#my brain just presented this to me as a fact

[lieslab]

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎ ꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

Pairing: Han X gn reader

Summary: Your boyfriend finds you celebrating your birthday alone in the dark.

Genre: Comfort/hurt

Word Count: 1.8K

A/N: I'm choking on nostalgia at 1 am and if I'm suffering, I'm afraid I'm going to make you suffer with me too. Happy birthday, celebrate your birthdays, or I'll cry.

_ _ _

“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.”

The lyrics were murky as your brain tried to remember the song from so long ago. With the light on above the kitchen sink, your view of the area was pretty dim. In front of you, a perfectly wrapped cupcake was topped with sprinkles and a single lit candle. 

Still tucked in your pajamas, you stood beside the kitchen island and sang quietly to yourself. The small flame reflected in your eyes and once you finished the song, the dark kitchen went back to silence. Your eyes remained on the flickering flame. 

The wax of the single black candle slowly began to ooze down the side. In the back bedroom, your boyfriend was sound asleep. Han had been out cold since he came home a few hours ago. Another day of practice and recording left him exhausted. 

In your head, it was fortunate. Your birthday was today, but the truth? You never had plans to celebrate it. What was the point, anyway? Another year of growing older. Another year where you’re forced to confront that you’re creeping closer and closer to death. 

Days tick by, but the thought haunts your subconscious. One of these days, it just might be your last and you’ll never know until it happens. Your anxiety surrounding death had been growing lately. 

Birthdays weren’t special to begin with. Birthdays were somewhat enjoyable as a kid. There was cake and ice cream. A few presents and a signed card. 

And then you grew up. 

The presents became less. The cakes disappeared. The few friendships dissolved and that was that. If anything, birthdays were just a painful reminder of how lonely you felt. Was there really anything to celebrate anymore? 

The wrinkles deepened and the mistakes of the past weighed on your heart heavily. Three-hundred and sixty-five days had passed since this time last year. So many years from when you were born into this world and it still felt pointless; just another nail in the coffin. 

“What are you doing?” Han’s sleepy voice broke through your thoughts. Across the way, his hands wiped at his sleepy eyes. He yawned and his attention went down to the flickering flame. “You made yourself a cupcake at this hour?” 

“Um…” Your head shook and you leaned forward to blow out the candle. “Something like that, I suppose.” 

Finally more awake, his half-lidded eyes met yours. He scanned the sink behind you for dirty dishes, but there wasn’t any. The scent of cake didn’t linger in the air. It must have been something you bought from a store. 

“A cupcake for a midnight snack is a weird choice, isn’t it? I’ve heard that sugar can give you nightmares before bed.” 

An ache squeezed your hollow heart at his words. You longed for the flavors to burst on your tongue, but instead you nodded. “Yeah, thanks for reminding me. I’ll probably just save it for dessert tomorrow after lunch or something.” 

The empty plastic container that used to hold the cupcake had been placed on the back counter. You spun around to grab it and blinked rapidly, trying to hide your tears. Han didn’t remember your birthday, of course, he didn’t. 

It wasn’t something you could be mad about. It’s not like you told him about your birthday. In fact, when he brought it up, you switched the topic. Your birthday felt so unimportant and dull, you tried to forget about it most of the time. 

But this birthday? Nostalgia bit into your heart this year. You longed for rich icing and moist cake. You wanted to recall the way your laugh sounded higher-pitched in childhood. If you chewed and squeezed your eyes shut, you were sure you could remember your mother back when you were only seven. 

When her hair was its original color and time hadn’t worn her down. Back when her joints were younger and she didn’t mention pain all the time. Her hair was longer and life seemed brighter. 

To a time when your father seemed to notice you more. When the future was bright and sitting on top of his shoulders made you squeal with delight. Up there, anything seemed possible and with his hands supporting your legs, you could do anything. 

Time is cruel and adulthood will rob you of everything you hold dear if you let it. Sharp teeth rip bites from your heart. Relationships fade and without work on either end, the distance between people grows like wild ivy. Phone calls dwindle and the steady texts disappear. 

Your parents become strangers. Friendships you knew like the back of your hand become foreign. Everything crumbles and then you’re left holding onto, not people, but the memories. Memories are just daggers to a beating heart. 

