#the language barrier was too much for other english kids tv

[liillyliilly]

No Free-Solo

kenji sato x reader words; 10021 synopsis; from high school on, kenji couldn't do it alone, especially not when she was there for him.

“You’re missing me with that busy shit. You’re missing me with your whole ‘I can’t come over tonight’ act.” Kenji sat in what she liked to refer to as his dungeon, his lair, his Ultraman den. His too large for life couch made of black leather was cold and the emptiness was expansive in his mansion. He wanted her near, he wanted her to come back.

“I really can’t come over, I’m helping out Ami with Chiho tonight.” She tried to let him down gently, but he huffed through the phone.

She wasn’t a nanny per se, but she did do a fair amount of long-term babysitting for lots of people, mostly for Ami, occasionally for other busy mothers. She had a certain touch to the whole watching and raising kids thing, entertaining the child while also educating them.

Chiho was snoring in her bed. Ami was out with her fellow reporter boyfriend. And she, well she was watching movies in the family room of Ami’s house. Drawings that Chiho had done were covering the walls, plenty of Ultraman pictures to Kenji’s amusement.

She knew the Sato family through a long-winded connection by friendship shared between mothers. Kenji’s mom was best friends with her mom. In terms of maturity though, she was light years ahead of Kenji even when they were in high school. Back in America, when life was typical (meaning lacking in Kaiju and Ultraman responsibility) and the LA Dodgers still reigned supreme in Kenji’s head. They had met for the first time right before her junior year and his senior year.

She would be the youngest junior at the school and he would be one of the oldest seniors at their Los Angeles high school.

Her mom had insisted they visit her good friend the summer before her junior year started, and that she would need to help the son out in adapting to American High school since they had just moved from Japan.

She was worried due to a potential language barrier, but her mom assured her that he would be fluent in English. But how would her mom know that? Her anxiety was off the charts. She spent hours studying basic Japanese, which she found was probably going to kill her, why a language needs more than one writing system was beyond her.

“Ah! It’s so good to see you, Emiko!” Her mom went in for a big hug, and the petite Japanese woman returned the hug with as much enthusiasm as had been given. Her mom muttered about the separation between Emiko and Hayao, and Emiko gave a strained smile, leading them into the house.

Kenji was lounging on the couch, which she soon learned that he loved to do, a tendency to sprawl due to his height and lankiness. He was switching TV channels, until he landed on a baseball game and committed to watching that.

Her mom ushered her over to him, telling her to make conversation and get to know him. How she expected her to do that despite not knowing him at all was a wonder. She didn’t suspect that they had anything in common, and with the zeal he was watching the baseball game, she also suspected that he wasn’t going to be a huge fan of her preference for movies and shows over sports.

So she mustered up a greeting in Japanese from a textbook she had picked up. She had missed the way his eyes glinted with amusement, it was at that moment he decided to play just a small inconsequential game. A game where he pretended he didn’t know any English.

He responded in Japanese, and she realized she really knew nothing at all about Japanese. He sat up and patted the seat next to him. The moms left the main living space in favor of drinking some tea upstairs on a balcony, leaving her alone and incapable of communicating.

Pointing to herself, she said her name with a forced smile. He said ‘Kenji’ while pointing to himself and saying a variety of other words that she had no idea meant anything at all. At least Japanese sounded pretty, so she started thinking about the linguistic history and design of the syllables. He waved a hand in front of her face and she snapped out of her mini history lesson to herself.

Pushing his joke a little further, he used his head to point to a door near the stairs. She raised an eyebrow. He spoke for a few more moments, and she could only stiffly smile and nod in return. When he grabbed her hand and went to the door she thought she was going to die.

Inside the door was his room, and she really thought that this was the end of her sanity, her childhood, her innocence. She had fandangled herself into an intimate relationship with someone who didn’t even speak English and her heart was going to burst at the seams. Trying to recall all the words she had memorized, she was mad that she never learned the words for; no, stop, or I’ll kill you.

It was when she began to slink towards the door and hold her arms across her body in a cross shape that he realized maybe he should drop the joke. Her ears seemed like they were burning and her breathing had increased to a mile a minute in pace.

“Relax, I just wanted to show you my baseball cards.” He held up a binder and opened it to reveal a collection of player cards double sleeved and tucked neatly into a sheet protector.

“I thought you didn’t speak any English!” She frowned and put a hand to her heart. He laughed and she realized she had fallen for a trick.

“My bad.” He holds his hands together and puts them up near his head with a slight bow to apologize. Kenji pushes his bangs back and licks his top row of teeth, “Do you know if our school has a baseball team?” He asks.

She nods. “We’re in the top bracket for playing, it’s super hard to get onto the team though, my friend tried-”

He raised a hand to get her to stop speaking, then he informed her of his inherent athletic prowess, “Believe me, I’ll get onto the team.”

And he had. He’d even qualified to play on the varsity team.

A few months into the school year, while she was eating in the library with some friends, Kenji came bustling into the open space with his pack of baseball players. They always tagged along behind him, treating him like some sort of fancy foreign exchange kid, which she realized was exactly the situation and so her mental analogy didn’t end up working out and she clicked her teeth.

But the majority of white boys at the school did tend to lean a little too hard into the racial stereotypes and unfunny jokes. All Kenji could do sometimes was purse his lips and keep eating his natto. They thought because they had an Asian friend it was an excuse for their behavior, why Kenji never stood up to them and told them off was a huge confounding plight in her eyes. Kenji himself didn’t quite understand it either. Not even when they shortened his name into just Ken for ease and convenience.

Before she could tidy up her comparison and dissection of Kenji Sato, he was leaning on her desk, eating her carrots and searching for her eyes to meet him. He said something in Japanese, and she tried to remember how the words sounded so she could look up what he had said.

“I need your help.” He stole a bite of her sandwich, then drank some of her water. Before he even took it without asking, she offered her pastry to him and he ate the whole thing in one bite and mumbled a ‘thanks’ with his mouth full. He finished chewing and swallowing.

“I need you to pretend to date me so I can get these guys off my back.” He stuck his thumb in the direction of his teammates.

“Absolutely not. No way in hell, Kenji.” She started to pack up her bag, but he just put his hand on her bag and pressed it hard against the desk. With his other hand he gently grabbed her by the chin, and tilted her face up to his. Inches away. Her eyes went wide.

“Pretty please?” He licked his lips and she tried to bring her own face back to avoid his tongue getting to her lips.

She thought about what her mom said, telling her to help out Kenji if he needed it. This couldn't apply though, right?

“I’m going to need so many favors.” She groaned, managing to get her bag out from under his hands.

He pressed a quick kiss to her lips, ruffling her hair and heading out with his friends who began to goad him for keeping her a secret for so long. He had just taken her first kiss and it didn’t seem like it bothered him at all. She was too busy pressing her hand to her lips to even notice the way his ears were a scorching hot red.

When she went to research what he had said to her, she thought she must have misheard him because the proposed English translation was something along the lines of, ‘please let this work out in my favor’.

Continuously, she called in favors, and he was there to meet them. Getting books off the top shelves in the library. Sharpening pencils when they were studying. Even helping her learn just a little more of his language.

“No, no you gotta give each syllable its own beat. Copy me.” Kenji went over the blended ‘r’ and ‘l�� sound that felt clunky in her mouth.

She did replicate what he was saying, at least to her own belief that that was her best ability. He laughed a little and she frowned.

“Okay, move your tongue a little, right behind your front teeth, but also not touching your teeth, just let your tongue kinda do the sound in the middle.” Kenji opened his mouth a little so she could observe. She tried again but it sounded even worse than the first attempt.

“I wish I could just move your tongue for you so you could get the motion right.” She looked quickly side to side, biting her bottom lip. Kenji backtracked immediately, “That didn’t come out quite right, I think that’s enough Japanese for one day.” She nodded rapidly and closed the journal she was using to take notes.

He said that they could go get food, she agreed and they got burgers and milkshakes at a run down family owned diner. He paid, despite her insisting she could pay for her own food. Saying that that was apart of the whole fake dating thing.

“You know, you do a lot of things under the guise of our not dating, dating thing.” She sipped her milkshake. Kenji took a bite of his burger, musing about what he would say.

“Well, we’re friends as well right?”

“Yeah, we’ve been hanging out since you basically arrived here. We’re friends, but honestly, we behave more like best friends.” She finished off her shake and cleaned up her area.

That was something he liked about her, her consideration for cleanliness and organization. But also her appreciation for others around her, cleaning up her stuff so that the likely overworked waitress didn’t have to. A person who thinks about other people. Now that was his type he decided.

“I’m happy with being best friends.”

In all fairness, he was probably the best fake boyfriend that a girl could’ve asked for. They had settled on knowing their relationship was best friends, but for others they had the additional label of dating. Sometimes though, he’d do something like grab her hand or wrap an arm around her. When those situations presented themselves, she always looked for possible viewers, his teammates. But based on her data, he only did things like that around 20% of the time when his teammates were actually watching. Meaning that the other 80% of the time he did the physical acts of affection, no one was around to watch.

While his English was practically perfect, he had the hardest time in social studies and history, so he got her help with his U.S. government class. He claimed that because he hadn’t lived here at all, and because he had Japanese citizenship that this class was completely useless for him. His defeatist attitude towards history made her roll her eyes at him.

One day, when she was intending to come over to help him, Emiko crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe as he cleaned up his room. He threw his baseball socks and jersey into the dirty clothes hamper.

“She’s coming over then?”

He mumbled an affirmative answer.

Emiko got giddy, saying she’d make a good rich curry tonight for dinner and that he’d need to tell her to stay for dinner. He gave a wave and kept picking up his room.

When the doorbell rang, he ran to the door. Emiko chastened him and told him to calm down. He let her in, and she greeted his mom, giving Emiko the box of fruit her own mom told her to drop off. He complained in Japanese that she always went straight to his mom instead of greeting him first. Emiko in turn smiled at her while scolding her son again in Japanese.

Watching the conversation unfold, she shrugged, Japanese was just not her strong suit.

“How hard is it to understand a constitutional federal republic?” She looked over his essay answer to a prompt she had given him to practice for his upcoming test. He was sitting cross-legged on his bed, chewing the end of a pen. She was leaning against his bed frame, reading papers and marking up his essay with her red pen. Each time she made another red mark, he grumbled. Of all the people she had tutored though, his handwriting was the best.

“Correct these things first, and then I can edit again with my orange pen.” She held up said pen while handing the paper back to him. He just mimicked what she had said, holding his own pen the same way she had held up hers, even going so far as to bring his shoulders upwards to make him appear smaller.

In response to the insulting imitation she grabbed her notebook and hit him repeatedly on the knee. He let out a pained ouch, and she felt bad, so she put the notebook away and just patted his knee instead.

“If you really loved me you’d just write out the whole essay and then I could just memorize it and cross apply the right parts for the actual prompt Mr. Henry gives in class next week.” Kenji adjusted his body position, and her hand wasn’t on his knee anymore but dead center of his thigh instead. He smirks, and she immediately retracts her hand.

“Good thing I don’t love you then.” Kenji presses his hand to his heart and sighs, falling back into his pillow. “Just do the essay Jiji.”

He lifted his head and repeated what she had said, “Jiji?”

“Kenji.” She says his name and enunciates the two syllables cleanly.

“I like Jiji, I think it suits me. It’s a cute nickname.”

He finished rewriting the essay while she poked around his room. Photos of him with his mom and dad, which she already knew not to ask about because last time she did he went total silence for two weeks. But then he felt guilty about ghosting and took her out to get a sweet treat everyday after school for one week straight. Trophies from his old school back in Japan for his baseball achievements. Multiple MVP awards from the games he had played here.

The other photos that were in his room were mostly of him and his teammates. He just didn’t look too happy in those ones, so she tried to skim them, but failed. His teammates did their best to make him seem like he was a part of the group, but it just didn’t click all the way. Kenji always looked too serious in the photos, or it seemed like he was actually looking at the baseball diamond instead of the person taking the photo.

There was an adorable little figure, made either of acrylic or vinyl, of a little superhero with a red and silver supersuit and a blue circle on the chest. She picked it up and inspected it. What she assumed was Kenji’s name was on the foot of the toy. She bent the arms of the toy and moved it around like it was flying midair.

Kenji had completely paused writing his essay in favor of watching her dart around his room. He clenched his jaw for a second when she picked up the Ultraman toy, then eased his body language when she started making the toy fly around. If only that’s what Ultraman really was, just a toy. Just a toy and not an impending responsibility to protect and serve the people of Japan from Kaiju monsters. He wondered if she’d ever want to live somewhere besides Los Angeles. Tokyo for example.

“Kenji! Curry! Get the applesauce from the cabinet please!” Emiko called out.

She set the toy down and turned around, but Kenji was already standing right behind her. He had only meant to watch her movements a little more closely, but now this was entirely too close. He played it off like he was adjusting the Ultraman doll, smiled and then opened his door for her to exit and head downstairs.

When he heard the steps trailing down, he silently screamed and raised his hands to the sides of his head. Then he dragged a hand down his face and carded fingers through his hair. He envied the self he saw in the photos, cool and nonchalant.

“So, are there any boys you think are cute at school?” Emiko ate another bite of katsu that was drenched in curry sauce.

She swallowed thickly for a second, “I- uh, no. There’s not many good options for dating material at a hyper-athletic school.” She laughed to cut the edge off the conversation.

Emiko drank some water, but then prodded a little more. Kenji wished the earth would open and swallow him up.

“Not even at a school full of athletes? I would’ve sworn there were some good options for you on Kenji’s baseball team. What was his name? Eric? Eli?”

“Ohh, Ezra Johnson?” She supplied, eating some applesauce and then tapping her mouth with a napkin.

Kenji looked to her, then to his mom, then back at her. He was trying to stuff his face with his food so he could exit the conversation and then drag her and himself back to his room. She seemed insistent on blocking out the whole fake dating thing from his mom’s view and perception.

“Yes! He’s a really nice kid! He actually greeted me when I went to the first game. It was so sweet of him. His mom and I got to know each other a little bit. I can send you his details if you want?” Emiko grazed the back of her phone.

“No!” Kenji burst. His mom and his fake girlfriend both looked at him. “Uh, Ezra is talking to this girl named, um, Claire. Yeah, Claire.” He held his plate up and his mom nodded.

Rinsing his plate off he put it into the dishwasher, then from behind his mom’s back he tried mouthing to her so they could go back upstairs but she was too busy still talking to his mom to notice anything.

When she finally finished eating, she said she needed to go back home.

“What about my essay though?” Kenji rested his forearms on the kitchen counter while she was busy doing the dishes despite having to gently fight with Emiko about letting her even do the dishes in the first place.

“I gave you enough content to work with, just do the corrections and you’ll be good to go.” She bumped the dishwasher with her hip to close it, and he wondered what her bumping into him would feel like. And then he groveled a little that he wanted to be a dishwasher for even a split second. “I need to do my own homework now, tell your mom thank you again for me, okay?”

She rubbed his arm to comfort him slightly, but he took his chance to reach to her hip, tugging her lightly into him.

“What are you doing?” She hissed at him, trying to keep her voice down in case Emiko was still lurking around.

“Saying thanks for the help, goodbye, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” He grabbed the hand that she had on his arm and held her hand for a second, then brought it up to his mouth to press a light kiss to her knuckles.

She smiled, then pushed his shoulder.

When she had left the house, he flung himself onto the couch and giggled a little. Kicking his feet that were dangling over the arm of the couch. His mom peeked downstairs to see Kenji wriggling around and muttering. She just laughed a little. Maybe her instigation had worked out in the end.

The next week, she was hounded by baseball players after school.

She kept holding up a hand to cover her face, but they would not relent. Asking questions about her and Kenji. What Kenji was like outside of school, outside of baseball. If Kenji ever stopped being serious and aloof for even a minute. At this point they were just crowding her and not giving her the space to breathe.

She kept giving short curt answers, tugging her backpack straps closer and closer to her. At one point, one of them stepped on her foot and she winced a little.

It was like some kind of sonar sensor, Kenji could tell something was wrong. When he turned the corner, all he could see was his girl getting cornered by a bunch of idiots who didn’t even have his best interest at heart. The only reason why he asked her to fake date him was so that he could get out of dates with the girls his teammates had thought would suit him. The secondary reason was so she could avoid his teammates entirely. But clearly, the second reason did not go as planned because his teammates were a bunch of no-brainers who didn’t even really care about baseball.

“Hey, let’s go, I’ll drive you home today.” Kenji stuck his hand in between two of his teammates, and she grabbed it, so he was able to pull her out from the crowd they had made around her.

He strung two fingers around her jean belt loop and guided her to his car. When they finally sat down, and Kenji had started the engine, she let out a shaky breath. He put his hand behind her seat, and then moved his hand so he could lightly touch the back of her neck at her nape.

