#it’s so chill here how the fuck did i survive 4 years of twitter

[kaiipivara]

turned on a vpn to check twitter bc why not and woah….. the difference between the miserable hellscape that’s there and the peaceful positive dteam loving land that’s here after 1mo since the ban gave me whiplash i didn’t notice i was THAT miserable every day jesus christ elon completely fucked that app up

[grasslandgirl]

oooo i sent it more as a fix prompt but also from one adhdhead to another i’m glad we agree!! thinking about sam and peter study dates

ahhhh fvbjsjvkbjf im so dumb i’m sorry i saw “adhd sam” and my brain just yelled YEAH. RADICAL. and that was it kjdvskfj 

that being said i’ve been haunted by ricky montgomery’s Line Without a Hook + eldonado since yesterday so........ hmmm.... (oh no this got wildly out of hand)

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Peter threw himself wholeheartedly into anything he worked on. It was just how he was built. Peter was either on or he was off, and it was hard to get him to change course once he was en route. Head down, eyes narrowed, his whole body angled down at his computer like if he got his face close enough to the screen, it would start streaming information right to and from his brain. His hair would flop, unnoticed, into his eyes and he would shove his glasses so far up his nose that Sam would worry he was going to bruise his nose. 

All this to say, of course, that study dates were something of an occupational hazard when you were best friends with Peter Maldonado.

And also secretly in love with him.

Well, mostly-secretly. Secretly to Peter, and probably only Peter, because Sam was 90% sure everyone else was in on the secret and knew how hopelessly gone Sam was for his oblivious best friend. Gabi was the only one who ever said anything to him about it, though. So, little victories. 

Finals were looming over their heads like a dark storm cloud. Looming on the horizon, fucking with barometric pressure just enough to make everyone jumpy and nervous. Peter worked well under pressure- which was a good thing, because Sam knew Peter put more pressure on himself than anyone else did- but he would always show up the night before a big exam and demand that Sam help him study. It was so commonplace after seven years of friendship that Sam didn’t question it anymore. Mostly.

There was always that small, hopeful, and nervous voice in the back of his head asking why Peter always studied with Sam when he studied just as well on his own. The only answer he could think of was that Peter knew Sam studied better with him there. But that wasn’t- that couldn’t- Sam always shut that annoying little voice down before it spiraled any further.

It didn’t do anyone any good to overcomplicate things that were objectively very simple. Peter liked routine, they were best friends, Sam was the only one who could talk Peter down from an academics-induced panic attack at 2 in the morning the night before a final exam. 2 + 2 = 4. Simple math. 

Sam was slumped on his back, halfway falling off his bed with his head and shoulders draped over the side of his mattress. The notebook he was supposed to be reviewing was abandoned, sitting on his stomach. Peter was sitting at Sam’s desk, leaned over and scowling at his laptop. 

It was unfair, really, how pretty Peter looked illuminated by the blue-white light of his notes document. Sam had the perfect view of Peter’s upside down profile, all furrowed eyebrows and clenched jaw and dark hair that’d had hands run through it too many times. It was late and Sam’s brain was wrung out and exhausted, only able to focus on Peter’s expression as he mouthed whatever obsolete moment in history he was trying to commit to memory, and the looping chorus of a Carly Rae Jepsen song he’d had stuck in his head for the last two hours. 

A big part of being friends with Peter Maldonado was knowing when to draw the line. 

“Pete, dude.” Peter looked up, blinking away the lines of notes Sam could almost see in his eyes. “It’s the middle of the night. Either we know it or we don’t at this point.”

“You think we should cut our losses?”

“I know you can survive on three hours of sleep and five cups of coffee, dude, but I can’t.” Sam tapped himself on the forehead. “This baby needs r&r or I can’t fucking function.”

“Right, right. What time is it?”

Sam sat up- an impressive showcase of his abs that Peter didn’t notice, of course- and dug around in his rumpled comforter for his phone. “12:30.”

Peter sighed heavily, tipping his head back against the headrest of Sam’s computer chair. “I should go home.”

“Dude. Just-” Sam was his own worst enemy sometimes- “just spend the night.”

“Yeah? Your moms won’t mind?”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure they assumed that’s what was happening when you showed up after dinner.”

It was probably just a weird reflection from the computer light on one of Sam’s posters onto Peter’s face. There was no way that Peter was blushing. 

“Anyway,” he continued, shoving his textbook and notes off of his bed instead of looking at Peter, “I’m gonna drive you tomorrow anyway, right? Saves me a trip.”

Peter closed his laptop with a soft click. “Yeah, sure, if it’s not-”

“It’s cool, dude, don’t be weird. Just two bros-”

“Chilling in a hot tub?”

Sam prayed Peter couldn’t see the hot blush he felt rising to his cheeks. Five feet apart cause they’re not gay. “Whatever you want, dude.”

Peter knew Sam was gay. He was the first person Sam had come out to- followed closely by Gabi and his moms. But there was a difference, Sam was sure, to having your best friend be gay versus having your best friend be gay and in love with you. An invisible line in the sand that would shift their relationship forever. Sam didn’t want to test how that shift would happen. Didn’t want to risk losing his best friend on the off chance that he wasn’t alone. 

“Right.” Peter repeated. 

They went to bed in pieces: Sam pulling on an old pair of sweatpants and throwing one to Peter, Peter neatly stacking all his notes on one corner of Sam’s desk, Sam kicking all his schoolwork to the edges of his bedroom floor as opposed to the middle of it, Peter brushing his teeth with the same toothbrush he’d kept in the Ecklund house since they were ten, Sam turning off all the lights, Peter wandering back into his bedroom, Peter’s hair turning to gold and ink in the faint streetlight coming in from the window, the two of them curling up back to back in Sam’s bed just like they always did.

And then it was dark and quiet and all Sam could hear was the faint sound of Peter’s breathing beside him. The warmth from Peter’s back mere inches from Sam’s. They’d fallen asleep next to each other a million times, but Sam still felt electric with the proximity. How easy it would be to just- stretch his legs out and wind his feet with Peter’s, to flip over and press his nose into the soft place where his hairline met the back of his neck, to whisper something hopeful and mortifying into the still night air and hear Peter’s breath catch in silent response.

Sam stayed still, held himself perfectly motionless lest he finally show his hand. And eventually, they both fell asleep.

-------------------------

Peter woke up surrounded by Sam. The pillow he’d pressed his face into smelled like Sam’s hair and the sheets on his bed were the same tacky Star Wars ones he’d been so proud of in the seventh grade and the bed was warm with Sam’s body next to him. For an instant, Peter let himself consider it: waking up next to Sam like this every day. Falling asleep with his arms wrapped around Sam and waking up with his head on his chest. 

He squeezed his eyes shut against the glaring dawn light, and against the daydream that quickly threatened to spin out of control. He could still hear Sam’s sleep heavy breathing behind him.

Slowly, Peter sat up in bed, pushing his hair out of his face and scrounging the nightstand as quietly as he could for his glasses. He allowed himself a single glance at Sam- sleep soft and sprawled out on the bed, his hand inches from where Peter’s shoulder had been, like he’d been reaching out in his sleep- before standing up and grabbing his phone from where he’d left it charging on the desk.

“Sam.” Peter poked his shoulder. “Sam.”

He groaned incoherently, but rolled over, which was a good sign. 

“You have to get up, dude.”

“Breakfast?” Sam mumbled.

“Yeah,” Peter laughed a little, “I’m sure your mom’s making breakfast.”

“Urrgghhh.”

Peter grabbed the clothes he’d left in the corner the night before and pulled an old t shirt out of Sam’s closet. “I’m stealing a shirt.”

“Oh,” Sam said, half sitting up and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. “Yeah- good, okay.”

“I’m gonna go-” Peter gestured weakly towards the door, and beyond it, the bathroom. Sam peered up at him, the light from the window hitting his face in a single pane, like something out of a sun-soaked French movie. Like this was the moment where one of them broke the uncertainty, the silence. Peter could see the scene unfolding in his mind’s eye, like he’d seen it a hundred times. He’d say something like, did you sleep well? And Sam would answer, better with you here, and Peter would oh-so-slowly close the distance and drop his jeans to the floor and Sam would arch up and meet him halfway and the camera would pan away, leaving them both washed in the golden early-morning light. “Bathroom. I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” Peter said, and closed the bedroom door behind him. 

He splashed water on his face and combed through his hair with his fingers, throwing on yesterday’s jeans and Sam’s t shirt under his sweatshirt and hoping it wasn’t obvious to anyone else how badly Peter wished every morning could be like this. 

He left the bathroom quickly and perched on the edge of Sam’s bed, scrolling through twitter while Sam did his hair in the bathroom. 

Breakfast was quiet and normal and filled with the usual mini-dramas in the Ecklund house. Kara didn’t want PB&J for lunch and one of Sam’s moms left the flat iron on in their bathroom and Leah almost burned the eggs and Sam spent half of breakfast finishing the math homework he’d almost forgotten he had. 

Sam drove them both to school early for the Morning Show, laughing and singing along to his “perfectly composed drive to school playlist,” and the rest of the day went on normally. He took his history test and saw Sam in math class and they sat with Ming and Randall and Phil at lunch. 

But all the while, Peter couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted. He’d had... feelings for Sam for a while, unquantifiable and nebulous. He’d categorized them all: the way his stomach twisted when Sam smiled at him crookedly, the skipped beat of his heart when Sam slung his arm around Peter’s shoulders, how his hands got clammy when he caught Sam watching him out of the corner of his eye, how he always found ways to hangout during and after school. But he’d never dared to name the feeling. Defining it meant- meant he should do something about it. Made it real. 

But that morning, waking up next to Sam, borrowing his t shirt to wear to school, falling asleep next to each other- they were all things they’d done a million times before. Peter’s chest ached with the normalcy, the domesticity of it. 

Peter’s fingers itched to try and piece it all together, his feelings and Sam’s and their history together. String it all together on a corkboard until it made sense. But Peter knew it wouldn’t work. Not without Sam there to see the bigger picture in the first place. It’s why they worked so well together; Peter would gather and organize all the information, but Sam was the one that knew how to put it together, knew how to see the forest from the trees in a way Peter never could on his own. Even if he tried to map out the snarl of feelings in his chest, Peter knew he’d be left with a labyrinth of post-its and red string without Sam there to untangle it for him.

Dramatic irony, he supposed.

Peter caught the bus home, Sam had something for theatre after school, and spent the entire ride with his music turned as high as it would go, trying not to think about Sam as he stared out the window. 

The problem, Peter realized, with being a self-professed movie lover, is that your brain starts to treat life like a movie. He could imagine a dozen different ways his life could spiral out from this moment, a dozen different movie time-lines he could find himself in. The tragedy, where he never tells Sam and lives his entire life in uncertainty. The drama, where he tells Sam and it tears their friendship apart. The tragic love story, where he and Sam are together and happy until they’re not. The comedy, where Sam laughs him off and they go back to their friendship with a tiny crack between them, spackled over with laughter that’s just a little strained. 

The romantic comedy, where everything goes perfect and they ride out into the sunset. 

Life wasn’t like the movies, though, nothing ever went as simple or as straightforward or as cinematic. There isn’t a director behind the camera who can call cut and change the scene halfway through. There aren’t any sweeping cinematic shots with atmospheric indie pop playing in the background.

It was just Peter, and Sam, and the creeping uncertainty hanging between them. 

Right before dinner that night, Peter got a text from Sam.

sam: thanks for the study help last night, felt good about the test today

sam: don’t stress i know youre freaking out about it too

sam: you did great on the test pete i know it

Peter blinked at his phone, at the unspoken I know you hidden inbetween the lines. Sam knew him better than anyone, knew his habits and his worries and his annoying little tendencies. And he was still there. 

And that, Peter realized, said more than anything else.

