#i literally had to stop adding detail to this bc i was so sad ..

[frigidwife]

why don't you have wings to fly with? (Aug 21th & 22nd: As A Caged Bird)

[nonclassyparty]

tins without labels - prologue (j.wy)

summary: Jung Wooyoung's life was always somehow intertwined with your own. from living in the same neighbourhood as kids to attending the same college; fights, bickering, bruises, teasing comments and tears. Wooyoung and you were never complete strangers but never friends either. Always somewhere in between, growing up with each other but never actually knowing one another. The relationship takes a confusing turn in your third year of college after an injury that places your football career on hold. Lonely, lost and confused, you find yourself at your first college party in the presence of none other than Jung Wooyoung asking him to show you what exactly have you been missing out on. playlist // my main masterlist // moodboard (tba) // click to donate to Palestine

pairing: jung wooyoung x reader warnings: none for this chapter i think! word count: 9.3k taglist: just reply or inbox me if u'd like to be added c: a/n: pls don't say damn when u see that i started another story. listen LISTEEEEEN. i know what u all will say..."bree should u rly be starting another series when u havent finished or started the 4757 bajillion ones that u already posted?" the answer is YES. let me explain myself briefly, this summer has been rly hard for me bc i lost someone who was incredibly important to me and i just can't write...i just can't! everything looks like shit!!! im halfway done with soot and something just isn't letting me continue. i can't write pretty on the outside or literally anything else i've started bc its all simply too sad. writing is draining to begin with despite how much i love and enjoy it but writing angst is k wording my mental health lol! so....i present to you this series, mostly dedicated to myself literally no one asked for this, i just feel like its something i need to write and always wanted to so here i go! it will be a little heartwarming series with lots of humor and coming of age shenanigans and huge chunks of it written from personal experience and i hope u guys read it and like it. i had a lot of fun writing this prologue. (p.s. i literally know jackshit about football/soccer so if by some chance someone that reads this knows their football shit....just let it go pls lmfaoo)

(prologue; when we were kids)

and I couldn't find the words, i couldn't think of what to say and all that I can do is stop and think about the days when all we used to dream about was meeting after school

6 and 8 years old;

Your mom helped you build the snowman.

An entire morning of running around your front yard, laughing and playing in the freshly fallen snow, seeing the air you breathe out in front of you that you pretended was cigarette smoke to make your mom laugh as the cold nipped at your cheeks.

The snowman was almost twice your size (which wasn't a lot, you were a fairly small child) with pebbles stuck in as his eyes and teeth pulled up in a big grin. Your mom found a small bucket in the old shed behind the house which she placed on his head as a makeshift hat and because you didn't have any carrots, there was a small twig stuck at the center of the snowman's face to serve as a long crooked nose.

(The snowman didn't have any arms, a detail that went over your head at the time.)

After admiring the big statue in the farther corner of your front yard for awhile, you finally retreated into the house with your socks wet along with the majority of your hot pink snowsuit. As you kicked off the damp clothes and exchanged them for warm, dry ones and fuzzy socks and then settled in front of the TV in the toasty living room with a mug of cocoa - you couldn't help but feel that it was a happy day.

Which is why when, in the late afternoon, once you looked out of your window to see what once used to be your snowman is now nothing but a big pile of disheveled snow with his plastic hat rolling around the sidewalk and two boys running away down the street with shrill laughter echoing after them, you simply couldn't help but burst into tears.

"Mommy!" You screamed out, running outside your front door in fuzzy socks and your sweater, as dramatic as you were. But you were six and your life still ended and began with coloring books and favorite toys, so a snowman that you made with your mom getting destroyed, surely felt like the end of the world.

Once your mom stepped out after you, about to scold you for walking outside into the cold air with no jacket on, you burst into crocodile tears as you pointed to the spot where your snowman once stood.

"Oh, no." She breathed out with a sigh before grabbing her jacket and slipping into whatever shoes were available by the door (they were your dad's old tennis shoes) and walking across the front yard to collect the small bucket from the sidewalk.

All you could do was stand and watch as you wailed so loudly after your snowman that the entire neighbourhood could hear.

"Honey, it's okay." Your mom tried to soothe you as she walked up the steps to your house, carrying what used to be the snowman's hat. "It's just a snowman, we'll make another one tomorrow!"

But you were inconsolable, bursting out in another wave of loud cries as you stomped your tiny foot and pointed to the house across the street.

"They ruined it! W-Wooyoung ruined it!" You sob, waving towards the boy's house with all the anger a six year old could possibly muster. You knew it was him, recognizing the ugly red jacket he wore this entire winter and his even uglier looking friend, Chanwook.

You weren't friends with Wooyoung. He was older than you and all of his friends were mean. You once tried to play with them when you first moved to the neighbourhood but they didn't want to play with a girl. You cried about that too.

They often teased you. Wooyoung said your crooked teeth made you look ugly!

She sighs again, "And that was very mean of him. But, Y/N, we'll just make another snowman tomorrow."

"But-" You start again, tears still sliding down your face. 

"We'll build him in the backyard where we have a fence, so no-one will be able to touch him." She offers with a smile, hoping you'll finally be consoled enough to walk inside and be safe from the harsh cold.

"But I won't be able to look at him from the window." You tell her quietly, voice going hoarse from the crying and bottom lip already wobbling as another wave of tears began to sunk in. She gives you a sympathetic smile.

"We'll get him a prettier hat and we'll use two long branches to give him arms!" Your mom offers again, trying to butter you up so the tears would stop. "We'll get a carrot for his nose and big pretty rocks for his eyes!" Once she realized it was working, she continued; "And we'll take a picture of you with him so you'll always get to look at him, even when he melts away!"

You peer up at her with a hiccup, finally bribed enough; "A picture?"

She nods, holding the door wider for you to finally walk inside as you inch towards the door, fuzzy socks now soaked, "A picture. We'll send your dad to the mall to develop them."

So, you finally walk inside the warm house again, changing your socks and immediately going to your father's home office to pester him about the camera and just how long will it take for a picture to be developed.

-

"-Y/N, we'll just make another snowman tomorrow!" 

Wooyoung heard your mom tell you as he peers at the exchange from across the street, through his bedroom window, freshly changed into dry clothes after a long hard day of playing outside with Chanwook and now, warming his frozen hands on the radiator.

When Wooyoung saw the snowman parked in the corner of your front yard, just a step away from the sidewalk, he and Chanwook thought it would be funny to ruin it. 

The thing was ugly and had an even uglier bucket at the top of it's head, perfect to kick around the street!

He didn't think too much about it, if he was honest. Just saw a big lump of snow he wanted to kick at until it collapsed, so that's what Wooyoung did. It was just a silly snowman.

Besides, you were already six years old. Far too old to be making a stupid snowman. You should've been going sledding with the rest of the neighborhood kids on the small hill just a couple of minutes away from your street. Wooyoung was mature now, so his mom allowed him to go without a chaperone this year. You were always so childish, no wonder your mom didn't let you go with them. You cried over everything.

But he didn't expect you to cry over the stupid snowman!

It was just a snowman. It would've melted anyway when the weather got warmer! Or gotten ruined by someone else! 

The brief fear of your mom telling Wooyoung's mom about what he'd done struck him. He'd positively get grounded for ruining your dumb snowman if she found out and then the rest of his winter break would be spent inside of the house.

You could always make another snowman. A better one. And since you're such a crybaby, Wooyoung would make sure to tell Chanwook that they won't be touching that one. Leave that ugly snowman alone.

Just so you wouldn't cry anymore.

-

10 and 12 years old;

"It's a shame your mother is dead, maybe if she was still around she would teach you how to act like a girl!" 

Your face flushed in anger as you stared the other boy, Beomseok, his chubby fingers still wrapped around your pencil case which was how the argument started in the first place.

He was in the same class as you and a typical bully. Bigger than the rest of his peers and always using it to his advantage to intimidate and tease them. Today, he took your pencil case and when you asked for him to give it back, he only gave you a gnarly smile and started running around the classroom and eventually out on the halls, screaming taunts at you. It would be a lie to say that you didn't scream some pretty mean stuff back but in your defense, he deserved it.

Now, you both stood as if you're ready to duel as the rest of your classmates and even some upperclassmen gathered to see what the commotion is all about, your fury rising so high that tears spring in your eyes at the mention of your mom as you observe his smug smirk. Obviously, from a very young age, you were bad at managing your anger.

"I hate you!" You scream out, voice high pitched. Then you jump on Beomseok with your full weight, successfully pulling him to the hard hallway floors as your hands curled into tiny fists that started colliding with his face.

And Beomseok, for all his intimidating build, talked an awfully big game just to end up bursting into tears as your fist collided with his nose. He was bad at fighting, you notice, if he could be beat up by a lanky girl almost two times smaller than him.

"I just-" Punch. "-wanted-" Punch. "-my pencil case-" A slap. "-back!"

"Somebody help!" He screams from under you, whining under each attack but his classmates were too busy cheering you on to come to his defense.

Once you start harshly pulling on his hair, two arms wrap themselves under your armpits and pull you off of your classmate. You're standing again and are turned by your shoulders to come face to face with your teacher, screaming at you.

"Is this a proper behavior in school?!" and lots of "Your father will hear about this!"'s and "You're going to the principle's office!" as she started pulling you by your arm down the corridor that was still filled with students.

"Everyone to your classrooms! Now!" Your teacher screams from the top of her lungs as she tugs on you and you follow after her with a frown on your face.

Stupid Beomseok.

-

Wooyoung's stomach hurts from laughing, clapping Chanwook's shoulder who was almost sitting on the floor due to his own fit of pure glee, as he watches Kim Beomseok roll around the floor in pain, clutching his nose. 

There's scratches and bruises already forming on his cheeks, little bit of blood mixed with a lot of big, fat tears. It's hard to feel even slightly bad for Beomseok, when Wooyoung heard how he torments his classmates along with the younger kids during recess. Did it count as bullying if the bully is the one getting bullied?

Maybe he finally got what was coming for him, nobody usually stood up to him and Wooyoung least expected you to be the one to put him in his place.

He deserved it, Wooyoung thinks, after what he said about your mom.

Wooyoung remembers her funeral three years ago, he remembers how much you cried and how you didn't leave your house for a month that summer. He even rung the doorbell to ask if you wanted to come out and play one time which he never did because you were a child and he was much more mature than you, you two had nothing in common. But he felt sad for you.

Your mom was nice, she always brought Wooyoung a chocolate when she'd come for a visit.

 Sadly, they discovered she had cancer when you were only seven and Wooyoung was nine. By the time they discovered it, it was already too far along and your mom passed away on a summer evening while you were outside playing hide and seek. 

Wooyoung remembers feeling so bad how they always made you the seeker that day because you were the youngest kid in the neighbourhood and far too easy to convince that it was simply always your turn to look for the other kids.

Your dad opened the door, smiling sadly at Wooyoung and saying that you weren't feeling well enough to come out and play. Wooyoung didn't try again after that.

The teacher is pulling you by your elbow through the crowd, yelling at the top of her lungs for everyone to head to their classrooms since class should start in a couple of minutes. You silently follow her, face twisted into an angry grimace.

Your hair has fallen out of your ponytail, long strands sticking to your face and Wooyoung is pretty sure that your shirt got ripped during the brawl. 

Wooyoung might've been laughing a bit too loudly because with angry eyes and cheeks flushed, your head whips towards him just as you pass by him.

Wooyoung opens his mouth with a smile, to say something like "Good job, Y/L!" maybe. He doesn't get the chance to.

"What are you laughing at, Jung?" You ask loudly and Wooyoung's laughter immediately dies down.

"Wha-?"

And it's then, that your foot meets Wooyoung's shin in a harsh kick that makes him yowl in pain and makes Chanwook burst into another wave of laughter as his hands grab at Wooyoung who doubles over in pain.

"Y/N!" The teacher screams out again, pulling you back by your shirt and going on another rant, filled with threats of calling your dad to school and something else he can't process at the moment.

Wooyoung is too busy feeling the pain and anger that fills him up as he rubs at the place your sneaker covered foot meet his leg.

"Y/N, you psycho!" He yells after you who is still getting dragged away. You don't even bother to look back at him.

(He still collects your pencil case from the floor and throws it on a desk that a classmate of yours says belongs to you before exiting the classroom and going to his own. Wooyoung tells himself it's for no other reason but just so your dad won't have to buy you a new one. He has enough on his plate already.)

-

14 and 16 years old;

Wooyoung has a girlfriend.

You don't know why that's something that bothers you so much.

Maybe because you don't understand what a girl could possibly see in Jung Wooyoung to willingly let him hold her hand or...God forbid, kiss her. Ew.

That's a lie, maybe even a bad attempt at coping on your part because there's a general consensus in your high school that Jung Wooyoung is good-looking. 

You didn't even think he was ugly when you were younger, when he was pulling on your pigtails and teasing you for playing with dolls. He was cute for an annoying kid back then too with his chubby cheeks and bowl haircut.

He was especially cute now, a recent discovery of yours which you have no one else to thank except puberty. It did wonders on your hormones and it did wonders on Jung Wooyoung too. 

His jawline got sharper the more baby fat he lost and lips grew fuller. His boyish smile was very attractive, even his smile lines were captivating. Wooyoung grew taller as well, not by much compared to the other boys in his grade but he was tall just enough so you'd have to look up to him when you argue but not enough to be intimidated by him.

So, yes, you supposed you'd understand the appeal if it weren't for his stupid mouth and mean words more often than not, directed at you. You threw shots back as well, sometimes even started an argument first if you were feeling particularly annoying but maybe that sums up why you're so bothered.

He started dating Chaeyoung at the beginning of this summer and since you have the fortune (read: misfortune) of living in the house right across the street from Wooyoung's, you were an unlucky witness to most of their dates.

And he was so sweet to her. He'd buy her cheap flowers and ice cream, they'd walk around the neighbourhood holding hands, they'd take Wooyoung's younger brother Kyungmin to the playground in the evenings. Wooyoung would smile a lot at her and Chaeyoung would always smile back.

You even saw them kiss. Just once.

When you were folding laundry in your bedroom, you looked through the window just in time to see their lips connect on Wooyoung's front porch. You quickly looked away, feeling shy and embarrassed, not understanding why you were blushing or feeling so sad all of a sudden.

Why was he so nice to other girls but never to you? You shouldn't think too much about it, the problem isn't you. Chaeyoung wasn't just some other girl but his girlfriend. Of course, he'd treat her special.

Whatever. You scoff as you watch Chaeyoung run to Wooyoung across the quad as you adjust your sports bag over your shoulder. 

She jumps into his arms and you can hear his loud, annoying laughter even to here as his arms wrap around her and he picks her up from the ground.

"What are you doing?" You almost jump out of your skin at the sound of Ryujin's voice as she nosily tries to follow where you were staring at.

Ryujin was the first friend you met since you started high school two weeks ago. She might be the only friend you have for awhile since you haven't really been trying to even get to know your classmates as you were too busy trying out for the girls football team.

You don't remember when you started actively playing football exactly. You always played it for fun with the boys from the neighbourhood (Wooyoung included)  but maybe it was around seventh grade when your dad pestered you into trying out a sport because he didn't know what else to do with you so he packed you up and sent you to a sports camp for two weeks one summer, that you started actually playing.

You went there only caring about your iPad and came back saying you'll be a professional football player.

Your dad doesn't want to say it but you know he thinks it's a fickle dream that will fizzle out with age.

Thankfully, Ryujin shared the same love for the sport as you so for now, you were relieved and content to spend time with her. She was nice.

You didn't need anyone else but maybe it would've been nice if someone who was older, who you were familiar with even if you always fought, would give you a couple of words of useful advice. Regarding the new teachers and subjects and all.

High school was scary.

"Nothing." You answer quickly, turning your back to Wooyoung and his girlfriend and fully facing your new friend.

"Nothing?" Ryujin gives you a suspicious smile, eyes darting over your shoulder once more before she ruffles your hair. You yelp. "Do you have a crush already, Y/N?"

You gently shove her away with a huff, fixing your bangs, "Don't be stupid. These boys are all ugly."

A crush. As if!

She laughs at that, throwing her arm around your shoulder as she directs you both to the field where practice was held, already yapping about her own crush.

-

"Hey, isn't that your neighbour?" Chaeyoung nudges Wooyoung with her elbow, nodding somewhere behind Wooyoung. He cranes his neck to follow the direction before his eyes land on you.

He snorts, "Yeah."

You were standing in the middle of the football field, sweaty and red in the face from all the running, with your hands on your hips as you paid attention to what your coach was yelling towards your teammates across the field.

The school's jersey seemed far too big on your lanky form and your hair was a mess, always slipping out of your ponytail. You were much smaller in build than the rest of the team and it looked funny to Wooyoung.

He didn't expect you to be into sports, let alone a sport like football. In fact, Wooyoung is surprised that you don't burst into tears when you start arguing with the makeshift referee played by another student. It's what usually happens if you spend longer than a minute arguing with Wooyoung.

And then he ends up being the bad guy for making you cry but no one ever mentions that you sometimes provoke him first as well but can't take it when it's dished right back.

Since you're such a crybaby.

He watches with an amused grin as you bare your teeth at the referee, who is really just a senior that thought it would be a fun time but now he has to stand arguing with you. And to Wooyoung's further amusement, the older boy who is almost two heads taller than you, looks like he's about to shit his pants in front of you.

Hm. Maybe not such a crybaby when it's anyone else but Wooyoung.

"I think she has a crush on you."

He turns to look at his girlfriend with a confused look, growing further confused when she smiles teasingly at him.

"Who?" He asks and she gives him a knowing look before nodding in your direction again. Wooyoung splutters out a surprised laugh, "Y/N?"

"Yeah." She nods excitedly, giggling, "She's cute."

Wooyoung scoffs with an eyeroll, "She's a kid."

A kid who might have a small crush on Wooyoung but still, a kid nonetheless.

He'd be stupid to say he didn't notice that you sometimes stare at him a little too much but what the hell is he supposed to do about that. You just started high school, you probably weren't even aware of what you were doing. It was a childish crush because at the end of the day that's what you are - childish.

Chaeyoung giggles again, the sound is soft and sweet, leaning her head against his shoulder. 

"It's kind of sweet." She sighs dreamily and Wooyoung snorts because nothing about you was sweet, "You're her handsome neighbour, the only guy who's always been close to her since she was a kid, she probably starts those childish arguments with you so you'd give her attention and then writes about you in her diary and-"

"Y/N is the last person to have a diary, first of all." Wooyoung interrupts with a snicker before looking down on his girlfriend who is teasing him, "Second of all, you sound ridiculous."

Chaeyoung lifts her head up from where it rested against him and looks at him seriously, her lips pressed together. Then she starts imitating Wooyoung's last sentence in a deeper voice that sounds nothing like him, "You sound ridiculous-ah!"

She squeals when Wooyoung pinches her at the waist lovingly and it turns to tickling her as he presses kisses to her cheeks.

As they continue to exchange kisses between hushed giggles, the conversation about you is forgotten.

-

18 and 20 years old;

From the moment you opened the door to greet your date, you knew that the whole night would be a complete and utter disaster.

Maybe you watched too many teen movies that romanticized prom night so much that even you ended up believing and looking forward to the glorified fantasy of it but boy, were you in for a rude awakening.

Your prom date was a boy from your Calculus class named Eunwoo. 

To be completely honest, you were convinced for the entirety of your senior year that you wouldn't have a date for prom at all because not much has changed since freshman year.

You still had one good friend (two, if you count Ryujin's friend that says she likes hanging out with you) and your focus was always on football. Add schoolwork and keeping up your good grades and you truly didn't have much time left for socializing.

So when Eunwoo pulled you aside after your football practice and asked you if you wanted to go to prom together with a handsome boyish smile on his face, your excitement for that night skyrocketed.

Eunwoo wasn't exactly a friend but he was nice to you during class, maybe you were wrong but his niceness sometimes even bordered flirting. Already, you were daydreaming about a possible boyfriend to spend your last summer with before you start college.