“Are you okay? I had no idea they would do something like that, I mean, it’s just completely ridiculous. I don’t even talk to them that much, if at all. And they treat me like some kind of foreigner, which I may be yeah, but really come on. That’s just herd mentality to the max. Ridiculous behavior, so childish.” Kenji kept talking while driving, she thought that maybe he needed a chance to really unload everything and mitigate the tension that had built up around him.

When they got to her house, he apologized again. And again.

“Don’t let it eat you alive, it’s all good, no harm no foul, if it makes you feel better, they totally reeked of body odor.” She chimed in after he finished his long wind of apologies. “And, um, what time is your game on Wednesday? My mom asked, she wants to hang out with your mom.”

“And here I thought you just wanted to see me completely kill the opposing team.” Kenji tried to lean out of the car just a little more, but his seatbelt kept him from getting his head out of the passenger side window. “I’ll text you. Get to your house safe ok?”

To her house from the car was approximately seven steps. The smile she gave him wrinkled her eyes and creased her nose just perfectly. He slid his hands up and down the wheel, smiling to himself as he started home.

The game went perfectly, he stole practically all the bases, and he made two home run hits. And an LA Dodgers scout was there. Once he got the documents and the scout shaked his hand, he was over the moon excited to play for the best team in the United States.

When he saw her with her mom and his mom, he just couldn’t hold himself back. In a second, he was hugging her and ranting about the scout continuously just repeating the experience over and over. Since his mom knew she would have a hard time prying Kenji off of his best friend, she just had to listen in to what he was saying, and she clapped when she had finally heard it all, celebrating from just far enough away to let them enjoy the moment.

His graduation was boring, she sat with his mom in the stands waiting for him to get his name called out. There were a lot of speeches, and she recognized the valedictorian from various library encounters, but for the most part everyone was a stranger to her. Emiko kept getting a call from an international number, but she didn’t try to ask about it.

Kenji barrelled through the crowd of graduates to get to his people, his mom and his best friend. When he started to talk about what he was going to do over the summer, his baseball camps and training, getting to meet the members of his team. His mom put a gentle hand to his shoulder, and he furrowed his eyebrows at the serious environment his mom had suddenly crafted. She backed away a little, but Kenji grabbed her hand and shook his head, telling her to stay for whatever his mom had to say.

“Kenji, your dad, he’s, your dad wants to talk to you. He’s, he’s on the phone.” Emiko couldn’t help but stutter a little, unnerved with how Kenji would react.

Kenji shook his head no, pulling her closer to him trying to use her as a crutch to prevent an interaction with his father from occurring. She looked between Kenji and his mother for a moment. Emiko with her tightened face and hand gripping the phone tightly said more than what her original request was saying. Emiko wanted Kenji to answer the call. So, she in turn encouraged him to answer it.

“Jiji, just answer the call. It’s your dad.” He felt betrayed.

“I’m not picking up the phone, I’m not talking to dad, and I’m getting a ride with a friend.” He pulls his hand away, despite missing her touch, and leaves his mom and her standing and stunned from his reaction.

Emiko pulled her into a side hug. “Thanks for backing me, you’re much more mature than I think people give you credit for. I have udon at home, call your mom and let’s have a girls night. I don’t think he’ll be home for a while. I’ll let him blow off steam today, but don’t think I’m soft on him, he’ll have some hell to pay when I catch him tomorrow.”

Patting the back of her head, Emiko went to the small electric van. She stood for a second, thinking about the space Kenji had just occupied. Maybe the family dynamic in the Sato household was more complex than she had anticipated, Emiko seemed to still love her husband despite them being separated. Kenji seemed adverse to and angry with his father, but Emiko didn’t carry any slight of resentment.

Girls night was a blast, including face masks and bad romance movies. Kenji got back around midnight, just as her mom and her were leaving his house. When she left, he was the one who closed the door after her. He gave a short pained smile and a wave. In her mind, it was a win because at least he wasn’t upset with her for taking Emiko’s side.

Summer was hot and burned the apples of her cheeks, leaving both sunburns and memories in it’s fragmented state. Kenji was busy conditioning for baseball practically everyday. Somedays he’d invite her out just to watch him play, so she could sip some icy lemonade and sit in the shade instead of being cooped in her house doing whatever it is that homebodies do.

It would be deceiving to say that she didn’t enjoy just watching him play. The way his baseball jersey would bunch at his elbows and shoulders when he hit the ball. Or the way he would run the bases each time he missed a throw from the ball machine. He still needed to get a haircut, so his bangs would completely cover most of his face, until he ran a hand through his sweaty hair and his almost snake-like eyes would study her from afar.

The best part was when he told her to move her legs a little, so he could sit on the row of bleachers in front of her. Eventually positioning himself to settle in between her legs, resting his arms on her thighs and his head was leaning on her torso. Although his sweat would lightly mark up her shirts when his hair dripped from his practice rounds, she still loved to be there for him in this capacity.

Either he was here with her or he would be at the diamond alone and angry. When he came alone, he would throw his bat when he made a mistake instead of just brushing it off and doing a lap. Somehow, doing baseball training alone while waiting for official LA Dodgers’ orders made him all pent up and out of control. So when she came to observe, it felt like he had more things in his control, his ability to manage.

“How are you gonna survive without me next year?” Kenji rolled his shoulders before getting his water bottle and guzzling down the IV infused liquid.

“Well, as far as everyone knows, we’re still dating, so I’ll have another year of free solo-ing the romance world at a hormone ridden cesspool.” She slid her backpack on, ready to start the trek home.

Kenji slung his duffel bag over his shoulder, then quickly switched which shoulder his bag was on once he saw which side she let her bag rest on, so that their bags wouldn’t bump into each other as he walked her home.

“You’re not gonna tell people we ended it?” Kenji sucked in some air through his teeth, readjusting the bag’s weight placement a little.

“Nah, it’s just easier that way. At graduation though if anyone asks how we’re doing I’ll say you found a supermodel that preys on greenie Pro-Baseball players.”

He nods, accepting the route she was going in order to terminalize their fake relationship.

“I was a good boyfriend though, right?” Maybe he asked so that he could feel out the possibility of a real one, or seeing what he could do better when he finally worked up enough courage to ask her out for real and for forever. For now though, he knew that friendship would satiate most of his yearning for her time and attention.

“Comparatively, to what I heard other girls went through, you were practically a saint. I mean, you never did press me into a couch so we could make out. Ruby held that over my head for the whole year once her girlfriend did that to her.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad actually,” Kenji stroked his chin, “One last boyfriend duty for me to do before I get too busy, ya know?”

“Kiss me without permission and you're a dead baseball boy.” He held up his hands defensively.

“That was one time.”

“In the middle of the library, in front of a good majority of my friends, right after I had been begged to be a fake girlfriend.”

Kenji raised his eyebrows, and tilted his head, “I do not recall begging.”

“You definitely begged,” She clasped her hands together and turned towards him, pausing their pace on the sidewalk for her to parody him, “Pretty please.”

She fluttered her eyelashes and pouted dramatically.

He rolled his eyes and tugged her hands so she would keep walking.

The postseason began around October for Kenji, and he made his official debut into the stage of professional baseball. Around the fifth game he played, he snapped. And that’s why he was sitting on her bathroom counter holding a bag of peas to the side of his face, while she dug through the closet just outside the bathroom looking for a first aid kit.

The catcher had just stepped out of line according to Kenji, messing up his at bat routine with his comments about his age, his inexperience, his lack of genuine talent. The first punch was Kenji’s, the second punch was the catcher’s and it rocked Kenji immediately.

Tasting the metallic blood in his mouth, he was just glad all his teeth were okay. He did feel bad for going to her instead of going home. But he knew that his mom would’ve killed him for hitting another player. The only reason why his mom wasn’t at this specific game was because she had some research files from years ago that his father needed, so she was spending the time trying to transfer data from floppy disks to USB drives.

She should’ve been asleep, or studying for her upcoming exams. He felt like an inconvenience and like a child who was being coddled, but he did feel like he was being fawned over by her which he could live with. Even the way she had reacted to him texting her and asking if she could help patch him up a little. She had sent nearly thirty messages, mostly angry, but also laced with worry.

“This might sting a little.” She reached up and pressed a cloth to his lip. He lurched away from the disinfectant, and she almost fell over due to having to reach up to get to his face.

“Hold on, give me a second.” Kenji got off the counter regardless of her complaints, she stopped complaining and was silenced once he swapped their positions, her sitting on the counter and him in front of her with his hands on either side of her hips, placed on the edge of the counter. “Better.”

She hummed a little, pressing the cloth to his face again, he tried to not lurch away this time. She put some triple antibiotic ointment on his lip and temple where there were some cuts. Putting some small star shaped bandages on his face where the cuts were biggest.

“All done!” She put her hands on his shoulders and gave a big smile.

Maybe he leaned in, maybe he didn’t. But their lips were definitely touching. When she pushed him away he realized he must have made a fatal error. So he decided to play it off.

“Sorry, a little faint from the fight earlier, not in my right mind.”

“Yeah, you, uh, you were just trying to, yeah.” She chewed the inside of her mouth.

Kenji helped her off the counter, and walked to her front door, ready to head out.

Holding onto the door, she stuck her head out and commented to him before he got too far away from hearing distance, “No more fights okay?”

He threw her a thumbs up before leaving her house. When he was safely back in his car, he did something that was all too familiar when he slipped up around her, he silently screamed and gripped his hair.

Years went by.

They stayed close, and he made sure of that. Baseball was going great, but no championships under his belt. She had graduated college, working at an office as an assistant. She moved out of her family home and got a shared apartment with some college friends who also worked in the main part of Los Angeles

Then, his dad hurt his leg, and everything went to hell. Hayao had called, telling Kenji it was finally time to take the name of Ultraman. He now needed to bear the gauntlet, the responsibility of keeping his home country safe. His mom just agreed, putting her hands on Kenji’s knee. Telling Kenji it was finally time for him to go home and be who he was supposed to be. And he was supposed to be Ultraman?

Baseball was his thing, he knew baseball and he was good at it too. Baseball felt like home, LA felt like his home, she felt like his home.

On top of all that, within a week of his father’s request and his mother’s urging, his mother had an accident. He had no idea what happened. Just that one day, Emiko was there and then she wasn’t.

He was depressed, and so he drank. His house was a mess. Dirty dishes piled up in the sink, he was wearing the same clothes from four days ago. His toothbrush had become unfamiliar. He didn’t bother turning on the lights, staying in the dark and sulking.

When her mom found out about Emiko’s disappearance and presumed death, she called her daughter and told her to check in on Kenji. He had been distant lately, and she knew that the distance was a result of his grief. Her stomach twisted into knots, and she realized she hadn’t reached out to him in a few weeks.

His front door was locked, she had a basket of fruit and a stack of tupperwares filled with lunches and dinners for an entire week. She tried to think about what food were both comforting and had a lot of protein, so she made a variety of pasta dishes with extra meat.

“Kenji?” She knocked repeatedly, checking her phone only to see that her messages had been left on read. She called out for him again, knocking harder. “I know you’re in there Jiji.”

Opening the door made her grasp the gravity of the situation he was in. His hair was covering his face, he seemed to have recoiled into himself, wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt instead of his typical jeans and jersey thrown over a solid color tee. He smelled too, not of his usual mintiness and clean linen, but of all and any sort of alcohol. With eye bags darker than dirt, and hollow looking features, he just left the door open as he lurked back into his blacked out house.

Setting her gifts on his kitchen counter, she turned on the lights, and got to work. First the dishes, and then she picked up all the clothing and started a load of laundry. She made him a plate of the food she had brought, and a big glass of water and some Advil for the inevitable hangover he would have.

Lying on the couch, Kenji played with the hem of his sweatshirt. He tried to take another sip straight from a bottle of red wine when she stole it out of his hands. Whining, he told her to give it back and turn the lights off. She clicked her tongue.

“Eat this,” she handed him the plate, “Drink this,” she sat the water and pill on the coffee table. She tapped her foot, her arms folded in front of her chest. He groaned but did as told.

Satisfied with his actions, she dragged him upstairs and told him to take a shower. Hearing the water running, she looked around his room and cleaned it up. His passport, along with a one way ticket to Tokyo for one month out, was on the floor, covered by blankets that were strewn around. Opened letters were lying on the floor as well, pictures and clippings of ‘Kaiju’ attacks in Japan. Maybe she needed to brush up on her international news instead of staying in her little bubble.

Coming out of the shower with baggy clothes on, he dried his hair with a small towel.

“What are you doing?” He saw her holding the letters his dad had sent. He reached out for them, but she held them back and to her chest.

“What are Kaiju?”

Soon, he was sitting on his bed with her as well. He had the Ultraman doll in his left hand and a stuffed animal that she had given him some years ago in his right hand.

“Basically, I’m this, by blood,” He shook the Ultraman doll, “And I’m supposed to fight these back home. Since my father can’t anymore.” Laughing slightly, he slammed Ultraman into the stuffie repeatedly.

Her eyes were wide. She may not have understood everything about what he was, or what he was supposed to be doing, but she knew it was important to him to some degree. It was irrelevant that his dad needed him, the only thing he cared about was that his mom had asked him to take the step to become something he wasn’t sure of.

But the idea that her best friend was going to be a superhero? That he could change into some kind of robotic monster slayer? She had to disconnect a little from reality just to process the whole thing.

Suddenly, he thought of something that could possibly get him out of his funk. Something that could make his time in Tokyo, living an entirely new life bearable.

“There’s some extra rooms at the place I’ll be living in. I know that you want to go to some kind of graduate school. There are really good graduate schools in Tokyo.” He scratched the back of his head, if she said yes, then he would be truly mortified that she had seen him like this but he would also get to have neverending time with her on a day to day basis if she agreed.

“I remember none of the Japanese you taught me, I’d need to get a visa,” She started listing off all the things that would keep her from leaving, “But, uh, I think I’ll go with you. Yes.”

“I can handle the visa thing, you’re just going to need to sign some papers and have an interview with some people, and you’ll need to wear a ring on your ring finger. As for the Japanese, I’m a better teacher now than when I was 18.”

Getting married was not on her bucket list, but at least she could get better tuition at her graduate school for technically being a form of naturalized Japanese national. Her mom was glad to see her living away from LA, and she was grateful for Kenji going with her daughter. Her mom just didn’t know about the marriage for a green card/visa situation, and honestly, she didn’t plan on telling her mom.

The whole flight to Tokyo she was practicing her Japanese with Kenji. For the first time in a long time, he was actually happy. Not ready for the whole Ultraman thing, but ready at least to leave home and be out of LA. Los Angeles reminded him of his mother, every street sign, every restaurant, the greenery and flowers, it all came back to his mom.

What he had explained to her as the Ultrabase wasn’t just some place that he was staying at, it was a literal industrial modern masterpiece of a mansion. The sleek design ebbed and flowed into the molding of the island it resided on. Ceilings higher than a museum’s, she traced her finger along every surface trying to soak in the elitism of it all. He reclined himself on the ginormous couch, watching her observe the surroundings.

To him, she was the best feature of the homebase. Where most things were cold and stricken with a detrimental weight of his responsibility, she was like a beam of no expectations. She gave him the space to just exist without pressure. That and she was always fighting with his robot assistant MINA which also made each time returning back from fighting a little easier to endure.

“Listen MINA, I just think that you’d be more effective if you were pink, also can you pass me my pencil case.” She was sitting at the kitchen table, snacking on candy and working on an assignment from one of her professors on her Master’s Committee. MINA used an extended robot hand to fly over the pencil case that had been in her backpack.

“If I was pink, it would detract from my integrated design.” MINA floats around her head, observing her completed work thus far. “Your work is completely correct, why are you changing the grammatical structure?”

“For the love of the process MINA, for the love of the process.”

Kenji just ate another bite of his New York Strip, enjoying the free entertainment. When he finished his meal, he asked if she wanted to go out for an adventure.

Matching helmets, black and gold design with her wearing one of his extra leather jackets just in case. For safety he justified. The cool Tokyo air felt even colder as they rushed around the streets, lane splitting and cutting in between cars. The headphones had built in bluetooth so they were listening to a shared playlist they had made. Blending rap, RNB, pop, and EDM crafted the right ambiance needed for a late night drive.

In some ways, Tokyo was similar to LA. She reasoned that it might have been the lights to a certain degree, but here, the lights were brighter and bolder. Neon signs and air pollution were the common denominators between the two cities.

He takes a corner just a little too hard, and she instinctively tightens her arms around his waist, tucking her head a little closer to his shoulder.

They end up taking a break for a minute, pulling off the side of the road to grab some vending machine drinks. Tea for her, coffee for him.

That’s when his watch begins to blare red. She fidgets with the ring on her hand, she didn’t need to wear it around he told her, but the cool diamond gem had grown on her. Just as a precaution if the case workers came around to check on their ‘marriage’, that was the explanation she gave to him for why she always had her ring on. They never talked about why he always kept his on too, despite interviews asking and continuously pestering him about the ring. The baseball world had just concluded it was either a secret wife or for the style since he never gave an answer.

