#this doesn't even include the just ideas ones
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This is adorable. The kids are good.
But no. They don't care about China.
Or... not really.
I will say... China has a greater vested interest in you being financially successful than the USA does.
Chinese companies make money when Americans have disposable income.
The US government benefits from citizens not being able to afford college so they join the military, big companies paying for campaign contributions that want their employees in debt so they can't quit their jobs, etc.
I think about that a lot.
But mostly, the USA has a history of funding art and media specifically to prevent people from doing communism.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
And the USA has a history of anti intellectualism.
Then of course we have a history of the news in the USA being manipulated by the government in various ways.
None of this is a secret.
Just like it's not a secret that they gave black men syphilis in the 60s and 70s to see what would happen or that people in mental institutions were the subject of experiments around the same time or that they gave out tons of lsd to hippies in the 1960s, including to the Manson family after an experiment where a normal agent unalived after taking it.
Google and Amazon have defense contracts.
The government is always up Zuckerbergs ass because he doesn't.
That's why he's so nervous and went to see Trump suddenly.
Last time he was in office there was no tiktok and they tried to throw the book at him for Cambridge Analytica even though it was Steve Bannon and some people in the UK who did that.
youtube
The thing is that FB as a whole isn't innocent. There was a settlement with some other people a few years before this where they gave a bunch of people depression using the timeline just to see if they could.
But as soon as tik tok goes down, Zuckerberg goes to performatively kiss Trumps ass because he's not dumb.
I actually do believe they think that if they let people openly attack LGBTQ people more it will create sympathy. I don't think I think that's a good idea, but I could see how a panel of nerds could be like "we are sick of trying to find new ways to squish all the euphemisms for all these hate groups what if we just let all the people dogpile these people for being openly bigoted until they log off?"
It's because if the government wants to use tiktok to maintain the US status quo narratives for their citizens, they have to do it by paying China. Otherwise, China might actually be incentivized to care more about your well being because people with a lot of disposable income who mostly don't care about brand names and have a lot of free time will buy more things from China and use the things and post videos where they use them.
People who are too busy working and being stressed out about work and pushed into the idea that everyone else is doing okay and structural problems are their fault are good for the united states.
They don't do China any good.
China doesn't care how many hours you work if you buy the same amount of painting supplies or earbuds that translate languages or cake molds that make little valentine shaped bundt cakes or led light up stickers that detect motion and light up when you pass by or whatever.
So as long as people buy stuff from temu or shein or whatever they don't really care to try to use their algorithm to prioritize certain messages about how people should live over others and people can talk to each other more freely.
There need to be more social media sites not controlled by the USA. We should not have one nation with a bottleneck of social control over other nations with propaganda. That's not conducive to a healthy society.
Nope now itâs at the point that iâm shocked that people off tt donât know whatâs going down. I have no reach but iâll sum it up anyway.
SCOTUS is hearing on the constitutionality of the ban as tiktok and creators are arguing that it is a violation of our first amendment rights to free speech, freedom of the press and freedom to assemble.
SCOTUS: tiktok bad, big security concern because china bad!
Tiktok lawyers: if china is such a concern why are you singling us out? Why not SHEIN or temu which collect far more information and are less transparent with their users?
SCOTUS (out loud): well you see we donât like how users are communicating with each other, itâs making them more anti-american and china could disseminate pro china propaganda (get it? They literally said they do not like how we Speak or how we Assemble. Independent journalists reach their audience on tt meaning they have Press they want to suppress)
Tiktok users: this is fucking bullshit i donât want to lose this community what should we do? We donât want to go to meta or x because they both lobbied congress to ban tiktok (free market capitalism amirite? Paying off your local congressmen to suppress the competition is totally what the free market is about) but nothing else is like TikTok
A few users: what about xiaohongshu? Itâs the Chinese version of tiktok (not quite, douyin is the chinese tiktok but itâs primarily for younger users so xiaohongshu was chosen)
16 hours later:
Tiktok as a community has chosen to collectively migrate TO a chinese owned app that is purely in Chinese out of utter spite and contempt for meta/x and the gov that is backing them.
My fyp is a mix of âi would rather mail memes to my friends than ever return to instagram reelsâ and âi will xerox my data to xi jinping myself i do not care i share my ss# with 5 other people anywayâ and âim just getting ready for my day with my chinese made coffee maker and my Chinese made blowdryer and my chinese made clothing and listening to a podcast on my chinese made phone and get in my car running on chinese manufactured microchips but logging into a chinese social media? Too much for our gov!â etc.
So the government was scared that tiktok was creating a sense of class consciousness and tried to kill it but by doing so they sent us all to xiaohongshu. And now? Oh itâs adorable seeing this gov-manufactured divide be crossed in such a way.
This is adorable and so not what they were expecting. Im sure they were expecting a reluctant return to reels and shorts to fill the void but tiktokers said fuck that, we will forge connections across the world. Who you tell me is my enemy i will make my friend. Thatâs pretty damn cool.
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I've said it before but I really really really need everyone in the disco elysium fandom to like. look at themselves for a moment and make sure they're not being insanely ridiculously dehumanizing to addicts because I see it way too often. I'm not talking about saying that harry is a bad person, depending on your choices in your playthrough he could absolutely be described as a very shitty person, I'm talking about this weird insistence that harry as an addict/recovering addict/whatever doesn't deserve love or friendship or community because he's just That Bad and he will ALWAYS be That Bad and inflicting him on someone else would be cruel and unusual punishment. like... actually fuck each and every last one of you who says shit like that I'm not joking.
#sorry for the rant#just saw a post about someone who was saying they hate disco elysium ships (which like whatever it's none of my business like what you want)#but SPECIFICALLY singled out all the ones that include harry because âgod forbid anyone get into a relationship with himâ#and continued to talk as if the way harry was at his absolute worst is like a permanent state of being#& i looked further in the thread and it was just a bunch of people getting rage-horny over the idea of this man getting fired & dying alone#because he âdoesn't deserveâ to have friends or support??????#not even a tumblr post though it was a youtube community post of all things#sigh. maybe that's why it was so .... Like That. idk#rant post#rant#disco elysium#harry du bois#just like... let addicts be people. let addicts get better and be better without acting like it's an impossibility#our lives have value the same as yours
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Orkus International (Nov/Dec/Jan 2007/2008)
This English edition of Orkus featured EA's "Mad Tea Party." It was printed in black and white, but colored versions have been floating around for a while. The magazine also included a Laced/Unlaced Poster.
Speculation: Because the scans I have are in German, I assume this also appeared in the December 2007 issue of Orkus Magazine.
Note: I typed out the German myself. Excuse any misspellings or weirdness; I don't speak German.
EMILIE AUTUMN: MAD TEA PARTY Taking time out from the madness to enjoy teatime doesn't mean you have to be sane...
Treue Fans wissen, dass Emilie Autumns Welt nicht hinter ihrer wegwelsenden Musik aufort. Mit ihrem Asylum hat sich die bildhubsche, arbeitssuchtige Victoriandustrial-Prinzessin einen ureigenen, geheimnisvollen und faszinierenden Kosmos kreiert, and dem man bisher nur auf ihren Live-Shows oder in den fabelhaften Booklets ihrer CDs teilhaben konnte. Nun jedoch offnet Emilie die Tore in ihre Welt und bittet die Orkus-Leser zu einer unvergesslichen Teestunde im einzigartigen Emilie Autumn-Stil. Kostliche Kuchen, unerwartete Dinge aus Marzipan, gar rosige Bonbonbs, Schoko-Schlemmereien... wenn Miss Autumn schon ze einer Teestunde ladt, dann aber bitte mit sehr viel Stil und Genuss. Und damit diese Teestunde im viktorianischen Asylum-Stil kein Einzelfall bleiben muss, hat Emilie gleich ihre Lieblingsrezepte mitgebracht, die wir fur Euch aufrgrund ihrer unvergleichbaren Sprache in unveranderter, englischer Form gesammelt haben.
Highly Doubtful Teacake with Very Suspicious Crème
What makes this teacake so very âdoubtfulâ is the addition of fresh lavender, the historical meaning for which is âdistrustfulâ. So be careful whom you share it withâŚ
Teacake Ingredients:
1 cup milk
3 Tbsp. fresh chopped lavender flowers
2 cups all-purpose flour
1½ tsp. baking powder
Âź tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
Instructions:
Grease and flour a loaf pan, and no, I wonât tell you what size because it wonât matter anyway. Youâre going to use whatever pan you have, and Iâm not holding that against you, I do the same. Half of my recipes were created entirely out of being on the road touring, and really needing to make tarts, but having not the proper equipment. Baking is an adventure, so do treat it as such.
In any case! After greasing and flouring, kindly preheat your oven to 325°F. In a small saucepan, heat the milk, adding the chopped lavender and bring almost to a boil, then remove from heat and let steep until cool.
Sift flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl. In another bowl, thrash the butter about until itâs light and creamy and gradually add sugar, then eggs, one at a time, thrashing even more until the whole mess is light and fluffy and much prettier than you ever imagined raw eggs ought to be. Add flour mixture and lavender milk alternating between each addition, and mix until batter is just blended, no longer.
Spoon the flowery goodness into your mystery loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted in center comes out clean. Leave your cake to cool in the pan 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool. When completely cooled, dust with confectionersâ sugar and garnish with sprigs of fresh or candied lavender. If you donât know how to candy lavender, then read ahead on the section on candying rose petals and youâll get the idea. Serve with a dollop of Very Suspicious Crème.
Crème Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese
1 Tbsp. heavy cream
½ tsp. fresh chopped lavender flowers
3 Tbsp. confectionersâ sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Blend the cream cheese with the heavy cream until smooth and fluffy. Add in the lavender, confectionersâ sugar, and vanilla, beating until silky and very suspicious looking. Serve with Teacakes of all sort, but especially highly doubtful ones.
TEA TIPS: When serving tea to your guests, be sure to present a variety of sugars. Piping tiny frosting flowers onto heart-shaped sugar lumps and displaying rock candy sugar in various colours will set your table sparkling! Save some for the ratsâŚ
Cyanide Tea Scones with Clotted Cream
Ah, sweet cyanideâŚwhat can we say about cyanide? You surely know itâs historical impact as a popular ingredient of both murder and suicide. But did you know that cyanide is derived from almonds? Being my personal flavour, youâll see a somewhat excessive if not altogether inappropriate use of it in the following recipes. And as for the clotted cream, well, that sounds bad enough. Doesnât it?
Scone Ingredients:
4 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
½ cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
8 Tbsp. very cold, unsalted butter, cut into Âź inch cubes
1 cup milk
6 black teabags of the best quality you can find, I prefer Twinings
2 eggs, beaten
½ tsp. pure almond extract
½ cup sliced almonds
1 Tbsp. cream
Âź cup sugar
Âź cup finely chopped almonds
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400°F. In a chilled glass bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Using your fingers if you know what youâre doing or a pastry blender if you donât, cut in the bits of butter until the crumbly mess is the size of smallish bees. Set the bowl into you refrigerator or out in the snow while you carry on. In a small saucepan, bring milk almost to a boil. Add tea bags, cover, and brew 5 minutes. Remove tea bags and cool. Beat in the eggs, almond extract, and sliced almonds. Gradually add tea mixture to flour mixture, stirring until just combined, no more.
Turn dough out onto a floured baking sheet and pat into a circle. Slice the dough into 16 triangular wedges. Alternately you can use heart shaped baking pans like the one I used here. Either way, brush dough with cream and sprinkle generously with sugar and chopped almonds. Bake 20 minutes or until golden, always best to sit right by the oven the first few times you try out a new recipe just to verify that everythingâs going along as it should. Your oven is a unique creature you really should get to know, because no two are alike. Once done, cool scones on a wire rack. Serve with The Asylumâs Own Clotted Cream. Makes 16 scones.
Clotted Cream Ingredients:
½ cup cold heavy cream
3 Tbsp. confectionerâs sugar
½ cup sour cream
Âź tsp. almond extract
In a chilled bowl, beat cream until stiff peaks form, and donât think you canât do this by hand, because you can. As the cream begins to stiffen up, sift in the confectionerâs sugar. Gently fold in the sour cream, and almond extract, and voila! Clots galore! Chill until use. This fluffy topping for scones and crumpets is also called âDevonshire Cream,â but it doesnât quite have the same ring to itâŚclots clots clots clotty clotsâŚ
Marzipan Leeches & Plague Rats
Yes, more almondsâŚbut that is hardly important when it is merely a delicious modeling tool for some truly gourmet bonbons. Marzipan rats will charm your guests, marzipan leeches will horrify them. Just let them wait until youâve given them all namesâŚ
Ingredients:
1 package (8 oz.) Marzipan (bakerâs almond paste, available everywhere)
Âź cup confectionerâs sugar
2 Tbsp. Amaretto liquer
1 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 thin-tipped paintbrush
To begin with, open your Marzipan and cover it with a damp cloth as it likes to dry out and then what have you got? Next, add a bit of the cocoa powder to a few drops of the liquer and mix it with the paintbrush, experimenting with ratios to achieve a palette of lovely browns that you can use to accent your rats and leeches. Sprinkle some sugar onto your hands and work surface and youâre ready to begin a life-changing adventure!Â
Leeches:
Leeches can be sculptured in myriad ways, but I will explain my method as a mere example.
Roll a small ball of dough until it becomes a rope, then roll the rope between your hands until it is thinner at one end.
Curl the rope to make your leech, posing him in whatever manner you find suitable, keeping in mind his station and lineage.
Roll two tiny balls of dough for the eyes, and attach them to the top of your leechâs head, then make an indentation within each eye with a very small object.
After waiting at least 30 minutes to let the leeches dry, use your cocoa-liquer mixture to paint stripes and details onto your leech, and place him in a bonbon paper to be displayed proudly in your best leech jar.
Plague Rats:
Roll the ratâs body from a small ball of dough into an oval with one end pointed for the nose.
Roll two little dough bits into ear shapes and press them into the sides of your ratâs head in an appropriate spot.
Roll a thin snake of dough and attach to the ratâs body, curling it over his back for the tail.
Using the wooden end of your paintbrush, make the indentations for the eyes.
After waiting at least 30 minutes to let the rat dry, use your cocoa-liquer mixture to paint shadows and details onto your rat, and place him in a bonbon paper to be displayed proudly on your tea table.
Cucumber Hatred Tea Sandwiches
If revenge is a dish best served cold, then this is the dish they were talking about. The Historical meaning of basil is âHatredâ and these delicate finger sandwiches are loaded with itâŚwhoâs cool as a cucumber now?
Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
3 Tbsp. cream
½ tsp. salt
Âź tsp. black pepper
3 Tbsp. fresh chives, chopped
6 slices wheat breadÂ
6 slices white bread
1 English (seedless) cucumberÂ
1 Bushel of fresh basil leaves (approx. 24)
Beat together the cream cheese and cream until smooth. Add salt, pepper and chives, blending well. Spread 1 slice of wheat bread and one slice of white bread with cream cheese mixture. Arrange a layer of cucumber slices on the wheat bread and top with basil leaves. Place white bread slice on top and smash sandwich down ever so gently with a rolling pin. Trim crusts, and cut into triangles. Repeat with remaining bread to make 24 hate-filled sandwiches.
Rose Petal Poison Sandwiches
Poison? Well, not if you go into your garden and pick yourself some fresh, chemical free petals. Otherwise, youâll get sick and the sarcasm will be lostâŚ
Ingredients:
6 oz. sweet butter packed in fresh rose petals1 overnight, softenedÂ
Âź cup confectionersâ sugarÂ
1 cup fresh, clean rose petals (from your garden, pesticide-free)Â
½ sliced almonds
12 slices white bread
To assemble one sandwich, spread two slices of bread with rose scented butter. Sift sugar over buttered sides of bread. Arrange a layer of rose petals, followed by a layer of almonds. Top with the other slice of sugared, buttered bread, and press down with rolling pin. Trim crusts and cut into triangles, hearts, rounds to suit your fancy. Sift sugar over sandwiches and top each with a candied rose petal (petals dipped in beaten egg white and rolled in granulated sugar, then dried until crisp). Repeat with remaining ingredients to equal 24 sandwiches.
Royally Mad Tea
A standard British Royal Tea is served with a glass of champagne and one oâ sherry. Call me crazy, but for my Royally Mad Tea, I prefer champagne and absinthe.
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LIGHTWEIGHT
univeristy!au taesan x fem!reader (ft. the rest of bonedo!)
SUMMARY: Meeting Taesan at a basement party doesn't go as planned, what happens when you can't get rid of him? Do you even want to?
GENRE: fluff, slightly suggestive in one chapter, university!au (mentions of fraternities, classes, lectures, dorms, etc.) WARNINGS: Taesan gets punched, he doesn't deserve it but everything is okay | swearing | mentions of moaning but it doesn't get too crazy, reader makes fun of Taesan for it | fem!reader | heavy mentions of alcohol in the first chapter | EXCESSIVE flirting | ends with a confession!! NOTES: I have never been to a frat party. I have never participated in Greek life. I do not drink for personal reasons. I have never dated Han Dongmin (unfortunately). In other words, this is likely very unrealistic because my information comes from speculation, reddit threads, and other fanfics on tumblr dot com. This was so fun to write WC: 16.2k, divided into 6 "chapters" of varying length
RIDE OR DIE
You shift on your twin bed and feel the crinkly sheets shifting under your weight. You glance at the egg-shaped off-white clock on your wobbly, school-provided desk. The clock hits noon, your roommate will be home any minute and youâre hoping to power through the end of this report before then. Since you chose her as your roommate freshman year (because of maybe five instagram messages), Jenâs been your best friend, your literal ride or die, but sheâs not the best body-doubling partner for cranking out assignments. When sheâs with someone, she needs to provide commentary on whatever's going on, which is both a blessing and a curse. Itâs a curse when it comes to being someoneâs study partner.
The wooden door opens in an instant, and Jenâs frame appears in the doorway, flanked by about three bags. âOh, dear roommate!â She greets you in song. She lets the bags fall from her arms with a thunk on the floor, and a couple papers scatter on the floor out of one of many of her partially-zipped backpacks. She marches towards you, waving her phone in your face. âLook at this! One of our sisters invited us to a party Sigma Chiâs is throwing this evening!â She says excitedly before steadying her gaze on you. You back up as a carefully manicured finger stretches out towards your face. âWe need to go.â She always refers to her sorority sisters as your (plural) sisters, which you think is sweet. Itâs her way of including you. You figure that, at some point, she decided âmy sisters this, my sisters thatâ got a little bit exclusionary.
âNo.â You answer her and turn back to your computer, entering the link for a hopefully-penultimate citation. This is the one thing youâre maybe not so âride-or-dieâ about with Jen. You like parties, sure, but you aren't going to give up a good nightâs sleep (without midterms, and all) so easily.
