#i ended up picking and choosing the three segments of their relationship that felt most integral to this story

[forhyune]

‧ ❆ ˚ 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐝 (besides myself)・l.f.

— you spend three years loving him, six months losing him, and four hours waiting for him to get the hell out of your house. but the human heart is more stubborn than you know.

words・5.4k

pairing・lee felix x gn!reader

genres・babysitter!au, girldad!lix, nobody look at me, toothrotting fluff, more angst than originally intended tbh, exes to lovers, hurt/comfort, happy ending yayyy, non-linear storyline

warnings・cousin has a korean name and experiences one (1) minor head bump, mc is temporarily heartbroken and experiences one (1) breakdown

playlist・house song by searows・glad by tori kelly・let's pretend by del water gap・you were good to me by jeremy zucker

a/n・hiiii my loves, i'm so unbelievably excited to bring u my first contribution to my and @astraystayyh's collaboration, "winter falls" ♡ every time i write for our ray of sunshine i'm reminded of how thankful i am to love him. this fic ruined me. hope it does the same to you (smile)

I. everything

“One day,” you muttered to the toddler sitting on your shoulders, “you’ll experience something deeply, irreversibly humbling, and I’ll be there to witness your downfall.”

Byeol responded to this with an unbothered babble. She then gathered two handfuls of your hair and yanked using far too much force to be biologically possible.

You folded like a lawn chair. “Mother—!”

Oh, that word was not suitable for button-sized ears.

“—oh, my dear mother, why? Why me?”

Technically speaking, your aunt should’ve been the target of your lamentations, but all she did was produce the child presently steering you around the kitchen like you were her own personal bumper car. Your own mother was the one who volunteered you to watch said child during the first weekend of your winter break. Only for an hour until the babysitter arrives, she’d said (raising her voice, so as to be heard over your groaning).

You adored Byeol. She made scarily accurate chipmunk sounds and possessed an immobilizing fear of grapes. She bust out a dance move before she took her first steps. The girl could have you floored with laughter without being able to say more than three words at a time. Still, this was far from how you imagined onsetting your desperately-needed few weeks off. Not to mention it was now half past three; your shift should’ve ended two minutes ago.

As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Byeol emitted an excited onomatopoeia like a golden retriever detecting the mailman. Your reaction wasn’t too far off; you swiveled your head in the sound’s direction, sang out “coming!” in a delighted vibrato, and twirled into the foyer, your hands around Byeol’s ankles anchoring her in place.

You cracked open the door and found yourself face-to-face with Byeol’s babysitter. The freckles scattered across his high cheekbones and sloping nose seemed to you like they were imprinted by the sun itself. His hair was dark, falling just shy of pitch black, and long, ending an inch or so below pierced ears. A few misbehaving strands rested over his forehead but did little to obstruct your view of his eyes: profoundly brown and pointed at either end, like poinsettia petals.

He was the most beautiful man you’d ever seen. You felt your skin warm, your heart flip. You opened your mouth. 

Then Byeol hit her head against the vertical edge of the front door, loud enough for it to echo.

The panic that seized you in that moment was truly unlike anything you’d experienced before. You caught one glimpse of the stranger’s expression (as mortified as you expected), and then you were seeing your own epitaph on the inside of your eyelids, engraved with the four words “Death by Furious Aunt.”

“Was that—?” The man sputtered, and his voice was rich and full and accented and just as breathtaking as the rest of him and holy fucking shit now was not the time.

“My fucking god,” you whispered, completely forgetting to watch your mouth. In a hurry, you swung Byeol off your shoulders and dropped to a knee. You leaned in close to examine her reddening forehead and cradled the plush of her cheek; she blinked at you a few times, fascinated by the sudden sight of your face again.

“You okay, Byeollie? That hurt a lot, didn’t it? I’m so, so sorr—”

Byeol started to laugh.

Not laugh as in those little chuckles she let out randomly, like there was something inherently amusing about the kitchen cupboard, but laugh as in a boisterous, resounding guffaw, like a great-uncle at a family gathering off one too many martinis.

This rendered you speechless for the second time in under a minute. Then, you lifted your other hand to cradle her other cheek, her face now sandwiched between your palms, and squeezed.

“I broke my cousin,” you whispered, your voice was so deathly serious that the man in the doorway had to stifle a laugh of his own.

His knee brushed against your shin as he sat down to your left, folding his legs into a criss-cross. You could discern notes of lavender and orange blossoms in the delicate cologne that clung to him, perforated the air and your mind both.

“Can I?” He asked.

“Please.”

Carefully, you shifted Byeol’s small frame towards him; the manner in which he accepted her was so smooth and practiced that there was no doubt in your mind you were watching a professional at work. He settled her on his right knee, then dipped his head to look her in the eye.

“Hi, princess,” he cooed with a dulcet smile. He curved his pointer finger, dusted it beneath her chin. “Why are you laughing, silly girl?”

Oh.

Oh.

You might just continue your lineage after all.

“Y/N-ie,” she answered, still tittering.

He looked to you with a slight tilt to his head, and you nodded affirmatively. He murmured a quiet ah. “What about Y/N-ie?”

Somehow you sensed that she was about to embarrass you and pinched the bridge of your nose—in preparation.

“P-pretty.” I knew it!

The man let out the laugh he’d been holding back since earlier and tapped on her button nose, lowered his voice to a whisper that he knew you could hear.

“I agree.” His eye glinted playfully, matching his tone. “And so are you.” The bashful, high-pitched giggle she responded with sounded eerily similar to your inner monologue.

The two of you spent a little longer on the floor of the foyer making sure Byeol was okay, and then the girl upped and made a mad dash for the kitchen while yelling something about a horse, and if that didn’t confirm that she was completely fine (albeit incredibly strange) you didn’t know what would. You found her rolling around the carpet in the room adjacent to the kitchen and left her to her own devices while you and her babysitter fixed up a small fruit plate for her afternoon snack. No grapes, of course.

He told you he usually went by Felix, but that his Korean name was probably easier for Byeol to pronounce, with its easier consonants and whatnot. You asked which name he preferred, and he said either or. He was a recent college graduate, a year older than you, who was determined to spend at least the next two years doing nothing but working out his future. He accepted the part-time babysitting position to pick up some light cash in the process.

“And ‘cause I’m good with kids,” he added, splitting apart a tangerine. “So I’ve been told.”

“Oh, you definitely are,” you said, plating a couple blueberries. “You melted her earlier.”

“She melted me. She’s so cute. And you’re so cute with her—I didn’t realize I was robbing someone of their job.”

You turned your head to regard the tot and let out a helpless laugh. Byeol tired of being a human lint roller a few minutes ago and had since moved on to staring aimlessly out the window.

“She doesn’t take me seriously, and I can’t stay mad at her,” you mused. “I would be a nightmare as her babysitter, trust me. She’s all yours.”

Felix held out two overturned handfuls of tangerine slices, to which you quickly moved the platter across the counter. He didn’t respond to your comments as he placed them on the outermost edge so that they looked like rays of sun emanating from a multicolored core. Adorable.

“Will you be around much, then?”

You made eye contact with him across the counter. On his perfect face was a teasing smirk and a subtle blush. Ah, you’d been mistaken, writing off his silence as concentration—he’d been contemplating how to best flirt with you.

“Y’know. In case I need any help teaching her cuss words,” he appended.

It was then your turn to flush a couple shades darker. “Please don’t tell her mom.”

“I won’t, I won’t.” He walked around the perimeter of the counter until he was directly in front of you; the lavender and orange blossoms returned. “On one condition.”

Not even one hour on the job and he was already trying to blackmail you? You respected it. “Which is?”

As he shifted some of his weight onto the counter, something too shifted in his smile, giving it a quality that was every bit as hopeful as it was gentle.

It was then, while Lee Felix was looking at you like that, all dilated pupils and long lashes, when you predicted that he would one day break your heart. You predicted you’d let him.

“Be around,” he said simply.

It wasn’t a question or a demand. In hindsight, you think it was more akin to a birthday wish, ill-fated the moment it hit the air.

II. has changed

Felix pulled Byeol’s hood up and over her ears, and you realized he was right about the winter coat getting too small for her—she looked like a bowling pin. You muffled your snort into your scarf.

“And what was the last rule again?” He asked, his breath puffing into the frigid afternoon in tiny clouds. Byeol sighed like she knew anything of the world’s woes.

“No barking at other kids,” came the sad reply, but a toothy smile spread across her face anyways when Felix nudged the underside of her chin. She loved when he did that.

“That’s my girl,” he hummed. “I believe in you.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” you said, and the wounded look Felix shot you was like you’d just confessed to hating kittens. “Come on—she doesn’t have a good track record. I’m allowed to have my doubts.”

“I dunno what that means,” Byeol announced with admirable frankness, and then turned around and scurried down the porch stairs, scattering fun-sized footprints across the snowy streets.

As you braced yourself to follow her, Felix stopped you with a slip of his hand into the pocket of your puffer. His fingers first aligned with yours inside the insulated nylon, then chased the spaces in between. He leaned in close, placed a kiss on the apple of your cheek, another on the corner of your mouth. This brought a helpless smile to your face, too. He had a way of melting you and Byeol both.

“It’ll be fine,” he soothed. “A little barking never hurt anybody, baby.”

“Lix, last time somebody called animal control.”

“Ermm—a little barking never hurt most people.”

That winter, Byeol was four, and your relationship with Felix was about to turn two.

Funnily enough, you’d never figured out when your anniversary actually was. Felix wagered it was the day you met, as he knew he loved you the instant he saw you; you insisted it was months later, since it took both of you an entire winter break of open-ended flirting and informal dating to label yourselves for real. Imagine your horror when he showed up outside your college apartment on the last day of your fall semester, arms overflowing with flowers and gift bags brimming with your favorite things, the phrase “happy anniversary” on his lips three months before you perceived it to be. You’ve celebrated both days ever since.

You loved the ocean growing up. You didn’t get to visit it often, but when you did you would run up to the water’s very edge so that your toes dipped into the cold—and just stand there, observing, absorbing, until even the seam of your lips and the ends of your eyelashes were studded with crystals of seasalt. You found endless tranquility in its rhythmic whispers and unspeakable comfort in its oscillating waves, guaranteed to return after momentary departure.

Your fascination stemmed from the folktale your mother used to read to you before bed, about a sun goddess creating the earth. In the story, every component of nature was one of the sun’s beloved children. She allegedly loved them all, but you suspected the ocean was her favorite; it was obvious, the way she twinkled off its ebbing surface, the way every minuscule spot of light looked to you like a handprint of hers, left behind by eons of endless doting.

Felix reminded you of the ocean. Every day you grew more certain that you wanted to drown in him, to let his resonant voice and kind eyes sweep and keep you inside his depths. It was never salt that he pressed into your skin but warmth, stamped and sealed with caring hands and cautious lips. His deep whispers promised eternal love and temporary ecstasy and everything in between. You knew he would come back to you even if stranded in a different realm. And there was no questioning the goddess’ favoritism, either. The freckles on his face mirrored the sun’s very spots like an homage to his creator.

You didn’t love the ocean growing up, no. You had never loved before Felix.

The park was busy when the three of you arrived. Byeol and Felix recognized a few families as your aunt’s neighbors and hurried over to say hello. Your social butterflies. 

“I’ll be over there,” you called after them.

Felix stopped in his tracks, looked over his shoulder. It had started snowing lightly on your walk there, and snowflakes now sat atop his sable locks. He looked like a painting. “You okay?”

“Yes, yes.” You shooed them off. “Don’t worry about me. Go have fun.” 

With that, you withdrew to the sidelines, an unoccupied swingset adjacent to a baseball diamond covered in frost. 

Your baby cousin was brawny for her age, which you could’ve seen coming with how she was hauling at your hair two years ago, but even she couldn’t yet terrorize the playground without assistance. Who better to make her partner in crime than her favorite Bokkie? You couldn’t help but giggle as the two revolved around each other for the better part of an hour, Byeol’s smile colossal as she frolicked every which way, Felix’s smile worried but hopelessly endeared as he followed behind. He never let her leave his shadow. She never tried to.

It was there on those icy swings that you experienced a moment of strange clarity, like you’d broken the fourth wall of your own story. You could feel the winds of change blowing your hair across your shoulders. You were aware of time’s trickling from the gaps of your fingers like liquid mercury.

Your laughter dissipated to a bittersweet smile; your smile mellowed to dewy eyes. It seemed like just yesterday when Byeol was small enough to sit on your shoulders and Felix stepped into your kitchen for the first time. Now, she was scaling a rope ladder with the celerity of a crazed monkey while Felix hovered a wary hand by her waist. The muted sunlight caught on the silver rings he wore, particularly the thin, bright one on his middle finger. You had one just like it, adorning the same place. 

The last two years were the happiest of your life. Why couldn’t you remember where they went?

Lavender and orange blossoms announced your boyfriend’s arrival—that, and the sigh of fatigue that he expelled as he dropped into the swing next to you.

“I’m not cut out for this anymore.”

Byeol’s neighbor had temporarily relieved Felix of his post by taking her and his son to test out the seesaw, and you wouldn’t be surprised if the whole town could hear her enthusiastic shrieking.

“You know how people walk their dogs?” You mused. “Some dogs walk their people. She’s one of them.”

For a moment, he could only stare in disbelief at the grin creeping across your face; then, he groaned in a way that could only mean you were right on the money. You gave his thigh a sympathetic pat.

“You’re whipped, my love. It’s okay.”

“Maybe a little,” he admitted, suddenly perking up. “Hey, no barking though.”

“Are we considering that a win nowadays?”

“Do you see animal control anywhere?”

“Good point.”

Felix monitored your expression during the quiet interval that ensued—saw through the melancholy curve of your lips, the pensive slant of your gaze. There was a red tinge to the whites of your eyes that hadn’t been there before.

You saw him reach for you in your periphery. His fingers brushed a lock of hair behind the shell of your ear, remained there for three slow heartbeats, and then lifted away.

“Angel,” he murmured. “Talk to me.”

You shook your head. “It’s silly.”

“It’s not.” Not even ten seconds after the last time, he reached for you again, now to take your hand and bring it to his lap. “You know it’s not.”

“It’s just that—”

Felix thumbed over the ridges of your knuckles, his touch so gentle that it could’ve unraveled a chrysalis; it certainly unraveled you. You took a stabilizing breath.

“I wish could recognize my own happiness in the moment,” you sighed, “not just in retrospect. That way, even when it comes to an end, I’d still be able to look back and say with confidence that I was happy once. I’d like that, I think.”

His brows knit together as he processed your words, and, the next thing you knew, he left his swing trembling in his sudden absence and his trenchcoat became a black blur in the cold air.

Felix rested his elbows atop your knees as he knelt in front of you, cradled your face in his hands. He was achingly beautiful always, but you truly felt your breath swiped from your lungs at the new proximity of his ethereal features: petal-shaped eyes, wind-bitten cheeks, coral cupid’s bow. A painting.

“That’s easy enough,” Felix hummed. “How do you feel right now?”

You had zero agency in the smile this brought to your face. You wrapped your hands around his wrists, your answer quick, thoughtless. “Happy.”

He pressed his lips to the space between your eyes. “And now?”

“Happier.”

He pressed his lips to the curve of your jaw. “What about now?” 

“Even happier.”

His gaze flickered to his final destination, but you beat him to it, sealing your mouth against his with urgency. The kiss that followed was so intensely loving that your head went fuzzy. How was it that you felt his adoration for you even in his pliant lips, his velvet tongue? You ran your fingers through the part of his hair. You loved when you could feel the locks flutter back into place afterwards.

“GET A ROOM!”

You and Felix pulled away from one another, wearing matching expressions of bewilderment. Byeol was approximately five Newtons away from soaring off into the stratosphere, her legs jostling around as she clung to her seat for dear life. It seemed your neighbor had a very aggressive way of seesaw-maneuvering. It seemed your cousin had a very aggressive vocabulary.

“Where did she learn—?” The two of you began in unison, then shot your heads back towards each other.

“It had to be you.”

“Outrageous—you’re the Australian here!”

“You cuss like one too!”

“Because of you!”

“So we’re just lying now?”

“Well, yes.”

Felix cracked a smile—and then the two of you were dying of laughter, his right eye squinting closed and your forehead thudding onto his shoulder. You hardly managed to get out your next words. “We have to do something about her vernacular, don’t we?”

“Oh, badly,” he replied. “Badly.”

After you expended your giggles, you nuzzled into the crook of his neck, blissful, glowing. “Thank you, baby.”

“What for?”

“Being my happiness.”

He angled your face back to his and kissed you once more, whispering I love you like it wasn’t enough that it graced your ears; he needed it embossed upon your flesh in permanent ink.

Your intermingled breaths floated up into the air like flare signals over a capsizing boat. Here marks the time we were happiest.

III. (besides myself)

He’s blonde.

That’s the first thing you notice when you see your ex-boyfriend on your aunt’s porch: the slightly off-white color of his silky tresses, grown out longer than you’ve ever seen, pushed off his forehead and tucked behind his ears.

It’s not the only thing you notice, of course. His face has thinned ever so slightly, the shadows thrown over his features by the streetlights behind him particularly opaque. His outfit is glorious, expensive, with the black blazer and white dress shirt, the top two buttons undone, the pendant of a silver necklace resting between toned collarbones. His hands are almost overflowing with what must be gifts for your family. It’s impossible to discern all of them from this distance, but you know the bouquet of white poinsettias is for your mom, the batch of brownies doused in sprinkles and icing for Byeol.

But the hair is where your gaze returns, because tucked among the platinum strands are black roots: millimeters of the color you grew to adore, peeking out as if trying to catch a glimpse of you, too.

You’re so occupied with this game of “I spy” that you don’t notice the rampant footsteps coming up behind you. Your six-year-old cousin collides with the back of your leg head-on and nearly topples you like a bowling pin.

“Is it him?” She asks breathlessly.

You come this close to berating her as you steady yourself against the wall—what did I say about treating human beings like couch cushions? But you look down to see her chin resting on the side of your thigh, her eager eyes shining so brightly that she puts her own namesake to shame. Your scolding tirade dissolves on your tongue like popping candy.

You simply sigh instead. “Yes, but—”

“BOKKIE!” She shrieks, and Felix’s head snap upwards at the sound of her voice. His tender smile melts some of the frost laminating your heart.

You crack open the door, making eye contact with Felix for the first time in six months.

“Put everything down. Quickly,” you whisper, and he obeys right away, alarmed by the urgency in your voice. A wise choice.

The last present has hardly touched down upon the wooden planks when Byeol wriggles through the doorway and charges towards Felix like an angered toro. He swivels at her bright holler of his name, lowers himself to a squat just barely in time to catch her in his embrace. The delighted laugh that leaves his mouth as he staggers backwards sounds like the sun itself; you feel lost in orbit hearing it again.

“Bokkie,” Byeol murmurs, her voice muffled in the dip of his shoulder, by the tightening of her arms around his neck.

“Hi, princess.” He kisses her temple, presses his nose against her hair. “Whoa, you’ve grown strong, haven’t you?”

“She takes taekwondo classes now,” you hum from above, and the shock in his face asks the very question that your poignant smile confirms. Yes, because of you.

Felix pulls away, cocoons her cheeks with cherishing hands. “Is that true?”

She bobs her head. “I want to be like Bokkie.”

And his eyes go impossibly, terribly soft, like he’s gazing at the horizon itself. The sight twists the knife in your gut and yanks on your tangled heartstrings. It’s all because of you.

“And kick some ass!” Byeol adds, knocking you out of your sentimental spiral. You clap a defeated hand to your forehead. Felix falls over himself. So much for fixing her vernacular.

A few minutes later, Byeol is pirouetting towards the kitchen with a couple of Felix’s smaller presents in her arms, all too happy to be of help. You linger behind as Felix takes off his shoes, your cousin’s departure leaving the two of you alone in the dim foyer.

Felix straightens. The two of you come face to face. The air hangs so heavily with unspoken words that you half expect it to start dripping.

“Hi,” he says.

You nearly laugh at the cruelty of it. The man you were certain you’d grow old with greeting you like you’ve been forced to sit next to each other on the first day of school.

“Hi,” you answer. “You look—”

The two of you say this last part in unison; old habits die hard.

“—nice,” you finish.

“—beautiful,” Felix breathes, his eyes flicking off to the side abashedly.

Your throat constricts, pulse quickens. Says you. If he was a painting before, you think he’s a sculpture now, his perfection as tangible as if hand-chiseled by the greatest artists of old. As clear as the sun’s beloved sea. You can’t tell if it’s his stylist’s doing or simply a product of him growing into himself.

