#its just funny that.... to be considered 'normal' now you have to engage with like at minimum 3 of these

[jungkoode]

𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊 𝐌𝐄 𝐔𝐏 | 14

˗ˏˋ laundry day ˎˊ˗

"Doing laundry should be a normal activity—not something that brings out a whole new set of revelations about Jungkook you were not even fathoming. And you don’t know if it’s helping old ladies, tying your shoes or collecting stupid vynils—but you don’t like how it’s throwing off your whole perception of your annoying roommate."

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⋆｡°✩ chapter details ✩°｡⋆

word count: 8k

content: laundry rooms, old ladies that have a vendetta against you?, jungkook being a decent human being, batman socks, vynil revelations, humanizing jungkook and not liking it

✧ author's note ✧

Hello again little gremlins! It’s your girl, Kiki—back with another dose of Jungkook being emotionally compromised and having weird feelings about vulnerability.

SO. This chapter is… fairly slow-paced, which, duh—have you read my stuff? I went HAM on the introspection here, but I think it was so needed. Sometimes we need this type of chapter to balance the narrative out. I think it’s worked out beautifully, but do let me know your thoughts at the end.

About the goal thing! In case you’ve been living under a rock (or you don’t check my Tumblr regularly—which, fair), I have decided to switch my update schedule system.

Previously, I had been working with a weekly schedule as you all know. This has been quite easy for me to maintain because I work with hyperfixations, and basically ADHD.

The thing is… it’s a 2 month cycle.

I’m basically on week 7/8 already.

And that brings me to The Point. Goal-based update system. Which just means I’ll continue posting as long as we reach the established goals in every chapter. I’m going to be creating a whole post explaining how it works, but, long story short—as long as we reach either the goal in Tumblr OR Wattpad, we’ll be getting more chapters!

This is basically a self-regulation thing. I am self-aware (luckily) and I know how to work with my ADHD—but for those who don’t know; it’s heavily tied to dopamine. Which just means (I’m not gonna get nerdy I swear), I basically need engagement to trick my brain into staying motivated. Otherwise dopamine hits get slowly weaker and at some point I literally cannot bring myself to write.

WHICH SUCKS. Because I do love my stories, and I love sharing them. But burnout is real and brains work in funny ways and I can’t really fight my ADHD or brain chemistry (trust me I wish I could). So this is how you guys are going to help me tame this bitch. WE RIDE AT DOWN. 🤝

And before anyone asks—no, this is not up for debate. This is not something I’m “considering” or “open to feedback on.” This is me taking care of my mental health and working with my ADHD instead of against it. It’s not an “excuse,” it’s just how my brain operates. If that bothers you… I literally do not know what to tell you.

Anyways, as always, I love you all, I’m reading all your comments and reblogs and asks, and do check the note goal at the very end! 🩷

⋆｡°✩ read on✩°｡⋆

ao3

wattpad

It's fucking weird how some people's clothes have a gravitational pull, like they're magnets and your body is just helplessly metal. 

You're wearing his sweater. The same one that's been mocking you from your desk chair for the last twenty-four hours, just sitting there in all its navy blue glory, smelling like rain and testosterone and bad decisions. You don't know why you haven't tossed it back into his room yet. It's been staring you down all morning, a silent accusation of...something.

But now it's almost midday on Sunday, and your pile of dirty clothes has reached critical mass. Your laundry basket is basically a textile Mount Everest. You'd wear something clean, except there isn't anything clean left—not unless you count the questionable tank top you found at the back of your drawer that you're pretty sure you wore to a frat party sophomore year.

So. Jungkook's sweater it is.

You tell yourself it's just practical. Totally logical. It's uncharacteristically chilly outside, the first whisper of almost September creeping in, and you need something to cover your ridiculous pajama shorts for the trek to the basement laundry room. They're flowery and pale pink, paired with an equally ridiculous oversized t-shirt featuring a cartoonish sunflower with the words "HAVE A SUNFLOWER DAY!" emblazoned across your chest in neon yellow.

Not exactly the look you'd choose for running into anyone with functioning eyeballs, but it's Sunday, and your give-a-fuck meter is hovering at absolute zero.

It's not like you're going to run into anyone important anyway. Miguel the super probably won't be down there; he's usually sleeping off his Saturday night till at least 2PM. And the chances of meeting some hot neighbor—your future spouse who'll be so charmed by your sunflower ensemble that they'll propose on the spot—are basically nonexistent.

Actually, scratch that. 

Even if some dream person did materialize in the laundry room today, they wouldn't see the sunflower masterpiece because it's hidden under Jungkook's stupidly oversized hoodie. The one that somehow hangs past your shorts, making it look like you're not wearing pants at all, which is a whole different kind of disaster.

Whatever. It's warm. It doesn't smell like him anymore. (It does.) And you're just using it. Borrowing it. Temporarily occupying its fabric space.

You scoop up your overflowing laundry basket and wrestle it onto your hip. The elevator in this building moves with all the urgency of continental drift, so you opt for the stairs. Three flights down isn't horrible, especially since the laundry room is conveniently right next to the stairwell exit.

"Just put it in his room later," you mutter to yourself, adjusting the hoodie. 

You could've done that yesterday when he tossed it at you, but you didn't, and you're not thinking about why.

You check your pocket for quarters and detergent pods. 

The whole ritual is familiar now—Sunday laundry day, another week of adulting successfully completed without burning the building down or getting evicted. Not that the bar should be that low, but hey, after the month you've had, you'll take the wins where you can get them.

As you start down the stairs, the hoodie falls past your hand, and you absently tug it back up, trying not to think about how the collar brushes against your cheek or how the cuffs hang past your fingertips. 

And you definitely aren't thinking about the fact that you're surrounded by the scent of him with every breath you take.

Because that would be weird, right? Being conscious of wearing your roommate's clothes? The roommate you occasionally fuck? The one who took you to buy a vibrator yesterday before subjecting you to lunch with his overly-protective friend?

Right. Not weird at all.

You're just doing laundry, in ridiculous pajamas, wearing his hoodie because it's practical. That's the story, and you're sticking to it—even if the sleeves smell faintly of his soap when you lift your hand to push your hair out of your face.

The stairwell is quiet, just the echo of your worn-out sneakers slapping against the concrete steps. You shift the basket to your other hip, huffing slightly under its weight. 

Maybe you should've done laundry sooner. Maybe you shouldn't wait until you're literally out of underwear every single time. 

But then again, maybe you should focus on the stairs and not on the fact that your bare thighs occasionally brush against the soft inner lining of his hoodie.

Adulthood is just a series of mundane chores punctuated by questionable decisions. And today, apparently, that includes wearing Jungkook's hoodie to do your laundry.

No big deal. You'll wash your clothes, return his sweater, and the universe will continue spinning on its axis, completely unaffected by your poor wardrobe choices.

The door to the laundry room is propped open with a cinder block—probably Mrs. Patel from 4C forgetting to remove it again. You shift your basket one final time and head in, already mentally claiming the good dryer, the one that doesn't sound like it's harboring a demon when it hits the spin cycle.

It's just laundry day. Just another Sunday. 

And the laundry room is still a goddamn joke.

Because let’s be real—whoever thought six washing machines and four dryers could service an entire apartment building was either a sadist or never did laundry in their life. 

And on Sundays? 

It's like watching vultures circle a carcass—everybody desperate for their turn at the machines, glaring at anyone who takes too long to transfer their clothes.

Dona Ramirez is already there, of course. The seventy-something retiree who treats the laundry room like her personal kingdom and you like an invading barbarian. She's currently guarding the Good Dryer—the one you had mentally claimed seconds ago.

Just. Fucking. Great.

She looks up as you enter, lips pursing like she's just bitten into something sour. Her eyes travel from your face down to your bare legs and back up again, judgment radiating from her in palpable waves.

"Good morning," you mutter, aiming for polite but landing somewhere around constipated.

"Hmph." Dona sniffs, turning back to her women's magazine. "Young people these days. No shame."

You bite back the urge to point out that it's literally just your legs showing, not your entire ass. It wouldn't matter anyway. In Dona's world, anything above the ankle is basically pornographic.

Shifting your heavy basket to your other hip, you make your way to the only empty washing machine—wedged in the back corner, naturally. The one that sometimes stops mid-cycle like it's having an existential crisis. You slam your basket down with more force than necessary.

"Careful with the machines," Dona mutters without looking up from her magazine. "They're not getting any younger."

Neither are you, standing here taking shit from the laundry room gatekeeper.

"Sorry," you say, not sorry at all.

You start sorting your clothes, creating separate piles for darks and lights. Dona continues to flip pages, totally unbothered. Or maybe bothered. You can’t tell and frankly don’t care. 

As you're separating your darks, something catches your eye. Orange hair. Lots of it, actually, clinging to your black leggings and that navy shirt you wore when you were studying on the couch last week.

Griffin.

That little furry infiltrator has been shedding all over your clothes again. Despite the fact that your door is always closed. Despite the "no pets" clause in your lease that Jungkook blatantly ignores. Despite your best efforts to maintain some semblance of a cat-hair-free existence.

And yet...

You find yourself smiling slightly as you pluck a particularly long orange strand from your favorite black sweater. The traitorous little shit must have snuck into your room when you were in the shower yesterday. You'd caught him curled up on your bed when you came out, looking entirely too comfortable and completely unapologetic about the invasion.

He'd just blinked at you lazily, that slow "yes, I know I'm not supposed to be here, and no, I don't care" cat-blink that somehow manages to be both insulting and endearing at the same time.

You should be annoyed. You should definitely tell Jungkook to keep his feline menace away from your clean laundry basket. You should not find it even remotely charming that Griffin seems to have decided your clothes are his second-favorite napping spot (right after your pillow, the little asshole).

And yet here you are, pulling orange fur off your black clothes with something dangerously close to fondness. 

What the fuck is happening to you?

Maybe it's sleep deprivation. 

Or maybe it's the fact that Griffin is actually kind of cool, for a cat. 

He doesn't have that typical cat superiority complex—he just genuinely doesn't give a shit about anything except food, sunbeams, and antagonizing Jungkook. 

It's a lifestyle you can respect.

Plus, he has this way of curling up next to you when you're reading, just close enough to leech your body heat without actually admitting he wants your attention. It's like living with a tiny, furry version of his owner.

Not that you'd ever admit that particular observation out loud.

You dump your dark clothes into the washing machine, mentally calculating how much detergent to add. Dona shuffles to check her wash cycle, eyeing you suspiciously like you might try to sabotage her laundry when she's not looking.

"Cold day," she comments, which is probably the most conversational she's ever been with you.

"Yeah," you reply, not looking up from measuring detergent. "Came early this year."

She hums disapprovingly, like the weather is also your fault. "Wearing your boyfriend's clothes won't keep you warm forever."

For a split second, your brain halts. 

Boyfriend? What boyfriend? And then—

Ah. 

The hoodie.

Jungkook's hoodie that you're swimming in.

Something about her smug certainty, that look that says she's got you all figured out, makes you want to burn the whole goddamn building down. Or at least throw a very minor wrench in her worldview.

"It's my girlfriend's, actually," you say, the lie sliding off your tongue with practiced ease.

There. Take that, you judgmental old bat. Let's see how your 1950s sensibilities handle—

"Even worse," Dona sniffs, not missing a beat. "Girls these days, always stealing each other's clothes. You'll never build a proper wardrobe that way."

Wait, what?

You blink, momentarily thrown. That's... not the reaction you were expecting. No pearl-clutching. No horrified gasps. Just... practical fashion advice?

"I—"

"My granddaughter does the same thing," she continues, adjusting the scarf around her neck with arthritic fingers. "Comes home wearing her girlfriend's sweatshirts, twice her size. Looks like she's drowning in fabric. No shape whatsoever. You young people and your oversized clothes." She clicks her tongue. "In my day, we wore things that fit."

Well, shit.

So much for your brilliant plan to scandalize the old lady. 

Turns out Dona's not a homophobe—she's just a fashion critic. Equal opportunity judgment for all. How progressive of her.

"Right," you mutter, feeling weirdly chastised. "I'll, uh, keep that in mind."

"Hmph." She turns back to her laundry, seemingly satisfied that she's dispensed enough wisdom for one day.

You're still processing this unexpected twist when the laundry room door creaks open behind you, letting in a draft of cooler air. 

You don't need to turn around to know who it is. 

Something in the atmosphere shifts immediately—molecules rearranging themselves, air particles getting all excited, the very fabric of space-time bending to accommodate his presence.

Or maybe that's just your pulse doing that annoying thing where it decides to race for no good reason.

"Well, well, well."

His voice is sleep-rough and amused, and you can already picture the exact expression on his face without looking. 

That stupid half-smirk. That cocked eyebrow. That look that says he's caught you doing something you shouldn't.

You turn slowly, trying to appear nonchalant despite the fact that you're suddenly, acutely aware that you're wearing his fucking hoodie over your ridiculous pajamas.

Jungkook stands in the doorway, laundry basket propped against his hip, looking unfairly good for someone who's probably just rolled out of bed. His hair is a disaster, sticking up in tufts. He's wearing a plain white t-shirt and those stupid gray sweatpants that look way too good on him, and his feet are bare—the absolute psychopath. Who walks around a gross apartment building with no shoes?

