#for another example. find me a leverage fix it

[notquiteaghost]

svsss is a story about a book in the fic sweet spot of it has so much potential but the execution is awful – except instead of writing fic sqq gets isekai'd inside the book. yet svsss is a story i, and it seems most of the fandom, have zero desire to write fix it fic about. svsss fic is all AUs or canon continuation, because svsss is a good story. this irony brings me joy. if he wouldnt hate to learn we've all heard his thoughts i wld love to show sqq the svsss ao3 page

[bonefall]

I personally like Thunder's prosthetic. Explained it to my friend (who does use a mobility device, a cane and wheelchair, and listens to me rant and infodump about BB) and they agreed, it's important to know that not every person needs what someone wants to give them. It's another example of "bad ableist person does a thing that hurts a disabled person because they are bad and ableist".

Clear Sky got Jagged Peak killed and would have killed Sunlit Frost! He would absolutely force his disabled son to be "normal" and present it like a privilege. "I wouldn't do this for anyone else, it's special, why don't you want to be helped?"

Thunder Storm should toss it in Clear Sky's face. (I would say toss it into the river but we do not pollute waterways in this house)

Thank you for telling me this, and tell your friend I'm thanking them too! If they have anything else to add please forward what they have to say

Since BB!DOTC tackles some of the heaviest topics in the entire series because its canon equivalent is so dark, I think very carefully about what I do here and how I show it. I take feedback on its sensitive aspects very seriously. If I'm understanding the criticism properly, it's that I should avoid stigmatizing prosthetics by making sure Thunder Storm's not the only one with it-- which he's not! And I'll add even more.

I don't want to avoid something only because it's uncomfortable if the topic is important, and my portrayal is respectful. Ableism IS uncomfortable! There are some situations where a prosthetic is not wanted! I think the rejection of this particular one is both a good opportunity to show a type of ableism and ALSO is very fitting for the characters.

In BB!Clear Sky's mind, the villain, he's fixing an old mistake. He can't admit that he got Jagged Peak killed or take REAL accountability for it (though he will, occasionally, apologize insincerely), but deep in his bones, he knows what he did was cruel. He'll never tell anyone this because he doesn't really cognate it himself, but Thunder Storm NEEDS to take his gift.

If Thunder doesn't take it, it blows a hole in his newest story. You see, throwing Jagged Peak out was All That Could Have Been Done back then. It was a Tragedy and he simply Made A Hard Choice. He regrets it very much, But You Have To Understand.

But now? Now? Well, behold. Look at what he's accomplished since the tragic death of his little brother. His cats are well-fed, cared for, and stable enough to make such incredible advancements. If only Jagged Peak had been able to hold on longer, if only he could be here now, I could fix him.

Just like I can (MAKE YOU JUST LIKE ME) fix you.

"Everything I've ever done is for Jagged Peak. For Fluttering Wing. For you." Thunder Sky is SPECIAL, but if he rejects any gift, tries to turn down the "privileges" offered to him, in an instant that becomes ungratefulness and arrogance. He both forces him to be special, and then leverages it against him if it's rejected. "Spoiled brat, doesn't appreciate what I've worked so hard to give him."

It all goes back to him and his own guilt. He can NEVER be wrong. He can't accept his family doesn't have to be "normal" or reflect his own ability. He won't see himself as a bully, let alone a murderer. It was never about his son's comfort or finding out what Thunder Storm wants or needs, it was about his own ego.

...All that said I'm still taking feedback if there's anything else I should keep in mind, or if anyone has a counter point, especially if you also have experience here.

(In the interest of having a link trail for posterity, here's the critique/call for feedback this is in response to)

[2n2n]

lie and lie

wanna ramble about one of my favorite scenes... one of the ultimate lying snake Hanako--!!! This scene is just so fun post-reveals! 

I adore how awed Hanako becomes, listening to Yashiro’s observations and conclusions.... this girl has come so far, from the ignorant girl he introduced to this world of his. She’s listening, remembering, comparing, seeking to solve... understanding the shape of things, completely on her own, without any help or guidance from him! ....  he’s not been giving it too freely, anyway.... 

So, so impressive.... Hanako is amazed.

unfortunately her knowledge has a limit....

....the ‘alternate way of fixing things’ she is hoping to seek here.... are the very mysteries Hanako has been de-throning. Using her. Nene thinks they must find a new solution to the sacrifices... but the solution is already ruined!!

sorry, Yashiro. You’re right.... there was another answer. Not anymore, though. No. 6 has been forced into this circumstance by Hanako. 

the funniest panels in the entire manga. Oh..... Hanako. I think he anticipated being able to ‘get through this’ without having to.... so directly, lie to Yashiro. Lying by omission is much easier and cleaner... but, her having laid out all of this so bluntly, before him, he has no choice. He has to start lying very bluntly.

you sure haven’t! Because.. you’ve had the mysteries! Good work Hanako-- what you’re saying is technically true, but you still can’t meet her face to say it, can you? Unfortunately as expected of Hanako, his candor changes to his rather capricious one as he ‘checks out’.

it’s.... kind of condescending, isn’t it? Like... “ohhh *claps*! good girl, wow...! really thinking aren’t you?” 

(isn’t agreeing with this placidly, so funny of him? He knows what it means for Sumire to be Hakubo’s yorishiro, and the power dynamic that implicates.... that he could destroy her. That they are precious to one another, too. Extremely hand-waving so much to just agree.)

mmmm... completely tuning it out, completely emotionally closed to the conversation. Not even going to respond to this with sass or negging about how absurd it is... uh-huh, sure. whatever you say...! wooow, good plan, Yashiro...

the Severance is immediately after this.... the entire action of ‘graciously’ allowing Sumire to join them in the school, is only something Hanako lets proceed because Sumire will imminently be booted right back to the other side in a moment. 

It’s not a meaningful concession. Nene earnestly believes she is saving Sumire from her hell, and Hanako knows they are not (though I wonder if wandering the Far Shore is better or worse?). He’s only allowing Yashiro to get her way, because of the event he awaits. It’s.. a bit of a joke, for him to go to all the trouble of putting Sumire in his elevator. It’s a joke to placate and praise Nene for being so observant and thoughtful, too. Which is unfortunate, because she really, really did impress him, and really is thinking so hard, all on her own. It’s a shame that for all her efforts, she’s still leagues behind Hanako’s wealth of knowledge about the entire system. Always at his calculated disadvantage.

It’s just such a perfect circumstance to observe Hanako’s capabilities towards lying. 

Nene was so very smart this arc... it makes me excited for her as she learns more and more and has a better foothold, for herself. Early series, she’s hinging her every bit of knowledge on Hanako, and what Tsukasa, thank goodness, lays out for her to experience....

if it’s only up to him, Hanako will tell her very little, to leverage advantage for himself. He controls the flow of information and the spin he puts on what he does talk about (suchas merely describing Yorishiro as batteries, not as failsafes to blackmail mysteries into behaving)..... he plays everything close to his chest. He’s careful what he says, and how he says it.

As a small example, I love that up until Picture Perfect, Hanako has never revealed his sleeper-move-capability he shares with Tsukasa. That was smart of him... because she can do nothing to avoid what she doesn’t know to avoid. What other tricks might Hanako keep secret, to deploy only when he needs them? Woo......!

Ah, it’s all so fun and exciting. He’s such a mystery. Such a talented liar.

[wisteria-lodge]

bird primary (badger system) + bird secondary

Hi Wisteria! I'm sorry to add to the mayhem that is your ask box, but I'd love it if you could sort me. Warning: I'm a former gifted kid with social anxiety disorder (and probably some mystery flavor of neurodivergence), so some of that might be more prevalent in my explanation than my actual personality and such. Sorry for that in advance... and onto the word vomit.

a burnt secondary I see

(or not - that's just my little joke that apologizing in asks and burnt secondaries go together)

I know I'm sort of Idealist primary, since I've never really been attached to people the way Loyalists are described to be, but maybe I'm not seeing things objectively. We'll see.

I was very, very into books as a kid. My area of giftedness is language so I guess that kinda makes sense. I read a lot of fantasy growing up, but I especially liked books about history like the Magic Treehouse or Royal Diaries series because I was learning things about the real world. Like, knowing random facts about history and culture was kinda cool. I read books about how babies were made, different breeds of dogs and how they were bred, Greek mythology, and a whole lot more. My family called me a walking encyclopedia cause sometimes I'd just blurt out random facts about things, like how fish was "brain food" because the fatty acids in it help with memory. I was six.

I'm very much a Built secondary. I didn't like going into things without a game plan. I think my best example I bought a book called A Girl's Guide to Starting Middle School

oh my god I remember that book!!!!! oh that's nostalgic.

so that I could have an idea of what middle school would be like so I could plan what to wear, how to go about my classes, and how to make friends. It could've also been the social anxiety starting to form, but I still find this hilarious. I enjoyed being in Girl Scouts because it taught me skills such as woodworking and first aid that actually proved to be helpful later. The troop was cool too, but I was there to learn how to show off, lmao.

So we've either got a Bird secondary, or a beloved Bird model.

I assumed a mom/therapist friend role in most friend groups and naturally gravitated toward positions of leadership as well. I was good at getting to the root of issues and figuring out where to go from there. My friends had me playing middle man between them and another friend or their partner veryyy often.

And now this is starting to sound badger secondary to me. Solving problems by leveraging the groups.

I was co-editor of my middle school yearbook, leader and researcher of every group project I was in, and a part-time basketball coach during my first year of college.

I know you say you don't think you're a loyalist, but I am noticing you are bringing up a LOT of groups. Your friends, your girl scout troop, the yearbook, the basketball team...

Imposter syndrome got the better of me that time, though.

I mean, imposter syndrome is just *a thing* but I do sort of wonder if maybe your primary got a little bit Burned. Just a light char.

I care a whole lot about social issues and progressive action. I try my best to lead with empathy and understanding before anything else.

Sounding a little bit Badger primary there...

I know I shouldn't be racist, but why? I know I shouldn't be misogynistic, but why? I know I shouldn't be homophobic, but why? And once I figure all of that out, what do each of those look like in real time and how do I fix it?

... and then you hit me with the Bird. I'm going to be very surprised if you don't end up being a Bird primary.

My moral system could also appear very Badger at times as well. Accepting individuals for the sake of the individual is my main principle, as the well as the classic "treat others the way you want to be treated." This is why I dislike greed, arrogance, self-righteousness, etc.: they all lead to an unfair treatment of others, treatment of others that one wouldn't want turned back on themselves. I also believe in inclusivity, whether that be of different neurodivergencies, disabilities, races, sexualities, gender identities, you name it.

You're a Bird primary who's built a Badger-flavored system.

Another weird thing I noticed that I've done growing up is be comfortable alone as long as I didn't have to compromise who I was. It sucked to be made fun of for my interests sometimes, sure, but it always felt equally as stupid and degrading to stop doing something because someone else said so. What was the point of winning their approval and getting to hang out with them if I didn't get to do anything I wanted anyway?

Very much an idealist stance to take. I guess it's possible that you're a very intellectual Lion who has intellectualize their moral position... but I'm still leaning Bird.

If I was in a serious mood but the group I was with was more loud, I didn't feel the need to try to act more energetic. I contributed to the conversations in my own way. I think some people perceive this as awkward, and in some cases it probably is more awkward not to just adapt, but it's not my natural inclination to do so.

Hmm. That makes me think that you're not a Badger. A young Badger would have been at least tempted to mirror a little bit. I think it's possible that you've built a Badger secondary model... but more likely that the loud Badger of your system has just sort of seeped into the way you interact with the world.

That's all I can really think of at the moment... let me know what you think!

[medicinemane]

Me bitching about my mom under the cut

I get real tired of my mom being a child, and for that matter her mom being a child too

My grandpa on my dad's side died last year leaving a bit of money to me and my dad. Like a solidly helpful amount, but... just that sweat spot where it's enough to make me worry I'm gonna lose medicaid but not enough to really for sure fix things (though I think I can leverage it)

My dad's gonna be moving up here, he's gonna be seeing about either getting a job or getting on disability

So that's the set up for this

My mom was upset and worried today and was talking about how like my dad should take over some of the bills so we can stop getting a little grocery money each month from my grandma and because my mom's feeling put upon and cause my mom's been wracking up credit card debt and it's like... for once can shit not be about you and can you be a fucking team player?

There is no "my dad's" money here, there is money that he and I are gonna throw in a pot and see what we can do to use it to get stuff like the windows fixed up with something actually weatherproof, and just try to investigate how best to steward this money into moving towards an actually stable situation

This is just about making shit work, cause in spite of how weird it is, it's almost working it just needs a little push and this might be it... and maybe once things are stable I can find a way to make money myself, and then maybe I can start helping people around me out more like I want to

Meanwhile she spends money having a personal assistant for promoting her writing and it's like... I don't even buy crackers for myself to snack on cause I can't afford it, meanwhile you're blowing money on this shit

Her writing is never going to make the kinds of money it would need to in order to have a meaningful impact on anything, not because it's bad but because it's hard to make money there

So she's just tossing money down the drain on something that's never gonna have a return (I'm sure her PA is great, but that doesn't make it a good use of money)

And like... I don't need it to make money. Her disability payment is enough, I'm not asking for her to boost her income. See she feels guilty about not having a job, but fucking guess what? So do I, and you don't see me self sabotaging to sooth my own ego

What I want out of her is to ever, literally fucking ever, go through her shit and help me get stuff cleaned up. A single box in a month would be a huge win compared to zero boxes over 2 years, you know? And I want her to... not blow money on random shit when we're barely getting by

Like, she was saying to me how even the people who she thought were really doing well in her writer's group are only making like $500 a month and it's like... yeah... it's a really hard field to make money in. Write shit you want to write because you want to write it, and stop losing money trying to make money and maybe help me clean... ever

Then my grandma... my mom feels bad about getting slipped a bit of money for groceries each month and it's like... tough shit

For one thing, my grandma has literally cost me like thousands of dollars over the years by pushing my mom to make dumb ass choices and then I have to pay for it

For another, I can give you an example of my grandma being bad with money from literally yesterday

She bought me this fucking "Izog" or whatever shirt for fucking $50, and it's a cheap piece of plastic shit that she blew the kind of money that could feed me for a week on

I've begged her not to buy me clothes. I've told her I don't need them, I've told her we don't have space for shit (true), I've lied and said my dresser is straight up full. She doesn't care, she's a bored old lady who the only person I ever knew who was as bad with money as she is... was my grandpa, they were a power couple a wasting money, and all she does is watch shit like Dr Phil and then go to marshell's or hobby lobby to buy over priced shit out of boredom

Like she's living the upper class life, meanwhile I've gone hungry my whole life and just... you don't need a fucking sob story or something but like... I think most of us here are not wealthy, and I think you'd probably go fucking feral if you saw how she spends money

Us taking grocery money is the best thing that can be done for that money. Better in my hands than... she literally buys these overpriced pies from safeway, eats them saying "this isn't very good", then buys more of the same brand of pie (they are incredibly bad). Do you see how getting money in my hands is almost a public service?

I don't care how guilty you feel about taking money from your mother, you should feel guiltier about owing your kid... I got bank receipts for $600 in the drawer in front of me, I've lost track of all the more recent stuff she's blown through but like... maybe feel guiltier about how you blow through my $0 income (this is all literally money from the 2020 stimi check) than your spendthrift mom (who I've saved $700 a month by getting rid of your lot rent)

I don't know... I'm just sick of taking care of my mom, and I'm sick that she can't even fucking not listen to shit at max volume, and I'm sick of the fact she can't not make everything about her, and I'm sick of her wracking up debts, and I'm sick of her being like "If I had to live on my own I'd die" and just... fucking give me a gun to blow my brains out so I can get away from her (though she's literally told me if I ever kill myself she'll make it about her too)

I'm tired. I'm probably gonna be able to fix up a lot of things going on in my life so long as the shithead politicians don't totally ruin things. My dad is kind enough to use his inheritance to help me get on my feet now instead of waiting till he dies to hand it over; and while this isn't like a truly life changing amount of money like a million, and it's not even the range that bought me this house, it's a solid stack of money that can get a person a leg up... it's an amount any of you would probably be real fucking grateful to get

I think I can leverage it to cover most stuff and maybe even use it to make it so my stupid worthless lazy ass is actually making some money for once

(And if I'm actually making enough money to cover all my bills then maybe I can finally implement my thirds plan. 1/3 to me for whatever, 1/3 into my house, and 1/3 to help other people with)

I've got mine, I've almost got it solidified enough that I can start trying to move into helping everyone else get theirs but... fucking hell I want to get away from my mom

I don't like... I don't know what I want there. I can't let myself emotionally connect enough to my mom enough to even know. Probably not wishing she'd die or anything, don't know that I'm even wishing for no contact. Just like... not this... not still fucking raising her after all these years

Stop being a baby, stop making it all about you. You're over 50, grow up, stop making your kid take care of you and throwing a tantrum

At least I can talk to my dad enough to say that I straight up would rather he be living nextdoor than in my house. Like I can say that without him taking it as an insult or feeling like he's not welcome, cause he just gets that while I like him he also can drive me nuts and it would be nice if I saw him a couple times a day instead of running into him in the halls... so we can make shit work

(Though I'm not looking forward to having to mediate between the two of them because my dad's a clueless dumbass and my mom's a hyper defensive asshole)

I don't know... I'm just fucking tired. Honestly I just tell myself that I'm trying to get the house in better condition and then maybe do some investing (which I hate cause I consider it rich people gambling... but if it makes me money I'll compromise my morals) to leave behind a passive income for the person I'm gonna leave the house to

...now that also happens to leave me set up to have the house in better condition and hopefully some passive income should I keep being too stupid and lazy to kill myself... but that's how it is

Just fucking wish my mom didn't live in my house, but I'm barely stitching together a working situation as is, barely scraping by using her disability check and even if I was good, that's not enough for her to live off of on her own... and then there's the whole "I'll die if I ever have to live alone again" emotional blackmail bullshit

Come kill me, get a free house and the money that's coming my way. Like there's some hurdles you gotta pass, you gotta make me feel like I'd trust you to look after the friends who've got an invite here if you need it despite being willing to kill me, and you gotta agree to look after them and the cats but... we'll make it very clear it's not your idea, it's mine... I'm the monster pressuring you to do this... come get a free house for the price of a mercy kill

That or I need to fucking stop being a coward and do it myself, fix what a lazy stupid worthless bastard I am

Well, whatever this is, there it is. That's how I feel about shit. I'm tired. I'm also probably totally spoiled and once again fumbling having an easy life... I don't know. I'm pretty worthless shit... I'm fucking starving and... man I hope my mom took me seriously when I said the cat food needs ordering NOW! and that I'd pay for it if I had to, cause they're getting low too

I just don't much care for being alive, and I'm sure I'll sort things out and this will all work out well for me but... I'm fucking tired of being a damn parent to my parents and... just fucking leave me alone and let me rest

[coldstarfishtyphoon]

6 Places To Look For A Relationship

Relationship Science (RelSci) is a technology solutions company that helps individuals and organizations leverage their relationships for a competitive business advantage. נערות ליווי בהרצליה EF uses two one-to-many relationships on the join entity type to represent the many-to-many relationship. To do this, create a new data class where each instance holds an instance of the parent entity and the corresponding instance of the child entity. It’s likely that, even at the entry level, you’ll need some work experience. You’ll be tasked with leading people, communicating with executive leadership and bridging gaps between IT and other business units. A business relationship manager (BRM) acts as a liaison between IT and other business units in the organization. As departments increasingly rely on technology, organizations often find they need to establish stronger communication between IT and outside business units. These experiences have only made me stronger and more confident. Predatory species such as lions are typically inactive during the hot daytime hours, when prey is often also resting, but become active and hunt at night when conditions are less energy taxing and prey is more available.

