#but with fansites. you are not news youre not media you are just a fucking creep. WHY ARE YOU THERE

[jkpng]

seeing photos from fansite freaks on twitter against my will. So like why the fuck were you there. why do you have high def watermarked pictures of this. give us a good answer right now. free hint there is no good answer

[mrs-monaghan]

Last anon, it's easier to say it in words but extremely bad in reality. You sound like you just want JK to confirm your ship Jikook like a hero and save jimin from tkkrs. Do you think in this real world it's happening?

Let's look at their personal lives first ? Their families will be attacked, Antis will be attacking magnate restlessly. Idk if you were here in 2019, but some kjjkrs arranged a bday party for JK in magnate and had to cancel it because they got a Ton of hate calls, messages.. even their staffs were stalked and hated. So imagine a coming out ? They'll eat, especially Jimin's family, alive. JK's brother's business, their rest family businesses, their friends, their close people everyone will be attacked, including other bts members.

Do you think this won't affect them mentally ? This 🤏 amount of peace they have now will be gone forever. They won't stop until Jimin is completely ruined in every aspect and JK goes insane. They can be attacked on streets, while they are just living their lives. Again idk if you were here when Holland, openly gay idol, was attacked in ITAEWON, which is usually called a safe place for queer people.

Now their career ? This high career graph they have will reach sea bed. They will be literally boycotted from performing in music shows, their MVs will be boycotted on national TV channels, their sm accounts will be attacked, there will be protest infront of hybe to disband and kick out Jikook. Their brand deals will be affected, their reputation will be gone, their peers will be attacked, bangtan's whole career will be on danger. Their companies stock value will steep down, their shareholders and investors will pull back. Around the world, this news will be spread like wildfire, in every news channels, YouTube channels, media outlets, social media. Each and every homophobe and bts antis will be mocking them and armys around them. There are many incidents of armys being attacked and ragged for just liking bts in many conservative countries so how about after this gay dating news ? They will be blacklisted and forget about the super stars Jimin and JK status they worked hard for all these years. They can be banned from performing in conservative countries and will be infamous for this news than all accolades they have till now. Fanbases, fan accounts and fansites which are very important for idol will be closed especially forget about more than half of JK's fanbase. Some fanbase even closes after hetero dating rumors duh. Now they may get some new fans and some real ot7 army may whole heartedly support them. But it's a big maybe. But what is the use of getting fans who were here with you for some fans who stanned you for your relationship with your bandmate or out of sympathy or curiosity ?

The damage all these will do to Jimin will be fucking unimaginable. Those fuckers will burn that boy alive. If you don't know Taeyeon was attacked at airport and had to apologize for dating baekyun. So how will they treat Jimin for dating JK ? His life will be in great danger. In short if you want Jimin happy by JK's side the best thing is to be private. Hiding ? Nope but private ? Yes.

I hear what you're saying.... I do. I hear you and I agree. And I'm sure they worry about all these things too. Jimin more than JK... but yes. I hear you.

But.

But.

BTS are BTS. Those celebrities that got fucked over are not even close to being on the same caliber as BTS. I'm not saying nothing would happen to them, but I think people would hesitate before treating them like they have treated other gay idols in the past.

Before I continue can I just say that people forget? People always forget. Scandals don't last... there is always gonna be something else. Yeah if they come out it will be huge and scandalous but people will move on like they always do.

They will loose fans but they will gain new ones who will stan BTS already knowing there's a gay couple in the midst. Yes they will be banned from going to certain countries ever again. But the countries that would do this are less than those that wouldn't care.

I honestly do feel Jikook have the potential to pave the way for how people view homosexuality over there. BUT it is alot of pressure and I wouldn't blame them if they never came out. The world is indeed a scary place like u described.

But I honestly do think them being from BTS would make the backlash less severe.

That being said, I dont think its happening. Not even in 2025. They will live like a couple hiding nothing, but they won't come out orally. Like some announcement. And honestly as long as they're happy, is all Good.

[writeformesinpie]

Restless Devotion

Lee Seokmin (DK) x Fem!Reader 

Summary - You’re home alone… at least you think you are. You can’t shake the feeling that someone’s watching you. 

Genre - Yandere

Warnings - Stalker, sexual content, implied violence, obsession, swearing, yandere themes. 

Word Count - 1.6k

A/N - This is part of the Don’t Be Scared Seventeen Halloween Collab. It is so late! 😭 I’m sorry @jeonronwoo​ ! (Pretty sure that this collab was cancelled or abandoned which is fine - I actually wrote this last September but never edited it - stupid ADHD brain haha) 

   There’s a faint tap against the window.

   It’s not the first time you’ve heard the gentle scraping sound while you sit on your bed, scrolling on your laptop. The last few nights have all been the same but when you look outside all you see is the display garden a few steps from your window.

   Someone could be hiding out there, past the delicate garden, out in the maple trees. It’s true, but no matter how long you stare into the dark spaces between the flora, you’ve yet to see anyone or anything moving around. A soft breeze flickers against the open curtain and the material dances for a few moments before falling back into an unsettling stillness.

   It’s not just a branch like your roommate suggested earlier in the week, how could it be? The branches are too far away. It’s physically impossible.

   They also suggested it was a rock from a passing car hitting the wall, which you admit is the more likely of the two, but still unlikely. The rock would have to fly past all the trees and just happen to make its way between them to land close to your window. And to do so more than once? Perhaps it had been just a bug or some kind of animal.

   Goosebumps crawl across your skin as you look outside once more. No, you’re not alone.

   You are being watched.

   There’s no logic behind it. It’s only a feeling, but you know it’s true.

   The ping of your phone sounds off as you peek through the middle of the lace separating the solid purple drapes on either side of it. Maybe it’s time to invest in some blackout curtains, or some thick horizontal blinds.

   There’s no one outside – no one you can see, anyway.

   Letting out a deep sigh, you walk back to the bed and dive headfirst against the bedspread, your body rigid and unmoving until another ping of your phone demands your attention.

   It’s your roommate. They’re out of town visiting their family and have something new to complain about no doubt. Tossing your phone onto your pillow, you continue to scroll through social media, responding to some of your friends before your phone pings once more.

   “Alright, alright. What do you want?” Looking at her message, you pull the phone closer to your face. “What the fuck?”

   This can’t be real.

   Needing to see it on a larger screen, you search up the username your roommate sent you. The account pops right up. It’s real. But who would do this?

   “What is this?”

   Typing furiously, you ask questions that she doesn’t know the answers to. A friend of hers you had met a few times happened across the account and thought it was suspicious and forwarded it. They don’t know who the owner of the account is. They don’t know if it’s just a joke. They don’t know anything useful at all.

   This can’t be real.

   It’s an instagram account claiming to be your official fansite with a bunch of your pictures. Nothing but your pictures. One hundred and twenty nine of them.

   Pictures you haven’t seen before. Pictures of you in your bedroom sitting on your bed, looking at your laptop or laying down while staring at your phone. Pictures of you outside talking to friends or buying groceries. And, perhaps the most disturbing of all, pictures of you wearing a towel while you brush your teeth in the bathroom. The angles make it obvious these were taken from your window but the bathroom is on the second floor.

   ”The love of my life.”

   ”You went to the aquarium today.”

   ”Should I help with your flat tire?”

   Pushing the laptop away, you jump off the bed. Pulling the suitcase out from under your bed, you unzip it before flinging open your dresser. Scraping together as many items as you can, you toss them on your bed. A soft rap at the window throws you off guard, your head snapping up as you look back in the direction of the sound.

   Ignoring what you hope is indeed just a bug, your heartbeat throbs in your ears as you look back at the laptop. The account boasts about being your biggest fan, that you’re the love of their life and this is their way to worship you, that you deserve to be treated like a queen.

   It’s too much. Tears well in your eyes as a wave of shivers take control of your shoulders.

   There’s more.

   Although there aren’t many likes, the comments somehow outweigh them. Each comment is worse than the last. Creepy messages fill the space under your photos, wishing they could touch you and asking for more content. They want to see you closer. They want to see you with less clothing. They want to see you cry. They want to see you moan.

   Scrolling through each photo, you look with utter disbelief at the captions and comments, tears streaming down your face.

   Returning your focus back to packing, you shove the clothes into the case, mindless of what you grabbed and what you even need. You click your tongue as a wave of cold sweat covers your arms and face. The pictures. The older ones were of you in your backyard, in your car and out and about. The more photos this freak posted, the closer they were until–

   You turn the laptop towards you and shudder.

   The last photo.

   The last picture of you is from inside the house, the mesh of the window no longer visible.

   It’s of you sleeping.

   As if someone was hovering above you while you slept.

   Taking a deep breath, you stumble to the door, your fingers shaking as you try several times to lock it. Sweat lubricates your palms, making it difficult to turn the knob. Once you hear the familiar click, you turn your back and slide down, landing roughly on your arse. Slumped up against the door, your shoulders hunched, you take a few deep breaths before your breathing finally starts to slow and you’re able to sooth your raging heart closer to that of a normal rhythm.

   “It’s okay. You’re okay,” you hum as you begin to rub your forearms back and forth, the continuous movement lulling you into a sense of security. There’s nothing to fear. You’re fine. You are safe here. There’s no one here.

   As if on queue the soft tap at your window causes you to jump.

   There’s someone outside.

   Pushing yourself up, you turn towards the glass and whimper. This can’t be happening. With a rapid glance around the room, your eyes lock on the five pound dumbbell lying on the ground by your closet. Edging across the wall, you slink to the floor and raise the weight in front of you in a protective stance as you inch closer to the window.

   Halfway there a creaking sound comes from the floor above, stopping you dead in your tracks. Head heavy, you look at the ceiling before turning back to the window with a gasp.

   There’s no one outside.

   No one’s outside but, through the reflection of the window, you see the closet door opening behind you.

   He’s already inside the house.

   Steadying yourself, you take a deep breath before turning on your heel and swinging the dumbbell at the stranger in your room. He just smiles and sidesteps your attack. His reactions are faster than yours and before you can lift the weight again, his arms have circled your body and forced it out of your hand. It crashes to the ground with a mighty thud.

   “You fucking creep,” you screech, slaming the heel of your foot into his shin before you run towards the door. Turning the knob a few times, you curse under your breath. You had locked it just a few minutes ago, the action backfiring. As you push against the lock to open the door, he pulls you back by your hair, lifting you up in the air and hurling you onto the bed. Pain radiates from your scalp as you scramble up to the headboard, holding out your hands. “What do you want? Please don’t hurt me.”

   “Oh baby, I don’t want to hurt you. I want to love you.” The light catches his features, shadows enunciating every curve and dip. His face is all angles, and his kinked and fluffy hair dusting his eyes keeps them from full view. He looks as deranged as his words.

   “How can you love me? We don’t even know each other,” you say, a gurgled bubble clogging your throat on the last word, turning your voice into something unrecognisable. “Please just let me go.”

   “I’m never gonna let you go.”

   He slinks down onto the bed and slides towards you, his face covered with a grin that stretches across his slender face. He catches one of your feet as you kick out against him. Lifting your leg up, he presses his lips against your ankle. Flinching, you pull back but his fingers bite into your skin, making you cry out.

   “No one will ever love you as much as I do. This world doesn’t deserve you.” He’s looking at you from the same level now and you can see his eyes. They’re dark, like the rest of his features, with a glimmer of hope and lust on full display. He’s looking at you like a cat who found a saucer of milk.

   “Please, don’t.” Your voice is a whisper. His eyes are intent on yours as his tongue caresses your calf, leaving a trail of kisses up to your thigh. “Just stop.”

   “I’m going to love you with every inch of my being,” he whispers, slithering up your body, a smile still adorning his face. “And I’ll never stop. Not until your dying breath.”

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this content! If you did, please consider liking, commenting, reblogging and/or following, and check out my masterlist for similar content. Have a great day!

[fandom-hoarder]

Sam starts a podcast for hunter lore and publishes it under the paranormal fiction genre. It's mostly for the benefit of updating hunters' access to information, but he figures if it's available publicly it might end up helping a civilian, too.

It gains a cult following, and soon his fandom is made up of hunters, fiction enthusiasts, and regular believers and want-to-believers in the supernatural.

Dean finds out about it when Claire brings it up to justify her lack of stealth about the supernatural on a case. And at first Dean's upset, of course, but not because of Sam's indiscretion.

"I can't believe you're doing that without me. You'd have more followers if you did your show with me. I'm funnier than you, and all those true crime thingies are under comedy, right?"

"Yeah, but Dean, this isn't true crime. Ostensibly, it's just fiction. I don't even list it under comedy."

And Dean just looks at him until Sam sighs and acquiesces.

Dean's lame commentary on his cameo episode is Not Funny, Sam thinks, and is therefore shocked when his follower count jumps with the episode and social media is flooded with fanart of Sam and Dean despite no one knowing what they look like. They range from Just Some Guys to "fancasts" of actors to eldritch-like beings (a la welcome to night vale fanart).

The podcast is titled "Hunter's Lore," but after Dean becomes a regular and the style of the podcasts become a little more conversational, the fandom starts to subtitle it "so get this."

There are fan communities; at least one really fucking detailed fansite "decoding" the lore; another similar website that expands the canon of the podcast, creating a rich, fictional backstory about Sam and Dean being like Giles and Buffy; and yet ANOTHER website tinhatting the fuck out of them--it's full of shippy fanart that incorporates quotes of banter from the show.

People who know about Carver Edlund's Supernatural books think Sam and Dean are using aliases and that the show is entirely meta. There's a split in fandom about whether that's too cringe.

Dean is almost completely unaware of the fandom; especially as it brushes against the Edlund fandom. (Y'know terminally online? He's terminally offline) So when they meet new hunters he's not shy about bragging about his little brother's hit podcast.

[raevenlywrites]

Okay, so. The point I wanted to make earlier was something like this:

TL;DR: Not knowing that hyperfixations were a thing hurt me, and cost me not only enjoyment of a thing, but more serious social and emotional growth potential. More kids need access to a broader range of what Normal is, and Normal needs to be opened up and expanded to include things that are perfectly harmless because the harm of excluding those things is immeasurable.

(Did I just put a tldr at the START of my post? why yes I did. why? because i’m about to drop this entire damned ESSAY under a read more because it’s dash destroying (think of it as an abstract on a scientific paper) ... (no, it is nothing like an abstract on a scientific paper. wtf did I say that) ... (anyways))

(Can you tell its an ADHD night? are there enough parenthetical asides in this yet?)

...

(no)

.

ANYWAYS

When I was a teen, I read a book called In The Forests Of The Night. I’m sure you’ve heard me mention it before, but believe it or not, it was only TONIGHT that it occurred to me that this book and its fellows is my hyperfixation. Because, for the first TWO THIRDS OF MY LIFE, I didn’t know to think of myself as someone with hyperfixations. Hell, I didn’t even know what a hyperfixation was. I am one of the countless adults who has self diagnosed as ADHD or autistic or SOMETHING, and this is the story of how not having a diagnosis growing up hurt me.

So. I read this book. My now-wife-then-unbeknownst-crush gave it to me as part of our ignorant teen courtship. You’ll like this, she said, trying to share an interest with me in order to bond. Thank you, I said, not knowing I wanted to smooch her face. Unimportant, but I like reminding myself when I look at back my teen years how queer I already was without knowing. And this story is mostly for my benefit of getting it off my chest, so smoochy thoughts included.

