#this is half the problems i have with fanbases actually let me see pairs or trios as friends PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW

[exileorexodus]

appreciation post for professional amateurs i am processing yet again how. special the dynamic is. (throws up in my mouth)

i have known both of them since we were children, but only ever online. two of us are the sole reason why the third can even work towards a free future at ALL. we have legitimately undoomed the narrative through our combined efforts. we have all been through our separate journeys and hurdles, only occasionally crossing but always ever present on the outskirts of each other's lives, like a passive supporting brick wall to lean on to catch your breath. we have the same easy discussion and relegation of people who can only find solace in forbidden literary groups, and the same camaraderie as men who have lived and fought in wars together. we do not consider each other like family, or partners at all, but our solidarity as a group excels all of our other relationships without unhealthily drowning out any of them.

we lack co dependency,, but provide eachother with much of the same "safe place to land" as a partner would. we can have freeflow and socially damnable discussions while maintaining being different people with differing worldviews and morals and patterns of thought. we are the living embodiment of "without condoning, nor condemning, i understand." we are the only people we know who understand what it's like to lack a feeling of romantic love.

i would not give these two up for anything in the world, because it simply wouldn;t be worth it.

it boggles my mind that most other people do not have active friendships like this

[danganronpa-ship-tourney]

Wait why don't U like SaiOuma?

Im putting this under a cut so that anyone that does not want to see me absolutely hating on this ship for like ten paragraphs can skip

I do not like it! It's boring! Every time I see it both characters are stripped to just cute fluff! It's fucking everywhere! Both characters 9/10 times are WILDLY out of character, ESPECIALLY Kokichi. They always like, redeem him and be like "see he stopped lying" or just be a fluffy uwu nuisance instead of being y'know, a criminal, basically completely changing his character for shuichi even though kokichi CANONICALLY SAYS THIS IF YOU BRING UP FOR HIM TO STOP LYING

Then they completely wash out ALL of Shuichi's interesting points! His hypocrisy! His being pretty firmly on the side of the law! The way Shuichi does not like Kokichi even as a friend through the base game! He literally leaves him bleeding and concussed! The very few fics between the two I like almost always plays on what it means for Shuichi to be on the side of "good" and kokichi on the side of "evil" and if it's ACTUALLY so clear cut.

This would maybe be less annoying if it wasn't like I said FUCKING EVERYWHERE you cannot go TWO SECONDS without finding it if you care about either character. It's completely and utterly inescapable! They're both made so goddamn ooc to make cookie cutter rival x protag content with basically none of what makes either of them INTERESTING as a dynamic. It is single handedly the most generic mlm ship in this whole fucking fandom and I cannot stand it outside of a handful of exceptions.

Seeing it is an almost instant turn off on any concept for me because when I want Kokichi content, I ACTUALLY WANT KOKICHI not that watered down "gay gay ooo my only personality traits are gay panta and excitable" Kokichi that most of the fandom seems to make him. Which is admittedly a problem with Kokichi in the fandom as a whole not just here but it's where I see it the most.

There is potentially here, I've seen it done well, one of my favorite fics is this pairing, but 99.9% of the time it's just, utter garbage. Which honestly just makes it even more annoying because it means I know it can be done well but it never gets done well!

People can like it if they want, and that's none of my business, don't let my yuck effect your yum, but personally? I cannot stand it. I swear to the gods above if I have to hear emo boy with kokichi and shuichi one more time I will lose it.

Most of the time theres just nothing fucking there, people just have taken two very interesting characters and replaced all the intrigue with just hot air and cotton! There's nothing there! At least pregame has something fucking happening!

Plus the fanbase is known for being incredibly loud and annoying, there's a reason like more then half of all the submissions for it mentions the fanbase in some way and I hope it wins the whole thing.

Yeah! Don't like it! Maybe wouldn't care so much if it wasnt basically every other thing, but it is, so I just have to suffer.

[chubbydino]

I stumbled upon fool’s gold when I was looking up brocedes fic (yes in 2024 i know) and omg was I drawn you with your amazing writing. On my way to order your novel!

I wanted to know if you had any tips for new writers trying to plan their novel, keeping track of storylines and ways for improve their writing?

thank you! i really appreciate it.

my advice under the cut

for commercial novels, i'm definitely not the one to ask, as i'm still very much a newbie when it comes to self-publishing. i will say commercial fiction and fanfiction are completely different beasts. if you're a new writer, i would try fanfiction first to see where you stand, so to speak. commercial novels are very hard to sell without a fanbase unless you really know what you're doing, and even after publishing (almost) 3 books in a year, i still barely know what i'm doing.

fanfic lets you write what you want, and you can tell almost immediately if its resonating or not because the readers are already there. word gets around quick in fanfic spaces. if it doesn't do well, you have to figure out why. my older fics have terrible grammar and punctuation mistakes that would never fly in a real novel. sometimes i made up for it with a good enough story that people could ignore those things (Horsepower, for example lol) but it wasn't until i really started focusing on learning that it started coming together. i still have problems with commas and semicolons LOL. once you get that down and pair it with a good story, the magic happens!

i will say that finishing what you start is absolutely necessary. i used to get stuck at 30k words. now i can write that in 2 weeks or less. it's important as a writer that you deliver on your promises to finish what you start. for fanfic it's more okay to abandon something, but you will burn fans. i have 3 fics i'll never finish, 2 no one really read in the first place but 1 was on track to be my most popular fic ever and i just...didn't write anymore because of life. nowadays i'll shorten the story and finish it before abandoning it.

yes, fanfic is about having fun etc, but i take it seriously, especially when people are depending on me to create for them. while you don't make money on fanfic, you get what every business pays a shit ton of money to have: people engaged in your content/you. the readers here on tumblr, ao3, and in the discord server make writing fun for me. i'm very lucky that many of those people have also followed me into novel writing by joining my patreon and buying my books as well. if i only finished half of the books i started, i doubt those people would stick around, no matter how much they like my writing haha. i don't write for myself, i write to share stories with those fans.

as for planning, i'm also not really the person to ask haha. for fool's gold i just scribbled down sparknotes of race weekends and wove the plot into them. my best fics maybe had an ending in mind early on (HLS) or a premise i wanted to explore (for PAPM, a amnesia fic where the MC never gets his memories back but there's still a story). a lot of it is intuitive, but i'm still learning. for my professional writing i loosely go off the 3-Act breakdown and Save The Cat! but i only started doing that in the past year or so.

In fic writing, you're forced to work with what you've already written and make it work. In professional writing, you better be ready to hack it to pieces and rewrite the whole thing (Redline lol) to make it better, and people will still not like it. like, people are mad at me for how i ended Short Shift because they think I'm going to tropify it lol.

i see all my stories as movies in my head, so i rarely have to dig into my notes to see what actually happened because i "saw" it happen. idk how to explain it. for FG i wrote most of it without flipping back through. i do forget stuff, but for fanfic it's usually fine. for professional writing, i have beta readers checking that everything makes sense.

in short, just write. soooo many people i know want to write a book and then spend months planning, planning, planning, and never write it. my first attempt at a novel is 85k words and took over a year to write and will never see the light of day. meanwhile wheelspin is 106k words and i wrote it in 3ish months.

there are a lot of shitty books out there making careers for people. as long as you have a good story and a good editor (or knwo how ot edit yourself), you can do a lot and learn as you go. but just keep in mind that self-publishing is like 40% writing and 60% business. i spent 6 months taking free classes on self publishing before Redline debuted just to be able to do the basics. it's a steep learning curve, but worth it when you can hold your own book in your hands. :)

[doubleca5t]

i know you’re not a fan of the citrus anime, but is the manga any good?

short answer: no

long answer:

if you spend any amount of time in the yuri fandom, you will eventually have to contend with Citrus. It’s one of the most popular manga in the genre, so it’s kind of unavoidable. And whenever Citrus comes up, you’ll usually hear from a lot of people telling you not to read it because the core premise of Citrus is two girls, Mei and Yuzu, falling in love shortly after becoming STEP-SISTERS, and the first few chapters involve Mei repeatedly sexually assaulting Yuzu (this actually goes the other way around at one point as well, though that doesn’t exactly make things any better). I am here to tell you that those people are wrong.

Let me explain.

Citrus is an infuriating 10 volume cocktease of a manga. What I mean by this is that reading Citrus, it gives you the impression that it could get really good like any chapter now, and then it just never does. The art is good, the main character, Yuzu, is super compelling and entertaining (and imo I think she’s the reason this manga has such a massive fanbase because she can be a Mood And A Half sometimes), it’s got some pretty strong emotional moments and a lot of good comedy here and there. But this is a situation where the whole is very much less than the sum of its parts. This manga has a lot of elements that are individually satisfying, but they don’t come together into a compelling narrative. I think there are two big overarching reasons why.

1) Citrus does not create and resolve conflicts in a satisfying way

A romance manga like Citrus is very much about the journey, not the destination. You know Mei and Yuzu are going to get together, it’s just a matter of how they get together and what sort of obstacles keep that from happening until the very end. This is why so many romance manga rely on tsundere/enemies-to-lovers scenarios. The harder it is for the characters to admit their true feelings for each other, the more you can stretch out the narrative and the more chapters of manga you can get out of it. A good example of this in the yuri world is Bloom into You, where the main characters have done so many mental gymnastics to convince themselves they either can’t love or can’t be loved that as the audience you’re like “shit, I know these two are gonna get together eventually but how the fuck are they gonna get out from this nonsense?”

Citrus has no goddamn idea how to do this.

A huge chunk of the first four volumes is spent introducing side characters who appear to be potential romantic rivals for either Mei or Yuzu. These characters  can be pretty entertaining in their own right, but all the dramatic tension around them falls consistently flat. The solution to every problem presented by these rivals is just talking to whichever girl they were interested in, because said girl (either Mei or Yuzu) was never interested in the rival to begin with. These arcs feel unsatisfying because the way the problem is resolved would suggest, on some level, that these were never problems in the first place. All of this could have been avoided if the characters had just talked to each other.

And this same problem rears its head near the end of the series as well, the worst example being the ending. Mei separates from Yuzu suddenly and in dramatic fashion because her grandfather is forcing her into what is essentially an arranged marriage. The chapter where we learn about this is legitimately emotionally affecting, with the slow build-up to Yuzu learning that Mei never wants to see her again. It gets you in a way that nothing else in this series really does. But then the solution to all of this is just Yuzu proposing to Mei? And the whole family just goes along with this?? Despite them being step sisters???? Like you’d think the problem here is that Mei’s grandfather is very traditional and conservative. Like he doesn’t just want her to get married before she took over the academy, he wants her to marry a specific person from a rich family that he chose. But no, apparently the step sister marriage is a-ok! which means the only real problem here is that Mei didn’t tell Yuzu about any of this shit until it was already in motion, which brings us to the second core issue:

2) Mei does not change or improve

Mei causes a huge percentage of the conflict in this series. And not only does she cause it, she causes it in exactly the same way over and over again. Mei’s big, defining character flaw is that she’s emotionally distant and bad at communicating. Because of this, Mei repeatedly conceals information from Yuzu for, at least as far as the audience can tell, no discernible reason, creating conflict that never needed to be there. This takes the form of the previously mentioned final chapters, the first volume or so where Mei forces herself onto Yuzu rather than just telling her how she feels, that whole nonsense with Sara, and so, so much more. Citrus runs on the logic of a corny 90s sitcom. Every problem is based on a misunderstanding or a miscommunication, so everything can be resolved if the characters just fucking talked to each other. This sort of storytelling can work if you’re writing a farce (like every other Shakespeare comedy was based on a case of mistaken identity) but in a drama it’s fucking infuriating.

It would be one thing if there was an arc where the core problem was that Mei doesn’t know how to communicate, and at the end of that arc, she realizes what the problem is and spends the rest of the series actively trying to improve. That would be fine. But instead, no matter how many times Mei is shown that failing to talk to her step-sister/gf causes nothing but trouble, she just... keeps doing it, either because Saburouta thinks that’s such an important element of her character that it’s not possible to change it, or because it’s a cheap and easy way to add conflict to a relationship where none would exist otherwise.

I think the final straw for me was when I tried reading Citrus+, which takes place after Yuzu’s proposal in the final chapter of Citrus. Within the first volume, Mei goes right back to her old tricks of being moody and evasive and leaving Yuzu to guess at what might be wrong. THESE TWO ARE FUCKING ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED, BUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP HAS BEEN STUCK IN THE SAME PLACE SINCE VOLUME 5 BECAUSE MEI CAN’T IMPROVE! At some point, it starts to feel like that line about the definition of insanity from Far Cry 3. You’re just doing the same shit over and over again expecting different results.

So to put it bluntly, it would be inaccurate to say that you shouldn’t read Citrus because it’s about a pair of step-sisters taking turns sexually assaulting each other.

You shouldn’t read Citrus because it sucks.

[none-gender-left-man]

Let's talk LGBTQ+ erasure in the Marvel Fandom

Mischaracterization in fandom is a big problem, and it's something we see from every fanbase. A character gets boiled down into a few condensed traits and their nuance is washed out and forgotten. Fanonization isn't always inherently bad, and can lead to fandom solidarity and representation through headcanon, and this can sometimes eventually have influence on canon, which can be seen in the Homestuck fandom, where eventually slash pairings that received enough attention became endgame romantic pairings (Dave and Karkat, Rose and Kanaya, etc.). Of course I'm not here to discuss Homestuck today, I'm here to discuss the Marvel fandom and its toxic dudebro fans, as well as related topics that intersect with this issue. 

There's a common mischaracterization problem in the Marvel fandom, particularly in relation to queer relationships and characters. 

First example is Deadpool. Wade Wilson is described by his canon writers and creators to be omnisexual or pansexual, or of an otherwise fluctuating and open sexuality. The Deadpool video game wildly mischaracterized Wade and even made him behave in some homophobic ways, acting grossed out by men and homoerotic implications. This was jarring for me as someone who has read his comics and knows for a fact that Wade has multiple emphasized crushes on or at least attraction to other male characters, such as Spider-Man, Thor, Cable, and others. The game was very popular despite this mischaracterization and created a condensed fanonized Deadpool that is made into nothing more than an ultraviolent oversexualized joke, despite his character being the epitome of coping humor and having a very tender and compassionate side to him. It's known in the comics that Wade uses his humor to cope with his severe trauma, this doesn't mean he is just comic relief. This has gotten consistently worse since the Deadpool films. (I'm looking at you, shitty Wal-Mart DP t shirt that shows Wade holding a sign that says "oh I'm sorry did I offend you?" Which is really OOC imho)

Many of the more hypermasculine fans of Deadpool seem to have this false image of him being the epitome of "offensive humor" when in reality his trademark is Metahumor, not going out of his way to be a dick to people. These fans also often either ignore or aren't aware of Deadpool not being straight, portraying him as thirsting after buxom ladies but forgetting his openly admitted male attracted orientation which is just as obvious if you're not actively ignoring it. This is a grave mistake that takes so much from his character, especially in the case of the Deadpool/Spider-Man team up comics. 

In that span of issues Wade went through an entire moral transformation, molding himself and his moral compass to earn the respect of Spider-Man, while unable to go more than a few pages without flirting with him. The things Wade goes through in order to Do the Right Thing by Spider-Man in any other story would be considered romantic. If a man did this much for a woman in a narrative of course no one would question the romantic subtext, but because it's two men, half of the fanbase has a kneejerk reaction to this concept and swear that Deadpool flirting is a joke. (Or that it's just "Bromance")

Yes, because apparently a man being attracted to a man has to be a joke. /Sarc

Wade and Peter are even canonically shown to be "heartmates" and this still isn't enough for the erasure to end, and ultimately I think this is because the fans guilty of this either didn't read the Deadpool comics and only know the movie or game, or they chose to read the comics through a straight washed lense, assuming all "gayness" is a joke.

It's made prominently clear in Deadpool/Spider-Man that Wade is probably in love with Spidey based on his actions, and truly every single interaction with him leaves more evidence to support this idea, especially when you look at his relationship with Shiklah and how not-good it was in comparison to his much healthier dynamic with Peter. Even with the knowledge of the ridiculous Peter Parker Policy (that states Peter Parker must always be portrayed as a straight white man in canon despite him being the embodiment of the underdog), one cannot deny Wade is attracted to Peter canonically. The only thing in the way of them being a pair is that they're both men and Marvel is too cowardly to make one of their most famous and family oriented characters queer, and that fans who aren't queer actively ignore the obvious subtext and narrative value of the Wade/Peter dynamic in the comics. Marvel has doubled down on this with the MCU by making Peter Parker WAYYYYY younger than Wade than he actually is in the comics (don't ship MCU spideypool folks, that's gross. Comics only. MCU Spider-Man is far too young even at 18), making it now impossible for us to see this dynamic on screen, because they're only capable of giving queer representation when it comes with an R rating, apparently (and they really didn't do that w Deadpool either tbh they stated that he's pansexual in some trailers but never showed much queerness in the films at all, even with Ryan Reynolds wanting to focus on Wade having a boyfriend at some point, it hasn't come to fruition bc Marvel is too scared to lose their rabid straight fans).

The same erasure can be seen in Venom, in relation to Eddie Brock and his undeniably queer relationship with the genderless, masculine presenting alien living in his body. 

Eddie and Venom are portrayed and referred to as if they're married, Venom himself states that their bond is equivalent to a marriage, and Eddie calls Venom "love". Yet again, this is ignored by edgier straight fans who refuse to see the blatant truth about the characters. 

Venom drops everything to be with Eddie, his purpose in life itself. He chooses Eddie over his biological purpose and has repeatedly been shown to do ANYTHING to stay with him, never wanting to be apart from Eddie. 

After the release of Venom 2018 this relationship is receiving spotlight again, but not without pushback. Many fans seem to have the impression that this relationship is fan generated and accuse shippers of "hamfisting gay shit into everything" when in reality they're the ones hamfisting straightness where there is none, and erasing the canon in order to fit their personal interpretation, the very thing they accuse queer fans of doing. The same thing happens with Spideypool, with Stucky, with Symbrock, with Loki and Venom's nonbinary genders, with every LGBTQ+ hero or character in Marvel this can be seen as a pervasive problem. The elitist nerds who go out of their way to delegitimize other fans are often the least fluent in the source material they claim to defend.

This is both a result of toxic fandom, and of badly managed representation on the part of Marvel as a company. I'm by no means an authority on all things Marvel, but as a queer fan of Marvel properties, I feel this needs to be said.

[janiedean]

I feel bad for all the nice J*nsa shippers who like their ship for whatever reasons (tropes, pretty art, aesthetic appeal, whatever) and know it's not canon but get associated with the misogynistic Dany hating crowd who act like Jon being attracted to Ygritte is J*nsa foreshadowing because red hair (I guess Jon should fuck Edmure Tully too? Omg give me Dark!Jon getting revenge on Catelyn by seducing her brother!) Tell me something. I'm new to the fandom but was J*nsa popular before the show? And I've heard something about the OG J*nsa shippers being alienated by the new shippers who insisted it had to be canon and acted like the series is called, "A song of J*nsa #danysux." I don't find that hard to believe because I know people who are now ashamed of calling themselves J*nsa shippers. Like, at this point, it's not only rival shippers who hate it. Even Gendrya/Braime/Jon stans/etc have started disliking that ship. You know your fandom is a problem when people who have nothing to do with Jnsa have a problem with it.

me: reads this ask

me: iwastheregandalf.gif which I can't find now but

okay anon buckle up because I am sadly well-equipped to answer this ask but before I do lemme tell you dark jon seducing edmure to take revenge on cat is LITERALLY THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD but *clears throat* ALL RIGHT THEN.

disclaimer: as anon says I have no issue with like the shippers mentioned by anon in the beginning and ngl I agree, I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO FUCKING STAKES in the j*nsa vs j*nerys war and the only het jon ship I gaf about is jon/ygritte and we all know where that ended up I just... have been here since 2011/adwd was over and all the fic around was just for the books under secret lj communities and asoiaf qualified for yuletide and I have... seen... things.... and I actually have like uh had... beef... with some people in there and I know things bc ppl who hated those others told me stuff so anyway *sigh* buckle up anon I'mma tell you the story of jon shipwars through the years

in order, the old gods help me here, under the cut bc this is long as fuck

when I got into fandom also given what numbers were on ao3 one ship was popular and it was sansan. no like sansan was lit. the only asoiaf ship on ao3 with more than 200 fics. jb had twenty when i checked first. jc had like around 100-ish because of the show but sansan dwarfed anything. I posted the first jon/ygritte fic on the ao3 tag and the fourth throbb fic and like the others were all reposts from lj kinkmemes. nothing was popular before the show except for sansan when it comes to huge numbers bc grrm doesn't like fic and it was all hush hush until the show made it impossible to control and that ship was the one with a huge enough fanbase it actually had numbers, so like... j*nsa wasn't popular in the way nothing else was popular until it got screentime on the show

now, that stated, j*nsa had a... fair amount of fic for a rareship which was mostly book-based and from og shippers that were there from before the show and liked it for what it was but literally none of them thought it was gonna be canon, like it wasn't huge or anything but it had a small but dedicated fanbase who did their own thing and thought it was fun/liked the idea but that was it

that fandom had their own niche of hcs that they cultivated and shit except that like... at the end of S5/beginning of S6 there was a surge in shipping for... well obvious reasons bc it was obv sansa was getting to the wall and that would have been all nice and good but a) it was the time puritanical shipping was starting to take root and the 'shipping sansa with sandor or tyrion is hella problematic' rhetoric had started to circle coming from sans*ery shippers mostly but I'mma not open that fucking can of worms here, b) while the ending of S5 had more of a theon/sansa spike, the j*nsa stuff started getting big

now here we have to mention my villain origin story ie: j*nsa fandom had this one stan whose name I won't make because honestly it's been years and if she's still around I don't want her to remember I exist who was a bnf, wrote for... the website that created the whole larry/carol thing etc who was really fixed on this thing that j*nsa was actually canon and started writing extremely popular meta about it. now you're gonna ask how do you know, I know because this person once wrote a meta named 'why robb stark is a dick' and I told her that it was really fucking bad meta and she took it so badly she kept on trash talking me on her blog/her podcast (I was apparently the insane robb stark fangirl l m a o good lord) and like that was when some sane ppl who argued with her informed me in pvt that she was basically harping on the CANON thing when they'd have been okay with like... it being crackshipping and that she was basically cultivating a hoarde of followers who were harping on them/the ogs and basically ostracizing them;

