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dabihawksluvr · 8 months ago

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YES, people don't understand or utilize this enough! They think anything they see, they just have to comment on. But unless someone is holding them at gunpoint, they can simply block and scroll away. Then commenting on things shows they think the internet is meant to be specifically constructed solely for their own interests.

YES! Credit should be shared, and links should be freely given. I understand that, maybe at first, they do it to gauge interest for the fic/art and then post the link after. But gatekeeping that stuff is not cool, I'm glad there are people who go looking for these things regardless so they will eventually be found and shared by the right people...but it's still not good fandom etiquette.

This needs to be common sense, just PLEASE look at the tags/filters before reading! It's understandable that some authors may not do this correctly, but it doesn't mean y'all should ignore the tags already given and then complain when you were CLEARLY warned!

I'm 50/50 on this. Some people may want to read fics that are not their usual taste, but if they have certain triggers they should filter them out. And writers should ALWAYS properly tag their fics.

I understand this point, and it's why I write mainly on Quotev for my fics. On that site, I can write drafts all I want and it won't show up on my list until I actually start posting things. I wish sites did this more, because it is super helpful.

Ugh, I hate seeing the spams of 'update plz' and how toxic people can be with it. I remember when Reitanna Seishin had 'finished' Muffins, but people kept on spamming her to write more and she eventually did...then people complained about it. And I've seen this with a lot of SU AU comics, a few good ones were eventually just dropped because people couldn't stop themselves from harassing the artists for the next 'update'. It causes authors/artists to just quit what they're doing, because people feel entitled to their time and work.

I half agree with this. If an author says to not rate, then I understand that (I will respect their request because I know getting rated is a sensitive thing for some). But if it's posted on the internet, someone is going to 'rate' or 'review' it regardless.

I agree with this 100%. If it's not your fic, don't re-post it without the author's explicit permission.

I agree with this 100%. If you post a response/comment, expect to get feedback for it at some point.

This is why fanfic is so sacred, it's in a gray area because we are using already existing (copyrighted) characters for our own writing and not getting a penny for it. Those who fic bind and sell them are absolute trash, they don't care if the entirely of fandom (which is 90% fanfic/art) gets taken down over this.

I agree, but here is my point on it. I use AI Chat Bots to help give me ideas, I don't just copy and paste the text it gives me and say it's my own writing. It's the same as using bases or references in art, or like reading a book and getting a base idea for what you want to write from that. Anyone who just uses copy/paste for fanfic is not a writer, they are using the guise of being an 'author' to be part of a community they want to infiltrate.

This is a legit issue? I had personally never thought of asking another author to BETA for me, the most I do is ask my brother and his partner for advice. Or I ask another online friend to check and see if my fic sounds good to them.

Oh, this is 100% true. Every time I see any drama with a creator, it's always from a jealous 'hater' who wants their attention 24/7. And people will even dox these creators, which is even worse.

I agree. As I am personally ok with any (legal) ships, I have no issue seeing ships I may not initially like or think about. So it baffles me that so many just get so pissy about seeing ships they dislike getting any form of attention.

This is very true, especially for fics. Popularity does not always mean your writing is being received well, it just means a lot of eyes are on it. And it's just a lot of pressure to assume that every writer has to write a 'big fic' to be taken seriously.

I understand that there can be 'universal' fandom headcanons that the majority agree with, but if someone has a different idea about a character that's ok too! (I personally enjoy Trans Bakugo and Blasian Izuku headcanons but I know it's not a strict line to follow in fandom)

YES! Authors/artists are people, they are NOT their content. I understand that internet celebs are becoming more prominent in recent years, but this isn't Hollywood. A lot of the creators we follow are just like us, they just so happened to make something that a lot of people enjoy.

It really does feel like fandom is being invaded, and not in a good way. There is specific rules we all follow in fandom culture, but these new people coming in think they can do whatever they want and cause trouble for everyone else. They may be the loud minority, but it's causing everyone else to see us as 'bad'.

fanfic/fandom ettiquite guide

Okay, I've seen some things recently that make me think there is some need to make a master post of some general fandom and fic ettiquite just because some people may not know and I think there's a huge wave of fanfic becoming more mainstream especially on apps like tiktok.

If you don't like it, don't engage with it!! I think this above all, is the golden rule of fandom. The internet is made for you to be able to mute, hide, and censor things you don't like. DO THAT! don't make a career off of hating things. This goes along with the three laws of fandom, which u should check out FIRST OF ALL.

DON'T GATEKEEP!! If you're posting about a fic, art, ANYTHING link it, credit it! Don't post a tiktok about a fic and then refuse to give the name. Not only are you failing to credit the creators of this content, but you're taking away from the fact that fandom is a COMMUNITY where content is meant for everyone.

Ao3 is an archive. You're going to see things you might not like or even find offensive or uncomfortable. But fanfic is not meant to be censored. Ao3 is made to be unfiltered, people can post anything and everything. Posting fics on other sites simply to shame their content not only brings MORE attention to it, but it's pointless. If you want a website that is censored go to wattpad. And of course, if you don't like it DON'T READ. You can filter your tags and warnings on ao3 so it won't show you that content.

Along those lines LEARN HOW TO USE AO3. There is no algorithm, it is not tiktok. You don't need to censor words in your tags. Your fics are not magically getting pushed out to people. Make sure you're using "person 1/person 2" for romantic relationships and "person 1 & person 2" for non-romantic relationships. Make sure things like non-con and underage are tagged under the warnings. AND AS A READER, know how to filter ships and tags to find the content you want. You can filter by kudos, certain tags, exclude certain relationships or characters etc. USE IT.

Do not create placeholder fics or other "non fics" on ao3. This is against their terms of service. You can (and probably will) be reported, this annoys people endlessly. We don't want to find a fic and open it to see "I haven't written this yet, sorry!" JUST SAVE A DRAFT OR DO IT IN A DOCUMENT? this seems like way to rack up hits, and it comes across as disingenuous, I don't see a real valid reason to make placeholders.

HOW TO WRITE AN ACCEPTABLE COMMENT: long is not important. A simple "loved this!" will make an author happy. DO NOT say any variation of "update pls?" regardless of how nice you think it is. Authors update when they can.I'm not the only author I've seen unhappy with this. JUST WAIT, either it will be updated or it won't, and either way you will live. If you have nothing nice to say about a fic?? MOVE ON. Don't leave a hate comment.

Do not rate or publicly shit on fanfic! A lot of authors know many people, and the chances of that author seeing whatever you're saying about their work is very high. If you don't like it, click off and read something else. If it's still living rent-free in your mind, that sounds like fan behavior to me. And there is no standard fics are supposed to meet, don't rate them.

Don't cross-post fics. Don't put fics on other sites, don't put translation on other sites. DON'T DO ANYTHING with a fic without checking with the author first. On that note, also don't post fics on GoodReads etc. unless an author explicitly says it's okay.

IF YOU DO NOT MARK YOUR BOOKMARKS AS PRIVATE AUTHORS CAN SEE THEM!! If you're going to say anything that isn't positive, you better mark that as private or better yet, move on. Don't say anything on a public bookmark you wouldn't want the author to read.

YOU CANNOT PROFIT OFF OF FANFIC, don't sell bound fics! Don't bind fics if the intention is to sell them. You're potentially creating a lawsuit for the authors of these fics and putting the existence of fanfic in danger. I've seen multiple authors debating taking fics down because of binding issues, just don't do it. AND IF YOU'RE BUYING BOUND FICS YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM. it's selfish and I wish bad karma upon you.

You wouldn't think I'd have to say this but don't plagiarize or use AI to create fics/art etc. firstly making ai write something IS a form of plagiarism. bUT ALSO just write your own content. If you can't, then writing fics etc. is just not for you. No shame about it!

DON'T ASK AUTHORS TO BETA FOR YOU!! You wouldn't believe how many people have asked me to beta their fics for them, I AM NOT A BETA. I HAVE a beta because my proofreading skills are shit. If someone wants to beta they will offer, or go find a blog or somewhere where people are looking to beta. Like @needabeta You can even make a post asking around for a beta, but don't go bug your favorite authors to proofread your fics.

Really just don't harass authors. Of course, don't be afraid to send nice dms, asks, or comments if their inbox is open, but don't spam them especially if they don't reply. Respect boundaries! Don't send nasty anons, everyone knows this is a sign of jealousy and obsession. You're only succeeding in making yourself look bad. Ask yourself why is this author living rent-free in your mind, hm??

If you don't like a ship, stay away from the content geared towards that ship. There's no reason for you to be in people's inbox harassing them over a ship. It's never that deep. If you truly hate it so much, go consume the content for ships you DO like.

Stay grounded. This goes to both fic authors and readers alike. Hits and popularity are not the mark of a good fic. Getting a lot of hits doesn't mean it's good and NOT getting many doesn't mean it's bad. I'm tired of seeing tiktoks asking "so what's the next big fic?" WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE A "BIG FIC"? go look through the ao3 tag and find something you like to read, it doesn't have to be what everyone else is reading.

Headcanons are not law. People can think whatever they want about the characters. If you disagree with someone's hc, just move on... and just because a headcanon is popular, doesn't mean everyone has to abide by it. Be creative!

Don't treat artists and authors like celebs! We're all in this together! We're all losers who like the same characters and ships. Of course, compliment and be kind to all creators because we put a lot of time and effort into creating fan content for you all, but don't worship anyone. Don't treat them weirdly or make a post like "omg x followed me!" that's a bit weird. If you want to be excited, dm your friends and giggle together, but acting like authors and artists etc. are celebs only creates the room for people to stop seeing them as normal people and start acting rude or entitled. And many people are uncomfortable with it!!

TLDR; stop creating so much negativity in fandom spaces. At least in MY fandom it's just constantly shitting on ships, fics, art. It's hate anons, antis, and constant fighting about every headcanon. I'M TIRED OF IT! Learn to filter out content you don't want to see, and move on with your life instead of spreading more negativity.

If you have anything you think I should add shoot me a comment or an ask and I will add it! I'm sure I didn't get everything :) this mostly applies to my own experience being in the hp/marauders fandom for a good 10+ years, and I'm sure it varies slightly from fandom to fandom.

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deadvalentine · 3 years ago

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Any bsd artists have a twitter they'd like to self-promo?? There's no bsd content on my timeline and I'd love some artists to follow 🙏🏻

No lgbtqphobes, exclusionists, or fujoshis plz

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jenohi · 3 years ago

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stranger

PAIRING ▸ Watanabe Haruto x fem!reader

GENRES ▸ pining, high school au, lacrosse au, I’m not really sure what genre this is lol

WARNINGS ▸ traumatic events?

SUMMARY ▸ When Haruto moves halfway around the world the last person he expects to see is you. His former nemesis...or so he thinks.

PLAYLIST ▸ Still Don’t Know My Name by Labyrinth

WORD COUNT ▸ 9626

UNIVERSE ▸ YG High; Treasure Lacrosse Team

A/N ▸ I’ve decided from here on out all my stories will probably fall within the same universe. I only really have like 4 universes in mind so I’ll label them just so you know. Also, I’m looking to add some art to my stories to bring them more to life but I am useless at graphics/edits, so! If you’re really into making graphics/edits and you enjoy my work please please PLEASE reach out to me!!! I would love to work with an amazing artist! <3 <3 Plz enjoy.

A/N 2 ▸ This story is like a lot of crossover with Jeongwoo’s story but I hope I was able to bring justice to Haruto’s character and bring his story to life. :P ok now enjoy for real realz.

You were the prettiest girl Haruto had ever known in his life. But to him, you were also his rival. You always managed to score just a few points higher than him on each exam, each quiz, each assignment. To him it always felt like the teachers liked you more, so he made sure your classmates liked him more. The thing that made him really mad was that you were so unbothered. You were ambivalent to him and you didn’t even know his name. If you really were strangers and never sat in the same class he could understand. But you had been in the same classes for years. Each time you spoke to him, you politely asked for his name. As if you were strangers.

When his parents told him that his family was going to move to another city, far enough that he would have to transfer schools, he had mixed feelings. This was his last chance to confront you. To understand why you’d never bothered to remember his name, but each time he approached you he found you furiously scribbling in a notebook. Although he resented you for not knowing his name, he could never get himself to disturb you when you looked so stressed scribbling whatever it was in your notebook.

What Haruto didn’t know is that you did notice him. You noticed the handsome, tall, skinny boy that was always in the corner of your line of sight. But you had no idea what to say to him. So you never approached him. He was a stranger.

Haruto wished he could forget you. He was a bit uncomfortable transferring to a new school at first but thankfully, three other boys had transferred with him. Asahi, Mashiho, and Yoshi had become literal brothers to him. The school also had a transfer students program and he made a new friend, Hanbyul. She was a chatterbox and sometimes she could literally chat his ear off, but she was also sweet and helpful. But she wasn’t you.

