#i should show it off in a post for context... you open the app and it shows you the last 28 days how many views/followers/earnings...

[crow-caller]

Upd8:

I've been losing a fistfight to mental illness lately but am making progress:

-Bethany's sin review is in progress! I don't think it'll be very long (atm I'm 2k in, my guess would be 6k length, so half an hour?) but who knows.

-my fallen london lore vid (part 1) is MOSTLY done. The main issue is deciding when to call it finished— a lot of admin choices about how much info to give when, what order stuff should be in, etc. I want to strike a balance between spoilers and cool info— "if I wanted to tell a pal about FL, how much lore would I spoil to intrigue them?" Stuff like the Masters being capitalist space bats is technically a big spoiler, but also a huge draw to get peopleto check the game out! Later I hope to do a part 2, part 3 and actually get in depth on the more esoteric aspects of the world, but I want this to be a layman's introduction.

-after these, I still do not have a next book/series picked out. I have so many options and suggestions.... my instinct though is that it is time I read The Cage, aka That YA Book Trilogy About A Human Zoo. That sounds fun.

[storiesforallfandoms]

icdiwabh ~ joseph quinn

word count: 3688

request?: no

description: after finding out that her recently broken up with ex is already in a new relationship, she puts on a happy face for the public. but she can't do the same with him

pairing: joseph quinn x female!reader

warnings: swearing, angsty angst, rpf, use of y/n

based on this song

masterlist (one, two, three)

To give her credit, my best friend and guitarist, Chloe, tried her best to keep me from looking at my phone before our show. And it was working. I didn't even think anything of it, just that we were goofing off before a show as usual.

And then my phone chimed with a text from my mom. She always sent me a good luck text before a show. I unlocked my phone to respond, then saw that my social media notifications were blowing up more than usual.

I shouldn't have looked, but you know what they say about curiosity and the cat.

I opened Twitter to see I was being mentioned a lot. Mainly in replies to other tweets, and most of the tweets were along the lines of, "What happened to @(Y/U/N)?" I clicked on one to see what that context was, and was brought to a tweet from Pop Crave.

"Joseph Quinn photographed on a date with Doja Cat," followed by various photos of my ex-boyfriend getting cozy with another woman.

I felt my heart drop and break into millions of pieces.

I know what you're thinking: why would seeing my ex moving on hurt so much? It's not like we were together. We were both free to see whoever we wanted now. But there were a few reasons this news was upsetting; for one, we had only broken up three months ago, which apparently is around the time when these pictures were taken. Second, Joseph had broken up with me due to the fact that I was a singer, which meant we didn't get to spend as much time together as either of us would've wanted. I understood at the time. I mean, of course the break up still hurt, but I kind of knew it was coming when things between us had felt different the last month or so of our relationship.

Then there was the biggest reason: Doja was the woman he told me not to worry about.

I am not joking.

Joseph and I were together when the whole Doja versus Noah stuff happened online. We both laughed about it at the time, and i had jokingly asked Joseph, "Should I worry about you getting stolen away by Doja Cat?" He had wrapped me in his arms, kissed me, and said of course not.

Obviously, that had changed.

Chloe found me just as the tears started to fall. She was quick to hug me and whisper comforting words.

"Sweetheart, I'm so sorry," she said. "But we have to get to the stage."

Performing was the last thing on my mind, but I had thousands of fans waiting for me. I couldn't let them down just because I was heartbroken.

I followed Chloe to take my place. I wiped the tears from my eyes, hoping my face wasn't too red or puffy. Our backstage crew passed me my microphone as the countdown for the show to start started in my earpiece. I took a deep, calming breath, pushing everything out of my mind. As the blinding stage lights hit me, I put on my best show smile.

~~~~~~

The next few weeks were tough. I had to go on a full social media hiatus, meaning I deleted all social media apps from my phone to keep myself from seeing any more updates on Joseph and Doja. Chloe took up posting on my accounts so no one suspected anything. We had already decided the best course of action was to ignore the questions and comments, and to pretend like the news didn't even hurt me.

But it did. It hurt me more than any words could ever describe. Having to go on stage two to three nights a week and sing the love songs I wrote about him made it even harder. I struggled to keep it together on stage sometimes. I saved the emotions for when I'd get back to the hotel or the tour bus. Then I'd be able to cry until my eyes hurt and were too heavy to stay awake.

Some nights were sleepless, though. On those nights, I'd usually just lay awake or try to use one of the streaming services on my phone to distract myself. One night, I found myself too hungry to be distracted. My stomach was rumbling enough that I could hardly hear the show I was watching. After some quick Googling, I found a 24 hour diner that seemed like it would be slow enough for me to go without being recgonized.

I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a baggy hoodie with the hood up to cover my face. I put my phone and my hotel room key in my pocket, and left to make my way to the diner.

As I expected, there weren't many people there. Maybe one table with two young ladies sat there, plus the workers. I kept my hood up anyways as I ordered, just in case. The host who took my order did look at me like he may have known who I was, but he didn't say anything.

My plan was to get my food and take it back to the hotel to eat it. But that plan was quickly changed when a familiar British voice said, "(Y/N)?"

I froze. There was no way he was actually here. It had to be a figment of my imagination. A hallucination made up by my misery over the breakup and his quick moving on.

But when I looked up, there he was. He was also in a hoodie and sweatpants, but was doing less to hide his identity. Actually, nothing to hide his identity. I couldn't help but glance around to make sure no one was looking at us or there was no paparazzi that had followed him and started snapping photos.

"How did you know it was me?" I asked, then realized it was a stupid question and winced at myself.

"That's...um...my hoodie."

I looked down and realized that he was right. I hadn't even noticed that I had it, even when I packed it for the tour.

"I was wondering where it went," he said with a little smile.

"Here it is," I said, lamely flourishing my hands. "I'd offer to give it back, but I'm not wearing anything underneath."

I saw him swallow at my comment. I thought I saw a tinge of pink creeping onto his cheeks, but I figured it must've been the lighting or something. There was no way I could still make him blush when he obviously had no feelings for me anymore.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I'm in town shooting the Fantastic Four movie," he explained. "I just finished a late shoot, so I stopped in for something to eat. What are you doing here?"

"I had a show tonight. I couldn't sleep, and I'm hungry. So..." I did my lame flourish again.

"Oh yes. The post-show adrenaline."

I ground my teeth to keep from saying anything. The weeks of sadness and misery suddenly vanished and became anger. I was angry at him for reminding me that he knew me so well. That we had shared memories on sleepless nights like this. I was also angry that he didn't think our breakup and his quick moving on would be the cause of my sleeplessness. Did he think I didn't know? Or just that I'd be okay with him and his new girlfriend mere weeks after our two year long relationship ended?

I just shrugged in response.

My order was called and I quickly grabbed it. I turned to give Joseph a wave as a goodbye. I needed to get out of there and get back to my hotel room to wallow in my dispair.

But it seemed Joseph had other plans, as he stopped me before I could leave. "Do you want to sit? Maybe...catch up?"

"Is that a good idea?" I asked.

"I don't see why it wouldn't be."

"You don't want your new girlfriend to see paparazzi photos of you with your ex."

There, it was finally out. No more tiptoeing around the topic.

It seemed to have its desired effect as Joseph was now awkwardly shuffling. He rubbed the back of his neck, which was now undoubtably turning pink. "So, you've heard."

"Of course I heard!" I snapped. I glanced around again, realizing I was raising my voice. "Your pictures are everywhere, and I'm being tagged in them cause we never told everyone we had broken up."

"I'm sorry you had to find out that way."

I scoffed. "How else was I going to find out? Were you going to call me and tell me you were dating the girl you said wasn't a threat to our relationship?"

He sighed. Before he could say anything else, they called that another order was ready, and evidently it was his. It was also packed in a to go bag, so he clearly had no intentions of staying either. With any luck, he'd drop this stupid idea of sitting down for a "catch up" and let me leave to deal with all the emptions I was feeling.

But of course, luck was not on my side.

Joseph grabbed his food and turned back to me. "Just...sit with me for 15 minutes at least. Let me explain."

Even though I very much wanted an explanation, I said, "You don't have to explain anything."

"Just...please, (Y/N)."

And that's how I found myself sat in a booth that was tucked away, in the middle of the night with my ex-boyfriend.

It was a bad idea, and I knew that. Besides the fact that I definitely should not be sitting down with the ex that I had been in shambles over for weeks, it was also a bad idea publicity wise. Joseph wasn't trying to hide himself. Anyone could see us and snap a picture, or call paparazzi to make a quick buck. Even with me trying to hide myself, someone would eventually put the pieces together to realize it was me. Then we'd have a whole new shit show on our hands.

I opened my food and started to eat. There was no point in letting it go cold and completely ruin my night. Joseph wasn't as quick to do the same. He was watching me. When I realized he wasn't eating, I made a gesture for him to start talking.

"Is there anything specific you want to know?" he asked.

Well, that was a stupid question. There was a lot I wanted to know. So much so that I knew we'd be here way longer than 15 minutes if I asked it all.

I decided to ask him the most prominent question on my mind: "Did you leave me for her?"

He seemed stunned by my question. "No! No, of course I didn't. Why would you think that?"

I gave him a look. "Come on, Joseph. We both know why I'd think that."

He shuffled in his seat. "It's not like that."

"Then explain it. That's the whole reason I'm sat here."

So he did. He told me he met Doja (he used her real name, which made my stomach churn) at her concert. He had gone with a few friends, and when she found out he was there she brought them backstage to meet her. He swore it was all casual at first, that they were just friendly and were making light of the situation between her and Noah. When things started changing, he swore it was just a rebound thing.

"I never meant for it to become anything more," he insisted. "I was still so hurt. I just wanted something that would take my mind off of the pain."

I couldn't hold back the scoff that escaped my lips. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," I said. "I'm just so sorry to hear that you were hurting."

"What, you don't think our breakup was hard for me?"

"Weirdly enough, no, I didn't think you took things hard when you dumped me."

Joseph sighed. "It wasn't - "

"And you know what else?" I cut him off. "You told me you found it hard for us to be together because of our professions. And, honestly, I understood! If you weren't away filming, I was away touring. If you weren't doing press for a movie or show, I was doing press for an album. It wasn't easy, and while I was willing to go through those strifes for us, I did understand how it could be too difficult for you. But then you turned around, not even a month after you dumped me, and started dating another singer."

He was quiet. He couldn't even meet my eye.

I felt a lump forming in my throat, and my voice cracked as I said, "If you didn't love me anymore, you could've just said that."

He looked up at me quickly. "That's not - "

He was cut off again. Not by me this time, but by his phone. Someone was calling him. When I looked at the screen, I saw her name. It felt like a knife directly through my heart.

I packed my food and stood. Joseph looked like he was going to say something, but I put a hand up to stop him. "Answer your girlfriend, Joseph."

He didn't try to stop me when I left this time.

~~~~~~

As I expected, photos of Joseph and I got out. I didn't know to what extent as I still wasn't back on social media. My manager confronted me about it and I explained what had happened. She wasn't upset as I wasn't the one who hadn't been concealing my identity, and she agreed that the best course of action was just to ignore everything until it blew over.

Another two months passed and the tour finally ended. It became easier to perform as the time went on. Not completely easy, and I did have a night or two where I slipped up and got emotional on stage, but eventually I was able to put the meanings of my songs aside and just performed them for my fans. I knew some nights weren't as great as others, but I got through it, and finally I was going to have a break.

Chloe reluctantly agreed to let me have my social media back. I was still hurting a little, but I told her I couldn't isolate myself forever. It just wasn't healthy. Besides, I would need something to keep me occupied while I was home, besides just watching mind numbing reality TV. She finally relented when I told her she could watch me block the words "Joseph Quinn" and "Doja Cat" on all social media so that I wouldn't have to see any posts about them.

I was honestly surprised to find that I didn't want to look up anything to do with them. For a long time, the desire to know about their relationship was eating away at me. There were so many specifics I felt like I needed to know, but I eventually realized that I was just going to hurt myself further if I looked into them. Of course, I didn't completely stop thinking about Joseph. I didn't expect to. We had been together for two years, almost moved in with one another. I thought we were going to get married. You don't just let that go easily. But at least it was getting a little easier to live in a world where he was no longer mine.

On one particularly nice day, I decided to go out on the balcony to read. It was one of those fall days where the sun was out and there was a little heat coming from it, but not enough that it was unbearable. A slight breeze would blow through every so often, just cool enough to keep it tolerable outside. I was laid back in one of my deck chairs, engrossed in my book to a point that I hadn't heard someone approaching.

"Must be an interesting novel."

I jumped at the sound of a voice coming from my driveway below. I bookmarked my page and sat up to see the last person I wanted to be around. "What are you doing here, Joseph?"

"I just got back from filming."

"Good for you."

"I...I was hoping you were home."

"Well, you see that I am. Don't let the gate hit you on the way out."

"(Y/N), can we just talk?"

I stood from my seat and leaned over the balcony railing to look at him. "We said all there was to say in that diner months ago. There's nothing else to be talked about. Besides, do you want more pictures of us to come out? I'm sure Doja wouldn't be happy to see her man making a personal visit to his ex's place."

"We broke up!"

I stopped. "What?"

"Last month. It was all over social media, or so Lupita tells me." He tilted his head. "You didn't hear?"

"I-I blocked yours and Doja's names on social media so I wouldn't have to see any tweets or posts about you."

Joseph looked at me for a moment before barking out a laugh. I couldn't help but put a hand over my face as I laughed as well. Of course, by trying to block him out completely, I had totally missed the one thing I would've wanted to see.

I was a bit reluctant, but eventually I invited Joseph to come up. He knew his way through my place, he had been there enough times. I sat back down on my deck chair and pulled another one closer to me, as he appeared in the glass doorway. He sat down next to me and memories of all the times we had been out here flooded back to me.

"I wasn't done talking that night in the diner," he said. "I still had so much to say, and I have even more to say now."

"I didn't want to hear it," I admitted. "In my mind, after hearing how you and Doja got together, it just made more sense if you had broken up with me because you didn't love me anymore."

He shook his head. "It wasn't that at all. I never stopped loving you."

I was itching to ask him if that meant he still loved me now, but instead I said, "Then why?"

"I broke up with you because I loved you so much," he said. "Because loving you but not getting to spend time with you hurt so much, and I knew there was no way around that. When I started getting more job offers I knew things were just going to get so much busier for me, and that our already very short time together was going to dwindle down more and more, and I hated the thought of that."

