#if he told me these exact words i’d quit uni and run away from home to bear his children

[bangtae-sohotddaeng]

we’ll be counting stars | k.th. | 4

(^ gif cred: ON THE VOYAGE | pinterest)

pairing: idol!Taehyung x publisher!Reader

rating: nc-17 (for language and themes)

summary: You’d sworn off love and relationships forever. You were here to do your job - work with the biggest boyband of the world. Not forge friendships and...and whatever it was that you and Taehyung were building up with these sneaky glances. It was, to be very fair, your Chief Editor’s fault that you’d landed in this mess. Maybe you should quit your job? Maybe you should quit life -

Oh, he was staring again, and did he freaking lick his lips?

warnings: swearing (reader’s got a potty mouth) + this is set like 5 years in the future + reader has emotional issues, she's a relationship phobe + mentions of weed

genre: so much ANGST ugh + fluff + comedy + some crack

words: 4.6 k

note: hey, y'all. i know i've been awol and i'm really sorry about it, but, well - first i went back to uni for a while and got busy with my classes and my boyfriend. but this lasted for, like, barely three weeks, and then i came back home and got covid. yep, i finally got unlucky. my parents got it, too, after me, and the three of us had been home quarantined and getting treated for the past month or so. we're in better health now, though, so i'm getting back into writing. here's hoping i pick up speed super quick! 💜

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gimme feedback, much much appreciated!

Your first week of heading this project with all its roadblocks and exhaustion, as it turned out, had merely been a taste of what was to come.

Your Wednesday at work began on a positive note, though. 

Towards the middle of the day, your phone rang, making both you and Jungkook jump. 

Cursing, you pursed your lips at Jungkook apologetically, and fished the device out. He nodded at you with a chuckle. 

Looking at your phone screen, you realised this was a call you'd been waiting for.

“Hello?” you answered.

“Hello, ma’am. I’m calling to inform you that we’re done.”

Your eyebrows immediately hiked up your forehead. “Wow, really? That’s great news!”

“Yeah, the cleaners will be in tomorrow morning. You can move in by tomorrow evening.”

You actually grinned. “That’s such fantastic news! Thank you so much, Mister Lin. I’ll initiate your payment later, today.”

“Anytime, ma’am. Thank you.”

You disconnected the call with a happy sigh. Jungkook squinted at you. “That sounded like a fun conversation.”

You nodded, smiling. “Our team is moving into an apartment, tomorrow.”

“Wow! You’ve been in the hotel for what, ten days now? Must feel nice!” Jungkook’s eyes sparkled.

You nodded with a sigh, shutting your eyes in relief. “Oh, yes. We’d made reservations at the hotel for fifteen days. We had to move into the apartments within this week. This feels so amazing. I’ll finally be able to prepare my own food.”

Jungkook giggled at that, scrunching his nose up. “Where’s the apartment? Hope it isn't too far.”

“Oh, no, it’s a few blocks away from here. Which is why we had to book a hotel in the first place. We needed two four-bedroom apartments on the same floor, in this specific radius, in three days.” You paused to laugh when Jungkook’s jaw dropped with a gasp. “It was a very hard find. But our agent was sharp, he did a great job.” You clapped your hands together. “I cannot wait to check out of the damn hotel.” 

Jungkook nodded in understanding. “Hotels are hard. It could be a seven star luxurious penthouse, but you’d still wanna run away from it after a while.” 

He seemed to be speaking from his personal experience, but running away from a seven star luxurious penthouse? You couldn’t relate. You hated your hotel because the curtains weren’t dark enough and the mattress was stiff and you couldn’t afford getting any of them changed. You also hated having to order Chinese every single day, but you also knew you’d be emptying your bank account if you got anything else.

None of this would trouble someone living in a seven star’s penthouse. But you didn’t want to make Jungkook uncomfortable by stating any of this when he was just trying to be a bit compassionate and empathetic.

“Food doesn’t bother me that much, though,” Jungkook continued after a thoughtful pause. “We’re usually either on diets or order takeout. I personally hate the mattresses.”

“Oh yes,” you sighed deeply, the kink in your upper back in absolute agreement. “I’m not really a fan of sleeping anywhere other than my mattress back at home, but hotel beds are the worst of it.”

Jungkook chuckled, nodding. “I completely understand. You remember that story I told you about lugging my beddings over to our dorm when we first moved into one?”

You nodded with a laugh. “Oh, yes. The rest of the boys were getting new mattresses, and you were busy dragging your mattress from your parents’ house. It may sound hilarious, but it’s actually very relatable.”

Jungkook looked a bit bashful as he nodded. “You know, when we first started preparing for our first tour, I had a half a mind to take it with me.”

You barked out a loud laugh at that, the mental image of Jungkook dragging a seven by four piece of bedding around and stuffing it into trailers. He laughed, too.

“Yeah, it was funny and really stupid. Half the time we didn’t even get to sleep in the bed we had taken with us, but whenever we did, I was nodding off the second my head hit the pillow.” Jungkook’s eyes sparkled as he went down the memory lane. “That one was nothing in comparison to the tours we go on now, but it was our first ever experience so it was still pretty difficult adjusting, Tour schedule is a different level of hectic, you know? You don’t have time to eat, you don’t have time to sleep. Just rehearsals and fittings and sound checks. I would fall asleep in makeup chairs,” he confessed with a chuckle, shaking his head fondly, “and when noona would wake me up, I would recall how I wanted to bring my mattress here. Such naivete.”

You smiled, nodding along. You hadn’t yet gotten to the tour discussion yet, as it was planned out for the third month of your blueprint, so all of this was brand new to you. But, at this moment you didn’t want to bring up plans and blueprints. Jungkook was compassionately being candid with you. You were becoming friends, beyond your professional boundaries.

Sighing, you decided to impart something personal, too. “When I moved to the States and got into this company, I rented the apartment with an old friend who was already living there. And it wasn’t my first time living in a house away from my parents. I’d been a university student, lived in dorms then rented apartments, both solo and shared.” Jungkook looked at you pensively, nodding with a little furrow in his eyebrows. “But when I got to this apartment, got all this brilliant furniture set up, all new and fresh, I couldn’t sleep. I missed my home.” Jungkook’s eyes softened, lips pressing down into an understanding smile. “Not the dorm, not the studio I’d been renting—I missed my childhood bed.” You exhaled, recalling all your sleepless nights. “There's this connection you build with the place you call home. I’m sure you must have started to feel this way about your dorms as time went on.”

Jungkook softly smiled, nodding as he looked into space. “Very correct. Tour life made me realise this exact fact.”

You both sat in a few minutes’ quiet, basking in the nostalgic atmosphere you’d built around you.

Then Jungkook grinned at you. “Now you’ll get to experience real Seoul life.”

You laughed. “Oh, yes. And I honestly can’t wait for it. The local markets, the grocery stores, everything. Everything here is very unlike home.”

“I’m sure you’ll love it!” Jungkook exclaimed, wiggling his eyebrows smugly.

You went back to work soon after, with Jungkook tossing in questions about your move and suggestions about what all you should do in the city, every now and then.

It was a good, productive, joyous day. You were hardly even tired when you got back to your hotel to spend your last night on that stiff ass mattress.

Thursday had started off pretty much the same, except for you guys taking a slightly early departure to spare some extra time to set your new place up after your belongings were moved.

By late night, you were all settled in two, pleasant, well-furnished, well ventilated four-bedroom apartments, next to each other. Your housemates consisted of Sana and Simon. Needless to say, you weren’t a fan. But you needed a room to build the office in and you preferred it to be under the same roof as your bedroom because you tended to work odd hours when you couldn’t sleep. Simon and Sana volunteered to share the apartment with the office and you, so you didn't exactly have room for complaint.

From getting the apartment cleaned one last time to accept you all, to ensuring none of you had left anything significant behind in your hotel rooms—you didn’t trust the hotel staff enough to not misuse it if they found anything related to BTS in one of your rooms—you had been the one that took care of it all. It was kinda on you, because you didn’t trust anyone from your team to do the latter responsibly. So, quite naturally, you were dead on your feet by the time you got into your soft as a cloud beddings at nearly 3 o’clock in the morning. Sleep pulled you in the seconds you rugged your covers up.

You were very dead on your feet when you got to the BTS dorm, five hours after you’d gotten into bed. You hadn’t had a drop of alcohol in your system for more than a few weeks, now, but man did you have a hangover.

So it goes without saying that when you bumped into someone on your way to Jungkook’s studio, your eyes were half shut. You wouldn’t have thought much of it and might have slinked away with a mumbled apology, if not for the familiar voice than greeted you.

“Good morning. Looks like you had a rough night?”

You blinked, miles away from sleep within a second when your eyes met a familiar pair of brown ones. Taehyung was dressed in the routine BTS loungewear that consisted of a pastel t-shirt that was one too many sizes bigger on him and dark sweatpants that covered his feet. His hair was the usual black and curly, mostly pulled away from his forehead with a few tendrils dangling over his brows.

Your interaction with him had been meagre throughout this week, only consisting of respectful nods of greetings and waves of goodbyes. You’d meant to ask him how Simon was doing and how he felt about his ideas being taken now, after you’d had a talk with Simon about it. But you didn’t know what you would do if he said he was hating how things were and wanted you to do something about it. So you had kept your mouth shut and watched from the sidelines as you tried to gauge Taehyung’s inner feelings by his facial expressions. 

