#i just talked about all of them pure stream of consciousness. and then i edited it all bizarrely nicely together for like 2 people to watch

[urban-shade]

i have this 40 minute long ramble podcast-y video on top of run footage about pressure/sebastian and i really want to make it public for the real pressureheads but i go off on zeals writing maybe a little too insanely to actually make it public (in a positive way but still) but i have a lot of good clips from it i might eventually post. here's one where i ramble about what'd happen if they wanted to make sure he still had all his tastebuds

[itslucyhenley]

I watched Meg Ryan’s new movie What Happens Later and I just have mad respect that the absolute queen of rom-coms directed a movie where in the first five minutes one of the characters unplugs a digital sign with a generic ad flashing the words “rom-com” on it and the omniscient airport announcer sounds like 90s trailer voice man. So meta, loved it. I watched it like it was week 15 of a college course on rom-coms where we just watched every classic Meg Ryan performance and then the professor says, now let’s see what america’s sweetheart herself has to say about it all. And we think we’re going to watch a traditional rom-com, a comeback, a triumphant return to a familiar place if you will, but we’re actually watching an existential two-hander stage play about perception and aging and what it means to really be honest with someone else and with yourself. And the songs are familiar 90s songs but they sound wrong because they’re just oddly homogeneous sounding covers of the originals. And the whole thing takes place in this unnamed regional airport during a storm, a liminal space where the foreground and backgrounds are filled with blurry faces and legs walking by in the background until eventually there’s a scene later on where they’re just silhouettes. After the first 10 minutes of the movie the characters only talk to each other and the electronic voices of support kiosks and the omnipotent airport announcer and take phone calls that we can’t hear the other end of and we don’t see the phone screen telling us who is calling. They sit in restaurants with no waitstaff and bars with no bartenders. There’s no sense of direction either you don’t get any sense of the layout of the space they’re occupying and the aerial shot of the airport at various points during the movie looks sharp but the characters are almost always walking in circles. I don’t know man I was riveted, I was stroking my chin in deep thought, I just kept saying “interesting, interesting.”

edit: also I left the dvd menu screen on for like two hours after I finished watching the movie, it just kept playing this absolutely hypnotic 18 seconds of the score over a clip of them dancing in a hallway as seen from the outside looking in through falling snow and there’s a continuity error where David Duchovny’s white shirt alternates between being tucked in and untucked and I didn’t even care. During that actual scene they’re dancing to “Pure” by The Lightning Seeds which is the only not-a-cover song in the movie i think? And at one point Meg Ryan looks up and yells “louder” and the music gets a little louder and I’m sitting on the couch in my living room but I’m trying to figure out where I am actually because I thought I was gonna watch a trope-heavy romcom but I’m sat here typing out this stream-of-consciousness movie analysis on tumblr dotcom.

[twst-drabbles]

now, i have no idea if this has been talked about in regards to pet peeves with fanfics, BUT TOO ME, any bad grammar, extremely artsy writing and boring dialogue loses my interest 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️

now, ik there are some people whose first language isn't english [ but that somehow makes the fics so delicious ] which i can definitely understand cuz i still struggle with it and it's my first language, but i'm talking bad grammar to the point where there's no punctuation AT ALL

like damn, take a breath bestie. add a full-stop or something

as for artsy writing, you can be poetic but it annoys me when they use words/phrases that are too long that no average reader would know the meaning of without having to look it up. that, and especially if the fandom/character they're writing for doesn't really fit that poetic/artsy style of writing

when it comes to dialogue, i can understand the fear of going off from the source material when it comes to making characters interact [ i.e. any x reader fics ] without the possibility of ruining some characters' development, but you can at least SPICE it up

bc sometimes the dialogue comes off as monotone and ruins the scene, ESPECIALLY IF IT'S A REALLY EMOTIONAL ONE 💀💀

anyway! those are some of my pet peeves 💃💃

Many people always say to read your stuff out loud. if you find yourself breathless, you need to add a comma or a period somewhere.

Oh boy, purple prose! Not gonna lie, just for shits and giggles, I like to privately write purple prose just to test how convoluted I can make them. Like this:

This anger, the one that makes a man abandon his weapons, that makes him reach out with bare hands with no regards for efficiency, that still clutch at this hairpin he once gave as a gift as though that too will disappear, it will sear a mark in his head, for it is fuel by desperation.

Though, to be quite honest, it will never be on the levels on that one YA book called Shatter Me. That book is Purple Prose Central and makes me wonder is anyone properly edited the book at all.

Rook would certainly have that fancy writing talk, Idia is...stream of consciousness. It's going to be a mess with him, for certain.

Ah, the dialogue. Often, people forget that visual novel dialogue does not translate well into a pure prose medium. The monotone of the dialogue is easily disguised for the fact that you have visual cues, via the portraits and sprites that sorta tricks your brain into ignoring it. So when you bring in the entire dialogue while also stacking on descriptive prose, you end up with a really clogged up product.

[voidaspects]

Didn't mean to leave you on read, i wanted to respond to this as soon as i saw the reply but i wasnt sure how to. I genuinely appreciate that you took the time to read all this and respond to it, even if you disagree, and I wanted to make sure I didn't come off argumentative. I also wanted to try and finish watching that interview you mentioned before I properly responded to this, but I've been too busy to.

I will say though, from everything I've seen about the behind the scenes of this series, I do think there's more ambiguity than your response would entail. Maybe we're both coming at this from the wrong angle, who knows. I'm someone who's tried to track down every piece of media, both official and behind the scenes, that I possibly can, but I definitely missed that one that you referenced, and I'm excited to have something new to experience.

I realize this is a bit of a non-response to your claims, but not responding at all felt like it may give the wrong impression. Your valid, and your stance here is valid, even if I've yet to be fully convinced of all your points, I'm genuinely glad to hear them.

Regardless of how our interpretations diverge, I'm just happy to engage in talking about something I enjoy with other people. This post wasn't some big essay, it was just pure, unfiltered stream of consciousness and perspective I had on the initial reveal.

(Also nothing I said was meant to be a negative, additionally. The only negative thought I have about any of this so far is that I don't think monster baby is a compelling enough villain to carry the entirety of the marketing like it is right now lmao. I don't even think they're bad, but wow they are being hyped up)

(Edit: actually, not to ruin what I was saying, and again, don't want to be combative, but I strongly recommend rewatching that interview you were referring to, while keeping in mind what I was talking about in my original post. There are several segments in it that actually reinforce what I was trying to say, rather than disprove it. There's a point in the interview where he explicitly talks about the importance of ambiguity and how the interpretation of the audience is an important factor in the storytelling? Remember, I didn't say that the series didn't have an intended story that it wanted to tell, I said that it told that story through implication and let your brain fill in the gaps, and that's where the individual interpretation of the narrative comes in)

(Also which item listing are you referring to? I was curious and went looking around, but every single item description for the second game just refers to it as "the world" or derivatives of that. Not trying to debate you or anything, I'm just genuinely curious where you encountered these item listings? I'm not setting out to disprove you, I genuinely want to know about what you're referring to)

My initial thoughts on what we've seen from Little Nightmares III so far:

okay, first of all-

ohmygodohmygod it's happening this is the best day of my life I'm eternally grateful we get more of this oh my god I'm so happy-

okay, with that out of the way, I have more in depth thoughts. My overall feelings on the reveal are incredibly positive, but with the caveat that this is still visibly missing some elements from the initial LN formula. This isn't to say that this will be bad in comparison, just different, and I feel it's worth it to put a spotlight on that.

The most obvious example of a change in philosophy is the inclusion of multiplayer. To be totally honest, I was actually worried about the idea of them including multiplayer, because the idea seems to stand against the linear artistic experience that the series is recognized for, but the way they've pitched the multiplayer does sound pretty unobstructive, so I'll bite my tongue on that. I do think it has a risk of making the experience less cohesive though. It's clear that the decision was inspired by LN2, but that undersells the amount of individuality that six has in that game. You can't recreate the volatile emotions of your interactions with her if there wasn't the moments where she's not there with you, and you can't have the scripted moments where she acts of her own accord to serve the narrative, if she was meant to serve the dual purpose of being a vessel for another player. idk, I suppose we'll see.

The other visible element that branches out from the original philosophy is the very clear push towards grounded, overt storytelling. Little nightmares from the beginning has presented it's story in a very deliberately vague way. Typically, it pushes the story beats through implication, and let's your brain fill in the gaps to get the intended story beats alongside some lingering uncertainty of the conclusion you've come to. it's not a game that is meant to be explained (contrary to what some youtube videos might tell you lol. the truth of little nightmares story is, explicitly, what you personally take away from it. some people view six as sympathetic, some people view her as purely heartless, and neither conclusion is wrong (please don't fight about it ; ;)

anyway, point is... this new entry is distancing itself from that element that's been inherently baked in until this point. like in the initial development of the first game, they removed all references to real world language, there is deliberately no spoken language in the series. the only exception so far, out of every piece of media in the series, has been the comics, which were cancelled and decanonized (though those characters still exist in that universe somewhere, in my heart ; ;) and the press release material, which has been the backbone of all explicitly stated Little Nightmares facts. we wouldn't even have character names if it weren't for that stuff, there are no names stated in any of those games!

with that said, and while it is cool as hell that they exist... making the new announcement of additional story media in this universe be through audio drama is a bit of an odd choice, isn't it? like... inherently? with this in mind? Like I'm over the moon with excitement, I'm not complaining, but the change in philosophy is pretty visible, right?

also, speaking of the universe, another example of the shift to more overt and clear storytelling is that they've officially given the setting a name. this isn't strictly new, we have "The Maw" "The Nest" (still canon in my heart ; ;) "The Pale City" and the new game, in turn, has "The Necropolis"

and yet, another name in the marketing has been "the Nowhere," a name that has been exclusively described with language implying we are already familiar with it, e.g. "welcome back to the Nowhere" and "are you ready to return to the Nowhere?"

This name has never been used in any previous media, as far as I know, but I think it's pretty clear that the underlying implication is that "The Nowhere" refers to the entirety of the LN universe.

not to sound like a broken record, but... my reaction remains a simultaneous "this is cool as hell" and "this was made with a very different philosophy in mind."

I predict that LN2 will have a much more cohesive story, grounded in a specific and defined setting. We've lost the ambiguity present in the series' identity, but that could lead to some cool things in the future.

overall? I'm extremely excited and incredibly optimistic, but do think that we should go into this new experience with the understanding that it might be a different one. There is visibly a new team working on this one, and while they may not have put as much focus into the subtleties of this franchise's identity, they are very clearly trying to stay true to the overall identity. you can tell in the art style, it's borderline perfect, and it's very clear that the people working on this knew how important stuff like that was to this game, and to us. This won't be the same experience that Tarsier would have made, but Tarsier was content to not make any more of this experience, so a new direction is far from blasphemous. I'm overjoyed that we're getting this new experience, with all it's little differences, and I can't wait to see what they do.

(also, to anyone who's curious about the design philosophy of the original game, I highly recommend this presentation. I feel like not enough people have seen this, and it's so interesting)

[heterodickpaper]

examining pippa & her relationship with theo through her end of book letter, part 1: pippa's feelings

disclaimer: do not expect this to be polished it's very stream-of-consciousness and though i did edit it i'm too lazy to go back and format it nicely. i'll try and have part 2 up within the week--this one is more focused on pippa's feelings for theo and part 2 is more about theo's feelings for pippa and how they change throughout the book. if you have any thoughts about this feel free to message me!! i'm always down to talk about tgf

if i ever wrote an essay about pippa’s characterization and her feelings for theo i would have a lot to say about her letter to him at the end of the book. because at first i was like huh??? she loves him??? and i had a few possible rationalizations for this which were: 1. no she doesn’t she just pities him 2. no she doesn’t (she loves me) 3. she does but in a friend way 4. she actually does and i did not like option 4 at all because what??? after all that?? she has to deal with this awkward clumsy obsessive guy who is frankly a terrible black-hole mess of a person for years and she loves him?? why?? after theo spends the whole book telling us she hates him only for him to be wrong at the last minute?? it was unfathomable to me. at first it seemed like the realization of richard’s fantasies of camilla in the secret history—the idealized dream girl actually loves the average guy who’s never done anything to deserve her back!!! it bothered me so much. i mean there were absolutely no signposts! in fact he tells us multiple times that she might even be repulsed by him!! maybe it seems dumb that i didn’t realize until i thought about it but it took me a while to realize that that’s the point!!! the more i thought about it the more i realized that it’s not a dream come true at all, and what it really is changes everything (which is interesting considering the relatively little time the book spends on it but more on that later). first, while pippa is kind of a camilla-like character on the surface (by “on the surface” i mean the way we/theo see her), we’re shown proof that she actually has a life, that she’s a real person—theo just doesn’t see her that way because the lens he views her through is warped by trauma (rather than camilla, who’s portrayed through the male gaze). and that’s why rather than being a ridiculous and unrealistic happy ending or proof that pippa’s character really is as shallow as the knowledge theo has of her, her letter is a callout of both him and the reader. it’s the first real glimpse we have into her true feelings surrounding her trauma and once we have it it seems painfully obvious—she has theo’s exact same trauma; it makes sense that she would have complicated feelings around him too. it must be devastating for her to go back to new york which is already hard for her and see theo and have him practically throwing himself at her at every opportunity and she has to be the responsible one. but theo never even considers that. that’s why her letter is as much his dream come true as it is a reality check—a slap in the face reminding him that he doesn’t really know her, and not even just in terms of recognizing her feelings! after reading the letter, it takes theo a few moments to get what she means about them dragging each other down: “I realized…with considerable astonishment, what she was getting at.” he puts together pieces (which were pretty obvious to me in spite of being told by theo, who doesn’t even notice them) that he’s never recognized as belonging to the same puzzle, even knowing her medical history, the schools she attended, physical signs he passes off as “adorable” quirks. even having her literal exact same trauma! seeing her infrequently doesn’t justify this--this is because of theo’s perpetual inward focus. it does make sense that there are some things he wouldn’t know about her; throughout the book pippa tries to distance herself from theo and keep their relationship purely platonic, because she’s much more rational than him and she deals with her feelings in a different and probably healthier way (but gosh what an good friend! she comes to his engagement party and talks with his weird greasy russian friend and still maintains a friendly relationship with theo despite the obstacles he throws in her path and she never lets on how hard it must be for her. i love pippa). she does her best to move on, something theo just can’t do. but at the same time--her offhand comments & little touches, which theo only takes in in the context of his reactions to them, might mean something

completely different told by a more reliable, less self-centered narrator. so her letter is also another of the many things that show just how unreliable theo is, despite at first seeming flimsy and improbable. theo’s characterization and plot arc necessitates that we can’t know for sure, but it’s clear at least that pippa’s feelings for theo are as complex as his for her--she’s just better at hiding them, and she understands and accepts that because of their nature, she and theo can’t be together.

and i think she’s right--it’s not something irrational holding her back. the impossibility of their relationship is made very clear in the book because of the ways they’re juxtaposed with each other, particularly in terms of how they deal with their trauma. this is an especially pertinent point because it’s at the heart of every interaction they have with each other. the longest conversation they have, and the only really meaningful one mentioned in the book except for “the rich passionate talk” they had during “her visit the previous summer”, is entirely about the explosion and its effects in one area or another. it begins with pippa telling theo about how she can’t watch live music because of it, and ends with theo talking about how he ended up at hobie’s (611-618). and though it’s the thing that unifies them, it’s also the thing that divides them--theo longed to get back to new york when he was in vegas, while pippa can hardly stand to be there. he’s built his After life around the barbours, figures from Before, while pippa has made hers by moving to another continent. and by the end of the book it seems like she had the right of it--traveling around the world, away from home, is the closest theo has gotten to maybe reaching some kind of peace.

