#i really think half the reason 2020 was such a bad year was cause everyone else decided it was

[yyoon5]

concert logs!

*Note: I have severe dissociative amnesia which has caused me to lose many years of my life. Some details of concerts from 2023 and before may have details left out for this reason, and I apologize.

Ones I've Attended + Reviews:

BRATS ALA Tour 01/10/2020 My first ever concert that I went to with my mom, where there was another act I can't recall performing first. Many people were shouting and pumping their fists in the air, and I snuck off to join a random crowd of strangers who were dancing. Rei, despite her vocal cord damage, was really good at performing, and I met all of the girls four times throughout the entire concert. I got an autographed poster that I still have to this day and Hinako and Aya recognized me when they saw me! The anime convention itself was really fun and I think I took home a Pokémon poster just because the artist was immaculately talented. I did sadly forget to film it. Overall Rating: 10/10.

BRATS & BANDMAID COVID-19 Digital Concert 2020~2021 There's very limited knowledge of this concert online, and I can't recall the exact date, but a Japanese streaming site was selling live tickets to an online BRATS and BANDMAID concert for an entry fee. This was during the coronavirus pandemic when nobody could go out, especially in our respective nations. The girls would perform their songs and between sets, would read live comments and greet everyone watching. I went for BRATS and was so happy to hear the girls play "Karma" live that I cried. The BANDMAID girls were a joy to meet as well, and their set was super good. It's the only digital concert I've ever attended, but it was nice that both acts gave it their all even though they had no actual "live" audience. Overall Rating: 10/10. DPR 2022 Regime Tour Las Vegas 10/09/2022 I went around my birthday week with my roommate and we traveled out to Vegas for it. We got okay-ish seats though we were quite far back and next to a girl who wouldn't stop screaming in my left ear. I was under the impression it was just Dabin and was shocked when Kream opened up, but I think they all did a great job performing. Nothing was better than Ian's "Seraph" performance with the beautiful black wings and the astronaut Dabin brought out was so cute. "Venus" was also pretty memorable because he was throwing roses at the crowd. Overall Rating: 8/10. OnlyOneOf Grand America Tour L.A 04/30/2023 We got basic tickets because everyone rushed to get V.I.P+, and I didn't like how competitive it was to get tickets considering my roommate had to wait hours only to find out the ticket site required an account. Our seats weren't that great, as we were quite far from the stage, and the boys were visibly tired throughout their performances. A good half of the concert was just videos of the members dancing and goofing around that weren't released to the public yet (see: picture above). We were the last branch of the NA tour, though, and their agency was shit at organizing the entire tour. We were supposed to sing along to blueblueseOul with a whole fanchant that the staff gave us in secret but no one ended up doing it? The venue was luxurious though. Overall Rating: 3/10. eaJ That Feeling When L.A 09/02/2023 There were various other artists performing at TFW that year but I only stayed for eaJ, and filmed the whole set to upload to my concert channel. I only went to impress my father and his girlfriend at the time, but the concert made me a loyal fan instantly. He hurt my eardrums so bad with the extreme high note at the end of "No One's Fault" and "VISIONS", and yes, he is louder than he sounds in the recordings. The audience was quite small and intimate, so he came down to come say hi to us and be in the middle of the crowd for a while. He held everyone's hands including mine (it was magical smh), and afterwards gave autographs and took pictures with some fans. I think it set my concert expectations way too high but it was cool. The 626 Night Market was also fun too, because there were a lot of interesting and at times questionable foods and beverages for sale. I came home with a giant teddy bear glass and I still use it to this day! Overall Rating: 10/10.

Suave Punk Secret Concert 10/14/2024 I'm not sure if I'm allowed to reveal many details about this because it happened in a private location but Justin gave a little concert to some people without telling. I got an autograph and a chance to meet the literal most beautiful person in existence. Some of you may know where it happened, and some people who went may have already told. I'm not telling. 💋 Overall Rating: ohmyfuckinggoditwasenlightening/10.

Coco & Clair Clair Girls Tour Hollywood 10/20/2024 Went just for the hell of it, and also because the concert was on my birthday! Tickets were pricy but I went with my roommate and sat at the bar seat that came with an unexpected poster and a good view of the stage. The venue was very pretty and looked more like a musical theatre set-up than anything because literal art was all over the walls. Sadboi opened up and while I wasn't into her music, she did bring the hype. There was one DJ before her and another after who brought the club energy before the actual performance, and the DJ sets had everyone jumping and moving. Clair Clair screams a lot, I learned that night. Both girls were super pretty and performed very well, even coming back at the end to perform an encore for us. Overall Rating: 9/10.

Artists I Want to Go See:

Shygirl I love Shygirl. That's it, that's the reason. THORNAPPLE THORNAPPLE's concerts look so breathtaking and Yoon Sunghyun, in addition to being musically beautiful, is such a talented performer. I really want to see Dongkyun play guitar live too and take pictures of the members up close, and also want to see how they play as three members now. Honestly, I'd kill to see any of MPMG's acts live, or to go to a festival with various MPMG acts performing. Suave Punk I already went to his "mini" concert but... since I literally met him via private connections a little while ago, he told me to come see him and one of our mutuals play live, so I'm kind of obligated to go see him when he tours again. I also promised I would anyway...🤭 Halsey I've been a fan of her since her debut year literally because my mom exposed me to her music by accident via the car radio. It's been my dream to see her perform live at Webster Hall ever since hearing the tapes of the songs sung there on Spotify, so hopefully one day that will happen.

[taehyungfirst]

https://www.tumblr.com/taehyungfirst/752713921002143744/are-you-a-taekooker-im-really-curious-cause-you

Let’s face facts here. Jokers have become extremely toxic within the last 3 years but they can never come close to taekookers because taekookers literally started hating on Jimin since 2015 when Jikook wasn’t even a ship anyone acknowledged back then. I am Taehyung and Jimin biased so i spend enough time in both spaces to have a good idea of what is going on. You don’t have to take my word for it though. To see things for yourself, go on youtube and find taekook compilations from 2015/2016 and see how hateful taekookers were already being towards Jimin because of his friendship with Jk. They called him a bad friend to tae because of how affectionate he was with Jk and accused him of making Jk uncomfortable and this hate tripled after GCF in Tokyo and after Jikook as a ship started gaining traction in 2017. Let’s be honest. Were there any jokers back in the day to even hate on Tae? Did they have any reason to hate on him? After Jikook as a ship gained traction, jokers were busy consuming the tons of Jikook content bighit and jikook fed them with to care about Taekook or taekookers but taekookers got desperate and viscious because of the decline in taekook content so they directed that hate and anger to Jimin coming up with the most ridiculous theories and narratives about how Jikook was a cover for taekook, how Jimin and the company forced Jk to do fanservice, and how Jimin was envious of taekook’s relationship because they were the most popular so the company paired jikook and made them the official ship so Jimin could ride off Jk’s popularity. Hell, go to quora and reddit and check from 2015 and up and you will see the most nasty things taekookers said about Jimin when jikook wasn’t even a thing yet. You said it yourself, jikookers toxicity has been loud for the past three years but ask any pre 2020 army and they will tell you that Jokers were very less problematic then but taekookers have always had a reputation for being the worst shippers in kpop because everyone saw how nasty they were to Jimin and anyone they saw as a threat to taekook.

Some of you are new to the fandom. You came at a time when the the hate Tae was getting from Jokers increased drastically so that is all you know. You don’t know of a time when taekookers were literally treated like a dreaded disease because their toxicity always made headlines. These days Jikookers toxicity makes taekookers look tamer because now the focus isn’t only on taekookers as it was before. Everybody cannot be wrong. There have literally been many polls conducted on twt and tkkrs always came out as 2nd most toxic shippers with the first being Larrys. These days i wouldn’t touch jokers with a 10 inch pole because they have lost their marbles hating on Tae like he is the reason jikook isn’t real and same with taekookers but i will never lie to myself saying that Jokers are worse. That is a lie from the pit of hell and even the taekookers who have been in this fandom for years know it. Plus there is literally proof of the fact that taekookers started this whole mess. There are tons of screenshots from 2015 tkkrs on twitter wishing Jimin death and as i said, you just need to watch a few taekook compilation videos from 2015/2016 to see things for yourself. I think it is honestly so fcked up how Vmin get all these hate from these two groups of shippers all for ships that aren’t even real in the first place. I wish they would free Vmin fr.

Babe, you said it yourself: you’re a Jm bias, of course you’re gonna defend half part of it because it includes your people as well. I’m sorry to say it, but most jkkers are pjms so I’m not really surprised to get an ask like this. I’m not a 2020 army, I’ve been here for far too many years to talk without cognition. Thinking that before the whole jkk push Tae didn’t get any hate is stupid and quite frankly, naive. Tkkers were treated like that because they were the majority and every little thing was blew up, were they vile? Yeah, they’re not saints. But implying that they started everything so what’s happening now is a consequence is kinda crazy, hop off Tae’s back maybe.

That’s my problem with you guys, you think everything must be measured and everything must be a competition. You think that the hate he is getting for the past (since jkk started gaining traction? so since 2017? is it a small number for you?) years is nothing, is borderline EXPECTED because some group of people was vile in the past too. I don’t agree with this. Go to quora and reddit rn, you’ll find pages of posts shading Tae. Go on here. Go on twitter. Go on DC gallery. Go on korean forums.

I do agree with smth tho, it is fucked up that they get all that hate.

[anxiousgaypanicking]

In Public

!a series of me uploading the kinktober fics/drabbles i made years ago because i didnt back in 2020 for some fuckin reason. if these are bad/poor quality its because theyre old, and ive improved since then :)!

Rosleep (Roman x Remy) Day 13: in public Warnings: exhibitionism, handjobs, almost getting caught

To be fair, for once, it wasn't Remy's idea. Roman was the one who inexplicably suggested doing more things in public.

They were discussing kinks, as they were both rather open, and exhibitionism just happened to be one of Roman's. And who was Remy to not indulge him in such a fun kink?

Which led them to know. Patton and Logan joined Roman and Remy at the table so they could eat breakfast. The others were either busy or uninterested. Roman had made pancakes, and Remy brewed coffee (for himself, really, but everyone else took it upon themselves to drink it).

Roman obviously expected them all to enjoy his cooking. And, they did.

What he didn't expect was for Remy to set a hand on his thigh, under the table, and start rubbing it slowly.

They were all still in pajamas, and for Roman that just meant short shorts and a tee shirt. Unfortunately for him, that meant Remy had pretty much unrestricted access to Roman's pretty body.

Remy kept talking with the others as if he was doing nothing, so Roman shrugs it off as Remy just being affectionate.

"You made sure to bring Virgil a plate, right Logan?" Patton asks, and Logan nods at the question, taking a small bite of pancake. With their attention on each other, Remy seizes the opportunity to slide his hand up Roman's thigh.

It's an innocent enough action... until Remy's hand dips to Roman's inner thigh, and lightly rubs over Roman's crotch.

Roman's face immediately turns bright red, and he lets out a squeak, alerting the other two.

"Roman?" Logan questions, looking at him confused. Patton looked worried, and his eyes were asking the same question.

Roman knew he had to cover for himself, so he quickly gulps and says "sorry! I thought I saw a spider." He's trying to subtly roll his hips against Remy's hand, the other two's attention on him just making this so much better.

That caused Patton to let out a small squeal and curl up in his chair. "Where?!"

"I think it's gone already," Roman responds, while Remy takes the chance to slide his hand into Roman's shorts, and past his boxers, hand gripping the prince's hard cock. Roman holds back a whimper at the action, attempting to discretely buck his hips. Remy's hand is moving torturously slow up and down his cock, and Roman's half tempted to tell him to go faster.

Remy finally glances over at him, a smug smile on his face. "Yeah. Gone."

Roman glares at him, but Remy speeds up his hand, and Roman bites down on his tongue in order to suppress a moan.

He's hunched over the table at his point, hand shakily holding his fork. He stabs at his pancake, and quickly puts the piece into his mouth, hoping the chewing will distract him from the arousal pooling in his stomach.

He was already so embarrassingly close, extremely turned on by the risk of the situation and how smug Remy was being.

Remy smirks, and moves slightly, easily putting on an innocent expression.

"Oh, babe, you got some syrup on your face," he says, and Roman's brows furrow. He goes to grab a napkin and wipe his face off, but Remy balls his hand in Roman's shirt before he gets the chance to. Remy pulls Roman close and connects their lips, easily slipping his tongue into Roman's mouth.

Remy peaks one of his eyes open, and sees Logan scrunching up his face, before he dumps his empty plate into the sink and walks off, probably to get away from the two sickly lovebirds.

Patton on the other hand is just focused on his food and the Sunday Comics in the newspaper on the table.

Perfect.

Remy moves his hand faster, his thumb running over Roman's slit before sliding back down. He continues to do that, enjoying the way he made Roman squirm. And before Roman can help himself, a quiet moan escapes his mouth.

He immediately pushes Remy's chest away and looks at Patton, who's too busy laughing at a comic. Remy laughs quietly, and Roman turns his attention back to him.

"Pretty boy," Remy coos, quiet enough that Patton can't hear. And Roman lets out the tiniest of whimpers.

His hand is still stroking Roman's cock, never faltering, bringing him closer and closer with each passing second.

"Remy," Roman pouts, face a dark red.

Remy grins at Roman's pitiful response, before tilting his head towards Patton.

"Patty, baby, Ro and I will clean up the kitchen for you," Remy says, and Patton turns his attention to him.

"Are you sure? You know I don't mind cleaning up after my kiddos!"

"We're sure," Roman says, quickly, hands gripping the edge of the table tightly. "We want to help out a bit, padre."

Patton smiles and nods. "Okay boys! If you really want to." He then takes the last bite of his pancake, grabs his newspaper, and walks out of the kitchen.

Remy's lips are back on Roman's in an instant, and Roman hardly has time to give a warning before his head is thrown back in a silent moan and he's coming over Remy's hand and his own shirt and shorts. He slumps back in his chair, Remy giving his cock a few more strokes before he lets it go, grabbing a napkin and wiping his hand off.

"You, sir, are a bitch," Roman says, looking rather blissful.

"And you, babe, are my bitch."

[hello-galad]

10 Characters From 10 Fandoms

How to play: Name 10 Characters from 10 fandoms and tag people

I was tagged by the amazing @br-disaster​ , thank you!!! ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

In no particular order. Most of them I have been obsessed with ever since I was a kid. 

Nie Huaisang (CQL/MDZS) - The only reason it took me so long to do this was because I couldn’t decide between NMJ and NHS. Alas, I relate to NHS the most, he’s also an incredibly intricate character that lives in my head rent free. 

Hatake Kakashi (Naruto) - Contrary to most people, I actually watched this show/read the manga until 2020 and I've been obsessed with this tragic overpowered ninja ever since. I think he is the character I have written/drawn the most about. I relate way too much to him, which is...strange. I am in love with his story and character development through the show. 

Louis de Pointe du Lac (Interview With the Vampire) - I must confess I haven't yet read the book, but I watched the AMC show and I FELL IN LOVE. I have Ana to thank for introducing me to this amazing, complicated mess of a man. 

Thranduil (The hobbit) - When I watched all LOTR movies, I was a kid and my aunt was babysitting and obviously I started obsessing over him and the elves when I read every Tolkien book I could get my hands on. I haven't written much about him but I do have a whole AU-Canon divergence for Oropher, Thranduil and Legolas half written on AO3. My version of Thranduil, Oropher’s line and the Greenwood elves is VERY different from the hobbit movies, though.  

Ned the Pie Maker (Pushing daisies) - Tall, sensible, caring, harmless man who loves to bake and is also an accidental necromancer? YES, PLEASE.  

