#did everyone just forget that themes and morals existed or something

[kimbapisnotsushi]

actually the problem i have with the haikyuu!! criticism that is "it's not realistic that a team like karasuno could win and they shouldn't have" isn't just about the classism take (altho y'all already know that i DO believe in that wholeheartedly) it's that it just makes it look like people don't see it as a STORY y'know??? like it's not about the realism or the logistics it's about the FEELINGS it evokes in you it's about the poetry of hinata winning against giants and kageyama winning against his grief and them winning TOGETHER against all the odds stacked against them!! like. we as the audience are fed that idea from the very start!! we KNOW that it seems impossible!! we KNOW that karasuno is the unlikely underdog!! we KNOW that every time they win it's absolutely unbelievable to everyone else in the series!! AND THAT'S THE POINT!! all the other characters already think that there's no way in hell this less wealthy country-bumpkin team could ever take down the big guns!! but they do!! and it's not just because they worked hard and put their all into training it's because furudate wanted to write a story of overcoming obstacles and pursuing your passions it's because kageyama and hinata exist to show people that you CAN succeed in the face of hurt and anger and disappointment like come ON we all know that if it was serious about the realism then the story would just get lost along the way and we wouldn't have an ending even HALF as good as what we have now

haikyuu was NEVER about winning or logistics or if a play could have been realistically executed but it DEFINITELY was about teaching people something and THAT'S what we should be looking at

[danauschaewon]

my thoughts on dimension 20: fantasy high junior year ep 19 ragenarok Discourse™

⚠️ spoilers! ⚠️

from a watsonian perspective, the bad kids don't know of any way to cure a rage star. if any of the characters were stressed enough sufficiently to be angry (rage token), porter seems to be able to immediately control you so even not directly being controlled by a rage star seems to put you under ankarna's domain. there's no reasonable watsonian expectation for them to believe the ratgrinders could be redeemed, notwithstanding whether teenagers would show other teenagers who hate them that grace.

additionally, the Discourse™ seems to forget that there's ultimately a choice between following porter or not. lucy frostblade's sacrifice was extremely poignant because she chose to die rather than go against what she believed in. buddy dawn's immediate switch perfectly aligns with how religious fanatics believe/claim to believe whatever is convenient for them without any internal consistency. that doesn't mean that they weren't groomed by porter but there's really no ground for some of the moral absolutism I've been seeing here.

that also leads to something that I haven't seen people discussing; kipperlily and oisin straight up murdered buddy (their own party member, who they secretly treated as a pawn the whole time) by slitting his throat to try and keep the bad kids from being revived??? it's implied they also killed lucy and covered it up for so long that she is almost beyond reviving just so she couldn't snitch on them?? even if you liked the ratgrinders, they're much more ruthless than bad kids are, even if you take riz and fabian's comments into account. also, if the entire school was in fabian's house, they essentially tried to kill all 500 other students in their school + jawbone to beat a magical loophole to ascend porter.

and the obvious being: if you are fighting to end the world (remember they did bring down fig and gorgug, even if they are uncoordinated in pvp), don't be surprised when people fight you to save the world.

from the doyleist perspective, others have already pointed out that dnd is a combat focused game. if you fail a persuasion/intimidation/deception roll, regardless of what makes more sense for the story or the themes or your character, you probably have to fight to the death. this isn't a story written with a single overarching vision from one mind, it's real people being filmed in real time playing a game designed around roleplay AND combat. combat is gonna happen.

secondly, this is a world where powerful individuals have the ability to directly control the universe (magic). "might makes right" is a terrible moral system but that's also how reality works (laws are only (as strong as) their enforcement system, the police are an occupying army, etc).

human beings are social beings and our intelligence/creativity allows us to imagine a world where no individual or socioeconomic group can use might to make right. but our imagination also is limited by our own inconsistencies, ignorance, socialisation, habits, etc. and most importantly, our stories about the world mustn't confuse us from how the world actually is. not everyone can be redeemed, even if you want them to be.

if you want the world to change in a certain way, you have to gather enough strength to change it. the more it deviates from the status quo, the more strength you need. that's not just martial or economic power, there is social power that can be influenced by a collective moral or intellectual sense. however, those with the power to directly eliminate your existence will need to be sufficiently worried about consequences to not use that power (e.g. american police know they face no consequences for executing black people in cold blood, that's why they actually do kill instead of simply want to kill like other non-police racists).

if the ratgrinders want to kill the bad kids and ascend porter to godhood, they have to actually have to develop their skills to do so. that's why they exp levelled, they tried taking advantage of the last stand, one of them sent their grandma to kill the entire school at one kid's 18th birthday party. and correspondingly, if you don't want your 18th birthday party to end with your death + your entire school's deaths + the ascension of your teachers as the new god of rage, you gotta kill some grandmas and poorly coordinated exp levellers.

[tavina-writes]

Sorry may I ask you a question? Your meta is so interesting! In mdzs "debts" is a recurring theme and can you please explain it? I've read meta about how in Chinese culture jc's owed the wen siblings a debt and he should have saved them, but I've also read meta about how he owed a hugger debt to his own sect. I've read how jgy killed whr and nmj, people who he owned his educations (debts). I thought that mdzs was more about "Who is wrong? Who is right?" so that everyone is a bit wrong and a bit right but this kind of meta make me doubt myself and think that maybe in mdzs someone is really morally right (wwx and lwj) and everyone else is wrong. I am going a little crazy, that's why I asked you. Anyway, thanks in advance and have a good day!

Hi Nonny!

There's no need to apologize for sending an ask! I love asks!

Regarding your question about debts and what is "owed" in relationships, I think it's important to clarify that like, presumably if someone saved your life you'd also owe them a debt of gratitude, a life debt, or however and whichever other 'debt' terminology you'd care to use there. So this concept of "debt" because you owe someone for doing something for you is not in and of itself a 'unique to Chinese culture' problem, and I think looking at "oh this person "owes" this other person a thing" is not entirely a great? way to analyze how character relationships "should" or should not go. There are lots of ways we as people in a society owe other people in our society and the characters in this book, much like us, are trapped in a confluence of factors that pull them in different directions regarding what they should or should not do.

The book itself (at least from my own opinion) is meant to read as "everyone is both right and wrong at various points in this text because this is a book with complex characters and not a morality lesson" because lest we forget, WWX made a woman eat a chair leg at one point, which. We cannot say this was correct in really anything except the most reductive main character centric interpretation.

Regarding debts themselves that say, WangXian might owe their families in accordance to their society that sound just about the same as the examples mentioned above, we can say things like "since Wei Wuxian was raised by the Jiang, he should've been helping Jiang Cheng rebuilding Lotus Pier instead of sitting around drinking or running off with the Wen!" or "how dare Lan Wangji injure thirty-three of his family elders, doesn't he know he should've been filial to them and owed his education and position in society to the Lan Sect?" and "why is it that WangXian got to go fuck in a bush at the end of the story when other people who arguably did fewer crimes end up dead? Does this mean they owed less to society or made all the right choices compared to say, the other people who are still in fact super dead and don't get to fuck their beloved in a bush?"

Does this start to look like this concept of "debts" doesn't,,, actually explain anything about the moral complexities of the character's situations? That's because it isn't a good indicator of if character x made a moral choice or not.

But again, this whole concept of "debts" to explain why a character does a thing and why they're morally good or evil and reprehensible for not doing this other thing is entirely a thing fandom does in meta to make their fave look good or character they're an anti about look extremely bad under a case of "well ACKSHUALLY morality says they SHOULD HAVE done this!" None of these characters exist either as Perfectly Moral Beings or Perfectly Evil Immoral Beings inside a decision making vacuum.

It...also doesn't really matter if your fave is right or wrong either :D just for context. They're all fictional blorbos upon a page and or screen. No real person was harmed in over the course of the story. No woman deep throated a chair leg, no child was tossed down the stairs, no groups of people were massacred, no brothers were abandoned, no one was poisoned with rage disease until they died, nobody committed incest... etc etc and honestly debating about if fictional characters were right or wrong fascinates me a lot less than "what does the story tell us about what drove them and made them tick?" and "what adaptational and translational choices did other people before me make about this story and do I agree with them on their adaptational choices."

:( sorry this came out so messy anon! I just don't think the "did this character repay their debts -> is this character a good person -> a morally good character therefore doesn't owe anyone anything anymore and if they do owe someone something that doesn't count/no they don't." pipeline is particularly useful from an analyzing the story standpoint.

[acoldghostlypresence]

An exhaustingly long list of California Slim and Alcatraz headcanons

General:

In the Epithet universe everyone speaks one global language, but in RSR they introduced the concept of old world languages to justify Cragior's accent. This isn't cannon but I'm adopting it purely so that Slim can swear a people in old world Italian.

I've also decided the boys are from Island country because of course they are, its themed around the mafia for fucks sake. Specifically they're from an island called Chaparral since California doesn't exist in the Epithet universe.

•Most criminals will reconsider robbing you if you claim to have an epithet so the fact that Cal and Al specialise in cleaning up inscribed makes them very sought-after. They have a very consistent cash flow but still live like Daniel Dancer, childhood financial insecurity will do that too you.

Alcatraz:

Al is like 2 degrees of separation away from a living statue and acts like it. He's almost incapable of being bored, he'd be perfectly fine standing dead still on display for years at a time (though he'd probably still prefer to be doing something other than that), and though he can't sleep, at night when there's nothing for him to be doing he will go dormant in this manner to conserve energy.

On a related note he doesn't emote much naturally, but he intentionally exaggerates his reactions when around people because he doesn't want to seem intimidating. A 6 foot something suit of armour with no facial features is hard to read after all.

Since he never actually sleeps or looses consciousness when Slim's asleep and Al's left in the hotel alone Slim leaves the comedy channel on for him. Its the only channel that will be reliably showing the same thing all night and not suddenly leave Al unable to change the channel when a scary movie comes on. As a side effect its the cause of Al's interest in stand up comedy.

Isn't technically made of any metal, he's pure magic pretending to be a suit of armour. If you pointed an industrial magnet at him it wouldn't affect him at all until he turned around and noticed it was there, similarly Ramsey's powers only work on him if Ramsey announces what he's trying to do so that Al know how to play along. He also forgets he's supposed to rust for months at a time only to step in a puddle and be stiff and struggling to move a hour later.

To be clear this isn't something he can control, it's pure epithet instinct to fit into people's perception of him. This is also why he's randomly Scottish.

Part of the reason he's so willing to go along with Slim's bullshit is because of how he lost Bev. He's not about to let down another sibling even if that means compromising his morals.

Even though Alcatraz the sentient moral compass didn't exist until after Bev died, Alcatraz the magic suit of armour very much did. Bev would ask Slim to summon him just so she could play dolls with him, he'd always be the knight that had gotten into trouble on his noble quest and she'd be the princess who'd have to go out to save him. Al remembers every single one of the adventures even the ones Slim wasn't present for.

When Slim was available for these play dates he'd be the dragon Al need saving from.

California Slim

As much a Slim never wants to admit to ever having relied on his epithet, he was still using it for the first 17 years of his life and that experience still does colour his image of himself.

Most notably Al has healing abilities which means at some point Slim had healing abilities, healing abilities that allowed him to shrug off injuries that would have sent other kids to the hospital. That combined with his naturally high pain tolerance means he regularly neglects to seek medical attention when he should because he thinks he shouldn't need it.

Hospitals are where you go when you are weak and vulnerable! And Slim's never vulnerable and especially not weak, in fact he's strong as hell! He can take anything! He can handle himself just fine! He knows first aid!

The list of medical issues he's currently ignoring includes:

Chronic nose bleeds. Al came out his nostril and permanently fucked it up a bit, plus his high blood pressure means even sneezing can set him off on a bad day.

High blood pressure. Canonically he straight up doesn't believe the doctor who told him this, quote: "If my blood really was pressurised theoretically I could just slit my wrist and use it to squirt blood at people." He should probably be taking medication for that, or at least cutting back on smoking.

Fatigue. The stamina cost for his abilities and Al's come out of the same stamina pool and being the one with a physical body Slim's the one who feels that harder. He's constantly tired and running on coffee and spite. The switch from "night shifts" to the strictly regimented prison lifestyle is not helping.

He's lost all hearing in his mauled ear. He's been successfully ignoring this the longest but it's becoming increasingly evident he needs hearing aids. He needs the captions on for everything and regularly struggles to keep up with conversations, he's only been going out at night for ages now just to avoid big, overwhelming crowds that make it impossible for him to tell where a sound is coming from. Any attempts to bring this up to him are quickly shut down, it's sunk costs at this point.

He's always either completely apathetic to everything and won't move from his hotel for days or extremely switched on and ready to fight anything and everything that moves. The only consistency between these two moods in his putting off eating to a nebulous later that never comes.

One day in the future a treasure hunter will dig up California Slim's buried mafia treasure and they will find a metal box filled completely with old baseball cards and cool novelty knives he's never used.

There's a betting pool in the prison based around guessing Slim's real name, the punchline is that California is his real name. He's actually been introducing himself as California, Slim (as in "Hi I'm California, most people call me Slim") and everyone just misheard him. Slim is unaware of the confusion.

His full name is California Holmby Hills, Holmby Hills being the neighbourhood right next to Beverly Hills to keep with the theme.

When Bev was alive Slim would be the one to do her hair, he'd do her bow up every morning before breakfast. As a adult Slim only wears a tie specifically to have something to put a knot in while he waits for the coffee to boil.

[bbygirl-aemond]

bbygirl-aemond, I have thoughts, I will reread chapter 32, but I do have thoughts if you dont mind me asking them. I think initially, my question is, how do you balance the role of Valyria historically with the nature of their colonialism? Only because it seems like the picture presented is that ultimately Valyrianness is a good thing? It seemed like despite the Firstmen not wanting Valyrian conquerors who desecrated their land with fire, Harrenhal did? And that seems off to me? I mean if your pro-valyrian then totally disregard this but I had got the impression that you were rather critical of them but maybe I was conflating your critique of Viserys with your critique of Valyria and the Valyrian Freehold? Also, side note I very much enjoyed the complex relationship everyone had with Viserys and how it wasn't reconciled and that Helaena stood her ground. Your interpretation of her is my absolute favourite because she is a fully fleshed woman with her own motivations, and her distance from Rhaenyra is that wonderful icing on the cake. Coming from someone who doesn't like my own half-sister, it's very understandable Helaenas weariness but also her stubbornness not to forget what Rhaenyra put her and her brothers through. It's just chefs' kiss.

No that's a fair question! Ultimately, I think my answer is that my opinion on morality of canon is separate from what I choose to play around with for fun. For example, I don't think we're meant to read ASoIaF and come away like "yes monarchy is good actually." I'm very anti-monarchist in my everyday life, but it's tons of fun to lean into the grand imagery related to monarchy and divine right in a fantasy world. This applies to the themes of colonialism and feudalism as well.

Stormbreak is, fundamentally, a Targaryen Restoration fic, so it's not going to be doing any heavy lifting related to concepts of monarchy, feudalism, and colonialism. I do address parts of these themes, but not in full, and it shouldn't be taken as a perfect mirror of my own views outside of the Stormbreak sandbox.

As for Harrenhal--I think there isn't necessarily a moral endorsement of the Valyrian magic there. Just because something exists doesn't mean that it's good that it exists, but it is a reality. Jace's Valyrian-ness is useful in its ability to protect the members of House Strong from a curse that would otherwise kill them off. Jace's arc here also isn't finished, and we haven't seen the final form of the agreement(s) he'll have with the land he rules. This is because the First Men are, you guessed it, also originally colonizers! They invaded Westeros, slaughtered the children of the forest in spades, and destroyed their sacred spaces. They were eventually forced to stop and coexist, but only after a massive display of force (the children of the forest literally broke Westeros and Essos into two separate continents), so it wasn't out of realization that their colonizing was wrong, and they still successfully stole most of Westeros from the children of the forest, relegating them to small patches of land here and there where Weirwood trees grew. I can't spoil too much here, but let's just say the Valyrians weren't the first ones to think of imbuing the land with spells to drive out the First Men… and that Stormbreak will ultimately treat the children of the forest as the only true natives of Westeros.

I'm glad that Helaena's characterization has resonated with you! She's been so fun to write. In general, I've had so much fun with the female characters in this fic, particularly ones like Helaena, Baela, and Alys whose personalities were kind of neglected in the book and/or the show. I also have this pet peeve around the idea that women inherently always have to like each other because of girlboss solidarity, so I deliberately called attention to Rhaenyra's mistake in thinking that Helaena would side with her because they were both women. Helaena isn't necessarily always going to agree with Rhaenyra on things, which is understandable. They had vastly different upbringings, and Helaena's experience with dreaming gives her an entirely unique perspective. In this chapter, Helaena doesn't try to stop Aemond and Aegon, because she agrees with them! Regardless of how much fear she personally felt (since I think her dreams provide a lot of reassurance to her that others aren't able to access), she still spent her entire life surrounded by her family, who were very much impacted by that fear.

[headcanonrepository]

Something I've been thinking about lately is how Final Fantasy games will often introduce some really interesting themes or questions and then almost immediately either gloss over them or solve them without any real exploration or examination of the issue. (In comparison, Tales of games often have one big issue or question and spend the whole game really examining it from multiple perspectives and build it into the fabric of the world and the motives of the 'villain')

For example, Nanaki (Red XIII) in Final Fantasy VII. His first appearance sets you up to assume that he's an unthinking monster, possibly one you will have to cut down to rescue Aerith. He's displaying aggressive behaviour, he's talked about as a beast by Hojo and he is non-humanoid. Then the game defies your expectations and has him talk eloquently about himself. That he was a victim as much as Aerith and he was acting to make people assume he was just a dumb beast, in the hopes he could escape.

We find out a bit about him - raised by an ecology expert after believing himself abandoned by his father, he knows a bit about the plight of the planet. He's one of the last of his kind. He's clearly educated and articulate. He's close to the equivalent of a teenager for his kind. And all of this is relevant for the next couple of plot points, after which he is very much sidelined and could honestly have been left at Cosmo Canyon for all the impact and agency he is allowed to have on the plot beyond this point. Even Advent Children seemed to forget he existed until the very last moment.

How interesting would it have been to explore the idea of a person who isn't human shaped a little more? Especially given the obviously non-human Jenova, it would have been a bigger tie to the greater plot. Or to linger on the idea of being the last of your kind, to believe that your only living link to your people fled and abandoned you, rather than have the truth revealed in the very next plot point - that his father actually acted to protect him, and all of Cosmo Canyon.

The thing is, Final Fantasy keeps doing this - dropping some really good hints of an amazing story but not putting in the work to deliver a more complex emotional payoff. In no particular order, here's some that have bugged me:

In IX, Vivi's realisation that he is going to stop someday. That this is by design as a constructed being. And how that ties neatly into Kuja's own motivations and also how this would become relevant to Zidane, too.

Also IX - Freya finding Sir Fratley and discovering he has amnesia. Never really gets explored beyond that. (Though I did a little post-game drabble myself)

Everything that happened off screen between XIII-2 and Lightning Returns. Snow getting people to safety and making another l'Cie pact in order to do so and provide lasting stability should never have been a little in-game text dump. Noel coming to terms with Serah dying just as they thought they had defied fate. Noel having to tell Snow that his fiancée is dead. Hope actually being a leader and helping with securing safety for the survivors.

VII starting the game by painting the problem as an ecological and capitalism crisis - that energy generation is killing the planet and the corporation generating the energy also controls the military, a lot of tech, most of the crime underworld and most of the larger population settlements in the world. It sets up a big structural problem - how do you remove the influence of a company/dictatorship with so much control over most people's daily lives? How do you square away the moral dilemma of definitely killing and certainly endangering a lot of people in the short term to destroy the corporation that will definitely kill everyone in the long term? What can you put in place to mitigate the worst of the fallout and help those affected most? All of which the game sidesteps neatly by having the real villain and the planet's own defence system do the dirty work of actually removing the worst elements of Shinra so you can focus on a much more personal enemy without all this moral complexity.

Fang and Vanille returning to their hometown in XIII long after everyone is either dead or a C'ieth and only having a few minutes to process before it's back to the plot. Like, EVERYONE they ever knew or loved is gone and never coming back. From their perspective, they've only been gone a few days, but they've been asleep for centuries. Everyone is gone. That is a hell of a thing to deal with. And the dialogue barely even acknowledges that their home is in crumbling ruins now.

I feel like I could write an essay just on the Final Fantasy XIII lost plot hooks, to be entirely honest. No one is allowed much breathing space because of the demands of the plot (and weirdly, Hope gets so much of it and does so little with it, but that's a nitpick), and it's particularly prominent in the first game. I'm also not touching the melodrama of Final Fantasy IV because that's just going to be every single plot point and I don't have time to type that all up! At least it provides some fertile ground for fanfiction to explore, I suppose. (As an aside, if you do want to take any of the above and expand on it, please do and send it my way? I'd love to see these ideas given the time and attention they need, and I already have so much on my own plate!)

[matzsmith]

Some people just seem to enjoy wallowing in their own misery, it's a comfort zone they don't want to leave. It's frustrating because life's too short to be stuck in the past or refuse to see the good that's right in front of them. You can only do so much to show people the bright side of things. If they're too stubborn or wrapped up in their own negativity, there's no pulling them out until they decide to get there themselves. They forget they were once the ones defending the "new" version against the die-hard fans of the '60s, who probably said it wasn't as good as Hartnell or Pertwee's days. The 2005 revival was a massive shift for the show, and now people look back on that era like it’s the "classic" stuff, forgetting that back then, it was shaking things up just like today's episodes are. If it hadn't kept changing, we wouldn't have had half the brilliant Doctors and stories we've seen. So yeah, people who miss "old Who" should remember, they were once the fans of the "new Who" too. You're absolutely right. It's always pushed boundaries, from social issues to moral dilemmas. I think that's the magic of it, though, it tackles big, complex themes but does it in a way that's accessible to everyone, no matter their age. Some shows shy away from those deeper messages, but Who leans into them, and that's why it's stayed relevant for so long. And I agree about about it never running out of material! It's mad to think how long it's already been running, I could see it going on for generations. The regeneration aspect is pure genius, it means the show can keep evolving, bringing in new faces, new stories, new energy, and that's why it's still going strong after all these years. As an actor, you don't get that kind of freedom with many roles. You can take the Doctor in any direction because there's no set mold. It's a privilege to have been part of that legacy. Ohh, no, don't! I'm looking like a deer in the headlights on the footage. You're right, I guess being scared just means it mattered, and oh, did it matter! I think once the nerves settled, it all just clicked into place, and I started to have fun with it. By the end, I didn't want to leave. It's hard not to let it get to you at times, but I think the trick is realising that you're never going to please everyone. The ones who love you? That's your tribe. I get it's hard to switch off from it, and you end up in this constant loop of checking what people are saying or worrying about the next post. It's great for work, but definitely not the best for mental space. I'm sorry you're stuck with it. I know the feeling! It's hard to find time to just sit down with a good book. I'd say go for something that's a bit of an escape, something that'll completely pull you in. If you haven't read it already, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Or, if you're into something a bit darker and thrilling, Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn is gripping. That's just ridiculous! It's such a shame that you can't even enjoy a simple walk without feeling like you're being chased. I mean, wanting some peace and quiet shouldn't be too much to ask, right? You haven't signed away your right to privacy. You definitely didn't ask for that level of intrusion. It is! Music can completely transport you, and I love that feeling. My favorite bands are Radiohead and The Smiths, it's what I listen to when I need that comfort, you know? Anything with a solid beat gets me tapping my feet. I've got a soft spot for a lot of indie and alternative stuff too. What about you? Got any favorite artists or genres that you lose yourself in?