[backjustforberena]

I do find it interesting that Corlys was lfighting in the stepstones for 6 years and Rhaenys never pulled up on Meleys. After 6 months I would’ve pulled up Ngl.

Please, lordy, let me keep this short and on task... can you tell I hardly edit these asks? A pure stream of consciousness, my friend. But I do love answering them. And you're right, it is interesting that they go six years with minimal contact and Rhaenys never leaves on Meleys and goes off to see him when things are so clearly unresolved. BUT, I have reasonings in my head as to why she doesn't. I shall attempt to illustrate them. I don't know if they are good reasons or necessarily excuse the fact that she doesn't go on a dragon, but I think they are probably the reasons Rhaenys uses:

They're used to being apart - Corlys frequently goes away on journeys and to war. The Stepstones War that happened earlier in the series took 3 years. Even if no one thought it would take six years, you can imagine that Rhaenys is used to being patient and believes that they can talk about it when he gets back. I think there is probably a difference between how she views the separation over that timeline. She feels differently about it when he first leaves, how she feels before learning he's injured, then how she feels when she thinks he's dying, and finally, when she actually gets to his bedside after going through all the crap of the last few days.

They're used to fighting - They frequently disagree so there still could be a sense of... normalcy about it? Maybe that's the wrong word, but a sense of security that it's not going to break them. Both of them are fiercely independent and fiercely stubborn. Not a great reason, but a factor. Rhaenys can park her feelings on the matter.

She can't leave Driftmark - Driftmark is a place she is ruling, a responsibility given to her by Corlys and not a place she'd be willing to leave, especially in politically unrestful times and also with Vaemond just sort of... lurking there. I think in any case, she takes the ruling of Driftmark very seriously and would be unwilling to abandon her post. Also, if she did, who would be her second? Who would rule in her absence, even if her absence were a few days? It seems impractical. Not insurmountable, I'm sure you'd want to point out, but impractical. Also, Baela. Rhaenys has her days filled with Baela as her ward and would be unwilling to leave her unattended, I'm sure.

How would it help? - Would Corlys be receptive if she turned up on dragonback, without sending word, to essentially have a marriage counselling session? I doubt it. I don't think he's ready to talk about it, not after, as you suggest, just six months. he needs to have that massive dent to his pride, he needs to wallow, and he needs to feel the consequences, in my opinion. Their reconciliation in the show works because he's come to that conclusion himself. Rhaenys pushing the issue (and how long could she stay?), would only make him defensive and it would have the chance to simply make things worse if he feels attacked or cornered. Plus, he is there for a legitimate reason. There is a war going on. What exactly would Rhaenys go there to ask him? Come back? She can't. He's fighting.

How would it look? - I don't think Rhaenys would want to show private affairs in a public arena. And you don't get more public than arriving on the back of a massive red dragon, do you? They both like to present a united front. Corlys didn't like arguing with Vaemond in the war council or the appearance of mutiny. Rhaenys won't speak against her husband despite prodding from others. Imagine you're a soldier in the Stepstones and the Lady of Driftmark has just crashed your war in order to chew out her husband. Not a good look.

Those are some things that spring to my mind. What do you think?

[equestrianwritingsstuff]

Fire on Fire by Sam Smith for the plot?

In Love With the Flames

I had a few ideas for that one, but I decided on this. It is not edited, as I don't have the patience to edit something this long. But who knows, maybe someday it will get done. Anyway, I hope you like it and I will be adding this song to my workout playlist.

I also apologize for the lenght. I cannot to the "Continue Reading" or something like that on a phone. So I also apologize for clogging up your dashboard if you aren't interested.

Warnings: character deaths, enjoyment of people in pain/dying, alcohol use, bar setting, two characters in-love (nothing inappropriate, just hugs, kissing, and "flirty" behavior), fantasy politics (with government of my own making), public shaming, assault and magical attacking/whump

~

Supervillain let out another blast of burning fire, allowing it to make contact with the glass building without any remorse in their veins. Actually, it made them happy, listening to all the screams and hollers of the civilians down below.

"That is an unfortunate mess," a voice spoke behind Supervillain. Supervillain whirled around, hands up and ready, only to be met with the fascinating face of Villain. Villain, the most gorgeous being with deep emerald eyes that illuminated even the darkest souls, also had their hands raised. Their own fire lapped on their fingers, waiting to meet its mark.

But the fact that Villain was a threat did not register in Supervillain's thoughts. No, they could not take their own hazel eyes away from the pure beauty that was encased in the said threat's face. The way their soft brown hair bounced as they sauntered over to the supervillain and the way their pink lips added to the tanned tone of their skin. It was a sight, but also a distraction from Villain's intent.

"What do you want Villain?" Supervillain asked, hoping their voice was quivering from the fact that Villain was so close.

"That was a movie theater," Villain replied, their lips turning up as their nose crunched. Supervillain felt theit heart flutter and their breath catch in their throat. No one ever mentioned that Villain was also so adorable.

Supervillain shook their head and linked their fingers behind their back, gazing at Villain for a split second before saying, "If you want to see a movie so bad... My house nine o'clock. Tonight."

"I worked there. Now I'm out of a job."

Ohhh, crap. Supervillain inwardly swore at themselves and took of a fighting stance. There was no way that Villain came here just to plan their future date.

Villain attacked first, sending a fireball directly at Supervillain's head. Supervillain dodged, heart racing. Villain was aiming to kill.

Supervillain shot out their own fire, barely missing Villain's mane. Gosh... that hair. Supervillain froze, it was eye catching. It was-

A fierce fireball smacked Supervillain in the chest.

The supervillain went down, hitting the cold ground with a thud as their skin and clothes melted away. Black spots danced along Supervillain's vision as they felt themselves sinking further into the ground.

"Oh my gosh!" Came a short squeal and the next thing that Supervillain saw was Villain's face. Smug, but mildly concerned. Supervillain, anticipating an attack, arched their back weakly, straining to push away, but Villain placed a hand on their least damaged shoulder and shoved them back down.

"Where does it hurt?" Villain asked, their voice taut with care.

"No where, but cold," Supervillain slurred, dipping their head to the side. Their eyelids dropped and any thoughts of their situation disappeared into thin air.

"Stay with me, okay?" Villain brushed some snowflakes off of Supervillain's face. They didn't realize that it has begun to snow. Before Villain scooped up the supervillain, they murmured, "I will take care of you. Deal?"

And that was the last thing Supervillain heard before they succumbed to sleep.

Six months later...

"The heroes have infiltrated the Villain Agency. I believe- Uhh Supervillain, this is kinda important..."

"What was that?" Supervillain pushed Villain slightly away and looked at their henchman. "Cleary nothing important."

"Boss. The heroes are taking over. We need to do something, not-," Henchman looked between the two giggling lovebirds. "Not flirting with your significant other in a bar."

Villain looked up, then Supervillain. Both with a childish look on their face that Henchman only hoped was due to the alcohol.

"If," Supervillain brought their glass to their lips and took a long sip. "If this was so important, dear Henchman. Then why did we meet in a downtown bar?"

"Because you told me to meet here."

"Oh."

"Yeah, now let's talk about this before the situation gets worse. Sending troops out will possibly-"

"We'll handle it Henchman. Okay?" Supervillain stood up and lifted Villain to their feet. "Dance?" They asked Villain and led them to the center of the bar where a crappy band was stringing its guitar and beating on their drums.

Henchman sighed and collected their papers and left the couple to do who knows what.

"I love you, Supervillain," Villain murmured the next day as they approached the Hero's Base. They were holding hands, the fire lapping greedily at their fingertips as it intertwined with each other. Two killers, one fire... it all equaled terror. Pure villainous terror.

"I love you too," Supervillain reached over and landed a kiss in Villain's brown hair.

Both then looked at the Hero's Base. The whole building seemed to be made of glass- a warm sense of deja vu- but everyone knew that the walls were made of the strongest iron injected with power reflectors. It was practically a bunker, made to withstand bombardments.

"Ready?" Villain looked up with their daunting emerald eyes and half-smirk. Supervillain's confident demeanor faltered. They couldn't lose Villain, yet they also couldn't defeat the heroes without them.

"Promise me you'll live and then I am ready."

Villain smiled even wider, "Of course. I'm more worried about you." And with that light-hearted warning, Villain broke the hold on Supervillain's hand, stepped back, and began to blow up the Base.

Supervillain did the same thing, adjusting the aim of the fire to hit Villain's stream. It added strength and power to the blow, causing the outer glass to shatter.

Supervillain and Villain won that fight and won the national headlines.

Villain ran down the stairs the next morning to see Supervillain making breakfast and coffee. They triumphantly held a newspaper.

"The nation's greatest supervillain and their counterpart, Villain, blows up the Hero's Base," Villain read eagerly. "Reports say that the duo attacked in the morning a week after the heroes took over the Villain Agency. These killer's locations are unknown, so please watch yourselves as they could be lurking."

"Give me that," Supervillain snatched the paper, their tongue running over their lips like a snake. After reading it, they started to pace. "We could use this."

"Use this?" Villain scoffed, but their green eyes betrayed their excitement. They always loved their partner's ideas. "How?"

"How does campaigning sound?" Supervillain asked with a flashy smile.

"Campaigning?" Doubt tugged at Villain's voice.

"If you read further, you little naive idiot," the term was used teasingly, so Villain made a playful face. "Our lovely nemesis, Hero, survived the onslaught and is currently running for mayor."

"Mhm. I read that, but didn't deem it important. After all, Hero is basically in charge of the city without the title."

"But we aren't. We have ten thousand men and women underneath our feet, Villain, but Hero has fifty thousand with backup. But we could change those odds, my dear," Supervillain stepped towards Villain. "With a little campaigning, delving into the art of blackmail, and a well-planned assualt to the face of city... Honey, would you like to be mayor?"

"That," Villain wrapped their arms around Supervillain and brought them into a hug. "would be amazing."

"Just amazing?"

"Perfect, my mistake."

"Greetings citizens of the city," Supervillain's voice boomed through the auditorium. Thousands of civilians gathered below Supervillain's feet listening to the villain speak. But none of them knew that the charismatic speaker was Supervillain.

"This city," Supervillain glanced at their glowering foe, Hero, who was sitting with their hands neatly folded in front of them. "is on the brink of downfall. Crime rampages though the streets like rats. Murders, robberies... All under Hero's administration. The city is not safe when both petty and large crimes are not dealed with. For example, only a few weeks ago, the Base was completely demolished and yet the culprits have not been taken into custody. Do you realize the danger of that situation-" Supervillain coughed to hide a chuckle. "The pure impudence of it. We allow v-villains-" another cough. "to, uh, hmf sorry, must have a small cold brewing. Uh, let's see where was I? Ah yes, we allow villains to control us. Manipulate us. They take advantage of Hero's weakness and mold it into a weapon of choice and disaster. We are not safe. I repeat we are not safe."

Supervillain's gaze drifted to the figure, who was quite literally shimmering with rage, next to them. Actually, quite literally, the hero's hands were encassed in a golden wispy glow.

"That it why I introduce to you-" Supervillain tapped some buttons into the electric table they were sitting at. "The City Improvement Plan!" Cheers rang throughout the crowd, centering on a cluster of well-known punk Villains. Supervillain froze. They knew. Those villains must've recognized Supervillain's voice and- Supervillain snuck a peek at Hero. The hero's face was not only glistened in sweaty rage, but also had a smug look of realization on it.

"Okay, so, uh..." Supervillain couldn't concentrate. Not with the tall body of Hero standing up and speaking into a walkie-talkie. They readjusted their mask self-consciously. Was it weird to be wearing a mask? Supervillain looked back at Hero who wss now conversing with a couple guards. They were wearing a mask as well...

Gosh, they were staring for too long. The crowd was watching them, waiting for their next statement.

"The City Improvement Plan will remove unqualified people from office-" Supervillain started breathing deeply as two tasers caught their gaze. "And replace them with well-trained officer trained specially by my own partner, Civilian." Villain's fake name rolled off Supervillain tongue like sour milk.

"Civilian has been trained for high combat situations and has even fought many villains on a day to day basis."

Hero started stalking up to them, the tasers following them. Supervillain gulped, their fingers brushes against the botton on their collar. The only way to reach Villain.

They pressed, feeling the familiar vibration against their collarbone. Within seconds, the villain landed right next to Supervillain. The crowd gasped.

"Hello!" Villain leaned over, crossing their legs behind them as they spoke into the microphone. "My name is Villain. I happen to be Supervillain's boyfriend/girlfriend. Today, we have a fabulous show for you." Villain swung around, wrapping their arms around Supervillain's neck and whispered into their ear, "After today, we will also be called sinners." Supervillain furrowed their brow and hugged Villain back, confused.

Villain pushed away, and swung their arm. A wall of fire lit up on the stadge. No one could get in or out.

Hero rushed forward, their water power in hand, and tried to douse Villain with a good wave, but they dodged and hooked Hero with their leg. Within five seconds, Hero was on the ground with a wire threatening to break off all airflow.