“I think you have to go do your whole superman thing.” She pointed at his watch that he was trying to ignore.

Kenji groaned a little, calling for a ride so she could get back to his place. MINA had already gotten to them by the time the watch had started to blare.

“Ken, it is time to mitigate the primary conflict in Shinjuku.” MINA did a bow with their robot body. She tried to throw a pebble at MINA to test for reaction time, that being said MINA caught the rock. She shrugged.

Back at the dungeon, also known as the Ultrabase much to her distaste for a name like that, she was surprised to see an elderly man with a crutch sitting on the couch in the central living room.

He was watching a big hologram screen, which now clearly looked like Kenji (in Ultraman form) fighting with a pink monster dragon thing. When he got a particularly nasty body slam she sucked in some air through her teeth.

“Ahh, hello strange girl in the Ultraman base.” He circled her for a moment, his crutch slowing down his assessment of her.

“Ahh, hi strange grandpa in the Ultraman base.” She waved, and the older gentleman introduced himself as Professor Sato.

“Kenji’s dad?” She checked.

“Yes, I’m his father.” She nods, getting a glass of water.

When Kenji gets back to the base, that’s when things get a little crazy. What was once a slimy egg turned into a cute komodo dragon mutant baby. She was all over the baby in an instant, trying to get to know it better.

“She’s adorable. I love her.” She was tapping the glass of the containment cylinder, cooing at the infant Kaiju. The baby seemed to respond positively, making little coos back and stomping around a little.

Kenji just folded his arms and took it all in. He was still trying to get rid of his dad, despite his father’s willingness to help out. He just couldn’t balance it all without Hayao’s help, he realized. Especially when Emi needed more assistance, and help avoiding the KDF’s insistent attacks. She loved Emi, despite the Kaiju having the ability to totally crush her, Emi reciprocated quickly to her. Considering the contrast in how long it took for Kenji to demonstrate that his Ultaman form and his regular self were the same through systematic desensitization.

They became a family, even if a family consisted of a pro-baseball player, his fake wife/best friend, an estranged but loving father, a Kaiju baby, and a robot assistant.

A learning curve consisted of a lot more mistakes and complaining, but at the end of it all, Kenji had to commit. He was Ultraman now. He needed to protect Tokyo. At least now he had a support system he could rely on. Slowly, changes occurred with him. Putting others before himself, really truly thinking about life and the value of other human beings. The catalyst was a Kaiju baby named Emi, especially the way that said Kaiju baby loved openly.

The misadventures of raising Emi were wild and laced with KDF fights, but in the end, Kenji and his dad were brought together by defending Kaiju in a unique way. The monsters weren’t intentionally villains, humans had just made them out to be like that. That’s life though, people defining and categorizing things into concepts and schemas that made sense to them.

That’s what his dad was doing when he and Emiko separated. Hayao was trying to find ways to open human eyes to the world and beauty of Kaiju. Living in tandem with them may not have been immediately possible but why shouldn’t it be ever given a chance? Professor Sato, his dad, wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, he was trying his best to make the world a little bit better. Forgiving a father who he once believed left him wasn’t an easy road, but it was a path that needed to be traveled.

Saying goodbye to Emi was rough, yet, the Kaiju Island was close enough to go and visit on occasion. Baseball was great, winning the championship and going into a post-season diffusement.

Yet, Kaiju still came and wreaked havoc, and Kenji still had to fight and protect Japan. Even if that meant coming back to the base bloodied and bruised. She was almost always there, wrapping his arms in white bandages and wiping off blood with towels. Running ice baths and making cold soba noodles.

Which is what she was doing at this moment, rinsing the noodles in ice water and stirring a sweet sauce for Kenji to pour over rather than dunk his noodles into.

He was resting a frozen water bottle on his shoulder, hoping it would numb the pain, the Kaiju just had to try and rip his good arm off didn’t it?

“Hey, can I come in? Got your soba.” She knocked on the bathroom door using her elbow, since both hands were carrying bowls of soba with sauce containers precariously resting on her lower palms.

“Yeah, I’m wearing swim trunks.”

“Good because I’m not ready to see you naked, like, ever.” She chuckled, but pulled a chair next to the ceramic tub, breaking her chopsticks and saying a quick itadakimasu. He copied her, immediately drowning his noodles in the sauce she set on the edge of the tub. She rolled her eyes at his action.

He laughed a little, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, “What, it tastes better like this.”

She hummed an affirmative sound, but her eyes glinted with an agree to disagree conclusion.

The noodles had been fully digested, but she was still there, dipping her fingers into the water and making small swirls. The frigid temperature makes her fingers feel detached from her body.

Kenji lowers himself in the tub for a moment, getting his hair wet. When he came back up, she was pushing his bangs away from his face, smiling. Her hand stayed in his hair, brushing the strands away from his face as they dropped droplets down the back of his neck and then into the tub again. The ice cubes bumped into each other, melting slowly but steadily.

He ran his tongue over his teeth, uttering a few words, “Hot tub?”

She nods and heads out of the bathroom to get a swimsuit on.

The pool on the second to bottom floor of the base had an attached hot tub. He turned on the low lights, leaving the space in a warm brown shade of yellow light. The glass wall gave an outlook over the city and the ocean that surrounded the base.

MINA zoomed into the pool area, “Shall I put on some smooth jazz Ken?”

“No. Do not do that.” Kenji waved off MINA with red stinging his ears. MINA states they were just trying to speed up the whole process, and quoted one of her favorite phrases adding an addendum of MINA’s understanding and AI learning, “For the love of the process, especially if it's about love.”

The hot tub was warm, not quite boiling, but warm. She rested her arms on the outside ledge of the tub, looking out through the window. Kenji came to her side and replicated how she was positioned, before remembering that his shoulder hurt and gave out a small sound of displeasure. She giggled a little, rubbing the back of his shoulder where there weren't any distinct injuries.

“You’ve changed a lot since we were in high school.” She closed her eyes and dropped her head so that it was on her crossed arms.

“That’s what happens with time.” He wants to ask why she brought up his self-improvement. But she cuts him off before any words settle in his mouth.

“Yeah, but you’ve made a lot of great changes. You’re actually friends with your teammates now. And you’ve taken on this whole responsibility for an entire country. You aren’t just Kenji Sato, you’re also Ken Sato, and Ultraman, and I like to think you’ve fully embraced your father again, and not to mention our friendship.” She looks up at the ceiling, “You’re like an actual adult now.”

“I’ve been an adult for way longer than you.”

“But not like this, like an actual responsible person. You can juggle everything now.”

She sniffles a little, “Which is why I can understand if you don’t want me to stay once I finish my program you know?”

Kenji grabs a hold of one of her hands, “What the hell? Why would you ever think I’d want to kick you out?”

She shrugs.

He continues, “I hate to say it, but I think you’re stuck with me. You know too much about my dark secrets.” She smirks in response to his teasing tone.

Kenji dives deeper into things he wished he would’ve said earlier.

“I mean, you already have the ring to prove it too.” Her mouth gapes open a little, raising an eyebrow.

It would be amiss to say that this wouldn’t alter everything, but it was time.

“I know that we’ve only ever been friends, but you need to know what I feel.”

“I think I already know.” She cups the side of his face, and he pulls her into him, and makes her face him. She’s sitting on the expanse of his thighs, and he looks up at her from how he’s leaning back onto the wall of the hot tub.

Wrapping arms around his neck, careful to not rest too much of her arm on his shoulder, she brings their noses to brush against each other.

“Mine now? Right? You’re mine now?” When she doesn’t respond he continues, “Pretty please? Mine?”

“I thought you said you never begged?” She grazes his lips with her own and he sighs with a light shudder in his chest.

“I’ll beg for this, for you.”

“Fair enough.”

He tightens his grip and pulls her flush to him. Angling his neck up and tilting his head, he kisses her. She smiles too much for it to be a proper kiss, but he keeps pressing against her mouth. When she stops smiling and starts responding with her own pressure of lips to lips, he has to suppress the hunger to bite her.

His tongue brushes against her bottom lip and she opens her mouth for him, he runs his tongue along the inner lining of her mouth before biting on the tip of her tongue when she tries to take her turn. He chuckles when she pulls back a little, nose crinkled and lips wet.

“C’mere.” He trails kisses down the side of her face, going to her neck and collarbones, glad that her swimsuit was low cut enough for him to graze the top of her chest, where the rise of her curves began. She just presses kisses to the top of his head while her hand tangles into the hair at his nape, twisting the locks into fake curls.

When their fingers were wrinkled from the water in the hot tub, they showered and curled up on his bed, watching a meaningless show.

“So, my thoughts are that we can just skip the dating thing and go straight to marriage since legally we already are.”

“My mom will kill me.”

“Good thing she loves me, just say we eloped.” He wraps his good arm around her and pulls her down to lay on the pillows. She snuggles into the silk blend pillow cases and murmurs a little, tired from a long day. He caresses the side of her face and rests his hand on her hip.

MINA flits around the base, erasing specific footage from the recordings in the pool room, for everyone’s benefit.

Kenji paced back and forth in the base, waiting for her to get back from babysitting Chiho, hoping that Ami’s date would end shockingly early for his benefit.

He’s still on the phone with her, “I don’t want to wait to see you.” He kicks a throw pillow that had fallen on the ground from the couch.

“Have patience, I’ll be back around one AM.”

“This is spousal abuse.”

“It really isn’t”

MINA chimed in and agreed with her, so she exclaimed and said that even a robot knows the truth that Kenji was just a little clingy.

“I think you should stop watching other people’s babies and come take care of your family. And by family, I mean me.”

“I know what you meant.”

He looks to the clock, three more hours of waiting would be excruciating. But at least she’d be back in time for him to wish her an extremely early happy anniversary with the new ring he got.

[nyasialiveshere]

jus one thing the xenophobia thing for why western audiences dont respond as well to kpop as some would like.. is kind of played out in an age of spanish music/afrobeats

where tons of english mixed with other languages are flooding the airwaves ( ps it has been for decades sort of thai rap, japanese rap has developed interest across the globe for it's unique contribution to the genre) music and art is still spreading and growing its idol culture that is waning in popularity but it's being framed as people just don't like any asian artists period which isn't true.

Plus it can't be said people just want to listen to music in a language they can understand. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Yes the radio has it's people picked but that is simply big money controlling what it monopolizes. That isn't reflective of the real world and how people feel. During times where black and white communities were almost completely seperate black motown artists were very popular on the radio

They don't push kpop because they don't have a financial stake in it it's little to do with what the people want. Though the public doesn't really like kpop all that much either compared to say regular pop, but the you cannot say it's due to language and cultural barriers. Because that exists in the us. There are towns that can be up to 80 percent one race, many people live mostly amongst their own race and immediate culture in some small towns and even large towns in america. It isn't the multicultural paradise it's framed to be. Someone who lives up north can be completely ignorant of southern culture/slang and verbage up to the point where they literally don't understand what their "fellow american" is saying.

There are people in america that can't even understand what 90 percent of what us rappers are saying by proxy of heavy heavy accents especially dealing with southern rap I'm from the south my brain has to recalibrate sometimes trying to figure out what they saying. People are simple they like stuff that makes them feel good and soundwaves that give them butterflies. kpop is simply not investing money into good producers and too many untalented nepo babies running the kpop industry. Lsm is gone, jyp is old and out of touch and yg is in jail these young club new rich chaebol kids are now doing the producing with absolutely none of the respect and admiration the old heads had for real music.

They are so in a tizzy with what to do next they are trying to make a korean one direction you can't make this stuff up

No surprise this is how kpop has survived this long mimicking and changing just enough to stay alive and outlive it's competition.

They can make a hit but not a classic. Many kpop fans are into the cult of personality completely disregarding the quality of the music the baritone, rifts, originality are unimportant, loud belting is impressive autotune can fix the rest. So ofc in the age of ai kpop will be targeted 1st. Many mainly care about the fanservice and wanting to interact with idols more so than the music everybody knows that. Particularly in places like Korea where this is apart of the band's marketing.

Whereas American promotion is more focused on western forms of promotion

because of these different promo styles you are getting different deliveries but in the end it's still a show being put on either way. Making music the backdrop and making the way companies secure their bags less obvious. It's hard to see a group of coworkers that hug, kiss, and spend every waking moment together as a company project. They are a family. They are also dolls that can be paired with one another or other dolls from different play houses.

Which isn't anything new but it's something we as consumers don't think to deeply about. If it's in front of you it's a product even if you don't spend money on it.

Where energy flows money goes. Interest in relationships lead to interest in albums

and when fans across borders and languages don't get there dopamine boost from these relationships they revolt.

I liked kpop for the theatrics in america its mainly the theater kids that like kpop and the artsy kids. The music and visuals is even loosing that appeal and becoming more tame and predictable(I assume I don't listen to music like that anymore.) But I wonder how they will usher in the ai idols thing, through tv and movies, anime, my guess is 1st realistic high grade chat bots and since they have a 360 deal they can use there voices and images as well I believe the best sell to these fans is interface.

lmao. man if they can up the programming and personalize it a real deal smart celeb bff lord.......they will have the souls of many.

This may be why so many group members are being allowed to leave without a war breaking out. Once they introduce this into kpop fandom wise this will change everything. After that experiment it will spread to different parts of the world slowly but surely. everybody gets their own person demon in an angel's body inside a screen..sigh. It's the closest the common person would get to having an actual robot I believe that would be way way to expensive but I won't doubt some people taking out loans to get one. The new wave of capitalism emotional money laundering.

blackpink will be having a vr concert on the 26th

Aespa already had one and since the concept is ai metaverse in it's inception this is most definitely not a one time thing

Sm has been ready for this for quite some time but because of gossip and company public distractions few paid attention of the bricks sm has been laying for the company and its artists future

"Addressing the tie-up in a statement, SM Entertainment CEO Sung-su Lee indicated that his company can “see the opportunity for our artists in the metaverse.” “SM is excited to expand our market to include metaverse content for artists using AmazeVR’s industry-leading VR technologies and proprietary concert creation tools. We’ve had a great interest in this market and see the opportunity for our artists in the metaverse,” the SM Entertainment head said in part."

This was a thought of mine awhile ago but it seems fans intense care for the idols has successfully allowed the companies to move the fans blindly into the next direction. I shouldn't have to say this is way bigger than music. Mark Zuckerburg has been pushing for the metaverse for a very very long time and it's no surprise that companies such as kpop one's who are always looking for new sponsors fell right into this global agenda.

Multiple movies have already been made

and it's interesting to see how people will respond, reject and eventually except this new reality since it's their favorite people pushing it to them

[adricthemindnimon]

Final rant about His Dark Materials (for now). There were some weird choices regarding race in the first 2 eps of series 3. 

1. King Ogunwe is no longer a king. Now he’s a commander, a leader of a rebellion against oppressive religious forces. Which, sure, makes sense in plot-wise (though I found the Ogunwe who said “I am a king, but it is my privilege to fight for a world where there are no kings” much more interesting and original). But taking the Doyleist perspective... They just took a black man and transformed his character from a proud, powerful King who was so committed to bringing about a better world that he took up a fight that didn’t really directly benefit him... and made him something akin to a slave leading a rebellion. I know that’s an inflammatory and dramatic way of describing the tv show character, and it’s not 100% accurate, but... it’s not far off. He’s still a powerful leader with or without Asriel, he still becomes Asriel’s top general, he’s still a thoughtful and intelligent and commanding character. But that change still seems like a shame.

2. Ama’s a blonde white girl now? The book has Mrs. Coulter take Lyra to essentially the Himalayas, where Lyra’s helped by an enterprising young Nepali (~ish, the world-to-world comparisons aren’t perfect) girl. Why move that part of the story to Germany? Why make Ama a white kid? This change I dislike because it’s part of a bigger issue I have with the show, namely that the world seems small. Considering that this show traverses not only the entirety of Lyra’s world, but also a lot of other worlds too, the scope feels remarkably small in this telling. Everyone (~) speaks with the same accent. Gyptians speak like Oxford scholars speak like ice bears speak like magisterium folks. Ama was a chance for the show to expand properly. To give us a kid who clearly isn’t from the same world as Lyra. To give us a different language and a different culture. So while I thought making her deaf and using sign language was a cool idea, the barriers between her and Will were so easily overcome - there was some interpreting by Balthamos, but also she clearly understood English and could lip read what Will was saying. The loss of the racial, cultural, and (complete) linguistic differences and/or barriers let the world of the show just keep shrinking ever smaller.

[fasa-umich]

FASA Through the Lens of @Mikey.35mm || Mikey Delphia, FASA's 2022 - 2023 Co-External Chair

I am not Filipino.

I’m mixed Japanese and white (my dad’s name is Ted if you need a hint as to the degree of whiteness), with a slightly tan complexion. I have pronounced double eyelids, a somewhat tall nose, and decently thick lips. A lot of people throughout my life have told me that I’m racially ambiguous, and I’m prone to agree with them. I promise, I’m getting to the part where I talk about FASA.

I am Japanese. 

