#i do not want to work here it has been absolute destruction to my mental health

[petvles]

people at work today asking me if i had fun on my internship

#that is.... #a loaded question #yes as in i had fun doing the work that was handed to me #no as in ive had the most and worst mental breakdowns ive had since like 2016 #my supervisor told me he probably wouldnt hire me as a junior as it is right now #WHICH IS TOTALLY FAIR #and also not what i want #i do not want to work here it has been absolute destruction to my mental health #anyways im happy it was other interns asking me #not people from my teams #like if an actual junior or senior asked me id have to hide my feelings #anyways #jani chats

[fickleminder]

seven supervillains and one (1) normie

You move in with seven normal, law-abiding housemates.

Here’s my piece for @obeymezine! Leftover sales are live till Dec 15th, so do consider supporting us since all proceeds will be going to charity :)

Lucifer looks even more handsome in person.

You find yourself paying more attention to him and the deep timbre of his voice than the tour of Serenity Manor and its rules. Only a firm call of your name snaps you back to the present.

“This will be your room,” he says, opening one last door for you to step through. It’s decently furnished with all the basic necessities and has an en suite to boot. How generous. “Is this to your satisfaction?”

“Oh absolutely, everything looks great!” You wheel your luggage into a corner and set your backpack down on the large study table. “I still can’t believe I got matched with you guys for the boarding program. Thank you so much for having me!”

“The pleasure is ours.” Lucifer gives you a polite nod. “Make yourself at home, and I will introduce you to my brothers tomorrow. We hope you’ll enjoy your stay here with us.”

.

.

.

“Surveillance systems are online,” Levi reports as all eyes watch you unpack on the screen. “Ugh, bugging rooms is so old school. It’s only the first day, I doubt there’ll be any suspicious activity.”

“And it better stay that way.” Satan’s already profiling you from your posters on the walls, your stuffed sheep on the bed, your clothes in the closet. No red flags yet, as far as he can discern.

“Pfft, what can one exchange student do to us?” Mammon scoffs. Your background check was clean, your documents checked out. In every practical sense, you were an ordinary postgraduate taking courses at the local university for a year. “Loosen up guys!”

Lucifer shoots him a glare indicating he has no intention of doing so. “No funny business. It’s unfortunate that we have to go undercover in our own home, but Elysium’s agents are on to us. We need to mask our activities and blend in, and we have no choice but to wait for them to leave. Until then, continue to follow Prince’s orders, but keep things low-key. Do I make myself clear?”

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.

.

“—massive destruction of property at Settler’s factory premises. Witnesses say it was Gluttony in another one of his rampages, and this marks the fourth attack in…”

You glance towards a face-palming Lucifer at the breakfast table. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, perfectly fine.” He smiles through gritted teeth and switches off the TV, silencing the news.

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.

.

You have a few days before classes officially start, so you decide to take some time familiarizing yourself with the town. Lucifer has graciously agreed to escort you, along with one of his brothers.

“And that’s about it, really. Is there anywhere else you wanna go?” Belphie asks after they’ve given you a cursory tour. You mention wanting to return to the confectionery shop you passed by a while back, and he smirks. “Sure, but if you’re looking for Settler products, they might not have much stock.”

“That’s alright! They used to be one of my favorite brands you know, but then I found out they engaged in a lot of questionable business practices. It’s a shame really, I liked their stuff.”

Lucifer feels his work phone vibrating in his pocket all of a sudden and curses mentally. What could Barbatos possibly want at this moment? “Apologies, I… have to use the washroom,” he excuses himself in a hurry, discreetly signaling Belphie to cover for him before running off.

Almost half an hour passes with no Lucifer in sight.

“He’s been gone for a while. Should we go and check up on him?” You ask worriedly.

“Nah, it’s fine.” Belphie sniggers. “He usually takes really long shits anyway. Let’s just go. He’ll catch up eventually.”

Lucifer meets you back in the manor at the end of the day, and you miss the dirty look he sends Belphie behind your back after you recommend some home remedies for treating diarrhea.

.

.

.

“Satan, I need some advice!” The blond follows your voice to the kitchen and freezes when he sees you holding his collection of hunting knives. For gutting people, not cutting meat. “I’m making lunch. Which of these are for fruits and vegetables?”

This is why Lucifer always nags us about picking up our toys, Satan realizes belatedly. Fuck, he probably left them out on the couch or something. At least he’d remembered to clean off the blood first. “Those aren’t for cooking. They’re for, uh, self-defense.” Idiot, is that the best you could come up with? There’s no way it’ll—

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have assumed.” You gasp and quickly return the knives to him. “One of my old roommates used to sleep with a dagger under their pillow, though I personally prefer to keep a baseball bat next to my bed. Besides, didn’t some rich politician get murdered in his own house just recently? The manor seems secure and you guys have Cerberus, but better safe than sorry I guess.”

Satan is still reeling from your sheer obliviousness, but he knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. “I completely agree,” he says with a poker face.

.

.

.

Mammon’s Lexura is a sight to behold, but you’re more interested in how fast she can go.

“Oi, I know you’re worried about your friend but keep your oily fingers to yourself, you hear?” He grumbles, opening the garage door for you and Beel to enter. “Which mall was it again?”

“The one with Bullseye,” you reply distractedly, furiously tapping away on your phone. “I can’t believe she and her girlfriend got harassed in public. You only read stories about this happening to other people online. What kind of fucked up organization calls themselves a charity and— Shit!”

You trip on something and drop your phone. It bounces and skids under Mammon’s car, but Beel instinctively steps forward before you can even react. With one arm, he tilts the vehicle just enough for you to duck under and retrieve it.

“Wow, thanks so much Beel!” You dust your phone off and check for cracks on the screen while Mammon sweats buckets behind you. “You gotta share your workout routine with me sometime. Hey, do you mind coming along and being our muscle for the day?”

“Okay.” Beel agrees easily, and you pump your fists.

.

.

.

“—worth millions. The curator declined to comment…”

“This is crazy, I was there just last week!” You exclaim while chewing on your dinner. “The museum had lots of cool stuff on display. Mostly illegally imported, if you catch my drift, but not anymore huh?”

Asmo winks at you. “What a shame. You could have seen Lust in action first-hand.”

“Aren’t heists supposed to be discreet? He is pretty good-looking though, I’ll give him that.”

“Is he prettier than me?” The entire table goes deathly silent as you squint between Asmo’s fluttering eyelashes and the masked supervillain on the TV screen. “Don’t you think he’d look better with a boob window?”

“…Nah, he doesn’t have the tiddies to pull it off.” Your gaze unconsciously flickers to Beel’s chest. “Plus the butts don’t match. Yours is flatter.”

Asmo’s jaw drops in mock outrage. “Honey, have you been checking me out? How very scandalous of you~”

“Enough, please.” Lucifer sighs amidst your spluttering.

.

.

.

“That’s it. We’re screwed, our cover is blown. I knew this was a bad idea…”

“Let’s just resort to good ol’ fashioned murder and then frame it as a runaway case. No one will ever know!”

“This manor is a fortress located in the safest part of town. What the fuck do you think people will presume there is to run from?”

“There were a couple of close calls, but I think we’re still in the clear.” Beel recalls you quoting your statistics professor after an extended period of time where one of them would come home late the night before a major news event: correlation does not imply causation.

“Need I remind all of you, it was our proposal to join the boarding program as a front. Prince approved it himself, and I won’t allow us to back out now.”

“Shut up, Lucifer. Don’t you have any politicians to assassinate?” Belphie sneers.

“We will see this through.” Lucifer refuses to budge, ever the prideful bastard. “We’re still safe, but keep your guards up. Understood?”

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.

.

The kitchen is pitch black this time of night, but Levi’s had years to figure out a way around without alerting anyone he’s back.

“I hate on-site jobs,” he grumbles to himself. “What kind of company doesn’t have remote access to their servers nowadays? Let’s see how they like it when people steal and sell their private data instead, muahahaha— Eek!”

“Hmm? Levi?” You stifle a yawn and shuffle towards the rack of cups. “Why’re you up at this hour?”

Levi is still blinking away the spots in his vision from the sudden onslaught of light when you flipped the switch. He pales as you stare at his costume and equipment on the counter. “Wait, it’s not what it looks like—”

“Late con, huh? Must have been fun. You were still in character there. Heheh.” You pour yourself a glass of water. “Nice cosplay by the way. G’night.”

“G-goodnight!” Levi waits to hear the sound of your door closing before wheezing hysterically in relief.

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.

.

You sigh blissfully under the weight of four cats lounging on various parts of your body. “I’ll admit I had my doubts at first, but this is exactly what I needed. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Satan takes a long sip of his tea while petting the snoozing tabby on his lap. He looks like one of those criminal masterminds in the movies. “Visiting cat shelters is the best way to unwind after a long week. And don’t worry, I have it on good authority that this one actually takes proper care of our furry friends.”

“That’s reassuring to hear! I’ll never understand why anyone would want to hurt these precious babies.” A little calico wanders near your face and boops your nose with its toe beans. “If only all shelters could be as noble as this one. Remind me to stop by the donation box before we leave!”

“Gladly. Speaking of donations, remember that charity group that messed with your friends? I heard someone stole every last penny from their funds and now they’re on the verge of insolvency. Truly, this is karma at work.”

“Schadenfreude!” You cheer before the two of you clink cups and drink.

.

.

.

“Hey, you’ve been in there for a while now. Do you need— Oh.”

“Belphie!” You grin at him sheepishly and fidget with your rubber gloves. “I’m sorry, I’m really bad at this. My old dorm had a janitor, so I’ve never been assigned toilet duty before…”

“No wonder. You’d be dead in minutes if you kept this up,” Belphie snaps, quickly moving the unopened bottle of bleach away from you. “Mixing cleaning products is a sure-fire way to poison yourself.”

You wince at his harsh tone, and Belphie’s expression softens in sympathy.

“Here, I’ll teach you.” And then he proceeds to detail exactly what chemicals are in each product, which combinations produce different kinds of fumes with varying levels of toxicity, how to make odorless gasses that can kill a man in seconds—

“Why’d you stop?” You protest when Belphie abruptly cuts himself off. He’s probably feeling embarrassed about oversharing. “This is super informational. I’d be dead without you!”

“…Right.” He blinks, nonplussed. “You’re welcome, or whatever. Just stay away from the bleach, okay?”

.

.

.

Mammon shuffles the deck with deft hands and explains the rules. “You play as an Elysium agent of your choice, and your goal is to defeat the mob boss terrorizing the city: Jesús Iglesias Ken. The game can be competitive or cooperative depending on which rules we follow, but I say we do competitive mode and bet on the winner!”

“Ugh, shaddup Mammon!” Levi groans while you set up the board and pieces.

“Now, for the characters! We have Kid, a tiny chihuahua of an agent who has lots of good buffs from the sweets he eats. Director, who can move other players during his turn; but don’t get fooled by his smile. He can be super scary sometimes! Spear, man that guy packs a punch. He’s a damage dealer with shitty taste buds.”

Too busy paying attention to Mammon, you don’t see the way Levi makes throat-slitting gestures and mouths SHUT UP SHUT UP STUPIDMAMMON—

“There are also NPCs like Sorcerer, who can help or hinder you depending on your actions, shady bastard. And Aristocrat, who’s on the villain’s side and a total bootlicker, but he gives valuable intel for the right price.”

“How do you know all of this? I don’t see it in the rule book.” You scan the character description section intently. “Don’t tell me… You’re secretly a fan!”

Mammon chokes, finally catching on to Levi’s signals. Both of them exchange wide-eyed looks before forcibly grinning at you. “Yeah, totally, I’m a fan! Hahaha…”

“What a nerd, right?” Levi laughs nervously. “Anyway, this game is more fun with more players, so let’s just play something else for now, okay? Okay.”

.

.

.

“I’ve got reports that Elysium’s agents are finally moving out. We should be cleared to resume normal operations soon.”

“Our plan worked like a charm! Ooh, we’re so close~”

“Good job, everyone.” Lucifer nods with a satisfied smile. “This will all be over shortly. And just in time too. A year’s almost up.”

Everyone falls silent as their thoughts drift to you. It’ll be quiet without you around; you may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but you were always kind and genuine with all of them. It goes without saying that they’ll definitely miss you once you’re gone.

“We should stay in touch,” Mammon proposes suddenly, looking none of his brothers in the eye. “Y’know, to keep tabs and make sure we weren’t compromised or anything. See things through to the end and all that.”

For once, nobody objects to Mammon’s idea. “Indeed,” Lucifer murmurs in approval.

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.

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“I’ll be on campus studying for my ethics finals. See you all at dinner!”

You set up camp at your favorite corner: a little nook in the section of the library that’s perpetually empty. Just as you make yourself comfortable and open your laptop, someone pings you with an encrypted message.

Grinning to yourself, you easily bypass Levi’s embedded spyware and open up a private channel to take the call. “Barb, it’s so good to hear from you!”

“Good afternoon.” A polished voice greets you from the speakers, and you quickly plug in your headphones to prevent eavesdropping. “Apologies for the disturbance, but I have the data you requested.”

“Thanks Barbatos. You really are the best AI I’ve ever created!”

“I am the only AI you’ve ever created, but the sentiment is acknowledged. Did your side project go well?”

“Always so humble, haha! And yes, it went wonderfully! It’s so good to finally meet the brothers face-to-face. They’re such a lively bunch!”

“I concur. Back to business: the up-and-coming cosmetics company you asked me to look into? It turns out your hunch was right; I’ve found evidence that they rely heavily on animal testing for their products.”

“A job for Belphie then. He’ll know how to put those chemicals to better use.”

“Of course. On a separate note, another political party has been pushing for…”

#writing #obey me #obey me fanfic #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me barbatos #zine

[hh0320]

𝐢𝐟 𝐢 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐨𝐫, 𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐛𝐲𝐞;

part four of the velvet opiate series. part one. part two. part three.

pair. rockstar! hyunjin x fem! reader (+ felix, minho, chan) | genre. visual gothic rock band, romance, hurt/comfort, toxic skz, set in the late 90’s-early 00’s | warnings. profanity, smoking, mature themes, drug & alcohol abuse, violence, descriptions of drug use, mental health struggle, use of petnames | word count. 10k

a/n: i want to apologize for taking so long with this chapter. i had no idea so many ppl would message me about this story, begging me to continue it. i never abandoned the velvet boys, they’re always in my heart, i’m always thinking about them even when i’m not writing. anyway, this one is a wild ride, so i just want to mention that i don’t associate the boys with these behaviors, nor the language spoken. this is purely fictional, these are just characters. one more chapter to go. thank you for reading! feedback is always appreciated 🤍

tags. @ughbehavior, @cb97percent, @adoreweb, @j-0ne25, @streetlight-s.