He was an extremely closed off guy, never really letting his face show what he was truly feeling. But sometimes you would catch him looking into space as if he was zoning out of his conversation with Simon. Now, he could very well be thinking deeply about something Simon said—you really couldn’t be sure with the guy. But it had you worried, nevertheless.

God. Why did Simon have to pick out Taehyung’s name?

By the time you realised you’d been staring at him for too long, he had realized it too. “Anything wrong with my… hair?” he innocently questioned, threading his fingers through the front of it.

“No!” you yelped, making him flinch. “I mean, no, it’s not that. I, um. We were moving into our apartments last night and it got kinda late. My brain’s processing things a bit slow, today.”

Taehyung chuckled at that, nodding with his teeth on display. “It’s okay. Congratulations on the move. Hotels suck.”

You sighed. “Tell me about it.”

Awkward silence hung over the two of you as you looked at the floor, at your feet, at his feet, tried to discern if his pants were very dark gray or blue, cleared your throat, scratched your ear, met his shifty eyes again— 

“How…how is working with Jungkook?”

His question caught you off-guard. You looked at him in surprise. “Uh…it’s, um. It’s good. Very comfortable, very productive. It’s great, actually.”

Taehyung nodded, pursing his lips as he looked down again. “Simon has been a better listener this week. Did you talk to him?”

A weight was lifted off your shoulders on hearing that. You grinned at him with all your teeth. “Really? That is really good to know. Comforting, even. I did talk to him, yes.”

Taehyung looked into your eyes as his lips spread into a slow, soft smile. “Thank you so much for doing this for me. I thought you would think I was stupid for demanding so much, but…” He shrugged his shoulder, one corner of his lips ticking farther up his cheek. “You made it work. I feel so much better now.”

You exhaled, willing your heart to not beat so fast. It was your job to ensure they were all comfortable, this was part of what you were getting paid for. But somehow, the way Taehyung seemed to have taken it so personally made you not wanna mention the fact in the moment.

Also, he didn’t know how this wouldn’t last. You’d been giving Simon tips to handle himself professionally around Taehyung, literally every single day. It kept the wheel running, but it was tiring both of you out, immensely. Simon was out of his element and you were getting slowly overwhelmed and under-rest due to the amount of responsibilities piling on for you. You were determined to talk this out with your boss, this Sunday, and find a way out before you broke.

Right now, though, you gave Taehyung a bashful smile. “I wanted you to be comfortable and feel good about working on this project, Tae. I am constantly working out plans to better it.”

Taehyung looked at you with so many emotions swimming in his eyes, that the intensity of it almost made you wanna look away. But you didn’t. Instead, you tried to decode what any of it could mean. 

This time the silence between you two was not awkward in the least. It was charged—heavy with this unknown tautness between your mind and heart and this indecipherable look in Taehyung’s eyes.

“Tae?”

The trance was broken by Jin, startling both of you.

He walked into the halfway from behind Taehyung, peering around him with a frown. His eyes widened when he saw you. You immediately bowed, always extremely cautious about being respectful around BTS’ oldest member. “Good morning, Jin-ssi.”

He chuckled at your address, insisting that you didn’t have to bow every single time. “Just the respectful good morning is fine. Did you just get here?”

You nodded, subtly glancing at Taehyung whose eyes were slightly rounded and still stuck on you. Why was he acting like you two were caught by Jin? You’d just been greeting each other and catching up!

Right?

Right.

“Ah! There comes Riya!” Jin suddenly announced the arrival of his partner on your team, cutely waving at someone behind you.

Your teammate Riya walked into the hallway after you, having walked here on her own insistence. “Good morning, Jin-ssi. Taehyung-ssi. Boss.”

You smiled at her, nodding in acknowledgement of the respect she paid. “Where’s Simon?” you questioned.

“Just here!” the man himself responded, rushing in after Riya. 

You met Taehyung’s eyes, and he nodded with a meaningful look and a small smile on his lips. Your heart felt light.

The unexpectedly happy and positive start you’d gotten in the morning lasted with you the whole day, making your time with Jungkook a lot fun, and fulfilling in terms of work, too.

When Sunday came in and you received your boss’ call, her first question was about how well you were settled in the apartments, followed by how you’d handled things with Simon. You had done a decent job on the former, but the latter was gradually turning out to be a pain in your ass. You told your boss as much.

“Drag it out for another week, and then design a change of gameplan. If he really isn’t doing a good enough job by himself, it’s better if he works with someone else. This whole charade will tire both of you out. And V would be facing issues, too, if Simon’s heart isn’t into it.” Your boss had looked at you solemnly through the computer screen.

“Simon’s heart’s a bit too much into it, boss, that’s the whole issue.” You had derisively chuckled at your joke, but her words had left you thinking into the late hours of the night.

Taehyung had definitely been facing issues, you’d heard it from the man himself. And the respite he thought he’d gotten this week was momentary, because neither you nor Simon could honestly keep up with it for too long. And it was very unfair to Taehyung. This book was supposed to showcase a part of all the boys. A biography was the culmination of one’s whole life—something very personal, precious and endearing. The process of its creation should have been a similar experience for the boys, too.

You really would have to assign someone else to Taehyung.

On Monday morning, you knocked at Simon’s door at seven.

“Just this week, and then you switch,” you told him.

“Really? Oh, my God, thank you so much!” Simon cried out.

“Please accommodate him the best you can.” You sighed. “I’m too tired to give you notes everyday. Will you be able to manage?”

“I’ll accommodate him the best I can, just as you said.”

You hadn’t taken his word for it, but it seemed like the knowledge of his misery ending soon had done Simon well. He did a fair job of maintaining his professional composure, and on Tuesday, when you went in to grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen, you saw the two of them laughing about something, too. Taehyung had politely greeted you, exchanging more than a nod for the first time in more than ten days—minus that one altercation in the hallway, of course—and then immediately went back into the discussion.

He seemed to be really into it.

It made you feel a lot better. 

On Friday, you and Jungkook went for a walk by the pool in the late afternoon with a cup of ice cream in your hands. He brought up Taehyung, asking how the elder was doing.

“You told me he was having some trouble with his partner?” Jungook asked, biting into a huge glob of chocolate ice-cream like a maniac and braving the brainfreeze with a straight face.

You grimaced at the sight. Then exhaled, plopping a spoonful from your own ice cream into your mouth. “He’s doing a lot better, now. It might not last, though”

Jungkook, instead of quizzing your ominous statement, nodded in understanding. “Does it have something to do with what I told you about hyung’s personality?”

You sighed. “Pretty much. We might have to change his partner.”

Jungkook paused at that. “Is there a possibility that…” He trailed off, confused, doe eyes looking at you.

You couldn’t lie to him. You shrugged. “Everything’s on the plate.”

On Sunday evening, you decided to gather the team for the call with your boss. Sending them a quick message once you all got home, you hopped into the bathroom for a long, relaxing showe. 

When you came back, you stepped into your office to the welcome sight of your team occupying bean bags and chairs and spread across the entire surface area of the place.

Collectively, you all brought up Taehyung’s partner with the Editor-in-Chief.

“Why don’t you do it, Y/N?” your boss questioned you after the rest of them had briefed her with their progress so far and detailed out their future plans with their assigned boys.

You sighed. “I have been doing just as great as the rest of them, boss. It wouldn’t be ideal for me to stop working with Jungkook after we’ve been making such great progress.”

Your boss took her glasses off, the highlight on her nose glistening as her movement caught light. She shook her and then sighed. “One of you is going to have to make a sacrifice.”

Simon, rightfully, flinched with a guilty face.

“So either you talk one of your team members into doing it, or you do it yourself. You’ve got one whole week to discuss it. Tell me what you decide, next Sunday.”

You kept tossing and turning in your bed. You’d either have to force one of your team members. Or you’d have to disappoint Jungkook. Your prospects really weren't looking good. 

You would like to believe you and Jungkook had become friends in these three weeks. It is impossible to remain a stone-faced stranger with someone literally relaying the story of his entire life to you. And besides that, too, Jungkook was a very likeable guy. He was a curious soul with a myriad of interests. Taking notes on literally every topic would always branch out into an enthusiastic conversation between the two of you. 

Sighing as you recalled how the two of you had shared your roller-skating experience with each other just today, you shut your eyes and decided to finally go to sleep.

On Monday morning, your team members were gathered in your new office to begin with the scripting process of the biography. As you got down to comparing notes and checking off boxes, each one of you resolutely ignored the gigantic elephant in the room—that fact that one of you would not be working with the same person when this week was up.

Strangely, this forcible change of partners was weighing down on all of you not just because of how much more labour it would cost, but on an emotional level, too. Which was a very unfamiliar concept, at least to you. You never got attached to clients, knowing it would only cause hindrances when you had to criticize their work—which was why they were talking to you in the first place. You had been somewhat lucky too, in a way, because it wasn't easy for you to get attached to people.

But Jungkook turned out to be just a really easy person to get along with. You really had become friends.

This, you suddenly realised, would also mean that Jungkook would make friends with another partner just as easily.

“Guys, remember—it’s not just their story that we’re writing, it’s ours too!” you announced to your team, clapping your hands to raise their spirits as the six of them worked on their computers. “They’re the narrators, sure, but we are the writers. Use your words wherever you find fit, do not hesitate to trim, omit or add. This is what we were hired to do.” 