"I would've taken a break," I told him.

"I couldn't ask you to do that. You love making music and performing. I could never ask you to stop doing that, or to change that. I thought the best thing for you would be if you could find someone who wasn't as busy, and who'd be able to go on tour with you and be at all your shows. Someone who wouldn't be in a different time zone basically 11 months out of a year and only be able to call you for an hour max every night."

"But what if that's not what I want?" I asked. "Yes, it was hard not to get to see you all the time, but I never would've traded that for anything else. I was so proud of you for all those roles you were getting, and even if I only got to talk to you for a few minutes, I loved getting to hear what you were doing. Because you were achieving your dream, and I got to be there to experience it. I don't want someone who can be with me all the time, I want you."

I hadn't noticed that we were both sat on the edge of our chairs. We were so close we were almost touching. I could smell the familiar scent of his cologne and it was making my heart skip a few beats.

"I should've talked to you instead of deciding just to end things," he said, his voice soft and quiet.

"You should've," I agreed. "And then if you were going to rebound, you shouldn't have done it with the girl you told me not to worry about."

He awkwardly chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, not my finest moment."

I sat back in my chair, although I didn't want to. I wanted to keep being this close to him, or maybe to get closer. "So why did you two breakup anyways?"

"She was nice and all, but she wasn't you."

We sat in silence, letting his words sink in. He was looking at me, almost like he was waiting. Maybe I was waiting, too, to see where that confession was supposed to go. After a few moments, my body moved before my mind could comprehend what was happening. I quickly leaned forward, nearly putting myself on Joseph's lap, and started kissing him. He kissed me back immediately, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me the rest of the way onto his lap.

"I missed you," he mumbled against my lips.

"I missed you too," I admitted. I pulled away to add, "But don't think you're completely off the hook. You did still hurt me, you know."

"I know I did. I'll spend the rest of my life making up for it if I have to."

I smiled. "I think I like the sound of that."

He smiled back at me and pulled me back in for another kiss. Eventually, my book was abandoned on the balcony, and the large blinds were closed to keep from anyone being able to see the reunion happening inside.

[katatonicimpression]

It's the middle of the afternoon on New Year's Eve and I have fuck all to do so let's watch the Sam episode of What If?

DISCLAIMER: This is the first, and so far only, full episode of this show that I have ever watched. It did not inspire me to watch more. So, that's my bias I guess.

Background

There was some controversy about all of this. Sam appeared briefly in the zombies episode in the first season of this show. He's already a zombie and is quickly killed (re-killed?) by bucky, who makes a quip about it.

The line feels kinda off, like they're trying to recreate the banter between the characters in the live action (finding each other annoying etc) but it falls flat. There's no love there. In civil war (which takes place before the canon divergence in the show), their banter still has a level of camaraderie to it. They're riffing off each other, and fighting together and saving each other. It's weird to have bucky quip at the prospect of sam's death in a scene that takes place after those scenes.

It feels like reading one of the thousands of "incorrect quotes" posts on this app that write Bucky being horrible to Sam for no reason. It's the exact same emotional experience. Put a pin in that.

There was another controversy related to this, which is that in the same episode, Sharon also dies. Allegedly, one of the main writers (matthew chauncey) said that they should give her a particularly violent death because "no one likes her... he belongs with peggy". This is an open expression of violent misogyny so yeah that's fun. What a piece of shit... allegedly.

Sam does not appear in any other episode of what if s1. When s2 came out, his absence felt conspicuous, and many people commented on it. In particular, there's an episode of s2 that is vaguely medieval/robin-hood vibes, and Sam is noticeably absent from Steve's band of merry men. Steve's best friend, closest partner of over 50 years of comics isn't there. The falconry themed superhero is not in the medieval episode. People rightfully called bs.

The show felt similar to reading posts and fics in the fandom, and the way that people will minimise Sam's existence in Canon. Put a pin in that.

One person involved in making it (I think a writer but I can't remember and I searched for like ten minutes it's NYE gimme a break) responded publically to these complaints. They cited a supposed uncertainty over sam's future in the mcu (specifically whether he was cap or falcon) as a reason for not including him.

This was very funny, because 1) There was no ambiguity over whether Sam would be cap - it was a dead cert since Endgame what are you on? and 2) no one would've been mad if Sam had appeared as Falcon.

This response had the same vibes as when random fans say weird and ignorant things in Sam's tag and, when confronted, will offer weird excuses that don't make any sense. Pin it.

The other bit of context here is the (admittedly heavy) discussion of how What If launched Captain Carter, a decision that had to have been made around the same time that they decided to do samcap. I've talked before about this; it's complicated and the discourse is annoying. But ultimately, it comes across very badly for the mcu that they created a white female british captain america (not captain britain from Excalibur, but specifically a captain america character) specifically to launch near simultaneously with a Black captain america. It looks bad and I don't like it.

Anyway, so after this person who's name i can't find put their foot in their mouth, Marvel released a few stills from s3, revealing that Sam would be in one episode. People were happy to see him, and (aside from the VERY VALID CRITIQUE that WhatIf!Sam doesn't have the eyelashes he so clearly ought to) people were mostly placated.

The Episode

I love mark ruffalo but his voice performance in the opening scene is not it. Also the narration is mixed a lot louder than the dialogue... which is a jarringly amateur mistake. Ok whatever i'm gonna try to keep my salty complaining sam-focused

So, the show opens with a version of the opening samsteve meetcute from CATWS. But this time, without a mutual exchange of vulnerability. This time Sam is just offering Bruce comfort.

Then he literally gives him therapy.

Then he takes him to Louisiana to the boat, a redo of the sambucky scenes in tfatws. I'm not the first person to point this out, but there's a big difference here. Bucky came to louisiana uninvited with a (technically unwanted, but still very impressive) gift for Sam and then spent the day working on the boat as a gesture of friendship. He was performing acts of service (or however you express it) because he wanted to preserve and nurture this relationship. He knew he'd treated Sam badly and wanted to make it up to him.

Then, Sam invited him to stay the night (or, rather, accepts bucky's self-invitation to sleep in his house), because he's nice and welcoming and generous yes sure. But also because he likes Bucky back, despite everything. They both want to be friends and partners.

That's not happening here. It's just Sam offering Bruce his home because he is apparently motivated by a desire to help random white men he meets.

It reminds me of the countless fics and hcs that write Sam exclusively as a caretaker and therapist for bucky or other white characters. It reminds me of the takes that rewrite canon to make him be the one to pursue bucky with a desire to help and nurture him - a thing that has never happened in canon. Urgh. Pin that thought up with the others.

Oh and of course, we can't have a story about samcap without paying tribute to our holy special boy steve for a bit. Whatever it was just a few overly long shots.. still annoyed me though. Wow I really am a hater.

Oh and Bruce is the one with the arc? He's the one the episode is about? But his change of heart happens entirely off screen and with no implicit turning point? Lol. Lmao even.

And "friends who accept us for who we really are." I want to take this entire writers room aside because no. You can't end with a thesis statement that wasn't the theme of the story. Go back to school.

Am I Nothing but Negativity?

It was nice to see sarah again! Shame all she got to do was scream then get violently shoved to the floor.

Ok but in general, once the episode gets started in earnest, it's fine.

I did genuinely like seeing Sam again. I like him in the lead, even if the episode was about Bruce, Sam was still the main character and that was fun to see.

Mackie's voice performance is strong.

I enjoyed the 0.0003 seconds of sambucky. I liked seeing Sam and Monica together.

"The man wants to have tea with Lenin." This line is so bad it's good again. Yeah he probably would. And he'd be fine. Vlad would love the guy, everyone does.

I like the visual of Sam facing down a giant kaiju and just chatting to it. That's very sam coded. That and Sam with the shot of the monsters walking past him and him standing strong.

What is the Point of this Show?

There's nothing spectacular in this episode. The dialogue is astoundingly predictable, the jokes fail to be funny.

At times, the animation style (much like TDP which recently finished) feels like it's holding them back. A lot of the quieter, less actiony, shots are ugly frames with people walking less naturally than sims do. And they do have some more expressive stuff in the busier scenes, so it's not artistically empty, but it's not doing a lot for me either.

Maybe it's an interesting technique for those who know more about these things, but honestly regular 2d animation would've been (i assume) cheaper and potentially better. Then again, if it wasn't visually distinctive, what else would it have going for it?

Conceptually, a mcu what if show is an amazing idea, but in practice IN MY VERY BIASED OPINION, it's done very little with that potential. The comics offer such a rich trough of ideas that could be spun into very entertaining short episodes with versions of the characters that would otherwise not be able to encounter those story beats. Hell, Sam in particular has an entire massive part of his character cut from the mcu (his powers) that they could explore... and that would be really well suited to animation!

But they've stuck to the comparatively shallow mcu lore for most of it.

I've seen people express disappointment that it's ending after only 3 short seasons and I see why. This is obviously the sort of thing that you could do so much more with. But I also feel that the writing is uninspired and betrays a real lack of interest in the worlds of most of these characters.

I Hate its Vibes

So let's take a look at those pins, shall we?

We have:

Ignoring Sam most of the time

Mischaracterising his relationship with Bucky

Writing him as a caregiver, a nurturing therapist only

A lack of an internal world and motivations beyond his desire to help others

Ignorance over his character's history including his powers and the depth and longevity of his relationship with steve

Nonsensical excuses when faced with criticism, unintentionally displaying even more ignorance and incuriosity over the character

I mentioned that writers comment about sharon earlier for a reason. The vibes are not good. They are rancid. They are reminding me of every dumb post I've ever read on this site. Every weird jab at the character for stupid, racist reasons. Every fic with the "magical negro" trope. Every moron i can think of tbh.

Yeah, so maybe I'm not being fair to this show. The episode was uninspired, but not bad. I liked seeing sam do things. If people gif him looking cool in it, I'll reblog it I guess. But I'm not gonna watch the rest of the show, and I won't mourn the fact that it's ending.

I guess my conclusion is that it's very funny that Marvel placated disgruntled sam fans with a still from this episode, and then when it finally comes out, it's everything we've ever complained about.

[himbochub]

hi! ive been kind of lurking and i was just curious to ask a few questions to you since you are into fe*derism (feel free to ignore this if you aren't comfortable or miss any questions you don't want to answer)

do you consider there to be different types of fe*derism? if yes, what type do you engage with?

what are your thoughts on people posting fe*derism content on apps like tikt0k, y0utube or instagr@m where they are likely to be seen by people not in your community?

how do you feel about other we1ght contr0l k*nks? like fetishes for underweight people or very muscular people, doms who set up gym schedules for their subs or doms who otherwise control their subs diets? (consensually obvs)

do you think they are comparable to fe*derism? or that they should not be considered the same as a k*nk for gaining?

you call fe*derism a RACK k*nk so i was wondering about what you consider the risks of the lifestyle?

(censored words so this doesn't show up in searches if you don't want it to)

thank you in advance <3

i honestly love this question- hoping it comes from a good place but super open to answering all of these questions! I’d start by saying that “feedism” is a more accurate term than “feederism” imo- the term feederism centers feeders more than it should, and i think feedism is a more accurate umbrella term.

1. there are absolutely different types of feedism, different ways to engage in it- i think from an outside perspective most people’s idea of is extremely heteronormative and the feeder/feedee must be man/woman respectively, with dom/sub aspects to the relationship- and that absolutely isn’t always the case. some people prefer more “soft” feedism, some people want to be teased and humiliated, some people just want to gain a little weight, some people are more just into stuffing/bloating rather than gaining, some people want to be immobile. there’s a whole spectrum and i can’t say i haven’t dipped my toes in everywhere!

2. this is hard because i honestly just prefer that we keep to our own side of the internet. apps like tik tok, really any other social media that doesn’t have kink centered sides to it, are a) exposing potential minors to kink content they don’t need to be seeing in spaces they wouldn’t otherwise learn about it and b) unnecessarily bringing fatphobic attention to our community. obviously though, people making those types of videos on other platforms are typically there to “educate folks” on the “dangers” of this fetish or “manipulative/abusive” feeders- which is so hard to even break down. i hate that those people had those experiences, but i typically also notice them shifting their content into ED centered mid sets as well as obviously, rampant fatphobia and also suggesting feedees are mindless and don’t make any choices for themselves. i am Not talking about sex workers advertising lewds on IG- go off!

3. honestly i can’t say i “feel” any type of way about them because fat centered feedism is really my only shtick. ever since love lies bleeding i do have a very soft spot in my heart for muscle mommies and i do love a super toned feeder, but only in the context of them being obsessed with my fat.

4. I would say they would perhaps be comparable to feedism in the sense that they are a similair type of body altering fetish, but I would imagine they would stand alone in their own regard as far as the more nuanced things that go on in those kinks and spaces. For example, outside of kink discussions, fat liberation is hugely centered in topics of discussion in our community- I doubt we could say the same for a muscle kink type community.

5. This is something that is massively important to me, which is the mental health aspect of gaining. I’ve talked about this a lot on twitter and a bit here, but like any kink that is widely part of your day to day lifestyle, you have to be mindful of how it effects you mentally, and be realistic about that. I see feedees leave this community every day for different reasons- internalized fatphobia taking over, financial aspects being daunting or overwhelming, neglected medical health issues becoming too overbearing. these things could happen to anyone who is too caught up in a kink and not practicing mindfulness and balance. i really encourage other feedees to stay self aware, take breaks when you feel like it’s necessary, don’t let gaining become an obsession that overtakes your personhood. i know that isn’t a super sexy take, but that fantasy is truly not for everyone! a lot of what feedism is is fantasy. most people can’t realistically manage being as big as a lot of us want to be, and especially with many of us being low income, it can be easy to accidentally put ourselves in a bad place in a lot of ways. basically to sum it up, practice safe kink and take care of yourselves! to many people i’ve been told this sounds “redundant” in feedism, but it absolutely is not.

thanks for listening, lol!

