#my brain can only function in memes in response to this right now honestly

[saltybiowarefantears]

[araneitela]

❀ What has made you completely lose your chill?

Prompt: The salty munday meme // @resolutepath

❀ What has made you completely lose your chill? (Skip to paragraph 2 if you want the salt) I don't know if it would count as it being called 'losing my chill', but I get pretty Tinkerbell footstomp-y over specific issues. And as of late the whole 'women empowerment' has driven me absolutely up the wall as if I bit into 5 Jueyun Chilis and then smoked some crack during the moment of 'no brain' that came as a result. I've raged about it in DMs, I've also rambled about it twice over now in posts, and I guess I'm about to do it again here in some capacity. I think it's lasted long enough, this silence from the other side that counters the loud voices. Any society functions best when it practices the art of conversation, debate and discussion between those who disagree, but that seems like it got buried (hopefully only temporarily) by Tumblr numerous years ago, and instead we're now caught in an environment where people yell at each other, and then also make claims that some have 'no right to talk back about [topic in question]'. And I can only take so much of that. For starters, I already don't believe that the concept of people having 'no right to discuss about things' is good or healthy, because half of the experience of learning about things that are unfamiliar to you, is actively getting involved and informed about it (oh hey, I wonder who's at door; oh hello, art of conversation). Any way, I digress, but the amount of times that I see 'you're not a woman, so you can't talk about this', alright great— I'm a woman, so my voice counts when it comes to the topic of women, right? Great. So hear me: the opinion of the (female) masses blows. Sure, this whole concept of 'you have a right to your opinion' is great and I agree, but that doesn't mean that I can't call it the stupidest and most frustrating opinion that I've ever heard (and yes, you have the right to think the same of mine). God.

Any way, to the topic: sexualization of women and how apparently, cishet men are the ones responsible for it. Yeah, okay, and I'm Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, honk honk my bright red nose! Have you seen yourselves on X and Tumblr and wherever else? Sure, one can argue that HYV gave Kafka rather large breasts, sure, and you can condemn them for it, knock yourselves out. And you do, okay, great, and then, ladies, guess what I find scrolling through fanarts on any site? Kafka, drawn with the same large breasts IF. NOT. BIGGER. So okay, yeah, you can tell me these may be men, alright, so then what's your counter to me when I see in the bios of these artists, that they're women or female-identifying? Hmm? Go ahead, I'll wait, I'll be patient. Honestly, I need you to take your accusatory little fingers and point them at yourselves, because a huge part of this problem? Lies with you. Do you need me to say it again? It lies with you. But hey, at least you're consistent, for you don't sexualize just women, you also sexualize the hell out of men.

It's the same in RP in so many cases. There's so many complaints about 'my female muse gets no attention' combined with 'I can't believe I'm only approached for ships', I'm sorry, hold up— what are those shipping memes I see reblogged? The NSFW-tinted ones? What are these suggestive memes in my inbox? And again, it's not just female muses. Because that's the part of the problem that I think people aren't looking at: the exact same is done with male muses, except for some reason, women have a hard-on for M/M ships in writing, and graphical art, as much as we say that men have a thing for F/F porn. But it's okay, we'll condemn one and forgive the other, because one of those objectifies women. Yep, I got it. As a fellow woman, I'm here to say that you're doing good, girls, keep up the sisterhood, I'm proud of you.

... I lied, it makes me lose my damn chill.

[arcanadreams]

That time you and your demon boyfriend went viral

hi yes hello obey me fandom!! my name is Gabbi and i have never played a single second of the actual game but i have read enough fanon content for the past year to have this idea swimming around in my head and now i am finally letting this accursed thing out of my brain and putting it in yours

also i’m only doing the brothers because any more than that and i’d have an aneurysm probably. oh and shoutout to @obeythebutler and @beels-burger-babe for inspiring me with their works to feel brave enough to write for this fandom

Lucifer:

You and Lucifer go viral on Asmo’s Devilgram story!

You’re in the kitchen helping Asmo with dinner duty and singing along to one of your playlists of human realm music that you like to show him.

Asmo starts filming your cute little dance while you stir the pot on the stove because you are just adorable!

About ten seconds into him filming, Lucifer appears in the doorway with quite the stern look on his face. You know, the one that comes right before a “MAMMOOOOOON” and strikes fear into the heart of all those with functioning eardrums. That one.

He opens his mouth, presumably to tell y’all to shut the fuck up, but then there’s a lull in the music and the eldest can hear your voice ever so slightly above the song’s vocalist and he freezes.

Man stops in his tracks like someone just smacked him in the face with a midair volleyball.

Asmo can be heard stifling a laugh behind his phone.

Lucifer’s face gets so soft and he almost, almost, loosens his metal-rod-through-the-ass posture before you notice him and give a little wave and ask if you and Asmo were being too loud like the considerate darling you are.

Lucifer clears and his throat and says something like, “No, you aren’t. I was just coming to check on how dinner is coming along,” and leaves, after which Asmo immediately presses the post button.

Screenshots of Lucifer’s heart eyes for you go absolutely viral because every demon on Devilgram goes absolutely feral for seeing the eldest demon brother lose his dignified composure. It becomes a meme template. “Get you someone who looks at you like Lucifer looks at MC” and “me at the delivery demon when he shows up with my spicy bat wings” posts become commonplace. (Asmo thinks the memes are totally worth getting strung up with Mammon for laughing at them.)

Mammon:

Much like Lucifer, you and Mammon end up going viral off Asmo’s Devilgram. (Noticing a pattern here?) 

He pulls a silly prank on your asses and honestly I don’t know how you fell for it. But hey, they say “idiots in love” for a reason, so...

You and Asmo are sitting in the common room of the House of Lamentation just chillin. Well, he’s chillin, you’re on the floor studying for an upcoming exam.

The video starts in the middle of a conversation you and the avatar of lust were having.

“No, Asmo,” you say. “Mammon and I don’t use pet names for each other.” Now that’s just a darn lie, and every demon and crow within ten miles of Mammon and you together knows it.

“Really? I find that very hard to believe, MC.~” 

You sigh in response to Asmo’s teasing. “Okay, he has a lot for me but I’m just not much of a pet name person, y’know?” The rest of the exchange goes like this:

“Oh, I totally get it.” *pause* “Hey MC, what do human world bees make again?”

“Honey.”

Cue a sheepish Mammon sticking his head in the doorway at the bluntness of your tone when you answered Asmo.

“Yeah, babe?” he looks like a puppy left on the side of a highway oh my god hUG HIM-

Asmo turns the camera back to his smug ass face and in the background you can be heard tripping on the damn carpet trying to get up and hug your mans. (”MAMMON GET OVER HERE SO I CAN HUG YOU” “W-WHAT? I THOUGHT YA WERE MAD AT ME?!?!?!?!”)

Leviathan:

Streamer Levi? Streamer Levi.

You guys go viral the first time you make an appearance on one of Levi’s weekly (insert cool Devildom streaming service name here) streams. 

It’s completely unintentional. You had been asking him for weeks to play with him on there, but he’s the avatar of envy after all. He doesn’t like sharing his partner, even if it’s with random strangers who have no real access to you.

However, he has his stream on a Thursday instead of a Friday one week, and you come into his room carrying dinner because 1) You didn’t realize he was streaming and 2) No matter what he was doing, the boy needed to eat. It wasn’t unusual for you to bring him dinner, so you had no idea why he was blushing and stammering even more than usual this time in particular. Boy was speaking in beached whale trying to tell you what was wrong.

Then you notice his screen. Oh! “Hi chat!” You wave, setting Levi’s food down on his desk in front of his keyboard. “M-MC!” He full-on whines, slamming a hand over his mouth afterwards when he remembers his viewers could hear that.

Honestly, they’d meme the fuck out of him if it weren’t for the fact that they are FINALLY SEEING HIS HENRY!!! THE MYSTERIOUS MC!!!

Chat is bombarding you with questions while you make Levi eat dinner. And by make him eat dinner, I mean literally feeding this man forkfuls/spoonfuls while he games because you love how flustered he gets when you do that. 

Does it impact his score? Absolutely. Does he care? Not really when you’re pampering him like that.

You start answering chat’s questions about you while he’s chewing so he can’t tell you to stop LMAO-

You’re a natural on stream. The VOD becomes the most popular on Levi’s account in a matter of hours and soon cute highlights compilations of you and him on that stream start making the rounds on Devildom Twitter.

Satan:

There was buildup to Satan going viral, similar to Levi in a way. 

Satan does have a Devilgram, but it’s basically a white woman’s Instagram with added book reviews for variety. Unless you’re a reader his account is pretty boring: candles, books, fireplaces, and cats.

However, after you two started reading together fairly often he began posting pictures of your legs draped over his while you sat together. They’d always be captioned with vague ass pretentious literary criticism. 

This goes on for months, and he gains a lot of (horny) followers after the leg pics start up. He doesn’t really get why but you both joke that it’s because you have some damn nice legs and I mean neither of you are complaining about the new following.

You two go viral when he finally shows your face, entirely by accident.

The post is a video, which is already strange for him and grabs attention. In it, you’re scoffing and reading an excerpt of a book, mocking its understanding of female anatomy.

“I’m quoting here, Satan: ‘her breasts bouncing around like giant pacmen.’ I’M SORRY?? THAT ISN’T HOW BOOBS WORK SIR. WHY ARE MEN ALLOWED TO WRITE?” 

(fun fact that is a very real quote from a very real book I really read last month pls save me)

Originally the camera is focused on your body, with your head out of frame to protect your privacy, but your righteous anger made Satan laugh. Like, a real laugh. The one that makes you and everyone in earshot wonder if he truly was never an angel cause he sure as hell laughs like one but anyway-

When he threw his head back, his DDD angled up just a tad without him noticing, and your face was in view for like .2 seconds. Screenshots of it are making the rounds on Devilgram almost immediately: FINALLY THE LEGS’ OWNER HAS BEEN FOUND.

Satan apologizes profusely but you honestly find it funny and you two opt to just start taking selfies while reading with both of your faces in them from now on. 

Asmodeus:

I’m gonna be real with you: you and Asmo go viral all the time. Pretty much everything Asmo posts can be considered viral because of his social media following and his status as one of the seven avatars of sin.

However, there are some fairly cute highlights to be pointed out among the times you were both featured in a post that blew up.

Your favorite is probably that time Asmo livestreamed on of you guys’ ‘Nail Nites,’ as you call them.

You’re both on the floor, doing your nails and kicking your feet back and forth while talking to chat. A lot of the questions are about your relationship, and there’s a lot of flirting back and forth between the two of you.

A particular clip of the stream does blow the fuck up on Devilgram, though, when someone screen records it and posts it with a bunch of heart emojis edited over it.

“’What colors do you think best describe each other?’ Ooo, that’s a good one, chat!” Asmo claps his hands together excitedly, making sure to be  careful of his nails.

Pretty much everyone expected you to say pink, but you surprised both your boyfriend and your viewers when, after a pensive few moments, you replied with “Hmm...probably yellow or orange.”

“Can I ask why, darling?” Asmo tilts his head in confusion. I mean, yeah, those colors look good on him, but he doesn’t wear them often so he’s wondering about your thought process. 

“Well, in the human world those colors often represent happiness, optimism, and positivity. You’re always the cheerful presence I need in my life when things get hard, so you have the vibe of those colors.”

Asmo proceeds to burst into tears and hug you, messing up both of your nails and prolonging the stream since you both have to start over. But neither of you particularly care. 

Fun fact: Asmo has the clip that demon made of that portion of the stream saved on his DDD and watches it whenever he feels sad.

Beelzebub:

Beel and you probably go the most viral out of everybody. Like this moment is an entire phenomenon across the Devildom internet. 

It’s a video, or well, multiple videos, taken at the end of a Fangol game that Beel’s team had just won. Everyone is cheering and going crazy, yourself included, and you just really wanted to congratulate your boyfriend.

So, like the rational person you are, you elect to climb up onto the railing of the bleachers and wave to get his attention. 

You were absolutely fine up there, and sat all comfortably motioning Beel over to you. He notices, of course, and jogs over, standing right beneath you and looking up. (Back where you were sitting, Mammon is screeching like a hyena in heat and Belphie, who is laying down, has one eye open to glare at him. The youngest knows Beel would never let you hurt yourself; you’re fine.)

