#some people don’t understand how teen dramas work

[sapphicstoria]

A ship that constantly gets interrupted, & doesn’t get a closure conversation, will never be “over”, by the way. Kitty’s confession was interrupted, their first kiss was interrupted, the letter was interrupted. This is done intentionally, because Kittyuri is a slow burn romance. They’re not doing this, because Kittyuri aren’t important. Honestly, they’re one of the most important dynamics in the show. Kitty and Minho leaving together does not mean they are endgame, the endgames are not decided. But Gia Kim confirmed Yuri has feelings for Kitty, and the show runner said the love triangle is never really over. I’m tired of people constantly invalidating Kittyuri as a ship, and trying to gaslight the shippers that they’re done and we should stop talking about them. When’s the reality is, is that they’re not done and the show is pointing more towards their endgame than anything else. 🤷🏻‍♀️ people just need to focus on their ship, and let people do the same.

[victory-cookies]

the only irl friend I have that I feel comfortable actually talking about the things I enjoy with just insulted me for gushing about smth to her over snap last night and now I want to cry

[yuna542]

[1.]

~About Kooks and Pogues~

Pairing: JJ Maybank × Reader/Oc

Genre: Fluff, Enemies to Lovers, Smut, Angst, Drama, Action

Warnings: Alcohol, Mentions of Drugs, That’s it!

Taglist: Open

Word Count: 1.6k

Summary: The Kook princess is back after a year after a family tragedy and reignites the war between Pogues and Kooks on Kildare. But she quickly realizes that after this year, nothing is the same as before. Lies, dark secrets from the past, and dangerous conspiracies sweep across Kildare, leaving her no choice but to work with the Pogues and her personal nemesis to find the truth and maybe even $8 million. A dangerous treasure hunt begins that turns her world upside down.

Notes: That’s a series I’m working on and off for like three years now. I hope you’ll enjoy it

……………………………………………………………

Ain't shady baby, I'm hot

Like the prodigal son

Pick a petal, eenie meenie minie mo, and flower

You're the chosen one

The music was loud, the sound of the sea was pleasant and the sun warmed the faces of the young people who were on the large beach of the Outer Banks. One of the typical beach parties was held there this Wednesday. The vacations had begun and so the beach was full of Teenagers, tired of sitting still all day in a grey classroom, eager to have fun and forget about homework, exams and pressure on choosing the right College.

You didn't understand the Outer Banks if you didn't know the structure, as there were distinct differences not only among the Outer Banks youth. While some needed three jobs to survive, others owned three houses.

The Pogues, as a group of young people called themselves, had organized the ongoing party and quickly the beach had been filled by young people of all background’s. With the warm weather, most of the Teen’s were magically drawn to the sea and on the small island there were not that much other options to party and spend the night.

"Stop it!" exclaimed Pope, as a cloud of herbal smoke was blown in his face by his buddy. Pope was the most intelligent of the group and sometimes really strange. But that didn't bother his friends. Quite the opposite.

The blond who was now laughing and taking another drag on the joint was JJ. He was an excellent surfer and the troublemaker in the group. In fact he got very often into trouble and loved to provoke. But his friends always helped him out of it. Literally out of anything.

John B toasted the girl sitting next to him in the sand. He was the free spirit and adventurer of the group. He always came up with new ideas on how they could pass the time, even if they were not always so legal.

The girl with the dark curls and sun-kissed skin was Kiara. She was the only one who did not come from a poor background, and even belonged to the richer families. Still, she much preferred hanging out with the Pogues and didn't care much about possessions and wealth. Instead, she was a do-gooder who preferred saving turtles over going shopping. She loved to smoke a joint on the large glazed patio of the Chateau, that has a view of the backyard and the marsh with the guys, instead of talking about the newest season of the new reality show with her girlfriends.

The four of them laughed and teased each other as they drank beer and gradually more and more people came to the beach to party.

"Guys, I swear it will be incredible! We should really go out and surf on the other side“, JJ started the same topic as the day before all over again. His eyes were filled with energy and he couldn’t sit still.

"No, that's way too dangerous. The storms there are unpredictable and in the end no one will find us if we get in trouble," Kiara fended off and Pope immediately agreed with her.

"That's the thrill of it, isn't it? Dude the waves are going to be huge for sure! John B, you're up for it, aren't you? Don’t let me down, Bro!“

It sounded more like a statement than a question. Waiting, he looked at his best friend, who took off his cap, then put it back on, a gentle smile on his lips. The freckles on his cheeks glowing.

"Well, I’m in. Sounds like fun."

"Nice!" escaped JJ, while Kiara just shook her head in annoyance. Then Pope suddenly raised his eyes and seemed to spot something at the edge of the dune. As JJ and Kiara continued to argue, John B also noticed what he was looking at.

"Guys, the Kooks!" he muttered, clearly annoyed.

"That's exactly what we needed..." sighed Kiara sarcastically, and JJ stood up, beer in hand, to get a better look. Already tense and ready to throw himself in a fight. John stood next to him while Pope and Kiara remained seated. Both were already dreading another confrontation between JJ and the hated rich Kooks.

"That's Topper and Sarah," John B stated, to which Kiara just raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms.

"Someone else is coming," Pope remarked, and sure enough:

Behind Sarah Cameron, the current Kook princess and her boyfriend, two more people appeared.

"That's Rafe, but who the hell is that girl?" now asked Kiara, stretching her neck curiously.

"I don't know, but she's hot," JJ muttered, staring with John B in the direction where the Kooks were now walking across the beach.

"Hot as hell," John B added overwhelmed, continuing to watch the girl.

She had raven black hair that fell in many small curls over her shoulders, shimmering like wet ink in the sun. Her skin was tanned and possessed a bronze glow. She was not particularly tall, but slender and of athletic build, so even Pope looked curiously in her direction.

JJ's gaze was still wandering over her body when she had already turned to face them.

"Isn't that Skylar?" gasped Kiara, who was now staring in disbelief.

"Sky Diaz?" asked John B, elbowing JJ in the side as the Kooks moved closer to get him to stop staring. Topper had an arm around Sarah while the new girl chatted boisterously with Rafe. Her unusual appearance made her stand out from the blonde Kooks, and her style of dress was also quite different.

She wore a plaid pleated skirt that reached halfway down her thighs and loose white top, barely covering her belly and slim waist, with her black bikini top peeking through. She looked like she had been pulled straight out of an 80's rock and roll movie. JJ instantly was reminded of those musical-films Kiara forced them to watch, in which all of the guys had ridiculous hairstyles but the women always looked mysteriously beautiful.

"Is that really her? Diaz moved to Nassau over one year ago, didn't she?" pondered Pope aloud.

"Maybe she's vacationing here?" speculated John B.

Kiara shook her head.

"No, not after everything that happened. You don't take a vacation on Kildare after an incident like that. She must be living here again."

Now the Kooks were within range and looking around. Rafe gave the Pogues a disparaging look and Topper also stared warningly at JJ. Up close, it was now clear that Skylar Diaz was indeed standing in front of them. The amber eyes and full red lips were unmistakable. Even though she had changed considerably and her figure had become more feminine.

Even back then Sky had been pretty, but now they could see she had grown into a unbelievable beautiful young woman. JJ always hated the fact that she had everything. She was rich, adored and freaking beautiful. It wasn’t fair.

"Looks like you're going to have to give up your throne again, Cameron!" now JJ called out to Sarah, who just rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"The same rats as before," Rafe remarked, pointing at the Pogues as if they were animals behind a glass in the zoo.

Sky smirked mildly and regarded the Pogues briefly. Her gaze lingered a second longer on the cheeky blond, and it was then that she recognized him.

"What are you doing back here?" now asked Kie coolly, who had now also stood up. Back then Sarah, Sky and she had been best friends. But then she had moved away after the incident and the friendship between Sarah and Kie broke like thin glass.

"I'm living here again. My stepfather found new work on Kildare," she explained tersely, trying to ignore JJ's piercing gaze.

However, he put on an uninterested expression. Yea she was fuming hot and seemed to be even more confident and charming, but after all, she was still a stupid Kook. Her family was even richer than the Camerons and she was even more arrogant than all the rest thrown together, so she had been the leader of the Kooks back then and JJ's personal nemesis. The hatred between the Pogues and the Kooks had been current before, too. All Kooks thought the Pogues were filthy scum and the Pogues had the same opinion of the rich Kooks.

She tossed her hair back and turned around without saying another word to them. As if they weren't worthy of her attention. Then she walked over to the rest of the Kooks and was greeted with delight.

The evening took its course and there was drinking, laughing and dancing. Music blared from several speakers brought in by a couple of Kooks.

The sun beat down mercilessly on the sand, so that it was still warm even when it had long since sunk into the sea like a long lost wreck.

The Pogues were chatting animatedly with others from the Cut and JJ was drinking with a couple of tourists. A typical evening, as it had been so many times before, but the arrival of the Kook Princess, the royalty of Kildare, soon stirred up more than just a lot of sand, and JJ had a feeling that this summer was not going to be as ordinary as they had originally thought.

⬇️

© Yuna542 - all rights reserved.

[iwriteasfotini]

Everyone Has a Story

This has been my tagline from the beginning and FINALLY I understand why!

*In this post I talk about my HC (aka my story) in an authoritative way. I am well aware this is not how everyone characterizes or reads these characters, nor should it be. Just FYI.

*There are also minor spoilers as I divulge certain things about each character’s journey through the fic.

Yesterday I had the honor of someone other than my partner (who really doesn’t know what he’s talking about but can spot typos occasionally) beta reading a few of the chapters of my story and the experience was both eye-opening and inspirational. What was pivotal was that the person isn’t part of the Marauders fandom, but my story most definitely is. The chapters they looked at are my Voldemort centric chapters. Apart from getting some welcome and much needed advice about dry writing things like capitalizations within dialogue, a few grammar rules, sentence flow, etc, they forced me to reflect on defining the purpose of my story. 

Because I was trying to explain (both to them and to myself) what the point of my million plus word series is to someone who isn’t invested in my ships (likewise I’m not invested in theirs). And I don’t think I did a very good job. This has been a struggle for me since I started writing. What is the point of this story? I know the story, I have over half of it written, and the other half is waiting in my head. But I have dabbled in trying to define it here and there in literal ways and artistic ways, and yet I’ve never been able to look at someone and say at its core this story is about… I’ve already had a handful of people tell me my story is starting off different from any Marauders era story they have read. Of course we are talking about five(ish) people and there are literally thousands of Marauders centric fanfics out there, maybe hundreds of thousands. So there likely is something similar to my story out there already, but it is interesting to me how many people have conveyed this message relative to the small number of people who have read it so far. 

And I can tell you it is because while it’s a Marauders era story, it is different. At least in my opinion. It’s the story I want to read about these characters (and I’m not eighteen years old). It’s also still teenage drama and relationship heavy. I like the coming of age aspect. Teenagers are interesting people. They are both more fallible and at times more capable than adults. I also have a particular passion for healthy human sexuality which I believe begins as early as toddlerhood but DEFINITELY arises in the tween/teen years. There is a bit of internal healing for myself going on in this aspect of the story. And I really did try to write it without this component but it felt so flat to me. Plus this is fanfiction and it’s easier to get away with things I couldn’t in a professionally published work.  

Then, last night, my toddler woke me up at 3 am (sore throat). I eventually went back to bed, and of course my brain went into full on processing mode. So I’m taking another stab at defining my story. 

At its heart, the story is a Lily Evans versus Tom Riddle arc.

But in a different way than canon. Both of them shared the canon ability to control magic prior to receiving their wands. Both of them were removed from the magical world until they turned eleven. And the way their magic manifests into adulthood is very different. Within this arc specifically, I play with examining the danger of prophecies within the magical world. The way a person’s personality can influence their access to magic, and either limit or widen their perspective. And the juxtaposition of a narcissist versus an altruistic. Both of them have flaws. And both of them have power beyond the typical magical person. 

Lily ultimately dies. But so in a way does Tom. And then their rivalry continues into Harry’s era through Harry himself being pitted against Tom Riddle/Voldemort even though Harry doesn’t choose this path the way his mother did. I have a canon divergent story in mind for these years which sits better with me than canon in specific correlation to MY story.

Why must this story be told through the characters I chose? Because I love these ships. Haha! Only partially kidding. There are many other arcs woven into the story through the various characters. Again, the fact they are all experiencing their coming of age years plays a huge role in why they work for me. Let’s look at them individually. There are seven main POV characters. 

Lily: Covered her already for the most part. But Lily’s story is also about loving yourself, making mistakes and growing from them, taking chances, trusting your intuition, and other teenage/coming of age themes. Lily is just a person with a full capacity to love, a badass, and someone who likes to take action. She is the main character pitted against the main villain.