“Thank you,” you reply quietly. “And thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for inviting me. I didn’t think you would.”

“I didn’t do it for me.”

No part of you wants to see the subtle wince that crosses his face at your statement, so you turn your gaze to his jewelry-laden hands instead. 

For a split second, you swear you see the same promise ring settled in the same place on his middle finger. You realize what you’re really looking at only after blinking the phosphenes from your eyes: the thin tanline that it left behind. The realization fixes and destroys you all at once.

Then, Byeol starts wailing about Felix’s whereabouts like an actress hired to spare you from this very interaction.

“Her Highness beckons.” The smile you manage feels like drying cement. “Shall we?”

On your way to the kitchen, you notice the cologne emanating from his person smells only of citrus—no lavender. Its absence steadies you, deludes you into believing that it’s a stranger you’ve just let inside.

That illusion lasts for exactly three hours and forty-eight minutes.

It’s clear that the breakup has your family walking on eggshells, but it’s even clearer that their adoration for Felix has never wavered. You’ve never resigned yourself to the restroom so many times in one night, only to stand with your back against the door, unmoving, unfeeling, listening to the low thrum of his voice through the mahogany. Chatting comfortably with your aunt, bursting into laughter with Byeol, reminding you of the time you considered him family too. 

With every glance you toss your reflection, you discover new cracks in your composure. Has he noticed them yet?

After you come out of the restroom for the sixth time, you notice a light spilling from Byeol’s bedroom into the hallway. A low Australian accent graces your ears, followed closely by a tinkling giggle, and your body nudges you towards the sounds before your head can intervene.

You give your cousin’s door a feather-light nudge. It opens a few centimeters more and grants you vision of Byeol tucked into bed, Felix knelt at her side. Both of their faces are illuminated by the flaxen light of the nearby lamp.

Felix brushes her choppy bangs out of her eyes, a teasing smile on his lips. “Can I tell you a secret, princess?”

This wrests from her another fluttering laugh; you swear he’s the only person in the whole world who makes her shy. “Sure!”

“Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Promise.”

“Not even Snernard.”

“M’kay.”

“Or Bong.”

“M’kay.”

“Especially not Trash the chicken. I don’t trust him.”

“I know, I know, I won’t!” Byeol huffs, and Felix laughs at her outburst. You also snort into your sleeve, amused (and deeply perplexed) by your cousin’s plushie-naming conventions.

“Thank you,” he hums, and he lowers his voice enough that you don’t catch the next thing he says.

All you perceive is the way that Byeol reacts. She sits up straight in bed, resting her back against her pillow. Her features rearrange themselves slowly, awfully, like the spread of cherry-flavored cough syrup over one’s sore throat, into the furthest thing from her trademark too-big-for-her-face smile.

Your stomach plummets to your fucking ankle.

“Why?” Her voice sounds microscopic.

“Well, do you remember what Bokkie’s dream job is?”

Byeol considers for a moment. “Being a singer?”

“That’s right.” He runs a knuckle over the hill of her cheek, the action achingly familiar, immensely fond. “And I found a place where I can do that, but it’s very, very far away. I won’t be able to come home very often.”

The telltale signs appear as he speaks; the final word sets them into motion. A tear streaks down the side of Byeol’s face. It hardly leaves the corner of her eye before it’s being intercepted by a doting swipe of his thumb.

“No,” she replies.

“You've grown so much.” Another tear falls. He wipes away that one, too. “You’re growing so well.”

“No,” she repeats.

“You’ve stolen the light of every star in the sky already. The whole galaxy will be yours someday, sweetheart. I know it.”

“I don’t want it,” she whispers. “I want my Bokkie.”

His vision starts to blur also. “But you don’t need me anymore.”

“We do.”

You know the precise moment Felix’s heart pauses in his chest because it is when yours does too.

“We?” He repeats, and she nods.

“Your dream job is being a singer.” Now Byeol is the one to reach for Felix, her delicate hand cupping the curve of his cheek. Her fingers are too small to catch his tears, she tries anyways—

“But what is your dream?”

It becomes too much for you.

You turn around. A choked sob escapes from behind the hand you have sealed to your mouth, causing both heads inside Byeol’s room to whirl in your direction. You don’t care that you nearly break both of your ankles beelining up the stairs; you only care to get the fuck out of that hallway.

You topple into your room, close the door behind you, and crumble.

Your quivering hands find purchase around your folded legs; your eyes squeeze shut against your knees. Rivulets of tears cascade over your shuddering lips like ruptured barrels of wine, left in the cellars of your soul to age, to spoil.

You never wanted your grief to see the light of day. Pouring your regret over every sidewalk wouldn’t change the past. Splashing your heartache across every wall like the world’s most fucked-up mural wouldn’t alleviate the pain of losing him. He was the one who left, but you were the one who’d asked him to. Feeling, yearning, mourning. Those always seemed so futile.

But you’re not just crying in this moment, rocking back and forth on your bedroom floor; you’re bleeding, the wounds you never treated igniting all at once as if exposed to vinegar, leaving you writhing and gasping in their wake. How you wish they’d been able to heal sooner. Maybe then seeing Felix tonight wouldn’t have splintered your soul like dropped porcelain.

Your door clicks open. Your breath hitches in your throat with a quiet scratch. The gulp of oxygen you intake tastes of oranges.

Every night before you fall asleep, you still think of the last time you visited the sea. The cool sand chafing against your toes, the coarse winds slapping your hair against your face hard enough to sting. The weather was terrible (you neglected to check the forecast before making the drive), but when you stepped onto the embittered coastline, you took what felt like the first real breath of your young adulthood. The fog melded to your skin as if melting a blindfold away, showing you the world in its entirety.

You return to that beach when Felix pulls you into his chest, and there’s no fog this time. Just the faint smell of lavender and your ocean, guaranteed to return after momentary departure.

Feverishly, Felix presses his lips to your temple, the apple of your cheek, rests his forehead against yours. Brokenly, he utters, “it’s you.”

You can feel his shaking in every part of him: the tickling breath, the fluttering eyelashes, the unsteady hand that reaches into the pocket of his blazer. You graze your fingers over his jaw, an attempt to steady his careening heart, only to lose yours in the fray also when he produces a small red box of unmistakable dimensions.

“God, it’s you. It always has been, always will be. Anything can change except for this.” His voice disintegrates as he speaks. You disintegrate as you listen. “Everything has changed besides myself.”

Felix leans back in to pepper kisses across the expanse of your wet features, then brings himself to one fated knee. He flicks open the lid. You don’t even spare the ring a glance; you don’t doubt its perfection. All you care to look at is the love of your life, deliquesced to adoration and tearwater.

“Thank you for being around, my dream.” His soft smile tends to your scars like ambrosia. “Will you let me do the same?”

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© 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐱 (est. 090323) · 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤? please consider reblogging, commenting, or sending me an ask to let me know; or, read my other writing here. thanks so much for the support!

[xgryffinwhore]

Hey! Can I request a jaeden martell x reader where basically their charters are dating on a tv show and they are really really good best friends in real life and they they both go on the Jimmy fallon show and he keeps on asking if they’re dating because everyone thinks they are and when they say no he obvi doesn’t let it go lol and it ends up slipping up that jaeden did/ does have a crush on reader and they maybe end up sharing a kiss in front is Jimmy & audience & stuff😶just an idea i had 😂:)

i love this idea wow, thinking i’m going to put my own little twist on it but i think you’ll still be pleased ;)

just friends

warnings!: suggestive topics, fluff

word count: 2.1k

five

your face was being touched up with powder, the cotton pad dabbing at your nose as the white powder absorbed into any oil your face may have had.

four

you look over at jimmy, this wasn’t your first talk show, but it had been the biggest one with the most following. it was intimidating, you bounced your foot up and down and played with your hands.

three

behavior jaeden had grown to recognize. he knew you better then you knew yourself, your anxiety was worse then you put it out to be. “you ok?” he questioned, “fine, i’m fine” you painted a small smile on your face. but he wasn’t easily fooled.

two

he grabbed one of your hands and rubbed circles into your palm, this sent vibrations of relaxation down your spine.

one

his eyes locked with yours, you swore they were a different color each time you saw them. sometimes more blue, sometimes more green, sometimes dark with mystery, sometimes light and playful.

‘aaand where on air’

you wiped the hand that was interlocked with his off on your dress, it was clammy. the curtain came up fast, and your vision was soon flooded with bright lights and silhouettes of bodies.

making out the faces in the sea of people was impossible, but you knew your friends were out there. they had flown out to see you, a) they could go see new york and b) you were on national television, and they wouldn’t miss it for the world.

jimmy was talking, you knew that much, but your nerves took over and honestly you weren’t registering a damn thing he was saying. the crowd cheered, you snapped out of your daze.

“and here tonight, we have jaeden martell and y/n l/n from the new HBO tv series: turning tables”

he turned to both of us, and gave everyone time to clap. he tired to speak over the loud hands, moving on with his show, but the crowd made that difficult. eventually the clapping died out and he could continue.

“now, i’ve watched all of the episodes but, for the people who haven’t seen: can you explain what the show is about?” he looked a jaeden, you let go of a breathe you had held in.

“s-sure” jaeden turned to face the audience more, he was soft spoken and shy, so it was important he projected as much as he could.

“turning tables is a teen drama. it’s about families of poverty in the seattle washington area and how they struggle to go to school and work. my character, jennings cooper, is the main protagonist. the show is mainly from his point of view, and how he struggle to support his family.”

jimmy nods and smiles, he looks pleased with his explanation. i’m truth the show wasn’t that simple, he knew that. but, it would take so long to explain.

“and y/n, who do you play?” he knew the answer to this obviously, but you were becoming a crowd favorite. everyone loved your personality, and you were an up-and-coming a list celebrity.

“i play parker marlow, jennings girlfriend” you blushed at this statement, the crowd giggled and ‘ouuu’ed. jimmy rubbed his hands together, getting excited at the upcoming topic of discussion.

“so, your romance on season one was steamy” you thought back to the scenes you did together. all of the kissing, which felt normal at this point. he wasn’t a bad kisser, in fact- you didn’t mind it at all. your romance through the season built up to a sex scene, your mind flashed through the memories of filming it.

filming those scenes isnt half as steamy as you think it is. it’s awkward, you laugh a lot. you had never felt that exposed in your life! however watching it was different, it looked so real, so perfect.

you blurred out your thoughts, mr. fallon still speaking on the subject. “can we expect more -“ jimmy searched for your ship name, it was on the tip of his tongue. the combination of your first names on the show didn’t make an attractive combo. it was either jarker or pennings. your last names matched a little better.

“-carlow” jaeden finished for him. jimmy nodded and smiled “yes- carlow- can we expect more carlow next season?” you both looked at each other and smiled. the writers for the show already had the next four seasons laid out. you knew that carlow was a continuing relationship on the show.

“yes, you should expect more of that sort of content from us” you stated. the people in the crowd had a positive responce to this, the applause lapping until it died out once again.

“right, your characters have so much chemistry in the show. two struggling teens just trying to break even.” jaeden agreed “yes, our characters balance each other out, and being from the same background helps them associate. jennings is kind of a bad boy-as the ladies say- he’s a felon, he steels cars and sells them to counterfeit manufacturers and dealers for money. parker, y/n’s character, has a job at a diner. she shows him the light at the end of the tunnel if he chooses to go down a good path.”

“yes, parker gets jennings a job at the diner with her, and he falls for her sweet disposition even after everything she’s been through” you add.

jimmy licks his lips and pops another question: “so id imagine the chemistry in the show heightens the real life thing?” he cocked an eye brow, the group gasping at the intrusiveness.

“jaeden and i are just friends” you blurt out, your nerves working up again. it was hard, you liked jaeden ever since you had your first kiss with him.

“y-yeah” he stutters, he obviously wasn’t expecting this either “friends” jimmy shakes his head and puts his finger on his lip “recently, you both have been showing a lot of pictures of you two together on social media.”

the audience ‘awwwed’ at the photos that displayed behind you. on the screen, there were pictures of you and him that were on both of your instagrams. you two at gardens, getting food, even watching movies at each other’s houses.

“for just friends, these photos looks intimate , wouldn’t you say” a bunch of ‘yes’’s and ‘mhm’’s came from the crowd as both of your faces became red.

“we’re just best friends, honestly” jaeden laughed nervously, he fixed his hair with his hand has he always does.

“right right- can you tell me when this photo is from?” jimmy asked, the last picture flashing on the screen. it was of you both, you had just filmed your first scene together.

the first scene you filmed together was episode two, he saved you after you fell into ice cold water. it was how the characters met, and it was filmed at a cove on a windy august day.

the picture was a little blurry, but it added character. he had his arm around you, both of your hair soaked, and you share a huge towel. you remember how cold you were, your teeth chattered so rapidly. his hair was stuck to his forehead and more small pieces went up. and your lips were almost purple, half from the makeup, half because you swore that was the coldest water you had ever went in.

“that’s from when we first started filming, it was the first time we met in the show” you recited, re living the memory in your head. you remember jaeden pulling your head into his chest when the wind began blowing. you remember his thumb trying to create friction on your back to make you just a little warm.

“yes yes- you two look so adorable!” jimmy squealed, he was the most teenage-girl-grown-man you had ever met. his hand opened one of the drawers in the faux desk he sat behind, pulling out a small blue camcorder.

the camcorder.

you know how on tv shows, there is special footage? sometimes it’s just behind the scene specials but sometimes- sometimes - it’s footage the actors document when they were just having fun? yeah it was one of those camcorders.

the camcorder was brought in by the two other co hosts wyatt oleff and finn wolfhard (i know this cast is sooo original not really) they played jaedens two best friends on the show. while they weren’t filming, they’d dick around and talk about stupid stuff. you’d never seen what they filmed, but you had been featured quite a few times; their by them pranking you, or invading your personal space.

you looked over at jaeden, you watched his adam’s apple bob and a thin layer of sweat flush over his face. he bounced his leg slightly, a habit he had picked up from you.

“let’s just review our material here” jimmy teased, his tongue darting out between his teeth. the video began to play, the sound was loud; assumingely for jaeden quiet voice in the tape.

the video started with wyatts unsteady hand, him and finn were running around set, they stopped at jaeden, he was playing on his phone in his trailer.

“jaeden wesley we have come for you” finn yelled. you could see jaeden shoot up from his chair. “hey guys” he waved. they talked for around a minute, jokes and all. then finn started to giggle, wyatt zoomed in on jaedens face.

“so jaeden, how’s y/n?” he chuckled, jaeden blushed “she’s ok i guess dunno.” wyatt stopped zooming in when the only thing in frame was jaedens head. “the kiss was good hm?” wyatt asked. jaeden continued to play on his phone, he nodded. “yeah, she’s pretty cute too.”

the video cut to another segment, this was filmed after the sex scene. you knew because jaeden laid on the bed you, in the same underwear that he wore during the scene. the boys were jumping on the bed, and jaeden took the camera and talked to it.

“this is for memory and memory ONLY! h-hey y/nnn” he was talking to the camera like it was you “you’re amazing and cool” you could hear finn explode into laughter as he stole the camera back and started running “yeah! and he wants your babies and loves you so much-“ “SHUT UP FINN!!!” and jaeden chased him around.

the video was taken off the screen. your face had become close to ghostly white. it was weird, it was almost like he was dumb enough to think finn wouldn’t give jimmy this blackmail goldmine. you looked at jaeden, he hit his bottom lip until it was red, he itches his neck and laughed it off.

“yeah ok-ok jimmy, maybe i liked her back in the day” jaeden tried so hard to be casual, but jimmy hit him with a heart stopper: “but mr martell, the last clip was filmed less then a month ago!”

your mind flickered with memories and ideas of him.

your first time meeting, how good his hand felt in yours. when you wiped icecream off his chin, and him dotting icecream on to the top of your nose. the way his hair always fell perfectly above his eye brow. and SHIT how he always smelt so fucking good. how he let you fall asleep in his arms and how he never complained when you put on some stupid romcom and-

“y/n?” jimmy questioned. “huh?” you spaced, come on y/n you gotta stop doing that. “i asked how you felt about all of this.” “well, there isn’t a right word i can use.”

jaeden took this has a bad reaction, he did a small wave to the crowd and stood up to get off the stage.

you stood up, grabbed his hand, and laid one right on him. kissing him felt normal, but now that there was emotion behind it, it just felt so right.

you both stopped for air, the crowd went wild. jimmy was clapping too, you could barley hear them, your heart was pumping throughout your whole body. you swore jaeden could hear it.

after the show, you sat in your dressing room for a bit, contemplating the events of tonight, and how they were all broadcasted for your embarrassment. but it was only the beginning. only the beginning of what was to come for mr. and mrs. jaeden martell.

[reversemoon255]

(From September 2020 to February 2021, I worked on a Pokémon themed Dungeons and Dragons campaign for a few friends. We didn’t get very far, but I put a significant amount of work into the world, story, and several Pokémon that would appear throughout, including an original set of starters. I want to to leave some record of my work, so I thought I’d write a few summary posts. And while I designed these Pokémon, their fantastic art was done by @extyrannomon on Twitter. I highly recommend you check them out.)

Dungeons 'n' Dragonites - Phase 1: Hello Stelopy City

Our story starts in Stelopy City, located in the Wellou Region. We get a brief introduction from DJ Tomomitsu, a radio host, before each player got their own brief story segments. Our first player was Ethan, as aspiring chef, who lived on campus at his high school. Ethan was approached by one of his dorm mates with a favor (to get him out of the building), as well as having an attractive girl meandering around the kitchen (if he wished to try flaunting his culinary skills). He would then get to choose to either finish up his side-quest or go to the local fisher's market, with him transitioning between those locations taking him to the area where he would meet his starter Pokémon:

"As you enter the alleyway, the walls are covered floor-to-ceiling in moss that seem to appear as soon as the shadows overtake the sunlight. The farther you walk, the more weeds you see popping through the cracks. Once you reach the half-way point, you come to a small open space. With the sunlight now flickering down through the plants brave enough to venture off the verdant walls, the entire area shines a bright, emerald green. In the center of this area is a decently sized fountain. It's no longer flowing, but there's a decent amount of rain water filling it up close to the brim. As you approach it, even through the murky iridescent waters, you can see a thick, fuzzy amount of lichen growing all throughout the inside of the basin. As you pass by the fountain, you hear an audible sploosh. Do you turn around? (Y/N)"

There he would meet the first of our new Starter, the Grass-Type Flymph. I kept it secret that I was doing original Starters. Part of my personal excitement in planning everything was the eventual reveal of these designs I had created. Kept me going when things started feeling like a grind.

Our second player, Johnny, started off at home, woken by his father asking him to run an errand. After being able to talk to his family a bit, he proceeded to a somewhat beaten-up house on the edge of the Pokémon-overrun abandoned district where he would receive some boat parts before leaving and the sidewalk underneath him collapses. Stumbling around the abandoned subway tunnels for a bit, he would run into our second Starter, the Fire-Type Calfyre.

Johnny's player wanted to become an entertainer, which didn't give me a lot to work session one, so a lot of his opener was focused on expanding the world and giving everyone an idea of areas they would be exploring later.

Third was Orion who had a quiet morning at home before being provoked via text messages from his siblings to chase down a mysterious "Wailord in a Top Hat." This pursuit would also lead him to the fisher's market and the nearby docks, where, after just catching sight of his quarry, he would encounter the Water-Starter Squisque.

Orion's player wanted a lot of his story to be based on his relationship with his father, so most of his opening was based on reinforcing his family dynamic. Not home, everyone’s busy, focus on work. This particular Saturday was strange in that Orion didn’t have anything going on.

Our last player was Arthur, who also lived on campus. While our other three players started their segments in bed, Arthur was playing lacrosse. After having an opportunity to show off (or fail), he would be told by a friend that he had upset his girlfriend that morning (kitchen girl from Ethan's story), and needed Arthur to pick up her favorite dessert while he attempted to woo her for the rest of the day. After doing so (while being given a chance to explore some of the local stores) he encountered a hungry Houndoom who proceeds to chase him up a fire escape. Once up there he encountered our final Starter, the Fairy-Type Utaw.

After each player met their Starters, they would have a brief tutorial battle against three Pokémon they were advantageous against before running into each other, and were subsequently arrested for "stealing" Pokémon, which would cap session one.