It took me ages to figure out the same thing, like, you can bend over backwards for people, but some just won't get you, and that's fine. Once you stop caring about random opinions, it's so freeing. I agree. I've watched something and it just felt like like it's speaking directly to me, even though the person who made it doesn't even know I exist. From what I've seen, when someone's genuinely passionate about what they're doing, it just shines through. You can always tell when someone's poured their heart into their work, and that energy is infectious. I reckon that’s what really connects people. I've had times where I've been going through something tough, and then I'll hear a song or see a scene in a film, and it just helps me make sense of things. That's why I think it's so important to do things with heart, because you never know who's going to feel that connection. if you've got an "in" with Gordon Ramsay, you've gotta use that! Red velvet cake made with his guidance? I'm already sold. I bet he's actually a right laugh when he's not shouting at someone in the kitchen. Though if he saw me attempting to bake, that'd be a disaster. Yeah, I do like a bit of risk now and then! Nothing too mad though, I'm not out here jumping off cliffs or anything (yet). But being "vanilla" isn't a bad thing either. I'm sure we could find a middle ground, though, something to nudge you out of that comfort zone without going full-on daredevil. I don't know if we're ever fully satisfied with ourselves. I reckon it's part of being human, always wanting more or thinking we could be better somehow. There's always that "what’s next?" feeling, even when we hit goals we've set. But if we were totally content, we might get a bit stuck. That said, being happy with who you are doesn't mean you stop growing, it's more like accepting yourself while still being open to change. It's healthy to want more, but it's also important not to beat yourself up for not being "perfect". I think people who are truly happy with themselves probably know they're still a work in progress, but they've made peace with that. I'll take you up on keeping that little secret! I thought I'd be fine, but the second I got into that speech, it all hit me at once. I definitely agree no one who's heard that speech has come out the other side dry-eyed, or any other Doctor's goodbye speech, for that matter. I'm sure you could talk them into making more seasons. Well, I think since most of the source material is just spread by unreliable sources, we can interpret the characters a bit differently from the way they described it in the book. In a way, that could be seen as free reign but the loyal readers do get mad from time to time about the way the writers are writing the characters. Ohh, it's entirely unfair of you to shower me with praise when I can’t even come close to your level. Thank you so much for that mood-lifting compliment, beautiful. He sounds so smart! I reckon we'd get along like a house on fire. I mean, who wouldn't want to chat with someone who's got all that wisdom? I was a brat back then, I miss being healthy and in my prime, but I don't miss what an asshole I could be sometimes. I will, no doubt! I can live with the pain, and I don't think they could do much about it. It's age taking its toll on me! It's not like they can rejuvenate me out of a sudden. Really? Look at us, landing roles without meaning to! And it's good to prove them right, and those who once doubted us, prove wrong. Yeah, and Freeman was the perfect fit for Watson! I'm glad it all turned out the way it did.

I'm sure she'd be happy to share these with anyone who comes asking, though. If she hasn't played it on most Christmas days since they exist, she hasn't played it none. We're sorting out the deal, we're not seeing each other's embarrassing videos from our childhood. Even though I can reach yours easily, I promise I won't look it up. She did give you all an audience, she'd watch anything, even if she was already old enough to watch other kind of TV. She'd probably freak out should she found out I'm talking to you now, she's already been starstruck a few times with famous people I've met these years. I haven't, but I've seen Gossip Girl so when I watched that I was like, ohh, look it's Blair. You're forgiven, though it wasn't that bad! I didn't think it was an insult to our accent or anything like that. I've done that too, on Doctor Who I had to pretend a Cyberman was in my mind, and I was fighting with myself in this scene of two Matts, well I think there were two Matts in two occasions, actually. God, this sounds so weird. It's so sweet the way you talk about your mother. We can indeed not repay our mothers for what they do for us, we'd need a million lives to do that. Sorry for scaring you! Don't worry, the forties aren’t all bad! They say you get more confident and better at dodging the things you don’t want to do, like getting out of bed. As for those heat pads and creams, I’m all for it. I don’t have a memory foam mattress yet, but if it’s as life-changing as everyone says, I might need to jump on that bandwagon. Imagine sinking into bed after a long day, sounds divine. So, just make sure to check in on me occasionally to ensure I haven’t turned into a complete couch potato. I do! I swear. It’s mad to think about the pressure of being a role model while you’re still trying to figure things out yourself. That’s a tall order! I can’t believe parents flipped out over you saying “damn.” I curse a lot, Jimmy Fallon had to remind me that in national TV I couldn't say "fucking" all the time. And it was the same when I was younger. I really respect how she's stayed true to herself through all the ups and downs. It takes guts to be unapologetically you, especially in the spotlight. Honestly, I think that's what makes her so relatable. We all have our wild side, and she just owns it! It's a massive load to carry as a kid. You're thrown into this world where expectations are sky-high, and it can really mess with your head. I can see why so many choose to step back, it's not an easy life, and a lot of people don't realize that until they're in it. I think it takes a lot of courage to recognize that it’s okay to walk away or take a breather when it gets overwhelming. Sometimes, just being a kid is the best choice. I bet it's tough to grow up in that environment, but those who make it through often come out with such a strong sense of self. You've definitely done a great job navigating it all! And that's such a crime, honestly. Ohh, but Ncuti is such a hilarious guy, I haven't had the chance to meet him in person yet but we've certainly talked! I hope you had fun at Norton with him. I always have a great fun every time he has me over. He always makes me tell my most secret stories. She was so much fun, I was happy to share the couch with her. Okay, I promise you it will.

That's just the way of the world, I'm afraid. You can't make everyone happy at the same time, unfortunately, and sadly a lot of people bask in their miserable mindset rather than try and search out for the positive things in life. It's a wonder how they ever find enjoyment in anything if they're determined to live in the past, but there's nothing we can really do in order to fix that problem. It's something they'll have to work on and the best thing we can do as individuals is encourage that. If they're too stubborn to see how exciting trying new things can be, that's on them, I'm afraid. What I don't understand about people saying they miss old Who is that they're usually speaking about the 2005 stuff, but that is new Doctor Who, no? So at some point they tuned into something new, enjoyed it and were probably frustrated at the people who watched it back in the 60's who told them it wasn't as good. The cycle is brutal, but it continues. There's nothing wrong with having a preference, but if you never try, you never really know. Right? I'm actually proud of myself for that little comparison, but shh, don't tell anyone. I'm trying to be humble out here. I can only imagine how exciting it would be to be part of such a legacy. There's something about the show that pushes boundaries, even now, the writers clearly have a certain view on the world and some people might be too afraid to express that into a 'kids' TV show, but it's important to teach those lessons early in life. It also feels like now matter how far they go, they'll never run out of material, because like you said, the show is constantly adapting. Who knows how long it's actually going to run for? All I know is that future generations are going to cling on to it as much as older ones and that's pretty magical. Having a show that transcends not only race, religion and gender but age too? That's a huge achievement and I don't think people bring that up enough. As an actor, I'm sure it's been one of the coolest things that had ever happened to you. It's wild how a show as popular as Doctor Who doesn't really rely on a single man actor, the regeneration aspect continues to allow it survive and that to me is mindblowing. Once I get back home from doing press, I'll be searching up some behind the scenes footage of you during your first day's on set as The Doctor. I'm sure it's cute, don't worry. It's only natural to be scared of something with such power behind it. You shouldn't be embrassed about that. We only fear things that matter. I'd be more concerned if you didn't care. Clearly whatever you did to calm your nerves worked, like I've said you were incredible. You run was so fun and you should be so proud of all you achieved. Yeah, but people do have this idea of your head. I've realised I'm like marmite in the sense that people either love me or despise me. Never realised how much that used to mess me up until recently. Sure, people would probably still watch or purchase but unfortunately we live in the generation of social media. People don't really watch TV much anymore, so a post on Instagram is worth my weight in gold sometimes. It's the quickest and easiest way to promote my work, but that doesn't mean it's the healthiest choice. I used to love reading, but haven't picked up a book in a hot minute. Maybe I should jump back into it. Do you have any recommendations? There was a time I used to love going out for walks, but the paparazzi don't leave me alone these days. Last time I tried, they kinda harassed me and when I asked them if they could leave me alone, they said no because I was a public figure and signed up for it. Music is a great escape though. There's nothing quite like getting lost in a body of work, transporting you to another world entirely. Looks like we so have something in common. I like that. What genre do you find yourself gravitating towards? Or do you love anything with a good beat?

There was a time years ago where I couldn't see that, it toom me a long time to come to terms with the fact I couldn't make everyone like me. I'm such a people pleaser. But, after a lot of therapy, I realised that living to please others isn't a way of life. The only people who's opinion really matters are those I care for, and realistically, would I get along with people who project such negative connotations on someone they don't know? It's hugely unlikely. I'm happy to hear you have a great support system you can fall back on, that's so important. Isn't it crazy how people can find such strong connections with a performance? That's what still gives me faith in humans. We're all connected somehow and sometimes something as simple as movie is enough to build those bridges. I do think it's important to put your heart into the work you do, it always shines through and I think people can truly tell when you're passionate about certain things. It's nice that you get to hear that quite often. Having a reach to people is a huge accomplishment and I know it probably makes your day every time you hear someone say that to you. You're so deserving of it. Oh wow, I promise I'll try my best to stay in that trust bubble you've built for me. I have an in with Gordon Rasmey, maybe he can talk me through baking the perfect red velvet cake just for you. He's actually not as scary as you'd think. No! Come one, I'm bad but I'm not that bad. You're still be alive at the end of it. You're a risk taker though? That's interesting. Tell me more about your daredevil antics. I'm afraid I'm on the more vanilla side of life, but I'm willing to bet you could turn my head. Do you think as humans we'll ever be satisfied with ourselves? I've always be curious as to if anyone is completely happy with themselves, you know? And if they are, is that healthy? Don't worry, I've got your back. Your secret will be safe with me, but I'm sure if anyone knew you cried over that speech, they wouldn't judge you for it. I'm not entirely sure anyone has heard that speech and been entirely fine afterwards. It's an emotional one, so it's bound to pull at your heart strings. When you had to perform them for the first time, I'm not surprised you shead a tear or two. Goodbyes are hard at the best of times, but with a speech like that being the conclusion, holding it together would have been impossible. Is this your sign of encouragement for me to harass the writer into creating new material so the world can be blessed with more seasons? It'll be a sweet harassment, don't worry. I think I can charm them somehow. Does that make it more exciting that you kind of have free reign with the dialogue though? Don't get me wrong, I understand that it must be a little terrifying but fun nonetheless. Matt, you're gorgeous. Anyone with a set of eyes can see that. Brunette, blonde, mohawk or silver fox, that's never going to change. People swoon over you with good reason, and I'm not even sure you're fully aware. The fact that you're charming on top of that? Entirely unfair. You must be following in your fathers footsteps already, no need to worry about that. My grandpa is a legend, he's literally the best person I know. I call him papa, and I think you'd get along really well. No matter how old he gets, I swear his thrist for life just grows stronger. He says, "youth is wasted on the young" everytime I say I'd rather chill in bed than go out. He's kinda right. Personally, I'd love to see how you acted if you were 21 again. If you decide to test that out, promise you'll invite me. Maybe you should see a chiropractor about your back ache if it's that bad. Really? That's so cool. I didn't have to audition for Only Murders for the same exact reason. It's nice when people have so much faith in you. Moffat made the tight choice. You were perfect for The Doctor. Couldn't imagine anyone else being Eleven. Sherlock's loss was Doctor Who's gain.

I don't know. I think if I lay on the charm extra thick, I might be able to make your mom like me enough that she'd dig into the archives to quench my curiosity. But, I won't ask provided you don't watch Barney. No one needs to see that. Why would I blame your sister? She's incredible for watching Disney and giving me a career. If it wasn't for people like that, my show would have been cancelled and I'd have gone back to being a nobody. Tell her I said thank you for forcing you to watch my older projects, that's so sweet. Even sweeter that you watched with her... even if I'm a little embrassed. Yeah, Monte Carlo. That was a fun movie to make and Leighton is so nice. Have you ever met her? Sorry about the poor imitation of an English accent. Can you believe I had an dialect coach for that? Yikes. I did play two characters, that was actually pretty fun. I got to be a bitch to myself, which I'm not sure a lot of people get to do. Hey, this is a judgement free zone. Lizzie shaped a generation. I can't go to Rome without thinking of the Lizzie McGuire movie. My mom is hands down my favourite person. She sacrificed so much for me, and I know I'll never be able to repay her for all that she's done, but I try. Must make getting up particular hard. I'm enjoying my thirties but now you're scaring me for the forty mark. At least I know what to get you for Christmas now. Heat pads and cream, you'll be like a brand new, shiny penny. Do you have a memory foam mattress? I'm telling you, a game changer! Seriously, you need to take care of yourself, okay? Disney was wild. It was a lot to live up to, they had this thing that we were role models for kids not taking into accounts that we were kids too. Being perfect is impossible. When I said damn, a lot of parents wrote in complaints and refused to let their kids listen to my music after that. That was my first and only real Disney scandle. Miley is truly an amazing human being. She does so much and is still exactly the same as she's always been. Not to be cheesy, but there really is no taming her. She is who she is and I respect the hell out of her for never letting anyone change her. Yeah, there's definitely a moment as a child actor where you have to question if everything is worth it. A lot of people decide that it isn't and that's fair. It's a lot to handle for anyone but especially when you're so young. How is it we both meet people that work in the same things as us, but we never get paired together? The universe is keeping us apart. I just did Graham Norton two days ago with Nucti Gatawa! The nicest person ever. Did you enjoy spending time with Vanessa? Thank you. "Matt is amazing" will be my new catch phrase, so it better be yours too.

[entitytcken-a]

WHY DID THE AUTHOR KILL YOU OFF?

Morals=Mortality

Every story has themes, with lessons within those themes. Your death was in service of one (or more) of these, your life made forfeit in favor of imparting wisdom... or what the author presented as wisdom. Were you too kind? Too trusting? Too forgiving? Did a cruel author kill you to prove that happy endings do not exist? Or were you too proud to ask for help? Too angry to let the past go? Did the author hold a mirror up to the protagonist, showing them your death where the reflection was supposed to go? On one hand, your death is pitiable, for it does not belong to you. On the other, you have been granted a gift many spend their whole lives searching for: A purpose. May you find comfort and truth within the circumstances of your demise (and may we all).

Death As Redemption

Some things cannot be forgiven. What a shame, then, that so many consider forgiveness to be the be-all, end-all of character redemptions. Or that forgiveness in itself is the redemption. Whatever sins you committed, whatever actions weigh your soul down, the author has decided that you cannot make up for it... and so they will not let you try. No, you will not even be allowed to try and put as much positivity into the world as possible (you cannot restore the balance, but surely you could do something?). Instead, there is only one thing to do: Sacrifice yourself. You'll take a bullet meant for the hero, or tackle the villain off a cliff (dooming you both), or you'll use the last of your magic to get everyone else out safely. When the heroes speak of your death, they will act as if you have undone all your wrongs, as if dying was the holiest gift you were capable of giving. I cannot help but wonder... how much more could you have done, if you had only been given the chance?

Somebody Had To Go

Sorry, kid. Really, honestly, I'm sorry. Someone had to die, for one reason or another, and you drew the short straw this time around. This wasn't a matter of surprise. No, your death wasn't meant to be a shock, wasn't meant to rattle the audience to their core. Your life was a debt, an obligation. Somebody had to go, because the story needed weight, needed sacrifice, needed the conflict to have consequences. Maybe you had the perfect balance of "emotional impact" and "lack of loose ends", or maybe the author just didn't know what else to do with you. Regardless... you deserved better. Another writer could have given you more time and a better death, if even a death at all. At least your fans will never forget- at least they will forge their own stories, tales in which you live to see another day.

Tagged by: @smalltownbcy​

Tagging: Whoever would like to steal this!

[jakesimfromstatefarm]

notoriously yours | jay park

✰ summary: jay park is a rich kid. it’s safe to say he has everything every broke college student on his campus could dream of and more. but the one thing he doesn’t have, which money definitely can’t buy, is a girlfriend. and his friends won’t see of it. literally.

so what happens when his friends bet him to date someone for more than three months? what happens when jay decides that fake-dating someone would be easier than actual dating (because god forbid Jay–the campus’ notoriously known fuckboy–decides to commit to something once in his life)?

and what happens when that someone is you, his childhood best friend he hasn’t spoken to in years..who has absolutely no interest in being in his life anymore?

✰ pairing: jay park x y/n [ft. members of enha]

✰ genre: fluff, comedy, angst | fakedating!au, college!au, childhoodbestfriends!au, (kinda) e2l!au

✰ warnings: cursing, nothing suggestive but jay's a fuckboy so slightly suggestive themes, mentions of parental neglect/leaving, it's hella long (and i thought my last fic was long)

✰ wc: 14.7k (how did i get it this long oh lord)

✰ author's note: picture creds go to original owners/editors! peep that edit of jay that lowkey inspired this entire fic 👀also this took me so, so long bc i lost motivation half way thru and bc college is a thing,,,so i honestly don't know how to feel abt it so pls bare with me :')))) ALSO the dividers are weird bc idk how to add more than 10 pics for the dividers so pls excuse those ٩(× ×)۶i hope u guys enjoy!! <333

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Jay Park is a rich kid.

Jay Park has enough to buy every textbook he needs for his courses without having to look up the free versions online. Jay Park has enough to bribe his professors to let him pass every class with a perfect 4.0 GPA (but because the boy has morals, he doesn't). Jay Park has enough to afford a car to drive to his furthest class from his dorm building instead of walk or bike like every other college student, meaning he also has enough to afford a parking spot on campus (those things aren't cheap!).

Jay Park walks around your school's campus like he owns the place (and considering the amount of money his family has donated to the school, he practically does), looking like he just walked out of your local coffee shop's newest fashion magazine. His blonde hair is never seen untouched, his attire usually consisting of an undoubtedly high-end all-black fit, accessorized with multiple earrings and rings that probably cost more than all the overpriced textbooks you had to rent out this semester. It's safe to say that everyone knows Jay Park.

Bottom line is, Jay Park has everything.

Well, his friends beg to differ.

In their eyes, Jay Park has everything but a simple factor in the equation of love (or whatever love is to the minds of a couple of 19 year olds): commitment.

So yes, it's safe to say that everyone knows Jay Park. Because everyone knows he's the campus' rich fuckboy. (What's a college fanfic campus without one anyways?)

Jay doesn't go unreminded of this by his friends, to the boy's annoyance.

Jay is aware of this on a Sunday afternoon, in his dorm building's first floor lounge, where he and his said friends are having a study session.

They're doing anything but studying.

In fact, no one has any books out or anything. Not a single laptop in site.

"You don't think it's the slightly bit concerning?" Jake's words are muffled as he continues munching on the fried chicken that he spent majority of this study session debating if he should have it delivered through UberEats or not.

"I really don't, no," Jay shrugs as he continues mindlessly scrolling through his Instagram feed. They're having the same argument conversation that they've revisited multiple times over the course of their friendship, one that Jay has been lectured on too many times for his own good. He thinks his friends could become his new parents if they really tried.

"Look at it this way, okay. You're about to graduate college in a couple of years, into the big world. Like the actual, adult world. And that means you'll have to settle down. Which you can't do when you. have. no. commitment!" Jake punctuates each word with a single clap of his hands, desperate to get his point across.

Jay simply rolls his eyes. He looks over to Sunghoon, who's minding his own business, not bothered by the same topic he's heard over and over again. His eyes tell Jay you're on your own, in response to his blonde-haired friend's look of despair.

Jay thinks that maybe he should get new friends. Yes, that's the only solution here.

"My love life," Jay reaches across the table for a drumstick from the greasy tub seated in Jake's lap until Jake swats his hand away, "is none of your business. Also, ouch."

"Uh, it kinda is. Because of you and your reputation around campus, it kinda affects us, your best friends. How do you think we look, hanging out with the guy who's known to ghost every girl in existence after one night with them? No offense to you," Jake deadpans to him. Jay mentally reconsiders the term best friends.

Tough love. Jay tells himself it's tough love.

"Yes, because every girl totally hates Jake Sim, the teacher assistant of a physics class who volunteers at the pet shelter every Sunday and brings their pet golden retriever to campus every two weeks," Jay rolls his eyes at his Australian friend.

Jake sighs. "Okay, then I'm coming from a place of worry for you."

Jay groans. "Again, none of your business!" This doesn't stop Jake. He comes from good intentions, really, but Jay wants nothing more than to stuff the kid's mouth with some of that chicken to shut him up.

"What are you gonna do if one day you meet someone you like, genuinely like, and you screw yourself over because you've never been in an actual relationship before? A real, committed one. Like one that lasts at least three months."

"You don't think I can last three months in a relationship?" Jay questions the boy currently taunting him.

"Honestly? No. What's the longest relationship you've been in?" Jake cocks an eyebrow at his friend across from him.

One month and two weeks. But Jay's smart enough to not say that out loud.

"I can so last over three months," Jay mutters more to himself than Jake.

Jake laughs at that, pausing to take another bite of the drumstick in his hand. "Jay, I am willing to actually bet you. Bet that you wouldn't be able to." He leans back on the couch, the ball now in Jay's court.

Jay freezes, looking up from his phone, narrowing his eyes at Jake.

"Forget it, Jake. He's not gonna agree even if you offered him money," Sunghoon finally perches from beside him. Well he's not wrong. It's not like Jay is exactly in need of more money, per say.

"What kind of bet are we talking here?"

Sunghoon's right. Jay doesn't need the money, but he does hate being wrong. Even if it's over something as stupid as this matter.

Caught off guard by the blonde's answer, Jake blinks blankly at him and takes a second to think.

"Hmm..what about...what about if you can date someone for at least three months, and I mean an actual, committed relationship, then I'll do all of your physics homework next semester."

Jay's eyes sparkle at that. If there's anything he despises more than commitment, it's physics.

"And if I win, you have to buy all of my textbooks," Jake sits back from the edge of his seat with a smirk lying on his face.

Jay pauses to think about it. I mean, what does he have to lose? A couple hundred dollars over college textbooks? No. Because he just simply won't lose.

And maybe he'll learn what it'll be like to actually be in a committed relationship for once. Maybe he'll finally learn what it's like to actually devote yourself to someone, open up to them. He shivers at the thought. Never mind. He'll warm up to it. Baby steps.

Nonetheless, what could go wrong? Even if he does lose, at least his money would be going somewhere productive––towards his friend's education. Jay was probably gonna use that money on something useless like a blanket that resembles a tortilla (a burrito blanket, he calls it)––something he doesn't necessarily need, but must have, he would argue.

"Fine. Whatever, okay. Deal," he grabs Jake's extended hand in front of him and shakes on it.

Jake's impressively smiling at the boy as Sunghoon lets out a sigh, in disbelief with the two guys he calls his best friends.

Jay concludes that this will be easier than his Introduction to Photography 101 course he took his freshman year. How hard is it to find someone to date the Jay Park? Surely, everyone will be lining up once Jay switches his FaceBook relationship status from "it's complicated" to "single".

Turns out, it's not as easy as his class where all Jay had to do was take pictures of a pretty sunset, slap a VSCO filter on, and call it a day.

He comes to this realization on a Wednesday evening, as he's seated at one of the many study tables lined in the middle of the campus' library, staring down at his phone's dry iMessage app, with his laptop and blank sheets of scratch paper scrambled across the entire table, as an attempt to look half as studious as the other students studying in the facility.