[chacusha]

My tips to new users to make Tumblr more usable

This is kind of random but I think Tumblr is one of those websites that hides a lot of its functionality from users and comes with default settings that makes it kind unusable (at least for me). So I've decided to collect some suggestions about things to do immediately in order to make Tumblr a much more usable website:

Most important: Put the content you actually opt into on your dash. First, go to Settings > Dashboard and turn off "Best Stuff First." In general, (1) I don't think it's good to let social media sites curate your content feed (they're not very good! you can curate your own content feeds!), and (2) chronological ordering is much more helpful for making sense of information. I don't know why you would want posts on a site to be presented in any other way. Please save yourself and make your dash chronological by toggling this monstrosity OFF. Also for the love of god, turn off "Include posts liked by the blogs you follow" and "Include 'Based On Your Likes!'" too. Other people's experiences might be different from mine, but when Tumblr first introduced this feature and I tried it out for a while, it was so predictable that every time I came across a post that made me viscerally angry and think, "How the HELL did this get on my dash?" it was always always some random post from someone I wasn't even following… So yeah, get rid of that.

Second, make the "Following" tab your default, instead of the "For you" tab. How to do this is not particularly obvious. From the Tumblr homepage (not settings), you need to find the tabs at the top of your dash (For you, Following, Your tags) and then click the toggle/settings icon to the right of those tabs. This will allow you to reorder your tabs. In particular, what you need to do is click the pin icon to the right of "Following," and this will set Following to be your pinned and first tab. By default, when you open Tumblr, your dash will show the posts of people you have actually opted into following rather than what Tumblr suggests to you.

Next, make sure timestamps on posts are on. This should be the default (despite what Tumblr says?), but if you don't see timestamps at the top of all posts, I highly recommend turning this setting on (under Settings > Dashboard). Knowing when a post was made is hugely helpful for understanding the context of the post, and I don't know why websites would allow you to hide this, really, unless they want you walking around with no sense of time or context, which uh… I don't recommend that social media experience!

Turn off endless scrolling (under Settings > Dashboard): Websites like endless scrolling to keep people from leaving the site. I recommend turning this off to make it more obvious how many posts you've scrolled through on Tumblr, to make it easier to find your place in older posts, and also to make the website just lighter to load. When I last used it, the Tumblr mobile app does not allow pagination, which is pretty typical of social media apps in general. Honestly, I recommend just not using the Tumblr mobile app at all. I've uninstalled it and aside from missing the convenience of being able to attach photos from my phone onto Tumblr posts, I really don't miss it…

Things that you may or may not be interested in:

Enable custom theme on (each of) your blog(s): So fun fact: If you don't have a custom theme enabled, then when people visit your blog when not logged into Tumblr, they will only be able to scroll through a few of the posts on your blog before being prompted by Tumblr to log in if they want to see more. This popup cannot be gotten around, and so people without Tumblr accounts or who are browsing on a device/browser without a login session just won't be able to see your posts. Personally, I do not like this behavior -- I like my blogs to be archives with useful permalinks that can be browsed by anyone. Anyway, you can get rid of this annoying prompt by going to Account > (select blog) > Blog settings and toggling that "Enable custom theme" slider. It doesn't really matter what theme you use (although there are a lot of options to choose from), just use a custom one!

Turn off "Shorten long posts" (under Settings > Dashboard): YMMV, but I personally don't find this setting very helpful as the maximum length for when it starts cutting off posts is pretty short and falls far short of what I would consider a "long post" that is inconvenient to scroll past. Instead, you may want to turn off this setting and create a filter for the tag "long post" (under Settings > Account > Filtered Tags).

Mature content: If you're interested in possibly seeing mature content, you may want to review your mature content settings (under Settings > Account) as by default, Tumblr is set to hide it entirely and doesn't tell you that it's hidden posts from you and so you probably just will not be aware this setting is a thing! Personally, I use the "Blur" setting.

Hiding content from users you don't want to see: As far as I can tell, if you see someone's posts in (e.g.) tag searches and would prefer not to see any of that person's posts in public places like that tag or appear on your dash by people you follow reblogging their posts, you should block them. Official Tumblr documentation does not say that this is a feature of blocking, but it is.

When Tumblr's functionality isn't enough… External tools such as XKit Rewritten provide a whole lot of QoL fixes to Tumblr's interface like making it easier to reply to replies, hiding posts you've already seen, showing how many new/unread posts are in tracked tags, showing all tags on posts by default rather than requiring you to click "See all," etc. For me, one thing I needed in order to make Tumblr semi-usable for me is hiding notes in tag searches (because I don't really need constant reminders that my tastes aren't aligned with wider fandom's tastes lol). I couldn't find a tool that does this, so I wrote a simple Tampermonkey script to do it for me.

Hope this helps new users of Tumblr, and feel free to add other helpful tips if you have them!

[raquellemonsta]

kiss me more (bokuto x reader)

previous || next

chapter 7: gossip

Usually, when you woke up in the morning and checked your phone, you'd only have a few notifications from random apps and maybe a friend. You hadn't been expecting what you woke up to this morning, to say the least. Friends were sending you news sites and posts all about the same person: you. You read through some of the headlines:

"MSBY star Bokuto Koutaro seen leaving shop with mystery woman"

"Who is Bokuto's new girlfriend? (Pictures and more)"

There were even some of his fans on Twitter dragging you for basically no reason other than the fact you were seen with their sports crush. While some were nice (calling you cute or saying you looked good together), others were saying things like "the girl in those pictures with Bo is soo average" and "she's lowk ugly... he can do better".

Those pissed you off, but you knew better than to keep reading tweets. You could get lost in it for hours and that was when you weren't the one they were talking about. It probably wasn't good for your mental health (in fact, it definitely wasn't). Also, seeing the pictures kind of freaked you out. It was like having a stalker even though it was just paparazzi offshoots that were doing it for their job. It was still unsettling to see the two of you walking out of Onigiri Miya, and even entering your apartment building. What if people started showing up at your building in the hopes of meeting Bokuto? Or worse, what if they waited outside of your apartment for you to question you or more. You shut your phone off and went into your bathroom. You had to admit, it was kind of surreal seeing yourself on social media in the context of people who don't even know you. You pumped some moisturizer onto your hands and spread it across your face. You took longer than necessary in an effort to lower your heartrate and ease your mind. After you were calmed down, you went back out to your room and picked up your phone again. This time, you noticed a text from Yachi.

Yachi 💫

hey can you tell me why everytime i open social media i see you?

(y/n)

I DONT KNOW it's not my fault i swear idek what's happening

Yachi💫

well it looks to me like you've made a lot of bokuto stans really mad lol 😜

(y/n)

😔

You let out a sigh, tossing your phone on your bed and then falling back onto it yourself. It was just your luck to have something like this happen. You barely even had time to savor your date with Bokuto before the internet found out and made it their major topic of the day. The whole situation was honestly one big headache. You weren't even officially dating, yet here all of these people were commenting on your relationship that even you weren't entirely sure about.

You couldn't help but imagine how people would react if you two actually became official. Would he announce it? Would they just get used to seeing the two of you together? Or would they inevitably hate you for taking up their volleyball god's attention and ruining their chances of getting with him? You weren't sure and in the present you didn't care.

Instead of focusing on that, you decided to actually do your job and opened your laptop. The advertisements for the match had been up all around Tokyo, and the big posters that would go up on the side of the arena they would play at should be coming in soon. The company paid people to hang them up, since they were giant and it was far out of your skillset.

The process of making them had been really fun. The team got to have a photoshoot with plenty of action shots (you definitely didn't ask the photographer for a print of Bokutos). From there, you had just designed some fun slogans to slap onto them, along with labeling the players. While they were attracting a lot of attention to the match, you had been informed that they were still looking to get more sales for tickets and merchandise.

This whole social media thing this morning had effectively distracted you from being able to do your job or come up with strategies to get more attention on the match.

Then, you had a brilliant idea. What if you used this whole situation to your advantage? You could use the buzz around you and Bokuto as a way to get more spectators for the MSBY vs Adlers match, both in person and watching it on tv.

You shot a quick email to your company's social media marketing sector and asked them to put out posts wherever they could essentially saying the same things. It wasn't long before you got an email back, confirming that the posts would be out soon. Not long after, you got a twitter notification for your company's 'news' account:

"Will Bokuto's mystery woman be at the MSBY vs Schweiden match? Find out here", along with a link to both tickets to watch in-person as well as information for where to watch it.

You grinned widely and even laughed at describing yourself as a 'mystery woman', but you had an idea and went with it. Then, you thought for a moment and wondered if Bokuto had any idea about everything that had been going on. You weren't sure if he seemed like a big social media, though for all you knew he could be crazy for it.

There was a text from him you hadn't noticed before, from around 20 minutes ago. You had probably been too busy emailing your work.

Koutaro  ⭐

Hey hey hey how has your morning been?

read 11:26am

It put a smile on your face to know that he was thinking of you, but you were also confused. Did he have no idea about what people were saying? Maybe he didn't have friends like yours that spammed you with posts about yourself.

(y/n)

i've been okay. it was kinda weird seeing people posting about me everywhere but other than that

You didn't expect him to respond so quickly, especially when it had taken you so long to text back, however the three dots popped up only seconds after your text. You waited somewhat intently to see what he had to say.

Koutaro ⭐

Are people posting about you? What did you do??😲 

It took everything in you to not literally laugh out loud. Again, with the grown man using emojis (which was extremely unserious but in a cute way), but also because it seemed he really had no idea about any of it. You sent him a few of the links your friends had sent you and explained it to him, before your phone started ringing and you saw his contact again. You quickly picked it up, but had to pull it away from your ears due to how loud he was.

"I'M SO SORRY, THIS IS ALL MY FAULT!" he yelled, "I HAVE CRAZY FANS!" he yelled. When your ears stopped ringing, you responded back.

"I can tell" you encouraged him to lower his volume. You shook your head at his absurdity. Two months ago, you would've never been able to guess this would be your reality. You decided to tell him how you had used it to your advantage, and how more people would be attending the game to support MSBY.

"You're so smart (y/n), I don't get how you do it". You felt a fluttering feeling in your chest before you got a hold of yourself again. He didn't give himself enough credit. While Bokuto seemed airheaded at some points, he was actually very emotionally intelligent and made up for lack of book smarts with his people skills.

"It's my job" you said and smiled, even though he couldn't see it. It was nice to talk to him, even though it had only been half a day since you last heard his voice.

"Thank you for last night again" you spoke, much quieter before. On the other side of the line, Bokuto smiled at the thought.

"Anything for you" he responded. You two exchanged a few more words before deciding to hang up so you could finalize one of your projects. Your phone buzzed one more time, and you checked it before putting it on do not disturb. You ever-present smile became even wider when you read it.

Koutaro ⭐

Come see me after the game on Saturday 😊

You were definitely ready for the match this weekend.

[novella-november]

#not committing #but authors should know how important semantics are #when establishing a set of rules for a competition

^ your tags from your reblog

I am autistic so honestly a bit confused but I am going to go out on a limb and assume you're being serious (and or half joking), so going to give this a response and also to help reassure another thing I was thinking about the other day when it comes to accessibility.

To clarify for you, assuming you're *not* joking, you are correct, the words that go towards your word count goal for November only count if it is your creative writing for November, not just any random text post you happen to use to communicate on the Internet.

And no, you cannot just grab a random 30k WIP from September and say you wrote it all in November to show off during the first week.

That is what rule #3 means. And .... I am going to assume the plagiarism bit you did is a joke because not being able to use the same few words across different sentences is not what plagiarism is in any way shape or form.

Plagiarism is when people take a work from someone else and copy it into their own and claim it as their own, sometimes opening up a thesaurus and changing a few random words to similes without any comprehension of just how badly they're fucking up because now not only are they cheating but its going to be even more monumentally obvious because when they turn that paper in its going to be absolute nonsense, especially when the person (usually a student) involved has never ever used the substituted words in a sentence before and has no idea what they actually mean and why its a big deal to substitute, say, the word "Cabinet" in "Cabinet Member" (a member of a political office of some sort) to now say "Chiffonier" because it sounds fancier now making the sentence include the words "Chiffonier Member" to describe a politician...

Anyways. Using the same words multiple times in your story is not Plagiarism. In fact, using the same words in your story is one of the ways you build your style and like, actually build your world, so I'm confused about the nitpicking here, since your tags seem to imply you're joking in your reblog.

For the record, this is not any kind of official "contest", there are no sweepstakes, no terms of use, no websites to sign up on, no binding contract, etc etc

This is a community-based challenge, like the original spirit of Nanowrimo and Inktober; a personal challenge for anyone who wants to give it a go, and a good way to help inspire and encourage others through sharing tips, answering questions, writing prompts, etc.

But, this did give me a good reason to finally add on, and I'll be editing the original to include it as well--

"Words on a page" are not the only way to complete Novella November!

If you are not able to write with a writing utensil on paper, or type on a keyboard comfortably or at all, please feel free to write your story in alternate media -- most smartphones come with an in-built "Recording" app, so you can dictate your story to your phone,

If you have a microphone set up on your computer, I know Windows 10/11 have in-built speech to text programs under accessibility tools, and more!

30k is the high goal for this challenge, but if you don't make it to 30k, you have not lost and you are not a failure -- the real goal of this challenge is to get yourself to write as consistently as possible, to get yourself into the habit of writing :)

to sum up my reply to your reblog:

You say "Authors should know how important semantics are"

I think its also fair to say "Authors should know how important *Context* is" before making what seems to be a mean-spirited response on a tumblr post about a community writing event in response to a popular event allowing cheaters."

Hate AI, but love writing contests?

Want to take part in a global, fun project to write a Novella in one month?

Grab some friends, and take part in Novella November, by writing 1,000 words a day for the month of November, ending with a 30,000 word Novella to test and stretch your novel-writing skills!

Your goal is not perfection, but merely getting into the habit of writing a litte bit every single day :D

No website, no sign-ups -- Just a community initiative to write using only your own word!

What are the rules? Just Three so far!

#1 - No AI

#2 - No Plagiarizing

#3 - Wordcount for the month should only come from what you write during the month.

What does that mean?

Only words written during November should go towards your Wordcount for the month... but! Feel free to use your 30k words as a continuation of previous writing, or just make it the first 30k words in a longer novel!

Don't think you can write a whole entire 30k word story? Write a series of short stories that total up to 30k!

Not ready to write original works yet? Write a 30k word fanfiction that you can post after the end of the month!

Share your writing experience, tips, encouragement, and questions in the #Novella November tag!

EDIT 1, from the tags: Want a progress tracker? Track your progress with TrackBear!

https://trackbear.app/

Or, create some custom progress cards in advance you can fill out as you reach word goals!