With a date or without one, you spend the bigger portion of your senior year saving up money for prom night or should you say prom preparations.

Makeup was never your strongest suit, in fact, it wasn't a suit of yours at all. You never wore it. You never did your hair either. 

Even on the rare occasion that you went to a high school party, you never wore anything else aside from jeans and T-Shirts. You were an athlete and you committed to the bit entirely, always being ready to sweat and opting for comfort of loose clothes above anything else.

But you wanted to look nice for prom, pretty. Not because of Eunwoo but for yourself. Prom is only once and you wanted to make sure you do it with confidence. 

All your saved up allowance went on the hair and makeup appointment along with your dress that Ryujin helped you pick out. The dress was quite simple in your opinion, a dark red one with a square neckline held up by two thin straps that clung to your curves and flared out at the bottom.

With your hair pinned up in an up-do with two curled strands framing your face and glitter on your eyelids, you thought you looked very pretty, beautiful even. Hell, it was probably the best you looked in your entire eighteen years of life. You could even put up with the painful heels for the sake of it.

Your dad made you pose over the whole house while you waited for your date to pick you up. First a photoshoot on the stairs, then one on the front porch, then a little in front of the living room fireplace. 

He seemed so excited with his camera hanging around his neck as he followed you around the house.

It was one of the moments you wished your mom was here for but nonetheless, it was much fun with your dad only as well. You were happy.

It all went to shit though once you opened the door for Eunwoo and he started laughing in your face.

"Oh my God!" He laughs, almost doubling over at the apparent hilarity of your appearance, "What are you wearing?!"

You laugh nervously, ignoring your father's glance at you from the sheer embarrassment, "What? Is it that bad?"

"No, no." Eunwoo shakes his head, wiping a stray tear that escaped while he was laughing, "It's just not like you, at all."

"Oh." You give him a sour smile, your fragilely built ego shattering completely. "I was just...trying something new I guess..."

He snickers with a headshake before offering you his hand, "Come on, let's go take a photo?"

After a small moment of hesitation, feeling your cheeks burn from the humiliation, you let him grab your hand and step out on the front porch. Eunwoo places a hand around your waist to pull you closer as you both smile at your dad's camera.

A couple of photos later, you both head towards Eunwoo's car as your dad waves you goodbye. You give him a small, almost sad wave back as Eunwoo opens the door for you. You ask him;

"Do I really look funny?"

"No, you look pretty no matter what." He answers, helping you with your dress. "It's just doesn't suit you I guess, it's not like you."

"Ah..." You say staring at the dashboard as you watch him round the car to get into the driver's seat. You glance back at your dad just to see him get back into your house and for a split second, you want to call the whole thing off and go back inside with him.

Of course this doesn't suit you. You were the girl guys dapped up in the hallways, the girl that was always covered in hoodies and sweatpants and never wore makeup. You must look stupid, all dolled up like this. What were you thinking.

Prom celebration is usually held at a hotel not far from your high school. The ballroom is enormous, with vast marble floors and high ceilings illuminated by golden, shimmery lights. It looks straight out a fairytale with colorful dresses worn by pretty princess and handsome princes in their extravagant suits. Only, you don't feel like a princess at all.

Eunwoo and you find your table and you briefly say hi to Ryujin and her date. Ryujin tells you how amazing you look and you give her the first (and possibly, only) genuine smile of the night.

"So," Eunwoo starts the conversation a few minutes after you settle down at your table with drinks, "Did you decide where you're going for college? Any scouts?"

"I'm leaning towards SNU. Their Women's Football Club is really strong and I feel like they actually get proper investments and budget." You tell him and he grins interrupting your next sentence.

"See, this is why I like you. It's hard to find a girl who knows about sports and is so chill about everything."

Your mouth stays parted, the rest of your sentence (which was really just saying that the fact the male football team was hot contributed to your decision as joke) went unsaid as his words registered. Every "compliment" Eunwoo gives you is starting to come off so backhandedly that you're beginning to realize that while he thinks he has you all figured out - he doesn't actually know you at all.

You give him a fake laugh and pray to God it doesn't sound fake enough for him to notice as you take a sip of your drink.

An hour later, your heels are killing you so much that you've completely given up on dancing. You observe Ryujin on the dance floor with her date, still going at it and sigh with the silent question of when it would be your turn. Instead, you're stuck to the sidelines with shoes that feel awful on your feet and a date that can't stop talking about how it's attractive that you're a "girl that actually eats". Eunwoo's compliments are becoming weirder by the second.

"Should I just take you home?" Eunwoo asks with an amused smile as he observes you taking off your heels for the tenth time since you sat back down.

"Ah, would you mind?" You give him an apologetic smile, feeling like a burden and a not-so-much-fun date, "I'm sorry, Eunwoo, this is unfair to you-"

"Nah, I had a fun time." He shakes his head, downing the rest of his drink, "Next time, just be yourself though, yeah?"

The weirdly phrased statement makes you pause. "What do you mean?"

"You know, you don't have to dress like this!" He laughs, playfully playing with the thin strap of your dress. You subtly move away from his touch. "It's not like you at all. I don't know if your friends talked you into it just to fit in but you shouldn't let them push you around like this."

He's so wrong that you can't speak for a moment but even if you could, you feel like trying to explain yourself to him would be far too exhausting and would lead to nowhere. Nor do you want it to lead anywhere anymore, if you were honest.

"Girls like that are so exhausting." He gives a tired sigh. "Outfits and makeup aren't the only thing in the world."

"Girls....like that?"

"You know! Like, the touchy-feely shit. Everything is about color-coordination and nail polishes with them. God forbid their hair is out of place. What a headache!" Eunwoo runs a hand through his hear before giving you an award winning smile. "That's why I'm glad I got to hang out with you! You're real."

"I'm....real?" You ask with a cocked head as your eyes start to narrow. He's too busy thinking that you like what he's saying so he continues.

"Yeah. You know, you keep it real. You're not caught up in that frivolous, girly bullshit. You're so chill, Y/N." He keeps smiling at you like he just gave you the highest form of compliment he possibly could.

But you can't bring yourself to crack a smile even if someone held a barrel of a gun to your temple at the moment. In fact, you feel like throwing up. You should've know from the start, from the moment he was so unreasonably impressed with your lack of makeup at the beginning of the year.

Eunwoo was one of those guys.

"Um," You slide your heels back on and grab your clutch, "You know what, you stay. I'll go."

"Wait, what." His brows raise in half confusion and half surprise as he watches you stand up from your seat.

"Yeah, I'll walk home."

"Wait, Y/N. Why would you walk home? I already said I'd drop you off-"

"No thanks. I don't want to get in a car with a sexist."

"What?!" Eunwoo reels back, "What the fuck are you talking about?! I'm not a sexist! I respect women!"

You huff, turning to him with a glare. "You respect women who are "cool" and "chill" and basically act like men. You should've just taken one of your dudes to prom if these are your opinions. I'm out."

So, that's how you find yourself in your pretty dress sitting in one of the plastic chairs of a convenience store with a popsicle in your mouth as you watch the cars drive by. You were too embarrassed to arrive home so early, you hyped up prom night so much to your dad - you'd rather lie and tell him you had a good time.

If the night couldn't possibly get any shittier, while you eat away at your cherry popsicle feeling undeniably sorry for yourself, you hear a familiar laugh followed by sounds of shoes scuffing against the pavement towards the convenience store.

Of course. Of fucking course, Jung Wooyoung would show up now, when you needed him least.

You try to make yourself seem as small as possible in the plastic chair, hoping he or his two friends wouldn't notice you (which in retrospect was a dumb hope, you were sitting right by the entrance in a fucking prom dress).

Ever since Wooyoung graduated high school two years ago, you only saw him in passing. He'd come home for Christmas holidays or a week or two during the summers and you'd only catch him skunk out of his house and into his dad's car if you were lucky. Unlucky, that is of course.

Maybe you were hoping he wouldn't even recognize you and although it would kind of hurt (as embarrassing as that is to admit), you feel like it would be a better option.

But since you were on a roll tonight, obviously this is just another thing that doesn't go your way.

"Nice dress, Y/L/N." You hear Wooyoung's voice speak, followed by snickers from his idiotic friends and his own attempt at stifling his laughter as they walk past you and into the convenience store, the small bell above the door signaling their entrance.

That ends up being your last straw. 

You don't cause another fight or yell something back after him, no, you don't have the energy to do that tonight. Instead, you feel like you will cry.

Tears are already burning at your eyes and your bottom lip wobbles, you're not even aware that your eyes follow Wooyoung through the display of the store, watching him as he picks up a pack of beer and heads for the cashier.

He got even more painfully handsome than he was when you'd see him every day before he graduated. His hair was double toned, the top of it black and the bottom strands bleached, brushing the nape of his neck.

You think you could even see a tattoo peaking under his shirt as he moves.

Jung Wooyoung was so not your type. Not that you really knew what your type was but all the guys that you found cute in your high school years were athletes, jocks who were organized and dedicated to their routine which in your opinion showcased their maturity, got good grades and were respected by their peers. Wooyoung was really the complete opposite of that so it was hard to explain why you so weirdly hung up over his approval.

He's still laughing about something with his friends, it would hurt so badly if it was about you, as his eyes dart through the display and connect with your own.

Wooyoung does a double take before his big smile slowly slips and dare you say, eyes soften as he looks at you and his lips part as if he wants to say something. 

It could all be in your head though and you're feeling even worse now that he caught you staring at him like a total creep, so you throw your popsicle in the trash and get up with a sigh, slipping back into your heels and deciding to just go home.

-

"Hey, Y/L/N! Wait up, I'll give you a ride home!" Wooyoung calls out after you, the plastic bag swinging back and forth in his hand. 

He can hear Chanwook's hushed objection which Wooyoung chooses to ignore, instead focused on walking closer to you. You couldn't make it far since you were basically limping in your heels.

"No thanks." Wooyoung hears your response and rolls his eyes. He hasn't spoken to you in the last two years at all but he can see that nothing has changed much - you were still too stubborn for your own good.

You didn't even bother to turn back and look at him, instead you hitch your dress further up and continue up the street and away from the convenience store.

"Y/N, come on. Quit being a brat and just wait for me to bring the car around."

"I said no!" You yell over your shoulder and let out a small yelp when you stutter a bit on your feet. To Wooyoung, you resembled Bambi right now.

"I'm trying to help you!" He yells back, still following you, "Just let me drive you back-"

"Wooyoung, seriously, fuck off!" You turn to face him with red cheeks and teary eyes (maybe that's why he's insisting so badly to drive you home, you simply look pathetic), "I don't need your fucking help!"

Wooyoung reels back at your tone and harsh words and then a wave of embarrassment washes over him when he hears Chanwook and Eunhyuk laugh behind him, at the fact that he just got told off by his little neighbour.

The embarrassment is followed up by anger that prickles at his skin like needles, he scoffs and if there's one thing Wooyoung will be - it's petty; "Fine! Limp home in your stupid heels then, see if I give a shit!"

You don't give him a response and Wooyoung doesn't bother to look for it either, instead turns around on his feet and heads towards his car (his dad's car). But not before telling a laughing Chanwook to shut the fuck up.

But once he's in the car with the keys in the ignition, he stares at the steering wheel in obvious contemplation before letting out a small groan, "Fuck."

Wooyoung turns to Chanwook, "Sit in the back, please."

His friend looks at him in surprise and confusion. "What?"

"Just sit in the back, will you? Please." Wooyoung repeats, avoiding Chanwook's eyes but feeling his stumped stare.

"Wooyoung, you cannot be serious." His friend laughs in disbelief as if reading his mind, looking around before giving Wooyoung another incredulous look, "She just told you to fuck off!"

Eunhyuk is quiet in the back which is a huge relief for Wooyoung, he really didn't need to defend himself to his other friend too.

"I can't let her go by foot in the dark, you've seen her! She can barely walk!" Wooyoung says defensively to both of his friends as Chanwook moves to the back with a huff.

"And that's your problem...how?" Chanwook, like the annoying pest he is, asks.

"It's not...." Wooyoung trails off, trying to look for an excuse as to why he was going out of his way to give you a ride home. "But...but her dad would kill me if he knew I saw her and didn't drive her back. It's only right."

Chanwook smacks his lips obnoxiously loud, "Sure."

Wooyoung doesn't even need to turn around to know that his friend is giving him a very bold side eye right now.

Eunhyuk snorts but doesn't say anything else. Wooyoung is thankful for that at least.

"She probably won't even want to get in the car." Chanwook comments quietly as they reach you on the sidewalk. He ends up being ignored.

Wooyoung rolls the window of the old car down so he can talk to you, he has to say you're walking at an impressively slow pace. "Y/N, get in the car."

He hears you groan dramatically from the outside, "Jung, you're not my dad. Stop telling me what to do."

Wooyoung ignores Chanwook and Eunhyuk's snickers in the back once again, he grows even more irritated, "I'll call your fucking dad right now and tell him you're walking home alone this late. How about that?"

You turn to him with your glossy lips twisted into a scowl, "You wouldn't."

Always ready to prove a point or in this case, lie straight out of his ass, Wooyoung makes a show of stopping his car next to the sidewalk and fishing his phone from the pocket of his jacket before opening up his contacts and beginning to scroll. He doesn't even have your dad's number.

But Wooyoung is a professional bullshitter so he keeps pressing random buttons with a straight face and presses the phone to his ear before turning to you with his brows raised-

"Okay, fine!" You exclaim with an angry huff and start rounding his car as your cheeks flush a pretty pink color. Wait, pretty-? You open the door and angrily plop into the passenger's seat with a glare directed towards him, "Fucking snitch."

Wooyoung ignores you, locking his phone without another word and beginning to drive away.

There's an awkward silence in the car, only sounds being made are those of the plastic bags filled with beer that keep rustling in Eunhyuk's lap.

"This isn't the way to our street." You say and Wooyoung might be crazy but you almost sound a little nervous at that. He glances at you before it dawns onto him. Of course, you'd be feeling nervous.

It's nighttime and you're in a car with three dudes older than you who you don't know that well. Wooyoung didn't even bother telling you about his plan before he started driving. A curse runs through his head before he clears his throat,

"I'll just drop these two off at a party nearby and then drive you home." He murmurs, chest constricting a little when he sees you cross your hands over your chest, a gesture which makes you seem smaller.

"Wait, wha-" Chanwook, gosh he was really pissing Wooyoung off tonight, starts from the backseat. "Woo, I thought you were going too-"

"I will." Wooyoung interrupts him with a clenched jaw as he pulls up to the house where the party is held, "I'll drop Y/N off and then come back, it won't take more than fifteen minutes. Now get out- Wait, give me that bag right there."

Eunhyuk hands him one of the plastic bags and Wooyoung fishes through it and pulls out two blueberry ice creams out of it before giving the bag back to Eunhyuk. Which he bought for himself, of course. Not because he saw your popsicle melting on the pavement or anything.

Chanwook watches with a dropped jaw before huffing, Wooyoung hears him murmur, "Doing it for her dad, my ass-" 

"I'll be right back!" Wooyoung announces loudly, far too loudly, and Eunhyuk slams the car door shut so Wooyoung can drive away.

When he pulls away, the silence in the car is almost stifling so Wooyoung offers you the ice cream, "Here."

You look at him like a second head just popped out of his shoulder before looking back through the window and ignoring him completely. Wooyoung lets out a small groan. So stubborn.

"Oh my God, just take it." He says, placing the ice cream on your lap as he continues to drive. He bites back a smile when he sees you stare at the ice cream on your lap for a long second before grasping it and opening the wrapper so you can eat it.

Wooyoung really doesn't know what he's doing right now.

He doesn't know why he bought ice creams for you, he doesn't know why he insisted on getting rid of his friends first before dropping you off home, he has no idea why he keeps glancing at you every couple of seconds from the corner of his eye and he especially doesn't have a clue why he takes the longer route home.

When tomorrow comes and he wakes up hangover from the party and probably in someone else's bed, he'll give himself the same excuse he gave the boys. He wanted to make sure you got home safely because it's the right thing to do. There was nothing else to it.

But in this moment, right now, in the stifling silence and the breeze that flows through the opened window's because the air conditioning isn't working - Wooyoung notices things that he feels embarrassed to notice, or maybe he noticed them before but never allowed himself to appreciate them until tonight.

Like, how nice your bare neck and collarbones look now that your hair is pinned up in soft curls. A thin silver necklace graces your neck. Or how the two curled strands at the front frame your face prettily. Your eyelids are painted with something shimmery which Wooyoung doesn't know the name of and your cheekbones are a soft peach color intentionally placed there beforehand. 

Your glossy lips wrap around the ice cream cone and you bite off a huge chunk. 

"Why are you staring at me?" Wooyoung can decipher the question even through the mouthful of ice cream as you give him a slight glare.

Because you're pretty. Is what he wants to say, honest and bare, but he obviously can't because you're you and he's Wooyoung. "Because you have ice cream on your nose."

His hands tighten against the steering wheel when he sees you quickly look to the side and wipe at your nose self-consciously. You blush a scarlet red from the embarrassment. Great, now he feels like an asshole.

Wooyoung clears his throat, "Why did you look so sad? Back there, in front of the store."

He has no idea why he's trying to make conversation with you. You two never do that, never did. The closest thing to a conversation between Wooyoung and you would be the arguments you'd have in the middle of the school hallway when he'd tease you for your braces.

Those came off as well, by the way, he can see the pearly white teeth perfectly aligned now as you speak. No longer crooked. Maybe he'd like to see them pulled up in a smile but that's borderline wishful thinking now. You smiling at Wooyoung? Yeah, right.

"No reason." You tell him quietly, slumping in your seat as you continue to eat your ice cream. You sigh with an eyeroll, "Just...prom sucked."

Likely thing to happen.

The key is to go to prom with your expectations so low that you can only go up from there but Wooyoung had an inkling feeling that having low expectations wasn't in your nature.

Besides, you were a jock. He remembers even when you were a freshman, you were already running with the popular crowd without even being aware of it, with the athletes and the cheerleaders. Prom night is sort of a pinnacle of the high school experience for people like you.

Guess it's a bummer that you look like you had a shit time.

He hums, "At the end of the day, it's just another Friday night. Nothing special. So even if it sucked, you'll get over it."

Maybe he wasn't the best at giving advice or comforting people.

You side eye him and he pretends not to see it before you quietly add, "I don't usually spend a year worth of allowance on just another Friday night."

Wooyoung cracks a smile, teasing you being a second nature even if you barely spoke since he graduated, "What? Did you expect a prince charming to sweep you off your feet so you two can dance the night away or something? I didn't know you were into that corny shit, Y/L/N."

He hears you scoff, cheeks still red as you roll your eyes, seriously annoyed, "Whatever. Forget I said anything."

Wooyoung's gives a forced snicker just to annoy you before his smile drops again and his eyes flutter shut for a moment out of pure frustration at his own stupidity, internally cursing himself. If shooting yourself in the foot was a person - it would have Jung Wooyoung's photo and name posted under it.

Why can't you just be nice to her?

The air in the car turns even more awkward and Wooyoung shifts uncomfortably in his seat while you continue to eat your ice cream in silence as you stare through the window.

He slows down in front of your house just when you're finishing your ice cream.

You crumple the wrapper in your hand, place the second ice cream on the dashboard and grab the small bag laying on your lap before grabbing the door handle.

"I hope," Wooyoung starts and when you turn to look at him, he's overcome with a sudden coughing fit which is really just awkwardness and the need to fix whatever the fuck he broke a little even more tonight, "Uh, hope you took some good pictures tonight at least because..."

He trails off, feeling like it was his first time flirting with a girl. Wait, what the fuck. He was not flirting with you. Not even a little bit. Wooyoung was simply trying to pay you a compliment. Simple as that. It doesn't have to be anything more. You don't even need to be friends to pay someone a compliment, in fact, Wooyoung is positive that regular archnemeses complimented each other at least once.

Unfortunately, compliments aren't the norm between the two of you, so whatever nice thing he says feels wrong.

Your brows raise.