Things feel so achievable when you're young. Birthdays are some of the most exciting times of a child’s life. Dreams were so easy to accomplish back then, the sky was the limit, but this was now. Your star-dusted dreams died out so long ago, you couldn’t see them anymore. 

Han didn’t notice you reaching up to wipe a tear, but he noticed the rainbow sprinkles on the cupcake. He knew a lot of things about you and he knew that you didn’t like sprinkles on your cupcakes. You claimed they were too childish and yet, they were scattered along top of swirled icing. 

When it finally clicked, his eyes widened. “Oh my god, wait.” You spun around and his head snapped to you. “It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“But it does! What do you mean?” He rushed across the tile floor and grabbed you. “Happy birthday! I can’t believe I missed out on telling you that. Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“Maybe birthdays are just stupid.” 

You pulled yourself from his grip and grabbed the cupcake with two hands. You didn’t get far when he grabbed a fistful of your shirt and gently tugged you back to face him. “What do you mean?” 

Your eyes stayed on the floor. You couldn’t bear to look at those soft brown eyes. Not tonight, not with all the jumbled emotions swarming you. If your eyes found him, you’d fall apart in seconds. 

“What?” 

“Do you ever think about how pointless they are? So? I’m a year older, who cares?” You tried to squirm from his grip. 

“I care.” His hand reached up, gently grabbed your chin, and he made you face him. “I care an awful lot about your birthday. You’re here with me, aren’t you?” 

His cheeks puffed up in a sad smile. “You made it. Look at you go. Isn’t that something worth celebrating? Something to be proud of? You’ve done so much.” 

“I’ve done nothing.” 

“You’ve done everything. You’ve survived every challenge and you learned a lot. You discovered new things about yourself. You exist and that itself should be celebrated.” 

Your bottom lip quivered and you blinked rapidly. Your voice came out wobbly. “You’re not supposed to make me cry on my birthday.” 

“I don’t think you’re supposed to make your boyfriend cry on your birthday either, but it’s happening.” His thumb reached up to catch a stray tear. Just as your tear fell, his own soon followed. 

“Why are you crying?” 

“Because it makes me sad that you don’t view yourself like I do. You’re so precious to me and I hate that you can’t see the good. Birthdays are meant to be celebrated. Haven’t you ever had a surprise party or a party with all of your friends?” 

“Not really. I’ve had stuff with one or two friends, but never a surprise party. I didn’t have a large group of friends. My birthday parties were themed around my family and then I started to grow up. Families don’t care about birthdays once you reach a certain age.” 

His head shook, but you nodded. “That’s how it was with my family,” you continued. “Birthdays are just a waste of time and-” You gently lifted the cupcake. “Money. Besides, sprinkles are childish.” 

It tore his heart to shreds. In the dim light, you looked defeated. Your hair was a mess and brown bags curled beneath your eyes. Sadness pooled in the corners of your eyes and stayed there. 

He reached out and pulled the cupcake from your cupped hands. Setting it back on the counter, he hurried over to grab a lighter from a distant junk drawer. His name left your lips, but he ignored you. 

He came back to the table and the lighter flickered to life. The sparking flame reappeared and relit the candle on the cupcake. He stepped back and gestured to you to step forward. “Go ahead and make a wish.” 

“But I-” 

“Make a wish.” 

You stared at him for a moment. Wet streaks lined his cheeks, but the way he looked at you in that moment, it inflated your heart again. The flutter of hope in his eyes. The way the flame danced in his pupils. His hands kept gesturing for you to blow out the candle. His usual smile still tugged at one side of his mouth. 

You shut your eyes, stepped up, and sent out a single stream of air. The flame was there and then gone, just like that. Before you reopened your eyes, Han clapped excitedly.  “Happy birthday, baby!” 

You squealed as you were grabbed by your waist. “Han Jisung!” He giggled with glee and slung you over his shoulder. “Put me down!” 

“No can do, we’ve got places to go, people to go see, and a birthday to celebrate. The night is still so young and we’re not going to waste it.” 

“It’s midnight!” 

“It’s basically happy hour somewhere. So first I was thinking that we should go get Minho. We can use him to break into Seungmin and Felix’s dorm. We can steal Felix’s video games and while we do that, Minho can draw a mustache on Seungmin with a permanent marker. In the morning, it’ll all be Lix’s fault.”  