Severus: The arc of language as power and as a social bond between humans. In my story Severus is a Spaniard, and Spanish is his first language. He grew up in Spain. When he moves to Cokeworth, language is a huge barrier for him in integrating with his peers in primary. He knows English, but he obviously has an accent and sticks out in the town’s demographic. But he connects with Lily, first over magic, then over language as he teaches her Spanish. This bond (which ultimately is the real life mirror of their soul bond) endures forever. Language united them as people from two different backgrounds. Magic united them as well, but the language aspect is more unique once they enter the magical world together. Losing Lily is devastating, and it does affect Severus for the rest of his life, hence some of his less than appealing adult characteristics. Severus is one of the characters I plan to canon diverge on in Harry’s era. 

Remus: The arc of a limited world view being harmful both mentally and physically (in Remus’ case). Remus is the werewolf. To explore his arc, he gets to learn about and even experience what life is like for werewolves who do not reside in the UK. It is only one other culture, certainly not comprehensive to the world. But life as a werewolf is VERY different. There is not only one way to manage a problem. And when we disregard the wisdom of cultures which look different from our own, we lose so much potential as humans. Remus is one of the characters I plan to canon diverge on in Harry’s era. 

Sirius: The arc of privilege doesn’t always equate to happiness. Also (because he lives long enough to move beyond the young adult years) the impact of trauma and how it affects a person over the course of many years. As in, can Sirius overcome his trauma to live a happy life as a functional adult? Sirius is the black sheep of his family. He also cares deeply about his little brother Regulus. He has very low self-worth and it causes all sorts of problems for him (including landing him in Azkaban for 12 years). Sirius is one of the characters I plan to canon diverge on in Harry’s era. 

Regulus: The arc of consequences of playing the game. I think about Voldemort and Dumbledore as game masters in this real world (fictional) game of war. Regulus (like Lily) is super powerful but because he had a different upbringing, his attitude about his power manifests in a slightly different way. Regulus and Lily end up with the same magical mentors and are good friends, but between their House characteristics and their personal histories, they approach the war in two different ways. Regulus is also arrogant, he’s a Black after all (which I think is why he pairs well with James, also arrogant). And this arrogance, which I feel is particularly well suited for the age of his character, comes back to bite him majorly. I mean he dies. 

James: I wrote a whole post about James’ character development (or potential lack thereof). His arc isn’t as clear to me. I think his arc might be the arc of loving too hard. James dies. So we don’t see him mature into a true adult. And while Voldemort kills him, I see James having died long before that. He’s what happens when we center our life around something tangible. Something which can be taken away, in his case a person. James becomes so integrated with Regulus he ceases to be able to function when he loses him. Losing a loved one is ALWAYS hard, but it is also survivable. In my life experience, no matter what your “eggs” are, if you put them all in one basket it’s a dangerous game to play. A person needs to define themselves through a wide array of likes, loves, interests, investments, etc. When we become narrowly focused, then LOSE the capability to pursue that focus, if we don’t have other things in life to fall back on, we can end up in a very dark place indeed. My tangible real life example of this is being a high performing athlete. If, due to injury whether temporary or enduring, an athlete loses the physical capacity to perform their sport, and they don’t have other things they are passionate about, it feels very much like the entire world is collapsing. Their whole sense of identity is gone, it is like a death in many ways. Some people push through. Some people fall into major life altering/life ending depression.

Barty: The arc of how a villain is made. Pretty straight forward. EVERYONE close to Barty peerwise fights for him to NOT join Voldemort. And in the end, due to many tragic circumstances, he does anyway. Not only does he but he becomes one of his most loyal servants. Yup, that story line is happening people. I’m not canon diverging on Barty’s role in Harry’s era. 

Beyond each character’s story arc, my story likes to take every event in canon and flip it on its head. As in, you think you know how or why these events transpired, but actually there is far more going on behind the scenes. I also stretch my creative liberties to the fullest extent where magic is concerned. From wandless magical practices from around the world, to the six types of magic, how they manifest and relate to each other, to why some magical people are more powerful than others (aka the individual magical well). It is only canon in the sense that the characters discover all this magic from individuals with niche interests (like Xenophilius Lovegood) or from mentors who are from or have studied magic in other cultures. It isn’t traditionally taught at Hogwarts. It is not well known in the UK. Thus it fits, if you figure Dumbledore was just exceptionally negligent with Harry’s magical education. Which I actually think he was, but I also think there is a reason he chose to withhold so much from Harry. You know who wasn't negligent about Harry's magical education, Severus. Though in the framework of what he knows and is capable of in my story the case could be well argued he too was negligent. This is one reason why I'm canon diverging eventually. 

This story is not canon compliant. It follows the canon timeline of events through Chamber of Secrets. That being said, as the story I want to tell myself about these characters, it works in tandem with canon FOR ME. I like the ethnic diversity of the cast. I like exploring queer romantic relationships, especially trying to be authentic and not shove them into hetero gender roles/norms (I have no idea if I’m succeeding, but I am trying). I also like exploring the various types of platonic relationships and the deep connections people forge with one another, particularly in times of hardship. Sibling/family love, friendship love, and romantic love all have a place in the human experience. 

So, after this VERY long essay, I hope you can see why, if you choose to read my story, it might feel a little different than other Marauders fics. That is not to say other authors are not exploring these themes. And it is certainly not to say what I claim to be doing, I am doing well. I am a very new fiction writer and this work is as much about my own exploration and skill honing as the characters experience. But I think the combination of the real world arcs, the intensely emotional ships and platonic relationships, AND the world building shape the story into something memorable. It’s also why I have laid out the story the way I have. Each POV character has their own work, their arc takes front and center focus for the duration of that installment, while through their POV we maintain a connection with the arcs of various other characters. 

I’d like to again thank my beta reader for reading my Voldemort chapters, asking awesome questions, giving fabulous suggestions, and being so encouraging about writing how I want to write. Almost every choice I make in the story is intentional. Sometimes the intention has deep meaning, other times it is merely because I find certain characterizations and events to be entertaining or to progress the character development I’m aiming for in the main seven. Either way, I encourage questions about why things are the way they are. This is fun! It makes me think critically about my choices and see things from a different person’s POV (something I absolutely love to do).

Please excuse any typos in this, it is very long and I wrote it before the sun rose.

[gx-gameon]

Does Jaden ever feel guilty about Yugi 'giving up' his early adult years for him? I can picture Jaden in high school now finally realizing just how young Yugi was when he adopted him and maybe hearing a comment from the other students (not about him specifically maybe just some high school drama) that being a teenage parent is like throwing your life away.

Like he knows his Dad loves him and doesn't regret but he can't help but let his mind wonder to what Yugi's life could have been like with out him.

Oh yes.

Obviously he doesn’t get it when he’s small but when he goes away to school he starts to understand.

He can hear people talking about teen parents and the ‘waste of potential.’ He can hear his friends talking about their much older parents ‘who established themselves in their careers before having kids.’

His parents/family is young. Closer to older siblings than adult family members. But they did a great job being his dad/Oto-san/Uncles/Aunts. They went above and beyond for him. But they also sacrificed a lot.

He’s always seen the rumors in the media or at school. ‘Yugi Muto secret teen dad?” “Yugi Muto hides child for four years!” “Is Seto Kaiba ready for a family?” “Can the CEO have it all?” He grew up with the gossip rags and the social media speculation. His family shielded him when they could but they couldn’t always do that.

He’s know for a while that their family ain’t normal but it isn’t until Duel Academy that he starts to get over whelmed by guilt.

His friends are hanging out and some one brings up Yugi and his early career. And someone makes the comment that “Man I wish I could have seen where Yugi could have done if he wasn’t held back by his kid.” Yugi Muto is still the king of games and undefeated. But he doesn’t go to every tournament. (Jaden knows this is impart to work schedual and the fact that his Dad and Soto-San don’t trust all everyone who runs the tournaments. Zigfried for one. But people commonly blame the kings absences on his son. It’s rarely Jaden’s fault but the public opinion was already set against him.) Jaden can’t even defend himself without giving away his identity so he has to sit there and listen to his friends debate whether or not his adoption ruined his Dad’s life.

It happens several times.

People will even bring Seto into it. A delay happens of something gets put back. ‘I bet his son got in the way again.’ A different Deul Academy gets more funding or a unique opportunity. ‘He’s showing favoritism cause his kid goes there.’

But the guilt really doesn’t hit until Jaden is 18. He’s saved the world a dozen times (just like his Dad) but unlike his dad he’s traveling the world and finding himself. He has so much freedom and family supports him so much. But he’s also the same age Yugi was when he adopted him.

And he has to wonder. How much of the world did his dad get to experience before taking Jaden in? How much freedom did his Dad give up to give him stability? Jaden feels awful, he stole his Dad’s youth. He stole the whole DM cast 20s instead of being young and finding themselves and parting they were taking care of him.

And it kills him. He’s not worth it. He ruined their lives

Note the DM cast does not think this at all.

Jaden has been a blessing to them all. They all adore him and think he’s one of the greatest things that ever happened to them.

He brought Atem back (accidentally)

He reunited the friend group. They were all starting to drift towards their careers but Yugi needed help with Jaden gave them a concrete reason to still all hang out.

Friend group drift after high school. Unless they put in the effort to stay together. The DM cast loved each other and would always be close. But Jaden was a reason to get together regularly.

(Jaden’s first Christmas. Jaden’s birthday. They wanted to give him the best childhood and that meant being around when they could and calling when they couldn’t. Téa might have been in America and Mai might have been traveling but they are still Auntie Téa and Auntie Mai because they are there for Jaden.

Yes it was hard work. And they couldn’t do things normal people in their 20s can. But they also gained a lot with Jaden. If they wanted to do a friend trip Gramps could watch Jaden so they could be young and crazy or they took the kid and had a blast introducing Jaden to different things and experiences.

They all love this kid. He was worth it to them.

Jaden’s just is a real dark place already and being hit with the guilt of ‘forcing’ his family to give up their youths is hitting him at an awful time. Couple with the trauma from the dark world and wooooo.

Someone needs to sit the kid down and remind him how much they love him.

[zahri-melitor]

Hmmm still contemplating the Timpoll:

Chuck Dixon gets a bad rap for the Republicanism, the aging of his writing and the fact a lot of people simply won’t sit down and read all of it, but he established a LOT of baseline Tim and some aspects of his character I love (Tim the Team-Up Robin is due to Dixon)

Peter David writes good kid!Tim with his friends, but I think the magic there is the ensemble more than his writing of Tim himself.

Jon Lewis just doesn’t really get what a Tim story should be sorry. He is however interested in Tim as a civilian in a way no other writer quite is.

Bill Willingham has two main modes: my conservative values are showing; and heartbreaking character work. I think seeing Tim struggle with the concept of who he was outside of Robin, the school shooting issue, and everything with Dana and Cass after War Games is extremely well done. Pity about the other sections of his run.

Geoff Johns is who you go to for the Tim/Kon and Tim & Kon content. It’s a pity he likes drama a BIT too much.

Adam Beechen’s character work between Tim and Dick and Tim and Bruce was delicate, loving and very needed. He gave us the suicide issue, which compared to Dixon era PSAs? No contest. He wrote Father’s Day. If he hadn’t been assigned Cass’s evil arc I think he’d be a lot more respected and he’s one of the few writers on this list that I’d have loved to see what he did with a longer run.

Sean McKeever I don’t have an opinion on as I haven’t read his Teen Titans run yet.

Chris Yost was my vote but what I actually wish we had from Yost was a more characteristic Tim run to compare, because what we got was a fabulous mini but no information on how he’d exploit that reset. Yost understands how to reference other runs and write interconnectedly and understood which fault lines to push to break Tim open. I’d have loved to see what he did with Tim under normal conditions.

Fabian Nicieza got done dirty by Flashpoint. I said it. Nicieza is the best BatFAM writer from 2007-2011 and I swear he consistently gets overlooked by both being surrounded by Grant Morrison bullshit that he had to reference and work around, and by his Tim plotline getting done over by Flashpoint. If pre-boot had had another year I think we would have had Tim stable and through his growing up arc and Nicieza would be feted for being the architect of Adult Tim more than Yost.

On the “yeah where is Alan Grant” - let us never overlook that Grant wrote “To the Father I Never Knew”. Even if Grant had never written a single other word of Tim, he’d be up there in the pantheon SIMPLY for that masterpiece, which developed the dynamic all subsequent work on Tim and Jack’s relationship references.

[jungkook97]

severed;; jjk

pairing: non-idol normie!jungkook x reader

word count: 7.7k

rating: teens & up!

genre/warnings: sci-fi, romance, drama, comedy, angst, strangers to established relationship!lovers to strangers again, soulmates au, post-college au

summary: you and jungkook had a terrible breakup. and so, you two decided to delete each other from your guys' memories.

notes: have y'all ever seen eternal sunshine of the spotless mind? severance? that's it. that's the plot, but if jungkook was in it!!

“Isn’t it diabolical to delete him from your brain?”