But that didn’t matter because Hanbyul had another guy on her mind all the time anyway. “You know we’ve just been friends for such a long time and lately, I’ve started to...I don’t know. I feel different. Nervous. Is it normal to feel nervous around your best friend?”

“I don’t know. Is it?” Haruto responded.

“No, I suppose it isn’t. But he probably doesn’t feel the same way. I doubt he’s ever even thought about me in that way.”

Haruto felt someone nudge him, he turned to see that it was Asahi. Haruto leaned over to hear what he was going to say. “Is she talking about Jaehyuk’s brother?”

Haruto nodded.

“Jaehyuk talks about his little brother and this chick all the time. She’s so off the mark. The little brother definitely has feelings for her if Jaehyuk is anywhere near the mark.” So both parties had feelings for one another but both parties were too chicken to say anything to each other. And for no good reason.

In a way that reminded Haruto of himself and it pissed him off. He knew that spending so much time with his new friend would raise suspicions but he didn’t care. He knew that spending so much time with her pissed Jeongwoo off. It didn’t take a genius to recognize it when they went to the Big Bang Concert together.

Haruto thought he was going crazy when he spotted you a few spaces over at the concert. He rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times to make sure it was really you. Haruto stormed over to you once he decided that it was in fact you. He had spent months thinking about what to say to you if he ever saw you again, he wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. Haruto didn’t even think to tell his new friends where he had gone.

You saw a tall, handsome figure approaching your direction. You took a second to check him out, but then turned back to the performers and continued to enjoy yourself. Your parents were reluctant to let you go out to this concert on your own but it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that you wanted so badly. You smiled sadly at what might happen when you woke up tomorrow.

“I didn’t know you were a fan of Big Bang.” You heard a voice from behind speak into your ear. You jumped in surprise and turned around to see that it was the handsome stranger you saw sauntering your way earlier.

“Hi, what’s your name?” You asked with a polite smile on your face. This is probably exactly what your parents were worried about, creepy men that would try to approach you. You started to think about the best way to remove yourself from the situation safely. The now unamused expression on his face alarmed you.

“When are you gonna cut the shit. You know who I am.”

You looked at him puzzled. “I do? How? From where?”

Haruto felt something in his chest crack. “I used to go to school with you. You’re Y/N right?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s me.” You furiously racked your mind trying to remember what you had read but your memory came up blank. You couldn’t help but cringe and turn away. This is why you tried your best to keep to yourself and away from people. You looked up to see Haruto staring down at you with a curious expression. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you. You said you used to go to school with me? You don’t go to school with me anymore? Can I get your name again? I’m really sorry. I’ll try and remember.”

“My name is Haruto. I don’t go to school with you anymore. I transferred to a new school a few months ago.”

“Oh, I see.”

Haruto wasn’t sure how to feel when he realized you actually had zero recollection of him. For some reason seeing you up close and seeing you really trying to remember him made him feel a bit sympathetic. He couldn’t understand why. It still totally irked him that you didn’t know his name. But something told him to sit down with you and get to know you.

“Well, do you like your new school?” You asked, looking up at Haruto. Your heart was beating hard and fast. You prayed that your face wasn’t flushing.

“Why don’t we just enjoy the rest of the concert for now and we can grab a late night meal after the concert?” Haruto proposed. His own palms were sweaty and his heart was beating fast.

You thought about it for a second, then nodded and smiled. Haruto felt like the world had a glittery filter for a second. He’d always acknowledged that you were attractive, but up close smiling at him, you were drop dead gorgeous.

“Awesome.”

After the concert, the two of you walked side by side as you left the crowded venue. You noticed Haruto took a second to text someone on his phone. He caught you snooping and laughed as you turned away. “It’s fine. I was just letting the friends I came with know that I was gonna head out with you.”

“Oh, if you need to get back with them it’s fine.” You said, maybe hanging out with Haruto was a bad idea after all.

“Not a chance, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I’m honestly curious to know how you are and how things are back home.”

Your face flushed at his words. You couldn’t remember the last time you had spent time with a guy like this. Was this a date?

“Alright. Then what are you in the mood for?” You asked, pulling up a list of restaurants that were still open at this hour.

“What’s available now? What are you in the mood for right now?” Haruto looked over your shoulder at the menu as he asked.

“Um, what about McDonald’s? I’m not that picky and there’s not that much open right now.” you said.

Haruto stared at you with wide eyes, were you always this cool? So the two of you made your way to the closest McDonald’s and debated which was better, Coke or Sprite. To Haruto, Coca-Cola was non-negotiable.

“How is your new school?” You asked Haruto, munching on a few of your fries. “Do you like it?”

“What are you doing here?” Haruto interjected.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re not in Japan. This is far from home. Why are you in America?”

“Oh, I’m uh- I’m visiting family. I’ve actually transferred to a school around here for the time-being as well.” You jumped in surprise when Haruto shrieked.

“You’re here now? Like for good? Like you go to school here? Where?”

You giggled at the questions he rained down on you. The way he asked you with his cheeks full and eyes wide was rather endearing. “Yes I’m here now. I’m actually, uh, home schooled for the time being.”

“Oh, interesting. Why are you homeschooled? I remember you were always really good at school.” Haruto said before he shoved another chicken nugget into his mouth. The irritating thought that you were always better than him at school, just by a little popped up in his mind but he pushed it away. That didn’t matter anymore. He had your attention now.

You felt your face flush. Even with your condition it was true that you maintained your good grades. So Haruto must have actually known you back in Japan. You eyed him again, when he caught you staring at him you turned away. Haruto smirked.

“Enough about me. Tell me about your friends. You said you came with friends from your new school right?”

“Well I’d say one of them is actually who I’d consider a friend. The other one is a mutual friend. A childhood friend that has feelings for her.”

“Her?” it slipped out of your mouth. Haruto’s smirk reappeared and his eyebrow jumped up when he looked at you. You looked away, what was this funny feeling in your chest? It was weird.

“Our school had this transfer student program and she just happened to be assigned to me. She’s really cool, I’m not into her like that and she’s not really into me like that. She likes her friend.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me.”

“Oh. That feels like something important. Like a secret.”

“Well, I told her a secret as well.”

You stared at him. He didn’t indulge in the secret. Haruto was wholly focused on sipping the last of his Coca-Cola before putting it down on the table and letting out a sigh.

“Well so what’s going on with them now?” You asked.

“Hopefully, they both pull their heads out of their asses tonight. I gave them time alone so the best case scenario is that they just talk it out. The dude, Jeongwoo, I actually met him for the first time tonight and he’s a cool dude. It would be nice to have more dude friends around here.”

“You don’t have any guy friends?”

“I do. There are 3 other transfer students from Japan and they’re all dudes and I’m friends with them. Actually, Americans like to play this sport. Lacrosse? My friend told me to try out for the team and I think I might. Mashi, Asahi, and Yoshi agreed to try-out as well so it’ll be fun.”

You nodded, you had no idea what lacrosse was and you didn’t think you would be that interested to learn either. “I should get home.”

“Right of course.” Haruto said, getting up. “Where are you headed? Let me call you an Uber.”

“No, it’s okay. I can actually walk back home from here.”

“Oh really? Well, at least let me walk you back.”

You hesitated for a second. Would it be smart to show this guy where you lived? But then you shook it off, he seemed pretty harmless throughout the night and you trusted that he knew you from school in Japan. So you agreed.

“Do you have to be home-schooled?” Haruto asked.

“No, I don’t think so.” you answered.

“Would you be interested in attending school in person again?” Haruto could feel the devil on his shoulder kicking him. What was he doing? He had already gone to school with you before and the fact that you always did just a smidge better than him drove him nuts.

“Um, I haven’t really thought about it. Why?”

“You should consider transferring to my school?”

Your eyebrows shot up. “What?”

Haruto stepped back a bit and raised his hands. “It was just a suggestion. Honestly, I struggled a bit when I first came here. I can’t imagine how lonely it must be to be here and just be home-schooled so I figured it might be nice to have some sense of community.”

“Um, I’ll think about it.” You weren’t going to think about it. You looked up and breathed a sigh of relief when you saw the familiar apartment complex. “This is me. You don’t have to walk in with me. I’m gonna go now.”

“Wait.” Haruto said. You turned around to look at him, a thin smile on your face. “I, uh, I had fun.”

“Yeah, this was nice.” You said truthfully.

“We should do it again sometime.” Haruto said. You stared at him, he looked perfectly composed to you. But his heart was practically beating so hard he thought it might fall out of his chest.

“Honestly, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

Haruto felt a heat and anger flare up in his chest. But he did his best to tamp it down and get it under control. This was literally the first time you had acknowledged his presence. He put a smile on his face. “Well, then maybe we’ll just run into each other again sometime.”

“Maybe, it’s all up to fate now. Good night Haruto.”

“Good night Y/N.”

The second you made it back into your room you pulled out your diary. You scribbled the notes you had logged into your phone throughout the day as quickly as possible. Briefly reliving each moment as you wrote them down. By the time you had gotten to the end of the list and began to recount the concert you could feel your eyelids getting heavier and heavier and your hands writing more and more frantically until suddenly, you crashed.

The next morning you woke up and read your notes. You squinted at the last thing you had written. Your handwriting became illegible near the end. ‘Haruto?’

The next morning Haruto woke up and smiled at the memory of you. Asahi and Mashiho eyed their roommate as he pranced around the living room and kitchen smiling and singing. But nothing could bring Haruto down. Well until he saw his friend looking depressed as hell.

“Dude what’s up?” Haruto asked. “Did you and Jeongwoo figure your shit out?”

“Uh, about that. Well, no.”

“No? What do you mean no?”

“Well what about you? Did you run into her?”

“Nuh uh, this isn’t about me. You literally had the perfect opportunity to make something of it. To make a moment! Did you guys have a moment?”

“Yes, I think we did. But I got scared. I don’t want to lose Jeongwoo as a friend, but at the same time I don’t think he has any feelings for me like that. I just, I think I need space. Maybe if I just distance myself from him a bit then I can get over my feelings and…”

“No offense, but that’s the stupidest thing I think I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“Well I don’t care if you think it’s stupid. This is my decision and my decision is that I don’t want to see Jeongwoo for awhile. Ok? I’m not ready for the conversation. So you better get used to seeing me more often!”

Haruto sighed as he watched his friend storm out of the room. He turned around and exchanged looks with Asahi. “Did I say something wrong?”

Asahi shrugged. “Honestly, I think you’re valid. I think her logic in avoiding Jeongwoo is pretty dumb. The dude’s in my gym class. Honestly, he’s chill. I don’t think he’d react badly to her if she confesses regardless of how he feels.”

“I should probably find her and apologize anyway.” Haruto said, exiting the room. Eventually he found his friend and they sat together in the cafeteria.

“Sorry about what I said earlier. I’ll admit it was kind of harsh. But honestly I can’t say I understand your logic at all.”

“It’s fine Haruto. You seemed extra happy when you walked in this morning. Who was the friend that you saw at the concert?”

“It was her. Y/N.”

“No way! Isn’t she in Japan?”

“That’s what I thought too. I was so shocked to see her.”

“What did you say to her? What did you guys talk about? Did she recognize you?”

“That’s the thing. The best part of it all was that I actually had her attention. You remember I told you about how she never acknowledged anybody right? She was always reading her notebook in the hallway. In the past when I spoke to her she never even knew my name! She had to ask me every single time. But this time, there’s no way she wouldn’t remember me!”

“Your relationship is weird. But I guess that’s sweet. What does she write about in her notebook?”

“I don’t know. Why does it matter? She knows my name now!”

“That’s another thing. You went to school together for years and she never remembered your name? Why?”

“I don’t know.” Haruto said. Now he was grouchy. All the questions that had been brought up to him were valid, but these weren’t things he wanted to think about.

A few weeks before the lacrosse tryouts in the spring Haruto went to the hospital to get a physical done.

Once he was done he stumbled into a small cafe right next to the hospital. When he saw who was manning the cash register he rubbed his eyes and looked away and looked back a few times to make sure he wasn’t being deluded. When he was confident that he wasn’t going crazy he stood up and walked over to the register.

You saw a tall, handsome, and skinny guy walk up to the cash register. You cleared your throat and stood up straight. “Hello, what can I get you?”

“Y/N! It’s fate. We ran into each other again!”

“Again?” You put a smile on your face and thought of a response. “Hey, it’s so good to see you! How have you been? What’ll you have?”

“Do you...remember my name?”

You felt your heart picking up speed and your palms beginning to sweat. But you kept your composure. “Of course, let me take your order and we can chat for a second.”