“That’s cruel.” 

“And the entertainment from pranks lasts forever. So then we’ll sneak into Chan’s and Jeongin’s place and raid their food stash. We’ll end the night in Changbin and Hyunjin’s dorm. You can get sappy with Hyunjin while we eat snacks. Changbin can sing happy birthday at the top of his lungs.” 

When he put you down outside your apartment’s front door, he grimaced. Your arms were crossed over your chest and you scowled at him. “That’s the best you could come up with?” 

“Uh…” 

“It’s perfect, let’s go.” You looped your hand through his and began to tug him into Seoul’s darkness. “But since it’s my birthday, I had nothing to do with this.” 

“Hey, I thought you didn’t like your birthday.” 

“It turns out, I like it when it can be used as a get out of jail free card.” 

| ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ | ♡.﹀﹀﹀﹀.♡ |

Taglist: @lia-linny @seungnishi @stellasays45 @emilyywhyy @rockstarkkami @flightlessackerman @danihwang882

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Ko-fi

[tumblebagel]

can we see some of your favorite graphite works you've done?

Oh! Absolutely!

I’ll be honest, I just cracked open my sketchbook and pulled out what was the most presentable. None of this is, like, my official stuff that I did for my classes, because: While proof of skill, those works to me feel boring and hollow

Here’s the good stuff, pulp included

In order we have:

Mae Borowski! Had an idea for the longest time of making a sorta prequel series of art before Night In the Woods. Around the time of the Longest Night spin-off/minigame thing. Art got scrapped, but the college varsity jacket stayed in my brain.

Catgirl adventurer OC. Also never made it past concept. I had this whole magic system set up that I was pretty proud of. And if I’m honest, still holding on to 😅. Short version is this, Health level = magic cap. Magic level = stamina cap. Lose health and all your stats suffer.

The Spot. I just think this one’s sick

Fiona Windsor. An old D&D character. If you’re confused about the name, uhhhhhhhhhhhh… So I ended up choosing my name, like, a month ago? In spite of the fact that I’ve known I was trans for 7 years. Without knowing it, playing that character was like a beta test

Minecraft OC. Friendly shinobi, VERY sekiro inspired. Sadly the server I was playing on shut down RIGHT BEFORE WE GOT CHERRY TREES AND BAMBOO WOOD. AGH!!

Brisket :3

Fenic! The main character of a comic that I hold very dear to my heart, called Goodbye to Halos. If you haven’t read it yet, then you have one task for today.

My Sibling’s OC. We do “Art swaps” every now and then where we give eachother OCs and try to learn eachother’s styles. It’s a fascinating process because I am very cartoon brained, and they’re an art god amongst mortals.

My old PFP, :D

Art I did for one of my D&D players. Mad scientist artificer/blood hunter. His bastion hireling is a robot named Siri, and whenever we run a hireling-centered session, everybody’s phones go off, it’s great

[delulustateofmind]

Okay so like, this is going to be a long one but I’ve been dying to know more and more and I just need to keep asking because the lore is crazy addictive lol. So in “it’s all your fault, isn’t it?” Does reader ends up becoming indifferent? Empty, broken, whatever you want to call it, is it like she’s not really there anymore? You know when sometimes they present mentally sick woman in films as those unresponsive detached ones. I wonder if she’s like that. I imagine her becoming numb as you’ve mentioned, but to the point she doesn’t even talk or do anything besides sitting around and staring into space. Could you get a little into explaining how do you think she behaves in the years after the accident?

Also, how do Satoru and Suguru react? Are they worried about her or more about the fact she’s not really interested in them anymore? Or do they mostly focus on each other and just want her around as a broodmare (I recall someone using this term haha). Did she stop loving them at some point? And are they craving her love? It makes me wonder that if she in fact goes completely indifferent does it make them desperate for her to show some type of affection. Lastly (I’m sorry for such a long ask and so many questions 😭) do you think Satoru and Suguru would fight/blame each other for it? Or once again, do they think she’s the problem.

