#hypothetically the new schedule will see me more days in the big store so I could earn more but I cannot believe how shitty pay is

[foldingfittedsheets]

I hate sales. It’s not a surprise, I went back to school to try to avoid working retail and the game industry is shitting itself so here I am once again in retail. But the fucking worst part is how much worse I’m getting paid.

When I sold mattresses last time I was making incredible money because the company I worked for was employee owned. I got bonuses, I never made base pay, I always sold enough to get commission. Then a mega corporation bought it and fucked everyone over.

So no more bonuses, lower commission, less benefits. All the evils of capitalism and no union.

I’ve been forced into trainings over and over being like, “If you do a good job and add on accessories and bases you’ll get paid so much more!”

But guess what? I’m great at my job. I fit people for the right pillow and sell protectors because I believe those things are important. I haven’t made commission in months. Deliveries are spaced out, I’m stuck too often in the little store. My sales numbers look incredible, I’m in every way a model employee. Except that I’m getting paid shit to be a model employee and it makes me furious.

[leam1983]

On Yuletide Gags

I don't know how I feel about the trend of sourcing the box of some expensive piece of tech from somewhere and stuffing it with purely didactic stuff for the kids...

I get it, some of us aren't really able to afford even those more accessible of consumer electronics, the chip shortage being what it is, but when my parents felt like pulling an Xmas fakeout, they at least had the decency to do it the other way around...

What's better, to spend weeks getting unreasonably hyped about something your relatives never had any intention to buy you, or to stew in apprehension for just as long in the expectation of something that's been sold to you as unbearably shitty, only to open that box and actually find something neat inside?

As that's what my parents did to me, as a kid. I forget in which year of the nineties it happened - likely around 1992, seeing as I was still fairly young - but Mom and Dad spent weeks giving me straight-faced guff about having bought a rock-counting game for me, and I essentially lived in mortal fear of what waited for me under the Christmas tree.

Come the big morning, I woke up at the ass-crack of dawn and politely followed the family policy of each of us opening a gift at a time in a clockwise order, all the while stewing in anticipation of that one circular, weirdly heavy box under the tree. When it came up, I realized my parents had cut up store catalog images and background pieces to put the cover of a fictitious game together, titled Count the Rocks.

I was fuming. I'd never made any concrete demands, but I expected there'd be at least one major gift along with a few utilitarian ones, like basic clothing items or packaged appointment cards announcing I'd get a new pair of prostheses in X months. I would've even taken erasers and pencils, honestly.

My parents are split in two and are trying to get me to open the modded cookie tin. I shake it instead, feeling a few small pebbles jostle around in there, with something bigger blocking their travel. I give in with a grunt, open the tin, and find what was likely the Tengen release of the NES' version of Gauntlet - I don't remember exactly and I'll definitely have to fact-check with the folks. In any case, it was a lot better than rocks.

Compare and contrast with today's pranks that keep flooding my socials. "Ooooh, psyche! You thought you were getting a PS5 or a Switch, huh? Well, howsabout the rest of winter's school supplies stuffed in a PS5 box borrowed from someone else?! Gotcha, son! Bwahahahahahahahaha!"

That's just cruel, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not in favor of setting unrealistic expectations, obviously, but if I had serious doubts as to my ability to source a hot commodity for Crimbo, I'd tell my hypothetical kid and I'd strongly urge them to review their gift list. I'd want them to be happy and if that means getting something that's within my ability to get as earnestly as I can, then that's what I'd do.

It also goes hand-in-hand with a weird trend I'm seeing, where parents act like they're absolutely desperate for their kids to start acting like adults. I'm not referring to late teens or even twentysomethings in need of a bit of a reality check - as those do exist - but children. Kids. What's an eight year-old going to do with school supplies; he doesn't have the emotional maturity needed to process how that's probably the callous, pragmatic and honestly heartless thing to do!

Christmas isn't about fucking pragmaticism, it's about telling your kids you love them to bits - within your budget's constraints. If you can't afford toys, tech or clothes, give them experiences. I'm a grown-ass adult and my parents got me a dog-sledding course scheduled for this February. I am fucking stoked. In return, I bought them a four-day stay at a local Scandinavia-themed hotel, spa and resort, without knowing what they had planned. They've had to scrap two consecutive reservations in Mexico thanks to COVID, so I figured I'd bite the bullet and get them something local that can actually be carried out in accordance with the local sanitary restrictions.

School supplies for Christmas... I mean, come on!

[ct-multifandom]

MLB ideas/hopes/predictions/prompts

Bunnix using her umbrella to fly like Mary Poppins

Ladybug coming up with an overly convoluted Rube Goldberg machine type plan with her lucky charm, but not having some of the components, so she just sends Pegasus to the store in the middle of a battle

Characters who are close slowly finding out about each other’s superhero identities in funny ways

Pigella picking up something massive and like 10x heavier than her and chucking it

I really want one of these heroes’ tools to be a comically large anime-style weapon, but alas I don’t think they’d do it

Season finale boss fight featuring all the new heroes, which is totally gonna happen at some point, but it would look really busy on screen to have them all running around at once, so I’d split them into smaller teams based on their skills to carry out specific parts of Ladybug’s Epic 36-Step Plan™️. It would make for a satisfying “oh yeah, it’s all coming together” montage and also give us some unique character interactions.

Ladybug picking unique combo teams of new heroes based on their skills to fight specific strong villains

Alya starting a school paper and getting the whole team in on it. I love the episodes where the class does one big project together, they’re so cute.

Someone/a group getting akumatized on purpose to disobey Hawkmoth and take advantage of their akuma’s power for a noble goal

Episode from the POV of a boring background character detailing how the life of the average Parisian is affected by LB and CN. Unreliable scheduling, monster traffic jams, the sheer embarrassment of getting got by an akuma...

I want an animal to get akumatized. Someone’s dog who feels lonely when their favorite human gets a new, demanding job and turns into a terrifying Cerberus beast or something.

Mayor Bourgeois allocates some taxpayer dollars into a LB bank account to support her, and she has to make the very important decision on whether to save it for a real emergency or buy 17 hamburgers.

Okay part of me doesn’t want to make kwami/future hero predictions in case I accidentally come up with something way cooler than what will really happen and then be disappointed, but the other part of me is like hee hoo predikshun. So don’t expect these to actually happen lol.

I won’t talk about Multimouse because we kinda know everything about her, but she looks cute and it’s nice to see two heroes who aren’t super skinny.

The silhouette of Minotaurox in the intro doesn’t offer a lot of insight other than his epic horns. I have no idea what his tool might be. His costume looks to be pretty simple/practical, though, which is in line with Ivan’s character. I heard a theory that his power will be increasing in size, and it makes sense looking at Stoneheart and the pattern of flipping the characters’ flaws on their head, but that sounds kind of boring to me, especially compared to all the other creative abilities.

Tigresse’s silhouette makes me think her design will be awesome. Her tail looks like it might be her tool. It kind of resembles Amethyst’s whip from SU so maybe she can use it to grab things like Ladybug does with her yo-yo. I heard a theory that her power will be invisibility which I support because it takes the flaw that turned Juleka into Reflekta (wanting to be invisible out of insecurity) and makes it powerful like the stealth of a tiger.

From the silhouette, Caprikid looks a bit like a beginner’s Trollhunters cosplay, but I’m sure he’ll be cool. I’ve seen people argue whether he’s Nate or Marc and I’m positive he’s Marc (making Nate CC) so if anyone asks for an explanation I’ll make the comprehensive post on why. He’s holding his tool, and I’ve seen debate over which direction it’s in. If he’s holding it pointed up it looks like a giant calligraphy brush, but I think he’s holding it pointed down and the “brush” is just a decoration on the end. I’ve heard a theory that it’s a shepherd’s cane which is my favorite one. Personal idea here: I’d make his power telekinesis. Pretty basic, but I can imagine it being very useful for the type of scenarios we see in the show without it being OP. I like the idea of using a cane to “shepherd” something through the air. This could reflect Reverser’s desire for control, but flip it to be more collected and useful.

I fully support Coq Courage’s ninja pants, they are simply Correct. It’d be cool if his tool was a bow and arrow, and that seems like a pretty popular theory. The shape to the left of his torso looks like it might be a quiver but it’s probably just his other arm. Thumb rings are used in archery, but what little we’ve seen of the miraculous (disguised on Marinette and Chloe) shows a different type of ring. Still tho. Also get ready for my crazy never-gonna-happen idea: the bow can turn into a hang glider. Roosters can fly, but not super well/freely, which could translate to gliding. It’d add some versatility to the way the heroes move around since a lot of the temporary ones can only run, and it would let him reach places LB might not be able to. I’ve heard a theory that his power will be supersonic voice which could contrast how Nathaniel is bad at communicating and quiet until he gets mad and blows up.

Orikko might be the kwami of illumination. Roosters are associated with the sun and Evillustrator’s power was sourced from light. At first I thought his transformation words might be “sunrise” and “sunset” but someone said the activation code could be “rise and shine” which sounds awesome.

Traquemoiselle, believe it or not, is actually in the intro, she’s just hidden at the very top and only a snippet of the head is showing. All we know is that she has round dog ears. Barrk is surprisingly one of the more fleshed-out kwamis as of now, having a few solid lines of characterization in Furious Fu. Kwamis are usually yin-yang to their holder, so Barrk fits Sabrina perfectly, being loyal yet independent while Sabrina is loyal and an absolute doormat. No clue about her tool. Her power is kinda in the name: tracking. Maybe she can track down some one specific thing of her choice, but maybe she can sniff out akumas. As seen in Dark Owl and Gang of Secrets, Hawkmoth can be creative with akuma placement, so she can probably save the team from some close calls.

I have no theories for the transformation words of the other kwamis. Ziggy or Stompp could include “horns” or “charge” and Roaar “stripes” but I can’t think of any phrase including those words that isn’t too similar to an existing one. There are some phrases based on powers, though, not the animal. Or maybe they’ll just give up and give us another iteration of “Sass, scales slither”.

I think the theme for one of these remaining new heroes might be “assertion”. A lot of them struggle with that as their civilian selves, and the animals that are left can all be associated with independence/dominance, not that the animal traits always play into what the heroes are.

Ok last one, long one: in season 3, Luka’s main traits were “cool and nice” which doesn’t make for an interesting, complex major character, and at first he seemed like the perfect love interest, but from an outside perspective the extent of his kindness is kind of disturbing. I’m hoping they can flip this around and turn it into a character flaw where he has practically no boundaries, and it turns into a problem. Maybe he could agree to run random errands for the background characters for nothing in return, and at first it’s just him being nice, but later people start seeing his help as an obligation. They get peeved when he’s unavailable one day and get akumatized into a “boss rush” of classic akumas, effectively trapping and forcing him to help them. Then Tigresse Pourpe comes and helps save the day, expanding on Juleka and Luka’s relationship. The resolution can teach kids that putting yourself first isn’t necessarily selfish, and that sitting back and letting people take advantage of your kindness isn’t heroic.

There’s probably some stuff I forgot which I can put in a different post later, but lmk if you want a separate post about any of these things in more detail! This was just me rambling out all my new hyperfixation thoughts. Also if anyone uses any of the hypotheticals/scenarios as a prompt I’d love to see it.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #2: “BLANKING OUT!”

October, 1984

"Up Against the BLANK!”

Beware his crosshatching!

So the formation of the West Coast Avengers continues! I guess! It looks like Tigra, Wonder Man, and Iron Man stuck around at least long enough to be on this cover.

We’ll see if the prospect of being on a team led by Hawkeye manages to win them over.

So last time on West Coast Avengers: Hawkeye was sent by the Vision to create an All-New All-Different Avengers team on the West Coast. A kind of West Coast Avengers. Like the Avengers but in LA.

Vision sent out invites to Wonder Man, Tigra, and Rhodey Iron Man but didn’t tell them what they were being invited for. Leading to not only some hesitance to commit once they learned what was what but also Tigra’s friend the Shroud following her to the LA Avengers Compound because the vague invite worried Tigra’s other friend Jessica Drew. Phew.

The Shroud puts up such a great fight when the hypothetical West Coast Avengers attack him (assuming that some dude breaking in is up to something) that Hawkeye offers him the open spot on the team but Shroud turns it down.

By this point in the East Coast Avengers’ history, depending on where you count it starting, they either got punked by Loki or by a Space Phantom. So, the West Coast Avengers aren’t actually doing so bad, even though they’re not technically officially a team yet.

Its all a matter of perspective.

Huh. We’re like ten years too early for Iron Man to be trying to kill everyone.

To kinda spoil the game early, this is a training exercise.

Hawkeye is attempting to prove a point that Captain America told him “with the proper teamwork, even the strongest opponent can be beaten!”

It gets back to the Avengers’ whole Earth’s mightiest heroes banding together to fight the foes no single hero can overcome thing. It’s a sales pitch for why these reluctant West Coasts should Avenger.

And even given that Iron Man far outmuscles Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and Tigra, teamwork and skill does prove capable of bringing him down. Kinda.

Hawkeye uses some smokescreen arrows to try to cloud Iron Man’s vision but he has infrared lenses. He tries to tackle Tigra but she outmaneuvers him and jumps on his back. Distracting him so Mockingbird can bonk him in the head with her staves and Hawkeye can gum up Iron Man’s boot jets.

Its good teamwork but while Hawkeye is explaining that it’s good teamwork, Iron Man repulsors the ground and knocks the other three on their asses to demonstrate another important lesson.

Iron Man: “Never count your enemy out, until you’re sure he’s really out!”

Although. This WAS a training exercise.

While you raise a good point, Rhodey, surely you didn’t want them to break your armor or knock you out for a training exercise?

Anyway, after the exercise is over, Hawkeye tells Iron Man (James Rhodes) that it reminds him of when they used to go at it (back when Hawkeye was an accidental villain) and Rhodey Iron Man just awkwardly says that he’s glad they’re buds now. Because THIS IS EXACTLY WHY HE QUIT THE AVENGERS IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Having to awkwardly tip toe around not being the original guy!

But on the other hand, he liked working with the Avengers in Secret Wars, which made him reconsider the team thing. While he doesn’t want to lean on someone else’s reputation, he also doesn’t want to be treated like an amateur. So awkward it is.

Hawkeye tells Iron Man maybe don’t knock him on his ass so hard next time.

I do love Clint and Bobbi’s relationship. They’re delightful.

While Rhodey is rethinking his reluctance to Avenge, Tigra isn’t. This training exercise about how weaker heroes can team up to bring down a stronger opponent is not landing.

Tigra: I’ll bet Iron Man could have blown us away whenever he felt like it... He was probably just toying with us during the whole workout! I’m not anywhere near being in his league... Why did I let Hawkeye talk me into joining his new Avengers team?

There’s always one person on the Avengers whose whole thing is insecurity and the West Coast Avengers is practically full of them. Hawkeye, Wonder Man, Tigra have all served that role in the past. Mockingbird is worrying that she doesn’t belong.

I’d rather Tigra stuck with the insecurity rather than what she gets when West Coast Avengers gets an ongoing...

Anyway, over at Simon Williams, Wonder Stuntman’s house, he’s packing up his house to move to Avengers compound.

Since the house was prefab and pretty shoddily built, the whole wall swings up like a garage door so Simon can just pull all his possessions out and put them in a big crate.

Simon’s good stuntman pal Freddy asks if Simon is really going to go back to the superhero life.

Wonder Man: “Freddy, for good or bad, Wonder Man is what I am! It’s taken me awhile to become comfortable with that. But I finally have. And you know, I think being a stuntman these last few months helped! Doing stunt work day after day has really given me a sense of my own worth. You and the rest of the stunt crews helped me find a new life... I owe you a lot! But I also owe the Avengers! When Hawkeye offered me an active role in the Avengers new west coast expansion team, I surprised myself by signing on. I guess what I’m saying is that the Avengers is part of my life, too. And I found myself missing it more than I’d expected!”

Good for you, you waffling man. But you’d better be careful you don’t end up in a Hank Pym spiral where you bounce between your superhero and civilian lives and don’t find satisfaction in half assing either. Find yourself a good work life balance.

Anyway, Simon doesn’t plan to quit the stunt work. He’s going to try to juggle it and the Avengers.

Now that I’m not sure he’ll manage. Movies and super-heroics both have demanding schedules without set hours.

Simon and Freddy take a break to go buy more nails at the hardware store for Simon to hammer in with his bare hands. But on their way, they hear an alarm at the bank.

Crosshatch man from the cover is robbing the bank, just casually strolling out with a bag of money while bullets bounce off of him.

The Blank: “I have a gun too! And it doesn’t shoot blanks! Hah-haha-ha!!”

I’ve long held that the unspoken rule in comics book is that one of the first things someone shouts about you becomes your name.

Just ask poor Ben Grimm, the Thing.

So when a random person shouts that the bank robber is blank, the robber is like ‘huh, that’s catchy!’

Anyway, the robber confidently strolls out of the bank and right into Simon Wonder Man Williams.

The Blank shoots his gun at Simon and to his dismay finds out that he’s not the only one who bullets bounce off of.

Then Simon punches the guy twenty feet back INTO the bank.

The Blank woozily proclaims that Wonder Man can’t stop the Blank so Wonder Man just kinda picks him up and tucks him under arm. Although the Blank does manage to pistol whip the sunglasses right off of Simon’s face.

Doesn’t hurt him but it does freak everyone in the bank out.

Dunno if you remember but due to being reborn as an energy being, Simon’s eyes are red and full of kirby krackle. He can turn it off if he concentrates but he prefers to wear the glasses.

And while Simon is telling the people in the bank that there’s no need to panic on his account, the Blank slips right out of his grip and jumps through the window.

When Simon comes out to the street, he finds that the Blank has somehow managed to disappear into the crowd, despite being a screentone man.

Probably because the Blank just turned the effect off and pretended to be a Perfectly Normal Man on the Street.

Sneaky.

The guy returns to his apartment and yuks it up at the news report about him making a clean getaway, police baffled.

The Blank: “After a lifetime of bad breaks, Lady Luck has finally smiled on me! Hah-ha! And to think I owe it to lousy bus service...”

So this origin is a lot. And its amazing.

In the Blank’s flashback, he’s waiting at the bus stop for a late bus when an ex-employee of Stark International who quit when Stane took over the company shows up and starts complaining about the bus service. And then smoothly shifts to complaining about his old job.

Very annoyed scientist: “If it’s not one thing it’s another! But it’s no wonder the world’s in the shape it’s in... Not with the quality of management today! They’re idiots... all idiots!”

He tells this random guy he doesn’t know that when he quit, he took his newest invention with him.

Very annoyed scientist: “I put too much work into my brainchild to let that leech Stane get it! I’m going into business for myself!”

And then, as he’s boasting that he’ll be rich enough to buy and sell Stane in a year, the very annoyed scientist walks into the street without looking and gets hit by a car.

The very annoyed scientist’s briefcase lands right at the pre-Blank’s feet who definitely doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. So he took it home and after a few months figured out how to operate the invention: a slippery force-field.

Back in the present, he charges the force field belt up and then heads off after a big score. Not noticing a man shaped cloud of energy coming out of the charger pleading for more energy.

Huh.

Weird.

Over at Avengers Compound, the West Coast Avengers are assembled. Hawkeye has gotten the go-ahead of the LAPD to take this Blank case but Wonder Man insists that the Avengers can find him but he’s going to make the collar.

Yup, Simon has gotten a bug in his collar about letting the guy get away.

Wonder Man: “I had him in my hands, and he slipped right through them! What good am I to the Avengers if I can’t handle one gimmicky bank robber by myself?”

Hawkeye: “No good at all, if you worry more about personal performance than you do about how you work as part of this team! What do you want to do, search all of Greater L.A. on your own? That’s crazy!”

Geez, Wonder Man. That’s how gimmick criminals are supposed to work. Its not a gimmick if you beat it in the first encounter. The gimmick trips you up at the beginning of the story so you look like a smarty for figuring it out for the resolution.

The other Avengers chime in a plan divide the city into sections and each search that section. And whoever finds him will call the others.

Wonder Man admits that the plan makes a lot of sense and storms off in a fit of ‘WHAT A REASONABLE SUGGESTION, GOODNIGHT.’

Mockingbird: “Well, hotshot, you just weathered your first leadership crisis. Why the thoughtful look?”

Hawkeye: “I was just remembering how I used to be the one who always blew his stack. Honey, all of a sudden I feel old... real old!”

Hah!

You’ve wanted this for years Hawkeye. AND you’ve built up a lot of lets say debt with the universe by being a jerk about it at times.

Although, Wonder Man isn’t really a great Hawkeye. He’s pretty mellow most of the time. Of the people I expected to get a random obsession with a not very dangerous criminal, it wasn’t Wonder Man.

He has always had a streak of insecurity (which is the secret ingredient when making a Hawkeye) and not being able to stop this guy right when he was feeling good and ready to superhero again. A real situational case.

But Tigra is the one feeling the insecurity the hardest so I’m afraid you’ll need another character beat, Simon. Hothead is available.

So the West Coast Avengers split up and patrol different parts of the urban sprawl. Tigra lurks the rooftops of Chinatown, Iron Man scans the area around the Santa Monica Mountains, Hawkeye flies above the high-rises of Marina Del Rey on his skycycle, Mockingbird cruises L.A.’s freeways in her custom pink convertible, Wonder Man hangs out on the L.A. City Hall in the downtown searching by binoculars, and I learn what the different bits of L.A. are.

Productive night for everyone.

But over in Inglewood, the Blank prepares for his Big Job.

He’s going to heist a Wells Fargo armored car.

Wait, would an armored car be a bigger heist than robbing an actual bank??

And if you somehow got the idea that the Blank is a criminal mastermind, he’s not. The armored car guards spot him coming and just decide to take off when a screentoned man starts running at them.

The Blank shoots one of the guards so he doesn’t manage to lock the rear of the money car but the other guard is locked up tight in the front and refuses to stop even when the Blank is threatening to kill his partner.

Wow. Guess other people’s money is more important to the guy than his co-worker’s life.

Since the guy tells the Blank that he’s driving the armored car right to the nearest police station, the Blank just grabs as much money as he can carry. Then he jumps out the back and slides to a stop on his belly like a penguin.

What a useful force field.

But the Blank’s bad night gets worse because then Mockingbird, Hawkeye, and Iron Man all show up, alerted by the police report.

The Blank at least has a realistic view of his capabilities. In that he’s not the guy that thinks a simple gimmick will let him start taking over the world. He just wants to rob a few banks and armored cars. And he does not want to fight the Avengers!

Especially not Iron Man!

Iron Man’s armor has all kinds of stuff in it and he might figure out a way through the force field!

So the guy decides to tackle some gas pumps.

Which naturally causes an enormous fire.

Not a bad plan, really. The explosion will launch the Blank from the scene with the force field keeping him safe and the heroes will stop to save lives as heroes tend to do.

While Hawkeye and Mockingbird help the gas station employees away from the fire, Iron man picks up a dump truck full of sand and puts out the fire.

Wonder Man and Tigra arrive as he’s doing that and Hawkeye has to tell Simon that the Blank got away or exploded.

Simon actually takes it pretty chill, just betting that no way a tough customer like the Blank died in the explosion.

And he’s right. Although the guy isn’t really a tough customer.

Actually, he’s planning on skipping town.

Avengers heat is too much heat for him. Plus, yeah, the force field protected him from the explosion but he was blown three blocks away and the impact of landing knocked him silly for five minutes and he was terrified he’d be caught anyway. Plus, he lost all that sweet Wells Fargo money.

So he’s going to take the bank robbery money from the morning and move somewhere with fewer superheroes.

He’s just gonna charge the force field for the road and- whoa dang a whole ass man popped out of thin air.

And its Graviton??

What were you doing in thin air, Graviton?

The Blank assumes this guy - wearing a costume and a cape - why he’s gotta be a superhero! And he immediately surrenders! He’ll return the money, turn over the force field device, go to jail, just don’t make him deal with those Avengers again!

Graviton is like hey buddy, I’m not with the Avengers and if you’re skipping town because of them, don’t bother. “Help me, and you’ll never have to worry about Avengers again!”

Ruh roh.

Now Graviton is, historically, kind of a dingus considering he’s a mad scientist, but he is powerful enough that he soloed a pretty powerful Avengers roster which had Iron Man, Thor, Wonder Man, and Vision.

The West Coast Avengers has Iron Man and Wonder Man but also has the more street level Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and Tigra. They don’t have the do-anything bullshit of Scarlet Witch or Vision’s robot brain or Cap’s strategy. Or whatever esoteric power the wild card Avenger of the era has like Captain Marvel’s command of the electromagnetic spectrum, Starfox’s PLEASURE POWERS or Moondragon’s psychic powers.

If Graviton decides to set up in L.A., then the newly formed West Coast Avengers could be in big trouble.

Maybe even two issues worth of trouble!

... What? This is a miniseries! There’s only so much he’s going to be able to do in the time left!

Follow @essential-avengers​ because you want to see what happens next, probably? Also, like and reblog because you want to?