So I read this book. It’s short, 200 pages or so, and if I’m honest with myself as an informed adult, nothing spectacular. It’s not bad, but its not ground breaking. None of the books are. But they broke new ground in Me, and what grew out of them has literally shaped the course of my entire personality.

Raev, I hear you say, it’s not great to base your entire personality on a bit of pop culture.

Shut up, I said, I’m telling this story and anyways insert-edgy-media-here dudebros have been doing it forever. Anyways.

So I read this book. I read it again, and again. I read all the books that went with it, but I stayed especially hung up on Forests. Why? Partially because it was the first one I read. Partially because the MC and I share a name, and therefore in my little teen head a connection. It was the first time “Rachel” felt like an identity, instead of just an identifier, and one that way too many of my classmates shared. Rachel was a badass, stifled by her Christian upbringing and the expectations of the day on women. I was a badass, stifled by my Christian upbringing and the expectations of the day on women. Rachel became a vampire, spiteful and spitfire the entire way. She did it on her own terms (so my teen reading of the text went), spurning every attempt of her kind to show her the ways of the vampire. She had a nemesis, a clear, concrete reason for her pain, and took charge of that pain and overcame it to be a complete and utter badass by the end of the book (again, so my teen reading went. Part of the problem here was my teenness. Part of it was my neurodivergence, which I will get to (you didn’t think this would be a SHORT story, did you? I warned you I have ADHD and that this was my hyperfixation; how did you think this was gonna go?))

So I identified heavily with the protag, and with its shocking author. This lifechanging book was written by a teen, like me! Holy cats, I said to myself, why, if she can do it, so can I! I had just started writing my own first novel (a shameless retelling of Star Wars, hyperfixation of my grade school years), and immediately trashed it to write my own vampire thing. Because vampires were clearly IT and I was gonna be a cool badass author hero, just like the MC of the second book.

Then the shapeshifter books came out, and so did I.

It’s really unrelated, but that was a fun transition, and as previously stated, author-type. Anyways.

So I came out to my girlcrush, angsted about that a lot, and continued to gobble up the books. Did you know there’s a website, she said. There’s like a whole fan community and everything.

Now, part of the problem here was being part of the first generation on the internet. It was relatively new, and so stranger danger and not being entirely comfortable on the internet and all that had its part to play. But this is also where the hyperfixation finally comes into play.

I liked Nyeusigrube A LOT. A lot a lot. So much so that I made my own conlang, my own mythos, my own entire story universe patterned after this one but not exactly this one. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me to self-insert, just to shamelessly copy. That one I can’t explain, but this one I can now understand through the lens of an adult.

Nyeusigrube was my especially special interest, and I had no idea that was a normal, healthy thing.

So tangled up in all this was my raised-too-conservative freak out about being Not Straight. I had finally figured out I liked girlfriend, if not that I was incredibly bisexual yet, and that was a Big Deal. Super cool author I hero-worshiped was one of those “Do I want to BE her or just want her?” kind of idolations, but again, didn’t know that at the time either. So these two very normal things that I knew NOTHING about were getting tangled together in a rat king of Issues with a generous slathering of Shame glue to hold them all together. Add to it the paranoia/RSD/general not-great-at-social sides of my neurodivergence, and basically I had decided I was Too Weird and liked this book Too Much and if I so much as LOOKED at the websites/forums/etc, everyone would know and that would be Bad.

Did I have a clear idea of how that would look? Not really? I didn’t need to. Just the thought of checking out the fansites was enough to send me into a panicking guilt/shame spiral about how much I enjoyed the books. Everyone will KNOW, I thought, and it will be BAD. The End. It was Not Normal how much I liked the books and I will freak everyone out.

So.

If I had just KNOWN that hyperfixations were a thing, I might have still felt weird, but I don’t think I would have AGONIZED (and I do mean fucking AGONIZED) over how shockingly Not Normal my level of interest went. I might have still felt bad, because I didn’t have a diagnosis, and therefore probably wouldn’t have given myself permission of admit I had a hyperfixation, but at least I wouldn’t have wallowed in ignorance. Now, if I’d had the knowledge and the diagnosis, I probably would have still been too shy to interact, but I wouldnt’ have wasted hours of my life in panicked/guilt/shame spirals. If I’d have a diagnosis and a support group? If I’d had a diagnosis and been raised with the normalization of being queer? If I’d had medication, role models, a safe place to open up and communicate, so on and so on? Like, you get the idea, right?

I consider myself immeasurably lucky that my love of writing and vampires and high school girlfriend survived all this. (My equally intense boy crush of the time did not (not because I don’t like boys but because I fell down another hyperfixation spiral and no PERSON should ever be subjected to that but I digress)). As I said, this is my especially special hyperfixation. I can’t imagine how many hours of enjoyment I might have gotten out of the forums, the fan arts, the roleplaying groups, the FRIENDSHIPS, my gods, can you imagine the friendships? Anyways, what I’m really saying is that it caused me real emotional Pain and Trauma, thinking something was Wrong with me for my level of interest. A lot of people have regrets about like not trying out for the team or not asking so and so out or whatever, but mine is a stupid fansite. I have deep and palpable regrets about letting my fear and shame keep me from something so harmless and silly, and as I said before I don’t think I have a concise or tidy ending, but this was what I wanted to say on the matter so there it is.

TL;DR: (hey, didn’t you already post this part? Yes, yes I did. I’m doing it again, but this time its the In Conclusion bit instead of the summary bit) ...(abstract. they’re called abstracts)...(this is still FAR from a scientific paper) (ANYWAYS) Not knowing that hyperfixations were a thing hurt me, and cost me not only enjoyment of a thing, but more serious social and emotional growth potential. I was stunted and harmed by this lack of education, and I guess my point is I hope no one else has to go through that. If my stupid little story can fix a thing, I want it to be that. More kids needs access to a broader range of what Normal is, and Normal needs to be opened up and expanded to include things that are perfectly harmless because the harm of excluding those things is immeasurable. Thank you for coming to my TED talk

[crystal-snowing]

fake dating | yang jeongin

synopsis: before all of this started, yang jeongin was just your best friend, now, you weren’t sure where the two of you stand. 

genre: best friends to lovers!au, idol!au, fluff, slight angst

word count: 3.6k+

warnings: n/a 

other members: | chan | jisung | changbin | seungmin | hyunjin | minho | felix |

a/n: i wanted to thank you guys for all the love that i’ve been receiving on this series, i’m glad everyone is enjoying this as much as i enjoy writing for it ! 

for as long as you could remember, yang jeongin has always been by your side.

he has been your best friend since both of you were in diapers, your mothers being best friends before the two of you were even born.

that being said, you were both attached to the hip growing up, it was almost as if you were both the same person, which is why when he told you that he wanted to be an idol, you were soon to follow. 

since you were both accepted to different agencies, him to jyp entertainment and you to a smaller company, it would be logical that something like this would put a damper on your friendship, but the both of you seemed to only come out stronger. 

he was your number one supporter when you debuted with your group, and even secretly attended your debut showcase with some of his members, and you did the same when he debuted a few months after you.

after that, meeting each other just to distress from the pressures of idol life was becoming more and more difficult, the paparazzi and fansites eager to catch their idols anywhere and everywhere. 

but, like most things in your relationship with yang jeongin, you both managed to make it work, whether it be you sneaking into his dorm room late at night for a movie marathon or him sneaking over to your dorm to play animal crossing together at your dorm. 

while, it wasn’t the most ideal circumstances, the two of you managed to make it work, despite the growing changes in both of your lives. 

but one night you were greedy, you were craving something outside the confines of your cramped dorms, wanting to experience the beautiful nightlife in seoul with your best friend.

and because of this greed, you were bound to get caught.

you were craving tofu stew, but there was one problem, you only wanted it from this one specific restaurant in seoul that of course, doesn’t do takeout. 

just this once, you were both willing to break the rules, for a moment blinded by the temptations of disobeying and longing for adventure, that you weren’t thinking rationally. 

dressed in casual clothing, hats adorning your head and masks covering half your face, your plan should have gone without a hitch—and as you made it to the restaurant you certainly thought that you would have this in the bag. 

nobody seemed to take notice of the two of you, as you happily enjoyed your stew as the ambiance in the atmosphere, finally free from the confines of your dorm room as you blew off steam with your best friend.

it was only as you were walking arm-in-arm did you have the unsettling feeling as if someone was watching you. 

there were numerous times where you glanced behind you making sure that the two of you were the only ones walking back to the dorms, but every time you looked, there was nobody there. 

instead, you simply chalked it up as paranoia, the constant attention and spotlight must have seriously gone to your head. 

after jeongin walked you safely back to your dorm, you didn’t think much about it, instead opting to slip soundlessly into bed and instead prepare for the day ahead. 

what you didn’t expect was to wake up to the flurry of text messages, and the concerned looks of your fellow group mates looming over you. 

grabbing your phone off your nightstand, you could only manage to skim through some of the notifications before your eyes feel on one in particular, the headline in big bold letters: DISPATCH REPORTS YANG JEONGIN AND [G/N]’S [Y/N] ARE DATING. 

well, fuck. 

there was a joint meeting that day between his company and yours, both of your managers present and the tension unbelievably thick. 

you both sat on opposite sides of the table, your managers by your side as you were probed with questions, both of you firmly denying that you were dating—insisting that it was all a misunderstanding and that you were both just really good friends. 

there was no denying the slight pang in your heart as the words left your mouth, it wasn’t a foreign feeling and it was actually something that you experienced a couple of times in all your years of knowing him. 

there was a popular saying, that men and women can never be “just friends” and for the longest time you thought that this saying was absolutely preposterous, after all, you’ve been with yang jeongin through everything (even his most awkward stages of puberty) and you were sure there was no way you could catch feelings after that. 

but as puberty both hit the two of you like a truck, there were a few moments where you were questioning whether or not the two of you had crossed the very thin line between friendship and lovers. 

for the most part, you were very unsure of your feelings and whether or not you even had genuine feelings for him, after all this was territory that you needed to tread lightly on or risk the possibility of ruining your friendship with him forever. 

most of the time, it managed to take of itself, the feelings soon fizzling out into nothing more than feelings of friendship, but the small percentage of the time it managed to fester into something more. 

but this was an opportunity to nip this in the bud, to put these feelings in their place once and for all, to end this foolish fantasy that has been swimming around in your head for years. 

well, that is until both of your companies came to the agreement that you would both “continue” dating in order to keep media attention on the both of you and promote your groups even more.

you thought the companies’ plans were fairly obvious, after all, it was all a ploy in order to gain media attention and to obviously change the stigma surrounding idols dating in the industry. 

you were both being used as pawns in the industry’s game for world domination, a publicity stunt in order to get in on the public’s good graces, but if it meant hanging out with your best friend with no restrictions, you were all for it. 

within a few days, a joint statement was released by both companies confirming the relationship between both of you, earning mixed reactions from fans. 

most were positive, congratulating the two of you and even making the hashtag “love for [y/n] and jeongin” trend worldwide on twitter, and while there were some negative comments that bashed the two of you for being selfish and dating, you couldn’t deny the butterflies in your stomach as you scrolled through the endless amount of compliments on social media. 

for the most part, nothing really changed between the two of you. 

the company had given you both time off in order to adjust to the new situation, and while you were free to continue on with your daily lives, there were only one rule that you now needed to follow—the media always needed to have access to pictures of the two of you together. 

at first, the transition of hanging out during the mornings and afternoons was a bit hard to get used to as well as the constant swarm of paparazzi when the two of you did go out was quite the learning curve. 

however, by far the hardest thing that you needed to adjust to was the constant presence of affection from jeongin, and while he was normally an affectionate person, this type of affection was different. 

there was no denying the eruption of butterflies whenever his hand would make his way around your own, or the way your entire face would burst into flames whenever he would pull you in by the waist and press you flush against his body. 

of course, the press was eating this up, and there wasn’t a second that went by where you both weren’t bombarded by flashes of cameras or the shouts from reporters.

and while this was already a massive inconvenience, there were more pressing matters to deal with such as these bubbling feelings that are threatening to rise to the surface. 

it was happening again, those feelings that keep reappearing and disappearing were coming back in waves—making you feel like all these emotions that you had suppressed last time this incident occurred. 

and your companies certainly weren’t making it easy on you, every waking second was spent with him, and while you adored his presence, it really didn’t help with your heart currently in turmoil. 

it was one of those rare days where the company actually scheduled something for the two of you to do out in public, and to say that you were nervous was a complete understatement. 

while this wasn’t officially a date, it was technically one, which made the whole situation even worse.

the company decided that a picnic was the most romantic outing for the two of you and the perfect opportunity to get photos that encaptured the fantasy life of dating an idol. 

while, you knew that his feelings weren’t disingenuous when the two of you were hanging out like this was cruel to say the least, moments like these show you everything that you could never have with him, the romantic and heart-fluttering illusion disappearing in a puff of smoke as soon as the cameras were out of your faces—as you were left with cold, hard truth, the two of you will always be just friends. 

it was kind of hard to ignore the cameras that surrounded you, of course they respectfully kept their distance and did their best to remain hidden in the bushes or behind buildings to make it appear as if you couldn’t see them, but their presence was still felt. 

as if sensing your discomfort, jeongin was quick to grab your hand and rub soothing circles on the top of your hand with his thumb, flashing you a reassuring smile, and making your heart skip a couple of beats. 

uh oh. 

the picnic proceeded on as originally planned, the two of you enjoying the absolutely delicious food prepared by the company chefs and talking about aimless things. 

“okay, but it wasn’t as funny as the time felix convinced jisung to try this foreign candy and he made the best face, look i caught it on video!” 

as he leaned in and placed his phone between the two of you, the sound of felix’s laughter reverberating out of the speakers and the sound of jisung’s protests filled the air, you could suddenly feel how hot the atmosphere has gotten around you. 

your attention was on anything but the video in front of you, instead you were too focused on how close he actually was to your body, the warmth of his breath fanning your cheeks and that gummy and blinding smile that illuminated his entire face.  

that image would be forever etched into your brain, the brightness of his face, the pure joy and delight that was perfectly chiseled onto his features made your heartbeat a thousand times per minute or the way your body seemed to fizzle underneath his touch. 

in all honesty for the rest of the date, your head was fuzzy and you were intoxicated by him, completely drowning in the idea of him, and you could barely remember what happened on the rest of the date—your mind was too high on the thought of him. 

it wasn’t until the end of the date did you realize it, the reality coming in and crashing down on you hard, my god, you were in love with your best friend. 

unlike all the other times that these feelings came and gone, you knew that this time it was real, that this time there was no way that you could possibly go back, after having a taste of what could be, you were hooked and absolutely addicted to this feeling. 

no, these feelings were here to stay and you couldn’t believe that all this time you didn’t notice it sooner, that you were too blind to notice that you have always felt this way about him, and now they have finally come to the surface. 

cue the awkwardness. 

this wasn’t a matter that you could take lightly, after all if the two of you happened to have a falling out if anything between the two of you happened to go south, it would absolutely devastate your mothers who have been lifelong friends before the two of you even came along. 

instead, this issue was bigger than you—bigger than the both of you and if you ruined this, my god you could never forgive yourself. 

perhaps, you were being a little too harsh on yourself and placing too much pressure on the relationship, but you weren’t going to ruin something so fragile and like most fragile things, this situation definitely needed to be handled with care. 

your definition of care probably wasn’t typical, and instead of going about your daily life and just thinking a bit more before speaking and doing certain actions, you decided that a bit of distance was in order so that you could properly deal with these overwhelming feelings. 

to him, you had played it off as simply refocusing yourself on your career, and as you explained to jeongin in a couple of text messages, you were simply struck with inspiration and were writing songs with the rest of your members for a couple of days. 

you had kind of forgotten how long yang jeongin has been your best friend, and while that excuse may have held up for a couple of days, as soon as it was pushing a week, he smelled bullshit. 