Modeling of predator-prey population dynamics can be useful in indicating whether the population of a species could tax the capacity of a particular ecosystem to support their numbers. Predator-prey relations are an important driving force to improve the fitness of both predator and prey. Knowledge of predator-prey relations can be exploited in controlling the numbers of a pest or diseases. Predator-prey relationships are also vital in maintaining and even increasing the biological diversity of the particular ecosystem, and in helping to keep the ecosystem stable. Without this population check, a species such as a rabbit could explode in numbers, which can destroy the ability of the ecosystem to support the population. In terms of evolution, the predator-prey relationship continues to be beneficial in forcing both species to adapt to ensure that they feed without becoming a meal for another predator. A famous predator-prey model is the Lotka-Volterra version. Although it seems a difficult answer to work out in your head, it's not that bad.

That 40 percent figure shows that meal time is a great opportunity to stay connected with kids and their school work. The fluctuation in the numbers of a predator species and its prey that occurs over time represents a phenomenon that is known as population dynamics. Today this drawing represents something completely different for me and how i feel about it. In this case, the mosquito, which can transfer the bacterium responsible for malaria between animals and people or person-to-person when it takes a blood meal, represents the predator and the source of the blood is the prey. The results show that a sharp increase in the numbers of a prey species (an example could be a rabbit) is followed soon thereafter by a smaller increase in numbers of the relevant predator (in this case the example could be the fox). This is because a single species is kept under control by the species that uses it for food.

The carbon-14 isotope would vanish from Earth's atmosphere in less than a million years were it not for the constant influx of cosmic rays interacting with molecules of nitrogen (N2) and single nitrogen atoms (N) in the stratosphere. Learning a single Latin or Greek root word, like "temper," can help you detect the meanings of 100 related terms (temperament, temperance, etc.). Whether you’re trying to make a career change to become a BRM or if you’re interested in breaking into the industry after graduation, these courses and training programs will help you gain an edge on the competition. Jump in and try to help out. The real challenge is figuring out how to fix the problem. It's all-encompassing, like life, but it isn't the real thing. Before I fall asleep, I always picture what it would feel like to fall asleep in your arms. Are you more like one breed because you enjoy your naps or because you like to cuddle? The first step to a solution is to ask the right question: is the vendor interested in a short-term, one-sided (for the vendor’s benefit), transactional relationship or does it want a long-term, mutually beneficial (benefiting both customer and vendor), strategic one?

[be-gay-do-heists]

hello yall :) the holy month of elul started last night, which is typically a time for contemplation, so since it is impossible for me to stop thinking about leverage, i decided to write an essay. hope anyone interested in reading it enjoys, and that it makes at least a little sense!! spoilers for leverage redemption

-----

Leverage, Judaism, and “Doing the Work”: An Essay for Elul

When it comes to Elul and the approaching High Holidays, Leverage might seem like an odd topic to meditate on.

The TNT crime drama that ran from 2008-2012, and which released a new season this summer following its renewal, centers on a group of found-family thieves who help the victims of corporations and oligarchs (sometimes based on real-world examples), using wacky heists and cons to bring down the rich and powerful. In one episode, the team’s clients want to reclaim their father’s prized Glimt piece that had been stolen in the Shoah and never returned, but aside from this and the throwaway lines and jokes standard for most mainstream television, there’s not a ton textually Jewish about Leverage. However, despite this, I have found that the show has strong resonance among Jewish fans, and lots of potential for analysis along Jewish themes. This tends to focus on one character in particular: the group’s brilliant, pop culture-savvy, and personable hacker, Alec Hardison, played by the phenomenally talented Aldis Hodge.

I can’t remember when or where I first encountered a reading of Hardison as Jewish, but not only is this a somewhat popular interpretation, it doesn’t feel like that much of a leap. In the show itself, Hardison has a couple of the aforementioned throwaway lines that potentially point to him being Jewish, even if they’re only in service of that moment’s grift. It’s hard to point to what exactly makes reading Hardison as Jewish feel so natural. My first guess is the easy way Hardison fits into the traditional paradigms of Jewish masculinity explored by scholars such as Daniel Boyarin (2). Most of the time, the hacker is not portrayed as athletic or physical; he is usually the foil to the team’s more physically-adept characters like fighter Eliot, or thief Parker. Indeed, Hardison’s strength is mental, expressed not only through his computer wizardry but his passions for science, technology, music, popular media, as well as his studious research into whatever scenario the group might come up against. In spite of his self-identification as a “geek,” Hardison is nevertheless confident, emotionally sensitive, and secure in his masculinity. I would argue he is representative of the traditional Jewish masculine ideal, originating in the rabbinic period and solidified in medieval Europe, of the dedicated and thoughtful scholar (3). Another reason for popular readings of Hardison as Jewish may be the desire for more representation of Jews of color. Although mainstream American Jewish institutions are beginning to recognize the incredible diversity of Jews in the United States (4), and popular figures such as Tiffany Haddish are amplifying the experiences of non-white Jews, it is still difficult to find Jews of color represented in popular media. For those eager to see this kind of representation, then, interpreting Hardison, a black man who places himself tangential to Jewishness, in this way is a tempting avenue.

Regardless, all of the above remains fan interpretation, and there was little in the text of the show that seriously tied Judaism into Hardison’s identity. At least, until we got this beautiful speech from Hardison in the very first episode of the renewed show, directed at the character of Harry Wilson, a former corporate lawyer looking to atone for the injustice he was partner to throughout his career:

“In the Jewish faith, repentance, redemption, is a process. You can’t make restitution and then promise to change. You have to change first. Do the work, Harry. Then and only then can you begin to ask for forgiveness. [...] So this… this isn’t the win. It’s the start, Harry.”

I was floored to hear this speech, and thrilled that it explained the reboot’s title, Leverage: Redemption. Although not mentioned by its Hebrew name, teshuvah forms the whole basis for the new season. Teshuvah is the concept of repentance or atonement for the sins one has committed. Stemming from the root shuv/shuva, it carries the literal sense of “return.” In a spiritual context, this usually means a return to G-d, of finding one’s way back to holiness and by extension good favor in the eyes of the Divine. But equally important is restoring one’s relationships with fellow humans by repairing any hurt one has caused over the past year. This is of special significance in the holy month of Elul, leading into Rosh haShanah, the Yamim Noraim, and Yom Kippur, but one can undertake a journey of redemption at any point in time. That teshuvah is a journey is a vital message for Harry to hear; one job, one reparative act isn’t enough to overturn years of being on the wrong side of justice, to his chagrin. As the season progresses, we get to watch his path of teshuvah unfold, with all its frustrations and consequences. Harry grows into his role as a fixer, not only someone who can find jobs and marks for the team, but fixes what he has broken or harmed.

So why was Hardison the one to make this speech?

I do maintain that it does provide a stronger textual basis for reading Hardison as Jewish by implication (though the brief on-screen explanation for why he knows about teshuvah, that his foster-parent Nana raised a multi-faith household, is important in its own merit, and meshes well with his character traits of empathy and understanding for diverse experiences). However, beyond this, Hardison isn’t exactly an archetypical model for teshuvah. In the original series, he was the youngest character of the main ensemble, a hacking prodigy in the start of his adult career, with few mistakes or slights against others under his belt. In one flashback we see that his possibly first crime was stealing from the Bank of Iceland to pay off his Nana’s medical bills, and that his other early hacking exploits were in the service of fulfilling personal desires, with only those who could afford to pay the bill as targets. Indeed, in the middle of his speech, Hardison points to Eliot, the character with the most violent and gritty past who views his work with the Leverage team as atonement, for a prime example of ongoing teshuvah. So while no one is perfect and everyone has a reason for doing teshuvah, this question of why Hardison is the one to give this series-defining speech inspired me to look at his character choices and behavior, and see how they resonate with a different but interrelated Jewish principle, that of tikkun olam. 

Tikkun olam is literally translated as “repairing the world,” and can take many different forms, such as protecting the rights of vulnerable people in society, or giving tzedakah (5). In modern times, tikkun olam is often the rallying cry for Jewish social activists, particularly among environmentalists for whom literally restoring the health of the natural world is the key goal. Teshuvah and tikkun olam are intertwined (the former is the latter performed at an interpersonal level) and both hold a sense of fixing or repairing, but tikkun olam really revolves around a person feeling called to address an injustice that they may have not had a personal hand in creating. Hardison’s sense of a universal scale of justice which he has the power to help right on a global level and his newfound drive to do humanitarian work, picked up sometime after the end of the original series, make tikkun olam a central value for his character. This is why we get this nice bit of dialogue from Eliot to Hardison in the second episode of the reboot, when the latter’s outside efforts to organize international aid start distracting him from his work with the team: “Is [humanitarian work] a side gig? In our line of work, you’re one of the best. But in that line of work… you’re the only one, man.” The character who most exemplifies teshuvah reminds Hardison of his amazing ability to effect change for the better on a huge stage, to do some effective tikkun olam. It’s this acknowledgement of where Hardison can do the most good that prompts the character’s absence for the remainder of the episodes released thus far, turning his side gig into his main gig.

With this in mind, it will be interesting to see where Hardison’s arc for this season goes. Separated from the rest of the team, the hacker still has remarkable power to change the world, because it is, after all, the “age of the geek.” However, he is still one person. For all that both teshuvah and tikkun olam are individual responsibilities and require individual decision-making and effort, the latter especially relies on collective work to actually make things happen. Hardison leaving is better than trying to do humanitarian work and Leverage at the same time, but there’s only so long he can be the “only one” in the field before burning out. I’m reminded of one of the most famous (for good reason) maxims in Judaism:

It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to neglect it. (6)

Elul is traditionally a time for introspection and heeding the calls to repentance. After a year where it’s never been easier to feel powerless and drained by everything going on around us, I think it’s worth taking the time to examine what kind of work we are capable of in our own lives. Maybe it’s fixing the very recent and tangible hurts we’ve left behind, like Harry. Maybe it’s the little changes for the better that we make every day, motivated by our sense of responsibility, like Eliot. And maybe it’s the grueling challenge of major social change, like Hardison. And if any of this work gets too much, who can we fall back on for support and healing? Determining what needs repair, working on our own scale and where our efforts are most helpful, and thereby contributing to justice in realistic ways means that we can start the new year fresh, having contemplated in holiday fashion how we can be better agents in the world.

Shana tovah u’metukah and ketivah tovah to all (7), and may the work we do in the coming year be for good!

------

(1) Disclaimer: everybody’s fandom experiences are different, and this is just what I’ve picked up on in my short time watching and enjoying this show with others.

(2) See, for example, the introduction and first chapter of Boyarin’s book Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (I especially recommend at least this portion if you are interested in queer theory and Judaic studies). There he explores the development of Jewish masculinity in direct opposition to Christian masculine standards.

(3) I might even go so far as to place Hardison well within the Jewish masculine ideal of Edelkayt, gentle and studious nobility (although I would hesitate to call him timid, another trait associated with Edelkayt). Boyarin explains that this scholarly, non-athletic model of man did not carry negative associations in the historical Jewish mindset, but was rather the height of attractiveness (Boyarin, 2, 51).

(4) Jews of color make up 20% of American Jews, according to statistics from Be’chol Lashon, and this number is projected to increase as American demographics continue to change: https://globaljews.org/about/mission/. 

(5) Tzedakah is commonly known as righteous charity. According to traditional authority Maimonides, it should be given anonymously and without embarrassment to the person in need, generous, and designed to help the recipient become self-sufficient.

(6) Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot, 2:16

(7) “A good and sweet year” and “a good inscription [in the Book of Life]”

[rukia-simp]

Rukia’s Feelings

Let's discuss feelings in Bleach because there's a lot of double standards here and it hurts me to watch people think they've "debunked" arguments but they only told a vague fairy tale. That's why I'm saying that Rukia had fallen in love earlier than you think. In fact I would even say that she fell in love before Orihime. Orihime may have had a crush on Ichigo first, but she never said “love” until the arrancar saga.

Rukia fell in love first. In fact there's textual evidence for this. We all know this iconic scene. Kubo was never into romantic tales, however he wouldn't pull this BS out of his ass for shits and giggles. He's not that kind of writer. Every scene has purpose! Stop the disrespect!

This scene isn't meant for fanservice. It's meant for setting up motive. Why does Rukia want to leave?

Before I answer that. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is what literary analysis calls DRAMATIC IRONY. In which the audience knows something that characters might not know. For example like when we know Isshin is a Shinigami, but Ichigo doesn't know. We know Rukia's true feelings but Ichigo and other people don't because they obviously can't read her inner monologue. Ichigo can't read her motives until her tears tell him the truth. Now to answer the original question above. She left because she was afraid that if she stayed any longer in the living world, her already developing feelings would make it harder to leave later on. She needed to get out of Ichigo's proximity so that her attachment can't be used as leverage or puts him in danger. After all it was her emotional attachment to Kaien that allows her to identify every emotion that she's feeling at this moment in the story. She doesn't want to bring Ichigo the same demise as Kaien. It's because of her emotions that Kaien's death hit her so hard. Without emotions and that attachment to Kaien, it would have been just another death in the Soul Society. Why is this important? Because Rukia's trying to learn from her past. Ichigo's stubbornness messes up her plan, but it's also what ends up saving them in the long term. She runs away with the hope of forgetting all of her experiences with Ichigo. Ichigo did the same thing Kaien did with Rukia in the 13th division. Ichigo didn't make her feel alone or like an outcast. They both treated her the way she always hoped people would treat her. With respect, and as an equal. She never wanted to be put down nor be put on a pedestal because of her last name. Or because of her rank. But everyone did, even her future husband. The only two people who canonically didn’t was Ichigo and his cousin. Rukia just has a weak side for men like that. Rukia has a type unlike Orihime. We know why she loves Ichigo, but there's no clear reason as to why Orihime does. It's very broad, and not narrowed down to a specific reason. Which makes her crush easy to attack with no actual solid defense. I can tell you EXACTLY where Ichigo and Rukia's relationship changed from salty coworkers to immediately more than friends. I've reread Bleach multiple time, and have yet to see the exact moment where Ichigo and Orihime's feelings change. Most of it looks like it's offscreen.

Just so no one gets confused. I'm referring to this scene. This was where Ichigo and Rukia's relationship could never go back to being coworkers and friends.

Anyways, people like to argue that Orihime is the one that likes him so she is guaranteed that "happy" ending. I call BS because Nel and Riruka had just as much infatuation with our protagonist, but all I see is them getting the short end of the stick. Orihime IS NOT SPECIAL. But Rukia IS special. This woman "COINCIDENTALLY" has a paralleled past to our protagonist. She "COINCIDENTALLY" spent Ichigo's entire past arc as his only form of foundation and support. And she "COINCIDENTALLY" is the one to be asked about HER feelings because she's not as open about her emotions, since she's a SHINIGAMI. Shinigami have LITERALLY been taught to not be emotional. Duty before love. Rukia's characterization and occupation don’t allow her to confess straight up. Orihime has the privilege of no limitations. Rukia isn't as lucky! Why the hell would Kubo emphasize this so much for it be a fecking dead end?!

But that's why Rukia's confession is in the form of denial. Because in order to keep her IN CHARACTER, Kubo needs to write a confession that sounds like Rukia. He must emphasize how strong her feelings are. They are so strong that they overcome her usual stoicism, sternness.

Byakuya himself knew that Rukia only showed this much emotion towards Kaien. That's why he concluded that there's something special about Ichigo. He has identified the pattern.

All of this had purpose. I refuse to believe it was all for nothing. This scene was a confession, and just a sad reminder that unfortunately Ichigo and Rukia's ending was always on a tight rope. He put too much effort into their relationship. He put a freakish amount of effort into their relationship. And honestly this makes the story make more sense, in my opinion. Think about it like this. If Rukia was not in love in this scene then it wouldn’t be as memorable in the Ichiruki fandom. And Rukia would be a completely different character. By Rukia already having feelings they stimulate Ichigo into finding out his own feelings (which is in the Lost Agent Arc). And it makes sense because Rukia might fall easier, but she’s more passive when it comes to answering to her desires. Just look back at her past with Kaien, and her reaction towards his wife. She’s not the type to pursue feelings. But Ichigo is more aggressive than her. But he’s more dense as well. Ichigo is the type to initiate the relationship, but he has to be aware of it. How can you be aware of it if your dense? I mean the fact that Ichigo is dense about Orihime’s blatant feelings can’t be a coincidence. For me, it almost seems like Ichigo is dense, not because he’s not meant to see Orihime’s feelings, but because it makes it harder for him to identify his own feelings for a certain person (personally I thought and still think that it’s supposed to be Rukia). It delays endgames, and allows for more satisfying development. However, this could just be my optimism speaking, but I don't think Kubo is stupid. But that time frame for TYBW was ridiculous and I truly believe it was a factor in their final decisions. But I might be blinded by my optimism. Well anyway, this was another piece of analysis. Just want to call out some hypocrites. I'm right now putting on the table that Rukia arguably has just as much feelings for Ichigo. So the argument that Orihime is "obligated" to Ichigo's love is too vague. It's a horrible argument, but I'm always open to discussion. Respectfully of course. But then again this is social media so...

My next analysis is probably going to be on this gorgeous scene. I'm just going to explain its significance and what makes it an irrefutable Ichigo and Rukia moment. Please look forward to that! Thank you to everyone that read this far. Have a wonderful day!

Also no hate on Renji and Orihime. I know Renji thought he had good intentions, but if he's so special then he should have been able to fix it before 40 years of no interactions. And Orihime is a sweetie, but her unrealistic look on life is just too polar to my look on life. I'm a realist. I can't get behind that especially when she basically gets everything handed to her without much consequence. Reality would have hit normal women in the face if they were in Orihime's position. To me that's not a good message to teach to anyone.

Anyway thanks for reading! Love y’all!

