#like im not awful but it wasnt that incredible lol

[solomons-poison]

I—

Is this a compliment?? Yes I do know words??? 😭

[a-whispering-echo]

hello. below is me rambling about my new au - the ancient city one - and what i have down for it all right now. its just me rambling, and i tend to talk like im actually TELLING people about my ideas? like im sitting across from someone explaining it, and i try to imagine im speaking to someone who knows nothing about the sanses to try and like, GRIP the characters right, yknow? so yeah - lol

uh gore warning ig? its only descriptions for now, but i WILL be drawing them at some point!

oh yeah its bsp too lol

Story starts with Cross, who was disowned by his father after the death of his brother, which happened slightly after a very large argument between Cross and said brother. this is set in an old-ish setting. not quite modern day, not quite old timey. more fantasy set time - anyway yeah, Cross gets kicked out and shamed . oh hes human too here, you'll see later-

Cross is supposed to read as slightly unlikable, not fully, but with enough character flaws to balance out his good traits. Hes cold, very ambitious, but quite selfish too. he finds it hard to put himself in others shoes, and is focused, at first, in his own self interest. at the same time, he can be incredibly sweet, and self sacrificing when he wants to be. a hero truly. hes adaptable, and strong willed, even if he can sometimes break down in an anxious mess.

Cus Cross has been disowned, he decides to set out on his own path, alone, with not much on his other than his own survival skills - as all men from his town are trained for war and go through mandatory service, as he decides to treck and explore the world, figuring maybe, if he was luckily, he'd find a NEW home and family..

Eventually, one night, Cross is attacked by wolved while out setting up camp for the night. they destroy everything he'd worked for, and would him near fatally,

One of the wolves got a bit to his head, biting right into his right eye, leaving an awful bite mark over it that forces his eye shut forever. he isnt TECNICALLY blind, but he cant really open it without massive pain, ( it will eventually get infected and need to be removed. but thats WAYY in the future.)

Cross in his mad bid for safety, managed to scale a slight cliff edge, and find a very tight cave on a said cliff edge, managing to climb up over this ledge covered in lichen and algae, and sneaking into the gap that the wolves cannot reach. unfortunately, Cross wasnt expecting the drop.

When Cross wakes up, hes in what can only be described as the ruins of an old settlement, a… city? he thinks? the stone buildings are all destroyed, looking like a bomb has gone off through it, the stone in rubble, but miraculously, there are these glowing blue lanterns handing off posts that make up bridges connecting the little 'islands' of rubble to another in a pattern, those lanterns dim, but glowing faintly enough he can see his way… hes lying in a small pond, or a well or somthing, glowing blue algae covering the water, and HIM by extension, the water cold and soaking him to the bone.

What the hell happened here?

its as Cross is trying to right himself and fugure out where the HELL he is that he sees three figure in the distance...

They move, they walk, but theyre… theyre skeletons...

.... mostly. a couple of them look like they have a LITTLE flesh covering them, but its all mouldy and rotten. theres three of them, and all of them are dressed in dark robes, and covered in that ALGAE-lichen stuff, all that glowing cyan and black colour, spreading over their limbs like a plague. they seem all slightly confused on Cross entering their domain, the shortest one looks at his suspiciously under their cowl, and the tallest, with his awful head wound, pokes and prods at Cross and his broken body with fascination. the other one, with pitch black oozing eye sockets, seems FACINATED with him, excited even, theyre rubbing up against Cross like a cat and getting that black/cyan stuff all over him, Cross to scared and in pain to push it away from him

are they… inhabitants of the past settlement, maybe?

Turns out they can, mostly, speak english. they speak with an accent like no other, one Cross cant place, and use what Cross can only describe as odd and outdated words sometimes, but they seem to be able to understand him, at least. and they understand hes hurt, and needs help..

theyre kinda… well, theyre creepy as shit, no doubt bout it, but theyre not… TRYING to be? theyre curious and weird and a bit gross, but theyre almost CAT like? they purr, they nuzzle, they even fucking SNIFF him at first, and dunk his head under the water when they find his scent distressing. - thats Killer to note - they have fucking TAILS - he sees them when Goopy turns to chirp at his friends-

theyre in different states of decay… though the flesh they DO have is little, and covered by that lichen stuff holding it to their bones like stitches, theyre not ACTIVLY rotting anymore? nor do they really smell?

The smallest one seems to speak for them, not really out of any leadership, but because Goopy doesnt seem to really understand, and Head Wound seems to only make rumbling chirping noises - they ALL make those noises, but… Scarf seems to understand him best, even it they CLEARLY dont trust Cross…

they work for their Master, and lover, a Creature named Nightmare. a being made from that black/cyan stuff, and the one who destroyed this previous kingdom entirely, killing all residents

well all, bar three? are.. well, are they dead or..?

Killer mostly moves on all fours, close to the ground, almost like a spider. he CAN stand upright, but its painful for him, and hes quicker lower to the floor. Dust is the shortest and has these glowing red spots that act like pupils in his eyes, one of them corrupted by the cyan stuff. Horror has an actual EYEBALL still in his left socket - the side with the big wound - while the other is empty. Dust is the least 'decomposed' and still has slight bits of pale tinged-purple-blue skin held to his bones with the algae stuff, but he seems to try and hide it under his layers of clothes. both Killer and Horror have claws, while Dust has his filled down and softer, though still SHARP! Killer is much more intelligent than he appears.

all three of the skeletons used to be human! theyre of a different race to any Cross would know, and mostly lived in caves and hollowed out mountains - theyre usually small people - Horror being what the kingdom would call 'a giant', with a range of skin tones but most being a soft brown, and hair that stems from black to dark red and oranges - they mostly all have dark eyes better suited to dark environment, and good senses

Dust is the most 'intelligent' of the three, seemingly knowing an array of languages and seems to know how to heal. Killer has spikes and bone shards and teeth sticking from his clothes and has a dagger attached to his belt - maybe some kind of warrior? Horror carries a spear with him that he leans on as he walks. he seems to be able to walk fine without it, but uses it almost as a cane - maybe a pain condition over physically not being able to move? with the head wound.. well, does that even MATTER anymore?

Anyways, yeah, noot noot-

Nightmare used to be a spirit of protecting for the city, until a disagreement with his Other Half, quite literally, his twin brother Dream - two beings born of the same soul, which caused Nightmare to corrupt.

Nightmare doesnt show up until at LEAST halfway through the story!

this story will eventually conclude with Cross joining them, and them all falling in love, Cross getting the answers he wants about them, and getting his FAMILY that he desperately craves.

im still working on this obs, but im gonna be doing some drawings of them not lol - obviously theres gonna be a bit of a gore warning -

[baby-xemnas]

i love to think about young lawbepo, especially the day they met and the days/weeks/months after, when law was 13 and bepo was 9, so cute and innocent! 🥺💕 i can see it being something like love at first sight for young bepo when young law came to his aid and fought to protect him. i’ve always gotten the vibe that bepo was picked on a lot as a child, that he was used to it, and because it was rare for anyone to stand up for him, let alone physically fight for him, he just wasn’t one to expect it. i’m not sure how long the fight lasted between law and penguin/shachi, but i bet young bepo was in absolute awe, thinking “he’s doing all this and he doesn’t even know me! he’s fighting two guys at once! that’s amazing! he’s so cool! 😳😍🤩” and bepo wears his heart on his sleeve, so he was likely very enthusiastic and emotional and affectionate in telling law just how thankful he is for law saving him and how incredibly awesome he thinks law is, the coolest person bepo has ever seen in his life 😆 young bepo immediately following and clinging to his hero, shyly holding on to law’s shirt, not wanting to be separated, just an instant pure-hearted love that grows strong and fast the more bepo gets to know law 🥺💕 i wonder how law responded to such a level of devotion from this cute little polar bear, and if it was overwhelming for him? i can see law being a bit stoic and awkward about it at first, not knowing how to respond to bepo’s affection, not expecting bepo to become so attached to him. but maybe internally it doesn’t take long for law to become quietly possessive of bepo’s admiration and affection, coveting it, liking the way bepo smiles at him and looks at him with stars in his eyes, wanting to protect and keep bepo close, even though he hasn’t known bepo that long and it is unusual for law to warm up to others

perfect take zero notes

yes i absolutely think that bepo was picked on when he was small back on zou because how do you come to conclusion "if i dont fight back we can be friends" thats so wrong... maybe when he was very young he hurt a smaller species baby and adults got very mad so bepo just never responded to any bullying since. just by being born a polar bear he was the biggest and strongest child so he got told by adults repeatedly to be very careful so he grew up so timid

zepo wasnt much help because when he was around he was tough on bepo - didnt bully him ofc but he told him not to listen to anybody and always fight back (jock mentality lol) but bepo couldnt follow his advice so that really upset him

he was very happy when law saved him not just because of that but also because law was nice and heard him out and looked at him normally (ofc bepo saw the obvious HOLY SHIT A BEAR IS TALKING on laws face at first but it wasnt like the weird vibes other people he interacted with gave him)

law is so amazing he is his hero he is so kind....its even more cute because law is actively fighting his prickly habits that he gathered from being in DQ family...he is very upset at himself is he loses patience with bepo and the other two and treats them the best he can (he is rly such a hard working boy it makes me wanna cry) and its good because bepo is so forgiving and moves on easily if law acts prickly out of habit and bepo gets all sad law is like im sorry its not your fault and bepo perks up immediately because WOW LAW SAN IS BEING SO NICE

it honestly takes law aback sometimes how easy it is for him to affect bepo's mood and stir it in positive direction - but he is happy because he doesnt want him to be upset...

law deciding "ill protect him forever" about bepo who is so soft (mentally and physically yes) and vulnerable is so cute and great i love to think about it

[polyamorouscultureis]

hey,

my ex-partner and i were in a fairly long-term, monogamous relationship. i’ve always considered myself non-monogamous & my partner was willing to give it a shot. so we tried it recently and he realised he wasnt comfortable with it. both of us realised we didnt want the same thing out of the relationship - ie, he wanted to be completely monogamous and i wasnt ready for that, especially considering he was the first and only partner i’d ever had (i’m 19 lol). the relationship became fairly unhealthy and we decided to break up. we figured that if some time in the long-term future, we end up wanting the same things, we’ll get back together, and if we don’t then it is what it is.

i’ve been feeling incredibly guilty and like an awful person tbh. i feel like i’ll never find love. i really, really want to be ok with a monogamous relationship but it’s also not really something i believe in for myself. i have friends i can talk to about this stuff but im incredibly hesitant to talk about it with any professional bc 1) expense, 2) i live in a kind of conservative country.

so yeah, i’m not even sure what the ask is here. ig just any kind of advice on this? thanks!