=====

Let's talk design. Stelopy City is loosely based on Chicago, is a portmanteau of "Steel Canopy," and Wellou is a joke on Illinois. The vast majority of the campaign was to take place in this location. Most of my players had very busy schedules (so busy it took us three sessions to get through the above opener), so DJ Tomomitsu was a way for me to easily start each session with a list of things to do (side-quests), and they as a group could decide which they were the most interested in based on time. Tomomitsu himself was based on DJ Sagara from Kamen Rider Gaim, with Tomomitsu being the name of the actor who played him.

As for the starters, I tried to stick to the reoccurring themes we’ve seen over the past 8 Generations. Flymph's name is a portmanteau of Dragonfly, Errol Flynn, and Nymph (the larval form of a Dragonfly). He's meant to be a special attacker, but, like an early DND Wizard, doesn't have access to a lot of them so he brandishes his sword-like arms to intimidate his foes instead. His diet consists entirely of lichens, algae, and similar flora, storing them in his transparent stomach pouches, and can be seen sunbathing in the water, belly up, feeding the plant matter the sunlight they need to grow. He also does not like Bug-Types, and isn’t Bug himself because of Grass/Bug’s myriad of weaknesses (for balancing), plus he changes Types after his first evolution. The theme of Grass Starters is extinction, which won’t become clear until his final evolution, but you may be able to guess how he relates.

Fire Starters are themed after the Chinese Zodiac, and of the remaining four yet to be used (including Snake, Ram, and Horse), I went with Ox. Calfyre's name is a play on Calf and Fire, and is meant to play like a Barbarian. When it comes to personality he's very timid and unsure of himself like a first-time DND player might be acting in a group. Unlike most Fire-Types, Calfyre lacks a Flame Sac. Instead, his spiral horns are filled with a freon-like liquid that, when swirled, rapidly absorbs energy from the air, which he uses for attacks. This chills the air around him, and makes him one of the few Fire-Types that are cold to the touch. Which sucks, because he’s a snugly sleeper.

Water Starters are usually themed after a weapon or character class. This usually shows in the later evolutions, but it's pretty obvious Squisque (a portmanteau of Squirt, Squire, and Bisque) is themed off a lance and shield. He's a paladin in both role and personality, charging in at the slightest sign of trouble, even if there isn't any real danger. It's the typical non-nuanced idea of what people think when they hear "Paladin." He was to a degree supposed to play a catalyst role, charging into situations the players may not want to in order to force them into helping people or combat if need be. He was also the first design I settled on, being based on an old Kaijin idea I had of a lobster-knight using its asymmetrical claws as different medieval weapons.

Utaw is unique, not just in that he was a fourth or Fairy Starter, but in conception. I was only supposed to have three players, but ended up with four. As such, his design is responsive to the others. Why a dinosaur? Because I had a mammal, crustacean, and bug, was unsure if I wanted a bird or reptile, and decided to meet half-way. Why is he Fairy? Because it has very little interaction with Fire, Water, and Grass, while still having defined weaknesses and resistances to certain types. (Also, this player wanted a Dragon-Type.) He’s based on a Utahraptor, hence the name, and is misspelled to include “Claw” or “Caw.” He’s meant to play team Bard, and uses sound moves. As for personality, he's a bit of a birdbrain who enjoys fighting. Not maliciously; it’s just fun, again acting like a new DND player who’s more interested in combat than role playing.

The idea with the personalities was that each Pokémon was supposed to start out like a rookie DND player on their first campaign. Not knowing how to play their class, being uncomfortable acting in front of a group, leaning too hard into your role without bending, or just fighting everything you see without diplomacy. It felt like a fun extra layer to each of these Pokémon that tied them just as much into the DND side of things as the Pokémon.

=====

Back to our story, after being briefly detained (mostly as an excuse to give the players time to introduce themselves to each other, something my DMs have struggled with), they meet Professor(-in-training) Bianca. The four Pokémon had been found by Silph Co., and had decided to donate them to the Unovan Pokémon Research Lab. However, after seeing the Pokémon interacting with these people, Bianca decides to give them up instead. "Pokémon should be with people," after all.

I had three side quests set up following this (after they all go to the DMV to get their Trainer's licenses). The first was a general "there's wild Pokémon here" quest where they could train and catch things. There was a sale at the mall where they could get some cheap held items and have their first trainer battle, and an event at the fisher's market where they could win some free items and would lead into their first dungeon.

The dungeon was what I was hoping they would pick, and would have them chase a group of Poipole through a warehouse, with them having different battles if they chose to enter from the front or the back. After defeating them, the Poipole would be sucked through a spontaneously generating Ultra Wormhole, with a high enough perception check revealing a strange laugh, or on a 20 have them catch a glimpse of a grey Charizard O_O

From there it was a matter of coming up with (or possibly recycling unused) side-quests until we reached the point where the Starters were about to evolve. I had a few things planned; introductions to a few reoccurring NPCs, a field trip to the local museum where they would be able to catch a Yamask (and possibly learn something about the origins of their Starters), and a raid battle against a group of Onix who would recur through the campaign.

The end of Phase 1 would come about with another dungeon. In the middle of the night, Ethan and Arthur would be awoken by their Pokémon to a group of Durant having busted through the floor of the dorm and raiding their kitchen. Easily driving them off, their Pokémon would encourage them to pursue. Later, full party in toe, the four of them would explore the Duranthill. There would be a number of possible encounters, but only one mandatory fight before reaching the depths. In said encounter, while being surrounded by a group of Durant, they would receive unexpected help from this Pokémon:

With some interpretation, they would discover that this Princess Durant was afraid for the sake of her colony. A new queen had taken up residence there, and was commanding the Durant to attack the surface and steal food for her. With additional party member in toe, they would descend further with better direction, eventually discovering the lair of the Queen Durant...

[mrsparknamjoon]

02. family matters | reliability • kth

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pairing: taehyung x reader word count: 2.155 genre: drama, light angst rating: pg-13 warnings: none au: ceo/office trope: enemies to friends to lovers tags: ceo!taehyung, office!au, best friend!yoongi, unresolved emotional tension, mutual pining, slow burn crosspost: ao3

summary: let’s go back a few years to see how tae and Y/N’s relationship started and also get a glimpse into the kim family

A/N: it was important for me to start the series with a flasback so that the reader would be familiar with the kim family dynamics and the tension with Y/N right off the bat

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⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

10 years before

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

“There has to be someone else” I said, staring at the Seoul skyline in front of me as I pondered all the possibilities with hands in my pockets. I'm taking over the family business and the only thing that scares me is making a mistake when hiring people. Well, my dad scares me, and getting a complaint call from him questioning how I managed to ruin Vante Enterprises in less than 6 months of his long-awaited retirement is not in my plans.

“Why?” asked the woman sitting on the large and comfortable couch behind me. Her thin face and dark hair complemented her porcelain skin very well and she was, at all times, the most beautiful person in any room.

“She’s inadequate” I replied, making her roll her eyes.

“Nonsense, Tae Hyung. Y/N graduated at the top of her class, in front of you much less, and did an MBA abroad” the woman said nonchalantly while taking a sip of her tea.

“I meant in regards to the company's culture” I sat down next to her, leaning sideways on the back of the couch and resting my head on my hand.

“Oh right” she set the cup down on the coffee table, “I forgot that you Kims only hire who you can control”

“Mom!”

“Honey, this is your opportunity to differentiate yourself from your father” she continued, “Having someone you know in a position like this is important in the long run”

At least in one thing my mom and I could agree on: I would, without a doubt, run the company in a new way. I had already started by choosing people who were suitable for the positions and not because I knew them or my family had some kind of connection with theirs. If, by chance, these two factors intersected, great, otherwise, the best resume wins.

“Known is not the same as reliable” I observed.

Still not satisfied with my answer, my mom got philosophical. “Trust comes with time” she started in a tone as if she wanted to pass for a spiritual being of great wisdom, but I knew she was just trying to be a good mom despite not knowing the exact details of what the family business required.

“I still have six more resumes appointed by someone I know” I leaned over to the coffee table and picked up the papers. “Two of them are former classmates too. How about that?” I waved them back and forth.

“If I remember correctly, neither of them made you stutter for the first time in an academic debate” my mom made a pose like she was thinking, crossing her arms and bringing one hand to her chin. How dramatic... and a liar. I didn't stutter.

“Yup, I think it's time for you to go” I exhaled, slapping my hands on my thighs and standing up. “Thank you very much for coming and giving your input on a subject I did not ask for” I continued in an amusing tone, but low-key serious, taking her by the hand and guiding her towards the door.

“Tae Hyung, you know that Y/N is the right choice” she moved the bag handle over her shoulder. “Be smart” and caressed my face.

“Okay” I sighed, “I love you” and kissed her forehead.

“I love you too” she smirked and left.

I went back to the couch and grabbed the resumes intending to read them one more time to be absolutely sure that I had not missed any relevant information. Very conveniently the first one was Y/N’s.

“She did it on purpose” I thought out loud when I realized my mom had deliberately put it there so I couldn't ignore it. 

Very well then, I started reading Y/N’s resume with legitimate attention, trying to ignore the name and photo at the top. I needed to be objective and impartial, a lot was at stake, but to be completely honest, at first, it was difficult because she has some striking physical features, which most men would find attractive but that was not my case. And even if it was, her personality overshadowed everything else to the point of making me lose any interest. After my common sense settled in, I continued reading, paying close attention to her previous work experiences.

“Hmm, this is interesting” I mumbled to myself.

Unlike the other candidates, Y/N had interned at one of the largest financial institutions in the country during college - something I had no idea, by the way, but not that we were friends back then, of course, because why would she tell me something like that? I really had no way of knowing - and I'm looking for people with experience in acquisitions. Convenient coincidence, I like it.

Moving on, I analyzed two letters of recommendation along with her resume and I must agree that on paper she is the right person. Damn it, I hate it when my mom is right! Still, the matter of company culture is real and I think that a person like her wouldn’t do well here. She is opinionated, impulsive, and hates being told ‘no’. At the same time, she was praised for the exact opposite in the letters, and that made me curious. An interview wouldn't hurt, would it?

I got up, went over to my desk, and pressed the button that put me in direct contact with the secretary.

“Yes, Mr. Kim?” Eun Ae answered promptly.

“I need to schedule some interviews next week” I said while fiddling through the resumes and selecting three, “I’ll email you the information”

“Yes, sir”

“Ah, Mrs. Gwa?” I almost forgot. It was better to hide my identity, otherwise, they’ll try sucking up to me thinking it would affect my final decision. And by 'they' I mean two of the three people because Y/N most likely wouldn't even accept the invitation if she knew that I was in charge of the company. “When contacting the candidates, I ask you not to divulge that I'll be the one conducting the interview”

“Okay” she wrote down and I could hear the sound of her keyboard. “Anything else?”

“No, that's all. Thank you”

Between today and the day of the interview, I had to prepare myself for the different reactions I might receive. My position as CEO has not yet been announced in the media and only shareholders know that a new person will take over at the end of the year. They suspect it will be my older brother, or rather, they expect it to be him but to the general dismay it will be me.

Ye Jun is a lawyer and has been involved in the family business since he started reading. However, two years ago in the middle of Christmas dinner, he had a breakdown when my uncles pressured him about some specific problem happening inside the company and he totally lost his composure (with a little help from alcohol, of course). He made a scene screaming that he didn't want that life anymore or even see any of those people again. Then he went on about how much he hated their meetings and the way everyone was fake in front of my father and in private would even criticize the color of the tie he wore. From the corner of the living room, I watched the whole thing go down without a hint of shock on my face because I always knew that moment would come. Ye Jun wasn’t born to be a leader.

The next day, he and my father were locked in the office for almost three hours. When the heavy wooden doors finally opened, dad left looking tired and announced without looking me in the eye, “Now it's up to you, Tae Hyung.” Confused by that statement, I went in and saw Ye Jun with his head between his hands, sitting in the armchair by the window.

“What the hell did you say to him?” I pointed my thumb back at the door.

“That I’m not doing it” Ye Jun replied, lifting his head and interlacing his hands. His posture seemed relaxed as if he were finally comfortable, although there was an uncertainty in his eyes that made me wonder if he was having second thoughts about the decision.

“Do what?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

Ye Jun looked at me and smiled.

“Give in to the pressure, complying with expectations, sacrificing my profession, not being myself”

He paused, standing up and holding me by the shoulders.

“I also told him that the best person for the position is you” Ye Jun's voice was full of affection, “It has to be you, Tae” he patted me on the side and I looked at him stunned.

“Dad will never put me ahead of Vante, Jun” I blurted as soon as I managed to assimilate what my brother had just said.

“Didn't you hear what he said to you as soon as he left?” Ye Jun looked confused for a second “Now it's up to you. You are the next CEO” he said in a firm tone.

I suddenly got embarrassed because it felt like I had just stolen my brother's job. “It doesn't make sense, we have opposite views on how to run a business” I looked away and stared at the floor.

“True, you do, but lately he started to realize that the world is changing and that Vante could be much better off if it started to adapt” Ye Jun stated by squeezing my shoulders and bringing me back to reality. “Of course, there is still a certain traditionalism in our field, but every now and then dad finds himself negotiating with foreign companies where the mindset is what sets them apart and he feels conflicted. Do you continue as you are and please national companies or do you adapt and gain visibility abroad? He wants Vante to remain as the leader in the segment but he is stuck in his own beliefs and he knows it”

After this conversation with my brother, things changed and I started to accept more confidently the responsibility that was placed upon me. However, regardless of how I felt, the criticism would come in full force. Many powerful people will question my father's decision and I wouldn’t be surprised if boycotts took place in the first year.

It was with all these possibilities in mind that my first act as CEO was to completely renew the staff, starting with the most strategic positions and closest to me. One of them was the operations manager, who would act as my right hand, valuing Vante's financial success and setting in motion the vision, strategic plan, and goals I set.

In theory, Y/N was perfect for it, but I wouldn't make it easier just because we knew each other. She was very smart and I was sure that the moment she walked through that door and came face to face with me, her demeanor would change and we would start playing a game of chess.

******

I dedicated the entire day Wednesday for the interviews and the first two had gone very well, exactly as I had planned and prepared — what a relief! It was almost 4:30 pm, Y/N’s appointment was the last one and I was extremely curious about her reaction, I don't know why. Maybe I wanted to prove something to her, like ‘Ha, look who’s running things now’ or ‘I bet you never thought you would see me sitting here'.

Y/N was always better at everything and I couldn't stand it. I had an obligation to excel at something. She was not perfect as everyone liked to think and, frankly, to worship. But, even if it bothered me to admit, we had things in common and she was qualified.

“Yes?” I said coming out of my reverie when the phone rang.

“Ms. Y/LN is here, Mr. Kim” Eun Ae announced.

“Let her in”

I heard a light knock on the door, followed by its closing and a few clicks of high heels on the floor coming towards me. I looked up and Y/N was dressed in a black midi-length v-neck dress with a stand-up collar that made her look formal but not old. Matter of fact, if I was actually paying attention I could even say that this specific fabric was made for her body type and hugged her in all the right places, but I wasn’t.

“Hello, Y/N” I said getting up from my chair, “Long time no see!” I smiled and took off my glasses, placing them in front of me next to the tablet I had been holding moments before.

Y/N shook her head holding a laugh as she bit her lip and stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world: “You’re so predictable. I’m amused”

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗱 ❤ 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝘀𝗸! 𝗶 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ revised version: 09.25.2021

[terryblas]

On Television and Understanding

I love television. I often joke that when my husband and I started dating I asked him one night if he wanted to go out somewhere and he said "Well, I'd like to but we just have so much TV to watch," to which I replied, "That's the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me." And you know what? I kind of meant it. 

I've never bought into the idea that TV rots your brain. I feel like TV taught me how to write. I paid attention to shows I was watching. To how long segments on sitcoms were. How there were usually two plots in an episode. I saw this before I knew they were even called an A plot and a B plot. I learned that what characters reveal about others could be just as important as what they reveal about themselves. 

Today, my husband and I watch so much TV we've exhausted American television, British television and have moved into a lot of Canadian and Australian television. Seriously, check out Back to Life, Frayed, Back in Time for Dinner, and Kim's Convenience if you can find them. (Kim's is on Netflix)

Most families that belonged to the church I grew up in did not watch television on Sundays. In my house, we did. And that was because my dad loves TV, just like me. 

When I came out to my parents they had a hard time with it. I often felt like we were growing apart and didn't have a way to relate to each other any more. When I would visit, they'd pick me up from the airport and I'd be overwhelmed with a certain sense of dread at the time we were about to spend together at their home in Boise Idaho. I'd joke and complain to others about my visits home. Today I'm sad that this year, I wasn't able to visit my parents in the summer like I have for the past five years. 

Because of the visits we've had, I realized that where my dad and I could come together was TV. We'd watch Star Trek together and old Disney movies. The Haley Mills Parent Trap is a favorite of ours because it reminds him of his parents who were divorced. Witnessing this taught me that TV and movies were a gateway for emotion and understanding. It was then I decided that every time I came to visit, I'd expose my parents to a movie or show that they likely wouldn't have seen had I not recommended it to them. 

I remember showing my dad Harry Potter. He liked it but complained that he didn't like that Harry was referred to as a wizard. 

"They should just say he's a magician." 

 My dad's religious, so while that sounds funny, it was still a concern for him. I said: 

"Well dad, he's doing magic. He's not doing tricks. He's not pulling a rabbit out of a hat with sleight of hand. This story is good because this kind of magic is dependent on yourself. Finding strength in yourself and not relying on it coming from some unseen source."

He watched all of the remaining films. 

When I showed him the Hunger Games, he complained any time Katniss faltered or made a mistake. He's a retired colonel, so I reminded him, "Dad, Katniss is a 16 year-old girl. She's not a military man. She still won the Hunger Games." 

And that was when I realized I could begin sneaking feminism into what I showed him. And that I could also do this with LGBTQ issues.

One of my favorite memories is putting on the movie Connie and Carla for my parents. If you haven't seen it, it's sweet. Do yourself a favor. Nia Vardalos created a heartwarming story about love and acceptance set in a down on its luck drag bar. In the film, there's a drag queen whose brother is struggling to accept him. By that point in the movie my dad was invested in the characters. I could see him struggle not to show emotion when the character told his brother, 

"You can't pick and choose the parts of me that don't make you sick to your stomach. you can't have half a relationship with me..."  

My dad was visibly angry when Charlie Price was verbally abusive to Lola in Kinky Boots and excited when she showed up to save the day. 

I roped my mom into this experience. She's a bit like me, or rather, I've become a bit like her now, where I can't watch TV without doing something else. Computer work, drawing anything really. My mom was always ironing or cleaning something but I put on Coco for her and saw her relax and transform. Usually, it's my dad who barely explains things to her if she has a question while watching something since English isn't her native language. She speaks it well but movies all move fast now. This flipped that experience and my mom was singing along to La Llorona and explaining things to my dad. We ended up watching it in English and in Spanish. 

A few years ago I sat them down and put on Season 1 of One Day at a Time. Never in my life did I think there would be a show about a military, religious, Latinx family. They devoured the show. My dad made some comments about immigration that were annoying to me, but what that did was start a conversation between us about the topic. Those conversations rarely go well, but if he connects with someone’s story, it’s harder to be against them and what they represent. When Elena came out he was already invested in her character and seeing Penelope struggle with it helped my dad understand his own feelings about me. Seeing Elena be abandoned by her father in Season 1 infuriated him and made him sad. It showed me that he loved me and wouldn’t do that to me. When Elena sat on the couch watching Buffy he couldn't stop laughing and saying, "That's you! Ha! I can't believe it!" He would never have compared me in a positive way to a woman before. This warmed my heart in ways I can't express. 

For some reason, my mother has always been interested in the British royal family. Specifically, Princess Diana. When I told her about The Crown she practically jumped in excitement and after the first episode she asked "When does Diana show up?" I laughed and said, "You gotta watch three seasons first, Mom." She's seen the first two now and binged the first season with my dad when they came for the first time ever, to visit me and my husband for Thanksgiving last year.

I can't wait to show them The Queen's Gambit.

My parents don't have Netflix or Hulu or a roku or an Apple TV or anything. They're in their 70's and it would be a whole thing to try to get them to set that up over the phone. It just wouldn't happen. The next time I'm able to visit, I'll set something up for them because I want them to continue to realize what I discovered a long time ago: TV and movies are just stories. But stories aren't plot and events like many people think. They are emotion and connection. They serve a great purpose: to make us feel less alone. To help us feel understood and represented. It's a powerful medium and something that has brought my parents and I closer together in a way I don’t think anything else could have.