At noon, you all ordered takeout and took a break.

“We’re all really on schedule, boss,” Riya, Jin’s partner, spoke up from her spot across the room from you. Her rounded eyes narrowed suddenly, and she winced. “Well… except Simon, but we kinda already expected that.”

Simon, seated on a bean bag to your immediate right, cleared his throat. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“You’ve been really shitty at your job, Si,” Areum, Jimin’s partner, commented, looking at Simon through her round framed glasses, her face displaying disappointment.

“He really has,” you added. “But it cannot go on like this. You’ll have to be really professional with your partner, this time round, Simon. You’ve really done a lot of damage with Taehyung. Boss won’t just pull you off the project if something like this happens again, she’ll fire you.”

Simon visibly gulped, nodding with his wide eyes fixated on you.

“So, who’s gonna take his place?” Nathan, Yoongi’s partner, butted in, prompting Sana to stop stretching. “Have you decided yet?” he asked you.

You exhaled. “Why not ask dear Simon who he wants to work with? The last time he kept protesting about the assigned choice, and I didn't listen. Maybe he’d have done better if the selection of his partner was voluntarily done by him.”

All eyes turned to Simon. He cleared his throat, looking beyond nervous. “Please don’t put me in this spot. One of you will have to let go of a month’s worth of hard work for me, as it is.”

You looked around the room. “Any one of you willing to switch?”

Five pairs of eyes turned to look at you incredulously. “No one’s gonna willingly give their research up for you, Simon,” Charlotte, the only redhead on your team and Hoseok’s partner, spoke with a roll of her eyes. “None of us.”

“Simon,” You sighed. “Choose.”

And then Simon squeezed his eyes shut and fisted both his hands to whisper, “Jungkook…maybe?”

Of fucking course.

Later that night, you had calmed yourself down enough to tell yourself that everything was gonna be okay. You could be a darn hardass professional when you needed to be. In fact, being humble and empathetic was usually what posed a challenge to you. You would very smoothly transition into working with Taehyung, you were sure of it.

You belatedly thought about how much change these past three weeks had already brought about in your nature. You were starting to show a lot more compassion than you’d thought yourself capable of. That kind of came in this job’s description, because biographies made people vulnerable, and vulnerable interviews required compassion. 

You had to unlearn some of the things you’d picked up over the span of your adult life to save yourself from hurt, and also the guilt that came with hurting others. Jungkook also helped, in a way. His openness and just the overall cheerful vibe that his nature eluded made you want to be more of a friend to him than a writing guide or an interviewer.

You wondered how Taehyung would be. 

There was something undeniably intense and mysterious about him. Now, you weren’t naive enough to want to “unravel” the guy’s mysteries, but you sure were irked and curious. Maybe he was one of those kinds of artists that literally lived in their art.

Back when you didn’t work in this company with this hectic schedule and had enough spare time on your hands to write, you used to pride yourself to be one of these kinds of artists, too. You lived in your stories, kept building characters up wherever you went, whatever you did. You wondered if it was something similar with Taehyung for music. 

You would find out, eventually. There was no point pondering it so much.

Sighing, you turned off your side lamp and decided to retire for the night.

Your writing week was gliding past smoothly. It was just Wednesday, and you all, ahead of the schedule, were at the verge of finishing up your writing parts.

“Are we super efficient or did we sign up for a longer duration of time than needed for this whole project?” Sana questioned, typing away on her laptop.

You snorted. “Or maybe, we didn’t design the blueprint with as much uniformity as we’re required to.”

“You don’t always have to critique everything, boss,” Charlotte, Hoseok’s partner chimed in, flipping her long mane of auburn hair off her shoulder as she shot you a look. 

You glared right back at her. “Uh, actually, I do. That’s kind of my job here.”

You’d been harsher than was needed, making the whole room go quiet. Only the clicking of keyboards echoed around you all for a while.

“Where’s Simon?” Nathan, Yoongi’s partner, asked after some time.

You sighed. “In his room, finishing up his writing work there. He doesn’t feel comfortable sitting between all of us because, and I quote, y’all give off really judgy vibes that fuck with my concentration.”

“That might actually be true,” Areum, Jimin’s partner, mumbled in Korean under her breath.

“Did you mail Manager Woo about the switch yet, boss?” Nathan asked you as you got up to get a refill of your coffee.

You exhaled. “Nope, I'm stalling,” you confidently confessed, leaving the office to make a trip to the kitchen. On your way back, you knocked at Simon’s door before peeking in. “You doing okay?” you asked him flatly.

Simon gave you a nod, not moving his gaze from the laptop screen. You rolled your eyes and came back to the office.

“Should one of us do it? If it won’t look too unprofessional?” Sana asked.

You wrinkled your nose. “It would look grossly unprofessional, Sana.” You pursed your lips as you sat behind your laptop again. “Fine, I’ll do it right now.”

You took a sip from your coffee, and opened your email. This was final, now — no coming back.

You were officially gonna start working with Kim Taehyung.

gimme feedback, much much appreciated!

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Tags: @tangledsparkles​ @hoefortaeshands​ @getmemyfries

#vantaenet #bangtanarmynet #btswriterscollective #ficswithluv #thebtstown #taehyung angst #bts angst #taehyung fluff #bts fluff #taehyung imagine #bts imagine #v angst #v fluff #v imagine #jungkook imagine #bts v #bts jungkook #*mine #f: wbcs

[threadsoftheeasternseas]

unrelated but important (?) prsnl post interrupting the queue

gonna keep this short prior to the read more thingymajig but i’m going through some stuff personally and I need to write it down and it’s ofc nothing to do with sims but a whole lot to do with me and I feel like I’ll feel better if I write this down. feel free to skip over this and ignore any form of feelings outside of my pixelated people. 

[trigger warning: death/suicide/self-harm]

today and tomorrow (may 10th/11th) marks the four year anniversary since I tried (and almost succeeded) to commit suicide. it is a very surreal week for me to go through the past couple of years, and the distance of time from said event does not change the fact that it happened.

I apologise for the detail i’m about to go into but I feel it is needed for context of how bad my situation had got. (I know I do not need to justify my feelings and my mental health but I am going to explain anyway).

I was in my first year of university, 250 miles away from home, and I felt like absolute hell. I’d made a few friends in my hall, but obviously, this is May, I hadn’t known anyone for more than a handful of months, and talking about my mental health was a difficult thing for me to process. I’d only really mentioned I had a diagnosis of depression to a couple of the girls and they’d been as helpful as they could, given that sort of social situation. I’d let university life get the better of me during my first year. I went out drinking until I could barely walk 4 or 5 times a week, and I’d sleep with pretty much any guy that paid me attention. One guy I met during my first week was a very on-off friends-with-benefits kinda situation, except I wanted more and he wanted less. I spent the whole time at university trying to get away from the toxicity of this relationship and consistently getting drawn back in, to the point it ruined friendships I will never regain. 

By May I was in a state of sort-of seeing someone else, but it was quite casual. I’d told him I wanted us to be a “thing” but he was quite happy to keep sleeping with other people as well (story of my life) and one night when he saw I’d texted previous week-one twat that I never stopped going back to drunkenly, he got mad and we fought and whatever chance we had of becoming something solid shattered in a matter of minutes. It felt so unfair. He was allowed to hurt me and go off with other girls, so why wasn’t the openness he wanted allowed to be the same case on my side?

I never planned to do anything with week-one guy, I think all I’d done was ask if he’d got home safe (forever the mother hen). Who knows. All I know is that this argument sent me over the edge.

I’ve felt like shit about myself pretty much constantly since the age of 14 when I found my mum screaming about wanting to kill herself and then having a go at me for not being there for her when I’d run off terrified to call my best friend for advice.

Needless to say my mum doesn’t recall this period of our lives. (She’s in a much better place now - and she has been for a while. I can’t remember what was going on but I think she had just hit a low. She never did hurt herself nor really intended to, and she’s doing fine now.)

I’ve always been shy and less-than-confident of my own abilities, but this was the start of Literal Hell. I spent my last couple of years at school wasting away to the point that about 7 different people in one day asked if I was alright because I had begun to look rather grey-coloured. I was sleeping about 3 hours a night and eating one meal a day. 

Things got steadily worse and then better and then worse and slightly better then worse then even worser after that (is worser a word? idk).

I know this is all over the place but I need to write this down. Props to you if you’ve got this far.

BACK TO THE STORY. After argument with said sorta-seeing-but-not guy, I took myself back to my room. (key point here: I was pretty hammered. The clubs around my uni sold very cheap drinks (the north of england is great for that), and I was still in my first year phase of drinking so much I couldn’t see). 

All I can kind of remember in that moment was that I felt like such a waste of space; that all I did was hurt the people I cared about, that I didn’t matter, that everyone would be better off without me.

I’d somehow become mildly addicted to painkillers over the year, without really realising, and in my darkest moment, I took a huge overdose. 51 painkillers to be exact. (Who knows why I had that many anyway). All I could think was I didn’t want to be alive any more. I didn’t want to wake up the next morning. I didn’t want to ever have to wake up again.

I spent the next day vomiting my guts up as my body desperately tried to get rid of the damage I’d already done to myself.

It was around 4pm when I had finally not vomited for about an hour and decided that maybe I should go take myself to hospital and see someone.