"You know," He trails off, scratching the back of his neck in an attempt to seem cool and collected. He nonchalantly adds but his side glances might give him away, fortunately you're too much of a ditz to notice, "You look good."

You stare at him for a long moment, seriously it's so long that he almost changes his mind and adds an insult just so you two would be back in those familiar waters of bickering and teasing each other but then your eyebrows fall back down and a scowl overtakes your features.

"Yeah, right." You mumble and Wooyoung almost feels insulted for some reason but then you continue, "Thanks for the ride."

And then you're out of the car and already moving across your front lawn before Wooyoung can snap out of it and remember to turn the car back on.

-

19 and 21 years old;

"10 more minutes! Y/L/N stop arguing with that asshole and get back into your position before you're out of the game completely!" 

Your coach is red in the face from all the shouting and you know what's good for you, so you keep your mouth shut as you run to your spot, thoroughly ignoring the glare your team's captain shoots at you from your right.

The 'asshole' that your coach is referring to is the referee who didn't count a player from the rival team almost breaking your leg by bulldozing into you - as a foul.

"-stole Eunha's position from her and can't even play properly." You hear a snicker behind you and don't even have to turn to know who it's directed at.

Despite it being only your first semester, you haven't made the greatest impression on your teammates (nor did you try all that much to change that impression). 

So for the time being, when there was no rival team, you were the collective enemy in the changing rooms and on the practice field. A freshman who kicked their friend from the spot she had since she started college. A freshman who thought she was better than the rest of her team. A freshman who didn't know how to behave at times. A freshman that made them run extra laps because she was bad at remembering all the new rules at times.

And now, a freshman that was playing badly and fucking up things for the rest of them.

"Y/N!" A hiss from your right is heard and your eyes zero in on your captain, Jihyo, who is staring at you. "Focus."

You swallow harshly and give her a quick now before focusing your gaze to the front.

In high school, you weren't used to losing. You were a winner, it's what you prided yourself in. Failure wasn't an option when it came to football.

But turns out in college, when all the other players are as good as you, winning isn't as easy.

In fact it’s a lot harder than you thought it would be. Nearing the end of the first half the score sheet is still empty and it annoys all of the players and the fans as well. The weirdest thing is how ball is not even on your team's side of the field most of the time; your defenders did not have a very entertaining start of the game in comparison to defenders from Busan, who already look out of breath from all of the attacks to their side. Not to mention that they keep teaming up on you specifically.

You can’t pinpoint what exactly is wrong and why there was no goal to this point; half of you thinks it’s because you didn’t blend well with the team. 

"Run, run, run!" Yeonjin shouts, when Sinb loses the ball and Busan’s midfielders rush to their side.

The spike of adrenaline energizes you and your eyes zero on the ball, running after it. Mina’s figure passes from your left and both of you corner the midfielder, successfully getting the ball to your side. You have it and quickly pass it to Yeonjin, seeing her signal for the ball. You watch her run off when a body collides with your own and the impact is so strong, you lose your balance, falling down.

‘What?’ You ask yourself in disbelief not understanding how you're sprawled across the grass again, slowly standing up. At first you're shell-shocked but now anger fills you to the brim when you see that it's the same girl who intentionally collided with you the first time, watching you with a smug smirk and then you're just  ready to fight.

 You push back at her and get even angrier when the bitch doesn't fall. 

"Are you going to go tattle to mommy?" She asks with a mocking concern and you can’t hear anything; you even forget that you are in the middle of the game because your anger turns your vision red. 

With a loud groan, you launch towards her and grab her by the shirt, screaming to her face that 'she's a cunt'. There are hands around you, pulling you away, trapping you and not letting you go even when you try to break free.

Jihyo's face is in front of you and you can't register what she's saying but you can see her turn red from how pissed off she is. Maybe it's better if you're not listening to her, if you can't hear anyone actually...but then-

"Hey, number nine! You better not fucking cry!"

At first, you think the loud yell came from somewhere on the field. You thought another player from the Busan team was talking shit. And then,

"Number nine! Crybaby!"

There's some laughter in the audience and it's then that you realize the voice is shouting from the fucking bleachers.

A teammate is already pulling you in the opposite direction but your eyes are glued to crowd sitting on the sidelines, the annoying voice insistently yelling. Crybaby. Crybaby. Crybaby.

The worst part is that the voice sounds so painfully familiar, you just can't put your finger on it. Who.

You're about to let it go. You're about to be the bigger person and not act like a total brute on the field, just let it go Y/N. But then-

"Hey, hey crybaby!" You stop in your tracks, head whipping to the direction the voice was coming from and eyes coasting over the bleachers. "What kind of hill did you roll down from that you don't even know how to push someone back properly?!"

Finally, you spot it. Him. In a red hoodie, making sure to stand out in the sea of blue. It's no wonder the voice sounded so eerily familiar, you've heard it screaming at you for the majority of your childhood and a good chunk of your teen years. 

Because he rolled down the same hill as you with only a street separating you.

When he realizes that you've caught onto him, he gives you that smile. That grin that never led to anything good, pearly white teeth gleaming under the lights of the bleachers as he taunts you.

You blood pressure jumps so, you take a deep breath and....scream;

"Jung Wooyoung!"

[deripmaver]

laurent is a good person - book 1 meta

one of the most amazing things about captive prince is how the reveals in book 3 recontextualize all of the scenes leading up to them, including about laurent himself. in book one, all we see is damen pov as he’s being abused and humiliated by this supposedly spoiled, vile ice prince. when the regent comes to damen and subtly (and not so subtly) insults laurent, calling him unfit to rule - well, why would he think anything different? laurent has insulted him, had him whipped within an inch of his life, and even attempted to (and later successfully lmfao) have him raped while drugged out of his mind. 

after book 3 we can reread most if not all of book 1 as a very traumatized boy who has finally been confronted with the man who killed his brother, leaving him alone with his abusive uncle, and who he clearly has made into a complete monster in his own mind. damen of course sees him as a complete bitch, but there’s textual/subtextual evidence that laurent is well liked, and that his behavior during book 1 was actually pretty out of character for him. i’d like to provide some examples of that now!!!!

“Laurent had stopped dead the moment he had seen Damen, his face turning white as though in reaction to a slap, or an insult. Damen’s view, half-truncated by the short chain at this neck, had been enough to see that. But Laurent’s expression had shuttered quickly.” Captive Prince, Chapter One

i couldn’t resist adding this one in hehe. laurent recognizes damen!! he’s come down, knowing his uncle has devised another truly horrendous and triggering “gift” and that he’ll lose support if he calls it our for what it truly is, only to find out that it’s fucking damianos of akielos sent to him as a sex slave. a jab at laurent’s trauma about auguste and also a jab at laurent’s frigid sexuality - which ofc is completely the regent’s fault. fuck that guy so much lmfao 

“‘It’s so rare to see you at these entertainments, Your Highness,’ said Vannes.” Captive Prince, Chapter Two.

this is right before the fight between govart and damen in the ring, of course. damen sees laurent as depraved and vile as the sexual sadism on display by the veretian court, and considers him to be a willing purveyor of it. this is wrong, of course, as said by vannes here. laurent has only shown up because he wants to humiliate damen lmfao.

“He did remember being supported by two of the guards, here, in this room, while Radel stared athis back in horror. ‘The Prince really . . . did this.’ ‘Who else?’ Damen said. Radel had stepped forward, and slapped Damen across the face; it was a hard slap, and the man wore three rings on each finger. ‘What did you do to him?’ Radel demanded.” Captive Prince, Chapter Four

this scene, to me, was the most telling lmfao. it’s right after damen is whipped. you could argue that radel is just a servant in the employ of the royal household, so is of course going to be loyal to the prince, but he seems genuinely surprised of the prince’s cruelty towards damen. not only that, but he slaps him and immediately assumes damen must have done something. which - i mean, technically he did lmao. not necessarily enough to deserve having the skin flayed from his back, but you know. if laurent was in the habit of torturing pets and slaves, why would the overseer react this way?

“The men guarding him were the Prince’s Guard, and had no affiliation with the Regent whatsoever. It surprised Damen how loyal they were to their Prince, and how diligent in his service, airing none of the grudges and complaints that he might have expected, considering Laurent’s noxious personality. Laurent’s feud with his uncle they took up wholeheartedly; there were deep schisms and rivalries between the Prince’s Guard and the Regent’s Guard, apparently.” Captive Prince, Chapter Four

laurents relationships with his guards are also some of the biggest indicators that he isn’t just a spoiled brat, but can insire a deep loyalty in his men. even if they do all want to fuck him. ah, sexual harassment. it’s also hilarious that damen immediately assumes they’re loyal to him because they want to fuck him - nice projection there, dude. we know a bit more about laurent and his guards thanks to green but for a season, but this little bit here is interesting.

“Laurent was indeed good at talking. He accepted sympathy gracefully. He put his position rationally. He stopped the flow of talk when it became dangerously critical of his uncle. He said nothing that could be taken as an open slight on the Regency. Yet no one who talked to him could have any doubt that his uncle was behaving at best misguidedly and at worst treasonously.”  Captive Prince, Chapter Five

idek what to say here. laurent my beloved <3333

“‘When someone doesn’t like you very much, it isn’t a good idea to let them know that you care about something,’ said Laurent. Damen felt himself turn ashen, as the threat sank in. ‘Would it hurt worse than a lashing for me to cut down someone you care for?’ said Laurent.” Captive Prince, Chapter Seven

this isn’t really relevant to my thesis lmfao i just love this exchange bc it gives SO MUCH information about laurent and his uncle in just three lines of dialogue. what has the regent done, who did he cut down just to hurt laurent? when and how did laurent learn that? p a i n 

“Laurent’s fussy horse began acting out again, and he leaned forward in the saddle, murmuring something as he stroked her neck in an uncharacteristically gentle gesture to quiet her.” Captive Prince, Chapter Nine. 

HORSEY NO- lmfao this scene just hurts so badly on the reread. especially later on, in book 3 i think, where laurent says something like “i provoked my uncle.” he’s really blaming himself for his uncle KILLING HIS HORSE, his horse that his murdered brother trained, one of the only living connections to auguste... all because his uncle could not let a single miniscule plan laurent had set go through without some kind of repercussion. literally all laurent did was do something to stop an innocent group of people from being abused, nothing to undermine his uncle’s rule, but because the regent is VILE he could not let laurent have even this. he’s so good with her, too. he must have known by this point and also known that there was no way to stop this. P A I N

“‘I know that you have somehow arranged this,’ said Erasmus. He was incapable of hiding what he felt, and just seemed to radiate embarrassed happiness. ‘You kept your promise. You and your master. I told you he was kind,’ Erasmus said. ‘You did,’ said Damen. He was pleased to see Erasmus happy. Whatever Erasmus believed about Laurent, Damen wasn’t going to dissuade him. ‘He’s even nicer in person. Did you know he came and talked to me?’ said Erasmus. ‘—He did?’ said Damen. It was something he couldn’t imagine. ‘He asked about . . . what happened in the gardens. Then he warned me. About last night.’ ‘He warned you,’ said Damen. ‘He said that Nicaise would make me perform before the court and it would be awful, but that if I was brave, something good might come at the end of it.’ Erasmus looked up at Damen curiously. ‘Why do you look surprised?’ ‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t be. He likes to plan things in advance,’ said Damen.” Captive Prince, Chapter 9.

this is the first in-text confirmation we have that laurent has a good heart beneath his layers and layers of trauma-induced lashing out. book one often skeeves people out because of its graphic and, honestly, yes, kind of sexualized depiction of rape, slavery, and depravity, but beneath it all you meet these two protagonists who are going to have all of their most deeply held views about each other challenged. laurent from very early on is shaken to his core when damen refuses to rape nicaise in the ring - it cracks the very foundations of the person he’d built up in his head as this horrible monster who killed his brother in cold blood. and damen keeps defying laurents expectations by being a good person through and through. on the other hand, laurent spends the first part of the book taking out years of anger on damen, but here for the first time we see him do something just because its the kind thing to do. yes, torveld is an ally against his uncle, but laurent has clearly been scheming with him for a while now, and he’s now overlooking his hatred of damen and working with him just because none of the slaves deserve whats happened to them. it’s such a sweet moment.

“One of the other men, eyeing them, approached a moment later. ‘Don’t mind Jean. He’s in a foul mood. He was the one had to stick a sword through the mare’s throat and put her down. The Prince tore strips off him for not doing it fast enough.’” Captive Prince, Chapter Nine.

HORSEY NO- pt 2. this is just another really sweet and sad detail - laurent being so upset that the horse’s death could have been more painless. it must have hurt so much to see her in pain, and to know that the only way for that pain to end was being put down as quickly as possible. i wuv him. im sad

that’s it, though there are still a few more chapters left in the book. this isn’t providing any new information, of course, the path of the three books is to show that laurent isnt the man we meet in book one, that he’s actually sweet, and earnest, and he’s been fighting his own battle practically alone against his abuser since he was fifteen years old. also, the reveal that laurent knew who damianos was from the start makes it clear imo that all of his violence in book 1 was supposed vengence, not... him being evil. he apologizes explicitly in-text, and also, all of the acts of violence he commits cause serious problems for him in terms of his future alliance which he then needs to fix. i just love how layered these books are, how there’s so much information in them that makes rereading almost more fun than reading them for the very first time!

[oviids]

pls share some of your spn fic recs 🥺🥺

ok, a few things first:

followers and mutuals who do not have supernatural brainworms, kindly avert your eyes

i don’t normally rec or even read much fanfic any more but this is a CRISIS ok (cont.)

there is so. much. content for deancas out there and i have incredibly high standards, several ancient ao3 bookmarks, can speedread, and want to spare you guys the experience of wading through it all.

i also have a section for spn femslash since I was pretty into that back in the day (sadly a lot less fan content for this :/)

I don’t really like au’s or pure smut (I honestly usually just skim or skip those scenes) so if you’re mainly looking for that kind of thing this probably won’t be very helpful to you. jsyk.

i’m not great at describing stuff but i’ll do my best, i’ll also try and add tw’s when neccesary.

i wil try and keep updating this with any other decent fics i find, feel free to rec stuff too since i’m like 7 years behind.(edit 1/25/21) this is getting looooong so i’m going to start making another list on my spn blog rather than update this one

(edit 1/3/21) since this has gotten pretty long i’ve added rating/approximate word counts and marked my particular favorites with an asterisk.

Dean/Cas fic:

So Says The Sword*** - explicit/85k. FUCK its good...au/time travel where dean is not pulled out of hell by cas and says yes to becoming the michael sword. honestly could serve as an alternative to actually watching the show, if you want to get into dean/cas without actually doing that to yourself.

Fata morgana.*  - teen/6k, pst s9 finale. very bela centric and i love it, she finds cas looking for dean in hell.

Redemption Road -misc/600+k. an incredibly long fic from a collaborative writing group back in the day. canon divergent from the end of s6 on, has a cool take on godstiel and the leviathans, as well as the lovecratian mythos connection. ngl when i reread it i only made it about 28% in but imo the casual reader can actually stop around there, the rest concerns a lovecraftian apocalypse that is still good (i think i don’t remember it very well) but not required to enjoy the first half. if you prefer i have an ebook version i can send you on gdrive.

Someone Who's Feeling For Me* - mature/45k, s12. they run into lisa braeden and dean thinks cas is into her while cas thinks dean still likes her. treats lisa way better than the show ever did and the miscommunication is pretty funny rather than annoying.

a turn of the earth - mature/95k. time travel fic where cas from s10 keeps showing up in deans life from a few years before s1 to right before the hellhounds take his soul.  slow burn, good character study, and at one point cas punches the dad in the face and it rules.

On the Wings of War - teen/85k, canon divergent s5. dean accidentally becomes the Horseman of War. plays fun, fast and loose with biblical lore, michael has some rights.

Named - mature/95k, alternate s5. EXTREMELY blasphemous in a fun sexy way. manages to predict metatron almost to a T. there’s one major character death and its literally jesus christ, everyone is very sad about it and it sets the rest of the story rolling. an alternate interpretation of cas’ mission to raise dean from hell which had me on the floor. ngl its kind of misogynistic at points, but its from 2010 and tracks with late oughts-2010 spn (sorry anna the author did you dirty here:/).

The Girlfriend Experience - explicit/15k. uhhh i don’t normally rec or even read smutty stuff unless someone i know is specifically asking for it but this has stuff like sam trying to be a good ally and dean thinking holding hands with cas is ‘kinda gay :/’ minutes after having gay sex with him.

i crippled your heart a hundred times - explicit/19k, s8. cas confesses his feelings and dean spends a long time getting his head out of his ass about it. truly hits different after the actual confession, despite being written six years early it feels like its actually what could have gone down more or less if the writers weren’t talentless demons who hate us.

My Roots Take Flight** - mature/125k. reverse au where cas is a hunter and dean’s an angel...OR IS IT???? an alternate retelling of s4. tw for briefly being set in a psychiatric hospital/the hospital being mentioned somewhat frequently throughout the fic, plus more references to torture in hell and heaven than usual.

The One Thing You Can't Lose* - teen/4k.you know those posts about how cas is a super-strong super-tough ancient warrior but he just lets dean tug him around because he likes it? thats it thats the fic.

Hands, From Which All Things Are Built - teen/14k, post s8′s ‘goodbye stranger.’ cas is on the run with the angel tablet but keeps in touch with sam and dean by text, he and dean still manage to be terrible at Actual communication.

Autrement, Danger - or, The Account of an Exceedingly Long Day - mature/30k, post s11. a monster that takes the appearance of your soulmate leads to some wild miscommunications and dealing with years of repression, also dean gets to see cas’ true form which is always cool. tw for non-graphic mentions of underage sexual assault/sex work.

Down to Agincourt - mature/explicit/900++++k, endverse continuation. endverse!cas survives his encounter with lucifer and discovers another time-displaced dean from s7. i’ve only read the two of four parts but its really good, veeeeery slow burn, has a lot of fun oc’s and takes a rather surprising but (imo) entertaining and intriguing turn into Hellenic history and mythology. usual tw’s for endverse/endverse!cas but nothing graphic, it’s actually pretty light-hearted (relatively speaking of course).

Nothing Equals the Splendor** - explicit/8k, THEE finale fix it fic you’ve been waiting for! posits that the entire final episode was just a (very bad and lame) djinn’s vision.

like moses and batman and james dean - explicit/31k, post s8. explores dean’s trauma and internalized homophoba from his technically canon experience with sex work and its impact on his relationship with cas. the sex work itself isn’t really shown in any detail but it’s still a relatively heavy fic.

Crazy Diamonds - explicit/25k, s4/alternate s14. fresh-out-of-hell dean and dean from 10 years in the future are displaced from time and sent to each other’s present.

where the weeds take root - explicit/30k. au where the men of letters kick them out of the bunker and they accidentally move out into the country, get over their codependence and semi retire. featuring chicken coop building, sam volunteering at a dog shelter, gardening, and blissfully mundane domesticity.

No Resting Place - teen/6k. djinn dream fic, switches back and forth between cas’ dream of being married to dean and retired from hunting to the aftermath when he wakes up. tw for brief mention of suicide since, y’know, djinn dream.

any port in a storm - mature/52k. post s8 finale. cas and dean have to pose as a couple going through a rough patch for a case and actually deal with their emotional baggage, cas struggles with being human and metatron is up to stuff.

all this and heaven too* - explicit/7k. in the author’s own words ‘...a love letter to every trans person who ever projected onto Dean Winchester.’ absolutely unzipped me emotionally and theologically, its just. so good. tw for very brief mentions of internalized transphobia/dysphoria.

Because it is* - mature/6k, finale fix it. killing chuck does not bring back anyone back and the winchesters spend a very long time dealing with what they’ve lost, cas and dean SOMEHOW still manage to have signifigant communication issues even after the confession. tw for suicidal thoughts/brief attempt.

Vena Amoris and Other Old-Fashioned Bullshit* - teen/4k, s6. when cas fell for dean it automatically soulbonded/angel married them, shenanigans ensue when dean finds out during the angel’s civil war. funny and actually written back when s6 was airing so cas is still (or at least pretending to be) kind of an OP asshole which is fun.