While Villain was occupied with taking Hero down, Supervillain faced the two guards. Each had a taser ready to stike at them at any given chance. So, seeing the immediate danger, Supervillain blasted the tasers out of there hands. The guards instantly ran at them with the intention to strangle.

Supervillain was knocked to the ground pretty easily with the weight of the two burly- yet, insanely muscular- guys pressing against their shoulders.

Villain glanced over to see their partner struggling. Quickly, they punched Hero in the face. Once... twice... a third blow did it, leaving Hero completely motionless on the ground.

Villain then took the liberty to yank one of the guys off of Supervillain and threw him through the raging fire. The screams did not end.

Supervillain pushed the other guy away, flipping onto their feet and gave him a good burn across his chest- similar to one that Villain gave them a half year before. With a contented grunt, Supervillain landed him next to his writhing buddy.

Both Villains turned to Hero, narrowing their gaze. The hero had just began to stir. Not wasting anymore time, Supervillain rushed over and finished Hero off with a swift cut in their throat.

They flew away right before the fire wall burned out- not even waiting to hear the horrified gasps.

The couple worked like that. Rampaging through cities and killing, burning, and maiming.

"They don't follow any rules."

"Out of control."

"Ruthless, merciless..."

Rumors spread like wildfire, hitting all the nation's broadcasts and newspapers. There was a nationwide curfew as well- no one knew when the villains would pop up and strike.

They were slowly taking control of the world, just like Supervillain promised, through fear and domination. Schools started to host army troops to protect the children. Men and women alike started to get drafted and began to train- focusing any powers they held on fight and enchancing strength in those not blessed with magic. The world was in chaos, orbiting around the sun that was Villain and Supervillain's fireball.

Yet, even as the world slowly sunk to its knees, the villainous couple was having the time of their lives.

Planning for their future.

Supervillain and Villain were taking a romantic walk in a rose garden one evening. The sunset was a pallette of pastel colors- pink, green, orange, you name it. They circled around a tranquil pond with growing waterlilies and ducks happily quaking to their young.

Suddenly, Supervillain spun Villain around. Once again, hazel eyes met emerald, but this time it was of love, not hate.

Supervillain bent down onto one knee and revealed an diamond ring. Any pedestrians wouldn't even guess that the proposing couple was the world's greatest murderers. No one.

"Will you marry me, Villain?"

"Yes," Villain squealed and dragged Supervillain to their feet.

"You are supposed to let me put the ring on your finger..." Supervillain's voice trailed off as Villain kissed their new fiancé.

"I don't care," Villain teased and rested their head against Supervillain's shoulder.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

[neonun-au]

I realized I am illiterate and was supposed to write a summary lmao. U can write a bff to lovers fic too tho heh. Here's a summary: idol of ur choosing wakes up one day with the ability to see how many words are left before a person will die. You, their best friend, have 999. Idol has 100. Writing counts as words btw also based off this movie I saw long ago with will smith I think in it?? Maybe u know

I have actually no idea what that movie is hahah (but all good your previous messages were so funny and lovely and thank you despite your illiteracy lmao)

i sort of went....a bit ham with this i am so sorry lmao 

i also did not edit this at all it was pure stream of consciousness so if there are any typos take it up with my manager

47

Time was running out.

Would it have been easier, he wonders, to have had this ability sooner? To have been able to plan out his whole life--all of his words--from beginning to end? Or would it have terrified him into silence. 

Would he have had less regrets now, running through the rain-soaked streets in a breathless panic towards your old familiar apartment building. The numbers on his wrist dropping with each careless apology towards the people he keeps running into in his haste. 

44

It took too long to figure it out. Too many words wasted in the process--trial and error and trial and error and error and error. 

He always thought people were being dramatic when they talked about your life flashing before your eyes in the face of death. Moments of high tension, of extreme danger, projecting this film of memories through your mind’s eye. But he understands now. He sees. 

Not images, but words. Sometimes tender--words he will never regret. 

The first “I love you” he breathed into your hair in the middle of the night. Surrounded by the dark of your bedroom and bathed in the warm glow of your presence. 

All of the following “I love you”’s. Spoken in word, written in ink, spelled out by clumsy fingers against a phone screen. 

If he could go back, he would make sure those were the only words he had ever said. He could die happily, knowing that no words passed his lips that were not painted pink with the strawberry flavour of love. He would die happy knowing that’s all you ever heard from him. 

Not the “I wish we had never met” in the middle of a pointless fight. 

Not the “maybe we should just see other people”.

And definitely not the “I don’t want to ever speak to you again.” 

Those words were spoken by him, through gritted teeth and hasty thumbs--staining his life with the malice of them. With the regret of ever having spoken at all. 

Did he ever truly mean them? No. All of those words were a facade. It would have been so much better, so much less painful if he had stripped them all away with the truth. The only two words that really mattered buried under all of the feigned anger and hatred. 

“I’m scared.” 

He reaches the apartment building finally, drenched in sweat and rain, and rings your buzzer. 

“Hello?” 

“It’s me, please let me in,” his voice is frantic, quivering from cold and fear. 

38

“Johnny? What the hell are you doing here?” 

“Please,” he begs--hoping against hope that somewhere buried inside you there is still some modicum of love for him. Love or pity. He prays that something still exists that he hasn’t completely destroyed. 

The buzzer sounds and he swings open to door, racing up the stairs towards your unit. He knocks, waits, and the panic rises higher in his throat. Choking him with worry and fear. He didn’t have a plan, he never does. He wishes he did. 

You swing the door wide, lips pulled taut in a grim line as you glance over his dishevelled appearance, “Johnny what are you doing here?” 

“Stop,” he says, holding a hand up. “Don’t speak.”

“Why the hell not?” You gape at him, eyebrows knit in anger or confusion--or both. “You show up at my apartment soaking wet and entirely unannounced, and now you’re telling me to shut up?”

He sighs, running a hand through his damp brown hair. Thoughts reel in his mind, ‘a plan, Johnny, think of a plan.’ 

“I’m sorry,” he says, eyes wide and pleading. He takes a cautious step forward. If only he could just get inside. Just let him inside. Let him pass the threshold between you; break the unspoken barrier and let him in. 

“You should be sorry,” your words are dripping with poison, but he recognises the pain behind them. Your own counter drops with each syllable uttered and he prays that this isn’t how it ends. That your last words don’t have to be angry. He hopes that you can say something beautiful before the end--that it can be happiness instead of pain. 

But he knows he caused it, and he knows he doesn’t have much time left. So he remains silent. 

After a moment you shift back, granting him entry and he feels a surge of hope bloom in his chest for the first time since this morning. 

You stand, arms crossed over your chest, and stare him down, “well? What are you doing here?” 

“I love you,” he blurts the words out without thought. They had been gnawing at his tongue since he set out in the rain--thrashing around in his mouth to be freed and know that he’s in front of you, they break loose. Your jaw drops and eyes steel. Anger, confusion, hurt--a myriad of emotions swirling in their depths. 

He wants to reach out, to hold you, but he knows it would just end too soon. He would never get a chance to explain--to somehow communicate what you mean to him. What you’ve always meant to him. 

How much he has loved you even when he has hated you. Even when he hated himself. 

“Don’t Johnny,” you breathe, a warning. 

He wants to heed it. He wishes he could, but he doesn’t have any time. He can’t give you the space you want without running the clock down to the wire. 

If he hadn’t been so stupid he could have had more time, this could have been easier. But the regret is the least of his worries right now. 

“I love you,” he says it again. Softer, less frantic. His eyes darken as he meets your gaze. ‘Please believe me,’ he thinks. The love swells in his chest, rising beyond the panic, and he hopes you can see it swirling in his eyes. He hopes you can feel it as some ephemeral figure. 

If he can’t hold you in his arms, he hopes that the weight of his love can wrap around you as an unseen blanket. Enveloping your body in warmth and light--melting away all the anger you keep held tight in your chest. 

“Johnny,” you sigh, and he selfishly enjoys the sound. Despite it knocking one more digit off of your number, it’s like music to his ears. As much as all he wants to say is ‘I love you’, all he wants to hear is you whispering his name until he dies. Over and over, in light and dark--like a mantra. 

“I love you,” he feels emboldened, takes a step forward, and holds his hand out towards you. 

24

His soul sings, a choir of angels surging up from deep inside, as you take his hand after a moment of hesitation. You tug him closer and evaluate his face with concern, “Johnny, what’s wrong?” 

“_____,” he says, feeling like your name shouldn’t count towards his tally as it’s not a word. It’s a prayer. It’s a song written on the pages of the universe. It exists here and now and yet not at all, as you do. An all encompassing feeling--rising up out of the ocean of his soul like a great wave. 

He wishes he could tell you all of this. But he doesn’t have the words.

--

(OKAY i am stopping there i am....i wrote way too much soz) 

[nightswithkookmin]

IS JIKOOK REAL?

In light of everything that's happened over the course of the month: Taekook in the Soop, the missing birthday post on Jimin's birthday and the following silence that's ensued in its aftermath- we are all still waiting for Jimin's birthday VLive; every Jikook fan past and present, deep and shallow, I feel, is left wondering whether Jikook was ever as real as bigfoot and the Easter bunny, a figment of our imagination. Is Jikook real, we all wonder.

Now, I can't answer the later with Vim and Vigor without opening myself up to all kinds of law suits under the sun- I don't care much for the skepticism and ridicule that usually follows. Nor can I in good conscience come out here and outrightly out these two that I feel are in fact a couple and dating. That would be very hypocritical of me.

The best I can do in this instance is to stream my consciousness and share with you why I believe them to be a couple? Let the records show, I am full on delusional. *smiling.

I think when it comes to Jikook the universal consensus within the fandom is that they have a really special bond. We can all agree on that much. Their bond is unique and just plain beautiful; the days of disclarity and obscurity over whether they even like each other long gone.

Thus I refrain from indulging in any conversation that calls to question the intentions of either party towards the other when either act in a certain way that most find displeasing. Such as, questions about why JK didn't promote Promise or Friends, why he didn't wish JM a happy birthday. Is Jk envious of Jimin or vice versa, etc.

Such questions as simple and as innocuous as they may seem are always hard for me to answer. JK promoted Promise, had the funniest reaction video to it. He promoted Lie, every chance he got with teasing Jimin's dance moves in Lie, literally had a gun to Jimin to perform Lie in run and that hand on his heart said it all. Is that not promotion enough?

We heard serendipity, you are me, I am you and the many tireless times JK has talked about it- he won't shut up about it. What more does he need to do to show he loves and supports Jimin's career?

I find when people ask these kinds of questions that they are operating on the mentality that JK doesn't love Jimin *enough* or worse that Jikook ought to love each other in a certain kind of way, their own arbitrary ways and to their own satisfaction.

I keep reiterating that this is their love and their relationship. Ours is just to observe how they are choosing to express that love for eachother and uWu while we are at it. Lol

That's not to say that we shouldn't have certain expectations of them if we believe them to be a couple. Expectations are important and necessary to sustaining our belief in them as a couple. But that expectation should be reasonable and should be determined by the patterns of behavior we see in them towards eachother, towards the group and with consideration to their values, culture and beliefs- stay with me.

If our expectations of them is that they are not loving eachother enough or in a way that satisfies and appeases our spirits then that's no longer expectations. That's projecting.

Thus, I'm often discombobulated by the questions i recieve on the quality of love they express towards each other because quality is relative and highly subjective.

Jikook only have so much room to express their love and affection for eachother since they are not out yet and so we may not fully be privy to the extent of the love they express for each other much less to ascertain its quality.

The space they inhabit is a working space and when the cameras turn on it is work and business...

That being said, what they are not doing within this constricted space they have is equally as important as what they are doing within this space. Whereas questions of the quality of their love is irrelevant, to me as an Alt shipper at least, I find questions of the degree of love between them highly important.

Jikook's special bond is indisputable. The conflict then has always been about labels, whether or not that bond they share is purely platonic, romantic or something in between- the degree of love between them.

And I see there are different schools of thought on this matter. There are those who operate on the assumption that Jikook are just special friends and reserve the possibility that they could be something more to them.

Then there are those who believe they are real or could be real but reserve the possibility that they could also not be real.

These are the conventional shippers. They play it safe. Good for them. But then there are the full on delulu folks such as myself who are risk takers and go all in or nothing- alternative shipping.

To me Jikook is real or I am not shipping them in the way that I ship them at all. Lol. Chileee, I prefer Yoonmin, Minimoni, Jihope, Vmin, Jinminkook, Vminkook as conventional ships for fun and what not. Jikook has always been that alternative ship for me.

And as an alternative ship, what Jikook do for eachother is equally as important to me as what they do not do for eachother. If Jikook are real then I think it's imperative that we have reasonable expectations of them in the way that they behave with eachother, enough to distinctify them as a couple within the group.

Couples are expected to behave in a certain way marked and defined by the couples themselves but that also set them apart nonetheless. Some people choose to be in an open relationship, may be friends with benefit etc but will still exude certain patterns of behavior definitive in itself that it distinguishes them from mere friends.

If Jikook are a couple they will define their relationship in a way that sets a standard for them such that this standard sets them apart from the rest of the group. And I think I have mentioned some of those standards as intimacy, speaking eachothers love language, exclusivity and the right to claim amongst others.

Yes JK loves JM and vice versa but are they loving eachother as friends or lovers? What are the patterns of behavior they put up or not put up to distinctify themselves as a couple within the group if they are one?

Yes Taekook are friends, but are they putting up distinctive characteristics that set them apart from Jikook? The answer is a resounding no- atatattatatatat, no buts. I'll bitch slap you. Lol

Tae cuddles Jimin and shares a bed with him but that is ok because they are besties soulmates. Vmin cute. Tae cuddles JK and suddenly the fandom is in uproar? Chilee, what's y'all on?

This is why I shy away from conventional shippers- well, some. The tendency they have to dismiss certain certain moments when they happen or import standards into Jikook's dynamics based on their own understanding of intimacy and romance without taking into consideration what Jikooks understanding of romance and intimacy is baffles me.

These are the people who would scream why is Jimin blowing kisses at Suga here, why is Jk cuddling Tae there without considering whether skinship with others is a deal breaker for Jikook. JK does skinship with Jin, Tae and suddenly they are questioning whether Jikook is real- I really can't relate.