Hyunjin hadn’t seen you in two and a half months.

Hadn’t had heroin for more than that, nothing to numb him, the pain, the voices, the fucking train wreck his band had become after the ‘biggest rock scandal in ten years.’ So they’d slept with a couple groupies—big fucking deal. But it wasn’t just that, was it, because apparently one of them was now fucking pregnant and demanding for the father to recognize the child, to compensate for his doings.

It wasn’t just that, because it was the slut Hyunjin had fucked. A big fucking deal because Minho has been exposed for his cocaine indulgence, and has had to answer to the authorities, to pay bail and do community service or go to prison for a year. Chan wasn’t talking to them. Felix had been violent with Hyunjin for the first time since they met, beating the shit out of him outside their hotel, paparazzi gathering like crows to feast upon their rotting flesh.

And now Velvet Opiate was going on a national tour, press for before and after their album release. Thirty dates, over the course of winter. The label thought it wise to ride this wave of unprecedented publicity to the cost of their demise. The band was in shambles, Hyunjin was absolutely certain they’d break up before this year came to an end. They’d fucked it all up, let fame get to their head, let the cash control them, lead them to the brink of destruction.

Here they lay, clowns in a circus, with new hair colors, and an upgraded wardrobe, Westwood Spring collection ‘00. A new fucking century ahead of them with nothing to show, the world coming to an end. His mind was a dark place, darker than ever. There was no escape from this, no light at the end of the tunnel. Hyunjin would have to walk in the nine circles of Hell for all eternity, regretting ever being alive. Such was the fate of an unloved child.

No Felix, no you. Just him and his pathetic druggie ways, a vessel full of holes, loveless, poison in human form. You’d know by now, he’s sure, after all, every channel in the country is reporting on the news, another band flying too close to the sun, blinded by arrogance and ambition. A fucking cliché.

A day before they were to mount the tour bus, Hyunjin went to look for you at the club you worked at. If you were even still there, he didn’t know, he wasn’t able to contact you, wasn’t allowed to, and after everything, was too ashamed to try. His angel, his pure girl; he’d tainted you now, had dragged you into his bullshit life, spread the plague, and possibly lost you forever. But you were still his, his lifeline, the only exit, the only beginning he ever had.

Hyunjin would explain, he would beg, he’d get on his knees and kiss the fucking ground if you so desired. If it meant you’d stay with him. Felix saw him leave, bangs covering his tired eyes, leather jacket a few sizes too big on him. His friend had stopped eating a while ago, was now stubbornly relying on nicotine and alcohol for survival.

His friend but always more. The rings wrapped tight around his middle finger, heavy. Ivy luring him deep in its vines, drowning down under. Twins no more, they whispered to him sometimes. Felix would look in the mirror and see black, would think of Hyunjin and dream of a blade digging into his very chest, by his own hand. Honeycomb locks on his shoulder as he cried, as his knees gave out, death greeting him with a cold handshake.

You’re losing something important, his mind would say. You’re letting it slip right through your fingers. Just the night before, a nightmare like no other. The corpse of him lying next to his lover's. A suicide, a sacrifice.

“In a rush?” He calls out to the knife. Let it do its killing—it is fate, after all.

Hyunjin jerks, didn’t expect to hear Felix’s voice. A week had passed like a decade. It had been loneliness rendering him sleepless, lying on a bed that wasn’t his, no one to calm him down, to bring him back to reality.

Hyunjin also had no voice, had screamed it all out in his alcohol induced breakdown, had smoked it gone. He tried to reply anyway, wouldn’t miss the opportunity of mending things with his twin, his best friend. His equal.

“Never—for you,” he rasped, words broken in half.

They move closer like magnets, and the tension suffocates the blonde, makes him want to dip his head in ice water, freeze his brain, shock himself into a heart attack. This is what it feels like meeting Felix in the middle—like electrocuting yourself.

“I don’t want your fucking flattery,” Felix snarls, but he means none of it. Pay attention to me always, come to me at long last, no more of this torture.

Hyunjin flinches, fidgeting for a cigarette. “What do you want, then?” It is a whisper, because it is the question that matters most.

It is the truth that will ruin or make him.

They stare at each other, light and dark, black and gold, and a single moment passes before they both reach for each other, fingers grabbing onto fabric, pulling closer. Hyunjin’s bruised eye still hasn’t healed, and his cut lips sting as Felix presses him own on them. The fight is evident, because it’s them and they will never truly attest to this, to what runs between them, cocks too proud, bond stronger than bodily pleasures.

Still, hands push, mouths devour. In public, for anyone to see, under security cameras. Does it even matter at this point in their career, so beyond fucked over by their choices and decisions?

“What will your girl say about the bitch you knocked up?” Felix mumbles into the kiss, and Hyunjin growls, pins him against the wall between their rooms.

“Keep her out of your jealous fucking mouth.”

“What will you do, Hyunjin?” And that’s it. Like nothing happened. “You can’t keep her; you can’t let her go. Don’t go.”

The taller boy pulls back, straightens his jacket, lights a cigarette. Black stares, lips swollen, angry, hurt.

“If I don’t see her, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay clean this time, Felix. I say this to you as a cry for help. So no one can say shit to me.”

His friend sighs, and wipes at his mouth. Hyunjin looks at the rings on his finger, then at his own identical ones. “What if she refuses you, then? You’re gonna have to marry this girl, Hyun, do you understand how fucked this is?”

“I can’t do this right now, Lix.” With a press of his forehead against his twin’s, Hyunjin turns and goes straight for the stairs, descending in a hurry.

The more time he wasted, the less likely it was you’d forgive him. Felix kissed him, that was all that mattered—one good fucking thing in the world. He wishes he could say the same for the itch.

It was back. And it was stronger than ever.

Red Lights remained the exact same, an aching constant to Hyunjin's stormy life. In reality, nothing much had changed, nothing at all—except him. Drunks still occupied the bar stools, powder was still being snorted off the sinks in the bathrooms rendered in neon hues, the booth he frequently reserved was empty, off limits to anyone but him and his chosen company. His manager still paid a percentage to the club, the bartender still asked if he needed the ‘White Lady.’ Out of habit, perhaps. Hyunjin knew better than most—habits were fucking hard to break, even harder to quit.

“It’s our favorite guitarist, everyone!” You exclaim from behind him. “Jisung, give him a shot, quick. He has plenty to celebrate these days, it seems.”

He can’t turn around fast enough, and you give him no time to do so. You ignore his outstretched hand, ignore everyone’s gasps as they recognize the familiar face that’s been playing on every TV in the country. Jisung gives him the clear shot hesitantly, eyes drifting between the golden-haired man and the waitress he’s worked with for the past year. He’ll be damned. But it doesn’t matter; none of it does. You’re all red and black, smoky eyes and sweaty skin—furious with him, and understandably so. All he wants is for you to look at him, to give him a chance to explain.

Hyunjin feels very much like the prey now, standing in the middle of the bar as you circle around him in your leather skirt, the same skirt he’d fucked you in all those nights ago. You carried a different light then, you seemed brighter, more innocent. A sweet angel trapped inside the wings of the Devil. This time there were no wings, no sweetness about you. He’d cut his own freedom off and had sucked you dry—what he does best, what ultimately ended up happening to the one person he tried so fucking hard to keep clean, good.

He sensed the red poke under his skin, bleed onto him, take over his mind. He drank the strong liquid, tasted it on his chapped lips. His eyes followed your every movement silently, like a small child waiting to be reprimanded. Be angry with me, angel, yell at me, hit me, kill me if you must—anything but this. Please.

“Give me my bag, won’t you, Han?” you address the brown-haired man again once you come back from the table you’re serving. The music should drown you out, but Hyunjin has never heard anything clearer in his life. He’s clinging to your words by a thread—the cursed lifeline. 

When your gaze falls on him, he almost breaks down right then and there. “Come on, Hwang Hyunjin, soon-to-be father, and a married man I’d assume. Let’s end this once and for all, shall we?”

“Angel, for fuck’s sake, don’t do this—”

You’re the biggest storm he’s ever had to endure. Your eyes are lightning that strikes him dead. He’d die by your hand, he’d die. He would. He knows this, he swears it.

“I’m going on break,” you call out and turn to walk away towards the back door. Hyunjin is out of breath, scared out of his body, doesn’t know what else to do other than follow.

So he does. Hitting the nails on his own coffin, delivering the eulogy for his funeral. Knife, the song he wrote for you, the title track available everywhere at midnight, the lyrics repeating in his head, a mantra, a wish, a prayer. He was never religious, but if one single God was willing to listen—let me keep her, let me keep her, let me have this one thing, this one girl, please, the only girl that matters.

You pass the threshold of the exit door first, Hyunjin holding it open for you, the proximity of your bodies stirring the darkness inside him. He’s been unfaithful to himself, not just to you. Even if nothing had been official between you; he’d proved you right, the words you threw at him that first night. He broke your trust, and didn’t even have the goddamn decency to, at least, tell you. The fact he’s getting any sort of ending is a fucking miracle. Mercy from an angel that could never belong to him.

“You changed your hair,” you comment coldly, keeping as much distance from him as possible.

He closes the metal door behind him slowly, leans on the coolness of it, the wet pavement glistening underneath his boots. He swallows, biting on the inside of his cheek. Then his fingers reach for the cigarettes again. Fucking habits.

“It wasn’t me,” he replies, and he wishes that’d be enough for other things too.

The man that fucked that girl, it wasn’t me. Anything that’s ever happened to him because of his addiction, it wasn’t him either. It couldn’t be. The lead guitarist on stage that tries to be cool, cigarette smoke clouding his vision, any time he’s doing interviews and says all that pretentious shit he’s rehearsed a thousand times over—he’d never be Minho, or Felix, or anyone besides a fake. A clown. An actor in a bad movie.

But the boy who paints alone in his temporary rooms? He likes to believe that’s him, or it could be. That somewhere inside, he had the potential of leading a peaceful life, with small happy moments like finishing a sketch, or writing a song. The person that came up with ‘Knife,’ the person he is with Chan and his notes, when they write melodies in the older members' makeshift studio. That’s who Hyunjin wishes most of all to be, to become. Someone worthy, someone able to provide happiness for others, not just for himself. Even a little.

“I wrote you a so—” 

“I’d got you this to celebrate the conclusion of your recordings. Before… everything.” You move towards him to give him a black box, the familiar cross-topped orb surrounded by a ring logo he’s been wearing for most of his career staring back at him. You move back before he can keep you there, close, closer. 

You slip away, again and again.

“(Y/N),” he looks at the box, then at you. The smoke burns his eyes. “Please, I can’t accept this.”

Despite your hard facade, he notices the slight flinch at his words. You turn your face away. Hyunjin panics, thinking he’s somehow offended you, so he quickly opens your gift, balancing the cigarette between his teeth. The silk encase contains a heavy metal chain with a locket hanging in the center of it, his name engraved on it.

“No,” he mutters, unable to control his body anymore, unable to control fuck all for that matter. “Angel, no, listen to me—”

You’re relentless, frozen in that fucking place of yours, so far away, suffocatingly too far. He forgets about what he should do, how he should respect your boundaries, your wishes. He lunges forward and grabs your wrists, turning your palms to him. He gives you the locket, as if the mere box touching his fingers burns him, gives way to fire and ruin. It does. It does.

“Put it on me,” he pleads, gripping at your delicate skin. “You got it for me, give it to me properly.”

You shake your head, and there are tears falling on his knuckles now. He sees them roll away, scorch his fingers, seep through his pores. Hyunjin shakes you, doesn’t know how else to convey his want. He wants to kiss you, wants to take you away, slip inside you, forget the shitshow that won’t stop happening, even then, especially then, because that means he’ll have to come back from it, from the special place, a place he never wants to escape from, the peaceful place he’s been dreaming of all his life.

Your fingers open the clasp as he leans forward, hands wrapping around your waist, and he inhales your scent, wishing this chain could interlock with another, so he can in turn wear it around your delicate neck and keep you close to him forever. It doesn’t last long, this daydream. The lock falls heavy against his sternum, and you pull away slowly, avoiding to touch back, to feel how real he feels under the tips of you. Because he is—real. He has been since the first day he locked eyes with you. You brought him to life, pulled him in, showed him his own heart.

The bag hanging from your shoulder drops to the ground, the thud of it a closing, an ending. He doesn’t accept it, he realizes he’s hurting you, that he should fuck off, leave you alone, he’s embarrassing himself, he’s pathetic in his attempts–Hyunjin has never fought for someone to stay. Has never had to, his life so full of people willing to leave, birds lingering on his branches before flying off, a moment of rest, somewhere to lay their burden, before they’re gone again, free, weightless. He’d accepted his fate, had made his peace—before you, all of it before you, and for every day after that never the same, nothing after you.

“I have no hold over you, rockstar.”

He blinks. For one goddamn second where human nature takes over and his eyes close—you jerk away from his touch and drop something in his hand. A small thing, something so mundane. A key. He blinks again, but it’s blurry this time, everything is. His heart has stopped, it seems, shop shutting down, system hijacked. Out of service. Hyunjin is crying. And it’s a first in the way that he’s never cried for love, not really, has never really known what it is to weep for it, even with Felix, because that was a different love, not this, not you, not you, not you—

“No,” the heaviest word he’s had to push out his lungs. “No, you’re wrong.” He searches for your eyes, he tilts his head, your gaze, he just needs that small connection with you, his body is on fire, his soul is decemating, he will die tonight, it hits him like a ton of bricks. If you walk away from him, he will die.

And it’s not blackmail, it’s not a manipulation tactic to get you to stay—you won’t know this, you won’t be aware, he won’t do that to you. You know nothing about that part of him, you never will. You’ll leave him behind and go back to bleeding red, and he’ll remain there, as he was, with his key and his engraved name and the itch that will take over once and for all. Maybe this time no one will find him, no one that can bring him back to a reality where he has no other escape other than death; no twin, no music, no band, no you. No you no you no you, fuck him fuck fuck fuck fuck—

Hyunjin doesn’t register his feet moving, his boots splashing in the rain puddles. He must look fucking insane, but he runs with all his might, as fast as he can—and then he throws that goddamn key away, never to see it again, never to be rid of this locket, of this weight that signifies your existence to him, whatever ounce of love you’ve felt for him. He wants all of it to lay on his back and push him to the ground, shove his fucking face in the mud and scream at him—I was here! I was here once and you shunned me away! You don’t deserve me.