Since I was a kid, being Japanese was always my primary identity. The food I ate, the media I consumed, and even my small habits were all distinctly Japanese. But even though I always felt Japanese, I never really looked Japanese to the people whose validation I want the most: Japanese people. Every time I went back to Japan to visit family, the language barrier, culture, or food were no problem. The problem was that my identity as a Japanese person was always denied. I would get weird looks on public transportation, be spoken to in English at stores, and people were shocked when I spoke to them in Japanese. At every corner, I felt like no matter how hard fluent my Japanese was, how many Japanese books I read, how many references to Japanese variety TV I could muster up, I would never be enough.

I am enough. 

Weirdly enough, FASA was where I felt this. I joined FASA at the beginning of my freshman year by urging my roommate JC to take me to the mass meeting. My reasoning was that as a non-Filipino, I felt like going to the mass meeting alone would be a little odd but I was still nervous as hell. Every time I had to explain that I wasn’t Filipino despite what some people thought, I felt a twinge of fear that FASA would reject or isolate me. If my own people wouldn’t accept me, why would FASA? 

I am one of your 2022-2023 FASA Co-External chairs. 

As of writing this, I’ve completed a full year of service for FASA. How’d that happen? FASA is simultaneously a community that is proudly and unapologetically Filipino yet open to all, Filipino or not. As long as you love the culture and want to support FASA’s mission, the door is open. Once I realized that I was welcome and accepted in the community, I chose External as the best position for me to give back to the community that gave me a home on campus. 

I am a survivor (of being on FASA board).

External is a position with both a stressful set of external trip events you have to plan and high expectations to fill for proposing unique collabs and improving FASA’s relationship with dozens of other parties. There’s a high floor and an even higher ceiling to work under. There’s always another potential event, joint workshop, external PCN to go to that you won’t get around to. And that’s okay! There are infinitely many things to do, but only so much time. As External, you get what you need to get done and look towards things you want to do. The number of opportunities in turn becomes an asset, where you can do almost anything you want (within reason). During my tenure I reached out to and reconnected with Filipino student organizations across Michigan that FASA lost ties to and fostered friendships on campus too. When I saw so many FASA members performing in DVN, I’ll be honest, I felt like I really contributed to that. While I have so many regrets of failed collabs and missed external events, I know I gave so much to FASA through my position to FASA. Even with all this, though, I can never give back the same amount as FASA gave to me. This home and community I’ve found on campus really is priceless. 

You are the future of FASA.

To future members of Board and the two future external chairs - Good luck! It’s a hard job but it’s rewarding. You get to feel how much you’re contributing to the community and culture on campus, which is a great feeling that’s impossible to explain. FASA is the center, the beating heart of the community, and you will lead it to the future. For Externals specifically, you are the ones who will establish old ties and create new ones that make our organization part of a greater community. FASA and Filipino culture is something to be proud of and shared, and I trust that both of you will do excellent in this goal. 

You are my Co-External.

To Ashley - Having you as my Co-External chair for a year was amazing, and it still hasn’t even dawned on me that our tenure together is ending. There was laughter, frustration, and tears, but in the end there was us, and we survived. All those late nights on spreadsheets and itineraries was not for naught, and I believe we really made our mark. I’m looking forward to us together beyond the position that we got to know each other through. Thank you so much for being my Co-External!

You are my Board.

Our time is ending, but it was great. Ups and downs, highs and lows, it all let us get to know each other and create something great. FASA is better than it’s ever been, and it’s all thanks to you. Your support and productive criticism let me grow as a person, better than the one who went to a mass meeting just because he really enjoyed Filipino food he had at a grad party. Thank you all, and I wish you all the best in wherever life takes you!

You are my community. Don’t need to say much - I’ve still got at least two more years with you all. See you!

[haystarlight]

shout out to Amphibia (and Adventure Time, too) for including subtitles when a character is speaking another language (Anne’s dad speaking Thai, Lady and Lee speaking Korean).

I wish more movies and TV shows did this, specially children’s media.

when I was little, I grew up on a country that mainly spoke Spanish, it was the only language I knew. but, then, I started watching My Little Pony in English with Spanish subtitles and that really helped me learn English. I started reading faster and faster and, eventually, I didn’t need the subtitles anymore. 

whoever made those Youtube videos of the MLP episodes with the color coded subtitles is my fucking hero and I don’t even remember what channel it was. 

I want English-speaking kids to have subtitles when a character speaks another language, it helps the story so much and removes the barrier between people.

I seriously hope that other children’s media follows suit. I want there to be subtitles when Camila Noceda speaks Spanish, when General Amaya speaks ASL (when The Dragon Prince comes back in 100 years).

I hate it when the captions just say “(Speaking Spanish)” instead of actually telling you what the characters are saying. how hard is it? “(Spanish) Don’t worry, everything will be okay!” “(Spanish) Nothing will work, unless I make it work!”. there, I did it.

TLDR; subtitles aren’t bad. most people can read and they don’t mind them. scrath that, they need them. if anyone doesn’t like subtitles, for whatever weird reason, they can just ignore them.

[yukidragon]

Can we get Jack with an MC that doesn't speak English but speaks another language scenario, please!

It would be an interesting twist if MC spoke a different language than Jack. For one thing, it would change a lot of the backstory of the character involved, as not being able to communicate would be a huge roadblock to working with the public in an English-speaking country. Not to mention growing up as Ian’s childhood friend would be difficult unless he too spoke that other language.

Buuuuuut let’s not dig too deep into the background setup and stick with just the basic scenario of Jack meeting a sunshine who can’t understand him.

I’m confident that a little something like a language barrier isn’t going to stop Jack from loving his sunshine. Sure, it makes things harder, especially when explaining to MC that he’s their best friend forever and not some giant intruder in their home.

In this situation, Jack would most likely rely on the supernatural connection between them a lot more, at least in regards of empathy and making MC feel good in his presence. He would speak soothingly and try to get on their level as much as possible to minimize his appearance as a threat. Even if they can’t understand each other, a soothing voice can help in tense situations and at least sends the message that the other party wants to communicate and understand.

Jack apparently has the ability to read MC’s mind, and maybe put thoughts into their head that they don’t consciously notice. Mind reading, I would imagine, would be a tricky thing, as a lot of times our thoughts are fragmented and bounce all over the place. I doubt he is privy to all of MC’s thoughts like he’s reading all of their inner monologue that’s part of the game’s narrative. I believe that’s why sometimes he asks what MC is thinking and displays genuine confusion.

Then again, Jack is an actor...

Anyway, to get back on track, it’s hard to say if mind reading involves images. It certainly seems to involve feelings and emotion. Jack’s connection doesn’t seem to give him an info dump of what MC knows and vice-versa, so chances are he won’t automatically know their native language through that supernatural bond.

It would make things harder for Jack, but he would be committed to understanding MC. I can see him sneaking off while they’re sleeping to study their native language. Until he learns how to harness the power of modern technology, this will likely involve him looking for a library or some other reference material. Being everything MC needs means being able to understand what they need.

From MC’s perspective, they would notice Jack picking up on the language as they spend time together. I can see him going into kids TV show teacher mode and talking about how much fun learning can be, and how important it is to understand each other.

With MC not understanding English, Jack would have a new venue for showing what he can provide them. He can act as a translator as he learns their language more, and help them with their English... if they want it, of course. While it could serve to isolate them more if they don’t understand what people are saying around them, Jack does want MC to grow and be happy. If they’re too lazy to learn, though... it’s all the better for him, isn’t it?

Besides, if Jack acts as their translator, he can make sure only the right messages are sent to his sunshine. They won’t have to pay attention to needless things while he’s around!

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression, radio version - Ep 47, August 2016 - Hierarchy in groups/bands, the language barrier overseas.

Kaoru starts by commenting on how the Summer is getting towards the end, and Joe asks him what type of things he considers typical Summer stuff, for example swimming in the sea etc. Kaoru says he did actually go to Okinawa recently, and went to take a look at the beach, but thats it, he didn't go in the sea. When he got there, he could smell the stench of tanning oil coming from the other beach goers, so he left pretty soon. He says he didn't go in the sea because he always thinks, 'If I go in, what am i gonna do about my wet feet after I come out?'.

Tasai joins them for the Tokyo Sports corner next, with some news from the comedy world for his first story. This relates to the comedy duo Nippon Elekitel Rengo (Joe has no idea who they are, not owning a tv, but Kaoru knows of them). The duo originally lived together in the city of Higashiyamurayama before getting their big break, due to not having a lot of money. But they have now moved into separate places after making it big, due to the danger of disbanding if the continued living together. The duo, Nakano and Hashimoto, had followed a specific lifestyle at home. Nakano, being the one who wrote all the comedy skits, imposed the rule that because she did all the writing, Hashimoto had to do all the house work. Not just cooking and cleaning etc, but even as far as laying out Nakano's futon each night, and passing her the tv remote. It was as if there was a hierarchy in their relationship. Tasai asks what Kaoru thinks of the arrangement. Does he see any similarities when writing music? Kaoru says it depends on the amount of people involved. With just 2 people its too easy for one of them to end up feeling like they are the brains. He doesn't really feel this in music, because the people who play the song also put their feelings into it/leave their mark on it. Tasai says that this should apply to Hashimoto too, because she was playing the parts that Nakano wrote. Kaoru repeats that for a group with only two members living together, its too easy to fall into this cycle. If two more members entered the group, it might throw this pattern off course a bit.

Joe says he once interviewed a particular band which had one member who wrote the songs (whereas the other members did no writing). The song writer said that although he may sometimes feel like he leads the band, he also sometimes gets into song-writing slumps. It is at these 'slump' times that he realises that although he writes the songs, it is the other members who complete them. Its easy to feel like you are the brains behind the whole thing when you are having a good day, but its those slump days that remind you how much you depend on the other members. Kaoru responds to this by saying 'I'm forever in slump mode'. The others laugh, Tasai exclaiming, 'What are you talking about?!'. Returning to serious mode, they agree that this is what being in a band is all about. Joe says a comedy duo should have more of a left/right relationship as opposed to a hierarchical one. Tasai says he wants to ask Nippon Elekitel Rengo about this directly, and hopes they make up.

Tasai's next news story is that the anime school, Yoyogi Animation Academy has recruited as its producers: Akimoto Yasushi (hugely influened record producer for AKB48 etc,), Komuro Tetsuya (also hugely influencial producer for many artists, including TRF etc), Tsunku (producer of Morning Musume), and Sashihara Rino (of the AKB and HKT groups). Each producer explained in an interview that they each have different methods of sensing a spark in someone, or finding a diamond in the rough etc. Tasai asks Kaoru if he has any experience with this from a producer's standpoint. Kaoru says he hasn't, but upon hearing that these 4 producers had been hired by Yoyogi Animation Academy, he felt no spark at all (the others laugh at this). He doesn't quite understand the point of hiring these 4 people.

Tasai explains that Tsunku in particular had expressed his envy that anime was able to  transcend the language barrier and make it big overseas so easily, whereas a lot of his hit songs in Japan could not. Tasai mentions that Dir en grey are very active overseas, and asks Kaoru how he copes with the language barrier. Kaoru says he doesn't think about it. Although communication is important, the purity of what the band wants to express gets a bit lost if they deliberately make songs in a different language. They can express themselves best in Japanese. He says using English is best if you want to make it big overseas, but he didn't start a band with the sole intention of 'making it big'.

Joe brings up the Tokyo based band 'Roth Bart Baron', who do a lot of shows around Europe and Asia, but sing entirely in Japanese. The vocalist/writer for the group speaks fluent English, but uses Japanese to sing because he can most easily express his true emotions in Japanese. In this day and age, people can easily translate lyrics on their computers anyway. Kaoru thinks that if you can easily express your emotions in English, its best to do that overseas, but Japanese has a lot of small nuances, which may be quite difficult to express clearly in English. On the other hand, says Joe, a lot of people who sing in English will tell you that English fits better with the tempo and sound of rock music than Japanese does.

Kaoru brings up his memories of singing along to English songs when he was a school kid, despite not knowing what it meant, so he doesn't really think its such a barrier these days.

They realise this conversation has taken a sharp turn away from the story about the anime school hiring music producers, but then they remember that anime has been massively successful at breaking international barriers, and could hold some lessons for the producers.

Kaoru finishes by reading out a few tour dates from the next two tours. Both tours will end with shows at Namba Hatch. This is because someone who helped Dir en grey out a lot in the early days works there, so they liked to finish in Osaka for that reason.

Songs - Dir en grey/Revelation of Mankind, The Crown/Face of Destruction, Dir en grey/Kyuukoku no kyouon ft. Sugizo.

Back to radio top page

[spatort]

I’m at my parents’ house and I have too much time on my hands apparently, so it’s time for a trip down memory lane! More specifically, a trip into the weird world of 1990s for-profit teen idol RPF, such as this beauty:

No, I did not find this at my parents’ house, I bought it second-hand specifically in order to make this post because I’m a person who enjoys studying fan culture in her free time. So, if you’re wondering what the hell the monstrosity pictured above is, and why it exists, don’t worry, I’m about to answer that question extensively.

LONG (AND HOPEFULLY FUN & INTERESTING) POST UNDER THE CUT

Let’s start with a bit of history: In the pre-internet era, fan culture differed from today in a few key regards. Although fanfiction existed, without the internet it was much harder for fans to share their stories with each other. Large fandoms such as Star Trek did have fanzines where fanfic could be printed, but all in all it was a much more niche thing than it is today with millions of fics accessible on AO3.

Fan culture in general, however, was a big thing in the 90s – particularly when it came to pop acts that appealed to teen (and tween) audiences, such as the Backstreet Boys, the Spice Girls, or (mostly in Europe) the Kelly Family. When I was in elementary school, you basically had to pick whether you were a BSB or an NSYNC fan – and god forbid you were a Kelly fan like me, then you were the lowest rung on the social ladder and the target of relentless mockery. Like many German kids in the 90s, me and my sister would religiously read teen magazine BRAVO, cut out every single bit of material about our faves and collect them in folders and self-made fanzines. We created fan art and fanfiction without having words for these things. Without the internet and social media, fans did not have a constant stream of content about their idols, and were left with no other choice but to cling to every bit of information they could find in magazines, on TV shows, or on the radio.

Enter a savvy businessperson who comes up with the perfect merchandise product to sell to these popstar-obsessed teens: fan novels! These books, featuring taglines such as ‘The novel for all Backstreet Boys fans’, typically revolved around a relatable female teenage protagonist who is a fan of the celebrity or music group in question, and usually ends up meeting their idol or, gasp, even becoming romantically involved with them. As far as themes go, they look pretty much exactly like your classic self-insert RPF. Except there is a big difference setting these books apart from ‘actual’ fanfiction: Rather than being written by real fans to express their ‘fannish’ feelings about the subject, fan novels were most likely commissioned works created by professional romance authors purely to profit off of actual fans. There is very little background information available about this ‘genre’, but I did stumble across an academic work on Google Books which featured a passage about these fan novels (translated into English by me):

There are several commissioned works by professional authors, which could be mistaken for fanfiction. Especially in the 1990s, when lots of boy bands were on the market, many books of this kind were published. […] These are fictional stories for fans [redacted].

Jennie Hermann: Backstreet Girl. Projektionsfläche Popstar - Wenn der Fan zum Schriftsteller wird (2009) [Popstar as Projection Surface – When fans become writers]

One of the things I find most intriguing about this type of commercially published fanfiction is the question of personal rights. Obviously, the celebs in question or their management must have consented to using their names in the story, their pictures on the cover and so on – because a profit could be made with this. Especially with the fan debate around RPF allegely being unethical, I wonder if the celebrities themselves were aware someone was writing these stories about them, putting words in their mouth, and if they had any clue what exactly happened in these novels. Now, I’ve read a couple of them in my own youth. Some of them deal mostly with the state of being a fan, e.g. I recall a novel about a girl who is so obsessed with Leonardo Di Caprio that she doesn’t pay attention to real life guys at all, only to learn that her actual dream boy has been in her life all along! This story did not feature Di Caprio himself as a character, it was more about the protagonist’s arc of realizing your idols are not all that matters in life. Others do describe fan encounters with teen idols, and some even feature (hints at) romance with a celebrity. When I decided to purchase a vintage copy of one of these books, I opted for one of the latter category, precisely because of the popular argument that writing romance stories featuring real people is somehow ‘wrong’. For only a couple of euros, I was able to get my hands on a weird and wonderful relic of fan culture: Mein Frühling mit Nick (My spring with Nick) by the likely pseudonymous Maxi Keller, heralded on the book cover as ‘the novel for all fans of the Backstreet Boys’.