I will never be more grateful for something I’ve done for myself than this in my entire life.

When I got to A&E and awkwardly explained I’d had an overdose and needed to speak to someone, I got seen pretty quickly. Turns out 51 tablets that all contained paracetemol and half of them also with codeine, I was a pretty high priority case. 

I spent the next five days hooked up to an IV having medication to stop my liver from failing, and blood taken every hour. I vomited for six hours straight that first night. But I knew that deep down, no matter how awful I felt, I’d made the right decision to go there.

Nothing will ever be as hard as finding the strength to call my parents in the middle of the night to tell them what I’d done and where I was. Nothing will ever prepare you for how broken that makes you feel. Or when your mum arrives the next day, hotel and travel booked as soon as she could and time taken off work and tears streaming down her face. I will never forget the look on her face when she saw me in that hospital bed that day.

The nurses told me if I’d come to the hospital a few hours later that my liver wouldn’t have made it. I would’ve succeeded. My whole body would’ve shut down soon after. I would’ve died.

I had to find the strength to talk to crisis team therapists and tell my flatmates what I’d done and why I wouldn’t be around for a few days, and then trying to tell university why I needed mitigating circumstances to take an exam at a later date because sorry but I’m in a hospital bed in pyjamas that smell like vomit that I haven’t changed out of in a week. 

I’ve gone on a really long-winded way of telling this story, but the point is: today and tomorrow mark the four year anniversary of this happening. It’s painful to think that I still feel like this sometimes, but it’s also encouraging to know I haven’t stooped that low since. I’ve been close, many times. But I haven’t fallen back down that road again. 

I may not feel stronger, but I know I am. I’ve found the strength to talk about my mental health, instead of covering it up. I barely drink any more, and I will only take painkillers if I’m suffering from a migraine. I haven’t cut myself in two years.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come but also of how far I am also willing to let myself go. I know I will fight this, even if I spend the rest of my life doing so.

thank you for reading if you read this whole way and please, someone be crying too because I sure as hell am

#non sims #personal

[sweetielouis]

pining fic rec (21 fics)

here is a quick little fic rec of some of my favorite fics with pining!! i hope y’all like them, and as always drop by my ask with requests!  💖

❉ - means you need an ao3 account to read!

Searching For The Cure (We Found Us) by itsprobablylarry (30k)

“So you woke up as a frog,” Louis considers out loud. “What if you're like that princess that turns into a swan during the day but is a human between sunset and sunrise?”

Harry just blinks at him, clearly unimpressed.

(Basically: Louis doesn't quite know how to handle the fact that his best friend/roommate wakes up as a frog.)

(your heartbeat) rang true inside my bones by flimsy for estrella30 (32k)

Harry goes as Louis' date for a weekend wedding. He ends up taking the role a bit too seriously.

“Hey,” Harry hears himself say just as Louis climbs back into the car. He ducks down, holding onto the roof to look at Louis who cocks his brow at him and says, “What?”

“I meant it,” Harry starts. “Like, I’d do it. I’d be your date for the wedding. If it’d make you feel less awful about being there and if you want me to, I’ll do it. I promise I’ll be good.”

Runner on Third by Anonymous for Louvie (39k)

As Harry stood there, the other man turned around, and he knew he was correct in who he thought it was.

“Louis?” he asked, still not quite believing it.

Louis blinked. “Harry? Wh– what are you doing here?”

“I work here,” Harry said. “What are you doing here?”

“Um, I’m picking up my brother. The nurse called and said he was sick.”

Harry felt like he was going to be sick. “Wait, Ernest is your brother? Since when do you have a brother?”

“Since about seven years ago, I guess. Wait, how do you know Ernest?”

“I’m his teacher.”

“You’re his what?” Louis exclaimed.

Harry gulped. This was going to be a long year.

---

Or, the AU where Louis and Harry were best friends growing up, but lost touch after Harry moved away. Ten years later, Harry has moved back to town, but he and Louis don't pick up where they left off.

Roots by cherrystreet (43k)

There aren’t many things that make Harry Styles nervous. He’s spent the past couple of years on and off various stages, filled with screaming fans, all chanting his name, loud and adoring. He’s done countless interviews, some even on live, national television, never faltering over his words, answers meticulously planned out, smooth and steady. He’s signed countless autographs, taken just as many photos, and even when he sat in his label’s studio, waiting to see how high up on the charts his single made it, he didn’t feel uneasy or uncomfortable. It’s all been unbelievably fun. No, there aren’t many things that make Harry Styles nervous.

Enter Louis Tomlinson.

---

we're only stones around the sun by snowingwhite for Serised (46k)

Harry used to talk about him like that once, months ago when he wouldn’t let himself linger on touches that lasted a beat too long or looks that held unspoken promises. Back then it’d been easy, with the hiding of feelings, now it’s all a mess, complicated and hard. He doesn’t know where one feeling starts and another one stops, how he’s supposed to figure it all out. He doesn’t know where to begin, which thread to pick up and begin untangling, where it’s going to lead him if he does. He doesn’t know if he wants to find out.

or, Harry finds that he can't ignore his feelings for his best friend when the months start ticking down to Louis's graduation.

Faking It by TheCellarDoor (46k)

A uni AU in which Louis has been Harry’s best friend since he offered him cubed fruit on the playground, and they spend more time cuddling in their dorm beds than they do apart, but it’s not like that. Or is it?

Aka Harry pretends to date his best friend to escape unwanted attention from a too insistent classmate and hopes it won’t blow up in his face. Featuring embarrassing dildo accidents, awkward boners, longing, first times, late night conversations, emotional discoveries and Niall as the exasperated friend with bad advice.

Chestnuts Roasting... And All That by elsi_bee (46k) ❉

Louis is apparently the only person at his new job who is single as can be. It’s not a big deal to just tell his new colleagues that he has a boyfriend, right? Until he has to make this imaginary boyfriend magically appear at the office holiday party. Cue fake relationship antics with a certain someone who is more than willing to play along.

kiss me on the mouth (and set me free) by tempolarriefics (47k)

Harry, being his endlessly patient self, asks with a wry smile, “And who am I going to spontaneously marry for financial aid?”

He clearly intends for it to be a rhetorical question, for it to shoot down Louis’ ridiculous marriage idea. But Louis answers easily, “Me. You’ll marry me."

aka the not-so fake marriage AU in which Harry and Louis get married to keep Harry from dropping out of uni (and if they discover that they’re in love along the way, well, that’s neither here nor there).

like a boomerang by youwilll (48k)

AU in which Harry gets trapped in a lift, Louis gets stuck in a Wednesday, and it's always February 2nd. Until it isn't.

i'll make this feel like home by zouisclimax for Midnight_Magic (49k)

Harry to groans himself and then takes a deep breath. “Okay, well. Here’s the thing. I peed on a stick.”

Louis isn’t able to get more than a shocked “What!” out before Harry’s steamrolling on.

“I peed on a stick and it says it’s positive, but you always prattle on about how it’s best to go to the doctor’s before you get excited, you know to confirm it because sometimes hormones are off or you have like a tumor or some shit and get false positives and what if I’m dying and-”

“You’re pregnant?!” Louis shouts out, stomach dropping as the words leave his mouth.

“Um, yeah… maybe.”

[the one where Louis' hopelessly in love with his best mate... who just happens to be pregnant with another man's baby.]

To the Ends of the Earth by stylinsoncity (55k)

During a yearlong hiatus, Louis visits Harry at his cabin in Idaho, where long-buried feelings ignite like the fire keeping them warm.

I need home (our tangled bones) by togetherwecouldbealright for tomorrows, tomlinsunrise (68k)

Louis runs a record label and Harry is his daughter's new nanny. Over the course of a year, Harry helps Louis learn what it really is to be a father and somehow they find an unexpected home in each other.

Or, the kid fic where Louis wants to make Harry a star, Zayn just needs everyone to stop being stupid, Niall laughs his arse off at everything, Liam attempts to keep things in order and Harry takes a chance.

Dreaming of You by Velvetoscar (68k)

The Begrudging Starbucks AU.

The world is winter and steamed milk and creamy espresso shots. The world is a never ending queue. The world is a Starbucks logo and a pink-cheeked smile from Niall and a bored scowl from Zayn and the world is Louis watching his best mate, Liam, fall in love with their newest customer, Harry. Who may or may not be in love with Louis. The world is cruel.

don't tell the gods (we left a mess) by bottomlinsons (grimgrace) (71k)

After a misunderstanding with Liam’s mother, Louis agrees to accompany his best friend to a family wedding and pretend to be the world’s best boyfriend. But their simple plan goes awry when he learns that Harry, ex-boyfriend/ex-love of Louis’ life, will also be in attendance. (aka: fake!boyfriends with a twist ft. bromance, romance and cake.)

Want You More Than A by TheCellarDoor (77k)

Falling in love with your step-brother’s best friend is a disaster enough. When he happens to be the boy everyone loves and you’re a nerd who wears sweater vests and cries during rom-coms, it takes it to a whole new level.

Don't Look Down by zarah5 (91k) ❉

AU. In which Louis is a solicitor at one of London’s most prestigious law firms and Harry happens to apply for the position as his trainee. And everyone else is around, too.