Rinse, Repeat - teen/3k, s8. angsty character study of cas as he’s reprogrammed and trained to kill dean. not really dean/cas since its just cas’ pov of canon events but its beautifully written and ends with him snapping out of it through the power of love (also now a canon event!).

Emergence - explicit/59k, canon divergent after s11. dean meets a hunter he only recognizes as their friend claire novak’s missing father, but soon realizes he might be the answer behind the mysterious void in his memories and feelings (aka everyone’s memories of cas are completely wiped away for three years).

Cuckoo And Nest - explicit/10k, early established relationship/character study, cas tries to figure out how he fits into dean’s life and space in the bunker.

Build a Home* - teen/20k, canon divergent s12. sam and eileen are cute and turn the bunker into men of letters/hunters hq and everyone but cas moves in, mutual miscommunication issues and pining ensues.

Down in the River - teen/5k, early s8, cas prays to dean in purgatory while sam and dean try to figure out a way to get him out.

Teaching Poetry to Fish* - mature/52k, ?? BC through the entire series/canon divergent s14 and 15. retelling of crucial scenes throughout the shows timeline from cas’ pov, feat. actual fish and poetry.

the minor fall, the major lift - gen/4k, post confession/finale fixit. dean goes into the empty to save cas and runs into several old friends (and enemies).

With the Kisses of His Mouth* - teen/3k, gen later seasons. dean and cas keep kissing by accident.

Remaining Grace - explicit/109k, alternate s6. au where cas asks dean for help with raphael and dean, of course, does. tw for temporary major character death/semi-graphic depictions of alcohol withdrawal.

The face of heaven.* - teen/10k, au, dean is a regular guy and cas is a fallen star (think ‘stardust’, kinda).

Stories Are Made of Mistakes*  - teen/5k. newly human cas has trouble getting used to a human body and humanity in general, but still figures out that he and dean are A Thing before dean does.

Hurry Up And Wait - mature/21k, canon divergent s12. a fairyland and quite possibly LOTR related case comes up and dean goes full fanboy, mary is introduced to the wonders of the peter jackson adaptions, many references and comparisons (including between cas and dean’s ‘friendship’ and arwen/aragon). also charle is still alive and has just been doing fairy stuff this whole time.

There Are Many Things - explicit/28k, s9. cas is extremely lonely/touch-starved and trying to figure out this whole human thing, as well as where he and dean stand after being kicked out of the bunker.

It's A Long Life to Always Be Longing - teen/40k, post s11 finale. amara helps dean by putting him in a magical coma so he can finally get some much needed rest and show him possible futures for him, sam and cas. meanwhile sam and cas go on a roadtrip (or several) to find componets for a spell to wake dean up. really good sam and cas friendship, they actually talk about their shared lucifer trauma and stuff.

Non-Photo Blue - gen/2k, s4/5/alternate s5. fifty moments from cas’ memories of dean.

Tall Grass - explicit/57k, canon divergent post series. cas becomes the ultimate plant dad. feat the wayward sisters gang, cathartic character growth, fun oc’s, domesticity, and lots of actual botanical info-dumping.

on vessels - no rating/gen/2k. established dean/cas, cas tells dean about how he used to imagine what it would be like to have him as his vessel.

search for tomorrow on every shore* - teen/11k, post-finale (extremely derogatory). some angels in jack’s new heaven act out and dean gets temporarily resurrected in 2003 and runs into his younger self.

Architecture of the Minotaur’s Heart - explicit/45k, very canon divergent post s1. dean’s new house seems to have a life and mind of its own, while in his dreams he sees glimpses of a world and apocalypse that never came to be and an angel that looks strangely like his mysterious neighbor, cas. loosely inspired by the book house of leaves (which i highly recommend for fans of weird horror).

The Distance Of The Setting Sun - explicit/17k, post s5. established dean/cas relationship, team free will finally takes advantage of cas’ abilities to go on vacation around the world.

diamond star halo - teen/5k, s11. dean lets cas use him as a temporary vessel while he recovers from rowena’s spell, sam is a long-suffering third-wheel.

Make Known** - teen/16k, s6/7. dean struggles to understand how cas could have become his enemy and whether he ever truly knew him in the first place.

blunt little instrument* - mature/1.4k, post finale. dean finally confronts his father in heaven, very cathartic.

my heart a compass*** - teen/10k, post confession. the empty forces cas to re-experience his most regretted moments while dean tries to snap him out of it and bring him home.

A Crash Course in Someone Else's History - teen/11k, s6. cas from the very start of s4 is brought forward in time by s6!cas to distract the brothers from his and crowley’s plans.

The Cuckoo Father - mature/8k, s7 au. the woman who found cas in the river post-leviathans does not marry him bc he was sent to her by god or whatever, but actually identifies him as jimmy novak and sends him back to claire and amelia.

The Dead Dean Clause* - teen/5k, post alt s5 ending. team free will celebrates surviving taking down lucifer by getting blitzed, cas lies to a cop and gets an impromptu driving lesson. title/description sound dark i know but it’s actually very funny and light.

Suck It, Judy Garland - mature/20k, s12 (after the ‘i love you...i love all of you’ episode). cas and sam have to pretend to be a couple for a case and dean is NOT happy about it.

By Daylight and In Dream - teen/16k, s5. pre-dean/cas, dean invites cas to use his dreams to hide from the other angels. tw for very brief mention of a memory/dream of alastair sexually assaulting dean.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven - mature/22k, post-canon. an actually happy (if sometimes bittersweet) heaven endgame written several years ago, though some details are rather eerily similar to the show’s ending.

heaven is a place on earth* - teen/2k. dean’s pov of some of the times cas left him behind throughout the show, and one alternate ending where he finally gets to stay.

I Cleanse The Mirror - teen/20k, alternate s6. dean’s body is stolen by an ancient elemental and his soul has to hitch a ride in cas’ vessel.

an exploration of gender; angelic*** - mature/4k. *oscar isaac voice* lets get into angel gender politics!! aka cas is trans.

Zenith - explicit/33k, s9. after 9x06 an angry witch curses cas with the ability to see supernatural beings and human souls.

La cucina. - gen/3k, alt s9. dean goes wild helping a newly-human cas find out what kinds of food he likes, or the early s9 domesticity we deserved!

Dean Winchester, Cocksucker at Rest***** - teen/7k, post-finale. john and mary finally come over for dinner and john reacts to dean/cas in a rather predictable fashion. SOOOOOOOOO good omg, its so funny and a little sad and very very cathartic. part of a series that has a few other really good short fics.

The Way You Didn't Go - teen/5k, s15. coda to 15.09, dean has nightmares about the moc!cas timeline.

On Drowning - teen/28k. dean saves cas after he nearly drowns, they both try and deal with the physical/mental fallout (aka the fic where thee iconic “you only touch me when you think I’m dead or dying” originates). tw for realistic depictions of drowning/triage/misc medical information.

The Thirty-Six Questions That Lead to Love* - mature/13k. claire has dean and cas pretend to be her gay dads for a case and they play the titular 36 question game, get mistaken for swingers, and birdwatch, among other things.

Assorted F/F stuff:

Deep Breaths* - mary/ellen, au where mary said no to azazel’s deal and let john stay dead, still becomes a milf.

Like Rebel Diamonds - krissy/claire, they become hunter gf’s on the hunt for cas to kick his ass for taking jimmy. not-so-stealth dean/cas as well.

To Ash and Bone - anna/ruby, same author as the previous fic (p much all of her stuff is good from what i recall). au where ruby is a witch and helps anna when she’s cursed.

Holy Clockwork Angels - jo/ruby, STEAMPUNK au with very cool worldbuiilding.

At Day's End - jo/anna (my fucking KINGDOM for more jo/anna content, the dean/cas parallels are allllll there), au where they are both at the camp in the endverse and gfs.

these posts - ok so not actually a fic but i’m now obsessed with this hannah/meg dynamic.

Tagelied - mary/ellen, the true story of how ellen got into hunting before angels interfered.

Hell's Bells** - meg/abaddon, alternate s8/9 where meg survives crowley’s attack with sam’s help and teams up with abaddon (who she has a sk year old crush on) to take back hell.

The Ecstasy of the Rose - anna/ruby, anna travels back in time to escape heaven and becomes a signifigant part of ruby’s old human life.

Angel Underground - anna/jo, kind of an urban fantasy au with a very intriguing premise (sadly its very short, i’d love to see more if this ‘verse).

Clover, Flame - billie/mary, billie was always the reaper that showed up to take mary after her death(s) over the years.

Drag Me To Heaven - anna/ruby, a variant on the ‘last night on earth’ thing with dean.

Come Home* - jo/anna, canon-divergent au where anna is the new waitress at the roadhouse and helps jo set up a (probably not really) haunted house for halloween.

[w2beastars]

Waezi2′s thoughts on “Beast Complex” chapter 17.

Sorry it took so long to write this blog. I've been in pain for a couple of days and couldn’t coventrate when I tried to write a blog.

Chapter 17 of Beast Complex is about the goat Kiyosumi and the turtle Abu.

Kiyusumi is a seventeen year old student with a pair of big horns. She sits behind Abu who almost always hide inside his shell that has the word “Hell” tattooed on it. These two big teens haven never spoken to each other despite them sitting this close to each other in class. Abu is literally a withdrawn person and Kiyusumi is the sort of quiet girl who does’t speak unless spoken to. In fact, she is rather passive and only do something if told to. But she does exactly what she IS told to, even if she doesn’t want to. Like when she is asked to look out for students who smokes at school since she is part of the school’s disciplinary committee.

But Kiyusumi is not exactly the embodiment of authority, so when she does find a couple of smokers on school ground, the scoundrels just laugh at her as well as intimidate her into shutting up.

But who comes to our big-horned goat’s rescue?

Abu the Turtle. It so happens that he likes to take naps behind the school building and he asks the smokers to go somewhere else as he is not exactly fond of cigarette buds and smoke.

And he scare off the smokers since he is tattooed like a gang member. They leave, apologizing for invading his “territory.” 

Once they are alone, they can let it sink in that this is the first time they actually talked to each other. Kiyusumi is baffled by both finally seeing more than just Abu’s shell and hands, and that he has tattooed most of his body. Abu explains that he is passionate about tattoos and practice tattooing by using his own body so that he one day can do it for a living. And he takes Kiyusumi by surprise by telling her that he always wanted to tattoo her dangerous horns.

And her horns ARE dangerous. Kiyusumi’s horns are still growing, and they will eventually penetrate her skull if she doesn’t get them removed. but Abu is the first to notice it, or at the very least pointing it out.

Abu takes Kiyusumi with him after school and show her his tattoo studio AKA his grandpa’s garage. It is obvious that he is extremely passionate about his craft

Kiyusumi allow Abu to work on her horns. He is grateful, but he also points out that they could be the death of her and ask if she has ever thought about having them removed. Kiyusumi explains that she has thought about it for years... but due to anxiety and lack of confidence, she never did anything about it. Instead, she hoped that someone would tell her to do something about her horns, point out that they would eventually stab her skull, that she should get rid of them, anything.

This is a classical trait of depression. Doing something, or in this case NOT do something that results in self destruction of a sort and hope that someone tells you to stop. To show that they care. there are some cutters who secretly hope that someone will notice their self inflicted scars.

But it seems like no one cares enough to tell Kiyusumi that they are worried. OR that they prefer not to “meddle.”

Abu points out that people prefer to mind their own business. They prefer to ignore it if someone has drastically changed or are in pain. and they do so because it is convenient to act like nothing. Heck, when Abu tattooed his shell for the first time, no one seemed to notice, or they just acted like nothing when seeing a guy with the word “Hell” on his back. He had to get tattooed way more than just on the shell before people had to notice and he now has to hide his head, arms and legs so he doesn’t disturb people with his art.

Trust me, Abu is not exaggerating. I seen people walk past a man who was clearly having issues with his stomach as he lied on a bench. Most prefer to look past what they don’t want to deal with.

After finishing the decoration of Kiyusumi horns, the two teenagers decide to spend the night together and just hang out. Do stuff teenagers do. And they are both extremely happy. Abu is not hiding in his shell and Kiyusumi is smiling and laughing.

We cut to one week later where someone finally notices Kiyosumi since she decided to get rid of her overgrown horns. One of the girls in her class(a tiger) tells her that it is surprising to see her horn-less, but that it makes her face look brighter. Suiting, since Kiyosumi feels brighter. This is the first time she can recall making a choice of her own, and a very good one since it means she is not gonna die.

Abu is congratulating Kiyosumi in his own way by tattooing his shell again so that there are flowers growing out of the word “Hell”. His first tattoo is a very cynical and provoking one, so his adding the same type of flowers on it as the ones he made on Kiyosumi’s horns before she had them operated off is a sign of optimism.

I like this chapter a lot. We dealt with depression before as well as suicidal behavior, but this BC chapter deals with the quiet cry for help, the sadness that follows when no one gives a shit, and how much effort people put into ignoring someone because they rub them off the wrong way. A great detail is that at no point does Abu tell her that she should have her horns removed. He just points out that they are dangerous and asks if she had considered. She had to make this decision for herself. If he had told her to do it, she would have since she automatically does as she is told, but even though he noticed the horns, Kiyosumi was the one who made the choice that prevented her early death.

[yourmcu]

Emotional Support Mode

Pairings: Tony Stark x daughter!reader

Summary:

in which the reader is the loner, antisocial daughter of Tony Stark and the other Avengers including her father never acknowledge her presence (they thought some sort of interaction made you uncomfortable) so she becomes friends with Friday instead - Tony probs finds out and it’s gonna be all cute n fluffie once he realizes -

Word count: 2,243

a/n: hi just wanted to write fluffy tony :)) also I used they/them for friday’s pronouns

Warnings: angst n fluff, friday’s a bit more advanced (not like they aren’t already but) bc they could almost act like a literal human here.

read it on ao3!

You arrive back at the Avengers facility, shoulders slumped and just tired in general since you have a lot of homework and projects to do from school, most of them due by the end of the week. You also have exams later in the week.

“Hey, Fri,” you huff as you make your way to the elevator.

“Welcome home, Y/N. Where do you want to go?”

Yes, you're very close with the A.I that they started calling you by your first name. “To my room - and uh, will you remind me to read two chapters in my history book after I’m done with all my homework? I also have this project, I just need some measurements later, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure thing.”

“Thank you.”

It’s going to be a long night, you sigh heavily just thinking about it. Now you’re probably wondering, ‘you live with the Avengers! Why don’t you ask Tony and Bruce for help? Maybe Steve and Bucky for your History test?’

Yeah, well... you barely talk to any real person you live with. Maybe it’s you, you always thought you're making the team uncomfortable. You don’t even talk to your own father often which is kind of depressing on your part.

You love them, they’re like your extended family, but it just isn’t working out. Maybe they just don’t like you. Up to this day you still wonder why Tony took you in when you were just a baby (you were a mistake from one of his one night stands) - he had the choice not to.

“I’m assuming you zoned out again. You have arrived to your room five minutes ago.” Friday announces.

“Y-yeah sorry,” you shuffle out of the elevator and swiftly head to your bedroom, closing the door behind you.

“I also asked if I should inform Mr. Stark that you have arrived home.”

“No, no thanks. He’s busy and... probably wouldn’t care anyway,” You mutter the last part as you pile the books you need on your desk. “Can you put my study playlist on, please?”

----

“What time is it, Friday?”

“7PM. I was about to remind you to take a break.”

You get up from your chair and stretch, halfway through the last of your homework which is a two page essay. “You’re too kind, thanks pal,” when you walk out your room to head to the kitchen and grab a snack, the lounge is empty, kitchen empty,

“The team’s on a mission? I thought they had the whole week off,” you say before gulping down a water bottle.

“I checked the security footage: they left about an hour ago. Captain Rogers was talking about getting dinner.”

You put the bottle down. “Oh,” you try to mask your disappointment. This isn’t your first time being alone, they always left you here when they had a mission of course but... well, it’s not like they want you around them. “I’ll - I’ll just make myself something later, then. Not a big deal. I have to study anyway.”

Another hour later, the Avengers are back. They're all conversing happily as they pile in the lounge. Peter's rambling about upgrades for the Spiderman suit while Tony's typing away in his phone, nodding at everything he says. Everyone else is arguing about the TV channels and talking about the new restaurant they ate at.

Rhodey shifts, looking around. “Why do I feel like we forgot something?”

Natasha looks at him, waiting for him to go on.

“I assure you, I brought Mjolnir with me this time.” Thor butts in.

“No not that, what time does Y/N get home from school?” No one answers. It’s not like any of them know. It's natural that Rhodey would be worried about his goddaughter (even if they rarely talk). He turns his head to his best friend who’s now walking away with Peter, an arm around his shoulder. “Tony, where’s Y/N?”

He doesn’t hear since he has his full attention on his protégé.

“I’ll start making this tomorrow, I guess. I still have to buy materials.” You mumble to yourself, but you hope Friday's listening to everything you say just to make you feel less lonely. You swipe the hologram of the blueprint away and place the thick books in front of you.

“I would like to recommend a suitable study plan.” they state.

You rub your eyes, sighing, “I’m already halfway, I would’ve considered it earlier though.”

“This is only a recommendation, feel free to ignore it.”

You push yourself away from the desk and mutter a “go on,”, fiddling with your pen.

“Asking Mr. Rogers and Mr. Barnes would give you more details for your History examination, since the pair were originally from that time period. The same goes for Mr. Banner for your Science examination, I believe he has seven Ph.D’s, you may also approach Vision for the same topic. Mr. Stark has all the necessary materials for your project in his lab. Would you like me to-”

If only it were that easy. It should be easy, the thought alone makes you really nervous. “No, I - I appreciate the recommendation, Friday, but - I think I can do this on my own.”

“But you’re tired and it is almost midnight. I would help you myself but you specifically told me not to.”

They’re not wrong. Your eyes are starting to droop and you barely understand anything you're reading. You're also fighting back tears - why is talking to your family so hard?

“I can sense sadness. Would you like me to activate emotional support mode?”

“Yeah, okay. That sounds great right about now.”

----

“Crap. Guess we lost track of time again, kid,” Tony wipes his hands with a rag while he looks at the time on his computer. “You better get home. I’ll send May a text for keeping you this late.”

“Okay, thank you Mr. Stark. I’m just gonna use my suit-”

“No. Happy will drive you.”

Peter knew better than to argue and insist so he just nods and smiles sheepishly. A minute later Happy came ‘round to take him home.

Tony turns back around. “Friday, make a new project for me please, I’m adding minor upgrades to the Spiderman suit.”

“Not now, boss.”

Oh. He did not expect that. “Excuse me?”

“Y/N is currently opening up. I would like to give her my full, undivided attention. Please come back after fifteen minutes or so.”

Tony doesn’t exactly know how to feel about that. He never sees her outside her room anymore that he kinda forgot she existed tonight - oh fuck, they didn’t bring her to dinner with them.

“Well,” he exhales. “What is she saying?”

“That would be an invasion of privacy.”

“I’m her father-”

“Are you, sir?” Friday’s clever remark makes him stop abruptly.

It’s pretty clear that he’s been a shit father. Not only does he ignore you all the time but he treats Peter way better than his own flesh and blood. The Avengers on the other hand, they were nice people, but just didn’t understand so they try their best to get out of your way.

You were afraid of rejection, afraid to interact, because you had no idea what everyone thought of you. Did they like you? Did you make them uncomfortable? Did they want you around? What about Tony, did he really want a daughter in his life? Because you noticed he’d be better off with a son, yeah, like Peter goddamn Parker.

Tony sighs, walking out of his lab and heads to the mini bar to grab a drink. He needs to think: there's absolutely nothing wrong about you, he just didn’t do his job right, you thought he didn’t care, you thought nobody did. Even Friday is turning against him, doing a better job of comforting and being there for you.

“God, I’m such an asshole,” he mutters to himself, rubbing his forehead. He drinks his last shot and heads to the kitchen. “She still awake?” He calls out.