Haruto beamed. “Okay, then I’ll just have an Iced Americano.”

“Okay, that’ll be $3.30. The ice machine is in the back so I’ll be right out in a second. You rushed to the back of the cafe and pulled out your diary and flipped through the pages, reading the entries as quickly as possible. Out of the corner of your eye you noticed a torn piece of paper that had slipped out of your bag. You picked it up, it matched the paper in your diary. You flipped it over to see that it had a name written on it. Haruto.

Was that this guy’s name? Who was he to you? Darn it, why hadn’t you written more?

You quickly filled the cup with ice and walked out filling the cup with cold brew. You grabbed the marker and scribbled Haruto on it. You walked back over to the cash register. This guy’s eyes were practically glittering in anticipation. Was it normal for someone to get this excited over a coffee?

“I’ve got one iced americano for Haruto?” you said.

If his eyes were glittering before, they were practically flashing light strobe lights at a nightclub now. A matching beaming grin on his face. “Yes! Y/N it’s fate. We ran into each other again!”

“Right. Yeah, of course. What are the odds.”

“Do you have a minute?”

“Um, I’m working right now. I’d rather not get in trouble. Maybe another time?”

Haruto swiveled around, eying the cafe. “It looks pretty empty to me. I don’t think you’d get in trouble if you came out for a second just to keep me company.”

“Still…”

“Is your manager even here right now?”

“No.”

“Then come on. Just come out for a second.”

You looked around the cafe, cursing at how vacant it was. You tugged at your sleeves for a second before answering. “Fine.”

You followed Haruto out from behind the counter. He walked over to a table and pulled a seat out from underneath the table. He smiled as he waited for you to sit down. You walked over to the table and turned around. Haruto slid the chair underneath you as you moved to sit down. Once you were seated Haruto ran around to the other side of the table and sat down.

“How are you? How have you been?” Haruto asked.

You stared at the boy sitting in front of you. He was so handsome. “I’m doing well. How about you?”

“I’m good. I was in the area because I needed to go to the hospital.”

Your ears perked up. “Why were you at the hospital?”

“Why do you wanna know? Are you worried about me?”

You didn’t say anything. You just stared at Haruto. Haruto cleared his throat and looked away for a second. “I’m just playing with you. I went to get a physical.”

You nodded, tracing the patterns on the tablecloth.

“I needed one for lacrosse tryouts.”

“Lacrosse? What is that?” you asked. Haruto thought the way your nose scrunched in confusion was adorable.

“I told you about it last time! Remember? It’s this sport that Americans like to play. I had never heard of it in Japan either.”

You didn’t remember. “Right.”

Haruto couldn’t understand the dynamics of the conversation. He watched as you avoided eye contact with him and intensely focused on tracing the pattern of the table cloth. Then you would stare out the window of the cafe, it almost appeared as if your eyes were glazed over. “What are you always writing about in your notebook?”

Your head spun over to look at him so fast, you thought you might have gotten whiplash. “What?”

“Your notebook. I remember in school back in Japan I always saw you either writing things down in a notebook or reading the same notebook. What’s in it?”

“Um, nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

“Why? It can’t be that bad. I promise I won’t laugh no matter how embarrassing it might be.” Haruto said. Leaning forward over the table so that he was in your face.

“Forget it.” You said, leaning back and looking away. You glanced over at your bag that was perched far back behind the counter and breathed a sigh of relief. “Look. I gotta go. I’m supposed to be working right now. I think you should go now as well.”

You stood up from the table so quickly that the chair you were sitting on toppled over. You didn’t bother to turn around and pick it up. You walked back towards the counter without looking back.

Haruto watched you as you walked away. He narrowed his eyes when he saw you grab your bag and walk to the back of the cafe. There was only one thing on his mind as he walked out of the cafe. Your notebook. What was in the notebook?

You frantically flipped to today’s page in your notebook. In all caps with your boldest, darkest black marker you wrote at the top of your notebook. ‘Beware of Haruto. Tall, Handsome. Asked about notebook.’

Then you shut the notebook and exited the back room, breathing a sigh of relief when you noticed that the cafe was vacant once again. You walked over to the cafe table where you had previously sat and picked up the chair that had fallen over when you had left the conversation.

The next day at school Haruto was deep in thought. What could possibly be so important about a notebook? When Hanbyul shoved him, Haruto shrieked as he fell out of his chair. “Dude, what the hell is your problem?”

“What are you thinking about? You look like you’re thinking so hard that your brain might break.”

“Do you have an important notebook? Is that like something girls do?”

“You mean like a diary?”

Haruto snapped his fingers and looked up. “Yes! Exactly like one of those. Do you have one of those?”

“I did when I was younger. I don’t keep one anymore though. Why do you ask?”

“My friend. The one from home, Y/N? I think she has one. I asked her about it yesterday and she got all dodgy and weird.”

“Ah, well. Back when I did keep a diary it held all my dirtiest secrets. I don’t think I would want to share it with anybody or for anybody to know about it. Not even now, and as an elementary schooler I really don’t think I had any secrets worth keeping.”

“It was so weird. She got so defensive over it. I didn’t realize bringing it up would be such a touchy subject.”

Hanbyul shrugged. “Different things matter to different people. Are you ready for tryouts? They’re coming up soon aren’t they?”

Haruto nodded. “Asahi, Mashiho, Yoshi, and I have started going to that gym that you recommended. Lacrosse is actually pretty fun. Mashiho is the best though. Are you coming to tryouts?”

“Of course I am. I’m practically making you go so it’s only fair that I be there to see how you do. I reserve the right to totally make fun of you if you embarrass yourself though.”

Haruto rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever.”

Soon enough it was the first day of lacrosse tryouts. Haruto had frequented the cafe that you worked at in hopes of getting the chance to speak to you again. Unfortunately, what he didn’t know was that you had quit the job and diligently stayed home and studied.

Haruto was agitated at the thought of not being able to speak to you again. When he tried to sit down and rationalize it himself he couldn’t make sense of it. A year ago he despised you for not knowing his name. You know his name now, right? What more did he want from you?

“Haruto? Haruto! Hello? Are you even listening to me?”

Haruto turned to look at Hanbyul. “Honestly no, sorry. What’s up?”

“I feel bad for how I treated Jeongwoo. You were right, avoiding him was not the right thing to do. But why hasn’t he said anything to me?”

“Look I can’t tell you what’s going on between the two of you any better than you can. My assumption is that he’s a bit hurt and confused at the moment by how you’re acting and he doesn’t want to make things any worse than they are.”

“Can’t you say something to him?”

“Me?” Haruto looked up from his stick that he was re-taping. “What do you want me to say to him?”

“I don’t know. Just...just get him to react.”

Haruto scoffed. “If you want me to do that I can but again I feel like it’s not going to produce the results that you want. Like I think if I say anything things are gonna go really sour so I think you should think long and hard about this.”

“Haruto!”

“Look, I gotta go. Tryouts are starting.” Haruto said, turning away and walking onto the field. He didn’t miss the hard stare coming his way from Jeongwoo. Haruto ignored them and focused on his gameplay. Lacrosse had actually become really cathartic for him and he found that he really wanted to make the team.

Haruto noticed that the coaches seemed to be reacting favorably to how he was playing. He also realized that Jeongwoo was also really good but he played really aggressively, like he had something to lose. At the end of practice Haruto figured his hunches must have been correct because the coaches called him over to speak with him.

“I’m sure you know Varsity tryouts were this morning, all of your friends from Japan did great as did you and so we’re thinking about pulling you up to varsity. So tomorrow I want you to come early and try out with the varsity team, alright?”

Haruto beamed and nodded.

“Good work son.” The coach slapped Haruto on the shoulder. He did his best not to fall over. Thankfully the coach didn’t notice.

Haruto walked off the field and headed towards the school parking lot. Just as he pulled his phone out to call someone for a ride home his phone pinged, he tapped on the notification to see that it was a message from Mashiho.

Mashiho: Haruto have JV tryouts ended?

Haruto: Yes, I just finished

Mashiho: Cool. Have you found a ride home yet?

Haruto: No, do you know anyone who can come get me?

Mashiho: Ya, a lot of the guys on varsity can drive. Junkyu is over now but he offered to come pick you up.

Haruto: Junkyu?

Mashiho: He’s trying out for the varsity team. He’s cool. Kinda goofy but cool. I’ll come by with him.

Haruto: Alright, thanks dude.

Mashiho: Np.

Haruto checked the time on his phone before putting it back into his pocket. 6 P.M. Would you be at the cafe? The last few times he had gone by he hadn’t seen you. He put the thought away when a car appeared in front of him. The window rolled down and Mashiho cheered when he saw Haruto. “Get in the car! You smell!”

“Shut up and unlock the door Mashi.” The car door clicked open and Haruto hopped into the backseat. There was a large dude sitting in the driver’s seat who kept fidgeting with a bunch of random controls.

The guy turned around with a giant grin on his face. “Hello! I’m Junkyu. You must be Haruto! Nice to meet you!”

Haruto bowed. “Hello. Yes, I am Haruto. Nice to meet you as well.”

“Ruto! How were tryouts?”

“They were really good. Coach pulled me over at the end of tryouts and told me to come early tomorrow morning and try out with the varsity team.”

“Damn! You must be so good!” Junkyu said from the driver’s seat. Haruto tried not to be concerned by the way Junkyu was driving. His head kept swiveling from left to right. “Did you guys play sports back in Japan? All of you were insane at tryouts today!”

“We all played football. I think Mashi and Yoshi played basketball as well.”

“Football? Do you mean football football or soccer football?”

“Eh?”

“Do you kick a ball or do you carry a ball?”

“You kick it. Duh. Why would you carry a ball? That’s just dumb.”

“Americans call a totally different sport football. Don’t worry about it too much. But it’s awesome that you guys are so good.”

“Well to be fair, we were told about that Lacrosse Club and we had a few training sessions every week leading up to try outs.” Mashiho said.

“Ahh! How’d you hear about that? A few of us have been playing on their club teams for a while.”

“My friend told me about it. She’s the person responsible for me in the foreign exchange students program. Hanbyul?”

“Oh! I know who you’re talking about. Her brother was a legend at this school. He was a top recruit since his sophomore year here. But right before the most important game of his senior year he tested positive on a drug test and he couldn’t play. It totally turned him, his team, and the school around. He got dropped by the college that was recruiting him. But I heard he struck a deal with a pro-team and I guess he’s been training with them. The dude was in a league of his own.”

“Damn. That’s insane.”

“Yeah, our school takes lacrosse pretty seriously. The best players at our school get recruited to some of the best schools so it’s a great opportunity.”

Haruto knew there were probably more important things to be thinking about in this conversation but he couldn’t help but wonder if he could get you to come to one of his games.

The second day of tryouts Haruto was absolutely on fire. His shorts were shart, his passes were quick, and his steps were light. The varsity team was definitely of a different caliber but Haruto found the challenge fun. It was nice to be able to play with the rest of the Japanese boys as well.

At the end of varsity tryouts the coach pulled him over, “you were great out there today. How are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling alright coach.”

“Up for a few more hours?”

Haruto paused, but then nodded. He wasn’t in a place to argue with his coaches. “Sure.”

“Great. Then I want you to continue through JV tryouts. Grab some water and then head back out onto the field.”

“Alright coach.”

Haruto jogged out to the edge of the field. He was surprised to see Hanbyul sitting at the edge of the bleachers. “What’s up?”

“Hey, what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean what am I doing here? I came to watch your second day of tryouts.”

“Are you sure you’re here to watch me?”

“Shut up. Why are you all sweaty already?”

“Coach had me try out with the varsity team today.”

Hanbyul’s eyes widened. “Dang, you must be awesome. The last two boys that made it onto the varsity team as sophomores were my brother and his best friend Bobby.”

Haruto shrugged. “The game is fun. It would be awesome to play on varsity.”

The coach blew his whistle, signalling all the players to come back out onto the field. Haruto turned around and gathered around. Every so often throughout the day Haruto ran back to the bleachers where Hanbyul sat. His bag was stowed away there as was his secret stash of Coca-Cola. It probably wasn’t smart to be drinking Coke in the middle of tryouts but every so often he needed a pick-me-up.

“You need to quash that habit.”

“Yeah yeah.”

At the end of the day the coach told Haruto to wait for him inside his office. So Haruto did just that.

“So what’d you think about tryouts today?” Coach asked.

“It was intense.”

“Yeah, what did you think of the way the varsity team played?”

“They were quicker, sharper, and more nimble.”

“Good observation. Do you think you were good enough to play on their level?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then answer me another question. If you had to pick another player from the JV tryouts today to pull up to Varsity who would you pick?”