His eyes drop immediately to the hoodie, and his eyebrow arches even higher.

"Interesting fashion choice, Phoenix," he says, lips twitching.

Your face heats. "Laundry day," you say, as if that explains everything.

As if borrowing—okay, stealing—his clothes is a perfectly normal response to having nothing clean to wear.

"Clearly." His gaze sweeps over you, taking in the edge of your floral shorts peeking out beneath the hem of his hoodie. "Sunflower PJs? Again?"

"It's laundry day," you repeat, like maybe he didn't hear you the first time. Like maybe that's a valid excuse for looking like you raided a middle schooler's closet. "Everything else is dirty."

"Hmm." 

He steps fully into the room, letting the door swing shut behind him, and moves to the washing machine next to yours. 

Puts his basket down. 

Stands too close. 

“But the hoodie isn't yours."

It's not a question. It's a statement, delivered with that infuriating confidence he always has, like he's so sure of himself, so certain of how this interaction is going to play out.

"I found it in my room," you say, turning back to your washing machine, pretending to be deeply interested in the cycle selection. "Must've gotten mixed up in my stuff."

"For a whole day?" He snorts, and you can hear him starting to sort his laundry beside you. "Interesting that you decided to wear it instead of, I don't know, returning it."

"It was convenient," you mutter, jabbing at the start button. "And it's cold."

"Right."

You can hear the smile in his voice without looking at him, and you don’t know why you notice without even having to gaze at him. 

Damn your body and its complete lack of dignity.

"You're late, boy."

Your head whips around at the sharp change in Dona's tone. Not softer—definitely not softer—but different somehow. Like… Less venomous, more... familiar? 

The old woman is glaring at Jungkook, but it's not the same glare she gives you. It's like the difference between a loaded gun and a water pistol.

"Sorry, Miss D," Jungkook says, and there's something in his voice—a hint of warmth?—that catches you completely off guard. "Overslept."

"Hmph. Young people." Dona shakes her head, but there's no real bite to it. "My sheets need folding. These old hands aren't what they used to be."

"Sure thing." Jungkook nods like this is a completely normal request, like random old ladies demanding his manual labor is just part of his Sunday routine.

What the actual fuck?

You stare between them, waiting for Jungkook to tell her to fold her own damn sheets, or at the very least look annoyed at being bossed around. 

But he just continues sorting his laundry like this is fine. 

Like this is normal.

"You know her?" you ask, keeping your voice low as Dona bustles over to check her washing machine.

Jungkook glances at you, one eyebrow raised. "Yeah?"

"Since when?"

He shrugs, separating a dark shirt from a pile of whites. "Since I moved in? She lives on the fourth floor."

"And you just... help her fold laundry? Voluntarily?"

"Sometimes." He's not looking at you now, focused on his sorting with more attention than dirty clothes really require. "It's not a big deal."

"Is that why she doesn't look at you like you're gum on her shoe?"

He huffs a laugh. "What?"

"She fucking hates me," you whisper, gesturing discreetly at Dona's back. "Every time I see her, she looks at me like I personally invented avocado toast and killed all the mom-and-pop stores."

"Maybe you just need to help her fold her sheets," he suggests, the corner of his mouth quirking up.

"Or maybe you've charmed her with your stupid dimples and your fake nice-guy routine."

"Fake nice-guy routine?" His eyebrows shoot up, and he looks genuinely amused. "Is that what you think this is?"

"Obviously," you mutter. "Nobody is actually that helpful without an agenda."

He studies you for a moment. Then, speaks. "Yeah? What's my agenda with Dona, then?"

“I don't know yet. But I'm sure it's something nefarious."

"Nefarious," he repeats, and now he's definitely laughing at you. "Sure, Phoenix. I'm playing the long con with a senior citizen. Really working that angle."

"Wouldn't put it past you.”

"Right." He tilts his head to the other side, still smiling slightly. "Well, while I'm busy being fake nice, you might want to turn your machine on. You've been standing there for five minutes and it's still not running."

You glance down at your washing machine, which is indeed just sitting there, silent and unhelpful. Fuck. Your finger must have missed the start button in your rush to look like you knew what you were doing.

You jab the button again, harder this time, and the machine finally lurches to life with a groan that sounds suspiciously like judgment.

"Boy," Dona calls from across the room, "come help with these detergent bottles. They're too heavy."

"Coming," Jungkook calls back, and he's moving before you can say anything else, crossing the room to where Dona is struggling with an industrial-sized bottle of Tide.

You watch, equal parts confused and suspicious, as he takes the bottle from her. They exchange a few words you can't quite hear over the rumble of the washing machines, and then—what the fuck—Dona actually pats his arm. Like he's her grandson or something.

Like she doesn't find him utterly repulsive.

Is this why she likes him? Because he lets her boss him around and carries her detergent? 

That's... kind of pathetic, actually. 

You thought Jungkook had more of a backbone than that.

But still. It's weird. The cold, calculating part of your brain catalogs this new information, filed under "Jungkook, Things That Don't Add Up About." 

It's growing into a pretty substantial folder these days.

You turn back to your washing machine, pretending to be deeply fascinated by the cycle display, but you're still watching them from the corner of your eye. Trying to figure out what his deal is.

"You need groceries this week?" Jungkook asks, voice low but not quite low enough that you can't hear it. "I can swing by after my studio session on Wednesday."

"Do I look like I need charity?" Dona snaps, but it’s not fueled by anger. If anything, she sounds... embarrassed?

"Not charity," Jungkook says, voice even. "Just a neighbor thing."

"Hmph." Dona busies herself with folding a dishcloth. "Well, if you insist on playing delivery boy, I do need milk. And those crackers from last time."

"Got it." Jungkook nods, like this is just normal. Like he's not going completely out of his way for someone who doesn't even seem particularly grateful.

You frown, trying to make it make sense. 

Maybe... maybe it's a hustle? Maybe old ladies tip really well? Or maybe he's building up good karma because he's secretly done something terrible and needs to balance the cosmic scales?

The two of them chat for a bit longer, and you can't quite hear all of it, but you catch fragments—something about Dona's doctor's appointment, something about Jungkook's classes, something about a recipe for chicken soup.

It's all so... domestic. So weirdly normal. So completely at odds with the Jungkook you know—the one who teases you mercilessly, the one who fucks you against walls, the one with the sharp edges and the arrogant smirk.

You're so busy trying to reconcile these two versions of him that you almost miss it when Dona's voice rises slightly.

"...since Hector passed, and these new delivery apps, they charge so much..." Her voice wavers, just slightly. "...shouldn't have to pay an arm and a leg just to get groceries when you can't..."

Jungkook says something too low for you to catch, and Dona makes that "hmph" sound again. But this time it sounds different. Almost... vulnerable?

"Well," she says, louder now, "you're the only one who bothers to check. The others in this building, they see an old woman and they look right through her. Like I'm already a ghost."

Oh.

Oh shit.

Something uncomfortable twists in your chest. An emotion you don't want to examine too closely. Something that feels a lot like…

Shame.

Because that's exactly what you did, isn't it? You saw a grumpy old lady and decided she was the enemy. You never once considered that maybe she was just lonely. 

That maybe she uses sharpness as a shield. 

The same way you use sarcasm as one. 

"Not a ghost yet," Jungkook says, and his voice is gentler than you've ever heard it. "Still kicking my ass at dominoes every Thursday."

"Language," Dona scolds, but you can hear the smile in her voice. "And don't you forget it. I expect a rematch this week."

"Wouldn't miss it."

Wait. He plays dominoes with her? Weekly? What the actual fuck?

And now you feel even worse, because apparently Jungkook—the guy you've been dismissing as an arrogant player with no depth—has been spending his Thursday nights playing board games with a lonely old woman.

While you've been doing what? Watching Netflix and judging everyone's life choices?

Great. Now he's making you feel like an asshole without even trying. That's just perfect.

You turn back to your washing machine, genuinely focused on it this time, trying to process this new information. Trying to fit it into your understanding of who Jungkook is. 

It's not working very well.

When you hear footsteps approaching, you pretend to be busy. You don’t know why you can’t look at him in the eyes right now.

"Sheets are folded," Jungkook says, sliding up next to you. "World is saved."

"What a hero," you deadpan, still not looking at him.

"Someday you'll appreciate my many talents," he says, and you can hear the smirk in his voice. "Speaking of which, nice hoodie."

You finally glance at him, and yep—there's that stupid, self-satisfied grin. Like he's caught you doing something embarrassing. Which, to be fair, he has.

"It's practical," you say, tugging the hem down where it's riding up. "That's all."

"Sure," he agrees easily. "Very practical to keep my clothes. Much more practical than, say, returning them."

"You want it back?" You make a show of starting to pull it off. "Fine, take—"

"Keep it," he says quickly, and the way he says it—not teasing, not mocking, just simple and straightforward—catches you off guard. "It looks better on you anyway."

You freeze, hands still at the hem of the hoodie, not quite sure how to respond to that. It feels like a trap somehow, like if you accept, you're admitting to something. To what, you're not exactly sure.

"Whatever," you mutter, dropping your hands. "I'll wash it and give it back."

"No rush." He turns back to his own laundry, a small smile playing at his lips.

For a moment, you just stand there, watching him sort his clothes. Then you look away, annoyed with yourself for gawking.

"So," you say, as casual as you can muster,  "you're like, what? The old lady whisperer?"

He glances at you, eyebrow raised. "What?"

"You and Dona." You gesture vaguely in her direction. "The whole..." You wave your hand, trying to encompass whatever the hell it is you just witnessed. "...thing."

"The thing," he repeats, clearly amused. "Very specific."

"You know what I mean," you huff. "The helping her fold sheets thing. The grocery delivery thing. The dominoes thing."

His movements pause for just a fraction of a second, so brief you almost miss it. "You were eavesdropping?"

"It's a small laundry room," you point out. "And you weren't exactly whispering."

"It's not a big deal."

"Playing dominoes with an old lady every Thursday isn't a big deal?"

"It's just dominoes," he says, like that explains everything. 

Like it's completely normal to spend your free time entertaining your elderly neighbor when you could be, I don't know, literally anything else that twenty-something guys usually do on a Thursday night.

"And the groceries?"

"She has trouble carrying them up the stairs," he says with a shrug. "The delivery apps charge too much. It's not a big deal."

"You keep saying that," you note, studying his profile as he focuses very intently on separating a blue shirt from a white one. "But it kind of is. I mean, how many people in this building even know their neighbors' names?"

"Maybe they should. Maybe it wouldn't kill people to look up from their phones once in a while and notice the actual humans around them."

You blink, taken aback by the sudden intensity. "Okay, damn. Sorry I asked."

"No, I'm—" He exhales sharply. "I just don't like talking about it, okay? It's not a thing."

"Why?" you press, genuinely curious now. "Why is it such a big secret that you're apparently a decent human being?"

“It's not a secret. I just don't..." He shakes his head. "I don't do it for attention or whatever. It's just the right thing to do."

"So you don't want me to know you do the right thing?"

"I don't need a fucking gold star for basic human decency," he snaps, and now there's definitely an edge to his voice. "I'm not looking for a pat on the back. I'm not trying to—" He breaks off, stuffing clothes into the machine with more force than necessary. "Just drop it, alright?"

You raise your eyebrows, watching as he jams quarters into the slot with unnecessary aggression. It's almost like he's... embarrassed? No, that's not quite right. More like he's uncomfortable with you knowing this side of him.

Like he doesn't want you to think he's actually nice.

Which is weird, because most guys would be falling all over themselves to prove they're nice guys. To get those good-person points. To make sure everyone knows what a saint they are for helping the little old lady with her groceries.

But Jungkook seems genuinely annoyed that you found out. Almost defensive about it.

It's... interesting.

Weird.

"Fine," you say, lifting your hands in surrender. "Consider it dropped. Your secret identity as a decent human being is safe with me."

He exhales sharply through his nose, still not looking at you. "Thanks."

You both lapse into silence, the hum of the washing machines like tiny droplets of silence between both of you. 

Across the room, Dona is bustling around the dryers, muttering to herself about settings and temperatures. You sneaks glances at her, seeing her in a different light now.

Not just a grumpy old woman. 

A widow. 

Someone who lives alone and has to rely on the kindness of neighbors—specifically, one neighbor—for simple tasks like carrying groceries. 

Someone who's lonely enough that a weekly dominoes game is something to look forward to.

It makes your chest feel tight in a way you don't particularly like.

"Boy," Dona calls, breaking the silence. "What cycle for delicates?"

"Gentle, cold water," Jungkook calls back without hesitation, like he's some kind of laundry expert. Like this is a normal conversation they have all the time.

"Hmph," is Dona's only response, but you notice she follows his advice, adjusting the settings on the dryer.

"She likes you," you observe quietly.

Jungkook glances at you, then back at his machine. 

"She tolerates me," he corrects. "There's a difference."

"She doesn't even tolerate me."

"You've never offered to help with her sheets."

"I didn't know that was an option," you say, crossing your arms. "There's no sign-up sheet for 'Old Lady Sheet Folding' in the lobby."

He snorts, and just like that, the tension from earlier seems to dissipate. 

“Maybe there should be. Building-wide rotation."