[writers-worst-nightmare]

Welcome to the internet

PLATONIC TOMMY X READER

Summery: y/n is older then Tommy, and once Tommy gets to his reach of fame y/n finally shows him the mess that the internet really is

A/N: this song is just *chefs kiss*

Warning(s): mentions of racism, cussing, minor talks about murder, it mentions rule 34…soooo…..do with that what you must (“and a bunch of colored pencil drawings of all the different character of Harry Potter fucking each other“ is the line)

You slid in front of Tommy and placed on a large smile on your face, dragging Tommy to your computer you started humming slightly.

“Welcome to the internet! Have a look around Anything that brain of yours can think of can be found We've got mountains of content—some better, some worse If none of it's of interest to you, you'd be the first”

You exclaimed happily, Tommy nodded in agreement before laughing.

”My job is streaming for the internet to see, of course I know that!” Tommy brushed off. You laughed breathlessly a little bit before saying again

“Welcome to the internet! Come and take a seat”

you offered, patting the chair next to you. Tommy happily accepted and sat down on the chair next to you.

“Would you like to see the news or any famous women's feet?”

You asked as you pulled up countless of pictures of fake News that spread like wildfires greedily licking up all the little things that celebrities said and putting them out of context, or just making up random shit and posting it on their new magazine cover to get more people to but their products that they got. Then, you quickly pulled up pictures of women getting sexualized for practically nothing. Through all of this, Tommy just stood their in silence, frozen still.

“There's no need to panic; this isn't a test, haha Just nod or shake your head, and we'll do the rest”

Tommy, still frozen, looked at the screen as you got ready to pull up more pages of the internet

“Welcome to the internet! What would you prefer?”

You proceed, quickly typing some things in on your keyboard before clicking “enter“ and showing Tommy what you mean Whenever you say that you need a break from the internet and take a couple months (or even years when it gets really bad) of not posting or anything.

”Would you like to fight for civil rights?”

You showed Tommy the BLM movement. Tommy smiled and nodded his head ‘yes.’

“Or tweet a racial slur?”

You showed the countless of tweets that showed up as famous celebrities posted about how the BLM movement was stupid.

“Why would I do that—“ Tommy was cut off by you picking up your speech a little.

“Be happy!”

You opened up the Spotify app

”Be horny!”

You opened up the Wattpad app

”Be bursting with rage!”

you opened up Twitter once more

“We’ve got a million ways to engage!”

You cheered as you showed Tommy the different apps and internet searches you could go off of.

“Well, yes, I know that but isn’t there a different way to—“ Tonly was cut off again by you explaining more.

“Welcome to the internet! Put your cares aside”

You seemed to e going slightly more irritated with yourself as you kept on going.

“Here's a tip for straining pasta;”

Tommy relaxed a little as you put up tips for straining pasta, maybe there was only a tiny part of the internet that was bad.

“here's a nine-year-old who died”

You pulled up countless of articles, and Tommy’s breath caught in his throat as he stared down at the mess of the internet. One minute was pasta and the other is was death? What the fuck!?

”We've got movies and doctors and fantasy sports”

Tommy looked bewildered, as if the fact about a ton of nine-year-olds dying was the same as saying it was a sunny day outside.

“And a bunch of colored-pencil drawings of all the different characters in Harry Potter fucking each other”

”I—I beg your fucking pardon!?” Tommy exclaimed looking even more baffled.

”Welcome to the internet! Hold on to your socks 'Cause a random guy just kindly sent you photos of his cock They are grainy and off-putting; he just sent you more Don't act surprised—you know you like it, you whore”

”Y/n….what has been happening!?” Tommy yelled as he stared at you in a worried expression.

“See a man beheaded, get offended, see a shrink Show us pictures of your children, tell us every thought you think Start a rumor, buy a broomer, send a death threat to a boomer Or DM a girl and groom her; do a zoomer find a tumor in your— Here's a healthy breakfast option, you should kill your mom Here's why women never fuck you; here's how you can build a bomb Which Power Ranger are you? Take this quirky quiz Obama sent the immigrants to vaccinate your kids”

Tears started to fall from your eyes as you stared down at the phone that held internet.

“Could I interest you in everything all of the time? A little bit of everything all of the time Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime Anything and everything all of the time Could I interest you in everything all of the time? A little bit of everything all of the time Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime Anything and everything all of the time”

You rambled on as the phone shook in your hands violently.

“Not very long ago, just before your time Right before the towers fell, circa '99 This was catalogs, travel blogs, a chatroom or two We set our sights and spent our nights waiting for you! You, insatiable you Mommy let you use her iPad; you were barely two And it did all the things we designed it to do Now, look at you! Oh, look at you! You, you! Unstoppable, watchable Your time is now, your inside's out, honey, how you grew And if we stick together, who knows what we'll do? It was always the plan to put the world in your hand”

You let out a weak smiling, remembering all the good memories that you had almost forgotten. They almost faded in the back of your head and lost.

Could I interest you in everything all of the time? A bit of everything all of the time Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime Anything and everything all of the time Could I interest you in everything all of the time? A little bit of everything all of the time Apathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime Anything and everything and anything and everything And anything and everything and All of the time

[lsholland]

London Lights (pt. 1) - Tom Holland

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader (1st person)

Genre: Party!Tom

Warnings: swearing; alcohol; nothing much but I don’t recommend -18 to read.

Word count: 1.9k

Author’s note: Hey guys! That’s my first story on this blog. I hope you’ll like it. I’m not native so there may be a few mistakes. I’m trying a new genre of fiction. It’s my first Tom Holland fiction. It’ll be a series of 2-3 chapters. If you want to be part of the master list for Tom please like this post and message me. 

Synopsis: Quarantine has been tough. I’ve lost my boyfriend, and I’m feeling lonely. Clubs and restaurants are open again, but I feel like it’ll never be like it used to. My friends have been pushing me to install Tinder and go on dates. Well, tonight, I’m going on a date. I don’t really want to but I’m going to try and have fun for once. Just a few drinks and I’ll go home. What else could happen?

PS. You can read the story on Wattpad.

What am I doing here? I think to myself.

I matched with this guy on this famous dating app . . . And now I'm supposed to meet him here, at this bar. But I don't want to. I'm just hoping he won't show up so I can escape from this shit-place.

I've been seated at the table for a good 5 minutes. The waitress cleans up the table next to mine and asks if I'm ready to order.

No, I want to leave.

I quickly glance at the drinks menu.

"Ehm . . . A pour over Irish coffee, please."

She nods and leaves. I don't even know what I just ordered. I hope it tastes good. Hopefully it'll make me drunk enough not to remember this awful date.

It hasn't even started yet.

I'm sweating.

"Hey there" says a husky voice right behind me.

I turn around and see my date. His name is Jordan. He's good-looking and I bet he's intelligent, but I don't have this feeling with him. I don't know why I accepted to go on a date in the first place. It's awkward.

"Hey!" I grin.

"Have you ordered something already?" he asks, touching his short, clean beard. "I'm thirsty!"

He looks nice.

*

The waitress hands me my third drink. They help the clock tick a little faster.

He's been talking about his job, his passions. He loves football and practises daily. He has 2 sisters and lives in Camberwell.

Cute.

For a moment, I feel sad for him. He drove all the way to this East London bar, put effort trying to look nice and being cool . . . and yet, he doesn't know it but he has no chance to get lucky tonight. Not with me.

I shouldn't be sorry.

But I am.

I glance around looking for something that might be a little more entertaining than him. I realise I've avoided eye contact since he arrived. I finally glimpse at him. He has beautiful hazel eyes.

Still not enough.

I quickly check my phone. It's getting late. I don't know how to end this.

"Look," I slightly bend over the table. "I'm so sorry but I don't feel like it tonight"

"I noticed." He smirked. "Kinda awkward, innit?"

I chuckle. I am so embarrassed.

"It's okay, though." He added. "I'm just trying to meet new people. I broke up with my ex-girlfriend a few weeks ago. My mates told me I should try these apps."

Okay, now I feel worse than ever. He's been so nice with me and that's how I treat him. I grab my drink and gulp it down.

I shouldn't have done this.

"Let's go dance. I owe you one." I say as I grab his hand and walk towards the dancing area. It becomes difficult to keep my head straight.

I'm drunk, I must admit.

I'm going to regret it, my sober-self shouts in my head.

I don't care is what I reply.

The dancing area is not crowded, but there are already a few people. Most of them are girls.

Girls . . . I wish my friends were not so busy all the time. I would've come to this bar with them instead of wasting my time with strangers.

I start dancing. I stare at him. He looks amused.

A group of guys join the dancefloor and all the girls on my right start screaming. It's so high pitched I cringe.

"What the fuck guys?" I shout, trying to focus on the music.

"Woah, that's Spider-Man!" says my date. He grabs my chin and makes me look in his direction.

No way, I think. It's actually him.

I know he lives in the area, but I've never met him before. It's always weird to see movie stars in real life. They look so much more attractive.

He is so much more attractive.

I try not to be a drunk fangirl and shyly wave to him. He doesn't notice.

"You wanna go and take a picture with him?" my date asks.

"Oh, no, no!" I answer. I'm blushing. "I don't even know what I'd tell him."

He laughs.

The worst thing that could happen is to annoy him during a night out. He needs privacy and I must respect it.

But it's so difficult.

I can't stop staring at him. I don't even control it. Being drunk doesn't help.

"D'you want a beer?" I ask my date whose name I completely forgot.

He nods.

I weave my way through the crowd. I can't believe there are so many people on the dancefloor. The area is so busy since the Spider-Man actor walked in.

Even the bar area is crowded.

I let my body rest against a barstool but quickly lose balance and almost fall on the dirty floor. The flickering lights are making me feel dizzy. I grip the counter and get up. I peer around to make sure nobody saw me.

He did.

I dust off my dress trying to save the dignity I have left.

"Want something?" someone asks behind me. I turn around, it's the barman.

"Two pints of Guinness, please."

I glance back at the same spot, but he's gone. It must've been a dream. I'm so drunk I can't trust everything I think I see.

I'm grabbing both my drinks and look around trying to find my date, but there are too many people. I take a sip of my beer and hold the other one above my head.

Someone hits my arm.

Oh no.

"Oh my God I'm so sorry!" yells the drunk blond girl.

I look at my dress. It's soaking wet. I politely smile at her. "It's okay," I mouth.

What a mess. I glance at the lavatory door. I need to go and save my dress.

"You haven't been lucky here."

I turn around to find out who's talking to me.

It's him. Tom Holland. Talking to me.

"What?" is all I manage to say.

"Do you need a hand?" he politely asks.

I blush so much it's noticeable in the dark.

I'm choking. I'm panicking.

I give him my two beers and walk towards the lavatory. I'm surely starstruck. And drunk. This isn't a good mix.

Once in the room, I grab a handful of tissues and try to soak up my dress. I groan. Did I expect to make that beer mark disappear? Yes. Did it work? Of course not.

I watch my face in the mirror.

I look like shit, I think.

A door slams shut. Two young girls just walked in.

"OH, MY G—THAT'S TOM HOLLAND!" shouts one. They are both panting.

I roll my eyes.

Oh . . . I've given him my beers. What about my date?

"Shit!" I hiss.

I violently open the door and frown my eyebrows as the lights blind me.

He's just here gazing at me. Two beers in his hands. One of them is half empty, the rest being displayed on my dress.

"I'm so sorry!" I say embarrassed as ever.

He smirks. "No worries." He hands me the full glass of beer.

I give him a questioning look as I grab it. What about the other one? Oh, right—He's drinking it.

"What's your na—"

I stop him.

"I know who you are." I peer down. "I'm sorry I didn't wanna disturb you" I say as I'm walking away.

This time I'm smart enough to avoid the crowd on my way out.

"That's rude to leave without saying goodbye!" Tom shouts from a distance.

I turn around and stare at him. He's got a soft smile; he doesn't look drunk at all. I wave him goodbye.

Now, he's approaching me.

"I meant to your boyfriend" he nods in the direction of my date who was dancing with a group of other people.

"He's not my—" is all I can say before he chuckles.

"I figured."

"How?" I clench my jaw. I'm hypnotised by his hand running through his hair. And his smile. And his lips.

"I can barely hear you," he points at a booth in the corner of the room "maybe we could sit there" he suggests.

My mouth softens into a smile.

It's difficult to walk with Tom Holland. Every couple of seconds he's stopped by fans requesting a picture. And he accepts every time.

I'd never be so patient.

"What's that?" he asks.

"It must be so annoying sometimes." I tell him as I sit on the booth.

"When they're nice and ask me, it's cool." He chooses to sit next to me. I can feel his arm touching mine. My heart is racing. He uses his other arm to hold his chin; he looks at me with so much intensity. Sometimes peering down my lips.

His face is so close, but he keeps talking. I can feel his breath on my skin. I'm going to burst into flames. "But when they're taking pictures without asking first, that's delicate."

I nod. I can't really listen to what he's talking about. I'm trying not to lose control.

"So, what's your name?"

He smiles when I tell him. "Why did you leave your date alone?" he asks.

I'm so nervous I stutter. I can't find my words. "I . . . I wasn't in the mood. He knows it. I shouldn't have come here."

"I'm happy you came." He says looking me in the eyes.

I raise my eyebrows. "Are you flirting with me?"

He barks out a laugh and breaks the eye contact. He rests his head on the wall behind us.

He isn't as confident as I thought he'd be. I don't know what's up with him, but I enjoy it.

I suddenly remember he's a movie star. He's always being watched. I glance at the crowd and see flashing lights. They're taking pictures of us.

I'm getting dizzier.

I don't want to see my face on a dumb article talking about Tom Holland's mysterious partner. I don't even know him.

"This is stupid" I mumble.

Tom is intrigued. He hasn't got a clue what I'm talking about. He hasn't even noticed the fans stalking him.

"I'm sorry, I gotta go" I abruptly say as I stand up. "Have a good night."

I grab my phone and leave the venue. I'm upset because I really wish I could've met him in a different context. I open my Uber app: there's no driver available.

Shit.

How's that even possible on a Friday night? In London?

I refresh the app, but it doesn't work. I guess I'll have to walk home.

A part of me wants to go back in this bar and spend time with Tom. He's sweet and I'm sure we would've had so much fun together. I glance through the window trying to see his face one last time, but I can't find him.

"What are you looking for?"