Yue (Sakura Card-captor) - Imagine you are this super powerful supernatural being whose world gets turned upside down when the person you considered your everything dies. Imagine you get sealed inside the back cover of a book for 100 years and then inside the body of a teenager without being asked for consent and without being able to get out to live a normal life. You are also left without much of your power for a long time, and then you are given a ridiculously short amount of time to get used to everything that is going on around you while your twin and your other brothers and sisters get months to understand and process what happened. AND THEN it turns out that the dude that you loved so much didn’t died, instead reincarnated into some annoying bitch (who is now a different person than he was in his past life so meh) because he had some cosmic realization when he turned like 800 years old because being the most powerful magician in the world makes your common sense disappear, apparently...and then this annoying brat creates a cheap copy of you and your sibling, yikes. Imagine you really want to slap everyone but you dont want to set a bad example to the nice, cute girl who you depend on now, BUT DAMMIT IF YOU COULD YOU WOULD. Yeah. He's That Bitch™ and he deserves it. I support you, Yue. 

Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender) - She is definitively the character I relate to the most, like she was 14 and learned very soon what happens if you get on your father’s bad side. She's a prodigy and what she needed in the end was some psychological help and then the throne, bye. 

Captain James T. Kirk (Star Trek) -  I want to be a Starfleet captain so bad, ISTG. He’s so much, a drama queen, the voice of reason, a disaster waiting to happen, a feminist, queer, The Captain, a nuisance, the smartest person in the room, mister daddy issues, mister “bones get that hypospray off my face”, mister I am in love with this Vulcan, mister I am in love with this doctor, “Dammit Jim!”. Yeah, him.

Crowley (Good Omens) - I read the book when I was in high school, it was the first book I read in one sitting without getting distracted. I loved those two. I love Crowley and the fact that he is always trying to cause havoc through elaborate schemes that inconvenience the human race. Ahaha, he’s the best. (Yes, I loved the TV show).

Dorian (Almost Human) - HE JUST WANTS TO BE SEEN AS SOMETHING MORE THAN JUST A MACHINE. He’s sometimes more human than all the humans he works with. I love Dorian and Kennex, you bet I have read every single fic centered on him or both of them on AO3. I’m forever sad they cancelled that show. 

I tag @pangzi and @dual-domination (only if you want to do it of course. Feel free to ignore this tag if you dont!) 

[dark-muse-iris]

Pre-dystopian era truly encapsulates pre 2020 now doesn't it? 😂 The things the last 2 almost 3 years have brought forth in humanity is 👀 disappointing at the best of times.

I'm surprised to see just how the app has changed, as I haven't had the chance to hop on desktop just yet. It seems...almost functioning? No more character limit on asks is nice as now I don't have to break this into 6 different messages 😂 New settings and everything else to try and figure out.

I've turned 24 this last July, and the last time I was truly active on here I was 21 so the personal growth and loss that have come with that is interesting for sure. I've lost both my grandmas in the past year and my living grandfather has already remarried (oh boy the family drama that caused), moved twice and live with my boyfriend of 3 years, have gone NC with his narc family and LC with mine as best as possible, started a job that has me earning the most I ever have financially but definitely have cost a part of my soul 💀😂 and I'm trying my best to get to a place in my life where I'm debt free and in a industry I actually love and care for (cannabis and growing it) and get my boyfriend the disability coverage he needs but I'm sure you're well aware that its a poor joke of trying to get that approved. So on some notes, its been good and I've changed into a better person but also if anything bad happens in 2023 I'm very fragile about it 😂😅

I understand the "striving for mediocrety" as a workplace mentality, and just how exhausting it can feel with wanting to bring better things to the office and just getting shot down. The old dodgers of "this is how we've always done it" dont always seem to realize that doing the same thing for 40+ years only works when the system isn't as broken as it is (or if it even worked in the first place). Is being remote going to give you the chances to take care of your sleep issues and anything else health related thats popped up for you? Ik last I checked you were doing the testing to see if it was more than standard narcolepsy.

(I'll probably message again and finish my thoughts but I am night shift and my break just ended so I gotta head back. It's so nice talking to you again ☺️💕)

I’m sorry to hear about your grandmas. I lost two of mine since 2020 and it’s been really hard on the family. If my grandfather had remarried that quickly, I’d be scratching my head as to how they were able to make it happen. My grandfather doesn’t appear to be dating, but that’s likely because 1) he cooks, and 2) he’s got stage 4 cancer, courtesy of U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam.

As someone who works in a soul-sucking job that pays well, let me just say: it’s worth it. It is absolutely worth it to have a full belly and warm place to sleep during recession years. When I worked in industries I loved and didn’t have enough to eat, I resented my dreams and hated myself for having them. Letting those dreams go gave me the chance to have other dreams and I’ve been able to forgive myself for being so hard in my early 20s. It can take years to get the life you want, so don’t let anyone shit on you for doing what you have to do to eat in the meantime, especially anyone of the older generations who did their part to suppress our standard of living.

The insistence on clinging to broken systems of the past is one big reason I transferred jobs. There’s a lot of that still going around. My managers were panicking and kept asking why I was leaving; I think they finally understood how far I’m willing to go to make sure “office culture” won’t waste my time anymore. For me, being a remote employee streamlines my workflow and reduces my workplace accommodations for narcolepsy by half. It’s also much easier to manage my ADHD at home where I can remove distractions. In the office, no one was working on our job shit; everyone just gathered around to talk about their kids or health problems or ridiculous work drama they didn’t plan on fixing themselves. I had forgotten how much time people wasted just bitching for nothing. When I hear a complaint, I want to fix the problem and get rid of it, but that wasn’t a good fit. My colleagues wanted free therapy from someone their kid’s age because *surprise* their kid isn’t talking to them anymore.

I’m hopeful for cannabis and glad you’re pursuing the field! It’s not fully legal where I live, but I have many chronically ill family and friends who rely on it because they can’t take meds or afford the healthcare they need. I have some family who are growers in different states where it’s allowed and they’re happy with the work they’re doing. I never had the green thumb for that; I’m the only who would take dead grass and make a basket out of it.

[the-smiling-grinner]

hey uh dont read this 👍 TW vent

okay so basically everything has gone to shit. lets get a lil back story here

so ill be 17 soon (terrifying) and it will be almost 4 years sober of everything and i could not be more miserable. when i was 12 i abused perscription medication during the 2020 lockdown and in the process got into other things (cigs and alchol).

i dont really think that anyone understands how deep it goes. i mean think about it, a 12 yearold already suffering from halucinations, delusions and other things. on two kinds of anti psychotics, drinking, smoking and taking way to many pills. its pretty messed up.

my parents had never been the best but a brain tumour caused my mother to become abusive. i dont remember much of 2020-2021 bc i was either high, drunk, in a psychotic episode or sometimes all three. but i remember some things and the things i do remember are bad. it got so bad that i barely knew what was going on half the time.

safe to say my appearence was less than ideal. i wore a covid face mask constantly. even when you stopped having to at school. and i still wear it. simply bc i know people will make fun of me for it more than they already do if i take it off. as much as i want to stop wearing it, i know i cant.

my hair was dyed black and greasy, my achne was bad and my teeth were messed up. i was over weight, then under weight, then over weight again. i was hidious. evey photo taken of me, i looked through the camera. i had nothing left behind my eyes. i was so close to giving up entirely.

my mother had her brain tumour removed and my life was starting to take shape again. thats when she came in. she was beautiful in every way. i hated her but i loved her all the same. she caused me so much pain but it felt great.

it seemed like a good idea at the time. to date her. but i soon deacovered that she was not like she seemed. in many ways ill not describe. she ripped me appart, absolutly gutted me from the inside. i developed FND (look it up i cant be bothered explaining). my life was starting to go down hill again. i felt sick constantly. my halucinations were terrible and my mental state was even worse. i had sezures and headaches every day.

then we broke up. it was drawn out and long but to leave it all behind was freeing. i felt free for the first time in months. then she back stabbed me. i wont say what happend but this is the reason i can not trust people. my paranoia is through the roof. i constantly think about how everyone is conspiring against me and that they arent really my friends.

anyway. enough about her.

i am lonely and i fear that i will always feel this way. i have friends and a boyfriend yes but they also have friends. my halucinations icolate me. i behave agressively and erratically. nothing as bad as 2021 and 2020 but still bad.

i dont know what to do so i throw myself into school. its all i really do anymore. that and pretend i have friends. i sit at the kitchen bench and speak to no one. i have many friends there. i can act how i want and they like it. i have no one to talk to about this.

i try to talk to God but i feel bad burdening him with it like i am with everyone else. i dont feel good enough for God or any one for that matter.

im nothing like the pretty Christian girls on tiktok who look so pure and sweet. the look so kind. true women of God. i am not. i try to be but it never works out. i look scruffy, my hair is always messed up, i wear weird clothes, im rude, i cuss way too much and im just not a very nice person to be around.

i want to be tho. more than anything i want to be kind. i want to be good enough. and it doesnt even seem like im trying.

i really want cigs and alchaol. to medicate like i did all those years ago but i cant. sinning every day with small things is bad enough but those are worse.

i do my best in school and thats enough. it makes me feel like enough. im good at school. im good at it. im not good at many things but im good in school. i got dux in two subjects last year and finished top 10% of my grade. thats enough right?

every day i feel my sanity slowly slipping away. being replaced by paranoia and horrible halcinatoins. i tell myself that ill never get as bad as i was back then but deep down, i want it. bc this time, people would see it. they would know how bad it is and how my jokes are just a cry for help.

i have been put on more medication as of recently and im scaired. i dont know what it will do to me. will it kill me? will it make me put on weight? who knows. ive already had bulimia i dont need it again.

on top of this, im loosing my best friend. i can see how much they suffer. i can see how bad it is for them. they have made heaps of new friends recently and i am so happy for them but we so rarely talk now. when we do, its great. we used to see eachother every weekend, now we dont. i ask first to hang out and i feel bad, like im forcing them. i dont want to force them.

there was more i could have done for them that night. if it wasnt for those drugs. those fucking drugs. the dugs that i took to take me away from everything. to make me happy. but i wasnt happy. i was insane. i was deranged. surely anyone who looked at me could see it. that night i ripped out 4 teeth. one of them was an adult tooth. a mf adult tooth. i tore out a tooth. i was 13 by then.

i have to make my parents happy and when i dont i feel bad. i want to make my dad happy and go to his house but i hate that house. i want to make my mum happy but it always ends in an argument. i want to make my friends happy but i cant and if they can find friends to make them happy. then thats okay.

i just dont know anymore. everything is so blury. the paranoia is imence. i hate it. anyway. hope no one actually reads this.

there is SO much more but this is all for now

[sanekibeko]

Heyo! Currently on break from socials while I finish up my final semester which includes my senior thesis film but while on Spring Break I found a some draws that never saw the light of day I thought I'd share.

Some got further than others but I'm only sharing those that got further along than just a very rough sketch. Another quick note from 2018-2020 I was mainly doing pokemon related stuff before I shifted my way to Vivz.

2018

Title: Mommy doesn't want you in here

Back then I was really involved in Pokemon Emerald's Battle Frontier and had to grind a lot of the best pokemon to breed. One of the pokemon I breed from was Gardevoir, which swept the floor getting me many of my symbols, and I thought of this very dark situation where a Gardevoir was breeding for the perfect child and that said child wandered into the incubation room finding her imperfect siblings. Pretty much how IV and shinny breeding goes in games. Reason I never finished it is it got too complex for my skill at the time. Wtf is perspective?

2019

Title: Dog Show

I'm going to be honest I have no idea what I was thinking when I drew this. Brionne looked too much like a dog I guess.

Title: Gen 8 Drawing(Unfinished name)

This one hurt to scrap after so many hours but I was so unhappy and embarrassed with it. I wanted to make a big draw for Pokemon Sword and Shield but cause I was so focused on making a pretty picture instead of anatomy, composition, and flipping my canvas.

I swear I can draw humans better now! >.<

2020

Title: Escort missions

Ok so here's an interesting story behind this. You know how controlling partner pokemon especially escort pokemon in PMD1 sucks? Well I decided to take on a bunch of jobs in Fiery Field where not only has a bunch of traps but also you have to quick save before entering meaning if you mess up you lose everything. This is pretty much what happened. I was almost finished escorting that Surkern, who was pain my ass, where a warp trap happened and everything fell apart. I wanted to throw my DS Lite so bad. Later on decided to vent out my in a comic. However I never finished it cause it got to complex.

One note though this comic is half truthful. I'm the one who fell in the warp trap cause I didn't have that trap ability and that Surkern kept wondering around and ended up in a fight. I ended up deleting that mission cause I was getting paid jack shit.

2021

Title: (N/A)

Don't remember much. Just how I was feeling at that point struggling through school. I was also trying out using 3D for perspective and using Procreate.

2022

Title: Dad and Looney(Unfinished Name)

Just a quick doodle I never finished and was messing around in Procreate. I think it later lead to Free Hug.

The next few draws were cause I was on a Timber and Makasin drawing spree that didn't turn out the way I wanted it too mainly cause I was in a slump during that summer. I would like to go back to them at so point.

Title: In her arms

Title: Piggyback

Title: Voice of Reason

Title: Reading a book(Unfinished name)

I was close to finishing this one but never felt like finishing it.

Title: Clip Studio Shitpost comic(Unfinished name)

This was back in Clip Studio announced their subscription for standalone Windows and Mac versions going forward and everyone got pissed off including me. I made a quick comic to vent but later got bored of it.

Soon after the company tried to put out the flames and gave everyone who bought a copy that year a free copy of v2 and a trial for update pass but I still use v1.13.2 copy and sometimes Procreate. The update pass still sounds dumb to me. If you pay for a new major version you should continue to get feature updates until the next major version comes out. That's what Affinity, Toonboom, and Final Draft does. Least they didn't go full out Adobe. Yet...

Title: Mindscape

Idea I had to expand Saneki's backstory with his curse. Later turned into one of my many school project ideas but never did anything going forward. I just now realize I gave my dude a bakery. 0_0

2023

Title: Slay Ride

Little Chaggie idea I had but I was getting deep into my semester and Winter was coming to an end.

Title: Snowy Ride Remake

Back in early 2015 after I adopted Holly I had a simple draw of my at the time main oc riding her in the woods. It aged badly and I wanted to remake it with Saneki instead. 8 years later when I was starting to remake it I needed an idea for a school project and decided to go with it thinking I could knock out 2 birds with one stone. However I had to follow a strict set of rules including a limited color pallete and using Photoshop which I hated. It didn't have the settings or brushes I was used to which lead to this. From that forward I began to hold a grudge against Photoshop like I do with Animate. Someday I would like to take another shot at this without involving Photoshop. -_-

One the bright side I did learn some color theory and perspective tips. ^^

Title: Cowgirl Loona

This was my first attempt on Cowgirl Loona before I swapped over from Clip Studio to Procreate and finished it this earlier year. Just wasn't happy with what I was going for and felt like Procreate could get this done better.

2024

Title: N/A

I recently decided to can this. I thought of a cute idea of Stella at a hellhorse show but had no idea how I wanted to present it and this is all that came out of it.

And that's pretty much what I feel like showing. Looking back I think it's just more of a lesson in drawing. Not everything turns out the way you want it too. Either you didn't think everything through or just got bored with them and wanted to move on. Sometimes it's not worth putting in more hours in something that isn't going to turn out the way you hoped. But that's no to say everything you do should be scrapped. Sometimes It just needs reworked. Cowgirl Loona and Carousel Alastor went through hell but I got them out cause of the lessons I learned from continuing to draw. But also I want to stop focusing on the little details cause not everyone is going notice. Have you seen the many tangents in my earlier stuff.

Ok that's all for now. Like I said taking the time to finish up my final semester so I can soft reboot my socials afterwards. See ya in May!

[burtlederp]

NO. I REFUSE TO FUCKING CATEGORIZE THE QUALITY OF THIS YEAR BY THE EVENTS OF THE FIRST MONTH.

That's a slippery slope to set ALL of us on: a couple bad things happen and oh, the whole year's ruined?? Yeah, no, fuck that.

Hey, maybe you're right, maybe this year will be a less-worse version than 2020, or something like that--but even so, acknowledging it's bad isn't going to make the situation any better. You want a good year?? Then find good news and make THAT the news of the day. Refuse to let the bad days win this year. I, for one, am fucking DONE with resigning myself to the worst just because everyone else decided to stop trying and just labeled the whole year a failure IN THE FIRST MONTH.