I would like to add that this person - before her tumblr got 'accidentally deleted' and remade it therefore deleted most receipts for, er, her so-called meta which included stuff like ned and cat raised sansa as a sexual object and only wanted to sell her like cattle - had at some point started a round robin fic thing where... some of the characters mocked openly said stuff that some of the og fans had said specifically targeting them and people in that side basically went harassing anyone who didn't agree with that specific notion

now never mind that this person basically coined an entire term to describe ppl who liked white guys and excused all their wrongdoings out of my conversation re robb basically lying about everything I said as if I didn't have the receipts and tried to sell shirts with it and it didn't work and like then she got kicked out of her own website because she was telling her commenters disagreeing pretty shitty insults (considering I was called psychotic for disagreeing with her that time I don't doubt it) I think at some point she stepped back from fandom bc idk wtf she's up to these days and I don't want to, but basically at that point the dam was broken and there was a bunch of puritanical shippers harping on anyone who didn't agree with j*nsa is canon endgame stuff

this also includes an incident when those ppl were like... passing themselves as throbb shippers and ended up trying to tell t*hramsay shippers off the theon tag based on moral reasons and I ended up arguing with all of them (and they were all from that crowd) which in turn landed me in contact with other og j*nsa shippers who were like detached from that fandom bc those same people harassed them away as well ssooooo fun

anyway when S6 happened everyone was high on it and whatnot but I wasn't gonna begrudge them that I mean... you shipped it for years, canon is delivering you, good for you, but then j*nerys happened

god j*nerys happened

aaand basically...... I mean personally I was there like are y'all seriously arguing about the best incest jon ship out there but like basically the j*nsa endgame side was like AH JON IS PLAYING DANY SEE IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN, the j*nerys obv got defensive af and both sides were sort of alternatively shitting on jon/ygritte anyway and depicting any other romantic rship jon could have as abusive™ and during S8 it just got worse and like I tried to stay out of it but basically from what I'm seeing now idk how the j*neryses are doing but on the j*nsa one it's ah jon's gonna play dany anyway and she's going to go insane like in the show so SHOW TRUTHING EVERY OTHER WAY and like again denying that sandor exists or that tyrion exists and like I barely touch my corner (sansan) but I ended up arguing with j*nsa/th*nsa people on twitter who were antis and is2g it was white-hair inducing and I know for sure the sansa/tyrion shippers were harassed to hell and back throughout so FUN

and even if the show didn't go there now since everyone there banked on the jnsa endgame thing and admitting you're wrong is like... not a thing, they still haven't let go of it and attach to that ship any shred of evidence which honestly is grasping at straws half of the time (like... the sansa/alysanne parallels like guys please no) and which is why every other ship is starting to get fed up, attaching canon proof of stuff from other ships onto theirs see that batb argument and jb is platonic but jonsa is not nvm taking all the sansan stuff and throwing it on j*nsa but then denying that sansan has canon evidence (like guys I had to read sansa touching his shoulder when saying gregor wasn't a true knight wasn't meaningful and we were seeing things please) and blah blah blah

this also goes hand in hand with the fixation on like... villanizing dany at all costs and like is2g I have zero investment in dany or her storyline I don't even remember it and I don't particularly care abt her either way and sure af I'm not for j*nerys endgame but like.... some stuff I read is completely excessive esp when fixing on how she's a completely mad tyrant who's gonna have to be put down and like... guys no

(also there's some srs stannis hate in that corner which I honestly don't get why they even care abt stannis but I had to read stuff like ppl don't recognize that dany and stannis are the real villains in this saga and like........ idek)

I think most of the og shippers are gone or don't ship it openly bc they don't want to be attached to the drama but like I also think they're pissing off everyone else bc like... I mean a bunch of them also were down with sansa being paired with other ppl as long as it meant a good ending for her except those ppl were... like everyone but the ppl she has actual contact with in canon which meant that at some point sansa/gendry was a thing and like.... you can imagine why arya/gendry shippers & arya stans were fed up, and there's also this tendency to behave like sansa is the center of the entire saga which like these books is named a song of jon snow basically can we pls make peace with it and personally I've had it with both j*nsa and j*nerys people since they started with that dumbass JON/YGRITTE WAS AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP rhetoric but I'm also fed up with the total ignoring that sandor exists/depicting us as delusional and honestly I also was by proxy fed up from the harassing of the sansa/tyrion shippers soooooooooooo

there were also instances of 'well theon is an acceptable choice other than jon bc he can't threaten her' which... i mean we all know what that meant and I'm not even commenting it bc it's one AM and I have no force to but I don't have to explain why it's not a progressive take now do I

there were also metas about how cousin incest being legal in half of the world means that jondany is a worse incest and j*nsa doesn't count as such and I was basically there like guys please just fucking own up to it but honestly I chose to forgot where I read that and I couldn't find the link if I tried

tldr: no one wants to admit that it's not gonna be endgame which considering the amount of fic they have on ao3 is imvho useless bc they have more content than like.. anything I ship that's not jb or that's actually like canon *cries in joncon/rhaegar but I mean renly/loras is canon and has less fic than them* so idk what's the problem with enjoying that instead of insisting it's gonna be canon when not even the show validated it while show truthing anyway when the only show truthing that can be truthed is the small council made of minorities and possibly jon eventually fucking off with the wildlings but not like that but like most people who thought it wasn't gonna be endgame had left/were made to leave by the time S7 rolled by and at this point since wow isn't out yet everyone is fandom-grasping at straws to find stuff to discourse on and we're here beating dead horses *shrug*

so that's... how it is but I would again like to point out that I don't judge ppl on their shipping, I don't particularly care about this entire feud bc I only ship jon with ppl he's not related to in whichever way and I try to stay out of this mess bc I don't really care to argue with ppl who have already decided to bend canon to whatever they want and will have to realize that it's not what grrm wrote at some point but like I have a very good memory and the above rant is as objective as possible also bc again I don't literally have a stake in that race I just think romantic/endgame j*nsa is not a thing and that ppl should stay in their lane and not harping on other ppl who ship whatever in general but especially when their ship is the most popular thing in fandom in the first place /two cents

[aster-ion]

Sylvie x Loki Might Not Happen and Here’s Why

***SPOILERS FOR LOKI TV SHOW***

1.  They are basically siblings

Even though they have different personalities, backstories, and physical appearances, that doesn't change the fact that they are the genetic equivalent of siblings. No matter what Timeline you're looking at, both Sylvie and Loki are the offspring of Laufey and whoever he had children with. We know this because they are Variants of the exact same person, meaning that if either of them were born to someone other than Laufey, they would have been pruned as a baby. And since they weren't, that means they must be just as genetically similar as siblings are.

Because of this, the idea of Sylvie and Loki engaging in any kind of romantic or sexual relationship is extremely disturbing to a lot of fans. It's too big an oversight to brush past, especially when the show has continued to remind us over and over that they are, in fact, both Lokis. Maybe if them being the same person wasn't such a major plot point, it would be easier to ignore the facts, but it is, and that means that Marvel is basically pushing either an incest or selfcest (depending on how you look at it) type relationship. And that’s extremely risque for a corporation as large as Marvel, especially with a character as beloved by fans as Loki. 

2.  It is terrible LGBTQ+ representation

And before anyone says anything, no, it is not because Sylvie is portrayed as female and Loki as male. I've seen a lot of Sylvie x Loki shippers say that the reason people don't like the couple is due to it being one between a male and female, but that's not true. Loki and Sylvie were both confirmed to be bisexual, meaning that they can engage in a relationship with anyone of any gender. It would be completely valid for either of them to pursue romance with someone of a different sex and still be bisexual. No one is arguing against that, and if they are, I definitely do not agree with them.

However, the problem comes in when you take into account Marvel and Disney's (who owns Marvel) long history of queerbaiting. There have been countless times that Disney advertises their "first gay character!" only for it to be a single line of dialogue or a brief shot. Marvel in particular has used the popularity of certain LGBTQ+ ships and headcanons in their fanbase to generate media popularity that they don't actually follow through with in their movies/shows. So when Loki was confirmed to be both genderfluid and bisexual in Episode Three, lots of people felt like they were finally getting a win for representation. 

But those people, myself included, appear to have been let down again. The first two official queer characters had so much potential to go off and be with anyone they wanted, but instead, the show has set them up to be in a romance with each other. Now, this wouldn't be problematic on it's own, but when you take into consideration the questionable nature of their romance from Point One as well as the fact that the show has explicitly referred to it as "twisted," it raises the question of whether or not this is actually good representation. Because the fact is, in one episode the writers went “look, it’s two queer people!” and in the next, they said “their relationship is disgusting and demented.” Marvel’s first bisexual characters being borderline incestuous/selfcestuous does not sit well with me at all.

All of this is made even more confusing when you take into account the background of the Loki crew, most notably, the director Kate Herron. She also directed the Netflix series Sex Education, which has quite a bit of very well done representation of all kinds. So how is she managing to fail so badly on this project? It makes me wonder whether she truly is just losing her touch or if this is all a misdirection. Personally, I'm hoping for the latter.

3.  It does not send the "self love" message people seem to think it does

The writers, director, and cast of Loki have said multiple times that the relationship between Sylvie and Loki is meant to act as a metaphor for self love. And in a way, that makes a lot of sense. Despite creating different identities for themselves over time, they are still ultimately the same person and therefore share a special bond because of it. And there's a lot of potential that can be done with that concept.

Loki is an extremely complex and intriguing character. He has experienced a lot of trauma in his past that has shaped him into the person he is today. And that person is clearly very broken. He has never given away or received any kind of love, with the exception of his mother and possibly his brother, Thor. Other than that, he's had no healthy friendships, romances, or perception of himself. It makes sense for him to be confused by this pull he feels towards Sylvie, who is both alarmingly alike and vastly different from himself.

Something this series does exceptionally well is breaking Loki out of his comfort zone. He is finally forced to see himself from other people's perspectives. It started with the file Mobius showed him in the first episode. Loki was able to view his actions apart from himself, and was hit with the realisation that he had been hurting people, and he didn't like that. 

Loki is also confronted by the existence of the Time Keepers and the TVA, who describe him as an antagonist and nothing more. To them, his role is to make those around him look better, even if that means he repeatedly gets the short end of the stick. Mobius mentions that he disagrees with this and that Loki "can be whoever and whatever he wants, even someone good," adding another layer of depth as to who Loki could be in the future of the series. 

Another huge moment for Loki's character development is while in the Time Loop Prison with Sif. Though he starts out annoyed with the situation and recalls not feeling apologetic when he cut off Sif's hair, the longer he is in the loop, the more he changes. Loki admits things to himself that we have never seen him say aloud, such as the fact that he is a narcissist that craves attention. Sif telling Loki over and over that he deserves to be alone makes Loki question whether or not he believes that to be true, allowing him an introspective moment where he really has to think about who he is. 

Now with all of that being said, I'd like to tie in why this is important to the writing of Loki and Sylvie. They act as a mirror to one another, representing both the flaws and strengths of "what makes a Loki a Loki." For once, Loki gets an honest, unbiased look at himself without layers of expectations or self doubt. On Lamentis, he calls Sylvie "amazing" and praises her for all her accomplishments. That's a huge moment for him because it shows that despite also finding her irritating, he can look past those traits and see someone worth being a hero underneath. And through that realisation, he begins to understand that he can also grow to love himself. That kind of character development for Loki is incredible to watch, and it's the kind of character development I want to see from this series. Unfortunately, them possibly engaging in a romantic relationship will ruin it.

Whenever I'm feeling insecure about myself and my abilities, the solution has never been to look at who I am through a romantic lens. Self love is an entirely different type of love from romantic love, so if the series tries to push this relationship as a romance, it will fail to truly represent the arc that they are trying to show.

4.  Nobody likes it 

This one's a little on the nose, but it's true. Almost no one likes this ship, and more than that, most people actively hate it. Yes, there is a small minority that like Loki and Sylvie together, but there is an overwhelmingly larger group that is disgusted and angry by the fact that the show paired them up.

After Episode 4 aired, I ranted for about an hour and a half with a friend about how much we didn't want them together. My aunt whom I have never texted reached out to me to say that she hated their relationship. My homophobic neighbour came over and told me that she would prefer any other romance to this. Friends that I haven't talked to much since school let out for summer have all agreed that they collectively dislike Loki x Sylvie. This ship has brought people together purely because everyone hates it more than they hate each other.

There is no denying that the general feedback for Loki and Sylvie being a couple has been negative, even if you support them getting together for some reason. So if there are so many people out there who don't like it, I'm confused as to how it would be approved by a team of professionals.

5.  The contradicting information we have gotten so far

Before the release of Episode Four, Kate Herron said that the relationship between Loki and Sylvie was “not necessarily romantic.” During the interview, she continued to refer to them as friends and people who found solace and trust in each other.

However, after Episode Four, the head writer, Michael Waldron, and other members of the crew spoke up about Sylvie and Loki. They said things like “it just felt right that that would be Loki’s first real love story” and “these are two beings of pure chaos that are the same person falling in love with one another.” These kinds of comments very heavily imply something romantic, directly contradicting what Kate Herron said. Even Tom Hiddleston, the actor for Loki, has assessed the situation, highlighting the differing viewpoints. He’s also said before that the end of Episode Four ultimately has Loki getting in his own way. 

Now, this could all just be a misdirection on either side to build suspense for the show, but as of right now, it is entirely unclear who is telling the truth. Though it is more likely that the statements made by Michael Waldron are more accurate (as he is the writer), there is still a slight possibility that Loki x Sylvie won’t happen. I’ll link the articles I’ve found on this topic below so you can read them and decide for yourself. 

Kate Herron Statement - https://www.cbr.com/loki-sylvie-relationship-not-romantic/ 

Michael Waldron Statement - https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/loki-sylvie-in-love 

Tom Hiddleston Statement - https://thedirect.com/article/loki-tom-hiddleston-sylvie-romance 

6.  It is still salvageable

The odds are not in our favour, I’m afraid. It is highly probable that the show will put Loki and Sylvie in a romantic relationship with each other. Yet there is still a way to salvage it and turn their bond into something incredibly satisfying. Like I mentioned in Point Three, the relationship between Loki and Sylvie has the potential to be incredibly empowering and provide both characters some much-needed growth. And I believe that while unlikely, it can still do that. 

The only mention of them being romantically interested in each other came from Mobius, who at the time was angry, betrayed, and doing anything he could to get Loki to talk. Then, at the end of the episode, right before Loki is about to confess something important to Sylvie, he is pruned. This results in no explicit confirmation from either Loki or Sylvie that they are in love with each other. The audience is left not knowing whether Mobius was correct in his speculations, and honestly, I don’t think Loki knows either.

Loki is no expert on love, as I explained earlier. It is entirely possible that he doesn’t grasp how he feels about Sylvie and defaults to romance because of what Mobius said. There is undoubtedly some sort of deep bond forming between them, and I would love to see that being explored in the next two episodes. I would love to watch Loki’s journey of realising that he doesn’t want anything romantic with Sylvie, and was simply confused by the new things he was feeling towards her. Loki even says “this is new for me” when talking to Sylvie at the end of Episode Four. Him momentarily believing that he wants to be a couple with her then shifting into them becoming friends who help each other grow is still a reality that could happen. And ultimately, I think that would benefit them both as characters as well as strengthen the overall message of the show.

In a show about self love, acceptance of yourself, and figuring out who you want to be, Loki very much needs people who support him. He has that in Mobius already, and now he’s beginning to have it in Sylvie as well. I just hope that it is done in a way that resonates with the audience and subverts expectations, which just cannot be done through some twisted romantic relationship. I’ve spoken to others watching the show and seen people talking online, and everyone seems to agree that Loki and Sylvie work much better as platonic soulmates or found family than a couple. 

Of course, my hopes aren’t that high up. While I’d love for this to happen, I’ve been let down by Marvel before and wouldn’t be surprised if they went for the easy route of pairing characters up rather than dealing with the emotions correctly. Still, I have hope for this series. Everything else about it is wonderful and perfect in every way. It has the potential to become a masterpiece and easily the best thing that Marvel has ever done. However, this romance would ruin it for me and so many others. We already feel incredibly disappointed by Loki x Sylvie being suggested, so I can’t even begin to fathom how people will react if the show makes it canon. I’m begging Marvel to please do better than this. They have a wonderful story to tell and a wonderful team to do it, and I hope from the bottom of my heart that they don’t throw that away. 

[lemon-boy-stan]

paparazzi problems - kim seokjin x reader

genre: fluff, angst. warnings: none, mentions of anxiety, suicide. also i diss the us the star wars fandom? so sorrynotsorryi’minittoo pairing: kim seokjin x reader.  (AU where jin writes ‘Magic Shop’, guys. Also I changed a few lyrics around but you’ll see.)

There was no doubt that there would be many grey aspects to making your relationship public. You’d been dating for two years even though you’d known him for much longer, the year being 2020, and ARMY was expecting it, you were the eighth and only female member of the group, after all, something like this was bound to happen.

Ever since it’d been announced on BTS’ account (you weren’t permitted your own Instagram and you perfectly understood why), the amount of interviews you and Jin had attended multiplied by double the amount more than the six other band members.

Which was fine, just tedious and mainly uncomfortable because these interviews weren’t about music, the rest of the band wasn’t with you, these interviews were about your private life together - your love life.

It was fun at first, just the two of you answering questions and taking photos and being in separate magazines but it soon became pressuring and even a little annoying. Although you didn’t get a lot of hate (mainly because when and if you did BigHit would shut it down or one of the other guys would Tweet something fiery back in return) the problem with not having any drama whatsoever was that people tried to make drama.

If they saw you and Jin together, frowning at each other because you were halfway between sharing a look and rolling your eyes something stupid someone (probably Jungkook) said, someone would put a photo of the frown on the internet and the supposed-to-be-interesting interview the following day or week would be laced with questions about why you were supposedly arguing when everything was going so well.

If people saw you getting too close or touchy with one of the other band members the faces of you and said band member would be all over the internet and said band member would become ARMY’s chosen flavour to hate on, even if Jin would speak up about it and you wouldn’t be able to joke around with said band member for at least a few months until something else blew over.

Pretty soon, the two of you learned to loathe these interviews and you were now sitting with the rest of the band (who were already in pajamas) in your new outfits and makeup. You were the one who brought up the subject, lifting your head up and off it’s resting place on Jin’s lap with a miserable groan as he looked down and blinked at the space where your head had once been before bringing his attention back to whatever you were going to say.

“Can we just say we broke up or something? I’m tired and I want to play Mario Kart, too!” you crossed your arms and made a grouchy face, making Jin frown before remembering why he was in clothes and the others were in pajamas; he agreed lazily with a sheepish noise and shrug.

Jin didn’t seem to be offended about it, in fact, he looked like he completely and genuinely understood why you’d said such a thing. You could not say the same for the rest of the boys; apparently your words had been an instant mood killer because someone muted the TV and their cheery conversation came to a dead end. 

The six of them turned around in-sync, staring at you with blank, shocked faces and round open mouths before Namjoon repeated what you’d spoken with a frown, “why would you want to fake break up with each other?” Jungkook, who was still watching the silent TV and had only just started paying attention, choked on his drink and span around. “What?” he turned to Namjoon, using a panicked voice, “Seokjin and Y/N are breaking up?! But, why?”

Everyone, including yourself, groaned, but it was RM who groaned the loudest, shaking his head. “Aiyho, go back to school and take extra classes in paying attention.” He said this in such a serious tone that it was hard for anyone listening and watching not to try and hold back a laugh.

Jungkook scowled as Namjoon continued on like what he said hadn’t been, “Y/N and Jin are just discussing that they want to fake break up.”

“It’s actually a really good idea,” Jin said this with such lust in his voice that the others were also scowling, giving him disapproving and disgusted glares. “What?!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms up. “You guys just don’t get it. We can’t go anywhere without being grumpy, without having photos being taken of us and stories made out of them….”

“Yeah!” you agreed much more loudly than you imagined you would’ve used, “I can’t steal any of Jimin’s noodles without people taking a photo and talking about it and hating -” you began. “You shouldn’t be taking my food in the first place!” Jimin shot back hotly, scowling again. 

“Yeah, that’s boyfriend stuff,” Jin grumbled, making you hit his arm loudly. “Really, mister ‘buy your own food’?! If I took a single spoon of your congee you’d drop me like the mic Taehyung was holding in Mic Drop,” you hissed, making Jin grin proudly at this.

“Anyway,” Namjoon cleared his throat, desperate for peace to be restored, “it’s your decision. I’m not saying it’s a good or a bad one but -”

“No, it’s a bad one and even Jesus knows it!” Jungkook contributed to the banter, “ARMY’s going to blame everything on Seokjin because he was the one who kissed her that night at the concert on stage in the song -” 

“People didn’t see that, though,” you began desperately, “so no harm done, right?” when you did not get the response you wanted you raised your voice and said, “Right?!” again, leaning over the table to stare down the person who was currently on their phone (Hobi) so that he would scramble to find a clip of the concert, guilty.

“Here’s a bootleg of -” he began, only to be interrupted by yours truly, you’d grabbed his phone from his hands and scrolled the red line down to where you’d imagined the kiss would be. You were right. Jin, the hopeless romantic he turned out to be, had been keeping his eyes on you the entire way through Magic Shop. 

You could still hear it, with or without the audio of the video, you could still hear the words. Don’t forget that in the end, I found you, you were standing on the edge of the cliff. It’s my last reason, LIVE. The day you hate being you, the day you want to disappear forever, let’s make a door in your heart. If you open that door and enter, this place will wait. 

Then he’d grabbed you, and you were the one crying, not Jimin, you were. Because Jin had told you Jungkook co-wrote that song. But it wasn’t Jungkook, you understood now,  as Jin’s lips were against yours, it was Seokjin who’d co-written the song. Who’d co-written...

Magic shop.

And the crowd was screaming, ARMY was screaming, some were crying… because Seokjin had breathed into the kiss, the magnifying screens for those who weren’t in the mosh pit had been zooming in on the kiss, bringing the entire world’s attention to his love, to the two of you.

Even the person who was filming with their phone was screaming.

You were still crying as Jin breathed the words “IloveyoubemygirlfriendI’llalwaysloveyouandneverletyougo,” into the kiss quietly, forgetting that he still had his headset on. 

ARMY was screaming again at the words, they were happy that you were happy. Because ARMY was not a toxic fanbase, ARMY was not Star Wars. ARMY could see the kiss and relationship coming from the day you were put in the studio, they’d supported the relationship from the day you were put in the studio together. They didn’t pressure you to break up like how they pressured Rose out of the movies so that Rey and Finn could get together.

“Why do you have to be so romantic, Seokjin?” you slapped his finger away from the tear he’d been trying to wipe, glaring at him. “Because look where it got you, right?” Namjoon rolled his eyes. “But maybe just wait until this interview to decide, ‘kay?” he said this in the same breath and now you were the one who rolled their eyes. “Because you’re gonna be late.”

