#feel a bit aimless like it really is the end of a long journey

[evilsanlang]

the end has been walked

[kooldewd123]

Back in August, we had the anniversary of Ash’s famous Kalos League loss. It's a battle you see talked about time and time again. It's often held up by fans as the one big stain on XY, a disgraceful way for the writers to end Ash’s Kalos journey.

I beg to differ.

I want to offer a different perspective on this loss, because I don't really agree with most of the criticisms levied against it. I don't think it portrays Ash in a negative light, or goes against his development, or anything like that. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. I planned to make a post talking about why I feel the loss fits Ash’s character arc back when I started seeing posts commemorating its anniversary, but I had so much to say about Ash’s characterization in this series that it took me until now to write it all down (also i procrastinated).

First of all, I want to address one of the most common critiques of the loss, since it leads nicely into the main point I want to make. This take essentially boils down to "XY had an Ash that was stronger than ever before. Losing goes against that." It's not a wrong reading of the series per se, but it does feel a bit… reductive to me. Yes, XY is about Ash getting stronger. But so are DP, SM, BW, and all the others. Ash becoming stronger over the course of the series is just something we can expect by default. A good Ash story needs to do something else on top of that, and XY especially needed to find an extra angle to his character since he starts the series already near the top of his game. It's actually a similar situation to DP: he came into that series fresh off his victories in the Battle Frontier, and so rather than simply coasting with a story about how strong he is, the writers brought in Paul to challenge him not just in battle, but in terms of philosophy as well.

So with all that said, what is Ash's story in XY actually about, then? Well, the comparison is often made that Ash is the "Brock" of the XY gang, and it's not an unfounded one. He's the most experienced member of the group, as well as the most well put together. The others look to him for leadership, guidance, and inspiration even more than Ash ever did for Brock. More than in any other series, XY Ash is defined by the way he interacts with his friends, and the reverse is also true for them. Let's take a detour and try to quickly run down their character arcs so you can really see what I mean:

Serena starts the series aimless. She’s discontent with her life, wanting something more. Recognizing Ash on TV and remembering his words to "never give up" is what gives her the push to finally take the first steps of her own story. However, those first steps are all she takes. She wants to get away from her mother, but is once again adrift as soon as she meets Ash. She bounces from activity to activity for a while, only deciding to become a Performer after meeting Shauna and having the sudden realization that she doesn't have a long-term goal like Ash. Wanting to be as determined as Ash is, she finally has something to actively work for and even confronts her mother with her newfound passion. She thinks of Ash to give her strength as she starts her first Showcase, and after she messes up, she remembers his advice to "never give up" and continues onward, even incorporating a ribbon she had received from Ash into her outfit to signify her resolve. Ash is at the center of every stage of Serena's journey. Nearly everything she does can be somehow traced back to Ash in one way or another.

That's all well and good, but it's just one example, and Serena's a bit of an extreme case, anyway. For more evidence, let's look at Clemont. The first time he meets Ash, Ash gets thrown out of Prism Tower, immediately brushes himself off and challenges Clemont to a battle, fights off a group of Pokemon thieves (which is apparently a regular occurrence for him), goes after a rampaging Garchomp with his bare hands, and ends the day off by jumping off the top of the fucking Prism Tower with literally zero hesitation. Following that buck wild first impression, Clemont harbors an immense amount of both admiration and intellectual curiosity for Ash. He constantly praises Ash for his unique battle style, and wants to study it so he can become an even better Gym Leader. He begins taking cues from Ash's style as early as his confrontation with Clembot, as he has to think of unorthodox ways to outsmart the robot programmed to act like him. Following this battle, he and Ash agree to have their Gym battle once Ash has obtained his fourth badge. Ash becomes Clemont's goalpost: having seen what Ash is capable of, he wants to be a Gym Leader worthy of fighting him. And when we finally reach this battle, he proves that he has absolutely succeeded, incorporating everything he's learned from Ash and more into their climactic showdown. 

While Ash’s companions in other series generally have stories that run parallel to his, XY stands out by placing Ash right at the center of both Serena and Clemont’s personal journeys. Ash permeates XY in a deeper way than any series before or since. This might be a weird thing to say, but XY isn't really about Ash per se. It's about the idea of Ash. To Serena, Ash is the representation of all the personal qualities she desires, yet lacks. To Clemont, Ash is a new way of battling, something that can help him improve his own abilities even further. So then, what is Ash… to Ash?

I know I just set that up as a big question, but the answer’s actually fairly simple. It's pretty clear that Ash recognizes the effect he has on his friends, and so he leans into it for their benefit. He's constantly trying to improve both himself and Clemont for their eventual battle, and is incredibly encouraging towards Serena every time she takes another step towards her goal (in fact, Serena is possibly the female companion that Ash is least sassy towards, although he’s also just less sassy than usual in this series anyway). Even with his Pokemon, this trait shines through. Froakie was a trouble child for every Trainer that Sycamore had given it to before, yet it respects Ash nearly instantly after seeing him in action. Ash’s encouragement and support is what gives Goomy the strength to grow and take back its home. He acts more parental towards Noibat than any baby Pokemon he had before, but also steps back enough to let Hawlucha take the lead raising it since he sees how strongly the two of them bond.

So here in XY we have a strong, self-assured, mature Ash who takes on a leadership role among the main cast. It’s an Ash that truly feels like he’s been through years of journeys and growth. But if he starts out the series so well-developed, where can his character arc take him?

Enter Sawyer. Not long after Ash has his battle with Clemont, he’s introduced to Sawyer, a rookie Trainer who had lost to Clemont shortly before. On the surface, this doesn’t immediately seem like the makings of a particularly compelling rivalry: an experienced veteran Ash versus a novice with only a single Gym badge to his name. Ash is undeniably the superior one in this dynamic. But once the two of them begin interacting, it becomes immediately clear how much heart there is to their relationship. Ash, ever the older brother figure, sees how much potential Sawyer has and wants to watch him unlock it. Sawyer, the analytical battler, takes notes from Ash’s battles and studies him in a manner not unlike Clemont to learn how to improve himself. Sawyer’s notes pay off in a big way, as he improves at an astronomical pace, winning four more badges in the time it takes Ash to earn just one, and even reaching his eighth before Ash does. Ash and Sawyer have one last battle before Ash heads to win his eight Gym badge, but for the first time, Sawyer manages to surpass and beat Ash. Although he’s glad to have won, his victory shakes both of them. Although they don’t say it directly, they can tell that something’s wrong. Sawyer decides to follow Ash to Snowbelle City to watch him beat Wulfric, but again, Ash loses. Between these two losses, as well as his struggle to master the Bond phenomenon, Ash begins to spiral, and it’s the first time we truly see him grapple with self-doubt in this series. Sawyer looks up to Ash, yet he had failed to live up to Sawyer’s vision of him. And if he’s failed Sawyer, who else has he failed? His companions? His Pokemon? With the image of himself as a mentor and an inspiration thrown into jeopardy, he begins to act uncharacteristically, running off into the woods alone and lashing out at Serena when she tries to help him. After cooling off a bit, he helps some Spewpa trapped in a tree and is saved by Greninja when the branch breaks. One of the Spewpa is blown off a nearby cliff, and when Ash and Greninja both jump into action to save it, they perfect the Ash-Greninja form for the very first time. The entire experience causes Ash to realize that the image of himself as someone everyone could count on had been weighing down on him much more heavily than he had thought. Because of it, he had been placing too much responsibility on himself. He needed to master the Bond phenomenon to become stronger for his team. He needed to beat Wulfric to prove himself to Sawyer. But in the end, he couldn’t do it alone, and ultimately ended up caving under the pressure without even realizing it. It’s only with the help of his friends and Pokemon that he’ll be able to move forward and actually accomplish what he’s set out to do. With that in mind, he’s finally able to reach synchronicity with Greninja, beat Wulfric, and make his way to the Kalos League.

In the semifinals, Ash finally comes face-to-face with Sawyer once again. As the two of them clash, Sawyer recognizes Ash once again. The cloud that had covered him in Snowbelle is gone, and the two of them can have a proper battle. Sawyer can truly show Ash just how far he’s come (and maybe even surpass him for real), and Ash can prove that he won’t falter again. That he really is the person everyone thinks he is. And with Ash-Greninja’s final Water Shuriken, Ash does just that. This battle, not the finals match against Alain, is the conclusion of Ash’s arc in XY. The Trainer that everyone looks up buckling under the weight of those expectations, and yet still managing to prove them right by coming out the other side stronger. I feel it can often get sadly overlooked in favor of the finals, but it’s a satisfying way to encapsulate what XY Ash is all about.

So what’s the deal with the finals, then? Why go through all of this just to have him lose in the end? Doesn’t that undermine the whole message? Well, no, actually. In a vacuum, it might seem that way, but I feel that removing it from the context surrounding it (as you often see in discourse about it) is doing it a disservice. The most important thing about the finals match is that it isn’t really Ash’s battle in the way the semifinals were. Ash’s arc is finished. This is Alain’s battle. Alain’s arc throughout the series effectively boils down to the idea that he wants to gain power in order to protect the people he cares about, first to defend Professor Sycamore’s research, and later to heal Chespie. He’s drawn to the Kalos League by the promise of many strong opponents to train himself against, Ash chief among them. This relentless drive for power, while good-intentioned, leads him to work for Lysandre, blinded to his true motivations. Alain’s victory in the Kalos League is the tipping point of his arc. He’s won the League, proving himself to be among the strongest Trainers in the entire region. And yet, at his moment of victory, when he’s achieved the strength he desired, Team Flare attacks, threatening the entire region. Key to Team Flare’s plans are Z2, whom Alain had helped capture, and the Mega Evolution energy he had helped them study. I often see people upset about Ash’s League loss trying to spin it into a story about Ash learning that winning isn’t everything, but it’s actually the opposite. Alain is the one learning that winning isn’t everything. In his quest for power, he had inadvertently brought danger to the very people he was trying to protect, with Sycamore and Chespie both being directly in Lysandre’s crosshairs.

And all of this eventually leads us to a scene where Lysandre, Alain, and Ash are on Prism Tower together. Alain is paralyzed by his emotions, distraught at what he had unwittingly brought about. Lysandre imprisons Ash and tries to force him to work for him like Alain had, but Ash refuses and breaks free using the Bond phenomenon. And for one final time, we see Ash inspiring people to be better. Seeing Ash act without hesitation, never for a second even considering forsaking his morals and working with Lysandre the way he did, Alain snaps out of his stupor and finally confronts Lysandre. Alain may be the stronger Trainer, but Ash is the better Trainer. Captured, outmatched, and weary from the League, Ash still chose to fight. Win or lose, Ash is still the best, like no one ever was.

[elf-osamu]

“THE HAPPY MONARCH”

[ masterlist ] [ event ] [ reblogs are very appreciated ]

hurt/comfort, very slight angst & fluff, AU, romantic or platonic relationship, blade (hsr) x gn!reader

warning(s) : blade could be a bit ooc (i hope he isn't but i had to make him similar to the character in the fairytale </3);

word count : 2040 words

plot : “retelling of oscar wilde's fairytale ‘the happy prince’; blade is an immortal traveler who has seen his fair share of odd events when, one day, he meets the statue of a monarch — but is it really just a lifeless sculpture?”

a/n : this is for the masked fools' monthly event ! although this one-shot is heavily inspired from this fairytale, there are great differences between this fic and wilde's story. the original story follows the interactions between the statue of a deceased prince who has been seeing the suffering of the world for years and a swallow that is heartbroken.

in a long forgotten land there was a stunning statue made of pure gold.

it depicted a young adult who once was the personable and charming monarch of many people; they were known for their goodwill and kindness and, since their face had always been adorned with a welcoming smile, they had been the hope of their realm for centuries.

until, one day everything had abruptly changed for a choice they decided to make.

said statue — you stood above your town, on a tall column, greeting everyone with your warm presence and grinning to the passing travelers.

“they look like an angel”, the citizens commented: some were fascinated by your beauty and were confident in their future, reassured by the happy monarch; others said so regretfully, since their hearts were filled with resentment at the sight of such an ethereal statue, which had to just stand there to be appreciated while they were forced to continue their lives working non-stop.

“how could you know such a thing? you've never seen a true angel”, certain people muttered in indignation with a contemptuous look on their faces.

in another domain, a traveler with long raven hair had been disappointed by the one whom he had fallen in love with.

the traveler's name was blade and he was relatively known for his expeditions and encounters of every kind; he had mastered the grand art of the sword while searching for a purpose in his interminable existence. he wasn't someone who easily trusted others, he preferred to not get attached to people - but sometimes he had to have faith, to hope for the better.

along his journey, blade had found companions to spend the time with: they all had reunited in the same rural area, so they had decided to stick together for some time, resting from their last adventures that happened in a place quite distant from there.

since the new destination hadn't been chosen yet, they had stayed in a near village, helping the local people. blade wasn't quite fond of this idea; he had never used someone else's aid unless it was an extreme necessity and he usually had done everything on his own; he couldn't understand why he had to assist people who meant nothing to him. still, he carried out his duty without complaining.

as the time passed, he had spent many moments with a certain inhabitant; he had saved their skin multiple times, helping them with their obligations, from personal to professional matters.

he had fallen in love for the first time in his life, with that person representing the light at the end of the deep tunnel he had found himself in.

his companions had dismissed his feelings because, after all, he was a wanderer who sooner or later would have had to leave for another journey. “it's aimless to keep talking to them,” they had sighed many times, “they don't even reciprocate your feelings”.

but blade hadn't listened to them and so his comrades had departed for another adventure, leaving him in the village.

he had been afraid of admitting his love, which had grown in the last few months. said emotion was consuming his soul, making him crave the attention he needed. therefore the week following his companions' going away he had determinate to confront his feelings with that person.

“would you like to come away with me on my journey?” he had murmured to them one day after his confession, “i'd always be there for you”.

they had shaken their head. “my home is everything to me; upon your arrival i was glad to have new people in my village and i was more than content with your company, it meant a lot to me. yet, i've never deemed you as a long-lasting partner”.

because of that event, blade had become cold again and left immediately the settlement, looking for a new purpose.

since the city he wished to go was far too distant from him, he had determinated the stop for the night in a town which was nearer his position.

he traveled all day until he finally reached the small city. he had nowhere to go for the hours of darkness, so he walked on the roofs of house after house until he landed on a column near a vast and beautiful palace; on the column it stood a solemn, golden statue which seemed to gently greet him.

it had an affable smile plastered on its face and the statue's clothes resembled the ones of noble people — whoever was portrayed there, in such a way, must have been someone of grand significance.

“i'll sleep here,” blade muttered, situating himself at the sculpture's feet. it was of human height, but the top of the column was so fairly great that a few people could have rested there without feeling pressured.

as he was closing his eyes, he felt a drop of water fall on his neck, making him shiver. blade suddenly sat down and looked at the sky: there were no clouds nearby, but it seemed like it was raining.

“the weather is rather strange in this land, isn't it?” he asked to himself, now too unsteady to try to fall asleep. “should i find another place to rest peacefully?”

drop after drop fell on his head and he sighed in exasperation. he got up and was ready to look for another area when he raised his gaze and met your eyes, which were filled with tears; your golden skin was glowing under the moonlight, a sight that would have been pleasant if it weren't for that sorrowful look.

“who are you?” blade questioned you without thinking; puzzlement had made its way on his face and he had no idea what to believe anymore. could a statue truly cry tears?

“the happy monarch” you said in response, weeping again.

“then why are you crying? i couldn't fall asleep because of your tears”. his intentions weren't mean — his mind was just very tired from the long day.

you, the happy monarch, let out a bitter laugh. “i apologize for this. you see, many years ago i was a young member of royalty and i had always lived in the palace near this statue. in this building tears and pain aren't welcomed, only joy is allowed. i've spent most of my life there, happily joining my family on jolly occasions and laughing with my cousins without a care in the world. once i grew older, however, i doubted the way i was leading my kingdom: i couldn't go outside and meet my people — they only saw my face and heard about my temperament thanks to the artists who could leave the palace from time to time; century after century i wished to share my bliss with everyone, but my relatives had forbidden me to do so. they told me a legend about my kin: immortality ran through my family since the early ages and it was dearly preserved by my ancestors; however, they said that, if someone who was a member of royalty stepped outside of this great palace, they would have been transformed into gold, without giving me other details. i had listened to them for so long that, one hundred years ago, i decided to disobey them”.

you paused for a moment, choosing your next words carefully; it was hard to remember all the emotions you had felt in the past. “and upon seeing how much sorrow, which was something i had never experienced, was in the world, my body altered itself. i'm still a human, though my body is covered in gold and precious gems and, since they're so heavy, i'm stuck here, watching the suffering of the people i swore to protect”.