Are Wednesdays just gonna be like this in 2021?

So far:

January 6th - The Capitol gets stormed during the Electoral College vote certification … and the idiot rioters liveblog it

January 13th - Trump gets impeached … for the 2nd time

January 20th - Biden is sworn in as the President … somehow the least interesting thing on this list

January 27th - A subreddit bankrupted a hedge fund by … buying all the GameStop stocks

What’s in store for us on February 3rd?

Tune in next week to find out!

[tisthenightofthewitch]

THE MAN BEHIND GHOST – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH TOBIAS FORGE

We can confidently say that Ghost became one of the most successful, unavoidable (well, it’s safe to say that actually, you can even meet the band on racetracks), and divisive bands in recent years. Catchy and dark tunes, breathtaking stage designs, and show elements… Ghost is now on tour, promoting the new album, “Impera” – before the Madrid show, we had the opportunity to talk with the man behind Ghost, Tobias Forge.

-How are you? How’s your day and tour going so far?

-It goes really well! We are in Madrid today, and yeah… I mean, since January we only cancelled one show, which I’m really happy about so… In these days, when things are very rocky (smiles), to put that way, I’m very happy about every show that happened, and just one show has been canceled out of fifty – I think that’s really good! And you know, we are almost at the end of the first half of the tour, so I feel good, it’s working, that’s great.

-How did you survive the “enforced break” caused by the pandemic?

-For me, it wasn’t all bad, because we’ve already scheduled a year off between March 2020 and March 2021 – I was supposed to make a record during that time. Originally, I was quite stressed.

So, when we ended our tour in March 2020, I was supposed to start working immediately full-time making a record.

And as we saw COVID-19 and everything unfold, we quickly decided that I was just gonna take the pressure off, you know. So, I ended up being home a lot more with my family, and I worked maybe just a few days instead of five days a week. I got a lot of time with my wife and my two children. That was great! I had been on tour for 10 years straight, so I was actually quite happy about that. That was a good feeling. But of course, like everyone else, I felt sorry for all my friends who were suffering, or my parents, my mom who actually sat at home for a year until she could get the vaccine and all. That was hard.

-In 2019 after 10 years you returned to Budapest and gave us a fantastic show – and I’m asking this question in the name of all Hungarian fans: why did we have to wait that long?

-The thing with touring is that you cannot control everything yourself. Everything is depending on opportunities, timing, and all these factors. The simple answer to that would be that the promoter wasn’t asking us to come back.

You know, we are trying to be more frequent, especially in the area where we have been before, like Hungary, where we know that we do have fans,

but in order to make a Hungary show work, ideally, you have to have a full European tour or you have to have shows preferably even further, and that is not always the case. You know, it’s just unfortunate. But we’re trying, I’m really happy that we are actually getting back now as this tour is happening and we managed to get to Budapest because I don’t wanna be as infrequent as we have been.

-I cannot pass the fact that Ghost live shows are breathtaking – do you also take part to design the stage, the show elements, and the costumes?

-I am very-very-very involved with that, yes. If I wasn’t a touring musician myself, I would have wanted to work with stage design, that’s one of my main interests.

-In March Ghost appeared as a sponsor for a NASCAR racer, Bayley Currey. How did the collab actually happen?

-Actually, I’m not a giant motorsport fan. I think it was a “coincidence”, they were reaching out to us and we said, “wow, of course, we wanna do that!” You know, it takes two to tango. You just don’t jump on someone, you need to get the approval first. So they decided that they wanted to do something like that because somehow it also made their profile look cool, or I don’t know. I have no idea why they wanted us. But it was a great thing, looked cool.

-Ghost made a cover for “Enter Sandman” for the Metallica Blacklist compilation. If I know well, James Hetfield himself asked you to make a cover for that classic song.

-The reason why we ended up doing “Enter Sandman” goes back years. In 2018 Metallica got the Polar Music Prize – it’s a Swedish, very honorable, cultural award. So every year a distinguished artist gets that. That year was gonna be Metallica, and we were asked by (I guess) Swedish television or the people behind the award if we wanted to take part in that, and I said yes, of course! I mean I love Metallica, of course, we gonna do that. And they were like “ah okay, great, you should play ‘Enter Sandman'”. I was like “no, can I at least choose myself?” and they were like “no, we want you to open the whole thing up and it needs to be ‘Enter Sandman'”. Alright, wooh.

I just thought about it for a second and I came up with this alternative way of playing the song.

Okay, now I know what to do so of course, of course, we’ll do it. I’ll do it for Metallica. And then, when we’ve done that, we were asked to be part of the Blacklist record and I just figured out the lyrics of “Enter Sandman” – it just sounds a little bit like a lullaby in our version, and I just felt that. We were all also informed that if we gonna partaking this record we need to come up with a charity that we wanna donate the money to.

And I was thinking… I’ve seen a TV program about these transgender camps in America, which were founded by parents, but in order to welcome kids who are afraid of being trans in their normal lives.

So, these camps are the only place where these kids can be themselves. So, I just figured out: well, I really support a cause like that, but I also felt that the lyrics of “Enter Sandman” sounds a little bit like a comforting sort of song for a kid in bed. And then I felt just like “of course, we are gonna do ‘Enter Sandman!'” It feels so natural, and it’s a fucking great song! I think our version is also quite good, so it just felt like a typical no-brainer. We can play it live and every time we play that song live it’s gonna be more money to that. Fantastic! So yeah, it was a great honor to be asked to do it, but it’s also great to do something like that. Just spread some awareness, and support something. You know, I’ve not been great at that before, but hopefully, I can be better at it as we’re going forward.

-The USA could be rocky for European musicians, and Ghost’s satanic theme was also problematic for some groups, especially in the USA. But things are slowly changed in recent years – for example, a few weeks ago Ghost appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show where you performed “Call Me Little Sunshine”, and the “Impera” album sales are also amazing there.

-Okay, so the thing is that the one country that we’ve been always doing great… has always been America. That was the first country where we started touring and where we’ve been steadily just growing ever since.

Of course, we are not a big, mainstream band, I mean compared to Drake and Kendrick Lamar, but America has always been our sort of main proving ground, where we toured the most. I think it’s actually been more shakey in Europe but like France has always been great, England, Scandinavia… And other places, like Germany, have been harder for us to make things, it’s been slower. Everything changes a little, but… As a growing band sometimes you’re in a weird position, in one country you can sell out like seven-eight-nine thousand seats, and in the country next door, you can do two thousand. Sometimes you know, it’s hard to be balanced that way. It just takes time, it’s just part of it. But America has always been steady, but of course, we’ve become bigger now than we were eight years ago… But I have never seen America as a problem, Europe has been more of a problem then. (laughs)

-You recorded the debut album, “Opus Eponymous” with a session drummer and you played most of the other instruments in addition to vocals. Did the working process change over the years?  

-It is changed for each album. The session drummer that I had in the first album yet played on most Ghost records, but not all. It’s a mixed bag, every now and then I change things around and sometimes I like to play everything myself and sometimes I let other people in.

Sometimes it’s also a practical question, because making a record is a lot of work, and if you have to make all that stuff work in six weeks where I have to play bass and sing, and produce, and do all that.

You don’t have time, there’s just not enough time during the day. My fingers can’t play 8 hours a guitar and 3 hours a bass and sing for two hours. No, I just can’t do that… But, on the other hand, when I write a song and make the demos I play almost everything. At some point I have played almost everything you hear, they’ve sort of gone through my hands. So, yeah, it differs, and one day I might make a record again where I’m playing on everything, even on drums – we’ll see. (chuckles)

Interview by Péter Tepliczky Written by Afrodite Szeleczky

MyToucheBlog.com

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Facebook thrives on criticism of "disinformation"

The mainstream critique of Facebook is surprisingly compatible with Facebook’s own narrative about its products. FB critics say that the company’s machine learning and data-gathering slides disinformation past users’ critical faculties, poisoning their minds.

Meanwhile, Facebook itself tells advertisers that it can use data and machine learning to slide past users’ critical faculties, convincing them to buy stuff.

In other words, the mainline of Facebook critics start from the presumption that FB is a really good product and that advertisers are definitely getting their money’s worth when they shower billions on the company.

Which is weird, because these same critics (rightfully) point out that Facebook lies all the time, about everything. It would be bizarre if the only time FB was telling the truth was when it was boasting about how valuable its ad-tech is.

Facebook has a conflicted relationship with this critique. I’m sure they’d rather not be characterized as a brainwashing system that turns good people into monsters, but not when the choice is between “brainwashers” and “con-artists selling garbage to credulous ad execs.”

As FB investor and board member Peter Thiel puts it: “I’d rather be seen as evil than incompetent.” In other words, the important word in “evil genius” is “genius,” not “evil.”

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1440312271511568393

The accord of tech critics and techbros gives rise to a curious hybrid, aptly named by Maria Farrell: the Prodigal Techbro.

A prodigal techbro is a self-styled wizard of machine-learning/surveillance mind control who has see the error of his ways.

https://crookedtimber.org/2020/09/23/story-ate-the-world-im-biting-back/

This high-tech sorcerer doesn’t disclaim his magical powers — rather, he pledges to use them for good, to fight the evil sorcerers who invented a mind-control ray to sell your nephew a fidget-spinner, then let Robert Mercer hijack it to turn your uncle into a Qanon racist.

There’s a great name for this critique, criticism that takes its subjects’ claims to genius at face value: criti-hype, coined by Lee Vinsel, describing a discourse that turns critics into “the professional concern trolls of technoculture.”

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

The thing is, Facebook really is terrible — but not because it uses machine learning to brainwash boomers into iodine-guzzling Qnuts. And likewise, there really is a problem with conspiratorial, racist, science-denying, epistemologically chaotic conspiratorialism.

Addressing that problem requires that we understand the direction of the causal arrow — that we understand whether Facebook is the cause or the effect of the crisis, and what role it plays.

“Facebook wizards turned boomers into orcs” is a comforting tale, in that it implies that we need merely to fix Facebook and the orcs will turn back into our cuddly grandparents and get their shots. The reality is a lot gnarlier and, sadly, less comforting.

There’s been a lot written about Facebook’s sell-job to advertisers, but less about the concern over “disinformation.” In a new, excellent longread for Harpers, Joe Bernstein makes the connection between the two:

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/bad-news-selling-the-story-of-disinformation/

Fundamentally: if we question whether Facebook ads work, we should also question whether the disinformation campaigns that run amok on the platform are any more effective.

Bernstein starts by reminding us of the ad industry’s one indisputable claim to persuasive powers: ad salespeople are really good at convincing ad buyers that ads work.

Think of department store magnate John Wanamaker’s lament that “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Whoever convinced him that he was only wasting half his ad spend was a true virtuoso of the con.

As Tim Hwang documents brilliantly in his 2020 pamphlet “Subprime Attention Crisis,” ad-tech is even griftier than the traditional ad industry. Ad-tech companies charge advertisers for ads that are never served, or never rendered, or never seen.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost

They rig ad auctions, fake their reach numbers, fake their conversions (they also lie to publishers about how much they’ve taken in for serving ads on their pages and short change them by millions).

Bernstein cites Hwang’s work, and says, essentially, shouldn’t this apply to “disinformation?”

If ads don’t work well, then maybe political ads don’t work well. And if regular ads are a swamp of fraudulently inflated reach numbers, wouldn’t that be true of political ads?

Bernstein talks about the history of ads as a political tool, starting with Eisenhower’s 1952 “Answers America” campaign, designed and executed at great expense by Madison Ave giants Ted Bates.

Hannah Arendt, whom no one can accuse of being soft on the consequences of propaganda, was skeptical of this kind of enterprise: “The psychological premise of human manipulability has become one of the chief wares that are sold on the market of common and learned opinion.”

The ad industry ran an ambitious campaign to give scientific credibility to its products. As Jacques Ellul wrote in 1962, propagandists were engaged in “the increasing attempt to control its use, measure its results, define its effects.”

Appropriating the jargon of behavioral scientists let ad execs “assert audiences, like workers in a Taylorized workplace, need not be persuaded through reason, but could be trained through repetition to adopt the new consumption habits desired by the sellers.” -Zoe Sherman

These “scientific ads” had their own criti-hype attackers, like Vance “Hidden Persuaders” Packard, who admitted that “researchers were sometimes prone to oversell themselves — or in a sense to exploit the exploiters.”

Packard cites Yale’s John Dollard, a scientific ad consultant, who accused his colleagues of promising advertisers “a mild form of omnipotence,” which was “well received.”

Today’s scientific persuaders aren’t in a much better place than Dollard or Packard. Despite all the talk of political disinformation’s reach, a 2017 study found “sharing articles from fake news domains was a rare activity” affecting <10% of users.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aau4586

So, how harmful is this? One study estimates “if one fake news article were about as persuasive as one TV campaign ad, the fake news in our database would have changed vote shares by an amount on the order of hundredths of a percentage point.”

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.31.2.211

Now, all that said, American politics certainly feel and act differently today than in years previous. The key question: “is social media creating new types of people, or simply revealing long-obscured types of people to a segment of the public unaccustomed to seeing them?”

After all, American politics has always had its “paranoid style,” and the American right has always had a sizable tendency towards unhinged conspiratorialism, from the John Birch Society to Goldwater Republicans.

Social media may not be making more of these yahoos, but rather, making them visible to the wider world, and to each other, allowing them to make common cause and mobilize their adherents (say, to carry tiki torches through Charlottesville in Nazi cosplay).

If that’s true, then elite calls to “fight disinformation” are unlikely to do much, except possibly inflaming things. If “disinformation” is really people finding each other (not infecting each other) labelling their posts as “disinformation” won’t change their minds.

Worse, plans like the Biden admin’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism lump 1/6 insurrectionists in with anti-pipeline activists, racial justice campaigners, and animal rights groups.

Whatever new powers we hand over to fight disinformation will be felt most by people without deep-pocketed backers who’ll foot the bill for crack lawyers.

Here’s the key to Bernstein’s argument: “One reason to grant Silicon Valley’s assumptions about our mechanistic persuadability is that it prevents us from thinking too hard about the role we play in taking up and believing the things we want to believe. It turns a huge question about the nature of democracy in the digital age — what if the people believe crazy things, and now everyone knows it? — into a technocratic negotiation between tech companies, media companies, think tanks, and universities.”

I want to “Yes, and” that.

My 2020 book How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism doesn’t dismiss the idea that conspiratorialism is on the rise, nor that tech companies are playing a key role in that rise — but without engaging in criti-hype.

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

In my book, I propose that conspiratorialism isn’t a crisis of what people believe so much as how they arrive at their beliefs — it’s an “epistemological crisis.”

We live in a complex society plagued by high-stakes questions none of us can answer on our own.

Do vaccines work? Is oxycontin addictive? Should I wear a mask? Can we fight covid by sanitizing surfaces? Will distance ed make my kind an ignoramus? Should I fly in a 737 Max?

Even if you have the background to answer one of these questions, no one can answer all of them.

Instead, we have a process: neutral expert agencies use truth-seeking procedures to sort of competing claims, showing their work and recusing themselves when they have conflicts, and revising their conclusions in light of new evidence.

It’s pretty clear that this process is breaking down. As companies (led by the tech industry) merge with one another to form monopolies, they hijack their regulators and turn truth-seeking into an auction, where shareholder preferences trump evidence.

This perversion of truth has consequences — take the FDA’s willingness to accept the expensively manufactured evidence of Oxycontin’s safety, a corrupt act that kickstarted the opioid epidemic, which has killed 800,000 Americans to date.

If the best argument for vaccine safety and efficacy is “We used the same process and experts as pronounced judgement on Oxy” then it’s not unreasonable to be skeptical — especially if you’re still coping with the trauma of lost loved ones.

As Anna Merlan writes in her excellent Republic of Lies, conspiratorialism feeds on distrust and trauma, and we’ve got plenty of legitimate reasons to experience both.