If skinship is not a deal breaker for Jikook then such reactions to moments like these are nothing but censorship of JK and Jimin's behaviors and goes to question the quality of their love which as I said is irrelevant to the determining of the realness of Jikook.

If you think these skinship they do with others are disrespectful towards eachother then indirectly you are saying Jikook's relationship is toxic- but toxic relationships are still relationships and so that doesn't invalidate Jikook's relationship or disprove it.

If you expect JM to behave in a certain way because you think he is in a relationship with JK or vice versa that is no longer reasonable expectations of them but blatant censorship.

Put censorship aside, the question of the quality of their relationship aside, our own personal idiosyncrasies aside and hopes- what do you see?

REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

I mentioned above how it's imperative to have reasonable expectations of Jikook if you believe them to be a real couple because without these expectations Jikook is no different from any other ship in BTS.

I talked about what constitutes reasonable expectations though and attempted to outline what doesn't count as reasonable expectations but allow me to shed more light on it for the sake of dissolving any ambiguity around the term.

Unreasonable expectations are those expectations we have that result in us questioning the validity of Jikooks relationship without cause. They often result in us assuming something is wrong between Jikook because we feel there is something we ought to see in their interactions because we are used to seeing them in Jikook dynamics.

Unreasonable expectations is drilled in us by false conditionings. Some of these false conditionings are external to Jikook, such as our exposure to analysis videos or edited videos. They often condition us to think Jikook are in BTS to screw eachother seven ways through the roof all year round. We tend to forget quickly that when the cameras turn on it's all work for them.

The worst part is, we get used to the slowed down gazes, the two seconds lingering stares and touches that go on for minutes in these edited videos and so whenever we are exposed to actual content from BigHit in real time we feel JK didn't stare too long, JM didn't laugh at JK's Jokes therefore something is wrong.

Some false conditionings are induced in us by Jikook themselves.

Take for instance, Jimlous and Jeonlous. Are these something to be considered reasonable expectations for us to have of Jikook because we see them do this all the time? Absolutely not.

While jealousy is an integral part of the Korean dating culture- allegedly, it is subject to the mental state, personal values and growth of Jikook.

As they mature, they may outgrow certain behaviors not limited to Jimlous/Jeonlous. It is thus unreasonable to expect these of Jikook all the time.

Coupled with long exposures to edited videos, we soon become conditioned to expect Jk or Jimin to react strongly to when the other seemingly crosses boundaries with others- aka skinship.

If you expect JK to pout each time Jimin smiles at another member and they don't, it simply means you are stuck in the past and aren't growing with them on their love journey. It doesn't mean something is wrong with Jikook or that Jikook is not real.

That doesn't mean Jeonlous is not important. It is a distinctifier. In my opinion.

Jikook are able to enforce boundaries with each other because they have the right to. I keep saying they are the only pair in BTS that has and exercise this right of claim over eachother. Jimlous/ Jeonlous is how we know they feel a boundary has been crossed and depending on the situation or environment they would often exercise that right of claim.

I have said, the only times I feel they don't and can't exercise this right of claim is if they are not a couple and just friends- when they are broken up. I saw this because even in official settings they seem to have this right of claim even if they are not exercising it.

What I'm trying to say is certain behaviors and patterns of behavior in Jikook are distinctifiers in that they set them apart from the other pairs and those distinctifiers can be reasonably expected of Jikook and so if we don't see those in them- over a period of time mind you, then questions and brows ought to be raised as high up as possible. If Jikook is not real then frankly I want to know. I'm not about to believe in bigfoot.

What I'm saying basically is, whereas Jeonlous and Jimlous are not a distinctifier perse as such shouldn't be reasonably expected of them, right of claim is a distinctifier and should be reasonably expected.

Skinship is not a distinctifier- if I have to repeat this one more time I swear to god imma wield JK's pan on y'all. Lol but deadass.

Now, is JK wishing JM a happy birthday openly on social media reasonable expectation? Come now, Y'all don know I had a complete meltdown over this on my TL. Of course I'm gone bring it up. Lol

Jikook wishing eachother a happy birthday on social media is reasonable expectations to have if it is a distinctifier or something that sets Jikook apart from the rest of the members. Is it? The answer is a flat ass no.

I mentioned that one of the reasons I believe Jikook is real is because I feel out of all the pairs in BTS they are the ones that speak eachother's love language.

Jimin loves to be made to feel special. Jk makes Jimin feel special. I mean he did gift JM a present without doing same for the others so it's safe to assume he gives Jimin special treatment on his birthdays- as should he. Mr Park set the standards high for his man.

Y'all know I was on my personal agenda with this whole JM birthday thingy. I was hoping Jk was going to post but only for Jimin and make a statement with it- a girl can dream.

The fact that he didn't post doesn't mean he didn't make JM feel special on his birthday. Had JM and BTS not talked openly about JK buying JM a present when he didn't do that for the others, frankly we wouldn't have known he ever did that for JM.

It sort of leaves you wondering what goes on behind the cameras. I mean if memories 2019 is anything to go by, Jikook is closer than we think.

Jikook show us a lot but there are a lot more we don't see.

In their early dynamics he used to do alot for JM that he seemed uncomfortable showing openly. We only knew of those moments through Jimin who seemed giddy and excited about them and would often overshare those information.

Personally, I feel whatever they did for Jimin on his Birthday is going to show up in a Bangtan Bomb or something in the future.

Due to BTS' inability to hold physical concerts due to the virus, I feel BigHit are on an agenda to increase demand and patronage for BTS content online by creating scarcity and making BTS less available and accessible- demand and supply, economics 101. They ain't slick. Bless them.

Social media is an outlet for Jikook. In my opinion. It is one of the means through which they express themselves individually and as a couple. But it's my understanding that Jikook use these outlets in different ways.

While JK uses it as an outlet to express his feelings because of his introvertedness, Jimin uses it as a means to connect with his fans and build their platform.

What I mean is, if JK is feeling happy he is going to come on here and tweet, cup of milk let's rock and roll. When Jimin doesn't pick up his calls, he's gonna come here and tweet it's hard to love. And when JinMin leave him out of a VLive he's gone drag his man's ass to film an impromptu live with him- bless him.

Jimin I find doesn't show up on social media on impulse as JK does- we all know what happens when he does. Thats when the multiple tweets and misspelled names roll in.

Jimin's presence online is often curated, in my opinion. He will often make time to talk and share his thoughts and feelings with Army to connect with them. It's the quality time love language bit in him.

Together, they use social media as an outlet to tease their relationship as a means to relieve the stress that comes with hiding their relationship. Their relationship. They do this through the flirty banter thingy they do on line- posting after eachother, responding to each other's messages etc.

An example is the recent Weverse thingy JK did which I posted about. And more recently, the D5/D4 posts they shared on Twitter where JK posted a picture of his mic on stage, an Army Logo and a purple heart. Which together read, JK purple's Army.

Jimin responded with a complimentary post of himself performing in a black and white photo with the hashtag Jimin, I miss Army. Now you don't need me to tell you what that means and if you think it's a coincidence- sorry to you.

When JK does these things, he is often connecting with Jimin, reaching out. Not every post he sends is about Jimin or intended for Jimin. I find usually the ones that are about Jimin, Jimin responds to them through his own posts or that they will have something in them that indirectly points to Jimin.

Like the 123 song recommendations or even recently the pinky ring, sky and cup of milk photo he posted after his birthday VLive.

A lot of people kept saying perhaps the chrome heart ring he wore on his pinky was a gift from Jimin. It could be. But I think the pinky was reference to the pinky ring Joke he shared on stage when he took Jimin's ring and put it on his pinky.

The blue sky reference, well... you know. But I was more concerned about the blurred out yet visible tags on the buildings in the background- this is weird for me to say out loud but I felt the message of that post was we are not hiding. Don't mind me.

Jimin loves to flaunt their bond and flex it on social media. He gets giddy and excited when Jk shows his affections, interest and attraction to him.

I have said JK and JM have two different personalities and while often Jimin is loud, open and overwhelmingly affectionate, JK is equally intense with his affections but at his choosing. They both have intense feelings and passions for eachother but they express it in different ways due to their different personalities.

Jikook are together but they are on their own unique personal journeys of growth as well. And as much as they start certain traditions, they also end certain traditions. This is especially true for JK.

He is the one who started their 123 coded flirty banter and he is the same person who ended that tradition with the ending scene post he shared on Twitter.

Because JK likes to retract and conceal aspects of himself, often I value and pay more attention to the things he does share than the things he don't.

And because Jimin is very loud and forward with his expressions, I value and lay attention to the things he does not share more so than the things he shares.

Often I hear people say Jimin acts the same with everyone, he is so openly affectionate so certainly his love for JK doesn't go beyond platonic feelings nor can it be exclusive to JK.

That's just the thing with JM's persona. It is so loud it blurs the line between his true self and his idol self.

The boy in love with Jungkook is a facade. That is the role Jimin took on at debut. If you don't know this you've been played. If you dislike JK's brand of love, his way of expressing his love for Jimin because of this persona Jimin has you owe Jk an apology.

That one person who loves Jungkook unconditionally in BTS is just a performance. All BTS were given roles, a marketing role to sell the bromance and sell the fans. Most of them have since out grown those persona's and those kinds of performances- especially JK.

JM still holds on to his persona compared to the others in my opinion: that hypersexualized, aigyo cute persona, a bit brazen, confident, shameless etc. He projects a lot of himself into this persona but I feel often he injects bits of this persona into his real identity as a way to break himself out his limitations as Park Jimin-That never mind tattoo is there for a reason.

And so when he is being loud and daring and a tease that's not when I find his love for JK. His love resides in the calmness of his storms. In his moments of quiet when he isn't screaming and disappearing while he laughs; when he is staring at JK, taking in his visage as if he is the most beautiful thing on earth- that's when you see all the love he has for him in his face. He never does this with any of the members.

When JK is injured and he switches off his loud persona, that's when you see the real park Jimin.

I don't know which is worse, people who believe this sick persona of his is real or the people who see this persona for what it is but fail to look deeper than that.

Then there are those who believe they are dating but then dismiss certain questionable things when they happen in their dynamics. Isn't that why some people believe Taekook is real? in spite of Jikook? How can you believe a ship to be real when the existence of another ship calls into question the entire ship and not just aspects of it? It beats me.

Are they any ship in BTS that calls Jikook into question? I'll leave you to answer this.

If your answer is wrong, I'm blocking you.

Signed,

GOLDY

[autisticchicc]

Autism and Love

TW: Mentions of physical and emotional abuse, drug-related metaphor

Love and obsession, for me, are separated by a very thin line. Even if I weren’t autistic, I know I would still love fiercely, but I also know that autism has a profound effect on the way that I feel and express love.

In my life there have been numerous occasions where I thought I was in love, and I often still debate with myself about whether I have ever been ‘in love’. Nowadays I tend to take the view that love is something very personal, and just because it doesn’t last doesn’t make it any less valid. Being someone who is still on good or even great terms with all of my ex partners, I’d say I absolutely loved them at one point in my life. Maybe I still do love them, but I live a strictly categorised life. That love is now a purely a platonic love that comes from knowing and trusting someone for a long time. That ability to categorise so strictly is something some of my exes have had a hard time coming to terms with, I am quick to move them into the platonic love category and keep them there. Once someone has been placed in the platonic category, they do not leave. I don’t get back with ex-partners, and I don’t actually think its possible due to that strict categorisation.

My very first boyfriend sent me a message the other day asking if I ever still think about him. I replied honestly and said that I do not. I think that this comes from the strict categorisation too. If you are my friend, I think about you, but not that often. I have a lot of things happening in my head at all times, a sensory cornucopia that is exhausting to sort through, a conscious stream of five or six trains of thought, and my special interests. Special interests are a really intriguing factor in the context of autistic love, because I believe that the intense focus and adoration we treat our interests with absolutely translates to the people we fall in love with.

Anyone who has been close friends with me while in a relationship knows how insufferable I am when I love someone. I talk about them at any given opportunity, for longer than the other person probably cares to hear about it at times. When I love someone, they become a source of great inspiration, I find the characters I write resembling them, I could spend hours editing pictures and videos of them, my artwork is littered with their image. Love, for me, is an all-encapsulating thing. It invades every aspect of my life, consciously or subconsciously. They become the most beautiful person in my eyes, I drink in their image as though dehydrated. Curiously, even things I perhaps did not like about them before suddenly become things I look at fondly. Something about that shift from like to love, it is a very powerful shift for me.

Ironically, I’m not very forthright with my expressions of love. After mulling it over for years, I’ve realised that I’ve been conditioned to believe that love and pain go hand in hand. When you love someone, you must expect them to hurt you. At least, that’s what I thought until I deconstructed why I thought that. I had become accustomed to people weaponising my love for them, using it to blackmail me emotionally or to excuse physical abuse. As such, although I feel so deeply for the people I love, I am always very anxious about showing it in ways that can be used against me. I don’t show them the story or the art that I created inspired by them, for fear that they might think me obsessed for spending so much time on something pertaining to them.

I get very embarrassed when performing acts of service for my partners. I enjoy tidying and cleaning a lot, and I often want to do it for my partners to make their lives easier, but I get scared that they will think I’m being subservient and that they can take advantage of me. When I see my partner enjoying something or fostering a talent, I desperately want to invest in it, buy them tools and find resources so that they can develop it further, but am scared that they will think me strange and over-enthusiastic. I’m the kind of partner that loves extremely hard, and wants to express it as such, but I cannot quite get over the shame.

I have only recently been able to engage in non-sexual physical touch without flinching. Learning that touch is your love language when you have been shying away from it for years is a strange thing. It almost feels like a betrayal of sorts. Why was I denied this thing that I love for so long? And the reality is, it was a part of that fear. I have to be vulnerable with someone in order to allow them to touch me. Vulnerability has never come easily for me, although I always desperately wanted it. Finding someone that I can entangle limbs with, that I can kiss and hug on a whim, that I can show physical affection in my ‘weird’ autistic ways with has been very therapeutic for me. For the first time, I feel like I can have vulnerability and touch without it being thrown back in my face. It feels desired and reciprocated, not only do I want to touch and hold this person, but they want to touch and hold me too.