Turns out, being known as the campus' fuckboy who ghosts every girl on campus isn't a good thing when it comes to wanting to find a real relationship.

He comes to this realization after failing to receive a single text back to the many ones he sent out throughout the first half of his day. The ghoster gets ghosted. Oh how the turn tables.

Jay groans dramatically as he tosses his phone on the hard surface of the table, earning himself a harsh shush from the librarian filing books in the aisle beside him.

He sheepishly smiles back as an apology, directing his attention back to his open laptop screen, where his untouched calculus homework stares back at him––his mind preoccupied with the looming threat of Jake's bet. Not that it was threatening in any way, per say, but Jay just hates losing. And from the looks of things, it's safe to say that Jay won't be celebrating any victories anytime soon.

Jay thinks he should just change his identity and just transfer to some boarding school in Switzerland. Yes, that's a much better solution than admitting defeat to Jake.

Jay sighs as he lies his head on the table, figuring he might as well just write the check for Jake's textbooks now. He wonders how he got here in the first place. Not how he got into the bet, and definitely not how he's sitting in the middle of the library, having yet to start his calculus homework due at 11:59PM tonight (he should really start that).

But no, he wonders how he gained the reputation as the campus' playboy. To be fair, his friends (mainly Jake), are constantly reminding him of his notorious habits. But how did they come a habit in the first place?

The idea of being in a relationship is nice, sure, but the commitment that comes with it? The idea of being dependent on someone? It's scary, vulnerable, and one that Jay can't picture for himself.

Maybe some people just aren't meant to be paired. Maybe some people, like Jay, like being independent and are meant to stay that way.

But Jay also likes affection. He likes the fleeting, warm feeling he gets every time he finds himself under someone's sheets. He likes the short-lived comfort he receives from someone else's touch, even though he knows it's going to cease to exist the second he steps out of those bedroom's doors. He just likes affection, simple as that.

That and he's a 19 year old teenage boy with needs, what did you expect?

And so what if he likes the idea of affection minus commitment? Is that so bad? Apparently it is, to people like his friends and the entirety of his school's campus, at least.

At this rate, he might as well pay someone to date him.

Wait. Jay lifts his head off the table's surface in realization.

He might as well pay someone to date him.

There's no harm in that, is there?

He wouldn't have to endure through an endless amount of dates to find someone he clicks with, then continue going on dates with said clicked person, all while trying to develop an actual, serious relationship.

He'll win the bet, get his physics homework done for an entire semester, and some lucky girl out there will be making profit for the small price of hanging out with Jay Park for three months.

And lucky for him, Jay knows the perfect candidate for this scheme.

Simple as that.

Just as long as said perfect candidate says yes.

And as long as Jake and Sunghoon don't find out. Or else Jay might really have to move to Switzerland after all.

You love your friends, you do.

Hana and Heeseung have been there for you when others haven't––they were by your side when you knew no one entering high school, and they were still by your side when you were all graduating said high school. Needless to say, you're eternally grateful for friends like them.

But right now, in this moment––with you seated in the middle of the campus' library, trying to write your essay, as your two friends blabber on and on about the most recent gossip across from you––your two friends could be your villain origin story.

But again, you love your friends, you do. So you don't have the heart to tell them to leave. You've managed to naturally tune out most of the conversation, anyways, for this––your friends coming to hang out while you're trying to study––is no rare occurrence by any means.

"Oh yeah, Jay Park texted me last night."

You hate how your brain's filter suddenly turns off at Hana's words.

You hate how your ears catch the sudden mention of Jay Park's name.

You hate how the thought of Jay Park gets to even occupy a single brain cell of yours.

You hate how you even know who Jay Park is. Well, knew.

Past tense. Because up until eighth grade––when Jay decided to just suddenly pretend you didn't exist––he was attached to you like a koala to a eucalyptus tree.

And if you had asked past Y/N, ideally, Jay would've never left your side. Ideally, he would've never left you to fend for yourself when entering high school. Ideally, he would've stayed your best friend through out all four years of high school and ideally, you would've eventually told him how you really felt about him after growing up with him all your life. And maybe it would've lead to a completely different story. But for the sake of this fic, we don't live in an ideal world.

So yes, if it wasn't for his attendance at the very same university as you, you would've forgotten about the boy who brought you the painful memories of your childhood.

And since the universe clearly doesn't work in your favor, avoiding Jay Park's existence like he's the plague would have to suffice. And it works.

For the most part.

Until some people, bring him up uninvited into your conversation. Like now, for example.

"When was the last time you guys talked anyways?" Heeseung mindlessly asks as he reaches across the table to grab one of the many snacks you usually bring to your study sessions.

"Uh..like a few weeks ago. Give or take. Whenever you threw your house party. Can't say there was much talking involved however," she teasingly says with a giggle and wiggle of her brows.

Heeseung's rolling his eyes as you scoff and chuck a nearby crumpled piece of paper that was once one of your many essay drafts at her.

She bats it away right as it's about to hit her face as she laughs. "Doesn't matter anyways. He ghosted me the next morning, as he does with everyone else. Telling you this now," she extends a finger right at you, "stay away from Jay Park. That kid's just bad news."

You nod in response, mentally telling her she has nothing to worry about.

Been there, done that.

College. Ah yes, the very concept of spending four years of your life imprisoned on a campus where you'll be tearing your hair out from stress and spending all your life's savings just for a laminated sheet of paper with a golden stamp at the end of it all. We live in a society.

Because of said college, and all the weight that comes along with it, you had adapted a strict daily schedule in order to not completely lose your mind. It's a simple schedule really, one of a typical college student who's just trying to get by everyday with as little mental breakdowns as possible.

Wake up, get ready, go to class, go to the library to do your homework, walk all the way across campus to get back to your dorm, shower, then sleep. Oh and eat, of course. And maybe if time permits, be an actual social being and socialize.

It's gotten you this far into the college life without dropping out so, you conclude, you must be doing something right.

Sometimes, if you're feeling nice to yourself, you'll tweak the schedule a bit to fit in some exceptions. Maybe squeeze in a little trip to the bubble tea shop that's on the other side of campus, or maybe get dinner at that one dining hall that you don't usually go to because of the unncessarily long lines (but because they serve ice cream, you go anyways). It doesn't matter what the exception is, you still plan it out to fit into your schedule somehow. Everything is planned out.

Sometimes, however, the universe disagrees with your schedule, to your demise. Such as today, for example.

Because what you didn't expect for today was for a particular blonde-haired boy who you haven't spoken to in almost six years (but who's counting?) to approach your table in the library––a table you were sure no one could find you at, as it was quietly tucked away in the back corner, right next to the Astrophysics shelves. Because who browses the Astrophysics aisle for fun? Actually, maybe Jake Sim would. Anyways.

You definitely didn't anticipate a visit from the boy you've been actively avoiding, so you definitely didn't expect the first words coming out of his mouth when he sees you for the first time in six years to be:

"Fake date me."

You blink up at him.

Yeah, definitely not expected.

But you only let it phase you for a split second, until you feel a slight annoyance beginning to bubble up deep inside of you.

"Wow, hello to you too Jay! It's been what––half a decade? Yeah I've been pretty good, thanks for asking!" The sarcasm is practically dripping off your tongue.

You don't know what runs through Jay's mind, but apparently it isn't common sense––or the ability to read the room. Because next thing you know, he's sliding the chair across from you out from underneath the table and making himself at home.

And he's smiling right at you.

Curse him and his smile.

But no, you're not giving into it.

Not yet, at least.

"What do you want?" You deadpan at him when he makes no sign of making the next move.

"A girlfriend," he deadpans right back at you, as if he was casually telling you what he wanted for dinner. As if you two were close-knit friends that could approach one another without any proper greeting. As if you two had kept your friendship all these years. As if you two even had a role in each other's lives.

"Can't help you there," you scoff, deciding to not even question his lack of manners on top of his uninvited presence.

"Aren't you gonna ask me why?"

"Well gee, seeing that the first few words you decided to say to my face for the first time in forever were a demand, a demand to date you no less, then....no," your monotone voice says as you keep your eyes focused on your laptop screen, not daring to look at the boy across from you.

In the Introduction to Sociology course you took your freshmen year, you had learned of one important term: interactional vandalism. Textbook definition being: "ignoring signals of disinterest in a conversation, leading it to an offense."

Your definition being: "are you oblivious or just plan dumb, read the room!"

This was interactional vandalism, alright. Whether Jay's truly oblivious or just trying to annoy you until your head explodes (it's really the former, but you're convinced it's the latter), he takes your signals of disinterest and tosses it right out of his head to continue the conversation.

"I'm stuck in this stupid bet with Jake--do you remember him? He bet me that I couldn't date someone for more than three months and I figured having someone fake date me would be easier than actually dating someone, right? That's where you come into the equation," he proposes as he leans back in his chair, as if he had just finished a sales pitch to a prospective customer looking to buy a car.

You couldn't believe this. You're 98% sure this has got to be a prank. You're mentally preparing for a camera crew to jump out from in-between the library's aisles any moment now and scream into your ears that you've just been punk'd!

The remaining 2% of you, however, wouldn't put it past the two boys to get themselves in such a situation. The last memory you had of Jay and his friends were pretty much their childish selves back in middle school. And by looking at the current scene unfolding in front of you...it's needless to say they haven't changed much.

"Again, can't help you there. Ask one of the many girlfriends I thought you had." Ouch.

"But Y/N, you've known me all your life--"

"Up until you dropped me a few years ago but sure, let's call it that."

"--and convincing other people is gonna make me look--"

"--desperate? Yeah."

"C'mon, Y/N. What do you have to lose anyways?"

"Uh..my dignity? Pride? Self-respect? Sorry Jay, not happening," you turn your attention back to your unwritten essay in front of you, mentally checking out of this conversation. This would be a good time for that camera crew to jump out now.

"Look, no one else is gonna do it, Y/N." Jay has always been stubborn, you suppose. But so are you.

"Yeah, because you've managed to push every being of the opposite gender away from you. You gave yourself this reputation in the first place," you give it to him straight. It's not like you had a relationship with him to uphold anyways––Jay himself broke that friendship years ago.

Jay hates that you're right.

You're always right. He remembers how he used to always go to you for advice and clarity on the world's biggest problems. Granted, the world's biggest problems to him at the time equated to what he should dress up as for the fifth grade Halloween party, but still. A tough decision, for the mind of a ten-year-old.

You abruptly stop typing and begin putting your laptop and textbooks away as you huff in frustration. There's no point in trying to get your work done now. The longer you stay arguing with Jay, the bigger your headache gets. The longer he continues to occupy any part of your brain, the bigger your headache gets.

Getting up from your seat, packed and ready to slam your head into your pillow, you turn to the blonde one last time.

"Look Jay. We went on our separate ways years ago. If you weren't so notoriously known around campus and my friends would stop talking about you, I would've long forgotten you. I'm sorry you're in this situation, really. If I were you, I'd just tell Jake I can't do it. Or don't, I can't tell you what to do. Just don't get some innocent girl involved in whatever stunt of yours this is."

Jay stares at you, mouth agape, as you find your way out of the library and through the main doors. By the time he comes back to his senses, he realizes how he looks plain stupid––standing in the middle of the library, the look on his face screaming befuddlement, to say the least. Jay quickly makes his way out of the building, in hopes of convincing you one last time.

Jay catches sight of your figure already half-way down the walkway that connects the library to the main quad of your school's campus. Geez, you walk fast.

Not fast enough to outrun Jay's legs, however. If Jay running after you through the middle of campus in order to convince you to fake date him doesn't show how desperate he is to win this bet, I don't know what will.

"Wait, Y/N!"

You groan to yourself before turning to face the boy who can't seem to take a hint and leave you alone. You stare at his out-of-breath state as he heaves up and down from the slight jog he had to endure to get to where you are. If you're humored by him chasing after you, you do a good job of hiding it.

He meets your unimpressed state before stating his final proposition: "I'll pay you. Five hundred dollars."

You nearly stop breathing.

Now this catches your attention––after all, you're but a broke college student who's just trying to survive. And preferably not by feeding yourself instant ramen cups every night.

And so, naturally, you begin rethinking about the opportunity presented in front of you. You narrow your eyes at the boy as you weigh your options.

The first problem being, it's Jay Park––the bane of your very existence. You spent the last few years of your life pretending he didn't exist...for good reason. Not only did he do you dirty when you were merely a couple of 13-year-olds, but you just didn't want to be involved with someone like him. Someone known for his nature, someone who left your own current best friend ghosted. And not that Hana herself would care, for she has called herself the "female Jay Park", but you're sure this would be breaking some rule in the girl code handbook. Plus, if you agree to this, you'd be betraying 13-year-old Y/N, the one who decided to never speak to nor think of Jay Park again––which by now you've failed, but you get the gist.

Second problem being, three months is a long time. Three months is practically the rest of this semester, and did you really want to spend the rest of the semester tied down to the label of being Jay Park's girlfriend? There would have to be some negative connotations that came along with that title, right? No offense to Jay, but being his first girlfriend since, what, high school could make you come off as..naive, for lack of a better term. As if the only person you could settle for was Jay Park. As if you barely had any standards for yourself. Again, no offense to Jay.

Needless to say, if your school's debate club had to argue on why you shouldn't be doing this, you're sure the negating side could win with these two reasons alone.

But before you're rejecting the boy currently standing in front of you one last time, you find yourself mentally listing rebuttals.

First of all, you'd be getting paid. And again, you're merely but a college student living the stereotypical broke college student life––burdened by the costs of tuition, textbooks, and midnight McDonalds runs for when you're out of aforementioned instant ramen cups. Five hundred dollars could provide you with more than enough chicken McNuggets to last you the semester, and maybe some more to treat yourself to an online shopping spree.

Second of all, it's not like you were going to do anything better with your next three months anyways. It's safe to say you were too busy being a diligent student to actually look for anyone to date, per say. And if anything, having a fake boyfriend might actually be helpful in your case. Your mom would be off your ass about how you're still single, for one. And two, your friends (though it's really just Heeseung) would stop trying to hook you up on blind dates with guys that you would choose Jay Park over any day (and that really says something).

Third of all, it's Jay Park. As much as you despise the kid, you still know him. He's not a complete stranger to you, no matter how much you try to deny it. It could be worse, it could be a complete rando asking you to date him. At least you two have some sort of history, which would take care of the typical small talk and getting to know each other bit of this equation. And truth be told, you'd be lying to yourself if you said you weren't a tad bit satisfied by the fact that Jay chose you, of all people, to pull off this stunt with him. You don't know if it's the nostalgia of your childhood memories rushing back to you, but it reminds you of the endless schemes you two used to plan behind your parents' backs all the time. Granted, your childhood schemes––such as the both of you faking sickness so you could skip school together––don't even fall close to being in a fake relationship with one another, but still. It's the thought that counts.

All of those reasons plus, Jay isn't the worst to look at. He may have a spoiled reputation, but at least he has his looks going for him, you'll give him that (you're still secretly wondering when and how did he get his glow up, but don't tell him that).

And so by the guidelines of a college student's logic that states the pros outweigh the cons, you come to the overarching conclusion that maybe, this won't be so awful after all.

"Five hundred?" You ask, just for clarification. Jay's immediately nodding at your words. You continue to ponder on your thoughts as he stares at you hopefully.

The silent atmosphere of your campus heightens the tension so much, you swear you're in one of those overdramatic pausing scenes that occur too many times in k-dramas.

You sigh, then nod.

"Okay," you're internally praying that you won't regret this decision. "I'm in."

The next time you see Jay is at 12:17PM on a Friday afternoon, as you're exiting the doors of the lecture building that's home to your awfully long Capitalism in the Western World class.

You're going down the steps of the building, mentally deciding where and what you're going to treat yourself to for lunch––as the three hour lecture you had just attended drained all the life and energy out of you––when you hear the slight call of your name.

Turning to the source, you're met with a waving Jay, leaning against the passenger's side of his car, parked in front of the lecture hall building you were currently leaving.

Great.

You walk over to where he's casually waiting––he's unaware of all the stares he's attracted from fellow students leaving the same lecture as you. Can you blame them? It's not everyday you see a sleek, black BMW that probably cost more than your tuition pull up in front of your Friday afternoon lecture. It's not everyday you see Jay Park waiting for anyone outside of his said sleek, black BMW that probably cost more than your tuition.

"Hi," you simply let out as you plant yourself in front of him, not sure whether or not to question him why are you here? Surely, he wasn't waiting for you?

"Hi," he smiles down at you. There's a beat of silence. "I was waiting for you."

Bingo.

"Oh. What are you, my chauffeur?" You raise an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"Maybe. I am your boyfriend, after all," he says into the air, loud and clear, as if he wanted people to hear. Well that is the point, you suppose.

But still, all you want to do is smack the smirk right off his face.

Before you have time to put your next question into words, he answers it for you.

"I'm taking you out for lunch," he declares as if you have nothing else planned for the day. Well, to be fair, you didn't have anything else planned for the day. Except for your usual library run. But you figure the library could wait.

"Oh, like on a date?" You raise your eyebrows teasingly at him as you get into the car, Jay holding the door wide open for you. "Is Jay Park treating me to lunch as a date?"

Jay fights the scowl (or is that a smile?) growing on his face as he bends down to meet your eye level from inside the car. "Don't flatter yourself, princess. We've got fake lives to live."

"Call me princess one more time and you won't have a real life to live," you flash him a sarcastic smile and slam the door in his face.

Jay meets his own shocked reflection on the passenger's side window.

Cute.

"When you said you were taking me out to lunch, I expected like...I don't know...the diner on campus. Not whatever this is," you mutter to Jay as the two of you are brought to your table by a waitress at an upscale sushi restaurant, one that is undoubtedly out of your usual budget, but for sure an upgrade from your dining hall's pizza you were planning to have. You should've figured as much, the drive here was a little more than out of the way from campus, and who are you kidding, it's Jay Park you're eating with.

You stare down at your current outfit, which consisted of a hoodie you've owned since your junior year of high school and leggings that you threw on without second thought this morning––because you didn't exactly wake up and decide I'm going to go to a fancy sushi bar for lunch today!

"Why are we here anyways?" You ask him when you're both settled in your seats and the waitress walks away after listing the chef's specials for the day.

"Oh, they have killer dragon rolls here, you have to try it," Jay tells you nonchalantly as his eyes rake the menu in front of him, blocking your view of him.

How dense can one be? Your hand snatches his menu as you stare into his unamused eyes.

"No, Jay. I mean, why are we here? It's not like anyone's around to see us put on a show anyways."

"Oh. I figured," Jay's quick to grab the menu back from out of your hands as he continues, "that we should sit down and establish how exactly we're going to deliver this performance. After all, you're stuck with me for the next three months."

Again, smacking the smirk currently resting on his face would satisfy you beyond relief. Just once.

"If I drop out halfway through, do I still get $250?" You tease, leaning back.

"Ha ha. Funny. No," he narrows his eyes at you from across the table. "It's all or nothing."

You dramatically huff to make a show just for his annoyance.

"Worth a try. But sure, let's solidify this. What's the game plan?" You sit up in your seat, leaning over the table as if the two of you were hosting a secret meeting.

"It's simple really," Jay mirrors your actions, face leaning in close to where yours is hovering over the table. "Just pretend to be deeply in love with me for three months, and try not to actually be charmed by my cunning looks."

If someone gave you five dollars for every time you've already rolled your eyes at him today, you wouldn't even need to be in this deal for the five hundred dollars.

"Wow, smooth. Can I just remind you you're the one paying a girl to be in a fake relationship with you because you're just not competent enough to find an actual girlfriend?" You lean back, arms crossing over your figure.

Jay, unfazed, laughs, tongue briefly hitting the inside of his cheek. "Touché."

Your eyes go back to the menu in front of you as a silence falls over the table. Because you're not a loaded trust fund baby who comes to fancy five-star sushi restaurants for lunch on a daily, you don't recognize half of the entree names on the menu. You spot the dragon roll Jay suggested, but seeing that a basic California roll is less expensive, your natural broke-college-student-instincts figure the California roll shall do.

"Okay, in all seriousness," Jay begins as he puts his menu down. "It's simple really. We'll just go on weekly dates and post cute pictures of each other once in a while and a little after three months, I'll just say it didn't work out. I'll give you the five hundo and boom, we move on with our lives."

It's clear Jay's put some thought into this. Safe to say he's put more effort planning this out than the amount of work he's been putting into his classes. Someone's got their priorities straight.

You're impressed to say the least––you figured Jay would just be the kind to go with the flow and wait for the situation to unfold on its own and maybe blow up into flames. But seeing as he was just as serious about winning this bet as you were with making five hundred dollars, your doubts about this entire situation were slowly withering away.

Don't get it wrong, though, you still despise him. To an extent, at least.

"And don't worry about the dates. I'll pay on your behalf, as the loving, doting boyfriend I am," Jay finishes with a wide, cheesy smile you can't help but return a growing smile back at.

"Well then, as the loving, doting girlfriend I am, I shall gift you coffee, breakfast, all that fun couple stuff, whenever you please. Or maybe unannounced, if I'm feeling nice," you figure you should pitch in as much if he's paying for all your dates. And deep down, you find the idea kinda cute. But don't tell anyone that.

"Wow, look at us. We should become Dispatch's couple of the year already!" Jay exclaims, earning himself a small giggle from you, which pleases him to say the least. He thinks that maybe when this is all over, he'll hopefully make a good friend (well, for the second time) out of it.

And you're thinking that maybe the next three months won't be as bad as you initially had thought.

As the two of you delve deep into a debate about who would be the better significant other to each other, the waitress comes over to take your orders.

And because you're laughing and Jay's brightly smiling at you from across the table, you order the dragon roll.

The second time Jay takes you out––this time he gives you a heads up to get ready––it's at a, once again, high-class steakhouse.

The third time, you insist on the on-campus diner that's popular amongst the student population. Partially because you feel bad for the amount of money he's spent on you (even though he couldn't care less), but mostly because if you have to put on another fancy dress to just eat an overpriced meal that doesn't even fully satisfy your hunger, you might lose your mind.

And by this third time, Jake is aware of this newly blossomed relationship.

"Three dates! I didn't know you had it in you, going on three dates with the same girl!" Jake excitedly exclaims as he jumps into the empty spot on Jay's dorm bed and shoves his phone's screen into Jay's face.

The smaller screen displays Jay's most recent Instagram post: an image of you sitting behind your too-small-to-be-this-expensive-steak and smiling right into Jay's camera––a memory that brings a smile to his face:

~ ~ ~

"C'mon! We said Instagram posts would be a part of the deal! How else can we convince people we're dating?" A pout rests on Jay's face as he stares at you from across the table in the middle of the extravagantly decorated restaurant he picked out for your second date. You remember your eyes bulging out of their own sockets when you saw the "$$$$$" rating Yelp gave the place when you searched it up earlier.

"Okay, okay! One picture," you give in, already slightly annoyed that you were here instead of the comfort of your own bed, where you could be rewatching your favorite Netflix show for the third time. But because you made a deal and because you're desperate for money, you had to follow through––so here you were.

You flash an unconvincing smile to Jay's camera, which doesn't satisfy him, to say the least. "At least pretend you're somewhat enjoying this date," he frowns at you.

You sigh, until a thought crosses your mind and a smile grows on your face. "Only if you get me boba afterwards."

He narrows his eyes at you, but then meets your smile. "Sure, whatever you want. But only because I've been craving some mango milk tea lately."

