#or any desire to shape the events of my life to fit the emotions of the song for the Plot or the Aesthetic or the Narrative or whatever

[onesnoopyaday]

Snoopy #33

3/11/2024

[deception-united]

Hello! I've been enjoying your writing posts a lot. Here's my question: How do you exactly write a character profile? Getting one from the internet feels like feeling out a resume, but trying to create one myself leaves me hanging in with the question “what should I be putting here?”

Thanks for asking! Crafting a character profile can indeed feel like navigating a nebulous space, but it's a crucial step in fleshing out your characters and getting to know them better. Here's a breakdown of what you might include:

Basic information: Start with the essentials - name, age, gender, and any other pertinent demographic details.

Physical description: Provide a brief overview of what your character looks like. This could include height, build, hair color, eye color, distinguishing features (scars, tattoos, etc.), and typical clothing choices.

Personality traits: Think about your character's temperament, quirks, strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, and any notable personality traits. Are they introverted or extroverted? Optimistic or pessimistic? Adventurous or cautious?

Background: Delve into your character's backstory. Where were they born? What was their upbringing like? Do they have any significant life events that have shaped who they are today?

Motivations & goals: What does your character want? What are their ambitions, desires, and fears? Understanding what drives your character can add depth to their actions and decisions within your story.

Relationships: Explore your character's connections with others. Who are their family members, friends, enemies, or love interests? How do these relationships influence your character's actions and emotions?

Skills & abilities: What is your character good at? What are their areas of expertise? Do they have any special talents or abilities that set them apart?

Character arc: Consider how your character will change and grow throughout your story. What obstacles will they face, and how will they overcome them? What lessons will they learn along the way?

Internal conflicts: What internal struggles does your character grapple with? These could be doubts, fears, moral dilemmas, or unresolved traumas.

External conflicts: What external challenges does your character face? These could be adversaries, societal pressures, or environmental obstacles.

Another thing I like to do is find an online personality test, like 16Personalities or Truity, and fill it out on behalf of my character. Both the process and the results can give further insight. Websites such as Campfire have full character profiles that you can complete. Or try filling out this character ask game!

Remember, this is just a starting point, and you can tailor your character profile to fit your specific needs and preferences (e.g., fighting style, fantastical conditions, supernatural abilities, character archetypes, interpersonal values, leadership style, phobias, habits, etc.). Feel free to add or omit sections as necessary, and don't be afraid to let your characters surprise you as you write!

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[alovember]

The m4's God Tier if they were in a SBURB session in Homestuck!!

I actually thought about this wayyy more than I should have so here's my reasoning BCS I know too much abt this godforsaken webcomic

I’m classpecting based on values/growth not existing strong character traits

Ex/ Someone might classpect Kyle as Mage of Mind because he is typically logical, knowledgeable, and curious but going off of growth he could be a Mage of Time which would require patience, cooperation, and handling sudden change.

Stan Marsh - Knight of Space

In Homestuck, the knight class is one that provides protection through their sword, their body, and their mind. It’s centers around providing assistance and protecting the other players, from harm or even themselves. Stan knows who and what he cares about, and sticks up for it. This combined with the space aspect makes a character that protects others through physical manifestations or manipulations of space. In Homestuck, the space aspect is taken literally so he could travel through space riffs by cutting through with a sword, combat involving teleportation, etc. He’s the only kid who is physically separated from the rest of the cast due to his family, as being moved out to the farm which mirrors Jade a character homestuck removed from her friends on an island. The space character is the one that breeds the Genesis frog. This would provide Stan with some growth as it requires him to look outside of his own emotional needs, and desires to provide that for another creature. We’ve seen, he can sometimes get to preoccupied with his own emotional reactions which leads him to not put others' feelings first as we see with Kenny’s death in the hospital.

Kyle Brovloski- Mage of Time

I made Kyle a mage due to his desire to actively seek truth and insight, which is what the entire mage class is about. We’ve seen time and time again that Kyle is a character who will take meaning from the mistakes that he and others make. That combined with the time aspect would make a character who knows and utilizes the timeline of the session to further their game. This would require patience and intense cooperation, which I think is something that Kyle would benefit from, and while his role is essential for the success of the session, being the time player is a tedious role. His abilities as a god-tiered character might involve some form of time manipulation whether it is speeding up or slowing down time and intimate knowledge of future and past events of the session as they make choices. Time players are ones that learn to harness the urge to change the environment around them, and often face many hardships that shape them throughout it all. 

ALSO time and space are the two players required to complete a session. This would make these two a formidable duo as Kyle can provide insight into any events or timeline altercations while stan executes those changes in the space area and provide protection and attacks from denizens and opponents. This makes sense from a narrative level as Stan and Kyle are often the two driving forces behind how things get fixed/accelerated in South Park. It’s essentially the planner and executor.

Eric Cartman- Prince of Life

The Prince of Hope fits Cartman extremely well since it is the most active (self seeking) class out of the majority of them and is the most destructive one as well. A prince is an extremely powerful player with a game that can make or break whether a session will succeed or become an offshoot. A prince uses their aspect to destroy and create chaos within a session. A prince of hope would be someone who uses hope to destroy their enemies or in the worst case their teammates. A prince of hope’s power could revolve around the manipulation of a person's innate hope and use it to his own advantage. In the end, a lot of Eric's growth would come from realizing how to use his manipulative skills to aid his friends and provide protection, although this could prove difficult as he is often self-serving throughout the show. This aspect and class fits him because he could either be the greatest obstacle to winning the game or inversely provide the greatest support to win. In the show, he acts as an oppositional force towards other characters for self-gain or provides clever insight and aid to whoever he’s trying to help or assist in any way.

Kenny McCormick- Thief of Doom

I feel like Kenny’s is the most accurate to the show. The thief class is someone who uses their class to steal their aspect for themselves. And like in the show I’m going to keep the Kenny dying and coming back concept as a glitch in the session. A thief of doom would be someone who steals doom or narrative peril from other characters for themselves. This could happen with any tasking or opportunity where he could take the fall and die for other characters over and over again. For example, if Stan was at risk of dying due to the actions of another character, he could steal the doom that surrounds Stan and direct it towards himself, therefore making him the target and allowing Stan to continue to fight or do whatever is happening in combat. Then due to the glitch, he would be revived the next day. So kind of like in the show, Kenny would be the stand-in person for others' injuries and potential downfalls. The growth would come from him realizing you cannot take on everyone’s issues, whether physical or mental, and come to realize that he and others can handle their own issues and don’t require intervention all the time, a hard lesson to learn for someone who is used to the role of sacrifice.

Anyways if you read all that ty!! and if you don't know HS hopefully it still made sense somewhat lmaooo

[myster-roca]

Desires and Deception: Full Undercover

"Your assignment: Assume the identity of a high-profile businessman and fitness guru with deep connections to the underworld elite.

Your objective: Infiltrate a high-stakes bodybuilding event where one of the underworld's most influential figures, deeply involved in a clandestine affair, is about to take center stage. A complete physical transformation is your only cover."

On the surface, his existence seems so different from mine. He's deeply entrenched in the world of luxury, surrounded by the glitter and glamour of the upper class.

I lead a life of shadows and secrecy, a chameleon in the backdrop of society. While he basks in the spotlight, I thrive in the darkness.

Yet, as I become more familiar with his life, I realize that beneath the facades, we're not so dissimilar. We both wear masks, albeit of different kinds.

He portrays an image of power and wealth, and I craft identities to delve into the hidden realms of espionage. We're both performers, navigating the stage of our own making, just on opposite sides of the curtain.

Within the covert operations division, our team constituted a rare breed, masters of disguise, each possessing an exceptional talent for the craft of metamorphosis.

We shared an unspoken bond born from the countless secrets we held and the trust we placed in one another.

The intricately crafted muscle suit lay before me like a silent partner in this clandestine masquerade. I'd done this countless times before, but the excitement and tension of the moment never ceased to grip me.

This moment brings a complex blend of emotions to my entire body.

There's the weight of responsibility, knowing that I must seamlessly become another person, thinking, speaking, and moving as they do.

But there's also the thrill of the challenge, the adrenaline rush that comes with immersing myself in a persona utterly distinct from my own.

As I slipped into the suit, the material stretched and molded to my physique. My hands found their way to the attached silicone gloves. The snug fit accentuated every contour, making me look more sculpted than ever.

My team of ingenious innovators had left no stone unturned to make the muscle suit as lifelike as humanly possible. Their unwavering dedication shone through in the meticulous attention to detail.

My pulse quickened with anticipation as the muscles subtly inflated, intensifying the illusion of strength and confidence.

With every stroke, the skilled hands erased my facial hair, and I could almost sense a new identity taking shape.

The skintone had been impeccably matched, with the paintwork skillfully blending the boundary between reality and artifice.

I marveled at their exceptional precision as they carefully placed the snow-white silicone prosthetic skin onto my scalp, deftly concealing the intricate details at the rear.

Each brushstroke they applied infused the blank canvas with a spectrum of shades and tones, gradually merging it with the flesh-colored muscle suit.

The cap clung to my scalp, obscuring any hint of my natural hair. Their unparalleled expertise accomplished an astounding feat, vanquishing visible seams and ensuring a flawless integration with the rest of the suit.

As I rose to my feet, I could feel the muscles discreetly swelling, enhancing my size and making me appear more imposing. Enthralled by this transformation, I locked my gaze onto the mirror, realizing that, except for my own face, the reflection before me resembled that of a complete stranger.

The next phase was even more unsettling. I couldn't help but feel vulnerable, yet excited, as I closed my eyes and immersed myself in embodying the fitness guru's charisma and unwavering drive for power.

Seated before the vanity, I felt the cool touch of silicone on my skin. With each prosthetic piece, I watched myself morph into the figure whose aura and allure I admired and now emulated.

My own features were vanishing, slowly replaced by the chiseled jawline, pronounced cheekbones, and the perfectly shaped nose.

Each adjustment, every little tweak, brought me closer to becoming the fitness influencer I needed to become.

The transformation has reached its halfway point, yet I can't shake the persistent unease that lingers within me. Something feels awry, lacking in authenticity.

This void echoes the emptiness I've felt in past impersonations. The team is well aware of this predicament, which motivated them to develop a new technology aimed at resolving the issue. Although they conducted numerous beta tests, this marks the first field trial.

I stood from my chair and began to don the silicone muscle pants, preparing myself for the next step.

The pants appeared remarkably sophisticated, quite different from the silicone muscle pants I had initially envisioned. Nevertheless, the team assured me that this unique design was intentional, tailored to fulfill its specific purpose.

As I settled into a sleek, state-of-the-art machine, they assured me that it would serve as the catalyst for the forthcoming comprehensive transformation. The team then delved into an explanation of the pants' fabric and the silicone prosthetic pieces they had attached, emphasizing their integration with nanites.

They elaborated on how these minuscule marvels were precisely programmed to discern the unique contours and characteristics of my body, thereby enabling the seamless fusion of the material with my own skin. This intricate process would ensure an astonishingly lifelike and untraceable metamorphosis.

The machine enclosed around my waist with a gentle yet firm embrace. I could feel its mechanisms hum to life as it began its work. A warm, viscous liquid began to flow from the machine's hidden nozzles, gently cascading down my legs and torso.

The sensation was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was as if I were being submerged in a pool of liquid silk. I watched, my heart racing, as the substance encased my legs and torso. It was as if the nanites and the liquid skin were in perfect harmony, dancing a choreography that was breathtaking to experience.

The machine released me, and I fell forward, landing on my hands and knees. The ground was cold and unforgiving, a stark contrast to the heat that surged within me. As I struggled to regain my footing, I realized that I was sweating, my skin tingling with life.

My skin glistened with sweat as the nanites engulfed my whole body. My senses were on fire as the second skin adapted to the shape of my own body, molding itself to me with an almost sentient understanding. I could feel the air against my skin as I breathed deeply, savoring the newfound sensations.

I stood on my feet, and a tidal wave of power surged through my veins—a breathtaking rush of unearthed strength that sent shivers of exhilaration cascading down my spine. I was utterly captivated by the profound transformation I had undergone.

It was as though this second skin had reshaped the core of my existence. It was no longer just a disguise; it had become a part of my own being.

Overwhelmed by curiosity and newfound confidence, I couldn't resist the urge to explore my transformed physique.

As I flexed my thighs, I could feel their utmost solidity, the sensation of unyielding strength resonating through my body. My legs, once unassuming and lean, now bore the weight of sculpted power.

Running my hands across my chest, I felt the hard contours beneath my fingers, swelling with a sense of pride. My pectoral muscles were now pronounced and firm. I couldn't resist running my fingers over the chiseled ridges of my new washboard abs.

With each movement, I admired the pronounced biceps and triceps, each muscle responding to my command. Flexing my forearms, the veins stood out like a roadmap of my uncovered power.

I had truly become the living embodiment of the role I was about to play.

With the transformation complete, I am reborn in the shadows, ready to dance into the abyss of intrigue and danger, playing my part in a game where trust is a currency of uncertainty, and the truth remains veiled forever.

To Be Continued . . .

[sweetcarrotsandroses97]

Autumn | JJK

Hello darlings!!!

Pairing: royal guard!Jungkook x princess!Reader, prince!Jimin x princess!Reader (ft. Yoongi & Hoseok)

Summary: In which you, princess of the Gyeongdong Dynasty, were in the middle of wedding plans. An arranged marriage that would guarantee your father's bloodline to stay on the throne.

Or in which you are assigned a new royal guard that swore to protect you with his life. Jeon Jungkook. That's his name. A name you could never forget. A name that, slowly but surely got engraved not only on your memories but also in your heart.

Love, politics, betrayal and desire. All in ancient history. A love that never should have happened, two souls that wouldn't be allowed to be together.

Warnings: fluff, angst, arranged marriage, forbidden love, royal au, historical au, violence, use of weapons (swords and arrows), blood, injury, treason, more angst, Jimin is a sweetheart, miscommunication, ancient traditions, food consumption. (I think that's all, if I forgot to mention something and you consider I should put it here, please let me know!)

Word Count: 16.6k

*A/N Hello my darlings!!! This is the second part of "Four Season" I really hope you will like it. This is a heavy one so please make yourself comfortable for this roller coaster of emotions and events. Let me know what you thought for this part in the comments and if you have any ideas of how the next chapter will turn out to be!!

**A/N ALSO, I wanted to wait until June 13th to publish this but I couldn't wait any longer so here it is.

💜 💜 Happy 10th anniversary to our boys! 💜 💜 

Q: For how long have you been an ARMY?

Answer in the comments, please. I've been in this magic shop since 2021 💜 

 *Banner made by me

The rustling of leaves and birds singing at the distance was the only thing you could hear as you sat down under a tree while you copied one of the ancient manuscripts on new paper sheets. Your fingers curled around the brush as it danced over the paper delicately, the cool, autumn air blew softly and you sighed.

"I have something for you, Princess."

At the sound of that voice, you looked up with a smile as you saw Jungkook standing next to you, his breath slightly swallowed and you guessed he had run across the gardens to not leave you alone for a long time.

He sat down next to you and handed you your favourite pastry. A chuckle came past your lips as you took the fish-shaped pastry from his grasp, your fingers brushing his in the process before you took a bite of it, sighing at its sweet taste.

The sky got painted in different shades of orange as dusk began to settle. The air suddenly felt colder, a shiver running up your spine. Something Jungkook didn't ignore at all.

"We should get going, Princess. It'll get dark soon."

You nodded, swallowing the last bit of your pastry as you stood up, stretching out after being sitting for a long time. A smile plastered on your face, turning to look at the taller man, you said, voice laced with softness and harmony.

"Can you help me get all this back to my room, please?"

You gestured towards all the equipment you were previously using to write the books. Jungkook nodded, not even thinking of saying otherwise as the thought of you carrying everything back didn't fit in his mind. It was times like this that he appreciated, moments when he got to admire you, everything about you was endearing to him. You, the Princess he was assigned to protect, the lonely girl who grew up in royalty, had so much to offer. Jungkook was now aware of your beautiful heart and pure soul as he had spent so many days next to you.

He walked behind you carrying the small table you were writing on while your hands held the sheets of paper that were yet to dry. He watched you, from his distance, he kept his eyes on you and the way you walked so elegantly back to your room, the way of a true Princess. He noticed how your hair moved with every step you took and the way you held yourself.

Jungkook suddenly remembered the conversation he had with you that summer day, that conversation that turned his world upside down. An exchange of words that would forever be engraved in his mind and heart as his thoughts flew back to that summer evening, the hot air flying softly and the crystalline water reflecting the sun rays as he rowed the small boat to cross the lake.

Flashback

"I care for you, Princess."

You closed your eyes, letting the tears fall freely down your cheeks.

"You can't."

Whispered words reached his ears. Making his heart shake with the need to hold you, promise you that it was going to be alright.

"But I do."

You opened your eyes, looking at Jungkook through blurry vision. His eyes were filled with tears and you felt an ache in your heart at the sight of his tears.

"You weren't supposed to. You were only meant to protect me, Jungkook. That's it, nothing else."

He sighed, his eyes lowering to your trembling hands resting on your lap. He had a sudden urge to hold them. To hold you. To comfort you.

"I know. Love is blind, Princess. No-one gets to choose."

You took a shaky breath, calming yourself a bit only for him to continue.

"I'm sorry, this is all my fault. I'll... I'll accept the punishment for my actions, Your Highness."

He lowered his head, ready to accept whatever consequences there were for his actions. In that moment, Jungkook realised you were untouchable, the forbidden fruit he had come to desire, an expensive and beautiful jewel he could never have.

"No."

At that, he lifted his gaze and looked at you who gazed at him with such hurt in your eyes it forced him to swallow the lump in his throat.

"You are not getting punished for this. No-one should. It... It just happened and I couldn't... I wouldn't be able to see you go."

A tear left his eye, rolling down his cheek while leaving a wet trail over his tanned skin.

"I care for you too, Jungkook."

The look in your eyes said everything. It expressed the sincerity of your words as well as the painful truth. A truth he knew since the very beginning.

"And that's why we should be careful, I don't want anything to happen to you."

The truth lingered in the darkness, the fact that you would never be able to be with him, to explore the uncharted territory of love with him. Jungkook had become an important person in your life now and you couldn't see yourself living without him by your side. It just wasn't right.

He knew it too. He knew he could never have you, he could never hold you and he would never be able to call you his. Hence, he would never be able to even try. The thought itself broke his heart, a precious heart you knew he possessed. It was wrong to force love, it was wrong to force marriage yet you were aware, as well as Jungkook, that you had no choice.

He took the initiative, the risk and reached forwards to grab your hand. A sob escaped your lips at the contact as no-one, not a single person had ever been so close to you, so intimate with you. His touch, though innocent, spoke more than a thousand words.

"Nothing is going to happen, Princess. I promise. You have to trust me, alright? But I... I beg you to not push me away. I know we could never be something more than what we are now but just being close to you is enough for me."

Those words made something stir inside you, your heart constricted and you squeezed his hand, which was holding yours with a desperate yet delicate force.

"I want you close to me, Jungkook. And you shall forever stay by my side."

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

Jungkook was brought back from his memories when you acknowledged you both had arrived at your room. He cleared his throat and walked next to you, sliding the door open as you made your way inside with a smile over your face.

"You can come in."

He did as you said and stepped into your room, immediately lowering to the floor what he was carrying, you placed the sheets of paper away as well as the brush and the ink.

"Princess, can I ask you something?"

You turned around when you heard him speak. A chuckle came past your lips.

"You already did."

He smiled, knowing he would get the same answer from you when he asked that. And him asking that in the first place was only to see your smile when you say your usual answer. You nodded at him, signalling him to continue, the soft smile over his handsome features melting away with every word that he said.

"When was your fiancé coming to the palace?"

A sigh left your lips when you were brought back to reality with his question. The playfulness also vanished from your face as you remembered your duty with the kingdom of Gyeongdong.

"The day after tomorrow."

Was your simple response. The words left a sour taste in your mouth as you dreaded for that day to arrive. You were scared to meet the man you were supposed to marry, was he going to be good? Gentle? C aring? Or was he a ruthless man who only had eyes for the throne?

"Princess?"

"Yes?"

You blinked when Jungkook called you, and it took you a second, just a mere second for him to notice the emotions you hid behind the smile that later painted over your lips. You were sad, melancholic, angry even at the thought of such an arranged marriage and especially now that there was someone in your heart you cared deeply for. It wasn't fair but then again, has life ever been fair?

"Are you alright?"

You nodded and walked to one of your drawers, pulling out a small piece of paper. You folded it carefully all while feeling Jungkook's gaze on you. Taking a deep breath, you turned around and handed him the piece of paper, a soft look over your eyes.

"My response to your letters."

If there were enough words to describe his smile at the moment you would have written thousands of books about him. About his cute smile, about the way his eyes shone with happiness and the way your skin burned every time he touched you as his fingers had brushed yours when he reached out for the paper.

Jungkook bowed down at you, the smile never leaving his face as he left your room. He was aware that he wasn't supposed to enter your personal chambers, at least it wasn't proper for him but you didn't seem to mind at all and every time you could and were sure there was no-one around, you would let him stay there until it was dinner time and he had to leave for his own quarters.

The door slid close and you were able to hear as Jungkook walked away with a seemingly rapid pace, wanting to go back to his own room and read your letter. You chuckled to yourself and walked towards your small personal library, pulling out a specific book, you opened it and pulled out another piece of paper.

A smile immediately appeared on your face as you sat down on the floor, the skirts of your orange dress puffing around you. Your fingers traced the paper delicately before you opened it and were greeted with Jungkook's handwriting. Your eyes traced over the slightly messy written characters as you read the letter with a smile.

I had a nice day with you, Princess. I'll try to get some fish-shaped pastries for you this evening, I hope you'll enjoy them. Stay healthy, your birthday is nearing and you know the King is going to prepare something special for you.

Rest well, Princess.

A sigh left your lips as you finished reading his letter. His words were always a comfort to you and every day, you looked up to the small note he'd slide from underneath your door. It was moments like this that engraved themselves in your memories, beautiful memories of Jungkook and the cute time you got to spend with each other, even if the sweetest part of it was exchanged through notes.

That night, Jungkook made his way to Captain Min's personal chambers, his long strides carrying him along the corridors lit by lanterns on the walls. The note you gave him earlier that day was still in the pocket of his robes and he couldn't wait to read what you wrote to him.

But there was something he needed to do first, something that had been in his mind for so long and only Yoongi could answer as he was the closest person he had in the palace.

He took a deep breath while standing outside of the Captain's room before he knocked on the door. It only took a couple of seconds before the door slid open and it revealed a tired Yoongi already wearing his night robes.

"What are you doing here, Jungkook? Tonight's patrol is over."

The younger man kept his gaze low, saying the words he had previously prepared to ask for his friend's advice.

"I know, hyung. I'm sorry but, can I talk to you for a moment? I need your advice and I couldn't think of another person to ask for it."

Yoongi sighed but stepped aside, letting Jungkook in just as he closed the door silently. The two men sat down on the floor, a short table in between them that had a pot and two cups and it was almost comical as it appeared Yoongi knew he was going to get visitors that night.

The older man lifted the pot and filled the two, tiny cups with steaming tea, gesturing to Jungkook to start talking as he took a sip from his own tea.

"Well... there's someone. She's special and-"

"She?"

Jungkook blinked, his cheeks painting a soft shade of pink as he scratched the back of his neck in nervousness. Yoongi now looked at him with an amused expression over his face and he had to admit to himself that he wanted to know about this mysterious girl that got Jungkook, the shyest person he has ever known, to get flustered the way he just did. He cleared his throat and said, voice back to normal though Jungkook could tell the amusement behind his friend's words.

"Sorry. Please, continue."

The younger one gulped down his tea in one go, the hot drink going down his throat swiftly before he said, more like blurted out.

"I want to gift this girl something for her birthday. It will be soon but I don't have the faintest idea of what to give her."

A minute passed in silence until Yoongi spoke up, having drunk the last remains of his tea before pouring himself more of the hot beverage.

"It's easy, what does she like?"

At that moment, many answers rushed to his mind, how you loved to paint or do embroidery. The way you were passionate about writing or how you enjoyed pastries. Jungkook knew you loved music and you found jewellery to be the most precious among material things. The list went on but he realised he had to provide an answer to his friend before he seemed to be too immersed in the thought of you.

"Too many things, to be honest. But if I made a gift for her, it would be mostly trivial and I fear she would not appreciate it. I want it to be special."

Yoongi commented swiftly, an amused tone to his voice due to how Jungkook seemed to be struggling with such a thing.

"Then make it special."

The younger man frowned, playing with the empty cup in his hands as his fingers traced the upper part of it in circular motions.

"How?"

The Captain sighed, putting his own cup down on the table as he responded.

"Look, women love when you notice small things. Make something special out of that. And even if you think whatever gift you already have in mind that she would not appreciate it, you'd be wrong. If she is not greedy, she'll love even a poem written by you. Just make sure it has a meaning. A meaning between you both or a new meaning you want to give your relationship in whatever terms it is right now."