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21/republic-of-lies-the-rise-of-conspiratorial-thinking-and-the-actual-conspiracies-that-fuel-it/

Tech was an early adopter of monopolistic tactics — the Apple ][+ went on sale the same year Ronald Reagan hit the campaign trail, and the industry’s growth tracked perfectly with the dismantling of antitrust enforcement over the past 40 years.

What’s more, while tech may not persuade people, it is indisputably good at finding them. If you’re an advertiser looking for people who recently looked at fridge reviews, tech finds them for you. If you’re a boomer looking for your old high school chums, it’ll do that too.

Seen in that light, “online radicalization” stops looking like the result of mind control, instead showing itself to be a kind of homecoming — finding the people who share your interests, a common online experience we can all relate to.

I found out about Bernstein’s article from the Techdirt podcast, where he had a fascinating discussion with host Mike Masnick.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210928/12593747652/techdirt-podcast-episode-299-misinformation-about-disinformation.shtml

Towards the end of that discussion, they talked about FB’s Project Amplify, in which the company tweaked its news algorithm to uprank positive stories about Facebook, including stories its own PR department wrote.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/22/kropotkin-graeber/#zuckerveganism

Project Amplify is part of a larger, aggressive image-control effort by the company, which has included shuttering internal transparency portals, providing bad data to researchers, and suing independent auditors who tracked its promises.

I’d always assumed that this truth-suppression and wanton fraud was about hiding how bad the platform’s disinformation problem was.

But listening to Masnick and Bernstein, I suddenly realized there was another explanation.

Maybe Facebook’s aggressive suppression of accurate assessments of disinformation on its platform are driven by a desire to hide how expensive (and profitable) political advertising it depends on is pretty useless.

Image: Anthony Quintano (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mark_Zuckerberg_F8_2018_Keynote_(41793470192).jpg

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[wonder-womans-ex]

‘Cause Boy I was Made for You

By wonder-womans-ex for @inloveoknutzy Sweater Weather secret santa exchange 2020

When Remus Lupin was eleven years old, he learned about soulmates. 

“Almost everyone gets a soulmark on their nineteenth birthday,” Mr. Holliday, his fifth-grade teacher, had explained. “A design, like a tattoo, on their left wrist. And out there, somewhere, someone will have a matching one.

“Some people don’t get them until later—no one knows why. Some don’t get them at all. It’s rare, but some people have more than one soulmate, or their soulmate changes. 

“Can anyone tell me why this might be?”

Trust a teacher to turn this into a lesson, Remus thought, and put up his hand. 

“Because people change, and the person who your soul matches could change, too?” 

“Very good, Mr. Lupin.” 

***

When Sirius Black was eleven years old, his parents kept him home from school. Instead, they sat him down at the dining room table—which was only ever used for special occasions; he couldn’t fathom why this might be considered one—and told him three things. 

“One,” Walburga said, bony fingers and long nails that reminded Sirius of talons drumming on the centuries-old wood, “your career comes first. Always. No matter who your soulmate turns out to be or how you feel about it, you are expected to make the choice that benefits yourself and your role in this family.” 

“Two,” Orion put in, “you are the only person who can prove who your soulmate is. If the reality is something that puts your future or your reputation at risk, lying is the best option. Remember, listen to your head, not your wrist.”

“Three—” this was Walburga again, “—your soulmark, when you get it, will remain covered at all times. No one else is permitted to see it. Are we clear?”

Sirius nodded. 

“Speak up!”

“Yes, Mother. Yes, Father.”

***

When Remus Lupin was thirteen years old, he had his first kiss. It was with a girl from his first aid course to whom he’d never really talked before, and it was wet and clumsy and didn’t taste very nice. In six years when he got his soulmark, he probably wouldn’t even remember her name. 

***

When Sirius Black was thirteen years old, he fell asleep in math class twice. He’d spent the entire night practicing—under his father’s instructions, of course—and the words in the textbook began to swim in front of his eyes. 

His mother slapped him across the cheek when she found out. Though he told no one for a very long time, that was when he started drinking coffee. 

***

When Remus Lupin was fifteen years old, he googled what if your soulmate doesn’t love you. 

***

When Sirius Black was fifteen years old, he found out what it was like to be famous. He enjoyed it, at first. There was so much to enjoy: the attention from his parents, the people who recognized him in public and smiled, and the hockey. 

The hockey was everything. 

He wouldn’t have thought so, but it was freeing, really, to be on the ice, doing what he loved, and know that the whole world was watching. It showed him he was enough—better than enough. He was the best. He’d been working towards being best his whole life, and now he finally got to feel good about it. What wasn’t to like about that?

Amycus Carrow, apparently. The first guy on his team to notice he was different. “Queer,” he whispered, as Sirius packed his gear up. 

Sirius wasn’t sure who he was trying to prove something to by sleeping with Janie Clearwater—Amycus or himself. 

***

When Remus Lupin was seventeen years old, he and his mom picked his little brother Julian up from daycare. Jules had a crude drawing of a star on his wrist in green washable marker. 

“My teacher has one! So I wanted one too!” 

Remus smiled, ruffling Julian’s hair. 

That night, he locked his bedroom door and looked up Sirius Black. Video after video of slapshots, passes, interviews, until he finally drifted off to sleep thinking that’s the sort of person I want to be loved by. 

***

When Sirius Black was seventeen years old, he had his first panic attack. He wasn’t sure what triggered it; he wasn’t sure how he pulled himself out, but he ran a thumb over the red marks where his fingernails had dug into his skin and tried not to cry.

***

When Remus Lupin was nineteen years old, everything went wrong. He woke up on his birthday to his wrist itching, and it took all his willpower not to look at it. He wasn’t quite ready yet. 

It was like Schrödinger’s cat, he reasoned—if he didn’t look, he couldn’t confirm what had been nagging at the back of his head for a while now. He couldn’t deny it, either, but it was better than nothing. 

Julian ran to hug him when he got downstairs, grinning to show off his gap-toothed smile. “I got you a present! Wanna know what it is?”

“I think,” Remus told him, “I’m about to find out anyway.”

Two weeks later, Fenrir Greyback approached him in the locker room. 

***

When Sirius Black was nineteen years old, he found himself signed to an NHL team he wasn’t supposed to be on and with a soulmark he could make neither head nor tail of: a silver wolf and black dog, intertwined like yin and yang, two crossed hockey sticks behind them. He remembered, distantly, being told that soulmarks were meant to make sense. 

The black dog was probably meant to represent him—black dog, dog black (he still hadn’t forgiven his parents for that one)—and the hockey sticks almost definitely had something to do with, well, hockey, but the wolf he had no idea about.  

***

It is now that these two stories meet. There is a split second, a fraction of time, and it seems as though the whole world is holding its breath. Will their paths cross, only to continue on their separate ways? Will they travel together for a time, before they are destined to part once more?

“Hello,” says Remus, and when Sirius holds his hand out coldly, their fate is decided. 

***

“Pots, c’mere a second!” 

Sirius is happy, almost. He’s got the team—he’s one of them, now, really and truly, but there’s something still off. He knows what it is, but he doesn’t want to. 

“I’m coming, Captain! Keep your head on!”

James comes to a stop in front of him. “Hi. What do you need?”

“Please poke Dumo.” A few of the guys chuckle, and this makes Sirius smile. He likes making other people laugh. 

“What, and you needed me for that? You couldn't do it yourself?”

Finn walks into the room, then, jersey half on. “Why do it at all? What did poor old Dumo do to you, anyway?”

“Yeah,” Pascal says from where he’s sitting by his locker. “Respect your elders!”

“Elder, you say? Edging on retirement, are you?”

“Tais-toi!” 

Glancing over to Remus, Sirius allows the barest flicker of a smile to pass over his face. He gets one in return. 

“Alright, everyone get moving,” Coach tells them, opening the door and surveying where they’re all arranged, faces like guilty puppies. “You’re paid to play hockey, not sit on your asses and gossip. Practice starts in five minutes, or you run laps around the outside of the rink. In skates.”

Most of them groan, and Kasey downs a Powerade. “Well, boys, that’s my cue.”

James is the next to go, then Finn, then Logan. Leo and Talker continue their argument—something about George Harrison; Sirius isn’t really listening—out onto the ice, and Adam follows them with Olli and Nado close behind. Dumo winks at Sirius before he goes, too, and then it’s just the two of them. 

“What did he do?” Remus asks, after Sirius has laced and relaced his left skate three times. “Dumo, I mean.” 

“Nothing much. Just… well, if you must know, he put shaving cream in the fridge, once. Guess what I had on my waffles that morning.” 

“Waffles aren’t on your diet plan.”

“It was last year.”

“And you waited until now to get James to poke him?”

He knows Remus can see right through him. He always can. “Never question the methods of a hockey player, Loops.”

He meant it as a joke, but Remus stiffens for some reason, jaw clenching and eyes darting away. There’s an awkward pause before Sirius says, “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be.” 

“Right.” He clears his throat, trying in vain to find something else to say. He would be lying if he said Remus didn’t mean something to him—he knows it. But, after all, knowing something and acknowledging it are two very different things. 

Sirius runs the laps. 

***

That night, after practice, Remus is about to head for the bus station when Sirius steps in front of him. He’s walking backwards, even with his hockey bag slung over his shoulder, and Remus isn’t ashamed to say he’s a little impressed. (From a purely objective point of view, of course. It has nothing to do with Sirius and everything to do with the skill it would take, hypothetically, to do such a thing.) (He’s not fooling anyone, least of all himself.) 

“Want a lift?”

“You don’t even know where I live.”

“Well, we’ll just have to fix that.”

Remus rolls his eyes; he pretends to think about it. “All right,” he says, finally. “On one condition.”

“Which is?”

“I get to choose the music.”

Sirius lets out one loud ‘ha!’  It’s the most beautiful thing Remus has heard in a long time. (That would go well: “Oh, I’ve changed my mind. No need to put on the radio, I’ll be content if you just keep laughing.”) (There’s a reason people like him are off to the side, out of sight, instead of right in the spotlight with a microphone.)  

Remus is glad that Sirius waits until he’s parked outside Remus’s apartment building to bring up their earlier conversation. It says something that they say “So, about this evening—” in unison, but Remus isn’t going to think about that. 

“You go first,” Sirius tells him, the corner of his mouth lifting ever so slightly. “Please.”

“I suppose,” Remus says, slowly, “That I haven’t quite been honest with you. Any of you. I wasn’t always a PT.”

“Of course not. You’re my age. You can’t have always worked for the Lions—before that you were a teenager. A student.”

Remus shakes his head. “No. Before that I was a player.” 

“You played? Why’d you stop?”

“Bad hit,” he says, shrugging. “I’m over it. But I… I know what it’s like. The pressure. The rules. So, if you need someone to talk to… just remember—I know what the game does to a guy. You’re not the only one who’s been told to be something you aren’t by someone who forgets you’re a person off the ice, too.

“See you tomorrow, Cap. Thanks for the ride.” 

***

Sirius is probably the one person in history who has managed to burn eggs without even turning the stove on. 

“How on earth did that happen?” James asks when Sirius phones him. 

“I dropped them into the toaster—hey! Stop laughing! It could happen to anyone!”

“Yes,” he hears from the other end of the line, “But it didn’t. It happened to you.”

It takes exactly two minutes and thirty-seven seconds after hanging up on James for Sirius to decide to call Remus. Cooking failures might not have been quite what Remus meant when he said Sirius could talk to him, but it’s the problem at hand right now. 

(Remus laughs just as hard as James, but at least he has the decency to apologize for it afterwards.) 

“Well,” he says, once he’s calmed down, “What are you going to eat now?” 

“I’m not sure. Cereal?”

“Practice is in two and a half hours. You need more than that.”

“I’ll be—”

“If you end that sentence with ‘fine,’ I’ll take the laces out of your skates and strangle you with them. Do you want me to walk you through, I dunno, a pancake?” 

“Sure. What do I need?”

“Flour, butter, eggs, milk…”

Twenty minutes later Sirius is left with milk on his shirt, flour in his hair, butter practically everywhere else, and a microwave that won’t start. 

“I think,” he tells Remus, “I should have cereal.”

“You are going to eat a pancake if it’s the last thing I do—”

“Why don’t you just come over here and make it for me, then? I’m sure you’ll have more success.” 

He holds his breath for a moment, hoping this wasn’t a step too far, before Remus responds. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll be over in… half an hour?” 

“Sounds good.” 

Click. 

The instant the call is over, Sirius opens the freezer and grabs one of the popsicles he secretly has stashed there. They’re not part of his diet plan, but he needs one. Then he takes a sponge and starts trying to get the butter out of the sole of his shoe. 

***

The first thought that crosses Remus’s mind is that Sirius’s tongue is purple from one of the popsicles he thinks no one knows about. If Remus kissed him, he’d probably taste like grapes. (The thought is banished from his mind the moment it enters.) 

“So,” he says, surveying the damage. “I am going to teach you how to make a pancake.” 

Sirius, it turns out, is infinitely better at following instructions when they’re simple, and the two of them work out a system quickly. Remus makes the pancake, Sirius gets the ingredients. It works. 

“That’s salt, not sugar. Try again.”

(Most of the time, at least.)

 “Really?” Sirius is squinting at the package. “Why doesn’t it say so?”

“It does. Right there.” 

“How am I supposed to read that?”

“You need glasses, Cap.” 

“I have glasses. I just never wear them.” 

“What?” This is news to Remus. Visions of Sirius with glasses and bed hair are swimming in front of his eyes. “Why?” 

A shrug. “I look stupid.” 

“I’m pretty sure you’d be drop-dead gorgeous in anything.” 

There’s a beat of silence. Remus realizes that, yes, he said that out loud. “I mean, all those fangirls certainly seem to think so.” 

“Right. Yeah.” Sirius clears his throat. 

“Anyway, pancakes! I think these are almost ready to cook—can you turn on the element?”

“The what now?” 

“The element? The coil on the stove?” 

“Should’ve just said that in the first place,” Sirius grumbles. “Fucking Americans.” 

“Fucking French.” 

Suddenly, Remus has a spatula pointed at his nose. He has to cross his eyes to see it properly. “Say that again; I dare you.”

“Fucking French?”

“Awright, that’s it! En garde, bitch!” 

And so begins the great whisk-vs-spatula duel of 2020. There is very little batter left once they’re done—in the bowl, at least. Most of it is on their clothes. 

They look at each other. “Cereal?” 

“...Cereal.” 

***

Kasey’s eyes go wide—almost comically so—when they show up to practice together. 

“Cap giving rides?” He says, and Sirius isn’t sure what accent he’s trying to fake but he ends up sounding like a scandalized duchess from the movie adaptation of an Austen knockoff. (Maybe that is what he was going for. It’s hard to know, with Kasey.) “I thought the day would never come.”

“Shut up.” 

“Make me.”

Remus’s elbow digs into Sirius’s rib cage. “You don’t want to say that. He tried to make me shut up this morning—it’s something I’ll never recover from.” 

Sirius almost laughs at the expression Remus makes when he realizes exactly how that sounds. 

“He dumped pancake batter down my shirt!” 

“You didn’t!” The look on James’s face is aghast. “First the eggs, now this—what will people think?” 

Finn looks up from his phone. “Eggs?” 

“Sirius here dropped the eggs he was going to eat for breakfast into his—”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” 

Dumo slings an arm around his shoulders. “The price you must pay for telling James to poke me yesterday. Learn from this, mon fils. Learn.” 

“Don’t tell me what to do, old man.”

“Treachery!” 

Shrugging him off, Sirius grins. “I am the kitchen monster. Cross me and I will slaughter you in a food war.”

“Try me.” This is Logan speaking; Sirius hadn’t even realized he was there. 

“You’ve been warned!” 

***

“Look, there are twenty-two hockey players in this arena, and I ain’t one of them,” Moody says, and Remus can’t be sure, but he thinks Sirius looks at him. 

***

“You’re favouring your right leg,” Remus comments as soon as Sirius is off the ice. “Want me to take a look?”

“It’s fine, really—”

“I’ll try again. Want me to take a look?” 

“Yeah, that would be great. Thanks, Loops.”

“That’s what I thought you said.”