âWhat do you mean? Itâs going to be so much fun!â She whines. âWe just finished our midterms, we need to celebrate! What could you be even working on anyway?â
âThereâs a presentation after midterms for some fucking reason, I donât know. Plus, it's a totally bad idea to bring me. Nothing good happens at frat parties.â You tell her, pointedly. You do this dance with her semi-frequently: she invites you, you say no, she asks why, you say why, she asks again, you (sometimes) give in. Youâve got this waltz down to a science.
âCan you finish it later? Come on, please? You skipped out on the last three.â She looks at you with pleading eyes, ignoring your advice. You wonder if this was how she got everyone to do her bidding; pouting at them with her big brown eyes. You eye her suspiciously. It was true: you had denied her invitation to the last three events and probably the last three hosted by Sigma⌠what was it? Sigma Key? Whatever. You donât particularly like most frat boys. In your experience, they tend to be on the annoying side⌠the very annoying side. The avoid-at-all-costs side.
You look at her as a smile grows on your face, âWill you do my laundry for a week when we get back from break?â At this point, you were considering going anyway, but you were going to try and milk it.
âAnd Iâll take out the trash.â She smiles back. Now⌠maybe hanging out in a dingy basement flanked by drunk college kids doesnât sound that bad, right?
âPromise?â
She raises her hand as if to be sworn in to lawyerhoodâor whatever they call it. âI, your loving, adoring roommate, solemnly swear to do your laundry and take out the trash for two weeks when we get back from break.â You suppress a laugh.
âWhat time is the party?â Satisfied, you surrender, albeit happily. She does manual labor for a couple weeks and you only have to go with her for a couple hours? Sounds like a dream.
â11pm.â
BUDDING ALCOHOLIC
The faint taste of tequila on your lips is your only reminder of your promise not to get the fuck out of dodge. If you hadnât pregamed this party, you would have been regretting coming right about now, even if it means two weeks worth of chores being eliminated from your future. The music is noise-complaint worthy and not that good, even as far as frat music tends to go. Your best guess for timing is that itâs about midnight, and a couple of your peers are already drunk by the looks of it, making out by the window and stumbling on the grass out front. It already smells like vomit as you walk through the front door. To be fair, youâve never been to a frat house in the daytime, so maybe the smell of vomit is just a permanent feature.
âYouâre the best! Thanks for coming!â She swings an arm around you, at least a little tipsy. You shift in your Jen-approved outfit: a (very) tight black tank top, light-wash jeans, and a pair of Jen-borrowed, frat-designated, almost-destroyed sneakers. Youâve gathered from your brief excursions into the world of Greek life that this is the frat uniform.
âHey, Jen-fer!â A guy, clearly a brother, comes up to the two of you with a cheeky smile on his face. It seems like every time someone greets Jen, she has a new nickname. Or maybe heâs just drunk and slurring his words. The guy looks like âpeople call me Chad but you can call me tonightâ personified in his khaki shorts and impressively only slightly wrinkled t-shirt, sporting your schoolâs mascot with âVARSITY BASEBALLâ across it in loud, chunky lettering. âWhoâs this?â He inquires as a girl swings her arm around his neck. The smile never leaves his face as he leans down to peck her. You watch as the girl and Jen have some sort of telepathic conversation by exchanging big smiles and little waves â sheâs a sister, maybe? You really only know the girls that Jenâs closest to: Madelin (spelled like mandolin), Avery (who you thought was a boy for a couple months because you only know one other Avery, a boy), Elliann (whose name you remember how to spell only because you wrote Ellyanne once and you got a talking-to), and Gene (whose contact you have saved as the jeans emoji).
âUgh, Jay! Sheâs my roommate, I told you about her.â You smile weakly as she points her attention towards you, âthis is Jay. You remember Jay, right? From Econ?â
âYeah⌠from Econ.â You mumble something unconvincing because you very much do not remember Jay from Econ. There are about a million Jayâs at this school. Thereâs Jasonâs and Jamesâs and Jongseongâs and Joshuaâs and Julianâs who all go by Jay. Hell, thereâs even a Jachariah (pronounced exactly like Zachariah but substitute the Z) who goes by Jay in your English Comp class. You think it would make sense to go by Jack (Like Zack) because there are less Jackâs, somehow, but whatever. When you return from zoning out, Jen starts talking at you. Some people are touchy drunks, some people are sad drunks, but Jen is a very, very talkative drunk. To be honest, sheâs a talkative sober too.
She asks you to choose between the two drinks in her outstretched hands, naming both, though you canât identify the taste or ingredients either, even with the name provided. Both looked like water.
Fuck it, whatâs the difference? âUm, that one.â You say, pointing to the red cup in her right hand.
âGreat! Are you okay on your own? Iâm going to talk to Ellen!â She smiles big. Whoâs Ellen? You have no idea. âOh, hey! Meet my friend âhic! This is Tay!â She waves to someone behind you, and beckons them over with a finger. Great, now you have a Tae to keep track of. Her goodbye is sonorous, âBye bye!âÂ
âBye, Jen-fer.â You tease her with the drawling nickname, but she doesnât seem to notice as she waltzes off. You break into a slow smile as you see her leave. If you could remember what feeling sober is like, you would know by the drowsiness alone youâre a little more than tipsy. If Jen is a talkative drunk, youâre a sleepy drunk. You take a big swig of the red cup and it burns as it goes down, making you cough instinctively to get rid of the sensation. After taking a moment to compose, you shotgun the whole cup. Aside from the burning, youâre left with the distinctive aftertaste of artificial sweeteners sticking to your throat.Â
You back up a little, and bump right into a wall. You curse, thinking you probably looked stupid doing that⌠that is, before you nearly jump out of your skin when the wall puts a hand on your shoulder. Sufficiently scared, you jump right back to where you started like a tennis ball.Â
In your inebriation, you're pretty sure it might be the worst mistake of your life to look at the wall when you land eyes on the definitely-not-plaster you bumped into.Â
You realize that she was saying Tae, not Tay. Tae, though you know him as Taesan, is the name of aâkinda emoâguy in your World Literature class who you decided was cute one time when zoning out in a lecture and have been a little shy around ever since. Why is he here? A frat does not seem like his scene. Your drunk self agrees with your sober self on the former issue, however. He is cuteâreally cute. His hair is straight and black and his bangs fall just above his eyebrows. You were definitely catastrophizing, because bumping into Taesan is maybe the best thing you could have hoped for at this Greek-whatever party.
âOh⌠itâs Taesan!â It doesnât even cross your mind to suppress the giant grin that spreads across your face as you say his name as you sway. âCan I call you that instead of Tae? Too many ayâs around, I think.â You mumble, feeling as cloudy as ever.
He shrugs, âSure, I mean, I call you by your full name, usually.âÂ
Mostly ignoring him, you continue, focusing on the way the edges of his lips curl like heâs suppressing a smile. Squinting at him, you monologue. âYouâre cute. But youâre bad atâŚâ You squint harder, circling your finger in front of his face as if to cast a spell. He looks a little confused with his straight eyebrows raised, but he doesnât look scaredâyet. If you were in your right mind, you would have been amazed and totally terrified that you hadnât scared him off with the wiggly finger. Maybe the slipped compliment at the beginning helped build some rapport? âYouâre bad at⌠analysis.â You decide on pinpointing a weakness of his. Now, his analysis is actually pretty good. Sure, he's not going to win any awards with it, but who is in an undergraduate World Literature class taught by a less-than-enthusiastic professor nearing retirement? The alcoholic fog is just a little much, anyway. Maybe youâre more of a lightweight than you care to admit.Â
âI think my analysis is pretty good, actually.â He frowns, but doesnât seem offended in the slightest. Heâs always quiet in lecture, youâre surprised he hasnât made a quick excuse to get away yet.
You part your lips as you squint harder and point up at his face again, grasping for words that donât come all that easy to you. âYou⌠should kiss me.â As the words fall out of your mouth, he seems to look around a little bit in surprise. To your luck, he still doesnât run screaming.
Itâs his turn to point a finger at himself and his cool, bad-boy act slips, âkissâkiss me?â He stutters, going wide-eyed and glancing around like this is a big reality TV-style prank and there are cameramen waiting in the shadows of this sticky, stinky basement, itching to catch him off guard. Perhaps youâre subconsciously practicing rejection therapy.Â
âYeah⌠you should analyze kissing me.â You attempt a smile as you try to keep your eyes open. The music is pounding in your ears as you stare into the gap between him and the wall to his left.
Still dumbfounded, he tries to find words, now staring at you staring off into space, âwell, uh⌠you⌠that would be cool, but⌠I donât⌠I donât think you actually want to kiss me. You smell like tequila.â The alcohol is definitely taking its toll on you, evidenced by the way you lean forward and slump onto the boy in front of you, closing your eyes. His words donât even go in one ear and out the other, they go over your head entirely. You could feel his body heat even through his thick navy tee. You hear his heartbeat andâyouâre no medical studentâitâs loud. With your eyes closed, you hear the DJ switch the song to something with less bass and you feel a warm hand come to your shoulder blade, patting it awkwardly. You hear an attempt at words coming from his vocal chords, but you hear nothing identifiable as human language. Just a few umâs and maybe an uh.
âHey, Tae!â You hear Jen approach behind you, calling out to the boy who youâve designated as your new mattress. You open your eyes for a second, and youâre kindly greeted with a view of his chest. Slowly analyzing your field of vision (which includes a fuzzy wall and his shirt), you blink once, twice, and then, the third time you close them, they stay closed. As fast as that, youâre gone: disappeared, asleep.
Before you can open your eyes again, youâre assaulted by a pounding headache. You havenât felt a headache like this since the first time you got drunk with Jen. Youâd assumed youâd learned your lesson. This time, itâs not a good thing that you exceeded your own expectations.
You open your eyes and see a rather unwelcome sight of Jen who has her hands on your shoulders, shaking you. Itâs certainly not helping your headache. As you come to consciousness, you become aware of the damp, suffocating sweat that clings to your body and the aching that you feel in each and every of your muscles and joints. You canât even lift a finger.
âHey. Wake up! Donât worry, youâre not dying. Itâs just a hangover.â She consoles you, but she doesnât stop pushing you, however. âYou drank way too much.â She laughs, drawing out her words and turning her head to the side as her hair falls in front of her face.
You muster your words, âwhat?â Your voice is grainy and low. You feel like pure, unadulterated hell. The pounding in your head doesnât stop, it just migrates from one side to the other. Back to left to front to right and back again like a cue ball bouncing around the table.
âYou⌠are⌠hung⌠over.â She says like she's trying to teach a baby to say mama. You groan and roll over, freeing yourself from her manicured hands and burying your head in your sheets. As you roll over, you feel the familiar and deeply uncomfortable scratch of the seam of your jeans. You were still wearing the clothes you wore to the party, hooray! âAnd,â she continues, âyouâre going to tell me why Han Taesan is at our door.â Her voice sounds half like sheâs scolding you and half like sheâs waiting for you to spill. Processing this information, you scrunch your eyes and groan again.
âHeâs not.â You deny with a murmur despite the knocking that you hear on the door. The person at the door, reportedly Taesan, knocks one, two, three times.
âHe is. He wants to know how you are⌠tell me what happened between you two!â She urges.
âYouâre lying. He is not at the door.â Maybe if you say it enough heâll go away. Manifesting, you know? You want to know nothing about why heâs here. The party last night was a blur. You remember drinking, seeing a couple familiar faces, bumping into Taesan and then itâs dark and you wake up in your bed with Jen shaking you.
âHe is.â She says solemnly. She cocks her head and continues in a more sympathetic tone, âdo you want me to tell him to go away?â She asks.
âYes.â Regardless of whether you want to see him, specifically, you donât want to see anyone at all. Youâre still in your clothes from last night, your whole body hurts, you feel like total crap, and you doubt you showered last night. You do not want to see Han Taesan, and thatâs final.
âYes, maâam.â She says and jumps off the tall bed. Through half-lidded eyes, you see her crack the door and exchange words with the visitor. You confirm itâs Taesan when his stupid face appears in the crack. Almost involuntarily you close your eyes. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. Even with a foggy mind and a throbbing headache, you know nothing good can come out of talking to him, or even seeing him, when youâre so wildly hungover. You feel like a ghost haunting your body. You hear the door shut, and you open your eyes to see Jen shimmying over to you with her eyebrows raised and a disbelieving smile across her face. You close your eyes again, you do not want to see or hear what she has to offer unless itâs an ibuprofen.
âI canât believe he came to check up on you! Isnât that sweet? I have no idea what was happening with you two before I got there, but he was so cute about you. He looked so nervous! Itâs not like him at all.â You can practically hear her dancing around in excitement. âYour love life never goes anywhere, this is so exciting!â You grumble in protest at her jab at you. Sheâs been begging to let her set you up with someone, but the only people she knows are frat bros and sorority girls, neither of which are your type, usually. Is Taesan part of a frat? Doesnât seem like him.
âJen⌠advil⌠please.â You reach out for her with a weak hand.
âYouâre not dying.â She assures you, but dutifully returns to your bedside with two little red pills, a bottle of water, and a bag of goldfish. This is how Jen is, youâve learned; poking fun at you while still looking out for you. âCome on, take them.â She says, holding out the pills. âYouâre lucky itâs a Saturday. For a hangover, you need water, food, and sleep.â She recites. Maybe hangover care is a required class for members of the sorority known for the most functions.
âThanksâŚâ You mutter, bringing a weak hand to your still pounding forehead. âWhat happened?â You ask. It might help to know what youâre up against in terms of embarrassment.
âBefore I got there? No idea. After I got there? Well, you were passed out,â she laughs, âI had no idea you could fall asleep that fast. He looked crazy confused, having you slung over him and all, you know? Anyway, he was dry sober, he just got there. I had the car, obviously, and so he offered to give you a ride back to the dorm in my car. Now, I went with you, of course. For one, Iâm always going to come with you when youâre asleep and being taken care of by some man. Two, thereâs no way Iâm letting any man drive my car without serious supervision.â Now, this elicits a stifled laugh from you, after which you immediately wince in pain. Laughing isnât good medicine for hangovers, apparently. âAnyway, he picked you up bridal-style, it was really cute, and brought you to our car, and then drove both of us home. I put you to bed, and he left after.â She states, "I wiped your drool, donât worry.â She nudges you with an elbow.
âUgh, Jen. Donât joke with me right now.â
âNo, seriously, you did drool. Itâs one of, like, five reasons Iâm never going to put you in a room with alcohol ever again.â
âI told you it was a bad idea to bring me.â You lament. You donât like the idea of drooling in the vicinity of Taesan. And he carried you to the car? Seriously, not a high point for your ego. Itâs not even about your germinal maybe-crush on him. âGive me some goldfish.â
âYou always say that itâs a bad idea, but okay.â She hands you a handful and you shove it into your mouth. It doesnât mix well with the morning-breath taste and somehow lingering tinge of alcohol. Your head is pounding and if the headache doesnât kill you, the embarrassment might.
THE ILLUSION
Dr. Woo claps his hands together as the final undergrad enters the lecture hall. The long tables that act as desks proceed away from the central board in stairs.Â
âYeah. Big project coming up, right?â He says with a hint of fake enthusiasm. âItâs going to be a group project, if two people count as a group. Hooray.â A resounding groan emanates from the student body. Dr. Woo is visually unphased by this. âDespite the fact that choice is an illusion, you can pick your own partners. This is college. I donât care.â He waves a hand dismissing any rebuttal, not that any was coming. Regardless of any other feelings about Dr. Woo, everyone knows heâs a great (read: easy) grader. âAnyway, go crazy. You all know the topic.â
Your heart drops as the room immediately erupts in chattering. Your circle was small at best, and you knew no one in World Lit except for⌠oh no. You feel a tap on your shoulder. Almost in slow motion, you turn around and see Taesanâs damned handsome face.
âHey,â he says, very, very casually, âdo you want to be my partner?â Oh, what the fuck.
âUmâŚâ You furrow your eyebrows. Itâs not that you donât want to be partners with him, really. Itâs just that you donât want to recoil in embarrassment every time you work on a project worth 20% of your grade.Â
He cocks his head to the side, âso?â Youâre pretty sure his face could bring world peace. Have him try to convince a warlord to stop fighting by flashing a smile and theyâd be a pacifist in under ten minutes.
You sigh, âyeah. Sure.â You try to smile, it doesnât work that well. Fuck it, whatâs the worst that could happen? Do it for the plot, right? Choosing to partner with him is definitely for the plot. Youâre not entirely convinced that heâs pure in his intentions to partner with you; maybe this is part of a bigger frat boy scheme.
âMy analysis is actually good, I swear.â He says as he pulls back the chair next to you to sit down. Is that a reference? To what? You are thoroughly confused, clearly remembering very little of that fateful night. He tucks his hands behind his head and leans back.
âWhat?â You laugh a little, if only out of awkwardness.Â
He presses his lips together and they contort as if a laugh is threatening him. âNevermind. Itâs nothing, really.â He is utterly unconvincing when he lies. Maybe he couldnât convince the warlord.
âTaesan, what?â Your arms cross as you lean back in your chair. Around you, thereâs a buzz of new partnerships and dates being set to meet. You two, however, are alone in your own world. In your periphery, Dr. Woo is staring you down. Youâre pretty sure he can sense when work isnât getting done. You canât tell if heâs just a salty old man or a teenager with a gossip itch trapped in an old professor���s body.
Taesan notices, âDr. Woo is creeping me out. Iâll tell you in the hall.â He picks up one of your pens and hands it to you in a non subtle suggestion for you to pack up.Â
You sling your backpack over one shoulder (despite how youâre told itâs bad for your back) and lead Taesan out of the lecture hall.
âSo, are you partners with me just to make fun of me?â You probe him as he catches up to you. âIâm taking you to my dorm, by the way. We can get started on the project.â Thereâs a silent addition of âeven if youâre being an asshole, I chose to be stuck with you for some reasonâ when you give him a purposeful glance. Maybe Dr. Woo is right. Maybe choice is an illusion. He looks completely lost.
âNo, no. Itâs not like that, really. I didn't mean to make you feel bad, I just thought it was funny.â He turns around and shakes his head to punctuate his point.Â
âIs it better if I donât know what happened at the party?â One eyebrow raises and you stare him down with some weird level of confidence. Maybe knowing that heâs seen you drooling, drunk, and looking crazy makes you feel like you donât have much else to lose.
âNo, nothing bad happened. You were just drunk. It happens to the best of us.â He shrugs as you enter onto the green.
âDonât drag this out, let me bite the bullet if I want to.â
He laughs a little, âalright. In summary, you backed into me, told me I was cute, told me my analysis sucks,â so thatâs what that was about, âand told me I should kiss you and I told you that you were too drunk,â oh, what the fuck, âand then you fell asleep on me and Jennifer came over. I carried you to the car and drove both you and her home because she had a couple drinks and I had none. I checked up on you because I knew you were going to have one hell of a hangover.â Great, youâre stuck with this fucker you borderline harassed while blackout drunk.