You both absolutely did the mature thing to do when you realized your needs didn't line up. It's hard to be poly since it feels like our dating pool is so much smaller than it is for others, but that doesn't mean you should ever force yourself into a monogamous relationship with someone if that isn't what you want. Don't settle for anything less than what makes you happy.

[sweetsparadise]

about that ask thats like 'u post lolis!!!'

i think people fail to realize moe entirely as a genre and style is lolicon and its like getting angry at meat in a kfc. they are infact the intrusion getting into something now that is cool and then getting angry at things there since day 1 . pre covid anime community i miss you so much!!!

ur so right cuz im literally jst squeeing over cute moe girls like the rest of thm!!! i jst happen to call loli characters lolis, bc they literally are n theres nothing wrong OR inherently sexual with loli character design!!! u guys literally LIKE IT!!! theyll like it n say "aw wish this wasnt pedobait" like... bro ur literally telling on urself, to like the art, n then imply the art is meant to appeal to pedos...??? im not attracted to thm (or much of anything for that matter cuz this troublesome thing called depression) or attracted to ero chibi art i just.... like them ;_; with junko mizunos art for example, it doesnt come off as something ur meant to get off too despite featuring lotsa titties. i just love an artful mix of ero n kawaii!!!!! like when dudes had pinup posters, u think theyd get a boner looking at em everytime? that they put em up to get off to? no!! pinup is more overtly sexual n even then its main purpose is to be ART appreciating the beauty of the feminine form!!!

so heres my philosophy on erokawa. FIRSTLY the "ero" doesnt have the typical english meaning in the sense that it is MEANT to arouse, just that it involves sexuality or nudity, basically. heres some examples of what i consider n enjoy as erokawa/erochibi (under the read more to be considerate of minors or those who jst dont care to see, but its pretty much only implied nudity)

these characters have no age in my mind (the artist usually doesnt have one in mind either) it doesnt even cross it, ESPECIALLY FOR CHIBIS. i do not think abt the age of a subject unless the artist clearly wants u to. u cld have a chibi grandma n still have ppl calling it a child bc they are so uninformed abt chibi n what it is. they are not even human to me (its literally refered to as super deformation, basically as inhuman n unrealistic as possible) some ppl treat literal drawings as things with agency n act as if they have feelings n thats jst incredibly weird to me, but its fine to be that way as long as u arent imposing it on other ppl. if only we cld all jst live in peace o(╥﹏╥)o

also, this is a long ass post already but i have more to say on ppls hypocrisy. if ur gonna block me for liking erokawa, go ahead n block sanrio too!!! theyve done SOOO many collaborations with artists who then go right back to drawing erokawa, straight up pinup or even hentai (ie their super sonico collab) as well as slightly sexualizing their own characters even. i have pleeeeeenty of evidence of this if anyones intrested lol. i actually have like, at least 5 officially liscensed n approved sanrio drawings embracing panty shots x3 ...anyway thanks to anyone for actually reading this, especially if it makes u reconsider the way u view some things :3 i hope ppl will understand my perspective, but the most i can ask for is that ppl stop accusing me of disgusting things ( ;´ - `;)

[beesmygod]

What is your ranking of the 'souls' fromsoft games you've played and why? I SUSPECT bludbornt takes the number 1 slot for reasons.

this is actually really really hard because while i love the bloodborne story, some of the structural and pacing issues can result in an awful gameplay experience. like if its your first time playing the game the last boss you're going to fight is mergo's wet nurse which is a huge wet fart of a final boss with a dogshit soundtrack. some of the boss fights are rank as well. like laurence is fucking awful. rom is a SLOGGGGGGG i dread having to fight rom every time bc its just a test of my patience instead of a skill check. defiled watchdog and amygdala are terrible. not fun. very bad. great dlc tho

it ties with dark souls 1 which i dearly, dearly love so much i could play it forever except once you play literally any other fromsoft game it is so hard to go back to. the quality of life additions in later games like "being able to fast travel without needing to complete half the game" and "being able to move at a reasonable pace instead of plodding around like the gravity on planet dark souls is stronger than earth" are completely absent. is...almost a little too mean. some of those boss runs are real rough. also great dlc. i love broken pyromancy so much. wait i just remembered centipede demon i hate that fight. fuck him. and fuck his ketchup kids

ds3 is a close second bc its ds1 but they gave it a bunch of quality of life fixes that make it much less frustrating to play. however, the pay off is that it has one terrible dlc and one thats just ok. i hate the final boss of the base game i think it sucks. nearly everyone disagrees with me so dont listen to me. but i think it's a stinker lol. the midir fight is grueling, unfun. ive done it and it was awful. i think there are too many "puzzle" bosses (wolnir, yhorm, ancient wyvern) that feel like they were imported from a zelda game. i do not like those at all. dont waste my time from! im here to kill monsters by the skin of my teeth!!! not play donkey kong!!!

i took a long time to warm up to sekiro and really disliked it until it "clicked" and then it became mind-blowing. i really hope they make more like this with this fighting system. maybe even a sekiro 2 (tomoe story PLEAAASSEEEE FROM. it was teased so hard...). it has an incredible plot, world, means of delivering its story, heart pounding battles, and the single best fromsoft final boss fight ever. bar none. sword saint isshin is an unbelievable experience.

but...fromsoft what the fuck am i supposed to do with all this currency ive amassed lol. they forgot to give me things to buy. you dont have this problem in souls games because you use them to level up, but in sekiro you have to fucking git gud. there's no level system and defense bonuses are tied to defeating bosses. if you can't defeat a boss you are absolutely fucked and have to throw yourself against the wall over and over, which can truly be a terrible grind.

some of the boss fights are h o r r i b l e. most fromsoft games have me chasing down minibosses to beat for fun but the headless are literally dreadful. i just skip them altogether now because if it wasnt enough that they cast a "remove fun" AOE spell, but the items they drop are worthless. i will never use these lol. what the fuck from. the second fight with the ape is stupid. im never going to fight the demon of hatred sorry lol. you can't put a fucking bloodborne beast in a game almost entirely revolving around human enemies.

never finished ds2

[crippleprophet]

hi! i have a question regarding. doctors being shitty/being incredibly invasive and controlling

some background: ive had neuromotor symptoms since i was a toddler (i was 'bad enough' to have the school district pay for my pt/ot as a toddler) which was (badly) diagnosed as dyspraxia by a neurologist who then never saw me again after i completed pt/ot.

i still have all of those problems now despite on and off pt since then and consistent pt for over a year currently. we went back to my current hospital trying to see a neurologist to discuss the results of an mri i had at a different hospital and set up 2 appointments.

we had an appointment scheduled with a neurologist which we went to regarding my neuromotor issues + mri as well as migraines. all he talked about during the appt was the migraines and told me i wasnt drinking enough water despite me having pots and drinking more than 100oz a day and that i was just stressed. he did not ONCE mention any of the neuromotor issues and dismissed me when i brought them up. he also told us seeing the other neurologist would be unnecessary and that we should cancel the appointment. at the appt me and my mom agreed with him, but we were unhappy with the outcome of the appointment with him and decided we should keep the second appointment to act as a second opinion.

the day before the 2nd opinion, we get a call from the first neuro saying that he cancelled the 2nd opinion appointment after talking to the 2nd neuro. this is technically not prohibited in the hospital im at as far as i understand, and my mom is planning to call the ombudsman to file a complaint at the very least but both of us are at a loss for what to do. i know i am probably in a different hospital system than you are so the logistics of reporting this will be different, but do you have any advice for what to say? i am at a genuine loss and as long as this neurologist is my current doctor i have no idea if ill be able to see a different neuro for a second opinion lest he cancel that appointment too.

[tl;dr: i scheduled 2 appointments with 2 different neurologists to discuss neuromotor symptoms, a mri i had done at a different hospital, and migraines. i saw the first one and he was incredibly dismissive and told me to cancel the 2nd appointment i had scheduled. my mom and i agreed at the time but decided to keep it for a second opinion after the appt was over. the first neurologist canceled the 2nd opinion appointment the day before the appt without consulting me or my mom.]

disclaimer that i am in the US and also a minor. if you or your followers have any advice it would be greatly appreciated!! thank you and sorry this is so long!

god, that’s such bullshit, i’m so sorry. you don’t deserve to be dealing with this & that’s incredibly inappropriate behavior. i’m obviously just some guy on the internet so take all of this with a grain of salt / weigh it against your preferences & experiences - i don’t think there’s any one right or wrong way to handle this & i’m sorry you’ve been put in such an awful position. (also no need to apologize for being long - i’m about to write you a novel lol)

i definitely think contacting the ombudsman is a good idea & i’m really glad your mom is on your side; you can also find the complaint process for the medical board in charge of his licensure by searching [your state] medical board complaint. here’s an overview of what happens with that process:

if you’re on medicaid or medicare there are additional specific avenues of complaint through that.

i’m going to file a complaint against a doctor in the next couple of weeks for some fucked up shit of my own so my thought process for that has been like, i don’t expect anything to happen to him, but it might help some future person who complains for there to have been previous issues on file. you might be in a different emotional position, though - if your complaint going nowhere would be devastating, for example, it’s okay to factor that into your decision of whether to file one.

i also recommend checking your state laws around your rights to your medical records, and while there are ways to obtain it after filing a complaint, i’d personally try to get any test results or other documentation that you’d need to show a different physician before filing a complaint just to minimize the risk of somebody giving you grief & dragging it out. i went in person to ask for my bloodwork results from the shit doctor & let the rest of my record with them rot bc i don’t need to read the bullshit he wrote & certainly don’t want it impacting my care with someone else.

as far as getting a second opinion i think there are a few things to consider:

i’d personally be super careful when deciding whether to try to make another appointment with neuro#2. it could be that shitty neuro#1 just talked to the scheduling department or something, but if he talked to the doctor themself, it’s unfortunately really fucking likely that neuro#2 is already biased against you. most (not all - my pcp is fabulously untrusting of his peers) doctors will take a fellow doctor’s word over a patient’s any day.

do you have options that are outside of that hospital network, or something like a private practice that’s technically part of the network but uses their own scheduling system? if it’s an option i think getting as far away (in terms of connection, not literal distance) as possible is your safest bet; one of the very few good things about the US medical system is the lack of a centralized database, so in a lot of circumstances your medical record can’t follow you unless you let it. i’m a huge proponent of giving my doctors information on a need-to-know basis; my rheumatologist doesn’t know my pcp gave me tramadol while i was trying to get an appointment, for example, because i don’t want to be labeled drug-seeking.

if your only options are where neuro#1 would be able to see the appointment, it’s more dicey - hopefully the ombudsman has better / more specific advice, but if it were me, i’d probably try to make an appointment in person to get a sense of the vibe & if the person scheduling seems kind/decent, explain that i had a doctor cancel my appointment against my wishes & ask if they could make a note or something to only cancel it if i (or in your case maybe your mom) says so. kind of risky but this whole thing is a clusterfuck so it could be worth a shot.

is there any reason this neurologist needs to stay your current doctor? because like, if not, get your records and get the fuck out. usually i just ghost my providers but in this case it sounds like you’ll probably need to formally break up with him - if you have a follow-up scheduled then if you cancel that you can inform the front desk when doing so that you’re no longer going to be a patient at that office. heads up they’ll probably ask why, it’s up to you whether you want to be honest.

if you’re comfortable doing so, after you’ve extricated yourself from this provider, i’d recommend writing a public-facing review anywhere you can - google reviews for his practice / the hospital, your insurance website, healthgrades, etc - so other potential patients are warned. i’d basically say what you told me here about what happened.

as far as writing your complaints themselves, i’d try to found them on as much documented evidence from other providers as possible, because the system only respects itself. so for the complaint i’m working on, i’m going to include:

what the doctor did that was against current diagnostic guidelines, & cite those

previous diagnoses & medications he ignored

what i was subsequently diagnosed with & medicated with

statements he made that were factually incorrect, & citations of research disproving them

if he didn’t talk about your imaging you should definitely mention that too.

i hope some of that is helpful! i’ve been researching & sorting through my own neurological stuff so if there’s anything else i can do to help or support you feel free to send another ask or dm me! best of luck to you & you’ll be in my thoughts 💓🖤💓 other folks feel free to respond if you have further advice!