They walk into the PT room in businesslike silence, Sirius hoping all the way that one of them will break it. Neither does, and it isn’t until Remus has taken off both his skates for him, now expertly examining his left ankle, that he realizes what he should say. 

“You mentioned you played, last night.”

The finger tracing his Achilles tendon stills. “I did.” 

“Were you any good?” He knows, somewhere, that he’s entering forbidden territory. He can’t bring himself to care. 

“I’d like to believe so.”

“Be honest.” Sirens are blaring in his head. He keeps going. 

“There were rumours…” Remus bites his lip, glances away. “People said I was set for first.”

“What? How come you never said anything? C’mon, you need to play with us sometime, just scrimmage or something—”

“Maybe. That hit…”

“Right. God, I’m sorry, Rem.”

If Remus’s Adam’s apple bobs at the nickname, Sirius doesn’t notice. He certainly doesn’t try his best not to jump to conclusions. (Double negative; that’s a yes, a voice that sounds suspiciously like James’s says in his head. Shut up, he tells it.)

“It’s fine. Really. I just don’t like talking about it. And besides, I like this. Working with the team, even if I can’t be a part of it.”

“You are. A part of the team, I mean. Just as much as I am.”

“Sure.”

There’s another awkward pause before Remus clears his throat. “So, I’m gonna put on some anti-inflammatory gel because it’s a little swollen, but don’t get used to it. I want you to keep doing some stretches, not too much pressure. Capeesh?”

“What the fuck is a capeesh?”

“Just say it.”

“...Capeesh?”

“Awesome.” 

Remus leans forward towards him, their foreheads almost touching. Sirius’s breath catches. 

It’s over just as suddenly. The tube of extra-strength Voltaren is in Remus’s hand, and Sirius feels stupid for thinking he was going to—

Nope. Not thinking about that. 

When he feels tears start to prick at his eyes, he glances up at the fluorescent lights overhead; at least then he’ll have an excuse. There’s a moth resting on one. Its wings flutter once, twice, then go still. Fragile things, moths are—maybe it’s died, maybe it hasn’t. He could read into that, but he won’t. 

He jumps when the cool of the gel on Remus’s hands touches his foot. “Hey!” He yelps, looking quickly down. 

Sirius hates to succumb to cliches, but he would be lying if he was to say his heart doesn’t still. 

Because Remus has pulled the sleeves of his jacket up to his elbows, and his wrist is turned to the sky—to Sirius, who has seen that mark before somewhere. 

Somewhere. He’s kidding himself. He’s seen it every day whenever he bothers to look at his own soulmark, and he’s seeing it again now. 

“You know what, I’m fine,” he blurts out, shaking his ankle out of Remus’s grasp. “Thanks, though. See you later, Loops.” 

***

Remus stays there for a second, watching Sirius leave. He doesn’t know what he did wrong, and he’s not sure he wants to. 

When he gets up to leave, tossing the container towards the first aid kit on the bench and allowing himself a small smile when it lands perfectly inside, blood rushes to his head. He closes his eyes, waiting for the dizziness to pass. 

And then he crashes into Finn. 

“Whoa, sorry,” Remus says, stumbling backwards.

“Nah, don’t stress it. There’s just something I want you to check on.”

Remus is hit by a sense of deja vu. He wonders if Finn, too, is going to leave without explanation. He follows him back into the PT room, Finn gesturing for him to lock the door. 

Though he may be the shorter of the two, Remus knows it’s his job to be the bigger person. “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

Finn waits another moment before yanking one sleeve up to reveal three paw prints, each no bigger than a thumbnail, clustered together—one forest green, one golden, and one a deep navy blue. 

“Your soulmark.” Remus doesn’t understand. “What? Is something wrong?” 

“There’s three of them,” Finn says. “Which means there’s three of us.”

“You have two soulmates?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s fine, Finn. It may not be common, but it’s not unheard of. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.” 

“It’s not that. It’s… hey, you can’t tell anyone this, okay?”

“I know. Doctor-patient confidentiality, remember?”

“Right.” Finn takes a breath, squeezing his eyes closed. “What if I told you I know who they are? Or I think I do?” 

“Hypothetically?”

“Hypothetically.”

“Well, I’d ask you if they knew.”

“And I’d say I don’t think so. One of them’s pretty stubborn—wouldn’t see love if it stood up on the ice and sang the national anthem—and the other isn’t nineteen yet, so he doesn’t—I mean wouldn’t—have his mark yet.” 

“His?”

Finn’s eyes widen. There is a pause before he nods, slowly. “Yeah. Got a problem?”

“Trust me, I’m the last person on earth who’d have a problem with something like that. Hypothetically.” 

This, at least, earns Remus a smile. “Are you…?”

“Yeah.” 

“Cool.” Another pause. “What if I told you, still hypothetically, that they were both on the team?” 

“Then I’d say get the fuck out of here and win them over before they start thinking you’ve forgotten about them.” 

Finn, smiling ear to ear, starts to leave. “Wait,” he says, hand on the doorknob. “You said you were…”

“Gay.”

“Yeah. Do—do you know who your soulmate is?”

Remus opens his mouth to say ‘no.’ He really does. But what comes out—when he takes into account the look of recognition on Sirius’s face when Remus had his sleeves rolled up; the understanding that had passed between them outside Remus’s building (god, that was just last night); the way they’ve always just clicked—is most certainly not ‘no.’ 

“Oh, fuck, I think I do,” he says, and he and Finn run out into the hallway together. 

Sirius’s car is pulling out of the parking lot when Remus arrives, out of breath, at the front doors of the arena. 

“I don’t know why he’s in such a hurry.” Remus jumps. He hadn’t heard James come to stand beside him. “Just packed up his gear at the speed of light and left. Didn’t even shower; he said he’d do it at home.”

So Sirius had been so appalled—disgusted, even—at Remus being his soulmate that he’d left without explanation, with barely even a goodbye. There was a pleasant thought. 

He turns so his back is against the door, sliding slowly down to sit on the floor. 

“Y’know,” James says, sitting next to him, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you needed a hug.”

There’s a moment of comfortable silence before Remus says, “James?”

“Yeah?” 

“I need a hug.” 

James gives the best hugs. Everyone says so. But until now, Remus has never been on the receiving end of a true James Potter hug—warm, strong, and friendly as hell. (“I want that on a t-shirt,” James says when Remus tells him so.)

But eventually, James has to go, too, and Remus heads back to the PT room. He passes Logan in the hall, looking like he’s been hit over the head with a two-by-four. Maybe it’s Finn’s doing; he had mentioned that one of them was oblivious. Logan, Remus knows, is the definition of oblivious. 

***

“And I think that’s all,” Coach Weasley says, glancing around, “Unless anyone else has something to say? Moody? Cap? Loops?” 

“Actually, yes,” says Remus after a moment. “Checkups! Not naming names but Kris lied about his rib acting up so now all of you get to be interrogated.” 

Sirius swallows. He’s not anxious to be alone with Remus; not after yesterday. There’s no way there aren’t going to be questions. 

Kasey goes first, Remus taking just under five minutes to deem him ‘good to go.’ Kris, surprisingly, is only kept for eight, despite the claim of his ribs acting up again. Finn takes the longest—fifteen minutes—and as soon as he’s out he grabs Logan and Leo by the wrists and marches them off somewhere. Sirius’s turn comes last, right after Pascal’s, who gives him a knowing look as he enters.

“Hi,” Remus says, first aid kit nowhere in sight. “Sit down.” 

“Where?” Sirius gets only a shrug in response. 

He hesitates a moment, then sits on the floor, picking at the sole of his sneaker. 

“How are you feeling?” Remus asks suddenly.

“Fine. Ankle’s not bothering me any more.”

“No, I mean how are you feeling?”

Scoffing, he starts to stand up. “I’m not doing this.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.” 

“Sirius Black, sit your ass back down before I make you.” 

Sirius sits his ass back down. 

“Good. Now, how are you feeling?” 

“I’m… confused,” he says, trying to be honest without being specific. “And nervous. And I cried myself to sleep last night, which I haven’t done since I was like seventeen, so there’s that. But mostly I’m just really fucking mad.” 

“At me.” It isn’t a question. 

“No, not at you! At me! At the—” he gestures wildly. “—Universe, or whatever. Can I go now?” 

Remus doesn’t even acknowledge his request. “So you’re disappointed.”

“...Yeah.” 

“May I ask why?” 

“I’m pretty sure you fucking know why.” 

“Maybe I do. But I’d like you to explain it to me.” 

The stupid thing is that Sirius wants to talk about it. He really does. And Remus is the only person he can conceivably talk about it to. But he still chokes on his words when he says, anger burning his throat, “It was never supposed to be like this.” 

“What do you mean by that?”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Sirius practically screams. “Stop trying to fucking— psychoalalyze me or something, for fuck’s sake. You fucking asked, and I—” He tears his fingers through his hair, feeling his chest start to constrict. “Just stop talking!” 

The echoes of his shouts fade out too quickly, and the only thing worse than the voices is the sound of his breathing getting faster and faster. Remus’s hand twitches, as though he wants to touch him but thinks better of it.

“It was always supposed to be someone different. Someone faceless; nameless. Someone I could run away from. I can’t fucking run away from you, Remus.

“I always thought I could lie. That I could—pretend, or something. Just keep hiding. It was supposed to be someone I could hide from, because I’ve spent my whole life fucking hiding and that’s all I know how to do. It was never supposed to be someone I could fall in love with.” 

There’s a choked noise from where Remus is sitting on the bench, but nothing else. Sirius refuses to look at him. 

“And I just—I just fucking hate this, because all I’ve been told is that hockey comes before my dreams. And that’s made sense until now because until now hockey was my dream, but now there’s you. Yeah.” 

Remus, to his credit, waits until Sirius’s breathing has calmed down and he’s furiously wiped the tears from his eyes to speak. “What do you need?” 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean forget everything. Forget your family, forget the team, forget me—what do you need?  

“Right now? For the rest of my life? Because those are two very different things.” 

“Let’s start with now. Can I do anything for you? Can you do anything for yourself?” 

“I need a hot chocolate.” 

***

They wait until everyone else has gone, and then make their way outside to Sirius’s car. There’s only one other in the parking lot—a grey Toyota Remus thinks belongs to Nado, or maybe Kris. He’s not sure why he thinks it matters, because it doesn’t. 

Silence hangs around them the whole four blocks to the nearest Tim Horton’s. Inhale; exhale. Inhale; exhale. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything. 

That doesn’t stop Remus from hoping. 

He knows it’s wrong; of course he does. It’s Sirius’s choice, in the end, because Sirius is the one who will be most affected. His career, his life—all on the line if he decides to trust whatever plan the world has in store for them. It’s not like that for Remus. Not anymore. 

There’s a parking spot right outside the front door. Sirius pulls into it, but he doesn’t get out right away. He glances around, makes sure there’s no one immediately in sight, and then he looks down to where his hands now rest in in his lap. Slowly, he pulls up his right sleeve to expose, bit by bit, his soulmark. 

“I don’t know why I never guessed it could be you—Wolfy McWolf Wolf.” 

Remus feels his lips twitch upwards into something resembling a smile. “I could say the same, Dog Black.” 

When he puts his hand on the console, Sirius rests his on top of it. It’s not much. 

But it’s something. 

***

Sirius looks longingly at the Boston cream doughnuts. “Please. I haven’t had one in so long.” 

“Think again, Mr. I’m-on-a-diet-plan.” 

He’s not surprised. What was he thinking, having his PT as his soulmate? (Well, he wasn’t. He didn’t get to choose. But, he thinks to himself, the point still stands.) 

“I’ll have a medium hot chocolate, please, a plain toasted bagel,” Remus looks at him and sighs. “...And a Boston cream doughnut.” 

When the food is set down on the pickup counter, Remus snatches it before Sirius has a chance to. “Hey, this is my doughnut.” 

Sirius pouts. 

“You’re cute. Here.” He tosses him the brown paper bag, and Sirius removes his prize carefully. He‘s going to eat every piece of chocolate glazing if it kills him. 

Back out in the car—this is a conversation neither of them is willing to have in the public dining area—Remus chews on his bagel thoughtfully. Sirius tries and fails not to swear when his hot chocolate burns his tongue.

“Shit!” 

Remus glances over at him. Their eyes meet for a moment, then both look away. “So,” Sirius says after a while. “I think we need to talk.” 

“Yeah.” 

Silence, then—

“You go first,” they say at the same time, and laugh. Some of the tension is broken. 

Sirius reaches hesitantly to where Remus’s arm rests between the seats. He doesn’t need to voice his question—Remus sees it in his eyes; nods. 

Up close, he can see that there are a few differences between their marks. Nothing that could possibly mean they aren’t soulmates—just the discolouring on the dog’s tail; the angle of one of the sticks; the faded white gash that stretches from one side of Remus’s wrist to the other, separating the wolf’s head from its body. Sirius doesn’t quite know what he’s doing when he presses his lips to the scar. 

When he looks up, he sees that Remus is trying not to cry. And that’s when he makes his decision. 

“I want this,” he says, voice soft but sure. “All of it.”

[unforth]

So keeping in mind that I’ve literally already written a 40k Destiel fic inspired by Selena Gomez’s “Back to You,” today it came up on my play list and I started to think about ficcing it again, but this time Wangxian. It’s just such a ficcable song, I can’t even.

Like, a modern AU (set in the US) where Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were once dating, and Wei Wuxian started making friends with “the wrong sorts,” and so Lan Qiren forced Lan Wangji to dump him. They part ways for a few years.

Lan Wangji never really recovers, and he perfunctorily dates the people his uncle sets him up with, and his life kinda stalls...not that there’s anything wrong with it, just...it’s always the same, the same places, the same people, the same work, the same wake up time, the same daily routine, the same bedtime. Sometimes he’s not sure which he misses more - Wei Wuxian, or the disruption to his life that Wei Wuxian represents. He almost wishes that Wei Wuxian has gone as “bad” as Lan Qiren was so, so sure he would, because then it would be proof - that stepping outside the box is not the way to a good life, that Lan Wangji made the right choices even if he’s not happy with them, that kind of thing.

Wei Wuxian also never really recovers, but instead of letting it get him down, he’s even more determined to prove that he’s so much more than what snobs like Lan Qiren thought of him - and so are the friends he made, who are of course Wen Qing and Wen Ning. They also have really had a tough time, with a lot of people assuming the worst about them because of their family connections. The three make a pact together - to succeed, no matter what it takes, and to help each other whenever one of them starts to struggle. And it works. Though they’re a little behind their peers - they all go to college, and they all finish their degrees, they all get advanced ones. Wen Qing becomes a doctor. Wei Wuxian becomes an engineer. Wen Ning becomes a vet. They get respectable jobs, if poorly paid because that’s the economy in 2020s USA, and they’re slowly building lives for themselves. No one from the circles his adopted family move in will associate with him anyway - he got kicked out for some of his youthful shenanigans, and though he’s in touch with his siblings, his “parents” won’t acknowledge him - but he doesn’t care. He knows he’s succeeding, no matter what they say about him.

(read more)

Though Lan Wangji never stops thinking about Wei Wuxian, he refuses to Google him or look him up. Fantasize about him? Yes. Wish his current SO was them? Yes. Occasionally scroll through Jiang Yanli’s friends list just to make sure Wei Wuxian is still there? Yes. But he doesn’t look him up, doesn’t friend him, doesn’t outreach. Why should he? Some regrets are normal, but he’s over it - he’s definitely over it.

Not that Wei Wuxian expected him to. Lan Wangji broke his heart, and it hurt - oh, it hurt so much, but Wei Wuxian is definitely over him. Who needs that asshole anyway? Wei Wuxian knows his worth, and he doesn’t need the affection of someone who cast him aside at the say so of his uncle. If he occasionally comes moaning Lan Wangji’s name...that’s a perfectly normal thing to do as regards someone Wei Wuxian hasn’t dated in a decade, right? Lan Wangji was, and presumably still is, hot as fuck, and Wei Wuxian has a healthy labido

Which is to say, neither of them is over it at all.