An inhuman voice tears from his throat, a sound alien to him, he doesn’t recognize it. He looks around, surprised, awakened. He can’t breathe, and when the fuck will he stop crying? It’s two weeks ago all over again. He’s out of control, mad with grief.

“Hyunjin, you’re scaring me. Please stop. Stop!” Your hands on him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

There is no gravity holding him, nothing tying him down. He kneels, neck exposed to you, your gift. He stares at your stomach, as all fight escapes him. Nothing to lose, already lost. He sings, the lyrics that bloomed inside him once, now sung barely above a whisper—

I tried counting her smiling pain… I’ve lost my dreams and my love; lashed by the rain, I’m crying, I’m crying, I’m crying…

“What do I need to do, to be able to live as I am, without dressing myself up?” Hyunjin stops and looks up, at your tear stained face, a mirror looking back at him with nothing to say. He’ll say it for you, he’ll admit to the one truth he can. “I’ll wear this till the day I fucking die. I swear it, angel.”

Your beautiful face scrunches in pain, trying so hard not to break down, wanting to let him go, but holding on to him for dear life. “You don’t owe me anything,” but it’s not true. It’s not true.

He’s never been more sure of anything else— “I owe you my fucking life.”

Can you lose yourself two times over? He’ll never apologize for feeling so intensely, for getting fucked over for his heart. This is his show, his little play up on that stage he put himself on, and the curtains aren’t drawing just yet. The last act hasn’t yet began.

He doesn’t see you again until his birthday, half a year later.

Minho wipes at his nose.

Take his pixie dust away and he’ll resort to his absolute last option—pills. Anxiety pills, to be exact, forcibly prescribed by his former doctor for his unhinged nerves; former because the son of a bitch thought he’d try his luck with the ruthless bassist. The only way he’d be able to finish the tour, and go the fuck back into hiding at once, away from all the goddamn crazy people—their supposed fans—and their accusatory fingers.

If there was one thing, Lee Minho never pretended to be anything other than what he was. Who he was. An orphan. A loveless person, someone that had lost all hope, not just for himself but for everyone else, too. Part of him had died in that accident a few years back, and the rest of him had no intention of trying to revive whatever remained. There was no reason.

So, crushing and snorting Lexapro had become the new normal, the temporary solution to making it through shows and press. Getting rid of all evidence was proving to be quite the task, though, and it was taking a major toll on the purple haired man, only second to his and his band mates’ insomnia problems. The cause—obsessive stalker fans that seemed to monitor their every waking moment, waiting for a sliver of an opening to bring them down, to destroy them once and for all.

It’d started with a fucking mistake. As most things do. A split second of weakness, a lack in judgement. He should’ve known better, as should’ve Hyunjin. Because of this, all were to suffer until their heads were on flaming spikes on national television for the world to witness. Minho would rather slice his wrists open and bleed to death in the crammed tour bus bathroom, than answer to the public for his private life.

He was hurting no one. And he was certainly done with slip ups. One more show, he kept repeating putting on the outfit laid out by the stylist for tonight. One more show and I’ll be free. He thinks this until it’s time for soundcheck, and the lead guitarist is nowhere to be fucking found. Minho doesn’t even have to look at Chan to know.

The arena was empty, stretching enormous from ground to ceiling, the echo great and deafening as the staff tuned the instruments in the background. Rows upon rows of empty seats, exit lights shining brightly on each side. Felix sat on the second aisle, smack in the middle, boots propped in the seat in front of him, red plaid pants with buckles and zippers making him stand out amidst endless grey.

“Why fucking bother?” He calls out to the drummer, words resounding. “He does this shit every single day.” Black strands of hair fall in his eyes, and Minho doesn’t miss the bitterness of his tone.

“People paid to see us, Felix,” Chan replies, making his way from his drum set. His bulky biceps flexed as he pushed his hair back, the black sleeveless shirt accentuating the muscles further. “We owe it to them to at least have all four members on the damn stage.”

“Do we now,” Minho mutters under his breath. Fleeing, lately, had started to sound like a sane idea. A small mercy, even.

“You tried the waiting room?”

“I just came from it.”

The bassist clears his throat, descends the stairs from the stage. “Someone’s providing him with it—I’d check the staff’s bus’.”

Chan whips his head towards him. “I thought Joon had checked every motherfucker during the hiring process.”

“Rats can slip through cracks, Bang.”

Wasn’t that the truth. It was, after all, how he’d managed to survive all those years. He knew better than most about sneaking around; killing yourself with the help of others—people that would benefit from your downfall, because that way they could sell you out, make profit out of your misery.

Velvet Opiate fed on misery. They relished in it.

Minho was about to call for security to go and find Hyunjin, discreetly and without fuss. As was the way of such awful situations, where no one particularly wanted to get their hands dirty—or find a rotting corpse in a random parking lot in a city entirely too far from home. He informed them of the alleged whereabouts, but just as the two men were walking away, Chan cursed loudly and smacked his hand on the back of a seat, expression furious, exhausted, worried.

“I’ll go my goddamn self. Fuck this.”

Felix shot up immediately, hand reaching to halt his older friend. Chan avoided it swiftly, and walked determined to the nearest exit, set on figuring this out on his own—again. How many chances till they pronounce you a lost case? Minho wonders. A cursed battle.

“Chan, wait!” Felix tries to follow.

Minho holds him back. “Don’t. You’ll only make it harder for yourself.”

The boy’s eyes were wide, anxious. In love. For the longest fucking time, and despite, which was a curious thing. What we can do for it, suffer endlessly in loops—for someone to hold our hand, wrap themselves around our bones. Minho had it, once. Never again after that.

“He doesn’t know how to deal—”

The bassist sighs. “And you do? Yongbok, you insist on this torture and for what? You’re soft and blinded by selfishness. Love,” he chides. “Hyunjin doesn’t need someone like you.”

He sees the pretty hands balling into fists, the snarl of the younger’s lip, the hate burning in his button eyes. It does nothing for him.

“You’re wrong,” he spits, and there’s pure venom laced in his words. “None of you understand him, you’ve never tried to. He shoved needles in his fucking veins, Minho, do you think he cares about himself when he does that?” Tears gather, and fall. Minho remains silent, bites his tongue. “Motherless, lost in the world, clinging on a girl that’s long abandoned him… what the fuck, man. What’s it gonna take!”

He’s running before the older boy can stop him again. Pushes the heavy door open and disappears into the bright sunlight, leaving the bassist behind. The only one unshaken by the possibility of the events. It wasn’t indifference or coldheartedness that kept Minho grounded in the arena; it was calculated compassion. No one wants to hear a story twice—how he, too, was motherless, lost in his mind and in the goddamn world, clinging onto remnants of a girl half forgotten—no one cares, because a story told too many times is fucking reality, it’s been-there-done-that, it’s no big deal.

But Minho wasn’t someone that complained a whole lot, if ever. And he isn’t letting his friend die because it’s a hassle to get involved; he does it because addiction doesn’t stop unless there’s no one around to grab onto. No help, no second third fourth fifth chance. Hyunjin needs a fucking wakeup call harsher than nearly OD’ing. No one coming. His worst fear slapping him in the face.

“That girl of his figured it out faster than his own band,” he muttered bitterly to the emptiness staring at him.

The bass greeted him in melancholy.

Outside, Felix caught up to the leader, eyes panicked, searching the parking lot maniacally.

Chan’s anger was calmer, a sea storm felt deep within him, bubbling but contained for the meantime. It took nothing for him to lash out at strangers, but to family? He had the patience of a hundred old oak tree, unyielding, the roots having roots, having roots…

They took upon searching the buses themselves, Felix climbing up the stairs and yelling at everyone to tell him if they’ve seen Hyunjin. Some were still getting ready or having a late breakfast, but all looked at him dumbfounded, confused.

“He’s not with you?” A light technician asked dumbly.

Felix rolled his eyes and walked back the way he came from, ignoring the musty smells and disgusting underwear on the floor. “No, I’m asking ‘cause he’s right outside.”

“Are you giving me snark, boy?”

The black haired boy turned around so fast he saw stars. Two men standing near him widened their eyes and backed away in surprise, but the older man only pressed further, his nose stuck high in the air.

“Do you wanna fucking go?” Felix asked, riled up. “Cause I’ve been itching for a fight, bro, so don’t fucking play with me.”

No one expected it to escalate that fast, but before anyone could even blink, the two men were at each other’s throats, punches midway. Everyone jumped in just before the assistant stage manager could land his fist on the rockstar’s face, and that’s when Chan showed up, his loud voice making the singer stop and look.

“What the fuck are you doing?” It boomed down on all of them and shook the walls of the bus. “Are you fucking serious with this bullshit?” Breathing labored, stare wild, sweat dripping. “Come help me find my goddamn friend!” He barked. “All of you or you’re fucking fired, you hear me?”

And with that he stormed out, not caring to diffuse the situation, whatever it was. He couldn’t give a shit at that point. Hyunjin could be dead, and everyone seemed to care for their ass and their fucking pride. Fuck out of here.

“He’s not here,” is the only thing he’s heard so far, but just to be sure, he personally took a look around the bunks and in the bathrooms, keeping an eye out for any drugs or alcohol while he was at it. They’d been warned against any harmful shit for this tour; one strike and you’re out, special orders from the drummer. For their sake, it was a good thing he’d actually found nothing.

“I’ll call the hotel. Maybe he somehow found his way back,” Felix says and moves away from him, phone against his ear.

Chan doubted it, but it didn’t hurt to check. “I’m losing hope here, Hwang,” he mumbled to himself, quietly praying the tall boy would magically appear right in front of him, safe and sound. Highly unlikely; matter of fact, the possibilities of that happening were so slim that he wanted to laugh at himself for even considering it, but the desperation was so far etched in his brain, that he seemed to be hanging firmly from some sort of daydream. ‘October men and their maladaptive dream states,’ he had a girl tell him once, and he’s never forgotten it since.

“How’d you know when I was born?” He’d asked stupidly, as if this chick wasn’t a fan that had just attended his concert.

Her smile was the sexiest thing on her. “Hon, you wear ‘please love me I’m a good boy’ on your forehead.”

“Found him! Fuck, Chan!” Felix’s voice took him out of the bittersweet memory.

What did the brown-haired boy expect to see—not this. Anything but this. His mouth fell open, but no sound came out, could come out, and his head turned the other way immediately upon witnessing his bandmates state. Felix was on his knees next to him, completely on autopilot—Chan could see it from his dead eyes, doing what he did the last time he found him like this. Calling an ambulance, his other hand on the barely responsive guitarist, shaking him, keeping him awake.

“Fuck you for doing this to me twice, Hwang Hyunjin. Fuck you.”

Honeycomb hair over dilated, dark eyes, the pale man smiled a Cheshire smile, back sliding off the wheel of the bus. The leader actually whimpered seeing him do that, so completely lost in his high, his mind tripping over itself. The boy he knows used to be quiet, yes, introverted and thoughtful, but creative—so fucking creative, and animated. Full of life. Not this, whatever this was. Never this, and God fucking damnit when did it happen; when did he lose his best friend, the boy that came to him with a guitar and said he wants to play in a band? It all just seemed such a fucking lifetime away now.

“They’re saying they’ve already dispatched a vehicle to our location—” Chan sees Joon running up to them, a few of the staff he saw earlier in the venue behind him. It was only then that he noticed the siren going off in the near distance. “What do you mean, this is my first time calling you—”

“Minho called them,” Chan concluded, arms hugging his chest sadly. His cheeks were wet. “He already knew this would be what we’d find.”

The singer paused, looked up at him. Chan nodded sympathetically. Hyunjin’s head was dropping towards his twin again, but his lips were moving, his expression relaxed.

“The fucking asshole.”

“A realist,” the leader corrects. “Truly, Felix what did you think? That he’d be off buying us waffles or something? It’s his birthday and he’s falling off the side of a fucking bus, needle in hand. I can’t fucking do this anymore!”

"How much time do we have?" their manager asks roughly. "I told you, Bang. I told you if I ever found him doing this shit again, he's out!"

The drummer felt fire rush through his body, his fist rising in the air, all eyes on him—before connecting with the man's jaw, knocking him back, the sound violent, breaking. And fuck, did that feel good. It was a long time coming, the last fucking straw. He was done with it, the entire goddamn thing, taking orders, getting yelled at for situations completely out of his hands, the micromanaging, the sacrifices that lead to nothing—

Everyone was miserable. Everyone was hurting. Everyone wanted out.

"I'm sick of you putting words in my mouth. Sick of your fucking watch ticking like we're always running on your schedule. Look at him!" Chan croaked, the rage in his voice unbearable. "Fucking look at what your isolation did to him! Own up to your goddamn mistakes, you fucking coward!"

"Chan..." a dissonant sound behind him, coming down on him like a loved one from Heaven. "You got my back, Chan. Don't you?" a raspy laugh, not quite all there. "You got my back..."

Felix moved away, a supportive hand at the back of his twin's head, watching him with a crumpled gaze. Was the euphoria passing? If so, the best of the high was over. A life wasted for fifteen minutes of numbness. Of chemical happiness. The singer couldn't seem to keep the tears from running—and they ran, those useless things, hot, stinging, burning. What good did they do? Look at his love, watch as he's ruining himself on the dirty floor. He wasn't strong enough to even touch that goddamn needle, always hated getting shots, ever since he was a little kid. How could he bear taking the only thing that provides relief from his better half? His mirrored self? Even knowing it's a dead thing, even knowing it's not really that, that does the hurting.

It's the heart. The stupid heart.

"Why don't you kill me, then?" the honey dipped boy asked, paralyzed. Adrift. Broken. "Why don't you kill me?" A tear. Another tear. A pit of Hell, a mimicking nothingness. "Let me die, Chan..."

There are some words you don't say aloud. That make the monster real, that shatter the illusion. The leader could face the cold, hard truth—that the best guitarist he's ever known, the one that puts his soul in his music, in his fingers, his delicate hands—that person is a drug addict. That he uses needles to inject his liquified powders, and that his highs usually last three hours. That his friend has the deepest dark circles for a person who sleeps the most out of all of them. Sometimes, he has to slap him awake, force his eyes open. These are all truths, easy to digest, not-so-scary sentences that he's used to by now. That he's had to live with, in order to keep his band together.

But this? The fact of it? Who can face this? Who can be the bearer of the cross?

"Not me, Hyun," he replies, devoid of any emotion but sheer will for life. "Try in the next fucking life. I like having your sorry ass around a little too much."

Kintsugi, the Japanese called it. Repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. It treats breakage as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. There was no fixing Hwang Hyunjin. But maybe they could start to respect that, instead of desperately trying to cover it up, to get angry with it.