[artistotel]

Kinda random, but how do you feel about the Wolfenstein games? Both old and new.

aw, i've actually never played them! im generally not much of a gamer, but shooters+scifi really arent my thing

i like indie games, NITW being my favourite. i actually rly want to get a tattoo of it, i just havent had time yet to do it haha. and my tat artists are in zagreb anyways.

then of course undertale and deltarune. there used to be an online game called "the end" which i also loved because it was about philosophy. you would go through a level and then arrive to the boss who would ask you a philosophical question, and then you'd be placed on a graph which also showed other philosophers and their stances on such questions. im so sad it was taken down T_T

i love pokemon, but only the older pixel ones. games after third gen dont really interest me...

i also like combat ones - like hades, but i need to have an engaging story. and mmorpgs - i used to be obsessed w wakfu until they changed the game mechanics and i wasnt interested in it anymore. T_T

the only thing i regularly play is genshin - which i love for its incredible stories, but also the game mechanic is super interesting to me. and its a game thats easy to play for non-gamers like me. XD (i didnt like it at first but then i fell prey to it lol)

[magnoliamyrrh]

Paul is a fucked up manchild who berates his mom the second he gets supernatural powers and sees himself as better than everyone. That’s only if you can get past herbert’s awful writing where his villains gotta be fat and gay and he repeats these facts every single time they switch povs as if the audience has somehow forgotten (seriously, highlight every time herbert mentions the villain is fat. It’s so common it’s just boring stale writing). Paul in dune is the worst kinda self insert fanfic. Dune is such a shitty book girl how do you enjoy it

ohh he definetely is a man child; i feel bad for him in like the first half of the first book mainly bc hes a teenager, hes 15, like, a teenager teenager not an almost adult 17-18. he may come from a powerful family but hes just thrust into very messed up circumstances, more or less tortured to prove hes human, has to grapple with being some sort of raised-to-be-exceptional genetic experiment and being used in some weird intergalactic lie and war, and incredible amount of historical pressure and other things. like, at 15, hes more kid than adult dealing w this. but also, while being 15, he is smart, and charming to others, and he quickly rises to great infleunce and is good at manipulation. and yea the moment he gets some more power he turns it even against his own mother, against himself, and against others and the longer they go on the more insufferbale he becomes; what ground of expeptionalism in him existed gets raised tenfold -hes an inherently flaued character by all means who even when he tries he fucked up badly many times. i mean like hell, among all the shit he ends up doing, even just that thing that he himself didnt have the power to put shit in order, so he ends up forcing it on his son, like how he was shoved into a bunch of things when he was younger

and yes lol i am well aware of the villan thing. i do get that in this context the "fat" thing and even the gay pedo thing is moreso an allegory for greed and the keeping of and hoarding of precious things (im Not saying fat ppl are like this mind u, im not saying its good either, but in many cultures fat has or is indeed revered as a sign of wealth; and this is used to contrast to those who dont have, and i reckon this is where it comes from in the story). but yes, i do think thats uhh i hate this word problamatic. the fat thing, the gay thing, the pedo thing. definetely part of an ongoing issue of attaching several of those characteristics to villans, and also of making villans generally ugly, thus associsting the two together. like yup, its definitely not good

idk tho, i think. dune was written in the 1960s by a white dude. like, it doesnt suprise me that that stuff is in there. ive read plenty of things that have parts of them that are problamatic or outdated or offensive and it just,, is what it is. like idk i can enjoy something while also being aware and critical of the parts of it that are fucked up - i think if i wasnt able to, i wouldnt be able to like,,,, explore a lot of the literature that exists out there, especially older literature, no matter from where its from in the world or if its written by men or women. most of it or most authors at least have written some weird shit or held some weird shit. idk just a stupid parallel off the top of my head i love the 1001 nights stories - i grew up with them - but theyre filled to the brim with weird shit and problamatic things and sexism and racism and slavery and whatever else, like absolutely filled - to an extend they reflect the times. i still, however, enjoy reading them tho

i also dont know how much paul is a self insert - maybe. ive never read the dude as sympathetic or a sympathetic anti-hero much. i did find the idea that out of this all-female order theyd have the idea that a male would be the one w the greatest power and some sort of prophesied force of power weird, sooo idk maybe. but idk, if its a self insert i rlyyy dont think its supoosed to be a flattering one much. the dude just gets worse and worse as the books progress, and he ends up after fucking up so much and being too weak to fix it, exiled, alone, spending his last yesrs wondering in loneliness and deep regret. so, i dont think its shown that his superiority complex or anything else brought him something good; it just lead to tragedy

mostly i like the series for the intricacy of its plot and the way its introduced, the messages it tries to send even if it at times fails or does so badly. like yea, its not perfect, but it is trying to ssy something about foreign meddeling and co-opting of religions and cultures and desperste situstions, or colonialism and capitalism, of exploitation, greed, power, etc. and also in very large part its lore, its scifi elements, its weird out there mysticism, and all the parts of it that are very, very weird. i am fascinsted by the world that this dude created. im a really big fan of magical realism and to an extent the books are like this - because they start more normal and over time become more and more mystical and fantastical and weird and less grounded as more concepts, creatures, and affects of the spice are introduced. i also do like that the main character isnt an actual hero. all this talk of prophecy and whatever, but its all bad, and it goes so fucking bad. its to an extent a subversion of classical fantasy tropes, combined with space scifi.... and yes. there are times when the writing isnt great, or when its outdated, or when it hammers things again and again (like the villan thing). i also think in many places the writing is intriguing, careful, and calls for attention and contemplation of what is happening

and idk apart from something like 1001 nights..... to an extend, i feel abt dune as i feel about game of thrones. i rly love those books. yes theyre writing by an old white man. yes there are parts of them (less than the show id say) which are problamatic and outdated and i could go on a whole list about that. but, i still enjoy them. i think the world grrm martin created is insanely insanelyyy complex, beautiful, fascinating, the lore is some of the deepest and most intriguing ive ever seen, and the character writing - the sheer complexity of the characters, the willingness to show how fucked up humans are and how often things are so stupidly complicated, the way he can get us to love even insufferable characters, the way there are no perfect good heros, the broader anti-war and even climate change message, the harsh and grounded realism of much of the series,,, the way theyre also kinda like magic realism, bc over the books magic keeps coming back more and more, the world becomes more full of mystic and mystery and prophecies which arent 100% true, the way the books are largely a subversion of fantasy tropes. like, yea. theyve got issues, grrm martins writings got issues. but i think theyre brilliant in many ways at the same time 🤷‍♀️

so i guess. yea. im definitely not saying the books dont have issues or theyre perfect or theyre the peak of literature. but im still able to enjoy parts of them

[cuntstable]

oh oh also top 5 fictional characters...if you can sum them up with a little paragraph + why you like them if you know. regardless of source material type

oh man. okay i tried to not write an essay lenght post but i. ended up doing that anyway LOL. so ill save everyones dashes with a readmore

1. pucci. obviously….. the main villain of jojos stocean, an insane catholic priest trying to create ”heaven” on earth, that in short is a world where everyone will know their fates/futures from birth and will thus be able to avoid tragedy and/or make peace with the inevitable, as inspired by his backstory thats essentially a tragedy formed out of crazy coinsidences or ”faith”. he wants to make a world where things like that cant happen anymore and is willing to die to make it happen LOL.

idk man like where do i even start….. its very funny bc reading stone ocean there wasnt any single Moment where i went crazy mode about him it just gradually happened like i finished the story and thought about him a little and went ”Wow. WTF.” like im almost certain half of the things i think are interesting about him are accidental and ive just added to all the vague thematic implications he has but still. like hes very clearly inspired by characters like oedipus from classical tragedies and he embodies the main themes of the story hes in perfectly As The Villain (memories, faith, the avoidance of faith, the strenght of the human spirit and will etc etc). all the while being an interesting and TO MEE incredibly compelling and sad character in his own right, and also an interesting criticism of the catholic church and christianity at large (religious mania, justification and blindness to atrocities through god, apathy and nihilism towards the material existing world in favour of focusing on some uncertain World to Come etc etc). ARGH

2. almalexia…….. main villain of morrowinds tribunal dlc, a mortal turned god now losing her divinity and trying to hold on to it as she slips into insanity LOL.

this is definitely a character thats been elevated to me by my own musings on her and what ive seen others do with her as opposed to just the source material but i do still love her lots… i think i just have a bias towards delusional insane manipulative religious villains doing awful things that theyre convinced are necessary for a better world. that and girlbosses LOL

3. klaasje disco elysium….. a lover of the murdered man the plot of the game revolves around, shes on the run for corporate espionage and works as an important clue giver to the main character….

she so criminally underrated its CRAZYYY to me that people dont talk about her that much. anyway yet another two faced manipulative character on the list……. shes so interesting to me because shes clearly an incredibly sad and lost person with a lot of guilt all the while STILL being a bad person. shes the kind of character who wants to simultaneously die and to keep living no matter what, so she throws everyone she cares about under the buss so she can keep running and then turns around and associates with the worst people and parties too hard and lives very dangerously. idk. its interesting to me. that and shes also generally an incredibly charismatic character both in game and TO ME.