[feelingbluepolitics]

We Must Handle the Truth

There's no question that the management of Donald trump will be an issue of on-going global importance. Knocking him from his (alleged) official perch is only the first step.

The more crucial steps must follow, because trump will retain his influence and his supporters, and they will do whatever he hints that he wants, even up to treasonous attacks, assassination attempts, and mass murders.

We must be clear. There is no cozy "look to the future and heal" pretence of an option in our present situation. This is aside from the fact that taking that Pollyanna path repeatedly --from Watergate to Reagan to Bush-- helped to criminalize and radicalize the Republicon Party into the danger they are today.

Shame, honor, and true patriotism have become vestigial on the Right. Their criminal administrations and elected representatives keep getting away with what they do because we embolden them each time with a blind eye.

That is not how justice works. The blind eye of justice means that no one, no matter how powerful, is exempt. The time to work on that is January 20, 2021, and we are far overdue. Politicians, corporations, tax cheats, polluters: we still have laws, for all of trump's and his administration's destructive efforts.

We sully our government offices and endanger our nation by not requiring accountability to the office and to the people, over and above any present occupant. Where we are blocked by pardons we must still have thorough public investigation. That is not a waste of time for lack of a prosecutorial path. It is existential. It's the accountability we cannot do without. It's the foundation of the future laws we need to draft and pass to safeguard this country.

Pardons become entirely corrupt when we acquiesce to them blocking investigation. Democracies survive on information and truth, combined. We are where we are now in part because we still have corrupt actors left-over from Watergate active in our politics.

What are we to do about trump? That isn't initially, or perhaps ever, all about pardons, or state versus federal charges, or orange jumpsuits. In this instance, ironically, the potential solution is all about trump. This is where an examination of how trump interacts with the rest of the human world can guide us.

He forms specific categories of relationships which are actually invariable, because he is permanently shallow and unperceptive. Because trump the consumate narcissist is always the center of every relationship, and because he is, without introspection, forever fixed in all his defects, all of his various relationships fall into the same patterns within their categories. Here they are:

1) The Strongmen. Shades of daddy Fred trump, these are aspirational relationships teaching the type of utter control the core pathetic trump would like to wield. But because of daddy, trump is conditioned to the "love me, admire me, and be useful and loyal or I will harm or destroy you" format, but on the weaker side.

This is why we have seen trump pushing the United States of America into eagerly obsequious deference with respect to Russia, North Korea, and Turkey, and also pandering to Saudi Arabia's power which is additionally derived through vast transactional wealth.

But we cannot and do not want to transform America or Biden into this Strongman mold, because then it will have been pointless to remove trump.

2) The Assets. This category comprises trump's immediate family members and all Republicons in office, from Mitch McConnell to Kevin McCarthy, and from Michigan’s Republicon Senate members to, potentially, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. This category also extends to trump's supporters, mostly as a collective.

These are the flipside of the Strongman category, where trump gets to play the opposite role. These people are tools, who work constantly to remain in good standing with trump, rendering obsequious deference and servitude as a matter of advantage but also, essentially, as a matter of status survival.

trump is a horrible antagonist or enemy.

This, by the way, is exactly the relationship this country cannot continue to allow with trump, as a matter of national security.

3) The Targets. We know who they are. They caught trump's wrathful attention. Some of the targets are personal to trump to varying degrees, while some are a matter of expediency, or are demonstrated examples, or are, so far, peripheral.

But everybody knows trump will never stop -- that is the personna he cultivated-- unless a Target person has something of value to make them an Asset again. (This is why trump is called purely transactional, in combination with having no beliefs, no morality, and no honesty.)

Fauci, and Birx, (who for a while pulled off a mommy-style interaction with trump as he tried to impress her with nifty genius like injecting bleach), are in a no-man's land, transitional between Asset and Target, in part because trump doesn't like attention on covid if he can help it.

We don't know exactly what trump will try to inflict on Mary trump for writing her book, but we've already seen a variety of attacks against Bolton, Kelly, and Michael Cohen, along with innumerable others. (It isn't just books. It's that these people did not keep flattering, and obey.)

He ousted from political power Jeff Sessions, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker (White House as "an adult day care center"), and Mark Sanford, of "the Appalachian Trail." He can do the same to any other individual Republicon, because as a group, they are all too backstabbing, dishonorable, greedy, and cowardly to unite against him.

Certainty we have seen trump's behavior with respect to Fox Gnus, the Clintons, and Obama.

This is the relationship this country cannot allow itself to fall into with trump. But how possibly to prevent it?

For that, we look to another category of trump's relationships.

4) The Survivors. Of those not in the Strongman category, there are few people who have survived relationships with Donald trump and who can get trump to do favors for them -- to do what they want.

It is dangerous idiocy to call them trump's "friends," by way of explaining their leverage and longevity. The key is leverage.

Rudy Giuliani :

- A "very, very good relationship" with trump.

- "I've seen things written like he's going to throw me under the bus. When they say that, I say he isn't, but I have insurance."

- "I do have very, very good insurance."

Giuliani's insurance is knowledge; some knowledge about trump gives him leverage. The leverage has to represent knowledge that trump fears exposure of or consequences for. Giuliani doesn't fear being otherwise loose-lipped, or even crazy, and his relationship with trump is currently letting him pull in $20,000 a day for "legal work."

Roger Stone :

"[trump] knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn't."

This leverage allowed Stone to openly demand clemency from trump regardless of any amount of political capital it could potentially cost.

The succession of wives, too, possess whatever personal knowledge, likely far more powerful than negotiated pre-nups and settlements, which ensure the notorious litigious deadbeat abides willingly by contractual terms.

As a nation, we need to survive trump. We have observed what works. But as a nation, we must address the issue of trump just a bit differently. Unlike Giuliani, Stone, or even Putin’s special holds over trump, we must:

1) Investigate trump extensively. Entirely. Turn him inside-out. And then,

2) Make the findings public. This is where a nation, a government of, by, and for the people in a country ruled by law and not kingdoms or cults, differs from defensive black-mailers or manipulative foreign spies.

This part, making public everything that doesn't actually threaten our national security to reveal, is necessary to harden both our resolve and our democracy, and to peel off whatever of trump's support that we can, and to deter the next trumpian assaults, whether by trump or the people who will try to follow the path trump has scorched into the fabric of our nation.

Public reveals are also a safety measure. There is vast potential for corruption otherwise. But then,

3) Keep every single trump-related criminal prosecution -- legitimate, of course, because we are not trump -- on the table. That is the leverage.

That's how to survive trump. There must be no more talk of how investigating a former *resident will turn us into a "banana republic." In a so-called banana republic, powerful government officials pressure others, either to carry out vendettas, or favors of protection by "looking the other way". Government is bent toward personal exploitations. Been there. Done that these past four years under trump and Republicons.

They have actually installed what can be termed "a deep state," notably for the first time, and sane Americans must know its extant. Fcuk their cries of victimization and oppression of the Right. The only difference is, when we investigate, there are actual violations, crimes, and scandals, with evidentiary proofs; when conservatives investigate, it's fundamentally bullsh*t-and-paranoia based.

A "banana republic" is exactly what we are attempting to rescue our nation from. With all the recognition that the Right has systematically unmoored from truth, and the terrible dangers that threaten as a result, from a stupid civil war born of propaganda, to climate devastation, as much truth as we can discover is what we need.

Knowledge is power. With trump out of the White House, we can get it. We must have it.

[fluffnstuffq]

We all know that the “kin for fun” trend is bad. 

Recently, however, the question of “why is it bad?” has risen in prominence, and thus I’d like to give my two cents on the matter. I initially wanted to give a rehash of the whole “this is a community which has been around for decades, please don’t appropriate its terms because you don’t know what you’re talking about” spiel.. though I know that’s been repeated endlessly to no avail. 

Dozens of times I’ve tried to explain that, though I’ve often been faced with the “words change” or “it’s just a game, it harms no one” argument.

So I’m taking a more personal approach.

I don’t know if my anecdotes will change anyone’s mind, but if anyone in the “kin for fun” community sees this and actually reads through it, I implore you to try to listen to genuine otherkin, do some research, and find other terms that better suit you.

Beware, long rambling anecdote under the cut.

It is hard to believe that, a mere 8 months ago, I was new to the otherkin community. 

I’d been reading about and researching otherkinity in depth for as long as a year prior, though it was as recently as May 2020 upon which I took my own first step into evaluating my own experiences, creating an otherkin oriented side blog, and formally taking the plunge into what I’d initially assumed, from fun “kin assign ask games” or “no doubles drama”, to be a trend.

While I quickly versed myself in the original, serious and introspective parts of the community, I had my fair share of run-ins with those of the “kinnie/kin for fun crowd”. One such experience, over the course of about two-three months, forever left an impression on the way I view the community (and the problems within it) as a whole.

Without naming names, some of the individuals we encountered turned out to be... the practical embodiment of some of the worst facets of this community.

They were the prime example of the misguided “kinnie” mindset. Dead-set on fitting under the ‘kin label, though unwilling to do any research on their own. Faking out of control, dramatic shifts to seem more “valid” to genuine otherkin (more on that later). Willing to go as far as picking traits from other people’s original characters to “customize” their “kinsonas” perfectly. 

However, aside from their merely misguided attempts to fit in (which could’ve been easily fixed if not for the stubborn kinnie mindset), the most scathing of their actions highlighted some major issues of the “kin for fun” side.

In just a few months, we had our identities stomped on and treated like nothing more than a game. 

You see, the “kinnie” mindset is not self contained. It is almost impossible to maintain this mindset and respect the involuntary, deeply personal nature of otherkin history, due both to widespread misinformation/trends, as well as the common plague of stubborn ignorance of definitions.

In most cases we’ve seen, once one steps fully into the mindset that their own kintypes are nothing more than a game or an act, they begin to at the very least subconsciously view others’ experiences the same way. 

This is obviously not the case for all those who take on alterhuman identities by choice (ex: copinglinking). However, in taking on the “kin for fun” label, one immediately disrespects the identities of others by appropriating and bending terms with a history to fit themself. 

And once one establishes that they lack care or concern for the already, dare I say, endangered terms once meant to foster a sense of community and understanding, of shared experiences... that person already predisposes themself to spiraling into greater disrespect and ignorance of the identities of others.

The individuals that we encountered, like many others of this mindset, used their so-called “kins” for the sole purpose of feeling validated, for looking “cool” and as leverage to get their way. Because it was nothing more than roleplay and a brief interest to them, they often treated others’ kintypes as something that could be similarly discarded/”turned off” or reset. As if others’ kintypes were nothing more than characters which didn’t deserve respect.

Exotrauma and otherwise painful memories, while stressful and sometimes nightmare inducing for us, were nothing more than fodder for outlandish “story ideas” and “angst” for them. 

In the cases of these individuals faking shifts, they often acted in ways threatening and even triggering to those around them; though because it was just a show for them, they failed time and time again to recognize the negative impact their violent “shifts” had on others. 

They had no restraint, for both their own actions and the fearful/concerned reactions of others were just harmless roleplay in their eyes. (I do feel like..  even roleplay should have boundaries if the events of a story upset the people participating, and the notion that anything goes, even at the expense of someone else’s comfort.. it just gives very uncomfortable “fiction does not affect reality” vibes. Though, that’s a story for another time).

As our experiences weren’t real to them and never had been, they often conflated us with the “canon characters”, like we and many others they interacted with were nothing more than toys to fixate on, change and push “headcanons” onto, and test the limits of.

And because they didn’t care to learn, because individuals such as these continued to remorselessly fall deeper into the rabbit hole of “I do whatever I want/I don’t care to learn otherwise”, the lack of consideration grew more severe.

Those who “kin for fun” may certainly be experiencing.. something, I will not discount that assertion. Whether copinglinking, a hearttype, or merely a fictionflicker/cameo shift. However, it’d be disingenuous to say that it is harmless for them to continue to warp and pick at terms that do not and will never fit them. For every joke, every dozens-long “coping-kinlist”, every admittance of “haha I was never a serious kin”, they all do the same in spreading misinformation. 

As I see more and more people self-identifying as “copinglink, but using the kin title because it sounds better”, even if calling oneself “a non-serious kinnie”, one wonders... why use those terms if you know they do not fit? Why encroach upon communities of bittersweet memories, of aching homesickness, of involuntary nonhumanity, only with the intention of putting on an act?

Why fight so hard, when directly told and shown how “kin for fun” actively tears apart the already dwindling otherkin community on this platform? Why cling so hard to words that are not yours, why force change upon the definitions of words meant to be a safe haven for those searching for understanding? Why paint “serious otherkin” as dangerous gatekeepers, sufferers of clinical lycanthropy, or those merely suffering from delusions/hallucinations?

Because of those who “kin for fun”, I was initially steered away from investigating my own identity; I’d only seen the jokes, the toxic “kin drama”, the cringe blogs and factkin and “kinning”. Because of “kin for fun”, it took me over a year to come to terms with my own alterhumanity, in all of its facets.

Because of “kinnies”, my fears are proven time and time again that I will come across someone who views my identity as roleplay at best and “childish, a phase, character theft” at worse. Because of “kinnies” and the mindset they’ve fostered, time and time again someone steals my memories, my experiences, my identity, justifying it as creating their own version, like an AU of an AU.

Because of “kinnies”, time and time again I’ve been told to “stop taking things so seriously, it’s just for fun” when complaining about my identity being minimized. I’ve been told that “kinnies”, despite appropriating an already existing community, are the “normal ones”, the “sane ones”, the “good ones” who don’t really believe in all that they boast. 

Some have even told me that it doesn’t matter at all, for all they can see is a trend with no real hold over their identity in the longrun. “It won’t matter in ten years”, they say. 

Perhaps not for them, long after their interest in the “trend” has faded. But for me and countless other genuine otherkin? In ten years I will still be Blixer from Just Shapes and Beats, I will still be an unnamed creature of woods and starlight and faded memories of golden lanterns, I will still be otherkin, and I will still carry the scars of my identity being torn to shreds and thrown into my face like dirt.

I cannot run from my kintypes and never could, even when I was afraid of them. “Kinnies”, in most cases, hardly believe my identity really exists.

What do they believe, then? What are they trying to achieve, scrubbing away the less “aesthetically pleasing”, fluffy bits of this community? What good does it do them to take meaningful, personal words to describe an identity that they can shed at the drop of a hat if it is “problematic” or boring at the end of the day?

One can smile and nod and say that, despite “kinning for fun”, they still respect otherkinity as a whole. And I say, in most cases, that reassurance is hollow. You have already stolen our words, you have already spread misinformation.

This has stumbled into rambling territory, so I leave a few questions, honest, genuine questions.

I ask those who “kin for fun”, what is the allure of words that you have stolen? What is the allure of having the blood of a shattered community on your hands?

As many others have said before, you may find a place in the greater alterhuman community. We have terms for you, as well as many other specific experiences.

Why fight so hard to steal our haven, to push us out of our own spaces, when your own words are waiting for you with open arms?

Words change, yes, but why fight so hard to change them at the expense of others?

[whythinktoomuch]

iv. to be as good as dead

(pt. i)  (pt. ii)  (pt. iii) 

tw: gore & death (but only of zombies :D)

Kara’s awareness gradually slips out of the syrupy depths of sleep, the low rumbles of Lena and Alex’s conversation casually filtering into her ears. She starts to stir, jerking fully awake only when she accidentally elbows Lena right in the ribs. 

“Oh, shoot, sorry,” Kara says hastily, as Lena clutches at her side with a wheeze. “Oops. I, yeah, sorry.” 

Kara inches over in a futile attempt to provide Lena with some more space, but her bed was never really meant to accommodate more than one person at a time.

“It’s fine,” Lena grumbles. “I actually prefer my lungs bruised.” 

“I’m sorry…” 

Alex just shakes her head as she approaches the bed, and Kara is already averting her eyes with an extended sigh. But Alex crouches down anyway, places a gentle hand atop Kara’s shoulder and squeezes. 

“I heard what happened,” she says softly. “It wasn’t your fault.” 

“I was leading the group, so of course it was my fault.” Kara directs her words more to her pillow than anyone else. “Like you’ve always said, if you’re the lead—”

“Forget what I said!” Alex snaps. “You’re alive, okay? And you brought everyone else back here, alive. Which means you did the right thing, and that’s all that matters.” 

Kara shrugs and just curls up into a smaller ball underneath the sheets. Alex sighs, giving Kara’s shoulder another comforting squeeze before slowly climbing to her feet. But on her way out, Alex takes one last pause by the door. She gestures aimlessly toward Kara’s bed. “So, what’s going on here? You two officially banging, or…?” 

“Oh, shut up, Alex, god! It’s not even like—”

“No, Kara was just having trouble falling asleep, so—”

“Mmhm, yeah, I bet,” Alex says, cutting off both their protests as she shuts the door behind her. 

“You’re such a fast reader,” Kara comments, as she watches Lena thumbing through her second trashy romance novel of the day. “You must really dig those, huh?” 

“I kinda hate them actually,” Lena says with a shrug. “But I’m also kinda into the fact that I hate them, so it all works out.” 

“Hm…” Kara nods thoughtfully to herself. Then, “Well, hang on, are they dirty?” 

Lena’s pale features are instantly awash in a very conspicuous shade of pink. “No,” she says several beats too late, and Kara practically pounces onto Lena’s side of the bed.  

“Oh no, no, wait!” Lena is laughing as she falls backwards, Kara scrambling on top as she grabs for the book. “No, Kara, stop, you’re not allowed to look!” 

Kara fumbles with the book, fingertips slipping off the glossy cover as Lena tosses it just out of reach behind her. But persistent as ever, Kara just climbs a bit higher, now practically straddling Lena’s stomach. Her next swipe overshoots by a tad though, and she ends up swatting at Lena’s rucksack instead. 

“No—!” Lena says in a sharp inhale, but Kara’s already caught the bag by one of the shoulder straps before it could hit the ground. 

Though considerably lighter now, the rucksack seems to still hold quite a few private things that give a distinct clink as Kara gently sets it back on the bed. 

They both stare at the bag in silence until Kara springs back into action, snatching up the romance novel with a triumphant Yoink! and jumping onto her own bed. She’s barely flipped through the first few pages when the book’s being ripped out of her hands, and Lena’s climbing into her lap and kissing her. 

All of Kara’s grunts of surprise are muffled against Lena’s soft yet sweetly insistent mouth. It’s been a while—much too long of a while, in fact—but Kara’s body eventually remembers what to do, and she’s seizing Lena by the hips and hauling her onto the bed. 

Kara’s breaths are ragged as she settles on top, her kisses near frenzied and desperate, and getting messier and messier by the second. But Lena doesn’t seem to be faring much better, with her eyes darkened, hips bucking up against Kara’s, and it’s honestly gratifying enough just to feel this wanted. 