âYou were right. It was one hell of a hangover.â You grumble, looking at the floor to avoid any eye contact with him.
âDonât be embarrassed. Youâre not the first person to tell me Iâm cute when theyâre drunk.â He teases and you roll your eyes. In your heart, though, this is deeply, deeply embarrassing. The thought of what happened stings like a blade in your heart and in your mind. Itâs not as bad as the hangover, but itâs pretty damn bad.
âYeah, right. I was drunk, okay?â Your words are biting. âWhy are you partners with me, then? I wasnât that great the one time you met me.â Maybe you donât want to know the answer, but the words are already out of your mouth. You scuff your heels as you walk, still avoiding contact with the one and only Han Taesan.
âYouâre cute and youâre smart.â He shrugs and you break your rule of avoiding his eyes because now youâre staring at him in disbelief. âPlus, youâre great at keeping me humble.â He meets your eyes now and youâre immediately regretting thinking anything about the previous compliment meant anything at all.
âIf you keep being a jerk, Iâm going to keep you humble as hell.â You grumble.
âSorry,â he frowns mildly, âthe first part holds more weight.â And now, youâve flipped. It does mean something⌠maybe. You face forward again to hide a smile that he totally catches anyways. Youâve made great time alongside Taesan, youâre almost to your dorm.
âThanks?â
âMy pleasure.â He postures. âWhy were you there in the first place? No offense, but you donât strike me as an alcoholic. An alcoholic can handle being drunk better than that.â Itâs sort of a compliment, you guess.
âNone taken, I donât believe that being an alcoholic is in the cards for me.â You snort. âJen dragged me there. I told her it was a bad idea, but she convinced me to go anyway by bribing me with doing my least favorite chores for a week or two.â You explain, crossing your arms and he laughs. âNo offense, you donât seem like youâre part of the frat nor do you seem like an alcoholic. So, what were you doing there?â You redirect. Itâs true: he doesnât seem like a brother nor a drinker.
âI lost a bet. Riwoo bet me that I couldnât fit fifteen grapes in my mouth and I wanted to prove him wrong because, well, heâs Riwoo, but I lost the bet.â A laugh bubbles up from your chest imagining the situation. Not only did he try, but he tried and failed. âMy punishment was either to go to a frat or to do mine and six of my roommatesâ laundry for a semester. I picked the frat, obviously. Iâve lived with those guys for long enough to know that all of them stink like hell.â He adds, grimacing. âPlus, âdoing laundryâ meant changing the sheets and picking up laundry, too.â He looks at you, pointedly.
âYouâre lying, no way.â You laugh, partly with him and partly at him.
âYou clearly havenât met my roommates, this way?â His finger points to the building that youâre rooming in with Jen. You pray sheâs not there or youâre going to be met with a litany of highly invasive questions.
You nod at his direction, âyeah, there are like seven thousand people here and I can recognize about thirty faces max. Thatâs like nothing-percent.â
âGood for me, then. I donât think Iâd be the first person youâd be calling cute if they were there with me.â The tone of his voice is light, but in his eyes you see that he fears itâs the truth. Huh, Taesan is just like the rest of us, whoâda thunk?
âWhere did your cool guy act go?â You tease, leading him up the stairs to your dorm, distinguished by the handmade felt pennants, spelling yourâs and Jenâs names. âDrunk me wasnât lying when she said you were cute, seriously.â You assure him. âNow, I just have to learn if your analysis is as bad as she said it was.â You push open the door with your back, mostly so you donât have to face him after calling him cute to his face. Last week, you would have run away on the spot; Taesan has you acting like a bad ATMâall out of order.
ENTOURAGE
You hated to admit it, his analysis was great. By spending hours writing and rewriting scripts to memorize for your oral presentation, you watched Taesan connect dots you didn't even know were there and recall obscure details from lectures that happened to be integral to the coherence of your project. You can practically see the cogs turn in his head, the way he bites the inside of his lip when heâs really focused, the way his face lights up when he gets an idea, the way he slides his thin wire glasses up his straight nose with a knuckle when they slip down because he furrowed his eyebrows too much.
This is how you find yourself at four on a Wednesday afternoon, weeks after your first incidental meeting with him: admiring his work on your dorm floor.
âDamn, Taesan.â You still kept to calling him his full name instead of Tae, you felt like it meant something. âThis is amazing, I would have never thought to connect those passages, we read that first book ages ago!â You shook your head, his analysis was that good. Maybe not award-winning, but definitely worth an A, even in your harshest graderâs class. He smirks as he laughs a little, taking off his glasses and stretching his hands up, grasping at nothing while trying to stretch his back. You two had been sitting for hours on the hard floor of your dorm room; you told him to sit on your chair, but he refused, demanding he sit next to you so that he can âsee what youâre writingâ better.
âYou brought up At the Bottom of the River in the first place.â He deflects your praise. Youâll gladly take the compliment even if you had no part in his discovery. As you shrug his deflection off, you feel his arm come down around your shoulder and you jump a little, not expecting the touch. Of course, his hand feels nice where it rests, but youâre still not quite used to the way Taesan evidently shows affection. The first time he pulled the classic âIâm-just-stretching-actually-Iâm-putting-my-arm-around-youâ move, you didnât expect it in the slightest. You had finished a part you were putting off and he moved to stretch, suddenly putting his arm around you and shaking you while cheering you on about your victory. The laugh you let out when that happened was something entirely unprecedented for you, you laughed until your stomach hurt and your eyes watered, and you couldnât even pinpoint why.
âYeah, sure.â You look at him, exaggerating your skepticism with your one raised eyebrow, his arm still around you.
âWhenâs Jen getting back? Do we have time to mess around or should I go before she starts pestering you?â He asks, half-joking as he tilts his head towards yours. Jen had taken a liking to him, if not too much of a liking to him⌠for you. Whenever you and Taesan were together and Jen spotted you, she made the least subtle comments possible telling you to get together, wiggling her eyebrows and full of exaggerated winks. It wasnât surprising in the slightest. Hey, look at the position you two are in right now: foreheads so close theyâre almost touching, alone in your dorm, with his arm wrapped around your shoulder. Still, youâve gathered thatâs just kind of how Taesan is with his friends. From what youâve heard, heâs like that with everyone. Itâs not unique to you.
âShe said sheâd be back at five, soâŚâ you check the egg clock, âlike, thirty minutes?âÂ
âNice.â He purses his lips. âAre you nervous for the presentation? Itâs tomorrow, you know?â Taesan has his sensitive moments, for sure. He soundsâhe isâgenuinely concerned about how youâre feeling about it, you can hear it in his voice. Heâs not great at hiding things like that. Even when heâs making fun of you, itâs never malicious.
âIâm fine. Iâm nervous, but it is a big presentation, after all. Itâs nothing I canât handle.â You tell him, flexing an arm to prove your point, though the action is inhibited by his arm still around you.
âNever doubted you for a second, Miss Independent. You can still be nervous though, itâs okay to be nervous.âÂ
âAre you nervous? You sound like youâre projecting.â
He exhales, âyeah, Iâm nervous as hell.â He laughs a little after the admission, but itâs not a humorous one.
âHey, text me if you get nervous before, right? Doesnât help to keep it to yourself. And, no offense, but I think Iâll be better at commiserating with you than your roommates, however lovely they are.âÂ
He exhales. âYeah, thanks.â Heâs being surprisingly soft, and you canât help but seize the opportunity to connect a little with the sensitive side of Taesan instead of the cool, nonchalant Taesan. From what youâve gathered, his Nirvana-decorated headphones, monochrome black clothes, and his sullen resting face makes him less approachable to your peers.
âYouâll be fine. As you said to me when we were partnered, youâre cute and youâre smart. Youâve got it.â You tell him, leaning your head onto his shoulder. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating out of your chest. Can you feel someoneâs heartbeat through their shoulder? Probably not, but the human body is full of surprises. One surprise is how hard you can see his pulse through his carotid artery, pulsing in his neck. Good God, this boy is going to get high blood pressure if his heart is always going a million miles an hour. âTell me about writing music. Iâm tired.â You tell him, closing your eyes.Â
Youâre brought back to what you were told about the first time you met him. This time, however, you falling asleep on him isnât so much of a surprise. Your knowledge of composition contrasts Taesanâs, you know little more than the basics. Asking him to talk about it is an easy route to a one-sided conversation where you get to listen to him talk, which is always a good time. He gets so animated, itâs hilarious and adorable.
âYour wish is my command.â He laughs, and you feel the vibration against your head and he starts on a critically tangential spiel.Â
Before you can get too comfortable leaning on Taesan listening to him talk about rhyme schemes, the door swings open. Jen walks in after opening the door with her signature slam. Why you havenât gotten any complaints yet, you have no idea.
âOh⌠my God.â You can practically hear her freeze in the doorway. Out of sight, out of mind, so you keep your eyes closed.
âJen, no oneâs dying.â You assure her, suddenly deeply uncomfortable, shifting on the floor.
âYouâre right, no oneâs dying. My heart is so happy, look at you!â She almost giggles.
âIs this a good time for me to go?â Taesan starts to ask the pivotal question thatâs going to determine exactly how embarrassed you are going to be this afternoon.
âYesââ âNoââ You and Jen say in unison. You open your eyes just to glare at her, seeing her standing over you.
âNo⌠Iâm going to get to know my best friendâs⌠group project partner.â She winks very not-subtly at you. Taesan looks at you just as you look at him, and he shrugs.Â
âThe more the merrier, right?â He asks. The rhetorical question becomes immediately very literal as Jen continues.
âOooh⌠I like the way he thinks, girl.â She says, pointing to you. âTaesan, invite your roommates over, too. We can have a party!â Sheâs almost clapping with how excited she is, rolling back on her heels.
Taesan lights up, âoh hell yeah! Iâll see whoâs available.â Oh, Taesan. Always the extrovert.
You groan, but itâs futile to try and stop the scheming. How did this get so bad so fast? âNo drinking.â You instruct them.
âHalf of them canât even drink legally yet, plus, do you seriously think Iâm going to drink the night before our presentation? No way.â He assures you, and you groan again in hesitant acceptance.
âIâm never letting you drink again. Donât worry about that.â She promises you quietly before switching back to hyped-up Jen mode. âOh, this is so exciting! When can they get here?â Sheâs sitting cross-legged in front of you two now, rifling through contacts on her phone in its sparkly case.
âWell,â Taesan pauses, âIf theyâd answer my textsââ ding! Almost like he scripted it, he gets a notification. âAnd there we go. Turns out theyâre just hanging out at our place, all of them are free. Do you want them here now?â
âHell yeah, I do! We should watch a movie⌠what movie should we watch? Donât tell me they like horrorâŚâ She pushes her eyebrows together in what sounds half like a threat and half like a plea.
âYeah, not that I know of.â
âWe should watch 10 Things I Hate About You.â You suggest.
And thatâs how you got to be sitting in a circle on your roomâs floor with Taesan, Jen, and every single one of Taesanâs five roommates. Youâd only briefly met a couple of them in passing before. Right now, youâre even managing to not cut each othersâ throats out while playing UNO! What an achievement!
âAnd the color is⌠wait for it!â Taesanâs roommate with the light brown, almost orange hair and rounder, blueish-green black glasses says, leaning around to intimidate the others with a giant smile on his face. Everyone erupts in laughter at him. You remember that this is Riwoo, the one who dared Taesan to stuff 15 grapes in his mouth in the first place. âBlue!â He announces.
Your last card was red. Damn it.
Jaehyun immediately slumps over, Sungho frowns, Leehan stares at the card deck and Woonhak stares, terrified, at Jen when she jumps up, screaming âUno!â as she slams her blue five on the pile. Shouts resound from the boys around you. Taesan is laughing.Â
As the room erupts around you, Taesan nudges you with his shoulder, showing you his card. His last color was red, too. âWeâre both winners in my heart.â He tells you with a wink. What a sap. You push his face away with a hand, stifling a laugh as you feel a heat come to your cheeks. Your light push makes him dip away from you like the inflatable tube men outside gas stations.
âYouâre so corny.â You tell him as you take in the scene unfolding around you. Inviting Taesanâs friends over was a great idea. Jen is yelling at Jaehyun, Jaehyun looks terrified. Woonhak and Sungho are yelling at Riwoo, Riwoo is laughing at them. Leehan is laughing at Riwoo laughing at Woonhak and Sungho.
Taesan catches you smiling at the camaraderie, âif people yelling at each other was all it took to make you smile, Iâd have invited them over way earlier.â
âTaesan,â you laugh, âI donât like schadenfreude. Itâs nice to see Jen let loose sometimes. I donât think she gets to argue with anyone very often.â
âIf she wants anyone to argue with, Iâm available.â He spreads his arms to punctuate his point. At this, you laugh even harder. As you look around again, you see everyone laughing and collapsing on the floor, except for Jen, whoâs pretending to fume and sulk on her bed. You know her well enough to catch the smile that pulls at her lips.
âItâs like watching kids at the park.â You motion towards Taesanâs friends, whoâve clearly become very comfortable around you and Jen.
âThis weird authenticity is kind of their whole M.O.â He smiles, very clearly adoring their antics. âImagine having to do their laundry though. Iâm glad I chose to go to the party instead.â He pretends to shiver which draws out a laugh from you.
âYeah, if you had chosen to do their laundry you also wouldnât have been able to see me drool on you when you carried me to the car.â You snort. Youâve made peace with your drunken night. After all, youâve already lost your dignity and heâs still hanging around.
âIt was so cute though!â He contests and you roll your eyes at him. You have sworn up and down that he doesnât like you like⌠that. Even if he did like you, youâre pretty sure no one likes anyone else enough that their drool is cute. Therefore, Jenâs points are null. Simple as that.
âIâm just soooo adorable,â you roll your eyes, âyou donât have to rub it in, dude.â you smile incredulously at him, throwing one of your legs over the other, just short of taking out Riwooâs leg.
âIâm not joking!â His tone is defensive in ultimate Taesan fashion.
âYeah, sure.â You tell him as Jen reaches out to you and pulls you to your feet, leaving Taesan alone on the floor.
Jen whispers to you, âso, whenâs the wedding?â You roll your eyes.
âShut up, you always do this.â You groan. âDo you get some sadistic joy from seeing me uncomfortable?â You cross your arms, almost elbowing Woonhak. This room is not big enough for eight people to fit in comfortably.
âCan I be the maid of honor?â She ignores your complaints and you let out an exaggerated groan in response.
âDonât make me regret not making him go home.â
âFine, fine.â She looks to be backing down. That is until she smirks, meeting your eyes again. âIâm not the only one who sees something!â She says cheerily before bouncing off as far as one can, which is about a foot. She looks back at you and winks before (lightly) punching Woonhak in the back to get his attention. Sheâs immediately drawn into some debate of some sort or another. Earlier, Leehan had assigned you both fish and Jen had been assigned a âCherry Barbâ and she immediately took issue with the name for some reason or other. It was very cathartic for Taesan to watch someone contest Leehanâs fish opinions. He was totally dumbstruck; it was hilarious. Then, of course, you got an informational speech from Leehan which quelled Jensâ argument. Now, sheâs a Cherry Barb.
Maybe this is how it should be, friends arguing with friends and laughing about it after, cramped in a too small room. When you meet Taesanâs eyes, you see the sparkle in them tell you he thinks so too. Maybe your friends will become the opposite of children of divorce, gaining family instead of it being separated. Is that just children of marriage? Ugh, Jenâs infected you.
âSo, whenâs the wedding?â Taesan wiggles his eyebrows, clearly having heard the conversation. You roll your eyes.
BREAKING CODE
Jen is passed out on her bed on the opposite side of the room. The egg clock greets you with the time in blaring white: 11:32 pm. Head in your hands, you groan. No amount of free-on-youtube reality TV was going to calm your nerves. None of your favorite episodes are helping, even the one you have open on your computer.Â
After the boys had left, you guaranteed yourself that everything would be fine. Your presentation would go great, no questions asked. Now, sitting in your room practically alone, you feel way less optimistic.Â
Thoughts of Taesan cross your mind and you furrow your eyebrows, trying to shoo them. You wonder if heâs awake right now, if heâs anxious like you. You try to calm yourself by thinking that it could be worse, the presentation could be 30% of your grade. Unsurprisingly, that doesnât help. Your phone, thrown aside earlier and laying on the bed, is practically inviting you to make a bad decision with its open, empty screen.
You stare out the window, contemplating whether or not to take the risk and text him. Your window opens up to a view of the door to enter your dorm building, and you can see the freshly fallen snow settling around it. The snow covers the creaky benches and even the overhang above the door. Itâs while you're doing this contemplating that, to your fortune or maybe misfortune, the risk decides to take you with a ding from your phone.
On your home screen, you see a contact pop up and you freeze. You read the name again, it still says MOUNTAIN. Taesan put that as his contact name.
You look again, you werenât hallucinating. Itâs Taesan texting you. Is he nervous? Did he seriously take you up on your offer? You were simultaneously hoping that he would text you while hoping that he would never, ever even think to.
You steel yourself and open your phone, thatâs when you get your answer.
[MOUNTAIN]: are you up [MOUNTAIN]: iâm nervous are you
You did tell him to text you if he was nervous. That offer, however, happened when you were feeling a little bolder. You are not feeling especially bold right now.
[you]: i might be [MOUNTAIN]: meet me lets go to the convenience store [MOUNTAIN]: chills me out before midterms usually and this is like the same thing
You didnât need to even try to make a bad decision, the bad decision came to you, enticing you with the lure of a convenience store and a chance to escape your stuffy dorm.
Resting your phone on your chest, staring at the ceiling like a corpse with the way your hands are positioned, you weigh your options. Mentally, you make a list.
PROs:
You see Taesan
You get a snack probably
CONs:
You see Taesan
Itâs been established that crazy shit goes down when you see Taesan past like nine pmâitâs like your friendship is a vampire but night-intolerant instead of day-intolerant
The last time you made a for the plot decision it didnât turn out that bad. Yeah, partnering with Taesan could have sucked, but it didnât. Going to the party was a kind of yolo-esque decision, too, and that was kind of a blessing in disguise. You rationalize your preference for meeting him with the fact that you know him better now. Heâs not a rando and, as far as you know, heâs not evil.
You only live once, right?
You pick your phone back up and text him before you can rethink it.
[you]: meet where? [MOUNTAIN]: outside your dorm building in 10
You squint at the screen. His place is like a twenty minute walk away and youâre pretty sure he doesnât have a car, that would be weird for him. You canât pinpoint why, but you donât like the idea of him owning a car, despite the fact that heâs driven Jenâs with you in it. Ugh.
[you]: okay
You are totally chill about this.