4. yuyuko touhou….. a ghost princess who rules over the underworld of hakugyroukyo. shes the main antagonist of touhou 7 in which she tries to resurrect an undead cursed cherryblossom tree and the unknown person buried underneath, only to eventually find out that the person buried is her very own corpse.

shes been my favourite character for like over a decade LOL. my first ever Blorberino if you will…. i just like her a lot i think shes a fun character as this mysterious hedonistic ghost aristocrat that likes to play dumb and relax even if shes incredibly smart and powerful. and also reading fanwritten doujins and fics about her (ill be fair) very sad backstory (was born as a cursed human and ended up killing herself and being sealed away by her gf so she could live a grief free afterlife with out memories) as a 13 year old did lasting psychological damage to me and my taste in characters I THINK

5. lady hideko from the handmaiden movie…… a japanese aristocrat living in occupied korea in her adoptive uncles mansion, she runs away from her abusive life with her handmaiden after they attempt to scam each other and fall in love instead

shes a random ass character to throw into this list LOL but i do love her…. one of the cinema characters of all time….. and yet another favourite of mine that falls into the Insane Manipulate character archeotype. i could talk about her more at lenght but this post is too long as is so like ill just say that shes a man hating lesbian that murders her abusers and ditches her societal status to go and suck some korean peasant boobs. so ofc i love her lost :)

[strange-creachure]

so..

didnt want to make a huge deal of it at the time bc anxiety and what have you, buuut since yesterday marked 2 full months from this thingy (perhaps most impactful in my life so far lol), figured i'd do a little post anyway?? felt appropiate what with it being pride month and ya know :zoomies:

(tldr, have two rad little lines going across on my body and feeling more light and normal (in the best kind of way) than i have for years :catlove:)  i'm in an incredibly lucky place living situation wise (s/o being in a position where he could take a loan for us, and finland being a country that doesnt generally indiscriminate these kind of things as much) where i could get a good ol operation that single-handedly yoinked off my serious dysphoria and -related anxiety and its been (and still is) so incredibly freeing and pleasant and carefree vibe when ur body feels and looks the way you felt it should have always been. especially when, (tw: dysphoria) increasingly for the past couple years its felt just so incredibly.. wrong? to an extent you felt constantly sick?, for reasons you cant even quite explain?, for features your biology imposed on you without any word on your part, and the societal norms or whatever that came with it??? and just.. the entire lack of choice or being unable to do anything about it?? absolutely worst. do not recommend. unfortunately a fairly common experience in the lgbt circles (that i keep hearing) and something a lot of people have to deal with, unfortunately. so in a very stark comparison, post-op and recovering and just /living/ without those restrictions or weights on ya, it's pretty freakin rad. having authority on the silly little meat vehicle again haha. (recovery wise feel entirely normal and well by now, just the whole 'having a both physical and very taxing mental weight off of the shoulders that i'd not realised how long its been there' has had me feeling very childlike joy and the like, yknow. maybe some of u could tell from the text brrrr nyoomies for a while now huhu :zoomies:) dunno if this is "too personal" or unnecessary or kinda silly to share, but kind of jus wanna put it out there in case there's the odd person in there who feels the same way, incredibly awful for reasons you cant quite explain or even grasp - i promise you're not inherently broken or "wrong", there is a reason for it, gender or neurodivergency wise or otherwise. it sure took me a while, and while it's an unique road for everyone, u can get there, one way or other. for example im more comfy with my brain funnies than i've been in years just from reading more and getting to know likeminded people and overall understanding things better, and that alone has helped me a lot. dont necessarily feel the need to transition anything further body wise either; dont consider myself a trans person, and dunno what kind of label or tag would even fit my gender other than just?? kind of vaguely nonbinary i guess?? since im just.. omee? default person shaped? and for the longest time, it feels good and normal and /right/. dunno. wanted to share the excellent good vibes despite this whole mess of a world situation lol. #textwall #manywords  happy pride y'all! every single one of you friendshapes is very important and appreciated ❤️

for context! i'm huge fan of people who are happy with their bodies; its the best possible place to be! and such, want to confirm I dont have and never had anything against female chest in general, im genuinely glad some people can carry themselves with pride and joy, it simply wasnt a concept my brain could accept for me; personally they looked and felt really wrong on me, despite being physically healthy and "normal"; nothing were wrong with my pre- chest shapes except them residing on my body.

[mithliya]

idk which ex ur talking about in that "insane things my ex has done" but i relate bcuz i am currently in a relationship with a gendie who has started saying recently that my aversion to male genitalia is incredibly transphobic even though she knows i have been sexually assaulted many times by men (and am and always have been a lesbian lol) (also sorry if this is inappropriate but i feel like i have no one else to confide in.)

im not sure where i talked about her but i can tell from what u said which ex i was talking about lool its my 1st gf and i never rly talked fully about this bc my ex has since transitioned (only socially tho afaik) & continued to be questionable as fuck in various ways and went from friendly w me to shit talking me bc how dare i share my opinions on my blog which she decided to keep regularly checking for years after our break up despite her having a gf and us hardly ever talking (partially bc of me bc frankly in hindsight i was far too forgiving n despite that she demonised me at the end of our relationship n was weird in various moments after we remained friends)

but she was (& is) also a gendie, which is fine bc when we were together she wasnt like irrational about it. she was the one who told me that SRS doesnt work the way i thought it did, like the genitals didnt magically change and there arent like no differences like i thought, instead she said the differences were obvious. but near the end of our relationship she insisted to me that the way to fix her issues was to make our relationship an open relationship, said that my body made her insecure about her own body n she should sleep w people with a similar body to gain confidence in it. prior to that i was not for an open relationship at all but those comments made me feel like saying no would make me selfish and that if thats what she needs to accept herself then fine yanno. then ofc not soon after she starts e-dating this trans woman who is an abusive creep & rapist (like not even exaggerating here. but ofc those accusations were dismissed for a while bc the trans woman called the woman who came out about the abuse a terf n ppl believed that until trans women also began to call this out). i was like um hows dating someone with a diff body than u and even a diff sex going to make u feel better about ur body when thats the entire reason for the open relationship? never rly got a proper answer but whatever i let it be. then that trans woman wanted to be in a throuple with us basically like wanted to get with me and my ex and would openly fantasise about me to my ex. my ex said "oh she wouldnt be into that, shes not into penises" and the trans woman was like omg why.. :( and my ex was like oh shes penis-repulsed etc and the trans woman was like aw how sad i hope she gets help for that!! n my ex agreed. then my ex told me about this n i was like... what the fuck? it took me a bit but after a few days i was like hey this comment really pissed me off wtf do u mean gets help for that.. and my ex was saying that i should seek therapy to stop being penis-repulsed and should see trans women as women and be open to trans women in a romantic & sexual way basically and i was clearly upset by that n i was like. ur telling me to seek conversion therapy. n she was like nooo and i was like what so u mean some kind of exposure therapy against the "phobia" of penises? and she was like yeah just like that! n i said... thats literally a form of conversion therapy that was done in the past to other gay ppl.. exposing gay ppl to the opposite sex's genitals to try to change their feelings towards it is literally a conversion therapy tactic.

anyways my ex n i ultimately broke up bc it turned out the open relationship was meant to be one-sided somehow and her doing things was ok but if i did things it made me a cheater somehow and my comfort was repeatedly disregarded, i didnt like that trans woman at all at that point n my ex would still keep dating them n it was just all too many bad things at once so i was like fuck it im done w this. ultimately my ex realised that this trans woman is indeed an abuser and i also realised the my 2nd gf who i got with soon after i broke up w my ex is also an abuser. but then when my ex began to transition she started to show more of that homophobia she showed during our relationship like saying the f-slur (calling ppl that) and saying its ok bc "im a bisexual man" which was just.........erm... anyways in the end our last form of communication was her getting her friends to gang up on me for ~ruining the fun~ of a game of among us and then she talked shit about me to one of my close friends (been friends for 14 years) who she never even met and was like ~omg shes so problematic im sorry i just cant handle it anymore~ ......

anyways i feel u lmao. its not inappropriate dont worry and im sorry u went thru that too bc its painful to love someone as they are and yet they basically tell u that ur lesbianism means something is wrong w u bc ur truly not into males at all. honestly i think its best for u to end it asap instead of making the mistake i did, nothing good came out of it for me and i shouldve left for good at the first red flag which was my ex's compulsive lying about serious issues like rape & fgm, or immediately ended it when she was saying that i should go thru conversion therapy otherwise im transphobic

[neoneun-au]

what the fuck

i was going to read one of the other (more recent) fics youve posted but when i went to your masterlist i remembered that i had never actually read this one. whether timing or whatever, i know i had started it a few times but i was just so distracted that i never got very far, though i knew one day would be the right time to sink into it. guess that was today

literally from the first paragraph i felt so so immersed in it. the setting, the narrative, the tone--everything was painted with such a fine, delicate brush. it just completely enveloped me and i was so so hooked immediately

i already knew youre a good writer. obviously. that was never in question. but there was something so transcendant about this one in particular. the allusions to fruit and food metaphors throughout, never too much but just enough to really pad the writing with such beauty and dynamism. it was just such a treat. such a complete joy to read.

it was so potent too, emotionally. i could feel it in the pit of my stomach the entire time. heart on edge, just waiting for a pin to drop. for the tension to let off. it walked such a fine balance of introspection and external forces and the whole time i just felt like i was on the edge of a cliff, wind whipping past, staring out over the horizon and just waiting for...something. waiting to jump, to fall, to be pushed, to see a ship come over a crest of a wave. it was just so deliciously paced and poignantly felt. im at a loss for words (obviously not literally since i keep typing but you know lol)

i was so immersed i didnt get much of a chance to clip out specific passages but there were a few that really stood out while reading enough to pull me out of my trance

this passage is everything. its the perfect example of how expertly crafted this entire thing was written as well. the choice of words, the sentence structure. it all comes together so well to convey the depth hiding in this humble farmer!au. it made me want to cry. very intensely. because havent we all felt this at some point. this yearning. this deep maw of need. greed for more.

then this line made me want to kill myself ! (in a good metaphorical way lol) these two back to back just. my god.

the readers imposter syndrome and their self sabotaging that always always ripples out to affect the lives of those that simply love them. so felt. so seen. so beautifully portrayed by you, dear writer.

"without your fingerprints all over him"

wow.

your writing is so lush. its so evocative. i have a hard time grasping for words that might convey how i felt about this and i continually come up short but im just in awe of how beautiful this story is. and to think i got to read it for free on tumblr dot com and it was written by such a dear, lovely, otherwise incredibly busy person lol

ill close my thoughts here by saying that ive read a lot of books in the last little while. a few classics. some that really resonated while i was reading them but that sort of drifted off as time went on and i wasnt present in their narratives anymore. i loved them. but i love this more. i can feel this slotting into my brain and lingering there at the edges. it makes me want to write.