Still, their mutual pining might have never come to a head if not for Lan Wangji’s best friend - Jin Zixuan - getting engaged to Wei Wuxian’s sister Jiang Yanli.

And then, suddenly, after so many years, they’re in frequent contact again - helping with planning the wedding - and, well...

For Wei Wuxian, it’s infuriating. There’s Lan Wangji, still quiet, still distant, and sometimes when Wei Wuxian glances his way, he can swear that he caught Lan Wangji looking at him with resentment and regret, which - that’s some fucking bullshit right there, cause it’s not Wei Wuxian who ditched Lan Wangji, not Wei Wuxian who caved to family pressure. That’s all Lan Wangji - what’s Lan Wangji got to resent?

For Lan Wangji, it’s awful. Wei Wuxian is at least 8 times more gorgeous than Lan Wangji remembers him being, tall and lithe, his hair long, his affect casual. Despite the same air of nonchalance he always projected, though, now he’s like that but ALSO educated, successful, and self-made. Every bad thing Lan Qiren said would come to pass for Wei Wuxian is now proven a lie, and Lan Wangji feels wretched about it. Even worse, Wei Wuxian is clearly single - and “ready to mingle,” as Lan Wangji believes the phrase goes. Literally anyone who breaths, of any gender, is apparently fair game, and Wei Wuxian flirts constantly, especially with members of Lan Wangji’s friends circle. Mo Xuanyu? The poor guy never knew what hit him. Lan Jingyi? Is like eight years to young for Wei Wuxian, but that doesn’t stop him. Ouyang Zizhen? Lan Wangji is pretty sure Wei Wuxian doesn’t even know Zizhen’s name - or his age - but again, when did any reasonable objection ever stop Wei Wuxian? Luo Qingyang? She’s a lesbian for fucks sake, but she apparently doesn’t mind, and even flirts back, and Wei Wuxian is incorrigible.

Maybe Lan Qiren was right after all.

Wei Wuxian is determined to flaunt what Lan Wangji missed out on, loudly and publicly. Mo Xuanyu does make for a fun fling, and Lan Jingyi is a good kisser but they never get farther than that. Ouyang Zizhen is definitely too young - and he’s straight - but he laughs along when Wei Wuxian is outrageous, and they understand each other. And Luo Qingyang...Wei Wuxian suspects she knows exactly what the score is, and is maybe even helping him.

Helping him make Lan Wangji miserable, that is.

Wei Wuxian is definitely not looking to accomplish anything else.

Unless he can secure a Plus One to the wedding, ideally one who can join the wedding party and stand beside Wei Wuxian when he and Jiang Cheng give Jiang Yanli away.

Cause, oh, the look on Lan Wangji’s face, if he’s forced to spend the entire wedding facing Wei Wuxian and his date? Priceless, definitely.

Lan Wangji is determined to give Wei Wuxian the space to do...whatever it is Wei Wuxian is doing. Wei Wuxian always was a whirlwind, and Lan Wangji has never wanted to control him, never known how to keep up. Still, it galls to see Wei Wuxian flirting, and it hurts to see Wei Wuxian act indifferently towards him, and it aches to remember that, had things been different, Lan Wangji could have been on the receiving end of all those lovely, carefree smiles.

Rather than deal with the difficulty he has breathing whenever he’s in the same room as Wei Wuxian is in the room, Lan Wangji throws himself into the logistic planning of the final weeks leading up to the wedding. He coordinates vendors. He soothes ruffled feathers. He makes sure the caterers know literally everyone’s dietary preferences and restrictions. He works, and he works, and he works, and he tries to do nothing but work, but sometimes...

...Wen Qing will wander by, take over his spreadsheet, and tell him to go socialize...

...or Wen Ning will intercept the decoration Lan Wangji was moving, lift it surprisingly effortlessly, and tell Lan Wangji to join the main gathering...

...or Luo Qingyang will come and lecture him about how hiding is dumb and maybe he’d actually meet someone new if he tried.

As if Lan Wangji will get to meet someone new.

As if Lan Qiren will let Lan Wangji be with them, even if Lan Wangji did.

They’re trying to help, but he can’t figure out why. Wen Qing and Wen Ning especially are barely even his friends - but they’re closer to Wei Wuxian than anyone else in the world...Lan Wangji can’t fathom what they’re up to. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost think they were trying to get him back together with Wei Wuxian? Which makes him think they don’t know Wei Wuxian half as well as they think they do, cause there’s no way that Wei Wuxian wants that - no way that Wei Wuxian wants him. Lan Wangji had his chance. He gets that.

(But, oh, it’d be nice to believe, even for a minute, even for a single dinner party, that maybe that would be something Wei Wuxian would want.)

But that’s impossible.

So Wei Wuxian flirts shamelessly.

And Lan Wangji hides behind duty and a stoic facade.

And the day of the wedding approaches - they get through the rehearsal dinner, the bachelor and bachelorette parties, the hangovers the next morning, all of it...and then it’s time.

Lan Wangji knows he should be watching Jin Zixuan, dressed in full Chinese traditional garb for an utterly Western style wedding, but instead he can’t keep his eyes off the opposite wedding party. Luo Qingyang is maid of honor, in a chongseom that makes no sense as either traditional Chinese or modern Western - and Jiang Yanli insisted on her brothers standing at her side, and so Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are both there.

In tuxedos.

A sharp contrast to the robes in muted colors that Jin Zixuan picked out for his wedding party.

And Jiang Cheng still has a look on his face like he stepped in something gross and is too dignified to wipe it off on the carpeting, but Wei Wuxian...oh, Wei Wuxian is so perfect, absolutely flawless, and his pleasure is so obviious and uninhibited. From the moment the tent flaps open and Jiang Fengmian walks his daughter, in full Phoenix robes and an elaborate golden head dress (a family heirloom, no less), Wei Wuxian only has eyes for his sister, and his joy for her is spectacular and makes Lan Wangji’s chest ache.

As the ceremony commences - Western secular, seriously, what, not that it’s a surprise, Lan Wangji helped plan it, but it’s still weird - Lan Wangji looses himself in the rhythm of non-religious liturgy and imagining that, had his life gone differently, how Wei Wuxian looks now might have been how he’d have looked on their wedding day.

He wants that so badly.

He so, so desperately wishes that could have been.

For once, Lan Wangji isn’t wrong about Wei Wuxian’s train of thought. He’s got eyes for no one but Jiang Yanli - well, and a small aside of imagining all the ways he’ll make Jin Zixuan regret ever being born, should he ever hurt her. The ceremony passes so quickly he’s amazed - usually he’s super impatient and antsy during events like this - but no, he’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine, he’s...and then it’s over, and he glances to the groom’s party, and he realizes...Lan Wangji is staring at him.

Reflecting back over the ceremony...Lan Wangji has been staring at him the whole time?

And seriously - what the fuck is up with that? What had Wei Wuxian done wrong this time? Was it the tux? Lan Wangji coordinated the rental, if he’d objected to the Western attire, he had plenty of time to say something. Was it the way Wei Wuxian was rocking back on his heels? As if Jiang Yanli didn’t know Wei Wuxian couldn’t stand still - as if she’d ever hold that against him! His mind scrambles through explanations, each more ridiculous and rude than the last...no matter what the reason is, he’s sure that his existence offends Lan Wangji, as it also offended Lan Qiren. If it didn’t, why would Lan Wangji have treated him so indifferently since they re-met?

(It definitely isn’t because Wei Wuxian has intentionally kept him at arms length, oh no, this - whatever this is - is absolutely entirely Lan Wangji’s fault.)

Still, now that he’s aware of Lan Wangji’s condemnation, Wei Wuxian can’t stop thinking about it. It preoccupies him all through agonizingly dull hour of taking group photographs in various places in the picturesque garden, and all through the brief period he actually gets to spend during the passed platter part of the reception - hors d’ouevres to tide the guests over while the family and wedding parties do the pictures - and all through the achingly dull meal. The food is good, Wei Wuxian supposes. The wedding has been nice, Wei Wuxian supposes. Jiang Yanli is elated, Wei Wuxian knows, and he’s delighted for her, but...somehow, the joy has drained out of the evening.

Fucking Lan Wangji - can’t behave himself for one fucking evening, he’s even going to ruin this for Wei Wuxian.

Fuck it - as soon as the meal is over, and the first dances done, and the reception switches from staid social affair to open bar dance party, Wei Wuxian resolves to get sloshed as fast as humanly possible. Anything to stop him from thinking so damn much.

Lan Wangji is one of a handful of designated drivers amongst the people in his generation - he’s expecting to do at least three runs back to the hotel, starting with the bride and groom, then all the Jin half-siblings, then probably the Jiangs, judging by how they’re behaving so far, and then...he doesn’t know, but he suspects there’ll be others. Looking around as the evening grows later, the music louder, and the dancing more raucous, he tries to do a mental tally, and realizes...something is wrong.

No, nothing is wrong...someone is missing.

Where’s Wei Wuxian?

Confused, Lan Wangji looks around again. Wei Wuxian had been dancing - with his sister, with his brother in law, with Luo Qingyang, with Mo Xuanyu, with the folks a half-generation younger like Lan Jingyi, with anyone or anyone, by himself...but no...Luo Qingyang is dancing with Wen Qing, if “intense dance floor frottage” can be considered dancing...and Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli are dancing together, and Mo Xuanyu is flirting with some guy Lan Wangji doesn’t recognize, and the half-generation younger folks are teasing some poor Jiang junior, and Wei Wuxian has been exuberantly present for much of the evening, and now he’s just...gone.

As drunk as Wei Wuxian appeared to be, that can’t be good.

So, concerned - just that Wei Wuxian is drunk and might have tried something dumb, like driving home himself, or gotten lost on the way to the bathroom, or needed to throw up, not about anything else, Lan Wangji is definitely not concerned about Wei Wuxian in any other respect - Lan Wangji goes in search of Wei Wuxian.

He checks around the outside of the tent - nothing.

He checks inside the venue’s main building - nothing.

He checks the bathrooms - nothing.

He checks the parking lots - nothing, and of course Wei Wuxian didn’t take a vehicle, he didn’t drive himself.

He checks everywhere he can think, as the night grows later and darker and the party proceeds and the oldest, most staid guests start to say their goodbyes.

Finally, tired, out of ideas, and disinterested in returning to the loud bright heat of the tent, Lan Wangji goes for a walk through the manicured grounds. Even in the dark of night, the place the Jin-Jiang’s chose is lovely. Scattered decorative lights cast barely enough light to navigate the lanes and paths, aided by a full moon and the occasional flicker of a firefly. There’s a koi pond in the center - they took a lot of pictures there - and a few stone benches around it, so Lan Wangji meanders in that direction. He can still hear the party. He’ll know when they need him. He really needs some time to himself - it’s all been too much.

He tries not to think too hard about what “it” actually refers to in that thought.

Nothing Wei Wuxian does diffuses the empty feeling in his chest; every drink, he feels worse. Every dance, he feels more like he’s putting on an act. His friends were starting to notice - Luo Qingyang and Wen Qing had exchanged a look and then rounded on him like they were going to pin him down and force him to...or try to force him to...talk about his ~feelings~, and so Wei Wuxian fled into the gardens, found a bench where he could listen to the soft sussuration of flowing water somehow audible over the thump of the bass, and breathe.

It’s been a long time since Wei Wuxian felt like he could breathe.

He still doesn’t feel like he can breathe.

Which is ridiculous, he knows, and he’s in the process of going into extensive internal detail of why it’s ridiculous when a damn ghost steps into the clearing around the koi pond...

...no, not a ghost...it’s Lan Wangji, cheeks pale from how much time he spends in doors, robes nearly white when their pale blue is washed out by the moonlight, hair raven falling about his shoulders. His headband frames his noble brow, and his corsage rains a trail of vining flowers over one shoulder like some strange epaulette, and oh, he’s gorgeous, and Wei Wuxian recognizes, to his horror, in that instant...

...he’s never, ever, ever been over Lan Wangji, and he never will be...

...and he’ll never, ever, ever get to be with Lan Wangji. Like, ever.

Lan Wangji is staring at him.

Fuck Wei Wuxian’s life.

“I’ll just...go...” Wei Wuxian mumbles.

The statement hangs heavy in the night air as Wei Wuxian rises, straightens his tux, heads toward the pathway that Lan Wangji just entered from...and then stops.

Because Lan Wangji has grabbed his forearm.

“Oh come on, man - what the fuck?” Wei Wuxian demands, yanking his arm away. “Look, I get it, I’m your least favorite person - well, the wedding’s done, you’ll never have to see me again if you don’t want. Is that what you want? Would that finally make you happy?”

He’s breathing hard by the time he stops talking, and Lan Wangji is still staring at him, and Wei Wuxian wants to flee - not to the tent, but to...literally anywhere...anywhere that Lan Wangji isn’t...except he can’t make his legs work, and he can’t seem to move, and Lan Wangji won’t. stop. staring. and then Lan Wangji opens his mouth, and it seems to be in slow motion, and is he actually going to speak, holy shit, Lan Wangji hasn’t said a word to Wei Wuxian since he said, “good bye” ten years ago, and then of all the fucking things to come out of Lan Wangji’s mouth, all he says is,

“No.”

“Wha...why...ho...WHAT?”

“You asked, ‘is that what I want? Would that make me happy?’ The answer is no, Wei Ying. That is not what I want. That would not make me happy.”

“Oh. Well. Fucking good for you.” Wei Wuxian doesn’t even know what the fuck he’s saying. He doesn’t know what the fuck Lan Wangji is saying. All he knows is that being there hurts, and he’s so damn tired of hurting, and Lan Wangji already destroyed him once...

...and I’d give anything for five minutes with him, even if I know he’ll likely destroy me again...

“What do you want?” asks Lan Wangji, like he actually cares about the answer, and Wei Wuxian can only goggle at him, because he was so so incredibly clear about what he wanted ten years ago - he even fucking asked Lan Wangji to marry him, said, “I’ll do anything, conquer any challenge - we can make this life together, Lan Zhan,” and Lan Wangji had just said, “Good bye,” and now, now, Lan Wangji wants to know what Wei Wuxian wants? What gives him the right? What gives him the entitlement? What gives him the audacity?

What makes him think anything Wei Wuxian wants has changed?

But Wei Wuxian can’t say that, can he...?

The silence stretches out between them.

Neither moves.

Neither speaks.

Fireflies flit around them.

Lan Wangji dreads Wei Wuxian answering, dreads him walking away, dreads losing this last precious moment they share, even though the tension of this moment is so awful that Lan Wangji fears it will break him.

“What would you say if...if I said that all I want...is all I’ve ever wanted?” whispers Wei Wuxian, like he’s terrified.

Lan Wangji has no idea why he’s terrified.

Lan Wangji has no idea what he means.

He asks with a raised brow, and Wei Wuxian laughs awkwardly. “Naw, I can’t do the ‘silent Lan act’ right now. Use your words, I’m fucking right out of here, okay?”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try.” It’s ludicrously hard, but...for Wei Wuxain, Lan Wangji will always try, always regret that he didn’t try harder when he should have. “I...don’t understand. You say...what you always wanted. A degree. A found family. Your siblings at your side. A pet rabbit. An apartment with a bidet. A signed copy of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.’ There were many things you said you wanted. I’m afraid I’m unclear which you mean.”

“You...you remember all that dumb shit I said back then?” Wei Wuxian sounds astonished. How can Wei Wuxian sound astonished? How can Wei Wuxian believe Lan Wangji would have forgotten a minute of those wonderful days - the best of his life?

“Mn.”

“Well, none of that shit’s what I mean. Got most of it anyway. Bidets are awesome. But Lan Wangj...Lan Zhan...”

His name, said in that sweet voice, causes a tingle to go down Lan Wangji’s spine.

“...all I’ve ever wanted was you.”

Lan Wangji’s jaw drops.

“And you told me to fuck right out of your life when I asked for that, so...fuck, what am I even still doing here?”

“Kissing me.”