I cringe.

"Oh, sorry I didn't mean to startle you."

It's him. It's Tom.

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

"Going home too. The fun of the party is leaving . . ." he sighs. I smile back at him. I'm embarrassed.

I stand in front of him, none of us say a word. It's awkward. I'm getting anxious and walk away. I'm so overwhelmed.

He grabs my shoulder. "Wait, are you walking home?"

"Yeah, it's okay don't worry." I smile.

"I can drive you home."

"Sorry, but you've been drinking. I won't let you drive me." I curtly say.

He grins. He looks at one of his mates and nods.

"No way I'm letting you walk home alone," he sighs "besides, you're drunk."

"Come with me then" I instantly reply without thinking.

He nods.

What?

He's coming with me. My heart is racing. I won't survive a 30-minute drunk walk with him.

Not with his beautiful glossy eyes staring at me.

Not with my burning desire to kiss him.

[carlyraejcpsen]

alright, i’ve tried to keep quiet because i truly believe in karma and wanted this rp to close through the admin’s own actions and not give them any opportunities to blame it on me instead. it also felt like beating a dead horse, because i was sure they’d close the rp after losing a huge proportion of their active members and the majority of their diversity. however, after seeing multiple people sharing their experiences today, they are still posting promo posts and starting their event. so yeah, here’s my experience with @thevillagerp​​

NOTE: i no longer have screenshots from my conversations with the admins, as i blocked them when i left the rp for the sake of my own mental health, but i did save the text in my drafts, so the messages below are copy pasted. i have not edited them in any way. They also deleted my original anonymous messages off of their blog.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: racism, very vague allusions to homophobia and transphobia

so i was a member of this roleplay for around two months. during my time there, it was startlingly obvious that white fcs were preferred and prioritised, both from the fact that they got more plots and interactions in general and from the fact that admins never promoted diversity on the main. even now, they repeatedly say they “would still love to receive some more male and non-binary apps” while ignoring that they currently have a ratio of 8 fcs of colour to 24 white fcs. their diversity rules at the time were that 1/3 of a mun’s characters had to be played by an fcoc. so people could easily just play one or two white characters.

a while ago, i sent an anonymous message to the main asking if they had considered perhaps changing this rule to be 2/3 characters instead of 1/3, since there were so few muses of colour in the roleplay (as i said before, they’ve since deleted this from their blog so i cannot provide a screenshot). they responded that they had been thinking of upping the character limit to four instead of three, with a rule that 2/4 must be played by an fcoc. i gave them the benefit of the doubt and the time to enact this change, but nothing happened.

so a few weeks later, i sent them this message on anonymous:

I was wondering if you had thought any more about the diversity rules here? I know you said before that you were considering increasing the character limit, but I noticed that hasn’t happened and I wanted to know if that was a change we’re going to see or if you would consider changing the rules in another way? I’m really disheartened by the lack of diversity in the roleplay

at the time there were 18 characters of colour out of a total of over 60. they responded (again, i’m sorry i don’t have the actual wording since they’ve deleted the messages) that they had thought about it and decided against upping the character limit, but instead would be having a weekly “poc acceptance day,” where they would only be accepting apps with fcs of colour. they also said they were doing this “now that the waitlist was mostly cleared,” which meant that the rp was mostly at capacity anyway, so they needed to look more at how to encourage their existing members to promote diversity, since there weren’t spaces open for new people to bring them in.

i responded with another anon expressing my disappointment and pointing out that they had done more to prevent having too many celebrity characters than too few muses of colour, as at the time they had a ban on celebrity muses. i wouldn’t usually suggest a ban on certain fcs, but as it was something they had done for celebrity characters, then i supposed it was a reasonable option.

they didn’t even respond to this message and instead posted on the main asking me to come off anon to discuss it. so i did, and i sent them the following dm:

i didn’t want to come off anon because i honestly feel really ostracised in this group and didn’t want to make it worse, but i don’t want to drop this issue and you aren’t comfortable addressing it publicly so here we are i guess. like i said in my previous message, i really don’t see how a “poc acceptance day” is going to make anywhere near enough of a difference. people will just wait for the opportunity to play their white characters. there are only 18 characters of colour in a roleplay with over 60 characters. that’s less than a third, which is obviously concerning. what’s even more concerning for me is that these characters are more often than not overlooked. i am often ghosted when plotting, or people don’t even reach out at all when i like plotting calls or intro posts. and then i have to watch characters like leo almost exclusively interact with white women (i’m sure that’s not the only example, but it is the first that comes to mind as he is one of the more active characters).

so this issue goes so much deeper than there just not being adequate representation in the rp. i really tried to help, i suggested making it a rule that 2/3 characters need to be poc in my original ask and you mentioned upping the character limit in response. i was worried that my concerns were being brushed aside, but i waited a while to give you the benefit of the doubt and the space to discuss the issue. so you can understand why it was really upsetting today to learn that the one thing you suggested was dropped and instead replaced with something that is barely scratching the surface of the problem. and i don’t know if it was your intention, but by saying that you were waiting for the waitlist to clear, it comes across as not wanting to receive any backlash from people who would want to join with only white characters. and even if people did want to join with faceclaims of colour, they can’t because the waitlist is cleared. like i suggested, you could change the rules so that 2 out of 3 characters must be people of colour. or, as was your proposed idea, up the character limit to four. you could also put a temporary ban on white faceclaims until the ratio evens out. as i mentioned, it’s really distressing that this was something you were willing to do for celebrity characters, but not to aid diversity.

i also just want to make it clear that these have been the only anons i’ve sent, i know you’ve been getting other ones, but those weren’t from me!!

( for context, they were receiving anons from someone else claiming that they felt left out in the rp ).

i had hoped that coming off anon would show them that this was a very real issue which was affecting their members, as well as giving them a space to discuss it privately instead of on the main. they responded with:

Hi Em, thank you for coming forward. We really, really appreciate it and we understand it’s not an easy thing to do. We also appreciate you flying the flag for diversity so strongly. We can always strive to be better, we are on the same page with you here.

Let us just explain our decision making. Firstly, just to address the waitlist, that was certainly not at all our intention when we brought it up. It was a logistical decision with 5+ applicants having already waited a week for acceptance and aware of their position on a waitlist.

When we decided against upping the character limit (and therefore the 2/4 POC character rule), we thought a POC acceptance day could be a good alternative course of action. In our eyes, this was something that would probably bring more POC characters to the group than the 2/4 rule because we knew there weren’t going to be many muns taking up an additional fourth character. This was a rule we’ve seen other groups enjoy success from so we wanted to try it out here. Plus, we think a day that explicitly highlights diversity every week would bring the message to the forefront of everyone’s minds. As we said, we’re going to monitor this over the next couple of weeks to see if it brings any improvement because we’d really like to have it as an ongoing rule.

The non-POC ban is actually a measure we’ve spoken about too and we are considering putting one in place should this fail. Thank you for raising your concerns, know that we’ve taken them very seriously and we hope that you’ll trust our judgement in trying this rule out first to see where it leads.

first of all, i don’t think i even have to mention the wording of “flying the flag for diversity.” but the real crux of the issue here is that they supposedly wanted me to come off anon to discuss the issue, but instead just explained their idea further and didn’t take anything i said on board. they didn’t even say a single word about how i told them i felt ostracised and regularly got ignored. i knew from speaking to other muns in the rp who played muses of colour (and just from looking at the dash) that they felt the same way too, but of course was only speaking from my own experience.

i thought long and hard about how to respond to this, as i was so disheartened by their unwillingness to listen to their members and the fact that they didn’t care that i felt left out. it felt like they had asked me to come off anon just so they knew who was messaging them and therefore put a target on my back, so honestly the thought of being on the dash or talking to the admins made me incredibly anxious. before i had a chance, however, they responded again with:

Hi hun, we’ve continued discussing this issue over the last couple of days and we wanted to let you know that we’ve decided to put in place a non-POC ban instead. Thank you again for holding a mirror up to the group. We do hope that this will recorrect the balance.

so i waited to see how things would play out. they posted about this new ban here and pinned the post to the top of the main:

[ IMAGE ID: a screenshot from thevillagehq of an admin update, which reads: in the interest of keeping the village a diverse space, we are currently only accepting applications for POCs. please note that any apps or reserves submitted to us for faceclaims that are not POCs will be deleted. we will lift this rule once we see fit.

thank you for your understanding and your efforts in making this group a brighter, more inclusive and diverse place for all. /END ID ]

this rule remained in place for around two weeks, during which time they made almost no effort to promote it. the above post was pinned to the main page, but that was the only mention of the ban anywhere on their page, they didn’t update the rules page or even put a note on the application page about it. during this two week period, the admins posted 10 promo posts, none of which suggested fcs or even mentioned the ban or diversity at all. the ban was then lifted suddenly when the pinned post was removed and the admins just went back to accepting apps with white fcs. the ratio had only evened out in those two weeks (from 18 out of 65 to 24/50) because of people going inactive or leaving, and there was nothing put into place to continue to promote diversity after the lift of the ban. in the three days after the ban was lifted, the admins posted over 10 promo posts, the same amount they had posted during the entirety of the ban. it was clear that they had no intention of actually making changes in their rp and had only done so because i refused to drop the issue.

again, i thought a lot about what i wanted to message them. i knew at this point that they didn’t want to make any real changes, but i still felt like i had to make it clear to them how disappointing their actions were. once again, i was messaged before i even had a chance, this time for bubbling.

as you can see in the above correspondence, i had told the admins point blank that i felt left out and ignored in the rp because of the characters i played (aubrey plaza, mj rodriguez and keiynan lonsdale fcs. all of my characters were queer and used either she/they or they/them pronouns). as a general rule, the only people who wanted to write with me and have interesting plots with me were people who played other muses of colour. the rp had a rule that you must reply to 3+ muns on every character, which i had been doing. i had only been back from my hiatus for a few days at this point and had responded to 6 different open starters the day prior. their message to me read:

Hi hun. There’s something we wanted to address to you directly. It’s been expressed to us by multiple members during these last few weeks that they have felt excluded by your character within the group, especially when it comes to the friend bubble that has formed between Mars, Bowie, Luvena, Asher and others. 

While we encourage the development of friendships and trust that this isn’t intentional, we have a zero tolerance for bubble roleplaying at The Village. We are aware that our three mun activity rules have been met by all parties involved, however, bubbling is usually a little more nuanced than that and it seems it has unfortunately begun to create a bit of a divide within the group. 

We have already issued individual warnings to a few people within the bubble, however with multiple members still expressing their concerns to us, we decided it would be better to address the group as a whole. We hope that by pointing this out to you, you will try and branch out to your fellow members a little more from now on - and try and be a little more inclusive when it comes to everyone else in the group. 

We take such matters very seriously as admins, and while we hope it won’t have to come to this, there will be consequential steps taken should we not see any changes in your interactions in the weeks to come.

as you can imagine, i was incredibly upset to receive this message after already telling them i didn’t get plots from many of their members and they had done nothing. even people who i had previously messaged continued to only write with the same few white characters. i don’t deny that we definitely had a friendship group between our characters, but there were multiple people in that roleplay, including the admins, who only cared about ship plots or plots with the same few muns. me and other people who received the same message had all previously told the admins that people aren’t plotting with us and gotten ignored, so receiving this message made it clear that they neither cared about us nor wanted us in their rp. and so i responded as below:

yeah i literally told you i felt left out because there are multiple people only writing with white characters and you never addressed it, so this message is honestly insulting. i have reached out to almost every new member, responded to multiple open starters and have tried to plot with as many people as possible. like i told you, i am often left on read or people don’t even message me at all. if people do message me, i am usually expected to put in all of the effort and if people aren’t interested in actually developing plots with me then i am obviously not going to force my characters on them. all of my characters are queer, non binary people of colour and the harsh truth of this roleplay is that people don’t care about them. i even wrote out a whole list of 20 detailed suggested connections in an attempt to get more plots and nothing came from that either. i’ve even gotten anonymous hate saying that offering to explain my characters’ pronouns was “patronising,” which i didn’t feel like i could approach you about because, when i told you about how i’m feeling excluded, you didn’t care.

so if i only have actual plots with the people who actually care about my characters, i make no apologies. i also don’t even have threads with half of the characters you named, asher being the only one, and have literally only just come off hiatus. so please explain how i am bubbling, because this really just feels targeted at this point.

you’ve made it endlessly clear that this rp isn’t a safe space for people who want to play diverse characters. the main was practically silent while you had a ban on white faceclaims, which you never actively promoted, and then you dropped that suddenly without putting anything else in place. you also deleted my initial anonymous messages asking about diversity as if you were trying to hide that there was ever an issue. you turned anonymous messages off, so that no one can safely criticise you. because i did that off anon and ever since it has felt like there is a massive target on my back. my characters have been “accidentally” on the activity checks multiple times despite me being on hiatus (people get a notification that they were tagged even if you remove their name from the list btw). plus when i asked for an extension on my hiatus, you said that you would allow it “just this once” which now makes me feel like i can’t come to you if i’m busy. right now, for example, i am in the middle of moving house, but i’m also stressed about trying to stay active because you have made yourselves completely unapproachable.

the ratio only evened out slightly because members left. then suddenly after the ban you’re posting multiple promo posts a day??? you couldn’t get more obvious. i came to you about diversity in good faith, hoping that it was something you were unaware of, but you have made it abundantly clear that you actively do not want to promote diversity in your roleplay, we are just here to be witnesses to your ship. there are multiple members who are actually bubbling who have been brought to your attention, but nothing has been done. leo continues to only write with the same three white and white passing characters. charlotte pretty much only appears to write with leo and post a vague “message me for plots” post that wasn’t even tagged. both of you only put effort into your ship threads with each other and the occasional text threads. even with something like group events: while i’ve been here, there’s been a pride event that neither of your characters were even in new york for (an event where i was the only one reaching out and posting multiple starters, by the way); there was no event last month, and this month all you’re talking about is this housewarming party.

i’m really disheartened that it’s come to this, but i can’t be here anymore. please post unfollows for all my characters. you’ve said multiple times that we should trust you as admins, but this message shows again that i simply can’t do that. from the disregard of trigger warnings, to the way you treated being held accountable for the lack of diversity, to how you respond to people asking for hiatuses, this isn’t a safe space. even if i stayed, the target you have placed on me is making it insufferable to just write my characters in peace.

the other muns who received the same bubbling message (copy pasted btw, we all got the same one word for word) all responded with their own concerns and criticisms in responses of a similar length to mine. none of us received a reply, our unfollows were just posted the next day without any further responses from the admins. a few of the other members who had written and plotted with us chose to leave as well, which the admins wrote off as us just dragging them with us as opposed to them being able to make their own decisions and being aware of the situation (which was incredibly obvious. no promotion of a white fc ban, suddenly being active on the main once they try to stealthily drop the ban, then the majority of their muses of colour leaving???)

i haven’t paid the rp much attention since i left, as i mentioned above i blocked the main and the majority of the members just for my own mental health. but from a quick scroll through today i can see that the only change in diversity rules is that now instead of your third character having to be a poc, it is now your second. however, you still only have to have 1 character out of 3 have a fc of colour. so very little has been done, but of course i’m not surprised in the slightist.

these admins don’t want diversity in their roleplay. if you play any character who isn’t a rich, white, cishet neurotypical, please avoid it at all costs. it’s not in any way a safe environment.