Haruto thought about it for a second. The answer was obvious. The only other person who seemed to put up a fight with him was “Jeongwoo.”

“Good guess.” The coach laughed. “I don’t know what they feed you kids in Japan. But all four of you are good.”

There was a knock on the door. Haruto turned around to see Jeongwoo. He smirked when he saw the sour expression on Jeongwoo’s face. But it was gone once he had walked into the room and stood adjacent to Haruto.

“The two of you have demonstrated amazing capabilities and I am considering pulling one of you up to the varsity team. Take this opportunity seriously. Tomorrow is the last day of tryouts.”

The last place Haruto expected to run into you was at the hospital. The last thing you were expecting at the hospital was for a dude to come up behind you and scare you. It was horrible, you can’t remember the last time you screamed so loudly, let alone at a public place.

“What are you doing here Y/N?”

“Uh, I’m-” you hesitated, trying to craft an answer that was vague enough that you wouldn’t have to tell the whole truth but not vague enough that he wouldn’t continue to ask questions. But thankfully Haruto seemed to take it upon himself to fill the silence.

“Look, I just wanted to say I’m sorry that I totally misjudged you when I first met you? In fact, I thought I hated you.”

Alarm bells went off in your head. Was it normal for a person to come to you and tell you they hated you? “Uh, thanks?”

But Haruto continued. “But I wanted to say I totally read you wrong. You’re actually really cool. And I wanted to say thank you. For remembering my name.”

That was the first time someone had ever said that to you. You stared at him blankly unsure of how to respond.

“Haruto! Haruto! Haruto! Please report to waiting room 105, the doctor is ready for you now.” The voice over the loudspeaker belted.

“Well, that’s me.” Haruto said with a soft smile on his face. He got up and waved goodbye to you before heading to the back of the office.

Once he was safely out of sight you pulled out your notebook. Your face paled once you flipped through it a few times. You thought about what to do. What did this guy want? You wrote out all these questions in your notebook. Then you came to a conclusion of what to do and wrote that down in your notebook as well.

You ripped out a piece of paper from your notebook and scribbled your number on it. Then got up to the receptionist desk. “Hi, I don’t know if you’re allowed to do this. But when that guy Haruto comes out. Would you mind giving him this?”

You handed the sheet of paper over to her, the receptionist gave you a look and then a wink before accepting the sheet of paper. You figured that meant she accepted, so you waved goodbye and left the hospital.

“Excuse me sir!” The receptionist lady called out to Haruto as he was about to head out of the doctor’s office. What felt and looked like a nasty possible sprain on the lacrosse field just turned out to be a measly bruise.

Haruto approached the reception desk. “There was a young lady earlier. She asked me to give this to you before you leave.”

Haruto looked at the slip of paper. His eyes widened into the size of large gumballs when he realized what was on it. He felt like his heart would explode. But then his mind pumped the brakes, he wasn’t ungrateful, but why did you give him your number?

On the way back home you second guessed your decision at least 30 times. Why did you give him your number? The only reason you could think of was that you didn’t want to not know the guy. Contrary to what your mind and your diary told you. Your heart didn’t want to give him up. Maybe it was selfish and confusing, who knew? But who cared?

Haruto’s excitement was cut short when he finished punching your number into his contacts. Before he could even send a message to you, his phone rang. Hanbyul.

“Hey Hanbyul, what’s up?”

Haruto became alarmed when he heard a sniff and a muffled sob. “Haruto, I miss him.”

Haruto sighed. “He’ll come around soon.”

“Is there nothing you can do to make him come around sooner?”

“Hanbyul. If all goes well he’s going to be my teammate. Plus, what could I possibly say to change things?”

“I don’t know. He probably thinks there’s something going on between us.”

Haruto paused. “Is that why you’re friends with me?”

“No, no I swear it’s not. You’re an amazing person and you’ve been an amazing friend.”

“Hanbyul.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t like what you’re asking me to do. But you are my friend. If you’re really sure this is the way you want to go about it.”

“I’m- I’m not sure. I just need things to change.”

On the third day of tryouts Haruto was in a funk. And it showed. The events of yesterday night haunted him, he was happy to see you but he was sorry for Hanbyul. Haruto didn’t really like to fight with anybody, but he found her requests unreasonable and the questions she asked about you probing and uncomfortable.

It seemed as if Jeongwoo was the same way. Haruto gave into the niggling voice inside his head and said probably he shouldn’t have said. “You’re gonna lose your girl to me and now you’re gonna lose your spot on the team to me?”

It pushed Jeongwoo off the edge and the two of them went at it. Haruto played ferociously and aggressively. As did Jeongwoo. The game ended when Jeongwoo illegally body checked Haruto.

“Dude what the hell is your problem?”

“No, what’s your problem? Your comment back there? Absolutely uncalled for.”

Valid. But Haruto wasn’t going to admit that. ��Please. Pull your head out of your ass. You’re hurting your friend. Talk to her.”

Haruto stood by as he and Jeongwoo got scolded for their behavior. Eventually, tryouts ended with neither one ending up on the varsity team. Haruto knew he probably should have been more bothered but he wasn’t. He had other things on his mind.

When Haruto exited the office he saw Hanbyul waiting outside. She turned to look away from Jeongwoo back to Haruto. Tired and hopeful that their saga would end, Haruto smiled and jutted his chin out towards Jeongwoo. Hanbyul smiled and ran after Jeongwoo.

Since the fateful day you have Haruto your number. Whenever he had a free moment he would ask to see you. After each time you saw him, you thoroughly wrote down everything that had happened in the day. You didn’t want to forget.

A few Mondays ago, you went to get ice cream together. “What’s your favorite food, Haruto?”

“Me? Anything unhealthy.”

You whacked him on the arm for that.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“For being a stupid teenage boy. And because I’m jealous of your metabolism.”

A couple Thursdays ago, Haruto asked you if you wanted to go watch a movie with him. The Uber and the weather didn’t quite work out. “Sorry we missed the movie by 45 minutes. But on the bright side, it’s not raining anymore!”

You laughed. “I guess you’re right. What should we do instead now that we’re here?”

Haruto looked around. He pointed at the grassy meadow. “We should just lay down on the grass and look at the stars.”

“The grass is wet.”

“Look, they're selling plastic tarps over at that convenience store. Let’s just buy one.”

“Okay.”

Haruto paid for a plastic tarp and spread it down out on the grassy meadow. The two of you laid on the ground parallel to one another. Until Haruto turned to you “can I hold you?”

You felt your face flush and you looked away. You hesitated for a few moments but eventually Haruto smiled when he heard a soft “yeah.”

So he moved his arm as you lifted your head to rest on top of it. You curled into him as his arm wrapped around your upper body. Haruto’s stomach exploded in butterflies. Your face was on fire. But the two of you were happy, blissful.

Last Friday night Haruto asked you to come to one of his lacrosse games. “Y/N, this is my friend Hanbyul. Hanbyul, this is Y/N.”

“Y/N?” Hanbyul stared at you eyes wide. Like she knew something. She looked like she wanted to say something but she held it in. You wondered what it was, but decided not to think too much about it.

Hanbyul was sweet. She kept you company throughout the game. But she was an aggressive cheer-er. Most of her attention was spent yelling at the field. Her energy was contagious and by the end of the game you were standing on the bleachers cheering “Go Haruto!”

Now it was Saturday and the two of you had finally gone to see the movie that you had meant to see a couple Thursdays ago. You clasped onto the arm that Haruto had held out for you as you exited the movie theater. “That movie was so good! It was so crazy!”

Haruto laughed. “Yeah it was okay.”

“Just okay? You didn’t like it?”

“No, I liked it. It wasn’t bad. But I feel like there were better movies from this cinematic universe you know?”

“Yeah I guess.”

“Which one was your favorite?” Haruto asked.

“Huh?” You looked up at Haruto to see him looking down at you. You turned away. “Um. Would you wanna come back to my place?”

“Huh?” Haruto wasn’t normally caught off guard but this time he was.

“I mean. Not like that. I just, I don’t know I’m not ready for the night to end and I figured since my place is close by we could just go back and chat.”

Haruto smiled. “Yeah, that sounds nice. Let’s go.”

Soon after the two of you arrived at your place, Haruto got situated on the couch and after making sure he was properly settled in. You had gotten up to go fetch your drinks. Haruto spotted your notebook sitting on the edge of the coffee table. He glanced over to see that your attention was fully occupied on making your drinks. Haruto turned back to stare at the notebook. No. The notebook was staring at him. Haruto knew it was wrong. He knew he shouldn’t peek.

But he couldn’t help it. Every time he saw you he either saw the notebook with you or he saw you writing the notebook and every time he even remotely looked in its direction you guarded it with your life. This could be his only chance.

And so, Haruto grabbed the notebook. He flipped through it and saw that it was very meticulously dated. Upon closer inspection he noticed that each entry was timed as well and every timed entry had extensive details about what you saw, what you talked about. Then he flipped backwards and found one page not like the others.

This page wasn’t dated. Instead, it was titled. Haruto. Haruto’s eyes widened. Every line of his designated page was filled. There were things about him on there that even he hadn’t realized he had said. Why had you written all these things down? All these details didn’t seem that important to him. They were like things that were probably easily remembered. Or things you could ask him about, he’d answer if you ever asked him about.

Just as he was about to continue flipping through the pages of the notebook. “What do you think you’re doing?”

An index card fluttered out of the notebook right at Haruto’s feet. Haruto bent down to pick it up. But in a panic you kicked his shin and as he howled and grabbed onto his leg you snatched the card. “What the hell Y/N?”

“No. I should be asking you that. I’ve made it abundantly clear that this notebook is not to be touched. It’s incredibly private to me.”

“What is it? Why is it so important? I asked Hanbyul what it might be and she just said it was probably a diary. What is so special about yours?”

“What is so special about mine?” you were so angry you felt like your head was about to pop. While your head didn’t pop. Your mouth certainly did. “What is so special about mine? This notebook? This notebook. Is my memory. I don’t have a memory.”

You tossed the card at Haruto. He picked it up and read the words on the card as you spoke.

“At age 13 you were involved in a very traumatic car accident. The accident left you in a coma for two weeks. After you recovered from your coma you were diagnosed with anterograde amnesia. From that day on, you no longer have the ability to make memories. The memories you make within a day will only last until you fall asleep wherein your memories of the previous day will be wiped. Use your notebooks to keep track of your days. Use these notebooks to help you remember.”

You could hear your voice waver as you finished reciting the contents on the index card.

“Y/N, I-” Haruto said. The world seemed grayer and grimmer. Everything made so much sense now. Why every time he spoke to you in school you had to ask for his name. Why sometimes you looked confused or blank when he mentioned something or attempted to crack a joke.

“So now you know.” You whispered. You could feel your body start to heave, your breathing became heavy. The gravity of what you had just exposed started to weigh down on you. “You need to leave. You need to leave and never come back.”

“Y/N. I wish you would have told me.”

“Why?” You snarled. “Why would I tell you that? Each day I wake up I can’t even remember who you are. Why would I have told you anything? Just so you could go around pitying me? Telling everyone else about me? Absolutely not.”

Haruto started to feel tears well up in his own eyes. He felt trapped in his own body as he watched your body fail yours. When he saw you collapse something snapped in his head and he got up and picked you up. One arm held you under your shoulder blades and the other below your knees.

“Get. Out.” you said in between wheezes.

“No. Y/N. I’m sorry. I don’t want to. Let me help you.”

“Get. Out.” you said, barely conscious.

“Y/N. You’re scaring me. What do I do? How do I help you? Let me help you and I’ll leave you alone.”

Your eyelids were getting heavier and heavier. Honestly, you weren’t even sure what exactly was going on. Maybe it would be smart to have Haruto call your doctor before he left. “Emergency Numbers. Notebook.”

Haruto placed you down on your bed just as you had passed out. Haruto immediately ran back to the living room and grabbed your notebook that had fallen onto the ground. He flipped through it frantically. What page were the emergency numbers on? He saw them scribbled on the inside of the back cover. He grabbed his phone and dialed the first number listed at the top.

“Hello? Is this Y/N’s doctor? She’s just passed out and I don’t know what to do. I’m in her apartment right now. Someone please come help me.” Haruto hadn’t even realized that tears had been streaming down his face until he saw wet splotches appear on the notebook. He wiped them quickly and sniffed. “This is scaring me.”

“Yes, this is Y/N’s doctor. I’m on my way over. Who is this?”

“Haruto. I’m a friend of hers.”

“Haruto. You did good, son. Just wait. I’ll be there in a second.”

“Doctor. Is she gonna be okay?”

“Honestly I can’t tell you right now. I have to check up on her. Right now I’m in front of her door so you can let me in.” The call ended and Haruto opened the door.