Looking over at Jen in her bed, you decide you donât want to be interrogated about this decision yet. She will not let you hear the end of it, and thatâs not going to calm your nerves. Itâs kind of against customary law safety recommendations to not tell your roommate where youâre going at night, but you decide thatâs not applicable here.
Taking your computer off your lap and swinging your feet over the side of your bed as quietly as possible, you assess the situation. The nice thing about totally embarrassing yourself the first time you met him is that you now donât particularly care about how you look. Youâre wearing Jenâs motherâs giant Hartford Whalers hockey team brand shirt and some irritatingly red plaid pajama pants that totally crash with the cool blues and greens of your shirt.
Tiptoeing to the square, wooden-framed mirror hung in the entrance you check how your hair looks. You pull on your oversized puffer jacket as quietly as possible from the command hook-provided coat hanger adorning off the back of the exit door. The zipper is cold in your hands as you check to make sure Jen is oblivious to your impending excursion. She is still fast asleep, evident from the way her chest slowly rises and falls and the faint snores that you hear from her.Â
The door handle is freezing to the touch. You expected as much from a dorm building with as little central heating as it tends to cater, but itâs still unpleasant. The door opens with a loud creak. You stand assured that no one has successfully snuck out of any single one of these dorms because the floorboards creak and the doors practically announce over the loudspeaker when anyone opens them.
Thankfully, Jen is none the wiser as you glance back at her, sheâs in the same sleeping position you last saw her in: lying on her stomach with one leg thrown up closer to her chest and an arm flung over her head. Itâs completely bizarre and totally adorable of her.
You make your way through the straightforward yet somehow labyrinthine halls of your dorm building. As you approach the glass entryway, you see Taesan illuminated by the orange streetlight, leaning against the red brick of the adjacent building standing on a recently-hardened layer of snowfall. Heâs layered an unzipped black puffer jacket, similar to yours, over a gray hoodie and accessorised with a hat that makes his head look round like an egg. Heâs rubbing his gloved hands together to keep them warm. He sees you before you even open the door, and his face lights up when he does.
After suppressing a smile, you scold him, âI canât believe you called me to meet you at this hour!âÂ
âYou told me I could!â He defends. You notice how you can see his breath against the cold air. Itâs colder than you thought, you push your bare hands further into your pockets.
âHow did you even get here so fast? Do you secretly live in the next building, or something? Are you my tropey boy next door?â You nudge him, wiggling your eyebrows as if this was some plot straight out of a fanfiction.
âYeah, right.â
âCome on, youâre not secretly pining for me?â You tease him, sinking deeper into the collar of your coat on account of the biting wind that hits you once you leave the sanctuary of the protected building and, though youâre not willing to admit it to yourself, because the boy next to you makes your cheeks hot.
âYeah, Iâm secretly hanging off of your every word, just waiting for the moment I can confess my undying love for you.â He rolls his eyes. Noticing your hands shoved in your pockets, he changes the subject, âare you cold? I brought some extra gloves, do you want them?â His words are surprisingly considerate considering the incessant teasing you subject him to daily.
âYeah.â You laugh, freezing as he takes the knit black gloves out of his pocket. Taking them from him and putting them on, you adjust them carefully. Theyâre far too big for you, but itâs the thought that counts, right? The âthought that countsâ is definitely keeping your hands warmer. As you examine your new apparel with a smile, you feel a pressure over your head. Somehow, you hadnât noticed him taking his hat off and now he is pushing it onto your head. You jump back, âhey! You could have lice!â Your smile disappears in favor of a pout. The hat does feel nice on your ears though.
Taesan bursts out laughing, âI do not have lice, I promise.â Still laughing, he elaborates, âplus, youâre cold. Your ears were so cold they were getting red.â You glare at him as he only laughs harder. Instinctively, you throw up your hands to cover your ears
âPoint me to the convenience store or Iâm going back inside whether youâre nervous or not.â You grumble.
âOkay, Miss Grump. Just follow me.â He says with a stupidly charming smile and grabs your wrist before picking up the pace. To him, picking up the pace means speed-walking, but for you, it means jogging.
âAck!â You jump at the sudden movement, âTaesan! You canât do that!â You try to free your wrist and, when you succeed, you cross your arms, standing solid in place as he turns around.
âIf you donât come with me, Iâll yell that you think Heath Ledger is super sexy during the presentation!â He yells, running backwards. Your jaw drops open. You want to trust Taesan enough to think he wouldnât do that, but you also know Taesan well enough that he totally would do that. It was a bad idea to watch 10 Things I Hate About You with him, Jen, and his roommates after the Uno game. You do not need your personal preferences aired out to an auditorium of your peers and Dr. Woo. Plus, the only thing you like about Heath Ledger is that he essentially serenaded Kat Stratford!
Damn it. Stuck between would and would not, you narrow your eyes and start sprinting after him before he can turn a corner.
âYouâre so on, Mr. Mountain!â He turns to look behind him, seeing you gaining fast on him as you run as fast as your legs will take you towards him. Itâs his turn to be surprised, and he speeds up. After all, he wasnât going that fast in the first place. As you close the gap between the two of you, you can hear his infectious laughter that makes you press down a swelling in your chest. You do not like Taesan, you assure yourself. Itâs all in good fun. Itâs only good fun. Focusing on the challenge ahead, you see Taesan just ahead of you, about to turn down a sidewalk.
Heâs right behind a snowbank. If youâre the sun and the snowbank is the earth, heâs the moon in a solar eclipse.
Itâs impulsive, your next action, truly. Presented with the right circumstances, however, you like to take your chances. With a shout thatâs more primeval than you intended it to be, you grab onto his puffer jacket and tackle him onto the earth that is the snowbank.
Itâs almost like slow-motion when you, with an evil smile, keep your eyes focused on Taesan as you see the world around you slowly become more horizontal as you fall, yourself falling on his back as he falls flat on his chest.
When his front compresses the snow enough to stop his descent towards the obscured grass, you hear him let out a moan. A moment of silence passes as both of you process what just happened. Youâre propped up on your hands (gloved, thanks to Taesan) and heâs lying on his back, hands thrown above him because of his attempt at stabilization during the fall. His lips are slightly parted in shock, and his eyes are wide open, staring at you. He looks like heâs seen a ghost. He totally moaned when he fell. At least you can play teasing offense on him instead of having to defend why you tackled this man that is in no way, shape, or form your boyfriend. To be fair, men whimpering is hot. Itâs just that you didnât expect the man whimpering to be Taesan. It doesnât really fit with his image.
You hold yourself up with one hand, clutching your stomach as you double over in laughter. âOh my gosh, this is hilarious! Iâm going to tell Riwoo that you moan when you get pushed around by women. Heâll never let you hear the end of it!â Taesan looks completely scandalized. His mouth is open and he looks totally terrified, you almost feel bad for him.Â
Almost.
He covers his eyes with his gloves, âdonât you dare say anything.â Tears form in your eyes as you attempt to suppress a laugh to try and spare any more of his dignity. That doesnât extend to teasing, though. Itâs simply too good of an opportunity to pass up.
âWhat if, during the presentation, I yell out that you moan when someone pins you down?â You theorize him, sitting down on the dry ground next to him, throwing your legs over his stomach.
Still holding his hands over his eyes, he mutters a defensive response, âitâs not like that!â Flat on his back, he looks, somehow, handsome with snow visible in and contrasting against his darker hair, and his gloves covering his reddening face in embarrassment. If youâre lucky, maybe this is how he felt watching you fall onto him when you were drunk the first time you met. Itâs more adoration than disgust.
âAw, thereâs no shame in it.â You coax. He is completely and totally embarrassed, you can tell by the way his ears are bright, cherry red.
âDonât tell anyone, okay? What do you want?â He whines, refusing to look at you even when you try to pry his hands away from his face.
âWhatever we do and wherever we go together, itâs on you. Monetarily, I mean.â You push a finger into his chest as he finally frees his eyes from his own grip, daring to look at you face on.
âYou serious?â He groans, heâs still red but looks to be over the initial shock. Either from the biting wind swirling around you or because of your teasing, his cheeks are coated in a dusting of red.
âYeah, unless you want everyone to know about your sexual preferences.â Releasing him from your pushed finger, you cross your arms and shrug innocently.
âThis is blackmail. This is extortion!â He complains, covering his eyes again.
âSo⌠yes or no?â You grab his wrists and rip them from his face, revealing his angsty stare.
â...Yes, Iâll pay. Will you let it go now?â His words are harsher and heâs sulking, glaring at you. Maybe you pushed it too far.
âHey, I meant it when I said itâs nothing to be ashamed about.â You let go of his wrists, opting to rub his shoulder instead, in an attempt to reassure him. âListen, I lost my dignity by falling on you and drooling when we met, and you lost your dignity just now. Letâs just say weâre even.â You smile optimistically, hoping it will psych him into believing you because what you say is the truth, even if itâs a touchy subject, apparently.
Once heâs reminded of your not-so-cute meet-cute, he seems to relax a little. âYou did drool like crazy. Do I really have to pay?â Heâs smiling now, thank God. He rests his hands on his chest, looking way more comfortable.
âYup. You do.â You laugh, itâs a softer laugh than your earlier fit, though. âConvenience store?â You prompt him, offering a hand to have him get up. As your hand interlocks with his, a smile tugs at the sides of your lips and you still canât tell if the heat in your face is from the wind chill or Taesan. âAnd, take your hat back, idiot. Your ears are red.â The hat traps all the heat radiating from your flushed face and it makes you almost feel sweaty.
He laughs a little before speaking, âthanks for the hat. My ears are just so cold.â He jokes. âThe store is just this way.â He points to the right he was going to take when you knocked him down. He was leading you the right way, at least. âNever try to blackmail me again, I swear.â He threatens, pouting, and then shoves you, however lightly. He doesn't look very scary.
âYeah, yeah. Weâll see.â You retort. He glares at you, keeping eye contact as you walk closer to the glowing, welcoming arms of the convenience store in the form of its bright lights, illuminating the street from the inside, casting an eerie glow onto the otherwise dark and snow-ridden street. In response to his look, you childishly blow a strawberry at him. This hasnât been either of your finest hours. Your antics draw out a smile from him, at least. Practically skipping along, you try to change the subject to something less personal, maybe. âWhat did you expect when you called me out here? You said you were nervous, after all.â
âYeah, I did say that. I got the pre-presentation nerves, you know? âThought we could talk about it.â He rubs his neck. This is definitely a less personal topic, but thatâs not to say itâs impersonal.
âSo, talk.â You command, avoiding eye contact mostly so you donât laugh, replaying him falling over.
âWhat is there to say? I had some nerves.â He laughs, opening the silvery door to the convenience store, stepping aside to let you through.
âWhat a gentleman,â you muse, âhowâd you learn that? Rom-coms?â
âIâm allowed to be nice, too, you know. You watch more romantic comedies than me.â He rolls his eyes.
âI do it ironically.â You drawl. âI was nervous too, to be honest,â you were not going to tell him that you were watching rom-coms trying to relax, that would be a little too much ammo for him, âJen was fast asleep and I was just kind of⌠lying there.â You pick up a miscellaneous chip bag, lazily inspecting it.
âOh, I totally get it. The only other person awake was Leehan, and he was going to trap me in fish conversation if I even so much as approached him.â You snort at this. Even from your brief interactions with Leehan this afternoon, his passion is palpable. You can just see it in his face that heâs a little bit of an uber-nerd about those particular animals. Nerd is being used affectionately, of course. His interest is admirable. âDo you want those chips?â He asks, pointing to the bag in your hand.
âNot really, I like those other ones better.â You shrug, pointing to the alternative, an equally fluorescent bag of slightly better-tasting chips. âWe can tame the worries together,â you smile at him, reaching behind you to grab your preferred flavor, âthe question is how.â
âGoing to the convenience store is a pretty good start.â He pushes his bottom lip into the top one. As you watch this action, he suppresses a smile, suddenly. âI have an idea.â Of course he does. He says this with a growing smile on his face as he locks eyes with you. âWe should have a snowball fight.â Your own smile grows as he waits for your response.
âWe should.â You nod. This time, you have an idea, a bad one. âOnly if you moan again.â You charge him with the scandalous comment, and he looks affronted again, and immediately reaches out a free hand to shove you.
âDonât say that so loud!â He hissed, looking around the almost empty store to see if anyone heard him. âThat stays between you and me.â You roll your eyes but you canât hide your amusement.
âYeah, okay.â You walk off towards the cashier across the store to buy your snacks, sticking out your tongue at him. On the way, you inspect and in turn pick up a chocolate bar and a mediocre-looking apple to buy with your chips; itâs all about balance.
Taesan comes up behind you as you place your haul on the mini conveyor belt and gives a small bow to the cashier. He sets down two bags of chips and an enoki mushroom snack that has Japanese writing on it, for which you give him a disgusted look. Perusing his other selections, you smile when you see the second chip bag, for which you change your disgusted look for one of gratitude.
âAw, did you get those for me?â You ask, pointing to the less perfect, but still pretty good flavor.
âNo, I got them for⌠umâŚâ He pauses, seemingly unable to think of someone else he would get them for. Itâs kind of cute, if not a little embarrassing. âI got them for you. I can be kind, remember?â Sassy man apocalypse.
âDuly noted.â You purse your lips. You look at him expectantly, going from him to his card on the back of his phone, again.
âWhat?â He asks, innocently. Sungho wasnât joking when he said that he looks like a cat. As he realizes youâre deadass, he narrows his eyes and turns to you, âare you serious about the whole paying thing?â He cocks his head.
âI was pretty clear. That is, unless youââ Youâre cut off by Taesan clamping a hand over your mouth, for which he gets a repulsed and highly suspicious glare from the middle-aged cashier, he meets this with another bow, unclasping your face from his grip. When youâre let go, you raise your eyebrows at him as if to say âreally?â His hand smells like lavender soap, itâs kind of pleasant, actually. From the state of his and his roommatesâ everything-but-sleeping room, you wouldnât have guessed they were in possession of floral hand soap. When youâre done thinking about how he smells, youâre feeling a little embarrassed and also physically being led out of the store, hopefully after Taesan paid.
âWas that really necessary?â You ask, hands free because Taesanâs holding the store-provided bag that houses all of your treats.
âI donât need anyone hearing about⌠that. Especially a middle-aged anyone.â He clarifies and fair enough. You take the opportunity, however, to scoop up a clump of snow (distinctly not yellow, you checked) and pitch it at him. Still carefully holding your bag, he looks at you with a sense of betrayal. âOh, Iâm going to get you.â He threatens before hurling a snowball that splashes against your only water-resistant coat.
Snowball after snowball is thrown, before your brief yet intense brawl is cut short by ice cold rain slicing through the air around you. Without Taesanâs hat, the sleet pummels your head and it hurts. Your puffer has no hood. Before you can let out an âow,â even, you find your oasis above you, a puffer. Taesanâs puffer. He managed to, in the short time it started sleeting and you noticed it, drop all of his stockpiled snowballs, pick up the convenience storeâs bag, take off his puffer jacket, and cover your head with it, protecting you from the harsh, half-frozen rain. When you look at his face to your right, he looks totally angelic. The streetlight behind him makes him look like he has a halo from the light filtering through the edges of his hair. Heâs smiling, despite all the teasing and irritation you put him through in the short time youâve been out of your dorm.
âYikes, that came fast.â He comments, looking around and noticing how the sleet pelts down around the two of you. âIâll take you home, I think itâs our cue to wrap this up.â He suggests. His sweetness contrasts against the wistful feeling that unexpectedly forms when he mentions parting. Maybe itâs the sleep deprivation or maybe itâs the chill getting to you, but you feel like youâre on cloud nine, itâs the most youâve laughed since Jen told you the crazy goings-on between her highschool ex-girlfriend and one of her friends. Apparently, her ex-girlfriend is absolutely smitten for her friend and said friend completely ignores her at every turn. You laughed until your cheeks hurt that day. Your cheeks donât hurt from laughing, necessarily, but itâs the same sort of freeing feeling. You donât know what to make of that, but youâre damn sure you like the way heâs smiling at you.
âWhatever you say. Thanks for the roof.â You beamed, pointing up at the make-shift shelter heâs made for you.
âMy pleasure, Miss Grump.â He says this with a posh accent that makes you laugh. You have no idea since when heâs started calling you Miss Grump, but there are worse names, probably.
âDonât make me kick you.â You threaten, trying (and failing) to suppress the grin that tugs at your lips.
âSorry, Madame Grump.â He corrects, still holding the cover over your head.
 âIâm not even being grumpy.â You warn him, not even trying to hide the smile that spreads across your face. âCome on, get moving.â You cue him to start the walk back to your dorm.
âYour wish is my command, MissââÂ
âDonât you dare.â You threaten and bump your shoulder into his. The walk back to your dorm is short, it took you far longer to get to the convenience store because of⌠well⌠tangential events. Checking your phone, you finally learn the time. Itâs fucking two in the morning. Great! Youâll get essentially no sleep, but thatâs nothing a little caffeine canât fix.
âI dare more than you think I do.â He purses his lips.
âOkay, I dare you to admit you moaned when you fell.â You challenge him with a smirk.
He groans, âI pick truth.â
âThis isnât truth or dare, you donât get to pick. Plus, truth would be âdid you moan when you fell.ââ You can see your dorm from where you stand in front of the red brick building, itâs still brightly lit. Hopefully that means that Jen is still asleep and hasnât woken up to turn the overhead off.
âYou canât subpoena me so Iâm not playing this game.â He shrugs, stopping underneath the overhang above the glass door that marks the entrance to your building and the separation from Taesan. As he steps aside, taking his puffer with him and putting it back on, youâre suddenly and unfortunately aware of his body heat now that itâs gone.
âIâm less nervous.â He says with a smile that seems almost confidential, like a secret only you know. Heâs undeniably easy on the eyes with his stupid hat and soaked gloves and hoodie.Â
âMe too.â The words come out of your mouth softly. Somehow, theyâre vulnerable words to say. âGoodnight, Taesan.â After your parting words, neither of you make a move to leave. His full name feels more meaningful than his nickname, somehow. You stand there, lit up by the LEDs of the hallways, staring at each other, and youâre not entirely sure why. The tension might be thick, it might not be, you canât tell by the way youâre focused on his face. Well, itâs not exactly his face. Itâs the way his hair frames his face, yes, and the way that his eyes scrunch when he smiles, even slightly, itâs also the way his egg hat looks and the way his hoodie is so damp because he was trying to keep you warm and dry.Â
Then itâs all over. When the tension breaks, itâs not like itâs cut through. Itâs more like it dissipates. It dissipates thanks to the man who barrels down the street adjacent to your bubble, blasting a Spanish ballad and singing his heart out. Soy capitĂĄn, soy capitĂĄn, soy capitĂĄn! blasts through the complex. You break eye contact with Taesan just to laugh at the oddity passing you. You watch him coast down the street on his green bike, singing, without a helmet, hands-free. Your mother would not approve. Taesanâs not laughing, but heâs beaming and staring at you as you crouch down because of your laughter. You try and convince yourself itâs not even that funny, but something about the era of the night just makes you heave with how hard youâre laughing.