"I can see it now," you say, following in on the joke. "'4B gets Monday sheets, 6A takes Tuesday sheets...'"

"'If you find yourself assigned to Wednesday sheets, please be aware that those are the cat-hair sheets,'" he continues, adopting a serious tone. "'Lint rollers will be provided.'"

You can't help it—you laugh. 

It's brief, just a small burst of amusement, but it's genuine. 

And when you glance at Jungkook, he's looking at you with a strange expression, like he's seeing something he didn't expect.

"What?" you ask, immediately self-conscious.

"Nothing," he says, turning back to his machine. But there's a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Just wondering if I should sign you up for Thursday sheets."

"Don't you dare," you warn, but it’s too soft. "I have enough on my plate without adding geriatric sheet duty."

"Could be worse," he says with a shrug. "Could be Tuesday sheets."

"What's Tuesday?"

"Bingo night." He wiggles his eyebrows. "Dona goes hard on the snacks."

You stare at him, once again thrown by this glimpse into a life you didn't know existed. "You're kidding."

"Only partly," he admits with a grin. "But seriously, Tuesday is when she does her big laundry loads. Always complains about the folding."

"And you know this because...?"

"Because I pay attention," he says simply, like it's obvious. Like everyone should just naturally notice these things about their neighbors. "It's not that complicated, Phoenix."

There's no judgment in his voice, but you still feel oddly defensive. Like you've been caught failing some basic test of humanity.

"Well, we can't all be saints," you mutter.

"Not trying to be a saint," he says, a hint of irritation creeping back it. "It's just—" He exhales sharply. "Never mind."

You watch him from the corner of your eye, trying to figure out what button you just pushed. Why this, of all things, seems to get under his skin.

"Sorry," you say finally, surprising even yourself. "I didn't mean to make it weird."

“It's fine."

"It's cool that you help her," you add, feeling awkward but pressing on anyway. "Seriously. Not everyone would."

"Yeah, well." He shrugs, clearly uncomfortable with the praise. "Like I said, it's not a big deal."

"Right." You nod, getting it now.

He really doesn't want the recognition. 

Doesn't want the attention for doing something decent. 

You both fall silent again, with Dona’s muttering as your only company. It's not uncomfortable, though. It's just... quiet. Companionable, almost.

Which is weird, because you don't do companionable silences with Jungkook. You do heated arguments and sarcastic exchanges and intense fucking. 

Not... this. Whatever this is.

"You ever play dominoes?" he asks suddenly, breaking the silence.

You blink at the unexpected question. 

“Not since I was a kid."

He nods, considering this. 

"Dona's always complaining that two players is boring. Says it's meant to be played with more people."

You wait for him to continue, to make the obvious invitation, but he doesn't. Just stands there, pretending to be deeply interested in the cycle display on his washing machine.

"Are you..." You squint at him. "Are you trying to ask me to play dominoes with you and Dona?"

"What? No." He scoffs, finger pressing random buttons. "Just making conversation."

"Right."

"I'm just saying," he continues, eyes fixed on the machine, "that if you ever… I dunno, find yourself bored on a Thursday night… There’s always dominoes."

Is he… Is he actually inviting you to his weird geriatric game night?

And if so, why? 

It's not like you've shown any interest in spending time with the elderly. Or with him, outside of the very specific context of fucking each other senseless.

"I'll keep that in mind," you say finally, not committing to anything.

"Cool."

"Cool."

Another silence falls.

You don’t say anything.

He doesn’t say anything.

And you’re still wearing his hoodie. And he’s still standing too close. 

And for a moment—just a brief, fleeting moment—you wonder what it would be like. To sit around a table with Jungkook and Dona, playing dominoes on a Thursday night. To see that side of him—the side that helps old ladies with groceries and remembers how they like their sheets folded.

It's a weird thought. An unfamiliar one. And you push it away almost as soon as it forms.

Because that's not what this is.

That's not what you are. 

You're roommates who sometimes fuck. You're not friends who play board games together.

"Boy," Dona calls from across the room, breaking into your thoughts. "What cycle for cotton?"

"High heat, Miss D," Jungkook calls back, and just like that, the moment—whatever it was—is broken.

He turns back to his sorting, and you turn back to yours, and everything goes back to normal. Or whatever passes for normal these days.

But you're still wearing his hoodie. And you're pretty sure you're not giving it back anytime soon.

Sometime later, you're leaning against the wall just outside the laundry room, scrolling mindlessly through your phone. 

Your thumb drags across the screen without purpose, not really taking in whatever the hell you're looking at—Instagram? Twitter? Does it matter? The washing machines finished twenty minutes ago, but Jungkook insisted on carrying both your loads like some kind of laundry martyr.

"I got it," he'd said, waving you off when you tried to grab your basket. "Go ahead."

So here you are, waiting, because it feels weird to just leave him down here with your underwear. Even though he's definitely seen your underwear before. In significantly more compromising contexts.

From inside the laundry room, you can hear the murmur of voices—Jungkook and Dona in what sounds like a heated debate about fabric softener. You catch fragments: "ruins the absorbency" and "smells nice" and "didn't raise my Hector to use that chemical garbage."

You roll your eyes. How is this your Sunday? Standing in a dingy hallway while your fuck buddy debates laundry techniques with a geriatric neighbor?

The door finally swings open, and Jungkook emerges, arms loaded with both laundry baskets stacked precariously on top of each other. His biceps flex as he adjusts the weight, and you're definitely not noticing that. 

"Ready?" he asks, nudging the door closed with his foot.

"Been ready," you murmur, pocketing your phone. "Some of us don't need an hour-long consultation about dryer settings."

"She has strong opinions about lint," he says, absolutely straight-faced, like this is a normal follow-up to any conversation.

"Fascinating." You push off from the wall, heading for the stairs. "Let's go before she recruits you for a lint task force or whatever."

He just grins, following behind you. 

The stairwell is narrow and poorly lit, with concrete steps that have seen better decades. 

You're a few steps ahead when you hear it—a dull thud followed by a muttered "fuck."

You spin around to see Jungkook stumbling backward, nearly dropping both baskets as his free hand flies to his forehead. There's an exposed pipe running along the low ceiling that you always duck under without thinking—you're not particularly tall—but apparently nobody warned Jungkook about it.

"Shit." The word leaves your mouth before you can stop it, and suddenly you're moving toward him, hands reaching out automatically. "You okay?"

He looks momentarily stunned, both by the impact and by your reaction. 

"Yeah, just—"

You're already on your tiptoes, fingers brushing his hair away from his forehead to check the damage. There's a red mark forming, but the skin isn't broken. His hair is softer than you expected, still slightly damp from his morning shower, and he smells like—

Wait.

What the fuck are you doing?

You freeze, suddenly aware of how close you are, of your fingers in his hair, of his eyes fixed on yours with an expression you can't quite read. 

Neither of you moves. 

His eyes dart between both of your pupils. 

"Um," you say intelligently, dropping your hands like his forehead is suddenly made of lava. "Be more careful. We don't need you more idiot than you already are."

Smooth. Really smooth.

His lips twitch, but he doesn't call you out on whatever the hell that sentence was supposed to be. "Thanks for the concern."

"I'm not concerned," you say automatically, already turning back toward the stairs. "Just don't want to deal with your concussed ass if you knock yourself out."

"Right." His voice follows you up the stairs. "God forbid you have to care about something."

"Exactly," you agree, not looking back. "Caring is for suckers."

You're halfway up the flight when you hear him grunt as he shifts the laundry baskets. It's a lot to carry, and the stairwell is narrow, but you're definitely not offering to help. That would imply you care, which you just explicitly denied. So.

There's a moment of shuffling footsteps behind you, then: "Wait a sec, Nix."

You turn, ready with some smart-ass comment about his head injury affecting his ability to climb stairs, but the words die in your throat. He's set both baskets down on the landing and is now kneeling on the step below you, looking at your feet.

"What are you—"

"Your shoes," he says, nodding at your sneakers. "They're untied."

You glance down. Sure enough, both laces on your ancient Converse are dragging on the concrete steps, a tripping hazard waiting to happen.

"I know," you lie. You didn't know. "I was gonna fix them later."

"Later, like after you face-plant on the stairs?" He's already reaching for your shoe, his big hands deftly gathering the laces. "With my luck, I'd have to call an ambulance, and they'd blame me for pushing you."

"I wouldn't give you the satisfaction of falling," you mutter, but you don't pull away.

Instead, you just stand there, weirdly frozen, as Jungkook—the guy who regularly makes you come so hard you see stars—ties your shoelaces like you're a fucking kindergartner.

His head is bent in concentration, dark hair falling over his forehead, partially hiding the red mark from the pipe. His hands move with practiced ease, looping and pulling. 

It's such a small thing. So mundane. So ordinary.

So why does your chest feel tight?

"There," he says, finishing the second shoe with a final tug. "Crisis averted."

He glances up at you, still kneeling, and something in his expression makes your stomach do a weird little flip. It's probably just the angle. The way the shitty stairwell lighting catches on his features. The lingering effects of morning caffeine making your pulse do stupid things.

"I could have done that myself," you say, but your voice comes out softer than you intended.

"I know." He shrugs, pushing himself to his feet and picking up the laundry baskets again. "But you didn't."

You don't have a good response to that, so you just turn and continue up the stairs, acutely aware of him following behind you. The only sound is your newly tied shoes against the concrete and his slightly labored breathing as he carries the laundry.

It's weird. 

This whole morning has been weird. 

First the hoodie, then Dona and the dominoes revelation, now this—Jungkook tying your shoes like it's nothing.

Like these small, casually intimate gestures are just things people do for each other.

Maybe they are. Maybe this is all completely normal roommate behavior, and you're the weird one for overthinking it.

It's not like he meant anything by it. 

He's just like that, apparently—the kind of guy who helps old ladies with groceries and plays dominoes on Thursdays and doesn't let people trip on their shoelaces. 

It's not personal. It's not about you.

He's just nice sometimes. In between being an absolute asshole who drives you crazy.

It doesn't mean anything.

It doesn't mean anything at all.

You finally make it to the apartment door, fishing your keys out of the pocket of Jungkook's stupid hoodie and hold the door open for him because he's still stubbornly carrying both laundry loads, despite your begrudging offer to take yours back.

"I can carry my own shit," you'd said on the landing between the second and third floors, trying to grab your basket.

He'd just smirked and swung it out of your reach. "I got it."

"I'm not helpless."

"Never said you were."

"So give me my laundry, asshole."

"Nope."

And that was that. Because apparently this is the hill he wants to die on. Stupid, stubborn, impossible man.

Now he strides past you into the apartment, annoyingly unbothered by the weight of two full baskets. 

You absolutely do not track how lean his arm muscles are as he sets them both on the table near the main door.

You definitely don't track the line of his shoulders as he rolls them back, working out the tension from the climb. 

And you certainly don't follow a bead of sweat as it trails down the side of his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.

Because that would be pathetic. And you're not pathetic.

He starts rummaging through his basket, brows furrowed in concentration. Then he looks up, confusion clear on his face. 

“Wait, I'm missing a sock."

"Huh?"

"A sock." He holds up a single black sock with little Batman logos on it. "I should have two."

You stare at him blankly. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Did you see a sock drop or something? On the stairs, maybe?"

"Why would I be looking for your socks?" You cross your arms. "I have better things to do with my life than track your Batmans."

"Fuck it," he sighs. "I'm going downstairs again."

"Seriously? For a sock?"

"It's my favorite pair." He's already heading for the door. "Be right back."

And then he's gone, the door closing behind him with a soft click, leaving you standing there next to two baskets of laundry and feeling weirdly... abandoned? 

Which is ridiculous. It's a sock. He'll be back in five minutes. 

Get a grip, bitch.

You stare at the laundry baskets on the table. His and yours, side by side. 

Why did he insist on carrying yours? It's so stupidly... nice. And Jungkook isn't nice. He's arrogant and annoying and makes you want to pull your hair out. He's not supposed to tie your shoes or carry your laundry or play dominoes with old ladies.

It's throwing off your entire understanding of him, and that's irritating as hell.

You hate him. You definitely hate him.

Except that's getting harder to believe by the day.

The sound of a door opening breaks into your thoughts, but it's not the main door—it's Yoongi's room. Huh. Like seeing a bear outside hibernation season.

He shuffles into the kitchen, looking about as close to death as you've ever seen him. His hair is a disaster, sticking up in weird tufts like he’s barely managed to lay down on a horizontal surface. The bags under his eyes have bags. His t-shirt is wrinkled in that "I've been wearing this for days" way, and he's moving with the careful deliberation of someone who hasn't slept in approximately three centuries.

"Working?" you ask, because it seems like the only explanation for this zombie-like state.

"Unfortunately." His voice is rough, like he hasn't used it in hours. Maybe days.

He doesn't elaborate, just heads straight for the coffee maker. 

You don't ask. Not your business. 

Besides, you've got your own shit to worry about—like why you can't stop thinking about Jungkook carrying your laundry, or tying your shoes, or the way his hands moved when he was folding Dona's sheets.

God, you need a lobotomy.

Your gaze drifts around the apartment, trying to focus on literally anything else. It lands on the record collection displayed on the wall next to the TV. There must be at least thirty vinyl albums. You remember when Yeji was over last week, she mentioned them—commented on how eclectic the selection was.