I have so many questions considering this trilogy it’s honestly my favorite of yours and I want to know every little detail I hope it’s not too much! Thank you for your work🙏🏼

It’s never too much! I’m so glad you like it enough to keep asking <3 If you want to crawl into my noggin and explore all the silly lore files, that’s totally okay. I’ll just place you right next to the thoughts of silly Calico Critters and Smiskis by the one brain cell.

Anyway…

Yeah, she would become really, really numb after that. To the point where they actually have her medicated for depression. It helps a little, but she’s not going back to her regular self, even if they have one or two more kids. Reader becomes way too afraid of getting attached, of even thinking a negative thought (though, honestly, it’s not like a curse would survive long in the Gojo compound). She’s more detached and numb to the world than anything.

Satoru does his best to make her laugh, even taking her and the kids to Disneyland. She just gave him a small smile and a kiss on the cheek. This behavior hits Satoru the hardest because he saw Reader from the very beginning as this happy, cheerful person, and now she’s become so obedient and docile. But he doesn’t say anything. For one, he’s emotionally constipated, and for two, Suguru looks happy.

For Suguru, he’s much more content with this version of Reader. He likes how you’re more attuned to his touches now—how he can just pull you onto his lap, and you snuggle right in. Sure, there’s a difference, but for him, he prefers this. He describes it as you being “more at peace,” even though it’s really just numbness. He’d take that over the nights where you were shouting at him to let you leave, or when you were constantly trying to escape. Now, you’re like a tamed cat in his eyes, and he didn’t even have to resort to unsavory methods to get there.

Sure, they know you don’t love them, but you’re no longer indifferent to their love. You just… accept it. They can pull reactions out of you during sex; they can hold you whenever they please. You’re not as snappy anymore. With the medication, you’re more loopy than anything, and sometimes, you even show an ounce of a smile in that state. Satoru likes to watch you sleep when he gets the chance because, in those moments, he sometimes sees your real smile. You seem more at peace there.

(Sorry, I’m rambling at this point.)

There’s no real blame, at least not between Satoru and Suguru. The kids, though, blame their mother for turning out this way and see her as sick now. They end up with some serious mommy issues. Satoru doesn’t blame Suguru—he knows they’re both equally at fault for this. Ultimately, though, they’re just happy you’re no longer fighting them. They’d rather have you numb and peaceful than fighting them constantly and crying all the time.

Hope that helps! If you have more questions, feel free to send them my way—they’re always welcome <3

[shadow-the-crow]

You know these really weird moments when you don't know whether reality glitched, you're brain wired something wrong or the internet is just gaslighting you?

I was convinced that rusty quill had a podcast called "the mechanisms". At the same time, random videos about a band with the same name popped up on my tiktok fyp, so my brain somehow assumed that rusty quill created a fictional band for one of their podcasts.

Now i googled "the mechanisms" to check if i was right. Turns out there used to be a band with that name who had fictional personas or something like that. And who told stories through their albums. But i found nothing remotely related to podcasts.

I feel really dumb but... has my brain just made a wrong connection, maybe because some horror podcast fans are also fan of this band? Or... what's going on?

Update: I think this might be related to Tim Stoker from tma being compared to a certain Gunpowder Tim - and i think someone even said the... voice? Actor? Whatever, the real person behind Gunpowder Tim voiced someone in tma. Also there's apparently a Jonny in that band too, and i thought they were talking about Jonny Sims. And posts about "listening to the mechs" popped up between posts about listening to podcasts, so... i guess i just assumed it was a podcast too.

[le-fruit-de-la-passion]

Ok, hear me out, Machine Herald Viktor x Reader AU with this line from Epic,,

Jayce: After everything you've done... how will you sleep at night?

Viktor: Next to my wife.

[shoezuki]

Thinkin bout Sampo Koski rn as like. His character n what we get of him in honkai star rail and he fucking. He confuses me like. There has to be So Much more to him like

The general vibes of him and especially how other characters treat him is that of comic relief, a punching bag, a goof, just a slick conman causing trouble. It's genuinely difficult NOT to insult him n treat him badly with dialogue options and any time he's even mentioned March 7th hisses at him. He's literally a cryptid in belobog. He's a joke.

But. But. There's his light cone. It makes me insane. It contradicts all of that.