"You're a fruit milk tea kind of guy? Sorry, but I might have to fake break-up with you," you tease as you take a sip of your overpriced drink to go with your overpriced meal.

Jay scoffs, feigning hurt by placing his hand over his heart. "Ouch. But before you break up with me, let me get this Instagram post in."

"Wow. Your priorities are so straight," you roll your eyes at him, eliciting a cheeky smile from him as he watches you through his held up phone screen.

"3,2,1."

"Hey, I wasn't ready! That was like mid-laugh!" You reach over the table to grab the phone, but not quick enough for him to put his phone back into his pants' pocket.

"Nope, nuh uh," he laughs as you quickly sit back down into your seat, not wanting to cause a scene in an establishment as proper as this one.

"It's fine. It's a good picture, you look cute," he casually lets out, unaware of the blush rising to the surface of your cheeks, thanks to the fact that you were suddenly interested in playing with the left-over food on your plate.

"Jay! Delete it, I'll let you take another one," you whine from your seat, imagining just how bad a candid picture of you could be.

"Ugh, fine. Ever so picky." He playfully rolls his eyes at you as he takes his phone out and opens the camera app as you prepare yourself.

"Okay, how's this?" Jay turns the phone screen to you after he takes a few snaps on his phone.

"I approve," you grin at him as he goes through the pictures himself, unaware of the smile growing on his face.

"Okay now delete the first one," you point your finger at him, narrowing your eyes at him.

"Okay, okay! Bossy," he laughs as he raises in hands in surrender.

When Jay gets home that night, he recovers the image from his Recently Deleted folder, telling himself it's for the sake of the memory.

Obviously.

~ ~ ~

"It's not that big of a deal," Jay mutters from his spot as his eyes go from the Instagram post to his Exile and Belonging in Modern Literature reading that's due tomorrow, bright yellow highlighter in hand. Typically, you'd find the reading buried deep at the bottom of his school backpack. But because Jay ran into you this morning and because he complained to you about the amount of work he's fallen behind on and because you had threatened him to do his work or else you're not going on another date––a fake date that is––with him, he figured he should at least get one reading done and annotated, despite his strong dislike for highlighters (they hurt his eyes, okay?)

What he doesn't know, however, is how your threat was completely full of bluff––but don't tell him that.

"It is so a big deal, for you at least!" Jake hops off the bed and lands on the wooden floors of Jay's dorm room so hard, Jay winces and sends a mental apology to the poor person who lives below him.

Jake suddenly gasps. "I have to meet her, Jay! As your best friend, it's practically mandatory that I meet her."

Jay opens his mouth to protest, but not before Jake interrupts him once again. "Oh! We can bring Sunghoon too, it'll be so fun! The best friends meet the girlfriend."

Jay can't think of anything worst. Jay imagines that bringing you to meet his best friends would just intimidate you out of dating him––fake dating him, that is. Obviously.

He stares at his friend in agony then back at the reading in front of him––the one Jake said he'd come over to help annotate, but the intention completely left Jake's head the second he heard about Jay's recent dating life.

"You don't have to meet her," Jay says pointedly. "Plus, you already know her."

Jake frowns at his friend's excuse. "Yeah, but that was in middle school! This is different."

Jay's hands shuffle through the reading's pages in front of him as he realizes there's no way the two of them are going to finish the assignment at this point. He supposes he'll have to save death by blindness from highlighters for another day and hope you still agree to go out with him.

Jake suddenly gasps in realization.

"Oh my gosh! Childhood best friends turned college sweethearts," Jake says so dreamily, he might as well plaster heart eyes on. Hopeless romantic, this one.

Before Jay can argue, the piercing sound of three loud knocks echo through the small room, followed with a:

"Jay, are you in? It's me!"

Jay stills at the sound of your sweet voice. He whips his head to Jake, who is also frozen in place.

But the widened-eye boy is quick to come to his senses––unfortunately quicker than Jay himself––because the next thing Jay knows, Jake's eyes are lighting up and he's running to the door, ignoring Jay's screaming whispers through this seething teeth that were somewhere along the lines of Jake––stop, I swear to god if you open that door I'm gonna fucking--

"Y/N!" Jake swings the door wide open, revealing an overly excited him and a frozen Jay half-way to the door, as if he was about to grab the very boy welcoming you in. It's as if we're living in a Sims game and the player clicked pause on this very moment.

Jake's eyes are wildly going back and forth between you and your supposed boyfriend, as if he was waiting for Jay to run over and smother you in hugs and kisses...or something couple-y like that. Jay wouldn't know.

"Uh––hi," you're awkwardly standing inside the room now, a relatively large paper brown bag resting in your palms as you look around for a surface to place it on. Jay makes his way to you without a second thought, quickly taking the bag out of your hold.

"You seemed stressed out earlier, so I figured I could bring you some food as a little pick me up. I didn't know what you liked, so I kinda just got a little of everything from the dining hall. Nothing fancy," you're rambling, but smiling so excitedly at him, Jay doesn't know what to say.

Instead, his mouth slightly drops open as he stares at you in awe, mostly because he's not used to being on the receiving end of such spontaneously generous actions––all while Jake's still excitedly looking back and forth between the two of you, as if he was expecting a marriage proposal to come next.

"Oh wow. Thank you. Really," Jay, still touched by your simple act of kindness, softly says as he places the bag on the limited amount of empty space on his desk surface––the rest of it is covered with his untouched textbooks and unfinished assignments. He wonders if you did this out of playing your role or just because you wanted to. He internally hopes it's the latter. "Seriously, you didn't have to do."

"Nah, don't worry. I wanted to," you shrug with such a genuine smile that Jay realizes he actually missed your smile.

Despite having seen you during your brief run-in this morning when you were fetching your morning coffee, Jay realizes he missed you. The two of you haven't been seeing each other recently because of your busy schedule and if Jay didn't realize it before, he's now sure he missed your company and presence around.

Weird.

"Well, you two have fun! Sunghoon needs me for something," Jake suddenly chirps from his place near the front door, halfway through with putting his shoes on already, breaking the comforting silence that fell between the two of you.

Jay frowns. "But you said you were free all da––"

"SUNGHOON IS CALLING BYE!" And before Jay can even register what's happening, Jake's out the door without another word.

"Er..sorry about him, he's...weird," Jay scratches the back of his neck as he returns to his spot on his bed, mentally setting a reminder to yell at Jake later for leaving the two of you alone. Jay doesn't know exactly why, but he's nervous at the fact that you're here in his room. It's not like you two are complete strangers––or whatever you guys were before––anymore. "Good job on your part, though. How'd you know Jake was here?"

"Oh uh, I didn't"," you let out an awkward laugh. "I just felt like doing it."

Heat rushes to Jay's cheeks and he's not sure 1) what this newfound feeling is and 2) how to respond, yet again.

Having expecting you to leave after dropping the food off, Jay's taken by surprise when you take your shoes off and come over to his bed to look at the pile of work he's spread out.

"Is this everything you have to do?" You question the stressed-out boy as you flip through the various assignments, readings, and essays he put off in the past week.

"More or less," he groans. This is no rare occurrence by any means––Jay being behind in his work––but this time, Jay realizes he may actually be in deep shit, considering he has no idea where to begin.

Right as Jay's expecting a scolding from you, he looks up to meet a look of sympathy on your face. "Well, I mean, I'm pretty much done with my day. I can try to help, I recognize some of these readings from last semester."

Jay thinks to himself that the universe has sent him an angel through the form of you.

"Really? Wow, you were't kidding when you said you'd be a good girlfriend," he sends you a surprised look.

"I'm just being nice, Jay. A concept I'm sure you're not familiar with," you remark back at him, causing his forming smile to grow into a laugh.

"I can too be nice! Need I remind you of who's paying you $500, covering all of our dates AND giving you rides to class everyday?" He remarks pointedly at you, a teasing look resting in his eyes as you're reminded of the first of many times he's come to pick you up before class:

~ ~ ~

You're late.

This never happens.

But then again, your life's been a series of unexpected occurrences lately. Such as the fact that you're currently known as Jay Park's girlfriend, for one.

You're scrambling out of bed once you take one look at your phone and realize shit, you're already late for class. Throwing on whatever articles of clothing your eyes land on first, you're already mentally groaning at the fact that you'll have to skip breakfast and run across your campus to get to said class.

Curse your professor for hosting her lecture at the furthest possible building away from your dorm. Curse the architect who decided to make your campus so large.

You're running down the steps outside of your dorm building's doors when you're abruptly stopped by a familiar sounding cough. You look up from trying to gather all your belongings together at once to meet the gaze of the source of the sound––Jay.

"Wow, you're a mess," he smirks as he gets up from the spot on his car he was leaning against to make his way over to you.

"Gee, thanks! Good morning to you too," you flash him a sarcastic smile before your default frown quickly makes it way back onto your face.

"Aren't you gonna ask me why I'm here?" He grins as he grabs hold of your backpack to sling it across his own back as the two of you walk towards his car.

"Why are you here, Jay?" you sigh, your sarcastic tone hard to miss.

"To give you a ride to class, of course!" He's beaming at you, as if he's a pre-pubescent teen who just won their first girlfriend a prize from the arcade's claw machine.

Oh. That explains the car, you figure. Deep down inside, you're relieved that you'll no longer be bursting through the lecture hall's doors as a sweaty mess––a result of having to run across campus to get to class.

Determined to not let your satisfaction completely show, you resort with a little smile directed towards Jay as he opens the passenger door for you.

The second your enter Jay's car, the strong scent of coffee hits you, and your attention is targeted at the two small cups of coffee sitting in the cupholders of the car.

"Breakfast?" Jay asks as he enters through the driver's side and reaches into the backseat to whip out a small pastry bag. A small, deliciously smelling, pastry bag.

Okay, well. You suppose you could drop the annoyed act now.

Your eyes widen with joy as you grab the bag from him and open it to reveal your favorite breakfast sandwich. He's been taking notes, you'll give him that point.

"Okay, you win. Thank you," you grace him with a soft smile before taking a bite into the glorious gift in your hands.

"Of course, I was just feeling nice," he grins at you as he starts his car. "But don't get used to it." His tone is serious, but his smile directed towards you says differently.

And the fact that he still showed up to drive you to class the next morning.

And the next.

~ ~ ~

"And need I remind you who has to date your dumb ass for the $500 in question?" Your eyes narrow at the boy who can't seem to get that damn smile off his face.

Jay sticks his tongue out at you, ending the conversation. Really Jay? What are you, five? Well, mentally––probably.

You're looking around his minuscule dorm room for a place to sit down, and Jay can't help but feel embarrassed now that you're here, in his messy single studio room that pretty much reflects how Jay treats every other responsibility of his oh so hard life: neglected.

"Uh...here, you can sit on my bed," Jay immediately offers as he moves to the side to make room for your presence––and it isn't much, considering the university only provided him a twin XL bed which is definitely not built for two grown college-aged kids.

If you told yourself a few weeks ago that you'd be shoulder to shoulder on a bed belonging to the guy you cringed at the very thought of, you wouldn't have believed yourself. You wouldn't have believed yourself if you said you were actually glad Jay let you stay instead of kicking you out after delivering the food. Huh.

Weird.

"You know, this kinda reminds me of when we were kids. I always carried us through those horrible multiplication tests in the fifth grade," you wink at him as you settle in the spot next to him, hands grabbing hold of the papers in his lap.

Jay let out a laugh, nudging your shoulder with his. "Hey! The twelve times table is hard, okay?"

You roll your eyes at him––a habit of yours he's noticed whenever the two of you are together, but more recently, he thinks it's been more out of fun than annoyance.

He wonders why.

When Jay had first brought up the idea of bringing you as his date to his father's company dinner, you had expected a fairly fancy five-star restaurant with a formal dress code––for you've become accustomed to Jay's lifestyle. Turns out, your expectations can continue to be exceeded. Because what you had expected to be a simple dinner with a few other business men and women turned out to be an entire party, hosted in a hotel whose interior resembled something close to a castle (Or what you assume a castle looks like, as you've never personally been into a castle yourself, but this hotel is close enough).

Your eyes sparkle at the extravagant columns and diamond chandeliers hanging high above you, and Jay smiles at the expression on your face; like a little girl being brought to the amusement park for the first time ever.

"Wow, this is...wow," you mutter as you drink in the scene in front of you: people dressed in formal attire likewise to yours and Jay's, mingling and drinking what you imagine to be beverages that cost more than your entire life's worth.

Jay laughs from behind you, "Yeah the company goes a little...extra when it comes to these company dinners."

You scoff as you look up at him. "Oh really, you don't say?" You look around and you're suddenly aware of the many people surrounding the two of you and the attention you've acquired ever since entering the building.

"Jay, people are staring." You shuffle closer to him, your voice lowering down to a whisper.

"Well, it's not everyday the son of the company's CEO brings his girlfriend with him, so...looks like we'll be the talk of the party tonight. Smiles on," he winks at you, and you just know he's loving the attention the two of you are receiving right now.

"Jay Park? Is that you?" You hear a warm voice call out from behind the two of you.

The two of you turn around to meet the owner of the voice, a middle-aged woman dressed in an evening gown that matches the pattern of high-end brands you've been recognizing ever since arriving.

"Mrs. Lee! It's so nice seeing you again," Jay cheerily addresses the woman as the two of you bow in greeting.

You internally giggle at the thought of your Jay being so picture-perfect in the eyes of his father's co-workers.

"This is Y/N," he continues, his hand finding its way to your back, protectively resting it there as you go to introduce yourself. "My girlfriend."

You swear you feel goosebumps rise from where he's lightly touching you, and more so when he introduces you as his girlfriend.

You tell yourself it's just your nerves. Yes, that's it, you're just nervous. I mean, you're in a room filled with people who could easily pay off all your college loans with just a snap of their fingers, who wouldn't be nervous? Right? Right.

"Y/N! It's a pleasure to finally meet you, I've heard so much about you!" Mrs. Lee excitedly exclaims as you turn to Jay with a slightly confused look plastered on your face. He mirrors your expression as he shrugs, moving to stand behind you completely, bringing his hands to rest lowly at your hips.

His hands feel like feathers on the thin fabric of your evening gown, so light, so delicate, as if he's unsure if he's crossing a line. It leaves you wanting more, wanting to naturally lean against him and his warmth. You quick to shake the thought of your head as Mrs. Lee chirps up again.

"Jay's father is always talking about how you've been keeping Jay pleasantly busy nowadays! Good thing too, about time this poor boy settle down for someone as beautiful as you," the woman rambles on as you feel a blush creep up on your cheeks at the thought of Jay talking about you to his dad. If only they knew.

"We should probably go find our seats, I think the dinner is beginning soon," Jay says from behind you, saving the two of you from having to listen to Mrs. Lee's story of how she's known Jay ever since he was five years old and seeing him grow into this mature, loving, young man is so amazing. Oh look! I have baby pictures.

Yeah, he was more so saving himself from embarrassment.

The two of you bid your goodbyes before Jay gently uses the hand on your back to maneuver you through the crowd of socializing business moguls.

"She's not wrong, you know," you feel Jay dip his head so he's speaking near your ear, his warm breath tickling your earlobe, as the two of you make your way through the large foyer room.

"Hm?" You hum in question, turning your head up just enough to be able to make eye contact with him as he responds to your look of confusion.

"You look beautiful tonight," he says, eye contact not breaking once. You freeze in your steps.

You stare back at him in silence. Oh.

Your mind is panicking as it flips through your mental book of responses, unsure of what to say back. But because your mind is cloudy from staring at a put-together Jay in a dark navy suit to match your dress (mixed with the nervous butterflies in your stomach––have they always been there?), the only sound that's able to leave your lips is the small stutter of a:

"Huh?"

Wow Y/N, you had one job. A simple "thank you" could've sufficed! And you went with "Huh"?

You felt like a fifth grader who just learned from a friend of a friend of a friend that their crush likes them back.

"U-um. Mrs. Lee. What she said about you. You look good, really," somehow your nervousness made its way over to Jay now––his eyes flickering from yours to anywhere, anything, else in the room––the awkward tension growing tenfold each second.

Goddamnit Y/N, this is just Jay you're talking to, get a grip.

You're knocked back into reality when he slightly nudges your back to continue making your way to the main ball room, where the dinner is being held.

"Is that a compliment from the Jay Park?" Your smirk can't be seen by Jay, since he's still trailing behind you, but he can definitely hear it through your tone.

"Don't make me take it back," he chuckles, his words felt against your neck, leaving behind a tingly sensation you're not sure why you're feeling. You're glad he's behind you, so he isn't able to see the blush creeping onto your face for the second time tonight.

Jay gives a small nod to the people behind the check-in desk stationed at the entrance as the two of you waltz right into a large ball room lined with countless circular dining tables. So much for a small business dinner.

As the two of you approach one of the tables placed at the front of the room, you notice a familiar figure seated next to the seats reserved for you and Jay.

"Y/N!" Jake exclaims as he gets up from his seat to greet the both of you. "I'm so glad you made it, Jay was so excited to bring you tonight. Deadass would not stop talking about it."

Jay lets out a noise that falls somewhere between a cough and a goose being strangled, his widened eyes warning his talkative friend to just shut up. He's silently cursing the company for always seating his and Jake's family at the same table for these events.

"Aw, is that so? He's lucky he's cute or else I wouldn't have agreed," you grin, winking at your assumed boyfriend sitting next to you.

"Hey, YOU were the one excited to come! I recall a certain someone's face lighting up when I suggested we go shopping for tonight," Jay immediately retorts.

"Only because you were buying," you giggle, causing Jake to laugh as well.

"Damn, Jay. Tough," Jake jokingly adds as you laugh alongside him. The scowl sitting on Jay's face expresses the opposite of what he's feeling right now: warmth filling him up from the sound of your laughter and the image of you getting along so well with his best friend.

"I'm gonna get us some drinks, you two have fun making fun of me," Jay narrows his eyes at the two of you as he gets up from his seat. You bid him off with a smile before turning back to Jake.

"No but really though, this boy would not stop talking about you coming tonight. Then again, he doesn't really ever stop talking about you," Jake nonchalantly says, not knowing how much he was exposing his friend to you right now.

You raise an eyebrow up in response, "Oh really?"

"Seriously! I don't know what you did to him, Y/N, but this Jay I've been seeing recently is new. He complains a lot less about life nowadays, especially on the days he sees you," he leans back in his chair as his comment brings a smile to your face. Little does he know.

You stretch your neck up to find the boy in question and spot him right as he's returning to your shared table, two drinks in hand. You lock eyes with him from across the room and without a second thought, you're giving him a genuine smile that he's immediately returning.

Your heart beats faster at the view.

You wonder why.

It's 3:07AM when you hear the first ding.

You're not 100% sure as of why you're awake at this hour on a Tuesday night––perhaps a combination of your restless thoughts and feelings not letting you sleep plus the typical stress that comes hand-in-hand with the life of a college student.

It's 3:09AM when you hear the second ding, and you brush it off, assuming it was just Heeseung spamming you with memes again––something he does often when he also can't sleep (you found this out the hard way).

It's still 3:09AM when you hear the third ding, and at 3:10AM , you finally reach over and decide to acknowledge the being who's bothering you at this godforsaken hour.

Jay [3:07AM]: Y/N

Jay [3:09AM]: hi

Jay [3:09AM]: r u awake rn

Y/N [3:10AM]: unfortunately so

Y/N [3:11AM]: why are you up

Jay [3:11AM]: come outside

Y/N [3:13AM: jay it's 3am

Jay [3:13AM]: ye and? don't tell me ur a college student with a curfew

Jay [3:14AM]: plus im alrdy waiting for u outside so u have no choice

Jay [3:15AM]: :)

You groan at your bright phone screen currently illuminating your dark dorm room.

You ponder the consequences you may have to suffer tomorrow if you stay up any later than you already have. But considering the fact that you're probably just going to stay awake lying in bed for god knows how long anyways, why not?

(And you would like to point out that this decision has nothing to do with the fact that you haven't seen Jay in a few days and that maybe a tiny, tiny, tiny, part of you may have missed his presence. Nothing.)

And since that logic is obviously valid (you really gotta work on justifying your life choices), you're suddenly grabbing a hoodie from your closet and hoping it'll be enough to keep you, who's merely in an old band t-shirt from high-school and pajama shorts, warm.

The breeze hits your skin the second you open the doors to your dorm's building, and you're met with the view of Jay's sleek, black BMW that probably costs more than your tuition. He waves at you from the driver's seat, motioning for you to get in.

"To what do I owe you the pleasure at this hour," you deadpan at him with a stone-cold voice as you enter through the passenger's side door, hoping your tone was enough to hide the fact that you're giddy at the fact he invited you out at 3AM in the morning. Like a high-school girl sneaking out of her house to meet up with her bad-boy boyfriend that her parents dislike.

The second you enter his car, you're instantly comforted by the warm air blasting through his vents and his playlist softly playing in the background. Jay's pajama pants and messy hair give you more than enough information to know that he probably just rolled out of his own bed as well. You don't know why, but your view: Jay in his oversized hoodie with his unkept hair in front of your dorm building at 3AM on a Tuesday night, gives you comfort in weird ways you can't explain even if you tried.

But it's obviously just your cloudy, 3AM mind not thinking straight. Obviously.

"When I can't sleep, I go on drives around campus. It helps clear my mind," he says, looking over at you to give you a quick smile before starting his car. "Plus, SnapMap said you were still awake, so...figured you'd wanna join."

"Oh so what, you're my stalker now? You're not driving to the woods to kill me now, are you?" You tease, an eyebrow brought up. Jay lets out a laugh from beside you as he begins to drive further into your campus.

"Guess you'll just have to wait and see," he throws you a wink before reverting his gaze back to the road, mindlessly driving to wherever the road decides to take him.

A comfortable silence falls in between the two of you as Jay continues to drive endless routes around your campus. You look over to the boy driving next to you and take in his features––you don't know what changed, but you no longer feel the same anger or annoyance bubbling within you when you're around him. You're not sure when this changed, but you figure it's just the effect of desensitization. After all, you've been spending so much time with him, you're bound to get used to it. Right?

"Why were you up?" Jay finally asks after a few minutes of just the two of you silently basking in each other's presences.

"Ah, you know. The usual. Endless thoughts running through my mind, stress from school, nothing new," you sign, giving him a soft smile followed with a shrug.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

You answer him with silence as you search your head for the answer.

"I don't know. This is kinda weird, isn't it?" You don't know why you get a sudden surge of confidence, but before you can stop yourself, you find yourself rambling on. "If you had told me a month ago that I'd be here driving around with you when it's nearly 4AM, I would've laughed in your face."

Jay doesn't know whether to laugh or scoff. "Is the idea of hanging out with me that unappealing to you?"

You give him a serious look back. "I mean, up until a month ago when you needed me for whatever this game is, you literally pretended I didn't exist."

Oh. Awkward.

You freeze at your own words, mentally screaming at yourself for letting the words leave your mouth. Why, why, why.

"Y/N..." Jay says after clearing his throat after a few seconds of silence.

"No it's fine, it was a joke," you awkwardly cough and direct your attention to anything else around you right now. The view of your campus' buildings zooming by. The clicking of Jay's blinker when he switches lanes. The quiet roaring of his car's engine. The nervous tapping of his fingers against the steering wheel.

The rest of the ride is excruciatingly silent as he exits the main road and into an empty parking lot of some administration building made out of glass that has too many floors for you to count.

You don't know why you feel your heart beating in your throat as Jay puts the car into park––why you feel uneasy. You slightly turn towards him in your seat, hoping to pick up any sign of well...anything from him.