You'd just shrugged and said they were Yoongi's. Because they had to be, right? Music producer, always holed up with headphones... it makes sense.

"Nice collection," you say, nodding toward the wall. 

You're not sure why you say it. Maybe to make conversation. Maybe to confirm your assumption. Maybe because some part of you suspects they're not Yoongi's at all, and you want to know what else you might have missed about Jungkook.

Not that you care about his likes or interests or anything. That would be dangerously close to caring about him as a person, which—ha! Absolutely not.

"Huh?" 

Yoongi turns around lazily, coffeepot in hand. He follows your gaze to the wall of records, and then—he scoffs. Actually scoffs, shaking his head like you've just said something so stupid he can't believe it came out of your mouth.

"Have you even checked them?" he asks, tone dry as the Sahara. "They're mostly Mayer."

You blink.

Mayer? As in John Mayer? As in the songs Jungkook plays on his guitar sometimes?

As in "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room"—the song he played that night in his room when he taunted you through text messages and you were stupid enough to actually walk in?

"They're Jungkook's," Yoongi adds after a beat of silence. "Not mine."

"Oh." The word falls from your lips automatically, small and insignificant, completely inadequate to express the weird reorganization happening in your brain. "But he doesn't have a record player?"

Yoongi just shrugs, pouring coffee into his mug. "Doesn't mean he can't collect them."

You stare at the vinyl collection with new eyes. Each album carefully chosen, meticulously arranged. A physical manifestation of something Jungkook cares about, something he values enough to collect even though he can't listen to them. Yet.

Something unwinds in your chest. A tight, small knot of... what? 

Surprise? 

Interest? 

Whatever it is, you don't like it. Don't want to examine it too closely. Because it feels dangerously like the beginning of seeing Jungkook as a whole person, not just the asshole who happens to be good in bed.

And that's not what this is. That's not what you are.

The door swings open, and there he is—stupid grin on his stupid face, waving a Batman sock in the air like he's just found buried treasure.

"Found it," he announces, triumphant. "It was stuck in the dryer door."

You give him the blankest stare you can muster. "Congratulations. Your sock journey is complete."

His grin just widens, completely unfazed by your sarcasm. "Thanks for the moral support, Phoenix. Couldn't have done it without you."

"I literally did nothing."

"Your energy kept me going."

You roll your eyes so hard it's a miracle they don't get stuck in the back of your head. He just laughs, that warm, rich sound that does absolutely nothing to your insides, and starts gathering his laundry.

"Later," you mutter, turning away before he can see the corner of your mouth threatening to twitch upward.

You grab your laundry basket head straight for your room, shutting the door with perhaps more force than necessary.

Safe in your own space, you fish your phone from your pocket—and see three missed calls from the same number. 

Ah. Barnes & Noble. 

Seems like you got the job. Which is good. Great, even.

This is what responsible adults do—get jobs, pay bills, build sensible futures. Not collect vinyl records they can't play or help old ladies with their grocery shopping or carry their roommates' laundry just because.

Normal, practical, boring adult stuff. That's what you're about.

Except now you can't stop thinking about those records on the wall. About what else you might have missed. About who Jungkook actually is when he isn't being an infuriating, cocky asshole. About—

About nothing. Because you don’t care. 

He’s Jungkook. Rogue. The infuriating roommate of yours that leaves towels everywhere and can’t be bothered to clean his own mugs. 

You toss your phone onto your bed and start aggressively pulling laundry from your basket. 

You've got shit to do. Clothes to put away. A job to call back about. A life to live that absolutely does not revolve around wondering why your roommate collects vinyl records or helps old ladies or ties your shoes when they're untied.

It doesn't matter. None of it matters.

(Except that it might. Just a little. And that's the most terrifying thought of all.)

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© jungkoode 2025 no reposts, translations, or adaptations

[userautumn]

For what it's worth (and it's not me being delusional) - I think there's a chance that Bobby in fact isn't dead, though he will be retiring and perhaps only come back to the show here and there. The cast's weak, coordinated reactions to the death (Ryan literally just posted a "funny" tribute picture to Bobby) when you know they would be providing far deeper messages to their mentor, just shows this isn't being taken seriously imo. I think Bobby is likely gone as a main but not dead.

Right. So.

I'm going to try to pick my words carefully here, because we all cope and grieve in different ways, but if Bobby isn't dead (and I truly believe he is), I am desperate for you to understand how much worse that is.

Listen to me.

If Bobby isn't dead, that means:

Tim is doing the press circuit

Peter gave a farewell statement and goodbye to the 118/Angela,

The cast posted tributes (whether you believe they're heartfelt or not)

all with the intention of screwing with the fans minds. Please hear me when I say:

That is not okay.

That is not normal.

That is not "clever," that is not "4D chess," that is not smart, or genius, or "a non-traditional approach."

That is, genuinely and without hyperbole, sadistic and malicious behavior on the parts of everyone involved.

What disturbs me even more, (and this is not at you directly, though it involves you) is the fact that Bobby not being dead is framed as a good thing by fandom. It's not. People are hurt. People are grieving. We feel this devastating loss deeply, and though this show, like every other show in the world, is a creative and escapist outlet, it's also not created in a vacuum. Which means that to suffer this loss on top of the greater tragedy happening in the world - both political and personal - means that this death, this grief has real-world implications. People die on TV; that's what people do and major character deaths do not have to be bad things. But as a showrunner, it is your inherent responsibility to treat these deaths with tact and care.

So to put people through that unnecessarily or to fabricate this grief for what I could only assume would be his own pleasure since Tim has stated on multiple occasions that he does what he pleases when he pleases would be so unspeakably vicious and evil. I need you to understand that.

I know many of you don't get it when I say I hate Tim Minear, and that's fine. We're all operating from different levels of engagement and understanding. But I need you to stop and consider this without the lens of fandom goggles.

As much as I am hurting right now (and believe me, I am hurting), I would rather Bobby's death be sincere than a fake-out because that would mean that every single person involved in the making of this show is complicit in a deep and unprecedented psychological manipulation that is, at its core, despicably evil. I don't want to believe that this show we have given our joy, our trust, and our hearts to for several years is created by people who view us, their viewers as fans, as little more than playthings. I don't want to believe that. But I will if the evidence points to that (and, right now, on Tim's part especially, even without the fake-out, the evidence is pointing to that).

As for the cast's coordinated tributes, it is common for casts to post farewells after the episode's East Coast premiere, so calling their posting coordinated seems baseless. As for those reactions being "weak," there could be several reasons for that. But when you cater to a fandom that is, in large part, dedicated to picking your words apart for clues, you often sacrifice intimacy in the interest of clarity. When your words are succinct and clear, it is impossible to misconstrue or misunderstand their intention. Do I believe we would have gotten longer, more heartfelt posts three years ago? Yes. But we have what we have and, what you interpreted as a weak response, I just interpreted as the cast saying their goodbyes in a clear manner.

We'll see what happens but know that if this proves to be fake, we as a fandom (all sides of the fandom) really need to reckon with who is running this show and how much power over us we want to continue to give him. Because this would not be okay on SO many levels.

[starlightmeissa]

Love the new chapter! I really love all the dynamics, especially Jiraiya walking in and accidentally ruining his own dynamic with them. I really get the feeling that it never occurred to him that his students could *not* trust him. Like, I don't think it even occurred to him that his students wouldn't already respect him and be vying for his attention like he did in his old team. You mentioned him seeing Seiko as like Orochimaru due to the genius thing, and im just. So curious. Was he doing the immature equivalent thing of trying to one up a kid as an f u to his childhood rival? Does he want Seiko to like/respect him to feel vindicated? That's going to end interestingly. I wonder what it looks like from the outside, that his team watch their backs around him and eye him like he'll do something, and he thinks it's normal. Do they they think it's funny that a Sanin can't get a bunch of kids to like him? Are they concerned that there is no teacher student bonds forming like is traditional and expected? What does it mean in konoha society for a genin student to fundamentally not trust their teacher? For the entire team to stand with them and close ranks with their Sensei on the outside? Idk I feel like people are going to form Opinions about it

LONG WINDED RESPONSE! warning you all now! will contain spoilers related to my characterization of jiraiya!

I really get the feeling that it never occurred to him that his students could not trust him.

jiraiya doesn't really understand what position these kids are coming from, nor does he understand on any deeper level What It Means to be a jonin teacher. or a teacher worthy of trust in general. this isn't me bashing him, i think that while he CAN be a fun and engaging teacher, he doesn't really respect the impact he has on these kids' lives.

with his sensei he already respected him simply because he was the hokage. and, on top of that, hiruzen was an agreeable affable person. he commanded respect easily and his students trusted him not to lead them astray (at least while they were genin). jiraiya has taken this dynamic for granted and believes that to be the default. it is not.

as for the ame orphans, he was ALL THEY HAD. his mercy in choosing to teach them ingratiated them significantly more to him from the get go. this isn't the case for his genin team. his genin team just got some random guy who everyone says is strong, and now they're having to feel him out for if he's a good person and good teacher.

Was he doing the immature equivalent thing of trying to one up a kid as an f u to his childhood rival? Does he want Seiko to like/respect him to feel vindicated? That's going to end interestingly.

for jiraiya, i think what he did was totally normal and fine. yeah she's just a pipsqueak genin, but she's advanced for her age. she can handle a little spar.

in my head, jonin and chunin do use spars as a private space to check on each other, to check each other's loyalties too. shinobi are always more honest with a weapon in hand, the saying goes. so jiraiya just sees this as a opprotunity to privately ask if seiko knows what he and the hokage thinks she knows.

spoiler:

the hokage did not ask jiraiya to figure it out in the way jiraiya did. the hokage just mentioned that he suspected she knew, and that he wanted to know if she did or not. that sort of thing is important to accommodate for considering no one else in kushina's age group is aware of what she is. ill go over this in a later chapter, but there's your answer to if the hokage is trying to scare poor seiko half to death.

What does it mean in konoha society for a genin student to fundamentally not trust their teacher? For the entire team to stand with them and close ranks with their Sensei on the outside? Idk I feel like people are going to form Opinions about it

:)

ty for your ask!!

i love getting asks its like i got a little letter from a friend who lives far away and who's asking after me and my children's health. very very fun. lmk if you have any other ideas or thoughts about the kids! or of the side characters like the ino-shika-cho trio. im excited to write more of them.

[franzzz-writes]

heat wave — ( uh-oh! pony's sick... )

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intro + reqs rules here | reqs open ! . word count: 1,206 . genre(s): sickfic, fluff | sfw (non-smut) ! warnings: being sick, mentions of being nauseous (but not vomiting). . a/n: YIPPEE,, i'm back and i changed the style of the blog. like, tried to make the posts look aesthetically nicer i got sick a few days back, and decided to write about it, lol. ponyboy sickfics are my reason to live, so here i am, writing one myself (i just like making the curtis suffer) ( ๑‾̀◡‾́) also! let's thank my brother bc he always does my beta reading (he has no idea who the outsiders characters are. he just laughs at their names and corrects my grammatical/logical mistakes)

──────────────── ୨୧ ──────────────── Today, the heat hit Pony like a slap in the face.

And the funny part was how in reality, it wasn't that hot outside. The real hell was the one one felt inside the Curtis house, because it was small and the walls encapsulated all the heat intensely.

So, you could say; "just go sit in the yard, problem solved", and you'd be right. But it wasn't a possibility for everyone. Because Pony, who lived with low blood-pressure in general, and was very sensible to the hot, already felt too bad to get out of the couch. It started as a headache, normal for a person like him. He attributed it to the heat of the house and continued with his drawing as he enjoyed The Wizard of Oz. He had waited practically all year for it to be on TV again, and he wasn't going to miss it. He could shout "I'm fourteen!", "I'm fourteen!" all he wanted, but he thought it was an entertaining movie. Plus, he loved musicals. Besides, it wasn't every day that a movie came on TV.

But the pain got worse and worse. And with the pain, it came the dizziness. Now he was too weak to get up from the couch and go splash his face with cold water from the sink, or to serve himself a glass of water. He knew that the moment he did, he'd pass out.

Great! The youngest Curtis took a deep breath. It was okay, he was used to it, he shouldn't over-worry.

Soda came out of their shared room, and sat on the couch. He had overheard the movie, and thought it sounded interesting enough.

"Heya, Pony." he greeted with his eyes glued to the screen. He managed to eye the notebook and scattered color pencils on the coffee table and decided to ask, "What are you drawing?"

"Nothin'." oh, right, if it wasn't Ponyboy My-drawings-are-a-private-topic Curtis. That, and he felt too weak to engage a conversation with anyone at the moment.

"Hmm, nothin'." Sodapop repeated, and started to pay attention to the almost-at-its-end movie.

— Time passed, maybe five minutes, and he didn't felt any better. In fact, it only got worse. Maybe he should say something. You know, before he passed out. But Pony hated being a burden or interrupting people, specially when he could deal with the problem himself.

Could he, though?

"...My head hurts." he mumbled, and Soda didn't reply, he didn't hear. Fuck. Now he had to repeat himself, louder. Having to made him feel worse, he already used all his strength to say it, and he had to do it again.