[bangtansfavwriter]

🌷jimin having a crush on you🌷

(with a hint of smut & angst, still v fluffy 😌)

- a complete flirt or a complete shy bean, there's no in-between

- introduces you to his friends, his family, the staff, the ahjussi at the convenience store....

-will touch you a lot, so expect koala hugs on any given occasion

-you will stare at his lips a lot, unconsciously, which you'll notice when jimin looks like ar u like this : 👀🤭

-very very caring, the type to sprint across the city to be with you when something's wrong with you

- you guys would talk in person, on the phone, over text... actually a clingy one and he doesn't even hide it

-showers you with affection

- "you're so lovely, lovely, lovelyyy~"

- ur entire support system and personal hype man

- you know that will smith meme with his wife? that's jimin with you basically

- you two are completely emo when he has to leave for tour, but thank god there's skype

-gets emo again when you have to hang up

("good night, good night! parting is such a sweet sorrow." - "jimin, did you... did you just quote shakespeare on me?? minie, we're gonna talk tomorrow, don't be sad!"- "😔😔😔😔😔😔😔" - "nooo minie😭😭😭😭😭" - "noooooo im happy, look ☺️☺️☺️☺️" - "ok good 💞" - "........(😔)"- PARK JIMIN" - "👼🏻")

- stalks all your social media when he's on tour but will never tell you, accidentally like your pic from like 42 weeks ago and screamed so loud hobi fell out of his bed

-you sent him a screenshot of the notification you got with a single "?" and jimin welcomed the sweet release of death (he left you on read and prayed you would forget about it)

-stops by at your place when he's back in the country and gives you a hug so tight it lowkey feels like u guys made out, FLIRTS and you're like "what are we?" and he's "what do you mean? :))) we're friends ofc :))))))" [libras.]

-also, he often invites you to dance practices and is extra flamboyant meanwhile

- "y/n, have you seen the flip? it was good right?" ( boy's got a big fat praise kink tbh)

"you looked so cool, minie ~'

*gets shy, hides his face, jumps through the room*

(& you'd ask yourself if this the same guy who stripped at MAMA)

- his duality is no joke, even in your guys' relationship it would be confusing as hell sometimes, yet exciting because he shows you different sides : childlike and carefree / serious and seductive

- lots of cuddles and giggles together

- goes above and beyond to make you happy and ready to cut a bitch when you're upset

- could charm your pants off, hypothetically speaking, but he's also shyyy mostly bc he's scared you might not like him the same way

-at the dorms he would get into this mood where he would do dramatic monologues about his feelings which would put shakespeare to shame tbh

-they almost always end up with him imagining that you might go for someone else

-one day the boys would encourage him to go for it and he'd muster up the courage and be like "fuck yeah im gonna confess" and then loses courage when yoongi said "do it before someone else does it" and everyone would be screaming bc they just got jimin to shut up about you and were about to end the daily tortured hero vibe jimin had lately by tricking him into confessing (& jimin spent days giving yoongi a look that straight up said "et tu, brute?")

-jimin spent the days after that contemplating if you would actually date him or if you would go for someone else

-he'd be all pouty and would also be touchier than usual, bc he would this physical contact as some sort of reassurance, in a way

-you couldn't quite understand what was going on with him but you reciprocated in every scenario and he was very pleased with that

-when you guys would chill on a sofa and watch tv, he'd lay down and rest his head on your lap and wouldn't say anything and continue watching TV, but he'd still wait for your reaction and sigh happily when you started playing with his hair

-he'd do these little tests to gauge your reactions and to see how you act towards him

-he'd ask a lot about how you feel about relationships and respect and all that, he'd also test you... physically. and by that I mean the sensual hugs, light touches on your thigh and and the looks you'd share meanwhile... the first time you two had dinner with the guys in a restaurant with dim lights. when you felt his hand on your thigh, you looked at him with a raised brow and this lil shit deadass SMIRKED at you but you knew that 2 can play this game and smirked back and moved his hand slightly up and jimin's soul almost left his body. "what are we, y/n?" he whispered to you. "you tell me", you whispered back, with a cunning smile on your lips. you excused yourself and got up from the table and jimin jerked that moment, as you put your hand on his thigh when you lifted yourself up. (jk to nj: i don't know what is going on there but I bet it's disgusting, nj: no, don't be like that, sj: no, he's right)

-jimin and you (and everyone else, for that matter) entered a weird stage where you legit didn't know wtf was happening between you

-everything moved fast and yet you didnt know if you guys were going somewhere with this but jimin sure acted like your boyfriend yet didn't go beyond flirting

-and this was getting tiresome for you, but you were still hoping tbh, but you thought that maybe... maybe you were just a welcome distraction for him in all his hectic schedule. but deep down you knew this was your insecurities speaking, but sometimes it got the better of you.

-and things took an ugly turn when jimin tested you again, but in the most stupid way you could ever "test" someone... you've guessed it..... through jealousy.

- that was bc jimin himself got jealous when you were hanging out with yoongi, mostly bc he also remembered what yoongi once said about someone snatching you away from him

-and jimin absolutely hated this situation.... he knew this was irrational and that you could hang out with whomever you wanted & yoongi's obviously like a brother to him..... but jealousy is a very ugly feeling that makes you feel ugly things

-and jimin didn't want neither yoongi nor you to see this side of him so he didn't say anything. he didn't speak to neither of you. was it a good solution? hell no & he knew that. but he had to deal with his temper somehow... he cut you short whenever you tried to talk to him, saying he's busy and such, but you knew he was lying to you for some reason but you still were patient and did your best not to drag him to hell and back for lying to and ignoring you, as he stopped texting you as well. he didnt speak more than necessary with yoongi who only kept his mouth shut bc they was another matter involved. jimin had the idea for this "last test" for you when a new staff member got flirty with him, during a bighit party. you were there, too, in the same room, to be precise and jimin knew this and saw a chance coming, as you were talking to yoongi again who glared back at jimin who intensely kept staring at you two. so this new + drunk staff member came along and started talking with him.... and giggling so obnoxiously that yoongi and you rolled with your eyes at the same time and started laughing when you realized it. jimin wasn't listening to anything in the first place but when he saw you two laughing, he had a snap decision, turned to the staff member and coyly smiled and started flirting. you watched the whole play & jimin knew it, so he added some light touches and nudges here and there and you could feel getting more upset with every minute of this shit-show you were witnessing. yoongi put his hand on your arm and turned you away from jimin and his bimbo and face him instead. you could feel your blood rush to your head which was also apparent to yoongi who consoled you, as he knew of your feelings. jimin mistook the whole situation once again and went for the worst move.

you saw yoongi's glare and turned around only to see jimin holding his little plaything by the waist and them swaying around together. the other members noticed too and namjoon took the lead and quickly moved jimin away from dispatch's newest headline in the making. you turned to yoongi again and said "i'm going home, yoongi, thank you", with a sad smile on your face, and left before he could answer. yoongi quickly rushed out after you, knowing damn well that you'd go home and cry. he managed to catch up and pulled you into a hug, away from all the noise. "that boy is an idiot, but he's so in love with you, trust me on that. he's just being stupid right now", he said patted your back and lowkey contemplating dissing jimin in agust d 2, when he heard the muffled sniffs coming from you. "Ohhh, yoongi-hyung, y/n, getting cozy, aren't we?" you heard jimin saying behind you. yoongi was about to yell at him, but you were quicker to turn around and BLASTED him, bc how tf does he dare to say something like this after what he just pulled inside and how tf can he be so rude to yoongi and most importantly why tf would you listen to him after blatantly ignored you over the past weeks??? jimin went silent after your rant and let his head sink. "i'm sorry..." he said, "i'm sorry to both of you. i don't know how to explain it... but i felt angry when I saw you two so close. i know it's stupid and I know that you guys can be friends, obviously... it's so irrational and I don't even know why i did that earlier. i guess I wanted you to feel what I feel when I see you close with another man, y/n...". this voice got hoarse the more spoke and you knew that he too was about to cry. you knew he was regretful. it didn't justify that he was a dick to you, but you could see where he was coming from and understood that this feeling can make you do irrational things. "jealousy," yoongi said with a stern voice "is a really ugly trait, jimin. you should have known neither of us would ever go behind your back. for your information, y/n confided in me. your best friend is in love with you and you, dumbass, are too blind to see it. -(jimin's head shot up)- I'm gonna leave you two to it now, but jimin, I assure you I will kick your ass if you hurt y/n one more time." and he left. jimin looked at you apologetically, then hid his face behind his hands and took a deep sigh. "I really am a dumbass, huh..." - "yeah, you are" you replied with slight smile on your face and you took some steps towards him, he looked up at you. "y/n, I might be dumb and selfish, but I really hope that you can forgive me... one day. I was jealous of you two and I got insecure. I shouldn't have done what I've done and I can only apologise.... i'm really sorry about everything." (he let his head sink)

you were now standing right in front of him. "jimin, look at me." (he did.) "you really are a dumbass" (he got pouty) - "I thought we had already established that, y/n" - "getting smart with me, minie?" you asked and laughed when he looked at you with with huge eyes and a beaming face after he heard his pet name. he shook his head "I'm the dumbass, remember ?". You two laughed and you threw your arms around his neck and kissed his cheek while he buried his head in your neck.

"be my dumbass, minie."

💕

epilogue:

yoongi: "so how did you solve it again?"

you: "i called him dumb like 3 times and now we're dating"

yoongi: "nice"

jimin: "..."

[helenalikesbtsnow]

The Ongoing Struggles of Being A Mall Gay (Part 2/3)

Read on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN or here on tumblr below the cut!

Summary: Hoseok works at Build-A-Bear and Yoongi works at the Orange Julius that gives them discounts. Warning for gratuitous overuse of American mall culture.

Part 1 (Tumblr Link)

***

Yoongi listens to rap music. He also really loves Slam Dunk. Hoseok doesn’t watch a lot of anime, or any at all really, but he adores the idea of Yoongi watching a basketball anime. He’ll watch it with him anytime he wants.

Hoseok doesn’t dare ask how old he is, because it’ll shatter the illusion. If he knows how old he is, it’ll only fuck things up. He doesn’t want to saddle anyone with the burden of dating him. Still, he just wants to sit on a couch with him and maybe cuddle him and watch Slam Dunk with him. Is that so much to ask?

Yoongi has started responding to texts in the group chat. This is more progress than they’ve made with anyone else they’ve tried to add to it. People always just remove themselves after a few weeks, so it’s beyond exciting for Yoongi to engage with them. It’s starting to seem like he might stick around and that is the best news ever. No longer six of them, they’ll have a seventh. That’s a perfect number for playing board games. Hoseok has been trying to host a board game night for months, but they all have busy schedules. It’s something that they have to plan for two weeks in advance so that Seokjin and Namjoon, the two who make the schedules, can coordinate.

“Do you like mafia?”

“The… the mafia?” Yoongi asks.

“No, like the game mafia. Not the actual mafia.”

Yoongi blinks at him a few times. “I don’t know what that is.”

Hoseok smiles. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to play.”

“Are you going to order something or are you just harassing my coworker?” Jimin asks him teasingly. Hoseok shrugs. He supposes he could go for a smoothie right now.

“Sure, just make me whatever,” he says. Hoseok likes pretty much all of the smoothies at Orange Julius so he’s not picky.

“Yup,” Jimin says turning around to make him whatever. “Extra fruity because you’re gay.”

“That’s homophobic,” Hoseok says. Yoongi’s ears or heart or face or something turn a violent red. Hoseok is… gay? Which means that he… has the capacity… to like Yoongi? In a gay way? Well this isn’t going to be good for his poor little heartstrings.

Jimin gives him a glare. Yoongi starts to feel like an idiot in this moment. Namjoon and Seokjin: married. Jimin: openly gay. Taehyung: has that personality. Jungkook is… Jungkook. Jesus Christ. All of them are gay. Why didn’t that occur to him? Is he literally a victim to heteronormativity? He was so caught up in the fact that most people are usually straight that it didn’t even process in his brain that they all gravitated towards each other to form a mall family. Because they’re all gay. Wait… if they wanted Yoongi to join their ranks does that mean…?

“Wait – so all of you are gay,” Yoongi states. He doesn’t think that he means for the words to come out of his mouth. They just tumble out of him without his consent.

“Uh, yeah,” Hoseok nods. “Was that not clear?” Now he’s trying to determine what tone of voice Yoongi is saying that with. Please oh please don’t let this beautiful boy be a piece of shit. Hoseok will be heartbroken if someone as pretty as him is an asshole. It’ll break his heart in two. Now obviously, Namjoon isn’t allowed to fire anyone for their moral beliefs or complete lack thereof, but it will make things a little uncomfortable. But then again, Yoongi does work under Namjoon, a very transparently gay man, so if he was a homophobe, you’d expect that to have come out by now.

“Is that why you invited me to the group chat?” he asks. Hoseok makes an “oh” sound. That makes sense. He doesn’t give off any energy at all that suggests towards anything, gay, straight, or something outside or in between. But now that he’s looking at Yoongi, he understands the confusion.

“Oh,” Hoseok draws out the word for a long moment. “You too?”

“I keep telling you!” Jimin bursts out. “We’re magnets for the gays! I don’t know how this keeps happening!” Jimin has noted a few times how peculiar it is that the six of them gravitated together, completely ignorant of each other’s sexualities at the time until they had already been assimilated.

“This just means that Yoongi will stay, right? You’re not going to leave our family, right Yoongi?” Hoseok asks, looking brightly at him. Yoongi blushes and shakes his head. He’s pretty sure he looks like a strawberry right now from how embarrassed he is. Of course he isn’t going to leave their circle, he thinks they’re the most charming people he’s ever met. Especially Hoseok with his cute nose and energetic personality. “Oh my god, is this why we drive away everyone else? Why did that never occur to me, holy shit. Straight people think we’re weird!”

Read on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

“I think it’s because you’re you,” Jimin says brightly. “I wouldn’t want to be friends with you.”

“I think you’re alright,” Yoongi says, and then has a look of sheer panic, which looks good on him in a bizarre way.

Hoseok’s not going to be okay. He’s going to combust from how much he likes Yoongi. Every little thing, ever last tiny thing, it’s perfect. If Hoseok were to create a boyfriend in a laboratory, not only would that boyfriend look a lot like Yoongi, but he’d also act the same. He doesn’t want a boyfriend who’s loud like him, because they’d annoy everyone and drive people away. He wants someone who can get invigorated when talking about the things he’s passionate for but is soft spoken and wise in casual conversation. He wants someone doesn’t sugarcoat their feelings and opinions. He wants someone who’s sarcastic and too smart for his own good. He wants someone exactly like Yoongi.

Also, Yoongi’s got those holes in his ears where piercings go when he’s not at work, and Hoseok is unreasonably turned on by that. Literally everyone he knows has a slew of earrings, but it’s way more attractive on Yoongi than anyone else. He wonders what Yoongi looks like when he’s not at work. Does he look like Jungkook, all black outfits and stomping boots? Or maybe like Seokjin where everything is three sizes too big? He can’t possibly dress like Taehyung who wears prints and styles that can’t ever look good on anyone except – miraculously – him. Call him vapid, but Hoseok cares a lot about fashion, and he just knows that Yoongi must look good in anything. He can make an ugly Orange Julius uniform look good, because he’s got that face, so surely, he must look like a million dollars in street clothes.

Hoseok absently looks over the counter, he tries to be subtle about it, but he checks Yoongi out. His pants don’t flatter him, but he must have toothpicks for legs based on what Hoseok can see. Hoseok could probably lift him, and he isn’t that strong. Jungkook could probably lift him with one hand.

The only problem is that Yoongi is too young. Why couldn’t he just be a few years older? Maybe if Hoseok were in his thirties and Yoongi was in his late twenties it wouldn’t be so bad, but he’d feel like a creep to date someone who’s barely out of their teens or still in college.

Yoongi catches his eye. Maybe he knows that Hoseok is looking. Maybe Yoongi can sense the change in the atmosphere now that Hoseok knows he’s gay. Maybe that’s why the look they share is so heavy. Yoongi shouldn’t be allowed to be that beautiful, yet there he is.

“Oh my god, I have a job,” Hoseok’s eyes bulge and then he turns around to run back to his store, not even bothering to take the smoothie that Jimin sets on the counter for him.

***

Hoseok walks through the definitely not haunted employee entrance of the mall. He has his apron over one arm, because it’s been a little too long since he last washed it. In his defense, he hates supporting the evil capitalism that is coin laundry machines.

He can’t prevent himself from thinking about Yoongi from earlier. This isn’t good news for him. Yoongi is gay, which means that hypothetically speaking, Hoseok could date him. Hoseok isn’t going to be able to scrub his brain of thoughts of Yoongi now. Yoongi might actually let Hoseok cuddle him to watch Slam Dunk if he were to ask, which he is not going to do because then he’d have to face the terror of being in a relationship.

As awful as it makes him sound as a person, he doesn’t want his first relationship in seven years to be with someone who he likes and respects so much. He’d rather get practice on someone who will be inconsequential to him. Then again, he doesn’t want to date someone that he’s not interested in, so he’s come to a standstill. Maybe he’ll just die alone. Ugh, that won’t work, because Hoseok really does need someone to sleep next to him at night, be his best friend, go on vacations with him, fuck him, cook dinner with him, watch movies with him, and have arguments over the dishes with.

He pushes the door open and is exposed to the summer night. The night is chillier than the day was, but it’s nothing you’d need to put on a layer for. The streetlamps lining the mall parking lot wash the world in a calm, yellow light. Someone nearby is having a bonfire or cookout, because the smell of wood burning is in the air, and it makes Hoseok hungry. Maybe he’ll stop by the store and get a nice cut of meat for dinner.

He considers this when he sees a familiar figure standing on the sidewalk a little way down from him. Hoseok approaches him, his face lit up with a faint blue light from his phone.

“Yoongi?” Hoseok asks.

Yoongi turns to looks at him and gives him a half-there smile. “Hey, Hoseok.”

“What are you standing there for?”

“Oh, my Uber is like twenty minutes away still,” he says with a shrug. He turns to look back at his phone like he expects that to be the end of the conversation.

“What? No, fuck that. I’m your Uber driver now. But you don’t need to pay me,” Hoseok says, assuredly.

“No, it’s fine,” Yoongi says, waving off the suggestion.

“Um, yeah. I’m going to drive you. Cancel your driver so that you don’t get charged for it, come on.”

“Hoseok, you really don’t need to-”

“Yoongi, remember when I told you that we’re a family? That wasn’t for show, we really are like a family. I’m not going to have you paying for a ride when I have a car that will take you places. Now come on, I’m not going to argue with you about this.”

“It’s just… we barely even know each other.” At this point in their friendship, that doesn’t even seem like a very accurate statement. They’ve eaten lunch together a few times, and even if it only has been about a month and a half, that doesn’t mean that Hoseok doesn’t trust and care for him. Especially since he’s possibly crazy about him.

“Then we can get to know each other when I drive you home,” Hoseok says. “Are you scared of me? I promise I’m not scary, but if it seriously would make you uncomfortable, I’ll leave you alone. I just hate the idea of you standing out here by yourself, and I also hate making you pay for a ride when I’m here and I’m free.”

Yoongi sighs and looks down at his phone. “Alright.”

“Awesome!” Hoseok says, excitedly. He watches as Yoongi opens the app and cancels his driver, before he gestures for him to follow. “We’re going to become best friends, Yoongi. It’s a requirement. I’m pretty likeable, though, so it won’t be too difficult.”

He turns to look at Yoongi and sees the briefest of smiles on his face, this one genuine rather than put on. Hoseok’s smile is a thousand times wider and brighter than his which makes Yoongi self-conscious.

“We’ve got to go all the way out to the far ends of the earth to get to my car,” Hoseok says, pointing at one of only a few cars left in the lot, which is at the very outer reaches of the mall parking lot. “I can’t even begin to tell you how many parking tickets I got when I first started working here.” He tried bribing mall security, but they weren’t into that, so now he parks where he’s supposed to very dejectedly.

“How long have you worked at the mall?”

“I started when I was in high school, 16 actually. And then I just never left. My first job, believe it or not, was at the Orange Julius with Namjoon. He and I were both just crew members back then like you are now.  But then, when they put the Build-A-Bear in, I knew that was where I belonged. Had to work up the ladder, but me and Jin got the store to ourselves a little over five years ago.”

“So, you’re a lifer?”

“Probably,” Hoseok says, nodding. “I really like my job. I get to stuff bears and make people’s lives a little better every day. There’s nothing in the world like watching a little kid hug the teddy bear you made them for the first time. It just gets my heart beating.” Hoseok is content at this point in his life. He’s not sure if content is really what he wants, but he’s at least happy. Sure, he did basically give up his one true love in this life, dancing, but at least he’s making money and has his best friends around him. That’s enough, right?

“That’s sweet,” Yoongi says. He thinks about Hoseok making him his bear, who has kept his name of ‘Little Hoseok’. The way energy and joy radiated off of Hoseok that day is still just as vibrant now as it was when he was on the clock. He doesn’t stop looking at Hoseok until they finally arrive at his car. It’s a beat-up old thing Hoseok bought secondhand from someone else who bought it secondhand which has somehow lasted all these years despite being old enough to get a license and drive itself.

“What about you, Yoongi?” Hoseok says unlocking the car, which he has to do the old-fashioned way, with a key that you put into the lock instead of one of those magical buttons. Also, the passenger’s side door doesn’t unlock automatically so Hoseok has to climb into the car and stretch across the seat in order to unlock the other side manually.

Read on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

“Um I’ve worked at Orange Julius for about a month now,” he says when he’s able to open the door, and Hoseok smiles, realizing that Yoongi just made an honest to god joke. He’s obviously shy because he doesn’t know Hoseok very well, but he’s happy that maybe he’s coming out of his cocoon a little bit. Usually, Hoseok finds people to immediately fall in with him, but if they’re shy like Yoongi or Jungkook, it can take a little while.

“You’re cute,” Hoseok says casually, and since he’s the one who’s getting the car ready to drive, he doesn’t notice how Yoongi blushes magnificently at that. “Where were you at before you landed here? Tell me your life story.”

“I work at Applebee’s too,” he says. “But they cut my hours, so I had to get a second job.” Yoongi instructs him on where to go as they pull out of the parking lot. He lives right next to Applebee’s, about fifteen minutes away.

“That’s a bummer,” Hoseok sighs, and then looks over at Yoongi. He’s got his seat belt on, which is always what Hoseok checks whenever someone new enters his car, because you can never be too cautious. “But at least you chose the second-best place to work. Build-A-Bear is the best, of course.”

“Yeah,” Yoongi blushes again, and Hoseok notices it this time. “Namjoon is really nice.”

“He’s the best in the world,” Hoseok corrects him. Ever since his crippling crush on Namjoon, he tries never to feel things for his friends. It’s mostly been easy, because none of his friends are really his type. There’s something different about Yoongi, though, which makes him feel a little weird around him. Yoongi has a vibe to him that makes Hoseok’s heart go boom.

“I think the job just takes getting used to,” Yoongi says.

“You’ll be fine. We’re all amazing and I can tell you’re already fitting in. You already have one thing in common with all of us,” Hoseok says. “Jimin is pretty great to work with. He’s my roommate, I would know.”

“Oh? So, you’ve all known each other for a while it sounds like.” Yoongi is desperately intimidated walking into a circle where there are already deep bonds. Seokjin and Namjoon are literally married, Hoseok has known Namjoon for years. Now Jimin is his roommate, he feels like he should’ve known that already. He doesn’t think there’s going to be anyway for him to ever fit in with people who have all known each other for that long.

“Some of us, yeah. I’m always open to meeting new people, but my personality can be a bit much, so people don’t always want to keep me,” he shrugs. Yoongi wants to scoff and tell him that can’t be true, but he hasn’t known Hoseok for very long. He likes how extra Hoseok is, but he doesn’t actually know what other people might think.

“How did you and Jimin meet?”

“Well, I met Jimin in college. We both studied dance and we also conveniently both needed a roommate at about the same time. There was a little while where we literally and figuratively danced around the idea of dating, but we chose not to,” Hoseok shrugs.

“Oh, okay,” Yoongi says, clearly processing his thoughts. What it is he’s processing, Hoseok doesn’t know. He smiles a little bit at the way that Yoongi’s face is so soft. He looks delicate, like if you were to poke him, he’d just fall apart. “You dance?” Yoongi is intoxicated by the idea of Hoseok dancing. He barely knows this man but Hoseok is the most alluring man he’s met in years. Hoseok’s got his hand on the wheel and eyes on the road which means that Yoongi pretty much gets to look at him all he wants. He’s very pretty to look at. It’s very nice being up close to him and this is the closest he’s ever been to him.

“I do!” Hoseok says, laughing. “Jimin’s the successful one, though. His job at the mall is only part time, he teaches at the community center.”

“Do you still dance?” Yoongi looks all doe eyed and cute when he asks. Hoseok looks over at him briefly and wants to just pinch his goddamn cheeks.