You don't know why you feel a twinge of guilt––it's not like what you said was necessarily wrong. If you were being honest, you were slightly bothered by how the two of you seemed to silently agree not to mention your past all this time. You were always one to seek answers, to seek closure. You couldn't help but bring it up––Jay was your best friend during those years. For him to just wake up one day and pretend you were nothing to him hurt you, and you couldn't help but still wonder what in the world you did to initiate his actions.

"I'm sor–" You're interrupted with his timid voice, as if he was almost afraid to speak.

"I'm not good with people." He's nibbling on his bottom lip, fingers nervously picking at a spot on the steering wheel.

You're opening and closing your mouth, unsure how to respond. You're 100% positive you look like a fish right now. Good for you.

"I don't know why. Jake calls it commitment issues but in order to have commitment, people have to stay in my life. And people just...don't. They're all bound to leave at some point. So what's the point of putting in effort into relationships if they're just going to leave you at the end?"

You're stunned by his sudden confession, not having been prepared for such a heavy topic to arise between the two of you. Up until tonight, your interactions had always been light-hearted and easy––you guys got along well. You didn't know this is how he felt all along.

But you knew where he was coming from.

You knew what Jay had gone through as a child––his mother having left him and his dad when he was young. You remember when your parents had told you the news at the young age of 13, and you remember the pain and sorrow you felt for your then friend. All you wanted to do was go to him and comfort him, but he had already cut you out from his life by then.

"Or maybe I'm the problem. My dad barely acknowledges my existence because he thinks giving me an allowance is all the parenting I need, my friends probably only stick around because they feel bad for me, you wouldn't even be here if it weren't for the bet, and, fuck, I'm literally known as the campus' fuckboy," Jay continues, falling deeper and deeper into the hole he dug himself.

He hates this, he hates opening up and feeling vulnerable, so he doesn't know why he's doing it now. He doesn't know why he feels comfortable voicing out his fears and worries when he's around you. But he does know it's a new feeling––one he doesn't know how to deal with.

"Jay," you lace your voice with as much comfort as you can provide. None of this is his fault, you want to tell him. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything," he says with a hint of bitterness and you can't tell if it's directed towards you or the topic at hand.

You're completely turned in your seat now to face him––despite the fact that he refuses to meet your gaze, afraid that looking at you is gonna bring out the most vulnerable in him. "You can talk to me. Talking about it makes it a lot easier. I'll always be here for you, as a friend."

Jay doesn't know what it is or why, but something in him snaps at the sound of a certain word falling out of your lips. Friend. Friend.

Friends don't make his heart beat nervously whenever he's around them. Friends don't keep him up at 3AM in the morning, pondering about his feelings for them. Friends don't provide him with this new, warm comfort he's become accustomed to whenever he's around you.

Deep down, Jay knows you didn't mean to add fuel to the fire. But because he's strong-headed, stubborn, and hates how vulnerable he feels next to you, he unleashes his emotions without thinking about the destruction coming along.

"It's none of your business, Y/N. Forget I said anything. You're just a toy for this stupid game and when it's all over we can go back to our own lives and forget this ever happened."

His sudden words cut deep, but they hurt him more than you. The second the words tumble out of his mouth, he's hit with the feeling of instant regret washing over him, and the lump forming in his throat restricts him from finding the right words to take them back.

The silence that falls between the two of you this time is different. It's a cold silence. A loud silence.

Jay feels his walls coming back up around him––the ones you managed to get through––and all he wants to do is apologize but he's terrified. Terrified of seeing your reaction, terrified of losing you again. For the second time.

You tell yourself he doesn't mean it. You tell yourself that he's just enduring more pain that one should ever receive.

But you also tell yourself that this wouldn't be the first time Jay leaves you in the dust.

You tell yourself that you're foolish for ever believing a friendship, or more, could come out of this act at the end. That you're so naive for feeling those stupid, stupid butterflies you've started to notice in your stomach whenever you see, or even think of, him.

"Okay," you begin with a firm tone. You're hurt, but you refuse to show it. You won't let him hurt you for a second time. Not again.

"Just...find me when you need me. As your fake girlfriend or just...me. I'm still here for you," is the last thing you say before un-clicking your seatbelt and leaving his car, beginning your walk back to your dorm hall.

Jay is unsure about many things in life. He's unsure about what he wants to do in the future, he's unsure of where he's going to settle in life, heck, he's unsure about what to have for lunch tomorrow. But he's sure about one thing.

That he's wearing his heart on his sleeve right now, and it's all because of you.

That you've become this new lifeline and he has to choose between holding onto you or drowning.

When Jay wakes up the next morning, his first gut instinct is to get ready to pick you up for class. But today's different. Jay doesn't know where the two of you stand now, especially after last night.

Jay doesn't know how to deal with this combination of unknown emotions he's been feeling lately. They didn't come out of no where, by any means, he realizes. They've been slowly growing over the past month of seeing you so often––like a plant he's been watering overtime, not expecting it to bloom into a flower so suddenly––but he figured it was nothing more than just enjoying the company of a friend.

Until he realizes that the term friend just doesn't suite you anymore––not to him, at least. And that scares him. It scares him that you've made him genuinely smile more in this past month than he ever has in his 19 years of living. It scares him that when he's around you he can't comprehend his own thoughts, his feelings. It scares him that you make him vulnerable, that you've changed him. That you've managed to make the walls that he's spent so long building and polishing to crumble with a simple tap of your finger.

In a perfect world, Jay would have already told you all this––he would be unafraid of how you would react, unafraid of your rejection, unafraid of losing this growing relationship with you. But alas, we don't live in a perfect world. And so when Jay drives to class that day, he drives right past your dorm building.

"Where's Y/N?" is the first thing Jake questions when he enters Jay's car that morning, confused by your absence, having been used to you being in the front seat every morning when Jay goes to give Jake rides to class as well.

"I don't know," Jay mutters, unemotional eyes focused on the road in front of him, not interested in continuing a conversation that involves thinking about you.

Jake hesitates as curiosity gets the best of him. "Did you guys get into a fight or something?"

Jay's hands tighten around the steering wheel of his car. "Or something. Let's just leave it at that."

There are a few beats of silence before Jake speaks up again.

"Well, I guess this works out because I wanted to talk to you about something."

Jay continues to stare straight ahead of him, focusing on just trying to get by without mentally beating himself up at the simple thought of you.

The simple thought of you and your smile. Your witty remarks. Your stupid eye rolls. Your laughter. Your kindness. So much for not thinking about you.

"I'm calling it off," Jake's words catch Jay off guard.

"Huh? Calling what off?"

"The bet. I'm calling it off. I don't care about the textbook fees I'll have to pay next semester. Look, fight or not, you and Y/N are good for each other, everyone can see it. And I really don't want this to end up being one of those messed up teen TV shows where the girlfriend finds out the entire relationship was based off of a stupid game and then they break up and the boyfriend falls into eternal sadness and regret. And I don't wanna see you sad, dude. So yeah! Congrats," although he's admitting defeat, Jake's beaming widely, just content with the fact that his best friend has finally found happiness through the form of you. "You win."

But Jay feels like the opposite of a winner. Because even though his only intention coming into this was simply winning the bet, his life isn't as simple as it was a month ago. Because he discovered something much more valuable than some stupid textbook fees or five hundred dollars or getting his physics homework done for an entire semester.

Something he's scared he's already lost.

You.

⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺

The next time you see Jay is at the same time and place as when he first ever appeared to pick you up––at 12:17PM on a Friday afternoon, as you're exiting the doors of the lecture building home to your awfully long Capitalism in World History class. This time, however it's different.

Because this time, it's one month later, and Jay Park is no longer a forgotten side character in the story of your life. This time, you're frustrated because it's been three days since you've last heard from Jay. And because it's been three days since you've last heard from him, you can't focus on anything else, and because you can't focus on anything else, you're falling behind on every other aspect in your life. Jay's somehow managed to become the center of your life without even having to be present.

Well, up until now. Up until you go down the steps of your lecture hall's entrance and look up to be met with a figure leaning on a car you're far too familiar with. You freeze in your steps as you make eye contact with the boy you've been thinking about non-stop for the past month three days.

Your mind tells you to walk away, to just follow your flight instinct instead of fight, to just go back to your normal life. But here's the thing. Ever since Jay's made his way back to your life, it's been far from normal.

And if you're being honest, you had no interest in going back to your normal life. Normal's overrated anyways. You find your legs bringing yourself over to him, your heart leading the way.

"Hi," you simply say, planting yourself right in front of him.

"Hi."

"What are you doing here?" You already know the answer, but you want to hear him say it.

"Waiting for you," Jay doesn't hesitate in answering you. This time will be different, he tells himself.

"I can walk myself home, thanks," you state, but your actions tell differently, as you make no sign of moving from your spot in front of him.

Jay's mind contemplates telling you everything. About how he regrets that friendship-breaking decision he made that one fateful day in the eighth grade, about his true feelings, about how he first suspected these feelings when he was 11 years old and saw you in your fancy get-up for the sixth grade dance but put it off as a little crush, and about how the same feelings grew into something so, so much more in the present. But seeing that putting all these thoughts into words would involve more than one functioning brain cell (which is all he's convinced he has in the moment, for the view of you staring up at him, looking like that, has his brain short-circuiting), he settles with:

"He called it off. It's over. The bet."

"Oh."

Silence.

Okay, Jay. This is your chance. Say it.

"Is that it?" You lift an eyebrow, awaiting for more explanation. When it doesn't come, you slightly nod and start backing away. "I'll see you around then."

Is that it? Do the two of you just go back to your respective lives now? How can Jay do that, when he doesn't even recall what his life was like before you entered it––and especially when he has absolutely no interest in going back to that life?

Fuck it.

"Y/N!" He stands up straight, a newfound confidence taking over. This time will be different, he tells himself. Because now, he knows what he wants. For sure.

You turn towards him, to see him already making his way towards you, stopping in his steps when he finds himself close enough to you that he can't concentrate anymore.

"I'm sorry for ditching you in the eighth grade. I'm sorry for ignoring you since then. I'm sorry for dragging you into this stupid mess and for pushing you away and I'm sorry for calling you a toy. Because it's far from truth. I like you. A lot. And––and I'm scared. I'm scared of what this means for us, because I just keep messing things up and all I know is that I don't wanna wake up tomorrow and realize you're not in my life anymore and––"

"Woah, woah, Jay. Slow down," you look up at him, the corners of your lips threatening to curve up into a smile. "You're an idiot, you know."

Jay's never really confessed his feelings to anyone before, per say, so he doesn't really know what to expect. But he's watched enough Netflix rom-coms in this lifetime (which is still not that many) to know that hearing the words "you're an idiot" isn't what you're supposed to hear after pouring your heart and soul out. Surely not, right?

"I––I'm not sure how to respond to that," he quietly says, searching your eyes for a sign, for anything. You giggle at his sudden shyness as you grab both his arms and look at him right in the eyes.

"It's okay. I get it, if anything, I'm also scared. But you somehow got me wrapped around your stupid finger, and I hate it," you smirk at him, your hands slowly making their way up his arms to circle around his neck.

Jay's hands naturally fall at your waist as he lets out a breathe he didn't even know he was holding as he returns your smirk. "Well, I could say the same about you. And I also hate it, for your information."

"Hmm, is that so? I guess it cancels out then, right?" You smile at him as he's pulling you in so close, your head turns cloudy.

Jay grins at you, his eyes holding so much joy and endearment as they quickly flicker down to your lips before returning to your own eyes. "I guess this only means one thing then."

"Mm, and what's that?"

And before Jay can answer––and because your life's been anything but normal lately––you make the first move this time, moving your head up to close the small gap between the two of you.

His arms instinctively tighten around you as you capture his lips with your very own, and Jay swears he's about to lift off into space right now. He's on cloud nine, and he makes no plans to touch the ground ever again.

The kiss quickly becomes fervent, all the pent-up tension that the two of you had for one another finally finding its way out, all the words that were previously left unsaid finally expressing themselves. You don't even care if you're being judged by the conservative faculty members of your school right now, or by the looks of fellow students walking past the two of you.

You try your best to keep yourself from smiling as he continues to press his lips against yours, his hand moving to hold your chin, guiding your mouth with his.

Before you find yourself getting carried away, you step back to take a breath, resting your forehead against his chest as his hands rest against your back. He smiles at the sound of you giggling against him.

Jay takes a step back to take one look at you and realizes, in this moment, that change can be good. And he's willing to undergo this change. As long as it's with you.

⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺ ⸺

The next morning, you bounce down the steps of your dorm building's entrance to meet the wide, bright smile of your ex-childhood-bestfriend-turned-fake-boyfriend-turned-real-boyfriend waiting for you in front of his car, small pastry bag in hand. You smile back at him.

Jay drives you to class that day.

And everyday after that.

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ :

✰ let me know what you think! if u made it til the end, mwah :') <3

[theomnicode]

What comes around, goes around, like the ouroboros she wore.

She didn't have to make all those choices and she'll probably end up being held criminally responsible, but I also can't help but feel sorry for her because she was turned effectively insane by visions which were most likely originating from opm god or some eldrich nonsense she had no way to understand and so they drove her nuts.

So who knows what kind of choices she could have made instead if she was in her right faculties, which is something that Fubuki is probably trying to get to the bottom of. Insanity defence plea would work in her case to mitigate culpability. Like a lot of mental health patients, she didn't choose to go insane, she was just born with too much psychic ability of specific kind and insanity can mean the individual has difficulty to distinguishing right from wrong.

Exemption from full criminal punishment on such grounds dates back to at least the Code of Hammurabi.[2] Legal definitions of insanity or mental disorder are varied, and include the M'Naghten Rule, the Durham rule, the 1953 British Royal Commission on Capital Punishment report, the ALI rule (American Legal Institute Model Penal Code rule), and other provisions, often relating to a lack of mens rea ("guilty mind").[1]: 613–635 [3] In the criminal laws of Australia and Canada, statutory legislation enshrines the M'Naghten Rules, with the terms defense of mental disorder, defense of mental illness or not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder employed. Being incapable of distinguishing right from wrong is one basis for being found to be legally insane as a criminal defense.[1] It originated in the M'Naghten Rule, and has been reinterpreted and modernized through more recent cases, such as People v. Serravo.

However, world of OPM is soundly devoid of any kind of mental health assist. And still, nobody deserves what they have coming for her.

Her fate is just a really sad one, because she felt like she had nobody to turn to when she was driven insane, because the one she trusted the most betrayed that trust and everyone else just plain thought she was too insane to deal with anymore. So she never got any help and now she reaps the consequences of her actions and lack of proper moral judgement.

At which point do we just stop bothering to help mentally ill patients, because they're too bothersome to deal with?

Probably far too often, because there's only so much caretakers can mentally bear to handle too, from secondary traumatic stress and patients who are very difficult to handle humanely. But sometimes people are just gotten rid of because it's more convenient for the person who is responsible for their wellbeing. Just like how the executives certified Psykos as a monster for plain convenience's sake to get rid of her easier.

Now I just feel really fucking sad. What a fucking theme to make satire out of.

Curse you ONE. Tugging on my empathy just like that.

--

Now for some additional meta about what I think are the ramifications of this and why we have this kind of theme in the first place...

I got some really interesting thoughts hahahaa...

When you think about it, Saitama using all those reality bending powers is thiiiiiss close to going just as insane and the only defence mechanism he has to protect himself from plain insanity is his mental resiliency and not properly acknowledging those powers exist and when he did, conveniently going amnesiac.

I can imagine what is going on in his brain at times. "Don't think about the fact that I can multiply myself and appear in a location at will and grow extra hands and learn every single thing just via a glance and uuuh...nope not thinking about it, this is too eldrich, I better forget."

If you don't think too much about the motions, he doesn't need to explain or think how it works, because he doesn't know either and doesn't wanna know. Quite the mental blocks he has built for himself (or haha, maybe by someone else), possiby around the potential savant syndrome.

Learning everything and all sorts of new stuff is boring, even though he was legitimately interested in learning martial arts and he's able to learn everything he sets his mind to too, yet he thinks he can learn nothing because he seems to only absorb information by taking it into his subconscious and consciously repeating the motions into his muscle memory.

Cognitive dissonance.

It gets really wacky when you realize he made up Serious Punch against Boros on the spot because it was his first time using the move...or he recalled it from his subconscious just then.

And then has promptly denied it's existence.

Cuz the second time he uses it against Elder Centipede, King makes a really pointed remarks about how to make sure Saitama's punch does not obliterate everything...

Like he's still testing it out.

And King is not even supposed to know anything about Saitama and especially not about how his powers work, but he's showcasing Saitama's ability to plan because King in the series demonstrates Saitama's powers.

King had shut his eyes when Saitama has actually demonstrated his powers to him when they met.

He's legit not supposed to know jacksquat about Saitama's punching and how it works, but he just trusts in Saitama to get the work done. And knows the plan and how things are supposed to work accurately from inside out.

"Try to contain the blast radius."

Either Saitama told him of this plan...or King is subconsciously channeling Saitama's thinking process here. Even when he's drawing on the ground.

This is a bit more poignantly presented in the anime where King refers to "our attack".

A hidden sign of intelligence and odd habits of intelligent people (youtube link) is actually doing mindless creative activity such as doodling when thinking about something, like creative problem solving, to let the subconscious mind do the thinking for you. And Saitama has demonstrated before when he is absorbed in manga or gaming that he's still able to listen accurately what is being explained to him. When Genos washes the dishes and Saitama games away, he's still able to follow that conversation.

I wonder if he has creatively found a way to get around his ability to focus on conversations because his neurodivergency prevents him from being able to focus his conscious mind directly for long duration. Or if he kind of accidentally just did that on habit.

(Doodling is something that I personally constantly did at school after writing down all the information because just listening teachers drone about stuff made my own mind wander around and not focus from boredom, so I just doodled and honed my artistry to pass the time and sometimes even got called out for it LOL)

--

Saitama repeats the same thing about going amnesiac about his largest Serious Punch. Expelling his emotions means he probably can't form a cohesive attachment to the memory, because the more emotional we are about something, the better the memory recall. So it makes the memory surrounding his powers easier to forget.

The reason he consciously recalls and acknowledges the well...reality bending powers here, would be moral injury. That served as a memory trigger.

Which would imply something as grievous as well...everyone just dying on him, exploding the planet and him feeling like it's his own fault, has happened to him before.

Because he has a strict moral code. No casualties from using his powers and doing hero work.

Those are the rules.

And he has a sensation of deja vu about using his Serious Punch with intention to kill someone who is not in complete control of their faculties, which he has acknowledged that Garou behaved weird and using a move that could also accidentally cause more casualties both behind Garou and destroying Earth and parts of known cosmos, when it's promptly locked behind mental block.

Oof.

(You know, kinda like the vast amount of casualties from Boros' attack on Earth and I wonder...if Saitama thought Boros was not in control of his mental faculties either and so he felt guilt over trying to kill him and this is a reference to that or something more)

Another name and concept directly tied to compassion fatigue is moral injury. Moral injury in the context of healthcare was directly named in the Stat News article by Drs. Wendy Dean and Simon Talbot, entitled "Physicians aren’t ‘burning out.’ They're suffering from moral injury." The article and concept go on to explain that physicians (in the United States) are caught in double and triple and quadruple binds between their obligations of electronic health records, their student loans, the requirements for patient load through the hospital, and procedures performed – all while working towards the goal of trying to provide the best care and healing to patients possible. However, the systemic issues facing physicians often cause deep distress because the patients are suffering despite the physician's best efforts. This concept of moral injury in healthcare is the expansion of the discussion around compassion fatigue and burnout.

(There's that compassion fatigue that is different for wc and manga sai)

(Something something parallel worlds/cycle of rebirth and maybe WC Saitama ends up doing...something unthinkable on accident that he can't take back and that factoid bleeding into manga Saitama's being, because Saitama has broken the limits, including spiritual.)

(Like accidentally killing Genos hahaaa because he got desentized to using violence and oh yea he did not contain the blast radius and oh maybe Genos is not in complete control of his faculties...and going insane from that...and then flushing his morals down the toilet because his judgement about right and wrong gets so impaired from it and...doing stuff...hahaha...)

(Ay broken heart monkey paw go!)

(Saitama's journey in therapy is just so it does not happen to manga Saitama. I think I know who's the therapist...)

(The season 1 ending keeps making me cry ugh)

--

We're gonna go and chip down those mental blocks though, one by one. Starting with our new guy from Tsukuyomi introducing us to darker side of the hero association.

Saitama's makeover.

Genos: The collapse of the final strength gestalt with endless possibilities - The lone wolf Saitama, the boiled egg (Terror! The monster-devouring cat man)

The Gestalt theory of forgetting, created by Gestalt psychology, suggests that memories are forgotten through distortion. This is also called false memory syndrome. This theory states that when memories lack detail, other information is put in to make the memory a whole. This leads to the incorrect recall of memories.

There are many theories which are related to the process of motivated forgetting. The main theory, the motivated forgetting theory, suggests that people forget things because they either do not want to remember them or for another particular reason. Painful and disturbing memories are made unconscious and very difficult to retrieve, but still remain in storage. Retrieval Suppression (the ability to utilise inhibitory control to prevent memories from being recalled into consciousness) is one way in which we are able to stop the retrieval of unpleasant memories using cognitive control. This theory was tested by Anderson and Green using the Think/No-Think paradigm.

Suppression encompasses the term directed forgetting, also known as intentional forgetting. This term refers to forgetting which is initiated by a conscious goal to forget. Intentional forgetting is important at the individual level: suppressing an unpleasant memory of a trauma or a loss that is particularly painful.

Author is deliberately trying to create sympathetic response via Psykos here and Fubuki trying to set things right and also them caring for each other, so we'd eventually and hopefully have same level of sympathy for Saitama when he goes off the deep end and into full psychosis Mob ??? territory because he became far too strong to bear. And Genos is involved somehow because he cares for Saitama and just like Fubuki, would not want Saitama to go insane.

I see what you are doing ONE.

If there is false memories involved because manga Saitama has to individualize his own memories from that of wc Saitama because they're same soul but different person, that shit would be hella interesting.

Self-awareness as a method of self-care might help to alleviate the impact of vicarious trauma (compassion fatigue). Students who took a 15-week course that emphasized stress reduction techniques and the use of mindfulness in clinical practice had significant improvements in therapeutic relationships and counseling skills. The practice of mindfulness, according to Buddhist tradition is to release a person from “suffering” and to also come to a state of consciousness of and relationship to other people's suffering. Mindfulness utilizes the path to consciousness through the deliberate practice of engaging “the body, feelings, states of mind, and experiential phenomena (dharma).” The following therapeutic interventions may be used as mindfulness self-care practices:

Somatic therapy (body) Psychotherapy (states of mind) Emotion focused therapy (feelings) Gestalt therapy (experiential phenomena)

Gestalt therapy is a form of psychotherapy that focuses on a person's present life rather than delving into their past experiences. This form of therapy stresses the importance of understanding the context of a person’s life when considering the challenges they face. It also involves taking responsibility rather than placing blame.

Suddenly Tatsumaki vs Saitama became a whole lot more interesting concept, of avoiding casualties. If we're gonna ditch the webcomic current version.

gofancyninjaworld

I thought it'd be a manhunt for Psykos as that would naturally pit Tats against Fubuki but this does remove the last vestiges of a need for a head to head. If Tatsumaki does show up, it'll be to defeat this weird guy ...and with Saitama there, that's redundant.