Love wasn’t a panoramic of a passionate kiss at sunset. It was knowing someone, learning them backwards and forwards, all the good and the bad pieces of them. It was staying, not despite everything, but because of it.

Peter loved him. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

--------------------

The doorbell rang at the end of dinner. Sam rushed to get to the door before his sisters- if he was lucky, it was their batty old neighbor Mrs Gorschtt and she would prattle on for fifteen minutes about her cat, shove a cake into Sam’s hands, and get him out of having to help clean the kitchen.

But when he opened the door, it wasn’t Mrs Gorschtt standing on the front porch, it was Peter. 

“Hey, dude, what’s up? We don’t have like a math test tomorrow I blanked on, do we?”

“Huh?” Peter blinked at him, “No, no.”

“So, what’s up?” Sam stepped out onto the porch beside Peter, closing the front door behind him. Maybe he could still get out of washing the dinner dishes. 

“Uh- so, the thing is-” Peter muttered, twisting one of the strings from his hoodie between his fingers. Sam’s stomach dropped; something was wrong. Peter was nervous, uncertain about something. He wasn’t looking Sam in the eye, and he had one arm wrapped around his stomach like a shield. His head started spinning with a million different things Peter could be upset about, but the thing Sam kept coming back to- he knew.

Somehow, Peter had finally figured him out. And he was coming to tell Sam- what? That they couldn’t be friends anymore? That Sam had made it weird? 

“Pete-” Sam started, trying to cover his bases, trying to fix this before his best friendship in the world went up in flames.

“You’re the only one who calls me that.” Peter interrupted, finally looking at Sam.

“What?”

“Pete. You’re the only one.”

“I- we’re friends, dude, I’m allowed to have nicknames.” Sam tried to laugh, but it sounded forced, even to his ears.

“I- I know,” Peter’s eyebrows were furrowed, and he was staring at Sam like he was a page of history notes he was trying to memorize. “I got your text.”

“Oh, uh okay.”

“Sammy, I uh, I have to say something, and I want you to promise you’ll let me finish.”

Sam’s stomach dropped even further. Here it was. The end of everything. “Right,” he tried to smile at Peter, “sure dude, whatever you need.”

Peter nodded. “You’ve been my best friend since the fifth grade. You know all of my secrets, all the bad things that I don’t tell anyone else. You know that I don’t like orange-flavored things because I had too much orange-flavored medicine as a child and that I stay up too late studying the night before a test and I panic after I finish taking it. You watch movies I recommend, even though you think High School Musical 2 is the best movie ever made, you- god-” Peter scrubs his hands through his hair, clenching his eyes closed briefly- “this would be so much easier if I could just- you can see the big picture. Like with this you could just- take the words, the discrete pieces of data and put them together. Make it cohesive, coherent. I’m not making sense,” he muttered.

“Pete-”

“I don’t want to just spend the night after study dates.” Peter blurted out abruptly. His face froze, like he wasn’t sure what he just said, like he was terrified Sam was going to misunderstand. “I- I mean. I want to do real dates. With you. And spend the night and wear your clothes and have my hoodies smell like you and watch you spin around in the morning show chairs without having to worry about you catching me and I want to see you without gel in your hair and I want to lean against you when we have movie nights and-”

“Pete.”

“Sammy,” Peter said, kind of breathless. “Go on a date with me.”

“Like a study date?” Sam said, also kind of breathless.

“Like a date-date. Please.”

“Yeah. Yeah, just- come here-” and then Sam’s hands were on either side of Peter’s face and his fingers were in his hair and Peter’s hands were caught in Sam’s sweater and then-

Peter kissed like he didn’t know all the answers, for once, and he was okay with it. Peter kissed like he was memorizing everything about the moment. Peter kissed like he was planning on replaying it like an old video tape, over and over until the tape wore thin and tore. Peter kissed like he could hear the orchestra playing behind them, like they were in some cheesy made for tv rom com and were about to get their happy ending.

Peter kissed like Sam was his happy ending.

Finally, they broke apart- more to catch their breath than anything else. 

“Hell of a study date,” Sam breathed, unable to stop smiling.

“Shut up.” Peter was smiling, too.

And, leaning back in, Sam did.

[zacharybosch]

Playing God - chapter 8 (final)

thank you all who read along with this fic, i hope you enjoy this final installment! don’t forget you can find me over on twitter and pillowfort as i’ve largely abandoned this tumblr due to the whole banning-certain-content-that-i’m-afraid-to-directly-specify-in-case-this-post-gets-flagged thing

chapter 1: tumblr / ao3

chapter 2: tumblr / ao3

chapter 3: tumblr / ao3

chapter 4: tumblr / ao3

chapter 5: tumblr / ao3

chapter 6: tumblr / ao3

chapter 7: tumblr / ao3

read chapter 8 of Playing God below or on ao3!

Bleary-eyed, Jack snatched up the phone from its place on his nightstand. It had been a long time since the taunting Miriam phone calls, but when his phone started blaring at three in the morning, it was difficult not to let the dread creep in.

“Hello?”

“Jack, it’s uh… It’s me.”

“Will. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing’s wrong. In fact, I think everything is right now. I got you what you wanted. But it, heh, it came at a price. I don’t think you’re gonna like it.”

“Where are you? Are you with Lecter? Talk to me.”

“Am I with him? Oh, it’s a bit soon to say, I should think. Give it about twenty-four to thirty-six hours and you can see what he has to say about it.”

“Will,” Jack ground out. “What. Is going. On.”

“Nothing, not now. It all kicked off earlier, Jack, and you missed the party. Well, it wasn’t really a party. You can’t use the word ‘party’ in a house like this. It was a… soirée? Is that a word he’d use? A gathering? An intimate dinner for two? Someone certainly got ate. And I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t me.”

Jack felt the pit of his stomach drop as sickening realisation dawned. “What have you done?”

“A few things you wanted me to do. A few things you didn’t.” Will sighed expansively. “I suppose I made a few bad choices. Don’t come looking, Jack. You’re not gonna find what you wanted.”

The line went dead, and Jack bolted from his bed.

It took him an hour to get to Hannibal’s house. Jack knew in his bones that he was too late, that he had been too late the moment Will had disconnected the call.

The front door to Hannibal’s house stood slightly ajar, a thin shaft of light spilling out onto the stone steps. Inside, there was a spray of blood across the marble floor of the foyer, more on the walls, and a dragging trail of it leading through to the dining room.

“Will!” Jack called, though he knew it was as useless as the gun in his hand. A chill breeze followed him as he made his way across the foyer and into the dining room, footsteps echoing with a startling loudness in the cavern of the house. The dining room looked remarkably the same as it always had, save for the dark trail of blood that swept the length of the room and continued into the kitchen.

The trail ended at the wooden butcher’s block, which was so saturated with blood as to look almost black. A square of cloth that was very likely one of Hannibal’s pocket squares was on the floor, slowly becoming drenched.

The lights were all burning brightly, and in the oven a joint of meat was slowly turning tough and black.

And in the kitchen sink, an ear.

***

In the bowels of the FBI’s Behavioural Analysis Unit, Jack stood in his office, agitated and impatient, waving a hand in Bev’s general direction. “I know what it says, I’ve read the damn thing ten times already. Just tell me, in your professional opinion: could they have survived?”

Bev screwed up her mouth and scanned the papers before her. She knew the answer already. “Will? Maybe. There was plenty of his blood at the scene. A human probably couldn’t survive it, but if what you’re telling me about him is true…”

“It is.”

“Then I guess it’s possible? I don’t know how,” Bev chewed on the next word before spitting it distastefully out of her mouth, “vampire physiology works.”

“And what about Lecter?”

“No way. There was almost too much of his blood. No-one could survive that. Coupled with the ear, well. Who knows where the rest of his parts are, but I wouldn’t count on them all being joined together.” Bev dropped the report onto the desk with a too-hard thud and began to pace about the room. “I don’t get it though. If Will is a-- you know. If it’s all true, then shouldn’t he have drunk it all? Why leave so much good blood to go to waste?”

Jack grimaced. “It’s recently been brought to my attention that I know considerably less than I thought I did about what Will Graham should or shouldn’t have been doing.”

“You thought you could cover him. It’s not your fault that you believed in the best of him.”

“I chose to believe he was just like you or me, and that choice cost us our only chance at putting the Chesapeake Ripper behind bars. He got the easy way out. Death is too good for someone like that.” Jack sat down heavily in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face. “Go home, Beverly. Hannibal Lecter is dead and you’re free to leave.”

***

The underground parking garage at Quantico was a sea of concrete as far as the eye could see, stained and cracked and always entirely mundane, until now. Walking from the elevator to Miriam’s car, Bev couldn’t help but think of all the times she’d come down here with Will, just two normal colleagues heading to their cars after a long day at the office. Had he been staring at her neck the whole time, waiting for the opportune moment to take her and bite her and leave her dead behind a pillar? And why did he even have a car in the first place? Couldn’t he turn into a bat and just… fly home?

Miriam was saying something and it was echoing off the walls and feeding back into Bev’s ears two, three, four times over. The secure unit she’d been living in for the past few months had always been so deathly quiet. Now every footstep sounded like a gunshot.

The first thing Bev did when she got into Miriam’s car was turn off the radio.

“You read my report, right?” Miriam asked, as she fired up the car and began the long drive home. Bev twisted her mouth around and said nothing. “I know you’re not officially allowed to, but I also know that Jack would’ve shown you anyway. What did you think?”

Bev sighed. She loved Miriam, she really did, but Miriam could never just let things lie for a while. Bev just wanted to go home and make her own food and sleep in her own bed and not think about anything for a few days. Or months. “I think it’s… unbelievable. I’m not sure if I mean that in a good way or not. How was this-- how was he working with me all this time and I never knew what he was?”

“You know I would’ve told you if I could.”

“I know, I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at-- I don’t know what I’m mad at. I liked Will. He was a bit weird, but it didn’t bother me. It was bad enough discovering that Hannibal just wanted to eat me. Now it turns out Will probably just wanted to eat me too? What am I meant to do with this?”

“I don’t think Will ever wanted to eat you. We did feed him regularly.”

“Please spare me the details. I hate the thought of him being free to roam and I hate the thought of him being held captive by you.” Bev sank down further into her seat and put a hand over her eyes. “I hate thinking at all right now.”

Miriam let the conversation drop, and focused silently on the pinprick tail lights blurring in the rain on the road ahead. Bev seemed to be dozing off in the passenger seat, but some minutes later she asked, “How much of Jack’s plan were you aware of? Were you in on it from the start?”

Miriam hesitated for a second before she answered. “I helped him develop it. And I was involved throughout.”

“Jesus.”

“I was going to make it work for us, you know. I had another plan, a better one. I was going to get us all a happy ending. Will was going to kill Hannibal, and then he was going to wipe him from our memories so we could get on with our fucking lives and not have to think about him anymore.”

Bev stared across the car in horror. “He can do that?! Were you even going to ask me before you sent him to scramble my brains? No, of course you weren’t. This whole goddamn mess… You and Jack never could just leave well enough alone, could you? No wonder he took such a shine to you all those years ago. Two peas in a fucking pod.”

“Bev, please, I just want what’s best--”

“Well maybe I want my fucking trauma, Miriam! Shit, you’re as bad as they are. Can’t resist playing God.”

“You’re right, and I’m sorry. I just wanted a clean break for us, you know? I’ve felt Hannibal’s shadow at my back for too long. I didn’t want you feeling it too. We deserve more than that.”

“Well I’m pretty sure he’s dead now. So. I guess you got half of what you wanted,” Bev said, and when Miriam didn’t respond she looked at over at her, at Miriam’s grim profile and the heavy silence that was spilling every secret that she was trying to keep. “Oh just spit it out already. What aren’t you telling me?”

“I don’t think Hannibal is dead.”