“Here and there,” he shrugs.

“You miss it though,” Yoongi says with total confidence.

“I do?”

“You don’t give up things like that,” Yoongi says. “When I left college, I never thought I’d get stuck still working at fucking Applebee’s. I thought I’d be the biggest rapper in the world by now.”

“When you left college?” Hoseok asks, more than a little caught off guard. Yoongi carries a backpack around everywhere. Maybe Yoongi graduated from college really early?

Then again, if Yoongi is working two jobs, where would he even have found the time to have a college career anyway? Does this mean…?

He’s been sure that Yoongi is like 19 tops. Any more than 19 will require a lot of reorganizing in his brain. If he’s out of college that means he’s got to be at least 22? 23? More? “Wait, how old are you?”

“I’m 27.”

“Whoa, what the fuck! Seriously?” Hoseok asks, nearly screeching the car to a halt in surprise. This guy? The guy that Hoseok thought was a teenager? The guy who he was absolutely positive he was older than? Who he thought was definitely too young for him to flirt with? That guy?

“Yeah… how old did you think I was?” Yoongi looks over at him, eyebrows furrowed together. Sure, he’s younger than he looks, but no one has ever had a reaction like this before.

“I definitely didn’t think you were older than me.” It would be embarrassing if he told Yoongi that he thought he was nearly a decade younger than he actually is.

“I think that’s a compliment.”

“You’re actually 27?” Hoseok asks looking at Yoongi again trying to detect a lie. He really doesn’t look like he could possibly be that old. Not that Hoseok should complain. 27 is the perfect age. No, Hoseok, stop thinking like that. His age isn’t the only reason why you haven’t asked him out yet.

“I am,” Yoongi says with a laugh, “Do you want to see my ID?” Now that Hoseok knows he’s not like 6 years older than this guy he looks at Yoongi sitting beside him a lot differently than he had before. He likes the way that Yoongi laughs. A lot. He decides he likes a whole bunch of things about Yoongi now that he’s 27 and not 19. He likes his cheeks, his smile, his eyes, his thighs.

“I thought you knew that,” Yoongi says. When Hoseok glances between him and the road several times, he sees Yoongi blushing.

“You carry a backpack everywhere!” he responds. “I just assumed you were a college student.” It’s entirely possible that he projected what age he wanted Yoongi to be in order to prevent himself from feeling things. He’s not going to let himself think about any of that.

“Well, I’m not,” he says. Christ, Yoongi wonders if this is why Hoseok hasn’t made a move on him yet. Not that he expects him to, but it’s felt like there’s been something there since the day Hoseok stuffed his bear.

Yoongi’s liked him for a lot long than that. Hoseok is beautiful. All of the people he works with are beautiful, but there’s something about Hoseok that just gets to him more than anyone else. It’s probably because of how vibrant and smiley Hoseok is. He’s completely irresistible.

Yoongi bites his lip and only realizes now that they’re on his street. He points to his house and Hoseok, who’s oddly silent, follows his instructions until he pulls into a driveway.

Man, he can’t believe Yoongi has his own little house. He probably rents the place, but it’s still cool to think about living in a house, not sharing your walls with three other apartments. Damn. Namjoon and Seokjin have a house, but that’s because they’re a married couple and married couples are allowed to live in houses. Yoongi living in a house makes Hoseok feel like an even bigger idiot for thinking that Yoongi was so young.

“Thank you for the ride, Hoseok.”

He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he’s a normal person who’s just talking with his friend. He can do this. “Yeah, any time, honestly. I can also pick you up before work if we have similar schedules too, Yoongi. I don’t like thinking that you have to call an Uber just to get to work.”

“Well, I usually take the bus,” he says. “But it doesn’t run this late, so…” Yoongi isn’t sure why he’s not getting out of the car. Maybe he’s waiting for Hoseok to lean over the gear stick to kiss him goodnight. He knows it isn’t going to happen even as he daydreams about it.

“Thanks again,” Yoongi says after a silence fills the car for way too long. Hoseok smiles at him, and for some reason, his smile doesn’t seem entirely genuine. Yoongi wonders why that is. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong, and yet he feels as though he must have. Hoseok is always so alive and bright. Maybe he’s just tired, Yoongi assures himself.

Whatever the case, he pulls his backpack up from the floor by his feet and opens the car door. If he can’t spend the night with Hoseok than he might as well go spend the night with Little Hoseok.

***

Jimin is beating the shit out of him at Mario Kart. Hoseok can usually beat him with one hand behind his back, but he’s been very much off his game the past few days. He’s too distracted by the bag of chips resting against his thigh to look at the screen for too long. He’s also distracted by the fact that the excuse he made for why he can’t like Yoongi has fallen apart. It’s been very inconvenient for him to recognize the fact that there are no barriers between him liking Yoongi anymore.

Honestly, it was so easy to just assume Yoongi was too young for him. Assuming he can’t is a whole lot simpler than wondering if he can.  

“Did you break your hand and not tell me about it?” Jimin asks, looking over at him.

“Hmm?”

“You suck,” Jimin says, pointing to the screen. “It’s no fun when you let me win. I’d rather you beat me fair and square.”

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“Oh,” he says, and blinks a few times, trying to invest himself in the game. It’s pushing one in the morning and all he can think about is how Yoongi spent his lunchbreak at Build-A-Bear today. He’s starting to melt into their circle like butter. Even though the store had been busy as all hell, Yoongi still sat by. Hoseok offered to let him sit on the floor in the store, and he sheepishly accepted, just so that he could escape being around people for a little while. Hoseok stood in the middle of the concourse helping to stitch up animals while Yoongi looked up at him eating his food. He looked like a goddamn dumpling and all Hoseok could think of was squishing his little cheeks. Also, he admitted to liking Daily Dog Digest and that’s the most Hoseok could ever ask for in a man.

“Did you know that Yoongi is 27?”

“Yeah,” Jimin says, unfazed.

“What? Really? You knew?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Did you not know? Wait, how old did you think he was?”

“I thought… I don’t really want to admit,” he says.

“So does you thinking he was younger have anything to do with why you haven’t asked him out yet?”

“Please don’t do this to me again,” he sighs, putting the controller down because he simply cannot think with all of this Yoongi in his head. “It’s just… I haven’t dated anyone in so long. The last time I had a boyfriend was in college, Jimin. We talked about this a few weeks ago, and it’s starting to fester rather inconveniently for me. You were the last date I went on. You! You and I went on one date and gave up halfway through. Hell, we split the goddamn bill! You don’t split the bill on a date. I don’t even know what it’s like being in a relationship as an adult; I don’t know how to do it.”

Jimin blinks. “So… you see yourself wanting a relationship with Yoongi?” Is that really all Jimin got out of that?

“I’m just terrified of disappointing someone since I don’t know how to be in a couple. I don’t know what to, what to say. I just don’t know.”

“It’s not that hard, you know. Treating someone well is the easiest thing in the world, and you’re already my best friend so I know you can do that part,” Jimin says. “Dating is just like having a best friend, except closer, physically and emotionally.”

“You can call it easy because you’ve done it!” Hoseok says. “My longest relationship lasted for a month.”

“Bottom of the line, Hoseok. Do you like him? Do you want a relationship with Yoongi?”

“That’s what I think about whenever I see him, yeah. He’s completely my type, and he’s so goddamn pretty,” Hoseok thinks about Yoongi’s pretty lips and his neck and his goddamn hands. Also, the small smile and embarrassed laugh he does when you say something nice about him, and the fact that it’s hard to catch him not sneaking sips of iced coffee when he’s at work. “But Jimin, I don’t think you understand how scared I am that I feel this way. I thought I liked being single. But now, here I am, and all I can think about is him. I don’t even know how to ask someone out.”

Jimin makes a thoughtful face. “You could try just asking him?”

Hoseok’s eyes bulge out in terror. “But what if he doesn’t like me back! What if I ruin our friendship and then he leaves the group chat, and then he quits his job all because I made things awkward between us and we never see him again?”

“Did that happen when you and I dated?” Jimin says, giving him an eyebrow.

“Well, no, but-”

“Just ask him,” Jimin says. “Here’s what happens if he doesn’t like you back: you ask me him out, and he says no. You’re both adults who can be mature about it. We went on a date, it didn’t work out, now we’re best friends. You’re literally the friendliest person I know, you’ll be fine. Just ask him out.”

“I don’t know how!”

“Do you want me to do it for you?”

“I’ll cut your balls off in your sleep,” Hoseok says. Jimin just blinks at him, not particularly surprised by this threat.

“I could at least make sure he’s single for you?”

Hoseok considers that. He really is terrified. The feelings he has inside of him are new. College boyfriends aren’t real boyfriends, just like Jimin said. Or at least, they weren’t for Hoseok. Most of his boyfriends were stress relievers between tests when he just needed to fuck something, or he’d pull his hair out. He’s moved on from that life, thank god. His stress levels are actually minimal which is an amazing feeling that he never thought he’d achieve. Yoongi’s presence has made his stress levels heighten back to the days when he had projects and tests due.

What would dating him be like? Does he pay for meals, open car doors, hold hands? The most important of all questions: does he like to cuddle? Christ, he wants to cuddle someone so much. That’s what he most wants in a relationship actually, someone to cuddle him. He wants to be a big spoon and hide under a blanket when it’s cold outside and hold his boyfriend like a teddy bear. Maybe that’s why he has such an addiction to buying bears; he just wants to hold someone.

“Only if you do it subtly.”

“How about ‘when was the last time you got laid?’” Jimin asks. Hoseok blinks at him. “Alright, I’ll workshop it.”

“I will kill you if you fuck this up for me, Jimin.” Hoseok is saying things without consulting his brain first. Caution is being thrown at the wind. Right now, he just needs to get the ball rolling with Jimin before he chickens out and tries to pretend he doesn’t have feelings for Yoongi. Besides, if Jimin finds out he’s not single, maybe that will put his crush to rest. Or even if he is single, that doesn’t mean that Hoseok has to go for it, right?

“So, you are going to try with him? You’re not just going to say you will and then chicken out?”

Hoseok makes a face. Jimin’s words are deserved, but he feels a little like a child, and he’s supposed to be the older one. “We’ll see.”

“I just want you to be happy, Hoseokie. You’ve never acted this way before. You’ve never had an actual crush since I’ve known you. I think it would be awesome for you to have someone in your life. Maybe I’ll even get a boyfriend too, so we can go on double dates. Oh, or triple dates if we invite Jin and Joon.”

Hoseok rolls his eyes. If Jimin just opened his eyes a little bit, he’d realize there’s someone who would trip over his own tongue in order to date him. If Hoseok were to date Yoongi, wouldn’t that mean Jimin has to open up about Taehyung?

Maybe they’re both hopeless.

***

Yoongi rests his head on his hand, bending over the counter with the most bored expression conceivably possible. Across the hallway, Seokjin is helping a family with three kids while one of Seokjin’s high school employees is spraying and wiping down the store. It’s almost closing time, but since it’s a Tuesday, the mall is completely dead. Namjoon is the kind of manager, god bless him, who doesn’t start closing the store down until 8:01. The other two managers get ready to shut things down ten minutes before close, but Namjoon is very by the book.

Nevertheless, he has started counting the register while Yoongi daydreams about his bed. He misses his bed, but Yoongi missing his bed is the baseline of his existence.

Yoongi looks over at Namjoon who’s trying to get work done but can’t seem to tear his eyes away from his husband across the hall. It must be hard seeing him all day and not getting to be with him. He supposes that he understands both Namjoon and Seokjin’s perspectives in how easy it would be to fall in love with either of them. They make a lot of sense; you just can’t tell until they’re stood beside each other. Namjoon is a great person when Seokjin isn’t around, but once Seokjin is around him, they both lose most of their braincells and resort to jokes, giggles, and helpless ease. Namjoon is less serious around Seokjin, who is never serious to begin with. Seokjin only gets louder and more confident. They’re the love story that you don’t believe is possible until you see it.

He wonders what Hoseok is like in a relationship. He’s already at a level 100, he might make people go blind if he were to be in a relationship, but Yoongi would like it. He wants someone who’s personality is that bright to counterbalance his tendencies toward laziness. Yoongi’s hand would probably fit very nicely into Hoseok’s. He wouldn’t be the cute one in the relationship, but that’s okay. He’d be able to show off his boyfriend to everyone and they would be jealous of him.

“Can you count this for me?” Namjoon asks him, pointing at coins in the register. He nods and focuses on the coins instead of on the very real hollowness in his chest that soars through him every time he thinks about Hoseok. Yoongi confirms the number with Namjoon and double checks all of his other counting when he asks.

Namjoon starts closing down the register once everything’s counted and Yoongi turns to look around. He already cleaned up everything because they’ve been so slow. Now it’s just a matter of waiting out the clock.

“Namjoon, you’ve been friends with Hoseok for a while, haven’t you?”

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“Nearly a decade,” he nods, not really looking up from what he’s doing. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” he shrugs. Then he starts to doubt himself. He could just ask… he could just be honest and ask Namjoon what he thinks. Namjoon seems like the kind of guy who can keep a secret. And yeah, he is Yoongi’s boss, but only during work hours. With the number of times he’s seen Namjoon use memes in the group chat, it’s very difficult for him not to think of him as a friend.

“Actually, maybe I do have a reason.”

Namjoon looks up at him. Instead of asking a question, he just gives him an inquisitive look. Namjoon has too much control over his eyebrows.

“Is he single?” Yoongi asks, not bothering to decorate the question.

Namjoon is taken aback. He blinks at Yoongi like he’s a new species of animal that has never been seen before. “He’s very single.”

“What does ‘very single’ mean?”

“That he hasn’t dated in over five years. His life sort of revolves around his job,” Namjoon says. “Do you… well, I guess I mean obviously you do or you wouldn’t have asked. You like him?”

Yoongi nods. “Yeah.”

“Well…” Namjoon considers it. He likes Yoongi, he’s a very nice guy, but Hoseok is obviously his best friend in the world besides Seokjin. But he could see it. Actually, he can see it easily. He can picture a way too loud Hoseok clinging to a quiet, concise Yoongi. They’d be a perfect balance of calm and energy. “You’d certainly be taking on an interesting case. He’s certainly out of practice when it comes to dating.”

Yoongi’s mouth forms a straight line. “I don’t think I care.”

“Well then,” he nods. “You don’t need my blessing or anything, but I think you two would make senses. He’s my best friend, Yoongi. I would do anything for that guy, literally anything in the entire world.”

“So, you’ll kill me if I broke his heart, basically?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

Yoongi laughs. “You’re not very threatening, Namjoon.”

“Fair,” he shrugs. Namjoon looks at him with a pleased expression. Maybe Namjoon actually really does want him to go after Hoseok? Everyone wants their friends to find love, though, right? And if Namjoon says they would make a good pair, well that’s the best he could possibly ask for.

“You’re not going to tell anyone, right?” he asks.

“Of course not,” Namjoon looks almost offended. “Not even Jin. You have my word.”

“Good,” Yoongi nods. “Then I also have another question.”

“Yeah?”

“A little while ago, Jimin asked me if I was single. You don’t think he likes me, do you? Because it’s not that I don’t like Jimin, but I just, like I really like Hoseok, and-”

“Jimin is definitely not interested in you,” Namjoon says. “But in just the same way that I won’t tell anyone your secret, I can’t give you any more information than that.”

Yoongi nods. “I see.” So, if Jimin, the roommate of Hoseok, wants to know if Yoongi’s single that might mean that Hoseok asked him to find out, right? In which case, Hoseok likes him back? Not like that part isn’t obvious. Yoongi scrunches up his face. What is he going to do with this information?

***

“You’re still making music?” Hoseok asks excitedly. They’re sitting at the food court, Yoongi with his Panda Express which Taehyung turned him onto, and Hoseok with a packed lunch, because he’s thrifty.

“Well, it’s not… it’s not good music.”

“Are you a SoundCloud rapper, Yoongi?”

“What? No!” He gets very defensive at the thought of it. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with people who are, but he has big plans. He has big, big plans. He’s not going to be a lifer at Applebee’s or Orange Julius. He’s going to be the next big thing. Well, he’s going to be the next big thing after the next big thing who’s after the next big thing. It’s a work in progress. It’s hard to become a famous rapper when you haven’t even finished a demo tape yet.

“I don’t need to ask you if you’re any good,” Hoseok says, taking a bite out of his food. “I already know you are.”

He blushes, “how could you possibly know that?”

“Because you’re Yoongi.”

Yoongi doesn’t bite his lip. He absolutely does not bite his lip. He looks at his food, messing around with the chopsticks and trying to calm his heartbeat. Why does Hoseok look into him like that?

It’s very unclear why neither of them has made a move on the other. How many months have they known each other? Two? Three? They’re both too stupid to know how to deal with their feelings for each other. Yoongi is a hard person to read, so Hoseok truly doesn’t know if Yoongi feels anything for him. Hoseok’s heart is on his sleeve, there’s no getting around that. Everyone who knows probably knows that he likes Yoongi. But Yoongi talks way more to Hoseok than he does to anyone else in the group so it’s more difficult for him to figure out if it’s mutual. Now Yoongi does of course suspect that Hoseok likes him, but there’s a whole lot of tumblers that need to move into place before you can tell someone you like them. Unless you’re Seokjin in which case balls to the wall.

“I haven’t finished anything yet. I’ve been working on demos for years now. They’re either never right or they’re never finished.”

“Hm, but see,” Hoseok says, “the more time you spend on something, the more you see what’s wrong with it. If you take a step back or let someone else see it – or hear it, as the case may be – they won’t see all the problems that you see.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you want to hear my music?”

Hoseok gives him a look that is almost annoyed. “Um… duh.”

“It’s really not polished or perfect or anything like that.”

“You’re selling yourself short. Have you ever played your music for anyone before?”

“No… or I mean, I guess I played it for a few professors in college, but that was really rough stuff. I’ve kind of tried to erase that from my memory. And computer.” Yoongi went to school for sound design and a hodge-podge of various music production minors. All this is something they’ve discussed before, but he’s never told Hoseok that he’s actually still making music. Hoseok might have guessed it, but there’s something special about Yoongi saying it out loud. Like he trusts him.

“When are you going to become famous and forget me, Yoongi?” he says wistfully.

“Oh, I’ll never forget you.” Well that sounds a little gay.

Hoseok doesn’t notice it, he just grins.

“You’re going to play your music for me someday. Right, Yoongi?” Usually, it’s Yoongi who likes to say Hoseok’s name too much. He can’t help it, Hoseok’s name tastes just right on his tongue.

“Maybe someday…”

***

Hoseok hates waking up before eight in the morning, but here he is, sitting across from Seokjin on a phone call with their district manager. They didn’t meet their sales goal the last month and every time that happens, they have to have a meeting with her, but thankfully, she’s far too lazy to travel to them.

Hoseok is running on a cup of coffee which tastes like the dredges of the old coffee maker that he and Jimin refuse to replace. Seokjin looks like he was pulled out of a sewer recently, because if there’s anyone who is less of a morning person than him, it’s Jin. It’s a mercy that the store doesn’t open before 11 or they probably would have killed each other by now.

“We’ve been working on our DPT, but no matter what bait I throw into the sea, I can’t force the fish to bite it,” Seokjin explains. “We’ve been working with all our associates on this, and I’ve been seeing a subtle increase the first week of this month.”

Hoseok doesn’t speak the same language that Seokjin does. Hoseok makes bears, asks customers if they want to put things in the bears, and gets them all dressed up. Sure, he can define retail terms for you, but that’s not where his expertise lies.

This phone call is a lot of Seokjin talking and Hoseok nodding in agreement which she can’t see over the phone. The district manager complains and they both roll their eyes at each other, because she’s never even worked in a store before. Both of them have literally worked at Build-A-Bear for longer than she has, it’s just that they’ve both turned down any promotions that would land them into her spot. What’s the point of working at Build-A-Bear if you don’t get to literally build bears? That’s like working at a zoo to water the grass.

“What upselling techniques are we using?” she asks like she’s talking to two children. Hoseok is just glad it’s a phone call and she’s not here personally, because she and Seokjin do not get along very well. People that don’t get along with Seokjin are a very rare breed, but it’s happened a few times.

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They give her the answers she wants to hear. She talks at them rather than to them for another several minutes, detailing the metrics for specific days like they’re both supposed to remember what happened on the sixteenth of last month that made them miss goal. She also tries to single out individual employees which they don’t stand for. Even if their high school employees aren’t their best pals and refused to join the group chat, they are still their hires and their people. Unsurprisingly, she praises Taehyung’s numbers because Taehyung could sell water to a fish.

Eventually they get off the call with her and Seokjin makes an exasperated sound and then puts his head face down on the table. The mall is empty right now and it will be for another hour or so, which is good because Seokjin’s sound echoes throughout the lonely hallway.

“I can’t with that woman,” he shakes his head. “It’s not my fault that the Kang family doesn’t want to spend sixty bucks on scents and accessories.”

“It’s fine. It’s whatever,” Hoseok says. Seokjin has a spreadsheet in front of him looking down at things he’s highlighted. The store isn’t any actual danger. It’s not like missing a month is going to shut them down, but the iron grip of the higher ups gets tight whenever they’re even a few dollars off. They only missed their monthly goal by less than three thousand, which is almost nothing at all. Bureaucracy needs to understand that they don’t have complete control over what customers want.

Seokjin puts his hands to his temples and tries to rub sleep out of his eyes before shaking his head like a dog. “The children have exams coming up.” He often calls their high school employee’s children, because why not? He still sometimes still calls Jungkook a child too. “I got a whole bunch of availability changes which are going to fuck with our hours.”

“It’s not like I have much of a life outside of here anyway,” Hoseok laughs. He doesn’t have a boyfriend, so what’s he really missing out on by being at work? He’d rather be at the store doing something and getting paid for it than to be in his apartment doing nothing and making nothing. Also, whenever he has free time, Jimin pesters him for not coming to the community center to practice dancing.

Seokjin on the other hand has a husband. They coordinate their schedules so that they can see each other as much as possible. Changes in scheduling are always tough on him because of that. This means that Hoseok usually takes on more hours than he probably should, but as has been well established, he doesn’t have much of a life anyway.

“We’re going to need to start hiring for the holidays,” Seokjin says. “I’d like to get four or five seasonal and keep on three of them.”

“Got it,” Hoseok nods. Between the two of them, Hoseok is the one who would better be termed as the ‘hiring manager.’ He’s a good judge of character and tends to see the potential in everyone. It’s a lot easier to hire at Build-A-Bear than it is at Orange Julius, because there aren’t two assholes scaring people so much that they quit.

“I also think I’d like to hire on Yoongi. See if we can’t steal him from Applebee’s.”

“No!” Hoseok says so quickly that he surprises himself. “You can’t do that.”

Seokjin raises his eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Don’t make me say it.” Is Seokjin playing dumb or is he actually dumb?

The two of them look at each other for several seconds. Seokjin’s tired, puffy eyes meet Hoseok’s more alert ones.

“Say what?” Seokjin asks, and it occurs to Hoseok that he might genuinely have no clue. Jimin sees right through him, but that’s because he lives with the guy. Jungkook can also tell, because Jungkook is kind of superhuman.

Hoseok groans, knowing that there’s nothing he can do to avoid admitting it at this point. Yoongi is obviously a perfect candidate for the job. He hates working at Applebee’s, he’s already a part of the family, he has great work ethic, and he’s easy to get along with. He’s a hiring manager’s dream.

He wishes he didn’t have to tell Seokjin, because he’ll give Hoseok endless shit for falling for one of their friends. Now, to be fair, he’ll give Hoseok endless shit for dating anyone since he’s had one boyfriend in the time Seokjin has known him, but that was too many years ago to count on one hand.

Hoseok sighs and looks at a spot behind him. “It would be totally inappropriate for a manager to date one of his employees.”

Seokjin’s eyes open wide. He’s normally a much smarter person than this, Hoseok honestly can’t believe he didn’t figure this out. “You and Yoongi are-”

“No, we’re not. But if he works for us, we won’t be able to, and I need… I need…”

“Okay, absolutely. No hiring Yoongi,” Seokjin says, resolutely, but only because he wants all the dirt now. “How long have you liked him? When are you going to ask him out? When are you getting married?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know. Maybe I’ve liked him since I met him? I just think he’s pretty and funny and sweet and serious in all the right ways.” It’s been well over a month since Jimin reported back to him of Yoongi’s singleness, and Hoseok has done absolutely nothing at all to change that fact. Yoongi should not be single. But also, no one should ever be allowed to date Yoongi besides Hoseok.

“How did I not know about this?” he asks. Seokjin looks fully devastated. How could he, the man who prides himself in being in everyone’s business, not have realized that his own friend, his own coworker, his own godfather to the adopted children he doesn’t even have yet, is in love with one of his other friends? This is just unbelievable. He needs to step up his game. If he doesn’t have gossip to fling, then what is the real purpose of his life?