This time, he tried tapping his brother's shoulder. Once, nothing. Again, now Soda turned to look at him with a smile that asked 'yeah?'

"...My head hurts." Soda's expression softened. "Your head?" Ponyboy nodded. "It's the heat. Hurt like in what?" "Like in I-can't-rise-my-head-because-I-feel-like-my-brain-is-shaking-inside-my-skull." Dramatic as always, Pony. Never change. Soda chuckled gently at his answer and asked a new question, "Do you want some water?"

"Yes, please." So, Soda got up and walked to the kitchen. He grabbed a glass, poured some water in it, and walked back to the couch where Pony now lied instead of sitting.

He thanked Soda and took some sips. He considered that maybe, the heat wasn't the full culprit of his discomfort. The last time he ate a meal was in the morning, when he had breakfast. It was the evening now, and he hadn't taken lunch. Why? "He wasn't hungry" and Darry was already too irritated by the heat to argue with Pony about food; "Do whatever you want, but don't come whinin' at me when you feel sick about it."

Talking about Darry, he had something do do. Something related to work. Some meeting or special thing or whatever. The point is, he wasn't home for now.

Soda sat back with a sigh. He eyed at Pony with worry before going back to the film. If he needed anything, he just needed to say it.

Pony gave the halfway-drank glass to Soda so he could leave it on the coffee table. He felt too dizzy to do even that.

— The movie had finished, now on the screen there were only its credits.

His stomach hurted, he felt it churning inside him. But he didn't want to vomit, it was just an uncomfortable feeling he knew was just that, a feeling. Somehow, he was sure he wasn't going to vomit.

"Feelin' any better?"

"No." Pony replied, his voice whiny.

"Why don't'cha drink more water?" he was already leaning over to hand him the glass, but he noticed it was empty.

"I don't want you to get up just to get me water." and Soda thought it was the silliest thing ever. His lips curved into a warm smile, and he said "Don't worry" in a voice so genuine, Pony had no reason to think Soda was just saying it to be polite. He meant it for real.

His water was delivered again, and Pony gladly took a new sip. He left it on the floor himself this time.

Maybe sleeping it off would work, he thought. He closed his eyes and attempted to. Soda was being incredibly silent, so it made the job easier. But after some minutes, he realized trying was useless. His head hurted too much, and the feeling on his stomach worsened.

Soda kept checking on him from time to time, and Pony, with the same whiny tone, insisted on not feeling any better.

—

The hours passed, the TV kept broadcasting shit, and the temperature only increased.

Luckily for a Soda who was trying his best in being a responsible older brother, and a sick Pony who was getting frustrated, Darry opened the front door and showed up.

"Hey, you." he smiled. But he was quick to notice Pony wasn't exactly okay. "Feelin' good, honey?"

"He says his head hurts." Soda shrugged. "It's because it's hot."

"A moment at the yard and he'll feel alright. It's hotter inside." Darry shook his head, and got closer to Pony, placing a careful hand on his forehead. Thankfully, he didn't have a fever.

That was good.

The oldest sighed. "...I'm gonna go make dinner. And you'll eat." his tone left no room for discussion. But it wasn't like Pony felt like arguing neither. With or without the authoritative tone, he was going to eat anyway.

Darry walked away, to take a shower and leave his things in his room. Once he was ready, he began to keep his promise in the kitchen. Soda remained by Pony's side, playing with his hands and insisting on looking at the kid's drawings. Pony just kept saying no. Whatever, man, I didn't want to look at them anyways...

—

With the time, Pony closed his eyes again. And this time, he did fall asleep.

Darry really wanted him to eat, starving himself would make him worse. But Pony's face, reflected by the dim light of their TV, looked calm and innocent. Like if he was having a nice dream.

He needed the rest, food could wait a bit more... He'd just make him eat as soon as he woke up and problem solved.

──────────────── ୨୧ ────────────────

. today's fic question: should i write more curtis brothers content? 🤍

[funnier-as-a-system]

Hiii. Not sure if this even counts as a question to be fair, nor is this a funny suggestion, but like.

For my final project in college I'm kind of making a game concept about plurality (as a system host myself) and uhm long story short I guess.

I made two characters-alters, one of which is female and the other is male, and the teacher who curates my project was like (super paraphrased) "I'm getting some romantic connotations here and I think we shouldn't show people that you can literally date yourself, cuz that seems super unhealthy" and he then backed down a bit and was like "well it's not really normal so maybe think about that some more".

And so like. The concept I'm making is based on the complicated relationship between me and my co-host. I am heavily basing the characters on me and that co-host, I am heavily using the issues we had in our relationship, to hopefully be able to show people who are new to plurality that you shouldn't treat your alters the way me and my co-host treated each other before, because THAT is what was unhealthy.

All of which is to say, right now I am married to that co-host and I'm very happy about that, but my teacher's words quite hurt me. Like I literally don't even understand what could be so unhealthy about in-system dating. How rare even is that? Is my perception of in-system dating just that skewed, since nearly all our alters are in a relationship with each other? Most importantly, am I faki-

(Also, by saying that, the teacher inadvertently recommended me to make it a gay ship. Lol? I wish I could make one of the characters an enby like me and avoid the issue entirely, but I can't) (My husband The Co-Host said that the teacher is just rude)

There's nothing inherently unhealthy about intrasystem dating. I've found most people who claim it's "unhealthy" actually mean "I find it weird and I can't distinguish between my personal discomfort and something that's actually bad." – a frustrating argument, but one we're familiar with, and one that should largely be ignored unless you're looking to engage in an educational discussion with someone who holds this view. Others claim it is unhealthy because it "encourages division/dissociation between headmates", but this is largely based on the idea that headmates having any sort of personal identity or self-identification gets in the way of achieving final fusion, which has its own flaws as an argument, including final fusion not being the goal or healthiest option for all systems, as well as ignoring that [harmful] dissociation may increase if a headmate does not have any sort of personal identity to distinguish themselves from the rest of their system with. In short, the arguments against intrasystem dating tend to boil down to "I think this is bad for you because it doesn't fit into what I think people should do", which only shows one's own close-mindedness.

Since plurality is an unfamiliar concept to most people, they don't have the experience necessary to distinguish between genuine red flags and something niche that just takes time to get used to the idea of. Intrasystem dating is niche, but it's no more inherently unhealthy than other kinds of niche dating, like t4t partnerships. The same argument has been used against polyamorous relationships for being similarly uncommon and going against what people expect of relationships (particularly romantic ones), but those are not inherently unhealthy either; it goes to show that people will reuse the same arguments against any kind of relationship they do not approve of, rather than taking a step back and considering for themselves if a particular relationship dynamic is inherently unhealthy. While intrasystem dating can be unhealthy, it is not inherently so just due to the relationship dynamic.

When backing down, your teacher said intrasystem dating is "not really normal", and that truly is the crux of this argument. People do not like that which does not fall neatly into their understandings of "normal", and think anything that isn't normal is automatically bad. This is untrue. I would say to hold strong to your original vision for your project, not just for yourself/ves, but because refusing to fall in line and pretend to be "normal" is how we achieve progress. Even if your teacher doesn't change his mind, your work may introduce the concept to someone else, making it less unfamiliar (more familiar) and more normal to them, leading to more people understanding and accepting not just systems in general, but intrasystem dating specifically.

Speaking of, to answer your question, while intrasystem dating is uncommon, I don't believe it's especially rare – I could name several of our headmates right now who are in a polyamorous partnership with each other, as well as a handful of other couples. We've known many other systems who have had some or all headmates dating each other. It's not the most common topic to talk about in the community, but it is certainly a topic frequent enough to be brought up from time to time.

Your teacher was rude and incorrect. I have sympathy for the hurt you feel because of his pluralphobic words, and I hope you're able to feel better about this incident soon. Remember, staying true to yourself will almost always feel better than hiding who you are for the comfort of others, so if you feel safe enough to go for it, push onward and continue your work with all its authenticity and intrasystem dating included. I wish you luck in your game development and your final project!

[hoiststowline]

I literally was just reading that comic with Blades and Aid lol, I love them

Imagine being the protectobot base human liaison, if you will. Working alongside them in a world where maybe humans and bots have come to co exist over the years like some of the shows

Spending time organizing files and doing admin work with Hot Spot (both getting lectured by Aid to take breaks if they’ve been overworking, but it’s lighthearted, he just cares) Spots appreciates the company while working, and enjoys the earth music you play and hum, engaging in conversation about your lives prior to this hot mess you’ve come to love. I think he’d be reserved about his life before, but getting to know him better and spending time with him causes his outer shell to crack

But also living at base with them, would be so. much. fun. Imagine bringing all kinds of human entertainment and trying to help these probably very traumatized mechs live a bit more like how they’re used to. Or at least a bit easier

Was reading your monopoly moment with Rook, Groove and Blades and can’t stop thinking about what other human entertainment they would like. Uno gets banned so fast, don’t even BRING Mario kart into this base, lmao. I think Spots or Streets being uncharacteristically bad at at DRIVING game would be hilarious

Blades laughing his ass off for once, like he ever drives. Groove and Rook absolutely losing it at how unrealistic it is. “That’s not how drifting works!” Spots is happy to see everyone let loose for the first time in? how many cycles has it been? These human games might be magic.

Humor me, I hc that soft things are considered a huge luxury on Cybertron normally, let alone during the war, so when you bring them a bunch of big blankets you’d just bought, freshly washed and smelling comfortingly like the person they’ve grown so familiar with? You’ve got bots wrapped around your finger. (Platonic or otherwise, however you wanna interpret is fine with me:)

Even knowing they can’t use human food the same way and still require energon, I personally hc they’d at least try some human foods for the flavor and camaraderie of enjoying meals together. They’d caught you cooking/baking for them, just cause you wanted to share something nice with them? It’s over

You make something for someone’s individual taste, maybe for what your human culture would call a ‘birthday’ (though it got lost in translation the first time you brought it up, lol, “Berth day? What does that even-?”) their spark is melting, so flattered and happy you’d gone out of your way to share a custom with them AND put in effort to make them something? Knows you can’t make energon goodies like they’re used to due to its radioactivity, but you still found something they like and made it- I’m crying

Explaining human culture to the bots. The first time you reference a meme they’re looking at you confused, Groove starts laughing and now you’re stuck explaining the joke to everyone, lmao

Great I have fic ideas now YIPEEE

so so so good omg !! loving every moment of this.

it is a good issue & good interaction between the two of them!

they definitely become attached very, very quickly. because having someone who is wiling to help and has compassion is a drastic change from the dynamics they’re accustomed to (at least in a stranded-type scenario). it wouldn’t take very long for the reader to have them all wrapped around their finger, haha.

it’d be funny because they don’t realize you’re learning stuff just as much as they are. you have no idea what anything is that they actually need, but whatever you have access to/are in possession of is welcome to them. your sleep schedule?? wdym you have to sleep for eight hours every day? and on the other hand, they can go much longer without having to rest.

Groove hangs on every word you say about anything regarding your culture. Blades listens too, but pretends that he doesn’t care because he doesn’t want to sit through the teasing from Groove about it. he likes listening to you explain things, and sometimes you’re graced with his explanation of how Cybertronians would do it.

for sure would have a lot of explaining to do at first, in any situation. lots of confused looks and “huhs”. any jokes really fly right over their heads, sometimes sarcasm too.

I love these!! so much fun to read, I love it!! thank you always for letting me yap ab these guys!!!

yay! for your fic ideas, tag me or lmk! 🫶 i'd love to read it if you post!!

[phantomthiefgaige]

What if Chihiro Fushimi Joined SEES (Part 2)

Had to rewatch the P3 ending to amp myself up to do this. Don’t mind the tears…or the river of em flowing through the post. That’s normal. Anyway. This part will be covering some misc stuff like School life, minor changes, and right up to the June full moon operation. With that being said. Lets get into it.

TW//Bullying

“SOTERIA!!!”

Soteria is Chihiro Fushimis persona. The goddess of safety and salvation, deliverance, and preservation from harm…funny that she will exactly USE harm to protect others from it.

While Soteria does learn spells like Tetrakarn and Makarakarn and some defensive increasing skills. That’s not all her Persona can do.

This persona is well known for its high magic stat, but more importantly…she’s the teams nuke button.

Her most upgraded move besides the Agi skill line is the Megi skill line. For those who don’t remember. Megi moves are pure almighty damage, a damage type that can’t be blocked.

Why did I decide to give the terrified nervous wreck a nuke? Cause I thought it would be funny. Don’t worry, it drains her magic fast so you can’t go spamming it. You’re gonna have to actually use her fire skills until much later on when she gets an sp cost reduction skill.

Soteria is best described appearance wise as a graceful looking woman with angelic wings yet in her hands are a giant shield and a crackling hand mixed with agi and megi effects. She’d have some unique patterns on her arms and would have her eyes covered by a flower crown.

Now enough about Chihiros Persona, lets see how this girl is with the rest of the teammates and what she does outside of battle.

Of course she’s still the student council treasurer so she’s in there with Mitsuru from time to time but really, it’s more of a “friendly business partners” relationship rather than a true genuine sisterly friendship for right now.

Now on the other end of things are her dorm-mates. Yukari is often really close with Chihiro. She talks to her quite often about her mangas and how club meetings go while Yukari just listens or at least tries to act engaged at the very least.