“i blame myself for not getting to know the truth as soon as i could, but it's useless to dwell in the past now. still, despite my condition, my only wish is to aid all these people”.

blade had remained silent the whole time, wondering what he could have said in a situation like that. he had promised to never help anyone anymore, yet he was there, feeling commiseration for the happy monarch who hadn't felt happiness for a century.

“how could you assist them when you are stuck on this pedestal?” the black-haired boy commented, trying to hide the thoughts that were spinning in his head.

“first thing first, to be able to get my true body back, someone needs to take the gold and the jewels out of my current form. it's not an easy job, for one has to meticulously sculpt my figure under the metal; so, before doing anything else, someone should extract the gems that cover this statue and give them to the ones in need”.

“your majesty, wouldn't that be considered faux philanthropy? you wouldn't change anything by just making them sell your valuable stones — sooner or later, they would be without money again”.

“it has been so long since someone called me that”, you laughed and your eyes shone under the moonlight. “in any case, yes, i agree with you, but i still don't help them by being here and doing nothing. if i want to meet my people, i must get out of this troublesome situation as soon as possible, so i can't be made of gold anymore”.

blade observed the night. “my destination is still far away, your majesty. i won't be here tomorrow.”

“then, could you stay one night with me and be my messenger? in that red building there is a family who has to pay rent due in two days and the parents aren't able to afford it, so take the emerald that is on my left shoulder and bring it to them”.

the man did as he was told and a warm feeling welcomed him in his chest at the sight of a family who seemed to rediscover happiness.

when he described said emotion to you, your smile looked bigger. “it's something very common among people, when they help someone. not everyone experiences it, but most people would say it's one of the nicest things in the world”.

many days passed and blade was still with you, the happy monarch; every night he gifted a jewel to those who needed it and then stayed near the statue's feet to rest. “i'm going to leave this town tomorrow”, he had said many times, but at the end of the day he continued to ask you what he could have done to be of use.

he had gotten to be acquainted with the happy monarch's presence: you two shared the burden of immortality, something which was the main cause of pain in your hearts; blade had told you some of his adventures, describing in great detail all the things that he had witnessed.

after a month, it was time to take off the gold leaf by leaf: a task of such importance required great resilience and self-control, but blade never complained and instead immediately took action.

you had given some of your gold to him on certain days, so he could have bought food and water for himself.

“how do you feel?” he asked every few hours to make sure he was doing everything properly without hurting your real body.

you lightly chuckled and always answered in the same way: “i feel... free. i can sense the soft air that caresses my skin”.

that process lasted for some time - until, it was finally done.

it felt like waking up from a long dream: your limbs were sore from the numbness that one hundred years had caused you and at first blade had to keep an arm on your waist to keep you balanced.

you grinned at him. “thank you, blade. now you're free to go and continue your journey; i'll stay here and build more practical resources for these people”.

the black-haired man shook his head and, for once, smiled back at you, it had been a long time since his face had welcomed a smile.

“no; i'll be here by your side, as long as time allows me to do so.”

perhaps, after so many centuries, he had found a place to belong.

[ do not copy, translate, repost, etc. | by @ elf-osamu ]

[danitm]

wait, is that DANI CORDOVA? they kinda look a lot like LIZETH SELENE, don’t they? i heard the TWENTY-ONE year old is known as the RUNAWAY around mckinley. it seems like they auditioned to be in THE TROUBLETONES which is so lame? people at campus have said they’re MELLOW, but don’t be fooled since they’re also AIMLESS. rumor has it, you can find them at GAY/STRAIGHT ALLIANCE when they aren’t belting show tunes. their entire vibe revolves around SMUDGED EYELINER, THE SOFT STRUMMING OF AN OLD GUITAR, & A BODY LITTERED WITH TATTOOS OF UNSPOKEN MEMORIES but no one pays attention to that here in ohio.

auditioning with: good luck, babe! by chappell roan 🎵

stats.

full name: danielle elena cordvova

nicknames: dani

gender: gender fluid

pronouns: she/they

sexuality: lesbian

age: 21

date of birth: january 23rd

zodiac sign: aquarius

clubs & teams: the troubletones, gsa

major: music performance

headcanons.

at the age of seventeen, dani's life was abruptly turned upside down when her parents discovered one of the many secrets she'd been keeping from them, before she had a chance to even consider opening up about it herself. rather than stay behind and deal with the consequences, she packed a bag, left town, and finally opened herself up to the freedom of being her true self.

along that journey of self discovery, danielle became dani - a name that feels just far more her, and along with a new name, began to freely label themselves as both a lesbian and gender fluid, refusing to let the opinions of anyone - including those she once loved - get in her way of happiness.

it's been almost five years since she first left her family, and though she still isn't quite sure she's really found her true home just yet, mckinley has been a pretty solid temporary one. she's managed to make friends, ones who accept her for who she is, and though she hasn't managed to work through everything her parents put into her head... it's a work in progress, and every day that she gets to live life without feeling like she has to hide is a million times better than the closet she'd been trapped in for so long.

wanted connections.

ex (open to f/nb) - could be messy, or could be on good terms! 0/1-2 taken 💔

crush (open to f/nb) - could be either sided or mutual, i'm down for whatever! (could also be open to a male muse if it's one sided on their end and you want their heart to be broken lol) 1/1-2 taken ☺️ jane hayward

best friend (open to anyone) - probably someone chill, though it could definitely be a thing where they sort of balance each other out! 1/1 taken 👯 brittany pierce

band (open anyone) - i would love for dani to be in a little garage band! i'm thinking it'll be a new thing that's just getting started, probably somewhere between 4-6 members total, but there's also room for things like a manager role/artistic director/etc. dani would be on guitar and backing vocals, but all other parts are up for grabs! 1/4-6 taken 🎸 noah puckerman (bassist)

enemy (open to anyone) - enemy might be a little bit of a strong term here, but basically just something where, for whatever reason, these two just don't get along. maybe they just got off on the wrong foot, maybe there was some sort of misunderstanding, whatever! there can definitely be reconciliation later down the line, and maybe even a friendship can blossom out of it. 1/1 taken 🤬 finn hudson

one night stand (open to f/nb) - maybe it was something that went poorly and now they avoid each other in hopes of not having to deal with another awkward interaction, or maybe they both realized the connection simply wasn't there and it never went past that one date, but it's something they can laugh about now! 0/1 taken 🫠

friends with benefits (open to f/nb) - pretty self explanatory. maybe there's something more there, maybe not! 1/1-3 taken 🔥 bree brown

roommates (open to anyone) - note: i'm not sure if the campus allows co-ed dorming so this might just be for f/nb muses. dani dorms on campus. i'm cool with this being something where they signed up to room together, or randomly assigned. now in an off campus apartment with bree! 1/1-2 taken 🛏️ bree brown

[m0nst3rgunxz]

Hey, hi, hello. Pondering Anxious anon here who read your post on "the self" As someone who's definitely spent a lot of time ruminating over the subject, I thought it was interesting. I've always wondered about it. Do I have a sense of self? Have I ever had a sense of self? What is a sense of self and am I just overthinking it? You can spend your entire life building up an identity and for some people it's cemented. Set in stone. For others it's such a fragile thing and I think in a lot of cases, people just adapt to an idea of the self they feel they're expected to.

Or Something. Maybe that's just me. But what is self? I am not very well articulated. I often struggle to turn my thoughts into words so i'll do my best to try to lay out my two cents here as coherently as possible. Apologies in advance.

What you become and what you create, and what you create is often influenced by what you become. I think there's absolutely an undeniable environmental factor in place for the self and as such, memory does play a big part in who you are. I think those sorts of things certainly lay a type of groundwork. Psychologically speaking, how we are raised influences the patterns in our brain's that makeup how we perceive the world and ultimately, how we respond to it. I think in many cases, the line between self and disorder can and will often blur. Like in the case of personality disorders. They are behaviours we adapt that have helped us survive and so we continue in those patterns because they've worked for us. But also they are behaviours set in stone. They become who you are. But they are classified as disorders because outside of the situation our brains picked up those patterns for, they are less useful. More of a hindrance than a help. The self, as an idea, is shaky I feel. You can use text book definitions to make sense of things. Use it as a reference or a framework, but there will always be nuances to the idea as a whole. But i think at the end of the day, there's a kind of comfort in that idea. And I think you kind of mentioned that. You have the agency to pick and choose what defines you and if you need, you can put them on and take them off like ill fitting clothing items and try something else. I've gone my entire life living inside of my mental illnesses with no room for me and it's become a little bit scary at this point to think about living without them. Because outside of anxiety and depression and OCD and cluster b and c or whatever the fuck else my psychiatrist thinks I have, what is there? I've lived my whole life as an undiagnosed or diagnosed problem. So is that me? Am I mental illness? Or has mental illness ultimately swallowed me up and is now riding around inside my flesh like a parasite?

I think it's a part of me, and if I ever heal, the resulting scars will have gone a long way into developing whatever I become later down the line, because I do think the self is subject to change. Always. You'll never be who you were yesterday and that's good.

Or it can be bad.

Anything can happen.

It bothered me for so long because I tried so hard to fit into categories and diagnosis' and outside perceptions of me and sometimes I'd even try to slip into the skins of friends to see if maybe there was something there for me too.

There is something very freeing of the self as a nebulous concept. being an amorphous dust cloud in the grand cosmos is not so bad. I may not be a fully formed planet but goddamn does my cloud glitter with the corpse dust of fallen heavenly entities.

What the hell does that mean? Pseudo-poetic nonsense maybe. I think we'll remain pieces and rarely ever be fully formed. Or if/when we are, it'll be a long time before we get there.

Something something the discovery of self is a journey.

Opinions opinions opinions.

I'm not really sure if this provided anything of real value or if it just lent more questions.

Or maybe the aimless state of this ramble has helped bolster my point a little?

Or maybe I'm just pretentious as fuck and like feeling like I know things, ha ha. Who knows! It was fun to think about though.

I hope this isn't a line of thinking that stresses you out though. And if it is, I hope you figure it out one day.

With my limited perspective, -Silly Anon

First of all, i love you anon

Second of all I love your perspective and its given me a new idea on what identity could be, and thats a concept. Im thinking something akin to time, your sense of self and sense of time are maybe both present to keep things in order societally and to keep things in order in your head.

It would make sense given you can lose your sense of time, and similarly you can loose your sense of self. Time is measured objectively yet experienced differently, and similarly the self is divided into objective categories while being experienced different.

Lets introduce a new sentiment, for conversation sake. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." I think that can apply to a lot of things, but im thinking about who plays the role of the beholder. Because I am just as much of a beholder as you are, and we both are just as much the beauty being beheld. Thats confusing so I'll deconstruct it, and change the quote "the self is in the eye of the beholder". you can behold me, obeserve me, and suddenly my subjective identity(subjective in the way beauty is) exists in your eyes. But in the same way I can be my own beholder. And suddenly there is an internal division between the me observing myself and myself(and theres conflict with how what I see in me conflicts with what you see in me sometimes). And this leads me to believe that the sense of self is when you feel the beholder and the self are aligned, when your self is confident in that what you've beheld is the truth of your self. And thats where it can faulter, because now you need to figure out where the beholder ends and you begin, and maybe the beholder is the eye and maybe the beholder is just as much the self as the personality is and suddenly your sense of self is in shambles.

I think the reason I occasionally find distress in the lack of my sense of self was because my identity was the foundation of my mind, every action and thought would lead back to this one idea of what I am. And it was a constant in my life. Well i dont have to see it like that if i dont want too, the foundations acted more like barriers, I'm a free man-entity-thing now i say!! I dont need to be anyone or anything or act in the confines of any identity or feel out of place when i dont aline with my established identity.

(Tis why i doubt I'll ever have a real name lolol)

[sirikyu]

See you later, Ash and Pikachu.

I'm going to feel so silly if Ash cameos in the new anime during the next few months. Or it's announced he's continuing in the movie format. But I'd be SO happy to see them too, so it's alright, I can be a little silly sometimes.

So, Ash and Pikachu's last episode aired on friday 24th mar 2023, and I saw it around the evening of the same day, ~23 years after I saw the first episode for the first time. This duo shaped my entire worldview as a kid, and growing up, even got me to mourn the fact I would never have an adventure as grand and a connection as touching as Ash and Pikachu's. A boy and his little creature friend who understand each other perfectly. It was magical, and it always felt magical revisiting the show. It's so special.

Being an adult and watching the series again, getting introduced to the games and whatever else I missed (like some specials and movies I never fully saw as a kid because they weren't available), I grew to appreciate that I could come back to it anytime and have more adventures to watch. The overall quality of writing, or animation, or personal preferences when it came to stories weren't an issue, because there would always be a ton of stuff to see and to watch. In fact, I started to take it for granted that my favourite guys would always be having an adventure and I'd be able to see it. That was almost one of the core features of Pokemon for me: the constant presence.

So now that the final episode has come and gone, I'm experiencing some real aimlessness about this. I want to have something around to remember them by, I want to save and cherish all the fan art, gifs, theories, music and videos that I can find about them and the anime overall, because I also want to do something to keep them alive in other people's consciousness - and mine. I want to come online and see people discussing them, making stories of them, extending their stay until there's nothing more to say, to think, or celebrate.

I want to remember the good times and rewatch, but I don't know where to even start. Maybe my favourite, Sun&Moon? I'd love to read fanfiction, but I don't know what I want to read.

What is it I'm missing from this ending, or the journey here? I'm sure a lot of people would say "a lot of things", but just personally if I were to write fic, I would dive into Ash's character a whole lot more. Have him have a big adventure that is tied into a revelation about himself and having to deal with unccharted, emotional territory. But I'm also sure that wouldn't be enough even if I could write. I think I just want them to be around, and a lot longer.

They couldn't go on forever, and seeing how many people were unenthused with the last seasons outside major events, and how little I personally had to say about them even though I enjoyed Journeys era a lot, I can kind of see why it didn't continue anymore. I get the feeling the writers just didn't have anything more to tell. However, and this is really important to me, I can tell from how beautiful the last episode is, that they cared. They kept true to the characters, made an effort with the animation, and I was in tune with and touched by the episode's melacholy. It was a beautiful send-off.

I still would have loved to have more involved stories with Ash, shake things up a bit more, see what Ash and Pikachu had to give, as characters, especially in their final stretch... a bit more. Take risks a bit more.

But it's time to go, and I can't help but feel thankful that I feel so deeply about them. This sadness is real and comes from a real caring, as silly as it can feel sometimes. It's a testament to how long-lasting Ash/Satoshi and Pikachu's history and impact is on me.

Goodbye, friends. Thanks for everything.

[pkmn-nextgenadventures]

regarding volo

I wrote most of this out in like, spring 2022 when I was still reeling from the Legends Arceus playthough and then just. Forgot to post it. But I feel like it’s about time I gave some context to the whole “Volo exists in the modern day and might be involved in the next gen plot” thing I keep not-so-subtly hinting at so... more info under the cut since this might get long!

The brief TL;DR regarding modern day Volo is that he’s essentially a Faller. After the events of the game plot, Rei/Lucas (the “canon” PLA protag in this timeline) slowly starts remembering details of his life back in future Sinnoh. He becomes depressed and incredibly homesick, to the point of desperately trying to come up with a plan to try and return to his original timeline. Eventually, he opens up about it to Ingo, who’s been experiencing something similar. They manage to piece together enough information to realise they came from the same timeline, and decide to team up to make it back there. 

Volo ends up involved in this plan, as Lucas manages to track him down and persuade him to help them get back home, due to his knowledge and because he was the one who originally opened the spacetime rift. Although things are still frosty between them after the events at Spear Pillar, Volo agrees, in part because he initially thinks, well, maybe he’ll get something out of it on his end and at least those pesky sky-fallers will finally be out of his way if they leave Hisui… but in the midst of all this he ends up getting transported through space and time as well, winding up in the present day. 

Separated from the others in the rift, Volo wakes up alone on a beach in the Alola region, having lost his Pokémon and most of his memories along the way. He’s briefly taken in and interviewed by Interpol’s UB task force and Aether Foundation, but Fallers from timelines as far-flung as Hisui are pretty much unheard of, and nobody’s quite sure what to do with a guy speaking in what sounds like an archaic Sinnohan or Johtonian dialect. However, Gladion gives him one of the Type:Null being cared for at the facility, as Volo currently has no Pokémon of his own and shows a fascination with the creatures for reasons he can’t explain.