“Are you in love?” he asks. Seokjin tries to use a tone that sounds teasing to cover up the mild panic he has over that fact that he didn’t see straight through Hoseok in the first place.

“No, of course not!” Hoseok says. “We haven’t even gone on a date. I don’t even know if he likes me. I mean, I think he might like me, but I can’t know for certain. All I know is that my feelings are super legit. Like, I feel serious about this.”

“You having a crush on my husband serious or…?”

“Okay first of all, I knew Namjoon first, and second, no, it’s not like that at all. This feeling I have is so serious it hurts. It’s ‘I feel like I’m going to die whenever I’m around him but I kind of like it’ serious. ‘He makes my ears blush whenever I even think about his name’ serious. ‘I think about him in the shower’ serious.” All of those statements hit home, but probably the shower one goes the furthest for Seokjin.

“Whoa.”

“Yeah.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah!”

“You’re not just going to sit on your tail and do nothing, are you?” Seokjin asks. “You’ve got to make a move. What are you waiting for?”

This is why he didn’t want to tell Seokjin. He doesn’t want to deal with both Jimin and Seokjin knowing at the same time. He could easily take care of their constant pestering him if he were to just go and make a move on Yoongi, but making a move requires confidence and balls, and he’s not sure if he has either.

“It’s scary! What if he doesn’t feel the same way and I ruin our friendship? I’m terrified! I haven’t dated anyone in years. It’s just nerve wracking.”

Seokjin shakes his head. “I asked Joon out like two weeks after meeting him.” Hoseok remembers that. He was gutted. He was even more gutted when he saw how much they were made for each other, in a way that he never was made for Namjoon. He feels differently about Yoongi, because he can look back on the way he felt about Namjoon and it feels very juvenile. It feels like a little kid had that crush on Namjoon. He was basically a kid back then, he was still in high school and had had one boyfriend in his life, which lasted about two weeks.

Yoongi is different. A lot different. His hunger for Yoongi’s words, body, voice – his everything rampages through Hoseok’s entire body. He forgets how to breathe around him.

“I’m not you, Jin! I’m not as confident!”

“Well, obviously. No one is. No one has the right to be, I’m perfect,” Seokjin loves talking about himself and his sentence drifts off until he remembers that they’re discussing Hoseok, not him. “You have to rip the band aid off, Hoseok. Just ask him out. Tell him he’s pretty. Buy him chocolate. You know how I asked Joon out for the first time? I marched on over to Orange Julius, told him how pretty he is, and we went on a date as soon as his shift was over. That’s how you’ve got to do it.”

“Okay, but I’ve already known Yoongi for a few months, so I think it’s a bit late for that.”

Seokjin is more aggravated now than he was on the phone call with their district manager. Seokjin is a punch-you-in-the-face-“that’s life” kind of a guy.

“You just have to do it,” he says eventually. “There’s no pomp and circumstance. Just tell him you like him. Do it however you want. You’ll probably be a fumbling mess and it’ll be cringey as all hell, but you have to. What if Yoongi is your Namjoon? If I was you and I thought even for a second that I could feel the way I do about someone that Seokjin does about his husband, I don’t think I could waste a minute. That’s how I landed the best man in the world, Hoseok.”

“You’re probably right,” Hoseok says, shaking his head. “Yeah. You probably are right.”

***

Hoseok is waiting for Jungkook’s shift to be over so that they can go get noodles. It’s Jungkook’s turn to buy and Hoseok has been waiting literally all day to get some goddamn food in his face. All he’s had so far is a very sad packed lunch and smoothie that Jimin may or may not have spit in because Hoseok ate his leftovers last night. He certainly threatened to spit in the smoothie, but whether he did or didn’t is largely dependent on where Namjoon’s eyes were at the time.

Hoseok is hiding in the back of Hot Topic next to the socks, pretending like he works here which anyone would be able to tell is not true because he isn’t wearing a black T-shirt with a band logo on it. Jungkook, who actually does work here, is ringing up two white girls who very clearly have a thing for him, so Hoseok crouches down because he doesn’t want to deal with them seeing that he is also a very pretty boy. He has girls like that at his store all the time, and it’s very weird being flirted with by girls when you’re building a teddy bear for them. Jimin has the worst of it, because he’s Instagram famous and sometimes gets recognized. Hoseok needs a boy to hold hands with to scare off girls whenever the situation arises. Jimin will do that for him anytime he asks because of their shared problem, but Hoseok also wants to be able to kiss whoever’s hand he holds, and he doesn’t want to kiss Jimin ever.

Staring at the wall of clothes, he wonders vacantly if he would look good in fishnets when a voice from behind him says his name. Hoseok’s entire body clenches and he turns around to see the prettiest boy of them all. He constantly thinks about Yoongi when they’re not near each other. It’s hard not to. He still doesn’t know if he’s going to attempt anything with him, but he knows that he certainly wants to.

“Hey, Yoongi, how are you?” he says, trying to act casual. Why is he trying to act casual when Yoongi is his friend and he acts casual around him all the time? That’s what having friends is like. So why does it feel like this all of a sudden? He hasn’t been avoiding Yoongi, but he certainly hasn’t been seeking him out. It’s been a little over a week since he came clean to Seokjin, and he has very much gotten used to Seokjin’s heavy gaze on him. It feels like the clock is ticking now with two people – and also probably Jungkook – knowing about his crush.

It’s not like things have changed. He’s given Yoongi a ride back to his house twice just in the past week and that hasn’t been weird. A little uncomfortable when he looks too closely at his face and feels his insides melt, but he’s living through it.

But right now, well… Yoongi isn’t in his work clothes right now. Hoseok has never seen him outside of work clothes before, because he would remember it if he had. Usually, Yoongi is in baggy black pants that don’t show off his assets, and he has the signature blue shirt – Hoseok has always wondered why it’s not, you know, orange.

This Yoongi is a breed of creature he was not and will never be prepared for. His jeans are black and way too skinny, with giant holes in the knees, and Hoseok confirms that Yoongi has indeed been walking around on chicken legs this entire time. The rest of the look isn’t intimidating in anyway, it’s just very nice seeing him look like a normal human person who is attractive and knows how to dress. Hoseok nearly has a heart attack when he notices that his piercings are in. Hoseok needs a life alert, because he is about to fall and he will not be getting back up. His heart is going to give out. He’s going to die right here in this Hot Topic because of Yoongi, and he doesn’t know what to do.

“Yoongi!” he says, his voice sounds breathy and he hates it.

“You into stockings?” he laughs, pointing at the display directly behind him to a pair of stockings with cats on them.

Hoseok blushes furiously, and shakes his head, “no, no, no. I’m just waiting for Jungkook’s shift to end.” He points over at Jungkook who is trying to bat off the girls as politely as possible without pulling out a spray bottle.

Yoongi gives him a wide smile. “I know, I was just teasing you.” Something is different about Yoongi today. Maybe it’s because he’s in human clothes rather than work clothes. He seems happier, brighter, more excited. Hoseok is barely able to stay sane being around Yoongi when Yoongi is bored out of his mind at work, so how is he going to handle a Yoongi who’s this sexy?

Hoseok is now self-conscious that Yoongi is here looking like an entire buffet while he’s in black dress pants and a dull white T-shirt. No one wants to fuck a guy dressed like this, and he wishes to god that Yoongi knew he has an actual fashion sense when he’s at home. Not like he ever gets to show that off because he works almost every day of the week.

“What, uh, brings you by?” Hoseok asks.

“Well, I actually work just a few stores down,” he says. Hoseok fakes a laugh that is so plastic that it makes Jungkook turn his head as he’s trying to shoo away the girls. Hoseok wants to bury himself in a very deep grave.

“It’s just- you’re not… I mean you’re dressed a little differently,” Hoseok tries to play it cool, but that mission failed several minutes ago before Yoongi even walked up to him.

“Well I had to buy a few things before my shift started, and I hate walking around like a corporate whore,” he says, and then gestures to his backpack. “I’ll change before I actually have to clock in.”

“Oh, okay,” he nods. “When is your shift? Jungkook and I are getting food.”

Yoongi pulls his phone from his pocket to check the time. “An hour. The bus schedule doesn’t really take into account my own schedule.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he nods. In his right mind, he should be far away from Yoongi when he’s looking this dangerous, but he can’t help himself. He wants all the time with Yoongi he can get, even if it means he just looks at his piercings and exposed knees. “So, would you want to get food with us? Me and Jungkook, I mean.”

“Yeah, absolutely!” Yoongi says, because he was waiting for Hoseok to ask him that since he mentioned food. Hoseok smiles sweetly at him and is saved from trying to form words when Jungkook pops up behind Yoongi. Jungkook is too smiley to be too punk rock. Also, he listens to a lot of pop music. He gets made fun of for his music taste a lot at Hot Topic, but he’s still intimidating because he’s Jungkook and you can even see how ripped he is through most of his shirts.

“I’m off the clock!” He says happily. “Hi Yoongi!” Yoongi waves back at him. Hoseok doesn’t see them interact too much because Jungkook doesn’t work down the hall like the rest of them, but they seem to get along just fine whenever they’re together.

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“Jungkook, is it, uh, okay if Yoongi comes to get food with us?”

“Sure,” Jungkook says, unphased. Hoseok doesn’t know why he thought he might say no. “Just give me one second to go grab my things,” he says, and then squeezes past Hoseok in the trademark Hot Topic aisles which are way too narrow. Hoseok looks to see that the two girls have left and one of Jungkook’s coworkers who has more facial piercings than Hoseok has brain cells is now manning the register.

If Yoongi is coming along, they’ll have to eat at the food court. He and Jungkook were going to get black bean noodles at a restaurant on the other side of town, but if they were to do that, they wouldn’t be able to get back in time for Yoongi’s shift, and he desperately needs to be near Yoongi right now so that he can fully drink in this look of his. If for nothing else, he needs to engrave pierced Yoongi into his mind.

“Did you have a good day?” Yoongi asks.

“Yeah, kind of long, though. Glad it’s over. Er, sorry,” he says, remembering that Yoongi’s shift hasn’t started yet, and the poor guy must be closing if he’s going in at this hour.

“Don’t worry about it,” Yoongi says. He can tell what he’s doing to Hoseok. Hoseok is trying to be subtle about it, but he’s very much checking Yoongi out. And Yoongi knows exactly how to drive the nail into Hoseok’s coffin. “Cool if we go over there? I’ve got to go get some earrings, that’s actually why I came in.”

Hoseok gulps physically and audibly. Yeah, Yoongi had a feeling that would work. Hoseok follows after him as Yoongi goes to look at the display case with all the various earrings. Hoseok’s mouth is very dry as Yoongi crouches down to look at them. Hoseok isn’t okay, he wants a pretty boy with piercings and squishy cheeks and who wears jeans with holes in them. Does Yoongi even know how pretty he looks right now? Does Namjoon know what he’s robbing the world of by not letting him have his earrings in? Hoseok doesn’t feel good.

“Ready?” Jungkook again pops up, and Hoseok startles, both because he’s a scaredy cat, and because he was too concentrated on Yoongi to hear him approach.

“Can you open the case for me to get some piercings, Jungkook?” Yoongi asks, standing up straight again.

Jungkook gives an exasperated sigh, “I’ve already clocked out for the day, Yoongi.” Yoongi pouts his bottom lip. Jungkook isn’t bothered but Hoseok’s lifespan reduces by at least a year at the sight.

“Fine, fine,” he says, and then goes over to his heavily pierced coworker to ask for her keys. He returns and Yoongi points to the ones he wants. Hoseok decides that the ceiling looks lovely this time of year. He drifts off to stand near the doors, trying to recover while Yoongi pays for his things and Jungkook stays to let him use his employee discount, which he’s not allowed to do, but Hot Topic employees ain’t snitches.

Hoseok has to breathe deeply. He can do this. He sees hot guys all of the time, they just walk around the mall. But this is a hot guy who also happens to be his friend, so he knows he likes his personality. Hoseok will be fine someday. He just needs hot tea and a fireplace to sit beside while he grapples with existence.

They meet him at the door and Hoseok smiles at Yoongi, completely disregarding Jungkook’s existence.

“All set?”

Yoongi nods, and Jungkook stares at the two of them with a facial expression that doesn’t have a word. He’s judging them both for their very obvious attraction towards each other. Yet neither of them has said anything, because surely, if they had, everyone in the mall would’ve heard about it by now. Inter-mall dating is a serious topic. That time the girl from the Foot Locker started dating the guy from the Go! Calendars store was monumental. Namjoon and Seokjin are sometimes revered as gods amongst men.

“It’s my turn to buy food,” Hoseok says.

“I thought it was my-”

“Nope, it’s mine,” he says, giving Jungkook a pleasant but evil stare. Of all the people who could find out about him having a crush on Yoongi, Jungkook is the least worrying. Jungkook isn’t going to tease him, he’s Jungkook.

Hoseok looks at Yoongi’s hand as they walk out of the store. It looks like it would be nice to hold. It’s either intentional or pure luck that Jungkook decides to walk behind the two of them. Jungkook just wants to see what will happen.

“How is your demo coming along?” Hoseok asks.

“It’s pretty much the same as it was a month or a year ago, I’m just trying to make it more and more perfect,” Yoongi shrugs. He works on his music pretty much every day, but he’s only one person, so it feels as though every second of every song takes an eternity. Someone who has access to support and money would be able to make something of all the effort he’s put into his music, but he’s literally all by himself in his house doing his best. The only reason he lives in a house is so that he can make music at all hours of the night without neighbors complaining about the noise levels, and that means he has to work two jobs. It’s a nightmare. Maybe he’ll date Hoseok and then he’ll move in with Yoongi, and then they have two salaries so he won’t have to work two jobs, and then he’ll release his solo album and everyone in the world will buy it and he’ll be famous and he’ll show off Hoseok as his date on red carpets. He’s getting a little ahead of himself.

“I’m sure it’s better than you think it is. You know, if you spend so much time with something, you begin to find flaws that aren’t there. It’s like looking at your face in the mirror every day. You see your nose and think, ‘huh, I wish I had a better nose’ but then people around you think you have a really great nose. It’s just that you don’t see it, because you have to look at it every day and you get tired.”

“I like your nose,” Yoongi says, and Hoseok rolls his eyes and nudges him. Not wanting to be the only one on the chopping block, he says, “You, Hoseok, should dance more often.”

Jungkook pitches in, “he’s right you know, Hoseokie.”

“Okay, I dance! I dance all the time.”

“You don’t,” Jungkook says, shaking his head. “Jimin said you never stop by the community center anymore, and it’s not like you’re stomping around on your third-floor apartment, are you?”

“It’s just… I mean,” If Hoseok were a computer, he would need a hard-reset right about now. “I didn’t know I was going to get this sort of pressure put on me today.”

“Come on, how do you keep that kind of passion inside?” he asks. “As an artist, it’s hard to keep your creativity down.”

“I just invest my life and soul into that store,” Hoseok says. “I really, really do. I care so much about my job. I know it’s stupid. People who are married to their job are usually in offices or whatever, and here I am, making teddy bears for a living, but I love it.”

“You don’t need to work so much,” Jungkook says. “You never have days off.” Hoseok purses his lips. He has days off! One a week usually, but that still counts! Right?

“It does seem like you work too much,” Yoongi says. Hoseok really didn’t think he was going to get interrogated on his way to the food court. He spares himself from having to talk about it anymore when the smell of food hits them like a wall. Hoseok uses it as an excuse to jog over to the small food court to give a quick survey of his options. Panda Express, arbitrary not Panda Express but wishes they were, arbitrary burger place, arbitrary healthy option, and arbitrary pretzel place. Hoseok’s feet decide on a burger before his brain does.

He doesn’t check but Yoongi follows him while Jungkook aims his sights on the Panda Express wannabe, because they have better noodles. Hoseok said he was buying, but apparently it’s only Yoongi he’s paying for.

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“Is there a reason for why you work as much as you do?” Yoongi asks.

“I think I just work in order to have something to do,” he says. The line to the burger place is a few people long so they have a few minutes to talk. Yoongi doesn’t even know if he wants a burger. He’d probably prefer a pretzel. His biggest preference is being near Hoseok.

“You could spend that time dancing,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of people do dance covers on the internet. I wish you would do something like that. I think if I were to try to keep my love for creating music inside, I’d probably be just… well honestly, I’d be so depressed. I wonder if you ever feel like something’s missing?”

“I really do just spend all of my time at work. Like, all of it. I don’t think I should even tell you how much overtime I put in, because I think you’d choke.”

“You need to relax, Hoseok,” Yoongi says. Maybe you should find a boyfriend. Someone who’s standing right beside you perhaps. “You know you’re going to burn out eventually if you do that for too long.”

“I guess someday,” he shrugs. “I’ll find a good reason to take a few steps back from work.” Like maybe a boyfriend. Maybe someone who’s standing right beside him.

They order their food and find Jungkook at one of the tables on the edge of the room. They usually sit in the same section of the food court if not at the same table every time. Jungkook is already halfway done with his noodles, watching a video on his phone. Jungkook always looks like a little kid when he’s eating, there’s just something about the way his cheeks puff out and he chews in a pout that makes Hoseok want to give him Werther’s Originals.

“Jimin posts videos of himself dancing to Instagram, Hoseok. You should too,” Jungkook says. Yoongi beams, because he just said the same thing!

“Let me see,” Yoongi asks, gesturing to Jungkook’s phone. Yoongi makes a little aw sound in his throat that he hadn’t planned on when he sees Jimin dancing his goddamn heart out in a big studio with a mirror on the wall. He makes a mental note that he’s going to have to download Instagram now.

Hoseok gets very jealous of Yoongi looking at a video of Jimin, because he’s just as good as Jimin. Yoongi should be watching videos of him dancing. Oh jeez, does he need to download Instagram now?

“He’s good,” Yoongi says, not like it needs to be stated. He is a professional. So is Hoseok, but he doesn’t brag about it, and lift his shirt up for the views.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says looking happy, and taking his phone back.

“Let’s all stop trying to convince Hoseok to drastically change his life today, okay?” Hoseok says.

They nod and move onto other topics such as the woman who came into Hot Topic to ask Jungkook what gauge her nipple piercings were and then proceeded to flash him so that he could give her an answer. He hid in the backroom for like twenty minutes, and hissed at anyone that tried to disturb him, which sounds kind of on brand for Jungkook.

“You know, you could always come back to Build-A-Bear,” Hoseok says. “Jungkook 2 has been keeping your apron clean and ready for you.” Jungkook makes a noise, but it doesn’t sound like he’s brushing him off nearly as much as usual. Wow, nipple lady really got to him.

“The worst thing is that this isn’t the first time this has happened,” Jungkook sighs. “Why do… ugh. These people could just ask when they get pierced, you know? They could ask the piercer what gauge it is before it goes in their body. It’s a Hot Topic, we sell anime and heavy metal shit. I’m not a piercer? I don’t know these things. Why would I know these things? I don’t want to see your nipple. And why do they never ask if it’s okay before they just pull their shirts up? I feel like that’s the kind of thing you need all parties to accept is going to happen before you do it.”

“Ah, the ongoing struggles of being a mall gay,” Hoseok says and holds up his drink as if he’s about to toast to it. Yoongi snorts and covers his face, but Hoseok would probably find it sexy anyway.  

***

“This has come out of nowhere,” Jimin says. He’s very sweaty and out of breath as Hoseok finds a seat on the floor of the studio. It’s Jimin’s room every other weekday from 5 until the community center closes at 10. Perks of working here. Jimin gets to earn money teaching and then has several hours of time where the room is all his, and that’s how he managed to get a few hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, posting videos that Yoongi thinks are amazing. That and because of Jimin’s abs which people are into apparently. Hoseok doesn’t have an Instagram because Jimin intimidates him a little bit too much. Jimin is just too good at being perfect. Hoseok has known him for years and still isn’t sure he can name any of his flaws.

“I’m having an emotional crisis,” Hoseok says.

“You’ve been having an emotional crisis ever since I met you. Your whole life is an emotional crisis.”

“I have not! I’m usually never stressed,” Hoseok says.

“Nah, you just think you’re not stressed because you distract yourself with work,” Jimin says. He takes a very long sip of water and then goes to sit beside Hoseok on the floor. Jimin’s the kind of asshole who smells good when he sweats. Piece of shit.

“Christ, did you guys have some sort of summit? Have you all been conspiring to tell me I’m a workaholic who doesn’t have a personal life?”

“Who said that to you? I need to give them a hug.”

“Fuck,” Hoseok says, resting his head on Jimin’s shoulder. He’s sweaty but Hoseok is in distress so he doesn’t care. He could use someone to cuddle; ideally someone with black hair who raps and has cute cheeks and a sweet little smile.

“Alright, low blow. Talk to me, Hoseokie,” Jimin says, putting an arm around him. “What’s got you so panicked?”

“Okay, so Yoongi and Jungkook basically told me that I don’t make enough time for myself, and that I’ve basically given up dancing because I spend too much time at Build-A-Bear,” he says. He dropped Jungkook off at his apartment an hour ago, stewed in the apartment for that hour staring at the TV without turning it on, and then drove directly here. Jimin’s got another class to teach in about thirty minutes, but that’s enough time to vent. It’s enough time to get half of his venting done, at least.  

“I really hate to be an asshole, but you know they’re right, don’t you?”

“I do know they’re right,” Hoseok says, nodding. He hasn’t been here in nearly a year now. He can’t dance in their apartment, because the floors are just too thin, so it’s been about a year since he last did, he always credits dancing as being his favorite thing in the whole world. There’s a saying having to do with a dancer’s true death being when they stop dancing. His excuse is that he’s been working more and more, but he’s the one who keeps choosing to work more and more. He hates confronting this, but it’s about time he starts. How long is he going to be able to be a happy person if he isn’t doing his favorite thing? He spent many thousands of dollars to go to school in order to be the best dancer in the world and he hasn’t even been inside the goddamn community center in a year.

“Does this mean you’re going to dance again, Hoseok?” he asks. Hoseok picks his head off of Jimin’s shoulder to look at him. Jimin notes that he certainly looks like he’s having a hard time. He’s not crying, but the sadness is there on his face anyway. It’s almost like defeat. The dam can only keep the water at bay when the walls are strong.

“Stay for my class, okay?” Jimin says. “Jump in or just sit here, but you’ve got to stay here. And when the class is over, we can just dance for hours, okay? I think you need that. You’ve got to un-rust these joints.” Jimin slaps at Hoseok’s knee and pretends like he’s going to stretch his leg out for him. Hoseok laughs sadly and slouches further against the mirror. It’s heartbreaking, actually. Hoseok is the brightest star in the entire sky, so his light shouldn’t ever flicker. It’s harder to be near a sad Hoseok than it is be around a sad anyone else, because Hoseok is the first person to cheer everyone else up.

“Jimin, Yoongi saw one of those videos you posted to Instagram,” Hoseok says. “He saw it and he was like… ugh, he looked very into what you were doing.”

“Uh oh, that’s why you’re like this,” Jimin says. “It’s not just because you’re finally seeing sense. It’s also because you’re jealous. We both know that I don’t like Yoongi-”

“Yeah, but what if he likes you? What then, Jimin? You asked him if he was single, and now he’s watching a video of you dancing and being all sexy. You’re his coworker so he talks to you more than me, and also you’re… you’re Jimin.”

“But you’re Hoseok,” Jimin says, saying his name back to him like it has the same gravity as his own.

“Jimin,” he whines.

“Maybe he was just trying to make you jealous. I think it’s possible that he already has a crush on you,” Jimin says. Jimin actually doesn’t know Yoongi that well yet. They’re certainly friends, but that doesn’t mean he can read the inner most workings of his mind like he can with Hoseok. Jimin never works at Orange Julius for more than a few hours, and his shifts usually only overlap with Yoongi’s for an hour at the most. Hoseok certainly does spend more time with Yoongi than Jimin does.

“I hate you,” Hoseok pouts, and then puts his head on Jimin’s shoulder again. He’s thankful the mirror is at his back so that he doesn’t have to look at himself right now. He probably looks pitiful. He’s not the crying, balling on the ground kind of depressed right now, it’s more of a dull, sharp feeling that makes him feel like he’s never going to achieve any of his dreams and also, he’ll die cold and alone. He does not need this right now, he really thought his life was going great a few months ago, but now he’s realizing that he’s missing so many things and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

“I’ve got an idea, Hoseokie,” Jimin says, and the very way he says it makes Hoseok know it’s an evil idea.

“What might that be?” Hoseok doesn’t actually want to know. Jimin’s got a very strong, very defined Slytherin streak running through his veins and it’s best to always be careful around him.

“You said Yoongi liked my video,” Jimin says. “Well, what if we were to post a video of you dancing?”

“I don’t even have an Instagram, dipshit,” Hoseok says. Jimin already knows this. Hoseok doesn’t have the time or patience for social media. He stalks celebrities and dog videos on Twitter and that’s the extent of his social media usage.