"Huh..." A crack of a smile, much like porcelain. "Is it still my birthday, Lix?"

Felix sniffled, rubbing at his nose, huffing out a devastating laugh. "It is, you goddamn menace."

A sheepish nod, soft golden bangs hiding beautiful, closed eyes. "Then we have a concert to attend, don't we?"

"I think so. You need a cigarette?"

A hand falling on top of his. An eclipse, the moon and the sun meeting, at long last. A celebration of the dark side.

"You know it." Then a hum, as his soulmate in male form lights the stick for him, taking a drag to get it going, then putting it between his fingers. A hum that turns into a familiar melody. "I just went through so much hell, went through so much, darling... I'm the warning, burn...burn..."

Chan nears his friend, extending an arm for him to take. The younger man peeks an eye open to it, inhaling smoke until his lungs know nothing else. He assesses the gesture, knows it means no more sulking on the pavement, no more gut-wrenching pain. Alone no more. Perhaps never alone, though not always clear.

He took it.

"Cancel the ambulance, don't let the crows anywhere near," the drummer tells a security guard. "We don't need this. It's our last show today."

As for Velvet Opiate, the curtains were drawing. Indefinitely.

Felix would love to say that their last concert was a hit, a success by label standards, and that everything went according to plan, but—well, that would be a fucking lie, wouldn't it? The setlist consisted of twenty songs, excluding the encore, most of which fell on him to pull through, and with twenty-nine shows on their back, plus countless radio shows and interviews for the album, his voice was completely and utterly fried, hanging on by herbal tea every night, and vocal rest—never. He liked to believe he took care of himself, definitely better than the others, but was that really true, or just default when pitted against an addict, an almost convict, and an insomniac?

It wasn't judgement. It more so felt like pity. What was Lee Yongbok's thing? What did he offer except deep, cave-like vocals and front man looks? Wasn't that just the bare minimum? What set him apart, what was the deciding factor for his status in the Rock scene? The poster outside the arena had him positioned in the center, newly dyed black hair pulled back in a half ponytail, standing next to Hyunjin, resting an arm on his naked shoulder as the guitarist smoked a cigarette and looked down at his Ibanez RG550. Always together, never apart. Out of everyone, it feels like he believed it the most. Is he worth nothing besides this? He didn't want to be petty anymore, have this green intent to turn everyone away from his moon, because he knew it wouldn't realistically get him anywhere. What was his twin above all?

Straight. To Felix, the line would always be bent.

Alas, he wasn't a realist. But he also wasn't an asshole. As soon as that spotlight shone on him, he noticed you in the first row, still as death, big arms wrapped around you, a man much taller than him hugging you from behind. Did you come to haunt? A ghost unable to find its way out of the body, destined to float about the living world until someone set it free? Was it closure you were seeking, so many miles away from home, and on the day Hyunjin had decided to play ridiculously fucking high?

If so, why rub salt on the wound? Why bring hemlock to a man so willing to die? He wished for many things then; for Hyunjin to go blind and never notice you, ever again. For that padlock to magically open itself and fuck off back to where it came from, because where Chan had never heard the blonde begging to die, Felix had to physically stop him from ending it all, that night he came back from you. He still remembers stealing all sharp objects from his room, and locking the boy in the bathroom, hearing his banging, his pleading, his tears through that white door, relentless, haunted haunted haunted, until the early hours of the next day.

When would Hyunjin escape the ghosts? Jesus, fuck.

"Good evening, we're called Velvet Opiate," he spoke in his baritone tone. The one he had to force. "Welcome to the Knife Tour. There's nothing left to fucking bleed. Let's go!" he screamed, as the intro to 'Liar' played by Minho, a bass-heavy tune that he'd written himself.

During the first three songs, Chan kept his eyes entirely on the lead guitarist. He wasn't quite stumbling, just sort of...balancing on his legs like they were sticks, with that famous cigarette that never seemed to burn out. He made no mistakes, kept up with the tempo, and generally looked fine, so the drummer decided to return back to his instrument and quit babysitting.

The first bottle was thrown when Hyunjin locked eyes with you. It smashed right next to him, and nearly scraped his cheek. Felix froze, but continued singing, turning momentarily to check on his bandmate. If he saw it or not, it wasn't written anywhere on his face, instead seeming to be entirely hypnotized by the inevitable standing mere feet away from him.

"I saw your face, I saw your face...and the light," the singer drawled dreamily, as security found the person responsible and dragged them away.

There seemed to be a group of them, all gathered on Hyunjin's side, and some of the fans took notice of that, yelling and pointing at them. Felix showed the problem area with his hands to the remaining staff, but not before a different person managed to throw another one, this time hitting the microphone stand. He maneuvered around it, grabbing the mic and walking to the other end of the stage, crouching to sing to a fan that was screaming her lungs out, reaching her arms out to him.

“I’m gonna please you, please me, please you, please me.” The lights turned a deep red color, staining everything in the arena, as Felix jumped to the barricades and sang the words close to the girl’s mouth, staring into her eyes. She went ballistic and started crying immediately, so he petted her hair and moved away quickly, hand in the air to collide with open palms.

On the stage, Minho was studying the crowd coldly, waiting for that one last fucking straw that’d make him lose it and get on the first plane back to Tokyo. He’s had enough—of this forsaken tour, of the aggressive fans, the bullshit that came with fame. They’d sold one million copies in their first week, for fuck’s sake, why do they need to tour the entire nation? It was a goddamn cash grab, nothing but a circus, and they were only getting forty percent of it.

Well into the set, Hyunjin looked like Hell. While Felix had taken it upon himself to speak and interact before introducing the next song, the guitarist sat down by the stairs and lit a cigarette, his naked, sweaty torso glistening under the intense lighting. Minho watched as he took his earpiece out and motioned to a staff to come to him, leaning to say something, before the person ran off to do whatever he was instructed to. The blonde hair was sticking to his neck, but it also blended in with the paleness of his skin, making him appear angelic, or something close to it. Ironic, considering, the bassist thought.

Still. Something was bothering him; it was clear to see. And it wasn’t the high.

“Every time I remember…nails dig into my heart,” Felix sings, then pauses, hearing the rest of the words being sang to him. “Oh, what lovely voices! But do they sing it as good as our lyricist?” He turns to the boy on the stairs, currently hunched over smoking, guitar on his back, his eyes never leaving your figure, as yours don’t either.

A man? In his show? While he’s bound by your chains? How cruel of his angel.

“Oi, Hyunjin. You wanna sing this one? My throat is fucked, lover boy,” the main singer waits for the request to register in the guitarist’s ears, before a sound person appears out of thin air to pass him a microphone. “Doesn’t he look fuckable today? Such a shame there’s no one to warm his bed…”

Twenty thousand voices joined to yell, “I can!” Even Minho couldn’t help chuckling to that.

Hyunjin checked to see if the microphone worked, shyly, taking the cig out of his mouth slowly, exhaling smoke like a goddamn fireplace, before bowing his head slightly to the crowd, and introducing himself.

“Hello, I’m Hyunjin of Velvet Opiate,” he mumbles, pushing hair out his eyes with his thumb. The fans went insane.

It was no secret he was the most popular member, despite never wishing to be. The label always promoted him as a sort of Jim Morrison character, brooding and quiet. Which he was—but not because of reasons the public might think. He was surprised no one had picked on the fact he was high as a fucking kite. Himself, he thinks he’s about the highest he’s been in a long time. Nothing spins, yet everything moves.

“His first baby,” Felix meant the song, but Chan inwardly facepalmed. “Most likely,” he added, humor to lessen the tension. “Acapella, Hyun?”

“No,” he replied. “This is ‘Knife.’ For the girl that breathed life into me then broke my fucking heart.”

The eerie melody started playing, the musician they’d hired to be on the keys specifically for this song following after. Taking a deep breath, and a long drag of nicotine, Hyunjin joins in a gentle, hard voice, a reprimanding tone, watching his girl in the arms of someone else—

“If I can have something from you… I have nothing, I’m so sad…I can’t take being alone. Every time I remember, nails dig into my heart…”

They must hate him now. Or resent him. Once the adrenaline of the concert, of the music passes, they’ll turn against him once more, prey for their headlines and magazine articles. Just a product made specifically to be taken apart, forced to turn itself into a thousand pieces so there’s enough for everyone. He’ll gladly be their doll, he thinks. You seem to hate him too. In fact, you do, don’t you?

Something he can’t take. He won’t.

He got up and walked down the remaining steps, all the while keeping the same breathy, heartbreaking tone that had you limply hanging from your date’s arms, gasping for air. He wasn’t the best singer, he was nowhere near one, to be completely fucking honest, but no one could sing that song better than him, in that specific moment, as you’re staring at his face like he’s the one that tore you apart.

The lock is still around my chain, angel. Until I die. I told you.

“Let me hear your voice more, I tried so hard to bear with it…the knife turns, my heart spills, blood mixed with tears…it must be my love. Here lies my love…”

Chan brought the drums to a crescendo, while Hyunjin gave his mic to a sound staff standing nearby, and brought his guitar around, feeling the strings under the tips of his fingers, eyes falling closed, his only purpose in life taking ahold of him, guiding him through, keeping him afloat. The rush is the same, he muses bitterly. Strumming chords, being in your presence—it equals his spoon, his lighter. His needles. Every time his soul is empty, he simply picks another addiction.

How truly fucking pathetic.

He plays for you, then. Stands right in front of you and that fucker, and pours his cursed, goddamned heart out, until nothing is left—the last of the poison outing, finally, finally, ridding him of humanity, of the filth and the shit, and his own weak attempts at pretending to understand life, and living, and why that fucking thing just has to keep…beating.

For what? So, he can witness with his own two eyes that for the one time that truly mattered—that he cared, that he loved, whatever the fuck that meant, he was abandoned? Again? And again, and again, and again. Lead guitarist/songwriter, Hwang Hyunjin, they’d said, is caught up in another scandal. Sources say the girl, twenty-year-old so-so, was receiving treatment at so-so hospital, when a pregnancy test came back positive. She alleges, that the baby belongs to the superstar, member of the controversial band Velvet Opiate.

A baby. His karma for betraying an angel. He expects to be buried six feet underground and never go anywhere, neither up nor down. Scum of the earth, and so he will remain. For his bones to decay, for his flesh to rot.

“How cynical you’ve become, my beautiful boy,” his mother would say, before leaving him alone once again.

Are you proud of your boy now, mom? He asked the crowd silently, fingers creating sound, creating art. His legacy of dust. Beautiful but never loved. Talented but immobilized.

“I tried counting her smiling pain… I’ve lost my dreams and my love; lashed by the rain, I’m crying, I’m crying, I’m crying…”

Bangs cover wet eyes. Fingers bleed on the smooth wood of the guitar, Ibanez RG550, always, but Hyunjin feels none of it. Not the heartbreak, not the injury. What does he feel?

Jealousy. How heavy his lids are, how sweaty his chest is. Unusually. Almost…painful?

He looks down. There’s blood everywhere. There’s glass all around him. He looks up. You’re freeing yourself from the arms, you’re screaming at him, you’re jumping the barricade. High as a fucking kite, huh? Must’ve been one of those beer bottles from earlier. Keep talking, Hyunjin, keep thinking, keep thinking!

A big noise on the stage. Minho smashing his guitar to smithereens. Minho walking out. On them. On him. On him.

“Who the fuck threw that?” Felix’s deep voice vibrates through him. “Who the fuck threw that?!” Louder. Angrier.

Life played out in slow motion after that. Like in the movies Hyunjin would watch as a kid. The lights would whirl, twirl, move move move, the people’s faces would melt off, their voices like a rewinding cassette, and his body would be floating, above all, nothing happening to him, nothing at all. He’d like for something to happen to him, he thinks, for once. He’s been too isolated, too cuddled.

Even dying requires a pass, a question for every attempt, hand raised, waiting patiently for something that never comes, that is never allowed.

The soundtrack to his life? His own digits playing the intro to their next song, unaware that he’s bleeding out in front of thousands of people, one member down, at long last the much-anticipated clown circus, coming in your town!

Don’t miss it!

He jostles out of sleep, sitting up at once, eyes wild, searching in the dark, chest heaving, needing air where air cannot be found. He'd blacked out again. He rubs his face, comes back to life, focuses on the one fixture of light, a bright hope on the other side of the tunnel. Hyunjin squints, tilts his head, tries to understand how a lamp has a head, and arms, and beautiful legs.

It walks, too. The light looks a lot like you, he thinks. Am I still high? Or am I finally... has the time come? Am I dead? Am I dead? He realizes he says this outloud, but his mouth doesn't stop moving, the shakes won't wear off for a little while still, and his cheeks are wet again.

When will he stop being so weak? He saw an angel and begged for death, instead of redemption. He's sick to his stomach, he can't stand himself. It's you, it's you, there, right there, coming over to him like you'd never left, never turned away, never abandoned—like a mother would come for her child, except he knows nothing about that, not how it feels, not how it looks.

Hyunjin jumps from the bed, long legs clad in black kicking off blankets, limbs reaching out, strands of yellow covering his vision, shielding him from reality, holding him in the in-between, a place where he gets to hold you again. To hold you. He's sketched your body so many fucking times, a hundred, a thousand, a mess of paper and coal, fingers stained for weeks, and then he's brought the drawings close to his heart, closed his arms around it, held it and prayed for sleep, cradled you, shushed you, sang to you, eyes closed, empty rooms. Always alone. Always half-mad.

When his bony arms wrap around a corporeal body this time, when there's flesh under his touch, a rush of blood, a beating pulse—he hugs it tight, God, he hugs it. You. The lifeline, the angel, the sweet thing that wanted to see him again, and again, so long ago now, it seems. For whatever damned reason, somehow, you've deemed him worthy enough to come back for him, and won't you please take him away this time? Won't you end his misery, stop refusing yourself to him?

"Your wound!" You exclaim, but there's no wound for him, no pain in your presence. Only pure euphoria, the brightest kind. He's overwhelmed, intoxicated, harnessed.

He bumps you against chairs, against desks, and smashes lamps, never once leaving you, never once caring for the destruction, the consequence, only wanting to be part of you, skin of your skin, the breath inside your lungs, so that he never has to part from you again. And he cries; he cries hard, ruinously, like a little boy would, and you let him, because he looks like he's travelled through Hell and back, twice over. He's pale, malnourished, injured, and hurting. So visibly hurting, despite his numb reactions to it. If you wonder, or if you know, you never say. You hold him back, because he leaves you no choice. Because there is no other choice.

When the heels of your shoes hit the nightstand, he collapses on his knees, and takes you down with him. He doesn't mean to, you see; to sink so deep, every time, to bring you too, but he can't help it, he doesn't know any other way, any way out. He really just wants out, and could you show him? Could you at least tell him? He's missed you. He's missed you so fucking much.