Jungkook stared at Yoongi with an awestruck look on his face. He knew his words were true, how did he manage to have such experience with situations like this, he had no-idea. Yoongi's personal life was a total mystery but of course, he was grateful for the advice.

"Thanks, Yoongi."

The captain nodded, serving himself another cup of the drink before downing it completely.

"You should go back, Her Highness will be in preparation tomorrow for the Prince's arrival. You need to complete your duty like you've been doing until now."

Jungkook stood up from his seated position and bowed softly at the older man who he considered a close friend of his before turning around and leaving Yoongi's quarters in the thick darkness of the night over the royal palace.

Soft fingers ran through your hair as one of the maids was assigned to style it differently as your normal braid. You were sitting in front of one of the windows of your room, eyes trained on the gardens with fallen orange leaves on the ground.

The air was now cooler than before, realising how autumn had arrived quicker than you thought. Just like how your life was about to change when meeting your fiancé. You were nervous beyond words and wished you weren't forced to do this in the first place.

Your dress pooled around you elegantly, your hands resting over your legs. The fabric was soft to the touch with vibrant colours and shades of purple with the skirt being darker than the top. A beautiful ornament was on the left side of your waist made of jade and pearls, worthy of a true Princess.

"Your Highness, it is time."

Said one of your damsels, her head bowed down as she stared at the floor. You let out a sigh as you stood up and walked towards the door where another six maids were going to escort you to the throne hall.

Jungkook was pacing out of your room, not being allowed to be inside for obvious reasons. A part of his soul clenched when he remembered that today was the day you were going to meet the man you were supposed to marry. The day your engagement will become official.

Suddenly, the doors of your bedroom slid open as you came out. Jungkook couldn't help but stare at you as you walked down the small steps that led to your personal chambers. The dress you wore was absolutely exquisite and your hair was styled in a half updo, allowing the beautiful (h/c) locks to fall delicately at your back.

Your eyes met his for a second. A second that revealed more than a million years of him expressing just how beautiful you looked at that moment. A second where you were granted a glimpse of his soul before he looked down, bowing respectfully at you.

The maids began walking towards the main hall, ahead of you only on this occasion as you trailed behind the eight damsels slowly and Jungkook was hot on your tail, keeping a proper distance but walking with you nonetheless.

He got a chance to admire you from behind, from afar. Just like he had been doing since he was first assigned as your personal guard. He looked at the way your dress moved with your measured steps or the way your hair danced softly as it rested on your back. He watched, for the last time, you being free. He observed your form before you were to become another man's property even when he himself hated to recognise it.

Women were not an ornament to be owned, they were not a child-making machine and they were not to be sold with the only purpose of being shown off. Yet that was how the world worked, that was what your family had agreed since before you were born. That was the life you, as well as Jungkook, were forced to live.

"Her royal highness, Princess (y/n) of the Gyeongdong Dynasty has arrived, Your Majesty."

Announced the eunuch.

"Let her in."

With that, the double doors of the throne hall slid open and the eight damsels entered, followed by you who kept your gaze down, hands clasped tightly in front of you while your steps were determined and calculated. As you had already imagined this scenario plenty of times in your head.

The maids walked away, standing around the room and you were left alone in the middle of the throne hall. Jungkook was already standing at the right side of the throne's steps, his gaze fixed on you. You bowed deeply at your father, the purple skirts of your dress puffing out with your movement.

"Your Majesty."

The king smiled at you, gesturing for you to straighten up. Your eyes locked with his and you could tell how happy and pleased he was to see you. However, you wore a neutral expression, no emotion marked your beautiful face, at least not one that your father could tell anyway.

Jungkook, on the other hand, was able to see the distress in your orbs masked by a veil of blank emotions.

"You look just like your mother, a blooming flower in spring."

You curtsied at your father's words and Jungkook couldn't find another way of describing you at the moment. You were, indeed, beautiful, but not only on the outside as he had had the opportunity of also knowing the beauty of your soul.

You did resemble the late Queen in some ways, like how you held yourself or the way you walked. With a strong gaze and sweet voice.

"Prince Jimin of the Park Family has arrived, Your Majesty."

The king's content in that precise moment couldn't be measured. He smiled and ordered for the man who was going to become your husband to enter the throne room.

The doors opened and it was as if time went in slow motion. A man wearing an elegant and expensive hanbok walked through the entrance way. People were behind him, most likely his guards and maids.

You turned around, hair flying with the movement as your gaze landed on the man walking at the very front of all the people. The sunlight illuminated the background, giving the place and the moment a majestic aura.

The Prince's eyes locked with yours as he got to stand in front of you, however, you were surprised when you were met with a warmness in his gaze. A soft smile was painted over his plump lips and you had to admit he was rather handsome.

"Thank you for joining us this evening, Prince Jimin and for accepting my invitation for you and your family to stay here until the wedding day."

The King said. You stepped aside, breaking eye contact with your soon-to-be-husband and allowed him meet your father appropriately.

Jimin bowed at the King before saying and you had to marvel at the way his voice was sweet and soft, like a summer breeze.

"I am honoured to be here, Your Majesty. And I should be the one thanking you for your generosity and trust in me to marry the beautiful Princess."

This was actually happening. There was no point in denying it anymore. You were going to get married to a man you didn't know more than his name and title. Your eyes shifted to look at Jungkook and he could see the sadness your soul portrayed reflected in your (e/c) orbs.

You found yourself in the gardens, sitting on a soft cushion and a small table in front of you where tea was served. Your father sat next to you and Jimin was in front of you with his father next to him.

Your best friend, Hoseok, walked from the distance with a tray in his hands. Even when that wasn't his job, he pleaded with one of the maids to let him be the one to serve the snacks to all of you so that's how he found himself at the end of the small table.

He bowed and put it down, stealing a glance at you who kept your eyes trained on the small cup of tea in front of you. Hoseok worried about you as you didn't make the effort to grab one of the snacks he had brought when in the tray there were fish-shaped pastries, the ones you cherished the most.

Hobi walked away silently. On his way back, he locked eyes with Jungkook who stood behind Prince Jimin meaning he could see you perfectly from where he stood.

"Oh, these are my favourites!"

Exclaimed the Prince as he reached out and grabbed a fish-shaped pastry, earning a glare from his father but he couldn't care less and began enjoying the sweet treat. The King laughed and commented, cup raised in the air.

"The Princess also enjoys those pastries very much."

You looked up and gave the man sitting in front of you a polite smile as your hand extended to grab one too. Might as well grab the opportunity and Jungkook smiled softly at your action and watched as you ate the pastry slowly.

While you were busy savouring your pastry, Lord Park nudged his son's elbow, silently signalling towards you. Jimin cleared his throat and said, his eye trained on you.

"Princess (y/n), I know we haven't met before and that we are to be wed this winter. That's why I'd like to get to know you so that we could grow to live as friends and even something more, if you wish to,"

Your heart clenched upon hearing those words. You could practically see Jimin's sincerity in every word he spoke, his intentions were pure, but your heart was already another man's property. You didn't say anything, only allowing him to continue as he put a box over the table, he must have hid it in his lap all this time, you thought to yourself as he said.

"I made this for you, as a token for our marriage."

He opened the box only to reveal a beautiful hairpin in pink gold with patterns all over the large stick. It had a flower at the upper part with a smaller one a bit upwards and two small chains hung from the main flower having two little pearls at the end of each chain. Emeralds decorated the hairpin and you had to admit it was truly breathtaking.

"Do you like it?"

You looked up at Jimin who was gazing at you with big, expecting eyes. You could even detect a bit of nervousness in his dark orbs. However, you couldn't help the small smile that grew over your lips.

"It's really beautiful."

He stood up from his sitting position, walking around the small table and picking up the hairpin before he crouched down next to you.

"May I?"

You nodded at his question and the next thing you knew was how his fingers ran through your hair, putting on the hairpin across your half updo. You could feel how your father as well as his father looked happily at the both of you, proud at the small interaction.

Jimin retreated his fingers from your hair, a soft smile painted itself over his plump lips as he rose up and walked back to his seat next to Lord Park. The conversation between the two older men continued, proudly talking about their enthusiasm for the wedding all while you kept your gaze lowered, only answering when it was necessary.

From where he stood, Jungkook saw everything. All of it. A bitter feeling crawled at the bottom of his stomach while his heart clenched at the sight of you with another man. It just didn't seem right. At least for his heart.

"Tell me about yourself, Princess. I'd really like to know you before we become husband and wife."

A knot twisted inside you when the Prince's innocent words got to your ears. You looked up at him, his eyes shining with sheer curiosity.

"There's not much to tell, actually. I've been in this palace forever, occasionally going down to the nearby village."

Jimin nodded, the both of you walking through the large gardens of the palace, the cool air brushing past you both as the sun no longer warmed like on those summer days that felt were too far now in your memories.

"Why don't you tell me about yourself? I bet your life is far more interesting than mine."

He laughed at that, an airy sound that brought a soft smile on your lips without you noticing it.

"There's not much to tell either, Princess. I enjoy the fish-shaped pastries, I've been to the battlefield more times than I'd had liked but I gained experience with the sword."

"You've gone to battles?"

You asked perplexed. It sounded strange once you had voiced out the question but you were genuinely intrigued at that. Considered to be the son of one of the Lords of Gyeongdong with the Prince title for him to carry and a land settled for him to live peacefully.

"Of course. My father believes that you can only protect your lands if you know what it takes to keep it safe. It is the same for everything, actually. You have to appreciate something for you to protect it and cherish it."

Those were deep words. Words that were true nonetheless and left you with an empty feeling in your heart as you could relate to them in a way. You were aware of you liking Jungkook, your heart was his for all times to come yet only now, when you got to be in front of the man you were meant to marry did you know what you were going to lose. The happy life you pictured yourself with, the love of the man you adored and the hope of a future with him.

Jimin didn't notice your sunken mood after his words left his mouth so he asked next, the both of you walking up a small bridge over a lake in the large gardens.

"Will you tell me some of your likes or dislikes? I only know you also enjoy the pastries we ate at the tea party."

You smiled, covering your aching heart with a soft smile while you answered.

"I've liked those pastries all my life. I once heard one of the royal cooks saying that it was the late Queen's favourite dessert too."

A minute of silence fell between you both as you stopped walking and stood in the middle of the bridge, hands clasped in front of you of what could only be "the proper way" for you, as a Princess, to walk.

"I also like archery."

You said, eyes trained on the distance. Fixed on the reflection of a cherry blossom tree at the other side of the lake that no longer had its beautiful pink flowers for them to fall in the water and decorate the lake beautifully. Jimin turned to look at you so quickly you wondered if he hadn't hurt his neck.

The expression on his face was priceless and you let out a laugh as you saw him from your peripheral.

"What? Aren't I allowed to learn some sort of self-defence?"

You said with a tone of sarcasm in your voice. He breathed out a laugh, leaning over the bridge's railing. His eyes staring down into the water where his reflection met him back.

"Of course you are, it just caught me off guard."

Jimin looked up at you and the fact that he was trying to keep his smile to himself made you laugh which had him laughing too. For a moment, it felt like you both were good friends, knowing the other for a lifetime. It was nice. To stop thinking about everything and just enjoy such an innocent moment like this. Laughing with a person that you could already consider a friend even if you had only met him that very day.

"Stop glaring"

Said Yoongi as he came to stand next to Jungkook. The latter was forced to stay at the edge of the large gardens, as he had received the order of watching out for the soon-to-be married couple while giving them their space.

"I-I'm not glaring."

Was the younger's answer as he sulked slightly in the place he stood. Yoongi eyed him for a couple of seconds before returning his gaze to the front, his eyes trailing on your figure as you walked next to Jimin but his mind was elsewhere, the same was for Jungkook. His heart was aching when he saw you laughing with your fiancé, jealousy bubbled inside him yet he couldn't do anything. He could only watch, watch and hurt deep inside.

"Did you finish it?"

Asked Yoongi, making Jungkook blink before he turned to look at his friend and superior. Upon not getting a response from him, Yoongi asked again, his eyes remaining glued to the front.

"The gift you wanted to give your special someone. Did you finish it?"

Jungkook cleared his throat, he had lowkey hoped that he had forgotten about that conversation specifically. Apparently he was wrong.

"No... not yet."

Yoongi only hummed, the conversation dying down.

The soft wind blew slightly, the cool breeze hitting their skin. Jungkook clenched his jaw when he saw how Jimin put his outer robe over your shoulders when he noticed you shiver. Something in him burned at the sight in front of him. How he wished he could be in the prince's place, to be so close to you in public, to get to talk to you properly without so many formalities, to wrap his robe over your shoulders and kiss the back of your hand.

He was jealous. It was as clear as day. It could be seen in his eyes and the sensation burned in his chest.

"I don't know if you are aware,"

Yoongi began, taking Jungkook's attention from you and Jimin as he focused his gaze on his friend and superior.

"but the King has ordered to increase security in the palace grounds."

The younger one nodded, his tongue running over the inside of his cheek only for later to ask.

"Is it because of the North? There are rebels grouping up where Jejin once was, isn't it? The rumours in the city won't stop."

Yoongi sighed, his gaze fixed with the one of Jungkook. There was worry in the elder's eyes, something it was rare to spot in him.

"Yes. You have to keep a closer eye on Her Highness. The announcement of her engagement will be soon and then the wedding with Prince Jimin, furthermore we cannot let anything happen to her nor anyone in the royal family, understood?"

Jungkook looked ahead to where you and your fiancé were, the both of you standing in the garden as you listened closely to something he was saying to you. A melancholic gaze was turned your way while he said, his voice firm with determination.

"I understand."

~ambience

You were walking in the gardens with Jungkook next to you though he still stayed a couple of feet behind you out of respect, even when you turned around and glared at him, he had to keep things formal with you. Especially now that your fiance was in the palace.

You stopped in your tracks out of a sudden but didn't turn around and Jungkook found himself in a strange situation. He pondered if he should ask you if you were okay or if he should stay in place and wait for your next more.

"I didn't find any letter today."

Was your statement, making the man behind you internally sigh as he knew the fact that he didn't write to you like every other day was going to be noticed by you. The lack of his letter hurt you that morning but it hurt you more when he simply acted as if it didn't matter.

To you, those letters meant the world. You got to appreciate his handwriting, his soul through the words he wrote and it was an encouragement for the tomorrow you were going to live. It was nice and it warmed your heart.

"Why didn't you write to me? We agreed we'd do it, I have never missed a day."

This time you turned around and he was met with a sad veil that covered your gaze. At the lack of his response, you turned around and continued walking among the gardens and to a much secluded area where others rarely went there. You knew he was following you. Not only because Jungkook was a royal guard and was meant to be with you and protect you from anything but because you knew he cared.

He had declared it out loud once. He cared for you. And he had been there for you ever since, not forcefully but willingly so.

"Tell me. It's not fair for you to do this, Jungkook. Tell me why you didn't write to me. Is something wrong?"

His heart constricted when he heard the worry in your sweet voice. A total contrast to the happy self you usually were.  Was something wrong?

Was something wrong?

He asked himself.

Depends.

On the circumstances.

Of what you know and don't know.

Of the perspective.

Of your position in this sick game.

Was something wrong?

Yes.

Many things were wrong. Many he wished he could change. Many he wished he could make them disappear. 

If only there was more time.

Thoughts and thoughts ran through his head, thoughts that weren't right, that were sickeningly bitter and made his heart bleed with agony. Worry. Despair.

Was something wrong?

Yes

"No."

Was his short answer. It didn´t satisfy you and he knew it. You looked at him, expecting. Waiting.

"Then why-"

"Princess."

He cut you off. Jungkook cut you off, something he had never made before with a cold voice. Distant even. And your heart constricted within your chest. Your eyes were locked with his, not daring to break the eye contact that was grounding your thoughts, in a way at least.

"I'm begging you to put yourself in my shoes, it is not correct for me to write to you in such a way. Your fiancé is in the palace and you could get in trouble if someone finds out."

The way he said "you could get in trouble" not "me", not "we". It was you who he was worried about. His heart feared for you and the fact of such care brought tears to your eyes.

"It is not appropriate, Your Highness."

He bowed slightly at you, a lump forming in your throat as realisation hit you. You were losing him. You were losing the only man who could ever own your heart. The man you cared for over everyone else. The man you loved. You were losing your Jungkook but, was he really yours to begin with?

You could never claim yourself as his so no, he wasn't yours. He wasn't yours to love and care, he wasn't yours to be with you out of what was needed to be.

You took a deep breath, holding your head high and swallowing the lump in your throat. You were never going to say you loved him, you weren't going to put yourself in such pain. You didn't want his pity. The misery it'd come afterwards.

"You are right,"

This time, Jungkook flinched at your tone. Your words were void of any emotion, a sound that he used to know as warm like the summer days felt now cold like winter.

"it is not right for us to write to each other. It will not happen again."

Even though that was what his mind desired for you to say, his heart hurt at your words. As if someone had just stabbed him directly in the heart. Your words had such an impact on him. Not because you were the Crown Princess but because he loved you. He loved you with all his body, soul and mind. He loved you more than love itself. But he knew the cruel reality. Jungkook knew that you both could never be together.

"Thank you, Princess. Please, allow me to escort you back to your room, if you desire it."

"Of course, let's go."

You turned around, walking back to your room, you had to keep your emotions together, you couldn't cry. Not now. Not in front of him. Not when he had said it wasn't appropriate. Not when it was him who crushed your heart.

Jungkook trailed behind you, his gaze kept on your figure. He had to keep his posture and force himself to not look at you a few minutes earlier or he knew he'd take his words back. He knew that by seeing your face with tears pooling in your (e/c) orbs, he'd surrender to you once more.

He couldn't do it. He could never put you in danger. Put you in such a position that your dignity and position as a royal would be compromised. He'd never do that, even if it meant he'd have his heart stabbed and bleeding with the aftermath of your love, even when he had to give up the small hope of your love, he wasn't going to put you in danger.

The walk back to your room was faster than any other day. You both didn't talk, Jungkook didn't make you laugh like before, you didn't share your day with him. It felt... wrong to some point. To not have that warmth you were so accustomed to. Colder days were coming for the both of you, not just literally.

"Please refrain from leaving your quarters, Princess, for your own safety."

Jungkook's words reached you the moment you were going to step inside your room. You looked over your shoulder, looking at him through your peripheral and said, your voice as equally cold as before.

"I don't intend to anyway."

With that, you stepped inside and slid the door closed. That was the moment you broke down. You hit the floor with your knees, the skirts of your silk dress puffing out around you as a hand clasped over your mouth to prevent the sobs from escaping you. The tears flowed freeling, rolling down your cheeks and dripping from your chin to the delicate fabric of your clothes.

There was a pain in your chest, a pressure there that only grew the more you prevented the sobs from escaping your body. You didn't know if Jungkook was still outside of your room or if he had already left, you didn't know if there were maids passing close by, you didn't know anything. Did Jungkook care as much as he claimed it to be? Because right now, you only felt a pain in your heart you had never felt before.

You tried to wipe your tears but it was useless, they kept flowing like endless rivers of agony. You turned to look around, spotting a decorative vase at your left and that was when the first soft left your lips. The vase was where you kept all the letters he gave you as well as the one you wrote for him and you were going to give it to him today too. That was the idea. That was the place. That was how it had been since summer began.

You couldn't help yourself and reached for the letter you wrote for Jungkook. Through blurry eyes you read the words you no longer remembered having written last night.

"My lessons were so boring today, I think I zoned out for most of them. I'm sorry you didn't get to eat jajangmyeon last night, I'll get you some one day, I promise.

Thank you for being by my side, the days no longer feel lonely like before. Take care."

That's what you wrote, you were revealing your soul to him through your words only for him to tell you it was not appropriate. You pressed the letter to your chest and let yourself cry. You cried for the loss of your heart, you cried because now you felt hopeless, you were forced to see the man you loved every day but there was nothing you could. Oh, how your soul desired for him.

You let the tears flow there, in your elegant bedroom lighted by candles and lanterns. With a crumbled letter in your hand and a broken heart inside you.

Jungkook had declined dinner with the rest of the guards that day. His stomach was twisted in a tangled knot of emotions and the mere thought of food made him sick. The same question repeated over and over again in his head.

Did I do the right thing?

Was it correct for him to push you away, knowing the both of you'd be hurting?

Yes.

No.

Mind and heart answered at the same time leaving him in the same situation as before. He let out a sigh, a hand running over his face. Jungkook was in the privacy of his room where he allowed his emotions to resurface and pour out of him. Without noticing, tears slowly rolled down his round cheeks as he leaned against the wall and replayed the conversations he had with you.

His hand subconsciously went to the pocket in his robes, taking out a small bag with something inside. Something he had planned on giving you. Something he had made himself. He made it for you. He made your birthday gift.

When Yoongi asked him about it he lied, not wanting for anyone other than you to see it but the conversation he had with his friend was like a cold bucket of water thrown at him. Yoongi was right, the kingdom wasn't safe anymore and he realised he had gotten too close to you. Closer than it was supposed to be.

If you love someone, you have to let them go.

When he was younger, he couldn't quite grasp the meaning of that phrase. Now he understood. He knew everything and understood every single thing. For as much as he wanted it, you and him would never be able to be together as something more than a Princess and her royal guard.

It was destiny. Fate couldn't be changed but he didn't even try to. He decided to break your heart and leave you alone, he didn't fight for you, he didn't protect your heart.

But you protected her from the system. She will get married and fulfil her duty. She will live how she is supposed to.

Jungkook found some sort of comfort in those thoughts, letting the tears fall freely down his face, his heart pounding rapidly against his ribcage as it bled out with agony. A pain he brought over himself.

"You're wearing it."

Jimin's voice brought you out of your thoughts. Looking up at him with a confused look, he elaborated while a chuckle escaped his lips.

"The hairpin. You are wearing it. I'm glad you like it."

You nodded at him with a small smile.

"It's really beautiful."

You weren't going to lie about that. It was truly one of the best jewellery pieces you'd ever seen. The Prince's cheeks tinted a soft shade of pink, a shy smile over his lips. He stopped out a sudden and you halted in your steps. Looking up at him with curiosity, Jimin grabbed one of your hands between his and said while his eyes were glued to your joined hands.

"I'll speak without formalities for once as this is something I need you to know not as a Prince but as your fiancé."

You nodded and he continued.

"(y/n)..."

Your name in his lips was sweet, said with such delicacy and devotion. A sweetness similar to your favourite fruit. But it wasn't the sweetness you craved, the one you needed.

"... I'm so glad it is you who I am going to marry. After we get married and the coronation ceremony is completed, I want you to know that you will always be my equal as the Queen of Gyeongdong. I know we were arranged but I sincerely hope we can grow something from this.

You will always be treated fairly, I promise. And I'm so lucky to have such a beautiful fianceé."

You couldn't help the smile that graced your lips. It was a grateful smile. You knew he wouldn't force you to do anything, he would always respect you and give you your place. The Prince of the Park family was a good man with a noble soul; a gentleman who was going to become a great ruler.

But you didn't love him.

"Thank you, Jimin. I really appreciate that."

He smiled. His eyes closed with the action and you couldn't help but think it was cute. He had a pretty smile, you had to admit that.

But it wasn't the bunny smile you had grown fond of.

The both of you continued to walk in the gardens, your hand brushing his while walking. Your thoughts began going back, back to those days where you felt happy, detached from your responsibilities. You had allowed romance to seep into your life when it wasn't the time and now, your heart yearned for someone who you'd never be able to have.

"You look sad."

It was a statement rather than a question and you couldn't help the sigh that escaped your lips.

"I'm sorry, I just think a lot, that's all."

Jimin laughed.

"And, may I ask, what are you thinking so intently?"

His tone was mischievous and you let out a playful scoff. Looking up at the man you were going to marry who was able to take your mind off things for a bit.

"You wouldn't want to know."

Was your muttered answer but he heard it clearly, causing an eruption of laughter to explode from the man next to you. He sat down on the ground, not caring at all about manners as he let himself enjoy the little moment.

You sat down next to Jimin on the ground, his laughter dying down. For a moment, you took a second to admire your fiancé as you hadn't taken the opportunity of actually getting to know the man.

You couldn't deny he was really handsome and he had the sweetest voice you had ever heard. It was calming. Soothing. You found yourself comfortable in the presence of Jimin, that was a progress.

At that moment, you decided you were going to give Jimin a chance. It was pointless to dwell on the broken pieces of your heart left behind by Jungkook while you had a man that was going to make you his Queen. And not just literally.

"Are you ready for the banquet in two days?"

He asked, your gaze softer this time. A small smile was plastered on your lips.

"Yes. Though I'm not very comfortable with those kinds of events, it is our engagement announcement."

"And your birthday celebration."

Added Jimin. He tucked a piece of your hair behind your ear and you smiled in a nervous way.

"Yeah, that too."

Your gaze lowered, your fingers playing with the elegant ornament dangling from your dress.

"You don't seem to be excited, Princess."

A smirk painted over your lips.