“Is she in her room?” The stout man asked.

Haruto nodded and followed him back into your room. He tried to help the doctor but eventually the doctor turned to him and said “son, just relax. Give me some space. She should be fine. She had a panic attack, something must have worked her up. But she’ll wake up. But, it might be better if you aren’t here by the time she wakes up.

“I understand, doctor.”

The doctor took a good look at him. Then nodded grimly before turning his attention back to you. Before Haruto could leave though he saw a stack of index cards, a roll of washi tape, and a pen sitting on your desk. He was still holding your notebook from earlier. He grabbed the materials and headed back out to the living room.

Before he left he scribbled out a note. Then pulled something out of his wallet and taped it to the back of the index card. He then taped the index card to the inside of the front cover before shutting the notebook and leaving it in the middle of your coffee table. He held in a sob as he got up. How had things gone so sour so quickly?

Haruto walked back over to your room and peeked in. Your doctor was still busy doting on you. So he turned around and exited your apartment. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Junkyu. “Hey, can you pick me up?”

“Yeah of course. Send me the address.” Junkyu said, trying not to be too alarmed by the tone of Haruto’s voice.

Eventually, you woke up. After reading the note that your doctor had taped to your hand explaining the situation you took a deep sigh. What a shit show. You needed to find the notebook your doctor had mentioned in his note.

It was sitting in the very middle of your coffee table. You flipped through the last few pages to read your entries. Your eyes started to water and you felt yourself get emotional. You could sense that you had grown close to someone. You read about yourself and how you felt about Haruto, but who was Haruto? For the most part you had made peace with your situation but for the first time in a long time, you began to feel frustrated. Angry. Cheated of a normal life that other 16 year old girls got to live.

Just as you were about to shut the notebook you noticed there were two index cards taped to the inside cover. The first one explained your situation. It was more or less what your doctor had just explained to you. But the second one was new. You lifted it up to your face and began to read it aloud.

Y/N,

If you’re reading this, I want you to know that you are the love of my life. My name is Haruto Watanabe and I am 16 years old. I met you for the first time in our freshman year of high school back then when we lived in Japan. We were only 14 years old. I used to be jealous of you, how you beat me in school every time even if just by a little bit. I also resented you because I thought you never bothered to remember my name.

By some stroke of fate, we both ended up in America. Whether by fate or not we saw each other a few more times and met up with each other and I really began to fall for you. You are the kindest, most beautiful, and genuine person I have ever met in my life.

I want you to know that even with your condition. My opinion and my feelings towards you have not changed. I want to be honest with you and tell you what I did and I hope in time you can read this and not feel angry.

Y/N, I did something bad. I invaded your privacy. You see, every time I saw you you fiercely guarded this notebook. Everytime I asked about it or possibly glimpsed at it you would react so strongly so eventually the curiosity of needing to know what was in the notebook killed me. And one day when your attention was occupied elsewhere, I read it.

It seemed like a regular diary to me but you caught me in the act and got upset with me. You explained to me your condition and I want you to know I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry I behaved so insensitively. If I were a more selfless man I would have left your life for good. But I am not. I’ve attached my school I.D. to the back of this card. On it has my name, my picture, and my phone number.

If you ever find it in yourself to forgive me. Please give me a call. I will always love you.

Love,

Haruto Watanabe

You flipped the back of the card over. Sure enough there was a school I.D. taped to the back. You pulled the card off and stared at it. The boy in the picture was handsome. He was tall. His height was 6’2”. You scoffed, at least you had good taste.

You saw his phone number at the bottom. You pondered over whether or not to call him, what would you even say to him? Where would he even fit in your life?

These were the questions that ran through your mind as you pulled your phone out and dialed his number. You stared at the numbers as you recited them aloud again. Your thumb hovering above the green button.

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clumsyclifford · 3 years ago

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u know what. i will give u all the lore u want. i’m 18, will be 19 decently soon so we are close to the same age. also the other band was r5. i have sent u asks about them and tde in the past. i followed you for atl content and got whiplash when u started posting about the first band i ever loved. i was like 10 when their first album dropped i have been around for entirely too long. i had a wattpad account and wrote r5 fanfic from the tender age of like 11-13. i discovered 5sos i don’t even remember how but i think the funniest part about it is that i never really got into their music?? i got into them as people by watching like interviews and compilations. and i mean at this point that was a While ago. SPEAKING OF FANFIC i did that like ao3 year in review thing like a month ago??? and you were my top author of the year so far. i read a lot of fic on ao3. your fics are very lovely and some of my favs. moving on. will not lie my music taste is kinda embarrassing and has barely changed since i was like 14 lmfao. been listening to a lot of waterparks lately. have been since their album dropped in may. i essentially go through phases of listening to solely one artist. or one playlist i made. most recently my taste has consisted of a lot of all time low, waterparks, paramore + hayley’s solo music (it really had to grow on me BUT now that it has it is very good), also been on a nostalgic r5 kick as well. hot take it has been quite difficult for me to get into tde’s music and i don’t really know why. some songs i absolutely adore (omg plz don’t come around is my fav by them. also scared of heights, feel you now, welcome to the end of your life are top songs too) but others i’m just. i have never liked preacher man and it’s the first song they released after they rebranded in like 2017. i love to see them finally free to do what they love music-wise but some of it is just. hard to listen to. i’m supposed to see them live in november (like 4 days before my birthday, kinda cool) and it’s the second time the show has been rescheduled so hopefully it happens. i’ve seen them live before but not since they rebranded. they’re dropping an album in october that i will have like a month to learn so it better be a fucking banger. now i’m just rambling about tde because i love ross and rocky with my entire being. rydel is annoying these days tho. also she named her baby fucking SUPER what kind of name is that why would you do that to a child. anyways. you ever need useless random r5 lore, i’m the person to ask. it’s the effect of being around to like a band for like 8 years. in conclusion my music taste? terrible. a cluster fuck. i will listen to luke’s solo album next time i’m focusing on a task because i like listening to new music when i’m concentrating on something. there’s some other bella lore for the day. - other bella

OH ALSO yeah idk. i’m currently on mobile. when i looked at your blog on mobile the first time last night it was blue. but now it’s pink. i have yet to see it on desktop but when i do i am sure it will be equally as pretty. - other bella again

hell YES some other bella lore. let's dig in

oooooh how soon? whens your birthday? 👀👀👀

ahhh yes i do remember the r5 asks !!!! that was a fun little era of clumsyclifford content huh. dont worry i wrote 1d fic on wattpad from ages 11-13 as well sooo same hat. that is super funny tho actually that you never bothered to listen to their music u really were staying loyal to r5 good for you

ao3 year in review???????????? say more?????? what is this?????????? thats very flattering regardless omg im going to ask you what your favorites are because im a leo just kidding its because i crave validation and im curious what ones you read/have read. also thank you for reading my fics lol

oh yeah theres a new parx album!! i dont listen actively to them but i really like all the parx music i know. im scared to get really into them because im genuinely afraid to fall in love with awsten knight. like im not joking thats the reason. i have to listen to more of their music tho cos i really enjoy what i know so...if you have recs...👀 i'm listening

mm thats a good lineup of music to listen to!! paramore is another band i never got super into, i meant to and then i listened to all of riot and then i learned that hayley williams is like pretty christian and that a few paramore songs are more christian than i anticipated and now i'm like. on the fence about it all. but i wanna listen to after laughter i just havent gotten around to it yet. and i did like riot. i like paramore. i like dead horse by hayley, i didnt like the other single she released, and i didnt listen to her solo music because i didnt like the first single so im not sure if i would actually like it? i am accepting vibe checks in that category though i dont really know what kinda music it is. actually now that im thinking about it doesnt she have two albums now???? i feel like the answer is yes. anyway. moving on

that is very fair the thing abt the tde stuff is that it's all so interesting and so different from every other tde song like they really just do something unique in each song which i think is awesome but also makes it hard to like every song bc it's not like one universal vibe you kinda have to decide for each song if you're enjoying it or not. i do LOVEEEE tde though, im very jealous that you're seeing them perform. although i dont know why im not, just looked it up and theyre gonna be in new york on november 24th which is a sunday so i miiiight.....be able to go.......maybe...........their website says the 25th which is a monday so maybe i was under the impression the show was on a monday?? but the ticket site says sunday. 👀 we will just...have to see......what we see.............

ANYWAY

RIGHT im so excited for their album i was mistakenly thinking it was coming out the same night as luke's but it was just the new single which i really liked on a first listen but have to listen to again cos ive only heard it the one time. but i hope it fucks. they announced that the album is called girlfriend which personally i think is really fun so i have high hopes

SHE NAMED HER CHILD FUCKIN WHAT NOW???????????????

wait eight years thats a long time but also thats roughly how long ive been around 1d wtf........insane. madness. and in fairness probably roughly how long ive been around 5sos but i took a hiatus from both of those bands during high school so im not sure how much i can count all of those years. ive been around all time low for six years though, that's pretty good. anywayyyy i hope you like luke's album but no pressure man listen whenever you feel like it. LOVE YOU

#whew #we got through it #we did it boys #guys my friend is picking me up at TEN in the morning tomorrow #we're going out on a day road trip #going to her aunt's farm to meet some goats #etc #it's gonna be really fun we're just gonna listen to taylor swift and atl i'm really looking forward to it #but also tho.....i will have to be up and ready to go at TENNNNNNN #thats a horrible time #i mean like #better than camp time but still ugh #early #she said 9:20-9:30 and i was like omg thats. so early #ask #anonymous #cubs anon

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mimis-mm · 7 years ago

Text

I’m procrastinating on some school projects right now and my brother inspired me for something silly.

RFA reacting to a MC who won’t stop texting them the “Send Nudes” meme

The MC is not in relationship with any of them in this headcanon.

Warning: Might be slightly NSFW I think? At least for Saeyoung though.

Yoosung

The first time you send him one he’s a flustered mess and doesn’t understand it’s the meme.

The poor boy is playing LOLOL and is communicating via Discord with his guild members. Fortunately for them, they weren’t in any major fights cuz he is shooked.

He tells them a friend just asked him a nude pic and they lose their shit.

Who dares ask such thing to their innocent leader they’re gonna rip that person’s face off.

Until one of the guys is like “bruh take a screenshot and post it on Discord” which Yoosung does.

The guys laugh their ass off and tell Yoosung that you’re only joking and the rest of the guild calms down.

However, he left you on read cuz the poor boi just doesn’t know how to respond to that.

After a while, he just answers with screenshots of his character in LOLOL without it’s armour and striking a pose.

And every time he stops what he’s doing and starts undressing, his team members just know and maybe encourage him.

Also expect some group pics with the guild they’re totally gonna join the fun.

Jaehee

She’s sooo gonna questions you and not gonna find it funny at all the first time.

Girl totally had to deal with douches in the past so she’s pretty tired of it.

After a few apologies and explanations from your part she’s cool with it.

Like really cool with it.

She has the best answers tbh.

Photo of her in a bra

Anything that has the word “nude” written on it

She’s so gonna buy a shirt and write “nudes” on it just for the meme

Prob gonna send you a photo of her shaved legs if she just did them.

Watch out for pics of her with nude makeup style on cuz she’s slaying that look so hard like that’s gonna be a wake up call to your gay heart.

She’s gonna send you pictures of Zen shirtless. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

Zen / Hyun

The poor man doesn’t know what memes are and thinks you’re being serious.

So you receive a selfie of him bare chest with pure confusion on his perfect face.

Baby no it’s only a joke don’t do this to yourself plz

After a scolding he promises you he won’t accept sending nudes anymore if he doesn’t want to.

What does the “anymore” mean?? What happened??? Were they only bare chest or something else???? Zen are you ok baby???????

After that he still sends bare chest pics but he’s striking a pose with a smug look.

Like please calm down Zen it’s just a meme.

And yes, one time he sends you a pic of him laying on a sofa almost naked followed by a “draw me like one of your french girl”

Also you know when he’s working out cuz you receive a photo of his energy drink in an aesthetic style or if he’s jugging outside it’s a flower or the scenery since the boy doesn’t want you to see him sweaty. V showed him some photography tricks that’s why.

If you’re in a relationship he’s totally gonna buy one of those shirts with a photo of a muscular bare chest but still poses seductively. He’s a gentleman, he ain’t gonna send semi-nude pics to a girl with someone.

Jumin

He. Is. So. Lost.

“What do you mean? Why do you what to see me naked? Do you need help?” he makes you regret all of your life decisions.

You try to explain the meme to him but he still doesn’t get why you ask for nudes if you don’t really want some.

After a while you just give up.

A few days later, you receive a text from Jumin saying “Ask me to send you nudes.”

Uuuuh ok dude.