“Well, but I have several thousands of people who follow me on Instagram. So, what we’ll do is make you an account, and then I’ll take a video of you on my Instagram and tag you in the video. Then I’m going to send it to the group chat to make Yoongi thirsty and voila, you and Yoongi are walking down the aisle. Simple as that.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Jimin sighs exaggeratedly and then looks at Hoseok for several moments. His head is still against Jimin, and he doesn’t seem to be paying all that much attention. Jimin grabs Hoseok’s phone on his lap. He doesn’t even do it sneakily, Hoseok is just too apathetic to argue. He lets Jimin use his face to unlock the screen and accepts the reality that Jimin is making him an Instagram without fighting him on it. It’s hard to fight Jimin. He’s too cute to be mad at, and also he gets scary when he’s mad.

“Let’s see, password… Yoongisfuturehusband69.”

“I hate you,” Hoseok says, covering his face. “Just because you’re making an account doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to anything.”

“Okay, but we both know that you’re super sexy when you dance. If Yoongi were to see that, I don’t think he could even contain himself anymore. I think he’d fall in love as soon as he saw your bulge, I mean eyes.”

Hoseok punches him in the arm.

“Come on,” Jimin says, standing up. He pulls Hoseok onto his feet which isn’t hard when you’re as lanky and pathetic as Hoseok. “Time to stretch and get ready to make Yoongi fall in love with you.”

“I still haven’t agreed to anything.”

“You will,” Jimin says, sounding sure of himself. When Jimin is sure of himself, it’s best to assume he’s right. Hoseok doesn’t know how he’s going to manage to pull it off, but he’s sure that he will.

***

Jungkook : holy ship

Jungkook : *holy shit

Jungkook : hoLY SHIT

Jungkook : HOLY SHIIIITTTTT

Jungkook’s texts to the group chat come in at about midnight and Yoongi rubs at his temples, sitting in front of his keyboard, looking down at the incoming texts with confusion. He picks up his phone and tries to determine what’s happening. It’s hard to tell if these are good “holy shit”s or bad ones. There are certainly a lot of them.

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Everyone else starts to ask what he’s talking about before Yoongi has to, so he waits as little dots appear under people’s names. Seokjin is first to ask, and then Taehyung. All Jungkook sends is a link. Yoongi clicks it, because Jungkook is being far too mysterious for him not to be intrigued. It sends him to an Instagram video which he can’t open because he doesn’t have an account or the app. He rolls his eyes. Whatever it is, it can’t be that important. He doesn’t really want to create an account just to find out what Jungkook is freaking out about.

Taehyung : IS THAT HOSEOK?!?!?!?!?!

Hoseok : …

Jungkook : HOSEOOOOKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!

Seokjin : Dude

Seokjin : Bruh

Hoseok : …

The dots appear by Hoseok’s name repeatedly, but he doesn’t respond to anything. At the sight of Hoseok’s name, Yoongi immediately goes back to click the link and creates an account so fast that he’s worried he spelled his own name wrong. It takes him the three longest minutes of his entire life to create an account, but he’s finally led to Jimin’s page, the same one where he saw the video that Jungkook showed him. The most recently uploaded video, though…

Yoongi immediately runs out of the spare bedroom he uses as his studio. He doesn’t know why but it’s vitally important that he’s on his bed when he watches this. Once he’s on his bed, lying on his side, trying to mess with the orientation of his screen so that he can see the video as big as it’ll get, he clicks on it and unmutes.

There he is. Beautiful, pretty, sexy, gorgeous Hoseok. Dancing. The music is all beat, no real tune, perfect for dancing to. Yoongi’s mesmerized by it. Hoseok moves like water, but his movements are firm and coordinated. He looks like every bit of a professional dancer as Yoongi knows he is. His clothes are baggy, not at all what he’s normally in at work. There’s no real figure to his body in those clothes, it’s all in the way he dances that shows Yoongi how hot he is.

Yoongi doesn’t even realize the video is over until it starts over again by itself. It’s far too short, because Yoongi could watch this video for hours. He watches it again. And then again and again. Then several more times. It’s probably on his tenth watch that he finally reads the caption. “he hasn’t danced in over a year and he’s still better than me.” Jimin links to another account, which has to be Hoseok’s, only for Yoongi to hurriedly click it to find that it’s a completely empty Instagram. Not a single post, not even a bio. The only thing that gives away it’s Hoseok’s account is the fact that it’s his name and the profile photo of Hoseok which Jimin most definitely took without his permission.

He’ll have time to worry about all of that later, right now it’s more important to watch Hoseok dance several more times. He pushes away notifications from the group chat every few seconds as he watches Hoseok over and over again. Oh god, he is not doing okay right now. He is not well. He’s got a fever or an alien virus. Something is wrong and he needs a paper bag to breathe into.

It’s on the twentieth or thirtieth watch of the video that he realizes that Jimin is literally in the background filming Hoseok. He’s sitting on the floor, visible in the mirror. He also appears to laugh excitedly at one point, clearly having the time of his life watching Hoseok be the sexiest man on the planet. Has Jimin been in the video this entire time? Hoseok literally eats the cameras attention so much that there could be a Godzilla attack out the window and you’d still only notice Hoseok.

Yoongi doesn’t know how Instagram works. He clicks like, and then tries to see if there’s a way to download the video to his phone, because he needs this in his life until he dies. He’s not technologically savvy so all he can do is just follow Jimin on Instagram, follow Hoseok, and then send the link to the video to his email in case he ever loses it for any reason.

Then he notices how many people have actually watched the video and his grip tightens. Thousands of people? The video was only posted like an hour ago. How many of those views were Yoongi? He blushes, and then checks to find out that apparently lots of people follow Jimin on Instagram and a quick scroll through his feed makes it easy for him to determine why. Jimin looks alright without a shirt. He looks more than alright.

So, what are people saying about Hoseok then? Yoongi looks at two different comments thirsting over Hoseok before he decides to turn his phone off and lie on his back. He closes his eyes and lets his phone rest on his chest. The phone has stopped vibrating and he wonders when that happened. How long has he actually been in his bed watching that video? Enough to know that Hoseok probably doesn’t have bones and also is probably the sexiest man on the face of the planet. He whimpers softly to himself. He’s not okay right now.

He opens his phone up again after taking a minute to breathe. Lots of people are thirsting over Hoseok. Too many people. Yoongi’s jaw tightens. He knows that most of these are just horny girls scrolling through Instagram before sleep, but he feels himself disliking every single one of them. It’s not like they have a chance when Hoseok is as bent as a boomerang, but he still feels uncontrolled jealousy. If he didn’t already think Hoseok was the prettiest boy in the universe, he certainly thinks so now.

Yoongi opens up the messaging app again to catch up on all the missed texts. Everyone is freaking out over the video. Everyone’s names appear in troves, except Hoseok himself. They’re all ragingly excited that Hoseok has actually danced for the first time in forever. None of them appear to be excited about his body or the way he uses it nearly as much as they are excited for him to have danced at all. Yoongi can’t say anything about how attractive he finds Hoseok in the group chat. That would be inappropriate and embarrassing.

Yoongi thinks about the conversation he had with Hoseok only a few hours ago, which, now that he thinks of it, surely is the cause of this video’s existence. Yoongi and Jungkook maybe put the pressure on him a little too hard, but this is what happens? He goes out and posts a video on Jimin’s account of himself dancing? They must have really gotten through to him. Hoseok wanted to prove to them that he could still dance, and that he hasn’t lost a single one of his skills even in all the time he was away. He certainly achieved his goal.

Yoongi whimpers again. He doesn’t know how to respond to the group chat but he knows that he has to. Everyone else is proud and happy for Hoseok, and yet he’s been radio silence for… fuck, it’s been over an hour since this all started.

He labors over it, trying to contain all the excitement and desire he now feels. He’s going to watch the video for a lot longer and then wait agonizingly hoping that Hoseok posts more videos to his own account. Yoongi’s heart will probably give out, along with thousands of girls, but Yoongi’s broken heart will hurt the most.

Yoongi : Wow. Just wow.

It only takes a few seconds before Hoseok’s dots appear. Yoongi holds his breath. Hoseok responds with a smiling emoji and that’s it. It’s his first correspondence all night. Yoongi wonders if the video was posted specifically for Yoongi to see it. He closes his eyes and puts his hands over his face again. Yoongi scoffs. Jungkook doesn’t even know the meaning of “holy shit.”

IF YOU ENJOYED PART 1 & 2, LEAVE A COMMENT ON ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN AND SUBSCRIBE TO KNOW WHEN I UPDATE. I’D ALSO LOVE IT IF YOU REBLOGGED THIS POST OR FOLLOW ME ON TUMBLR SO THAT MORE PEOPLE WILL GET TO SEE MY FIC. THANK YOU ALL, I LOVE YOU

[the-minyard-twins]

Andreil Fic Rec

I’ve always wanted to do a fic rec so here we are! I’ve read a lot of Andreil recently and these are my top 28 favorite Andreil and AFTG fics

1. Trust Fall (And Welcoming Arms) by SpangleBangle

85k | Explicit

Life goes on after the Foxes win the championship, and for Andrew and Neil it’s uncharted territory with only each other for guides. Maybe it’s time to put away some of those hard edges, and learn how to touch more softly, and speak more honestly. And if they falter, they have their family to help them get back on their feet.

2. Learning To Feel (When You’ve Forgotten How) by thegirlwiththeprettybrowneyes

43k | Teen | No Proust AU

On the night before his first day of therapy at Easthaven, Andrew blows out his legs and decides he isn’t going to bury his feelings anymore, consequences be damned. In return, he gets a schedule change, and a very strange new therapist. /////// “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t blow you,” Andrew finished, looking anywhere but at Neil’s face. Neil looked like he had just realized the sky was blue. “You like me,” Andrew sighed. “Yeah,” he said, resigned “Yeah, Neil, I like you,” /////// No Proust AU

3. Broken by Jeni182

34k | Explicit

Andrew attempts suicide and he and Neil try to navigate his recovery and healing together.

4. Waves by Jeni182 (sequel to Broken)

94k | Explicit

Broken Part II - Neil and Andrew try to navigate life post Andrew’s suicide attempt now that he’s in Denver and Neil’s in his last year at PSU.

5. Funky Happenings with the Fox Family by dobbypussypopper

29k | Teen | text!fic

naughtygayweedcrime: did I rlly just see neil say woke

naughtygayweedcrime: what a surreal timeline we live in

dumbfool: allison is trying to teach me how to meme so I can get hip

naughtygayweedcrime: bless your poor soul

davidwymack: sometimes I regret living

davidwymack has muted exyllent, damnwilds, + 7 others for 30 minutes

6. Something in Return by reaching _my_summit

31k | Mature

“Andrew Minyard, how will you celebrate winning your final college Exy championship?”

“I’m going to Disney World,” Andrew deadpans.

- - -

Andrew’s final year at Palmetto State comes to a close. His future is upon him and there are plans to be made. Years ago, Neil asked Andrew to stop smoking in exchange for something. Andrew finally knows what he wants in return.

7. The Unloved Kids by AlrightDarlin

35k | Not Rated

“I intend to treat them the same. I need strong athletes, not toddlers,” Wymack starts, but sits back with a sigh, running a hand over his face. “But hypothetically, if I had to look after a bunch of toddlers on the weekends…”

Betsy’s eyes crinkle with her smile. “Are you asking advice?”

“They’re screwed up enough,” Wymack says, “I’m not trying to make it worse.”

(David Wymack takes his little nightmares and does his best to corral them and love them within an inch of their lives. He can’t change what happened to them, but he can be there for them now.)

8. Turn it Off by elawless

10k | Mature

“It hurts…so much…too…much” He choked out between breaths. “I want to let go so…bad. I am so close”. He lifted his head to look at Andrew and saw no blue in his eyes and believed Andrew was real, but the rest of the pain was. It was just enough for him to trust Andrew with what he would say next.

“Stay. Give me Neil back. Don’t leave.” Andrew could no longer cover all of his desperation, his voice seemed to crack on the last word.

“Just let me turn it off. Just for today. Neil will come back. Bring him back, for the both of you.”

9. VW Actually Means “Very Weird” by exyjunkies

15k | Gen

If it was just going to be the two of us, then why bring the Volkswagen?

So that if I end up murdering you on this road trip, I’ll have enough space for clean-up.

Neil and Andrew take on the Pacific Coast Highway over the span of two and a half weeks, with a surprise for one of them at the very end.

10. Puzzle Pieces by Nikotheamazingspoonklepto

59k | Explicit | Series

Neil’s life is a puzzle, the people in it are the pieces that give everything meaning. Together they make a picture of happiness.

11. diet mountain dew by reaching_my_summit

2k | Teen

neil thinks andrew is very pretty. he tells andrew exactly that.

12. For Science by ClockworkDragon, DeyaAmaya

8k | Explicit

“Here’s what I propose: we’ll play a game, and I’ll even let you pick which one, but we’re going to set some stakes. I’m not going to let you talk big and walk away free of punishment if you lose.” Without hesitating, Kevin asked, “Fine, I choose Trivial Pursuit. What are the stakes?” Allison put a finger to her lips and tilted her head, as if she was actually thinking of a response and didn’t plan this whole thing days ago. “Hmm, did you know the spirit store recently added fox themed thigh-high socks to their stock? They’ve become quite popular amongst cheerleaders.” This statement seemed to throw Kevin off because he just stared blankly at Allison until she continued. Andrew was not, however, an idiot. He could see where this was going. “How about whoever loses has to wear the socks for an entire school day; including morning and evening practices?” “Holy shit,” Nicky whispered. “You are one devious bitch.” Allison winked.

13. ain’t no rest for the wicked by dearhappy

8k | Teen | Lucifer!AU

“You really expect me to believe that?“ Neil asks, "Especially when his girlfriend said that he’d always been worried about what you’d ask for in return, and that he called you the Devil.”

“I don’t lie,” Andrew says simply. “You can think whatever you want.”

“Why was he so worried if that was all it was?”

“He made a deal with the Devil,” Andrew says, “Tell me you wouldn’t be worried about that.”

14. Not Damsels, not Knights by my_unlikely_hero

93k | Mature

Neil is not a damsel, Andrew is not a knight, Riko is not a dragon. Nobody gets saved. Not really.

Or: Riko goes too far, and Neil is left in pieces.

15. The Continuing Adventures of the Nine-Nine by gluupor

48k | Gen | Series | Brooklyn 99!AU

A series of short, ridiculous, mostly plotless stories featuring the Foxes as the cops of the Ninety-Ninth Precinct.

16.  Not Only You and Me by orphan_account (part of a series)

18k | Explicit | Porn!AU

Andrew, Neil and Kevin film Foxy’s first gay threesome porn scene.

Cue the feelings.

17. High School Science by fuzzballsheltipants

30k | Teen/Explicit (parts 1-3 are Teen and part 4 is Explicit) | Series 

High School!AU

18. False Equivalence by sunrise_and_death

22k | Teen

Some part of her had known it would come back to Neil. He was the one who had cracked the twins the first time. Of anyone, he was the most likely to have a solution for this as well.

Although the events of the previous year resolved a lot of issues, Katelyn quickly discovers that not every problem has been addressed. As she attempts to map a future in which Aaron has both her and his family, she finds herself once again working with Neil Josten—to unexpected results.

19. trans andrew by aceaaronminyard, autisitcandrewminyard

30k | Explicit | trans!Andrew

a fanfic series for a tfc au where andrew minyard wasn’t registered into the system as andrew doe but as erin doe.

mostly set post-tkm. mostly porn.

20. Advice and Amusement by Autumnalhogwarts

11k | Teen

After a series of failed attempts to woo Renee, Allison turns to Andrew for help. As Renee’s best guy friend he’s in a unique position to offer advice. However, that doesn’t mean he’ll be willing to.

21. Kidnapped by Shell_Writes

21k | Explicit

Neil and Aaron get kidnapped by four deranged men while the team is on a camping trip. shit happens and they have to escape this horror house. together.

22. Return of Dad!Mack by SensationalSunburst

14k | Gen | Series

Dad!Wymack & Mom!Abby

23. For He’s A Jolly Good Felon by gluupor

4k | Teen | Felon!Neil

What’s a guy to do when he’s forced to go to his conservative, homophobic aunt and uncle’s for Thanksgiving dinner?

Why, invite along his ex-con, tattooed, argumentative roommate as his fake boyfriend, of course.

24. make my heart shake (bend and break) by WaifsandStrays

4k | Explicit

Aaron develops a fascination with Kevin’s dick, has a sexuality crisis and feelings and fails to process any of it.

25. Across the Water by transandrewminyard

13k | Teen | trans!Andreil

Perhaps several years too late, or maybe right on time, Neil Josten runs away from home and tries to dream a new life for himself. How poetic that his first night out on his own would deliver him to a stranger who seems to understand everything he’s been through, and then some?

26. Prompt: Andrew and Neil get to babysit Sophie by orphan_account

14k | Mature | part of a series

What it says on the tin, basically.

Aaron and Matt leave for a few days and ask Andrew and Neil to babysit Sophie. Baby-sized exy is involved. Also lots and lots of angst. But there is a happy ending!

27. Salt Bros and Roller Derby Vixens by moonix

14k | Teen | Series

Roller Derby!AU

28. Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder by priorwalter

12k | Teen | Felon!Neil, Author!Andrew

“So,” Neil asks as he washes his paint-covered hands in the kitchen sink, “Christmas.”

Andrew glares and says nothing. This year, Neil and Andrew are spending Christmas with Andrew’s brother, Aaron Minyard. Aaron Minyard, Andrew’s twin whose existence was unknown to him until two months previous. Aaron Minyard, an orthopedic surgeon with a wife (an oncologist, naturally) and two daughters. Aaron Minyard, who grew up with a mother that chose him.

**

Andrew Doe has survived until age twenty-nine without any biological family, and his life turned out pretty good, considering all of the reasons it shouldn’t have. At age twenty-nine, Andrew’s book becomes a bestseller and leads his long-lost twin brother to him. Familial drama ensues.

[watchtheblog]

the girlfriend experience

my birthday is coming up (september 26) so i wrote 1200 words about nonsense so that i could bury a birthday wish list at the bottom of this, rather than tastelessly flaunting the fact that i’ve compiled a list of things i would let strangers buy me for my birthday… which i do every single year!

(if you came here looking for the blog about being ghosted, here.)

                                                          *******

it is my understanding that “dating” is “eating dinner with someone who wants to fuck you until they actually get to fuck you and then you just get really invested in serialized television shows and have sex until the next ‘yanny/laurel’ debate inevitably tears you apart.”

it is also my understanding that once i meet someone i like, he’s my boyfriend so, historically, “dating” has been me interviewing someone to be a handyman i’ll pay in kisses.

but i am an ever-evolving, discombobulated little bug, so i recently gave *auditioning to be someone’s girlfriend* a chance.

please strap in and come along on this journey through what it is like for me to go on one single date as a person who cannot complete any task without overthinking it to the point of absolute ruin because her brain is a defective rube goldberg machine.

(if you don’t care, please scroll to the end to find the list of things i’d like for my birthday (and then do with that information what you will). if you care a lot, please also check out what it’s like inside my brain when i have to go to a party.)

A SUITABLE DATE

i have a v specific “type” from which i never stray. the main sine qua non are: over 6’3”, 200lbs+, 45+, appears to be afflicted with a football related brain injury, will disrespect me, not currently under the influence of essential oils.

further than this, what i’m also looking for in a man is someone with at least one divorce under his belt, an angry ex wife, 1-4 kids, and a complete inability to figure out what makes me happy (but someone who is in relentless pursuit of that formula).

six men meet these requirements.

THE PLAN FOR THE DATE 

i prefer to make plans with 2 - 5 hours notice because this effectively mitigates the chance of me cancelling, but this often isn’t feasible because other people have lives that don’t only involve sitting at home waiting to take me out on a date.

also, people who make plans like this are usually trying to hook up, and as we all know… i don’t even fuck!

so a date is scheduled in 2-3 days — any farther in advance i cannot plan without first consulting a psychic and my hormones’ advisory board. 

THE LEAD UP TO THE DATE

i can do nothing but spiral. i wonder if my date is on another date, if i can compete with this hypothetical other date, if i should cancel because i’m certain no one will ever love me as much as my ex, if i should cancel just to be problematic, or to exert cancelling power, or to perpetuate cancel culture?!

no, don’t cancel. we could fall in love and be really happy for a few years, and then i could get really into learning to cook or become a pilot or something. anyway, worst case scenario: he doesn’t like me, and i obsess about him for 400x the length of our courtship… but on the plus: i get to talk about him on the internet forever!

should i go blonde? should i wear a wig? i wonder if there will be hotdogs on the menu at the restaurant.

how can i unlearn every repellent personality quirk i’ve developed from birth in the next 48 hours? 

“how do you… kiss?” i wonder, right before i consider tranqing myself.

luckily, i am promptly choked to the point of syncope by these thoughts of uncertainty and self doubt. 

DAY OF DATE PREP

eventually, by the grace of God, i wake up on the morning of the date.

getting ready for anything i’ve ever done in my entire life, including a black tie wedding, has taken me 9 minutes, but i’m going to spend 2 hours sitting in a chair next to someone i’m not going to fuck, so i’ve chosen to block out a full 10 hours for no reason.

i fill the day applying every type of scrub and mask to my face, body, and hair. i try on every item of clothing i have accumulated over the past 5 years, including a $20,000 couture tom ford gown that a celebrity i forget once wore to a televised award show.

i’m now trying on sweatpants. i’ve put a heel on. “who is stopping me from wearing this?” i ask myself, knowing no one is stopping me from leaving my house and going on a date with a man i could easily get to fall in love with me in 2 hours if i don’t show up to dinner dressed like i just came from a fashionnova casting.

~ wow, time really does fly when you’re watching all your neuroses exit your body to perform a recital for you ~

moments before i have to cut this shit out and decide on something to wear, i lather my entire body in the richest lotion i can find, which notably takes 4-6 hours to sink in.

now it’s time to wiggle into the only outfit i ever leave my house after sunset wearing - a pair of black jeans that i’ll never fit into and a baby’s white tee shirt.

oh. we’re now not going to a restaurant. dinner is at his house.

i set myself on fire.

THE DATE

i am v rude for the first 45 minutes because i have no manners.

no. it’s because i’m nervous, and thus if i’m not cantankerous, filling the space with my shitty attitude, i will have nothing to say because my mind erased all logical ideation as soon as i stepped foot in this man’s home.

it becomes clear that this behavior will no longer be tolerated, so i pivot before i’m cancelled. i change the narrative. i’m nice now.

usually, when i find myself at a man’s house, the only thing i’m thinking is “please don’t have an acoustic guitar” and that thought repeats ad infinitum until i am free… but i know this man does not have an acoustic guitar (or i assume), so all i’m thinking is “does this man like the personality i’ve whipped up for him using a recipe i found in a cosmo from 2002??!”

he does to some degree - or he’s pretending - because he asks to see me again (yay!), and then shows me his house, and then my favorite part comes…

we kiss. 

we kiss and i’ve forgotten entirely how to kiss. literally no idea. never heard of it. i am a human shrug emoji.

“i don’t know how to do this.” - me, talking about kissing to the man i’m “kissing”.

he seems unbothered by this - more acting! - because we move locations, and he is doing his thing while i continue to be an oral cadaver.

that stops for a reason that seems natural and not because he realizes i am an embalmed corpse. and we talk, and that’s nice because my brains have returned for a brief guest appearance.

and then i leave, excited because i like him and it feels like he likes me. 

in the uber, he texts me the same thing he texted me before the last time i never heard from him again... and then i never hear from him again!*

and that, my friends, is a date!

*(i’m kidding. i heard from him one more time. he was cancelling plans we’d made to hang out!!) 

                                                       **

thanks for reading - or scrolling prodigiously - here are some things i’m interested in receiving for my birthday:

(if for some perverse reason you’d like to see my prior innocent but spectacularly misguided registries, please go here. it’s a doozy! however, please note i will only be accepting gifts from this year’s registry. so stay current!)

THE LIST

1. someone bullied me out of leasing a car i really wanted and so now i have no car which is unfortunate. would be nice if someone would throw half the cost of this vehicle at the mercedes store so i could pay a small amount every month to drive this until i’m bored of it in 9 months. it would also be nice if the inside were red because that’s a new kink i have - red leather seats.

2. i can’t tell if it’s basic to want this, but i also do not care at all. it’s perfectly sized to carry all of the 300 notebooks i scribble in. apparently it’s possible to have your name embroidered in lieu of the brand’s… that would be nice; my name is mercedes.

i also like this even though it looks like the only thing it can hold is a small stack of x-rays…

or this. (definitely indisputably basic. but again. i don’t care.)

this is cute

3. one of these dresses even though the only things i do are go on vacation or lie in bed. i’m a size 0 or 34 or whatever the smallest size is.

option one, option two, option three, option four (for the zero people considering purchasing a gift for me. this is my favorite, of course, because i am insane), option five 

4. a vacation - because (see above) i don’t like to be in los angeles for longer than 10 days at a time. here are some ideas:

a local vacation, a vacation in montana, a vacation in mexico. also in mexico. also in mexico.