“She is.” Friday has a bitter tone.

He's hesitant to ask again, feeling really bad for not knowing this simple question - “what’s her favorite beverage?”

----

“How do you feel?”

You sniffle. “Well y’know, better than before. I should probably go to sleep. Thanks, Fri.”

“You’re welcome. Also, Mr. Stark is outside your door.”

“W-what?” You put away your books and straighten up, rubbing your damp eyes. “You’re serious? Okay, uh, let him in?” It's more of a question.

“Alright.”

You turn to face your desk as Tony enters the room, holding two steaming mugs. He sits at the end of your bed, just right next to the chair you're sitting on. “Hi,” he gives you a small smile and hands you a mug.

What’s the occasion?

“What’s this?” You ask quietly before taking the mug from his hands. Tony's being gentle and soft, it's odd but you’re not complaining.

“Green tea with honey. I... I thought I saw you make that stuff once.” He says, not mentioning the fact that Friday told him that.

“Oh, well, yeah,” you take a small sip. He added a bit too much honey but other than that it was good. “I thought you preferred coffee, though,”

Tony shrugs, his eyes glistening when he looks at you. “Wouldn’t hurt to try something new.”

“Did - did you want something, Dad?” You always found yourself awkward, couldn’t even make conversation with someone for long, always wanted to get straight to the point so it could be over with.

He looks like he wants to say something but he just averts his gaze to you, his hands, the floor, then suddenly he leans in and hugs you. Your feel your heart swell and body warm up, it’s a new sensation for you after all, you rarely get hugs from people. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “For everything. I’m such a bad dad, I don’t deserve you. I even forgot you when we went out to dinner.”

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything. I had loads of stuff to do earlier anyway, so, but yeah I was just - I just overreact, I’m sensitive. I don’t blame you and the others for not liking me, I know there’s nothing like-able about me, I’m not like Peter-” You ramble, tears now leaving your eyes again.

“Sweetheart, don’t say that,” Tony says as he pulls you closer to him, head resting against his chest while he rubs your back comfortably. “Y/N Stark, you are smart, brilliant - I was just an ass for not acknowledging that.”

“I know you’re just saying that to-”

“Oh, but I’m not,” he now places his hands on your shoulders, getting you to look at him. “Tell me who built their first engine when they were eight?”

You blush, “Dad-”

“No, come on, I wanna hear it.”

“I did.”

“Yes you did. And who made a completely functioning robot at their middle school science fair that blew all the teacher’s minds?”

You’re trying to hide a smile, recalling the memory,  “I did.”

“And who,” Tony gets up and walks to the bulky looking thing that you covered with a sheet, pulling it off, “is currently building a computer from scratch?”

“Dad! That’s still a work in progress,” he messily places the sheet back and chuckles.

“My point is, you’re a clever and talented girl, Y/N. Don’t bring yourself down. And you don’t have to be shy around your family, those idiots have been dying to get to know you but since you don’t talk much... they don’t want to force it. We love you,” he says. “I hope you forgive me ‘cause I really wanna make it up to you. I’m not calling Peter in for a few weeks.” Tony sits down beside you again.

You couldn’t believe he’d do that for you. “You don’t have to, if you need him for something then-”

“-then you could help me instead, if you’re up for it.”

“I’m really sorry for being such a lonely freak,” you yawn, getting back into Tony’s open arms. “I love you.”

Tony tucks you in and lies down beside you, “I love you tons, kiddo.”

You snuggle into his chest, feeling his steady breathing while he rests his chin above your head.

----

It's morning. The Avengers are gathered at your open bedroom door.

“Are you getting all of this, Friday?”

“Yes, Ms. Romanoff.”

“Steve turn that shuttering sound down!” Natasha hisses at the super soldier who's doing his task, taking pictures.

Steve almost drops the phone and has Bruce fix the volume for him.

They’re all watching you and Tony cuddle together, still fast asleep.

“Do we have to stay here until they wake up?”

“Unless you have a great way of waking them up, yes. Now shut up.”

“If you think about it we definitely look creepy right now.” Sam comments.

“It’s their fault for having the door wide open all night!” Clint says.

Tony's actually awake the whole time, listening to them bickering. “You have three seconds to get the hell out of here before I make all of you polish my suits.” With that, the team races down the hall, pushing each other to get away first like literal children.

[literaticat]

Jennifer do kids care about details? Let me ‘plain: In the chronicles of Narnia one character loved Turkish Delights. I had no idea what the hell that was and still don’t. In HP there are foods I didn’t know but they didn’t make me stop reading, I was there for the story. If I use food from my culture do I need to explain it? I feel like I can trust my audience to look things up if they care. But there also seems to be a double standard here.

The thing about Turkish Delight, or Butter Beer, or whatever, is that the authors DO explain it.

They don't explain the RECIPE or whatever - but CS Lewis DOES tell us that Turkish Delight is, to this character, the best and most delicious food he can even imagine, something so good he's willing to sell out his family for it. And CS Lewis assumes that you'll either know what it is (in which case you would definitely side-eye Edmund, bc WTF, but then you remember this was during a war and the poor thing was probably just desperate for ANY sugar lol) -- or you won't know what it is, but you'll just imagine the best tasting fancy sweet you can think of. When I was a kid, I thought it would be like Almond Roca or Ferraro Rocher -- imagine my disappointment when I tasted the real thing, which is basically... a soft flower or pistachio flavored gummy with powdered sugar on. It's fine! But it's no Almond Roca. ;-)

We may not know precisely what is IN Butter Beer, but we know from the way it is described that it must be a very nice beverage that is warming on a winter's day, that it tastes something like butterscotch and that it has a slight alcoholic content. Obviously (well, until the theme parks opened up), none of us had TASTED this, but we can all imagine what sort of a drink that would be and how it would feel to drink it. (And, like Turkish delight -- IMO, Butter Beer is better in my imagination!) -- Just like we don't know exactly what Chocolate Frogs or Fizzing Whizbees or whatever taste like, because, you know, they are fictional - but we know the idea, that they are candy, they are fun, they are delicious, kids love them, etc.

So -- IMO, if you are using food from your culture, it's the same deal. You don't need to say every ingredient or whatever, unless you are writing a recipe book -- but it IS likely that you'd at least mention how the taste/smell/whatever makes the character feel, because what's the point of adding an awesome sensory detail like FOOD that we can all relate to if you aren't going to even explore that for an instant? If I know what the food is, I'll be like "YUM" -- if I don't, I'll still get the *vibe*.

For example: Your character is making ramen. Are they making ramen because they are a broke student, and literally a 30 cent packet of ramen is all they can afford and can make in their dorm room, and they are huddled on their twin bed sipping it out of a cup while watching Seinfeld reruns on a TV that only gets one channel? OR, are they a guy nursing his girlfriend's hangover by delicately poaching an egg and chopping scallions and grating ginger or whatever, making a deluxe upgrade to the 30 cent ramen that infuses the whole loft apartment with the scent of ginger and wakes her up, so she can stumble into the kitchen and smile at him? OR are they a person whose mom was always terribly busy running a restaurant that specialized in a 24-hour simmered tonkotsu broth, so even though they have been away from home for years, the scent of broth brings them instantly back to their childhood, a mixture of comforting and sad? All three of those scenarios are technically about RAMEN -- but all three have a different *vibe* -- and even if I don't know what exactly ramen or tonkotsu broth or whatever is, I get the picture.

[thevoidcannotbefilled]

Web!Martin.... Oh boy. Gonna shake the hornet’s nest with this one, but I’ve spent like three days on this editing and re-editing, and I’m finally satisfied with my kind of an essay at this point. 

So, here’s a deep dive as to why I think Web!Martin has merits. (Scroll to the bottom of my essay for my TLDR). 

Introduction

First, to get some stuff out of the way:

Do I think Martin is a sleeper agent? Do I think that he has been manipulating Jon this entire time or even in just season 5 for the games of the Web? Do I think he's a bunch of spiders in a Martin suit? Do I think he's regards the Mother as his Mother and accepts that he is her Son? Is Martn actively Webby? 

No. Absolutely not. None of the above. The Martin we know is the Martin we began with, just with a bunch of trauma and has gained the ability to set his boundaries.

I find the idea of sleeper agent Martin or something similar to be very counterintuitive to the overall narrative. Not only is TMA about choices, and to have Martin be a sleeper agent would be to deny all of Martin's choices this season in particular, but it doesn't really lead to much. At best it's a gotcha and a surprise at worst it's making literally every interaction between Jon and Martin, with Martin himself, and so on mean nothing for the sake of one twist and make it sad. It's not fun in long term, and so at the end of the day, I trust Jonny and Alex as writers more than that. (Plus we already did the "person is replaced" thing).

Does Martin being a manipulator actively mean that he is a Web avatar?

Short answer, no. 

Long answer, I made a post awhile back, and while it was for fandom things, I think it applies well here. What power you choose to align yourself with isn’t necessarily something you’d fully commit to. It is just, if you were an avatar and willing to hurt others for your own gain, what would you find yourself most aligned with.  What I mean by that, just because Martin lies and manipulates doesn’t mean that he is Web, however, manipulation is a tool does fit well with the Web, and if he were to choose to align himself to that, I think he could be Webby. However, he is not necessarily a Web avatar because he has no motivation to hurt people. 

That being said I do think Martin would be a good fit for the Web if he wanted to be, and I think there will be a point in the narrative that there is a potential that he could become one, even if he does not necessarily choose to be in the end. 

Let’s talk about it.

Evidence

I think the best way to describe Web!Martin on my end is this: if Martin had an inclination to be an avatar, he would be the Web because everything from his aesthetics to his skillsets line up with the Web, but he does not have any reason to be Webby and in fact, at the very least as of MAG169, should actively be against the Web’s goals. 

But that doesn’t mean his connection to the Web hasn’t been heavily foreshadowed or built up. Not all of these are of the same level, I admit that, so I’m just gonna bold the ones that are the most important.  These aren’t in any particular order. 

-For season 1 subtext, said he liked spiders In This First Appearance MAG22, in MAG38 Jon says that Martin gives them lectures on the importance of spiders for the environment, and MAG39, “it’s just that whatever web these statements have caught you in, well, I’m there too.” 

-IN MAG79, his poem has a line in it that goes, “"the threads of people walking, living, loving" which is very Web-like. 

-During the Web statement he read in season 3, he said “that wasn’t so bad, actually!” (MAG110) when he finished after showing open disdain for the others he read. The only other statement he didn’t think was bad to read was the Lonely one (MAG108), a power he canonical has ties to. 

-The only person in the show so far of the main cast that has had direct contact with Annabelle Cane. The only other people that have had contact with her are her victims (Creature Feature, MAG110) or her people she used as tools (Web Development, MAG123). 

-Let himself be guided to put the tapes on top of the coffin when the tapes, which have shown a direct association with both the Web and the Eye. 

- Martin’s “lo-fi charm” and “retro-aesthetic” (various) versus Annabelle “She dressed like a vintage clothing store exploded on her” (MAG69)

-Uses lying and manipulation as his main tactic against people and is acknowledged that manipulation is a skillset of his. By Jonah mostly, but he was able to successfully manipulate both Peter and Jonah. 

-In MAG117, he said "I’m not afraid for me, though. Isn’t that weird? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be safe, like my plan’s not dangerous, but it’s, it’s mine. This last couple of years, I’ve always been running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but, but now it’s my trap, and, well, I think it’ll work. I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but it felt good weaving my own little web." and he then added after it with "oh good lord is Martin becoming some sort of spider person', no, Jon, just an expression.” 

-Martin having a bad relationship with his mother versus Mother of Puppets.

-The Web and the Desolation actively dislike one another (MAG139), and fire is Martin’s most hated pain (MAG169). 

-Martin is the primary investigator in Recluse (MAG59), Arachnophobia (MAG16), and was the one to find and give the Cracked Foundation (MAG114) to Jon. All of which are Web statements. 

-The delivery of the table and the lighter were technically both given to Martin since he was the one who talked to Breekon and Hope. 

-Martin was the first one to mention the Web lighter in season 5 in MAG162. 

What Does This Mean

Now I will admit none of these things on their own mean Web!Martin. They’re something you might describe a Web!avatar yes, but not Martin on his own (like I said just because Martin can be a manipulator doesn’t mean he is a Web avatar).

In fact, with elements like Martin finding fire his least favorite pain, I adore the meta on Martin’s trauma about giving himself up for other people led to him disliking fire and the lack of care from his mother, also leading to that. It is an excellent metaphor that fits incredibly well with his character. That being said, these factors can coexist. Martin disliking fire can both be a metaphor for his own self-destruction for the sake of others and be hints toward Web!Martin. 

HOWEVER, that all being said, even if these moments on their own don’t mean Web!Martin proof, I find it a bit unreasonable to entirely dismiss all of this either. There are too many coincidences lining up with the Web to not be intentional. It could be a red herring of course, but if it is a red herring.....well, Jonny put a hella of a lot of effort into making the Web!Martin red herring considering how much of his little details align so well with the small and big details of the Web. 

But assuming that this info does align together in all its Webiness... does this mean Web!Martin? 

Again, at the moment, I don’t think Martin is actively Webby. 

At his heart, Martin wants to do two things: 1) Protect Jon and 2) Protect as many other innocents he can in the process. 

As ironic as it is: "I want to find out what's going on. I want to save Jon. I want everyone to be fine and, you know what? If we were all happy that wouldn't actually be the end of the world” and “I want them to be safe. I need him to be okay” are basically the sum of Martin’s motivations from here to now. Martin wants a happy ending. And he’ll use whatever tools he can to do that. 

So asking questions from dangerous people like Simon Fairchild? For the protection of the world from what he thought was from the Extinction.

Burning up statements and burning up the cabin? The Desolation would like that, if it wasn’t for the fact he does so to decrease the fear in the world. 

And manipulating others? Peter? Jonah? Both of these weren’t to cause fear. They were at their heart to help others. 

Using the tools that the powers use does not mean you’re of that power. Martin’s most effective tool is to manipulate others bc they underestimate him or they trust him to do what needs to be done. People tend to have a single view of him. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have other tactics, but with both Peter and Elias, it’s clear he knows how to use others’ egos against them. 

Season 5 and Web!Martin

This ALL being said...... Season 5 is a lot about the nature of power (what to do with it and what it means to use it) and what you can do in inherently toxic systems. We just learned that killing its leaders does nothing when the system itself is built to actively hurt others. That smiting doesn’t actively make things better. The Web is actively doing something at the moment and possibly with the Distortion as well that will probably hurt Jon and Martin. 

But..... 

I’m worried about the possibility that the Web can promise a world with a happy ending like Martin always wanted and with no other options within the world, Martin chooses to let himself become a tool for the Web. Now to make this clear: Does Web!Martin give a happy ending or even a better world? No. Absolutely not. Can the Web possibly promise to give him the power to get a happy ending? Depends on if Martin will believe it.

If Web!Martin is a thing, it would be in doing so What He Thinks would be in both of their best interests and most importantly as his lowest point and final resort. That he stops believing that they have power to change the world on their own. When he believes he has no power left and all he can do to make the world better is to go to the one source that always seems to understand what’s going on. Because as of yet, he doesn’t have the motivations to be a Web avatar, but we’re slowly creeping into territory where he might think it is necessary to be one. 

(We already had best case scenario where the Web asks Martin to join him and Martin says no. He could say no again, of course, but I don’t know if the Web will be as understanding of his reluctance in time). 

For me, Web!Martin is on the same level of tragedy as Jon being the Archivist. Yes, there would be choices, but Martin would have been actively been manipulated by the Web just as much as Jon would be hurt by the Eye, even if it’s for entirely different reasons. He would be used as a tool in a greater game. Jon wants to be a good person. Martin wants to have a happy ending. We already know Jon’s desire to help the people around him has gotten him multiple marks. I can definitely see a world where Martin’s desire for a happy ending is used against him by the Web. 

I can see a world where Martin lies to Jon because he thinks that’s what’s best for the two of them. I can see a world where he doesn’t lie to Jon but still accepts the power of the Web anyway despite Jon not thinking it’s a good idea. I don’t think either HAVE happened yet. We aren’t at that point, but... 

Whatever the case, whatever plan the Web may have it highly involves one Mister Blackwood and his Archivist. And for the Web’s plans, Martin plays a key part of in it. 

Other Theories and How Web Martin Plays Into It

So, do I think that’s where the plot will end? With Web!Martin betraying Jon bc he thinks it will be best? Not really. I think a lot of the point will also be that while Martin fits the Web well, his inherent desire for a better world makes it so he’s not an avatar. It’s the same points I made before: aesthetically, Martin fits the Web well and could be a good avatar in association, but he doesn’t WANT to hurt innocents. And ultimately, no matter his potential goals, Martin loves and cares for the world and especially for Jon. There could be a mistake in there made by Martin, where the Web has his clutches in him, but I don’t see a world where that is his ultimate conclusion. 

I’ve also seen a theory where Martin uses Webby shenanigans to his advantage against Annabelle Cane. Where the manipulator becomes the manipulated and the tragedy is the sacrifice of himself for the sake of a happy ending he’ll never see. 

I’m interested in seeing if Jonah making Martin the backup Archivist goes anywhere, especially with the uncertain connection between the tapes, the Eye, the Web, and the Archivist. Does this have anything to do with why Martin felt like he had to listen to Jon? Does this have anything to do with how he slapped Jon out of a statement? Could both of these elements also have something to do with the Web? 

I’m also very intrigued on what Web Development was doing when they have something called a “story-spinner” and yet when the story-spinner was described it sounded almost exactly like an Archivist, but instead when you give a story, the spinner killed someone. Could the story-spinner have anything to do with the previous back-up Archivist? Could they just be entirely separate things? 

Who knows what it all means? I don’t. That’s why I’m not discounting anything, especially with something that has so much set-up and subtext as Web!Martin. Whether Web!Martin means full avatar or not isn’t clear to me, but I’m taking any and all potential red-tape moments and running with them. If it means being pulled by a red-herring, so be it, but I won’t dismiss anything until proven otherwise. As long as Martin wants to do good and have a happy ending, I don’t think the Web can fully get him at least not in the ways that count. But I won’t stop investigating the narrative on what these elements could lead up to. 

Conclusion 

This post was made in frustration. I admit that. There is a distaste for Web!Martin that has been approaching the fandom that I don’t entirely understand. I’m not saying you have to like it, heck I admit, I could be entirely wrong. I also agree it’s a bit annoying that every interaction that Martin and Jon have come up under scrutiny for Martin potentially being Webby by the fandom. That’s why I started this post as I did because I don’t find the narrative of “Martin Is The Evil Bad Guy Manipulating Jon From The Beginning” all that compelling and wanted to put that to rest early. 

I do, though, find it frustrating dismissing all elements of Web!Martin because of this. At the end of the day, I find there are too many elements in the text to entirely dismiss it and an outright rejection of Web!Martin can potentially lead to dissatisfaction with the narrative. I make this post as an explanation and exploration of my thoughts, and a way to show why so many fans like the Web!Martin theory. Take it or leave it, it’s fine, but I wanted to gather all my thoughts clearly in one place rather than in a bunch of snippy posts. I hope I’ve done that well enough. 

TLDR: Web!Martin for me is a potential, a threat, and a possibility, but not something I think is actively happening at the moment. Martin would make a good fit for an avatar if he wanted to be, but at the moment, has no motivation to do so. However, with the ever decreasing options to save the end of the world, I can see a situation where Web!Martin is a thing that he actively thinks could save it. 

That being said, Martin is inherently a character that wants to do GOOD in the world, and as long as that’s the case, even if that motivation is used against him, I don’t think he will be proven wrong that the world can be good and he has the power to make it so, or at the very least, I don’t think his journey will end on a dower note, even if it is a tragic one. The tragedy will be in the cost of saving the world or something similar, and whether or not Web!Martin is the case, I don’t think that will change. That being said, there are many potential theories on what could happen, and I don’t want to miss any of them, Web or not. This post has been made in somewhat defense as to why people like Web!Martin and continue to theorize about it, but also in reassurance that even if we do get Web!Martin that it doesn’t mean a destruction of Martin’s character.