Namjoon, as usual, was right, the numbers on Hobi’s phone (still in your hands) had flicked from nine twenty-eight to nine twenty-nine, the interview was at ten o’clock and it would take you twenty minutes for the cab to get there in time.

You sighed, rolling your eyes again, slapping (or sliding) Hobi’s phone back across the table, grabbing Jin’s arm violently, getting up, about to hiss a backhand comment at the others before noticing the smirks they were giving your boyfriend, “what?” you nearly growled the words at their stupid smirks before turning to Jin himself, glaring at his blank face. 

“Can I - just let me - you still have -” I hadn’t even noticed that tear was there. “Oh,” you breathed, the tension thick. “Yeah. Um.” no-one laughed or snickered even though you didn’t know why, you half expected Namjoon to at least grin but he didn’t. “Thanks.” you muttered, grabbing one of Jin’s scarves from the rack, almost choking yourself gently with it (thankfully RM saved you from it’s deadly clutches, rolling his eyes and loosening it). 

“Well,” you said, your earlier words still having no plausible effect on the other boys, you started to stomp out the door, ignoring more of Namjoon’s huffy eye-rolling before Jin took control and ushered you out. 

Always early, the drive to the interview had given you a good ten minutes to spare (which you admittedly agreed was enjoyable, you’d made sure to bring your camera, learning your lesson hard, and took photos of Jin with the water fountain.) and soon you were in the studio, spraying silly string at each other in expensive clothes.

Okay, so, maybe when you mentioned interviews being absolutely boring and repetitive or something like that earlier you’d used a very generic term for the word interviews. Because there were very rare occasions where the interviews you and your boyfriend went to were incredible, and today was one of those days.

This interview wasn’t just an interview. It was more like the much more enjoyable activity ones like the group ones you’d done on the Jimmy Fallon Show, Late, Late Show with James Corden, VLive, and other Korean/American channels. 

The studio was huge and empty and there were several cans of bright silly-string scattered around the place. The leader of the interview group told you what you’d be doing and you were all of a sudden very pumped up to take part in this.

You’d be answering questions while spraying each other with the neon silly string. Being a mature duo, the studio echoed with laughter and shrieks and snorted replies to the questions (which really weren’t that bad after all). 

Except, of course, you always seemed to jinx yourself right when things were getting good. “So, Y/N. BigHit makes a big deal about how you donate a lot to anti-bullying, anxiety and depression organisations. There’s been talk of you having depression, is this true? Or is it all just a plea for attention?”

You blinked, thinking maybe you were in a dream, because there was no way an interviewer would question something like that. 

Silence reigned and only when Jin’s sleeve brushed past yours did you realise you were not, in fact, dreaming, you closed your open mouth.

The silly string war had lightened Jin’s foul mood (he’d lost the cap of his camera and didn’t want to buy another one because it was ‘too expensive’.) but now it’d gone back to what it was before. He looked right about to punch the guy in the face and ruin his social life and the rest of his career.

Jin remained calm as always. Instead of losing his cool like one of the other boys would if they were with you, Jin breathed through his nose and a clenched jaw. You shot him a pleading look from the corner of your eye but when he didn’t even register it you knew that there was no stopping whatever would come next.

“When people break an arm,” he began coolly, “you can see the broken arm in the cast. You can see it, you know it’s there. You don’t question it. It’s the same with religion, only different. People don’t know if the gods they believe in really did exist. But they believe the words. They don’t question it. So, if you can see her donating to, talking about, raising awareness for, depression and anxiety, I suggest that you take her word and believe it. Because hypothetically, even if it wasn’t true, if it looked true you’d believe it. It’s just like your company, isn’t it? On the media, it looks like people enjoy themselves in these interviews. You capture the good parts and take out the bad parts, you wash out the black into a grey illusion. We’re all on the same page here; we should keep it that way.”

You looked away and down, trying your best to avoid all forms of eye contact. The tension in the  studio had shifted from joivial to awkward and angry. Even after the interview had ended and you’d taken the silly string off the atmosphere was still uncomfortable and you couldn’t bear to be in it any longer so you nodded quickly at the strings of apologies from everyone in the studio with you.

Just like back at the apartment, Jin took full control, ushering you out with a firm hand on your upper back, walking swiftly out the door. 

Once you were in the taxi out of earshot away from your paparazzi problems, you exhaled loudly with a sort of groan, resting your head on his shoulder, looking up into Jin’s endless black orbs. 

“You didn’t have to do that.” you began softly, making him roll his eyes. “But thank you,” you looked up to him again, “I mean it, Jin. That meant a lot.” now he smiled softly, kissing your head, “Anything for you, Jagi. I love you.” you closed your eyes and said, “I love you too,” quietly back.

BTS MASTERLIST - bts requests are open!

[yuusa]

𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝟔

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 𝟐𝟗𝟐𝟔

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐅𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥

𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝟔:

You squinted your eyes at the costume presented in front of you. Although they did follow your specifications, you couldn’t believe that you were actually going through with their plans. Your classmate brought up the gifted costume and you held up the outfit towards your face.

You sighed before turning to look at Yuki who had already gowned his outfit. You pressed your lips together as you stared at the frilly costume, finding yourself uncomfortable looking at him. It wasn’t that the costume was hideous, or that Yuki didn’t look good, they both don’t pair well together at all. You thought that he had it the worst when it came to handling his own fanbase.

As you looked around, the classroom was close to being done and ready to open. You excused yourself as you made your way to the back of the class where the curtain was. You silently motioned Tohru to keep a watch of the area as you quickly changed into your costume to avoid wasting any time. You were pleased to see that the material wasn’t scratching against your skin or even the color red. You slid each of the components on and clipped the necessary accessaries before pulling the curtains back, revealing your figure in its glory.

Your hair was tied back in a low ponytail, the long jacket of yours shaped to be a pair of wings that flowed with the open window breeze. It hung on your shoulders while you donned a pair of black gloves. There were many layers to this outfit and you were glad it wasn’t the middle of summer. You adjusted the cravat around your neck as you stepped out towards the center of the classroom, many of the boys swooning over your appearance while a small number of girls commented on the costume choice. The suit fitted nicely around your breasts, making you wonder about the sizing for this outfit.

“T-The perfect fit!” Someone shouted.

“This was so worth the price!”

You huffed before placing your hand on your hip, giving the audience your signature cold stare. You heard various sounds of camera flashes as you stood still for your classmates to take photos.

Yuki stood by your side almost speechless, unable to form any sort of sentence to you. The costume fitted you quite nicely and the jacket looked similar to a cape. In a way, he felt as if he was the one unable to match your appearance.

You stood tall and confidently while he cowered a bit in his costume. You were playing the part of a prince quite well as the boys begged you to roleplay a specific scene for photos. There were times that your hair slipped over your shoulder, revealing the black ribbon you used to tie your hair back. When you pulled on your glove, stared at the camera with your sharp (e/c) eyes, and called out to the audience, you were really selling the part.

Once word got out that you opened your classroom doors, there were many students flooding into the room to take photos and eat. You questioned whether or not Yuki felt overwhelmed by the amount of attention on him, but you also needed to focus on the special requests people are sending.

“Five onigiris for a special request photo! Selling five onigiris! Come get your onigiris with special photographs with Sohma-san and (L/n)-san!” Uotani announced, racking up a massive line behind the onigiri stand.

When you were going to ask Yuki about the situation, you were immediately silenced by the micro-banged fanclub president who began monitoring Yuki’s personal space. You sighed before turning away from him, not noticing the stare Yuki gave you as he frowned.

“A-Ah. . . Umm. . . (L/n)-san! Can you do a kabedon for my friend!” One classmate asked, her friend blushing immensely at her embarrassing request.

You gave her a gentle smile, “alright.”

You grabbed onto her hand and pulled her towards you as you maneuvered your body so that she would be placed against the chalkboard behind you. She gasped when you slammed your gloved hand next to her head while you towered over her shorter figure. You reached out to tilt her chin upwards so the two of you made eye contact.

“Is this alright with you, princess?” You smirked, causing the girl to feel the heat rushing to her cheeks as she squealed, her friend quickly taking photos of the moment while the rest of the boys gathered behind them. You internally groaned on the inside as you prepared yourself for a wave of requests flooding in.

“Do this pose next (L/n)-san!”

“Look over at this camera!”

“(L/n)-san you’re looking great okay!”

Tohru watched as you took every single special request, admiring your impressive acting skills as you took on every single offer. Despite straining your cheeks to smile at everyone, you were willing to put yourself through the pain if it meant selling Tohru’s onigiris.

“(Y/n)-kun and Yuki-kun are doing a good job selling our onigiris. They both look really good!” Tohru commented, to which Uotani smugly added on.

“I helped organize her costume after all.”

Tohru smiled at her, “you’re amazing Uo-chan!”

“Right?! It’s a great looking costume.” Uotani patted herself on the back.

“The rat boy has a whole complex with his face.” Kyo said, “he probably likes the attention he’s getting.”

As you were holding a girl in your arms, you noticed the presence of an unknown boy coming into the room. When you turned your head to see his appearance, he disappeared from the door. He immediately jumped onto Yuki’s back, speaking German. Who is that? You thought. 

“Momiji, Don’t wander off on your own.” A taller, much older figure came into the classroom, holding onto his coat and draping it over his arm. 

“Oh! Harry!” Momiji hooked his arms around Yuki’s neck, still attached to him. 

What you presume to be Harry walked towards Yuki, greeting him formally. You raised your eyebrow at the scene in front of you, were they part of Yuki’s family? The rest of the girls in the class swooned over their appearance, most likely drooling over the thought of other Sohmas being at their school. 

“Guten tag! I’m Sohma Momiji! I’m half-Japanese and half-German!” He wore this dark brown cowboy hat with childish clothing, he was extremely short and his voice made you believe he was only a small child, “and this is Sohma Hatori! We’re both related to Yuki and Kyo!” 

So they were his family. You wondered what was the occasion for them to actually come over considering the fact that Shigure wasn’t here. Then again, you barely knew any of the Sohmas on a personal level, probably not as much as Tohru who was gushing over an unknown thought. 

You twirled the girl around in your arms, her friends still taking photos of you and her together. She was holding onto your arm tightly as to not let go when you both had to part for the next request. You had almost forgotten you had your own job to do as the Sohmas soaked up most of the attention. 

“With that out of the way--Yuki, since when did you turn into a girl?” Hatori turned to face Yuki who was bubbling up on the inside with frustration and embarrassment. 

“You’ve seen me naked dozens of times, and you still ask me that with a straight face?” Despite his need to tell Hatori to keep quiet, he still walked over to him as Hatori whipped out a stethoscope, examining his heartbeats. “He’s a doctor. You don’t have to examine me here.” 

You pressed your lips together, if he had some sort of physical ailment, you wondered the reason behind his extreme running prowess. During Physical Education he and Kyo would often go against each other to run laps and you never had suspected he had to see a personal doctor. 

“I do because you broke your promise of coming once a month for a check-up.” Hatori clarified. 

Tohru gasped in surprise before making her way to Yuki’s side, “Sohma-kun, are you ill?” 

Hatori took off the stethoscope, “Yuki has bronchial problems. He had frequent attacks when he was younger.” 

“Are you Honda Tohru?” He asked, he later turned his attention over towards you, your eyes focused on him intensely almost stalking his every move out in the open. 

Tohru politely bowed, “yes! Pleased to meet you!” 

“I see. You really are a normal girl,” he commented, moving his eyes away from yours. 

You raised your eyebrow at his statement, was Hatori trying to imply that Tohru had something other than her blind kindness which made her unusual? You wondered what reason he had for even coming to the school at this point. It certainly doesn’t seem like he really needed to visit and examine Yuki here at the school. 

Yuki brought himself between Tohru and Hatori, separating the two of them and becoming a wall for him. The sound of a girl screaming caught the attention of the class as they all turned to Momiji who was sitting on top of the sign. 

“What are you doing you idiot?!” Kyo forcefully dragged him down from the sign and pulled him into the curtain of the backroom. Tohru turned to Yuki to excuse herself and ran over to the back. 

You frowned while watching Hatori interact with Yuki, silently trying to pick up on their conversation. 

“Why are you here?” Yuki asked.

“Take your complaints to Momiji. He brought over a festival flyer and then Akito wanted to come.” Yuki stared at him in shock as he continued, “Akito has a 39° fever, so I used my doctor veto but I end up having to come instead. Relax, I didn’t come to do anything to Honda Tohru.”

Akito? Who was that? You narrowed your eyes at the name. What exactly was Tohru hiding with the Sohma family? Is she somehow connected to them on a deeper level? You pressed your finger onto your chin as you stared off into thought, your sea of photographers still taking photos of your “cool” attitude. 

The sound of an explosion erupted in the classroom, a yellow smoke coming out of the bottom of the curtains as the students gathered around. Your eyes widened when you noticed Yuki starting to bring the attention back to him, calling himself weird as he fidgeted in his dress. You pressed your lips together in a firm line as you watched the class gather around him, clearly being distracted by him while Tohru ran off with Kyo and a yellow rabbit. You watched as the class became fascinated by Yuki’s acting and you quickly left the room to follow Tohru, Hatori’s eyes watching you closely.

You trailed behind the two when they went up towards the roof, carrying the animal up. As you reached the top of the steps, you felt the calloused hand of Hatori’s grab onto your arm, pulling you back. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” He asked. 

You clicked your tongue before ripping your arm away from him, “shouldn’t I be asking you the same question? What is with you and Tohru-kun? What are you to her?”

“That is none of your business.” 

“So you and she do have something?” You narrowed your eyes at him. “What was that explosion then? Where did Momiji Sohma-san go? I highly doubt he was still behind that curtain.” 

You crossed your arms around your chest, creating a barrier between you and Hatori at the steps to the rooftop. “For someone who is a doctor, you sure are hiding quite a bit.” 

“For one, this doesn’t concern y-”

“You’re involving Tohru-kun, are you implying she is also part of your family? Doesn’t that make her even more suspicious now?” Hatori noticed the sharpened gaze of your eyes as you stared down at him from the top of the steps, almost like a bird of prey watching it’s food moments before it’s flight, “What are you hiding that is so important?” 

Hatori opened his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by Yuki’s presence running up the stairs. He huffed in exhaustion before straightening his back to see you and Hatori at the stairs. You internally cringe seeing the pink and white dress contrast his appearance. 

“(L/n)-san. . . What are you doing here?” He asked.

You turned to Hatori and went back to Yuki, “are you both hiding something?” 

“Eh? What makes you say that?” He could feel himself starting to sweat underneath the dress from nervousness.

“If you’re not, I’m going up to the roof then.” Before you can turn around and walk up the stairs, Yuki grabbed a hold of your hand and dragged you back to the bottom of the stairs.

“W-Wait, I have something to talk about first.” You raised your eyebrow at the strange turn of events.

You sighed before letting Yuki take you to a secluded corner of the stairs while Hatori went up to the roof. When he had backed you against the wall, he tilted his head up to look at you. 

“A-Ah. . . Um. . .” He mumbled, trying to think of a way to not crumble underneath your intimidating glare. “I just wanted to say that. . . You did a good job today.” 

“Is that so?” You hummed, clearly displeased by the conversation topic. He noticed the lack of stutter from your voice as you dipped lower in tone, “it still doesn’t answer my question.” 

“I. . .” He bit his tongue, stressed out about the situation of how to explain everything to you without having you discover the family secret. “I’m sorry. I just can’t tell you.”

“Why?” You asked, your emotions bubbling with frustration and rage, “I thought we were friends, Yuki Sohma-san.” You sneered. 

“W-Well, we are but. . .” He trailed off. “I just. . . I can’t tell you right now.”

You grit your teeth as your anger pumped through your veins. What was it that was so special that it had to interrupt the class festival? Why involve someone like Tohru? Who are Hatori and Momiji? Who is Akito, why did they want to come? What is the connection? None of this is lining up and it was frustrating the hell out of you. 

Was this the feeling of jealousy?

You instinctively raised your hand, your irritation of the situation getting to your head, as you almost brought it towards his face but froze midway. Yuki seemed to have flinched as he saw your hand but you dropped it to your side, lifeless. The dullness and emotionless look of your eyes were shown through the dimly lit corner. 

“Whatever.” You responded, a hint of venom in your tone as you saw his eyes widen in shock. You shoved past Yuki and speed-walked towards the nearest girls' bathroom, leaving him alone in the corner of the staircase, withering away with guilt on the inside. 

You slammed the bathroom door shut, breathing heavily as you bent over the sink, taking in your reflection in the mirror. Your hair was slightly disheveled and your cravat was a bit loose. You yanked the ribbon from your hair and slammed your hand onto the sink, the material cracking slightly under the pressure.

Why were you so annoyed at this?

You bit your tongue as your mind tried to rack up every possible scenario which could have made sense. You brushed your hair back, before reaching out to your reflection. Your eyes were cold as ever, the (e/c) color doing nothing to soften the angry expression you had. Your piercing eyes glaring back at you.

It wasn’t like you and him were close from the beginning, you bitterly thought, you slid your hand down to your side, your fists tightening as your nails tried to dig through the glove material. Compared to someone like Tohru, you were nothing to him. What had happened between the two of you was simply for the sake of Tohru, it was to make her happy seeing the two of you become friends. It was just some sort of play date that was set up.

You growled in frustration as you glared at your reflection in the mirror. The exhaustion shining through your pupils. It didn’t matter in the end, you were better off forgetting about this experience and distancing yourself away from the family. You held no value to them and you wanted. . . No, you needed to accept this fact. You wiped away at the small tears forming at the corner of your eyes, concealing the sniffles as you took deep breaths.

You sighed before taking the ribbon and tying your hair back, readjusting your costume, and swinging the bathroom door open. You made your way back to the classroom, seeing the smiles of your classmates light up at the sight of you back.

“Fifteen onigiris for five special request photos! Let’s go all out!” You swung out your arms, a forced smile spread across your face as the classroom roared with excitement. Everyone quickly gathered around your form, filling the empty void from Princess Yuki with your presence.

While your heart may have hardened that day, the feeling of betrayal sinking into your bones, you wanted nothing more than to please the people around you.

[shinneth]

Spill the tea on Connverse!!

Ahh of course. That piece of shitp. Crap in its own right, but its fanbase’s incessant shoving this down everyone’s throats ironically makes my body reject it. The emetic-laxative combination of Connverse drives me to expel bodily wastes on both ends.

You know, I was tired of main guy x main girl ships twenty years ago. Of course, I really contest Connie being considered a “main girl” when she honestly wasn’t around enough to warrant that role. Her screentime was pitiful compared to the actual main girls (Garnet/Pearl/Amethyst); she’s closer to the CG B-Team in terms of screentime and plot relevance. 

But given that there’s literally no other human girls the show really gave a realistic alternative for Steven, and there’s a really really stupid stigma that pairing him with any gem automatically makes you a pedo/racist/rapist/other words antis don’t know the meaning of, Connie’s the only viable one to put in that role. 

Also, don’t care if you ship it or not, but if you buy into Sugar’s “Oh, they were always in love!”, then fuck right off with that.

Because A: That’s dumb; that’s not how love works, and fuck you royally if you really believe it was nothing but constant romantic love in the show itself.

And B: The show itself had a whole episode explaining why this very concept is utter fucking bullshit.

As badly written Garnet was for much of SUF, maybe we shouldn’t forget that she had many moments of spilling her own brand of tea that shouldn’t be ignored. 

Connverse as a whole is a broken aesop. SUF wasted our time building up Connie as someone who had goals, an actual fucking life outside of Steven, and had common sense to know she doesn’t have time to spend on maintaining relationships, especially after she leaves for college.

But nah, in the end, even though Connie was every bit as dense as the other gems not named Peridot (see: Bismuth Casual) and was largely absent for half of SUF, we’re supposed to buy that she knows Steven’s pain better than everyone else and somehow is the only one competent enough to rally everyone into a plan to calm down the monster.

Which apparently included Connie backpedaling. Look, she had zero reason to enter a relationship with Steven - she could see plain as day that Steven was not only a traumatized mess, but he had no real understanding of what it meant to be in a more serious relationship.

And yet, just as Connie’s set to leave for motherfucking college on the other side of the country, she hooks up with Steven, who’s going to spend much of his time doing cross-country BS. 

Tell me Steven could still be cured if Connie just hugged his monster self like everyone else. Because that’s what I want to believe.

And if you do believe that, that means the kiss itself was superfluous!

But if you believe Connie really needed to kiss Steven to turn him back into normal, guess what! That would mean Connverse became canon via emotional blackmail.

At best, they have a long-distance relationship here. One they can’t realistically maintain - like, who the fuck cares if Lion’s there’s to trivialize the distance? Connie’s going to be busy. Busy with shit Steven doesn’t understand. Like seriously, by all rights it should fucking fail. They should break up within Month 1.

Connverse in SUF isn’t the same as Connverse pre-timeskip, let alone Connverse in Season 1 where it was actually decent. 

But that’s okay, because as time passes, people change. This would’ve been a good lesson for Steven to learn about how the people you think you’re forever destined to be with end up becoming someone who absolutely is not his soulmate. And that’s not to say the change is bad; Connie’s simply found her own path in life, and it’s one that would likely make Steven miserable as he’d have to force himself to adapt in ways that wouldn’t make him comfortable just to keep up with her. 

And no, just because they sank Larsadie for similar reasons doesn’t mean Connverse should have been kept afloat. Larsadie was a background ship that just got the bare minimum of closure, and would have best served as foreshadowing to Connverse ultimately going down a similar path.

And hey, remember that time in Season 5 when Connie was absolutely horrible to Steven? 

How did that get resolved, again? 

(I mean shit, Lapis never had to answer for what she put Peridot through, but at least they had next to no interaction past that point even after her return; that gives the illusion that actions have consequences!)

Try and convince me Connie and Steven wouldn’t clumsily “work out” all their problems by becoming Stevonnie and leaving it at that.

Actually, don’t. I’m concerned Connverse antis will read this and actually spew essays at me and the last thing I want to do is read some stupid idiot’s manifesto on why this ship is like Jesus if Jesus was a relationship. 

[oveliagirlhaditright]

One thing I noticed when I was reading debates on So Kai's canon status on KHinsider, was that a lot of people were vehemently insisting that both So Kai interactions and Sor iku interactions could be interpreted as either romantic or platonic. I completely disagree, but, do you think a lot of people are under the impression that this is true because of their experiences playing Final Fantasy and other games that play both sides of a love triangle?