But then Kara’s tugging at the hem of Lena’s shirt, dragging it up to expose soft skin, the paleness only marred by a slight blush of desire, when Lena stiffens underneath her. 

“Oh, is this… is this all right?” Kara asks, freezing in place. “Because we totally don’t have to.” 

Lena’s face screws up, hesitant. “Um.” 

The door swings opens, and Kara and Lena scramble off each other, in a hasty attempt to make it somehow seem like they weren’t doing exactly what they were just caught doing. 

“Wow,” says Alex, just so utterly bored. “Can’t wait to hear your excuse for this one.” 

A couple of weeks later, Kara and Lena are lazing around in the sun—Kara bouncing a tennis ball against a brick wall, Lena reading some two-dollar sci-fi thriller. They still have yet to talk about the kiss. 

It’s not that they are avoiding it, per se. It’s just been way easier to talk about all the other things worth discussing. 

Like, for example, 

“They’re gearing up for a supply run,” Lena says, eyeing the small group forming by the front gate. She watches as they pass out the guns, lace up their boots, and fix up their backpacks, and such. 

“Yeah.” Kara doesn’t look over. 

“You’re not going with them?” 

“No, Alex is gonna go this time,” Kara says shortly, already walking off toward the barracks before Lena could ask why, tennis ball left behind and forgotten. 

“Hey,” Lena says, when she eventually finds Kara lying in bed with her dusty boots still on. “Let’s get out of here.” 

“What?” 

“Let’s leave the camp for a while. Stretch our legs somewhere that’s not packed with all these people,” Lena insists. “Didn’t you say that there’s a lake nearby? Let’s go there.” 

 “… Why?” 

“Why not? It’s a free country.” 

Kara actually snorts. “There is no country anymore, Lena.” 

“Whatever, let’s just go get some privacy then,” Lena says with a shrug, and Kara perks right up. 

“Privacy?” Kara echoes. “With me.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Yeah.” Kara nods a lot. “Yeah, okay.” 

It’s not very hard to sneak out the front gate, and the ease of their escape forces Kara to admit that maybe this is something that she’s done before. “But only like once or twice. And only when I was going absolutely stir-fucking-crazy, I swear.” 

The aforementioned lake is a trek of couple of miles, but inherent peace brought on by the very sight of it is well worth the journey. Kara stretches out beneath the shade of her favorite tree, heart and face relaxing as one as she watches Lena dip her toes in the water. 

Within minutes, Kara’s on her back with her eyes fluttering shut. And within a few more minutes, Lena is snuggled up to her, head cradled against Kara’s chest, and for a while, everything is good again. 

Kara’s just basking in the sun, taking a brief nap in between classes on a grassy hill, and Lena’s her girlfriend who adores her despite all her cheesy puns, and they’ll probably share a tub of ice cream at some point in the night before engaging in lots of sex and way too little sleep, and everything was just good. 

Almost good enough to be true

“KARA!” 

The panic in Lena’s voice has Kara’s eyes snapping open, and she feels a violent tug on her left foot. A growling zombie, lake water dripping off its disgusting, bloated body as it drags Kara closer to its snapping jaws. 

Kara immediately launches her other foot forward, smashing it into the zombie’s face as hard as she can. It gives her the leverage to slip out of her left boot and scramble to her feet. 

She shoots point blank right through the top of its head. 

But more and more zombies start emerging from the lake, all puffy and rotted, their swollen faces split open in near identical snarls. Kara shoots them down, one by one, but more just keep coming to take their place in an endless swarm. 

“Fuck, fuck,” Kara swears, her fingers clumsy as she tries to reload her gun. “Fuck it, run, Lena, run!” 

They take off sprinting, and actually manage to outrun most of the zombies that are thankfully still incapacitated by their bloated limbs, waterlogged and somewhat useless. 

When Kara throws a glance over her shoulder, just to make sure they’re still in the clear, she misses the dip in terrain, and the pothole sends her sprawling across the dirt. 

Kara turns around and a zombie is already almost upon her, its stagger increasing in speed, as if it could already taste the sweet victory of Kara’s flesh. She reaches for her gun, but it’s landed too far away, and the spare bullets even farther. By the time she faces forward again, she’s all out of options. 

A single gunshot rings out, and the zombie falls heavily on top of Kara, blood and bile spurting all over her face, mouth, and body. She coughs at the taste of decay and rotting water, clambering out from underneath the zombie, now motionless with a prominent hole through its right eye. 

Lena’s standing a couple feet away, Kara’s gun clutched in both hands. She gets the next two zombies between the eyes, then a third right through its cheek. 

The first two crumple instantly, but the last doesn’t slow one bit as it charges at Lena. 

But she doesn’t flinch, only whips out her hunting knife, leaping forward to meet the zombie head-on, and sticks the blade right through its protruding forehead with a shout. 

If Kara didn’t have an entire dollop of zombie goo still dripping from her mouth, she probably would have kissed Lena again right then and there. 

Kara’s not too sure on how or when she finds out, but by the time Alex is back from the scavenging mission, she’s stomping toward her and Lena like she already knows. 

“Listen, Alex,” Kara starts off right away, swiftly putting herself in front of Lena. “It’s not her fault. I wanted to go too, and, look, we’re fine now, and…” 

But Alex shoves right past her and yanks Lena into a violent bear hug that lifts her straight off the ground. “Thank you,” she sobs over and over again into Lena’s hair. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”

(next part here)

[dotsayers]

20 Questions: Writer’s Edition

tagged by the beloved @myrmidryad 

this is a LONG one so here’s a cut to avoid do you love the colour of the sky syndrome

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

101 after a recent purge... no one may know about my Past

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

329004! used to be about 350k but again... purge

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

on ao3 i’ve written for (chronologically) doctor who, skyfall, discworld, les mis, star trek, lord peter wimsey, marvel (various), in the flesh, red vs blue, roosterteeth rpf, check please, hockey rpf, star wars, daredevil, rivers of london, dishonored, emmerdale, dirk gently, holby city, hot fuzz, kj charles, guardian, the covert captain, taskmaster rpf, good omens, ghosts, roswell new mexico, leverage, schitt’s creek, the magicians, 9-1-1, it chapter two, the magnus archives, the old guard, the mandalorian, the ritual, the locked tomb

way back on the pit of voles i wrote for twilight, harry potter, hetalia and xmen first class. and on the newsround chatrooms i wrote exclusively harry potter fic about my oc neville and luna’s daughter

as you can tell i am not prone to staying in one fandom writing wise, i tend to end up with one complete fic and seven abandoned wips concealed deep in my google drive

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

finally see what it means to be living (captain marvel, carol/maria, i really hit the zeitgeist with this one i think i was something like the fifth fic in the ship tag)

do whatever you think (the magnus archives, this series is actually #2-7, then #8 #9 and #11 for me so i’m going to cheat a bit)

standing in a world of my own (daredevil, matt/foggy/karen, another zeitgeist hit! really miss writing for daredevil actually... it’s a perennial fave)

a winding road that stretches towards the truth (iron man, tony/rhodey, i STILL don’t know when this got so many kudos. i swear i looked away when it was at 100 and suddenly it ended up here)

where the long shadows grow (star trek aos, kirk prime/spock prime, thank god some people are checking the prime kirkspock tag is all i’m saying!)

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i don’t really Do angsty endings... possibly a blanket of stars just because i ended it on something of a cliffhanger and then completely zoned out of rnm for long enough that i forgot where i was going with it. there was definitely the intention of fixing things but then i just... did not do that. and now the show is on s3 and i’m over a season behind! life comes at you fast

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

where the long shadows grow, because it reunited kirk prime and spock prime and they DESERVE TO BE HAPPYYYY. i’m a complete sucker for presumed dead/back from the dead stories, actually, so on a similar theme i have two (TWO) daredevil fics which follow the trope, one about ray coming back post-s2 (might never be normal again) and one about foggy and matt reuniting post-endgame (in the corner, taking up space). this is the only time i will ever acknowledge endgame ever again

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

i do write crossovers! in fact i am often roundly mocked by my friends for the increasingly esoteric nature of my crossovers. way back in secondary i wrote a twilight/labyrinth crossover where angela was sarah and jareth’s daughter  because i had a massive crush on a girl who liked both twilight and labyrinth. however, since that has been comprehensively scrubbed from the internet, i think my craziest crossover is probably part three of ‘traced upon the skies’, already an esoteric crossover of rivers of london and hot fuzz, when i added in a crossover with the horror movie ‘the ritual’ just because i wanted rafe spall’s character to be happy 

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

EXTREMELY rarely and only with extreme embarrassment. i will not be any more specific than that

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i used to really struggle with doing this, to the point that i had over 300 comments just. lingering in my inbox unanswered. so i decided to give those up and just commit to answering them from then on, which has been working fairly well for about a year and a half now. i love getting comments but i get overwhelmed really easily and struggle with replying in a way which feels meaningful without getting in my head about it! 

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

yes lmao it was for a harry potter fic on ff.net where harry got sorted into hufflepuff instead of gryffindor. it wasn’t a very good fic but i think the fact it was clearly written by an 11 year old should have scared off at least some of the less flattering comments.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don’t... think so? i don’t know how i’d find out to be honest, my vanity googling is rarely very effective

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! as bronze may be much beautified (skyfall, mallory/bond) got translated into chinese, i was extremely pleased. i think it’s mandarin but the ao3 page for the translation doesn’t say and my mandarin is.................. extremely poor

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

also yes! me and jess little-smartass have written a lot together, although only our star trek/les mis series has been published, more’s the pity. we spent a lot of les mis fandom time workshopping aus and we were always extremely correct about all of it, imo

14. What’s your all time favourite ship to write for?

oh god. i think probably kirk/spock, although there’s some recency bias to that since i reread space manhattans recently and was reminded of my love for them. i really like writing jon/martin but i’ve mostly done that from outsider pov which is a bit different to writing shipfic, i think. joe/nicky from tog was also something i really liked writing but i struggle with plotting longer fic with them

15. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

i recently went through my abandoned fic folder so i actually have a few options for this. the obvious choice would be ‘any of the hockey ones’ but i did delete most of those just for my sanity. more recently i started writing a vaguely smutty pre-the thing mac/fuchs fic for alex @milkdrinker5000 which i really WANT to finish but am struggling with. most obscure answer (even beyond the thing) and most likely to remain unfinished is the insanely in depth post-tog booker/copley fic i had planned out back in about october. i wrote a good 6-7k of that one and then i realised it was going to be, like, difficult, and decided if i was going to put that much work into something it may as well be the novel im meant to be writing

16. What are your writing strengths?

once a friend told me i had an excellent facility for dialogue and ive thought about it every time i write ever since. i love writing dialogue and i think i’m good at knowing what sounds ic and what is right out. 

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

one of the things i struggled with for a really long time, and honestly still have trouble with, is depicting action in words. once i wrote a hockey fic which featured multiple hockey games and i spent probably four times as much effort editing those to make sense and be interesting that i’ve ever done on a talkier scene.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i’ve done it but only when i knew more or less what i was talking about - i did italian at school so i felt confident using it for nicky in something particular and real. i try not to italicise when i drop in words from other languages, which is what i usually do when i’m using a language i haven’t studied in depth (for example, joe’s use of arabic in some of my fic), and to only use words which i’ve heard used by native speakers in that context. i think if you don’t feel confident using another language, generally speaking, you shouldn’t do it. and for god’s sake don’t use google translate for a full sentence

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

harry potter on the newsround chatboards. ariana lovegood-longbottom my sweet child

20. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

this used to be an easy question because hands down the fic i was proudest of on posting it was i’ll be seeing you. i spent a year and a half on research and writing! but these days i do cringe a little at my hockey fic, and i think i’m prouder of some of my shorter works. let’s do a curveball and say layer on layer, down on down, which is my favourite of my rnm fics and the one i like most from a narrative voice perspective. getting michael right was stressful and i’m still proud i got it down for a TIME LOOP FIC, my absolute favourite trope

tagging @little-smartass and @leescoresbies just in case they want to try this

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums: a deeper dive into one of the most underrated early synth-pop acts. You’ve heard “Fade to Grey” by now, I’m sure, but this record is weirder and wilder than you might imagine! Find out more by watching the video or reading the transcript below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be discussing one of the first opening salvos of the New Romantic movement: the 1980 self-titled debut album by Visage. You could be forgiven for assuming that Visage was the alias of a single person, presumably the dapper fellow all over their brand, but Visage were, indeed, a group!

That “face of the band” figure was Steve Strange, who was less of a musician and more of a tastemaker and aesthete, and the club promoter for London’s famous nightclub, The Blitz. The Blitz’s DJ, Rusty Egan, was also a percussionist, and had previously played in the punk band Rich Kids, where he became acquainted with Midge Ure. Famous for his many connections and skill at leveraging them, Egan put together a sort of dream team out of the many musicians he knew at the time: Ure, who’d been orphaned by the dissolution of Rich Kids, Billy Currie, one-time synthesist of Ultravox before their group split apart, and several members of Buzzcocks alumnus Howard Devoto’s band Magazine. A bit of a motley crew, for sure...but one can’t argue with the success Visage would achieve.

Music: “Fade to Grey”

“Fade to Grey” is surely one of the most iconic songs of early 80s synth-pop, and its music video pushed forth a bold new aesthetic for the new decade: sophisticated, futuristic, androgynous. While Steve Strange would consistently reject the “New Romantic” label for his own work, his influence on the scene was undeniable. “Fade to Grey” strikes a balance between being debonair and mysterious, with its ghostly vocal reverb, and being a straight-up club classic, with an absolutely massive synth riff. The inclusion of a French-language translation of the main lyrics gives it a lot of European panache, and may well have been one of the main factors propelling it to international success--“Fade to Grey” was actually an even bigger hit in markets like France and Germany than in Visage’s native UK. That aside, though, as is so often the case with these famous 80s songs, the rest of this album is not to be missed! If you’re looking for another song with a bit of a similar vibe to their famous hit, I think you can’t go wrong with its opening track and final single, also titled “Visage.”

Music: “Visage”

There’s something really satisfying about a track, artist, AND album all having the same name--the triple threat! Still, I think this album’s title track stands well enough on its own, with a soaring refrain that’s quite easy to sing along to. While this album doesn’t get quite as “baroque” as Ultravox would, on tracks like their famous hit “Vienna,” the dry piano used throughout this track really classes the place up. Thematically, the title track seems to assert the importance of fashion and style, as well as the importance of innovating in those fields--“New styles, new shapes, new modes.” While lots of electronic acts were fixated on the future, Visage were one of the first to center aesthetics to such a dramatic degree. Plenty of people, both at the time and more recently, would criticize New Romantic acts of the MTV era for being “style over substance,” as though their embrace of the parallel art form of fashion inherently made their music worse. I’ve never understood that criticism myself, since it’s perfectly possible to care about, or excel at, more than one creative pursuit at once. At any rate, the title track’s focus on novelty contrasts quite strikingly with the preceding single, “Mind of a Toy.”

Music: “Mind of a Toy”

“Mind of a Toy” is a surprisingly high-concept song in comparison to the album’s other singles, narrating the thoughts of a plaything that’s lost its lustre, and has been discarded in favour of newer and better diversions. It feels like a pointed criticism of the consumerist obsession with novelty, and a counterpoint to the apparent thesis of the title track. It’s perhaps also a sort of critique of the way popular music disposes of so many of its once-loved idols--who, like puppets, are often controlled by unseen outside forces. You’ll also find several tracks that push into more experimental territory on the album, to a degree that may be surprising if you’re only familiar with the big hit. The eerie, cinematic instrumental “The Steps” is perhaps the most striking example, and closing the album on this note is certainly a bold decision!

Music: “The Steps”

The album’s cover features Steve Strange dancing with a woman, in a starkly lit, greyscale composition that recalls early photography. In the background, we can see the shadows of several instrumental musicians--perhaps a nod to the composition of the band itself, in which the composers and instrumentalists happily hid behind the facade of Strange’s attention-grabbing persona. What’s perhaps most interesting about it is the fact that despite having a dance partner, Strange’s attention seems to be focused entirely on us, the viewers. He seems to meet our gaze, with a vigour and intensity that borders on confrontational.

Before “New Romantic” took such a strong hold as the term for this movement, one of the contenders for its name was “peacock punk.” I’ve always liked the way that alternative phrase communicates the brash, almost macho nature of its seemingly fey male frontmen, whose gender-bending style was often rooted in self-confidence that bordered on bravado. I think Steve Strange’s fixed gaze on the cover of this album embodies this principle of “peacocking,” and lavishing attention on one’s personal aesthetic in a daring, perhaps even aggressively counter-cultural manner. While a lot of this music, and its associated visual culture, has been dismissed as some sort of yuppie frippery, it takes some serious balls to transgress ideas about gender as much as the New Romantics did, and I’d say it’s pretty damn punk.

This album is, of course, self-titled, which I suppose could be seen as a sort of throwaway non-decision. But I think the use of “Visage” for the title calls attention to the idea their name represents. A “visage” is, literally, a face, but the connotation of the word is certainly a bit loftier and more refined than that. A visage is less likely to be an everyday face, and more likely to be a metaphorical or symbolic “face”--a front for something, a representation of some greater idea. While Strange and company couldn’t see the future, they of course ended up being the representative front for the coming wave of stylish, synthesiser-driven pop, even if they weren’t at the crest of it for too long.

After their debut, Visage would go on to release one more LP with their original line-up, 1982’s The Anvil. Less experimental, and more indebted to disco and dance music, The Anvil would produce two more charting singles, “Night Train” and “The Damned Don’t Cry,” though neither of them would reach the same heights of international success as “Fade to Grey.”

Music: “Night Train”

Later in the 1980s, Billy Currie and Midge Ure would become increasingly committed to their work with the re-formed Ultravox, and they left Steve Strange and Rusty Egan to continue the Visage project on their own. The two of them released one more album under the Visage name in 1984, but when that was panned, they went back to running the Blitz Club together.

In 2013, Steve Strange decided to return to making music, and revive the “Visage” name. While his untimely death in 2015 would cut this era short, Strange released one full album, and recorded enough material for a followup that it could be released posthumously. Though Strange is no longer with us, Rusty Egan has become quite keen on the idea of a Visage reunion of some sort in the past year or two, possibly involving Midge Ure, Billy Currie, and/or fellow New Romantic heartthrob Zaine Griff, who I think could fill Strange’s shoes better than just about anybody. It sounds quite promising, so we’ll have to stay tuned.

My favourite track from this album is “Tar,” which was actually released ahead of the album, in 1979, but failed to attract much notice. It was love at first listen for me, though--I love the way the chorus rises so triumphantly, only to fall back down into its screwy, glitchy synth hook. Besides that abrasive touch, the theme of the song is also a bit out there: it’s a somewhat patronizing number all about the repulsiveness of cigarette smoking. Perhaps now that fewer people are smokers, this premise will come across as less alienating than it did at the time! That’s all I’ve got for today, thanks for listening.