TO GROW LOVE (AND EAT IT TO THE CORE)

pairing: mingyu x gn!reader wc: 8.1k summary: your whole life, you've only wanted one thing. then you meet mingyu. suddenly you want too much, and you wish the summer never ended. notes: farmer!au, established relationship, angst/hurt/a little comfort

this is a birthday fic for my one and only cat @wuahae ! yes this is about half a year late but what can i say. all good things come with time. thank you for being so kind, funny, and thoughtful (and patient)! not a day goes by where i’m not thankful for our friendship :)

and a million thanks to hana @wqnwoos and jackie @97-liners for helping me with edits. literally you guys are insane writers and i will never stop looking up to you.

i. strawberries (the summer we were young)

When a strawberry is ripe, the seeds push out from the heart of the fruit, as if it's bursting from the inside out.

This is one of the few and only things you've learned by living in Seogwipo, where strawberry season comes like a supernova. The May sun, full and heavy, peels into summer, and the roadside farms open their doors, trying to catch stray vacationers from Jeju City on the other side of the island.

That being said, there are approximately two things to do here. One of them is farm. The other is pretend like you have a life, which is your childhood friend Yizhuo's favorite thing to do when she's back from university on summer break.

Today, this involved convincing her ritzy, too-good Seoul friends that they're missing out on this side of Jeju. (Missing out on what? You're not sure. Perhaps the chipped paint of the mural walls, or the endless flat-topped stretches of seagrass. Yizhuo isn't fooling anyone, but you've always liked stretching your legs out in the bed of her pick-up, even on the long drive to nowhere.)

Unsurprisingly, her friends quickly came to the same conclusion. Just one look at your local strawberry patch, with none of the glamour of the bloated tourist traps in the city, and they decided they'd rather spend the afternoon at the beach.

It was then, between the fragaria blooms, when you met Mingyu. He asked for your name, and the rest was history. Yizhuo and co. scattered like the grasping hands of an overripe dandelion and you learned that he was, one, the newly-graduated son of a pair of local farmers, and two, very, very attractive. Almost too much so, especially for a place like this.

Now he holds up a berry, a bright red murder between his fingers, and tells you to try it.

"You must be delusional if you think i'm taking food from a stranger," you laugh, perched on the fence bordering the field. It sprawls before you, melon stripes on the sunbaked ground.

"No, my name is Mingyu," he replies. "No idea who delusional is." His smile, all bright lip and snaggletooth, tears into the scarlet belly of a newly picked strawberry.

"We all know what happened to Persephone."

"Well, if the underworld was a strawberry patch, I wouldn't mind being stuck there for all of eternity."

"What're you picking all these for, anyway?" you ask, watching Mingyu struggle with his too-big straw hat between the vines. His woven basket bleeds over with little berries.

"Jam. I make it on the very first day of every summer."

"Why?"

"You ask a lot of questions for someone who trespassed on my farm. You're cute, but I won't let you off easy."

He laughs at how you balk, clearly red-handed. You're not sure how to tell him you don't think you were supposed to be here either. You don't do things like sit in the back of trucks, trespass, or talk to pretty farmer boys who take a fancy to you, but it's the summer before you graduate and you're not even sure how long you'll have to continue making bad decisions.

"Are you gonna take my first-born now?" you joke instead. The daylight runs down the rim of Mingyu's hat, trickles down his brow, and you wish you could pour the image of him into a jar and keep it forever.

"No, but I will invite you in for some fresh jam on toast. I baked a loaf this morning." and when you say nothing, he continues. "The strawberries are only good once a year. It's the best you'll ever have. Promise."

It's a whine and a half, and somehow you convince yourself this will be the last bad decision you'll make. You've been here long enough to know that good things don't come twice in Seogwipo, and he is unlikely to be an exception.

Yizhuo blows up your phone, you tie the gingham apron around Mingyu's tiny waist, and the basket turns to blood in the saucepan.

Mingyu is right. Love comes to you in that kitchen, high and red like the sun, and the jam never tastes as good as it does that summer.

ii. watermelon (hollowed out, like a magic trick)

"A good watermelon sounds like a heartbeat."

You watch Mingyu heave the fruit, small and striped, out of his grocery bag. It joins the array of egg sandwiches and banana milks you picked up from the store together earlier. (There should have been chocolate Pepero too, but you split the box on the walk).

You're on a picnic, sprawled out on the outcropping overlooking the water. The path up is basically right behind your house, but you had never cared to visit. It had always been the local makeout spot, a schlocky teen crawl for those with nothing better to do, and yet, with Mingyu stretched out beside you, it seems newer. More exciting.

You're still just friends, or at least that's what you told Yizhuo. But ever since you sat on Mingyu's kitchen counter and ate from his jam-covered spatula, you don't think you've gone a week without seeing him. It's been almost two months, which seems so long and yet not long enough—he makes it easy to be greedy.

"See?" He thumps the watermelon with the heel of his palm. "Try it."

You already went through this entire charade at the grocery store, right in front of all the local aunties, but you indulge him. There's little point to triple checking if it's still ripe, but you think he just likes hitting it.

"It sounds good," you say. "But how are we even gonna eat it? We don't have a knife."

"Watch this." Mingyu procures a coin from his pocket. "You didn't learn this in elementary school? I feel like everyone was doing it."

"Here?" you ask, incredulous.

"Yeah, here. I grew up here too, you know."

He holds the edge of the coin to the skin and slams his palm into it once more, so that it lodges itself into the rind, and begins dragging it around the fruit. You start to wonder if he bought the watermelon just to show you a party trick—not that you mind, though. The strain of his biceps peeks through his rolled up white tee, and you remember why he was able to stop you with just one look back when you first met.

"No way." The watermelon is so ripe, it bleeds around the incision. "I feel like I know everyone here. And I definitely would have remembered you."

"I was probably, like, two grades above you," he replies. "And my parents shipped me off to live with my cousins after elementary school. They said I should get out of Seogwipo and experience the real world."

"Good call. There's nothing here." You watch Mingyu spin the melon over to cut through the other side. The coin catches the sunlight, and it looks like gold. "I wish I left for university. The one here is so small."

"Really?" He pauses to show you his handiwork. The two melon halves roll over on their backs, their cut edge cruel and jagged. "Cool, huh?"

"Impressive," you say. "Honestly. I really didn't think that would work."

"I didn't either when I first saw someone do it. But I’ll try anything once," he replies, ripping open the packaging of the plastic spoon from the bag. "I can't believe you don't like it here."

"You do?"

"Yeah. A lot." He shoves the spoon in his mouth, and you watch the watermelon juice pool around his lips. "I missed home. The trees and the tall grass and the ocean. All the fruits. Everything. I learned to ride a bike, right down there by the water."

"Hm." He passes you the spoon. You don't want to hog it, so you carve out a piece bigger than you need. "Are you gonna work at the farm?"

"Maybe. Haven't decided yet," he says. "I think I want to be here, though. Maybe do something with food, but I want to be home."

"That's funny, because I think I’ve always wanted to live a different life. Or at least one somewhere else."

"You want to go to law school, right?"

"Yeah." Mingyu is right. The watermelon is all sugar, and you would almost feel guilty for eating it if it wasn't technically good for you. "I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer. It's something about the people watching, I think."

"That’s really cool," Mingyu says, mouth full but no less sincere. It's then that you notice your shoulders are almost touching, and your heart crawls back up to your mouth. "You know what you want. I admire that."

He makes it sound like a compliment, but you're sure it's a curse.

You think of your parents. There's a permanent wrinkle ironed into their foreheads, the paper crease of expectations and high standards. It's not that they didn't care, but their kind of care was a humbled sort, made heavy by a hard life. It didn't help that your big sister Seohyun went straight from Yonsei to work a big tech job in San Francisco and never once looked back.

But you can't blame any of them—wanting has always been a hereditary failing. Sometimes Yizhuo will catch you frowning at nothing, and then you remember that life isn't a performance and every day ends at the same time no matter how hard you work. But you don't know how to tell her that the only thing you can do sometimes is want, because otherwise you wouldn't really have much at all.

It seems like the exact opposite of how Mingyu lives—everything about him seems to pass like the seasons. Maybe that's why you can't seem to get enough of each other.

"Thank you. Really." You dig the spoon into your half of the melon. There isn't much left. "You're way too nice to me."

"It’s not hard to be," he laughs. "Maybe you're just too hard on yourself."

You're losing track of the distance between the two of you. You can almost feel the heat playing off his skin.

"Maybe."

It's then, under the veil of summer, where you meet Mingyu's gaze and, finally, things seem close to simple.

All you know are his eyes, heavy with sun, and then the slow, slow move of his lips against yours. He tastes like August, long and sweet, and for once you know what it's like to not only want, but to have, and to have again.

The ocean sings on the horizon, and the watermelon bellies weep.

iii. adzuki beans (or, the blood of a headless taiyaki)

Mingyu eats taiyaki headfirst because he says it hurts less.

"That makes no sense," you tell him, your pinkies linked. You never really liked holding hands, but yours fits so perfectly in Mingyu's and there's some girlish, childlike shine to it when you watch his finger search for yours after just a moment separated.

"What do you mean."

He breaks your gaze to eye a red bean taiyaki, like an unwilling predator sizing up their prey. It's the lamest, most embarrassing iteration of National Geographic you've ever seen, and yet you cannot find any fiber within yourself not deeply in love with the lion.

Fall is a forgiving place for your relationship to settle. You're now a senior at university and he's started his gap year. Gap implies he's in the middle of something, but in true Mingyu fashion, he leaves it up to fate, or chance, or something not nearly as kind (whim).

"Taiyaki isn't alive. And why would you want to pretend it is? Eating gummy bears would become an extinction event."

"It kind of is." He holds out the tail end of the taiyaki, the pastry almost explicitly flayed open, in front of you to eat. "Why does the Haribo bear have a face? Why do the gummy bears live in a gummy forest?"

"Great, so now I can’t even enjoy gummy bears without feeling like a serial killer?"

You dig your pointer into his shoulders, broad from all the time he spends on the farm. To think that his hands, big and weathered, were made to pick berries (and now wrap around your pinky finger) is bruising, if not ridiculously funny.

"It's a crime of passion. Gummy passion. Prosecute that."

He kisses your cheek and your heart almost squeezes into two.

The terrible thing about being with Mingyu is how seemingly endless his affection is. Now he's feeding you in public and buying the two of you matching socks (cat and dog, to be exact), although you'll admit it's a little charming, even if the neighbors do gossip.

He's sweet, too sweet, and his kisses stick to the back of your throat.