5. either of these v big suitcases (vacation things!)

6. these shoes or these shoes. i’m a size 38.

7. gift card for an in home massage or one a week for the month of september? up to you!

8. any of these candles. they’re the only candles i’ll allow in my home now, so please don’t stray.

9. a book. i love to read, and i thought it would be nice to remind you i’m a thoughtful and educated thot.

have never read this. one of my favorites but have only read on my iPad... sad! first edition of the aforementioned

10. a necklace. a custom one (18 inch) or this long thing

misc:

an erewhon gift card, this perfume, or this perfume, a robe, a weekly delivery of macarons…

[nochuuuenthusiast]

approval

hi guys! i’m so sorry... this series is taking me forever to edit and perfect ahhh! i’ll try to post the next part of this series sometime this week (maybe friday~ ish)... okay well here you go, and i hope you have an amazing day :)

plot: jungkook gets your parents’ approval

genre: fluff

word count: 2286

(a/n): peep jungkook’s elephant moles... hehehe so so so cute !

He was pacing back and forth of his large closet, thinking of all the things that could go wrong.

What if they secretly don’t like me? What if they think i’m not good enough for her? What if they don’t give me their approval?

Just at the thought of disapproval, Jungkook sweat even more. His hands were becoming more and more clammy.

You and Jungkook have been dating for 3 years now and Jungkook had already made up his mind: he was ready to marry you. It’s not like he wasn’t ready before (in fact, he had already been seriously thinking about marrying you since the first year you guys started dating), but both of your busy schedules never allowed him to sit down and plan everything. And despite his hectic idol life, he knew that he was more ready to marry you now than he’ll ever be. He was committed to you. He loved you. And because he loved you, he needed to confront your parents first.

You guys had talked about marriage before but it was always in a lighthearted way-- not anything serious... at least in your eyes. Jungkook recalled a memory of your second anniversary when you walked along the Han River, holding hands, as you talked about your future together. He was trying to subtly get your insight about marriage and was trying to ask you questions in a “hypothetical manner” so that you wouldn’t think that he was being serious... and it worked... you had no clue.... and Jungkook got exactly what he wanted.

“(y/n)ah... how would you like to get proposed to?��

Jungkook was trying his best to be subtle... he didn’t want you to get freaked out and think that he was going to propose to you anytime soon.

“Ahaha well... when I was really little, I always imagined my proposal to be reallyyy romantic... and private. I don’t think I’d want to be proposed to in front of a crowd... I’d feel to pressured and I think I would be too embarrassed to appreciate the moment...” Note taken.

“And I mean... this is really cheesy but 10 year old (y/n) always dreamed of being proposed to on top of the Eiffel Tower during the nighttime... with a beautiful view of Paris in the background. I’d be staring off into the distance, enjoying the view... and when I turn around, I’d see him on one knee with a sparkling diamond ring in his palm, but at the same time... 10 year old (y/n) never thought about things realistically so I don’t think that would ever happen...” you rambled on by yourself while Jungkook admired your words.

“But now that I’m older, I’ve set more realistic expectations... like a complete surprise with bouquet of the prettiest pink and white flowers and some wine... hehehe... I know... my expectations have totally downgraded... but hey, it’s still pretty romantic.” At this point, you didn’t even care if Jungkook was paying attention or not... you were just having fun fantasizing about your imaginative proposal.

“But before any of that happens, he has to get my parents’ approval first. They’re so important to me and I love them so much... if he didn’t ask them for permission first and I found out... I would feel like I betrayed them,” you said in a more serious tone. Second note taken.

“But anyways... these are all hypotheticals anyways,” you said, trying to shift your focus away from the topic of proposals.

Jungkook listened intently and made sure to keep all of this information stored in his brain... he knew that it would be useful later...

And now that Jungkook was one step closer to asking you to marry him, he was beginning to recall of those memories again. He knew he had to ask you parents... he knew how important their approval was to you... and he especially didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable if he didn’t ask them for permission.

They’ll like me, right?

Jungkook has met them several times before, but for some reason... he was feeling more insecure with himself today. He had no idea what they would say and he didn’t want to mess anything up since he knew his heart would rot away if he didn’t marry you. You were too important to him. He’d never loved anyone more than you.

Jungkook continued to pace back and forth inside of his closet... trying to formulate the perfect outfit. He didn’t want to look too formal... so no tuxedo. But he also didn’t want to look too informal... they would think that he didn’t view this as important... so no jeans. After what seemed to be half an hour of concentrating on his outfit, he finally decided on wearing his dress pants with a loose white button up shirt. He sprayed his lightest-smelling cologne and touched up his hair so that it didn’t look like he just woke up.

5:00pm. It was time. Jungkook told your parents that he would be at their house by 6:00pm and have dinner with them. His hands couldn’t have been clammier than they already were.

He stared at this reflection in the full body mirror one last time to see if he had any imperfections, and when he couldn’t detect any, he went to his shoe rack to put on his cleanest shoes. Jungkook grabbed his keys and a bottle of water... he’d be needing it if he started to get sweaty and nervous again.

He let out one big sigh that had been building up since his nerves began, and headed out the door. Finally. The day has come. I’m one step closer to my goal. My future.

It took Jungkook 30 minutes to arrive at your parents’ house and another 20 minutes to get the courage to walk up to their door. This was the most anxious he had already felt.

He had already asked his members for their advice about a week ago when he first told them that he had bought a ring and that he was going to marry you... at least he hoped he would... he wouldn’t know until after this day was over.

“You’re gonna be fine Jungkook... they love you... they’re gonna say ‘yes,’” Namjoon said.

“Yeah Jungkook... you’re gonna be okay,” Jimin chimed in.

“Aww our maknae is all grown up... he’s getting married~” Jhope said.

Despite their reassurance, Jungkook was still doubtful. He didn’t know what to expect from your parents. Who knows? What if they never liked him from the start and they were just being nice to him without ever expecting him to marry you. They did always seem skeptical about his career... he had a feeling that they though that being an idol as someone’s main career was unstable and risky. Because he was an idol, he always thought they thought of him as incapable and not good enough for you. Maybe he was just being paranoid.

Jungkook closed his eyes. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. He reopened his eyes. This was it. He had nothing to lose.

Ding dong. Ding dong. Ding dong.

Within a matter of seconds, your mom opened the door and welcomed Jungkook with a hearty smile. He bowed instantly and began to take off his shoes before entering the house. He always loved your mom... she reminded him of you...

“Oh Jungkook! You came! We haven’t seen you in such a long time~ come in, come in,” she said as she ushered him in.

“Wahhh~ Jungkook~ how did you get more handsome from the last time I saw you! I watched your new music video by the way! Bangtan, fighting!” she said merrily as she laughed by herself. Even her laugh reminded him of you...

Jungkook received the compliment your mother gave him and he took a seat on the sofa... he shook his legs as he waited for you father to appear. He never knew what your father thought of him... he was very protective of his one and only daughter...Jungkook was intimidated from the very beginning. 

“HONEY!!! JUNGKOOK’S HERE! COME DOWNSTAIRS~” Your mom yelled so that your father was notified that Jungkook was here. 

Phew... deep breaths Jungkook, deep breaths... In. Out. 

His palms were sweating profusely. He wiped the sweat on his pants. 

Jungkook could hear your father walking towards him from the hallway of the small home. Jungkook prepared himself for the worst and stood up to greet the man who would soon determine the course of his life with a simple “yes” or “no.” 

“Nae~ annyeonghaseyo~” Jungkook gave him his 90 degree bow. 

“Oh~ Jungkook~ nice to see you,” your father greeted him when he saw Jungkook.

“Come sit... you said you wanted to talk to us about something,” he said as he walked with your mother to his seat in the living room. 

You rmother placed a bowl of fruit on the glass coffee table that was in front of the seats and Jungkook took a seat across from them. He wanted to seem as formal as possible... their approval was the only thing he needed right now...

“Yes, um...” Jungkook was fidgeting with his thumbs underneath the coffee table. “Um... well, I’ve been with your daughter for quite a long time...” He couldn’t believe he was doing this right now. 

Your father put down his fork on top of his napkin and leaned back against his chair to concentrate on Jungkook’s words. He scrunched his nose in concentration and Jungkook didn’t know whether he was disliking his statement or not... well... there was no turning back now... 

“And I love her very much... So much to the point where I’ve decided that I want to marry her... but I know how much you both mean to her so I came to ask for your permission for her hand in marriage.” Jungkook’s heart had never beat as fast as it had at that moment.

Your father and mother looked at each other and Jungkook’s couldn’t tell whether they were upset or excited... he needed to know... his heart was about to burst open... and the silence wasn’t helping either. 

Please, please, please, please, please... 

Your  father looked into Jungkook’s eyes and saw pure desperation and nervousness. He knew that Jungkook loved you. If he didn’t love you... he wouldn’t look this desperate or worried... he knew that he was meant for you. He had seen it before... He saw when Jungkook hugged you from behind when you were feeling stressed about the project that your boss told you to finish earlier than the due date. He saw when Jungkook kissed your knee when you fell over and scraped it because you were wearing high heels. He saw when Jungkook would let you rest your head on his shoulder as you slowly drifted off into sleep. He saw when Jungkook stared deeply into your eyes and whispered “I love you” to your ear when you were fast asleep. 

He saw all of this from a distance and he knew that Jungkook treated you like an angel. He knew that Jungkook loved you. He knew that he couldn’t ask for a better son-in-law.

Although your father never seemed to give any reactions towards Jungkook, he only did that to see if Jungkook would still want to be with you after seeing how emotionless he could be. And indeed, Jungkook had enough courage to still want to be with you. 

“Jungkook...” your father looked at your mother as she gave him a small nod. “Of course... you have our full permission. Treat her well. She’s too precious to let go. We know how much you love her. And we also know how much she loves you...” 

Jungkook lifted his eyes and didn’t know how to contain his happiness. 

Did I hear that right? They gave me permission...

“I’m looking forward to the wedding, son,” your father said as he smiled. 

“Yes sir... I promise,” Jungkook said firmly and smiled in glee. He couldn’t believe it. He got their permission-- what he wanted most in life. He was ecstatic. 

“Do you have the ring with you?” your mother asked, curious to see what kind of ring he bought for you. 

“Yes, I do, actually.” Jungkook reached into the front pocket on his pants and reached in to get the diamond ring that he bought a month ago from the most expensive jeweler that he could book. 

“Oh my goodness~ look at the size of that diamond! (y/n)’s gonna love that,” your mom said as she continued to stare at the ring. 

Jungkook had spent a pretty penny on the ring but he did not feel even the tiniest bit of regret... you deserved it and he loved you too much... he felt the urge to spoil you. 

"I wish (y/n)’s father would have gotten me a ring like this~” your mother teased. “Why don’t you take a look at Jungkook and learn how to be more romantic for you wife,” your mother said as she shifted her attention towards your father. 

“Hey! Your ring was just as nice as this... it was very expensive, you know that?” your father responded.

Jungkook couldn’t help but smile and laugh at their playful banter. He wanted you two to be like your parents in the future... loving, even after years and years of marriage. 

“Okay well if that’s all settled then, let’s go eat... the food’s getting cold,” your mother said. 

Everyone stood up from their seats and headed towards the dining table... I still can’t believe this is real... I’m gonna ask (y/n) to marry me. 

[btsybrkr]

2020 Vision: What To Expect From The Next Decade (By Someone Who Has No Idea, Obviously.)

Happy New Year, all!! I had planned to do a little run-down last week of everything that happened in the 2010s, but instead succumbed to the existential struggle that comes with the week that follows Christmas Day, in which your time becomes largely swallowed up by asking yourself ‘what day is it?’ and ‘at what point am I supposed to stop living on a diet of alcohol and Quality Street?’. It’s festive purgatory, and you’re literally powerless to do anything other than sleep, eat, and moan that the shops are still playing Christmas music. That’s my excuse, anyway.

So, instead, I thought we’d say a collective “cinnabit, lad” to 2019 and a collective “what is UP, dude?” to the Roaring 20s 2.0, the only sequel that humanity has waited a whole 100 years for. Apart from Avatar 2, which I imagine will come out at some point in the 3020s.  What do we know so far about what the 2020s have in store for us? Obviously, not a lot, but as someone who successfully predicted the outcome of the last election, and the UK’s last four Eurovision losses - two things which I’m sure absolutely nobody ever saw coming - I thought I’d give out my own valuable speculation. Here’s what the 2020s might look like, according to me.

Politics

Let’s get it out of the way - we’re in a terrible state. At this point, every important issue is so divisive, that the nation is divided over everything, including whether we’re actually divided or not. Do I think we’ll become any less divided in the coming years, in a United Kingdom where the conversation is so often dominated by things we can absolutely never seem to agree on? Yes. We will have no choice. Why? 

All-out war.

Yes, I said it. In 2021, there will be all-out war. With America, probably. I don’t know why. Maybe Trump will get into an argument with Boris Johnson over who can manage to effortlessly look the most like a Viz caricature of themselves - they both already do somehow, I’m just saying they might disagree on which one of them is the best at it. Could be that, or possibly a more serious cause, to do with nuclear weapons or something, but I’d rather not think about that, because it’s not as funny as the Viz thing. And it’s more likely. So, we’ll pretend for now that we’re on the verge of the first pantomime, slapstick war the world has ever seen.

Anyway, while Trump and Johnson are beefing up a storm - picture Punch and Judy, except the puppets are in suits and have thinning, bright yellow hair - previously all-encompassing issues like Brexit will fall by the wayside, until Boris Johnson eventually decides to hand his notice in to focus on more important things, like beating Trump with a wooden spoon and chasing after the dog that stole all his sausages. After this, we’ll all come together to realise that if actual elected officials can’t do the job, then maybe we, the people, deserve our chance to test our political metal. Obviously, we can’t let just anybody have a go, but at the end of the year, Cosmopolitan magazine puts the traditional democratic process at number one on its ‘Leave It In 2021’ list, so we have absolutely no choice but to come up with something else, which brings me to...

Television And Film

2022 will start with a bang, with the debut of Simon Cowell’s new talent show format, So You Think You Can Be The Prime Minister?, hosted of course by Ant and Dec, with the aftershow on ITV2 being hosted by Jeremy Paxman. Contestants will line up in huge crowds to give judges Russell Brand, Susanna Reid, and, of course, Jesus S. Cowell himself (forgot to mention, Simon Cowell has been elected as the new Christ in this completely non-hypothetical universe, alright?) their opinions on hot political topics such as Brexit, the NHS, and, of course, whether a Jaffa Cake can really be classed as a biscuit or not. Each episode, contestants will take part in a live debate, themed around a different issue with every passing week. The two least popular contestants after the weekly phone vote will go head-to-head giving their own rendition of Running The World by Jarvis Cocker, with the worst performer being eliminated. I know a sing-off isn’t exactly relevant in a politics programme, but it’s Saturday night primetime so it’s still got to be at least somewhat entertaining, yeah?

Love Island will be back, of course - and not just with a Summer and Winter edition, but with an additional Spring and Autumn one for the 2024 schedule! This will be a win-win situation for the series producers, and for its viewers, as by 2027, ITV will run out of attractive under-35s to appear on the show, and members of the public will begin getting called up to appear - like with jury duty, except that ITV pay for you to have extensive cosmetic surgery first, so that you’re aesthetically pleasing enough for people to want to tune in, and so that you can maintain a successful career selling Bootea on Instagram afterwards. 

Films will also go through a renaissance in the 2020s, as the Hollywood big boys come to a conclusion that everything has just become a little too… blockbuster. To remedy this, they make the joint decision that, 100 years on, we should take ourselves back to the silent film era, which will surely create hundreds of jobs for mute people, therefore solving Hollywood’s problems with a lack of diversity in film. It’ll also give well-known TikTok creators a chance to make the leap into mainstream entertainment, as they’ll have spent so long lip-synching over the years that they’ll now be more qualified to star in these new golden age pictures than actual trained actors. Obviously, that sounds absolutely beyond comprehension, but look at Count Orlok in 1922’s Nosferatu. See his slender limbs, blank stare, gothic dress sense - in a way, he’s the original e-boy, and there’s plenty of them out there on TikTok now that could play the titular vampire just as well in a 100th anniversary remake, just with less neck-biting and more lip-biting. Trust me, it’ll be a hit.

Technology

Throughout the 2010s, there’s been a lot of talk about everyone spending too much time on their bloody phones, so, in 2024, Apple will try to combat this issue when they unveil perhaps their most innovative product to date - the iPhone XZ+, a phone which exists solely in the mind of its users. Not in a Black Mirror, chip-inside-your-brain sort of way, either. It is literally imaginary. It’s a phone that, instead of being a phone, is actually just the concept of a phone. Yes, for the small cost of £1,500 and six units of your own soul, you, too, can block the rest of the world out. How amazing is that? No more wasting hours of your day keeping in touch with friends and family. No more accessing a wealth of information, wherever you are, with a quick Google. No more blocking out the sound of cackling pre-teens on the bus by putting in your earphones and listening to music. These things are bad and must be stopped, before we become an entire species of communicating, bopping, learning zombies.

I think those must be bad things anyway, since you can rarely go a few seconds scrolling through social media without stumbling across a ‘woke’ meme about how the use of smartphones is destroying us, one notification at a time - memes which I’m absolutely sure were created and posted from a book or a potato or something. Otherwise they’d just be hypocritical, wouldn’t they?

Anyway, the iPhone XZ+. It’s the only thing you need inside your head this decade. Apart from a very real ever-growing sense of fear and doom, which you can get for free.

Sport

The next decade will see the Olympics and Paralympics take place in 2020, 2024 and 2028, as well as the Winter equivalents to both in 2022 and 2026. You’d think we’d be all Olympic-ed out with that, but in the absence of anything else that gets people feeling remotely patriotic in a purely nice way, the world will decide to come together to throw scaled-down, low-budget Olympic games in all the off-years this decade. 

Summer 2021 will see the start of the first ever Not-The-Actual-Olympics. Marked by a glamourous opening ceremony in a field in Loughborough, the opening will feature a series of performances from stars such as H from Steps, and will be attended by some people who aren’t the royal family, but really do look like them. Taking place over the 10-week long games will be thumb wars, arm wrestling, staring contests, and an exciting event in which competitors try to eat the most HobNobs they possibly can without the help of a glass of water to combat the extreme dry-mouth they end up with. It might sound underwhelming now, but if there turns out to be any truth in the other predictions I’ve made here, it might be just what you need to restore your faith in the everyday.

Happy New Year, Everyone

In all seriousness - not that the rest of this isn’t serious, because it is, and is definitely all going to happen - whatever the coming years bring, it’s important to remember that we have to take the good with the bad, to look after ourselves and each other, and to enjoy each day as much as we possibly can, even during the bits of life that leave us feeling a little less Gangnam Style than we did way back in 2012. Thanks, everyone, for reading my blog. I’ll be back again in a week or so to talk absolute arse about something else. Until then, I hope you all had a great 2019, and have an even better start to 2020. Cheers!

[a-woman-apart]

It Never Goes Away

Crisis text line (U.S.): 741 741

I’ve had to fight really hard to push my way back up to “sane.” I dealt with psychosis, severe mania, debilitating depression and yearly hospitalizations before I finally decided to become medicine compliant. It took me 4 years before I began to fully comply with my treatment plan. I began attending groups under the guidance of a case worker. I began seeing my psychiatrist regularly so that I could make sure that I was on the proper medication. With my case worker’s help, I moved out of my parents’ home. I had to challenge myself to embrace the rules and structure provided by the group home manager.

Managing my mental illness, integrating into society, and becoming more independent were not choices that were easy. It wasn’t easy to work and go to school, to keep track of appointments and to try to manage a social life at the same time. These things are not easy for anyone in today’s climate, but they were compounded for me because of my mental illness. There was one year of community college when I slipped almost totally into dysthymia (low grade, chronic depression) and ended up bouncing from antidepressant to antidepressant in an attempt to cure it. These were ineffective; I am now antidepressant free and handling negative emotions better than before.

As I have said so many times before, there are people who do not understand my rigidity, adherence to structure, and perfectionism. Next to medicine compliance and proper sleeping habits, routine is a part of the essential trio of things that are crucial for me to maintain my mental health. Taking my medicine at roughly the same time every day helps me to enforce regular sleep and waking times. Going to work isn’t just important for my being able to pay for a car, utilities, and an apartment, but it gives me something to do so that I do not absolutely lose my mind. Scheduling study and leisure times and planning out events well in advance help to reduce my anxiety.

There are times, though, when being overly regimented can lead to lack of stimulation, boredom, and monotony. We all need a little spontaneity in our lives, at least a slight variation in routine, and the ability to tolerate change. Two recent changes in my life have forced me to embrace more flexibility in my life: working from home and starting a new relationship.

I work for a small company owned by a close friend of mine, and I need to check in with her every day before I clock in, because my schedule is variable. I am disciplined and self-motivated, but at first, I was very nervous because I am used to explicit direction on what to do, and instead I got a very loose managerial style and a higher degree of freedom to make my own decisions. My friend and I had a pre-established level of trust and so I think that went a long way.

As for my boyfriend, he and I have a lot in common, but we also have completely different operating procedures in some cases. He can go to the store without a list and then shop based on whatever meal he has in his head to craft and the store sales. On the flip side, I go with a pre-written list that is ordered based on where everything is in the store so that I can traverse it without any deviation or backtracking. He used to stay up all night and sleep half the day, and I had a strict midnight-to-morning sleep cycle (all-nighters put me at risk for mania). He deals with chronic understimulation and I get overstimulated extremely easily. Overall, everything is much looser and undefined for him; he’ll do things spontaneously, whereas I’ve declined invitations to go out with people strictly on the basis of the invitation being short notice.

Changing jobs and starting new relationships can be extremely stressful, but they can also be exciting and inspiring. Every week I now have something new to look forward to, and even after the feelings of novelty have worn off, I will still be forever grateful for making these changes. There is a lot of instability in our world, and I have discovered that having a sense of purpose and strong interpersonal relationships are key towards surviving in these changing times.  

I am learning a lot. As I alluded to earlier, anxiety has hampered me in that I need time to “psych up” before big social events, public speaking, concerts, or conventions. It is no secret that my anxiety has been rearing its ugly head more than it ever has before lately, but I am learning to deal with it one day at a time. Having undiagnosed, largely untreated GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) in addition to a mood disorder is frequently hellacious. I have had a lot of close calls, but I have not given up hope.

I had been told by various doctors that there is no real cure for what I’ve got, and now I am starting to indeed believe that “It never goes away.” It can only be treated and managed. Proper management of illness—especially medicine compliance—can be the difference between life and death for those of us with these disorders. Even for those of us with severe symptoms, there are periods of euthymia—or “normal, tranquil mood”—that exist between our episodes. Feeling stable for a while does not mean that the illness is gone, but it can give people a false belief that they are cured. The discouragement that comes when the illness “returns” can be so devastating for some people that it drives them to self-destructive behavior.

The bottom line though, is that things change. Things can get better. It takes an amazing amount of work, and you may need a lot of help to make those first steps, but if you do, it can make all the difference. Don’t give up. I know the holidays are hard. To make matter worst, the current politic, environmental and socioeconomic conditions of our country are completely whack, but we have the opportunity to make meaningful change. The personal progress that we make as individuals has a ripple effect on the greater society around us. Even if we are unsuccessful in our efforts, it is certainly worth trying.

In fact, the idea that any of us—mentally ill or not—will arrive at some hypothetical form of perfection where improvement is no longer necessary is a fundamentally flawed concept. If we stop growing, we start dying. We must continue expanding mentally and emotionally in order to stay alive. Stagnation breeds decay. Life is less about the destination and more about the journey.

I know no one really reads these. These notes are as much for me as much as anyone else. I know that I am probably going to go through some objectively horrendous times sooner or later, and I am going to need to be reminded that I have a chronic mental illness, that while not curable, is subject to improving with treatment. I am going to need to be reminded that despite what the static noise in my head says, there are a lot of people who love me and still want me around. There are people who still want the best for me even when I cannot want it for myself.

It never goes away, but it doesn’t have to. I’m determined to fight.

[onyx-archer]

My Idea for the Future of Comic Books.

I've been telling people in my personal life that like comics (and few that at least like to hear about weird ideas I have) that the current release method for comics is slowly killing the industry, among other things. I've put a lot of thought into how to fix the problem, and while I'm no expert, I think it comes down to a number of factors. All of it will be under the cut, as to not overwhelm you if you don’t want to read it. Keep in mind that this more or less entirely pertains to the Big Two (Marvel and DC), but can be applied to all but the smallest publishers really.

All of the issues I can see with the industry are as follows:

1. Limited Distribution: The Direct Market makes it harder for people to get into comics. Be it because of the hobby's requirement to go to a hobbyist store of some kind, or hope that they can find a copy on Amazon. Digital stuff does help a little, but that leads into the next problem.