You shrugged, taking another chug of alcohol.

"Not if he does it first."

© jungkook97 2023. do not repost or modify. please ask for permission to translate.

“Do you remember him?”

You scratched your head in confusion, not understanding the question. 

“Do you remember him?” the person in the lab coat asked again. 

You tilted your head once more, your brain was all muddled. There wasn’t anybody else but you and the person, and it was starting to creep you out a bit as to how cold everything was. 

“Who?”

The nurse wrote down a few scribbles on her notepad. 

“Success. You may proceed to the rest area now.”

You squinted your eyes as you looked down, staring at the package on your lap. It was a small box with a ribbon on it with the words, “Open when ready” card on top of it. You lifted up the card, flipping it to see the words, “THANK YOU FOR DELETING WITH US - LUMON” in the back. 

Ah. It seems like I’ve deleted something from my memory.

You relaxed a bit, sighing as you got up from your seat. You remembered you had an appointment today for the procedure, but you couldn’t remember for who and for what. Probably for good reason, you hoped.

The procedure, you were told, was pretty painless. It took about a month to scan through your memories, trying to discard what is good and what’s bad, put in a floppy disk, and then delete all of it, emotions and all. You’d figured that it was a pretty painful thing, maybe some childhood trauma, a bad breakup, or a car accident…who knows. 

Well, it was on the floppy disk, whatever it was. And until you were ready to look at it (in which you don’t intend to at the moment), you wouldn’t know. 

And so you walked out of the cold and white doctor’s room into a softer-lit, all-green resting area. The plush couches were pressed up against the walls as you see other clients taking a rest, texting their friends and family about the procedure they had just done too. 

You took a gaze at the clock: 4:32. 

Looking down on the box, you could see a time written in the top corner of the card. 

12:01. You’d been here for four hours. 

“Did it hurt?” someone asked. You turned around, seeing a pretty attractive young man around the same age as you. He was smiling of course, elated probably that severance helped him. You wondered what his reason was, although you weren’t terribly curious either. It was none of your business.

“No, actually,” you replied nonchalantly, checking your phone. Dead, it appeared. You sighed. “You got a charger on you? Need to text my friend.”

The blonde nodded, unplugging his phone to give the cord to you. 

“Battery’s full.”

You thanked him, plugging the phone in to juice it up. As the phone lit up and showed itself to be charging, the man continued asking.

“Do you remember why you're here?” he inquired. “This is my first time doing severance, and I’m worried about the after effects, you know.” He leaned into you a bit closer, whispering, “I heard the last guy who was in here puked the moment he saw his floppy disk inscription. Maybe his body remembered or something.”

You blinked, pouting. That sounded rather extreme. Surely, you’ve heard that severance doesn’t work for everyone, particularly with people who have extreme and prolonged trauma that one can’t entangle and delete easily, but throwing up after seeing the disk? You weren’t so sure about that.

“I think that’s just a rumor honestly,” you reassured the man, who was caressing his floppy disk with a lot of care. “What’s yours say?”

“Hm…” he pulled it closer to his eyes, reading it. “‘kth_2021-22.zip.’ Sounds like an ex or something. Three letters always mean ‘ex’ from what I hear.”

“God, I’m so sorry,” you patted him on the shoulder. “Breakups are the worst. Hope it’s for the best.”

The guy sighed, lifting up his jacket after it slid down his shoulders. “It’s whatever. I’m sure it was the best for me. Maybe it was a one-sided love. I hear that happens a lot.”

You found yourself agreeing with him. Although you weren’t exactly sure or really ready to look at whatever it was that got you to the Lumon office, you also felt relieved. Weirdly nervous, but very relieved. As if a big weight has been off of your shoulders, and you could take on the world. 

You weren’t sure why you felt that way. Maybe it was your body remembering.

“Anyway, I think I’m gonna head out. Name’s Jimin, by the way. We should get a coffee sometime, maybe track our progress together.” He waved goodbye to you before standing up.

Gesturing for his cord back, you unplugged your phone, grabbing the cable for him. He slipped a little piece of paper in between your fingers. His number presumably. 

“Oh, okay,” you replied, shaking his head with it before he lightly laughed, walking out of the resting room and into what seemed like the regular cityscape. You slunk back into the chair, the box with the supposed floppy disk in your hands. Curious, you slid it open, trying to see what your severed appointment was about.

“jjk_2020-22.zip.”

Great. An ex. 

“You know what, I’m gonna do it. I’m going to fucking do it!”

You were drunk. And high. Drunk and high at the same time. It has barely been twenty four hours since you found out Jungkook deleted you from his memories and the pain was not letting up. You had been crying to the point of throwing up at this point, and it was not looking pretty.

Sure, you were a bad girlfriend (allegedly, anyways), but to the point of severance? Jungkook promised when you two started getting serious that he would never do such a thing. He loved you, he said. He loved you too much to do such an experimental procedure like that. 

What a load of bullshit. 

“Dude. You cannot be serious!” Namjoon exclaimed, shook to the core. He attempted to take the alcohol bottle away from you, but to no avail. “You know severance is permanent, right?” 

“Yeah, and what about it?” you hiccuped, sliding your hands through the photos of the two together. That awful bastard, you thought. How can this motherfucker be laughing or smiling at all of these photos? It was jeering at you really, like some sick joke. “He had the audacity to break up with me and delete me from his memories? Oh, now he’s gonna be deleted too, FUCK him.”

Namjoon sighed. 

“Isn’t it diabolical to delete him from your brain?”

You shrugged, taking another chug of alcohol. 

“Not if he did it first.”

Your booksmart friend didn’t have much of a retort after that.

“W-well, didn’t you hear about the side effects? What if you forget about me?”

You chuckled, swinging the glass around in the air.

“You’re not gonna be forgotten, Kim Namjoon. You’re my best friend, for fuck’s sake.”

“W-well, I introduced you to him.”

You swallowed. 

“You’re right. You’re gonna be forgotten too, Kim Namjoon.” You gestured wildly in a big circle. “We’re all gonna be forgotten! Severed! Deleted! Vanished!”

Your abnormally tall friend looked at you in disbelief. After all, you were kidding about deleting your best friend from your memories, but he was not amused at all by the possibility of you deleting Jungkook too. Namjoon had desperately tried to get Jungkook to stop the procedure which kept him at bay until one night he impulsively booked the appointment and went to do it without Namjoon knowing. It was terrible. After all, Namjoon had no idea that their breakup would even come, let alone be that awful to the point of severance. 

Oh, he hated quarreling couples. Maybe it was best that he retired from his wingman occupation and went back to actually dating people. Not that it would be a joy. He was after all, this close to doing the procedure himself on a situationship he had, only to chicken out. 

“She has more balls than I do,” he sighed to himself as your eyes slowly began to close and yawned repeatedly. 

“I’ll delete you…Jungkook…”

It had been a week passed since you had done the procedure, and to your surprise, there wasn’t much of a fuss. Surely, your friend Namjoon seemed upset that you did it, but due to the potential complications, he had to sign a nondisclosure to not speak of the ex–er, subject that was deleted from your memory.

“I mean, you can always look back on the disk if you want,” Namjoon egged on in the middle of your guys’ brunch. “People who do it can choose to keep the disk to look back at it without the emotional attachment. I’m guessing the non-severed you wanted to cherish some memories with it.”

“Maybe,” you pondered, swirling the straw in your cup in circles, looking at a distance. There was a pit of emptiness that you couldn’t help but to feel, in which you have already brought up with the exit team. Normal symptoms, they said. It’ll take a few weeks before you’re back to normal, they said. 

You thought about what your new friend Jimin had said over lunch a few days ago. Your body still remembered the events that happened from time to time, but the emotional parts of it were voided from your mind and plopped on a disk to view from a third-person perspective.

It was a scary concept turned into reality, but you weren’t entirely creeped out by it. At this point, it was fun guessing what the topic was. So far, you were able to figure out it was a breakup of sorts, but not sure with who. After all, there are 8 billion people on this planet. 

“You do seem happier though,” Namjoon remarked, sipping a bit of his latte. “Like much happier. The thing…” he said carefully, dragging the second word out, “...the thing definitely held you back. The thing…uh…” he gestured in attempts to articulate further. “Ah…I don’t know how to not talk about this without mentioning–”

“Hyung!” 

You glanced up, eyes directly meeting with big doe eyes. It was a young man who had a cool effortless style to him, wearing a basic white Calvin Klein tee and sweatpants, followed by a yellow Supreme hoodie. He had a full sleeve and a couple of lip piercings to boot. He was cute, but definitely was not your type.

“J-jungkook!” he stuttered, sitting up rather abruptly as he nearly knocked down his chair. You laughed, waving the air to get him to stand up. 

“Please, you’re embarrassing your friend,” you retorted as the guy smiled back for a quick second.

“I’m used to Namjoon-hyung being that way. He’s our clumsy little tall friend. Huh, Hyung?” 

“Ay, stop teasing me like that,” he said hastily. Namjoon took a quick glance at the both of you, clearing his throat. He seemed weirdly nervous all of a sudden, as if he was caught cheating with his side chick. “Uh…this is Jungkook. Jungkook, this is one of my college friends…”

You extended your hand out to say hello as Namjoon continued to give a whole background of how you guys met, but you were met with a blank stare, almost as if the guy was embarrassed to talk to you. There was an awkward silence between you two, and you figured to try to say something, but there was something rather dead and cold behind Jungkook’s eyes that you felt rather uncomfortable by. You grimaced, rescinding the handshake back. 

What’s up with this kid? Why is he staring at me like that? 

You also felt that empty feeling again, as if something was terribly missing. It was a lot, but you thought nothing of it. It seemed like it happened rather randomly and in little bursts.

“...anyway, nice to see you, little one. I need to go to my appointment, so we’ll see each other soon, yeah?”

Jungkook snapped out of the daze to nod at his broad-shouldered friend. 

“Yeah. See you,” he said before waving goodbye, turning swiftly around and leaving the scene as quickly as he appeared. You frowned as you watched the kid walked away briskly, only to be met with Namjoon’s nervous expression. 

“What?”

“What what?”

You sighed.

“Never mind. You’re being weird today.”

“He just stared at you? Did he know you or anything?”

“No…?” you answered with a questioning tone, sipping some more wine. It was pouring outside and you decided to have a few drinks with Jimin at his place. It turned out he was extremely and terribly gay, and definitely was not trying to hit on you when he slipped that number in your fingers. Thank God, you sighed. At least, he wasn’t going to take advantage of the fact that you maybe had an ex and try to be your rebound. Surely, you had enough rebounds in your life as it is.  

“Suspicious indeed,” Jimin squinted his eyes, sipping a bit of his newly concocted cocktail. “Ah, I thought about watching the footage on the disk back this week, but someone had told me not to.”

“Why?” you leaned in closer, staring at Jimin’s disk perched on top of the coffee table. “You think you’re gonna see some bad shit on there?”

“Nah,” he remarked, leaning back on the couch and gathering his legs up to his chin. “Someone told me that they threw up after they watched everything on the disk. Like, for 10 minutes straight or something.”

“What’s with you and throwing up?” you laughed, hitting him playfully. He hit back, giggling. 

“I don’t know. At this point, I think people are just lying to me.”

“Yeah, probably!”

As Jimin gathered the glasses together to start cleaning up, you drifted off for a second. What if you’re ready to see the contents of the tape? Was it safe to see what’s on it for you? What was so awful that you chose to delete this person from your memories and detach yourself like that? You wondered how much you loved this person, how much you wanted this person to be a part of your life forever…what were the possibilities? There were so many? 

One thing was for sure though. You were ready to watch the tape tonight.

And so you did. 

As you plopped the disk into the hard drive of your desktop CPU, it booted up, showing the LUMON logo. As the screen loaded in front of you, you tapped your fingers nervously on the keyboard, wondering what you were going to unpack.

A virtual set of eyes popped up and opened its eyelids, finished with a pair of lips. Then, a female voice greeted you. 

["𝘏𝘌𝘓𝘓𝘖, 𝘐 𝘈𝘔 𝘠𝘖𝘜𝘙 𝘝𝘐𝘙𝘛𝘜𝘈𝘓 𝘔𝘌𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘠 𝘒𝘌𝘌𝘗𝘌𝘙, 𝘓𝘠𝘓𝘈. 𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘈𝘙𝘌 𝘈𝘊𝘊𝘌𝘚𝘚𝘐𝘕𝘎 𝘍𝘐𝘓𝘌: 𝘑-𝘑-𝘒, 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙𝘚𝘊𝘖𝘙𝘌, 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠, 𝘋𝘈𝘚𝘏, 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠-𝘛𝘞𝘖. 𝘞𝘏𝘈𝘛 𝘞𝘖𝘜𝘓𝘋 𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘓𝘐𝘒𝘌 𝘛𝘖 𝘚𝘌𝘌?"]