[godammit-sasuke]

Random thought #5 and maybe a potential fanfic prompt?

WHAT IF;

- Sakura was able to stop Sasuke and Naruto from blowing their arms off

- She got hurt instead

- Now she’s blind

- Naruto and Sasuke were like “shit wtf have we done, aight let’s stop this beef for now”

- Sasuke stays in the village because of guilt but couldn’t stand the tension bet him and Naruto, him and the village etc so he left

- He comes back a year or two later and was expecting to see Sakura being able to see again and do her thang except that she still couldn’t and isn’t

- Sakura was looking at his direction but not at him and when she was about a good distance away from him she finally noticed his presence but not him, homeboy was shocked. ps: he was suppressing his chakra signature but ya girl’s a seasoned kunoichi alright

- Sakura demanding him to reveal his identity and Sasuke being ???????

- Their lowkey dramatic convo

🌸: i know you’re there, who are you?

🍅: ...???

🌸: a surprise attack huh? i see you know about my condition. lmao that’s ok that won’t stop me from beating ur ass

🍅: ...??????

sakura.

🌸: wtf sasuke-kun?

- After knowing Sakura’s still blind, (like how and why?! She’s a great medic herself and her master is literally Tsunade) He decided to stay for a little bit longer bcs obviously he didn’t expect any of this

- Sakura may be a top tier kunoichi, but she’s blind and it’s only been a year or two so of course she’s struggling. Mainly the reason why Sasuke stayed ehem✨ guilt ✨

- It wasn’t exactly his intention but he ended up being her companion/supporting partner to help her adjust so she can go back to being a medic + kunoichi even though she’s blind

I’m so sorry if I had to ruin it with my dry ass humor!!! but this was actually inspired from my dream the other day— it was waaaaaay angsty and I was feeling BIG sad since I woke up 😭🤟🏻 I can write a more serious version of this, just adding specific details but idk. I mean, I’m not a writer so I would probably butcher my own idea but if someone’s up for this I can try! Or maybe someone wants to pick this plot/story up, feel free to do so?

[vvakarians]

I need to be vulnerable for a second.

It’s been a year. I’ve made a lot of progress and am still uprooting shit I’ve been wading in for a while now. I’m growing and learning. But I’ve never gone into detail really, maybe on twitter and mentioned it a couple times but yeah. Been thinking a lot.

TW for Homophobia / Abuse

TLDR; My best friend was a shitlord and I spent ten minutes painfully sobbing about it. I’m fine lmao just needed to make a messy post.

Won’t be mentioning who they were on SM here but if mutuals who are and were friends w/ both of us want to know, hmu lmao. I sincerely hope y’all didn’t get shit on like I did

I’m so tired. I’m tired of knowing that someone I used to call my best friend literally cyberstalked me in a discord server and when I told them I wanted to have a space without them/wouldn’t be interacting with their character, they lost it.

I’ll call this person A. They were there for me through a lot but it got weird towards the end for sure. A was always clingy, always needed to be right (passed it off as an OCD thing), and always felt like they needed to be included in things I was doing. Abandonment issues due to trauma they said, still doesn’t excuse it but you know? Fine.

I identified as aro/ace for a long time bc I was severely traumatized. Someone thirst followed me and cornered me into a relationship/took my kindness for granted (Not A, not yet). A’s reaction was to assume I would never have time for them and we would drift apart, just because I had a partner. They complained about this to me and said that even if I was just their friend and QPP (we were both aro/ace) that they still felt I would abandon them. I tried to calm them down the entire time, this was October 2018. Three days later I had a severe PTSD break (unrelated trauma) and broke up with my ‘boyfriend’. A said it was the right decision and we left it at that.

Cut to me a year later having recovered a bit and realizing I had romantic feelings still. That I *wanted* to kiss and take someone out, and do heavily romantic things. During this time A and I had severe issues with D&D parties also where they would break down if they didn’t know everything and said that I couldn’t produce any part of my worlds for profit bc theh had contributed in a small way. It was a bad time. It lead to the complete disintegration of two relationships that I can...probably never get back. One of which I’m not sure I *want* back, but that’s a different story.

Basically they wanted to be the DM with half the credit despite only making npcs I could easily replace or cut out entirely. Now that I started playing again, I have.

I still was friends with them, still waveringly QPP’s with them. Though I’d often feel my skin crawl when they touched me or wanted to be in my space. This was all the time, not when I got triggered into a PTSD episode. I was annoyed when they wanted to always be in my space and have all my attention. But I felt obligated to A and had been recently traumatized again.

Even with all of this I wanted to come out as gay / mlm but still keep part of my aceness with me. Of course in feeling this, I approached A to let them know. Their response was to immediately come back with ‘we can do all of those things you want to do with a romantic partner’. Which I felt may be true for some aspecs but not me. I wanted to *be* with someone and not just...a friend. I wanted to have a boyfriend and be cheesy. I told A that it was probably true but I wanted something else. That I wanted space to think on what they had said. They came back with ‘you’re abandoning me. You just don’t like me. Everyone always leaves me’. Once again with the ‘you get a bf you’ll forget I exist’ rhetoric 🙃.

I told them that they weren’t the person I wanted to be romantic with. I was looking for someone else. I wasn’t attracted to them that way. They took that as an insult. Though to me they relented. Come to find out A got one of our mutual friends involved bc they lived in the same area. They vented and complained to them that I was going to abandon them, that I was punishing them, that they didn’t know what they did wrong. Which was behavior my parents exhibited when I was forced out as trans to them. That Inwas punishing them somehow for a misdeed or that they knew me better, they did something ‘wrong’.

The only outlet I had away from A was TikTok, we weren’t really doing D&D anymore because the party had dissolved due to their controlling habits. Every account I had was heavily monitored by A, I would vent and they would immediately pull it up and ask if I was okay. Even if I had explicitly said before that I was alright and needed some space. But TikTok was a place they barely went on. So I cosplayed more after our last visit (October 2019), and got a small following after joining a lovely d&d tag ran by one of my now closest friends. I also met my boyfriend through this tag, and several other very close friends. I made an oc that I integrated in one or two sessions of D&D before I completely stopped DMing.

Now, it gets worse. I get a following for cosplaying my oc Asariel Whately, join a server, and for a time have a pretty okay place away from A. Some breathing room. When I mentioned that Asariel (who we had talked about maybe being w/ an oc of theirs) was going to romance my now boyfriends oc in the tag, they got upset. They said that they were sad to see them with someone else, and asked if it could all be before my campaign/not actually be real. I told them no and that I’d continue doing what I wanted.

Well, after that and scouring my TikTok (i made the mistake of saying anything in the first place), they got invited to the server and started RPing/cosplaying in the tag. Which they’re allowed to do, but A has a history of wanting to be in my things and being the center of attention. When I say A got involved with *several* other characters, including a possible *minor*, that doesn’t even cover the worst of it. They got involved in a huge polyam relationship (which is fine, i’ll explain why their behavior was weird tho) that LITERALLY took up chunks of the whole server. Any time my bf and I got into chat to rp out some scene for Asariel and Fraanic, A was there to bury our scene in their own garbage. Could have been conicidence but who knows. Then the minor got added into the mix and most of us just had the server on mute/rped in DMs. It was so bad that other people noticed their bad behavior, meta gaming, and needing to be right.

Our relationship ended when someone from a private close knit server made up of all the people who wanted to remove ourselves from the toxic environment, outed our server. Said there was an nsfw server and A immediately jumped to say they wanted an invite. I panicked and DMed them for the first time in weeks to say that they couldn’t. That I needed space from them and this was the one place I had. We had a fight, they said ‘they’re my friends too’ and I pointed out that they had forced their way in, that I said I needed space. Eventually they gave up on it, thank god. But it left me wrecked for months. I didn’t create, I retreated into a two person server with my best friend who is now my boyfriend and just never looked back.

While I’m grateful that this massive upheaval gave me a new support network, got me into a good place for a romantic partnership, and allowed me to heal...I still have a lot of pain. I felt like I had been commodiefied, like an object because of how kind and soft and pliable I was. Because someone thought I was beautiful and *theirs* in the worst way. My ocs who are some of my largest coping mechanisms were tainted, I could barely play Dragon Age, couldn’t think about it. Because someone had conpletely obliterated my love for it. I hate to think they then continued to do that same thing to other people but I honestly have no clue what A is doing now. They dropped off the planet and honestly good riddance.

[hwanuels]

n.jm: where were you?

summary: y/n does not know what the fuck is going on half of the time. 

pairing: highschool!fboi!jaemin x fem!reader

warning: a lot of cursing, drug usage reference, crackheadness, maybe a lot of grammer error. this is my first bullet-scenario au so yeah. also! this a collab with the lovely @huangsren in out nct dreamies alternate universe teehee. she has a lovely, fluffy renjun one up so go read it!

part two!

you okay let’s get this collab with @huangsren 

so at NCT High if you don't know Na Jaemin who the hell are you? like everyone knows this kid from lunch ladies to the freaking janitors 

its not a surprise since the dude is literally dead drop gorgeous and has a shit ton of social skills. like the boy deadass can swindle his way out of detention (which he did) with just a wink 

typical fboi but instead of it being a huge turn-off, girls still throw themselves on him even when he WARNS them beforehand that he isn't looking for a serious thing

still, they get attached and heartbroken when he tells them “this isn’t working out” 

his friends (aka art-hoe!renjun and student-athlete!jeno) always rolls their eyes when jaemin rolls up into the lunchroom with his arms wrapped around a new girl’s shoulder

“bet she’s not going to last two weeks”- renjun slapping down a 10$ 

“knowing him, this isn’t going to last more than a week”- jeno said but still sliding over a 10$ bill 

AND SUPRISE it doesn’t 

both renjun and jeno don’t approve of his philandering, but they stick w jaemin cause he’s still their best bud cause bros before hoes ya know what i mean?

this is especially true with jeno cause they’ve been bffl since they were like five but that doesn’t mean that jaemin is anything like jeno. 

nah man they both are the complete opposite of each other

like jeno is a quiet reserved student-athlete boi but jaemin out here acting like a little thotty 

nomin is like a package deal, no one can separate them

here where out little y/n comes in

surprisingly you’re childhood friends w nomin 

both u and jeno are neighbors and your families have been friends since before you were even conceived 

your moms’ have weekly tea times where they’d gossip about everything and anything while your dads would be watching the weekly soccer/football games drinking a cold one 

you and jeno would be playing with some legos or barbies 

jeno had a minor (major) barbie obsession which was probably induced by you

don’t tell anyone but jeno still binge-watches barbie movies;;;his favorite really be the princess charm school one 

like i said nomin is a package deal so expect jaemin to be taging along to yours and jeno’s weekly playdate

imagine you being the princess while jaemin pretended to be the prince and jeno was the dragon,,,yeah man it was so lit 

this isn’t a jeno fic btw keep in mind its still jaemin 

all of that stuff before was when the three of you were like kids

once highschool came around all three of you found ur niches: jeno was the student-athlete, jaemin was well that guy that was wanted by all the girls

and you were just a regular mundane student ya know,,,you weren’t extremely talented nor smart you just floated around 

u still hung around jeno tho but your friendship was really lowkey 

like both of y'all would wait until the other one was completely alone or do some ridiculous actions to deliver the simplest messages 

jeno would look both ways before slipping you a note in class that said “can your mom drive me home today?” and you would make sure no one was looking before nodding secretly 

or the two of you would hide behind bushes to say that y'all parents wanted to have dinner together tonight 

tbh yall could just text each other but where’s the fUN in that? 

jaemin, on the other hand, was someone you haven’t a solid conversation with since sophomore year bc of an incident 

basically, you had helped one of your friends into a relationship with jaemin that lasted for about two months,,, which was considerably a long time considering that it was jaemin.the two of them were a fat power couple 

ur friend, let’s call her ella, was probably one of the more popular girls at school. she was well-known for being the prettiest, kindest girl that everyone LOVES

anyways, things didn’t end so well bc he stood her up at hoco even though he was gonna be crowned homecoming king and her queen. 

no one knows why jaemin just ditched but he did. 

didn’t stick well with your friend tho cause she stopped talking to you as well not really giving you an explanation

and this led to everyone in your friend group to kinda put all the blame onto you 

this is also when jaemin picked up his heartbreaker reputation and began living up to that title

at first ur were hella mad and sad, but you got over it cause being outcasted and kicked out of that friend group led you to befriend the local stoner boi!haechan

honestly, you got over it but after ignoring and avoiding jaemin for a whole year it just stuck. 

yall never talked again 

here comes SENIOR YEARS BITS 

u were so done w school at this point, you had suffered and labored through junior year,,, SAT and ACT were the biggest bitches you ever faced in your lifetime and this is coming from someone who was friends with the resident shithead lee haechan 

so it’s lunchtime and you’re listening to haechan’s wild story about some shenanigan that he and his weed dealer/ older college friend mark had gotten up to the past weekend 

“so like we were just hitting a blunt this weekend in mark’s car and this cop pulls up next to us.mark rolls down the window and all of the smoke just hits the cops in the face” 

“you're a fucking idiot, haechan” 

“listen bitch, i’m not done” 

“so the cop is doing the regular illegal drugs bullshit and asked mark a question. understand at this point that mark is high as fuck so i kid you not the crackhead says quack. nothing else just quack. honestly, i still don’t know how we got out of that but we did and lee haechan is still in school.” 

you want to slap your friend with a big smh at this point 

but it so ridiculous and so haechan that you can’t say anything else 

and you don’t have too! bc someone taps ur shoulder pulling you out of your convo and boom it’s ella 

“hey, y/n” she starts out sweetly and you could feel haechan’s bitch face directed towards the girl, who seemed to just ignore the boy 

“what’s up, ella?” you were hella fucking slightly irritated and highkey suspicious bc like this was the first time that she talked to you in like two years

“this out of the blue, but you know how prom is coming up soon? we need extra hands on the planning community,” ella explained with a bright smile  “we need another person to work on making the centerpieces for each table, but we only have one person on that” 

“okay, so what does this have to do with her?” haechan’s bitchy tone soaked in each word 

ella’s smile faltered slightly at his words, but it was so subtle that only people with keen eyes could notice

“i hope that i’m not imposing anything on to you.” ella trying to reassure  “but Mr. Moon told me that you still need some community service hours for our graduation requirement so I just assumed that this would be a good opportunity for you.” 

oh shit 

you completely forgot about that and you still needed like another 10 hours to complete

“ummmm” 

“i wouldn’t ask you this but my workload is completely swamped” ella added “it would be a big help if you can help. haechan, you can help too!” 

haechan let out a loud gag that seemed to baffle her 

“oh hell no, i already got my community service hours done like freshmen year.” 

you gave haechan the most incredulous face you could make cause like this druggie who gets high every other week and vapes in the bathroom really finished his community service hours before you????how?? 

“don’t look at me like that.” haechan kicked you underneath the table “it was before i learned how to roll a blunt” 

“drugs aren’t good for you, haechan,” ella chided 

haechan made a mocking face,,you know the one he does like that one,,”not all of us can be little miss goodie-two-shoes like you” 

oKAy time to do some damage control before your shithead friend gets himself into more shit 

“i’ll do it. just text me the details.” 

“thank you so much y/n!” ella said before bouncing off 

“i hate her” haechan stated

“you hate everyone” 

CUE aFTerschool when you follow ella’s text to go to the art building where everyone was gathered 

the minute you walked in you realized that you should have just said no and done some other community service activity cause jaemin was present standing in the corner and other people who you once called your close friends that turned out to be fat snakes

now you gotta deal with them again (aww shit here we go again) 

ella is motioning you to come into the classroom which you obliged cause you figured that you possibly could survive w ur rbf on as you made your way to the other unoccupied corner

there was some whispering in the background but you ignored it cUASE like hyuk always says: “you just gotta get high and block out all the haters” 

well, he was right about the second half, not so much the first. 

“alright everyone! thank you so much for volunteering to help set up for our senior prom! we only have about three weeks so we have to get all of the decorations done as soon as possible!” ella said in a chirpy tone

a lot of people looked motived by the girl’s bubby short speech on how everyone needs to put in 100% of their effort. you zoned that out as you caught the sleeping figure at the teacher's desk 

“goddamn you mr.moon forcing me to be here” you grumbled in your head almost missing your assigned duty, 

“y/n!” your head snapped in the direction that your name was called 

you saw ella standing with jaemin and the sirens go off in your head 

FUCK THIS

you let out a loud sigh before trotting over to the two 

ella gave you a piece of paper that had the centerpieces’ picture on them along with a long list of decorations “all you guys have to do is make about 300. all the directions are on the sheet and the supplies are in the other room. it’s really simple, just have it done by next friday.” 

you nearly popped a blood vessel 

300 by next friday? today was wednesday so that meant you only had ten days to finish all 300 of them

so you and jaemin are walking to the classroom next door to get the supplies y’all needed,,, in your head, you were just cursing everything in existence for putting you into this position especially mr. moon 

“so how did she rope you into this?” you heard jaemin say from beside you as you both carried boxes out to the parking lot. 

you two came to the good conclusion to split the load so that he would do half and you would do half 

150 it’s not that bad 

15 a day

hell yeah

it was so strange and foreign talking to him since it’s been about two whole years.  

he had a nice voice tho ngl maybe that’s why he got out of that detention that one time 

“she somehow found out that i still needed to complete my community service hours before graduation” you murmured, praying that haechan remembered you telling him to wait for you after school 

he probably ditched you to get high or hang out with one girl he liked

all jaemin said was “oh” and the rest of the walk to the school’s parking lot was quiet 

the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife and the knife would break

“hey can i ask you a question?” jaemin asked when the two of you were about to go your separate ways 

you could see mark’s old beat-down car meaning that haechan, in fact, did ditch you but had the decency to call up mark to pick you up 

“yeah, go ahead” 

“how come you still talk to jeno, but not me?” 

i shit you not this was the quietest and deepest voice that you ever heard jaemin project 

you didn’t know how to reply so you looked down at the large box in your hand, mumbling some incoherent excuse

“can you repeat that?” 

“ i said, we don’t really have any other reasons to be friend's unlike me and jeno” 

“is that all?” jaemin asked, probably catching onto your bullshit

you were probably delusional but you could’ve sworn you heard some sadness in the tone he used

you nodded quickly trying to get to mark’s car hoping to avoid further conversation 

but boy was jaemin stubborn 

“that wasn’t a good explanation,y/n! ” jaemin called out after you. 

this time he sounded more lighthearted than before

you turn around to face jaemin who had a fatass smile on his face 

damn was he good looking smiling like that 

“give me a better reason tomorrow or else i’m taking you on a date!” his dazzling smile nearly blinding you as he made his way to his own car

inside your head little y/n is going whattheactualfuck? 