Yukari can be a bit protective of her but not often. Just helping at times when she gets too nervous around Akihiko. Other times though, despite Chihiros protests, she throws the girl to the wolves with one particular man to help her overcome her fears. That one man is…

Junpei….is…an interesting case with Chihiro. They both like manga and nerdy things at times so besides the male fear thing, you’d think they’d be the best of friends. Well, kinda. She’s too nervous right now to fully hang out with him and watches from a corner usually. Often wondering how he has so much time to slack on his studies when she’s seen his exam scores. She’d reprimand him if she had the courage to…

Yukari is definitely gonna help this girl slightly tolerate this man if it kills her.

Or at least have her join the “Stupei, Ace Defective” roasting club.

Both options work too.

Chihiro doesn’t have much to talk about with Akihiko. If Junpei was a bit much for her at this level, then a guy who talks about getting stronger and fighting with, to her, not much in common is gonna put her off a bit more…but then again, she seems fine with Hidetoshi so who knows? Maybe they’ll be better friends in the near future.

Insert Makoto Yukis/Door Doors social link here.

What? You thought I was gonna write something for Makoto now? It’s basically going the same as her SL. They’re friends and she likes being around him.

…

…

…

Okay fine, maybe I’m planning something but you’ll have to wait until later in the story. For now. They’re friends. Like…rank 4 at best.

In the overworld, Chihiro can often be seen staring at Bookworms, thinking of going in. Heck maybe even considering asking for a part time job, this girl surrounded by books would think it’s a dream job.

She can also be spotted around the mall, checking out the CD shops or wondering if maybe someday Makoto will take her into Club Escapade…but she’s gotta get her own courage in check so we’ll check in on this subplot later.

At night, there is a rare chance that you won’t be able to use the computer there because Chihiro’s on it.

She’s either gonna be studying or looking at this weird new webcomic. It’s apparently about a boy and his three friends playing a video game? You aren’t sure yet because all you see is a boy kissing his poster goodbye while his friend plays the violin. It’s weird but hey, nobody said she can’t have weird interests.

Now that the current dorm life is out of the way, lets get into the story this time.

A reason Yukari may be a bit protectivr if Chihiro is because she’s been hearing about this currently being bullied by three girls.

It’s really starting to piss her off actually. But she bites her tongue for right now.

Most of May and such plays out as normal but instead of the ghost hunting team being just you, Yukari and Junpei, this girl gets in on it too…she wishes she wasn’t because she didn’t know wether to be afraid of ghosts or Junpei in the dark, or confused by how laughable his missing girl story was.

Nevertheless she joins their investigation with some reluctance…mainly Yukari saying it’ll help her.

For once though when they decide to go to the sketchy alleys of Port Island Station at night, she’s siding with Junpei in possibly wanting to back out.

Dear lord the girl was not only not made for scared, but for seeing Junpei get headbutted by a terrifying guy while being harassed by others.

And then there’s Shinji…

Poor girl just about fainted when she saw him. He’s downright terrifying. He seems nice but the poor gi-oh…she passed out. Poor thing.

When she gets back to the dorm she’s out for the whole night, cuddling with a pillow from fear…yeah Yukari may need to apologize later to her for doing that.

Weirdly enough though, the fact she felt like she “survived” something like that feels a bit relieving in her. Like she CAN do scary stuff and will be braver…eventually. For now though. Fuukas case takes high priority.

Hearing this Fuuka girl was getting bullied by Natsuki was bad enough, learning she could be dead is slightly pissing her off…then she learns Mr. Ekoda hid this information from everyone…someone hold this girl back she’s gonna take her paper fan and jam it down his throat.

Thankfully she heard Mitsuru got to him but she’s still pissed. Who knew this sweetheart could have a tipping point that deep.

It doesn’t make her fear into a hatred thankfully, I mean…seeing Junpei get knocked down at the station made her feel scared sure but like she wanted to help and just felt powerless…maybe that’s why when he heard this girl was being bullied and her missing status was hidden was what caused her to lose her cool for a little.

Come the time to save them, she begs Makoto to please go with him to save Fuuka. She feels like she needs to meet this girl.

He doesn’t care

But she’s in the party with Aki and Junpei.

In retrospect, not a good idea for her but she’s holding back her fear to save this woman.

Authors realization: OH SHIT, I FORGOT HOW SHE FEELS ABOUT NATSUKI!!!!

So with Natsuki she feels, understandably, upset that she would bully this girl and locked her up. Though she does promise she’ll help find Fuuka.

Now back in Tartar Sauce, she’s slightly relieved yet worried to be split from the all guys party. When she finds Makoto though, she’s much calmer. When they find Fuuka though…dear lord this girl is so glad she’s alive.

Then she sees Mitsuru and Yukari are down for the count and hey, she can actually do damage to them…it’s weak damage though. If only there were some persona user who could read enemies weaknesses an- oh Fuuka did it.

The rest of the story here mainly plays out as normal.

Now with Fuuka on the team, how are she and Chihiro gonna get along?

Dear lordy, these two are like sisters. Scared, timid, shy, other similar words can best describe them to a T.

Fuuka looks up to Chihiro as her Senpai while Chihiro looks up to her as someone much smarter than her.

These two have a lot of study sessions together and it’s sort of the opposite of Yukari so far.

Instead of having Chihiro try and work past things asap, she’s more into having her take her time and do things at her own speed.

They even suggest starting a manga/book club too.

Fuuka isn’t fully into Mangas? Well by golly Fuuka will try for her new friends sake

And this is where we end for this part. Sorry it’s a bit sloppy and has so much run offs, it’s unorganized and all over the place. Okay a lot more work is needed but there was a lot to go over and I set my ambitions a bit high. I’ll try and organize things a bit better next time and make things more coherent.

Special thanks to my co-author @maze-of-my-design for the relationships list for this gal and helping with ideas for this series.

Hope you enjoyed reading it y’all.

[itsdeathofabachelor]

Remember the post I made about Jotaro being the same level of fucked up as Kakyoin but in different ways? I think I need to give examples because I have a very distinct thing in my brain I need all of you people to grasp to some extent here.

Jotaro is fucking huge. Ginormous for no reason considering he very likely hadn’t had the time to work out in between beating the shit out of local gang members, dashing and dining, and being a bitch to his mother. But because he hasn’t really been in a setting with a bunch of people with similar physiques as him, he has no idea how to act outside of being ‘cool’. Like, he sees no point in flaunting how he looks so he doesn’t, unlike with someone who, say, worked at their body image for months.

So I am being dead serious when I say Holly didn’t make him a school lunch one time (she had such a bad flu bug she couldn’t get out of bed) Jotaro skips all of his classes, entire day ruined. He goes out to the convenience store, red faced, puffy eyed, and shoves a packet of donuts down his shirt. No one even fucking notices. He eats all of them and cries, it’s so fucking funny.

I should probably mention, Kakyoin is one hundred percent the only one who Jotaro could give less of a shit seeing him do this. So he’s there, gingerly explaining the breeding cycles of salmon and trout in hopes of engaging Jotaro’s autism enough so he doesn’t choke and fucking die around the three donuts he shoved in his mouth.

So, six foot five, bulging muscles, could pop a can of tomatoes open if he put it in between his thighs and squeezed slightly, having a breakdown under a tree somewhere in a national park, defeated. A red haired, twitchy twunk drawing with a stick in the ground saying some shit like, ‘you can tell it’s a type of mammal because of its fin bones, even if it’s exclusively in the water now— please slow down Jojo I really don’t want you to throw up again’.

No, like, he’s a mess all the time but would rather die than be around literally anyone when he has that ‘calm before the storm’ meltdown feeling. So he just sort of shows up at Kakyoin’s doorstep like a stray and lays on his bedroom floor for three hours. Sometimes he falls asleep and Kakyoin uses him as a backrest because he always chooses to be face first directly in front of his Atari and Kakyoin wants to play his games.

Kakyoin’s mother one hundred percent thinks Jotaro is some dangerous delinquent who is going to put her son into a grave, life or death peer pressure situation until she sees Jotaro being dragged out of the house by his ankles with an out of breath Kakyoin carting both their bags under one arm, Jotaro’s coat over one shoulder, and Jotaro’s foot in both his hands. Like, ‘We have a math test. I need good grades. I am not explaining to Miss Holly why you have to retake highschool’.

And Jotaro’s completely limp, like three hundred fucking pounds of pure muscle, wearing a tank top, face down with his hat brim dragging on the floor. He looks fucking dead. He looks like a dead fucking rat. And Kakyoin’s mother no longer has nearly as many worries about Jotaro but also is forever cursed with the knowledge that, even if she were to gossip to her book club about it, they would never believe her.

Also, she’s seen Jotaro cry three separate times on the kitchen floor as Kakyoin makes his grilled cheese in the shapes of dolphins because his favourite cereal changed their packaging or Sadao calls and he’s just losing it in a puddle of tears. He never mentions it again and literally goes back to normal like nothing had happened.

He could beat the shit out of a whole biker gang, spear and set their leader on fire, all stoic and angry and totally badass. Everything falls into place with perfectly timed catchphrases and comebacks, but he’ll still be at Kakyoin’s house, twenty minutes later, face down infront of his Atari. And Kakyoin will use him as a back rest to play his games.

[holofoiltowercard]

The Journey of The Tarot Haiku

V: The Hierophant - Doing it my way

That title speaks more to the reversed Hierophant, who was actually the star of the show at one time during the process of preparing my manuscript for publication, so I decided to dedicate this post to that funny anecdote, but I also wanted to talk about how it fits into my life in general.

Ever since I was little, I have been doing things differently. My mom once told me, "After two kids, I thought I knew what to expect. You blew that out of the water." After two fairly normal siblings, my family found me somewhat incomprehensible, but because I was really good at drawing, soaked up any English I heard like a sponge and did well in school, it was put down as a case of having a quirky genius on their hands. Looking back, I would not call myself that, and I don't really wish the curse of being considered gifted on any child: it really messes with everyone's expectations, including your own. Whenever I fell short, I was devastated. But I never did stop, because as it turned out, my way of perceiving the world and interacting with it was simply different from other people's, and I followed what my inner compass told me was the right direction. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't, but live and learn.

I always loved creative projects, and spent over twenty years doodling compulsively, and writing the odd poem here and there. I wanted to write books, and even now when I ask myself, what do you wish you could do with your life, my answer is that I would love to write stories and share them - despite that, for the longest time, writing simply didn't happen, and I actually started earnestly, and in English, in my late twenties. I had my confidence in my storytelling shattered a few times in the course of my life, and because I could draw, everyone was encouraging that, but to me drawing was partly a way to keep my hands busy; the only way I could pay attention at school was drawing in textbooks and notebooks (needless to say my teachers kind of hated that). As I got more comfortable with writing, I stopped drawing as much, and now I rarely do unless I'm asked or I'm engaging with a project where I need to draw - such as this book.

Once I started writing the poems in earnest, I could tell that they had the potential of becoming a book, and I got very excited. It could have been a more standard poetry book that features only text, but I was more ambitious than that. I love a good illustration, so I made illustrations after my own vision, but above all, as soon as I thought of the layout you have to physically turn about to reverse the card in the middle and reveal the poem attached to it, I knew I had to go with that. I only learned in the last stages of preparing my manuscript that what I devised was called "ergodic literature", and felt really glad that I had a proper expression to describe what I had done.

In the layout I was confident; in the process of self-publishing, not so much. I actually consulted the Tarot a lot once I made up my mind to publish. I asked what dates I ought to aim for as the publication date; I asked what I could expect if I published here or there; and as I was preparing the document with Kindle Create, I kept asking the cards if it was going to go well in its current state. I was starting to get reversed cards, and got so frantic I actually went to consult guide books to suss out the meaning better. It was in this state that, for the paperback, I drew a new card, and got The Hierophant reversed. Again, I was already kind of jittery and unfocused, and went to the guidebook... which basically said, "Stop asking others for approval and just trust yourself."

It was hilarious. I laughed heartily, and I submitted.

A day later the paperback version was rejected... because of the upside down text. Turns out Kindle Direct Publishing does not allow that in print, even if it is ergodic literature. The support person I emailed was very kind and apologetic, but there it was: having upside down text in print was unconventional and here it was not allowed. I thought back to The Hierophant reversed, and laughed again at how perfectly it captured the whole situation.

I ended up reformatting the book for paperback, so the ergodic layout disappeared, and each card was featured twice in order to show off the reversed cards under their respective poems. I am a visual thinker, and I also think it's just neater to see the cards actually in reverse position, and being able to ponder the poem and the imagery at the same time. Again, I've never come across a guide book in my studies that showed off the reversed card when discussing its reversed meaning, so I wanted to have it for my book. I guess here is where the upright Hierophant comes in: in the process of capturing the meanings in succinct little poems and attaching illustrations to them, I realized that the book could be used as a practical guide for beginners, and from there on I made a commitment to that. I'm glad that the ebook was allowed to retain its layout, because I really loved it, and this way it does feel more like a volume of poetry and the homage I had meant it to be, and at the same time I'm happy with the paperback and hardcover versions being more accessible, even if the reformatting sort of bloated the page count (bringing it from 113 pages to 190). I sincerely hope that anyone new to Tarot will find it insightful and fun.