I suspect that they have other plans for the green goblin

Imagine for a moment if Saitama during his hero work in the past, did actually go insane and Tatsumaki was called by the Hero association to fix it.

The moment of fear when it was not the first time humanity has made contact with a threat of this scale.

I also suspect that Saitama is also far more involved in the research facility Tatsumaki was held in as a child than what is healthy...they were prioritizing some kind of test subject of monster and human hybrids that had to deal with opm god somehow, after all.

--

That became a lot longer meta than anticipated hahaha

But eh, just putting the spiderweb pattern together.

Would it be cruel to say that Psykos got karma for what she did to the monsters? She tortured them psychologically and physically, because the society thinks of them as lesser life forms. Now she's getting back what she gave by being classified as a monster. I only feel the tiniest bit of sympathy. Unless there is a reason, such as influence from God, she did those things then maybe I'll probably change my mind about her. Just maybe. I still think about the Rhino Wrestler scene alot though.

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

Hermitopia AU Masterpost 1 [COMPLETE]

This is a gathering place for the events of the Hermitopia AU, as well as art and writing resulting from it (art and writing listed at the bottom). Please read the AU introduction and rules here before submitting! Feel free to join the discussions on the HCHC discord server!

(Disclaimer/PSA: All points are asks contributed by the community, the mods take no credit for the ideas within them)

If you would like specific credit in the masterpost, please sign within the text of the ask! (A dash and a signature at the end should do.) Asks not signed will be treated as anonymous.

Summary posts:

Not all elements of plot and character will be summarized, but here are a few basic things you may want to be familiar with before submitting an ask! (Unless you are purposely aiming to create an [ALTERNATE] idea for a Hermit)

1 - Starting positions and each Hermit's powers (based on the submissions from Day 1)

Summary post 2 - Interpersonal connections (based on Day 1 and 2 submissions)

Make sure to check out the second masterpost here for more up to date information, including newer art and writing!

Asks:

- (copied ask) [summarized mod comment]

- Hermitopia | Scar was experimented on by Cub. He gained dangerous powers and wings that resemble a dragon’s, but he keeps both hidden. Unless someone makes him angry. He has no idea who gave him his powers. Eventually he and Cub decided that they wanted to control things beyond their corporation, so Scar ran for mayor. (there are things to fill in but im lazy) [Scar assumes he got the powers in an accident during research. He enjoys having them but has no idea that they were intentional.]

- Hermitopia AU team ZIT is a superpowered crime-fighting trio!

- owing to a very particular set of guidelines he put in place, Joe can now copy powers if he sees them in use and can reverse-engineer how those powers are used. needless to say, this is massively overpowered in the right hands.but it got worse. at some point, there was an... incident... on ConCorp grounds, something to do with a mass amount of entities causing time dilation -- and Joe was caught in the thick of it, unable to be rescued for a while.the problem is, he got out by piecing together how the time dilation worked.needless to say, Joe... has a ridiculous powerset. so he chooses largely not to use his powers anymore unless it's absolutely dire or petty enough to shrug off as a random occurrence. nobody needs to know that one of the most powerful Unaffiliated in the city is standing right in front of them... especially not ConCorp.

- doc was a former high ranking employee of concorp before he volunteered for an experiment and it went horribly wrong. since then, the company has tried to erase any evidence of his existence. doc is now seeking revenge for all that the company did to him and is determined to tear it apart

- HI ok follow up asks will be sent later when my thoughts are coherent but concept: cleo has like super messed up healing powers where she can make healing go Too Far. also i pin her as unbound, considering, like, everything - shovel-shuffle

- So, his power was meant to be super-regen, right? except things don't always quite go to plan. Someone volunteered for the powers surgeries and is arguably dead. Etho is a name shared by the many many clones that developed themselves out of the leftovers. They're not quite individuals, not quite a hivemind. Any one of them has no fear of death because the others will continue, but they all act independently around their overarching goal. (which I won't snitch about) - DragonKay

- Bdubs was a hero. Key word? Was. He climbed the ranks through the government, he was a loyal and dutiful member of society, and he used his plant manipulation powers to subdue evil-doers without hurting them. But he’s always been a friendly guy, and he couldn’t help himself—talking to the Unrestrained, especially those in custody, was interesting! ...but it’s a slippery slope to walk, being friendly with the enemy and not sympathizing to their cause. Nobody knows where he is now, but there are rumours of a vigilante with similar abilities, and his three compatriots, two of whom he helped escape from ConCorp... They call themselves the nHo. - slimetek [Bdubs deserted Concorp while helping Doc escape after his experiment went wrong]

- Concorp managed to make a device that allows animals to speak or translate their thoughts into writing. This means that the good old mayor Scar has a certain cat giving some advice on how to run the city.

- Iskall is an assasin/mercenary against their own volition. An accident they'd rather forget almost killed them, and in exchange for their freedom and free will they got to live as a cyborg. Though its hard to forget with the implant that covers their eye and the limb of cool metal hanging at their side - @ghastly-ghostie [Iskall works for Concorp off-books, bound by the debt owed to them for the life saving experimental modifications]

- so I think grians original powers could be like cloning, but something goes wrong and the clones are different people. as a result of the duplication process, some funky magic rocks are made. the clones decide to take most of the funky rocks and run off, leaving grian with one rock that gives him some new abilities and the clones' rocks give him others. also uhh mechanical wings bc yes. so grians plot is him trying to find them while also causing problems on purpose. infinity stones. update to my grian ask from earlier, I had better ideas: the rocks are old like magic things that grian finds before the cloning and ends up collecting, but his clones snatch them - simplyskipper [some of the alternate Grians are aligned with different factions in Hermitopia, while the locations of others are farther or unknown]

- Hermitopia- Impulse has solid-light powers. He has golden crystals implanted in his hands, which he can reflect light through to solidify it into all sorts of shapes. This can be used to make barriers, projectiles, and much more, though more detailed constructs take more time.- @mleemwyvern

- Hermitopia AU Poultry man is a well-known chaotic neutral leaning towards good, as a one of the unrestrained.

- I think Team ZIT should be a little be wild card-y, that's how they act after all! [they are employed by the government for standard crimefighting, but they don't always take Scar's word at its intended meaning and often play a bit on the chaotic side when given instructions]

- [Hermitopia AU] False is an antihero/vigilante type who's specialty is not defined by powers or the such, but just... the absolute skill of being able to dual wield two (more sci-fi era) short swords. Maybe someone upgrades them to be "enchanted" (electrical, fire, etc. something that tech could do well probably). She's willing to be paid-for-hire, but if you go past her moral line she's also willin' to backstab you. -- @cheshire-vex [she's a free agent who sort of drifts between Concorp, the government, and whoever else will pay her on a job-by-job basis]

- Hermitopia impulse has more connections then one may think. He has ties to people pretty much everywhere, for reasons unknown. There is a 100% someone will come and greet him wherever he goes. [the greetings are usually friendly]

- Hermitopia Au! Keralis is a hero who most people wouldn't expect to be too skilled at fighting. His power is similar to hypnosis so he has no need to get very physical. Yeah, that changed when some bastard villain decided to attack his friends shop. [that incident caused his employer Scar to realize his untapped potential for protecting people and assign him to a few more high-stakes jobs]

- Hermittopia!TFC was one of ConCorp’s first experiments and as such his powers are a bit less...refined then the others. He has geokinetic powers, allowing him to psychically control rocks and other earthen materials. He used to be one of the VEX programs top graduates, but has since parted ways with them for unknown reasons and now operates his own plans of keep crime in Hermitopia under control. -lechairpourriedegrianri [he is considered Unaffiliated and both Concorp and the government largely leave him to his own devices, since he is helping to keep the city together]

-Wels doesn't have powers. He does have a super-suit made of fire and heat resistant carbon fibre (like the material used for the space shuttle) and has a built in hologram projector. One time, he used the hologram projector to project an image of himself, which everyone thought was a clone. He didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise. (AKA everyone thinks Wels has powers but he doesn't) -Silverwolf53 [he got the suit in Project VEX]

- To follow up on the Impulse ask- Team ZIT are a space-themed superhero team. Government-aligned, at least for now.Tango has meteor-like powers, he can shoot fire from his hands and feet and often uses this to propel himself at high speeds. Zed has gravity powers! He can increase or decrease the density of any object, to the point of making small black holes. They all have space-themed costumes, and it was probably Zed's idea. - @mleemwyvern

- TFC was the first participant in project VEX

- Grian was an attempted success. It fixed some problems with Etho's unintended cloning, but at the same time created some problems of its own, seeing as the clones appeared to have a life of their own.It's fine, though. It's probably fine

- I would say Grian is unrestrained, a bit like Etho, Chaotic in his own way. Does not activily Try to hurt people, but does mostly what he wants for fun.-Ciara

- Xisuma is a civilian- he has hero friends, but despite all their teasing he’s never wanted to go through VEX training. But in the night, the unrestrained Void walks the streets [Void is a symbiotic creature made of nothingness that uses Xisuma's body as a substitute physical form]

- Bdubs was such a good man... he could be trusted to look after Doc, couldn’t he? Somebody had to oversee him, somebody who was reliable and would never, ever consider betraying the mayor and ConCorp...They let their guard down, and Bdubs got curious. Bdubs made a friend.And then they lost him.- Slimetek

- The hels hermits are considered evil by default. How do you spot these clones, how could you protect yourself? Well in the past it was a lot easier, just look for their red eyesNowadays contacts exist but that doesn't stop people trying to call the police on tango, calling him a hels. Hes netherian, they have unnatural eye colours and their iris fills the entire eye, hes not evil but if people keep doing this hes gonna be!

- Beef woke up from his brain surgery to receive telepathy powers, took one look into the mind of the overseer, and noped put of there as fast as he could go.He's on very public record. After all, the mind control he may be capable of is a very convenient explanation for anyone who turns against concorp... ~DragonKay

- Hypno can’t control minds.They say he does. It’s why he’s named Hypno, after all.In reality, he can’t control people like that... but he can control what they see.Your best friend might look like your greatest enemy. A pit of lava might look like solid ground. A 100-foot drop might look like a step down.It’s a good thing he’s a hero, and a good thing he keeps his true powers hidden beneath a guise of low-level hypnotism. There’s no telling what he could do if they let him go. [he works for Concorp, helping to protect VEX trainees from people trying to harm them before they get a chance to finish the program, as well as keeping other resources safe]

- The 9th Street Incident [referring to an earlier Impulse comment] was a friendly greeting. That particular version of Etho just thought that drawing weapons would be a friendly greeting for Impulse, but Tango and Zed seem to disagree

- They still don’t trust Bdubs. He was with the government for a long time, and things are hard out there on the run. Besides, they don’t know what he got up to there. ConCorp could have any sort of information on him, something that might scare him back.Bdubs understands this. He doesn’t want to go back. He’d hate to go back....but they think he will, and maybe there’s something he’s not telling them. An ace that ConCorp has yet to play.- Slimetek

- Mumbo works for concorp as an engineer specialising in robotics, most recently taking on the task of maintaining Iskall's cybernetics that somehow they just keep damaging. Iskall assures him they're just.. very clumsy. So far Mumbo hasn't caught on.

- Ren's power is that hes a werewolf, but he only found out when he was in his late teens with his childhood friend Iskall. He still feels guilty about it, he did kill his best friend afterall. Or so he thinks.He's lived off grid ever since, too overwhelmed with grief and guilt to rejoin society. Most assume he's dead too - @ghastly-ghostie [Ren dropped Iskall off to Concorp as a last ditch effort, running away before he could see whether they took his friend in or not. They did, starting Iskall's plotline. Iskall told Concorp about Ren's abilities, triggering a panic in the Concorp ranks at the fact that Ren is a superhuman being created by some force other than their own project]

- Where does Void come from? The same place all powers come from.Little did they know, something survived the crash and has taken a human host. Maybe it's not the only one...No, that place is not Concorp. Concorp's original goal was to develop technology by reverse-engineering from a crashed alien spaceship. These aliens did gene-editing the way some people do nose jobs, so they adapted that technology, too.~DragonKay

- i've already said a bit about it in the discord but i have hermitopia cleo brainrot. joe being there was able to save her by giving her the regen powers along with her puppeteering telekinesis power. anyways cleo is presumed dead, sent by concorp into a mission as fodder basically until zit could arrive. but now there's is one (1) bitter undead vigilante against concorp that is presumed dead

- Stress’s name has a few meanings in relation to her. Whenever she gets too angry or /stressed/, she transforms into the StressMonster, a monster that feeds off of other people’s stress to become more powerful. Luckily, the monster is rarely seen, but does terrible things when she is. She’s one of the most feared creatures in Hermitopia. Stress hates her and tries her best to hide her from her friends, but it can backfire sometimes. - @guster-animations

- to follow-up on Joe being presumed dead: remember the time dilation incident he was stuck in? ConCorp figured it was best to cut their losses and not try to send anyone in to rescue him -- it would be a pointless mission. so they abandoned him, quietly announced that he had died in the line of duty, and put the affected area under high security clearance in order to prevent any future accidents. they figured he was already dead. and Joe figures, given that they up and abandoned him, maybe it's for the best that they continue to figure just that. he changed his last name to "Hills" -- a joke about the biome containing the time anomaly -- and otherwise proceeded to stay under the radar. he still uses the time dilation area as a base of operations, sometimes; it's very useful to have a hideout that people physically cannot get into/out of without his direct assistance. is he nursing a grudge, coming up with some convoluted scheme to get back at the paramilitary group for abandoning him? or does he just want to live a relatively normal life off the grid? who knows. that's the Joe [REDACTED] Hills difference. -@betweenlands

- False has some big scary power that is almost Eldritch she just happens to prefer a sword and doesn’t really care for who she works for as long as they’re paying... (they don’t need to know of the power that had harmed the ones she loves the most)

- Keralis once encountered Void sulking around where Xisuma worked. So fearful for his friend’s safety, he used his power on Void and told him to go away. Apparently the charm is still active, because if Void spots Keralis anywhere, he’ll turn tail and run. No, it’s not because he’s scared. Absolutely not.

- Grumbot serves as a sentient supercomputer created by Mumbo for Grian. Grian is using Grumbot for... various activities, all of which harmless, but a certain evil clone [Helsknight] has reverse engineered the technology. Concorp would like for Mumbo to give them the tech, but mumbo stuck some eyes to the computer, got emotionally attached, and refuses to give up his baby boy.

- When Impulse hears his friend/colleague Bdubs has been "taken over" by the mind-controller [Beef], he wants to go on an off-the-books mission to rescue him! Just giving up like they were told to isn't in his nature.Of course the rest of ZIT are with him. Heroes save people! It's what they do!~DragonKay

- Hermitopia is a mixture of sleek futuristic and cyberpunk in terms of style. It really depends on where you live and work (ik this doesnt include any hermits but whatever) - @ghastly-ghostie

- I wonder if Cleo's overactive healing powers affect herself and if any injuries she receives immediately heal over like wolverine or deadpool

- Ren used to be friends with Cleo too, but then she died. Strangely enough, she died on the same day that Ren killed Iskall. Ren’s lost all his friends. It’s hard living in isolation when there’s no one left that even cares about you. (Unless— no, that’s impossible.)

- I was thinking about Biffa, like you do. And Biffa would totally be some robot that was created by Project VEX in its early stages, however they realised fast that it was easier to use humans and give them powers, maybe its not their strong suit with robots. But Biff went sentient and glitched and was scrapped so hes just out there doing his thing. Hes a wildcard and plays for which side he wants at the time, sometimes he'll help or sometimes hes the one causing trouble. He looks pretty similar to a android like in Detroit:Become human but hes a bit uncanny and eerie, maybe its the eyes or the blood red armour. Powerwise, he's got more strength than a human does, mainly because he isn't limited like others are. try not to get punched by him, it'll hurt! [He's convinced Concorp will destroy him if they find out he's alive and Unaffiliated] -lucodak

- Going off of my thing about hermotopia impulse having friends everywhere....this may include the nho. Okay, they beat him to a pulp on one of his solo patrols once, but theey felt bad n patched him up! He has to keep it a secret. He brings them dinner alot. And checks in on them.

- Beef is the perfect cover-up for Bdubs’ desertion. ConCorp doesn’t want any other employees getting bright ideas, now, do they? Nor do they want employees getting nosy and trying to figure out where Bdubs went. They don’t have to tell people what Beef’s powers are. They just release that he developed powers after brain surgery, and a rumour that he was spotted lurking around before Bdubs suddenly betrayed ConCorp... and people draw their own conclusions. -Slimetek

- xB is pretty sure he’s supposed to be evil.I mean, that’s what sentient AIs usually end up being, according to a quick internet search. And yet he’s... not. Or maybe he’s just on the wrong side. - Slimetek

- Yes impulse is friends with the nho....what he doesn't know? He's....easily susceptible to hypnosis. Very easily.......Of course, after impulse is basically a very tired n warm cuddle bug, so, cuddle piles tend to happen after all information is spilled. He must've fallen asleep at their apartment again! Whoops! But it's okay.....they take good care of him if he does! [Beef is using his mind reading ability on Impulse without his knowledge, to make sure that he hasn't spilled their location and to predict the government's next moves. He feels slightly bad about it but feels that it is necessary for the nHo's survival.]

- So far, Grian has only ever encountered two of his clones, NPC Grian and Robot Grian. Technically three, if one were to count Ariana Griande. Grian doesn't really, but some do. [Ariana Griande is a popular musician in Hermitopia who is building a career using the magical stone of voice enhancement she recieved through the cloning process]

- To handle the two Grumbot issue: the one working with Helsknight can be Jrumbot, a legion of robot drones meant to work as Grumbot’s physical form that ended up being hijacked by Helsknight and turned against ConCorp

- There...aren’t a lot of “normal” animals left in Hermittopia. ConCorp took one look at the animals populating the city and decided that, hey, they could make some improvements. Species after species, they modified their behavior, appearance, internal structure, whatever they could fix, tweak, or add. They were just improving their lives and the lives of the citizens of Hermittopia, after all, but the new animals quickly outcompeted the old for resources and habitats. And if it makes it easier for ConCorp to stick a camera in one or two of them, or set up robotic animals to keep a better eye on the city, no harm, no foul, right?(Bonus: there is one (1) singular cat left in Hermittopia, resulting in a spy movie-style heist where two teams of Hermits attempt to “rescue” the cat simultaneously. The cat keeps wandering away from both teams. Shenanigans ensue)- Adonis [the cat is Jellie, who orchestrated the competition between Team ZIT and Cleo and Joe for her own entertainment, getting away from both parties in the end]

- The Leak:Not all mutations are the result of controlled experiments! If some alien tech got away from the crash site, concorp never would have picked it up. It might have got into nature, not as refined as they made it in the labs but causing little changes here and there. Ren may have become a werewolf from being bitten by a mutant wolf~DragonKay

- Impulse is able to use his powers to create illusions or male things appear invisible! Sort of. After all, light dictates what we see. It takes a lot of focus, though, so it's not that practical. -@rayveewrites

- The one thing Hels wasn't able to steal was the cloning technology, hence his hostility with Concorp -- he needs the cloning device, because how else is the void going to get a body of their own? - SilverWolf53

- *glances at the hermitopia werewolf ask* okay but what if the same mystery people who made ren into a werewolf also created jevin, and maybe Etho? idk if either of them have been given any hermitopia headcanons yet lol. but im sure the same people who made a werewolf could make a sentient slime (or perhaps rescue one) or make... whatever etho is. [Since the "second organization" is an incorrect assumption believed by Concorp, Jevin was created when he came in contact with a waterway contaminated by The Leak. Concorp assumes he was created by an opposing organization and not by accident, and therefore would like to bring him in along with Ren.]

- hermitopia - mumbo and grian were friends back when cloning experiments were still happening (or . as friendly as you can be with someone who's treating you like a lab rat), but after everything went wrong and grian escaped, mumbo has his memories wiped nd thats why he's trusted w iskall's stuff? bc he inherently remembers working on high-level things without knowing where he learnt it - muscle memory, yk?anyway massive angst with grian maybe recognising mumbo, but not the other way round, and trying to rekindle their friendship? and that's where grumbot comes in? -gin [Mumbo's memory was wiped so that he would forget the deadly purpose of Iskall's cybernetics, which he was working on at the same time as the Grian project in the background. Mumbo does not remember creating Grian's mechanical wings or Iskall's arm and eye, and he has no memory of either individual previous to "meeting" Iskall as the person assigned to his repair and upkeep.]

- Etho doesn't so much have powers as he is powers. All the powers the ‘original’ had went into creating him; now he just exists, as whatever sort of being he is. Not a human one, that much is obvious. ~DragonKay [Etho has no powers beyond the hivemind and his training, due to the error in the experiment that caused the clones]

- Mumbo started the button as a joke. A nonsense social expirement to see how much people want worthless signs of status. Unfortunately things got out of hand, and violent too. But hey! It's not his fault that the five special anomalous stones were misplaced into the prize dispenser! It was just chance that they fell into the hands of the clone of the worst gremlin in the city! Don't fire him! [He was not fired, but Cub was Decidedly Unhappy with him for a good long while]

- Void mostly trashes ConCorp facilities- trying to figure out if any of his siblings survived the spaceship crash, but occasionally he’ll pilfer from a bakery, because X is a health nut and Void just wants a gods damned cookie [Void very much dislikes unseasoned chicken]

- If the Stress Monster gets too big, too dangerous, Cleo is sworn under oath to Stress to zap her with her healing powers. Cleo doesn’t like to do it, overhealing a stressed Stress makes her so calm she gets knocked out for a couple of days, but Stress can take a small comfort in the fact that at least one person out there can stop her

- Ooh with the self healing Cleo she'd be able to develop a small amount of super strength, with how the mind keeps from going full throttle because it would destroy the body once she gets over it it's hysterical strength whenever she wants [it is quite painful, but a good backup plan]

- Being a hive mind of disposable clones that can spawn new copies at will, it can sometimes be hard for the Etho Entity to remember that it is indeed a big deal for other people when they get hurt. This can make him come off as callous to those around him, placing him firmly in the "villain" category in most citizen's books, but he really doesn't intend any harm!

- Grian used to be tall, but then the cloning happened. With each clone they stole a little bit of his height making him the short man he is today. He needs to capture those clones and get his height back. [Grian isn't entirely sure how to accomplish this, but he's dead set on trying! He misses being tall!]

- While Grian was perfectly fine with Ariana Griande living her own life, he did insist on one thing.Her "older brother" getting backstage access whenever she was on tour. He's very proud and supportive of her and her music career.

- Mumbo is perfectly content working in tech, watching the other hermits get up to crazy shenanigans. Except of course, there was that one time he was out testing some new gear and accidentally saved a crowd from some villains... and there were all those times after too...But hey! It’s not his fault that people like him, and he certainly isn’t going to get caught by Concorp during his after hours activities. [Mumbo considers himself an accidental hobbyist, not thinking he has the nerve or the skill for proper hero work. Time will tell if he's right about that or not...but unfortunately, he probably is. This should be fun.]

- There’s still some people overseeing VEX, even over Cub. They’re the ones that push Cub to do certain experiments or to scrap one. They’re the ones to give Cub the decision for Iskall’s life debt. Scar was under them too for the longest time, but eventually he wanted out. Cub still wanted in. They were still in the right, right? That’s what they tell him. He’s starting to doubt it. [Cub is way too invested in everything he's built to even think about going rogue now, but he does resent and occasionally question the judgement of his superiors increasingly as his project begins to fail more and more often. He also fears that Scar's shift in career will be seen as a betrayal, rather than as a tactical attempt to gain the company influence in the government.]