[albatrossmuffin]

Birthday Story: Rei

Translation of Birthday Story: Sousuke can be found right here still because pfort still hasn’t gotten their sh*t together yet lol:

However they are supposed to return April 29th, so once the dust settles I’ll post this, Nao’s, and Sousuke’s properly over there with the scans and stuff; I’ll link on each post when that happens. 

Here’s the link to Rei’s post.

There is also a brief reference to Nagisa’s birthday story if you wanted to take a look here.

(Thank you so much for said scans, @softmakoharus​!)

Birthday Story #08 Rei

In the silence, I took a deep breath. My head is clearing just like clear water.

Today is a special day for me. My digital wristwatch indicates it is 6:30am. I woke up earlier than usual, and my daily running, which I had started one hour earlier, was already nearing the end of the course.

I suppose the morning sun will rise shortly; the sky is moving from darkness to a dim light.

I remember that Nagisa-kun had sent me a picture of the sunrise previously. If I recall it was around 4:00am, and I was late in noticing. Nagisa-kun had seemed dissatisfied, saying “Even though I wanted you to look at it immediately, Rei-chan~~!”, but it is a fact that I had been enchanted by the beauty of the photo.

—I wonder, if Nagisa-kun received a photo of the sunrise from me, would he be pleased?

When bathed in sunlight, serotonin is secreted in large quantities, and the brain is activated. Considering it theoretically, there is no doubt that I can take a photo in my best condition. And on the coast near here, as well, there should have been one of Nagisa-kun’s treasured “Best Sunrise Spots.” I stray from my usual running course and continue running.

Twelve minutes left until sunrise. I’ll make it to my destination without any problems. Imagining Nagisa-kun’s surprised face, I felt the corners of my mouth rise.  The sea begins to spread out before of me.

One minute and twenty-two seconds until sunrise…… I readied my smartphone camera towards the horizon. I open my legs to shoulder-width apart and tighten my upper arms to my body. I put my finger on the shutter button, and then—

“Rei-chaaaan!”

“Douuwaaah!!”

An innocent face that I knew well was projected on the entire screen.

“What are you doing in a place like this? Your morning running course; it’s the opposite direction, right?”

“Eh, ah, well! Today…by chance…”

Why is Nagisa-kun……it’s no good, my brain isn’t working. It’s Nagisa-kun’s pace. It seems my serotonin hasn’t been secreted yet.

“I came to take a picture of the sunrise! I thought I’d make it a present to you, Rei-chan!”

Eh…….I frantically search for words. The moment I tried to say something, Nagisa-kun’s outline began to shine. The sunlight leaking out from the horizon is slowly enveloping Nagisa-kun and I. A warm light.

“Beautiful…”

That was the only word I could find.

“Even though I thought to make it more of a proper present, the sunrise.”

Once Nagisa-kun murmured this quietly, he then leapt out and stood in front of me.

“Rei-chan, happy birthday! Let’s keep being good friends!”*

I wonder if it’s because of the sunrise; Nagisa-kun’s smile appeared to shine more than usual.

“Nagisa-kun…shall we take a photo together?”

We took a photo with the sunrise as a backdrop, and we shared it with everyone in the swim club via a messaging app. Replies came back right away.

Gou: “Rei-kun, happy birthday! Everyone is perfectly ready!”

Romio: “Yes, for Captain Rei’s party, the decorations look really good!

Shizuru: “I’m at the fish market. Please look forward to fresh seafood ◎”

Ayumu: “Captain Rei, you’re up early! Happy birthday! I’m in the process of preparing the Kunikida family’s secret dashi!”

“Everyone, from this early in the morning…”

“Fufu. Eeeveryone loves you, Rei-chan!”

I held back firmly so that the welling up of emotion would not overflow.

Nagisa-kun stretches lightly.

“Allll right! I have to go home and get the cake ready, too! Like you, Rei-chan, I also worked extra hard at cake-making! Ehehe, I hope you’ll be pleased!”

Eh! Even though we were together every day I hadn’t noticed at all. Or rather, when it was Nagisa-kun’s birthday, the fact that I’d been doing intensive training in cake-making had been found out! Without regard to me, who’d instantly turned red to my ears, Nagisa-kun waved and left, saying “Well then, see you later!”

I also went home for a moment and washed off the sweat. I put on an orange-brown knit and head to the party venue. It’s the same place where we held Nagisa-kun’s birthday party.

Upon entering the room, brightly colored masterpieces adorned the table. The salmon carefully selected by Shizuru-kun had been transformed into a gorgeous California roll via Romio-kun’s arrangement; Ayumu-san’s dashi that she took great pride in was made into seafood soup, and Gou-san served it onto a dish. And also, Nagisa-kun’s cake that he’d made with all his might welcomed me in with its magnificent appearance.

During the party, I received many messages of celebration on my smartphone from Rin-san, Sousuke-san, Aiichirou-kun, and everyone from Samezuka. Happiness and some feelings of embarrassment mix together.

I got a call from Makoto-senpai, too.

“Rei, happy birthday!”

Makoto-senpai’s voice heard on a special day echoed more gently than usual.

“Haru says he has something he definitely wants to show you, Rei, so he’s going to send a picture.”

Makoto-senpai’s voice is animated. We look at the picture that was sent, and Nagisa-kun and I looked at each other and smiled.*

In the picture, a sunrise that peeked out from the top of a mountain somewhere was shining brilliantly, in the same way as the one we saw.

Today turned out to be a truly special day for me.

Everyone, thank you very much!

Notes:

“Let’s keep being good friends” – Nagisa says “kore kara yoroshiku;” which literally is something like “let’s continue to work well together,” “I hope we can work well together from now on,” “please continue to take care of me from now on,” etc., It’s a ridiculously versatile phrase, so I picked the translation that best fit the context.

“smiled” – This verb means to smile or laugh depending on context, and since the only context given was they looked at each other, it could be either one.

This is more of an FYI than a note, but when Makoto says they’re sending a picture, there is no subject for that part of the sentence; it could very well be Makoto helping Haru send the picture (but certainly by now they taught him to send a picture right lol)

[reki-of-the-valley]

Boy Like a Fading Dream

A part two of the uni AU? More like a "I wanted to characterize the Langa of this AU". Wrote it a couple of days ago but didn't want to back-to-back post, just give a few days for the first part to settle in.

Find it on AO3 here!

Context: For his skills on a snowboard, Langa landed himself a scholarship. But he hates it. He hates his studies. He hates the athletic training. He just wants to go back to the time when it was fun, racing his dad to the bottom of the mountain.

“Where’s dad?”

Langa lets his bag hit the ground with a thud as he kicks off his shoes. His mother is in the living room; she’s cutting carrots in front of some sitcom. She lifts her head to smile at her son as soon as he enters her line of sight.

“How was your day, baby?”

Langa sighs as he crashes next to her. He feels her watch him as he picks up a carrot from the bowl before snapping it in half between his teeth. He feels her gaze, just as heavy as his eyelids are.

“Tiring.”

It’s all he manages to say to her. It’s all he finds to say. Tiring. His days are always just tiring.

“Did you have fun at practice?”

Fun? Langa barely remembers what that feels like. Fun, it feels like a foreign word now. He knows he must have felt it in the past, the thrill of gliding down the snowy slopes, but now it’s anything but fun. Snowboarding isn’t fun anymore, especially when there’s no snow outside. Especially when he’s cooped up in a gym rather than out on the open mountains.

So was training fun? No. No, it wasn’t.

“It was fine,” he lies. He can’t tell his mother how much he hates it. He can’t tell her when it’s what’s paying for his education – an education he also hates. “The usual, you know.”

Nanako pats his arm, her smile sweet and ever so motherly. “That’s good, baby. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

Langa sucks in a breath as his mother presses a kiss to his hair. I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself. If only she knew how big a lie that was. He would have done anything to just quit everything right now and lay in bed for the next ten years. Everything lost its appeal. If only everything could stop just for a moment, just for a minute, just enough time for Langa to catch his breath.

“Dad’s not home yet, is he?”

Nanako shakes her head. “He’s staying late tonight. He has a project that’s due, I think, tomorrow? Something about his team not being up-to-date so he has to stay late.”

Langa sighs again as he straightens out on the couch. He grabs another carrot before getting up to fetch his bag.

“I have to go study.”

Nanako doesn’t say anything as he leaves to climb the stairs that lead to his bedroom. Langa knows she’s watching him, watching his every move, but she doesn’t say anything. Maybe she can sense his disappointment. Maybe she knows that he’s lying to her.

Langa crashes in his bed, slinging his bag at the end of his mattress where it bounced before falling among the pile of dirty clothes he’s thrown aside. His room is a mess, but he can’t bring himself to clear out his trash. He’s already in a deficit of energy when just doing his mundane daily tasks. So he crashes among his pillows and pulls out his phone.

It's automatic, the swiping left and clicking on the app. It’s become a routine, crashing in bed and opening Instagram to scroll mindlessly. Langa doesn’t actually care for what’s on his screen, he just needs something to do, something to make him forget about the emptiness that’s formed in his chest.

So he scrolls. Pictures of old friends from high school, professional pictures and reels of snowboarders, screenshots of old Tumblr posts, reels of animals being cute, Langa scrolls through them all. He scrolls, scrolls until everything on his phone becomes a big blur. He scrolls until his phone slips from his fingers, falling flat on his face.

Another sigh as he turns to his side. His phone rests against his pillow as he goes back to scrolling. Always scrolling, numbing everything he’s ever felt. Because Langa does feel. He feels a million things, but none of those feelings are good. Frustration, loneliness, exhaustion, the list can go on. He hates all his feelings, especially that hollow feeling of disappointment that has been growing over the past year or so.

A notification pulls Langa out of his mindless scrolling. He usually ignores them, swiping them away, but for some reason, this one catches his attention. For some reason, he clicks it rather than get rid of it. The flash of red catches his attention.

.MechanicStarReki. – Suggested for you

Langa squints at his screen. The name doesn’t ring a bell but the face seems familiar. Familiar, but he can’t pinpoint where exactly it is that he’s seen it. His memory of the familiar face is hazy, like that of a dream starting to fade as morning takes shape. Familiar yet so foreign.

Langa scrolls through the profile, careful to not make his presence known. Most of the captions are in Japanese and he can’t find it in himself to decipher their meaning. He knows with a little effort, and maybe a little help from a translator app or from his mother, he could read the words, but he doesn’t bother. He contents himself with the scarce English. He contents himself with the many pictures of a boy with red hair.

The last post dates back a few weeks, a set of pictures with the caption “See you for Christmas.” The pictures show the redhead hugging who Langa assumes to be his sisters. They all look too much alike for them to not be family. Langa swipes between the pictures, taking in the scene: two school-aged girls cling to the boy, identical in all ways except the color of their dresses. He’s hugging them, a wide grin stretching across his face. Langa swipes again. Another girl is shown in the picture – she must be around 15. She’s pouting, but the sun reflects against the tears that had started to form at the corner of her eyes as she hugs the boy. Her eyes are the same color as his, a deep amber color that Langa knows he’s seen somewhere. He knows he's seen the boy, but he also knows it’s impossible. He can’t have seen him, not with the location associated with the picture: Okinawa, Japan. There’s no way he’s ever seen this boy; Langa’s only been to Japan once, the summer before he started high school.

Langa moves on from the set of pictures. He scrolls down, analyzing everything that has been posted over the years. Skateboards, sketches of various types, doodles, the boy with his friends, more of his family. Langa always pauses on the pictures of him. He always squints at him as if that would help him remember where he’s seen him.

A part of Langa knows that this is obsessive behavior, that he should just let it go, but he needs to know. He needs to know where he’s seen those faded freckles against sun-kissed skin. He needs to know where he’s seen those bright amber eyes. He needs to know where he’s seen that lopsided grin. He needs to know where he’s seen this boy, this boy that feels like a fading dream.

Does he resemble an actor from one of his mother’s shows, the Japanese ones she puts on while she cooks? No, that’s not it. He’s too young to look like any of those actors. Anyway, Langa never pays attention to the actors on the screen; he only knows the story because his mother has been following the ridiculous drama for years now. So the boy doesn’t just look like someone Langa might have seen on tv.

Does he look like an athlete Langa’s watched perform time after time, desperately trying to analyze his technique in hopes of recreating whatever is being done? No, it isn’t that either. Langa never recognizes the athletes, even when they tell him they've been competing against each other for years. He remembers their boards, but never their faces. So it isn’t that.

No matter how much Langa rakes his brain, he can’t find where it is that he’s seen the grin, the bright eyes, the freckles. Maybe the boy really is a figment of his imagination, a face given to a faceless dream that comes back every so often. Maybe he’s caught a glance of someone who looks like him in the street, or maybe it’s just a mere coincidence that the boy Langa’s made up looks like him, a mixture of a bunch of features that gave someone real. Or maybe Langa is delusional from his lack of sleep.

Langa drops his phone as his door is pushed open. He knows his mother knocked, but when he gets lost in his own little world, nothing else exists. Nothing exists until his bubble bursts.

“Langa sweetheart?” Nanako is standing in the doorway. She's looking at him, a slight frown pulling at the corners of her mouth. Her usual worry is evident in her features. “Is everything alright?”

Langa shifts, pushing his legs off of his bed to sit up. He nods at his mother, his words failing him. He hates how he finds himself unable to speak.