Another lesson within that has been ensuring that while I maintain my tough, outer visage, I am honest about needing to be soft and fragile sometimes. I have always been forced into being strong and resilient, it was never a conscious choice that I made for myself. I was forever pushed to be strong for other people, constantly making sure that those that needed me didn’t have to see me struggling or breaking under pressure. I never had someone I felt I could truly cry in front of, ugly, drunken sobbing type of crying. At least not without feeling judged or treated like a flight risk. Having someone I can be unapologetically sad in front of and they don’t force me to be strong for their own comfort feels so alien to me, but the relief it fills me with is immense. I am no longer pretending, and I am no longer embarrassed to be fragile. I can break down in front of this person and they will never question my strength.  

While crying and vulnerability are certainly an obvious hurdle for plenty of people in relationships, for autistic people there is the added stress of getting used to unmasking in front of a partner. I didn’t get diagnosed for a very long time, which will tell you just how good I am at masking. As a Hispanic girl, a lot of my behaviours weren’t reprimanded too much. Being loud and aggressive is normal in Spanish culture, and oftentimes isn’t even interpreted as aggression the way it is in the UK. Conversely, I did terribly with the tactile nature of social interaction in Spain and among Hispanics. I didn’t want to kiss strangers or even family members on both cheeks, I didn’t like having my cheeks squeezed by old women, and I didn’t like people touching, grabbing, or shaking me. But I was unfortunately forced to do it for my own survival. I don’t know if the sentiments around disabilities have changed in Spain, but the way I remember it in the part I grew up in was that they weren’t talked about. I didn’t even know what disabilities were until I came to the UK.

In England, pretty much every aspect of my behaviour was reprimanded; my loudness, my ‘aggression’, my opinionated disposition, my lack of a filter, my inability to understand my classmates’ feelings… The list goes on and on. At a certain point, I learned to just hold in a lot of my personality until I got home. What I didn’t realise that I was actually holding in some instinctive behaviours in privacy as well, I would flinch and stop if I noticed myself stimming, my face would go red when I couldn’t verbalise properly, and I often found myself practicing facial expressions in the bathroom mirror because I was self-conscious that I wasn’t doing them ‘correctly’. I started my own personal journey so to speak about a year ago to completely unmask, alone. I still cringe when I catch my arms pulling up into ‘t-rex’ form or if I start verbally/physically stimming, but I’m slowly becoming less ashamed of myself.

Consequently, unmasking in front of someone else has been incredibly nerve-wracking. The ‘issue’ (I say issue but it’s quite the opposite) is that I’m so comfortable in my partner’s home that I unmask without even realising it. Something I’ve noticed however, is that half the time they don’t. When my fingers twist and rub against each other, I glance up nervously to see if I’m being watched. No one has even glanced at me. I stammer and mess up my sentence, or my mouth fails halfway through, and yet even then no one laughs or looks at me strangely, they just wait for me to rectify or finish the sentence. I wonder if part of me still thinks I’m under the ultra-critical gaze of my secondary school peers, expecting to be torn to shreds verbally over my quirks as I always was, but it never happens. I have to constantly remind myself that I am well liked here, and my quirks are something people are fond of now.

Overall, love as an autistic person is intense and difficult, but an experience that is so all-consuming it feels almost like you’re on some kind of drug. I’m a very logical, science-based person, but love is one of the few things that still feels remotely magical to me. It can draw me out of my cold, black and white world and into an illogical whirlpool of emotion. I rarely act on emotion alone, but love is something that certainly has the power to make me do so. It embarrasses me a lot, it makes me feel out my depth, it makes me behave in ways I normally wouldn’t, but I’ll endure those feelings any day for the reward. I still have a long way to go before I can properly express myself to a partner, but one day I’d really like to be able to show them all my projects inspired by them, and the true level of sappiness I’m capable of (lol).

[chxrrysangel]

Loki + Mobius + Sylvie

Loki Series Thoughts ~ Shipping Edition? (title in progress)

I have zero idea if this is going to make sense, and I’ll probably edit it another time but:

I don’t understand Lokius. Like not at all. Personally, it feels more parental/guardian angel-ish. But each to their own.

Anyways, it just reminded me of what Anthony Mackie said (though phrased terribly, but a sensible point) about how two male presenting characters are almost always shipped without hesitation. As long as they’re not the epitome of toxic masculinity, showing the multifaceted nature of human and their ability to possess actual emotion, it almost always become fanon-ly romantic.

I genuinely don’t care if you ship Lokius because it’s really whatever, do you. But it just had me thinking about Stucky, SamBucky, and any other mlm ship where both characters aren’t Tyler Durden/Patrick Bateman carbon copies. Because of the cisheteropatriarchy, subconsciously (or consciously tbh) emotions and healthy relationships are conflated with femininity; and femininity is conflated with being gay because god forbid a man portray any “feminine” characteristics such as being human.