Buy the ebook

Buy the paperback

Buy the hardcover

[consequencesofargentdawn]

You've been a thorn in my side for a long, long, long time now CoAD. A few screenshots of some things said in jest won't be enough to bring me down. Your blog has done nothing in the past few months apart from cause a few weak willed members to flee like the rats they are. Even though you've been trying to get into Shewp's head, he is far more resilient than a cretin like you gives him credit for.

The PCU is a -legion- and members are loyal. For every person that has left, more people have joined. CoAD will be too cowardly to post this, but know that the PCU is still growing stronger despite the claims made here. I want you to know that -I- like many others will very much be going down with the ship if you ever did happen to succeed (which you will not). You will never drive us from this server and we won't bow down by choice.

It will only be a matter of time before we find out who you and your editors. We know you have agents within the PCU as well, both old and new - they are being hunted within renewed effort and will be discovered and blacklisted for abetting you. You have had nothing more than a few 'minor' victories CoAD - the war is on going and there is only room for one of us in the future of Argent Dawn.

Hold on, let us get the 'how to deal with an internet tough guy' textbook.

Firstly, how is losing five guilds in four months doing for you? We found it rather funny that even after Grim Gest, Cleft of Shadow and Ardent Pursuit merged with their opposite faction counterpart ( We thought neutral RP was bad! ) These guilds have continued to lose numbers rather than gain them.

More on the PCU census soon actually, keep an eye open sports fans.

The PCU is anything but legion and loyal. Considering a majority of our contributions come from members or ex members disaffected with what is happening. A failed vanity project with its founder now actively trying to pull people off WoW. Guild leaders and officers repeatedly shown to engage in threats of violence and being sex pests. "THREE HUNDRED MEMBERS STRONG" is now barely down to about 30 active members at any major PCU event, the size of a normal guild.

Twenty five failed guilds, of which twenty have gone dead since Perroy fell off the radar last year. Your guild leaders are insulating themselves or outright abandoning ship. Vitsaus nervously stops advertising his guild as PCU in trade chat, all of your elf guilds have imploded spectacularly. Talirei(Azure Dawn), Lunarglade(Eternal Sisterhood) have ran off to make pseudo-PCU guilds with their loyal followers (The Sunspear and House Bemoux respectively). Even the nominal leader of the PCU, Gruggosh has made an insurance guild on the Alliance as the Sword of Triumph.

We fully expect the likes of you (either Coalburnt or a Grim Gang stooge writing this) to go down with the ship in emulation of your primary inspiration. Der Untergang of the PCU is already inescapable at this point and the whole server knows, we're just watching and waiting for the last rants of the PCU 'Endsieg' to whimper out.

So please, do continue showing yourselves to be the biggest clown convention Argent Dawn has ever known, please do continue to bully and harass your own members for non-compliance and ideological impurity. Please do continue to try and fail miserably at identifying 'big bad CoAD' and showing how much we live rent free in your heads. You only show the rest of us what kind of sick and demented people exist inside the PCU, so obsessed with image and control and unable to fathom people enjoying their hobby in a way they dislike.

[limpfisted]

@hlfcorpse [ I NEED YOU LIKE A CHILD NEEDS A BLANKET, A NIGHT LIGHT, A GHOST STORY BY THE FIRE, A PICTURE BOOK WITH HEROES WHO LOOK JUST LIKE ME, AN IMAGINARY FIEND. / verse: seventeen. ]

Wyll Ravengard, banished son, the Pride of The Gate, a child prodigy, a genius with a blade and with the ladies and gentlemen of the court of proper ages in the ballroom, who scored high marks in all his tests but never quite made his Father proud.... enough of the time----has only ever learned two things in his life that have mattered even an iota in this blasted desert called "the real world."

One. That everything sucks, all the time, forever. It's just really hard. Even if Wyll wasn't half-blind---the world would still look too big, and home too far away. Cooking would be hard even if he knew how to grip the knife right, considering all his studies of law and poetry and history failed to give him anything but a fine palate, fine tastes, and burnt Jerkey and Cheese. And a blade? Forget it. He can barely defend himself with a proper weapon. Not that he hasn't tried fighting everything he can get his hands on.

(A new power courses through him like an electric current in a storm, just as shocking. Such a thrill, such a delight, so scary but so perfect, sculpting Heaven's blessings from Hell's damnation, he'd be dead without Mizora, running into battles testing out his new mettle like this, but he can't stop himself, and if he can't fight at all---he'd rather be dead.)

Two. Demons don't deserve to live. They're evil scum. Monsters, that exist to torment. If Mizora calls him a stinker one more time, he'll end her AND himself with her!

And yet. That is the source of his power. Those are the only people he can share this intimate, perfect, practical secret with.

Part of him knows that to get better and stop sucking at everything, he needs to practice more. He needs to stop relying on his new powers in fights, he needs to train, even at just basic life skills, like his Father always said, two hundred percent harder than he did yesterday, always better, always moving forward, never falling behind.

But another part of him is so lonely sometimes he catches himself trying to engage in conversation with Mizora, of all NOT-people. He's always been... apart from everyone. His Father kept him too busy to make friends, and then Wyll always felt... different, when he wasn't outright impressing people, like he just had more to prove, and more he had to say, to be... cared for.

But he's never felt like... like he doesn't deserve to be looked at, until now. Until his Father---

Needless to say, when you can't look at yourself in the mirror, its hard to talk to other travelers, and far easier to talk to the many demons you stumble across in your travels. (The bastards are crawling all over the place if you know where to look, and they all find Wyll's attempts to kill them "funny" despite the fact that Wyll is a very thick and muscular seventeen, and has already taken down many bandits, in addition to the original twenty-five cultists, where he SAVED Baldur's Gate, thank you very much!)

One such demon recommended this place, outside of Baldur's Gate, far enough away that Wyll felt.... not comfortable, but more comfortable, even looking halfways in its direction. A church, in which he is told he will find everything he needs.

The outside of it is a dusty charcoal black compared to the setting sun outside as he approaches. He's dealt with--or at least, dipped his blade in the arcane, now, but it still makes him scowl to look at it. Who put this demon's nest in such a pretty spot? How can darkness suck in all the light so easily? He doesn't want to go in. (He does. He wants to know who he is, now. He wants to know what this longing to go in means.)

Inside is just as dusty, and as dark. He resists the urge to cough, instead just sniffs and wipes the back of his hand across his nose. Is that a demons scent? Or just the dust of old books? Behind the all-too normal pews, past the statues and strange trinkets, there are bookcases.

...

Is that IT?

Wyll rolls his eyes and mutters curses, shaking his head, folding his arms, every bit the sullen teenager. He's been had. How can he study diligently the way his Father always taught him to, as knowledge is just as much power as strength, as the Good Duke always said----if there is nothing substantial to study? He doesn't even spot the demon he was supposed to look fo---

Oh. That must be him. There's an aura of... slime to him, unbefitting of a priest. He looks like he does sick things to puppies. If not for the darkness, Wyll swears he could see Mizora's reflection in his dark, shiny eyelids. It's not that he's ugly, far from it. But Wyll didn't think Mizora was ugly, either, and demons.... They're known for their seduction techniques. As if Wyll did not promise to his Mother with the full extent of his iron will that he would wait until marriage! He cannot be tempted! Do not try, demon!!!!!

(From an outsider's perspective, Wyll may appear to be standing there, seething, his breath getting heavier and heavier and his face getting meaner and meaner, even more haggard and tired and malnourished than he already looks, especially for a kid so young. But in his head? Wyll believes the battle has just begun. He's just waiting for his chance to strike.)

[mysticstarlightduck]

Happy WBW! <3 Kind of a niiiiche(?) question BUT are there any aspects/quirks of the main culture present in your WIP that any of your main character(s) just can't wrap their heads around? Any customs or habits that they don't really care for or don't make much sense to them? Do they engage in these customs anyways? :) - @liv-is

Thanks for the Ask, @girlfriend-champion!

This is a very interesting question! I guess that this will have many answers, and they can be funny, strange, and sad. In Agrannor - the world where my main WIP, The Last Wrath, takes place - there are many cultures, even within the grand Morosyn Empire and the many kingdoms of the Free Realms. I will answer according to the places where my characters have actually lived.

One of my characters, Darian Caelestis, grew up in the convoluted and complex kingdom of Ergyre (see this post for the main worldbuilding details about it: The Kingdoms of Agrannor - Kingdom of Ergyre, the Iron Thorn). This kingdom has many immoral and extremely evil quirks in its culture, which are considered "normal" by the ruling nobility that indulges in it (especially when it comes to the enslavement of elves). Darian is a very good person and an honorable individual, being the son of a rebel fighter, and he can never wrap his head around how corrupt his entire kingdom can be sometimes, and the things that they do. Darian would never engage in any of said activities, and openly refutes them, fighting against the crooked customs of his people.

On a happy note, Raelen Ashiren is Mageborn, an Agrannorian culture that is very unique from that of the non-magic humans, and she often has trouble understanding the many rituals her ancestors once did. She would like to try them out if she had the chance, to understand her past and her people better, but for now, she just has to stick to what she knows.

On a funny note, Emryc Thorne was born in the Storm Isles of the Lost Archipelago, and even though their culture is very sea-based, Emryc is humorously terrified of the sea and a terrible sailor. It is very funny.

There are many more characters, and I wish I could tell you about them all, but the post would become too long, lol. I hope that this has answered your Ask properly!

[photocut-ai]

Enhance Your Photos with a Free Smile Filter Online

Do you find that you simply cannot like being photographed? Have you felt more awkward, or it's just not your normal expression when someone takes your picture? Don't worry, for there's an easy and very amusing solution; change your photos into radiant, happy shots using a free smile filter on an online site. With the help of AI-based tools, such as PhotoCut's smile filter, you can easily add a perfect smile to any photo. You could go for a small, subtle grin or a wide, toothy smile.

Add a Smile to Your Photo Effortlessly

Those stiff, serious expressions are no longer necessary with photos. Now, with some advanced AI software, you could just add the brightest smile you've ever thought of to that photo, almost making it as if you never ceased smiling at something. Advanced AI smile makers, such as PhotoCut, let you load up your favorite picture and detect the face through its filter that would automatically stick on a natural smile. Within seconds your expression could be serious and then genuinely happy without you ever having to lift a finger!

Whether you want to make light adjustments or transform a more formal image into a warm radiating entity, adding a smile to your photo is only as hard as clicking a button.

Enhance Your Smile Image

If you want that extra smile enhancement, PhotoCut's AI beautification tools do the trick by fine-tuning your image from there. Through the smile filter, you're able to vary the brightness and color of the teeth, layer on a few touches of lip gloss, and even change the extent of the effect of the smile itself. The beauty tools help you improve your smile so that it looks even more vibrant and share-worthy, ensuring your photo looks the best it possibly can before sending it out to the world.

But that's not all, you can also customize the lighting, change the tone of your skin, or make subtle touch-ups to give yourself that perfect finish. That amount of control over your image is what will make you show off the most flattering version of yourself, customized to your preference.

Remove glare from your photos using PhotoCut’s glare remover.

Show Off Your Smiling Face on Social Media

It is now time to share your flawless smile once perfected. Social media sites like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat have made sharing a picture easily done. Now you can add a smile filter to share more joy, positive vibes, and good vibes as you brighten up someone's day instantly just by posting on your social site.

With a continuous move to add filters and special effects to increase the beauty of photographs, the smile will be natural. Whether you’re posting a selfie, a group photo, or a casual snapshot, your radiant, happy expression will ensure that your photos attract positive attention and engage your audience.

Learn to add your signature in a Word document.

Explore Different Expression Filters

The beauty of PhotoCut’s AI-powered filters doesn’t stop at smiles. Once you've added your perfect grin, you can experiment with other expression filters to create even more playful or creative images. Some can try a funny crying face, look surprised, or even see what you would look like if you were more youthful or older, considering the age filter. The options are endless as one can have fun taking pictures and expressing himself in so many different ways.

In addition to the smile filter, these fun expression transformations can help you get a new look with minimal effort. For example, if you want to see how you might appear with a more dramatic expression or want to try out a completely different appearance for fun, the app’s AI filters allow you to explore many styles with just a few clicks.

Design your cards online for free using PhotoCut’s card maker.

How to Use the Smile Filter

Getting the perfect smile in your photo is incredibly simple. Just follow these straightforward steps to enhance your image with a smile filter:

Click “Apply Free Smile Filter” to begin the process.

Upload your photo to the smile editor. You can upload an image from your gallery, or even take a fresh photo using your camera.

Let the smile filter do its magic. The AI will detect your face and automatically apply a smile that fits naturally with your features.

Use the teeth whitening tool and other beauty tools to perfect your smile if desired. Brighten up your teeth, apply lipstick, or fine-tune the intensity of the smile to match your preferences.

Preview your smiling image and see how it looks. Once you're satisfied with the result, you can share your happy photo on social media.

It’s that simple! With no complex steps or technical knowledge required, anyone can use these filters to enhance their photos and enjoy the fun of seeing themselves with a bright, confident smile.