---------

is that the end???????? but how can i leave it there???? SURPRISE i’m NOT, there is gonna be a sequel! it’s all written, posting will start in a few weeks after i finish up the edits! stay tuned!!

[aureumjeon]

For all that it’s worth || PJM

♡One shot (maybe?) ♡Long distance relationship!AU ♡Idol!Jimin x Reader ♡Fluff and angst if you squint ♡Words: 4.7K

a/n: This is so fucking cheesy I might become lactose intolerant but I still enjoyed writing this so much. i = flashback except the lyrics to a bts song.  [Inspiration]

“I told you I’d make it up to you.”

"I'm really sorry, Y/N. I need to go now. I'll make it up to you, I promise." Jimin sweet voice tickled your ears but a small frown still made its way onto your lips. "Okay." You sighed through the phone call. "I'll call you later. I love you."

"I love you too, Y/N." Jimin managed to reply before ending the call, his hyungs' voices clear in the back ground. That was the end of the 5-minute talk you had with your boyfriend for the first time in three weeks. Sometimes, when you were lucky, those 5 minutes would become 10. Text messages were no different either, he would only get the chance to send a few texts a day, good morning and goodnight texts included due to their busy schedules. Being caught up between endless promotions, interviews, and their world tour, as much as it pained you that you barely had any stable communication with him, you were more worried about if he was eating right or getting enough sleep. No matter how big the void in heart was, you promised yourself that you would never leave and go, regardless of the situation the both of you were in. You will never let go of him, of what you have. Jimin felt the same, too. He felt the same longing and loneliness you felt. He always wondered during the idle hours, if you were okay or if you were missing him as much as he misses you. Whenever he looked at his phone, a picture of you together holding sparklers on a cold new year's eve would show on the screen, making him more emotional. No matter how far apart, no matter how long the days run without you by his side, he knows that there will always be a part of him inside of you and a part of you inside of him, living on with every heartbeat.

You felt the already dim lights of your room grow darker, fading to black. Tears started to form at the corner of your eyes, making your vision blurry as you stared at the picture of you and Jimin hanging on your wall. You tried to hold them back as best as you could, you can feel your heart shudder with every breath you took. The hope you had in you was still there, shaking but surviving 'I'm here holding on' it said and sleep crept its way underneath your eyelids. Your relationship with Jimin has never been this dry, and you've been with him for 5 years now. Even before they debuted as BTS, the both of you were already madly in love. The two of you were well aware that being in a long distance relationship wasn't going to be easy as day, however, the love you felt for him was greater than the distance that stood between you and Jimin. You knew that your patience and understanding needed to be boundless when dating an Idol and you must always be the bigger person if you truly wanted to support your partner's passion and dreams. The first time you saw Jimin was on stage, for a presentation. He was selected as the center of an interpretative dance group and he immediately caught your attention. The fluidity of his movements, the emotions his face was clearly portraying with every step he made and the way his body was perfectly in tune with the music, not missing a single beat as if they were one and the same. Your mother was the designated organizer for the event, which granted you back-stage passes with your best friend only if you promise to help out with the entire show. You thank your best friend, Sana, for harassing you non-stop until you caved in and decided to attend.  Because if it wasn't for her, you wouldn't have met the guy you were destined to be with. You were handing out water bottles to the dancers who were already finished with their turn, there you met eyes with the raven-haired boy. He walked towards you, masculine but graceful.

 Time seemed to move slower with each step he took. Everyone else around you merged with the background, their voices turned into white noise the moment he was standing in front of you.

"Hey." He voiced out, so soft and so fragile. "A-ah." You were completely flustered at the gorgeous lad. 

"H-here.." You handed him the water bottle, bowing your head. "Thanks."He chuckled, noticing how cute you were. 

"I'm Jimin." Your cheeks flushed bright red in surprise. "I'm... I'm Y/N. Your performance was great, by the way." You shyly stated, still avoiding eye contact cause you swore you would melt like ice on a hot summer's day right then and there.

"This is the first time I've seen you here, and I dance here a lot." He stated, taking a gulp of water from the water bottle you just gave him. His neck was glistening, coated in a sheer film of sweat. Adam's apple bobbing up and with each swallow of the liquid. You were in awe, mouth slightly agape while staring at him. He legitimately looked like a Disney prince.  

"Hmm?" He added, snapping you back from whatever world you traveled to "Ah. Yeah." You tuck the piece of hair that dangled in front of your face behind your ear. "This is my first time being here. My mom's the organizer for this event." You gave a slight smile, still embarrassed. "Oh! Mrs. Y/L/N  is your mom?" His face lit up at how you guys had something more to talk about rather than just the normal 'hi, hello and how are you doing?'. "She's one of my mentors! She really is a great dancer." He concluded. You felt your face burn once again. "Yeah, she is. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit her good dancing skills." You nervously replied, pointing at your feet. "I have to left feet." You giggled. "It's okay." Jimin assured you "I'm sure you are great at something else!" He chimed and scratched the back of his head. "So... Y/N" His voice was quite hesitant. "Yes?" You blinked twice wondering was he was going to say. "You seem pretty cool and..." At the moment you felt your body tense up at his words. You held your breath, anticipating what's about to come next. "Maybe we could hang out sometime?" Before you could reply to his question, you were interrupted by a very very familiar voice. "Honey!" Your mother excitedly hugged you. "The show was a success." Her gazed then met with the boy's who was standing before the both of you. She playfully quirked an eyebrow and continued "So Jimin... I see that you have met my beautiful daughter.." She smirked. "Mom! Stop it!" You pinched her arm and whispered, "You’re embarrassing me..." 

"Yes, Mrs. Y/L/N. Y/N is indeed very beautiful." Jimin the gave the cutest smile you have ever seen. His eyes became thin lines, cheek puffed up like mochi and his smile deemed worthy to be called the brightest of them all. "Sly, sly fox." Your mother thought to her self. "Well. I leave my beautiful daughter in your care." And ended it with a wink before walking away. You buried your face in the palm of your hands and said "I. Am. So. Sorry." Your voice was laced with utter defeat at the tactics of your mother. Jimin can't help but laugh at everything that had happened. "No, no... It's totally fine." He managed to reply through smiling teeth. "So how 'bout our date?" He hummed. "Date?" A confused look took over your entire face. "If it's okay with you," Jimin added with a wide grin on his face. The rest was history. Readers POV; The ray of light from the sun seeped through the thin material of your bedroom curtain, causing you to rub your eyes. "Hnnn--" You stretched out your arms and grabbed your phone that was tucked under your pillow. "4 new messages and 6 missed calls" it read, all from Sana. "Wonder what's up?" You thought to yourself." Another call from your best friend popped up before you could even read the messages she sent you. "Sana?" You question, voice still hoarse. "What's up?" Sana voice was quiet and quivering "Babe.. Have you checked twitter lately?" You shook your head and replied, "No.. Why?" The tone of your voice changed "What's going on, Sana?" Your palms started to get sweaty. "You should see for yourself. I'll be there in 10. I love you, babe." Before you know is, she already hung up.   You fingers were shaking uncontrollably while you were searching for the twitter icon on your phone. You immediately went to the trending page, #JiminAndGFinLA was number one. Your eyes were affixed on the small device in your hand and it felt like all the blood in your body suddenly dried up.

 You felt chills run down your spine, thousands of goosebumps emerging from your skin. You hadn't prepared yourself for any of this. The Jimin you knew would never cheat on you. It took a while but you finally gathered up the courage to click the hashtag and it directed you to the many tweets about it. The most popular one sat at the top of the screen.

 "Is this BTS' Jimin non-celebrity girlfriend?!" Your heart sank at the sight of the picture uploaded along with the tasteless caption. 

Jimin was sitting in what seemed like a European themed restaurant and in front of him, a girl long hair and a face mask which covered 70% of her face sat. You can see the look on his face, he was smiling from ear to ear. A sight you had not seen in a long while and you miss it so bad.

 Seeing some other girl make the love of your life smile like that made you inside churn with jealousy. You did not want to jump into any conclusion without consulting Jimin first. But the fact that he rarely called or texted you made your knees grow even weaker. Was he really busy with work? Or busy with this girl? Your breathing became more unstable, chest rapidly moving up and down.

 You pressed one, and called Jimin the first time, he did not answer. You tried again for the second time, still no answer. After several tries, you lost count at 14, he did not answer. You also tried to text him, not one of you many texts have been marked as read.

 You threw your phone as hard as you can and aimed it at the picture hanging on the wall, the impact broke the glass and the picture frame flew off. Your arms and legs felt limp and lifeless. You curled up in the middle of your bed and watched all the things you built for 5 fucking years fall apart in an instant. You screamed at the top of your lungs while tears continuously streamed down your face. Your door swung open and it was Sana. "Y/N.." She stormed inside and pulled you in a big hug. " Sorry I took so long." She hummed while patting your back, trying to calm you down. "I bought drinks, ice cream, and snacks!" she cheerfully said. "And a pair of my pajamas which means I'll  be staying over tonight!" She added. You couldn't help but smile at your best friend simple but kind gesture. She always knew how to cheer you up. Apart from Jimin, Sana also meant the world to you. And having her as a best friend was absolutely a god given gift. 

 Jimin POV;

The moment Jimin walked back into the shared hotel room, he was bombarded with questions. "Hyung, Where have you been??" Their maknae asked. "I had lunch at a restaurant nearby. Why'd you ask?" He furrowed his brows and gave his junior a concerned look. The youngest did not answer back, instead, he showed his phone, the picture of him and the mystery girl on screen. "What?" He exclaimed. "I swear, these goddamn papzz always take it too far with fake news and rumors." Jimin combed his fingers through his hair. 

"Your phone has been ringing non-stop, too" The blonde haired guy sitting on the bed interrupted. "I think it was Y/N-noona calling."  Jimin's eye exploded and he walked toward his phone that was plugged in. He unlocked the screen and saw 28 missed call and 32 messages all from you. "Fuck!!" He yelled, startling the two boys who were also inside the room. "Fuck fuck fuck." He muttered, walking back and forth with his phone against his ear, desperately trying to contact you. "Shit!!" He grunted in frustration.  "Jiminie Hyung, are you okay?" The blonde hair lad asked. 

"I'm fine, Tae. It's Y/N I'm worried about." He heavily sighed "I think she might have misunderstood the whole Twitter situation... I shouldn't have left my phone here."   "Don't worry, hyung." The maknae of the group threw his arm around Jimin's shoulder.  "It's Y/N-noona we're talking about." His voice was smooth and had a calming effect on Jimin. "I'm sure she was just shocked at the shit that trended on Twitter, we all were. But noona, I know she knows better." Jimin released a sigh of relief at the comforting words of his dongsae.

He ruffled Jungkook's hair and said "Thanks. I never thought words like that would ever come out of your mouth. "   "Pffft." The younger boy replied snickering. "I know, I surprise myself, too." The three of them laughed at the boy's antics. "Guess I’ll try to contact Y/N... Thanks, Tae and Kook." Jimin walked to the balcony and dialed your name religiously until his phone ran out of battery.  

Reader’s POV;

 "Babe... That's your fifth bottle of beer, I know you are upset but that's too much..." Sana pleaded you to stop chugging beer like it was water. "Please... Just this once." You whined, your words sounded gibberish to the next person, luckily Sana understood your drunken lingo. "I love him, Sana. I love him with all my heart!" You sobbed while stuffing chips in your mouth like there was no tomorrow. "I know, babe. I know." She replied while drawing circles on your back. You can no longer control your emotions, the alcohol in your system kicked in and completely took over. 