I think it also speaks to the fact that we as lgbtq+ people don’t get enough(or even remotely accurate) representation in media, so we have to latch onto whatever possible and create our own. Which is totally awful and unfair on all grounds. It’s not that fucking hard to just make more queer characters, it won’t kill them and might actually get them more streams. I’d hope that one day we reach a point where gay, trans, enby, etc. characters are so normal that we’re not searching for representation because we already have it in abundance.

~~~

Something completely separate but also not really. I find it quite scary to see the interactions between Sylki and Lokius shippers, and the rampant biphobia. Like a lot of people hate Sylki purely because of the underlying biphobic sentiment of how you’re not really bi/pan unless you’re in a same sex relationship. And many on the other side hate Lokius purely because of an anti-mlm sentiment. I don’t see Sylki being romantic(also not really sure if it’s true selfcest because that would require being quite literally the same being and the two are just variations of the same concept but that’s a dwindling staircase of thoughts). To me, it brings up the overarching quest towards self love, Loki coming into his own, and what exactly makes a Loki a Loki. Like when they talked about how stubborn, overbearing, and bossy Sylvie was, I was dude that’s literally you. So he’s learning to actually be okay with the parts he hates about himself by seeing them in Sylvie. They’re learning that they’re not broken, just a little bent. And that people actually care, and it’s okay to care. Get what I mean?

[pertinax--loculos]

Weekly Update 29/08

Note: shaking up the format this week, mostly because I just can't stop talking. These updates are gonna become purely about draft progress -- I'm going to include the titles of the books I've read/am reading at the end, but will post my thoughts separately as something of a 'review' (which will likely just be a collation of my stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Or just those thoughts unedited, depending how I feel). I'm also going to post the excerpt in a dedicated post of its own, so keep an eye out for that! ;)

Currently Writing Absent That Night (tagged: WIP: ATN)

wordcount this week:  19,981

total wordcount: 58,127(note: I know this jumped; it's because I realised that I was a week behind with adding to the total ooops)

[new addition] total time writing: 9hrs 10min

re: the above point -- I think this is a much more productive way of tracking my progress. As I've mentioned, I'm an egregious overwriter, so wordcount goals really don't motivate me too much (I could get 1000 words down and only be like a quarter of the way into the scene dear god help editing this is gonna be hellacious). So I think by scheduling time instead, it's going to force me to be a lot more productive and hopefully get me well on my way to my goal deadline!

re: deadline -- need to do a proper recalculation of where I actually am, because I think I'm a little bit behind. Something to do for next week, however!

I've also started pretty hardcore scheduling this week. It's kinda a mess due to my ridiculously inconsistent work schedule (and the way they often ask me like three hours beforehand if I want to take a shift), but it's great to have time blocked out for certain things. Definitely gonna continue it until this draft is finished, and then reassess whether I like it or whether I'd prefer something more flexible/any other adjustments

briefly considered/considering swapping to google docs for convenience's sake, but I am a) Wary of The Cloud and b) I am not using a writing app where I have to hit two buttons to get italics. I use far too many goshdarned italics to goshdarned do that fucking bullshit. The fact that text colour is still easily accessible but italics is not also makes me unreasonably angry

so instead I'm trying evernote. ^_^ Seems okay so far...?

[deleted a rant about evernote as well given that I figured out what was annoying me and we’re all good now 😅]

work is legit fucking killing me, man. The work itself is not too hard, but being essentially on-call (because I still don't have a roster so need to take the shifts in case I don't get others) makes scheduling so damn hard. I was literally halfway through a scene the other day when I had to stop and do Life Things before my unplanned shift. I'm thankful I have a job I can go to during lockdown, but dear lord I cannot wait until I know how many shifts I have and can a) plan around that and b) say fucking no if I want to

seriously considering dropping one of my suspect subplots. I keep forgetting about it, and the plan was always to dead-end it at the midpoint anyway. Plus I think including that one I have... seven? serious suspects, so could probably go with some simplifying. 😅 At the moment I'm thinking I'll leave it out, and if I think the next section needs the extra tension or anything I'll write as though it's there and add it in later if needed

honestly the difference between writing a scene I've had planned/been looking forward to and one which is only a vague notion/I've added because it's 'required' is stark. I just absolutely blow through the former, and sometimes it's like pulling teeth with the latter. But I am getting them done! They just take a right chunk of time sometimes. -.-

related to this, I really need to get my ass in gear with some scene-by-scene planning of Act II. Goal it to at least get some ideas for scenes jotted down for the first half this week!

think I do actually dislike writing at night. I've been forced to by work a couple times this week, and the problem is I stay up too late, and even then sometimes don't complete the scenes (which is generally my aim). But also, it puts my brain in Writing Mode, which not only makes it harder to sleep, but also generally results in my crafting beautiful sentences and even whole scenes whilst I'm trying to sleep that I promptly forget upon waking the next morning. Ugh

this week I also managed to stumble over some books that seem to fit the same genre as ATN. Not 100% on what that genre actually is (still) but there does seem to be a (niche?) area of paranormal/fantasy/crime/mystery-that-is-not-set-in-a-contemporary world (ie not exactly urban-fantasy/mystery). Definitely have added all the ones I've found so far to the reading list!

clearly I have hit the middle of this draft, because I've been hit hard by a Shiny New Idea. Amalgamating all the advice I've read on the subject, I've jotted down all my thoughts and put it to the side until I finish this damned draft first

ultimately, still having fun, still loving this world and all the characters, still loving attempting to work to a deadline. Everything is shiny and happy this week. ^_^ Let's hope it stays that way ahaha... ha.

 This week's goal: complete minimum five scenes; map out scene-by-scene guide for first half of Act II

As far as reading... current read: Midnight, Water City by Chris McKinney

finished Survive the Night by Riley Sager

[melyaliz]

Remember me pt 1

Fandom: My Hero Academia 

Summary: One moment Olive is just living her life in America the next it is 5 years in the future and this incredibly out of her league blonde is speaking to her in a langue she barely knows calling her his wife.

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x OC 

Notes: This idea came to me last week while I was supposed to be prepping to edit my novel. I was like “I should just write the idea out.” A week later and over 30k words... I now bring it to you. 

ALSO! I have a newsletter you guys! It’s where I will keep you updated on on novel (and other) related things. My website and short story should be up next Friday to stay tuned for that :) 

All Masterlists @melyalizarchive​

Connect with me! AO3 / Instagram / Pinterest

DONATE or REQUEST

-0-0-0--- Olive ---0-0-0-

Black eyes, rimmed with a thin blue line. Glowing in a way that was almost predatory like. It reminded her of a shark moving toward her. She felt like she was in water, or using her querk. Slowly trying to escape from something that was much faster in a black abyss. 

 Nothing but those glowing blue eyes were visible. 

 Olive’s lungs filled with hot dry air making her cough. The taste of ash and smoke filling her lungs as she tried to pull her consciousness awake. Blinking she saw a car on fire in front of her along with small fires spread across the parking lot of a large mall. One she did not recognize.   

 Taking a step back she looked around trying to get her bearings. Her eyes slowly adjusting to the world around her. It felt like a dream as if someone had just thrown her into this situation. No memories of how she got here or what was going on. 

Maybe she was dreaming? 

Touching her face she blinked a few times as she saw people screaming and running from the building. They were saying things but she couldn’t quite make out what. As if they were just making noises.

  What was going on? What happened? Where was she? Panic slowly rising in her chest with the thought that she had no idea what to do or where to go. Her breaths become shallow as panic began to wash over her. 

 “Olive! Olive!” the sound of her name being called broke her out of her stupor as a tall red-haired man ran up to her grabbing her arms. A stream of Japanese came flowing out of his mouth and she was lost. Only knowing a few phrases she blinked up at this stranger.

 “I don’t know…?” she said slowly hoping he would understand, “English.” she said “No Japanese?” 

 He looked taken back for a moment “You go” he said in broken English, accent heavy, pointing at the street. “Police will help, wait there?” 

 Nodding she followed the crowd and stood with the others waiting for Red to come back. Not that it mattered since he wasn’t going to be able to talk to her. But also, as she was slowly realizing by overhearing people talking around her, that she wasn’t in America anymore and had NO idea where to go or what to do. So Red was her best option at this point. Maybe she could use a translator app? Her mind went into overdrive trying to think of what to do. And then, as it always did when she was panicking her thoughts turned to the only person who was her calm center. 

 Eliott.

 Where was he? Reaching around she realized she had a purse with her. One she didn’t recognize. It was way too nice. Was that a Chanel label? Holding up the bag she looked it over totally confused. Did she steal this? Ok, she was dreaming. There was no way this was real. 

 But it felt so real. 

 Frowning she rifled through the bag looking for her phone. She just wanted to call Eliott. Desperation filling her body, her heart pounding so hard in her chest it felt like it was going to burst out of her chest. She just wanted her husband. 

 There was a huge explosion and a few people cheered all of them speaking excitedly in Japanese to each other. The excitement getting louder and louder, people pointing. Turning Olive stood up with the crowd to see a blonde-haired man slowly walking toward the crowd dragging a horned man by the collar of his shirt. Behind him, the red-haired man from earlier held three others on his shoulders. 

 As he grew closer the blonde turned his eyes meeting Olive’s. His red eyes were so intense that something in her stomach dropped. A weird calm washing over her as he studied her. He felt like something from another life. Dejavu. A dream long forgotten. 

 “Olive,” his voice was gravely as he dropped the man he had been dragging walking toward her. Looking down at her he placed his arms on her shoulders “what the hell you baka?” he said leaning forward pulling the dazed woman into a strong hug. He smelled like smoke and something sweet, like sugar. It kind of reminded her of camping. However, why this man was hugging her she had NO idea. 

 And then he pulled back slightly, his eyes fluttering for a moment, leaning toward her face as if he was about to kiss her.  Olive, who was still trying to gain her bearings, felt her whole body tense in pure shock. 

 What.

 The.

 Actual. 

 Fuck? 

 “Dude I’m married,” she said swatting away his arms from her side before pushing him away. Her face flushed, eyes glassy as tears threatened to spill over from feeling so overwhelmed by it all.. 

 The blonde’s eyes grew wide studying her for a moment, then gently his hand moved from her shoulder to her forehead speaking in Japanese. The red-haired man had come up behind him and seemed to be responding to what he was saying back. A flush of anger spread over Olive, she had just told his guy she was married and he was still trying to come on to her. Her already very frayed emotions were so tight Olive couldn’t deal with this anymore. Jaw clenched she swatted away this way too friendly guy’s hand.

 “Look. No I’m...” she held up her hand and that’s when she saw it. 

 A ring, but it wasn’t hers.

 “What?” she looked down at her hand confused. Was she even in her own body? What was going on? Her hands looked like hers? Do people recognize their own hands? It felt like her body. But how could you tell? 

 It was too much for her. Her heart pounding in her ears and that campfire smell was all around her filling her lungs. Her breath became shallow as colored spots filled her vision. 

 And then everything went black. 

 -0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

 You get one true love in your life. One person, you are meant to be with. Olive had always believed that. Especially after meeting Eliott. He had a killer sense of humor and was always so calm. For a girl who always seemed to deal with anxiety and self-doubt the dirty blonde haired man who would rather be enjoying life than dealing with the drama was everything, Olive had wanted and needed in her life. 

 It wasn’t some epic romance, it was just… normal. From the first time he brought her out for burgers and to watch fireworks. 

 They ended up in the wrong location missing the entire show. But it didn’t matter, they were too busy talking about their lives. They had ended up staying on the side of that grassy hill just laughing and joking around until 2 am. 

 He fit so easily into her life Olive had a hard time remembering what it was like without him. She wasn’t as happy that was for sure. 

 And then one day he was gone. 

 Like a flash from the cameras, he would use.

 As an action photographer, he was hired by both sports and hero agencies for promotional work. Olive had worried about him when he had gotten the job  but with his quirk of being able to walk on walls, he normally could stay out of the way enough to keep himself safe. 

 Until a month ago when he wasn’t. 

 A month ago when he was dead. 

 And Olive’s life wasn’t the same. 

 A month after a loss is such a weird time. It’s like a limbo between everyone expecting her to be better and her inability to stop crying. 

 Olive still woke up reaching out for him in the middle of the night only to find an empty bed. Still felt like she could see him around every corner. Still waited for him to come through that door making some snarky joke about some idiot who walked into his shot. 

 His presence had left such a huge hole in her life and a bigger one in her heart. 

 That morning she woke up rubbing her swollen eyes looking at herself in the mirror. She was tired of this. Tired of being sad. Tired of missing him. Just tired. Selfishly she just wanted to skip this part of the morning process and go back to being happy again. After all, there was no way she could be sad forever... right? They say time heals all wounds. (Whoever they were.) But she wanted that healing now. 

 But no one could do that but her. 

 So sitting down she opened her laptop. Emails from her boss, editor, and an older client of hers littered her email. Scrolling through she tried to decide which one she wanted. She didn’t have the creative energy to talk to her editor and her boss could wait until Monday. 

 But maybe ghostwriting would help distract her? The client she used to work with had a new story and he was desperate. And in a way she was too. 

 So clicking the email she started to read what he had to say. 

 And then she was here. 

 In the parking lot of a burning mall in Japan. 

 The hospital she woke up in was sterile white reminding her of the inside of an apple store. Soft lights filled the room as her eyes fluttered open. She looked around slowly sitting up. Her head was pounding and part of her just wanted to lay back down. But she also wanted some water, her throat feeling ashy crying out for moisture. And maybe an answer to what the hell was going on? 

 Slowly Olive pulled herself into a sitting position, her body ached from tension but she didn’t really see any other major injuries. Looking around the room praying for a glass of water her eyes instead found a phone sitting on the table next to her. A text on top of the slue of notifications caught her attention.

 Lilly Pond: Are you ok? Call me when you get up.

 Her best friend. Oh thank god, someone she recognized. This meant she could rule out getting teleported to a different dimension off her list of what the fuck was going on. 

 Her heart pounded in her chest as she quickly unlocked the phone. Thank god for smart technology and face recognition. (She wouldn’t have known what to do without it). Looking down at the phone there was a brief moment where she forgot why she had opened her phone. Distracted by the image of three young children who she didn’t recognize looked back up at her from her phone background. 

 Dear god, please don’t tell her she had kids along with a strange wedding ring. Her heart couldn’t handle a full-on Overboard situation. She felt sick and desperate to hear a familiar voice. Something she recognized. 

 Clicking the name she fumbled for a bit until she figured out how to call. 

 “Olive?” Lilly’s voice was desperate, “Olive are you ok? Katsuki told me…” 

 “What? Who?” Olive cut her friend off confused by this Katsuski, “Lilly I don’t know where I am… I… I think I’m in Japan.” 

 There was a long pause on the other end. “Yeah Olive… you…” Another long pause, Olive could tell her bestie was trying to remain calm for her sake, “What do you remember?” In the background, Olive heard a little voice say something. But Lilly didn’t have kids… right? 

 “I… Eliott’s funeral, uhhh going back to work. I think it’s been maybe a month since he died?” who was she kidding, she knew it was 4 weeks and 3 days. But she didn't want to sound like she was counting. 

 “Olive, it’s been over 5 years since Eliott died.” 

 Olive felt like she was going to throw up. Wait... what?

 “What?” she felt like there was a mound of sand in her throat. She wanted to gag at the feeling. Her heart raced so fast she couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating. “But, that’s not possible. Eliott.. I… Lilly why can’t I remember anything!?! Why the FUCK AM I IN JAPAN!?!” 

 “Olive you need to calm down...”

 Olive wanted Eliott, she wanted his stormy gray-blue eyes and calm voice to tell her to just breathe. ‘If you're breathing you're alive, just keep breathing.’ was what he would always say when she was working herself up over something that probably didn't matter. She missed him, she wanted him. 

 “No” Olive sobbed covering her mouth, “I...” 

 “Is Kasusuki there? Olive? Nate? call Kasushk she’s freaking out..” Lilly’s voice called off the phone to her fiance, well it would be husband at this point. Wait was that little voice? 

 The blonde from earlier came rushing in cutting off her millions of thoughts. He was holding his phone to his ear but quickly hung up as he saw her. Those red eyes wide as he walked up to her. “Olive…” he said softly as he approached. At the sound of her name, she shrunk back shaking her head slightly.

 “Lilly, I honestly don’t know what’s going on.” 

 “That’s your husband Olive.” Lilly’s voice said back, “You moved to Japan with him two and a half years ago.” 

 “I’m going to be sick.” she choked out. “This is a dream, I can't…” 

 “Oh Olive” Lilly’s voice sounded far away as Olive felt dizzy.

 “No, no no.” the blonde said -what did Lilly call him? Suki?- gently prying the phone out of her hand, “Calm down, focus. Don’t pass out.” 

 “I don’t know what’s going on,” Olive told him, trying to make him understand. Trying to make herself understand.

 “Yeah I can tell.” he said, “They don’t know why. They said you were fine.” 

 “They?” 

 “The Doctors.” 

 “Oh.” her voice trailed off for a moment as he picked up her phone Lilly still on the other end. 

 “I have her. She will call you back,” he said before hanging up. A flash of anger folded Olive. How dare he just hang up on her best friend.

 “Uhhh excuse me! I was talking to her.” 

 “You can call her back, I need you to talk to me,” he said brushing away her comment. A flicker of a smile flashed over his face for a moment and Olive had no idea why. This wasn’t funny. Why would he be laughing? 