A bunch of assorted demons at the game has started filming while you were sat atop the railing since you were rather noticeable. Therefore, there’s a shit ton of different angles of the adorable events that follow:

You slide off the railing, landing right in Beel’s waiting arms bridal style. You’ve got this brilliant smile on your face as you pull his helmet off. None of the DDDs filming can hear it over the crowd noise, but Beel asks you why you just went through all that trouble and you tell him it’s because you wanted to tell him how proud you are.

Soft boy’s chest puffs up and he smiles this big cheesy smile at you reach up to run a hand through his hair. You feel him practically purr at the contact, and with a laugh you pull him in and plant a big ole smooch on him.

The crowd, at least those of them that can see, scream. Everyone is running high on adrenaline and happy emotions; something that cute causes a ruckus!! When you pull away Beel proceeds to put you on his shoulders and you celebrate with him and the rest of his team.

The videos of you two being adorable go completely viral and there are some threads dedicated to stockpiling every single angle taken of the event. Beel is completely oblivious to the attention but you have a lot of them saved on your DDD.

Belphegor:

If you think Belphegor has any sort of social media presence whatsoever then you are sorely mistaken. (Well okay he actually does run some anonymous troll accounts to meme on Lucifer’s posts but that’s neither here nor there-)

Therefore, naturally, you two go viral off of Asmo’s Devilgram. 

Okay so someone in the obey me tag the other say headcanoned that Belphie will go out of his way to nap in ridiculous places and my brain really took that and RAN WITH IT.

So what happens is that Belphie will fall asleep in the fucking weirdest places. I’m talking on top of the fridge, underneath the dinner table, on top of bookshelves...you name it, he has slept there, no matter the effort it takes to get there in the first place. 

And, ever since you two started dating, you would join him. Sometimes it involved putting yourself at risk of great bodily harm, but the little smile he gave when you he saw you fucking scaling the countertop to reach him made it worth it.

So anyway, since Beel adores the both of you to no end, he takes pictures whenever he sees you two napping together, whether or not it is in a crazy place. He sends these to the family group chat because he thinks they’re adorable.

Over a span of weeks to months, Asmo has built up a stock of images of you and Belphie cuddles up in seemingly impossible places. Once he has about ten or so, he posts a compilation of them to his Devilgram with some cheesy ass caption like “The things we do for love <3″.

They become a meme SO QUICKLY. Like UNBELIEVABLY quickly. 

The picture of you and Belphie sleeping on top of a bookshelf, in particular, is a big hit. Memes abound.

“If my girl doesn’t climb up a bookshelf to cuddle my ass, she don’t love me.” “Get yourself a partner who scales bookshelves just to be with your ass.” Etc etc...Belphie doesn’t give a shit but you laugh at a lot of them so he sees that as a good outcome.

[anakinthetrashking]

BnHA One-Shot Fic Recs (pt2)

 I AM HERE! With more recs for you! The last post was all about DadMight, such a beautiful genre *wipes tear from eye* This time its DADZAWA! if you happen to follow me, you might know that i really really(really) love Aizawa. a lot. So im going to try to keep this to only 10 recs, but,, well,,,, we’ll see anyway leTS GO

Aches and Pains by Badwolf36 Rating: G     Category: Gen     ~2700 words Summary: In which Izuku isn't willing to admit how much pain he's in, and Mr. Aizawa is just as much of a softie for his students as he always is. I’m always SO WEAK to stories that deal with the very real consequences of breaking all of your bones. Poor Izuku. I enjoyed the details of how he’s feeling, the way that the reader’s awareness of his pain waxes and wanes along with Izuku’s (temporary distractions can only do so much, A+ for realism there). Also, soft Dadzawa while not mushy-ooc-Aizawa! Conclusion: I love this and also want Aizawa to make me hot cocoa when there’s storms and i cant sleep!! (sidenote, everytime i see this username my brain shorts out bc my old ff.net account was also Badwolf## lol)

My Neighbor Shouta-ro by Hound_of_Heaven Rating: G     Category: Gen     ~2,700 words Summary: Yamada Hizashi, on Christmas Eve of the year he turns 19, jokingly presents Aizawa Shouta, also 19, with a Totoro kigurumi. Everything that follows after is pure chance. Heeeeeeeeeck this is ADORABLE. I- You guys- this is so pure and so precious and so!! go read it, i died. such fluff.

constrained by my own mind (im not fine) by CamsthiSky (tumblr: @camsthisky ) Rating: G     Category: Gen     ~1,500 words Summary: Midoriya Izuku is a problem child, and for some reason, Aizawa Shouta cares too much to let him fend for himself when the kid is obviously dealing with something First of all this is written by one of my fav Batfam writers!!! I was so hype when i saw this posted and OF COURSE IT WAS JUST AS WONDERFUL IF NOT MORE SO THAN I EXPECTED!!!! A+++++ in character for both Izuku and Aizawa. Izuku is jumpy and anxious and stressed and i love it. That the way Izuku started out, and while i am eternally happy at how much his life and social reactions have already changed, stuff like that doesnt just disappear in even a year, so I love fics that address that and expound on all the progress that he would have to make behind the scenes. and having Aizawa as the catalyst to begin getting actual help? *chef’s kiss* This checks boxes and then proceeds to cover the page in checkmarks LOL

remember from here on in by aloneintherain (tumblr: @captainkirkk ) Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~8000 words warning: spoiler heavy from manga chp 215 Summary: Aizawa glances from All Might to Midoriya quickly. It sounds impossible—he’s never heard of a quirk that can be handed down like a family heirloom—but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. Midoriya’s inability to use his quirk at the start of the year. The strange, familial relationship between All Might and Midoriya. The slow malnourishment of All Might’s body, like his power was being siphoned away. “You’re …” Aizawa begins.“I’m All Might’s successor.” Midoriya’s proud but shaky voice rings clearly down the empty corridor. Aizawa finds out about One for All. Awwwwwwww yiiiiiiiissssssssss!!!!! reveal fic!!!! one of my all time fav tropes!!! Plus it expounds on some future theorys/possibilities(Spoilers!!!) and you get some great interactions between Izuku and Shinsou, and plenty of opportunities taken to wear out our already worn out catepillar-sensei. poor guy needs a break but would do anything for these kids. Incredible characterization, great feels!!

Those Hardest to Love Need it Most by DancingintheStorm Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~8,200 words Summary: Shouta gripped the phone tight enough to make the phone case groan. “So it’s true. Midoriya was Quirkless.”“Until soon before the entrance exam,” Nedzu confirmed. “That’s not relevant now, though, because—““Relevant?” Shouta hissed. “Midoriya is barely functional, socially. He doesn’t trust any adult. He thinks the whole world hates him. He apologizes for everything except breaking the law, and I’m sure I can trace every single one of those things back to his Quirklessness. You call that irrelevant?”  Aizawa visits Aldera Junior High and finds out some disturbing truths. Yes. Just. Yes. Righteous anger abounds, local anxiety-child is told for the first time that his life has worth, more at 10 (I LOVE THIS ONEEE)

The Gaunlet and friendships and how memes tie the two together by averypassionateperson Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~3,500 words Summary: Shinsou walks into his first day in the Hero Course hoping to get politely ignored. He walks out having gotten into a sanctioned fistfight with the entire Bakusquad and a whole lot of new friendships. Also, memes are responsible for most of this. This fic is SOOOOOOOOO much fun. Always sure to bring a smile and honestly all I could want from a fic about Shinsou’s first day in 1A!!!

like light through a window by achievingelysium   (tumblr: @queenangst ) Rating: T     Category: Gen     1,139 words Summary: The first time Shouta sees what Hagakure looks like, it’s because she’s covered in blood. Coming from one of the best Dadzawa writers around, is a delightfully haunting fic centered on Hagakure!! The Dazawa is of course, spot on, the premise makes your heart ache as it plays out like a movie in your mind. So smooth to read, while so emotionally painful. Ouch. It is a fic with imagery that has stuck in my mind like a plant with deep roots, bc i keep thinking about it despite my too-much-fanfic-reading-adhd-muddled-brain. I feel like i had more to say but tumglr erased the paragraph i had originally written. D:   (side note, as i am keeping these posts to 10 fics... this fic came from her series of 30 min fics which you can find here on tumblr ao3  its an absolute goldmine of one-shots, go check it out)

a frozen pond, dark and deep by walking_through_autumn Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~3,800 words Summary: In the aftermath of Endeavour's battle against High End, Aizawa escorts Todoroki to his home for special leave, and they have a conversation that has been long in the making. (Or: Over two car rides and the mystery known as bubble tea, Aizawa divulges information, Todoroki returns the favour, and trust is built over unexpected similarities.) This fic felt just as quiet as the two characters it surrounds, which was really nice. Even deep emotional grieving can be quiet, since everyone feels things and reacts to things differently. It was a brilliant way to chip away at these character’s walls to let light shine through without creating an earthquake event to destroy the walls completely, you know? and it works off of canon so well. ah yes seeing the process of Aizawa realizing that hes has adopted another child is my fav    anyhow i enjoyed it very much!

but still my heart is heavy (with the hate of some other man’s beliefs) by honeyandsunshine Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~3,500 words Summary: Nemuri jerks a thumb to the side window, presumably the one with the best view of the front gates. When Shouta looks, a small crowd, all of which he can recognize from his class, are gathered around a sleazy looking man with a camera and a microphone. Half their quirks are activated. Bakugou and Todoroki are smoking. From the bushes nearby, a rather enraged stag emerges. As he gets up, Shouta just hopes they haven’t already killed him. Or:Class 1-A defends their own. Aizawa suffers, but looks after them anyways. I love how this doesn’t go the way you expect it to. and how much Aizawa loves and trusts his class full of gremlin heroes. The Dadzawa is so soft, his logic is sound, my heart aches, and i kinda want to cry. really, really, really great you guys

bend, don’t break by heyhamlet (tumblr: @hey-hamlet ) Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~4,100 words Summary: It started, as it always seemed to, on what was supposed to be a pleasant day. ---A Christmas shopping attempt gone wrong, Aizawa and Midoriya have to survive a strange nightmare quirk, all while trying to work out how to get out of there alive. Aizawa is injured, Midoriya is panicked. It's less a question of what could go wrong, but more what could go right. Another fic that has not left my soul since i read it. Some of it is truly terrifying in a way that I hope never haunts my own nightmares. and honestly isnt that reason enough to read it? While near death experiences bond people together well, nothing beats being trapped with someone in a nightmare that is feeding off of your deepest fears! If Aizawa wasn’t considering adoption before, he certainly is now. Found family before the monster finds you...0.o go read it, its a treat from another top notch writer!

well, thats 10! the next post will probably be misc. bnha one-shots. Enjoy and don’t forget to give the writers your souls love and comments!

[cyb3r-s1ut]

Hotline Bling • Zion Kuwonu

Summary • To be honest, I don’t even know yet.

WC • Circa 1,600

Genre • Mild Angst, nothing too bad.

You used to call me on my cellphone

Late-night when you need my love

Call me on my cellphone

Late-night when you need my love

And I know when that hotline bling

That can only mean one thing

I know when that hotline bling

That can only mean one thing

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

3 months, 1 week, and 4 days. That’s how long it had been since Zion last saw you. But, hey, who's counting? If he had been, he would have succumbed to that void feeling in his chest by now. The one created by you but ultimately worsened by his actions. His actions ruined the best thing he ever had. But it was your fault too, right?

If you didn't have such an illuminating smile, such a feather-light yet addicting touch, such an effervescent personality, such a radiant aura then the both of you he wouldn't be in this situation. No. If you hadn't wanted something more and Zion hadn't been too scared of ruining a good thing even though he knew you deserved more— deserved better. He knew you deserved the world and the stars along with it, but he was so afraid he couldn't give it to you. So he cowered behind his thoughts; he dismissed the relationship you had, shutting you out in the process.

He was expecting you to dismiss the fact that he couldn't come to terms with himself you and continue with the late-night phone calls. The sneaking out of the house at 1 and 2 in the morning — when he thought everyone was asleep — to spend hours at your place. Half naked smoke sessions with deeply thought out conversations lingering in the air with every puff. Or hot nights in your room that always seemed to end with clothes scattered here and there, fluffy comforter somehow still clinging to a corner of the bed, and the sheets tangled around only you because he was never there when you woke up. ’He had better, more important things.’ you would convince yourself. But when you finally stopped gaslighting yourself with that excuse, you found out he couldn't face his own music.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Ever since I left the city, you

Got a reputation for yourself now

Everybody knows and I feel left out

Girl, you got me down, you got me stressed out

'Cause ever since I left the city, you

Started wearing less and goin' out more

Glasses of champagne out on the dance floor

Hangin' with some girls I've never seen before

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Guilt. Jealousy. Anger. Sadness. Utter outrage. One of these emotions— maybe even a mixture— was grasping at his heart and yanking at the strings right now. Even so, he couldn’t stop rewatching the clip on his phone in front of him. It wasn’t like he was meaning to find you. He just happened to be scrolling through the explore page on Instagram and much to his sudden disbelief you were the thumbnail on some video. Against his better judgment (of course) he clicks the video, watching you hold a cup of God-knows-what in the air as your body hazily sways in a sea of people inside of what looks to be a club. Zion’s face is still one of shock as the girl recording yells something cringey about all of her friends being ‘baddies’ and ‘hot girls’ and continues to survey each of her friends, including you, while everyone gets more excited with the new song’s change of pace.