Conclusion

You can now enjoy a free smile filter online. Such a smile filter will brighten up all the photos and videos, filling each shot with warmth and happiness. Whether it's posting to social media, enhancing personal images, or simply trying out fun filters, there's no limit. Just remember to use the filters thoughtfully, especially when it comes to professional or official representations. After all, the goal is to have fun, spread joy, and put your best foot forward in every photo!

Create your own Disney characters using PhotoCut’s Disney character generator.

FAQs 

Q1. What is a Smile Filter? Ans. A smile filter is an effect that is applied to a photo or video, smiling at the person or enhancing one. The effect uses AI and facial recognition to detect facial features and adjust them to create a smile, sometimes making the face look more joyous and emotive.

Q2. How does a Smile Filter work? Ans. Smile filters are based on advanced AI facial recognition algorithms that look at a face to analyze the key facial features of the photographed person. The algorithms quickly pick out the areas of the face such as the mouth and modify that to give a smile. The filter aims to maintain the natural look of the face while ensuring that the smile appears realistic and proportional.

Q3. Are Smile Filters free to use? Ans. Yes! Many apps and platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, offer smile filters for free. However, some advanced features, like detailed adjustments or premium effects, may require in-app purchases or subscriptions.

Q4. Can Smile Filters work on group photos? Ans. Absolutely! Most smile filters can detect and apply smiles to multiple people in a group photo, either automatically or by selecting individual faces to edit. This makes them great for family photos, group selfies, or any picture with multiple people.

Q5. Can I use Smile Filters on videos? Ans. Yes! Many apps and platforms now support real-time smile filters for videos. In whichever way you take the new video or in whichever case you record it and later on try editing, applying this filter is just sure to provide fun cheerful video shoots.

Q6. Are Smile Filters safe in terms of privacy? Ans. Most apps claim that they process images locally, which means that unless you choose to save those photos or decide to share them publicly, the pictures you upload are not stored on external servers. However, it's always a good idea to review privacy policies for any platform you use to ensure that you are comfortable with the handling of your photos and data.

Q7. Can Smile Filters misrepresent a person? Ans. While fun, smile filters can change a person's appearance. This might lead to the misrepresentation of emotions or expressions, especially when the filter exaggerates the smile. For others, this can affect how people perceive them on the internet, so it's essential to consider how you would use the filter in different settings.

Q8. Are Smile Filters ethical to use for professional profiles? Ans. Smile filters are entertaining when used informally, but they shouldn't be used on resumes or professional accounts like LinkedIn where authenticity is crucial. To prevent deceiving prospective employers or coworkers, it's critical that your photo accurately captures your genuine, unmodified look in business situations.

Q9. Do Smile Filters work on all devices? Ans. Smile filters are generally supported by most smartphone and tablet computers as well as some desktop photo editors. However, the experience might differ on your device based on its hardware and operating system. For an optimal experience, make sure your device meets the app's minimum requirements.

Q10. Why do Smile Filters sometimes look unnatural? Ans. Smile filters cannot be the best all the time because the light is not at the right places in the shot, or weird angles, and so on. Still, it depends on how good the initial picture is concerning the app's algorithm to make it out great.

[rivalkieran]

2, 7, 8, 13, 16, and 19 for viola scalibur :3?

wow so many

2. How long was the process before the character reached its final version? (or a version that would be clearly recognizable as the character?)

I dont think viola as she currently stands is her “final” version since all of my solisverse characterizations are subject to change forever and ever. and I cant exactly pinpoint when I moved from just going along with fanon to actively making hcs so like. LOL. I think it was around 3 years ago now that I first got the idea to make victor #depressed or whatnot and like.. 1-2-ish? years ago that violas “I hate fun” personality started showing up

7. What is an aspect of their appearance that you like the most?

THE VOID EYES NO CONTEST theyre so funny to me. they’re the first trait I locked in from the start of making victor a more solid character and they’ve stayed since

8. What is the origin of their personality? And let's be honest - how much of it is projecting?

since I hc gloria as a cringelord supreme I thought it’d be funny to make victor the exact polar opposite to her. viola’s personality is loosely based off of 1. this one guy I knew in like middle school that I found mildly annoying 2. redditors 3. cinemasins, or generally the people that “criticize” fiction and its just obvious they refuse to engage with the medium. Viola Scalibur if she existed in our world WOULD complain about that one swsh tree

13. Do you have a voice claim for the character? What do you imagine the character sounds like?

I dont have a solid voiceclaim that Im happy with for her yet but I imagine her to have like a really deep voice. deeper than that. deeper than that. with a little bit of vocal fry because especially post-story she is NOT putting in the effort to talk at a normal volume

16. Is there any memes or running jokes associated with the character, both in- and out of universe?

not in-universe but viola is definitely the subject of a lot of jokes w friends LOL. shes really easy to hate on considering her personality is based off of the archetype of people online that we all dislike. Tropes. Cinemasins ding

19. What is your general favourite thing about the character? What is your least favourite?

I think the way she interacts with her own narrative awareness is soooo interesting forever. and as for my least favorite thing its probably honestly just that post-story I have barely anything written for her character OOOOOPS OOOOPS thats my bad thoug

[talenlee]

Does Your World Have A Pride Parade?

Pride is a great event for corporations, people who pay artists to produce branding material that enables the transaction of currency for their products that just so happens to also include sick as hell fantastic and speculative art, to put Pride into the universes of their games. It’s been in my mind since Magic: The Gathering, a product line of the Wizards of the Coast corporation, an outcropping of the Hasbro Entity, released the truly sick art of Chandra Nalaar attending her Pride Parade, on her home world of Kaladesh.

And that prompted the immediate thought of: Did Kaladesh have Stonewall?

It’s a silly thought, of course. After all, Australia has Pride parades, in the vein of Mardi Gras, which are exactly what you think they are. We didn’t have Stonewall here and we have Mardi Gras here anyway. Of course, the question of ‘where did Mardi Gras come from’ and ‘who started it’ is uh, well, you might not be surprised to learn that yea, Mardi Gras was a protest. It was a peaceful protest against cops who were unjustly imprisoning then beating and abusing queer people. You know, normal cop stuff. Now cops insist they should be allowed to march in Mardi Gras, because they contribute to its history and have queer cops, which I think is crucially missing the point about their role in the start of the event.

Arseholes.

Anyway it’s not like events in different places that look similar have to be the result of the same events. But —

Hold up.

Here’s where one of the boundaries of my own experience as a person infringe on what I can create. See, I’m from a society that is shaped by attitudes that I think are kind of just bad. That informs the way I write about things like world building, and leads to me writing sentences like this that came up in the first draft and took some time to critically unpack: Celebrations are always the result of something awful.

That’s not necessarily true? It’s just every celebration in my society, every Pride parade is a stubborn refusal to die. Pride was a riot that started in response to police crackdowns. Just as every regulation under capitalism is written in blood – because nothing is being made and maintained to actually consider the best of humans but instead to maximise the value of efficiency of systems for the enabling in capital – every societal celebration I can think of is somehow a byproduct of something sad and tragic. Easter and Christmas, religious ceremonies are themselves only in their position in my community because of their value opposing diversity, asserting the dominance of the cultural hegemony.

That isn’t what things have to be, I don’t imagine.

They don’t have to be.

Right?

It’s just what I’m used to.

That meant I approached this article at first thinking that a Pride parade, in a setting respresented yes, a celebration, but to be Pride, to be a celebration of queer culture, then that queer culture had to have some kind of reason to form, which means that there’s a reason for that queer culture to be formed outside of the general structure of all the rest of what we call culture, and then there needs to be some reason to engage in a big celebration which, in the case of Pride, is a reflection of a retaliation against an attempt to extinguish that culture. Basically, Pride is defiance, and to be defiant, you need some kind of sign of what the defiance is against.

Which is funny in the case of the Magic: The Gathering art showing Nissa and Chandra at a pride parade, because, one, the reason the fans have feelings about that is after the botched handling of the War of the Spark plotline that represented Chandra in a way that feels like it needed a bit more attention from better queer writers. During this time, Wizards’ policy was restated and reinforced that in the context of their universes, there’s no homophobia: that is to say, villain or hero, there’s nobody calling anyone a fag or a dyke, there’s no distrust or legal reason to see queer people as different from nonqueer people. As a policy, this is fine, this is good work because it means the writers don’t have that option to represent oppression and won’t use a children’s card game as a platform to represent that kind of edgy stuff in a way that can be readily mishandled. I don’t mind that policy. The policy problem that follows with that is that then you show us Pride, in universe…

And I am asking: What’s that Pride in response to?

Why is there a parade?

Thing is you want Pride Parades for the same reason you want characters to have access to cups of coffee. Because we signify behaviours with common reference frames; a fantasy version of a Pride Parade is a cool thing to have so you can show characters doing stuff in a Pride way. You don’t need the lines of oppression from our world to replicate Pride.

Why then, do we celebrate?

What can your Pride be a celebration of?

I think one idea, which is still a little bit of a loss, is in memorial of a great person. If a great artist or creative passed away they might have asked a celebration to be done after they died, and then that tradition endured based on how good they are. Maybe even a party that doesn’t have to necessarily connect to the person – a lord or liege who constructed the event to satisfy their own ego, and then were erased from the story of the event because they were found posthumously to be awful and suck, that’s a similar way that kind of event could form.

Another option is celebrating a foundation, an event of endurance? When a community realises they’ve a sudden influx of resources, like the conclusion of some other event? Maybe a rich person celebrates their birthday and the result is a street in the town has a big pile of money to spend based on that rich person’s largesse, and they wind up throwing a party with the results? Then that event gets enough attention that the event takes on a life of its own? Maybe? Is that interesting, is that a story people will relate to?

I don’t know!

You may notice I’m still thinking in terms of loss, or sadness, or things that just generally suck butts. That, I think, is telling you more about me than it tells you about world building. I do think it’s a thing that informs you about how I approach world building problems at least.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[skullzanta]

Im going to be real here: One thing you have missed is not something that is your fault in any way: It isn't just engagement, this is worse. Corporate involvement. It is not simply that engagement is our enemy, it is that it is a tool of our enemy. It is a method of our enemy. And yes, corporations ARE our enemy, why? Because there needs to be a balance BETWEEN Work AND Life, you cannot mix both. And what is every single dumb CEO doing? Mixing them for its own short gains.

CEOs are almost never good people. And no, Im not being classist. Consider the circumstances of which a CEO is likely to grow up in:

Surrounded by Business Talk that has resulted in Successes, so listen to this success as the thing that raises you.

Has Rich Parents who mean struggle is minimized unless artificially enforced, which pins the child to blame on the parent rather than on poor life skills since the parent has a duty to take care of the child.

As a result of a lack of need to, there is likely very low social interaction with anyone not involved with either business or pre-existing family friendships, thus making isolation.

Lack of non-business focused influences, and alot of "Sharks" exist. "Shark" being a term I use for someone who will chase money as ruthlessly and aggressively as a shark to a trail of blood due to greed and low morals.(Note: Not all sharks, only business sharks, Blahaj is bestie)

Complete lack of Perspectives in most cases as most people WILL move into richer neighbhorhoods if given the chance so they can enjoy better living conditions.

Now- Why did I go through all of this seemingly unrelated Stuff? ALL of the problems the internet is facing is for profit.

Bots? Marketing and Quick Bucks(Scams)

Algorithms? Pushes you into cycles of dependency so you become more involved in the place they control

Censorship? Corporations bow to shareholders, who control their company. And Shareholders have had recent trends of being extremists. Either as puritans, Extremist Right Wing or as extremist Liberals(The kind that intentionally force diversity instead of making it natural or fit in properly)

Sponsorships? This speaks for itself almost, but we have not fully commented on the state of them. Sponsorships are symbiotic, and parasitism is a type of symbiosis very common with them. You know how often you skip those sponsor segments as they feel robotic and not the person? Its almost as if corporate meddling is influencing youtubers themselves.

Media Metas? Regardless of however you feel about them: Dream, Mr. Beast, Logan Paul, Pewdiepie, and Corporations have all contributed to metas revolving around content algorithms and permanently changed how everyone defaultedly makes content, its now geared to juice as much benefit as possible, even when it makes the product worse. (Note: Pewdiepie did not contribute as much as the others, but he DID have an influence with the war against T-Series, which ironically boosted competitiveness)

ALL of these things are for profit, ALL of them are caused or influenced by "For Profit" ideas. NONE of these things help us without hurting us as well. Sponsorships are the closest to being mutualistic and STILL cause a temporary degradation of quality like an abyss into hell. The corporates are our enemies, not simply engagement alone. I believe that you need to incorporate(snrk, unintended funny) this because you have spoken a part of the problem out in good detail, but it is a very common issue for us to see problems only as they get bad enough to notice...

Because often we are not communicating enough. Often we are failing to notice basic things because its Normalized. But above all, Its because we're divided. For one reason or another, be it russian sabotoge, corporations, trolls, or whatever is the cause(s) of this, We are being intentionally divided into sects and segments. We are not communicating our different mindsets well. And I KNOW im missing things because the competitiveness angle is something I missed. So let us work together, and make a better internet by actually educating people and hopefully taking action.

Yknow what, Jack's right. At this point I wanna go back to how I used to interact online and just create for the sake of creating Definitely suggest watching the video