2. Digital Prices/Digital Marketshare: From what little we as a community know about digital sales, thanks to a few bits of info that can be gleamed from smaller, indie creators, we know that there isn't a super huge digital market for comics yet. This would probably improve if the publishers stopped charging print cover prices for digital books, but that probably won't happen any time soon. Of course, digital markets come with the advent of piracy, but it's not like that was entirely avoidable thanks to scanning groups.

3. The Release Format: I'm gonna say something a little controversial here: single issues aren't really worth the price at this point. I say this because of how story arcs for comics these days are typically written; stories are very rarely self contained single issue affairs anymore. This also plays into the comics only being available for purchase through extremely limited channels, whereas you can sell a graphic novel or a trade paperback in more easily accessible markets than hobbyist stores like Comic Book stores. The single issues also tend to sit unsold because it's easy to over ship them, which is evident in basically every comic book store in North America.

4. Marketing: This issue is mostly aimed at Marvel, but can be applied universally. A big issue Marvel has is that they launch books with little fanfare, only to cancel them 6 issues in because of low sales. The books basically just get axed because they aren't marketed properly to potential fans. Tent pole titles like Spider-Man get marketed, sure, but for every Spider-Man or Thor, there's a character with a smaller fanbase that's getting snubbed because the big books hog all of the marketing budget, making it harder for them to gain any sizable fan traction.

I could also throw overall quality of storytelling/writing, but that's more of subjective issue in most cases. After all, just because I don't like the writing of recent Spider-Man material doesn't mean nobody does. I could also throw in my problems with people in the comics industry being shitheads on social media, but that’s not important right now.

Anyway, my solution idea attempts to address the 4 big problems. It's basically as follows:

1. Changing Formats: This here's probably going to get me the most flack, but I don't really care. What I'm suggesting is a complete overhaul of the format of comics into something a little more enticing, and potentially profitable: graphic novels. Now, the industry already releases trade collections, but I think given the fact that most comic story lines are written for trade collections already, we might as well just get graphic novels instead. This has a number of benefits, but I'll get into that more as we go. One I’ll bring up now though is that Graphic Novels, over all, have a better shelf life than individual floppies.

2. Dial Back The Number of Releases: A big issue some smaller titles have right now is the lack of marketing, and this suggestion is a pretty reasonable way to limit the issue. What I'm suggesting is, along with the change in format, a company like Marvel only releases, at most, 4 things a week. Preferably, 2-3 books, but 4 is still within reason as far as I'm concerned. This, combined with a format change, will cut down on the ugly look of a pile of unsold issues, and can be stored more efficiently. It will also allow for a more efficient marketing, and less clutter on shelves, and if all companies adopted the practice, less competing for a reader’s attention.

3. Quarterly Release Schedule: Something that would be a byproduct of going to a graphic novel format would come with a release drawback, but at the same time, it would make each release easier to justify purchasing. If I only had to buy Spider-Man 4 times a year, for 20-25 bucks a pop, I'd be happy. Of course, to make sure you don't misunderstand, each volume would have to guarantee a conclusion to the story being told by the time the last page is turned. Sure, an ongoing subplot that ties stories together is fine, but it would make things easier to recommend to fresh eyes, as a more complete feeling story is more satisfying, and is easier to keep up with and/or remember.

4. Writer Rotation: This is a simple thing, but it's basically necessary to ensure a release schedule of graphic novels. The benefit of superhero material is that writers go from project to project with enough frequency, barring a few notable exceptions, so this would be a huge boon for a format change. The ideal number of writers is 2, but it can work with 3 or 4, but no more than 4. This would require a bit of teamwork on the part of the two writers, but it would allow for a more efficient output, giving each writer a window of 3 or so months to draft subsequent releases. I would also have at least 2 different main artists on board, just to make the process less daunting for a single main artist. This would come with the caviate that a writer can only remain on the book for, at most, 4-5 years at a time, to prevent burnout and/or creative stagnation. (I probably explained this poorly, but hopefully this one made sense)

5. A Variety Title: Something to keep things a little less stale, I’m proposing that each week, there’s what’s effectively an anthology/variety type book. It would, hypothetically, be similar to something like Weekly Shonen Jump, only it’d be under specific brandings. Marvel is easily the one company that I can point to an example of: Amazing Fantasy, Strange Tales, Tales to Astonish, Tales of Suspense, etc. Basically, these would be weekly titles that focus on a subset of Marvel’s characters for a number of purposes.

Short, self contained oneshot stories to help with the less frequent main title releases. 

Test new solo titles for unproven characters before committing to a larger book.

For the sake of showcasing newer writers to the public to gauge reactions before handing them the keys to a bigger title.

The big thing is that these would be released monthly, and wouldn’t count towards the previously mentioned release of only 3-4 books a week. They would also be sold cheaper, and individual stories could be sold cheaply in a digital format.

6. Ship To Non-Specialty Stores: A benefit of a format change would be a wider set of options for the release of books on a more frequent basis. Book stores, or other retailers that have book sections (like Walmart) wouldn’t have a problem with stocking the stories in their book sections, allowing for more eyes to be on the comics. This would have to come with the caveat of either having a rating system like video games in a easily visible place, or simply limiting the more mature stuff to Amazon and more specialist stores. Still, it allows for more potential readers to find the books easier.

7. Lower the Digital Market Price: This one is a harder pill to swallow, but realistically, this would have to be done. Heck, this idea alone can ignore all of the previous ones, and that alone would probably boost digital sales. Most people buy digital goods because it’s marginally cheaper in some cases, and they don’t have to go anywhere. The cheaper price is usually the result of not needing to print actual copies of a product, but comics have failed to grasp this concept. I think it’s a no-brainer if you change the format, but it’s obviously something the current format needs to do too.

So yeah, that’s some shit I probably put way too much thought into, but those are just some ideas I have when it comes to fixing American Comics. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[ytoz]

Yagi Toshinori has plenty of bad habits

It never occurred to him that there might have been something more to it. [On AO3]

Um, warnings for an explicit portrayal of (undiagnosed and in deep denial of) depression and passive suicidal tendencies? Also, lots of unhealthy habits, please don’t imitate this wreck (ᵕ_ᵕ̩̩)ƪ I should be studying but here I am pulling out my old fanfic ideas to do anything else.

Working hard was the norm- boasting about how few hours of sleep a person got the night before was something to be admired, something to commiserate over, especially with the kind of workload teachers piled on them. Toshinori’s dreams were big, and he had to work hard to achieve them.

The habit followed him to his work. He was often way too busy, participating in Yazuka raids, rushing to the latest disaster, building up his agency and police contacts to figure out All for One’s next move. Without the schedule that school imposed on him, or the convenient cafeteria with ready meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, food fell to the wayside; mostly snacks as he hopped to his next destination or while he poured over reports and briefings.

They were healthy, filling snacks of course. Fuel enough to feed his body and work- but nothing else. He crunched down on tasteless nutrient or caloric bars, red apples and bananas when he could find them.

As the Yakuza slowly faded, his agency flourished, and so did the myth of All Might. Yagi Toshinori took a back seat as the media clamoured for his attention, and a determined young man dug out a place as his side-kick. Grand Torino was slowing down- his age not letting him pull as many all-nighters or stakeouts as before although it did nothing to dull the utter ruthlessness he had in the field or when training. All Might shouldered more and more of the world, and the only person who still called him Toshinori was Grand Torino.

It took him 5 minutes to respond to his name the last time, and that was when Grand Torino lost his patience and kicked the files out of his hands.

“When was the last time you ate?” Grand Torino had demanded, hands full of take-out.

All Might’s eyes had already returned to the papers he was picking up, a spark of irritation as he had to reorganise the papers again.

“I’ve eaten plenty! Had a cup of coffee a while ago,” he waved off the question, trying to find the place where he left off.

“I’m talking about a full meal Yagi. Sit down and put those papers away.”

All Might rolled his eyes, giving in to the childish temptation since this office had no external windows and there was only Grand Torino and him here anyway. He did turn his back to his old teacher first- he wasn’t stupid.

“I ate in the hospital, when I got injured back on the 25th,” All Might said, pulling up his sleeves and setting down his ever-present earpiece.

Grand Torino busied himself, setting out containers of gyoza and chopsticks at the edge of the table that the reports had yet to take over, and All Might poured soup into the takeaway containers of ramen. As All Might set the bowls down, Grand Torino looked at him with weary eyes, a slump in his posture. In that moment, All Might felt truly aware of Grand Torino’s age. Grand Torino was approaching 64 to All Might’s 35. He had been chasing the shadow of All for One for longer than All Might’s career- and the futility of it showed in the wrinkles around his eyes. The beady stare Grand Torino fixed him said volumes about his exhaustion, the readiness to put this fight away but also the desire to see All for One get his due for what he did to the Shimura family, his partner’s heart and soul.

The exhaustion was evident in his voice, quiet in the way Grand Torino was for only the most serious of things- like when he broke the news that Nana was officially declared dead.

“Toshinori,” he sighed, scanning All Might’s face for something, “Toshinori, that was in April. It’s already the 26th of May.”

All Might shrugged. The days seemed to blur into one another- sleeping regularly had fallen to the wayside within the first few months of his hero work- probably when he received unrestricted access to the police database. He managed well, catching a few winks of sleep during lull periods and when he was being ferried to whatever event his publicity team had convinced or badgered him into. The year held no personal meaning to him in his quest for All for One, flipping past with barely an acknowledgement. It was no surprise to him that a month had gone past already- he measured his time by the milestones he reached searching for All for One.

“I’m pretty sure All for One’s base is in Japan; he’s been pulling back from his overseas ventures- there’s less of a personal touch to the recent heists even though we know the Venteri and the Glassglows are connected to him. He has been expanding into Japan, although he might just be trying to fill the power vacuum left by the takedown of the Natoris. We have to be careful getting rid of the Precepts- we need a clean sweep to stop him from–“

“Yagi.” Grand Torino’s voice cut through his rant. “Shut up and eat, you silly boy.”

All Might stuffed his face with noodles in response, giving his old teacher a boyish grin with bulging cheeks. Grand Torino snorted as he stabbed a gyoza with his chopsticks, rolling his eyes at All Might’s antics.

“You’re way too old to try that on me now, Yagi-boy.” His voice was fond, but Grand Torino’s eyes tracked him for the rest of the meal. All Might didn’t know what he was looking for, but Grand Torino didn’t seem to have found it by the time he left for the night.

And finally, he confronted All for One- the pinnacle of All Might’s career. Leading up to the battle, he thought he would be too nervous to sleep but the 8 hours he set aside each day disappeared in a blink of the eye. Every time he nipped at the heels of All for One his hands would shake, heartbeat loud in his ears and breath catching in his throat. He knew he had to be at his best, and fed his body accordingly. In the lead up to the final battle, he was probably at his peak; stronger than Nana with experience to match.

All Might settles everything he can before he goes. He updates his will, clears out his fridge and packs the few personal items he has away. He clears the grave of Nana’s husband and the empty one beside him. He sends Grand Torino a box of premium taiyaki and signs a few of Nighteye’s All Might collectables in secret with much blushing. He does his best with his report backlogs and settles what he needs in his agency (there’s not much really, his agency runs itself like a well-oiled machine. Publicity’s still sore about being asked to pause scheduling appearances for the time being, but it’ll be worse if they had to cancel.).

He’s stalling a little, making busywork as the day approaches, but his heart feels lighter than it has in a long while. (He stares at the little blinking cursor on the blank document, and everything that he thinks of seems trite and lame. Maybe it’s best if he leaves it to his publicity team- or would it be some other department that takes care of it?)

All Might walks into the battle with All for One with the knowledge that none of his 7 predecessors have made it out dogging his heels. It comforts him, but also makes him feel guilty that he hasn’t a successor.

(It’s been passed down for seven generations already. He shouldn’t end the chain- but if all goes well then One for All can die with its brother.)

It’s not All Might, Pillar of Peace that leaves the fight. It’s not Quirkless Yagi Toshinori either. He doesn’t know who does. It’s honestly a bit of a surprise to wake up at all.

Grand Torino assures him that All for One is dead. Nighteye tearfully recounts how he was carried off the field, how he was touch-and-go for weeks, and how they weren’t sure if he would wake up at all.

The results of the battle are carved into his flesh- wrinkles and scars, deep eye bags that don’t seem to go away despite the time he spends bed bound. All for One takes his pound of flesh from beyond the grave, with surgeries and a body that’s becoming unable to handle the power of All Might. Every time they put him under for another round of trying to save his life, he can’t help but wonder if this is the last time.

He tries his best to be upbeat and cheery, and the psychologists lets him walk. He says nothing about the stranger in the mirror, or how he has to rediscover Yagi Toshinori out of necessity.

(It turns out that the idealistic bright boy with big dreams is a cynical bastard when he grew up. Quiet, gangly, with a face that makes children scream and a body that constantly betrays him.)

It’s been a long time, but self-loathing is an old friend that catches up every time he slows down.

His ability to use his quirk dwindles as his body thins. He figures out how to project an image of his healthier, more youthful self but the reality sets in. He passes gossip magazines at the convenience store shelves that analyse his increasing eye-bags and wrinkles that cast his eyes in shadow.

He declines more media appearances as his time as All Might shrinks from 18, then 15, 10, 7 hours; much to the dismay of his publicity team, who bitches to the new secretary in charge of All Might’s personal life, Yagi Toshinori, in hopes of figuring what exactly takes up All Might’s time.

(The rumours range from having found a beau, to actually having an entire secret family with a newborn. Sawada from Insurance assures him that All Might is clearly suffering from fatherhood. Mirch from legal sarcastically notes that children are supposed to be less trouble as they grow older, and they start arguing about the structure of All Might’s hypothetical family between Sawada showing off his Tuna-fish as proof. Tsunayoshi is a cute kid, and Yagi gifts him a tuna-plush and a signed All Might card when he gets corralled into Tsunayoshi’s third birthday party. Tsunayoshi bursts into tears during the party, and Sawada assures him that Tsunayoshi’s just shy, but Yagi leaves quickly anyway, burdened with guilt and embarrassment.)

It would be strange to see Secretary Yagi napping on All Might’s couch (such unprofessional behaviour! It was difficult enough to push his hiring past HR manager Ogino, and he would surely get a stern talking-to in both identities), and with the need to ration his time as All Might, he can no longer be on-call 24 hours from his office, necessitating an actual place where he can rest.

Yagi eventually settles into a small quiet apartment in the city, close to a train station on the same line as his hero office. Nighteye takes advantage of his new personal fridge and full kitchen to push fresh fruit and packed lunches onto him. Somehow, his fridge was always stocked with juice packets and mash that was easy on his reduced stomach.

He doesn’t spend a lot of time there, though. It’s a shameful place, the waiting area that All Might is trapped in until he has recharged long enough to meet expectations.

He knows that Nighteye is increasingly upset with his persistence in keeping All Might’s routine. Grand Torino lurks in the corners of his office, eyes dark and disapproving, but staying out of the argument even when All Might points out that Grand Torino’s still going strong at his age while Nighteye counters with the fact that Grand Torino’s not the one missing half his insides, or having problems keeping up with the physical demands of his quirk.

The long bitter feud lasts 8 months, until Nighteye can take no more.

“I can’t watch you keep killing yourself.” He says, staring out the window rather than at Yagi. “By being here, I’m only enabling you. Covering for you when you run out of time, helping you with your paperwork; I don’t dislike it, All Might. But doing it only isolates you from reality as it is.

“You need to accept that you can no longer work as All Might does,” Nighteye turns to him, eyes blazing in the way that reminds All Might of the plucky 20 year-old, newly minted licenced hero at the top of his class, that dogged his steps until All Might officially took him in as a side-kick. “I will not contribute to the future that I saw, I will not be part of the reason you fall in battle. All Might! Please, listen to reason!”

All Might knows that even though he and Nighteye are close, as friends and as mentor-mentee, Nighteye still holds him on a pedestal and there are things that people would not confide in their idols. He can also pick up contextual clues, and know that ever since Nighteye Saw his fight with All for One, he has begun to fear his powers of prediction in a new way. Nighteye would never be so foolish as to completely renounce his quirk (although he is an excellent hero without it), but Nighteye’s use of Foresight has become even more sparing as a hero, and he practices it more. Uses it on small things and try to change what he Sees. Gets more and more upset, but also more determined to change the future. Clings to the desperate hope that his Farsight has a larger margin of error and obsessively checks on things that he Saw in the past.

Toshinori’s heart breaks, even as he smiles brightly but not unkindly. He doesn’t put down Nighteye’s concerns, but he’s also unsure of what to say.

“Alas, my other eternal nemesis, paperwork. I thank you for keeping it at bay for so long, but I suppose the forces of evil can never be kept away for long!” he says. It’s not all he wants to say, but it’s for the best that Nighteye leaves and flourishes without him now. He can still watch over Nighteye as he stretches his wings outside the shadow of All Might, ensure that when All Might finally goes, Nighteye will have a life outside of him; a reason to keep living besides a hollow shell of a man waiting for death.

Nighteye gives a weak chuckle. It sounds more like a sob, but he smiles back at All Might’s overdramatic proclamation. If his eyes appear shinier than usual, it’s merely the reflection of his glasses.

All Might sends him off with a robust severance package and more than enough money to buy his own building and start his own agency.

Energy drinks and jelly packets still appear in his apartment’s kitchen, and paperwork piles up in his office despite him devoting more time to it. The 30 years that he spent searching for the shadow puppet master of the underworld pales in comparison to the extensive reports he files in triplicate. He spends a lot of time just staring at the paperwork completely overwhelmed- knowing the necessity and importance, but being unable to muster up the will to do anything.

The days slip by, reminiscent of the time before his fight with All for One, but with less purpose or urgency. He drifts through, spending his days as All Might and nights as a paperwork wrangler while it multiplies around him. He brings the routine paperwork back to the apartment where he can complete it without the risk of HR manager Ogina walking in on him napping on the paperwork by accident. The desk that Nighteye used to have becomes buried under the to-do pile.

Nighteye completes his first solo major case. All Might sends him a fruit basket to celebrate. There’s no note attached. He doesn’t know what to say to Nighteye. He ignores the 70 unread texts from Nighteye, and only answers the hero-related emails.

Yagi eats more of the jelly packs when he remembers to feed himself. More boxes appear like clockwork, keeping up with his consumption. He still loses weight, and the doctors assigned to his case worry.

His bed is gathering dust. His bedroom is a place for changing clothes; it’s been years since he slept in a proper, non-hospital bed. But he’s pushing 50, most of his clothes hang off his shoulders and belt, and his back complains from the decades of hard hero work whenever he wakes slumped over his desk.

The first time he tries sleeping in the bed, he wakes chocking on memories and air, what’s left of his lungs working overtime. He ends up sitting at his kitchen table, filling out forms by rote and moonlight, lost in the hazy quietness of the night. He comes to with most of his paperwork done and false dawn lighting up the room.

He sees Nighteye on assignments and hero gatherings. They exchange professional words at first, but All Might starts to pull away socially until soon they barely exchange nods.

Pillows appear on his bed, and he sleeps better propped up.

The police force assigns him another partner, Naomasa, and All Might is beyond pleased to have another person that he can write New Year letters to. He keeps up better with his paperwork with Naomasa’s help, and misses working with Nighteye intensely.

His life falls into a tedium despite everything, and sometimes he stands on the edge of life and death and wonders.

Some new hero, full of bluster, tells him that All Might is a has been and he’ll be taking his place as the Number One hero soon. All Might wishes him all the best with a genial smile, and inwardly hopes that he won’t see him broken too soon.

He eats less and less. More often than not, he takes the last subway home. Grand Torino hovers at the edge of his awareness, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know how he stands with his old mentor, now that the reason they’ve come together is gone. Why would the old man would want to see the impertinent boy he often railed at? All Might has done his duty as the last holder of One for All and defeated the nemesis his 7 predecessors had been killed by.

There’s no reason for them to interact so they don’t.

Shuzenji bends his ear about taking better care of his body, but Yagi can’t see the point.

He’s a dying man in a world moving on beyond him, and he longs to let go. He can’t really imagine a future beyond the daily tedium of his life with no goal beyond saving the people in front of him. In the moment, adrenaline floods him and his training takes over, but once everything’s quiet he wonders what would happen if he just… disappeared.

(Not die in the line of duty, certainly not. He knows his standing as the pillar of society- hundreds of research papers have been written about his impact on society and how it has ensured this unprecedented stretch of peace ever since quirks first appeared and how technological advancements have leapfrogged. He reads them to remind himself that the world still needs a symbol and a reminder. He reminds himself that it’s what 15-year-old Quirkless Yagi Toshinori yearned for, in a world of violence and survival of the fittest.)

(He doesn’t think about the other things the boy yearned for. Nobody talks about the quirkless or the disabled or the chronologically ill in this world of miracles. Not anymore. Toshinori is shouting into the void.)

There’s only so much he can delay the end. He’s down to 5 hours now, and concerned about passing on his quirk since he survived the major confrontation that he’s been preparing for all his life.

He’s offered it to Nighteye before he left, but was declined. All Might wonders if Nighteye would decline again now. He hasn’t spoken to Nighteye in 5 years already.

Nedzu invites him to U.A, points out the assorted heroes and trainees that Nighteye has taken under his discerning wing, and leaves him with a stack of folders of the brightest and best of the upcoming generation, and a job offer.

He thinks about it for days, meets a boy who reminds him so much of Nighteye (and maybe a little of Quirkless Yagi), accidentally gives out his secret, and realises: this is the one. The person that he will choose to carry out One for All’s and Nana’s legacy.

This is the person that he would be comfortable leaving to world to.

He sort of looks forward to resting.

[h-e-ll-p]

          For this reflection paper, I will be mostly commenting on the "How social media makes us unsocial" video, as that was the video that struck a chord with me the most. Before I do, I would first like to make it clear that I, a person that has grown up in this era myself, am conscious and aware about the very worrying and very present drawbacks that social media has brought upon our society. This is why I do not find much fault in the other video, as it tries to give the other sides of things, a benefit of the doubt at the least. What bothers the most about the woman is how she attempts to relay these problems. I would also like to add that the paragraph limit is far too small for me to properly get into a lot of points that I would like to make, and the lack of space for nuance may lead to me repeating the exact things about the video that are causing my frustrations. 

          The whole video is just riddled left and right with fallacies. There are hasty generalizations thrown everywhere. Saying that people can’t go an hour without their phones despite the average person - in 2014, so data available when this video was released- spending a meager two hours and 42 minutes a day on their phones . She includes this strawman about being expected to know about the state of a person based on their Facebook post is somehow a huge point of conflict in her life. There’s this bit where she complains about her mother asking her to text her the information so she could remember it better after which she turns around and complains that she feels dread whenever she hears the cellphone ring is contradictory at best and confusing at worst. People don’t have the time to drive by or write a letter every time they need to ask you something.  Adding to this, it seems that, in a good chunk of the video, she’s the one that doesn’t want to communicate with people. That little passive aggressive hypothetical call with Tiffany being a great indicator of her personality. How people can’t take a vacation in peace because they have to answer work emails as if the inability of companies and workers to set and respect boundaries is somehow the accessibility’s fault. She also thinks that abbreviations such as ‘lol’, ‘omg’ and ‘wtf’ somehow depreciates language. To quote; "So when we abbreviate our vocabulary what we risk is losing the nuances, subtleties and intimate parts of our personalities that make up our very rich American Vocabulary.". First of all, social networks don’t only involve Americans, and though this was a speech made by Americans, for Americans, by 2014 the internet was so saturated that the blend of different races has already been established enough that regardless of how innocuous this throwaway line was, it nevertheless was a distasteful thing to say. Second of all, shortened words are a part of language. Auxiliary verbs, abbreviations, and acronyms have always been around. She even uses it in her speech. Third and lastly, calling a clear evolution in language ‘risking losing the nuances, subtleties and intimate parts of our personalities’ is an unusual slippery slope that borders on fear mongering. Later on, she mentions in her video about how we’re so addicted and/or reliant -she doesn’t really specify which is which- on our phones that we turn our cars back around just to get our cellphones whenever we forget them. See, the thing about this is the reason why we need our phones is because of convenience. In our phones are our calculators, our dictionaries, our notes, our schedules, our wallets, and many more. Having the ability to have all of those features without actually bringing all of them and not using it is you’re prerogative. If her argument is that she doesn’t like how it’s so convenient and therefore ‘addicting’ to her then that’s her problem. Let her bring a whole carload of stuff when she goes out. Speaking of convenience, she also criticizes the frailness of phones these days. With her story of going to a store and slamming her blackberry on the ground and being all smug about how didn’t break and how people can’t find that kind of sturdiness nowadays. But the thing is, she most definitely can get a phone like that these days. She’s just in the wrong store. She also has to give up the amenities of the new generation of phones but by the way she talks about them I doubt she uses them that much. The speaker has really weird ideas about human behavior too. Blaming human being’s natural tendency to be vain on selfies and the facade they can portray online. As if people haven’t paid good money for portraits of themselves for centuries. As if people aren’t pretentious and putting up faces in real life, casting away the people they love because their actions ‘taint’ the family image. Human behavior hasn’t changed at all, the only difference is the way they can express it. While I do admit that she alludes to good points, such as distracted driving being one of the leading causes for car crashes (which, by the way, was not in fact the leading cause of vehicular accidents or vehicular deaths during the time like she claimed. The leading cause was speeding ), they get completely overwhelmed by her other opinions. Refusing to put in any helpful or insightful ideas in favor of pandering to the obvious majority of her current audience. The most ironic part about this video is that it tries to convince people that social media is bad by using social media as the mean to spread it. Just gives of the same vibes as Plato and Socrates being against writing things down and fighting against it by writing papers against it. Following this, the whole thing feels like a poorly written informative skit of some sorts, exacerbated by the video that she made us watch in the first half, which obviously tries to depict a society that puts a little too much value in their internet – which, just like what I said before, even though it is correct and something that I’ve personally seen myself in real life, is another point of contention for me because of the dramatics of it. Overall, I prefer the other video that was shown, as it gives an unbiased and constructive narrative despite also being mixed in with humor, something that "How social media makes us unsocial" tried and failed to do. Maybe she wasn’t serious. Maybe she was just taking the uncertainty about the changing of times and spinning it into a satire. But it’s infuriating to see someone with a big platform fearmonger like that. I won’t get into the TEDTalk formula of content, but the script, though well written, is poorly researched, sanctimonious and all in all just aggrieving to the people on the other side of the spectrum. She says that “I think we would all live life better if we had hands to hold rather than keys to click.” Yet she condemns the very medium that allows us to stay connected to people who we may have lost, or may not have even found, without it.