It could’ve been all in his head but that video seemed way longer than the allotted one minute. He doesn’t know how many times he watches the video before he decides to click on the girl’s profile (a bad decision on behalf of his 2 functioning brain cells). His thumbs seemed to move on their own as he scrolled down her page and searched through countless posts of herself, her with her family, and her with her friends. Zion couldn’t pry his eyes from the screen as he clicked on a picture with you in it, hoping you would be tagged. You were, of course, so he clicked. Another mistake on his part.

Your username and bio were both different. Even though he hadn’t visited your profile in a while, he did remember the main details of it. Zion repeated his earlier actions, examining your page this time. There were posts of yourself. You and your dog. You and your family. You and this new group of friends he had never seen until now. You and some MAN? You and this man hugging, holding hands, kissing, traveling, eating out together? You and Zion used to tell each other about everything, and you had certainly never mentioned him before. You People aren’t supposed to move on this fast. Hell, Zion hadn’t even moved on. He still listened to the playlist you two had created together. He still dreamed about you. He still woke up with the lingering touches of you on his body as if you had been beside him moments before. He still had late-night venting sessions with Nick as he sniffled and wiped his teary face after genuinely expressing what he was never able to tell you face-to-face.

But now, here you were. You had completely evolved from the person Zion knew almost four months ago. You weren’t the same girl who posted simple photos of herself in cute, comfortable outfits captioned with inspirational quotes, or wholesome reviews of the new Greek mythology book you had bought at your favorite Barnes and Noble. This was some girl who had grown to almost a million followers in just three months. This was some girl who posted pointless photos of her newest bottle of wine or Hennessey; some girl whose wardrobe would alternate between Burberry pantsuits and Louboutin heels, to Adidas tracksuits and air force ones, to what could very well be some bundle of strings Fashion Nova tries to pass off as a dress. This new girl — this new you — was copacetic, thriving, and glowing. You were happy with this seemingly very outgoing of people who the old you would’ve never thought about fraternizing with. Worse of all, the new you appeared to be enjoying life with some new guy, a guy that wasn’t Zion. He’s a complete mess without you laying next to him at 2 in the morning and you were supposed to be the same. Zion was supposed to have the same crippling effect on you as you did on him.

Apparently, Zion had been sitting in his whirlwind of thoughts long enough for his phone to lock. He pulled himself out of his trance and made his only decent decision of the day. He went to find Nick, knowing he would still be awake and available to examine whatever emotional baggage Zion had this time. He told Nick about his earlier revelations (leaving out the part about your apparent love interest). “Why don't you just talk to her, bro? Tell her how you actually feel.” weren't the words he expected to hear. He didn't know what to expect, honestly.

As Zion laid in his bed he picked up his phone with shaky hands. When he unlocked it, he felt another tug at his heartstrings, forgetting that his phone had locked on a gorgeous post of your beaming smile while he was in a daze earlier. The time I'm his phone read 1:46 A.M. He didn't want to call you. You might not pick up. But he wanted an immediate response. Zion needed validation right now. He silently prayed that your number hadn't changed along with everything else during your productive time period. He opened his messages and clicked on your name; ’y/n💛’. Zion smiled to himself as he looked at the last messages sent between the two of you. You had been sending memes back and forth, with the last message before the hiatus being three emojis expressing your enjoyment.

Zion pondered for a few moments on what to type. ’Yo y/n it's me.’ ’Hey it's me, Zion.’ ’Hey y/n we haven't talked in a while.’ He wasted a good twenty minutes overthinking, typing, and erasing potential conversation starters. Then he just decided to pour out what was left of his heart. Fuck it.

He didn't expect you to reply quickly, but he wanted you to, so Zion kept his phone unlocked and open to your messages as he waited. He had peeked two minutes after hitting send, but he didn't notice it then. Zion let five more anxious minutes pass before checking again. He almost didn't notice it that time, but somehow he managed to spot it.

The small subscript under his message. ’Read’

Zion didn't know if it was him being delirious with fatigue or the actual fact of you acknowledging but ignoring him, but his breathing got short and shaky and his tears started to roll. It was finally happening. That void feeling in his chest — in his heart —, that place where special memories of you were kept, had finally drawn him in and suffocated him with the realization that you didn't want him anymore. You no longer needed Zion to bring you the pleasures of life. For all he knows now, you never really did.

[dragonstoravens]

Babylon Vol. 1: Ask Nothing, The Power of a Smile, Angel On Your Shoulder

[ID: a blue patterned banner with text reading “BABYLON.” End ID.]

(3 short and sweet chapters for you today before we get back into a little bit heavier stuff! I hope you enjoy seeing these two dweebs get to know each other and watching their friendship grow.)

Taglist (ask to be added or removed!): @charlottedotexe @glitterandstarshine @rainbowcoloreddays @the-starlight-chills @erased-in-stone

General: @elywritesbydarkness @residentofthedisc @humour-and-hyperfocus @skyfirewrites @viawrites-andacts

11. Ask nothing

Azzy’s finger hovered over the send button, something in the depths of her core churning. Was she terrible for this? For not wanting to think about it? She had already thought about it so much before she did it, she didn’t really want to think about it any more, it felt terrible. She hit send. It couldn’t make anything worse, at least.

[Azure] Hey, I’m really sorry to bother you, please let me know if you’re busy or something.

Trinity blinked as the message popped up on his screen, a frown creasing his forehead. That was a weird way to start, at least for Azure. She never apologized for anything. He couldn’t help but wonder if something was wrong. 

[Hotshot] I’m not busy

[Hotshot] What is it?

There was a long pause.

[Azure] I was just hoping for a distraction, if you had the time. I just broke it off with someone and I don’t really want to talk about it.

 She hoped it wasn’t too much. She’d seen him have a panic attack, and it seemed fair to her that he saw her be vulnerable too. On the other hand, she’d said she’d ignore the fact that had happened. This might just be a little too much for whatever weird dynamic they’d built for themselves. It occurred to her that maybe she should soften how serious it sounded.

[Azure] It’s really no big deal either way.

Trinity frowned at her attempt to downplay the issue. It certainly seemed like a big deal to him, if the chronically blunt Azure could be driven to such lengths. An unpleasant thought occurred to him. He didn’t think Azure would’ve been… well, essentially cheating, even if it was fake dating. He would hope that whoever this new ex was had known about the situation, but he couldn’t completely ignore the possibility that they hadn’t.

[Hotshot] Ok. But before we don’t talk about it, I have to ask. It wasn’t because of us, was it?

She couldn’t blame him for checking, though she doubted he’d feel any sympathy for her if she hadn’t told Turq. At least she hadn’t caused that deep an ache. 

[Azure] What? No, he knew, he was fine with that. It’s helping a friend, he understood. It’s unrelated. 

[Azure] Can we get to the not talking about it?

She shoved away the couple of things Trinity had done that had stuck with her in the back of her head that had been the precursor to her thinking a little too hard about her real relationship. The pulling out chairs and the protective arm over her shoulder when someone got a little too close and she got uncomfortable. Her hands shook a little and she tried not to cry as she heard Turq’s workshop doors slide open.

[Azure] Like right now?

Trinity gave a tiny sigh of relief. He was always somewhat glad when Azure showed herself to be a genuinely decent person. She did it often enough, but part of him did worry that someday she’d turn out to be like almost everyone else he knew. The longer he knew her, though, the less worried he was about that being the case. 

[Hotshot] Of course. Here, let me show you some of the prototypes I’ve been working on, they’re due to send to production soon but I was just doing a run through for improvements. What do you think?

Azzy sighed in relief herself as the files came through. Say what you wanted about Jericho, he really knew how to make a person forget things were horrible. Between this and somehow managing to get her to be something akin to comfortable in a crowd, it was nice to have him around. He somehow knew exactly what she needed to get her mind off things.

[Azure] Over on the third one, the dimensions aren’t going to fit in a standard issue cartridge.

It wasn’t the conversation itself that mattered of course, but it was something. And true to his word, he didn’t ask her for anything more than that.

12. The Power of a Smile

Trinity gave a perfectly timed laugh-- not his real laugh, but damned close-- and once again Azure wondered how exactly he knew when to do that as a chorus of reflexive laughter rose around him. She’d been to a few of these high society gatherings by now, primarily to feed Trinity information and be placeholder arm candy to keep the vultures away. When she wasn’t letting her brain wander to cybernetic innovations or small robots with no function she’d like to create, she was watching Trinity talk his way through the night with ease. He seemed to know and be known by everyone, and what’s more is that the vast majority seemed to respect him to boot. 

She listened to the questions asked and tried to guess at his answers like a game. Questions that were too direct or too personal he’d deflect with a wave of the hand and a question of his own in response. It was a tennis match he never seemed to lose and as she watched him, talking circles around their fellow partygoers, the look of admiration she fixed him with became more and more genuine. He would smile, and others would smile back even if they were upset. He would say something ought to be done, and most people would comply. He would thank them, and make it believable.

All while making some very good jokes in the back of his head for Azzy to enjoy. 

He was quick witted and sure, and she marveled at how on earth anyone got to be even close to this comfortable looking with this many people around. She knew now that the crowds bothered him, giving him the same choked feeling she got. Honestly, his was probably worse. She still wasn’t used to it, still couldn’t quite get the hang of the way he wove his way in and out of conversations, water running through the fingers of people who tried desperately to vy for his attentions. She followed at his heels, trying to smile when he did, laugh on his cue. She felt so mechanical next to him, her mind all cogs and mathematics. He led her, night after night, through a social dance she might never really understand.  Always laughed with, never laughed at. Always steering conversation, never caught off guard. 

Another glass of wine and a small exchange of glances.  She smiled and gestured to him to lead the way, ready to be impressed again. He never disappointed.

13. Angel On Your Shoulder

It was sort of incredible, Trinity reflected, how much easier it was to get through a night when you weren’t alone.

It probably helped even more that his particular companion had a mental link with him, absolutely no sense of society, and a propensity for memes. In front of him was a middle aged woman talking loudly about her children-- ostensibly to Trinity, but really to about half the room with the volume she was using to extoll their many virtues. Normally in this situation, Trinity’s eyes would be aching from forcing himself not to roll them. However, with Azzy here he now had two very good strategies to keep from wanting to drown himself in the punch bowl. The first was to pull her in a little closer to his side just as Mrs. Probably-Catholic (with the amount of children she had, it only made sense) began yet another anecdote, this one about her third-oldest son and the great assets he was forming in the accounting industry and also how handsome he was and how he’d just had his 23rd birthday and was still single, could you believe it? Apparently she’d given up on daughters, since Trinity had no reaction to those so far. Trinity just smiled, shifting his hand just a hint further down on Azzy’s hip.

“Well, that really is a shame. I really did think I might be in the same boat, spending my 23rd alone, before I met Camilla. Isn’t that right, dear?”

“Camilla,” who was currently deep in thought about cybernetics and dogs and dogs with cybernetics, nodded absently, but that was all Trinity needed. She did the rest without even thinking about it. Her hand draped over his shoulder shot off tiny sparks at random intervals, and while he recognized her expression as her resting state of thoughtfulness, he knew what it said to most other people that saw it-- “don’t even think about it.” All he had to do was call the overeager woman’s attention to it, look back up, and smile.

His conversation partner’s smile faltered slightly under the weight of his own as she registered the very stubborn, very dangerous, and very pretty barnacle on his arm, and Trinity took it as an opportunity to politely excuse himself.