Outro: “Tar”

[medranochav]

my moms been living with us for 4 months now. her stay was initially tolerable but is now triggering and I find myself regressing in a lot of ways. Her grief has evolved into torment and per her m.o. she'd like for her issues to take first priority. Except, my sis and I are grown now, and as a therapised household (literally we've all been in counseling, babies included) though we still lean on each other for support, we ultimately don't function codependently.

And beeecause that's not how we grew up, I think my mother is now having to contend with the reality that she has to do the emotional work of surviving her many traumas (and currently her many dramas) on her own. We support her but we can't fix it for her.

Currently, it's a crisis a day and she's spiraling into mini catastrophic states everytime. Which was sufferable at first because despite my labored support, I still maintained my boundaries and didn't adopt her distress as my own. The problem now is the increasing frequency with which these crying spells are taking place. Not to mention the fact that she's been doing so in front of the kids; something that would normally be acceptable because my sis and I make space for feelings (even our own) in our home. The difference being, we do so responsibly. We listen, we talk, give affection and/or space but always with the fundamental knowledge that our emotions belong to us individually and only we can be accountable for them. A gentle reminder that though part of a unit, they still have agency and accountability.

This interdependency makes way for a more compassionate exchange. Whenever they see us cry or be vunerable, the kids have the wherewithal to approach us without attaching themselves to our emotional circumstance. It's an empathy that perceives our emotional reactions as relatable but still not their responsibility. I've seen our work proven time and time again.

One example is when my sister's [redacted] died and the boys spotted her crying on the couch. Without being prompted, they approached her independently, commiserated, hugged and kissed her and shortly after went back to playing on their electronics. It was such a graceful display of emotional validation that demonstrated their love for her without sacrificing their own desires in doing so. Truly remarkable, that at ages 5-8 they maintained boundaries while still being there for their mom.

They're also there for one another but it's seldom a sinking ship. And when emotional support is rejected they respect that as well, without taking it personally [tbh that has more to do with concepts of mandatory consent that we impart on them, but as is evident, it applies. #intersectionality] It's an ongoing practice that I'm proud to be a part of, considering the kids have codependent figureheads in both their maternal and paternal families. WE'RE TRYING TO BREAK CYCLES HERE.

Yes, our home is a safe space for emotional processing but always leveraged with the emotional balance of self reliance, awareness and resiliency. The kids have proven to have the capacity for this and through teaching them, so do we.

It's human to have outbursts, but my mother's pattern is proving to be less intrinsic and more deliberate. She needs an audience in order to experience catharsis. A potentially reasonable behavior except for it's her only one. So it's imbalanced and seeks refuge in the reliance of our total empathy.

Furthermore she's disingenuous in her emotional performances. When approached out of concern, she responds with the proverbial, "I'm ok." Like, its subtle but super manipulative to say that, when we can CLEARLY see she's not. The kids see and hear her, the least she could do is not gaslight them. And I'm not saying her tactics are successful but it exposes the bby's to unnecessary dysfunction and covertly teaches them to assume the responsibility of communicating her emotion for her. She's also non verbal and unpredictable and tho not at her best rn [like, literally who is? this year has wrecked us all] she and we deserve proper communication.

The mind games are soul sucking and triggering for me in a way that is not for my sister. Though we share a mother, the repective versions of her that we experienced as children differ greatly.

My sister's the eldest and spent the first couple years of her life as the only child to a very young mother living alone in America after being displaced by the civil unrest in her native El Salvador. By age 3, with the addition of a new baby sister (my moms 2nd) she was sent to a country fully at war. My sisters would spend the next half decade of their lives in sunny wartorn tropics, watched over and raised by our family of four women. A blissful antithesis to their future with our mom. Upon the return to their forgotten country of origin (USA) and severed from the only family and community they've ever known, the girls were whisked away by a mother they barely remembered and a baby brother they had never met... marking the beginning of my mom's descent into single motherhood.

My mom resented having a brood of kids, namely her 2nd and 3rd, who's father was abusive and absent. Don't know much of the facts outside of what she would ritualistically berate my siblings about during her brutal tantrums -as if it were their fault they simply existed. The second born, my other sister, left home at 12 and has been estranged ever since and the third, my brother, has recently severed bonds abruptly claiming a new life with a woman he's known barely a year yet now calls wife. Proving that despite being raised by the same woman we all had different mothers.

Since my siblings endured a childhood with a volatile, violent woman who managed her emotions thru physical abuse... when she wasn't, she was neglectful of them, turning her attention onto me... the youngest (four years removed from the rest of the pack). I bore witness to said abuse until I was 5, when it was litigiously exposed, forcing her to abandon corporal punishment and rely solely on mental/emotional abuse. That's the version of my mom I got.

I was 10 when my sister left for college. Just my brother and I remained. Similarly to each other we both lived in service to our mother. Whereas his duties were more physically laborious, mine consisted of full on emotional labor. I spent most of my childhood navigating a homelife that was so saturated and occupied by my mother's opera of a life, that there was no room for my feelings, thoughts, desires or identity. I was her plaything, a person sans agency. My age and vulnerability proved advantagous when grooming me. I learned to behave in ways satisfactory to her needs. I was made to react to (and collect) her emotional distress, endorse her judgements of others, perform well in school as a testament to her rearing, and accept her violations of me as normal. I was a shackled spectator, whose own emotions were mere reflections of her dramatizations. I was tailored to be the MOST convenient. So I kept secrets and coped alone. I knew just enough abt myself to remain human but lacked the vision to actualize it. And because emotional abuse is so insidious in its indoctrination, I was really none the wiser until I too moved away years later.

I'm almost 30 now and I'm a mess. I can't establish enduring relationships, I'm fat, I'm broke, I'm debilitatingly avoidant, socially inept, codependent, confused and lack significant self worth. I spent the past decade delving deep into undoing all the work done to me to keep me a reliable supply for my mother and coming to terms with all the time lost in doing so. I've had glimpses and proof of another life but this year sent me back to old coping mechanisms and devastatingly familiar relationships. I read that by its very nature, all pandemics have to end and I thought I was strong enough to share a definite time&space with my abuser for the foreseeable future.... but with no end in sight, I kind of really wish I had established a clearer version of myself and where I stand in this family, to her.

Similar predicaments flung us both to the south and having her here is like a screen forging images of the same dysfunction I exhibited upon my arrival 7 years ago. There's so much I wish I could tell my former self, namely, "it's not your fault. you're not alone. you don't have to try so hard and tomorrow is another day" And perhapz it's this layered vision of myself as seen thru her that compels me to want to save her, but doing so requires me to get too close to a flame I've yet to extinguish. Im not foundationally sound enough to go up in flames and rebuild afterwards, I need a few more rounds of therapy for all that. I'm a stitch away from coming apart at the seams. Weak construction, but I'm still standing. I have more life to live and can't risk the breeze of my mother's chaotic whims to topple what's taken years to forge. I love her, because she's the only mom I got and because she's the kids' only access to our motherland. How can I reconcile this version of me with this version of her?

[stutterfly]

Love Bytes 06 | Boolean Logic  | KNJ (M)

Last time on Love Bytes 05: Your friends have good intentions when eavesdropping on your first tinder date. When things don’t go exactly as you imagined, there’s comfort to be found elsewhere. A charming gesture takes your breath away and you find yourself dangerously close to crossing a line you’d never thought of before.

Rating: M (Explicit 18+)

Word Count: 12.8K

Series: Love Bytes (6/?)

Genre: F2L, fluff, humor, SLOW BURN, friendship feels, ANGST! pining, sexual tension, smut, Bestfriends!au, CollegeProjessor!Namjoon, S O F T Namjoon, did i mention slow burn??? :)

CW: anxiety, panic attacks, some negative self-talk, dirty talk, teasing, grinding, dry-humping

Pairings: Namjoon x Reader, brot7 masterlist // previous chapter // next chapter

Do not repost.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

It’s been twenty minutes since Seokjin barged into your apartment and started listing all the things you did wrong on your date. You’d be mortified if you hadn’t already dealt with Yoongi earlier in the evening, telling you much of the same. He’d already covered the basics of looking at your date and given you a touching pep talk about knowing your worth. You’d be double mortified if not for the fact that you’re slightly distracted.

Not even thirty seconds before Jin walked in, you’d willingly put Namjoon in a position to grope your tits and it’s been on a relentless loop that surfaces between every other word Jin has to say. Kim Namjoon. Dorky professor? Firewall enforcer? Clumsy bestie? Thorn in your goddamn side? It’s only consuming every bit of brainpower as you wordlessly nod along to Jin’s lecture about the importance of posture in showcasing one’s demeanor.

Namjoon has been sitting across the room with a plate of half-eaten food before him, growing more amused by the tale Jin spins of your disastrous behaviors. He’s blowing everything way out of proportion, but you can’t muster the energy to fight him on it, not when the gears are grinding so hard to form a solid reasoning behind your earlier actions. But every time your eyes gloss over and you replay the scene in your mind, your stomach forms knots that cause you to repeatedly cross your legs over one another. You’ve done it at least three times now and both men have definitely noticed so you’re consciously fighting the urge to repeat the action.

Jin attributes it to your fidgety nature, tying it back to the way you had squirmed under the scrutiny of your date. “Y/N, I don’t think you’re really getting it. I need you to pretend we’re on a date. Here. Namjoon, be the observer.”

“Gladly,” Namjoon replies, happily slurping up a mess of noodles and fixing his gaze on your reaction.

You don’t even bother wasting a glance on the man on the floor as Jin angles his body towards you. He folds a leg over his lap, plants an elbow on the back of the sofa and rests his cheek on his palm as he leans towards you. The famous panty-dropping smoulder makes an appearance and you can’t help but feel a bit flustered by the intensity he brings to the charade. Your shoulders raise like they might shield you from the attack of such a gorgeous face. “Tell me about yourself, Y/N.”

This is torture.

You drum your fingertips on your thighs and look down at them briefly before remembering your conversation with Yoongi. Nervous eyes tear themselves away from the stubble coming in on your kneecap, forcing you to focus on the piercing gaze of Seokjin.

“Well…” you begin, fully intending to let this play out, but freeze once your eyes land on his face. “Why do you look angry? I can’t talk to you when you look like that.”

“What do you mean? Do I really look angry to you?” Jin’s brow sinks even lower towards the bridge of his nose.

Stifling a giggle, you nod and smack your lips. “It’s good practice if I ever go on a date with grumpy cat. So cute, yet so grumpy.”

You boop him on the nose and he swats your hand away. “Are you going to tell me about yourself or continue to dishonor the memory of grumpy cat?”

A sigh passes your lips. “I don’t know what to say,” you finally admit with a wince. “My life is so boring. Like, what am I supposed to say? Hi, I’m Y/N. I work on people’s computers all day and answer boring emails and support calls. In my free time I like getting drunk and laughing at videos of cats falling off of things, playing video games with friends --most of which are men by the way, is that cool?-- and going for walks at sunset.” You pause and let him take that in. “Ooh, or should I be like every generic profile I’ve seen? I like going on adventures! Hanging with friends! Living my best life. I’m an old soul. Here for a good time, not a long time! EL OH EL hit me up on Snapchat.”

The animated nature of your features quickly fades as you slump against the cushions. “I mean and here I thought I was boring as fuck. But Chul comes along and actually proves to me that I can be topped. And not in the yummy dom way.”

Namjoon chokes on a piece of pork and smacks his chest a few times, successfully dislodging it from the back of his throat.

Jin curiously roams his eyes across your face, flickering back and forth between your eyes and lips. “Ah, so... you prefer to be the sub?”

A heat rises to your cheeks and you know answering is a trap, but the longer his question hangs in the air the more flustered you become. “Are-Are you kidding? Like I’m gonna be the sub. You know I have to control everything.”

Lies are easier to tell when they’re coated with a layer of truth, no matter how thin that layer may be.

“True.” Namjoon swallows, the remnants of his cough sputtering from his mouth.

Jin considers your answer for a moment and grins, flashing you his pearly whites. “So you dom then? What’s that like?”

The other man in the room dribbles water onto his shirt at the question. He’s about ready to give up on breathing altogether. Jin knows it, too. That’s what makes this game so much fun.

You drag your teeth across your lip, trying not to think about the implication that Jin is also not a dom. “So! Enough about me. Tell me about yourself, Jin.”

With that, Seokjin snaps his fingers and points at you. “Ding ding ding! We have a winner! People love to talk about themselves. If you’re out of ideas on what to talk about, ask your date something about himself based on whatever random information you have. Give him a chance to impress you. Take me, for example. I am the head chef at Heart & Seoul, where I give everyone a taste of my heart … and soul. Everyone who has ever tried my food says it reminds them of home. You should come by sometime. I’ll make a plate special for you, courtesy of the handsome god of cookery.”

You roll your eyes. “Well, that’s certainly a statement.”

“Ask me about my food!” he prods, nudging you with his elbow. “Don’t you want to know what kind of plate I’d make for you?”

“Jin, I already know your food is good. I don’t need to ask--”

“It’s Barbe-cute,” he blurts, clearly proud of himself.

“You’re so…” You try to finish the thought but start laughing as he breaks into his own windshield-wiper cackle. A defeated half sigh, half grumble follows the trail where your laughter leaves off. “I just feel like this is the worst part, you know? Trying to explain to people who I am and why I matter. It’s like, on one hand, I don’t care! This is awful! And I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. But then… on the other hand… What if they don’t like me? Like Chul? Chul made up his mind the moment he saw me in person. He didn’t like me and I don’t know that there’s anything I could do to change that. I feel so stupid! ‘Cause I’m like, bro, didn’t you see my photos? Didn’t you look at my profile? Like why you gotta be so judgy when we talked all day?”

The man on the couch next to you uses his large hands to anchor the wrists that you’ve unconsciously been waving around during your tirade. “Okay see, this is what I’m talking about. You need to slow down and stop waving your arms whenever you speak. Imagine you’re a sloth. Slooow motions.” He uses his grip to slowly push you back against the cushion. “Relax.”

You puff air out of your lips indignantly. “Jin, I can’t. I’m not wired like a sloth. I’m more of a...a...” You shake your head, unable to find the word you’re searching for.

“Hummingbird,” Namjoon chimes in quietly, rapidly flapping his fingers up and down to mock you.

Jin laughs at the comparison, pushing you back against the seat when you begin to rise. “Oh, little hummingbird. Sit. Stay.”

Your brow furrows and a pout stains your lips as you comply, rigid shoulders resting flush against the couch.

“Good girl,” Namjoon adds with a snicker.

Ignoring the excitement stirring in your belly at the words, you narrow your eyes at him and he clutches his heart. “Oh wow if looks could kill…”

You finally sigh, dragging your hands down your face. “Jin, I get it. I suck at everything.”

“Oh don’t start that,” he scowls, jabbing your knees with a bony finger. “You’re perfectly fine. You may be a mess but you’re actually a very adorable mess.”

“Fuck off.” You wriggle away from his touch, grimacing at the nod of agreement Namjoon sends your way. “Both of you.”

“I mean it.” Jin laughs between words. “You are a delight, Y/N. Just because you have things you need to work on doesn’t make that any less true. And I'm only telling you that you need to work on these things because you are my dear, dear friend. I want to see you succeed and live your best life." He cocks his head to one side and gives Namjoon a pointed look while you're distractedly glowering. "Especially if you're dating another mess of a human, maybe someone even worse than you. Someone has to have manners. You can't both be terrible at everything."

Jin's eyes snap back to your face as he becomes the focus of your deadpan stare. "Thanks for the pep talk.”

A hand clasps your shoulder and the weight of his arm drapes across the expanse of your back. He uses his grip as leverage to press you against his torso as he scoots closer to you. "Oh, it's okay. You just have to stop trying to knock your date out. Just try to focus on that one thing for your next one okay?”

“I kind of don’t want a next one,” you grumble, allowing your cheek to fall against his collarbone. “Not if it has to feel this bad after every time.”

Wisps of his hair tickle the side of your face as he shakes his head close to yours and tightens the hug. “You don’t give up! You can’t give up! Trust me when I say the next will be better!”

You hum a doubtful note against the fabric of his shirt and push him towards the opposite end of the couch. “If you say so.”

“I know so,” he replies matter-of-factly, catching the antsy circles the chopsticks in Namjoon’s hand are drawing in the noodles left on his plate.

Just like that he begins to feel guilty. There’s something going on here, and he can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s no doubt in his mind that he truly walked in on something he wishes he hadn’t. They’ve all been waiting for him to make a move and now it’s possible that he’s trying. Today was a dud but one thing is certain: it would be so sad to see him lose you to a stranger because he’s too scared to elicit change. Namjoon isn’t going to outright ask him to leave, but it’s written all over his face. Maybe it’s time to let whatever developments have obviously been happening between you two continue.

With a loud sigh and stretch, Seokjin rises from the cushions and makes his way to the door. “Well, I think I’ve made my point. I should get going though. Don’t let this experience bother you too much.”

You spring from the couch and catch the door as he opens it. “I’m fine. Really.”

He shoots you a questioning look but you pull him into a quick hug that allays most of the tension within it. Namjoon unfolds his legs and stands as you exchange goodbyes with Seokjin and usher him out of your apartment with a tired smile.

The door finally closes with a dull thud. Your shoulders deflate with the air in your lungs as you turn the heavy deadbolt. Namjoon’s palms find purchase on the precipice of your shoulders, fingers dipping softly into the crevasse made by your collarbones. You melt back into his touch, throwing your head into his chest when the pleasurable chill of the massage works its way down your spine.

“You don’t have to do that. I’m not that stressed. Really,” you weakly attempt to reason with him, silently wishing he’d never stop. A moan rumbles in your throat, making your brain go numb.

“I know,” he mumbles while continuing the controlled movements of his fingertips. “Fist of Fury sounding good?”

“Mmm, I was thinking about something with more comedy.”

“Way of the Dragon then?” he suggests, gently leading you towards the couch in a slow waddle.

“Please don’t make me watch it in English,” you groan, shuffling in time with his strides. “I don’t think I can take that dub again.”

“Fine, fine. Hold up.” He offers an amused smile as he pushes you towards the sofa as he searches for the DVD in question.

The loss of his touch leaves a chill in its wake and you instinctively pull on the fuzzy blanket scrunched into the gap between cushions. You drape it across your torso and bury your arms underneath just as Namjoon pops the DVD into the xbox below the television. He mindlessly grabs a controller, flicks the lightswitch, and shoves the nearby ottoman with his foot until it’s closing in on the sofa. You react before it can hit your shins.

As he flops onto the cushion beside you, the sensation of your legs brushing against each other has you leaning towards him with a shiver. The startup screen highlights his face as you lift the blanket, offering coverage despite feeling the heat radiating from his body. You just want to feel someone next to you. Much to your surprise, he accepts the offer and huddles in, pressing your bodies close together.