FROM MY FOX: let’s hangout at the dorms tonight, i already bought your favorite brand of fried chicken and ramen :)

oh he was good, and as your eyes scanned over the text, your stomach involuntarily growled at the mention of food—damn, he knew that the way to anyone’s heart was through food.  

against your better judgement, you decided to meet up with him, and while you were telling yourself that it was only for the fact that he was bribing you with your favorite food, you would be lying if you didn’t admit that you missed him even just a little bit. 

and that fact became a little more apparent when you arrived at the dorms, and greeted you with that blinding smile that made his eyes turn into little crescents, oh god, you were whipped for this boy. 

the two of you settled into normalcy, a randomly chosen movie from netflix was put on the television and you were both settled on the floor watching the screen in front of you and enjoying the food that sat next to you. 

however, there were subtle instances that reminded you that the atmosphere between the two of you was far from normal, as you began overthinking everything that you normally did in front of him. 

perhaps touching his hand accidentally while reaching for a napkin was too much, did he think that was as weird as you did?

and my god, sharing a drink from the same cup because you were both too lazy to wash dishes, was that going too far into his personal space and more importantly, does that mean that the two of you have been indirectly kissing this whole time? 

in these moments you knew that you should have said no, you should have left his text on read and saved yourself from the overwhelming embarrassment that you were currently feeling, but goddamnit, he was irresistible. 

you were practically a ball of anxiety at this point, unable to focus on the movie that was playing before you and instead finding solace in your phone, scrolling through social media and more specifically, ignoring the boy next to you.

unbeknownst to you, jeongin has been highly observant of your behavior tonight, and judging by your frankly abnormal behavior tonight, it only confirmed his suspicions that something was definitely wrong. 

you didn’t notice the movie suddenly being paused, only becoming aware of that as soon jeongin lightly punched you on the shoulder, offering you one of his lop-sided grins. 

concern was written across his features, which softened them, making his face appear more rounder—this was different from the face that he puts on when performing, instead this was the face that you were lucky enough to see whenever relaxed with you. 

“are you okay?” the softness in his voice kind of surprised you, after all this side was kind of rare from him, the two of you spending most of your time together goofing off instead or being serious.

in all honesty, you didn’t really know how to answer his question, if you told any kind of lie he would be able to see through you and call you out on it, but if you told the truth you were practically in the same predicament—damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

the nervousness was etched all of his features and there seemed to be an internal battle going on inside his brain, the conflict between what looked like two undesirable choices finally came to a conclusion as he opened his mouth again. 

“we’ve been best friends for a while now, and whatever has happened these past few weeks has created this distance between us and honestly, it feels like we’re strangers,” he let out a shaky breath, wringing his hands together as he avoided eye contact.

it felt like you were both tethering on the edge of something bigger than the both of you, but you both weren’t there yet, and you needed something to drive everything off the cliff, and have it all out in the open. 

“i just need to know if anything has changed between us,” his voice tapered off at the end, as if he was unsure of himself and his statement. 

you wanted to scream at the top of your lungs that everything has changed between the two of you, that you could no longer stand to be his best friend anymore because best friends don’t have these feelings of wanting to kiss or especially wanting him to belong to nobody but you. 

while you would never be caught saying something like that out loud, the burning desire to express yourself overtook your rational mind and before you could stop yourself, you had leaned forward and closed the gap between the two of you. 

his lips were soft against your own, and they faintly tasted like the cola that he was just drinking, and as your hands entangled themselves in his hair, his hands rested firmly on your hips as he pulled you closer to his body. 

everything was tingling, from the top of your head to the tips of your fingers as you lost yourself in the moment, your senses were heightened as you could feel the hammering of both of your hearts against your chest as well as the slight movement of his lips as they moved against your own. 

it was only when the need for oxygen became too great, did you both pull away with flushed cheeks and the only sound that could be heard was both of your breaths coming out in short puffs.

for a couple seconds after neither of you said a word, too absorbed with the actions that just took place moments before. 

“so, we’re still best friends, right?” jeongin’s cheeky grin caused your face to light up as hit him lightly on the arm. 

“i mean, if that’s what you want, i’ll see if jisung appreciates my kisses more than you do!” you smirked, cocking one eyebrow as you watched his face light up in panic. 

“wait, don’t—”

pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, you silenced his objections, shaking your head and mumbling something along the lines of how jisung could never appreciate your affection the way he does. 

there was no talk about the future, about how sooner or later the company was going to rip the two of you away from each other and tarnish both of your images in front of the public, both of you forced to move on your lives as if nothing ever happened in the first place. 

and your weekly hangouts would be nothing but a distant memory, the companies probably mutually deciding that it would be a terrible idea to allow the both of you to continue on like that, and it would be a public relations nightmare if either of you were ever caught.

it was unfair to think about it like that, after everything that two of you went through only for it to be destroyed by the same companies that used you as pawns in the eyes of the public. 

a deep sigh escaped past your lips, jeongin moving his arm to wrap themselves around your shoulders as you leaned into his touch, the silence enveloping the both of you like a blanket, comforting you in the stillness of the night. 

whatever happened in the future, you knew that two of you would always be at each other's side supporting each other through thick and thin. 

after all, the two of you will always be best friends for life.

[bangtan-madi]

546 Days Without You — Eight: Day 225

Pairing — Seokjin x Reader, platonic!Namjoon x Reader

Tags — boyfriend!Seokjin, older brother!Yoongi, producer/songwriter!MC, military au (ish), idol au (ish)

Genre — fluff, angst

Word Count — 4.4k

Summary — Kim Seokjin is your entire world, and that world falls apart the moment he and your older brother Yoongi are conscripted into the South Korean military.

Part — 8 / 15

Warnings — minor language

A/N — Taglist is open! Comment or submit an ask if you want to be added :) 

Previous — Next

Once Bang PD gives his blessing on the next Tour, everyone at the company hits the group running. Choreography is created, photography and promotional material are completed, tour dates and locations are worked out, and the final details are worked out for the album. Everything is coming together beautifully, and about time, too! The release of Map of the Soul: Dream is less than six weeks away, and the excitement is only growing.

All of this is over your pay-grade, and gratefully so. You've spent most of the past month gawking over the wild success that your song Silhouette has been on Soundcloud. You had millions of plays by the end of the first day, let alone the impressive amount you have thirty-five days later. Your pride and joy has been in the news, on tons of fansites, and all across social media. No one expected the youngest Min sibling to do anything solo; you've taken the world by storm, rivaled only by the boys themselves. The overwhelming consensus is that you blew it out of the park.

"It's actually worked out perfectly from a marketing standpoint," Bang PD said at a meeting recently. "Your fame is only going to fuel the fire of the comeback since we've been radio silent since December. Thanks to you, we've been given a little push that we needed. But you know what would be even better?"

You knew what he was going to suggest, and you scoffed when he said it aloud.

"Put your song on the album as a feature and tour with the boys. People will lose their damn minds, I know it."

"The only person who's lost his mind is you, PD-nim."

While you'd teased him at the meeting with the boys, the idea has pricked your interest. While the thought of performing in front of tens of thousands of people terrifies you in a way you can't explain, it also gave you a sense of excitement. Your anxieties are holding you back, you know it, but what can you do against your own dread?

"That must be a pretty interesting batch of ochazuke."

You smirk and turn towards the leader of the group, lifting the bowl of green tea on rice. Or, as it's called in Japan, ochazuke. "Made enough for two. Want some?"

Namjoon's dimples deepen as he sneaks around the corner with a giddy grin. "You're the best. Jin and Yoongi's cooking skills have rubbed off on you."

Due to the busy schedule, you've temporarily moved back into the dorms to be closer to the madness. You've done similar things in previous comebacks, and the boys always loved having you around 24/7. This is never more true than around mealtime. With the two oldest members gone, aka the only ones that are qualified to operate anything in the kitchen, there have been weeks at a time where takeout is the only thing the group consumes. As your workload has lessened due to the nature of being a music producer, and their's has gotten heavier, you've taken it upon yourself to make home life a little more normal.

"I asked Yoongi to send me the recipe last time I wrote," you reply, pouring a serving of green tea over Namjoon's portion of the fish and rice. "I got it yesterday with his letter. Figured it would be a nice pick-me-up."

The member agrees and takes the dish with a slight and grateful bow. "Eat with me? I have to run back to the studio after, but the summer day is gorgeous, and I feel like we haven't had alone time in a while. Just you and me?"

You grip your lunch between your hands and nod eagerly, allowing Namjoon to lead the way to the expansive balcony of the dormitories. Being several floors off the ground and in the heart of Seoul, the area around you is gorgeous. The buildings stretch tall and imposing, casting shadows across the space as the mid-day sun streams through the light cloud cover.

He's right. The day is as close to perfect as you can imagine.

Once you both settle into the chairs in the corner of the balcony, under the wood and vine-woven covering that shades a little of the harsh sun out, you start to dig into the meal. While it doesn't taste exactly like when Yoongi makes it, you're elated to have a piece of him back.

"If you ever get tired of producing, you can always open a restaurant," Namjoon chimes, clearly enjoying himself as he scarfs down the dish.

You chuckle, replying, "Thanks, but I think I'll leave that to Mom. Music is my life. I can't imagine doing anything else. Ever."

"Actually...I wanted to pick your brain about something related to that. You mind?"

Taking another big bite, you shake your head. There are very few times you're not excited to have an in-depth conversation with Namjoon, about everything or anything. "Shoot."

Namjoon leans back in his chair, resting the bowl against his thigh as he chews lightly on the inside of his cheek, a nervous habit. "With the comeback and album release just around the corner, I've been thinking..." He turns to face you. "I'm not sure if Bang PD was kidding or serious when he offered to put you on the album that first time, but I talked to him about it after you shot him down...and I think it would be a really cool idea."

Your stomach does flip-flops at the thought. Instantly, you're shaking your head fervently and placing your bowl on the side table. "Nope."

"Why not?"

"'Cause."

Namjoon gives a disappointed scowl. "Not good enough, [Y/n]."

"I just don't want to, Namjoon," you retort, crossing your arms tightly over your chest. "If my song goes on 'Dream,' then it has to be performed. By me. On tour. In front of fifty-thousand people. I'm...I'm just not ready. I put out one song to exercise a creative outlet, not to get famous or perform life or anything like that. It's like 'Mono.' I never intended it to get this much attention."

"If I had the chance to perform 'Mono' on stage with the members, I would fucking take it," he replies wholeheartedly. 

"That's you, Joonie. That's not me."

Breathing a soft sigh, Namjoon takes another bite of his lunch. "Look, I've told you all this before. So have all the other members. We're not here to force you to sing in public or do anything you don't want to do. I just wanna be sure that you're not hiding behind your fear."

It takes every fiber of self-control not to roll your eyes. "Of course, I'm afraid."

"Of what? Not living up to BTS? Your brother or boyfriend?"

"Maybe at one point that was it, but no. It's not that anymore."

"Then what is it?"

Pulling your knees up to your chest, you hug them tightly as you try to vocalize your fears. "You guys know me. The real me. I'm sarcastic and snarky. I make inappropriate jokes and I use humor to mask my pain. I'm a little on the abrasive side and I like to pretend I'm the toughest person in the room. But when I'm in front of crowds or around people I don't know, I shut down. I get quiet. My inner lioness quiets and turns into a mouse. I just...Thinking about getting on that stage to sing and rap in front of thousands? That's probably my biggest fear."

Namjoon listens patiently, just as he always has. He's never rushed you or interrupted you; it's one of the many things you adore about him. As dorky and destructive and silly as he can be, above all else, Namjoon is the one person in the world you can go to about anything. This includes your brother boyfriend, best friend or childhood friend. Namjoon will give you the facts, an outside perspective, and a logical solution. He tries to be as objective as possible and not let emotions get in the way, all while being a gentle and caring soul.

"So, stage fright?" You nod a wordless reply. "That's completely normal, [Y/n]. We all started like that, and we all still get nervous when shows begin. And this isn't me trying to convince you, but I hope you realize that those anxieties are an outdated form of self-preservation. Those fears you have about being in front of crowds, it's leftover from a time when humans had to hide. Your brain is trying to keep you safe, but you can reprogram it. You don't have to live in that place of irrational fear forever. You don't have to let your mind keep you there. You can be stronger."

You crack a smile at his comparisons. "Of course you'd look at it that way."

"Well, it's true." He shrugs his shoulders. "Again, not trying to convince you otherwise. I just...Don't live in fear of others for the rest of your life, [Y/n]. Our time is short, and the time we have together—in front of the spotlight—that's even shorter. You have a chance. If you take it, you know you have all of our support. And if you don't want that, for a reason other than fear, you have it then, too."

Both of your phone's buzz. As you look at yours, you see an unknown number pop up on the screen. Figuring it's probably a spam call or journalist or someone else you really don't want to talk to, you ignore it.

Namjoon groans lightly at the text he's received. "Someone mixed up the names of the songs for the final version of the album. I gotta go fix this before they send it off. That's the last thing I need." As he stands, he gives you a grateful smile. "Thanks for the lunch and conversation. Always can count on both of those to be good with you. Sorry to leave so quickly."

You return the expression, waving your hand nonchalantly. "Don't worry about it. Go take care of business, boss."

The leader rolls his eyes and heads towards the door. He turns and points at you, still walking backwards, and says, "I meant what I said! If you want to include Silhouette, let me know. I send off the final version later tonight, say eight. Let me know before then? Just give me a call, and you're on."

"What would you do?" you shout after him, fingers playing absentmindedly with each other. "If you were in my shoes?"

Namjoon stops in mid-step, grip on the doorknob and eyes settling somewhere on the Seoul skyline. He takes a moment to think, then turns back to you with the response, "I'd go for it. What do you have to lose but the chance of a lifetime?"

Sometime after Namjoon leaves for the studio, you're sitting alone in Genius Lab, a pad of music sheets in one hand, a pencil in the other. Your mind continuously shifts back and forth between a wholehearted yes and a horrified no. Every possible angle replays over and over in your mind, including your conversation with the true middle member from earlier.

Glancing at the clock, you see the minute hand tick past the twelve. You've been here for hours, trying to bury your mind in writing another melody, but nothing is coming to you. You even went through Yoongi's unpublished works to see if anything your brilliant brother came up with would spark something. To no avail, the time has ticked past seven.

"Another hour," you murmur. "Gotta make up this damn indecisive mind."

Knowing you're not going to get anything else done tonight, you set the writing materials aside, stretch your legs, and make your way to the door. Tugging the hoodie over your hair, you shuffle back towards the balcony with the intention of getting some fresh air. The sun has yet to set, and the majestic hues that cascade across the tall buildings remind you of the first date you had with Seokjin all those years ago.