"It's just... it is always the same boring ritual, the same ceremony. I got used to it and I can't see it as a special thing anymore, rather it is yet another event I am forced to attend."

Jimin grabbed your hand and your eyes snapped to look at him.

"I'll be there with you. You will no longer have to be alone, (y/n)."

You smiled up at him. A genuine smile this time.

"Thank you, Jimin."

The day of your birthday arrived sooner than later. Time seems to move faster nowadays. That's how you found yourself wearing a beautiful red gown with golden details, the proper gown of the future Crown Princess of Gyeongdong. Your hair was styled in a beautiful updo with Jimin's hairpin attached to it.

When Jungkook first laid eyes on you, he thought of how beautiful you were. But now, you looked like the Queen you were going to become by the end of the year. Your beauty has always been a very well known fact. And Jungkook could confirm this, not because he was deeply in love with you but because you were actually the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

And now, as you entered the Main Hall, the idea only got confirmed once more. Your royal guard couldn't keep his eyes off you, he felt hypnotised by your beauty and the delicacy of your movements.

However, his gaze was not the only one on you. Prince Jimin was looking at you with the same awestruck gaze. Yet your eyes met the ones of Jungkook.

It was merely a second before you looked at the Prince that was going to be your fiance officially. You smiled at him, noticing how he wore ceremonial robes as well, your colours matching with his.

You both bowed to each other before turning to face the king. Your father had a proud smile on his lips and the ceremony began.

"Today, we are here gathered for two important occasions. Firstly, the princess' birthday and the engagement ceremony of the Princess of Gyeongdong and the Prince of the Park family."

You and Jimin faced each other, your gaze locked with his. Jungkook could see how you looked at the prince. It was a gaze you once directed to him. But he had let you go. He had hurt you and now, you no longer wanted him in your life, at least not like before. Or that was what Jungkook thought.

The king was declaring some words about your engagement but he didn't hear any of it as every ounce of focus was on you and how beautiful you looked. How lucky was Prince Jimin to have you as his bride.

Hoseok appeared from behind you holding a tray with two cups. Each of them contained a special and fine wine only served on rare occasions. You as well as Jimin grabbed a cup and held it carefully. If anyone had observed closer you would have noticed that your hands were trembling.

Jungkook felt how his heart skipped a beat when you looked at him for a moment. Your gazes holding a prohibited dance of emotions only you two could understand. You offered your royal guard a small smile before you had to drift your eyes from him.

However, that gesture at all was enough for Jungkook to have butterflies flying wildly in his stomach. Despite the harsh words he had said to you, despite the coldness he had given you, you were still kind to him. You were still a bright ray of sunshine. His ray of sunshine. Even when times were dark and uncertain for the both of you, you let him know that you understood. Of course you did.

And if this was going to be the end of whatever had once existed between you and Jungkook, you wanted to bid it farewell with a warm yet sad smile rather than the cold shoulder and distant eyes.

It was only right to do so. Silently thanking him for all the beautiful memories he shared with you. Choosing to close that part of your story in a less painful way.

"With this wine, the prince and the princess devote themselves to each other. Saving themselves for marriage, promising loyalty for their future married days and a prosperous courting time."

You lifted the cup toward the king, Jimin mirroring your actions, before you held it in the air toward your fiancé and then, the both of you drank from your designated cup. You grimace at the bitter taste and Jimin showed you a soft smile.

"Ministers of the king, bow to the Crown Prince, Park Jimin and his fianceé, the Crown Princess, Lee (y/n)!"

Announced one of the eunuchs. The ministers, servants and even guards bowed down to you and Jimin, their foreheads touching the wooden floor of the throne room.

You  looked at Jimin's eyes who sparkled in happiness. His soft smile made the corners of your lips lift slightly. It was official. You and Jimin were engaged. For real this time.

Jungkook lifted his gaze from his bowing position. He saw the soft smile on your beautiful face and his heart constricted at the sight. As if someone was literally squeezing his heart. It hurt. To see you with another man. But what hurt more is that he knew the prince was a better man than him. He would be able to make you the Queen. To make you happy.

It was his feelings that didn't allow his mind to focus. If he hadn't been hypnotised by your beauty and how unreachable you looked at the moment, maybe he would have been able to act quicker.

It wasn't until you saw Jimin's gaze shift from you for only a second. His eyes changed from happiness to panicked before he pushed you aside, causing you to gasp as the dry sound of something travelling across the room filled your ears.

The sound of tearing fabric and a burning pain on your right upper arm was enough for your mind to panic. Then, you saw how an arrow inserted itself on one of the palace's columns in front of you. Had it now been for Jimin it would have pierced your back.

Jungkook immediately stood up, drawing his sword out and running towards you. People dressed in black began flooding the room, some had bows and others held swords.

Jimin shielded you with his body, putting himself in front of you as the sound of metal hitting metal was heard in the room. The screams of people trying to escape, the cries of those who were killed and the grunts from the ones fighting filled the throne room.

Yoongi led three guards to escort the king out of the room while Jungkook was trying to get to you as fast as he could. Your eyes searched the room frantically, trying to spot Hoseok somewhere but you couldn't find him. Where was he?

Jimin picked up a sword that once belonged to one of the palace guards and began fighting too. You ran towards one of the columns, trying to protect yourself from the arrows that flew among the pillars.

From your spot, you could see how the intruders killed the guards quickly. It wasn't going to take them long to eventually get to you, Jimin and Jungkook. You could see your father didn't have the chance to leave the place and the remaining guards were circling him while battling with the intruders.

You looked around, searching for some kind of thing you could use as a weapon when you suddenly spotted the dead body of one of the intruders. He had his bow and arrows still attached to him so you didn't hesitate to run towards him.

The red dress you were wearing flew with your movements. Your trembling hands got a hold of the bow and you took an arrow, pointing it to a guard way too close to your father. You took the shot and it pierced one of the intruders' heads.

Jimin and Jungkook were still fighting in front of the throne room nearly back to back. The men seemed to flood in like insects.

"You have to get her out of here!"

Said Jungkook, his sword colliding with the one of the enemy. The prince blocked another attack before saying.

"You know the palace grounds better!"

Clank

"You need to lead us!"

The royal guard pushed one of the men away with a grunt.

"She needs to get out of here first."

More intruders circled the two men who were trying to protect you and it wasn't until one of them had gotten too close to Jimin that he gasped when an arrow suddenly pierced the man's head. He quickly turned to look from where had the arrow come only to see you holding the bow with another arrow ready to shoot once more.

"I think she can fend for herself right now."

Jungkook turned to look at you in a swift motion only to see you shooting another arrow this time to the intruder closest to him. Jungkook couldn't help the proud smile that spread over his face at the sight of you.

He noticed how you began clearing a path between you and him so he shouted over the commotion to the prince.

"I'm closer to her, I need you to go and clear the entrance way so that we can all get out!"

Jimin nodded, fighting to get to one of the side exits of the throne room while Jungkook did the same but to get to you. A path of crimson blood and corpses was left behind as both men fought to get you out of that place. You kept shooting arrows from where you stood. Trying to clear as much as you could from your position.

The throne room began clearing of the intruders. All the men dressed in black robes were dropping to the ground. Dead. You lost count of how many arrows you shot, trying to eliminate as many men as you could from Jungkook's as well as Jimin's side.

It wasn't until you felt a large hand on your shoulder that you gasped and turned around, your back now facing the entrance way. You were met with a pair of doe eyes looking down at you in concern.

"Are you alright?"

He asked. Jungkook's voice was tainted with worry and you noticed how his breathing was laboured and there was blood splattered over his handsome features. How you wish you could wipe it from him. His worry for you made your heart clench. And right then and there, you didn't remember the harsh words he had spoken to you before. The way he had rejected your love. It only mattered that he was there with you. Unharmed.

"Yes. You?"

He nodded. Not hearing the commotion from before. The intruders had been defeated by the remaining palace guards. He could hear Yoongi talking to the king about investigating the bloodbath that had just occurred in the throne room.

Jungkook looked down at you. The hand that once rested on your shoulder travelled down your arm until his fingers locked with yours, holding your hand and giving it a firm squeeze in reassurance.

But the moment was short-lived. The moment in which you lost yourself in his dark orbs and relished in the feeling of his touch as innocent and reassuring as was to hold your hand.

You saw, in a matter of milliseconds how his eyes shifted from you to something standing behind you. His sword clanked to the floor and his hand left yours, leaving it cold once more. You suddenly found yourself in his arms as he twisted you both. Being him who's back faced the entrance way.

You gasped at the motion. But nothing could have been worse than the pained groan he let out a mere second after he spun you around.

Tears gathered in your eyes when you saw one of the remaining intruders holding a bow, pointing it at you. Your eyes widened when you saw an arrow had pierced him on the back.

"Jungkook!"

He began to slump forward and you did your best to ease his fall. The hand that held the bow you had used to defend yourself clattered to the floor as you knelt on the ground, while Jungkook nuzzled his head in the crook of your neck.

Jimin, who stood next to the entrance way, had seen everything unfold before his eyes. He was quick to run towards the last intruder and kill him with his own sword before he turned back to you and watched how you held Jungkook in your embrace.

"Jungkook! Stay awake, you have to stay awake! Do you hear me? Jungkook!"

But the only response he could give you was a soft smile before darkness consumed his mind. The tears that had gathered in your eyes began to spill like endless rivers of sadness. There was a pain in your chest like you had never felt before. As if someone had pierced your heart with the dagger of death and was twisting it slowly.

Sobs racked your body as you cried over the unconscious body of your royal guard. You reminiscenced on how he had, without hesitation, put himself in between you and the arrow. How his big eyes had sparkled with fear when he saw the danger you were in.

It was his love that moved him to act. Not his duty. Not his vow. His love. Pure and eternal love. As pure as love is itself.

You didn't notice when Captain Yoongi approached you with quick steps. You didn't notice the confused expression of your father when he saw the immense pain you were suffering. You didn't notice the melancholic stare of your fiance.

Jungkook could have died. He could die. The possibility of him not being there brought so much pain in you that you could barely breathe. Your hands crumbled his robe as you chanted his name in whispered words. Praying for him to be alright.

Wishing for more time with him.

You didn't want him to leave you like this. Not like this. Never like this. When you both were on thin ice with the other. When your time together was so short. With little memories of the both of you.

It wasn't fair.

Fate wasn't fair.

"Please don't leave."

Life wasn't fair. So you just held on. You grabbed the remnants of time you could grasp in your hands. You had to be strong. You had to stay strong for him. For Jungkook. Only for Jungkook.

"Please, Jungkook. Don't leave me alone. I can't live without you."

But he couldn't hear you. He didn't react to those words and you felt how your world came crashing down on you. The tears never stopped falling. The pain only increased.

"Please don't leave me on my own."

You stood outside Jungkook's quarters. The sky was grey with rain pouring down. As if the clouds were as sad as your soul. Your right hand was holding an umbrella over your head so tightly your knuckles turned white. The ending of your skirt was drenched and your eyes were filled with worry while your heart bled with the agony of your love in critical condition.

"How is he?"

You asked the moment the royal physician stepped outside of Jungkook's room. He hadn't even slid the door close completely before he was met with your question.

"He was very lucky, Your Highness. Had the arrow pierced him slightly lower in the back it would have damaged his heart."

Tears welled in your eyes but you tried to blinked them back. It wasn't the time to cry. Not now.

"Will he be okay?"

Your voice cracked slightly at the end of your sentence and you hoped the royal physician didn't hear it in the middle of the rainstorm.

"Yes, My Lady. He needs to rest and keep the wound clean. Please don't worry about this, it is not good for your health."

He bowed at you and you nodded. The physician then took his leave, fast-walking through the gardens in search of some dry place to take cover. You wanted so badly to go into Jungkook's room and see for yourself that he was fine. That he was breathing. Alive. And that he would soon recover.

Your other hand stretched out to slide the door open. Your heart was screaming at you to go there. But you didn't listen. You retrieved your hand and turned around, ready to go back to your own room.

But the cries of your heart were louder. You had to see him. It was out of the question. So you spun around, a couple of raindrops falling over your head. When you slid open the door, your heart broke at the sight of Jungkook lying on the soft covers that made his bed. Captain Min stood next to the window and his eyes found your figure before he was bowing down at you. 

“Your royal highness.”

He acknowledged you and only then did you notice that he was also there. But your mind couldn’t process it. The only thing that mattered to you was Jungkook’s health.

"He will be fine, Your Highness. I assume the royal physician already explained his situation to you?"

You could only nod at Yoongi´s words. Your eyes trained on the unmoving body of Jungkook.

"Captain Min,"

Your words cracked at the end as you tried so desperately to hold your tears in, despite the lump in your throat and the blurry vision.

"tell me what you know of the attack. I want to know everything."

You heard him sigh. Perhaps he thought you only wanted the information to ease your curiosity but in reality, you needed to know who had made this, who had hurt Jungkook. Your Jungkook. The captain wasn't going to understand it so you allowed him to think whatever he wanted as long as he told you the truth.

"An investigation is being conducted at the moment. There were no intruders who survived the attack but we have a lead as to where to start. A suspect."

You looked at him and Yoongi had never seen a more serious look in a person's eyes. Not even in your father. The former king of Gyeongdong had ever been as intimidating as you were at that moment.

"Who is that suspect?"

Captain Min took a deep breath and answered without an ounce of hesitation in his voice.

"The king's counsellor, Minister Jung and his son, Jung Hoseok."

That night you had waited. Had waited for the guard’s rotation time for you to enter the royal prison. Jungkook once told you how the rotation system worked and you remember clearly that he told you there was a gap of nearly ten minutes between each rotation. 

So the only thing you had to do was wait. And that was what you were doing, your eyes trained on the two guards in front of the double doors that led to the royal cells. 

You had to speak with Hoseok. The words Captain Min said to you about your best friend plotting treason didn’t set well at all with the image you had of him. How could the man who befriended you when you were so lonely, the man who had smiled at you when everyone bowed down, who would speak with you without fear, be a traitor of the royal family?

There was something wrong. 

It had been he himself who had told you that he and his father were investigating the strange activity in the North. It was him who told you to be careful, to trust Jungkook and to stay alert. It didn’t make any sense that it was Hoseok who planned it all or at least who secluded his father in such an act. 

You didn’t want to fall into conclusions. Assume things that weren't true about your best friend. That’s why you had to see him. Have him explain to you face-to-face what had happened. It was the only way. 

It was nearly midnight, you could tell as the moon was about to reach its highest peak, when the two guards began retreating themselves, walking into the darkness of the night and to their next post when you saw your opportunity and you, without hesitation, took it. 

Lifting your skirts with your hands, you left your hiding spot behind some bushes and quickly approached the double doors. Thanking the heavens that they weren’t locked as you managed to slip inside the royal prison without much trouble. 

“Princess, what are you doing here?”

You didn’t have to turn around to recognise Hobi’s voice. When your eyes met, you saw his fear and desperation and he was able to see the same feelings reflected in your (e/c) orbs.

“I’m glad you are alright.”

You said. Not answering his question. You knelt down in front of his cell, the skirts of your dress puffing out at the motion as your hands grabbed the wooden bars that kept him caged. 

“Not for long, though.”

He murmured. His words caused a frown to appear on your face. 

“Hobi I need you to tell me what happened. I need you to be completely honest with me. Captain Min said you and your father were being held with the chargers of the attack, please tell me it’s not true. Tell me he is lying.”

Hoseok sighed and that made your stomach twist with anxiety. 

“Captain Min is an intelligent man. But he is wrong, princess. I didn’t do anything, I swear. My father, on the other hand… I can’t speak for him.”

You believed his words, you truly did. He spoke with sincerity but there was still something that didn’t make sense. 

“Alright, then tell me where you were at the moment of the attack. I didn’t see you there.”

He looked down, hesitating for a moment. You didn’t want to think what that meant, Did he realise you had caught him? Was he doing something illicit at that time?

“My father pulled me aside. For what I understood, your highness, he could be involved in the attack.”

You gasped. Could the king’s counsellor really betray him like that?

“Are you sure? Because you once told me you and him went North to investigate some suspicious activity. Why would he do that, Hobi? I don’t understand.”

He looked at you, his own hands gripping the bars as tightly as he could. 

“I don’t understand it either, Princess. I can only speak for myself. I would never do anything to hurt you, you are my best friend.”

You smiled at that. A soft and sad smile that brought a bitter feeling to his heart. 

“I assume the king hasn’t listened to your part of the story seeing as you are being held here.”

He nodded at your statement, his eyes searching yours as if you were a rope of salvation for this hole he had been thrown at. And maybe you were. 

“I only went with my father to the North once but then, he told me he had “unfinished business there” with the excuse of some unexplored areas but I think that was when he took the enemy's side.”

Your eyes grew wide at what he had just spoken. You looked around the royal prison and thanked the heavens that the other prisoners seemed to be asleep or at least you hoped they were.

“I can’t stay for much longer Hobi. Do you realise what you just said? You are practically accusing your father of treason but you need to prove yourself innocent otherwise you will go down with him.”

Your whispered words were only for him to hear. You believed in his innocence. How could your sweet Hobi ever plot treason against you? How could his noble soul allow him to do such a thing? 

“I know, I’d be seen as a traitor to the kingdom of Gyeongdong but honestly, as long as you are aware of my innocence I can die in peace.”

If it weren’t for the wooden bars you would have smacked him on the head.

“Don’t say that. I’ll talk to my father and get you out of here. I promise. I can’t let my best friend die like that.”

He smiled. That sweet smile that always managed to brighten your mood at least a little. 

“Glad you still consider me your friend, Princess.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and stood up, sending him a small smile.

“I have to go now, Hobi. Stay safe, you’ll get out of here.”

And with that, you lifted your skirts with your hands and left the royal prison while Hoseok watched you disappear behind the entrance way. 

“I trust you, princess.”

He whispered to himself, running a hand through his hair as he could only wait. Wait and trust you. You were his only hope.

You stood in the throne room. The king's hard gaze swallowed you completely as you stood before him. You saw Jimin at the corner of your eye, his posture impeccable as he stood at the right side of the throne with Captain Min next to him.

By the sight of the three important men you assumed they were discussing something of importance. A conversation you interrupted with your arrival. 

"My king, I have some important things to tell you about the attack that occurred the day of the engagement ceremony."

You saw your father stand up from the throne as he proceeded to descend the stairs that led to the majestic chair. His silk robes trailing behind him.

"We were in the middle of an important meeting, Your Highness. Go back to your room and do not speak out of place. I certainly taught you better than this."

The prince clenched his jaw, his eyes fixated on your form. But you didn't back away. You weren't going to surrender that easily.

"Forgive me, Your Majesty, but this is a matter that cannot wait any longer. I apologise to Prince Jimin and Captain Min for the interruption but I have to speak out about the injustice that is happening in the court."

The king raised an eyebrow at you and this time, you didn't feel intimidated. Not when you met his gaze. Not when you stood your ground. Or at least, you weren't going to allow your fear to show. You could do better than that.

“There has been a misunderstanding, My King. The councillor's son, Jung Hoseok is being held in the royal prison by mistake. He didn’t commit treason against the crown.”

Yoongi frowned at your words. The thought had crossed his mind more than on one occasion but he was forced to follow the king’s orders. 

“You only speak like that because he is your friend. The Jung family were supporting the enemy in the North, they wanted to dethrone me and kill you and give the power to their leader. They were spies in my court.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat. You believed in Hoseok. In his words. In the friendship you both had had for so long. He wouldn’t do something like that. You saw it for yourself when you spoke to him. His eyes were pleading you to believe him. 

“Perhaps Lord Jung is the traitor but not his son.”

You had to keep your voice controlled. Even when your emotions were racking havoc inside you. A princess always keeps her composure. 

Your father let out a dry laugh and you immediately knew this wasn’t going as you had planned.

“Say that is true. That your friend wasn’t involved. His father still needs to be punished and what better punishment than to watch his son die. He tried to kill you, my daughter, it is only fair for Lord Jung to lose his son.”

Your eyes began to sting with tears of desperation and at your father’s stubborn attitude. 

“But why must you punish an innocent man? Why must there be more victims to this?”

“You spoke to him, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

The answer that left your mouth was said without hesitation. Determination marked your words. And Jimin, who watched from where he stood, couldn’t feel more proud for you. Standing your ground even to your father, the king of Gyeongdong. 

“And I believe him, father. Please. Please spare Hoseok, he is innocent.”

The tears in your eyes were getting heavier and they began to spill slowly down your cheeks. You were losing the battle, the upper hand and you feared with all your heart your best friend was going to have to pay for the crimes of his own father. He didn’t deserve that. He was a walking ray of sunshine and had made your days in the palace feel less lonely. He had made you smile so many times, in so many ways. He had brought you a happiness you didn’t know existed. 

“Get out, I will not discuss this any further.”

Your heart broke with those words. You could feel the conflict inside your father through his voice but you couldn’t care when he was being this intransigent. 

“Please don’t kill my friend.”

You whispered. It was the last thing you could do to defend Hobi. The last resource you had in you. But even then, despite your words having touched the king’s heart, he didn’t change his mind. 

“Guards, escort the Princess out of the throne hall.”

The order was quickly followed by two royal guards who quickly approached you and stood at each side of you. Jimin took a step forward, the words resting in his tongue to speak out for you were about to get fired but he got stopped when Yoongi grabbed his arm. The latter shook his head and it made the prince realise he would only make matters worse. 

You wiped your cheeks with the back of your hand, the soft silk of your dress caressing your face like a delicate summer breeze. But it wasn’t summer anymore. 

The leaves were dying. Just like your heart. Just like your hope.

~ ambience

There was a void in Jimin’s chest when you left the throne hall. He felt sorry for your situation and a part of him wished he could do something -anything- to help you. He hated the fact that you were going through something like this, and the worst part, at least for him, was that he couldn’t do anything to ease your pain. At least a little. 

But no. 

He had no word in this situation. He understood your father’s point of view but reasoned with your part of the story. Jimin had met Hoseok once or twice and he could testify that the man was as charming as an early bird singing in the window when the sun rose. 

But he knew the king was confused. Scared even. He feared to leave a traitor alive. To not cut the problem from its root. He feared for your safety, his only and precious daughter. And Jimin himself also feared for your well-being. But he had to agree with his fianceé that an injustice could be committed if the crime was left like that. As just an attack from rebels. If it wasn’t investigated, innocent people would die. 

The meeting with the king and Captain Min had continued after you left their presence but the prince could hardly concentrate, he could only hear muffled voices in the background while his mind went back to your determined form and the fire that burned in your eyes. But he also saw the desperation in your (e/c) orbs. 

Even though you both were still in the stage of new friendship while already being promised to the other, he couldn’t help but feel how his heart constricted at the sight of your tears. Jimin had envisioned you as a strong and determined woman, which you were. There was no debate about that. But you were so broken at that moment. So desperate.

He was able to hear the platter of rain against the outer grounds before he had even crossed the double doors of the throne room. The sky was grey, the clouds thick among themselves as it rained heavily down at the kingdom. 

It had been nearly an hour since you had interrupted the royal meeting but Jimin’s eyes grew wide when he spotted your figure, completely drenched to the bone, kneeling in front of the palace at the beginning of the small stairs that decorated the entrance way. 

“What are you all doing standing here? Don´t you know she could get sick with this?”

Growled the prince at a nearby royal guard who cowered at the imposing tone of the man. Jimin was seen among the palace staff as a sweet and loving personality who was made to receive and give love in each of his lifetimes. That’s why the guard felt suddenly so intimidated as the prince had never acted nor spoken in such a way. 

“We are aware, Your Royal Highness. But the Princess ordered us to not interfere. She said she'll kneel until the counsellor's son is safe. There was no way of persuading her!”

Jimin cursed under his breath as his feet carried him towards you. He didn’t care about the rain, about the stares of the maids and staff, he didn’t care about anything else other than you. 

You were kneeling on the cold stone floor. The palace was in front of you in all its glory but you could only care about your best friend. Why was life so complicated? When has your life tangled itself up with these kinds of problems? 

Why did summer end so suddenly? 

The rain continued to fall over your already soaked form. But you weren’t going to back down. If your father wasn’t going to listen to your explanation, the only resource you had left was your dignity; displaying it to the man you called your father, in hopes for you to create a spark of sympathy towards you and listen to what you had to say.

You weren’t going to back down that easily. You couldn’t. You had to be strong for Hoseok, for Jungkook, for your future husband, Jimin, who possessed a golden heart. And for your future kingdom. You were going to become Queen, you had to settle the example of strength.

Your heart ached at the thought of Jungkook, he had yet to wake up and you both had acted so coldly to the other before the engagement ceremony. He couldn’t do this to you. He had to wake up, he had to prove to you that he was alright, if not you would never forgive him. 

Or rather, you would never forgive yourself for not fighting enough for him.

You felt like you were losing the people you hold close to your heart. Jungkook was injured and although the royal physician had told you he would be alright, you couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps something was going to happen to him. You wouldn’t be able to rest until you saw his beautiful doe eyes gazing back at yours. 