The second strategy Trinity could use now that Azzy was here was more for his own sake than anything else. Alone in a crowd, he was constantly stressed at worst and unfathomably bored at best. Now, a conversation with a business partner that would have been, frankly, mind numbing left him struggling not to laugh aloud. He’d always thought this particular man looked a bit like he was constantly holding a frog in his mouth, and every time he spoke he barely opened his lips, like he had to keep it from escaping. The man would not find this fact at all amusing, nor would most other people in this room, and even if they did social graces would absolutely demand they never show it. Luckily, the little voice in the back of Trinity’s head belonged to the person currently draped across his shoulders like she belonged there, and she couldn’t care less about social graces. She was much more interested in shooting back images of the man running across the ballroom, chasing down the frog as it leapt from his mouth into a stack of champagne glasses. 

Yes, everything was just a little better when you had someone to share it with.

[melonkooky]

made with love [kim namjoon]

requested

word count: 3267

genre: highschool!au, fluff, like .3 seconds of angst

author’s note: i’m quite proud of this one, but i was having an extremely hard time coming up with a title. but, kayla ( @kayakookie ) helped me. thank you so much!!! prompts used: 6. “you’re a complete mess, but i don’t care.” 12. “i honestly have no idea what i’m doing.” (also, as always, ignore any mistakes and errors).

please do not copy my work. but please like and reblog it. thank you!!!!

things were getting complicated, as much as you hate to admit it. you had a best friend, his name was kim namjoon. and you and namjoon had been friends for a long time now. and for the majority of those years, the relationship had only been a friendship, an extremely tight, and close friendship. but recently, it seems that things between you and namjoon were changing. and while they were for the better, if that was your perspective on everything, they were causing your brain to malfunction. you just didn’t understand.

for the passed few days at school, namjoon has been staring at you. he thought that you hadn’t noticed, but you have. you noticed from your peripheral vision. most of the times he studied you was in class or in the library. you and him were always sitting next to each other. and you would be writing something down, or reading a book, and that’s when he would do it. you noticed, first namjoon would sigh, and then take a break from what he was doing. then, his gaze would eventually drift to you, where he would suddenly enter a peaceful trance. you would never feel awkward under his gaze, or uncomfortable. but, you never knew how to function. sometimes you would be too scared to look at him, and sometimes you would be too scared to speak or move. on the outside, you would look calm, and concentrated, and still. but on the inside, your heart would be beating a million beats a second, and your stomach would be twisted and knotted. in rare occasions, your face would heat up as you blushed.

you know those little hints that guys gave away when they have a crush on someone? well, they weren’t that noticeable with namjoon. he was already a kind and respectful gentleman, so if he did like you, it was hard for you to notice it.

and usually, a guy will try to get closer and get to know their crush better. well, you and namjoon already know everything about each other and were already as close as two magnets stuck together.

but what was making things complicated was the fact that at some point, you and namjoon both began to notice the signs that hinted at wanting the other. for instance, namjoon and his intense study session when you were next to him. in your case, you found yourself wanting to spend more time with him.

----

you approached namjoon in the hallway as he was talking to seokjin about something. you tried not to eavesdrop, but as you slowed your pace and listened closely, you picked up a few words. “seokjin, i don’t know what to do anymore.”

“joon, you’re doing fine. i think she likes you back.”

namjoon narrowed his eyes at seokjin, who in response, smiled. “trust me. i see it when she’s around you.”

namjoon sighed, before turning back to his locker. you froze. you could only think that they were talking about you. but of course, there was a sliver of denial in your heart, perhaps it was someone else. you felt your heart sinking, inch by inch in your chest as you drew conclusions in your head. but you were stopped when you heard your name from seokjin. “oh! y/n!”

you shook your head and met seokjin’s eyes, immediately grinning and hurrying over to the duo. namjoon seemed surprised and looked at you. he smiled and closed his locker, swinging his backpack over his shoulder. “hey.” he said.

you smiled, “what were you young men gossiping about?”

namjoon and seokjin shared a panicked gaze, before seokjin gave a casual shrug. “dance class. namjoon and yoongi have been working on some songs lately.”

“oh, really?”

namjoon nodded shyly.

“i would love to listen to them.” you looked at namjoon. “also, i was wondering if you wanted to hang out after school, perhaps at my house, or yours.”

namjoon looked at seokjin before nodding. “yeah, that sounds great. we can do my house too. my family is out of town currently.”

“and you’re not with them?” seokjin laughed while playfully slapping namjoon’s shoulder.

namjoon shrugged. “i chose to stay behind.”

you nodded. “well, should we get going then?”

“yeah, we should. bye jin!” namjoon said.

you grinned and waved at seokjin as you and namjoon left him at the lockers. you sighed. “i was thinking, do you have any baking ingredients at your house?”

namjoon thought to himself for a second. “i think so. my mom probably has some things in the pantry.”

you grinned happily. “great. we can bake together then.”

namjoon laughed nervously. “you do remember the last time we tried to cook together, right?”

“of course i do! we tried to bake a cake for jungkook’s birthday, but you accidentally dropped the plate. so what? accidents happen.”

namjoon shook his head. “i’m just going to do it again.”

you scoffed. “with that mindset, namjoon, you’re going to set the kitchen on fire.” you stopped and faced your best friend. your grabbed his shoulders and looked at him, an encouraging smile on your face. “everything will be fine. just believe in yourself.”

namjoon sighed before smiling. he still seemed unconvinced and worried, but he replied, “alright.”

you smiled before turning around, walking alongside of your tall best friend. you seemed completely oblivious, or perhaps the opposite. namjoon couldn’t help but stare once again, even if you were simply walking. his thoughts were consumed by you. you seemed normal, or oblivious. but he could also think that you were perhaps up to something. he just couldn’t think straight.

this was what you did to namjoon. you drove him crazy, but that was because recently his feelings had been growing stronger. he didn’t know how to handle them. he did his best to act normal, but that has been proving to be difficult when you looked and talked to him, essentially just when you were near him.

namjoon inhaled deeply as he followed you out of the school and in the direction of his house. it was a short walk from the school to namjoon’s house. as you approached the front door, namjoon grabbed the keys to unlock the door from his backpack and unlocked the door, letting you go first. you had been over countless times. at this point, namjoon’s house felt like your second house. but it was the atmosphere that was different. it made you feel more nervous than usual. perhaps it was the fact that namjoon’s family wasn’t home. or the hidden fact that you and namjoon had feelings for each other but just felt unsure and scared. you shook off the feeling you had and tried to be your normal self. you put on a wide smile and clapped your hands together after you removed your backpack and shoes and left them by the front. “what should we bake?” you asked as you walked into the kitchen.

namjoon followed and hummed. “a cake? cookies? i don’t know what all my mom has.”

“let’s look then.”

you opened the pantry of food and ingredients and searched for everything you needed for either of those suggestions. “perhaps we should do cookies.” you said, “if we did a cake, we would eat a few bites of it and then leave the rest for rest. besides, there's no special occasion or anything.”

namjoon nodded as he looked around his cupboards for bowls that they could use. “alright, cookies it is.”

“chocolate cookies.” you mumbled.

namjoon looked at you as you started placing all the ingredients that was needed on the countertop. namjoon couldn’t help but smile a bit. it was moments like these that he cherished a lot. and he had a lot of moments with you, all of which he loved.

you pulled up a recipe from a random recipe on your phone and began following it. you would ask namjoon to do some of the steps. “i honestly have no idea what i'm doing.” namjoon would say, and you would reassure him that he was doing it right and that he was doing great.

as the ingredients started coming together, namjoon grew less worried about causing chaos in his mother’s kitchen. being beside you, and you not being worried at all, calmed his mind. well, until you asked his to measure out three cups of flour. “wait,” he paused as he eyed the bag of flour as if he was his worst enemy. “you want me, kim namjoon, to measure the flour and pour it into this bowl?”

you looked at him and shrugged. “what’s wrong with that?”

namjoon sighed and let you continue what you were doing. he reached over for the measuring cup and placed it in front of him. then with the bag of flour, he bent down and slowly poured some of it into the cup. he was quite proud, until a big clump of flour fell out of the bag and landed partially in the cup and on the countertop, causing some flour to rise into the air. namjoon winced slightly and stepped away. a light cough coming from him. hearing the everything, you glanced at namjoon, then the countertop, and then back to namjoon. he stared at his mess with an annoyed glare and just stood there. basically he became the meme ‘disappointed but not surprised’. you laughed. “that’s one cup.”

he turned to you. “you do the other two. or it’ll be worse.”

you rolled your eyes and took his place. namjoon watched intently as you poured his cup into the giant bowl and set it back down to be filled. you bent down, just as he did, and attempted to carefully fill the cup. needless to say, you were confident that you weren’t going to screw up, until you felt a tickle in your nose. it was most likely due to the stray flour dust that rose up every time big clumps fell into the cup. “oh no.” you mumbled before turning away from the food and sneezing into the open kitchen. in the process, the bag of flour in your arms moved, and flour fell onto your shirt and the floor. you pouted as you straightened your back and stared at the mess in front of you. “why don’t we just order pizza?” you mumbled disappointingly.

namjoon burst out laughing. “it’s not as easy as it looks, huh?”

you glared at him as you set down the bag of flour. “i sneezed!”

namjoon laughed. “alright, you get changed and i’ll start cleaning this up.”

you nodded and headed out of the kitchen, but as you thought to yourself, you froze. hesitantly, and slightly red in the face, you turned around and looked at namjoon. “change into what?”

namjoon’s own face went red out of embarrassment. “um, my mom has some clothes that you can borrow.”

you shook your head. “i am not wearing your mom’s clothes. that’s just weird.”

“what?! would you rather wear my clothes?”

it had more slipped out of namjoon’s mouth. he had simply thought about it, but his mouth was already moving. you were blushing. “i mean, i would be a lot more comfortable wearing your clothes than your mom’s.” you admitted.

namjoon blushed and smiled lightly. “alright then. you know where everything is. knock yourself out.”

you sighed nervously as you moved upstairs and walked into namjoon’s room. your heart was beating fast, as if this was your first time being in namjoon’s room (it really was the thousandth time). you found a clean shirt in his closet and went into the bathroom in the hallway. you carefully removed your shirt, making sure flour doesn’t get on anything else. you put on namjoon shirt and checked if flour was on your pants. there were some small dots of flour, but it was nothing to worry about. you got an unused towel and wet one corner under the faucet, using it to rub the tiny dots of flour off of your jeans. when you were cleaned up, you took your dirty shirt downstairs with you and put it into your backpack.

you entered the kitchen to find that it was worse than before. namjoon was on the floor with a paper towel, and his hands were covered with flour. you eyed him, “namjoon, i don’t think that’s how you clean up flour.”

he blushed once more. “it was the first thing i grabbed.”

you smiled and asked him where the broom and dustpan were. then you crouched down and helped him clean up most of the flour off of the floor. but as you were brushing some flour into the bin, you eyes wandered up to namjoon who was attempting to help by scooping flour into the bin. you seemed to have spaced out, and your hands stopped moving.

namjoon noticed, and looked up at you. his eyebrows knitted in confusion and concern. “y/n?” he asked.

you stayed silent for a few seconds, before you actually spoke, “you’re a complete mess, but i don’t care.”

namjoon, slightly taken aback, stared at you. “y/n-”

then you moved forward and pressed your lips onto namjoon’s. an unknown noise erupted from his throat from surprise, and for a second he was scared to move. but he didn’t object. namjoon slowly closed his eyes, and attempted to kiss you back, although it was slightly difficult as his hands were covered in flour so he couldn’t touch you. he simply remained still and did his best.

you pulled away hesitantly. the atmosphere was quiet and heavy, and you weren’t sure how to react or what to say. namjoon wasn’t saying anything. he still seemed shocked, and he was staring at you. you blushed a deep red, more out of embarrassment than anything. why wasn’t he saying anything? was it wrong? you felt yourself begin to shake. quickly you laughed, trying to wave away your thoughts and conclusions. “namjoon, why don’t you go change yourself? i’ll finish up.” you avoided his eyes as you continued cleaning the floor.

namjoon blinked out of his daze. “y-y/n...” he stuttered.

you smiled weakly as your heart sank down into your stomach. “it’s okay. i got it.”

namjoon slowly stood up and left the kitchen. as he walked away, he could hear the broom and dustpan as you cleaned. but his mind was on you. you had kissed him out of nowhere. but, namjoon didn’t respond. he was just so shocked. he hadn’t expected it. and it didn’t help that he was a mess, so he couldn’t touch you. and now, he could see that you thought he didn’t feel the same way about you. you thought he had rejected you.

you sighed as you find yourself not moving once more, your mind drifting away. you thought, you were so confident, that namjoon liked you back. and that was your opportunity, and your blew it. you were wrong, namjoon didn’t like you that way. your breaths grew shaky as you felt your eyes begin to water.

namjoon stopped in his tracks, right before the stairs. he felt a burst of adrenaline, and suddenly he was turning around and heading back to the kitchen. he was nervous, but he was set on what he was going to do next. you heard him enter the kitchen, and you looked up at him as he crouched down to your level once more. namjoon stared at you, noticing that your eyes were red, and that a tear was threatening to spill. “screw it.” he mumbled before placing his flour-covered hands on your cheeks and pulling your face towards his. namjoon kissed you again.

this time, you were surprised. you were already accepting the fact that you messed up, but had you really messed up? you didn’t.

namjoon slowly pulled away, and he peered into your shocked eyes. “but, i thought-”

“you thought wrong.” namjoon said with a soft smile. “i was shocked when you kissed me. so, i’m sorry if that led you to think that i didn’t feel the same way.”