It brings a smile to your face, and you settle your front against the edge. Arms resting against the solid railing, your eyes focus upward. The moon is full and shining, and ever since the last album, it's a constant reminder of the man you love most.

Your phone rings again in your pocket. Retrieving it, you see the same number as before. It had called you again earlier in the afternoon after Namjoon had left, and you'd ignored it again. 

Huffing an annoyed breath, you swipe the answer key and place the phone against your ear. "Okay, what the hell? How did you get this number and why don't you give up on trying to sell me shit I don't want, nor need, and I'll have you know that I—"

Obnoxious, hiccupy, overly familiar laughter comes through as clear as day. It cuts you to your core, stunning you enough to spur you into a sputtering silence.

"Holy hell, Jagiya, that's some way to answer the phone!"

Your knees buckle, and you have to trip the railing to stay upright. Lower lip quivering, body trembling, eyes watering, you slide onto the ground and pull your legs to your chest. The free hand cups over your mouth as you try to hide the whimpers that escape.

"Jagi?" he murmurs, his voice softer than before. "Hey, are you okay, [Y/n]?"

You swallow hard and close your eyes, allowing the tears to fall. God, his voice sounds just as calming and perfect and lovely as ever. Despite the eight months of separation, it's the one thing that can bring you back to the last time you heard it—on that training field right before you said goodbye.

"S—Seokjin...is that...you?"

The love of your life gives a small, breathy chuckle. "I told you I'd see you soon, Jagiya. Have you ever known me to be a liar?"

A laugh slips out, tumbling past your weak sobs, and you finally allow him to hear your emotions. "God, yes! You lied about that horrid dress I wore to the MAMAs that one year. I looked terrible, and you looked like a King. You lie all the time, you big oaf."

"Excuse me, I thought you looked like a Queen!" Seokjin scoffs. "That's the last time I try to compliment you."

The lightness in his voice brings a smile to your face. Wiping the tears away with the sleeve of your hoodie, you ask, "Wait, how can you call me? I thought they didn't allow cell phones for Privates."

"They don't, not for Second Class at least. Guess who got a promotion and some special perks along with it?"

You gasp and wiggle in your seat from excitement. "You're First Class now? That's amazing, Jinnie! I'm so damn proud of you."

"I was hoping you'd get all excited," Seokjin says, elated at your response, "but I was starting to think you'd moved on after you wouldn't pick up."

"I didn't know the number, idiot! You know how many scammy calls we all get. Trust me, the last thing I felt like dealing with today was a journalist prying into my love life or asking about my future as an artist."

Your boyfriend makes a sound of understanding, then shifts the conversation. "I know I've written to you before about your song, but I have to tell you now. Jagi, I'm completely serious when I say I've never heard you so excited about anything. Or more passionate. Or sounding more beautiful. Silhouette is a masterpiece. I'm so proud of you." After saying such sweet words, he tosses in a playful scoff. "Although, I have to admit I'm a little pissed I didn't get to hear the process of you making it. And I'll have to ignore the fact that Taehyung-ah got to do that with you. Should've been me!"

You lean your head back against the railing, flashing an infamous smirk. "I know, I know. Believe me, when you get back, we'll compose plenty of music together."

"About damn time!"

There's a lull in the conversation as you stifle your laughter and Seokjin brings his voice down to a normal volume. "So, these phone privileges, how long do you have?"

"A half-hour or so," he replies. "I have my own phone for work at the base. To communicate with my team, that kinda thing, but we're allowed a half-hour a day after shifts to talk to our families. I knew my first call had to be to you."

"Not even your mother? I'm honored."

"Yeaaah, I'll hear about it when I call her tomorrow, trust me." 

Sentimentality tugs at your heart strings at his confession. "I appreciate it, Jinnie. I could use a pick-me-up."

"That reminds me..." He pauses, and there's shuffling on the other line, as if he's getting comfortable and settling in for a long talk. "How have you been, [Y/n]? I know we talk through letters all the time, but..."

"Just not the same?"

"Yeah," he breathes. "Exactly."

You bite your lower lip in anticipation. Half of you wants to tell him everything that's going on. The other half is fighting so hard against it. You just got him back after over half a year. Do you really want your first conversation to be about you? There are so many things you want to hear from him, about his life in the military. Even just to hear his voice would be a relief. Who knows how regular these talks can be.

But the things floating around in your mind have to settle soon, otherwise you might regret inaction.

"So...this can be a regular thing?"

"As regular as every day, if you want it. When I get a new phone, one maybe not made by the military, we can even facetime. How does that sound?"

An immense wave of relief washes over you, causing your to sigh, "God, Seokjin, that—that sounds absolutely perfect. I've missed you."

There's a smile in his voice; even over the phone, you've always been able to tell. "I've missed you, too, [Y/n]-ah. So, tell me. How's life been? How's the album coming, and tour? The boys? Anything on your mind?"

"Awww, but I was going to ask you the same thing. I wanna hear about the military and your work with your new team and how things are going."

"Next time," he laughs. "Promise. I've been dying to hear about the outside world, more than just bits and pieces through letters and word-of-mouth. Tell me what's on your mind; that'll make me so damn happy, you have no idea. And you sound a little pre-occupied. Is there something on your mind?"

Taking his words at face-value, you decide to relent and bring up the subject that's been occupying your mind all afternoon. "Well...if this is going to be a regular thing, I could actually use your advice right now."

"About what?" 

"I'm torn, and I've talked to Namjoon, but there's still so much I need clarity on. If you're up for listening, I'd love you a million times more."

"A million times more than infinity? How can I resist such a pretty lady's request?"

You tell him everything. All your fears, all your dreams, all your reservations and wishes, everything you discussed with Namjoon, and your own thoughts. Seokjin listens intently for the next few minutes, drinking in your words as if they're the last he'll ever hear.

Even with nearly eight months of separation, with nothing but letters to connect you, you pick up on caring for each other as if no time has passed at all.

When you finish your explanation, you wrap up with, "I just—I'm so torn. Like I said, I think deep down I want to do it. I wanna have Silhouette on 'Dream.' I wanna tour with our boys. I wanna live that secret dream and show the world my creativity and work and eight years' worth of effort. I'm just...I'm so terrified, Jinnie. It makes my skin crawl thinking about the stage, the audience, the crowds..."

As you trail off, Seokjin speaks up for the first time in nearly ten minutes. "I know how you feel, better than anyone I think, but I think you're underestimating just how much you've grown and changed. Even, and especially, since December. You've become a lot bolder, a lot more sure of yourself and your music, and a lot more willing to share. This time last year, would you even have thought about releasing your own song? Let along contemplating its addition to our next album?"

"No," you reply, stifling a laugh at the idea of your former self. "Definitely not."

"See? That's exactly what I mean. You've changed, Jagi, in all the best ways. I've seen it. The boys see it. Clearly Bang PD sees it, too. Why else would he ask you several times to join them on tour? It's just been a gradual change, so slow and sneaky you didn't notice it yourself. But look back on the last year. You've come such a long way. I bet, if you wanted to give it a go, you'd find tour invigorating."

"You live for tour, though."

"I didn't at first," he admits. "I was just good at hiding it. As the oldest, I felt it was my job to put on a brave face for the other members." Seokjin groans a little bit at the confession. "You know me. You know how introverted and private I am. I have come to love performing, but there were shows where I almost died of fright. I had to grow and change, just like you are now. It's growing pains, but it will only do you good in the end."

"You really think so?"

"I do." There a hint of pride and warmth in his voice, one you've surely missed. "You asked Namjoon what he would do if he were you. He's as honest as they come, and I have to agree. If I were you—because at one time, I was you—I would take the leap of faith. What's that quote you love so much? 'Take the leap of faith. Aim for the moon. Even if you miss'—"

"—'You'll land among the stars," you grin, mumbling the remaining portion of the saying.

Seokjin gives a deep and amused chuckle. "That's my girl." A beat of silence fills the space. "What're you thinking about, Jagi?"

"That it's been too many damn days without you," you admit, allowing your eyes to flutter shut. "I've counted every one."

"We're on Day 225," your boyfriend agrees. "Don't worry. I've been keeping count as well."

"Only 321 more to go. Didn't think I'd survive 546 days without you, but we're halfway there, so there's hope I suppose."

"You know, that's what I wanted our song to be called originally, but I chickened out and forgot to give it an actual name."

Your eyes open. Staring up at the sky overhead, you see the stars start to twinkle, the moon rise over the buildings, and the sky shift from warm hues to cool tones. "Our song?"

"The one I left you, the one Namjoon gave you. I know we agreed to put it on 'Dream,' but don't you think it should have a proper name?"

"I agree. What was it? '546 Days Without You'?"

Seokjin scoffs at the English phrasing. "Or the Hangul equivalent."

You burst into laughter, hearing him laugh right along with you. "You're such a hopeless romantic."

"Only for you."

"That's a damn lie, Kim Seokjin."

"Okay, okay, Min [Y/n]," he confesses, and you can almost see him lifting his hands in defense. "Caught me in a lie. But I do love you, and that's not a lie."

Your tone softens at his adoring words. "I love you, too."

"So, when do you have to let Namjoon-ah know of your decision?"

"Um..." You pull away from the phone, looking down at he digital clock. It reads just after seven-thirty. "Like, right now? Shit."

"No worries, Jagi," Seokjin says with casual ease. "I'm at my daily limit anyway. I'll text you from this number tomorrow, okay? You'll have to let me know what you decide. Just know, whatever you choose, you have me in your corner."

You pull yourself up from the ground, brushing off your pants and pulling yourself together. "I adore you, you know that?"

"I do," he laughs. "Goodnight, [Y/n]."

"Goodnight, Jinnie. Sweet dreams."

The call ends, and you lower the device from your ear. Your heart is at ease for the first time in what feels like months. The conversation you so desperately needed to have with the person you yearned for most has settled your soul. The restlessness you felt today has subsided, and in its place is certainty and resolve.

Quickly calling Namjoon, you get him on the second ring. "Put it on." It comes barreling out of you like an instinct. Because of that, you know you've made the right decision. "Add Silhouette to 'Map of the Soul: Dream.'"

Namjoon hesitates before asking, "Are you sure? I mean, I'm thrilled! But don't let anything I said pressure you."

"I'm sure," you nod, even if he can't see it. "More sure than I've been in a while."

"All right," he relents, sounding more excited than anything else. "Track thirteen is all yours! Gotta say, cutting it a bit close."

"I know, I know. I'll explain when you get home." You push back into the dorms, leaving the balcony and your fears behind. "Also, is it too late to change a track name?"

"Um...technically no? Which song, and to what? And while I'm at it, why?"

You huff out a sigh, having too much energy to stay home any longer. "Screw it." Grabbing your scarf, you dance towards the door. "I'm coming down there. Give me five."

"Um...okay, but [Y/n]—[Y/n], are you still there? Helloooo? You didn't tell me why we're changing it? What the hell, did I break the connect—"

Taglist — @joyful-jimin​, @gracehiii​, @live-2-fangirl​, @rjsmochii​​

[copperbadge]

lazaefair replied to your post “Why are layouts with tiny fonts so popular here on Tumblr?”

God yeah, every day I stumble on Tumblr themes that take me straight back to every single Sailor Moon fansite in 1999-2000. But the teenagers who made those sites back in the day are now in their 30s/40s and they're not the ones making these tiny lavender font themes on Tumblr; it's teenagers today. Is it youth = better eyesight, maybe?

Potentially part of it. But if it is teens primarily who make sites that are hard to read, then that’s sort of an explanation, I think. I mean, when you’re a teenager your brain is saying Grownup but literally everything around you is saying Child, and it’s really difficult to balance your desire for control of your own destiny with the restrictions on your life from school, your parents, the law, etc. 

So I can see how when a teen who maybe can’t control when or what they learn, what they wear or how they pray or who they date or ANY of that shit gets hold of a social media account that nobody knows about or controls, the urge to hypercustomize it is super strong. And let’s be real: readability is kind of...conservative. There’s only so much exciting stuff you can do and still keep your blog reasonable and legible, and why would you want to? You’re not reading it, you’re reading your dash. Nobody else is reading it either, most of the time, they’re reading on their dash, so who cares if they can’t read it easily? Why not make it as funky and personal or garish or flowery as you want? 

davisoer5 replied to your post “nowordsforthis replied to your post “A brief overview of my day: I...”

For humidity, tabletop fountains used to be a big thing. My bro and s-i-l had about three, the cats LOVED them. Had to refill every day, it was super dry in their house.

Oh man, so noisy though. My mum bought me a water fountain for the cats and it’s just the loudest fucking thing in creation. Trickling water is the worst. :D At least the hiss of the humidifier is consistent. 

the-other-sandy replied to your photo “Kitten Rescuers continues to curse my Netflix algorithm, albeit in new...”

I just watched Kitten Rescuers because I'm home sick and have no attention span. When I asked Netflix for more like that, it gave me a bunch of documentaries about drug addiction and reality shows about fashion. I can't help but notice none of those shows have anything to do with kittens or animal rescue. A+ algorithm, Netflix.

I have a feeling it recommends based on other viewers rather than based on actual content, since the former is way easier to quantify. Though that does mean a bunch of people who enjoy hard documentary and reality shows also watch Kitten Rescuers, which seems somewhat unlikely...

[wiccamoody]

hi i saw you were talking about how the phandom is different to other fandoms and i was wondering if you could expand on how? i’m really interested but it’s my only fandom so i don’t have anything to compare it too 🖤

i promise i wasn’t ignoring you or anything anon, it’s just been a really rough couple of weeks but HI IM ANSWERING YOUR ASK FINALLY

so i’m mostly comparing phandom to the “old school” fandoms i’ve been in. phandom kind of exclusively exists on social media (aside from the forum spaces like idb and gg) and came up from social media. it just makes it completely different in structure from “old school” fandoms. i grew up in fandoms where fan conversation was centralized on forums on different fansites and livejournal, and that’s where most of the fic was posted too. it was easier to centralize discussion and create community, as opposed to now where everyone is fractured into wildly different communities that function in completely different ways to each other.

for example, i truly do not understand the phandom spaces on instagram, facebook, and pinterest. i know they’re there but i don’t get how they work lol. i barely get twitter phandom, and i think i only understand it because it’s a little like tumblr in short form without ask boxes in the way people interact on there (tho i think a fuck ton more vauging lol). but way back when i was in the harry potter fandom in its height, i had a couple fansites i would go between (theleakycauldron and mugglenet mostly) where i would engage in the forums, check out fan art and fic, look for movie news etc., and i would go on livejournal (and ff.net LOL) to read fic. there wasn’t as much fracturing because the spaces were so centralized and everyone just kind of...understood basic fandom etiquette. on social media everyone is about building their persona and showing who they are because that’s the whole point of social media, and social media isn’t sustainable for that “old school” fandom community because it’s so damn fractured. of course there were always big name fans and stuff, but because community and blogging were so stripped down it wasn’t the same as it is now with persona building and whatnot.

of course things are allowed and must change! i just think without the basis of what fandom community was, without having been around for many of the same trivial arguments that have been happening for decades, it immediately sets a different tone. now, for most it’s probably like whatever, and tbh i should probably chill and just ignore it, but my fandom old (emphasis on fandom bc i’m baby; i got up to far too much shit as a young kid online) ass gets so exhausted sometimes lol

idk if any of this made sense, my brain is like. not really working but if you wanna chat more lmk :)

[nomnomsik]

My Terms, | Prologue

Summary: Relatively close in age and similar hidden personalities, an idol and bodyguard discuss secret terms unbeknownst to the company. What will come about them and what exactly did they discuss?