- Been thinking about the impulse + nho asks and just,,, what would happen if concorp/the government found out? It cant be good with interrogation/hypnosis on both sides (incase you cant tell,, the brainrot got me as well) (apologies if this is a mess im excited) [Hypno is assigned to set up an illusionary conversation to make Impulse reveal nHo location to Concorp and government agents while thinking that he's actually talking to the nHo in a random encounter]

- The one mind Beef can't read is Etho's. Their hivemind is just too weird for him to comprehend. If he ever tries to listen in, it sounds like just a bunch of static from an old TV.

- for hermitopia au!: Out of most of the heros, the most reckless may be team zit. sure they tell themselves they'll plan out missions but it's hard when they share a braincell and tango just runs in. impulse and zed share a look everytime and have to run after him to make sure he doesn't get too hurt or overwhelmed by the enemy. in their defence its hard to plan ahead against an enemy when you dont know what they are thinking.-lucodak ["You might not have known what they were thinking, Tango, but we'd generally like you to know what you're thinking!"]

- i bet ConCorp really wants to make it out like theres some secret shady organization creating all these people with mutations, rather than their own operatives deserting and their own failure to contain dangerous chemicals... whether its malicious coverups or just ignorance to the fact they messed up, wonder what would happen if that sort of thing came to light...? [If they found out that the unintentional superhumans were a result of the poorly-contained crash site? Cub would lose his job...maybe worse. If Cub found out (and he hasn't, yet) he would do everything in his power to keep that information from his superiors.]

- (paraphrased) Impulse accidentally walks in on heroes and agents breaking down the doors of the nHo's hideout and confronting them. Scar claims that they did so on information Impulse himself provided and thanks him for his service. Impulse, feeling confused and betrayed, resists Hypno's attempts to illusion him back to Scar's side and flees the scene with the nHo, knowing very little other than the fact that he doesn't want to be manipulated by the government any more (and still not knowing that Beef has been reading his mind)

- Impulse may have been labeled a traitor. But do you really think that Impulse, secret rebel, starting to learn how dangerous and corrupted Concorp really is, wouldn't let his best friends know about the danger they might be in? I think Team ZIT is more loyal to each other than to the government. - @mleemwyvern [ Impulse's first stop after escaping with the nHo is to find a place to secretly meet Tango and Zedaph and tell them about the way he was tricked. It takes a lot of explaining and a lot of trust, but they eventually decide to believe his claims and are left with a choice: will they openly go rogue and become a target along with Impulse and the rest of the nHo, or are they better off using their established image and reputation to keep an eye on the government heros' movements from the inside?]

- (two asks combined, paraphrased) Ren runs out of supplies and decides to head back into the city, confident in his ability to stay off the grid after so many years of experience and such a long time away. Once there, he runs into Doc, and they hit it off quite quickly. However, the more Ren talks the more Doc realizes - with his ex-Concorp knowledge - that Ren matches the description of Iskall's main target exactly. He warns Ren, who is then faced with the knowledge that Iskall is alive and assigned to kill him...so many questions and so many tears to follow...

- Why did Hermitopia start needing heroes? When the Unrestrained started to appear, if course. Why did the Unrestrained start to appear? A question asked a little less. When did the VEX program start? When did they start taking more risks? When did they stop caring about certainty and safety and shift towards trying to push boundaries they weren't ready to? People can be so enamoured with the concept of superhuman abilities, something bright and glorious and good- and perhaps they could have that too- they don't ask all the right questions. It's all an elaborate game of damage control, don't let the flashy heroics fool you, they've made mistakes, terrible, terrible mistakes, and now there are villains running loose with powers they fooled ConCorp into giving them. Are they villains? Are they victims? Does it matter? They're causing problems. [Project VEX has developed into a solution to its own problems, a self perpetuating cycle...one that Cub, as a businessman, is very familiar with. It's what keeps the wheels of industry turning. It's what keeps innovation creeping forward. It wasn't intentional, not this time...but if it keeps his project alive, he'll take it.]

- One time, Jevin had narrowly dodged being captured by Concorp. He was laying low in the forest out of town, when he had a run-in with some sort of wolf creature. Thankfully, claws and teeth couldn't exactly hurt him anymore, so he just played dead until it gave up.When the moon set, the wolf-thing slowly transformed into a human being. Ren was horrified at the thought he'd lost control and hurt someone- again- but Jevin assured him he was fine. Jevin got the feeling that the werewolf needed a friend, and Jevin himself needed a place to stay for a while... -RayveeWrites [Ren and Jevin are not currently in the same location, but they each have a means of contacting each other for help if needed]

- Worm Man wasn't a well- known super, but plenty of people have noticed that he seemed to vanish at the same time Team ZIT first started active duty. Those people have also noticed that one of the members has a very similar power set to WM.Officially, that's just a coincidence. Officially.-RayveeWrites [Zedaph was trying to get some unofficial practice while still in training in the VEX program]

- A common misconception is that Bdubs conjures up his vines from nowhere. He can't.Like any plant, his vines grow from seeds. They grow unnaturally fast, when Bdubs wills it, but they have to come from seeds. Where do these seeds come from, you may ask?Well, a long time ago, Bdubs ingested some strange fruits. Somehow, in wild defiance of human biology, the seeds contained in those fruits worked their way into his muscles and germinated. Some of the roots worked their way into his brain and fused into it; the rest spread through his muscles, grew beneath his skin, coiled around his bones. Thanks to the way the vines connected to his brain, Bdubs is able to command the vines, and their magic, at will.The vines produce seeds; some stay in his body to replace the old ones when they die, and most work their way into a pair of 'seed pods' in his wrists. Bdubs provides the nutrients, the energy; the vines provide the seeds, the magic. As an extra bonus: if the vines were to be totally removed from Bdubs' body, he would be at best extremely weak, and at worst dead. The vines have grown into his muscles, to the point where they've essentially replaced them in some areas. It's fortunate that they connected with his mind so early on, otherwise he'd be dead. -RayveeWrites [Concorp developed the fruit, and the fact that Bdubs is evidence of the unlikely success of that experiment makes them all the more angry at his betrayal]

- A lot of excellent xB information (it's too long to copy but please read it it's very good)

- Iskall has exactly one (1) failed assignment. That assignment? The kill or capture of Stress. Stress and Iskall have been, or should it be were now, friends for a very long time, since before Iskall even met Ren. So one can imagine the stress this causes Iskall, to be told to kill his one remaining friend that he knows is alive. Of course, this stress is quite enough to to Stress's Stress Monster into one it's strongest yet seen forms, allowing for Stress to then get away. (1/2)(2/2) Of course, Con Corp doesn't- and can never- know the true reason that Iskall cannot kill or capture Stress. If they knew, if they subjected Stress to the same hell he's in- no, that cannot happen. So Iskall hires False to protect Stress, to interfere whenever they send him on a mission for her. Luckily, False is good at keeping secrets when she wants to, and this one she'll keep. But as far as Con Corp knows, Iskall has severe stress and trauma from being a cyborg, and that's why he fails. [This all adds up to a monumental waste of Concorp's time and money, which also results in False getting payed, so all parties involved are happy except for Concorp >:)]

- Impulse would take a bullet for his teammates, and he knows they might be about to take one for him, keeping him updated on what's going on government side of this... slander. Still, Tango and Zed are great actors, and if he didn't know better, he might be a little worried they would *actually* be hunting him down in the name of justice [Tango and Zed are now being sent on missions to retrieve Impulse, which they must pretend to lose believably. They occasionally overestimate their friend's abilities and give him a few more close calls than he'd like, but overall the ruse is holding up.]

Writing:

- Wels, Hels, TFC, and Grumbot

- Bdubs Concorp promotion and desertion

- Joe Hills in his time dilation hideout

- Etho clones, ZIT, and the nHo

- Keralis and Void

- [ALTERNATE] Reveal of Impulse's situation with the nHo

Art:

- Impulse suit design

[thedeviljudges]

the devil judge + the seven deadly sins

so, i made a gifset about who i thought falls under the seven deadly sins. and also shameless plug - please go reblog the gifset i made for this. took me ages to do.

but i figured i might as well make a meta post to correlate. so this is that post. it’s not everything i could discuss. i could be here for hours more, truth be told. but i hope it’s enough to chew on.

while i feel like a lot of these are going to be a no-brainer, i still want to talk it through because idk. i can, and i want to, and i feel like it, lmao.

gluttony

the elite are privileged and have an opportunity to indulge so much more than the general public, but in many different ways. this is shown throughout the show in the fact that they can indulge on luxury food, have political power, they can make a phone call or snap their fingers and everyone must follow their orders.

and the thing about gluttony is that there is always more to be had. you take a little and then realize it’s not enough and so you ask for more. case in point: in episode 11 when sunah suggests that yohan could be the new president, the current one gives her an alternative: dictatorship. because it wasn’t just enough for him to be an actor and the presiding president.

you’ll also know they turn in on themselves - the two other guys in the elite group. one who owns the company and the other dude - i really cannot remember their names and what they do, but y’all know who i’m talking about. it was so easy for them, when threatened, to fabricate documents to give to yohan about each other in order to get ahead. gluttony is only shared in the relationships we have until one realizes they can take a little extra of the pie. it’s the selfishness of having all the leftovers. gluttony cannot necessarily exist without someone else’s sacrifice.

lust

i kind of had an ah-ah moment when i was talking this over with @technitango​. i was trying to decide who was going to be lust because lust is portrayed very, very differently in this show than what most of us are used to. we, of course, know sunah who lusts after a life of indulgence and riches because she equates that with respect more than actually wanting it because it’s monetarily worth something.

but then i realized the public is lust because of their need for justice. i won’t say revenge necessarily because they’re doing as they’re told when given the judge show. but we can quickly see how that evaporates into something akin to bloodlust, for criminals and people who normally get away with shit, to have their fair taste at conviction for their misdeeds. we even see it with yohan’s fanboy club - the lust that comes from adoration and dedication.

and even more so, the public is easily swayed and so is the nature of lust. it follows in the vein of needs and wants, and as soon as new information is presented, however may false, so does the wants and desires of what people want sway. how easy was it for them to turn on yohan for a split second on two occasions - on two accounts of bribery.

envy

envy, above all, is about wanting what others have because you do not have it yourself. it may not be exactly what they have, but a form of it. some people don’t necessarily want money - they want what it can by, which is time, health and material goods.

sunah is the perfect example of this. she envies respect and recognition. she talks about bright and shiny objects, and that’s true to her kleptomania tendences, but more than anything, she wants to be seen as an equal because being poor with a vastly different upbringing means she’s looked down upon by those she thinks matters.

which also begs the question why she feels the need to seek validation from people in higher statuses to begin with when she can be the exception and not the rule - form her own understanding and environment to show others that the typical way of the elite is not actually all it’s cracked up to be - to which we see when she has no one to celebrate her victory with. it’s lonely being at the top. you get to your goal you thought you wanted but then what?

more importantly, sunah also envies family, relationships and simply put, human interaction. she wants to be cared for and treasured, and she looks for that in her position of power. because then all eyes are on you. because then that’s what people care about. what she fails to see is that those eyes are just as fruitless and just as wavering. to be a leader means people loving the idea of you but not you as a person.

“people of envious nature are sometimes stimulated to seek to emulate those who have completed some great achievements and in doing so achieve something great for themselves,” according to Understanding Philosophy.

wrath

while i realize that gaon not might entirely fit the wrath trope, he certainly has his moments, and i think he’s lived with a tampered flame since his parent’s death. he just learned to briefly put it out in the form of distractions and a false sense of righteousness and justice. it isn’t until he meets yohan that someone finally gives him the okay to feel the entirety of his emotions, that lets him breath and tells him it’s okay to feel anger and hurt. and while gaon ultimately chooses not to exact revenge, his wrath is what led him to becoming a judge and walking away from his teenage crimality.

gaon transposed his wrath into seeking justice, transformed it into livelihood, and reformed his narrative so that he was no longer angry and a teen with rash emotions. it was simply redirected and never really forgotten. yohan turned that redirection back around onto gaon’s ultimate heartache. fueled with that, it became easier to justify himself and his actions.

the most pivotal moment of turning his back on this mindset is, of course, the minister’s suicide, where he takes a good look at himself and doesn’t like what he sees. at this point, gaon’s upset isn’t necessarily at yohan but at the situation in which they got themselves into. because the thing is, gaon doesn’t absolve himself from what they did. he doesn’t turn a blind eye to that and try to dismiss it. he owns up to what happened and confesses how he feels to yohan and how he has to leave for his own good, and in some indirect way, for yohan’s, too.

with yohan, his ultimately weakness, despite never admitting to it, is family. his wrath comes in the form of anger when the ones he loves are threatened. yohan lives by a moral code of loyalty because that means you won’t be abandoned, and as a child who lived with that verdict since the day he was born, it’s an ever-pressing theme of his.

thing is, wrath comes in two particular forms for yohan. again, one is family and the second is the rose-colored glasses he’s given himself in his revenge story. he’s always had a goal to presumably make right the wrong for taking away isaac, but within that, 10 years is a long time to plot revenge, to the point where it becomes so much easier to lose yourself to that, to become enraged with it and forget the initial goal all along. we see this in his inability to form the bonding moments needed with his niece and his casual throwaway comments over people’s lives - the comment he made to gaon about moving on to the next plan, and the ultimately nail in the coffin of pushing gaon to leaving him.

his fury has also led him to convince himself his own humanity is nothing short of a lie. therefore, it’s easier to justify the means to an end because of his own self-worth and self-deprecation. it’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy: he even admitted to gaon’s mentor that he is an abyss. he’s referred to himself as nothing but an animal or a monster - all characteristics of despondency to survive and to justify what he’s doing. sort of like a catch 22, yohan claims he’s an animal/monster and behaves as such, but because he behaves as such, it means he’s an animal/monster.

wrath for gaon and yohan are very different yet the same. they are slow-burning, and that’s a dangerous type. it’s actually interesting when you think about the fire imagery surrounding the two of them because flames are quick to lap at anything in its wake, to destroy within a matter of minutes. and yet for the two of these men, their internal fire eats them from the inside out, painfully, until they’re almost unrecognizable to others and to themselves.

sloth

sloth was a little more difficult to pinpoint because of its characteristics. it was either the minister versus the mentor, both of which i think could work in this role. however, i chose the minister simply because she’s featured more and intertwines heavily with the plot line.

soth is a medieval translation of the Latin term acedia, meaning “without care.”

the ultimate characteristic of sloth is often identified as laziness, and while it’s easy to argue that the minister hasn’t been lazy in her ability to get where she is, she became as much when she started lying to get to her position. isn’t lying known as the easier way out? it absolves you of responsibility, of putting in the hard work, of apologizing and making things right. in the end, she had a goal and found the easiest solution to get there through her lack of responsibility for the roles she more than likely swore an oath to.

but that also translates into the other attributes of sloth: a failure to do the right thing, lack of emotions for people or of the self, and the fact that it “hinders man in his righteous undertakings and thus becomes a terrible source of man’s undoing” according to The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil.

while i think there are a lot of components of sloth that may not necessarily fit the minister, the apathy and carelessness are enough to showcase her aggression, despondency and restlessness when what little efforts she does put in do not go her way. another interesting thing to note is that many of sloth’s traits correspond with symptoms of mental illness, such as depression and anxiety. it’s an interesting thing to note given the way the minister chooses to end her life.

greed

i don’t know that jinjoo would’ve had any provocation to the limelight if it wasn’t for sunah’s direction, but she’s eager to please and wants to be useful. it’s only natural for her to want more because it’s clear she’s a career woman, loves her job and has a heart for serving the people.

but like gluttony, greed is also that little thing that plants itself and can take on a life of its own. you start looking for justifications as to why you can’t have more than what you do, and in jinjoo’s situation, she’s already overlooked through no fault of her own. and it’s not that gaon and yohan are doing it purposefully, which is what makes their neglect heartbreaking, because truthfully, they’re after the same thing jinoo is. sure, it looks different and the foundation of it is different, same with their motives. but they’re all three judges on a residing bench working to exact justice - even if all three of them have their own personal agenda. 

i don’t think jinoo fully aligns with greed, but she does want more for herself, and i think that’s only natural. you can tell she has a heart, and she’s keen not to be overlooked. this isn’t her pain point so much as it is she knows her worth and is more than ready to do what it takes to get where she wants. this, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad trait, but we can see how it leads to being deceived, especially for someone who’s been left in the dark for so long.

she is enticed by the glitz and the glamour of being a head judge, but you can tell she feels some remorse and guilt for those thoughts at times. i think her sense of greed is a battle within herself more than it is extremely outwardly.

pride

soohyun’s pride comes in the form of her imbalance with right and wrong. her sense of righteousness and justice is so far leaning, even more than gaon’s. it can be chalked up to her being a cop, but we’ve seen instances of this outside of her role within that agency. her pride doesn’t let her see beyond saving gaon and getting to the bottom of every mystery that comes her way.

it also comes in the form of impulsiveness and her savior complex, putting elijah in danger, for example, instead of waiting for backup. it’s not necessarily from a belief that she can fix things all on her own, but she sees injustice and immediately jumps in. another case in point is her and gaon watching yohan wreck the minister’s son’s car. she’s ready to go stop him, but gaon pulls her back, most likely because at that point, they hadn’t been observing the situation for very long to get a read on it. also the fact that at that point, neither of them truly knew yohan and his capabilities.

but as to where her characteristics come from, we simply don’t know beyond that of gaon. it’s unfortunate because we don’t have much of her backstory, so there is no real understanding why she so firmly believes in entities of regulation beyond keeping her friend out of jail. she prides herself on her work and what she’s able to accomplish, which is why it’s devastating to her to have to protect gaon by cleaning up his bloody handprint.

aristotle is of the belief that, “pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character,” from Nicomachean Ethics.

but pride for soohyun isn’t about honors or rewards. it’s for herself and her capabilities, her ability to protect gaon, and the virtues she’s set as the precedent for herself. because sometimes it’s not even about establishing morals and ethics upon yourself. it’s about feelings/intuition, logic and observation. and no, i don’t mean the feelings she has for gaon. there are things that humans do, both actions and words, that we inherently know are bad without someone telling us as much and without the rules of the world seared into our brains. there are some things we know, for a fact, are wrong to us as individuals.

for soohyun, she knows that gaon’s actions, and even her own, have consequences. from what we’ve seen, i think it can be argued that it’s really about not doing those actions to prevent an outcome - not necessarily from a place of being just and right. that doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand good morals/ethics, but again, we have no background of what her internal guidance actually is.

to put this in layman’s terms, we’ll use gaon wanting to stab the conman in his youth. soohyun knows it’s wrong because it will incriminate gaon and therefore she stops it. gaon’s gone to her because he sees her as a moral compass. but is her own internal navigation rooted in justice the way gaon had to find it in the judicial system, or is hers rooted in her pride of keeping gaon safe? she stops him from doing things that will get him in trouble, but is she stopping him because the action itself is wrong or because the outcome will result in undesirable consequences for the two of them?

and of course, there is a flipped argument to be had there - i’m not arguing that gaon stabbing the conman would be right or justified. but what i am saying is that for her, her worldview is the only right one, and when anyone steps out of that, even gaon, it becomes a bit of an issue: the pride she has for that is palpable.

every character indulges

truthfully, every character has at least one form of these sins rooted in their characterization. some are larger than others, but the breadth of it can be explored even further for each. and that’s what makes them more realistic and not just characters written on a page or following a linear progression of their writing deity.

the seven deadly sins are also notoriously rooted in religion. they’re also a defining feature of aristotle’s works that represent the golden mean, in which each vice is parallel to a virtue.

the devil judge is so layered, but i think at the heart of it, it’s about humanity at its core. sprinked in are the philosophies and contradictions and what it means to look in the mirror, what happens when we’re blind to seeing our true selves and most importantly, how much changes when we’re swayed by our own misgivings. it really asks us to understand nature versus nurture, that people must find a belief in something to keep them going, and how futile our hopes and desires can actually be if we’re not carefully regulating ourselves, nevermind the entities established by society to regulate us, too.

the entirety of the show genuinely begs the question as to who is truly right, who is truly wrong, and if it’s even possible to find the correct answer.

[eisforeidolon]

The amount of pure insecure NO U!!! just bleeding off that post sure is something. Poor ol' dotty as hell Dot just can't admit such inept attempts at a reverse uno are not going to convince anyone who isn't already eyeballs deep in the cult. Hell, I'm not even sure she's convincing herself at this point.

We respect most of the supporting cast just fine. We just recognize they were in a proportional fraction of the show and lack authority to speak about it beyond their very limited involvement. Especially if they're trying to speak over or contrary to others with more authority (or if they constantly change their stories). Unlike Dot and her ilk who want to pretend Jared and Jensen don't have any right to speak on their characters or the overarching themes, despite being involved in every single episode of the show and being the only ones on the cast regularly allowed to make changes. No matter how much or how little of the show they were in, only people who tell us what we want to hear have the right to speak about it! You don't say.

We understand that hating any individual character or actor has sweet fuckall to do with media literacy, just personal preference and (over)investment. Dot and her weirdo crew want to make hating Jared/Sam while worshiping Misha/Cass and their fanon Dean/blowup doll version of Jensen some kind of righteous moral stance everyone has to agree with because ... wahhhh my ship!!!

Yes, we are the actual fans of the tv show, Supernatural. We know the show was about the brothers before everyone else because it's right there out in the open, obvious as hell. The arcs that actually existed in the show revolved around that premise, season after season, and the finale hammered it home. There's no projection or interpretation required, it's literally right fucking there. This is the CW's Supernatural not highbrow literature, erudition my ass.

They're only fans of their own imaginations, which would be fine if they didn't insist that was actually the show despite, you know, the show. Forget the obvious thematic arcs smacking us in the face, forget what the characters blatantly said and did over and over! No, no, no, there must be super secret hidden clues to the REAL meaning in there for the REAL fans! True understanding of the show could only come from those who furiously wrote thousands upon thousands of words of meta trying to interpret a romantic arc into existence by sheer force of word vomit from random minutiae! Just because it never once was part of the actual narrative doesn't mean it wasn't totes real! When they're trying to pretend that's not all they care about, they insist the bare couple of times in fifteen years characters said family is more than blood was totally an arc more central than the brothers relationship by the end - you only have to ignore almost literally everything the brothers actually did and the vast majority of what they said. It was there! It was! Network sabotage! Homophobia! Help, help, I'm being oppressed by a tv show not being rewritten to my personal specifications! I'm a REAL fan of the show, I deserve to dictate what it's about! But it totally was about what I say it was about! There is absolutely no contradiction here!

Which doesn't even get into the bizarre creative reinterpretation acrobatics of insisting Misha was a lead because he was on some magazine covers sometimes. Sure, he didn't have the screentime or the billing but maGAzInE cOvERs! So even if he constantly changes his story, that's more valid than anything Jared ever says! They also listen to Jensen! Just because they creatively reinterpret or selectively ignore what he says, mostly to pretend he means literally the opposite of what he's actually saying, that doesn't mean they don't! (Either that or they insist he's a poor backwards yokel idiot who will soon Learn To Do Better.)

We have the show. We don't have to pretend huge swaths of it don't exist or have secret hidden meanings directly contradicting the explicit ones. We have J2, who don't constantly contradict their own stories about the show and their characters' places in it.

Hellers and other malcontents like Dot have literally nothing but projection, reinterpretation, bonkers conspiracy theories, and Misha's desperation for money. You just need a super secret decoder ring and it becomes very clear ... that they need to get a fucking grip already, it's been four years!