“Wha--”

Lan Wangji interrupts Wei Wuxian’s confused exclamation with action - grapping Wei Wuxian’s shoulders and pulling him into a kiss. It’s rude, and inappropriate, and consent - what consent? - and Wei Wuxian doesn’t reciprocate but...oh well. Lan Wangji has already ruined his love life. At least he can have one kiss to remember fondly, to cherish, to--

--and then Wei Wuxian has an arm around Lan Wangji’s shoulder, their bodies pressed together, their lips moving as one, and oh, it’s good - glorious - Lan Wangji could weep he’s so happy. They kiss, and kiss, and kiss, shifting in the moonlight, lost in their embrace. Lan Wangji is breathless and growing dizzy, but he’s terrified to put space between them - what if this is goodbye? What if it’s just Wei Wuxian flirting, like he flirts with everyone? What if...what if...what if...

But finally, they do part, and scantly, bodies still close, embrace still maintained, faces inches apart.

“What’s going on, Lan Zhan?” asks Wei Wuxian weakly.

“I kissed you.”

“Yeah...got that part...but why...?”

“I know I’ve no right to ask this...but would you try again? With me? With us? Would you--?”

Wei Wuxian is kissing him again before Lan Wangji can finish the question.

Wei Wuxian can’t believe that’s a real question Lan Wangji has to ask - as if Wei Wuxian wouldn’t have taken Lan Wangji back anytime, at the drop of a hat, over the past decade.

(Okay, that’s unfair...Wei Wuxian’s actually been a huge dick about it...he knows Lan Wangji had no independent living, and relied on his family, and Wei Wuxian was just some aimless jackass, and, and, and...but it still stung that Lan Wangji wouldn’t throw all cares to the wind to be with Wei Wuxian, as Wei Wuxian would have done - had done - to be with Lan Wangji.)

But it feels dumb to dwell on that when Lan Wangji is in his arms, kissing him so eagerly, asking if he’ll try again.

Because of fucking course Wei Wuxian will try again.

“I don’t know what that means, Wei Ying,” says Lan Wangji with obvious frustration.

Kiss.

“It means yes,” Wei Wuxian replies.

Kiss.

“Yes?”

Kiss.

“Yes.”

Kiss.

“Always?”

Kiss.

“If you’ll have me back...”

Kiss.

“As if I’d ever turn you down!”

Kiss.

“Already did once...”

Kiss.

“And regretted it endlessly.”

Kiss.

“Good. You deserved at least that much suffering.”

Kiss.

“Deserved it, and more.”

Kiss.

“I suppose I’ll forgive you, if...”

Kiss.

“Anything. Just tell me.”

Kiss.

Oh, Wei Wuxian has so many ideas, and he delights in teasing Lan Wangji with each and every one, whispered between husky breaths in to the cooling air, interrupting himself constantly to kiss, and kiss, and kiss.

They’re still making out by the koi pond when Wen Qing and Luo Qingyang come looking for the promised designated driver.

They don’t even consult - or consider interrupting - when they do find the two idiots locked in an embrace. As one, the ladies turn, exchange a silent, smug high-five, and pull out their phones to order Ubers.

They can pay for rides for the Bride and Groom and family members and other drunken party goers.

Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have a lot of catching up to do.

(and done)

(oops, this got long)

(and yes, this is absolutely a mash up of a modern AU with the lyrics to “Go Back to You” with a healthy dose of the plot of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion.”)

[vtforpedro]

health update - long post

hi everyone! I think it's been a month and a half or so since my last update I saw a rheumatologist, had MRIs done, and got my results back from my hematologist SO cancer: still undetectable in my blood, check every 3 months and hope it doesn't show up for a long time lol \o/ I don't think I can say I'm in remission until a certain amount of time has passed but I hope I can say that one day MRIs: actually show some possible improvement with the chiari and spinal fluid flow? and if there IS improvement (like the radiologist who wrote the report had the MRI from a year ago as reference and his findings were all 'normal' compared to april 2020, but it was hard to get an answer out of my neurologist and neurosurgeon if there was solid evidence of physical improvement). but yeah IF there's improvement, that is highly indicative of IIH because my neurosurgeon told me when people with IIH lose weight, the chiari often corrects itself because there's less pressure and more room in the skull for the cerebellar tonsils to be in a normal position. regular chiari that you're born with doesn't do that lol so if there IS improvement with weight loss, then yeah, IIH. even if they don't wanna put in the diagnostic code for it without a lumbar puncture sigh lol I hate typing this because I'm so paranoid it'll all go to shit if I talk about it, but there have been improvements as I've lost weight. I seem to have a couple weeks where my head isn't so severe, mostly manageable with a few awful days. then I'll have a few weeks of it being Really Really bad with a few not-so-awful days. which IIH can do this sort of 'remission' thing but considering it was like 24/7 with no breaks for a year I'd say this is moving in the direction I want it to completely changed my diet a handful of months ago and adjusting it still to be even healthier/more fulfilling. I started using the Noom app (paid sub version) cause it's so focused on psychology instead of 'dieting' and building habits that are sustainable in the long, long-term. I really love it so far. the routine of doing it at the same time every day has already made me feel better mentally about my weight loss journey despite my struggles with losing weight, I am officially down 20lbs \o/ they say for improving/curing IIH, you need to lose 10-20% of your body weight. well, 10% down! time to lose another 20, but I don't find it intimidating and I'm not dreading it. it's hard to have hope, especially on really bad weeks, but I'm taking it one day at a time. definitely not cured but I'm aiming for 40lbs more (so 60 altogether) and by then, maybe, just maybe.... rheumatologist/autoimmune disorder results: so I went to a rheum cause I got that positive autoimmune disorder blood test with the possibility of lupus or scleroderma. she said that she gets so many hematology patients because leukemia and lymphoma have blood antibodies, so it will almost always show up as positive on this antibody test and most people actually won't have an additional autoimmune disorder. I don't have a lot of symptoms of lupus or scleroderma according to her, so she told me don't worry about autoimmune disorders for three months. don't think about them. we'll repeat labs then and see what they say. so that's good news so far and I hope it remains that way 15%+ of the population will test positive on the same test without having any health issues, which I found interesting. and I asked since I already have an autoimmune disorder, tho it's endocrine versus rheumatic, if that would also trigger a positive result and she said yes it would! so yeah... I hope by late July I can still say I don't have an additional autoimmune disorder I see a gastroenterologist tomorrow for the bloating/abdominal pain and other stuff I've been having. I have a feeling I'll be given some antacids (or w/e they're called when it's prescription strength) and that will improve. but jfc I'm up to eight specialists now lol NINE doctors are following my health god it's such a shitty feeling especially when I can barely trust any of them. at

least they all believe me now, but it cost me my quality of life and mental health to even get to this point so I'm still feeling pretty fucking bitter and angry about it all you know what's really hard about completely changing my diet + starting new medications/supplements? for some reason at the beginning of all of this when I was experiencing repeated trauma at the ER, my brain developed a phobia of allergic reactions, despite the fact that I've never had one for food/medicine (I'm talking anaphylactic reactions). so now every single new thing I eat, every new med or supplement, I go through panic attacks for days on end thinking I'm going to die before it starts easing. also, anxiety makes your throat feel like it's closing up and that it's harder to breathe already so lmao fun times. I literally never thought about this in all my life and I never even experienced an allergic reaction to develop this intense fear, so you know. fuck doctors for putting me through this when it was all so unnecessary sigh anyway. still can't watch videos, tv, movies, read, bend over, walk for longer than 5 minutes, and can't talk for long either because it'll trigger a head episode. I'm terrified I won't be able to do these things ever again, but I'm still aiming for my goal weight no matter what and I know I can get there bouncing between misery and hopelessness, and slightly less misery and some hope right now, but I guess that's better than it's been for a year, right? sorry for rambling. I feel like a lot has gone on but I've also had the biggest gaps between doc appts in a while which is a relief just because I can't stand being in medical buildings or around doctors anymore completely vaccinated too, so that's another relief, but I'm wearing masks until americans get their heads out of their asses and we start seeing little to no community spread cause I am still immunocompromised. wouldn't it be nice if people like, idk, cared about each other ok sorry! I hope you're all well and healthy and safe. I love you very much and I'm grateful for your support, forever and always! <3

[bbyboybrock--archived]

Shipped (Colby Brock Imagine)

Summary: *REQUEST* Omg your requests are open!! Can you do something about colby and reader dating in secret and she’s always hyping him up on everything and fans just think it’s cause they are best friends. But she posts a post wearing the love for hire letterman on accident and the fans connected it because Kat and Tara have it to so they figure out they are dating and go crazy (in a good way) for them 🥺❤️

Written: 2020

Word Count: 1,967

Warnings: Major fluff, Swearing

Masterlist

I harassed Colby into letting me listen to their new music. Let’s just say, when you guys hear this, you’re going to be glad One Direction is on a break. Can’t help but stan L4H!! #numeber1fan

I press "send tweet" before plugging in my phone and taking a quick shower. When I get out of the shower I grab my phone and throw myself onto Colby’s bed. It’s our bed at this point. I spend more time at the trap house than I do my apartment, I might as well move in. I go and read the comments under my tweet. Most of them are good. Some fans want me to leak the boys' music, others are freaking out over mine and Colby’s friendship. Someone makes it a point to mention how cute Colby and I would be as a couple and linked an edit that they made. Someone commented that fans like them, the one that posted the edit, are the problem and the reason why Colby doesn’t have any friends who are girls. There is a whole fight going on under that comment.

I quickly try to defuse the situation between the fans before exiting twitter altogether. I take my towel off of my damp hair and walk back into Colby’s bathroom to detangle it. When I finish doing my hair I grab the first jacket of Colby’s that I see to get warm. Lucky for me, it’s his Love for Hire lettermen jacket. For whatever reason, this jacket is more comfortable than any hoodie I’ve stolen during our entire relationship, maybe it’s because it smells strongly like him. Or maybe it’s because I get to finally live out my high school dream of wearing my boyfriend’s lettermen. Either way, Colby knows that this is my jacket now and he’s going to have to fight me to the death for it back. I don’t know if it’s because I freshly showered and my hair is fluffy, or because my skin is thanking me for not putting makeup on it yet, but something is compelling me to take a selfie in Colby’s bathroom mirror.

I get up on to the counter and try to position myself comfortably. I take a few selfies, while carefully not exposing Colby’s messy counter. I do cute poses with peace signs and my tongue sticking out. I do serious “model” poses with hair looking like I’m in a photoshoot. I take a couple and post them on my Instagram story. I triple check each one before pressing send to make sure they end up on my close friends’ list and not my public story. That would be disastrous. I saw how people were acting in the comments of my tweet supporting Colby when a fan posted an edit wishing we were dating. I can’t imagine how his fan base would react if they knew we really are dating and have been for well over a year.

Well, I can imagine how they would react, I’ve been around Colby long enough to figure out how his fanbase functions. Most of his fans would be supportive. Of the majority, there would be roughly half who constantly would show their support over our relationship. The other half would keep quiet and try not to mention it directly so they don’t “jinx” it. No matter how open Colby is with his fans, there is still so much of his life that he has to keep private from the rest of his fans who wouldn’t be supportive of our relationship. The obsessive ones who think that Colby is a toy and belongs to only them. In all honesty, Colby and I probably would have been together longer if it wasn’t for them. We probably wouldn’t have been friends. There was a period in his life when he wouldn’t make any new female friends because of what his old friends had to go through. Because of that, Colby has always been protective of me.

Even though we’ve been friends since he moved to Los Angles, he only introduced me to his fandom two years ago. Even then, it wasn’t like, boom: “here’s a girl that I’m friends with, be nice!” Colby made sure I was properly acclimated to his side of internet stardom by having me appear in all of his other friends’ videos and photos first before a strand of my hair was placed in one of his videos. And then he said, “here’s a girl that I’m friends with, be nice!” Being a Youtuber myself, I have some experience with fandoms. But nothing could prepare me for his intense fans. For the first couple of months after Colby put me on his channel, I understood why Colby kept so many of girl friends in the dark or why some chose to stop being friends with Colby in general. It’s only a select few fans, but when there are so many comments of harassment and death threats it can get overwhelming.

Those comments died down after a while though. Mostly because I either mute certain words from my comments or I don’t read them. Colby and I try really hard to hide our relationship. If we’re in videos together, we don’t sit too close. We keep our hands to ourselves; even a simple hand on the shoulder can cause a frenzy. We only post our couple pictures on our actual secret Instagram accounts and close friends list. Our friends know not to post anything where we might look too much like a couple. We make it a point to bicker like siblings whenever we do work together. Hell, the reason I still have my apartment is to avoid people finding out we’re dating. If I have my own place, people just think I’m visiting the guys whenever I’m over. And it works, everyone just assumes that we’re really close friends.

“I’m back and I bring food!” Colby yells as he opens the door to the room. I plug my dying phone back into the charger before abandoning it in the bathroom to greet Colby.

“Oh thank God, I was beginning to think you were with your hoes. But then I ran into Sam, Jake, and Corey in the kitchen so I relaxed.” I give Colby a quick kiss and help him with the shopping bags in his hand. I set them on the bed and start going through them.

“I wish, but they were too busy for me. So I went and got us stuff for this weekend.” Colby sets the food down and helps me unload the bags.

“Oh that reminds me, we need to stop by my place after dinner so I can pack my things.” Te whole friend group is renting a log cabin in woods for Thursday to Monday morning for bonding and to get a few collars done. Colby went and got a few road trip snacks without me. Probably because I would get distracted at Target and we would never leave. It’s fine, he remembered to get my favorite snacks.

“Yeah, okay, I figured. We could have gone earlier but I had to let you sleep in after you spent all night watching tiktoks.” Colby walks over to the couch and starts to set up our lunch in front of the tv.

“To be fair, I’m not responsible for the time lost when I’m on the tok. Besides, I learned more dances to teach you!” I take off Colby’s jacket and set it at the foot of the bed before joining Colby on the couch.

“Of course you did. You know how much I love learning a new TikTok dance every day.” Colby jokes before kissing my forehead. He hands me my food and turns on Netflix.

A few minutes into our show, there’s a loud, rapid knock at the door. Annoyed, Colby paused the show and puts his food down.

“What?” Colby asks as he gets up to open the door. Sam stands on the other side, relieved. The last time Sam knocked on the door like that, Colby and I were busy… rearranging furniture.

“Oh Colby, you’re home. But I’m not here for you. Y/N, did you mean to post that on your story?” Colby moves aside to let Sam in.

“Haha, Sammy, I’m not falling for that one. Colby already tried that on me last week.” I go back to eating my food and ignore Sam.

“No, I’m being serious. Katrina said she kept trying to reach you but you’re not answering. Fans are freaking out on twitter.”

“Oh shit!” I quickly put down my food and grab my phone in the bathroom. There are miss calls and texts from Kat, Tara, and Devyn. I unlock my phone and open Instagram to check my story. Sure enough, I accidentally sent one of my selfies to my main story instead of my close friends. The selfie looks harmless enough, except I’m wearing Colby’s jacket and it’s very obvious that I’m in his bathroom. Jake moved in some of the cardboard Colby’s into Colby’s room and one of them faces the mirror, you can kind of see it in the selfie. Most people might think nothing of it, but earlier this week Kat and Tara posted pictures of them wearing Sam and Jake’s jackets. With that association alone, everyone is going to find out.

“I don’t get it, there’s only a selfie on here. Did you already delete it?” Colby yells from the bedroom. I slowly walk out of the bathroom with a confused look on his face.

“Please tell me you’re joking.” I open up my story and check how many people have seen it.

“What, I’m lost… Oh… Oh! Oh, fuck!” Colby finally gets it and does something on his phone.

“‘Oh fuck’ is right. So many people took screenshots that even if I deleted it now, it would be pointless.” I walk to the bed and throw myself facedown, like a teen in a movie after having a shitty day at school.

“And you guys are trending on Twitter,” Sam says. I almost forgot he was still here.

“Dude,” Colby warns.

“Not helpful, I get it. I’ll be downstairs if you need me.” Sam leaves the room and I let out a scream as soon as I hear the door close. I feel the spot next to me sink as Colby sits down and starts rubbing my back.