In This Light by exhilarated for tilthesundies (99k)

Harry is a wardrobe stylist who likes to live in the moment, and Louis is a popstar who looks dreamy in double breasted jackets. Harry never stood a chance.

Like a Bullet in the Dark by Vurdoc (99k)

Prince Harold Edward Styles Lancaster is second in line to the throne of Great Britain. He is also your average Uni student- or he tries to be, anyway.

With a promise from the press (and his father) that they'll leave him alone for four years, he sets out to be a student at Cambridge, when he meets his very normal, very working class, very handsome suite-mate, Louis Tomlinson.

Louis makes Harry feel more like a person than he ever has before, which might cause some issues later on- 'cause Harry has a secret that he's only told his sister Gemma about.

Little does he know though, that Louis has some secrets of his own.

A Will & Kate Au- with a twist.

You Drive Me Crazy (but it feels alright) by MrsStylinson (102k)

Bridget Jones' Diary AU.

“Harry is not short for Harold,” he corrects, his voice as thick as molasses. He lowers his eyes to Louis’ sequined lapels, rubbing one between two fingers. “Is this small or extra small? It looks lovely.”

Louis breaks away from his grip with a petulant huff and pushes him back with two fingers.

“You’re mocking me. Again.”

Harry smiles and it's a real honest swoop of his lips this time. Louis’ stomach swoops with them.

Untangle Me by suicxne (103k)

Louis finds himself out of place in LA, unable to get at an itch that’s been bothering him for years. He supposes back in the early days, home hadn’t been a place. It’d been a person. He’d etched it permanently into his skin for fucks sake. It was always him and Harry. Stuck to each other like super glue. Pulled together by some magnetic force, existing in their own bubble. Everyone could see it, but that was half the problem, wasn’t it?

It’s not like Louis can pinpoint the exact moment in time when him and Harry fell out of sync. There wasn’t really one at all. It had been a gradual slip, like the tide wearing away at a sandstone cliff. Chipping the solid foundations until there was nothing left to stop the structure falling to the waves below. It’s not like he spends all of his time sitting around moping over a lost friendship, he’s good at distractions. But LA only seems to accentuate the distance between them. Two separate planets, not even in the same solar system.

Or the one where Harry and Louis finally get it right.

Empty Skies by green_feelings (134k)

For three years, Harry has been running from his past. Now, he is moving to London and pledges to fulfil his only dream -- making it big in the music industry. Not everyone has a place, though, and the competition is tough. As is his past catching up on him.

Louis is part of the biggest boy band of the world, and getting there had meant a lot of hard work, as well as sacrificing parts of his heart and soul. He's still happy. Maybe not as happy as he could be, but who is he to complain?

Featuring Perrie as Harry's adorable flatmate, Niall as his manager, and Liam and Zayn as Louis' bandmates.

BONUS:

Say You'll Remember by whisperdlullaby (93k)

au. louis and harry are best mates that are only half aware that they're also soulmates. alternatively, louis goes to university and harry travels the world, and they always manage to find their way back to each other.

takes place over nine years, in which they love and hurt, make mistakes and learn, and above all, grow.

Never Be by cherrystreet (117k)

Monica: You've got to see her again. Ross: And why do you care so much? Monica: Because! You could get to live out my fantasy! Ross: You had fantasies about Emily? Monica: No! Y’know, the fantasy! Meet someone from a strange land, fall madly in love, and spend the rest of your lives together.

The one where Harry Styles moves to Connecticut from England for nine months as a part of a study abroad program, and he just so happens to move in with Louis Tomlinson and family.

---

#larry #my fic rec #fic rec #pining #tp #a

[actual-corpse]

Causing trouble and pushing the envelope is like, my whole deal... I'm a piece of shit who loves to get in people's ear and be in control... To give you an exact degree of my ways I'll share a quote, "If I can be the guy just behind the guy in charge, that suits me just fine." -Porter Gage.. and this has literally been my business model until shit went south near the end of the 2019 Fall Semester... Before Corona ruined everything for everyone and actually helped me deliver a hard blow to the assholes who did me wrong (more on this later). I’m also incredibly petty and I tend to hold grudges.

Fun story for better context:

I like accolades. I like shiny medals and rewards... And I like recognition, but I don't like being the main man in charge. Another wonderful Porter Gage quote, "Sure as hell ain't gonna be me; leading outright ain't my style, and there's already some blamin' me for supporting Colter all this time (more on the Colter bit later)." And "My talents are best put to use helping a new Overboss get all this shit under control. You get me?"... 

So, I spent the 2019 Spring semester (2nd semester of freshman year) and the 2019 Fall semester (1st semester of Sophomore year) as a member of some type of student government... The university I go to doesn’t have ‘dorms’ it has “Residential Colleges” and in the Res Colleges there’s a government called the RCC and I spent those 2 semesters as Vice President... Well, I was getting my bearings and learning the ropes in spring but when Fall rolled around, I was ready to rock. See, every member of the RCC I was a part of left, except me and this other girl. The other girl was a complete pushover, so I mostly got what I wanted and I was actually the guy in charge.. I even tossed the whole RCC Constitution and rewrote it to suit my needs... Only to have it used as toilet paper (more on this later).

That didn’t last too long as I was on the campaign to finding a new President, hell, I wanted to run... But I was met with the first of many strange obstacles... This mysterious “they” that thought it would be best if I didn’t run because of some wild BS that made absolutely no sense, and I quote, “They don’t think it’d look good on us if you ran for president since you didn’t run last semester.” Wtf? Well, I didn’t run and instead, some new transfer girl came in as president... And I got my first taste of being the Porter...

People would listen to her, and she would listen to me... They didn’t want me in charge, but I still was... And I’m sure they didn’t like it, but fuck ‘em...

Well, everything went tits up for the assholes in Housing (the mysterious ‘They’ has a name and I know ‘They’ are from Housing because they thwart me at every turn) and especially for the College Head when the president resigned... She bit off more than she could chew and just couldn’t handle the stress so she moved back home to up north land... Now was my time for a hostile takeover!!! Remember when I said I rewrote the constitution to suit my needs? Well, every other RCC constitution had a clause where the VP would take over for the President until a new one was elected... Except, it didn’t happen... No, this mysterious “They” told the President to “appoint” someone... This, boiled my blood... Especially since they NEVER once told me why they were doing me dirty... Well, jokes on those assholes, I raised a fuss over this and it led them to vote... Too my my fucking older brother DIED that weekend so I obviously couldn’t show up to defend myself or get any reasoning as to WHY they were doing what they were.

Well, while I was out for the week, things went in my favor... Hilariously and very ironically, they voted that the girl appointed as Interim President should NOT be interim and that it should just instead, follow the Constitution... (It’s ironic because this girl had a chronic issue of projecting where she would discredit ANYONE looking for a higher position by saying, “It’s a very stressful job. Idk if they can handle it... Etc.” she couldn’t handle her own fucking job as RA, that’s why she quit after one semester)... ANYWAY

Well, time rolls on and I’m grooming someone for the position of president... Someone I thought I could trust... A very close friend who I thought I could “guide” from the sidelines... Well, just like Gage and Conner, shit went south and I just happen to die in the crossfire... You see, I helped this friend. I talked him up, I helped him campaign (not literally... I just helped him get his ideas off the ground like, I was behind him)... And I was ready to crown my scapegoat... Except, things didn’t go as I had planned...

No, when the next semester rolls around, I’m all geared up to lead the charge into a new presidency, I’m also spearheading a few other projects (more on this later) and so, I’m ready to be the Porter again.... Except, I’m not... See, the meeting after we vote for the new president, the college head says we need a new Secretary (the RA who quit was the previous secretary) and we needed a new VP... Except, I was the VP! No, instead this dick flop goes around the room and asks the Web Chair if she wants to keep her position (She says no and so Dick Flop hands it off to the first bitch who raises her hand) And then Dick Flop asks the Media Chair if she wants to keep her position (She says yes) and then he proceeds to act as tho I’m not even there and asks for nominations for secretary and VP!

 The first RCA (Residential College Association) meeting of the new semester that we go to, the guy I made president, completely ignores the fact that at the RCA meetings, our Res College, is a team, who works together to vote on things... He acts completely alone... He ignores me, and I get pissed off... Well, come his first RCC meeting where he’s president, he completely undermines my title and job (I had been demoted and he was walking all over everybody...and I became RCA rep... I was supposed to relay the information we got at the RCA meetings to the RCC... The Dickhead president does this instead... In fact, he did everyone’s jobs) This was not okay. I tried to let him know that this was not okay and since he ignored me, I kinda threw my phone down on the table in front of him (I had to sign a sign-in sheet), picked it back up and stormed out.

Well, I wasn’t the only one who hated this guy... It seems that everyone was angry over something... See, there was another RCA rep... She didn’t get to do her job, so she got mad. The RAs and RD had a weekly meeting after RCC and since President Dick liked to suck himself and the College Head off, the RCC meetings lasted an hour. I don’t know how many people knew I was backing President Dick, but I’m sure those that did know, were a little miffed at me for backing him... My mistake... Hilariously enough, I had planned yet another hostile takeover... Covid just kind of, got in my way and forced me to change direction... Oops.