 "We promised each other that whatever push and pull life may bring us, I will always be his and he will always be mine forever.." The was a sudden pause, you felt your throat go dry and added: " and more." You mumbled, mouth still full of chips. Sana knew better than to interrupt your onslaught of emotion, she knew that it was better for you to cry it out rather than keep it inside. "If my love was a sea, he'd be fucking drowning in it right now.." Your voice cracked as a hiccup escaped your throat "After all that I've-hic done for him, is it-hic ever enough?" you hiccuped the words out. 

 "Calm down, babe." She hummed, pulling you to rest your head on her lap. "I'm sure Jimin loves you a lot." She brushed her finger through your hair. "You haven't even heard his side yet." She added. "I know this is a lot to handle but at least have a little in faith Jimin, Okay? I know he loves you, and you love him too." Sana sang to you with her gentle voice, coaxing you to shut your eyes and finally go to sleep.

 Jimin's POV;

 Jimin felt discouraged with you not answering his calls. His mind was all over the place, he could no longer think straight. His head was filled with you. He could not stop thinking about the state you were in right now with all the rumors floating about. He knows you better than anyone else, he knows that you're probably sitting in the corner of your room in a fetal position, crying yourself to sleep. He felt so bad that he could be there to clear things up and comfort you and he felt terrible knowing that he was the one who made you feel this way, If he could beat himself up he would do it no questions asked.

Jimin pulled himself together and went back inside the room. "How'd it go, hyung?" Jungkook asked. He simply shook his head and pursed his lips into a thin line. "I'll ask Namjoon hyung for advice.." Jimin said, making his way through to the door and exiting the room.

 Three knock was all it took for Namjoon to open the door. "Oh, Jimin." He had a surprised look on his face. "What's up?" Namjoon added while guiding Jimin by the shoulder and leading him inside. "Hey, Jimin." The pastel green haired boy greeted. 

"Hey, Yoongi hyung." Jimin replied back and sat beside him. "I think I know why you're here." the older guy next to him stated. "Twitter?" Yoongi blandly asked and Jimin sighed, accompanied with a slight nod. "Cheer up, Kid." The elder guy massaged his neck and shoulders to loosen the tension in his muscles. "And Y/N?" The silver-haired hyung asked the restless lad. "That's the problem." Jimin’s voice was cracked, he sounded like he was on the verge of bursting into tears. "She hasn't returned any of my calls and text messages." He paused, trying to hold back the tears. "How am I supposed to clear things up with Y/N if she isn't answering my call and replying to my messages?" He swiftly brought his hands up to his eyes and wiped the wetness away with the sleeve of his sweater. 

"Give her some time, Jimin. If I were in Y/N's shoes, I would be overwhelmed with the situation too." RM tried to comfort Jimin. "And I think I have an Idea, but we still need to consult with Bang PD-nim and get his permission to be able to pull it off." Their leader held out his hand in front of the boy. "We'll help you, Jimin." His smile was sincere, dimples on both sides of his cheek showing. "That's what brother's do." And he then pulled Jimin in for a tight hug. 

Fast forward to the day of their concert in LA, you still had no intention of contacting Jimin because you were truly heartbroken. You spent your time unproductively, wasting it by watching anime season after season and binge-eating whatever junk food you found in you unkempt fridge. Sana, your best friend, kept you company the whole time. Only leaving your house when she needed to fetch a few things from her own. Without her, you'd probably be dead by now, with flies circling around you. 

It always great having someone you can rely on near you, unlike a certain someone you thought to yourself. "Babe." Sana tugged on the sleeve of your shirt. "Jimin sent me a link." She added. "With a message attached 'Please tell Y/N I love her and I miss her.' " 

 With wide eyes, you took the tablet from her hand and asked awkwardly "Should I open it?" Sana playfully pinched your arm and replied "Well duh, what do you want to do with it? Stare at it for an hour?" She giggled. With fast hands, she clicked the link Jimin sent you and it opened to a private live stream of their concert in LA.

Both of you gasped in confusion while looking at each other. "W--what's this all about?" You questioned, voice weary. "I don’t know but let's just watch." Your eyes were focused on the screen. You saw the seven boys in a straight line formation with Jimin in the center. "Hey, Army.." His voice sounded exhausted. "This wasn't part of the original set but I asked Bang PD-nim's permission and he said, It was alright." Before continued, he released a heavy sigh. "You, our dear Army, brought us to where we are today. Without you, we wouldn't have been the BTS that we are today." 

You were clueless to what was about to happen so you kept your eyes glued to the screen. "I love our ARMY and like I've said plenty of times before, I want to be completely honest with you guys all the time." He stopped and bowed his head for a second while Jin was patting him on the back. He lifted up his head and went on with his speech

"As you guys may have seen on twitter and to answer all of your questions.. Yes, I do have a girlfriend." The whole stadium went silent, and your reaction was no different from theirs. Your jaw dropped to the ground while you squeezed the life out of Sana's poor hand. "But it isn't the girl in the picture, that was my cousin. I wanted to clear this issue myself and stop things from getting out of hand. And what better way than to announce it here. I know our Armys love us, I hope you love Y/N as much as I love her."

 A picture of you and Jimin flashed on the big LED screen behind them, the audience burst a synchronized 'awwwww.’ at his sweet gesture. Your hands went ice cold, trembling. This is it, Jimin was publicly announcing his relationship with you, and during a concert too. After more than 5 years of keeping a low profile, long-distance relationship and uncertainties of what the future holds for the two of you, you felt that knot in your chest unravel with his outspoken words. You were now free to express your love for him and vice versa. You can feel your heart ready to jump out our chest at any given moment. 

"Y/N.." Jimin looked straight at the camera, knowing that you were watching him. "I'm sorry for everything. I know that both of us are hanging on the line, needing more than ifs and maybes. Sometimes we feel as though we're on top of the world, and other times we feel ourselves come down from the highest high still searching for the reason why we keep on holding on.. Trust me, I know how you feel."

 He cleared his throat before he continued."I know what it's like reaching from the other side. Trying so hard to hold onto the things that I know is impossible from where I am currently standing but all that I've done for you, I would do it again in a heartbeat and more. I promised you Y/N... I will always be yours, forever. I love you." His speech ended with the beginning of their older song "Hold me tight." 

You listened to the song with your heart open, taking in every word like your life depended on it. 

I can only see is you I can only see is you alone Look, I'm fair with everyone else but you Now I can't live a day without you.

You remembered all the times that Jimin would sing those words to you. He would go on and on about it being his favorite song from their previous album because it reminded him of how much he misses you whenever he was on tour. 

Hold me tight, hug me Can you trust me, can you trust me can you trust me Pull me in tight 

The camera pans to Jimin, his eyes were glistening. The effect of the stage’s light made this moment more magical, ethereal even. Jimin looked like an angel that descended from the heavens that were destined to be your guardian.

Hold me tight, hug me Can you trust, can you trust me Please, please, please pull me in and hug me 

 All those sweet memories came down like an avalanche, drowning you in the sweet sensation you have come to love. Now it was clear to you why you always made it work and why you kept on hanging on. Whatever the pain and loneliness you felt; whatever life threw at you; no matter how many time you tripped and fall; You would always get back up and shake it off. 

Without you, I can't breath I'm nothing without you Open my closed heart, drench my heart So I can feel you hold me The way Jimin sang his part pulled on your heart strings causing goosebumps to rise all over your body. You knew that he wasn't singing for anyone else but you. His voice was sincere, filled with emotions and even with the distance between you, you felt it. You felt all of it. Every single word that came out of his mouth went straight through you. The holes that manifested in your heart was patched up in an instant. 

Now trust me, hold me once again  So I can feel you, hold me. 

After days of sulking and despair, a smile appeared on your face. Even if your cheeks were stained with tears, you felt genuinely happy. All the worries that clouded your heart and mind were lifted off with just one song. You felt a sigh of relief climb up your throat and escape your lips. 

Your best friend, who was also crying, hugged you. "See." She whimpered through her tears. "I told you Jimin loves you." You nodded and hugged her back.

The next couple of days went by fast. The 10-minute talk with your boyfriend was enough to remind you everything was perfectly mended back together. You think of ways on how to make you 6th Anniversary more special even if your boyfriend was miles away. 

 You had planned on making dinner at your home while face timing with Jimin. "Y/N.." Sana called out to you from the living room. "Yes?" You answered back while washing the vegetables on the kitchen sink. "Help me pick out a dress." You best friend stated. You walked out of the kitchen drying your hands with a small towel. "For what occasion?" You questioned. "For you, babe." She said, looking at her phone. "Since It's your 6th Anniversary with Jimin, I want to gift you a little something something..." She smiled. 

"You know you don't have too." You replied with a smile on your face, shaking your head slightly. Sana stood up from where she standing and headed to your direction. She held out her hands out, reaching for your wrist. "There's a nice shop just a few blocks away. Please Please.." She pouted, puppy dog eyes and all. "Let me treat you on your special day." 

You can never say no to that face. "Alright alright." You chuckled. "Let me change first. She pumped her fist in the air in excitement "Yeah!" 

The car ride to the shop was pleasant, filled with small talk between best friends. “Here!” Sana exclaimed. You pulled the car over and looked at the shop through the window. A large high-end boutique shop stood stall. “This looks expensive..” you nervously stressed. “Can we afford this?”

“You don’t have to worry about anything, Y/N. I got you covered.” She winked while stepping out of the car. You simply followed her, taking small steps behind her back. 

It took both of you at least 20 minutes of trying on and taking off dresses until you found the perfect one. You looked at the price tag and was flabbergasted. You tugged at Sana shirt and pointed “Are you sure? This is expensive.” Scratching your arm. 

“I told you. I got you!” She beamed. “And you look great.” 

Sana paid for your dress, she insisted that you keep it on for ‘Part 2′ of your surprise. “This time, I’m driving.” She firmly stated and you did not argue as you were feeling thrilled like a little child going to Disney land. 

You arrived at a fancy 5-star hotel, Sana held your hand the entire time, guiding you inside. You were awestruck at the interior of the building. The both of you stood before two closed doors. “What are you waiting for? Go inside!” your best friend insisted. You were quite reluctant at first but you trust Sana with whatever the hell she was plotting. 

You knocked on the door, grabbed the handle and slowly pushed it open. There, right before you, standing beautiful and fair holding a huge bouquet in his arms was your one and only boyfriend, Jimin. The room was filled with flowers of a different kind, candle lights that were too many to count, A live band playing “Hold me tight.” elegantly. You did not have to think twice and ran towards him, meeting him with a warm embraced. “I told you I’d make it up to you.” He then leaned closer and placed a kiss on your forehead.

End. uwu

Every comment, heart, reblog is very very much appreciated. I love u and i love bts

[obsoletehumanity]

now playing: headlights by charlie cunningham

whew. it's 4:30am on the last day of 2020. I can't sleep. and somehow I've found myself back on Tumblr, posting on this, because I can't use Twitter as a scream sandbox anymore. too many of my tutors from undergrad and other people are following me. so here I am, heh.

the funny thing is that despite all this time, it feels like I only go in circles. yes, I'm doing much better at this life thing. I'm no longer a failure in an academic/Asian sense - if it's not enough being at Oxford for postgrad + getting first class honours for undergrad at Bristol... well, fuck me.

it is true that the things that I worry so much whilst I was in JC and letting down people and being castigated to the ash heap of history and people's lives have passed. it hasn't been that bad. in a way, I've proven myself. in some ways, I should totally give the middle fingers to all the teachers at Hwach who have wished to see me fail in one way or another. fuck you, to the one who wrote "why do you even bother doing physics" on my prelim exam script. fuck the teachers who still give me nightmares 7 years after I've left Hwach. to those who act faux-compassionate and went out to set up tuition centres, may karma find you.

but above all that I still feel like a bloody failure. I don't have a job lined up after graduation. I have so many things I still need to do (yes, I don't have abs and all; I can't master Dutch for nuts; my net worth is still... bleh. I don't have a student loan and my stocks have done pretty well so I do have somewhat more money that most of my peers at my age, but still...), and ultimately, I can't find the energy to love myself. I just can't get over the fact that I'll never be enough and that this is who I am - I will only be this ordinary person that will get casted out and sidelined by people even if I try my hardest and my very best, and for arbitrary reasons. I know this world is unfair. it always is, but it feels like I'm always working against it in some ways and for what?

and I feel like what I've been doing for the past 2.5-3 years has been trying to reconfirm that. I know I'm broken so I make myself even more damaged so that I prove that no one will ever want me or think I'm salvageable. having a bit too much sex for the last few years. when I can't count the number of nationalities I've screwed with both hands. when I've fucked someone on the three trips I've taken in 2020 before Covid happened; and 8 at Club Church just before I had to take a flight back. me at Club Church? 18 year old me would never think about it. ha. but here I am.