HAHAHAHA The funniest post I've seen in days. "We have no rights to claim to be a fan." Says a heller, someone who only watched for a non existent ship, also someone who hates the lead.

This is another one of those, "how dare we disrespect the loser extras" while they actively hate on the lead. Sit the fuck down and shut up. You have zero rights here, Dottie. It was always about the brothers, the only one who's erasing the actual themes are you. By the way, we're allowed to dislike any character we want. It's like this with every show. There are characters people love, characters people hate. And what we dislike about them, is the actors have become ungrateful brats for the amount of episodes they were in.

So stay mad, we'll continue to dislike them. Someone who hates the show has no business calling us "not a fan." This is rich. 😂😂😂

[cosmicjoke]

Alright, I want to talk a little bit about Eren Yaeger.  I know, I know, not THAT guy, lol.

But here’s the thing.  On my readthrough of SnK, I find myself feeling genuinely bad for Eren, despite knowing the ending, despite knowing the horrific things he ends up doing.  There’s a lot of controversy surrounding this.  I see lots of people complaining that Isyama shouldn’t have made Eren so sympathetic or human if he was going to have him commit such monstrous acts.  But the thing is... I think people who complain about this miss the entire point.

I think Isyama making Eren as sympathetic and human as he did was entirely intentional, and more than that, I think it was vital in exploring the themes of SnK in a genuine and realistic manner.  I think we’re meant to feel sympathy for Eren, and I think those feelings of sympathy are meant to make us uncomfortable.  I’ll go into this in a minute.

The reality of people who commit truly horrific acts, like Eren did, is that they AREN’T monsters.  They’re human beings.  There’s no such thing as monsters.  That’s the point.  The Titans themselves reflect this reality.  They appear monstrous, they do monstrous things like eating other humans, but in reality, they’re just humans themselves.  Real life instances of people committing truly horrendous acts, like genocide, exist, of course.  And it’s VERY easy and much more comfortable for us to label these sorts of people as monsters, because it helps us to remove ourselves, and humanity in general, from any kind of connection with them.  If they’re monsters, if they aren’t HUMAN, then that means we aren’t like them, and could never be like them, etc...  It’s easy and desirable to reject the notion that human nature can develop into something so terrible.  

But giving in to this easy out, this easy dismissal of the depths of depravity and horror that human beings can reach, is in itself extremely dangerous, because it blinds us to the possibility of monstrous people living among us.  It blinds us to the potential for a seemingly and even genuinely regular person to turn into someone capable of truly horrific acts.

I think that’s largely the point of a lot of the themes in SnK.  We see many of the characters engaging in acts which can be described as monstrous.  What Reiner and Bertolt did was monstrous, for example.  What Annie did was monstrous, etc...  But we don’t look at them as monsters because we’re privy to their backstories, and the tragedy of their circumstances, and what led them to do the things they did.  We see them as human beings, and sympathetic human beings at that.

The same, of course, is true of Eren.  We spend the entire story with Eren, and watch him go through his own, personal struggles, his deep feelings of remorse and guilt and unworthiness.  We see him lose his family and his friends, and the grief and pain he suffers for it.  We watch his genuine love and care for his friends be put on display again and again, how much he truly wants to protect them all, and keep them safe.  We see him struggle with feelings of failure, of feeling like he’s failing his friends and comrades, and feelings of guilt, that so many of them have died to protect him.  We see him bending, and then breaking, under the pressure of being seen as humanity’s great hope.  We’re reminded again and again of Eren’s humanity, even as we’re given obvious clues as to his potential to turn into something terrible.  And again, I think that’s the point.  Eren is HUMAN.  He’s an incredibly human character, possessing some of the virtues of being human, and many of the faults.  Eren is... relatable.  And yet, still, he commits a truly unforgivable act in the end.  A truly monstrous act.  But still... he’s human, and we recognize him as human, and that makes us uncomfortable, because we’re ALL human, and seeing someone who resembles us, who struggles like us, feels genuine remorse and pain like us, etc... but who proves to be capable of something monstrous, is deeply unsettling.  It’s unsettling because Eren reflects humanity, and what human’s are capable of, given certain, extreme situations.  

I think it’s important to acknowledge that Eren isn’t a sociopath.  He feels genuine remorse and pain over the things he does.  He feels regret.  He doesn’t ENJOY hurting others, or get a kick out of it.  And we start the journey of SnK with him as a hopeful youth, who’s driving desire is to rid the world of monsters so he can protect his friends.  And, in his own, deluded way, Eren still believes he’s striving for the same when he commits his act of genocide.  It doesn’t make it right, or okay, and it’s never presented as such either.  Everyone agrees it’s beyond messed up and needs to be stopped, which is exactly what they risk their lives to do.  But it also doesn’t erase the years of friendship and camaraderie they shared with Eren.  We can’t just expect his friends and fellow soldiers to forget all the years they spent with him and all the experiences they shared to be instantly forgotten because Eren turned out to be a bad person, or ended up doing terrible things.  That, too, is very human.  Emotions aren’t an issue of black and white morality.  We can’t control how we feel, about anything.  We can’t love someone all our lives, or trust someone for years, or care about them as a friend for years, and then just automatically forget those feelings when the person does something wrong.

I think people who complain that Eren was presented as too human and call it “problematic” are missing the point.  Eren is SUPPOSED to be human, because as is driven home again and again in SnK, human beings are capable of monstrous things, and it doesn’t change the intrinsic truth that they ARE human, no matter how much we may wish to deny it, or remove ourselves from that ugly reality.  From the reality of what human beings are capable of.

People of course are capable of truly beautiful and kind acts, genuine goodness and generosity and purity of heart.  I think, in a way, Eren and Levi are representative of these two extremes of human nature.  Eren representative of the depths of darkness humanity can reach, Levi representative of the heights of compassion and kindness humanity can reach.

[ask-purpled-and-blued]

Vigilante

Not once has Purpled ever called himself a hero.

He wants that on record, wants to say it up front. He’s never had any delusions about what he is and what he’s doing.

He doesn’t have the license for it, doesn’t have the morals for it. He’s not even saving that many people.

He’s just some kid running around in pro hero cosplay with his shoddy homemade support gear.

So riddle him this: why the fuck is his vigilante name trending on Twitter under #Swag_forHeroCon?

(—This one’s got a high-stress moment and the briefest panic attack known to man somewhere in the middle. Mind the post’s tags and reply if it needs more.—)

—

It started about a year ago. It’s sophomore year and he’s looking at his options for next year’s classes.

Of course he’s taking AP Calc and everything he thinks colleges wanna see. That’s a given and a no-brainer and he’s not gonna go into detail about that.

No, what matters is that his junior and senior year let him take career classes.

Hero-related career classes.

Because not only is this a private nerd school that he needs his scholarship to afford. It’s a private nerd school that has a dual-enrollment type thing with a nearby heroics school.

And one with a pretty good support course that is now available to him.

He’s always been interested in math and engineering. Support courses are just using both of those to make cool shit for heroes and make hella money while doing so.

He’s done his research. Support gear can cost anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to an arm and a leg and both your kidneys.

And it’s his dream to make that kinda money.

So he talks to his counselor about it, fills out the applications and waivers, takes the program’s entrance exam. And within a week he’s got his new schedule that’s got an extra two hours slapped onto the end of the day.

It’s gonna be so worth it.

—

And it really was.

The beginning of the year was covering what they should make support gear for, how to take the quirks and ideas of the heroes they’re working for and make them actually work.

But also the design process, how to research stuff, lab safety. How to make something look nice while not compromising its utility, costume design, branding. Different materials and their uses, different materials and how to work with them. How to deal with mistakes and set-backs. Avoiding burnout and getting literally burn.

The class was amazing. But his favorite part came later in the year.

The final project.

They were given a made up hero student’s profile and were told to create a support item for them. The file came with their name, measurements, hero name, quirk description, and several sketches of what the fake person looked like and of them using their quirk.

They were given a few deadlines and some profiles came with design requests, but for the most part they were allowed to go ham.

And go ham he did.

His assignment was a kid whose quirk was being able to float just himself. He got a couple sketches of what the kid’s costume already had and it looked like there was a bee theme going on.

So, naturally, he decided to give this kid a pneumatic nail gun.

...

Alright so maybe that wasn’t as intuitive as he thought it was. But the kid didn’t have any sort of weapon on him in any of the sketches!

And there wasn’t any sort of close combat abilities listed in the biography like some of his classmates’s people had, so the further this kid could be from the action while still packing a punch the better.

Hence the nail gun he was designing to look like a stinger.

He did his research. Looked up where the body’s vital organs are and read up on acupuncture. Looked up the damage that stab wounds can do and how fast a thing had to be going to go right through you.

Printed out some human outlines and wrote up a couple sheets that pointed out the “no-no spots.” And basically wrote a manual on how to use the thing and half an essay on why certain safety features were implemented to keep him and the fake kid from being sued.

And then halfway through actually building the thing he got the idea to add a paralytic substance.

And then he hated himself a little bit because he had to find a substance that would be non-lethal and would have the desired affect. And then he had to go to his teacher during his office hours to sit down and explain that yes he had this idea but he’s not entirely sure if it’s a good one.

And he wrote another almost-essay about what he chose as the paralytic substance and why he chose it and what the max amount the average person could take was so that he wouldn’t be liable if it was used improperly.

And then he recorded himself reading all of his paperwork both for extra credit and because apparently the kid’s bio said he was dyslexic and the teacher wanted them to do this as realistically as possible.

Probably would’ve been easier to just change the font but he’s come this far, might as well go the extra mile.

He paints the thing. Gathers up all his research and his concept sketches and his blueprints and his explanations and his recordings.

And he dumps them on the teacher’s desk and enjoys the lull in the class as the final projects get reviewed and graded.

They get to watch movies and Netflix with the TA while the teacher sits in the other room grading them.

He loved this class.

—

He still loves the class but it loses points for the fucking heart attack it just gave him.

Apparently the hero students they made shit for we’re real hero students. Actual, physical people who applied to the heroics department and got in. And may possibly one day be heroes if they didn’t fail.

And were going to come in and see the shit they made that passed inspections. And would be given said shit to use as part of their hero costumes.

In hindsight it should’ve been obvious, but Purpled cut himself some slack there.

At least his guy was nice. A little too excited at 4pm on a Thursday, but given the fact that Purpled just handed him a gun and said he could shoot people, it was understandable.

Purpled felt really good as he walked this Tubbo guy through the instructions again. Apparently he’d already been sent the paperwork and the audio before this. So all that was left to do was remind him about it the important stuff and then taking five wide steps back and letting him shoot at a practice dummy.

...

Well, Tubbo’s aim wasn’t his problem.

F to any villains and civilians in his way.

—

At this point, there’s probably some confusion.

“Purpled, why did you become a vigilante if your support gear inventing future looked bright?”

He’s getting to that!

He needs to talk about his junior year to give context for his senior year.

Which sucked absolute ass.

—

For one, Purpled’s quirk came in.

Now, normally that would be a pretty good thing. Somewhere around 80% of America’s population had quirks.

Four out of every five people had some sort of ability or abnormality that ranged from being able to detach your ear to having super strength. Getting one that wasn’t detrimental to your health, even at his age, was generally a positive thing.

Except Purpled’s actually sucked. Sucked so fucking bad.

Yeah, he was lucky in that he didn’t suddenly grow gills and need to live underwater for the rest of his life or something. But he honestly wished he could go back to a week ago when he didn’t have this quirk.

When he wasn’t constantly being forgotten by the people in his life because of a quirk he couldn’t turn off.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the quirk counselor’s quirk let them detect the use of quirks, he would’ve thought he’d lost it.

People forgetting his face, his name, his existence over the span of a week was hell. He had to show his mother his birth certificate and social security card and his baby pictures so that she’s remember she had another son. Let alone everyone else in his life that he only saw at school.

Oh god his fucking school.

The lengths he had to go to to keep his fucking scholarship was fucking nuts.

Classes were a nightmare with the teachers forgetting about him by the end of the period.

Things eventually got easier when he realized it was an area of effect thing and that he could shorten it to affect people within a few feet of him.

From that point on he just had to social distance from people like his life depended on it. Because his social and academic lives did depend on it.

He didn’t experiment with his quirk beyond that though. He hated it. He did everything in his power to keep it as tightly controlled as he could.

Until the one time he didn’t.

—

He was out to get another notebook because he’d severely underestimated how many notes he’d need to take for one of his classes. It was just supposed to be a quick stop on his way home.

He’d sat on the bus home with his quirk pulled in tightly around him, the force of it a buzzing weight on his skin that he refused to let go of.

He got off at a stop that wasn’t his but was closer to the dollar store he had in mind. He honestly didn’t expect to take more than ten minutes.

Then a guy walked in and loudly told the cashiers to hand over the money.

Purpled wasn’t that close to the front, but he peeked around the aisle and watched the robbery unfold.

The dude had what looked like leaves for hair and was holding the cashiers at gunpoint. There were two of them at adjacent checkouts, neither of them with any visible mutations. They actually might not have quirks.

Purpled has no idea what to do with this information.

His best bet was to wait for the heroes to arrive and stay quiet-

One of the cashiers was looking right at him. Robber guy noticed.

Turned around and pointed his gun at Purpled. Told him to get out from where he was hiding and to kneel on the ground in the open.

And Purpled was scared. He couldn’t move, he’d frozen.

The guy got loud and mad and he still had the gun pointed at him.

Purpled was panicking. His chest felt too tight and his quirk was freaking out. Buzzing harder than it ever has.

He couldn’t hold it. He let go.

...

For a moment, everything was still and everything was quiet.

Purpled felt light, he felt more at ease than he had in months.

Because his quirk was free and loose and everyone else in the room looked so fucking confused. Like they had no idea what was going on.

Like they just forgot what was going on.

And then the heroes arrived. How they knew to be here was anyone’s guess.

Purpled should probably give his statement.

Purpled was probably in shock though. So he forgave himself for shoplifting and not pulling his quirk back in. For just walking right out of the store and down the street.

Nobody shouted at him or called him back, so he assumed they forgot he was there.

He wished he could forget he was in the store for that moment too.

—

There’s a lot of other little things that lead up to Purpled being a vigilante, but those things don’t matter as much.

He drops out. It’s not hard to make people forget he even went to school.

He regularly breaks back into school to steal tools and materials for his projects and just wipes the people who walk in on him doing that shit.

Makes a costume but scraps it and decides to make several replicas of the top twenty’s costumes.

Because he’s realized that the wider he makes his range the less of an effect his quirk has on all those in range. Vice versa.

So the pro gamer move here is to make people forget what they saw the person in the pro hero costume doing instead of trying to make them forget they saw an unfamiliar figure doing shit.

Memory is reconstructive after all. Easily manipulated even without a quirk like his.

And he’s good at making his costumes and altering his appearance.

He probably won’t always do a good job wiping people’s memories though, so he lets it stick that there’s a vigilante that impersonates pro heroes. One that constantly shifts their appearance.

He even gets bold and makes a name for himself.

Swag_.

...

Listen he didn’t say it was a good name-

—

He doesn’t stop a lot of crime. And the people he does save often think they were saved by someone else.

But there’s always that one moment after he managed to save someone where they look at him. And they see him.

And that’s worth everything.

It’s not a selfless motive. It’s not a heroic motive.

But it’s enough of a motive for Purpled.

—

He doesn’t know how he got a following. Doesn’t know how he never noticed.

But he likes it. After the initial shock of seeing himself trending fades, he lets himself soak up all the positive attention.

And then he gets back to work.

[mc-critical]

Pertaining to MYK2, it’s an observation of mine that as Kösem got older she grew more bitter, more angry, and felt overall more resentment towards the overall Ottoman lifestyle and dynasty which was a mere glorified prison for her. I would even go as far to say that her actions toward her children later in life were possibly due to her seeing them as an extension of her trauma and imprisonment in a way? I believe she only clung to power and titles the way she did because she truly believed it would be all she could have going for her and the only thing that could get her to be afforded basic human decency on some level in the enviornment she was trapped in. I especially see it towards the end when she has plans to dethrone her grandson and remarks “when one grandson goes the other comes” and you can see how she’s just..gone. There’s no longer a shred of resemblance to the innocent and life-loving Anastasia. She completely internalized the hatred and the death that surrounded her and became it..I’d even call it a cinematic parallel to Saifye. What do you think?

Overall, I think you hit the nail right on the head.

The loss of innocence is the central theme of the show: we consistently see how it begins to flourish, all the little hints, all the big actions, and Kösem, being the protagonist, will of course be the epitome of it all. It's a given that everything she has experienced would lead to trauma sooner or later, a trauma that really brings hatred, bitterness and then again, misery, because when you look at it, she couldn't take a break even for a second. To me, Safiye killing her father, was namely where it began - Kösem, just like Hürrem, had to completely let go of her past to begin this new life, but unlike her, this character arc was quick and rushed and harder, and she didn't get the fullest time necessary to do it in narrative, for her to actually get used to it. Her past is quite a part of her innocence, of her previous being, and when people (like Safiye and Raihan Aga) tell her to forget about it, she resists so much more, because there is hope that things would be just like before. Say, Hürrem adapted so quickly and so efficiently, because there was a lot to win, but nothing to lose - everyone she knew was perceived as dead, she had nowhere to go, it was lost and it was gone and she had to move forward. (Nigar's advice and the dream with her parents highlight that.) And when Leo appeared, Hürrem had already adapted, already planted seeds in this empire and had found the man she truly loved. Anastasia not only didn't have this chance, she still had nothing to do out there, knowing she could return to her family once again (they didn't kill anyone when they kidnapped her, remember?), was fond of Ahmet, but that was it, and didn't have any heirs yet. What would she do there, why would she forget her home, especially when there was a person just as eager as her to return to his roots (Iskender), and we had someone who was the narrative culmination of her hope to put everything back to normal (her father)? I feel that her refusal to Iskender to escape with him was only an intentionally forced tool for her and Iskender's character arcs, she stayed only out of necessity back then and one could say that, she probably never truly adapted. When her father died, was just when she realized there is no turning back now.

When she symbolically became Kösem, she had fought many fights in her life: she fought because she wanted justice (her exposing Fahriye and Dervish/Handan), because she wanted revenge (against Safiye), she fought for her life. (post-E25 and season 2.) But she did it out of necessity, all the roles she had to take she took out of necessity, she represented the country, acted as a regent even when Murat took that away from her.. only out of sheer necessity. That's what she did in episode 7, she stood up to all these people in need, and when she did that, she was suddenly regarded as a hero, as this blessed angel who saved everyone and could do no wrong, but she obviously couldn't stay so. She perhaps could've gained some kind of a savior complex, to have something to protect out of obligation. And that something had to be connected with her "first act" and with her whole arc in season 1 - that is, the country. She took her whole life to represent the country and protect it. ("The country you talk about wouldn't exist, if it weren't for me!") It turned into the very meaning of her life, she merged herself with it and she had to fight for it. The fights she had throughout the entire show were very exhausting, draining everything out of her, because there were countless times where it was all about to be over. She had to face enemies much stronger, much sneakier and much more experienced than she herself was, and she knew very well that they wouldn't hesitate even for a moment to do what they had to do. They were brutal and they were ruthless, all of them. And they were against this very thing she cherished, the very power she equated to the country. She spent her whole life to fight and protect it, turning her heart into iron and stone, automatically realizing every threat and striving to remove it, no matter what it takes. That goes into her conflict with Murat and into the rest of her children (by that I mean Ibrahim), as well, once she feels they are a threat, she began removing them. But this isn't a facade that can be kept so easily, this isn't some worthy life, so it all bottles up inside of her eventually and she has no time to let it out, because this period, her life, is just so dynamic. All her enemies were tough and persistent, making something happen almost every other day, the revolts, the parental conflicts, the attempts, the traps, the intrigues, the backstabbing... All that including her daily duties and all the meetings she has to attend to to keep things running smoothly. It all takes a toll on her, and it's understandable why when everything falls apart, she just doesn't care. She took the very last strip of her innocence, her humanity, with sealing the pact to kill Ibrahim. And guess what? She did this only for the country, she did this because someone pushed that weakness, that pressure point of hers. All she fought for was doomed the second Murat took things into his own hands, and she realized it. By Murat's death, it was now or never, because the harder she fights for this position of hers, she loses what made her so remarkably human in the first place. It's going hand to hand, really.

There is a point to be made about the parallels S02 Kösem had with Safiye, because while their arcs hit many of the same notes, they divert from one another in quite a bit of ways. Safiye was everything Kösem fought against - she made the darker side of S01 Kösem what it was, because taking revenge on Safiye, what she took away from her, was the primary "shadier" motivator of her character then. Azis Mahmud Hüdai (I hope I'm writing his name right) even warned her to the dangers of power and the similarities with Safiye that slowly grew in her. And there is some irony in this, because Safiye also played her part in the tragic Osman storyline by manipulating him from the get-go that Kösem could act against him because she wasn't his real mother. And the guy she sent to manipulate him was there for a long time. What I mean to say is, Kösem and Safiye had that fight going until the very end, and Safiye openly gave her the thematic ring (тм), perhaps due to the similarities they share. Safiye had this desire for neverending power, she never gave up, even when all odds were against her. She became used to it after so many years and it as well became what defined her. On the surface, the same could be said for Kösem, as well. Both of them did the unthinkable to keep this prestige and these titles. Both loved their power, but in different ways: Safiye wanted power for the sake of power, she loved the very concept of it, to wake up in the castle, to prepare for the day, to issue orders and to eclipse everyone, for Safiye it wasn't something morally right, it was about her and her only. She would lose her life, but never her power. It was already something she had always had and losing it would mean they took something that was rightfully hers, without debate. Kösem had this power for the country she felt obliged to protect, to the point power and country became synonymous to her, whatever she did was for the country, but in her eyes, it was the right thing, for the state to live, for the people to be safe and sound, for everyone to have a tranquil life without imbalance. (in E47 we had this parallel act to E07, where she once again, stood up in front of the people, to calm them down after Murat's unexpected disappearance; we have her show Kasım to the people in E53? etc.) And she would lose her life, as well as her power. (the narrative delivered its own symbolic meaning with her death.) She thought it should be all hers for a long time, but not by right, rather through all she had achieved in her life. At the end, she realized this loss, and accepted it, symbolically giving the thematic ring to nobody, while Safiye did in her death after all, thematically continuing the cycle herself. She no longer gave a damn about the world and all she wanted was to die in piece.

There is also another key difference between Safiye and Kösem - Safiye kept her power through cunning and manipulation from the very beggining, while Kösem consistently reached out: to the people, to the Janissary, to Murat even. Safiye thought they misunderstood her, that you couldn't win this war by peace, while Kösem often tried to find the optimal, peaceable solution - she killed only as a last resort, only when she found out nothing else worked, it took her a whole season-long arc to realize that Murat wasn't worth it (and even in E60, it was hard for her to kill Ibrahim and it all had to come to Turhan's manipulation). Safiye, just like Gülbahar, who was the main enemy to S02 Kösem for a reason, had buried her conscience deep within, while Kösem, even with all she's done, still had the reflection of Anastasia in the mirror and in her head, no matter how much she tried to shut her up. ("Admit it, you liked having power!" - quoting by pure memory here.)

Thing is, what Kösem experienced, truly shaped up who she was, and just like so many, internalized that toxic way of living to a huge extent. And no matter how hard she tried to fight with it, she let it sink in and fully embraced it. And when she finally got out of it, what was done was done, and destruction ensued. But she probably found piece in her death, getting rid of this burden, plaguing her whole life.