As a Faller, Volo retains his interest in history and myths, and some snippets of lore that feel important for reasons he doesn’t understand. He also remembers he was some kind of merchant before, so he just… keeps doing that, travelling from place to place collecting and trading rare items and unusual artefacts, as well as studying whatever interesting historical sites he comes across on his journey. He’s a bit of an aimless drifter, travelling from place to place without staying anywhere long or getting to know many people too closely; he does make a few friends, but tends to be seen as a somewhat lonely, mysterious figure who never talks about himself much. Occasionally people will tell him he looks like the Champion of Sinnoh and ask if he’s her brother or something, but that doesn’t mean much to him… the name “Sinnoh” does ring a bell though, maybe he’ll have to pay the region a visit sometime… 

I could probably say more about Volo (in terms of his true motivations in my PLA storyline, whether his “accidental” spacetime journey was really 100% an accident, where he originally came from/whether Hisui was even his original timeline, how whatever spacetime rift he, Lucas and Ingo fell through might have something to do with the next gen plot shenanigans I never talk about, and his relationships with other characters/how he factors into the next gen plot overall) but a lot of that is still WIP so I will save it for a future post… although if anyone wants to send me asks nagging me to talk more about it perhaps I will oblige :)))

[braindead-virtually-tv]

Monday Night Raw 30/01/23

Just things I've wrote down while catching up read if you want to lose braincells.

I'M SORRY I CANT INSERT A READ MORE I'M ON MOBILE

- They've gotten rid of the Cody-vater 😭

- Cody's AR logo looks better than the actual tattoo.... Let that sink in

- IWC: Yeah Cody is going to get boo'd out of the place if he wins the RR

Crowd:

- I also drove a VW Jetta before too Cody 😂

- I completely forgot about Dashing Cody Rhode's grooming tips 💀💀💀

- I mean yeah you can't actually be shocked at the men's RR choice this year like I said there is literally no other choice 💀😂

- I have to say Cody's a good baby-face but the Main event at the Rumble really reignited how much of an absolute heel Roman is and the crowd is really playing into it now because of it.

- Looks like Cody is challenging for both belts, hopefully they either split post WM or are split at WM

- Ohhhhh Judgement Day what are you doing here?

- DOM YOU DONT GET TO TALK ABOUT RUINED PLANS YOU RUINED YOUR DADS PLANS 😭😭😭😭

- JD has been good for Dom but he still has ways to go.

- Damien was this 👌 close to calling Cody a Nepo baby 😭😭😂

- "Are you tryna scare me straight?" JSHSJJSJHS CODY STOP 😂

- Dominik Mysterio shoots on all your fathers

- Why are there people dressed as bananas

- EDGE!!!!! BEAT THEIR ASSES

- Ohh Cody v Finn this is gonna be good

- So I'm at home so my mam is like in the same room as I am watching it and she gets a kick at me pointing out all the Irish people, so now I've just resorted to explaining people in relation to other Irish people, "See him aye? Hes married to Becky Lynch they have the young one together" (Explaining who Seth Rollins is) 😂😂

- Gable and Rollins is not a match I would ever of thought of but honestly both are EXTREMELY talented.

- The start of it where Gables going straight for Seth and does some legit wrestling shit to get him into the ankle lock was

- HEJJSUS IDK WHY BUT OTIS WALKING LIKE A MAM TRYING TO CLEAN UP A SPILL IN ANOTHER ROOM TOWARDS GABLE IS KILLING ME

- Obviously Seth was going to get it but has Gable ever been in a Chamber? Idk I feel like he'd be good in it. Or maybe not and he has been in it before and was completely not memorable 💀

- The theming of the advertising for EC is honestly like if I was presented with the duty of advertising, "Uhh idk it's in Canada and Canada is .... Cold?"

- I don't think I noticed Iyo eliminating Candice at the RR

- I don't really have much to say about this match, both Candice and Iyo are extremely good at what they do but my 2 month hiatus from wrestling up until Rumble means I don't really have a frame of reference for this story wise.

- Bayley looks like your favourite aunt you only see once a year and they let you take a sip of their drink and promises not to tell your mam about your boyfriend.

- The Poisonrana from electric chair was so cool to watch, nice one Candice

- Mia... Sorry, Michin, you were a bit late to grab Iyo don't you think? 💀💀

- ohhh NXT Vengeance Day is in Charlotte, nice to see they're getting out of the PC for PPVs again, I missed that. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the crowd at the PC

- I do think it was extremely good to turn JD's focus to Rhea, after Edge was ousted, they felt a bit aimless and goofy. And while they still are a bit goofy, they play into it as much as n ended while also seeming like an actual decent threat. I think this is due in part to shifting the spotlight to Rhea, because she is genuinely quite a big threat. Can't wait to see what the build to WM will be for her.

- RHEAS GOING FOR CHARLOTTE, THIS IS HER WRESTLEMANIA REDEMTION YESSSSSS IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS!!!!! HOW'S THAT FOR THE LONG TERM BOOKING ASSHATS

- NAH BUT SERIOUSLY THE STORY OF RHEA BEING AT THE TOP OF NXT GETTING COCKY AND FEELING INVINCIBLE THEN LOOSING. THEN GOING ON A JOURNEY GOING THROUGH A FRIENDSHIP BREAKUP, FINDING HER PLACE AND LEANING INTO TO HOW TRULY DESTRUCTIBLE SHE IS TO GET REVENGE ON THE WOMAN WHO KNOCKED HER DOWN AT THE TOP OF THE HILL IS FANTASTIC.

- I think it was probably gonna be obvious that Seth & Logan Paul are going into a WM fued seeing what happened at Rumble. And while I have no doubt the match will be good, as much as I dislike Paul he is very good for such a new and part time wrestler, idk man I feel like Seth would be good in literally any other feud. But hey either way it's going to be a high profile match and lord knows Seth has worked hard to get where he is so good for him.

- The mere sight of JBL has stirred up some PTSD buried deep from childhood, at least I don't have to hear those stock bells 💀😂

- How dare you Corey, Gargano is Lumis' Wrestling Father in Law that's why he's here 😤😤

- I do kinda love JBL being ... Uh how do I explain this? Like anti-indie guys kind of? Like you know what I mean, the wrestlers who have been touted as indie darlings, normally brought in by Trips, who probably have a 5* match in the Tokyo Dome or some shit like that? I by no means hate this type of wrestler but it honestly fits Corbin and JBL really well.

- KICK OUT OF THE DEEP SIX!????

- Do you think JBL uses Just for Men?

- HDHSJSJSJJS LUMIS NOT THE AXE I'M DYING PLEASE I HOPE THERE'S A GIF OF THAT SHOWING IT TO JBL

- Honestly sad for Corbin but Gargano for the US Championship fits better in my opinion

- I have to wait till Friday to see the fallout from the RR's main event? I NEED TO KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH SAMI, KEVIN AND JEY 😭😭

- I will never not love MVP, when I was kid I used to put masking tape on my nose to pretend to be like MVP, I wish I had a picture 😂😂 I cannot implure to you how funny it would look, pasty white Irish child in her nightdress thinking she was MVP

- So with Bobby looking like he's going into a programme with Brock it doesn't look like he's getting the US Title back anytime soon. But honestly I could have Bobby as US Champ for ages, man has really grown on me in the last three years, he's one of my favs now.

- HYPE UP BOBBY MVP YESSS

- I forgot about Brock F-5ing Theory in the Chamber last year LMAO THAT WAS GREAT

- Is... Theory trying to be Cena with this Ruthless Aggression stuff 💀 No child... No

- Guys you should all be worried about your health it's important and you all live in America where that shits expensive

- BOBBY MY MAN HERE HE ISSSSS

- I WANT ANOTHER ARM WRESTLING CONTEST, LET BOBBY HOLD HANDS

- "Listen to your Daddy!" Theory is salty because Gargano doesn't want him anymore and Grandad Vinny left 💀💀

- Listen Dom, I say this with love and as a woman who is currently growing out a mullet, Please go to a hairdresser

- Don't ask me why and this has probably already been done and has just escaped my brain, but I want a tag team consisting of Miz & Dolph Ziggler

- BOOGS IS BACK LOOK AT THAT MAN HE'S BEEN ON THE VITAMINS HASNT HE?

- I wish he went to SmackDown purely because I want Pat's reaction 😭

- Oh Mr.Pearce if only you had the same backbone for the Bloodline you had for the Miz, Sami wouldn't have to go into witness protection 💀😂

- Boogs just straight up manhandling the Miz for the shits and giggle tho

- OTIS IN MAXIMUM MALE MODELS I CANNNNTTT PLEASE LET THIS BE A THING

- wait if Jey & Rikishi still like Sami is he allowed to the Cook Out or nah?

- NOT THE SLOW MOTION EDIT OF SAMI BEING DROPPED 😭😭😭😭

- Bayleys hair colour is gorgeous I kinda want it myself, I wonder if they'll let me dye my hair at work?

- Yeah, Becky ain't done with you hun, you've never made an Irish woman mad before have you? We don't let it go Bayley, never 💀

- I do like the thinking of How Becky didn't need the RR win and she was making sure Damage CTRL didn't, that's actually smart writing and a good way out of some the strongest women in the division not winning

- "I don't like you Rebecca" Idk that got a chuckle out of me 😂

- IS BAYLEY TRYNA SLIDE INTO ROLLINS DMS?

- NOT BAYLEY IMPLYING THEY GOT MARRIED BECAUSE BECKY WAS PREGNANT HAHHAHAH OH MY LORD

- I'm sorry I'm not over this is a fantastic promo segment

- HAHAHHA SHES DRAGGING OUT DAKOTA BY THE HAIR THIS WOMAN IS TRULY IRISH I LOVE HER BECKY FOR PRESIDENT (After Micheal D is finished of course)

- I had no idea Bronson Reed was back, good for him

- EC is for Bianca's title, I've got a good feeling about Asuka, that'll be a great matchup in Asuka's new package.

- NOT CHELSEA GREEN BEING A KAREN LMAO WELCOME BACK GIRL

- Carmella is coming back, fair play to her, she's had a rough year and hope all is going okay for her

- There's my favourite musty man Ziggles

- Ali asking Dolph how he keeps getting opportunities gives me the same vibe as that Nardwaur(spelling?) interview that's like:

"How do you keep your pants up?"

"Belt." 😂😂😂

- Dolph have you ever heard of Olaplex?

- Yeah guessed the outcome of this one, Dolph's had many Chambers, Bronson was the right choice on this one

- oh Carmella is back with some form of the Princess of Station Island gimmick let's goooo

- Asuka owns 51% of this company 😂

- Oh Asuka going with that Business-Horror-Casual, very chic

- Boogs and the Profits, that's some sort of a team up I need to see at least once.

- Boogs v Elias is a feud that writes itself

- Street Profits = Joy, that is all

- Wait did my catch up service mess up or were we not meant to get a Bianca promo tonight? Like there's about 20 mins left but we're at the Main Event? 🤔

- No matter what you think about Cody, man always looks feckin' extatic to be doing what he's doing

- I wonder if Elle is aware Finn's wearing pants 💀😂😂

- I don't understand the big hoopla of WWE now mentioning other promotions tbh. Like to a majority of the audience it doesn't really matter nor do they care. Like cool they mentioned New Japan, good for them? like I didn't notice when they never mentioned other promotions and it makes not odds me either now that they do. Like yeah cool give a bit of backstory on a competitor, it's not the big deal some of the IWC make it to be.

- I have no clue what it's called but that thing where Cody drops really quickly to one knee and slaps his opponent is really satisfying for some reason

- Best Powerslams in the business: Randy Orton, Dustin Rhodes & Cody Rhodes

- I was wondering why Damien shoy.off but Edge just defending the crowd, that man is PISSSSEDD

- BETH PHOENIX MY BELOVED WHERE WERE YOU AT THE RUMBLE I THOUGHT YOU WOULD HAVE COMPETITED 😭

- Ngl as much as I like Cody, I cannot take his finisher seriously 💀

-Why are Edge and Beth looking on Cody like they're proud parents 💀😂

- And that's it, pretty good episode overall, kept me hella entertained start to finish 👌

[metamusings]

wednesday, 14 june, 2023 | 00:34

i’m sure there’s a joke in here somewhere, about how we’ve got to stop meeting like this.

no prose poetry this time around for once. i’m sure the lot of you -- the lot of who? what are you talking about -- will be surely bummed about that but alas, here we are. no, no prose poetry or any existential think pieces. i think i just wanted to write, get some thoughts somewhere, without thinking all too hard about how it might look. how it might sound.

some simple housekeeping, for anyone -- ???? who are you TALKING to??? -- who cares: today is my younger nephew’s sixth birthday; i am official two months post-op which is equal parts “oh my god, holy shit /pos” as it is “oh? wild,” so take that as you will; it’s been nearly a year since me and Little Man stopped speaking which fucking blows; my brain has basically become sludge; i’ve been smoking so much that even *i’m* concerned about it.

that just about covers the main shit that i can list off the top of my head i suppose?

time is fucking weird, man. like, how am i twenty-one now? how did we get here? do you have ninety minutes? like if -- and here me out here -- but if life, is indeed, a highway and i, a humble passenger, am going to drive it all night long, it seems as though i’ve somehow slipped into cruise control but not in the fun way. does that make sense? who are you asking? grain of salt, because i am someone who has never driven nor plans too, but the vibe i garner from the words “cruise control” stems from like,, going with the flow. wait no i’m mixing my metaphors aren’t i. like i was going to say go with the flow, don’t worry about the journey just focus on getting there, but i feel like it shouldn’t be encouraged to be like,, checked out while driving?

forget the metaphors for a moment, will you? the key points i’m trying to convey is that i’ve been crushingly aimless this last little while. i don’t feel like i’ve had an unburdened positive in a while what’s a while? it’s been three days, relax your melodramatic ass. and it’s kind of kicking my ass? just a little bit? thankfully it hasn’t gotten, like, Bad bad yet, i’m still getting out of bed some days and brushing my teeth more like swishing some mouthwash and little housekeeping things. hell, i even went on a walk today! smoked half a pack of cigarettes, is what you did.

i think i’m at that little bump in the road again where i didn’t exactly plan to get this far? and i haven’t really made any plans since realising that. that feels so fucking cliche every time i say it and yet, here we are. like, of course i’m feeling aimless and listless and unmoored! i haven’t set up anything to look forward or be tethered to. but i don’t know how to fix that. i don’t know how to pursue an enriching yet chronically purposeless existence. like am i just supposed to exist? how do i do that? what’s the point of just sitting around all day and filling the long hours of nothing with meaningless somethings, just little shit to make those long hours somehow seem shorter? like do i just continue on this cycle of wake up do fuck all with significance and fall asleep again? i don’t understand what i’m doing here. not in a like... existential “does life has meaning” shit. been there, done that, that’s *so* seventh grade. but like... if my options are whatever i make them be then why am i doing all of these little bouts of nothing to pass the time when i could just save everyone the headache, save ME the headache, and hop, skip and jump to the ending.

i feel like one of those really long fics on ao3 that’s just about nothing. like, you get maybe a solid first couple chapters but then at some point while reading you realise the author didn’t really have an outline to get them this far and instead of have a goal or something in mind, they’re kind of just writing something plotless, something not even all that engaging. does that make sense? am i making sense?

complete sidebar: for a fandom that i have only engaged with via fanfiction, that one 80s show (name redacted to save me the headache of any of that engagement, dear christ) has me in a fucking chokehold and i would like to be released actually. if someone could get my brain to latch onto and hyperfixate on literally anything else that’d be SWELL.

i think what i’m trying to say is that i’m tired of living a life that just feels like filler. like i don’t even feel like the main character in my own major motion picture? i’m just some background schmuck a viewer sometimes sees at parties or some point of tension that some other main character has to like process and navigate or some shit. like, if were in a book or a movie, i’d be that one asshole you hear about... well, you wouldn’t actually hear about them would you? like, it’d be some newspaper headline or some blurry photo being featured on in the news, the broadcast itself just some set dressing as main character grabs like a single grape from the four course feast their parent made them before they rush off to school.

i love how i said i wasn’t gonna have an existential think piece and yet here we are. i still don’t understand who you’re talking to. are you talking to you? are you talking to them? who are they? why are here? how did they find us? how the fuck did they Find Us-

i think that ‘s enough of this, anyway. it’s one in the morning now. i am tired, i am quite clearly spiraling. i need water and sleep and less caffeine, probably.

part of me is like genuinely wondering who i have in mind when i write these like,, directionless thought to keyboard pages. in my head i’ve got a little man with a camera and i’m monologuing at the lens, if that helps at all with the image. i’m just also convinced that no one will be seeing the footage anymore.

okay, that’s enough now, bye.

- colin

[nyerus]

I just finished TGCF, and I'm kinda "confused"...I enjoyed it and I love Hualian, but.... One of the biggest issue I have with TGCF is... What is Xie Lian's motivation? What drives him to move forward in the story? What is even the whole story's purpose?

Like when you read Harry Potter, you know immediately that Voldemort is the bad guy and he must be defeated. Or in SVSSS, it was clear since the beginning that Shen Yuan's mission is to fix the "Proud Immortal Demon Way" if he wants to survive......

Am I missing something here....? Cause it's very different from when I read the other 2 books by MXTX....(For me : MDZS > SVSSS > TGCF)

Sorry if I'm wrong in trying to say what I mean...I did not mean to rant negatively here...Thanks if you want to answer, feel free to ignore it....Also, thanks for your hard work in this blog....