In it he's competent. He's badass. He's omnipotent. He's able to somehow know a sniper from however far away is locked on him and address them specifically.

And even like... in the entire plot of jarilo-vi he's spoken of like he's not much. He's a 4 star character. But he's practically as present as bronya and seele and Gepard and his involvement in the story is ASTRONOMICAL. He has a part in every major event. He's the one who drags the Trailblazers and bronya into the Underworld. He's the one who takes you to svarog, to the overworld again. He gets Natasha and saves you from svarog. He's the first character you ever meet on jarilo.

And he seems to just vanish before you confront cocolia. But no. Sampo is the one who has the last word and wraps up the entire mission on jarilo-vi. He fucking breaks the forth wall. Jarilo-vi both begins and ends with Sampo.

He calls himself shadowy comic relief yet he seemingly orchestrated everything. What is he. What the fuck is he doing. What else is up with him and when will we get more of him. I want to bite into him and tear him apart.

[cent-scratchnsniff]

something bad did indeed happen to that man. spent abt 25 minutes trying to find a better picture of that one (1) offical piece with his eyes open that wasnt compressed or tiny

[todayisafridaynight]

no ones ever gonna understand how much i love daigo doin this stupid shit after dissolving the tojo

[sysig]

You’re new to the Princess-Rescuing business, aren’t you? (P1 | P2 | P3) (Patreon)

[dynjay]

shit man, I'm going to be so checked out from the holidays this year

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

it is a lie.

there is the promise, of course, every single time. that this time it will help, this time you'll be able to quit for good after just - once - more -

and then you look up and realise it's 1am and your hands are covered with blood. you've used up all the tissues and it's still bleeding. of course you grab something and stanch it, it's not going to kill you, but it's sure as hell going to make living unfun.

it's a lie. you can be clinical about it - you can measure depth and size and analyse if this needs medical attention or not. and then once you're absolutely sure it could do with it (curse the moment you figured out the technique that allows you to go deeper), you can ignore it and pretend it's fine.

it's not fine, of course. but even now, there's pain. of course there's pain. it's gaping, you idiot, and if you went to the emergency department they'd suture it just like they would have the previous one you ignored that got infected, but improved before you absolutely had to seek medical attention. they are not going to heal quickly; they're going to look pretty bad even if they manage to heal before you've got to wear short sleeves for placement. never mind the fact that summer's coming on. search up summer cardigans and hope they're not too expensive.

but there's pain. why would you do it? why would you keep chasing the high you will not get from this? why are you still thinking, if I just go fully to the muscle layer now, this will fix everything? it won't. you fool. is it muscle pain you're feeling right now, or nerve? how would you know?

cry about it, you bitch. you did it to yourself. you know, what you really want is someone to hug you real good, someone who knows what you've done and why you did it. but last time you showed someone it made you go deeper because what you showed them wasn't enough. you better hope they don't ask to see how that one's healing, because you can't show them the healing process without showing this newest one they don't know you've got. they said they weren't happy with you keeping the implement you used last time. you said it was a once-off, a mad impulse born of a specific, high stress trigger. you might even have believed it.

why would you do it? why are you going so deep, deep enough that after every action to make it deeper, you do all the basic checks to make sure you haven't permanently damaged something? don't mess around with this. your hands are your livelihood. if you hit a nerve, there ain't no coming back from that. you know what you're doing.

arms are dangerous. surely you knew that was almost the exact place someone you knew went, had to get fourteen stitches emergently because they hit something real bad. if you're tired, get sleep. if you're tired of life, get help. don't destroy yourself like this.

it is a lie. it will not make you feel better. it will simply add to your problems. why don't you care? the promise of relief is a lie. if you're sad about it, if you're crying, then do something. tell someone. reach out, and someone will reach back to you. they want to help. let them help. people want to love you; let them love you.

[thedreamerstoryteller]

[crossbackpoke-check]

re last answer: please don't stop, being very unhinged about these two pretty white boys is helping distract me from the sharks losing streak rn so bring it on

https://www.tumblr.com/bondedpairs/764566430180147200?source=share

(sideblog woes but there's the link for you) anyway in the vid they talk about going over to each other's houses to have dinner and things and while that is a delicious example of their codependence i love it bc through an rpf lens there is definitely some old man ******* going on. they can have the dilfs and each other.