"I can't do this, Hyunjin. I'm not."

"I wanted to see you," he says quietly, like he's ashamed. In all of the rain and the thunder, this one thing, he whispers it. Like he's afraid to disturb it.

"God, it doesn't matter," you croaked, but you were crying, too. You wept with him, for him. "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter..." you repeated, shaking your head against his shoulder, losing oxygen.

He was squeezing the life out of you, he was everywhere. His blood was on your clothes. Make it stop, make it easier, make it last.

"Your song," he pulls back just to stare at your face, to search, to see. "Did you hear it? I wrote it for you."

You nod, and you smile, but it's a sad thing. Your hand caresses his cheek softly; your porcelain boy, trapped in a living body. "I did, rockstar. I did."

The genuine curve of his lips made you hide your face, your tears. You couldn't break. If you broke, it'd be ten times worse for him. But how to be strong, when your heart still beats the same for him? When you've never been a good liar.

"Happy birthday," you sniffle, and wipe at your eyes. "I brought you a gift."

His gingerbread eyes look at you like you've just told him something incredible. You're not sure if you want to know what it is.

"You're the gift," he mumbles, playing with your hair. His touch burns you. You want it as much as you want nothing to do with it.

"Hyunjin..." You reach up, at the desk, and pull your bag down on the floor with you. He watches, angel features in full mode, and you think blonde hair suits him a lot. "I went back to find it. I searched for hours."

It was the key he'd thrown away. His expression shattered at once. You rushed to explain, scared, terrified he's misunderstood—

"I know you don't want it, but I felt so bad about how it ended, that I just... couldn't leave it alone," you pressed your lips together. "So, I put a chain through it. I thought if you were to wear the padlock forever, I should do the same thing with the key. I wanted you to wear it on me."

His fist closed around your open palm, and he smashed you against his chest with one arm, breathing in your sweet scent. He'd never be alone again. That one thought was enough to get him through anything. There would always be someone out there holding a piece that can unlock him, a piece more important than death. I love you. I love you with whatever's left of my heart, and my soul. I'm yours entirely. All he had to do was seek them out, like he'd promised.

His fingers unclasp the necklace, and you hold your hair up and out of the way, exposing that pretty neck he tasted once, a million years ago. The taste on his tongue never faded, he never let it. He swore to himself he wouldn't touch another woman, ever again. He'd do his duty, and suffer silently, as he was meant to.

But seeing the key fall above your breast, it was too much. How would he let you go this time? You'll take everything. Everything.

"The band is going on hiatus," he admitted. "The girl is about to give birth; I bought her a house outside of the city. It's—I'm having a boy." Where the fuck were his cigarettes?

"I bet he'll be beautiful," you comment, putting a finger under his chin to lift his face. "Like you," you smile. "But you need to stop, Hyunjin. You need to stop."

You wait as he looks for his pack, as he brings the lighter close to his mouth, as he inhales, and drops his head again. "You knew?" he asks, embarrassed.

"Not till today." You gently lift one of his arms, the damage on the skin answer enough. "I can't get back together with you, rockstar. But I'll be there, if you need me."

Hyunjin huffs out a laugh, smoke coming out of his nostrils. "I'll always need you, angel."

You grin, bumping your knee against his. "Then I'll always be there."

There they were again. The angel eyes. The ones from your first meeting. They looked straight through you, those. Watercolor eyes. God's eyes.

"You have cursed me, sweetheart. I can't see anything but you." Full circle, with an open ending.

Like his words from before, they cut deep. They made a house in you. You would never separate from him, you think, not ever.

Love tormented, love purple and blue.

#straykidsland #stray kids scenarios #hyunjin scenarios #hyunjin smut #skz hyunjin #skz scenarios #skz smut #stray kids smut #stray kids #kpop scenarios #stray kids fanfic #stray kids hyunjin #skz fanfic #hyunjin x reader #hyunlix #mine.

[i-wanna-die-like-now]

I'm drunk and I have some thoughts on this.

@alteredphoenix I completely agree! The ice core is amazing and I love it for him-

But!

It has never really made sense to me, nothing about Danny screams ice or cold, I get that it's also a major factor in his ghost sense but man they missed hard, his character (to me) shows warmth and energy.

So... looking Into what Ice and cold can represent in media,

This one sort of fits, being a halfa is new territory, for both him and the ghost zone. Him falling into his powers and discovering new things. All uncharted, new.

Rigidity and stillness... Not so much, Dannys life takes off in so many new directions, there isn't a standstill in his life and he definitely isn't devoid of sentiment. If anything he has more, he's using everything he has just to save people, because it's the "right" thing to do. He has so many emotions and thoughts on all this new information he is being exposed to, processing so many new things.

Absent of hate, yeah I see that, true hate? That's something I think takes a lot for Danny to feel, along with wrath.

This one fits extremely well, Danny has to be really mentally unwell after everything he's been through, he's around his parents that are constantly spouting how much they hate his kind and what they want to do to them. Lack of love? I'm sure he's feeling that, ik I would be. But it also doesn't fit because he has the love of most people in his life, his friends and Jazz, even his parents (albeit half the time) I think it's a huge part of the show how much love he is surrounded with, their friendship is a huge part of it. Jazz accepting him and him accepting Dani, there isn't a lack of love.

(I haven't watched the show in a hot minute tho)

Death, absolutely, he's dead. He's surrounded by death and other dead people.

I don't see Dannys character of one of hatred or destruction, Dan. Sure, but we're talking about Danny.

But most of these aren't in the show, they don't dive into it and so it comes off as extremely out of place. It's not like it makes no sense, him having ice powers was never something I thought needed to be changed, I still don't, it does make me think about why he does have an ice core though when electricity was right there.

Now here's my own thoughts on electricity and how that would have worked.

He died surrounded by electricity and ectoplasm, he can use ecto energy so it makes sense that he would also be able to use electricity. Vald isn't shown to use an ice core so it can't be that it because he’s half dead, there isn't a sold reason as to why it can't be electric. (I wish the show went into more details about cores)

Electricity to me shows warmth and power, Danny is shown to be powerful, he is a newly formed ghost and he manages to beat multiple strong ghosts that have been around for way longer than him. I took that as him being extremely powerful, he is also shown to be compassionate and caring. He's a good person with a good heart, being dead and warm doesn't go hand in hand but I don't think that matters all that much.

He's always moving and flowing, both with his movements in fights and his opinions and values. He's a growing teenage boy and is learning new things about himself and the world, ghosts and the zone included, he's growing and lighting a light in the kids of Amity. Sparking change for ghosts and painting them in a new light for humans. He's both a ray of hope for the citizens he's protecting and the ghosts he helping, almost like a new era, like when we discovered electricity and it changed our daily lives.

He's also dangerous, and deadly.

One wrong move and he could end a life, end whole cities (as shown in The Ultimate Enemy) much like one wrong move with electricity and you're left injured or dead.

Overall electricity is good and it helps us everyday but it can also cause serious harm and I think that suits Danny so well, him being afraid of what he can do with his powers after the whole Dan scare, the warmth he brings Amity and the zone, it fits him perfectly imo.

And them there's the angst of having a power that literally killed him, that would be terrifying.

#danny phantom #danny phantom fandom #danny fenton #just some ramblings #im very drunk #this is something I need someone smarter than me to analyze #danny phantom angst #danny phantom au #is this an au? #probably #I just think it would have been so much better than ice #not that ice is bad #I love his ice #he's awesome just the 2way he is #sorry

[latenightbreezeinheaven]

Natal aspects from my natal chart + my personal experiences (only negative aspects) *Part-1* ❤️‍🩹🥀

Sun square moon

📌I've seen people mention this aspect as a cause of a clash between your inner mindset and your representation to the outter world and that's quite true for me. I always have to try to have this another personality to communicate well with other people depending on who they are regardless of what I'm feeling inside. My emotions are restricted everytime by myself usually and I call it "smart and clever" but actually, as a human being, I also struggle a lot with my emotions behind the curtain. I always get stuck between what I want and what I should want. It's always a war.

Sun opposition pluto

📌Well, this is quite of a devil aspect as for some people but it's not very true for me. Amber Heard has this aspect and also other bad people in the history have it too. In astrology, sun represents father and pluto is kind of a destruction here. My father has been physically absent for most of the time since I was born. As he has to work abroad, he rarely stays with us and he wasn't even with my mom when I was born. Also, he's also mentally absent. He's kind, nurturing (kind of) and also favours us a lot unlike my mom. He's calm and he loves us a lot too. But he's an alcoholic. When he gets drunk, all of his angelic side disappears and the devil comes out. He doesn't beat us but he annoys us a lot including my mom. And he never nurtures me in a way a father should. It's like he's just there as my father as a duty because he's a father by genes. He is aggressive at times and also he tried to slap me once and he also said cruel things to me. He doesn't treat my brother like that and I'm the only one who gets that unfair treatment. On the other hand, he still works enough to support us financially so I'm thankful for that though so I just have a love-hate relationship with him. I also have daddy issues. I think he's definitely a part of the reasons why I got those issues.

Moon square pluto

📌Oh dear. Moon represents mother in astrology. My mom. She has always been abusive to me. Mentally abusive. She's controlling, impulsive and manipulative. She also has anger issues and she doesn't trust me too. She's also overprotective which makes her a toxic mother. She has a lot of issues which she should have solved by herself and not put them all over me. My grandfather (her father) was an alcoholic and a cheater so I don't blame her for her issues but why do I have to carry them with me too? Because clearly, I'm not the one responsible for them. I think she's also cheating on my father right now but I just don't want to investigate anymore. I know she's cheating. My intuition never lies. And there're also many suspicions and reasons to point it out. And maybe my father knows it or maybe not but it's not my problem unless it hurts me physically. I'm not going to interfere between them because I don't want to know the truth. I also don't care. She also slapped me mutiple times before and she yells at me everytime and blames me for everything. I developed kind of a "omg I'm sorry that's because of me" syndrome because of her. I don't wanna say I have mommy issues but my ideal mother figure that I have created in my head is absolutely not like her.

Sun square mars

📌I'm psychologically damaged as a child and also as a teen but I'm planning to use all those bruises as my flaws and embrace them with me because they made me become who I am right now. I love who I am at this moment. I mean I love my strength and my mindset, not my appearance and.my body. I have this intense energy to turn all my emotional weaknesses as my strength. I also kinda like it when people are intimidated by me. I love to lash out my anger in a physical way such as doing workouts or just moving around or sometimes by making myself hurt or sometimes pushing things onto the floor and crushing them into pieces. I also think I have a big ego. I also have a strong sexual desire. I just have this wild, animalistic energy when it comes to those cases like drugs and sex. I hope this makes sense.

Moon opposition mars

📌I have anger issues and mostly, I cannot control my anger till to this day even I'm trying to repress them. I tend to ignore those feelings but however, after like 5 minutes, they always come back onto the surface and then, become worse and it explodes then. I am also a bit impulsive. I do things without thinking so most of the time, it leads me to mistakes and double mistakes and triple mistakes. But I don't regret what I'd done though. My brother even said that when I get angry, it's really scary. I'm a bit upset because I don't want to scare my brother off like that. But no one knows the intensity of my emotions like I do. I am trying my best to control them and use them as my power but yeah I'm still failing most of the time.

Mercury square mars

📌I curse a lot. You will not be able to count the times I say "shit" or "fuck" or "dickhead" or things worse than those during only a day. It's not because I'm angry or sad. My natural habit is just like that. I'm used to talk like that and I don't find it aggressive or rude. I just see it normal. But when I get angry, it worsens and my one sentence contains like 100 shitty words. I also tend to say whatever I want without even thinking. Same energy as moon opposition mars. I am also quite short-tempered and people say I have a sharp tongue and my words can make them hurt but I don't think I can. However, I love to win people by words but I also rarely win because my anger always takes over me. There are people who actually got hurt because of my words though but they deserved it.

Mars square pluto

📌I love power and I love being dominant. I used to hate people who use power and authority to scare or win people but now, I don't really hate them. When I'm challenged, I'm not afraid to fight those obstacles out of my life too. I like to have dominance over people for idk why reasons. I want to be admired by people as someone who can influence them in a good way. I’m also really really ambitious. I usually don't have strength to fight back my insecurities and my bottle of emotions but I have this type of energy and mentality that whatever I do, I'm going to make it succeed if I really want it and it's definitely going to happen in the end no matter how difficult the situation is. "I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it" vibes. But not over things like love or a specific person or things out of our control. I'm only determined to possess things that can be achieved by my own efforts and my perseverance.

-Some people say that my pluto and my mars are strong because they make many aspects to my inner planets but I don't understand it clearly. Whatever, people tend to avoid me and my friends always leave me out from their group saying that I'm too much for them and that they cannot handle my energy. I have no idea what they mean but maybe this is related? Or maybe I'm just too selfish or bad for them? I don't know.🤷🏻‍♀️

This is the end of this post and I was really emotional while writing this, so probably I might have written things that shouldn't have been published but I hope this is okay because you all don't know me in real life. Anyways, these are just my personal experiences and not facts, so just take them with a pinch of salt please. Thank you!❤️

#astrology observations #astrology notes #astro observations #astro notes #astrology #natal chart #sun square mars #sun square moon #moon square pluto #sun opposition pluto #moon opposition mars #mercury square mars #mars square pluto

[allisoooon]

I always wanted to ask. Do you like hate Viktor or? I’m a bit confused since his entire life has just been trauma after trauma but it kinda feels like people don’t care? I kinda just want your thoughts on his story (both before S1, Aka when he was a kid and like S1 to S3?) like, what constitutes as a victim mentality when he’s just constantly being tortured? Is it his fault his powers are dangerous? Or is it his fault that he had a panic attack and basically went haywire? /Gen

Ooooh, this is an interesting question. This is going to be a long answer.

So no, I absolutely don't hate Viktor. Actually, what I love about him is that he has a dark side like everyone else. It's what makes him compelling. Emotionally, he's a deeply traumatized human being. By nature, he's gentle and has a strong sense of justice. Take a character like that and give him a tendency to kill people when he loses control of his emotions, and you've got yourself some A+ internal conflict. That doesn't work if he has no agency in the things he does.

When I refer to a victim mentality, I'm not making a claim that he's not a victim--I'm referring to the fact that he's forgotten that he's not only a victim. Indeed, to some degree, he started out the series having forgotten that people who hurt him can also be victims. To take it further, other people can be his victims. That's just a fact of life about being a human being. It's certainly not his fault that his powers are dangerous, but I don't think it's as simple as him "going haywire." I don't think he's having a panic attack when he ends the world. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if he did the entire thing while dissociated. That's kinda what it looks like to me.