“so, you do feel the same way?” you carefully and quietly asked.

namjoon nodded. he could feel your cheeks growing warm by the second, although now they had flour on them. namjoon smiled. “and now, you have flour on your again.”

you laughed. “it’s okay. i can clean it off.”

namjoon nodded. “well, i’m going to change now. i’ll see you in a bit.”

still blushing, you nodded happily. namjoon left the kitchen again, this time practically skipping up the stairs. he had a small smile on his face as he entered his room to grab a change of clothes. things were okay between you and him now, in fact, they probably were great.

he quickly changed in the bathroom before hurrying back down to the kitchen. you were now at the trash can dumping all the flour into it. you were subconsciously gnawing at your bottom lip, a smile on your face. namjoon smiled softly as he went to the counter to clean up the counter.

minutes later, the kitchen was back to normal. the dishes were washed, the countertops were cleaned, and the floor was swept. now, you and namjoon were sitting on the couch. you had your knees pulled up to your chest, and you sat at an angle so that you could still reach over to the coffee table to grab a slice of the pizza. namjoon sat next to you, and was more your pillow since you were leaning on him. it was cuddling, and it was shy, slightly awkward cuddling. but it was cute.

the tv was on with some drama playing, but your attention was on namjoon. everything that had happened, including everything that was happening now, it made you soft. you smiled subconsciously as you nibbled on your pizza. you were in your happiest state.

----

you yawned tiredly as you walked into the classroom. it wasn’t necessary early, but it was too early for you. and not even a second after you walked in, a loud voice nearly gave you a heart attack. your eyes were wide as kim seokjin, who sat with the rest of his friends near the back of the classroom, yelled, “there’s kim namjoon’s girlfriend!”

you blushed madly and froze midstep, your arms were in the shape of an ‘x’ in front of your chest after you jumped from surprise. you gulped hard, and began considering whether or not you should ditch and leave the classroom. the door was only a foot away from you. you stared at seokjin who was laughing at you. namjoon turned around and looked at you, an apologetic smile on his face. jungkook, with a goofy grin on his face, beckoned you over. slowly and nervously you made your way to your desk, which was next to namjoon’s and behind jungkook. they all were grinning mischievously and hitting each other after each laugh and joke.

jimin leaned over to you as you sat down. “namjoon told us everything.”

you blushed. “did he now?”

namjoon laughed. “sorry...”

“no, it’s okay. it’s just...it’s still new to me.”

namjoon smiled reassuringly, before turning his attention to the front of the classroom where the teacher now was located. she had just walked in. you sighed and pulled out your notebook. things were different between you and namjoon now, and you knew it was going to take some time to get used to, but you had time. and you were excited for what was going to come next.

[dcarhcarts]

regarding recent absences

And other such updates!

If you want the tl;dr, here it is: my mental health isn’t in the greatest place right now, and I figured I ought to explain why I must ask you for continued patience for the snail speed on this blog. I’m not announcing official hiatus, but just know that I...might continue to be pretty scarce, but I’m trying my best to be here and to be writing here. To hopefully get me more active here, I plan on dropping a few threads and cleaning out my dash re: people who follow me but aren’t writing with me. You’re more than welcome to keep following me if I unfollow you, and if you want to write with me and just haven’t gotten the chance and would like me to re-follow you, pls just go ahead and shoot me an im. I will be making a separate post about both those things, it’s just that I can’t deal with how fast my dash is moving at the moment.

If you care for the long version, under the cut so as to not bother everyone else!!! Be warned that it’s uh...it’s l o n g. TW for depression and anxiety and the general things my brain does to me lolol. 

Wow I haven’t used the post title function in a l o n g time. Anyway, hi, it’s me, Ro, your friendly neighborhood mun of a 20+ muse mumu. Don’t let the kind-of-serious format scare you - nothing bad is happening. I just have a few things that I felt the need to address that have been happening either in my life or just in my screwed up brain :D Buckle in and get ready for the ride, I guess?

Starting with something y’all already know about - I’ve not been here a lot recently. I joke about that a lot, but really, if you catch the pattern, my activity here is: exclusively after 10 pm, 2 drafts at most a day, inbox straight up clogged from like a month ago. IMS basically desolate, because I haven’t worked up the courage to pick them back up since I last forgot about them in the endless stream of things I had to do about a month ago! (that being said, uh, if you want to talk to me your best bet is probably through discord. Ro#6782 - pls, mutuals only, and tell me who you are!)  

And - because I h a t e being that mun that reblogs memes and asks for for them and then never answers their askbox / puts out starter calls when she has 10000 drafts / puts out plotting calls when she has unanswered ims, (no problem at all when other people do this but somehow when it’s m e I’m like “no you’re a terrible person”???? hmmm), I’ve also been avoiding t h o s e. If you’re new and you followed me in the last month, I’ve been putting out n o t h i n g that indicates a willingness to interact with new/more people, while the opposite is true. I’m always willing to interact - if I follow back, I want to write with you, only, well, aforementioned issue aside, I also have m o r e problems.

Namely, IRL and the fucked up thing called my brain. 

As most of you know, I got a job ~end of may or early juuuune~ and....well it’s pretty damn time consuming. I can’t have my phone during the course of my job - by the way, 4 hours - and so in those 4 hours (from 4 pm to 8 pm) I can basically get nothing done here. Then there’s also the fact that the time my shift is placed mentally and physically drains me a lot. Because it starts at 4, most of my morning is spent thinking “god I don’t wanna go to work” and because it ends at 8, most of my evening is spent trying very hard not to doze off. It also drains me a lot socially - I work at a call center, and all day I’m basically calling people who don’t want me to call them and are very irate even when they pick up, and uh, that already doesn’t do well for my anxiety haha. 

The other thing, of course - is my sort-of-seasonal depression. Winter tends to equate to anxiety for me, and summer tends to equate to depression. Again, I think I’ve joked about this a lot, but I apparently can only do drafts when I have 3 finals tomorrow and I haven’t studied for any of them. When it’s break, I get into a really weird slump - when i wake up in the morning, I don’t really want to wake up, and sometimes just stare at the wall for like, an hour. Nothing that I enjoyed during the other months, I seem to enjoy doing now. There’s too much time and too little time. It’s like i spent the whole day doing absolutely nothing meaningful but I can’t break myself out of the cycle so I keep doing that, rinse and repeat day after day, and sometimes my definition of spending time is just lying down in bed again and doing nothing for an hour randomly in the middle of the day. I feel guilty for wasting time as much as I am clueless as to how to fill it in a fulfilling way. “But Ro, you could do drafts!” A Concerned Person May Say. “You like writing!” Well, Kind Person, on some of these days, absolutely n o t h i n g Sparks Joy. 

“But Ro, I follow you on your other blog too!” The Concerned Person might continue.“You’re kind of active there, aren’t you?” And the answer, Kind Person who supported my career even if that blog is mostly obscure af fandoms - is yes.  I am kind of active on my other blog, @storyblcd. This brings us to the third and final reason why I’m.....moving at snail’s speed here, and that, my good friend - is anxiety. Well, mixed with a certain amount of mental exhaustion, of course. Note: this is n o t anyone’s fault. People’s interactions with me have not been negative - and they are not responsible for how my brain chooses to reaact to it. 

I’ve not lost muse for the muses on this blog, per se - but I’m getting burned out really fast writing them, for multiple reasons. First, muse imbalance. Now I know, I definitely k n o w - that sometimes people like one muse more than another, or have more interest in writing with one or the other, and I get that. I’ve said multiple multiple times that that is p e r f e c t l y fine. But honestly the reason I’ve lasted so long on a multimuse is because I can pick which muse I have muse for when, and I can respond accordingly / ask for interactions accordingly. But when I get so many people coming at me at once for the o n e muse when I have t w e n t y it sometimes gets a little? Discouraging? It makes me question whether or not only that one muse is popular for a reason. It also exhausts me re: the portrayal of that muse, because I”m putting out so many replies for that muse in a lot of sort of similar plots/scenarios that I just get burnt right out. And then I get scared that if I keep going I’ll want to drop the muse, so I’m staying away from those threads a little bit.

Second, I’m at a point in my portrayal of certain muses where I feel like there’s a certain expectation for how it’s going to be. My personal feelings aside, I think every mun expects their own portrayal to be different and unique and exciting - and it’s not different for me, only now I feel like the expectation and the pressure of coming up with something good and meaningful outweighs the feeling of exploration as I’m “discovering” the muse. Like most writers - I still crave validation, though more and more lately, I’m at a place in my writing where I f e e l like me from 2 months ago could have probably done a better job. While it’s not necessarily true, and these pressures are coming from m e and not any outside source, I f e e l like I have to consistently Make Good Writing, and simultaneously feel like some days I sit down and I try to do drafts and all I write is garbage. It just - doesn’t feel the same? So - more and more, I’m staring at the empty drafts page and then closing it - because if I don’t w r i t e I don’t have to admit I peaked two months ago.  

Both of these reasons have made me rather a bit avoidant of my muses here / this blog. Now, I’ve been struggling with anxiety for long enough that I know that a lot of this is - well, p r o b a b l y just my brain lying to me. See even as I’m writing this post now, my anxiety is saying “haha guess what n o one cares you’ve been gone” and my rational Anxiety-is-a-stupid-asshole voice is saying “nahhhhhh your brain is probably just lying to you.” But! In the battle, anxiety is kind of pummeling me now. I will r i s e again and win the war, most likely - but for now it’s anxiety: 1 and ro: 0.

AND finally - if you made it all the way down here, you’re a c h a m p. The solution! Well, as much of a solution as I’m hoping to get anyway - we’ll have to see if it implements well. I’m going to unfollow a few blogs so I can get my dash cleaner/more organized/less fast-moving and b r e a t h e. I’m going to drop a couple of threads, I might make a couple more muses request only/exclusive only for the like 2 people that have threads with them, I might drop a couple muses (though I don’t think this will really happen, Idk tho). There will be separate posts on those things coming soon, this is just to notify y’all. Thank you for all of your patience, thank you for all the wonderful people who’ve allowed me to write with you, I love all of you!!!!

[em-be-lievable]

Split-Brained

A/N: Aight, I know this isn’t what y’all wanted but in light of recent events I’ve found myself getting triggered and wanting to vent with Patton to cope. Thank @virge-of-a-breakdown for inspiring me to purge my feelings in fic form (also if you haven’t read their fic ‘The Invisible Language’ you really should because it’s great 10/10 would recommend not reading this self-indulgent garbage and reading that instead kkkkkkkk) No explanations, we project our problems on our favorite characters like men. 

(Song pairings for this fic are: Girl Anachronism by the Dresden Dolls, Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger, and We Know Where You Sleep by the Paper Chase)

Words: 3255

Warnings: mentions of psychosis, disorganized speech, memory loss, visionary/auditory hallucinations, paranoia, mentions of hospitalization, mentions of medication, mentions of gaslighting and abuse, kinda sympathetic deceit (If you count making him a dog being sympathetic- Deceit has become my own personal meme guys, I’m sorry.)

Ships: LAMP/CALM (Because you should know by now if I can shoehorn in a healthy, supportive, polyamorous relationship I 100% will)

Summary: Patton was ‘Split-brained.’ If people were computers, then he would be a pc still running with windows 98, dial-up internet. It wasn’t bad, but it was something he had to live with every moment of every day.