Hello there anon, and thanks for stopping by!

So I think the structure of TGCF can lend itself to the feeling of "what is the narrative's purpose," but to me it was pretty clear and so I think I can walk you through what I felt while reading!

So TGCF unlike a lot of other stories we may be used to starts out in media res -- much like MDZS, and I'll come back to this later -- and we are dropped into the story near the end of Xie Lian's classic hero's journey. Everything in the beginning parts of it have already happened. We get glimpses of these past moments in books 2 and 4, namely his "call to adventure" and "growth" in book 2, followed by his "ordeal/crisis" and "transformation" in book 4. This is why he can seem a bit aimless at the start of book 1 -- because he is. He's sort of between phases here, because he hasn't fully overcome his "ordeal" or "atonement," or reached his "apotheosis." The details or order of these phases can be debated, but the point I'm trying to make here is that Xie Lian not being at a recognizable start of his hero's journey can make his narrative seem aimless -- but in the grand scheme of things, it's not actually aimless. He's a vastly different person than he was when we are shown where he started out, so we as readers know that many things have already happened. We just aren't shown in full detail, and only ever privy to the most crucial/important parts. This can be off-putting to some readers, while others flourish with the unknown. It just depends on the type of things you enjoy!

The story itself is actually pretty similar to MDZS. Main character returns after a long absence, just kind of wants to vibe in all honesty, but is thrown into a series of messes. These happen to actually be related to the big bag at the end, whose identity the main character is trying to find out but has little information to go off on, due to machinations beyond his knowledge or control. He is assisted by an extremely capable love interest who knew him in the past, and due to that, is presently totally in love with him. As each successive plot point unfolds, the bigger picture of who's holding all the strings at the end becomes clearer. After the big bag is stopped, the hero's previously tarnished reputation is somewhat salvaged, and they have their peaceful happily-ever-after with their love interest. They also go on to do what they want to do post-canon, now with a home to return to after each adventure. Though they didn't cause (or want to cause) vast systemic changes, they still triumphed over forces of "evil" and made way for progress.

MXTX seems to really love this type of overall structure, and I think she did a masterful job using it twice but making the stories so vastly different, yet enjoyable on their own merits! (Also I think for this reason, Xie Lian and Wei Wuxian would be great friends haha!)

Xie Lian's motivations were also very clear to me throughout the novel. As a young upstart, he has lofty goals of ascending to godhood and doing the most he could to help others. He get this very, very early -- too early, in fact, and it leads to his downfall, though that itself is engineered by someone vested in seeing him fail (Jun Wu). As various trails and tribulations are thrown at him, Xie Lian is at any moment trying to just keep going, trying to do the right thing even when it's not possible. This leads to a point in his life where he just breaks and after having all his hope and light taken from him, he sees no point in his own dreams or desires. He sinks into the comfort of darkness for time, but before he lets it fully take him, he finds a reason to pull himself back out -- thanks to the fragile warmth of kindness. He realizes that no, he was not wrong in wanting to help others. However, it isn't like Xie Lian, then fettered as he is, can do much but help people in an individual basis. He can do nothing but his best, and often times, his best simply isn't enough. The odds are ever insurmountable, but he knows he still has to climb, no matter how weary. Because there is nothing else he can do.

And I think that last point is very important as well. I talked about why things may feel aimless due to the structure in the begging of this answer, but now in terms of the actual story: Xie Lian himself feels aimless, because for 800 years, he has done nothing but wander and roam. What else is he to do. He's helped people however he can, but is cursed to cause more misfortune to people should he try and stay. It severely limits what he can do, but nor is Xie Lian so naive at this point to think he can solve people's problems for them if he were to stay anyway. No, that's been... stabbed out of him by now. So when the story starts, Xie Lian is pushed and pulled in various directions by the plot, and has no choice but to go along with it. (Again, this is not that different than Wei Wuxian's rebirth; plot happens to him, and he goes with it.) All the while, we also have to keep in mind that a lot of his struggle is not necessarily with the external world. A lot of it is internal. He harbors extreme guilt and trauma that he has never processed, or allowed himself to process. It weighs down his every step, and keeps him from bearing his heart to someone he knows loves him -- out of sheer fear.

From a narrative standpoint, Hua Cheng's role is to help Xie Lian overcome this internal struggle. To release him from the shackles that are made of his own guilt, more metaphorically, though he does so literally as well. From thereon, Xie Lian is able to have that moment of self-actualization and triumph over his adversary, who is who intentionally all too similar to him in many ways. It's symbolic all around, including his victory that sees a merciful end to a villain like whom Xie Lian could have become -- but didn't.

All in all, TGCF read to me much like any other fantasy novel, including character motivations. It's just that they were very personal rather than being more grandiose. The effects were still somewhat far-reaching, with Heaven now having to rebuild, it's power structure irrevocably changed, and so on. The person who Xie Lian became after all his struggles didn't want to go on to become some lauded hero. He wanted to settle down with his beloved and continue to help people in ways that still mattered, since he anyways cannot change all of society to expunge systemic ills -- Heavenly Emperor or not. He knows he can bring hope and change to people's lives, and that on it's own is worth it. More over, he let himself accept his desire to want to be loved by someone else -- something he always thought he was unworthy to dare even wish for. To have someone who loved him for who he was, and whom he could love like that in return. He learns how to want things for himself, not just what he can provide for others.

It's refreshing to read a protagonist who isn't extremely enthusiastic about the greater ongoings of the world and trying to make everything different in said world. In TGCF we get a very character-focused, personal story in which things happen as the narrative progresses. They all tightly link back to not only the protagonist's story, but the bigger picture in the end. Xie Lian still has a very, very clear motivation to put an end to Bai Wuxiang once and for all as well, though unlike Voldemort being revealed so early on in HP, Bai Wuxiang is revealed partway through. And thereon, his true identity being someone Xie Lian genuinely trusted and even relied on -- instead of just someone that was at best tangentially related in some which way -- further lends itself to his personal struggle. Even if he is genuinely afraid, he knows he cannot suffer Bai Wuxiang/Jun Wu to continue "living." So he has both a dire external foe, and internal issues to address. And, well, I think that's a pretty good plot overall!

[ilikemesometaetaes]

Set Me Free (M)

Min Yoongi Oneshot

•••> Author: @ilikemesometaetaes​

•••> Summary: You are just an ordinary woman with a strange aura about you that Yoongi can’t seem to resist- even past the compulsion of his mentor. The question is: why?

•••> Pairing(s): Yoongi/Reader

•••> Requested by @itsgottabeyoo-ngs​ : “Hi daddy, One shot request with vampire Yoongi x brat reader. Bonus points for adding in choking or spitting idk make it filthy k thanks love you byeeeee xoxoxoxox”

•••> Word Count: 10.95k

•••> Rating: 18+

•••> Tags: smut | vampire!au | Yoongi!AU | Vampire’s Mate | Vampire!Yoongi | Human!Reader | Gifted!Reader

•••> Warnings: smut, oral (female receiving), unprotected sex, murder, attempted murder, slight choking/strangulation, dirty talk, biting, blood drinking, spitting, violence, horror, vampire/human relationship, cursing, mental attachment, thirsty Yoongi, Yoongi thinks he’s scary, but he’s totally not

Copyright © 2020 ilikemesometaetaes. All Rights Reserved.

Thank you for the request, babe! This one is a bit to unpack, as you can see. I hope you enjoy :)

~#~

Yoongi never claimed to have his thirst under complete control.

He stands before his brothers once every week for the feed, snarling as he consumes his share of blood, while the others bear witness so as to provide him ceremonial protection- a vampire is very vulnerable while he consumes blood. The polydipsia made one lose all form of reason and sense of mind, driven to the brink of animalistic insanity when it was in the process of mildly quenching the eternal hunger.

Polydipsia, used to describe his level of thirst, was the word made just for him in his own little world.

It wasn’t normal thirst, like a human, but the savage-like impulse to drink and drown until he could swim in a river of blood and take deep lungfuls of the crimson fluid. The impossible desire to consume and be completely consumed by blood until he became it himself always loomed over his mind in his early days as a Deadblood- a vampire youngling- causing him to search for a word that could completely describe his affliction.

Then the Greeks begun transforming their language, perfecting the word that he could use to chronicle his need. He had mulled over the thought throughout the few centuries that the word came into existence, truly connecting with it on a level that was deprived of him when his soul was taken from his body.

But the word was not only used to describe normal thirst; it described the abnormal desire to drink as a symptom of disease- and a disease is what Min Yoongi had.

From the days he explored the lands of Goryeo as a young teenage boy, he knew that disease racked every inch of the world. Street beggars, riddled with sicknesses and incurable illnesses, asked him for coin, food, clothing, and any necessities that could potentially carry them through the night into another sunrise. But the one thing that they begged for the most was water.

Liquid life. Yoongi thinks back on the ironic turn of events and how, even as a privileged boy of nobles, he understood just how desperate a person got when they were deprived of the one, singular fluid that supported life as he knew it.

As Yoongi approached adulthood, he was promoted and bestowed larger honors in the name of the Min clan, allowing him to provide more for the beggars and lower-class individuals that he came across on the streets every day- not that his father would find out.

Until he did.

Yoongi recalls the moment he knew that his father figured out that his son was spoiling the family riches on the lower class. They weren’t sitting down for dinner and having a conversation nor taking a stroll along the river like the two of them normally would- it was quite surprising, really. Yoongi had to applaud his father for the creativity of the circumstance.

He knew that his father figured out his whereabouts when he found himself bleeding out in the middle of the woods with three arrows, adorned with the Min clan crest carved into the wood, sticking out of his chest. He was sent to look for his supposedly lost little sister under the direction that she was probably at a watering hole- which Yoongi had never heard about- about forty-five minutes from the edge of Goryeo’s walls.

Many people ventured outside of the city to fend for food and necessities, or to find civilization elsewhere, so it wasn’t surprising to him that his curious baby sister wanted to see for herself what life was like outside of the city’s limits.

As Yoongi lay dying on the soil of the earth, staring up at the greenery of the trees above while they lightly swayed in the breeze, he realized that everyone, regardless of social-class or physical health, was fighting the same, universal disease: death. No one could escape it and no one was safe. At least, that’s the epiphany he had in an effort to comfort himself while he felt his heart painfully struggle to beat with an arrowhead lodged into it. Copious amounts of blood spurt out with each pulse of his damaged organ.

And then the universe decided to set him free from death with a cure worse than the disease itself.

Yoongi doesn’t remember who his creator was. He doesn’t remember how long he spent on the forest floor with the arrows still in his chest. He doesn’t remember waking up.

His memory of his new life started from the moment his consciousness returned, in the exact second that he found a set of vocal cords clutched in the palm of his hand, dripping with crimson, after apparently ripping them out of a young boy who was actively collapsing in front of him. The boy, who Yoongi immediately recognized from the streets of Goryeo, was choking on his own gore as he clutched at his now nonexistent throat, staring up at his killer with a jumbled expression that silently begged for help yet withdrew from terror.

It took Yoongi five years of trekking everywhere and no where while attempting to control his thirst before he found new meaning. He mostly had a hold on the scorch in his throat by staying away from the city and surrounding villages before he met another and figured out what he became.

The woman- no, girl?- appeared young yet spoke as if she had seen countless winters, the wisdom of a million middays glowing behind her carmine eyes. She was the first person he had met who did not end up dead within the first two minutes of scenting them on the wind.

“You are a vampire. You survive purely on the life essence of others. You are still a young Deadblood. Judging by your age, you should become a Redblood soon.” She sat with her back to him, overlooking the valley below the then-unnamed Odaesan mountain that they sat perched upon. “Do you know who created you?”

“Created me?” He asked. “What do you mean? My parents?”

She turned, her vibrant red eyes continuing to shock him. Did his own orbs look like this?

“I mean, who turned you?” She seemed to look at him incredulously, shocked by his lack of knowledge. “Who gave you their venom- their shi?”

“I…” Yoongi tried very hard to remember anything before the burning sensation that scraped like rocks against the insides of his bones and flesh, but all he could see and feel was fire and agony- and then blood. He couldn’t help but think with a grain of salt, disbelieving of the method in which he was born into his new life. “I don’t know. I just remember from my first kill.”

“Strange.” The other vampire muttered, returning her gaze to the valley. “Strange, indeed.”

Yoongi was always the silent type, only interacting when he needed to as a habit formed to avoid the questioning glare of his father when he returned home late on certain occasions.

But he couldn’t help the burning desire of curiosity within him, a welcome distraction from the need to feed within him. He had so many questions.

“You may ask your questions, Min Yoongi.” The woman sighed, not even bothering to spare him a glance whilst she spoke. The man was shocked to find that she knew his name without him telling her.

“How do you know my name?” The new revelation took precedent in his mind, hoping that she was not an enemy of his clan.

“A valid question.” She mused. “Anticipated, but valid. I suppose I’ll answer your question to the best of my ability.”

Yoongi shifted his position in preparation, a new habit that he formed in his new life. He learned from the first time he moved to stretch that his body did not need to be stretched as it usually did. He never ached, never cramped, never tired, and never lost energy. Despite the lack of his emotions in their usual form, he knew that it should have been unsettling to find such a new change within him, so he did the sensible thing of pretending that he needed to.

He pretended he needed to breathe- after two hours at the bottom of a lake he stumbled upon in his aimless journey, he was amazed to find that he required no oxygen to continue existing- and that he didn’t need to sleep nor use the bathroom. He would practice taking breaths, trying to inhale and exhale evenly without becoming allured to the pungent yet undeniably attractive scent of animal blood so that he could finally smell the forest again. He pretended to go to sleep and wake up with the urge to relieve himself of the noneixstent pressure in his bladder despite not having any of the instincts he once had.

The woman spoke, answering his first question.

“I can hear your thoughts. They’re not necessarily specific, but I can hear when you are wistful- like you are now- or when you are curious or sad or angry. I can hear the causes of these emotions.” She paused. “It comes with the gift of my second life. A form of protection, if you will.”

“Why would I need protection when I am invincible? I’ve seen the things I can do and what my body can endure.” He briefly recalled repeatedly jumping from a cliff, automatically landing on his feet no matter how hard he tried not to. Before, he had a will to survive with a choice of dying, but now? There was no comprehensible choice. “There is nothing that can hurt me.”

Yoongi couldn’t help cocking his head to the side like a confused dog when the woman let out a breathless laugh.

“Because, young one,” She looked at him with her eyes again, a look of mock endearment filling them. “You are not invincible.”

For a moment, Yoongi did not believe her. He believed that the liquid running through his veins was pure ichor, an essence of the gods, but when he returned her look of sincere truth, he understood that dying was still very much possible.

Thanking the gods, Yoongi looked to the ground and began toying with his fingers at his revelation. He could stop murdering people, willing to die in order to do so.

The woman shook her head. “No, Min Yoongi. You do not have to die to stop killing humans. In fact, it is the reason I have not killed you yet. You are unaware of the possibilities.”

His head perked up at the comment, suddenly eager to learn.

“How? How can I live without killing?” All he could see was the young boy that he had murdered in cold blood; the boy’s warm brown eyes staring up at him as he watched the life drain from them burned into his memory- he didn’t even know the boy’s name. The boy could not have been older than his own sister.

“I never told you that you could continue to live without killing. Of course, you have to kill. But you do not have to kill people.” The woman nodded her head down the mount. “Do you smell that? Do you smell the life that lives throughout this mountain?”

Yoongi attempted to focus on his senses but could only feel the thirst once again tormenting his throat. As soon as the woman shifted his attention back to the aroma of life, he salivated. Of course, he smelled the animal’s scents, but he could also detect traces of human life upwind that completely took away his desire for anything but humans.

“Push the thirst aside to open your senses. Embrace them. Embrace your power and your abilities. Focus on those.”

Again, he tried to push the scorch in his throat to the side, only to find that it was an impossible feat seeing as he had not fed in several months. He wanted human blood so badly.

“Poor child. I did not realize how weak you were.” She let a grimace morph her features, the first true expression of genuine emotion that Yoongi had seen on her. “Come sit in front of me. I will help you.”

For a moment, Yoongi hesitated. Was she going to kill him? He was not sure, but after a few more thoughts to himself, he realized that he had nothing to lose. Following her direction obediently, he moved to sit with his legs crossed in front of the woman.

“Now, close your eyes and listen to my voice.” She raised her hands to his head, placing her fingertips on his temples, and began whispering while he let his eyes flutter closed.

He felt as if he was mentally hit by a charging bear.

The woman’s words echoed in his mind, seating themselves amongst every corner and crevice that they could touch before Yoongi could understand what was happening. Shocked by the feeling of being intruded upon, he tried to push back against the mind-numbing force of her words, uncomfortable and feeling violated by the sensation. Instead of stopping them, her voice just broke down his amateur attempt at a mental barrier and pushed its way further into his brain. He was helpless to her superior mental awareness and gift.