Hoseok was being condemned for a crime he didn’t commit with the possibility of being sentenced while being innocent. This only added salt to your wound, you couldn’t lose him. Your best friend. The first person you trusted while living in the palace. He had made your grim days brighter with his mere presence, he couldn’t die. No-one could. No-one could do that to you. Hurt you in such a way.

And then, there was Jimin, the man you were going to marry. You know he loved you or at the very least he had began to fall in love with you. You could tell because of the way he looked at you. But it pained you that you would never be able to return that love to him as your heart was already in someone else's possession. It wasn’t fair for him to love a woman who couldn’t love him back when he had so much love to give. 

He was a pure soul in this broken world and the mere thought of trapping him in a one-sided love broke your heart. 

You once thought that you could make things workout with Jimin. You fooled yourself into believing that one day, you would love him wholeheartedly. But who were you to say such things? When your heart was being torn apart with a single glance from your personal royal guard. You loved Jungkook. 

He was your soulmate. 

The man who had your heart in his hands. 

It was already his to possess. You couldn’t just take it back and give it to another man. 

Having another man in your heart and thoughts like how Jungkook lived there. 

That would never happen. You would never love anyone else like the way you loved Jungkook. With your whole heart, body and mind. 

Your tears rolled down your cheeks, mixing with the pouring rain that fell from the greying skies. A chilly breeze made a shiver run up your spine but you weren’t going to leave. You weren’t going to surrender that easily so you stood firmly, ignoring the pain in your knees, ignoring the coldness in your skin. Ignoring the sadness in your heart and not minding the tears that escaped your eyes. 

But suddenly, you didn’t feel the rain any longer. The chilly air didn’t attack your back any more and you had to look up to find the source of such a blessing only to be met by the profile of the Prince of the Park family, he was looking forward not seeming to mind the cold rain that was quick to drench him. His right arm extended his outer robe over you, keeping the rain from cooling you any further.

He looked down, feeling your gaze on him only to be met with your drenched figure. Your eyes were red and puffy, filled with tears. And he felt his heart clench at the sight of your pain. If he was able to take it away he would do it in a heartbeat. You didn’t deserve such a burden. Such pain. 

And he made a silent promise to himself that once you both got married, he would move mountains for him to see you smile. 

You deserved it, after all. 

Everyone deserves happiness. Even you, the beautiful Princess everyone thought had it all but in the end, you were just lonely. Broken by the mends of society. 

The king walked towards the entrance way of the throne room, his eyes growing wide at the sight of you kneeling in front of him while the cold rain poured down the pavilion with Jimin trying to keep the rain from drenching you further. He stood by your side, not looking tired at all from holding out his robe to cover you. 

Your father knew you were stubborn but this wasn’t a whim from you. This was real. He had never seen you kneel in front of him in such a way. He had never seen you so hurt in his life. 

He sighed, maybe he should have listened to you. He had made many mistakes as your father, his mind always reminding him that he was more than just your father. He was the king. And a king always searches for the better good of his people. But he had neglected you as his daughter. 

He knew you weren’t entirely happy with the arranged marriage but he was also aware that Prince Jimin was a good and fine man that would take care of you as both, his wife and his queen. 

He didn’t know about your romance with your royal guard. He didn’t know about your anxiety for Hoseok. He didn’t know about your hurt for not being able to love Jimin the way he deserved to be loved. 

But at that moment, he saw the most vulnerable side of you. The broken side you always masked with a sweet smile. 

“Captain.”

Spoke the king. Yoongi was quick to approach him and he bowed at the man with higher power. 

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

Then your father said, with his eyes trained on your trembling figure. 

“Release the councillor's son from the royal prison. I want Jung Hoseok to be left without charges on the matter of the attack.”

Because I believe in (y/n).

He refrained himself from saying. Allowing Captain Min to bow once more and retreat himself from the king’s presence not without saying.

“Yes, my king. I will do so immediately.”

~ ambience

Three days later, you found yourself speed walking to Jungkook's quarters. The head court lady had informed you personally that Jungkook had woken up and you didn’t waste another second to run and see him with your own eyes. 

Your hands fisted the skirts of your dress so that you could run freely. You knew it was very unlady-like what you were doing but you needed to see him. You needed to know that Jungkook was okay. 

When you arrived at his room, you didn’t even knock nor did you announce yourself before you were already sliding the door open. 

And you saw him. 

You saw your Jungkook. 

Awake and breathing. 

Though he wasn’t able to hide the shock from his face when he saw you enter his quarter in such a hurried way. 

Your eyes widened when you spotted him and a subtle blush painted your cheeks after a second or two. When you realised he was sitting at the edge of his bed, his hair dishevelled, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. The only thing he wore in his upper body were the bandages that were clean. Presumably changed not long ago.

“Princess!”

He said, surprised by your intrusion. 

“J-Jungkook! I’m… I’m glad you are awake.”

You said, the last part looking away from him as you tried your hardest to suppress your flustered state. You heard him chuckle slightly before he stood up and grabbed one of his casual robes, carefully putting it on before he sat himself once more on the bed.

“You can look now.”

He commented in a teasing tone but you directed your gaze to him. Your eyes took in the image of him as if you wanted to engrave him in your mind forever.

Jungkook wore his usual loose trousers of his uniform and a flowy robe covered his upper body, tied loosely at his waist so that you were still able to see the clean bandages that covered his wound and you were able to peak and catch a glimpse of the golden skin that covered his firm chest.

“Princess.”

He made your eyes meet his with that simple word. Command you in such a way.

“How are you doing?”

You swallowed, walking towards his bed with measured steps, almost shyly as if asking for permission but he didn’t push you away. He only looked at you with a soft gaze that melted your insides.

“I should be the one asking you that.”

Was your answer as you sat next to him, facing him while your hands were clasped in your lap in a tense way, not sure what to say. Feeling, for the first time, nervous in the presence of Jungkook.

He only smiled at you. A sad smile you noticed as it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I heard what happened with Hoseok. I’m glad he’s alright.”

You let out a deep sigh. Not really wanting to remember how helpless you had felt while Hoseok’s future was in danger.

“Yeah, he was deemed innocent. His father, however, was proven to be a traitor. He was sentenced to death.”

Jungkook only watched you. He tried to read your expression. He tried to understand what you were feeling. His hand ached to hold yours, his arms to encircle you and pull you against his chest. He wished he could console you. Bring you some peace to your tormented mind.

“How are you doing, Princess?”

He repeated his question, waiting for you to answer. 

“I don’t know, Jungkook. I don’t know.”

Your broken whisper tore at his heartstrings. A lump formed in his throat with the mere sound of your voice laced with so much pain. 

You sniffled, keeping your tears at bay. You didn’t want to cry, not now. You pushed the overwhelming emotions aside and concentrated on him. On the fact that Jungkook was awake and that his wound was healing. That he was alive.

“Thank you for saving me, by the way. I didn’t get to thank you.”

He smiled. That bunny smile you missed so much and that you felt had passed decades since you last saw it. You thought Jungkook was going to say something along the lines that “it was his work to protect you” but it surprised you when different words left his pink lips.

“I’ll take that arrow and more for you anyday if it means you’d be safe.”

You placed your hand over his bigger one, catching him off guard as his gaze fell down to your joined hands.

“Thank you, Jungkook. But I also need you with me. I’d go insane if you weren’t by my side.”

He showed you one of his sad smiles once more.

“Then I will be by your side every single day until I die.”

Tears welled in your eyes. What had you done in your past life to have a man like Jungkook so close to you yet so out of reach? You felt as if your heart was going to explode from all the emotions you were feeling. You knew your summer was over, the seasons were changing but his love never did. If only, it got stronger with each day. 

Just as your love for him. 

It grew every single day. Everything reminded you of him. You smiled because of him.

“I just remembered,”

He stood up, his hands leaving your grasp and you felt them cool down without the warmth of Jungkook’s large hands over your own. Your gaze followed him while he searched in one of his drawers until he pulled something out and walked back to you. 

“I made you something for your birthday but with everything that happened, I never got the chance to give it to you.”

You were glad you were sitting, if not, you would have probably fainted with the amount of love you had for this man. Had he really made you something despite the terms you were in before the engagement ceremony? Did he really love you that much?

Of course he did. 

When Jungkook loved, he loved with all his heart. And right now, you were the owner of that heart of his. He gave it to you without a second thought and his little actions kept proving it to you over and over again. He grabbed your left wrist and you looked down, watching as he tied a red braided bracelet around your skin. He tightened it with the perfect amount of force, tight enough for it to not fall but not that strong that it would hurt your precious skin. 

“Do you like it?”

You couldn’t take your eyes off his gift. It was a beautifully braided bracelet with small pearls in it. 

“It’s perfect.”

You whispered. Afraid that if you spoke any louder the moment would be ruined. His heart skipped a beat with your words.

“No-one has ever given me such a beautiful gift. Thank you, Jungkook.”

He scratched the back of his neck, clearing his throat and looking away. But you were having none of that so you, once more, grabbed his hand and made him look at you. Your (e/c) eyes met his big doe ones and you said, with tears prickling at the corner of your eyes.

“Thank you, Jungkook. For everything.”

He smiled, a warm smile that made butterflies go wild in your stomach. 

“You are very welcome, my princess.”

For once in your life, you didn’t feel like it was a title. For one you felt like you belonged somewhere, with someone. With Jungkook. For once, you felt loved. And for your first time in this life, you felt at peace. 

You ignored what had happened, you ignored what was going to happen and enjoyed this precious and unique moment with Jungkook. The man you loved. 

He knew winter was near, he knew the seasons were going to change once more, and with that came changes that would affect your life as well as his, but as long as he could have you near him, he believed that everything would turn out to be good. He hoped so. 

Winter was about to commence, the most difficult season of all fours, so Jungkook braced reality and stayed in the moment, lost in your gaze and with his hands holding yours. Wishing to freeze that exact moment in time before the seasons changed once more.

June/08/2023

Taglist for Four Season: @seokout

~Masterpost

**I do NOT give my consent for this or any of my works to be posted or translated into any other platforms or languages. 

[aangussca]

Gallery visit: AGNSW - Louise Bourgeois exhibition (17.1.24)

Context: This exhibition centres around Louise Bourgeois' practice (thematic/conceptual and artmaking) and how it was influenced by the events, psychological states, and emotional extremes of her life:

Tragedy, grief and sorrow

Anxiety and fear

Rage and hostility

Peace and comfort

Love (familial, platonic and romantic/sexual)

Bourgeois' works shift between multiple forms (biomorphic, abstract, surreal, etc.) and multiple materials. Yet the themes explored draw from experiences, emotions and anxieties that others can relate to.

(Small content warning for the following: themes of sexuality (either implied or discussed - nothing explicit), and discussions/depictions of grief and psychological/emotional vulnerability that may hit too close to home for some.)

My Reflection:

I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition for multiple reasons (only the primary key ones are below):

How the exhibition was organised thematically into 'Day' and 'Night' to represent two extremes that exist separately yet are interconnected: the conscious and the unconscious, order and chaos, love and anger, comfort and fear, day and night. 'Day' itself is split into 9 areas, each detailing parts of her life with accompanying artworks. I thought, while walking through the exhibition, that was a clever way of guiding the audience through both Bourgeois' life and the two different states ('Day' and 'Night').

The inclusion of hidden quotes attributed to Bourgeois on the walls of the 'Day' part of the exhibition. They fit the themes in each of the nine sections and I believe they would make thoughtful prompts for my own artworks.

I particularly loved how some of Bourgeois' works merged biological forms and abstract imagery. For example, Torso, Self-portrait (1963-1964), The Destruction of the Father (1974), Nature Study (1986) and À l'infini (2008-2009).

There was also the use of colours and abstract imagery used to convey multiple levels of meaning, as well as provoke the audience to connect their own emotions and experiences with them. For example, Repairs in the Sky (1999), Sublimation (2002), Heart (2004), and The Waiting Hours (2007)

Overall, this was a fantastic exhibition that I believe will serve as inspiration for any future projects.

Part 1: DAY (Continued)

Section 4: I love you, do you love me?

"An early loss and new relationships defined the 1970s for Bourgeois. In 1973, her beloved husband Robert Goldwater died of a heart attack. In the years that followed, she was celebrated by women artists and curators. The ferocity of her meditations on motherhood, male authority and female desire made her a hero to this new generation of feminists. The author Chris Kraus recalled, 'It was Louise's rigour that made her seem punk … She was absolute uncompromising and tough.' Bourgeois's toughness - her sharpness and rigour can be felt in the works in this room, which channel some of the volatile energy you will encounter downstairs in the Tank. Relationships are her focus again: love, need, wanting. She zeroes in on the difficult feelings that complicate and threaten human connection. "There is the desire, the flirtation, the fear of failure, vulnerability, jealousy, and violence. I'm interested in all these elements." Bourgeois sometimes likened herself to a 'double-edged knife', capable of switching from vulnerability to attack."

Heart (2004, rubber, stainless steel, metal, thread, plastic, wood and cardboard)

Left: The Needle (2001, ink and pencil on paper)

Middle: Untitled (1986, watercolour, ink, oil paint, charcoal and pencil on paper)

Right: Untitled (Scissors) (1986, watercolour and ink on blue paper)

Description: "Scissors, pliers, clamps, secateurs - tools from a sculptor's studio. But look closer and notice how Bourgeois has altered the body language of these objects. Each tool exists in two parts - separate elements conjoined. As Bourgeois playfully renders their shapes, she makes the tools into figures and couples - beings defined by how they come together to cut or be held. Written at the bottom of the large work is the phrase 'what one does to the other'.

The act of cutting fascinated Bourgeois. As the daughter of tapestry restorers, she knew that cutting was often a prelude to repair. As a sculptor, she loved cutting away what was superfluous - carving wood and chiselling stone. 'Anything that is a trimming for the better,' she said. 'It is an improvement through sacrifice.'"

Shredder (1983, wood, metal and painted plaster)

Description: "In 1982, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, gave Bourgeois her first retrospective. As Shredder proves, Bourgeois' new renown did not subdue her fierce directness as a sculptor.

The work was made in Bourgeois' Brooklyn studio, a former garment factory the artist acquired in 1980. Here, she created increasingly large-scale sculptures, sometimes using salvaged industrial objects. 'You try everything', she once said, 'you use every material around.'

With its threatened mannequin, Shredder demonstrates Bourgeois' talent for putting us on the spot - creating situations that generate tension and psychic energy without telling us how we should respond. The sculpture is not a commentary but a catharsis - a way of exorcising aggressive and rivalrous feelings."

Breasts and Blade (1991, bronze, silver nitrate and polished patina)

Description: "With its voluptuous front and weaponised back, Breasts and Blade is a variation on the image of the 'knife woman' that Bourgeois returned to across the decades - a female figure that transforms, when threatened, into the shape of her own self-protecting aggression. As Bourgeois made clear, the knife in such works is also phallic. The push and pull between vulnerability and defensiveness creates sculptures of unnerving vitality."

Section 5: Clouds and Caverns

"Colour is a vital force in Bourgeois's world of tensions and oppositions. Red, encountered in the previous room, is 'an affirmation at any cost … of contradiction, of aggression' and is "symbolic of the intensity of the emotions involved". But Bourgeois also cultivated a world of blue, which for her represented 'peace, meditation and escape'. The natural world in these works provides refuge in the wake of emotional storms. Bourgeois regarded landscape, like the rules of geometry, as something 'very positive, very calming, and very verifiable'. Clouds and Caverns is her grandest articulation of this idea, invoking the soft hills of remembered French landscapes and the protecting curves of the maternal body. The Couple also portrays a realm of shelter and respite. The tiny pink figures find their moment of peace in a forest of blue-beaded metal rods. Poids stands, delicately balanced, holding paired blue spheres that could be breasts, eyes or ambiguous gifts. The threaded and stacked forms of Conscious and Unconscious also project a careful equipoise. Their calm contrasts with the flood of emotion in a translated writing from around 1958."

Clouds and Caverns (1982-1989, metal and wood)

Waiting Hours (2007, series of 12 fabric collages)

Description: "Twelve scenes are collaged from Bourgeois's old scarves and blouses. Each represents an hour of waiting. The horizon rises, subsides, tilts and steadies as if seen from a moving vessel. Night claims more of the daytime sky as the journey progresses. Made when Bourgeois was 95 years old, The Waiting Hours is a vision of approaching mortality. But even as they darken, the 12 skies express the consolation of geometry and restoration. The eight fabric sections that form each sky create a radial, web-like structure, recalling the reparative work of the spider-mother that appears in the central courtyard of this gallery."

Left in first row: Loose sheet of writing (circa. 1958, translation of text originally written in French and English)

Right in first row and all of second row: Poids (1992, steel, glass and metal)

Section 6: When You Come To Me

"Giving and taking. Needing and being needed. Wanting love yet fearing rejection. Reaching out and waiting. The artworks brought together in this room are portrayals of relationships. They are grounded in the fear of abandonment that Bourgeois felt throughout her life. One of her earliest experiences of this fear occurred during the First World War, when her father was wounded and her mother was beset by anxiety about losing him. The large Cell nearby, with its five glass spheres, dramatises the daunting fragility of family relations. By the time she made most of the works in this room, Bourgeois had experienced many losses. Her husband Robert Goldwater died in 1973 and she long outlived her siblings Pierre and Henriette. But she drew energy from younger artists and collaborators, including her long-time assistant Jerry Gorovoy. The closeness of their connection is the subject of a 40-part work in this room. It is a meditation on trust, which Bourgeois said 'is the opposite of chaos'."

Left: Nature Study (1986, bronze with silver nitrate patina)

Right: The Couple (2003, glass, fabric and steel)

Description: "For Bourgeois, art was a way of coming to grips physically with the flux and volatility of her emotions. To achieve this, she made many sculptures in which one kind of form transforms or merges into another. Here, a hand emerging from a coil delivers a sleeping woman into the world. Her hair becomes the coil from which the hand itself grows. Creation and creator circle each other like a snake pursuing its own tail."

Cell (Glass Spheres and Hands) (1990-1993, glass, iron, wood, linoleum, canvas and marble)

Description: "A pair of marble hands waits patiently near a family of five glass spheres. The scene is staged in one of Bourgeois' renowned Cells, which she began creating in her large Brooklyn studio in the 1990s. The word 'cell' can describe a monk's retreat or a place of imprisonment. Bourgeois's Cells are containers and compressors of memories, emotional energy and psychological tension. This one suggests a classroom or living room where an adult is imparting difficult life lessons. Discussing this work in 1993, Bourgeois said, 'The glass suggests the infinite fragility of the human person … They are sealed off without the possibility of communication and yet they are together'."

[1realityjones1]

A little vent post:

I don't know if I've ever truly felt like this before in my life. I know the emotion I'm plagued with, the tightness in my chest that restricts my breathing. Dread, the utter fear of something you can't run away from. The fear of something persistent that haunts you day and night.

I feel as though I walk through a warehouse in the black darkness of night. There is no light to look towards, no guide to light my way on the right path through my life. I grasp towards phantoms and figments of the imagination, of hope, in the void and hope to find something concrete. I hope to finally grab on to something that may put me onto a desirable path.

The things I used to hold onto are fading and crumbling apart. My family is breaking, dying. My home is disappearing, I must find somewhere else to lay my head in peace. I'm the rope in a tug-of-war, my family tugging one of my arms and my friends tugging my other. My family is pulling me further as they have more strings to tie me down with, but my friends know to grab my heart and hold tight. It feels impossible to live with my family without my heart, and yet itbis equally impossible for the heart to live without the body.

The struggle to hold my head above the waves of events has been the struggle of my life, and I've been barely keeping my nose out of the depths for years.

I hadn't struggled for most of my life. I had known where to go and what to aim for. I never thought to look into it, never thought to look past the pretty colours of the painting of my imagined future as a child and see the trials I'd have to complete before I could experience what the art depicted. When one looks at art, they see wishes. They see the rose-tinted photograph, even if the photograph is of the heinous. Sometimes, I think the art that hides the horrible is worse than than the art that shows it proudly.

I wish I had been taught better. Not that anyone in my life that had taught me did poorly. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say I was the one that should have done better. A good student asks questions, they understand the art themselves and understand the background of the image. They understand without being told to understand. I shrugged and told myself and others I understood even when I didn't so I wouldn't take time from others nor would I lose my own time.

I regret much in my life. I regret not asking more questions, not taking the initiative in so many things and allowing so many opportunities slip through the fingers like quicksilver. I made so many choices that hurt others just because those around me made those very same choices. I regret losing contact with friends, I regret the time I spent with them. I regret how I tried to help others when they told me not to help, where I ended up causing problems for everyone around me instead of doing any good.

I'm in a hall of mirrors. Constantly looking for an escape, yet finding only memories of misdeeds, mistakes, and moments I wish to return to. I look to my left and see myself as a bully, making fun of someone simply trying to fit in. I wish I hadn't fit in so well by being a bully. I look to my right and see myself saying horrible things to people that cared about me and loved me just so that I could be what I believed others wanted me to be. I look behind and see myself as a child pretending I am a super hero saving the damsel in distress in a small home with warm sunlight that never felt too small and still feels perfect. I look forward and see someone. They are my height, my weight, my shape, they have my face, my body, my hands, my scars. They are me, yet they are not at the same time. I walk forward, I do not want to walk to the left or right again. I cannot turn around and go back, I fear I will never be able to leave the paintings of the past.

I like video games because most of them have a way point. A candle in that dark warehouse. They are paintings I can physically interact with, paintings I can choose to understand or not as long as I enjoy experiencing them. I can learn from them, I can learn from the others telling their stories and painting the pictures. I have always wanted to be the painter. I have always wanted to draw a picture for an audience to understand or not, to try to teach them and show the mistakes I made and prevent someone from becoming me.

My father spoke about many things, as many intelligent people with little outlets for their genius do. He once told me he didn't want me to be like him, he wanted me to be better. His bar was not difficult to pass. He was an alcoholic and a chain smoker, I am not. I am better. He wanted to be a writer as a child, and he always encouraged me to embrace what I loved, my creativity. He was always supportive. Would he be supportive of other things if he were still alive? Would he be proud I'm taking the steps to become the writer he never was? I do not know. I doubt he'd support my identity, but I cannot see him being unsupportive.

I know I want others to be better than me. I don't want anyone to struggle like I have, and I realize I've been blessed by not being a poor child. I never had to receive hand me downs from family to even have anything to wear. I never had to struggle for dinner or breakfast or lunch. I never went hungry. I have it better than most, yet I feel the contrary. I hate that feeling.

I am running around in circles in my words and thoughts. I am reaching towards phantoms of my past and figments of hopes and dreams. I'm trying to find something to follow, and the things I'm finding are just memories leading me in circles. I'll find a memory of my father and it will lead me through the maze of mirrors again. I will take a left, a right, I'll turn around and go forward. I will latch on to one phantom and let it go just to chase another figment right before I get to something. I don't know what that something is. Is it the painful series of images of my father's conditions in the last few years of his life? Or is it flashes of happiness of my father, my mother, and I happy and enjoying each other's company. I don't know. I'll eventually go down those vortexes again, and again, and again. I will always find myself in that maze of mirrors of my mind, hoping to find a candle to use in the dark warehouse. I continue to search, even now as I write. I hope that perhaps I have found my candle.

TLDR: I don't know if I'd consider this a poem, but this is just me trying to figure my thoughts out. I have a lot going on, and I feel so overwhelmed. I'm hoping that I can keep my thoughts focused and deliberate if I write them down.

[egcdeath]

checkmate

summary: you’ve always refused to lose, and love was no exception. (gone girl-ish au)

pairing(s): ransom drysdale x dark!reader, a special mystery guest ;) 

word count: 3.7k

warnings: 18+ because of heavy themes! faked death, framing of crimes, manipulation, alluding to sex, alluding to cheating, terrible relationship dynamic, very loose usage of the word crazy/psychotic, implied mention of self harm, brief choking & slapping (in a non sexual way lol), pregnancy trapping (idk if thats the right term), the reader is a very bad human being, overuse of italics  *please let me know if i’m missing any warnings!

author’s note: this is my 2nd submission for @stargazingfangirl18’s 5k soft dark challenge, i decided to make the reader dark >:) but ransom is also not a good person. I used these prompts: “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.” & The town golden *girl isn’t as sweet as everyone thinks.

this is definitely the most unhinged thing i’ve ever written, but blame @literate-lamb for making me write this because when i pitched this to her and said that i’d probably never write it, she enabled me. 

okay that's enough from me. join my taglist if you want :D

“I know women whose entire personas are woven from a benign mediocrity. Their lives are a list of shortcomings: the unappreciative boyfriend, the extra ten pounds, the dismissive boss, the conniving sister, the straying husband. I've always hovered above their stories, nodding in sympathy and thinking how foolish they are, these women, to let these things happen, how undisciplined. And now to be one of them! One of the women with the endless stories that make people nod sympathetically and think: Poor dumb bitch.” Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Your whole life, you’d considered yourself a competitive person. Constantly overcompensating for one thing or another, whether it was the chronic desire to achieve perfection that had been installed in you since you were a little girl, or your persistent internalized sense of inadequacy. You realized early on that it was much better for you to win than for you to lose, no matter the physical, emotional, or mental cost of the prize of perfection.