Recovery was a game of chance. He could go into a psychosis tomorrow, and never get out of it, or he could wake up a week from now and never have another symptom again. Medication kept him functioning, and therapy helped him deal with the worst of it. But both could only do so much with the chemical war in his brain. That was just the volatile way life was for him, and he had long since learned what to avoid and how to make the best of living day-to-day

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

Waking up in the morning always had to be the hardest part of the day for Patton. Getting to sleep was tricky in its own right, but it didn’t compare to the struggles that were coming back into consciousness. Morning was when his mind was the loudest.

Remy was actually the one to wake him up. The black and tan german shepherd barking, and nosing him until he came to. He couldn’t even be mad at the dog- after all this was a service Remy had been task trained to do. It wasn’t the puppo’s fault that auditory hallucinations of his phone alarm kept waking him up until 4am (eventually rendering him immune to the very real sound of his actual phone alarm now in the daylight hours. He’d have to change it again.)

“Danger. Don’t leave. Not safe. Stay. We’re not alone. We’re in danger. Don’t leave. Don’t move-”

Prying himself from the warm cocoon of soft blankets, Patton pet and praised the dog for performing his task, before getting up and sleepily stumbling to the bathroom. Once he was in there his eyes darted to the vibrant pill case one of his boyfriends, Roman, lovingly decorated for him. It was Logan’s suggestion, having the case be brightly colored, and in plain sight on the counter would make it easier for Patton to remember to take his medication- and Ro was all too eager to support his partner however he could.

Pat was grateful for his three, wonderful partners- but he couldn’t shake the intrusive thought of him being a burden on them. They did so much to help him out- Logan leaving him little reminder notes, and checklists all over their shared apartment, Virgil constantly responding to frantic phone calls and texts to give reality checks, and Roman always taking breaks from work to take Patton to therapy, and appointments with his psychiatrist (going alone gave him a lot of anxiety.) And despite their constant reassurance that they wanted to be there for him, he couldn’t help but let the negative thoughts creep up into the back of his mind.

He looked down at the multicolored tablets in his hand. “Poison. Don’t take it. It’s poison. They’re trying to change you. These are going to kill you. They’ll just turn you into a zombie. Don’t trust it. Poison-”

Sipping on a glass of water, he popped the pills in his mouth and swallowed before they could reach his tongue. The whispers were on a tirade again, but it had been a long time since he stopped really listening to their opinions on medication. He couldn’t always tune out, or ignore what they were saying; but he was getting better at managing his responses to it.

The voices weren’t always scary, sometimes they were just odd. Most of the time they just echoed thoughts he had. As Pat stepped in the shower there was an chorus of “Water. Warm. Shower. Water. Hot water. Soap. Shower. Warm-” that eventually cascaded into white noise. Before he started taking his antipsychotic medication they would talk to him, or amongst themselves and it would get so loud he couldn’t hear his boyfriends shouting directly into his ear. There also used to be more ‘types’ of voices too. Some he’d hear like people were speaking next to him, others were more like thoughts that didn’t have his voice or would have really weird accents. Then there were the really bizarre ones that felt like a tingling in the back of his head. He couldn’t ever make out what they were saying but he could always tell if they were mean or angry.

But, if he was being honest, auditory hallucinations were the least troublesome part of his mental illness. When he was first getting diagnosed they were terrifying- but now they were just annoying. Just a low thrum softly filling his head as he got out of the shower, got dressed, and began the trek downstairs to the kitchen.

If he had to pick the most troublesome part of his disorder, it’d be the stuff that you never saw portrayed in media. Hallucinations were just the tip of the iceberg- and out of every movie about a person like him he never saw the part where they addressed the other stuff. Things like memory loss, fractured thinking, compulsive behavior, or disorganized speech patterns.

“Coffee. Stirring. Cup. Warm. Hot. Coffee. Mug. Warm. Cup-”  It was honestly irritating. Then again the only time he saw people like him in media was in horror films. But even then they had perfectly coherent Hannibal Lecter type people who just occasionally see stuff. The reality was much less pretty- if it wasn’t for Logan’s lists everywhere, and Remy, he wouldn’t remember to brush his teeth, or eat. On a good day he only had a minor stutter, and on bad ones he couldn’t talk at all.

He remembered he tried to explain it to Virgil once. He and his emo boyfriend couldn’t sleep and were chatting on the couch when Virge asked him what it was like. Patton, not being the best at explaining things, had decided to show him. So he found a few of Logan’s unused note cards, and asked Virgil to write out a thought with each word of it being on a different note card.

“Okay n-n-now lay it out in o-order.” Patton instructed, earning a raised eyebrow from the emo as he quickly laid out the sentence in order on the coffee table. Once he was done, Patton took the note cards and scrambled them- shuffling them up so they were completely out of order.

“N-now lay-lay it out ag-agai-again.” He said, handing back the cards and watching as Virgil sifted through the cards to find the first word, then the second, and so on until the whole sentence was on the coffee table in front of them.

Patton explained that while neurotypical people had their thoughts in order, like the first deck of note cards, his were constantly scrambled. So he has to put everything back in order before he does anything. That the metaphor applies to everything- talking, actions, thoughts. It was why he physically froze when he couldn’t remember what he was doing, or why sometimes he’d stare at his boyfriends looking for an answer for a question he forgot to ask. If people were computers, then he’d be a pc still running with windows 98, dial-up internet.

“But what about the…” Virgil paused, taking a moment to find the right way to phrase his question, “...other...stuff?”

Patton thought that was a bit more tricky to explain. He could spend the rest of his life talking out the small nuances of the ‘other stuff’ and only scratch the surface of what it entailed.

It was the way him, his thoughts, and his feelings felt like separate entities and not one solid person. It was going for a walk at 1pm and coming back at 9:30 with no recollection of where he went, or what he did. It was his mind latching onto a statement like ‘does Ohio even really exist’ and ruminating on it so much that he became convinced nothing was real anymore. It was loving people, but simultaneously not being able to trust them and avoiding them. It was flipping the light switch on and off because there was a dark figure in the corner when the lights were off but if he flipped the switch EXACTLY 26 times then it wouldn’t come after him, or his family. It was taking pictures of things with his phone to send to Virgil so he could ask if Virgil saw what he was seeing. It was existing in two separate realities at the same time and constantly having to figure out which one was the real reality and which one was just his illness.

It was staring off into his coffee cup for a half an hour while his service dog barked to snap him back into the moment- like now.

Patton shook his head, trying to refocus. His chronic ‘spacing out’ (to put it lightly) was why Logan no longer let him use the stove. Speaking of Logan- Patton padded his way to the refrigerator where his wonderfully intelligent boyfriend had made a whiteboard checklist for him. In Logan’s neat, almost font-like handwriting there were various tasks written in sharpie with little boxes next to them for Patton to check off every day. When the others returned from their jobs they’d double check it, and remind him of what he didn’t do yet.

“Marker. Blue. Smooth. Marker. Drawing. Write. Blue. Draw. Marker-”

Picking up the magnetized expo marker Pat went down the list. Medication? Check! Brushing teeth? He’ll do that after he drinks his coffee, and eats breakfast. Shower? Did he take a shower today? Patton reached his hand to feel his hair- it was still damp, so he must have. Check! Breakfast? He should do that. He wasn’t allowed to use the stove without the others in, but it was unlikely he would do any serious damage with a toaster, right? Right. Plopping a piece of bread in the machine, he got out some crofters, and butter before going back to the list while he waited. Put out food and water for the pets? Aw, shoot. That’s probably why Remy was barking.

Recapping the marker, Patton moved to fill the dog’s food and water dishes. Telling Remy to shake before he set down his food dish.

“Dog. Noise. Crunch. Food. Dog. Soft. Warm. Hairy. Dog. Woof. Noise. Dog-”

The service dog had actually been Virgil’s idea, and one that Patton was wholly opposed to at the start. It wasn’t like he didn’t want a dog- he did! He loved dogs! But a service dog was a whole other animal (pun intended.) Getting a service dog meant he actually had to admit he had a disability, and Patton didn’t really feel like he was disabled. Sure, certain things were harder to do, yeah. And he had to navigate around obstacles his mental illness provides- but disabled seemed like a stretch. If he’s being honest it still seems like a stretch; but after an hour of Logan listing him all the ways the service dog could help, and how common service dogs had become in the mentally ill community, Patton finally agreed.

There was another reason though, with the dog came the addition of having to explain what his disability was. And Patton...didn’t like having to tell people. He barely liked even associating himself with the word. He was…..split-brained. He had the big S. But the stigma that surrounded it didn’t apply to him. Every time he opened up to a close friend they always expressed how they couldn’t believe it given how ‘normal’ Patton seemed- definitely not what came to mind when someone thought ‘schizo.’ What if people didn’t believe him? Confrontation was never really his thing.

It was actually Roman who supplied a solution. If Patton was getting a dog, then Virgil would too. That way when they went out together it wouldn’t be as weird. That’s how the small yellow Tibetan Spaniel, Dee came to be Virgil’s emotional support animal. Unlike Remy, Dee wasn’t trained to task, he was just there to comfort Virgil when his three boyfriends couldn’t. And all the love and pampering made Dee into something of a complete mischievous diva. The little fluffy dog had a habit of appearing out of nowhere and yapping very loudly right behind Patton. Especially when it came to the horrendous offense that was feeding Remy first. But Virgil had taken the little puffball to work with him today so Patton was safe from any yappy startling.

Patton chipperly checked off the task from the list with the expo marker, recapping it and moving to the living room where his laptop sat. Holding down on-site jobs was, frankly, unrealistic for him. But he managed to still stay on his own two feet by freelancing. It wasn’t easy (and required so many reminder notes) but with Logan’s organizational help he was able to work in his own way, and remain (relatively) independent. Which was a godsend compared to spending the rest of his life living with his parents.

Don’t get him wrong, Patton loved his parents, and they did so much for him. Life couldn’t have been easy with a split-brained kid, and they had been pretty patient with him early on with his first few psychoses. But (why was there always a ‘but’) they still had ticks, and expectations he couldn’t meet. He’d recognized too little too late that they were gaslighting him to make their lives easier. Every now and again, when they’d say something that’d upset him, he’d try talking about it only to be met with ‘I never said that’ or, ‘are you sure that’s how it really happened?’ And Patton believed them because he couldn’t really trust his own perception that much. Their distaste were in the way they presented himself to other people too. “You probably shouldn’t tell them about your….disorder.” They’d lecture in car-rides going to social gatherings that Patton loathed. “It isn’t that we’re not proud of you! Other’s just might not be so understanding-” Their words always echoed in his skull, quickly becoming fodder for his mind to latch onto and use against him. He couldn’t stand the way they grimaced whenever he was brought up in conversation. All the times his mom uttered the hushed words of “Patton’s…...different-” made him want to scream out.

‘Just say it. Say what you’re thinking. Crazy. You think I’m crazy.’

He knew he scared them. Living with them always guaranteed the looming threat of hospitalization if he displayed symptoms they weren’t comfortable with. They always felt the need to walk on eggshells so as not to disturb him more than he already was. His illness became a weapon against him more often than not- a way to discredit him and excuse their own actions. Even with all the tips and tricks he learned to covertly hide; pretending to be talking on the phone when he was arguing with the voices, or practicing proper empathetic faces in the mirror to use when talking to people. Locking himself up in his room whenever he was having a psychotic breakdown, or visual hallucinations, and doing everything in his power to not react to the loud auditory ones. It never seemed to be enough though, and he was always met with glazed over eyes, and disapproving frown of his mother whenever he forgot something and did it several times over, or had too much disorganized thought to speak properly. They just wanted him to be normal, to get better. But unlike other mental illnesses, recovery was a game of chance. He could go into a psychosis tomorrow and never get out of it, or he could wake up a week from now and never have another symptom again. Medication kept him functioning, and therapy helped him deal with the worst of it. But both could only do so much with the chemical war in his brain. That was just the volatile way life was for him, and he had long since learned what to avoid and how to make the best of living day-to-day. But his parents never seemed as satisfied with that as he was. And more often than not it had a negative impact on his mental health, and he found himself getting worse while staying under their roof.

It was Roman who noticed the effect his parents had on Patton, and convinced him to leave. At first Pat dug his heels in. He really didn’t believe Roman knew what he was signing up for. Yeah, they had all been dating since sophomore year of high school- but Patton had done everything in his power to keep the worst of it from his boyfriends. He could take a lot, but he couldn’t take them being scared of him too. It took months of convincing, the final straw coming with Patton’s most recent hospitalization.