But you can't be fooled. There's an unsaid violence to the way Mingyu loves. (The meticulous spiral of the peel he carves when you ask for him to cut you an apple. The grind, decisive and cruel, of a knife against a cutting board. A pair of canines against your neck, your jaw.)

Even now, he bites the head off another unwitting taiyaki before stuffing it back in the bag.

"We're still splitsing, right?" he says, with perhaps 1% of his mouth available for speaking and the other 99% murder machine.

Splits, he always says before you share food. You never had the heart to tell him that it's in the same family as mines or sharesies or takebacks—silly childhood relics, ones that no one uses anymore because they don't mean anything.

This time, you don't hear him because you're thinking about the law school fair you went to before Mingyu picked you up. The future is so close, it scares you. A year from now, what ground would you be standing on? Would it smell like this—the peat, the thread-spool fields, the balm of the ocean? Would you still have Mingyu's finger wrapped round yours?

"Have you decided if you're staying at the farm?" you ask.

"Not really." He uses the back of his hand to wipe off his chin. "If my sister decides to take over, I’m actually kinda thinking of going to pastry school instead of getting a masters."

Mingyu had been toying with the idea for some time after you had talked about it on the outlook. It started off as a joke (September; a galette), then a what if (October; green tea mochi), and now it sits at a kinda.

"Kinda?"

The word gathers speed in the pachinko machine of your mind. You never liked being a kinda person. For Mingyu, it seems like a luxury of a word, but for you, it's really just another thing to hide behind. Kinda talented, kinda ambitious, kinda just there. You're always one foot in, one foot out of something better.

"Yeah, kinda. Why?"

"I dunno. What if we both end up leaving?"

"Maybe. You still want to, right?"

You would be lying if you said you didn't—it's what you always wanted. Seogwipo has been a sun-rot, too-small crutch for you, but you would also be lying if you said you weren't terrified that you'd eventually come back, limping like some doomed Icarus, unable to truly make it in the real world.

Then you think of the pockmarked farmland beside your home, lacy with the fall harvest. Even now, you can trace the endless blue of the coastline all the way there, cut through all the maybes and just let the sound of the ocean fold you into sleep like you were a child again. You wonder if Seohyun, all the way on the other side of the world, ever misses it.

"I’m not sure," you say, because, as much as you don't like it, it's the only answer you have.

"It's ok. You'll figure it out. You always do." He squeezes your cheeks together between his thumb and index, laughing at how they pillow out underneath his fingers. "Screw pastry school. I could come with you. Who else would keep you fed?"

Mingyu's complete and unfounded belief in you makes you feel something close to betrayal. How could he say any of that? With what proof? Only someone like Mingyu would be able to hold the wrinkled fruit of your unremarkable life between his palms and see something better than that. Maybe it's because he grew up on a farm. Either that, or he already cares for you too much, too painfully.

Secrets are easy to keep when they look like yours. At least here, in the pit of your stomach, you can keep count, take attendance of them, all your tittering, small anxieties. Some days it feels like your ribs are pressing out, but it's better than cutting everything loose to spill out over what little you do have control over.

You can handle a little pressure. You have to.

What concerns you is the hand Mingyu's got across your chest. With one look, he just might gut you. A twist of the heart-knife, and all those carefully wound insides carved out in an instant—maybe he'd pity you, but worse than that, he'd likely be disappointed.

For you, expectation has always stood taller than shame, and the idea that he sees something past you makes you want to run away.

"I could be a house husband," he says as easily as ever. "You'll be off saving the world, arguing with whoever, and I'll be there to run you a bath afterwards."

"Let's not get too ahead of ourselves," you reply, binding up the strange, hollow feeling in your stomach with a laugh.

There's a scared little girl hiding inside you, and whether Mingyu sees her or not hurts the same. A spade is a spade. You can only pretend so long.

You look at the taiyaki floating in their wax paper bag, blinded and wrought open by the same grin that now peels you down, and you're not hungry anymore.

iv. winter pears (rotten, outside your parents' house)

Mingyu's family loves Christmas.

You think it's because of the pear trees they have in the front yard. They stand bravely before the house, all emerald ash and wisdom in the December freeze. Run your palms over the knobs and it's like you can see into a sleepy visage of simpler days past. (Below its heart, carved: 1982, the year the farm was bought. Along the tangle of the roots: gyu waz here, in an unsure, childish scrawl.)  

Winter comes to the countryside crawling on its hands and knees. On days it doesn't snow, there's a mist, boggy and clingy. You've come to realize the cold is more of a threat than a promise, and so the pear trees still bear fruit; the silvery branches hang heavy, faithful.

The first day of December, Mingyu's parents had tasked the two of you with decorating the farmhouse, a duty you took very seriously. You wrapped Mingyu up in string lights and watched him blink in and out like your own personal firefly.

It wasn't until you watched the rafters, the barn doors, the joyous vault of the ceiling all glow, like a spectacular firework, that you finally started to understand why Mingyu was so into the holidays.

It was in the yellow blush of the string lights that you had your first pear from the tree, which Mingyu insisted was a holiday tradition. We make poached pears, he said, mid-bite. You simmer the pear in syrup until it gets so soft, you can cut into it with a fork. Just like butter.

That same night, he kissed you, mouth hot and trembling and tasting of honey, and pressed you against the bark so hard, you could feel the grit of its veins against your skin.

You think December became your favorite month, and pears your favorite fruit.

So much so, that for the entire month, you try to put away your worries about law school applications to celebrate with Mingyu and his family.

You learn his mom makes the best hot chocolate (a cinnamon stick and a dogged devotion to the whisk), and that Mingyu has no clue on God's green earth how to ice skate. (He careens right into your chest the first time. You spend the next hour with him attached to you like a backpack—he manages to find the most impractical ways to do anything, which you somehow admire the most). On Sundays, Yizhuo ditches her Seoul friends and instead accompanies you to the mall two towns over, where she watches you compare different ties and watches and collagen creams as you decide on gifts for his family. (Lilac is so last year, she'd say, stirring the straw of a watered-down milk tea.)

It's not until the weekend before Christmas when you realize just how serious things have gotten. Your feet understand the meander of the dirt path to the farmhouse, your bones the scent of the yellow-skinned apple, the faded wildflowers. Your palms crave the plush of the rug they have in front of the fireplace. Hell, you can't even eat soondubu without thinking of the kind Mingyu's dad makes, with extra anchovies and green onion.

You don't think about what this means. There are ten days left in December and love poured from a full cup never seems to run out.

"Please let me carry some of those," Mingyu wheedles. "Oh my god. I'm like the worst boyfriend in the world."

"No, you are not." you make your way up to his doorstep, taking care to one-two step over the stray roots of one of the pear trees. It's second nature to you by now. "The moment I hand you a box, you are gonna start trying to figure out what it is."

He harumphs and plucks the big one off the top anyway, the one he knows you can't reach. "I didn't even know you were getting us gifts. You didn't have to."

"It's the least I could do. Who shows up to a holiday dinner emptyhanded?" You stop at the front door. "And stop shaking it," you laugh, using the tip of your boot to nudge his shin.

"Okay. Okay," he says, saccharine, adoring, before grabbing the doorknob. "Ready? Are you nervous? You shouldn't be nervous, right? It's not fancy or anything, if you were worried about that."

And that's the thing that wedges itself between your ribs. Mingyu and his whole family are like this. They love and worry and love again; it presses deep into you, fills you, and overflows.

So here you are, standing in your nicest dress and balancing a stack of gifts you hope will amount to something, never enough but something, to repay the people who you feel have loved you more than you deserve. It's all you really have. You do your best, and yet you know when that door opens, it'll all be washed away in a high-tide flurry of hugs and laughter and the familiar press of Bobpul's wet nose against your leg. They're just those kinds of people—they would be just as happy if you didn't bring anything at all, and somehow that makes you feel even more guilty.

"No, no," you wave him off. "I’m fine. Excited."

When Mingyu opens the door, everything goes just as you expected. His sister takes your coat, your gifts are whisked away to the tree (Aji has already figured out which one is his), and his parents descend upon you in a choking swell of warmth and charity.

We baked some fresh bread for your parents (—Thank you so much, but you really shouldn't have.). You look so beautiful in that color (—No, no, you flatter me too much.). Mingyu better be taking good care of you (—He is. He really, really is.).

The kitchen is gauzy with cinnamon, anise. They must be making their famous poached pears, which Mingyu remarks on, just like clockwork.

Dinner passes the same way. It bubbles over with affection, and you feel swallowed by an impossible yearning. This—a full table and a hand to hold underneath it—did you deserve this? And could you keep it?

For an instant, you picture yourself, years later, at this same seat. Mingyu would be fussing over the rice cakes, his apron still gingham because it reminds him of the day you two met. His parents, grayer but no less happy, bickering over the shade of tinsel on the tree. And the dogs, coiled at your feet like they are now. The vision laps at your bones like you're a raft in a storm.

You're pulled back into the moment when Mingyu squeezes your hand, grounding and insistent. "Mom asked how school was going. I told her I think you're basically the smartest person I know, and I’m pretty sure you're getting into whatever law school you want."

Mingyu's parents laugh, and they cut through their pears.

"Oh, sorry," you say. "Um."

Clink. Knife meets flesh, meets porcelain. Your cheeks are hot. You wanted to talk about anything other than yourself tonight. Clink.

"The top programs are a reach, but it'd be nice." clink. "I just want to get in somewhere."

"They’re all so far away," Mingyu's mom remarks. "So grown up. Any school will be lucky to have you. You'll get into all of them."

Clink.

"Or maybe you can stay here." You watch the prongs of Mingyu's father's fork disappear into the pear. "Keep us old folk company."

"No, no, I think Mingyu should take notes and get off his lazy ass," his sister says, teasing. "Going back to the city will be good for him."

"So you can, what, burn down the kitchen again?" Mingyu grumbles, and the whole table seems to boil over with laughter.

"We’re kidding," his mom tells you. "No matter where you go, I’m sure you'll do great. We can even throw you a party at the end of the year. For graduating."

Clink. Clink.

There's a horrible uneasiness writhing around in your stomach. It's pear and syrup and clove and a blackness, an anxious, selfish one that sucks up all the generosity of the evening and turns it into shame.

Mingyu's mom is talking about throwing you a graduation party, something you didn't even think to do for yourself, and here you are, thinking about the shaking moment you open your rejection letters and the lonely path you'll draw on your way back home.

It's ok. They missed out, Mingyu would say, pouring you a consolation drink, and then it would be over. You'd go home and sit on your bed and the trifold piece of paper would go round and round your head like it was in a washing machine.

Your heart, an inventory of tasks and goals and tally marks. Things you've taken and things you've owed. It's a soft, boneless excuse. Be grateful. Give them that, at least.