The story revolves around 16-year-old musical prodigy and designated wallflower Katharina, who lives in a German small town and cares about nothing else than playing the organ – certainly not about boys, let alone ones that are super-famous American pop stars. This means she is not initially a fan of the Backstreet Boys, which I guess is something of a trope itself – the protagonist meeting a celebrity by chance without knowing who they are and the celeb being thrilled that someone doesn’t just like them for their fame. Anyway, the boys visit Katharina’s hometown while on tour in Germany because band member AJ is doing some research on his German ancestors who happened to live in this very town. Katharina runs into them, she and Nick (who was only 17 himself when this was published in 1997, so it’s legal) fall in love at first sight, she helps them dig up information on AJ’s ancestors and finds out the two of them are related, the boys invite Katharina and her friend Saskia backstage after their show and … nothing happens. The book is 200 pages long and Katharina doesn’t even get one kiss with her boy band sweetheart, even though they mutually crush on each other right away. Perhaps that’s as far as the band or their management agreed for the novel to go – a hint at romance, but no trace of any on-page action, no matter how innocent.

That said, the book is so hilariously poorly written that it was still very entertaining to read. Although I could not find out anything about the author Maxi Keller, and therefore assume this might be a pseudonym, their writing style very much suggests that their are a professional romance author who usually writes for an older audience (plus, the book was published by Bastei Lübbe, who also publish a range of cheap romance novels known as ‘Romanhefte’). The language is extremely flowery at times, and even teenage characters speak with an eloquence that is hardly age-appropriate, with some 90s teen slang peppered in at unfitting times (such as the overuse of the English word ‘girl’). Often the novel loses itself in pointless detail that does nothing to move the plot forward (such as an extensive description of a house party hosted by Saskia’s rich parents, with minute details of their luxurious lifestyle and assets, even though Saskia is only a supporting character in the overall plot). It appears as if the author is desperately trying to fill the pages with meaningless drivel so they don’t need to write too many scenes featuring the presumed main attraction, the boys themselves.

If Keller was indeed merely hired to write this, and is not a fan themselves, one must still admit that the author did their research when it comes to the band. Whereas fanfiction typically assumes that the audience is already familiar with the characters and often skips any introductory descriptions of their appearance or personality, Keller makes sure that even a reader who is completely unfamiliar with the Backstreet Boys can keep up. The author delivers extensive descriptions of the boys’ appearance and demeanor, even spelling out their full names repeatedly, and frequently peppers in ‘fun facts’ such as ‘Kevin was raised on a farm in Kentucky’. While an actual fan might do so to prove how knowledgeable they are, and earning their status as a ‘true fan’, in this case it only seems like Keller really wants to show off how much research they did – as if not a single piece of information they took in must go to waste by not being used in the novel.

When it comes to the question how realistically the non-fannish author replicates the way the boys act and speak, there are two barriers to delivering a well-founded answer: Firstly, I was personally very young when BSB were popular and I really don’t remember too well what each member was like. Secondly, the elephant in the room: the language barrier. All of the aforementioned fan novels were written in German, and the problems posed by writing about an English-speaking band interacting with German OCs (and teenage ones at that) are addressed poorly, if at all. Pretty much all dialogue is written in German, and the audience is left to assume that everyone is actually speaking English whenever the boys are involved – except the novel does nothing to explain why two 16-year-old German girls would be able to express themselves so effortlessly in a foreign language. (Remember, the internet was not a thing, so German kids were not exposed to the same amount of English in everyday life as they are these days.) It would have been easy to make one of them a language nerd who gets straight A’s in English class, and give the other a British parent and make them bilingual. Instead, Katharina initially even worries about the prospect of having to talk to boys at all, and in English on top of that! But when she actually does, the language barrier never comes up again. The suspension of disbelief expected from the reader is therefore immense. The language barrier also gives the author an easy way out when it comes to imitating the way the boys speak in real life – there is no need to take into account idiolects or regional differences (such as ‘you guys’ vs. ‘y’all’) if the boys’ speech is essentially translated into a foreign language. However, I wanted to give you guys (or y’all, if you will) a taste of how Keller attempts to write a scene where AJ and Nick discuss the latter’s crush on Katharina:

I would argue that this sounds realistic enough for what it’s worth, if a little cheesy, which is excusable in this genre. Perhaps a true 90s BSB fan would beg to differ, so if you happen to be one, feel free to drop me a message. But in my semi-professional opinion, this most likely holds up for readers.

So, to answer the initial question that drove me to purchase this book: Do fan novels like Mein Frühling mit Nick count as fanfiction?

If we assume that something is only a fanfic if the author themselves is a fan of the subject matter, then I would argue no, Maxi Keller is probably not a fan themselves and therefore this work of for-profit real-person fiction does not qualify as fanfic. However, fan novels definitely have a (however small) place in the history of fan culture and fan-adjacent works, and I personally found reading this relic both entertaining and insightful!

[shark-myths]

@alienfuckeronmain tagged me to deep-search my soul with these questions, and it is the exact distraction I was looking for! no pressure to do this one, pals, but i tag @carbonbased000 @leyley09 @shoeboxofphotographs12 @glitterandrocketfuel @allkindsofplatinumandpercocet @setting-in-a-honeymoon @toorational and anyone i’ve forgotten!

1. Do you prefer writing with a black pen or blue pen? does anyone like blue pens? who is this product made for

2. Would you prefer to live in the country or city? the city, cuz i spent 7 consecutive years very broke in rural areas with homophobia neighbors and having things to do is so thrilling. but i imagine one day retreating into the desert and living far from my nearest neighbors

3. If you could learn a new skill what would it be? I have learned all the skills I am interested in right now, because learning new things is an a+ quarantine activity. maybe the ability to do physics? i would like to be proficient in physics and i am deeply not

4. Do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? Never

5. What was your favourite book as a child? all of them! I have always read like i’m running out of time and often get stressed when i think about how few books i will be able to read in my lifetime. as a child I reread Lord of the Rings and Robin McKinley and the Holly Black Tithe series the most, and i was OBSESSED with those gold-paged books with ribbon bookmarks that were diaries of girls from different historical periods, and i have never been able to read historical fiction since.

6. Do you prefer baths or showers? I hated baths passionately until my chronic pain reached a tipping point, and since then i have learned to really enjoy the long hot soak with a drink and a book. (i didn’t like showers either until very recently. life support tasks felt like a huge waste of time until i got a partner who helped me figure out how to enjoy them)

7. If you could be a mythical creature, which one would it be? i have always wanted to be one of tolkien’s elves! I want a long life filled with learning languages and reading books and existing in green peaceful spaces, and then i want to be able to die when i am done.

8. Paper or electronic books? I like paper better--I’ve been building a library slowly my whole life--but my kindle has been life-saving during the pandemic when i couldn’t go to the library.

9. What is your favourite item of clothing? right now i’m doing all my work remotely and clothes feel meaningless, but i have a plain black tank top that i feel really comfortable in

10. Do you like your name or would you like to change it? I don’t like my name at all--it’s Kaylie--because it is so aggressively peppy and feminine. it doesn’t sounds like an adult’s name; it evokes exclamation points and pigtails. i have always wished for a severe, no-nonsense name like joan, or a pretty but to-the-point name like eva.

11. Who is a mentor to you? Leslie Knope

12. Would you like to be famous and if so, what for? I used to fantasize about being a famous writer, and now in my field i do wish i had a name that mattered or was considered esteemed or expert in something in some way. I would love to have a research job where i had paid time to publish! but i don’t want it enough to work on it outside of my capitalist mandatory labor hours, because i don’t have enough time for my loved ones as it is

13. Are you a restless sleeper? lately yes, since my cat died in january i have slept like absolute hell

14. Do you consider yourself a romantic person? not really, but i am a thoughtful one

15. Which element best represents you? earth

16. Who do you want to be closer to? physically i want to be closer to my long-distance pals like @alienfuckeronmain @newleafover @time-less @immoral-crow @leyley09 (leyna let’s have a movie night when i’m done moving???)

17. Do you miss someone at the moment? pretty much all my friends i used to regularly hang out with, sam who moved to seattle, sam who lives in madison, all the people i listed above

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory. I used to play going to work. i’d pack up a backgammon case as a briefcase, grab my stuffed gorilla, and go write in notebooks and move pieces of paper around

19. What is the strangest thing you have eaten? I am an extremely boring person and all I eat is popcorn and bread

20. What are you most thankful for? having an able body that works to support me and keep me whole, having a partner who makes me feel truly cared for 

21. Do you like spicy food? yep!

22. Have you ever met someone famous? once at c2e2 i met george r.r. martin and no one else cared he existed because got wasn’t a show yet, so i awkwardly went up to him and proclaimed my love for his work, and then he trapped me in a long conversation about vampires

23. Do you do you keep a diary or journal? a journal! i have since i was pretty small, they take up a full shelf of a bookcase

24. Do you prefer to use a pen or a pencil? pen, and i have lots of Special Pens that i only use for a particular purpose or project, because i am a huge raging...

25. What is your star sign? virgo

26. Do you like your cereal soggy or crunchy? crunchy and without milk

27. What would you want your legacy to be? personally, that I wrote things that meant something to the people who read them; professionally, that i removed barriers to accessing healthcare for trans and gender expansive people

28. Do you like reading, what was the last book you read? see above--I completely adore reading. last book was Sisters of the Vast Black and currently i’m reading The House in the Cerulean Sea and it’s totally charming. I’ve been reading really quality science and nonfiction writing too, please send me your recommendations

29. How do you show someone you love them? I make them breakfast, I tell them so constantly, I send them things in the mail, I bring them small interesting gifts, and I say every nice thought I have about them out loud 

30. Do you like ice in your drinks? not especially, but it’s fun to chew on 

31. What are you afraid of? surgery

32. What is your favourite scent? smoke from blown-out candles, lavender, laundry detergent my loved ones use

33. Do you address older people by their name or surname? whatever they’ve told me to call them? this seems like common courtesy

34. If money was not a factor, how would you live your life? I do so much less clinical work and work fewer hours in general, I would run for office so I could influence policy and stop wasting my fucking time on the ground level, I would spend more time writing, I would spend so much more time with my family, I would devote the time to running longer distances again in a way that doesn’t aggravate my busted knee

35. Do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean? the ocean!

36. What would you do if you found £50 on the ground? oh i would definitely spend that on something stupid and self-indulgent i wanted, like a pete wentz hoodie

37. Have you ever seen a shooting star? YES! when i was kid every summer i’d be sent to jesus camp, which thank god because that’s what got me into fanfiction, and it was in the middle of nowhere, wisconsin, and you could see the entire milky way and shooting stars blaze across that thing ALL THE TIME, and it shook me to my foundation every summer and for a time i mistook that feeling for faith in god instead of wonder at the infinite being and possibility that is our generous universe

38. What is the one thing you would want to teach your children? i have none of my own but my partner has a 5 year old, so quite against my intention i have become a parent-adjacent person. i try to teach him about emotional accountability for the effect of his actions on others

39. If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? the next tattoo i want is a big snake crawling up my mostly bare left arm

40. What can you hear now? my laptop fan

41. Where do you feel the safest? when i’m protecting someone else

42. What is the one thing you want to overcome/conquer? my relationship with my body

43. Of you could travel back to any era, what would it be? i’d really like to be a gentleman of leisure in a jane austen novel

44. What is your most used emoji? the purple heart

45. Describe yourself using one word. earnest

46. What do you regret the most? not going to a 4-year university and having a #college experience. it’s one of my most stinging regrets because it was not a decision i got to make for myself

47. Last movie you saw? what is a movie theater? what does it feel like to be in one? the last movie i watched is charlie’s angels from the early 2000s because that was an unexamined sexual awakening for me--lucy liu being efficient in leather has never left me, efficiency is the single trait i most attracted to--and i wanted my boyfriend to see how bad it is

48. Last tv show you watched? either Kipo and the age of the wonderbeasts or star trek tng!

49. Invent a word and its meaning. instead i will say that i think the most beautiful english word is ache. my favorite way of creating things is transforming and remixing what already exists, which makes writing with words someone else invented the ideal challenge and pastime 

(i really loved doing this! it was nice to talk about myself at the end of a workweek. thank you @alienfuckeronmain !)

[thewayiremember]

4.5 - PARENTS

           I’m five years of age, playing with my toys in our small and smelly apartment in Poland. I don’t know the man that mom’s brought home today. He whispers something in her ear and she smiles. I wonder what’s so funny. She never smiles! Their faces get too close to each other and my mom decides to stop this foolishness and gets up to show him the rest of the apartment. She shows him the bedroom first.

           I’m hungry. Actually, I’ve been hungry for a while now, but I don’t say anything in case mom gets emotional like she did the last time when I was complaining. She doesn’t like it when I ask her for things and then she starts saying bad words. I don’t know what is so fascinating about our bedroom, but they’re spending quite some time in there, so I decide to climb up the stool to have a chance of reaching the tabletop. I do. And what I find is beyond my expectations. I was hoping for some fresh loaf of bread, but I discover something way better. A beautiful cake with chocolate topping still slightly dripping off the edges. That’s what she was doing when she told me not to interrupt her while she was in the kitchen!

           I wonder if it’s for me. Maybe she wanted to surprise me and that’s why she didn’t want me to see it. I wish I knew how to read and figure out what those white decorative letters mean. But… we don’t know any people… Surely it can’t be for that guy in the other room… She barely knows him! And if it’s for me then I’m certain that she wouldn’t mind if I ate some of it now. I don’t like when my belly makes those weird noises. It hurts.

           Mom’s always in a good mood when her guy friends are coming over. This time is no different.

“Call me,” she whispers to him while they’re saying goodbye to each other at the door.

“Mhm, sure,” he doesn’t sound sure. But she’s pleased either way and after she closes the door and turns around to face me, her smile fades away.

“What’s that on your face?” she asks. Her voice is shaky. She slowly passes me by carefully examining my face from a distance and eventually enters the kitchen. For a while, she doesn’t say anything, but then she grabs the phone and dials a number. “I’m sorry Mrs. Kamińska, but unfortunately your order won’t be ready today… yes, I’m really sorry for the trouble.” She hangs up and goes to the bedroom again. She’s been very tired lately. I think it might have something to do with me…

           I’m five years of age, but later. When you’re only five the time goes slower, so it feels like a lot more than just later. My mom is on the phone with her mom.

“Please, can I leave him with you? Just for a couple of months, to get started.” You already had this conversation with grandma, remember mom? They took the cat last week. I don’t think she’s pleased with the answer, because she hangs up and starts crying. She must have really loved that cat. I’m sure they will take care of him just fine.

           I’m still five years old, but more six than five. Mom got a new place for us, but everything here is so different. It’s always sunny, and people use words I’ve never heard before. We’re like on a whole another planet. Mom calls it America.

           Our new apartment is even smaller than the one we had back in Poland, but at least it doesn’t smell. I have my own bed now, and I’ve never realized before how much it affects the quality of sleep. That’s the nicest change so far.

           I’m six and all grown up. Mom has a new guy friend, David, who I guess called back as he promised because he keeps coming back from time to time. He likes telling stories my brain doesn’t comprehend that well, perhaps because of the language barrier, but my mom is fascinated by them. She earns money by making sweets now. I’m surprised I’m not fat yet after all the cakes I’ve been having for breakfast lately. Sometimes she takes me to her bakery so that I am not home alone, but there are always so many people and I can’t focus on doing my homework. I’ve been a freshman for only a month and I already have so much work. School is brutal. I don’t understand most of it, but my teachers are pretty forgiving. For now. Even Mrs. Garcia who doesn’t have the best reputation among kids sees my struggle and patiently waits for me to adapt.

           I’m six and a half and I call David “dad”, now, so I guess he’s staying for longer. Sometimes he wants to play soccer with me after school. I’m not good at soccer. I’m not good at anything. He doesn’t like it. He says I should be good at soccer and that he doesn’t understand why the only activity I like is gymnastics. You don’t have a team, you work alone, what’s not to like? No one can blame you for messing up. But every time mom’s with him her mood comes up so I go along and play with him every time he asks because I don’t want to scare him away.  

           David works as a history teacher at my school, but I think someone forces him to do it since he always comes home annoyed. Much like mom used to when she worked in retail or as a waitress. I don’t blame him, teenagers are even worse than kids my age. I overheard David and mom talking about him quitting his job and getting a new one at the museum. I think that’d be great. The less angry people in this world the better.

           On Christmas Eve David tells mom he has a present for her. “It’s a big one,” he says. We get into his car and drive for a while. For the whole ride, mom can’t stop trying to guess what it is, but when we finally arrive at the planned destination it turns out none of it was correct. He bought her a house as a present? What is he, rich?

“Let’s move in together, what do you say?” he asks, and mom indeed has a lot to say as she jumps around from excitement. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy.

           The house is enormous. Big enough to get lost inside. The bathroom has both a bathtub and a shower cabin. Like in the movies. Mom is the most thrilled about the kitchen. And no wonder she is, it’s the size of our current living room. And it has a dishwasher! We’re going to live like rich people.

“Wow, there are even more rooms above us? Do I get my own?” I shriek from anticipation in my poor English as I walk up to the stairs, but I quickly regret my question when I see the look on David’s face.