A folder appeared on the screen before it opened itself up to show a multitude of videos, seemingly time stamped in the course of the past two years. You tilted your head in amazement, scrolling through all the different files and seeing one person you had seen just earlier in the week present in all the videos.

“It’s that kid. Jung…shit, what was his fucking name?”

You scratched your head trying to remember, but to no avail. No wonder Namjoon seemed nervous around you when he came by. 

Was this guy your ex? A friend? What did he do to you? 

You had a sinking feeling as to what it could be, only to be comforted in not seeing any sexual misconduct or assault warnings on the side of the videos. You sighed in relief, leaning back against your office chair. 

Where do you even start? 

That empty feeling came up again, this time stronger than before. It felt really uncomfortable, something that you wanted to go away.

Now, it was starting to make sense. The empty feelings were probably what was missing, what this person, whoever it is, is going to provide answers for.

“There was a guy it seems,” you began replying back to Lyla. “Apparently he meant the world to me based on some of these previews. I can’t seem…I can’t seem to remember him, Lyla.”

A moment of silence.

["𝘐'𝘔 𝘚𝘖𝘙𝘙𝘠, 𝘐 𝘊𝘈𝘕𝘕𝘖𝘛 𝘈𝘊𝘊𝘌𝘚𝘚 𝘛𝘖 𝘙𝘌𝘊𝘓𝘈𝘐𝘔 𝘠𝘖𝘜𝘙 𝘔𝘌𝘔𝘖𝘙𝘐𝘌𝘚."]

“Uh, I’m not asking…” you swore under your breath before proceeding. “Um. Not trying to remember. Just…I weirdly…have this empty feeling right now. Just wanna know if this is related to this person perhaps.”

Silence. Longer than usual.

["𝘞𝘖𝘜𝘓𝘋 𝘠𝘖𝘜 𝘓𝘐𝘒𝘌 𝘛𝘖 𝘝𝘐𝘌𝘞 𝘍𝘐𝘓𝘌, 𝘑-𝘑-𝘒, 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙𝘚𝘊𝘖𝘙𝘌, 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠 𝘋𝘈𝘚𝘏, 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠-𝘛𝘞𝘖 𝘍𝘙𝘖𝘔 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘝𝘌𝘙𝘠 𝘉𝘌𝘎𝘐𝘕𝘕𝘐𝘕𝘎?"]

Should I? What’s the worst that could happen?

“Yes.”

["𝘼𝘾𝘾𝙀𝙎𝙎𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙁𝙄𝙇𝙀 𝙊𝙉𝙀."]

The screen turned to black.

It was you and Namjoon sitting at a restaurant booth, waiting for someone. It was late 2020 as the snow engulfed the streets of Seoul and people were hurriedly trying to get out of work since it was the end of day. You sat there seemingly nervous, pondering about something that you cannot recall what it was. 

“Are you sure about this guy?” you inquired. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure. He’s one of my good friends actually,” Namjoon grinned. His eyes met somebody as he gestured them over. “There he is! Jungkook!” 

You peered through your shoulder to see a young man and to your shock, it was the guy who you had met earlier who was gawking at you in the weirdest way. 

Pausing the video, you sat back in your chair, wondering what this encounter was. Was Namjoon introducing you to a friend as a date? You swore this guy Jungkook wasn’t your type. You preferred guys who were more clean cut, academic looking and well, not have tattoos. 

Maybe Namjoon saw something in this kid that you didn’t see before. Who even knows besides continuing on watching the tape. 

“Ah, we’ve met before!” you exclaimed. You stood up, giving Jungkook a warm embrace. “We met at the show that Yoongi had, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he replied, smiling back. “Namjoon talked a lot about you right after the show to me. It seemed like he was the one who was interested in you rather than trying to pitch a date, haha.”

“He does that,” you smiled awkwardly, extending your hand out to have him sit down. “Let’s eat, yeah?”

And so the conversation went on as you continued to watch the tape intently, getting a notebook to write some notes down. It turned out Jungkook was a friend of Yoongi’s, graduated from a state university back in the States and worked for some finance consulting firm nearby. You were surprised, of course, considering that the kid had a very visible sleeve tattoo alongside finger tattoos to boot. You couldn’t take the guy seriously despite the fact that he fits your profile now. After all, he must’ve charmed his way into your heart for you to have spent 2 years with the guy.

“So what do you do for a living?” Jungkook asked as he volunteered to flip the meats over to cook. You covered your mouth to swallow (a movement that you looking in retrospect gagged at, knowing that you were trying to look girly and proper in front of the guy) before answering,

“I’m a marketing director at an entertainment company,” you replied, grabbing some more seasoned bean sprouts to your plate. “I can’t say who I work for though, people would freak out.”

“Really?” he chuckled. The sound of it was impeccably attractive to you, you admit to yourself. “And why is that?”

“Because my main account is a girl group who every guy is obsessed with. Or rather, just that one singular member.”

He lifted up an eyebrow. 

“Oh? I don’t think I’d be weird about it if you tell me.”

“Dude trust me, she doesn’t lie,” Namjoon joked, taking a sip of his soju. “When she told me she was working for Wonyoung’s group, I was sure that none of our boys knew so they didn't bother her for the girls’ numbers.”

“Namjoon,” you emphasized as he opened his mouth in shock, covering his mouth. 

“I’m sorry!” he hastily replied, putting his hands up in defeat. “I swear–”

“No, that was on purpose!” you retorted back, throwing some seasoned spinach his way. The both of you laughed as Jungkook nervously laughed back, unsure if it was a joke or not. 

“Aren’t they really young though?” Jungkook remarked, putting some cooked meat onto everyone’s plates. “Like, one of them is sixteen or something, no?”

“Eh, men are men,” you replied dryly, thanking him quietly as he passed some samgyeopsal over to you. “And men are pigs. I’ve told them this and they still don’t give a shit. Especially when it comes to little Wonyo. Everyone throws logic out of the window when I talk about her.”

“‘Wonyo’…” Jungkook’s voice trailed off. “I’m guessing you’re close to Wonyoung to call her that?”

“Yeah. You obsessed with her too?” you asked plainly.

It was a test, you could tell in hindsight. You were the type to test men out to see they weren’t creeps every single time. Namjoon hated it (“You’re starting up shit for no reason!” he would say), but as a strong independent feminist yourself, you always had to make sure that some guy you were interested in wasn’t a predatory weirdo.

“Nah,” Jungkook answered just as matter-of-factly, stuffing his cheeks with meat. “I don’t like barely legal girls.” His cheeks began to flush a faint tint of pink. “Actually, I’m more into older women.”

You choked on some mashed potatoes. 

“Jesus,” you paused the video, hands covering your face. You couldn’t help but to flush as well at how incredibly cute that was. Surely, you were always into older men, but younger men lately have had a death grip on you. 

You can see your old self blushing too. Ah, that was what got you to be interested, you thought. You were so predictable. 

There were more conversations here and there, and you could tell over time, Jungkook felt more and more confident, extending his shoulder blades to make him look bigger than he actually was, cooking the meat a bit more aggressively and not stopping once to compliment you in some way or another. He was being outwardly flirtatious, something that you, as a Libra-dominant person, enjoyed quite a bit. You couldn’t help but feel the butterflies in your stomach flutter every time he said something wildly flirty, you would coil back in your chair out of embarrassment. He was totally your type, and it was crazy how deeply charismatic he was. 

“So, when am I going to see you again, my dear?” he asked as he held the door for you. You could see Namjoon’s eyeballs roll to the back of his head as the old you continued to be flustered by how directly forward this kid was.

“How about tomorrow, you little flirt?” you teased back, pulling him into a hug. Jungkook put his arms around your waist quite immediately, his nose scrunched up in embarrassment as he was doing this in front of his good friend. 

“You guys are disgusting,” Namjoon muttered loud enough for you two to hear. “What am I getting myself into with y’all being a thing…”

You leaned in closer as you could see your old self’s sparkling eyes looking into Jungkook’s. His big caramel eyes were looking back at you as well with his smile getting so big that you couldn’t help but smile too. Even though you two were getting to know each other, you could tell this was the start of something really great, although, with the fate of what happened, you wondered why this seemingly good relationship was now on a floppy disk and not in your brain. 

What happened, you thought to yourself. Did Jungkook break your heart that bad for you to forget him this way? Your heart sank at the thought of it. Surely, the answers would reveal itself as the tapes go on, but somehow, you were scared to watch the rest of it. 

[“𝙀𝙉𝘿 𝙊𝙁 𝙁𝙄𝙇𝙀 𝙊𝙉𝙀. 𝙉𝙊𝙒 𝘼𝘾𝘾𝙀𝙎𝙎𝙄𝙉𝙂, 𝙁𝙄𝙇𝙀 𝙏𝙒𝙊."]

It was a routine every night to watch a few videos from the disk. It was like binging on a new show you fell in love with, except this time, you were falling in love with this Jungkook from your computer screen.

At some point during the viewing, you found yourself pausing every few seconds, usually having to stomach what had just happened. You two were impeccably adorable, going on weekly dates the moment after the brunch ended. Jungkook was full of surprises, taking you on amusement park dates. He made you get on the biggest rollercoaster in the park, and you cried the entire time because you hated rollercoasters. You, on the other hand, took him to art museums and jazz concerts, something he always found boring. As his feet tapped in anxiousness and boredom, you would relieve your boyfriend from it by promising to get frisky in the bathrooms later on in the night, only to be blue-balled because you became hyperfixated on the topic at hand, talking about it for hours after the date was over.

In fact, you two also did a lot of fucking in the beginning, a lot. It was interesting at first as you were mostly vanilla, but as time went on, Jungkook did things to you that you never thought could happen to your petite little body. It was exhilarating to watch and also fascinating. 

But also, there were arguments here and there. Jungkook was younger by a bit than you after all, and he was deeply, utterly insecure.

[“𝘼𝘾𝘾𝙀𝙎𝙎𝙄𝙉𝙂, 𝙁𝙄𝙇𝙀. 𝙏𝙒𝙊 𝙃𝙐𝙉𝘿𝙍𝙀𝘿 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙁𝙄𝙁𝙏𝙔-𝙏𝙒𝙊.”]

Jungkook slammed the door behind him, creating a bit of a scene in your apartment. You sighed, still cooking dinner for the both of you. 

“Who was that on your story?” he immediately inquired as he slipped off his shoes. You knew where this was about to go. From the last episode, Jungkook found out you were still talking to your ex-now-turned-friend, Sam. Sam was an international student turned graduate who you spent all of college dating. Despite the fact that you guys were deeply compatible, you two ended up breaking up over the lack of time together, but nonetheless, you two enjoyed each other’s company. 

“Sam,” you sighed, setting the bowls together. “And yes, it’s that Sam.”

You gestured Jungkook to sit down, but he was heated, hands on his hips. With his tongue sticking out from his cheek, he started pacing back and forth, a sign of agitation. 

“Why did you see him? You still got feelings?”

“Jungkook,” you said sternly. 

You shook your head and snorted, chewing on the bulgogi you just made. If there was anything you knew about Jungkook at this point, it was the fact that he was a deeply jealous little guy, constantly feeling like he had to compete for your attention. Surely in the beginning, he charmed his way into your pants it seemed, but things have been different since then. You two had gotten used to each other’s presence as you could tell, and Jungkook’s flirty antics were no longer getting the old you flustered. 

“Is that not a fair question to ask?” he shot back, crossing his arms. “You did say that you’re the type to always get into situationships.”

“That was the old me,” you rebutted, setting some side dishes on the kitchen island. “Now can you please sit? The food is getting cold.”

Jungkook frowned, widening his stance while staring at you dead in the eye.

“Please,” you urged, waving the food in front of you. “I really don’t wanna argue today. You’ve been on edge so much lately because of the recent restructuring and I just want it to be peaceful.”

It was true. Jungkook’s job had recently merged into a bigger conglomerate and as a result, his department had been cutting people and laying off folks for weeks now. He felt extremely nervous and unhinged for quite some time, and as a result, he has been particularly accusatory toward old you in the past several episodes. 

You could see the old you pleading with your eyes, sighing as Jungkook eventually swallowed his pride and came over, sitting down next to you.

“I’m sorry,” he opened his mouth sometime later in between chews. “I’m just–”

“...stressed, I know,” you completed his sentence, giving him a piece of stir-fried pork chop. “Now eat. Your girlfriend spent a couple of hours out of her day to feed her easily jealous boyfriend.”

You smiled softly back at Jungkook, in which he smiled quietly to himself, sighing. 

“I wish you were there with me every day. I wouldn’t go as crazy, you know.”

“But I can’t and you know that,” you logically explained it to him. “Have you thought–”

“...of quitting?” he scoffed, shaking his head. “No, I can’t quit now. Especially since Eunwoo got promoted. If he out of all people could get promoted before I do…”

He trailed off. You sighed. 