âI mean,â recovering, you let out a sigh, finally releasing a breath that you donât remember holding, âit is a college campus.â
âYou can say that again.â His hands are on his hips, and heâs managed to pry his eyes away from you. The sleetâs stopped somewhat, but the ground is still icy from the snow and sleet and rain that have frozen and refrozen over the past few days. The same wistful silence settles between you two after the interruption.
âMaybe itâs a sign.â You laugh in disbelief. Now youâre sure youâve laughed more than when Jen told you about her friendâs drama. Way more.
âA sign for what?â He questions, jocose and almost suspicious of your deduction.
âA sign youâve violated like a million rules of common decency!â Another voice, one other than the singing manâs melody and Taesanâs and your chatter, is heard echoing throughout. âHan Taesan, Iâm going to beat your ass!â The voice threatens angrily. At first, you donât know where itâs coming from. At second, you donât want to believe where itâs coming from. You slowly look up to your open dorm window and see Jenâs disheveled figure poking out with the single most serious scowl youâve ever seen her wear. The only time that gets close to this nouveau expression is the time she decked a guy for⌠being a total freak for one of her friends, letâs say. Your body is confused on whether to panic, run, or just freeze. Waiting to act is still an action, and itâs the prognosis your body suggests. You freeze, looking from Taesan to the window, where Jen is notably absent.
You look at Taesan.Â
You look at the window.Â
You look at Taesan.Â
You look at the hallway.
Taesan looks terrified, you look utterly and visibly confused, and for Jen⌠well, it looks like there's smoke coming out of her ears as she storms down the hallway towards the doors that open to reveal your two-person symposium. Jen slams open the door and, if it wasnât specifically made not to slam, the impact of the slam would have reverberated until even Dr. Woo heard it across the campus in his (probably sound-proofed) office where he probably still is because, you know, heâs Dr. Woo.
âYou motherfucker, what did you do to get her to go out without telling me! What are you hiding? Are you a criminal? Are you a smoker? Oh no, youâre just a piece of shit trying to get in her pants!â Jen steps in front of you, blocking everything but Taesanâs head from your view. From what you can see, Taesan hasnât been sucker punched yet. His eyes are wide and heâs holding his hands up like heâs waiting for her to swing, and maybe he is. You know he doesnât know her well enough to know that she wants to beat the shit out of him, but she did say explicitly that she was going to beat the shit out of him so he had some reason to suspect that thatâs what was incoming.
âW-what? I donâtâ I didnât do any of that stuff!â Heâs shaking his hands wildly and Jen still looks like sheâs about to swing by the way sheâs pushing a finger into his chest. Still too shocked to do, well, anything except watch.
You see her rear up in a way thatâs all too familiar to you, and when you remember you can move, âJen, wait! Itâsââ As soon as the words leave your mouth, you see her closed fist collide with his cheekbone and the impact make him reel back, clutching the affected area with a mittened hand. He almost knocks his head into the pole supporting the overhang, and you can see heâs visibly out of it. Is this a good time to mention that Jen is freakishly good at karate? What Jen is, however, not amazing at is analyzing the situation. As she battles with the follow-through of the swing, she loses her footing on the icy ground, falling flat on her ass. Now, both parties accompanying you are on the icy ground and youâre the only one still standing.
You act in a delay. âJen! He didnât do anything, I swear!â You reach for her shoulders that are no longer there, trying to stop an action thatâs already happened. You watch as Taesan crumples further into a fetal position and you stand there in shock.
âSee!â She spits, snapping her head back to look up at you. âHeâs not even trying to help me up!â Her eyebrows are furrowed and angry.
âJen,â you almost canât help but laugh, âyou decked him, he doesnât even know what planet heâs on.â You look from your best friend to your⌠Taesan, and wonder how you attend to both of their bullshit situations at once. âOkay, first of all, Jen, please donât punch his ass againââ
âYeah, Iâll punch him in the gut.â She snarls, cutting you off.
âNo! There will be no punching.â You declare, trying to sound confident but youâre so bewildered it comes out more as a question. You turn your attention to Taesan, whose nose is bleeding ever so slightly. Heâs holding his hat-clad head in his hands and is grimacing in pain. You mirror him, a grimace appearing on your own face as you look upon his pitiful condition. This is going to be so fun to explain. âI came out here because I told him he could call me if he was nervous for the presentation tomorrow and Iâd talk to him about it and so we went to the convenience store and⌠Iâm fine! Heâs not just trying to get in my pants, he wouldâve done that already if he wanted to.â You ramble, using logic that probably wouldnât withstand in court but works well enough when you talk a million miles an hour to a less than law-savvy subject, that subject being Jen. The subject, Jen, looks scandalized by this information.
âWhere did my innocent baby go?â She pouts, getting up to put her arms around you. âWhere did my sweet, lightweight, baby with no love life go? Sheâs sneaking out to see boys?âÂ
âJen, Iâm a grown woman.â You tell her, incredibly blasĂŠ and stiff as she embraces you in a hug. From over her shoulder, you catch Taesanâs eye. When your eyes meet, he laughs and then winces. It probably wasnât a good idea to welcome an uncontrollable movement when you have some sort of abrasion on your cheek and blood coming out of your nose. Jen pulls back to look at you and shakes her head, you can almost hear her saying they grow up so fast. Maybe this is the same kind of telepathy that goes down between her and her sisters. Maybe you get it. Jen, coming back to earth from her sappy, self-appointed caretaker meltdown, narrows her eyes and looks from you to Taesan, and then from you to Taesan, again.
She opens her mouth and lets out a puff of air as if to start speaking, but she only does so a few seconds later. âSo⌠there was no reason for me to deck him?â She asks, raising an eyebrow in genuine confusion. You nod, solemnly. Her jaw drops and her eyebrows push together. She puts her tongue in her cheek, mind reeling. This is when she realizes she gave this poor man a bloody nose and probably a black eye for no damn reason. Suddenly, she fixes her gaze on you, âyouâre the one I should be chewing out! Do you know how many staples of girl code youâve violated?! You could have died!â She exclaims, clearly ready to give you a talking-to, way worse than when you spelled âElliannâ as âEllyanne.â Sheâs like OSHA but for general female wellbeing.
You reach out to grab her hands that are moving dramatically to illustrate her point, âokay, you can chew me out after Taesan isnât bleeding out.â She seems to relax like a combative patient injected with midazolam.
âIâm not bleeding out.â He huffs, but is still holding his nose bridge, so heâs still bleeding, at least, and thatâs not exactly ideal.Â
âYou look like shit, though.â You tell him
âThanks,â he groans, âcan I get some tylenol, or something?â Yeah, he totally looks like a hurt puppy. Itâs kind of cute, you guess.
âYeah, weâll get you patched up.â You assure him, breaking away from Jen to attend to Taesan.
âNo âwe.â Only you. Donât let her punch me again.âÂ
âWeâre over the combat phase, itâs fine. Get up, do your legs still work?â You try to say your biting words as comfortingly as possible. Itâs past two in the morning, youâre too over-tired to try to pick your words so theyâll feel better for the receiver. Whatâll make Taesan feel better, physically, at least, is tylenol and making sure his nose isnât broken.
âMy legs donât, my ass hurts like hell.â Jen complains, but helps in picking Taesan up anyway.
âItâs very hard to break a tailbone, a nose, on the other handâŚâ You raise your eyebrows but say no more. Taesan gets up just fine, but still clutches his nose. âCampus clinicâs probably closed, we have a first-aid kit, though.â
Jen issues a half-hearted-sounding yet fully meant apology in the form of a mutter of âsorry for punching you, man.âÂ
âYouâre cool, man. Cool that you were looking out for her.â He gives her a small thumbs up. Itâs a weird moment of friendship between these two. For having met barely a week ago and having spent five hours together tops, these two have a more tumultuous relationship than most twin siblings at the age of nine, which is saying something considering most have chased each other with a knife by the age of five and a half. Jen has gone from asking to be the maid of honor to decking the presumed groom and now having a hopefully more stable relationship with said groom. So much plot itâs not even âfor the plotâ anymore, youâre just riding the wave of unexpected inciting events.
âThe more the merrier.â You mutter as you sling Taesanâs arm over your shoulder. Why he abets this when the damage is to his face, who knows. The more the merrier indeed in your cramped dorm, trying to ignore how the cold compress on his bruise keeps melting even though itâs so cold and the fact that you have an injured and sleep-deprived boy on your hands.
GOT GOOD
You bite the inside of your cheek, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to express your dismay. You kind of bombed your presentation.Â
Scrap that, you really bombed your presentation.Â
As you step out of the lecture hall following the sea of your peers, you step aside to press your back into a free wall. Itâs one of the moments where you need to just detach. Crossing your arms for stability, you melt into the wall. The overhead light that you can see even through your closed eyelids is obscured every so often by a moving body. This drowsiness is familiar.
Amid the frequent passings of students, the light is masked for longer than would be caused by someone in passing. You know who it is.
âHey, it wasnât that bad.â You open your eyes to a squint and see Taesan leaning against the wall next to you. Despite how you try to ignore it, youâre immediately drawn to the squashed berry purple color that blossoms on the inflamed skin under his left eye, giving way to a lighter almost green tint near his nose. Jen got him good. Your blinks are slow, the scant hours of sleep are getting to you. You slept through your alarm, foreboding you from even getting coffee before the presentation. Despite his injury, heâs smiling.
âI lost where I was like every other sentence.â You attempt to mirror his smile, but it doesnât really work, leaving you with a smile that reaches your eyes but not your lips, somehow.
âItâs Dr. Woo, youâll be fine. He doesnât care nearly as much as you do. We got all of our information out. It doesnât matter how graceful it was.â He lays out his reasons and you cock your head, weighing the possibility that heâs right.
âAre you like a vampire, or something? You donât need sleep?â
âIâm used to it.â He shrugs. Maybe living with five as many people as you do makes you sleep way less; especially since it seems like Taesan is their chaperone despite the fact that Sungho and Riwoo are older than him, youâve learned.
âYou shouldnât be. Sleep is good.â You close your eyes again, and a silence settles over you. Youâve created your own little bubble in the hallway, and it might not even include Taesan. Right now, itâs just you and your desperate need for rest. You are not the kind of person to pull an all-nighter.
âI told you you were going to crash.â He reminds you and you hum in response. âLook,â he gets your attention by putting a hand on your shoulder, âthe boys are out, come back to my place and you can take a nap. I know that your room still smells like disinfectant.â A smile creeps across your face at this. Itâs true: your room smells like the pungent iodine that you used to clean the minor abrasions on his cheekbone. You still have no idea why Jen has that much power in her.
âLead the way.âÂ
âItâs way closer to this building than it is to your building, itâs barely any walk at all.â He assures you. Regardless, you have to speed walk to keep up with the pace.
âDo you have hot chocolate, or anything?â At your drawled request, he tsks. Pressing his lips together, you take that as a no.
âIâll see what I can do. Woonhak owes me like nine favors.â He laughs a little at this, and you smile too. Unremarkably, it hasnât become spring overnight, and so the wind is still nipping at your face. You were wise enough to wear your Taesan-provided gloves, though. Looking at Taesanâs face and the way the wind makes his face a little pink, youâre pretty sure you could find the whole color palette on his face. Except blue, maybe. Youâve got the other colors covered. Red for his cheeks, orange, yellow, green, and purple for his bruise. Huh, that bruise contributes a lot. âIt��s just this way.â He says, guiding you with a pointed hand towards a complex highly similar to your own. Same red brick buildings and same overhang. The difference is that, you know from picking your roommate, this building is the apartment sector. Frankly, itâs incredible that Taesan and his roommates are all friends. You know other people who got apartments, or even quads, who arenât so happy.
As you step into the entrance way, you feel the warm air hit your face. This building is much warmer than yours, maybe thatâs a good thing. Walking up the stairs, Taesan is steady behind you. You wonder if heâs thinking about catching you like he had to the time you were drunk off your ass.
As soon as you enter the apartment dorm, your focus tunnel visions on the soft couch in the middle of the room. It looks like heaven as you step towards it. You were unfairly ripped from the comfort of your bed for that fuckass presentation and now you can return to your natural state, sleeping. You thank whatever power is out there because this is so incredibly opportune.
As soon as you shed your backpack and winter coat and collapse on the couch, youâre out like a light. No words from Taesan can wake you now, even if it is him professing his undying love for you. No, itâs up to your internal clock to make you up, lest you sleep forever.
Your internal clock does wake you up. Youâre groggy, but itâs still light out, so you couldnât have slept for so long. As you assess your situation, you notice two differences.
First, youâre warm.
A navy blue throw blanket has been carefully draped over you, and youâre pretty sure you didnât do that yourself. You bite the inside of your cheekâhappily, this time. Itâs proof he does care, and maybe youâre letting the gesture get to your head. You do⌠not like Han Taesan, right?
Second, youâre alone in Taesanâs living room.
There are no signs of life, not from his roommates nor from the mountain himself. Thatâs more puzzling. You would have assumed he would have stayed for one reason or another, maybe he went out to get hot chocolate? He told you that he would have Woonhak do it.
Looking around the room, you take in the sights. Thereâs a modest TV with various video game consoles, there is a section of the room clearly designated for guitars, and itâs remarkably clean. Not too bad for five early 20-somethings and one 18 year old. Itâs kind of impressive, actually. There isnât any leftover food out and even the dishes in the sink have been rinsed, if not thoroughly washed. You pat down the area around you in search of your phone, mainly to check the time, but also to figure out where the hell Taesan went. Something about his absence hurts your heart in an uncomfortable way. You would have liked to see him when you woke up. Still⌠you do not like Han Taesan⌠do you? No, no. You donât like him, thatâs silly. Heâs just your partner for a group project.
As you locate your phone, you hear the door open behind you and you swing your head around to see Taesan standing in the doorway with a hand behind his back and a bag in the hand thatâs visible to you. Another bag, nice.
âGood morning.â He smiles at your state. The way he looks at you suggests your hair is out of order. You fail obviously as you try to subtly sort it out.
âI had a great nap. You have a good napping couch.â You bring a hand up to rub your right eye even though your mom says it causes astigmatism. It would suck to have contacts in right about now.
âWell,â he says, setting down the bag on the counter, âI have your hot chocolate.â Youâre pretty sure your face lights up at this, itâs the perfect thing for this kind of dingy day. âAnd,â he continues, âI got it from a cafĂŠ near here; store-bought isnât as good.â He takes a cardboard carrier out of the bag and presents his finds to you, two lidded cups.
âYou sure know the way to my heart.â You mean that on a deeper level that you hope he doesnât catch. âWhatâs behind your back?â You ask, pointing to the obvious hand still tucked behind him.Â
He looks sheepish and brings the hand to his front, âI got these for you.â His cool act is far gone, he seems almost timid. In his left hand he grasps a bouquet of an assortment of colorful flowers. There are assorted yellows, blues, pinks, purples, and reds. Itâs like a sunset wrapped in brown paper and tied in a pretty twine bow.
âTaesan!â You exclaim excitedly, jumping up from the couch to go collect your gift. âWhy?â You poke. Heâs quiet for a second, the question seems to echo throughout the room. A chorus of âwhy.â You meet his eyes for just a second, but the shared glance makes your heart beat faster. He seems to bite his tongue, thereâs a shining reflection of the kitchen light in his dark brown eyes. You donât see them crinkle up, indicative of a straight face.
He swallows like his throat is thick, âI got them for you because I like you⌠I like you romantically.â
Youâre not sure if your heart swells or drops.
From this one statement, you learn two things. You learn that Han Taesan likes you, and you learn that you like Han Taesan. You really like Han Taesan. You like the way heâs cold but kind and the way his bangs fall and his endless care for his roommates and his hardworking nature.Â
You like Han Taesan.
You take the bouquet in your hands, analyzing the flowers. You notice theyâre mostly tulips, but flanked by carnations, babyâs breath, and bluebells. A smile grows on your face as you look back up at him. He looks absolutely terrified. Itâs not worth it to tease him here. Heâs vulnerable, you should be too.
You begin to open your mouth, but before you can, he continues in an attempt at defense, âlisten to me, please. I thought you were cute and smart even before the party and all of those incidents, but now that I know you I canât not tell you. Youâre witty and stubborn and playful and itâs so easy to talk to you. You were cute when you were drooling, I didnât know that was possible. You make fun of me but I like it because youâre so kind. I⌠I like you.â He confesses, heâs talking fast and you think your heart might burst with excitement. Excitement isnât the right wordâeuphoria? Joy? Happiness? Exhilaration? No word is quite right for how you feel about Taesan. âThe tulips symbolize love.â He says under his breath and the flowers take on a whole new meaning. You feel like a tulip. Tulips symbolize love.
The smile that bursts across your face makes his eyebrows release all their tension immediately, âTaesan, I like you too. I really like you,â you tell him, âtulips symbolize love.â You look down at the bouquet and see the array of tulips that smile back at you.
âCan I kiss you? Iâm not drunk, I swear.â He promises. The allusion to your first meeting makes you laugh. You met with an ask for a kiss, and now he confesses with an ask for a kiss.
âYes.â You whisper, and he throws his arms around you, pressing his forehead to yours. You sway like that for a moment, you feel the cold of his jacket against your arms and the pressure of his hand on the small of your back. You look at him and in his eyes you see him. No walls, just you two. Just you and Taesan.
You wrap your arms around his neck, one hand still holding the bouquet and pull his lips to yours. Warmth blossoms in your chestâhis kiss is soft and tender and he tastes like mint. Mint might be your new favorite flavor. His lips fit perfectly with yours. You feel the soft press of his fingers into your back, pulling you closer to him. Your lips part slightly and youâre out of breath before he even starts to pull away. His kiss is just like him, just when you think you know him all, he shows you a new surprise, something new. After stalling for just a second, he pulls you back to him and deepens the kiss. You could kiss this minty boy forever.
When he pulls away, he rests his forehead against yours again, fluttering his eyes open and shut.
âI wrote a song about this. A serenade.â He says breathlessly.
Even in the dead of winter, you think your heart melts all over again.
NOTES: Shoutout Hartford Whalers even tho they sports disbanded! SINGING MAN CAMEO! The singing man is a genuine character in my life. Living in the city center of a major city means I get LOTS of people doing weird shit like the emoji guy (who wears outfits only with bright fucking emojis, my friends have seen him too, heâs wacky), the tree guy (a man who always walks around with a fallen branch on his head, no idea why), and the supercar medical worker (woman in scrubs who drives down the streets with a loud ass car that looks like one of those fuckass shoes with big holes in them you know what im talking about the kidney shoes). I take a pic and keep them in a folder on my phone called ârecurring characters.â I have never seen the singing man. He walks past my house every weekday at 11pm and I like to have my windows open and he sings loud Spanish ballads. I love him. Singing man my beloved. Sorry this is a slowburn, it was forced out of me i fear. is this a slowburn? methinks so.