Quelling the shakiness of your exhale, you reach over to grab the controller from his lap. Instead the muscles of his thighs flex as your hand drags across them. You’re already apologizing as you jump in place, retracting your hand as quickly as possible while fumbling to look for the controller. He looks down at your hand and then back up to your face, silently pursing his lips as he drops the controller into your palm.

"Sorry," you mumble again as you navigate through the menus, not daring to peek over at his face.

"Don't worry about it," he whispers, sprawling an arm over the couch cushion behind you. His fingertips lazily tap against the contour of your shoulder, wishing that the t-shirt was smaller, thinner, something that could expose more of your skin beneath the blanket.

You fail to contain the deep inhale that causes your chest to rise and slowly breathe out the nerves constricting your lungs. As you start the movie and set the controller on the armrest, you turn your head to look at him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he parrots back at you. The warmth of his leg presses into your thigh, serving as a reminder of the wetness between yours.

“About earlier, I…” you trail off, unable to finish the statement. The needy touch-starved thoughts haven’t yet worn off and you curse your brain for letting you taint your friendship with impure thoughts of the man beside you. How could you possibly tell him that you weren’t thinking clearly before when you still want him to touch you, when your pussy clenches any time he pushes his body against you? The familiar sound of the title music fills the silence.

“Don’t worry about it,” he repeats softly. “Let’s just… watch Bruce Lee, hmm?”

His words somehow simultaneously bring you comfort and disappointment. You smile and nod, shifting your attention back to the television, though you can feel the feathery touch of his fingertips flirting with the hem of your sleeve seconds later. As you shift in your seat to relax your head against him, that same touch trails up your shoulder to brush a mess of hair from your neck before settling comfortably in the space between them. You chuckle at the old woman staring down Bruce Lee as your eyelids grow heavy. There’s no way you were even going to make it five minutes in, but you attempt it anyway.

“She lookin’ at him like a snack.” You’re relying on your thirst to keep yourself awake. “I agree.”

Namjoon snorts. “She’s looking at him like she’s gonna call the cops. Are we watching the same movie?”

“My bad. I’m self-inserting for granny,” you murmur, voice growing wearier by the syllable.

“Are you already falling asleep? We can watch it another night if you’re tired.” You can feel his eyes boring into the top of your skull as your eyelashes flutter against his chest.

“No,” you argue weakly, not bothering to lift your head to meet his gaze.

“I can feel you closing your eyes.”

“No,” you say again with a slight shake of your head that doubles as an excuse to nuzzle into the warmth of his chest.

“So if I took my phone out right now and snapped a pic, your eyes wouldn’t be closed?”

“Nope.”

“Not nice to lie,” he teases softly, smoothing the hair back from your forehead.

“Shhh, don’t talk during movies. You’re missing the part with the soups.”

He cradles your head with a scoff, resisting the urge to impart a goodnight kiss to the top of it as you obviously doze off. Your arm falls into his lap with the sound of a dull ‘pat’. Immediately his hand carefully draws yours away from the danger zone and sets it loosely over his. The gentle twitch of your digits against his palm beckon him to lace your fingers together. Butterflies wrack their way through his stomach and he soon complies, giving your hand a gentle squeeze as he does so.

Do you realize what you do to him? Probably not. Being here feels like walking a tightrope that he keeps wobbling back and forth on. But leaving would kill the adrenalin rush and leave him with nothing. He’d take the highwire any day if it meant there was a chance you could be waiting on the other side.

He’s determined to make it further into the movie, and he has every intention of nudging you awake, but not even five minutes later his eyelids droop and his neck bends back over the top cushion.

Just a few minutes. I’ll wake her up in a few minutes.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The change in volume from the end credits to the top menu of the DVD catapults you from slumber. You groan as you crane your stiff neck up towards the open-mouthed, snoring man whose warm chest you’ve been napping on. The grin creeping across your face threatens to break into a giggle, but you muzzle the sound before it can leave your throat.

The haze of sleep still clouds your mind and as your eyes travel up the dark skin that stretches up to his jaw, empty cravings for intimacy permeate the fog. Your head lolls back down and you scrunch your cheek against the base of his throat with a shaky exhale before turning towards him. You skim your lips over the muscles in his neck, shivering at the thought of pressing down. Pushing away the growing urge to suction your mouth down on his flesh, you lightly tap the side of his cheek. “Joonie.”

He groans loudly as he lifts his head off the cushion, but offers no other words of acknowledgement. Discomfort spreads across his features, brow knotting as he palms the back of his sore neck. His other hand firmly wraps itself around your knuckles, subconsciously dragging your palm across his lap as he stretches his limbs out. Heavy arms come back down and constrict you in a sleepy hug; the comfort it brings threatens to take you back into the world of slumber, but you shake off the impulse to close your eyes again.

“I’m gonna go to bed,” you announce softly against his white t-shirt, basking in the warmth of his embrace.

He peers down at you through dark, half-lidded eyes and struggles to bring a response to the forefront of his mind. You trace your fingers along the contours of his jaw, causing him to lean into your sleepy caress. Before you can register the movement, his lips graze the precipice of your forehead and your stomach lurches into a somersault at the sensation. Wait. Did he just...?

The bubble of his dream-state finally pops. Suddenly everything feels too real. His eyes widen and his heart drops, desperately wishing he could awaken from this moment panting and sweating within the confines of his bedroom. Is there a chance you’re not aware of his embarrassing mistake? He pulls back and the sharp sound of his lips smacking together awkwardly fills the room as the menu loop resets.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, abashed features straining to look anywhere else. “I’m gonna go.” He shifts uncomfortably, wriggling out from beneath your form, but your fingers reach out and curl around the solid mass of his forearm.

“Stay,” you whisper. “Please?”

You can’t fight the way your heart is pounding, desperate to feel the tickle of butterflies in your stomach at least one more time, to find your hand enveloped in his warm, comforting grasp. Deep, dark eyes settle on yours, searching for any excuse to decline such a tempting offer. When he comes up empty, you also find yourself at a loss for words and you shake your head, trying to come up with some explanation for the blurry lines you’ve been drawing all over your friendship with him.

You rationalize that it’s not crazy to find comfort in the arms of a good friend. How many times has Jennie kissed your forehead without meaning anything by it? How many times have you held hands with her and platonically snuggled up together? Is it really so different now that Namjoon is the one beside you?

Your mind flashes back to the moments leading up to Seokjin’s arrival. You were the one to guide him towards you. Your lips never touched, and you refuse to accept the fraction of your brain that screams of its disappointment. The fact that you got close enough to expose the possibility of Namjoon as a makeout partner is a thought you’re struggling to bury. That’s what makes him different. That’s what makes it difficult to let him leave.

You know it’s selfish, but there’s a shred of something that you can’t allow yourself to acknowledge. Until you fill the void of a relationship in your life, or sex at the very least, maybe this is exactly what you need. It’s harmless, really. Just a comforting snuggle buddy. It’s harmless... right? You ask yourself again, the echo of his heavy breaths fresh in your mind. The memory plays again: one hand clasps around his neck and pulls him down towards you, the other guiding him teasingly towards the lace of your bra as your noses brush against each other; it’s enough to set your cheeks on fire but not enough to retract the offer.

“Don’t leave. Please, just… Just lay with me again?” you plead quietly. Could you sound more pathetic? There’s never been a more appropriate time to wish you were built like a computer, or at least something you could flush the short term memory from, but here you are: painfully human and seeking complacency.

You keep your eyes fixed on him as you rise, his expression never falling into the expected air of pity. Shock. Confusion. Maybe even relief. But never the pity you anticipate. The television coats his features with a soft glow and your shoulders instinctively relax as his smile molds shadowed dimples along either side of his mouth. The word of affirmation that escapes him is barely audible over the sound of the tv.

The room grows dark and silent all too fast as you tap the power button on the back of the screen. Warmth radiates from his hand as it trails down your arm, finally twining itself between your fingers as he waits for you to lead the way. Of course he’s memorized the steps to your bedroom, but he’s not about to let impatience reveal the alacrity within.

It’s no trouble to navigate in the darkness and you find yourself needlessly tugging him closer. You’re quick to hide your own eagerness under the guise of fatigue, forcing a loud yawn from your mouth as you flop back into the center of the bed. He stumbles forward a bit before catching himself on the soft mattress, quietly climbing onto it as though the weight of his body will shatter its molecular structure.

Tonight the moon is blocked by the clouds in the sky, and the unusual pitch black nature of the room is a little unnerving. It’s easy to imagine shadows moving when you can’t see anything clearly. Before you can burden yourself with unnecessary anxiety, Namjoon’s palms are dipping into the mattress on either side of you, parallel to your waist. You can feel him ascending like a silent panther, closing in on his prey. Stale air hitches in your throat as he hovers above you, a delicately placed knee sinking into the space between your thighs.

The heat from his core sears shameful desire into the surface of your flesh and you attempt to close your legs. The inside of your soft thighs squeeze against the unexpected muscular mass of his, trapping him just below the wetness you’re refusing to acknowledge. It doesn’t take long for you to become keenly aware that if he leans any further up he will be wearing it and you press your legs even tighter together, despite knowing the barrier of muscle between them makes the task impossible.

Your palm reaches up to find his face, curling under his jaw to cup his chin in a playful venture to diffuse the tension in the air. It’s closer than you expect. There’s a strange relief in the realization that he can’t see the way your jaw falls open. That relief quickly dissipates when his plump lips press against the pad of your thumb, causing your sharp inhale to cut through the white noise of the fan nearby.

He laughs softly, breath hitting your skin in puffs as your fingernail scrapes against his upper lip. This position is not exactly ideal, considering the erection beginning to form in his boxers. With one leg trapped between your thighs and the other plunging into the mattress beside you, all it would take is one lazy dip of his pelvis to allow you to feel how you affect him.

“What are you doing?” You find your voice, but it sounds hoarse and foreign, and you make no effort to hide the accusation dripping from your own guilty lips.

“I…” His heart drops to his stomach. What is he doing? The more time that passes leaves the memory of you on the couch feeling increasingly surreal, like a cruel joke originating from a desperate imagination that he’s foolish enough to believe. He squeezes his eyes shut, struggling to think of something that will fix this mess. The rain pattering against the window is soothing and it tries to wash the awkwardness from the air, but it’s not enough.

Then a lightbulb goes off, and his hand is already gently bringing yours down to the mattress. His voice is even, despite the humiliation coursing through him. “I dropped your defenses.”

“You what…?” Before you can contemplate the meaning behind his words, his hand tightens around your wrist, pressing it into the soft mess of blankets beneath you with his full weight. You strain against his grip as he begins playfully jabbing at your waist with his free hand. You scrunch your hips towards your elbow as you swat fervently in the direction of his arm to no avail.

Strong, stubborn fingers poke and prod all of the sensitive spots he’d briefly had the pleasure to acquaint himself with. You do your best to keep the laughter from spilling out, but he isn’t satisfied by the restraint you’re showing. The noises he wrenched from you earlier had been so delicious and he’s desperate to pull more, so he dares to pinch his fingers at the tender crease in your skin between your thigh and hip.

You buck your hips and cry out at the sensation, the fabric of your shorts riding up just enough to grant his fingertips access to the outermost edge of your panties. His eyes roll into the back of his skull for a fraction of a second, reveling in his success. Your hand clamps down on his bicep, nails digging in hard enough to leave marks. He would be hissing and backing off if not for the delectable sound of you stammering out a slew of pleases on repeat.

Are two fingers all it takes to make you beg me? He muses, pleased with the visual he’s created for himself in the darkness. He can feel his cock poking out from the hole in his boxers, sensitive head sliding against the soft fabric of his sweatpants.

“Joonie, please! I’m gonna--” A snort escapes the back of your throat and you choke back a gross fit of giggles as his fingers twitch against the cotton fringe beneath your shorts. “It’s too much!”

Those are definitely a string of phrases he’s going to file away for later. He licks his lips before loudly smacking them, enjoying the fact that you can’t see the devilish smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “Really? ‘Cause, uh, I don’t feel a thing.”

His thumb and forefinger pinch against your flesh in that same sensitive area, ripping another uncontrollable cackle from you. Even in the darkness, it’s easy to tell that you’ve got tears in your eyes from the way you’re pleading with him. Your clammy fingers slide along the lean muscles in his bicep, tapping him repeatedly as though a referee will appear and save you from his relentless fingers. Your head falls back and you half-bury your face into a pillow to muffle the way you’re howling beneath him.

“Please, please, please,” you beg between pained wheezes, hopelessly bucking your hips up towards his. “I’ll do anything. Please. Please. Please. Please. Namjoon...”

He does his best to avoid your frenzied thrusts, dodging to the left and right to keep his now rock hard dick from touching any part of you. But the breathless way you’re pleading and panting against the pillows has him melting, daring him to grind his aching cock on your hips. His fingers slowly drag a delicate path away from the cotton he’d been trying to build the courage to do something more bold with. They trace invisible teasing lines downward and the abs hidden beneath your soft layers of flesh finally stop contracting. This time the final laugh that escapes you trails off into a breathy moan, body flaring with desire for more contact while simultaneously fatigued from twinging and fighting against his mischievous digits. Namjoon’s form lingers above you in the darkness with your crass groan refusing to leave his eardrums.

Hot breath fans the shell of your ear, his already deep voice somehow dropping an octave lower as the gravel in his throat fights the word bubbling out from it. “Anything...?”

Why does he keep doing that? It’s driving you insane. You don’t think you’ve ever heard his voice take on this tone before tonight, even in jest, and it’s making your ears ring with how hard they’re now straining to take in more of that delicious, gruff whisper. You have no choice but to hold your breath to quiet the exhale that threatens to reveal the lust coating your thoughts.

Just as you’re certain he’s about to drop his weight onto your thigh and expose the wetness soaking through your shorts, Namjoon pulls his head back with a loud contented sigh, flopping down onto the mattress beside you. Maybe he’s just giving you a taste of your own medicine. Can you blame him after all the mixed messages you’ve been sending? You’ve been filling pretty much every conversation with sexual tension lately; it makes sense that he would try to dish some back at you.

In your defense, Tinder hasn’t exactly been the fun, liberating experience you’d been promised by the app’s promotional messaging, and your frustrations are starting to become palpable. Even your vibrator can’t keep up with the rollercoaster highs of your sex drive right now. Poor Joon is just caught in the middle of a very, very bad drought and you’ll be damned if you let your friendship become a casualty of your desire for a little rain.

Coward. The thought reverberates against his skull hard enough to make him shake his head as he props himself up on one elbow.

“Help me hook my laptop to my TV so I can watch movies on the big screen,” he says, cutting through the self-loathing. Knowing you’re glaring at him in the dark, he pauses. “What? You said anything.”

“Just get a Firestick. They make those things specifically for people like you. I don’t need your incompetent ass calling me every time you can’t get it working.”

“You always gotta be rude about everything?” he tuts. “Besides, Firestick ain’t gonna help with what I want to do.”

The conversation allows you to forget the shame dripping out of you and you flip onto your side to more comfortably counter his point. “You can get every YouTube video on the planet on that thing. Not to mention Hulu, Netflix, PrimeVideo… Like, you can get anything you want to watch at the push of a few buttons. Well, everything except…” you trail off, the gears in your head spinning fast enough to come undone.

He swallows, knowing you’re about to call him out. “I don’t need a Firestick,” he reiterates.

Your cheeks flush. Porn. Of course it’s porn. Just another thought you don’t need floating around your head: Namjoon jerkin’ it to whatever weird shit he’s into. Honestly, you’re almost afraid to touch the laptop with how much he’s probably used it for that specific purpose.

“Of course not.” You sigh as your palm pushes him back against the bed, eager to just forget the night and feel the same way you did last week. “You’re gross.”

He huffs at the accusation, even though he admits to himself you’re completely right and doesn’t audibly argue the point. He also doesn’t fight the way you force him down, resting his head against a soft pillow as the weight of yours comes down onto his chest. Instinctually, his arm reaches around you, pulling you closer with his fingers tented against the small of your back. You shiver into his t-shirt, briefly catching the scent of his deodorant before closing your eyes.

“So, that’s a no then?” he asks dejectedly, voice rumbling up through the ear you’ve got pressed to his chest.

You chuckle into him as you nuzzle your face back and forth a few times, reveling in the way it feels to be in such a comfortable position with another person, even if it is Namjoon. “I guess I can do it since you’re indulging me right now... I won’t tell if you don’t?”

His fingertips move down your back to idly play with the band of your shorts, tracing lazy lines across them. You tense, taking all the self control you currently possess to stop from grinding your hips into his thigh.

He hums in response, finally resting his hand respectfully above the fabric of the t-shirt at your waist. “Okay,” he whispers.

You lay together in silence, listening to the increased assault of raindrops at your window. Normally with the fan going like this you’d be feeling chilly and be rushing to pull a blanket over you, but with the heat coming off of him in waves, you’re feeling rather warm, almost sweaty. It feels like the breath in your lungs isn’t enough and you take in a few deep, noticeable inhales and exhales. Your heart is pounding like you just ran some kind of incredible marathon.

“Y/N… You ok?” Even sleepy, you can still hear the concern dripping from his tone.

You take in a couple more hungry breaths. It almost feels like a panic attack sneaking up on you. But why now? You’re not even doing anything worth freaking out about. Is it the stress of the day? Is it the embarrassment?

“Yeah… Just...anxiety...” you manage to pant out weakly, your chest heaving frantically for more air. “I’m sorry."

He fishes for your hand in the darkness, turning his face down towards the top of your head to plant a small, innocent kiss there. “Shhh, shhh, I got you. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I’m sorry,” you say again, trembling fingers gripping his with a sense of urgency, like at a moment’s notice he’ll melt away and you’ll be left alone. “Don’t leave, okay?”

He twines his steady fingers between yours. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. You’re okay. Try to breathe deeply. I’ll be right here.” He starts to inhale loudly, causing your head to rise with each deep fill of his lungs, and fall with his audible exhales.

Over the course of a few minutes, your breathing aligns with his, and you’re even holding at the same moments to help your body relax. When you seem stable, he wants to say something comforting, but simply gives your hand a gentle squeeze once he recognizes the soft snore leaving your mouth.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

“Joonie, did you clean your apartment before I came over?” you’re eyeing the spotless nature of his abode suspiciously. “Since when do you not throw your shirts wherever?”

He smiles, pleased with himself as he folds his arms and crosses the room before sinking into the couch. “Since you always complain about it.”

You stare him down incredulously. “It’s just… I’m shocked. It’s so unlike you.”

“What?” He scoffs. “Are you seriously gonna complain now that my place is clean?”