Clink.

Dessert ends before you can tell his family not to get their hopes up. Mingyu's mom sends you off with your loaf of bread and a kiss on the cheek, and the moment is gone.

"Gyu," you call out on the steps in front of the house.

There are words at the seam of your lips. You want to tell him you're sorry for worrying so much. For making the whole dinner about you and then very possibly having nothing to show for it when it matters. For the heaviness in your chest. Your cowardice. But none of it comes out.

Instead you watch Mingyu pull at the leaves of a pear tree, watching the frost-filigree they get at the end of the season. He looks over his shoulder and smiles at you, as if he's on the hazy cover of a magazine. His eyes bend so wonderfully at the corners when he looks at you, and it breaks your heart.

"You had fun, right?" he asks. "My parents like you a lot, you know. I think they really do."

But that's the problem, you want to say. You all do, and I have no idea why.

Some of the pears are beginning to rot now. You watch one drop off the vine, and it caves to the pavement like it was made of nothing at all.

v. wild barley (grows like weeds)

In March, you play house.

Your parents leave on a two week trip to see relatives, and Mingyu takes it upon himself to make sure you survive.

It's a kind, blinding charade.

(7 am, breakfast. You usually don't even eat breakfast, but you wake up to doenjang and a smile, one that presses itself to yours until you're wearing it on the long walk to school.)

(4 pm, the stretch between lunch and dinner. You're muddling through another useless club meeting when Mingyu sends you a picture of him in your mom's apron, making kimchi. Kiss the chef, he texts you. You promise to, over and over and over.)

It's good until it isn't.

That isn't to say that it's Mingyu's fault. In fact, it's never really Mingyu's fault, and that's the worst thing about your relationship. Sometimes you wish he was worse just so there was someone else to blame.

(1 am, a fridge-cold glass of water and a hand on the column of your spine. Can't sleep? He asks. Just had a weird dream, you say.

It's a lie. You're a liar.

You miss your parents and the first wave of acceptance letters comes out in two days. You're not like him. Sleep has never been a cure for the exhaustion you're feeling, and you have no way of telling him that however warm the bed is won't fix that.)

It's on a Thursday afternoon when you open your mailbox and see the tiny, thin envelope that you've been expecting for the past week. You don't need to open it to know what it says, and yet you do it anyway.

The sun is white, a ghost in the spring sky. The ocean bleeds into the overcast, the curly barley stands tall around your feet, and you let the worst letter you've gotten in your life fall upon your shoulders, word by terrible word.

Then you close it, pinching the seam shut, and draw up your brave face. Nothing left to do but be brave. You're convinced you've used up all the sadness in your relationship—spend in pennies and the well still runs dry. Mingyu will cup your cheek and call you darling, pouring into your emptying basin, holey and broken.

You see him now through the kitchen window, Venus in his clamshell of a kitchen. Galbijjim day, he had said this morning. Now, he waves at you, glittery with recognition.

Your throat feels like crumpled paper.

Mingyu smiles at you, hazy through the glass. Your cheeks hurt and your mouth is paper mache, but you smile back anyway.

///

The letters come one after another.

You know what the envelopes hold and yet you keep opening them. The little folder you keep stashed in your bottom drawer gets fatter every passing day because you can't help but revisit your misery, almost as if you need to remind yourself it exists.

Mingyu is none the wiser. Today he decides he'll put off pastry school for one more year. "It doesn't feel like the right time," he says, rolling a log of burdock kimbap up. "You know what I mean?"

No, you don't. You never really do.

You do know, however, that it would feel really fucking bad that, come the end of the year, to have nothing. All your friends would be going somewhere—even Yizhuo opened her acceptance to an MFA program in Shanghai yesterday—and you would be here, still, feet firmly planted in the muddy Jeju dirt like they always had been.

"Hey, don't look so disappointed." he jokes. "Don't tell me you're already trying to get rid of me."

You're not, you really aren't. But part of you wonders if it's just a race to the bottom. If you got rid of him before he decided he wanted to get rid of you, maybe it would hurt a lot less. One less letter for the folder.

"Never. But imagine if you picked up a French accent at pastry school. Then I’d consider it. Maybe."

You watch his knife rock back and forth on the cutting board as he cuts the kimbap.

"Some for you. And more for me," he says, in what you can only describe as someone attempting to speak French when they've never heard it before. "Unless you want more, mon cherie."

He brings the plates to the table, his grin nothing short of dizzying.

"I’m irresistible, huh? Still wanna leave me now?"

"You're gonna have to try a little harder than that, I think."

The words roll off your tongue, easily, traitorously.

You watch the kimbap disappear off of Mingyu's plate.

Going, going, gone.

///

Seogwipo is always dark at night, only kept alive by the glow of the moonlit sea.

You can't sleep. Again. And so you sit out on the steps in front of your house, letting the twilight wrap around you like a blanket.

You got your last letter back earlier today. You held your breath and tore it open like you would a birthday card with money in it.

Waitlisted.

It was surely better than a rejection, but some naive, child-eyed part of you thought that if you had just closed your eyes and hoped hard enough, things would work out the way you had planned. Tragically, it wasn't enough this time. You wanted and wanted and you thought maybe that would mean you'd come close to deserving it.

Your parents called today. After managing to sideline the issue of basically the rest of your entire life, they had finally cut through your sad little charade. No good news yet, huh?

No, but—

It was always like that with you. No, but it's not as bad as you think. No, but give me a chance. No, but I’m trying. I've been trying.

You wish things didn't come out of you so complicated. That you could be like Seohyun, who could go through school with her eyes closed and still graduate at the top of her class. Instead, you parade around your little failures, trying to convince people it all could mean something only if they squinted. See? It isn't so bad.

You think you're past the point of crying about it. Your stomach hurts, you're cold, and most of all, you just want to go back to bed. Plus, although Mingyu sleeps like a log, you think he's developed a sixth sense for whenever you get up too early.

Time to be brave, you've been telling yourself, although you don't know who you're pretending for anymore.

So you nudge the front door open—it's so old, it wails if you come at it with any more force—and, to your surprise, see the light above the kitchen sink turned on.

It's not very bright, but it's enough to make out Mingyu's broad silhouette, back turned to you as he makes a cup of tea. He's humming one of his made-up songs.

"Mingyu?"

"There you are," he says, turning around. "Just came out to check on you. And make you some tea."

The kettle whizzes. Your gut twists.

You still haven't said anything to Mingyu. To manage your own disappointment was one thing—you don't think you could handle another person's. And yet when he stands there, Pororo mug between his huge hands, you feel as if you are holding a knife, big and guilty and bloody.

"I-I'm fine, Gyu. Honest." you watch his expression flicker, unreadable in the persimmon lamplight. "Sorry you had to come out. It's chilly out here."

"You know, you can tell me what's going on. I won't judge."

No, no, no. This is the last conversation you wanted to have, with the last person you wanted to have it with.

You feel feverish. You think your hands are shaking.

"Mingyu, I swear—"

"Whatever it is, we can fix it. I know we can."

That almost makes you want to laugh if you didn't want to cry so bad. Of fucking course he would say that. Mingyu, who treats life like it's the watermelon trick he showed you on the outlook, wants to put a bandaid on this whole thing, as if that could come close to fixing it.

He'd tell you to curl up on the couch with a bad movie while he orders takeout. Kiss you on the top of the head. It's ok, baby. Just another bad day for the person who has the worst luck in the world. Another lump of problems for him to try and make better. If he isn't sick of you now, he sure would be soon enough.

"It’s okay," you say, steeling your voice. "It really isn't a big deal. Let's just go back to sleep."

You try to walk away, but the hardness in Mingyu's eyes roots you down to the tile.

"Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Pushing me away," he swallows. "Like you always do. I know something's going on."

"I’m not, i just—"

"You just what? You can't help it?"

"No, I—"

"Because you like to know that you can? That you can say whatever and then watch me come back?" A fragmented, heavy silence thrums between you. He's looking at you like he's daring you to say something, anything. His gaze is black. "What am I good for if you can't tell me anything?"

There's that familiar, stinging pressure behind your eyes. You think you're crying, but you're not sure. Maybe you've been crying this whole time.

"Fine," you bite. Your blood feels like hot metal. "You really wanna know? I didn't get into law school. There. Happy now?"

Mingyu looks stung.

"W-why didn't you tell me?"

Because I thought you would stop loving me. I thought you would have finally had enough.

"Because it's not all about you, Mingyu."

The words, selfish and damning, burn your tongue. Mingyu is right. This is what you always do. You fuck up and then make everyone else hurt for it.

"I'm sorry," Mingyu says. His voice doesn't sound like his. Instead, the words seem to hang in the air, trembling and holding their breath, waiting for an apology you can't give yet. "I shouldn't have—"

"It's ok." You swallow hard, and it hurts. "Let's just go back to bed."

It's getting colder and colder. You think there's a little hole in your sock, right above the cat's whiskers.

Mingyu doesn't reach for you as he passes to get to the hallway. Maybe he doesn't know how to anymore.

The Pororo cup is left abandoned on the counter. You walk over and read the label on the tea bag—barley, because you have class tomorrow morning.

You pick it up, let the ceramic buzz between your hands with whatever warmth it has left, and hold it to your lips.

It's cold now, but all you can think to do is drink it. Erase all the evidence that tonight ever happened, and maybe it'll be nothing more than a bad dream in the morning.

There's honey at the bottom of the cup. It sears the back of your throat, but you drink until there's nothing left.

vi. the peach blossoms (without fail, bloom every August. I miss you.)

You broke up the next day.

Even now, you remember what happened. You had woken up early that morning to make your own breakfast because you couldn't allow Mingyu to give you any more of himself. Your hands could only hold, shatter, so much.

"Mingyu, I think we should...." You looked at the zigzags of jam on your toast, angry and uneven. "I think we should stop seeing each other. For now," you had added, as if that made anything better at all.

Somehow that seemed more merciful at the time. Really, you think it just showed your cowardice. If you were going to break his heart, you might as well have gone all the way the first time.

Maybe it was a good thing that Mingyu saw right through you. He always did.

"So that's it, huh? You're just gonna give up on us?"

"No, I just...need some time."

"How long?" he asked. "Be honest with me. Because you know I’ll wait."

"I don't know." You couldn't meet his gaze. His eyes reached and reached over that kitchen table and you denied him even that.

"Don't you always know?" he asked, pitifully, desperately. "Don't you want this to work?"

And you did. In fact, you don't think you had ever wanted anything more, and it was that that scared you. You had already lost law school—you couldn't let the only other thing in your life let you go. So you pulled the trigger first.

"We should just end things. I'm sorry. I can't give you what you need."

He packed his bag within the hour, and you think everything, from then on, froze inside you. You didn't move from your seat until your parents came home from the airport later that day and asked why there were two plates of toast still on the table.