 “Who are you?” Olive said studying him unsure about the man next to her. She trusted Lilly when she said she was married to him but also… she didn’t trust him. 

 She didn’t know him. 

 “I’m your husband,” his voice softened as his gaze roamed over her as if looking for injuries. Probably not believing the doctors. “What is the last thing you remember?” 

 “I… Eliott.” her voice was soft and she didn’t miss the way he flinched at the name. “He… He’s dead.” 

 “Yeah” he said nodded gently brushing away a strand of her dark hair away from her face.

 “And now I’m in Japan.” She was in shock, trying to make sense of it all. 

 “Yeah,” was his simple resonance.  

 “And I don’t know how,” she concluded unsure how to explain to this complete stranger that he was, in fact, a complete stranger to her.  

 He sighed looking down at her hands, his finger brushing over the large yellow diamond on her left hand. Olive looked down as well, it was much larger and impressive than her ring. But… it felt so wrong. Looking back up at him she felt like she was going to cry again.

 “Are you going to cry?” he asked, it sounded like a statement. She shook her head already feeling hot tears welling up in her eyes.

 “No” 

 He sighed, it sounded frustrated and made her heart pound with an anxiety she hadn’t felt in years. But he still hugged her, pulling her close enveloping her in that sweet warm scent she had smelled at the mall. However, this time in the calm of the hospital room it was confronting. Or as comforting as a stranger hugging you could be.  

 She felt his arms tightened around her as she let out a shaky sob. His grip was so strong as if he was scared she would run away.

 But where would she go if she tried?  

-GET TAGGED!-

Story Tag: @0hmydeku @inumorph @it-jinxed-us @myraticm

[transmechanicus]

Trans On Main 2 (long af)

Alright um, this post was requested rather than like...planned so im gonna Stream of Consciousness it and hope it edits into something coherent. Also, to get this out of the way, I’ve unfortunately been having to put up with blogs of A Type trying to follow me for the past few days, so I’d like to be clear that i despise any kind of content that has to do with s*ssies. Cannot even type the word, the concept is abhorrent to me, i cannot tolerate it to any extent. The degredation, humiliation, and misogyny that is intrinsic to the trope is just reprehensible to me, dials my dysphoria up to 11 and magnifies internalized transmisogyny to unbelievable levels. I 0% fuck with it, and if that’s your thing i don’t wanna hear about it ever. This is a Praise and Affirmation For Trans Girls Only Space....Anyways, ya’ll know the drill, comment something cute or nothing at all, mega internalized anxiety talking about this topic, TERFS die of rad poisoning, yaddah yaddah yaddah lets get this bread ladies.

I think what’s most useful about these posts is it allows me to reflect, to look back on a trope or idea i enjoy and break down why i like it, why it appeals to me specifically as a trans girl.

I guess topic #1 for this post is the use of hair salons as a common locale for the story, or at least the portion of the story in which the main character’s transition occurs. Its incredibly popular, the environment is very romanticized and I can understand why. From the perspective of a trans woman, a hair salon is one of a handful of locations where cis women can go in, stay for X length of time, and come out looking and feeling more beautiful than they did going in. That has absolutely massive appeal to trans women as a concept, however unrealistic or simplified it may be. The idea that you can go to a place and request a service that is meant to actively make you look more attractive, or more like the woman you aspire to be has nothing that even remotely compares among services intended for men. Nothing even close. In fiction this idealized environment is also typically staffed by very attractive women who either read the protagonist as a woman, or are overtly supportive of them during any transition that takes place. While i do think there’s a reason for this secondary theme, it basically ties into my second topic so I’m gonna hit pause on this one and sort of circle back to it.

Topic #2 is femdom. Yeah. That word might carry some connotations for some of you but just, push those to the side for a minute ‘kay? They’re probably not what i’m going for, I’m being purely literal with this term. Femdom in this context describes a transtion that occurs, in part or in whole, at the behest of a female figure in the story. Her relationship to the protagonist varies a ton across different works, as does the protagonist’s degree of consent to her decisions. Girlfriend, boss, older sister, mother, and others utilize leverage such as romantic attachment, money, political power, shame, or physical force to bring about the transition of the protagonist. Personally I think the appeal of this trope is due to two things. The first, as discussed previously in a more personal sense, is that the protagonist has reduced autonomy. They can only partially resist their transition, if at all, and its completion carries a sense of inevitability. Such a state of affairs, i think, has very high appeal for trans girls who struggle with internalized transphobia, as the fears and worries that hold them back are not a concern with someone else in command of their transition. The second source of femdom’s appeal comes down to experience. Who knows more about being a girl than someone who already is one after all? This is also where i cycle back to the attractive salon staff. You have a group of women who are assumed by virtue of being girls to know what it takes to be read as one, by virtue of being attractive they’re assumed to know how to maintain their appearance as girls, and as salon employees they are assumed to have the skills and tools to make sure the protagonist will be read as a girl. So, experience and reduced autonomy are the underlying reasons for femdom’s appeal, but i think a more...punchy way of putting it is trans girls want someone to trust. We occupy a uniquely disliked category of society and are subject to extreme mistreatment and harassment, making it nerve wracking to know who its safe to come out to, and who’s looking to exploit us. The idea that our transition, our most private and personal burden, can be taken off our hands by someone with the motivation and skills to do it well...i don’t have the words for how amazing and relieving that sounds. To be able to trust someone like that and have it pay off. I would die of joy. I would cry my eyes out.

This is already very long but i guess the last thing i wanted to get out, like i did last time, is how would i use the concepts i discussed in a story from the perspective of an actual trans girl.

I imagine it would be a surprise, a gift for her birthday or anniversary with her girlfriend. The appointment was scheduled at the salon months ago, and her girlfriend gently tugs her inside by the hand before speaking with the receptionist. Maybe her girlfriend works there, or is friends with the staff, but either way all the stops are pulled out at her say-so. No other appointments or walk-ins will be allowed today, and the staff is very excited to dote on this special guest. She’s escorted back to her seat, a cape is thrown around her shoulders, and the work begins. Her girlfriend has already provided all the information the stylists need, and any nervous objections or questions the girl has are ignored, overridden, or silenced with a firm kiss from her partner. Her hair is dyed, buzzed, styled and blow dried into an undercut pixie that the stylists compliment over and over. Her makeup is done flawlessly, faced away from the mirror with only her girlfriend’s growing smile to indicate its quality. Her nails are shaped and painted, her ears are pierced, the studs shining against her hair. The full reveal happens with her girlfriend’s arms around her shoulders, their beautiful faces paired perfectly. Then she’s swept into a backroom to try on a panoply of outfits, her girlfriend snapping adoring pictures of each, from skimpy lingerie to tasteful casual wear. The assembled stylists compliment each one, praising her pose, her persona, her smile, as the camera flashes over and over again. With everything boxed up, her girlfriend drives her home in her favorite ensemble, kissing her at every red light. They drift off to sleep in each other’s arms, but not before it slips out that tomorrow she’s in for a similar surprise at a local hospital. Something to do with filling out that lingerie a little more~ <3

[hey-have-you-heard]

Hey have you heard these 50 songs from 2019

I really enjoyed this last year so going to give it another go for ‘19. I put quite a lot of thought into what actually a ‘song of the year’ for me when I was first constructing and then heavily editing the playlist that came to be my Top 50 of 2019. I think the most important thing is that above all it’s a track that I’m glad exists, sometimes this is because of the songwriting or composition, sometimes the performance, sometimes the lyrical importance and sometimes just because it sparks joy.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6bFJOjL8b8Zc2s5r1oJbsk?si=UJdqSXOTR3SQ8D3IwcmV2g

Explanations for each tracks inclusion below the fold…

100 gecs - 800db cloud 100 gecs channel a mix of Crystal Castles and Sleigh Bells with a Death Grips level appreciation for noise. It’s an absolute rush and that outro is just absurd.

Natalie Evans - Always Be Natalie Evans soft melody and sing song vocals are sublimely sweet on this heartfelt track of lost love, longing and nostalgia.

Petrol Girls - Big Mouth “If you fight back or disagree you’re the one with the fucking problem” this hits home, hard. Big Mouth is a rallying cry to speak out against oppression and discrimination, to raise you’re voice and be heard, not to be controlled.

Charli XCX ft. Lizzo - Blame it on your Love Charli has a midas touch when it comes to pop, combine that with Lizzo who has just about been the most fun thing in music this year and you’ve got a 10/10 banger.

Poppy - BLOODMONEY Poppy’s music just keeps going further down the rabbit hole. Originally playing with blending elements of nu-metal with bubblegum pop, she now seems to have transcended genre altogether to create whatever BLOODMONEY is, it’s absolutely ridiculous and I love it.

Body Hound - Bloom Get on that GROOVE! So proggy it hurts, this track from Body Hound is a technical wonderland of metamorphosing rhythms, gargantuan riffs, and just the tastiest of chord progressions.

Can the Sub_Bass speak - Algiers Word of warning, this is not an easy listen. A freefall tumble through genre and tone accompanies a stream of consciousness monologue full of racism, prejudice and political and artistic critique.

Elohim - Buckets Buckets is an onslaught of trap influences, emotional outbursts and aggressive distortion. I’m a big fan of this sound.

VUKOVI - C.L.A.U.D.I.A I know very little about VUKOVI as a band, but that riff is absolutely massive and this track has been a constant throughout my year on that basis alone.

Show Me The Body - Camp Orchestra Apparently more hardcore bands should use Banjos, because this is a damn good sound. Slowly building from a single bass line this track builds into a powerful demolishing force.

clipping. - Club Down Having thoroughly proven themselves able to do afro-futurist scifi on the Hugo nominated Splendor and Misery, clipping. now turn their considerable talents to horror core and unsurprisingly nail it. Daveed’s flows are tight as ever as he brings to life a decaying city backed by tortured screams.

Dream Nails - Corporate Realness YOU ARE NOT YOUR JOB. WORK IS NOT YOUR LIFE. YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU MUST DO IN ORDER TO SURVIVE. Dream Nails are great and exactly what we need right now.

ControlTop - Covert Contracts This track positively bristles with an anxious energy. A fitting sound for the subject of the information overload we find ourselves locked into everyday.

Cherry Glazerr - Daddi There’s an icy coolness to ‘Daddi’, a disconnected sarcasm that falls away to reveal the anger and torment in the chorus, it’s a masterful bit of emotional storytelling through musical tone.

The Physics House Band - Death Sequence I Listening to Physics House latest release, the Death Sequence EP feels like a physical journey. This opener is a perfect example of this, as you’re plunged straight into a heady and disorienting mix of rhythms and counter-melody’s, the Sax guiding you through the turbulence until you land in a placid midsection, before that bass riff drags you forward through rhythmic breakdowns into an absolutely absurd brain melting saxophony and then it just keeps on going from there…

Witching Waves - Disintegration I saw WW back in the early summer, they were a bassist down so it was just a guitar and drums duo. They started with this track and it was one of the most pure punk things I’ve experienced, drummer/vocalist Emma Wigham bashing the absolute shit out of her kit . A great no-nonsense lo-fi banger.

Lingua Ignota - DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR Another, not particularly easy listen here. DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR is a dark and angry brooding track, building in intensity to release the primal rage, fear and horror of the abused. Its deeply chilling and instantly arresting. This track and the entire CALIGULA album stands as an absolute must listen.

Carly Rae Jepsen ft. Electric Guest - Feels Right I love the instrumentation on this one, those chunky piano chords and screaming guitar lift the track out and make it the highlight of an already great album to me.

Orla Gartland - Figure it out Dialing back the intensity slightly, Orla chronicles the frustrations of having to deal with someone in your life who you’re done with. The choruses burst forth in beautifully fuzzy explosions of noise. That vocal flair at the start of the final chorus is chef kiss.

Battles - Fort Greene Park Battles are at their best when they keep things simple. This is evident on 2019′s Juicy B Crypts which features some incredibly cluttered moments, but this just makes Fort Greene Park stand out all the more. A delightfully spacious piece of math rock, from some of the best in the business.

Dogleg - Fox Boy howdy, do I love me some midwest emo. Catharsis in musical form, it just makes me want to mosh my troubles away like I’m 16 again.

Tørsö - Grab A Shovel Tørsö go hard, I can appreciate that. An absolutely brutal track about the destructive power of depression and self-loathing.

“Pijn & Conjurer playing Curse These Metal Hands” - High Spirits “We were like, are we Pijn and Conjurer, or are we Curse These Metal Hands? I think we’ve settled with ‘we are Pijn and Conjurer playing Curse These Metal Hands’ …whatever that means!“ what it means is one of the most joyously triumphant pieces of metal music I’ve ever heard. Some of the guitar lines in this absolutely soar.

Lizzo - Juice Lizzo has won 2019, her message of self love, acceptance and body positivity has won her both critical and cultural acclaim and permeates her music in a way that makes it impossible to not love.

COLOSSAL SQUID, AK Patterson - Kick Punch Colossal Squid is the name given to Three Trapped Tigers drummer, Adam Betts’ experimental project. After a solo album of percussive wizardry Betts has now teamed with vocalist AK Patterson to give us something else entirely.

Evan Greer - Liberty Is A Statue Evan Greer uses the a folk punk sound to deliver an essay on the damaging influences of cis-normativity and social inequality. Of course I like this one.

Taylor Swift - Lover I wasn’t on board with this song for a fair while, but then I kept listening to it and kept coming back to it because of a roughly 50 second section which ties the track and the whole album together. Yeah, this is on here purely for the bridge, which is just beautiful.

Dodie - Monster Monster is an incredibly well written and delivered study on how perception changes with resentment and it makes me cry.

The Y Axes - Moon Moon is a delightfully dreamy piece of pop that glitters with infectious melodies, it’s lyrics a blissful embracing of cosmic nihilism, need I say more?

Ezra Furman - My Teeth Hurt My teeth hurt is a song about tooth ache, about that pain you carry with you everywhere and can’t get rid of, that ruins your days and and is one hell of a mood. Yeah it’s about gender dysphoria.

Nervus - No Nations Speaking of things being a mood, this track hits the nail squarely on the head.

Cultdreams - Not My Generation "Everyone ignores me Unless I’m on a stage talking Because they put me on a pedestal And pretend I’m just performing“ Lucinda Livingstone calls out the misogyny in our culture with a singular ferocity.

Lil Nas X - Old Town Road If there’s one song that’s dominated 2019 this is it right here. Who ever had the idea of putting that NIN Ghosts sample to a trap beat and cowboying over the top of it is an absolute genius.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Planet B It’s impossible to predict where King Gizzard’s sonic influences are going to take them next I doubt even they know half the time. Whatever they turn their hand to though they do it as if they mastered the sound decades ago Planet B is an all out thrash track with a strong environmental message.

Kesha - Rich, White, Straight Men Okay, I’m about to compare Kesha to John Lennon here but HEAR ME OUT… As ‘Imagine’ asked us to consider a world without conflict or capitalism, Kesha now posits that we should tear up our conceptions of our society based on its formation by a privileged group and imagine what kind of utopia could be built if we gave the underprivileged and minority groups a say.

Allie X - Rings A Bell The chorus here sounds like it could have been off Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, and I’m all about that sound. Combined with Allie X’s dreamlike vocals make this a certified bop.

Poly-Math - Sensors in Everything Sensors in Everything is a beast of a track spanning over 14 minutes of absurdly dense prog. Having recently enlisted keyboardist Josh Gesner. Polymath make use of the new sounds and textures available to them, at times imitating a sort of Hammond sound not unlike John Lord to the chaotic maelstrom of noise.

Calva Louise - Sleeper Big hooks on this one. Sleeper has a confident swagger to it’s sound which stands apart for the bands previous work. It’s an absolutely huge track.

Slipknot - Solway Firth Slipknot didn’t disappoint after the tease of 2018′s “All Out Life”, following up with an album which blended old and new aspects of their sound to create one of their best to date. Solway Firth is a perfect example of this matching the punishing heaviness of Iowa with the melody driven sound of All Hope Is Gone.

Clt Drp - Speak To My Seeing Clt Drp perform live was one of my highlights of the year. The filthy guitar tones, powerhouse vocals tight as heck drumming and the _grooves. _Absolutely like nothing else I’ve seen. Just an incredible band that deserve so much more recognition.

Black Country, New Road - Sunglasses Black Country, New Road released two tracks this year and now I just want more. Dense wordy lyricism plays off against ever evolving instrumentation to present a raw cut of emotional storytelling.

Her Name Is Calla - Swan Her Name Is Calla are a band that have always been on the edge of my radar, my Dad is very fond of them and saw them live a couple of years ago, but never went back to relisten to any of their stuff, then they started an album with this. I was sold instantly.

black midi - Talking Heads Talking Heads (the band) are an obvious inspiration on this track. Both David Byrne’s vocal style and the Talking Heads penchant for sharp angular melodies are on show here. But given an extra ounce of chaos through Black Midi’s delivery.

Amanda Palmer - The Ride The ride is ten minutes of bundling up all your fears and anxieties of where we are and where we’re going and just, accepting them as part of the ride. Written off the back of a prompt from Amanda asking her fans what they were afraid of right now.

Kim Petras - There Will Be Blood Okay, let’s have some out of season spookiness. Love the squelchy synths on this, there’s a huge amount of energy on this track and with it’s commitment to the horror conceit it makes for a super fun bop.

Kate Nash - Trash Kate Nash’s sound is like bathing pure nostalgia,here she spins the toxic-relationship narrative central to her work to deliver a bigger story about humanity’s, quite literally toxic relationship to our planet.