(someone else mentioned kept boys which i could write an essay on but i fear being Perceived™️)

anyway if you have anything to add to this please do, if not ignore me and i will hide under a rock until the stress-related insanity has worn off and i am a functioning member of society once more 😂

- @bondedpairs

ty for the video!!! and please, WRITE THE KEPT BOYS ESSAYYYY i promise i will read it with my hands over my eyes if you don’t want to be perceived. do it scared!! do it anyway!! we’ll all love you for it!!!

[skinnypaleangryperson]

I don't know if it's just me, but are they gradually dumbing down Rick's character for the sake of keeping the show popular?

I got extreme Peter Griffin vibes from this episode, and I feel like in general he's a lot less sharp and cool gritty and witty and "unconventional" the way that he was the first couple of seasons. He wasn't an easy character to "swallow" in a lot of ways so to speak, and I feel like he's gradually getting dumber, more cloudy around the edges, less sharp and more conventional and shallow with a lot of the things that he says. He feels extremely typical sometimes this season-like more of the character that people would watch because the character doesn't challenge their headspace in any kind of way, and is someone that encourages their complacent drunk dead personality.

The character used to say things that was really unpopular, or at the very least would occasionally say things that would make people uncomfortable (just things like "if you know how you're going to die because of how boring your life is then you're not even alive" and just things that challenged at the boring drunk complacent status quo that most American sitcom characters are), was an extreme breath of fresh air in terms of how sharp he was and how he wasn't afraid to challenge everything even if it was just in a TV show character kind of way, and it's one of the things that stuck out about me about him the most, especially as someone who is mentally ill and feels detached from most of American culture.

I might just be in a bad mood, but I genuinely feel like Rick feels less sharp and "unconventional"and is starting to feel increasingly more dumb, dopey and easy to swallow as a character.

I still love him and I always will, and sometimes I find it endearing, but this episode in particular felt like he was just being a dumb genuine and boring drunk (really just in terms of the scene with Beth, but considering that the episodes are only about 22 minutes, there isn't a lot of elbow room to work with, especially considering most of this episode was summer screen time).

The only reason why I care so much is because of Rick is one of the very few characters I've ever been genuinely connected with, so I'm just worried that Rick as a character is going down to gradual slippery slope of just becoming an American extremely overly dumbed it down product. The show was so gritty and real and raw and a lot of ways for the first three to four seasons and kept that touch up to season 6, but this season just feels like they're gradually going into "American Dad" type feeling territory, and I'm vaguely worried a little bit about my connection to the show. Especially as someone that does not connect to things easily or ever at all really. And partially because everything is so dumbed down and doesn't seem to have any and genuine philosophy behind it except of being another brainless thing for people to consume to pass the time.

[lovelyrotter]

yknow i think a lot of the really far-gone transfemme vs transmasc people who still play by the 6th grade milquetoast "trans women are targeted way more than trans men cause femininity is bad and masculinity is good In Our Society, so trans men get free acceptability passes" feminism forget that trans men/transmascs started life. as. little girls. we were mistaken, from birth, for baby girls. and we were raised by our parents to believe that we were little girls.

a lot of trans men and transmascs then grew up to be teenaged girls

a lot of trans men and transmascs were adult women too

and for a while we *believed* we were girls and women. some of us even WISHED we were girls and women (points at myself). and much more importantly, we were continually seen as girls and women. a lot of the time, we are STILL seen as girls and women, even with full fuckin beards and baritone voices. especially if we need to go to any kind of medical professional. this is what our free acceptability pass looks like?

its just so much more nuanced than these 'boys vs girls' people ever seem to care to think about. even binary trans folks dont have the same sense of cisgendered binary that cis people do. we literally cross from one fake end of the fake-binary to the other. thats where the trans in transgender comes from. i dont know how some other trans folks seem to forget that?? i don't know how, somewhere along the line, we forgot that trans men and transmascs also directly suffer under misogyny?

[blazing-spectre]

Trying to draw Gale's outfits on a fatter body is driving me slowly insane lol

Man has the thickest belts in both this outfits they were not designed for fat people. Now I gotta figure out whether to put the belt over his belly or whether to have it sit under it