“What did I say about caring about what Cha Eunwoo is doing?” you warned. 

“Ignore him,” he answered through gritted teeth, munching on the pork chop slices you gave him. “But he’s so annoying, my love.”

“Well, my love, you need to keep ignoring him for your peace! Your peace is important to me, and you’re always getting so riled up over the smallest things.”

Jungkook grimaced a bit before pouting.

“You’re telling me that the whole Sam thing is a ‘small thing’?” he did air quotes at the last two words. 

At this point, you paused the video. It was getting ridiculous at how incredibly immature Jungkook was, and you were also full from your dinner. 

While it was true that Jungkook was this rebellious kid who doesn’t listen for shit and gets feisty too often, you were also the same way. It was a shock how you two were compatible considering that you believed in opposites attract, but at the same time, it made all the sense. Jungkook was a mirror to you, and it was incredible how intoxicating the relationship has been. You felt a pit in your stomach in where this could go, and frankly, you weren’t looking forward to seeing it. 

[𝘼𝘾𝘾𝙀𝙎𝙎𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙁𝙄𝙇𝙀 𝙏𝙃𝙍𝙀𝙀 𝙃𝙐𝙉𝘿𝙍𝙀𝘿 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙎𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙔-𝙁𝙄𝙑𝙀.]

You two were at a wedding. Jin’s wedding to be exact. 

It was a lively affair, filled with friends that you grew to know over the course of a few weeks. Seokjin was the oldest in your little quartet of friends who finally proposed to his sweetheart of five years (in which she already knew way in advance because Seokjin was terrible when it comes to keeping secrets). Namjoon had finished singing some cheesy English-only number he wrote specifically for the couple, drunkenly crying after as he toasted for the newly wedded. 

You were sitting with your now 2-years-older boyfriend as he goofily danced with his guitarist friend Yoongi, who was too shy to show some of his moves. He took it seriously though, doing parts of a choreography of a song he composed for Jaesang with some chic flair. The man had made good money by producing a lot of amazing beats for the industry, but this was nothing compared to how much Jungkook teased him for it. 

As the song came to an end, Seokjin grabbed the mic from the DJ as audio feedback irritated everyone’s ears. He was incredibly drunk, and his new wife was urging him to sit down and drink some water to no avail. 

“Ah ah, let me SING!” he protested, making his wife sit down as he continued to hiccup his way through it all. “I am the best singer on the planet, let’s goooooo~!”

The DJ soon played a slower song with Seokjin singing a half a second too late, only to start over again. Everyone was laughing, charmed by the barely married man feeling confident to sing in front of his beloved friends and family.

“You know, he isn’t bad,” Yoongi piped up as everyone began to bring out their phones to record with him doing the same. “I would love him to be in the studio with me and record something.”

“You’re scouting people now, Yoongi?” you giggled as Yoongi chuckled back, smacking his lips. 

“I gotta keep my bag flowing,” he sheepishly replied. 

The both of you continued to have a good laugh as Jungkook swung by in his sleek black and grey checkered Louis Vuitton suit, wrapping his arms around you. 

“Babe, let’s slow dance,” he whined. “We haven’t danced together all night and we look hot together.”

“Jungkook,” you pleaded, pointing at your injured ankle. “Ankle. Sprained. Cannot dance very well.”

“I’ll carry you,” Jungkook reassured you, starting to pull you onto the dance floor. “Come on, let’s dance under the disco ball and make out. Please?”

“We’re already halfway there,” you grumbled, turning your pout into a smile. He was cheekily smiling from ear-to-ear at your approval and pulled you right in the middle of the dance floor, supporting your whole body to ensure that your sprain wouldn’t get worse. 

It was a beautiful sight, and as the lights slowly dimmed for Seokjin’s impressive high notes, it looked like you two were deeply in love with each other, that happiest that you seemed to have ever been. Surely, you had a few boyfriends that made you feel something, but genuine happiness? You haven’t seen yourself smile like that in a long time. It was a core memory for sure, a core memory you wished you remembered for the life of you, but cannot. 

All you could do was continue watching the tape with absolutely no control of what was to happen next. It was a rollercoaster, similar to the one that you were terribly afraid of to go on. On some days, it felt like you two were a perfect match, while other days, it felt like there was no way to understand each other. It was hot and cold, fiery and icy. Sometimes you felt like you could connect to this Jungkook, only to realize that it doesn’t matter. Fate had other plans and you two are no longer together, not knowing that this history happened.

You wondered if Jungkook now had deleted your memories of you. Namjoon didn’t want to reveal much. After all, he’s still tied under the NDA to not speak about you two because you guys weren’t supposed to know each other. You wondered if Jungkook didn’t delete you, if he missed you the way you strangely and unexplainably missed him. After all, how can you miss someone you never met? You were unsure, but you definitely felt it. 

As the star of the night sings the closing notes, the two of you had your foreheads against each other, staring into each other's eyes. You couldn’t help but to feel emotional from seeing it, shedding a tear as you paused for a moment to take it in. 

You fell in love with Jungkook. It wasn’t even funny anymore, you had successfully fallen in love with someone you loved and decided to forget. You couldn’t help but to feel pissed at your old self. Like, why did you do it? Why did you choose to delete him from your memory? Was it out of spite? Out of anger? What was it? 

It was killing you inside, and you continued to replay the moment over and over again, seeing the happiness in both of your guys’ eyes. 

“I love you,” Jungkook finally whispered. His eyes were closed now, shaking a bit out of nervousness probably. 

“I love you too,” you said back immediately. “I love you so much more.”

“I love you the most,” he pressed, trying to end it. 

The both of you laughed before sharing a sweet kiss together. 

“Guys, let’s gather together! Bouquet throwing time!” 

All the girls began to scream as the two of you parted lips. He opened his eyes to peer over your shoulder, turning you around and pushing you lightly toward the growing crowd of women. 

“Go, go, go!” he urged. 

And so you walked over there through the crowd carefully, making sure you weren’t putting so much pressure on the injured ankle. Eventually, you were in the back as Seokjin’s wife slowly began to rock her bouquet front and back before turning around to get ready. 

“Okay, let’s…go!” 

The bouquet was thrown up in the air and as everyone swarmed each other to block their way, it ended up landing in…

…your hands.

Everyone cheered on for you as you giddily yelled at the top of your lungs, ecstatic. You turned around to try to find Jungkook in the crowd, only seeing him beaming at you. You held the bouquet up and then…

…smile vanished.

“What?”

You paused the video. You wouldn't believe it. And so, you watched it again.

And again.

And again. 

And again. 

He did indeed turn stone-faced at the moment you pulled up the bride’s bouquet. It wasn’t a sneer. It wasn’t a frown. Just. Nothing. 

“What the fuck…” you said out loud, slinking back into the couch. You unpaused the video and the scene continued.

Your smile faded at the sight of it, in which you made the same face as him, throwing the bouquet down. Jungkook, upon seeing you, turned around hastily, smacking his lips together to sit back down on his seat. You went back to your seat as well, not looking at him. 

Shit. This is where it goes to shit, huh.

["𝘼𝘾𝘾𝙀𝙎𝙎𝙄𝙉𝙂. 𝙁𝙄𝙇𝙀 𝙏𝙃𝙍𝙀𝙀 𝙃𝙐𝙉𝘿𝙍𝙀𝘿 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙎𝙀𝙑𝙀𝙉𝙏𝙔 𝙎𝙄𝙓."]

The car ride home was quiet. Too quiet. 

At this point, you were seething from the tape. It didn’t help that you two ignored each other for the whole night, after exchanging some “I love yous” before this bouquet incident unfolded. No one was saying anything, and it was pissing you off. 

“Is someone going to say something?” you muttered under your breath, pressing the fast forward button a bit to see if things changed.

Then, a single sentence came out of Jungkook’s mouth.

“About earlier…I didn’t mean that.”

“Mean what?” you shot back, sitting up from your seat. “You literally told me to go catch the bouquet and then when I did, you made this face like…like…you don’t want to marry me or something.”

“No, that’s not what I was thinking,” Jungkook rebutted, his hands gripping on the steering wheel tighter. “I was just…taken aback, that’s all.”

“Why?”

Yeah. Why?

“Why…” he repeated to himself, trailing off. “I don’t know, my face just reacted. I don’t know what I was thinking, okay?”

“Oh really. And I’m supposed to believe you?” 

“Sweetheart, can we please not argue tonight? I had a lot of fun, and it’s been a while since–”

“Oh, it’s been a while?” you interrupted, scoffing. “Oh, it’s been a while since I wasn’t a killjoy, is that it?”

You could tell Jungkook was starting to tense up, gritting his teeth.

“Yes, maybe that was it. Because, I don’t know, you have been on my ass lately about not finding a job, and you don’t pick up after yourself.”

“What? What the fuck?” you laughed bitterly as the two of you pulled up at your place. “What the actual fuck? You don’t even live with me!”

“I don’t, but I sure stayed at your house long enough to know that you’re pretty fucking gross when we’re not together. And maybe, I don’t want to move in seeing all of that, I don’t know.”

“Oh, we’re just speaking our feelings now? Clearing the air?” you shook your head in disbelief. “Well, you’re not really the most pleasant person to be sleeping next to. Have you ever thought about going to sleep at a regular time instead of playing your video games until 5 AM?”

“I have insomnia, my love,” Jungkook refuted. “You told me you weren’t a light sleeper.” 

“I’m a pretty heavy sleeper. You,” you pointed right at him. “You are just loud!”

“Well, it’s not like you gave a fuck up until this point, haven’t you? You just care now because I fucking made a face at the wedding.”

“Yes, maybe that’s the case but…maybe, maybe, your little face was a sign.”

“A sign of what?”

“That we’re not going to be endgame, Jungkook.”

You were breathing hard at that point, and same with the present you. The two of you looked at each other blankly as Jungkook’s voice shook in anger. 

“What the fuck are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying…” your voice quivered a bit. “I’m saying, if we can’t seem to stand each other’s habits, maybe we should break up.”

Boom. There it was. 

“What?” Jungkook scoffed, licking his lips. “You’re going to break up with me after I fucking told you I love you the most?”

“You don’t,” you pressed. “If you do, you wouldn’t constantly be so insecure about Sam or any of my old exes. I shower you with endless amounts of approval every day, trying to make you feel a bit better about yourself, and you just don’t care. You pull me in with all the lovebombing, telling me we’re perfect for each other, and then you pull some shit like all of it is nothing.`

Jungkook was silent. You stared back at him, tears welling up in your eyes.

“I don’t know…I don’t know if I want to continue doing this. It’s been two years since we’ve dated and I feel like every day, I don’t know who I’m going to get next. It feels like you’re just here to only want me when you’re happy and don’t when you’re not happy. Like, what is the point of all of this?”

“‘What’s the point…’” he repeated, only to stop from there. Putting his face in his hands, he sighed deeply. “Maybe you’re fucking right. Maybe I really don’t know what the hell I want in this relationship. We fight so much and it’s so volatile. I don’t know why, I just…I always feel like I have to argue because sometimes, my dear, I cannot stand you when we do. Like, you don’t understand how I feel, how much I need to be consoled that I’m the only one–”

“YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE, JUNGKOOK,” you yelled, your hands shaking. “I keep telling you this and you don’t FUCKING believe me!” 

“Then, why are you still having lunch with Sam?”

“Because we’re close friends!”

“And I’m not to you? My feelings don’t fucking matter, does it?”

“It does, it’s just–FUCK.”

You broke down into sobs as Jungkook hit the steering wheel, crying as well. In fact, that was all you two did for a bit. 

“I’m going to go,” you said after a while, sniffling as you grabbed your purse. “I don’t know if we’re going to be okay after this–”

“We’re not,” Jungkook said with finality. “Let’s do it. Let’s break up.”

You turned over to him, looking at him straight in the eye. He was dead serious. 

“Fine.”

You opened the door, got out, and closed the door shut behind. Jungkook put the car into drive, and drove off almost immediately.

[“𝘌𝘕𝘋 𝘖𝘍 𝘍𝘐𝘓𝘌 𝘛𝘏𝘙𝘌𝘌 𝘏𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘙𝘌𝘋 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘚𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠 𝘚𝘐𝘟. 𝘌𝘕𝘋 𝘖𝘍 𝘑-𝘑-𝘒, 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙𝘚𝘊𝘖𝘙𝘌, 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠 𝘋𝘈𝘚𝘏, 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠 𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠-𝘛𝘞𝘖 𝘋𝘖𝘛 𝘡𝘐𝘗.”]

And so the tape ended.

It was days, days before you could move on from the contents of the disk. You miss Jungkook more than ever before. The doctors were right about the empty feeling, it does go away. 

Except, it was replaced by something else, an array of feelings you feel after watching the tapes.

And so, you went on about your days. Typical, normal days.

Then, you ran into somebody. Someone who you only saw on the tapes. 