American Football & Hayley Williams - Uncomfortably Numb The other side of the “midwest emo” coin. A melancholic song built on a soft bed of arpeggiated chords and clean harmonics, Uncomfortably Numb is a heartbreaking track of losing everything and of cycles persisting thorugh generations. Employing the clever metatextual trick of referencing Pink Floyd’s comfortably Numb to mirror the generational similarities.

Glenn Branca - Velvet and Pearls Disclaimer, Glenn Branca was a musical hero of mine, his approach to music and composition being solely responsible for influence a vast number of my favourite bands. Released posthumously, Velvet and Pearls is taken from a live performance by Branca’s ensemble and perfectly captures the sense of sonic disorientation, conjuring aural illusions through an assault of intricately crafted noise. It’s an exhilarating piece that should be played as loud as humanly possible.

Brutus - War The raw emotional strength of Stefanie Manneart’s vocals instantly made me pay attention when I first heard this track. Then the song exploded into a barrage of riffs and breakneck drumming.

Valiant Vermin - Warm Coke Another slice of throwback pop, Valiant Vermin proved with “Online Lover” how much of an ear she has for pop and has proven it once again with Warm Coke. Is a real good bop.

———

Welp there it is, 50(+1) songs, I had to limit myself to one track per artist in the main 50 because according to Spotify I listened to [checks notes] 1082 new artists this year. There are a small handful of tracks I wanted to highlight from the same artists though as they offer something quite different to the tracks in the playlists, so here they are quickly with 3 word descriptions.

Petrol Girls - Skye (dead dog, sad) Amanda Palmer - Voicemail for Jill (Talk about abortion) Ezra Furman - I Wanna be Your Girlfriend (Trans Torch Song) Battles ft Jon Anderson & Prairie WWWW - Sugar Foot (Batshit Prog Insanity) Poppy - Choke (Dark Minimalist Pop) Show Me The Body - Forks and Knives (Anxious nightmare punk) Lingua Ignota - CALIGULA (the whole album.)

———

Closing Statement

Cultdreams - Statement

There has been a shadow over the entertainment industry the latter half of this decade. Whether film, music, TV or video games, the late 2010′s are filled with stories of people coming forward to bravely tell their stories about being abused and manipulated by men in positions of power. The #metoo movement as it’s come to be known has been a powerful force in giving marginalised people a voice and the ability to call out oppressors and in starting the groundwork to root out the misogyny in the seats of power, but this is a battle far from won.

While there are thousands of stories out there I want to focus on one in particular.

In 2016 a number of women spoke out about various forms of abuse by a well-known musician in the punk scene. It’s now over three years later and this group of women are in the midst of a long fought claim of defamation from this musician. If this case goes through it sets a precedent for silencing marginalised voices in the industry. They have been fighting for so long and with no legal aid available for the case they have had to finance their defense from their own pockets.

This is where Solidarity Not Silence comes in. Solidarity not silence is a crowdfunding effort to help take the case to trial without the women bankrupting themselves entirely so that they don’t have to give in to this mans demands.  You can read more about Solidarity not Silence and make a donation (if you feel so inclined) here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/solidaritynotsilence/

You can also follow them on twitter here https://twitter.com/solnotsilence

[elejah-verse]

Love Hurts/7

Fanfiction

Part 7

Elijah Mikaelson x reader

TVD/TO AU story

Summary: Y/N got a letter from a lawyer from New Orleans, stating she inherited a part of an Estate. She went there to see what it was about. There she met two brothers Elijah and Klaus, who also part own the property.

a/n: thanks for reading so much. I'm posting this part already, because I will be away for a few days and will not be writing or editing. xoxo

tags @rissyrapp20 @dendrite-lover @goddessofthunder112 @captainshurley

@cassienoble2000

_____

A week after

Camille's car crash turned everything like 360 degrees around. It put a lot of things in perspective, but has brought old heartaches out.

"So, you are not coming home with us?"- Bonnie asked her friend one last time before she and Damon were to board the plane to Virginia.

Y/N now shook her head in negation, thanking her friends for staying longer than they anticipated. All three of them now went into a group hug.

"Call whenever you need - to cry- to shout- to you know."- Bonnie said.

"Thanks so much you guys!"- Y/N said.

"I still think you should just cut your losses and come back home with us."- Damon said.

"I have this whole project going now that I got the approval and I have this whole Ball thing and the fundraiser. Oh, you guys, thanks so much for everything- ok, you go now, before I start crying."

Bamon waved at her a little and went through the departure gates.

Y/N was a fighter in many respects. And no matter how much her heart ached, thinking at one moment to pack up and leave New Orleans behind, she was not a quitter. She buried her feelings in the Mikaelson Plantation House Project and got fully involved with every part of it. Klaus supported her fully and signed everything that was needed on his part as well as Elijah's. She barely saw him the accident and their heart-breaking talk.

It was not that they avoided each other on purpose, they just had other priorities. She the Plantation and him work and then Camille, who was still in coma.

_____

A few days later

At the New Orleans house

"I've named Jackson the Ground's manager now. He is really good with the workers"- Y/N said to Klaus as they talked about the project development."

"Yeah, he was always capable. He is so ready to do more."- Klaus agreed then asking her if she wanted to have a glass of Bourbon.

"No, thanks. Juice. Ahm- I've also given Andrea a job."

"You did- right."- Klaus said handing her the glass of O. J.

"She needed a job. We talked. She really didn't want to continue waitressing. And she knows so much about this place and she is great with people. Plus she studied art history and she loves this place. She is really enthusiastic about it and in L.A. she ran a bar/art gallery. "

"Something told me you and her would become friends."- Klaus said.

"She's been really bad. She lost her sister. It hurt. It's terrible losing your twin. She told me that her and Hayley were really tight. I totally get her needing to be away."- Y/N said.

"This is your way of telling me I should lay off her and- Mary has already taken Hope to see her?"- Klaus realized what Y/N was getting at.

Y/N was quiet and sipped the juice and then said-"Let bygones be bygones. Everything can change in a flash and- well, I don't have to tell you"

"No, you don't. And you are right. This family knows all too well how one minute everything is absolute bliss and the next all is pure darkness."- Klaus now looked at the photographs of his mother and aunt walking to the table where they were- "I will start believing that this family is cursed. The Mikaelson curse."- he looked at the photo of Dahlia now.

"What?"- Y/N slipped looking at him strangely.

Klaus turned around to Y/N and continued-"We were at the Plantation house and I was eight, I think. I remember getting into the house and she was with a woman dressed like she was - well, she was a witch. To cleanse the house. I heard them talking about the Mikaelson curse. My aunt told her that it ran in the family since apparently forever, saying that no Mikaelson will ever be truly happy. This - what happened to Camille- just proves it is true."

Y/N went into pensive mode. Her thoughts were with Elijah. Did he believe the same? She flashed back to the day before.

Flashback

Early in the morning

Y/N walked into the kitchen. Elijah was already there.

"Hey"- she said as she came to the counter where he was pouring himself a cup of coffee.

"Hey"- he slipped and then asked if she wanted a cup of coffee. Y/N nodded and sat down at the table.

He brought the coffee over to the table as well as the French bread Mary had already prepared.

"They are still warm."- he said taking one slice for himself.

If someone watched them from outside, they would say that there were two people who were beyond civil to one another because they either tremendously hated or loved one another.

"How is work?"- Y/N then asked and Elijah would answer with a short all right.

"Jackson told me you are thinking of giving him a managerial job?"

"I think he can do it. I can count on him for everything. He is really someone you can count on."- Y/N said.

"That's true. He is a good guy."

And then there was silence again. They looked at one another with love still glittering in their eyes and at one point as their hands were close to one another, Elijah moved his little finger touching hers.

Both of them were breaking inside. Elijah then suddenly said-

"I only bring unhappiness." He stood up abruptly and left. (end of flashback)

”Y/N, are you ok?"- Klaus asked her now.

"Yeah, we will just have to break this curse."-  Y/N said adamant.

"What? You don't really believe this? Will you now get a witch, too? This is the south and New Orleans is full of ghost stories. My aunt was just a very eccentric woman."

"No. I just said it so say it. Anyway, with everything that happened- there is this something that I am thinking over and over in my head in the last couple of days and- I really don't know what to do. It's about the Ball."

"What's with the Ball? I thought everything was ready and we are doing the whole thing in less than a couple of weeks?"- Klaus said.

"Yeah, everything is ready. But with Camille in hospital, I just feel awful-can't really cancel the Ball, because a lot of money was donated to it because it is now this huge event and opening of the house and the mayor is coming and- "

"You are right, we can't cancel it. This Ball is the making and breaking of us and our family."

"Yeah"- Y/N said looking at the clock.

Klaus offered her another drink, but she declined and as she was about to get off to bed, Elijah walked in.

Klaus poured his brother a drink without even asking.

"Anything new?"- Klaus asked referring to Camille.

Elijah took a sip and then said- "The swelling on the back has come down and they will operate as soon as she regains full consciousness. She opened her eyes today for a little while, but slipped back in, but it shows that she is coming out of the coma. "

"That is great news!"- Klaus said now hugging his brother.

"It is."- Elijah said in a happy but tired tone of voice.

Y/N's eyes watered, happy to hear there was some good news, and as Klaus moved out of the hug she now moved over to Elijah and hugged him.

"This is such great news. So happy for you."

Y/N looked at him with pure heart now adding-"Everything is going to be all right."

The way Y/N said it, Klaus thought that there was a witchy something going on there.

Elijah thanked both of them for being so optimistic and supporting.

"We love you- what are you talking about, of course we are supportive and optimistic."- Klaus said.

The we love you made Elijah now glance at Y/N, and she smiled at him. Eyes streaming at him 'always, no matter what' .

But what he didn't know was that Y/N made a decision that very morning when she employed Andrea to run the Mikaelson Plantation house. And the decision was that she was leaving New Orleans after all.

Flashback

"I really need to know if you are going to be able to do this, because- I will go away for a while to visit my parents. They are in Brasil now. It's just after the Ball, but, when I look at your resume, this is going to be a piece of cake for you."

"I can do it. Absolutely."- Andrea said.

"You know that you will have to work with Jackson, because he is the manager of the Grounds now. How do you feel about it? I mean- I get it if it is going to be too much?"- Y/N asked.

"I guess you know everything about us- of course you do. Did you tell him- and Klaus?"

"Jackson is coming in half an hour and we will all talk together. He seems to be a professional, and - I will tell Klaus tonight."

"You're like that someone who is trying to mend broken bridges- that's how Mary described you."- Andrea said.

"Yeah, Mary thinks that I was sent from up above- at least that is what I heard when she -"

"She speaks to the picture of Esther?"- Andrea now said.

"You know about that?"- Y/N said.

"I know Klaus and Elijah since we were kids."

"Exactly. There is like nothing I have to tell you that you don't already know. I know, I am leaving you like - at the beginning of the whole thing, but I will be on the phone all the time."

"Don't worry. I got this. And I know how to handle Jackson."

"Great. All seems to be falling perfectly in place."- Y/N was happy.(end of flashback)

That was the truth. Work-wise, everything was running like clockwork. Andrea and Jackson worked well together, both of them agreeing that  work came first and personal feelings second. Y/N could see the underlying love they still carried for one another underneath, and watching them talk at times, smiled somewhat devilishly, her heart happy that she played a role in potentially bringing them back together. At a small party that Y/N organized for all the staff, Andrea  and Jackson sat down next to one another. He complimented her on the work she had done so far, giving her a little kiss on the cheek.

      Unlucky in love, but lucky in business, Y/N thought, looking at everyone. Klaus came up to her and congratulated her.

"Are you sure you can't do magic?"

"Oh, come on. There is a lot of things that are not done yet."- Y/N replied.

"Like what? The centerpiece should be moved maybe a little to the left."

Y/N kicked him a bit on the shoulder for making this remark. Klaus could see that she was not completely at ease.

"What's wrong?"

"I hope everything goes well tomorrow. It's kind of a big deal."- Y/N said.

"What can go wrong? Nothing. I feel that things have turned for us. Camille's recovery is going accordingly. Elijah will be here as well, tomorrow. Everything is fine. Relax now."- Klaus said.

"Yeah. I just need a good night sleep and I will be fine."- Y/N said and now walked to some people, who waved at her.

As the party was winding down, Elijah arrived at the Plantation house as well.

Klaus met up with him at the driveway. Getting out of his car, Klaus asked-

"Hey. How are you doing?"

"Fine."- Elijah replied taking his tux out of the car-"Here?"

"Y/N is a bundle of nerves, but everything else is fine."- Klaus reported-"Camille?"

"Fine."- Elijah said as they walked into the house-"She sends her love. She is happy about the whole project taking off."

"There. Like Y/N said everything will be fine."- Klaus remarked and they walked in the house.

Later, as he had a shower, Elijah walked out to the back porch where the garden party for the staff was held. There were only a few waiters left clearing up, and Y/N, of course, overlooking everything and setting all ready for the next day. He looked at her, his heart still pounding widely everytime he was in her vicinity. Words of his aunt now came storming in-

"Love is the gift of Gods, binding two hearts together blessed by the morning star. It's glorious song quivering inside you always and forever."

It is exactly how he felt for Y/N. All of him burning with sweetest feelings, wanting to go over and take her in his arms and hold her always and forever. But in his core, he was also a noble and moral person. And he could not crush Camille, now, as he felt he had betrayed her as well as he had betrayed himself and Y/N by not clarifying his feelings.

As Y/N saw him, she waved a little at him and he now went to her.

"Klaus said that everything is set and ready"- he said.

"It is what it is now. I just hope that we will make your mom and aunt proud."

"I am so very sure we will. You will. It's abolutely astonishing what you have mastered in those past months."- Elijah said.

"Thank you. It means so much - "- and she went quite trying so hard to keep her heart steady.

"All right. So- good night. We all need to rest. It will be a busy day tomorrow"- he put a little smile on and after a small loving gaze he turned away and walked to the house.

Y/N wanted to call him out and run to him, but her mind kept het from doing so. She can't make it harder for him. And for her as well.

Making the last rounds around the  house a little later, entering the Salon, all of the memories of her arriving for the first time at the Plantation started unfolding, and like a little movie everything that went from that moment on, the way she fell in love with the place at the very instant just sitting out there on the porch, all up to the moment she and Elijah declared their feelings for one another, and the afternoon when she felt the happiest ever.

And as if doing a very odd ritual now, she stood in front of the photo of Esther and Dahlia saying-

"I didn't really ever believed in fate or anything like this. I had dreams of me doing something great and - coming here. You bringing me here was something so extraordinary and so great. In such a short time so many amazing things have happened, that it feels like I walked in a very weird story- a very unusual adventure. Thank you. I hope you are happy with all that I have done. Oh, and - talking about that Mikaelson curse- I think that tomorrow night we will break it. I don't know how, but something tells me that it will be done. Also, I am leaving after the Ball. I thought that I wouldn't, but I just- I can't be- here and watch Elijah with someone else. And maybe, I wasn't meant to be with him after all. I  know one thing - I will love him forever."- Y/N looked around the room and the closed her eyes for a second remembering his kisses.

¤

The night of the Ball was truly magical. Y/N, Elijah and Klaus shone as the hosts representing the next Mikaelson generation. The event was even more glamorous than it ever had been before. Both of them presented Y/N as the heart and the soul of the Ball and she graciously thanked them all. And in the tone when she gave her part of the speech, Mary recognized a certain farewell sentiment in N/Y.

At one point as Y/N was out in the garden mingling, Mary said to her as she came to the woman-

"You are leaving, aren't you?"

Y/N looked at Mary thinking that Andrea might have told her about her trip to see her parents.

"I have a flight tomorrow night. I am going to see my parents in Brasil for a week or so."- Y/N replied.

"And you are not coming back- here. I am right, aren't I? Is it because of Elijah?"- Mary said.

Y/N looked at the housekeeper slightly shocked that she would mention Elijah.

"My darling, I have seen the way he looks at you, the way you look at each other. Something happened?"

Y/N's eyes watered a bit-

"Please Mary, you can't tell anyone. I - have to go. Elijah needs to  be with Camille and help her get better. I need to make it easier for him."

"How about you? This is not good. None of it."- Mary said.

"You said it. It is not good. Mary- please, just keep it to yourself. Please. If Camille would find out and it affected her recovery, I would not be able to live with myself. Promise me."

Mary nodded and slipped I promise.

"Thank you"- Y/N said and went back to her guests.

Not long after as the Ball was winding down, Elijah having seen Y/N and Mary talk, and having heard Andrea telling Jackson that Y/N was leaving for Brasil, he went to look for Y/N, finally finding her in the study.

"Y/N"- he said.

Y/N turned and he continued-

"I hear you are going away?"     

"I am."- she said-"I am going to visit my parents"

"Is that why you had a lenghty talk with Mary, who was clearly quite upset afterwards. You are not just going to visit your parents. This is for good-"

Y/N now nodded saying-

"I can't stay."

"We can make an arrangement. I will leave and move to Camille's."

"Elijah, this is your home. You lived all of your life here. I am the one who came out of nowhere, and I have a home, and my parents, my friends in Mystic Falls. I miss them."

"And you think that we will forget- all those three months, all what you've done here will be wiped away? What you and I - "

Y/N now walked to him and put her hand on his cheek-

"This has been the best adventure of my life. It's been wonderful. You've been wonderful. But I have to go."      

"Adventure, ha?"- Elijah said.

Y/N nodded-

"Yes. I thought about everything and yeah, it's been an adventure."

"I thought we-"

Y/N shook her head like saying whatever was between us was not that extraordinary.

Taking her hand off of his face now clearly disappointed feeling like she stuck a dagger in his heart he said-"than we have nothing to say to one another"- he turned away and walked out of the room.       

Tears now streamed down her face, heart breaking into pieces, but she had to let him go.

And she let him go.

_____