“You will not focus on the thirst. You will focus on your abilities. Focus on the blood of animals and the blood of those already dead.”

And Min Yoongi had no option but to obey for he was forced into a dieted life.

But as he stands, thousands of years later, in the middle of your kitchen whilst watching you silently with the inferno of the blazing sun in his esophagus, he couldn’t help the need that overcame him. He could not obey his mentor; miraculously and horrifyingly, the gift of his mentor did not work with you.

He was impelled by his mentor’s gift, effectively removing most of the bloodlust he had for humans. In his lifetime, after the unavoidable command was bestowed upon him, he had only killed a handful of humans when he was consumed by the thirst after living in self-induced exile for so long. But standing before you, he may have needed to add a finger to that handful depending on what you did next.

Yoongi first clocked you on his radar the moment you walked into the small coffee shop he was occupying for the later part of the morning.

Building a friendship with you was quite easy.

You were bright and warm and everything wonderful upon meeting him. Your smile was just shy of naive, yet he couldn’t help the alien tugs on his heart when watching you giggle.

“How old are you, Yoongi?” You asked while circling the straw in your caramel macchiato.

“Old enough.” He chuckled, looking down with what you perceived as shyness.

“Oh?” You laughed with him. “And how old is enough for you?”

“I could ask you the same question. How old do you think I am?” He met your eyes, once again shocking you with their beautifully vibrant shade of brown.

“Well…” You trailed off, studying his facial features closely- the hint of a permanent smile line, fresh haircut, and no wrinkles alluded that he couldn’t be over thirty. “I’m gonna say… twenty-five?”

The man across from you smiled. “Very close. I’m twenty-seven.”

So he wasn’t that much older than you. You could totally do him.

Yoongi noticed the flash of lust that ghosted through your pupils for a split second, recognizing the dilation of them as you glanced at him. He watched you stick your chest out a bit more, begin fiddling with your hair more often, and part your lips while you let the thoughts of sexual satisfaction run across your mind.

“Twenty-seven, huh? That’s not bad at all.” You smiled, letting your tongue lightly swipe along your bottom lip unconsciously.

Yoongi zeroed in on the action with a piercing gaze, watching as the muscle seemed to move in slow motion tauntingly, daring him to dig his fangs into it savagely before tearing it from your mouth to feel the blood pouring from your lips onto his face. 

His body reacted sensibly, blood rushing like fake adrenaline to awaken his better instincts- rushing everywhere- and making his jeans become uncomfortably tight as they restrained his filling manhood. 

Blood drinking was as exciting as it was satisfying for a vampire. An extremely personal and holy moment, consuming lifeblood was the most raw and sexual moment to experience. A vampire could not experience real sexual desire without it.

He dug his fingers into the faux leather of his side of the booth until they broke through the material to restrain himself from attempting to attack you in the middle of the day.

Quickly, gaining his sense of mind once again, he tore more holes into the leather to round out the punctures so that it could appear as if the holes were from wear and tear.

The scent of your blood transpierced by the hormones and adrenaline beginning to flow through your veins made it just that much more implausibly alluring. Yoongi admitted that you were a beautiful and kind woman from the conversation throughout the morning. He also knew that you had a deviant side due to the surprisingly quick appearance of your lust-filled gaze.

Yet he couldn’t help the urge to murder you on the spot.

He knew that he couldn’t touch you. The supernatural safety of the sun that shone on your body prevented him from laying a finger on your skin without his own lighting aflame. He learned the protection of sun rays on humans the hard way.

His fifth human victim, a monk who travelled the heights of Mount Odaesan- Yoongi’s sanctuary and home- for a religious trial, travelled early in the morning as the sun was rising. Yoongi smelt the sweat dripping from the man’s skin instantly. In the small cove he called home, he tried to resist the urge to kill the man for he hadn’t smelt human blood in several years.

His mentor’s words were ever present. ‘Focus on the blood of animals and the blood of those already dead.’

Despite having those words affecting his instincts, Yoongi had managed to convince himself that the monk was a dead man standing once he smelled remnants of a virus tainting his scent, effectively bypassing the impulsion of the woman’s mind control.

Yoongi found himself rushing at the man without a second thought, fangs bared and fingers curled in preparation to tear the man’s limbs from his body. However, before he could get within two feet of the vulnerable monk, he was thrown back by an invisible and boiling hot force that left him screaming in agony and flying through the air.

The monk quickly ran back down the mountain in terror, yet Yoongi could pay no mind as he lay on the forest floor, ready to die once again as his skin singed and fell from his flesh like swamp sludge.

As his throat tore itself raw from his wails of misery, his body writhed in and out on itself in complete and utter anguish. The smell of burnt flesh overwhelmed his nostrils, pungent and nauseating in every possible way. How he was able to focus on something other than the pain was beyond him.

Despite the burning, Yoongi could feel his aflame skin beginning to heal itself. Clawing through the dirt, he felt the blood stored in his stomach rushing through his veins to the broken and severed ones, rebuilding them and recreating the network of arteries necessary to begin restoring his expanse of skin.

Before long, the pain subsided and Yoongi was no longer screaming. The entire ordeal lasted approximately twenty minutes- long enough that Yoongi no longer heard the footsteps of the monk and long enough for him to process the events that had just happened. 

He was thankful that he became a Redblood with the ability to use consumed blood throughout his body, unsure of what would have happened to him if he had been a Deadblood at the time. Deadbloods burned through consumed blood quicker than a spark from a flint could ignite kindling into a flame.

He definitely needed to ask the woman, Zizi, about it. And he definitely needed to track that monk until sundown so that he could get rid of any loose ends.

Yoongi grimaced slightly, remembering the occurrence like it was yesterday, as he sat across from you.

You were still looking down at your cup in blissful unawareness of his inner turmoil and life that he’s lived thus far. You definitely were not dense enough to not notice his gaze on your skin, but you were definitely ignorant of the fact that he was thinking about what would happen if he could just get you to move a few feet to the right to gain cover from the direct line of the sun. He just needed to get you into the shadows.

“Y/N,” He called your name. You instantly looked up in response. “How old are you?”

“Old enough.” You teased him back with his own words. He let a small smile thin his lips before he looked down to hide it. When you followed his gaze and noticed that he didn’t have a drink, you jumped to the opportunity.

“Can I buy you a drink, Min Yoongi?” You asked him.

“Oh, I’m not particularly craving coffee at the moment.” He paused and held his breath, as if trying to find the words to say. “I just like to sit here sometimes and enjoy watching the street.”

“Well,” Ask him! Ask him out! Yes! Do it! Your head screamed at you to be confident. You knew he was the shy type; you would be waiting all day for him to make a move and you just didn’t have the time nor patience for that. “Let me get you a drink at my bar?”

The man looked mildly impressed for a moment. “You own a bar?”

“A small one.” You swiftly added. “It’s not a big popular one or anything but I didn’t want a place too big. I like the smaller things.”

Yoongi couldn’t help but smile. You were a kind and beautiful woman living a simple life. He dreaded the moment that he was going to have to kill you.

“I take it you’re pretty well off then?” He asks. “And please don’t take this as me digging around. I’m just curious.”

“Don’t worry about it. Yeah, actually.” You laughed and sat back in your chair, looking out the window onto the street as people and cars passed by. “I’ve always been pretty lucky for some reason. The gods always seem to be in my favor and give me what I want.”

Yoongi smirked for a moment. If she wants me, she can have me. Then, I’ll have her.

When Yoongi found himself in the prime position to attack you in your kitchen, several weeks later, he knew. He finally had you where he wanted you.

A handful of dates that he found quite pleasant were all it took. 

You turned out to be just what he thought- a strangely attractive and alluring woman, the scent of your blood aside. You exhumed an odd magnetism about you that Yoongi had never felt from a human. He regretted the decision of waiting so long to kill you seeing as he was considering letting you live. But he knew that he couldn’t do that.

With your back turned to him, busying yourself with dinner, he could easily snap your neck so that you wouldn’t scream and struggle- and you would be dead almost instantly. A quick and nearly painless death was what you deserved. He didn’t want you to suffer at all.

However, just as he crouched in preparation to lunge at you, you spoke.

“Are you ready for dinner, babe?” You asked him.

He smiled devilishly, venom filling his mouth as he salivated. “Yes, I am. I’m starving.”

You chuckled. “Okay.”

“Go and sit down at the table.”

It was the most simple of commands. Telling Yoongi to sit down wasn’t an order. You weren’t demanding him to do it. You never demanded anything of him. It was a mere suggestion in your eyes.

Yet Yoongi felt his body moving to the dinner table without a second thought, unable to resist obeying your words.

What in the everliving fuck.

He sat quickly, impotent to move from his spot while he waited for you to bring the food from the counter. His thirst obliterated his throat, causing it to seize up and restrict any air that he could previously breathe, but he sat in wonder as you seemed to hold power over him that he had never felt before.

You turned with both of your dinner plates in hand and he quickly smothered the panic on his face, wondering what in the world had just happened.

“I’m not at all a chef, but you better eat everything.” Yoongi tested your words, seeing if the inclination to finish your food was present, only to find a slight mental nudge- as he expected. You didn’t tell him to do anything; you merely made an ‘or else’ statement.

No longer desperate to kill you for the time being, Yoongi sat still and waited for your next words. Once you sat the plate in front of him, you uttered a joke.

“Dig in.”

And dig in Yoongi did. He picked up his fork and scooped into the pasta you made without any willingness to deny you.

The pasta wasn’t fantastic in any sort of the word- It was plain, although it could be due to the fact that it wasn’t at all what he truly craved and needed. It was like eating a piece of stale bread while he was offered a perfectly cooked and outright juicy steak on a silver platter. The food that he ate wouldn’t be consumed by his body and used for nutrients; the shi in his stomach would burn it to nothingness within the next few hours.

Uncontrollably, Yoongi shoved mouthful after mouthful into his mouth- he couldn’t stop. Once he finished chewing one bite, his hand was immediately bringing him another, and then another. Despite lacking the need to breathe, Yoongi felt himself suffocating with each bite as the realization that he could do nothing except eat his food settled in his mind.

“I see you were hungry.” You laughed, unaware of his predicament. Yoongi’s eyes shot up to yours and silently hoped you would give him another command so that he could stop the foolishness.

You, however, just sat there feeling sort of proud of yourself- not only for making an edible meal, but for making one Yoongi seemed to enjoy. Even though it was slightly shocking to see him out of his usually cool character, acting like a man suffering from hunger, you couldn’t help but find it undeniably cute.

Eating slowly while watching him, you let your feelings for him come to the surface.

Yoongi was utterly beautiful. His black hair that fell over his face while he was cleaning up the last bits of his plate was just long enough to cover his eyes, yet as he looked at you without reservation, you felt he had a clear line of sight straight into your soul.

His skin was nearly flawless save for the light and narrow scar that cut into his right eye. Others found the scar intimidating and ugly, but you found it rather attractive. Yoongi, with his uncanny physical allure, was undeniably the most beautiful man you had ever seen.

Your body was alight with joy and content. In the few weeks that you got to know him, liking him was incredibly easy and having him in your home, in a domestic setting, lit your heart on fire with the possibility of falling in love with him.

He was incredibly easy to love, you discovered. Everything about him begged you to fall for him. As if the universe created him just for you, Min Yoongi was the epitome of perfection- in your eyes, anyway.

Briefly, you had shown a photo of him to your mother. She became unsettled instantly by his appearance.

“He’s so pale. And a little scary-looking.” She squinted at the photo you took of him when he wasn’t looking. You never brought him up again to your mother, disliking the fact that she didn’t like your potential boyfriend and found him scary.

The picture just happened to be your favorite- being because he didn’t like pictures and it was the only one you had of him.

He kindly asked you to not take photos of him. When you prompted him as to why during one of your more intimate moments at your bar, he only answered playfully as he held you close to him, lips begging for you to kiss them.

“Because I don’t want to leave evidence.” He whispered, breath tickling your nose. His body was warm and sturdy, muscles rippling under your touch as you clung to his shoulders.

“Evidence from what?” You asked breathily. The heat in your panties had increased tenfold over the last few minutes as his eyes grew hungrier with want. Yoongi’s fingers dug into your waist painfully, pulling you so close that you barely had room to expand your lungs to breathe, yet you couldn’t help the edgy feeling of how rough he could be with you.

“From when I eat you up.”

Thinking back on the memory, you shivered involuntarily, hoping that tonight might be the night you actually get to have him. He’d made you wait for a little over a month and you had no idea why. You definitely felt him straining through his pants a few times. But no kisses or anything further than the pressing of your bodies was accomplished.

Yoongi finished his plate and sat upright briskly, pulling you from your wishful thinking with a jump.

“Y/N,” He nearly growled, shocking you. “What else do you want me to do?”

The fork you were holding clattered to your plate instantly. Wow. He’s sizzling hot.

“I-“ You stuttered a bit. “I- uh.”

“Spit it out.” He hissed. You jumped again, trying to find the words to say with the heat growing in your panties.

Quickly, you answered him. “I want you to take me to my bedroom.”

“Thank god.” He groaned, getting up slowly with a smirk on his face. “Is that just a request? Because I can walk out now if you don’t actually want this.”

“Take me to my bedroom, Yoongi.” You stood slowly, carefully, as if you were afraid to trigger him.

Yoongi pushed in his chair and moved towards you at a speed that was almost inhuman. You yelped in astonishment as Yoongi attempted to control himself- he couldn’t bring you to your bedroom at his natural speed or else he would have a very motion-sick human to worry about. Instead, he trembled with the effort to resist your command at full force, knowing that the only way it was possible was due to the fact that he was still, in fact, taking you to your bedroom.

Picking you up was easier than breathing. You weighed absolutely nothing in his arms because of his advanced strength, so when he felt you trying to assist him in carrying you by holding your body stiffly, he huffed out a laugh whilst he walked.

“Relax, woman. You are as light as a feather.”

You blushed under his words, leaning into his chest to hide your cheeks.

“Stop that.” He growled, entering your bedroom. You looked up at him and he couldn’t tear his eyes from the blood that rushed to your cheeks. “I can’t resist if you do that.”

“Then don’t.” You whispered. Your heart pounded in your chest, begging him to hear it. “Don’t resist.”

His fangs came forth immediately, for he could not resist your command while he flew to your bed to throw you down. Despite your unknowing of what you were telling him to do, he fostered no opposition to what he was about to do.

The roughness of his throw startled you for a moment as you looked up at his vastly approaching figure, only to grow terrified when you caught sight of his face.

The veins protruding out of his temples and cheeks pumped blood straight into the whites of his eyes, turning them completely bloodshot, as they framed the now-crimson irises. Long incisors protruded from his mouth as he opened it with a hiss, revealing the way his human teeth shifted apart to allow his inhuman ones to break through the gums. Instantly, you parted your lips to scream.

Yoongi was upon you instantly, hand covering your mouth and silencing your cry while he snarled menacingly, yet he couldn’t help but feel remorse for killing you.

“I’m sorry.” He whimpered through his animalistic demeanor. “I can’t stop.”

You were screaming below his hand and, instantaneously, he had an idea.

He was leaning forward slowly, able to slow himself in the process of not resisting you. “Y/N,” He strained, changing the frequency of his talent, and waited for you to silence yourself in order to listen to him. He took his hand off of your mouth slowly after he heard your heart calm itself past your weeping. “Tell me to stop.”

“Stop!” You sobbed whilst clawing at his chest and kicking at his legs. “Don’t kill me!”

Not a second passed before Yoongi flew off of you, throwing his back to your wall with a loud thud while he cursed lowly.

You scrambled to the headboard of your bed, pressing your back against it in an attempt to gain some distance between the two of you. Your eyes were wide, chest heaving with your breath short, as you looked at the man in front of you.

“I-“ Yoongi stuttered for the first time in decades. “I’m sorry.”

“Your eyes!” Your burst out. You were unable to contain your fear and shock, so you displaced it into your curiosity. “Y-your- Your face! Your teeth!”

Yoongi stood against the wall, breathing just as hard as you, with his eyes cast to the floor in the process of trying to control his facial features. He could no longer kill you. The thought revolted him- every time he considered drinking your blood, the idea was banished from his mind with a sense of nausea following. Good god. She is unaware of her ability yet I am completely at her mercy.

“I apologize. I couldn’t help myself.” He breathed. What Yoongi forgot to take into account was the fact that he began implementing the gift of his second life on you the moment he stepped foot through your threshold, so your mind was completely scrambled by this point.

It was nighttime now; he could not leave your house no matter how hard he tried. He knew of the fallacy that vampires needed to be invited in and he found himself giggling from time to time at how close humans got to the actual lore of his kind.