#bonedo#bnd#boynextdoor#boynextdoor taesan#han dongmin#han taesan#giant mountain#kpop fluff#bonedo fluff#bnd fluff#boynextdoor fluff#taesan x reader#han taesan x reader#han taesan fluff#taesan fluff#willeeam shakespeare#kpop x reader#dongmin x reader#han dongmin x reader#long ass fic#i love taesan#taesan
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#i think some 'culturally christian' beliefs include:#inflicting punishment for Wrongs. comeuppance and the like. the notion of Hell but instead it's like... prison. or revenge#judgement and worth. even if it's no longer God doing it. the idea that someone can be judged
The concept of inflicting punishment for sin is not only not exclusive to Christianity, it doesn't even originate with Christianity. Christianity literally got it from Judaism (with some Plato mixed in). Jewish hell is (mostly) not eternal,* but it definitely exists and its purpose is to punish the dead for sins they didn't atone for in life. A lot of progressive Jews no longer believe in hell (or more generally that G-d punishes people for sin), but it's absolutely a part of our tradition and has been for millennia.
*Some Jewish texts imply it may be eternal for really bad sins like murder, idolatry, and gossip.
Non-Christian-religious tumblr, and particularly jumblr, seems to have this sense that everything bad about "religion" is just people misattributing an exclusively/primarily Christian doctrine to all religions and while that absolutely does happen, a lot of it is people not being willing to look at the dark side of their own religions.
More generally, the term "cultural Christian" doesn't make sense in the context of US Protestantism where belief is the defining feature of membership and calling US atheists (and non-religious people generally) who were raised Protestant "culturally Christian" identifies a religious minority with the group that is actively persecuting it.
As I've said before, I think at this point the discussion of cultural Christianity has become almost entirely nonproductive. The ex Christians and Christians who were open to the idea have largely accepted it, the ex Christians who arenât (whether due to trauma or stubbornness or whatever) arenât going to and in many cases canât without actively traumatizing themselves. Iâm honestly not seeing anyone who is being helped by the conversation at this point; if people who are clearly unable to concede the point are the only ones the people arguing for cultural Christianity are responding to (and at this point I think thatâs the case), then the argument becomes pointless and is in violation of several key Jewish principles on the proper use of speech.
I think maybe the reason the term âculturally Christianâ is jarring for some people is that as Jews we come at this from the understanding that there are Jews who are straight up atheist and still do a lot of Jewish culture things, and a lot of the time we donât use belief as a measuring stick for how Jewish you are because all of us are part of the nation no matter what. Meanwhile, the amount of Christian you are seems to be a function of how much you believe. So to us, describing something as âculturally Christianâ doesnât imply belief. But to them, since Christian culture is the default, the primary way to be Christian is to believe, so if we are calling them in any way Christian, we must be thinking that they believe.
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.Seen your tiny motorcycle cybertronion reader. Can l ask for like the complete opposite. Just a massive hulking reader and the TFO characters reactions, to put it in perspective, reader is like only a few inches smaller then darkwing without a cog. Please?
TFO chars/Reader [hcs]
tw: none. word count: ~1,3k additional tags: cybertronian!reader, massive!reader, gender-neutral!reader, cogless!reader chars included: B-127, Orion Pax, Elita-One, D-16, Sentinel Prime, Darkwing, Airachnid a/n: thank you for your request and your patience~
B-127
He's a magnet for bigger bots. The little đ managed to befriend at least 3 new bots that ended up being taller than him, so it's no surprise he will stick to you like a tiny coala. Oh, imagine how much bigger you can get once you have your t-cog.
If you're stuck with him in the waste management, I can see him preferring to sleep on top of you instead of on the conveyor belt. It doesn't even matter if you let him do that or not; once you two fall into your recharge, the next thing you see when you wake up is his face. right. in front. of you.
And it's not really his fault! Seriously! Even though his attention span is kinda short, he does understand your message, 'stay on your side, and don't get too close'. His only problem is his own behavior when he's unconscious. In the previous headcanons B-127 is very talkative when he dreams about something, so there's a big possibility that đ also moves a lot in his sleep.
â So yeah. It doesn't really matter if you mind his clingy behavior or not; by the end of the night, the little yellow mech rolls over, whines and calls out for you, like a kid missing his favorite, big teddy bear.
The other interesting detail I see in TFO is the first fight between Death Trackers and High Guard/Main Four. đ gets on top of Orion while the latter in his vehicle mode, and that gives me an idea how B-127 might act with reader that is much bigger than him.
â B-127's affection is not only shown through the quality time. Yes, if you're not already friends with him, he will be so excited to get to know you better. I mean, how many cogless bots this big ever exist? Not to mention, he has never gotten the chance to socialize. Poor thing was stuck for Primus knows how long, so excuse him when he gets so chatty with you at first, even though your dialogue is really one-sided at first.
âHow did you get this big?â
âCan you reach for the top of the ceiling??â
âIf I consume as much energon as you, will I get this big too??!â â đ.
â The more comfortable he gets with you and vice versa, the more he will want to be as close as he can get.
â When he has troubles reaching for something, he will get sad, until a light bulb appears above his head when he thinks of âoh wait, I have my best friendââ, and he's already running off to find you.
Overall, B-127 is really amazed by you, but if you think about it...he's just really enthusiastic about everything and everyone. đ probably jumps and climbs on you whenever he has a chance, just to sit on your shoulder and ask you to carry him around; maybe even throw him into the air and catch up. He's really, really...touch starved.
Orion Pax
You two are some sort of similar, but in a little different way than one might think at first. You're very, veryâ easy to spot. In Orion's case, he's famous for making his pranks and running to the library, only to get smacked later by the guards or supervisors when he starts a fight with the others. In your case, it's really simple. In the crowd of cogless miners, you tower over any of them, and only supervisors can match you in this one.
Orion is really friendly, and he has no trouble making friends with other bots even if you're not interested. Maybe, like Elita, you're dedicated to your job and want to get to the top of your ranks, but it's really hard when that blue-and-red bot follows you around to throw a joke or two. He's dedicated too, you know!
I feel terrible for both you and D-16, since being around Orion Pax means only one thing. Lots of new, unbelievable experiences. Sometimes, this new unbelievable experience means getting punched for trying to intervene.
â But you're more lucky than D-16. If you think about it, D-16 is strong enough to hold Darkwing's punch, and it doesn't look like the supervisor tried to be 'gentle' on any of them (and that's all while D was two times smaller than Darkwing!).
â Now imagine Orion running to you every time the troublemaker is pursued by your oh so angry supervisors! Pax hides behind your much bigger frame, and if he had been a little faster, he'd successfully get them off his tail, but unfortunately...they saw him, so once Darkwing marches towards you to yank that annoying miner from behind you, the other big boy only stops half his way.
If only it was one of the other tiny cogless, he'd deal with both of them once and for all for even slightly disrespecting him. But once you cross your servos over your chassis, showing that you're not going to back away, he will step aside. This time, Orion was lucky to have you around, but that doesn't mean you will always be there to help him...
â Don't get me wrong, Orion is not that bot who will run away every time the consequences of his actions are getting to him. He understands that you have your own goals, and he doesn't really want to get in your way. đ will apologize profusely if you get in trouble because of him, but he can't promise you that he won't do it again...but that is usual Orion Pax for you.
Elita-One
Realistically, it's hard to impress Elita. Mainly because she's the type who is married to her job, so as long as it's not related to the scores of her team, you will not get anything more than spared glances here and there.
â I think it's a big rarity for someone like cogless reader to tower over other cogless bots, so it's natural for her to first act like âhow theâ?â before she brushes it off, focusing on the more important stuff to do. This is a blessing and a curse at the same time, since you probably hoped to at least impress her in some sort of way. Your co-workers and friends love to hang out with you and lean on you to rest a little, but noâ everyone but her loves you! How unfair.
It will take a lot of effort and work to catch her attention. Firstly, don't become trouble. Secondly, be natural (take notes from Orion!).
â Elita, like a natural leader, really appreciates traits like determination or inspiration. There are two possible situations when she might grow closer to you: 1) where you are leader of your own group, leading the other bots through dangerous mines. 2) where you're her second in command.
It is important to use your quick thinking and stay cool during dangerous situations, so when the explosive accident in the mines happened, you were the one who saved everyone, not leaving other injured bots behind.
She was scared as hell when she saw that you didn't leave the mines with her when she clearly ordered you to leave. But seeing you walk out with your teammates safe helped her spark to calm down a bit.
Maybe you're not so bad yourself after all.
D-16
â there's something similar to this reaction, when he meets you for the first time, hehe.
 D-16 is one of the tallest in the group of cogless bots, or so he thought that, until you show up.
There's something that clicks inside his mind when he sees you, and he just can't take his optics off you until Orion elbows him in his side, making the silver-colored mech hiss and rub the spot with a painful expression. You didn't catch him staring, did you? That would be too awkward.
I think D-16, just like Elita doesn't actually mind your size, but he's more open towards his feelings, and it's even harder to hide when you two get closer.
For him, short or big, you are still someone he wants to protect from any harm. He's kind of selfless in this one, ready to grab you and pull away from any possible dangerous situation. And if he can hide Orion somewhere, it's so much harder to do the same for you, so he will bring his poor negotiation skills and somehow not get you two in the end of the list for promotion.
âBut if you're a peaceful and hardworking bot, just like him, I really hope that it's you who will protect D-16 this time. It's just hard not to get defensive every time he has to be punished for something he didn't even do. Justice for D-16!
He will be surprised at first when someone stands up for him against your supervisors, so he is speechless for a good time. Slowly, he will warm up to that new feeling, which is...actually very nice, being on the receiving side.
You two always look after each other, and it's easy to become good friends with him. D-16, used to the role of protector in his group, still has some habits when he sticks his nose somewhere where he shouldn't be, so you should definitely look after him.
Sentinel Prime
Sentinel takes a good look through your profile when he gets notification about the group of protororms being created. One of them is unusually too big for someone cogless.
His reaction would not be really positive at first, mainly because he has a superiority complex. I hc him as really jealous of Prime's not only because of their status but because they also reminded him that they will always be higher than him, in both senses. He was smaller than them, which makes him feel even less of himself (despite the fact that they never did anything to insult him). Sentinel hates when others look down at him, and thankfully, you're not tall enough to tower over him...
âbut he probably gets paranoid because of you. what if one day another cogless not shows up but this time both stronger and bigger? no,no, such a silly thoughts. there's no way someone can be better than him.
If you somehow get his attention, enough to make him personally approach you, sort of like D-16 and Orion's situation, he will be so pissed off behind the scene! Sentinel would never show it clearly, mainly because he has to maintain that perfect leader image, but it's hard not to notice how the corner of his mouth twitches or how he shakes your servo a little too tight...
But Sentinel would not be Sentinel if he didn't try to use everything for his own business. You're strong, tall, and can do a much better job than your short coworkers! A perfect worker, and that one bot everyone should look up to for inspiration!
Darkwing
Another bot who gets so pissed off just because of the way you were created, even though you had no power over it, but that's just your usual life as cogless on society built by Sentinel...
Darkwing is a pain in the aft for most miners; he will bark orders at them and throw some insults, but for some reason, he's a little more scared to approach you directly.
â Your supervisor might give you this glance as he gossips with his coworker, and whenever you look over your shoulder to find who keeps staring at you, he immediately looks away, as if he didn't do that for like a good hour or so.
It's not hard to notice that his behavior towards you is different. Whenever your friend gets scolded by him, he will turn to you to do the sameâ and he just mutters a quick âyes, you too, back to work...coglessâ.
Darkwing doesn't look like a good fighter, to me. He mostly shows his strength against weak and defenseless bots, and he knows that they have no chances against him. He is easily startled and can be stopped by cogless who dare to go against him. There's a tiny part of him that understands that, so he will bite you with his words instead of hitting.
Airachnid
She's pretty damn tall too, as she is half a head taller than Sentinel, but that is mostly due to her spider legs. Even then, đˇď¸ lady has her optics down at you, and her presence is already sending chills down your spine, despite her not mumbling a single word.
There's not too many opportunities for you to meet her; at least I can't find her being interested in miners, unless it is related to her job, like one of the tasks Sentinel gave her.
It can be like, that Sentinel suspects you of being a possible rebel, or you somehow got too close to revealing the truth, so he sends her to spy on you. Maybe she meets you when she accompanies Sentinel during one of those fan-meeting situations.
Anyway, Airachnid is more similar to Elita in this case. Spider lady is hard to read, especially since she always stays quiet, only occasionally giving you a half smirk or laughing at something, making the situation even more awkward than it is.
There's a really tiny possibility that if you prove yourself to be loyal to Sentinel Prime, obedient and hardworking, given the fact that you already received your promotion, she might start thinking about taking you under her wing.
â If you get a cog, what kind of alt mode will you get? A tank? A jet? Maybe a ship or train? Only Primus knows, but she's a little excited to find it out if only Sentinel puts down his pride just a little and agrees to that.
#transformers x reader#transformers one x reader#orion pax x reader#d 16 x reader#sentinel prime x reader#airachnid x reader#elita one x reader#darkwing x reader#bumblebee x reader#optimus prime x reader#megatron x reader
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With a couple days to chew on it I've gotta say I've really come to appreciate the Untwist surrounding Nina's character. She's coded as a specific kind of guy, right, who shows up in a lot of Ensemble superhero stuff and Gunn's superhero stuff specifically- the innocuous neurotic with a middling power who ultimately comes in clutch at the last minute and demonstrates why they actually did belong on the team the entire time. "Heart is an awesome power", in TVtropes parlance. Polka-Dot man and Ratcatcher, Vigilante, Groot to an extent in the first Guardians movie.
So you spend seven episodes with this one member of the ensemble who never kills anyone, doesn't try and doesn't want to, gets haplessly dragged from nightmarish situation to nightmarish situation with no say in anything, spends a significant amount of the show's runtime trapped in a goddamn bathtub, and you've been trained to assume that she's going to get some kind of big moment that retroactively justifies all of that, demonstrates why Waller thought she was a good addition to the team. And then it turns out, no, she actually was just fundamentally poorly suited to this lifestyle. She had a superhero origin, the same kind of emergency power-granting medical intervention that Cyborg and Beast Boy got, but it turns out that Gunn's version of the DCU is a weird enough place that that's just a kind of thing that can happen to children sometimes, not something that guarantees that you'll actually become a viable superhero. She genuinely had no business being on the team, except that she looked weird enough that she got legally unpersoned and handed over to Waller, and Waller thought she looked weird enough that there was no reason not to try pointing her like a gun to see if she could do anything useful. No skin off her nose if she's a dud munition- you don't end up on the Suicide Squad because you're hard to replace, you end up on the squad because you're available and there won't be any blowback if you go missing.
This is, of course, one of the tensions that Suicide Squad and associated projects occasionally run into- you need to strike a balance between staffing the team with villains who're competent enough that Waller doesn't come off like a moron for entrusting them with anything important, and villains who're inept, underwhelming or out-of-control enough to remind you that half the point of the squad thematically is that it's a corrupt and morally bankrupt idea that on a really good day breaks even on solving as many problems as it creates. The usual fix is to include some number of mauve shirts who're included entirely to die badly- Slipknot in the Ayer film, Mindboggle in the first arc of the original Ostrander run, Voltiac in the first arc of the New 52 run, Most of Rick Flag's decoy team in the opening of The Suicide Squad. All played for some combination of shock-value and kafkaesque dark humor (did anyone check if Weasel can swim?) but rarely played for tragedy. These deaths are tone-setters, too early for you to care enough for it to be tragic. Nina is a well-disguised Slipknot, with her pointless, anticlimactic death bumped to the end of the story in a way that lets you get attached to her- which in turn finally, finally allows the narrative to hammer home that what keeps happening to the Slipknots and Javelins in these stories is fucked up. Nina didn't belong here! She's the only one of these people who doesn't have a codename! She gets the big, heartfelt you-can-do-it- you're-one-of-us speech from The Bride and Phosphorous, she strides out to finally get her Big Moment, and then no, she really really isn't one of them, and all that happens is that she ends up getting gutted like a. like a. Hey. Hang on
#WAS THAT A FUCKING FISH FLENSING KNIFE#OH MY GOD#creature commandos spoilers#DCU#creature commandos#nina mazursky#james gunn#suicide squad#the suicide squad#anyway in the final analysis pretty good show that desperately needed an additional episode to breathe#thoughts#meta#effortpost
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One aspect of TikTok that's faded, but which was the major driver of panic about it for most of its life, was the TikTok Challenge: the moral panic about dangerous or offensive trends on TikTok that were taking over.
And I do mean moral panic because even basic research turns up that the majority of TikTok Challenge stories were unfounded, or exaggerated.
Many of them straight-up didn't happen. There are trends that never had a challenge attached at all, like Momo, but others were never a thing on TikTok at all. The stories have a similar form to them. For instance, there was once the "shoot up your school challenge" that sparked a huge series of warnings and cries to repeal Section 230 and ban this sick filth...and then, at the very end of those stories, an acknowledgement that there was no source video - that no one had found evidence it existed on TikTok at all.
Let's define a "challenge", because any bad thing that happens on TikTok was branded a "challenge". But in my view, it has to contain, well, a challenge: some element of showing yourself doing it, and then daring others to do it, too. As we'll see, it's actually pretty difficult to find evidence many challenges ever existed
One of the more well-documented is the alleged Benadryl challenge. In mid-2020, a trio of teens overdosed on Benadryl and claimed they got the idea from a TikTok claiming you can get high off taking it. They were treated at the hospital, and TikTok deleted the video in question and blocked the relevant hashtags. But then a couple months later stories about Benadryl overdose deaths started attributing it to the "Benadryl challenge". But...all they were doing was citing the original story as proof the challenge existed. A story that doesn't include a challenge, and where the TikTok video referenced had been deleted and the topic blocked. When a reporter actually investigated, they found no evidence of any challenge videos, and found that, just as TikTok had said, the search itself was blocked. In other words, and this is a trend you see a lot in coverage, the existence of a panic about something on TikTok meant everything sprang from TikTok: because of that story, any teen overdosing on Benadryl *had* to have gotten the idea from a TikTok challenge - TikTok had to be grafted on to every relevant story regardless of relevance, and each new story including it became more evidence it was all down to TikTok. Because teens would never do something irresponsible without an app...would they?
So let's talk about the elephant in the room. Tide pods. The Tide pod challenge was a thing, but it was not a thing to the extent that the media made it into a thing. So how many teens ate Tide pods?