It was a nice summer day when it happened. You were running errands, trying to catch up for the week and decided to stop by your favorite coffee shop. 

“Jungkook?”

The young man turned around. He was wearing all black with another colored Supreme beanie with Birkenstocks. 

“____?” he replied back, although unsure. You nodded, putting your small bag of groceries behind your shoulder. 

“Yeah,” you answered. “It’s me.”

A moment of silence. 

“Uh, I watched the tapes…um, well. I should probably preface that I deleted you from my memories–”

“Me too.”

You stood there, frozen. 

“Oh.”

So that answered your question whether he did the procedure too. 

“Yeah…” Jungkook continued on. “Um, I went back to see them too and uh…” his fingers began to fidget with the bottom of his shirt. “Well, I know that I don’t necessarily remember anything or remember why I chose to severe you, I can’t help but to feel sorry. For us. For what happened. I don’t know why I feel that way, but I do.”

He was deeply remorseful, very apologetic. You couldn’t help but to feel bad, lowering your bag of groceries to the ground as Jungkook stared at them, unsure of how to really react.

“I wish I didn’t delete you,” he concluded. “I wish we were still together. Watching those tapes made me feel like I lost out on something. I don’t know why I was so insecure. I could care less if you’re friends with your exes. Maybe I’m just too immature at the time. I know a great deal of time has passed, but I want us to–”

He coughed a bit, choking on his words. 

“I want us to–”

He coughed a bit more, and then…

Vomit. 

“Oh my God!” you exclaimed as the crowd did the same, with a few people hastily grabbing napkins from their bags so Jungkook could clean himself up. 

You stared at him agape as you remembered what Jimin had said the first day you two had met. 

“You…you were the guy who threw up when you saw your disk, didn’t you?” you inquired. Jungkook, now, wiping his mouth, looked up.

“How did you know?”

Your mouth grew into a smile. 

“Heard from somebody.”

Jungkook smiled as well, standing up as he straightened himself up in an attempt to try to look bigger. 

“Ah, well, they say it’s a side effect or something. Your body remembers.”

“Yeah…” you trailed off, smiling back at him fondly. “Your body does remember.”

END.

[gemini-care-barr]

⚠️ Spoilers for World’s Finest: Teen Titans #5 ⚠️

On the subject of team books and friendships/teams in superhero comics in general…

So, I just read the latest issue (#5) of Mark Waid and Emanuela Lupacchino’s World’s Finest: Teen Titans series and I gotta say it has made me realize what I’ve been missing for a while in comics:

I. need. more. STRIFE!!!

I need more characters fighting and tearing into each other in the meanest ways! And NOT because they hate each other or are on opposite ends of the good/evil spectrum, but because people fight! They disagree! They get frustrated and they take it out on the people around them! And then when the pain of changing FINALLY becomes outweighed by the pain of staying the same: people GROW. They become better. They see how the ways that they were acting and the things they were thinking were tearing them apart and they come together against and despite that strife. And no, that doesn’t make things perfect, there will (and should) still be inner conflict and butting of heads, but that only guarantees more change and more growth because no one is constant and no one should be. The only constants are change, and, with a good team, each other.

And by God, this issue, and this series really, has shown that perfectly. Over the past few issues, we’ve seen the perfect dynamics of the team getting ever so slowly chipped away. Starting with Roy very understandably getting mad at Dick for not sharing his secret identity with the team which was promptly “fixed” in a way that we all knew wouldn’t last. Then we’ve seen Garth and Donna’s relationship on the rocks almost from the get-go because unfortunately shared circumstances just isn’t always enough for two people to base an entire relationship on when their similarities and compatibility basically stop there. We also have Karen bringing in a new guy and not really having too many close relationships with the already established team. And finally, we have Roy’s personal struggles with his father figure being aired out and almost ridiculed by the other kids who just don’t know how to help him. Oh, and of course we also have Wally who comes from an almost perfect superhero sidekick background (special thanks to my guy, Barry Allen, no doubt 😜) which unfortunately makes him a little too loving and lighthearted in the eyes of some of the team and is also seemingly pretty unequipped for dealing with their levels of dysfunction (can we really blame him? No, we can’t, and we really shouldn’t, he’s literally the most functional member of the team outside of maybe some of his judgement of Roy). And all these problems have (inevitably) finally resulted in a lot of in-fighting. In-fighting that has now utterly crippled them, but hopefully not for long as the final page shows Dick’s willingness to change when he goes against Bruce’s rules of secrecy and finally reveals his true identity to the team. I’m hoping this means that they’ll set aside their differences and start working as a team again, rallied around their now unmasked-to-them leader, but I have a feeling that waiting so long to finally reveal himself to the team may carry some consequences of its own for Dick.

Regardless, I’m excited to see some more deliciously grounded, well-written, and much-needed personal conflict in comics again. Not to artificially further a plot or build fluff drama, but to evolve characters and relationships alike.

[gingerylangylang1979]

Carmy and Claire... ooof

I’m just gonna get into it. 

She tried to be Carmy’s Pete

I feel like Claire is supposed to be Carmy’s Pete, but it doesn’t work because Carmy is not Sugar. I was searching for a parallel to how they were trying to show Claire as a balancing force for Carmy. Which I get. Opposites attract. You see that with Nat and Pete but for some reason it doesn’t work with Carmy because he is so much more ill adjusted than Sugar. Claire, despite being super understanding, also never saw the worst of Carmy. He reserved the worst for the restaurant and used her as an escape. He reserved the worst for Sydney. So Claire was never truly tested or trusted to see it all so of course she easily loved him. They never argued. I did like the softness and gentleness we saw. Carmy needs that, but it just wasn’t totally honest because they were in the honeymoon phase and he was on best behavior just for her. What if she was struggling at some point, would he be able to be there for her in the same way? No. I think this was a perfect example of a woman thinking she can fix a man. The problem is she never saw how deeply he is broken. 

Carmy created a love bubble

Carmy never set boundaries and said this is what I can give while I’m on this new project. So she got a false sense of what his world really is and what his priorities needed to be. She has a busy job too but it seemed he accommodated her so in a sense she never really saw the actual reality of them both working like crazy and him coming home stressed. He created a bubble of perfection with her at the center that was never going to be sustainable. 

The whole portrayal was lame. 

Not gonna lie, I did like seeing romantic Carmy, for personal reasons. If my one positive takeaway is yes he wants to fuck women, yes he can be gentle, that’s a win for me. BUT the overall tone just wasn't hitting. Which gets to a bigger gripe about the tone of most of the episodes not hitting for me. It felt very primetime drama for me with the dialogue equivalent to a teen show. They even went to what looked like a frat party. Her lines were very, “I’m the perfect, quirky, understanding girl with no problems of my own,” and he got throwaways like, “She’s so great it scares me.” Just really mediocre compared to dialogue we’ve seen written for this show. And the fireworks kiss? Come on! I was expecting running in the rain to happen at any moment. I couldn’t tell if the writers wanted me to be invested in them or not. I guess maybe they were trying to make a reliving of Carmy’s lost youth, quite literally? I dunno. It felt sweet at times but also just super corny and out of place on this show. 

Is she a pick me? 

I actually hate this term. I feel it’s used so flippantly and can be hurled at any woman like a slur. But saying it defines what I mean so forgive me. Claire got the red flag literally from day one. He gave her the wrong number but she still pursued him. She questioned him on it a few times until she got a real answer but his answer was kind of bland. He just said I like you so much and don’t want to mess up. I dunno, when I’ve heard that from a man in the past, they usually do mess the fuck up, big time. This is their way of letting you know. She obviously didn’t ask to define the relationship. Carmy works it out with the crew so they never had the conversation with each other. The whole girlfriend/girl who is a friend thing was so lame for a grown adult man to need to ask about. Sydney was right to punk him and be like which is it? Exactly how important is this? So was Claire never questioning what they were this whole time? She said I love you to him first, I think? She said it on the voice message, which I thought was a bit bizarre. He said he loved her to other people but we never saw him say it to her face. I think it was just really strange that we never got a scene of them saying it to each other. Sorry, I’m old fashioned, the man needs to say it first, to a woman’s face. I feel this is one step away from a woman proposing to a man which is also a no for me. 

I didn’t understand the family connection 

They all know her yet we hear nothing about her from them and Carmy has been home quite awhile at this point. Fak has her number? They call her Claire Bear? They don’t call anyone not immediate family Bear so why does she get that? Because it rhymes? Eeek. She is supposedly so close with them all but we never see them interact with her until she dates Carmy? Sugar never mentioned her. Did he have a crush in high school or did he just wish they were friends before? When Mikey, Richie, and Fak try to push her on him at Christmas he seems really disinterested. Was it just a self esteem thing, that he was put on the spot, he didn’t want a relationship, or just didn’t have a crush on her like that? It’s really unclear what that was about. And then she knows about The Bear name but he says he wishes she talked to him more. So when was this conversation? It’s just really sloppy and none of the details align. Everyone treats her like she was so close to the family but there’s no real evidence of that from the past that makes any sense. I’ve seen some fans say Carmy connected her with his family trauma and that’s why it can’t work. I don’t really get that. Maybe that’s what they tried to write but I’m not getting how when it seems the family connection is just them trying to set him up with her. Am I missing something?

Will they explore this again?

I think it’s hard to tell. It is interesting that they started in the refrigerated section and it ended because Carmy was trapped in a fridge. Cold, literally. The use of the blue light when they were in bed and the blue light when Carmy was trapped was interesting. Does it mean finality? I don’t know. She didn’t even get a last name. They didn’t really end it face to face. Would they explore it again if Carmy is more stable? At this point I have no idea what they intend but I can’t conclude it’s done, done. Overall, the fan reactions have been negative. I’m not sure if the show cares or not. If I were her I would stay away. Repeat relationships rarely work out because trust is broken. How would she be able to trust Carmy again? Even if feelings are still there I would feel duped if I were her. 

Thoughts?

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — “We are immigrating to America.” It was 1989, and my parents had sat my sister and me down in our living room to break the news. In those years of economic and political instability, as well as the ethical injustice of apartheid, many Jewish South Africans had an exit plan. Our time had finally come, and I was devastated. I sobbed big ugly tears. 

In my mind, I was leaving more than the comfort of my family and friends. I was leaving the only way of life that I understood. South Africans as a group are traditionally Orthodox but not necessarily observant; Shabbat dinners followed by TV was how I grew up. Immigrating to a vast new world made me petrified that I would lose my Jewish identity.

When I arrived in Florida, I got involved with a local theater group for teens. But as much as I loved performing, I became a drama dropout, in the name of Shabbat. I traded rehearsals for the sound of the chazan singing “L’cha Dodi.” I️ chose tasting challah and grape juice with my family over eating McDonald’s French fries with fellow thespians. Eager to remain rooted in a world that was familiar, observing Shabbat became my way to recreate home.

I think about this change every year at Rosh Hashanah, an opportunity to begin our lives anew. Our hearts are open, our books are open, the shofar cries out and we cry out with it. We reckon with ourselves and we reckon with God. Every year, the High Holy Days call upon us to pause, reflect and consider what changes we need to make to bring more justice to ourselves and the world around us. What part of our past must remain unchanged, and what do we have the power to change for the better? Yehuda Amichai, in his poem “My Parents’ Motel,” captures this very dichotomy as he describes his father’s dying words. After recalling his father’s softer and gentler version of the Ten Commandments, he says: 

I want to add two to the Ten Commandments:

The eleventh commandment, “You will not change,” and the twelfth commandment, “Change, you will change.”

Amichai’s two invented commandments have guided me from my earliest days, constantly exploring how to hold onto change without changing too much, and how to balance tradition with modernity in a world that does not always value religion. For me, that liminal space between changing and not changing — and the desired pace at which change can or should occur — remains a constant undercurrent in my life and leadership. 

In 2010, many people objected to Rabbi Avi Weiss for ordaining me as the first female Orthodox rabbi. The sudden media attention brought on an onslaught of criticism. Orthodox change is seen as an oxymoron at its worst and decidedly slow at best. My ordination and my taking the title “rabba” (the feminine form of “rabbi”) several months later was seen as too much too fast. This move, I was told, would destroy the Orthodox community. 

The two rabbis who railed against me published an article called “Orthodox Women Rabbis?” and used a metaphor of orthodontics in expressing his views. Change, they said, quoting one of their teachers, must happen slowly, like the process of braces that methodically and slowly straighten teeth over time. Too much pressure, they accused, would cause the teeth to break.

It’s not that I don’t believe in patience. My patience has helped me slowly traverse many obstacles. Some of my colleagues, understandably, have accused me of being too patient! The metaphor I like for patience and the process of change is not orthodontics, but rather exercise. My trainer, with whom I have been working religiously, once a week every Monday afternoon, introduced me to the phrase “time under tension.” When you hold one position, be it a squat, plank or bicep curl, for a long period of time, it is called time under tension. Whenever I hear this phrase, usually while sweating, I always think about the process of change. I may be gasping for breath (and in pain), but I can’t help but imagine my muscles first being called to wake up, and then slowly, with lots of effort and energy (and did I mention some pain?) eventually changing, becoming better and stronger. 