“As a matter of fact, yes, you do, but you’re going to have to behave from now on,” he uttered. What does he mean? When have I not behaved? I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. I think when he said “Let’s move in together,” he really meant just mom and him and I’m just a necessary price that comes with it. I hope that by behaving he meant getting out of his way. That would be easy.

           My room is huge! And not just because it’s still empty. I think even when we get some furniture and the biggest bed in the world there’ll still be plenty of space to do… whatever people do in their own rooms. I’ll figure it out.

           We move in a month later leaving the apartment life behind us. I have to get used to the silence but I think that’s for the best. No more covering my ears when “grown-ups are talking”, no more listening to “mind your business, Ian”, and no more going to bed before 8:00.

          The neighborhood seems to be nice. Perfect families with smiling parents everywhere you look. Each house competing in size and the amount of Christmas decorations still hanging up at the end of January. Just like you see on TV.

          The house across ours stands out in its normality. It almost looks weird compared to the other ones. They also must have moved in not that long ago because they keep bringing more boxes inside. It’s a small family, like ours. Mom, dad, and a boy. He might be my age.  

          I wonder if he has made any friends, yet. I haven’t. But that’s okay. Maybe when my English gets better I’ll start saying “hi” to people. For now, I’m embarrassed that I’m six years old and don’t know how to speak. But I’m not worried, it’s all going to fit into place eventually, isn’t it?

[szopenhauer]

Who would you rather have sex with: Prince or Billy Idol?:  neither because I’m an asexual and I’m into women exclusively but elseway they’re both ok, probably would choose Prince though

Have you ever read any of the Chronicles of Narnia series?: at least one book Do you hate Harry Potter as much as I do?: I don’t hate him but I’m afraid of it as whenever I watched a movie smth really bad was happening to my dad - 6 times - coincindence? I think not... anyway I don’t shove my traumas into other people’s throats, I usually swallow without complaining, sometimes even mentioning that I have a problem with something, I might not only close my eyes but send you stuff about this or that I dislike if you’re a fan because I care more about others than myself *shrug* How many times have you seen the SW movies?: uh oh  What is your favorite anime?: I’m not into anime but I watched Ghibli, I also have sentiment towards Sailor Moon, FMA, Nana, Kuroshitsuji and Minami-ke 

Do you write it as “favorite” or “favourite”?: fav :P or favorite Do you believe in the Zodiac somewhat?: somewhat ;) Can you use a hula hoop?: I can use it on my arm, a bit on my leg, not on my stomach (actually better on my neck than belly) What is the longest distance you’ve ever walked?: pilgrimage when I was still in middle school How long do you think you could do jumping jacks non-stop?: dunno, not as long as I used to  What do you usually use your tokens on at the arcade?: I haven’t been to an arcade yet in my whole life so... What do you think of eyeball jewelry?: yuk What’s better: glitter or rhinestones? glitter Do you like taking pictures of yourself?: prefer selfies over being photographed, I can choose the angle and stuff like this, I take pics until I’m satisfied then delete the rest... Do you like making sandcastles at the beach?: why not Did you have streamers in the handlebars of your bike?: nie, tylko te kuleczki na szprychach, które wydawały taki specyficzny dźwięk podczas jazdy jak się przesuwały, teraz mam podobne na hulajnodze, ale one są stałe, mam też klakson i chciałabym koszyk ze sztucznymi kwiatami dokupić oraz wiatraczek - wiem, dziecinne, ale mam to w dupie - i tak rzadko jeżdżę, mam problemy z kolanem i wolałam to niż rower chociaż czasem tęsknię za siodełkiem, oba jednak ciężko obsługiwać będąc chronicznie chorym człowiekiem (serce i brzuch głównie), może kiedyś nazbieram na skuter  Would you put streamers on your bike now?: maybe How do you like your hamburger?: I really liked those with huge amount of vegetables  If you were able to sell your soul to someone, how much would you charge? What would you buy with the money?: no way! Do you like to be tickled?: I hate to be tickled Does tickling turn you on?: wtf

Did you watch the Power Rangers when you were little?: I don’t think so, Sebastian made me watch all openings once, I think Power Rangers had pretty interesting villains tho Are you good at playing ping-pong?: I wasn’t the worst Do you like to chew on things?: nah

Have you ever freaked out because you noticed your shadow once, in the forest, my dad laughed his ass off  *raz też miałam wstążki we włosach i wiatr je powiał na moją twarz, znów się tata śmiał ze mnie, było mi mega głupio ^^”

Do you get out of bed on the left side or right side:: left *co oznacza, że zawsze wstaję lewą nogą, coś w tym jest skoro moje dzieciństwo było szczęśliwsze, a wówczas wstawałam na prawo hmm...

Do you stare into the mirror when you brush your teeth meh How many different couches did you sit on today 0-1 You just won a free TV series on DVD. What is it Buffy or Call the midwife if not animated, could also ask for Stranger things because I meant to finish it with my father Do you really search for the cold side of the pillow at times I guess If a stranger looked at your signature, could he pronounce your name doubt it, my writing’s a mess

When you sleep next to someone to you do you face towards them or away away if I don’t trust you enough or am ashamed but I roll/kick so I might wake up in a different position  Do you look into the bottom of the cup when drinking from a cup often Do you fall asleep with your mouth open or closed drooling with my mouth open happens every now and then but I try to keep my mouth closed

Do you tend to use “…”  as you can see

What was the last item or location you cleaned just washed the knife Do you make up words when you’re singing and don’t know the lyrics guilty

Do you own an engagement ring? nope

check your shirt’s tag; where was it made? India is there a book you keep telling yourself you’ll read but still haven’t? yep

did your family ever own a vacation home? we’re poor my brother won’t travel places with a language barrier; would you mind it? not that I want to travel but if they don’t know english - I’m definitely not going  do you like watching music videos? love but not the dancing/playing instruments types

are you into philosophy? kinda have you been inside of a police station? I realized I’ve never been there woah are there any flags flying outside at your home? not rn where do you hide things that you don’t want whoever you live with to find? there’s no such place tbh as my mom would find everything if she wanted to and usually she just doesn’t care about personal space or anything like that why aren’t you outside right now? fuck off do you mind drinking room-temperature water? I don’t mind do you think covers of songs usually ruin the originals? mhm

What kinds of advertisements are on this page right now? they’re blocked Has something really heavy ever fallen on you? I don’t recall

Are there any empty plates or cups in the room you are in? mug If you wear makeup, what colors do you usually wear? black If you spelled your name backward, would it be easy to pronounce? very easy If you have more than one pet, do they ever get jealous of each other? my dog was jelly  If you are taking this at night, what phase is the moon in? it’s not that late  Is there a room in your house that you don’t like going in? my sister’s room, attic, basement... Why can’t there be a 30, 40, 60, 70, 80, or 90 dollar bill? too hard to count  Have you ever bitten down on a fork and it felt really weird? omg, spoon as well, awful Is there a pencil sharpener within ten feet of you? hidden but I’m aware that’s there as I put it myself days ago Do you know a lot of people with the same name? (Like a lot of Johns) back in school

Do you think it rains too much where you live? that’d be an exaggeration Are you wearing shorts right now? r u kidding me? Do you like the name Skye? reminds me of my Choices gf 

Do you know anyone who travels all the time? it’s so popular nowadays, gross Do you think it’s selfish to travel all the time, when most people can’t? sorta but it’s not the only/main reason why I’m against  Can you see the moon from your bedroom window? nor currently but some nights

Are your ear lobes attached? no What’s the last animated movie you watched? Incredibles 2 (home, in 2020, not that I didn’t watch any animated movies for 2 years) Do you prefer your bed to be up high or low to the ground? I don’t care much? Do you know anyone who can’t swim? me  Do you bite your lips? yes

[fictionalboysarejustbetter]

Friendships from Afar

Distance creates a barrier of trust. There are no worries. There is always a safety net to fall back on that protects from hurt or pain. Beginning in second grade, my personal goal had always been to find a singular, perfect friend who lives far away. We could talk openly with each other, and I would have the ability to be myself. The plan is that years later, I would meet this person in the weirdest of circumstances, and we would be best friends forever. It’s even better if this friend is a guy, so then we can both fall in love and get married to live happily ever after.

In second grade, the entire class received school pen pals, and while my fourth-grade pen pal was not ideal, I knew I loved this “secret” letter writing system where I am just Rebecca, nothing more or less. Moving into fifth grade, Mrs. Smith found me a pen pal from China. Through our teachers, we would send each other letters back and forth until the school year was over. From this moment onward, I was hooked; pen pals didn’t care what I looked like or how shy I was or how involved my mother was with the school, I could just be me, and they only knew the information I told them. Without asking for help, I scavenged through the internet, trying to collect pen pals as if they were Webkinz. I was convinced this perfect friend could only be found on pen pal websites that look like they were made by my fellow fifth graders.

Starting in sixth grade, I would spend night after night stalking the profiles of random teenagers on Students of the World, a supposedly “safe” pen pal website for kids. Gender? Who cares. Age? About 10-16. Likes? Reading, of course. Language? English please. I would then press search and sift through hundreds of profiles, finding the perfect candidates to be my best friend. This process was extremely predictable, including:

The teenage boys “looking” for a relationship:

Nathaniel, Age 14, UK

HOBBIES:

Photo

Trips

Cinema, Television

Sports

Reading

Painting, Drawing, Art

Hi! Are you looking for a cool guy to write to? Send me a nice message otherwise you’ll miss something priceless. 

I can speak:

English, French

The liars that claimed they like everything and speak every language:

Janhvi, Age 16, USA

HOBBIES:

Photo

Trips

Clothes

Cinema, Television

Sports

Sciences

Music

Reading

Animals, Nature

Cooking

Collections

Painting, Drawing, Art

Hello !!👩I'm Janhvi .I like to travel.I have traveled in to many countries .Such as india , sri lanka, china, france and more.I like make new friends.message me soon guys.👭👫OUR LIFE IS CHANGE , BUT FRIENDSHIP NEVER BE CHANGE.

I can speak:

English French German Italian Spanish Arabic Chinese Japanese Korean

The students making a profile for class:

Chaya, Age 13, USA

HOBBIES:

Clothes

Cinema, Television

Music

Reading

Animals, Nature

I am looking for a penpal for our school project. I would like to find some in Atlanta, Georgia.

I can speak:

English

I would scroll through these profiles so constantly that I rarely found new profiles. I was judging every profile based off of the person’s name, biography, age, likes, languages, everything. Most people without a profile picture wouldn’t receive an email from me. I tried to avoid messaging anyone from the United States unless they sounded like a major fangirl or fanboy over the books I liked. I automatically favored anyone from Europe, especially if they had an interesting name. But regardless if anyone from anywhere sent me a message first, I would respond back at least once.

Shortly after the search began, I received a message from a girl named Julia from Australia. She and I were the same age, we both needed a friend, and we both liked reading, animals, music, and clothes. Quickly, my life began to revolve around the fourteen hours that always stood between Australia and the United States. Throughout sixth and seventh grade, we would be constantly messaging on the messaging app “kik,” confiding everything deep and useless to each other like best friends do:

Becca says:

Hey, how are you?

Julia says:

Everyones well... Mum and dad start the long drive to melbourne this weekend so everythings kinda topsy turvy :p

How is your family and pets? Im sorry for my rudeness that i didnt ask earlier

Nearlytime for school?

Becca says:

Lol that is fine! I get to school around 8, so normally ill drop off right before, lol i try to remember to tell you but i tend to forget. Theyre good though. Willie and Apricot are happy my grandma left :-P mom and dad are helping me with my ancestry project and exploding of happiness because I got a position in that volleyball club and my sister has been working and spending money :-P her favorite thing to do

Julia says:

Ahh the christmas spirit... Lol is there anyone in the house who loves your grandmother?

Becca says:

Lol we love her because shes family, but no one loves her when shes here if you know what i mean.

What’s up?

For two years, the conversations would continue for hours, as we both wait anxiously for the “ding” on our tablets, indicating a new message. Julia’s father was a firefighter who fought the nasty bushfires that haunted their country. I interviewed him as my hero for my final paper and presentation in my eighth grade English class. I interviewed him through email after our initial plans to Skype were sidetracked by the active wildfires, and I so proudly presented the information about him that you would have thought he was my father.

One day, Julia told me about her divorced parents. Then, she told me about the twins her mom just gave birth to. Then, she explained that she actually has a twin brother and no younger siblings at all. Then, she became an aunt to twin nephews. Then, her house burned down, and she had to move across the country. Then, her parents just moved across town. The stories continued and continued only within months of each other, not adding up in any way, shape, or form. With hope still in my heart, I sent her all three books of The Hunger Games trilogy since she really wanted to read them, but two months later, the books came back in the mail as undeliverable. The address did not exist.

Unable to admit defeat or accept the idea that my best friend might not be real despite all of the evidence, I started to panic. What if she is catfishing me? I’ve seen that show before, and I even gave “her” my address. Whoever this person is could easily come to my house and kidnap me...maybe I should tell my mom and warn the police. But maybe, she just has a really hard life, and she compulsively lies to make herself feel better? Maybe, she just really wants attention, and that’s why none of her stories are adding up. Besides it could still be her, she may just be scared. She could have just lied and is younger than she said and is trying to sound cool to impress me.

With these panicked thoughts raging through my body like wildfire, I blocked her from kik and began to ignore her emails. I forced myself to just disappear, so then I would have nothing to worry about. I cannot trust that Julia is really Julia, so I will just watch “her” occasional emails come in, analyzing from afar who “she” may be. I’ll search for her on Google and Facebook and Instagram and Students of the World and anywhere else I can look. The emails would keep coming for years and years, but they never held much content to them, and I’m still left to question who “Julia” is.

My Julia investigation was stalled for now, and the void of not having a constant penpal to talk to quickly came back. Therefore, my search to find the perfect best friend needed to be expedited since Julia was certainly not cut out for the position. I continued to search Students of the World with my new smartphone every chance I had. In between games at volleyball competitions, Hope and I could be found by the nearest outlet on my phone, scouring the website for the perfect answers within someone’s profile. We would send out messages together to the nerdy fangirls and fanboys around our age. Every day during the bus ride home from school, Jenna and I looked through the website on our phones, judging everyone’s biographies and pictures. Jenna created a profile too, and we would have three-way Skype sessions with Sylvia from France until the two of them became too close and stopped inviting me to Skype with them.

Finally in April of ninth grade, I received a promising email from a 16-year-old boy from France:

To: fictionalboysarejustbetter@gmail.com From: coolfrenchboy@gmail.com

My name is Kristopher and Im from France !

I watched a few days ago Divergent and it made me want to read the books !

I see you like tv shows and video games as I do !

I am not fluent in English but I can talk to you !

If you want I can learn you French ! :)

Typically, I would spend about twenty minutes every day responding to emails from random penpals on my way home from school, but within the first three or so emails to a person, one of us would just stop responding. In regard to Kris, I generally liked video games, but I wasn’t obsessed with them, and I had a weird taste in TV, so we probably couldn’t talk about that much. But Divergent by Veronica Roth was my all-time favorite book. As soon as I read that word in the email, I knew I would be responding until he stopped responding to me. It had always been my goal to fall in love with a fanboy, especially one with the same taste in books and movies as me, so I immediately responded with:

To: coolfrenchboy@gmail.com From: fictionalboysarejustbetter@gmail.com

Hi Kristopher!

What part of France are you from? I live near Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

Yes, definitely read the books! They are amazing! I find myself gravitating towards video games and shows more than sports! :P

I don't know much of French as I take Spanish in school, but I'd love to learn some and help you with English as well!

Rebecca

He emailed me back within minutes, and we emailed for most of the evening, talking about books and food and the differences between the United States and France. That night though, my phone battery had died, and it was only for a few hours. After plugging it in, I found five unread messages from him, making sure I was okay.

To: fictionalboysarejustbetter@gmail.com From: coolfrenchboy@gmail.com

Lol it works ! :) Good courage to go back to school ! :)

To: fictionalboysarejustbetter@gmail.com From: coolfrenchboy@gmail.com

Hey sweetie 😆

To: fictionalboysarejustbetter@gmail.com From: coolfrenchboy@gmail.com

How are you Miss ?

To: fictionalboysarejustbetter@gmail.com From: coolfrenchboy@gmail.com

Do You use words like ain't or gonna ? 😆

To: fictionalboysarejustbetter@gmail.com From: coolfrenchboy@gmail.com

Are you OK ?

As soon as I read these messages, my heart fluttered a little. This was just the beginning of our constant messaging and talking. I happily responded to him, and within days, Kris was my perfect, new best friend. The random space he left between the last word and the punctuation of a sentence would drive me insane, but I didn’t have the heart to explain the process to him. We talked so consistently that it would probably be considered unhealthy, discussing pets, family, being the youngest child, aspirations, atheism, languages, food, books, video games, and everything else under the sun. I was stuck to my phone all day, and every time I picked it up, I waited in anticipation for a notification with his name and the random spaces between his words and the punctuation.

