and be miserable for a long while after that

54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?

yeah there’s one

55: What is something I disliked about today?

uhh probably that i was feelin sick and on edge just generally all day. bc it was really puttin a damper on my mood

56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

i’d really love to meet Ellen Degeneres

57: What do I think about most?

prolly about how i am a useless dum dum and not to sound edgggyy but i question like....... my purpose too often lately 

58: What’s my strangest talent?

talent? i don’t know her

59: Do I have any strange phobias?

i’m terrified of being vomited on. not vomit in general necessarily but it getting on me is one of the most disgusting things to me lol

60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

lil bit of both but i’m better at the behind the camera stuff

61: What was the last lie I told?

told my grandma i was single bc i don’t wanna tell her i am gay n have a girlfriend even though she’d forget in like two minutes lol

62: Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

video chatting but i’m not a big fan of either

63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

yes and yes!!!!!!!!!

64: Do I believe in magic?

no

65: Do I believe in luck?

sure

66: What’s the weather like right now?

2 hot

67: What was the last book I’ve read?

milk and honey by rupi kaur

68: Do I like the smell of gasoline?

tbh i love it

69: Do I have any nicknames?

elly, gaylord, dad, that one ginger

70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had?

probably the one time i fell off my razor scooter while goin speedy down a hill and tryna show off and got scars all over my body

71: Do I spend money or save it?

been tryna save but put me in an h&m or a forever 21 or a thrift shop and it’s all gone. i love clothes that are inexpensive 

72: Can I touch my nose with a tongue?

no

73: Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me?

yeah i have an empty victoria’s secret bag on my desk

74: Favorite animal?

i like bunnies and grizzly bears

75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM?

talking to my gf and crying probably lol it was a rough night

76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is?

oooooo i could make a petty joke here but i won’t

77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it?

greek tragedy // the wombats

78: How can you win my heart?

make time for me and show me i’m important to you

79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone?

“u know she dead”

80: What is my favorite word?

serendipity

82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?

i’d probably just start crying and everyone would stop listening

83: Do I have any relatives in jail?

yeah one of my cousins murdered someone lol i am pretty sure he’s in jail but i don’t know anything about him or if he’s even still alive honestly

85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

idk i’m pretty open

86: What is my current desktop picture?

some mountains lol it’s one of the Apple preset ones

87: Had sex?

yeah

88: Bought condoms?

yeah 

89: Gotten pregnant?

no

90: Failed a class?

nearly but no

91:Kissed a boy?

nah i’ve never wanted to really 

92: Kissed a girl?

yeah

93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain?

yeah

94: Had job?

yep i work at a froyo shop

95: Left the house without my wallet?

yeah

96: Bullied someone on the internet?

probably at some point when i was young but not anytime recently

97: Had sex in public?

yeah lol

98: Played on a sports team?

i was on a soccer team for a while as a kid and i hated it

99: Smoked weed?

not yet but i’d like to try it at least one time someday

100: Did drugs?

no and i am not interested in trying any other drugs besides weed

101: Smoked cigarettes?

no

102: Drank alcohol?

yes

103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan?

nah

104: Been overweight?

no

105:Been underweight?

for most of my life i have been lol and i finally got to a healthy weight and now i’m back to being underweight

106: Been to a wedding?

yeah a few

107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight?

yeah

108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight?

yeah but not any time recently bc i don’t have the motivation/attention span to sit through a movie or TV show anymore

109: Been outside my home country?

no but i’d really like to 

110: Gotten my heart broken?

yeah

111: Been to a professional sports game?

no and i was invited to one recently but i had work :(

112: Broken a bone?

no

113: Cut myself?

yeah

114: Been to prom?

yeah

115: Been in airplane?

yeah

116: Fly by helicopter?

no but i’d really like to

117: What concerts have I been to?

soooo many. i’ll try and name em. trans siberian orchestra, panic! at the disco, imagine dragons, twenty one pilots, two door cinema club, the weeknd, melanie martinez, catfish and the bottlemen, halsey, of monsters and men, walk the moon, eric clapton, paul mccartney, glass animals, a$ap rocky, drake, the chainsmokers, foo fighters, vance joy, the strumbellas, the front bottoms, kendrick lamar, the wombats, AWOLNATION, ben rector, we the kings, the ready set, the summer set ??? i think there’s some i’m forgetting but that’s most of em. i go to so many. i am also seeing saint motel, cage the elephant, weezer, passion pit, mac miller and MGMT this summer!!

118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex?

yaaaaa most of my crushes have been n i’m datin a girl so

119: Learned another language?

i took four years of spanish and i’m taking another spanish class in the fall!! i was always real good at it

120: Wore make up?

yeah

121: Lost my virginity before I was 18?

no i lost it when i was 19

122: Had oral sex?

yeah

123: Dyed my hair?

nah it’s naturally red and pretty and i don’t really wanna ever dye it. i’m probably gonna dye my eyebrows tho they’re too light and i’m tired of always fillin them in

124: Voted in a presidential election?

yes this last one which was exciting until hilary lost

125: Rode in a police car?

yes

126: Had a surgery?

no

127: Met someone famous?

yes

128: Stalked someone on a social network?

not like legitimately but yeah i’ve gone through someone’s page out of curiosity before

129: Peed outside?

yeah

130: Been fishing?

yeah it’s sorta boring imo though

131: Helped with charity?

yeah i helped my mom with this organization she was a part of where homeless people could come and paint and make art and i helped her at a few of their shows. it is one of my favorite organizations and i met some really beautiful people there

132: Been rejected by a crush?

yeah he liked me too but he was figuring things out and later that year came out to me as gay and then like two years later i realized i’m kinda super gay too so it all worked out in the end

133: Broken a mirror?

no

134: What do I want for birthday?

to be with people i love