“Are you sure?” She shifts her weight to the side. Worry. “I’ve been calling you to set the table for the past 10 minutes now.”

Langa blinks at his mother before apologizing. He hadn’t heard her, he says. He had gotten lost in his own little world. He’s sorry, he’ll be down in a minute to set the table.

“Langa.” Nanako’s voice pierces through him as he fishes his phone out from under his pillow. “Are you sure nothing’s bothering you?”

Langa almost cracks. He almost tells her. He almost admits that he hates everything he’s doing. He almost admits that he hates going to school. He almost admits that he hates training. He almost admits that the thing he hates most is himself. Almost, but he doesn’t. He wouldn’t be able to survive the disappointed look on his mother’s face. He knows she would understand, that she’d tell him he’s allowed to quit, that she would support him no matter what, but he also knows she would be disappointed.

So he just smiles at her, that closed-mouthed smile he’s been practicing for years.

“I’m just tired.”

Nanako nods before making her way to him. She holds him tightly against herself, the warm embrace of a mother. And for a moment, Langa doesn’t hate himself.

“If you’re tired, I can bring your food up. You don’t have to eat downstairs if it’s too much.”

Langa shakes his head. Dinnertime is the only time of the day where he can spend time with his parents. Between classes and training, he’s barely ever home. It’s the only time where things feel normal, like they were back in the day when Langa was young, doing homework at the kitchen table while his mother cooked, explaining to him what he had to do. It’s the only time where he feels like they’re a family again.

“Just give me a minute and I’ll be down.”

Nanako sighs as she steps away from him, nodding. A small, tired smile pulls at the corner of her mouth as she turns back to him, halfway through the door.

“You promise you’d tell me if something was bothering you?”

Langa nods, promising, but the promise is hollow, his fingers crossed behind his back. It’s broken before even being uttered because Langa knows that he can’t make that promise. There’s just no way that he can promise such a thing. He can’t bring himself to tell anyone about how he feels. But still, he smiles and nods at his mother as she makes her way out of his room, down the stairs, back to the kitchen. He smiles until he can’t bear it anymore and crystal tears fall from his eyes, fall right onto the picture of the grinning boy in his phone, the phone he's been gripping so tightly.

[planetjisungie]

shower- p.js

characters; idol! jisung x reader ft. dreamies

summary; crack, fluff kind of, the older dreamies being pervs and jisung making sure they know that 😌

an; okay just read the whole thing because taken out of context this looks so bad but this was inspired by an instagram post that im sure youve all seen

the boys were all sat on the sofa in the dorm, watching the movie so in depth that they were on the edge of their seats. apart from one of them. jisungs phone screen was glowing bright white, a smile constantly kept up as he texted his girlfriend— you.

"aye, park jisung watch the damn movie." chenle slapped jisung’s knee from his left, the taller overdramatising it by rolling onto his side and into jaemin. at this point, jisung had been on his phone the whole time and the boys were slightly irked. this was supposed to be their group bonding time, chenle had to go home himself in a couple of hours and haechan stayed at the 127 dorm so this time was rather hard to get.

jaemin didnt oppose to this, wrapping his arms and legs around the now struggling teenager who was trying to get out of the tight lock his groupmate was holding him in. "jisungie~" jaemins sweet tone made him scrunch his nose, turning to clawing his way out of the embrace. "hey let me gooooo!" jisung continued struggling, the other boys ignoring him as they kept their eyes trained on the movie playing on their TV. eventually he made his way out, phone now discarded on the seat of the sofa with his elbows on his knees as he caught his breath.

"im going to the toilet." jisung grumbled, standing up and leaving the room. once he was gone, all the boys scrambled over to the sofa that jaemin, chenle and the boy in question were sat on, jeno snatching his phone. "you guys should respect his privacy." renjun tutted, shaking his head before making his way over slowly. "don’t tell me you’re not interested in finding out who he was texting, did you see his smile?!" chenle reasoned out, entering the password that he knew off by heart into his bestfriends phone.

"just saying, if he finds out you snooped through his stuff, i had no part in it." renjun rolled his eyes but looked at the screen in interest nonetheless. of course they were all curious; recently jisung hadnt been paying as much attention to them and had seemed to have matured more.

it was the little things, such as washing up without complaints, doing the laundry, tidying his room more often, showering more often and he was even getting jaemin to teach him how to cook. it was suspicious to say the least, and the boys were going to find out what had caused such a change in the youngest member.

chenle double clicked the home button to open up the most recently used applications, pressing on the first and most recent one. the familiar snapchat app greeted their nosey eyes, the camera first showing their faces before chenle winced and swiped right. "snapchat? i didn’t even know he used it." jeno curiously peered down closer, pushing his glasses up his nose with his finger. haechan squinted before taking the phone out of chenles hands, eyes blown open as he pointed to the pinned conversation at the top of the screen. jisung only had about 5 chats open anyway from family members and they were all printed with ‘53w’ meaning he hadnt spoken to them in over a year.

however, the pinned conversation had the blue arrow, meaning jisung had recently sent a message "7 minutes ago? to... sweetpea with a bunch of hearts?" jaemin now grabbed the phone, pressing the pinned chat to open up the saved messages. "idiots, who even saves messages on snapchat these days." chenle retorted, lifting a hand to ruffle his hair. the room was practically silent except from the quiet noise of the TV, everyone now focused on the rectangular object in jaemin’s hands.

me: love this movie is so boring but i want to spend time with the others :((((

sweetpea💓🥺💓❤️: lolllll, just tell them its boring and ask to change it. this is quality time, enjoy it whilst you can

me: but im scared they’ll be upset, theyve wanted to watch this movie for so long now

me: why dont you come round to meet them today?

sweetpea💓🥺💓❤️: ahhh, now im scared 🥺 im in the shower anyway so maybe another time hehe

me: in the shower ;)

sweetpea💓🥺💓❤️: yes,, that is what i said bubs

me: send pics?

sweetpea💓🥺💓❤️: you mean the usual right?

me: yes pls ;)

"wait what??" jaemin screeched, rubbing his eyes before rereading. "i know he did not just ask for nudes." renjun was baffled, not really knowing what else to say. this was like their child, they had watched him grow up and to them, he was still like a baby.

just as the boys were all frozen in shock, the phone dinged with a message from you and the hair on the back of their necks stood up. "do we open it?" chenle tentatively pointed at the red squared next to your bitmoji. "no! that definitely is their privacy and we are not doing that." renjun with some common sense was strongly against opening the snap, shaking his head rapidly.

"open what and invade whos privacy?" jisungs voice surprised all the boys, jaemin jumping out of his seat and sending jisungs phone flying into the air. unfortunately, he accidentally pressed the chat, opening the snap. all 5 boys shrieked, pressing their hands to their eyes in addition to screwing them shut tightly so they didn’t see anything they shouldn’t be seeing. "is that my phone?" jisung walked closer to the sofa, slightly annoyed that they were going through his stuff but also confused at their reaction.

"park jisung i think we need to have a talk about women." jeno’s voice was shaky yet strong, gulping audibly as he pressed his hands to his eyes harder. jisung raised his brows as he walked round to the sofa, smiling uncontrollably when he saw the picture on his phone screen. "aww shes so cute!" he gushed, picking it up before sending weird looks to the boys. "why are you covering your eyes...you can look."

jaemin was the first one to open his eyes slowly, he was hesitant but he just had to trust jisung knew what he was doing. and boy did he feel like a fool when he opened them fully, sighing in relief and leaning back onto the sofa with relaxed shoulders. "guys false alarm." one by one they all opened their eyes, some holding in laughs from the situation and some wanting to praise the lord because jisung was still somewhat sweet and not a teenage douchebag.

that being due to the fact that the image on his screen was your face, your hair slicked up with soap into one vertical spike, a cute pout on your face. usually whenever you told jisung you were going in the shower he would ask for pictures of your hair in a spike which he would save into a whole folder of your cute spikey hair pics. ever since he saw that one post on instagram and begged you to try it, he had amassed a whopping 37 of these pictures which he would flick through if he was ever down or missing you. it was adorable really.

"what did you guys think it was?" jisung screenshotted the picture with a wide smile, secretly hoping that the big secret of his girlfriend would he forgotten. he wasn’t embarrassed of you or anything, he loved you with his whole existence but he knew you were a little shy to meet the other 5/6 dream members and the relentless teasing would further fuel your shyness. jeno looked around at all the awkward boys before realising no one was going to say anything if he didnt.

after seeing their reluctant expressions, jisung made a face of disgust and grimaced at the boys. "you’re all gross, not everyone is constantly horny you perverts." jisung shuddered, pressing his phone to his chest as he judged his older members who were stammering to explain themselves.

[tristarlolly]

How I enjoy the jse subreddit in 10 soul-crushing steps:

1: open the subreddit under the septic art tab

2: open a separate tab for reverse image search

3: upvote the art that belongs! People have worked hard on what they make and would like it to be seen and appreciated

4: take the stolen artwork that inevitably gets posted and run it through reverse image search (and look for stray signatures on the art itself, as well as any context clues of familiar art styles or inklings of i-have-seen-this-image-90-times) to find the original source. Sometimes this takes up to several minutes because some of these pieces have been wrongfully circulating across Pinterest boards for years and have dozens of pages clogging up the search

5: back on Reddit, report and downvote the stolen artwork accordingly (hopefully the mods look at these? Maybe?)

6: leave a comment expressing the usual "this is stolen, don't repost, ask permission first, give proper credit, delete this, respect artists, why is this so hard to understand" AND a link to the original artists post of the same artwork.

7: wait and see if the art thief:

A) silently deletes the post (and sometimes their whole account too)

B) apologizes, but leaves the post up (hardly sincere)

C) continues with the lies despite proof, loses their shit, and curses you out (sometimes a lot of back and forth, has ended in thief stubbornly leaving the post up or angrily deleting it, who can say, certainly not this rational fellow)

D) apologizes, deletes the post, and is mindful of what they post going forward, and maybe even starts telling others to avoid reposting as well (a rare sighting of a reformed-art-thief unicorn, just magical)

For better or worse, the results are always surprising. (But yeah they're usually worse, the liars tend to outweigh the ignorant-but-well-meaning)

8: eventually close out of the app acknowledging you at least tried to repair some damage by directing people to the rightful artists in the comments but ultimately knowing the art theft won't stop

9: consider deleting Reddit altogether due to how mind-numbingly exhausting it is to feel the need to do this every time and not just be able to upvote the genuine artists that just want to show off their own work.

10: brush the thought away because as long as art thieves are on the subreddit, artists are being taken advantage of. It feels like just a matter of time before your own art is taken and you don't want to risk someone getting away with it, and the people that are being ripped off deserve credit at the very least.

-

If you're a part of the jse subreddit, PLEASE be mindful of what you post. Art theft is not victimless. Reposting is not okay. Most artists don't want their art reposted even with proper credit and they have every right to dictate where and how their art is shared. Have the decency to at least ASK PERMISSION if you really want to repost something, but respect that NO is a valid (and common) answer that you should abide by. Proper credit on a repost is useless if the repost wasn't permitted at all in the first place.

And if you're just stealing art for the sake of saying you made it when you haven't for attention: honestly, screw you. There's no way to claim ignorance on the subject and gain anyone's trust or sympathy if you're going to build your reputation on dishonesty and fake internet points. Whatever negative attention you rake in is on you.

What's unfortunate is that a lot of artists would prefer to not post their art to Reddit at all but they know that if they don't post their work there, someone else will.

I do want to note that this is a site-wide issue on Reddit and not exclusive to the jse subreddit specifically, it's just disappointing to see the community behave this way when I know we can be better. I want people to enjoy the subreddit, the memes, jokes, edits, art, everything the community there has to offer. But that enjoyment shouldn't come at the expense of artists, and art thieves should not be tolerated.

[sincerelyreidburke]

got hitched

Quick ficlet for my Bencole people. Featuring domestic Quindo. Cross-posted to the ao3 cricket ficlet collection.

//

eight years after graduation | august

 Sebastián is completely unsuspecting, when the Snapchat comes in.

The house is quiet, and he and Quinn are in bed. He figures they’ll actually go to sleep soon, or at least soonish, but for now, they sit up against their pillows, with the light still on. It’s long past Violet’s bedtime; Quinn put her down at least an hour and a half ago, and after sitting out on the patio with him for a bit, Sebastián carried his husband to bed for little to no reason other than he just felt like carrying him.

He’s watching a Coyotes preseason weekly recap on his phone, and next to him, Quinn is knitting. His yarn is royal blue and bright red; he’s working on a scarf he keeps swearing he’s going to mail up to Remy to wear to games when his season starts. To celebrate his contract , Quinn said, when he told Sebastián what he’d be doing, all self-satisfied smiles. I think he could use something new in Montreal colors, don’t you?

His needles clack together every now and then, and the audio on Sebastián’s phone is low, but it’s not like Quinn would be bothered by that anyway, seeing as he took his hearing aids out for the night hours ago. Their house, Sebastián is happily aware, is a safe zone for Quinn, has been since the day they bought it to build their life in together.

A notification buzzes his phone, and the banner at the top tells him he has a Snapchat from Ben. Which isn’t weird, until it is— because what time is it in France right now? It has to be, like, kind of early in the morning, right? In what world is Ben up early on vacation?

He opens Snapchat to investigate. The Snap has been sent into a group chat, but not a new one; it’s one containing himself, Ben, and Quinn, and has to have existed since college even though it hasn’t been used in a short while.

He opens the Snap. It loads. As it loads, he wonders if this is a leftover message from Cole’s show last night. That was, after all, the whole reason Ben crossed the Atlantic Ocean for vacation in the first place. It’s Cole’s first tour outside the US, and Ben and Remy created this whole scheme for Ben to surprise him, which Remy was on board with because he will use literally any excuse to travel to Europe, especially France, and Sebastián has heard about this over several elaborate text exchanges, phone calls, Snapchats, et cetera—

The Snap loads.

Sebastián looks at it.

Wait. Wait . WHAT?

It expires before he can fully process, but he knows what he saw. He scrambles to replay it, leaning forward and off the pillow.

It’s a picture, a selfie, of Ben in bed with Cole wrapped up in his arm. They’re both, like, clothed and everything, and they look all soft and in love, but that’s not the main point of interest.