“Hey, Y/N, these aren’t as bad as you think. I’m only seeing positive messaged. Look,” Colby gently pats my back to get my attention.

“Really? Let me see.” I sit up, sniffle, and peek at Colby’s phone as he reads.

“Are you crying?” Colby asks as he wipes my face.

“I immediately got overwhelmed. Let me read the tweets.” I take Colby’s phone scroll through the tweets. He’s right, they’re mostly positive. I haven’t seen a negative tweet yet. That’s the opposite of how I thought this would go. A few people are telling other fans to stop assuming, but even those are calm compared to the fight I saw earlier.

“See, I guess we were stressed all this time for no reason. We can do normal couple things like our friends and not go out of our way to hide everything.”

“That’ll be nice. It was getting exhausting. What do we do now? How do you want to approach this? Live stream? Youtube video?” I look at Colby and he has a big smile on his face.

“Right now, let’s just finish lunch. We can deal with this later. Now, I’m going to take this back. I don’t want you to start crying again.” Colby strokes my hair and kisses my forehead.

“I love you, Colbs,” I say softly.

“I love you too, Y/N.”

[roboticonography]

Fic Preview: Except Perhaps in Spring

Dear @formerlyir,

I’m your Secret Santa! I’ve so enjoyed getting to know you in 2020, and I look forward to many more chats and Snippets Mondays. I guess now you know why I was so cagey with you about what I was working on for the exchange! ;)

It’s been a lot of fun working on a story just for you, but December has been an eventful month for me, and in the end it got away from me a little. So here’s a taste of your story, “Except Perhaps in Spring.” I hope you have as much fun reading it as I’ve had writing it.

Happy New Year!

=======

As she would maintain for many years afterwards, Peggy hadn’t wanted to go to the pub in the first place.

It wasn’t that she disapproved of such amusements. She liked a stiff drink as much as the next field agent (though not, perhaps, as much as Colonel Phillips, who kept a bottle of bourbon at the back of his middle desk drawer for “medicinal purposes”).

And she appreciated that the boys from the 107th invited her along on their madcap outings—not out of a misguided sense of chivalry, or some crack-brained scheme to charm her out of her knickers, but because they genuinely enjoyed her company.

Along with their fearless leader, the three biggest troublemakers of the group were in London for one night to accept an award on behalf of the 107th. Dugan, Barnes, and Morita had been invited to accompany Steve to the award ceremony, but not to any of the PR opportunities that followed. While Steve spent his afternoon posing for pictures with various elected officials, his boys would spend theirs loitering around the SSR’s London headquarters, trying to convince Peggy to come out on the town with them that night.

Peggy was in no mood.

It had been raining in sheets all day, and her umbrella had already given out on the walk in. The cavernous underground war room was freezing: everyone was wearing scarves and gloves at their stations. 

Peggy’s office—little more than an alcove with a door, really—had sprung a leak during the night, which meant she’d arrived that morning to find a stack of finished paperwork completely drenched. Aside from shoving her desk against the wall and putting a rubbish bin under the steady drip, there wasn’t much to be done.

Thanks to some especially severe belt-tightening, there was no comfort to be had even in a hot drink: the coffee was dismal sludge, the tea in the communal bucket had been stewed to within an inch of its life, and there was, naturally, no milk or sugar to be found anywhere on the premises.

Peggy had spent most of her day hunched over her typewriter, re-typing a twelve-page report that Colonel Phillips would undoubtedly skim for two seconds before it would disappear into the SSR’s vast storehouse of files, never to be seen again.

So when the invitations started, Peggy’s polite-but-firm no, thank you was already locked and loaded, and her aim was true.

She hadn’t counted on the boys being either bored or bold enough to try their luck again as a trio, wedging themselves into her office three abreast, with Dugan as the filling in the sandwich.

“I said no, gentlemen.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard this song before,” said Dugan, grinning. 

“Me too,” chimed in Barnes. “‘Her lips said no, but her eyes said—’”

“On your bike,” said Peggy curtly.

“She’ll change her tune when we tell her who’s coming,” said Dugan. “Won’t she, boys?”

His companions gave solemn nods.

“Yep,” said Morita, drawing the word out. “She’ll come around pretty quick when she hears that we convinced him.”

Peggy glared at each of them in turn. 

“All right,” she said at last. “Who is it?”

“Me, of course,” said Howard, shoving his way in between Morita and Dugan. “See? I told you she’d be excited.”

“Thrilled,” Peggy deadpanned.

“I think she thought we meant someone else,” said Barnes.

“Someone taller,” Dugan agreed.

Howard feigned indignance. “Taller, maybe, but I can guarantee I’m a better dancer. Did you know there’s a leak in your ceiling?” he added helpfully.

“Right. All of you, out.”

The unholy barbershop quartet reluctantly took its leave.

It wasn’t the first time they’d implied that there was something between her and Steve. She didn’t appreciate them doing it in earshot of her office colleagues, though she was certain there must be talk already: Steve’s last visit to HQ had ended in a legendary bust-up between them, after she’d interrupted him with Private Lorraine, mid-embrace.

She wasn’t only angry that he’d kissed someone else. She was angry that he’d kissed a woman he barely knew, after he’d made himself out to be a different sort of man. She’d felt foolish for believing him, for liking him, when he’d told her he was waiting for the right partner.

She was angry that he’d had the nerve, afterwards, to try and brush it aside, pretending it hadn’t meant anything. If a kiss like that didn’t mean anything, how many others had there been? And how many more would there be while they were apart?

(And, though she’d never admit it, she was angry that Steve appeared to be a decent kisser.)

Then, to add insult to injury, he’d brought up Howard’s one-sided flirting—as though she had any control over the invitations and innuendo men chose to pitch at her day after day, as casually and aimlessly as they dropped their litter in the street.

If that was all it took to drive Steve into the arms of another woman, then perhaps it was best that they remained separated by the English Channel for the time being.

*

Peggy applied herself to her work, ignoring any further overtures. As much as she appreciated the inclusion, she didn’t want to spend her evening sitting in a smoky pub, drinking cheap beer and bellowing herself hoarse. She wanted a warm bath and a warm bed. There was only one person she was interested in inviting to join her in either, and even if she hadn’t still been a bit cross with him, the chance of her seeing him at all on this brief visit grew more remote with every hour that passed. His itinerary included supper with Senator Brandt at his hotel, and was liable to be a late night—the senator’s aide had also arranged for a room for Steve at the hotel, presumably to avoid cutting their evening short.

She was grateful Steve would have a chance to get a decent meal and a good night’s sleep while he was in London, even if it meant she wouldn’t get to see his preposterously good-looking face in person. She knew from the dispatches that he was doing gruelling work, and that he often passed up opportunities for respite so that other men could take leave.

By six, it seemed as though the boys from the 107th had all cleared off at last, along with the rest of the office. Peggy slipped into the women’s locker room to change clothes. Transit to and from home in uniform for women was allowed, but not precisely encouraged—and the uniform had a way of making a person more approachable, which was the very last thing Peggy wanted just now. 

She quickly tidied her hair, and reapplied her lipstick and a small dab of eau de toilette, before donning her trusty navy shirtwaist dress. It was slightly threadbare at the cuffs and collar, but still serviceable, and a decent fit, even if it wasn’t as stylish as one might wish for. Peggy knew that plain outfits were a small sacrifice for such a worthy cause—but she still longed for the day when she could have a new dress every season, with features and embellishments, in colours so rich her mouth watered at the thought.

Daydreams of pleated skirts and pockets carried her all the way back to her desk, where she collected her hat and gloves, and tried to revive her sad umbrella. If her office ceiling was any indication, it was still pouring outside, but she knew better than to risk bad luck opening the thing indoors.

Just as she’d started to don her Mackintosh, she heard Barnes’s customary “shave-and-a-haircut” knock on the open door behind her.

She didn’t bother turning around. “For the last time, sod off!” She didn’t often use that kind of language in a professional setting, but if they weren’t going to accept a polite refusal, then—

“Yes, ma’am,” said a familiar voice.

She spun on her heel.

Steve was leaning against the door frame, hands in his pockets. His dress uniform jacket was tucked under his arm, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His tie had come loose, his collar unbuttoned, and his hair was mussed, tumbling boyishly over his brow. 

He looked, in short, half-undone and entirely ravishing.

All of the sensible reasons she had for keeping her distance suddenly seemed small and remote in comparison.

“Steve,” she said, unnecessarily. “Hello.”

“Hi.” The warm smile he gave her suggested that he hadn’t taken her dismissal personally, at least.

Peggy had imagined this exact scenario an embarrassing number of times: the two of them, in the office after hours, all alone. The fantasies ranged from fairly chaste (teasing, light flirting, an innocent kiss or two) to positively filthy (Steve’s hands roaming her body, his mouth open and demanding against hers).

Looking at him now, her preference was decidedly for the latter option.

Oblivious to the turn her thoughts had taken, Steve asked, “Rough day?”

“Not really, not—” Not anymore, she wanted to say, but clamped her mouth shut just in time. “I didn’t know you were coming in.”

“I’m not here—not officially. I was just gonna leave this on your desk.” 

He jiggled a small brown paper packet at her. It took her a moment to recognize it as the portion of sugar from a ration box.

“How on earth did you manage to hang onto that?”

“We’re still getting it in the K-rats. And I like to save mine for a rainy day.”

“It certainly is that,” she conceded, glancing up at the ceiling. “Are you sure you won’t miss it?”

A different sort of man, a smooth operator, would have taken the opportunity to feed her a line: not as much as I’ll miss you, or, how about you just owe me something sweet? But Steve just shrugged, and tucked the packet gently under the corner of her desk blotter.

Peggy was both touched and exasperated.

She knew that in combat, even with no experience, he could be confident, creative, and quick-thinking. He was almost certainly capable of applying that approach in other situations too. But he hadn’t—at least, not with her.

She wanted one romantic overture from him. Just one. A single, unmistakable gesture, something that couldn’t possibly be attributed to kindness or friendship or sheer accident. 

She felt she deserved at least that.

Still, he’d come halfway across town, to bring her less than an ounce of sugar that he’d probably gone hungry to save. It wasn’t a passionate kiss, but it counted for something.

And so she smiled, and thanked him, adding, “I’m glad I was here to accept it in person.”

“Me too.”

“I thought you had supper with the senator and his cronies.”

“I told him I had an early start tomorrow. I think he got enough of my time.” His tone made it plain that he would rather have spent his day getting shot at by HYDRA. “I told the guys they ought to ask you to come out with us tonight. I’m sorry they bothered you.”

“No, it’s fine—I mean, yes, they did, but—” Being half-in and half-out of her coat meant that instead of breezily waving his apology aside, she wound up flapping her sleeve at him, ineffectually.

Obligingly, Steve stepped closer, and held her coat up by the collar.

“Oh,” said Peggy, letting him slip the coat over her shoulders. “Thank you.”

It was a simple gesture, one any kind person would make, and Steve was nothing if not kind. There was absolutely no reason for her heart to be racing, she told herself sternly.

His hand still held her collar; she turned, drawing the circle of his arm around her shoulders, as though they were about to dance.

Up close, she could see the faint dusting of freckles across his nose, the speck of a mole on his cheek. Details that the artists who depicted Captain America always seemed to miss, slight imperfections that belonged only to Steve Rogers. She was strangely tempted to brush her fingertips over them, to prove that they were real, that he was real. 

His eyes were wide, his gaze clear blue and bottomless, and she suddenly felt in danger of drowning.

A hard pellet of water hit her cheek, making her jump.

“Don’t tell me it’s raining in here, too,” said Steve, glancing up at the ceiling with his hand outstretched.

“It’s London in March,” she observed, stepping out of the line of fire. “It’s raining everywhere.” She emphasized the point by buttoning her coat and hooking her umbrella over her arm.

“Can I walk you to the train?” His look was hopeful. 

“Actually,” she said, against her better judgement, “I think I will come for a drink, after all.”

Steve beamed. “Swell.”

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

[jennibeultimate]

Anna Shcherbakova

I wasn't gonna talk about Anna's performance at Russian Nationals 2020 but here I am, because I am extremely torn and angry and have very conflicted feelings.

I like Anna since I saw her live at the GPF 2019, the fairy magic she sparks around with her skating got me. (I don't like her jumps much but actually that's not the reason why I like or dislike skaters) I only say that 'cause I don't want ppl to think that I just don't like her.

I think there is not a problem that she won RusNats, she skated clean and with two quads. (I mean the scoring is sh*t but considering she had 180 last Nats too that's not surprising) The BIG problem is that she definetly should NOT have competed being ill.

She refused to have her temperature taken going into the free skate and was still allowed to compete. Just how? Why didn't any official hold her back? Why was she even allowed into the rink? Just why?

I don't think Anna is merely to blame here, she is 16 years old and the mentality she grew up with let her believe that any sign of weakness is a failure. These athletes are driven to not waver at any moment, train through pain, don't talk about your pain, just keep going. (It's not only Tutberidze's camp.)

And even if Anna did absolutely want to compete, (I somehow understand it, you prepared for it, you wanted it badly) she should have been stopped. I blame the coaches and officials. Eteri's team did offer her to withdraw, but at what state? When she was already at the competition. She had fever before, not only at the competition day. She should not have even traveled to Chelyabinsk. Also the mentality is something Anna did get at Eteri's camp, she is formed at this age by the influence of her coaches and parents. The officials should have stepped in and made her not compete (but what do you expect from ppl who want competitions and audience at all cost?) , especially after she refused to have the temperature taken. But at most I blame her parents. She is 16 years old and needs guidance for decisions - it's tough being so young and under constant pressure and drill - also Anna needed her parents permission for travel and competing and they gave it. Why? What should be more important than the health of your daughter?

Yes skaters before Anna have skated on fevers, injuries, broken bones, pain, concussions even...and ppl have called it brave. I never did. (No matter what athlete it is, if I do like them like Yuzu, Shoma, Zhenya whoever - I still root for them anyway) I think it's stupid to risk your health. You will be an athlete for only one time in your life, you still will live many more with what? Lifelong pain? Sometimes it goes well, but what if it doesn't?

BUT here that's not about Anna alone. If there wouldn't be a pandemic I would still not like it, but here it's about risking everyone's health at this competition. We don't know if she has covid, but those measures aren't taken for fun, these are preventive measures to make the virus not spread. To let her compete in such a state is not only irresponsible to her and her health, but to everyone's health as well.

And then on top it didn't stay with competing for Anna. She went to the press con, taking pics without mask, performed in the gala, is in group pictures. I mean half the team of Russia already had covid, why risk this? There was no need for the stupid gala to take place like this. Anna in particular could have skipped it. It's not part of the competition.

Anna is not the only irresponsible person here, all ppl, audience, coaches, skaters take covid too lighthearted. Group pics without masks or distance. I bet there is a banquet too like at CoR. No masks or worn improperly...(I know skaters are part of the Russian society and in Russia it seems ppl don't take the pandemic seriously in general, so it's actually not surprising you find the same mentality in the skaters community, but after so many of them had covid and they do have international contacts, it's not understandable for me, how they still keep going like this.)

Let us think this further, let's say a World Championship takes place, if such behavior of Anna is there too and tolerated, you could have the whole skating community be infected there! And it may infect a skater for example Yuzu, who takes the pandemic seriously! How can we let Russian athletes compete there? I am super worried. An audience really might be the least of a problem for the skaters and officials, it's the irresponsible behavior of some that is risky. Actually I would say Team Russia should not be allowed to compete!!I am really sorry to say that because I like a lot of Russian skaters, especially the Pairs field is tremendous, but it's just not good looking at the situation in the Russian team...

I know others have also talked about it before, but I just couldn't let it go without voicing my concerns. I know there is nothing in particular I can do about it. I also will still root for her, but this win leaves a very bad taste. I can enjoy a skate overlooking all covid concerns (or I wouldn't have watched any of the Russian competitions) but here it leaves me conflicted, sad and angry. Not a skate from Anna, despite being clean and beautiful, that I would rewatch.

Covid kills ppl! Damn! Take it seriously!