Now, dissociation is gonna be different for everyone, and I'm not sure if this is how it was intended, but to me, it doesn't feel like I've lost control of myself. To the contrary, I get very intense and goal-oriented when I dissociate. Viktor's sense of reality seems to be distorted, to the point where he is doing a lot of shit he would not have done the day before or the day after, so I would not be the least bit surprised if he was experiencing derealization. If you don't know what that's like...well, you do. If you've had a dream, you know exactly what derealization feels like. It literally feels like a dream. Now I want to be clear it feels like a dream. You are still in possession of all your mental faculties. Unless something else is confusing you, like if you just woke up or were falling asleep, you probably don't literally think you're dreaming? But that's just my experience. I tend to dissociate before and after a really bad panic attack, and as shitty an experience as it is, it's not part of a panic attack so much as it is protecting me from my panic attack. That's the mechanism, anyway. It ends up feeling like something I need protection from.

Derealization doesn't make you do things, but it does impair your judgment in my experience. When things don't feel real, it doesn't feel like there will be consequences to your actions. But, like with being drunk, you're not going to just randomly do shit you would never do otherwise. Like with being drunk, it's not an excuse for doing horrible shit. And while my memory and focus both suck when I'm dissociated, it suuuuper does not feel like being drunk. My ability to reason and logic is still there. My emotions are going haywire, but I'm not being destructive because I'm not a destructive person. Again, I don't have like, the definitive experience here, but it's the only experience I've got to talk about.

Is Viktor a destructive person when he's not losing it? When calm, and confident, under specific circumstances, he can be. He can be very frightening, and use it for the forces of good. Look at his conversation with Marcus. Do you think he was bluffing? I don't. And I think that's super cool, that he recognizes this side of himself now, but knows it doesn't have to be bad, or uncontrolled, or any of the things he feared it would be at the end of s2. He can listen to his emotions, take that sense of justice, and protect people.

A lot of this goes for Allison, too, btw. She was deeply emotionally compromised this entire season, but her actions were her own. None of the Hargreeveses have good emotion regulation (no, not even Five). Viktor's regulation is the worst because his emotions were chemically dampened his entire life. But being dysregulated does not mean you lose control of your actions, or your sense of right and wrong. When you're angry enough, you know it's wrong to say certain things or do certain things, but you're so angry, you stop caring that it's wrong. When you calm down, you feel awful.

Like Five explained to Viktor this season, that is the consequence of them having power. When they make mistakes, when they permit themselves the same moral indulgences other people get to have (like losing one's temper and yelling something one doesn't mean), people lose their lives for it. And because Viktor is very powerful, him lashing out the way normal people do every day winds up getting a lot of people killed. It's not that he's so evil, he destroyed the world. He had a couple of very, very bad days, and instead of screaming obscenities at the taxi driver who honked at him, he flung the entire taxi two blocks and presumably killed the guy. And if it didn't feel real to him at the time because he was dissociated, I would not be at all surprised. But that goes to show that a normal psychological mechanism in someone with powers still has vastly different consequences from what it has in a normal person. It's not that he's gotten correspondingly more evil, just that he pays for his mistakes differently than a non-powered person does.

And that's a hard, hard lesson to someone who dreamed of having superpowers all his life but also cried when his siblings stepped on ants.

#tua meta #tua #the umbrella academy #viktor hargreeves #ask answered

[bigjimbopickens]

This is now the most legendary photo of my Werewolf Jim fursuit. This is where I peak with this thing.

Featuring my mom’s boss (left), who’s place we were staying at.

What’s going on? Well, the past few days have been very crazy. (I cannot shorten this I’m sorry there’s a lot I need to tell)

Basically, Thursday morning a fire started rapidly expanding towards my homecity and on Friday I was evacuated when the wind changed direction and started bringing the fire towards my home. We went to a family friend’s place at the southern edge of the city.

We weren’t the only family staying at that place and there were a few small kids who were rightfully scared. My mom suggested I wear one of my fursuits to try to cheer them up a bit and WereJim was the only one I had on me. The rest were in boxes in a truck. I had him on me as before we were evacuated I was preparing for the (now cancelled) convention in Kelowna. So I put him on and the kids loved him. Eventually I joined the adults on the porch watching the fire get closer with him on and I said “Y’all should take a photo with the fire in the background” and my mom did. I never want to have an opportunity for a photo like that again so might as well do it then.

This story has a happy ending tho, the evacuation order was rescinded Saturday morning and I was able to go home. My home was still there. The fire went down the mountain towards it but crews made a firebreak above our neighbourhood that saved it. I’m so incredibly grateful.

Before leaving I did also save my cult wall, well, the portraits at least.

But the destruction the fire caused here has been absolutely devastating. It all happened so fast and I need some time to mentally recover from it all. Wildfires are one of my biggest fears and I came close to becoming homeless because of one. During this terrifying time, me and everyone else in that house found a bit of joy from a furry version of Jim Pickens.

Pretty unusual for Jim to do that. Usually he’s the one starting the fire and making everyone miserable. Or he eats all your furniture.

Anyways, thank you for reading if you got this far. I am safe, so don’t worry about me. Once I recover I’m back to work on a very awesome project y’all are gonna love :)

#werejim #cmk #jim pickens #callmekevin #call me kevin #jim pickens cult

[defaultfelix]

Returning online

My name is Felix Kramer, and I'm the creator of Goodbye Strangers. I haven't been active online for quite some time, and I wanted to address this. There was a major falling out with the former collaborative team, and later on, a public "callout" was made against me. Due to the number of falsehoods in the post against me, I don't feel that it is appropriate to comment on the post in full – and as the circumstances leading to the split were personal and not public, I do not feel comfortable disclosing any information that would violate another person's privacy.

I wanted to specifically comment upon the following two points, however. First, I can confirm my former collaborator's statement that she did not approach me at any time with any of her concerns.

This second point is one that cannot be emphasized enough: I absolutely do not share my former collaborator's interpretation of my work, and fully disavow such a hateful interpretation. If discrimination and hate are the values that you see when you look into my work, you are not my audience. A deliberate theme of the project as a whole is the idea that whether it's because of race, sexuality, gender, body type, mental illness, or something else - every person on earth knows what it feels like to be "left out", or like they don't belong. That is what it means to be a "sensitive", and why members of minority groups are more likely to be able to see the strangers.

I understand that there are people who may have questions or concerns about myself or my actions, and in this regard, anyone is welcome to email me with any questions or concerns. Please consider me an open book, as I am happy to discuss anything that does not violate another person's privacy. I don't plan to give any further statement regarding these individuals, other than to wish them the best.

In terms of what I've been doing the past few years, I will admit that this has been a very, very difficult period for my mental health. My mental state had been gradually worsening prior to the split with the team, and the mass public shaming/ostracism triggered a psychotic break from reality. Recovering has been gradual; this incident was the single most traumatic event I've ever endured, and it has taken countless hours of self-reflection, therapy, and outside support to pick myself back up again. I've talked about my experiences here, and am happy to engage privately with anyone who might benefit from talking further, but otherwise, I would rather look towards the future.

I wanted to end this post with one final note about my mental health and general status. I've been living with psychotic/delusional mental health symptoms for many, many years, and these have had a significant impact on much of my behaviour. Though I've talked to some extent about things like synesthesia and audio hallucinations, the full extent of psychotic states and delusional thought patterns is something that I am only very recently opening up about and addressing more directly.

These symptoms have been a major obstacle in returning online. The voices that I hear are cruel and endlessly critical; the abusive language used in the callout post became a constant internal dialog. In the years following the break from the team, I've drafted countless public statements and responses – and, it has taken this long to be able to 'quiet down' my mind enough to write this without hearing snarling insults and rebuttals to every single line.

I acknowledge that my behaviour prior to the split was erratic, self-destructive, and alienated those close to me. I made poor judgments, my expectations of both myself and others were not realistic, and I was grossly unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. I live with debilitating, lifelong mental illness that includes psychotic and dissociative symptoms. This isn't an 'excuse' for erratic behaviour, and I sincerely apologize to those people made uncomfortable by my actions, or hurt by the fallout of the project, and am happy to answer any further questions via private correspondence.

It will always be an ongoing process to address my mental health challenges and to develop healthier coping mechanisms. This is exactly why I want to do what I can to better live up to my own values of personal responsibility – as well as fight past my own fears in order to share my work with others and contribute my value to the world.

I don't know what the future holds, but I know that I'm not the person I was three years ago – the person I was three years ago would never have been able to write this post.

Thank you so much for reading my words. Please take care of yourself and those around you, and don't ever give up on your dreams.

#goodbye strangers

[trans-axolotl]

hi, I really like your blog and your antipsych thoughts have been very helpful to me. i hope this is ok to ask for advice (sorry i have brain fog and this question is vague)? i think i'm looking for 'unconventional' advice or suggestions, the kind that someone in the psych system would not necessarily recommend to me.

i have had a bad history with therapy, but i very much need some kind of mental support that i am not getting otherwise in my life (issues like CPTSD, DID, among other things). im in a position where i /can/ go to therapy, and i've been with a therapist that specializes in the things that are causing me the most problems for a year and theyre fine (i.e. has not ever helped me figure out anything about how to improve my life but has been someone who can perscribe me stuff, and hasn't done anything actively harmful to me like other therapists and psychiatrists have), but going is so upsetting for some reason (maybe because the therapy environment has been so bad in the past?) and not at all helpful. it's useful for me to have a relationship to a psychiatrist/therapist for medication and other 'navigating the system' reasons, but it's absolutely unhelpful. i am very frustrated and disillusioned with the whole concept of 'therapy' in general (maybe due to my history)!! but i don't know how else to get help!

it's harder because of the brain fog. i also feel very isolated partially because i'm in a not great environment, and partially because i have multiple mental illnesses in addition to not being a very nice person. i have felt really let down by supposed friends i've come to for help who just said therapy speak stuff like 'you should get help....' and 'sorry i don't have the emotional bandwidth to help <3' and stuff like that. it really makes me feel like i'm too messed up to be able to ask for help from regular people and i have to go to the psych industry but of course i've already been failed by them too :(

hey anon!

I think what you've said makes so much sense. I feel like we're so often told "go get help" but when we do try to seek support, it isn't as simple as just going and easily finding a therapist who is able to provide all the support and care we need. It can be so hard to find and pay for therapy in the first place, harder still to find someone who specializes in a therapy style to meet our needs, and sometimes we might not just be in a place in our life where we are in an environment that allows us to do in depth therapy work. And I just want to say that it isn't your fault if therapy isn't meeting your needs right now--that doesn't mean that you're failing at therapy. You absolutely aren't alone in feeling dissatisfied with therapy and wanting other options.

For me, what's helped when I've been considering making changes about how I approach my mental health has first been sitting down and really taking a thorough look at what things are working and what things aren't working. It seems like you've done a lot of that already--you know that it's helpful to have a therapeutic relationship to get meds and for help in the system, you know that the therapy environment hasn't been particuarly helpful for other types of healing work, and it seems like another thing you're thinking about is how to get mental support from your friends and other people in your everyday life. I think those are really good starting places to consider where you want to go from here. It might be helpful to make a list of what feels like priorities to focus on right now--do you want to develop more skills for navigating crisis? Do you want to focus on changing your relationship with dissociation? harm reduction for self destructive behaviors? building resilience and cultivating relationships in your life? There's no right or wrong answers here--you're going to be the expert on what feels most important right now.

I also just want to say that I think it's really shitty when we're made to feel like we're too crazy or too needy or too messed up to be able to be cared for and supported in our community. I've definitely had people tell me that, and it really hurts and makes me feel hopeless, like I'm always going to be struggling and that there's no chance that I'll be able to get better. But fuck that. We deserve to have meaningful connections in our community, access to resources that help us, and to be able to build resilient relationships where getting emotional support isn't considered an unmanageable burden, even if we're mad/mentally ill/ neurodivergent. I'm sorry that you haven't been able to rely on your friends and community that way, although I know it's hard when everyone we know is struggling and people don't have the energy or skills or knowledge to be able to help each other.

This is getting long, so I'm just going to list off a ton of random tips and suggestions, and I hope some of them might resonate with you.

Join a peer support group aligned with antipsych values. Hearing Voices Network, Alternatives to Suicide with the Wildflower alliance, Multiplied by One, FEDUP trans/intersex eating disorder support groups are all great options.

harm reduction! this can be especially applicable for self-destructive behaviors, but just in general moving outside of an "abstinence-only model." working to understand your actions on a spectrum of totally chaotic, unmanaged behaviors to more managed, intentional relationships with those behaviors. embracing any positive change as an important step instead of self-blame and all-or-nothing thinking.

Trying to think of the best way to describe what I'm thinking here, so I might not have the best phrasing. But basically, spending time separating your ideas for what wellbeing and quality of life look like for you from the psychiatric system's ideas of what a "normal," "healthly," quality of life looks like. For me, this looked like realizing that I wasn't actually interested in getting rid of all my hallucinations, but instead I just wanted to lessen the distress I experienced and find a way to hallucinate without panicking. So I guess just in general--really exploring what is actually important to you for your wellbeing and not limiting yourself to mainstream definitions of "recovery."

Unconventional coping skills, or coping skills that traditional psychiatry deems "risky." I've talked with some people who things like getting tattoos and piercings are actually incredibly healing for them, and are an important part of their "therapeutic" journey. Not going to go into detail or promote other "risky" coping skills on Tumblr lmao, but more just say that it's okay if there's things that therapists view as risky that you might have another perspective on how it fits into your personal healing.

Building up your and your loved ones capacity for community care. This can be a really hard one, because I know it always frustrated me when I would see people talking online about how great things like care webs or the power of peer support when I just didn't have any of that in my physical everyday life. So I'm not just going to put this here like it's a magical solution or something that's easy to accomplish. It's something that can take a ton of work and we're allowed to be frustrated about that. I think one strategy that helped me with this was spending a lot of time building my own understanding of my own capacity to help, my own needs, and what ways I would like to be cared for. That helped me start small, just by having conversations with my loved ones when I wasn't in crisis and saying "Hey, this is how I would like things to go when I'm in crisis. This is something that helps me when I'm hallucinating. This is a way you could let me know that you can't support me tonight but still leaves room for us to have connection. This is how I can help you. Let's talk openly together and develop and practice how we want to care for each other." Starting with just one person and one conversation really went a long way for me in terms of eventually building up an actual support network and for me was super instrumental in healing work.