I don’t think so. Though I could be wrong, of course. Because the only game to really do that is V*II (and even then, you have C*leriths in particular--though C*loTis do it, too--that C*lerith is totally the intended, canon pairing. And even as a C*loTi myself, if I’m being honest... I think they might be right. It just seems that if most of the developers did have to choose in the end, they’d choose C*lerith. And you get the C*lerith scenes easier than you do the C*loTi ones). Some of the other games somewhat have other love triangles, sure. Like Q*uistis likes S*quall in V*III, and you can get scenes with R*ikku and L*ulu as T*idus in *X... But even there there’s a clear intended pairing. Squall never showed any interest in Q*uistis, as he was all about R*inoa. And while you can get those scenes with R*ikku or L*ulu, T*idus of course still falls in love with Yuna canonically in the end (and also, not every K*H fan has played F*inal F*antasy). And even a lot of other media that has love triangles has their intended pairing planned out from the get-go.

Warning: This post is probably going to get salty, because to explain what I think happened with the whole S*oKai vs. S*oRiku war all the years that K*ingdom H*earts has existed. And since I wasn’t as chill in the past as I am now, some of this stuff used to tick me off and I might unintentionally unearth those old feelings here, in making myself remember it all.

But at least for the the fans who have been here from K*HI on or from K*HII... I think they saw S*oRiku because they wanted to see S*oRiku. Like, apparently there were some fans who saw it as early as the first game, and were trying to argue it was canon over S*oKai even way back then. And while I’ve been with the series since only K*HI was out, I didn’t have Internet at the time (I got it right after K*HII came out, so I found these old arguments then). And just... no. Just no. S*oKai was so clearly canon in K*HI, while as S*ora and R*iku pretty much hated each other 99.9% of the game. I don’t get where those people are coming from. 

And then with K*HII, a lot of people were like “Oh my gosh, S*ora totally touched R*iku’s butt! These two are so g*ay!” And also “no” there. Guys, this is a D*isney game. In what world do you think D*isney would ever let that happen. And then there’s the infamous S*ora cries when he finds R*iku while holding his hand while he falls to his knees, that really started all of this--because don’t you seeeeeee, that S*ora reacted so much strongly to finding R*iku here than he did K*airi?!--never mind the fact that to try and push that angle, you really have to take that scene out of context. But even if you count that scene as S*oRiku, instead of somewhat as a writer’s flop, that’s really all you have pointing at S*oRiku from I-II, while you have a million things pointing at S*oKai... and yet S*oRikus were adamant that S*oRiku was canon, and people were fools for thinking otherwise.

And if these games were always going to be S*oKai, like I think they were because tbh... J*apan still isn’t very open about when it comes to g*ay couples and you definitely see that with S*quare E*nix, I wish they would have just left it like it was instead of giving us C*oded and D*ream D*rop D*istance.

Why those games are how they are, I don’t know. But we at least know K*airi was originally planned to be in C*oded, even if that doesn’t excuse that she wasn’t in the end. But tbh... And granted, I’m clearly a S*oKai, so maybe I can just never really see S*oRiku because of that (even if I have tried, to see if these people are right and I’m missing something): I’ll admit it... But while C*oded is a game many people look to to say that S*ora and R*iku are g*ay, all I see here is friendship... even when I tried to look at it through another lens. 

But this game is, perhaps, where you had to start to wonder if S*quare E*nix knew S*oRiku was so popular, and started q*ueer-baiting with it to try and sell games. You could argue that that was why K*airi was left out in the end. I think it was probably more for time-constraints (which is still bull), but you could still argue it. And you have that part where S*ora’s going inside of R*iku. Which at the time, a pretty famous amv maker (who recognized S*oKai was canon and shipped it) posted that scene alone and titled it “The Reason Re:C*oded Will Sell”. And tbh, they probably weren’t wrong. And you could say that that part in particular was q*ueer-baiting. But again... I don’t know if it was. Because to do so, they would have had to be trying to give that line a double meaning--rather than it just meaning that Data Sora had to go inside Data Riku’s data. I.E. Another computer had to access another computer’s data--which I don’t think they would do, because that wouldn’t have flown with Disney. And as I’ve said above, S*quare E*nix--until the FF*VII R*emake, perhaps--usually treats g*ay couples as a joke, like with the non-serious B*arret and C*loud ship, that’s played for laughs. The only exception is, perhaps, V*anille and F*ang. But they’re never even said to be flat-out canon, and F*ang was originally supposed to be a guy... yeah. Also, sometimes it seems like N*omura doesn’t know much about what goes on in his games’ fanbase--at least not originally--because he only heard that A*kuR*oku was a big ship in the fandom a few years back, and then quickly stated that that wan’t canon. So... I don’t know if they’d really do this. But it’s up to you, I guess.

Which brings us to D*ream D*rop D*istance. I don’t know why this game is the way it is. I don’t. Though people have said they don’t think N*omura was in his right mind while making this--because this was the time that those “N*omura’s Depression” articles were coming out, because after ten years he was getting nowhere with V*ersus X*III because of the company’s shitty decisions--and F*rustrated J*acob makes the good point in his D*D*D playthrough, that it sounds like N*omura was moreso making V*ersus at the time than D*D*D, because I think this was when Yasue first became co-director. And in interviews, Nomura was mostly saying things like, “This happened in D*D*D because the team wanted it”, but not that he did. Which is the opposite of how he usually handles KH. But this was the game where even I started to feel there was some q*ueer-baiting going on (though when I recently made a post about this, palizinhas--a friend of mine who does ship S*oRiku--explained that the game moreso felt again like N*omura just celebrating how great male friendships are (a big thing in J*apan, and also in N*omura’s work. *cough* V*ersus/F*FXV and perhaps even more *cough*), and I think I agree. But still... this game, and to a lesser extend C*oded, makes me feel bad for the S*oRiku shippers, because I feel they were teased about their ship when it would never become canon, and I kind of just wish S*quare E*nix had left it alone. And I guess it’s also worth noting, that D*D*D was originally supposed to be the start of K*HIII, as was 0*2 after that... which might actually explain a lot. In a world where that had actually happened, we would have had one better balanced game. We would have had the section that focused on S*ora and R*iku’s friendship, the part that actually focused on R*iku and K*airi’s a little bit (0*2), and then the one that finally pushed the S*oKai romance forward again (K*HIII). And in a game that was about how S*ora felt his strength came from his friends, and that he didn’t think he would triumph without them... it would have made sense if said game was divided into his strongest friendships (his one with R*iku in the first half, and his one with K*airi in the second, and his ones with D*onald and G*oofy all throughout). It’s kind of sad that isn’t the game we got in the end, as that would have fixed a lot of problems. Alas.

...And I don’t really know how to end this thing, so I’m just going to randomly end it here. Yep.

Edit: And I just remembered why Kairi may have been left out of Coded and DDD: because the fandom hated her. So much.

[blackjack-15]

All Dogs Go To Pennsylvania — Thoughts on: Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake (DOG)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: mention of MHM, DOG, brief mention of VEN, brief discussion of two characters from ASH, brief mention of LIE, spoilers for 20th Century American History in case you’re not caught up yet.

The Intro:

Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake is, first and foremost, a game that is simultaneously over- and under-appreciated. It’s a rare phenomenon in gaming, and one that only occurs once in the Nancy Drew game series. 

It has an intensely atmospheric location, but is coupled with the least fitting cast to ever grace a Nancy Drew game. 

The maze (and its bird spotting/worm finding puzzles) is tedious at best, but the speakeasy is riddled with fun puzzles and pitch-perfect décor. It has the most boring, milquetoast, robotic suspects of all time, but some of the best phone characters. 

And, to top it all off, it has one of the most straightforward mysteries paired with an insanely weird ending.

The thing that DOG really nails is the location. The visuals, the accents (Emily’s is a standout), the feeling of timelessness — all of that is central to this specific area of Pennsylvania and somehow Seattle-based HER really just gets it all right. Not only is this significant in this burgeoning era of Nancy Drew games, but it also goes a long way to making the game fun to play.

By this point, HER has cottoned onto the fact that their audience really likes historical background to the games, and includes it as a matter of course. For DOG, we’re learning about Prohibition-era Pennsylvania — and more specifically, bootlegger history. 

To understand the game completely, a little history lesson might be in order. If you’re familiar with Prohibition and its cultural impact, you can skip the next few paragraphs.

For those not from the US, Prohibition was when a bunch of uptight, meddling people in the early 1900s decided that they needed a good Moral Panic and that the best way to get rid of the problems that can come with drinking was to give the government the power to make it illegal by adding it to the United States Constitution.

This lasted a total of 13 years  (1920-33) where everyone immediately and promptly ignored the law, until the government sheepishly passed the repeal in the form of another amendment to the Constitution, having accomplished nothing other than moralistic finger-wagging and the solidification and exponential growth of organized crime and the black market in the US.

Thus, in United States culture, bootleggers and others who defied Prohibition are usually viewed as folk heroes fighting against stupid governmental overreach, rather than as criminals. 

One of the most famous anecdotes from the Prohibition era is about an FBI agent who went undercover to see how long it would take to get alcohol in the major cities of the time. The longest took him a bit over 15 minutes, while the shortest was in New Orleans, Louisiana, where it took him 32 seconds due to his cab driver answering the question of where he could get alcohol by producing a bottle and saying “right here”.

This backstory is crucial not only to understanding characters like Jeff Akers, Eustacia Andropov, Vivian Whitmore, and, yes, Mickey Malone, but it’s also crucial to understanding why the game feels the way it does.

Unlike the other Nancy Drew games that touch on organized crime — Phantom of Venice, Labyrinth of Lies — this game holds a sort of fascinated reverence and “good ol’ American boy”-type feelings for Malone and his fellow gangsters. 

Usually in Nancy Drew games — and almost always in the early to middle games – HER tries to send a very strong message against any type of illegal or immoral behavior (as evidenced by the games’ Fundamentalist fanbase), but DOG stands out in its sheer American pride in these law-breakers from a different age.

It’s to the benefit of the game that the character archetypes of certain suspects and/or phone characters feed into these 20s/30s Prohibition-era tropes, as it gives them some grounding in a game that really doesn’t have much to say (in contrast to how much it feels).

Other than the historical background and its modern-day underpinnings, DOG is a paint-by-numbers Nancy Drew game with one or two annoying puzzles, a strong atmosphere, fun phone friends, and a decent plot. In a first for the series, it’s also a primarily outdoor game, which would inspire future games such as Danger on Deception Island and Creature of Kapu Cave, among many others.

While I would never rate DOG in my top games (and probably not even in the top half of games, due to the overall quality of the series), there’s a lot it does right. Ultimately, the problem with the game — and the reason that it doesn’t rank too highly on a lot of lists — is not that DOG does anything wrong, per se. It’s just that, for all its good things, DOG doesn’t do enough right.

The Title:

Lots of Nancy Drew games (always excepting the first two, which were more trial-style games and thus are different on a whole host of levels) are titled with “The [adjective] [noun]”, “[noun] in a/the [adjective] [location]’ or “The [noun] of [Proper Noun/Location]”, and Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake thus stands out a bit, making the title seem more important than it would normally.

The title tells us pretty explicitly what the main conflict — and the main “haunting”, as this is a Haunted game in its trappings, if not in its actual plot — will be: the ghostly dogs that haunt the Moon Lake property. It also lets us know, in a roundabout way, the location of the game (though there are Moon Lakes in multiple places throughout the US).

However, that’s all the title does. Unlike most other titles in the series, DOG’s title doesn’t really let you play around with possible meanings or read into it at all. As good a title as it is for pointing you right to the heart of the premise of the game, it’s also a bad title because it refuses to tell you anything else about the game.

In other words, the title, much like the rest of the game, is a mixed bag that, for me at least, hangs a little more on the negative side than the positive.

Now, onto the only thing that the title points us to:

The Mystery:

Nancy’s been called to investigate by a friend of her family’s, Sally MacDonald — a photographer and land owner — due to the fact that Sally’s cabin has been experiencing nightly hauntings by ghostly dogs of the cabin’s previous owner, a Prohibition-era gangster named Mickey Malone.

Technically, Nancy is supposed to be there to visit, but Sally can’t take another night of hauntings, and books it out of there before Nancy can arrive. Upon her arrival, Nancy experiences one of these hauntings, and promptly sets out to solve the case behind the Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake.

As a mystery, DOG isn’t too standout — it’s in the vein of MHM, though not as good — and follows the basic structure of a Haunting Game: a few instances of the haunting, some logical explanations, some illogical explanations, and a few shifty people who could have caused the disturbances.

The reason behind the hauntings is established fairly quickly, as Nancy learns that Malone’s property is valuable for a number of reasons, and Sally’s purchase of it upset the plans of the other three residents of Moon Lake. What’s not clear is which of our three extremely guilty-seeming suspects (four if you consider Sally a suspect) is actually responsible.

While the culprit in this game isn’t immediately recognizable, as HER has tried to lay some red herrings and distribute blame a little more than they have in the past, it’s still easy to figure out once you’ve hit the halfway mark (and can be figured out well before that if you’re paying close attention), but that’s more due to the suspects being one of the most lackluster suspect groups in the entire series.

The Suspects:

Sally MacDonald is the owner of the so-called haunted cabin on Moon Lake, and is the “client” of the game. She bought the Moon Lake property for its picturesque views, but soon learned that the cabin came with a price beyond the monetary. Upset by the hauntings, Sally high-tails it out of Moon Lake, leaving Nancy an incredibly garbled message about the dogs and not much else. She also hasn’t apparently tested her water even though she’s been there for a month, which is a Bit Much, City Girl.

Sally’s not really a suspect, but there’s nowhere else to put her, and if the game didn’t begin with Nancy witnessing the dogs for herself, Sally would start out as a halfway-decent suspect herself, rather than a mostly-pointless phone friend.

Sally herself is one of the weakest points of the game (more on that below), which is a little sad when you consider how important her presence is to the game versus how much impact she actually has (less than anyone else)

Red Knott is the rather unfortunately named birdwatcher that perches on what I’m pretty sure is Sally’s property to begin with and yells about The Youth with the vigor that only an oldster in civvie-camo can do. He’s upset about Sally’s purchase because he wants to watch birds 24/7 and having more people — especially someone younger, as he hates those under 50 — in Moon Lake means more people disturbing the birds.

Red is rude, cantankerous, and firmly believes in having people do things for him, provided it’s an 18 year old in unisex camo gear. You’d think his and Sally’s shared hobby of photography would link them together and make Red your first-cleared buddy-buddy suspect, but Nancy’s pretty much on her own the entire game.

As a suspect, Red is pretty lackluster as well. Sure, he likes his birds, but no one believes for a moment that this dude is actually behind anything other than being a pain the butt. Red is entirely un-useful in everything, but not so unhelpful as to stymie Nancy. In a cast of nothings and no-ones, Red is especially forgettable apart from asking Nancy if she smokes.

Jeff Akers is the local park ranger and resident owner of the most firmly lodged stick in the universe. He’s also the strongest tie to the Prohibition-era backstory as the Lawmen opposing people like Mickey Malone and Valerie. 

It’s a shame he doesn’t do his job better; Jeff should be the embodiment of Consequences when Nancy goes too far, but instead, he barely shows up to have his dog be a red herring and then disappears into Moon Lake like some Nessie-style monster of Little Consequence.

As a suspect? Well, Jeff isn’t going to tick many boxes. Sure, he’s got a dog — albeit not the right type of dog at all — and he’s not fond of Nancy, but pretty much no one in this game is a fan of Nancy, so that doesn’t do much for his suspect-ness at all.

In a game where dogs are bad news, Jeff is all bark and no bite. He’s a comic relief character that shouldn’t be a comic relief character, and a present-day presence when he should be a relic of a past time.

Emily Griffin is the owner of a local bait shop/general store/Prohibition-era antique corner who definitely only sells Legally Obtained items, thank you very much. She’s got that cheeriness that HER liked to conflate with friendliness, ignoring that they’re two very different things and produce two very different reactions in the player (think in ASH Toni’s cheeriness versus Alexei’s friendliness).

She’s the one most tied to the past through her side hustle of selling Prohibition antiques, and it’s obvious that she must be the culprit through that reveal alone. Unfortunately, that’s her only tie to the Prohibition era, as nothing else about her is a shadow of Malone, Vivian, or any other bit of the past we learn about in the game.

As a suspect, Emily is the best, but still isn’t fabulous. There’s little depth to her beyond simple greed, and her interactions with Nancy might as well be with a slightly cagey computer rather than a person. She’s not sinister enough to be scary (apart from one subtle moment covered below), but not silly enough to be funny. She perhaps best represents DOG as a game: she’s a mixed bag with a few shining bits, but is ultimately forgettable.

The Favorite:

There are a few things that DOG does righter than rain, so let’s take a run-down.

The first and most important thing that DOG nails is the atmosphere. I’ve mentioned it above, so I won’t dwell too much, but HER really just gets rural Pennsylvania right, and it’s an absolute treat to play in that atmosphere.

The next is also covered above, but I really adore the good ol’ American appreciation for our bootlegger heroes. It would have been so easy to demonize these people who did, admittedly, break the law, but instead HER for once doesn’t play the wet blanket and acknowledges that sometimes (most of the time, really), American folk heroes are a bit good and a bit bad.

My favorite puzzle is incredibly lame, but it’s the Roman Numeral puzzle. I have a slightly secret, mostly nerdy love for puzzles that use things that are useful in the real world, and having taken Latin in college, this puzzle really actually helped me be able to 1) pass accelerated Lain and 2) feel more confident when looking at dates. It’s also just kinda fun and relaxing. I like puzzles that make me sort stuff.

My favorite moment in the game is probably when you first step into the speakeasy and Malone’s presence is almost palpable. Every time I walk in, I’m always looking around for someone to speak to, even though I know the saloon is empty. It’s a great moment and an appropriate reveal given the heft of the historical background.

Once again, the Hardy Boys are a bright spot in this game, as are Vivian and Eustacia. Really, the phone conversations are the best part of DOG — not just because the actual game is a bit lackluster, but more because they’re really just that good.

I’ve also gotta give credit for the insanely terrifying tidbit of Emily trying to give Nancy calming tea that would poison her after setting the shed on fire. It’s a great moment of fridge horror, and shows that Emily does have some subtlety (attempted murder with a femur bone notwithstanding) when she wants to.

The Un-Favorite:

There are probably as many bad things as good, however, and it’s here that DOG starts to show its weaknesses.

As mentioned above, Sally really drags down the parts of the game she’s in, as she could have been a good character and ultimately winds up not even being a character at all.

If you restructure the beginning and have a little more subtle haunting of the dogs happening to a cabin and then cut to Sally leaving Nancy a voicemail/talking to her on the phone — but Nancy sees no evidence of dogs, just general mild destruction — then you start out a haunting game on the right foot.

Proving Sally right about the dogs and right to leave Moon Lake from the beginning weakens the game, and is one of my least favorite bits of it.

As far as least favorite puzzles go, there are two contenders. The maze in the woods is a high point for some, but as someone with a little trouble with distinguishing visual stimuli in the first place, it can be (and usually is) absolute hell. None of the puzzles are hard except for the bird-spotting puzzle, which isn’t hard as much as it is frustrating.

My least favorite moment is the beginning haunting simply because it builds the game up to a point that it never reaches again, not even with the hilarious screwball ending. When the best moment of the game is the first two minutes, you’re not looking at a satisfying game.

The cast is often what makes or breaks a game and, unfortunately, this is a game where the cast breaks it. There’s simply nothing in the suspects to propel the game forward, which gives the game a feel of more of a graphic novel-type game than a whodunnit. And, spoiler alert, it doesn’t make for a good graphic novel game either.

The lack of length in this section isn’t a testament to the value of the game itself; rather, it shows DOG for what it is: just unremarkable. Not good enough to be solid, not bad enough to be an outlier.

The Fix:

So how would I fix DOG?

There’s not much you can do with the current cast of characters, despite their tenuous ties to Prohibition tropes, so I’d pretty much start over.

Make Sally a mid-game presence (actual tangible suspect, thank you very much) and shift Emily from the ‘bumpkin’ archetype to someone a bit more world-wise (though keep the accent, it’s fantastic) and hide her involvement in dredging the bottom of the lake a little longer (or implicate someone else in it first, whichever works).

Give Red something to do to make him a bit more suspicious and use him as Nancy’s buddy once Sally comes in (to keep the number of suspects the same) and have his photography actually come in handy. As for Jeff…an obstructionist presence is fine, but root him a bit more in history as a figure of the law rather than a sissified bureaucrat whose only character trait is that he loves to give tickets.

The puzzles could also solve to be more memorable and not auto-solved (save for the bird-spotting puzzle, which is a Disgrace) by the game, but part of that is the age of the game.

DOG is structured as a haunting game, so beginning it with Nancy experiencing a haunting full-stop is a horrible beginning. It takes out any suspense and any sense that this might just be an old legend and minor sabotage getting the better of Sally (or better, Sally damaging her own property in order to hype up its status as Malone’s house and then flip it for a profit/get her photos of the “hauntings” featured in a nationwide story) and instead gives us the most cut and dry (emphasis on dry) haunting game in the series.

Beginning DOG in the way that HER does, while a great cinematic (especially for 2002), drains the suspense and Mystery out of the game like sap from a pine tree. We’re still left with a structure of sorts, but it’s just not what it could have been.

Ultimately, even with DOG fixed, I don’t think it would be a standout game for anything (except possibly atmosphere). At its best, DOG is simply a three-star entry in a series; no one’s least favorite, very few people’s favorite, and memorable only for its initial haunting rather than for its plot, characters, or mystery.

[the-y-generation]

Not My Type (Chapter 4)

Summary: “Do you know how you stop a craving? You give in to it.”

When she signed on to be a road manager, she had no idea it was going to be for one of the biggest bands in the world, much less how they were going to turn her life upside down, nor how she was about to flip theirs too. Especially one irritating frequently-late vocalist who knew exactly how charming he could be.

Pairing: Idol!Jimin / Manager!Original Character (I personally haven’t written in “y/n” format, so I just gave the reader a name, but barely even mention it)

Genre/Themes: fluff, angst, friends with benefits, friends to lovers

Rating: Starts off G, but M in later chapters

Status: Ongoing (Masterlist)

The call came while they were touring Southeast Asia, a barely understandable voice on speakerphone from their management. But through the static, one word rang loud and clear - Grammy. 

Joyous yelling rang through the hotel room as the boys jumped up and embraced one another, congratulating each other for a job well done. There were tears, and prayers, and weak knees, and an endless grateful chant of “Army, Army, Army”.

All the while, Anna stood off to the side, watching the ecstatic scene unfold from the doorway with a soft smile.  

It had been a long road for them, filled with countless speed bumps and breakdowns. But through backbreaking hardworking and unquestionable resilience, they went from being a barely-known boy band hardly taken seriously, to one of the biggest acts in the world.

Now, this - nominated for, and performing at the Grammy Awards, the most prestigious honor in the industry.