For the most part, this mindset worked out for you. You graduated as Valedictorian from your high school, neared the top of your graduating class at Harvard. God knew you earned it, all those tears you shed into overpriced textbooks, all the popping of unprescribed Adderall, and robbing yourself of the parties and social events that the rest of your peers gladly indulged in. 

You were just different, which was why you gained a job nearly immediately after your exit from school, quickly climbing to the top at the Blood Like Wine publishing company after only a few years of being there. 

And one night, at the party celebrating the release of A Thousand Knives when you laid your eyes on Hugh Ransom Drysdale, the grandson of your boss, you knew that you needed to have him. Rich, hot, a bit of an asshole. You deserved to finally complete your image, and that socialite flavored eye candy seemed to fit the part perfectly. Luckily for you, he was desperate. It only took a few tugs on your dress’ V-line, and a number of knowing smirks to find yourself being finger-banged in his family manor’s bathroom.

From there, you wormed your way into his life. Leaving belongings at his place as an excuse to come back, and offering booty calls in the middle of the night. Ransom must’ve been much more desperate than you originally thought, as it really only seemed to take one night of stroking his hair while he vented about his family to make him want to be with you. Men with mommy issues were always so easy. 

Except, he wasn’t that easy. The longer you got to know Ransom, the more fucked up you realized he really was. He had no boundaries at all, became jealous and enraged at the drop of a pin, and occasionally told you things that made the hairs on your arms rise. 

This of course all came to a head after the night of Harlan’s 85th birthday party. When the news broke of his tragic death, you’d immediately known it was the works of your Hugh. If your intuition wasn’t enough, his confession in the shower, where he’d demanded you take off your clothes to display that you were without a bug, certainly was. 

You were completely devastated. The man that you’d invested so much into for years had thrown both his and your reputations down the drain in just a matter of hours. Of course, you felt bad for Harlan too. He was a good guy (when he wasn’t instigating a family fight).

Still, you showed up during the funeral in your best mourning clothes and dawning your biggest crocodile tears. You rubbed Linda’s back while she mourned the loss of her father, and the new truth about her husband. You played dumb when interrogated by some Southern private investigator, even giving Ransom an airtight alibi. You testified on his behalf in court with enough conviction to grant you an Emmy. 

You’d gotten so far, devoted so much energy into him, that you simply refused to lose now. 

To your friends, you’d seemed to lead a near perfect life. Dream job, dreamy boyfriend, dream bank account, but it wasn’t enough. You wanted more, you just didn’t know what. 

It dawned on you while sipping mimosas at the country club, Ransom playing tennis with his friends just a few yards away from you while Danielle showed off her brand new engagement ring, a .59 Carat Asscher Diamond, that if you heard her speak of again, would probably make you lose your shit.

You zoned out as she droned on and on about the shape, and how Matt proposed to her in their own private room in one of the most exclusive Parisian restaurants, instead focusing on how you could find yourself in the same position as that airhead next to you. In all honesty, you couldn’t stand the idea that someone was doing better than you, let alone someone in your own social circle. Dani got all the bragging rights of being engaged to the heir of some tech giant, being the first in your friend group to get eloped, and worst of all, Matt wasn’t even making her sign a prenup. 

You blankly watched Ransom from afar, taking occasional sips from your sweet drink, while you thought of how you deserved all of that and more, and you were going to get it one way or another. 

——

It didn’t take much to come up with something, your first and most obvious plan being to simply ask Ransom when he was going to propose to you. Of course, this wasn’t the first time you’d tried to approach him about this subject, you just wondered if maybe this time things would be different.

Panting heavily after a rather rough night in bed, you rolled off of your boyfriend’s chest and gave him a messy, yet sincere kiss. You knew your man well, and if there was any time to pop the question, it was in his post-nut haze.

“Baby,” you said breathily, “I wanna ask you something.”

“Shoot,” he responded casually, glancing over at you. 

“When’re you gonna propose to me?” you hummed.

Ransom groaned and shook his head, rolling his eyes, “this is about Matt and Dani, huh?” he tutted, then extended a hand out to your warm cheeks so he could gently caress one with his thumb. “Thought we agreed marriage is just a piece of paper and it’s stupid.”

You huffed in response.

Of fucking course.

“I never said that,” you muttered, setting a hand on his broad chest. “Besides, it’ll be good if you get pissed and decide to like, kill your dad or something. Y’know, spouses don’t have to testify against each other in court.”

Ransom chuckled as if this whole thing was funny, like your feelings were some kind of sick joke to him. “You know my lawyers, babe. They could prove that bees don’t make honey. That bears don’t shit in the forest. I appreciate your attempt, though. This has been some really nice pillow talk.” 

“Whatever,” you muttered, pinching his nipple in retaliation before turning your back to him and yanking the blanket onto your side. 

You weren’t sure why you were so surprised that he was being stubborn, most of the time you felt like you were pulling teeth from the man. But that’s why you had a backup plan! You always had a backup plan. That’s what separated you from your boyfriend. Where Ransom was extemporized and impulsive, you were calculating and prudent. 

Although you devised your plan that very afternoon while watching your partner backhand small green balls, you were going to need some time to get everything in order, to prove Murphy and his stupid law wrong in making sure that everything that could go wrong wouldn’t. 

After all, love was a game. And you sure as hell weren’t losing to Hugh Drysdale. 

——

You sacrificed too much to have your plans ruined by some trust fund baby with impulsivity issues. You deserved your dream marriage, the stability you wished you had as a child. You wanted the white picket fence, and everything that came along with it. Your desire to be the best, to be perfect was what drove you to poke holes in every condom in the box, what led you to draw liters of your own blood in hopes of staging a fake crime scene, to buy a cheap getaway car and burner phone off of Craigslist, and reach out to a high school boyfriend who you knew was in a position as desperate as you. 

You planted seeds of doubt in your friends throughout the following weeks, feeding them lies about Ransom’s behavior, how you were afraid of telling him that you did in fact see two faint red lines on that damn plastic stick– only half of the statement truly being false–, telling them that he was behaving erratically lately.

It all was going without a hitch. Ransom didn’t seem to notice anything was off, despite your frequent visits to the bathroom and newfound affinity for true crime documentaries. 

You almost felt guilty, knowing the world of pain you were about to throw the man into. Granted, he deserved the pain. You were in a relationship with a genuinely terrible person, and that person had made a conscious effort not to commit to you. You tried to make this easy for him, give him a chance to say a few words to you and slide a ring on your finger, but no, he always seemed to take the hard route.

You slept like a baby the night before you were setting your plan in action. You made sure to uphold the facade of everything being fine, making Ransom a nice breakfast before sending him halfway across town to the hardware store with an oddly incriminating list.

Once he was out of the house, you hurried off to the fridge in the garage where you’d been keeping a small stash of your own blood. It wasn’t pretty, but it had to be done. You poured the blood throughout the kitchen, splattering bits of it on the counters and cupboards. You poorly cleaned the mess, just as he would.

You put your next move in motion, falsifying a home invasion. You tossed over a table and some chairs, throwing books and photos onto the floor, but left some aspects slightly untouched, like an upright picture frame to give yet another hint that things were not exactly what they appeared. 

You left a tiny blue post-it note on the nightstand of Ransom’s side of the bed, a quick and simple doodle of a ring along with the first initial of your name inked onto the tiny piece of paper. 

With that, you were off. Technically missing, soon-to-be presumed dead.

----

 The days following your disappearance had gone even better than you’d initially planned. Local news coverage had been all over you, search and rescue groups were assiduously looking for you, your parents had opened a tip line, and begged for you to get home safe on news segments. But the best part of it all was that Ransom had been briefly found himself in police custody, only to be released shortly thereafter. His past of an accused murder quickly made your disappearance even more of a national story, and you watched the whole thing unravel from the safety and comfort of your high school boyfriend, Andy Barber’s Newton home. 

Of course, you fed him the same lies you’d given to your friends, and seeing the rather lonely position he was in, he gladly let you stay with him. You were absolutely having a hay-day with it all, dedicating hours of your day to watching Ransom slowly unravel. Maybe it was a bit sadistic of you to enjoy torturing your partner so much, but he needed to learn his lesson. You deserved better. You needed Ransom to rise up to your level, allowing you to finally complete your image. To let you two appear to be the perfect couple. Really, this was all on him.

Andy, for the most part, had been a good host. He was gone for the majority of the day, dedicating himself to his work while you lounged around on his dangerously cozy couch. Around two weeks into your stay, you were sharing a box of pizza in the living room with your old lover when something interesting on the television caught your eye.

Ransom, broadcasted on CBS, being interviewed on your disappearance. 

You watched with wide eyes as Ransom begged for your return on national television. It was one thing seeing your mother plead for you to come back, the same woman who had installed such toxic behavior in you sob for your return, but Ransom. You’d never loved him more than in that moment.

“Hugh, if you could tell Y/N one thing, what would it be?” the interviewer asked.

Ransom turned, looking straight at the camera, directly into your soul, “Y/N, I love you so much. More than you’ll ever know. I need you to come back safely, to see you, to hold you again. I’d give anything in the world for that right now,” he looked down, a tear falling down his cheek. “I can’t live without you in my life, I-”

His sentence was cut off by Andy grabbing the remote, and turning off the TV. You turned your head and frowned deeply at him.

“Why’d you do that?” you asked with a bit of a pout.

“I just couldn’t stand listening to him talk about you like he hasn’t treated you like shit for the past few years. C’mon, let’s get ready for bed.”

Your blood boiled. Andy was once a means to an end, but now he was interfering. He was clearly much too selfish to see that you and Ransom were quite obviously soulmates. A match made in hell. 

You followed him to bed regardless, curling up on what had been your side of the bed for the past few days, and staring at the wall until Andy’s breaths moved from a soft and rhythmic pattern to loud snores. God, those snores were obnoxious. 

You slipped out of bed and to his dresser, grabbing two soft ties from the drawer, and daintily tying his wrists to each side of the bedpost.

“What‘re you doing?” he mumbled, instinctively yanking both of his wrists as he awoke.

“I’m going back home,” you whispered.

“You can’t be serious,” Andy huffed, tugging on the restraint attached to the headboard.

You shook your head, “I am.”

“I should’ve known. Why would you do something like this? Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in with the law?”

“Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in when the world finds out that you kidnapped me?” you retorted.

This threat seemed to wake him up right away, “what about this was kidnapping? I gave you a nice home, fed you, I didn’t even make a pass at you. I didn’t do shit to you,” he hissed. “You think I can’t prove that? I’m a lawyer, for god's sake!”

You nearly laughed, “Okay, Andy,” you paused for a moment, “As a lawyer, who do you think everyone’ll believe? Someone who the world was on a wild goose chase for in the last two weeks? Or the man with a family history of violence? Must I remind you that your father and your son have killed people?”

Andy shook his head, face pinched in sorrow at the mention of his deceased son, clearly a low blow. “You’re insane,” he muttered.

“Swear to god that you won’t tell a soul what happened here,” you leaned over him, getting right in his face. “Or I promise, Andrew Barber, I will ruin you. You’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars, or disbarred, or whatever the hell I decide to do with you. So keep your goddamn lips shut.” 

You pulled away and he solemnly nodded, not bothering to put up a fight. You loosened the fabric around his left wrist and walked out of the room. You picked up the keys to Andy’s Audi on your way out, checking the time as you adjusted the driver's seat. 

9:45 PM. Fatherhood really changed the man.

You pushed that thought aside and began your drive home, which turned out to be a surprisingly short trip. When you pulled up in front of your home, you were met with a slew of reporters outside of the house, along with a police car that seemed to be permanently camped there.

As you slowly got out of the car, a gasp, followed by a loud silence fell across the crowd. You limped for dramatic effect up the driveway as cameras followed you, and glanced back at them pathetically. From your peripheral view, you noticed the officers get out of their vehicle.

You finally got to your door, ringing the doorbell and waiting. You blinked harshly a few times, conjuring up the tears you needed to really make a spectacle of the event. After a few minutes, Ransom opened the door, eyes widening as he looked at you. He stepped out, and you wrapped him in as big of a hug as you could manage, genuinely missing his embrace. It was possible that you even let out a few real tears in the moment.

Your emotional embrace was interrupted by the man you recognized as Lieutenant Elliott, the same officer who’d been assigned to Harlan’s case. 

“Ma’am,” he began, only to be shut down by you. 

“Please, just let me be with my boyfriend,” you pleaded, crocodile tears streaming down your face as you spoke with the officer. You still needed time to get your story straight.

“Just give us the night, Lieutenant. We’ll come in first thing tomorrow morning,” Ransom added, furrowing his brows at the officer that he’d come into contact with far too many times. 

He looked to his partner, who shrugged, then to you, “enjoy your night.”

Cameras flashed around you as civilians, journalists, and newscasters alike attempted to catch your attention. You grabbed Ransom’s hand and dramatically pulled him inside, insincerely attempting to hide your face by ducking and covering half of your face with your arm. 

As soon as you were in the privacy of your own home, Ransom threw you against a wall. 

“Why. The fuck. Would you pull a stunt like that,” he hissed through gritted teeth, eyes wild, and a hand around your throat. 

You whimpered as he tightened his grip, rage clearly flowing through his system uncontrollably.

“Do you know what you did to me? You almost had me thrown in fucking jail. Do you understand that?”

You nodded weakly, “Ran,” you whispered, “the baby,” you glanced down at your stomach.

He paused, dropping his grip on your neck and staring at you in awe, “no…” 

You nodded again. 

“How…? You told me you were on the pill… You- you made me use protection…”

“Surprise?” you said weakly. 

“You’re a psychotic bitch.”

“I’m your psychotic bitch. And no child of mine will be born out of wedlock,” you taunted. 

“That’s what this is about?” Ransom laughed manically. “You did this all because I won’t fucking marry you?”

You didn’t even have to respond.

“I should send you to the loony bin right fucking now.”

“What happened to all those things you said to me on TV?”

“You’re fucking delusional. I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. And you will. I’ve had to put up with you and your stupid little antics for way too long. How do you think I felt when you killed your own grandfather?”

Ransom scoffed, throwing his hands up in exasperation, “you are so fucked up.”

“I’m the fucked up one? You killed your own blood in cold blood! You’re unhinged!” 

“You faked your own death for attention, and got pregnant while doing it! Is that baby even mine?”

“The fuck are you trying to say, Hugh?”

“I asked if it’s even mine.”

“Really. You’re accusing me of cheating on you. That’s rich considering Mia, Layla, and whoever the fuck else. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m being ridiculous? You couldn’t have a normal adult conversation with me!”

“Are you kidding me? I asked you time after time to marry me and it was always some bullshit excuse!” you wagged a finger in his face as you spoke. “Oh, commitment scares me, oh, marriage is just a piece of paper, oh-“ you mocked his voice in a deeper tone before you were cut off by the sting of his hand against your cheek.

“Can you shut the hell up?” he growled at you as you held your own cheek, before you reached out and slapped him back, “I can’t believe that I’m stuck with such a deranged bitch for the rest of my life.”

“Maybe work on your vows a little, dear. I don’t think that those words are as charming to me as they’d be to the rest of our family and friends.”

“You can’t be serious,” he groaned.

“But I am,” you hummed, rubbing your cheek softly once again. “Look at how fast your life fell apart without me here. How quickly the public turned on you. Imagine how upset they’d be if you left me. I love you, Ran. I really do. You and I are perfect for each other, can’t you see that now?”

Ransom took a step away from you, pacing slowly in front of you. He ran a stressed hand through his hair, and took a long and drawn out breath, clearly at a loss for words.

“So when should we have the wedding? I’ve always wanted a Spring wedding, and I know it’s a little short notice, but I don’t want to be showing too much in my wedding dress,” you grabbed Ransom’s bicep gently, as if you were just having a regular old day with him, as if you hadn’t been choked and slapped moments ago. “But we can make it work. We always make it work, right?”

Your now fiancé stared vacantly at the wall ahead of him, giving you a slow, empty nod of agreement. 

“It’s settled then,” you smirked. “I’ll start looking at venues. You find me a nice ring, okay Honey? One that puts all those other bitches’ rings to shame,” you sighed pleasantly to yourself, “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.”

You pressed a soft kiss to his cheek before hurrying up the stairs and into your bedroom. You heard a distant shriek of  “fuck,” from Ransom, but you truly could not care less. 

You hopped into bed, grabbing your laptop from its charger and promptly opening it. You couldn’t help but to smile at your own reflection on the empty black screen. This wasn’t how you imagined your engagement, but you did the impossible. You tied yourself down to Hugh Ransom Drysdale, he went down kicking in screaming, and you were likely in for a lifetime of cheating and resentment, but you did it nonetheless. 

You finally won.  

[chroma-ki]

What Happens When Society Fails Those Who Could Succeed - A Bakugo Katsuki Analysis

I started this a while ago, but I’ve seen others delve into this topic and I wanted to share as well. This delves into to hero society’s affects on Bakugo Katsuki’s upbringing, his worldview, his self-view, and Izuku’s involvement in breaking down the ideas society has drilled into his head. 

A lot of people like to ignore the fact that Katsuki is a 14-year-old kid at the start of the series and that much of his life, attitude and disposition of the world have been completely shaped by the adults and society around him. 

What do you expect a kid with potential to turn into when they are warped in such a way by a society that dictates that they need to be strong, or nothing at all? What about when your only value is based around a sliding scale of strength and weakness? What happens when that kid’s only source of help comes in the form of a reckless, selfless child who defies all sense of logic and reason (Izuku)?

Growing up, Bakugo was constantly praised for being strong, having a powerful quirk and being generally the smartest person in the room at any given time. He could arguably be considered a prodigy, and much of what he sees and learns feels beneath him -- because it's already on his mind. He is a kid with natural god-given talent that everyone around him immediately recognizes as above average. 

Even as a toddler, he was constantly a step ahead of everyone else. Due to this, people developed a lot of high expectations for him at a young age -- and it doesn't help that he has a naturally competitive streak that makes him constantly want to prove himself and live up to these expectations; even surpass them.

Always being at the top of his class and being ahead of the curve mentally fuel the idea in Katsuki's mind that, in the game of life, he is 'winning'. Yet, at the same time, none of it is ever enough. Other's high expectations of him cause him to build extremely high expectations of himself; expectations that border on unrealistic. They also inflate his ego exponentially when this praise gets reaffirmed time and time again.

Certainly, in a situation where you're raised on other people's praise and validation, it is completely understandable that you would put a lot of emotional emphasis on other people's opinions of you. On top of that, he gives off such a natural and convincing air of confidence that people can't help but feel that he is reliable, despite his attitude. People are awed by him, and all of it feeds into the mental image he has constructed of himself, and the world as a whole. It's the whole reason for a lot of how he acts. He builds an image of himself based on the praise of those around him -- and even Izuku also feeds into this mentality by worshipping the literal ground Katsuki walks on as a kid.

This mentality seems to be working fine for him until Izuku's very presence starts to throw a wrench into everything Katsuki has been raised to believe. 

Izuku completely defies logic to Katsuki. Izuku does not fit the societal norm and, beyond what others have taught him, Izuku is Katsuki’s only real hint that the world might not be quite what he thinks it is, and that his idea of what it means to be strong may not be a ‘one-size fits all’ defenition.

Izuku is a quirkless kid; weak and generally mild-mannered. He doesn't have any self-confidence and is a big crybaby. Yet, Izuku still believes that he can be strong and become a hero -- when Katsuki has always been told the opposite. Katsuki recognizes that this may be some version of strength he is unaware of, and it raises BIG RED FLAGS in his mind.

Where many of Katsuki's other childhood friends were barely more than acquaintances who he forgot over time, Izuku immediately caught Katsuki's interest and spiked his curiosity. Like everyone else in his life, Izuku praised Katsuki and told him all the things he wanted to hear -- but Izuku was also unique and intelligent. Izuku was the first person who actually seemed like they could stand near Katsuki's level; like they might be actual competition. 

Then, Bakugo got his quirk and Izuku is diagnosed as quirkless. The reactions of everyone around him to this news, including Izuku’s own reaction, only go back to telling him what society has told him all along. Strength is everything, and quirks are a part of that desired strength. This is another moment that reaffirms Katsuki's world view. "I won, you lose. I really am the best."

Though Bakugo is super aggressive on the outside, he is a very self-critical character and often means the opposite of whatever he is saying. Especially when it comes to his self-confidence and bravado. 

People often complain when watching the series about him telling people to 'die' and "got to hell", or calling other people "extras", and I don't think enough people understand -- that is just how he speaks. Those are things he says out of reflexive anger. None of those words ever have any real meaning. 

It's more important to pay more attention to the moments in which he is more reserved/quiet. He suffers from both a superiority complex and inferiority complex, as well as paranoia (much of which revolves around his warped idea of how Deku, and other people he values, perceive him). Much of what he says is just empty words or him trying to project an image of self-confidence.

He wears his pride like a suit of armor to hide all the things he doesn't want to admit about himself. He attempts to make up for his own insecurities by getting angry. And he learned this at home from his mother, who is much the same as him.

From the little that we have seen of his parents throughout the series so far, his parents love him and provide him with everything he could possibly need -- but his mother often insults him and throws harsh truths in his face to counteract his cocky nature. One of the most notable instances of this is when All Might and Aizawa are talking to his parents about moving the kids to the dorms and his mom says "If you hadn't have gotten yourself caught by the villains in the first place, none of this would have happened".

That comment feeds directly into his mental breakdown in front of Izuku where he blames himself for All Might's downfall, flat out saying that "If I hadn't been kidnapped by villains, then it never would have happened".

It gets me every time if you go back to the 8th episode of the series, near the VERY BEGINNING -- right after he's defeated by Deku for the first time in combat training -- and the episode literally starts with him having a full on panic attack. 

He's trembling, hands shaking, hyperventilating, the whole deal. And that particular incident was triggered not only by Deku defeating him and standing up to him (which completely contradicts the Izuku that Bakugo has grown up with all his life and feeds into Bakugo's own fear that he is weak), but is also brought on by the fact that he notices how severely Deku allowed himself to be injured JUST TO WIN THE EXCERSIZE. Again, this idea that even the weak can be strong. It also doesn’t help that he cares about Izuku and doesn’t want to see him get hurt.

And I'm sorry -- but below does not look like the face of someone who's pissed off to me. He looks PETRIFIED.

Izuku doesn't just piss Bakugo off -- Izuku TERRIFIES him.

There are actually multiple instances of him reacting like this to Izuku injuring himself throughout the series: sludge villain, sports festival fight against Todoroki and the training camp where Bakugo was kidnapped being the major ones I can think of beyond current managa events. Bakugo may claim to ‘hate’ Deku, but he DOES NOT like to see Deku hurt himself to win, or to save. 

Bakugo saw this 'self-sacrificing' trait in Izuku even as a young kid, and it freaked him out. It made him feel weak. It made him question himself and the world around him.

This fear starts with the incident where Bakugo fell off the log as a kid. 

It wasn't a life threatening situation, but it was the first situation where Izuku rushed to Bakugo's aid with complete disregard to himself AND when everyone else refused to help. 

Bakugo's friends, teachers and parents all held him to such high expectations of intelligence, power and strength -- so of course those would be the values that he grows up idolizing. No one ever really offered him help, because they assumed he didn't need it -- and then Izuku comes rushing in offering it to him, risking his life to do so, and Katsuki's only thought is "Why?! Why do you feel like you have to save me when you can't even protect yourself? Needing to be saved means that I'm weak! Do you think that I'm weak?" I have recently watched another show that had a similar scenario and that character explained what I believe Katsuki felt in this situation BEAUTIFULLY.  ------ “It felt like [he] was trying to say I was weak or something. [He] was intruding on feelings [he] didn’t have any right to – and I hated it. Then that got me thinking about everyone else in my life. They never treated me like I was a weakling; someone who needed his hand held. They had faith that I would continue to grow and they let me do it; helping me without ever making me feel weak.” 

Izuku continues to do this again and again throughout the series when it comes to Bakugo: the slime villain incident, the training camp, etc -- all without fully comprehending how his actions affect Bakugo. Each time this happens, Bakugo feels weak and utterly helpless to save himself OR to stop Izuku. It's all his worst fears realized.

It's like living his worst nightmare over and over without end in sight.

Going back to the concept of him being offered 'help', very few people have offered him this throughout his life -- and they all saw it as something he never really needed. It's like Katsuki's personality and mental state is a huge sign screaming 'I DON'T UNDERSTAND! NOTHING MAKES SENSE! IT MAKES ME MAD AND UPSET! SOMEONE, HELP ME.' and everyone just ignores it.

--- During the log incident - all his friends say 'Oh well, he's fine. He'll pick himself back up.' and Izuku is the only one who offers to help. 