About that second project... I was in charge of a few different things... I was kind of important, for without me, the group was lacking specific information and various other things... Well, the more important project was All Campus Sing (and here I just gave away what University I go to because as far as I know, only one Uni does ACS)... Well, I was our ACS rep and I was trying to get a team together... Just, nobody was cooperating with me and so it was hard to get the word out... Well, shortly after I was abruptly kicked from my VP position, I was also kicked from my ACS rep position (However, those fucking idiots neglected to come to me and ask if there was anything they need to know... They thought that all they had to do was say they were interested and they could show up... However, they just invoked the wrath of the ONLY person that had any know-how of what they were supposed to do... So whenever I got an ACS email... I deleted it... They never got signed up... There was an actual process to getting entered into the competition... And they knew nothing about it... They didn’t even know what they were doing) If it wasn’t Covid who ruined their ACS, then it would’ve been me [thanks Covid...] In fact, because there WAS no ACS this year, they just re-streamed last year’s ACS instead... The one where I was on the winning Res College team.

Another thing I was in charge of was getting together an Academic Team.. We kind of had one, I was just the one who let people know when and where the matches where... And I was also trying to get a team together for the tournament... Except, everyone was too flaky and wouldn’t give me a straight answer... So, there was no team.... And so, on the eve of the Tournament, the College Head kept bothering me asking if I had a team and all that jive... Well, at that moment, I was sitting in a Logan’s in Paducah, KY after visiting a sex shop with some friends and my good buddy Matthew told me to just block the College Head... So I did, I blocked his number... And on the next day, Tournament Day, I slept... Then I went and hung out with some friends, one of which was showing me photos on Instagram where they had the Tournament... And every Res College was there... Except ours... And we laughed and I’m sure the College Head was mad... But I wouldn’t know, I blocked him and proceeded to avoid him like the plague... Old bastard...

To end this wild tale of heartbreak and deceit, I’d like to say this; I’m moving into a different Res College and I’m still debating on whether or not I want to take control there... I need to find a way to get back at the assholes in my old RC (Res College)... Like, most of the RAs were mean and smarted off to residents and were very disrespectful, and also the RCC that somehow became an exclusive club of ass-kissers and know-it-alls... I mean, yeah, I had my run of the place, but I can get that anywhere... It’s just my deal....

I also bend the ears of many people... In fact, I managed to pursuade a couple of my friends to move RCs with me (I only chose the one I did because I was chasing dick [shame on me I know...]... But I was gonna move regardless)... I am The Mastermind and I intend to have my run of the place in the new building.

This post was supposed to be about how I’m covertly coming out to my mom by pushing the envelope and asking her if I could get top surgery (on the basis of just not having to deal with breasts) or if I could have a Hysto (because periods amirite?) and also just how I have the awful habit of persuading people, mostly through some kind of manipulation, to do what I want....

It’s all about the Charisma, and my Charisma stat is maxed out...

Call me all the bad names you want to... Just know that I typically treat people right until they turn on me or hurt me in some way... Or, I mess with people in a harmless way and usually try to push for an outcome that helps everyone... Not just me... I use these tools for good! Not evil... Usually.... If there’s something I can gain from it, I’ll fight for it... Again, call me dirty names... I’m tired of being the nice guy doormat... This world’s made me into a selfish asshole and I’m no longer sorry...

#text post #hidden lore #no more mr nice guy #i am a bad person #i dont care #university horror stories #a tale of political intrigue

[funnythingshere0-blog]

What inspired you to get into comedy?

New Post has been published on https://funnythingshere.xyz/what-inspired-you-to-get-into-comedy/

What inspired you to get into comedy?

The Big Ask

Watching Monty Python for the first time at a party at the neighbour’s farm. A lot of info to get in. Being funny for love as a child. Tony Law, A Lost Show, Monkey Barrel, 15:00

I started out as a singer-songwriter. Some of my songs were funny, so I tried them out at a comedy club. I loved talking and getting laughs In Between the songs so much, I decided to see if I could do it without the guitar. So, one of the biggest inspirations for my getting into comedy was not wanting to carry an instrument around all the time. Myq Kaplan, All Killing Aside, Underbelly, Bristo Square, 21:15

I did it for a bet, no idea if I’ve won yet. Nick Page, Yes, That Nick Page, Apparently, Mash House, 16:50

Ricky Gervais’s vast fortune. Stanley Brooks, AAA Stand-up at Underbelly, Underbelly Cowgate, 18:20

I worked behind the bar at the Glee Club in Cardiff for a while, and thought I’d give it a go. Seeing Tom Wrigglesworth’s Open Return Letter To Richard Branson show made me want to do more story-led shows, though. Robin Morgan, Robin Morgan: Honeymoon, The Pear Tree, 16:00

Peter Kay. Never has anyone concealed the art so well – perhaps too well, even to the detriment of his being recognised as a real genius of the form. While making it seem like he’s just a confident chatterbox, his range is as good as any comic I’ve ever seen. He can communicate ideas with laser-beam precise language and dramatisation. He does a Nan going home early at a wedding party as ‘Yoda from Star Wars’, and for me it’s like someone broadcasting to you on your exact frequency – and the picture is so clear and precise it’s as if he literally formed it in your mind for you. No one would ever say it, but he’s also fantastically self-ironising and postmodern: he delivers one-liners at the top, and then dissects their cheesiness, thoroughly aware of the expectations people have about traditional comedy. When an act can literally change the way we talk about everyday life – and I think it is possible to talk about garlic bread, or biscuit dipping in terms of pre and post-Kay – then they achieved something quite special. Moon, Moon, Pleasance Attic, 21:30

The Doug Anthony All Stars. I idolised them when I was a kid in Australia, they were pure visceral subversive comedy anarchy. I knew all their material by heart. They showed me that if you don’t sweat you haven’t done a show. Last year I was lucky enough to meet my hero Tim Ferguson from DAAS, he is a bloody legend and inspired me to keep going. Nathan Lang, The Stuntman, Just The Tonic @ The Caves, 14:45

YouTube – Spending too much time binge watching stand-up specials and interviews with comedians meant the advice of ‘just do it and keep going’ stuck in my head so I have. Even though when I started I was dire at comedy I have kept trucking along and would hope I have now made it to the rank of acceptable. Struan Logan, Struan All Over the World, Counting House: Attic, 18:05

In 1995 my father gave my mother a Best of The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band CD for her birthday. It was the first CD that we, as a family, owned. I was nine years old and the excitement was palpable. Three months later, when he gave her a CD player for Christmas, it reached fever pitch. I remember listening to it over and over again. I think the song Mr Apollo might still be the funniest thing I can think of, and I knew I wanted to do something like that. Douglas Walker, Douglas Walker Presents: Of Christmas Past, Underbelly Clover, 22:50

Margaret Cho, Chelsea Handler, Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman, Tiffany Haddish, Natasha Leggero, Chelsea Peretti and any woman in comedy owning her voice as she conquers. Jake Howie, Read My Lips, Just the Tonic Caves, 21:30

Back in 2016 I was crowned winner of London’s “Not Another Drag Competition”. Before then I had never really performed in drag before. Every week of the competition we were set challenges, and one week we had to put together 15 minutes of material. I decided to do a stand-up routine where I performed a séance and contacted all my favourite dead celebrities, culminating with the spirit of Prince possessing a dildo, which I had to exorcise. Thoroughly. It was the first time I had tried stand-up, and it felt so natural and good, and the jokes just sort of spilled out of me. Oh – and people laughed! From that moment I was hooked. Georgia Tasda, Georgia Tasda Means Business, CC Blooms, 22:30

Jen Brister, after seeing here show many years ago and I thought if this is what comedy is I like it and I want to be friends with her! Ruth E. Cockburn, Love Letters From Blackpool, Summerhall, 14:40

Growing up, I assumed everyone could recite a two-hour Victoria Wood stand-up set or know every French and Saunders sketch, or every word of Blackadder. It’s only when I got older that I realised maybe I was a bit more into comedy than other people. I eventually got into doing stand-up because I’d moved back in with my parents for a bit and, to be honest, I just needed to get out of the house. Emmy Fyles, Live Your Best Life, Hanover Tap), 13:15

My drama teacher at school always gave me the comedy parts, saying I had great comic timing, and she really encouraged that. She t old me to watch people like French & Saunders, Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball so I could hone in on it. So Mrs Bray, along with the people she told me to watch, really inspired me to pursue comedy. Maisie Adam, Vague, Gilded Balloon 16:30

Ricardo Salami. A street performer I saw as a child who never knew he changed the course of my life forever. He since died, and I never got the chance to thank him. Hopefully he won’t mind that I took his name and carried it with me on my adventures. Mat Ricardo, Mat Ricardo vs The World, Las Vegas Room, City Cafe, 12:30

A video cassette of Eddie Izzard. And Don Ward, the owner of the Comedy Store in Mumbai, refusing to let me leave without an audition. I’d come to do an article on him opening his club in India in 2010. Anuvab Pal, Empire, Pleasance Courtyard, 19:00

My dad, the comedian Mac McDonald and one of the funniest people I know, took me and my sister around the comedy circuit with a cabaret comedy act when I was 10 years old and I never looked back. Naomi McDonald, Naomi McDonald: Stardumb, Fireside, 15:45

Josie Long and my grandma; people who pull you into a story you wouldn’t care to hear from anyone else Helen Duff, How Deep is Your Duff, The Hive, 21:00