Pairing: Fem Idol Verse!OC x Bodyguard!Jungkook

Genre: Idol!AU, (eventual) smut, Yandere

A/N: This was for the bunny boy’s birthday, but I was actually on a road trip yesterday, so I didn’t have time to post it. It’s quite short, but I hope you notice the dynamic going on! Please let me know your initial thoughts and feelings as it motivates me to continue this series! 

Trigger warnings: Yandere-themes, eventual sexual content, extreme possessiveness, and heavy mentions of drugs and addiction. Please read with caution in the future as there will be many implications of such themes. 

≿————- ❈ ————-≾

I’m not a good person. But then again, nobody really should say whether they are a good person or not. But, let me reiterate myself, I am not a good person. 

You would think that someone like me shouldn’t be an idol, a job in which I have to be a good person, which I am idolized for my behavior because I am seen as this perfect figure. But, I can’t help but enjoy the praise I get whenever I search my name online, only to see a flood of compliments. I don’t care if you think I’m selfish or not, I know I am, because… yup, that’s right, I’m a terrible person. 

“Good morning, y/n!”

“Good morning, y/n!” 

“Have a safe flight, y/n!” 

“Good luck on your tour!” 

It was a roar of yelling as you stepped into the airport, disheveled hair stuffed in a bucket hat as you trudged down the glossy floors, flashes of light blinding your already tired eyes. Heavy bag around your arm, you still bowed politely to the media staffers, giving them small waves, voice muffled from the mask over your face. 

You stood still for several seconds, allowing photographers to quickly snap your photo, your eyes barely able to stay open as the flashes seemed to reach the back of your skull. Your legs decided the time was up, bowing once again and your manager leading you away from the rowdy crowd. 

Upon your eyes flickering up to gaze at the sign above your head, you let out a vocal sigh, only to be muffled, hands coming up to your hips as you wanted to roll your eyes. 

Here we go again. 

“AHHHHHHHH!”

There it was.

It was a thunderous screaming that pierced your ears, your jaw and hands clenching trying to suffocate how displeased and irritated you were. Speedwalking down the airport, you were quickly greeted with overeager fans, if you could even call them that, and others shoving their camera into your face. How you were able to control just how livid you were, you had no idea, but did you want to watch that expensive camera snap into pieces on the ground. 

Yes, definitely, yes.

Your eyes drifted to the side, catching the gaze of one of your bodyguards, walking directly parallel to you before snapping his eyes away at the fansites who only seemed to get closer. He extended his arm out, putting some distance between you and the fans, but it’s not like he could just grab their head and shove them back. 

“Y/n!” One of them screamed excitedly, legs keeping up with your fast pace. “I love you soooo much! I really look up to you and I can’t wait for your new album, do you think you could sign this for me? Please?” 

You ignored the man, only replying with a faster pace down the airport and a closed mouth that refused to budge open. With the man’s hands extended out with his album and marker, he slowly lost his temper at your clear indifference to his request, how you could ever treat a fan like that. 

“Hey!” The man yelled this time in your face, your eye twitching as you felt something small and wet land on your face. Was it spit from his screaming? Whatever it was, you shuddered. How disgusting. 

“How can you treat your fans like this, huh?! I bought your album and I’ve been supporting you. The least you could do is seem somewhat thankful, you fuck-”

He raised his arm in the air, only for your bodyguard to step in, standing tall as his vice-like grip met the man’s arms, trapping him in his hold, bloodshot red eyes staring the sasaeng down. You didn’t even flinch, continuing your walk as you halted, looking over your shoulder, matching the bodyguard’s gaze. 

“Jungkook, drop him.” 

As the words left your lips, he obeyed immediately, shoving the man off and letting him collide harshly onto the cold hard floor. Several people in the airport stared at the scene, gasping and taking a subconscious step back away from your group, only for a smirk to grace your lips, hidden by the black mask over your mouth. 

Serves them all right.

Without looking back anymore, you continued your trip to your gate, feeling Jungkook once again join your side. The group of restless fans seemed to disperse and you gave Jungkook a small nod, knowing that he was looking at you. He always was. 

Having the privilege that you did, you were boarded on the plane first, Jungkook right behind you as you plopped down in your comfortable seat in first class, letting out a satisfying sigh. Jungkook took the seat next to you after loading your small bag into the top compartment above your row, his damp long hair falling over his eyes as he took a shy glance at you from the corner of his eye. 

You easily caught him in his habit, his face heating up as he couldn’t find the strength to look away. A small laugh bubbled from your throat as he whispered a small apology to which you just shrugged. 

You closed your eyes as you waited for the rest of the plane to board, knowing full well that the man sitting next to you was taking the opportunity to stare all he wanted. It only felt like a few minutes until you realized the plane was already in the air, your exhausted state clearly sleeping through the loud demonstrations the flight attendants always did. Jungkook looked over as you stirred awake, your eyes sending him a message nobody but him would understand. 

“I know, noona. Just wait a bit, okay?” He whispered softly in the first-class cabin of the plane, his hand coming up to gently touch your arm. “I told you I’d keep my promise… As long as you keep yours.” 

Your head fell on his shoulder, eyes softly closing once again. Who would’ve thought it would be more comfortable than the stiff pillow given to you on the flight? 

“Jungkook…” You whispered softly, tracing his palm with your finger. “It’s my terms, not yours.” 

Jungkook only shook his head, a chuckle escaping his lips. 

“You act like I don’t have a choice, noona… But remember, you’re reliant on me. You need me.” With a full-blown smile on his face, his forehead met yours. “In a way, it’s my terms, is it not?” 

[Chapter One]

[fiddle-styx]

on-going jikook fics

come and enjoy that wonderful moment of receiving an update notification

psa: i am sharing these wonderful stories because i love them and they deserve more recognition. please do not hassle the authors about updates because it is a terrible feeling and they don’t deserve that. we can just enjoy the wonderful anticipation of updates and share love for stories together!

go tell these authors how amazing their stories are instead!

(my tastes are all over the place, so enjoy variety too)

college/uni au and/or social media aus:

International playboy (don't answer) by blt_prf | 119k, 21chp oH I FUCHKED UP I FU UCKED UP YOUR'E NOT NAMJOON yeah what I've been trying to tell you or the one in which Jimin manages to mess up everything in one night and accidentally texts the guy he has a crush on

HIM by blt_prf | 99k, 14/16chp Jungook falls in love with the color red when he sees Jimin. Every single time a little bit more. In which Jimin has motion sickness and travels way too much, Jungkook is good at everything but relationships and Taehyung simply wants everyone to be happy. Hoseok and Yoongi are a mess, Namjoon takes too many philosophy classes and Jin makes sure nobody gets arrested. Everyone's in love and no one wants to grow up.

travel au:

until then, sink slowly by flitter | 46k, 8chp After a breakup, Jimin needs to get away. He ends up in Santorini, 5.4k miles away from home, eager to distance himself from anything remotely related to love. Too bad fate has other plans, in the form of a tour guide named Jungkook.

magic/supernatural aus:

Maelstrom by Charmander | 6k, 1/8chp It's been one year since Jungkook ran away with the circus, one year since he learned of the angel blood that runs through his veins. He thought he had learned everything about the supernatural world by now, but he's barely even touched the surface of its darkness. series here: Silk

a room inside your heart (you'll be okay here) by ohbutter | 26k, 2/3chp “Hyung, there’s something horribly, horribly wrong here.” “I’d say so, yes. You destroyed our bathroom.” Jimin mhms. “Right… why though?” All Jimin can manage is, “Orange.” Yoongi nods slowly, “Yes Jimin, orange.” “Green.” Now Namjoon and Jin are huddled behind Yoongi, peering inside. Jimin sits up and sees Namjoon’s cotton candy pink hair. “What’s the date today?” “December 18th 2016.” alternatively: jimin wakes up two years in the past, he has horrendous orange hair, his friends are in love and here, so is he

The Art of Drowning by Kookies_N_Jams | 45k, 22chp Jeon Jungkook doesn't want to die; he's just tired of living. Park Jimin is surrounded by death, but all he wants is to live. When their worlds collide, everything changes.

For and Against Us by thefifth | 18k, 11chp Jungkook trusts fate. Jimin? Not so much.

idol/celebrity aus:

Faking It by little_star_in_the_universe | 16k, 6chp "Jungkook, are you listening to me?" "Yeah." "You're lying." - Jungkook is tired. He's tired of being told what to say, what to do, how to act, how to respond, how to write his own fucking music. He's tired of it all. All he wants is a break. He doesn't expect to find someone who'd be more of a break than being home with his parents.

depth of field by petrichorian | 30k, 4chp “You’re seriously telling me you just spontaneously took a hella good picture of Suga and now you’re being called Jeongguk masternim?” or Jeon Jeongguk accidentally becomes Suga's new popular fansite, makes famous friends and tries to avoid how much he wants to kiss BTS' maknae, Park Jimin. 

The Last of Them All by dglrd | 9k, 13chp dyspraxia [/dɪsˈpraksɪə/]: a developmental disorder of the brain in childhood causing difficulty in activities requiring coordination and movement. in which jungkook has to juggle the difficulties of having dyspraxia and being an idol at the same time.

The Voice by Pinkworld | 25k, 6chp Jimin is a veteran ASMRtist, spreading the tingles through Youtube. He never shows his face. He's been low-key (Taehyung: I'm pretty sure drooling falls under HIGH-key, dude) interested in Jeongguk, a popular cover artist on Youtube. Completely against his confident character, Jimin doesn't find courage to reach out and just stalks Jeongguk's channel and instagram for a year. They finally get to messaging each other (Thank you Taehyung and Jin), then texting, then talking.... and that's when it gets a bit problematic...

smut focused:

Switch It by ashina | 75k, 17chp this is a series where jungkook and jimin are fucking. how original.

the chains that bind us by busanpjm | 19k, 3chp “You are not simply some flashy accessory, Jeonggukie. You are mine to use as I wish as long as I want. Whether you are twenty or forty; it makes no difference. You are that lithe and lewd slum mongrel who fawns on no one, and I am the slave knight of Midas who holds the chains to your collar. How could you imagine I would let you go at this juncture?” Jeongguk, a slum mongler and Jimin, an elite, find themselves wrapped up in a relation neither of them could have seen coming. or the Ai no kusabi au with a hint of something else and more.

soulmates au:

hard candy by jiminlogy | 25k, 8chp Jimin douses himself in colours every day and then he meets black and white. 

Shatter Me by lostinjungkook | 19k, 16chp »There were things Jungkook wanted to tell Jimin. But he knew they would hurt his hyung. So he buried them inside and let them hurt him instead.« 19 year old Jungkook lives in a world where 25% of the world population is born with a soulmate mark on their wrist and supernatural powers running through their veins. But he never had a chance to see the beauty that the world bears as he grew up in the fangs of Omega, a facility led by humans who try everything to create the strongest inhuman possible. What will happen when he meets six boys in the middle of the woods and discovers his soulmate among them?

abo dynamics:

Howl by Ravennest | 17k, 4chp Taehyung was convinced wherewolves existed — he only had to prove it to his best friend Jimin then he’d get bragging rights for years! But he never expected to be one of the wolves mate.

let me love you by Thejenn | 12k, 2chp the one where jungkook is shamelessly in love with his shy mate jimin

Guide Books are for Suckers--or Life is Like Trying to Build a Lego Death Star, but Some Fucker Burned the Instruction Book For lols by Momochii | 26k, 7/9chp He never expected to be an alpha. He also never expected to present in the middle of dance practice. He definitely never planned for what would happen if he, maybe, accidentally, tried to claim his best friend only seconds after presenting—in the middle of fucking dance practice. But hey, predictability is over-rated, right?

Leave Your Mark by snarcsics | 112k, 7/15chp Out of the three patients within Namjoon's lab, Jungkook is the one Jimin finds the most frightening, yet shamelessly intriguing. Even as a beta, there’s something distinctly animalistic about Jungkook that does not bode well for Jimin.

mafia au:

The Fire Was Screaming Out Your Name (And I Watched You Burn) by JungkookieBiased | 8k, 4chp “Jungkook...come here." Jimin crossed one leg over the other, arms folded across his chest. The taller male strode over in two long strides, head bowed down. Jimin tilted his chin up and Jungkook followed the movement like Jimin was controlling a puppet with a twitch of his fingers. Jimin leaned in right beside his ear, "Eliminate him." OR Jeon Jungkook belongs to him. Jeon Jungkook lives for him. Park Jimin, the most feared mafia leader, belongs to him just as much but won't say so.

spiderman au:

little do you know (i love you 'til the sun dies) by stellars | 7k, 1/2chp jeongguk is spiderman and everytime he comes back from one of his adventures, he goes to jimin to get patched up, spinning white lies about how he's out saving kittens from getting run over.

cute/fluffy/domestic/smut:

A Wicked Miniseries by Charmander | 30k, 4chp A collection of moments and flashbacks from Jimin’s and Jungkook’s life together; from back road street racer and tired, night shift police officer to spoiled, domestic boyfriends. series here: Chase Me, Race Me, Taste Me 

tattoo au:

Damp nights by vanillajae | 20k, 5chp Two years later and history repeats itself. Jungkook pops back into Jimin’s life on a rainy day under a bus stop, and whether Jimin wants it or not the storm is back. series here: Thunderstorms

some ot7!

A Hint of Magik. by moonchildleigh | 35k, 7chp Jeon Jeongguk is the son of two powerful evil Warlocks. He's lived his whole life in Busan inside the Warlock community, and hasn't come into contact with anyone else in the Magik world. This changes, however, when his parents are arrested and jailed for the murder of a Witch. Being the son of two of the most dangerous people in the magical community, The Council of Magik has to decide what to do with him. Jeongguk isn't like other Warlocks though, as he doesn't have the Calling to darkness like the rest. He's abnormal. His fate seems sealed, until two interesting men show up at his court hearing and demand to adopt him. or Ot6 lives in an enchanted forest in America and take young Warlock Jungkook into their home because they're absolute sweethearts.

Late Bloomer by LulaWrites | 91k, 25/26chp Given that he’d made it into adulthood without having ever experienced any dynamic-related instincts or pre-heat symptoms, Jungkook (and the rest of society) had naturally assumed the maknae was a Beta. Turns out they were wrong. (Or, the one where Jungkook goes into heat unexpectedly and subsequently gets coddled by his affectionate hyungs.) The Last of Them All by dglrd

[deehollowaywrites]

Title: Doomed to Fail: The Incredibly Loud History of Doom, Sludge, and Post-Metal

Author: J.J. Anselmi

Release: February 11, 2020

Genre: music, nonfiction, memoir

Order here!