The weeks leading up to the awards ceremony were a whirlwind of press and rehearsals. The boys were tugged every which way - a photoshoot here, an interview there, and a sprinkling of rehearsals whenever they could in the evenings.

Anna tried her best to find pockets of rest for the boys, all of whom were far too gracious to complain. She had offered countless times to push back an interview or a photoshoot, but they waved off her concerns. They claimed to have an endless well of energy, running off the high of the awards season. But it had been several consecutive evenings that she exited her shower to find a slumbering Jimin tucked in the middle of her bed. 

As was now their routine, he’d let himself in with his spare key of her hotel room, and hang around while she finished work. Some days, he’d pester her like a petulant child needing attention. But other days, he’d laid there quietly and listen to music.

She never woke him up, only gently nudging him to give her some space. He always complied, scooting slightly to make room for her under the sheets.

More often than not, they slept quietly side by side, with Jimin leaving silently in the morning to sleep again in his own room. But there have been a handful of times when she woke up mere inches from his face, close enough that she wasn’t sure if the hair on tickling her forehead were hers or his.

And of course, the one morning they don’t talk about - when she woke up far too warm, owing to the startling fact that they had managed to become entangled in the night. He had his back to her, her arms were around his torso, hands shackled to his chest. Before she could gently pull her arms away, her phone went off with her morning alarm. 

Jimin’s eyes fluttered open, and upon registering their position, eased himself from her. Neither acknowledged it from fear of making things awkward. So instead, he rubbed his eyes and slowly rolled off the bed, muttering about seeing her at breakfast, as she grabbed her towel to take a quick shower. 

If they thought that the prelude to Grammys was a storm, it would be nothing compared to the expected hurricane of the actual awards day. 

But not on her watch.

The nit-picky manager got up at the crack of dawn to scarf down some breakfast and get the ball rolling. She made a bazillion calls, confirmed the schedule of Rolling Stone who was doing a behind-the-scenes video on the band, approved the cars they’ll be riding, rounded up the staff, and checked on the breakfast spread set up for the boys in a private function room. 

By the time that they were up, fed, and showered, she had a hotel suite prepared, with the makeup artists set up in one room, and the stylists and wardrobes (all steamed and hung to perfection) set up in another.

“Wow.” Namjoon whistled when the bleary-eyed boys stepped into the room.

They were used to crazy. They were used to messy. They were used to last-minute, rushed insanity. But there was none of that today.

In a precision only rivaled by the military, the staff descended upon their designated Bangtan boy, whisking them away to be dressed and prepped. Barely having to lift a finger, they had their suits on, hair fixed, makeup done, contacts popped in, and accessories in place by the time Rolling Stone came knocking at the door to do a quick interview and photoshoot for an online feature. 

“Why aren’t you dressed?” Jimin whispered to her as she ushered the editorial staff into the common area of the en suite. 

It had been a few hours since they had last seen each other. Once the boys were taken away by their respective glam teams, she was nowhere to be found. 

Not that he was checking though, Jimin thought to himself.

“What?” The preoccupied girl replied, only half listening as she signaled the boys to take their places on the couch. 

“I said, why aren’t you dressed?” Jimin repeated. 

Finally, she looked at him, blinking twice to force her brain to shift attention.

“Dressed for what?” She tilted her head in confusion as his words registered in her one-track mind.

“For…the Grammys?” He frowned at her in equal confusion, gesturing to her outfit. Don’t get him wrong, she looked great in her blazer and distressed jeans combo. But one would expect something slightly more...elevated for an event such as this. 

Now they were just having a stand-off of confusion, as her eyes grew even more befuddled. 

“I’m not going.” She said, absent-mindedly pressing a hand to the small of his back to nudge him to join the others on the couch.

“What do you mean you’re not going?” He turned slightly to hiss at her. 

“I mean, I’m not attending the Grammys.” She reiterated, irritation lacing her tone. “I’m not invited.”

Jimin stopped in his tracks as his shoes scuffed against the carpet. She reached out to help him right himself, but he caught himself in time and, in a fluid movement that was more characteristic of him, Jimin turned back to her with wide, confused eyes. Interestingly, the other boys looked equally slack-jawed.

“What do you mean,” Taehyung broke the silence, emphasizing each word. “That you’re not invited?”

“That I’m not invited.” She repeated once more, patiently this time, aware that they were within earshot of the Rolling Stone editorial team. “There’s a staff headcount - essentials only. You’ll have the usuals with you - your stylists, your makeup artists, and a PA.”

“But not you.” Yoongi said. Not a question, but a statement.

“No,” She affirmed. “Not me. My job tonight ends when you guys get into those cars.”

She chuckled, already looking forward to a nice quiet evening alone. It had been a while since she had one of those. But then a realization dawned on her, her brain following the line of questioning that she was receiving. 

“You’ll have dedicated on-ground staff to help you around, so there’ll be no problems.” She was quick to assure them, thinking their concern was for their well-being. “I’m already in contact with them, so if there are any issues, they, or you guys can just give me a call.”

Seokjin frowned at her. “But why won’t you be with us? It doesn’t make sense.”

She frowned back at the eldest member, at all of them. “Because I won’t be.”

She didn’t know what else to say. There was really no other explanation. When she got into a call with Manager Sejin to settle the details and the personnel headcount, the veteran said she could have the evening off and send one of the other staffers to escort them instead. In her mind, that was the right move anyway, as those who had been with them for a long time were more deserving to attend the festivities than she was. 

Before the boys could react any further, the Rolling Stone team cued them for the camera and the interviewer began to make small talk to ease them into the conversation.

The interview came and went smoothly, with the boys accommodating a few extra photos for the online feature (“The Army always loves getting new photos” Jimin said, ever eager to please and feed their adoring fanbase). Then the 6 boys took turns practicing their prepared English answers with Namjoon.

With the interview over with, the young manager took this time to step out and make a few calls - one to have the drivers pull up the cars, and a couple more to the on-ground staff meant to escort them throughout the Grammys. But what she thought would only take a few minutes ended up being a solid half an hour. She sighed, realizing she had been gone too long and wasn’t able to help the boys practice their English. 

On her way back to the hotel suite, a familiar number rang her phone. She didn’t quite like what she was told on the other end. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” The infuriated girl barked out the moment she reentered the room. Jimin, who was closest to the door and holding his phone to his ear, jolted in surprise.

“What’s wrong?” Namjoon asked from over his makeup artist’s shoulder. 

“Why did I just get a call from Manager Sejin saying that you guys have been calling him, asking him to pull some strings so that I can come?” She accused no one in particular, even though Manager Sejin dropped some names over the phone.

She took the time to look at each member, daring them to look her in the eyes and provide an answer. But all of the first 6 faces she turned to averted to a certain Park Jimin. 

“It just feels weird that you’re not coming with us,” Jimin answered quietly on behalf of the group. She coughed roughly, prompting him to meet her hard gaze. She wasn’t satisfied with his answer. 

In a flash, Jimin’s eyes hardened into a penetrating gaze, transforming his boyish features into a  fatal weapon. An angry Park Jimin, looking equal parts dangerous and beautiful, was not for the faint of heart. 

 “Manager Sejin came with us to everything. So you should too, right?” He asserted, as if accusing her of not completing her tasks. She scoffed at the insinuation.

“Jimin.” Namjoon warned, forcing the younger boy to check himself.

He took a deep breath and looked down at his shoes, taking a few moments to gather his thoughts. She waited patiently, biting her tongue to keep the acidic words at bay. When he finally lifted his head to look back at her, his eyes were back to usual kind nature.

“It just doesn’t seem fair that you put in all this work for us, and yet you don’t get to go with us.” Jimin reasoned, shifting uncomfortably in his custom Gucci suit.

Feeling the beginnings of a smile tease her lips, she bit her lower lip to keep from breaking her serious facade.

“If that’s your reason for insisting that I come, then the entire team should come as well.” She replied. Jimin began to groan, but refrained when she cut him off with a hand. “I have my instructions - to help you get ready, then send you off on your way. That’s all my job requires of me. Going to parties and award ceremonies are technically out of my scope.”

He furrowed a brow at her. “Since when did you count what is and isn’t part of the job?”

“Since…always?” She widened her eyes, confused by the trajectory of the conversation. “Because at the end of the day, this is a job.”

Jimin recoiled from her like she might as well have slapped him. 

“A job.” He repeated quietly, as if she wasn’t meant to hear it. But the words rang clear in the too-still room. “That’s all this is, right?”

Blood rushed to her ears at the implication of his words. His silvery eyes snapped to hers, and the world froze over. Suddenly, the room was too small, everything was too loud, and the Earth was burning under her feet.

She opened her mouth to defend herself, but found that no words slipped out. He had her under a spell, his sharp gaze pinned her arms down to her sides, and her thoughts fizzled into nothingness.

Then, without warning, he released her, turning around to grab his phone which had been discarded on a nearby table.

Neither the boys nor she brought it up again.

When it was time, she herded them down a service elevator that brought them directly to the parking lot where the cars were already running.

“So what will you do?” Jimin asked quietly as he waited for his turn to board the car. She had reached up instinctively to fix his askew bowtie. 

She hummed in question, eyes focused on making the bow perfectly straight.

“Tonight, I mean.” He clarified. “Since you won’t be with us.”

Happy with the bowtie now, she glanced up to meet his gaze. “Once you guys leave, I’ll get into my comfiest pajamas, order some room service, and watch the show on TV from the comfort of my bed.”

Her cheeky answer pried a warm smirk from him, albeit begrudgingly. Jimin smiled down at her, the tension from earlier already forgotten. He nodded, humming his noncommittal approval, before hopping into the luxury SUV.

As the cars drove by and disappeared up the tunnel leading into the main street, Anna released the deep sigh she didn’t realize she was holding. 

Her job was done for the night. The on-ground team would take good care of them, she was on everybody’s speed dial, and if all else failed, Namjoon always knew what to do.

True to her word, she took a long soak in the tub, keeping tabs on them via the live stream on her phone, and 10-minute updates from the on-ground team. She carefully held the phone up to her face, scowling when she spied Jimin’s semi-tousled hair.

“That boy just can’t keep his hands from his hair.” She sighed, glaring at the video on her screen. But it wasn’t a big deal, really. A few locks of hair fell onto his forehead, which he brushed away occasionally. The third time he did this, licking his lower lip as he did, she realized it was intentional.

Damn this sexy fucker. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

When the show was about to start and her fingers were beginning to prune up, she climbed out of the tub and changed into some comfortable clothes which consisted of heinously over-sized sweatpants and the Chimmy shirt (the latter she only realized much later on). Then she ordered dinner from room service (today’s achievements called for a medium-well steak and a glass of wine) and settled into her sheets.

The boys did well in their performance of their nominated song, although she had come to expect nothing less than perfection from them. Sadly though, they didn’t win. But if the screaming that shook the building when they were announced during the nominees’ roll call and the adoration that instantly flooded social media were anything to go by, BTS were loved on an unparalleled level.

In many ways, they have already won.

As she was typing up a consolation message in the group chat, her phone pinged, alerting her of another text.

PJM: “Sorry we didn’t win.”

She couldn’t stop the smile that took over, and quickly typed out a reply. “Don’t be sorry. We are all so proud of you.”

His reply was equally instantaneous.

PJM: “Wish you were here.”

Her heart stuttered, unsure what to make of it. But she shook her head, knowing better.

This was Jimin. His default setting was flirt. He could go from mochi-cute to i-will-seduce-you in 0.05 seconds flat. She knew better than to overthink it. So she placed a hand over her racing heart, willing it to have some control, before she typed out a neutral response.

“You’ll survive without me for a night. See you tomorrow!” 

There, that was pretty neutral. Right?

—

“Come on, put your phone down.” Namjoon said to the frowning boy next to him. Jimin had been fixated on his phone for a while, almost as if he could get it to melt in his hand. “Who is so important for you to text anyway that it can’t wait until after?”

“Nothing, hyung.” Jimin grumbled, grudgingly stuffing his phone back into his pocket. 

It was undeniable that the boys were heartbroken to have lost. But getting nominated was an achievement in and of itself, Namjoon reminded the members. Some artists don’t even get nominations throughout their entire careers. Yet, here they were, shoulder to shoulder as equals with the world’s biggest and most respected musical acts. They had come a long way, and that’s what they should remember.

“Why aren’t you dancing?” Yoongi asked from Jimin’s other side, pointing at the dance floor. Jimin shrugged and rolled his sleeves up, not giving a verbal answer.

They were at a posh Grammy afterparty hosted by some big artist that Jimin can’t remember through his intoxicated haze. He had downed one too many drinks too quickly. 

Somewhere in the throng of drunk celebrities and sweaty socialites were Jungkook, Taehyung, and Hoseok, probably dancing their giddy butts off along with some of their staff who they had “dismissed” for the night. Jimin was too warm to join them at the moment. Jin wandered off a few minutes ago, in search of another bottle of wine. Namjoon and Yoongi were relaxing in their designated booth, both a little tired from all the social interactions they’ve had to do that day.

“You did well today, hyung. As usual.” Jimin turned to Namjoon, shifting the topic of conversation.

“Nah, we all did well.” Namjoon, ever humbly replied. “I barely had to talk this time. Everyone got to give their answers, and I didn’t have to translate much this time.”

“But you still had to talk a lot. And they asked questions we didn’t prepare for.” Yoongi chimed in.

As he planned, the conversation steered away from Jimin’s sour mood as the two older members began to discuss the events of the show. Eventually, Jin returned with not one, not two, but three bottles of alcohol. How and where he managed to swipe them from was a mystery, but they all drank without question.

They got more and more intoxicated as the evening wore on. Jimin had the good sense to stop drinking when he started to see two Yoongis beside him.

“Hey, handsome.” A warm voice called into his ear, cutting through the pounding dance music.

Jimin and his fellow members turned to find a beautiful blonde woman standing behind their couch. She had an American accent, or at least Jimin thought so, and she looked vaguely familiar so he figured that he was supposed to know who she was. But he was five too many drinks for his brain to conjure up any memories, so he played it safe and flashed her a killer smile. The sexy smirk one, not the cute one.

“This might be a bit forward, but wanna dance?” She offered, extending a dainty hand for him to take. 

Jimin wasn’t sure he should take it. After all, he could barely remember her name at the moment. But before he could make up his mind, Jin answered for him.

“Yes, he wants to dance.” Without warning, his hyungs pulled him up and shoved him in the blonde’s direction.

Like a cobra ready to strike, the vixen grasped his hand and led him through the throng of sweltering bodies swaying on the dance floor. Once they reached a small clearing in the center, she pressed her body flush against Jimin’s and danced.

Dancing with her was fun, Jimin decided through the alcohol-induced fog. She moved well with the music, swaying her hips and flipping her hair gracefully with every beat. She was funny too, cracking jokes here and there, always a breath away from his ear.  And she didn’t mind his hands on her waist, touching lightly enough to feel but not tight enough to hold. In fact, it only served to encourage her as she stepped closer to him until he could see every mascara-ed eyelash over her bright blue eyes. 

She was close. So close. He just had to move maybe an inch more until there was nothing between them. 

She was beautiful. He was lucky and he should want this.

But at that moment, his stupid mind decided to activate. And for whatever goddamn reason, it made him think of her. 

Her - the infuriating girl who sassed him again today, and fought their valiant attempts to reward her with what she deserved, She was probably in those sweatpants she always wore to bed after a long day. Did her feet ache from being in heels all day? Did she have a good dinner? Did she get mad at how he messed with his hair?

His drunken imagination went into hyper-drive, conjuring an image of his feisty road manager in her hotel room, eating room service and watching the festivities through a screen. 

All of a sudden, Jimin felt sick. 

An emergency switch flicked on in his head and drained the alcohol from his system. In a split second, he was astoundingly sober that it gave him an agonizing whiplash. Before he could second-guess himself, Jimin leaned away from the woman before him. He allowed himself to stay in her space, trying to seem subtle, but at least now, he could breathe his own air instead of hers. 

She eyed him curiously, feeling the shift between them.

“Thank you, but I have to go.” He smiled at her apologetically, stumbling over his words. Without waiting for a response, he untangled himself from her and exited the dance floor quickly. 

It took him a moment to reorient himself and find their booth, but his fellow members were all nowhere to be found. Throwing all care to the wind, he got up on a chair to see above the crowd, eventually spotting Namjoon’s head bobbing up and down as he danced in a far off corner with Hoseok and Jin.

With a sigh, Jimin rushed to grab his coat from their booth, then barrelled his way through the crowd until he reached his friends.

“Hyung!” He yelled at Namjoon to cut through the deafening noise. The taller boy peered down at him, eyes wide to show that he was paying attention.

“Can I borrow the car?” Jimin continued.

“Why?” The leader asked.

“Um…I’m heading back.” He tried to keep his answer vague, but Namjoon’s knowing smile let Jimin know that he knew what he meant. Thankfully though, he didn’t ask any questions. He simply gave Jimin his phone to copy the driver’s number. 

After a grateful hug, Jimin quickly exited the club. The night air hit him harshly, cooling his burning skin and drying the sweat from his brow. His heart pounded, god knows why, as he impatiently waited for the car to arrive.

For whatever reason Jimin couldn’t yet fathom, it felt like they couldn’t get to the hotel fast enough. His pulse roared in his ears, and the traffic was taunting him despite it being in the wee hours of the morning. He tapped his foot anxiously, fingers picking at nonexistent lint off his suit. Just as they pulled up to the hotel, he checked the time on his phone. It was almost 3 in the morning.

Why did he need to get back so quickly anyway?

He scolded himself in the elevator, surveying his reflection in the mirrored walls. He looked a little worse for wear, his hair sticking out in weird places, his eye shadow faded from sweat and his eyeliner slightly smudged. But he wasn’t entirely a wreck. 

The elevator slowed to a stop and opened with a ding. Jimin stepped out on their floor, dragging his aching legs under him. It seemed like the effects of the day crashed down on him all at once, coupled with the after-effects of alcohol. But while his body ached for rest, it instinctively led him to her door.

She’s probably asleep.

He thought this, but couldn’t stop himself from knocking anyway. One knock. Two knocks. Three.

The silence that followed was deafening. Jimin sighed, once again reprimanding himself for being so pathetic. But before he could even take a step back, sounds of movement carried over to his side of the door. His heart raced in anticipation, and the world slowed as the doorknob turned.

He was right about her. She was in sweatpants. But nothing could have prepared him for the Chimmy shirt she was wearing. 

It was stupid, right? He was surrounded by beautiful people all night, dressed in priceless jewels and designer clothing. Yet, here he was, having his breath stolen by a girl with messy bed-hair, in lousy sweatpants and a cartoon shirt she didn’t even own.

Yeah, really stupid.

“Jimin.” She greeted once the initial wave of confusion passed. She looked over his shoulder, then down the hall, in search of the other members. “Are you guys back already? I thought you’d be out until later this morning.”

“No, it’s just me.” He shrugged, already inviting himself into her room. It was second nature already at this point, to make himself at home in her space. 

She closed the door behind him and watched from the entryway as he sauntered through her room. The ceiling lights were off, but the bedside lamps were on, casting the room in an incandescent glow that painted his pale skin gold. 

Jimin eased out his jacket with a grace that was probably illegal, and somewhat impressive given his state, then draped it at the back of a chair.

“What are you up to?” He asked, surveying the room as he removed his bowtie.

The evidence of her dinner had long been collected by the hotel staff, but she had an open bag of chips and some hot chocolate by her bedside table. The TV was switched on to Netflix, showing that she was halfway through a romcom. But the open book on her side of the bed told Jimin that she only put it on for white noise.

“Nothing much.” She shrugged, crawling back into bed. “Just trying to make myself fall asleep.”

Jimin nodded, humming absently to acknowledge her answer (even though he already hypothesized it on his own), as he popped open the top three buttons of his shirt. He quickly glanced at her as she pressed play on the movie and took up her book again, then turned his back to her to undo his belt. He shed off his shoes, socks, and rings as well, then walked into her bathroom to take off his makeup with her makeup remover. 

She was already immersed in her book by the time he exited the bathroom, sufficiently fresh-faced, looking more like a boy next door than an ever-trending popstar. 

Jimin plopped down on the other side of the bed, which at this point had become his unofficial side, and turned up the volume to figure out what the movie was. He knew she didn’t mind it, always too single-minded once she started reading something. They stayed like that, each in their own little world, alone but together.

“Congrats on the awesome performance, by the way.” She broke the quiet, eyes not leaving her book. Jimin turned the TV’s volume down, and turned to look at her. She was seated up with her back against the headboard while he was already fully lying down, so he had to tilt his neck to properly see her. 

“I mean, you guys always do well,” She continued, setting her book down once she felt his eyes on her. “But still.”

He smirked. “Thanks.”

“Oh, and the camera got this really cool shot of you with your hair.” She did a poor imitation of how he combed his hair back with his fingers. “It was super sexy.”

The words slipped out before she could help them, but the way he smiled - eyes turning into thin crescents and sparkling teeth all exposed - were enough to make her feel like the embarrassment was worth it.

“You think I’m sexy?” He teased, immediately melting his warm eyes into a smolder. Even without the contacts and the eye makeup, it was still damn effective. She groaned.

“You know you are. Don’t play innocent.” She rolled her eyes, feigning nonchalance. He chuckled lightly but didn’t press her, turning the volume back up.

Jimin only snapped back to attention when he heard her light snores. The movie was just about to end when he heard her deep breathing pass heavily through her nose and out of her mouth. She had fallen asleep while sitting upright, her head drooping down to her chest while her book lay open on her lap. 

Without a second thought, he rolled off the bed and turned the TV off. Then he rounded the bed to her side and slowly eased her down to lay properly under the sheets. She slightly stirred in his arms as he maneuvered her, but relaxed at the sound of his voice shushing her back to slumber. Once her head settled into the pillow, she turned on her side and sank into a deep sleep. Jimin chuckled to himself and carefully pulled the covers over her. 

Resisting the urge to linger, arguing with himself that only creeps do that, he stepped back to turn the bedside lamps off and draw the heavy drapes over the windows.

Then came a knock on the door. 

Curious, Jimin grabbed his phone to check the time - it was a little past 5 in the morning already. Who could possibly come knocking at his hour?

A quick peek into the peephole, followed by a swift yet silent opening of the door revealed Namjoon and Jungkook, both looking disheveled and pale, but otherwise sober.

“Hey,” Jimin greeted, eyeing his brothers with concern. “Did you just get back? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, we’re good.” Jungkook smiled. “We just wondered where you were. You never texted that you arrived already, and you weren’t answering your door. So we just wanted to be sure you didn’t die somewhere.”

“No worries.” Jimin reassured. “You good?” 