--- The sludge villain incident - all the pro heroes say "We can't help right now! You'll just have to hold on, kid!" and again Izuku is the only one who offers help.

--- After his and Deku’s first fight at Ground Beta, which utterly breaks him, all the other students just let him leave alone and only Izuku rushes to help. All Might sees him upset and crying after this and says, “Oh, I guess he’s already over it” -- when that obviously wasn’t the case. 

--- And then -- to top it all off -- after he was kidnapped by the LOV and held captive for 3 days without help he wasn't even given time to process! He was taken away by police, ridiculed by his mother, forced to go back to school where his teachers acted like nothing happened, jumped into the provisional hero licensing exam with all those helpless feelings rolling around inside of him and on top of it found out that Izuku received All Might's power -- a power that he had spent his whole life putting on a pedestal. And he goes to Izuku for help.

The fact that everyone just brushed him off like he was someone who didn't need help is just disgusting. The only instance where an adult in his life acknowledged that he needed it was AFTER he already had a full on mental breakdown in front of Izuku, blaming himself for everything that had gone wrong and thinking that he had somehow been living his life wrong all this time. Only then did All Might and Aizawa think, ‘Yeah, maybe we failed this kid.’ 

Keep in mind during all of this that he is 15-16-years-old! He's trying to figure out how to deal with this shit all on his own, with the only person he feels comfortable opening up to being Izuku - someone who he has so much trouble understanding.

At the heart of Katsuki is a place of fear. Fear of being weak, fear of being helpless, fear of failure, fear of losing his friends, fear of himself, most certainly fear of Izuku -- and fear FOR IZUKU. He is a boy who lives in a constant state of panic, worry and paranoia. He is lonely and beats down on himself a lot.

The series deals a lot with how hero society has completely failed it's future generations, but Katsuki is a case where they should have succeeded -- yet ultimately they failed him too. He has all the makings of what could be one of the greatest heroes of all time, yet those around him only focused on the parts of him that could make him great and chose to ignore all the parts that would ruin him from the inside out. 

They put him high up on a pedestal only to knock him down and refuse to help him back up. They made him feel like even asking for help was something that made him 'lesser', and it caused him to see other people that way too.

Izuku is the heart of Katsuki's growth, because in every way that Izuku succeeds, Katsuki fails. 

I would actually argue that out of anyone in the series since coming to UA, Katsuki has experienced the highest amount of personal failure. He has been knocked down time and time again but ultimately wants to pick himself back up to prove that he deserves to be there. He fights for his friends and tries his best at everything he does. He doesn't always get it right, and he says things that might offend others, but other than Izuku, he's the most driven person there and would utterly destroy himself to reach his goals.

[sneezefiction]

please don’t go

Ushijima x Reader - Scenario

@moonlightaangel‘s event request: “congrats on reaching 600 followers!! 🥰 can i request ‘please don’t go’ with ushijima, if it hasn’t been requested yet! i need some angsty feelings in my life”

a/n: mmmm angsty Ushijima is my aesthetic :,,)) i also messed around with some flashback formatting, so i hope you enjoy!!

warnings: angst, breakups

wc: 1640

---

“Please don’t go.” It’s a soft, tearful whisper.

“I thought you would understand, y/n. We had established this.” His reply was blunt. Like a dull knife to the chest, digging deeply only to pull right back out, leaving you gushing and writhing at his words.

“Please don’t.” Your cry reached his ears this time.

“I need to focus.” He sighs, twinging with guilt. 

Why didn’t you understand? Had you not known that his career would come first? Above everything else?

Or had he misspoken at some point, giving you the false assurance that this relationship would work forever? That he could always treat you as though it were possible to balance both you and his life’s work.

“Then I won’t distract you! Just don’t leave me. Please.” You begged, knees painfully falling to the cold floor, but your cries fell on deaf ears. 

He remains resistant to change. Without accommodations. Nothing left to give or take.

“Maybe someday, y/n. But this isn’t working out for me anymore. I have to leave for now.” Ushijima’s response is icy. 

He meant for those words to somehow be heartening. Promising, even. That maybe this was just the wrong time and place for a relationship. Where time could ebb and flow and someday he would be able to draw you back into his life.

Yes, there would be a day where you could take priority.

Because he wanted you… but not above his first love. Not above his skills and lifestyle. Not enough.

Volleyball comes first. Plain and simple.

And for that, he wouldn’t compromise.

---

White, crisp linens and fresh lemony scents.

Fluffed pillows fitted with new covers and soft patterns. Feather filled duvets. Curtains drawn to keep out the early morning light. 

Everything has stayed clean, clear, and Pristine. Even the dust particles, dancing around the room, have always seemed to find their own peace, settling mildly in gentle formations.

You sleepily blink open your eyes, rustling your arms over the bedspread to what should be a happier sight. Soft pillows hugging your sides, the gentle birdsong outside your window, a conceivably delicious cup of coffee to be made in the kitchen.

Yes, you should be filled with contentment. You were safe. Physically you were fine, and nothing was on your checklist for today.

In fact, things had appeared fine for months now...

Yet all you notice is who’s missing.

There’s no longer a delicate divet where his dozing head used to lay. The scent and shape of the pillow had only recently dissipated thanks to your citrusy laundry detergent and the slow passing of time.

You don’t awaken to a recently showered, olive-green eyed boyfriend. You could still picture the water droplets, hanging freshly on the tips of his tufts of hair. How the towel draped around his neck, over his shoulders, catching the drips and drops as they fell.

That warm smile he shared with you before placing a chaste kiss upon your forehead, caressing the side of your face. It was pure. You can almost feel the ghost of his lips. Still lingering. Mocking you.

You were liberated from his presence… but you never wanted to be.

Being absorbed in his chaotic life had kept you busy, but you had never minded it. There was never a doubt in your mind that volleyball would be his first priority. That he would follow his passions. His plans. His abilities.

You just wanted to tag along. To sincerely celebrate his victories and mourn his losses. Supporting him and holding onto him when he needed it. Yes, he got home late at night, left early in the morning, and only connected with you on his very few off days… but you cherished every second of it.

Because you loved him. You poured your soul into watching him flourish and thrive. It made you feel whole.

However, eventually, to Ushijima, you started to rival volleyball, becoming a distraction. He had made space for you in his already complicated life. And at first, it was a welcome change. A breath of fresh air to his methodical and planned out character. You were complex, bringing new perspective and sunshine into his typically boring apartment. Beautiful in a natural, yet eye-catching way. Furthermore, you somehow knew how to keep up with his hectic pace along with his gruff personality. 

In every aspect, you were perfect.

Expect one.

You were a diversion from the life he had in mind.

And even though you never pushed him to give you more… he longed to give you more of his attention. More time. To share his success with you. To love you deeper. To give you what you deserved. Because you are a profound being… and it burdened him to have to choose between his two greatest desires.

But, as most things do, these thoughts of love and devotion go unspoken, coming out all wrong. Mangled, unemotional, and misrepresented. Looking back, Ushijima wishes he’d been able to express it to you with empathy. To erase the tears that followed his brutal narrative. But softness isn’t his strong suit… and he needed you to know that, as powerful as he was, he wasn’t strong enough to balance you and volleyball.

---

“Ushijima, if you leave…” You take a deep breath, tears slipping down your face, “... you have to promise me you’ll never come back.” You choke out, your request came out in a sobering snarl.

For a moment, you question your own words- but your dignity was on the line.

“You can’t just break up with me and expect me to be there when you get back. I’m not disposable, you know?”

His body goes rigid. He hadn’t meant it that way.

You meant more to him than words could express… so why couldn’t he get it out clearly enough? How could he make you understand the gravity of his choices?

“...Y/n, it doesn’t have to be like that. I just need to concentrate right now.” The alarm, though subtle, shines in his eyes.

His usually composed, confident figure began to show cracks of uncertainty. He didn’t want you out of his life… Not at all.

He just needs you out of his mind for the time being. Just until he had things settled. You could come back at some point and he could love you so well. Just the way it was supposed to be.

But clearly he’d struck a deeper chord. He’d selfishly assumed you would wait for him. You weren’t some prized pony.

You’re a person. Someone with worth, plans, and dreams, just like him. He’d failed to acknowledge just how demeaning the truth of his actions were. But it’s too late.

You haven’t replied and the pain is etched intricately across your face.

“Okay, fine.” He breathes in deeply, letting out one final exhalation of defeat, “I... I’m sorry, y/n.” His brows furrow in deep, conflicted thought, but his mind is made.

He won’t be back.

---

Ushijima’s life hasn’t changed much.

It’s the same old routine. The standard, grueling workouts. Typical volleyball practice, group meetings, finances, paychecks, physicals, doctor’s appointments, fan meet-n-greets.

The usual.

But there’s a void settling like glacial frost in his soul. A snowy blue that seemed to melt into his bones, slowing him down.

He didn’t go a week… a day...  a minute without thinking of you.

Even now, lying in bed, the room cloaked in a tranquil darkness, you rest on his mind.

It’s not just the emptiness of the bed or the lack of physical touch. It’s the bitter, clawing memories of what he’d done to you and your gentle spirit. His body is frigid and forever frozen in the recurring visions of his foolish explanations, by how heartless and indifferent he’d seemed.

He’ll never get over the venomous tinge to your words.

You’d felt used.

He’d never meant to make you feel that way.

But since he moved out of your apartment, everything has felt glaringly hollow. The icy, barren tundra he crosses every time he realizes he won’t come home to your sunbeam smile and those thoughtfully lit candles, wears on him. How you would lavish him in comforting words, lulling him into a restful sleep.

Ushijima hardly remembers the last time he slept well.

Those dark circles under his eyes follow him everywhere. His whole team can see the exhaustion seeping into his execution of serves and spikes. He’s never struggled with his game performance before, but somehow the crashing reality of you leaving him has broken his patterns and systems.

He’s weary from searching for an answer to his emotions. Your warmth gave him life… and with that gone, what was the point of all of this?

And then it struck him, the realization sinking its needle-sharp claws into his soul, shredding it in seconds.

He’d found something far more valuable than any unique skill. More remarkable than the legacy he’d built as a world-class volleyball player. Someone who wanted to be with him just for the sake of… love.

And for the first time since he was young, he lets a tear slip into his white pillowcase.

Just one.

But it’s for you.

Because in chasing after what made him feel known and alive...

He’d lost the only person who had ever wanted to show him that he was important all along. The only person who was satisfied with his bizarre schedules. Someone who expected nothing more than gentle kisses and weekend dates.

But you were right.

You aren’t dispensable. Nor are you someone to drop for the purpose of picking up later, like loose change on a sidewalk. You deserved to be cherished. Held tightly. Given the love that you offered others.

He wishes he’d listened when you’d pleaded with him to stay. That he’d thought it through and functioned on more than just logic and reasoning. If only he’d known what it really meant to choose you.

Because if you were here now, he’d be the one begging,

“Please don’t go.”

---

tags: @cherryonigiri, @yams046, @kaidasen, @miss-rin

(comment or send an ask to be added to my general tag list) 

[anonthenullifier]

Alright, my headcanon/prompt that's been living in my mind rent free is the idea that Vision doesn't buy Wanda flowers, he buys her vases with sprouts on them, new life ready to grow. When he first heard of people gifting each other flowers he didn't fully understand why you would kill something, and make your loved one watch it slowly wilt away, when you could get them something they'd help survive. After watching so many loved ones die, I just think Wanda would be really touched to help something live and grow (just like her love for him blossoming)

I love this head canon so much. So damn much! I’ve written a story before (It’s About Thyme) that has them planting a garden and nurturing it as a way to mirror their relationship so to say I like to think about them with plants is an understatement. And then your gorgeous head canon looks at it in a way I never thought about and it’s perfect. Thank you for sharing it!

Here’s a little fic that came to mind as I was reading your ask. I hope you like it!

—

To say Vision is perplexed would be an understatement. Which is itself surprising because he has come to a tentative theory that to be human is to be irrational, and yet this, this crosses a line of reasoning he cannot begin to fathom. Typically he would have Wanda here to volley his concerns towards and to then explain in however many examples and phrasings that it takes for him to understand. Except he is here covertly, under the expert opinion of Sam, to procure a token of affection for all that Wanda provides him. Which brings him to a standstill of indecision waltzing along with a niggling horror at all the implications.

Luckily for him, he hopes, there is a sales associate close by. “Pardon me?” The man turns towards him, brown apron emblazoned with stitched on daisies and a name tag that reads Samuel, a fitting name since the other Samuel in Vision’s life suggested this course of questionable action. “I was advised that purchasing and gifting flowers is a socially appropriate way to convey affection.”

Samuel’s eyes squint for half a second, a common reaction whenever Vision goes out in public. “Uh, yeah. What does your special um,” this scanning over of Vision’s body is also common, uncomfortable, but he does his best to act unperturbed otherwise it might stoke potential fear into ire from his observer, “individual like? We’ve got roses, carnations, lilies, daisies, asters. Anything float your boat?”

If this decision were a boat it would be taking on waves at the moment. “But all of these have been removed from their roots.”

“Yeah, kinda the whole point of making a bouquet.”

The sass is not appreciated but Vision believes in remaining polite because the attitude of the man could be compounded with mistreatment from other customers or negative life events and not solely due to Vision’s inquiry. “Does that not mean they will wilt and die?”

Samuel does not share the distaste for this thought, a simple shrug and a rather unhelpful piece of advice given, “They all come with flower food, helps them stay fresh a bit longer.”

“I see.” Vision determines this issue may be best cogitated alone, so he sends a polite, tight lipped smile towards the man, “Thank you, Samuel.”

“Yep.”

The man leaves and Vision continues his stare down with the beautifully variegated display case in front of him. The differing colors and petal shapes form a kaleidoscope of awe, one that feels romantic and wispy and desirable. Except they will all wilt, the petals will curl up and fall to the ground, and within a week it will be in the trash. His love is not so brief, so fragile and he is perplexed as to why he would present Wanda with a token that cannot survive. Would it not imply his love will fade? That he will, even if fed her own love and passion and attention, eventually fall away from her? Even if she were to dry them out, like he has seen Laura do at the Barton farmhouse, it would require her to keep them someplace safe and to never touch them, the lifeless remnants too delicate and brittle for anything other than distant observation—a poor metaphor for his intended message.

Wanda has endured so much already, the memories as vivid as the Tiger Lily in front of him, days of listlessness and tears, evenings brimming over with invasive memories of all the deaths and all the pain, the only salves he could offer were strong arms and gentle reassurances. Why would he gift her something that will also die? Provide a further suggestion that her life must always be dictated by loss? Why would anyone, rational or not, believe temporal brevity a better show of love than something lasting?

Vision turns away from the bouquets, prepared to leave the store and find somewhere quiet to reassess his gift. It is this defeated swivel that brings a small display into his view, one tucked away as if it was an afterthought. On it are simple clay pots of various sizes, bags of potting soil heaped on the ground next to it, and a little table top rotating kiosk of seed packets awaiting to be planted and nurtured into a long and beautiful life. Vision’s lips curl up at the new idea in his head.

————

There is a subtle chime to her left, in the general vicinity of her door. It is the closest he ever gets to a knock. Wanda puts her book down and waits for the unmistakable gleam of vibranium and the glow of Vision’s phasing to come through the wall located mere inches from her fully functioning door. “Hey Vizh.”

He pauses, irises twisting rapidly to the left and lips puckered as if he’s been caught doing something wrong. Which would be not using her door and yet he still persists and still always makes this face, and it’s a welcome joy in her day. “Good afternoon, Wanda.” Unlike usual, his hands remain behind his back, pulling the threads of his synthetic sweater into a tension similar to his body. “I, um, brought you something.”

Hoping to ease his nerves, she shuffles to the side a bit and then pats the mattress, inviting him to come over and haltingly lower himself to the bed, body remaining twisted to hide whatever it is. “What is it?”

Slowly he brings his arms into view and in his right hand is a clay pot with a little seed packet inside, all wrapped up in a red bow, and in his left is clenched a small bag of soil. Wanda shares her gratitude with a smile, scarlet twining around the gifts and bringing them to her hands to inspect them closer. “I had been informed by a trusted associate that flowers are considered the socially acceptable gift for conveying affection.”

Gently, soothingly she offers a minor correction, knowing he doesn't like to be embarrassed by misinterpreting social advice. “Usually they mean a bouquet.”

A grave nod accompanies his, “I am aware.” Vision lifts his hand, waving it around to help usher out the full story, “But it seemed incongruous to provide you a fleeting gift for a sentiment that is not so,” he hesitates, maybe because he realizes the implication himself or because he can see it in the growing smile on her face, either way he’s committed to the admission of how long he sees this new relationship going and she’s hoping he won’t back down now. And he doesn’t, even if he stammers through it. “brief. I would rather my affections be shown in an appropriately long lasting form.”

Experiencing the fascinating way his mind works is always a pleasure and, due to listening to him and learning the way he thinks and feels, she understands it perfectly, feels a deep, warming thankfulness at this chance to play a hand in allowing something to live and grow, a chance she’s been denied so much before. Wanda ropes him closer with her powers and firmly plants a kiss to his nervous smile. “Thank you.” She unwraps the bow and studies the picture of a happy sunflower, a little confused. “I didn’t think these were indoor plants.”

“Oh well,” now that an explanation that is not tied to emotions is needed, he loosens up, “they are meant to be started and nurtured indoors and then, once large enough, can be moved outside or to a greenhouse.”

“Do we have a greenhouse here?”

Vision considers this, lips parted as his thoughts tick away. “Well no, but it could be enjoyable to convert one of the older equipment sheds into such a structure so we could have a year round garden.”

This simple gift blossoms into something bigger, something rooted in a hope for a future together. “I think it would be fun.”

“Yes,” Vision slips back into a slight, carefully paced cadence, “I selected this particular flower because it is often symbolic of adoration, loyalty and um,” he acts as if his actions have not already made it clear, as if his words should be a surprise, one he isn’t certain she’ll like, “longevity.”

Wanda offers a sunny smile, hoping to sear away any question as to her appreciation and reciprocal feelings, “I love it.” An equally exuberant curve forms on his lips. “Want to help me plant it?”

His instantaneous and joyful, “Of course,” is all it takes to settle them into a path towards a life and love they’ll nurture together.

[okay-victoria]

Random Personal Rant

For anyone somehow here not from the original thread, this started off me getting asked what finishing school is and me getting shit off my chest that is only mildly relevant about how I could both be of the social class that gets sent to finishing school and grows up on welfare.

With an understanding that in many parts of the world it wouldn't qualify as so, as far as the US goes, my dad is from what counts as a very old money family from Baltimore & Philadelphia. Both his siblings went to college and one now owns a major hedge fund, and his sister is married to a C-level executive at a huge conglomerate. His parents went to college. His grandparents went to college. All eight of his great grandparents went to college. My dad...did not go to college. He was not about that life, and while I don't mean it as an insult, when I say his primary occupation until I was ~5 was a drummer in a mediocre band I mean that he opened for a lot of great acts, and if you lived in the Boston to Atlanta area in the 80s you may have heard him play, but he was never a huge national name. But he wasn't an amateur band playing for free at some random local gig either.

My mom grew up on a chicken farm in a Mennonite family in Pennsylvania but also completely rejected her heritage and became a model, sort of like my father, of mediocre status. Not Giselle Bundchen, but had national contracts and if you have a Graco ad/box from 1990-1993 you might see both me and her on it. They met because my mom's friends placed bets, one each, on who could sleep with a member of their favorite local band first and my mom picked my dad and...my mom was actually supposed to go be a model in Tokyo and found out she was pregnant with me and couldn't go 😂

So, after my parents had two kids back to back with a third on the way and determined they needed lifestyles more in line with having three children, they became much poorer than they originally were because my mom stopped working and my dad, with a barely-passed-high-school education but needing a true "day job" worked day labor in construction. My dad's father was too proud to give us money/help if my dad didn't beg for it; despite having eventually four young children my dad never did so we ended up on all the state assistance programs one could imagine. My grandma jokes that dinners at my parents house were BYOC - bring your own chair, because we didn't own any.

My mother and paternal grandmother had no such pride issues and I live in eternal gratitude that my welfare childhood was not as crappy as it should have been because my grandmother would have my mom accompany her on grocery runs and buy us food without my father or grandfather knowing, and every Christmas and birthday my grandparents/godparents could give us the one big ticket gift all the kids wanted that year. But, on the other side, I once got stung by a bee inside my mouth because my brother threw a hairbrush through a cracked window at me and broke it and we couldn't afford to fix it for about two years and a hornet got in one day and rested himself in my coke can (my parents were the very American type that fed me coca-cola in baby bottles at age 8 when I was jealous of my younger siblings lol).

It is hard not to believe in "toxic masculinity" when two men warring over dumbass pride issues would rather their children/grandchildren go without food than suck it up and decide 'help' isn't the worst word in the English language, and you know you've only been saved by two women who came from totally different backgrounds and entirely disapproved of each other but reached out the hand to shake when it came down to toddlers getting the short end of the don't-bend-the-knee stick. It wasn't that either of the men were bad people, I loved them both and got along great with both, but on a societal level I feel they were socialized in a very fucked up way if that was the end result, as both claimed "male pride" in these instances [my dad took multiple thousands of dollars I'd saved from working during college from me during the 2008-2010 financial crisis and didn't tell me and that was the reason I was given for why I hadn't been informed/asked, because it would be too emotionally difficult for an adult man to ask a young woman. My graduation present was them repaying me 1/3 of the money they'd taken from me without asking because I'd like, trusted them when it had been in a joint account that was a holdover from when I was <18 and couldn't have my own bank account].

While in some ways my parents on the surface achieved the American dream of going from nothing to a bunch of money, the real factor in play was that my dad's father was the bank. My parents had no credit and couldn't get real loans. My dad worked construction and during the two major periods that flipping houses was very lucrative, he never had to get an actual loan or pay actual interest, he just had to ask his father to pay out cash and then repay him at a flat 2% interest rate that didn't even accrue over time, just...whenever you are ready, repay the value of the loan + 2%. Because my father was doing something productive, in these instances, my grandfather was happy to pay, because it wasn't giving away money, it was loaning it. I had a very weird situation of mostly being poor but like also getting taken to the "big donors" events at the Kennedy Center and my grandparents regularly buying me a dress as a child worth more than my mom's wedding dress and also needing to pretend I fit in with these people.

And look. When I say "these people"...honestly, by and large, most wealthy people, whether inherited or not, are not the assholes you want to imagine. Most of them are extremely nice. Most of them are generous when it comes to the less fortunate who are in their personal sphere of being. Most of them are just really out of touch. The 100% kindest of all of them that I know once relayed to me that she thought people would be happier if once a year they did what she did...go to the airport with a purse packed full of absolute necessities, buy a one way ticket to the most appealing destination on the flight board, buy your clothes and book your accommodations after you'd arrived, and come back after you felt you'd 'centered' yourself. She didn't understand why there were so many unhappy people who weren't taking this very obvious route to being happier. I didn't quite know how to explain that saying "most" people couldn't afford to do that either financially or from a job/career angle didn't even cover it, as "most" sounds like 70% instead of 99.7%.

I was both my parents eldest son and eldest daughter in the worst combination possible. I was the eldest son because I was the most stereotypically male of all my siblings, in everything from desire to physically fight the battles I was given to dislike of shopping/fashion to lack of emotional connection to my relationships, so I can now fix your average household plumbing/drywall/electrical issue better than most "city" guys I interact with and remain less clingy to them in the process. I was also very much the oldest daughter from a responsibility perspective, I managed our household and from age 10 - 24 managed the finances of our family business, my mom almost died giving birth to my youngest brother after a ruptured uterus that should never have happened in the first place if we had adequate insurance to get her a non-emergency C-section (I was just past 9 years old at the time) and I was informally withdrawn from school for two years to take care of the family when she couldn't because there is no paid parental leave in the US and we got double-fucked by the medical industry because she got a bad "mesh" put in and then had to have a further surgery to repair that which we also had to pay for and didn't have the money to win a lawsuit over.

I don't know quite how to put this, but in the deepest fuck you of the universe, my rich-immigrant-ggggg grandfather's money led to him owning banks, insurance companies, etc, and the family cashed out in a big way when their ownership was bought by and merged with what is now Cigna, one of the biggest US healthcare insurers, and my nuclear family specifically got screwed by the American health insurance industry, but anyway, we were the people selected for that karmic comeuppance so if you want to feel schadenfreude at my expense, I'll allow it without begrudging the sentiment, my family might have fucked up your family’s life too, not just their own.

I got up twice a night to feed my brother because my dad had to sleep unmolested in my room to get to work and my mom was too weak to carry my brother or even hold him against her while she nursed so I had to hold him up to her. Adjusting to living in a city and hearing lots of random noises all the time was not easy when I'd had mom sound instincts from age 9.