He could enter your house, uninvited, during the day. He could lurk every corner of your abode without a bother, yet when night fell and the sun finally set, he would be stuck inside until morning. He knew he would be staying the night in your house the moment he agreed to have dinner with you. If he attempted to enter through your door during the night, however, he would have no luck- the night’s protection would convince his brain to walk away from your home without any further reconsideration until he was a good distance from it.

He was in the first position now.

He wished that he could leave you and disappear from your life without a trace so that you could live a peaceful and happy life without him, but he was afraid that it was impossible now with sundown a mere two hours prior. Your powers were no match for the natural protection of the earth. The both of you had a long night ahead of yourselves.

So he used his ability. Yoongi gave you control- rational thought, rather. His gift allowed him to grant organization of the mind and precise focus to others, but he could also take it away.

Upon entering your home, he began the process of slowly but surely ebbing away your barriers and logical thought- he couldn’t do it too fast or else you would panic like you were now. With a presently impossible-to-kill human whose heart was beating out of her chest and a command to not kill you forcing him into submission, he was obligated to prevent you from having a heart attack that was caused by him.

With laser-like focus, he channeled his gift straight into your open mind. Yoongi rebuilt the walls he had previously broken down over the past few hours, restocked your jumbled thoughts into their proper spaces, and flowed his energy through each corridor of judicious conception so that you could continue to develop your focus into that of supernatural proportion. He hoped that you, with a new mind, would tell him to get away from you and to kill himself. Dying by the hands of such a robust ability wouldn’t be too bad of a way to go.

You, however, never had such a decisive mind. Your mind was never clearer and you had never felt such clarity in your thoughts before. It allowed you to feel the magnetism that he radiated.

You knew he was a vampire. You don’t remember how you knew or how you recognized it, but you knew that he was not the first of his kind you had come across. Maybe it was the obvious fangs that gave it away.

“Yoongi,” You whispered. “You’re a vampire.”

His eyes, now back to their normal gorgeously coffee-bean shade, flicked up to yours in surprise.

“You know what I am?” He spluttered, flabbergasted. “You don’t think I’m a demon? Or the devil?”

“I’m not stupid. I know a vampire when I see one.” Your tone did not waver nor shake despite being a potential victim to a vampire. Was it the adrenaline?

“Then you know that I am a danger to you.” He said lowly, shock still evident on his face, while he began gravitating towards your bedroom door to leave.

“No. Stay.” You found yourself pining for his presence while he froze up in his spot. You eyed the action analytically. “If you were a danger to me, I wouldn’t be alive right now. You had plenty opportunity to kill me.”

“That’s the thing,” His hands pressed to the wall and scratched into it with the effort to move further from you. “I don’t have much of a choice anymore.”

“And why is that?” You relaxed your body and slowly slid your way across the bed towards him.

“Because I can’t.” Yoongi actually gasped for air as you stood from your bed to slowly approach him. “Y/N. Don’t come near me.”

“Why don’t you have a choice?” You ignored his warning, fully aware of the risk you were taking yet uncaring of the consequences. You were too focused on the fact that you actually wanted him.

Yoongi could not move from his spot, a side effect of your command to stay, but he refused to meet your eyes. The irresistible scent of your blood clashing with the order to not kill you fucked with his mind in ways he never experienced, creating an excruciatingly splitting headache between his temples. He wanted to drink from you so bad yet he could not move a single muscle.

“You can tell me to do anything. You can tell me to stay away from you. You can tell me to leave you alone. Hell, you can tell me to kill myself and I’d do it.” He ground out, attempting to press his back further into the wall as he felt your body heat against his skin. You came too close. He could smell your hormones lacing through your blood, triggering a wash of his shi over his dry tongue and a yearning to tear you apart overriding his senses.

He wanted to sink his fangs into your flesh so badly that he was beginning to scare himself. Allowing his venom to seep into your system would undoubtedly send you into ecstasy; you would only feel a pinch of pain as his saliva instantly burned through your nerves and set them alight. He could kill you while you were in pleasure; you wouldn’t feel anything but bliss as he drained the life from you.

“And why do you, a powerful creature such as yourself, allow me to have this power over you?” You asked. Was he in love with you? You definitely could love the man with how much you felt drawn to him but, for crying out loud, it had only been a few weeks.

“I don’t allow it. You are a gifted human. You possess this power over me.” Although Yoongi enjoyed having a calm conversation with you, he couldn’t help but feel bad that he used his gift on you. It was almost an unfair playing card- a “get-out-of-jail” card.

Because you should be running, terrified and screaming, even with his ability active in your mind. Maybe he had used it too much? Yoongi recalled the one time he went overboard with his gift, driving a man to suicide as he focused too much on the meaning of life and the regretful things he had done. Immediately concerned, Yoongi reached out a mental tether- a rare talent amongst his kind- to gauge your stability.

What he found, instead, was a dark and curling line attaching to his, pulling it in as quickly as Yoongi offered it. Before he could reel back away from it, it was fully intertwined and pulling his line to attach to you, only to rear back and completely obliterate his senses when it entered his head.

No. No no no. It’s impossible.

Yoongi was moving forward and caging you against the bed at full speed before he could stop himself, nestling his body between your eagerly opening legs as a hiss escaped his lips. Immediately, he realized that he broke through your command unwavered. The thirst came back at full force when you moaned from the friction on your heat.

“You’re-“ He tested the sensation of true, sexual arousal with a slow grind of himself into you, gasping with a jerk of his dick when his action squeezed his member between his body and yours. “You’re my-“

You moaned again, sitting up slightly to try and capture his lips with your own, unable to control the desire that surmounted in your heart. When he resumed his look of shock, backing away from your advance so that he could look at where your bodies touched, you spoke through the heady emotion. “I’m your what?”

“It can’t be.” He whispered. After a single beat, he leaned down and pressed his lips to yours with a crushing pressure that split your lip instantly.

The pain seared across your bottom lip and distracted you for a moment, emitting a groan deep in your throat that he matched when the taste of your blood exploded onto his tastebuds. Instead of swallowing it like he wanted to, he brought a hand to your chin and opened your lips to spit your blood, along with his venom, back into your mouth so that it would take your pain away.

For a moment, you held the mix of liquids on your tongue, unsure of what to do as no one had ever spit in your mouth before. You looked up to him with confusion extremely evident in your arched brows.

“Swallow it.” He growled.

The taste of iron and an almost sugary sweet tang of saliva was too strong for you to keep sitting on your tongue, so you did as he told you to before he kissed you again to repeat the same action. Slowly, you got into the rhythm of swallowing what he gave you.

Before long, he simply gave you his tongue, allowing you to suck the saliva from his mouth greedily. You didn’t understand why, but the taste was addicting and adding to the pulsing feeling that radiated between your legs. Were you getting lightheaded? No. This sensation was much more blissful and exciting.

He pulled away after sucking on your wounded lip once more, spitting the mixture into your awaiting mouth for a final time before sitting up to look down at your body.

His venom was already taking effect. He could smell it on your skin as it flowed through your veins and filled your system just like a virus would. It would be simple to turn you at this point. You would be his for eternity, bonded to him in ways only the Fated One of a vampire would. Yoongi shook the thought from his head as he wasn’t even sure that you were, indeed, his.

“What am I to you?” You asked genuinely, swollen lip slightly obstructing your speech.

“Don’t worry about that right now, Y/N. Right now, I am going to fuck you, okay?” He met your gaze with his dark eyes filled with confidence, knowing that you would be unable to deny him if his belief was true.

“Yes. Yes, please Yoongi.” You breathed, begging him almost drunkenly. “Please. I’m yours.”

His mind was nudged forward by a different force this time, warranting unknown instincts to play into action.

He felt his center of gravity shift. His skin grew tight and uncomfortable around his body from the emotion that wished to burst through the surface. He breathed with you. Perfectly aligned were your rhythms; his heart soared alongside your own galloping one, desperate to match you in every aspect. The sensations in his body were difficult to ignore as he felt the ancient and sacred pull of a bond lacing itself through his limbs.

Instead of pondering over the reality of it any further, he slid his hand from your chin to your shirt and pinched the fabric between his fingers. You nodded in reassurance.

Your clothes tore form your body like paper. Wrapping his fingers around your arm to keep your body in place, Yoongi ripped your thin blouse from you easily. Your breasts, made plump by the bra you wore, caught his attention the moment they were revealed. Perfect.

Instead of looking like a moron seeing exquisite breasts for the first time, he moved his hand to your dress pants so that he could rid your body of them. In under ten seconds, Yoongi had you almost bare below him. Perfect.

Not even realizing it until you brought your thumb to his lips to swipe his shi from the corner of his mouth, Yoongi shook his head at the fact that the sight of you wriggling and bare-skinned beneath him made him literally drool, but his instincts went haywire when he watched you place your thumb in your mouth to suck his venom off yourself with a low moan of appreciation at the taste.

Yoongi’s hands couldn’t move faster as he tore the clothes from his body, stripping himself bare to reveal himself to you. He wanted to give you everything. To open his mind and spread everything out for you to see- he hoped you could handle it.

You, on the other hand, were laying below him with the desperate need to have him inside you.

You wanted him everywhere. You wanted him to sink himself into you- it seemed to be the only fathomable option. You wanted him to hold you and kiss you and surround you with everything him.

As you stared up at him with a needy look in your eyes, you couldn’t help but want him in every facet possible.

You saw yourself making love to him, holding him, kissing him- loving him. The new sensation brought on you by the psychic connection- that was all you could call it when you felt the mental attachment- brung passionate emotions through your body in an onslaught that you could barely handle. It was too much to deal with without him inside you to be with you through it yet you didn’t know if you could handle what would follow.

Yoongi could smell you through your panties; a delicious scent of the most raw tease he had ever allowed himself to indulge in. Unable to help himself, he moved down your body quickly, throwing your legs open- rather roughly- to give himself room to press his nose straight into your heat. Your aroma filled his nose as he expanded his lungs, triggering his natural instincts to push out his fangs and load his vision with blood to enhance it despite his eyes being closed. Fuck, he wanted to consume you.

You keened at the contact, closing your thighs around his head to trap him there. You felt his groan vibrate on you, driving you closer to the brink of insanity.

Without any further time wasted, he grabbed onto your panties and ripped them from you to expose your pulsating pussy to his mouth without moving his nose away from your intoxicating scent. Not a beat passed before he dug his tongue into you to scoop up your DNA-laced juices. Fuck.

Yoongi lost himself in you immediately. You whined out a small cry, unable to keep yourself from grabbing onto his hair and yanking when all you felt were his lips and tongue laving over your opening relentlessly. There was no skill nor technique in his movements; he was simply devouring you without a mind to pay attention to your bundle, yet you couldn’t stop the sensitivity from boggling your mind and driving you to an instant orgasm.

His hands squeezed your thighs around his head and, for a brief moment, he opened his eyes to look at you. The color of his eyes staring back at you was unexpected- a solid, snow white color filled his orbs and contrasted starkly with the red hue of his engorged veins and bloodshot scleras.

“Yoongi,” You whimpered from another swipe of his tongue and suck from his lips. “Y-Your eyes.”

He pulled away from you instantly at the comment, eyes widening and wet mouth hanging agape, while you let out a groan of relief- or sadness- at the lack of attention to your incredibly sensitive core.

“What color are they?” He asked.

“White.” You struggled to speak, voice cracking under the post-orgasm glow.

He took a moment to look down at your heaving body and messy pussy, jerking forward slightly at the sight of your delicious juice smeared all over your thighs. Once he had a handle on his thirst again, Yoongi met your eyes as the white faded from his irises. “Then you are her.”

“I’m who?” You reached for him, needing to hold him anywhere you could get your hands on. Yoongi caught this action immediately, the same desire to grasp you evident in his hand rushing to meet yours. It was natural to intertwine your fingers while he leaned over you to press his lips to yours in a short, uncharacteristically loving kiss.

“You are my Fated One- my mate. You hold my soul in the palm of your hand, as I do yours.” He murmured, feathering his lips over yours as he spoke.

Under normal circumstances, you don’t think you’d be able to comprehend his words with your current position with him. You were exposed to him and he was exposed to you, making you feel vulnerable and turned on beyond belief. Yoongi was reaching behind you to unclasp your bra while you took in what he had said. His thumb was brushing over your bare nipple before your bra even hit the floor.

“So-” You had to clear your throat again. “So you’re mine? Like, completely?”

He chuckled warmly at your question and you couldn’t stop yourself from reciprocating the smile.

“Yes, Y/N, I am yours.” He brought his hand down to grip your thigh and move it to the side. “I belong to you.”

Yoongi placed his dick against your folds and you watched him so do. You felt his tip capture onto your clit several times as he lathered it with your arousal languidly, preparing himself so that he could slide into you easier. “However,”

“However?” You looked up at him with a questioning look accentuated by your eyebrows.

“You are also mine.” Yoongi stopped his movement so that the head of his cock finally caught onto your opening, kickstarting your heart into a pace that you were afraid would kill you. “Do you understand that?”

He didn’t wait for you to answer.

Torturously, he began to push inside you. You widened your legs to accompany his approaching hips. As you warbled out a cry when he decided to drop his control and fill you completely in the next second, Yoongi began speaking again.

“Do you understand that everything about you,” He reared back and pushed inside you again, forcing your legs open to take him while he did so. “-is mine?”

You couldn’t respond. Your emotions were running rampant with your mind overflowing from too much stimuli while he fucked you. He spoke again without your reply and you could only pull him closer to you and take the feeling of his cock caressing your insides.

“Your lips,” Thrust. “your eyes,” Thrust. “your hair, your hands, your skin;” He punctuated each part of your body with a ram of his dick into you. “Everything, Y/N.”

Yoongi took a moment to look down at your joining bodies, smirking softly at the sight of how easily he slid inside. “-Especially this greedy little cunt of yours.”

You watched his smirk drop while he bit his lip and ground himself into you, lips parting again with a low moan whilst keeping his gaze transfixed on the sinful sight. You watched him in awe as his cock plunged so deep that it felt like it was in your throat.

He snapped his eyes to yours quickly, repeating his prior question. “Do you understand?”

Expecting to be interrupted by a thrust, you sucked your bottom lip in your mouth and braced yourself, only to be grabbed by the neck while he leaned down to bring you face-to-face. You could no longer breathe as he pulled his lips back to reveal his fangs. “I asked you if you understood, Y/N.”

With your airway restricted, you could only nod with your lip still stuck between your teeth. Did you taste blood? Promptly, you remembered that Yoongi busted your lip, yet you were confused as to why you hadn’t felt the pain of it since he first kissed you.

“And are you okay with that?” Yoongi began to nose his way down your neck once he turned your head to the side and slowed the rhythm of his hips. Right before you could answer, he released your neck to look at your face, allowing a large rush of air to enter your lungs just as you were attempting to give him an answer.

“Yes!” You released your lip to scream out at the welcome sensation of oxygen and the feel of his dick pushing it right back out of you. “I’m yours! Everything is yours!”

“Good, my love. Good.” He whispered, smiling down at you. His smile was wiped clean off his face in a heartbeat, his thrusts into you completely ceased, as he zeroed in on your lips. You licked them subconsciously, immediately tasting blood and internally cringing at the flavor of iron coating your tongue.

Yoongi attached his lips around your bottom one quickly and you felt him suck it into his mouth. Your walls squeezed tightly around his at the sensation of his tongue swiping over the spli in your engorged lip again and again. You knew that your lip would be swollen yet you couldn’t find yourself to care because it, surprisingly, didn’t hurt at all. The small bits of Yoongi’s saliva that slipped into your mouth were enough to keep you on edge, tasting like raw sugar at that point.

He began moving inside you again, starting a slow and steady pace. You whimpered into his mouth as he began taking his fill of your blood and you mirrored his thirst with the need to taste his mouth again. Your lips pressed closer to his in order to, hopefully, get a bit more of his spit.

You felt your orgasm building laggardly. It was creeping in at a speed that you were able to prepare yourself for your ascent towards ecstasy. You tightened your legs around his waist and dug your heels into the globes of his ass, pulling him in.

It wasn’t until you were bordering on your climax that Yoongi pulled away from your lip with your pop and sat up to focus on fucking you, his peace of mind obviously waning.

You saw it in his face; you saw the way he couldn’t control his veins from darkening his face; you saw the way his eyes burned white and the way he was attempting to hold himself back from attacking you.

So you did him a favor.

“Yoongi.” You mumbled past your swollen lip. “Bite me.”

Min Yoongi had no option but to obey your command.

He surged forward, pressing himself against your clit deliciously and bottoming out as he lunged for your neck with his fangs fully protruded and a warbled hiss scratching its way out of his throat. With barely enough time to prepare, you bared your neck to him once more and clutched onto his arms for dear life, hoping it wouldn’t hurt too bad.

What you weren’t expecting was for it to feel unreservedly good.