You think you knew, someplace, inevitably, this would happen. You, who only knew hunger, had reached deep inside Mingyu and rooted out a love you didn't think you were worthy of having. And yet you still ate from the vine, bite after guilty bite, until you couldn't take any more. The only time he asked you for anything at all, you couldn't give it to him—such was the irony of your relationship.

Maybe you were doomed the moment the first strawberry hit your tongue, just like you had said, all that time ago.

About a month later, you got another letter in the mail. Chungnam National University Law School, it read. This one was fat, in one of those brown envelopes lined with bubble wrap. Somehow, miraculously, that position on the waitlist had turned into an acceptance. You held the package to your chest and cried, loud and with abandon, as if taking a deep breath after almost drowning.

Ironically, the first person you wanted to tell was Mingyu. But the good news you needed to save your relationship came too little, too late. Perhaps that meant it had no legs to stand on in the first place, but that didn't stop you from missing it. Instead, you told Yizhuo, and she drove you to Jeju City and treated you to dinner. "You should just call him," she had said. "Hey, don't look at me like that. He'd probably pick up on the first ring."

The city is swathed in August's crimson summer—peach season. The narrow streets are lined with peach trees, the fruits glowing like fat drops of sunlight. All you do these days is plan for your eventual move to Daejeon and the start of a life that seems newer and shinier than your own. But surrounded by the cicada song, the velvet treeline, the rain-soaked asphalt, somehow you think you're going to miss Seogwipo more than you think.

(Fickle, fickle heart. You always needed things to be taken away to really be able to appreciate them. Somehow, all that wanting had boiled down to something more satisfying, more filling.)

You wonder how Mingyu is. Now that you think about it, he seems just as much a part of Seogwipo as the farm he lives on. It was only last summer when you had first met him in the field, set on fire by the strawberry harvest. You think about him now, peddling around that ridiculous wicker basket to make jam. Maybe talking to another pretty girl, someone as naive, cruel as you had been.

Not long ago, you considered calling him to apologize, but that'd just be another thing to be selfish about. A little time and some warm weather, and I’m calling to finally wash my hands of you. That's what it would sound like, no matter what you said. Still, it didn't stop you from thinking of him, every flower, every season.

"You know, I always wanted to grow peach trees. But I think we've always been a pear kind of family."

Mingyu. If a voice could cut through air, it'd be his.

You whip around, half-believing you're hearing things. Certainly that would be easier, but you're learning that there are some things you can't run from.

And like a picture, Mingyu stands tall, golden, framed by the peach blossoms. Not a thing about him has changed. Not even the way he looks at you.

"Mingyu," you breathe. Unfortunately, none of the times you replayed your last conversation with him help you come up with something to say, because in none of them did you anticipate him coming back. "W-what are you doing here?"

"I live here, silly."

"No way," you reply, scrambling. "Crazy, because I live here too."

You both laugh nervously, a silly, bubbly thing, but you feel like you're going to throw up. It's only now that you realize you're kind of on the walk to his place. Seogwipo has never had places to hide.

"I...um." You try and disentangle the guilt from the nostalgia from the scent of the peaches and the warmth on his face. They all look the same. You missed him. "I got into law school. In Daejeon."

"I heard," he says. "Not surprised at all. I always knew you would."

"Thank you. I mean it." The cicadas buzz around you, as if they know they have an important silence to fill. "You're staying in town, right?"

"Actually, I decided to apply to culinary school. It finally felt right, you know? I'm leaving at the end of the summer, but it's just in Jeju City. I couldn't leave the island."

"Thank goodness. I don't know if you could tell, but I kind of always hoped you would. I don't think I’ve ever eaten better food." Your voice wobbles, but it gets there. "You'll do amazing."

Then time stretches and forces you to recognize, reckon with, the moment you're in. You wonder if he feels the same way you do—bruised, overripe. If there's still a space in his heart for you.

Deep breath. Life only gives you so many chances.

"Mingyu, I’m sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't make us work. You deserved better." Saying it feels like peeling the skin of your heart back. There's still a palpable distance between the two of you—you think that had always been there—but it feels more comfortable in a way it never did before.

"Don’t apologize," he says, easily, as he always does. Everything seems to flow off him like water, and you think that's the part of him you loved the most because it was the one thing you couldn't touch. "We loved each other. I think that much was true."

A jasmine breeze curls through the trees, sending the blossoms fluttering around you like ink in water. The very first time you met Mingyu, you thought the image of him, haloed with the sunset, was the one you wanted to keep forever. And yet, somehow, you don't think you'll ever forget the way he looks right now.

"Will you ever come back to Seogwipo?" you ask.

"I was gonna ask you the same thing—you were always the one who wanted to get out of here." He grins, ear to ear. "Of course I'm coming back. There's nowhere I'd rather be."

"Yeah. I think I know what you mean."

The sea, the clay dirt, Mingyu. Even yourself, clumsy and care-worn. You think, somewhere along the line, you forgot how to love. But you're learning—one step at a time.

"Friends," you say. "Let's be friends. If you'll let me."

"Thought you would never ask. Gladly. Always." The space between you seizes, like it's holding in a breath. Maybe one day, you'll think of closing it once more, but you like where you stand now. You can admire him better from a distance, without your fingerprints all over him. He stuffs his hands in his pockets, something he does before he gets ready to leave. But before he does—"I'll see you soon, okay? You better come back. Promise me."

For the first time, you see the honesty in his eyes and you really, truly believe him.

"Promise."

The Seogwipo sun is high and red in the sky when you wave Mingyu goodbye. It feels like you're coming to an end of a long summer, but you're not afraid. You watch the wind dance through the peach blossoms, their branches never searching, never wanting, and you finally feel as if you've arrived home.

[anytim3youwant]

incredibly unnecessary vent under the cut but i just needed to. put it down on paper. had such a horrible week LMAO LOL. dont do ket kids (even unwillingly) 😄

sorry i dont mean to be concussion posting on main sounding all self pitying. but i cant elsewhere cause my friends involced will feel soso bad and they shouldnt cause it wasnt their fault so. u get it. but im so UGH about this past week. i was at my bestfriends and we were drinking and then their moms friend roofied me with a truly shocking amount of ketamine. which what the fuck. but then i also hit my head and have quite the concussion and its only been three days but i want to scream.

my head hurts i cant think i cant remember anything in a way that doesnt feel like a dream i cant read i cant do anything without hurting. went out with my family today and realised i have zero temperature regulation atm so had such a bad headache i was doing everything in actual delirium and i hate it. i wrote a page in a book about how i am scared that this will last forever. and i know how concussions work but damn what if im like brain damaged lol I KNOW im not what i am is a hypochondriac but. if i had the brain ability to be scared id be crying constantly and i feel like my mom is upset at me even though ik shes not. but i had a massive fight with my friends mom about it (after her friend roofied me and she kept on fucking partying and hung up my phone when i called an ambulance) and i finally managed to convince her that yes, it really happened, but her blaming me got in my head i swear. I KNOW it wasnt my intention to take a shocking amount of ketamine and hit my head that hard but im like ridden with guilt. IT WAS NOT MY FAULT. but my god like i fucked up. i dont even know how i fucked up but i did and now maybe ill never be able to have two thoughts at a time for the rest of forever ig. 18 year old me did not intend to have all of this happened but wtf. i am having an awful time.

absolutely does not help that my dad doesnt gaf. yes he tolf my mother all about how concerned he was but i saw him and he mentioned nothing . not a single thing . not even a oh hello daughter i heard you were drugged and you have a horrible injury is there anything i can do. i mentioned my head hurt and he went ok.. kill me nightmare nightmare nightmare nightmare

id be LESS mad if it was just the ket okay. i had a horrible time but like u couldnt just let me be sedated with horrible dosage symptoms i had to get a concussion too???? i was like yeah ill feel better in a few days. WRONG IG comedown ended and i was left with brain damage ig -> i am a hypochondriac. i do not have long term brain damage. affirmations

still not regulating temperature at all though i may melt away in the night. ok gn sorry

shouldnt have read this back sorry for sounding like the biggest loser 18yro ever like i am but i am so. upset.

[rosegoldenatlas]

actualy got some good news for once!

turns out that the portfolio i was stressing over that i thought was due next friday and wasnt going to be able to finish in time is actualy due WAY later and i have plenty of time, and might not even need to do it at all.

so thats nice

uhhhhh

no cuts also, so thats something

my dog is getting old and sick and isnt eating his food anymore and the vets are trying their best but i dont think he has many years left so thats sad

anyways

brain is still being annoying, and im still not doing great, but ill take my wins where i can get them

hope you are having a non-awful day, and im sorry ive been so weird in these last few messages (and not sorry as in "i am trapped in an endless cycle of self hatred" like i have been the last few nights, but like just acknowledging that i was kinda out of it when i sent those)

sleep well, fair prince

stay awesome

what? really??!?!!

Thats great! I did think of was a little odd that your portfolio was due so early since my brothers wasn't due for a while. I just thought maybe it was a California thing. Now you can work on it casually. Make sure you don't push it off!!

Hell yeah no cuts we win these!!!

Oh yeah that's never a fun experience. A pet dying is always really sad, my two rabbits died last year (old age). How old is your doggo? What breed he?

Take the wins always. Its gonna be nice not to be stressing about the portfolio all the time yeah?

My day was alright, I just got my testing schedule and its gonna be shit then because I'm failing two classes right now but eh. Let's just hope they weight their semester tests higher. I usually do well on them.

You haven't been too weird. Again, a sorry is not needed here. (Yeah I get what you mean but its literally so okay. Yeah? I'm just glad you're doing better today)

Hope you slept well my sleeping beauty.

(See what I did there?? Since she's a princess?? Eay) ((why am I like this lol))

Stay incredible

*hugs you*

[thecherrygod]

this is mainly a test if it works how i want ill add to this

apparently it works. anyways

man. i wish i wasnt so mentally ill i wish i could have a stability

like honestly i wish i could look at the sky, which looks very pretty tonight with the nice clouds i saw. and have the world be beautiful and know the world is beautiful and not have it feel like a knife in my chest like "man the sky is so pretty tonight it makes me wish i was dead" like come on i dont want that lol and lmao

and this isnt even like a new thing, it does happen every once and again mainly with the setting sun and the clouds and beautiful sky colors in general if i see them in real life i am both awed that it is incredibly beautiful and i automatically feel like something is squeezing my insides and feel like i should just die and im. fucking tired man.

i still take pictures, work as much as i can with a phone camera and try to get the pictures, it is still beautiful. i enjoy seeing the sky be pretty. i just wish it didnt make me feel like this at any point in my life. im not even sure why it makes me feel like that