86. Non-stop global media coverage for months over 86 teens doing a stupid stunt. While over 10,000 kids were accidentally exposed to laundry detergent in the year before with hardly any coverage. Discussions over, hey, maybe memes aside it's bad for children to have this dangerous thing look so colorful essentially stopped completely thanks to this panic, during which time stories about children unknowingly eating Tide pods were folded into the panic and attributed to the Tide Pod Challenge. Discussion of actual product safety, discussion of how to prevent harm to over TEN THOUSAND people, had to give way to a moral panic about 86
86 sounds bad, but is a really small number in the scheme of things - and absolutely disproportionate to the media coverage, which lasted for months and endlessly blasted all young people for eating Tide Pods.
There are others. For instance, after Kia failed to include an anti-theft device in their cars, thefts of Kia cars skyrocketed, and some young joyriders posted videos of this on TikTok and other platforms - and posted guides on how to do it yourself. These videos were removed, but somehow "someone posted a guide to steal an easy-to-steal car online" turned into "there's a challenge on TikTok daring you to steal cars" which then turned into attributing all thefts of the car without anti-theft tech in it to TikTok. But in this case, there is a source video, an original video that made stealing Kias look cool.
It was posted on Youtube.
"Slap a Teacher" went viral, and was a complete hoax, as was NyQuil Chicken. Many of the videos in the "Devious Licks" challenge were, as well, hoaxes. These stories go viral enough to spark a well-meaning FDA warning saying hey, don't do this, which is taken as evidence that people were doing it. But in just about every case, it's relatively few people, or the challenge didn't exist. The stories have a familiar form: description of death or incident, statement from concerned parents, interviews with cops and maybe a child psychologist, and then a denial from TikTok. What these stories rarely, if ever, include is any citations of where on TikTok the challenge began, or any independent research into them. Notably, even stories admitting it's a hoax often go on to talk about how we need to control it anyway. When TikTok said a video didn't exist on their platform, it's natural to suspect the social media corporation of lying, but oddly they appear to have been telling the truth most of the time, and were rightly saying content didn't exist or only made up a few videos stopped early on.
(I'm mainly talking about America, but this happened internationally, too. There was, as I understand it, a major panic about the "Charlie Charlie" challenge in Latin America - indeed, it was the panic that brought it to the Anglosphere - but it was, you know. Literally just Ouija boards/Bloody Mary. Meanwhile, the "Blue Whale" challenge started in Russia, off a reporter essentially imagining a game because two teens who died by suicide had images of blue whales on their computers, but there's no evidence of any challenge - but the press, normally reluctant to report on suicides, rushed to give breathless coverage to teen suicides - which, after all, only happen due to the Blue Whale game - likely causing copycats of a game that never existed. Most ridiculously, when a video of a creepy statue of Michael Jackson went viral, Mexican police warned parents about the "Ayuwoki Challenge". Which was...looking at a creepy statue of Michael Jackson online)
But let's address the real elephant in the room. Of the TikTok challenges that really took place to some degree, what are they? Devious Licks was about vandalizing school property. The Tide Pod challenge and its ilk were about eating something stupid. The Milk Crate challenge and its like were about doing dangerous stunts.
And I experienced TikTok challenges like this when I was in high school. I remember this group of kids who egged one of their number on to punch glass, which shredded their hand; I remember people being dared to snort pixie stix dust off the table; I remember people stealing the soap dispensers from the bathroom and the mouse balls out of the mice, because oh wait, it wasn't TikTok challenges, all that happened when I was in 9th grade in 2004
The TikTok challenges that are *real* are just...routine teen misbehavior? Being attributed to an app ruining the kid's minds. Teenagers have been peer pressuring each other into doing stupid things since time immemorial; it didn't start because of phones.
The people who spread these panics did or saw equally dumb things when they were that age. Now that they're older, and parents themselves, it's scary and dangerous. How do you reconcile that? You don't - what you did as a kid was an innocent prank, the same acts happening now are scary and Never Happened When I Was A Kid. So there must be some explanation. In the 80s it was metal music, in the 90s & 00s it was video games, and in the 2020s it was TikTok Challenges. There always has to be some media corrupting the youth into doing what the youth have always done, because "you grew up and became more mature and aware of your own mortality" is not an option you want to dwell on. Meanwhile, actual harmful trends go unnoticed; most of the people who spent a year dunking on teens bc 86 people ate Tide Pods have no idea about how many teen boys have become, essentially, cultists for figures like Andrew Tate or how hard they're being recruited; coverage was lavished on challenges that never existed, but not on true crime obsessives starting a hate campaign claiming a trans woman on TikTok was a serial killer
There are two other factors here. One is a drive to not take the issues facing young people seriously. This has been a long-term function for moral panics - since it's easier to say kids don't face any real problems, they're just being corrupted by outsiders, and we just need to ban video games or "Satanic" music or Slenderman or TikTok challenges to 'fix' it. You had real problems as a teen; but these kids today, they're just whiners. If teens no longer overdose or act out or harm themselves for any reason but Being Told To Online, then there's no need to look any deeper at society
The other is that the defining moral panic since 2020 has been the idea that young people are a barely-literate fascistic mob of unruly hooligans who are acting out More Than Ever, a moral panic that's being used to push legislation that harshly cracks down on the rights of young people and their access to society and their ability to be independent from their parents. But I heard some anecdotes that kids are, like, totally mean now when they never were before so it's probably true, and we should make them their parent's property to stop it
#moral panics#long post#tiktok#sorry for the novel these are absolutely not the notes for another project#i'm putting out like this bc TikTok's ban makes the subject moot and hard to research
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DREAM replied to another Reddit post!
Transcript under the cut!
Ludwig slightly misremembered, and didn't explain in a super fair way imo it makes me sound way worse than what actually happened
tldr;
I dmd ludwig suggesting he make a video, and offering myself for questions
ludwig replied and eventually said that I jokingly called one of his friends a whore
Due to the fact that a friend of Nicolas Cantu's had recently falsely said that "I got slapped at a party for calling a girl a whore", I asked him if that's what it was about.
He said no, and that he can't tell me more information because he doesn't think it's worth resurfacing it for her sake
I replied with a message about that, and then said I'd also provide context to the other situation just in case he was just telling me it's not about that situation (to "protect" the person's identity) even though it was, because I had no idea about any other situation.
Here's the important parts of that message that I sent him:
oh well unfortunately I guess I can't talk about this because I don't know what you're talking about at all, but I will say this as a general statement; A lot of people spread false stuff about me, or exaggerate, and have done it a lot ESPECIALLY during all of this stuff going on, as it's easy to sensationalize things because of how "hated" I seem. Intentionally, OR unintentionally. I have had to clear up so many different false stories of me being weird, or just a total shit bag, because the rumor mill runs super fucking strong when you're getting shit on 24/7. And every time it's just "oh okay that makes sense". It's not always someone lying, but it's almost always someone not realizing that exaggerating and mischaracterizing what they're saying can be a big deal, and isn't something they should do. I have never randomly called someone a whore, I have never called someone a whore derogatorily, and I would never do that.
I will completely and fully say that I have called friends of mine jokingly whore's / sluts / whatever, GUYS ANDS GIRLS, but only with people that joke along with it, or have expressly said they don't care, and again, only with friends of mine. This situation has been a lesson to just never say it at all though, because it's being used to make me out as a bad person. I would never use it that way, never ever meant anything negative when I've ever said it, and never have used it to insult or demean anyone, in any way.
I don't know the situation you're talking about, and obviously it's seemingly a bad look to have "multiple instances" where I called a girl a whore lmao, but I just cannot fathom that I called a stranger a whore, even jokingly, regardless of whether I was drunk or not. If I actually did, I would absolutely want to apologize and clear up anything that I possibly can with them, because it's upsetting to know that I made anyone upset or made them feel badly. I would like to say though, that it's not unreasonable to think that it is a misrepresentation of what actually happened, or is being looked at through a negative tint given recent events, when if this wasn't all going on, it would've been viewed as "oh that's obviously a joke". Given the fact that I have been a bit of a punching bag for a bit online, and you never know what motivations people have to spread things. Idk when this would've been as well, because like I said, the Nicolas stuff was pretty eye opening in a lot of ways, including specifically how people feel about those words in general. Which I never really thought about, and again, I've always been extremely careful and delicate with how I interact with anyone I've just met.
I NEVER would demean or speak down on someone like that. If that did actually happen, it was naivety on my part and not malice, and it's a word I'm removing from my vocabulary, and I hope I get a chance to apologize to them. But again, I have no idea what you're specifically talking about, so I probably won't get a chance, or even confirmation that it happened.
Either way, I understand why he didn't reply (I sent walls of text) and don't fault him for it. Although, the way this was said is annoying!
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One of the things that I never stop thinking about is the lack of any âhappyâ endings in Black Sails (putting aside Schrodingerâs Flint and Silverâs role in that. Itâs been done). Madi is the most obvious one to me: time and time again she demonstrates how willing she is to sacrifice everything for the cause and the war including her own life - a decision that is taken from her by Silverâs actions instead replaced of the treaty which she explicitly rejects multiple times and is in complete opposition to what sheâs tried to achieve. Sheâs also entirely alone in her opposition to the treaty, putting her in a position where she either becomes Silverâs wife in Treasure Island, leaving her entire life behind to run an inn or (if you make Max Silverâs wife in TI) being the sole person still trying to achieve the same goal that previously had money and ships and fighters backing it.Â
Anne and Jack are slightly less obvious. Jackâs obsession with being remembered and having an important legacy is brought crashing back to reality in the Gurthrieâs parlour with the realisation that people are far more interested in lies that paint his friends as monsters than any resemblance of the truth - Flintâs vision of the future coming true before he even speaks it. The flag that everyone associates with piracy - his main legacy - is âfineâ and the future of piracy in Nassau essentially has to remain a secret (when I can only imagine he wants to yell from the rooftops that he fucking won). Anne!! The amount of times she expresses the desire to leave piracy behind with Jack and have something away from that life and the amount of times Jack promises her that once he accepts the pardon so he can keep his name and then once they defeat the governor, then thatâs it. And instead - they carry on. Because if Jack does of course she will follow! And because Black Sails is a show that follows the vague contours of history, pretty soon Jack is hung, Mary has died and Anne is imprisoned for thirteen years (depending on how you view the historical debate around her fate, thatâs just my personal view).
And of course, this leaves Max (with her ending being the best on the surface) with the people closer to her having disappeared. Her existence is still very much built on sand and looking to history England returns to Nassau, and all sheâs built will be gone. Ultimately, Vane is right, the empire survives on the idea of trading submission for comfort - but even that isnât true! That traded comfort doesn't last for a meaningful amount of time and she's back to the same place she started.
#well i did the thing!#i'm sure i'll add things honestly but i have too many thoughts and not enough processing power in my brain#black sails#endings tag#madi bs#max bs#anne bonny#jack rackham#bs meta#black sails meta
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The Problem of Religion in Harry Potter (or, what is Wizard God?)
tl; dr: I wish more hp fics did something with religion and the wizarding world
so to state my credentials up front: I've read a lot of hp fanfiction, a little on the Reformation and religious history--like, I have probably more background knowledge than the average person but I am very emphatically not an expert and have never actually taken a class specifically on any kind of religious history, and I'm an ex-Catholic who did ten ish years of religion classes. There are probably a LOT more people more qualified to talk about this than me but whatever I've never actually seen very much meta written out on this specific issue so I'm giving it a try. (if you have written or read such meta, please send me recs)
ahh the Problem of Religion one of the great unsolved mysteries of the hp world building (similar issues include What the Fuck is Going on with Ireland, How Does the Ministry Actually Work, What is the Population, etc) and I call it 'unsolved' because the fandom has no massively popular solution (like Lordships for the Problem of the Wizengamot) and in general tends to just not think about it, much like JKR originally did. Now IMO she probably intended most wizards to be, like, generically Church of England or whatever without much investment--basically copying the Muggle equivalent whenever it isn't spelled out how the two worlds differ, which is I think a lot of her un-filled-out world building is meant to be. Which. OK. You can do that, but, you know, religion is a very very important aspect of worldbuilding and in my opinion ignoring it and expecting it to be just the same as 1990s Muggle Britain is uninteresting and lazy.
This (wizards are meant to be some kind of Christian and probably Church of England just for simplicity's sake) is evidenced by things like Hogwarts having Christmas and Easter breaks, James and Lily having a Bible quote picked out by Dumbledore on their tombstone, and Draco Malfoy, most emblematically wizard of wizard characters who can be taken as a potential baseline, automatically saying things like 'Good God'. Which, you know, implies that the idea of a single God, and probably the Judaeo-Christian God because that's the same cultural background as the rest of Britain, is taken for granted by wizarding society. It doesn't necessarily imply anything about Draco's or even the Malfoys' personal beliefs, and of course you have other characters saying things like 'Oh my Merlin' and "Morgana" and things like that. Which in my opinion wasn't meant to be indications of some kind of Merlin or Morgana worship but more quirky and fun flavor things of the kind jkr loves to include without thinking out the implications. But you absolutely can take those statements that way--this post is absolutely not meant to dictate how people want to headcanon and I am absolutely here for giving wizards a well thought out pagan or Non-Christian religion, I just don't think that was the author's intent. There's also plenty of other things that imply Wizarding cultural Christianity that I'm not remembering off the top of my head.
And, of course, much better writers than me have extensively discussed all the Christian themes in HP. Of course, themes don't need to affect how people worldbuild in fanfic.
So: with HP canon, we are looking at a society that is probably culturally Christian and probably (key word) intended to be Church of England. But, because JKR wasn't putting much thought into it and basically just took a Chrisitian bedrock of society for granted, the implications of this are not really explored at all. So what I'm interested in is how fandom deals with it.
Mostly, that is...not at all, either taking cultural Christianity in the Wizarding World for granted the way JKR does or by ind of handwaving that wizards have evolved beyond the need for religion and that's just how it is. And that's perfectly fine! Not everyone wants to come up with a full, working, wizard society, and even if they are trying to worldbuild some aspects of wizarding society religion is often ignored, because people don't want to deal with it for often valid reasons (religious trauma, just disinterest, grew up agnostic, not Christian but thinks wizards probably are etc, etc, etc, ) Personally I wish more fics delved into what wizarding religious belief actually is, but to put it bluntly, that's just me. And I have never dealt with religion in my own fics. So don't takethis as judgement at all.
But there are interesting headcanons when people do choose to try and worldbuild religion in HP.
Fom what I've seen, one of the major ways to deal with religion in HP (aside from not dealing with it at all) is to give wizards, often pureblood wizards, some kind of pagan, often Celtic-inspired, religion. And this is quite defensible! Sometimes this is badly executed and/or turned into Death Eater apologia, but the idea of wizards having a different religion is really interesting and a good deal more interesting (IMO of course) than just not mentioning religion at all. Most fics that I've seen don't delve too deeply into, like the actual history and theology of these religions, but there are definitely some that do. (Also if you know any PLEASE send me recs). So if handled well, this is a great way to add some religion worldbuilding in the world of Harry Potter.
However, my personal favorite set of possibilities--obviously I have some personal bias as a history nerd with a long standing if never as deeply researched as I would like to interest in the history of Christianity and as an ex-Catholic--is that, well, we know the statute of secrecy started..when, exactly? 1690. So this much is obviously a result of JKR's Hollywood understanding of witch hunts (a subject for another time and someone far more qualified). For interested wrodlbuilders, we can take this as a guideline at best, as personally I think it would have taken a good deal longer than one year to agree on and implement something like the Statute and I tend to take 1690 as an end date, not a start. I also tend to take the Statue as a largely European phenomenon, at least at first. But, uh, what was happening in Britain at the time..oh, right...the Glorious Revolution....what was happening that created the conditions for the Glorious Revolution...oh, the English Civil War...which was because of...oh yeah, and what was also happening on the continent, maybe it involved, wait, thirty years..oooh, the Thirty Years War...wait weren't there a whole bunch of massive social shifts happening in Europe at this point in time isn't that funny but surely the stature of secrecy could be considered a part of these massive social shifts...all of which was heavily influenced by...you guessed it, the Protestant Reformation.
Wait. So. Maybe, the separation of Wizards from Muggles, at least in Britain, wasn't actually about Muggles hating wizards or wizards hating Muggles. Maybe it was about religion. Now personally I find this ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING. The possibilities, the possibilities...
Wizards had a massive religious civil war that created the blood status system in its modern form? Particular families have wildly different denominations? Excellent. Religion both in terms of level of religiosity and in terms of denomination is a blood status marker? Excellent. Purebloods are all Catholic (what does this do to both Catholic and not Muggleborns?) Excellent. Purebloods are all Puritans? Weird, but if you can pull it off excellent. Purebloods are all one of the wacky new denominations that sprung up after the Reformation and then either died out or conquered the world? Excellent. Pure bloods are all Lutherans who really hated Henry VIII? Excellent. One of my favoirite ways to create a wizarding religion was someone who had most pure bloods follow a denomination that split off from Catholicism in the Great Schism and then a small minority being Catholic, with the worlds splitting around the Reformation. Even the paganism headcanons can be incorporated: the Reformation could conceivably have made it much more difficult to keep practicing wizard paganism causing separation of the worlds.
Personally I would love to see a world that used the history of the Protestant Reformation super well, but it's not the only way to relate a Wizarding religion or a Wizarding religious history. I just wish more people tried to do that at all. Let wizards be religious! Or let them be irreligious but have thought about it, instead of just ignoring religion at all as something that might conceivably have influenced human societies. Maybe Wizarding Britain has state sponsored atheism. Just say that outright!
Another thing I'd like to see more fic doing is theology: how does having magic impact people's religious doctrine? Does every major religion essentially have a wizarding branch with its own theology because magic impacts their view of the world so much, or do most wizards simply follow the majority Muggle religion in their country with no modifications? if so, why? Do some wizards disagree, potentially violently, over how to incorporate magic into their religion? Do some people refuse to use magic because they think it goes against their religion? Etc etc etc you could go on forever. I've seen fic, which randomly enough was about Regulus Black, do this pretty well (or I thought so as a non-Jew) for Judaism, and I'd love it if done with other religions.
Anyway. Now I have to figure out how the hell religion works in the Wizarding Britain of my own headcanon.