> My late director, Frank McAnulty. I took an improv class at The Second City on a whim after seeing an online ad (they work!) and then got accepted into their conservatory. I presented a comedy song for our classes graduating sketch revue, and his excitement and investment in it (and in all of us) made me feel like I should continue with this comedy thing, even thought I still had no idea what it was. And now, many years later, that same song is in my musical comedy that I am bringing to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer. So, thank you Frank! Anesti Danelis, Songs For A New World Order, Laughing Horse @ The Hanover Tap, 12:00

The seriousness of life Juliette Burton, Butterfly Effect, Gilded Balloon, 16:15

The worrying thing is I have absolutely no idea. I did sketches in s Ian Smith, Craft, Underbelly: Buttercup, 17:15

wful clients at my last desk job, John Pendal, We Are Family, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 17:30 A

A free CD that was on the front of Loaded magazine with clips of stand up on it. I remember the routines to this day. Brett Goldstein What Is Love Baby Don’t Hurt Me, Pleasance: Beneath, 19:00

Jack Daniels and Desperation. Garrett Millerick, Sunflower, Tron, 17:00

The man who mistook me for Reg D Hunter at a gig and then wet himself when he heard my Oldham accent. If it all fails I could be a tribute act Che Burnley, Elvis Was Racist?, Bar Basis, 21:30

Dave Chappelle and the Goon Show Pierre Novellie, See Novellie, Hear Novellie, Speak Novellie, Pleasance Courtyard, 19:15

comedian came to my uni to put on a comedy writing workshop and there was an open mic night at the end of it, and from then I was hooked. I bumped into that comedian who put on the workshop in Edinburgh a few years later, and I thanked her for getting me into comedy, and she said: ‘OK, well I probably got paid for it anyway” and walked away. Cool! David McIver, David McIver Is a Nice Little Man, 14:30 A

I’ve done lots of grown up jobs. I’ve run a successful business. But I’m rubbish with authority and I’m always distracting people from their work. There’s nothing else left for me to do. Plus, I saw Suzie Ruffell’s show a couple of years ago and she made it look do-able. Sam Fraser, Stand Up, Weather Girl!, Counting House, 19:45

A combination of Mike Leigh’s mid 70s TV films and the adverts at the back of The stage And TV Today Graham Fellows, Completely out of Character, Maggie’s Chamber @ The Free Sisters, 16:30

Intellectual bravado and physical cowardice. Lee Apsey, CSI: Crime Scene Improvisation, Underbelly, Bristo Square, 15:35

I grew up watching comedians like Frank Skinner, Lee Evans, Dave Allen, Spike Milligan etc. but it never crossed my mind that I could be a comedian until I worked at Up The Creek. I owe that place everything. Rich Wilson, Still Relevant, Sneaky Pete’s, 18:15

I had years of people telling me I was funny/weird and that I should try stand-up, but I had never really been exposed to it outside of TV. I had a break up that made me finally say fuck it and I went to do it. What a cliche! It was actually a weird feeling of relief finding comedy and when I looked out at that first crowd I realised it had been in my heart all along. Matthew Highton, Insufficient Memory, Heroes at Dragonfly, 20:40

interned at a radio station during college. The breakfast DJ is a stand up comedian called Bernard O’Shea. He suggested I do comedy, I batted it off and he organised a five minute support slot. I thad two weeks to write five minutes. Most of my first set was about my nan drinking hot tub water with a straw by accident and the IRA’s love of denim. I was so nervous and the adrenaline rush was amazing. I fell in love with comedy instantly and I’ve been chasing that same rush and never came close. Alison Spittle, Worrier Princess, Gilded Balloon Teviot, Balcony, 17:15 I

I wasn’t inspired, I was cursed. A witch I think. Terrible business. I thought it was a free potato, but it turned out it belong to her. John Luke Roberts, All I Wanna Do Is [FX: GUNSHOTS] With a [FX: GUN RELOADING] and [FX: CASH REGISTER] and Perform Some Comedy!, Assembly: Studio Five, 17:30

I just wanted to be Rowan Atkinson. He got to say all the funny things but other people wrote them for him. Seemed absolutely ideal. Kieran Hodgson, Kieran Hodgson: ’75, Pleasance Beneath, 20:15

It’s so uncool but it was actually my mum who encouraged me to start stand up. I was always writing funny stories as a kid and would do anything to avoid work and have a laugh at school and in subsequent jobs later on so she suggested I give stand up a go. I thought it sounded the worst idea ever but turns out she was right. Rachel Fairburn, The Wolf at the Door, Underbelly, Dexter, 21:30

I met an open mic comic and realised people were allowed to be bad at it Jez Watts, #1 Comedy Great Fun Best Show Jez Watts, The Three Sisters, 17:15

Published: 23 Aug 2018

Source: http://www.chortle.co.uk/features/2018/08/22/41023/what_inspired_you_to_get_into_comedy%3F

[chadpetersondatingblog]

Women Reveal The Exact Moment They Knew They Needed To End A Relationship

My high school boyfriend was extremely jealous. Anytime I so much as spoke to another guy, he would have a meltdown. The first couple of times it happened, I was surprised, but honestly, I was also kind of flattered. He wasn’t abusive or mean… just kind of intense about it. However, it didn’t take long for that to wear extremely thin and go from an ego boost, to annoying, to a deal breaker. It wasn’t always clear in past relationships when to end things because I didn’t know how to know when a relationship is over. But not this time.

I remember the exact moment it was over. I was talking to a classmate when I saw him out of the corner of my eye — well, actually, it was more like I felt his eyes burning into the side of my head. His face was a mixture of pain and anger, and in that moment, something in my mind just clicked. It. Was. Over. The thought of dealing with his insecurity for one more minute made my skin literally crawl.

Turns out, I’m not alone. A Reddit user asked women to tell them “about a time when you knew the EXACT moment your relationship was over,” and the answers are fascinating. The reasons why these women ended their relationships run the gamut, but one thing they all have in common is the fact that when you know, you know.

When The Little Things Were Too Much

When we went to the Science Center (my favorite place) and he refused to do any of the little activities.

– /u/rawrachie

It sounds silly, but we were ordering pizza and I wanted spinach and he wanted pepperoni, so we got two different pizzas

– /u/spooky_jookie

And The Not-So-Little Things, Too

When he thew up on me. He was a weekend alcoholic and that was the final straw.

– /u/projectile_poptart

When The Trust Was Gone

When he apologized for something I told my best friend in confidence about and realized they were discussing every detail of our relationship

– /u/aliteralprincess

I suspected that he was smoking. He lied about it. I found undeniable proof. He fessed up. Trust was gone. Relationship was lost that very moment.

– /u/junjun_pon

When he liked a picture of a girls ass on instagram. It was a girl he went to school with too.

– /u/hiylipr

When They Were Selfish AF

I'd taken my ex girlfriend on a trip to Finland just before Christmas one time. She'd always wanted to go to the Kakslauttanen resort where you can sleep in these beautiful cabins with glass domes so you can watch the Northern lights at night, and I loved her and wanted her to be happy.

She was initially quite happy about it but once we got on the bus to the resort, she was complaining nonstop about how cold it was (of course it's cold babe, it's bloody Finland in winter), then she was snide with the staff at the hotel which I cannot stand, and then she started a fight with me about the blankets the hotel had laid out for us on the couches. I was prepared to let all that slide because people have bad days sometimes but the next day, she woke up and had a fit about my not having ordered her coffee for the exact time she would be awake, and I remember I stepped outside to have a smoke and it was so cold and the sky was almost entirely pink and I was standing in snow up to my thighs and I thought, "aye, that'll be that then."

– /u/LDN_Escort

I was cooking dinner for my college bf. When he got there, I decided to surprise him by making him a nice cocktail while I finished cooking. As I'm shaking the drink, he screams, "What are you doing? Goddammit, I'm hungry!" I'm so glad that relationship is over.

– /u/manicmeli

When we were in scuba class. I had dropped my goggles down to the bottom of the pool for an excercise where you swim down to get them, put them on, and clear them. Anyways, my ex was great at it. I was having a panic attack and I was too terrified to go get my goggles. He was busy bragging and I interrupted to ask him to get my goggles for me and he ignored me. When I asked him again he shouted at me. Nope.

– /u/cl018513

He thought asking me to quit my job was a reasonable thing. For context, full time student, rent and bills to pay. I couldn't afford to. He treated my job like a burden because it wasnt time taking care of him.

– /u/Better_Bit

With true hatred in his eyes, accused me of "withholding information" because I wouldn't do his internet research for him. Lol bye.

– /u/empress_p

When They Were Abusive

When he smacked me so hard across the face I bled for the first time

– /u/BakedBride

his father terrified me. several times, he'd break in drunk and in a rage, screaming in a language i couldn't understand while hitting objects in our apartment. i just cowered and cried. bonus points, he looked like the dude who raped me as a kid.

now, my ex-husband had a looooot of fucking shit counting against him, but what actually broke the relationship was that he told me his father wanted to go out for dinner. i said i didn't want to go. he started yelling at me and i started crying, telling him that he frightened me and looked like a child rapist. he went on this huge tirade about how i was making it all up so i didn't have to do unpleasant things out of love for my husband (which i realized in that moment didn't exist). before, he claimed that he believed every word and he wanted to save me from my previous life.

i told him it was over. he flounced to his mama's house. i spent a glorious weekend cooking whatever the hell i wanted, sleeping without being lowkey sexual assaulted, and watching TV and being at peace. he was so pissed and felt so betrayed when he came back from giving me space to find i still wanted to break up.