He had developed some kind of allergic reaction to a medication he was on, but in order to find out which one he had to be slowly weaned off all of them. They checked him into the hospital, stuck an IV into him, and closely monitored him as he slipped in and out of psychosis, and got wrapped up in some bizarre delusions. But despite his incoherence and strange behavior his boyfriends didn’t leave his side. They took shifts, ensuring that Patton was always with someone he knew. Logan constantly pelted the doctors with questions on the doctor’s care choices. Virgil brought all of Patton’s favorite stuffed animals and blankets for familiarity. And Roman played all of Patton’s favorite disney movies whenever the room was silent. They learned as much as they could about Patton’s situation. How to handle his delusions and what to do when he had episodes of low empathy, or isolation. It was a breath of fresh air for Pat to have his illness embraced, and not met with the usual disdain he got from his parents. He could have almost cried when Logan didn’t get mad when Patton explained that he didn’t want to eat dinner with them because he was convinced it was poisoned, or when Virgil didn’t find it upsetting when Pat had set up a little ‘nest’ of towels, pillows, and blankets in the bathtub because it felt like the only place They™ couldn’t get him. There was even an instance where Pat thought that Roman had been replaced with someone who looked identical to roman, but wasn’t Roman. The actor didn’t tell him it wasn’t true, or refuted Patton’s pleads for the ‘imposter’ to return his boyfriend. He simply went along with it- telling Patton he was going to return Roman before making a show of leaving the bedroom and re-entering thanking Patton for having the clone return him. (He also explained what he did to Patton later when the split-brain was in a better state.)

It was so nice to not be treated like the burden he thought he was. Their love showed in every one of the caring acts they did for him, trying to make his hectic life a little more manageable in any way they could.

“Patton?” A rough voice broke through his thoughts, making him turn towards the door. It was Virgil, a fussy Dee wriggling in his arms.

“Virgil. Calm. Boyfriend. Love. Virgil. Trusted. Boyfriend. Roommate. Dog. Dee. Virgil-”

“Hi honey, you’re home early!” Patton chirped, a well practiced smile gracing his lips. Virgil raised an eyebrow at him, setting Dee on the floor with little ‘clip clip’s’ from the toy dog’s claws.

“Pat, it’s 4:30, I always come home around this time.” Patton’s face dropped, as he turned back to the laptop he’d been staring at. When had it gotten so late?

“Uh, Virge- could you read this for me and make sure it makes sense?” Patton hummed, trying to reread over the email he was going to send but not quite processing the words. Virgil stalked over, glancing at the screen and humming.

“Sorry Pat, it’s complete jibberish.” He purred, rubbing his boyfriend’s shoulders. “Wanna help me with dinner and we’ll take a crack at writing it after?” “Sure.” Pat said with a sigh, as he closed the laptop and stood up to join his boyfriend. Living as a split-brain was difficult, but living with three amazing partners made it manageable.

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

Endnote: This was way longer than I intended it to be. Sorry, I had a lot to say.

[honeysweetpsii-blog]

[LOG] A Father Son Chat

Mituna | Deuce

ft. @gotahatfullofbomb

Mituna

>> Mituna takes a deep breath while waiting for his dad. Knowing the meeting was about to end he stops tidying up and rubs his eyes, the use of his psiioniics making them itch. He spins around in his wheelchair and opens the door to peak out, nervous. The conversation he planned to have was a heavy to light, always end with the nicest thing, right? >> With a anxious churr he wheels back into his room and starts biting the knuckle of his pointer finger while he waited for his father. Wouldn't be too much longer now. >> He pushes up his glasses and rubs at his face again, he had much more confidence with this earlier.

Deuce

Deuce was already tired with all this drama and honestly was hoping for some more , but he couldn't just go sleep all day again, at least not when it comes to his kids so he drags himself to Mituna's room to have yet another talk. >knock on the door. "tuna? can i come in ?"

Mituna

Mituna looks up at the door and doesn't answer for a little bit before he goes up to the door and opens it, smiling slightly. "Yeah, come on in." He pushes the wheelchair back, getting out of Deuce's way. "You can sit on my bed, if you want I mean.. heh. Get all comfy after that meeting and what ever happened yesterday." Get your maximum comfort on. He slides a pillow off of the bed for himself. This is a feelings jam.

Deuce

Oh bless this lovely child because he doesn't want anything other right now than to  jump on the bed and be a potato . "Thank you" So he does exactly that hmm comfy comfy good choice of fluffy pillows my son. "Hmmm i like this talk already , more talks should involve pillows like this"

Mituna

Mituna laughs and nods, "Hell yeah, nothing is better than pillows and chatting. Like a teen sleepover, who's the girl you like dude?" He sighs and watches CD snuggle in and get all comfortable. "There's multiple subjects I'd like to uh, cover before reaching the bomb part. If that's alright?"

Deuce

"OH BOY!" He acts surprised and start playing with his hair . "I think Boxcars is the coolest guy at school i want to ask him out to prom". He laughs and rolls in bed to a chinhands position to look at Mituna. "DID YOU SAY BOMB? you got my undivided attention boy, SPEAK"

Mituna

He snickers and grins, okay this is going way better than expected. Lets do this. "Well to start, I wanted to talk to you about Sollux's migraine. I let him sleep in here last night but he collapsed out side my room from the pain. I fell before that though, I think I was trying to get up and go to his room because I thought he was drunk but I guess it was the pain instead?" Mituna leans back in the wheelchair and hugs the pillow to his chest. "I thought it was cause his psiioniics but he isn't going overboard with them so.. I don't know if he is stressing about something but I can't figure it out."

Deuce

Oh no back to worrying again?. The bombs got him excited for a nice talk but looks like it's just kill your dad of worry week. "It was that bad? why didn't you call me Tuna?..." he sinks into the pillow "  I guess i will have to talk to him later hu?..."

Mituna

He swears it's gonna end good. Heavy things first because suspense. "I don't know, didn't think to? I was worried and my brain can't function that much shit at one time. I looked after him all night, he slept well. Said he was proud of me, kinda cried about that. I would of called you and the hospital if it got to bad for me to handle.... Yeah I think you should. I don't know if he genuinely doesn't know why he has this migraine or if he's keeping it from me."

Deuce

"Let's hope it's nothing bad" sigh "Thank you for taking care of him, i'm also proud of you. He used to be the one taking care of you when you got episodes and now tables have turned"

Mituna

"You're gonna make me cry again, I'm just trying to look out for peeps. Bee a good bee for once." He nods and rubs at the side of his neck, "So.. last thing to ask about before the bomb part of this conversation." He shoves his face into the pillow and sighs. "What is that Psiioniic dude like, I know he's my brother or something like that but I don't remember him. I think I seen him when I was a kid? But I don't know him. I think I made him upset last night because he wanted to come into my room last night as well but that made me uneasy and I said no in a really vague and probably rude way but.. I don't.. Mm." Heavy bee frowns. "Can you fill me in on what he's like so I can talk to him easier?"

Deuce

CD pulls the pillows under his chin and thinks for a moment. "He is your ancestor...i guess you could call him father instead of brother? it's...weird i mean i adopted him as my son long time ago when i found him. Though instead on the street the fucker landed on my armory on the desert and almost blow up everything with his psiionics" He laughs "He pulled a brave move of escaping a battleship he was being held in as a slave but had to fall face first on the ground...as always. It's ok if you don't remember him much, you were too small anyway, but he helped me out with you and your bother." He taps his chin while thinking. "What he is like?....he is very funny, very cheerful most of the time you know , memes and all that. He cares a lot for the people he love, a really good man."

Mituna

"Hm.. Definitely got the wrong impression of him then with that fight thing I heard about. I was nervous he was gonna start something, make Sollux mad, I mean... Gamzee is Sol's matesprite after all, so what I heard from Sol wasn't really good. I'm glad I got two sides before my mind decided to be judgey. I'll have to talk with him about things, get to know him again. I'm glad he helped you with us but.. You will always be my dad Deuce. Not him, not anyone else. You and Sol are the ones that were there for me through everything. Especially you when Sol left so.. You are my family, I love you dad." Mituna smiles wide and leans forward to pap his dad's shoulder.

Deuce

He appreciates the dad part a lot. Above all that has happened he started thinking what if the kids now decide they rather call him dad?... It lifts a bit of weight off his shoulders. “What happened yesterday was...dumb. Psii was way out of line. Hopefully after the talk we had today it won’t happen again. At least not the way it went down yesterday...Just please don’t judge his entire persona based on one stupid decision he made, he is better than this”

Mituna

"I won't, I won't. I know I can do dumb shit too, that's why I wanted to ask you about him. I mean, who better to ask than you." He leans forward and whispers, "I could ask him about himself but we bee's are full of crisis so I didn't want to spark nothing bad in his head." With a snicker Mituna leans back and hugs his pillow tight again. "Honestly this is passing faster and better than I thought it would. Are you sure you are ready for the bomb part?"

Deuce

"Mituna Captor being careful? more likely than you think!. I can't believe you are being the responsible one around this days" he jokes and hugs his pillow excited to the mention of bombs again. "YEAH i'm always ready like a damn bomb scout"

Mituna

Mituna grins wide, scoots forward and grasps his dads hands. After a long pause he laughs, ears flicking. "I've thought about this for a while, and super thought about it after those anons called Psii my dad." Another pause, "I'd like for you to officially adopt me, name change and all. I want to legally bee your son, beecause I am." He rubs at his eyes an laughs again. "You are the one who raised me, you're the only one that will ever bee my father."

Deuce

"Oh tuna don't make a grown ass man cry like this" he says as he start to tear up "We can make all the paperwork tomorrow!". He rubs his eyes and get off bed to hug his bee son. "I'm so happy!"

Mituna

Mituna hugs Deuce tightly, burying his face in his dad's shoulder. "I'm so happy too Dad. I can't wait to get started an shit. I love you, Dad. I love you so much." He hugs him tighter, not wanting to let go at all.

Deuce

"I love you too my little bee." very happy dersite noises "I can't wait either , we gotta go early tomorrow so try to not sleep too late tonight ok?"

[yet-another-autistic-blog]

Since this post got a good response, I figured I’d share the email I sent her in the first place (with a few details redacted for privacy):

———

After much self-analysis and multiple visits with mental health professionals of varying degrees of helpfulness, I finally have official confirmation of something I've suspected about myself for a long time: I'm on the Autism Spectrum. If I had gotten the diagnosis 6+ years ago, it would have been called Asperger's.

I don't know how much preexisting knowledge you have, but for me it basically just means my brain interfaces with the rest of the world in different ways than most people. I struggle with most social interaction and generally find it exhausting outside my small circle of close friends (although I think I've gotten pretty decent at "faking it" over the years, which is part of how I evaded diagnosis for so long). Sometimes I forget that the correct response to "How are you?" is "Good, you?" and not "Well actually I've been feeling pretty tired lately..." I'm extra sensitive to lights, sounds, tastes, textures, etc. (including the stupid fly that's been buzzing around my desk all day, foods that people insist "aren't even that spicy", and the sun shining extra brightly on the bus ride home). I sometimes get easily overwhelmed if there's too many things I have to worry about, even if they're individually small. I'm considered "high-functioning", but that mostly just means I didn't have a detectable learning delay. (I've learned that the Autistic community finds the high/low functioning labels to be limiting and unhelpful.)

It's not all bad. I'm really good at finding patterns and expanding upon them. I have a really strong eye for detail. Despite the stereotype of autistic people not being able to feel empathy, I got thrown into the other end of the spectrum with hyper-empathy. (The other day, I found myself uncontrollably sobbing over the anime "Cells At Work" because the body had experienced severe head trauma and almost all the anime blood cells had fallen out, except for the protagonist red blood cell who refused to give up. Eventually the body was saved via a transfusion that brought lots of new red blood cells who were basically like "We don't know how we got here, but it looks like we've got oxygen to move!") I have a strong sense of fairness, justice, and doing things the "right" way. I'm really good at finding the perfect meme/gif to fit a situation. When I'm able to hyper-focus, I can blaze through things quickly. (If only I could turn on hyper-focus at will...)

The good news is most of my job is already structured in a way that works with my brain. Email communication is easier than verbal communication (both in terms of getting my thoughts into words and in terms of processing content). <Task Management Tool> has been amazingly useful to me for task organization and keeping track of things. Sometimes my brain has a smaller buffer of things it can keep in active short term memory, which is why my desk is always littered with papers that have seemingly random numbers and lists scribbled all over the place. No one bats an eye at that, or the fact that I sit funny in my chair, or that I only wear comfy clothes & shoes & no makeup, or that I have lots of small routines & quirks that no one notices.