Setting out an hour a week that's my "self therapizing time." just using one hour a week to look up new resources, try out new skills, journal, do self-inquiry, participate in activism, do something that brings me joy, read something new about mental health, literally anything that feels intentional in that hour. trying out a lot of new things and quitting a lot of new things!

Incorporating your physical needs. I'm sure we've heard a million times things like "get sleep, nourish yourself, go outside," and all that is great but often feels fucking impossible when we're mentally doing not great. but I guess just saying it can be good to be aware of how our physical body impacts our mental health in other ways. things like trying to get our sensory needs met, embracing movement that feels good + making space for rest, embracing things that bring our physical body pleasure whether that's tasty food, sex or other kinds of physical intimacy with other people, if it's using substances in a way that feels helpful or joyful or fun--anything really!

Here's a bunch of random orgs and resources that I have found helpful: Fireweed Collective, Wildflower Alliance, Project LETS, Mapping our Madness, Mad Survival Tools, Organizing Guide for Psychiatric Survivors, MindFreedom Resources, Multiplied by one (I can't personally vouch because I haven't been to their groups, but I have a friend with DID who attends these groups and had positive things to say about them.)

I'd also add on this book: "Psychosis, Dissociation, and Trauma: Evolving perspectives on Severe Psychopathology" although I do want to give a warning that this book is a heavy academic text that has a lot of clinical and stigmatizing language. For me, it had some helpful information that helped me make connections between my experiences of trauma, dissociation, and psychosis, but I would not recommend reading it unless you feel like you're in the right headspace and can deal with wading through a lot of the psychiatric narrative.

These are all just some things that sometimes work for me, so please feel free to disregard anything that doesn't resonate with you. I'd also love it if followers could add on with any tips, resources, any "unconventional" advice!

thanks for reaching out, anon, and I hope you have a good night 💜

#personal #antipsych #antipsychiatry #resources #going to copy and paste most of these things over into a seperate post just for links to resources if anyone wants that #mad pride #mad liberation #<3 followers please add on!!

[darksideofthemoonbot]

Khorne

Sorry Khorne fans, but for me he is last of the big four. That doesn't mean I don't like him, love all the chaos gods, but here's why. Unlike my Nurgle and Tzeentch explanations, this will be a bit heavier like my Slaanesh.

THE GOOD

Khorne is a lawnmower. There's something satisfying at times to the simplicity of, lets go with Kharneth, I like that name better. Something delightfully simple to screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOODGOD" and going to hit something with a sharp piece of metal. Its almost therapeutic sometimes.

Also, as he cares not from whence the blood flows, Kharneth is thus clearly the god of [menstruation joke goes here]. And yes, I am... familiar with the Leman Russ quote. Though in a way I sorta do want a Norscan slang to be "the time of the hound".

Completely unrelated, I promise, but also Valkia the Bloody. A lot of love for a queen who gets told she's been selected as a Slaanesh daemon prince for concubinisation, and answers by killing him and marching into chaos to deliver his head to Kharneth personally.

THE BAD

Khorne is a lawnmower. Much fun as it is to skull for yon skull throne, I can find Kharneth a bit one-note in that respect. Which isn't bad exactly but tends to make him better in measured doses, you know? I like variety over the long haul.

THE UGLY

Here's where it gets heavy. Like Slaanesh, I relate to Kharneth well. Unlike Slaanesh, it is not a mixed bag of good and bad. It is just bad. It is parts of me I do not like.

Among my mental/emotional concerns for which I get medication and therapy is anger. Not strong enough a word. Rage. Fury. Berserkergang perhaps.

Times where the world has become a long red tunnel with ThingsThatNeedToDie™️ at the other end. The strength is unbelievable, though I pay for it after. And I don't just mean raw physical force. The absolute purity of purpose in such a rage is the greatest clarity I have ever experienced.

And that is a bad thing.

It is like an addiction. It may well be one, but I am not a biochemist so I won't conjecture. All it causes is harm and the sublime clarity doesn't last beyond the fit of rage. I miss it. I shouldn't but I do. And I have started trying to direct it in healthier ways. Promoting justice, if there is such a thing, or perhaps more accurately fighting injustices. Turning the furnace of anger toward productive ends.

That, however, leads me to the even less useful and harder to justify emotion I relate to with Kharneth: hate. Unlike the conflagration of fury, hate is the bitter coals that endlessly hunger for spiteful destruction.

I have stared into the abyss of hate. In some areas I have fallen into it. Most notably misandristic thinking. I hated men. Another trauma response, given who has hurt me in the past. And I know that it is wrong, I have made real progress with it. Unlike anger, I do not miss it. It is seductive, offering clear and simple answers to complex issues. "X is bad" with no other qualifiers can be unbelievably tempting in some cases. Complex is troubling, while simple is easier. Hate is so much easier than understanding. But I do not miss it. The toxic fumes from those ever-smoking coals is poisonous to mind, body, spirit, and society.

It is not rage, it is contempt. It is spite and venom. A desire to see something ruined or destroyed, not out of passion, but out of bile. And my susceptibility for it is a part of myself I really do not like. But to mention my fibromyalgia again: it is easy to hate the world when the world causes you nothing but pain.

Understanding is counter to hate, maybe not perfectly but I found it helps. After I was assaulted a few years back by a hired driver, I was aware how easy it would be to fall into hate because of that. So I threw myself into learning about his religion. Harder to paint all adherents of a faith badly when I knew more about it, was my thinking. It worked. I even gained an appreciation for the art common in that belief system, that I had not known about before, and learned some interesting history. Which helped me remember: it is not all of a demographic, it may be too much of a demographic, but not all. He was just a jackass.

Sorry to end the big four on a heavy note y'all. Here's a picture of cathartic destruction.

#khorne #kharneth #warhammer 40k #chaos gods #warhammer fantasy #cw anger issues #cw hate

[soloorganaas]

Talk dirty to me about Sirius Black and bpd

I've been headcanoning the Blacks (Walburga, Sirius and Regulus all) as bipolar but I've been too. cautious? to write them as such explicitly

but I'd like to

anon my beloved im sorry this took me so long but it gets me in the FEELS talking about bipolar sirius so i gotta ration it out

(i'm gonna make a separate post about writing sirius/the house of black generally as bipolar bc i know its something people are cautious about and is worth discussing itself)

okay heres some little bipolar sirius headcanons. cw for some intense mental health stuff

when sirius is manic as a kid he associates that come down with clashes with his parents. and bc he knows its going to happen he makes it happen. he pushes the boundaries as far as he can and chases the adrenaline and ends up in huge fights until he's locked up in his room, which he will forever associate with a terrifying, all-consuming sadness

he doesn't REALISE that other people's families dont have breakdowns every other week and when he does figure it out he just puts it down to his family being uniquely crazy bc they're just evil like that

he has absolutely zero emotional regulation which gives him a quick reputation of being dramatic and over the top so he leans into it hard

he has more intelligence than he knows what to do with and if he doesnt have something to do with it he'll direct it towards self-destructiveness instead

james is one of the best things to ever happen to him for this reason. james is just as smart and high energy and bc they both obviously have adhd they cant sit and focus on anything that isnt extremely interesting and rewarding (so not classes) for a single moment. thus the most daring and ingenuitive pair of pranksters is born

james is the first and for a long time only person to see sirius when he slips into deep depression. he never for a second judges. after a couple of years he knows how to predict it, and is already waiting with food that will drag sirius out of bed, pranks to plan at the back of the classroom that stop him missing so many classes it raises eyebrows, and an endless stream of jokes and games and distractions that stop sirius sinking into his head too much

james understands sirius at his highs and is there for him at his lows, but remus is the first person who truly understands how deep and dark those lows go

part of the reason sirius is so entranced with remus is bc they share a darkness inside of them they're determined to hide bc the world already expects it to mean they're evil

sometimes when sirius is especially manic to the point of losing his mind he wonders if he is

full moons are oddly the most regulating thing for sirius (which he would never ever admit to remus even if he had the words, but remus notices anyway) because it gives him a fixed, predictable up and down. one night a month he knows he can go wild and break the rules and let his energy out in the safety of his friends

sirius seems like he doesn't want to read bc most of the time he just doesn't have the patience. but whenever he's sitting at the back of the classroom or kept up at night or wandering aimlessly through the grounds and conjures up some idea by his brain working a mile at a minute that obviously needs to be explored, he will, at those points, spend hours upon hours pouring through books to find what he wants

this is large part of how the animagi idea comes up

sirius is on a high for most of september after finally leaving his house for his home. he crashes for most of october (the odd shift in seasons and long dark days don't help). he usually picks up by the time quidditch season and pre-halloween prank season begins

remus is the only one who can calm sirius down. bc he's calm himself, bc he actually understands why sirius is driving himself crazy from his own energy, bc sirius knows this and doesn't feel belittled or dismissed by remus

as such some of sirius's worst moments are when remus isn't speaking to him, or worse, is so angry he's terrified he's going to lose him, bc it's not just heartbreak, it's also his whole anchor

sirius was actually terrible at school until he met james bc he simply couldn't concentrate locked in a room for 8 hours with reg and his tutor. but james is exactly the same and they discover within a couple of months they can learn the entire syllabus partly through picking it up by ear through professors, partly the essays they finish in one sitting in the early morning hours before its due, but mostly through figuring out the magic themselves by pranking each other (and everyone else)

at some point snape does something to terrify the shit out of sirius so much he can't think straight. maybe snape threatens him, or james, or remus, or reg. whatever it is, sirius's mind narrows to the single goal of somehow terrifying snape even more than he did sirius, and he follows every ounce of manic adrenaline without heed to consequences to do so. this is the first time james is truly furious at sirius for something manic he did. it's not the first time remus is, but it's the first time sirius truly thinks he won't forgive him

sirius is more scared than anyone during the war, because he has absolutely no ability to regulate the extreme emotional onslaught he's subjected to. his only support network is remus, and remus simply cannot handle that alone

destroying relationships with people you love out of nowhere in a whirlwind of self-destruction is a peak bipolar symptom that's pretty much all i have to say about the war

sirius doesn't really have manic episodes like he used to during azkaban, bc they suck all of the good emotions out of him. but he does get occasional waves of frustration, of restless energy, of an urge to just do something. its quickly weighed down by the futility of it all, by the reminder he's lost everything and it's all his fault and there's nothing he can do. until he sees peter's photo in the prophet, and from then on he is single-mindedly devoted to that task. there's no sense of what's possible or dangerous or his own limitations, just a manic drive to get out of here

mania is pretty much what drives sirius over the next few months bc he hasn't felt it in so long its uncontrollable. he would never cross hundreds of miles, evade the ministry, track harry down, keep himself alive without it. but he also spends most of that time as a dog because his human thoughts are just too much

he falls into deep deep depression as soon as he stops running which coincides with the exact time someone convinces him he needs to stay locked up in grimmauld place for his own good

now however its 1995, and even if the wizarding world remains stuck in time, the muggle world actually knows what bipolar disorder is. remus, who spent a good amount of the past fourteen years living in the muggle world with chronic depression, and andromeda, who grew up surrounded by people with a similar condition to sirius, is also well connected with the muggle world, and has a husband who's a healer, both figure out that sirius is very ill. sirius is proud and stubborn and also utterly uncaring about his own wellbeing whilst harry is in danger, but remus and andromeda are used to all of this and know how to get sirius the help that he needs, and the result is that he actually does

there are potions for growing bones there are absolutely potions to regulate moods

everything is shit and impossibly hard to deal with for a long long time, not least because azkaban alters your brain so much you have to rewire it through endless positive reinforcement to get anywhere close to healing, and who can do that in a war? but now he has actual medical help, and words for what's going on in his brain which is brilliant now he's actually certifiably crazy moony, but there's so much relief at some point he breaks down crying bc finally he understands even a small part of all the madness people have accused him for a lifetime of

remus is still his anchor even if it takes months to get to a place where they can trust each other beyond loyalty to the order and to harry, and much longer to be as vulnerable as they were before 1981. but when they get there its a thousand times better because now they know themselves and each other enough to slowly, slowly build the stability and peace they both always needed

harry has a kid who has adhd and sirius is the first person to figure it out ❤️

#really put my whole bipolarussy into this one #sirius black #wolfstar #hp #hp meta #meta

[is-the-snake-video-cute]

Hi, I know it's not the focus of this blog, but I was wondering if you have any dog tips? I know you have a corgi mix, and I'm thinking about getting one, but I've heard corgis can be hard to train and it would be my first dog. Any tips?

I'm really sorry, but I'm not comfortable giving dog advice. Just because I have a puppy doesn't make me an expert, I'm afraid. What works for us might not work for you, and I just don't know enough about dogs to be able to toe that line.

The only thing I feel comfortable saying here is to think carefully about what breed of dog is right for you before you commit. If you get a mixed breed, be prepared for the worst of both breeds. I don't know enough to say if a corgi is a bad first dog - I've owned dogs my entire life so my perception is kinda skewed. I will say that I knew a corgi was the right dog for me because I wanted an outgoing and very intelligent dog who I would be able to do a lot of training with, and Bilbo has been an absolute treat to work with, very easy to train and eager to please, but he's also stubborn and willful and loves to push boundaries, so consistency from day 1 was key. We've had to work a lot on nipping, and that is a corgi breed trait. He needs constant mental stimulation to stay happy. He's the perfect dog for me but he would be a nightmare for a lot of other people, I could totally see him becoming destructive if he was bored or understimulated.

#not a rating #dogs #not snakes #bilbo the puppy

[centrally-unplanned]

I'm curious about the 'mythical “mid-production pivot” theory' that you mention Eva fans surmising. I'm given to understand that Anno took a darker and more psychological tack around episode 16, after reading a book of poetry about depression, and certainly the show's original proposal and the first draft of episode 24 seem to bear this out: Tokyo 3's destruction and Asuka's depression seem to have been later additions. Am I wrong or are you referring to something else?

You aren't wrong per se, it just wasn't nearly as dramatic a turn as these stories tended to suggest. By episode 24, for example, you already had Episode 16 full diversion-into-Shinji's mind; you already even have Episode 4's focus on Shinji's depression and 'auteur' delivery approach. So while there would be individual back-and-forth about individual episodes, and the show got edgier over time, it wasn't a large shift from the initial plan.

The specific draft of episode 24 you can see here; it was written by Akio Satsukawa, and most importantly never reviewed or approved by Anno. So its tonal shift isn't a directorial choice, instead just another creator's vision of the project, and one that was scrapped. I don't think it reflects strongly a debate about the show's direction - instead it can be viewed as bit of a leaked, unofficial document.