When we put in the work, with a healthy dose of righteous anger, change becomes inevitable. Yet many people, like the orthodontics rabbis, have a visceral fear of change and they end up imprisoned by their past, remaining exactly where they are.

When people ask why I continue to invest in women’s leadership in the Orthodox world after I experienced so much resistance and animosity, my answer is this: if we want the Jewish community to grow and thrive, we cannot ignore the wisdom, insights, moral courage and spiritual rigor that women contribute. Our community has always benefited from many voices, scholars and genders. When women are undermined in Orthodox communities — where we truly and deeply belong — everyone misses out.

Rabbeinu Yonah Gerondi, in his introduction to “Shaarei Teshuva,” or Gates of Repentance, a book that is often read on the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah, tells a story about a group of bandits that were imprisoned by the king. After a few days, the prisoners dug a tunnel, a route to escape. But there was one prisoner who was immobile. He could not crawl through the tunnel to freedom. He remained imprisoned, plagued by his past. 

We are often stuck behind the walls we create for ourselves. 

We have to know when to forge ahead and when to have the patience to wait. We have to know what to shift, what to transform and what to keep intact. We have to know which external fears inhibit our ability to change and what personal cages we erect for ourselves. I have come to realize that although the process of becoming ordained was slow and methodical for me, it opened up a pathway for hundreds of other women to actualize their dream of being halakhic and spiritual leaders. The accusations of “too fast” were just a front for some people’s resistance and discomfort to change. 

Rosh Hashanah is the opportunity to ask ourselves, “Which changes are we seeking? What gets in the way of evolving in the ways we want?” Perhaps the shofar sounds are emblematic of the tensions, paces, and anxieties of change. On one hand, the fast, quick t’ruah — the tu-tu-tu-tu-tu — is like an alarm that awakens the soul to act. The slower drawn out sounds of the shevarim — tu, tu, tu — remind us of what should not change too fast, and of the deliberative slowness that sustains everlasting change.

Unlike my experience as an immigrant and as a rabbi, changes don’t always involve physically crossing an ocean or becoming more religious. But everyone has the capacity to traverse gulfs in their own lives — personally, communally and spiritually. We must embrace moments when we are called to change and when we are called to not change. We have to know when to hold onto the eleventh commandment, “You will not change,” and when to employ the twelfth commandment, “Change, you will change.”

May this year, 5784, bring deep cathartic awakenings, quick and necessary resolutions, and also the patience and fortitude to slowly and gradually relax ourselves into changes that can be everlasting.

[knee-stockings]

So I’ve been listening to lots of podcasts at work lately to break up the monotony of my office job. Mainly they’re horror, suspense/thriller, drama, that kind of thing. Trying to give ratings without spoilers~

(Check out updated pod recs here)

The Left Right Game (a journalist investigating an urban legend that gets increasingly more dangerous as they go): 5/5, this being one of the first ones I listened to set the bar really high tbh, it was great, immersive sound design, genuinely suspenseful and creepy moments, interesting plot, my only gripe is that I didn’t love the ending but I couldn’t dock a star just for that, highly recommend, maybe I’ll retire to Wintry Bay someday 

Alice Isn’t Dead (delivery trucker goes searching for her believed dead wife, comes across supernatural towns and creatures and a conspiracy that goes way deeper than one missing woman): 5/5, so so good, enjoyed a lot, I loved learning the truth about the Thistle men, still don’t completely understand oracles but that’s okay, some delightfully creepy moments, this will be high on my recommendation list (also it’s by the Welcome to Night Vale people, which I actually haven’t listened to lmao)

Harley Quinn and the Joker: Sound Mind (it’s a Harley Quinn origin story basically): 5/5, very enjoyable, sound design great, plot was fun, I don’t know how accurate this story is to the original Harley Quinn origin story but I liked this a lot

The Burned Photo (two women try to fight a familial curse haunting their bloodlines): 4/5, not bad at all, I thought the sound design was great and immersive but I thought the monster’s voice was a bit goofy idk, the plot wasn’t bad though ofc it was pretty bittersweet and sad in the end, tho I think it was never going to be happy for everyone involved

Blackwood (group of teens investigate the town urban legend and uncover more than they bargained for): I can’t decide…3.5 maybe? It was okay. I didn’t love it or hate it, I’m pretty neutral about it. It was interesting enough

Gaslight (girl goes missing and then reappears to her best friend years later with little explanation): 3/5, feels like there should be another season, wasn’t as dramatic/suspenseful as I thought it would be (maybe that’s my own fault tho, from the description and stuff I thought there would be more to it)

Ice-Cream (teens suspect the friendly neighborhood ice cream man of abducting little kids and uncover a dark secret): 4.5/5, interesting and a lil creepy, there’s something oddly funny about hearing someone scream “fuck you Beelzebub” even in context, sound design is pretty good and voice acting is great, finale was also pretty good but I’m docking half a star bc of that very last bit and bc I said so, overall short n’ sweet, no pun intendo (I’m kinda glad that it’s only the one season and not super long, gives the feeling of not overstaying its welcome. Also in awe that they made it within like a month, gonna go listen to their other podcast Cascadia too)

Cascadia (submarine expedition to uncharted waters, gone wrong, we almost died!?): 5/5, by the Ice-Cream people so I expected great sound design and voice acting and said expectations were met tbh, yes god love the drama, ocean depths are inherently scary to me so this is top tier horror, season one was chef’s kiss beautiful and I heard season 2 is coming so I’ll be waiting eagerly for that

Listening now:

Within the Wires (season 1 is relaxation cassette tapes from another world, season 2 is a guided museum tour I think): also by the WTNV people, interesting so far, the plot that unfolded in the first season was cool to watch as it played out, but also I am so sad. I like it so far

Rabbits (girl goes searching for her friend who disappeared because of this mysterious Rabbits game): feels like a really slow start after a few episodes, I kinda wanna get to more action soon please

Wake of Corrosion (apocalypse where characters are trying to find other survivors and also answers): mild shrug, not sure what to make of it just yet. Only like 2 episodes in so I think I need to give it a bit

Ars Paradoxica (scientist accidentally invents time travel and is thrown back to the 1940s): pretty interesting so far, science is fun 

Spoiler comment for Cascadia under the cut bc it's the one I just finished and I have Thoughts

As much as I enjoyed Cascadia, when I think about the expedition for more than 2 seconds I get confused. Not the whole alien thing, that’s fine, it’s Badger and Maria and their ulterior motives. Why in the world did Badger spend millions of dollars to make a submarine that’s faulty on purpose? And there was so much media coverage around it so the second something went wrong reporters were practically beating him over the head with microphones, so why risk so much bad press? Plus sacrificing three other talented divers who trusted him with their lives??? That’s the most confusing to me. There’s no way Badger foresaw them getting attacked underwater and losing Declan alone, so he must have been fully prepared to lose captain AND crew. Holden said that he saw Badger as a father, and yet he chose Holden to die? He said he handpicked them, so what did Holden, Alia, or Iris ever do to him to deserve being sent on a suicide mission? Doing all this just to get rid of Declan and be with Maria doesn’t feel right. Feels like there should be something more there. Tldr: surely Badger had another reason for conducting the suicide mission, right? Also since season 2 starts with Lila all grown up, a diver just like her father, I wanna know her opinions of her mother and of Badger. Did she learn about her mother’s betrayal? Is Badger still involved in funding deep sea diving or did the FBI take him out of that? Omg who’s the father of her little sibling…I’m so curious…

[endlesstwanted]

Someone Like You And Me

I wrote something for @monthly-challenge prompt — warrior, that turned to be a it more angsty than I planned. You can read on Ao3 here and below the cut.

Fandom: Thor (Movies)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Pairing: Jane Foster & Sif

Tags: Missing Scene, Female Friendship, Banter, Angst and Feels

Summary: In New Asgard’s hospital, Jane reunites with an old friend.

Wordcount: 580

Also created for: @fandom-free-bingo, Wild Edition | Ancient City / @multifandom-flash, NY’s Resolutions | Travel Somewhere New, R3 #2001 | Definitely Just a Cold, R3 #3001 | Bonding Over Dislikes + Roommate Drama, Fear card | Hypochondria, Fear of illness / @seasonaldelightsbingo, Winter Wonderland | Forced to quit

Jane notices slow, dragged footsteps approaching the part of the hospital bed where she practically lives now.

It’s not time for a check-up yet, and she’s been hearing the nurses going out to have lunch not long ago, too.

Soon she realises the sound doesn’t come from the outside, but from the med bay.

She looks up at her right side and sees Lady Sif carrying an IV drip with her now only arm. It’s been quite some time since they last saw each other.

“I heard you were here,” Sif says. “And the King is also gone, so I can actually leave my room.”

“It’s good to see you.” Jane smiles weirdly.

It is nice, but the conditions in which they are reuniting are not. And she really has no idea on what else to say; luckily Sif sits at the end of her bed and carries on the conversation. “I had a fortune cookie once that said I should travel somewhere new, hence I’m calling this meeting good fortune.”

Sif reached to her hand. Jane was too tired to move, but that didn’t stop her friend. She smiled when their fingertips touched. “How long ago was that?”

“Longer than people have been settled in New Asgard,” she recognizes. “But this city feels closer to the old Asgard than anywhere would ever be. The streets, the architecture, the people …” she sighs, “reminds me of my realm. Well, not the people, but—”

“I understand.” Jane manages a chuckle. “It feels like home.” It is not a question.

“So you, if you could travel anywhere, where would you go?”

Sif’s hand is now closed around hers. “I would say home, with my friends. But this is home now, and the Asgardians are family too. I don’t think … I would want to leave. Maybe accept some visits.”

“Visitors?” Sif smiles now. “That’s something fortune can work with.” Jane can tell how hard she tries not to force the conversation. “How bad is it, Doctor Foster?”

“Not worse than a cold,” is her reply. She’s not up to go over her diagnosis again, and she knows Sif will let it be.

“A cold is when Asgardians cough, and drop that weird liquid from their noses, isn’t it?” Sif makes a funny, disgusted face.

“That’s exactly it.” Jane laughs. She didn’t know she had energy left to do that.

“I saw a child with it once, so I’m glad you won’t have to go through that.”

A moment of silence passes by until Jane speaks again. “How are you, Sif?”

“I’ve never had a cold, but I would say this is not as troubled,” she replies with confidence, tilting her head to where 

“You will find a way to live without the not-a-cold, and feel full again soon. You are strong. A warrior.” Jane tries to comfort her.

“I know I will. It’s the meantime that worries me.”

Jane frowns, and looks deeply into her eyes to try and make some sense of those last words.

“You see, it is to warriors like us that it feels like a joke to be … like we are now,” Sif explains.

“Sick?”

“Forced to quit,” Jane’s corrected. “No one has taught us how to do that, and so we cannot.”

“And will not,” Jane nods. She understands.

“We won’t. And remember,” Sif leans in closer to whisper in her ear, “you don’t want to die. But if it’s what you choose, Valhalla will be waiting for you, Thor.”

[flutishly]

LBD rewatch, part 4

It wasn’t easy getting back into the swing of Lydia’s final arc. It was hard to watch live, it was hard to rewatch not long afterward, and it remains hard to rewatch. Part of this has to do with the dread leading up to the reveal. Part of this has to do with the fact that even a decade later, I am somewhat disappointed by some of the acting/directing choices in “An Understanding”, particularly on Lydia’s end. I know that I’m usually quite in the minority on the latter end, but still. I grimace every time; there’s something deeply theatrical in how Lydia presents herself there and it comes in sharp contrast with the much more natively portrayed Lizzie. There are things that I still love about it, of course. I cannot make it through the whole video without crying, even today. The lines “I love you! [...] I love you!” break me every single time. Even just rewatching a few seconds of those lines in order to write this post have me crying. But I can also never quite shake off the feeling that the video is still very much a product of being an extended scene, with moments that could easily have been replaced by better takes left intact when they shouldn’t have been.

And then the pressure eases, just slightly. The tension changes. The viewer who knows what happens in Pride and Prejudice waits for the second shoe to drop. But in the meantime, the plot ticks along in plain view. Gigi’s Domino videos hit differently nowadays than in 2013 in large part because of how... not weird the app is? Like at the time, there was a sense of “yeah, sure, whatever, as if”, but then today there are literally apps that are all about video presentation for the sake of more drama (........), which granted don’t seem to have the same sort of AI on display, but let’s be real, how far off can it be? (grimace grimace grimace)

There are other irritating aspects of the Gigi subplot. I find myself even more impatient over how infantilizing Darcy and Fitz are, in their treatment of Gigi as someone entirely under their care. While it is sweet and admirable to want to support your sister/friend in the context of some pretty fresh trauma, it’s not cute to do so against her express wishes or the place she’s asking to be. Gigi is an adult in this adaptation. A younger adult, sure, but she’s not a teen like Maria and she has a lot more agency over her story. It kind of sucks to watch Darcy and Fitz shut her out the way that they do, even if it all ends up well (sort of). More than that, it’s never properly addressed why Gigi continues to make these calls on the company’s demo, which is hugely inappropriate in terms of violating Lydia’s privacy. (On top of how Lizzie is already violating a whole lot of people’s privacy.)