[shirlleycoyle]

Vaccine Site Uses Credit History to Verify Patients’ Identities

When retired web developer Catherine Kunicki tried to sign up for her first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in downtown Brooklyn, the AdvantageCare Physicians website rejected her. She received an error message that her identity couldn't be verified through Experian, a credit monitoring company.

She said she's felt "horrified" at the amount of info needed from vaccination scheduling sites before users can even see when there are open slots.

"This one wins, though," she said.

When Motherboard tested the AdvantageCare Physicians website (as a hypothetical 65+ Brooklyn resident), we confirmed that it is using Experian to verify patients’ identities. The website claims that AdvantageCare Physicians does not get information about a patient’s credit score. But Experian is a credit reporting company and big data company, and the tool the vaccine scheduling website is using verifies identities by using information that shows up in people’s Experian credit histories.

This is a problem for a lot of reasons. One-in-five Americans is “credit invisible” or has poor credit, according to a report from the nonprofit Corporation for Enterprise Development. Black Americans are more likely to have poor credit; they are also disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Still, this Experian tool and tools like it—collectively called remote identity proofing—are used for all sorts of things they shouldn’t be: “The remote identity proofing (RIDP) process confirms an applicant’s identity based on their credit information,” the Corporation for Enterprise Development report states. “This process has a success rate of only 78 percent, and applicants with little or no credit history and the millions of victims of identity theft cannot complete an RIDP.”

Motherboard attempted to make a hypothetical vaccine appointment with AdvantageCare Physicians. Experian said it was unable to verify our identity because “[we] don't have enough credit history," "there is a block or hold on your credit information," or "you did not correctly answer enough of the credit-based questions." We tried a second time, using real biographical information but a fake date of birth that said we are 98 years old and had no problem getting our identity verified and moving forward in the appointment-making process.

Earlier this week, as vaccination eligibility expanded to those 65 and older in New York—as well as several types of frontline workers, including healthcare personnel and grocery store employees—Motherboard tested the online vaccination signup process and found at least five different sites run by private companies, all requiring their own signup process. This is confusing enough; throwing an alert from a credit monitoring company into the mix makes it worse.

The AdvantageCare Physicians site says that from here, you can request an activation code by filling out the same information in a new form and sending it to them. This process takes up to three business days. Three days is a long time when vaccine slots are filling up within minutes.

Another error message Motherboard received is more intrusive: To verify you're really you, you have to select from a list of things that could identify you, such as credit cards you've owned.

According to the Experian website, the Precise ID software that AdvantageCare Physicians is using protects against fraud, including "synthetic identity fraud," where a user would fake some parts of their information to create a new identity. That's what we did in testing, but it's not what Kunicki did, and she got the error.

The fine-print on the errors we got says that answering the questions won't impact your credit score, but to users trying to sign up to get vaccinated, there's no way to tell whether the site is actually weighing your score against how or when you'll get a vaccine. Of course, this would be illegal, and anyone in one of the eligible high-risk categories (over 65, frontline workers) can get the vaccine regardless of things like income or credit score. But none of that is clear to the user.

Do you have experience with the online vaccination signup process that you think Motherboard should know about? We’d love to hear from you. Contact Samantha Cole securely on the messaging app Signal at +6469261726, or by email: samantha.cole@vice.com

Experian offers authentication services to private clients, which enables those clients to "validate customer information against reliable databases." Kwame Patterson, director of public relations for EmblemHealth, which owns AdvantageCare Physicians, told me that there isn't actually a credit check happening through this process, but an identity check.

"There is absolutely no assessment of credit or any other form of financial-based information required from AdvantageCare Physicians or Experian in the sign-up process. The only check occurring is that a patient or prospective patient is who they say they are." It's also checking for bots that could access and manipulate patient information, Patterson said. None of that addresses the many problems with this type of credit history-based identity verification, however.

As for the three day wait, Patterson said that the verification process "can happen quicker" than three days, depending on the volume of registrations: "We have been able to review and validate registrations within this timeframe. New patients can also call our practice to schedule an appointment. They only have to wait for online verification if they prefer to use the online scheduler."

Even though AdvantageCare Physicians isn't checking credit scores through this process, the insinuation that you need a credit history to be verified could deter a lot of people from following through and getting the vaccine.

Kunicki said she gave up attempting to get through the site for the day. "So, even though (or maybe because) I am immune compromised and 67 years old, I’m going to stay home and wait until this is easier or one of my physicians or pharmacies has a vaccine available and I am notified," she told me—adding that she might try one more time to get in and find slots at midnight when the days reset, or in the morning.

Vaccine Site Uses Credit History to Verify Patients’ Identities syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[deck16]

Guild Wars 2 Retrospective

I've played a number of MMOs over the years. Guild Wars 2 is my favourite, and it occupies a place in my memories like a favourite book or movie. And so, I want to write down my thoughts about it.

I don't think I'm finished with the game yet. As I write, the Icebrood Saga is soon to be launched. Even ignoring future content there's so much current content I want to do.

That said, now's a good time to write down my thoughts. I finished Living World Season 4 not too long ago and it had a certain finality that made me want to pause and reflect.

This is going to be long. And it's going to be a lot of opinion. There's going to be a lot of praise, but if I praise Guild Wars 2 for something don't take that to imply that only GW2 does that thing, or that GW2 does it best.

Soundtrack

Have a listen while you read this.

The earlier stuff by Jeremy Soule is different to what came later, in expansions and such, but not incongruous. It's all good.

Music is one of those strange and strong memory triggers, like smell. There are some refrains from the soundtrack that bring back memories. I remember listening to the soundtrack when the game was released to help get through a particularly un-fun and short-lived job. Some tracks bring back memories of playing with friends. Or just exploring Tyria on my own.

Money

Ars Gratia Artis

How does one make money off a product, like a game?

Make it worth buying.

(Other.)

Option 2 includes things like psychological tricks, and planned obsolescence with yearly releases.

I can't say GW2 never indulges in Option 2. But I feel it mostly goes for Option 1.

Pictured: ArenaNet offices after releasing the black wings cosmetic.

Subscription Model

Guild Wars 2, like its predecessor, never demanded a subscription.

This earns a massive amount of respect from me. Many MMOs charge subscriptions while they're new, raking in some easy money while they've got hype. I think GW2 could've done that. That ArenaNet chose not to is laudable.

Money Store

GW2 does, I'm sure, rake in extra money from expansion packs and cosmetics. The former is very understandable. The latter can be dangerous in greedy hands.

You can buy a lot of tat with real money in GW2, it's true. It's even had a version of loot boxes from day one.

Thankfully the real-money stuff is largely cosmetic or convenience. I have bought a few items, but I do not feel a second-class citizen for not buying more. Indeed, I roll my eyes at the bizarre characters decked out in effulgent tat. If they want to support the game I enjoy to look like rejects from a bad anime, more power to them. I rather more a normal appearance, and there's plenty of options to get that by playing, not paying.

Exhibits A through D: Effulgent Tat

Maybe I'm a sentimental idiot, but GW2's soft-sell approach has made me sympathetic. When GW2 developers were laid off due to a "financial squeeze" I went and bought some gems. I feel they deserve it. Not like other companies who lay off staff when money abounds, just so they can cut costs.

You will see adverts for money-store items here and there, such as the login screen. But, crucially, it never interrupts your game with teasing messages along the lines of "if you buy XYZ, you can skip this".

There's also the daily log-in rewards and the character birthday rewards. These give a nice mix of the cheaper money-store conveniences and also grant access to things you can't even buy.

Explorable

Something that struck me very early about GW2 was the extent you can just wander around to level.

Progress by Wanderlust

See an interesting land-mark? Go wander over, you'll probably run into some quests. Cross paths with an event? Join right on in and help out. Harvest resources as you go. Kill monsters off the beaten track for extra experience.

There are other things to find to reward exploration. Mini-dungeons, mini-bosses, chests of loot, and even just really pretty locations. It feels really good when you say "what's over there?" and you actually discover something that's totally supplemental but also totally interesting.

One of the earlier off-the-beaten-track finds I made. A bandit's cabbage farm. Handy if you're into cooking.

Early on, I loved wandering to level. It made the grind of levelling feel more like exploration, like I was playing Morrowind or Skyrim, rather than an MMO.

Even now, years on, there are zones I haven't explored. I took the direct path through Living World Season 4's zones, and now I'm contently going back and exploring them top to tail. Nowadays I don't wander quite so randomly. I use the map markers to guide me, but I still have plenty of "what's that?" or "what's over there?" moments. I'm still finding stuff.

NPC Chatter

NPCs across Tyria talk to each other. A lot. It's all fully voice-acted and often interesting or funny as well.

I am still surprised when I stop somewhere quite isolated to clean out my inventory or fiddle with my traits and some NPCs strike up a conversation. It must be very tempting to cut costs by not having the random Inquest NPC in corridor A chat about his research with the other Inquest NPC.

A small thing, but it does make exploring that little bit more rewarding.

Not a great example for funny-factor, but a good example for isolation. To see these two hostile Inquest NPCs you'd first have to opt to do the Living World chapter their zone is in, then decide to explore beyond the story there, then happen down this particular corridor, and finally not kill them before they had a chance to talk.

Events and Meta Events

Events and meta events impressed me greatly as I discovered GW2.

Little Adventures

Early on, I was exploring Harathi Hinterlands, and I come across an event where Seraph NPCs (good guys) are defending against Centaur NPCs (bad guys). I help, the Seraph win. And then one of them announces they're moving on to their next objective.

I follow. Things escalate. About an hour later, we (NPCs, other players, and myself) have pushed into the Centaur base and are taking down their leader.

It made the world feel alive. Here was this war that was happening whether I was there or not. If I chose to pitch in rather than walk by, I would be treated to a little adventure: combat, loot, and a little story.

A limited-time event had players pursuing and then killing ley-energy people. I felt bad for the poor bastards, being chased by dozens of loot-crazed players. Not bad enough to not join in, though...

Putting the First M in MMO

Events are a reason for players to work together, in scales big and small.

On the small scale, it's always a relief to see some new players jump in and help you with a Champion when you're tackling it alone or in a small party. The shoe feels good on the other foot: it's fun to play the hero and jump in to help some scrappy players beat a champion they were struggling with.

On the big scale, maps like The Silverwastes and Dragon's Stand are dedicated to meta events. Groups of players must spontaneously split down multiple paths to achieve objectives in limited time. I've seen these fail often enough to know success isn't guaranteed.

Play with Friends

Despite the acronym, it's not easy to play with friends in every MMO. Here's a hypothetical exchange:

"Hey, you want to play that MMO?"

"Sure! It's more fun to play with friends."

"Okay! I'm on the Black Mountains server."

"Oh. I'm on the Dusty Gorge server."

"That's alright. I'll make a character on Dusty Gorge."

"Great! Where shall we meet?"

"Well I'm only level 1 on this server, so it will have to be a starter zone."

"Oh. The lowest character I have is level 20. So... I'll just one-shot everything, and I'll get no XP and useless loot."

"Ah. Well... I guess I'll get to level 20 and let you know? So, we can probably play in a week or so?"

"...Okay."

These problems do not happen in GW2 with the megaserver system and dynamic level adjustment.

When the game came out a group of friends and I quested through several zones together. This is us in the charr starting area.

(I don't want to pretend dynamic level adjustment is perfect. Because if you take your Ascended-item max-level elite-specialised hero to a starter PvE zone you are going to be more powerful than a new level 1 character. Not quite to the point of absurdness, but not far from it either.)

Any barrier that makes it hard to play with friends in an MMO is idiotic. I am very glad GW2 started with low barriers, and only made them lower over time.

A Better Grind

There's grinding in GW2. How could there not be, in a modern MMO?

I have seen people in GW2 doing what I consider painful, repetitive grinding. Armies running laps in the Edge of the Mists. Heroes repeatedly doing Fractals. Massive groups teleporting from one world boss to another on a clockwork schedule.

If people want to do that, more power to them. None of that is necessary, though. It's for bragging rights or as a faster alternative to levelling.

Look at the relative stats for item rarity. For a fresh level 80 character Rare equipment is trivial to get, and Exotic is very doable. This equipment is not that far behind the very best. Certainly the gap is much, much less than most other MMOs. And it doesn't go obsolete over time as new content is added... mostly.

Mounts are more than just a "go faster" convenience in GW2. They complement the exploration side of the game, with each able to run, jump, or glide differently. They have weight and inertia and are fun to drive. The optional, later-game mounts require some grinding to get; thankfully they are account-wide unlocks.

Is there any grinding required to just experience the game? The answer is "yes", but I think GW2 has taken the harsh edges off it.

If you enjoy grinding, is it really grinding? GW2 lets you enjoy grinding in two ways:

No Repetition

Get something once, and you don't have to do it again. That's good, because something only becomes repetitive if you have to do it more than once!

Very many things are account-bound. Progress can be made on any character. And once you unlock it, you have it on all characters.

Even something like levelling, which is not account-bound, doesn't have to be repeated. Level-boosting items are handed out as you play or as birthday gifts. All free; not paid-for. And handed out generously: I have enough to get about a half-dozen characters to maximum level. Even if you don't have quite as many as I do they will still speed up the levelling process.

Grinding by Playing

Many things you grind for can be earned doing a variety of things in a variety of places. This has the happy side-effect of making grinding goals come with just playing.

Suppose a friend newly joins GW2, and I'm tempted to join them in the low-level non-expansion zone. I won't be "wasting time" as I'll be earning masteries, gold and other currencies and crafting materials.

Photo-bombed by a hunter pet. Look at that smug expression on its face...

Combat Mechanics

GW2 combat feels pretty satisfying and fluid to me. I don't want to hold GW2's combat up as exemplary, because it isn't. Other MMOs do similar things; in many cases better.

But I like GW2 combat well enough. Here's why:

Movement. Many attacks can be avoided by moving away. In any half-way hectic combat you're constantly on the move, either to avoid enemy attacks or to better position your own. Having a dedicated dodge move adds to the experience.

Action Camera. Not everyone likes the action camera, but I love it. I can control the game like a shooter, not like some modded real-time strategy game.

Elegant Rules. Over time, MMO rules systems often turn into incomprehensible messses that no-one understands. Or they start out that way. GW2's rules are pretty complicated but it keeps things mostly comprehensible with a kind-of status-effect middleware that relies on common effects like boons and conditions. The programmer in me finds it quite genius and, frankly, elegant.

Weak Holy Trinity

In GW2 the healer, DPS, tank divide is de-emphasised. Every class does a little of each.

Yes, you can emphasise one over another, and if you're doing difficult content you probably should. But no class is defined by their trinity-role. You want to be a tanky thief? Do it!

Healing is especially unique. In old-school MMOs, healing is just "reverse damage". You hit me for 20 damage? I'll heal me for 20 damage. In GW2 it's a bit more nuanced, usually revolving around regeneration or other slower effects. Someone chucking out healing skills is a life-saver (literally) not because they're un-doing chunks of damage but because they're increasing survivability.

Amateur Theorycrafting

When I was levelling up my thief I found she struggled with survivability. I paused to re-consider my tactics. I decided on a condition damage approach, and picked weapons and skills that would make my enemies bleed. Caltrops, shrapnel bombs, and double daggers!

It worked! The thief was still fragile, but she could stack enough bleeds to kill most things, even many things at once. The caltrops helped: tougher bad-guys would limp in pursuit, bleeding to death.

My post-hoc re-enactment of that bleed build.

Apparently it wasn't an optimal choice: theorycrafters would pick other configurations. That's unavoidable. There is always a meta in any game made by mortals.

Yet I was pleased I had "figured it out" on my own, just by playing and experimenting. I didn't need an internet guide to survive. And even if it wasn't the best choice, it still worked well enough.

Having done the same on a few classes since then I feel GW2 is a game where you can tinker and customise and come up with things that work.

My current warrior setup tries to be tanky in a few ways; one of which is by combining For Great Justice with Might Makes Right. I doubt it's a "top meta" build but it seems to work well enough.

Rotationless

I hate rotations in MMOs. I get they're inevitable to some extent, but I loathe MMOs that embrace and build upon it as if it's a positive thing.

Well, let me back away from that a mote. I hate it when they do that and it's not opt-in. If people want to do it for some unique style or to get a few extra percentage points of damage, I don't mind.

I don't want to think about internal timers and priorities when I play. Those things are artificial. I want to think about the actual goings-on in combat. I want use Hundred Blades because I've moved into a position where I can strike mulitiple foes; not because a I've randomly proced a buff that enables or enhances it.

This is why Berserker Warrior is my favourite class in GW2. I can play it in a brain-dead way. The "auto attack" skill, plus one or two others, is all I need in a stand-up slugfest. Everything else is to respond to a situation: to move, to heal, to break, to push.

There are classes and specialisations in GW2 that do require something of a rotation. That's fine. I won't play 'em but I've no problem if others want to!

PvP and End-Game

I've not done much PvP stuff or fractals or raids. So I can't talk much about that. I wish I had tried these things, but such are the laments of a casual player with limited time.

I really love GW2's approach to remove gear and level restrictions in all PvP. It's great you can buy the game, log in, and play PvP or WvW on a mostly level playing field.

I also love the concept of World vs World. Both as a mode of competition and the way it allows for a variety of activities like soldiering, skirmishing, scouting, siege-engining and supply-hauling. You can even just potter around the WvW zone doing vistas or harvesting resources if you want to.

Some people will complain GW2 doesn't have enough end-game. They're probably right, in a sense: there are better MMOs out there for their needs. As a casual player, I'm largely happy with the balance GW2 had decided to strike.

A World to Escape To

Tyria is a welcoming fantasy world. Like a digital Narnia or Neverland it is a place to escape to. It's comforting to be there.

Of course escapism is part of many works of fiction. On the other hand, it's not something every work of fiction ought do.

If you're going to do escapism, do it well. GW2, I think, does it well.

Scenic

Tyria is a beautiful place. It was in Guild Wars 1. It still is.

The designers have a real knack for displaying awesome, yet realistic, environments. There are stunning settings in all manner of environments. Just look at the screenshots I’ve peppered about.

They especially do nature well. Some of the forests, with dappled lighting and weather effects, are gorgeous.

This isn't just a matter of graphics, or even art. It's a sense of moderation: it's knowing that if everything is epic, nothing is.

They know they rock the scenery. Why else would they make pretty views a big part of the game?

Race Realism

MMOs often have a problem where non-human races are... well... quite human. Sometimes in very silly ways.

Not so GW2. I love the charr. A "cat people" race that aren't humans with cat-ears and a tail. The charr are inhuman yet have animal traits that are familiar, from the loping all-fours run to the always-sniffing nose. They're well designed.

Charr posture though... All that weight bearing down on feet that don't have the benefit of heels? An awkwardly forward centre of gravity? They've got to be sore by the end of the day.

Pretty much all the races are done well, including monster bad-guy ones. There's a lot of detail put into GW2 creatures and it's a shame in a way that the nature of the game means we rarely get to see them up close and detailed.

Arguably GW2's weakest race, aesthetically, may be the humans, who all look like stock photography models.

After doing so well with the charr, I don't know what possessed them to give Rox ridiculously huge kitty-cat eyes.

Empowering

Thinking logically, Tyria really isn't a nice place. There are all sorts of problems, from local bandits to world-ending dragons.

Throw that logic out the window. What matters more than how many problems there are is how empowered you, I, or anyone is to solve these problems.

There's no problem in GW2 that can't be fixed. Bandits can be beaten up. Dragons can be defeated. Even racism can be fixed. (Yes, often violence is the only option, but that's action RPGs for you.)

There's a spirit of co-operation and capability that runs through GW2. You are not so much the mighty hero coming to save the helpless peasants. Rather you're mucking in with people already hard at work trying to fix things, be they grub-squashing farmers or dragon-killing soldiers. You just happen to be the tipping point they needed. Even in the story, when you're promoted to grand poobah, you're a pretty collaborative boss, tending to work with your comrades.

In GW2 hope trumps hopelessness. It's escapism. It's nice.

Story

GW2 has a number of stories you can embark on.

I have mixed feelings about GW2's story. Like most MMO stories, it isn't that great. I wouldn't suggest you get a bag of popcorn and watch all the cutscenes on YouTube.

But as far as MMO stories go, it's probably better than most. It certainly has its ups and downs. Yet in those better moments it can be quite enthralling. Living World Season 4 -- the most recent story section at the time of writing -- kept me interested and even tugged a little at my heart-strings.

Like a soap opera, the GW2 story makes up in quantity what it lacks in quality. Over time -- years and years, remember -- you get to know and love the world and the characters. And it's doubly engaging because you are one of the characters.

Characters

The best thing about GW2's story are the characters, especially in later content. Characters who are essentially RPG tropes are given personality by competent writing and voice acting. Canach's dry sense of humour always amused me, as did Taimi's energetic voice acting.

This is a well-calculated expenditure of effort. Good characters can make talking heads engaging. Bad characters can't be saved even by multi-million dollar effects budgets.

A cool little scene at the end of the Personal Story has your character striding alongside the members of Destiny's Edge.

War and Isolation

Many people don't like Orr, the final zone in the base game. I do.

As per the story, it's a warzone. And you can see it. It's like the D-Day landings over there. Scouts, transports, war machines; everywhere you go the Pact are battling the undead. There are no heart quests there, just dynamic events; and I think that reflects the epic goings-on quite well.

Likewise, a zone like Mount Maelstrom is meant to be a wild place far from civilisation. And it feels like it. There are people (someone's got to give quests) but they're either explorers, exiles, or strange native creatures.

These may seem like rather pedestrian observations. I bring them up because many MMOs get this stuff wrong. Epic war zones have maybe a few dozen NPCs battling but otherwise seem unaffected. Far-flung regions have just as many towns as the heart of civilisation.

Getting this stuff right provides a sense of place, and of progress (level-wise and story-wise).

Living World

I enjoy GW2's Living World episodic content. From a story and setting perspective it gives the world a sense of history and progression.

From a gameplay perspective it adds new content... and often a lot of content. Whole new zones are added. I have especially enjoyed Season 4's zones, which feel as richly developed as the normal zones.

Style and Polish

People often talk about Blizzard games in terms of polish (even Blizzard do). I feel GW2 has a certain level of similar polish. (Whether that's still true for Blizzard games is another matter.)

The art style is gorgeous and consistently applied from the grand stuff like character creation screens and loading art, right down to little touches on the UI. This consistency isn't exactly a key selling point but it does speak to a certain craftsmanship.

When you jump in the water, the lower part of your HUD gets "splashed" with drops in GW2's signature "inkbrush style". It's part of the transition animation from land to water skills. A tiny touch that is illustrative of GW2's attention to detail and consistency in style.

Wiki

Similar quality can be seen in the official GW2 Wiki which is informative, tidy and (as far as I've seen) complete. It's good to be able to look with confidence at a definitive source rather than look over a handful of fan MMOs trying to sort fact from speculation.

Conclusion

So... I like Guild Wars 2.

It's been the perfect MMO for a casual player like me. It respects my wallet. It respects my time. It offers variety, solid gameplay, and a comforting world to visit. It seems to have been made with real love.

Thank you to the people who made it. You should take pride in the countless hours of entertainment and joy you've given to me and so many other players across the world.

If you've stumbled across this and are thinking of playing, know that GW2 can be played for free. Why not give it a go?