“what’s with that shook face?” mark ask as you climbed into the passenger seat 

“what the fuck?” you say 

“huh?”

you look at mark “what the ACTUAL fuck?” 

poor mark is like wtf is wrong with her,,,did haechan get her on some type of crack? 

that night while you were making the little centerpieces you were still going over what jaemin said 

you looked at the last centerpiece you finish making 

was he flirting with me? or was he serious?

he sounded sad when i said that tho? 

at the same, this was jaemin, a boy who is well-known for having flings left and right. 

he’s probably just flirting

until next day! jaemin pops up next to you as while you get your shit from your locker for your first class 

“did you come up with a good explanation yet? 

his sudden appearance startled you causing you to subconsciously let out a yelp 

“cute” he said, and you forced down the blush that was about to show 

“i thought i told you already?” causing jaemin to shake his head like a cute little puppy 

“i don’t accept it.i want a better one,” he said sounding like a spoiled toddler 

you gave him the “wtf do you mean look” and he was about to reply until you saw haechan walking through the school doors with a pair of sunglasses on which can only mean one thing

that little shit head came to school high again

you pushed passed jaemin and stormed towards haechan pulling him to some vacant hallway to lecture him

leaving jaemin standing there staring at your backs as the two of you left 

jaemin’s smile dropping significantly as he nearly glared over at the two of you leaving, specifically at the back of haechan’s head 

“dude, why do you look like you’re going to murder someone?” jeno asked as jaemin sat next to him at their lab station 

you weren’t in this chemistry class but haechan was,,,and it was his naptime

“how is y/n friends with him?” jaemin stared directly at a sleeping haechan 

jeno follows his line of sight, letting out a sigh once he notices it was haehcan

“she never really told me, but i assume it was because she stopped being friends with ella and that group” jeno said honestly. he raised an eyebrow in question at his bffl “why do you need to know” 

jaemin didn’t answer him, continuing to glaring at the sleeping male 

jeno rolled his eyes at his friend's antics 

but in a serious tone, he warns to his friend, “don’t pull your games with y/n.” 

except jaemin’s head wasn’t registering this warning,,he was solely focused on how lee fucking haechan the biggest stoner of NCT High managed to take a girl’s attention from him, na jaemin....it was simply ridiculous 

maybe he really was an attention seeker bc he made a beeline for your table during lunch instead of his regular one once he saw just how loud you were laughing at haechan’s joke 

“what’s so funny?” jaemin asked sliding into the seat next to you 

now both of you and our boy hyuk is like wtf 

immediately you’re on defense, “what are you doing here?” 

“you never gave me a good explanation!” jaemin pouted, giving you fat puppy eyes 

those aLMost worked 

“uhhhhhh” you try to find a good excuse but jaemin quickly cuts you off 

“it’s okay if you don’t have a good explanation,” jaemin reaches over and steals a fry from haechan’s tray eliciting a hissing sound from the boy “you just have to go on a date with me” 

then he winks 

and he's gone

“what in the holy fuck just happened?” 

the amount of time that y/n has said wtf is unbelievable 

haechan’s sunglasses slip down the bridge of nose and you could see his red eyes giving you a look of disappointment, “and you say i have issues” 

“stfu before i slit your throat” 

the rest of the day wasn’t any easier on you tbh. you learned that jaemin was really really stubborn and very very clingy 

the boy deadass scanned the whole hallway to find your face so he could tag along with you to your next class even though you could have sworn that his class was one the other side of the school 

he kept on bombarding you with questions on what you wanted to get after school and if you like roller skating 

by some means, you were able to hide in the library for the rest of the study hall period which meant that you could probably avoid jaemin until school ended 

you spotted a familiar boy huddled in the corner reading a book that made you squint your eyes. 

marching over to jeno, your eyes just say “explain” 

jeno looked at you with like those wide eyes he does when he’s shookth bc the two of you never interacting in school so puBlicly

“what the hell is na jaemin trying to pull?” you whispered-yelled plopping down in the wooden seat next to the athlete 

jeno is all like????wydm 

and you explain your whole situation to him and he just lets out the biggest sigh 

“he doesn’t like being left on read” 

“what do you mean?” 

“i mean, that’s what you basically did to him sophomore year. he was kinda depresso about how you just stopped talking to him out of nowhere. by the way, why did you do that?” 

tbh you really didn’t know at first you were mad at him

was it bc his actions caused all your friends to blame you for his inability to commit to a relationship,,, but it’s been two years since that incident

you got over it, so why were you still avoiding jaemin? 

“i dunno after him and ella broke up, i didn’t have a reason to talk to him.” 

jeno looked at you like “really? is that your answer?” 

“think about that question again because i’m sure that that's, not the whole answer.” 

now you’re more confused but also very mad about how both of them weren’t accepting your reason as valid! 

so as you were furiously making the stupid centerpieces that ella forced you into volunteering to do

angry y/n really got through a solid 50 of them 

you pondered on jeno’s words and you thought back to sophomore year 

you remembered still joking around lightheartedly w jaemin until he started dating ella 

he actually spent a lot of time and effort even ditching jeno sometimes for her which was okay cause jeno would chill w renjun or even you (mostly bc he could watch barbie movies w no shame) 

everything was alright until homecoming came around and jaemin flaked on ella leading them to breakup the next day 

and ella to stop talking to you which made everyone mad you or think that you were the one that caused the breakup 

WHICH YOU DIDN”T 

you were the one that hooked the two of them up too! so it was really unfair! 

it's like 2 am and you don’t know what came over to text jeno but you did 

y/n: why didn’t jaemin go to hoco sophomore year? 

you felt instant regret after sending that text bc like it probably made it seem like you were interested in jaemin,,,, which you were totally not!

seconds later jeno slaps you with the ”ask him yourself”  

fattest facepalm 

so that’s how you spent the entire night finishing all of your centerpieces that you were assigned to make cuz of your frustration

wow we love a productive y/n 

alrighty this is where shit goes down 

now that you were done with all of your centerpieces you took them to the art room the next day before school where ella was there doing her stoof 

she looked up with a giant smile when you came in with a giant box 

“you finished all of it?” 

“nah just 150. jaemins finishing the other half” you set the box down 

“oh okie,” ella nodded returning to whatever she was doing beforehand 

since it was just the two of you in the classroom and you’ve been dying to know the answer since sophomore year 

so fuck it 

“hey ella, can i ask you a question?” 

the said girl looked up with that same friendly smile that she gave everyone “of course!” 

“why didn’t jaemin show up to hoco sophomore year?” you blurted out 

in an instant, ella’s smile dropped and there was a sudden cold look in her eyes 

“you already know the answer to that, y/n, you don’t need me to answer you. now if you excuse me, i have things i have to do” ella said in a very unlike-ella-way 

her answer made you even more confused than ever bc how were you supposed to know the answer to THAT 

confused!y/n is even more confused 

however, all your questions were about to be answered, not really tho 

you’re on your way to the third period with the same burning question in your head: why the hell did jaemin not show up to sophomore year hoco??? someone help?  

tbh you didn’t even notice someone yanking you into the janitor’s closet until you were surrounded in darkness and someone's hands were clasp over your mouth 

“it’s me, jaemin” his soft whisper sent tings down your spine 

he let go of your mouth to switch on the light 

“are you fucking insane?” 

“yes, but it’s only cause i’m madly in love with you” 

you rolled your eyes “cut the bullshit, jaemin, what do you want?” 

“our date. you never gave me a solid explanation, so i want a date” 

you were about to reject him but then an idea formed in your head 

“fine” 

and with that one-word jaemin’s eyes glowed 10x brighter with his smile almost blinding you 

cheesy i know. 

“let’s go now!” 

the boy was really about to skip class just to go on this stupid date w you 

is he that bored? did he really run out of girls to date? 

but then again you really don’t want to go to math bc you’re pretty sure there's a test today that you haven’t studied for yet 

so that’s how you found yourself with jaemin at the local ice cream parlor 

jaemin INSISTED that y'all share a sundae, which he also fought you to pay for 

there a silence that falls upon you for a little bit 

jaemin breaks it though like he breaks heart (okay minnie that’s kinda mean) 

“ella told me that you finished your half of the centerpieces in two days. that’s pretty impressive,” he comments 

you nodded staring at the ice cream drowned in chocolate syrup 

“to be honest, i haven’t gotten much done yet,” he admitted, continuing to ramble on “it’ll get done. i might even pay renjun to do it, but i’m pretty sure he’s too preoccupied with this girl that he’s been pining over for a while” 

“speaking of which, are you seeing anyone right now?” jaemin asks out of nowhere. 

“lol i could be doing other things with my time.” 

jaemin observes your face closely taking in the faint blush on your cheeks from his direct gaze, “so what about that haechan dude?” 

“what about him?” 

“are the two of you a thing?” 

you nearly gagged 

“there no way in hell i’d ever get with haechan. besides, he’s having some of his own girl problems right now. he was being a little bitch about it too” 

“good” jaemin says really contently. 

“why didn’t you go to hoco sophomore year?” you finally asked

taken back slightly, jaemin softly smiles down at the half-eaten sundae

instead of answering you, he asked another question “why did you stop talking to me?” 

you gulp, but eventually, you had to tell him the truth even though it was kinda dumb and immature

“because ella was mad at me after the two of you broke up.” 

he shifted his gaze up to your own eyes 

“do you know why she was mad at you?” 

you shook your head

jaemin smiled again 

this time it kinda looked sad :( 

“because she knew that i was in love with you”  

[baekwin]

🚨 oversharing alert 🚨 like...really 🚨 

i know a ton of people are feeling a lot of the same feelings as me right now (or some other worse combination of not-great emotions as a direct result of isolation), so i don’t know who to talk to. i haven’t talked to some of my friends in weeks, some in months...i really don’t have the energy to be there for someone else right now, so i don’t reach out to people, because how can i expect someone to be there for me when i can’t reciprocate? that’s like.....selfish and entitled? i guess

i also hate being the bitter person that has a negative outlook on everything. it’s really not like me, i’m always the person who tries to find another way, or tries to put a positive spin on the situation. so not only having a dark cloud over my head but also being the dark cloud over someone else’s head is just not something i want to or like to do. which is reason number two that i haven’t talked to people in weeks/months.

there were a lot of issues with my previous job (health risks, blatant sexism, etc) that were affecting my mental health to such a degree that i decided to quit and move home for a bit (i recognize i’m privileged to even be able to make a decision like that right now, which i’m grateful for). and while i’m glad i did, it’s added another level of anxiety because a lot of my friends who can work from home (i didn’t have that ability) have been putting so much overtime into their jobs and moving up the ranks in quarantine, and meanwhile i feel like i’m back in the same position i was when i graduated college. 

it frustrates me so much that we’ve gotten to the point as a society that a 25 year old feels like a failure for not being like a senior something-or-other manager at google or facebook or whatever and it frustrates me even more that i know that’s such a toxic mindset and yet i still buy into it. like it gets to me so badly that i can’t even think about it, bc i spiral so hard when i think about all the things i need to get done each day to try and get a job. instead of writing it down or trying one thing at a time or doing anything at ALL, i just sit there immobilized by everything and just.....do nothing. for hours. and then days. and now weeks. i’m literally digging myself into so many holes that if i just sucked it up and started backtracking now, they still wouldn’t be that deep, but the thought of doing something about it terrifies me and the thought of letting it get worse terrifies me and then i’m just anxious about every possible course of action and nothing ever happens and i never get anywhere except sitting at my desk with a million thoughts in my head going a million miles per hour and blaming myself for everything that’s ever happened. 

i was in therapy for all this for a while but i had to stop bc i can no longer pay for it, which again is literally my own fault. and it takes a lot of convincing myself that i had valid reasons to quit my job. i was being harassed and taken advantage of and HR was basically doing fuck all about it even after i filed reports with them. i would come home so physically and emotionally drained every single day from being on my feet walking around for hours and dealing with ungrateful customers (side note pls be nice to and appreciate the people who provide u a service) and coworkers who made passes at me and inappropriate comments at me and doubted my intelligence or abilities bc i’m a woman (i’m also not just saying this for shits, it’s been said to my face, AT WORK) and it had been that way for 2 years. my friends literally celebrated when i finally quit bc they’ve been telling me to quit practically since i started bc the issues began on day 1 and hadn’t stopped. but it’s always been more complicated than just quitting bc like......someone needs to pay my living expenses?? and that person has been me since the second i signed my job offer and i don’t want that to change. financial independence is v important to me so living at home is simultaneously nice bc i’m around family, and also another source of anxiety bc if i don’t figure something out soon i’m gonna start having to rely on them again. 

and this is like. unrelated to the rest of the things but my best friend just got into a relationship with a guy who she thinks she’s gonna marry and she got a giant raise and promotion at work and i know the details of her family life and they’re in a ton of hardship and always have been and nobody in the world deserves this happiness more than she does but every time i talk to her about anything her boyfriend comes up and i want to be happy for her but i can’t and i absolutely hate myself for it. not even for any valid reason either. like i just get caught up running in these stupid circles of anxiety and i don’t think about anyone but myself and it’s making me not even be able to muster up a tiny bit of happiness for someone who’s done nothing but love and support me. how shitty is that. it’s not like i want to sit here being sad about everything bc i just don’t know how to NOT be

anyway tl;dr social isolation sucks and my life is not even bad at all but i’m being a little bitch about it. good night

[professorjjong]

why&how internet behavior surrounding jonghyun/shinee needs to change.

tw: dec 18, mentions of depression/anxiety, suicide mention, don’t follow the links….

i know there’s probably a thousand and one posts like this but i can’t sleep and i need to add my own voice to this because the behavior i’ve seen, still see and will likely continue to see is just not okay and i feel burdened to present a breakdown of what’s happening and why it needs to stop.

don’t know what i’m talking about? it’s the hijacking of tweets, posts, youtube videos, and other content of shinee & jonghyun meant to praise, admire, or simply gush over them/him by responses like “rip” and “miss u 😢”. it’s not fair, guys.

let’s do a bit of roleplay: let’s pretend you’re a jonghyun stan, and, like i used to do sometimes, you’ve decided to just type his name into google and youtube to just soak in the content. give these a scroll: google youtube google images

(bonus, aka something i’d blocked from my mind: shinee search on google images. if you don’t see what’s wrong, you haven’t scrolled down far enough.

while youtube and a plain google search are much better when you manually exclude the words “death” “suicide” and “funeral” google images is pretty much the same with those super triggering captions, same as before.

that’s just some context for what it’s like to be a blinger/shinee stan. we are constantly, constantly dodging bullets and sometimes we get hit anyway. we are scared of taking in content outside of safe spaces, like on tumblr and twitter, coming from other shawols directly. we run to little accounts dedicated to posting pictures and whatnot, and, sometimes, these places where we thought we’d finally be free from the danger we dodge literally every else, it ends up there too.

imagine this: you’re in a grocery store with a friend/sibling/parent/etc.. you’re standing over the cheese aisle when you remember something funny or cute someone who was precious to you, who has passed away, did. you and your companion laugh, remembering the good times, and smile, when, suddenly, someone else approaches you, looking sad. “rip,” they say. how do u feel?

the answer should be super awful, or angry, or defensive.

it doesn’t matter who this person is: a relative, an old friend, whatever—they did something that you, remembering someone fondly, don’t appreciate. why? because it’s not the right time to make comments like that. it’s not what you want to hear at that moment. you just want to enjoy this good memory that’s come back to you, the beauty, or hilarity or cleverness or whatever of your loved one, not the fact that they’re gone.

there’s a time and place for comments like that, in real life and online. you can make them yourself with a new tweet or post, or by replying to a tweet reflecting on similar emotions. no one’s saying that you can’t miss jonghyun, and i know that “rest in peace” (and its variations) is engrained in many of us as a kind thing to say in times of loss, and you’re probably saying it from a good place, and i appreciate people wishing that jjong is at peace—just, please, be aware of the environment around you before you say something like that.

for many, if not all shinee fans, dec 18, 2017 was one of—if not the—worst day of our lives. time has passed, yes, but not in the same way for all of us. we’re not all the same. i’m able to talk to frankly about what happened: i can express it directly in words and phrases i’m avoiding in this post, speak in detail of the events and my own emotions at the time, but that’s just me. i was twenty-one when it happened, just a few months after i was hospitalized for depression and anxiety. my friends and family were so unbelievably understanding, and i had medical professionals to support me through what was a horrible, horrible time. i can talk about it, i can handle it, but not everyone can handle being suddenly confronted with terrible and traumatic memories brought up by comments like these in inappropriate places. i, as a shawol, put a tw at the top of this post bc i know some people are not okay with reading the stuff i’ve written here. so saying “i’m a shawol” isn’t an excuse for adding something unwarranted and inappropriate to someone else’s tweet/post. we should all have the choice of when and if we want to see comments or content about dec 18.

you don’t know the story of the who made that post, you don’t know the people who will look at it. you don’t know how well they’ve been able to recover from what happened. and you’re giving them zero warning by making comments like that on posts/tweets that are just pictures or videos of him that fans want to look at because we love him and we want to see him just like everyone else wants to see their faves.

i want to look at a picture of jonghyun and gush about his little teethies and his tiny waist and his sparkly, sparkly eyes. i want to go on and on and on about his amazing songs and singing ability. i want to talk about those things! i want to celebrate him like everyone else gets to do with their faves!!! i want tweets and posts about him to be places where we just celebrate him, and all that he was and still is to his fans.

and i know that things are different for jonghyun and shinee fans now. i know that they can never be the same and i’ll probably never be able to just type in his name and see where it takes me. but the fact that a lot of our pain is coming from fellow shawols or kpop fans is so hurtful, and it can be prevented if you just see things from our perspective.

 it can be so triggering to be suddenly reminded of dec 18. yes, i’m doing okay, but it still brings me back, at least in part, to that pain, it reminds me of it when i’m really, really not ready or wanting to think about it. we have trigger warnings for a reason, talking about dec 18 even vaguely can be super triggering, so don’t do it without warning and where it’s not appropriate!! please!!

tl;dr you can make your sad tweets and posts. you can miss him and say “rip”. just make your own tweet, please, and add a warning. don’t invade our spaces where we just want to be happy.

let me be a fan, too, please.

[keyboard-clicks]

tearinmyheart reblogged your post and added:

Pls go on

ok it’s not a super “FUCK YOU JOB” story but it’s still pretty good I think.  So this week, Sunday-Saturday, was gonna be my last week at this job.  I’ve lined up a new job with like, better everything and I’ll be starting soon, but I wanted to give my 2 weeks to be considerate...

But imma be real it was SO HARD to care about LITERALLY ANYTHING.  But whatever bc it was low stress, I just kinda chilled and did the bare minimum and nobody blamed me bc, y’know, I’M LEAVING.

Today I’m there just chilling with my friend and our other coworkers.  Things are getting done, but I’m not micromanaging or any of that bs bc we’re all adults everyone can handle doing some tasks.  If they ever wanna take a few minutes of a break or look at their phones I’m not gonna stop them.  They’ll get shit done.

Enter K.  She comes in today and announces that she’s our new GM.  Almost no introduction ,just a ‘hey I’m K I’m your boss now”.  We knew it was legit bc we’d heard our District Manager mention her a few times but it was really surprising that she just kinda... showed up.  Our previous GM quit literally like 4 days ago so the speed with which they found us a new one was kind of incredible and also terrible.

Now I’m gonna level with everyone.  I don’t do very well being told what to do,, especially by people I don’t know.  The old GM, i had my problems with him but overall he was a good guy and most importantly he went out of his way to be pleasant and get to know all of us.  K just came in and was like “You need to make sure you’re doing [arbitrary task] every day.”  I wont’ go into the details of [arbitrary task] but let’s just say it was a thing managers did to micromanage.  Since I was the opening manager, I was supposed to do the thing.  I had not been doing the thing bc a) we’ve only been having like 3 people on staff per day bc of COVID, b) I’d rather let everyone pick which tasks they wanna do rather than picking for them and c) I’m leaving, I literally don’t care.

I kinda say this to K, and I’ll admit it was not my wisest moment to back talk the new GM within 5 minutes of her walking into the store.  But I don’t think before i speak sometimes and i just kinda went “I’m gonna be honest, my last day is the end of the coming week I don’t... really care.”

So that made her mad.  But whatever.  I don’t know you, lady, your feelings and opinions of me have no impact.  (A slight lie, I very quickly felt sad that I made someone dislike me but it was overpowered by the happiness I felt of talking back to a manager.)

So the day goes on and stuff keeps getting done.  Something else ends up happening that K and I have a disagreement about, really nothing major but something she was like “next time, call your superior to handle the situation” and i’m like bitch a) it wasn’t a big deal and b) I’m a manager, I’m allowed to deal with unhappy customers  i don’t know you i’m not gonna call you for the problems when you don’t even officially work at this store yet and you’re just here like 2 days a week until you finish at your OTHER store.

But I don’t say that.  What I do say is (and I know almost exactly bc I texted it to a friend directly after I said it), “Listen.  I know you’re just trying to do your job, and you’re trying to do it well.  I respect that.  But like i told you it’s my last week and I honestly do not care enough to do more than the bare minimum.  I’m only still here because I didn’t want there to be a panic-scramble to fill the 4 opening shifts I’m supposed to have.  (there’s only a couple of keyholders for the store, so finding people people to fill the 4 opening shifts that would cover would have been difficult.)  If you don’t like me, if you want me to go, I will give you my keys and leave.  I just don’t want to put you in a position of having a missing keyholder for 4 openings this week if I don’t have to.”