– /u/todayonbloopers

When There Were Problems In The Bedroom

The moment I realized I couldn't remember the last time we had sex.

– /u/meliu4456

We had just finished fucking, and he said something to the extend of how it was different that time, like "taking a shit."

– /u/jintana

When They Realized They Had Fallen Out of Love

I suspected he was going to propose soon. When I thought of him proposing and me not being able to say yes. I couldn't put him through that, and at that moment I didn't think I was in love with him anymore. So I broke it off

– /u/knstbs

we were in the car on our way to to Key West, FL having a great time listening to our favorite music, talking our ears off and shmoking some weed.. just enjoying each others company. all of the sudden it hit me.; i was staring into his eyes and realized i wanted to be far away from him- it legit broke my heart into a million pieces.

– /u/terremotico

I didn't want to hold his hand on Valentine's Day

– /u/elsakate

When They Were Jealous

I live in the UK where the legal drinking age is 18 and my boyfriend at the time wouldn't let me go out because "people only go out to have sex".

He also embarrassed me at school by getting overly stressed with things so I was crying in the toilet at lunch time and tried to stop me from seeing my best friend of 15 years at the time.

Thank god I got out of that relationship, it would have ruined my uni experience if I hadn't broken up with him the suer before I went.

– /u/slothygon

I visited my hometown and happened to run into one of my friends. I sent my SO a text alone the lines of 'how lovely I just ran into my friend!', and he replied 'don't even bother coming back to me if you get with him' (there was literally zero chance of anything happening with this friend)

Then when I got home he accused me of lying (he thought I had planned to meet up with this friend and deliberately not told him for some reason) and demanded I apologise to him. I still don't know what I was supposed to be apologising for.

– /u/elsakate

And Then There’s This Monster

The moment he asked me not to get a scan to check if my cancer was in remission because he didn't want another bill.

– /u/VibrantPinwheel

Wow! Yeah, if your partner is more worried about the bottom line than your cancer, that’s a pretty big sign that it’s time to bounce.

Check out the entire Gen Why series and other videos on Facebook and the Bustle app across Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.

Subscribe to Elite Daily’s official newsletter, The Edge, for more stories you don’t want to miss.

Women Reveal The Exact Moment They Knew They Needed To End A Relationship

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[ashleyjacksonblog]

Women Reveal The Exact Moment They Knew They Needed To End A Relationship

My high school boyfriend was extremely jealous. Anytime I so much as spoke to another guy, he would have a meltdown. The first couple of times it happened, I was surprised, but honestly, I was also kind of flattered. He wasn’t abusive or mean… just kind of intense about it. However, it didn’t take long for that to wear extremely thin and go from an ego boost, to annoying, to a deal breaker. It wasn’t always clear in past relationships when to end things because I didn’t know how to know when a relationship is over. But not this time.

I remember the exact moment it was over. I was talking to a classmate when I saw him out of the corner of my eye — well, actually, it was more like I felt his eyes burning into the side of my head. His face was a mixture of pain and anger, and in that moment, something in my mind just clicked. It. Was. Over. The thought of dealing with his insecurity for one more minute made my skin literally crawl.

Turns out, I’m not alone. A Reddit user asked women to tell them “about a time when you knew the EXACT moment your relationship was over,” and the answers are fascinating. The reasons why these women ended their relationships run the gamut, but one thing they all have in common is the fact that when you know, you know.

When The Little Things Were Too Much

When we went to the Science Center (my favorite place) and he refused to do any of the little activities.

– /u/rawrachie

It sounds silly, but we were ordering pizza and I wanted spinach and he wanted pepperoni, so we got two different pizzas

– /u/spooky_jookie

And The Not-So-Little Things, Too

When he thew up on me. He was a weekend alcoholic and that was the final straw.

– /u/projectile_poptart

When The Trust Was Gone

When he apologized for something I told my best friend in confidence about and realized they were discussing every detail of our relationship

– /u/aliteralprincess

I suspected that he was smoking. He lied about it. I found undeniable proof. He fessed up. Trust was gone. Relationship was lost that very moment.

– /u/junjun_pon

When he liked a picture of a girls ass on instagram. It was a girl he went to school with too.

– /u/hiylipr

When They Were Selfish AF

I'd taken my ex girlfriend on a trip to Finland just before Christmas one time. She'd always wanted to go to the Kakslauttanen resort where you can sleep in these beautiful cabins with glass domes so you can watch the Northern lights at night, and I loved her and wanted her to be happy.

She was initially quite happy about it but once we got on the bus to the resort, she was complaining nonstop about how cold it was (of course it's cold babe, it's bloody Finland in winter), then she was snide with the staff at the hotel which I cannot stand, and then she started a fight with me about the blankets the hotel had laid out for us on the couches. I was prepared to let all that slide because people have bad days sometimes but the next day, she woke up and had a fit about my not having ordered her coffee for the exact time she would be awake, and I remember I stepped outside to have a smoke and it was so cold and the sky was almost entirely pink and I was standing in snow up to my thighs and I thought, "aye, that'll be that then."

– /u/LDN_Escort

I was cooking dinner for my college bf. When he got there, I decided to surprise him by making him a nice cocktail while I finished cooking. As I'm shaking the drink, he screams, "What are you doing? Goddammit, I'm hungry!" I'm so glad that relationship is over.

– /u/manicmeli

When we were in scuba class. I had dropped my goggles down to the bottom of the pool for an excercise where you swim down to get them, put them on, and clear them. Anyways, my ex was great at it. I was having a panic attack and I was too terrified to go get my goggles. He was busy bragging and I interrupted to ask him to get my goggles for me and he ignored me. When I asked him again he shouted at me. Nope.

– /u/cl018513

He thought asking me to quit my job was a reasonable thing. For context, full time student, rent and bills to pay. I couldn't afford to. He treated my job like a burden because it wasnt time taking care of him.

– /u/Better_Bit

With true hatred in his eyes, accused me of "withholding information" because I wouldn't do his internet research for him. Lol bye.

– /u/empress_p

When They Were Abusive

When he smacked me so hard across the face I bled for the first time

– /u/BakedBride

his father terrified me. several times, he'd break in drunk and in a rage, screaming in a language i couldn't understand while hitting objects in our apartment. i just cowered and cried. bonus points, he looked like the dude who raped me as a kid.

now, my ex-husband had a looooot of fucking shit counting against him, but what actually broke the relationship was that he told me his father wanted to go out for dinner. i said i didn't want to go. he started yelling at me and i started crying, telling him that he frightened me and looked like a child rapist. he went on this huge tirade about how i was making it all up so i didn't have to do unpleasant things out of love for my husband (which i realized in that moment didn't exist). before, he claimed that he believed every word and he wanted to save me from my previous life.

i told him it was over. he flounced to his mama's house. i spent a glorious weekend cooking whatever the hell i wanted, sleeping without being lowkey sexual assaulted, and watching TV and being at peace. he was so pissed and felt so betrayed when he came back from giving me space to find i still wanted to break up.

– /u/todayonbloopers

When There Were Problems In The Bedroom

The moment I realized I couldn't remember the last time we had sex.

– /u/meliu4456

We had just finished fucking, and he said something to the extend of how it was different that time, like "taking a shit."

– /u/jintana

When They Realized They Had Fallen Out of Love

I suspected he was going to propose soon. When I thought of him proposing and me not being able to say yes. I couldn't put him through that, and at that moment I didn't think I was in love with him anymore. So I broke it off

– /u/knstbs

we were in the car on our way to to Key West, FL having a great time listening to our favorite music, talking our ears off and shmoking some weed.. just enjoying each others company. all of the sudden it hit me.; i was staring into his eyes and realized i wanted to be far away from him- it legit broke my heart into a million pieces.

– /u/terremotico

I didn't want to hold his hand on Valentine's Day

– /u/elsakate

When They Were Jealous

I live in the UK where the legal drinking age is 18 and my boyfriend at the time wouldn't let me go out because "people only go out to have sex".

He also embarrassed me at school by getting overly stressed with things so I was crying in the toilet at lunch time and tried to stop me from seeing my best friend of 15 years at the time.

Thank god I got out of that relationship, it would have ruined my uni experience if I hadn't broken up with him the suer before I went.

– /u/slothygon

I visited my hometown and happened to run into one of my friends. I sent my SO a text alone the lines of 'how lovely I just ran into my friend!', and he replied 'don't even bother coming back to me if you get with him' (there was literally zero chance of anything happening with this friend)

Then when I got home he accused me of lying (he thought I had planned to meet up with this friend and deliberately not told him for some reason) and demanded I apologise to him. I still don't know what I was supposed to be apologising for.

– /u/elsakate

And Then There’s This Monster

The moment he asked me not to get a scan to check if my cancer was in remission because he didn't want another bill.

– /u/VibrantPinwheel

Wow! Yeah, if your partner is more worried about the bottom line than your cancer, that’s a pretty big sign that it’s time to bounce.

Check out the entire Gen Why series and other videos on Facebook and the Bustle app across Apple TV, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.

Subscribe to Elite Daily’s official newsletter, The Edge, for more stories you don’t want to miss.

Women Reveal The Exact Moment They Knew They Needed To End A Relationship

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