“Hmph. Where’s your laptop?” you question,

He pulls it from the folds in the couch cushion sheepishly. “Hold up.” He’s opening it and typing in the password as you flop down next to him.

“If you seriously left porn on here knowing I was coming over to do this, that’s on you. Gimme. I wanna see what fucked up shit Professor Kim gets off to.”

He tries to cover the screen, but you can still see the raunchy frozen frame beneath his splayed fingers. Your eyebrows raise, taking in the sight of a nude woman’s body straddling a well-endowed man on a black leather couch. It’s tough to push back the smile fighting through your pursed lips. “Couch cowgirl, huh?”

“You know…” He fumbles to close the tab and thrusts the computer into your lap, clearly embarrassed at the thought of you seeing any of that. “I don’t stand over your shoulder judging your porn choices.”

You shake your head and scoff. “What makes you so sure I watch porn?”

“I know you,” he groans, rolling his eyes.

“I’m sorry!” You laugh, beginning to navigate to the display settings. “I’m not judging. It’s just a little more tame than I was expecting.”

“You’re judging,” he declares finitely. “And what the hell are you expecting anyway? What kind of fucked up shit are you into, hmm?”

Your face flushes and you stop typing. He laughs. “See? Just that reaction there tells me you’re one hundred times worse than me. You’re just better at hiding your search history.”

You swallow hard and snap the laptop shut. “Joon, you knew I was coming over to do this today. You had all night to clear out your embarrassing stuff. It’s not my fault you’re a dumbass.”

He starts to quietly interject. “Actually, my IQ is--”

“I don’t care what your IQ is. You’re not goading me into telling you my porn preferences. I’m just here to help you get your laptop hooked up.”

“Is that why you’ve closed it?” he asks with a smirk.

You blink at him a few times. “N-No.”

He laughs again and you can feel your face burning, knowing that he’s pridefully drinking in the sight of your mistake. “Don’t worry. You don’t need to say a thing.” He leans in, closer than you expect and begins speaking in a low, gravelly whisper that freezes you in place. “I already know what you like.”

You do your best to keep your breathing steady, but it quickly turns into a sputtering mess when he cups your chin and trails his index finger down your neck, stopping just above your breast bone. With no effort at all, he guides you down with the press of his finger until you’re laying flat on your back. He steadies himself over you with a strong arm that sinks into the cushion beside your face, effectively boxing you in as he descends.

“You like it when I take control,” he announces, an unfamiliar confidence in his husky tone. “Don’t you?”

At this point, you know your jaw is trembling as it hangs stupidly open. Every word you can think of dies on your tongue as his free hand draws a line beneath your t-shirt, up your belly and teases the lace trim around one of your breasts. You shiver as he drags his fingertips back and forth in the valley between your tits, growing more and more desperate for him to reach beneath one of the cups and take you into his hand. Chest heaving, you turn your gaze away, hoping he will spare you the embarrassment of looking into his eyes with the hunger in yours.

“Yes,” you whisper weakly, knowing he’s got you. If Jimin has been teaching him how to play Chicken, he has taken it to the next level and it’s gone past the point where you think you’re able to willfully extricate yourself from the situation.

His hand shoots up from beneath your shirt to clasp your jaw, forcing your face back into position. “Look at me when you answer.“

You let a tiny moan slip at the rough contact and your eyelids flutter for a moment before meeting his gaze. His eyes are dark and eager, pupils blown out to the size of dinner plates, perfectly set to devour you. You need it now. You need him now.

“Yes…” you whimper. His hand drops like lightning down beneath your bra, molding as much of your tit as his strong grip can manage.

“Fuck yes,” you breathe, clasping your arms around his neck and desperately bringing him down to meet your lips.

He moans into your mouth as he comes crashing down, greedily sucking the air from your lungs with every last taste he imparts. The hand that had been supporting his weight tangles itself in your hair as you buck your hips up into him, thirsty for more of whatever he’ll give you. The rocking passage of your hips causes him to mirror the motion, grinding his thigh deliciously up against your clit. You mouth falls open with the need to take in air at the sudden friction in your jeans. He uses the opportunity to slip his himself past the barrier of your teeth and deep into your mouth, gliding his tongue across the surface of your own.

While this has never been a thought that’s crossed your mind in the past, you can’t imagine not knowing his taste. And yet when you try to describe it and pin down his delectable nature, it slips away. Your lips crash harder around his, hopelessly searching for the moment that your thirst will be quenched and never finding it. You want him more than you ever thought possible, in any way possible. It’s like he’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time, flooding all of your senses with a ravenous need that refuses to fade, even as you drink him in again and again.

As he pinches a pebbled nipple between his fingers, you whine through a gasp and fight to bite at his bottom lip, sucking it through your teeth. You hold him in place long enough for him to prop himself up on the couch and move back. Like hell if you were going to let him have all the power.

“Please,” he groans through gritted teeth, sounding incredibly vulnerable. It’s like music to your ears. You drag your teeth over his lip slowly one last time before letting it snap back to him.

With an ease you’re not used to, you’re able to push him back and sit up, carefully untangling your legs and rising from the couch. He’s about to pull you back towards him when you point to the middle of the couch. “Sit there.”

His adam’s apple bobs a few times, dark hunger never leaving the spark in his eyes as he positions himself as instructed. Clasping the outside of his knees, you force them closer together as you straddle his lap. With your legs spread like this, you can smell how wet and ready your pussy is, so you know damn well that he can too. You should be embarrassed and hiding your face in shame. You should be, but you’re not.

Your fingers knot themselves in his hair as you slowly roll your hips across his lap. Your voice is low and husky, filled with messy impatience. You’re ready to fall apart at his hands if he’d let you, but first you want him to know how it feels. “Is this how you like it, Namjoon? Is this what you want?”

A sharp inhale gives you your answer, but you continue to roll your hips just above his lap, hoping to elicit an erection. He groans as he buries his face into your neck, sliding his hot tongue over a particularly sensitive area and latching himself on. You realize you’re going to buckle quickly under the ecstasy you’re not used to feeling. Feeling reckless and bold, you reach down into his sweatpants, grasping for the cock you know has to be rock solid at this point.

Your hand clumsily slides against the gray band at his waist, unable to even clutch the drawstrings in your haste. The harder you try, the more your fingers seem to tangle in them. Soon you find yourself trapped, unable to move your hands away from the gray material they’ve become encased within. Using the brunt of your shoulder, you force Namjoon off your neck and much to your horror the laughter spilling out of him becomes squeaky like a windshield wiper.

“Wooow!” Jin’s disappointed voice has you breaking out in a cold sweat, frozen as you take in the broad shoulders dressed in Namjoon’s clothes before you. “Are my eyes deceitful like you? How many times have I asked if you had feelings for him? And now I catch you like this? What do you mean, none? I’m sure I asked at least once!”

As you shake the hair from your eyes and try to break free, the horror intensifies as the man before you morphs into a giggling Hoseok.

“Tsk-tsk-tsk. Dirty girl,” he chides, bringing his arms around your neck. “How long has it been? Have you forgotten how? I can help you remember if you want.”

You shut your eyes, trying to wish the temptuous voice away, but when you open them it’s now Jungkook staring at you, cackling. “Showing him your tits wasn’t enough, noona? You want him to touch you too?”

He tuts as he leans forward, and you begin to slide from his lap, which seems to be growing larger and steeper by the second. You’re desperately trying to get your hands free so you don’t fall, but it’s no use; you can feel yourself slipping away.

“Oh, are you stuck?” His obnoxious guffaw echoes into the darkness encroaching the apartment. “Well, since I’m a nice guy, let me help you with that. I’m really good with straps.”

He stands and you feel yourself fall, but he catches you by your bound hands, causing your elbows to knock against your head. You feel about 2 feet tall in his clutches as he suspends you in the air with one hand. The other starts pulling on the tangle of gray drawstrings, causing your body to twist in his grasp. With a sharp tug, he has you completely unraveling in a dizzy haze. You clamp your eyes shut again to avoid the vertigo jeopardizing the stability of your stomach contents.

You hang in Jungkook’s grasp, his cackle reverberating through your skull as you feel a gentle breeze caressing your body. As you open your eyes and look down, you realize you’re completely naked, and as you fight against his hold, your body spins. You’re face to face with Taehyung, his eyes cold and calculating as they roam across your body, searching for imperfections. He cocks his head to the side, wearing an expression of granite as his eyes slowly, painfully ascend your exposed flesh.

He blinks at you a few times before breaking into a boxy smile. “Wow. I’m glad we kept your clothes on.”

As you recover from the sting of his words, you fight against Jungkook’s grasp and attempt to swipe at Taehyung’s gorgeous face. As he leans back, his visage morphs into Yoongi, who stands there looking perplexed by your current predicament.

“Hobi’s right. You are easy, aren’t you?” He quirks an eyebrow and turns away, his form evaporating into the darkness.

Again you fight against the man holding you in place. This time you fall, but you land softly against a couch cushion with the cheshire grin of Jimin looming over you.

“Oh, Y/N… You went home with Namjoon-hyung, hmm? I thought you liked me?” His smile quickly falls into a rare scowl, all traces of mirth absent in his stone gaze. The jealous venom biting in his tone causes you to wince. “It’s fine. I have better options.”

“I know,” you whisper, closing your eyes and allowing the tears to fall, attempting to descend further into the cushion.

Your body congeals into the cushion, slowly melting through it and sending you hurling into the darkness. Your knees hit a hard surface with a loud crack, but it doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts like the words in your head. You know they’re right.

A spotlight appears over you, drawing attention to your lack of clothing and you clutch your knees to your chest to cover yourself as best you can. As you look around for an exit, you notice a mirror running along the wall behind you, taller than you can even fathom. Quick to disregard the sight of yourself, you turn around and there’s another one waiting ahead of you. Glancing around the room again yields dozens and dozens of mirrors in every direction. There’s nowhere you can even pretend to hide.

So you stand, tears stinging your eyes from the heartbreak of the truths you keep telling yourself. You shuffle over to the nearest mirror, feeling like your feet are sinking into sand and unable to fully rise with each step. Your reflection stares back at you: tired, cold, tear-stricken. You exhale and shove at the glass, unhappy with the person you see staring back at you. Instead of shattering or at least cracking like you expect, the glass bends in and bounces back, forcefully sending you into the mirror behind you. Your back lands against the hard surface and you slide down, allowing yourself to just sit and cry.

As you hug your knees close to your chest again, a fuzzy warmth envelops you. Clutching at the soft blanket that covers your body, you look up to see Namjoon’s dimpled smile starting back at you. He lowers himself to his knees and embraces you from behind, arms cradling you, lulling you into a place of comfort. It’s only when you stare ahead again that you can see the smile now gracing your own features.

He always finds a way to help, doesn’t he? With a contented sigh, you turn your body to gently bring your lips to meet his. The warmth of his body floods yours once more.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

You awaken to your lips pressed against something hard. Your eyelids flutter a few times and you can just barely make out the shape of Namjoon’s arm pressing into your cheek. You must have rolled away from him in your sleep. Thank God. The sweat that trickles down your neck somehow runs cold and you shiver, tugging at the blanket covering your shoulders that was definitely not there when you closed your eyes. With a few deep breaths, you attempt to calm your heartbeat. You’re in your room. None of that was real. You’re safe.

Gently wiping your saliva from his forearm, you carefully shift your weight and turn your body to face him. Thankfully, he appears to still be sleeping, half tucked beneath the same blanket. What do you know? Even the human heater must get chilly sometimes.

Your heart still pounds wildly against your ribcage; it’s so loud that you’re almost afraid the sound will rouse him from slumber, but he lays peacefully beside you. There’s a hint of moonlight breaking through the clouds, and it casts just enough light to illustrate how angelic his features look while reposed. With the dream still fresh in your mind, you feel the need to reach out and make sure this is real. 

Your hand gently glides through his hair before cupping his cheek and stroking it with your thumb. You catch yourself wondering how you might explain the action, should he awaken at this moment. For now, all that matters is the tranquility the subtle movement provides; it coaxes you into security. As your heartbeat calms, you rest your head on his chest. There’s a dull thumping that you can feel beneath your palm and you swear time stills as you lose yourself in its soothing cadence. 

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Sunshine can’t seem to clear the clouds enough to illuminate the room. It still feels like it could be too early to rise, but the sound of birds chirping over the soft patter of rain lets you know that it’s later than you might believe. You blink a few times, irritated that you’re rising at all on a Saturday morning when you could be sleeping the day away. It’s not like you have anything planned. As you stretch your spine straight up, a pair of lean, muscular arms constrict your chest and waist, lazily pulling you back into a prime spooning position. 

You lightly massage the pair of forearms pinning you in place with oblivious fingertips. That’s right. Joonie’s still here.

He’s careful to keep your form from his pelvis, knowing that it wouldn’t take much for you to feel the stiff bulge tucked into the band of his sweatpants. Whatever alternate dimension he’d stumbled into last night had given plenty of fuel for his fantasies: your moans, your touch, and kiss you had nearly shared. 

But with the gray fragments of daybreak twinkling through the blinds, reality has to kick in at some point. He knows there’s no way you would pass up the opportunity to make fun of him should you feel even the tip at your back. Now’s not the time to tempt the luck of the universe, not when he has you like this.

You do your best to ignore the blush creeping across your cheeks as you settle in, lacing your fingers with a firm squeeze to his. He lifts his head and sleepily sets it in the crook of your neck, hot breath fanning the surface of your skin and giving you new chills with each exhale. "Morning, Geeksquad."

You hum in response, leaning back into the sensation. He breathes deeply, taking in the subtle mingling scents that linger on your form: the hint of lilac conditioner in your hair, the traces of moisturizer on your skin, the remnants of perfume spritzed some time ago, and the fragrance he can’t place as anything other than “you.” He could stay here for hours just breathing you in, trying to figure it out, but any description would fall short of capturing its perfection.

The tickle of his breath at your neck causes to you shake your head against the pillow a few times, attempting to hide the smile curling the corners of your mouth. You’re content with the scene staying as it is and you’re almost relaxed enough to drift back to sleep when the ceiling above you allows the first long creak to break through the quiet of your bedroom. Then another. And another. Soon there’s a steady familiar squeaking of the bed frame in the apartment above. An awkward silence falls between you both, but quickly fills with a rhythmic squeaking.

It was too much to hope that the noisy neighbors could put off their sexcapades until you weren’t in a compromising position with a friend. You side-eye the light fixture above you as it rattles in time with the sound of the headboard now hitting the wall. You know from experience that the noises will dull in time, but it doesn’t make right now any better.

Just as you’re about to say something, there’s a slew of loud “yes”es that cut through the room. Not daring to look back at Namjoon now, you scrunch your face into a grimace and silently pray for the bed to fall through the ceiling and crush you. Neither of you are willing to say anything, either embarrassed or enthralled by the lewd visions plaguing you as a result of the sounds above.

While you can't recall the most recent dream to grace your subconscious, an encore of the previous one pervades your thoughts. The image of Namjoon feeling you up as you make out like a couple of horny teenagers has you squeezing your thighs together and tensing your body against him. 

Desire charts a course from your brain straight down to your pussy, the noises descending from the ceiling only serving to heighten the fantasy. The thought of him cupping your tits and pulling you back into his chest creeps into your mind with every second you spend tucked beneath his arms.

You bite your lip and stretch again, this time purposefully nudging your ass into him with a forced yawn. Even through a heavy knit layer of cotton, you feel the hard shape that butts up against you. A soft, sleepy groan croaks out from the base of his throat, which only allows the perverse reverie to further take over. 

Dropping his forehead against you, a heavy, tight-lipped grumble sends vibrations up your neck. This, combined with the creaking bed frame and muffled moans from above, sends a hot, prickly wave of adrenaline surging through you. A restrained puff of air forces its way through his nostrils as his nose sweeps against the sensitive spot at the base of your neck.

Your pussy clenches at the sound of his weakness, like the gravitational pull of your soaking cunt can draw in his cock if those muscles deep inside can contract hard enough. You're hyper aware of the way your shorts are riding up, removing that extra barrier between you both, but you're too worked up at this point to care. 

You reach back, wordlessly carding your fingers through his hair. The action elicits another faint moan into the flesh of your neck, sending the high of your adrenalin to new heights. Silent, jagged breaths wrack the outline of your chest as he tightens his arm's hold on your waist. 

He makes a fist to keep himself from grabbing your hips, knuckles trembling against your belly and clearly struggling to keep things PG. But you're not having it, not after the dreams that have plagued you and the filthy things running through your mind. Hoping to lure another lewd sound from him, you wiggle your hips and shimmy your shoulders to provide the cover that perhaps you're trying to get comfortable. His fist opens and desperate fingers sink into the flesh beneath your t-shirt.

It's not a request, but a harsh demand in the form of a whisper against the shell of your ear that leaves you absolutely quaking beneath him. "You don't want to keep doing that."

The subdued whimper crawling up your throat nearly dies behind pursed lips before transforming into a pleased hum. Your hips seem to have a mind of their own, rising to challenge what may or may not be a bluff, and slowly grind back into the erection firmly planted at your backside. You're too enticed by the possibility of a gratifying answer to stop the word falling from your mouth. "Why?"

That definitely came out brattier than intended. A swarm of angry butterflies pump their way through your system. Their fluttering clogs the path to your brain that tends to lean towards subtlety. Dull fingernails dig into the skin at your hip and shoulder tight enough to leave marks. His hips thrust forward for the first time, slowly dragging the mass of his cock up your ass and then back down in delicious, languid strokes.

You hold back the moan building in your throat and a sharp sigh chokes its way past your lips instead. The subsequent needy, ragged inhales fill the space around you. Your back arches while your hips remain in place, causing your chest to rise as you knot your fingers in his hair. When you throw your head back and close your eyes, he bites his lip to quell the urge to pepper kisses along your exposed neck. His restraint is admirable, but the toll it takes on him is palpable at this point.

“I think you know why,” he accuses in a low whisper, dropping his forehead against you again and halting the stroke of his hips.

“I won’t tell… if you don’t,” you promise, your chest about ready to cave in on itself from the amount of pressure his arm is now squeezing into it.

Feeling brave, you offer one more subtle roll of your hips, tempting him to follow the provocative pattern. Now he’s the one who tenses. He’s still, holding his breath for just a moment in disbelief as the dull sound of the lovers above cut through the air. Then you feel the sliding of his palm across your abdomen and a greedy exhale at your ear. Fingers dig into your flesh, holding you in place as he answers your unspoken question with gentle rock of his hips. You respond with hungry need, clasping your hands over both of his as the rhythm of your bodies begin to sync.

He lets you lead the campaign to your mutual destruction. If this is hell then he’s happy to be the fiery tide at the back of a devil disguised as a moon goddess. His hips ebb and flow against whatever pace you set as you listen to the lovers upstairs and soon you find yourself wishing for more. You feel as though at any given moment his cock is going to spring free and rub against the meat of your ass-- and you're ashamed to admit that you couldn't be more turned on by the thought. 