And then there’s Bing’s return. It... mostly doesn’t work. I love how Jane plays it, honestly, and I love that Jane refuses to back down against her own position (and point out that, bro, you haven’t earned my trust back), but there’s a sense of disconnect. Maybe part of the problem is how the show initially portrays Bing and Jane’s relationship, as something so quaintly sweet and pure and abstract. Maybe part of the problem is that the way Bing breaks it off with Jane is so much worse in modern times. (Personally, if Jane was my friend, I’d probably be the one going “he’s not worth it, what a jerk, don’t you dare get back together with him, have you forgotten how I had to hug you on the bathroom floor while you sobbed over feeling inadequate? He’s the inadequate one, you’re worth so much more than him!” The fact that Lizzie doesn’t do that remains stunning in my mind.) Whatever it is, despite the rather valiant attempts at rehabilitating Bing, I couldn’t help grimace at how neatly they wrapped up this thread. The “I’ve been trying to figure myself out” thing is cute, sure! But it isn’t quite earned. There’s not enough of either Jane and Bing really being in love (and I don’t mean onscreen, I just mean in love and not the very idealized relationship Lizzie paints in early episodes) and then there certainly isn’t enough of them actually getting to re-know each other before Jane leaves. I understand why/how it happened as it did, but I almost wonder if it shouldn’t have happened offscreen. I don’t know.

Next: Darcy. Darcy is, as I mentioned, a not-too-appealing part of Gigi’s videos. They do give good insight into his behavior and the way that he handles himself (he’s definitely a very loving older brother, if too overprotective!), but they’re glimpses. I’m actually fine with that, I think. The reveal is also... okay? I don’t know. It’s very in-line with how LBD generally portrays “news that should not be public”, though I’ll admit that by this point in the series, it feels a whole lot less believable that these things would make it online. Even the way that Lizzie explicitly asks Lydia... feels a little strange. But not as strange as it should, disturbingly. Ah well.

Finally: Lizzie. It’s this little portion of story where Lizzie’s growth becomes apparent. She’s hesitant over a lot of things. She is smacked in the face - repeatedly - with the consequences of her own actions and words. She’s stunned into silence upon realizing how wrong she’s been in so many places. Watching Lizzie break down is, as I mentioned, the thing that gets to me every time. As much as the show does a brilliant job of showing us Lizzie’s faults, it does a better job of really making us love her. And so I can’t help but love how this arc plays out for her, even though the focus isn’t really on her.

Well, onto the last batch of episodes! Caroline’s about to return... that’s got to be the biggest drama ahead, no?

[yslsevy]

Virtual Sketchbook Section 1

Discussion 1:  Hello, my name is Yves Feron. In the future I plan on working as an attorney. I would specifically like working in immigration. I am dual enrolled and will be hoping to graduate with my A.A. as well as my high school diploma. A fact about me is that I love drawing, but right now I will say I am on an artist block. I usually take large breaks in between drawing. And then randomly I have the urge to draw out of nowhere.

(Music, Pink and Blue No. 2 by Georgia O’Keeffe in 1918)

The names of O’Keeffe’s paintings are in reference to music, which points to the connections between the visual and the aural. 

Georgia O’Keeffe with idea of music being translated into something for the eye. 

The paint lines and colors all suggest and are inspired by the rhythms and harmonies O’Keeffe perceived in nature and was painted during her exploration of abstraction. 

This artist, in her century, was often misunderstood as people misinterpreted her artwork as psychological depictions of her sexuality, when in reality it was heavily inspired by nature. 

The painting Pink and Blue No. 2 was one of the paintings that helped O’Keeffe gain recognition in the abstract expressionist movement.

I initially thought of this painting as one of those stereotypical artworks that be called technical. I personally don’’t thinks much of the meaning behind it. Afterwords, learning the context of the painting really helped me understand it. Now I think it as a calm depiction of nature because the artist uses soft colors and soft paint lines to make what similarly to maybe a rose in my eyes.

Select a work of art from your life. It must be something that hangs in your house or your room, something that is important to you or that you look at everyday. Include a picture. In paragraph form (4 sentences), tell me about the art – what media were used to create it? What use does it serve? Do you think it is beautiful? Why?

(By: Yves Feron)

This artwork is currently hanged up in my room made on a whiteboard which is erasable and can change at anytime. I use this as a decorative piece in my room, but also it represents a new era in my life. It includes my name and for some reason I always put the alphabet at the bottom. It’s a tradition I do for myself, which I think is is beautiful because it is supposed to be a drawing of me. 

What “baggage” are you bringing along when you look at art? Answer the following questions – How old are you? What is the gender you primarily align with? Where are you from? What is your ethnicity? What do you do for fun? Are you a member of any organized group? Where do you work? What makes you uniquely you? This helps us see from what exact point in the world we view and receive visual information.

I am an 18-year-old female and have lived in Florida all my life, however I was born in the Virgin Islands. I am Black or more specifically Haitian American. I love watching the reality TV Love Island (UK). Their accents make the drama on the show more entertaining. I do volunteer at different places, such as Healthy Teens, which train teenagers to advocates against drugs and alcohol and educates other teens and younger on issues they may deal with on a day-to-day basis. I think my name makes me very unique. I’ve never met anyone else, besides the brand name Yves Saint Laurent, who has my name. Through the information given about me, I believe the baggage I carry when looking at art is trying to take all pieces seriously. Unless the art is easy to understand, I’m more likely to just look at it, rather than appreciate the work the artist put into it. It may be my age and how I don’t really have the patience that comes with age. Also, I tend to take things that affect me or my friends more serious. An example is vaping or mental health which I spend time every week to work against, or even advocating for minorities like me. I tend to not venture out into stuff I do not know about.  SELF PORTRAIT

(By: Yves Feron)

[tea-with-evan-and-me]

hi, this is 90sfatal. personally idc what any of you have to say about me but do you not realize that you’re upset over a minor who has clearly not been educated on the evan/emma situation.. instead of attacking him maybe it would be helpful to provide the evidence that evan is a victim to abuse & not the abuser. & i understand being upset i didn’t defend evan the way you all wanted but i have devoted years of my life to supporting evan & his work even when the world seemingly hated him. i have defended that man countless times & will continue to do so when it comes down to it. excuse me for bantering with a mutual & then messaging him privately to educate him. y’all wouldn’t know about that tho bc you’re not in my dms

letsxriot asked: if you guys don’t like twitter so much then why do you watch our every move.. saying twitter is insane is valid bc we are but at least we have the balls to speak what’s on our minds freely without hiding. you’re the ones going out of your way to send our tweets to a gossip blog anonymously. that’s so strange to me. just don’t look at what we have to say if it bothers you so much. all i do is talk about my fav on there & interact with my friends.

-

i understand that perhaps this person is your friend and you are familiar with him on a deeper level, and that because of this you would feel differently about their statement/how it should be received. with that said, being 17 is not in any way a shield nor an excuse to say outright false, defamatory, and outlandishly offensive things about someone you dislike due to stan war/stan culture.

this goes for you, him, me, and everyone else: what we post on the internet, between friends or not, is public forum and subject to strangers opinions and critique. i know for a fact i have said things on here that ruffled peoples' feathers; i have had entire accounts on here and twitter created for the sole purpose to flame me, dox me, cancel me etc... you're right that we are not in your dms and we don't know if you had a meaningful conversation about why what he said was unacceptable and harmful. i'm glad you did and i certainly hope that he took what you said to heart and will stop confidently spouting lies.

if you have indeed been a fan for years and witnessed the hate that evan received and defended him, then i feel that you'll be able to understand why it's reasonable that some folks would be bothered. he didn't say ''evan peters is an ugly hoe'', he literally accused him of abuse, racism and nazism. it is normal that people would have a reaction to that.

also, i mean, to be fair.. i, and i presume others, are speaking to twitter/fandom twitter as a whole, not directly to your account to disparage you personally. the fandom on twitter currently, is dominated by people who never made a single tweet about him before 2022, many of you guys are teens or just outside of that, and tumblr skews older so it's not unusual that there is a disconnect. that's why i'm here, on tumblr, and not on twitter yelling at anyone to get off my lawn. this entire exchange is a microcosm of that app and why i tend to not engage; it is generally a negative vibe for me, but that doesn't mean you or anyone else should not enjoy it with your friends.

no one is forcing your hand to read a gossip blog nor keep tabs on what my readers send me on here. you used to follow me on here/twitter, stopped, and now are following me on here again because you saw someone send in an ask about twitter happenings a few days back, and wanted to send me a message about it. so in all fairness, you clearly do care what others think and it feels like you and your critics are both utilizing this blog as a vessel to engage in some sort of back and forth about disagreements. to be clear, i've deleted tons of stuff from my inbox about twitter beef. respectfully, i'd prefer that drama stays on the appropriate app and not involve me. criticizing a post, tweet, video, etc. is fair game but this should not be personal. this is the internet and you're certainly entitled to your own feelings and opinions - so are the people who read this blog, who are no more "anonymous" than you or i. like i said before, i fully believe that muting/blocking and not engaging with people who bother you is the best course of action. this fandom is never going to all hold hands and sing kumbaya but it doesn't have to be a negative and hateful experience.

i'm gonna go have my edibles and a bubble bath.

[maverickrojas]

A sunny disposition only got you so far in life, particularly when the world was hellbent on tearing you down and reminding you how unwelcome you were. Maverick’s work over the years accounted for him being switched on, so to speak. Working with teens and underprivileged kids, largely those belonging to minority groups, meant knowing just what it was that made the younger generations tick. If he needed to connect with a 15-year-old queer kid from Alabama stuck in a Juvenile Detention Center for possession of a weapon or drunk and disorderly conduct, he needed an understanding of what might have strayed them off the beaten track to begin with.  

This meant that Maverick was all too aware of the statistics on LGBT+ hate crimes, for example. In 2022 there’d been an increase in LGBT+ hate crimes by a whopping 19% from the year prior. His heart had been crushed upon learning the statistic, a shudder down his spine sending him catatonic for several minutes as he’d tried to process the information. And yet, it somehow got worse; another increase this year of 13.8% based on sexual identity, a 32.9% increase on attacks based around gender expression. Every single day Maverick thought of Abigail, of what he could have done, how he could make the world safe for her, and then numbers like these would drop and shatter every last bit of hope he had. If Abigail had thought the world too cruel in 1997, what would she think of it now? Would she see the good? Would his sister embrace the small changes, hold them up and magnify them in whatever way she could, holding out for more in the future? Or would she read stories of Brainna Ghey and O’Shae Sibley and feel as though they’d taken twelve steps back, the same way that Maverick felt today. 

He couldn’t know, of course. It was no use dwelling on and ifs and maybes, pointless trying to imagine what could have been. Which is why Maverick found himself sitting in a bar on Christmas Eve – Abigail��s 45th birthday to be precise – drinking himself silly by way of distraction, and talking the ear off of the very pretty bartender where Wardo’s curious friend Ivy worked.  

He had never been much of a drinker, which meant that any time he happened to indulge he ended up either talking incessantly at some poor stranger until their eyes fluttered shut and they fell into the deepest sleep of their lives or stumbling into bed with a nameless, faceless gent who’d have him out the door before the clock struck midnight. Tonight seemed to be the former, the gorgeous man behind the bar currently staring at him with unmasked confusion, an arched brow directed at Mav as he absently wiped a glass with a dishtowel.  

“And so, the long an’ short of it is, I don’t know who li’l Ivy’s big, bad boss is,” he mused, his words slurring, cheeks flushed. “But I’ve been led to believe that Wardo – that's my kid... of sorts – supposedly had an affair with Ivy’s boss's wife. Her name is Helen.” 

Mav shook his head, as equally perplexed by the information he was sharing as the man staring back at him. Truth be told, as naughty as it was, Maverick enjoyed a good ol’ gossip. And while he wasn’t one to be airing people’s dirty laundry, his inhibitions went out the window ever so slightly when he’d had a drink or two, and Ivy had been sharing her drama all over twitter, for reasons he couldn’t fathom. It seemed lost on him, in his tipsy haze, that he was currently spewing gossip to Ivy’s coworker, in her workplace, where Helen’s very own husband could be lurking just around the corner. 

“Twitter, my friend, is a confusin’ place. But how else is an ol' timer such as m'self meant to keep up with the kiddos these days, hm?”