I remember the time good friend S was worried about me being on Grindr and everything. Maybe... he still should, but I don't ever want him to worry about me. I told him before that I don't gain much pleasure from it. I don't. but he doesn't know that at the end of the day I just want, for a split second, to feel accepted and "loved", and that's the thing that I gain from it. aaand this is ironic because my first hookup with a guy, Calvin Harris and Sam Smith's Promises played in his car just after we screwed and he wanted to bring me to somewhere where you could see the Clifton Suspension Bridge. and the entire meaning behind Promises is literally having someone for the night. but yeah. me, using sex and me being promiscuous as a way to just make myself broken, damaged, and unrepairable to the Asian gaze, so that I prove myself right. go me!

I know I'm incoherent. but I guess what I want to say is that all my life what I wanted is just to be accepted for who I am but it always feels so distant. And I seem to be actively self-sabotaging that by making myself for damaged. I don't seem to be good enough for anyone, and people have proven that to be true before. and maybe all I wish is someone to just like and love me despite all the damage that I am, how 'used' and filthy I am. this is stupid and idiotic, but I wonder if the shorter-than-me and smaller-than-me robotic surgeon in Melb did have his way and raped me, would it make much of a difference, given that I already feel so dirty as a being myself?

also - I don't think I'm even good enough for my friends... I really feel I'm just a huge burden on my life, and it is true, I am. will anyone remember me if I'm gone? maybe a few will... but that's it.

but I won't ever yeet myself because I lost a grandparent to suicide and I've seen first-hand how that stuff really screws people up. and I've been trying to make sure people don't go the same path. life is shite, but there will always be a glimmer of hope. and even if I can't see that myself sometimes, I just hope others do. in a way I feel like my life... is just about being there for others. is this ego death? I don't even feel like my life is really that important except having enough money to survive and not be emotionally abused or held hostage to the whims of my parents or to society at large. I'm not sure if I'm truly motivated by anything except 1) being financially independent (so that I don't have to deal with being held emotionally hostage), 2) care and concern for my friends and 3) just a huge desire to be accepted and loved.

as for 2020... I know people hate the year a lot, and I do too. but were it not for 2020, I don't think I can achieve this level of personal growth, and confirmation that I'm the only person that I can rely on for myself. I do have regrets though. I regret not having enough balls to yeet way more money into my two biggest holdings (which are up 10+ times as of today) when my hand hovered over the button, or loading more stocks in March, or buying more VIX options when I knew something was happening (I hated myself so much for this). Maybe if I did I could somehow (no, I WILL) have seven figures in the bank, lol. But hindsight is 20/20 and I still believe playing things somewhat conservative will save my ass time and time over again. Plus I'm only 24. I still have time.

I also regret having my progress on trying to love myself regress after the entire debacle with * last year. I regret not chilling down more often and instead being stuck in a purgatory of executive dysfunction + stressed not-doing-anything, all the time. But the year has been pretty okay bar the pandemic. At least - I've graduated and for what the degree is worth, I have a pathway to jobs. somehow. and I don't have to live in fear that I have had over the last 20+ years about being cut off by the family because of anything I've done or not done. and hopefully that position will get strengthened further once I'm done with Oggs.

what about 2021? I'm just going to focus on 1) strengthening my financial position (which translates to less emotional turmoil if ever induced on the family front), 2) getting a job (and hopefully staying in the UK/Europe), and 3) being a better friend to people; and 4) being a better person to people in general. 5) Survive and thrive, because 2020 had royally screwed my plans to, so they aren't going to get in my way for 2021.

it's 5:30am now. and I'm not sure if I wrote anything useful or readable for the last hour. I just really hate myself at times and I wish I could just be enough for my friends, if I'm not good enough for anyone else. I really fucking do care about all of them, and my two sisters. I just hope they know. I hope I've done enough and will continue to do enough and be enough for all of them.

-

is this how K felt when I read his posts and knew his inner thoughts? this isn't even going to my finsta, and never will. I just hope K's alright. I really hope he is. I'm not used to radio silence from him. and to the eyedealmentality dude I follow on here. hope you're well too Mikey, I haven't heard from you in years. and to the person I once loved and probably still will forever. I know I will never be the person you want, and that's okay. I don't think we were meant for each other, and that is fine. I just hope you are well too. stay safe, take care, and may your future be brighter than what you've expected in your wildest dreams.

[stvlti]

11 Questions

i was tagged by @privatekururugi, @espiadimonis, and @transguynoriaki a while ago. each gave me a set of 11 questions to answer, so i will answer these 33 questions. i’m not gonna tag anyone in particular, but if you see this do feel free to have a go at any or all of these sets of 11q’s.

from @privatekururugi:

1) Do you have any specific diet you go by? (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Paleo, etc.) i used to be pescetarian, but then the deficiencies it gave me caused some pretty bad dental / gum problems, so i started eating a bit of lean chicken and pork on the side again... (yeah i know supplements exist, but even my nutrition major of a friend thought a pescetarian diet won’t yield deficiencies, and also supplements are fairly expensive. get off my case)

2&3) Do you have any siblings? If so, how close are you? nope, i’m an only child

4&5) What’s your favourite book and why? (I might want to read it lol) hmm. i still really like 1984, it was the first dystopian classic i read and the concept of Newspeak, tampering with historical authenticity on such grand scales, etc. just blew my mind. so even though i still dislike its weakass character-writing (p much anyone besides Winston has no personality, no distinct personal motives, etc), it’s got a soft spot in my heart. next to that i also liked A Clockwork Orange for the philosophical discussion of the nature of right and wrong (although in hindsight the story is a bit didactic); To Live by Yu Hua (the ill-fated episodes and tragic ends are made all the more absurd by the subtle and simply narration style, but it really is a humbling and informative experience for us readers of a different era and socioeconomic background); and of course, my favourite fable, A Little Prince.

6) Would you describe your personality as dominate or submissive overall? what the fuck kind of question is this. well i’m opinionated as heck, so i’m not submissive “personality-wise”. and that’s all i’ll say on the matter because i’m p sex-indifferent lol, if that’s what this question was trying to get at.

7) What are your dreams usually like at night? oh man. i usually don’t dream normal dreams; as in, most dreams i have is either one big adventure / story, or some bizarre situation that would have been questionable at best, fucked up at worst, in real life context. when i start dreaming about mundane everyday life problems or situations, like failing a test or being stuck with a friend i’ve cut off from my life years ago, that’s usually when i’ve got some kind of stress going on in my life.

(i’ve been trying to restart my dream journal tag actually, but i got stuck on my second entry trying to recall the specifics lol. maybe i should release entry #3 from the drafts first.)

8) Is there anything you’re currently anxious about? well, yeah. my future. my job prospects. being homeless once my parents decide to sell their house off for retirement because the housing prices are through the roof here. pick one.

9&10) Are you looking forward to Thanksgiving? Will you be contributing anything? we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving!

11) Whose your favourite Death Note character (if you have one)?  Light Yagami, even though he’s a slimy fox.

from @transguynoriaki:

1. What kind of music do you listen to?

hmm, i only listen to really slow music or something dark or rock-ish, nothing in between!! muahahaha!! 

okay that’s generalising it; i do love The Honey Trees and The Novembers, which are on opposite ends of the “slow” spectrum (one’s dream pop, the other’s infused with shoegaze and other distortions + some screamy vocals and loud noises at times), with Lana Del Rey and her decadent sounds smack in the middle lol. but yeah i certainly have a taste for the more atmospheric stuff, so aside from the fuzzy feelings of The Novembers’ stuff and the grandness of Lana’s string instrumentals i also like the darker chill vibes you get from The Neighbourhood, some of The Weeknd’s older stuff, etc. 

and I also really enjoy MCR, Muse and the like - i.e. dramatic sounds, that’s the good shit to me haha.

i also like more conventional pop acts like Lorde... and my fave local singer, Ivana Wong, of course!

2. Do you prefer to keep your living space neat and tidy or do you like a certain amount of mess?

i do prefer order and routine in my life, sadly if i can’t do that on a structural level you think i can do that with my desk?! lol. in an alternate universe, maybe.

3. What was the first ship you remember really shipping?

hmm probably TerraxBeast Boy from CN’s Teen Titans. i was lukewarm / indifferent to other canon pairings i’ve seen in media up until that point; but i guess i was more persuaded by the storyline than their characterisations as looking back there are glaring trust issues in their relationship (and that’s an understatement)

4. Do you have a certain show or book series that holds a lot of nostalgic value for you? If so, what was it?

hmm, i guess Courage the Cowardly Dog? (i was a weird kid but shush) and Teen Titans of course. as for books, hmm... ASoUE is definitely one of the ones that just takes me back to middle school. i even bought the Beatrice letters files thingy. tbf the whole Lemony Snicket universe did teach me a lot about cryptography, which i guess if me or a friend of mine were to do an L rp and solve cases it would help a lot (*cough* not saying that’s what’s happening right now because i’ve got other stuff i’m investing my time into. i guess my friend’s gonna make themselves scarce as well hahaha *cue Mariah Carey’s i can’t read gif except it’s L*)

5. What is your favorite type of food?

Italian and Japanese are my fave cuisines! i guess that means i love richly-flavoured foods and creamy stuff. ooh, love those sauces.

6. Was there ever a fad or activity from your childhood that you could never understand or get into?

i wasn’t a gamer at all. we didn’t own a single console and i wasn’t allowed to get a handheld. the most i had was a Tamagotchi. so i guess it’s not so much i never got that ‘fad’, just that i was never given the opportunity to discover the really good games. i’ve only ever played a bit of Mario Kart or Cooking Mama on my cousin’s NDS so yeah. didn’t see the appeal in the more light-hearted games like that.

(now that i’ve played Undertale i’m kinda wanting to explore more PC games though. i heard Papers Please is good, and PJ (@kickthepj)’s been recommending Hyper Light Drifter a lot, and the art looks amazing, so yeah... too broke to get them though... and even if i had the money and time to play them i’d be allocating it towards other stuff you know?)

7. What’s your favorite time of day?

well i got 2 fave time periods. the first one’s the witching hours between midnight and early morning, when the world is quiet and you could do anything and nobody would know. the other one is early morning, just after sunrise, and the air is clear and slightly chilly, and it’s also really quiet but you can just hear the birds tweeting somewhere.

i’m more likely to be awake for the first time period described here though... ._.

8. What’s your favorite type flower and why?

hmm i'm not really a flower person. i’m just gonna steal Luke’s answer and say cactus flowers haha (well i do like cacti, they’re some of my favourite plants; i even named my IG/Twitter and Pokemon Go usernames after the plant; also some of you might remember that i had a pet cactus for 8 months)

9. What’s your favorite cliché/trope in fiction?

lovers running out of time...