-Terry Blas

[brakken]

I finished Life is Strange: Before the Storm Episode 3.

Thoughts below the cut...

-spoilers for Before the Storm and Life is Strange-

In a lot of ways, it was very close.

I think Deck Nine have done an incredible job with telling a story that essentially didn’t need to be told.  I appreciate the effort and dedication to make it feel like the same Arcadia Bay we’re familiar with. I love that it’s embellished further in some places, even when it’s just hinting at something. I’m truly grateful for some of the ways that Before the Storm has augmented its predecessor. And I’d like to give HUGE praise to Rhianna Devries for delivering a great performance as Chloe.

There is a lot to like in this game - though I think it became weaker with each episode.

The main plot pieces of the previous episodes rely a bit on their promise of a big payoff, and that sadly isn’t here in ep. 3. In the first episode’s ending, the mystery woman sits and smiles as a wildfire blazes. Mid-ep. 2, she exits Frank’s van, turns, and gives Chloe an unsympathetic look. By the end of that episode, she’s revealed to be Rachel’s birth mother, and when we discover her backstory in ep. 3, we find out she’s a recovering addict and just wants to meet her daughter. All these elements, to me, were speaking of a deeper conclusion than what we got. We’ve seen fragments of a manipulative nature in Rachel - how much of that is an inherited trait? What was Sera’s involvement with Damon and Frank if she claimed to be sober? Where was all this leading to?

When we finally encounter her properly, she’s a damsel for us to rescue, and when we converse, she’s only used to re-affirm the father’s plea - to cast more immediate doubt onto the final choice. I didn’t see the ending where she reunites with Rachel, but I saw that the timestamp on youtube puts it at 48 seconds of content, so I can’t imagine she’s elaborated on much, there.

It’s a shame because I think there was a lot of strong storytelling being done on the Rachel angle, and I felt that having a plot that wasn’t too connected to the original game was the right move. But all-in-all it pulled too much focus away from Chloe.

I’ve talked about why I was finding choices difficult in this prequel. How I felt conflicted about what Chloe would do, vs what I thought was best for her, vs where I knew the story would eventually end up. The final choice echoed this, too. In an odd way I found this one more difficult than the final choice of LiS. There, I knew there was no way I’d let go of Chloe. But here, even though the consequences were less severe (read: void, since we know it changes nothing), I still found it tricky. The story had been leaning very heavily on protecting Rachel from the truth in this episode, to the point where it practically seemed unavoidable. I remembered Chloe’s graffiti from the original game: ‘everybody lies, no exceptions’. I pondered on Chloe’s insecurities and inability to face hard truths. So I picked the lie.

And then I immediately remembered how hurt Chloe is when she discovers Rachel had been in a secret relationship with Frank. How she trusted Rachel with everything and no-one else. How isolated they both were. I sat with my decision and watched those events play out, while already planning to replay the whole episode just to alter my final choice.

Which I did. And while I felt picking the truth was in line with my version of Chloe, I was let down by the ending. I was let down when everything played out almost exactly the same.

There was a lot of hubbub about the first game’s ending - receiving criticism for not taking your choices throughout into account. While I understand the sentiment, this wasn’t a huge factor for my opinion on the final choice. What I appreciated about it (compared to games like The Walking Dead S1, and The Wolf Among Us) was that the endings were notably different from one another. This style of game seems built on choices that are arguably meaningless, but Life is Strange gave us one that mattered - a final branched path.

Before the Storm clearly took the criticism of the first game in mind and tried to craft the endings to avoid that. But in doing so, it became an ending with even less meaning, at least for me. Instead of the final choice leading down severely different roads, all it changes is how the closing montage begins. Does Rachel sit with her family, happy but oblivious? Or do her parents argue and punish themselves for her learning the truth? The rest of the montage scenes are either unchanged or specific only to earlier choices. It left me unsatisfied because it turned it all into one grey ending. It became the end of an episode, not the end of the full game. It made me feel like the final, most important decision was just one more yes/no option.

I get why it’s like this, and I get why from a production standpoint, any more nuance wouldn’t be feasible. But I wish there had been something more to both decisions. I think it’s really great that there is an epilogue for each of the smaller stories, that change depending on how you played them. But they need to be second-tier to Chloe and Rachel’s epilogue - all of which remained the same, save for the beginning.

I would have liked to see a callback to the wildfire, somehow. There’s a moment in the hospital where a firefighter mentions that it simply put itself out. Another small hint to the supernatural aspect of Rachel. I loved all these little hints, and I loved that they never trespassed too far over canon or over Chloe’s journey. But to better solidify the different endings, maybe it could have been played with more. If you tell Rachel the truth, the fire surges up again from her torment. And if you lie, it extinguishes fully, calmed by her ignorance, maybe we see some green returning to the park... or maybe it’s put out by a sudden onset of rain. The fire is over, but the storm is coming.

I’ve been trying to think what I would change about this game, even in small ways, that would make it overall a stronger piece of LiS story. I think I would have given Frank’s role to someone else - probably someone new. A few of the reappearing characters from the first game felt forced in solely because we knew they were familiar with Chloe before she reunited with Max, and while I appreciate the attempt to have Frank break out of that cameo feeling, I actually think he would have been better off on the sidelines. His portrayal in this feels inconsistent and uncharacteristic to how we meet him in the original. Here, he protects Chloe from a villain with a knife, while in his first scene in LiS, he pulls a knife on her. I think if they’d kept Frank in the margins, with more of that drug dealer presence, and given his role to, say, Thunder the bouncer, or even someone entirely new, the narrative would have been stronger. It would allow them to keep Frank true to Chloe’s later opinion of him, and also keep the players guessing as to the fate of this new character. There’s no threat when Frank is grappling with Damon because we know he survives. But with someone different, heck, maybe if you choose badly then they are actually put in danger.

I’m don’t like looking at this as an alternate timeline - I think that’s sorta unfair to Max’s role and influence on the story. So as far as recurring characters go, I think Joyce and David are used the best, both in consistent portrayal and how they affect Chloe here. 

Due in part to their indeterminate fate, I think it’s BtS’s original characters that stand out most for me. I had a lot of fun interacting with Steph and Mikey, and figuring out how to handle the Drew situation. Skip’s story was cute, and it was cool to see Samantha involved with a pre-established character. Just a shame that most of this was sidestory stuff or inconsequential.

I’m glad they took Eliot in a different direction from Warren, though I’m not really sure what it was they wanted, there. A consistent theme in the game is the subtle and sometimes overt ways that Rachel manipulates people to get what she wants, and how Chloe’s regard for her is potentially hurting as much as it is healing. Eliot confronts Chloe about this directly, but it soon spirals into his ulterior motives and he becomes a threat. While I thought this was consistent with the way he’d been portrayed in earlier segments, and I understand that villainising that opinion works to delude Chloe further - I also wonder if it would have been more interesting to have Eliot genuinely concerned for her safety. I wonder what sort of player choices we would be given in that situation, and if the developers could still have convinced us to side with Rachel.

I think setting this story over three days was a mistake. I had this same feeling in the first game, but the reason it worked there was because Max and Chloe were reuniting. There were years of backstory that were coming up to the surface in that short week, and so all the events, all the emotions, had that much extra weight and believability because of it. Rachel and Chloe however, are meeting essentially for the first time, and their budding connection feels rushed over the course of BtS - culminating in Chloe making life-changing decisions for Rachel and risking her own life on day three of knowing her. Maybe it was intentional - maybe this was to exemplify the irresistible magnetism of Rachel. But I still think if it had been set over three weeks or even three months, there’d be more room to accommodate the relationship. As it stands, it’s all too close to Max and Chloe, with none of the history that makes it effective.

The post-credits sting just felt... mean. And not in a clever, foreboding way. If they wanted to close out with a reminder of where the story goes, they could do it with rumbling thunder, or a rain cloud off the coast of the lighthouse. Because this game wasn’t called ‘Life is Strange: Before Rachel Gets Kidnapped and Killed’. Rachel was more than her fate, and so was the original game. That ending put me back in the worst place that the first game takes you, and that just upset me.

I’m... not actually sure what Life is Strange is without Max. Maybe that’s why this game felt like it couldn’t ever truly hit the mark for me, even with my grievances over the original. Even though it was a game about saving Chloe, LiS was all told through Max’s lens - often literally. The parts of BtS that I was latching onto most were those that mentioned her. Chloe’s journal, her old texts, the dream segments...

And while I’m on that subject - I felt the metaphors got a bit confusing in this episode. My understanding of William’s dialogue in ep.2′s dream segment was a warning of the burning passion Chloe felt for Rachel (the fire), and a promise of the stronger connection to come with Max (the stars). Yet in ep.3, stars are also connected to Rachel, making her the storm, the fire, and the night sky. I just... felt like we lost a bit of focus there, or maybe I just interpreted it wrong. And was the Raven kinda absent from most of this ep?

I’ve been considering doing another full playthrough to see if anything becomes clearer, this time with all different choices (something I found impossible in the original LiS). We’ll see. I’ll let it rest for now, and see what ‘Farewell’ brings.

Even with all my hangups about both games, it’s always a shame to leave that world. There’s so much I love about it just on sensory levels.

My favourite moments from this episode were:

-Sera’s backstory. Loved the callback to the viewfinder.

-Playing tabletop again. I teared up when the story began reflecting the LiS ending.

-Seeing Chloe happy, even if it’s temporary.

Deck Nine pulled the weight with this game. While I’d predicted I would come away conflicted no matter what, I’m still thankful for the parts that they got right.

Wishing and hoping for great things to come.

As always, thank you to anyone who took the time to read these thoughts. Here’s a drawing <3

[goldendream-s]

hurtful words (pt. 4)

summary; as Y/N gets to her last straw and begins to lose hope, she also is faced with choosing to let go of Shawn or to fight for their once relationship one last time.

p.s. i highly recommend reading the previous parts, particularly part three, before reading this! i promise you this part will be so much better for you if you do that ahha

PART ONE || PART TWO || PART THREE

MASTERLIST || REQUEST 

The pain was beginning to overcome you, and you felt like you were drowning. Suffocating. You didn’t think there could be any feeling worse than heartbreak, but here you were again —  back in square one. All of the pain was still there, though this time, you weren’t just holding a heart torn in two. You now had the note Shawn wrote for you, thoughts of guilt, and the voucher laying on the edge of your bed. The walls you built around your heart had become so high, that when they were knocked down by the letter and finding out that you were too late, you took the hardest fall yet.

Part of you wanted to redeem the voucher and go to the show that Shawn was having in your hometown in four weeks, but the other part was telling you that the universe was working against you and that you should just give up on the boy. You were unsure of which side of your conscience to listen to, but you knew that you had to choose quick. You were done and tired with everything. Tired of crying yourself to sleep every night, tired of blaming yourself, tired of running in circles, and exhausted of your heart getting smashed to millions of pieces every time you tried to pick up the segments to your messy life. Heartbreak changed you, but for the worse. It felt like everything in your life was flipped upside down, but one thing remained the same: you wanted Shawn back.

Groggily sitting up and reaching over to grab the voucher brushing your sock-clad feet, you read the fine print. After a couple minutes of reading, you found what you were looking for and searched up the printed link on your cellphone. You were directed to a QR reading page in which you then hovered your phone over the voucher. The code brought you to a ticket buying site for Shawn’s tour, asking for you to click on the show you were looking to buy tickets for. The whole process took less than five minutes, but it felt like ages as your sleepless eyes burned from the bright screen.

After being directed to page after page, you were finally brought to a screen that had a layout of the stadium Shawn would play at. It instructed you to choose your section and seat. After glancing around at the limited amount of spots left for the nearly sold out show, something caught your eye. There was one seat front and center of the main staged that was blinking red and purely out of curiosity, you moved your finger to click on the seat.

A paged popped to the corner of your screen and read: ‘We are sorry for the inconvenience, but this seat is reserved for the user ‘My Girl’. If you are the listed user, please click the checkmark to redeem your seat. Thank you.’ 

Confusion struck you as you tried to figure out how you could reserve a seat before even buying it let alone who in the world would put their user as ‘My Girl.’ It was the first time you genuinely smiled in a while, a feeling that now felt foreign to you. Giggling, you had to stop your seat-searching for a minute to regather yourself. 

Continuing to laugh, your fun was soon ended when you realized that it could’ve possibly been you. It was a long shot, but Shawn’s favorite thing to do while the two of were dating was to make sure that he let you and everyone know that you were ‘his girl’. It eventually became a name that you grew to love as well, and something he often called you from that point on. 

Your mind was circling, but you hesitantly clicked the checkmark, testing to see if your suspicions were correct. Scanning the QR code on the voucher again, you entered in the code that was marked on the bottom of it. If the code worked, that’d mean that the seat was reserved for you. It’d mean that Shawn saved a seat just for you. Twiddling with your fingers as the codes were being processed, you heard a ding meaning that the reserved seat for ‘My Girl’ was indeed for you.

You didn’t know that Shawn would go this far to make sure you’d come to the show, but you were far from flattered. Instead, you felt anxious. If you accepted the front row seat, you’d have to face him again. If you didn’t, you’d probably have no other opportunity to do so again anytime soon. You wanted to see Shawn again, and you felt ready. You didn’t want to regret passing up the chance to talk to him again. The answer suddenly felt so obvious, yet the same questions you were dwelling on the other day came back to overwhelm you in a flood.

Did Shawn still want to see you?

Has he already moved on?

Is it all worth it?

You were soon going to find out at the show. Confirming the tickets, you also redeemed the voucher for a VIP pass. Everything was set in stone. If this was really the last time you were going to try to fix you and Shawn’s relationship, you wanted go out with a bang. You weren’t sure where this sudden confidence was coming from, but you were scared of it to say the least. In less than a month, you were going to be face to face with Shawn. 

Going to the calendar app on your phone, you put in the date of Shawn’s concert to make sure you wouldn’t forget. It was nice. The feeling of knowing that you were finally going to face your source of hurt head-to-head gave you a sense of security.

It was just a matter of time before you saw Shawn again, but you didn’t think it’d be in the front row of one of his very own shows.

“Happy birthday to you,” Your friends sang to you as they watched you blow out the candles to the cake they had bought. Three weeks had snuck up on you pretty fast, and before you knew it, you were out of your house to celebrate the special day with your closest buddies. You had practically forgotten about your birthday with everything that your mind was juggling, so when you were randomly blindfolded by your two best friends and told to get into the car, you were surprised and confused to say the least.

As the medium sized crowd began to disperse, you walked around your friend Claudia’s house to thank everyone who organized the surprise birthday party. You were stopped every few minutes by some old friends to catch up and exchange phone numbers. They might’ve not been in your lives as often, but they sure kept up with the media, meaning most of the conversations revolved around you and Shawn. The frown on your friend’s faces when you told them that the two of you were no longer dating opened up wounds that you thought were fully healed, but you tried your best to brush it off.

“There’s the birthday girl!” You were pushed out of your thoughts as you turned around to be greeted by Sophia and Claudia. The two were truly always there for you through everything, and tonight was no different.

“Oh my gosh thank you guys so much for this,” You hugged the two. “You know I would’ve been fine with just a sleepover with my two favorite gals,” You jokingly added.

“Non-sense,” Sophia interjected, “You deserve this for always having our backs.”

“Aww, I love you guys so much!” You gathered your friends into a hug.

“So, any plans for the weekend, because I suggest that the three of us hang out all weekend!” Claudia suggested.

You excitedly nodded your head. “I’m free, and I also second th-” You were cut off by your phone buzzing.

As you pulled your phone out of your denim jacket’s pocket, you almost had to do a double take at what you were reading. On the bright screen of your phone was a reminder telling you that Shawn’s concert was just in five days. You fully remembered that you were going to his show, but it slipped your mind that it was so close to your birthday and this weekend.

“Hey what’s wrong, Y/N? Why the frown? It looks like you just saw a ghost!” Claudia quickly came to question your now pale face.

“So, you guys know how I got those Shawn tickets, right?” You nervously laughed trying to stall as your two best friends anxiously nodded. “Well, please don’t be mad, but it also happens to be this weekend. I had no idea it was this weekend but I can totally skip it to hang out with you two instead.”

Sophia was quick to reply as she and Claudia nodded at each other. “Are you insane? Why would we be mad? We see each other almost everyday, we can save the hang out for another time. You on the other hand,” She pointed at your chest, “Shawn’s only here for the one day he has his concert, so I suggest we help you look all hot for his show. The look on his face when he sees you will be priceless,” She busts out into a fit of laughter.

“This isn’t like the movies, Soph. Besides, I’m just going to look like another face in a sea of thousands. I’ll let you pick out my outfit, but since I know the two of you can get a little out of hand with the makeup, I think I’ll take care of that part,” You giggle as your Sophia and Claudia squeal in agreement.

“Oh my gosh, you look amazing, Y/N. We did an amazing job,” Claudia said as she high-fived Sophia.

You weren’t gonna lie — they did do a great job helping you look your best. You eventually gave in and let them do your makeup, leaving you to choose your own outfit. To go with the bold eyeliner and lashes Sophia put on you, you decided to go simple with a pair of black skinny jeans and an over-sized tee. You knew it was always a look that Shawn loved on you, but it was also always a comfortable outfit for yourself. Deciding to dress up the outfit a little, you added a pair of brown suede booties for your shoes and a delicate gold necklace with a pendant of your initials. Your hair was in loose waves. 

You were finally going to see Shawn again and you didn’t know exactly how to feel. What if it didn’t go the way you planned? It was too late to turn back, and you knew for a fact that your two best friends in the driver’s and passenger seat wouldn’t let you go back home. Slipping on your VIP lanyard, you checked your phone for the time. You had already missed the Q&A, but you figured the pass would give you early entrance into the venue. Feeling the car come to a slower pace, you checked yourself with your phone’s camera one more time.

“Thank you guys again for this. I don’t know what I’d do without you two losers,” You chuckled at your two friends for helping you get ready in time.

“Oh, stop with that and enjoy yourself. You can thank us later by buying us drinks,” Claudia laughed while pushing you out of the car parked in front of the venue Shawn would be playing at tonight.

“We’ll be back in two or three hours!” Sophia called from the car. “Have fun, babe!” She laughed before rolling up the window and driving off before you had any time to say anything else.

Tonight was the night

The arena was crowded with screaming and sweaty bodies as Shawn was about to come out on stage any minute. The opening act gave you just enough time to rehearse what you would say to Shawn, and now you just had to play the waiting game. Your palms were sweating and the adrenaline was pumping. Would he know you were here let alone acknowledge you? The chances of him finding you amongst a crowd of 20,000 seemed impossible. Piercing yells continued to flood the room as the lights turned low and a spotlight flashed to the middle of the main stage.

This was it.

A guitar riff began ringing through the arena and a drum started playing in the background. The crowd went extremely wild and you finally looked up, knowing exactly why. Shawn was standing just a few feet away from you, beginning to sing ‘There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back.’ You couldn’t help but notice the obvious: he looked amazing. His delicate curls slightly covering the top half of his forehead, while his button up revealing his stomach every time he’d raise his arms up. Shawn was always a tease, but this was a crime for him to look this good. 

You’ve been to numerous of Shawn’s shows before, but never in this perspective in the massive sea of fans. You couldn’t help but break out in a smile and sing along. This was what Shawn always dreamed to do. All of the late nights spent talking about dreams and aspirations, all Shawn would ever go on about was how he wanted an opportunity to share his music like this. There wasn’t a day where he didn’t talk about performing his heart out and wanting to do it for the rest of his life. Seeing his strong passion for music and performing instantly made you happy, and in that moment Shawn came on stage, you knew that there was nothing left to do but be happy for him.

Shawn and you might’ve fell off on a bad note, but that didn’t shadow from the fact that he had great music. You still knew every word to every song of his, and it looked like it would come in handy again.

After the first song was wrapped up, he greeted everyone.

“Hi everyone, how are we doing? I’m going to change up the set-list tonight, but I want everyone in this arena tonight singing their hearts out. If there’s any city that can do it, I know it’s you guys. When you wake up tomorrow morning with your voice gone, I want it to be because you enjoyed tonight and sang your hearts out!” Shawn announced his mini spiel he says every night all while panting. Everyone erupted into applaud and cheers as he went on to sing ‘Kid in Love.’ He looked breathtaking on stage, but you weren’t sure if he’s even seen you yet. Casting your negative doubts to the side, you decided to enjoy the concert like everyone else around you.