When I first heard Metallica’s “Battery,” I knew I’d found the real shit, J.J. Anselmi’s newest states in an early chapter. The social alienation, the depression, the anger, and the preoccupation with death: it was the music I needed, right when I needed it. Similar stories abound in volumes like Jon Wiederhorn’s Raising Hell and a recent academic anthology of gender, sexuality, and heavy metal analyses; the typical pathway to extreme music, it seems, is youthful aggression, disaffection, or malaise. It’s not very cool to recall that your teen rage was tempered rather than catalyzed by religion. Even less cool to admit that if you are currently swimming in doom’s murk, you only took the chilly plunge because of boys and men. 

A few antecedents, then: The Minutemen. Captain Beefheart. Def Leppard. The Mars Volta. 

Edgy enough, weird enough, almost metallic enough, nearly harsh enough. It’s easy to see the slippery slope, to hear my mother’s voice in my head. If that’s what you want to spend your money on, she said of The Mars Volta’s full-length debut, I guess it’s your money. A year or so later, she would be interrogating me about certain media downloads to the family desktop--not because I was infringing copyright via poorly-labeled LimeWire files, but because the music was the sort that drove away the Holy Spirit (to be fair, Master of Puppets didn’t inspire any epiphanies). Mormons are very concerned with the Spirit’s presence. Movies and music are the fastest and most seductive shortcuts to becoming lost in a mire of worldliness, spiritual miasma, and sin. Interestingly, my mother was less perturbed by my weekly emails to a much-older dude I’d “met” on a geek forum, he of the curly beard and Captain Beefheart appreciation. For a suburban teenage girl reading SPIN in 2003, music in particular seemed a clear Point A to ineffable cool’s Point B, as evidenced by--although at the time I wouldn’t have phrased it thus--fuckability. Whiteboy music journalists, from Klosterman with his contrarian hair metal love to Azerrad deifying The Minutemen, had Ideas about what made rock music good. It was a trail of breadcrumbs that could be followed by anyone, so maybe I’d start off as me and end up as Brody Dalle. Of course, wanting to be punk is proof that you're destined to remain square, so the guy in the homemade Leftöver Crack t-shirt likewise stayed a mystery. Meanwhile, I made a fansite about The Mars Volta for my web design class, wrote an AP essay about why filesharing is good, actually, and counted the days ‘til graduation.

Euro-style power metal is romantic. Good make-out tunes. The fine art of getting into something that someone you fancy is into, well, that’s bog-standard for a huge swath of humanity and I’ve never been above it because I do like exploring new things. However, there’s a certain flavor of man who encourages women to listen to music he likes not out of genuine enthusiasm and desire to share, but because filling up a vessel with water from your spring means that you, yourself, will never be thirsty. There’s no rearranging of boundaries necessary for the recommender, no exchange of gifts, no call to reassess your favorites in light of new information. Where things get hairy is when women take what is conferred and make it their own. The vaguely fringe music that had already primed my eardrums led away from flourish-laden prog and high-camp power metal, into weirder and uglier places my boyfriend at the time had no interest in traversing. It stings a bit to realize that your heart is big enough to hold all the loves that comprise the person you love, that your desire is malleable and open, and that they have always been enough by themselves, fully-formed, unswerving as a highway through the desert. It hurts to hear that you’re not doing the thing (metal or comics or horse racing) in the way that was shown you, properly. This might be when the rage starts to seep back in, poisoning the spring. But solo concert-going is only lonely until you make it past the venue’s threshold. After that, the Spirit is always with you.

Myself, I’ve seldom found the divine in places it was supposed to inhabit.

The thing about The Mars Volta that embedded itself in my ribcage seventeen years ago wasn’t their tight jeans: it was how they seemed to have misplaced all their fucks. Prior to Sacha Jenkins’ 2003 SPIN review, the ugliest thing I’d sought out of my own volition was an Anti-Flag album, a suitably edgy move in George W. Bush’s America. Deloused in the Comatorium did not care if you understood what it was going for; an impetus existed behind the unexpected time signatures, dog-bothering vocals, and salsa moves that was alluring in its opacity and bloody-mindedness. A bunch of weirdos recorded a fuck-you in album format because they wanted to. Atmosphere, emotion, tension could all be far more important to a song than melody or lyrics. Listenable was up for debate. Art formed its own excuse. In this way, although the two groups couldn’t be further apart sonically, my heart was made ready for Katatonia. Then Oceans of Slumber. Torche. Black Castle, Thou, Bell Witch, Cult of Luna, on and on, an endless sinkhole opening up. 

A great and appealing contrast of doom metal lies in the apparent dumbassery of its sound. This is broadly true of all metal, of course; Coal Chamber or Megadeth, Black Sabbath or Pantera, metal was music for drop-outs, stoners, school shooters… the purview not only of miscreants, but of boys and stupid boys at that. Punk seemed the smarter option, if you had anger issues, had heard of feminism, or tended toward hobbies like trying to form a Young Democratic Socialists chapter at your school. For older me, trying to rewrite a religious mind into a liberal and cosmopolitan one, prog metal was defensibly slick and impressive, while power metal seemed less openly hateful toward women. All the while, doom lurked beneath layers of nay-saying. Adult men I’ve known, talented guitarists with good ears and smart hands, have sneered at all the seeming lack populating the slower subgenres--lack of beauty, skill, or even aggression in its most recognizable and masculine forms. Yet, for a listener whose favorite pastime is intellectualizing everything in sight, doom is the other side of the sun. 

I don’t… really… understand what a tritone is. I know it’s important, and I could do a bad approximation of the opening of “Black Sabbath,” but definitionally I’m at a loss. Often I have no idea which instrument is making the sound that I like. I don’t know anything about music theory or how to talk with authority about what makes music good, important, or even what differentiates music from other sounds. Maybe a drone metal track is a collection of sounds, rather than a song? My Dream Theater-enthusiast ex figured since I was a nebbishy bespectacled geek, prog would be all I needed. The thinking man’s metal! No one has ever felt threatened by Steven Wilson. You can remain Smart™ while listening to assorted finger-wanky Europeans. In contrast, kicking it with a Texas weed-cult at the skatepark is stupid. Obviously, every genre of metal contains its geniuses, and one of doom’s most lovable qualities is how often unquestionable finesse arrives wrapped in brutal, bizarre, counterintuitive paper. But beyond the plausible deniability of technique and philosophy found in groups like Neurosis is something even more compelling. Sometimes, it just fucking sounds cool.

It sounds like that because someone did it intentionally, gleefully. I wrote a novel like that because I liked how it looked, sounded, felt.

One of the birthrights of normative (white, cis, straight, abled) masculinity is feeling. If you turn out queer, or are socialized as female, or live with the massed connotations of a racist culture written over your skin, overt and violent emotion may be anathema. The power of accessing a fully human emotional spectrum for the first time should not be underrated. The doom bands I grew into loving, independent of the people closest to me who putatively liked similar music, are into feelings. Even, or maybe especially, the ones authority figures wish you didn’t have (and those aren’t always the bad ones. Authority hates it even more if you feel good). If there’s a thing Mormons don’t countenance, it’s feeling bad things and informing people of them, or feeling the wrong good things. Doubt is a big no-no. It’s always better to feel shame when possible. If the Spirit isn’t telling you what you know it should, it’s on you for not listening enough, praying enough, being enough. If the Spirit’s voice isn’t soft and gentle, if it instead materializes in the best growl this side of Obituary, well, Satan quotes scripture too. Meanwhile, doubt--lack of clarity, spiritual and emotional murkiness, bone-deep ambivalence--is doom’s molten heart. Meanwhile, shame--at the self’s fondled hatreds, as C.S. Lewis has it, for things desired and things questioned--is shunned by doomsayers.

The body experiences advance warning. Fury, fear, arousal. Sure, I attribute my openness toward weird music to frustrated teen lust. Sure, I owe Roy Khan and Tony Kakko for first love and redrawn horizons. When fire dies, what’s left is not absence but ash, fertile and generative. Doomed to Fail recognizes that continual plumbing and revolving in uncertainty for its beauty and possibility. Whatever formed my rage and love, those two sides of the same forbidden coin, they belong to me now. 

[sugagimmesugar]

I hope I never lose the bruises that you left behind

Ok so here is the second part of the YoongiXReader angst I wrote. The first part can also be read as a standalone, while this obv cannot. Here is the first part: Cause I cant take the weight of your love

Anyways, here‘s the second part.

He doesn’t make it far, pulling the car over on the side of the road as soon as he pulls into another street, as soon as he is out of view from her apartment.

He can’t breathe. His head in his hands, tears streaming down his face, his brain somehow still trying to compute what happened. He knew it was going to happen, she had always been way too good for him. He had always feared that his celebrity status would hurt her somehow, be too much for her. But this, this is so much worse. From the first time they met, he knew that she was the one. She felt safe, felt like home, no matter what. He could always text her, call her, and she had been there, sending him silly pictures of her beautiful face. She had no idea how much she helped him through the years. How much of the success of the band was partly her achievement. She had picked him up from where he didn’t think he would return. He had been in such dark mental spaces, had been doing so bad, both before and while they were together. And her smile, her eyes, her love, it had helped him so much.

One time, when not even Hoseok and Taehyung could make him smile, when nobody could get him out of bed for days, Namjoon had decided to fly her in, just for a day, to help them get Yoongi back. And she just cuddled up to him and listened, assured him all the voices were wrong. He had so many people that loved him, respected him, needed him. And when he was too depressed, too stubborn to listen to his brothers, his heart always listened to her. Took note of her words, her encouragements.

But that’s over now. She can’t take it. She can’t deal with the media, with the fans. Not just the idiots who claim him or whatever, she couldn’t take the love either.

He understands, he really does. His anxiety makes it hard to be around huge, loud groups of people, he has to try his hardest to turn it off for public appearances. And he has been doing this for years.

But as much as he tries to understand her, he can’t help but get angry, get hurt at the fact that she can’t do it for him. It’s ridiculous to ask this of her, but still…. He loves her so much, so.. So much. And she got overwhelmed so easily. Gave up so easily.

Catching himself thinking of her that way, he gets sick to his stomach. Of course she can’t take it. 0 to 100 of adoration and hate, who could? He got trained for it, grew up with it for years, she did not.

The tears won’t stop, he realizes, deciding to call Hoseok to help him get home. Explain this whole mess to the members and the managers. And then just go to bed, and hopefully never get up again. He doesn’t know how he could, knowing that she isn’t with him anymore.

So he does exactly that. A short explanation to everyone and then off to bed. The last thing he sees is Jimin, crying and fuming with anger at the same time as he says: “How could they do that to her? All she did was love him! How can they do that to her and still think they are ARMY? They broke her….”

He doesn’t come out of his room when he knows others are up. And they accept it. They know how much she means… meant to him, so they decide to let him grieve. Two weeks, he gets, before a manager comes into his room, asking him to get back out. “The fans have been worrying. They never see you out anymore. And there’s interviews coming up. The new album is coming soon. They want your green light on the production.”

Yoongi doesn’t even move, and with his voice hoarse from crying and not talking for weeks, he simply answers: “Let them worry. I love my fans, but I love her more. And right now, all I can think about is how they mistreated the love of my life.” He takes a deep breath “The others can easily do the interviews without me. Just say I’m sick or something... Fuck, I don’t care. Tell them I am heartbroken over what happened. Let them know what they did. And the production, they don’t need me either. They have my green light to do whatever the fuck they want. They are all way more capable than me, just let them do their jobs. And just leave me alone.”

Not caring about the resignation and sadness on the manager’s face, he waves him off, turns around and whispers under his breath “I am just so fucking tired. So tired of all this.”

Back alone in his room, he pulls the cover over his head, the tears he thought he had drained before already starting to come again.

Two months. He manages to hold them off for two whole months. But then the promotion for the new album starts, and he is contractually obligated to show up and look alive.

So he shows up. But no make up artist could make two months of heartbreak and depression, of crying, eating junk food and developing alcoholism look alive. They try their best, but in the end they still have to send him in with big sunglasses on. Nothing that makeup can do about eyes that are red from crying.

The interview goes fine, Namjoon taking the lead as per usual, Yoongi only has to contribute to one answer, as scripted. But in the end, the interviewer gets to ask one unscripted question. And about what else would he ask than what the news has been constantly talking about for over a year now. Yoongi’s now ex-girlfriend.

“What happened to your engagement? You two seemed on top of the world last year and now you just unceremoniously announce a breakup? We were rooting for you!” The interviewer even laughs, looking at the rapper.

Namjoon shoots Yoongi a look saying “Don’t answer, I’ll handle this.”, before saying out loud and with an earnest face “Oh come on. You heard it all in the press release. There’s nothing to add to it. We had said in advance that you were not to talk about this.” He adds, anger shining through as he speaks.

“No, no, no, I get it. They wanna know. They need to know everything. So I will tell them. But don’t get mad at me, cause you asked, we all heard you.” He doesn’t know where the energy and the anger suddenly came from. He is most definitely not supposed to talk like this. With a chuckle, he realizes he has finally snapped. He takes off the sunglasses and looks into the camera.

“Yes, we broke up. As you can see, I am not doing good. And yes, we were on top of the world last year. This girl, she was amazing for me, she helped me so much. She loved me even though I am always away, always busy and always tired. But she couldn’t take the mess you all made of our engagement. You made her feel like she wasn’t good enough, like she didn’t deserve me. You call yourself ARMY, call yourself fans, while you actively manipulated the love of my life and hurt her so much that she couldn’t take it anymore. And now, you know who I am talking about. You saw the fansites, the images, the stalkers. I don’t mean all of ARMY. So many of you were supportive and loving of us and our relationship. But your love was quiet, it was unfortunately easily overheard next to the many who screamed about how they loved me more. About how she was using me, cheating on me, whatever vile lies they made up about her. So now I am here. I am no longer engaged, I am no longer happy. I am thankful to be in this group, to have the members by my side as I go through this. But I am also angry. Because she didn’t deserve that. We don’t deserve that. We are also people, we also fall in love. Why aren’t we allowed to be happy? Why do we have to be only for your happiness. We sang so many songs about love, and yet when I experience it and want to celebrate it in the open you tear her apart. “

With a deep breath, he looks at the interviewer, pure shock written on his face. He doesn’t remember the last time an idol snapped like that.

Yoongi gets up, running his hands through his hair as he ignores everyone staring at him and just walks out. He shouldn’t have done that. But they can still cut it out before the interview airs….

He takes a taxi home and gets back in bed almost ripping off the clothes they put on him for the interview.

About an hour later, he wakes up to somebody crawling into bed with him. AGainst his better judgement, he wants to believe it’s her. But as he feels an all too familiar shape nestle against his back, small hands holding his, hugging him tightly, he can’t help but smile, for the first time in months, it feels like.

“Jimin… Thank you.” He doesn’t get an answer, his brother just squeezing a little tighter for a second.

They lie like that for hours, maybe asleep, maybe awake, they don’t care. Yoongi needed a hug, desperately. But he would never ask for it. So Jimin just acts, he hugs, he cuddles, he is there for him.

Their loving silence of support is interrupted by a low pling from yoongi’s phone. There’s only one person exempt from his “do-not-disturb” setting. It’s her. He scrambles for his phone, waking up the apparently napping Jimin.

“Leave it, hyung…” The sleepy man mumbles.

“It’s her. I don’t have a sound on for anybody else.”

“Why would she be texting you…. Wait, what time is it?” Suddenly they’re both very awake.