The sensation took you by surprise, warranting a loud moan to escape from your lips before you could stop it. Why did his fangs feel so good in your flesh? It should definitely be hurting. But all you could do was moan and whine like a madwoman as you felt his lips close over the puncture wounds and begin to drink your blood straight from your flesh. His tongue continuously swiped over the teeth marks in your neck, keeping them clear from your body’s natural ability to scar itself and begin blocking the escaping blood. Every lick he delivered sent a pulse straight to your clit and an automatic instinct to tighten yourself around him.

Your pussy quivered around him uncontrollably. You were so close to cumming that you could practically taste the release on your tongue. In the few moments that Yoongi took his sips from your body, his slow propulsions forward into you had become more rough and insistent- as if he was trying to split you in two. Even as you felt your life essence leave your body, you were being filled time and time again by his cock at a deep and passionate rhythm.

At the first sign of getting lightheaded from blood loss, you came- hard.

Your juices squirted around him every time he reared himself back and your eyes rolled to the back of your head while you craned your neck back into your very-bloody pillow. With no where to go, unable to still him with his supernatural strength, you were only able scream out his name.

His speed increased through your orgasm and your sweet exclamations of pure bliss drove Yoongi into a lunatic, freeing himself of control and using his uncanny speed to fuck into you. Your extremely drenched pussy, still convulsing around him was battered and raw, yet he could not find it in himself to care as he desperately surged into you over and over again so that he could fill you with the cum of several centuries. Picturing the image of your cunt spewing his release from it had him closing his jaws and pulling on your wounds harder to get more blood from you.

He knew that he couldn’t drain you. Hearing the pulse of your heart weaken slightly was enough to make him detach his teeth and lick over your wound so that his shi could assist it in healing- it would be completely sealed and unblemished in the next few hours. Instead of worrying too much about your neck, he reared back to look down at you again while he grabbed onto your hips with fervor.

You saw the drops of blood running down from Yoongi’s mouth and chin drip onto your breasts and stomach, creating an erotic and utterly unwholesome image of carnage and horror on your body, but you were unable to help yourself in feeling unsettlingly drawn to the wicked image. With a new flash of desire exploding through your body and reawakening your lust, you reached up and grabbed his neck, pulling him back down to trap him in your embrace.

The oversensitivity of your last orgasm was enough to send you hurtling to the edge of another orgasm- You just needed his fangs in you one more time. Silently begging for it, you kept your grip on his nape and softly nudged him back in the direction of your neck.

Yoongi was close. You could tell. But even past his stupor, he spoke.

“Y/N. I can’t. I took too much.” He almost whined with need, struggling to form words past his fangs.

“Just-“ Your body jolted wildly as he desperately tried to cum. “Just do it!”

Yoongi was able to deny your command, which he figured was due to not being a specific one, yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave it unanswered as his body built in preparation to release.

“I fucking can’t!” He was close to roaring at this point, gums aching to meet your flesh as he pressed his fangs into you and filled you with his essence. He wanted to so badly.

“Drink from me, dammit!” Your eyes were welling with tears of frustration, needing that small push from him to make you orgasm again- his dick hammering your cervix was too much to handle without that small bit of pain to ground you. And without hesitation nor the choice to deny you, he did.

Your orgasms were perfectly in sync as he placed his fangs back into your wounds, delicious blood spilling across his tongue once again. Liquid life. It was the perfect few words for how you tasted.

Your pussy ached with the force of how tight you squeezed around him and Yoongi groaned lowly against your neck as he pressed himself so tightly to you that you knew his hands would be leaving bruises on your hips and ass.

“Yoongi.” You sobbed as his cum filled you, pulsing spurt after warm spurt of the hot liquid onto your abused cervix. The thought of him taking your blood while he gave you his cum was too sinful for you to bear, an outburst of emotion causing you to chant his name over and over again. Never before in your life had you felt so complete and free.

You could feel your blood levels draining as you slowly came down from your climax, knowing that you would not be awake for much longer if he kept drinking.

“That’s enough.” You whispered tiredly, head becoming truly lightheaded. Yoongi, unable to rescind his teeth from your neck, kept drinking from you as the thirst and aggression of the first mating actuated his movements. “Yoongi.”

He tried to pull away- he really did- but the feeling of your blood coating his tastebuds was like finding a quarry in the middle of the Sahara Desert. He lacked the true thirst for humans for thousands of years- and now he was suffering the polydipsia for blood all over again.

“Yoongi, stop.” You commanded, testing your supposed ‘power.’

Yoongi ceased to drink from you yet his fangs were still embedded in your skin, vibrating with pleasure and need. As he stopped, he couldn’t help but whine and then growl savagely with want. The vibration of of his throaty sound in your flesh did things to your body. Unable to resist the temptation, your body clenched involuntarily around his softening cock.

Yoongi groaned again, retracting his fangs and face from your neck, and sat up once more to look at your body. With a slow hand, he stuck out his index and middle finger to smear the droplets of blood on your stomach in small circles aimlessly, picturing you as a canvas made just for him to ruin. “You’re quite the minx, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?” You giggled deliriously, needing sleep as soon as possible.

“I mean,” Yoongi reached down to smear a droplet of blood across your hip before digging his thumb and fingers into the bone and the flesh of your ass harshly. “Your cunt is playing games with me right now.”

“How so?” You tilted your head to the side in mock confusion.

The vampire pressed his lips into a thin line and sighed almost disdainfully. You gasped as you felt his dick jerk within you, filling to stiffness once more and awakening a new cloud of lust despite the exhaustion you felt. “Well, if you want to play clueless, you can play clueless. We have eternity to teach you how to not play games with me, my mate.”

For eternity? You kind of liked the sound of that.

~#~

If you’d like to read more of my work, feel free to check out my Series Masterlist! If you’d like to read my first fic, check out the DHYB Masterlist!

[imgonnagetkilledbynutstink]

Just a few small things

Chapter 1/2

Greta Van Fleet witch au

Rating: none

Warnings: swearing

Summery: the boys need some ingredients to help them with some enchantments.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Jake and Sam find themselves in downtown EastHaven, a small town not all to far from their little cottage shop that resides in the forests on the outskirts of town. The brothers have been wandering aimlessly looking for waterroot for hours, a fairly rare water element ingredient that comes from a certain plant that grows in rivers, grounded and turned into a powder. Jake groans, it's hot and per usual he's decked out in all black. "Why do we even need to do this anyways?" Sam whines. "We've been over this, Sam. If we enchant our instruments it'll be MUCH more useful then are flimsy old wands" Jake responds. This idea was Jake's, and one of his more... Abstract concepts. According to Sam, their "flimsy wands" had been doing just fine. Especially considering that they have saved them from numerous demons and one really angry cow. But Jake was always searching for some new way to switch up his practice. They get to the market not too long before sundown and split up to search. After about 15 minutes of aimless wandering, Jake finally comes across a shop that has what they're looking for. "Hello madam. One sack of waterroot please" he asks politely. The strong tall woman hands him the sack. "Thatll be 20 coins" she says. He hands it over and heads off to find Sam. He sets the sack of waterroot in his satchel and continues his search, much after dark at this point and noticing that most shops are closing down for the night. Suddenly he feels like his bag is ever so slightly lighter then it was a second ago. He checks his satchel and realizes the waterroot is gone, and a millisecond after he realises it, he also not8ces a figure dressed in black running away from him into the shadows frantically.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Josh and Danny are at this point lost in the woods. They have long since given up on their own journey for dragons tail, a form of flower that grants strength if used properly. Danny was holding the lantern as Josh wandered behind. Danny was a bit stressed that he'd end up losing his small companion along the way, considering Josh gets distracted easily by plants and random objects and he wanders off to collect them. But he knew as long as he heard him humming softly that it was all okay. Suddenly the two hear a crack in the branches and they both quickly look to where the sound was coming from. They where met with, not a person, but a cave. A large opening in a mountain they have been passing for a few minutes at that point, and in the middle of the cave floor, illuminating a loud purple light around it, was one single dragon tail flower. Josh immediately makes a b line for the flower. "Wait! What the hell are you doing!?" Danny whisper yells as to not alert any dangerous animals. "Uh... Getting the fucking flower we where sent all the way out here to get???" Not waiting for a response after that, Josh continues on his way to the flower. He steps inside the cave and before approaching the flower, he claps his hands together and creates a soft white light admitting from his palms. He uses the magic light to look around as he slowly walks up to the ingredient. Danny is still standing outside of the cave, conflicted as to weather or not he should stay outside or follow his friend into the cave. Danny here's the cracking of branches again and looks around frantically, still met by nothing. "Josh... Josh maybe you should hurry, I think somethings out here" Danny says with a slight tremble in his soft voice. Josh quickly plucks the flower and runs back by dannys side. They heard the cracking once again and Josh took stance back to back with Danny. Josh hardly used conductors for his magic, he preferred his hands, and Danny readied the staff that he carried aside himself. Hearing the crack one more time, they turned the light they both where amitting to their sides in the direction of the sound, and where met with a 10 foot tall Kipine. In other words, an owlbear on steroids. With the body of a tall slender bear, feet and head of a barn owl and ginormous wings of a bat, it screeched at the two, and Josh and Danny forgot about fighting the thing and immediately ran, as the kipine took to the sky to follow it's prey.

[black-swan-slaps]

My Musings About How BTS Made My 2020 So Much Better

I’m never one to do year end reflections like this, but I think I’ll make an exception for 2020, considering, you know, 2020. Plus, the New Years Eve content made me giddy.

I’ve known about BTS since either 2015 or 2016 (I first saw their videos in a Youtubers React video). I remember being impressed back then when I saw that their music videos had around 100 million + views (look at them now, lol). Since then, I would casually watch some of their performances or interviews, but never really listened to their work. The closest I got was when I became interested in RM’s solo work in 2018 (I really like his song Joke, and I stand by that). I think part of my interest in him was because he spoke English during American interviews, so it was easier for me to find a connection. Besides that, trying to enter the BTS world felt, well, overwhelming. There’s just so much content to get through. 

Fast forward quarantine 2020. It’s the end of April and I have been working from home since the beginning of March. Their carpool karaoke video with James Cordon shows up in my Youtube Recommended. The rest is history.

But seriously, that video is just so much fun, and it was really smart of the editors to include subtitles. Very few American shows will bother subtitling the members (at least early on), but they often say really interesting or funny things! I wound up watching that video every day for like two weeks. I then started watching them on other talk shows, which turned into watching interviews, to then their music videos, performances (hello Jungkook in the James Cordon Boy With Luv performance), funny compilations, and then other content, like Festa. One of the first videos I watched was their 2019 Festa. I had limited context for the members, and didn’t think I would actually watch an hour long video, but I did, and I enjoyed it. 

My May became a whirlwind of watching their content and listening to their music. Part of me was hesitant to spend so much time losing myself in their content, but as I reasoned, I had the time, and I was enjoying myself. I remember honestly laughing so hard as I watched Run, and by this point in quarantine, I had very little to laugh about. BTS gave me a route to escapism, and I happily took it. 

None of my friends are really into Kpop, but I felt so ecstatic as I fell deeper into this obsession. They would listen to me a little as I talked about them, but I did overall refrain from talking their ears off. (Now, whenever I do get to see them, I just give a simple update: “Still really into BTS, btw.”)

Point being, I devoured their content. Run, Bon Voyage, docuseries, concert footage, hell, I even watched American Hustle Life. As I learned more about them, I fell in awe of their success and individual stories. I’m honestly just so happy for them every day. I’m seriously amazed when I think about how much they have accomplished. About how hard they have worked, how many records they have broken, how insanely talented they are. They are truly global superstars, and they are changing the music industry, culture, and are leaving a huge mark in history. It’s just amazing. And what is also amazing, is that being happy for them makes me happy. 

Being happy for other people and their successes is pretty standard for me, but it’s definitely a sentiment that has heightened this year. This is a year where we need to spread happiness, as hard as that can be sometimes. But, getting this invested in a band is a new thing for me. 

I really appreciate their friendship and bond. I know it’s not realistic for them to be lovey-dovey BFFs all the time, but it is clear that they have an incredibly special, and rare bond. It’s something that I really admire. (The Vmin friendship was one of the first things I noticed, and led to me getting interested in the members personally). Being American, platonic intimacy isn’t really something I see a lot, at least on the mainstream level (and especially between men), and getting to see these men work together, laugh together, and express their love for each other is just so refreshing. I truly hope that they are happy with each other. It is so clear, that based on the crazy journey they have been through together, they have a bond that no one else will understand. They’ve said it themselves that, in certain moments, they can just look at one another and instantly know what they’re thinking. That is so valuable and special.  

Their work energized me. I started working on a major project in May, and I felt inspired by them. They gave me the energy to push through. Seeing them be silly while also working hard also helped me to accept myself and be true to my weird nature. I used to be pretty shy and reserved, and never posted online, but I started to adopt Jin’s philosophy of just doing what you feel like. Honestly, I felt the most alive in the first few months of quarantine purely because of them and all the energy I invested in learning about them and received from them. (And it was a welcomed distraction from the real world.)

It’s maybe a bit strange getting practically new content every day, but I have found that between official content and social media, there is always something to look forward to. It’s a part of my daily routine to check tumblr and look for updates. It’s something that has been so helpful as my mental health started to decline around August (I’m sure that with quarantine we’re all in the same boat). These past few months have been hard for me as I’ve struggled with the effects of quarantine and a developing complicated relationship between me, food, and my body, but at least I have had BTS to look forward to.

And I guess that is the point of this. I could honestly go on and on about each member and how I feel a special resonance with Jimin based on his gender expression, or how proud I feel of Jungkook every time I hear him sing and express himself, or how Suga’s First Love stops me in my tracks every time I hear it, but I’ve gone on long enough. What I’ve realized recently is that BTS gives me something to look forward to.

This year has been bleak. We all know this. But what is strange is that even though I have had my fair share of struggles, I also had a lot of self-improvement. Those first few months of quarantine, the energy I received from BTS inspired me to work hard on my major project. I took up learning Korean (I really like learning languages and have been working on Italian for years. I highly recommend TalkToMeInKorean). I started working out every day and actually have stamina to do physical activity (something I was severely lacking). I made strides in my professional life and am working strongly and proactively toward my career goals. Of course, even though I have been technically successful, I still can’t but help feel aimless and lost due to the loss of connection with my friends and peers due to quarantine. As Christmas day was ending, I realized that I had been using the anticipation of the holiday to get me through December. Once it was over, I felt sad. What more did I have to look forward to? The world is still generally terrible. In America, we’re still reeling from our terrible political and covid situation.

But today I realized, oh, there’s still BTS. Maybe it’s silly to say, but it’s true. Yes, I have personal and career goals I’m working toward, but we have to admit there is something so unique and fun about following BTS. That week in October where they released performances and interviews every day on Jimmy Fallon, plus bangtang bombs, was one of the happiest weeks I had. Like I said, their happiness brings me happiness. I look forward to following their careers for as long as they’re active, as well as their solo projects and careers. Honestly, isn’t it exciting thinking about all the great things they will do in the future?

[mothandwolf]

so tlou3....

I envisioned tlou3 to focus both on ellie and abby; abby in her role at the new firefly location, after everything she’s been through she feels like she can start over and she’s actually hopeful again and more conscious of her actions and unfortunately way more demanding of herself, she’ll take on way too much whether to distract herself or compensate or prove to herself that she was worth making it that far, the firefly facility will come off surprisingly great, with idealistic leaders and hopeful members and abby/lev will get a lot of peace and purpose there in their beginning 

then ellie is alone, I’d love for it to start in Winter and we see how she’s straggling because she has a lot in her head and it can appear she’s aimless or has given up, but she’s really trying to work out what she feels compelled to do, I think of her getting night terrors of her immunity and the virus and I’d love for an element of the virus to be sensory, like how fungi can communicate, it’d be interesting if her immunity has mutated her infection to be able to sense other infected more than the element of Listening but she uses that as her guidepost to go where she feels she has to go, 

and we get to cohesively see abby and ellie on their journey to their own Aftermath and concept of redemption and it can be revealed slowly that this charismatic leader of the fireflys really does want a vaccine. really wants other things with it. and abby, through her desire to be able to be actively supportive of her father’s work is blinded by this leader’s ambition. he doesn’t want a vaccine*, he doesn’t want a cure*, he wants a super serum. and he’s been experimenting on that development with the only individuals fit enough for it: other immune individuals. and slowly abby starts to resistantly piece together why her dad had cut this guy off, why she never knew him, and he views her as his replacement to prove his own ambitions to abby’s dad, 

so now abby has the conflict of feeling like she needs to stop this man, needs to stop this man who reminds her so much of her father, but it’s not the same because he wants something bad... and he’s hurting people, but abby is obviously exhausted from this mindset, so she first tries to manage it, and lev is flourishing but perhaps he says something nonchalantly that’s another aspect abby has to question and it’s all leading up to abby discovering the underground of the firefly base, and finding the experiments, and upon almost getting killed by this hybrid super soldier cordyceps (r.i.p. shredded abby), it stops attacking her, and the leader reveals that he’s able to control it. and she sees the growth on himself, actually corrupting his body, but he’s been immune this entire time which grants him the fungi connection. but she stares at him and he looks insane and she knows all he wants actually is to infect the world with this hybrid virus and it can shine a light (pun) that the cordyceps present has achieved sentience.... or it’s this human’s ambition blinding him. bit of a guesser there they don’t have to pick. humanity, nature, it’s all good.