“Yeah, yeah. Everyone’s good; they’re back in their rooms. We just wanted to check on you.” Namjoon smirked. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“The usual,” He shrugged casually. “We hung out. She’s already asleep.”

“Alright then.” Namjoon replied, stepping away from the door to signal that they were leaving. “See you tomorrow.”

Jimin nodded and bid them good night, then shut the door quietly behind him.

No one spoke of, nor acknowledged, the fact that Jimin did not go back to sleep in his room.

[imnotinclinedtomaturity]

Love Yourself (Chapter 7)

title: Love Yourself summary: A lot of things about Dan’s life are pretty great. He gets to make the music he wants, he’s got a great fanbase, and his manager is his best friend. A few things about his life suck a bit more. He’s currently lacking inspiration, he’s rather lonely, and he’s stuck in a rut. Dan’s been going to the same coffee shop for years. It’s quiet, it’s quaint, it’s near his home. Most importantly: none of the employees give a shit that’s he a world-famous singer. Things change when he meets the new barista. chapter words: 8.5k story words: 35k (so far) chapter: 7/? rating: m warnings: language genre: singer!dan, coffee shop au, barista!phil, slow burn [[ao3]] [[previous chapter]] [[first chapter]]

Phil ran around his apartment, collecting the things he’d planned to show in his liveshow. He always found that liveshows went more smoothly (and avoided too many personal questions) when he had some concrete, pre-planned topics to talk about — especially when there were hot topics his fans knew about that he was trying to avoid.

Like this week.

It had only been four days since Dan had first tweeted at him and, well, those four days had been packed full with at least a few dozen tweets exchanged between them. If his viewers reactions on twitter were anything to go by… well, it was sure to be a hot topic tonight.

Phil’d spent a lot of the day thinking about how he wanted to spin his interactions with Dan. In fact, he’d genuinely considered canceling his liveshow just to avoid having to get into it. They’d both agreed that giving the proper truth — that Phil worked at a coffee shop Dan frequented — was out of the question. They valued their privacy far too much to disclose that information. But obviously, he had to say something.

Being as vague as possible seemed like the best option: they’d met through his work (not a lie), and had seen each other a few times because of it. Phil didn’t need to divulge the nature of their relationship — and honestly, he barely knew how he’d describe it anyway. They were more than just a barista and a customer for sure. Dan had flat out said several times that he considered Phil a friend, and Phil thought of Dan as one, too. But sometimes… well, sometimes their interactions didn’t feel like friendship. Or at least not any friendship Phil had ever had before.

It felt more… flirty.

Which was insane. For a multitude of reasons. Not the least of which being that Dan had a girlfriend, with no visible history of dating, well, not girls. Against his better judgment, Phil had done a bit of digging on Dan. Which he knew, he knew he shouldn’t have done.

For one, they were friends and it just felt somehow creepier to internet stalk someone he was actually fairly close with. And second, he knew how it felt to have more information about himself on the internet than he was aware of, and imagined Dan was just as uncomfortable with it as he was. Plus, it felt wrong to learn things about his friend that Dan hadn’t explicitly chosen to tell him.

Regardless, Phil had looked him up. Along the way, he’d learned that Dan had had some mental health issues a few years back that were arguably still present, depending on the source. He’d learned that with the exception of Isabella, Dan had never been in a relationship — or at least not one that he’d made public. Phil learned that Dan was incredibly private about his family life, to the extent that almost nobody even knew the names of his immediate family.

If it had been just a normal friendship, Phil would have needed to wait until Dan decided to — if at all — tell him about things. But this friendship was different. They were both very public figures and now he was sitting on all of this knowledge and he wasn’t sure if he should hide the fact that he had it or not.

His only condolence was that Dan had apparently binge watched a bunch of his videos, which meant he undoubtedly knew a lot more about Phil than he’d elected to share so far as well. Hell, he’d finally just confessed that he was kind of famous too (if giving Dan the necessary information to find out on his own could even be considered confessing, that is).

By now, Dan was sure to know that Phil had never had public relationships, with the exception of some dubious, long deleted evidence from his early, early days of YouTube. Dan also probably knew that Phil was incredibly close with his family, to the point of possibly oversharing about them in his public life. Dan had also likely caught on to the fact that his AmazingPhil persona was a bit different, a bit more innocent and bubbly than his day-to-day personality. Oh well. That was what Phil had signed up for when he’d started broadcasting his life all over the internet. And in some ways, Dan had signed up for the same gig.

Once Phil had gathered his… props, for the show, he set himself up on his sofa, and pulled up YouNow. While the streaming site loaded, Phil drafted a tweet so that all he had to do was hit post once he was live.

@AmazingPhil: Lions and plants and socks, oh my! Come hang out with me on YouNow and help me decide if I should keep the stuff I bought on Amazon this week [link]

When Phil saw the green icon indicating he was live, he sent the tweet and waved hello to his audience. He was always astounded at how many people were there at the very beginning of his shows, as if they’d just been lurking on his YouNow, waiting for him. Phil didn’t know if it was flattering or creepy

“Hi guys! How is everyone doing today?”

As he read out some of the funnier responses, he watched the number of viewers steadily climb. “Sarah says she’s watching me instead of doing her maths homework. Bad Sarah! Do your homework. Adam says he’s trying to make a cake he saw on the Great British Bake off. Good luck Adam, I’m not a very good baker but I believe in you.”

As the stream continued, Phil reacted to another handful of comments in order to give people time to arrive. After a few minutes, he glanced at the viewer count to see if he was near his typical audience size yet.

Seventeen thousand. That was a full seven thousand more than usually showed up for his shows.

Phil had a hunch that it had to due with his recent twitter activity. It was probably best to start his pre-planned activity before everyone started nagging him to talk about it.

“Laura wants to know how my week’s been. Pretty good so far, nothing to complain about,” Phil said, scanning the chat for anything else innocent he could answer before switching tactics completely.

“Okay guys, are you ready to help me decide if I should keep the stuff I bought on Amazon? Kelsey asks why I bought stuff if I’m not sure if I want it. Well, Kelsey, it was really late at night, I was bored, and it all seemed like a good idea at the time. Haven’t you ever heard of impulse shopping? It’s a real problem. See this is what happens when you live alone. You don't have anyone to tell you if the stuff you’re buying is cool or not. ‘Get a roommate’ someone said — sorry I missed your name. I only have a one bedroom flat, it’s definitely not big enough to share with —”

Phil was interrupted by a high pitched diiiing from his phone. Oops.

“Sorry, guys, I forgot to turn my phone on silent.” Phil embarrassedly grabbed his phone and toggled it to silent without looking at the screen. “Everyone’s asking who it is. I don’t know, I didn’t check. Let me have a look.” Curious himself now, Phil flipped his phone over.

@danielhowell liked your tweet.

Not so subtly, Phil threw his phone to the other end of the couch as if it were on fire.

Holy shit. If Dan liked his tweet about his liveshow did that mean…? No. No way. Dan was a busy celebrity. Surely he had better things to do on a Wednesday evening than watch Phil’s liveshow.

Phil tried his best to arrange his features into a more neutral expression before turning back to the camera. Naturally, the chat was flooded with people asking why he looked so surprised and who the message had been from.

“Just a twitter notification,” Phil said, aiming for nonchalant. Hoping to brush off the topic, he grabbed his first item off the table. “Okay, so first Amazon purchase is…” Phil attempted a drumroll noise “...socks!”

Phil held the pack of socks up to the webcam, flipping through the different pairs as he described them. “See, they are all plant themed. There’s cacti, and succulents, and bamboo. What do we think, do we like them?”

Not that he was surprised, but virtually no one in the chat seemed to care about his dubious Amazon purchases. Almost every single question was directly related to his interactions with Dan, both on Twitter and in real life. Until now, he hadn’t realized how much their fanbases overlapped.

This might be a harder topic to avoid than he’d initially thought.

Phil filtered through the Dan-related comments until he found a few people reacting to the socks and focused on those. “Amanda says she thinks they’re cute and Ashley bets that they’ll mix and match well. I agree, Ashley. Great. I’ll keep the socks.”

Phil sat the socks down on the table and picked up the next item, showing it to his audience and making another hopefully witty comment. As Phil struggled to push through the mass of comments related to Dan, he went through his next few purchases a bit slower than strictly necessary. He figured the more time he spent on this, the less free time he would have to talk about unplanned topics — namely Dan — at the end.

The charizard plushie and the grow-your-own-terrarium kit were his to keep, but everyone agreed that the Buffy figurine was more demonic than cute and needed to go back. From what Phil could tell, the comments had been split in regards to the aesthetic hat he’d picked out, and he chucked it away with a, “Maaaaaaybe.”

A quick glimpse at the clock told Phil that he’d been live for a little over half an hour already.

“This last one I’m a little more unsure about, guys.” Phil held up the jumper, trying to center it so that the lion on the front was in focus. His uncertainty was mostly for his viewers benefit. Phil was pretty damn sure how he felt about the jumper — it was bloody hideous. The lion design had looked adorable online, but then again that had been a small picture, it had been one in the morning, and he’d had a few mixed drinks by then. In reality, though, the lion was incredibly disproportionate and the quality was something he’d expect from a cheap, knockoff vendor on the street.

Nonetheless, Phil peeked around the jumper to read people’s comments. Those who were engaging in the Amazon conversation were all agreeing with him. “Sounds like most of you don’t like this one as much. I didn’t think so either. I love lions a lot, but this one isn’t very cute is he? Okay, back to Amazon that goes, then.”

Phil made a show of dropping the jumper and throwing it out of sight. He scanned the chat, looking for more reactions. His eyes landed on the word jumper and he read the comment out loud without processing it first.

“Max says to talk about Dan having the same pug jumper that you own.” Oh crap. That’s not what he’d anticipated when he’d seen the word jumper. “I, uh, yeah.” Phil fumbled for a second before pulling himself together and smiling brightly. “Funny, right? Definitely not his usual style. Honestly, when I lent it to him, I wasn’t sure he’d even want to wear it in the moment, much less at his own house when he had other options.”

Belatedly, Phil realized his mistake. He’d just confirmed that Dan didn’t just happen to own the same jumper as him, Dan had Phil’s actual jumper. Phil’s eyes tried to follow the chat, but it was moving too fast to comprehend. The only thing he could make out was Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan.

Well, I guess that topic is officially being discussed.

With a deep breath, Phil finally addressed the questions everyone had been tweeting at him, and he assumed were flooding the chat. “Everyone’s curious how I know Dan — Dan Howell, that is, in case anyone hasn’t been looking at my twitter this week. I met him through work. Don’t get too excited, it’s not like we’re actually working on anything together, I’ve just seen him around a few times.

“Maddie asks why I lent Dan my jumper.” He was well and truly in this mess now. Phil grasped for a story, settling on something plausible. Hopefully Dan didn’t mind too much. “Did you see Dan on Innuendo Bingo last week? It was really funny, right? He got so wet though. I ran into him in the bathroom afterwards. I was just being nice and helping him out because he looked like a drowned puppy.”

Phil chuckled, trying his best to brush the topic off, maybe bounce off some easier questions to answer about Dan before heading off for the week. Suddenly, though, the chat started filling up with the same messages. Half of them appeared to be copy and pasting something into the chat from some other source, and the other half were just keyboard smashes and different variations of “oh my god” and “did you see what he said?”

Phil assumed it was the other message they were freaking out about, the one everyone was spamming, the one he was clearly supposed to be noticing. Warily, Phil froze the chat so he could read what it said.

Daniel Howell: um excuse me i thought we were friENDS but go off i guess

Phil cocked his head, trying to figure out if this Daniel Howell was his Daniel Howell or an impersonator. It certainly sounded like something Dan would say, and Dan had liked his tweet. And Phil knew Dan had a YouNow account because he did liveshows of his own sometimes and… yup. That was definitely the real him.

Oh, great.

“Hi, Dan!” Phil smiled and waved, trying to figure out how the heck he was going to respond. He settled on teasing Dan back. “I don’t know, I haven’t seen you since Saturday. I thought you forgot about me!”

Of course, that started up a whole new flurry of questions. He should have known.

What was he supposed to say? How much was he allowed to say? It was intimidating enough having to talk around his and Dan’s relationship live to so many people, but to have to talk about it with Dan listening? That was so much worse. Dan would know instantly if Phil said something embarrassing, or too revealing, or flat out stupid.

“Everyone wants me to talk more about Dan.” With a sigh, Phil resigned himself to properly answering a few questions about Dan, hoping that if he actually gave his viewers some information they would let him switch topics.

“Justine asks how often I’ve been seeing Dan. A couple of times a week.” Four or five counts as ‘a couple’ right? “Tyler says that it must be cool to be friends with a famous singer. I guess? He’s just Dan to me. He’s a pretty normal guy. I kind of forget that he’s super famous most of the time.”

Phil skimmed the chat for more questions he was willing to answer.

Amee: have you met isabella because ngl she kinda seems like a bitch

Phil snorted, unable to completely control his laughter. From what he’d heard about Isabella, or Izzy as Dan tended to call her, he was inclined to agree. Not that he was about to voice that opinion online to seventeen thousand avid viewers. He looked for a less controversial question.

“Misty asks if he actually sent me a preview of a song. He did! I don’t know if I’m allowed to say anything about it though, so I’ll just say that it was great and I liked it a lot. He’s definitely really talented.”

Phil glanced at the clock in the corner of his screen.“Alright guys, one last question and then I’ve got to go. It’s been forty five minutes already! Samantha asks what we usually do together. Well, we started out just chatting because of work, you know, when we happened to both be around. But yeah, we’re friends now and we, er, we grab coffee or snacks together a lot. Most of the time we just hang out and talk, but sometimes we both work on whatever we need to. If you guys have more questions, you can tweet them at Dan, but I can’t promise he’ll answer any of them.

“I’ve got to go now, guys! I hope you all have a good night.” Phil started waving, making it clear he was going to leave. “Bye Brittany! Tiffany says she’s going to do her homework. Good! Bye Peter, bye Jim.”

Phil moved her cursor to the end button, trying to stop the stream. Like usual, younow was slow to respond. Awkwardly, he kept waving at his viewers while he punched the end button a dozen times. Eventually, the screen turned black, and Phil huffed a sigh of relief.

Now that Phil was finally done livestreaming, he tabbed back over to twitter. There was a new DM from Dan, which surprised Phil less and less each time it happened, but he was especially unsurprised this time — Phil didn’t expect to get away with talking about Dan in a livestream that he was watching without hearing from him. The message had been sent while he was still live, and was neither teasing nor admonishing, which had been Phil’s top two guesses at what Dan might have to say.

Daniel Howell: i’m glad you think of me as a normal guy and not just some famous rockstar

Phil felt his cheeks flush. He was eternally grateful that he’d thrown his phone to the other end of the couch and hadn’t seen that message while he was still live, or else seventeen thousand people would have seen him blushing and Dan… well, knowing Dan, he probably would have noticed the correlation between when the read receipt showed up and when Phil started turning pink.

Phil Lester: :) of course. I mean, it’s cool that you make music, but you’re more than just Dan Howell, Singing Sensation

He left his phone unlocked on the couch while he went to the loo. When he came back, the screen had dimmed but there was no new notification from Dan. Phil wasn’t sure if that meant Dan hadn’t watched the end of his liveshow, or if Dan had started doing something immediately after, or what. But apparently, he wasn’t going to respond now. Phil sighed and shoved his phone into his back pocket.

Phil’s phone was silent the entire time he cooked and ate dinner. By the time he crawled into bed with his laptop at half past midnight, he’d just about given up on hearing from Dan again. But he should have known late hours of the night meant nothing to Dan.

Daniel Howell: thanks. i think you’re more than just a famous youtuber for the record

Dan stared at the message he’d typed out to Phil, debating if he really wanted to send it or not.

Daniel Howell: i’m glad you think of me as a normal guy and not just some famous rockstar

He glanced back at the YouNow tab. Phil was still talking about him, now having moved on to loosely discussing the somewhat shitty snippet of the song that Dan had sent him. That song was basically all he’d been eating, breathing, and thinking about since Isabella had left Sunday night.

Working on his song was easier to deal with than trying to think about the things Izzy had said, than what had happened while she was at his flat, than the possible repercussions of their fight. So instead, he’d been hibernating alone since then, holed up working on his song. The only people he’d talked to were Phil and a few miscellaneous fans on twitter.

Before he could second guess (or third or fourth or fifth guess) it, Dan pressed send on his message to Phil, and shut his laptop, perhaps with more force than necessary.

With a sigh, Dan decided it was time to face the world.

He picked up his phone, and rang Louise. Despite it being nearly eight o’clock at night, she answered on the second ring.

“Daniel, there you are.” Her voice was hushed but stern. Of course. Darcy was probably in bed. Dan knew it was Darcy’s bedtime and he felt bad for calling, but if he didn’t do it while he had the nerve, he would back out. Again.

“Hi Louise,” Dan’s voice came out smaller and more upset than he’d meant for it to. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d been holding back.

“You’re lucky you’ve been active on twitter recently or I would have worried you were dead and just shown up at —”

“Lou,” Dan cut Louise off. “If I ask you for a favor, can you promise to just help me and listen and not lecture me?”

“Aw, love, what’s wrong?” Her voice was instantly softer.

“I just, um, you’re not too bad at arts and crafts, right? Like gluing broken stuff back together?” Dan fiddled with the hem of his shirt, running his fingers through the growing holes at the bottom.

“I’m fairly handy. Do you want me to fix something for you?”

“Yeah, do you mind?”

“Of course not. When do you want to bring it ‘round?”

Dan’s hands moved from his shirt hem to tap at his thigh. “Um, I was thinking now actually. If you’re not busy that is.”

Louise responded without hesitation. “Do you want tea or hot chocolate? Or should I open something stronger?”

Dan felt a wave of relief wash through him. “Hot chocolate sounds lovely, Louise. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

“Be quiet when you come in, please? Darcy’s asleep.”

“I will.”

Dan hauled himself out of bed. He slipped on a pair of black shoes that horrendously clashed with his white joggers, but whatever. He glanced back at his bed, where Phil’s jumper was bunched up, and considered pulling it over his tshirt.

It was just — it was soft. His week had sucked so far. He hadn’t seen Phil in ages, he’d been ignoring all of Izzy’s calls since she’d left, and he was bloody upset. He was allowed to wear something soft and comforting.

He decided it was worth whatever prying questions Louise might ask, pulled it on, and made his way to the kitchen.

Carefully, he stepped over the shards of glass, pots, and pans that still littered the kitchen floor to the breakfast bar. He really needed to clean that up before the maid came tomorrow.

Dan was thankful that he had saved the pieces of the bright pink mug from the floor during their fight. They were still tucked away on the breakfast bar, safe from further harm. Dan piled the pink shards of glass into a container with painstaking care. He glanced around the floor, making sure that he hadn’t missed any pieces. Sticking out from under the ledge of the counter was a bright pink handle. Dan scooped it up and gently added it to the container. With a determined flick, Dan turned the kitchen light off and left.

The night air was colder than he’d anticipated. He probably should have gone back upstairs to fetch a warmer coat. Instead, he pulled Phil’s jumper more tightly around his body, taking care to not jostle the box in his arms too much.

With cold fingers, he dug his keys out of his coat pocket and shakily unlocked the door to Louise’s townhouse. A welcomed rush of warm air hit him when he stepped into the entryway of Louise’s home.

To her credit, Louise was probably the best friend he could have asked for. When he walked into her lounge, he was greeted by Louise sitting on the sofa in front of two mugs of steaming hot chocolate.

Wordlessly, Dan climbed onto the couch, careful not to shake the box too much, and rested his head in Louise’s lap. Louise seemed to switch to full mum mode at the action, running her hand soothingly through his hair and letting him wallow in silence. She didn’t question anything — not the container he was cradling to his chest, nor the bright blue jumper he was wearing that clearly didn’t belong to him, and not even the barely-faded purple marks on his neck that she was bound to have a perfect view of from her position. She didn’t even question why he came over with fifteen minutes notice after three days of radio silence. She just let him be for a few minutes.

His eyes wandered the room as Louise played with his hair. There was a box labeled crafting supplies on the arm chair and a half empty bottle of liquor on the coffee table. He rolled onto his back and looked up at Louise.

“Peppermint Schnapps?”

“Just in case.”

“I love you Louise, you’re the best.” Dan sat and pressed a small kiss to her cheek. He leaned forward and poured a generous splash into both of their mugs, his destroyed mug resting in his lap.

Louise giggled as he handed her one of the mugs. “I know you too well, Dan. Now, are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

Dan shifted the container of glass in his lap. “Please, Louise. Can you promise not to lecture me tonight? I know what you’re going to say and I really don’t want to — I just want to talk. And fix this. I need you to fix this.” Dan shoved the container into Louise’s hands.

She opened the box and peered inside. “Oh no! The mug from your grandma. Out of all your mugs, this is the one you broke?”

“Erm, not exactly.”

Louise looked at him curiously.

“They’re all broken. Except one. This is just the only one I care about fixing.”

Louise gasped. “What happened? Did your shelf break or something?”

“No, no. The kitchen’s fine. It was... um, Isabella.”

“Isabella,” Louise said tersely. It wasn’t a question, but Dan knew she was expecting him to explain.

“She came over. Sunday. That’s part of why I’ve been… not around.” Louise stayed silent, waiting for him to keep talking. Dan took a deep breath and continued. “She’d been on twitter and seen Phil and I talking. She accused me of being flirty. When she figured out he was Phil from the coffee shop, she lost it even more than she already had. I know she has a temper, I’ve seen it plenty, but I’d never seen her that livid. She greeted me by throwing all of my pots and pans on the floor and when she ran out of those… well…” Dan nodded at the mug in Louise’s lap in lieu of any further explanation.

Louise studied the broken shards for a minute. When she finally spoke, Dan half expected the lecture he’d begged her not to give, but it didn’t come. “Isabella did this. To all of your mugs?”

Dan nodded. Louise’s eyes flickered down to his neck.

“And then what?” she asked.

“She said a bunch of shitty things. You know she’s not quite comfortable with the… bi thing, and she went off about me being gay and not liking girls and… I don’t know. I lost it too, I guess. One thing lead to another and…” Dan shrugged and took a long sip of his hot chocolate.

Louise narrowed her eyes, appraising him studiously. “You know I have to ask, love. Was it all consensual?”

Dan’s eyes grew wide. “Yeah, yeah of course! It was angry and rough, as I’m sure you can see, but of course. She consented.”

“And you? Did you consent?”

Dan had to fight rolling his eyes, even though he knew she was just looking out for him. “Yes, Mum, I consented too.”

True to her word, Louise simply nodded and moved on. “Let’s see what we can do about your mug, then, shall we?” She sat the container of mug fragments on the coffee table and got up to gather a few supplies from her box of crafting materials.