10. Did/do you do any extracurricular activities when you were in school and what were they?

(wow Luke that’s a lot on your resume!)

i did bits and bobs throughout school, but perhaps my longest commitment was my Clarinet lessons. started when i was in Year 2, carried on until i obtained a Pass in Grade 8 ABRSM certificate in Year 10. i had to quit and give up on a diploma there because i was starting the IB diploma programme in Year 11...

this commitment is only rivalled by the dance classes i took. i did ballet from a young age until i was about 12~13, quitting just before en pointe shoes were introduced; i had also been in Chinese dance lessons from Year 1, so after quitting ballet i just focused on that until Year 10 as well (again, quitting to focus on my full-time diploma).

i also did Taekwondo as a child and obtained a black belt qualification by age 12. i quit once i did though, because again i couldn’t afford to juggle so many commitments the older i got and the more demanding my studies became.

perhaps the proudest extracurricular i’ve done is in my senior years of high school: i started and chaired the student committee as the editor in-chief for the school’s first student-ran and seasonal (now monthly) publication. it’s not student-ran either anymore because i guess the kids that came after the classes of 2014, 2015, and 2016 just dgaf about slightly more demanding extracurriculars that require organisation as long as they can earn their credits elsewhere (yes i’m salty, i’m allowed to be okay, it was my brainchild but apparently kids these days don’t care about having their voices heard if it means having to negotiate diplomacy with the adults in charge. god, how do they expect to survive in uni or in a workplace?)

11. What’s your favorite piece of work that you’ve ever created and what about it do you love so much?

hmm. i think for sure the prose poem i wrote about Light’s death in the anime. idk, the flow and the imagery is just a good concentrated example of what i could be capable of given the right tone and context. (of course, i’ve been trying hard to branch out in genres and forms, so that sort of language isn’t always applicable. but yeah, it remains my fave as a showcase of my best writing abilities ^_^)

and from @espiadimonis​:

1.If you could have one piece of death note merchandise of any kind, what would it be?

oh man! i’ve been pining after the Hot Topic official DN poker card deck for quite some time! i’ve checked Blue Banana while i was in the UK, but it’s not available there, and it’s not at Tokyo Toys either (they do sell a DN playing card deck, but it’s a lot cheaper in design :/)

2.What’s your favourite 3D animated movie?

does Lego Batman count? if not, then i guess Zootopia.

(there’s a reason these 2 are listed in my bio fandoms list like...)

3.What superpower would you like to have?

i used to always choose levitation / flying, but lately i’m not so sure. i’ve heard a lot of compelling arguments for other powers haha.

you know what, i’d trade for something as simple as better control of my own brain. i don’t care about mind control over others; i just want to be able to harness the best parts of my lightning fast thought processes and out-of-the-box thinking on my best days without being constantly tripped up by executive dysfunction like that on a metacognitive level.

4.Favourite piece of clothing?

my soft furry hoodie, which i’m wearing right now! <3

5.Who’s your favourite Sailor Scout?

i don’t have one, sorry! i was 4 when it aired on TV, so i don’t remember much from those years except the Sailor Moon t shirt i got courtesy of my aunt because it was all the rage back then... i’m sorry, but i have more vivid memories of Pretty Cure and Sugar Sugar Rune!

6.Do you prefer potato chips chocolate?

it is a good combo for sure! we are talking about Royce’s chocolate potato chips, right? (if you haven’t tried it get some next time you or a friend/family goes to Japan! we can buy it locally from like Citysuper or something, but i doubt they export it to any countries beyond East Asia haha)

7.What song makes you feel melancholic?

oh, Six Billion did last week. it left me feeling cold all over. an effect from the combination of the layered vocals and the instrumentals i guess. (is it in minor key? i’m sorry i can’t tell anymore, it’s been far too long since i’ve had any musical training. but if it’s in minor key it would explain why.)

there’s also some of the stuff off The Novembers’ catalogue... mostly 終わらない境界 from To (melt into), which was my daily commuting soundtrack at a time when i had brainfog on a regular basis, so yeah, anxiety and all that fun stuff :/

8.Which dn character would you invite to Spaceland(the amusement park)?

Sayu or Matsuda? they deserve a lot more than the hand canon dealt them. hmm maybe Rem too? but she wouldn’t be able to interact with a lot of the stuff there :/

9.What’s the funniest movie you ever watched?

i guess The Lego Batman Movie? i’m sorry i know i keep bringing this film up, but it’s comedic genius for a “kid’s movie”.

10.You can only choose one pokémon! Which one do you choose?

Blissey was gonna be my go to answer. she’s a tank, have you seen her? but is she really my fave mon? debatable. idk man. i really liked Vulpix/Ninetales as a kid... but dark and ghost types though!! okay i can’t choose, next question 

11.What made you happy recently?

i went to another poetry event last night and i met up with a friend i haven’t seen since September :P

[itsjayyyy]

January 16, 2019 4:51 pm

So on last thursday after that update, I met up with heather for the first time since October. We met up at starbucks, but neither of us bought a drink. She already knew about my moving out because she saw me posting about it on snapchat. I told her all about how my new roommates don’t really talk to me (or do the dishes, or pay rent on time...) and also how my parents didn’t let me have my own bed (she was really shocked at that, which i didn’t understand like girl ive been homeless because of my parents no shit they won’t let me take a bed they bought themselves). I also told her about the whole rose situation, and ofc anna. I thought it was funny how when i told her about the whole “surgery on a porcupine” she was like “how is that possible? you mean she did surgery on those things that fall off of trees?”

After hanging with her, I went home since I had like 5 hours until my next class. rose kept messaging me like “hey are you ready to meet up?” “i can see you’re home now” etc. I didn’t answer, and honestly i was annoyed that she used my location as a weapon, so i left my phone at home when i went to class. Which was kinda annoying tbh, i felt so disconnected without it. (just got sidetracked, but i think when i get my student refund i’m gonna buy an ipod nano 1st gen, which was the first mp3 player i ever had. prob gonna fill it with the 3 vocaloid cd’s i found). After class i went to get a smoothie, then drove home. rose was waiting outside my door for me to get home, and she started going on about “omg i was so worried you weren’t answering my texts etc” we get into my apartment, and i just kinda unloaded onto her (again). just told her how it’s not even just the whole mom situation, but all of them had piled so much hate onto me since i was a kid that i’m incapable of loving myself, and it only frustrates me when they say “don’t see yourself negatively!” it’s like someone breaking your arm and then saying “just use your hand to grab x” without acknowledging that your arm was broken by them. she starts crying (as she always does tbh), then we go to get sushi. 

friday i only had one class (psychology) so i chilled at home most of the day. can’t really remember what i did lol. oh wait i think i hung out with rose, to make up for not hanging out on thursday. yea we chilled at my apartment for a bit, then went to the west side to scoop up peter and get hooter’s. and then i complained about how i started feeling sick, and then called in saturday. i told myself that i would get ahead on my homework and clean my room, but i spent most of the day chilling. the gray cat that hangs around my apartment walked by my window, so i opened it and pet her. She climbed into my room, and i spent a good 3 hours just playing with her. I texted the owner asking if she was pregnant or not (bc she really looked like she was about to give birth) but he texted back saying it was a boy, and neutered. apparently he’s just super cuddly. 

i called in sunday too, since it’s like i already lost an attendance point and i didn’t feel like going to work. i actually was productive that day, like i did laundry and cleaned my room. still getting the depressive episode out of my system, though, so i wasn’t running at full capacity. 

on monday, i checked anna’s twitter (btw after i soft blocked her i felt that she was still looking at my profile tho, like our tweets would mirror each other in mood a lot), and she tweeted “omg i think my crush is flirting with me” so rip my chances with her. and yea i know it wasn’t about me bc outside of class i heard her talking about how they were talking thru snapchat. :c

i really can’t wait until fall when i get transferred to the downtown campus, though. as i was walking up to msb, i saw someone sitting directly next to the entrance. and you can probably guess who it was. I really thought “new semester, new schedule, no more stalker savon waiting outside my classes” but i guess i was wrong. as i sat in the hall waiting for my class to start, I had a minor anxiety attack that i tried to cover up by talking to my classmates and professor about high school funding. luckily in that conversation, i learned that msb has two side exits, so now i have different paths to take. (honestly this whole time i’ve gone here, i thought the “handicap accessible” sign in front of the side entrance was trying to say that wheelchairs should go down the stairs, but my classmate pointed out that it was supposed to say “handicap accessible, up this path to the right,” not directly forward. I took the side stairs after class and basically ran to the garage in case he was following. At home i still had an assignment for comp, which was “visit a place on campus that you’ve never been to before and draw it in a 4-panel comic” (this class is all about multimodal writing) which, by the way, is really only possible for freshmen. as a spohomore, there isn’t a single place on campus that i haven’t been to. except for that side stairwell. so i drew my experiences taking a new staircase as an exit. let me make this journal entry multimodal by adding my comic:

anyways, that comic was apparently way overdrawn, when all of my classmates did simple stick figures at memory mall. kinda felt like wednesday addams wearing a long black dress at summer camp. it was nice tho, gave me a way to express all of my feelings about the whole thing (since i had nobody to talk to). it was like art therapy.

tuesday we had a quiz at the end of calc. i know hindsight’s 20/20, but seriously how the fuck did i fail this class it’s so damn simple. I finished the quiz in a literal 30 seconds and then sat there because i didn’t want to be the first person to finish. all of my classmates looked really deep in thought too, so i started to wonder if i was maybe not doing it right. but then the professor walked by and saw i wasn’t doing anything, so i was like “is this all that we have to do (setting up an integral but not even solving it)” and he was like yea, ur good. surreal.

then i went home and chilled until my evening class, then after that drove to peter’s bc we were gonna hang. so rose remembered that i was coming over, but peter forgot; while peter remembered they invited paul over, but rose forgot. i know that they’re kinda close with paul and all but tbh i don’t really know him that well, and it feels awkward hanging with him. when i told rose that, she was like “but you guys have hung out together, remember that time you got blackout drunk and slept on his bed, i felt like that was a real bonding moment for yall” um no i actually didn’t remember that, probably because i was BLACKOUT DRUNK. anyways i told all of them about anna (since peter and paul didn’t hear the story), then we smoked a little and played comer. We all won a round except for peter lol. then we watched an episode of marie kondo’s show (i wanted them to see how she lowkey looks like a robot), and then i headed home. i got home at like midnight tho, and since we had a sub today in calc, i figured i could skip it. so today i woke up around 10, got on campus at 2 since i was gonna hang with heather (but her boss didn’t let her have a break since she only worked 5 hours so we’re gonna meet tomorrow instead), went to psychology (and we finished the chapter early so no class friday!!!), and since then i’ve been in the library writing this.

here’s my plan for surviving this semester: i’m gonna act like this is fuckin birdbox, but extreme version. he wants to get a reaction out of me, and he’s not gonna. from now on, any time that i’m outside of a building (and even most times that i’m indoors but not in class) I’m going to have headphones in, and look down at the ground (not like directly at my feet, but like looking forward but at the ground ahead of me) or at my phone. that way if he finds me, he still can’t get a reaction bc i’m visibly distracted in the only two senses that he can reach me through. i don’t think he would go as far as to try to touch me, so i should be safe.

i hate that i feel like i’m always on the defensive at my own damn college. i hate feeling like i can’t even walk around freely without being followed. but hopefully i just need to make it to fall, hopefully ucf doesn’t delay the opening of the downtown campus, hopefully i transfer in a few months and can *really* put this all behind me. then it’s all smooth sailing, just gonna go through my final two years at uni, then graduate, get a job in CPS for a few years, then go back to school for my master’s. from there become a licensed clinical social worker, so that i can maybe work for cps but in a hospital setting where i get paid more, buy a house, have a family. get out of orlando. (but i kinda like orlando...)

anyways it’s 6 o clock now, so in about 15 minutes i’m gonna leave the library, use the guidelines i wrote above, use the side entrance, and get to class.

[analytic-chaoticism]

Hiveswap, Cherubs, Fantrolls, First Guardians, Limebloods: How Does This Concern Me?