After just a few seconds, you receive a blurry picture of a white thing. You squint you eyes at it until...

Is it Elizabeth the 3rd?

Did Jumin Han just made a pun? A sexual one? With his own cat?

Now, prepare to be bombarded with Elizabeth’s blurry pictures.

Also he still doesn’t understand the meme (or just doesn’t care) so sometimes he just tells you to ask for nudes cuz the man needs to share his love for his cat.

One time, he responds with a blurry picture of a rooster. He never tells you how he got it tho.

Seven / Saeyoung

Oh boi

What have you done

This asshole sends you selfies of him crossdressing with a suggestive pose. Like he has a secret talent for posing like a Play Boy model.

And don’t think he won’t send you the meme. Cuz he will.

It’s the start of a war to know which one is going to have the best meme and responce.

Actually it’s just full of sexual tension tbh. This boy knows he’s going to Hell anyways, so he doesn’t give a fuck anymore.

Also, he’s the only one who sends a nude. It happens only once and poor baby isn’t proud of himself after that.

He hadn’t sleep for 3 days in a row because of work and his common sense is just dead at this point. So when you sends him the meme, he thinks that playing a trick on you by sending an actual nude is going to be hilarious.

While crossdressing, of course.

So you’re surprised at first when you see him wearing a school girl uniform and the top is open to reveal his muscular chest and his necklace. You scroll down and FUCKING DROP YOUR PHONE.

“Why isn’t he wearing something under that skirt!!!”

The next morning he calls you in panic and apologize a thousand times and explains that he didn’t think it through. He’s actually more traumatised by his own actions than you are.

V / Jihyun

Surprisingly, he knows the meme. He still asks you if you’re serious or joking, then if he can sends some of his art. plz just protect this angel

Hell yeah you want it.

If you don’t know the feeling of pride and pure joy when an artist trust you enough to show you their creations, then now you fucking do.

He’s the one you ask the most “nudes” cuz you just love his art???

Even if he just takes a photo on the spot with his cell phone you could frame it and it would still look fucking flawless.

After a while, he asks if he could send some sketches with nudity, since he’s practicing his drawing and painting skills. He also explains that he didn’t want to send them before because he didn’t want to chock you.

You die a little inside.

His drawings are actually pretty smooth. Like there’s nothing heavy, the persons naked have a relaxed pose or are stretching. The proportions are good, no matter the sexe of the models.

Your mind is just blown away more everytime you receive his art. It’s a never ending cycle.

#mystic messenger #mystic messenger headcanon #mystic messenger imagines #yoosung #saeyoung choi #jaehee #zen ryu #jumin han #jihyun kim #mm v #mysme ima

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skippyin · 7 years ago

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school story plz

WELL ALRIGHT THEN BUCKLE UP KIDDOS BECAUSE WE’RE GOING BACK TO SKIPPY’S SCHOOL DAYS. Now I’m not gonna drop any names but holy shit my early elementary school years were a trash fire.

I have Aspburgers (I’m high-functioning though so it’s hard to tell), my brother has ADHD, my Mom has Dyslexia, and my Dad also has Aspburgers same as me. Both my parents went through hell when they were children, the school systems were brutal back then. They didn’t want to same for their children, so they got my brother and I 504′s and put us into Catholic Schools because we are Catholic and they wanted us to have that kind of education. The first school we chose, however, would be a den of nightmares. I’ll just use the initials: SH when referring to the school. The following is my account of what I went through in that school.

1st Grade: A good start! The teacher started out kinda mean but then shaped up. Treated me nicer when she realized I needed extra help and gave me that extra help. More or less went smoothly.

2nd Grade: Shit starts to get fucky. This teacher: Mrs. B(itch) was very stuck up. She was one of the members of Principle S(kanky Panky)’s little friend group. She greatly disliked me and my friend, Katie, not only because we both had learning disabilities, but also because we were both artists. The class was required to cover our textbooks to protect them from damage, but instead of using the stretchy cloth textbook covers like everybody else; Katie and I would use blank brown wrapping paper so we could draw on the covers, add stickers, etc. It was fun for us to personalize our textbooks, but Mrs. B HATED that we liked to draw because she thought it was a waste of our time and hers. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to troop through.

3rd Grade: Nice teacher. She liked me, and I had no problem with her. Though she would yell at the class often because a lot of the kids in the class were very misbehaved. This year went by without incident.

4th Grade: Another good year! (Unfortunately, my last at this school.) This teacher was my favorite and she was more than willing to give me a hand. The worst of my problems that year was the other kids in my class who liked to pick on me, but I was able to get through.

5th Grade: The beginning of The End. The gateway to True Hell. Which is ironic considering my teacher this year was a nun. Sister H(ell) was very old and therefore very old fashioned. She liked to play favorites, and usually preferred the boys over the girls for some reason, despite the fact that a good 75% of the boys in my class were assholes (don’t get me wrong though, a percentage of the girls in my class were bitches too). She gave me a hard time for my lacking math skills. Funny thing is, she had no idea how to teach the mathematical course material and told the parents on parent-teacher night that she was basically just winging it. She didn’t like me, or anything I did. It became a habit of mine to hum the Darth Vader Theme quietly to myself whenever I saw her walking by.

It was at this point my mother started complaining to Principle S that my education was starting to get hindered. At the same time, my brother was in 2nd grade and had gotten saddled with a different 2nd-grade teacher than me. This woman was ALSO in the principle’s friend group and was an even bigger problem then Mrs. B. She was just out and out mean to my brother and it was starting to become a problem. My mom filed these complaints and brought up our legal documentation. Principle S acknowledged that they were doing everything the documents told them what they had to do, but that she would have a personal word with our teachers to try to solve the problem.

A month passed. Nothing Changed.

Shit was still fucky, the Principle kept smiling and lying to her face, and my Mom decided that it was time to infiltrate. It was one of those kinds of situations where when peoples’ backs were turned, the staff was horrible. But when parents came over or people visiting from the school board: they were all suddenly super nice and acting on their best behavior. My Mom got a job at the school as the kindergarten teacher’s assistant in order to keep an eye on my brother and I and make sure we were being treated properly. The Principle and her friend group knew this was what she was doing and tried to keep her out of the loop as much as possible. Though her presence was very comforting to me, knowing she was so close by in this den of wolves.

(Side Story: Principle S is FUCKING Nuts.

While my Mom was working at the school she got into a friendly conversation with the Principle one day during lunch in the teacher’s lounge. She proceeded to tell my Mom a story of how she and her husband went to go visit her mother. Upon arriving at the elderly woman’s house, they found her on the floor and not moving. Now, any rational person would immediately call 911, right? Principle S didn’t. No, instead, her and her husband starting going around the presumably dead woman’s house and putting sticky notes with their names on all the fancy stuff they wanted. Turns out she wasn’t dead, just passed out. Upon realizing this, then they called 911. She laughed at it like it was a funny little story but my Mom just looked at her like she was crazy. And she was. There were many other stories like this, but that is the only one I know about.)

Nevertheless, the kindergarten classrooms were very out of the way from the rest of the school, so even though my Mom was present, they still pulled a lot of BS. When my 5th-grade year was finally over I was relieved, but boy oh boy was I jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire when I started--

6th Fucking Grade: What would be my last year at SH school. This year was my personal hell. THIS YEAR was when shit hit the fan. Ms. F(ucking Desperate For A Boyfriend) was the final member of the Principle’s friend group and was by far the worst in my opinion. Dear gosh this woman... Who let this woman near children... Where to begin, where to begin...

I guess I should start by saying she hated me. Just plain and simple. She hated me and anybody I associated with. She thought I was a Bad Kid. She thought I was a demon in disguise or some shit. That I was lying when I told my Mom about my hard time in school. How dare I get my Mom to “harras” her good friend Principle S with my disability papers. I’m just a lazy kid who doesn’t want to do any work so I’m giving myself an advantage over the other students who don’t have extra time on tests, or special seating, or get copies of notes from students who are doing good in school. How dare I get extra help that “I don’t need”. It was “unfair”.

So she proceeded to make every day of my 6th-grade life an uphill battle. And let me tell you it was a battle an emotionally and mentally draining one.

Here is a list of incidents I remember:

One day when I was absent, she made my two best friends sit out in the hallway and told them they couldn’t come back inside until they wrote a list of all the bad things I had done. They couldn’t do this, of course, because I had done nothing wrong, and were forced to stay out there until lunch time.

Complained every time I came to get my photocopied notes from her (only teachers had access to the copy machines). Would tell me every day that I didn’t deserve notes taken by a better student.

Never helped me whenever I would get bullied by other students.

Whenever I gave a wrong answer in class, would make it out as if it was the dumbest thing she had ever heard.

Kicked me out of my group who I was teamed up with on an important History Project. Said I was kicked out because I wasn’t “doing the work” and therefore my punishment was to do the whole thing by myself. I was absent for two days because I was sick with a fever, and I had told one of my teammates over the phone that I had my part of the work ready and I’d give it to them when I came back. Nope, doesn’t matter, what Ms. F says goes. I got saddled with four people’s weight in project work, along with my regular homework. My Parents helped me out a great deal because it was complete bullshit.

Went off on me when she found out I had started a trend among my classmates. Of drawing pictures of bad/dumb/silly things happening to her on sticky notes and trading them like trading cards. We all hated her.

Things really got set in motion during a private before-school meeting between Ms. F and my parents. Ms. F, my Dad, and my Mom, all sat down in our classroom and started to discuss what the fuck was going on. I was constantly asking my parents to keep me home from school, my grades were slipping, I was constantly stressed, and was showing the bad habit of plucking out my eyelashes. They wanted to know what was going on and they wanted it to be fixed. Ms. F proceeded to tell them the following:

A) I wasn’t disabled, I was only faking it because I am a lazy horrible brat who doesn’t want to do work and only wants extra help to give me an advantage.

B) If I really am disabled then I should be sent to a mental hospital/children’s special needs school for the severely disabled. I don’t belong in their school, I had no place in her classroom. I had to go where all the other “crazy children” were sent.

C) I am a manipulator and a liar playing everyone for fools, but NOT HER. No sir she doesn’t fall for my tricks.

Now.

My Dad is a slow to anger man. He is usually pretty laid back, and fun loving, and cool. But when he gets mad, watch out. Meanwhile, my Mom kind of is the opposite. She is a very passionate woman who likes to yell a lot whenever she feels there is some sort of injustice. Small but Loud. Like Anger from Inside Out. I’ve seen her mad, but when she’s Angry her rage burns brighter than the light of 1000 suns. The only thing keeping the two of them from beating the ever-loving crap out of Ms. F right then and there was the knowledge that they’d probably get pressed on Assault charges.

No, instead, they advanced on her. Forced her to back up against the wall. My dad, tall and looming behind my mom fixing this woman with a death glare. My mom pointing a finger at her face and said “I swear to God in heaven above if I ever catch you off school property... I don’t care if we’re in the grocery store, I don’t care if we’re in church, I don’t care if it’s years and years from now and I’m an old woman. I will punch you dead in the face for talking about my daughter that way and putting her through this. That is a promise, you Bitch. So you better be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life and praying and you don’t see me there.”

It was at this time school was starting, so my class came in to see my parents staring down our teacher. I was oblivious to the tense air in the room and just waved at them saying “Hi Mom and Dad!! :D”

Meeting over.

My Mom is the kind of person who keeps her promises. She once knocked out a guy with a single punch. And another time my Mom broke some chick’s jaw when she tried to mug my Aunt. She knows how to throw a good punch.

But unfortunately, Ms. F was undeterred by my parents legal and physical threats. And only made things harder.

The final straw happened when we were 3/4ths through the year. The home stretch. I wanted to try my hand at writing poetry. We had some free time, so I got out a sheet of paper and got to work. Not too long after, the group of boys who liked to pick on me came over and tried to read it. I knew it would only give them cannon fodder to use against me so I tried to keep it away from them. They were persistent so I decided to try to use my pen to fend them off. One of the nice boys, Anthony, came over to try to break up the commotion. I accidentally wound up getting pen ink on his uniform shirt. I apologized, knowing he had only been trying to help and he told me not to sweat it and that his mom would just wash the shirt. The situation is over, right? Wrong.

Not ten minutes later, Ms. F slams her hands on her desk and screams my name. I snap to attention because “Oh no what’s happening?” She starts yelling at me because I got ink on Anthony’s shirt. How dare I do something so atrocious. Now Anthony’s poor mother has to slave away at the washing machine tonight to try to clean the ink off of his expensive uniform shirt. It doesn’t matter that I already apologized, it doesn’t matter that Anthony forgave me, I should feel bad about doing this horrible thing. She basically proceeded to humiliate me in front of the entire class and I was mortified.