Dan smiled gratefully at her retreating figure. This was exactly what he’d needed. A chance to talk about their fight without being told how stupidly he’d acted, how big of a bitch Isabella could be, or how unacceptable both of their behavior had been.

Louise came back and diligently spread the bright pink pieces across the table. A comfortable silence fell between them as Dan drank the remainder of his hot chocolate and watched Louise’s delicate hands work out the puzzle. Once she’d figure out how the pieces went together, she motioned him onto the floor next to her.

“Come here, love. I’m going to need your hands too.”

Dan clambered off the sofa and curled his legs under him, settling on the floor by her side. Her hand grasped his and wrapped it around the mostly-intact base of the mug. Louise unscrewed a small tube of glue and lined the jagged edge. The next hot pink chunk fit almost perfectly on top of it. Instinctively, Dan reached out and held the piece in place.

“Push them together firmly. Not too hard, though,” Louise instructed as she reached for the next piece.

Together, they worked silently to rebuild the mug. It was nice to have something to do with his hands, to not be alone. For the first time in days, Dan finally let his mind drift, finally properly contemplating everything that had happened with Isabella.

Their fight was bad. He knew it was. The things that Isabella had said, about his sexuality, about their relationship, about Phil — for days Dan had thought he was angry, livid even. But now that he was here with Louise, finally letting himself think about it, he realized that more than anything, he was hurt.

“Look, I know you hate her, and probably with some good reasons,” Dan started.

“Hate is a strong word. How about avidly dislike?” Louise’s fingers were sticky as she manhandled his hands to grip the mug how she wanted.

Dan chuckled a bit, despite himself. “Okay. I know you avidly dislike her, with good reason. At the moment, I’m not her biggest fan either, trust me. Sunday night was shitty — I mean, really fucking shitty — but, I do kind of miss her. And I know, I know this is a dead end relationship. It’s just… comfortable, I guess. And it’s better than nothing, ya know?”

Louise hummed, but didn’t say anything. Dan could tell she was biting her tongue.

“Just say it, Louise. What are you thinking?”

“Are you missing Isabella or the companionship?” Louise questioned without looking up from the mug.

Dan knew his answer instantly.

“Does it matter?” he sighed.

Louise glued the final hot pink shard to the reconstructed mug, and rearranged his hands to cup the entire thing.

“Do you want a real answer?” she asked softly.

Dan sighed. He had a feeling he knew what Louise was going to say. Or at least, the general theme of what her message would be.

“Not really, but go ahead anyway,” he said.

“Of course it matters. I know you like having a person and I can understand that. But companionship is so much better, so much more, when you actually love the person that you’re with. Trust me. And you deserve that. But you’re never going to find that if you stubbornly stay in a broken relationship. Can you honestly tell me that empty companionship is enough?”

Dan contemplated the mug in his hands and slowly loosened his grip. The pieces were fused together. There were dark lines down the sides where it had been glued back together, and there were a few chips missing, pieces that must have been too small for him to notice in the wreckage of his kitchen. There was no way it would be functional ever again. Even if the pieces were glued tightly together enough to hold liquid, the glue probably wouldn’t survive.

But it was intact again. Not whole, not undamaged, not perfect. But intact.

Good enough.

“No, it’s not.” Dan leaned back against the couch. “But it’s good enough.”

The thermostat in Beans and Grind appeared to be broken.

When Phil had unlocked the door to the coffee shop that morning, he had been assaulted by a wave of absurdly hot air. He’d power walked straight to the thermostat when he’d got inside, frantically shedding his coat as he crossed the shop. He’d turned the dial all the way down, pointing the arrow to the lowest temperature option. At the time, it had seemed like a potentially extreme reaction, but forty five minutes later, it was still just as hot and the heater wasn’t showing any signs of relenting.

With a resigned sigh, Phil pushed the sleeves of his fox patterned jumper up over his elbows. He was slightly disgruntled that he was undoubtedly wrinkling the sleeves; he had been hoping to film a video in it later, and now he’d probably have to change into something neater.

All morning, the before-work crowd had commented on how warm it was in the shop, as if Phil wasn’t aware that it was approximately four thousand degrees. He was grateful when the clock struck nine and the steady stream of customers stopped coming in.

Phil waited until the shop was empty for a few minutes before yanking his oppressively-hot jumper over his head. His white tshirt would have to be professional enough. It was better than suffocating, anyway.

In his haste, his shirt got rucked up with his jumper, both getting tangled around his glasses. He fought the jumper, trying to free it from his face and simultaneously pull his undershirt down, but wasn’t particularly successful at either.

Ding

Shit, just his luck that a customer would come in at this moment.

He heard a loud, booming laugh.

He knew that laugh.

Dan.

Suddenly, cold hands were brushing against his chest and tangling in the clothing wrapped around his head. Phil felt Dan grab his tshirt and pull it down his torso, his cold hands grazing his ribcage as he did so. The touch was shocking, and not just because Dan’s fingers were so cold. Everywhere Dan touched, sparks radiated through Phil. Without his consent, his mind rushed to imagining Dan’s hands running up and down his ribs for far different reasons, under far different circumstances. Phil was almost glad his face was hidden because he was positive that his cheeks were flushed red.

When Phil’s shirt was adjusted, Dan’s hands slipped inside the bottom his jumper, sliding inside, and reached up to his face. Carefully, Dan held his glasses in place with one hand and coaxed the neck of the sweater over Phil’s head with the other.

Finally, Phil was free from the jumper. His eyes adjusted to the light again and he was greeted by a smirking Dan stretched far across the counter, Phil’s fox jumper held tight in his hands. Even being as tall as Dan was, Phil was fairly certain that his feet had to be dangling over the other end

“Morning, Philip. I didn’t realize coffee was coming with a show now.” Dan’s face was cheeky, his eyes roaming up and down Phil’s body.

Phil’s cheeks flushed. “You’re one to talk. You stripped your clothing off last time you were here without any concern about customers.” Or me.

Dan shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t see you objecting.”

Phil rolled his eyes and grabbed his jumper out of Dan’s hands. “You don’t seem to be objecting either.”

“You’re lucky it was me that walked in. I feel like not everyone would have taken so kindly to seeing you half-naked so close to all the food.” Dan retreated slightly across the counter, but not much, landing with a soft thump on the floor.

“Shut up, you’re making it sound worse than it was. I was only taking off my jumper.”

“Speaking of jumpers, I seem to have forgotten yours. Sorry.” Dan didn’t sound very apologetic.

Phil giggled. It almost seemed like Dan liked wearing Phil’s jumper just as much as Phil enjoyed seeing Dan in it. “If you want to borrow it for a while, all you have to do is ask.”

Dan flushed red and tried to hide his small smile in his chunky scarf, but Phil caught it anyway. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled.

Phil smiled, secretly pleased that Dan apparently liked his jumper so much. “For here or to go today?”

“For here. I have a meeting at eleven but I figured I’d head out early and see you first.”

“Good, I was hoping you had time to stay for a bit.” The porcelain mug clanked against the coffee machine as Phil shoved it under the spout a little too eagerly. Phil tried to ignore the bit of coffee that splashed out against his arm. At least he was no longer wearing his jumper.

Dan pushed the sleeves of his leather jacket up, probably just as affected by the heat in the coffee shop as Phil had been. Phil’s eyes flickered down to Dan’s exposed forearms, eyes catching on the thin red scratch marks running the length of them. Briefly, Phil wondered if Dan had been playing with a cat or a dog recently. He’d pay good money to see that.

“Mmm, of course,” Dan hummed. “You have some explaining to do, mister.”

Cockily, Phil flashed Dan a smirk. “Really? Seems like you watched enough videos that it should be pretty self explanatory.” Phil wasn’t normally one to pay too much attention to new likes and comments on his old videos, but out of curiosity, he’d checked his first video after he knew Dan had watched it. He’d sorted the comments by date and hadn’t been disappointed. Beneath a string of comments screaming about Dan discovering Phil’s first video was a comment from the man himself.

Daniel Howell: being this precious should be illegal

When he’d found Dan’s comment, Phil had been too curious for his own good and clicked on Dan’s account. Much to his surprise, Dan’s recently liked videos tab was just pages and pages of Phil’s videos. Phil wondered if Dan knew that his likes were public.

Phil had half been expecting Dan to blush when he teased him about watching his videos, but instead, Dan’s lips just quirked up to match Phil’s smirk.

“That’s true, I guess.” Dan reached out to take his coffee from Phil’s hand before he could set it down on the counter, their fingers lightly brushing together. It shouldn’t have affected him the way it did, not when Dan’s hands had been on his bare ribs just moments ago, but Phil had to bite back a gasp at the touch. “I suppose I know a lot more about you now than I did, but all it did was leave me with more questions.

Phil rolled his eyes, trying to appear like he found Dan silly, but really he got it. He so, so deeply understood what Dan meant. The more Phil learned about Dan, both in person and from his dives into the depths of the internet, the more Phil wanted to know.

He’d learned that Dan had a childhood dog at his parents that he adored, but he didn’t know if Dan wanted a dog of his own. He’d learned that Dan was amazing at Mario Kart, but he didn’t know what other games he enjoyed playing. He’d learned that his inspiration for his songs usually came from his own life, but he didn’t know what was inspiring him at this moment.

With a mock resigned sigh, Phil wiped down his work area — he’d accidentally made a mess of it during the morning rush. “Alright, then, Howell. Let’s hear your questions.”

As soon as the words were out of Phil’s mouth, Dan’s questions poured out of him the same way his words always did when he was passionate about something — fast, loud, and all at once.

“Why did you decide to start youtube? Was it hard to get into it? What’s it like working with the BBC? Why the heck do you work at a coffee shop? Do you think —”

Phil threw his drying rag at Dan, smacking him in the face. “Slow down, will you? I can only answer one question at a time.”

Dan’s boisterous laugh filled the coffee shop. “Sorry, I got excited.” He threw the towel back at Phil, sprinkling black coffee grounds onto Phil’s white shirt in the process. “Start at the beginning then. How’d you get started on youtube?”

Between fans, interviewers, and confused adults, Phil got that question a lot and had an answer ready. “I got a camera in a cereal box and just started making videos.”

Dan cocked his head, considering Phil. “That’s it then? You just found a camera and your first thought was I’m going to make youtube videos?”

Something about the way Dan’s eyes bore into Phil coaxed out a deeper answer, an answer he usually kept private. Dan had a way of doing that. Those big puppydog eyes could probably make Phil confess to anything. “At first, it wasn’t a thing. YouTube wasn’t a thing. I just kind of posted the first video for fun, and then, over time, I found myself coming back to it. I was living at my parents after uni. Most of my friends either didn’t live near me or were disgustingly in love and… I don’t know. I was bored I guess. I wanted a way to connect with new people, maybe a way to make some friends. So when I discovered the youtube community, which was so small and close-knit back then, it seemed like the right thing to do.”

Phil wasn’t sure what he expected from Dan after he let all of that pour out — perhaps pity — but it wasn’t understanding. Which was exactly what he ended up getting.

“That’s kind of how I got started in music, actually! I hated so much that was happening in my life, I didn’t have friends, I just needed to do something I loved.”

“Exactly!” Phil agreed. “And I made so many good friends so quickly. It was exactly what I needed. As for getting popular, it was a lot easier back then. Like I said, it was really close knit, so we all collabed together and promoted each others’ channels. I was even part of a few community things, like ApartmentRed. And slowly, my subscribers grew and grew and grew until I woke up one day and I had over four million subscribers. I couldn’t believe it. All I could think was, I’m just Phil, from Rawtenstall.” Embarrassed that he’d been talking about himself for so long, Phil tried to switch the conversation over to Dan. “What about you? How did you get popular with music?”

Phil already knew, sort of. He’d seen clips of Dan talking about how an up and coming producer had come into a bar he was playing at by complete chance one night, and asked him to come to the studio the next Monday to play some of his original pieces for their boss. But Phil was willing to bet that Dan, like himself, only ever told part of his origin story during interviews.

“I was eighteen and I had been accepted to study law at Manchester University, but I hated the idea of it, so I decided to take a gap year and really give music a go. My parents fucking hated it. They said that if I wasn’t going to be working towards a more viable future by taking this horrific internship at a law firm, then I wasn’t allowed to live at home. I think they really thought I’d give in. But. I don’t know. I was young and passionate and reckless and stubborn, so I packed a bag, grabbed my guitar, and left. I got a job at a DIY store — which I was horrible at, by the way — and a really crappy studio apartment, and spent every free night I had playing gigs at shitty dive bars. And eventually, it paid off.”

Phil shook head, a bit in awe of Dan’s courage. He’d never realized how much Dan had risked when he decided to chase his dreams.

“Wow, that was so bold of you. I guess I was really lucky. My parents were really supportive of the youtube thing. I think initially they were just happy that I was doing something, making friends. But when it became clear that it might become profitable someday, they did everything they could to help. How do your parents feel about you singing now?”

“They’ve come around,” Dan answered as he shrugged out of his leather jacket all together, draping it on the stool next to him. Clearly, the heat in the store was beginning to get to him. “I think they were only really against it in the beginning because they wanted what was best for me and, well, I guess you know how difficult trying to make it the entertainment business can be. But we’re close now and they support what I’m doing. What about your family? You seem really close with them.”

“Yeah,” Phil agreed. “We are. They all think it’s cool, and my brother actually does a lot of behind the scenes stuff for me. My extended family is a bit confused by it all though. Like, outside of my grandma, I think most of them are convinced I make a different type of internet video.” Phil attempted a wink and immediately regretted it — he was well aware of how unsexy his two-eyed attempt at winks were.

Dan laughed, loud and unrestrained. “Now there’s an image. Innocent AmazingPhil fucking someone on the internet for money.”

“Hey! I am innocent,” Phil argued indignantly, pretending to be offended.

Dan laughed, doing his best to give Phil an incredulous look despite it. “Right. Do I need to remind you that you called me daddy like three days ago?”

“I was kidding!”

“Right, and we know only innocent people joke about daddy kinks.” Dan tugged at the chunky grey scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. Was Dan okay? Phil was kind of surprised Dan had lasted so long all bundled up he way he was.

“Jesus fuck, it’s really fucking hot in here,” Dan grumbled.

“I know,” Phil agreed. “That would be why I was trying to take off my jumper when you got in. You’ll probably be more comfortable if you take your scarf off.”

It seemed the logical thing to do, but Dan looked unsure, his eyes flickering between his half-finished coffee and Phil, as if the last thing he wanted was to remove his scarf. Phil squinted at Dan, confused

“You have to promise not to give me shit,” Dan tried to threaten.

It occured to Phil, then, that Dan was embarrassed. Cocking an eyebrow, Phil taunted, “I don’t think I can make any such promises, but go on then.”

Dan grumbled something incomprehensible, but obligingly lifted his hands to his scarf. A bit reluctantly, Dan unwound the grey fabric. Suddenly, Phil understood that the scratches on Dan’s arms likely weren’t from an animal — not if the marks on his neck were anything to go by.

Phil could feel his heart plummet into his stomach at the sight. He knew, obviously he knew that Dan had a girlfriend. And she was gorgeous. Of course, of course they were having sex. It was just — he’d never thought about it. Not really. Isabella had always been a distant figure in Dan’s life, one he didn’t even really talk about that much.

But now...

Now, Phil had no choice but to think about Dan and her having sex.

He felt like an idiot. His thoughts of Dan falling apart underneath his felt like distant fantasies all of a sudden. Instead, he was falling apart with someone else — his girlfriend. Girlfriend.

With a jolt, Phil realized he’d been silently staring at Dan’s neck a bit too long. Deliberately, Phil forced out a laugh, which came out weaker than he’d been hoping for.

“Damn,” Phil added.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Dan mumbled into his coffee cup.

With a monumental effort, Phil did his best to revert back to his joking self, trying to emotionally distance himself from the thought of Isabella leaving those marks on Dan. “And here you were saying that I’m not innocent. I don’t think you get those kinds of marks from being a good boy,” Phil teased.

Phil saw a flicker of something flash through Dan’s eyes. He’d forgotten what those words apparently did to Dan.

Evilly, Phil leaned forward on his elbows, resting his chin in his palm. “Were you a bad boy, Daniel?”

Instantly, Dan’s cheeks turned a deep, dark red. The expression was far prettier to focus on then the hickies covering his neck. Apparently bad boy affected Dan just as much as good boy.

“Fuck off. We got into a bit of a fight, if you must know.”

“A fight?” Phil prompted against his better judgment, taken by surprise.

“Yeah, protip: angry sex may feel great in the moment, but it hurts like fuck for days.”

Phil hadn’t been expecting Dan to actually like, admit to being a bad boy. And if Phil was being honest he kind of hated Dan confirming what he’d suspected.

“Those marks are days old?”

Dan huffed. “You should have seen them Monday.”

“Oh, wow. Um, are you guys okay?”

Why did he ask that? There was no potential good answer. If Dan said no, Phil wouldn’t be able to keep himself from feeling kind of sort of happy about it, despite feeling bad for Dan at the same time.. If Dan said yes — well, Phil’s heart just needed to get used to taking a beating when it came to Dan.

Dan didn’t answer right away. His eyes bore into Phil’s, almost as if he was looking for something, but Phil didn’t know what.

Finally, he spoke, sounding defeated.

“I don’t think we ever are. But we’re good enough.”

what did you thinkkkkkkkk? a bit less angsty than the last chapter? right?  

thank you @auroraphilealis for all of your wonderful editing and suggestions. you always make me a better writer <3 

[[next chapter]]

[winterromanov]

high voltage in her lips [bechloe fic, part 2/?]

read part one here | on ao3

Beca wakes up to two bright blue eyes staring right at her from the side of the bed.

“Dude!” she exclaims, pulling her duvet tight around her, “What the fuck?”

Chloe smiles like it’s a totally normal thing for her to be doing. To. You know. Just be watching her sleep. “Good morning, sunshine.”

Beca rubs her eyes and her hands are streaked with black from last night’s mascara. She can feel the hangover thrumming at the back of her brain, her mouth dry and tasting faintly of wine she doesn’t remember drinking. “How long have you been perving on me?”

“Not long,” Chloe chirps. It’s then that she realises that Chloe is completely put together, like they weren’t screaming on a dancefloor just a few hours previously, hyped up on Sambuca shots. Her hair is newly washed and blow-dried and her face is bare, yet somehow still flawless, freckles dusted across her cheekbones. She’s wearing a neat top-and-skirt combo. Beca’s still wearing her clothes from last night. “Your ass was drunker than mine so I put you up in the spare room.”

Beca properly looks around the room, finally realising she’s not in her own flat—it’s way too clean and ordered, with a floral colour scheme that’s been carefully designed rather than thrown on the walls last minute. The duvet smells like honeysuckle. God, it couldn’t be more Chloe Beale.

“Thanks. Sorry to, uh, put you out?”

“Not a problem,” Chloe grins. She stands from her position crouching by Beca’s bedside, rubbing her hands together. “I’ve left you a coffee and some aspirin. I’ve got a meeting in the city so I’ve got to head out, but feel free to use the shower and stuff before you go. The door locks on its own so don’t worry about leaving it open or anything.”

Damn, this bitch is organised. Beca stretches out and tries to put together memories from last night—it’s all pretty vague, glimpses of fire-red hair and intense music, Amy running over before they leave and telling her that some dude called Juan was taking her to the Bahamas for a bit so not to wait up for her—

Okay, so she’s going to have to handle that at some point, but that point doesn’t have to be now, right?

“I had a great night last night, by the way,” Chloe says, smiling, “You’re great fun. I haven’t let loose like that in a while.”

It would help if Beca could actually remember clearly what exactly happened last night, but the sentiment warms her anyway. She smiles back, genuinely, vaguely recalling how her heart thudded like it was about to break out her ribcage. “I had a great time too. As far as I’m aware I didn’t leave with a minor assault charge, so. A win?”

Chloe giggles. She does that a lot. Giggling. Beca’s never giggled. It doesn’t match her image. “Definitely a win. I’d like to do it again sometime.”

“Well, we’re going to be spending the next three months on tour together,” Beca says, still not quite believing it. “I’m sure I’ll be able to haul you off the rails at least once in that time period. If your manager doesn’t kill me first.”

“Aubrey doesn’t control everything about my life, as much as she’d like to. I make my own decisions.”

“Awesome,” Beca replies. Her eyes linger on the coffee Chloe’s thoughtfully left out for her and it stings, a little, because it reminds her of stupid Jesse and the stupidly Nice Things he used to do for her. And maybe Chloe is another Nice Person she doesn’t deserve in her life. It’s why she hasn’t fired Amy yet. She’s just as fucked up as Beca is.

“I’m going to head off,” Chloe says, making her way towards the bedroom door, “So I’ll see you later?”

“Sure.”

She flashes Beca one last smile before disappearing, and Beca’s touched that the girl seems to trust her enough to leave her alone in her apartment after meeting her once. It’s a naïve choice, perhaps, but sweet all the same. She reaches out and takes a swig of the rapidly cooling coffee and pops two of the aspirin then just sits, wrapped up in the duvet, everything silent other than the hum of the air conditioning.

Yeah, she’s still not sure how this whole tour thing will work, but she kind of wants it to work? And maybe that’s the point.

-x-

THE PRINCESS AND THE REBEL – CHLOE BEALE AND BECA MITCHELL SPOTTED IN DOWNTOWN LA

Los Angeles seems to be the hotbed of the billboard’s newest collaborations, a factory of number one hits and Grammy awards—but a sighting of two of music’s seemingly polar opposites has us here at Glitz dot com totally stumped. That’s right. Notorious bad girl Beca Mitchell (of Where Do You Go? fame) and pop’s hottest starlet Chloe Beale were papped together outside the Luna club last night, looking very comfortable in each other’s company indeed.

It’s true that there’s been a small fanbase on social media hoping that the pair would eventually collaborate, but it hardly felt like a realistic goal. After all, Mitchell’s just dodged another felony whilst Beale is climbing to the top of her game. Their interests don’t seem to overlap, but there’s definitely a friendship we’ve never heard about there.

Whether this club night is just two friends meeting up or the beginning of a potential collaboration, it has got us pretty excited. Mitchell’s sultry, no-nonsense sound mixing with Beale’s simultaneously romantic and empowering girl-power anthems will be a guaranteed eargasm which we’re TOTALLY here for. But—it begs the question whether these two artists will actually be good for each other. It’s no secret that Mitchell’s been a bit off the rails recently while Beale is pristine, role-model material; will Beca drag Chloe down or will Chloe bring Beca back up again? Only time will tell.