She changed the topic and said nothing about this, so I figured she was like “y’know what fine I’ll wait it out”.

BOY WAS I WRONG.

She kept leaving the building to make phonecalls for the rest of the shift, and I kinda assumed it was stuff for her other store or calling the District Manager to confirm stuff about moving locations, whatever.  I did a few small tasks, stickered stuff, rang people out, whatever whatever.  End of day comes I’m like “Hey D I’m taking down your drawer.”  D tells me “Oh, K said she was gonna do it.”  and I’m like well it’s 15 minutes to close and she’s not up here so I’m gonna do it.  So I do, but Kay stops me and takes the drawer and says she’ll do it and I’m like cool ok I guess I’ll go man the front.  Then when we actually close I’m taking back my drawer and I set it in the office and K’s like “I forgot to do a thing on the spreadsheet” and I’m like “oh hey no problem I’ll do it” and she’s like “No, I’ll do it.” and I’m like “It’s... it’s really not that big a deal but okay if that’s what you want I guess.”

So I step back out of the office and twirl my keys around my finger for a few minutes, then she comes out of the office and just says, “I’m gonna take you up on your keys offer, you’re done.”  And I’m like cool ok, so I take my keys off my keyring and give them to her, then I go into the office to count my till but she says no, she’ll do it.  This part was probably just me reading the room wrong bc autism but I go like, “Oh, maybe it’s different at your store but here we normally have the person whose drawer it is count it while the manager looks on, but if you do it a different way that’s fine.” and she’s just like “No you’re just completely done, go get your stuff and I’ll escort you out.”

turns out the calls she was making were to the other two keyholders so get the 4 openings figured out and I’m like... well damn okay.  Like I feel kind of upset but also not really bc that job was getitng on my fucking NERVES like fuck I hate retail.  So I just kinda shrug and say okay and go get my bag and my snack and have her check my bag before I leave (have to have a manager check bags when you leave to prevent theft) and she’s just like “By the way... why do you keep your bag behind the counter?’

I just kinda shrug.  The real answer is that it’s easier but I just say, “I dunno, I know we’re not allowed to.”  (I’d just been doing it for the past few days bc I had such little amount of stuff with me and so few fucks to give).  And K just looks at me and goes, “Yeah, no shit!”

Then she unlocks the door for me and I go out like “k peace byee” and I think she was actually angry by how nonplussed I seemed.  and that’s the story of how I got fired a week before my last day at the job lol

[abiik]

@vhsgf replied to your post “this song made me realize i've never written about jason missing zoe”

heather this might be too forward and angsty of me to say (pls lmk if is) but now i am curious about zoe reacting to jason's death and then mirroring w jason coming back from the dead and then finding out his best friend is dead. like it sounds so PAINFUL but like. also i wanna know about it. heather what have you done i-

i had to put my hair up for this. im literally so emotional about this rn,,,like when am i not but STILL OKAY IT MAKES ME VERY [SCREECHES] (also a read more because this is fucking long im so sorry)

okay let’s start with zoe because jason’s death is a traumatic thing for her on like multiple points all relating back to when she was like elementary school aged (im pretty sure i have it where she’s like 8 ish when this happens). before jason and before going into the whole vigilante business – no matter what version of zoe you prefer – she loses her two younger brothers in a joker related accident. he kills them. and zoe… zoe is so,,, well she’s angry. because no one does anything. no one. not that fabled batman, not the police, not the fucking government – NOBODY. and she’s just supposed to keep living her life like everything is fucking fine because oh that’s just the way gotham is. and like why the fuck would she just keep living her life when her barely out of toddler aged little brothers are now dead?? why wouldn’t she want to do something about that?? why the fuck should she just let it roll off her back like no biggie?? (of course, this is a catalyst for her mother’s downward spiral and eventual disappearance, and then keme’s).

then of course, there’s zoe’s powers. at that age she didn’t really understand the extent of them, what she could do with them and all that, but as they develop and her own awareness of them develop, she is faced by like intense guilt and remorse. if only she’d been able to do something. if only she’d been there. if only she could’ve stopped the joker. if only, if only, if only. and like, realistically, there wasn’t much she could do. it wasn’t like she knew fully how strong she was; she’d barely gotten flying down at that point, but then she’s growing up and she realizes she never really had a limit. and she kind of has this complex, i’ve said it before but she really does try to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders, so everything that has happened to her up until this point after the twins die, it’s partly her fault; if only she could have been better, she could have saved them, she could have her mom, she could have keme – she could have her family back.

then, of course, there is in all of this her intense hatred of the joker. and by correlation to the whole fucking issue, gotham city and batman. (ive said that they kind of grow to like each other more, but when z and jay become friends and through their teen years until his death, it’s kind of like whenever youre gay and your bff is gay and you both kind of hate the other’s really fucked up parent who’s okay sometimes but isn’t all the time and you would totally like throw down with them if only there weren’t like,,,repercussions)

anyway, so when jason dies, it’s a big fucking deal. like he’d already been acting weird, bruce was worried about him, z was worried about him, and then he dies okay. and zoe… bruce doesn’t tell zoe right away. he doesn’t tell her and when zoe does find out, she. is. pissed. all of the shit with her baby brothers comes back. she wasn’t there. she wasn’t able to save him – because she sure as hell KNOWS that she could have at this point. and now he’s GONE. AND THIS ENTIRE TIME, SHE HAD NO FUCKING CLUE BECAUSE BRUCE DIDN’T TELL HER!!! she couldn’t even go to his funeral!!! and then, AND THEN, on fucking top of that – it was the joker who killed him. so jason’s death was like a fucking quadruple blow to her.

after finding out the details, zoe goes binary for the first time. and it’s… well it’s scary. it takes a whole lot of coaxing from old teammates and being physically restrained by diana (who lowkey is kinda like why?? are?? we?? stopping?? her?? from?? killing?? the?? joker??) and clark and donna, and they can’t even really knock her out because when she’s binary, there’s only really waiting out the duration of the high until she passes tf out from using too much energy. which she DOES and then after a good long talk with gran-gran, zoe’s going on a much needed retreat with diana to themyscira.

during that time, zoe’s super depressed. like reasonably, so. she’s so exhausted and she’s still angry but she’s also just like,,, so tired. she lost her best friend dude. like she loves jason so much, she loves him so much, and then he was just gone. poof! and at least, at least with atsa and ahiga, she got to like, be there for their send off. jason ends up being another hole in her life, like her dad and her mom and keme. he’s added to this list of people who all were just…g o n e. she didn’t get to mourn them. like obviously, she can, but every time she thinks about jason, she begins to spiral. (this is kind of when she starts drinking,,,, human alcohol can’t really touch her but she does therapeutically – which is!! not good!!) she also begins to distance herself – from jason’s titans (connor holds on with an iron grip and eddie still checks up on her, but rose was just as distraught and kyle is still kind of numb), from the original titans, from bruce and alfred, from diana, even from gran-gran and uncle bell. she fills the void with work as well as the alcohol that doesn’t really do anything to her except make her mouth taste gross and weird and she hates it but it’s become a habit. if she isn’t out doing some reckless thing while saving the world, then she’s at a bar or just sitting by the ocean.

she has bad dreams too, like horrible dreams. and like,,, they’re not necessarily horrific or anything,, she usually dreams about good times, memories with jason or with atsa and ahiga, sometimes some weird mixture of all three of them hanging out together and it’s the worst fucking thing because she wakes up and she wishes she was there too, that she could stay with them, because she misses them so much. she just wants her family back, she wants the family she had before jason and dick and alfred and the titans, but she also wants them too – she wants all of it.

and then it all comes to head with her dad’s sudden involvement with earth and shit. zoe sacrifices herself not only because she carries the fucking world on her shoulders and has a stupid martyr complex, but also because she thinks she’d be okay dying like this. she doesn’t. die that is. she doesn’t die but she also doesn’t come back.

jason’s revival story arc thing is all a bit murky for me bc I kind of like mix the whole waking up and clawing himself from his grave and also the under the red hood storyline (and like correct me if there is a version like that bc like,,, idk I can’t remember). anyway, so jason comes back, and like it’s kind of messy bc of timeline shit but he doesn’t really come back, come back, until z’s gone. like gone gone. like they held a funeral and everything for her. jason didn’t get to go and THAT is SHIT. like yeah, he wasn’t fucking alive, nobody fucking knows he’s alive anyway, but it still hurts.

and like,,, you know what else kind of hurts, is like he kind of thought that after he came back, if no one was on his side – if for some reason literally everyone was against him – he’d still have zoe. that’s the worst fucking part. he hears about what happened. he hears that she literally went ballistic. and like,, jason KNOWS that zoe would have his side, that zoe would be there for him, that even if she might not have agreed with some of the things he’s done, that she’d be right by his side, showing she cares. because like. like I know bruce is kind of stunted with emotional expression, but it’s really hard to feel like you’re appreciated when someone else’s love language is so fucking hard to translate, when you need constant validation, to be told you matter to be shown you matter to them and they can’t accommodate even a little bit, because of their pride or because they have to deem that you deserve it all of a sudden. and like I love bruce, but they way he treats his kids is shit. so yeah. jason feels hella alone when he comes back and his best friend, his rock, his ride or die (literally wfkejvnk) is fucking gone.

jason definitely has nightmares too. he doesn’t know how zoe died, like really know – no one does, because there hadn’t been a body. and jason’s mind can be a pretty dark place already, add on top of that the nightmares about his best friend dying the same way he did, or being like dick, who actually witnessed the explosion that ‘killed’ zoe. he can’t even fathom what zoe went through with his death, but eventually, as jason kind of comes back into the batfam and shit, he also kind of gets to be with the last of zoe’s family. gran-gran and uncle bell are much warmer than bruce wayne and that too big mansion and that cold fucking cave. jason goes to the ranch a lot, or finds himself at uncle bell’s antique shop whenever he needs a breather, to just be alone with something that close to zoe.

they literally both go through that period where they’re extremely reckless with mourning and regrets and fuck i never got to say this and fuck what could I have done differently, what could I have changed if I’d been there? but where jason is able to recover more effectively, zoe doesn’t do so well in space.

really, that song had triggered thoughts about jason going through her things, the things she left in his bedroom – that bruce refused to touch or move or anything – and just thinking back on their life together. it was definitely shorter than they expected and when jason thinks about it, it’s a whole bunch of salty anger and throat swelling sadness that has him kind of crippled. because like,,, he also knows how the twins died, he knows how it happened, not only did he have the firsthand accounts from those most effected, but also like, he read the reports. he KNOWS, and he feels kind of guilty, just a little bit, that what he did put her through a similar version to losing her baby brothers.

NREJKVNERLFEWLFJNEKR FUCK OKAY I THINK I NEED TO STOP LIKE THIS IS OBVIOUSLY JUST A BIG DUMB BUT BFJKERNFKJEN F   U   C   K  OKAY

[atopearth]

Chrono Trigger Part 1 - A Colourful World of Different Ages

As someone who has played Chrono Cross but not Chrono Trigger, I’m curious to see why it’s so beloved haha, right now it just makes me think of Dragon Ball all the time (because of the character designs). But, I’m really liking the soundtrack and atmosphere though, it really has that nostalgic homey feel that I love about JRPGs in the past. Lmao at the maid in the Mayor’s house, she tells you that you can help yourself to all the treasure chests in this house as if it’s a treasure trove and there’s only two chests!! Lady, don’t get my hopes up! Umm, I went to the fair where Lucca is showcasing her new invention or something and I think I just ate the old man’s lunch!! LOL, I’m sorry old man. I might have to restart just because I feel bad eating it. Is Marle a princess btw? Anyway, lmao at the Biggs and Wedge in the horror house lolll. Ohhh I guess this is how the two games are similar? They both have a pendant that causes them to kinda be transported somewhere else? It’s really cool of Crono to chase after Marle when she disappeared though! I mean, who knows where she went! At least it’s not the fault of Lucca’s invention lol, since it worked properly when Crono was on it without the necklace haha. I assume that this is the past when there was a war going on and this Queen Leene that the people are saying have been found is probably Marle? Oh wait, 600 AD? It’s 400 years ago! HAHAHA omg the little green/blue Piccolo monster can ride on the ball monster hahahaha how cute. Anyway, as expected, we’re going to have to find the real queen, since if she dies, Marle/Princess Nadia isn’t going to exist~ Dunno why Marle keeps disappearing though! On another note, Lucca sure came here fast and found Crono in no time lol!

Damn, monster nuns?! Awww! A frog guy to the rescue!! HAHAHA Frog has a skill called slurp that licks a party member and heals their HP hahahaha. I guess the reason why Marle “disappeared” and came back was because Queen Leene’s life was in danger, so Marle’s existence was questioned. Lmao at everyone in the castle now saying that yeah Marle couldn’t have been Leene after all since she ate so much and had no manners🤣🤣 I feel sorry for Frog but I can understand why he blames himself, he was the Queen’s knight and yet she got captured by Yakra… At least he saved her! Lucca is pretty amazing to be able to make a gate key to keep the gate there for them to go back to their time. She’s not dodgy at her inventions at all! Well, I didn’t expect it to go well but I didn’t think bringing Marle back to the castle would make her father etc think Crono was a kidnapper. Well, it’s just the dodgy Chancellor mainly but still. Lmao at the trial, like I’m sorry I picked up Marle’s pendant before caring about her lmao, she was already standing dude! Yes, I’m such a terrible person LOL. Anyway, apparently helping the girl find her cat was enough to make Crono a good enough guy lol. I guess not eating grandpa’s lunch really helped my case too HAHAHA. Not that it matters since the Chancellor still wants to execute Crono! I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to let Crono keep his weapons whilst in jail though lmao. LMAO at the piece of paper detailing the weaknesses of the tank boss, “as long as no crazy lunatic starts hacking at it with a sword, it should be invincible” hahahaha. I love how Lucca always comes to save the day though, she’s so cool haha. Hahahah I love how the dragon tank explodes on the bridge and the Chancellor and mechanics are then used as the broken part of the bridge for you to cross (since they’re all holding on to their dear lives) hahaha. It was pretty reckless of them to all run and jump into a Gate though, like who knows where it goes?!

It’s kinda saddening that these people (in 1999 AD/destroyed future?) seem to be at the mercy of their own technology that they developed, especially when Doan said they were atop food storage but they can’t access it because the robots are protecting it. Imagine starving on top of a pile of food… Ohh wow, so 1999 AD the day of Lavos is when Lavos appeared from underground around the world and destroyed it all? I was so nervous about losing to Johnny in the race across the ruins but lmaoo it doesn’t even matter! It’s not that far! And I have to go back into the ruins to get a chest anyway loll. Omgg Robo is such a cutie! It was so saddening when his “friends” called him a defect (since Lucca fixed him and he’s not a normal robot following the functions of killing intruders) and thrashed him! Even I had trouble dealing with them though, way too many robots lol. Anyway, we really gotta appreciate how amazing Lucca is to be able to fix future machinery like dang. Now we have a new friend too! 

Omg the End of Time? It looks pretty much like the Bend of Time in Chrono Cross, it’s kinda cool how funky these things are haha. Wow, for a second, I was wondering whether 1000 AD was actually their home world and time hahaha, it was so different, I was confused! But it seems that in the underworld or whatever that’s where the fiends are living, and they hate the humans and wished that the Magus who created the Lavos killed all the humans 400 years ago? Hmm I wonder why they didn’t kill them all back then and instead decided to kill the humans around 1999 AD? I wonder if talking to Magus or stopping him from creating the Lavos will solve things… Wow, I can’t believe the war here seems to be speeding up really fast! I wonder who is the hero? On the other hand, I never realised the Commander and chef in the castle were brothers! It’s kinda cute how they’re both rough around the edges being stubborn about how their respective teams are more exhausted etc but in the end, they understand how difficult a time it is and will always help each other out. Didn’t think the king himself nearly fought to his death though, how reckless! Lmao at spiced jerky being the rations that the soldiers needed hahahaha.

Lmao at the Freelancer monster (that looks like a bird), it legit throws rocks at you hahahaha. LMAO at the sheep looking guy that says mountains are so nice, I legit kept talking to him because I felt that there must be a reason for him to be here and lolll if you annoy him enough times he gives you a magic capsule hahahah! I nearly died when he said “you’re not gonna leave me alone huh” LOL. Well, I didn’t expect to find Masamune on a random mountain! They’re so cute separated as two little kids though, yet so ugly in their combined monster form lmaoo. Well, it was to be expected that the real hero was actually Frog, but to think he has the hilt for Masamune! I feel like he feels he’s undeserving to be the hero not just because he wasn’t able to protect the Queen properly though hmmm. Dang, Ayla gets a cool introduction! Didn’t expect her to come from 65,000,000 BC though when I first saw her in the opening. Honestly though, it felt as if Crono fell in love with her at first sight haha! Anyway, it’s kinda cool to come all the way here for the Dreamstone (to fix the Masamune), it kinda reminds me of Chrono Cross when they had to go to Another World for hydra stuff since it was extinct in their own world. Glenn huh? Anyway, didn’t expect Magus to be a good looking guy! Well, he’s a bunch of pixels but I think he’s good looking! Lol!

I can see why Frog was so adamant on not going along with Crono and them before. He was Glenn, the guy who went along with Cyrus (the Captain of the castle who everyone admired, and even the King and Queen relied on him very much and still speak about him) to defeat Magus, but in the end, Cyrus sacrificed his life to protect Glenn so he could survive and retreat, yet in the end, Magus just turned him into a frog because of the “coward” he was. Not only that, but Cyrus’ last words asked of Frog to protect the queen and them, and yet the queen was kidnapped in the beginning of the story. So you can really see why he would feel so unworthy of being the hero that will save this land. But now that the weapon Cyrus wielded has been fixed (Masamune) and there are new companions enlisting for his help, I think it’s about time Frog stopped blaming himself! It’s time to show Magus that he’s not a coward! It was pretty cool to see Frog slash a mountain in half, like dang, I guess Cyrus was right to say Frog was stronger than him, he just never had the confidence since he was always stunted by his fear. Well, Ozzie is pretty annoying with his traps lmao, kinda childish at the same time though hahaha! I guess it was expected that Magus only summoned Lavos and didn’t create them since they’re beings that have stayed under the planet(?) consuming power etc to become as strong as they are to end up destroying the world in the future.

Crono and them riding the Dactyl to the reptite castle was cool haha! I feel sad for Kino that he doesn’t get to fight alongside them though, especially since he’s aware that he’s not as strong as Crono and Ayla. Lmaooo at Nizbel complaining about Crono and them walking past him even though he was flexing his muscles and showing them that they needed to defeat him before they can get to Azala hahahah. Hmm, Lavos creates these time gates? 12,000 BC time!

For now, I’m really enjoying Chrono Trigger more than I thought I would! I’ve always averted from time travel stories because I never really found them too interesting, but I really love how the idea is implemented in this, like, it’s literally fun! Not only do you get to see how different the different eras are, but I think the monsters, the people and everything is just so detailed and interesting. Like, it’s hard to forget the NPCs and stuff because they all have such personality, like whether it be the chef and the commander in the castle, the monsters playing ball with each other, and just everyone you encounter along the journey really shows how colourful the world is and how interesting it is to explore it all. The graphics may not be the best considering how old it is, but I think they’re so cute. I kinda wish Crono actually talked or nodded and stuff a bit more, but I guess it’s okay since the rest of the characters talk haha. Honestly though, I think the charm of the game is definitely in the aspect of adventuring in time and how different everything is, yet also how enjoyable it is. And you kinda get a side dose of we need to save the world from Lavos, so it has the typical JRPG feel to it as well haha. Combat is also pretty interesting! Not too hard as well so that’s great, but I really love the dual techs where two characters cooperate to do one skill, I just love watching all the different combinations!