Nervously, the rapper opens the text:

*I saw the interview….. I’m sorry. I’m always here for you. I love you no matter what. I miss you… every day… so much. If you need me, if you still want to be friends, if there’s any way I can keep you in my life, Please. I want you in whatever way I can have you. I love you, Min Yoongi. Please take care of yourself. Text me… Or call me, if you want to see me, too. <3*

For what feels like an eternity, he just stares at the text, in complete disbelief about what he just read. When he finally speaks, Jimin is listening with big eyes, already half hugging him.

“She…. She saw the interview. But, didn’t they cut it out? I thought they would cut it out.”

He turns to face Jimin, tears welling up in his eyes. She saw him looking like a walking corpse. She saw him be hurt in a setting where normally he would’ve easily kept his cool. He saw him break down, break Out like he did.

And she wants to be there for him.

She loves him.

She Misses Him.

His spiraling is interrupted by a small voice: “I think… Namjoon was talking to the manager if they would leave it in. You know. To make a bigger statement about what happened not being okay. You know how vocal Joonie-hyung has been about Idols dating. And that now that we are allowed to, contractually, that the fans ruined it for you two. He might’ve asked them to keep it in. But, isn’t this good? If she texted you? She isn’t angry, right? You’re not angry, right?”

He doesn’t answer, just thinking for a second. If they left it in, ARMY must be going nuts right now. And the fact that She saw it and wasn’t angry, only concerned. That’s good, right?

He smiles, turning around to hug Jimin, pulling him close.

“Thank you, Jimin. I think it might be okay. If the managers were okay with this. She said she loves me. That she misses me and wants me in her life if it’s possible. If this is all still okay tomorrow, then I will text her and see her again.”

The two men get up, deciding to eat something, only to be confronted by the rest of the members, all assembled in Yoongi’s kitchen.

“Why, exactly are you all here?” the rapper says as he steps into the room.

“Uh.. emotional support. We didn’t realise how bad you were doing, we didn’t see you until this morning, remember? We’re sorry. We are here now. I talked to the managers, and they say it’s about time we took a stand about what happened. And what you said today expressed a lot of our feelings about the general attitude some fans seem to have towards us. So they decided to air the interview unchanged. It just aired, I think. But we haven’t checked social media yet.” Namjoon, of course answers. Looking around the room, Yoongi sees Tae and Jungkook sitting at the table, busy on their phones. Jin and Hoseok are rummaging through the kitchen, trying to find something to cook, it seems.

“I know they aired the interview unchanged. She just texted me. That’s why I got up. She still loves me. She is concerned and wants to be there for me. I might see her again. And since they aired the interview unchanged, maybe some people will realize they were in the wrong, maybe they will stop celebrating our breakup and instead see how viel their actions are.”

He looks at all the members, one by one and takes a deep breath. “I am sorry for concerning you. After what happened, you know. I kind of fell back into the black hole of my insecurities. I guess I snapped today. Thank you for being here for me, and for helping with this. For us. I am so lucky to have all of you by my side to support me with my messy brain. I don’t think I have any food left…. At least not for all of us. Let’s order something. While we wait we can check the reactions to the interview. If we have to, I can make an official statement telling them I wasn’t thinking right, apologizing for being a dick… anything really. I shouldn’t have spoken like that.”

Before he can continue, he is caught off guard by everyone crowding him, all the members hugging him tightly, each expressing their support and love. Now, his heart doesn’t feel as broken anymore. He has his brothers, and he might get to his fiance again. Spend time with her again.

So they order food, and as they wait, they check the different networks for the ARMY’s reactions.

[soofection]

twittercom/jendeukienini96/status/1080943552153223169 please do a quick analysis on this?

ok

1. its not stupid if you know anything about econ lol ystocks fluctuate under a lot of different circumstances ALL THE TIME. its all temporary so it doesnt matter to the companies. as long as in the end, the stocks rise again / other benefits overweight fall of stocks. e.g bp / ji gets more well known, people talk about them, they achieve whatever agenda they had when they set up scandals (you can’t disprove they have other agendas)

2. bold of you to know what jni would and would not do. as if you are in her brain. idols don’t always have complete control over their lives / careers. if the company wants her to do it, they will compromise with her. e.g reward system, common sense. and how do you expect bb to protect their junior, is that even proof… lol nice try. like what you want them to do, point a gun at yg’s face and be like DONT MAKE HER ‘DATE’ SOMEONE SHE HATES? bb don’t own her and they probs don’t care to that extent. 

3. aura really? i can’t disprove you, but how are you 100% sure its because of jni. maybe ji’s sister may have another baby? maybe ji found he will have a solo project, maybe ji found out he has subunit. maybe hes getting another dog. if you can’t disprove me, your aura point thing is not consolidate proof neither. and if i am completely honest, anyone can claim to see auras

4. no one even confirmed ji got jni presents from hawaii. it has already been debunked that jni went to hawaii with yg artists before and one of yg’s staff or idols bought a towel that has the exact same pattern as her magnet. probs got from the same shop. and ji was holding such a big bag are you telling me all he got for her is a small ass useless magnet. therefore have we seen the present? no. theres also ig live showing ji went shopping, and the shopping bags were right at the seats behind him. chances are he just happened to be photographed by in at a random carpark holding his shopped items then dp assumed he gifted jni shit. 

5. yeah exactly why would jni and ji risk losing fans and go on a date without sufficient disguise, =they would lose fans and exactly it’s controversial. your point is correct. ohhh wait which side are you on. 

6. yg and sm are rivals but they can collab when situation calls. yg x sm is not PERSONAL, its not childs play its businesss. and yg cannot use any guy artist from his company because no group is established or mature or old enough to not crumble these dating scandal pressure, esp compared to ekso.

6.5 lmao yg hates the ‘idea’ of his artist dating sm artist? not if it benefits them. i am not looking upon any groups just stating facts, but winxer’s career still haven’t peaked, they still have quite a lot of room for growth, hence yg wont risk having them with jni bc they will lose fans. besides, the impact will be bigger if they use ji because wow sm artist wow he was caught before wow hes crop top sexy. 

7. the camera there or not doesn’t make a difference, your point is insignificant

8. block me, you are delusional to think that media play doesnt exist in this world. is the industry some fairyland to you where idols will stop scandals because they oh so care about their juniors (lol sorry i just had to), real life is full of conspiracies. even marz who worked at sm and a lot of experts/staffs in the industry can tell you, fake couples for pr / to cover scandals, happens all the time in most entertainment industries. hell hollywood can even fake marriage and spread fake engagement news.  

9. because dispatch fucked up lol. also, fansites dont just close down because their idols start dating… there are A LOT of fansites for ships that are obviously not real. and exactly, companies couldve paid to cover jxk as well why didn’t they, bc its a set up and meant to be in public

also please don’t confuse mediaplay as media wanting to brew things up, mediaplay’s def is when companies / some parties uses media to control the mass / spread false info to achieve something.

tbvvh its abit weak anon im ‘upset’ you linked me tea

easy took me 10 mins top

[fourteenacross]

So, if you don’t follow me on other social media, I had..........kind of a crazy weekend!

If you are unaware, @twentyghosts and I have been friends for twenty years this year. We met after I joined a mailing list she ran because a mutual friend told me it was full of other people who loved Rent. Online fandom was just finding its feet and most fannish stuff happened on bulletin boards, mailing lists, or people’s personal fansites. It was 1999 and we were fourteen and now it’s twenty years later and we’re still friends and we have literal decades of inside jokes and weird shit we’ve made up together (including a successful podcast), but it all started because of Rent.

So, when Renata got a chance to attend the dress rehearsal for Rent Live and asked me to go with her, it felt very narratively satisfying.

Rent was a HUGE part of my adolescence. I can’t overstate that fact. Between 1998ish and 2005, I saw the musical on Broadway (and a couple times on tour) dozens of times. I made many lasting friendships, people I’m still friends with today. I learned all sorts of skills, including HTML and CSS, but also things like how to socially interact with a “celebrity” in a way that’s not massively embarrassing, how to manage a group of people and delegate tasks, how to be an adult human person on your own in the world. I had a really bad break-up with Rent in the mid-aughts thanks to some friendship issues, but it’s been over ten years and I’ve moved on enough to appreciate what the show has given me. This show is a part of my DNA and always will be, for better or for worse.

(And yes, I’m aware that the show has issues and is “problematic,” as the kids like to say, but it’s also a product of its time and it wasn’t like there was a ton of stories about queer people in the mainstream media in the mid-nineties. We’ve come a long way, and that’s good, but it doesn’t negate the importance of the show Back In The Day.)

Anyway.

Renata and I went on this whirlwind three day trip to LA to attend the dress rehearsal. If you watched the show last night, you know that Brennin Hunt broke his ankle during the dress rehearsal and that the bulk of the final aired product was taken from that dress rehearsal. Life is weird!

We managed to squeeze in some touristy things and see a friend from that mailing list we met on twenty years ago, but the highlight of the weekend was, of course, Saturday night’s show. We had zero idea what to expect--Renata won the tickets in a contest and the contest people weren’t super forthcoming with the actual details of what was happening. The people from Fox were a little better, but we still showed up at the Fox Studio lot on Saturday largely unsure of what was going to happen.

We were given red wrist bands and led all the way to the side of the lot to stand on line with other red wristband holders. We ended up seated in the “back” of the stage, where “La Vie Boheme” and “I’ll Cover You” were staged, along with some other little bits of the show. We could sort of see other stuff happening on other parts of the stage, but there were monitors as well, that showed what the cameras were filming as it happened.

The dress rehearsal ran through exactly like a live taping would. An emcee told us what to expect and walked us through how the taping would occur. It started at 5pm on the dot and was expected to end at 8pm on the dot. They would run through the show and stop for commercial breaks, during which we could stretch and talk while they set up the next “act” of scenes. There was a countdown from each commercial break and the show started up again and ran straight through til the next. The emcee warned us that the footage would likely be used in commercials and behind the scenes footage and special features on the eventual DVD release, so if we were sitting next to someone we “shouldn’t be sitting next to,” that we should move. (Of course, it ended up being much more than that, but...that’s life!)

We had joked a lot during the run up to the show. We didn’t know anyone in the cast except for BVD, Vanessa Hudgens, and sort of Jordan Fisher. We didn’t know what to expect or if we’d even like it. We were still half-convinced the whole thing was an elaborate joke.

But, dang, what a night.

Straight up, I started crying when the song “Rent” started. It was just such a visceral moment--I always get amped up and emotional at that part anyway, but I just couldn’t believe where I was and what was happening and who I was with. It was profoundly emotional in a way I can’t quite describe. Like seeing an old friend after a decade apart, I guess.

Overall, I had a fantastic time. I loved the performance--it was super high energy and emotional. I loved most of the changes they made and the way they adapted the material for the medium. I loved how they made the Life Support group a bigger part of the narrative and how they wove “Seasons of Love” into it. The whole thing felt incredibly true to the spirit of the show. I saw people on Twitter complaining about changed costumes and slightly altered lyrics, which was confusing after a bunch of these live musicals where they added new parts and new songs and all that shit. Like, it’s 2019, a lot of kids watching WEREN’T EVEN BORN when Rent came out. I think it’s good that they added narrative context. Things might make sense to those of us who saw it fifty times in 2002, but less so for people who are so divorced from what the world was like when the show takes place.

Anyway, here are some more random thoughts I wanted to get down, including some stuff I said on Twitter:

Mark’s added narration really helped frame the story while simultaneously acting as another barrier that kept him apart from the rest of the group, which really worked for me.

It was super hard to divorce myself from Rent as a stage show when it came to certain aspects of the experience of watching it. For example, I didn’t start applauding after OSG even though it was a great performance because you don’t applaud after OSG! Mimi comes in too quickly and it slides right into “Light My Candle,” so I wasn’t even prepared to do it. Same with a couple other song breaks.

Also, the designated pee break, “I Should Tell You,” was unavailable as we were not allowed to leave the sound stage once filming started.

The audience was CRAZY for Jordan Fisher. Too crazy--there was a quick reshoot at the end because the screaming at the start of “Rent” was so loud it blew out the actors’ vocals. (more on that later)

There were a couple things that I missed, like “You have to get out of the house,” because sometimes when you accidentally create an entire mega ship you can’t ever shake how much you ship the characters, but I think that they did a good job of adding in enough of Mark’s caretaking in that scene that it would have been redundant.

Most of the line changes seemed to be about contextualizing the show for a 2019 audience or removing things that were inappropriate for television, but there were a couple small changes that didn’t seem rooted in either things, but were objectively MUCH BETTER LINES. “You wanna produce films and write songs? / You need somewhere to do it. / It’s what we used to dream about; / think twice before you pooh-pooh it” was switched to “You wanna produce films and write songs? / You need somewhere to perfect it. / It’s what we used to dream about; / think twice before you reject it” AND THAT IS JUST OBJECTIVELY A MUCH BETTER LYRIC. People were so mad at the change and like....chill, my friends! I have probably seen Rent more times than you, stop trying to seem superior by bashing what is an OBJECTIVELY BETTER LYRIC.

Maureen’s costume and props were AMAZING in OTM. Renata said something like, “I can’t believe that we ever thought Maureen WOULDN’T be super over the top for that number!” and she’s right--with all we know of Maureen, ridiculous props and costume felt right on target.

I liked how the use of cameras helped highlight some small details of the show people might have missed in the staged version. At the end of “Happy New Year B,” when Mimi is “comforted” by The Man, Mark lingers in the doorway to the building and witnesses the interaction. A bunch of people I follow on twitter hadn’t even noticed that when they saw it on stage, and I think it’s such an important moment.

Ditto with the staging of “Without You.” The guys behind us at the show were so confused that Roger was in the hospital bed because, despite having seen the staged show multiple times, the minimalist staging of that scene didn’t make it clear to them that Roger was sick for part of that song. (I, on the other hand, wrote at least three fics about it. It was my favorite stupid angsty thing to delve into for like, six months in 2003.)

I had never heard of Kiersey Clemons before this and she legit was one of my favorite parts. She’s amazing.

After ICY:R, which blew the doors off the place, predictably, BVD exited by our audience section and people started spontaneously sobbing and cheering again as he walked by. He was so fucking incredible.

Jordan Fisher’s real life tears during “Halloween” MURDERED ME.

Okay, so, like most dumb nerd kids who got into Rent in 1998, Mark was my favorite character. I loved him, I super over-related to him, I wrote a zillion words of fic about him, etc. And, honestly, I didn’t know what to expect from Jordan Fisher. But my god, if he wasn’t my favorite part of the show. He fucking nailed it. He was perfect. He was able to pull all of the things I love about Mark from all the different performances I’ve seen and completely encapsulate it in what he did. I walked in like, “eh, whatever” and walked out like, “I WOULD DIE FOR THIS ACTUAL TWELVE YEAR OLD CHILD WHO PLAYED MARK TONIGHT.” 

My favorite segment of the show is “Halloween” through “What You Own.” Predictably. And it was super on fire. Everyone totally nailed all of the emotional highs and lows of those songs. It was so intense and perfect.

HOWEVER.

The one thing they cut that I got legit mad about was the “For someone who’s always been let down...” Mark/Roger exchange. That exchange is important to me and important to that relationship (no matter how you read it) and I was so bummed that it was cut. Most of the changes/deletions didn’t bother me, but that one rankled.