Keep up to date with everything Beca Mitchell and Chloe Beale by following us on twitter: @glitzmag

ARTICLE BY DAISY FULLERTON

-x-

“Hey bitch! You’ve reached Fat Amy, only you haven’t reach Fat Amy, because I’m totally boning a really hot Spanish dude in the Bahamas right now while drinking a shit ton of Tequila Sunrises. Sooooo… Leave a message if you want, but I probably won’t get back to you for several days if it all. Adios!”

“For fuck’s sake, Amy, you are literally the worst manager ever and I’m firing you as soon as your ass is back in LA. Ok. So. There’s been some—articles, which I’m sure you’ve seen, because despite never answering my calls you’ve uploaded about sixty videos to your snapchat story of you on a speedboat, you monster. Anyway. I’m sick of the media painting me as some fucking criminal out-to-corrupt-your-children type when I’m really not, and yes I do have a tattoo I got when I was off my face on pot but that was years ago and really, that’s literally the only regrettable thing I’ve done that wasn’t a product of you. Please just tell someone, anyone, that I’m actually pretty rad and I’m probably not going to drag Chloe Beale’s impeccable reputation through the trash. As my manager that would literally be the bare minimum you could do for me right now. You’re an asshole. Ciao.”

-x-

queenbeale just uploaded a photo to Instagram

got to hang out with the amazing @becamitchell on Saturday!! can’t wait to tell you guys what we’ve got in store for y’all xx

chloebealer commented: oh my god???? OH MY GOD???

jaydababe34 commented: MY TWO FAVES ARE UNITED I’M SCREAMING

chloefan789 commented: not sure how this will work… I’m not a beca mitchell fan at all

becamitchell commented: I look so drunk in this photo and I hate you for uploading it :)

queenbeale commented: @becamitchell you look like a dream

madisonbealer commented: @queenbeale @becamitchell *whispers* GAYYYYYYY

-x-

It takes another two weeks of meetings and contracts and publicity before the tour dates are released to the public. They’re visiting thirty-two cities across North America in the space of two and a half months: it’s wild on a scale Beca’s never seen before. Yeah, she’s had three tours across the same area in the past, but the venues were smaller and not so extensive, and not all of the dates were sold out. The tickets for this tour sell out in a grand total of eleven minutes.

The tour also generates a tidal wave of interest across every single internet platform available. Her old songs are repeated alongside Chloe’s on the radio, her follower count on Instagram sky-rockets and their names are trending on Twitter. The last time Beca saw her name in that bar was when she was arrested for the coke incident (fuck you, Amy). And the support, surprisingly, is unreal. Like the unsavoury articles that emerged after she was papped outside Luna with Chloe earlier in the month, she’d expected people talking shit about her past, wondering if Beca’s razor sharp edges would rip Chloe to shreds—but there’s been an overwhelming amount of positivity, like the curiosity of what they could produce together overshadows what could potentially go wrong.

Her return to mainstream media ends up alerting people she thought she’d left in the past of her presence again, but she’s still surprised when Jesse ends up leaving her a voicemail on the Thursday after the announcement. It’s been five months of total radio silence between them. She’d kind of anticipated that it would be longer than that. After all, she did end a seven-year relationship on his fucking birthday, which she’d completely forgotten about.

Maybe she does owe him one.

Beca meets him for lunch in a small restaurant a twenty minute walk from her apartment—a neat, little kitschy place she doesn’t often visit, but they serve ciabatta and paninis and squashy cooked tomatoes still on the vine, and that’s the kind of thing Jesse loves. She gets there fifteen minutes early but of course he’s already there, sat on the long bench by the window and overlooking the street. She pretends she hasn’t seen him from the outside, even though he’d clocked her half a block away.

He still looks the same. Clean-shaven, dark hair cropped, clean t shirt and pants and sneakers like they’d never been worn before. He leaps off his stool nervously when the door shuts behind her.

Oh. Wow. She’s never known Jesse to be nervous before. He’s usually annoyingly confident. All through high school she’d hidden behind his infectious smile. At least the last two months have allowed her to just be her, even if that means she’s been stuck in a fucking prison cell once or twice. Or thrice.

“Becs,” he says breathlessly, taking her in. She half-smiles tightly. “Hey. How are you?”

“Oh, you know,” Beca shrugs, pulling her bag strap tighter around her shoulder. She’s nervous too. “Not in prison, depressed or dying, so not all bad. You?”

Jesse relaxes and his mouth softens. She’s still the same old Beca. “Same. It’s…uh, it’s been a while.”

“It has.”

“I kept meaning to… well, call, I guess, but I didn’t know if you wanted me to. In the end I just bit the bullet.”

“It’s cool. We both needed space.” Beca drops her bag on the floor and jumps onto a barstool and he copies, their seats inches apart yet somehow miles away. It’s weird, considering how close they used to be. Used to be. “For the record… I kept meaning to call too. But I didn’t know if you wanted to hear from me.”

Jesse smiles, biting his lip, before looking back up at her. “I always want to hear from you. I think that was probably the issue.”

He’s not wrong, he’s really not, because Beca’s terrible at keeping up with messages and most of the time just didn’t bother replying, leaving his I love you’s on read and not giving it a second thought. She didn’t think that would hurt him for some reason, even though she’s well aware that Jesse’s actually a good, thoughtful person who cares about her and wouldn’t mind some of that care back. It was alright when they were in high school and when they regularly shared an apartment because she’d always be there in person to offer that reassurance. That wasn’t so easy when she was away on tour.

And it broke him. But it broke her a long time before that. Believe it or not, she’s not totally emotionally void.

Jesse grabs them both coffees and ham paninis and they sit in silence for a bit, looking out across the city; the one she’d forgotten they shared. He takes a deep breath before talking. “I saw you were going on tour. With Chloe Beale. That’s amazing, Beca.”

“Yeah. It’s pretty cool. The management is manic, but. I’m glad to be out there again.”

Jesse takes a sip of coffee. “Does that mean there’s going to be some new music out soon?”

Beca withholds an eye roll, because that’s been the question on everybody’s lips—Chloe’s on a high from a newly released number one album and she’s still utterly clueless, wondering if she can get away with singing mostly her old stuff on the tour. It begins in less than six months. That’s not enough time to write, produce and release at least ten songs worth of new material, especially seeing as the deterioration of her last relationship and moving out and all that stress hasn’t been particularly good for her creativity. “Probably not. Song-writing is apparently not my forte anymore.”

“Well, you never know. You might find some inspiration soon. I know you, Becs. You just pull amazing tracks out of thin air like it’s nothing.”

She raises an eyebrow sceptically. “As much as I appreciate you massaging my ego, that doesn’t really help me right now.”

“I’m not worried,” Jesse says calmly, “I once watched you write a whole album while high, remember?”

“Your Love Fucking Sucks Balls, Dude?” Beca says, and Jesse laughs, clinging onto the bar for support. “Yeah, somehow I don’t think that’s going to be breaking the billboard top one hundred. Yet… stellar tracks like I Really Like Your Dick and Smash Me Good might be my only hope. Like, if I go another year without making music my label might drop me, even with the tour, so…” Beca doesn’t want this to turn into a pity party so she turns, resting her chin in her palm, back to Jesse. “What have you been up to? Anything exciting? Scored any Oscar-noms?”

Jesse laughs with an eyeroll, looking down into his coffee cup. “I wish. No, still doing ad work, but you never know. As soon as Pixar put an ad up for a composer on Craigslist, I’m there.” He pauses. Drums his fingers on the tabletop. Beca knows what’s coming. “Look, Becs—“

“No, Jesse.”

“No, no,” Jesse shakes his head, “No, this isn’t… I don’t want to get back together.”

Well, that’s a relief. She can feel her stomach shift back to its normal location. “Oh. Okay. Good.”

“This is more about… It is about me and you, but five months without you in my life has been hell, Beca. We were together for seven years. That doesn’t just fall away into nothing, even if the romance isn’t there anymore.” He coughs, clearly nervous. “I still love you. Of course I do. And I want you to be happy, like, more than anything in the world. And I know you’re not going to be happy with me, and that’s fine. But I’d still like to be part of your life.”

Oh. His sincerity stuns her, for a second, because maybe this is the kind of reaction she should’ve expected all along.

“We don’t have to talk every day. We don’t even have to talk regularly. I’d just like to be, you know—someone who is there for you. Your friend Jesse who just so happens to be your ex. We can grab dinner when our schedules don’t clash and watch movies and maybe text every so often. Or we don’t. Whatever. Just… I don’t want to lose you, Becs.”

She smiles, suddenly nostalgic for a time when everything was easy: when Jesse would pick her up from work in his beat-up Civic and he’d leave stupid romantic notes in her locker (which she definitely didn’t keep in a scrapbook under her bed, by the way) and they’d drink lukewarm cider and make out under the stars on the football field. It was all achingly simple back then.

But then she thinks of her life now, and how slowly and surely it’s coming back together, and how most of the time she doesn’t miss Jesse’s beat-up civic and his stupid romantic notes and the lukewarm cider, although she does kind of miss the making out and she does kind of miss him. He’s proposing a zero-commitment friendship, a no string attached deal, someone she can turn to and will always be there.

Like the tour, she’s not really in a position to turn it down.

“Sure,” she smiles, “But no movies. I’ve not got girlfriend status anymore, so you can’t force me to watch fucking Star Trek—“

“Star Wars, Beca, I’ve got no interest in Star Trek whatsoever.”

“Okay, weirdo, Star Wars. Whatever. But the point still stands. I’m under no obligation to sit through your ridiculous commentaries.”

“That’s cool,” Jesse nods, “I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but that’s cool. And anyway. I don’t actually want you to be my friend. I just want you to fill me in on every single detail about what Chloe Beale is actually like. Does she really own a poodle that’s naturally fluorescent pink?”

-x-

BECA MITCHELL SPOTTED WITH OLD FLAME AND EX LONG TERM BOYFRIEND JESSE SWANSON – IS ROMANCE BACK ON THE CARDS?

-x-

“Beca, I really don’t want to intrude, but I’ve seen those pics on twitter of you and your ex-boyfriend,” Chloe rubs her hands excitedly, “And are you, like, back together? Because that guy is a total cutie.”

Beca’s not actually seen Chloe beyond a professional capacity for over two weeks as their schedules are so hectic, but the girl texts like she’s running out of time and for some reason, she actually replies to her strings of emojis and exclamation marks? In addition, her lengthy paragraphs of information are usually incredibly intrusive, so it comes clear to Beca that Chloe doesn’t really have any boundaries or filter when it comes to asking the potentially difficult questions.

“Oh, no,” Beca answers straight up, her reflection staring back at her. She hisses in pain as the hairdresser burns her scalp with the curling iron, who then hastily apologises. “No, no, no. That’s definitely not a thing that’s happening.”

Beca’s sure that Chloe looks pleased, which sets off some weird emotions, but she somehow manages to fight the blush taking over her cheeks. “What happened there, if you don’t mind me asking? Your Wikipedia said you’d been together for, like, seven years. Which is a pretty long time.”

The shameless way Chloe admits she’s definitely stalked her ass online is actually kind of funny but Beca doesn’t laugh, because maybe then she’d be forced to admit that she’s done the same thing. The hairdresser—who is called Katie, or Kathy, or something, Beca’s not that good with names—wraps another one of her locks tight, like she’s going to pull it clean off her scalp. “It’s—really not exciting. We’d been together since high school. He went to UCLA while I tried to break onto the music scene and when I did we kind of just… drifted apart.”

(She was also an utter ass about it, but this is not something she’s going to admit while sober.)

“Oh. That’s sad.” Chloe smiles sympathetically. Her stylist has straightened her naturally wavy hair so it hangs in a scarlet red sheet, framing her cheekbones and eyes. She’s not even airbrushed or photoshopped within an inch of her life yet, goddamn, and she already looks fucking flawless. Totally unfair. “Drifting apart just comes with the territory, I guess. My last ex dumped because I didn’t have enough time for him. Which is fair. It’s not easy.”

Beca’s not sure if she feels totally comfortable going into it with an audience of stylists, especially with one who seems to hate her hair as much as Karen does. Chloe seems completely at ease, but she gives off this edge of being totally confident with herself—something Beca’s not blessed with, as much as she likes to pretend she doesn’t care.

“He also kept trying to persuade me to do a sex tape on several occasions,” Chloe unnecessarily elaborates, “And I kept telling him no, mostly because I was scared that if we did break up he’d try and sell it to TMZ or something. For the record, I’m not against sex tapes. I think they can be very fun and intimate representations of cinematography. But I’d only make one with someone I could trust inside-out and back-to-front, so to speak.”

Oh. Wow. Beca grits her teeth, but there’s a smile there. “That’s… good to know, dude.”

“I know! And I’ll have you know my sex life is far from vanilla. I have a very long list of kinks and some of them are pretty unconventional. Like, this one time, Mark made me try this thing with ginger—“

“And that’s enough!” Beca laughs awkwardly, mainly because the stylists are having a fucking field day and Beca doesn’t want it on record that she and Chloe were discussing figging while getting ready for a shoot.

“Oh,” Chloe says, looking briefly behind her before grimacing at Beca. She mouths I forgot we weren’t alone.

A few minutes later the lady who is coordinating the shoot calls them through to an office with a wall covered in white tarpaulin, the lights all the brighter for it. It’s a pretty low-key thing for Teen Vogue, but it’s the first shoot they’ve done together since the tour announcement, so Beca’s kind of bricking it. Chloe takes everything in her stride. She struts over to the tarpaulin and Beca quickly follows.

She thinks that the costume department might have gone a bit overkill on the rebel and the princess thing that’s been coined for them, because Beca’s dressed in a black mini-dress, leather jacket and doc martens, whilst Chloe is wearing a glittery pink off the shoulder number with white leggings, her feet in ballet pumps. Beca’s eyes are smudged with charcoal black whilst Chloe’s are pearlescent, and she looks every inch the twenty-first century pop princess. Beca’s not sure what she looks like.

The photographer is a young guy, maybe a bit older than she is, wearing a fake waistcoat attached to a t shirt and skinny jeans. He ushers them together, keeps saying to act natural, which in mainstream media terms means attempt to look sexy and maybe pout a bit.

The pictures actually turn out pretty good. Beca gets more element as the shoot drags on, sticking her tongue out for the camera and laughing and trying not to cringe as she tries the sexy hair-flick, smouldering the camera over her shoulder.

It’s the pictures of them together that turn out the best, though. There’s this beautiful shot of the pair of them caught off guard, Chloe’s hand slung over Beca’s shoulder as she laughs, hand over her chest. She looks fucking ecstastic, just to be there, they both do; like they’re ecstatic to be together. It’s almost typical that that one doesn’t make the cover (they go with one of them both straightfaced, stood side by side, like they’ve never met in their lives). The picture doesn’t even make the article. But later on someone from the magazine sends her the unedited rough-cuts, and she saves that one photo to her hard drive.

(Eight months, two weeks and three days later that photo is her desktop background.)

Two hours later and the magazine has all the photos they need so they’re allowed to leave and Beca can keep the leather jacket.

(“I like it on you,” Chloe says, smoothing the leather out with her fingers, “You look super edgy.” Aka, it’s a real turn-on.)

On their way out from the building, Chloe pauses in the middle of the street like she’s suddenly had the best fucking idea. “Hey—my apartment is about a five minute cab ride from here. Do you want to head over there if you haven’t got plans? There’s something I’m desperate to try.”

Beca’s way too intrigued to possibly say no to that.

[pml1225-blog]

4:(urbosa>)mipha>zelda(>revali>daruk)

Link is not really the most interesting character. No RPG protagonist is, because their sole purpose is to serve as an insert for the player. As such, some of the side characters have much more compelling stories and become much more memorable. Let’s take a look at two of them in Breath of the Wild.

Breath of the Wild’s story is a backstory of events that happened in the past, and it focuses on Zelda’s struggles to unlock her power to seal Ganon away. She is fiercely devoted to unlocking her inherited power, but when her training doesn’t pay off, she understandably gets frustrated. In the off-time from her training, she works on deciphering and engineering the Guardians, ancient mechanical spider-bots that she hopes to use in the fight against Ganon’s forces.

“At the current rate, we’ll soon know all we need to know about the Guardians and the Divine Beasts!”

“He always says, ‘Quit wasting your time playing at being a scholar!’ I’ve spent every day of my life dedicated to praying!”

Her father adamantly disapproves of this, insisting that she focuses on her training. This leaves Zelda feeling helpless and not in control, and when she goes to the final holy spring to pray, only to be met by silence once again, Ganon suddenly attacks. Zelda can’t do anything but stand by as she watches Link and the rest of her friends go fight the war she knows she can’t finish. When Calamity Ganon hijacks the Guardians and Divine Beasts with his ~evil essence~, killing the other champions and turning the army that she had worked so hard on against her, the defeat is complete and she breaks down. Throughout this ordeal, Link is by her side, but being the silent protagonist that he is, can only offer a meager lap for her to cry on in the rain. It is only when Link collapses from his injuries and exhaustion and a Guardian is about to lay waste to them both that she jumps in front of him and cries out, and unlocks her power, saving their lives. Power unlocked, but still thoroughly defeated, she arranges for Link and his sword to be safely stowed away for 100 years, and goes off to Hyrule castle to hold off Ganon as best she can until Link reawakens.

well, that was easy.

Zelda’s story throughout the games has always been somewhat of a disappointing one, because the games, despite their titles, center around Link. In past games, Zelda always plays a secondary role in Link’s quest, and her involvement and agency in the story ranges from just being asleep for the entirety of Zelda II to Ocarina of Time, where she semi-orchestrates the entire plot from behind the scenes, setting up things so Link can save the day. When Zelda plays an active role in the stories, it is almost always as an alter ego – either as Sheik in Ocarina of Time or as Tetra the pirate in Wind Waker. The Zelda/Tetra distinction is especially interesting and particularly glaring because Tetra is a badass and a primary mover of the plot for the first half of the story, but is unaware of her heritage as Princess Zelda. When she is informed of her ancestry, she goes full princess mode and is relegated to being asleep in a dungeon and firing arrows at Link for him to reflect at Ganon. In the next game (Phantom Hourglass), she readopts her Tetra personality, but her story is very much that of a damsel in distress, which came as a disappointment to fans yearning for more.

By telling Zelda’s story in the past while letting the player finish Link’s story, Nintendo cleverly maneuvered around the problem of having Zelda, who is technically the title character, always being the secondary character. Her story is quite compelling and relatable, seeing how her attempts to balance the burden of unlocking her power with her knack and interest in research and essentially the Hyrulian version of engineering. The way she, as psychoanalyzed by one of the Champions, views Link’s steadfast dedication to his set path as a constant reminder of her own failure paints a convincingly conflicted character, stuck between a rock and a hard place. However, Nintendo fails to bring her story to a fully satisfying conclusion. In the end, her efforts to tame the Guardians are useless and actually lead to her defeat, and she unlocks her power not through her own dedication to her training, but rather her desire to protect Link. This girl climbed three (3) mountains for that shit! Eventually, when she can’t hold Ganon back any further, she calls out to Link to help, and that’s when the game begins. In the final post-game cutscene, Zelda expresses her desire to explore all of Hyrule and continue learning about their ancestors while helping the people, so she does get to do what she wants, but it is still a happy ending that is given to her by Link and the player. In a game where the primary gameplay philosophy is “you can literally do whatever you want”, Zelda’s story where she can’t escape her destiny and the wishes of her father and ancestors leaves a bitter irony. However, her character that is portrayed still shines through the miserable lot in life she was given, as her scenes show her as a real character with real motivations that players will want to root for. Just not a primary character.

That’s not to say that Nintendo is incapable of telling non-Link stories in the context of the Legend of Zelda. The stories of the characters Link meets throughout his journey are often quite compelling and imbued with feeling, and even through the brief interactions the player has, they really contribute to the overall vibe of the games. Breath of the Wild ups the ante by introducing 4 other secondary characters – the Champions. Of the four, Mipha’s character stood out to me, especially since her reception among the fanbase seemed to be extremely divided. Most of her critics claim that “her only character trait is liking Link”, and while, admittedly, much of her character arc revolves around her love for Link, it is told in a way that provides agency and weight to her decisions. Mipha is a childhood friend of Link’s, and as adults/teenagers, she often tends to his wounds with her healing powers. When their respective duties as Champions require them to travel separately and pair Link with Zelda, she is understandably jealous, but keeps it to herself in order to not jeopardize their group’s mission. Instead of being passive, however, she still expresses her wishes to spend more time with Link when their mission is fulfilled, and vows to stick by his side and protect him with all of her power. She also harbors no ill will towards Zelda, instead offering her advice on how to unlock her power by describing how she thinks of someone she cares about (Link) when healing (which somehow ends up being the key to unlocking Zelda’s power even though she’s not the one with a crush on Link ugh).

“We just don’t seem to know much about what we’ll be up against. But know this: that no matter how difficult this battle may get, if you - if anyone ever tries to do you harm, the I will heal you. No matter when, or how bad the wound, I hope you know that I will always protect you. Once this whole thing is over, maybe things can go back to how they used to be when we were young. You know...perhaps we could spend some time together.”

Though she falls to Ganon along with the remaining champions, the extent of her feelings towards Link is revealed during the game. The Zora, her race of fish-people, initially distrust Link because they believe that he took Mipha away from them and failed to protect her from Ganon. After her father reveals the truth that Mipha loved Link and desired to protect him along with the rest of Hyrule, however, the elders turn to begrudgingly placing their faith in Link based on their trust of Mipha’s judgement. This is symbolized by the armor that Mipha crafted for Link, which in Zora culture is something similar to a proposal. The armor is instrumental to Link’s success, and when he frees Mipha’s soul from Ganon’s grasp, she expresses her gratitude and feelings and passes on her healing powers to Link so she can continue to look over him from the afterlife. In this way, Mipha’s story, though a trite one of impossible childhood love, is more satisfying than Zelda’s. Many of her actions are dependent on her love for Link, sure, but they are logical and are met with logical results. Her happy ending is a direct result of her own actions and character (other than the part where Link still has to free her soul from Ganon, but he has to do that for everyone). The player is reminded of this every time they don the armor she made for Link or get merked by some dumb shit and are revived by her power. The difference between Zelda’s and the Champions’ stories can be seen by how fans responded. When the DLC came out promising more backstory on the Champions, fans were excited and rumors even circulated that you would be able to play as Mipha and the others. Though the DLC eventually fell way short of these expectations, providing little more backstory than “Mipha is kind to everyone”, the prospect that people wanted to play as her indicates that people wanted to experience more of her character beyond her devotion towards Link, something which you can’t exactly say for Zelda. I hope that Nintendo will continue to tell compelling and satisfying stories that aren’t solely based on a male lead, but perhaps the traditional Legend of Zelda story isn’t fit for this. Maybe Metroid?