Because Ben is holding both of their hands up to the camera, and although Cole has had his black engagement ring for upwards of two years, Ben… is also wearing a ring. And Cole is holding a piece of paper. A certificate.

The caption Ben has typed reads: got hitched

Cole is holding a marriage certificate .

Sebastián screenshots the picture before it can disappear again, and then immediately starts tapping-slash-whacking Quinn in the thigh to get his attention. He’s gentle about it, but he still feels bad when Quinn startles and shoots daggers up at him. He drops his needles and signs. What’s wrong?

In lieu of signing a response, he turns the phone to Quinn, because it’s easier than attempting to convey via sign his current stream of consciousness (Ben got married is he kidding how did he just get married in the middle of Paris on a whim oh my God he is going to bust his ass so much but also he’s pissed because he wanted to go to his actual wedding and Ben Shaley Is Actually Fucking Married he can’t believe it like yeah he knew this was coming because he’s been engaged for two years but like— Rho got married !!!!!!!?!??!????!!?!).

Quinn studies the photo, then his eyes widen with realization. In a moment, he shifts from his complete bedtime serenity to animated, excited confusion. He looks up to Sebastián, then back to the phone, then up to him again, and signs, in quick and snappy motions, They eloped? , and then, immediately, Call Ben.

Sebastián nods, as Quinn lunges to the bedside table and grabs his hearing aids. He opens the phone app, and picks Ben out of his favorites, and as it rings, he just sits there vibrating. He can’t believe it. He actually can’t believe it. Ben just went and got married. Like— okay, that’s admittedly the most Ben way he could possibly think to get married, but— is this real life?

Ben picks up on the second ring, as Sebastián is putting the call on speaker. “Helloooooo!” His voice is singsong, like he knows exactly what he did. Which, like, obviously he knows what he did. But Sebastián is still shook —

“ Dude !” he cries, half-laughing, as Quinn leans back over to him and scoots closer on the mattress. “How could you just send that out of context?”

Ben laughs. “In my defense,” he remarks, his voice the picture of chill, “it really doesn’t require that much context, right?”

Quinn fiddles with his ears, and then he must get them turned on, because he chooses that exact moment to cry, “Benjamin Shaley.”

“Mini!” The joy in Ben's voice is indescribable. “I knew you’d bitch me out for this!”

“I cannot believe you,” Quinn says. “You did not elope last night.”

“Oh, but I did,” Ben remarks, every bit the wise-ass he’s always been, and he sounds so happy , and Sebastián is, like, so fucking happy for him right now—

“Rho— congratulations , holy shit,” he tells him. “Did you plan this?”

“No,” Ben laughs. “Not even a little. And I think that’s maybe the best part. Hold on.” There’s rustling and mumbling on his end for a second, and then a fourth voice enters the conversation.

“Good morning, guys.” Cole’s voice is super raspy, like he just woke up. Sebastián tries to do some quick math, but all he can determine about time zones is that it has to be early over there. “Sorry we didn’t tell you.”

“Cole, I can’t believe this,” Quinn says. “How could you let his chaos influence you?”

“Mm.” Cole pauses, contemplatively, and then yawns. “I’ll actually be letting his chaos influence me for the rest of my life, now.”

Quinn takes a deep, therapeutic breath. Sebastián wraps an arm around his shoulders. He has, many times, seen his husband get simultaneously pissed and excited; it’s a hilarious thing to witness. “I love you both,” Quinn says, in a slightly less sharp voice. “And I’m so very happy for you. But words cannot describe how much I wanted to actually attend your wedding.”

“We’re gonna have a party, Q,” Ben replies, like he was ready for this question. “When we get home. Well. Like. Not right when we get home. But we’re gonna start planning it when we get home.”

Quinn pauses, like he’s contemplating this, and in the silence, Cole adds, “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

“Well, I’ll say,” Quinn says. Sebastián thumbs at his shoulder, to soothe the good-natured rage. “My goodness , you two. I should have known you’d get married some crazy way.”

“Tell us the story!” Sebastián adds, because he is extremely eager to know.

Cole lets out a soft laugh. “It’s not a long story,” he says.

“We were at dinner,” Ben explains. “Last night, after the show, with Remy. And Cole just… out of nowhere. He was like, we should get married.”

“ Cole Kolinsky ,” Quinn gasps. “Your mother is going to kill you.”

“She knows!” Cole cries. “She knows. I promise. She’s the only person who knew before you. Her and Remy.”

“Was Rem with you?” Sebastián asks.

“He was with us when we decided to do it,” Ben says. “But not at the town hall.”

“That little shit,” Sebastián cries. “Where is he now?”

“Out galavanting in the streets, I bet,” Ben mutters, and Cole laughs at him.

“I’m sure Remy is asleep,” Cole amends. “We were out so late last night.”

Quinn rubs his temple, leans into Sebastián’s embrace, and whispers, “I cannot believe you two.”

“Oh, you love us, Quinny,” Ben says. “Don’t even try to hide it.”

“Of course I do,” Quinn replies, in that tone so characteristic of him , where he’s firm and kind at the exact same time. “My goodness,” he says. “You’re entirely too much for me.”

Cole laughs again. “I promise, Quinn,” he says, “it’ll be a really good party.”

“Oh, it best be.” The grin on Quinn’s face is so cute, Sebastián could combust. “I have very high standards.”

“Ah, yes,” Ben says, in a posh accent, “nothing but the best for the esteemed Quinny Cooper—”

“ Ben ,” Cole mumbles, and Ben laughs so loud.

“I’m so—” The initial shock has sort of worn off, but Sebastián still feels like he’s processing several things at once. “I’m so happy for you guys, jeez ! Why are you awake so early, anyway? It’s your honeymoon morning!”

“I have to—” Cole breaks his sentence with a yawn, like talking about being up early is making him more tired. “I have to be on my tour bus at eight-thirty.”

“Oh, Cole ,” Quinn whispers. “That’s a real wrench in your morning, huh?”

“Is what it is,” Cole replies.

“Wait, so… what time is it now?” As soon as he mentioned the fact that it’s their honeymoon morning, it started occurring to Sebastián that he and Quinn are… keeping them on the phone. On their first morning as a married couple. He loves his friends to death, but nobody interrupted him and Quinn the morning after they got married. It was just the two of them; even Vi was at Mama’s house for a sleepover. The only thing they had to do was bask in that fresh joy.

“It’s seven,” Ben announces. “Seven-oh-nine.”

“Okay, so,” he says, “I’m gonna, like, hang up the phone now.”

“ Nanny ,” Ben says, with a snort. “We knew you’d want to talk.”

“Yeah, but we talked,” he replies, “and now I’m hanging up so you guys don’t have to, like, talk to us until Cole leaves.”

“Hm.” Ben pauses, and then, in his peak wise-ass tone, remarks, “What if I hang up first?”

“Oh, goodness , you two,” Quinn mumbles, into Sebastián’s shoulder, “don’t get into one of these arguments.”

“Bro, you hang up first.”

“No, you hang up first—”

5,000 miles away, in a hotel bed in Paris, Ben Kolinsky hangs up the phone. He rolls over in bed and grins at his husband. “How did I do?”

Next to him under the nice white sheets, Cole is the best thing he has ever seen. He laughs, with his hand over his face, before he reaches for him. When they meet in the middle of the mattress, Cole presses a kiss to his lips. “You are an idiot,” he whispers.

“Mmm.” Ben kisses him again, and Cole wraps around him, and he thinks there’s absolutely no way heaven could be any better than this. “That’s a title I’ll proudly own, but only with an amendment.”

Cole tangles his fingers in Ben’s hair, long and now sort of messy from sleep, but who gives one single fuck what their hair looks like when they just got married to the love of their life last night. “What’s the amendment?” he asks, between kisses.

“That I’m your idiot.”

“ Oh .” Cole laughs. His eyes wrinkle shut, and Ben is going to be gone on him for the rest of his days. “You’re definitely my idiot.”

“Perfect,” Ben says, and kisses him again, and he doesn’t need anything else.

[purplesurveys]

1191

survey by voicedance16

name yourself: Robyn

name (one of) your best friend(s): Angela; she’s for keeps.

name 3 things in your fridge/freezer: I don’t think I opened the fridge at all today, but if I had to guess...eggs, bread, and our pad thai leftovers from dinner earlier.

name a color you're wearing currently: Green.

name the last thing you ate: I treated myself and ordered spicy tuna salad tonight because I had a shit shift. It’s been a while since I felt a little burned out with my job, but it happened today and it wasn’t very pleasant.

name the last store you went to: I never go out these days...does online shopping count? I’m always browsing through Shopee, if anything lol.

name the song you're listening to: ON - BTS.

name the artist of that song: BTS.

name your favorite animal: Dogs or elephants.

name what pets you have, if any:  Two dogs. Kimi, Cooper.

name the town/state you live in: No thanks. I live near Manila though, which is probably the only city most people know from the Philippines anyway so that should suffice.

name something commonly ordered at Starbucks: I think my usual is a pretty common order – caramel macchiato.

name the last person you talked to in person: Not sure. I think it may have been Nina? I was just jokingly asking her if her bias recognized her again on a VLive, since her comments have been read by her favorite group recently, and she tells me they even laugh at them :( Perks of liking a smaller, more underground group for sure; pigs would have to fall from the sky before anyone from BTS notices me lol.

name the last person you talked to on the phone: My mom. I didn’t hear her calling for dinner last night, so she ended up having to call me from downstairs while I was hanging out at the rooftop.

name the current day of the week: Tuesday.

name the current month: May.

name the current time: 10:22 PM.

name the last movie you watched: I have not watched an entire movie since i’m thinking of ending things back in September. I did watch a snippet from Portrait of a Lady on Fire a few weeks ago, though. That’s the closest thing I’ve got to watching any film recently.

name the last book you read: This one I’m even more uncertain about.

name a place you've been on vacation: South Korea.

name a place you'd like to go on vacation: Malta or Turkey.

name 3 things you can see from where you're sitting: It’s pretty dark so I technically can’t ‘see’ anything, but based on what I know I brought up to the rooftop tonight I have my phone, my salad, and my vape pen.

name your favorite musical: Miss Saigon, if anything. I’m not a big fan of musicals.

name an animal (any): Turtle was the first that came to mind.

name a fruit: Mangoes.

name a vegetable: Lettuce.

name a common breakfast food: Pancakes. They’d sound so good rn, too.

name a color: Grey.

name a type of flower: Dandelions.

name a type of tree: Uh...mango again? HAHA I’m not very good with trees.

name a city: New York.

name a state: Indiana.

name a country: India.

name a continent: Asia.

name a planet: Jupiter.

name a girl's name: Jessica.

name the last person to comment you on Facebook: Angela. She tagged me on this post that was promoting a local shop that makes customized face pillows and she told me we should order a Taehyung one for me and a Seokjin one for her, hahaha. The concept is definitely cute but it wasn’t my style, so I showed her another shop that also makes face pillows, but prettier.

name a clothing store/brand: Thom Browne.

name the last book you got at the library: If I remember correctly, it was History of the Filipino People which, coincidentally, my great-uncle wrote.

name a restaurant: Yabu but eugh, haven’t eaten there since the breakup. I should order from them soon to commemmorate moving on heheh.

name a grocery store: Can I just name a local one? SM.

name an iPhone app: YouTube.

name an actor: Eddie Redmayne.

name an actress: Emma Stone.

name a music group: BTS.

name your favorite/lucky number: It used to be 4, but I’m now going with 7.

name something you've accomplished: Continued from...last night, I think? I have no concept of time anymore. I managed to survive this week so far considering how deadly my schedule was.

name something you'd like to accomplish: Get a promotion once I’ve proven myself capable.

name someone who makes you laugh: Hans can make anything funny.

name something exciting coming up soon: Some of my online shopping orders arriving I’m guessing by later today, yayyyy.

name a song that makes you emotional: Oh man, there are a lot. O by Coldplay is probably the one that hits the worst, though; I still can’t listen to that song completely to this day. Recently, I also can’t really avoid being sad whenever I listen to Butterfly by BTS.

name one of your pet peeves: Overly slow drivers.

name someone you know who is an amazing singer: Hannah.

name someone who is the same religion as you: JM.

name a holiday you celebrate: Christmas.

name the last 4 digits of your phone number: That’s too many, lmao.

name one of your cousins: My cousin Lei from my dad’s side.

name a book you loved when you were younger: The entire Septimus Heap series. I must’ve reread Magyk (the first book) a hundred times.

name a song you loved when you were younger: Let’s go withhhhh Girlfriend by Avril Lavigne. Making sure there were no adults around whenever I sang along to “I’m a motherfucking princess” as an 8 year old was always a thrill.

name your favorite movie: Two for the Road.

name a popular book series: Percy Jackson.

name a musical instrument: Saxophone.

name a language: French.

name what other tabs you have open: Archive of our Own, Dailymotion, Bzoink.

name 3 things on the walls of the room you're in: The walls of the rooftop are bare.

name your house number 4.

name your high school: Nope.

name your college, if applicable: UP.

name your middle school See high school.

name your elementary school: See high school.

name the college you wish you went to/hope to go to: I was able to qualify for the university and degree I wanted to attend.

name your favorite teacher: My music teacher in high school.

name the color of your backpack: Hm, don’t really use backpacks anymore but the main one I had in college - at least until I switched to a simple handbag (aka my senior year when I started to not care lol) - was a pink Herschel backpack.

name a dessert: Leche flan.

name a famous landmark: Statue of Liberty, only because of the question after this.

name a place you might go in NYC: Tiffany’s.

name an inventor: Nikola Tesla.

name an article of clothing: Jeans.

name an ice cream flavor: Pistachio.

name a religion: Islam.

name an emotion: Resentment.

name a room in your house: Mine.

name a website: Twitter.

name a car: Hyundai Palisade.

name something you need to do today: It’s a holiday today so I technically should be off work, but since it’s a holiday squished in the middle of the week that’s just another way of saying my dayoff will be a scam lmao. That said, I need to draft an article today for a client.

name someone you admire: My dad.

name someone you miss: My two best friends.

name a part of the body: Thighs.

name the last youtube video you watched: It was a Taehyung-focused compilation.

name a quote you love: “If you really love to be loved, it’d be good to show those who love you how much you’ve changed.” There’s some background context obviously playing around in here and most people might not recognize the weight it holds if they’re unfamiliar, but it’s a quote that really means a lot to me and came to me during a time I needed to hear it.