I learned to drive the fall my youngest bro was born because my mom couldn't and I had to get my middle brother to preschool and go the grocery store on my own. While I hold absolutely no ill will towards my father or grandfather for this and given that about 1/3 of my paternal family either has an autism diagnosis or should, I fully feel the struggles they both went through to be communicated with, my father wouldn't ask for help, and my grandmother that lived 20 minutes away couldn't give enough help because my grandfather refused to do a single dish on his own as that was outside their "marriage contract" type agreement and she couldn't ever stay with us overnight when there wasn't a clearly-communicated need, so they let the burden fall on a 9 - 11 year old child and that really shaped a lot of my life in both good and bad ways. My youngest brother is 22, and we have only just climbed out of the medical debt his birth left us with between my dad's life insurance and my oldest brother and I paying for the extra cost of out-of-state college tuition.

The irony of all of this is that because my father died before his father, when my grandmother dies, my siblings and I will all inherit enough money (as a non-blood relative my mom, despite keeping her vows to part at death and not having remarried in eight years, is cut out entirely) to make this a non-issue, but my grandfather couldn't conscience spotting his unluckiest child some money in the end of days to pay for my youngest two brothers' education and take that worry off my father as he was dying. The day before he died I had to hold him down in bed to keep him from trying to climb in his truck to go to work because he was so anxious about trying to provide for us in spite of his father having fuck you money, because his father didn't think it was fair to the other siblings (who, at the time, still owned a major hedge fund and were married to a C-level executive of a huge conglomerate). A day and a half later I went back to my job because at the time I was then the sole provider for the family and didn't want to risk asking for the standard week's bereavement leave when I knew I was capable of showing up at work the next day and was fresh out of college so hadn't built up a reputation yet.

My father worked the day each of us was born, so I suppose it is only fair and he smiled at the choice. In spite of what it may seem, I gave a baller and very heartfelt speech at his funeral to all his rich friends that over and above everything, he'd taught us how to be happy with our own lives no matter what, and multiple of them emailed my mom in the aftermath to say they'd reassessed their relationship with their children in light of it, although...tbh I kind of doubt that lasted and they probably changed nothing 😅. The last good talk I had with him, two weeks before he died [his liver was going and it sent toxins to his brain that de-personed him after that and he no longer recognized me as his daughter, but as his sister], I reassured him that though we would all be sad he'd gone, we'd live on just fine without him because that's how he'd raised us, and according to my mom that was what gave him the final bit of peace he needed. Although honestly, I don't think I will ever see the strength in another human again that it took my grandmother to sit next to him and stroke his hand and tell him to close his eyes and imagine he was happy on a beach and die, for God's sake, because he was unaware and in pain and just prolonging it for our sake by then.

That type of obsession my grandfather had with assessing his children and grandchildren on the basis of economic productivity and a very black and white idea of "fair" is one you don't easily forget, I promise you. My hedge fund uncle is currently positioning himself to screw us out of our inheritance because of janky writing in the will and I'm doing my fuck all best to gain the wherewithal to go toe-to-toe with this cold motherfucker in court as the oldest and representative member of my happily much nicer and softer younger brothers who I want to remain that way not because I even care that much about the money, I know what bills affect your credit first and what you can put off paying and all of us have good enough career prospects to do our own thing, but just because I want to give the middle finger to a man that was a multi-millionaire and drew lines on his milk and orange juice bottles when I came over so he knew if I drank what my parents couldn't afford when I was approximately six. Anyway, ask me why I support major reforms in wealth taxation. I don't care who it goes to, just not that guy, you feel?

Having expendable income was very exciting for a bit after I started working but once I got to the hateable point of assessing my annual bonus and internally complaining that I'd spent the money I should have spent on a Sauternes cellar to drop five digits on bedset materials (to be fair they are drop dead gorgeous, very comfy and the factory pays a living wage for people to handmake the sheets/duvets/pillows to people in San Francisco, which is not cheap, so maybe I did more good than harm with that), I two seconds later nodded to myself and went "the government needs to confiscate more money from me". The narrative is always that the "undeserving" will use it for dumb things they don't need like iPhones or refrigerators...?...but like...I could also have gone to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a very nice sheet/comforter set for at most a tenth of what I paid so am I really spending it responsibly either....?....who is going to get more joy out of this misspent money....?....not me, that is for sure, I probably would have had more fun going to BBB and laying on all the demo beds and buying something there.

My lifelong dream, which may become possible if/when I do have something of an inheritance, is to provide food security for one of the many towns in the US were most residents don't have it. It's the thing I remember the most distinctly over the years. I never could quite believe it when I got to the point that I could just...pay to eat at a restaurant. One of the most disappointed my mother has ever been in me is when I was twenty five and confessed I actually had no idea how much a gallon of milk cost in a city grocery store besides that it was probably between $1 and $5, because I didn't have to know. For now I make a weekly drop off of my excess produce to a mom group I met under somewhat weird circumstances but I was walking through the cut-through that went through the low-income housing back to my apartment at like 2 AM on a Saturday and these moms were out there partying and smoking weed with their kids all strapped in strollers around or the older ones watched by a rotating member of the group and I felt very safe and like these moms had a very good vibe of both living their own lives [seriously for mental health parents but in most cases specifically mothers need to be able to keep up relationships with people their age] but keeping their children safe and accounted for while doing so and trying their fuckin' best against all the odds to figure out how to make that happen when life had dealt them a shit hand.

...anyway, looping way back to the original question of what finishing school is, when I was almost done with middle school my dad had built a legit construction business that then very quickly took off because we lived in a commutable zip code to the now-rich-in-their-own-right people he went to high school with who trusted him to redo their homes. We eventually moved to that zip code but I stayed and commuted back to my old high school. But, i was a pretty wild kid which my father appreciated for a long while because I would follow him around on jobs and enjoy doing physical labor, but once I was mid-puberty and also he had to maybe show me to his high school friends that did not fly.

I snapped - not broke, snapped - my left thumb and my parents had to trap me like a wild animal to get me to go the hospital. Then I got a deep cut that partially injured a tendon in my leg and at eleven I tried to beat the shit out of my dad to prevent him from picking me up to strap me in the car and go to the hopsital. Next I got a deep splinter due to my eternal-barefoot tendencies and it wouldn't come out so got infected and I refused to go to the doctor [another weird back story but I was minorly sexually assaulted [[to be clear, not raped or anything big traumatic]] when I was eight and had to stay in hospital for a week and my parents couldn't be with me all the time so I have a permanent heebie-jeebie about going to the hospital, not true anxiety, I will go if I know I need to and I don't breathe heavy or anything, and I'm actually not permanently weirded out by sex or anything, just doctors in hospitals specifically I kind of unconsciously try to justify not needing to the extent I can rationalize it] and my dad was tired of my antics so he was like "fine if you don't go I will slice your foot in half with a Swiss Army knife to get it out" and I called his bluff and laid down on the floor, stuck my foot on his lap, and he didn't really know what to do when a barely fourteen year old girl called his bluff so my brothers watched in fascinated but horrified awe as I got my foot sliced open spectacularly so that the infection/splinter could come out and I didn't even make a sound out of spite despite it being quite painful to my recollection almost twenty years later.

They saw me cry from pain exactly one time when while trying to break up a fight between all three of them (it was over ice cream) I got pushed and my ankle got dislocated and what actually made me cry was snapping it back in place and they realized it was not a joke. These dumb assholes that I love have ragged on me for "skipping" chores the day after I was in the hospital because the day before that I had to spend 18 hours running Thanksgiving as a good sub-hostess like I didn't have a serious infection that needed treating and couldn't rest because none of them were up to any task beyond peeling potatoes.

After the Swiss Army knife incident, my dad's discussion of sending me to finishing school became real, which I knew when my mom made me take a walk with her and talked about it. Finishing school is like...etiquette school....? In ye olden day when finishing high school was not the norm for anyone, wealthy men finished high school and wealthy women often went to "finishing" school to have a combined education on being a proper lady but also being able to hold a decent conversation with your presumably-educated husband, so it wasn't entirely etiquette non-academic. It was more just like "what a rich man wants in a wife" school, which was sort of household management and knowing enough about cleaning/cooking to correct the staff if they fucked up, how to be a polite hostess, and how to not entirely bore him when you were alone together and had done your five minutes of sex or whatever so actually had to have a conversation. In modern times it has obviously expanded to be less bleak.

I said miss me with that, I can be a girl on my own, so I went full throttle into the girliest sport they offer in high school and ever since have gained the inestimable advantage of knowing how to also use femininity to my advantage, which I am very grateful to my parents for making me learn. It would be great if we lived in a world where that didn't count, but it did/still does, and they really set me up to operate in all the worlds.

It is weird for me to tell the story to Internet strangers because it's one of those things that makes your parents sound terrible and abusive in the general tone of the Internet nowadays, and while I support gender nonconforming children I don't remember my childhood or parents that way. But, I feel like the bits and pieces of my life I've given don't always make a ton of sense together without the context, so here it is, and in the end, I think a number of parts of it are areas where you can probably understand where it makes me have the opinions I do when I write.

Anyhoo, this makes my life sound far worse than it is, I actually have a great life and I am not unhappy with it at all and feel I was on the whole blessed with many more turns of luck than unluck, so, please, do not take this as a depressed artist rant, it is more like a rant of a very energetic person who rants about a lot of things all the time and didn’t need to come out but just did because the question was asked and the time was right with my life being in a bit of flux to think about how I got where I am and where I want to go and why.

Always remember no matter what problems it seems like I have, if I didn’t solve them on my 2 year round the world traveling hiatus I took from working, it’s my own fault, I definitely had the time and money to solve them and just chose not to.

[parablesoftheone]

Ginko and Adashino: a study in Daoist perspectivism

Huizi said, “I am not you, to be sure, so I don’t know what it is to be you. But by the same token, since you are certainly not a fish, my point about your inability to know the happiness of fish stands intact.”

Zhuangzi said, “Let’s go back to the starting point. You said, ‘Whence do you know the happiness of fish?’ Since your question was premised on your knowing that I know it, I must have known it from here, up above the Hao River.”

—Zhuangzi: Essential Writings, pg. 76

It would be criminally neglectful to talk extensively about Mushishi without discussing Ginko and Adashino’s friendship. Apart from Ginko himself, Adashino is the most frequently recurring character in the stories, and he and Ginko obviously share a connection that goes well beyond trading in mushi-related goods. 

In contrast to Ginko’s other significant relationship, this one is not with someone who shares his degree of centeredness. Adashino’s focus is markedly external, his habits of life and outlook very much out of line with the teachings of Lao Tzu. Most obviously, he stockpiles a wealth of mushi-related treasures and is always on the lookout for more, while Ginko’s possessions are pretty much what he has in his backpack. The storing up of wealth and possessions, the Dao De Jing warns, can only bring grief: "Amass a store of gold and jade,” it says in verse #9, “and no one can protect it.” And indeed, Adashino’s storehouse is invaded with dire consequences no later than the tenth episode of the first season. His insatiable desire for interesting items persists nonetheless, leaving him open to a level of emotional excitability Ginko never displays even at his most distressed.

(Still, a man’s gotta protect his property...)

This is hardly the only particular in which Adashino and Ginko are decidedly unalike. S2 E8 "Wind Raiser” especially develops their differences. When Adashino takes credit for Ginko’s cure, Ginko completely ignores it; when Adashino speculates about what the young man Ginko advises will do, Ginko responds with a laconic, “Who knows?” These simple interchanges point toward their fundamental contrast: Ginko’s mindset is Daoist, and Adashino’s is (mostly) not. In accord with multiple verses of the Dao De Jing (#2, #10, #30...), Ginko doesn’t care a damn about who gets credit for his work; neither does he care to speculate about future events, preferring to “move with the present” (Dao De Jing #14). His focus is centered; Adashino's is outward.

Given these divergent values and the fact that Ginko reguarly cheats Adashino—of which Adashino is well aware—an observer might wonder why these two have anything to do with each other, much less why they’re such good friends. 

But their bond makes perfect sense through a Daoist eye. 

Daoist perspectivism

To the Daoist mind, contrasts and differences are part of how the world functions—and this includes differences from the Daoist mind. Zhuangzi not only teaches followers of the dao to not disdain non-Daoist values but hold “perfectly to the differing allotments of things” (Zhuangzi: Essential Writings, pgs. 70–71); his own closest friend Huizi is a man with whom he trades debates and criticisms throughout the Zhuangzi (pgs. 8, 38, 112...). This worldview doesn’t seek the exclusion of others—the Daoist idea of “oneness” means that opposing views and forces are inherently one, without being made to unite or agree.

Along with this embracing of contrasts comes a firm belief in perspectivism: that anything that can be affirmed from one perspective can be negated from another and vice versa, and that each person and creature’s nature and experiences determine what is right from her/his/its own perspective. "The embrace of the same viewpoint,” says the Zhuangzi, “comes simply from being in the same position” (pg. 101).

Just as Ginko understands that the natures of the mushi are rightful parts of the world whether they’re valued by humans or not, he also understands the validity of differing human viewpoints. Though he scolds Adashino for the trouble his collection causes, he doesn’t consider him lesser or unworthy of friendship because of it, or because of any other contrasts between them. Through all the disparity in their values, they share a connection—and in true Daoist fashion, their differences are likely what brought them together in the first place. Ginko gathers mushi-related items, and Adashino wants them. Ginko has no desire to collect things or haul them around, so he’s happy to sell... if not always honestly.

Which raises the next point about their relationship: Ginko’s shady business ethics. 

Perspectivism applies here too. As Zhuangzi tells us, “whatever might be [from some perspective] strange, grotesque, uncanny, or deceptive” (pg. 13) can be affirmed as right from another view, and this certainly applies to Ginko and Adashino’s exchanges. To an outsider, they’re questionable as all get out—but it’s not an outsider’s view that matters. Both Ginko and Adashino freely choose to associate with each other on their current terms, because that choice makes sense to them. Adashino knows from the start that Ginko isn’t always on the level—from his first appearance in S1 E5 “The Traveling Swamp,” he’s questioning Ginko’s story about the green sake cup. And as Ginko points out, Adashino is under no obligation to buy from him—he chooses to, knowing the odds, and continues to choose to. And we can see in “Wind Raiser” that Adashino values even the more questionable items Ginko’s sold him; he’s held on to all of it, even the stuff he's probably guessed is junk.

Whether this arrangement makes sense or seems right to an outsider is irrelevant. Ginko and Adashino accept each other as they are, and the only ones who need to validate those choices are themselves. 

So, for all their differences, do Ginko and Adashino have anything in common? 

In fact, they do—and one significant value they share is the very perspectivism that shapes their relationship. We can see as much in “The Traveling Swamp,” when Adashino asks Ginko why he’s so determined to save Io from becoming a mushi. 

“If the girl said she wanted desperately to live,” he says, “I’d understand. But she wanted to become part of the swamp, right? That might be her happiness... Sometimes that’s the way it is in this world, though it sounds cruel...”

Adashino’s statement points to the path along which he and Ginko connect: No less than Ginko, Adashino is open to another’s perspective, even one that he acknowledges sounds terrible. He fully understands that “rightness” for one person is not the same as “rightness” for another.

Ginko’s reply underscores that he shares this value. In S1 E1 “The Green Throne,” he made a human a mushi because it was her choice—despite his own assessment that becoming a mushi is a terrible fate for a human. He seeks to prevent the same from happening to Io, not because he doesn’t value her choice, but because his observation of her has convinced him that she doesn’t understand what she’s giving up—that she’s making her choice without full knowledge. 

Interestingly, in this sense, Ginko and Adashino’s exchange is reminiscent of one between Zhuangzi and Huizi. Crossing over a river with his friend, Zhuangzi comments on the happiness of the fish below. Huizi protests and asks, "Whence do you know the happiness of fish?” In his frequently smartass fashion, Zhuangzi replies that he knows it from the position where they stand, above the river, watching the fish (pg. 76).

Not simply a play on words, this exchange is an illustration of Daoist perspectivism. Zhuangzi’s point is that, while we truly can’t know the perspectives of anyone other than ourselves, we must proceed from our own—including our observations of what may or may not make others happy. Not able to consult Io on the matter, Ginko has to proceed from his own observations, which lead him to believe she still cherishes human feelings.

Like Zhuangzi and Huizi, Ginko and Adashino both know that perspective is individual, and they respect the choices others make from their own. Adashino respects that Io may, after all, want to become a mushi, and Ginko respects that, in his assessment, she probably doesn’t—just as, in Renzu’s case, he respects that she does. 

By this same principle, they respect each other’s natures, Ginko accepting that Adashino is an outward-focused, obsessive collector of things, and Adashino accepting that Ginko will occasionally chastise him or sell him a bad coat. 

On these multiple levels, their relationship is one of Daoist perspectivism. And in the same way that Ginko can guess what Io’s happiness might be, we can “know” from observing them that Ginko and Adashino value their relationship just as it is—with no need for any foundational “rightness” other than their own choices.

With all that said, there is another kind of rightness to their friendship. In their contrasts to each other, Ginko and Adashino fit together. This is even signaled visually: Adashino's light-reflecting monocle signifies the yang within his yin, just as the tokoyami in Ginko's opposite eye is the yin within his yang. Like Ginko and Tanyuu, Ginko and Adashino form a Taiji, interlinked and corresponding through their similarities and their differences alike.

[wangisking]

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘  𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑  𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐘

BASICS. FULL    NAME  :  Augustus Alexander Wang  NICKNAME  :  August and Gus ( in general ), Auggie, Ice Prince, and Guggie ( by Aurora ). Aug and Lestat  ( by Jack ),  NAME    MEANINGS  : Augustus is  Latin for  the great / the magnificent.  Alexander is also Latin and means defender of mankind. From what I know, Wang in Chinese means king.  HISTORICAL    CONNECTION ?  : Though, his dad did think of the Roman Emperor Augustus when they named him, they liked the meaning. It seemed to fit him. They weren’t wrong, he was an emperor and he still has that energy.   AGE  :  22. Like Aurora, he can’t age past 22. He wouldn’t have minded either way.    BIRTHDAY  :  5th  April ETHNIC    GROUP  :   Augustus is half Korean and half Brazilian.  NATIONALITY  :   British LANGUAGES  :   fluent  in  English and French. Conversational Latin. Broken Korean. Learning Urdu. SEXUAL    ORIENTATION  :  demi-heterosexual ROMANTIC    ORIENTATION  :  demi-heterosexual RELATIONSHIP    STATUS  :   Single and doesn’t want to mingle. He had only one serious relationship in the past with Aurora Shams from 2017-2019.  CLASS  :  Upper  class,  Wealthy but not private-jet kind of wealthy.  HOME    TOWN  /  AREA  :  London till he was 10 and Vancouver till he was 17 CURRENT    HOME  :  Los  Angeles PROFESSION  :   Drummer, songwriter, model, and student.    PHYSICAL. HAIR  :  long  and  wavy.  Chestnut brown. Here is an example. It goes down his earlobes in length.    EYES  :  piercing, almond-shaped eyes. Naturally brown, but he wears blue or green contact lenses.  NOSE  :   a Greek nose, straight without bumps. FACE  :  Oblong shaped, sharp and chiseled cheekbones, strong jaw. Masculine features. Example.  LIPS  :  not  full  nor  thin, heart shaped.     COMPLEXION  :  pretty pale. Example is same as the face section.  SCARS  :  one on his chest. TATTOOS  :  a very small ‘10/17′ on his left rib.   PIERCINGS:  earlobes HEIGHT  :  6′5″  or  195cm.   BUILD  :  Inverted triangle. Broad, tapered shoulders. Muscular. Defined, sculpted abs. Long limbs. Broad chest. He was naturally towards the muscular side with broad shoulders and chest. He’s never been on the skinny side. Example one and two   USUAL  HAIR  STYLE  :  he lets his hair do their thing, he styles them a little, but he prefers a messier vibe.  USUAL  FACE  LOOK  :  He looks generally bored. His eyes have a piercing look that seem to be drilling into the person before him. Like he can see right through you. There is an insolent smirk tugging at his lips like he thinks you’re amusing. Almost proud, like he thinks he is above you. There is depth and intensity in his eyes that stare skywards in thought. There is also mischievous, radiant glimmer in his eyes.   USUAL    CLOTHING  :  prince charming meets rockstar. Lots of jackets, darker colors, boots, necklaces and rings. Here is his wardrobe.      PSYCHOLOGY. FEARS  :  claustrophobia and the fear of ending up alone. He always had this creeping feeling that he’d be alone in the end and that he was always meant to be alone.  ASPIRATIONS  :   he doesn’t have any set aspirations. They change every now and then. However, his goals are just to keep his found family happy.  POSITIVE    TRAITS  :  extremely charismatic, intelligent,  academic and studious, alluring and attractive, quick-witted, charming and captivating, articulate and eloquent, adventurous, desirable, analytical, brilliant, friendly, enthusiastic, adaptable, observant, kind, mellow, competent, extremely caring and protective over those closest to him, clever, loyal, clear-headed, confident, humorous, courageous, imaginative and creative, a visionary, refined tastes and manners, daring, dignified, ebullient, deep, remarkable, surprisingly he’s very forgiving, forthright, gallant, logical, gentlemanly and sophisticated, perfectionist, popular, self-reliant, shrewd, witty, suave, curious, and resourceful.    NEGATIVE    TRAITS  :  egocentric, self-obsessed, idle, indifferent, selfish, defiant, arrogant, argumentative, rebellious, kinda lazy, stubborn, distracted, doesn’t really care for morals, blunt, can appear insensitive a lot, is insensitive at times, no filters, can be cold for those he doesn’t care for, emotionally immature, deflects emotions, suppresses his feelings, sorta detached, kinda pessimistic, and unknowingly self-sacrificing because he thinks it’s fair and he deserves it.   MBTI  :  ENTP  (  Ne  dominant,  Ti  auxiliary,  Fe  tertiary,  and  Si  inferior  —  this  means  she  can’t  use  Ni,  Se,  Te,  and  especially  can’t  use  Fi). He  perceives  the  world  by  connecting  dots,  thinking  of  never-ending  possibilities,  looking  for  pieces  of  a  puzzle,  and  finding  meaning  in  abstract.  He  makes  judgments  on  if  what  he  perceives  fits  his  internal  logic.          ZODIAC  :  Aries sun, Gemini rising, Sagittarius moon.  TEMPERAMENT  :  sanguine choleric  ANIMALS  :  parrots and cats because they’re both intelligent but little pieces of shit who enjoy making your life hell.  VICE  :   it’s either his ego or how he ends up detaching himself FAITH  :  currently, he’s Mu.slim. He was born protestant, became an atheist when he was 13, agnostic at 14. Bud.dhist at 15. Taoist at 16. Confucianist at 17. Mu.slim at 19. Doesn't practice it though.     GHOSTS  ?  :  yep.. AFTERLIFE  ?  :   yep REINCARNATION  ?  :  he guesses so. Went  through  it, but doesn’t remember. ALIENS  ?  :  hell yeah. POLITICAL    ALIGNMENT  :  liberal. ECONOMIC    PREFERENCE  :   upper class or upper middle class is good with him.  EDUCATION    LEVEL  :   MSci in Physics from the University of Cambridge. Is opting to specialize in astrophysics soon. FAMILY. FATHER  :  Edward Wang, owner of a chain of fine dining restaurants  MOTHER  :  Elisa Violeta Wang, psychiatrist, deceased  STEP MOTHER :  Chaeyoung Wang, lawyer.  SIBLINGS  :  Cassandra Wang, athlete EXTENDED    FAMILY  :  he is not close with his external family and doesn’t know his birth mother’s family at all. They never wanted him.  FAVOURITES. BOOK  :   Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Galactic Dynamics by James Binney, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Mukarami, Slaughter house Five by Kurt Vonnegut, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. MOVIE  :  Scott Pilgrim vs The World 5    SONGS :  All You Want - Dashboard Prophets, Tokyo Smoke - Cage the Elephant, Where is My Mind? - The Pixies, Sparks - Coldplay, Lithium - Nirvana, and Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra     DEITY  :  none.  Let him argue with one and ask for proof of their deity-ness. HOLIDAY  :  Halloween. It’s dramatic and fun. MONTH  :   October, because he met Aurora and Jack this month in 2017. SEASON  :  spring  and  summer. PLACE  :  he doesn’t have a specific place, but he prefers European architecture.  WEATHER  :  cloudy and windy. Sunny if it isn’t too hot. SOUND  :  drums and percussions, the sound of aurora and jack’s laugh, guitars, violins, the sound of wind roaring, music boxes, and the clinking of bangles and jewelry.  SCENTS  :  sage, rosemary, and damascus roses. TASTES  :  chocolate, strawberries, chilies, and fried food.       FEELS  :   the feeling of hitting the drums, wind in his hair, the cold night air, warm morning sun, grass against his fingertips, silk, and touching long hair.   ANIMALS  :  cats and dogs. NUMBER  :   8 COLORS  :  white, cherry red, pink, maroon, wine red, black, and silver. EXTRA. TALENTS  :  he is an extremely talented drummer, good at guitar and the piano, he is talented at songwriting, composing music, he’s exceptionally good at mathematics and physics, analytical skills, storytelling, knows a lot of facts, near photographic memory because he remembers all important historical events with dates and details, academic writing, and brainstorming ideas.  BAD  AT  :   cooking, not very good at driving because he gets distracted, doing one task at a time, playing videogames, actually listening to what people say, being humble, and actually being a good leader.  TURN    ONS  :  this is a complicated question. He needs a very strong emotional connection to feel sexual attraction towards someone. And he only felt it for one person in his whole life. But, what sparked that attraction was a brilliant mind and the ability to connect with his mind on a very different level. It’s not going to repeat with anyone else.  TURN    OFFS  :  literally everyone else. He’s not sorry, but I am. HOBBIES  :  playing the drums, writing and composing songs, reading, solving problems, listening to music, watching shows, getting people to do weird shit, and annoying people.      AESTHETIC  :  crowns, drums, broken drumming sticks, abstract art, the vast space, chess boards, album cases, thrones, the echoing sound of pianos, Greek sculptures, galaxies and nebulas, early morning sunrise through curtains, libraries, equations scribbled on napkins, empty museums, unmade white sheets, polaroid cameras, conspiracy theories, VHS tapes, antique books, cobblestone alleyways, night skies, cluttered books, calloused fingers, crumpled composition pages, guitar picks, vinyl, telescopes, and planets.      Basically: abstract, chaotic academia, cryptid academia, dark academia, indie, kingcore, light academia, musical academia, science academia, spacecore,   QUOTES  :   it’s weird but i can’t decide which one fits him.  FC  INFO. MAIN    FC  :  victor han  ALT    FC  :  n/a. OLDER    FC  :  he can’t age past 22, so he doesn’t need one. YOUNGER    FC  :  none  yet. VOICE    CLAIM  :  both speaking and singing (his accent is posh British with a slight hint of Canadian) MUN  QUESTIONS. Q1  :    If you could write your character your way in their own movie , what    would  it  be  called ,  what  style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about ?    A1 :  The same answer as Aurora, The Tale of Solis et Lunae that stars him alongside Aurora, Lunae, Jack, and Tate, plus more. A cosmic adventure / fantasy / coming of age / superhero / the reluctant hero / the chosen one.  His role is of Aurora’s best friend and her greatest support in emotional and supernatural dangers. He is the time traveler who ascends time and space, so he often also gives her insight and information like the sage. It’ll  expand across dimensions, worlds, and different states of existence. The scenes would be cinematic with a strong soundtrack. I imagine him to have some scenes like Quick Silver in the X-Men movies.       Q2  :   What would their soundtrack / score sound like  ?     A2  :   He would have a 90s grunge or spacey dream rock sound. It ties in with the end of the last answer because i see him in one of those scenes with 90s grunge or maybe classical music ?    Q3  :      Why did you start writing this character  ? A3  :    I made Augustus just a bit before Aurora. They were a two part deal. I don’t know when it began, I just had this image of a tall, long haired boy with piercing, intelligent eyes who’s a smart-ass and likes being a know-it-all nuisance. This character has been the same since he began in 2019 and refused to change. He was always a drummer, he always had the same fashion sense, the look, Gus was always half-Korean, he always had long fingers he wore rings on, and he was always Aurora’s best friend/partner in crime. He remains unchanged and that's why I wanted to write him. This very vivid image of this boy was something I had to pen down. And just my luck, I found a fc who looks exactly how Gus looked in my head.   Q4  :    What  first  attracted  you  to  this  character  ? A4  :   Augustus is just extraordinary. It’s something I always felt about him and Aurora and I don’t see any of my other characters coming anywhere close to them regardless of how much I spent time on them. But with Augustus, his entire image and looks and personality — down to his wardrobe and jewelry was always so vivid in my head. Like I knew this very chaotically handsome boy who was going to turn the world upside down.  His story is interesting, but what interests me more is his perspective on his story. The way he looks at his life and how he is quiet and doesn’t show his pain. How confused he always is. How much he aches but never seems so. The way he loves but doesn’t say even a quarter of the intensity he feels. And how sometimes he believes he deserves suffering because it makes sense to him. I also love the connections he makes and the way he loves so deeply and profoundly but underneath the surface. His connection, love, fears, and hopes with Aurora and Jack for their respective reasons are extremely beautiful.   Q5  :      Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse.  ? A5  :  Augustus is unknowingly self-sabotaging. He let go the only relationship / love in his life that made him feel like real love just because he thought he didn’t deserve it. And because when he was provoked, it made “sense” to him. He bottles his emotions and pain so much despite their intensity. He never shows how much he really cares and really hurts. And how sure he is that he’ll end up alone without friends and that it makes sense to him. Q6  :      What    do    you    have    in    common    with    your    muse  ?   A6  :    Here’s a fun answer, because I bottle my emotions like him. I also interact with the carefree way he does even if I don’t feel peachy. He’s smart and witty and really hot and I don’t even have that going on for me. So, yikes. Only of Gus’ bad things I share.  Q7  :      How  does your muse feel about you  ?   A7  :  Gus loves interacting with people so he’ll definitely show up to annoy me. Maybe, he might think I’m fun to annoy? Or maybe, we’ll have a similar sense of humor. I think he won’t dislike me. Not sure if he’ll like me. I think he’d think I’m funny in a strange sort of way.  Q8  :      What    characters    does    your    muse    have    interesting    interactions  with  ? A8  :    Aurora, first of all. They have this same brain wave-length thing going on where they’re partners in crime and bffs forever more. He knows how she is feeling and what she’s thinking even before she utters it. If she is about to sneeze, he’d get a tissue ready. He can tell if she is hungry or sleepy with one glance. She can do the same, so they sorta have this weird understanding of each other.  Jack is this older brother figure Augustus loves. He won’t admit it, but he kinda wants to make Jack proud of him. He also wants to provide love and care to Jack that he thinks he deserves but never got. They’re his family now and he’ll never be alone or sad again. He annoys Jack a lot but behind it all, he just wants Jack to think he is needed and he belongs. That if he thinks Augustus is reliant on him, then he has this family he has to protect and care for. He can’t stand the thought of Jack feeling unloved, forgotten, alone.  Tida is another one. There’s this great respect and adoration Gus has for him. Almost like he looks up to him in some ways  He also has a lot of hopes and expectations attached. He feels Tida is everything that Gus himself lacks. He is the ideal boyfriend, kindest person, shows his emotions vividly, and is like a warm and cozy blanket personified. He is probably Tida and Aurora’s biggest supporter and first one to know. He can’t be happier than he is that Aurora found someone as good and perfect as Tida.   Taewon is one really fun character. Their two-way frenemy jealousy spans over years and started in Cambridge when they were both in love with the same girl they claimed to be best friends with. Though, trying to be calm, Augustus was constantly provoked and hurt, made to feel inferior and constantly in fear of his relationship being broken by Taewon’s schemes that he couldn’t say out loud. This dark period ended with a fist fight and baggage of guilt they both carry to this day for hurting each other and the one they claimed to love. Today, they’re way past that and frenemies who have funny quips and arguments for each other. They say they dislike each other. But if the lighting is good, one would be the photographer of the other. Q9  :      What    gives    you    inspiration    to    write    your    muse  ? A9  :  Music  helps  me  imagine  scenes  with  perfect  visual  details.  Any  scenes  from  shows  that  remind  me  of  my  storylines. Q10  :      How    long    did    this    take    you    to    complete  ?   A10  :  I don’t remember. It was many days and I didn’t count because it was in bits and pieces.