A couple of songs later, Shawn hushed the crowd as if he were getting ready to say something else. “This is one of my most favorite parts of the set, and I’d like to dedicate this one to someone very special to me. If you’re in here tonight, just know that I’ll always be there for you. Please sing along if you know the words.” He asked while you heard a chorus of ‘awws’ along with confused remarks.

Was he talking to you? You could only listen to his next song to find out.

Do ya,  Do you think about me?

It didn’t take you long to know that Shawn was singing Ruin. The world around you seemed to slow and speed up all at once as it felt like you and Shawn were the only ones in the room of 20,000. The sweet melody of the song flowed through the room, changing the vibe that his previous songs had created.

Do you remember how we felt? ‘Cause I do So listen to me, baby

The lyrics to the song were going in and out of your head. It was like you couldn’t listen to the whole song peacefully without thinking about all of the times you and Shawn had together. Memories of the sparks you felt when you’d kiss Shawn or when the two of you would simply hold hands went through your head. He made you feel so incredible, like every moment you spent with him was another exhilarating roller coaster ride.

And I’m not tryna ruin your happiness, But darling don’t you know that I’m the only one for ya? 

Why would he choose this song to dedicate to you? Did he still think of a future with you like you have? Were thoughts of you the only thing consuming his brain the same way he’s been everything you’ve thought about for the past six months? Your mind crossed back to you and Shawn’s first date. You were going through a tough break-up and Shawn asked to take you out to get your mind off of things. He took you to what later became the two of you’s favorite bakery and although it was meant to relieve you of your stress, the night quickly escalated.

“I don’t get you, Y/N! You don’t have to be so scared! Don’t you see? I’m not your ex or any of your past boyfriends! I’m not going to break your heart and leave you in the dirt. I’m not going to leave you hanging and treat you like shit.” Shawn tried to contain his slight frustration at you.

You were naive to think that Shawn wouldn’t eventually break your heart. Even with all of the pent up anger and failed attempts of getting Shawn back, you couldn’t bring yourself to be mad at him.

Do you feel the same way? Oh Tell me, babe And, do ya? Do you remember how we felt? ‘Cause I do So listen to me, now

“I don’t know if this is too soon, but if you just give me a chance, I’ll treat you so much better than him. I like you a lot, and I get it if you don’t feel the same. Just let me know before my heart breaks even more because I don’t know how long I could go without knowing that you aren’t mine yet,” Shawn said in a hushed voice, slightly leaning over the table. His eyes were glassy from pouring out so many thoughts and emotions. 

You were scared to say the least. You didn’t want your heart broken again, but you trusted Shawn. He’d never do anything to hurt you. In all the time you’ve known him as a person and friend, he’s been your shoulder to lean on, your rock.

“Just please tell me what we are. If you don’t feel the same, just tell me and I’ll leave you alone.”

And I’m not tryna ruin your happiness, baby But darling don’t you know that I’m the only one? 

You were hesitant to answer. You hadn’t spoken a single word since Shawn had told you everything he felt.

“Look Y/N, I’m not trying to ruin your happiness. That’s all I want for you. But can’t you see that I’m the only one for you? Love, please don’t go back to that other dick. I’ll treat you like the princess you are. I’d wait a thousand years if I’d have to. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be there with my arms out,” He confessed.

Your mind was in a haze at the sudden words he spilled to you, but you knew his words were sincere. You nodded your head and put your hands in his, also putting in your heart.

You felt more safe than ever being around him, and you knew exactly where he got the lyrics for this song, because they were the exact words he spoke to you on that night.

Do I ever cross your mind? 

You began tearing up, remembering everything you let go the night you broke up with Shawn. There hasn’t been a night where you haven’t thought about Shawn and everything that the two of you have been through. You felt ashamed for giving up on the two of you so easily in the beginning, because now you were paying the prices.

Snapping out of your trance, you looked up at Shawn. His eyes were closed but you could see the emotion through his face. You could hear the pain and the slight falter in the words he was singing. The crowd and him sang back and forth to each other as he absorbed the emotions and melody. You knew exactly what he was feeling, because you had been enduring through it for the past six months.

The song was about to come to its end as the crowd finished singing back to Shawn.

Do I ever, said I, do I ever, Said I, ohh Do I ever, Do I ever cross your mind? Not tryna ruin your happiness at all

Shawn opened his eyes as you saw them anxiously search around the arena. His fingers were tightly gripping the microphone, his foot tapping the stage. You instantly knew what he trying to do. As his eyes finally arrived to the front row, a frown started to replace his slight grin, disappointment laced in his expression. He looked as if he were about to give up, until time stopped when his frantic eyes met yours. It felt like hours that you two were staring at each other, but he had a set to continue, forcing him to break away.

He mouthed something at you before his band started the next song. It didn’t take much time you to know that he had said ‘I love you.’ You’ve heard it Shawn say it so many times that you memorized the way his face moved as he would say it. You’d always remember the glint in his eyes when he’d look at yours. The way his face would soften, the way his hands would find their way to yours.

The first time the two of you exchanged I love you’s was one for the books. The two of you were at your parents’ house, so they could meet Shawn for the first time, who was then your boyfriend of three months. It was midnight in your house and everyone was asleep except for you and Shawn. You decided to give him a tour of the house, and subsequently ended up on the roof. It was cliche, but spending the next hour gazing up at the stars with Shawn relaxed you. Your legs were tangled in his as his arms were wrapped around your waist and back, gently stroking you into relaxation. It was eating you up, and you knew right then and there that you were ready to tell him how you really felt. You were the first to say I love you after much contemplating, and to your relief, Shawn said it back. 

“I don’t know any other way to say this, but I’m falling for you. Hard. I love you, and I don’t know when I realized this, but I know the feeling isn’t going away anytime soon.” You let out your muffled confession against his chest, inhaling his scent for comfort.

“I’m here to catch you. I love you too, Y/N.” Shawn replied, bringing you closer into his tight grip.

It was ironic. Shawn said he was planning to say it as well, but you beat him to it. After that, it was like the two of you couldn’t stop saying ‘I love you’ as if each one was the last.

Shawn sang Roses next, which was weird because he had taken it off his set-list in his European leg of the tour. As he got to the chorus without ever taking his eyes off of you, you knew why he decided to add it tonight. You remember how he asked you out as if it were just the other night.

“Thanks for taking me out, Shawn. I really appreciate what you’ve been doing for me these past few weeks.” You were about to go back into your house but Shawn stopped you when he took out his guitar from the backseat of his jeep.

“Will you let it die or let it grow?” Shawn finished his song as he also pulled out a bouquet of beautiful red roses. This boy was full of surprises. 

“Y/N, will you be my girlfriend?”

You nodded frantically and pulled him in for a kiss.

Every motion he made to show that he noticed you and still cared about you slowly stitched your heart together. You weren’t sure if you were just in the moment or being dramatic, but you felt alive again.

He finally finished his set with ‘Treat You Better,’ but your only thoughts were on how you would get backstage to talk to him. The lights beginning to brighten up the room meant that the concert was over and it was your cue to find Shawn. Everything happened in such a blur that you weren’t sure where to go.

“Excuse me ma’am, you can’t exit the venue this way, this is backstage.” The security man told you.

“Please, I’m Shawn’s friend,” Ouch “And I really need to talk to him.” You pleaded with him.

“Sure, I hear that excuse every time. Nice try though. Now please leave before we have to escort you out of here personally,” He chuckles as you’re about to go on your knees to beg him.

“Y/N? Is that really you? I can’t believe you actually came!” You peek over the buff security guard’s shoulders to see Geoff. It’s been awhile, but you’d recognize the giant anywhere.

“You know this girl?” The guard pointed to you, confused.

“Yes, and if you don’t mind, I need to steal her for a second, Jeff.” He replied, taking your hand and practically dragging you backstage.

“You’re here to talk Shawn, right?” You nodded as he continued to guide you through the busy crew. “Figured. You’re all he’s been talking about. Even after you didn’t text him for all that time, he still wouldn’t shut up. Y/N this, Y/N that. He still cares about you a lot, y’know?” Geoff chuckled.

Not sure what to say, you let silence engulf the conversation. As you two arrived to Shawn’s dressing room, Geoff lifted a finger to his lips, signaling for you to stay quiet. The two of you came to a halt, standing under the doorway.

“I can’t believe it Brian, I lost my only fucking c-chance. She’s gone again, because I was too scared to go after her. I lost the girl I’ve been madly in love with for the past two years because I was too scared. Why am I such a piece of shit?” Shawn rambled. His back was to you, but by the quivering of his shoulders, you knew he was either fuming with rage or crying. Maybe even both.

“S-She was right in front of me for an hour and a half, but I couldn’t do anything but s-sing a song that probably sounded like shit to her! I should’ve just flown out to here instead of waiting around for this fucking concert to come along.” Shawn continued.

“Hey, c’mon man, I think you need to hit the showers and get your mind off of things. We have a show tomorrow. Maybe it’s time to get over her?” Brian suggested. He turned around too scared to see Shawn’s reaction and when Brian saw you at the door, a grin instantly grew on his face.

“You have to be kidding me. You’re just going to tell me to get over her like that? Like I haven’t been trying for these past six months? Don’t tell me what to do!” Shawn had to stop to calm himself down. “What are you loo-” Shawn imitated Brian actions and turned around. “Oh.”

“We’ll leave the two of you to talk,” Geoff said, waving his hand for Brian to follow.

You walked over to him, sitting on the couch across from him. “My girl, huh?” You said, trying to break the awkward silence. The nerves had already begun to eat you up and the hours you spent memorizing the words you wanted to say to Shawn were slowly running down the drain.  Shawn opened his mouth to say something.

“I’m guessing you heard all of that, but I don’t regret it. I thought I lost you, Y/N. I made the biggest fucking mistake saying all those hurtful words to you but I’m an even bigger idiot for not fighting for what we had. Just give me another chance, please. I haven’t been able to get any proper sleep with you gone, and I don’t know how much more I can take.” He begged you as he took your small hands in his. You couldn’t bring yourself to pull them away, but you weren’t sure if you wanted to either.

“Did you read the letter?” He questioned. You slowly nodded your head, looking everywhere but directly at his eyes.

He went on, “Baby look, I know this concert and conversation can’t fully heal the scars, but I’m willing to wait. I’m so sorry. I told you I’d wait a thousand years the first time I told you how I felt, and I still mean it. Please, please, just let this,” He gestured to both of you, “Please just let us try all of this again. I love you. So, so, much princess.”

You had no words, so you hugged him. He immediately hugged back, letting the action speak for you. It’s been so long. You missed his scent despite him coming straight from performing a concert. You missed the way he’d bury his head in the crook of your neck. You missed everything about him, especially the way he held onto you so tightly.

The next few minutes were spent with you in Shawn’s arms. No words, no movement, no disruptions. You didn’t need words to know that you and Shawn still loved each other. It wasn’t going to be easy, but this was the closure you needed. This was the final stitch, your lifeline. This was what you were waiting for. And in that very moment, you knew that no words had to be exchanged for either of you to know that everything would be alright. 

cliche ending, but this was the heavily requested part four, and unfortunately also the last part to the ‘Hurtful Words’ series. i’d just like to say thank you for being so supportive of this, and i hope you guys stick around for future writings :))

check out my other writings >> masterlist

PART ONE || PART TWO || PART THREE

p.s. it’d be really great if you could like and/or reblog this :))

© sowhatshawn || all rights reserved

[geekekitten]

Until Dawn: Can You Survive?

In three relatively short sessions, my boyfriend and I were able to complete the highly cinematic survival horror game, “Until Dawn”. Now this title is a few years old, but as I said in my earlier post, its one that I had been meaning to get around to for quite some time. I’m glad that I watched a playthrough of it first though because I am so vulnerable to jump scares I might have chucked the controller from surprise if I didn’t (mostly) know what scary parts were coming. It should be understood, however, that this game revolves around the “butterfly effect”, so every choice you make has an impact on how the game plays out. Therefore, watching a playthrough will not, in any way, guarantee that you can help everyone stay alive until dawn. The playthrough I watched was by Playstation Access, and they ended the game with only two. I ended the game with four, thanks to a very late-game error. I have heard there is a way for everyone to survive and I really want to see that. I’m not sure if I want to keep replaying the game until I find the perfect formula for what keeps everyone alive or if I just want to watch someone else do it. It was an enjoyable experience, but it was also very stressful.

So for those of you who are unfamiliar with this title, allow me to enlighten you. “Until Dawn” features eight playable characters. Each segment will have you taking over a different character. Each character has their own personality and relationships with the other characters, although you can shape them a little bit depending on what choices you make. As I said earlier, it is survival horror. The goal is to keep all eight characters alive until dawn comes. Easier said than done. The characters are very cliche, written right out of your typical horror movie with annoying (and stupid) teenagers, but that really didn’t weaken the experience for me. What really drew me in was that the experience was such a hybrid between game and movie, much like “Heavy Rain”, but even moreso. There are a lot of cutscenes, but they work into the playable moments smoothly. The playable moments can be somewhat dull when you’re just moving the character around looking at things, but most of the time I felt tense while I was doing this, so it really wasn’t boring for me all that often. There are a lot of quick time events, and what made these feel important is that missing those button pushes had consequences--sometimes fatal ones. There were many moments where making a choice was timed and you could really feel the panic set in as you watched that timer run out and you struggled to process what seemed like the safer option. This led to me killing off a character.

The graphics are pretty good, nothing to really complain about there other than sometimes the expressions on the characters look a little off. The soundtrack is pretty solid, especially the opening song, “O Death”. That has been playing through my head quite a bit since I started playing the game. The motion capture was done pretty well, and the characters really look like their actor counterparts, which makes it more believable. The setting is mountainous Canada, which is beautiful and alluring but creepy at the same time.

Without going into spoiler territory, I will warn the newcomers to this game that it pays attention to what choices you make not just in the sense that it affects who lives and who dies, but also in other more “subtle” ways. I think you’ll know what I’m talking about when you get to those parts. Even though it is obvious what the game is doing when it happens, I thought it was a cool feature.

The big “SURPRISE” moment in the game is not a huge, unbelievable twist, but it was still cool to see it play out, and the great thing is that it isn’t the only thing going on in the game. I appreciated that the game had some “layers”, that it wasn’t all just cliche characters and plot. I guess the creators saw some potential in those layers as well, because “The Inpatient” is a prequel to “Until Dawn”, exploring and explaining what went down on that lonely mountain many years prior. So there’s your warning--don’t play “The Inpatient” before playing “Until Dawn”--it will ruin part of the plot (also, “The Inpatient” is VR only...blah).

I’ve always been a big fan of “choose-your-own adventure” style games, and games that offer a very cinematic experience. “Until Dawn” fulfilled both of those roles for me. I liked that I was in charge of what they said and did (for the most part), and that I had to take the responsibility for when they lived (or more often, died). This is a highly replayable game, thanks to how difficult it is to keep everyone alive, but it should be noted that you cannot skip over the cutscenes, so you will have to rewatch them (although you can just replay chapters, rather than the whole game, if you choose so). I don’t see this being an issue for a second playthrough, but I can see it getting old on the third and soforth. For those of you who are just too scared to play this yourselves, I do recommend checking out Playstation Access’s playthrough. It was HIGHLY amusing. If you feel more comfortable after watching the playthrough, like I did, then pick up the game and play it yourself (it’s only $20).

I really hope to see more games like this release in the future. “Heavy Rain” is a real favorite of mine, and I really enjoyed “Until Dawn” a lot too. I have high hopes for “Detroit: Become Human” which is set to release later this year--it looks like it is following in the footsteps of “Heavy Rain” and “Beyond Two Souls”. Because this is an easy game to get through, in terms of length and controls being simple, I recommend this to anyone who enjoys cinematic-style games. Give it a try and see if you keep all of your characters standing “Until Dawn”.

[nkossovan]

Many of Us Will Be “Reformed Consumers” … Post-COVID19 Businesses will Feel the Pain

For the foreseeable future, you and I will not be the same consumers we were back this past February.

COVID19 has been for many, especially for those who were in the middle of chasing the "American Dream," a lifestyle edema.

Thanks to COVID19 having halted retail, travel and going out, I have come to realize that what I do need is a lot more of what I do not need. I now see restaurants and shopping mall visits as time and money I spent chasing stuff and experiences I thought would bring me happiness. 

These past 3 months, I wake up to quiet time, do some reading, and think about the direction and priorities in my life. I have been going for walks, spending a lot more time with my wife and listening, really listening. Because COVID19 has stripped them out, I am discovering what I do not need. Restaurants (Post COVID19 my wife and I frequented local restaurants no less than 2 times per week, never spending less than $75.00 per visit.)? I am now enjoying the process of planning and cooking meals, which I find therapeutic. Weird, I know. I had forgotten that cleaning up after a meal gives a sense of accomplishment. Shopping? I could not even estimate how many times I bought something and then realize I do not really need it, or it did not live up to the expectations I had of how much it would change my life.

COVID19 has purged much of the noise in my life.

COVID19 is a powerful lesson in disruption.

With your spending options severely limited and not driving as much, you may be going through the same thing as you realize how much money you have been saving these past few months. Most likely social distancing has forced you to evaluate your relationships and friendships. The experience of not having the negativity and drama some people in your life is a relief. On the flip side, you might be now realizing how important a particular person is to you.

Many of us are currently wrestling with "needs vs. wants". Out of financial necessity, "needs" seems to be winning for now.

As restrictions are lifted it will be interesting to see what happens. When we start becoming more confident going out in public, or if a vaccine is ever developed, will we go right back to old behaviours, mindlessly consuming in an attempt to buy happiness, social acceptance and relationships. Will, many of us, go back to chasing the "American Dream," or will we make a permanent change in how we choose to consume?

Keep in mind COVID19 has not been eradicated, it still exists amongst us. I would speculate the fear of getting COVID19, being laid off or losing their job, strategically mitigating negative impacts on one's personal finances due to a drop in income, and witnessing firsthand how unstable our economy is, will be foremost concerns consumers will have for the foreseeable future. The next priority will be their safety, when commuting, at work, at home and in public. For those who want to be in control of their financial future, and health, lining up for a sale, or eating out, will be a distant afterthought. 

Undeniably most businesses have experienced a dramatic reduction in revenue. Therefore, the question, at least for the balance of 2020, is what percentage of business decline can businesses tolerate and for how long? It is fair to say a 10% decline in transactions would put most big and small businesses deep in the red. Survival will depend on a business owner or management's tolerance for risk and debt. As businesses relaunch, it will be the choices they make that will be the difference between surviving 2020 Q3 & Q4 or closing their doors.

Here's what I believe is essential:

Strict adherence to PPE safety practices. 

Building trust with employees and consumers that your place of business is safe.

Creating a new customer experience that mutes the Covid19 fear.

Create theatre of the mind, which refocused your message that you have repainted the future.

For employees rewrite company vision and mission for the repainted future.

Creatively finding ways to lower costs without sacrificing service. 

Embrace that, for the most part, stores are now showrooms, and e-commerce is the selling platform. All businesses, not just retailers, need to have a robust online presence, which includes an easy to purchase experience coupled with an uncomplicated return policy.

Businesses need to wrap their head around being better than just the convenience of delivery and need to create a company-wide culture where every sale is a big deal.

Above     all, businesses should presume there will be a second COVID19 wave and begin strategizing for when this happens (most likely in the early days of autumn).

Much of the economy will never go back to how they were before; at least not in time for those employees affected to continue to maintain any semblance of their 1st world lifestyle. Entire industries have been obliterated by COVID19's wrecking ball. Knowing the difference between which industries have a good chance of coming back, and which ones have been wiped out for good, is crucial right now. This is not a time for wishful thinking.

A prime example is with theatres shut down, filmmakers had to finally pull the trigger and release movies online. This is the end of the movie theatre. Since the commercialization of television, and then online streaming many years later, theatres have been dying from death by a thousand cuts. According to Box Office Mojo, in 2019, Americans went to the movies less than any time since the 1920s. Those who were not choosing to regularly watch movies at home pre-COVID19 are doing so now and enjoying the convenience and safety of doing so. Those holding out have been converted. Three years from now, theatres will go the way of record stores and DVD rental stores.

The demise of the department store is a given. Online shopping was a disruptor. Many retailers did not take how much consumers wanted the convenience of shopping online seriously and came to the table late in the game. The lockdowns forced many consumers to buy online for the first time. 

I imagine millions of first-time online shoppers are having an epiphany right now. They pressed a button, and a parcel shows up at their door a few days later and probably said to themselves, "Wow, why haven't I done this before?"