The six-hour time difference between the two of us meant nothing, with him staying up late and me getting up early. Between classes, we would sneak each other messages about how our days were going. My week-long field trip to San Antonio, Texas was spent either messaging him or scouting out an outlet to plug my phone into so that I could talk to him. The more access I had to Kris, the further I distanced myself from my friends and family. When my phone would die or I wouldn’t have reception, I would look around, annoyed by whoever the people around me were. Kris was the perfect friend I always wanted; he was my best friend, and I was his. Neither of us needed anyone else, and hopefully, all of our talking and flirting would lead to love which would lead to marriage.

The summer before tenth grade came, and Kris seemed to be growing distant. Supposedly, he was travelling all summer, and he would rarely have access to wifi. I counted down the days until he would be back home, and after one measly conversation, he disappeared again. I sent message after message, finally receiving a response about his brother pushing him in the pool and his phone being in his pocket at the time, so it was destroyed. The summer seemed to be surrounded by disappointment, but hopefully when we went back to school, our relationship would continue to be as strong as it was before.

Tenth grade began, and Kris was still busy all the time. Apparently if he kept up his hard work, he would be valedictorian. Since I couldn’t spend lunch chatting with him anymore, I bragged that I was basically dating this amazing French guy who is valedictorian at his school. Until October hit, and then I would receive the dreadful message that he has a girlfriend. Ironically, this only made our conversation stronger than it had ever been, and he even picked out my new haircut, sending me endless compliments on it. The next day, he sent another message, explaining that his girlfriend didn’t want us talking anymore so it would probably be best if we just stopped. I was bad at listening to these directions, following this conversation up with many, many new messages in attempts to strike a conversation with him again. These messages earned me a nice block from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat.

My only method of contact would now be email, so night after night instead of stalking Students of the World for new pen pals, I would send Kris emails. I now began to understand that feeling that I caused upon Julia, who may or may not have been Julia. Throughout October and November, I received a few responses that sounded like an automatic email reply, but one email in mid-November stood out, as it was one of the last ones I would receive from him.

To: thisismyname@gmail.com From: thisiscoolfrenchboysnewemail@gmail.com

Hello Becca,

I did act stupid and didn’t answer your messages at all. When I emailed you first, I never thought our friendship would get that strong !

Guess what, there used to be a time I was really in love with you, but I haven’t dared say so … The one biggest reason was the 6000 km that stand between us ! You were the one I loved talking to ! So I talked to you and you never waited to answer and neither did I.

I don’t know, something went wrong, time changed, I’m sorry I haven’t answered you for long, this is all my bad. I wish I could go back to past to fix this.

This message will never ever be able to patch things up, but it (I hope ) will tell you that I never forgot you .

My mother would tell me time and time again that any type of relationship separated by physical distance would never work. I had never believed her, but after receiving this email, I understood. Why had I ever believed that the perfect friendship would be through time differences of at least five hours? These relationships do not automatically create a barrier of trust, often making it even harder to trust. There are always going to be worries about who that person is and what their intentions are. There is no safety net to keep you from being hurt or feeling pain. Once there is a roadblock within your barrier of communication, you cannot simply get it back after running into each other at Walmart or flashing them a fake smile as you pass them in the hallway at school. As soon as one person blocks the other or the number of unread emails increases substantially over months, that person is gone forever.

[beingallelite]

Hoffman Estates, Illinois — All Elite Wrestling returned to familiar ground in the suburbs of Chicago on Saturday, trying to recreate the magic that launched the brand's leading stars into the wrestling stratosphere at last year's All In.

Mission accomplished.

All Out was a five-hour extravaganza, mixing diverse wrestling styles to create a show unlike anything fans had ever seen from a mainstream promotion. From the old-school southern shenanigans of Cody Rhodes and Shawn Spears to the state-of-the-art stunt spectacular performed by the Young Bucks and Lucha Brothers, it was a wrestling show that had something remarkable for every fan in the building.

The energy was electric—and contagious. The live crowd couldn't get enough, and the building was full to bursting with fans who felt invested, not just in individual wrestlers or storylines, but in the entire enterprise.

Something special is brewing in the wrestling industry, and AEW is at the heart of it.

Last week, Off the Top Rope's Jonathan Snowden talked to one of the event's architects, All Elite Wrestling executive Brandi Rhodes, about the launch of a new wrestling promotion, her savvy use of social media and her role in building a women's division from the ground up.

This week, we continue that conversation with a discussion of one of the most multifaceted talent rosters in professional wrestling history.

Jonathan Snowden: I'm assuming you're often the only woman in the room when a lot of important decisions are being made. Is it kind of your duty to keep an eye out for the other women on the roster and help make sure they aren't pushed in directions creatively that a man might not realize could make them uncomfortable?

Brandi Rhodes: That's the goal. I haven't had any situations like that yet, but we're about to start weekly TV. So we'll see some of the ideas. But there have been for myself at times in wrestling, times when I had to say, 'Hey, wait a minute, I'm not really comfortable with that' or, 'That doesn't work for me.'

It's interesting to see how a lot of people don't see the other side of the coin. Since they haven't been there. Someone might suggest your character say something that they'd never say. It doesn't occur to them that there are people who think differently about something, from another perspective.

I think it probably will be helpful to have me there. I'm also someone who is always looking at things from different angles. There's always two answers. Cody and I run a lot of things by each other. We're able to help each other see things differently than we would singularly.

JS: What's an example of a time you remember when you were asked to do something you didn't feel right about doing? Is there a moment that stands out?

Rhodes: Ideas that made it seem like I wasn't particularly faithful to my husband. That's an area I don't like to go. It's just not for me.

And the fans, they know us. They know Cody and I, and they like our relationship. So, I would never want to kind of scoff in their faces and make it seem like it's something that it's not.

JS: You guys have a slogan, "AEW is for everyone." I know just how real that is, and I wanted to personally thank you for your commitment to sensory inclusion. We have two kids on the autism spectrum, and going to an event like yours can be kind of terrifying. But we came out to Double or Nothing, and the sensory room you put together with KultureCity made a huge difference. Why was this so important to you? Because I was told you championed the cause.

Rhodes: Thank you for sharing that with me. I love hearing from people who had wonderful experiences with the sensory room. It really makes me so happy.

KultureCity actually reached out to me. I didn't know anything about them or their mission, because it was really vague to me what they represented. I met with [CEO] Julian Maha, and he told me that when we said "AEW is for everyone," it might not be true. He said: 'You're missing a big part of the market. You're missing people with invisible illnesses.' I said, 'Wow." Because we 100 percent were, and we hadn't thought about it.

It's just one of those things people don't think about unless it personally affects them. It can easily slip your mind unless you're confronted with it. But I've been to countless wrestling shows over the last seven or eight years. I've been a part of many meet-and-greets where someone had a need like this and no one knew what to do. Personally, it was embarrassing when we didn't know how to help people and they would just have to leave.

So, when Julian brought this up, I was all for it. If I can keep those moments from happening for any family, I'm all for whatever it takes to make that happen. We are fully in with KultureCity and doing everything we can to get them to as many events as possible.

JS: Inclusion seems to be important generally to this company. From Nyla Rose to Sonny Kiss to the Chinese superstars from OWE, you've been finding talent where most mainstream wrestling companies don't even think to look for it. Are there barriers you're intentionally breaking down, or is it just a matter of being open to talented performers, whatever their background might be?

Rhodes: It's not something we set out to do. We never said, 'We need to check these boxes.' That's not a good way to find the best talent, in my opinion. As long as you keep in mind that what you're looking for is the best person, regardless of anything else, you're going to find the best of the best. And I think that's what we've got here.

In our case, we were very, very lucky. A lot of talent just kind of fell in our lap, which is wonderful when you don't have to search very hard for such talented people.

Our agenda was always to have an open mind about everything. When you have someone like Sonny Kiss, who is very much on the surface who he is, there is no way we're going to say, 'Maybe he should be different, do different moves or act a different way.' He is who he is, and who he is is perfect. He's very talented, and we absolutely love having Sonny as part of the roster.

JS: You guys have made great use of social media. Before I was familiar with the wrestling work of many of your young performers, I met them on your YouTube shows Being The Elite and The Road to All Out series. Both those shows are great at making you really care about the people who make up this company.

But is that possible with some of the foreign talents? I think Riho and [Hikaru] Shida had a really compelling match at All Out—how do you present them on a YouTube show the same way with the language and cultural barriers that might be there?

Rhodes: That's always a challenge, as many people have seen in wrestling over the years with characters when English isn't their first language. However, there have also been plenty of examples where it hasn't been a factor at all because they've been able to express themselves in other ways.

There are things we have in mind to let people know more about some of these wrestlers and how they came to be, what their background is and who they are in the ring. It's something you'll have to see as we roll it out, but there are definitely plans.

JS: AEW launches on TNT on Oct. 2, just a few weeks after WWE takes their NXT brand into the mainstream on the USA Network. Old-school wrestling fans have seen a version of this before, but for new fans, this may be the first time they've been asked to make a choice. So, with WWE just a click away, why should fans choose to take a leap of faith with AEW?

Rhodes: We've been at the cusp of something amazing in wrestling, something we're calling a revolution. This is the first time in almost 20 years that there has been another brand that is this strong and on prime time.

The fanbase has expressed that they've wanted this and needed this for so long. It's been proven with the sellouts we've been having at multiple arenas throughout the country that people really, really do want this alternative.

We vow to bring that alternative in many, many ways. We've talked about it across many mediums, and we'll stay true to our belief that bell-to-bell wrestling is the most important thing.

Our roster is so diverse, and I think our show will be different than anything people have seen. We just hope to continue this movement, and fans will come with us and tune in every week so we can keep doing what we're doing. That's what makes this possible: the fans. As long as the fans keep rallying behind us and stick with us, we're going to do really, really well.

Brandi Rhodes is the chief brand officer for All Elite Wrestling and a standout performer. You can follow her on Twitter and YouTube for further glimpses into a life well-lived.

Match of the Week

Young Bucks vs. Lucha Brothers (AEW All Out, Aug. 31): These teams have been squaring off for months, to the point where their combined excellence has become almost routine. A ladder match successfully upped the ante, ramping up the danger, level of difficulty and excitement in ways that would have been unimaginable just two decades ago when Edge, Christian and the Hardy Boyz set the standard for all to follow.

With all due respect to WWE's legends of the form, this match surpassed even their best efforts. It was consistently innovative, daring and almost too much for several people in my section at Sears Centre, who hid their faces in their hands and literally begged for someone to stop the match before someone died in the ring.

No one did, but only because the performers executed some of the most bonkers highspots imaginable and almost never missed a beat.

'Hard Times' Promo of the Week

Chris Jericho was on top of the world as he cruised Tallahassee, Florida, in a limousine on his way to a local LongHorn Steakhouse. Jericho was the new AEW world champion, and to the victor go the spoils.

Afterward, however, there was a bit of a problem: he couldn't find the belt. As the internet mocked him savagely, Jericho leaned into the storm and made the moment his own.

Here's a taste of his genius, delivered in a hot tub with a scarf on, because it's Chris Jericho and he can:

"Now, as I sit here in my palatial estate, in my beautiful mansion, getting ready to have a little bit of the bubbly, I'm just imagining what I would do to that son of a b---h if he was here right now.

"And as a result, I am launching a worldwide investigation, using the top private investigators in the world today, to find out who committed this crime. And trust me, as the AEW champion ... I promise to regain and restore and find—and reclaim!—the AEW championship and once again give you another reason to finally give me the 'thank you' that I deserve.

"You're welcome."

Update: He got it back!

[archtroop]

So for you. What other fandoms are you in? When, how and why wincest?😁😍😎

Oh my, gird your loins, this is gonna be a long confession. 

LIFE:

I little background (This is all very relevant, because it had direct affect on whatever choices I would make, stuff I might like and my own personal evolution as a human, leading me to where I am today - including my on-the-side fandom life, which are a huge part of me).

Female, only child - I was born in 1990 in Soviet Russia/Russia (it’s a murky year for definitions) in the farthest eastern piece of land on the globe that still constitutes as Asia, a place where they learn Japanese as a second language instead of English. I’m Jewish on my mother’s side, my father is not. Our small family migrated to Israel in 1996. I was enrolled in a religious school, for the first two years of my education. Religious orthodox little girls are bitches. I suffered. I was 6, and a 100% language barrier. Then I was enrolled in a state-religious school for 4 years. Made my first 2-3 friends. One of them is my forever best like-a-sister-to-me friend since then. Still, it screwed with my head just enough - having a secular background and family and religious preaching at school fucks you up real good. By this time I had an actual artificially ensued phobia of males. Boy, man, horse. If it had a dick I was opting out in the opposite direction. It was also a very violent time, hits and punches, teeth and nails. Got suspended once, this other girl in my class broke a guy’s teeth, ended in a juvenile institute for girls.  

The next 6 years (12-18 years old) I spent in a secular boarding school, which, in Israel, are inherently patriotic in nature. These years were my most definitive and had the greatest influence on my preferences. Had my real-life heterosexual-life partner thing going for me, and the plan wast to graduate and move together. Never panned out.  18-20 - served my two mandatory 2 years (as a phlebotomist, of all things). This was when I eventually snapped and began actually maturing. By that time I still had zero interest i the opposite sex (or the same sex for the matter). At 19.6 y/o met my future husband and the future father of our now 2.6 y/o girl, began my B.Arch (took me almost a decade to finish because of pregnancy and financials). As of now, I am an Architect in practice, I work in a small but a very affluent in work firm/office. Waiting for my diploma to be issued.

So, I am trilingual (Russian. Hebrew, English), married+1, architect, artist on a hiatus, I have zero fear of needles and blood, love to read, love to interpret, love to translate. I also failed the Kinsey Scale Test twice. Until very recently in my life I couldn’t pick up on sexual innuendo at all, couldn’t identify if I was hit on, too.  Today I like sex just fine, but it’s not a prime need of mine, which lead to me and my (very sexual in nature) significant other to agree on an open relationship. 100/100 would recommend. 

FANDOM:

TV was a friend. I was 7-8 y/o when Pokemon hit the little screen in Israel. For technical reasons, I couldn’t watch the first episode. So I refused to watch the next ones too, until I’ll catch the first one on the saturday reruns. This marks my first exhibit of obsessiveness towards a franchise/media.  But Pokemon was for cool kids, and for boys, so I can’t enjoy it (unfortunately this is going to be a recurring theme). I absorbed Hebrew quickly, and found myself spending time in the library. TV, library, pencils and paper were all I cared for. I was about 10 when girls at school, who had access (early 2000′) were giggling about something called Sailor Moon. But they were the very cool kids. Can’t have that at all. I read Interview With a Vampire when I was 11-12. I then flipped the book and realized there was apparently a movie, too. It will be years until I’ll have the chance to watch it. I switched from teen books to adults fantasy and horror at that time. I remembering giggling through R.L. Stein’s stuff. It was like candy to me. I would read whatever I could find. I didn’t listen to music. Music is for the cool kids, and I am not allowed. There was no music at home, too.

About that time, I found Flowers In The Attic and drank it up. The things that lurk in school libraries. I was engrossed in the darkness, the horror. The pain and angst and the, well, horror. It was beautiful. Then came Dragon Lance, and I fell for the Caramon & Raistlin story. Fantasy, dragons, and two brothers against ll odds, the warrior and the mage, who are forever bound, and when they die, they join each other in the river of souls. I loved it to bits.  I couldn’t survive through Tolkien. loved The Hobbit, but 30 pages into the third book and he was still describing a forest - so I ditched it. Harry Potter was huge to me, I drank it up. But Harry Potter was for cool kids, so I couldn’t really talk about it. And then when I was 13-14 y/o a friend introduced me to manga. It was 2003-04, the Internet was becoming  prominent feature of life. My first manga was Gravitation. Of all things. But manga and anime is for really cool girls, I can’t have that. But now I had Internet access. 

That’s when I encountered Angel Sanctuary, and Kaori Yuki’s work. Gothic Lolita, Visual Kei. I’v found my niche. No one of the cool kids had any idea about those pretty things, I could hold them and have them for myself. It became one of my greatest inspirations. I read tons of manga online, combing the web for scanlation groups. Anime, too. I became very good at finding stuff. Like, real good. I even have two Angel Sanctuary fanart pieces.

Did you notice a theme already? I haven’t until very recently.

In 2005-6 (I can’t recall for sure) Israeli AXN release a promo of Supernatural. I recognized that “very good actor whose character(s) I really liked from Dark Angel”. It as all true but also I was THAT aloof about physical human beauty  and attraction. But I was interrupted watching the Pilot and begrudgingly decided to follow upon it on a saturday rerun, Guess what, I got interrupted again. And it was ON, TV be damned. I hit the Google, and piracy was it. I watched Supernatural with reverence. It was entirely MINE. I opened an account on  fan-wikia Supernatural site, which I lost and forgot about that was my first ever fandom-related interaction. By that time I also had a DeviantART page, which I kinda left as a storage unit as life took its course.  Basically, in August 2020 I will hit 30, which would mean Supernatural officially was by my side half of my life. 