The most accommodating part of my job has been my coworkers. <Coworker 1> is willing & able to help out when I get overwhelmed by too many tasks. <Coworker 2> is available to take over communicating with difficult clients. You've helped me on many occasions when I wasn't sure how to politely word a difficult topic. You've let me work from home during the days I had all those appointments to figure out what was "wrong" with me. I can honestly say I would not have lasted this long without such a supportive team.

I do still struggle sometimes, but now that I better understand what I struggle with and why, I'm working on being more gentle with myself and working with my brain instead of against it. I'm doing what I can on my end, but I think it would really help to have a dedicated telecommute day. I'm leaning toward Mondays if it's feasible because there tends to be a backlog of emails to deal with from the weekend, and dealing with emails takes a higher cognitive load than actually working on projects. Working from home that day would allow me to redirect the cognitive energy that's normally spent on interacting with coworkers into processing emails. Obviously this Monday won't work because <client> wants me at that meeting he requested, which is fine because I won't be the one leading the meeting, and I'm mentally preparing for it. I can also be flexible when there's holidays (For example, I assume we'll be working from home on July 5th, so I wouldn't mind coming in on July 1st).

Sorry for the huge wall of text. I had a lot to say and didn't trust myself to remember everything I wanted to say in person. As it is it took me several days to figure out what I wanted to write. I don't expect any huge changes to the nature of my job, and I don't think I'll disclose to anyone else here. I mostly wanted to tell you because you've shown that you genuinely care about my well-being over the needs of the company, and I thought it would help explain why I struggle in the specific areas I do beyond just "I don't like it."

I disclosed my diagnosis to my boss on Friday in a long email that explained what I struggle with and why, described the ways that my job is already accommodating, and requested to work from home on Mondays because I’ve noticed it tends to be the hardest day of the week for me due to email backlog over the weekend.

Today, she responded. She started with:

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you trusting me enough to share all of this with me. It must’ve been a very lonely process to recognize that you felt like there was something going on with you, but to not have the words, the acknowledgement or the diagnosis (much less the tools/support) to feel like you could do something. I’m glad that you were at least able to find someone who could recognize this and hopefully help you get some peace with at least recognizing that the struggles you’ve long felt are real and valid.”

She then told me about a couple people in her life on the spectrum, concluding with, “All this to say, I can’t understand it first hand the way you experience it yourself, but as someone who loves a couple people on the spectrum, I do understand it’s a lot to go through and manage, things can be overwhelming, and what people see on the outside isn’t necessarily the same thing that you have going on on the inside.”

The rest of the email was just logistic stuff, including approving telecommute Mondays and saying she’s open to other accommodations if I need them in the future.

I’m so grateful I have such an amazing boss! I’m sure I would have quit or gotten fired a long time ago if I worked under other managers I’ve seen at this company. I only felt comfortable disclosing in the first place because she’s demonstrated in the past that she values me as a human being first and an employee second, which is sadly quite rare in the management world.

[meeedeee]

Dear Simon Sinek: STFU About Millennials RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

The last few weeks or so, I’ve seen the same video endlessly going around on Facebook: a snippet of an interview with Simon Sinek, who lays out what he believes to be the key problems with millennials in the workplace. Every time I see it shared, my blood pressure rises slightly, until today – joy of joys! – I finally saw and shared a piece rebutting it. As often happens on Facebook, a friend asked me why I disagreed with Sinek’s piece, as he’d enjoyed his TED talks. This is my response.

In his talk, Sinek touches on what he believes to be the four core issues handicapping millennials: internet addiction, bad parenting, an unfulfilled desire for meaningful work and a desire to have everything instantly. Now: demonstrably, some people are products of bad parenting, and the pernicious, lingering consequences of helicopter parenting, wherein overzealous, overprotective adults so rob their children of autonomy and instil in them such a fear of failure that they can’t healthily function as adults, is a very real phenomenon. Specifically in reference to Sinek’s claims about millennials all getting participation awards in school (which, ugh: not all of us fucking did, I don’t know a single person for whom that’s true, shut up with this goddamn trope), the psychological impact of praising children equally regardless of their actual achievements, such that they come to view all praise as meaningless and lose self-confidence as a result, is a well-documented phenomenon. But the idea that you can successfully accuse an entire global generation of suffering from the same hang-ups as a result of the same bad parenting stratagems, such that all millennials can be reasonably assumed to have this problem? That, right there, is some Grade-A bullshit.

Bad parenting isn’t a new thing. Plenty of baby boomers and members of older generations have been impacted by the various terrible fads and era-accepted practises their own parents fell prey to (like trying to electrocute the gay out of teenagers, for fucking instance), but while that might be a salient point to make in individual cases or in the specific context of tracking said parenting fads, it doesn’t actually set millennials apart in any meaningful way. Helicopter parenting might be comparatively new, but other forms of damage are not, and to act as though we’re the only generation to have ever dealt with the handicap of bad parenting, whether collectively or individually, is fucking absurd. But more to the point, the very specific phenomenon of helicopter parenting? Is, overwhelmingly, a product of white, well-off, middle- and-upper-class America, developed specifically in response to educational environments where standardised testing rules all futures and there isn’t really a viable social safety net if you fuck up, which leads to increased anxiety for children and parents both. While it undeniably appears in other countries and local contexts, and while it’s still a thing that happens to kids now, trying to erase its origins does no favours to anyone.

Similarly, the idea that millennials have all been ruined by the internet and don’t know how to have patience because we grew up with smartphones and social media is – you guessed it – bullshit. This is really a two-pronged point, tying into two of Sinek’s arguments: that we’re internet addicts who don’t know how to socialise properly, and that we’re obsessed with instant gratification, and as such, I’m going to address them together.

Yes, internet addiction is a problem for some, but it’s crucial to note it can and does affect people of all ages rather than being a millennial-only issue, just as it’s equally salient to point out that millennials aren’t the only ones using smartphones. I shouldn’t have to make such an obvious qualification, but apparently, I fucking do. That being said, the real problem here is that Sinek has seemingly no awareness of what social media actually is. I mean, the key word is right there in the title: social media, and yet he’s acting like it involves no human interaction whatsoever – as though we’re just playing with digital robots or complete strangers all the time instead of texting our parents about dinner or FaceTiming with friends or building professional networks on Twitter or interacting with our readerships on AO3 (for instance).

The idea, too, that millennials have their own social conventions different to his own, many of which reference a rich culture of online narratives, memes, debates and communities, does not seem to have occurred to him, because we’re not learning to do it face to face. Except that, uh, we fucking are, on account of how we still inhabit physical bodies and go to physical places every fucking day of our goddamn lives, do I really have to explain that this is a thing? Do I really have to explain the appeal of maintaining friendships where you’re emotionally close but the person lives hundreds or thousands of kilometres away? Do I really have to spell out the fact that proximal connections aren’t always meaningful ones, and that it actually makes a great deal of human sense to want to socialise with people we care about and who share our interests where possible rather than relying solely on the random admixture of people who share our schools and workplaces for fun?

The fact that Sinek talks blithely about how all millennials grew up with the internet and social media, as though those of us now in our fucking thirties don’t remember a time before home PCs were common (I first learned to type on an actual typewriter), is just ridiculous: Facebook started in 2004, YouTube in 2005, Twitter in 2006, tumblr in 2007 and Instagram in 2010. Meaning, most millennials – who, recall, were born between 1980 and 1995, which makes the youngest of us 21/22 and the eldest nearly forty – didn’t grow up with what is now considered social media throughout our teenage years, as Sinek asserts, because it didn’t really get started until we were out of high school. Before that, we had internet messageboards that were as likely to die overnight as to flourish, IRC chat, and the wild west of MSN forums, which was a whole different thing altogether. (Remember the joys of being hit on by adults as an underage teen in your first chatroom and realising only years later that those people were fucking paedophiles? Because I DO.)

And then he pulls out the big guns, talking about how we get a dopamine rush when we post about ourselves online, and how this is the same brain chemical responsible for addiction, and this is why young people are glued to their phones and civilisation is ending. Which, again, yes: dopamine does what he says it does, but that is some fucking misleading bullshit, Simon Says, and do you know why? Because you also get a goddamn dopamine rush from talking about yourself in real life, too, Jesus fucking Christ, the internet is not the culprit here, to say nothing of the fact that smartphones do more than one goddamn thing. Sinek lambasts the idea of using your phone in bed, for instance, but I doubt he holds a similar grudge against reading in bed, which – surprise! – is what quite a lot of us are doing when we have our phones out of an evening, whether in the form of blogs or books or essays. If I was using a paperback book or a physical Kindle rather than the Kindle app on my iPhone, would he give a fuck? I suspect not.

Likewise, I doubt he has any particular grudge against watching movies (or TED talks, for that matter) in bed, which phones can also be used for. Would he care if I brought in my Nintendo DS or any other handheld system to bed and caught a few Pokemon before lights out? Would he care if I played Scrabble with a physical board instead of using Words With Friends? Would he care if I used the phone as a phone to call my mother and say goodnight instead of checking her Facebook and maybe posting a link to something I know will make her laugh? I don’t know, but unless you view a smartphone as something that’s wholly disconnected from people – which, uh, is kind of the literal antithesis of what a smartphone is and does – I don’t honestly see how you can claim that they’re tools for disconnection. Again, yes: some people can get addicted or overuse their phones, but that is not a millennial-exclusive problem, and fuck you very much for suggesting it magically is Because Reasons.

And do not even get me started on the total fuckery of millennials being accustomed to instant gratification because of the internet. Never mind the fact that, once again, people of any age are equally likely to become accustomed to fast internet as a thing and to update their expectations accordingly – bitch, do you know how long it used to take to download music with Kazaa using a 56k modem? Do you know how long it still takes to download entire games, or patches for games, or – for that matter – drive through fucking peak-hour traffic to get to and from work, or negotiate your toddler into not screaming because he can’t have a third juicebox? Because – oh, yeah – remember that thing where millennials stopped being teenagers quite a fucking while ago, and a fair few of us are now parents ourselves? Yeah. Apparently our interpersonal skills aren’t so completely terrible as to prevent us all from finding spouses and partners and co-parents for our tiny, screaming offspring, and if Mr Sinek would like to argue that learning patience is incompatible with being a millennial, I would like to cordially invite him to listen to a video, on loop, of my nearly four-year-old saying, “Mummy, look! A lizard! Mummy, there’s a lizard! Come look!” and see what it does for his temperament. (We live in Brisbane, Australia. There are geckos everywhere.)

But what really pisses me off about Sinek’s millennial-blaming is the idea that we’re all willing to quit our jobs because we don’t find meaning in them. Listen to me, Simon Sinek. Listen to me closely. You are, once again, confusing the very particular context of middle-class, predominantly white Americans from affluent backgrounds – which is to say, the kind of people who can afford to fucking quit in this economy – for a universal phenomenon. Ignore the fact that the global economy collapsed in 2008 without ever fully recovering: Brexit just happened in the UK, Australia is run by a coalition of racist dickheads and you’ve just elected a talking Cheeto who’s hellbent on stripping away your very meagre social safety nets as his first order of business – oh, and none of us can afford to buy houses and we’re the first generation not to earn more than our predecessors in quite a while, university costs in the States are an actual goddamn crime and most of us can’t make a living wage or even get a job in the fields we trained in.

But yeah, sure: let’s talk about the wealthy few who can afford to quit their corporate jobs because they feel unfulfilled. What do they have to feel unhappy about, really? It’s not like they’re working for corporations whose idea of HR is to hire oblivious white dudes like you to figure out why their younger employees, working longer hours for less pay in tightly monitored environments that strip their individuality and hate on unions as a sin against capitalism, in a context where the glass ceiling and wage gaps remain a goddamn issue, in a first world country that still doesn’t have guaranteed maternity leave and where quite literally nobody working minimum wage can afford to pay rent, which is fucking terrifying to consider if you’re worried about being fired, aren’t fitting in. Nah, bro – must be the fucking internet’s fault.

Not that long ago, Gen X was the one getting pilloried as a bunch of ambitionless slackers who didn’t know the meaning of hard work, but time is linear and complaining about the failures of younger generations is a habit as old as humanity, so now it’s apparently our turn. Bottom line: there’s a huge fucking difference between saying “there’s value in turning your phone off sometimes” and “millennials don’t know how to people because TECHNOLOGY”, and until Simon Sinek knows what it is, I’m frankly not interested in whatever it is he thinks he has to say.

from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows http://ift.tt/2iKOneF via IFTTT