New year, new theory! With Hiveswap hot on our heels it’s fitting that we kick 2017 off with a bang, right? Gotta get my bets in before the races start! You know what they say right? Go big or go home.

So let’s make the first theory of the year a Hiveswap plot forecast!

Let’s talk about how the fantroll we saw for 2 panels might actually tell us how Doc Scratch and cherubs factor into the plot of the game.

This is definitely a lot more interesting than the Handmaid.

Longish post warning. We’ve got some potential to discuss.

We know Mierfa and Nektan are going to appear in Hiveswap.

Considering their donors paid $10,000 this is only fair. As we can see here their designs have been altered a bit but they are still very much the canon fantrolls we know and love. Obviously we don’t have images of what they’d look like in the new spriting style but let’s just imagine it.

So how are they relevant? Well how did they die?

A particularly destructive male cherub attacked them.

Now if they’re appearing in Hiveswap at relatively the same age (judging by appearance and stylization) that they appeared in Homestuck, we know they lived on Alternia and not possibly some sort of troll colony planet that might exist.

What happened to this destructive male?

He fought a protective female…

And laid an egg. Calliope and Caliborn’s egg.

After killing Mierfa and Nektan he would go on to lay the cherubs of Homestuck. You could say Mierfa and Nektan’s death - and subsequently the other deaths that occurred (let’s not forget those) - were part of a crucial series of events that would lead to Caliborn’s birth. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Now if this cherub attacked Alternia, shouldn’t it be destroyed?

Why doesn’t troll land look like this?

What drew him to Alternia specifically, of all the other planetary bodies he could have destroyed? And what drove him away before he could finish the job? What could interrupt a destructive male cherub? It looks like he only managed to cause minimal damage, killing a crowd and… then what?

Well we’re not sure, but we know Alternia is relatively fine. Maybe there’s an area the size of a city which is a big smoldering crater now but even so the whole thing should be kaput right?

Question 1: Why Alternia?

I imagine the immense amount of Time and Space energies released by a cherub portal would draw his attention, and most likely drive his soon to be guardian female mate to pick up the pace in her chase.

Question 2: What drove him away?

Well we have some key players involved here.

Alternia has 2 first guardians, and one is VERY invested in the birth of Caliborn. One also presumably doesn’t happen to exist very much in Homestuck.

We have the puppet men backing up Scratch. 

A powerful, durable troll with an army worth of clown cult and adult trolls on call who is also invested in the birth of Caliborn and Calliope (keep in mind I’m not sure if it will be THIS highblood but I’m assuming there’s always a purple filling the position. Purples live for at least centuries and we don’t know where the GHB falls onto the Homestuck chronology so maybe they’re alive for Hiveswap but die before Homestuck?).

The Handmaid (who I covered in another theory alongside Scratch) - http://analytic-chaoticism.tumblr.com/post/154670995195/the-handmaid-in-hiveswap-homestuck-ancestors-in

Perhaps the female cherub’s hastened approach scared him off as well. But let’s also consider our protagonists.

We have no idea what items they’ll come across, but perhaps a juju or doomsday device they could discourage a cherub with?

Either way there are a lot of strong people invested in both Alternia not being destroyed and the cherubs having giant space snake sex. LE himself should theoretically be able to appear but that might bog down the lore a bit too much. Introducing Scratch and having him say something like ‘I work under a cherub with control of time who retroactively employs me to ensure his arrival, one of these things being getting his dad to not blow up the planet and then get laid’ isn’t too dense though. I can’t say anything for certain.

Perhaps the Axolotl sacrifices itself in the process of defending its planet?

In doing this it would make sense that Scratch could fully assert himself (as if he hadn’t already) as the first guardian, and explain why the axolotl never appeared in Homestuck despite FGs playing pivotal roles.

There are only two reasons Scratch would let the axolotl live lest it interfere with his activities: 1 - The indigenous FG lived within one of Scratch’s blindspots, or 2 - Scratch knew that it would be necessary in the fight against the cherub and so let it live that it may die valiantly defending its planet, ensuring the survival of Alternia and the birth of Caliborn. The male cherub, defeated, would slink off (and possibly universe hop to Universe C at a point in time where Earth is dead like we see in-comic, which is not that far fetched because chronospace universe hopping cherub portals exist and cherubs themselves are connected to ‘all that is eternal’).

So, is one of the possible events we see in the climax of the action of Hiveswap the attack of Calliope and Caliborn’s father on Alternia? Perhaps.

You could say that this is too confusing, incorporating such dense aspects of the Homestuck mythos but think of it like this: Scratch reveals that he has been manipulating events the whole game so that things may transpire in a way which culminates with the attack and defeat of the cherub, who would then lay the egg of his employer, a worse cherub who hired him retrospectively with some achronological time shenaynays like the Handmaid. Calliope and Caliborn, nor who they are or what they go on to do in Homestuck, are mentioned. Simple.

Kind of.

I mean I could see it all being explained pretty clearly in a 5 minute dialogue sequence in a way that unpacks the dense timeline relatively simply.

Possibly.

==>

Now this is where I’m going to throw in a crackpot ass idea, so bear the fuck with me. You think introducing Homestuck events into the mix is getting crazy? You think Hiveswap resulting in the birth of Homestuck’s villain is crazy? Well what else could I be cooking up.

“Crazy” Idea: Lime Bloods In Hiveswap Help Stop The Cherub

In an exchange on Twitter with Hussie (which not naming names BUT the person who asked him may or may not have been me on my first Twitter account under my old alias shhhhhhhhhhh) it was confirmed that limebloods would be in Hiveswap.

Limebloods were wiped out by the highbloods because their abilities scared them. Now what would scare a highblood, someone who benefits from their societal position as the violent oppressors of the lower castes who live in fear of their chucklevoodoos and rage?

Emotional manipulation abilities. The power to pacify.

Karkat is a mutant, placed on the hemospectrum between yellow and olive, where lime green would go. Here we see him pacifying the highblood rampage anger of his moirail. This is denoted by lime green text. Somehow, rubbing Gamzee’s face pacifies him after he killed 2 of his friends and beheaded 4? Uh huh. Sure Jan.

Idea: Karkat is a limeblood mutant. This mutation arose from ineffective attempts to purge limebloods from genetic materials. Their psychic powers to calm the highbloods who rely on their rage and strength to dominate the lowbloods caused them to fear them and kill them as a result.

If we learn more about limebloods in Hiveswap not because we get to hear about troll history, but because we’ve gone to a point in time where limebloods still EXIST, what if a bunch of them come to pacify the male cherub? Use their powers to calm down his violent rampage enough for everybody else mentioned above to land some strong hits on him and scare him away without too much fighting back? This frightful display of power - the ability to stop an incredibly destructive cherub in its tracks, or at least chill him out a bit - would definitely be enough to incite genocide on the part of the highblood’s.

Do keep in mind that this is possible! In one of the KS updates, Hussie said the time in which this takes place on Alternia is ‘nebulous.’ It could be decades or ‘centuries’ before the events of Homestuck. Centuries is long enough for limebloods to still be around I feel.

What if Fiamet - who appears to have an affinity for axolotls, coincidentally - is lime and not olive (NOTE: this would be really awkward because my limeblood OC has the axolotl as a lusus Hussie I’m sorry I have to sue you I have no choice).

Also I would just like to say that Fiamet feels… odd to me. Like it doesn’t sound quite like the rest of the troll names? Calliope did say that limebloods had strange names. I dunno. Might just be me.

Anyway, there are some thoughts for you.

Happy 2017!

[gabbylight]

Saturday Night Session Post:

Fuuuck guys, idk about anyone else but my god. I understand I was in a LDR and it’s different but having a girl next to you, kissing you and showing some type of affections is soo heart warming. Like I feel like someone actually cares about you and has an ideal of respect to the person they like. But yeaaah... during “Dom this Dom that Period” with my ex I hated her but after the sudden break up, and the random hookup from Connor hahah, I’m really gladtyat happened this turn of events happened.

But at first I didn’t like her at her all because the issue I had with my ex was relevant, since we always argue about her for a year but as time went on I softened up too her and I guess I started to like her.

I’ll be picking her up from her PT classes at UOI and she’ll give me a kiss, like everyday. And we’ll spend the whole day at her apartment till I have to work, and then on some days she’ll text me have a nice day with a SFW picture of herself haha, and I’ll return the favor with some text like, “ Morning babe, be safe driving okay! And you better be studying when I get home! But anyways kiss kiss in the lips babe. I’ll be home around 4pm to pick you up. 😊💕🥰 SOMETHING like that you know? And she reply within the next 5 minutes with a reply.

I’m not expecting anything in this relationship, but she is showing me everything a good relationship can offer you. A relationship where you don’t argue every fucking day. Or have someone accuse you of some fictitious bullshit that I never did yet or anything psychotic.

But I can say this, I’m in a better place now. Yeah sure she didn’t graduate yet, doesn’t have her big girl job and she’s 3-4 years younger than me. But I know I’ll have a girl who has a better personality, doesn’t have a “temperament” and won’t be mothering me around. And I know she’s not perfect but at least ik 100% that she won’t let her insecurities dig this relationship to the grave. And won’t hold anything against me for the next 4 years of my life haha. And accuse me of nonsense that I never once dreamed of

But NOO yeah if only my relationship with my ex was like that then things could of been different. So Am I questioning it? Yes I am, I could of moved mid Oct, but how my ex was, there was no hope of the relationship to survive. I warned her, gave her heads up if I move who am I going to go to when we argue? She never woke up from that reality and kept ignoring it.... so yeah we made mistakes. I liked girls pictures and I save them and she got drunk and let a guy fingered her pussy etc. but we can’t keep holding on to the past and let them dictate it. Dwelling into the past will never help you. You need to forgive the mistakes, I forgave her for getting drunk; kinda since now that I type this my ex is a fucking idiot because she’s saying she needed the attention and I’m over here lacking any type of attention for the last two years hahaha. But yeah point is you can’t keep holding on to the past. It’s gonna bring you down. I firmly believed she wasn’t mentally prepared to be in a relationship after Justin/Kip and it proves it when we first dated. Already questioning my whereabouts, disrespecting me in three months of dating etc. and she wasn’t willing to block her ex or the people that threaten the relationship???? Like I had to sacrifice my friends while you still talked to your idiotic morons.

But unlike dom, she’s already putting her commitment to this relationship. Everyday dom is texting me good morning, I didn’t have to have an argument with her for that. She’s kissing me and giving me BJ ( a really fucking good one to be honest). I don’t have to reassure her who I’m with or what I’m doing. (I mean yes I do but not like my ex which leads to random arguments) She knows the set schedule and she knows I’m anal about sudden changes since that’s how my OCD brain works. She knows I’ll be with Connor on Mondays/Sunday’s for LOTR. And she doesn’t attack any girls that I talk to because she trust me I won’t cheat on her or because she’s know I have common sense not too. Sure she has insecurities but she has them in control except when she’s on her period which I understand and have a calendar for hahah.

And the big turn on, she’s letting me follow my dreams. I don’t have anyone telling me I can’t enlist, can’t be a cop or an emt and then lie to me saying you could of done that. Or she gives me the attention/affection that I lacked, she’ll call me during my breaks and ask me how’s work and we’ll talk for a little bit. She’ll stay up till I arrive to her place even though I’ll scold her to sleep because she needs to sleep for school etc. like deadass I’ll be driving at 12am or 1 am and I’ll be at her apartment and she’ll be awake and I’ll scolding her to sleep haha. I don’t care that I’m acting like a dad but a girl needs to sleep goddamn it. Especially when she’s in school. She’s not a fucking slob and eat in her room or have a messy fucking room with clothes that started to smell like feet....