You may have been anti-Amazon, but that was before being forced to experience their online shopping experience. COVID19 is a massive win for those businesses that had created post-COVID19, an online shopping experience that consumers felt comfortable with.

The same survival principles hold true for restaurants. To continue operating, restaurants will need to create a business model that speaks to fewer patrons dining at their establishments and customers doing takeout and delivery. 

Sadly, thousands of retail shops and restaurants will not be reopening their doors after the lockdown.  

Is retail ever safe?

The education industry, especially after post-secondary, will need to shift to e-Learning. Those institutions that deliver an engaging online learning experience will be the winners in this arena.

As more people work from home, they will question the need for having the expense of own a vehicle, which is now just mostly parked. Using Uber and Lyft, and renting for longer trips, would make more financial sense. Who wins? Who loses? 

Speaking of winner and losers, Zoom, one of the world's leading video conferencing platforms, has seen exponential growth due to COVID19. A new market of people had no choice but to use a video conferencing platform since they are now working from home. Gen-Xers and older had always gravitated to face-to-face meetings before they were forced to work from home. I think business travel will drop significantly, given the cost-savings of videoconferencing over travelling to a meeting.

The hospitality industry is facing what I call an existential threat. The nature of their service has too many human touchpoints to be able to comfortably mitigate the risk of getting COVID19. As well it is dependent on disposable income. Predicting the travel industry will be skeletal in size compared to what it once was is not a stretch.

At minimum business need to consider:

Problem-solution fit: Design value propositions that directly     address your current and potential customer pain points.

Distribution channel: Get your product/service in a timely and     health safe, manner.

Customer segment(s): Find, or create,     niches. Don't try to be everything to everybody.

Revenue model: Pivot to how your customers are now more     comfortable interacting with your business (takeout, delivery, curbside     pick up) and rework your revenue streams accordingly. 

Cost structure: Lower your fixed (renegotiate your rent),     and variable (payroll) costs as much as possible.

Marketing channels: Think where your customers, and potential     customers, hang out and build your presence there.

On another note, people and governments need to accept the fact that for a large portion of their respective population, the employment landscape has forever changed. A travel agent will no longer be able to pay their bills with their old job. The same if you are an event planner, server or personal trainer. There are thousands of other examples.

COVID19's economic destruction has undeniably caused many business and industry causalities. We are now entering a new world order. Businesses who have the creativity, the inner courage and foresight to adapt and accommodate what will be new consumer behaviour will not merely survive but will thrive.

[rtf393q-latina]

Journal 5

This week I played Mystic Messenger, a Korean mobile visual novel game, released in 2016. I gather that a more literal translation of the Korean title might be “mysterious messenger,” which make sense because the premise of the game is that you download an app, which you don’t know much about, but which jumpstarts this narrative journey full of its own mysteries. Thus far, there have been no mystic elements to the story; photos the characters send have an urban contemporary feel, with recognizable markers of the everyday like public transit, ear buds, or ketchup bottles. Gameplay consists of selecting responses as you participate in the app’s chatrooms, get messages, emails, and phone calls from the characters in the game world, synchronized to your time zone, as if it were happening in real time. The most extensively used element is the chatroom, and a note on its aesthetic because it’s exceptional: in addition to drab bubble text, characters might send an animated emote, chibi image of themselves; they can briefly shake the screen with an angry face that blips in and out as an overlay of the chatroom; they also sometimes send their text in a bubble shaped expressively as a cat or a fluffy cloud, as if written on a cute stationary sticky note; finally, they will also send photos. In addition to the phone calls (recorded in Korean, but with English text to translate on screen), these emotive speech acts go a long way in both making the characters come to life and just in general making it fun and engaging to follow along. In the previous visual novel I played, clicking through text as it endlessly populated at the bottom of my screen in a uniform font would get tedious.

Interesting visualizations in the chatroom. (source)

The narrative and gameplay has three levels. The first, most openly marketed level, is the romantic simulation: there are 6 characters and you can play through to gain the love of one of them. The second level is that you and the 6 romanceable characters are part of an organization that is organizing a big charity party; to get a good ending, you must convince at least 10 guests, whose contact info you collect over time from the romanceable characters, to attend through choosing the right three replies to the potential guests’ emails. The third level is that you are slowly figuring out what happened: the person who had your organizing job before has died or at least disappeared under mysterious circumstances and the way you join the organization is also rather mysterious. So, on the third level, I assume you solve these mysteries. Before I realized the game would not save in the middle of the introductory segment, I ended up accidentally restarting the game 3 times. To keep from being bored, I really tested the different choice routes and got a bad ending right off the bat, thereby discovering that the person who adds me to the charity organization is a malicious-seeming hacker (and if I refuse to follow his instructions he threatens to end me or enslave me and the game ends—very dramatic—I expect more of this as this level of the story unfolds).

Main game screen, demonstrating the different mechanics. (source)

A word on the monetization. 3 romance routes are available from the get go; 2 you need to pay 80 hourglasses for; and for the last one you have to pay 300 hourglasses (there are also some additional dlc-s and one more romance route since the release, which all have an hourglass cost as far as I can tell, in the ~100 range). A guide I read claimed that by playing through each romance route in order, you win enough hourglasses to play the next tiers. This seems reasonable: you can pay money to play exactly the romance route you want right away, or you can invest your time to eventually get there. The other major application of the game’s hourglass currency is that you can pay 30 to unlock all of the chatrooms for one day; therefore, you are able to override the game’s scheduled gameplay and play them all at once or go back to ones you missed because you were not available to play when they opened up. Unlike the other visual novel I played, here money feels like a luxury rather than a necessity; I may be missing the 1am and 3am chatrooms, but I get a brief overview of the main points the characters discussed without me (I just miss sending replies and winning photos and their favor from giving the correct replies). Furthermore, every few hours I earn a randomized bonus and I’m slowly but steadily gaining hourglasses, making me feel like eventually I’ll be able to unlock things while still being free to play. Overall, the monetization feels less predatory as compared to the other visual novels I’ve played so far.

Main monetizated interactions. (source 1, source 2)

Initially, Mystic Messenger does not seem like the best game to discuss with this week’s readings. Rehak argues that “our extension through various media is predicated on the body as root metaphor” and “the body becomes an inescapable aspect of fantasized experience” (21). And in fact, the readings have to do with identifying with an on-screen body. In Mystic Messenger I do not have a game body because the game is in first person perspective. I can however pick a little picture to represent me in the app, much like in regular messenger and email apps. I will elaborate on this aspect in more depth.

The game offers 5 pictures to represent you, or you can upload your own. 4 of the pictures match visually in design with the romanceable characters, and the last is more stylistically exaggerated: an anthropomorphized unicorn with a giant head and enormous eyes. The other 4 only differ in hair color and hair style; 3 have luminescent pale skin and 1 has vaguely tan skin. Overall, I think these 4 pictures are conventionally attractive—light skin, young, thin. As Shaw notes, we can understand some of the creators’ intentions through analyzing the available images. Much like in Martey and Consalvo’s analysis of Second Life, light skin is normalized though these avatar choices. In picking these beautiful characters, players would be gravitating toward beauty like the Second Life players. The game does offer some counter choices, with the tanned character, the comical unicorn, and the choose your own options. I wonder if these singular alternatives only work to emphasize how they stray from the norm and highlight the normality of the 3 light skinned characters.

In order of the game, the first 4 avatars. (source)

To understand why people choose the avatars they do and whether they identify with them, Shaw argues we must use ethnographic methods, so I will try to breakdown my own choices and compare them to the relationships between players and avatars of Mystic Messenger found online. I was not concerned with the questions Martey and Consalvo tackle because I did not expect my choice in this single-player game to affect me functionally or socially. The unicorn suggested that the characters would not take the avatar as a representation of me, which set aside questions of social narrative and whether I would want to embrace or resist the group dynamics of the characters. These questions would not be influenced by my dress.

The unicorn avatar. (source)

I first lingered over the unicorn and considered the chose your option (until I remembered I blocked the app from accessing my photos and cameras; I tend to deny permissions unless I know how the app is explicitly using these things). The reason I moved away from more conventional characters I think has to do with my relationship to femininity. My preferred expression of female-ness tends toward the androgynous end of things and I mostly dislike overt markers of femininity, like pink, flowers, makeup, nail polish, jewelry, skirts, and long hair. Interestingly, I do not find the counter of these things any less feminine because I have a pretty firmly feminine self-conception, I just find things like big baggy pants and short hair have a much more interesting potential for femininity to explore for me personally. Given my relationship to femininity, I often find like Shaw notes that “texts meant to hail us as audience members can if fact distance us from them" (77). Mystic Messenger is in the otome genre of games targeted to women and the avatars reflect conventional femininity. This whole genre of games has initially alienated me because I do not get much from conventional femininity and I would have kept on not playing them were I not interested in why people like them for this class.

In the end I skipped over the unicorn because its long flowing hair and long eyelashes were too feminine for me. I briefly considered the darker skinned character with the shaggy hair because I felt her skin color and less polished hair style suited me better, but I felt reluctant to claim the darkest available skin color. In the end I landed on the blonde with short hair because her hair style looked like mine. Crucially, what I was so obsessed with was not that the character represents my body, but that the character represents my values related to femininity. The blonde was an imperfect choice for my goals, but I treated her from then on as just a picture because one needed to be there to represent me. I did not identify with her or imagine her as a character in the game; she might as well have been a bunny rabbit, in the words of Shaw’s test subjects. But, though the on-screen “body” did not matter to me, much like Shaw concludes about her subjects, the not mattering was a result of not having something that might matter. If there were a character design that I found genuinely cool, would I have identified with her and would it have improved the gameplay? I don’t think my avatar being a placeholder for me makes the game less enjoyable, and that much is supported in Shaw’s findings as well; nevertheless, finding a cool female character, something I feel passionate about because so many representations have been inadequate for me, would have been really special. 

Example of a player-uploaded image as an avatar. Could certainly be the actual player, but interestingly, looks like perhaps it is a Kpop star to me. Is this an idealized self? (source)

Screen grabs of Mystic Messenger online reveal that some people definitely put up a photo of themselves into the game. Ultimately I decided I do not like this because then you don’t match the aesthetic of the game and it doesn’t feel like you are a part of the game world. Although I could’ve put up an image that did represent all the things I wanted it to, it would’ve broken unity with the game for me.

I’ve also encountered fanart of the romanceable characters with a specific avatar from the initial 5 options, suggesting to me that some players do get attached to a specific image as a character and/or as a self-representation. I searched online if there was an “What your Mystic Messenger avatar says about you” article, and I did not find one, but I can see the choice being something that unites people in a common understanding/vision about the game. People like to choose identifiers, from clothing to objects and avatars. They like taking personality quizzes.

Fanart of Jumin, the game character, his cat Elizabeth III, and “Red MC” the avatar (source)

This brings me to back to a discussion of Rehak. Although he is interested in the difference between a camera-body and a game-body, he does elaborate on how the camera in both movies and games hails the viewer, giving them “a sense of literal presence, and a newly participatory role” (19). Although my physical presence in the game is very limited, the camera-like function of making the game like just another messenger app on my phone, fusing the game world with my real world through the phone interface, having the characters address me constantly, hails me as a participant in the game. Seeing them react to my responses is pleasurable and I can recognize myself as a bodily participant in the game. (They also constantly ask if I’ve eaten, or if I’m sleeping, showing concern for and calling into being my physical existence.) At the same time, the reflection is never perfect and never will be, especially for games like this where your response is a selection out of two or three options. But there’s something fun about that failure to match. The potential of my physical self existing differently is evoked. (There are some overlaps here with Munoz’s disidentification as discussed in the Shaw.) As Rehak describes it, “"players derive pleasure from avatarial instability. On the most basic level, avatars enable players to think through questions of agency and existence, exploring in fantasy form aspects of their own materiality" (21). More succinctly, my non-self in the game allows me to "toy with subjectivity, play with being" (21) in a way that is harder in real life. Moreover, going beyond the acknowledgment from Shaw that players can enjoy roleplaying their avatars rather than identifying with them, Rehak’s statement prompts me to consider the fun of the physical experience of my body as part of the game. Yes, there are many moments that remind me that the game is imaginary and allow me to play with my identity because I can be someone else in the game; however, there are also interesting, fleeting moments that hail me as a material being that are very interesting. For Rehak clearly these moments can happen both in the third person and in the first person. In the third person seeing your avatar die and recognizing it as an extension of the body may have an effect. It’s also interesting though, how the first person can play more directly with that visceral-ity. It’s something I want to explore more later.

As a final tidbit: reminding me of our discussion about the goose, people sure got a big kick out of imagining the unicorn as an animal character in the game world. Perhaps the real work that remains to be done on avatars and identification is what we do with animals (and furrys).

(Source 1 2 3)

[spanglerscribbles]

Sticky Notes on My Face.

Considering what is going on in the world at this point, I thought I’d share I bit of my personal history regarding a certain psychological battle (albeit still ongoing) that I’m sure many of you will relate to. No politics here. This will be a safe space. Plus, I need to write this out and get it off my chest. I figured those who read this will get a better understanding of the human being behind the screen and/or find out more about themselves after reading my story. 

I want you to pay close attention to this next paragraph. 

I’m the first born child in my little family, and soon became an older sister to my baby brother after 3 years of waddling on planet earth. As I grew up, I was homeschooled. Despite the social stigma regarding this private system, it’s made me who I am today. I would go back and do it all over again. I was raised by my mom and dad, my mom being a highly esteemed worship leader at our local church, and my dad being on staff at said church as the kid’s ministry pastor. I would have been around 10 when they got these positions. I followed after my mom’s footsteps and joined our youth group’s worship team as a singer. Later, I began to discover a more creative side of myself. I’m an artist, in the general term. To narrow it down, I am in the visual arts, dappling in graphite and digital mediums. But to be even MORE specific, as I grew older I became a conceptual developer, character designer, digital illustrator, graphic designer, animator, screen writer, and creative director, to name a few. I am now a graduate of Kalamazoo Valley Community college, with a degree in animation with honors. Currently, I am nearing the end of production for my first collaborative, animated short film that will release in the coming months. 

Wonderful. Now that I’ve talked about myself, I want you to do something for me. Count all of the titles I have stated in the segment above. Adding the obviously worded statements plus the one’s loosely mentioned… that’s 17.

17 titles mentioned about myself. Out all those 17, which stood out to you the most? Which sounded more appealing to you? Were they intriguing? Relatable? Likable? 

Whether we like it or not, we are all labeled. There will always be some aspect of us that people identify with as soon as our name is mentioned, and it will always have a name. 

I want you to think up a list of all the titles and labels others have given you or that you’ve given to yourself. Think up as many as you can. A contractor, Pastor’s kid, singer, university student, doctor, engineer, couch potato, foodie, pretty, ugly, football player, band geek, hyper, emo, conservative, liberal… 

It could be a small list or an extensive list. Think of all of yours? Great. 

Who would you be if they all just went away? 

Photo by Kelsey Wilson

Are These Labels What Really Define Me?

I want you to go back to the list of my own titles. There were plenty to choose from such as homeschooler, worship leader’s kid, pastor’s kid and artist. Those were the labels I was known for growing up. 

When my family moved to Michigan and started going to our awesome local church, I had to start my life over. I was a fresh face, a newbie. I had to start making new friends, but I didn’t know how. I grew up with friends already by my side back in Indiana. Meeting new people and befriending them was a foreign concept to me at the time. 

But soon, kids and adults alike began to address me as Karen’s kid or Brad’s kid… since my parent’s faces were quickly becoming well known in the community. Which, for some reason, made me popular. I befriended other PKs (pastor’s kids) while my dad was on staff. I remember two or three kids in particular I gravitated towards during those first few years in the mitten state. We would often stay in church all day on Sunday because of our parent’s pastoral obligations, so we would run up and down the office space and just be goofy kids. 

I was homeschooled from 1st grade onward, which was another label I was recognized for as I went into middle school. I never went to co-op, or went to many outside classes with others in the homeschool community, so all of my friendships were cultivated in our church’s youth group. Everyone knows once you go into middle school, things start to change… everywhere. Kids start to judge things they don’t understand a little more harshly than before. So a lot of the kids I tried to be friends with picked on me for having that label. So for a long time, I tried to suppress that and make my PK status more prominent. 

But I was in middle school now and my dad wasn’t overseeing these grades. So that title was only visible to a select group of kids along with the adults in my life who respected my parents. With my credibility gradually declining, I had to find another title that would help maintain what social status I had. So I started bringing my sketchbook to youth group with me. 

Kids were drawn to me like a moth to a flame. It was like I had these sticky notes on my face that listed all the titles I had in my possession that molded me into this appealing museum piece. I was shocked to see so many kids I’ve never met just walk up to me and gawk at my drawings. I did’t even need to initiate anymore… I just had to create interesting things to gain the interest of others. Almost every week I would come in early, sit down on the couch, just draw whatever come to mind, and let people come my way. From then on, I was known as the artist. I would post art on Facebook, I would create more drawings on my off time to show off on social media and in person. This went on, and it worked. Until life decided to not go my way. 

Photo by Gregg Lawson

Loss of Self.

It was the summer of my last year in middle school. I remember my family sitting down at the dinner table and my dad telling us the news that he was leaving his position as the children’s pastor. Soon after that, my mom stepped down from the worship team after singing in every morning service for nearly 5 years. Just like that, 2 prominent titles that the world identified me with were gone. I wasn’t the pastor’s kid anymore. I wasn’t the worship leader’s kid anymore. 

I panicked. I literally had anxiety attacks over this for months. I had no idea how this would affect me and my friendships and other people’s perceptions down the road. It got worse once I transitioned into high school. 

I was friends with all lower classmen, besides a few guys I hung out with in my same grade. But they changed drastically in short span of time, and seemed as though they did’t want anything to do with me. I was in the midst of an identity crisis, and I had to figure out someway to make myself appealing to these new, older, taller group of students with the only positive label I had to my name. 

I worked my butt off to be known as the creative artist. 

I didn’t bring my sketchpad with me as often as I used to, but I drew almost every day. I honed my skills, and got better. I posted more online, I made more friends over seas because of my art. I had a batch of “online friends” to brag about to people. I wrote stories to draw more characters about. I did everything to make myself look as impressive as a freshmen could with the talent that I had. 

Come sophomore year, I gradually found my people. I clung to these new friends every weekend, because they were the only ones that accepted me. I drew for them. I made art for them. I tried to appeal myself to them as often as I could. In hindsight, the smothering of creative adulation was farfetched and unnecessary, but back then that was the only thing I knew to do to maintain a relationship. 

So I got better. I drew more and more. I wrote creative stories, and built magical worlds with my visual talent. I made all of my work known to people. Creating art began to transform into an obligation than a pleasant pastime. Once I graduated high school and my friends parted ways, it crashed on top of me like a dump truck. The friends I thought I had weren’t intentional about keeping in touch. They found new labels, and were drawn to those of the same name. I was left alone, on my own path. All the work I poured into art was squandered. It meant nothing. Even in the midst of working towards my animation degree, I had no passion for it. Not only did I lose my love for creativity, I lost my identity. 

Photo by Chris Holt

Who Are You, Really?

Freshman year of college was a rough time for me. In the midst of change, I had to take a few steps back to rediscover myself. My whole perception of love and friendship came out of the mindset that I had to perform. I felt I needed to create more content, to live up to my artistic title in order to get the admiration I wanted from the people around me. Because that was what I was known for. That was who I was. 

But was it really? 

It was’t until a year later I went to a conference with dozens of like-minded creatives, passionate about their craft as well as their calling that I began to understand. I had conversations with people that were twice as old as me who had been dealing with these same issues. There were professionals in the industry who talked about these things. It was then I knew I wasn’t alone on this journey of self discovery… but it doesn’t have to be as complicated as one might think. 

So what if all my labels disappeared? I was no longer an artist. I could’t sing. I have no talent to speak of. I was’t pretty, but I was’t ugly. Not athletic or smart. No notable works to be mentioned. I have done nothing to entertain the masses or add to society. Who would I be then? 

To my surprise, I’m more than all of those labels combined. I went back to my roots. The foundational truths of God’s Word that I was raised on. It’s amazing how we can go throughout life and sometimes forget or completely disregard what the Bible says about God’s love and promises. 

  In Romans 8 it describes us as heirs to God, adopted into His family through faith in Jesus. Going on it mentions we have a purpose in His plan as His children. 