His fingers start to tease the band of your shorts as he rocks himself against your ass, savoring the way you’re panting. He slows his pace without realizing as he drifts into his own fucked-out daydream. It becomes clear you’re at his mercy when you whimper his name at his unintentionally lazy thrusts. The tides have turned.

You’re definitely about to say something you might regret --as if you didn’t have enough of that going on already. Your dripping cunt urges you to beg, to plead with him to go farther. You’ll set up as much porn on his TV as he wants. But right now, you want to be touched so badly you feel like you’re going to explode. “Please.”

What he wouldn’t give to hear you say that again. He hooks a finger beneath the fabric at your waist and dips his tongue out to wet his lips, which deliberately skims your neck. This time you moan and he finds himself echoing the sentiment as he decides he’s going to take his time with you and pull out as many “please”s as you’ll give him. 

You jump when your cellphone’s ringtone cuts through the room. He holds back the sob building in his throat, leaving only choked air in its wake. It’s suddenly clear to you that the only other sounds in the room are both of your labored breaths. You strain to reach out towards the nightstand and Namjoon’s arms reluctantly give way to your movement. He immediately rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling in disbelief as you fumble to swipe at the screen.

“Why do you do this to me?” he whispers to himself, and rolls away from you to contemplate the meaning of life.

“H-Hello?”

“What uuuuup, bitch." Jennie’s voice is loud and carries through the receiver even though the volume isn’t at its highest setting. 

You wince, trying to shake the lingering nerves from your voice. “Heeeeey, Jennie.” You stumble through a few incoherent syllables. “A-Are you back?”

“You sound guilty. What are you doing?”

“I wasn’t doing anything, Jennie,” you scoff.

“Doesn’t sound like it. Oh, did you go have a rebound bang after that shitty date yesterday?” she asks excitedly.

“What? No! I was just minding my own business. Relaxing.” You swallow, sparing a glance at Namjoon. “Alone.” 

He raises his eyebrows at you and your roll your eyes, mouthing the word ‘what.’

“Okay, okay! I got it. I don’t need to hear about how great your vibrator is again. I get actual sex from actual real people, Y/N.”

Your mouth falls open and you cringe at her statement, tearing your eyes off of Namjoon’s giggling form. He folds his arm over his face to hide his laughter, but from the corner of your eye you can still see his body convulsing.

“You know what!” You shriek, rising from the bed and scurrying out of the room as fast as possible. “I don’t need this. Is there a reason you called?”

“Obviously you don’t check your email. I’m on my way back but Taehyung stopped by and asked me to retouch those photos he took.”

“Taehyung drove all the way there to ask you that?”

“He was apparently out this way for a gallery or something. I don’t know. He stopped by with a flash drive and asked me to work my magic aaaand ta-daaa. Well. Open your email. It works better if you can actually see what I’m ta-daing about.”

You swallow, putting her on speaker as you open the mail icon on your phone. Sure enough, there’s an email from Jennie with several attachments. Your eyes skim along the text in the body of the email and settle on the photos below. Holy shit.

“Well? What do you think? Pretty good right? I mean I haven’t touched them all but Tae and I picked out what we thought were the best of the best for your profile. He liked the artsier looking ones, but I said hey man, sex sells. And it does, Y/N. So sell that shit. Put em up, get some matches! Oh and don’t worry I didn’t use any liquify shit to make you look thinner or anything. I just focused on accentuating your natural beauty and fixing the lighting with some adjustments to levels and curves, maybe a few color balance filters. Honestly though, Tae knows what he’s doing with a camera and I didn’t have to do much for most of them. Some cropping and smoothing out wrinkles in the backdrop to make it look more like a real beach. Adding some plants in places for dimension.”

You stand there staring at the photos, quietly taking in just how gorgeous the pair have made you look in each one. “Honestly they look so good. But this is so much work for my stupid profile,” you mumble as you scroll through, admiring the images that you still can’t believe are you.

“Y/N, sweetie. I love you. You’re a catch and I can’t wait to see you find the person who will appreciate and love you even half as much as I do. But you need to get laid. Badly. Right now you’d probably fuck anything that moves. I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me you banged that meathead Jungkook. Even though we both know he’s a fuckboy. Totally pump-and-dump type. One hundred percent not boyfriend material. Not even worth the trouble of a fuck, honestly. But you know we on about those arms… I’m pretty sure he’s the only person we know that could actually do your fantasy of being fucked against a wall and, like, not even be tired from holding you up...” she trails off, lost in her own thoughts. 

The words don’t embarrass you, even if Namjoon can hear them; you’re too distracted to find yourself even remotely fazed. You’re too lost in the work they’ve presented here, too shocked to say much of anything because of how excellent a job they’ve done. Can this really be you? Is this what you look like on a good day?

Namjoon listens in, taking this opportunity to inspect his own arms. He flexes the scrawny muscle in his bicep, trying to will it to grow bigger with a glare. His head snaps up. Your fantasy. She said ‘your fantasy.’ Is that really what you like? 

He looks back down at his muscles, entertaining the possibility of such a scenario. It seems challenging, but not impossible, considering he’d half-carried you up three flights of stairs not too long ago. Then again, that’s a little different than holding someone up while thrusting into them and not giving a sloppy performance. What a fucking thought. Restraining the urge to palm himself over his sweats, he brings a curled finger to his lips in contemplation while eavesdropping on the rest of the conversation you don’t seem interested in hiding.

“And because you fucking suck at selling yourself, this is the easiest way to you get there. You get the sex out of your system and then you find mister right --or misses right; I don’t judge!”

You sigh, knowing she’s the one with experience. Jennie has a new prospect every week, but she knows how to utilize others’ infatuation to her advantage, get what she wants, and discard them as she sees fit. And she does it so effortlessly that you can’t help but envy her. She would know better than you could ever hope to.

“Thank you, Jennie. Really. I-I’m so grateful. Just… thank you. I’ll put these up and see if I get any hits.”

“Don’t get sappy on me, Y/N. It’s no big deal. Dudes are gonna be lining up to get in that pussy, babe. Don’t even worry ‘bout it, ‘kay? Love you bitch.”

“Love you…” The call ends and you wander thoughtlessly back into the bedroom.

Namjoon’s shit eating grin says everything that he doesn’t, but you settle into bed beside him and choose to ignore the look he’s giving you in favor of scrolling through the images again, completely disregarding the way you two were previously dry-humping to the sounds of your neighbors going at it. Namjoon’s frustrated sigh lets you know he hasn’t forgotten.

“Apparently Taehyung and Jennie worked on these together,” you say, pulling up the first one to show him. “Do you…” You hesitate, suddenly feeling shy and you nervously on your earlobe. “Do you think this is okay? Like am I lying to people if I put these up? I feel like they’re too good. I feel like they’ll expect this all the time and I don’t think that’s really fair.”

Namjoon’s eyes soften as he takes the phone from your palm. He licks his lips as he scans the details in the photo: the curve of your smile, the sweetness in your eyes, the way your head coyly rests upon your shoulder. You’re beautiful, as always. Makeup doesn’t really change that. But your smile radiates positivity and light in this particular instance; you’re practically glowing.

You twiddle your fingers together as you wait for the verdict, unable to read his stoic expression. “Well?”

His eyes roam from your face down to the photo a few times and he cracks a smile. “I think you need to stop worrying. I don’t see a difference.”

Your eyebrows furrow. “Don’t you think I look too… good there?”

He mirrors your confused expression. “I think you look as good as you always do.” He catches himself when your confusion turns into bashfulness. “You know, for a nerd.”

You scoff and roll your eyes at the short lived compliment before propping your head up on his chest. Your finger pokes the screen, swiping across the images one by one and taking some time to review them with him. Not a single insult passes his lips. There’s nothing but praise spilling from him, finding something unique and genuine to compliment you on with each photo. He must sense your insecurity because he pauses each time and reminds you that he’s not being paid to say nice things. You silently thank him for at least trying to build you up. Surprisingly, it helps.

“I guess I’m using them then,” you sigh in defeat, rolling away from him as you take the phone back. You’re already downloading the photos so you can set them to your profile.

Namjoon rises at the opportunity, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach at the thought of you actually finding someone. Because Jennie is right. With photos that actually do your beauty justice, people will be flocking to you in droves. It seems too real now that you’re eagerly putting them on there. “Tinder won’t know what hit ‘em,” he says dejectedly. 

You’re too distracted to properly catch the disappointment in his tone. “I hope so.”

“Hey... I’m gonna go, Geeksquad. I just remembered I made plans with some of the guys and I want to make sure I run all my errands ahead of time.”

You hum a note of approval and almost miss the way his face twists in anxiety because as you look up, he transforms his stress into a soft smile. Still, you see just enough to know you’re being a rude bitch right now and it’s bothering him.

“I’m sorry.” You drop the phone and cross the room, pulling him into a tight embrace. “Thank you for staying with me, Joonie. I… really appreciate you. I’m a mess and you always take care of me. So thank you. For real.”

“I know, Geeksquad.” He strokes your head a couple times before taking a few steps back. It hurts too much to say what’s on his mind. 

“And, um… before Jennie called I…” You lock eyes and you mouth the words you wish to say, but they don’t come as you want them to, “just got caught in the moment. I’m sorry.”

He blinks at you a few times before vigorously nodding. “Yeah.” He clears his throat after hearing the crack in his own voice, bringing it a few octaves deeper to protect his ego. “Yeah, uh, me too. Don’t even worry about it, okay? I’ll, uh, I’ll text you when I know what we’re doing.”

You nod enthusiastically, a grin spreading across your face. “Okay!”

With that, he disappears and you hear the unlocking of your door and the soft click when it closes behind him. Picking your phone up from the bed, you struggle with setting the order of the photos. You save and resave different combinations for about 10 minutes until a notification blocks your screen. You’ve got a match.

[getengage]

How to Attract Customers in Retail Stores During COVID-19?

COVID-19 has shown retailers that their past strategies for footfall increase are no longer effective. To offset in-store traffic loss due to COVID-19, retailers need innovative solutions.

This blog is written to help retailers navigate the difficulties of COVID-19 with seven working ideas to increase footfall to your retail store.

But before that, let's understand what is footfall in retail marketing.

What is footfall in retail marketing?‍

Footfall meaning: Number of people who enter a store or venue in an hour. Also, footfall means the number of customers you get to your retail outlet per hour, week, and month on average.

Knowing the footfall to your retail store can help you decide how many products you need to stock, which days of the week are best for promotions, and what type of promotional offers work well.

What Is A Retail Store And What Is Retail Marketing?

A retail store sells goods and services to the end-users, called customers. And retail marketing is the process of promoting awareness and interest in retail goods and services to generate sales from potential customers.

Let's now look into the seven ideas to increase footfall to your brick-and-mortar retail store.

Join our  newsletter and get more of these resources straight to your inbox!

NAME *EMAIL *Subscribe

‍How to increase footfall in retail during COVID-19?

The pandemic has drastically impacted customer behavior. People prefer shopping online to brick-and-mortar purchases, and consumers are limiting their spending on a range of items - investing only in essentials is the norm now (McKinsey).

What's more, customer loyalty is plunging awfully. If retailers do not have a come-back strategy, it's going to be hard to stay on top of the game. On top of that, to pull off a rulebook on how to increase footfall in retail during COVID-19 is no easy feat.

That is why I have compiled seven ideas to increase footfall to your store. Read on and be enlightened!

1.Abide by COVID-19 protocols for footfall increase

As a preliminary step, be well-informed of the COVID-19 protocols. Don't implement this merely under the government norms, instead take extra measures to show customers that you care!

Most importantly though: adhere to these guidelines religiously and never forget customer health is your top priority. Endorse contactless service at all possible points so as not to let any opportunity slip by.

And here are other things you’d want to implement in your brick-and-mortar store for footfall increase.

Have an automated entrance

Deploy hygiene counters

Fix thermal sensors in the entrance

Have an isolation space for those showing symptoms of the coronavirus

Lay an inner pathway that customers could use in your shop

Fix sneeze guards in the checkout counters

Ensure to have ventilation systems

Do give your customers the ease of a comfort room

2. Run in-store promotions to boost store traffic

Wondering how to attract customers to your store?

Well, discounts are a perfect way to attract new customers and retain existing ones. When you want to increase customer traffic in a brick-and-mortar store, give customers an offer that only works inside the store.

For example, Target's program, Cartwheel offers 5% to 50%, off specific items when customers shop in-store to increase foot traffic.

Much like the aforementioned example, there are various other ways to endorse in-store promotions. Below are a few techniques brick and mortar retailers can use to increase foot traffic in their store:

Offer a “Bring your family or friend” discount – this gives your customers a valid reason to visit your store. And when this takes on a chain reaction, you may rapidly increase the customer traffic.

Surprise your consumers with free samples of your products. This would allow them to try some new brands and products.

If you’d want to reduce your excess stock post the quarantine time, try running a multi-buy campaign.

Use Ingage to boost store traffic! Get your personalized demo here.

3.Enhance in-store shopping experience with digital signages

If you are wondering how to increase footfall in restaurants, or any retail outlet for that matter, digital signages are your best bet. They are innovative and amazingly powerful when it comes to empowering your customers in-store.

Digital signage is a  type of advertising that uses a video screen to display marketing messages. They can be used for attracting customers, conveying information, and promoting merchandise.

If you are wondering how to increase footfall during COVID-19, then consider these ideas to increase sales in retail stores:

Offer surprise discounts like “pay what you want” – this will make your customers feel valued and loved by encouraging them to visit more often.

Giveaway free samples so that customers get an opportunity to try new brands/products.

Also, if you have excess inventory post quarantine time, run multi-buy campaigns.

Some more examples of how digital signage is used for ways to increase sales in retail stores are as follows:

Grocery stores and supermarkets use digital signage to show recipes, make grocery lists, or serve as an information center.

Retail outlets in malls that have fashion sections can display the latest trends on their screens so customers know what’s new. This helps them pick out something they might like quickly.

Some restaurants showcase menus on screens while others even project live cooking shows! These displays help with menu navigation too; helping a diner decide between chicken tikka masala or steak tartare by showing pictures of both dishes at once.

4.Leverage beacon notification to attract customers to your store

The beacon technology is a way to implement a tracking system indoors. A beacon is an inaudible signal that can be tracked and act as the trigger for other events like sending notifications about deals, discounts, or new products.

Beacon technology helps with driving footfalls by giving customers an indoor mapping experience of your store's inventory. This ensures they always know where they are going and what’s around them. The navigation reminds them of their proximity to items on display so there’s never any confusion over whether something is nearby or farther off.

Beacon notification also increases customer engagement; through this tech, users get notified of discounts, deals, and new arrivals as they move around the store.

Along with this technology, you can also use geofencing so that when a customer enters your store's radius, they get an alert on notifying them of specials in the area or location of products while providing directions to their desired product.

You should consider implementing beacon notification for attracting customers from all over because it is cost-effective and easy to set up. They're compatible across devices such as phones, tablets, laptops, etc., which means footfall increase is just one step away!

5.Train your salespersons to become the shopper's friend

Educating your salespersons on how to be consumers’ friends is important. They should be knowledgeable about what products are popular and in-demand so that they can help the customers find exactly what they want while at the same time giving guidance on how to save money by telling them where discounts and deals can be found.

It's an excellent way of building customer relationships and increasing traffic to retail stores.

For instance, Denver’s Cherry Creek does an exemplary job on this. The customer has penned the experience thus:

“One of my friends was getting married in a couple of months and stopped by the store where he and his groomsmen were getting their tuxedos. He was greeted by name and with a cold beer. Handshakes and hugs all around. When we left, I turned to my friend and asked, “Do you know them?” He said, “Yeah, they’re helping me with my tux.”  (Source: Vendhq)

6.Reconceptualize the checkout counters

Customers abandon their purchases because of long lines at the checkout. With the pandemic out there, this could be one of the reasons why the retail foot traffic is diminishing. (The Baymard Institue)

To overcome this hassle, and add another way to increase footfall in retail stores, you can reconceptualize the checkout counters. Some ideas are adding more till counters, or installing in-app checkout. This way customers don’t have to wait in queues for long periods and can make the purchase right there and then.

7.Encourage BOPIS (Buy Online Pick-up In-store)

True, consumers are inclining to online purchases as opposed to in-store shopping, but you can turn it to your advantage. In fact, an ICSC report cites that 69% of customers who went to collect their orders eventually bought additional items.

To implement BOPIS for your retail store, you need to have a centralized platform that allows you to manage orders, sales, and customers.  This helps you to deliver a personalized customer experience.

In combination with BOPIS, another way to promote footfall into the store and drive sales in retail is by bringing your website in-store. And this will be a good move if you have multiple stores and not all the stock in one place.

So people could browse your eCommerce site in-store for products they want but which aren't available at their local shop. If they show interest, you can then let them know that associates can place an order for these items, then deliver them individually to their home when ready of course!

This is yet another savvy way to increase footfall to your retail store.

How to calculate footfall in retail?

Now that you know how to increase footfall to your retail store, you must know how to calculate footfall in retail as well.

This is because, when you know how to calculate footfall in retail it can help you  with many retail metrics like:

How to plan your store for peak footfall times?

How much stock you need in the store and how often you'll need to restock it?

What products are selling well on an hourly basis? This is so crucial information for retailers that will help inform decisions about where to place certain items or which ones may be more popular than others etc.

When stores should have promotions (if they want), discounts, and raise weekend sales?

It can also help you gain insights such as how many people are coming into your store per hour and how much money is being spent.

Also, calculating the number of customers that enter your store provides valuable information about how many chances you had to make a sale. By dividing your transactional sales by the footfall data, you can determine what percentage of shoppers that came into your store made a purchase (your conversion rate).

Retailers can calculate footfall using "Beam Break" technology. Most retailers have the main entrance, and typically install an infrared beam across it. As each customer walks in the store, they get a count and by dividing it by two, retailers can see how many people come to their stores.

Learned how to increase footfall in retail during COVID-19?

We hope this blog gave you an insight into how to increase footfall in restaurants, malls, and other retail outlets.

Increase footfall in retail during COVID-19 with Ingage! Get your free demo here.

But to get a detailed blueprint, I suggest you read the White Paper we have compiled.  It has research from experts in the industry to help you increase footfall.

Here's a gist of what the White Paper covers:

How have pandemics catalyzed technological innovations

Customer sentiment and behavior during COVID-19

An omnichannel customer engagement strategy to drive sales in retail and footfall

The ultimate roadmap to increase retail footfalls

How to build the perfect loyalty program to turn foot traffic into brand ambassadors?

I'm sure that whatever questions were unanswered in the blog would be answered in this intense research-backed White Paper. Download your free copy now and bring in more foot traffic and increase your retail sales!