And that’s why I started to like this girl, something my ex couldn’t offer me. Don’t get me wrong here, my ex did do stuff like that but arguments had to happened, or it lasted only a year and she just stopped completely. But for her, Dom is already giving me what I lacked, she’s willingly ready to go back.

And tmi hahaha, sex isn’t boring.... sure I understand I was in a LDR but maaan as time went on nothing exciting happened. Foreplay was boring, sure fucking her was nice but ehhh. For the first time and this is TMI I’m able to fire my load inside lol. And do other stuff not the basic missionary bullshit, and it’s fun. Like don’t get me wrong, fucking my ex raw was nice but with a hairy nest and stangy smell idk. No offense hahaha. But fuckinh in the car, her coach, her kitchen omg just omg and doing other kinks is 🤩.

But yeah tmi for sure but it’s true, I may not have my degree because I had someone rejecting my dreams cough cough but I’m already fixing my life and getting it situated. Dom is full pledge with my plan and is with it, and after the break up I already knew my mistakes so long ago. Am I perfect? Fuck no, nobody in this goddamn planet is, and that’s what makes us humans.

So i have no fucking clue where the future will bring to us but as of right now. In that picture I posted, using her Fuji TX-100 camera, I have found the person who I can hold hands to and not stress everyday for a possible argument to land. I can safely say this again, I am happy. I have a girl who I can proudly show off and say she’s mine. And not because of her beauty but because I fell in love with a girl with a personality that I can fight for and love for.

Lastly,

And Lia I know you have been reading my post since Janurary, it’s a 100% hunch because I know how you are and I dated you long enough and I’m very good with judging people’s characteristics and I also know how Filipinas are and it also proves it with your sisters since they’re still stalking my IG and twitter. but once you read this, you need to leave me alone now and that includes your two sisters because I am firmed with my decisions for calling you guys out and your sisters a nut case and creeps. I have no clue what the objectives here, and idk what the fuck you guys are smoking but stalking me solves nothing. So yes, my post is my book/recollection, and if you find this offensive then SOL. You have a new life now, and I’m not in the picture anymore. I hadn’t been in your picture since 2017 when you left to NYC when you got drunk and got fingered by a random guy. And that goes for the same with me, I’m with Dom now, I slept with her numerous times now when we were friends/now dating and you can keep thinking with your delusional accusations that I liked dom since NYC but I know the truth and the truth is that I didn’t like dom till now. So as of Friday when I typed this I have officially developed feelings for her now. And also, I can proudly say, I never cheated on my delusional ex after the constant accusations from her text and her round fucking face. Lia literally go fuck yourslef and grow the fuck up, not every fucking guy is like that.

So yeah Lia We are both guilty of our wrong doings, and I’m not saying you’ll change and ik you won’t because you told me this every time people don’t change. But people do change Lia, and that’s how relationships work. It doesn’t take one to do the tango, it takes two too make it work.

It was a fun 4 years, taught me things and it make me realize how controlling you were but at the end. I had fun falling in love with you, you were my first. so I hope things go well with your tinder boy and I hope things go well with my hooter whore. Good luck with your future and don’t forget, make sure you’re not a raging cunt anymore

But I’m glad me and Dom have met, she’s a nice person and down to earth and chill. I’m already planning to move actually but we are planning to take everything slow. I wasted my four years on a girl who promised me nothing so I have to get my life straightened up. Soo right now I’m planning to get myself a Yamaha 600 Ninja R6 I believe, I have been itching to start using a motorcycle since college and now that I’m able to do so I’m going to save up and get it ready before summer. But for the past two months it’s been peaceful and quiet, no headaches no one yelling at me. No bullshit, just myself, work and Dom.

[swordarkeereon]

Guest Post: A Kingdom's Fall #horror #newreleases #newfiction

Author Interview

What genre(s) do you write and why?

My work resides in the horror realm and all its subgenres. A gross-out gag, splatterpunk shock, or spine-tingling chill makes us remember we’re alive. And knowing my work makes some people’s genitalia retract into their innards gives me wood.

What was the most difficult part of writing your most recent book?

Finding time to write the third book in The Human-Undead War trilogy proved a chore. I had to decline offers for short story contributions, deny requests to beta read and edit fellow writers’ work, ignore submission calls, and limit my social media presence for about 8 months. With my wife back in school full-time and unpredictable daily work hours at my day job, I was lucky to scrape by with 30 minutes a day for writing. It drove me to the brink of madness!

What do you feel your books offer readers?

An intriguing escape from reality, and a fresh take on vampires. Anyone tired of pussy-ass, sparkly vamps ought to see merit in The Human-Undead War series. I’d love to think I’m revitalizing the genre like Brian Lumley did with his Necroscope series, but sales and exposure beg to differ. Some day, perhaps…

What was the first book you ever had published? How much time did it take from writing your first book to having it published?

The first book was Dark Intentions, Book 1 in The Human-Undead War Trilogy. From concept to publication, it took approximately 8 years. That included some snags in the publishing process (infamous “kerfuffles”) which set me back almost 2 years.

What other careers have you had?

I’ve been a paper boy, grocery bagger, a fast food cook/cashier, pot dealer, phone operator for a taxi company and multiple telemarketing gigs, gas station attendant, obsessive plasma donor, pizza delivery driver, warehouse laborer, and I’ve held management positions at multiple businesses, including my current employer.

Many won’t admit this, but pizza delivery can be quite lucrative. I miss that cash-in-hand every night, and the crazy fucks you meet along the way are great story fodder.

How would you describe yourself if you were “speed dating” your readers?

A chubby bald guy who’s rough around the edges, likes to tease and titillate, and has a dark sense of humor.

Where are you from?

♪In northeastern Iowa, born and raised,

On the farmland is where I spent most of my days…♪

Okay, I’ll stop now. The tune’s stuck in your noggin now, though, isn’t it?

What do you do for fun?

Fun? Sorry, I don’t understand this foreign word. Please translate.

Has your life changed significantly since becoming a published writer?

I think I’m poorer now than I was before I started writing for publication! However, my soul has been enriched. I’ve made tons of awesome, supportive writing-minded friends, a few fans, and a few bucks. It makes up for the constant business expenses (books on hand, business cards, advertisements, bookmarks, contests).

Otherwise, no, not much has changed. I’m still just an introvert peon working for The Man.

Do you work on one project at a time? Or do you multi-task?

I must stay focused on one thing at a time. Multi-tasking often results in more white hairs cropping up on my chin and me needing several Snickers bars to calm the fuck down.

What kind of kid were you? Which social path did you take?

In grade school, I was the fat kid who compensated with comedy, but I was a loner outside of school. I lived on a farm, and even with siblings, I could often be found roaming our land alone, talking to myself and acting out scenes in my head. I usually had my nose crammed into a book’s delicious-smelling spine as well. Once I hit middle school, my introvert side kicked into high gear. Since then, I’ve maintained a small group of core friends and tend to avoid large (or popular) groups of people.

Do you have any pets?

Two cats, Tubba and Target, and a wiener, Spot.

If you could travel anywhere in the world where would you travel?

I took a few years of Spanish in high school, and I loved everything about it. Spain seems like a gorgeous, culturally rich place to visit.

Please tell us 5 miscellaneous facts about yourself.

-I’m a huge advocate for literacy and will drop spare change every time I go to The Dollar General.

-I once popped what I thought was an Ecstasy pill only to discover it was a horse tranquilizer. Good times.

-Nothing turns me on more than a clean, spotless home.

-When I awoke in my cell after being arrested for drunk driving a decade ago, every county inmate hassled me for my extreme overnight snoring.

-I once masturbated 13 times in one day.

Please share with us your future projects and upcoming releases.

A Kingdom’s Fall, the conclusion to The Human-Undead War Trilogy, will be out later this year. I’ll also have a story in VS: Extreme, a charity anthology pitting US against UK horror writers. I was in the inaugural VS last year and took home some accolades, so I hope to defend my title in style this year. David Owain Hughes and I are also co-editing an anthology titled Fuck the Rules, and that should be out late this year or early 2018. It’s our way of throwing up the middle finger to rules while still exposing raw talent and crisp, finely tuned stories.

After that, I don’t know. Time to pursue my writing endeavors has been limited and will continue to be for several more years. I may disappear for a bit. But I’ll be back.

Please share any links you would like listed in the Interview. Website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Patreon, Instagram etc.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JondrashekAuthor

Twitter: @jondrashek

Website/Blog: www.jondrashek.com

Instagram: @jondrashek

BRIEF AUTHOR BIO:

Jonathan Edward Ondrashek loves to spew word vomit onto the masses. He’s had an array of poetry, reviews, articles, and interviews published in the past decade. His short stories have appeared in the anthologies Fifty Shades of Slay, Rejected for Content 4: Highway to Hell, Crossroads in the Dark II: Urban Legends, and the highly acclaimed VS: US vs UK Horror. The first two books in The Human-Undead War Trilogy, Dark Intentions and Patriarch, debuted in 2016, along with two co-edited horror anthologies: What Goes Around and Man Behind the Mask. If he isn’t working at his day job, reading, or writing, he’s probably drinking beer and making his wife regret marrying a lunatic. Feel free to stalk him on social media. He loves that shit.

A Kingdom’s Fall (The Human-Undead War Trilogy, Volume 3)

After staking his claim as the rightful Undead patriarch and returning to the United States, Barnaby has sent his followers on missions to eradicate humankind once and for all. He still plots to cast the world into darkness and reign supreme. But to ensure the Undead’s ascent to godhood, he will need to destroy the Human Army and confront his nemesis, Brian Koltz.

However, President Strajowskie understands the stakes involved, and he’s heading to the front line to go all out against Barnaby and his hordes.

Meanwhile, an insurgent army led by the former Undead general, Scott Hammers, approaches Haven. Brian and his people are prepared, but he discovers a traitor in their midst and dark deeds being done against his knowledge. Can he and Haven survive the ensuing battle without being torn apart from within?

As all sides vie for victory, a confrontation between Brian and Barnaby appears inevitable. And both now understand one kingdom must fall if the other is to survive.

BOOK EXCERPT:

“You’re a pilot?” the woman asked.

Lester blushed and ran a hand through his red curls. “Yeah.”

She stared at the center of her shoddy table. Candlelight flickered. Dark bags beneath her eyes devoured her high, protruding cheekbones. “Scar told us wasn’t none of them left,” she said with a slow honey-dipped drawl. “Said no one took to the skies anymore. That’s why he was sailing ‘cross water, before his ship wrecked.”

Lester almost snorted but held his derision in check. Barnaby sure did choose a lame nickname while he was here. He found it unnerving how the Vampirons revered such a devil. Then again, they didn’t know what he was.

Hell, even God doesn’t know what he is.

“Very few still exist,” Roterie said. He meandered away from the humble open-spaced kitchen and plopped onto the chair opposite Mrs. Deekins. He rested his hands behind his head and kicked his feet up. Dirt and sand sprinkled down from the soles of his shoes and cascaded across the table. “That’s why your husband was wise to follow Scar and find us.”

“Well, I can’t thank you enough for coming here and telling me how Zeke’s doing. Me and the kids’ve been worried sick.”

It shows, Lester thought. Mrs. Deekins was bone-thin, though canned goods and somewhat-fresh fruits lined the makeshift countertops inside the kitchen. Grime caked her skin in an oily sheen. Bloodshot, yellowed eyes protruded from their sockets, and her fake fangs jutted out below her upper lip. With thin, frayed hair sticking out at every angle atop her scalp, she looked like a buck-toothed, emaciated vampire hippie.

And the stench was horrendous. The quaint mud hut reeked of rotten eggs, spoiled milk, and decaying meat. Worse still was Mrs. Deekins herself. Even from the front doorway, he could smell the layers of sweat, shit, and piss emanating from her body in sickening droves.

That reminds me. It’s been a week or two since I took a bath, Lester thought, avoiding the urge to sniff his armpits and test his own scent.