I went, hid in the girl’s bathroom, and cried like Hermione Granger did in Sorcerer's Stone. After I calmed down, I refused to head back to class, too afraid getting yelled at again. Usually, if a student spends too long in the bathroom, another student is sent to go check on them to make sure they’re okay and bring them back to class. I decided to wait for someone to come for me. So I sat, and I waited. And waited. And waited. Nobody came to get me. My Mom wasn’t notified of the incident either, so she was waiting for me outside. It wasn’t until hours later when one of my friends came up to her after clubs were over and told her what happened that she found out. That I’ve been in the bathroom all day, and Ms. F didn’t want anybody to go get me. My Mom rushed into the school, ran into the bathroom, and embraced me. She was so worried because I was a child, left alone, unsupervised. This is how kids get kidnapped and go missing. This is how kids’ faces get plastered on missing posters and billboards. I was left alone in that bathroom with nothing but my own self-loathing all day, anything could have happened to me. We marched out of the bathroom, down to the Principle’s office, and my Mom called Principle S a sick pig bitch, threatening to sue her for every penny she had.

That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. My Mom was outraged by the school and its horrible treatment of myself, my brother, and any other disabled child that happened to come up to their doorstep. She was sick and disgusted and DONE. I remember vividly when we got back in the car, the first thing she did was call my Aunt on her cell phone and said: “I want a lawyer.” Unfortunately, we never did take them to court on this, I can’t remember the reason why. We’ve always been pretty financially tight, so I think it’s the fact that we just couldn’t afford a lawyer to do an all out lawsuit.

My Mom pulled me and my brother out of that school and sent us to a different Catholic School. This one was so much better, so much nicer, all the teachers loved us, the principal he was so great and nice, we made friends with tons of different kids. It was the exact opposite of what we went through in that hell hole.

And you know what? I’m not mad. I’m not bitter. And I still feel like I’ve won even though we didn’t get any sort of “revenge” on these people. Me living my life, being happy, and being with my loved ones is revenge enough. In the end, they don’t matter to me. But at the same time, they did wind up teaching me something. They showed me the kind of person I didn’t want to be. They were bitter, revenge seeking, condescending, lazy, and prideful. They got enjoyment out of making me and anybody they deemed “unfit” miserable. I don’t want to be like them. I could have used their real names, I could put their addresses and phone numbers out there for everybody to see, with a call to action to “teach them a lesson” in order to form a justice-seeking mob mentality amongst anybody who reads this story. But I’m not. Because I don’t want to be seen as a victim. What I experienced was horrible, yes, but I don’t feel the need to cry out for justice. Because I’m satisfied with living my life and winning against them by leaving them behind, by not letting what they did to me haunt me every day of my life. And you know what? I’m fine.

I got two little sisters who I love very much.

I met some of my very best friends still to this day in high school.

I got my Associate's degree with honors.

I’m currently studying for my Bachelor's and eventually will get a job doing something I love.

I play games with my friends.

I do what I love every day.

I spend every day with my family who loves and supports me and encourages me.

I have so many blessings, I’m not going to let those years ruin my life when my life so good.

I guess the thing to take away from my story is, don’t dwell on things. You don’t have to nessicarily forgive them for what they did, but which sounds better to you: Dwelling on memories that make you feel like shit for the rest of your life or surrounding yourself with the people you love and making new better happier memories? I rolled with the punches that were thrown at me and came out stronger for it.

So while they sit there, stewing in their own bitterness, in a teaching job they hate but only took because they want the summers off. I’m off in the world, experiencing new things, and Living.

I am very happy. ^u^

Thanks for reading.

#personal #long post #like really long geez #sorry about the text wall guys lol #story #personal story #aspburgers #adhd #bad teachers #past #Anonymous

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aryapathak-ls25-blog · 7 years ago

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Week 14: Alt-GAMING

Elisa!!! :)

GSI elisa’s focus has been on internet art and making work on and through the internet

her work explores gender, sexuality and labor in relation to technology and internet

taught at RISD and Brown before she came to Berkeley!

some problems: free labor, big data, etc.

did the MFA program at RISD

Archive Fever: night before midterm, she took all her browsing history until her computer crashed, and then link after link is plaid back in chronological order.. there was soothing music in the background

-she trellised there were different trends and the cluster of data was able to give herself and others and idea about herself… at the time she was very interested in the narrative qualities of video montage but now it reads in an entirely different way… its interesting how the project and the way people read it drastically changes depending on the political climate

- she’s still selling her data on a flash drive online because she was interested in the whole idea of selling your data on line just like companies like Facebook do today

-started to receive warning from eBay about how she was putting herself in a “vulnerable” position

need ideas!?! PLZ!!

just a bunch of videos of youtubers talking about how they don’t know “what to do” or about how they need “video ideas” and then the youtube ask their viewers what to make… like whether or not they should sing, what they should talk about, whether or not they should make make up vids… they also ask viewers to “subscribe, comment, follow, etc.”

Labor of Sleep, Have you been able to change your habits? (2017)

touches on how sleep has been a new behavior from which data and other things are exacted…. basically sleep used to be something that was the last known method of shutting down and being unproductive but now sleep apps allow our sleep to produce something fruitful!

continuation of archive fever project in the sense that it examines how we are more and more viewing humans and things that produce classes of data… we are perceiving ourselves in a more quanitifiable way

-if you are on the whitened website during the time or sunset/sunrise in new york, the website is interrupted with her art project

techonologies of care- the projective is documenting how effective labor (a time of immaterial labor that effects and modifies emotions of consumers/ viewers) is being outsources to computer… i.e. workers on line can perform micro tasks like designing loiece was censored in the backgos/labels, pretend to be bf/gf online,

-workers on these platforms are usually from non-western countries with problematic economics and inflation (so maying low amount of dollars may look good to them), very cheap labor, etc…. most importantly for elisa, most of these works were produced by women… elisa interview 70-80 workers and selected 10 for the final projects. they all wanted to be anonymous so elisa abstracted their images with geometric shops

when the towel drops- project done by a collective that elisa is in with one ugandan artist and one indian artist called radha may

the research started in italy, next phase in india, last phase in south africa

she visited the national censorship archive of ital- all films in italy are first reviewed by a state review board.

-they did a montage of all the censored scenes and presented in italy.. at the same time someone read why the clips were censored... ex “women showing pleasure

Wednesday: Porpentine Heartscape

Porpentine Charity Heartscape - “Oakland based new media artist, video game designer, writer and curator primarily a developer of hypertext games and interactive fiction mainly built using Twine. In conversation with artist Elisa Giardina Papa”

sticky zeitfeist-the game is about girls who are animals and girls who are robots… collaboration with her friend from canada. there is a lot of music from transgendered artists. she gets bored with one thing, so the game is constantly changing,

glitches are the second best part of making a game.. the best part is not having any glitches lol

she also made another game for a contemporary art museum in chicago, very simple game

she’s interested in repetitive, pattern work

-foldscape = a game made out of posters

she’s also really interested in how the speaker/presenter in a game can mutate the entire game

another game asked people to draw things, for example. “a symbol of the new year

this world is not my home- collaborative project where her collaborator added music & where they turned their game into a portal like exhibit

tiny bubbles exhibit in SF->

to her, feeling always matters more than physical form

JOURNAL ENTRY

I’ve been in Elisa’s discussion section all semester and I had no clue that she went the #1 design school in America, and that she’s already had her work shown at various famous museums like the Whitney! I’m not surprised but I was surprised she never talked about her work in discussion before. The first piece she shared with us was Archive Fever. It was pretty funny to see what peoples’ reaction were when she tried to sell her own information on line. She got messages warning her about the risks of sharing her personal information online, which is ironic since most individuals use still such s Facebook, which we’ve just found out might not be as safe as we think! I also really loved her second piece, titled, “need ideas!?! PLZ!.” I’ve never been a huge user of any social media asides from twitter, which mostly consists of 240 character tweets that make me laugh, so it’s interesting to me that kids really care about the number of likes they get online. When reflecting back on the piece, I couldn’t help but feel sad about the direction of where this so-called form of “art” is headed. When I think backk to some of my favorite presents, like Barbara Hammer, Chip Lloyd, and Lynn Hershman-Leeson, I remember being amazed at how many ideas they had lined up in their head and ready to bring to fruition. Call me old fashioned, but I really enjoyed these presenters, not only because of the amazing work they produced, but because it was genuine and they’d truthfully believed in the whole project from beginning to end. For example, Chip Lloyd had to literally jump through hoops and get so many random permits just to blow up a bunch of TV’s! I feel like that takes real passion and self-realization that those kids will not learn if they are already taught at such a young age to just sit online a wait for people to tell you what’s cool instead of exploring/experimenting and figuring it out for themselves!! Lastly, my favorite piece was When the Towel Drops. I loved the idea of creating a montage of all censored scenes and reading why they were censored, just so people can understand how ridiculous it is that something like “showing pleasure” is ok with the Italian government for men, but subject to censorship and considered too taboo to be shown on screen for women.

Porpentine Heartscape is a well-known, tumblr famous gamer and writer who is in conversation with Elisa. I’m actually really curious to see what both of them will collaborate on because they both have such different styles on interacting with audiences and working! I really admire Porpentine because she seems very sure of the direction she’s headed. I felt like her presentation gave a very holistic view of her work, but I didn’t learn much about her and her motivations for doing what she does. In fact, halfway through the presentation she just started putting up different games without really saying anything. But, she did indicate that he believes feelings matter a lot more than physical form. This definitely rings true in her work and it seems like the closest thing she gave as a theme or motivation behind her work. For example, one of her game, foldscapn, was made entirely out of postcards. It was really cool how much she lit up when she found that boy that was obsessed with her game, and its really obvious that she loves what she does. She said that the ideal way she pictures someone playing her game is sitting in a messy bedroom with a box of pizza, and this seems like exactly the environment that some her fans would be in.

READING NOTES: Not much to say about this reading since its just archived reviews of A1 from different people, but I will say that these reviewers seem incredibly animated and loyal. It’s also very interesting how their ratings are in jibberish letters that seem like

MULTI MEDIA: [DISCLAIMER- MUST DOWNLOAD ON ANDROID OR IPHONE TO PLAY]

http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/

This links you to a game created by Jason Rohrer called Passage. Passage was one of the first experimental games to really change peoples’ prospects and persuade them to decontextualize video games as an art form. Elisa and Professor Skoller have both probably already heard of Passage because It’s apparently one of the most famous and influential experimental games, but I thought it was one of the coolest things I’ve played. In fact, in 2012, it earned one of the 14 coveted positions in the MOMA’s permanent video game collection. The game is unique because there is no tradition plot. Hopefully this doesn’t spoil the game, but the game is supposed serves as metaphor for the human condition. Players LOVE the game, and many people said they were very emotion and/or they cried afterwards.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/game-reviews/passage

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djchalant-blog · 7 years ago

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JAY-Z

4:44 ALBUM REVIEW

How 4:44 Maybe HOV’s Most “Important” Album

It’s been just a little over 4 weeks now since Hov blessed us with his latest

project 4:44. Right out the gate, the album sent massive waves throughout the rap universe, sparking many debates, conversations, and Instagram posts, from fans and celebrities alike. So, now it’s time I FINALLY chime in. First I would like to say, I really bang with 4:44, and I’m glad I did wait to write this review, because after the first listen, I thought; “Yeah it’s ok”. After the second listen, I thought; “Joe, this is really good”. After a week, I confirmed , this is “Great”! As I’m writing this, I confess this definitely in the convo as one of his best albums period. Yeah, that’s right. (Where does it rank exactly? You will see on my next post when I rank all of Jay’s albums from worst to first.)

So what makes 4:44 so great? Being a DJ, the first thing that stuck out to me was how well-produced the album is. The beats are amazing! (Salute to the legendary producer No I.D. who handle the bulk of production duties, and Young Guru , who’s been Jay’s trusted engineer throughout the years.) No I.D. found the formula to craft beats that has the classic hip-hop essence of soul samples, and “boom bap breaks”, while maintaining a feel suitable for today’s hip-hop climate. In addition to stellar production, Hov delivered some of his best vocal performances than on any of his albums. I think most Jay Z fans will agree, he was more personable on this album than any other. When you go back and listen to Jay’s lyrics, especially earlier in his career, most are filled with swagg and bravado. His stories were about navigating through the projects with immaculate hustling abilities, escaping the trap through his great rapping abilities, becoming a multi-millionaire through excellent business savvy, all while having the “hottest chick in the game wearing his chain”. But not this album, at 47 years of age, having now 14 #1 albums, 21 Grammys (he’s a savage), and an estimated net worth over 800 million, we got a much softer, humble JAY Z. He talks about botched relationships, most notably with wife Beyonce and Kanye West, business deals he didn’t capitalize on (this is hard to imagine), and family issues, concerning his mom & daughter. There is still swagg and bravado here, but in a different form. Instead of flexing on the competition, by flaunting his success & knowledge, like in the past; here he is dropping gems, “sincerely”. Like he’s educating the ones who are considered “next up”. The album sounds like one big intimate conversation to a younger sibling, or “lil homie” around the way, about what to watch out for in this game. You get the impression Jay undoubtedly knows his place in music history and no longer feels he has to keep all the “ god jewels” to himself.