I am a new creation. 1 Corinthians 5:17

I have not a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7

I was bought with a price. 1 Corinthians 6:20 

I am a light. Matthew 5:14 

I am blessed.  Ephesians 1:3 

I am an overcomer. 1 John 5:4 

I am more than a conqueror. Romans 8:37 

I am loved. Romans 5:8

The list can go on and on. There are so many places in the Bible that state God’s opinions about me. The kicker is that he thought of these things before I was even conceived. Before my heart started beating, before my eyes saw the world, He loved me. I didn’t have to do anything to earn it. He loves me, because He loves me, because He loves me… just because. 

  I didn’t do anything.   

Do you know how much relief I felt when I was reminded of that? There was NOTHING I could do that would make Him love me any more or any less than He does right now. He’s always been in my corner, I was just too blind by my own warped mindset to perform and succeed to gain admiration from others. In reality, it was far simpler than what I imagined. 

Photo by Luke Spangler

The Love that Defines You.

I didn’t need to put sticky notes listing my accomplishments and my titles all over me. Those are just things I happen to be called or that I happen to do. Those can come and go. Life has a habit of shifting your perspective that way. But what I know for sure, where my foundation lies and what I am grounded in is the fact that I’m loved by the Creator of the Universe.   

You may be reading this with one or two or fifteen labels spinning in your mind that you’re known for. You may feel the pressure to uphold those titles because you feel that if those sticky notes fall away, you would be left with an empty canvas that no one would love or admire. 

But know that in the very heart of it all, the treasure of your being is the unconditional love that burns inside you. The Love that wants you to prosper in life. The Love that had a plan and a purpose for you before you were born. The Love that loves your abnormally large nose, the one dimple on your left cheek, your bushy eyebrows and frizzy hair. The Love, that no matter how screwed up you are, or what awful things you may have done, or how many people you’ve hurt,  He is there by your side, willing to walk life out with you as you rediscover yourself in Him again. 

No matter how others see you, know without a shadow of a doubt, you will always be loved by the One who wanted you here in the first place, just because you’re His creation. 

Cheers, 

Hannah Spangler 

[itsfinancethings]

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Bojack Horseman.

What do you see when you look into the eyes of Bojack Horseman?

Do you see anxiety? Do you see dysfunction and excess and addiction? Do you see yourself?

The creators of Bojack Horseman hope to conjure all these thoughts and more—but before the show even really begins. The 40-second title sequence, shown at the top of each episode, is instrumental in building the show’s tone and mythology. It changes subtly over the seasons and even from one episode to the next, exposing emotional subtexts and foreshadowing plot points. “It’s tremendously important—I definitely think it’s affected the show,” Bojack creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg tells TIME.

But the title sequence’s biggest impact isn’t uncovered until the show’s penultimate episode, which was released on Netflix on Jan. 31. In that episode, it’s revealed that the show’s climactic moment has been hiding in plain sight from the very beginning. This long payoff, six years in the making, is just another small but key example of how Bojack has been one of the smartest and most transgressive shows on television in recent memory.

Lost-in-life feeling

While Bojack is now widely revered, its fate was much less certain when the filmmaker Mike Roberts was brought on to direct the title sequence in 2014. For the most part, adult animation was confined to a specific lane—largely consisting of crude jokes aimed at teenage boys—and the first few episodes of Bojack hewed dangerously close to that standard.

“The first three episodes didn’t give everyone the full picture of how serious and dark and thematically deep the show goes,” Roberts tells TIME. “The main thing was to let the audience know that it wasn’t just this typical show—that there was some depth coming.”

In creating the title sequence, Roberts hoped to take viewers on a tour of Bojack’s everyday life—just like the introduction to The Simpsons and Scooby Doo—but from a peculiar vantage point: as if a GoPro was locked facing Bojack’s head. Roberts says he was primarily inspired by YouTube travel videos and how unintentionally strange they are: “It has this weird sensation of being there but also not being there, because the person is such a large part of the frame,” Roberts says. “We wanted this lost-in-life feeling, as if you were on a vacation somewhere exotic but stuck in your life that you kind of hate.”

The sequence shows Bojack walking through his house, going to the supermarket, partying with friends, and falling into a pool. But while his day is action-packed, he doesn’t seem to be in control—his body drifts automatically through space, wobbling slightly. “We wanted to feel like the day was running away from him,” Roberts says.

The sequence also communicates a disconnect between Bojack and those around him. Because Bojack faces the viewers, he can’t actually see the people that populate his house, and thus mostly doesn’t react to them at all. While he moves fluidly, the other characters flicker in stop-motion, as if they they’re not quite real to him. The amount of space Bojack’s own face takes up in the frame also reflects his narcissism and his inability to see the world outside of himself.

And the sequence not only gives the viewer clues about Bojack’s disorienting headspace, but forces us into it. Bojack’s blank stare has a startling mirroring effect, as if you were staring at your own reflection through the window of a moving train. “The feeling of the camera being locked to you while the background is moving is so surreal and weird,” Roberts says. “In some ways, it feels a bit like being drunk or being high.”

While the visual sequence was arresting on its own, the accompanying music would also be crucial in signaling the show’s tone. After culling through options, the creative team ultimately came down to two pieces: an instrumental by Patrick and Ralph Carney propelled by braying saxophones, and a melancholic ditty by Grouplove. “The Carney song was intense—almost a film noir kind of thing, while the Grouplove song was scary-funny in a Lynchian way,” Roberts said. “As we overlaid them, it was obvious which one fit.” They chose the Carney song, with its sinister haziness, for the top of each episode, and then moved the Grouplove song to the end credits as a pitch black resolution.

“You’d feel the momentum”

Bob-Waksberg loved Roberts’ concept: “It illustrated what the show was going to be even when the show itself was not illustrating that,” he says.

But he wasn’t completely satisfied—and he asked that the sequence reflect another key aspect of the show. “One of the things that set us apart early on, as opposed to other animated shows, was the fact that Bojack was continuous and serialized,” Bob-Waksberg says. While other animated sitcom protagonists, like Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin and Sterling Archer, perform reckless actions that are mostly wiped clean at the end of each episode, Bojack’s life doesn’t reset; his decisions have devastating consequences to himself and those around him.

Bob-Waksberg wanted to use the title sequence to underscore those continuing repercussions—”so you’d feel the momentum of the series.” So Roberts and his team worked to implement small changes to the background of each episode’s title sequence. Some of the changes are little more than fun easter eggs: when Todd jumps on Bojack’s bed and breaks it, for example, his bed is propped up by books the next episode.

But other changes are far heavier: they document the end of relationships (with Wanda and Gina quietly disappearing) or show how Bojack’s actions have affected the outside world (after he gets the director Kelsey Jannings fired from Secretariat, she’s summarily replaced in the sequence by Abe D’Catfish). Before it’s revealed that his mother Beatrice has been drugging his sister Hollyhock through coffee, Beatrice is shown pouring a cup for her at the beginning of each episode.

And as the series goes on and Bojack devolves deeper into addiction and narcissism, the title sequence changes even more drastically. In season four, the segment that previously showed Bojack finally leaving his house is replaced by a kaleidoscopic montage of characters, signifying his past and present collapsing, his mental grip on reality spiraling out of control. (The sequence is triggered by Bojack drinking coffee, which also could be a nod to Beatrice’s sleight of hand.) “We wanted to have a trip-out kind of moment to show that he’s losing it,” Roberts says.

Bojack’s disconnect from reality is brought to its logical end in the season six title sequence, which was designed by Peter Merryman. Rather than showing Bojack meandering through his day, he instead wallows in his most entrenched and devastating memories, whether being confronted by his dying ex-friend Herb or eulogizing his mother. The sequence serves an unsettling double function: showing how Bojack has become locked in a prison of his own memories, and as a quasi-curtain call for the show’s most memorable episodes. “You’re watching a part of show that reminds you of watching a show that was about a guy that was in a show,” Merryman says. “You can peel that onion for a long time.”

A downer ending

Over time, the title sequence wormed its way into the show’s ethos and plot. In season three, for example, Bojack chooses a mirror-based ad campaign for his film Secretariat that looks eerily similar to the sequence.

But its significance rises another level in the penultimate episode, when a relapsed and depressed Bojack returns to his old house and flatlines in his pool. To Roberts, the possibility of this ending had been looming from the start: “The sequence implies that Bojack could fall into a pool, drunk and high, and maybe not come out,” he says.

Bob-Waksberg says this wasn’t by grand design—he had no idea when or how Bojack would end when he began writing the series. But he says that “the motif of swimming versus drowning gradually accumulated a lot of poignancy—and part of that is because it’s in the main title sequence. When someone brought up the idea while pitching, it felt so perfect and appropriate.”

Bob-Waksberg and the writing team then added another devastating connection to the title sequence. While the viewer might expect Diane to come to Bojack’s rescue—given that she perennially and anxiously hovers over his fall—this time, she fails to pick up his call. The fact that he will not be saved by his best friend means that the cycle shown in the title sequence—where he emerges from the pool scot-free from his mistakes—has truly been broken.

That climactic moment was widely hailed by critics and fans—and its emotional impact surely would have been dulled to anyone who uses the “Skip Intro” button on Netflix. Bob-Waksberg wishes that the button would be removed entirely. “I think it’s useless and it hurts the show,” he says. “Especially when you’re binging, it builds up anticipation and gives you a moment to think about the episode you saw and the episode you’re about to see. If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t have included it in the show that I delivered to Netflix.”

[newstechreviews]

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Bojack Horseman.

What do you see when you look into the eyes of Bojack Horseman?

Do you see anxiety? Do you see dysfunction and excess and addiction? Do you see yourself?

The creators of Bojack Horseman hope to conjure all these thoughts and more—but before the show even really begins. The 40-second title sequence, shown at the top of each episode, is instrumental in building the show’s tone and mythology. It changes subtly over the seasons and even from one episode to the next, exposing emotional subtexts and foreshadowing plot points. “It’s tremendously important—I definitely think it’s affected the show,” Bojack creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg tells TIME.

But the title sequence’s biggest impact isn’t uncovered until the show’s penultimate episode, which was released on Netflix on Jan. 31. In that episode, it’s revealed that the show’s climactic moment has been hiding in plain sight from the very beginning. This long payoff, six years in the making, is just another small but key example of how Bojack has been one of the smartest and most transgressive shows on television in recent memory.

Lost-in-life feeling

While Bojack is now widely revered, its fate was much less certain when the filmmaker Mike Roberts was brought on to direct the title sequence in 2014. For the most part, adult animation was confined to a specific lane—largely consisting of crude jokes aimed at teenage boys—and the first few episodes of Bojack hewed dangerously close to that standard.

“The first three episodes didn’t give everyone the full picture of how serious and dark and thematically deep the show goes,” Roberts tells TIME. “The main thing was to let the audience know that it wasn’t just this typical show—that there was some depth coming.”

In creating the title sequence, Roberts hoped to take viewers on a tour of Bojack’s everyday life—just like the introduction to The Simpsons and Scooby Doo—but from a peculiar vantage point: as if a GoPro was locked facing Bojack’s head. Roberts says he was primarily inspired by YouTube travel videos and how unintentionally strange they are: “It has this weird sensation of being there but also not being there, because the person is such a large part of the frame,” Roberts says. “We wanted this lost-in-life feeling, as if you were on a vacation somewhere exotic but stuck in your life that you kind of hate.”

The sequence shows Bojack walking through his house, going to the supermarket, partying with friends, and falling into a pool. But while his day is action-packed, he doesn’t seem to be in control—his body drifts automatically through space, wobbling slightly. “We wanted to feel like the day was running away from him,” Roberts says.

The sequence also communicates a disconnect between Bojack and those around him. Because Bojack faces the viewers, he can’t actually see the people that populate his house, and thus mostly doesn’t react to them at all. While he moves fluidly, the other characters flicker in stop-motion, as if they they’re not quite real to him. The amount of space Bojack’s own face takes up in the frame also reflects his narcissism and his inability to see the world outside of himself.

And the sequence not only gives the viewer clues about Bojack’s disorienting headspace, but forces us into it. Bojack’s blank stare has a startling mirroring effect, as if you were staring at your own reflection through the window of a moving train. “The feeling of the camera being locked to you while the background is moving is so surreal and weird,” Roberts says. “In some ways, it feels a bit like being drunk or being high.”

While the visual sequence was arresting on its own, the accompanying music would also be crucial in signaling the show’s tone. After culling through options, the creative team ultimately came down to two pieces: an instrumental by Patrick and Ralph Carney propelled by braying saxophones, and a melancholic ditty by Grouplove. “The Carney song was intense—almost a film noir kind of thing, while the Grouplove song was scary-funny in a Lynchian way,” Roberts said. “As we overlaid them, it was obvious which one fit.” They chose the Carney song, with its sinister haziness, for the top of each episode, and then moved the Grouplove song to the end credits as a pitch black resolution.

“You’d feel the momentum”

Bob-Waksberg loved Roberts’ concept: “It illustrated what the show was going to be even when the show itself was not illustrating that,” he says.

But he wasn’t completely satisfied—and he asked that the sequence reflect another key aspect of the show. “One of the things that set us apart early on, as opposed to other animated shows, was the fact that Bojack was continuous and serialized,” Bob-Waksberg says. While other animated sitcom protagonists, like Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin and Sterling Archer, perform reckless actions that are mostly wiped clean at the end of each episode, Bojack’s life doesn’t reset; his decisions have devastating consequences to himself and those around him.

Bob-Waksberg wanted to use the title sequence to underscore those continuing repercussions—”so you’d feel the momentum of the series.” So Roberts and his team worked to implement small changes to the background of each episode’s title sequence. Some of the changes are little more than fun easter eggs: when Todd jumps on Bojack’s bed and breaks it, for example, his bed is propped up by books the next episode.

But other changes are far heavier: they document the end of relationships (with Wanda and Gina quietly disappearing) or show how Bojack’s actions have affected the outside world (after he gets the director Kelsey Jannings fired from Secretariat, she’s summarily replaced in the sequence by Abe D’Catfish). Before it’s revealed that his mother Beatrice has been drugging his sister Hollyhock through coffee, Beatrice is shown pouring a cup for her at the beginning of each episode.

And as the series goes on and Bojack devolves deeper into addiction and narcissism, the title sequence changes even more drastically. In season four, the segment that previously showed Bojack finally leaving his house is replaced by a kaleidoscopic montage of characters, signifying his past and present collapsing, his mental grip on reality spiraling out of control. (The sequence is triggered by Bojack drinking coffee, which also could be a nod to Beatrice’s sleight of hand.) “We wanted to have a trip-out kind of moment to show that he’s losing it,” Roberts says.

Bojack’s disconnect from reality is brought to its logical end in the season six title sequence, which was designed by Peter Merryman. Rather than showing Bojack meandering through his day, he instead wallows in his most entrenched and devastating memories, whether being confronted by his dying ex-friend Herb or eulogizing his mother. The sequence serves an unsettling double function: showing how Bojack has become locked in a prison of his own memories, and as a quasi-curtain call for the show’s most memorable episodes. “You’re watching a part of show that reminds you of watching a show that was about a guy that was in a show,” Merryman says. “You can peel that onion for a long time.”

A downer ending

Over time, the title sequence wormed its way into the show’s ethos and plot. In season three, for example, Bojack chooses a mirror-based ad campaign for his film Secretariat that looks eerily similar to the sequence.

But its significance rises another level in the penultimate episode, when a relapsed and depressed Bojack returns to his old house and flatlines in his pool. To Roberts, the possibility of this ending had been looming from the start: “The sequence implies that Bojack could fall into a pool, drunk and high, and maybe not come out,” he says.

Bob-Waksberg says this wasn’t by grand design—he had no idea when or how Bojack would end when he began writing the series. But he says that “the motif of swimming versus drowning gradually accumulated a lot of poignancy—and part of that is because it’s in the main title sequence. When someone brought up the idea while pitching, it felt so perfect and appropriate.”

Bob-Waksberg and the writing team then added another devastating connection to the title sequence. While the viewer might expect Diane to come to Bojack’s rescue—given that she perennially and anxiously hovers over his fall—this time, she fails to pick up his call. The fact that he will not be saved by his best friend means that the cycle shown in the title sequence—where he emerges from the pool scot-free from his mistakes—has truly been broken.

That climactic moment was widely hailed by critics and fans—and its emotional impact surely would have been dulled to anyone who uses the “Skip Intro” button on Netflix. Bob-Waksberg wishes that the button would be removed entirely. “I think it’s useless and it hurts the show,” he says. “Especially when you’re binging, it builds up anticipation and gives you a moment to think about the episode you saw and the episode you’re about to see. If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t have included it in the show that I delivered to Netflix.”

[placetobenation]

Welcome to Seinfeld: The PTBN Series Rewatch! On a regular basis, JT Rozzero, Aaron George, Andrew Flanagan, Jordan Duncan and Jason Greenhouse will watch an episode of TV’s greatest sitcom and provide notes and grades across a number of categories. The goal is to rewatch the entire series chronologically to see what truly worked, what still holds up today, what feels just a bit dated and yada, yada, yada it will be a great time. So settle into your couch with the cushions flipped over, grab a Snapple and enjoy the ride!

Best Character

JT: I liked Kramer the most here. The mail story was the best of the bunch and he had some strong delivery in multiple spots throughout the episode, including one of my favorite all time moments when he pops in the apartment and says that he called about the van. The dummy bucket stuff was funny too as was his showdown with the Postmaster General.

Aaron: It’s David Puddy for his ten seconds of screen time. He busts himself up with the Maytag man line then walks off towards immortality. What an indictment of this episode.

Andrew: It’s Kramer. I get the sense he’s partly on auto-pilot here, but he’s mastered the small touches so completely that the character always works. The “You said ‘a mailman I know’ and you’re a mailman I know!” line has always stayed with me, even coming from one of the weaker episodes. This isn’t the most ground-breaking performance, but it’s still worthwhile to recognize competence.

Jordan: I’ll go Kramer here. Even for a Kramer storyline, I felt the mail storyline was a stretch. So many episodes in the past have seen me struggle to choose because of so many good options, here it’s a case of trying to find anything I enjoyed.

Best Storyline

JT: The van had its moments but Kramer’s battle with the post office stands out here. It had the funniest lines and overall concept and I really liked he payoff the end with Newman being marched into far the Postmaster General. George’s cousin plot was creepy and The Wiz stuff was weak.

Aaron: George’s parents having enough of him takes the cake here. It’s as though they watched the show, saw the monster that they created and cut their losses. At first I was put off by the cousin dating, but then it struck me that it may be the most sensible relationship George has ever had.

Andrew: Definitely the post office stuff for me. George’s parents cutting him loose has an absurdist bent I enjoy, but they don’t explore the concept any further. The paranoid conspiracy movie pastiche, on the other hand, is the most fully realized idea this episode has to offer. And with Newman, Kramer, and the Postmaster General, this storyline has the best performances by far.

Jordan: As I type it out, the episode sounds fine. The post office stuff with Wilford Brimley was solid, the van stuff wasn’t terrible, and I didn’t even mind George desperate for his parents attention. Yet in execution – they all kind of fell flat? I’m going with Jerry’s van just for the scene where Kramer wants to buy it and asks about trades.

Ethical Dilemma of the Week

JT: Is being starved for attention reason enough to bang your cousin? Probably not if your cousin is Rhisa. I will let you sort out the rest.

Aaron: I’ve often wondered about incest. I guess my main question would be is there less of a stigma towards homosexual incest as opposed to heterosexual incest because of the lack of potential abominations? Countless men have fantasized about bedding twins with little regard to the damage those poor sisters would do to their souls. No one seems to bat an eye when two brothers dance the night away before a certain trip to a certain town. Why do we stand in the way of cousins, or sterile siblings? THEY ARE STERILE! If we let them own a cat together we should let them express their love in a free and horrific way.

Andrew: Is it OK to stop getting mail? Should citizens be able to opt out of government services they don’t personally care for? No. When did this segment turn into Libertarian Corner? Oh, so now I’m setting up strawmen in an argument with myself, am I? No YOU sound crazy!

Jordan: I would like to confess that I once went to a BBQ and saw a girl who I thought was smoking hot, only to be told that she was my cousin I had not seen for years. It was difficult to come to grips with, but thankfully, I maintained my dignity and did not flirt with my cousin. Nor should any of you.