[iceeckos12]

tma fic recs

I’ve seen a couple of fic rec posts floating around. since ive been reading so many excellent fic recently, i thought that id make one as well! please note this list is going to be 99% jonmartin. also buckle up, because this is going to get long.

Completed

the umbrella by Wildehack (tyleet)

"And to think—all of Jonah Magnus’ carefully laid plans, the centuries of scheming, the murders, the sacrifices, all of that work could have been completely undone if Martin Blackwood had gone back for an umbrella" - holdthosebees

Notes: This is probably my go-to fic if i want an apocalypse never happened scenario. The jonmartin is wonderful, as is the h/c.

Diary and Prenon-nous la main by luftballoons99

Diary summary:

Not for the first time since they ran away together, a camera reel of all the things they don't know about one another whirs behind Martin's eyes, and he can't help but look at all the sprawling magnetic tape and wonder if they’re going to wind up a romance or a tragedy.

or: Office parties, garage bands, and the joy of being known.

Prenon-nous la main summary:

They still haven't talked about it, any of it, not even to pass the time on the long train ride to Scotland. Instead, Martin fell asleep in the seat next to him, pressed into his side from shoulder to knee, and Jon thought about love confessions and verb tense and how the two fit together when you think you're dying.

or: Good cows, mediocre poetry, and other crucial topics of discussion.

Notes: Do you love impeccable safehouse jonmartin characterization? do you love characters grappling with the mortifying ordeal of being known? do you love softness so tender that it makes you want to weep? please read these fic. im begging you.

i’ll tell you about all the times i’ve smiled because of you by cryptidkidprem

Summary:

Martin thinks about their shoes, sitting beside each other on the floor by the bed. Thinks of the way Jon wears Martin’s cardigans more often than he wears his own, the way Martin’s started keeping elastics around his wrist because Jon always forgets his own when they go out.

He thinks about all the gentle touches and fussing over each other they’ve done, and how much is still to come over the next… however long Jon will have him.

They have a long way to go, an entire life to build out of the wreckage Jonah Magnus and Peter Lukas left them, but laying together in a comfortable, sleepy quiet, Martin thinks they’ve got a good start going.

Or, Jon quits the Institute, saves the world, and it turns out to be exactly what he needs in order to heal and start moving forward towards building a life with Martin.

Notes: how many times have i reread this fic? more than i can count. jon quits the institute and it’s just full of soft jonmartins. they get married! god i love them.

go softly by doomcountry

Summary:

And there is nothing else besides this.

Notes: every time i remember this fic i reread it. please heed the tags because martin is blinding jon, but he’s like. blinding jon in the most heartbreaking way possible. idk how the author made this so tender but i know i was certainly crying so!

The Reverb in These Holy Halls by  Wolftraps (AlwaysBoth)

Summary:

Undoing the apocalypse would have been enough for Jon, if all his people survived. Without them, Jon's only recourse is making it so it never happened in the first place. He's going to do better this time.

Notes: Do you like time travel fixits? i sure like time travel fixits. reverb is an excellent one. heavy on the h/c, I wanted to hug jon so so badly. 

Yesterday is Here by  CirrusGrey

Summary:

"Who the hell are you?" Jon could feel his hands shaking. The man laughed, taking a step forward and raising a hand to point at him. "I'm you, from the future!" he said, then swayed, eyes going unfocused, and collapsed to the floor in a dead faint. -------- Post-season-four Jon and Martin time travel back to the season one Archives.

Notes: Yet another time travel fixit! also excellent. the teasing was HYSTERICAL. also Im just going to say this now - CirrusGrey in general writes incredible tma fic. You can’t really go wrong.

unassigned supplementals by  bibliocratic 

Notes: I won’t put in a summary just because it’s a long series of oneshots, but bibliocratic’s writing is amazing. Again, you can’t really go wrong with one of their fic!

let the soft animal of your body by autoclaves

Summary:

Standing in the warm kitchen, slats of sepia light filtering through onto the counter in front of him, Martin doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He half expects them to go through the countertop entirely, glossy and solid as it is. He isn’t used to any of it, yet. The safehouse. Jon. Beams of sun pouring into his hands. After being deprived of everything of significance for so long, the longing that crashes over him is almost painful in its tangibility. He wants to laugh, to sob, to scream and hear it echoed back against the neat, square walls of the safehouse.

In the end, he doesn’t do any of these things. He makes eggs instead. He can do that, can’t he? Use his hands for something simple and plain and good.

(Or: In the safehouse after it all, Martin starts cooking.)

Notes: this fic really speaks to me a) because i project on martin like crazy and b) because food is also my love language. this fic is incredibly soft and it’s all about cooking!

“Have you tried turning it on and off again?” by shinyopals

Summary:

I hope you find your new role as Head of the Institute as rewarding as captaining the Tundra, wrote Elias Bouchard, to Peter Lukas. There are so many people working there: all with their own interesting lives, and all desiring your attention and support. I'm sure you will relish the challenge it will bring and enjoy every moment spent with the fine men and women of the Institute. In time I'm confident they'll become like a family to you.

The Magnus Institute has a new boss. The Magnus Institute also has a new tech support technician. These two facts are unrelated, except they both happen at the same time.

Meanwhile Jon's woken up from being dead for six months and for once he's trying his best. He just wishes Martin would stop avoiding him and answer his messages...

Notes: if you’re looking for a good laugh, this fic is SO SO SO FUNNY. i was dying. basically the magnus institute being an absolute bureaucratic nightmare.

hello my old heart  by  firebirdsuite

Summary:

Peter’s wrong, of course. When it’s all over, Martin does still want to tell Jon everything. It’s just—well, there’s a few things they need to work through first before they can get there.

Martin and Jon find each other again in Scotland.

Notes: it’s all about the yearning. and trust me, the yearning in this fic? im just. i sure do love jonmartin, and this is such soft, loving jonmartin it just makes you want to cry

two ships passing by pyrites

Summary:

Gerard Keay is 10 years old the very first time he tries to run away from home, right around the time that Jonathan Sims has just come into possession of his first Leitner.

Or: One dropped stone can change the way the whole ocean moves.

Notes: again, JONGERRY. MY GOODNESS. this fic is beautiful, the writing is absolutely breathtaking and it owns my heart. im so in love with it. the author said you’re going to have emotions about jon and gerry and jongerry and i said OKAY

Terminal Sight by viv_is_spooky

Summary:

Spider silk weaves through the visions of two Seers. Monstrosity is dawning on them both.

Notes: I’d never read a gerryoliver fic before this, but the execution is EXCELLENT and now im sold on the ship forever. This fic has wonderful prose and great characterization and i love it a whole lot.

Incomplete

assistant archivist au by  PitViperOfDoom

Notes: I won’t put a summary since I’m reccing an entire series, but. it is absolutely no secret that i adore jongerry. pit’s assistant archivist au slapped me over the head with some gorgeous jongerry oneshots and then gave me the gift of the main fic (which is still in progress) about head archivist martin. i love this au so so much

dustsceawung by  callmearcturus

Summary:

Martin had always been favored by the summer courts, and moving up north to the little village of Lacuna is a difficult adjustment. It's rainy and lonely and everyone seems to have a strange, distant relationship with the local faerie court.

However: there is a strange man in a cloak who walks past Martin's remote little cottage every few days.

However: there is a moth that keeps getting stuck in Martin's house during the rain.

These events are not as disconnected as they first appear.

Notes: you ever just read a fic that you didn’t know that you needed until after you read it? yeah. featuring the fae and moth jon and excellent characterization.

Illicio by ThatOneGirlBehindYou

As the new Archivist debates between life and death, the Eye ponders on what to offer him in order to avoid an encore of the unfortunate situation with his predecessor.

-----

Gerard Keay opens his eyes at what feels like fuck-ass in the morning, inside a room with far too little space and far too much dust.

Notes: This is also the moment where I reveal that im a sucker for jongerrymartin. please read this fic. gerry is brought back from the dead in s4 and everyone is far better off for it.

where there’s a will, we make a way by bubonickitten

Summary:

"So, what does happen if an Eye learns to See within itself?

What happens is this: the Archive Beholds the Watcher – and the Watcher blinks first."

________________________

Jon goes back to before the world ended and tries to forge a different path.

Notes: this time travel fixit is shaping up to be an absolutely incredible read. i love the way this author writes jon so so much, and the characterization is spot on. this whole fic just satisfies some little part of me. god. also!! bubonickitten’s writing in general? beautiful. please check out their other works.

The Timeline of Theseus by Applea

Jon tries to force the Spiral to send him back, but the Sprial's corridors never twist things quite the way you want them to. Back in 1996, Elias has no idea why or how the Eye made such a powerful Avatar out of an 8 year old, especially when said 8 year old doesn't actually know he has any powers at all. Clearly such a child cannot be left outside the Institute's care. 

Notes: This fic is legitimately brilliant. The author manages to capture the big ADHD mood and the precociousness of baby Jon while managing to write a wonderful storyline. Time travel! Elderly lesbians! A Jonah who is wildly in over his head but was walloped over the head with paternal instinct! Baby Gerry! What more could you possibly ask for?

rooms full of people who do not love each other yet by seaer

Summary:

“Wanted to ask about a book.” The boy has his hand on the counter, and he leans into it, nonchalant. The library is air-conditioned, but by no means frigid, and Jon can’t help but feel sweaty just looking at the layers he’s wearing; what looks like old leather over an olive-green Magnus pullover over his school shirt. “Do you have A Journal of the Plague Year?”

Jon says, tetchily, “We’re about to close.”

“I know. Do you have A Journal of the Plague Year?”

Notes: I am so in love with this author’s writing style and the way they write the characters!! The jon and gerry friendship is PERFECT and the character interactions are all darling.

if you read these fics please send the authors some love, they definitely deserve it!! 

[betweentheracks]

Updates//Recent Inactivity

Hello all! This is me finally taking some time to sit down and offer up a rundown on how life is currently going as a means of explaining my inactivity. This is a personal post that is guaranteed to be both rambling and emotional so if that is not your cup of tea, I understand and happily advise you just skip over this post as it is not relevant to the actual content this blog was intended for.

EDITED: After reading this back I now realize this is really just me spilling the tea on my own life and is laughably dishy in details which is extremely not my usual stance on my personal privacy. But idk, it was cathartic so I'm leaving it as is despite the urge to redact 70% of what I say.

I'll start with the good news that I am officially out of lockdown and have remained COVID-19 free since my return home from the hospital. This also means my son finally was allowed to come home to me which is dazzling and exciting and also a little terrible too. He's at a precocious age where tantrums are the cool way to communicate and having been gone for so long completely thrashing his established routine has caused friction. He came home and his parent was not the same as when he left; is much weaker and less energetic than before, paler and shaky - but also there's the addition of my best friend having moved in to assist and take care of me/him while we all do our best to muddle through.

The readjustment has been rough and a lot of this week has made me incredibly thankful to have practically zero memory of how I was as a child. There have been injuries: I have been whacked in the face with the metal cover for a floor vent while dozing on the sofa instead of paying rapt attention to whatever silliness he was showing off to me, there was his complete dismissal of me asking him to stay back and away from the hot oven as I pulled lunch from it's fiery jaws only to then be faced with a toddler quickly approaching with his hand raised to touch so I naturally made a move to block him and in the process I let go of the oven door which slammed upward and clamped my arm tightly between it and the inside cavern of the oven while it was set to a roasty 400 degrees Fahrenheit - earning me a mangled arm with burns of varying degrees, and then we also had that fit where it seemed like a much more grand idea to scale the babygate cordoning the stairs and I had to rush up them to stop him from tumbling face first down two flights and of course did the falling all on my own and did it backwards then slammed painfully into the wall of the landing. This all happened within a 48hr time frame and makes me wonder why I am so catastrophically inclined.

I have bruises that range the majority of my spine courtesy of the wall and stairs, two minor first degree burns on my forearm that are in the shape of an equals and quite large despite the lack of actual pain I feel from them, and the underside of my forearm was instantly blistered then popped then melted down into a horrid glob of skin mush and sticky red-orange and is a second degree burn that I have been assured is no real cause for concern as long as I tend it with care. In all, I managed to escape my momjuries relatively unscathed and with a child that was scared senseless at having hurt his momma and is quick to listen and never stops cuddling me in the time since. Here's hoping he isn't significantly traumatized from this since exactly none of this is especially his fault and is due to my clumsy, accident-prone status in life.

So yes, The Toddler has returned home to me and after some happenings we have settled and are happy. However, his blast from the past father has suddenly just decided to reemerge after more than a year of radio silence and static and has slapped me with a custody petition. Hooray. While I have no worries on this matter due to my mother working for one of the top custody lawyers in the state and snagging him as my representation, and the utter lack of competency on my estranged baby daddy's end clearly being displayed in literally anything and everything the idiot does/says, I do have to now go through the overhaul of a custody case and that is just so weak and exhaustive. Not to mention the basis of his claims that I am not fit to raise a child are founded in my health concerns and the crazy work schedule I keep; ironically, my health is making it so that I have much less insane hours and makes this fairly moot but to each their own I guess. Also worth noting on this matter is that he only did this now because he was recently placed under penalty for child support back pay and nothing in this world matters to him like his money and this is his special way of getting one over on me for tampering with his meager earnings. (He's a wannabe musician - the soundcloud rapper sort, just so we are all on the same page here). If I thought for even a second this was a genuine desire to be an active and stable parent I would be a lot less pressed to act in favor of making it legally binding that he can only see him under a supervisory condition and share time evenly, but it just is not believable in the slightest.

So the thing is - my health is actually quite dismal presently. I'm due in for open heart surgery on the 8th of April and until then I have been doing my utmost to mind all the nagging I get from doctors, PT specialists, the surgeons that will be slicing and dicing me, and my in-family medical practitioner that sometimes remembers he is also my brother and not just an MD. But like, you guys, this surgery is terrifying and technically is two surgeries rolled into one. They'll be cracking my chest open and then stopping my heart while they lift it from where it sits sweetly unhinged and lopsided in my body and very finely shave away some of the excess muscle that has built up around the wall of my heart as well as some unfriendly scar tissue that has lingered since my last surgery years ago. Granted there is no accidental slip that nicks my ugly gargantuan heart and renders me as good as dead, once this first part is finished the other surgeon will need to be deft and very quick to place this ventricular assisting piece in the valve that has all but given up on functioning altogether and do so in the time remaining before the time limit for my heart being essentially unplugged from by body is up, which would also feasibly mean my death. Lots of exciting and terrible sounding consequences, am I right?

Well let's bear it in mind that I am just below 30 in age and therefore not duly experienced in the realm of facing down my own mortality via making all necessary legal arrangements and managing my affairs and assets so that, in event of my untimely death, the custody case still doesn't stand a chance of snatching my son away to the sad misfortune of being raised by a man that has stated openly he only has interest in his kids so far as what they can do for him/get for him in terms of benefit and that he would be unwilling to be hypocritical and never deter his children from drugs and a lifestyle of extremely questionable moral integrity and hygiene alike. Eugh. But I also have had to make sure there is a DNR in place just in case things go wrong during the operation, my will has also been finalized and notarized, all my savings and financial/material assets have been squared away to come into my child's inheritance when he is of age and, most importantly, a document that states clear and direct instructions for him to be placed in care of my mother or, if she is unwilling or incapable, he will be under custodial order and guardianship of my best friend whom he has always viewed as a pseudo-dad anyway. Legally binding and even in light of the paternity petition this document supersedes parental right by way of the provided evidence I have submitted to prove a lack of parental credibility. That's right, I spent days lowkey stalking and sleuthing about to capture what I needed to show this man for what he actually is and I have precisely zero guilt or shame for doing it; this is my child on the line and that means momma doesn't have to play by the rules of snitches getting stitches or whatever other scary street rules he tosses at me as idle threats. (He's done this routinely for all the years I have known him, and it is somehow both pathetic and hilarious because he knows for a fact that, if I wanted, I could throttle him in less time than it would take for him to form a rational thought between his drug soaked braincells - I was also a person of less than savory character not too long ago and can handle myself very well. But I digress because I am losing my track of thought.

After the surgery I will have so damn much PT and rehab, all of which will be specific to varying parts of my body that will need to be reworked and strengthened. Weeks, months of it really. This surgery is major and hits heavy enough that I will be in the hospital for at least 10-14 days just recovering from it without taking into consideration any number of complications that could pop up. Hell, if they get in there and find a situation worse than they currently have an understanding of in the limited capacity of cardiology tech can provide of such a gnarled beastly heart and realize they can't really do anything with it after all, I'll be added to the transplant list. I think this is more daunting to consider than the surgery, honestly.

In that way that doctors have about them, I was "comforted" by being informed that this was an inevitability and I would have been faced with this in a matter of years - less than a handful actually - but the way COVID-19 chewed through me sped it up. I'm sure my years of substance issues were also very helpful in this endeavor, but either way I still am unsure whether I feel better knowing this or not? Mostly I think I feel conflicted and hopeful tempered with the caution of life being super shady in the ways it has often brought me to the doorsteps of dying in situations that seem like odd chance. I also am gifted with being so capable in jinxing myself that I brought myself to COVID-19 ("The way life is going I'll probably square up with Rona next week or some bullshit." Positive test flagged within the following week) and also into labor ("Watch me go into labor on Labor Day since that would be the sort of universal pun that would strike my bad penny having ass." Indeed hatched my youngling on Labor Day of that year) by saying some things within the scope of my bad humor that instantly manifested as reality so I'm not taking any risks here lol.

The gist is that life is really stirring up the winds over here and so I haven't been online and posting anything that would make my blog valid in a fat minute. I do apologize for this and also for the fact that this post took me nearly a week to type up, but when things calm a little I will be back in full. For the time being I will be sporadic and do what I can when I can!

Thanks to anyone that read this mess all the way here! And a big thank you to all of you still supporting me!