The poetry book you are referring to is Bessatsu Takarajima's "Understanding Mental Disease" - you can see some details on it here. The cited Newtype November 1996 interview I think really gets at how this was used:

Anno: I was stuck on Rei's monologue in the recap episode. One day, my friend lent me a psychology special of Bessatsu Takarajima. I was shocked by poems from that book. I was blown away. They switched my mind. Rei's monologue suddenly came to my mind.

It isn't really a depressed man trying to find solace that incidentally changed his work; he was hunting for inspiration for the show actively. So sure, reading this book 'changed' the direction in a certain sense; but only because the direction wasn't known and Anno was doing creative research, not because he was depressed and decided to change things up based on his own his turmoil.

Anno's depression was a bit more over the *production*, not his own mental health per se. He trying to Make It Work as an artist and hitting huge roadblocks at the end. Episodes 25 and 26 are absolutely different from the intended vision - but due to physical inability to complete that vision resulting from production delays, not a mood swing. He was at his most depressed after the completion of the show due to this, feeling it has drained him; his most famous "depression" comments are actually about that period:

After the television broadcast finished, I became worse and worse, and went to see a doctor. I even seriously contemplated death. It's like [I] was empty, with no meaning to [my] existence. Without the slightest exaggeration, I had put everything I had [into Evangelion]. Really. After that finished I realized that there was nothing [left] inside of me. When I asked [the doctor?] about it afterwards, [he said?] "Ah, that is an 'identity crisis'

There is also an interview with longtime Gainax staffer Evangelion producer Hiroyuki Yamaga where he pretty-much says Anno was exaggerating the drama in interviews for clout, lol:

On Anno’s severe depression, his “crisis of the soul,” as a motive in the development of Evangelion. YAMAGA: Well, I think Anno may have appeared in the Japanese media as you suggest; he’s made comments about wanting to die, and so forth, but at least from my perspective, things were never as serious as they appeared in the press. [LAUGHS]

Finally, and I don't have like one link or anything for this, but its just when you go through what we know of the production history, you can't really find a break point like this (outside of episode 25), there doesn't seem to be a turning point. All the themes are there from the beginning. Evangelion changed a ton during production, don't get me wrong, but here - look at the 1993 Evangelion Proposal document. The summary for episode 24 is:

Rei breaks down. Her secrets are revealed. At last awakened, the twelve strongest Apostolos descend from the Moon. Both Eva Unit-06 and the American continent vanish completely. Humans acknowledge their helplessness in the face of the Apostolos' crushing power. The promised time, when people will return to nothing, approaches. A human drama in the depths of despair.

Here is part of Shinji's character summary:

The young protagonist believes he can do nothing by himself, but, as new experiences change him and he is able to look reality in the face, he learns and grows as a person.

Naturally, we believe adults must give children self-purpose and the strength to act on their own, for the cause of passing on knowledge and technology. However, today's children can be found by themselves in front of the television, not interacting as part of a group. Other issues such as substance abuse, and never doing anything manually, leave children not knowing what they should do.

Children stuck in a reality wrought with pressures are left unable to act on their own. Are things really okay the way they are?

Its all there, right? Instrumentality, depression, commentary-on-otaku, etc. It was always the intent of the show.

I think this myth as I call it comes from the fact that episode 16 can seem jarring to audiences - but I don't think its jarring *thematically*, its jarring directorially. Some of that is the production getting a little stretched at that point; the abstract, introspective approach does require less animation cuts. But when Anno is asked about the dive-into-Shinji's-mind choice for the episode:

Anno: As far as that goes, I thought it was fine, but then when [the angel] speaks Japanese that was the end [of my initial conception]. Kaworu-kun had been prepared as a “human type” [angel] from the start, and I wanted to hold on to the idea of [an angel] conversing in human language until then. When I wondered, well, what will [Shinji] do after he gets taken into the angel, I wondered if this might be [his] chance for self-reflection. Episode 16’s “inner space”-like environment was the first [of that sort]. That went relatively smoothly.

Its like "oh yeah i was gonna have him talk to an angel, but I thought oh crap that will impact Kaworu's reveal too harshly, so what to do....ah, what about Shinji talks with himself?" This isn't a depression-pivot, this is just the creative process, the team was learning and experimenting as they went.

#evangelion #evangelion production history

[pepprs]

also btw back to all the building the courage to move out stuff. last night i stayed up late (lol) reorganizing my building-the-courage-to-move-out playlist so that the lyrics tell a chronological story abt what this journey has been like for me and it’s still kind of messy but im proud of it and strengthened by it. i feel like it’s cringe to share it but i want to in part bc it’s another accountability thing so yeah ermmm i hope if anyone chooses to listen to it you’ll take something away from the juxtaposition of it all. here are the different sections / chapters

independent accident (c418): instrumental opener with a relevant title bc i like to start chronological story playlists that way

when will my life begin (tangled) - much more (barbra streisand): describing my home situation. going from kind of innocently being like “hey what if i could be more independent” to “hey what if the dynamics in this house are crushing me slowly. i need to not be in this situation i have to move out”

every single night (fiona apple) - i want love (elton john): more concertedly looking at the state of my life / my mental health situation and realizing how much living here is the source of that and always has been. lol 🤪 and also trying to convince myself that i deserve better and building the courage to ask for it

bloodline / difficult things (orla gartland) - nothing changes (hadestown): telling my family (especially my mom) that im unhappy living at home and want to move out but it blows up in my face. i get guilt tripped / gaslit out of it and it’s agonizing but i entirely lose my ability to remember how much i need this and i accept defeat

the hurt of happiness (hey ocean) - tales of dominica (lil nas x): the headspace ive been in for the last year or two of being depressed out of my mind and sinking in quicksand and losing all sense of hope that i will ever become an independent adult and not live here <3

need 2 (pinegrove) - new person, same old mistakes (tame impala): the chapter (i hope) im in cureently of realizing like… hey. i do have the strength. i am an adult and i choose my life. i will do this and be strong and it will be very hard and destructive but it will be okay. (i feel like the song im currently “on” is new person, same old mistakes lol. where i know i need to do it but have my familys voices in my head telling me i can’t)

quiet (matilda) - goodbye yellow brick road (elton john): AUGHHHH the most emotional part of the playlist. every song in this section makes me want to cry and sometimes has. this is when i will finally build the courage to actually say im moving out and act on it for real and the absolute wound that is going to rip me open and destroy my entire world <3 i feel it all (feist) is the OK IM GOING TO DO IT NOW AND ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES song and tactics (japanese breakfast) is me like… actually beginning to tell my family. aughhhhh ahghhhh augghhhhhhh.

when will my life begin reprise (tangled) - wildewoman (lucius): the aftermath where im hopefully happy and thriving and growing into my independence! :~D

this playlist (which i made specifically abt my experience of moving onto campus in aug 2021) + this playlist (which is kind of a messy look at like.. learning how to drive and having experiences of independence etc etc) also overlap a lot with the last 3 bullet points so i need to go through them and add more songs to this one too lole. they’re not organized to tell a story iirc but they’re also worth a listen (maybe on shuffle) and those songs may change what this playlist looks like when i add them but yeah this is the playlist as of rn :~D thank u for reading / listening if u did i am going to be late for work now but it was worth it to type all of this up

#purrs #m*ving o*t tag #<- so i save this and remember the story i want to live in lole.

[fuck-your-proana-blog]

Hello, same anon here as the previous anon, god, thank you so much, I am so screenshotting your reply. I already try my best not to end up on ana tags, it's a last resort, but every other day my mental health gets so bad I just need something, anything to distract myself and I don't have close friends I could vent to, and that's the only other thing I can think of. Plus at least sweetspos are nice and understanding, and I don't usually,,,get that from anyone, so yeah. I am already supposed to get some sort of social anxiety treatment, but they're extremely inefficient and slow with it. And they just shrugged when I told them I wanna kms. I thought I'll just throw whatever destructive coping mechanism at that, and when I no longer wanna die, I'll fix them, but now my hair is starting to fall out (I think. Unsure though.) and I am not better at all. And two people I used to be close friends with had restrictive EDs, and I guess this is my way of feeling close to them. And I'm turning 18 later this year, and that feels scary as fuck, and I thought if I lose stupid amounts of weight I can at least look childish. Okay, sorry, at this point I am just rambling, but I've been keeping this to myself for what feels like ages. Anyways. Thank you again for your reply so sosososo so much. It helped a lot.

I'm glad my response helped and I'm proud of you for working towards health. I distracted myself from my abusive childhood experiences (C-PTSD stuff) with weight loss too, and it quickly spiraled into anorexia- and it did the absolute opposite of making me not want to die, so don't convince yourself and ED will improve your life, it never will. I felt like I "deserved" to suffer, that somehow if I suffered enough it would make right what was broken in me. If I could just be "thin enough" it would fix all my problems, so I used behaviors and buried myself in my ED to avoid dealing with the real problems in my life. From what you've said it seems like you're doing the same, so please get help. I don't have any friends either so I come onto Tumblr to vent and find support as well. I know weaning yourself off of harmful tags is difficult, that it feels like a proper distraction from your other suffering, but it will not help. Please believe me, I've been battling these demons for almost 14 years- almost as long as you've been alive- and all it did was waste my life and make me mentally disabled and even more withdrawn from the world- as well as give me countless health problems I will never recover from. I may be in recovery, but my body will never fully recover from the hell anorexia put it through. I lost hair, have multiple damaged organs that require meds and outpatient care frequently, severe GI issues, I almost lost my teeth, needed multiple surgeries, developed osteopenia and had to do PT over and over as I continuously damaged my body with over exercising and starvation. It may feel like a "good" distraction now, but it's not. It will ruin your life more than it already has if you don't get help. I know growing up is hard, but it will only be harder with an ED. Sweeatspos are NOT "nice and understanding," they are another trap for you to fall into created by disgusting pro ana blogs to convince you your life will somehow get better if you get sicker. It won't. Anorexia ruined my life, my body, everything I had. I am just starting to get my life back in my late 30s. You're young; your mind and body can still fully recover if you make the necessary changes now- don't end up like me. Please, get help. I know what it's like to feel like no one cares, especially when you're suicidal, because I've been there. I just got out of the hospital after an attempt in November actually, and as soon as I attempted I got help and went to the hospital because I realized I didn't want to die- I just wanted the pain to stop, and I get the feeling that you're in the same boat. So really harp on your healthcare team about medication, therapy, anything you need to get better. If you feel you'd be safer in a hospital, GO. I've been hospitalized over and over throughout my life when I was most in danger from myself and even if it doesn't "fix" you it will get you more urgent physical and psychiatric attention by a medical team that will take you seriously and keep you safe. Don't wait until you can't fully recover like I did. Get help now, let them all know you're in real danger- it can bring discomfort to truly let people know how badly you're suffering, but you won't regret it. After all my time suffering I finally "came out" about my ED when I was hospitalized the last time to my close family and have only received support and love from doing so. I don't know if that will be your experience as I don't know any about your family, but I know having people irl who know my story has helped me cope, and if you can share your story with those who love you they could help you and support you in regaining your mental and physical health as well.

Your future doesn't have to be full of starving and pain- but you do have to choose, every day, to get better so it won't be!

#anti pro ana #tw ED #tw restrction #tw suicide #tw suicidal ideation #tw anorexia

[eeriefeelingsat3amuwu]

Um Okay. I have officialy made myself cry thinking about this but. Because of circumstances known to all of us, c!Techno will never get a story again. He won’t get a finale. And because I absolutely adore causing myself mental pain, I made up a ‘canon-to-me’ reason why and the finale for his character.

So, the nuke is going off and say that Phil and Techno in the Arctic see it launch. (Look, I am playing fast and loose with the timeline of events here, don’t judge me I just wanna write angst.)

They realise what it means and as soon as Phil puts two and two together he just runs out of his house, towards Techno’s because no, this can’t be true-

See, Phil is fully immortal. Not even the complete destruction of a world can kill him. Techno, on the other hand, is only functionaly immortal. He can’t die by natural causes, he’s too good of a fighter to die in combat, he’s protected by Phil and the Blood god, so there are only very few things that could actually pose a threat to him.

One of which, unfortunately, is a wipeout of a server he’s on. The DSPM is not his home server, his code is not written into the fabric of the reality around them. Hence why he only has one life on the DSMP.

As Phil goes to run to his house, he finds him standing in the snow in front of his cabin. He immidiately tackles Techno, tears already pooling in his eyes.

‘You promised!’

He cries. Because he did. Technoblade never dies. They both knew it was a lie. And yet, whenever Phil was going down the spiral of self-hatred and grief for all of the people he’s lost during his life, Techno has been there for him. For litteral CENTURIES. Promising to stay forever.

And just when Phil let himself believe it. Just when he let his guard down. Settled into the feeling of having someone by his side, in battle and in life, apart from his goddess, it will be ripped from him.

‘Kristin seems to really want to meet me’

Techno says, a joke. He even smiles.

But it only prompts more tears to stream out of Phil’s eyes. Because it means that Techno is sure that he’s going to die.

He looks at the piglin and sees him holding out a hand, asking for a Dance. They’ve danced together thousands of times before, they only just did yesterday, on a whim, after they finished their daily work.

Phil knows that, if he takes Techno’s hand, it will be the last time he ever dances.

He takes it. They Dance, steps that they have made up during their time together, as natural as breathing. They are a little closer to each other than normal.

As they finish the Dance, both of their eyes are glossed over with tears, they’re streaming down both their cheeks. Techno smiles at Phil and says:

‘Don’t cry, angel. You’ll be fine. There’s nothing tears can do about this, we both know it. It’s just my time.’

As he speaks, he cups Phil’s face in his hands, brushing the tears away. And even though he doesn’t speak it, the words carry over in every action.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

They hold hands as they watch the nuke land. Phil stretches his wing around Techno’s shoulders, a habit of times long past. As they watch the shockwave and the bright light approach, Techno speaks, his voice thick with emotions.

‘I’ll see you at the end of the world, Phil. Because you will live until then. You will live through this. Promise me you’ll live through this.’

He’s looking at Phil now, his grip strong, desperate, but yet, even now, not strong enough to hurt Phil.

And Phil looks him in the eyes, he blinks the tears out of his own, to see him clearly, for what will be the last time.

‘I promise.’

He whispers. Techno grins, bright and full, like the sun. Like he always smiled at Phil.

‘I love you!’ Phil screams right before the shockwave hits and a bright, painful whiteness rips his best friend’s hand out of his, this time, for good.

#eerie’s feelings #my writing #if you wanna see this as an actual fic #do let me know #I will write it #dream smp #technoblade #c!technoblade #philza #c!philza #emerald duo #platonic #character death #dream smp finale #bc techno deserves an ending