Relationship Scale (Scale 1-10)

JT: Frankie Merman wants all of Jerry’s babies. The love AND lust in his eyes shone through anytime they were together. He got Jerry that van because he pictured them taking family trips to the country together every Sunday. Just tell him how you feel, Summer George! Relationship Grade: Van’s a Rockin’/Don’t Come Knockin’

Aaron: What’s grosser: Frank and Estelle christening the van or George banging his wine cooler infused cousin? Either one is preferable to Elaine and the God Damn Wiz. Relationship Grade: 0/10

Andrew: This episode is full of abhorrent couplings. But David Puddy remains a golden god. Relationship Grade: 0/Hoochie Mama

Jordan: If I can take any solace in this, it’s that Elaine Benes’ standards are so ridiculously low, that I have a legitimate shot with her. Seriously – The Wiz? Learn to love yourself, Laney! Relationship Grade: I’M NOT THE WIZ, AND I’M… AWESOOOOOME/10

What Worked:

JT: Whitey Fisk; “Jackbooted thugs” makes me laugh; What’s Jerry going to do with the old looking phone?; PUDDY~!; George scripting his calls to his parents is great; Jerry asking Elaine if the man she met was Whitey Fisk; What was Kramer’s original idea regarding the choke point?; I always enjoy how George reverts to the third person when he gets angry, such a fun callback for the rest of the series; Kramer’s brick line; Newman telling Violet to take her three hour break and his sweaty conversation with Kramer; Kramer walking in and saying “yeah I called about the van” is one off my all time favorite moments; Puddy trolling Elaine over The Wiz; The Bucket stuff is a funny running joke; Frank bringing back “hoochie mama”

Aaron: I like the creepy gravediggers who inhabit the park, especially the fact that there were potentially undressed ones the deeper into the woods you strode. The moment where Kramer realized that his “revenge” on Pottery Barn was fruitless was perfectly played. Rhisa just going for it with George was a fun twist.

Andrew: The whole Junk Mail storyline works for me. Kramer’s impotent revenge at Pottery Barn, the bricked up mailbox, the whole government conspiracy angle, and most of all the Postmaster General, gave me the most genuine laughs of the episode. David Puddy laughing at his own jokes at Elaine’s expense is great. I may be in the minority here, but Jack’s absurd strut with the Wiz crown makes me laugh.

Jordan: I popped big for Wilford Brimley. Long before he was simply “Diabetus” to today’s world, he was a legit actor. I always loved his voice. Him calmly talking to Kramer was both soothing and threatening. He did great. I also liked that Frank and Estelle are basically just done with George. The van seat lowering into a bed was a nice touch, as was George commenting that it was “a rockin'”.

What Didn’t Work

JT: Frankie Merman always looks like he just ran a marathon; I didn’t need the mental imagery of the Costanzas having intercourse; the immediate leap George makes to date his cousin feels a step too far for both him and the show; the coincidence that Jerry stumbled into the Wiz commercial just as they were talking about Jack was a bit too much; Why did George have to drive deep into the woods to execute his scheme; Jack doing that fucking Wiz dance, go get fucked

Aaron: What is going on with Elaine? Remember when she was picky with men? Sure she always dated but now she’s basically turned into a complete whore. She dumps her boyfriend at the mere hint of another man looking her in the eyes. That’s why Puddy’s Maytag man joke landed. It’s true! Ugh. What an awful turn for a once-great character. Why does callous Jerry suddenly care about ANYONE’S feelings? There is no way the guy who dropped “that’s a shames” left and right would give a living shit about some freak burying himself to death in a park. He had contempt for a bubble boy for Christ’s sake. Kramer’s whole production during the van sale made me want to vomit the compliments I lauded him with in countless of these things. Look no further than the preposterous Wiz dance for a terrific example of a guy having no idea what show he’s on.

Andrew: There are some fun, absurd ideas here that just don’t land. A park full of weirdos digging holes to lay in is a wonderful image, but somehow the episode can’t get the joke to land. Likewise, a son who’s only known withering levels of attention from his parents being “cut loose”, who then responds by trying to win them back, is a solid plot idea. And yet I’ve never given that story a second thought after the episode is over. It’s generally a bad sign when a show has a bad plot device (George’s parents agreeing to pick up the van from the woods), but the writers just lampshade it instead of fixing it (No parking meters out in the woods!). This is one of those episodes that feels rushed and unpolished to me.

Jordan: Full disclosure here, I am entering my thoughts after others have, and I scanned what JT wrote, and he sums it up for me. These stories sound OK on paper, but they seem to just dive right in. George going right to “I’ll date my cousin!” seems really far fetched, even for him. There was no escalation at all. To me, it was the same with Newman warning Kramer about getting rid of mail, it all just hits these big moments out of nowhere. Also, Jerry making fun of The Wiz after some of the things he’s worn FOR FREE is hypocrisy at it’s finest.

Key Character Debuts

– Frankie Merman

– Rhisa

Iconic Moments, Running Themes & Memorable Quotes

– “He was not the summer you. Besides, you had a summer me. Whitey Fisk, the guy who snuck you into Last Tango in Paris.” – Jerry “I made him up.” – George “So you never saw Last Tango in Paris?” – Jerry “No.” – George “Too bad. It was erotic.” – Jerry

– “Well… I’ve had it with these jackbooted thugs!” – Kramer “‘Pottery Barn’?” – Jerry

– “After dark? Please. At their age, that’s like swallowing stun grenades.” – George

– “So, this is beautiful. You, and Puddy, and this new guy, in a big pot of love stew.” – Jerry

– “Will you look at this? More catalogs! ‘Omaha Steaks’, ‘Mac Warehouse’, ‘Newsweek’?! I can’t stop all these companies, so, I’m gonna attack this problem at the choke point.” – Kramer “Stop the mail?” – Jerry “That’s… even better!” – Kramer

– “Where’d you get the bricks?” – Jerry “Jerry, the whole building is brick.” – Kramer

– “Oh, that’s it. They have gone too far. They keep pushing me, and pushing me. Now I got no choice but to go down there… and talk to them.” – Kramer

– “Ah, shut up, Jerry. My parents think they can ignore me. Heh heh. Well, they better think again.” – George “Oh, no. George, please. What are you going to do?” – Jerry “You remember my cousin Rhisa? I’m gonna date her.” – George

– “That’s pretty pathetic.” – George “I know. They’re not even related.” – Jerry

– “Oh, it’s fantastic. We were out in front of the post office today, and not one person went in.” – Kramer “It’s Sunday.” – Jerry

Oddities & Fun Facts

– Legendary actor Wilford Brimley portrays the Postmaster General

Overall Grade (Scale 1-10)

JT: This is another weak episode here in season nine. I really liked the mail saga and there was plenty of laughs but the other three stories never quite clicked. Frankie was a weirdo, George was a creep and Elaine was an idiot. I don’t mind that they are getting a bit over the top here in their final season but some of this stuff is way too much and just not believable after a certain point. The Kramer mail stuff is a bit nutty but in line with the character’s motivations. A man digging holes in Central Park when his feelings are hurt and George wanting to bang his cousin to get his parents’ attention just don’t resonate at all. They still seem to be figuring out what they want this season to be and hopefully it all clicks together soon. Final Grade: 5/10

Aaron: I think I hate this show now. The barely-recognizable characters suck, the performances are stiff and wooden and when Frank and Estelle can’t save an episode we’re in serious, serious trouble. Man the writing has become awful too. Everything used to feel organic. Everything used to feel like it would actually happen. How on Earth is Frank Costanza finding that van in the woods? The over convenient situations have reached an absurd point. Fuck the Wiz. Final Grade: 1/10

Andrew: This is not a good one. I have fond memories of the post office stuff, but otherwise it’s pretty much a dud. Final Grade:  5/10

Jordan: This feels like an episode where they had to come up with something for everyone, rather than just fit everyone into on e story. I liked the mail stuff with Kramer, and feel like they could have just built the entire episode around that story -easily bringing George and Elaine into it somehow. Instead, we have a huge swing and a miss with George and his cousin, another miss with Elaine and The Wiz, and if I’m being generous, a base hit with Jerry’s van. But it’s not memorable at all. Final Grade: 4/10

[maggieminordesignssculpture-blog]

How to Feel more Connected to your Home

If you ask anyone what they want to feel when they come home...they say something like happy, relaxed, or belonging. But if you prod them a little bit what you'll find out is that they really want to feel deep down are two things...safe and connected.

I completely understand because these are the two things that I want to feel when I'm at home. Everyone does.

Why? Well, because they're basic human needs. 

However, in our culture of shoulds and trying to please others we often choose homes, furniture and artwork that fits into what we think that we need to be. And as a result our connection to our home suffers.....and as a result we don't recharge fully in the evening...and then we feel out of alignment the next day.

So how can we feel more connected to our homes?

The answer is simple...but the process of making it happen is a tough one. So buckle your seat belt because we're going to dig in. This isn't one of those posts that's going to give you 10 easy steps to loving your home...this is personal growth work. Because...

We have to feel connected to ourselves before we feel connected to our homes

And most home decor blogs provide a nice array of band-aids including trends, how to segments and product recommendations that make us feel like we're part of something bigger. The problem is that we think that we have to be the same to be part of something bigger....we have trouble with the concept that by accepting our genuine likes and dislikes we are also part of something bigger...

The more into writing this post that I get the more I'm reminded of Brene Brown's latest book, Braving the Wilderness. I haven't read the book yet, but I've watched multiple interviews she's given for its release and they're all fascinating. If you're wondering what I'm talking about then watch her Marie Forleo interview. You'll be glad you did.

Marie and Brene talk about how having the courage to be your true self not only makes you feel more fulfilled but will attract people into your life that appreciate that about you. This in turn becomes a lovely cycle of fulfillment whereby being yourself attracts good things and that encourages you to be even more yourself. Sounds awesome right!

So what does this have to do with home decor?

Well, a lot actually. Because when we're true to ourselves when we choose what we put in our house. If we go with our gut reaction and take a few risks we're going to end up with a home that makes us feel more fulfilled when we walk in the door. And then in turn it will uplift us and give us the added boost we need to be even more ourselves....and as a result a happier person. I know...because I've done it.

How to Listen to your Gut Reaction

Our culture teaches us to go along with the crowd. We've all worn something we didn't particularly like to please someone else, ordered something from a menu that sounded disgusting or gone to see a movie that even the title made our faces scrunch up. Sometimes it's okay...we do it as a compromise or because it will give us pleasure to share an experience with someone we love. But when we feel like we're betraying ourselves....that's when we know we've gone too far. We know this because we get a queasy feeling in our stomach and we feel resistance physically in our bodies. To put it simply it just doesn't feel right.

The best way to figure out if you're not following your gut reaction is to think back to a time when you did follow your gut reaction. Remember how good it felt, how you felt like you were being drawn to it like a magnet, how it just felt effortless. Then compare that to how you feel now.

How to Use your Gut Reaction to Pick your Home Decor

Before you pick out your new home decor first you need to declutter...that is unless you're moving into a brand new house and you have no furniture. If that's not the case read my my post How to Declutter for Better Relationships. 

Once that's done and you've taken a minute or a few days or a few weeks to catch your breath it's time to get started. 

The first stage and the most important stage is the one that most people skip...and that's where people get tripped up.

You have to decide what you want.

I'm not talking the things you want. What I'm talking about are first - how do you want to feel when you're in each room - and second - what is your intention for the room. 

For example, I'm living in a temporary living situation right now so I've really been thinking about what I want my next home to feel like. In particular I've focused a lot of my mental attention on the living room. What I want to feel in my next living room is relaxed, inspired, and secure....and I intend to use my next living room as a place to watch tv, socialize with friends, and sit in stillness so I can sift through my thoughts. 

So if I break down each word then I can get at how I can accomplish these feelings. So what do I need in order to feel relaxed? Well, I need a super comfortable couch, a TV with high resolution, and a sturdy table within arms reach to place my drinks and snacks.

What do I need in order to feel inspired? I need a window or door that looks onto something pretty like a tree or vista, colorful artwork that makes me feel uplifted and furniture that is modern and clean.

What do I need to feel secure? I need windows and doors that lock properly, shades or curtains that block out the outside and I need to set up my furniture so that my back is facing the wall when I am sitting on the couch. 

I've been doing this a while so I could break that down pretty quickly...but in all likelihood this is for your first time....so be kind to yourself. List out your top three feelings and then imagine a room or situation in the future or the past where you've felt that way. What was around you? Then list out those things.

Next, pick what your intention for the room that you're decorating. What will you use it for? What have you used this kind of room for in the past...don't leave anything out. 

Now it's time to select your Home Decor

Now that you have your list, don't you feel like you have more purpose! This is needed because there's a lot to choose from...but if you have the right criteria it will go quickly. Why? Because you can say 'no' easier. And move faster to what what you like.

Make a list of all of the stores that come to find when you think of buying furniture. Figure out which ones you don't like and cross them off. No sense in wasting your time. Then visit the ones that you do like online and narrow it down. Don't forget about online stores like Wayfair or local stores like high end second hand stores. Both of these will have some real treasures. 

If you're feeling tired at this point...like you just want someone to pick a room out for you...and you don't want to look for each item individually ....don't worry you're not alone. There's a lot of resources for you too! If you like modern decor with touches of color check out my room designs. I have almost a hundred rooms completely with furniture, artwork, accent pieces and even things you never even thought of. 

Just remember to use your list when you going through each room. Do the items in each room fit how you want to feel and your intention for the room?

For those of you who want to go at piece by piece, go forth and explore. Make sure to sit in furniture to make sure it's right for you. Just don't compromise. If it doesn't feel how you want it to feel, don't worry. The right piece will come along. You just have to be patient and persistent...and above all be true to yourself!

For More Inspirational Artwork and Design Ideas

Visit my modern sculpture, modern wall sculptures, abstract canvas artwork, and abstract framed wall art pages. And click on more inspirational posts...

How to Declutter for Better Relationships

How to Use Artwork to Make Eating Even More Enjoyable

How the Right Office Decor can Focus your Mindset

How Waking up to Colorful Artwork can Improve your Day

How to Create a Sophisticated Loft Living Room with Oversized Artwork

How to Create a Colorful Loft Living Room with Vibrant Artwork

How to Create a Fabulous Modern Loft Living Room with Oversized Artwork

How to Create a Beautiful Modern Rustic Bedroom

How to Create a Glamorous and Cheerful Modern Bedroom

How to Create a Fabulous Blue Modern Living Room

How a Colorful Home can Make you Bolder

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[lifeofafemalebibliophile]

My Favorite Things” is a monthly segment where I share my personal and current favorites in seasonal products, health & beauty, food, decor, movies, TV, and more. Hope you enjoy these personal picks!

TV

Noragai Aragoto

Synopsis: A minor god seeking to gain widespread worship teams up with a human girl he saved to gain fame, recognition and at least one shrine dedicated to him.

Finally Season Two! I was just as pleased with this season as much as the first one. We see the return of all of the lovable characters which make the show and the second season really delves into back stories while moving forward with the overall story arc. We learn Yato’s origin as a god and see how he is making small steps in order to become god that is loved by many. The relationship between him and Hiyori deepen as their friendship becomes stronger and Hiyori starts become more involved in the spirit world. Season Two was full of action and character development. It ends with a cliff hanger so I can’t wait to see what’s in store for Season Three.

  My Only Love Song

Synopsis: Song Soo-Jung  is a top star and she is very arrogant. She classifies people by how much money they have. Suddenly, she goes back in time to the Joseon era and meets On Dal. He will do anything to make money, but in fact he is generous to the weak and poor.

Yay! Netflix is making more Korean dramas and this show is one not to miss out on. My Only Love Song is a great fusion between historical fiction and time travel as Soo-Jung the MC gets thrown back in time to the Joseon era. It’s comedic, action-packed, and romance is very sweet. I was highly entertained by this show and I found myself binge-watching it as it runs 30 min (filmed more like a web drama). Soo-Jung is such a feisty lead and the actress who plays her does a fantastic job, she definitely makes the show. ‎Lee Jong-Hyun equally pulls off the tough guy (but a softie on the inside) On Dal. The chemistry between the two actors is what makes this show flow so well. The ending has some closure, but kind of has a cliff-hanger. Hopefully there will be a season two. *fingers crossed*

Mystic Whispers

Synopsis: Mo Xiaoyun lost her sense of hearing in her left ear after an accident one year ago and started hearing strange sounds. She has a hunch that she is hearing strange sounds from another world, but chooses to feign ignorance, hoping that she will be fine if she ignores it. She teams up with exorcist cum mortician, Zhang Ji’en, to help the ghosts move on peacefully.

Again, another web drama! I’m on this kick where I’m watching shorter shows cause I feel like I can’t commit to any long running TV shows at the moment. You can tell this is a web drama when you watch this show because of the filming style and it’s overall cheesiness, but I still very much enjoyed it. I felt like it was comedic version of every supernatural show I’ve ever watched. It has its eerie moments, but heartwarming ones as the ghosts find solace to move on. The witty banter between the duo, Xiaoyun and Ji’en adds to the entertainment factor.

Movies

Girls Trip

Synopsis: When four lifelong friends travel to New Orleans for the annual Essence Festival, sisterhoods are rekindled, wild sides are rediscovered, and there’s enough dancing, drinking, brawling, and romancing to make the Big Easy blush.

This movie had me laughing out loud from beginning to end. It’s raunchy and loud, but the overall theme of sisterhood/friendship is what I loved the most about this movie. Regina. Queen Latifah, Tiffany, and Jada really shined in this movie and their on-screen chemistry is what helped the movie flow so well. The movie captured the essence of girlfriends while also discussing relevant and relatable things that people go through.  I recommend this movie for a girl’s night in film or when you’re looking for a feel-good film.

  Our Little Sister

Synopsis: This movie tells the story of three sisters in their 20s who live together in Kamakura, and are joined by their 14-year-old half-sister after their father dies.

I’ve been meaning to watching movie since I first heard about it and I’m so glad I did. The story of the these four sisters was touching, heartwarming, and deep. I love movies that explore family relationships and I liked how the movie was a coming of age story and the ties that band family together. The three sisters take their half-sister into their home on a whim and they have to learn to adjust to their new lifestyle while helping the youngest sister to grow on her own. Each sister’s personality is so different and it was interesting to see how they interacted with each other and put their differences aside to help one another.

  Stormy Weather

Synopsis: The relationship between an aspiring dancer and a popular songstress provides a retrospective of the great African American entertainers of the early 1900s.

In my never-ending list of classic movies to watch I decided to watch Stormy Weather which stars some of the most notable African-American entertainers of the early 1900s. While the plot is lacking and the film ends without a real resolution the cinematography, music, and lavish dance scenes make up for it. The musical numbers in this film are absolutely stunning from the intricate choreography to the beautiful costumes. It’s so entertaining!

Music

Gucci by Jessi

This song is my jam right now! With lyrics like “Cause I’m self mad. Ain‘t no body ever made me.”, it’s an anthem about owning what you have and feeling fly. Jessi is one my favorite female rappers in Korea and I love this song so much. It’s got a great beat and it’s a song that would get you hype if it played in a club.

Can’t Stop Dancing by Captain & Tennille

Ah, good ‘ol Captain & Tennille! Their songs always have me groovin’ and this track will have you dancing in no time. With Cathryn’s signature vocals and Daryl’s funky jazzy piano melody it’s such an upbeat tune. This is one of my favorite songs from the duo.

Perfect Situation by Weezer

When I was in my alternative rock phase during middle school this song by Weezer was always on replay. It’s a bit sad when you listen to the lyrics. The way the song is sung you can feel the emotions and it’s mid-tempo melody is fast enough to make you tap you feet along.

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I acquired three albums to my K-pop collection during my trip to Chicago. From left to right: Wonder Girls: The Wonder Years, My Lovely Samsoon OST, and A Pink: Pink Blossom 4th Mini Album.

Beauty

Assorted Face Masks

I got these assortment of Korean face masks on my recent trip to Chicago. Some of the brands such as Innisfree are familiar and others like Dermal are new to me. I look forward to try these all! 😀

Apparel

My Weekend is All Booked T-Shirt

I found this shirt on a recent Target trip and it’s so cute! It combines two of favorite things Belle (my favorite Disney princess) and reading!

K-Pop/Anime Socks!

Also from my Chicago trip! They are adorable. Left to right: Sailor Moon, BTS, No Face from Spirited Away.

*This post is in no way sponsored

What are some of your favorite things in August? Share your thoughts in the comment section below. 🙂

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My Favorite Things: August Edition My Favorite Things” is a monthly segment where I share my personal and current favorites in seasonal products, health & beauty, food, decor, movies, TV, and more.