(As my friend Jen reminded me on Twitter, they could have at least replaced it with the NYTW “Love you” exchange.)

“What You Own” was amazing, even though Renata was bummed they cut the “Compulsive Bowlers” line. (If you are unaware, the main Rent message board, which we were both a part of, Renata for much longer than me, was called “Compulsive Bowlers.”)

Okay, so it was after WYO, off stage, that Brennin Hunt hurt his foot. We had no idea anything was wrong at first; we stretched and sat at the end of the commercial break and there was no countdown. Nothing. A few people started running back and forth across the stage, including Jordan Fisher a couple times. No updates, no information. The lights came up. Still no updates. Finally, someone got on mic and explained that Brennin had hurt his foot and that he was determined to finish the show, so they needed a few minutes to reblock the last couple scenes. 

They also informed us at this point that the whole OBC was there (which we knew from social media) and that there was going to be surprise at the end.

I immediately guessed what the surprise was, and was slightly mad at myself for it, because I thought I would be less emotional knowing what was coming.

(Spoiler alert: I was not)

So they brought Brennin out, carried across the stage by two other people with his foot in an aircast. They set him up on the table, got all the lights and things set again, and finished out the show.

There was one terrible/hilarious/terrible moment, where they find out Mimi is sick, where Roger would normally run to the “window” in anguish. Instead, they just cut to Brennin screaming “NOOO!” while sitting perfectly still. We laughed. I feel bad about it, but...I couldn’t help it.

The end was great (another great line replacement: “Time to see what we have, time to see” became “Now we measure how that year has passed,” which is SO MUCH BETTER), etc

And after the finale, when I was already sobbing, they lower this “Rent - 1996 - 2019″ banner and when they raise it, THE OBC IS THERE.

Which, of course I knew the OBC was going to come out and sing SOL. Of course they were. But that did not stop me from losing my shit and full on sobbing.

I still can’t believe that part happened.

Some other highlights: Jordan Fisher and Vanessa Hudgens were so incredibly gracious to their fans. They had very limited free time between “acts” and commercials, but they made a point of giving out as many waves and high fives and smiles as they could in their limited time.

At one point, during a commercial break, Jordan Fisher walked by where Anthony Rapp was sitting in the audience and stopped to shake his hand and talk to him and I got very emotional watching that.

Brandon Victor Dixon is just............so wonderful??? At everything???

We had detailed instructions on when to hold up our candles during “Will I?” and they told us many times that we couldn’t take them with us, but Renata and I were annoyed that we were unable to steal posters and screenplays, as is our right as annoying Rentheads.

(If you know a person who went to Rent like it was their job as a teenager, they probably have at least one “poster” or “screenplay” or “stash” that was stolen from the set.)

They had a lot of nice nods to the classic costumes in places, especially on the ensemble.

I loved how diverse the ensemble was wrt age. That’s not something you get a lot of in the stage show (which makes sense given the cast limitations and needing understudies, etc) that really added to the show.

And, listen, you can take the shipper out of the fandom, etc, but dang, I remember why I accidentally started a fandom revolution by creating Mark/Roger. Mark is SO in love with Roger, my friends.

(Also, my rarepair, Mark/Benny, which I will forever love as well.)

Everyone was so talented and gracious and really seemed to be putting their all into what was happening. The energy was intense and amazing and electric.

They needed to do one quick reshoot at the end because, like I said, the cheering at the start of “Rent” blew out the sound of the first few lyrics. They reshot just starting from “The power blows...” and asked the people in the SRO pits to not ACTUALLY scream this time, but for everyone else to scream and cheer like we did the first time. Jordan Fisher ran through Mark’s first verse and then started in on Roger’s first verse before they cut it and thanked us all for our help, and I stg I’d watch that child’s one man show version of Rent. He was super into it 😂

And I’m gonna finish with this, cut directly from Twitter:

Look, I know this show has issues and is, as the kids like to say, problematic, but it literally brought me almost every good thing I currently have in my life. I met Becca through Rent fandom a hundred million years ago, and that's why I moved to Boston with my amazing Boston friends. I met Renata through Rent fandom and that's why I have a podcast. I met SO MANY PEOPLE who are still dear to me because of this show.

Some of my longest fandom relationships - @isjustprogress, Jen, Priscilla, and a ton more I'm probably entirely forgetting because I'm so emotional right now. If we start breaking off tangentially, I know @leiascully through Renata, and @coffeesuperhero through Mary. I know all of my Boston friends because of Becca. I know so many of you because of Renata and the podcast.

Rent was a thing that happened to me at the exact right time in my life, first online and then in person. I feel like a huge amount of my independence as an adult started to bloom when my parents would let me go into the city alone to meet up with Rent friends. This show is a part of who I am, for better or for worse, and getting to see that performance last night, with one of my best friends in what will be the twentieth year of our friendship was just...enormously powerful and special to me.

So that is............pretty much all of it! I might try and jot down more notes as things come to me, but I am very hungry and want to write a few more words of fic today, so I’m leaving it here for now. Thanks for reading this nonsense, if you did, heh 😅

[rockinthebeastmode]

Sabotage

A/N: This isn’t completely finished but I have just enough for a first part and I’m hoping expecting to work the rest out fairly easy. I’ve made some cuts/changes overall (some details and notes seemed superfluous) and based on the second outline I did, we’re a quarter into the story--so I’d say at least two more parts, depending on where things cut off. I really hope you enjoy! I apologize profusely if it’s not what you expected but we’re finally rolling 😁 

You can find the rest of my fics here.

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Sabotage

“--you hear about this?”

Rae Earl awoke abruptly to her best mate Archie’s voice growing steadily closer as he entered her bedroom. Before she could speak, he shook out his paper and began to read. She tuned him out the best she could, her eyes straying to her laptop on the other side of the bed. She stretched through a yawn, glancing at the bedside clock.

“Aren’t you late?” she cut Archie off, his tongue sticking out at her. He rolled the paper up and swatted it at her before kissing her cheek and backing out of the room.

“I’ll see you tonight, yeah? Laters!”

Rae waited until she heard the front door slam shut before she reached for her laptop and opened it, tapping the keys lightly as it started up. Her desktop appeared and she clicked on her email, a smile playing on her lips as she read a new message titled, ‘Digsy’.

fknhangthedj78: Have I mentioned my dog, Digsy? She’s an old girl now but back when I was a lad, she was my partner against all the monsters under the bed and thunderstorms--always up for an adventure. Nowadays, she spends her days sleeping on my side of the bed and stealing my chips. Man’s best mate, right?

Don’t you love Stamford in autumn? Reminds me of my college days, back when the only thing you had to worry about was A-levels and who you’d ask to the leavers’ ball. Of course, had we known each other then, I reckon I would’ve asked you ;)

***

Finn Nelson’s eyes fluttered as he poured two tea cups full to the brim, his girlfriend’s monotonous voice flowing over him like a blanket. He shook his fringe out of his eyes, dropping the teapot to the table with a loud clunk. Olivia jumped, her voice tapering off. He smiled sheepishly.

“Soz, Liv,” he said through a yawn, reaching for the milk and sugar. She looked at him curiously as she reached for her cup.

“Did you sleep alright?” she asked, Finn meeting Digsy’s eyes from across the room. She blew out a sigh, side-eying Olivia before returning to her bowl. Finn coughed through a snort and nodded. She stirred sugar into her cup and took a sip.

“What day’s your dad’s rehearsal dinner again?”

Finn grimaced and rubbed his jaw.

“Sunday,” he replied, “D’ya think he’d take an early wedding present so we don’t have to go?”

“Finn, it’s your father,” she chuckled, shaking her head. Finn groaned and rolled his neck. He was thrilled his dad was getting remarried and his bride-to-be Felicity Stringfellow was perfectly nice but the thought of his college ex being his step-sister made his stomach turn.

“Don’t forget to meet Stacey Friday at noon, yeah?” she continued. Finn nodded with a pout and looked at his watch. He finished his tea off before leaning over the table to kiss Olivia’s cheek.

“Gotta go get ready,” he said, standing and going towards the bedroom, “See ya tonight.”

Finn cracked the door behind him and Digsy slid through, jumping to the bed. He sighed with a smile as she sprawled over his pillow and he sat down next to her, pulling his laptop from the side table. He sat still and waited to hear Olivia’s heels clicking down the hall and out the door before he opened it, running a finger over the mouse to wake it. His email appeared, a new message notification flashing, and he clicked it, biting back a smile as he started to read.

snakebitesupernova: Isn’t it bizarre how we never crossed paths all these years living in the same town? It feels like we’ve known each other forever, despite only having met on an Oasis fansite.

Imagine if we hadn’t argued over their best album (it’s ‘What’s the Story’ in case you forgot). Now, all I can think is, ‘Wonder what bollocks fknhangthedj78 will come up with this time!’

Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite lame enough to go to my leavers’ ball--but I reckon I would’ve made an exception for you ;P

***

Nothing could remove the smile from Rae’s face as she walked briskly to Town Records. Not spilling coffee down her front two minutes before leaving the flat. Not the neighbor’s yapping dog barking at top volume all morning. Not even the Green Lane arseholes who harassed her every other day.

“Burn down the disco,” Rae sang under her breath as she unlocked the door and entered the shop, “Hang the blessed DJ.”

She bounded around the shelves, straightening and preparing to open and Izzy, her mate and the shop’s social media manager, watched her wide-eyed.

“What’s gotten into you?” she asked, laughing a bit. Rae only winked, moving to her side and linking their arms.

“Don’t you miss our college days, Iz?” she sighed, smiling as she ran over the email in her mind again. Izzy raised her brows and laughed again.

“You hated college, Rae.”

“Right,” she replied, a nervous laugh bubbling from her throat. Izzy’s eyes narrowed at her and a sly smile came across her face.

“You’re in love, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Izzy, I’m madly in love with my gay roommate, the one and only man in my life,” Rae scoffed, scrunching her nose at her.

Izzy shook her head, her smile widening.

“What about your online friend?”

Rae bit her cheek, cursing the time she’d had too many Tia Maria’s and let slip her pen pal secret.

“Don’t be ridiculous...we’re just mates—not even mates! More acquaintances,” she said hastily, waving a hand, “I don’t even know his name.”

Izzy went to speak again when the front door bell chimed and her best mate Chloe shuffled through the door, her arms wrapped around herself.

“It’s bloody freezing out there,” she started, coming behind the counter and shedding her jacket, “What’re we talking about?”

“Rae’s online friend--”

“Izzy!”

Chloe tutted and shook her head.

“Y’should try meeting people organically, babes, that internet stuff is dangerous.”

“If I did that, I’d be alone forever, Chlo,” she retorted before clapping her hands, “Let’s open up, ladies!”

***

“--electrician is gonna be late because his wife’s in labor,” Chop said, ticking items off a clipboard, “The record shelves as well--some infestation on the truck or summat.”

Finn nodded along as he continued listing issues and plans throughout the worksite, not hearing a word.

“We also got a ticket for a few workers pissing off the roof,” Chop finished, shaking his head and pulling at his tie.

“Nice one,” Finn replied, “When’s the electrician in?”

“I knew you weren’t fucking listening,” Chop groused, smacking Finn in the arm with the clipboard, “His wife’s in labor, knobhead.”

Finn reddened and he grinned sheepishly, shoving him back.

“S’pose I’m a bit distracted.” Chop waggled his brows at him.

“You finally proposed to Liv, huh?” Finn’s head snapped to him and he shook his head with a furrowed brow.

“Of course not,” he said hastily, Chop’s mouth twisting at him, “I mean, she’s great and I proper fancy her and all…”

“When she’s not boring you to tears, y’mean,” Chop continued, dodging Finn’s cuff to his shoulder.

“We need to announce ourselves,” Finn changed the subject, clapping his hands as he looked around their almost finished entertainment store.

No Crap Entertainment, better known as NCE, was set to open Saturday, provided he and Chop could work out all the kinks. His father, Gary, was trusting him with this one, since he’d proven himself well enough helping him with other business matters over the years. He’d brought Chop on as his partner and fully planned to make this the best music store in Stamford.

“There’s not much competition--we bought out that tiny reggae shop across the way. And then there’s Town Records, of course.”

Finn bit his cheek, thinking of his old college stomping grounds. He loved Town, loved the atmosphere...it hadn’t changed much since then but he knew it was under different management since Rob had passed away.

“They’re gonna hate us at first but we have the better package. We’re multifaceted,” Finn assured, clapping a hand to Chop’s shoulder, “We’re not just music--we’re an experience.”

A grin slowly grew on Chop’s face before he ruffled Finn’s hair, his nose wrinkling.

“You’re so full of shit!”

***

fknhangthedj78: My dad’s getting married again. His mates keep warning him off of it, saying he should cut his losses after the first time. He seems happy though, so I can’t complain.

Rae glanced up from her laptop, her head tilting in thought. She couldn’t imagine getting married once, let alone twice.

She looked over at Archie on the other side of the lounge, his finger twirling a ring around on his left hand as he watched the telly. She felt her throat burn and her eyes fill but quelled it when Archie met her eyes, giving her a curious look.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing...love ya, Arch.” He snorted, reaching over and squeezing her knee.

“I love ya too, Rae.”

***

snakebitesupernova: Since you mentioned college the other day, I’ve been rereading Pride & Prejudice. I can’t get over how they used to talk back then! So proper and stuffy but I love it...have you read it?

Finn opened the book to a random page, grimacing as he read a few lines. He felt Digsy next to him and he scratched her behind the ears, shaking his head at the book.

“Jesus Christ, can you believe this, girl?”

He went to the fridge for a beer and cracked it open, taking a long pull as he opened the book at the beginning. He skimmed the first page before tossing it to the counter, shooting a frown at Digsy.

“Shit’s for the birds.”

***

“Now, don’t freak out, Rae--”

“Those fuckers have some nerve--”

“It’s just a sign,” Chloe reiterated, rolling her eyes, “Y’don’t own the word ‘town’.”

“It was deliberate! ‘Best record deals in town,’” Rae ranted, crossing her arms, “This is bullshit.”

“They’ve got nothing on Town,” Archie assured, his hands going to her shoulders.

“Look at all the discounts and promotions they’re offering,” Izzy gushed, scrolling through NCE’s website in awe. She looked up when she felt the others’ stares on her and she bit her lip, setting her phone down on the counter.

“She’s right, guys,” Chloe sighed, “They have more variety as well.”

“It’s nothing but mainstream crap. They’ll come running back,” Archie countered, not sounding entirely convinced himself. Rae’s face lit up slightly.

“Exactly! We’ll be the niche shop, yeah? If they don’t have it, we do,” she exclaimed, a sliver of hope creeping back.

“And vice versa,” Chloe commented, Rae raising a brow at her.

“Right. Supply and demand.”

Chloe raised her hands, exchanging shrugs with Izzy. Archie rubbed Rae’s shoulders and gave her a reassuring smile that she could barely return.

snakebitesupernova: I can’t help but feel like I’m wasting time. I live a simple life. I made it out of hospital and college and barely made it through uni and for what? To have the same job in the same dead end town? I sometimes wish I could go back and do it all again but what would change? Change is supposed to be good... I know I should be brave and ‘roll with it’ but I’m so fucking scared

You don’t have to respond to this, I don’t mean to bang on about my existential crises but I know you’d understand better than anyone else would. You always do :)