(there’s like, three different new infected enemies right there like immune individuals infected where the hybrid doesn’t take, the controlled hybrids, and then the defective controlled hybrids idc)

and abby manages to get out of there. and on her break-down stagger outside the facility she runs into. ellie. but only when there’s firefly guns on her. and abby freezes because trauma~ and ellie sees her and freezes because trauma~ and abby does something neither of them expect and says wait. I know her. and vouches for ellie.

and the way it’s shown, you don’t know whether abby is so conflicted with all that’s happened, does she want to give ellie to this place? knowing she’s immune? knowing what it would do to her? that’s what she wanted for so long, and even longer when you splinter abby’s drive towards avenging her father, and right when you think it’s a trap, and ellie still isn’t entirely present emotionally, like she doesn’t care if it’s a trap but more so she feels so compelled (her cordyceps nature or her joel nurture who knows! wink) to be here that if she dies here then maybe she always was supposed to, even before she got infected, didn’t she really just want* to die* for the fireflys*? so right as they’re checking ellie in, it’s like ellie is about to reveal to them that she’s immune, and abby speaks for her. and abby says nothing about immunity. 

and you see them both just stiffly unknowingly watch each other, not knowing how the other is reacting but waiting. and watching. and each caught up in their own thoughts. and abby quickly tells ellie, no she just needs to tell the Leader* obviously, it’s just too dangerous, while abby knows of the immune experiments, ellie still believes she’s the only immune person, but ellie listens. 

and for the shortest bit of time abby is just observing ellie, because she actually knows that look ellie has in her eyes, she knows that brokenness after vengeance, so it’s not an instant trying-to-kill-you reunion but a surreal kinship that feels awkward and way too complicated and actually better off avoided, and abby has lev and of course he invites ellie into their group and they talk a little bit and lev would mention it and abby is just. seeing the person ellie is. and ellie is seeing the person abby is.

and abby goes up in the ranks and oddly it’s like ellie is trying to have her own pre-immunity restart and she’s just proving to everyone how capable she is and boof, team scouts, and then the leader maybe puts deliberately puts ellie in danger because he’s looking for original clicker vs controlled clicker and figures the new recruit is just neater to experiment on and he secretly infects her but ellie. and he just sits there grinning. abby did tell him how good friends they were. and ellie because of her own cordyceps, kinda... feels something is off about this man. but doesn’t know about her mutation so she ignores it. and ignores the fluctuating presences of infected beneath the building. (cos she’s exhausted too!!!!)

so now because of the infection that’s further worsening to his denial, he’s even more paranoid and aggressive. and wants to essentially set a scene where ellie is viciously attacked by infected and abby just stumbles on this, and he’s surprised, and ellie’s surprised, and abby’s surprised, to watch as abby scrapes and tears to save ellie from this. (whether to keep her secret or y’know. save! that! lost one!) she saves her a little too hard. and then boom. awkward conflict tension that ellie had when she saved abby in tlou2 and abby is like. I didn’t save you because -- and basically lets slip that this leader is infected and immune and experimenting and then ellie reacts to believe that abby was trying to trick her or some melodrama like that idc, that abby wanted her final act to ellie would be to corrupt ellie’s immunity* and it’s this dumb weirdly familial fight of “you don’t understand!” storming off crap, and lev just looks at abby like .... “well go after her”

(and I’m sorry but the leader takes lev and deliberately infects him to win abby back to his idea that this hybrid can cure, and woo. doesn’t work. this adds another “..fuck” pain to abby because like. wouldn’t she have done everything to save lev from this had she known and guilt there but also an underlining joel recognition. that that is why, emotionally why, he did what he did, because ellie would’ve died and what if it didn’t even work) and there’s a failsafe for the island to blow up because of all the crazy infected they just. keep there. so it blows and ellie/abby end up on a boat away and ellie is able to sense the leader and his hybrid horde he controls and then it’s ellie looking out for abby and abby being able to recognize that although resist it at first and it’s just this unfolding dynamic of we have done so much fucked up shit to each other but can we actually stop something worse with each other. 

and it ends with ellie almost jumping to sacrifice herself, or try to take control of the horde and that’d be a fun mechanic of like. using the mutation to sense and reroute infected and being able to upgrade it enough to make clickers think you’re an ally instead? and the inner turmoil of ellie tapping into the infection and all of the grief it gave her to try to utilize it............mwah

and abby just stares at ellie like. she believes in her. and why doesn’t she believe the man who reminds her of her dad, why does she believe the girl* who reminds her of... herself. and there’s just so many different emotional components weaving together , and new ellie cordycep mutation mechanic and new hybrid bad guys that mean you have to be hyper hyper aware of your surroundings in relations to where the controller of the infected is or whatever idc and ellie having to explore her immunity and her conflict with her purpose and guilt and abby’s hope having to be realized it has to keep growing itself.

that humanity and the chances we give each other to keep going, keep trying, keep protecting, and keep caring, is worth it. that our lives aren’t just a perilous part 1 or a traumatizing part 2, but we deserve to see it through to our restorative part 3. 

also I just really want them to keep helping each other and just staring like. “this doesn’t mean I like you. it just means I need you. don’t make it weird. here I got you some water.”

whether or not ellie/abby die at the end I’d prefer they didn’t, or they’re just laying there naruto/sasuke style like “we made it this far.” “yeah. we did.” because the fact they’re really just the same just at different points in their life hits me like a train. their humanity bringing out humanity bringing out humanity bringing out humanity. 

maybe abby beats the leader’s hybrid horde and ellie beats the leader by cross-control the cordyceps but starts to lose it to the sentience of the cordyceps and abby is standing there like. fight it. you are you. fight. it. you don’t give up. you’ve never given up. don’t start now. you don’t get to fucking tap out before this all ends. and ellie opens her eyes like. weakly says. “you just like to hear yourself talk, wolf” 

and maybe idc because ellie had been experimenting with sensing and influencing other infected it’s less corruptible than the leader who deliberately infected himself idc whatever 

(gratuitously I also want ellie waking up to abby and abby made sure ellie survived and boom magic happy ending idc but outside abby’s dad and joel’s ghost are just standing there smiling goodbye)

and abby just looks at ellie and ellie looks at abby and it’s like. no one else will have to go through this. we (the children of this traumatized world) are. the last of us. and they smile, crying.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

Hello! Love your blog. I was wondering if I could get some typing help? I have a general idea of what I am, but that’s not saying much since I have a tendency to hop between a few of them (INTJ, ENTJ, ESTJ specifically). Either way, hopefully you can help me settle it.

I’m 22 and about to graduate from college. It’s been a journey, because I’ve transferred twice and changed plans a few times, but that’s the proper college experience, I think. One transfer closer to home can be owed to depression and Covid, while the first was simply me not meshing with the campus. I’m not too worried about how it’ll affect my grad school apps due to good grades and valid reasons.

Despite the schooling-related indecision, I tend to get an idea of what I want, then fixate on it heavily. Example: I recently tried to publish a novel I’ve been working on for years now. Realistically, I know the odds of getting your first work published and making enough money to start a career on it are beyond low, but a big part of me thought “yeah, except I worked on this draft consistently all these months and this feels right, so it has to pay off” – of course, it didn’t. That’s not to say it wasn’t worth it, but I’ve come to accept it won’t be that easy, so I’m going to focus on a job with more security first lol. That means proceeding with law school. Some friends might think I’m selling my soul by putting my dreams on the back burner. I disagree, though, because if writing is meant to be I can still make it happen this way but with more security. Plus, I’m used to having some higher objective to motivate me through each day, and I don’t like feeling aimless. To me, that would be settling for less: wasting time working next to minimum wage at some place I can’t see myself staying.

I’d like to think of myself as spontaneous despite knowing I’m really not. When I’m with friends, maybe, but I’m more than happy to do nothing on Friday nights, knowing I’ll be able to wake up early tomorrow and do whatever I’m doing at a decent time. That being said, I would be happy to hop on a flight across the world if someone offered to pay the way. I love travel, so I’d hope to find a career that makes that possible. The same goes for whatever work I’m doing. Ideally, I could move from place to place as I do my job, because I fear being rooted will keep me from seeing everything I’d like to see.

I’m definitely an introvert dichotomy wise, but if group work appears, I’m happy to make a plan and remind everyone when a due date is near, and I expect them to follow through or provide some forewarning. I’m not outright nasty when someone inevitably slips up, but I’m not going to give them an excuse either. Can’t relate since I’ve never had a problem with procrastination. Like, I’d say I’m procrastinating, but to me procrastinating is choosing not to get ahead on the project due next week while I have spare time now. That makes me sound like a robot or a liar, but I’m mostly just very aware of my limitations and have learned how to manage work in a way that keeps me from having to stress.

I have no idea how to end this. Quick notes? I’m ambitious but not competitive – literally cannot relate to envy, because I don’t think someone having something means you can’t have it too – you just have to work on/for it. I’m not very curious lmao. Like, I’m as curious as the average person, but I don’t care about how things work (Ti slacking?). Uhh, fandoms annoy me. Like, seeing fans distort characters and needlessly project onto them in cringe ways makes my brain itchy. I’ve been called insensitive. I can easily cut someone off after finding, for a fact, that they’re being manipulative. Whatever baggage they have, I don’t care. I don’t see the point in fighting for a relationship when a “friend” is working against you. I’m also the “advice friend” because I don’t have drama and seem to know how to diffuse it easily or cut it out completely. Now that I think about it, all of my closest friends have a lot of anxiety, so maybe I collect them and care for them a little since I have none.

Hopefully that wasn’t too much useless info. I think I’m mainly struggling on differentiating between lower Ne vs Lower Se. My indecision comes in rare bouts, so maybe that’s the weak Ne manifesting. Or maybe I’m lower Se for forgetting the larger scheme by focusing on material things like getting to travel and making a high salary? Whatever. These are things most people prioritize, though. Let me know if you need any specifics. Also, thank you for taking the time to read this! I really appreciate how informative your blog is and all the resources you share.

Hi anon,

To be honest I am really not sure based on this, and it might be good for you to revisit this after a little bit of time out of school. I would rule out the Ti-Fe axis, but I can actually see arguments for either high Te or high Fi My guess is high Ni if you have high Te you don't really sound like a high Si user - and part of what is tripping me up the most is that you said a lot of things that make me thing of high Fi and the spontaneity of Se or Ne, but there's a lot here that really sounds intuitive but distinctly not like an Ne user. So I actually think there are arguments for either INTJ or ISFP, and I actually lean a little more towards "ISFP with good discipline/time management" than INTJ.

Here's my thought process, which hopefully can get you started.

I do feel like transferring twice is a little abnormal (not bad, just more than the typical college experience of maybe one transfer and changing one's major once or twice) but COVID did fuck with things more than usual so no conclusions there.

The fixation on writing a novel and the long-shot of gaining enough success to focus on that full time - particularly right out of school or even before graduation - is either intuitive or possibly high Fi. I really do not think an ESTJ would have that idea - not that they wouldn't be a writer, but I don't think they would have had the same expectations surrounding payoff and would have assumed from the start that this will not be their career initially. For that matter I have my doubts on ENTJ, but it could be possible for INTJ.

The part about spontaneity actually fits really well with auxiliary Se or Ne, in that those types at your age will have moderation from Ni or Si respectively and will often want a combination of stability but also the ability to travel a lot and move around. The example you gave actually still seemed very spontaneous; a lot of ExTJs for example might really dislike doing nothing on a Friday night and would instead have something planned. What you describe sounds very go-with-the-flow, just in a low-key way.

The part about procrastination indicates that Ne is probably off the table but Se is possible; some SPs are pretty good at being realistic about getting things done and it sounds like you don't have the high Te motivation of "I must get this done early" (not that high Te users can't procrastinate or do things on time but not down-to-the-wire).

I often tie ambition/competitive nature to enneagram more than MBTI, but I will say a lot of Te users and especially Te-doms tend to be both. They don't have to be (and if they're only one, usually it's ambition over competition), but it's pretty common. Curiosity is complicated but not caring about how literally everything works does seem like it would rule out Ti and I'd fully agree there. The part about being frustrated by fandom distortion of characters is relatable to me and I feel that comes from a place of sensing, ie, were you not paying attention to canon, so that seems like a point towards high Se for you. The parts about advice and interpersonal relationships mostly just reinforce that you sound more like someone on the Fi-Te axis, which you already suspected, but again...being the advice friend, particularly from a caring position, seems more high Fi to me than INTJ; a lot of IxTJs (and definitely ExTJs) at your age are just not emotionally ready for that level of patience with anxiety. I know I wasn't.

I would also say focusing on the material things (travel, a liveable salary) is more in line with higher Se! Te users do have a measure of pragmatism, so again, can't rule out INTJ, but the travel especially is what's making me think Se is pretty high in your stack.

All in all? My guess is an ISFP with good time management skills, possibly with an enneagram 6 adding to the stability/pragmatism. That said I wouldn't totally rule out INTJ (possibly also enneagram 6?); I just think it's less likely.

[hipsterfrankcastle]

hey! i know ur opinions on karen in season two of the punisher but do you think she was better in the first season?? and how so?? any specific scenes?? sorry if you’ve already answered this bc i’m new here but i love ur blog and ur writing and i would just love to know how you feel about how karen and franks relationship was portrayed in S1. hope you have a good day!!

I never answered this and I know it was asked ages ago, I’m sorry it took me so long to get round to it!

I actually have no real problem with Karen in S2 - her characterisation is consistent, I just wish she’d been in it more and that she’d been treated right. Tbh the problem with the Punisher S2 and that scene in particular is FRANK’S characterisation: I think in S1 of tp we see a lot of Frank trying really hard to show Karen that she means something to him even when it’s hard. You could argue that Frank’s at his lowest point in the ep Karen makes an appearance in S2 and I think that explains his behaviour to some extent, but in S1 even when Frank’s pushing Karen away I think he’s trying to keep her close too. The moment that stands out to me in this regard is when he has that whole argument with her at night by the bridge, but then he kisses her on the cheek after. I think for Frank, and where Frank is in season 1 in particular, that kiss on the cheek is the most he is capable of giving her. I think to some extent it’s also emblematic of Frank’s conflict in regards to Karen (the urge to have her close vs the urge to keep her safe, which he views as two incompatible things). That conflict is missing in s2, I feel. To be honest, even though I would have been devestated if Karen hadn’t been in S2 I almost think - from a writing perspective - it would have been better if she wasn’t in there at all. Her purpose in that S2 episode is a plot device; she moves the action along and enables Frank to escape. They have a bit of an agg about her being there, Frank’s morality etc, but imagine season 2 without Karen - say Midani took her place in that episode. The action, and Frank’s emotional journey, would be almost identical. Whereas I think in S1 Karen’s presence feels more like a partnership; she takes on a similar role to Micro, she has her own agency throughout the series and she makes an impact on Frank’s emotional journey in a unique way. Think about the episode in the hotel in S1; I don’t think you could have done that with another character because I think the only person Frank would have put his life at risk for would have been Curtis, and even then the impact and themes brought up in that episode would have been different. Frank risking his life for Curtis makes sense to him because they’re brothers, forged by the perils of war etc. - that sort of sacrifice makes sense to him and his world. Making himself that vulnerable for Karen, though, really shows his hand to himself; we, the audience, knows he loves Karen (duh) but does Frank, until that episode? Whereas the S2 ep in the hospital, I really do feel you could have inserted anyone in that episode and it would have felt largely the same. That’s why it feels so hollow.

This all has to be taken with an enormous pinch of salt because (lol) I still haven’t seen The Punisher S2 all the way through, but I think Karen’s ep speaks to the aimlessness of the series as a whole. In S1, Frank has a goal: avenge his family etc. In S2 we should have explored how that impacts his life and sense of purpose in a way that drove change in the character: instead, bizarrely, the series ends with Frank functionally at the place he was pre his first appearance on Daredevil. And it’s not treated as a particularly weighty or dangerous place for Frank to be, as it was in DDS2. So I guess, in a long, rambling answer to your question: Karen’s characterisation is better in the first series because the first series is better structurally, thematically, etc. The exact same applies to Daredevil: S3 is by far the best season and Karen flourishes there too. I appreciate the writers wanting to put Karen in S2 of The Punisher and DAW does a flawless job as always, but by ramming her into a storyline that sees Frank ultimately end up right back where he started, her treatment and characterisation and basically her whole purpose suffers as a result.

(I summarised in the tags because this is nonsensical)