#meta#my meta#harry potter#hp#my hp meta#hp meta#religion in hp#hp worldbuilding#hp world#my worldbuilding#headcanon#the Protestant reformation#hp and history#jkr critical#worldbuilding#fanfic advice#hp fanfic#hp fandom#hp fanfic advice
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michelle's buddie fic recs: week 2!
another week, another fic rec list, and another request to help us find this fic! please have a look and see if you recognise it <3
this is a mix of fics with all ratings, so some include NSFW content. please take a look at both the ratings and the fic tags before reading! some might also contain spoilers for season 8.
if you come across something you like in this list, remember to show some love to the author by leaving kudos and a comment!
a life for a life | icewhisper | 7.7k | T
The first time Ravi met Evan Buckley, he never got his name. He only knew him as the man who pulled him onto a firetruck during a tsunami before he jumped back into the water after his son. Five years later, in a collapsed building, itâs Buck who needs saving and Ravi gets a chance to return the favor. i love love love the idea of buck and ravi crossing paths during the tsunami, and this characterisation of ravi is brilliant!! oh how i miss the people's princess..
forever goodbye | withoutthetiger/@rewritetheending | 1.3k | GA
Everything has been blurry for a while, and Eddie begins to wonder whether heâll ever see clearly again. Itâs the tears, of course, ones he refuses to let fall, mostly because he thinks he deserves to carry the weight of them instead of giving himself any relief from the pain. Heâd brought the tears with him to the front door when heâd mumbled one final goodbye to Ana, then blinked them away just long enough to watch Christopher set himself up with a puzzle at the coffee table. Now heâs back in the kitchen, barely able to focus on the mess around him even though itâs impossible to ignore. love is stored in (cleaning up the) kitchen <3 the pining is so good!!
he's thinkin' about me | serenelystrange/@serenelystrange | 4.6k | T
In which Buck wakes up with the ability/curse to hear everyone's thoughts around him. Which might be ok, if it weren't for Eddie suddenly calling him baby, but only when he doesn't speak. oh i LOVE a good mind reading fic and this hit the spot perfectly <3 petty bitch eddie my most beloved
i let my fingers do the walking | lizzybizzyzzz/@lizzybizzyzzz | 7.3k | E
Buck is good at jerking off. Itâs a self-proclamation, obviously. There is no right or wrong way to get off. Buck just thinks, if there were to be a Masturbation Olympics one day, he would end up with the gold medal gleaming over his chest by the end of the tournament. this is hot and fluffy and funny and just the ultimate fic, really. so good!!
if you know it in one glimpse, it's legendary | playinginthunderstorms/@playinginthunderstorms | 1.8k | T
Now theyâve arrived at house number five, and Eddie finally snaps. âWhat is your problem?â He turns to Buck suddenly, interrupting Mariana mid-answer. She gapes at them, startled into silence, but neither of them are looking at her, so she takes a second to compose herself while watching Buckâs eyes go wide and his body twist towards Eddie. âWhat?â âYouâre being difficult.â âNo Iâm not,â Buck argues immediately. outsider pov!! thinking about the poor poor real estate agent who has to deal with buckandeddie brings me joy and this fic is exactly why <3 such a good time! for me, that is. maybe not for mariana.
i'll meet you by the river, see how time it flows | fruitsdoesnotknow/@fruitsdontknow | 8.3k | T
Shoulders tense, Bobby sighs. âAlright, thereâs no easy way to say this,â Bobby begins, and Buck immediately leans forward, face concerned as his hand shoots up. âNo, Buck, Iâm not dying or retiring,â Bobby reassures him, and Buck slowly lowers his hand. âWeâve been nominated by the Fire Chief to help support with a request from a documentary crew. All we know so far is theyâre looking into how a regular fire station operates on a day-to-day basis, and theyâll be following us for a few weeks.â Bobby claps his hands together. âQuestions?â Six hands all at once go up. âLet me rephrase, questions related to your duties as a firefighter?â Five hands go down. âYes, Ravi?â âDoes this mean we should get a station dog?â blanket rec for an author whose work i've been loving this week!! this was one of my favourites and an immediate bookmark. it made me laugh out loud several times and has the most delightful firefam dynamics <3 cannot recommend enough!
i've been starving myself, carving (skin until my bones are showing) | prettyboybuckley/@prettyboybuckley | 12.1k | M
Eddie is fine. He's absolutely, totally fine. And if sometimes he doesn't eat, why would that be a problem? He's got a kid to feed and not enough money, and there is no way he's going to grovel to his parents so they'll help him. He doesn't need help, not theirs at least. definitely heed the tags but this fic is brilliantly written and has such wonderful eddie characterisation <3
it comes and goes in waves | tabbytabbytabby/@tabbytabbytabby | 1.6k | T
Buck never had a problem with the dark. Then the tsunami happened, and somewhere along the way, the dark started to be something Buck feared. And with the dark, came the nightmares. the emotional hurt/comfort is so so good here!! angsty and gentle and soft and just <3
kept on swimming | EiraLloyd/@unlifeira | 12.1k | M
He just needs someone to know that he tried. He needs someone to acknowledge thatâthat he did everything he could, andâand he tried. He mightâve failed, but he tried. He tried, he tried, he tried, he triedâ Eddie swallows and asks, âHow many times?â Buck stares. He lived through it once; thatâs normal. He lived through it twice; maybe a dĂŠjĂ -vu or a hallucination of some kind or even a premonition. But three timesâ It has to be a time loop. Surely. mind the tags but holy shit this is so so good. beautifully written, angsty but with a hopeful ending, i absolutely devoured it <3
lay your hands on me | vampirebuckley/@vampirebuckleyy | 2.7k | E
âThere, perfectly relaxed, happy? Now will you drop it?â âNope, I donât believe you,â Buck says, slapping his hands on his knees and picking himself up off the couch. âCâmon, up,â Buck waves a hand at Eddie, reaching to grab his hand. Eddie lets his hand be tugged, but plants himself further in the couch. âWhat are you doing, Buck? I thought you wanted to watch this,â Eddie groans, looking up at Buck and the much too pleased look on his face. âI, am going to give you a massage,â Buck says through a grin, yanking Eddie off the couch despite his protests. so so good!! massage leading to sex is one of my favourite pipelines and i love how this depicts buck and eddie!!
new sensations | lamardeuse/@lamardeuse | 4.3k | E
âAll I know is you're getting me worked up and you're going to leave me hanging â again,â Eddie growled, nipping at Buck's earlobe and soothing it with a tongue Buck had learned was extremely talented, and okay, he thought, maybe he could â no, no, he couldn't. hot and cute and so perfectly buddie <3 this was a reread and it gets better every time!
your body is my temple, let me lay at your altar | Kwills91/@kwills91 | 4.7k | E
Eddie is no stranger to feeling self-conscious. When he was a teenager, his body had grown at weird rates. Three months of having feet too big for his body had made him clumsy, people passing comments about clown shoes. Six months of his arms and legs being just a touch too long, staring at himself in the mirror feeling like a marionette puppet. That phase where his hair grew out instead of down and his nerdy younger sister had snorted and told him looked like a hobbitâit didnât help that there had been some crossover between that and the big feet phase. Itâs been so long, Eddie had forgotten what it felt likeâthe shame that comes with looking in the mirror and wishing a different reflection were staring back. Heâs happy, is the thing. Heâs happy, so heâs not supposed to be feeling like this. loved reading this so very much <3 body worship buddie hits so hard in the best way possible, and this is a perfect example of that!
#buddie#buddie fic#buddie fic rec#911 abc#911 fic#911 fic rec#michelleâs recs#fic rec list#i used slightly longer excerpts from summaries this time around#let me know if yall prefer that or the shorter version!#benefit of keeping things short is that the post doesn't get too long#and i'd rather not pick and choose which fics are hidden behind a cut and which aren't yk#but the benefit of doing it this way around is that not all fics have a tldr-esque summary bit#anyway i'm open to feedback!#and hope you love the fics <3
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Aight here's stuff on the dream situation aka a timeliness! Will be adding to as it continues, credit to elliklips on discord ily
Okay so- from what I've gathered thus far
-techno passed away [rip]
⢠a bunch of people were kinda iffy abt started dsmp season two without him present
- dream had grooming allegations and everyone went their separate ways
- Quackity creates Qsmp which QUICKLY gains popularity
- Dream gets mad bc Quackity "stole his idea"
⢠Quackity to this day hasn't responded [slay king]
- some other stuff happens and Tommy and Jack start making more content together
- tubbo and Ranboo stop posting together as much and Ranboo moves in with Aimsey
- - -
- Tommy went on a podcast and said [quoted] "I've never actually hated everh word and movement someone did" this is tom talking about Mizkif CLEARY TALKING abt Miskif
- miskif went on stream and was firing shots at Tommy "your annoying" "your stupid and your british" whatever NEXT
-ONE BIT DEEPER xQc reacts to miskif reacting to Tommy "these guys are cringe" also calling it an "overeaction" also whatever
⢠Tommy tweets "your really hard to talk to" WHATEVER who cares
- Tommy THEN replies to a picture of xQc shaking Donald trumps hand with a Trump shirt on "to be more cringe than tommyinnit is pretty fucking hard but you just pulled it off pal"
⢠jack replied "post a money spred"
- insaine- xQc THEN tweets a video of Tommy "dissing" on him- xQc wrote "from doing streams in your basement to doing streams with the president. How is this a dis? You went from dickriding dream for a living to making "jokes" to teenage girls. Lock in"
⢠[xQc giving free promo to Tommy's stand up makes me giggle]
- Dream now gets involved- why? ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE- he goes on to post one of those "pick a side" pictures with one being labeled 'grow up' and the other being labeled 'becoming a **R-SLUR** Tommyinnit fan' with the person choosing being labeled 'DreamSMP stans'
⢠[which i actually don't understand bc this is the FIRST TIME dream has done anything shitting on Tommy even after Tommy has claimed MULTIPLE TIMES-
THAT DREAM WAS A PEDO
â˘[ other note BOTH TOMMY AND TUBBOS MOMS ARE SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS.]
- E V E R Y O N E hops on a dream hate train on Twitter Which leads dream to delete the post.
⢠Tommy replied saying "no Fucking way did i make dream say the R-slur *again*. Actual bastard.
⢠dream does have an autism diagnosis but there's a DRASTIC difference in reclaiming and calling 50 mil people aN ACTUAL SLUR
- Tommy posts a video just titled "Dream" clarifying he has the man blocked but goes on to say "hey you fucked up bro- what the hell?"
⢠also making a point to say "I literally made your server streaming on it every day while you did nothing."
- DREAM posts on YouTube and Reddit dissing on anyone he can get his hands on, including Aimsey, Tommy- i think Tubbo and defends Miskif
⢠in the redit post he says "I was confused by what the "rules" are. Not honestly trying to be obtuse." "Everyone explains to me that it's okay because their nerodivergant, so then I see a meme that uses it and post it and get absolutely throttled for it. Obviously it's the internet being disingenuous, but that doesn't completely invalidate anyone that might be upset by it. Most of the people are calling me a list for using it are the same people thay lit off fireworks for when Nicolas Cantu was the slinging slur slasher [including Tommy's closest friends]. It's either okay or it's not okay, the double standards are infuriating." He then goes on more about Tommy being the "internet police" and getting shit about going after "poor Tommy that lies about me constantly"
- tubbo goes live just before that video gets posted, recaps best of his ability and enlightens the group on some major shit
⢠bbh paid for the server
⢠details about dsmp and dream himself
⢠a live reaction to Tom's video
⢠live reaction to bits of Dreams video and reddit post
⢠ect.
- AND NOW QUACKITY SAID HES GOING LIVE?
#tommyinnit#dsmp#discourse#btw i FULLY support tommy#no dream fans here tyvm#will argue if i have to
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@extremereader Sounds fun. Does she get an actual name?
I'm going to respond under the assumption that you mean the Wicked Witch of the West. And... hmmmm. (checks Wikipedia) She doesn't seem to have a canon one, and I wouldn't use the name the Wicked version has for her (for obvious reasons), but-
-oh.
Oh, just had the best idea!
Yes, she does have a name, but no one ever uses it, even her. At first it would look like it's going to be one of those situations where it's a running joke that, while everyone in-universe knows her name, the audience never hears it. Except now we have Dorothy running around, and she never asked during the initial adventure, but post un-melting, during a run-in from her attempting revenge on Oz the wizard, she finally asks if the witch has a name or not.
And it turns out, yes, she does!
It's Angel.
She's one of those people who looked evil even as a baby, and her parents were hoping a nice, positive name would help encourage her to grow out of it.
It did not.
She personally hates it, and no one else feels comfortable calling the Wicked Witch of the West 'angel' in any context. It's the one thing everyone in the land of Oz is united about, the unspoken agreement that, if you're just talking about a Wicked Witch in conversation, it's the one from the west, the others always have their directional identity included, or are like Glinda and fine with having their names used.
(Also, there's no underlying context, implications, or parallels meant to be in this, I just find the idea of no one wanting to call her 'angel' and her being of the mindset, 'correct, Do Not,' very amusing. I can honestly picture pretty much all other versions of this character (save the original book version) being chill with and reasonable to be called 'angel,' just not this one.)
It's never going to stop being wild to me that the Wicked Witch of the West was never seen as green-skinned until the original movie came out, and the look was just so iconic it stuck, and also the movie's still under copyright (including the exact shade of green used for her) which is why more recent movies and productions have to be super finicky with the shade of green they make her due to copyright.
All of which is to say, if I ever do my own take on the Wizard of Oz (og!book version), I'm making her blue. Or maybe purple. I'd go with orange, for contrary funsies, but there's WAY too much history with various groups as being described as red or yellow, and I'm not going to risk going too far in either direction and adding unpleasant unintentional undertones in a choice that's about as deep as a puddle. There will also be no point in my take on events where anyone (even the narrator) makes a comment or joke about her not being green.
Might make a joke about how Dorothy's dress matches her skin and neither of them knowing what to do with this discovery, though.
Also I wouldn't go the full 'the Wicked Witch owns slaves' route from the original book and make her more similar to Madam Mim from The Sword in the Stone in her flavour of wicked/evil, and I would go with the 'Dorothy and the Wonderful Wizard in Oz' backstory regarding the Wizard and Ozma (basically retcons him having usurped the throne), so he's still something of a conman and trickster figure, but still definitively an ally to Dorothy & Co. Not only does this satisfy my own personal sensibilities for these characters, it sets up the delightful scenario of dangerously powerful evil witch versus some guy from Omaha with a quick tongue and a knack for stage magic and making gizmos desperately trying to keep a couple steps ahead of her.
She'd still get melted in the final confrontation of the original story, but she'd also get better later, Enchanted Forest Chronicles style. Dorothy is the only one surprised or concerned by this, but is also relieved that she did not, in fact, accidentally murder a second person. The Witch of the West shows up off and on throughout the continuing stories afterwards as a sort of side menace, maybe she has a domestication arc or something, I dunno, this post was just about making her blue instead of green because of who I am as a person, we're two paragraphs deeper than I planned, I'm calling it here before it can get any longer on me. O_OU
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Max Verstappen X Reader
Rating M+
Word Count: 400+
Warning(s): Barely described smut, gn!reader (mentions of make-up but that's it), one night stand, heavy alcohol consumption
Summary: Loosely based on "I Felt Love" by Blue Hawaii. (Lyrics are used but this is definitely NOT about a breakup in an airport like the actual song).
âIt's too loud!â You yell over the rhythmic synth. The lights flashing. Everything is casted in a red glow. Including him. Your eyes are drawn to his pink lips as they move. How the night turned into this you had no idea.
Well, maybe a little bit of an idea. Several drinks, free champagne, and some gin and tonic from the boy who caught your eye.
He tried to repeat himself. One hand on your waist, the other on his drink. People keep coming up to him, yet his focus is still on you. Everyone is all smiles and congratulatory.
The fog in your mind was making it harder to decipher what was going on. Must be a birthday or something and this must be the birthday boy. Champagne keeps being sprayed on the crowded club.
But you don't really care that much. The only thing occupying your mind was the feeling of his hands as the music drowned out your thoughts.
It's a blur. Maybe it wasn't just alcohol. This feels amazing. You don't care. His bedsheets are so soft. His lips feel like heaven against your neck. The air is thick. It's getting harder to breathe.
His blonde hair is damp with sweat, plastered to his forehead. His hips continue their relentless rhythm. Time seems to be standing still. His blue eyes are too much. The light behind him creates a glow around him. It's angelic.
He watches the way your lashes flutter against your cheeks. The makeup that once graced your face at the beginning of the night is now smudged. The natural rose colored flush peaks out from the foundation. Every sound you make draws him in further.
âI'm all you needâ he grunts in your ear. His accent is thick.Â
The tone of his voice makes you want to cry. It's too much. Everything floods over you in an instant, stronger than a driver that drowns a swimmer. Your head tips back and your body arches to his touch. Your eyes squeeze shut. His words echo in your mind. You're gasping for air.
Slowly, the moment fades. He's next to you now. There's whispers of praises spilling from his lips. Exhaustion takes hold of the two of you. The warmth of each other lulling both you and the boy into peace. You're not even sure what his name is. He doesn't know yours either, but it doesn't matter, at least not right now.
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Hank feels older after the accident. He feels older, not in a "more mature" way, but more geriatric instead. Yet he just looks like a man of his age, he looks like before. He feels a deep disconnect â his appearance doesn't match his perception of time. The world goes around him as normal, his body goes on as normal. Grief doesn't leave any imprint on him, and he gets angrier and angrier at himself and more despaired.
And so, when his roots finally begin to turn grey, in a fit of inverted thinking, he cuts off his hair, leaving only grey hair. Is this proof of his grief? A punishment? A manifestation of guilt? It doesn't matter, and it does not get better. This becomes clear halfway through the process. Although now he has a shitty haircut, here goes the rest of his hair, even if he seemed to like it long. He is ruining everything in his life again.
 art process under the cut
This one was a doozy. Some of you might've noticed that this piece is done traditionally. To be more precise, the format is A3, and the mediums include: watercolours, gouache paints, coloured pencils, oil and soft pastels.
I haven't done traditional art in a while, especially on bigger formats, so my approach had to be more calculated than it usually is.
For the first time in ages, I had to pick up my sketchbook to come up with composition because sketching directly on A3 wasn't working out. After that was done, and I got the idea of how I wanted the things to be placed on the piece of paper, it was time to transfer the sketch.
It went well. I decided to follow the same pipeline I use for my digital paintings, so I did watercolour underpaint.
I wish I had determination to make the paint more saturated, but I was feeling quite anxious.
Then I refreshed the sketch with coloured pencils, which was a smart call on my part because otherwise, I would've definitely lost it when I put down gouache. I also applied masking fluid in some places.
Historically, painting with colour is my weakest skill, I tend to struggle with the feeling of depth especially. That's why I decided to figure out my colours digitally first, so I wouldn't loose my progress irl. I really wasn't in the mood of redoing the sketch and repainting.
You see, I really locked with this one lol
The next step was painting with gouache, I think I was the most impatient with this. I wish I would've taken more time, but alas. In general, it was pretty ordinary - applying colour and then adding definition to objects. But not too much because most of my detailing is achieved with pencils.
After that was done, I redefined the sketch following the photo I took (I was missing conveniences of digital painting here), and it was time for the dry materials. It was just a lot of work, but I had fun with it.
I'm satisfied with the end result. Of course, there are things that I don't like how they came out, but for the first illustration done traditionally in a while, I'll let it pass, hah.
Thank you for reading all of that!!!đ Here's your cookie đŞ
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