It’s hard to pick a favorite song as it’s only 10 tracks. Artists are trimming the album size down eliminating all the “fillers” while making a shorter, smoother, straight to the point project. Each track contributes greatly to the context of the album, I will however, go through a few that stands out to me.

1) KILL Jay-Z: The opening track to the album, definitely sets the tone for what’s to come. Jay raps from the perspective from a spectator about controversies he’s been dealing with throughout his career. He wasted no time addressing the Kanye situation, and it appears Jay is metaphorically “killing” off the old him to embrace the new.

2) The Story of O.J. I replayed this song about 3 times before continuing with the rest of the album, during my first listen. This track def have the most social media quotables. “Don’t get killed over the neighborhood, that your mama renting”. “Yall on the gram holding money to your ear, there’s a disconnect, we don’t call that money over hear”. Just to quote a few.

3) Smile- The last verse is what got me amped here. I like when an artist gets in the zone with the beat, and say f**k 16 bars. Jay also discusses his mom being a lesbian on here, making the poem his mom delivered at the end of the track that much powerful. Great Song.

4) 4:44- The title track, first thing that pops here is the beat! OMG! One of the best samples ever. The beat soo good I’m fine listening to this with no lyrics. Matta fact I’m still trying to find an official high quality instrumental to this. (If you’re reading this, and have that can you email me plz [email protected] ) Jay, being the master emcee, realizes this and leaves much space in between his lyrics, or “ride the beat”. This also adds more dramatics to the content of his lyrics in this song. He addresses his marital issues here, copping to infidelities, and insecurities he will have if his relationship with his daughter is tainted because of this.

5) Bam” feat. Damian Marley - Probably the most, (or only) club ready track on this album. Those who know me, know I love Reggae/Dancehall/island music, so this one is self-explanatory. The reggae infused sample, with a Marley on the hook...enough said.

6) Legacy- The conclusion to this opus.The final track, he perfect “recap.’ It seems to summarize all the jewels that was dropped throughout the project. I’m always a fan of preaching building generational wealth amongst the black community. And this is the perfect protagonist to deliver that message.

4:44 can definitely be describe as a more mature album. I can see why some people, especially younger fans, might not place it on such a pedestal. I was chopping it up with a friend of mind about the album, and he stated that he “liked it, it’s just different, he was expecting more of the old Jay Z”. Honestly, at this point in his career and life, would that even be acceptable? The timing of 4:44 also helps illustrate the importance of the project . Everything in life needs balance, and hip-hop is no exception. We can still have our “turn up’ music, our savages, and people spilling teenage emotions. We also need a 4:44 to remind us, that it’s cool to paper and dream chase, but always keep your eye on the bigger prize, and remember what’s important in the end; FAMILY, LEGACY, EXCELLENCE.

@DJCHALANT-

#Jay Z #444 #album review #2017 #Hip Hop #DJ Chalant

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driftingbutstillbeating-blog · 8 years ago

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plz ignore this thanks

CONTENTS

ADVERT

EDITOR’S NOTE

Welcome to the first issue of FANGZINE, a collection of short stories, silly articles and general tripe, with some serious social commentary thrown in from time to time as well.

2016, by all accounts, was not a good year. Countless celebrity icons kicked the bucket, an unelected uber-bitch seized power in Westminster, the high watermark point of the post-war neoliberal consensus was realised with Brexit, and the bloke from The Chase was the highest selling recording artist in Britain. Oh yeah… Donald Trump happened, too.

So, with all these horrors behind us, can we take comfort in the fact that this is a new year, a fresh start for the world and for ourselves? Well, no. There’s nothing remarkable about it being 2017, it’s just an arbitrary rotation of the world around the sun. Bad shit’s still going to happen, isn’t it? Come on now, really- don’t kid yourself.

With that in mind, see this zine in a way as a distraction from the terrible events that this year will no doubt spew forth. This is a celebration of the creative, comedic and trivial side of life, so please, read on at your leisure and enjoy!

2016 OBITUARY PAGE

TOM INVESTIGATES

CAPS-LOCK ON: A NEW HAT

The first of a dark trilogy, heartbreakingly based on true events and personal experience, by Stephen Spiers

Weeks and weeks ago, in a galaxy far, far up north, a troubled young soul was drinking his way through Leeds on a warm summer’s evening. Little did he know that he was about to be consumed by a vicious addiction from which few, if any, have been known to emerge from. Read on and take heed, for the events in the following tale could happen to anyone…

“Whose cap is this?”

“Dunno mate, someone must’ve left it.”

‘Jackpot’ I thought to myself as I stumbled from inside one of the many nameless pubs on the Otley Run’s agenda into the balmy late summer Leeds air.

“Ere, they’re all over here, you can ask.”- Jack was gesturing towards a low wall where the rest of our troupe were sitting, having a smoke.

A hat is a wonderful thing on a night out. I’d never really liked wearing hats, even at a young age, but after 5 pints and a couple of ‘fat trebbies’, such an accessory can provide one with endless fun. Drunken girls’ attentions can be caught, hilarious Jay-Z impressions can be made, and if nothing else, a little warmth can be provided at 4 in the morning when you’re sobered up and shivering, waiting for that taxi that should have arrived 20 fucking minutes ago. These were the kind of thoughts that were running through my mind as I shouted back over my shoulder:

“Fuck ‘em, I wanna wear it”

With that, I placed the plain black hat on my head and strode purposefully towards the next pub. It’d just be a laugh for one night, I thought. If only I knew of the descent into a world of addiction and self-loathing upon which I had just embarked.

The very next morning I was frantically scrambling around my room, packing my bags for a trip to Budapest with some friends, and generally regretting my decision to go out the night before. With my head pounding, and all of about 3 hours of alcohol-induced sleep under my belt, my newly acquired piece of headgear was the furthest thing from my mind. However, after several minutes of rooting through various items of my wardrobe looking for this and that, I found myself face to face (brim) with their newest addition: the little black baseball cap. There it sat, peering up at me from underneath a pile of unwashed clothing. ‘Go on, pack it’- I heard an unfamiliar voice in my head- ‘You’re going on Holiday, everyone wears hats on holiday’. Why was I persuading myself to take this hat? I didn’t even like wearing caps, and never had, plus I looked like a twat in it anyway. My head was round enough already without removing my poorly-styled quiff from the equation. ‘You’ll probably not even wear it’. I don’t know where it came from, but an unfathomable urge to pack it suddenly came over me. I grabbed it, shoved it in my bag and set off to the railway station.

12 hours, 3 trips to Ryanair’s customer service desk and a flat tyre later, we were dropping our bags off in our tiny Budapest apartment and getting ready to hit the bevs to kick off the holiday. Just as I was slipping on my trusty denim jacket, I heard the voice again- ‘Wear the hat. Go on, just once, just to see what it’s like’. I span round and sure enough there it was, barely visible, lurking in the murky depths of my holdall. And then it was gone. I stood for a moment, confused. Had I actually packed it? Or had I just imagined the whole thing? Then I re-focused. There were more important matters at hand. I could solve this mystery later, during time that couldn’t be better spent drinking copious amounts of beer. Invigorated by the promise of alcohol, I marched from the kitchen into the hallway where the others were waiting, wallet in hand.

No sooner had I stepped into the hall however, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on the wall and my heart sank. I turned and stared in dismay at myself staring right back at me with an equally horrified expression. There was no wild imagination at work here, and no magical disappearing hat either. I was wearing it. And not only was I wearing it, I was wearing it backwards. I looked like a cross between one of those chavs I’d seen walking around Bradford in their matching tracksuit tops and bottoms, gobbing on the pavement as they went; and one of those hipster roadmen you can find populating the streets of Leeds, trying their best to look cool by wearing decidedly uncool clothing. I had become everything that I hate in this world. But that was just the thing. I didn’t hate it. I fucking loved it.

Make sure you grab the next issue of FANGZINE to find out what happens next to our unfortunate, newly becapp’d friend!

HOLLY PIECE

After having volunteered at the Ipswich Night Shelter during the winter of 2015, and spending a night sleeping rough on the streets of Norwich in 2016 to raise money for the St. Martin’s Housing Trust, Holly Free offers an insight into the plight of the homeless in Britain today, and voices her concern over the apparent lack of empathy the general public shows towards them.

As I walk through the streets of Norwich at 1am, I glance to those not at immediate eye level. There seems to be some form of confrontation between a homeless individual and a Tesco security guard. I walk over, and the man appears to be on Spice, known as the most popular legal high that became illegal in May 2016. The security guard is visibly angry, and I am immediately shocked by his threatening stance towards the man who is barely able to stand, talk or function like a human being. The individual is not being aggressive, however the guard is using unnecessarily strong language towards him. The guard, in a dire need to justify his actions, turns to me – “He’s like this every fucking week. I’m sick of it.” Unable to bite my tongue, I respond hastily with “well, that quite clearly shows he needs help, don’t you think?” I want to educate this man and make him question what he knows about this individual’s life, and how he has ended up in this situation… But I receive a response in the form of a patronising laugh and a filthy look, and my own rage silences me.

Everyone around me is mute, and all I can hear is my thoughts rage. An anxious episode? Silently raging at the stigma and ignorance surrounded by poverty and drug addiction? The sudden realisation of throwing away money on alcohol that I will most likely vomit later? All I do know is that the shame I feel is becoming unbearable, and I tuck my money into the pocket of the man who is now physically inept on the floor with three other homeless individuals. For the rest of the night, I feel consumed by worry for the man and his friends, unable to refocus my thoughts on having a night out. “Poor privileged me” I say to myself.

After volunteering at the Ipswich Night Shelter in winter 2015, I witnessed the harsh reality of homelessness, and I cannot sugar-coat it for the sake of those it may upset whom have a roof over their head, food in the cupboard and a general sense of stability. With the high probability of an individual without a home having mentally ill health, distressing family circumstances, or are trying to cope with a bereavement and addiction, it is so much more than just being a nameless face on the ground. It is not knowing when your next meal will be, or if you will ever have a home again. It is the fear of being judged, of ‘faking it’ or being labelled as that ‘helpless heroin addict’ and nothing more. It is being a statistic, not a human being. It is selling The Big Issue and being told to ‘get a real job’ by passers-by. Sometimes, it is going to sleep praying you will not wake up and being disappointed when you do. It is watching some of your friends die. It is crippling stomach cramps after weeks without a substantial meal, it is fatigue, and in worst cases, it is death.

I watch people crowding around sale areas of shops like vultures to roadkill, and most likely due to my own illnesses, my tunnel vision only enables me to see the negative. Money being spent on luxuries that we don’t really need, or actually want. I’m no angel myself – when pay day comes I act like the richest person alive, and then I realise the shit I have bought wasn’t needed at all. I’m not trying to deny people of their fun or own personal enjoyment, but there are times when all I want is for society as a whole to take a step back and look at the somewhat useless things we invest in.

When observing people making snide remarks whilst walking past someone who is quite clearly wasting away, mentally and physically, I wonder if deep down, it bothers them as much as it bothers me. Entering a dissociative state, I question whether anyone out there wants to genuinely help, or if it really is every man for themselves. “You have to cut yourself off from it” “You’ve done all you can” “Focus on yourself” “You’re too kind” Am I? Or is it not basic humanity to care for those in need and help where help is necessary? Maybe my immaturity and mental illnesses warp my idea of compassion… But I don’t want to walk on by, and I certainly don’t want to “draw the line somewhere”. The word compassion, to me, seems to have lost its true meaning, since now it is used to describe random once in a while acts of kindness. Don’t get me wrong, a little kindness is better than none at all, but surely in this increasingly poverty stricken society what we need is a continuity of care if this epidemic is ever to get better.

This doesn’t mean giving your money away to every homeless person you see. It doesn’t mean buying food for every homeless person you see. It can be as simple as a five minute chat, human contact being one of the biggest luxuries for someone without a home or a family to talk to. You never really consider what that contact can do for someone who has been alienated from the rest of society. You might just be saving a life.

TOM PIECE

MUSIC SECTION

THE WHO’S WHO OF NORWICH

CHET INTERVIEW

REVIEW OF BAND

JEM’S JOKES

BACK PAGE

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