I had no idea what shipping was, though. Until Teen Wolf, funny enough.  Teen Wolf was my first ship experience. I didn’t read fanfic until then. Sterek somehow managed to pull me in that world. It’s that palpable on screen. So I joined tumblr. It took me time to get accustomed to all this, because even fandom is for cool kids but OH I AM ANONYMOUS.

And I gradually became more aware. Of pretty much everything. With Supernatural keeping me alive through my degree studies, prompting my sexuality to emerge (it is still a fucked up sexuality. But it’s a start.). Worked through issues with Supernatural on my back-burner all the time. 

Then Supernatural hit 10 seasons. And I had to celebrate, and it was my first and only (so far) Supernatural fanart. I began reading fanfic. But so much of it wasn’t what I was looking for. So after some contemplation, I decided to try and write my own (EasyRush). And that was it for me, I essentially drowned in it, the wincest. Now that is had a name. As of today, it has become this thing that I can dig into to find me some solace after a hard day. 

I can’t even say that there was a specific scene. Or a why. It’s just IS. Like the John-finds-out fics: A gradual dawning realization. Looking back, it’s all the elements of whatever I consumed merged and acted out by very talented and compelling actors. 

It has the setting of Flowers In The Attic, the mythology of Angel Sanctuary and the charm of Dragon Lance, turned up to eleven. It’s Gothic Urban Fantasy, gritty and beautiful (I miss classic Supernatural aesthetic BADLY) and is a survivor.

On retrospect I begin to pinpoint moments that have subconsciously lead me to it. There was never any other option.

Wincest is never for the cool kids. It’s for people like me.

P.S.: I think there might be a part two. I need to go. This was a great walk down memory lane, it’s not even half of it.

[gotbts7fics]

Positive | ONE |

One | February 2017 | Two |

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck” You mumbled as you stared at the two little lines on the stick. The test was just confirmation on what you suspected for the last few weeks. The nausea, sensitive boobs, and the lack of period was the final straw that forced you to pee on the stick, now sitting in your hand. This was deja vu from 8 years ago when you found out you were pregnant at eighteen. Grabbing the phone, you quickly made a call to your best friend who was sure to not appreciate the time difference right now, but frankly, you didn’t care. This was an emergency!

“Pick up, pick up, oh my fucking good pick up the fucking phone!!” yelling into the mouth piece willing the call to be answered.

“Jesus fucking christ” A sleepy voice said on the other end. “You realize its two in the morning here right? Did you forget Ontario is fourteen hours behind you?”

“Bree, I’m pregnant” You were met by silence from the other end of the phone.

“I’m sorry what?”

“I’m pregnant….”

”HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!! How did this happen?”

“Really? You need to know how this happened? I swallowed a watermelon seed….. HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK THIS HAPPENED?” screeching as you buried your head in your hands.

The line went silent for another minute.

“What are you going to do?” Bree asked.

“I honestly don’t know.”

It had been forty eight hours since your phone call home. Forty eight hours since your world went into complete and utter chaos. Moving to South Korean just over 3 years ago at the age of 24, with a then 5year old, left everyone thinking you were crazy. Fresh out of university and after a painful breakup, moving not across the country but over an ocean, with a little human to heal your broken heart. You had quickly settled into your new home, and job, Jaidyn doing the same with school. She adapted very well and made friends within the first day. Everything had fallen into place, which is why when you met a young man who flashed you a devilish smile after literally running smack dab into his chest at a coffee shop, you didn’t hesitate to say yes to a coffee date. His name was Jaebum, he spoke broken English, liked cats and you two shared the same birthday. The only difference was he was four years younger than you, which he promised was not an issue, language barrier and all, considering your Korean really was just memorized lines from dramas. Reeling from the heart ache you had been inflicted with, you figured having a bit of fun was just what you deserved. A coffee date turned to a dinner date, dinner date turned into 5 dinner dates, which turned into lazy nights at home hanging out with the two of you and your daughter. He was wonderful, charming and handsome, a complete package. Then you learned he wasn’t as simple as you first thought. He finally told you he was in the entertainment business and that left him busy a lot of the time as his career took off. Still he always made you feel loved and always followed through with promises he made. He made his career first priority, yet he never made you feel second to it, even as he grew in popularity. You loved him so much, you would do anything for him and you strove to make your relationship work. As the years passed, you had learned to accept the challenges of dating in secret with him. Everything was just easy with him, you understood how busy he was and he likewise understood cancelled dates last minute because you had a child. The relationship you two shared was incredibly simple and easy, making it work the best you could. Now you weren’t so sure. Jaebum was touring with his music group in Japan and here you were staring at a pregnancy test. You were going over every night of passion you had with him, tangled in the sheets with sweaty bodies pressed together, in your head. You were on birth control, you used condoms, you did everything to protect yourself and not ruin his career with an accidental pregnancy. Yet here you are, just celebrated your 27th birthday, a 7 year old and 23 year old mega star idol boyfriend whose career was about to be over because of you. You felt more lost than when you found out you were pregnant at 18 with your high school sweetheart who decided cheating was okay, broke your heart and left. More devastated than when your relationship with your last boyfriend ended because after two years he decided he didn’t want the responsibility that came with your child anymore. You honestly didn’t know what to do. Did you simply just terminate the pregnancy, did you tell him and still terminate, was there even a small chance you could keep the pregnancy. No, no there wasn’t. This would ruin his career. A career he shared with six other hard working men who didn’t deserve this scandal. You wanted to cry, you really wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, but your daughter was due home any minute and being it Friday night, it was mommy daughter date night. There was no time to cry.

Seventy two hours after that phone call found you on your couch, sobbing into your friends arms. For some reason she thought the most logical thing for her to do was jump on a plane, travel thirteen plus hours and bust through your door. Jaidyn conveniently was at a sleep over with her friend Soohyuk. So you had the next 16 hours to ball your eyes out until she came home. It was during a moment of silent tears, with the TV on some variety show in the background, cold pizza in front of you, that you decided,

“I’m not going to tell him” You confessed, tears streaming down your face while you desperately tried to console your broken heart.

“You have to tell him” Bree insisted, a concerned look on her face.

“No, I don't” you deadpanned.

“What are you going to do? Not tell him, and hope he doesn’t notice how fat you’re getting? Cause I saw pictures of you with Jaidyn, you’re going to look like you swallowed a beach ball” Bree said rolling her eyes, shoving a slice of pizza into her mouth.

“I’m not telling him, I am going to break up with him” It was a strong statement. One you said with such conviction that Bree looked at you quizzically.

“Y/N, even if you break up with him, he’s going to find out. You have mutual friends. You can’t hide a pregnancy. What do you plan to do? Just disappear, run home to Canada?” It was comical, because in that moment Bree snapped her head towards you, realization etched on her face, as the light bulb went off.

“No y/n…. NO! You can’t do that to him! Hell, you can’t even do that to yourself” You looked at her through wet, red eyes.

“I honestly don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong in this situation. I love him, Bree. I love him so fucking much it hurts. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love again after Matt, but I did. And it hurts, it hurts so much. I don’t want to wreck his career. I can’t, no I won’t do that to him. But this baby, this is my baby. I can’t not have my baby. It was such an easy decision to keep Jai. I didn’t even think twice. And here I am, actually thinking twice. I’m a terrible mother. I don’t deserve my babies.” You felt terrible, so you started sobbing again, because quite frankly it was all you were currently good at.

“Babe, don’t think like that” Bree said as she put her pizza down and wrapped her arms around you.

“Whatever you want to do, I support you. You’re a fantastic mother. Look at how happy my niece is. You’ve sacrificed so much for her. You’ve gone to college and university. You’ve worked and dealt with her dick head of a biological father. You refused to give up when you and Matt didn’t work out. Honey, you’re the best damn mother and friend I know. You love with your whole heart and deserve the world. I know you love Jaebum more than you can explain. I think he will understand. It’s been three years with him. If after three years he shuts you down, this baby down, then he doesn’t deserve you one bit.” She breathed her words into your hair. She wanted you to calm down and think rationally while you figured this out.

“That’s the problem Bree, I think he will throw his career away for this baby. I can’t let him do that. He loves Jaidyn so much already. He does everything with her. He refers to her as his own. Imagine if he actually has a baby. He’s worked to hard. It will ruin him. I can’t ruin him.” You sobbed. The whole in your heart growing with each word you said. The feeling of the most beautiful relationship in your life ending because of the love you have. It was ironic, ending a relationship because you loved someone.

“Okay, look. Let’s get some sleep. We can talk about this tomorrow, or next tuesday. I am staying here for a few weeks. We can figure this out. I love you eh.” She said pulling you up to your feet and leading you to bed.

“Thanks, I love you too” You replied, tears finally stopping for the night. It was like you were in university all over again. Having her stay with you because you were heart broken and couldn’t stand to be alone. Only this time it hurt so much more.

“How did you even manage it?” Bree asks as she eats cereal the next morning.

“Like, he’s so famous. How do fans not know you’re dating… let alone been dating for three years. I don’t understand” You looked at her with your spoon hanging out of your mouth.

“Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m foreign. The fans think I am just a foreign friend with a kid. It’s not like we make out in public. And Jai is always around. Not to mention other members are with us in public. I probably don’t seem like someone he would be with.” you said going in for another bite. Now that you thought of it, it was true. No one really questioned your relationship with Jaebum. Which, considering how popular GOT7 had gotten, someone should have taken notice. You were consumed by your thoughts when, fuck, you thought. Rushing out of your chair and running to the toilet. Whatever cereal you had consumed was now staring you back in the face from the inside of the porcelain thrown. This was getting ridiculous.

“I hate pregnancy” You said out loud

“No you don’t, you always said you missed it. You just hate the gross parts of it. Puking, constipation, weird hair growing in weird places” Bree appeared, leaning against the door frame of the bathroom, cereal bowl in hand.

“I just threw up, and you’re eating breakfast still?” You asked sitting cross legged and leaning against the wall.

“You’re joking right, like you’re aware I am a cop. This….” she gestured towards you and the toilet with her spoon “This is child’s play bitch.” You couldn’t help but laugh. She was right, she had seen and smelled worse, this was nothing to her.

Later that afternoon, as you waited for your daughter to come home, you finally checked your phone after god knows how long. Bree arriving had kept you so busy you didn’t even touch it, instead balling your eyes out to your best friend who flew half way around the world for you.

[4:34pm] Jaebum <3: Hey babe, I miss you. I hope my girls are doing well. 5 more days until I can hug you!!!! [6:45pm] Jaebum <3: Rude, not even a msg back, fine… I’m going to buy Jai a phone. At least she will tell me how much she misses me. [11:42pm] Jaebum <3: Love you baby, have a good night.

It didn’t matter if you didn’t reply, he knew you loved him. You had always sucked at texting anyways, so your silence didn’t even give him an inkling that something was wrong.

[9:02am] You: I love you Jaebum, forever and always, please remember that. I miss you. 

It physically hurt you to send him that message. You loved him so much, but you knew your time was slowly running out.

“So, when does Jaebum get back to Seoul” Bree asked while you were cooking dinner on the Monday night after she had arrived. She was sitting at the kitchen table with Jaidyn, helping her with her homework.

“Wednesday? Yeah, I think on Wednesday.” You replied as you stirred the pasta sauce.

“JB Appa comes home tomorrow maman, he told me he comes home on Tuesday.” Jaidyn piped up, looking from her homework towards the two older women.

“You forgot didn’t you… well he comes home tomorrow!! That means Aunty Bree can finally meet him, and BAMBAM. You’ll love BAMBAM Aunty Bree. He is SOOOOOO funny” She said, going back to her math homework.

“Why is this math so hard” Bree mumbled as she looked at the problem the second grader was doing.

“Just be thankful she goes to the french international school, and not the Korean school I work at” You laughed, math was the enemy for both of you. Math in french was still manageable, math in Korean not so much.

You and Bree looked at each other and laughed, barely hearing the knock at the door, until it was done more forcefully. Abandoning the sauce you made your way to open the door. The next second found you wrapped in the arms of a handsome man, lips attached to yours, as he carried you back into the apartment and shutting the door with a swift kick of his foot.

“Hi” He said finally detaching his lips, looking at you.

“Um, wow.. Hi” You said looking up into his eyes. You loved his eyes. They were your favourite part of his appearance. The two little moles above his left eye always captivated you. Would this baby have his eyes. Shit, you thought slightly wincing as your stomach did a summer sault.

“Surprise, I missed you. You’ve been so busy, I haven’t heard much from you these past few weeks.” Jaebum said hugging you once more.

“I’m making pasta, are you hungry?” you asked, your mind going this way and that. You were not ready to face him. You had to keep calm, but the nausea was bubbling to spill over and force you to empty the nonexistent contents of your stomach.

“JB Appa!!!!! You’re home early!!!!!!!!” Jaidyn screeched, running full force towards the arms of the man in front of you.

“Oh how I’ve missed you! Were you good for your maman while I was gone?” He murmured into her hair as he hugged her tightly.

“Always” she smiled, hugging him back just as tightly.

“good…. oh hello” Jaebum looked up and saw Bree standing in the door frame of the kitchen. He sent you a look as if asking who this was. None of your friends had ever visited you in Korea, and he had met all of your Korean friends. His poor mind was trying to figure out who this was.

“Ahhhh… this is Bree.. My friend from university. She came for a surprise visit. She showed up on Friday.” Explaining why this seemingly random person was in your apartment.

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you. Y/N has been bragging about you for a while now.” She said with a smile, holding out her hand. He shook it and gave her a polite nod.

“Okay lets have dinner” You looked at Bree, Jaebum put one hand on the small of your back and led you to the kitchen. Your seven year old still in his other arm, sitting on his hip. You shook your head. You always said she was too old to be picked up anymore, he always argued that he would continue to pick her up until she was taller than him. He’d been like that from the beginning, he loved to carry her when she was young. When he was away for more than a week he always seemed to carry her more upon returning. He had explained it was because he felt guilty for leaving her. He wanted her to know how much he loved her, from the moment you told him about her he stepped into this loving father role, it had melted your heart to see her loved so unconditionally.

Once everyone was back in the kitchen, Jaidyn cleared her homework and set the table. While everyone talked, small chit chat about school, work, Canada and his travels. You couldn’t help how proud you felt with how far his English had come. Although your Korean was much stronger than his English, he still was able to communicate with your friend openly. While you tried to pay attention, you were ultimately consumed by thoughts of this pregnancy. This secret pregnancy that was threatening to be exposed because the need to vomit up garlic bread was looming over you.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jaebum asked, noticing your less than normal commentary.

“Eh?… oh yeah. I’m okay. Sorry love, I just don’t feel very well.”

“Do you want to go to the doctor? Do you need me to get you some medicine?”He rose from his chair and heading towards the medicine cupboard.

“No, I’ll be okay. I just need to sleep. Are you staying tonight?” You asked, a little more hopeful that he wouldn’t.

“No, I’ll let you have time with Bree. Let me do the dishes and put Jaidyn to bed. Then I will tuck you in too. You girls can have a nice relaxing night.” He said with a smile. You controlled your expression, all you wanted to do was cry and fling yourself into his arms. Instead you smiled as you rose from your chair, kissing his cheek and made your way to the bathroom. You needed to splash cool water on your face.

A few hours later as you lay beside Bree, the emotions of the situation hit you again. You tried to silently cry yourself to sleep.

“Lets go to the doctor this week, k… We need to figure out how far you are.” Bree said with a sleepy voice. She didn’t open her eyes, but she threw her arm over you.

“Okay” You sniffled. You were running out of time and were feeling suffocated.

The ultrasound scan held in your hands confirmed you were roughly eight weeks pregnant, which meant you were going to have an October baby.

“My nephew’s birthday is in October, and my moms. Guess October is going to be busy” You sighed looking at Bree. She had kept her word and brought you to the doctors. She sat through the whole appointment, listening as intently as she could considering she didn’t understand more than two words in Korean.

“From my understanding, everything is okay, right?” She had asked as you made your way home.

“Yup, it’s funny. I am exactly where I was when I found out about Jai. You think I would know sooner, this being the second time around” Your heart was feeling heavy and you really wanted to eat your feelings.

“I mean, you’re busy and shit. I think this is normal” Bree said, taking a sip of the Starbucks in her hand. “So, I don’t want to be that friend, but like… have you thought about what you’re going to do?” She asked.

“I’m going to go home” You said while looking off in the distance.

“Okay, if you feel that is best, I will support you” Bree sighed heavily, neither of you had the right answer but this didn’t feel like it was the correct way to deal with it. “Just let me know when you’re going to come home. I’ll take time off and visit.”

“It’s going to suck, I am going to be so heartbroken. I can’t wreck him though. I can’t ruin his life. I love him so much” You brought your eyes to the ground, wrapping your arms around you, tears threatening to spill over again.

“I know babe, I know” Bree said, stepping forward and hugging you tightly.